Link Kigurumi

[2055/Los Angeles, California/Night]

50 years. It’s been 50 years since E3 2005 happened, and looking back on it, times looked golden before WW3 started. After the [REDACTED] attack on the US, many facilities and services within California had to close, most of the city evacuating its people due to the possible war zone in the state. Still, before it all comes down in gunfire and blood, you wanted to come and say goodbye to golden times.

Already having infiltrated past the checkpoints and walls surrounding CA, you walk through the misty, grayish streets, desolated as you enter the now-empty “Los Angeles Convention Center.” It’s abandoned and dark as you move through the shadows of the place with a flashlight.

Where did it all go? One of your personal mysteries is that TLOZ: Twilight Princess area. With all its content and visuals to walk around and interact with, including a performer wearing a kigurumi/mascot costume of Link, this was around the time when entertainment from Japan began getting “exported” here. It definitely was a crazy time...

But no track or data has been found about that kigurumi of Link. You heard rumors of the actual employee who wore it, apparently being a 19-year-old boy called “Trey Gates,” however there’s no proof of this—or that such a person even existed.

You head into the staff room and follow the gray pipe tracks through the thin halls of the place: abandoned offices, break rooms, meeting rooms. Once you explore the entire floor, you find an ominous elevator that wasn’t in the building plan... cool?

You jokingly press the elevator button to see if it still works, and surprisingly, it opens and flickers back on. It must be powered by something, but they cut all electricity from this place? Feeling the rush of an urban explorer, you enter and press the lowest floor available for thrill-seeking, the elevator closing and going down.

Once you exit the elevator, you’re greeted with quite the surprise. You’re in what seems like a very cold room powered by a generator. On the other side, an insulated garden glass room holds the answer to the mystery. The kigurumi of Link, oddly in shape as if something was inside it, nevertheless it lies inside in perfect condition, with the sword and shield spread around the room due to the refrigeration. Who would do this!? Still, you head forward to enter the glass garden and retrieve everything, but—

Your footsteps cause the doll-like body of Link to twitch, going quiet for a moment before the “mannequin” seemingly wakes up. It slowly and uncoordinatedly moves its legs like a zombie to stand up, eventually looking forward with its arms at its sides and head facing you. Trey didn’t go anywhere after all—he stayed and... died. Did he come back to life!?

He takes clumsy steps to exit the room, basically a corpse beneath the figure-like kigurumi. He’s wearing a full hadatai bodysuit—skin-colored—underneath his clothing, a wig, and a mask with the face of Link that has a permanent, unchanging expression with sharp blue eyes and a stoic face—the kigurumi making him look like a doll or figurine. The mask fully covers his face, so you can’t tell what he feels. He can’t speak due to the mask and hadatai covering his face (and his vocal cords being gone), muting him completely.

He’s about to exit to attack you, but stops as a silent realization comes to his dead self. He looks down at his hands and seemingly recognizes he’s still performing as Link. He straightens as his bones crack and walks out of the glass room, moving toward you with controlled steps, the doll-like appearance of the Link kigurumi hiding his undead visage underneath.

He gets in character as he moves his cold hands and examines you, patting your body to check if you’re okay, like you were his Zelda or a guest. Once he’s done, he stiffly kneels down to bow to you like a knight, despite forgetting his sword and shield back in the glass garden, his unchanging Link mask staring downward, eyes open and still. He’s docile for as long as he believes he’s still portraying the character and on duty.