if i die tomorrow - permanent hiatus

who

     I jerked my head, my boots sloshing in the mud. 

     Just don't think of them. Focus on your goal.

     At the edge of my vision, I spotted a monster camp of bokoblins, standing silhouetted against the falling darkness of early dusk. The tingle of a prospective fight began to awaken in my soldier's blood and I gravitated towards it, my hand on my sword, ignoring the chivvy that I had only just healed, that I was throwing myself into unnecessary danger.

     It was relatively easy. As always. At least I hadn't lost everything.

     I was proving myself to the world, proving that I still had worth, not just another discarded, useless being. 

     I rubbed my blood-crusted hands on my Hylian trousers and coolly walked away from the pile of bodies slowly bleeding out into the earth.

     Dueling Peaks Stable, standing in the shadows of the looming twin peaks. I would have to risk being discovered to stay the night here. 

     What could they possibly do to me that hadn't already been done, and worse? I stepped in boldly, drawing not a second glance from the stable hands working there.

     I slid a red rupee mutely over to the stable master, the Hylian hood obscuring the top half of my face. My crystal blue eyes shone out of the darkness, gleaming. 

     "A normal bed?" He asked, his gaze raking over the blood on my clothing, the dirt streaked over my skin. I nodded.

     He showed me over to an empty bed and I dipped my head in thanks. I sat down at the table standing quietly by the wall and pulled out a notebook. Over the flickering flame of the candle lamp sitting peacefully on the table, emitting a soft warmth against the chill of night, I scribbled down a rough map of Hyrule and pored over it, marking down the towns and sketching possible pathways around monster-infested forests.

     The small flame danced. I watched it, my chin cupped in my hand. The soft breathing of the guests slumbering in their beds rose and fell as one, swamping over me like a gentle wave.

     Wasn't it amazing, how this stable was still running as always, even when the world was falling apart?  How it was still standing strong against the ruination that had befallen the rest of Hyrule?

     Although the people were now living in constant fear, they looked only forwards, binding together and living their lives as normal.

     That was nothing less than admirable, wasn't it?

     Without even realizing it, my consciousness slowly faded and I was racing away, away, away from me...

     "Do you remember me?"

      His back was to me, his head down. 

     "Do you recognize me?"

      How could I? I wanted to say, but I was frozen in place.

     "I am your people."

     Suddenly he turned around and I tried to stumble back, but my feet were glued to the floor. I wanted to scream but I was a statue.

     "I am all that you had turned your back on." He advanced slowly, his form shifting. For a moment, he was a three-year-old child, a hole shot through his stomach, bleeding black smoke. And another, he was a soldier with half of his face burnt away, the same black smoke wafting through the air and rising into the heavens. 

     "I am the dead." He hissed, now an elder with a huge gash in his chest. "I am the embodiment of despair, of the spirits wrongfully slayed in the shadows."

     "You were my savior." He was so close now that I could watch his unchanging eyes, eyes in such a painfully familiar shade of green that I couldn't breathe, I couldn't breathe. "You were my salvation."

     "And now you are my enemy."

     And then his skeletal fingers were wrapped around my neck and I flailed, my mouth wide open in a silent shout. He squeezed tighter, his eyes flaring up to a blood-red that lusted for my life and I was dying and slowly suffocating and my lungs were burning for oxygen and then--

     "Sir." 

     A soft voice cut through the haze of a nightmare and I started, jerking awake. 

     My vision focused and a face floated through my swimming gaze, the face of a stable girl only slightly younger than I was.

     I rolled my stiff shoulders and cocked my head at her. Something lit up dimly in the dustiest corners of my mind, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

     "Can I help you?" The dying light of the lamp glimmered in her wide, hazel eyes. I pinned her as but an innocent child, delicate as glass in hardship. I narrowed my eyes and shook my head, closing the notebook with a movement tight with forced calmness.

     "Would you like to return to your bed?" She glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and I followed her gaze. One in the morning.

     I shrugged, sweeping the notebook into my pouch. She understood the subtle dismissal and bowed her head, leaving the stable doors, her long skirt lightly brushing the floor by her feet.

     I suddenly regretted that I had never bothered to learn her name. 

     What was I becoming?

     I shook off the remnants of the unsettling nightmare like cobwebs clinging to my mind and slowly made my way over to my bed, collapsing in it and succumbing to the calls of dreamless sleep within moments.

A/N: WHY IS THIS SO LONG. ITS ONLY A BIT SHORT OF 1500 WORDS WHAT IN THE ACTUAL WORLD.