Link curled into a tight ball, shivering from the cold. His cheek tingled. Teeth chattered. At first, he thought Alex was playing a prank on him; maybe tipped a bucket of ice water on him for not doing her Ancient Civilizations paper. But when his eyes opened, Link found he wasn’t in his luxurious queen-sized bed, or for that fact, even in his room. He was lying in a thick blanket of snow.
Link stood bolt upright, watching the icy snowflakes drift downward as he spun around in disbelief. The rich smell of pine cones and fresh snow wavered through the air. He was standing at the base of a massive, snow-capped mountain. Ridges and bare pine trees stretched as far as his eyes could see. White everywhere. Everything was coated in a dense layer of snow. His heart pounded against his ribcage like a crazed woodpecker.
Link glanced down. His body was draped in a cloak lined with fur, his hands in woollen gloves, and his feet in leather hiking boots. That wasn’t what terrified him the most, though. There was something heavy resting on the outside of his thigh. And somehow, before he even opened the flap of his cloak, he knew what it was: a sheathed sword. He gripped the faded leather hilt tentatively, feeling the cold steel of the diamond-shaped pommel even through his woollen gloves.
As his legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, the first thought that crossed Link’s mind was that he was dreaming. After all, the last memory he had was playing his video game before he went to bed. And how else could he have ended up in these mountains dressed so ridiculously? His heart rate slowed thinking of the idea.
Dreaming, he thought. Yes, I like the sound of that.
To be sure, Link rolled up his right sleeve and shamefully pinched himself. He knew it was cliché, but he wasn’t exactly spoilt with options. But one stinging arm later, he found out he was still trapped in the frosty nightmare he in which he had awakened.
Kneeling there helplessly in the snow, Link began to comprehend the reality of his surroundings. The numbing flakes settled on his face and peppered his shoulders. The wind’s icy, searing fingers flapped through his clothes and whistled in his ears. His five senses were so sharply attuned that he couldn’t kid himself any longer. This wasn’t a vivid dream. Somehow it was a reality.
His vision blurred as he rose to his feet. For several minutes, he stood there, swaying, trying to catch his breath. Nothing was adding up. If this wasn’t a dream, how could he have gone from the safety of his bed to waking up in the middle of a mountain range? Not only was he in a completely different climate altogether, but judging from his outdated clothes he had also gone backward in time.
And here I thought you needed to own a DeLorean to time travel!
“Can anyone hear me?” someone close by yelled.
The voice was oddly familiar, but far too strained to recognize. Footsteps approached, crunching slowly through the thick crust of ice and snow. Crawling on his hands and knees, Link moved to a grove of pine trees and pressed his back against one of their trunks. He wrapped his gloved fingers around the hilt of the sword, sliding it halfway out of its sheath, noting its unfamiliar weight—nothing at all like the flimsy branches he and Alex used to play fight with growing up. Behind him, the footsteps stopped.
“Please, someone help!” The voice was hysterical now.
Alex?
Link peeked his head out from behind the tree. His sister was wrapped in a thick cloak with a short bow strapped around her shoulder. His body reacted before his mind did. Link leaped out from his hiding place and sprinted towards her.
“Alex, it’s me!” he shouted, stumbling through the snow. “Are you OK?”
Her sapphire eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. “Link? Oh, my God, Link!”
They embraced each other in a tight hug. Alex was reluctant to let go of his waist.
“Are you OK?” Link asked, examining his sister from head to toe at arm’s length. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine. Just freezing,” Alex said, although he could tell she was fighting back tears.
His sister looked him up and down curiously. “Why the hell do we both look like we’re dressed for a Renaissance fair?”
Link ran a hand through his hair, taking in her cloak and short bow once more. A short bow, he thought. Taytora’s weapon of choice. His stomach lurched with fear.
“I honestly don’t know,” he mumbled, trying to appear calm, which was an effort considering his body was pulsating with adrenaline.
Alex shifted her feet uneasily. A faint gleam from her chest caught his eye. A silver brooch in the shape of a gorlac was secured to her cloak. Link rubbed the back of his neck fiercely.
Alex noticed him staring at her chest and then followed his gaze. A moment later, tears streamed down her cheeks. “This is Glayridge’s brooch . . . Why am I—” She pointed to his chest with a shaky finger, “Why are we wearing our character’s brooches?”
Link paid her no mind. His brain was already powering ahead, his eyes fixated on their surroundings. Something told him they needed cover fast. “Follow me.”
“Follow you?” she asked. “Where? You don’t even know where we are!”
“Calm dow—”
“How can I calm down? Look at—”
Link grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a quick shake. “Keep your voice down,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “We don’t know where the hell we are, or what is out there.”
Alex must’ve known what he was insinuating. She immediately wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, shooting a wary glance behind her. “Do you think that—”
“I don’t know,” Link interrupted. “Just be quiet and follow me.”
They had only walked a few feet before the shrieking started. The pain that entered Link’s ears made him feel as if his brain were going to implode like a black hole. His vision splintered. Thoughts scrambled. He whirled around, disorientated, searching for the source of the noise. Only bare foothills and mountains could be seen in the distance. They ran as fast as their feet could take them.
“Cover,” Link shouted. “Fast!”
Another squeal. Louder this time. The sound waves rattled through his skull, causing him to lose his balance and nearly topple over. He knew they couldn’t let these things get any closer or they’d be as good as dead.
The siblings sprinted to the base of a mountain, their fingers plugged in their ears, searching for a suitable hiding place. Several feet up, Link spotted what looked to be a small cave. The way up was steep and riddled with loose stones, but options were limited.
“Up there!” he yelled as he climbed up on all fours.
The way up was steeper than Link had anticipated and every muscle in his body burned before he had even gotten halfway. When he finally reached the cave, he glanced back down at Alex, and to his bewilderment, she hadn’t even moved. She was still at the bottom of the mountain, staring over her shoulder at something in the distance, paralysed by what she saw.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled.
Link followed her gaze and cried out in shock. Two white blurs were rocketing towards them from the foothills in the distance. They were tearing through the white terrain like a pair of snowmobiles.
“Get up here now!”
Upon hearing his voice, Alex snapped out of her daze and followed her brother up the mountain. As Link was about to head down and meet her halfway, he realized she was not moving at all like his uncoordinated sister would. She was more sure-footed and balanced than he was climbing up, leaping from stone to stone with the elegance and finesse of an acrobat.
Link stared at her with a perplexed look on his face as she zig-zagged effortlessly up the steep incline. He couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. He had known her for fifteen years and the only time he had seen her move like this was when she was controlling a character in a video game.
The screeches from the creatures below reminded him of the peril they were in. Link dropped to his stomach, dangling out an arm for Alex to grab. Whatever was chasing them was right underneath them now, ascending the mountain. Alex reached for her brother’s outstretched hand, barely managing to grip the tips of his fingers. As soon as their gloves met, Link wrenched her into the mouth of the cave with all his strength, just as one of the creatures lunged for them.
He closed his eyes, flinching, waiting to be torn apart by whatever this thing was. But when Link opened them, he found the beast wedged inside of the entrance. He and Alex scurried back as far as they could, out of reach of its flailing legs. It snapped at them in a frenzy, clawing the sides of the cave, trying to wriggle closer and take a chunk out of them. Its rough, forked tongue had encircled its lips before it let out another high-pitched squeal. The sound echoed through the cave, amplifying their pain tenfold. Link writhed on the ground in agony, jamming his fingers inside of his ears. They were slowly popping.
Please stop! Please stop! Please stop!
And then it finally did. Link looked up to find an arrow embedded right above the singular eye of the beast. Dark blood was oozing down its face, in contrast with its snow-white fur. Alex sat beside him with her bow drawn, tilted on an angle. She was panting heavily.
Link stuck a finger inside his ear, wriggling it around to get some sound back. His head felt like someone had stuck a layer of thumbtacks into his brain. Through the gloom of the cave, Alex was clutching her lower leg. Fear shot through him like a defibrillator to the chest.
“Are you OK?” Link asked, scooting over to her. He could barely hear himself speak. His ears were still ringing.
Alex scrunched up her face as she spoke. He couldn’t make out a single word.
“What did you say?”
“I think it got me,” Link managed to hear her yell.
Alex dropped her backpack, bow and quiver to the side, then shrugged off her cloak and lay on her back. Link’s first reaction was to look away, but he knew that would freak her out even more. The creature's claws had torn right through her leggings, leaving two grotesque gashes down the length of her left calf. His head was still throbbing as he inspected the wound. Even in the faint light, he could tell how deep his sister’s cuts were. She was already losing a lot of blood.
“How bad is it?” Alex asked, her face contorted in pain.
“Just a little scratch.”
“What?” she yelled, tugging her right earlobe.
Link repeated himself louder.
“You’re lying,” she moaned, trying to crane her head up to see.
“It’s nothing. Look away,” Link ordered. He had to think quickly. Stop the bleeding somehow. Alex had never been a fan of blood. Seeing it always made her queasy and light-headed. He couldn’t have her freaking out any more than she was. Or worse, passing out.
To see what he had to work with, Link tipped out all the items from both their backpacks and pouches onto the hard cave floor: A sheepskin map, rope, a vial filled with weird goo, scrolls, blanket rolls, two waterskins, bread, cheese, and plenty of dried meat. The same as what Taytora and Deonis carried on their journey through the Galbraz Mountains, he reflected.
Link shook his head. There was no time to dwell on that. Stopping the bleeding was his priority. He unlaced Alex’s boots and took them off, trying to roll her leggings up over the wound. It was no use. The higher he rolled the more pain it caused her. Instead, he proceeded to cut into the bottom of her pants with a knife from his belt.
Link jerked his head up. A sound like two rocks grinding together was coming from outside the cave. The remaining creature was clawing at the stone, trying to find a way in. Its snout was pressed against the entrance, sniffing madly for their scents, making excited, sharp yipping noises.
Link moved his head quickly from side to side, searching the cramped cave. There was only one entrance, and that was the way they came in. Unless it ripped out its dead friend, he figured they’d be safe for the time being.
When Link had finished hacking the bottom of Alex’s leggings, he grabbed the waterskin and drizzled a little water over the slashes, trying his best to cleanse them. He wrapped the portion of legging he had cut off tightly around her leg, then he propped her leg on top of the backpack, elevating it slightly so the blood rushed away from the wound. Mom had taught him this after a First Aid course she had attended. Link was grateful he had paid attention for once.
A shrill sound resonated from outside the cave. The creature was getting impatient. Alex’s eyes were trained on the entrance.
“Relax, we’ll be safe in here,” Link said, even though he didn’t believe the words himself.
“What the hell are they?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know,” he responded, sparing a glance at the dead beast in front of them. “But this big boy is plugging the entrance, so we should be safe for the time being. That’s all that matters.”
As he was treating Alex’s wound, Link had completely forgotten about the creature. But now that he was done, it had his undivided attention. Even in death, it was a terrifying sight; Its mouth agape, filled with teeth as long as his forearm. Its gleaming hawk-like eye wide open, looking as if it were staring straight at him, still full of life. Like it could come back from the dead and rip him to shreds at any given moment.
Link lifted his eyes to the beast's cranium, fixated on the arrow protruding from its head. He was certain Alex had never fired a bow before in her life. She was hands down the most uncoordinated kid in her grade. Yet this arrow had landed directly in the middle of its eyes. To penetrate the beast's skull, she would’ve had to draw the bowstring back far, which required strength. Link had once witnessed his sister struggle to take the cap off a toothpaste tube.
“D-do you think it’s a—” Alex looked at him hesitantly, “a gorlac?”
The word made his entire body cringe, even though that was exactly what he was thinking. “I’m not sure,” he whispered. Then the idea came to him. “But I know a way we can find out.”
He reached for the map that had toppled out of the backpack, hesitating for a second before he slowly unfolded it. At the top of the map in big italic letters, read “Nocera.” Link massaged his jaw, the map shaking in his hands as he looked from familiar city to city, river to river.
He peered up at the dead gorlac jammed in the entrance, the bow by Alex’s side, his sword, and then their brooches. The elephant in the room couldn’t be avoided any longer. It was beyond the bounds of possibility. Hell, it defied logic, reason, and rationality. But somehow, Link knew he and his sister were in Nocera.
“What does it say,” Alex asked.
He handed her the map, gauging her expression as she read. Moments passed and she didn’t say a word but just lay there, fixated on the map in her hands. After a few unnerving minutes, she slammed it down against the hard stone, tears pooling in her eyes.
“I don’t understand. How can this be possible?” she asked. “This is a book we wrote, for Pete’s sake. We handed out birthday presents; I did my stupid paper, and then we went to bed. I don’t recall stumbling into some freaking portal that transported us into our story. Do you?”
Link pressed his back against the cave wall, farthest from the gorlac, and stretched out his legs. Alex’s eyes were still on him, waiting for an answer.
“Well, are you going to say something?”
“Like what?” he replied calmly.
She frowned. “Well, I don’t know; some input would be nice.”
“I’ve got nothing,” he said, pursing his lips. “Absolutely nothing.”
“No,” Alex said, shaking her head. “No. I will not believe we’re inside of our story just because some stupid map says so.” She closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “I mean, this land isn’t even real. It’s a land we imagined, for goodness sakes.”
Link stared at the icicles protruding from the roof of the cave while softly yanking at his hair as he attempted to soak everything in. Thoughts were spinning around his head like a never-ending carousel. He wanted to comfort Alex, but he couldn’t quite think of the words to say. If he lied and told her they’d be OK, she’d see right through it. And if he told her the truth—that the chances of them surviving this mountain range was beyond microscopic—then she’d bawl her eyes out. Instead, they both sat in silence for what felt like hours, until Link had the bright idea to lighten the mood with a joke.
“Hey, if you see any hidden closets could you let me know?” he asked. “That could be our ticket out of here.”
“Now is not the time for Narnia jokes,” Alex said. But Link had seen her lips twitch ever so slightly—he counted that as a smile.
Alex sat up and readjusted the wrap around her leg. There were no signs of any blood seeping through. Link thought that was a good sign. Suddenly a thought struck him, and he picked up the vial of goo from the cave floor. In their book, Taytora had applied a special concoction to heal Deonis’ shoulder after the battle with the gorlacs. The goo accelerated healing and numbed pain, a remedy devised by an Orban elder.
He swished the thick leafy mixture in front of his eyes. “If we are inside of our book, then you know what this is?”
Alex squinted at the goo, considering his question. “The Herbs of Namayka.”
Link slowly unwrapped the pelt. The bleeding had slowed a lot, so he guessed now was a better time than any. He splashed some more water over the wound and tried to be as gentle as he could while applying the paste. He had only dabbed a tiny blob on one of the gashes when Alex sighed in relief, imploring him to use more.
After he was finished, he hacked off a portion of a blanket roll and re-wrapped her gashes. No use using the same one, as it was covered in blood. He just hoped this goo was enough to ward off any looming infections.
Link laid down both their blanket rolls, hoping to give their backs some form of comfort from the jagged stones. Then, he fumbled through their scattered items in the dark, eventually pulling out a woollen blanket, spreading it over them both for warmth. Despite the gorlac plugging the entrance and blocking all the wind from outside, they were still chilled to the bone. They were both from Phoenix, after all, and didn’t adapt well to the cold.
The two laid inside the chilly cave for what felt like hours to Link. Huddled up together, using their backpacks as pillows. Every so often they took swigs from their water skins and hesitantly nibbled on the stale bread. Neither of them had much of an appetite, especially not with the dead beast blankly staring at them from the entrance.
Even though Link had to stop his eyes from closing involuntarily every so often, he was too tense to even think about sleep. How could he? If they were truly inside of Nocera, then their chances of surviving more than a few days were slim. Even if they did make it out of the cave, gorlacs, horriks, and other foul beasts patrolled these mountain ranges, picking off wayward travellers and even terrorizing villages.
Without Deonis and Taytora’s battle prowess or magical capabilities, what chance would they have? They were doomed the moment they awoke in this world. As scared as he was, though, he knew he had to put on a front for Alex’s sake. It was what Dad would have done.
Link glanced over at the silhouette of the gorlac stuck in the cave. The beast was as big as a small car, and would no doubt be frozen stiff by dawn. To move it, he and Alex would need all the strength they could muster, so he set his mind on trying to get some sleep. But before he could even close his eyes, the world spun like he was lying on a merry-go-round.
Link scrunched his eyes shut, hoping the stomach-churning feeling would pass. But when he opened them again, he found he wasn’t in the freezing cave anymore.