Disclaimer: The Legend of Zelda does not belong to me. My imagination is not that great to create such a wonderful world.

A/N: Well I'm back for your amusement (or for your pain). Just to remind you that any mistakes are mine and mine alone and... well, enjoy!

The Ghost Beside Me

Chapter 10: It Is What You Want It To Be

"Oh no…" Rusl hurried and knelt by Link's side. The sight was strange rather disturbing for the mustached man; it was odd enough for Link to sleep on the floor when he had a fine bed to do so, but the fact that he was half naked with such a cold weather hitting his ill frame was something to definitely be worry about.

He rolled him gently on his back, and was surprised at how pale Link looked; he was completely drained of his natural color. The young man was extremely cold when he touched his cheek and noticed that his body was wet. Small waves of panic crawled through his face as he tried to understand what in the world had happened to him.

"Link? Can you hear me boy?" Rusl put a hand under Link's head and lifted it some degrees at the same time that he rubbed his shoulder to give him some warmth. Link stirred unconsciously on the hard floor. "Wake up."

Rusl decided to shook him when the man in his arms peeled his eyes opened. Rusl smiled when he saw that Link was responding, but his hope was dampened when he locked gazes with Link. His eyes were bloodshot and his gaze looked forced and tired. They were empty, lost and darker that usual. For the very first time, Link's eyes lacked the beauty and brilliance that were polished in his ocular pupils since the day he was born.

"Link, are you alright?" He asked in an almost frantic way, and immediately realized how ridiculous that question was.

Link didn't answer and didn't seem to bother in trying to. He blinked tiredly at him, and Rusl feared he did not recognize him at all. He touched his cheek in a comforting way. He didn't react to the action. It was evident that he was not right.

"Who did this to you, son?" Rusl pressed, lowering his voice to hide his growing distress.

"She did," Link whispered with much effort.

At first, Rusl didn't give much credit to what he just said. He mentioned it was a she, a woman. So if there was some kind of trespassing, the perpetrator was a female person. But the possibility that the same person attacked him was something he could not draw in his imagination. Link was young and strong, in addition that he possessed some combat knowledge that Rusl taught him; so he knew that Link could defend himself even with his health partly against him.

"Who? Link who hurt you?"

He raised a trembling hand and showed it to Rusl. Rusl saw that he was holding something. Confused, he took the crumbled thing from Link's hand and took a quick look at it. It was a pictograph of a woman that he could had recognized no matter how many years had passed.

It was a pictograph of Adryll and baby Link in her arms. But… why?

"It-It was her… all a-along…" Link managed to say to his mentor between labored gasps of air, struggling to stay awake.

Rusl felt lost at his words. Was he referring to Adryll? No way. Link was not thinking right; he was blaming his deceased mother for his actual predicament? Now he was sure that Link was delusional.

After Link said that, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his body slackened in Rusl's embrace, and the older man saw helplessly as Link finally lost his weak grip on consciousness.

"Rusl?" Someone called from outside. It was Uli. In the rush of dread and fear, he forgot that he left Uli behind. His mind was screaming to him; he didn't want Uli to witness this horrible scenario, didn't want her to see the boy she care so much for in that inexplicable and sickening state. She would succumb to hysteria instantly.

"Is Link asleep? You've been so quiet since you enter-?" Rusl heard how Uli stop talking to let herself gasp. He heard how she walked ever so slowly over the shattered and broken things on the floor, careful not to get hurt by them. He could tell by her occasional gasps and slow pace that she was scared.

"Rusl?" Uli called, fear clearly reflected in her voice.

"Uli!" Rusl replied. "I'm here!"

It did not take Uli more that five seconds to find the two men hidden behind the bed. She gasped at what she saw. For some reason Rusl was on the floor holding Link's body, who appeared to be asleep in his arms. More that worry and confusion were etched in his facial features.

Uli ran toward them and kneeled beside Link. "Oh Rusl, what happened here?" She asked frantically. He touched Link's cheek with a trembling hand. She gasped again as she was tempted to retrieved her hand from his ashen face. "He's so cold! For the gods' sake, what happened to him?"

"I don't know. I-I just found him here. He was out cold and-and…" Rusl stammered nervously.

"I'll go for help," Uli began to stand up.

"No Uli, wait!" Rusl stopped her. "First, let's get him to his bed. I need you to changes the bed's sheets."

Uli headed to the bed and retrieved the sheets that were covering it, frowning when she felt them damp and cold. She then hurried to the nearby dresser to find some clean, fresh blankets. Her eyes often drifted to Rusl and Link's figures. She saw how her husband kept holding the kid's frame close to him, stroking his hair and giving him as much body heat as he could – just like he had done with his own son Colin countless times before.

"Rusl," Uli signaled him.

The older man tested his physical strength by lifting Link into his arms. Link made no sound as he was lifted. At first Rusl groaned; although he had not reached his fourties yet, the effort of lifting a young grown-up's dead weight represented a challenge to him at his age, but was surprised at how light he was. Surely the past days and his illness took some weight off from him, but he never considered how much. He laid his ward tenderly on his bed and Uli immediately covered him with a couple of blankets and a quilt.

"His clothes still wet," Uli observed. "I need to retrieve them or our effort to warm him up will be for nothing."

Very carefully, she slid her hand under the blankets that covered him. She searched with her hands until she touched the wet clothes that were on Link's lower body. She handled the pieces of clothes with so much care as if she was handling an explosive object; she didn't want Link to feel he was being undress in front of them. She protected his dignity. But Link didn't seem to notice the movements that lingered over him. Once Uli took off the wet clothes she threw then along with the pile of dirty blankets.

He kneeled over the fallen man. He gently brushed the damp strands of hair off his forehead with her fingers. Link didn't react to her relatively warm touch, he didn't even flinch. That worried her even more.

"Link?" She called him softly. "Can you hear me dear?"

Link didn't move. It was obvious that his mind was somewhere else and was not listening to her calling his name.

"He doesn't look hurt," Uli commented as she tucked Link. She noted how the boy gasped for air through his mouth from time to time. "I don't see any bruises. He looks sick though."

Rusl was inspecting the door, seemly looking for something. Then he moved to the nearest window and did the same. "And I thought some thief broke in here. But I'm starting to believe that no one was here at all." He said while inspecting the window lock. "The door looks undisturbed, and so are the windows here."

"If this was no thief's work, then how do you explain the mess?" Uli questioned him.

Rusl turned to see his wife kneeling at Link's bedside. He looked around the placed, then he gave Uli a troubled look. She studied his husband's face for a minute. It seemed to be only one explanation to Uli's question, and he just answered her with his face.

"You think Link trashed his own place?" Her voice gasped. Rusl knew she would not like the answer. "Rusl that's – that doesn't make any sense! This is Link we are talking about, he would never do this."

"I know it's not in his character to have a tantrum or anything like that – even if he's in a bad mood. But you even said that he was not acting like his old self since he visited you two or three days ago. Perhaps that discovery, along with his routine and he being sick - and his emotions toward it… Dear, I wouldn't dump the possibility that he… snapped." Rusl tried to reason.

Uli had no words to say. The explanation was irrational to her undertanding. She took care of him since he was a child, and she knew that he grew up to be the sweetest, kindest young man in the whole village. She could not accept that her surrogated son could lost his mind and able to succumb into such destructive behavior.

"Besides," Rusl added after a pause. "He woke up for a minute after I found him."

Uli raised her eyes to him.

"I was trying to understand what happened and asked him who hurt him, and he gave me this."

Rusl gave Uli the pictograph Link was holding when he found him. She looked at it and her eyes went wide when she recognized the crumbled image. It was the pictograph that Link claimed to had found in the cellar; the pictograph of young Adryll and baby Link. Uli didn't seem to understand what was the relationship between that and the apparent incident that left Link weak and cold.

"He said she did it," Rusl added softly.

Uli covered her mouth with one hand as she held the pictograph with the other. In that moment, she felt like she was slapped in her face. Shivers ran through her already shot nerves and she felt she was going to pass out. She diverted her glance from the pictograph and gave a looked at Link; he was still unconscious, his sleep seemed to be free of any wandering dreams or nightmares. He breathed was steady but raspy through his parted, bluish lips. His skin was white as the snow outside the house and his eyelids had a purplish tint and looked sunken. In that moment, she realized he'd made a mistake.

"This is my fault," Uli's voice almost broke.

Rusl looked at her, confused.

"It's my fault that Link is in this predicament. I shouldn't have waited so long to tell him about Adryll – about his mother. And now that he finally knows he didn't take it very well." Her voice trailed off. Her face contorted in a sad expression and she looked like she was about to cry. "Oh gods, what have I done? Why did I-?"

If the picture of Link lying unconscious on the floor gave him a heartache, seeing Uli breaking down into tears broke his heart completely. He hurried to her side and hugged her, offering his unconditional comfort to her. Uli hugged him back.

"No Uli. Please, don't do this to yourself." Rusl hushed her. "This is not your fault my dear."

"Adryll will never forgive me for this. I promise her to look over Link, and I had failed her. I had failed Link too." Uli held her sobs back, but tears were already rolling down her face.

"We didn't fail anybody, not Adryll and certainty not Link. We gave him everything we could along with our love. Adryll would have been very proud after seeing that we all raised such a beautiful man."

Rusl broke the embrace and cupped Uli's teary face in his hands. He smiled tenderly at her; not even the tears on her face could take her beauty away.

"I did what I could." Uli mumbled.

"Me too honey. Me too."

Link coughed weakly in his sleep. They both turned their gazes to Link. The young man showed no signs of waking. He was oblivious to the sorrow near him. Once his coughing stopped, Uli took Link's cold hand into hers and caressed it. "Adryll loved him," Uli remembered while being totally absorbed by the young man's sickly appearance. "He was everything to her."

Rusl was silent for a moment, thinking, until he finally spoke. "But she was not to him."

To that she didn't reply, for Uli knew he was right.

The first sensation Link registered was a firm yet comfortable material under his hands. Seconds later, he felt it under his stomach, his chest and finally, pressing under the right side of his face. Slowly he lifted up his head and a sea of white greeted his sight, and the image of snow and the possibility of lying on those darn snowflakes clogged his mind. But strange enough, he didn't feel cold. In fact, he felt nothing… nothing at all.

He moved until he knelt and stretched his muscles lazily, and smiled. He felt good, hadn't felt this good in quite a time. Nothing hurt, his bones responded to his commands – he felt just perfect. After so many days he was feeling good. Finally!

Looking down, he expected so see some of that warm snow he supposed he was on. Or perhaps it was the hard wooden floor of his house. But was he saw disappointed him in some way, for it was not snow or wood what was under his knees. Link was kneeled in what appeared to be some form of white mist widely dispersed over the place; not a single patch of soil was visible through the thick mist. He was filled with amazement and uneasiness. He leaned over a little to touch the white ground, but his hand came out mostly clean. He watched as some of the mist floated over his hand until it evaporated completely.

Everything was silent; not the deafening kind but the silence someone like to listen when the desire to think or rest engulfed the body. It was relaxing. His then serene nerves began to give him shivers when he decided to stand up. His movements were coordinated and swift, reassuring him that he was not ill anymore. Another relief, but yet he knew in the very back of his good understanding that something wasn't entirely right. As he stood up and looked to the front, he could not give credit to the scenery in front of him.

The mist sea extended as far as his eyes could reach, giving the impression that he was standing in a huge cloud. A number of small fairies were flying close to the compacted mist. They were colored in shades of white, pink and green. The mist collided in the horizon with the sky, or something like that. The sky there was a mixture of gray, purple and blue, making it difficult to figure out which color dominated over the others. Complementing the view there were big gazebo-like structures scattered all over the place. The rounded marble roofs were held by six beautifully crafted pillars, creating arches at the top of their unions. They shined as if they were polished every day.

The place was beautiful, too beautiful to be real. He felt like he was in heaven. But Link felt so overwhelmed by what he was seeing that he started to question himself in what kind of place he was standing – in what kind of place he walked in without noticing.

Am I dead? Am I really… dead?

The possibility of his own passing didn't surprise Link to the point of dismay. His mind didn't suppress the last events of his life. He perfectly knew what happened to him – or so he thought. He remembered getting sick because of his exposure to the storm and when he fell into the icy waters of the spring. He supposed that his mortal body could not take the low temperatures and gave up, causing his lungs to stop working and his heart to stop. He must have died after he passed out and fortunately, he didn't felt anything when that happened.

And now his immortal body and consciousness were there; in a realm beyond his imagination, feeling unworthy of standing in a small piece of heaven when his recent actions didn't deserve such a reward.

A fairy flied from the low mist until it floated a few inches away from Link's nose. He extended his open hand, and the fairy posed itself on the man's fingers; its tiny wings were flapping softly.

Link smiled at the delicate life form in his hand. That little fellow could be his new pet in this new place. He would take care of it as he did with Epona in life.

If this is what the afterlife looks like, then being dead in not so bad. He thought.

Somehow, the fairy got startled and began to float in the air. It looked as if it was scared be something. It trembled in the air until it flied away from his hand and from where he was standing.

"Hey…" the young man gasped at the fairy's sudden. He surprised himself when he heard his own voice echoing in the place. That fairy looked so happy in his hand. Was his ugly and dead face what made it flee? Did he make an inappropriate face to it without noticing? Did someone behind him scare it away?

It did not matter anymore. With a long yet uneasy sigh full of resignation, Link turned ready to explore what appeared to be his new home for the rest of eternity. But the utopian landscape was blocked by and horrific thing merely feet away from him and, at the same time, knew what gave the poor fairy the creeps.

The ghost – the monster from his nightmares - was there, in front of him.

With him, in the afterlife.

No, the young man's mind screamed. Not here too…

Link almost gasped. He felt how his stomach turned upside down and his nerves jumped with sudden panic waves. It was it: the same ratty cloak, the faceless eyes, its ghostly aura covering the frame from head to – to whatever it had in its feet's place…

He was wrong all along. That place was not the utopian kingdom of the gods. It must be the netherealm. He had heard of it when he was a kid: the tales of a place where evil souls were doomed to wander, surrounded by false landscapes and pursued by the person's worst nightmares.

But wherever he was going to spend the rest of the world's time, he would not let his nightmares to ruin his eternal existence.

Link could not tear his eyes away from the ghost, who remained unmoved at its spot, floating over the mist. He wanted to run away from it. In his panicked state, the control over his body faltered. He made a step back, but fell down on his behind at the very first attempt. To his dismay, he found himself unable to move properly without feeling shivers all through his skin. Once again – and as if he was very much alive – the air became thin and his own breathing was not helping him to control his fear.

The ghost moved, and Link had to choke back a sob. That was it; the ghost was going to torment him and eat him and tear his limbs apart one by one. He tried not to be scared, he tried to dismiss such a terrible feeling, but he was as terrified as the first time he dreamed about it. That was his curse; to live in fear for everything he'd done – for all the awful things he recently said to his friends, for the unjustified anger he fired to his own past, to the least people who deserved it. He just realized in the most painful way how little it takes for the gods to take away what you earned in life.

In the instants of growing terror, he wished for his friends to be with him. He wished for dear Uli and Rusl, wished for sweet Ilia and his compassive father Bo. He wished for Epona… for Colin and Sera and every Ordonian he knew. He hated to admit it, but he wanted to be with them back on Earth. Hungered for their comfort, for their support.

A tear finally made his way out of his eyes. Where were they when he needed them? Why weren't they with him? He looked around the big cloud in desperation, not even the lady from the spring was there.

The lady from the spring…

…and the ranch.

The lady from his dreams.

His mother…

Now he wanted to cry his misery away. Oh how much he longed her presence near him. How he wished to feel those warm hands over him again – or only touching his shoulder, that would be enough for him. He felt the urged to see her face again, her brilliant and smiling face. But all he had close to him was the nightmarish and disgusting sight of that unwanted ghost. That alone was torture to his now fragile mind.

The ghost kept moving ever so slowly toward Link's slumped form on the mist. He tried to crawl away from it, but each time he moved back the ghost hovered twice as fast as him. When he could no longer bear the flaming sight of the specter over him and inside his brain, he close his eyes shut. But to no avail, the sickly thing had already stuck in his conscience. Physically and mentally, he was trapped.

In another shot of desperation, he tried to recall any other thing in his mind. Conversations could work; perhaps it'll make it disappear or make him wake up from this nightmare, if that was the case. He summoned the voices, the accents, the messages they carried…

"Link? Link, say something. Anything…"

"…You've got to feel something."

"Link! Don't talk like that…"

"…Don't let it get into you."

No no no… Link shook his head. He was summoning the wrong images. His own memories were making things worst. Ilia's sermons and upset voice was the least he wanted to remember.

The ghost kept moving. Link needed to think in something else.

"Good morning Link. I didn't notice you were here."

Yes, Rusl's reassuring voice sounded cheery and happy. What was the last thing they talk about?

"It was exactly three days after her passing…"

"She was a good friend of mine…"

No! Not that bit, please! He was sure it was going to upset him more. Link gripped his head with both his hands, digging his fingertips into his forehead and scalp. He saw how the menacing ghost kept slowly moving to his spot, but getting closer to him nonetheless. He tried to block the flow of memories, but they were already running at full blast. At that time, he was sure he was going crazy. He closed his eyes shut.

"…I understand that you may feel confused about it."

"All she told you is the truth and it's real…"

"…it is what you want it to be."

What? Link forced his mind to repeat that last line for a second time.

"It is what you want it to be."

That single line had struck deep into his unconscious understanding for some reason. But he could not find any meaning to that yet. It was so weird; there was the creature form his nightmares about to grab him and yet he was running wild trying to understand what the hell Rusl meant by that.

"It is what you want it to be."

It is what you want it to be… It is what you want it to be… What is it that he wanted it to be? Was there a thing he wanted to change? Is there anything in his power to make things change for good? But why now? Why did those things come to him in that desperate moment?

In a sudden spark of understanding, Link opened his eyes wide and – gulping hard – he stared at the ghost's yellow eyes. For days it had controlled his mood, his feeling and his actions. He saw how it was responsible for his restless nights and his unlikely behavior toward others and toward himself. It, a creation of his own mind, controlling him? Now he felt like a complete fool. He was not a child or a teenager anymore to be afraid of nightmares and ghosts. But the worst part is that he let it transform him into a bitter, not-so-nice person. He was not going to let it happen again. Not in life and certainty not in death.

He was finally beginning to understand. He could change it - he had to, must to. It was a product of his distressed mind and therefore he had the power to change it, to defeat it. If he would have managed things in other ways, perhaps the monster in front of him would had been something else; an animal, a rock, a tree… a person. Someone else.

Someone who cares.

When the ghost was barely a foot away from his grounded form, it stopped abruptly. A single fairy flied from the repelled flock to the ghost's covered feet. In a graceful way, the fairy began to fly around the specter's figure. As it reached the top of its head, the sparkly trail it left surrounded the ghost as a swirl vine. At the same time Link saw the transformation that was taking place in front of his wide opened eyes.

The ghost's torn cloak disappeared and was instantly replaced by a clean, green cloak. The eyes was were watching him so intently seemed to close under its shadowy eyelids and shining no more, even its height seemed to shrink significantly. In a blink of an eye, the specter's repugnant shape turned into a different entity. No more dirty and old look that scared Link and no more menacing stances, but it still had some strange aura around it. In fact, it was even nice to look at the new sight in front of him.

Or not so new at all. Link could've sworn he'd seen it before.

When Link could not understand anymore what was going on, the ghost – or whatever it was now – knelt before him until its cloaked head was at his level. Its face was still covered by shadows, and Link wanted so bad to see its face, ugly or not.

As if the ghost had read his mind, two hands appeared from the cloak's long sleeves; two small, human, and normal hands. Slowly the hands retrieved the green hood to reveal a mop of golden hair, and the soft-smiling face of a woman. It was a shock and he could barely find his breath, but Link recognized the woman immediately. He recognized the gentle eyes looking at him, and the delicate yet strong hands that carried the baby – him – in the pictograph he found at his house. The same hands that lulled him when he was fading away in the spring.

In front of him was the lady from the spring, from the ranch. From his dreams.

From his past.

His mother.

TBC...

A/N: Be kind. Review. Criticism and flames are equally appreciated, but I like criticism more. :) It's the only way to know if you're interested and my only way to improve.