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The overwhelming pressure of emptiness assaulted him. For a few, pain-filled moments, he longed for the respite granted to him by his slumber.
“Open your eyes…”
He dimly registered a voice calling out to him. It tore at his ears, echoed in the emptiness in his mind, echoing in his consciousness. The first sound he’d heard after years. Decades. Or perhaps more.
How long had he been sleeping?
It did not matter. He could not know. Knowledge was beyond him. He knew nothing.
The voice was calling to him again, and he struggled to follow it.
“Link.”
Link?
The nothingness melded into a haze of colour. And yet, even in the colour, there was darkness. The frigid air flooded his mouth and he again considered accepting the lightlessness.
Link. I am Link.
He struggled to his feet and opened his eyes. The darkness vanished, replaced by a blinding light. The darkness he had spent so long in was replaced by light— just as all-consuming as the lack of light had been.
He knew that voice, he thought. His first coherent thought.
Thought. Was thought not of life? Life. Was life worth it?
Another thought entered his mind. Was it not his goal to live?
He held on to that thought, making it his anchor. Life was his goal. Goals were of life. Thoughts were of life.
I am alive…
The cold left him, replaced by warmth. Yet, he did not feel warm. His body was warm, and yet his mind was cold. It felt foreign. He felt as though he was an outsider in his own mind. A clitic to the word that was his thought.
He blinked and the light dimmed, replaced by shadow. It reminded him of the void and he again longed for it; for its easy emptiness. But he pushed himself away from it.
He feared it. Feared the misery of being nothing.
He was alive. He was Link. He was something.
But the darkness beckoned him again. He fell to his knees, becoming aware of his legs as pain flared through them.
He raised his hand to his eyes, becoming aware of the Sun’s light on it. He felt its warmth on his skin.
I can feel.
And he remembered the nothingness. He felt it. It called him, welcomed him to a place of freedom. A place where the pressures of the living world would not hurt him any longer.
I am alive.
And yet, his mind resisted. He could not see himself, except as the darkness. He could not feel himself, except as the void.
How could he expect differently? He was nothing. His anchor had snapped, leaving behind the gelid waters of the sea— a barrier between Hyrule and nothing.
Hyrule.
And he struggled to remember the land he had once served. It felt foreign. It was foreign. He was nothing, and he did not serve. When he was something, he had served.
I am alive. I belong with the living.
And he found his mind agreeing— the cold leaving it and warmth taking it over. He belonged. This mind was his. The warmth enticed him towards the light.
The emptiness receded. He welcomed the light, this time. He felt freer. As if he had been carrying a weight on his shoulders without noticing it.
I am alive. I am free.
“Link.”
Something called to him. It compelled him to come.
He looked up this time and forced his sore body to stand. He looked out at the light from outside and forced himself to move to it.
He looked out at the world that lay before him. Something beckoned him. Called him. He felt compelled to obey.
Let me serve. Let me be something once more.
He was nothing. He remembered nothing. But he knew, he could find something for himself.
The voice he’d heard became his anchor. He held on to it as he claimed the Sheikah Slate. He held on to it as he left the Great Plateau. He held on to it as he recovered his memories and as he filled nothing with everything.
And when she asked him, her hesitance stymying her voice, “Do you remember me?” He could say, without hesitating.
“Yes.”
I am alive. I am free.
I am something.