All In My Head: A Legend of Zelda Story

Chapter Five: The Secret

Well, I'm sick so here. Hope you don't cry like I did.

~Feels~

∆~∆~∆

The higher you rise, the harder you fall.

Zelda froze, locking up. She was happy now, wasn't she? She could forget about what happened and be happy. She was free, free from the nightmares and the trauma and the-

Was she really?

Her mind blanked for a split second and the next thing she knew she had toppled to the ground.

She fell off the couch, landing on her shoulder and jarring her arm. The ground connected with her elbow and wrist and she gasped as her arm punched into her stomach.

"Zelda!" Link exclaimed, getting down next to her. Gently, he pulled her to her feet and helped her sit down.

Zelda let the tears prick her eyes and slip down her face. Her arm throbbed. "I'm okay."

He shook his head. "I saw how hard you hit the ground," he said. "You are not okay. Stay here. I'll go grab the nurse."

She held her arm as he disappeared down the stairs, coming back with an older lady carrying a white medical bag.

"She fell off the couch," Link was saying.

The nurse hurried over to Zelda. Up close, she looked more like an athlete than a nurse, but Zelda didn't care too much at the moment. She was pretty sure she had gotten bad rug burn on her arm and it stung like crazy.

"Let me see," the nurse instructed, taking Zelda's arm and pulling up her sleeve. Sure enough, there was a long red patch on her arm.

"Well," the nurse said, patting her arm, "it doesn't look bad, no broken bones, but try to be a little more careful. Link, if this keeps happening keep her on the floor against a couch or something."

Link nodded. "Thank you, Impa."

The nurse brushed herself off and left, leaving Zelda and Link alone in the Big Room.

He sat down next to her on the couch. "What happened?" he asked, looking her in the eyes. "One moment, you seemed genuinely happy, the next, you were in a heap on the floor. Is everything alright?"

Zelda bit down on her lip, harder than she had expected, and felt a needle of pain spike through her. "I guess I just got caught up in the moment," she mumbled, stifling sobs. "The accident is going to haunt me for the rest of my life, isn't it?"

"You don't have to let it," he said softly. "You can let go."

No, I can't, I'm as weak now as I was then and every time I look up at you I relive the moment again and again but what would you know you're only trying to help me...

"What's the point?" she asked bitterly. "Why let go? Why not just hold on to the memory of my brother the pain of watching him die and the sound of the heart monitor flat lining..."

Realizing what she had said, Zelda promptly clammed her mouth shut, a hand over it.

Link's mouth dropped open. "Your brother?" he managed. "You had a brother?"

The past tense use of that word made the hole in her heart widen. I had a brother... I still do, don't I?

Zelda felt the frozen, grief stricken tears flood down her face and drip onto her shirt. She felt the pent up sadness and despair and rage that she had kept inside since the funeral. She felt her brother's cold skin, felt his oozing blood, felt his weak body give up.

She felt it all and more, so many emotions, why must there be so much pain?

Releasing a long, shaking breath, Zelda tucked her knees to her chest and buried her head into them. Her jeans now had two wet patches to match the spots on her shirt.

A hand touched her back and she nearly launched herself off the couch out of shock. She was back in the hospital room, but she wasn't. She was sitting in the Big Room of the mental hospital.

"I'm sorry," Link said, his voice far, far, farther away. "I didn't mean to startle you. Zelda? Zelda! Can you hear me? Zelda?"

She sniffled. "Sheik," she moaned, holding her knees tighter. "Sheik, where are you..."

∆~∆~∆

"We're going to the library real fast!" Sheik called, opening the front door for Zelda. "We should be back soon!"

Zelda held her library card tightly as she hurried out the front door. Her father, from his upstairs office, told them to be home by five.

Sheik unlocked his car and Zelda slid into the passenger's seat.

"Thanks for taking me," she said happily, giving her brother an awkward hug across the seats.

"Anything for my baby sis," Sheik chuckled. "Radio or no radio?"

Zelda shook her head. "Tell me about your day," she insisted.

Sheik sighed as the car pulled out of the driveway. "It was fine, Zelda," he said. "How about yours?"

"Fine. How was debate?"

"It was fine. How was drama?"

Zelda frowned. "It was drama, that's for sure."

Sheik nodded, turning out of their subdivision onto a major road. "Isn't it always?" He asked with a smile.

They laughed together right as the car hit them.

It was nothing like Zelda had imagined.

The impact pushed the car off the road, crunching on the driver's side. Zelda watched in a daze as Sheik's head hit the steering wheel, knocking him unconscious. Her vision swam and she vaguely heard someone speaking on the phone before she blacked out.

Her eyes opened and she was in the ER, strapped to several machines. Her mouth wouldn't respond when she tried to say something.

"Oh, Hylia, she's awake!" Her father's voice. His arms lifting her out of bed and wrapping around her in a hug. Warm tears in her shoulder.

"At least she made it," someone else said.

Wait. Sheik?

"My brother..." she mumbled thickly, eyes watering. "What happened to my brother?"

"Oh, hon, oh, Hylia, she doesn't know!"

"Zelda," her father said solemnly," Sheik didn't make it."