if i die tomorrow - permanent hiatus

madness

     Daruk. Revali. Urbosa. Mipha. Me. 

     Midnight. Five days later. Lost Woods.

     Blood. 

     "All clear." I murmured into the disk, which was what we eventually decided to call the speaking device. "Good on your ends?"

     "Yes." A chorus of voices was emitted from the little disk. 

     "Any moment." Urbosa said.

     I unsheathed my knife. The shadow of crimson still lingered on the silver blade from that day an eternity ago, like a ghost dwelling at its heart. The filtered moonlight blurred by the swirling mist of the Lost Woods painted it with the touch of the stars. However, there was nothing serene, nothing profound about this knife. 

     It longed for blood, more blood. I could feel its lust like a tension at the bottom of my stomach, like a thirst deep in my throat. 

     I turned off the disk and told it, "I hate you."

     I hated that it stole a friend from me. 

     I hated that the hand of my greatest enemy once grasped this blade as I was.

     I hated that it made me feel like a feral animal. 

     I slipped the disk into my pouch.

     Tonight. Tonight, I'll give it what it wanted.

     Tonight would be the night of madness. 

     The first shadow emerged into the mist. Almost without thinking I moved towards him, silent as the whisper of a fallen leaf brushing the dead soil at my feet. 

     I pressed my knife at his throat and slit it. 

     I hated myself. 

     I couldn't stop. 

     Blood dripped from my blade. It was on my face. The tang of iron. The taste of madness. 

     Mindlessly killing. 

     I've become a monster.

     I tried to remember what I was doing this for. 

     I couldn't think past the fog reaching into my mind, leaching into my sanity. 

     Was this how the Lost Woods ensnared their victims? 

     I charged towards another and viciously knocked her sword aside. She stared at me, terror running wild in her eyes. I stabbed her heart and watched her crumple. 

     The grinning faces of dead trees were splattered with blood. Their crudely carved eyes followed me as I whirled through victim after victim. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't remember anything beyond destruction. 

     Who am I?

     A killer. 

     Why am I here?

     To destroy.

     No.

     Yes. 

     One of them held up something I could barely see past the fog in my eyes. He was cringing against a tree. Slowly I closed in on him, spinning my knife idly, droplets of blood flying like ruby bullets through the air. He was yelling something like "I'm an ally!" but I couldn't hear him. My knife glowed, a crescent. His words choked as blood bubbled into his throat.