Chapter Two

Link woke up facedown in the middle of a field. The grass was orange. It tasted like blueberries. He rolled over and gazed into a purple sky. A dark sense of foreboding crept across the landscape, spied Link, and took hold of him. Something was not right.

Link sat up and looked around. Orange grass as far as he could see. He absentmindedly began pulling up blades of it. He felt strange. He felt weird. He felt odd. He felt sick. He felt many things, but most of all, he felt like he wanted to cry. This was new. It was not an option he had ever previously considered, but at the moment, it was very appealing.

"NOT YET!" a voice shouted in his ear.

"GAH!" Link jumped. "Don't DO that!" He spun around to face a young girl. She appeared to be about thirteen years old. Her blond hair was streaked with black and pink and pulled into three messy ponytails, which gave her head an interestingly unbalanced look.

"Sorry," she said, grinning crazily. "Sometimes I can be PRETTY HYPER!" She began hopping up and down. "AND I HAVEN'T EVEN HAD SUGAR YET TODAY!" Her right foot wore a pink Converse shoe. Her left foot wore a flip flop.

"That's... very healthy of you," Link said, lacking a better response.

"I DON'T NEED SUGAR!" she shouted, spinning round in a circle. "ISN'T THAT WEIRD? ISN'T THAT FUNNY?"

Link would have replied to this, but no matter how hard he thought, he could think of nothing to say. He thought long enough that to say something would have been more awkward than remaining silent, and so, he remained silent.

"MY NAME'S CARI!" the girl proclaimed, coming to a stop in front of Link. "All my friends think I'm TOTALLY WEIRD AND RANDOM. ISN'T THAT FUNNY?" She looked up at him, eagerly.

Link thought about this. If it was funny, he thought, I would be laughing. I am not laughing. "No," he said finally, and honestly. "I don't think it is funny."

Cari looked at Link quizzically for a moment. He shrugged, rather apologetically, and managed a halfhearted smile. This was all Cari needed. "I LIKE CHEESE!" she proclaimed, and burst into hysterical giggles. She laughed for quite some time, and finally, catching her breath, turned to Link for approval. "Isn't that SO weird?" she said eagerly.

Link shrugged. "Lots of people like cheese," he said. "That's not so strange."

"I'M STRANGE!" Cari shouted. "My friends are strange, too! You have to meet my friends. Come on!" She grabbed Link's hand and fairly dragged him across the brightly colored landscape.

They passed a number of buildings. "That's the llama repair shop," Cari said, "And the cheese manufacturer, and the mongoose emporium." After each declaration, she looked hopefully at Link. "Don't you think that's crazy?"

"I... ah... well," Link said. "No? I guess not. This whole day has been pretty crazy," he said.

"CARI!" a voice shouted. Another girl, approximately Cari's age, was approaching them. She carried two packages of Pop Rocks. "LOOK WHAT I BROUGHT!" she said.

"SUGAR!" Cari exclaimed, as though she were the first person to ever experience such a substance. She grabbed her share of the Pop Rocks, ripped open the package, and dumped them in her mouth.

"I get crazy when I have sugar," Cari mumbled, around a mouthful of exploding candy.

"I don't think that candy can do that much to you," Link said logically. "Aren't you overacting just a bit?"

"NO!" laughed Cari, managing to spit Pop Rocks all over him. "This is how I REALLY AM when I have sugar. AND coffee. It makes me CRAAAZY." She giggled, choked, and began coughing.

"OH NO," YELLED her friend, "DRINK SOMETHING QUICK!" She shoved a can of Mountain Dew into Cari's hand.

Cari coughed, swallowed, took a sip. Wiping her eyes, she grinned at the can. "ALL RIGHT!" she exclaimed. "CAFFEINE! I get SO HYPER when I have caffeine! I get EVEN MORE RANDOM!" She began laughing hysterically. "WHAT ABOUT YOU?" she shouted at Link.

"What about me?" he wondered.

"DOES CAFFEINE MAKE YOU HYPER?" Cari YELLED.

"Not really," Link said, recalling the coffee he'd had in the previous chapter. "I feel about the same."

"That's CRAZY WEIRD," Cari said.

"No," Link said flatly, "You are."

Cari squeed. "I KNOW!"

"It wasn't... really a compliment," Link said.

The sky darkened. This, unlike most things in this world, truly was random in its proper sense. Link glanced up, confused. He looked back at Cari. Her entire countenance had changed. Her eyes flashed red. She scowled. Her ponytails seemed to droop.

"WHAT did you say?" Cari growled.

"I didn't mean it as an insult, necessarily," Link explained. "It is just... what... is. And it's not necessarily best. It's not exactly flattering or something to take pride in. Especially when it's as over-the-top and fabricated as it seems to be. Nobody is really like that. And everyone tries to be. So it's not real, and it's not original, which are the two things you want it most to be." Link was feeling very pithy and wise.

"I HATE YOU!" Cari burst into tears. "I HATE you, do you hear me? You're SO MEAN." She collapsed to the ground and buried her face in her hands. She sniffed. Between sobs, she peered up at Link through her fingers. He stared wordlessly down at her.

Cari's friend was watching Link impatiently. "Well?" she finally said, after a few moments. "Aren't you going to apologize?"

"No," Link said honestly.

"LOOK," Cari's friend said, trying to be the peacemaker, "You have to understand that this is a girl thing."

"I don't know," Link said. "I wanted to collapse on the ground and cry a while ago. Still do, in fact."

"NO," snapped Cari's friend, angry that he might try to steal her thunder and entitlement to emotional outbursts, "This is more of a PMS thing, if you get what I mean. DO YOU HAVE CHOCOLATE!" she YELLED.

"No," Link said. "And no."

"What's the second no for?" demanded Cari's friend.

"The second no is the no that says no, this is not a 'PMS thing.' This is a whining teenage girl demanding attention and throwing a fit when it isn't given to her. Okay? That is what this is. She cannot blame her complete lack of maturity and... and... social skill on her gender. She can make a choice," Link continued, vehementally, "to have some control over her actions. And you both are bloody annoying. Screw this, I'm done." He turned and stomped away, leaving Cari and her friend to stare after him in shock.

"BOOKSHELF!" Cari screamed angrily after him.

"ARKANSAS CEILING FAN SCARF!" her friend added.

Link continued to stomp all the way into the deep, dark woods at the edge of the orange field.