Chapter Text
The setting sun painted the dismal concrete in pale yellow, framed by the deep blue of encroaching night. This scene that so deserved to be admired was instead ignored by everyone, including a teen girl walking down the street with her eyes illuminated by a phone. Her fingers danced across the screen, gushing over some game to a friend who was hardly able to reply between the blocks of text. Her shoulder abruptly collided with a passersby as she lowered the phone to apologize quickly, but the person just kept walking.
A small paper fluttered to the ground, which she looked at and picked up. A business card around the size of her palm sat in her hand, advertising a cheap game store.
Some part of her subconscious nerd screamed in victory as she examined the card closer. The corner was peeled a bit, and the card looked well loved. She glanced back at the person as she pocketed the card, thinking absently as she went back to typing, ohhh noo, they got away. Dangit, guess I'll have to keep this now.
It was just after dark when she got home, greeted by the oh-so-welcoming gaping dark doors. She checked the cupboards for bugs just in case, before pulling out a pan to make some eggs. A glance at the paper reminded her to check the mail, and the reward was a letter from her parents that she immediately ignored.
Don't blame her, eating comes first.
Once she had finished, she finally opened the letter. Boring things, such as her mother informing her of the money deposited into her account, how wonderful it was in Switzerland, and how she wished they could've brought their darling Diane along but unfortunately older siblings came first. A classic really, leaving the youngest alone. But Dirk had college, and she wasn't going to take that away from him. She set down the letter and finished cleaning up the kitchen, going into the living room with a root beer float.
As Diane sat on the couch, she rooted in her pockets to dump out everything that had gathered during the day. Spotting the business card again, she plugged the address into Maps and found the location. Thank god it was biking distance. She wrote the words bike to shop on the inside of her wrist before finally heading to bed for the night.
~
The next afternoon, Diane was standing outside her school trying to unjam her stupid bike lock as another kid shoved her to get to his scooter. She glanced up to give him a venomous glare and watched him ride off. She grumbled to herself as she finally got it free, putting her backpack in the basket securely and absently glancing at the faded marker on her wrist. Was something supposed to be written there? She debated that for half the bike ride until she drove by a suspiciously familiar logo. Oh right. Used game store. Duh. She parked her bike outside, wandering into the shop in mild curiosity as she looked around. The place looked decrepit and practically empty, no wonder it was so cheap. They were probably about to close. Some older game cartridges immediately caught her eye, as she walked over.
They were various old Nintendo games, such as ones for the GameCube, Wii, and N-64. Some less interesting than others, until she shrieked in excitement at having spotted the pot of gold: two beautiful looking Legend of Zelda games, and also two that she didn't have yet. The games were yoinked faster than she could process, as she looked at the Skyward Sword and Majora's Mask games in glee. The prices were even better, at only five bucks apiece.
Practically skipping to the counter, Diane set them down in front of the tired cashier, who glanced at them as she pulled out ten dollars. They just took the money silently and waved her off as she giggled and took them, running out of the store and getting on her bike again, all too eager to play.
Unfortunately, she couldn't play immediately due to homework and being completely out of breath from trying to bike at the speed of sound (which wasn't accomplished anyway). The games were postponed until that evening, where she sat in the living room mentally debating between the two.
The argument was won by a simple spin of a wheel, and the arguably creepier one was booted up. Diane plopped comfortably on the couch, kicking her feet as she sipped a Doctor Pepper. The spinning mask floated into view as she clicked into the save files.
The selection sound rang through the room as she paused to look at the only other named save file, named 'Ben'. Understandable that this was a pre-owned game, she was just surprised it was only owned by one other person. But the thought was abandoned immediately by the intro cutscenes starting up on the screen.
Throughout the evening, various commentary slipped from the teen as the hour grew later, her excitement keeping her from bed. After tutorials, she was finally set free to roam through Clock town, bobbing her head to the music as she wandered around.
Every NPC had to be talked to, that's just the way it goes. So that's what she did, finding every kid under a box, listening to the Windmill player, climbing on roofs, and eventually winding around to the correct path underneath the observatory. Swimming was out of the question, so she merely hopped along the surface with the Deku Link character, hoping she wouldn't drown. Spotting a branched off path, obviously her fingers pushed the character in that direction. It led to a dead end, as she searched for chests or perhaps something that would be hidden by a lack of certain items. Finding nothing, she turned around and straightened the camera again, nearly jumping out of her seat when she saw an NPC just standing there.
Cautious, but not much due to the lack of battle music, she spun forward with Link to observe it better. Much to her confusion, the character seemed to look exactly like Link, at least in his Hylian form. Odd, but reused models weren't unheard of... The text bubble popped up as she clicked on him, and the screen momentarily glitched to show blood pouring from his eyes. Diane blinked, even more baffled and wondering just how sleep deprived she was, because the next moment it was gone. The text resumed.
"Are you a player?"
Her answer came verbally, as she scoffed. "Dumbass NPC's actually trying to fourth wall break. Wonder which dev put this in."
She clicked forward on the text bubble, which suddenly disappeared. Clearly that must be the only dialogue he said, but she clicked again just in case.
"Why are you here? It's empty."
And again.
"You don't need to talk to me. I don't care for foreigners.
She mumbled "rude.." as she clicked again on impulse.
"You're lonely, aren't you?"
The different, almost more personal dialogue caught her off guard, but perhaps this really was just devs fucking around, so she clicked forward. This time it didn't close the bubble.
"Its a shame that you're lonely enough to be talking to me. You look too pretty to deserve loneliness."
The responses were just getting weird, so she left after that response. Her journey continued towards the observatory, as she muttered under her breath "buggy game..", unaware of the NPC's sprite slowly spinning to keep her in sights until she turned the corner.