Future Shock

A child walks through the streets of the market.
Around him, people joke and laugh.
He smiles, too. He thinks it's all okay.

Then. They see the boy, who gazes up at them with wide blue eyes.
Immediately, their perspective changes.
They stare down with scorn and amazement.
The whispers start.
"Are you telling me he's the hero?"
"That little sprite? That stupid kid?"
He flinches away, shaking his head.
"But it's true..." he mutters as he walks away.
Aware of so many stares, loathing and pitying.

It's all too true. He no longer appears the hero.
Time has changed him. A child again, when once he was so proud.
But inside...
The old strength is still there.

One solitary tear escapes his eye as he thinks about it.
Silent now, the child wipes it away.
He relives his past inside his mind.
Times when he was truly the hero.

But why do they hate me? he thinks.
What have I done wrong?
He wanders on into the temple.

Someone is waiting.
"It's not what you have done," the stranger whispers.
"It's what you have become."

The boy reaches out a triangle-branded hand, and looks at it.
What I have become?
The stranger speaks again.
"Don't give up, Link.
Or they will give up on you."

The child's hand rests on the hilt of the Master Sword.
He wonders.
Fate...
To stay this way...
To return...
To advance....
What will it be?

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