June 3
I don't think she even knows I exist. Dale let me pretend to smoke his cigarette while she walked by on her way home. I'm sure I looked cool, I just can't seem to catch her eye. Dad is out for crab season again but before he left, he bought me a Wii U, one of the special Zelda ones with the gold designs on the game pad. It included The Wind Waker remake so I'm going to start playing it tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, it's the last day of torture before I get out of that academic Alcatraz.
June 4th
So it turns out The Wind Waker remake is basically the same game, just with a couple of tweaks. I guess it looks better too. She walked by on our side of the road today, Dale and me were sitting on the stoop when she went by, debating whether Frog from Breath of Fire or Wart from Link's Awakening had better artwork so I think I looked pretty casual. We've been sitting here every school day for weeks but I don't think she noticed me. Until today! Me and Dale were pretty loud because he's a freaking idiot and thinks that Frog looks more like a toad so I think she looked over because we were almost screaming at each other. She totally winked at me!
I only played a little of The Wind Waker tonight because I was kind of distracted. I'm like collecting pigs and I gave up after trying to get the sword from this hippie dude who wouldn't give it up. Laundry day.
June 5th
She didn't walk by today. I don't know why I thought she would, we're all out of school but I thought for some reason that she'd be out. I basically gave up after a while and got some mac and cheese for lunch. It's the off-brand stuff, dad says he's not made of money. Why's he always out working if he's not making enough to buy real Kraft?
June 6th
I met up with Dale at the park and we played Risk. There's a big map of the world painted on the blacktop behind the school and the countries are all there so we have been planning to do it for months. We only played for like an hour and a half and we'd only just picked all of our countries and placed our troops. We took a picture so we can remember where our troops are but I doubt we'll ever actually finish the game. Besides, I might just lose the picture, I'm absolutely sure he's going to hold Australia till the end of time.
Toilet backed up today, I spent forever cleaning it up.
June 7th
I swear I saw her on the next street over today! I kind of snuck out but like casually to see if I could see where she was going. No dice but it was exciting to see her again. When Dad called today on the ship's phone, he asked about the Wii U. I think it means a lot to him that I enjoy it. I told him I've been playing every day, I just got to a windmill island. It reminds me of the one from Ocarina of Time where that creep is playing a phonograph or whatever.
Weird coincidence, the pirate chick in The Wind Waker winked at me. It reminded me of when she winked at me the other day.
June 8th
Today was rough. I've been use to seeing her walk by every day and now I feel like I have some kind of obsession. Even when I'm just relaxing, I see her where she isn't. Like that pirate in The Wind Waker, at the end of the aisle at the store, in my dreams; I'm actually not sure it's healthy. And I'm not sure if I love her. It seems like my mind is getting more desperate for her.
I went over to spend the night at Dale's. They got a new fire pit and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. The dude's got both parents and doesn't even notice how cool they are. I brought my Wii U over to his house and after he went to bed, I played The Wind Waker some more.
June 9th
Last night I got the Tingle Bottle from a prisoner. It's supposed to let you send messages to other Wii Us but when you try to use it, it's just a message about how you can't do it anymore. Went to sleep and had weird dreams. I usually do when I don't sleep in my own bed. She was in my dreams and so was that Zelda game. Still, I risk these weird dreams because summer is only so long and there aren't many sleepovers during the school year.
Tonight I played it again and something weird happened. A Tingle Bottle washed up on shore, that's not supposed to happen, right? I ran over and picked it up and there was a picture inside. No message, just a picture of the sea. The sender's name said "Kat". It was a nighttime pic with stars and the moon but nothing really interesting other than that. It worries me that there may be a bug in the game. Nintendo is usually so thorough with their play testing. Was it really possible that something was still running behind the scenes on their servers? Maybe a Nintendo staff messing around? Dale told me once that his uncle worked at Nintendo. I wouldn't put it past him to mess with me.
June 10th
The toilet backed up again. I called Dad and he told me to check out the crawl space and see if there was anything obvious with the pipes. He said if I tap on them, I might be able to at least figure out if there's a clog or something. I freaking hate spiders but I hate the house smelling like sewage even more. I grabbed the flashlight and entered the dungeon. I tried to pretend like it was a dungeon from the Wind Waker but that didn't help much.
It was slow going because I had to make sure there wasn't anything nasty every inch of the way but I checked out the pipes underneath the bathroom and couldn't find anything obvious. No bad patch jobs, no leaking pipes and no roots strangling them. Dad said that happens sometimes. As I was making my way back to the hatch, I saw her walking by on the sidewalk through the screen vent. I scuttled over to the vent as quick as I could, discounting the acute likelihood of putting my hand on a spider or a centipede, but by the time I got to the vent, I had lost sight of her. When I got out of the crawl space, I even ran out to the sidewalk and looked down the street but she wasn't there.
I moved the TV and the Wii U over to the window before I played this evening. I'm not going to miss her again.
June 11th
More weird dreams last night. I dreamt that I was Link on an island on the Great Sea and my only companion was that girl pirate. But she wasn't just that girl pirate, it was also her. I don't really know how to explain it but it was definitely both of them or maybe just her, I don't know. It's hard to remember exactly what happened because I don't think a lot of it made sense, but I clearly remember her giving me a wink just like that pirate does in the game. That game is on my mind so much now, it's really addicting. Unfortunately, I may not be able to play it for much longer.
There was another glitch today and it had to do with the Tingle Bottle again. Another one washed up on a shore on some island, I can't remember the name. There was another picture of the ocean. Totally nondescript, just the horizon line and a curl of wind against the backdrop of a starry sky and moon. The sender was Kat again. If the servers were still running, wouldn't I be getting a random assortment of senders? It gets worse though . This time, the icon for my Tingle Bottle in my inventory turned into the Tingle Tuner of all things from the original game! I'm wondering if maybe there's some kind of data breakdown and some of the original code was left in The Wii U version. I'm going to try to figure it out tomorrow after Dale and I hang out.
June 12th
Hot dogs at Dale's house again this evening. When I got home, I called Dad and talked for a few minutes. He said the skipper had gotten word of a jackpot a day out so they'd be out a few extra days at least. Instead of heading back tomorrow, he's likely to be gone until the seventeenth at least. It's not like I'll starve to death or anything but I miss him.
I haven't been able to find anything about the Zelda glitches online. It seems like no one else has run into anything like this. Another bottle washed up though and inside was another picture of the ocean at night. Kat again. I looked out the window at our moon and imagined I didn't have to be so alone, that maybe she was looking up at the same moon and thinking the same thing.
June 13th
Last night was so bad. I don't think I shut my eyes from 11 to 6. I read about sleep paralysis in health class but this was like...bad. I woke up like right after I shut my eyes. There was this incredible pressure on my chest and I felt like I couldn't breathe. My room was pitch black but as I stared straight ahead, unable to move, I saw her. She was in my room, sitting on my chest, constricting my lungs, stealing the air from them. I was so scared, I thought I was going to die. I imagined my face turning blue and my eyes bulging and Dad returning to find my pale body lying in bed like he found Mom. And he'd cry and swear and ask God why I had to die and I'd feel guilty for dying while he was gone and putting him through more grief.
But I didn't die. I don't think I slept or breathed last night, but I didn't die. I didn't sleep, I didn't even blink. In the darkness, I kept my eyes locked on hers and didn't close them for a second. It was the worst nightmare I've ever had and I think I was awake while I was dreaming it. In the early hours, as the faintest light from the early, pre-solstice sun began to illuminate my room, she started to fade. She faded further and further until I could only see her eyes, because mine hadn't left them. Just before she disappeared completely, I swear one of her eyes shut just before they both became completely imperceptible.
I couldn't go back to sleep, not even in the daylight. That was the most scared I've ever been. I wanted to play The Wind Waker to give me something to focus on but I went for a bowl of cereal first. It took me almost two hours to finish my soggy frosted flakes but by the time I had, I was ready to forget about the night. Wearily, I turned on the Wii U and picked up where I'd left off. Another bottle had washed up and another picture of the ocean's nightscape appeared on my screen.
There definitely was a progression. I had noticed yesterday that the moon in the picture seemed to be waxing further every day and this picture continued the progression. Just a few days from full prominence. My Tingle Bottle icon was still a Tingle Tuner and it gave me an idea. The only reason I can imagine the Tingle Tuner showing up in the Wii U version of The Wind Waker is that either it is a fragment of code left over from the original or that maybe the developers had at one point intended the Tingle Tuner to be useable in the Wii U version.
Out of sheer desperation for something complex to occupy my thoughts, I hooked up my GameCube controller USB connector to the Wii U. I dug my GameCube/Game Boy Advance cable out of a box in the attic and along with it, my Game Boy Advance. I stole the batteries out of the remote and hooked everything up. I thought maybe if there was code left over for the Tingle Tuner, maybe a fragment of functionality might still exist.
It does. When I hooked up the Game Boy Advance to the Wii U, it recognized it immediately. The error code about the Miiverse doesn't show up anymore; now an onscreen keyboard comes up on the Game Boy Advance and prompts me to write a message to put in my Tingle Bottle! This must have been the original stand-in for the gamepad! I wrote a message using the Game Boy Advance, "Who are you?". If it's a staff member (or Dale's uncle) at Nintendo, they're going to be so surprised that somebody's responding!
I'm so tired but I don't know if I want to sleep tonight. That dream terrified me last night but I still can't stop thinking about her.
June 14th
I didn't sleep. She was there again on my chest, sapping my rest and my air. I could tell this time that she was smiling. Not a scary smile like she was enjoying my torture, but an innocent smile, like nothing was out of the ordinary. There she sat all night, eyes locked with mine, smiling while I burned with terror inside, every moment feeling as though I would die for lack of oxygen.
I'm exhausted, my body feels incomplete, like I'm a visitor from the realm of death, trespassing into the world of the living. I ignored Dad's call today, I can't talk to him. Or anyone for that matter. Someone rang the doorbell earlier, probably Dale. I couldn't even muster the energy to answer it. It took everything in me to roll over and hit the power button on the Wii U.
There was a bottle on the beach. I opened it to find a picture of the ocean backed by a night sky and swollen, gibbous moon, nearly full. Along with the picture was a single word that I think must have been an answer to my question from the previous day. "Kat". Well that didn't tell me much, but it did confirm that I was communicating with someone and not just bits of leftover development data floating around. "But who are you? I didn't know this service was still available. I'm using a workaround to send messages via the Game Boy Advance!"
June 15th
I just want to suffocate. All night, her eyes, I can smell her breath, it smells like an open grave. My throat is swollen shut and my eyes are dry, sleep feels like a forgotten acquaintance. My mind is full of barriers and walls, thoughts end in different places than they ought. The hair on the back of my neck won't settle, every direction my mind goes ends in bed last night.
I asked her. I asked her who she was. A voice that sounded like a viper shedding its dry skin. "Katrina." Her lips didn't move but she said it and she winked at me. My eyes grew wet but they burned as if my tears were tainted with blood.
When she faded and the morning dawned, I inched over to the Wii U at a snail's pace. I dreaded to turn it on but something primordial drove me to start the console.
The picture in the Tingle Bottle was that of a full moon gleaming in the sky surrounded by an array of stars. Blue spirit flames engulfed an ethereal vessel with tattered sails and a sere pennant flying above. A message accompanied this photo as well, a message that will keep me from sleep even if Katrina doesn't visit me tonight: "I love you and I'll be seeing you soon."
"I love you and I'll be seeing you soon." Came my dad's voice over the answering machine. So singularly focused was I on the message in the bottle that I hadn't even heard the phone ring. I jumped up to answer the phone, my vision going immediately black for lack of sleep. After a moment, I crawled over to the phone and hit 'replay'.
"I'm sorry about the internet, I forgot to pay the bill last month so I'm sure you've been bored out of your mind without it this past week." That would mean the Wii U couldn't have been connected to the internet? "Listen, we were headed out to that jackpot when a squall came up. It pushed us off course a bit and we came upon an abandoned vessel. You wouldn't believe we could see this ship in the storm with no lights on it. If it weren't for the full moon, we would have motored right by!" I finally talked to Dale about Katrina today. He never once saw her walk by the house while we sat there. In fact, he says I would just 'space out' sometimes when we were there on the porch but he swears up and down that he never saw a girl walk by. "We have an obligation as seamen to check out suspect vessels so we moored ourselves to her and I went aboard." That first wink she ever gave me is burned into my head now, it's all I see. "The ship was completely abandoned save for a single passenger, a girl about your age. I'll be out of service soon but I wanted to tell you that I'm bringing her back; she'll stay with us until we can find family to return her to. She says her name is-"
I slam down the receiver, cutting him short. I don't need Dad to tell me her name. I already know.
