Transformation in the Shadows: Gage's Journey into the Haunting World of Zelda

In the dim light that filtered through dusty curtains, Gage Creed slowly awoke in an unfamiliar bed. The room smelled musty, as if it hadn't been lived in for years. As his eyes began to adjust, his tiny fingers brushed against faded floral bedsheets—tactile remnants of a past marked by decay and neglect. Blinking against the shadows, Gage sat up. His cherubic face, framed by soft blond curls, wore an expression of curiosity. His wide, innocent eyes wandered the room, taking in the peeling wallpaper and the worn furniture. He was dressed in a pair of bright blue footed pajamas, their warmth and familiarity a sharp contrast to the eerie ambiance of the room. A low, distant rumble seemed to shake the walls, and Gage heard a voice—soft, yet insidious—whispering his name. He looked around, but there was no one there. Gage’s voice, sweet and high-pitched, called out, "Mommy?" His words were met only with the echo of his own confusion. Without warning, a cold shiver crawled up his spine. Gage blinked as a shadow crept across the floor, darkening the room further. The air grew thick, and he felt a pull, as though invisible hands were stretching him from within. His little body trembled, and he fell back onto the bed, his heart pounding. Gage's small hands began to change—the soft, plump fingers lengthening, twisting into strange shapes that his young mind struggled to understand. His bright pajamas warped and faded into the grayish, stained nightgown that clung to his altered frame. He cried out for his mother once more, but this time, the voice that emerged was not his own. It was high and rasping, filled with a haunting resonance. He clutched his head as his golden curls darkened and coiled, the sweet innocence of his features stretched into unfamiliar, taunting lines. Gage’s feet, once small and sock-clad, had become gnarled and contorted, perverting his balance and making him stumble as he stood. As his spine twisted, bending under an unseen weight, Gage struggled to remain upright. With great effort, he hobbled towards an old mirror standing in the corner. What he saw made him gasp in terror, Zelda’s gaunt, tormented visage staring back at him. "Mommy!" he wailed, the voice not his, but Zelda's own piercing cry. Staggering back, Gage fell onto the bed, hiding his face against the pillow as his sobs filled the room. The tears were his own, yet burned like hers. When he finally dared to look again, he opened his eyes and saw not his hands, but the thin, claw-like extremities belonging to Zelda. Casting his gaze downward, his eyes met his feet, now mangled and grotesque. The reality of his transformation crashed over him in a tide of despair. Unable to comprehend, Gage squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming down cheeks that no longer bore any resemblance to his own. She was there, and he was her—in body and voice, trapped in Zelda’s form forever, the last vestiges of his innocent self slipping away with each breath.

The room was dark and steeped in shadow, an odor of mildew and mothballs lingering in the air. Gage Creed, the innocent and naive boy from the 2019 adaptation of 'Pet Sematary', blinked awake. His small, disoriented blue eyes were drawn to the grand, ancestral mirror hanging ominously in the corner of Zelda’s room. Zelda, Rachel's sister – his deceased aunt - was known and feared for her grotesque appearance, a side effect of spinal meningitis. Gage, with his bright cherubic face and wisps of blond hair, looked almost ethereal in his toddler-size blue polo shirt and cargo shorts, a spot of color amidst the gloom. His sweet high-pitched voice was still muffled from sleep as he sat up gingerly on the bed, his tiny feet buried in the ratty old sheets. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew the window open, and with it, an eerie, haunting presence filled the room. The Wendigo, a wooden, half-bone humanoid with piercing red eyes, appeared before Gage. It reached out a skeletal hand over Gage, and an ethereal light seemed to envelope the little boy. Gage gasped, his body convulsing. His tiny, rounded fingers began to elongate, becoming hooked and frail like those of an old woman, while his feet distorted into a deformed, mangled state. His small, padded feet bent and folded, strikingly resembling Zelda’s gnarled ones. His spine curved, forcing him into a hunched, painful posture. In the span of a few heartbeats, his clothes transformed into a diaphanous gown, much like Zelda's own attire, that hung loose on his transformed body. He stumbled up from the bed, struggling to balance himself on his new, grotesque feet, his toddling steps replaced by an eerie lurch. His once high-pitched, innocent voice gave away to Zelda's raspy, haunting tone. "Mommy!" he cried out in Zelda’s voice, struggling to turn and look into the mirror. The reflection staring back was not his own. It was Zelda's monstrous, skeletal face, her eyes sunken and haunted. Gage stumbled back, terror taking over. He hit the edge of the bed and fell onto the soft mattress, small shoulders heaving as burst into tears. "Mommy!" he sobbed again, burying his grotesque face in the pillow. As he raised his head again, trembling, he looked down at his changed hands, saw his transformed feet. He swayed before his legs gave way, causing him to crumple onto the bed. Squeezing his eyes shut and willing with all his heart for it to be just a nightmare. But even the innocent wishes of a three-yeard-old held no sway over the cruel reality. Gage was now, tragically, trapped in Zelda’s body forever.