Fantiality

Navi

The rain was still falling. I lay beneath it all as it slowly washed me away into the mud. I couldn't move. Lightning flashed above me and I could see its complete form running across the sky, almost as though it were in slow motion: jagged, brilliant, and sharp, like a sword. I could feel the mud enclosing about my neck and sucking down my long hair.

"Link!" I cried, but my voice was soft and smothered as though I couldn't get enough breath out of my lungs. "Link, please. Shadow, Amanda, I can't move."

But the rain just kept falling and the lightning just kept flashing. Only now and then did I actually hear the thunder, booming across the earth and shaking my bones. I struggled, but gave up and began to cry.

Then a figure appeared above me, looking down in disdain. Instead of relief, I felt horror. I recognized that petite figure and that cruel smile.

"I told you not to do anything."

"But I didn't use my imagination," I plead, still so very softly. "I didn't do anything to them. Please, help me."

"Help you?" the little Japanese man laughed.

"Please, I promise I won't do anything to your story."

"And what are your promises to me, Kara James? You are better off dead."

Terror ran through me and I begun to struggle in earnest. My lungs were beginning to ache with the effort of my deep sobs. I didn't want to die. Would it hurt?

Miyamoto, like ever, just smiled.

"Besides, little Kara, didn't you want to go home?"

"No, no!"

With a chuckle, he left, leaving me once more with a view full of the angry, stormy sky.

"No! I don't want to die. If I die they will too." Images of Link came to my mind and I cried all the harder. Shadow, Amanda, Zelda, Saria, they'd die. Why did it have to end like this? Why did I have to be trapped and sinking when I should be helping them, imagining a better life for them?

But the mud was past my ears now. I could hear the bubbling of the earth. I could feel it slinking over my legs and arms. I gave up trying to move and just sobbed. At least I might be seeing Cheyenne now, and my mother. I could tease my brother again and Amanda and I could live a normal life, for surly she must be drowning as well somewhere out there.

The mud was reaching the corner of my eyes.

In last desperation for comfort I began to sing my mothers lullaby, trying to convince myself that where I was going now was back home with her.

There were bells on the hills, but I never heard them ringing,

No I never heard them at all

Till there was you.

Mother. At the memory of her song I remembered her unconditional love. The thought of it crushed me and took the breath from me completely, and suddenly I didn't mind the mud now reaching for my nose and mouth. I could hear something—could that be bells?

There were birds in the sky, but I never saw them winging,

"Kara?"

No I never saw them at all.

"Kara, wake up. Wake up, I'm here."

And quite abruptly I was staring up into the dark rafters which were barely shown by a passing flash of lightning. Warm hands were shaking me awake. I recognized a wonderful, piney smell. The words of my mother's lullaby was still curled on my tongue. I sniffed, realizing the mud that had been filling my nose had not been mud at all, but a result of my crying. My face felt wet and crusty with tears. I felt his fingers glance across my cheeks.