Link fucking kills himself

A year had passed since Link had defeated Ganondorf and saved the world. But now he was upset, depressed, and angry. The obvious reason was the crushing sense of loss and grief. His parents had both died before his first birthday, so in retrospect, any chance he'd had at a normal life was over before it even began. He grew up as an orphan among the Kokiri, and while that had its ups and downs, he'd still had a relatively normal and happy childhood. Or rather, he might have had one until he found out there was a prophecy about him and was forced to abandon everything from one day to the next. But most devastating of all was Saria's death, which he blamed himself for. Saria, who had raised him, who was like a sister to him and whom he cared about more than anyone in the world, was gone because of her connection to him.

This leads to the main reason and the reason why he was so angry. Everything about his life was predetermined. The royal family and the saints didn't care that they were sending a literal CHILD to risk his life in their power struggle with Ganondorf. They just saw the prophesized hero who would be their savior. They were grateful afterwards of course, they welcomed him into the castle with open arms and genuinely treated him like one of theirs but at the same time, they never gave a rat's ass about his feelings or interests or showed any guilt about stealing his childhood, traumatizing him and destroying everything he'd grown attached to. And Zelda was a whole other story.

While he did love and value her and knew she loved him back, he felt she only liked him for his role as the hero of time, not for who he was. She was also extremely ignorant and treated him like a child. A few weeks earlier, he had tried to open up to her and tell her how upset and unhappy he was, how he'd never got to choose the path he wanted in life, how nobody saw the real Link and how he'd missed his formative years and didn't even have a real personality.

She just smiled and listened to his rant and said, "Don't worry. You'll always be my hero." And then she kissed him and left him alone, as if he were merely having a bad day.

It fucking infuriated him speechless. It was always like that. She was "the wise one" while he was "the brave one". It was as if everybody around him was incapable of seeing him outside the context of prophecies and triforces. Zelda probably touched herself at night thinking about stuff like that. He also suspected she felt she deserved equal credit for defeating Ganondorf which was laughable since she never had to risk her life and was hardly ever even in danger.

He was just so fucking frustrated and lonely and while he did manage to adapt for a time and find a semblance of happiness in this life - the castle was comfortable - the thought of going through this for another 70+ years made him feel incredibly despondent, so he decided to take control and escape. He knew he couldn't just take off to some faraway land because everybody knew what he looked like and the royal family would have sent legions of their agents to kidnap him back.

So then he thought, why not just kill himself. He'd finally return home, finally meet his parents, see Saria again. He would have done so sooner but he didn't want the royal family to find his body and know he had committed suicide. He wanted them to think he had run away on some faraway journey and search for him until they went crazy. His first thought was to jump into some deep crevice in Death Mountain or, heck, into the lava itself. That would have solved the problem of his remains but the Gorons would have seen him enter their mountain and not leave. For similar reasons, the Gerudo Desert and Lake Hylia weren't options either. No, his body would have to be completely annihilated without a trace but he didn't know how to accomplish that. So he delayed his plan for weeks until it finally hit him.

A flesh-eating plant. It would digest everything, even his bones. He knew where to find those; they were all over the Lost Woods. The answer had been right next to his childhood home this whole time.

He secretly left the castle, exited the town through the main gate, crossed Hyrule Field, took the footpath leading into Kokiri forest and then took the fork into the Lost Woods. He quickly found a plant that was big enough. He took off his clothes and boots and put them into a pile, then lit it on fire. It was exhilarating to see them go up in flames. Like he could undo everything that had happened and return to being the quiet, gentle boy who liked daydreaming and wandering off and falling asleep in the grass. He didn't know how to destroy his sword and shield, so he had buried them and hoped nobody would ever find them. Or, if they were found, it would be by future generations who would then realize what they did to their hero.

Once he was naked and his only clothes burning, he knew there was no going back to the castle. The burning took longer than he expected so he took his ocarina - the one Saria had given him, not Zelda's - and started playing it. He wasn't sure what he played. He had to start again multiple times until he literally wept too hard to carry a note. Then he threw it into the flames, too.

"I'm sorry Saria," he sobbed, watching it burn, "but I know you'll understand. You know I'm not selfish. Please forgive me for not - for not doing more with my life. But I-I just can't do this."

He then waited for the fire to die and kicked the charred remains apart. He stepped in front of the plant. Its red open jaws almost looked inviting, except for the tiny white bristles which served to sting the victim and sedate it. He laughed. How ironic that after all the great monsters and servants of evil he'd defeated, this would be the final boss. Surely this wasn't in any of their prophecies. He took a deep breath, then stepped inside and laid down on his stomach.

The bristles stung a little. He was surprised at how dry the inside of the leaf was; he'd expected it to be warm and wet like the mouth of a living creature. At first nothing happened. Then the other leaf silently closed above him until he was folded in. Just out of curiosity, he pushed against it. He couldn't move it at all. It was as rigid as a tree. That was a scary feeling. Even if he changed his mind about dying, he couldn't get out of it now.

The pressure quickly got less pleasant and it became an effort to breathe. The bristles pressed deeper, injecting sedatives into his muscles. He felt his skin swell. Then, the thick red tendrils clamped down around him. They were the teeth of the plant, squishing his skin and preventing him from moving. The plant secreted a white digestive fluid that got into his eyes and burned.

It quickly went from unpleasant to painful to excruciating. One of the tendrils made its way past his teeth and down his throat. He let out a muffled groan and bit down on it but couldn't get it out. Dozens more prodded against his tender flesh or bent his bones. Some pressed into his ass and against his prostate, slid under his foreskin, squeezed his sensitive parts. He came. He tried to shift a bit to relieve some of the pressure but they only bit down on him harder, so he gave up and tried to enjoy it. He could still breathe through his nose but there was pressure on his lungs. Eventually he blacked out.

A few days later, a crying, stomping Zelda commanded Impa to personally lead another search party and either return with her betrothed or not return at all. They would have never guessed that by this point all that was left of the hero of time were his teeth, 32 black marbles rolling around inside a carnivorous plant, impossible to identify as having once belonged to him.