A/N: This is merely a short drabble on Majora's Mask. The inspiration hit me suddenly and I just began typing away. It's such a dark, twisted tale, and I felt that our beloved hero needed to rant a bit ;)

Disclaimer: The story below contains intellectual properties from Nintendo Co., including, but not limited to, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and The Legend of Zelda franchise, and are in no way owned by myself, nor do I claim ownership of any of the events that directly correlate with previous installments made by Nintendo Co. in the franchise The Legend of Zelda.

Clock

By: Selphie Kinneas 175

.:.

It was a rather sick and twisted fate, to say the least.

To live the same three days over and over again.

And not just any three days, no, the Goddesses couldn't give the hero any leeway in any form – it was the same exact three days every time the clock reset. The same three days that led up to the world's destruction. Except, that was where he came in.

When he had accepted his fate as the chosen – or doomed as he often referred to it as – hero, he knew saving Hyrule was his destiny, and he had put it in his mind that he would not rest until that beautiful land was at peace. He had completed that task set before him; he had restored the land to its former glory and released Hyrule from the evil clutches of Ganondorf. When his duty was complete, he was overjoyed to finally have his life to himself, to finally be able to do what he wanted to do with it. But once again, he discovered that that wasn't in the Goddesses' plan.

Damn the Goddesses.

He often found himself cursing them; he never used to be like this. He was always the happiest, most optimistic child, always seeing the good in people and always realizing the brightest outcome in the most grim of situations.

In this place he saw no goodness, and no bright spots amongst the darkness.

This place had driven him mad.

No, this place had driven him to insanity.

Three days over and over again – that clock always ticking.

He always knew what everyone was going to say before they were going to say it. Sometimes he found himself speaking the same words as one of the townsfolk as they spoke – needless to say that had really freaked them out. How else was he to get a good laugh? They wouldn't remember it anyway, he thought.

They never remembered anything, these mindless people of Termina. He would spend three days straight growing close to them, learning their secrets, helping them in every way possible, and yet, when time would reset, they wouldn't know him at all.

It made him angry.

On the first day the people were always calm, going about their business as if it was just another ordinary day, and only a few were nervous about the looming moon overhead. There was no sense of urgency, no sense of impending doom. He knew that the purple-haired boy in the mask would walk down the stairs from the laundry pool at exactly a quarter after six in the morning. He knew that the mailman would deliver a letter to the woman at the inn at exactly half-past two, and that he could steal the reservation made under his name by a goron who would show up soon after.

The second day it always rained. Damn it, it always rained! He was so sick of knowing that it was always going to rain. He didn't dislike the weather, he simply hated knowing that it would come at exactly six o'clock in the morning on the second day, every single time, without fail.

By the third and final day, the people began to panic. Some of them acted as though they didn't care, as though the moon didn't frighten them, but he knew it did. He could feel the fear as he passed through the town, as more and more people slowly fled. It was the same every time.

It was always the same.

He couldn't stand the fact that everything was always the same. He wanted so much for things to change, if even only slightly – his sanity depended on it. No matter how much he prayed to the damned Goddesses, not a thing changed.

And did he forget to mention that death was everywhere? Well, death was everywhere. He couldn't get away from it. People wanting to kill people, people wanting to kill themselves, people already dead, people already murdered. This place was sick. He hated all this death, and yet, it seemed his entire life revolved around it. Every time he turned around, death was forced upon him. Either by easing the passing of one, or forcing the passing of another, or his least favorite, taking on the identity of someone already dead.

That bothered him. No, it disturbed him.

What disturbed him about it the most was that in most cases, that person's friends and family thought that he was the real person. They spoke to him of things he didn't understand, aspects of that person's life in which he could only smile and nod. He would do whatever he could to ease the people's suffering, that was what he enjoyed doing, but playing the role of a dead person? No… He couldn't do that. And yet, no matter how many times he said that he couldn't, he always donned the mask and went for it again.

It wasn't as if he had a choice, though.

Perhaps what gave him the will to go on was the sheer fact that he had lost all sanity. Maybe as he was falling through the ticking gears and humming engines of hundreds of clocks, more than just his rupees were lost to him.

How many times had he lived through these three days? At least a hundred by now, maybe more. He had lost count after twenty-seven. Or maybe he just stopped caring and realized that he was doomed to these same three days for as long as his journey took to complete.

He found himself wasting away nearly four cycles of the three days simply wallowing around in his pity. He would never live in a normal world again, never know the warmth of friendship again, never would he free himself of this succession of sheer lunacy. If Navi had been there to see him, he knew she would have been so disappointed. He had become so pessimistic, so cynical, and he had developed a terribly grim, disparaging outlook on everything.

Could anyone blame him, though, really? No, he had just cause.

He had tried to end it once. He remembered allowing the moon to fall on the town, just letting all the pain and suffering of everyone, including himself, come to an end. He didn't even care; he wanted nothing more than death's release, death's sweet serenity and calm. But the Goddesses wouldn't even allow him that.

There had been a single perk to letting the world come to an end, though. For a brief moment, only mere seconds, the ticking had stopped. But when he found himself back where he started, staring into the cold eyes of a certain mask salesman, he heard it again.

The clock just kept ticking.

The ticking of that damn clock haunted his every waking moment. He heard it constantly, no matter what he was doing or how far away he was from the clock tower. The sound of the clock was always there, ticking away his time mockingly, tauntingly, hauntingly. It was a constant reminder that time was perpetual, endless, and that matched his attachment to the same three days. The ticking in the forefront of his mind never let him forget that he was stuck in a never-ending loop of hell.

Three days over and over again.

Only three days to save the world.

Only?

At first he had felt as if he was rushing through all these awful places, trying to get as much done in the three days as possible. That was when he reminded himself, though, that in actuality, he had all the time in the world. He was stuck in this ceaseless continuation of time that would endure for eternity until he completed his task. That thought alone made him sick to his stomach. He would never grow old, time would never pass, people would never remember, for as long as it took him to reunite the four giants and defeat the skull kid – or was it simply the mask he adorned that he was to vanquish? No matter, he feared he would never see that day as it was.

At least with his journey in Hyrule people had remembered him. He had made friends, created strong, lasting relationships with people that he could return to whenever he needed a break from the gruesome hero business. He had countless allies, all of which he could visit at any given time and find solace in. But in this place, nobody ever remembered him. When he made friends, they would forget him; his deeds were always undone. He had no one to confide in – save for a fairy that had been roped into this with him, but he found little comfort in her company; she was almost as insane as he was becoming.

He often questioned helping anyone at all – what was the point if time was just going to be reset and everything he fixed and every soul he healed would be reversed back to how they were before he had even gotten to them? It seemed stupid and pointless.

He had to keep reminding himself that at the end of all this, when he was finally done with this goddess-forsaken task, everyone would remember what had happened and all his actions would be redone. Though, it was hard to keep his mind on that far goal most times.

It seemed unreachable.

Most times he wondered if it was even true. Would his actions really ever count toward anything? He had no idea; all he could think about was time.

The same three days over and over again.

That damn clock just kept ticking away.

No matter how far away he travelled from Clock Town, even on the farthest outskirts of Termina, that hideous moon could be seen leering down upon him. It was as if its gaze followed him wherever he went. It mocked him from its seat in the sky, inching ever closer to the doomed town.

He sat at the base of a tree near the entrance to the southern swamp. The ugly hunk of rock only minutes away from swallowing everything into nothingness. He simply sat and looked on at the impending apocalypse from a distance.

He had done this several times by now. Tatl used to get angry at him for sitting by and doing nothing as the world came to an end, but now even she saw good reason for it.

He watched as the bottom of the moon grazed the highest point of the tower, debris beginning to swirl around and collide into the surrounding walls and some even flew into the field and landed in the grass in front of him. When the top of the clock tower came crashing down, that was what he had been waiting for…

Silence.

As the moon demolished the town and the clock ceased to function, he was at ease.

There was no more ticking.

He closed his eyes as he took in the sweet nothingness. These were the brief moments that he lived for now, the mere seconds in which he could escape the haunting sound of that damned clock. Tatl had realized his reason for doing this by the fifth time he had done so, and she, too, began to enjoy the short moments of peace. In those short seconds he was able to forget his terrible fate; he was able to escape the taunting sound of that incessant ticking. If only he could hold onto the solace he found when that clock stopped ticking, perhaps he would be able to regain his sanity.

When the final sounds of destruction were heard followed by emptiness and lastly the quiet hum of gears, the hero opened his eyes. He found himself back where the Goddesses placed him every single time. He saw the mechanisms inside the tower turning. He saw the jeering face of the happy mask salesman. He saw himself, whole and unscathed. He saw Tatl, gazing over at him despondently. Then he heard it.

It had started over yet again.

The same three days… over and over and over…

That clock would never stop taunting him, mocking him.

Its loud ticking sound reverberated off the walls and permeated his body like a poison. He grasped at his pounding skull and fell to his knees, a scream of pure agony ripping through his throat without him even realizing.

That clock would never stop ticking.

End.