>>12149586 (OP)
anon lived alone in a small flat cluttered with retro consoles, stacks of game cartridges, and a single threadbare frock he wore like armor. The floral pattern had faded, but it still wrapped him in the comfort of memory. He wasn’t eccentric for the sake of it—he was surviving. Every evening, he slipped into the frock, sat cross-legged on the floor, and powered up his Nintendo 64. The screen glowed, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time began again.
He’d played it hundreds of times. He knew every dungeon, every melody, every hidden heart piece. But it wasn’t about winning. It was about escaping. When anon was eight, his parents divorced in a storm of shouting and slammed doors. His father left without a goodbye. His mother, once vibrant, became quiet and distant. anon stopped speaking for a while. The world felt broken.
Then came Zelda.
Link, the silent hero, became anon’s mirror. A boy thrust into chaos, navigating a world that didn’t make sense. The game offered structure, purpose, and a kind of peace. Kokiri Forest felt like the childhood he lost. The frock, sewn by his mother for a school play, became a relic of love before everything fell apart.
Now, years later, anon still played. Not to forget—but to remember, to heal, and to feel whole.
