The sun reflect off of the field turning the wheat orange and gold. She walked through, wheat trampled beneath her feet, hand brushing over tips of the long stalks. It tickled. She felt a smile tease her lips, but it was tamped down by the spike of terror that ripped through her. She glanced around her breath coming in gasps. She was alone. She was fine. But the terror continued to accompany her and she walked further and further. As she got closer and closer she broke into a run. Maybe she could outrun the terror out run what she was certain happened that night. They had told her she was crazy that the he had never existed that she was slipping. But she knew. She was right. 2 steps away 1 step. She stopped a human shaped hole of trampled wheat. Dark dried red staining golden brown. This is where it had happened where she had killed the one she loved.

The soil is damp from morning rain. This place is so peaceful. Clouds float above the grass that is gently swaying in the wind. Connie looks around at this place. Two years ago she wouldn’t have recognized it, wouldn’t have really believed in it.

Coming from the city to the field is like suffocating and finally finding oxygen. This is her favorite place to be. Maybe it’s a bit of her being frantic that it will change. Though, maybe change isn’t such a bad thing.

She still remembers the woosh of air, the loud bang, and then the gears that clattered on the ground. Dandelions still grow here, like they did back then, but now sunflowers and daisies and grass grows. They are healthy and came back stronger than before. Most plants have an immunity now, or at least a resistance to the toxic air that plagued this worlds outside for so long.

Sometimes she looks to the clouds and almost sees a hint of disease, but almost all of it has been washed away by rain or purified by the plants she and her friends grew.

Connie steps across the soggy grass and the gentle sloping hill until she arrives at the top of the hill. Flowers grow close together here, planted by many. Her friend is waiting for her, like always. “Hey Mel.”

Dandelions are still the most prominent plant in… probably the whole world right now. They have become a symbol of peace for many. They grow everywhere here on this hill. Connie herself definitely planted more than one.

She plops down next to the gravestone and talks about her day.

This is a place A place just round the bend Where all good stories Come to an end

Where treasures are lost A peace is found We soon all end up Six feet under ground

They say don’t worry It’ll be just fine Yet they themselves run From the monster called time

Flowers born of sorrow Where trees are always weeping Here is where we go To begin eternally sleeping

Stalks and stalks of corn. Miles and miles of corn. If you were tall enough and were able to peak out over a stalk or two, you wouldn’t see where the field of corn ended. It looked as if the tips of the corn stalks were reaching as high as they could to touch the sky, far in the distance. Much like the teal and blue waves of an ocean, majestically meeting the horizon as you stand at the edge of the water during low tide.

Robert was cautiously walking through his infinite miles of corn. He would go left, then right, and maybe backtrack a little. Like a corn maze during the Halloween season, minus creepy characters, and minus any paved paths.

From an airplane, descending from 35,000 feet to the nearby airport, a little boy in a window seat and a couple returning from their honeymoon, would notice the miles and acres and excessive amount of corn. Well, they may not necessarily realize it’s corn stalks, but it’s something.

Yes, it’s definitely something.

But only Robert knew the purpose of his corn. He reaped and watered for years to get to where he wanted it. To make sure it looked the way he wanted it to. To serve the purpose as he wanted it to.

This corn was not going to be harvested. Robert was not going to pave through any of it, to create a haunted path for teenagers and young adults to race through.

As Robert continued walking through the stalks, the same patterns as before, he knew.

He knew he had done this right. He buried his secrets.

Other than secrets, only Robert knew what else was buried under all of this corn.

The man wandered through the field. He wandered aimlessly but with a strange sense of purpose and goal. He seemed tired. His hair was disheveled. He had a black hoodie on and grey sweatpants on. The field had lots of colorful leaves on the ground as it was fall. He saw some interesting flowers and rocks. He also saw a duck shaped cloud. After he looked down from the sky he saw a deer that looked normal but with something slightly off about it. He kept on going though. He finally stopped. He then sat down even though the ground was wet. He sat the flowers in his hand down in front of himself. Finally, he looked forward and saw his grandfather’s grave who was very important to him.

He wasn't used to the feel of grass beneath his feet.

It looked deceptively soft, a gentle shade of green and yellows; on the plateau it was sparse. It was mostly open planes of dirt, pebbles tucked deep into the surface, harsh on the soles of his feet. Grass seemed to only appear in the shadows; near the old King's decrepit house, before the tall Sheikah tower, and near the trees that housed a small camp of Bokoblins. Small, shy patches. The rest seemed scorched, wilted. Near the perimeter especially, if it was there it was brown. Almost as if afraid of the sun, afraid to stand out and be green once more, lest it be burned.

Hyrule Field was braver. Nature had been healing, slowly. More trees, more green. Moss covered broken structures, houses long past. Link walked a path of long lost souls, looking into broken house windows and seeing nothing but green. Flowers, mushrooms, the start of bushes and trees, overtaking what once was. He followed the dot on his slate closely, feet bare, eyes taking in every new sight. He felt as though he was missing something, looking at the tall sight of the Twin Peaks, the rushing water of the river leading through it. He observed the fish fighting the current, observed the Bokoblins futilely chasing a boar with their simple weapons--then felt a bubbling joy at stealing their kill with ease, an old muscle memory, an instinct, shooting their prey with barely a second of aim. Stealing their fire, cooking with an unearned instinct. He felt such simple joy at tossing together simple dishes, learning more from stables and wanderers alike, that the need to figure out what was missing was replaced with a need to learn more than before.

By the time Link arrived in Fort Hateno, there had been many nightfalls. Many broken weapons, a wound or two. Mistakes with peppers and salt, moss and flowers. Oil and the dirt on his soles. The King had stressed the urgency of contacting Impa, a name as mysterious as the sky itself, but Link often got sidetracked. He walked along the destined path, but branched out like the river at every new sight, every new cave. He climbed up and up, high as the sun on the tops of mountains, taking in the sight of a world he had once known. But after it all, he always tried to stick to the blinking marker and the map he earned with every tower.

The sight of guardian corpses always took his breath away. He hadn't really known why, why his blood chilled and his arms ached. The scars that warped the skin of his chest stinging in the morning light. Link tried to stick to a straight and direct path to the gate before him, the field lush and green, but often his eyes wandered, and his legs followed. He found memorials, stone tablets with words of sorrow. Flowers gently lay on their surfaces, some wilted, some not. The people mourned the soldiers who fell during the Calamity; their names chiseled in order of importance. Knights and their squires, soldiers and royals, the common peasants who tried to flee east. Some had made it to Kakariko, others to Lurelin, he learned later in his journey. Most others had been lost here, lost to the soil.

Link focused on the knights.

He didn't know these people, but he couldn't look away. He couldn't attach names to faces, no memories of their voices. But as if imprinted into his fingertips, he traced the letters that made up the royal legion of knights, with the captain's name at the top, with a few words to remember his legacy.

Selwyn Hallowell. Father of four, husband. A friend. May Hyrule mourn the loss of his shield.

Link looked over the small collection of nightshades, lilies, and armoranths on the pedestal. With a slight grace, he summoned a handful of thistles from his slate, an unnamed feeling hollow in his chest. He tucked the orange flowers among the others, then stood.

May his legacy live on. It read.

And then Link continued on the path through the healing grass.

Link’s leather boots squished in the dewy grass of the early morning. The field was dotted with trees, ruined pillars, and the robotic carcasses of Guardians which scarred the land of Hyrule from top to bottom.

He stopped in front of a particular Guardian then pulled out his Shiekah Slate. Comparing his picture of the last memory with the landscape, Link knew he was in the right place.

As he focused, he was suddenly transported back into the past. As he relived his memory with Zelda, he learned the significance of this place—Fort Hateno. This was the place where Zelda’s power had finally awakened, and it was the place where he had died protecting her.

Hi I’m writing this in my journal I’m at this abandoned barnyard and there is a man walking through the corn maze so I decided to go there too it seems suspicious all alone then the man started to sing

In this corn maze somthings alive In this corn maze somthing happened In this corn maze things have changed

Then his voice got darker and it started to freak me out

In this corn maze it has begun In this corn maze he shall rise In this corn maze he was here In this corn maze he will come back

I started hyperventilating scared of what he was chanting so of of extreme fear i walked towards the serious voice

In this corn maze he shall rise

Then i heard other people chanting after him i went to the scene 🎬 But all it was was a chant for the angels above so I decided to join

In this corn maze this is a place for beliefs In this corn maze we will be forever blessed

-the corn maze

This field behind my house I know quite well Know to wear long pants to cheat the briars And long sleeves too, the skeeters to repel Watch your feet to save pollen suppliers Walking to the edge requires an hour A fallen log provides a resting spot To search for the rare, elusive flower I was distracted, that’s how I got caught No one could hear me yell in the meadow Too late remembering the lesson taught To come home when the light still has a glow I tried hard not to die, I kicked and fought So in this field, a ghost I must remain Until my family finds where I was lain

“Wait, don’t go in there!” My sister yelled, the distance between us growing further. I venture deep into the field, the corn stalks a wall around me.

“For the love of God, Ben! Get back here!”

Dead leaves decaying on the soil attempt to pull me back, to return me home where the mystery of this neglected corn field will remain unsolved until the intrigue weathers away. But the smell of smoke was a stronger force. It attacked my senses, drawing me further in. I was prey to the secrets of these acres of land.

“Ben!”

Perhaps I am intruding on something once sacred, and that this is the only chance I get to turn. There is a chance this place may have always been a corn field, and it needed the presence of a human life again. Whatever the true story was, I kept going until I reached a clearing.

Above me, the sky faded to black. The transition was fast. It had been morning when my sister and I arrived here. Ash crunched below my footsteps until I came across a book. Engraved upon the leather cover was a cross, the kind particularly associated with Christianity. I reached down to pick it up, my fingertips coated in dust.

Then, I saw it. For a flash of a second. Burning, glowing fire ascending higher up the pile of hay. A woman struggling against the post she was restrained to, the fraying rope chafing against her pale skin. The billowing smoke served as a muzzle as she suffocated with each intake of breath. I took a step forward, but the bible dropped from my hands, and it was all gone. I returned to the present moment where the sky remained blue.

As I turned back, I began to cough and hack out the remnants of flame I inhaled. Even after returning to my sister, the words of what I saw wouldn’t come out. I was met with a smack on the head.

“What we’re you thinking running off like that?!” She demanded. “You could’ve gotten lost!”

It’d been impossible to forward an apology. The bible placed in the clearing seemed to be waiting for someone to catch a glimpse of the trial it witnessed in that very spot. Nobody leaves one in a corn field like this, let alone forgets about it. Are there more among this crops?

I couldn’t think of the answer now. My sister wouldn’t stop hitting me.