Episode 14

I awoke groggily with a pounding headache. Because of this I didn't register the familiar blond girl hovering over me, framed by reddish-tan sandstone walls and ceiling. Her glue-green eyes squinted into squares with the huge smile that had spread across her face. Freckles stretched with it.

"A...Amanda?"

"Yep!"

"Amanda!"

I shot up to attack her in a hug, but regretted it as my head throbbed in protest. I rubbed it ruefully as I beamed. Her clothes were ragged and dirty, but were just as I remembered her last before my T.V had wigged out, and her hair was equally scraggily. Other than that, she looked relatively unharmed. I noticed, from my higher level, however, the wall of thick, iron bars besides us and the Gerudo guards waiting in the beams that crisscrossed the stone ceiling. They sat with their legs and swords dangling.

We spoke all at once.

"Where have you been this whole time?"

"What's happened?"

"You know why we're here?"

"No! And so much has happened!"

"Can you believe it!"

"Okay, hold on just a minute!" I said. "You first. But we should probably watch what we say." I motioned to the veiled Gerudo hanging in the lofts. She rolled her eyes.

"Psshed, they know more than us anyways."

"True…"

"Anyways! Where have you been?" she asked, scooting closer in excitement. Her exposed ankles and hands were encrusted with dirt.

"Well, I woke up in the Kokiri forest. Is that where you turned up?"

"No. I woke up in the Town Square."

"Really? Wow, if you had just stayed there for a day I would've found you. I went there too."

"How come?"

"Because of who I was with. Amanda, it's so awesome, but guess who found me in the forest?"

"A Kokiri?"

"No. Link."

She gasped, than laughed. "Is he as cute as you thought?"

"Yeah, but besides that he's a real jerk."

And with that I launched into my journey, starting from when I woke up in the forest and got chased out by monsters, to when I got captured in Hyrule. She fumed at Link's rudeness more than I, and I was surprised that even after I had explained Zelda's explanation she still raged that 'he still doesn't have the right to be selfish and stupid himself! What a jerk! You didn't do anything!' Though I felt rather blown off that all the guilt I had felt wasn't understood, it was the greatest feeling in the world to finally have someone on my side, defending me. I started to tear up at that, but merely smiled at her happily.

However, at the word of the King's death, her face fell and turned an ashen grey. She glanced back up at the Gerudos, who made no sign to be listening to us.

"What's wrong?"

She looked down at her feet.

"Kara…there's…something I need to tell you. It's what I've been up to."

"Okay, then, shoot! We're not going anywhere anytime soon." Though my throat was already beginning to hurt for the want of water.

"You know that evil guy who Link beat at the end of the game?"

"Ganondorf?"

"Yeah, him."

"What about him?" I had a foreboding sensation.

"Well, almost right after I woke up one of those Gerudo ladies found me and took me to the temple of time."

"And you followed her? Didn't you know they were bad?"

"Well, yeah! But I didn't know she was a Gerudo, she was dressed like a normal lady, but she took me inside to the front doors. It was really cool inside!"

I rolled my eyes and rested my head on my hand. I was slowly getting use to the headache. "So you got to see the temple. Good for you. Why did you follow her in the first place?"

"I don't know, I was confused and sorta freaked out so I just followed her, okay? Are you going to let me tell you what happened?"

"Sorry, sorry. Go ahead. Do your thing."

"Anyways," she had been saying that a lot, "she took me to the doors and told me real serious-like that Ganondorf had escaped from the Sacred Realm, which was sealed in by those doors. She told me he had broken them though, and that's why I was there."

I blinked at her. "You do know that's not true, right? Zelda would've known."

She looked down at her folded legs. The slick hair slipped from behind her ears to hide her face besides a small part between her eyebrows.

"That's the weird thing, Kara. It became true."

I stared at her hard. "What do you mean?"

"I-I-I don't know what happened or if it had anything to do—no, I had too-"

"Cough it up, what happened?"

"The moment I believed her, the doors opened. A really scary guy stepped out…He was really tall and dark and looked a lot like—"

"Ganon."

She looked up at me through her grimy hair. "He thanked me. Kara, I think…I think I let Ganon out."

I flinched. "What? What gave you that stupid idea?" But I already had an inkling of an idea. The little man in the cell…

"I've been hearing things, Kara. Only things here and there. They speak of some power from our world. Kara…I, I think I'm some sort of freak!"

"What do you mean? Kara, you're not some sort of a freak—"

"But I am! They play with me." Her voice was starting to get somewhat hysterical.

"What do you mean?"

"The Gerudo. They come in and tell me things and persuade me, and the moment I start to believe them it becomes true right before my eyes!"

"Amanda, they're just teasing you, you're freaking out for no reason. It was true the whole time and you had nothing to do with it."

"No! You don't get it! They had this stuff—something about the food—but I couldn't help but believe them it was like my brain had switched off!"

I grabbed her jittery hands and plastered them still upon her lap the moment I noticed them begin to scrape at her hands, which I noticed already had raw scratch marks beneath the grime.

"Calm down!"

"You…you don't understand…y-y-you didn't see it—"

"What, Amanda, what didn't I see?"

"I killed someone!"

I could feel myself shaking as the little man's words about imagining something kept repeating themselves over and over in my head like a deranged carnival recording. I grabbed her trembling shoulders as well.

"What do you mean?"

"The King."

Everything inside me turned to ice.

"You saw that?"

"No, but before they tested it out and brought this poor man in—he was terrified-and they told me he was so scared because he was going to die in one minute. I was feeling that weird sick like I usually do before they tell me stuff and then he…he just keeled over."

She lifted her head to search my eyes out beseechingly. What I saw created a black hole within me. My head began to feel hot. I felt crossed between hugging her, disbelieving her, and shuddering away in disgust from what, I couldn't tell. All of them were overwhelmed with confusion, however.

"But, the King," she continued, "They came in this morning and told me the King was dead. It was after they gave me breakfast, and they never give me much so I was really hungry, and it looked so good. I know I shouldn't have because of what they put in it to make me think weird, but they were going to kill me if I didn't so I did. I shouldn't have, cause they told me he was dead—and now he's dead—and it's really my fault!"

"No, wait, Amanda," I said, pushing through my own encircling delirium of panic, "it was the Gerudo who assassinated him. The Princess said she saw her and everything."

"Did she see her kill him?"

I hesitated at the hopeful look she was giving me. "I…yeah she did." I lied, then regretted it when I realized what I was continue. For as I said it, I saw a flicker of belief in her eye. Something told me that now, it was so, and no longer a lie. As I thought so, she frowned.

"Are you sure?"

"I heard her…"

"'Cause you've always sucked at lying."

I winced.

"Amanda…please, just…calm down, none of it's your fault, you're ok. This is actually pretty cool—"

"Cool!" she exclaimed. "Kara, people are dead now because of me!"

"No! They aren't—"

"Yes they are!"

"Will you just shut up and stop freaking out, please?"

Her mouth snapped closed; her eyes wide and frightened. She had always been the brave one. It scared me more than I could ever say to see even her scared. My word's shook as they left my mouth.

"You didn't kill them, Amanda. They used you. They killed them. You didn't know. Please, buddy, don't let this get to you so bad. You're…" I hugged myself, "you're starting to really scare me. I really need you right now. You were always the brave one, and right now we both need you, more than ever, to be brave. We need to figure out what's going on, because I think…" I looked to the Gerudo's in the rafters. I caught one glancing out of the corner of her amber eye at us, before she quickly looked away. My heart jumped to my throat. I sensed we were in more danger than we had previously supposed.

"Think what?" she asked nervously, though color had returned to her cheeks as she took heart in my words.

"I think I might have the same ability as you, just maybe a bit different."

"What do you mean?"

"I…don't know…but…"

I told her about the little man in a jail cell as well as what had happened with Epona. As I spoke, a sudden realization, a brilliant guess, came to my mind. She listened avidly.

"What if Link was right…"

"What do you mean?" her normal self was recovering and the indignant air had returned to her. "Nothing he says is right!"

"No, I mean about the monsters."

"Huh?"

"What if I somehow imagined the monsters to be there and they were? I mean, the wolf appeared right when I started to believe and started to imagine that the forest was filled with wolfoes. I tried to see areas in the trees where I had seen the monsters in the game—I imagined them there! And the shadows—I imagined monsters coming out of them and they did!"

"But I didn't imagine all the stuff they told me, I believed it."

"That's the thing! Maybe I have to imagine stuff and you have to believe it."

She cocked her head in confusion. "Isn't that the same thing."

"Maybe…oh, I don't know, I'm lost again. Maybe we really are the same. But why is it that I didn't steal the bread? The Gerudo told me I could and I believed her."

"Maybe it has to do with yourself, like, you can't do stuff to yourself. I mean, I can't tell myself the door is unlocked and find it unlocked."

"That's because you don't believe it." I said.

"Huh?"

"Didn't you say they sorta drugged you up before telling you stuff?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you would've already tried the door and found it locked, so telling yourself it was unlocked you can pretend to believe that it is unlocked, but you really know deep down it is locked."

"….you've lost me."

"Or…or…oh, I don't know." I sighed in exasperation, leaning back on my hands. At least Amanda had calmed down to a relatively controlled state.

"Maybe we're both just freaks." She said, moving to over to the wall to lean against it. Once there she picked up one of the clay jars inside and began patting it and rolling it around her. It made a loud, hollow rattle over the ridges and dips of the brick.

"Hey! I thought I told you not to do that!" shouted one of the Gerudos. Amanda glared back up at them, sighed, and abandoned the pot. I went over and sat with her, looking down at my hands and the contrast between her soiled jeans and my own clean blue dress.

"I do think, however, that we're in a very, very bad situation, and that it's bad not just for us, but for all of Hyrule."

"That was pretty cheesy." She said.

"Yeah, I know. And the worst part is it won't even cross Link's mind to come and save me."