Tears of a Broken Kingdom

Chapter Fourteen ~ Dead Man Walking

He said nothing.

She took a deep breath, muttering to herself how nonsense it all was. She really had lost it after all.

"But he's dead... he's supposed to be dead... right? I saw it happen!"

Her whispers broke up the silent space of the room, a little buzz in the darkness.

Her eyes darted back over to him, she was almost afraid he had disappeared, an apparition crafted by her mind.

He was still there, and Zelda had grown accustomed to looking in the darkness and now could see him a bit clearer in the grimy darkness.

There was really no mistaking, it was Link.

Something was off about him though, other than the fact that he was supposed to be dead. He looked deathly pale, and there was this unsaturated look to him. Life had left him but he hadn't died.

This can't actually be him though. It can't.

His eyes were so unnatural. There was no iris in sight and the whites of his eyes were gone too. It was just darkness, radiating it.

And were there cracks on his face?

Zelda bit her lip and squinted, she struggled to see anything more. She didn't know if she should move, there was a part of her that told her to remain in her spot, intuition. There was something off about all this. And yet... she wanted to believe in this nonetheless. It was better than reality.

Zelda couldn't stop herself from the stream of memories of him in her head, trying to convince herself that this intruder was somehow Link, a dead man walking.

It wasn't even that hard to convince herself, their uncanny similarities were too much to pass up.

Her rationality slipped away as Zelda stood up, her hair swayed as she did so, falling around her shoulders. Her feet stung as they made contact with the floor, numbness spread across the soles of her feet.

Zelda walked over to the end of the bed with tentative steps. Her breaths were labored, her overactive brain ate up most of her oxygen as it puzzled with the situation, the pieces didn't quite match up.

Zelda attempted to say something, maybe a 'hi' or a 'you're not dead'. Anything would've worked, but her words stuck in her throat.

Instead there was just an unnatural silence. It was unearthly how quiet he was, he made no sound, not even a breath.

Tears pricked at the corners of Zelda's eyes, and she let them go.

She barely felt her feet as she dragged her tired body over to him, a small sense of dread growing deep inside of her, a seed watered by an intuition that must've been gifted by Nayru herself.

Zelda tried to ignore her thoughts, she wanted to get swept away into the waves of this unreal fantasy, this ghost come to life.

A smile crept onto her face, and her eyes filled with diluting tears, cracks in her voice.

"...H-hi,"

Her voice faded out of existence, the pathetic sound struck out into the silence and then snuffed out.

As she looked down at him she felt a sickly feeling develop in her gut, it was getting harder to ignore as his pits of eyes sucked her in, like a void.

Link's hand shot up, jerky and unnatural, like he was a marionette, the cruel puppet master brought his hand around her neck, as cold as the grave.

Zeldas eyes widened, adrenaline coursing into her, but she couldn't move, she wouldn't let herself.

Zelda could barely breathe, worried that Link would crush her windpipe and she'd slowly suffocate like that. An animalistic instinct of fight-or-flight kicked in and she made a desperate attempt to claw his hand off her, but it wouldn't budge. Her heart hammered against her rib cage, and she wondered if her ribs would bruise.

"P-please... I-I'm sorry-" she pleaded, her fingers brushed Link's hand, his fingers were icicles.

Shakily, his other hand was brought around her neck, Zelda's vision began to go dark.

He had always been strong, but it had never been used against her, or even without reason. It had been the noble kind of strength, the one that was called upon to help others, it wasn't an instrument with which to control someone by force.

Zelda's windpipe felt like it was constricting, a nasty cough inched up her throat, stuck as she didn't have the space to let it out, much less take a breath in. She sucked in some grateful gulps of air, the adrenaline made her heart pound and her mind go a mile a minute.

Zelda shuddered with anxious energy, panicked thoughts screamed in her head, slowly fading as she began to lose oxygen.

I... have to g-get ou-t...

Zelda struggled more, her head pounded and she knew she'd be unconscious after more of this, and then it'd only be a matter of time till she died. She had to do something.

With her dwindling strength Zelda tried again to pry Link's hands off of her neck again, her breaths shallow and shaky, her windpipe felt like it was folding in on itself.

Somehow, Zelda managed to push him away, sputtering and coughing, she lost her balance and ended up on the floor, fingers to her neck, it was already beginning to swell.

She didn't take her eyes off Link, worried he'd try to strangle her again. It was inevitable to happen again if she didn't try and stop him. But she didn't want to. It would be too painful.

He stood as still as a statue, head down to stare at her.

Zelda backed up by instinct, all too soon she felt the wall against her back, the curtains over the windows swayed, disrupted from her movement.

She bit her lip when she realized what she'd done, pinning herself against the wall.

There was a small amount of space, Zelda noticed, he still wasn't close enough to hurt her again, a slim window of time.

Her heart began to hurt as she realized the only thing she could do- if she wanted to live, that was.

It was the only way to stay alive... but she didn't want to. Seeing it happen once had been enough to make her see things that shouldn't have been there and had thrown her into a ocean of pain.

Seeing it happen again by her hands was unthinkable- or at least it had been.

With a shaky breath and a stab of pain in her throat Zelda made her decision.

There was no turning back now.

>*<

Hey y'all !!

Should I slow down to once a week updates? It's been taking longer to write chapters, my anxiety over it is getting the best of me... and I have to plan the ending I've been avoiding 'XD.  I still have a good 8-7 chapter buffer but I'm worried that'll dry up too quickly. Tell me what I should do, I don't wanna let anyone down.

Hope y'all enjoyed this chapter... sorry if it wasn't up to par.

Also... yes, Link is shorter than Zel for some reason in this fic cause I thought it was cute to draw (?? Wow nerd.)

See y'all on friday !! (I might just take out the wednesday updates for the time being and have only friday updates btw !!)