Previous disclaimers apply.

A/N: My thanks again to gamegirl07 for helping me on this chapter.

The Ghost Beside Me

Chapter 8: Contact

It was getting more difficult with each passing second as he walked through the snow. Each step he made was draining him of his energy and he was getting tired quicker that he expected. He began to have tunnel vision, and he continuously struggled to regain his clear sight and not let those dark edges to envelope the corner of his eyes. Now his head waited a ton over his shoulders. His ill body was screaming for rest, but he ignored it completely. He had to. That, along with the breeze and the cold, was making his pace slower than usual.

Link noticed his condition was worsening barely five minutes after he began to follow the ghost's footprints in the snow. The moonlight was not helping much, but his lantern provided just the necessary amount of light he needed to continue and to not get lost. Sometimes he felt the lantern light burning his itchy eyes, but he dismissed the feeling by blinking and closing his eyes shut for some seconds. He wondered how much longer he could keep doing that. By that time, his nose was useless, completely clogged. He could see his breath painted in the air each time he exhaled through his mouth.

He followed the trail the ghost left behind with staggering steps. He hoped that the trail was made by the mysterious ghost that taunted him in his nightmares and in his house. He threw away the possibility that the trail was made by some other person from the village for two reasons: first, because no human being in its healthy judgment (beside him) would come out of the house in the middle of the night, let alone in the middle of a snowing; and second, because if that was the case, he would end up looking ten times more stupid that yesterday.

Link halted when the trail suddenly disappeared. There were no more footprints to follow. He looked around the place and throughout the ground, but the trail stopped in the middle of the woods; as if the ghost began to float in the air instead of walking. If it began to fly or it just disappeared into thin air, there was no trail left behind to follow.

Link surveyed the place, and noticed that he was close to the spring entrance. Not wanting to give up yet, he walked to the Ordon Spring in hopes to find something there. The spring was completely covered in snow, not even the colorful flowers or the horseshoe grass was visible through the snow. The small cascade at the end of the spring was frozen. The big pond beneath the cascade was also frozen; the cold temperatures had turned it into solid ice.

Something in the distance caught Link's attention. Close to the frozen cascade, there was an object on the ice. From his spot, the object was red and looked like a cube. He approached the frozen pond edge to take a better look. The object was a pictobox. But when he leaned closer, he recognized it as the old and broken pictobox that he found in his cellar when he was cleaning the place.

He hadn't the faintest idea of how that pictobox could have gotten there. It was not him, he was sure of that. The kids were terrified of his cellar, and any adult from the village was out of question. But considering all the events that he had lived and witnessed in the past couple of days, it would not surprise him that the pictobox grew some legs or wings and brought itself to the spring to take a bath.

However the pictobox got there, it belonged to him, and he wanted it back. He put the lantern in the ground, its light beginning to flicker. He was going to step over the frozen pond, but hesitated and stepped back. If he stepped with too much force over the ice, it might break, so as shot as his nerves were, he decided to take things with more easiness.

He put one foot over the ice tentatively. When he was sure nothing negative was going to happen, he put the other. Nothing creaked, nothing moved. As soon as he tried to walk toward the farthest part of the pond, the breeze blew a little stronger over him as more snowflakes continued to fall over the place. Almost instantly, he started to hear things. Again.

They were whispers and whistlers combined. Link didn't move as he recalled those same noises some days ago, right before all this nonsense happened. That day, the whispers seemed lost, flying away with no destiny ahead. But this time was different. He could hear them clearly. There was some kind of voice hidden under the wind sounds. He closed his eyes as he let the whistling sounds enter his ears.

"Sssssss…" It was a sound with "S", perhaps a word with the letter "S". He listened harder despite his piercing headache. "Sssssttoooopp…"

He covered his mouth with his hands as some coughs came out of his chest. With each cough, he got dizzier and his body hurt a little more. The pain was not making him think with the clarity he needed at that moment. He began to consider that getting out of his house the way he felt to hunt down ghosts and other unseen spirits was not a good idea after all, and that the ghost he saw at his house was his fever frying his brain cells.

Slowly, he made a few steps forward and farther into the frozen pond.

"Sssttooopppp…"

Link felt the ice beneath him creak a little under his feet and stopped instantly. Perhaps the ice was not thick enough to support him for long. He looked back over his shoulder. He was almost half the way and much more closer to the pictobox spot than before. He did not want to go back now, not when he was so close to it.

"Don't go…" The wind spoke to him. "Ssstop…"

Whoever or whatever was talking to him, he didn't and won't want to listen. No one was going to tell him what to do. Not Rusl, not Ilia, and certainty none of his freaking mind voices. From now on, he was going to make things his own way, whether they like it or not.

Very, very slowly, he kneeled over the ice and managed to position himself on his belly. That way his weight would be distributed more evenly through the ice and therefore the possibilities that the ice layer would break under him were minimal. With his head and eyes looking forward, he began to drag himself with his arms through the ice layer. The cold layer made his hands go numb. He was shivering. He needed to hurry.

"Link…" At his inability to make the young man to obey its orders, the wind decided to use his name.

Shut up… You stop.

"Linnnnk…"

"S-screw y-you!" Link replied angrily to the wind as he dragged his body to the frozen cascade. His jaw quivered with cold and sickness.

"Don't…"

"I won't listen t-to you… anymore!" He said out of his own, his tone filled with fury and mortification. He didn't care about anything anymore; forget the ghosts, the visions, the sounds, the darn weather… he wanted it all to stop. He wanted peace back to his life and that annoying voice was making him furious.

"Hear me Link…"

Ignoring the voice and closing himself up to the rest of the world, he finally reached the foot of the cascade where the pictobox was. He kneeled as he grabbed it. Link smiled mischievously - like a little boy who found his lost toy. The object felt warm in his hand, and he enjoyed whatever sensation it could bring to his cold limbs. That old pictobox belonged to him but at the same time it was a reward for not letting his paranoia to gain total control over him.

Totally forgetting where he was, he stood up carelessly; his mind and eyes completely absorbed by the pictobox in his hands. When he started to walk away, the ice creaked noisily. Link frowned in confusion. The creaking sound continued to fill the silent spring. He looked down and was horrified to see that the ice layer that covered the pond was breaking. The spidery cracks on the ice ran all around his spot, the pond's deepest part.

"What..?" He gasped. He didn't understand. He had never been so careless in his life. How could he forget where he was?

Link watched petrified as the ice cracked under him. The ice could not resist anymore. With a loud and final crack, the ice layer gave up and broke under his feet. Icy water splashed soundly as Link's body sank into the pond water below the frozen layer. The situation turned out to be desperate enough for him to drop the pictobox and totally forget about it. He frantically took hold of the broken ice's edge, clinging to it. Sinking his nails on the ice, he prayed for the edge to hold on and not to collapse. More than half of his body was submerged in the water, the water covered him from the chest down. The water was so freezing that he didn't feel his legs move, they were paralyzed by the cold. It was a terrible feeling, as if his legs were cut off from the rest of his body.

"Please hold on… Please hold on…" Link pleaded over and over again.

He tried to tighten his precarious grip, but he saw helplessly how his nails slipped through the slippery ice, causing his weakened body to sink deeper into the icy water. If things could not get any worst, the ice edge on which Link was holding on began to crack. Link hold was causing to break faster.

"No, oh please no…" Link whispered. He closed his eyes against it all.

The ice gave in and the ice broke. Link's hands could not take hold of it any longer. His hands slipped over, and so did Link, disappearing completely below the ice waters of Ordon Spring.

Feeling the cold water all around him was like being crushed by hundreds of iron anvils. The low temperature penetrated his skin easily and reached his bone in a matter of seconds. He didn't remember anything hurting his body so bad than freezing water. What he felt was agonizing; he couldn't move his legs or his arms, so he could not swim to the surface. And when eyes opened his eyes under the water, if felt like they froze into ice orbs and that someone with knives was trying to tear them away from its sockets.

Strange enough, he could move his neck. He looked up with much effort. The water ripples, illuminated by the faint moonlight, was the only thing he could see above him. The rest around him was turning darker and darker as he sunk deeper into the pond. The surface ripples were getting farther away from him, along with his hope. He was so sure that he was going find some answers, or at least some peace to his messy mind. Oh he was so wrong.

He could not take it anymore; he was sick, weak, and miserable. He was unable to battle against the nature around him. Not even his winter clothes could protect him from the cold that was slowly enveloping him. It was inevitable, he was going to die. He showed no resistance as he let his body to completely detach from his soul. His fear and panic morphed into some sort of calmness inside him. He didn't feel the water entering through his nose and mouth, and for that he was thankful. If that was what death was like, it wasn't so bad.

He felt somewhat sorry for the villagers; perhaps they will note his absence and began to look for him even under the rocks. But he knew that, by the time anyone finds him, it would be too late. Perhaps it was the best for all of them, including himself.

And so, he closed his eyes and let his dead weight to finish the job to take him to the bottom of the pond.

Something grabbed his floating arms. He got started at the sensation that ran through his cold skin. It took him some seconds to realize that what grabbed him was actually a hand. It was small in size, but its grip was very firm and strong. When he felt the grip in his hand, he grabbed the unknown person's forearm, more out of instinct than for his desire to live. He noticed that the forearm, as well as the hand grabbing him, was small and felt slender on his hand. Had somebody found him?

In a split second, his arm was pulled with great strength and velocity. Another split second later his entire body was pulled out from the water. Link found himself laying down on his stomach over the pond's ice layer and with that, the grip and pressure on his arm disappeared, along with any presence he could feel around him. This time the ice patch was closer to the pond's edge and in the shallowest part of it.

His body reacted quickly. He coughed violently as the water he swallowed along with other secretions was expelled painfully from his lungs. More water dripped from his hair, face, and clothes. He shivered violently and he couldn't control it. He couldn't think in anything else apart of how cold he was. He needed to move; at least if he moved it could bring some of the warmth he was craving for at that moment.

Link clumsily dragged his body toward safe ground and away from the spring water. In a moment when he lifted his heavy eyes, he spotted his lantern. Its light flickered but continued burning oil. Light was fire, and fire was hot. And he needed to get close to something hot, no matter how small it was.

As tired and disjointed and he felt, he struggled to get closer to the tiny source of heat. When he finally reached it, his arms could not hold his weight any longer. He let himself fall on his side, his face facing the lantern's flame, helpless and weak. Soon he realized that the position was causing him more pain on his shoulders. So he rolled on his back with some effort and laid totally spread on the snow. He turned his head so he could still feel the lantern heat in his face. After that, he couldn't even move a single hair. He was so sleepy; he closed his eyes, hoping that this time he would die for good.

A minute passed, and he felt a presence somewhere around him. He listened to some small and light steps coming so ever close to him, even when his ears felt so clogged. He could feel as the person kneeled beside him, its knees close to his face. Then, he felt a hand. A small, soft hand was touching his face, almost caressing his frozen cheek. Another even warmer hand held his other cheek; the simple gesture felt so good that he wanted it to last forever. With great care, both hands turned his head to the other side. He felt a hand stroking his damp hair while the other kept holding his cold cheek. It was then that curiosity hit him harder than ever, and he was forced to open his eyes.

His sight was extremely blurry, and he was afraid that if his did so much as to blink, he could no longer keep his eyelids open. He made a super human effort to focus his sight to the thing that hovered over him in slow motion. It was not the black and absent void from the ghost, it was a face, but it looked distorted in his eyes. It had a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth… Yes, it was a human being's face. If it was a man's or a woman's, he couldn't tell. The blurriness dissipated a little, and the person's distorted features slowly began to fall into place.

Two shiny brown eyes took form and a second later, two slightly parted thin lips came into view. The hair was pulled back by something he couldn't distinguish; perhaps with a ribbon. The loose hair strands moved softly as the cold wind toyed with it. The face was small, well-cared, and its white skin looked soft and youthful. Through his tired and screaming mind, he soon realized that the person who was stroking his hair and cheeks was a woman; a good and caring woman.

Link did not move. He stared blankly at her, but did not recognize her; he was too much in pain to look for faces in his memory vault.

"Pleeeassse… I… need… helllp…" He whispered to the woman by his side. He did not felt his mouth move at all. He closed his eyes in defeat.

When he opened them again, he saw how her lips moved in slow motion, as if saying something. He could not listen to what she was saying. All he heard was muffled whispers inside a sea of nothingness.

Suddenly, the fragile clarity Link was clinging on started to drift away. His body began to feel numb, and the desire to sleep became more dominant by the second. He pleaded the woman for comfort with his hurt eyes. Then, that desperate moment was followed by an awkward moment.

Link noticed for the first time the lady's beauty. Her blond hair looked combed, and her skin seemed to glow and sparkled. In other situations he could admire such a pretty face for hours.

"So pretty…" He gasped weakly in awe. He wanted to touch her face, but he felt no sensibility in his hands to feel or in his arms to lift them. In that moment, a feeling of serenity engulfed his being, washing some of his pain away as is eyesight darkened little by little. He was tired yet he fought to get hold of his fading consciousness, to cling to that strange feeling of safety he was getting in his gut since she was there with him.

"So… beautiful…" he whispered, but no audible words were coming out of his lips. "Don't… leave…"

The dark veil covered him entirely, but his savior – his beautiful goddess – stood by his side until the last hint of color turned black.

TBC...

A/N: Sorry if Link may look a little out of character, but his behavior is essential for the sake of the story. Besides, it's weird to see Link showing his feelings in the games, so I really like the idea of exploring them while writing.

Be kind. Review. And thanks for reading, always.