>>12150476 (OP)
OP lived in a cramped apartment that smelled faintly of dust and nostalgia. The walls were lined with shelves of Nintendo memorabilia—plush Yoshis, vintage cartridges, posters of pixelated landscapes. Every evening, he slipped into a faded floral frock, the same one his mother had sewn for a school play decades ago. It was soft, comforting, and wrapped him in a memory of warmth before everything fell apart.
His parents divorced when he was eight. The shouting, the slammed doors, the silence that followed—it carved a hollow space inside him. His father vanished into a new life, and his mother, once vibrant, became distant and tired. OP retreated into games, and *The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time* became his sanctuary. Link, the silent hero, mirrored OP’s own quiet resilience. He played it over and over, not to win, but to feel safe.
Over time, OP’s imagination reshaped his world. He began to believe Mario and Luigi were his real parents—cheerful, brave, always rescuing each other. Mario was the warm, encouraging father he longed for, and Luigi, the gentle worrier, reminded him of his mother before the sadness.
As he replayed Zelda, OP found himself drawn to the moments outside Hyrule—the dreamlike realms, the eerie temples, the surreal landscapes. “Why,” he often wondered, “is Zelda so much cooler when it happens outside of Hyrule?” Maybe because outside Hyrule, the rules bent. Time shifted. Identity blurred. It felt like his own life—fragmented, strange, but still full of magic.
In those moments, OP wasn’t just escaping. He was rewriting. Reimagining. Healing.
