Link awoke with a throbbing pain in his head. One of the guards must have whacked him with the spear butt. His surroundings were dark and gloomy and the stone walls and floor were moist and slimy. It took a while for Link to get accustomed to the new lighting. In front of Link was a wall of bars with a locked door in it also made out of bars. *Aha! *Thought Link, *I must be in a jail cell!

*"Skullkid!" Link called, "Skullkid! Where are you?"

"Huh?" came the reply. Good. Skullkid was here. But they were trapped.

"Skullkid, it's me. Link. I think we are trapped in the castle dungeon."

"Link," called his friend "how are we going to escape?"

"I'm not sure Skullkid." Link said, looking around.

And then he realized that his sword and shield were gone. That would make the going more difficult.

A door swung open and a shaft of light from the main castle shone down upon them. A guard entered, carrying two plates, each with a glass of dirty water and a slice of stale bread. The guard passed one under the door to Link, and the other to Skullkid.

"Eat this and keep quiet." was all that guard said. And then he left, shutting the door behind him, and the two friends were once again plunged into darkness.

"Look what's happened to us now, Link!" complained Skullkid. "At home there was so much to eat, so much to do, and now, we could be captured here for life!"

Before Link could say peep, a gruff voice responded to Skullkid. "Consider yerself lucky. At least they are lettin' ya live!"

They looked through the bars to another cell beside Skullkid. There, was a Moblin, the owner of the voice.

"Yeah!" Boomed another gruff voice. Now, the heads of the two friends turned to a cell to the right of Link. The voice seemed to coming from a pile of bones. But then the pile of bones rose and stood up. Link and Skullkid almost screamed, but they had seen these ghastly warriors many time in their travels. This was a Stalfos. Stalfos were said to be the skeletons of brave heroes and knights serving the royal family that had unfinished business to take care of. But some were the bones of evil warriors resurrected by Ganondorf, evil King of Gerudos.

"Don't be afraid." laughed the Stalfos. "Now, kiddos, I was in a similar situation that you are now. I was a good, loyal knight serving the King of Hyrule, but one fine day, I was accused of being a spy of the great Ganondorf. So, they put me here, only giving me food once a week, until I finally died. And now, I am cursed to roam forever in this skeleton body. See why youse's lucky?"

And so, for days on end, Link and Skullkid lived in the castle dungeon, eating stale bread and drinking dirty water for every meal, the only people to talk to being the Moblin and the Stalfos.

It had been a week since Link and Skullkid had first woke up in the castle dungeon. They were dirty, grimy, and hungry and thought it would never end. The guard brought the stale bread and dirty water as usual. The friends wolfed down the bread and gulped the water. But then, both Link and Skullkid got a big surprise. They were just about to slide their plates under the cell doors for the guard to collect as usual, when, they each noticed a slab of chocolate on their plates. In these times, chocolate was an expensive food, and only the rich could afford it. Something like this would never be given to a prisoner.

"Skullkid, look! They gave us chocolate!" exclaimed Link.

Skullkid was confused, and so was Link. "Why would they give prisoners chocolate?" Skullkid wondered.

"Strange," Link thought aloud.

After devouring the delicious chocolate, they slid their plates under the cell doors. After a few minutes, the guard came as usual.

"Thank you for the chocolate, sir." Link said to the guard.

The guard looked baffled. "Chocolate? Have you two gone crazy? We didn't give you chocolate! You must have gone mad!"

"No, sir, seriously. Under the stale bread was a square slab of chocolate on each of our plates!"

"We never feed chocolate to prisoners!" exclaimed the guard. "I will notify the cooks immediately!"

And the guard left. And so, every meal for the next week, Link and Skullkid mysteriously received a square of chocolate, and every time, the guard thought they were going crazy.

One week after the first square of chocolate came, the guard delivered them each a bag of food at dinner time.

"We're having a royal banquet tonight, official business, nothing to do with prisoners, of course. All of the plates are being used so here's a bag instead. You'll have to do without water tonight, cups are all being used as well." and the guard was off.

Link and Skullkid open their bags, ignore the stale bread and look underneath. To their surprise, under the slice of bread in each of their bags was a piece of chocolate cake with whipped cream and strawberries! Someone was being very nice! The friends wondered who could possibly be slipping in these treats.

"Yer lucky, I tell ya!" boomed the Moblin.

"Yeah!" agreed the Stalfos, "No friendly cook or whoever ever gave me cake n' chocolate. I was just left ta die!"

An hour or two later, the guard came in.

"So, kids, chocolate again? Still trying to make us believe that story?"

"Actually," Link told him, "This time, there was cake!"

"You two have gone crazy from being locked up in prison for too long. Oh, well, you deserve it." The guard collected their empty bags and looked in. To the guard's surprise, there were cake crumbs.

Back in the dungeon, the two friends soon fell asleep. In the middle of the night, at 1:30 A.M. to be precise, they were awakened.

"Link, Skullkid! Wake up!"

"Hunnnhhhh?" said Link and Skullkid sleepily. They hadn't even opened their eyes yet.

"Wake up, I'm going to get you out of here!" It was a girl's voice.

"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh." yawned a sleepy Link. Then he exclaimed "Zelda!?!"

"Yes, Link, it's me. Come on. Let's go!"

Skullkid's cell was unlocked, followed by Link's.

"Zelda, how did you know? And where did you get the keys?"

"I heard about two prisoners kept in the dungeon. I just happened to be spying on the guards. And I knew instantly it was you two. I slipped treats under your bread when the cooks weren't looking in the kitchen. As for the key, I stole it from a sleeping guard."

"That was you, princess? Oh, thank you."

"Very much," added Skullkid.

They heard footsteps coming from far away.

"Hey, Link, Skullkid. We've got to run back to my room quick."

They opened the door of the dungeon and walked up a spiral staircase. At the top was the upper dungeon, where criminals who did less bad of things were sent. They ran past the prisoners in their cells, and ascended another spiral staircase. They turned right at the top and entered a door and they reached the central hallway. Coming out of the big doors at the end was the guard that had attended to Link and Skullkid. Link dove into a broom cupboard, and Zelda and Skullkid followed. Zelda turned the key in a keyhole in the wall and unlocked a hidden door.

"I know most of the castle's secret routes," she explained.

"Cool!" said Skullkid.

They ascended a staircase and walked down a passage, then opened a locked wooden door with the aid of Zelda's key. They came into the very broom cupboard where the two friends had been captured.

"If only we knew, and we had a key." said Link.

"Huh?" said princess Zelda. "What do you mean?"

"This is where we got caught." Skullkid explained.

"Oh." said Zelda.

They came out of the broom cupboard and turned right. They entered a door at the end of the hallway and ascended yet another spiral staircase. At the top, Zelda took a different key out of a hidden pocket in her dress and used it open the door in front of them.

In her room, Zelda had many dressers, a queen-sized bed with blue curtains around it, and a large mirror, and clothes scattered all over the floor. There was a red sofa there also, in which the princess invited them to sit down upon.

"Now," she began, "What was all this about?"

"You see," began Skullkid, "Link had this very unusual dream."

"And as I told Skullkid how horrid the dream really was, he thought that we should see the king immediately." Link continued.

"And so we snuck through Hyrule Castle, until then, of course, when we were caught." concluded Skullkid.

"Why on earth would you need to talk to the King of Hyrule about a nightmare?" wondered Princess Zelda.

"Because, it is a dream that means evil is returning." explained Skullkid.

"We needed to warn the king." finish Link.

"Link, what was this dream?" inquired Zelda.

"I was in front of an evil, shadowy Hyrule Castle. And my flesh was being ripped off, and it didn't hurt. And then I died."

The princess gasped in horror.

"Your right, Link. We must see my father right now!"

"What does this mean, Zelda?" Link asked as the princess got up. She didn't reply.

Zelda locked her room as they left, and then the three friends hurried down the spiral staircase again. In the hallway below, they entered the big doors leading to the throne room.

"Father!" exclaimed Zelda.

But her father, King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, was not there. Instead, there was a tall, red-haired man in black armor with a glowing red gem on a headband.

"Ganondorf!" yelled Link.

Ganondorf turned around.

"We meet again, kid." laughed the King of Gerudos. "Smart move, traveling back in time, stopping my plans. But I am back. And this time there will be no hero to help poor Hyrule."

"What did you do to my father?" yelled Zelda at Ganondorf.

"Do? Did I ever say I did anything to poor Nohansen? Heh, heh, heh..." Ganondorf said in calm, but sinister voice.

"Where is he?" yelled Zelda again.

Ganondorf lunged forward and grabbed Zelda. With a snap of his fingers, she was trapped inside a pink crystal, and then she vanished. Link drew his sword.

"Where did you take Zelda and the King?" demanded Link.

Ganondorf laughed a long, evil laugh.

"You are a foolish child." chuckled Ganondorf. Link ran at the evil King of Thieves and jump attacked him with his sword. Ganondorf simply knocked Link back with one motion of his hand, using some unseen force. "So, so, foolish. You defeated me once, but you can't do it again!" Ganondorf put out his hand and Link was frozen by Ganondorf's unseen powers. Then, the evil lord charged up a ball of darkness by simply raising his hand, and tossed at Link. The mighty force of Ganondorf's magic knocked Link out. Everything went black.

Link awoke a few hours later. His sword and shield were gone, as was Ganondorf. *That evil man must have taken them, *he thought. He looked all around the throne room. The stained-glass windows were broken, the carpet tattered, and the throne knocked over. It had not been like this when he had come in. Then, a horrible thought came upon him. *Where is Skullkid? What became of him in the struggle with Ganondorf? *There was no trace of Skullkid anywhere in the room. Either Ganondorf had taken him, or he had for some reason fled. *Who knows?

*Before he had any more time to think, the doors burst open. There was a troupe of angry-looking guards, and one of them was the guard who had attended him and Skullkid in the dungeon. *Uh, oh! *thought Link.

"Aha! Here's the prisoner! It's him! But the other one... I don't know, General Viscen."

Viscen was the general of all of the Guards of Hyrule. "Ah, one of the prisoners rumoured to be spies of Ganondorf."

"Yes, General. And this proves it. The King and the Princess are both gone, and Ganondorf was sighted making an attack upon the castle."

"By the order of General Viscen, you are under arrest." another guard said to Link. He was forced let his hands get put in handcuffs.

"Take him back to prison. We will discuss his sentence in court tomorrow."

Tape was put over Link's mouth so that he could not speak . The guards escorted him down to the castle dungeon. When they got there on the bottom-most floor, which Link had become so familiar with, chaos broke out. The Moblin and the Stalfos had somehow gotten loose and were wreaking havoc on the bottom floor. The guards began to fight the Stalfos and the moblin.

This was Link's big chance. The guards were so busy that they forgot all about Link. He was handcuffed and mouth taped, but they had not tied up his legs, so he ran. As he was at the second floor of the dungeon, he heard Viscen yelling from downstairs "The prisoner is escaping. One of you, chase him!"

Link heard footsteps coming out of the door from the staircase. He ran along the hallway of jail cells and quickly opened the door and ran up the next spiral staircase. When he reached the main hall, he saw guards coming from the big doors that led to the throne hall. Link burst through the front doors of the castle.

The drawbridge was coming up. He scrambled up the chains, trying desperately to reach the top before the drawbridge squished him. He began to slip. It was just about closed, when he had one final burst of energy and reached a balcony above. Link huffed and puffed. *Phew, that was close!* he thought. Link was safe here, or so he thought.

But the guard controlling the raising of the drawbridge came out of a door on the balcony and exclaimed "The prisoner!" He tried to grab Link, but Link jumped off of the balcony into the moat. It would a long, hard fall. Link screamed. He was used to falling from heights like this into water, but it was still scary.

But then, a massive bird swept him up in its talons and flew him away, breaking his fall. After a short flight, the bird dropped him in Hyrule Field and the bird landed as well. Link recognized the big owl immediately. It was Kaepora Gaebora, a friendly, extremely smart owl capable of human speech who had helped Link several times.

"Link! It's you. What were you doing at the castle, and why were you jumping off of it?"

"Thanks for the lift, Kaepora. As for that, I was being chased by guards. There was nothing else I could do."

"I heard about a prisoner in Hyrule Castle who had escaped, and by the description, I knew it was you. But what were you doing there?" asked the gigantic owl.

"It all started with a dream that I had when I was in Hyrule Field. It was so awful..."

And so Link told Kaepora Gaebora about his dream and everything that happened. After Link had finished, the owl sage replied, "This is a very grave situation. The King of Evil is on the loose again, much too soon. As for your dream, you were right to try to warn the King of Hyrule, for the dream is related to Ganondorf's returning.

"What does the dream mean?" inquired Link.

"Time will tell, Link, time will tell. For the time being, I suggest that you make your way to Lake Hylia."

"Why Lake Hylia?" wondered Link.

"Someone who you have long forgotten waits there for you."

"Will you please explain all of this?" pleaded Link.

"Link, you must find out for yourself." said Kaepora Gaebora.

"Do you know what became of my friend Skullkid?" asked Link.

"Enough questions, young hero. I must be off on important business. Farewell. We shall meet again soon."

"Farewell, Kaepora Gaebora." said Link.

And with that, the mighty and mysterious owl who Link had befriended long ago lifted off into the breaking dawn.