Twilight's Shadow

The Shadow of Twilight Part 1

The Hero of Twilight coughed as he trudged through the charred debris of what had once been a small village in the south of Hyrule. He couldn't help feeling overwhelmed at the sight. Yes, Link had seen quite a bit through his quest to save Hyrule but not the kind of total destruction he now witnessed. He suppressed tears and tried not to gag when he passed a mangled corpse of a villager, recalling when he had received word via the kingdom's rather eccentric postman that some sort monster had been asulting the little town with hailstorms of bomb arrows. Being rather busy with Princess Zelda still held prisoner in the castle and the few remaining patches of Twilight that plagued the land, the hero had not been anywhere near the unfortunate town and had taken a considerable amount of time to get there. Even riding Epona at a break-neck pace for days straight, still proved to have taken too much time. He only wished he could have come sooner...

Suddenly, he saw an arrow sail through the air and land a few yards from where he stood. Having only a moments notice to react to the angry red bomb about to explode at the tip of the arrow, the hero flung himself to the ground and covered himself with his trusty Hylian shield. There was an earth-shattering boom and Link felt pieces of Hylia-knows-what cling against his protective barrier. Just as he was rising to check the damage inflicted by the mysterious monster, another arrow was released. This time the archer's aim was true and hit home sending the hero flailing through the air. He hit the ground with a painful thud but managed to spot the area the arrows were coming from. He saw the tip of the bow peeking out from behind a large boulder atop a cliff overlooking the village and ran, disregarding the damage done to him from the blast, towards the source of all this chaos. He may have been too late to save the town but at least he could prevent this from happening to anyone else if he defeated the monster.

   He reached the top of cliff after avoiding many more arrows and saw a figure cloaked in black sitting with legs dangling off the edge staring straight ahead, apparently unaware of his presence. There was a great mound of something stashed beneath a cloth and a lit torch with its handle dug deep into the earth in order to hold it upright positioned next to it. The being was too small to be a bulblin or bokoblin like he had expected, and he could almost see the distinguishable ears of a Hylian peeking out from behind the hood. Link was disgusted. How could any Hylian do this to an innocent village of their own kind? In the small protected town of Ordon, in which he had been raised, the hero had never even heard of such an act of terror. Of course monsters had always been a threat but humans or Hylian, no. What kind of person could do this? He certainly could never do anything like this to anyone!

   Having been so lost in his disgust for the person in front of him, the hero had failed to notice that they had turned around to face him, evidently not as oblivious to Link's presence as he thought. The hero finally noticed the person's new position as the being surprisingly laid down his bow and sat cross legged facing him. Link spoke first damanding who he was and why he had done this to which he received an unsavory answer.

   The figure laughed, not a happy "this is all just a misunderstanding" laugh, but a cold, mirthless chuckle that sent shivers down his spine. The unnamed person stood, relieving themself to be rather petite, not unsimilar to the hero himself. They moved a hand to the clasp on their cloak and the the black fabric fluttered to the grass...

   The Hero of Twilight stood frozen in place. It, no, he looked just like him. The man had his hair, his body, his clothes, and even his face! However, the parts of the man that contrasted from his own appearance were actually more frightening than the unnatural similarities they shared. His clothes were black and had several rips revealing nasty looking wounds. The man's entire body seemed to sopping wet and dripping with pink-tinged water. His left arm hung unnaturally lose in its socket, like all Link needed to do was pull a little and it might just come off. The man's hair was a dark, jet-black that fell sloppily into his sunken blue eyes. Those eyes, so similar to his own, had some terrifying mixture of something similar to black ink mingled with blood dripping from them and burned with a fiery hatred but also, deep sadness. Those eyes were what froze him, he felt as if he couldn't look away and stupidly, he didn't.

   "Who am I?" Another evil chuckle escaped the man's lips. His voice even sounded like his but only raspier and nearly emotionless. "I'd think that you could recognize yourself, Hero. I am you."