FicWad

One year later...

Anju had never been good with keeping her cuccos in one place. After breeding the pocket cucco, she assumed that their smaller size would make them easier to manage. However she proved herself entirely wrong many times, as this new breed of cucco got lost more frequently. Due to smaller size, they were even harder to find than before, even if they didn't give her goosebumps.

Today was no exception in the cycle of losing cuccos. Just as Anju stepped from the front door in the morning and turned the corner did she note all of her prized flock was...yet again...gone. She sighed heavily, and as if to mock her current predicament, it began to rain.

"Cuccoooos!" She called out as if it would help. It never did, but it was more of a habit now anyways. Sighing again, she began to make her way around the village slowly, trained eyes searching every crevice and cranny for signs of her missing flock. They were scattered about as usual - many hiding in crates, others pecking around the windmill, others in yards, on roofs, etc. After an hour, Anju stood before her cucco pen, counting them all.

One was missing.

But she had looked everywhere!

Except...

Cerulean eyes winced slightly as she heard a familiar clucking sound from behind her. Cringing, she turned around to face...the well.

Slowly, she began to walk towards the well, hoping to the goddesses that what she knew was down there...wasn't down there. Finally she peered over the edge. The bottom was dark, but still light enough for her to make out the distinguished shape of her last cucco. She groaned, and then looked around. Nobody was there for her to request assistance from. Cringing again, she looked down to her cucco again, and then to the ladder leading down into the darkness.

Anju bit her lip as she moved over to said ladder, hesitantly crawling up and over the side of the well, beginning her descent.

There was nothing to be afraid of...right? Link had came a year before and destroyed the evil in the well. But still...silly superstitions and memories of the horror stories that had kept her up at night when she was younger brought about a pallid look upon her face as it slowly grew darker.

"Cucco..." She cooed as her feet remained a few steps from the bottom, looking back at the bird. It looked at her as if confused, then pecked at the ground some more. Wincing, Anju reached out farther for the cucco. It backed away from her before pecking a bit more, and then it found its way into the dark doorway behind it. "No!" Anju cried out, arm drooping after a minute.

Perfect.

With another groan, she hopped down from the ladder and slowly began to walk after the cucco, into the shadowy depths of the well.

As she entered the subterranean area, the light from outside seemed to fade immediately, which only made her more timid. The fact that the first thing she was a skeleton against the wall didn't help much either. She yelped, taken aback at first before she saw the cucco. Well, at least it was an enclosed room...

No sooner had she thought that did the bird hop right through a wall. Cerulean eyes widened. Perhaps it wasn't superstition after all.... Gulping, she went after it, finding herself able to walk right through the wall as well. She was then faced with another ladder, which she climbed down as well, only to find the bird hopping through a hole in the wall. Groaning again, she stood for a moment, building up her nerve before setting off after it.

Needless to say it was a tight fit in the hole, but she managed to squeeze through with a bit of struggling. She was now faced with a bigger room lined with streams of stagnant water that made her thankful the village's drinking supply now came from Lake Hylia. Frantically, she looked about for her cucco, and as soon as her eyes were set upon it, it was devoured by a giant...flaming...flying...skull. Not long after its hollow eye sockets turned to face Anju, who could only manage a scream after a few moments. She turned to scramble back through the hole, but she soon realized the skull would reach her less time than it would take for her to squeeze her body in again. So, on a whim of panic, she set off away from the skull, running through the dark catacombs, wincing and yelping as the rotten water splashed up and burned her ankles.

So many corners she turned, so many unseen holes in the floor she had fell through. Narrowly had she escaped the rotten grip of many a corpse's hand. The skull had probably stopped following her some time before, but she had not intention of standing still in such a place as this.

Until, that is, she came to a dead end, save for an old door that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. As she looked behind her, however, she could hear the moans of the dead drawing near, leaving her with no choice but to open the door....