Fantasy

I'm hoping this gets out to someone. I doubt it will, but there's always a chance that it could, right? I'm sitting here in what used to be my room as I type this. The TV is on, I have the window open, and the sun is shining. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, no. This isn't my room. This isn't my house. It's all a perfect replica created by him.

I don't remember being stalked. Hell, I don't even remember how or when I got here. I guess the memory loss is bad even after you've been destroyed by him. I say destroyed because I haven't been killed, yet I wouldn't really call what's happening to me "living." Wait, I haven't explained who he is. Though with words like stalk and memory loss, I think you can figure out who he is.

The internet meme. That overplayed bastard. Slender Man.

I know you must be sick of Slender Man stories, but please listen. I believe at one point I fell victim to him. Let me take you back to that day and a few other days as well, I suppose.

One day, I was at home getting ready to go out. I was dressed and about to open the door of my room to leave and next thing I knew, I was in a dark void. The void warped and twisted around me as I stood there, trying to get my bearings. There was no up or down, no left or right.

I was just there in a swirl of colors that made my eyes hurt with how vibrant they were and how fast they were moving. I rubbed my eyes and when they focused, I was back in my room. I threw my door open, expecting to see the hallway I desperately needed. Nausea hit me rather quickly, so I was trying to hurry to the bathroom just in case.

There was nothing there. It wasn't like there was no one in the hall, but rather there was literally nothing there. It was the black void. There was no sound or air, just darkness. It was like what had happened before the colorful terror.

I slammed the door shut and turned to bury my face in a pillow, as I was so confused and afraid. However, when I turned, I saw him. He stood there, towering over me in that idiotic suit, tentacle arms at his sides and head craned downward to stare at me.

"Welcome," he said to me.

He didn't actually speak, however. He has no mouth, after all. Instead, I saw words in the same scratchy, messy font from the notes he sends to those Youtubers. It was silly, cheesy, and dumb...all words I know you're thinking, but it's true.

He displayed that stupid font in front of me, suspended in the air. I swiped my hand across the letters to get them out of my face, but they remained. It was as if the words were being projected by an overhead projector. They remained there and distorted over the contours of my hand.

As I stared at the words, they began to fade and I realized my captor was gone. I had been taken by him and he was holding me hostage or prisoner or whatever he wanted to call me. I sat down in my armchair and looked up at my desk.

I saw that, as in the "real" world, there was my computer. Eagerly, I turned it on and waited for it to boot up. He had left me a means to communicate out! I was going to be free if I could get word out to someone.

I was wrong. I could sign on to AIM, Yahoo, and MSN just fine, but each list was empty. No one was online, not even people who never sign out. I changed my preferences to show people who were offline and everyone on the lists from before WERE offline.

I tried my browser to see if I actually had internet access. My finger twitched on the mouse button as the browser started up. Never had I been so eager to see vapid new stories and flash ads before me.

The homepage loaded and everything was there. News, games, everything. I went to Facebook to see if the homepage was just some catched page. I thought that if Facebook was updating, I'd be good.

Even Facebook loaded perfectly. I could see new statuses and links show up on my news feed, but my status bar was gone. Comment boxes were gone and even the chat bar was missing.

He was allowing me to go online and see life go on, but he wouldn't let me speak to anyone. I slumped back in my chair and watched the news feed update. It scrolled along, showing me what everyone was doing, but I could interact with none of it. What was I going to do? Was I dead? Was I in some other dimension? I had nothing now.

Over time, I began to just live my life again. I watched TV. I went on my usual websites. I enjoyed what I could. I don't know how he was piping all of this in, but he wasn. he would pop in now and then to check on me, too.

One day, he finally "spoke" to me again. He told me I wasn't dead. I was merely his and I wasn't going home, nor was I going to die. He told me I should never have looked into him and that this was all my fault.

From that point on, he started harvesting things from my brain. He was taking fantasies and the things I loved and began to make them real. Whatever I could think up - whatever was on my mind that I used to put myself into a happy place - was fodder for him.

Soon I was going on Pokemon quests. I was fighting in the Battle City tournament. I was flying through space on the Normandy beating up evil aliens. I was kicking ass with Nathan Drake and stealing treasures. I even owned my own successful business. Yet every time, he came and ripped it all to shreds. Each one turned into some bad creepypasta when he showed up.

That Pokemon quest? He was the League Champion when I got to the end. He had no Pokemon at all, though. I sent mine out to try and attack him, but he stabbed each one with a rigid tentacle. I saw my team fall dead to the ground as the world warped and distorted around me.

I was dropped at a Pokemon Center, where everyone's critters were dead and the trainers were all maimed. They screamed out that their Pokemon had turned on them before seizing and dying. They cried so much that many were hyperventilating while others were starting to go mad. The sky turned red and the screams grew louder. Then everything went out like a TV turning off.

In Battle City, he fought me atop the tower on Kaiba's Alcatraz. He had no deck, no Duel Disk...nothing. Every time I played a card, he had one better that he pulled out from anywhere. When I pulled ahead, he destroyed me with cheap moves.

His field would go from empty to full in a mere turn and all hope I had for winning was constantly dashed. Then, as I lost my last Life Point, he destroyed the tower and let us fall into the ocean. I fell, tumbling through the air as debris fell around me.

As I looked up, I could see him slowly descending - standing still - and merely "staring" at me. I hit the water hard and struggled to find the way up. Pieces of the tower knocked into me, sending me around in circles until I opened my eyes and saw the faint light of the surface.

I finally surfaced and looked out to shore, where I saw nothing but destruction. Demented versions of cards ransacked the city. They were so familiar, but looked so demonic I couldn't even begin to fathom any comparisons to describe them. It's as if they were an amalgamation of all that was evil in the world, but I know that makes zero sense.

Buildings fell, explosions went off, and the sounds of screaming were quickly drowned out by piercing laughter that ranged from demonically deep to squeaky and disturbing. Bodies were being flung into the water next to me by the grotesque monsters, blood and innards raning down onto me as I treaded water for as long as I could.

I swam to the shore, desperate to get out of this fantasy, but once again he shattered it. It went crashing around me, shards of my surroundings flying everywhere with a warped crashing sound ringing in my ears.

In the next one, I was fighting aliens and robots with Shepard. It seemed like no other crew was around. We were freeing people trapped on a remote planet and were so close to deactivating the forcefields holding them captive in a large cell when he came to ruin things.

We had spent hours collecting access codes and fending off hoards of guards, but we were still standing and about to make it through and he was here to ruin it. He caused the shield to generate more power once we went to punch in the last access code.

The amount of power building in the shield was too unstable, causing it to intensify to dangerous levels. Once the shield had overloaded, it sent out a surge of energy that electrocuted everyone in the cell, causing them to scream out in tinny, hollow yells of pain.

The console that controlled the shield was fried and electricity arced out and hit Shepard. His armor overloaded and glowed red due to the intense heat, every bit of it frying from the overload. He was being cooked alive in what was supposed to protect him.

Then Slender Man showed himself, standing in the space between us and the now dead prisoners. My eyes focused on him and everything went silent. I blinked. I was back in my room with the scent of burned flesh lingering in the air.

I won't recount the other stories here, as I don't have the energy. Each one is as bad as the others, so forgive me for not wanting to remember them. I bet you think they all sound like bad creepypastas written by teenagers and I did warn you.

I bet you think stories about Pokemon are stupid. You know what, though? You're right. He took every silly thought, every wish, every fun little fantasy I've ever had and turned it against me. He created the elaborate worlds to dangle happiness in front of my face, only to destroy them.

He's even been toying with the fake weather outside my window. Rain while sunny, tornadoes, intense heat, upside down rain...he'll do anything absurd to confuse me. He even changes the day/night cycles to keep me tired and confused.

None of the clocks in my room run properly, nor do any of them display the correct times. Nothing on the internet has times or dates attached and the TV schedule seems to change mid-show, so I have no other means to help me know where I am in time.

To make this all stop, I purposefully fantasized about killing him. I fantasized about ripping his tentacles off and stabbing through his blank head with as big a knife I could think of. He even let them come true. I got in every means of horrible torture I could in each fantasy.

Not once would he ever be able to live once I got through with him. But, of course, once I killed him, sat back, and reveled in my victory, he was gone. The body was gone and he was standing in front of me, staring. He laughed. There was no sound, no words, but I could feel the laughter.

Truthfully, I'm not even scared anymore. I guess when I think back to specific parts of his destructions of my fantasies, I get a bit scared. I'm not even pissed off anymore. Mostly, I'm just tired. I'm defeated. This is what he wanted, after all. He's keeping me alive only to torture me.

I live in my fantasies and try to make the best of it, but I know he will always come to destroy it all. I want out. Hell, I'll take death at this point so that I don't have to risk him coming back for me. Now I'm beginning to believe this happens to everyone. After all, the only things ever found of the abducted are bags of body parts so that might not even be them. They could be in their own pocket dimensions being tortured as well.

If this gets out, please try to find a way to at least save yourself. I can't get email to go out successfully, but he may let this one out to use it against me. After all, he may just end up stalking my reader. For that, I'm sorry.

Another fantasy is starting. I should go. I think this one is where I'm a detective...

The Flood

Why did Hyrule flood? Was it the Gods, as Wind Waker claims, or was it something more?

After Link defeated Ganon/Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time, he was given the choice to either stay as an adult or go back to enjoy his childhood. If he decided to go back to his childhood, he would eventually go to Termina. Because Termina is a parallel universe to Hyrule, the Gods had created an exact replica of Link just in case Ganon was to return, as if they had no idea where Link was.

This brings up another question. Are there different gods in Termina? One could assume that after Link left Hyrule, he was brought out of the Gods' reach. If so, this explains why the Triforce wasn't depicted or spoken about in any way.

The Terminian gods may actually be the four giants. Although they appear to be in an eternal slumber, waiting to be asked forth in using their godly might, the giants are considered to be guardians (not deities); however, they have been told to have created the world.

However, if one considers the term deity, it may bring to mind the form of which Link takes from wearing the Fierce Deity's Mask. The physical attributes Link acquires in this state could only be put as that of a god's. He gains a huge stature, tribal markings, an enchanted sword, and near-invincibility.

The reason you would think he was too powerful is that the mask is only able to be worn during boss fights. The only way to counter this is to perform a glitch or enter a Gameshark cheat that allows you to wear it outside battle. When these requirements have been met, you can easily compare the drastic changes in the green hero's size to that of a normal Terminian.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Majora. Was the beast from which the mask was carved considered a demonic being? All the factors explaining his malevolent personality point toward this.

The mask was sealed for eternity after being carved because of its extraordinary powers. At the end of the game, the Happy Mask Salesman gets his mask back, but its power is apparently drained. After this, he vanishes out of sight forever.

Now, take a look at Wind Waker. It's based several hundred years after the events of Ocarina of Time. The prologue explains that the hero had saved Hyrule from darkness and left Hyrule in peace. However, it then details an evil coming back to Hyrule, for which the hero didn't appear.

Maybe this hero was too busy somewhere else. Maybe he was in Termina. This could support the theory of Link returning back to his childhood and visiting Termina soon after, leaving Hyrule off-guard to dark forces.

But what exactly are these dark forces? One theory claims that the Happy Mask Salesman went back to Hyrule and used Majora's Mask to take over the kingdom.

From this brings an even more realistic idea. In the events of Majora's Mask, Link has to stop the moon from crashing into Termina. If this were to happen again in Hyrule, what would be the consequences? Could the moon have smashed into Lake Hylia or a bigger body of water to create a flood? Or was it someone else...someone who wanted to gain revenge for meeting his terrible fate? Someone who drowned?

Zombie

I am a zombie, and it's not so bad. I'm learning to live with it. I'm sorry I can't properly introduce myself, but I no longer have a name; hardly any of us do. We forget them, like anniversaries and PIN numbers. I think mine might have started with a "T", but I'm not sure. It's funny, because back when I was alive, I was always forgetting other people's names. I am finding that irony abounds in the zombie life, an ever-present punch line, but it's hard to smile when your lips have rotted off.

Before I became a zombie, I think I was a businessman of young professional of some kind. I think I worked in one of those stifling office jobs in a high-rise somewhere. The clothes clinging to the remains of my body are high-quality business-casual. Fine gabardine slacks, silvery silk shirt, red Armani power tie. I would probably look pretty sharp if my intestines weren't dragging at my feet.

We like to joke and speculate about our remaining outfits, since these final fashion choices are usually the only indication of who we were before we became no-one. Some people's are less obvious than mine. Jeans and a white t-shirt, skirt and a tank-top, so we make random guesses.

You were a plumber. You were a barista. Ring any bells?

It usually doesn't.

No one I know has any specific memories. We recognize some things - buildings, cars, Armani ties - but context eludes us. We are here, we do what we do. We lack excellent diction, but we can communicate. We grunt and groan, we make hand gestures, and sometimes a few words slip out. It's not that different from before.

There are a few hundred of us living in a wide plain of dust outside some large city. We don't need shelter or warmth, obviously, so we stand around in the dust and time passes. I think we've been here for a long time, despite my dragging entrails. I am in decay's early stages, but there are a few elderly ones here who are little more than skeletons with clinging bits of muscle. Somehow, it still extends and contracts, and they keep moving. I have never seen any of us "die" of old age. Maybe we live forever. I don't know. I don't think much about the future any more. That's something that's very different from before. When I was alive, the future was all I thought about. I was obsessed about it. Death has relaxed me.

But, it makes me sad that we've forgotten our names. Out of everything, this seems to be the most tragic. I don't miss my own, but I mourn for everyone else's, because I want to love them, but I don't know who they are.

Today, a group of us are going into town to find some food. How this expedition begins is one of us gets hungry and starts shuffling toward town, and a few others follow him. Focused thought is a rare occurrence with us, and we follow it when we see it, otherwise we would just be standing around groaning. We do a lot of standing around groaning, and it's frustrating sometimes. Years pass this way. The flesh withers on our bones, and we stand around, waiting for it. I am curious how old I might be.

The city where the people live is not that far away. We arrive around noon and start looking for living flesh. The new kind of hunger is a strange feeling. You don't feel it in your stomach - of course not, since some of us don't even have stomachs. You feel it just...everywhere. You start to feel "more dead." I've watched some of my friends go back to being full-dead, when food is scarce. They just slow down, stop, and become corpses again. I don't really understand it.

I guess the world has mostly ended, because the cities we wander through are decaying as fast as we are. Buildings are collapsed. Dead, rusted cars fill the streets. All glass everywhere is shattered. I don't know if there was a war, a plague, or if it was just us. Maybe it was all three. I don't know. I don't think about things like that anymore.

In a cluster of broken down apartment buildings, we find some people and eat them. Some of them have weapons, and, as usual, we lose some of our number, but we don't care. Why would we care? What's death, now?

Eating is not a pleasant business. I chew off a man's arm, and I hate this; it's disgusting. I hate his screams, because I don't like pain. I don't like to hurt things, but this is the world now; this is what we do. Of course, if I don't eat all of him, if I leave enough, he'll rise up and follow me back to our dusty field outside the city, and that might make me feel better. I'll introduce him to everyone, and maybe we'll stand around and groan for a while. It's hard to say what "friends" are any more, but maybe that's close. If I don't eat all of him, if I leave enough...

But, of course, I don't leave enough. I eat his brain, because that's the good part. That's the part that, when I swallow it, makes my head light up with feelings. Clear memories. For about three to ten seconds, depending on the person, I get to feel alive. I get traces of delicious meals, beautiful music, perfume, orgasms, sunsets, life. Then it fades and I get up and stumble out of the city, still dead, but feeling a little less so - feeling okay.

I don't know why we have to eat people. I don't understand what chewing off a man's neck accomplishes. We certainly don't digest the meat and absorb the nutrients. My stomach is a rotted bag of dried bile, useless. We don't digest, we just eat until the weight forces it out of our ass holes, and then we eat more. It feels so useless and yet it keeps us walking. I don't know why. None of us really understand why we are the way we are. We don't know if we're the result of some strange global infection, or some ancient curse, or something even more senseless. We don't talk about it much. Existential debate is not a major part of zombie life. We are here and we do things. We are simple. It's nice sometimes.

Outside the city again, back with the others in the dust field, I start walking in a circle for no reason. I plant one foot in the dirt and pivot on it, around and around, kicking up clouds of dust. Before, when I was alive, I could never have done this. I remember stress. I remember bill sand deadlines, asset extension reports. I remember being so occupied, always everywhere all the time occupied. Now I'm just standing in a wide-open field of dust, walking in a circle. The world has been distilled. Being dead is easy.

After a few days of this, I stop walking and stand still, swaying back and forth while groaning a little.I don't know why I groan. I'm not in pain, and I'm not sad. I think it's just air being squeezed in and out of my lungs. When my lungs decompose, it will probably stop. And now, while swaying and groaning, I notice a dead woman standing a few feet away from me, facing the distant mountains. She doesn't sway or groan; her head just lolls from side to side. I like that about her, that she doesn't sway or groan. I walk over and stand beside her. I wheeze some kind of greeting, and she responds with a lurch of her shoulder.

I like her. I reach out and touch her hair. She hasn't been dead very long; her skin is grey and her eyes slightly sunken, but she has no exposed bones or organs. Her death outfit is a black skirt and a snug white button-up. I suspect she used to be a waitress.

Pinned to her chest is a silver name tag. I can read her name. She has a name.

Her name is Emily.

I point to her chest. Slowly, with great effort, I say, "Em..ily." The word rolls off what's left of my tongue like honey. What a good name. I feel warm saying it.

Emily's cloudy eyes widen at the sound, and she smiles. I also smile, and then maybe I'm a little nervous because my tibia snags and I fall backwards into the dust. Emily just laughs, and it's a choked, raw, lovely sound. She reaches down and helps me to my feet.

Emily and I have fallen in love.

I'm not sure how this happens. I remember what love was like before, and this is different. This is simpler. Before, there were complex emotional and  biological factors at work. We had long checklists and elaborate tests to be passed. We looked at hairstyles and careers and breast sizes. Sex was there, in everything, confusing everyone, like hunger. It created longing, it created ambition, competition. It drove people to leave their houses and invent automobiles, space craft, and atom bombs when they could instead just sit on the couch until they died. Animal cravings, subconscious urges...sex made the world go 'round.

This is all gone now. Sex, once a force as universal as gravity, is now irrelevant. Ambition and longing have left the equation. My pants fell off two weeks ago.

So the equation is deleted, the blackboard erased, and things are different now. Our actions have no ulterior motives. We shuffle around in the dust and occasionally have lumbering, grunted exchanges with our peers. No one argues. There are no fights, ever.

And Emily is not a complicated process. I just see her and walk over to her, and for no reason, really, I decide I want to be with her for a long time. So now we shuffle around in the dust together instead of alone. For whatever reason, we enjoy each other's company. When we have to go into town to eat people, we do it at separate times, because it's unpleasant and we don't want to share that. But we share everything else, and it's nice.

We decide to walk to the mountains. It takes us three days, but now we are standing on a cliff looking up at a fat white moon. At our backs, the night sky is red from distant cities burning, but we don't care about that. I clumsily grab Emily's hand, and we stare at the moon.

There's no real reason for any of this, but, like I said, the world has been distilled. Love has been distilled. Everything is easy now. Yesterday, my leg broke off, and I don't even mind.

Hyrulian History

There was a long time ago when the Golden Goddesses still walked amongst their people. After the creation of the world, each deity fashioned a race to serve and glorify their names.
Din created the Gorudo, the mountain tribe. They lived upon the slope of the great Mt. Via, where they thrived by mining the mountain for precious metals. Din dwelt among her people and they gave praise to her as she instructed them in the way of the hammer and the blacksmith.

Farore created the Dekiri, the forest tribe. They lived within the depths of the Fairy Woods, living off of the land and profiting off of its bounty. Farore dwelt among her people and they gave praise to her as she instructed them in the way of the bow and the woodsman.

Nayru created the Hylians, the plains tribe. They built villages and lived off of the fruits of the fields and the sea, as well as through trading with other tribes. Nayru dwelt among her people and they gave praise to her as she instructed them in the ways of the farmer and the fisherman.

There was a boy who lived among the Hylians. His nets would not bring in fish, nor would his fields yield crop. “Who is this boy,” the Hylians would ask. “Who is this child who cannot hear what Nayru teaches?” Because the boy could not do these things, they cast him out. “Go and live with the Dekiri, in the Fairy Woods. Surely they will have use of you there.”

So, the boy left the villages of Hylia and joined the Dikiri in the Fairy Wood. He lived with them for some time. His arrow would not fall game, nor would his axe level trees. “Who is this boy,” the Dekiri would ask. “Who is this child who cannot hear what Farore teaches?” Because the boy could not do these things, they cast him out. “Go and live with the Gorudo, on the mountain slopes. Surely they will have use of you there.”
So, the boy left the Fairy Wood and joined the Gorudo on Mt. Via. He lived with them for some time. His hammer would forge no steel, nor would his pick break stone. “Who is this boy,” the Gorudo would ask. “Who is this child who cannot hear what Din teaches?” Because the boy could not do these things, they cast him out. “The Hylians and the Dekiri before us have passed you by. Truly, you are a useless boy.”

So, the boy left the slopes of Mt. Via and began to wander the land. “The Goddesses have rejected me,” he would cry. He truly was alone, a boy without friends. Now, this boy was clever, cleverer than most would dare to imagine. That very night, he hatched a scheme. “The people adore the Goddesses for the skills they preach, so I shall make their power my own!”

The boy climbed to the top of Mt. Via, where sat Din, the Goddess of Power, Fire, and the Earth. “Great Goddess of Power, it is said that your strength is beyond compare,” began the boy. “but I have heard talk from some of the Gorudo that not even you have the strength to hoist this mountain on your back and carry it across the land!”

Din rose up in a prideful fury. “Who speaks as this, doubting the strength I possess? I shall life this mountain upon my shoulders and carry it far into the east!” So the Goddess placed the mountain on her shoulders and began her march.

Within the mountain, the blood of the earth began to seep into the caverns, liquid fire bubbling as Din’s ire fueled it. Where the goddess stepped, the land was scorched, leaving a desert in her wake. She reached the edge of the Hylian Plains and stopped before setting the mountain down on the eastern side of the grasslands.
“Let done doubt my strength again,” came the voice of Din.

“Oh, surely none are as strong as you, Goddess, but what of your people? The men of the Gorudo are within the mountain yet, and the bubbling blood of the earth threatens to burn them alive! The hot sun beats down upon their wives, waiting in a land turned wasteland for their husbands to return to them!”

Din was shocked to see what she had done. She entered the mountain and hardened the skin of the men until it was as rock, so that they might withstand the scorching heat of the magma. She entered the desert and darkened the skin of the wives so that they might endure the sun, raising great cliffs to provide shade.

When the men came out of the mountain and returned to their homes in the desert, their wives screamed in fear at the hardened skin of their husbands. “What curse has Din laid upon us,” they cried. “What provoked her to remove us from our mountain and our men?” They cried this for the mere sight of their husbands caused them to recoil in horror at their grotesque appearances. “We shall have no more of men,” they cried, driving the men from the desert. They settled in the cliffs and named themselves the Gerudo, turning their backs on the Goddess.

The men cried out from the mountainsides. “What curse has Din laid upon us? What has provoked her to remove from us our wives and our homes?” Their anger fueled their strength as they tore into the mountain, carving out caves and vast hollows. So great was their fury that the mountaintop exploded in a rain of fire and rock. They settled in these caves and named themselves the Goron, turning their backs on the Goddess.
Seeing her people reject her, Din fell into despair. In the depths of her grief, the boy came to her and stole her power away, claiming it for himself. “Now none are as strong as I,” he proclaimed. 

The boy then left the mountain and entered into the Fairy Wood. He climbed to the top of the tallest tree in the forest, where sat Farore, Goddess of Courage, Wind, and Nature.

“Great Goddess of Courage, it is said that when you play your flute, the world dances. Yet there are those among the Dekiri who say that not even your music would give the trees reason to lift up their roots and join in the reel.”

“Is that so,” asked the Goddess. “Then perhaps I should play a tune for them.” She raised a flute to her lips and played a jig. The notes wafted through the forest and the trees stirred in their plots. The Goddess increased the pace and roots sprang from the ground as the trees rose to give motion to the lively tune. The Dekiri, who had made their homes in the trees, cried out in fear as they leapt from their homes and avoided being trampled by the reeling trees. They fled to a nearby clearing, where they believed themselves safe.

The Goddess noticed this and stopped playing, but the trees began to hum the tune themselves and continued to dance. The homes they housed in their limbs were torn to pieces as the trees swayed their many arms. In a panic, the Goddess led the trees deeper and deeper into the forest, where she bound them. The trees were dubbed Deku, and the area was named the Lost Woods, as the continuous dancing of the trees made it impossible to navigate. To this day, you can still hear the trees singing the song.

The Dekiri cried out, “What curse has Farore laid upon us? What has provoked her to destroy our homes and possess our woods?”

The Goddess heard these words and was angered. “I did my best to save you from my folly and this is how you respect me? You call yourself cursed, so cursed you shall be! You whine as a child whines for a lost toy, so children you shall remain for eternity!” And so, the Goddess laid the curse of youth upon them, allowing them to never grow old and yet die young with life unfulfilled. To guard over these children, she appointed a guardian spirit to the tree upon which she sat. The Dekiri, in their spite, took the name Kokiri and turned their backs on the Goddess.

Seeing her people reject her, Farore fell into despair. In the depths of her grief, the boy came to her and stole her power away, claiming it for himself. “Now none are as cunning as I,” he proclaimed. The boy then left the wood and journeyed to the great lake of Hylia, where resided Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom, Love, and the Sea.

“Oh Goddess of Wisdom, your knowledge knows no bounds and your word is respected by all. Yet, I have heard some talk among the Hylians that not even your words could tame the seas. Surely if you proved them wrong, they would be grateful to you for easing their lives!”

Nayru smiled, for she had seen through the boy’s scheme and had prepared for this. She stood and raised her hands above the waters. “Be still,” she called out, and the waters became flat and level, with only wind ripples disturbing the surface. The Hylians marveled at this and exclaimed to one another, “Look! The seas have been made calm! No longer must we pray for our safety as we cross the waters in search of fish to eat and goods to sell!” The Hylians began to lose faith, but Nayru fell not into despair.

As the boats set sail, monstrous creatures stirred within the deep. One ship was swallowed whole by a giant fish, one splintered by tentacles of water, and still a giant eel crushed another. The sailors prayed to the Goddess to protect them from these leviathans. Nayru, hearing these prayers, created a race to govern and control these creatures, and named this race the Zora.

Nayru then spoke to the Hylians, “Because you did not turn from me in your time of need, you will be blessed among nations. Your power will grow to encompass the others and you shall rule over them with wisdom and justice.” Nayru then spoke to the Gerudo. “Because you were the first to turn away from your protector in your time of need, despite what she had provided for you, you will be cursed among nations. For a thousand generations, you and your people will remain confined to the desert. Because you have forsaken men, so shall men forsake you. Only once in a hundred years may one of your wombs bear a male, and he shall govern you with fear and cruelty until his death.”

Nayru then spoke to the boy. “Child, why have you caused these terrible things,” she asked. The boy stood and spoke back angrily, “Your people reject me for I cannot learn what you teach! If I could gain the powers and skills that the Goddesses possess, then they would be sure to accept me!” The boy fell into despair as he realized he would not be able to obtain Nayru’s power.

The Goddess of Wisdom came upon the boy, and, in his despair, took the powers which he had stolen and returned them to her sisters. She then spoke again to the boy. “You truly are a lonely and miserable boy, but you have done many terrible things and punishment comes to all. You know of power and courage, but you will never receive from us the gift of wisdom. To you we give the curse of immortality, to live forever and watch all about you wither and die. However, so as you will not bring harm to our land and our peoples once more, we shall imprison you.”

The Goddesses rose into the air in a triangle pattern and surrounded the boy, gesturing towards him. In a spectacular flash of light, the boy disappeared and in his place was a mask. The mask was heart shaped, with two large, yellow eyes peering out above purple lines of darkness, spikes glistening on the edges.

“Your name is no more,” spoke Din. 

“We give you a new one here and now,” spoke Farore.

“You are Majora, meaning trickster,” spoke Nayru.

“But Majora has another meaning,” came the voice of all three. “It also means ‘One who is alone,’ for no matter where you search or how far you travel, you will never find friendship or love.

Din spoke to the others, “My sisters, we cannot allow this evil to remain in our world, for his hatred and despair will surely leak out and corrupt the land!”

Farore sang out in agreement, “Then we shall make a new world to serve as his prison, so that ours is not tainted by his malice.”

“Do what you will,” Nayru said. “but know that I will not lend my wisdom to such a world. Let him craft the order as he sees fit.”

So Din, with her strong, flaming arms cultivated the land and created the red earth. Farore, with her rich soul, created all life forms that would tend the earth. After all of this, Nayru approached and said, “I give but one law for this world. Should all life within it one day extinguished, the prison will collapse and the spirit within set free.”

“Why do you do this, sister,” asked Din. “Why do you allow this window for one who has wrong us so greatly?”

“Because,” Nayru replied. “I pity him.”

Wobbuffet

Wobbuffet. What about it, you ask? I have devised a theory about it that may startle you. First, let us read what Dexter has to say about Wobbuffet.

• "It hates light and shock. If attacked, it inflates its body to pump up its counterstrike."
• "It desperately tries to keep its black tail hidden. It is said to be proof the tail hides a secret."
• "In order to conceal its black tail, it lives in a dark cave and only moves at night."
• "Usually docile, a Wobbuffet strikes back ferociously if its black tail is attacked. It makes its lair in caves where it waits for nightfall."
• "Wobbuffet does nothing but endure attacks - it won't attack on its own. However, it won't endure an attack on its tail. When that happens, the Pokemon will try to take the foe with it using Destiny Bond."

Dexter brings up some key points: the tail is very important to a Wobbuffet and it goes so far as to adopt a nocturnal cycle to protect it. It can also do such things as inflating itself to help it excel at counterattacking.

In conclusion, Wobbuffet is the black tail and its blue body is nothing more than a decoy - an inflatable sac of sorts akin to one of those inflatable punching bags.

Cinnabar Island

From: Pokemon Research Center, Cinnabar Island
To: Pokemon Research Laboratory, Pallet Town
Subject: Updates on the currently unknown Cinnabar coast phenomenon

After two years of observation, the phenomenon seems to be steadily increasing in activity. While this is not unusual in relation to past studies, it could mean global hysteria if our theories are correct. This is why it is of utmost importance that all information recorded, shared, and observed remain digital and non-vocal.

For the past three decades, civilians have cited unusual occurrences emanating from the easter coasts of Cinnabar Island. These include the following: inconsistenly shaped or random apparitions, items suddenly appearing out of nowhere and disappearing, deformed landscape, etc.

At first, we took no interest in these reports and dismissed them as mere urban legends. This was, of course, until the unexplainable happened.

With the maiden voyage of the S.S. Anne, cornfirmed reports began collecting of parts of the ship's hull strangely phasing out of existance and water would gush in for short periods of time. Passengers began complaining about apparitions walking through the ship's corridors and guests temporarily disappearing from sight.

All of these reports seem to be linked together and all occur in the proximity of Route 20. Soon after, the Pokemon Research Center was set up on Cinnabar Island to disguise our activities as we collect more information on what we now call phenomenon " 'M."

It appears as though our suspicions were completely wrong. We can now dismiss the possiblity of " 'M" perhaps being a form of unknown Pokemon. If this is true, then what the old man of Viridian City stated could be a possibility, despite his mental degression.

If his statements are true, we must retain all knowledge of this from the public. No one must know, as it would no doubt cause irreversible mass hysteria. We must erase everything we have found and die with our mouths sent.

No one must know that everything there has ever been - every event, every person, and all things on this planet and in space - are nothing but a field of pixels and a wave of programming.

We further request you give your final statement on phenomenon " 'M," also known to the public as "MissingNO," as simply an urban legend. We will take care of providing false evidence to disprove sightings and activities. On a further note, we will continue to observe the phenomenon on the shores of Cinnabar.

If the escalation continues, we will continue with the plan we had discussed earlier involving evacuating the island and initiating nuclear meltdown in the cores beneath the volcano's mantle. It will appear as nothing more than a simple volcanic eruption and should detour any visitors from the island henceforth.

Our best wishes to Prof. Oak and his research team,
Pokemon Research Center, Cinnabar Island

The Diner

You just moved into your new apartment in a very big city. After a year of this life, you have almost given up hope of making any friends, be it at work or from any other means. You feel very lonely.

After looking for a peaceful place to spend your time, you find a quiet diner on the outskirts of town. The waitress there is very attractive. She also seems to be the only employee there, ever. You never see anyone else eat there, either. The place is perfect for you.

Making love to her becomes a routine. You go there every night for dinner and to see her.

You eventually make other friends and eat at the diner less and less. After some time, you stop going completely.

At a bar with your best friend, you tell him about the fun you had with the waitress at the diner. He says he absolutely must see her. You take him there one night, but the building is in a state of ruin. The front door barely opens. The grimy insides of the diner are disgusting and behind the counter is a moldy corpse reeking of pus and rot.

When the police come to the scene, they interview both you and your friend. You are shocked to hear the body is of a runaway girl from another province. They tell you this is a homicide and the girl was raped dozens of times after she was killed. The police say they can get a match for DNA and eliminate you as a suspect. You are suddenly very worried.

Ash is in a Coma?

Have you ever noticed that the pacing, tone, and story development of Pokemon changes after Ash is hit by lightning in the early episodes? How Ash and his world are relatively normal until after that incident? I have a theory.

The accident with the bike put Ash into a coma. Days later, he was found and hurried to the hospital and treated with heavy medications. This is why Team Rocket became less menacing. The medication took effect and stabilized his coma dreams so that, instead of being terrifying, they became idyllic. They allowed him to live out his Pokemon Master fantasies.

After the beginning episodes, the series is the result of Ash's subconscious mind fulfilling his desires as well as attempting to escape reality. Should Ash realize he's in a coma, he would wake up and suffer brain damage, so he must take down all of his mental barriers one by one.

If he can do that, he can come to grips with who he is and escape his coma. Further evidence comes from the realization that even though his journeys take him vast distances, he never usually travels by bike due to having developed a phobia of them.

The coma and fantasy explains why he never changes much, physically. It explains the worldwide socialism, as he thought up a safe system of government that would run smoothly and keep the world going, allowing his adventures to work like they do.

It also explains how a child can go off on his own into a world full of dangerous and untamed animals. In addition, it explains why every town has the same police officer every Pokemon Center has the same nurse.

Joy and Jenny he knew from his hometown and they act as a safety net or anchor, allowing him to feel safe no matter where he goes. They represent stability. The professors represent Ash's ideals, which is why Gary became a professor.

The fantasy also explains why every time he enters a new region that virtually no one has heard of him, despite his conquests. How else could Paul, the rival of the Sinnoh area, not know of someone who placed in at least the top sixteen of all three leagues and destroyed the Orange League and Battle Frontier?

Moving on to the characters closer to him...Ash's traveling partners are aspects of himself he can enjoy but cannot associate with himself.

Brock is Ash's repressed sexuality. Ash fell into the coma a virgin and, as such, needed an outlet for his growing sexual frustrations. However, since he can never experience sex, Brock must never succeed. Brock's stay with Professor Ivy was an attempt by Ash's mind to surpress his sexuality.

Brock isn't just a projection of Ash's sexuality, but also a projection of Ash's fatherly instincts. He leaves his siblings to journey with Ash because he can't cope with having that much responsibility.

You may notice that James got much more dialogue in this part of the series, as well as getting more touchy-feely with his Pokemon and exposing much of his backstory. Ash didn't enjoy this much, which is why Brock returns, horrified, and refuses to speak about it.

Ash's subconscious was repressing him at the time so, other than a general feeling of dread, he has no idea what happened. Further evidence of Brock being Ash's sexuality is that he keeps returning the series after Ash meets a new female aspect of himself.

Misty is the first such aspect we encounter. Because she is the first and is merely an aspect of Ash are explanations as to why Misty plays such a prominent role in the show but is ultimately unattainable (since he never really knew her before the coma).

Since Misty is his initial love interest (if only subconsciously), he needed her to reach a certain level of womanhood. He felt that people could only have relationships after they've matured.

In practice, however, he finds he can't cope with it, as he lacks real-world experience. He wants the normal, pushy, arrogant Misty he knew...thus, not letting her keep Togepi. We can see this arc in the constant berating of his sexuality, but her eventual mellowing until she had faded into the background.

Since Ash was quite attached to her, this was traumatizing. After this experience, anyone around him "threatening" to mature quickly ends up leaving only for another, more naive fill-in to enter his life.

Gary Oak is what Ash wants to be. He is wish fulfillment. He succeded and then settled down to a normal life. Ash needs someone to succeed in his world or he won't be able to validate it and will start questioning why he is where he is. It's a subconscious trap to keep him from becoming too aware of his situation.

His mind must have figured out that awareness of the coma would snap him out of it, so it took something the boy already loved and build a way out for him with it. However, Ash is too complacent to make a final stand and fight his way out of it, and cannot escape.

This is why he keeps encountering legendary Pokemon. They're his mind's way of showing him he can do great things if he tries. It's a way to encourage him to push forwards.

Team Rocket are the qualities of himself that Ash deems "negative" but is coming to terms with. Jessie and James want to appease Giovanni, Ash's father figure. To achieve this, Jessie will trick the submissive James into doing her bidding. Meowth especially wants to appease him because he remembers the good times with Giovanni.

This places Meowth in a category known as Ash's (corrupted) innocence. This is apparent because Mouth is able to speak. In fact, the whole reason Meowth can speak is so Ash can eventually accept the aspects of Team Rocket as parts of himself.

Ash had issues with his father, so he put him atop the evil corporation and demonized him. There may be an actual Team Rocket (in the real world), but it's doubtful that Ash's father is their leader. Ash likely feels the split between his parents was partly his fault, but also partly blames his father.

The split caused his mother to move out of the city down to Pallet Town and is one reaon why Ash initially embarks on his journey: to escape the turmoil at home. The whole organization, including Butch and Cassidy, is symbolic of his inability to escape his father's machinations.

James is implied homosexuality (which does not necessarily make Ash homosexual) and gullibility, while Jessie is vanity and manipulation. Since Meowth has the potential for rehabilitation and doesn't want to be evil, this once again fits with the conflicting personalities and demonized-self theory.

Team Rocket crossdresses because Ash is exploring his sexuality (a different facet than what Brock represents) and this was a method that allowed his gay/vain side to experiment freely. When he found that it wasn't something for him, he "free" side stopped playing with it.

Max came with May. He played the ego and she played the id with great aspirations in that "session." They worked for a little while but, with Ash being a teenager, his sexuality had to come back into play. He kept reinventing himself and eventually wrote new aspects, but his mind slowly brought the old ones back as a crutch to make the transition easier.

Dawn is Ash giving himself a chance to love. Since he already established Misty as someone he's not likely to go anywhere with, he created a new super female - one that was more like him and less violent. You may note that while both May and Misty had no tolerance for Brock's behavior, Dawn seems to try to shrug it off.

Tracey, the breeder, was a possible future for Ash that he discarded. This future was one that he sent off to work with the professor (Ash's ultimate ideal of a father figure) when Tracey disrupted the dynamic Ash had with his other possibilities.

With Ash's mind fighting the coma and Ash viewing this person as a companion, Tracy was quickly replaced with a more threatening rival.

Pikachu represents Ash's humanity. This explains the episodes where they get separated and Ash desperately wants to find him, even to the point of working with Team Rocket (aspects of himself he would never normally associate with), but for some reason cannot.

Team Rocket wants to steal Pikachu and hand him over to Giovanni. Jessie and James will always oppose Ash because he is terrified of the thought of his humanity lying in the hands of his father. However, this is the same reason he will work with those aspects of himself in order to save his humanity.

Ash couldn't evolve Pikachu because that would mean challenging his concept of who he was, which was something he wasn't comfortable with while still working through his original issues.

The narrator is Ash's higher mind, recapping and explaining the progress he's made and the tribulations he will face, allowing insight into how to best awaken him.

Team Rocket's methods gradually become more and more ludicrous because Ash is only a child dreaming these things up. That is why Team Rocket's disguises are always believed. He knows it's them (at least on a subconscious level), but chooses to ignore it so he can better himself.

In a sense, the Ash who wants to escape is sabotaging the Ash who wants to stay lost in his mind so that there can be more conflict and, hopefully, an eventual escape. The escape is a consequence of coming to terms with who he is. As mentioned previously, Team Rocket are a method to Ash to deal with grounds he's uncomfortable with tackling on his own.

You may recall that early in the show, there were animals and references to animals. For example, the fish in the aquarium of the Cerulean City gym or that the Pokedex lists Pikachu as "rat-like." These animals don't matter to Ash's psyche, so they don't come into play much.

If Ash loved puppies, everything would be about different breeds of dogs and a dog fighting circuit, but as the series goes on, you see fewer realistic animals and more Pokemon. This could be a sign of Ash's mind deteriorating.

As he's in the coma, he's losing concepts of some animals and machinera and replacing them with Pokemon. It could explain things like electric Pokemon working as power generators; these are signs that his memory of the old world is slipping more and more as time goes by.

The Pokemon realm will be idealized continuously the longer he has no stimulus from the real world. Ash may or may not be mentally deteriorating, but he is becoming more accustomed to his fake world's rules. The wild Pokemon are his rationalizations for the functioning of his created fantasy. It's the "a wizard did it" syndrome. If he doesn't know how it works, his mind says Pokemon.

The Pokemon in Ash's team, however, serve the purpose of displaying his issues and aspects of himself. For example, Charmander represents his sex drive (not his sexuality, like Brock). At first it's a cute, easy thing to control, but eventually becomes a raging inferno of disobedience since Ash has no real understanding of his sexuality (thus has no way to vent or keep it in check).

Bulbasaur was his unwillingness to change, reflected in when it declines to evolve and almost decided to stay behind unless he battled it. Squirtle was his willingness to follow the lead of others, as evidenced by the gang it ran with. Even though he ran the gang, they were viewed as one group and Ash's subconscious gave him the strongest one.

Butterfree was his crushing loneliness, which he dealt with when he released it to join a flock. His bird types are his recklessness, always willing to sacrifice something at a moment's notice for the win. When Ash is trading Pokemon, it's an attempt to push his own problems away on someone else. However, he realizes this and usually trades back very quickly.

Not only are Ash's Pokemon a manifestation of different parts of himself, the Pokemon of other trainers are as well. Koffing and Ekans were symbolic of Team Rocket's willingness to change, hence their evolutions. Once his mind was able to overcome that roadblock and allow them to change once, it gave him the chance to truly change.

An interesting not is that Pupitar is a rationalization: a Pokemon a rival caught before they met. Even Ash would become suspicious if everyone he met had no carry-over Pokemon from previous places he had been to.

Other trainers are more direct forms of his issues - ones he must either come to terms with or outright surpress. Gym leaders are more primary aspects of his personality, with each Pokemon being stronger than the last to display a level of skill he could only be capable of if he gave into it.

In effect, he is doing battle with a part of him that he would rather not have in control. Originally, Ash had the battles, which evolved into team battles and contests. The explanation for this is that his issues became more and more complicated and the means of deeling with them needed to become more complex. The fact that he uses issues he has already dominated to win is a sign he's growing stronger.

Ash releases his Pokemon because his mind is forcing him to get go of them. The second he raises an overpowered team, a tournament comes up and, after fighting his way through it, he has to go to a new land for new challenges. However, with an overpowered team, there won't be any challenges or any way to motive him further.

The Ash that wants to stay in the coma and keep journeying hands his solved issues over to Professor Oak so he can continue and overcome the unresolved ones. This is essentially his mind forcing him to deal with his issues.

Ash's rivals and the Elite Four are ultimately the strongest part of this cycle. Having Pokemon that are essentially godlike, they represent both what can be attained and what is unattainable. Ash's rivals are all possible futures he envisions for himself (note they are all older than him).

This originated with Gary Oak, someone Ash knew from real life and built up into a sort of god within his mind. However, Gary progressed and changed to suit Ash's vision of himself and his ultimate desire, eventually settling down into a professor role after beating the Elite Four.

With Gary Oak in retirement, his mind needed a new rival for him. Thus the births of Richie (the good aspect of his rivalry) and Paul.

Paul is his mind's last ditch efforts to snap him out of it - to force Ash to actually come to terms that this perfect world is not the best option or path to waking up. Paul is Ash's shadow, one that wants to push on even harder and harder. He is the part of Ash that will stop at nothing to escape the coma world.

Mewtwo is a new form of treatment, done with electical impluses and a machine to know Ash out of it, taking down every last one of his mental guards (the original Pokemon in the movie). In Ash's mind, Mewtwo and his clones were (in the real world) the treatment for the mental safeguards that were protecting Ash and keeping him comatose: the Pokemon of his world.

The clones were counters to the issues Ash had thought solved and each appeared to Ash as the exact copy of his defense. The clones didn't play by the rules of Ash's world. They didn't use any special attacks or moves. They just beat down their counterpart through brute strength. The treatment was working.

There were side effects. The electric jolts were beginning affect Ash's nervous system. If the treatment continued, he would be paralyzed. His mind manifested this in the dream world by petrifying him. Were it not for the end of the treatment by Ash's mother, who knew her son wouldn't want to live in a world he couldn't explore, Ash would have remained as stone forever.

After this, Ash needed to recover from the damage caused by the electric therapy. In order to reduce the danger Ash's consciousness felt from it, his subconscious began downplaying the effects in this world, which is why Pikachu's electric attacks - once noted for their strength by Team Rocket - no longer have any effect on Ash, other than comic relief.

As we can see, Ash may well have been trapped forever in this world. However, like every dream, like everything, there is a beginning and an end. What would happen if Ash never recovered?

In his hospital room, we see Delia, obviously distraught. She's talking to a doctor with a grim look on his face. The man is saying their insurance is up and the boy has had no change in brain activity in years. The shock of taking him off life support has a very small chance of awakening him.

She tearfully agrees.

Back in Ash's world, he has finally defeated the Elite four and, one by one, the people around him disappear. Eventually, everything is black. Pikachu comes dashing toward him, glowing brighter and brighter in the darkness. Eventually, he reaches Ash and the two embrace one last time.

In the hospital room, his life signs fading, Ash mutters his final words.

"I...want to be...the very...best..."

He will die never having known his dream, except as naught but a dream. When he came back to reality, he knew it all for the lie it was, knew it as his imagination. Knowing that all his efforts, ambitions, and friends were nothing, he will let go.

As he utters his final words, he barely opens his eyes and sees the silhouette of his mother, her face hidden by her hands wiping away tears. They make eye contact and one final realization fills him before he loses all strength.

He sees that his mother was holding out hope that he'd recover all that time. He sees her and finds that her hope had been broken as she'd come to the realization that she'd outlived her only child. He dies knowing that he is loved, but that it mens the one person closest and most real to him is utterly crushed.

Still, there are other possibilities. The fountain of time flows in mysterious ways. One could not go back against the current, such as Gatsby. However, one could never see what is waiting for him downstream. Ash finally defeats Lance, only to be confronted by not Gary Oak, but a mute mirror image of himself.

The voice of the narrator speaks to him, telling him that now he can finally escape the prison of his own mind. One by one, his friends appear and melt away into more copies of himself, cheering him on. After a long, tough battle against himself with the assistance of all his Pokemon he had ever befriended, he jolts awake.

In his hospital room, he sees his parents, asleep. He finds himself unable to speak.

Ash pushes forward toward his recovery. He goes through physical therapy, training harder and harder with rehabilitative Pokemon until he can walk on his own again. This time, an older and wiser Ash sets out on a jorney.

Just like last time, he's late getting to Professor Oak's laboratory. When there's only one Pokemon left...he suddenly recalls all his memories of his "life" and realizes all his friends are gone forever.

As he sets out with his new companion, he finds the world is darker than he imagined. More "real." Pokemon and people die. He, too, has aged.

He vows to become the Pokemon Master he dreamed he was. He vows to himself. He vows to "them."

"I WILL be the very best!"

Notzi + Lovecraft

In may of 1938, Hitler was desperate to find the Holy Grail. He believed it would bestow more power upon him and that with it he could take anyone. To accomplish this, Hitler set a group of his finest men to Tibet, in hopes of finding the legendary artifact he so craved.

The expedition lasted almost an entire year and towards its end, the men were becoming tired. They trekked on, however, fearing the punishment for failure.

They were, of course, overjoyed when they found the vault. They had been told by a guide that it was where they could find great and lost treasure - things that had the power to change the world.

The vault was hidden deep inside some lesser-known ruins. Upon arrival, they were awed by the sheer size of the door. It was a circular door with a diameter of at least 100 feet. It had shrubs and growths of various natures all over it, most of which were plants they'd never seen before.

The troops spent several hours removing the plantlife so the vault could be opened. They used knives, flame, and anything else they could. It was only after they had completed this task they realized they had no way of opening the vault.

The door looked like it was made for a giant. They couldn't so much as reachf or the handle, for it was 50 feet in the air. Finally, after much hard work and thought, they decided on a plan.

The strongest men got their strongest rope, attached a hook to the end, and tossed it in the air toward the handle. Managing to wrap it around the thing was difficult, but they eventually succeeded.

It took ten men to make it even budge and twenty to really get it moving, but they managed it. They got the vault open as they intended.

Upon opening it, they sent in a small three-man team to try and scope it out. They entered with high hopes of something, anything to bring back to Hitler. They feared him more than anything, which was most definitely a mistake.

After three hours, they began to worry for the safety of their reconnaissance squad. Before more men could venture in, however, they heard a screaming like that of a mad man.

One of the men ran out of the vault. He was screaming, laughing, and covered in blood. They questioned him, but all he would tell them is that he made a sacrifice for the Great Old Ones.

After some debate, the remaining men entered the vault. They cautiously walked through what seemed like an ancient city. It was full of statues of giant beasts - some resembling squid - but with more human features added on.

In the center of the city was a large platform with stairs leading up to it. In the center of this platform was a book. The binding and pages were odd in texture - almost like flesh. The words in the book were odd and foreign, unlike anything they had ever seen. The cover almost looked like it had a face.

They thought the book to be rare and took it, proceeding down the platform. Reaching the bottom, they felt a great thunderous shaking and saw the vault door close before their very eyes. They were trapped much faster than they ever thought possible for something that large to move.

Torches in hand, they did the only thing they could do: search for alternative exits. They marched through increasingly odd ruins filled with the same statues and art seen previously. Finally, they came to a great lake. It seemed to extend deep into the Earth.

They then saw something that chilled them: a large stone slab with a German helmet sitting on it. The slab was covered in blood. Fresh blood. Only hours old, from what they could tell.

They collected the helmet and explored around the underground lake, when suddenly the one among them carrying the odd book began to laugh. He pulled his side-arm from its holster and took one of his own men hostage.

Forcing him to the slab, he shot the man at point blank range and drained a small amount of blood onto the slab. He tossed the body into the waters below. It happened very fast, but the second it registered with the rest of the troops, they shot the renegade as well, sending him to rest with his victim.

Another great quake ran though the city.

From the depths of the lake came a large tentacle like from one of the squid creatures seen in the sculptures. It wrapped around a large rock...then came another and another. More and more came from the water and it soon seemed like 100 tentacles were all around them.

Then, shortly after, they beheld a sight that no sane man had seen. A grand beast rose from the depths. It seemed Godlike. Suddenly, they felt they understood everything and began to kill each other in fits of rage and madness.

The best swept the bodies, both living and dead, into the sea. It consumed them. By the end of the massacre, only one man remained. He began to shuffle out, holding the book they found earlier.

As he left, he put the book back in its place and the door proceeded to open. He left that vault, losing more than the book. He had lost his sanity.

He made it back to his base camp, where they question him thoroughly. He responded only with gibberish about the Old Ones, saying the men had been sacrificed.

The only thing that is known for sure is that they never recovered the book. They tried several times. Hitler kept sending more men, but only one ever came back out of each group.

All were mad. All spoke in gibberish. All praised the Old Ones.

The Truth of Majora's Mask

1. Termina never existed before Link arrived there. Certainly, Link's adventure in Termina occurred. However, what I'm saying is that Termina, as a place - a country - never existed before Link arrived there. It's a dreamscape - a fantasy - crafted from either Link's or Skull Kid's memories. It's a land with familiar faces because it was crafted from familiar memories. Think Link's Awakening.
2. Majora's Mask is Hyrulian in originin. We can't confirm this, of course, but we can assume it is so. Skull Kids, as a species, seem to be native to the Lost Woods, which Lie in Hyrule. In addition, Majora's Mask and the Twili's Fused Shadow share similarities. Let's not forget that Majora's Wrath form and Zant share similar fighting styles (break dancing and moon walking).
3. Link's adventure in Termina is the quest to accept the inevitability of death. Termina sprung forth in turmoil by Majora's designs. The players are introduced to a thriving land on the brink of disaster, all in three repeating days. Everyone Link helps - from the separated loves to the daughter and her cursed father - symbolize growing up. It's the only way Link knows - we're talking about the guy who saved Hyrule, here. Termina sprung out of Link's mind and, for all its beauty and wonder, the message at the center of it all is the impending future of death. Just look at the moon.
4. Link is screwed. Sorry, but it's the truth. Link isn't a Kokiri, he's Hylian. During his adventures in Ocarina of Time, nothing bad happened to him because he had the protection of a fairy. However, after the game ends, he enters the Lost Woods WITHOUT a fairy. He's doomed to become a stalfos, just as the Potion Shop owner's son did.
   
   "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"
   
   Termina is a land constructed by Majora and, while in this land, Link embarks on a grand quest to save the world from destruction. I'm not saying this didn't happen. It did. Link's a hero. However, Majora created the land itself out of Link's memories and ideas. At the point in time in which he met Majora, what concerns the young Link is the knowledge that he is lost. He knows the forest's legends. He knows what happens to people who get lost in the woods...
   
   The Hero's Shade in Twilight Princess, the game that follows Majora's Mask by around 100 years, claims he was once a hero. Like Link, he is left handed, he can take a wolf's form, and most of the songs used to call him come from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Oh, and he resembles a Stalfos.
   
   He also shares a quote with the Happy Mask Salesman. "Believe in your strengths."
5. Fierce Deity Link represents adulthood. Think about it. Link's quest up to that point - collecting all the masks and helping everyone in Termina - is traded for the Fierce Deity's Mask. It's symbolic of growing up. The idea of adulthood is important within the game.
6. Link accepts his fate. When we start the game, we find Link searching for a dear friend. By the end of the game, Tatl hints that Link got what he was after. He came to accept his fate. He grew in his journey and, in his own way, he became a man - an adult.

Oh, by the way, Tingle is the Terminian version of Link.

Frank Miller's Rugrats

"CHUCKIE!"

It was too late. I saw my friend, my companion, get shot down by a suicidal maniac by the name of An. Pickles, my cousin. It all started around four months ago, really.

My name is Thomas. My dear friend, Charles "Chuckie" Finster, signed up to help out the police after this place went to hell. I don't even know how it happened.

My mother died when I was fifteen. My dad is depressed as fuck, taking more pills than I've ever seen. My friends...oh, my dear, dear friends...broke up mid-high school. Phil became a Nazi-skinhead and is addicted to heroin. I've jailed him more than twice now.

His sister, Lillian, became a whore. It's disgusting to even look at her and I don't think she even recognizes me anymore. Hey, she's worth the five dollars.

Susanna is a doctor. She's still a good friend, but her husband is abusing her. I don't want to get involved.

Spike had a heart attack when I was fourteen. I think it hit Dylan the hardest. He was weird in high school, but now...Jesus Christ. Dil bacame a Scientologist and joined a cult. I shouldn't have been surprised. Aliens were always his thing. He was able to quit, but his mental state was shattered. He disappeared two months ago and is assumed dead.

My cousin, Angelica, now goes by the name An. Pickles. I'm not sure why. Mid-high school, when the group broke up, she went nuts. No one truly liked her outside our group. I tried to lend some support, but I couldn't. I hate the whore, especially now. She killed my best friend. Anyway, she went through "phases." She was Goth, became a skinhead once and dated Phil, a whore, everything.

I guess she just finally snapped.

Gang wars broke out over drugs. It was like a battlefield outside. I still remember seeing Phil's place being burnt down, his widowed mother crying while being burnt to a crisp. His dad came out being gay two years earlier and left for Delaware, I believe. After all of that, the neighborhood was destroyed, wrecked, and I had to sleep in the old tree house along with all of my shit.

After some things were rebuilt by the state, I was able to return to my house, only to find out that Chuckie's dad was killed. I guess that's why we joined the cops.

Now then, as I saw my friend fall to the floor, I could hear Angelica's disturbing laughing. Someone hit me over the head and when I awoke, I was in one of the dirtiest parts of the neighborhood: the park.

The gang and I used to come here often, but now it's a nesting ground for junkies, cultists, and who knows what else. I'm walking past a crying prostitute that can't be older than ten...fuck. As I walk cautiously, I see many familar faces. Thankfully, I'm not in my police gear or I'd be dead by now.

Kimi, oh god...oh god, I forgot about Kimi, the only person still sane and pure. How will I tell her that her brother was murdered and is god knows where now? God damnit.

I'm walking away from a crippled kid who's around fourteen years old and asking for help. I can easily see a gun. He's picking it up. Bang. I'm tired of this place. I need to clean it up.

Two days later, I still haven't told Kimi. I've been avoiding her. Charles is still nowhere to be seen. I made a plan to clean this shithole up. Access to equipment is easy. The police station has been loaded since the first gang war.

1. I find Chuckie.
2. I take care of these gangs.
3. I end this.

Chuckie, where are you?

After walking around the city for clues, Lilian told me she heard something about Chuck's body being in the abandoned toy store. Almost three feet away from her door, as I was walking away, I hear a gunshot.

I keep walking. The toy store? Is this some kind of sick joke? Fuckers. The toy store became some hideout for some minor cult. It's no big threat.

I'm there, walking through the shattered opening doors. While walking down, I see so many toys I remember playing with as a kid. How long has it been, now?

I keep walking and when I start seeing rotten bodies, I feel like leaving. I can't. After a good 35 minutes, I still can't find anything, until...

On the wall. In spray paint, it reads, "Behind you."

As I turn around, a man - maybe a woman - wearing a hood with a big pink C on the front greets me. She/He is pointing a gun at me. I hesitate, grab the gun, and turn it. He fires and hits one of the decaying bodies. I hit her, as hard as I can, in his damn gut and take the gun. She's fumbling and I'm too nervous, anxious to get a clear shot. As soon as I can think straight, he's gone.

I check the gun out. On the barrel, it says "Reptar 2010." Reptar 2010? Damn, I haven't thought of that movie in ages. I always wo-

2010 is this year.

The movie theaters. I head out. My car has been stolen. Damn, I'm gonna have to hurry. "Who the hell is doing this?"

In there, it's dark inside and out. It's dirty. It's noisy. Something inside's playing. I walk in and see all of the big, infested candy treats. There's some light shimmering out. I walk in. On the screen is Reptar 2010. Is this some kind of joke? I walk toward the screen and look down the sides.

Stuffed animals, tons of them, are in every seat. What the hell?

I hear something fall behind me. Something heavy. I take out my gun and slowly walk toward the noise. I see a note with another C on it. I open the hood.

It's Charles Finster, my dead friend. He's grayish-white, but expected as he's been dead for two days now. With tears in my eyes, I pick up his body and run.

It's been two weeks since I found Chuck. I asked Susie to perform an autopsy on him after the funeral..and I finally told Kimi. She cried. I'm living with her now, to make sure she'll be okay...Hell, to make sure I'LL be okay. Only a few people showed up to the funeral, the ones who weren't destroyed. It was raining. I don't want to talk about it now.

A couple of days after the funeral, Susie got back to me with a report. He had a small toy in his stomach that was forced in. Someone cut him up and put a teddy bear inside. He also had a huge loss of semen; it was completely gone. What the fuck is going on?

The Gangs
There are two major gangs here: the Skinheads I've told you so much about and the Ratpers. Ratper is a slang word around here meaning "Supreme Monster." I can't remember where it came from. I decided to hit the skins first, as they're the least armed. Their main hideout is in the school. No other kids live around here anymore, so why even have it?

The easiest way in is through the western entrance. As I'm walking down the halls, I see my old locker. I take a look inside; I can't believe I still remember the combination. Upon opening it, I see a backpack. It's dusty and black. Some letter is cross out, leaving a C. I can't make out what the old letter was.

There's nothing important in the backpack, just some papers I assume are from who knows when. I dismiss it and keep walking. Walking down the halls of an empty school at night is scary as hell. Every noise makes me jump and overreact. I make it to the auditorium and...oh god.

I see bodies - tons of bodies - and blood. I can recognize some of the bodies and it makes me sick. The only thing standing out is a Reptar toy in the middle with the only working light shining upon it. There's a note taped to it. I take caution while walking toward this. I'm shaking and my mind is reeling. I'm sweating and can't think. The stench of blood and god knows what makes me want to split. I look at the note.

"Open it up."

I break the large toy. As I see the object within, I know everything. I fall to my knees with tears in my eyes. I hold in my hands Angelica's Cynthia doll, in its "perfect" condition.

I rush out the door and run as fast as I can, hearing her laugh in her mind. I can see her grin. I feel the world turn under me and I can't keep my balance. I'm going insane. I call Kimi, to try to tell her to leave. No answer.

I run back towards the park. Skinhead headquarters. It's midnight. The park is alive with horror and disgust. I can still see the crippled fourteen year old and a gun. It's on his stomach and is stained with blood. The boy is dead.

I head towards the center of the park. There aren't as many Skinheads as I thought. Only about ten of them are left. Phil sees me and walks up. "What the fuck are you doing here, Pickles?" He sounds threatening, but scared. I tell him I need his help, just once. I say I'll pay him and won't bust him. He and his friends agree to the deal. I walk to my house with ten Skinheads higher than the sky, but we're all armed. I'm hoping that's enough.

We arrive at my house; I guess it's not really my house. it was Charles'. They remodeled it a ton after the fights. It's now the largest house in the neighborhood. Two of Phil's crew break the door down and as they walk inside they both fall down into a hole. There's some sort of substance in the hole that burns my eyes.

They're goners. the pit is a good ten feet deep. We keep walking. Four more are picked off; three by gunshot, one by overdose. There are only six left: Phil, four others, and me.

We head downstairs to the basement, only to find some sick lab. There's gore and sexual fetish and I'm guessing this is where Chuck's sperm ended up. Two of us couldn't take it and offed themselves. There are only four of us left now. The last two of Phil's friends head up the stairs first. They fall back down after two shots of a gun. Only two of us are left.

There are still two more levels of this house left. I walk into Chuckie's old room. Memories flush back and I can't keep from crying. Phil hits me and tells me to get it together. Phil's looking pretty scared, but how can I blame him? We're both sweating and fumbling. We're scared.

There's nothing too important on the second level. We hear a cat meow and look at each other. Phil pissed himself. We walk carefully. There's two people and only one story left in the house. Phil goes up to the attic first. I watch his back.

Bang.

Phil is falling down. Tears are in my eyes. I walk upstairs and the lights turn on. Angelica is lying on a bed. She's in her old clothes and I can see Chuckie's old square purple glasses. There's a bottle of chocolate milk on a nearby table. A TV turns on and shows Reptar 2010. Angelica picks up something - a cookie. I can only say one word.

"Why?"

She smiles the devil's smile. She's walking closer; she wants something. She looks horny; she wants me. Her hair's in those two bows. I'm backing up and I trip over something. It's my plastic screwdriver. More tears fill my eyes. She's getting closer. In my pocket, I try to pull out my gun, but I pull out Cynthia and throw it at her.

She nearly faints. She grabs it and starts crying as loud as she can. "I only loved the past!" She cried. I see Phil's gun. He must have pulled it out before getting shot.

"I only loved you, in high school, where everything fell apart. I needed responsibility. I wanted to rule it all, but no one wanted me." She's crying. Her voice sounds the same as it did ages ago.

"You cared for me, Tommy! I need you, and...and...and Phil and Chuckie! And...and Lil, and..." She's babbling. She's lost it. I'm closer to the gun. She grabs me. I grab the gun.

Bang.

There's blood, there's gore, and there's everything with the world on my face. Her face is unrecognizable. I'm crying, sweating, and everything. I see Kimi, dead, of course. I wonder why Angelica fell apart when she saw Cynthia...unless...she didn't put it there. If not her, then...who?

Of course. I take out a piece of paper from my pocket, one from the backpack. "Area 51," it reads.

I smile, knowing what it means. I collect everything from my past and walk to my backyard. I take out a match...and I burn them all. I walk past my old tree and take one last cookie out of the jar. I go back to my old room and lay on my bed.

I take out my gun, point it, pull the trigger...

...and I'm gone.

Day of the Edd PART I

He went to touch the pen to paper, but found that starting his memoir today would be difficult. Not that he didn't have anything to write about; in fact, the blood on his hands illustrated how many pages he needed to fill in the leather book. It was the dried, sticky blood between his fingers that made this difficult. He went to the bathroom and started scrubbing his hands, watching the red water splosh down the drain. Rinse, wash, repeat. Seven times. This was a practice that many had deemed anal, but this was how he did things. He had left a sticky note to his parents with a recommendation they put in him touch with a therapist, but they were so wrapped up in their own lives they barely noticed when he tried to get their attention.

He stood in front of the mirror for a moment, drying his hands. He looked at himself closely and adjusted his cap. It was a hot day outside, but the cap needed to stay on. It was just the way things were. He never entertained the thought of taking it off, but the others did time and time again. He had a certain way of doing things and, repeatedly, the other kids in the cul-de-sac insisted on interrupting his best practices.

Not anymore.

The teasing, the maiming, and all the bullshit over the years...it had gone on long enough. He had tried reasoning with them, but it was to no avail. They would not listen to his words, so brute force was all that remained. In the back of his mind, he had forseen this coming and spent the past few months studying ancient war tactics, as well as present-day urban combat. He returned to his bedroom, stepping over the piles of books and notes, and sorted through some papers on his desk. Although he had lived in this cul-de-sac for many years, he found it only fitting to his studies to have complete documents on all his enemies.

It started out innocent at first as he took notes of his peers in the interest of later studies, but it quickly evolved into the strategies that he found inside his military books. Know your enemy, understand your enemy. Learn where they live, sleep, learn, and play. Know where they will go in the event of an emergency situation. Map everything. Obsess over every detail.

And he did all this.

He had a detailed map of the cul-de-sac and all the areas beyond the borders of the suburbia. The junkyard. The trailer park. It was summer, so he left the school out of his worries.

He flipped through the files of Nazz, Sarah, Jimmy, Eddy, Ed, Johnny, the Kanker sisters, and Rolf. He stopped on Kevin's, where he put a big red X across the photograph. He reminded himself that Kevin was waiting for him in the basement. He closed the file and cross the room to his closet, where his supplies awaited him. Among his studies, he had picked up on different ways of torture or, the way the book defined them, "extracting information." He had to go to the internet to find all the gory details. Pepper spray, toilet cleaner, pins and needles, hairspray, lighters...there was a whole closet he had transformed into a war room, devoting most of his post-study time to prepare himself.

He pulled on a gas mask and leather gloves before draping an apron over himself. If it was one thing he hated, it was to get blood on himself. His hands were pruned from washing it off earlier. He looked over his treasury of supplies and grabbed a couple of items off the shelf before exiting his room.

He whistled lighty to himself. Today was a good day.

The boy didn't remember the last time he was this happy, but it bordered closely to the first day he made friends with the other Eds. He remembered how enthralled he was that other children wanted to play with him, rather than look on in disgust. His brow furrowed when he was reminded of all the teasing and maining when he was younger. Some of it had carried into his teenage years, with most of it embodied physically into the form of Kevin, the cul-de-sac jock.

Kevin, the cul-de-sac jock whom had repeatedly thrown him into the pavement and mocked him in front of his friends. Kevin, the one who threw him into the locker and left him in there for hours, all the while throwing his arm around Nazz, the girl all the boys yearned for. Kevin, who sat in a bloody mess on a chair in Edd's dimly-lit basement, who looked as the boy walked down the stairs. He had vomited earlier. Edd could see the stains on his shirt. His gas mask worked very well, so he didn't have as much difficulty breathing as Kevin did. he walked up to the propane tank next to Kevin's face and turned the valve shut.

"Do you like it?" Edd asked politely. "It's my own invention, you know. It's a combination of household cleaners...very basic, but irritating enough to your immune system that it will try to flush it out of your body any way it can. It looks like your body has tried that a couple times already.

"Fu...fuck you," Kevin spat, his eyes swollen and blood running from his nose. Edd grinned behind the mask and lowered himself to Kevin's line of sight, sitting on his haunches. "You know," The boy replied. "I never liked you, Kevin. I never have. I've always been a professional, you know. I've always tried to treat you as an equal. That's what you do in the professional world. But you insisted on making things miserable for me. So, I guess you can say that I'm kind of returning the favor. Just be glad I'm not doing this in front of everybody."

As he spoke, he opened his toolbox, from which he pulled surgical tubing. "Which reminds me. Now, open your mouth, please," He tugged at the bottom of Kevin's chin, but he refused to open his mouth.

"Now, what I'm going to do," he explained, "is dump this mixture of toilet bowl cleaner into your stomach. It's watered down and I added some other household ingredients to it so it shouldn't kill you, at least not immediately. However, it will give you horrendous cramps...that which can only be relieved by defecating." He smiled at the thought of Kevin shitting his pants while tied to a chair. He almost wished he had time to witness event. He fed the concoction into the tubing and watched the blue liquid drain into Kevin's mouth. The boy's eyes watered as he gagged, his body lurching foward, struggling to vomit. Edd watched on in a strange fascination as Kevin's body took in the foreign liquid.

"I'll see you later, Kevin...that is, if you're still around. I'm going to take care of the rest of the kids. Who knows? Maybe I'll bring Nazz down to keep you company. I know how much you like her.

"I'll kill you," Kevin gurgled, his head swaying lazily back and forth. Edd knew he was just on the border of consciousness. "Ta!" He waved his goodby as he closed the basement door, making careful note to turn off the light behind him. That bastard didn't deserve the slightest bit of sympathy.

Edd returned to his room, where he devised his war strategy. Odds are the kids were holed up in just one house and it only made sense. There was strength in numbers. this would require him to be extra careful. he wnet over all the house in the cul-de-sac and pinpointed Jimmy's house; it was the biggest on the block. It only made sense that there would be plenty of places to hide in a house that big.

It wasn't like it was a big deal if he were wrong, either. He had all the time in the world. All the parents spent most of their time in town, anyway. The cul-de-sac was pretty secluded, with the exception of the trailer park and junkyard nearby. He would find them all eventually. he opened his closet and, for a moment, marveled over the wealth of gadgets and weapons he had stockpiled over the years. The day of Jimmy's birthday party, a day that seemed so long ago now - where he had stocked all of his spy equipment - would play a vital role in today's activities. He had modified most of the equipment to be lethal, but in some cases only stunning. He may want some of them alive.

He undressed from his earlier attire and strapped on his armor, which was mostly made from sports equipment he had taken from Kevin's house and modified to hold cartridges of ammunition and other tools of war. He pulled on a football helmet that had been reinforced with carbon fiber around the outside; he had spent most of the night welding the fiber into place. This reminded him of the lack of sleep he had. The past 48 hours had been very strenuous, and he hadn't noticed it until now. All the planning and execution had taken place right in the past two days and everything had gone according to plan. Sleep was out of the question, as exhausted as his body was, but it was nothing that caffeine pills and some energy soda couldn't fix. He needed to be WIRED to accomplish his approaching task.

Finishing off his uniform with some leather gloves and combat boots (which he ordered online - he was very proud of these), he exited his room and proceeded to leave the house. Before exiting the front door, he stopped to listen to the melodious sound of Kevin gagging in the basement. How beautiful those stomach-lurching noises were to his ears. He stepped outside and into the bright sun.

The cul-de-sac lay empty, a comic tumbleweed passing by. The kids had left their toys in the street; Jimmy's stray bike lay on its side with the front tire spinning in the wind. The target was a house about five doors down on the opposite side of the street. It wouldn't be long now. Edd noticed his hands shaking in a kind of nervous anticipation. He needed to calm down. The caffeine pills and energy drink he downed before he left the house just took effect, and he could feel his heart racing. He took a deep breath and stood in the street, taking in the moment.

As he stood there, he reminisced various times he had stood on this street next to Eddy, who often preached something or another from atop a soap box. The kids would jeer and protest the interrupting of their play. All they wanted was jawbreakers. Edd ran his tongue over his lips. A jawbreaker sounded delicious right now. He made a mental note to reward himself with one after he was finished today. He waited another minute then continued his path. He reviewed his plan in his head.

Storm the front door. Sweep through the living room Make his way in through the dining room, and from there sweep around the outer rim of the house, making his way into the center. Jimmy's house was oddly designed. From the living room, you could only reach the dining room and once you passed through there, you had the choice of entering a hallway which seemed to wrap around the center of the house with bedrooms connecting off of it or you could enter a bedroom on the opposite side of the dining room where it met halfway through a walk-in closet.

He would have to remember this.

As he approached the front door, he took a deep breath. This was it. He could hardly contain his excitement. It all required careful planning, detailed drawings, and compulsive studying. It all accounted to this. "Hello?" Edd rapped his knuckles on the front door. "Jimmy, are you home? I'd like to have a word with you."

"Go away," someone inside cried out. Edd grinned. They were hiding. "I'm coming inside," Edd hissed. "There's nothing you can do about it.

"We'll call the police," they threatened.

How foolish they were. Edd took a minute to cast his gaze up and down the street. There were no police. There never would be. The phone lines didn't even reach behind the neighborhood, so he didn't bother with cutting them.

Without another word, he pulled a small plastic explosive from his utility belt. It was a product of his own design, hand-marked with his own signature on it. He readied the charge on the door and took cover in the bushes. The charge blew the door of its hinges, but it still hung lazily in place. Terrified screams erupted from inside the house.

Perfect.

He kicked the door in and pressed his back against the wall outside the house. Scooping up two small homemade smoke bombs, he tossed them inside and assembled his stun gun as smoke filled the living room and billowed out the front door.

The boy took a moment, as always, to marvel over each piece of technology he constructed. The stun gun was a modified squirt gun, about the size of a rifle, which had been reinforced to shoot darts. The darts were common playing darts laced with poison from his pet arachnid. He would miss his pet very much, but the spider's sacrifice was well worth it. With a deep breath, he turned the corner and entered the house, squatting low to the ground with his rifle raised. The smoke had begun to clear, with his cover dissolving, but he'd rather have it this way. He wanted the kids confused and disorientated from the blast of the door, nothing more.

His eyes swept around the living room. There were bags of chips and other junk foods laying in a littered mess on the floor. Disgusting. He made a mental note to go through and clean up later. Silently, he crept into the dining room, where he saw a figure dart into the hallway. "Oh my god! Sarah!"

It was Jimmy.

The coward ran to the end of the hallway, already sobbing profusely. Sarah appeared next to him, her face locked in a death stare. It didn't register with her that Edd had a gun as she ran toward him, readying herself for the comical beating she thought would ensue.

(Read Part II | Part III | Alternate Ending)