Hello, everyone. Welcome to the voting stage of the 15th round of the Writing Competition! This round's theme was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I received three entries this time around. I've included them in the spoiler tag below. Please read them at your leisure and vote on your favorite at the end. Good luck to all those who entered!
Entry #1:
Resurrection
“Open your eyes. Wake up, Link.”
A youth awoke in a mysterious cavern, bathed in a shimmering blue light.
Who had spoken those words? Where had the voice come from? What did they want from him?
Rising up, the boy shivered. He was only in his underpants. Blushing, he was glad some cute girl hadn’t spotted him in this get up.
He looked around. He appeared to be in a cave. A blue eye of some sort caught the edge of his eye. Slowly approaching, he saw that it was some kind of book. No, there weren’t any pages. It was more like a tablet. A slate.
With his eyes now adjusted to the darkness, he looked around the cave for something he might put on. He wasn’t going to carry some slate with him at the back of his boxers.
There appeared to be two chests scattered about.
“How strange,” the boy wondered. “What are these doing here?”
He lifted the lid of the first chest. There were pants inside. With a wide grin on his cheeks, the boy slid his legs into the garb. He placed the mysterious slate in his back pocket. He walked towards the next chest. Opening it, he found a shirt neatly tucked inside. He put it on.
It was convenient for him to find clothing so quickly upon waking. Almost too convenient.
Jumping up a small incline in the cavern, he could see a light shining outside. Maybe there was a clue to his whereabouts in the outside world.
He walked out of the cave and into the abyss.
A vast forest spanning many kilometers opened up below the clifftop on which he stood. The orange rays of the sun also revealed a giant mountain with an equally impressive cloud formation in the distance. Squinting, the boy could also make out what seemed to be some rundown huts in the distance.
But where he stood he was all alone.
Or maybe not.
The smell of roasted pork entered the young boy’s nostrils.
“Grrrr….”
It was against his better judgment, but he wandered down the side of the clifftop to observe who or what was preparing a meal in this strange place.
A hooded figure sat by a campfire with his grub well done over the flicking flames.
Before he could think, the boy snatched the man’s food and gobbled it whole.
“Prrrrrrrt.”
The boy’s countenance turned as red as a tomato.
“Well,” the boy thought, “at least my gas leak didn’t set the whole camp on fire.”
The old man looked up at the boy, not a hint of disgust or contempt in his guise. His lips remained straight as a wire, unwilling to impart wisdom to this wayward fool. But his eyes spoke a different story. He tipped his hat forward to conceal the dark rings.
The boy backed off slowly. He wasn’t sure where he was or what he had gotten himself into, but there was no mistaking the glimmer that briefly appeared in the old man’s eyes.
Hope.
Entry #2:
Trekking through the trees.
Bellowing back the breeze.
This boy he will not fail.
Across the wind he shall sail.
A deep secret hidden in that slate.
He shall through his teeth grate.
A story of a kingdom once feared by all,
Left to rot after its downfall.
Sticks, spears, knives, and bows.
What arsenal this young warrior carries only the Sheikah tribe knows.
But in him we confer all our trust.
For without him, we would bust.
This is an uncharted land.
Made of plains, tundra, and much sand.
But even though the threat will not be mild.
We must harken forth the breath of the wild.
Entry #3:
It Was
John and Jane were both consummate Zelda nerds. Both had bought the proverbial t-shirt and beanie. They'd drawn triforces on their hands and desks in grade school, worn pierced ears with Navi on them in middle school, and gotten ill-conceived tattoos in high school. They'd camped inside a Target, skipped school, and gotten in a physical altercation with an elderly (forty) gamer to save five precious minutes when he cut them off from procuring Skyward Sword.
After the game had come and gone, Jane moved to Texas leaving behind a tearful John with promises to always stay friends and always love Zelda. Jane didn't keep this promise. She was growing up and without John to keep her on the straight and narrow of Nintendoism, she soon forgot everything she'd loved.
She snorted dust that made her feel like a fairy and stayed out late “fighting” with men who in hygiene and manor resembled goblins and evil dictators. With every passing moment she became less and less the tame nerd who once organized petitions to have developers ejected from their countries of origin for failing to deliver the hot dish on her favoured titles.
John stayed the same. He was more sculpture than man when it came to gaming and Zelda. He rarely left his room, let alone the state. He took jobs on designing websites and earned money streaming gaming titles. He wrote articles for backwater, nerd websites about the potential futures of all titles, but especially Zelda titles.
He didn't have time for a girlfriend and never noticed women that weren't on his screen. He once had a girl interested in him, but she was turned off by his Stuffed Hyrule Beanie Baby collection. He kept petitioning Nintendo to recognize their failures with the timeline. He was a commentator for a smaller, gaming-news network from time to time. All his t-shirts were the same red, blue, and green that he'd made his mother buy him in high school, though it must be said they sustained quite a lot of damage from his take-out habit over the years.
When E3 came about, Jane was in rehab and her therapist had suggested returning to places and memories free of drugs and abusive men. She needed positivity and what could be more positive than gaming? Hyrule and her old friends were beckoning once more. She never would have admitted it, but she was enthusiastic for Breath of the Wild. It looked fresh. As she began to contact old friends and rejoin the community, she found herself boarding the hype train face-first, heart open. She needed it to be better than pixie dust.
John was a moderator of discussion by this point and he found his love vulnerable. People were arguing back and forth like only geeks could about the potential merit of this new title. It could be this or that, but not this. Certainly not this. This would be unacceptable, unpatriotic, uncorrect. He didn't want another Skyward Sword, he wanted magic and to be struck by lightning.
Before he knew it, he was joining the doomsayers. He believed it would be the final twitch of Zelda. He was so certain it would ruin everything that he removed his Navi piercing and bought a new shirt. He planned to mourn it like one mourns a particularly attractive female who is madly in love with a jerk. He became more paranoid and reclusive, his desires and resources so tied up in assuming failure that should it be decent he might lose all credibility.
The week the game came out, Jane was a year sober, but things were tough. College was almost over and she didn't have a set future. Her new bo was pressuring her to commit in more than one way. It was the anniversary of her childhood pet, Scruffles', death. Depression had struck and with it came hankerings for relief. She told herself to wait for Zelda, as did her sponsor and therapist. It would help her escape.
John was in the depths of despair about applying to Mortician's apprenticeships He'd begun to brighten towards the ultimate end of Zelda. He'd get a job preparing the dead. He'd find a girlfriend who looked like Midna, not Zelda. He would wait for the machinery of commerce to resurrect his favourite franchise. Maybe, he would even dye his hair or buy another shirt.
Both purchased it at midnight, one while chain consuming orange juice, the other while smoking. They both rushed home and turned it on. They both dedicated many hours to playing it that morning.
John got to the end. It hadn't been a catastrophe. Some parts were good, others bad. It didn't ruin his life or the franchise. He still became a funeral home director. He did not get a girlfriend.
Jane didn't get to the end. She called her old dealer and was snorting powder cut with the disc before the screen could dim. Zelda Breath of the Wild didn't save her soul. She went back to rehab. She did marry her therapist.
It was just a title.
It was just a title.
It was just a title.
It was just a title.
Resurrection
“Open your eyes. Wake up, Link.”
A youth awoke in a mysterious cavern, bathed in a shimmering blue light.
Who had spoken those words? Where had the voice come from? What did they want from him?
Rising up, the boy shivered. He was only in his underpants. Blushing, he was glad some cute girl hadn’t spotted him in this get up.
He looked around. He appeared to be in a cave. A blue eye of some sort caught the edge of his eye. Slowly approaching, he saw that it was some kind of book. No, there weren’t any pages. It was more like a tablet. A slate.
With his eyes now adjusted to the darkness, he looked around the cave for something he might put on. He wasn’t going to carry some slate with him at the back of his boxers.
There appeared to be two chests scattered about.
“How strange,” the boy wondered. “What are these doing here?”
He lifted the lid of the first chest. There were pants inside. With a wide grin on his cheeks, the boy slid his legs into the garb. He placed the mysterious slate in his back pocket. He walked towards the next chest. Opening it, he found a shirt neatly tucked inside. He put it on.
It was convenient for him to find clothing so quickly upon waking. Almost too convenient.
Jumping up a small incline in the cavern, he could see a light shining outside. Maybe there was a clue to his whereabouts in the outside world.
He walked out of the cave and into the abyss.
A vast forest spanning many kilometers opened up below the clifftop on which he stood. The orange rays of the sun also revealed a giant mountain with an equally impressive cloud formation in the distance. Squinting, the boy could also make out what seemed to be some rundown huts in the distance.
But where he stood he was all alone.
Or maybe not.
The smell of roasted pork entered the young boy’s nostrils.
“Grrrr….”
It was against his better judgment, but he wandered down the side of the clifftop to observe who or what was preparing a meal in this strange place.
A hooded figure sat by a campfire with his grub well done over the flicking flames.
Before he could think, the boy snatched the man’s food and gobbled it whole.
“Prrrrrrrt.”
The boy’s countenance turned as red as a tomato.
“Well,” the boy thought, “at least my gas leak didn’t set the whole camp on fire.”
The old man looked up at the boy, not a hint of disgust or contempt in his guise. His lips remained straight as a wire, unwilling to impart wisdom to this wayward fool. But his eyes spoke a different story. He tipped his hat forward to conceal the dark rings.
The boy backed off slowly. He wasn’t sure where he was or what he had gotten himself into, but there was no mistaking the glimmer that briefly appeared in the old man’s eyes.
Hope.
Entry #2:
Trekking through the trees.
Bellowing back the breeze.
This boy he will not fail.
Across the wind he shall sail.
A deep secret hidden in that slate.
He shall through his teeth grate.
A story of a kingdom once feared by all,
Left to rot after its downfall.
Sticks, spears, knives, and bows.
What arsenal this young warrior carries only the Sheikah tribe knows.
But in him we confer all our trust.
For without him, we would bust.
This is an uncharted land.
Made of plains, tundra, and much sand.
But even though the threat will not be mild.
We must harken forth the breath of the wild.
Entry #3:
It Was
John and Jane were both consummate Zelda nerds. Both had bought the proverbial t-shirt and beanie. They'd drawn triforces on their hands and desks in grade school, worn pierced ears with Navi on them in middle school, and gotten ill-conceived tattoos in high school. They'd camped inside a Target, skipped school, and gotten in a physical altercation with an elderly (forty) gamer to save five precious minutes when he cut them off from procuring Skyward Sword.
After the game had come and gone, Jane moved to Texas leaving behind a tearful John with promises to always stay friends and always love Zelda. Jane didn't keep this promise. She was growing up and without John to keep her on the straight and narrow of Nintendoism, she soon forgot everything she'd loved.
She snorted dust that made her feel like a fairy and stayed out late “fighting” with men who in hygiene and manor resembled goblins and evil dictators. With every passing moment she became less and less the tame nerd who once organized petitions to have developers ejected from their countries of origin for failing to deliver the hot dish on her favoured titles.
John stayed the same. He was more sculpture than man when it came to gaming and Zelda. He rarely left his room, let alone the state. He took jobs on designing websites and earned money streaming gaming titles. He wrote articles for backwater, nerd websites about the potential futures of all titles, but especially Zelda titles.
He didn't have time for a girlfriend and never noticed women that weren't on his screen. He once had a girl interested in him, but she was turned off by his Stuffed Hyrule Beanie Baby collection. He kept petitioning Nintendo to recognize their failures with the timeline. He was a commentator for a smaller, gaming-news network from time to time. All his t-shirts were the same red, blue, and green that he'd made his mother buy him in high school, though it must be said they sustained quite a lot of damage from his take-out habit over the years.
When E3 came about, Jane was in rehab and her therapist had suggested returning to places and memories free of drugs and abusive men. She needed positivity and what could be more positive than gaming? Hyrule and her old friends were beckoning once more. She never would have admitted it, but she was enthusiastic for Breath of the Wild. It looked fresh. As she began to contact old friends and rejoin the community, she found herself boarding the hype train face-first, heart open. She needed it to be better than pixie dust.
John was a moderator of discussion by this point and he found his love vulnerable. People were arguing back and forth like only geeks could about the potential merit of this new title. It could be this or that, but not this. Certainly not this. This would be unacceptable, unpatriotic, uncorrect. He didn't want another Skyward Sword, he wanted magic and to be struck by lightning.
Before he knew it, he was joining the doomsayers. He believed it would be the final twitch of Zelda. He was so certain it would ruin everything that he removed his Navi piercing and bought a new shirt. He planned to mourn it like one mourns a particularly attractive female who is madly in love with a jerk. He became more paranoid and reclusive, his desires and resources so tied up in assuming failure that should it be decent he might lose all credibility.
The week the game came out, Jane was a year sober, but things were tough. College was almost over and she didn't have a set future. Her new bo was pressuring her to commit in more than one way. It was the anniversary of her childhood pet, Scruffles', death. Depression had struck and with it came hankerings for relief. She told herself to wait for Zelda, as did her sponsor and therapist. It would help her escape.
John was in the depths of despair about applying to Mortician's apprenticeships He'd begun to brighten towards the ultimate end of Zelda. He'd get a job preparing the dead. He'd find a girlfriend who looked like Midna, not Zelda. He would wait for the machinery of commerce to resurrect his favourite franchise. Maybe, he would even dye his hair or buy another shirt.
Both purchased it at midnight, one while chain consuming orange juice, the other while smoking. They both rushed home and turned it on. They both dedicated many hours to playing it that morning.
John got to the end. It hadn't been a catastrophe. Some parts were good, others bad. It didn't ruin his life or the franchise. He still became a funeral home director. He did not get a girlfriend.
Jane didn't get to the end. She called her old dealer and was snorting powder cut with the disc before the screen could dim. Zelda Breath of the Wild didn't save her soul. She went back to rehab. She did marry her therapist.
It was just a title.
It was just a title.
It was just a title.
It was just a title.