You know how on a Saturday morning, sometimes you wake up with your eyes closed and just lay there for a while, partially because you can’t go to sleep again and partially because you’re too lazy? That’s pretty much what I’m doing.

The feeling of being in my bed is welcoming and assuring after that insane dream. My sheets on top of me feel pretty thin, though. Maybe my mom changed them for the new season. I roll over, and stretch out my back. When I’ve rolled over, my right arm stretches out and touches something...bushy.

I open my eyes all the way, and see my hand is in an unkempt patch of grass. Grass. And on the back of my hand is the Triforce. What?! I try to get onto my elbows, but my arms collapse and I fall back to the dirt. I hiss and my right arm grabs my left shoulder as I try to ebb away the pain that wracked my arm.

“Link, I think she’s awake.”

I immediately whip around to face whoever said that, and see a small figure sitting on my right side. They have a dark body with a paler face and stomach, and a large mask covering one, crimson eye. Her hair is fiery, and ends with tinges of light yellow. But this isn’t the first time I’ve seen her.

“M-Midna?” I whisper, barely audible. She looks up from the dandelion she blew out, and her one eye narrows in confusion.

“How do you know my name?” she asks.

I don’t have an answer for her. I try to sit up more, but she backs away from me slightly. Unexpectedly, a person crouches beside me and puts their hand on my shoulder. They begin to peel off...bandages?

I grasp the hand on my shoulder by the wrist and shove it away. But when I look up at the person, my eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.

In front of me is a young man, maybe eighteen or nineteen. He has dirty blond hair, cobalt eyes, and a handsome face. But that’s not what I’m worried about. He wears a green tunic, with some dirt smudges and a matching hat that goes past his shoulders. There’s a metal shield over a sheath for a sword, with a violet hilt sticking out of the top.

“I’m sorry, but I need to change your bandages so you don’t get an infection,” he says. ”I popped in your shoulder while you were out. It’ll be sore for a while though, so try not to do any heavy lifting.”

He couldn’t be... Could he? No, it’s impossible. He can’t really be... Link?

His hand comes down again and carefully peels off some dirtied and bloodied bandages from my left shoulder, and I sit there, incapable of speech.

But wait... Link just talked. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I suppress my fan girl fit, and get serious again. This can’t be a dream, or I wouldn’t be hurt, I wouldn’t be here, and I would’ve woken up.

So, I quietly say, “Link?”

He leans back a little and looks at me. “How did you hear my name? Did Midna say it?”

Well, she did. But that’s not exactly what I was focused on. Mainly I was paying attention to the fact that, oh, I don’t know, she was in front of me and not on a screen?

Against my stiff legs, I stand up. This cycle is beginning to repeat itself; and I for one have had enough.

“Be careful. You don’t want to reopen your wounds,” he warns me kindly.

“You’re not supposed to be real,” I mutter.

He gives me a confused look. “I’m right here, aren’t I? Now please, sit down so I can redress your wounds. You don’t want to get hurt again.”

I don’t sit down. More like, I can’t sit down. My tailbone throbs too much from getting up. He continues to wait for me to sit down, and Midna sits next to him; staring at me like I’m a never-before-seen species.

Finally, his eyes get to me. I try sit down cautiously, but fall halfway. Link catches my side and good shoulder and sets me down gently before I hit the ground. I almost want to glare at him, but after all that he’s offering I find that I can’t manage more than a tiny frown. He pulls my leg onto his lap, rolls up my skinny jeans with ease, and begins to address the lacerations from where the leader of the pack bit me.

What do I do? Link is right in front of me, and Midna is beside me. This can’t be possible. Should I tell them about myself? I mean, about where I come from? Or is it like those movies when people go back in time and can’t be open about anything or they change the future? But then again, this is like a completely different world.

I contemplate this issue for almost twenty minutes, and Link moves from my leg to my forearm, then my bruised side. The whole time I give him cold glances, and every now and then I see his eyes flick up to meet mine, before focusing on my wounds again. Finally he moves to the deep scratches on my cheek, and I look down, almost ashamed to meet his gaze especially while he’s so close to my face. Before I can even stop myself, I softly blurt, “I know who you are.” His hands stop, and he looks up at me. “You were that wolf.” Then I turn to Midna, who is also staring at me. “And I know who you are too.”

“But how would you know?” Midna questions me.

“I think I know what’s going on, and I think I know where I am, and I probably know lots of people that I haven’t seen,” I say. My stupid mouth! Here goes...well, just about everything.

“But are you Hylian? You don’t look like one,” Link replies.

I look down at my hoodie, skinny jeans, and Adidas sneakers. Yeah, I’m not your normal person here. “I’m not Hylian. I’m not from Hyrule.”

“Then where are you from? I can take you back to your village,” Link offers. He’s exactly how I imagined him. Sweet, caring, honest, courageous, and always putting others before himself.

“I’m not from this world,” I say. Both of them go silent.

Then, Midna spouts, “Wow, you must have hit your head really hard!” and promptly falls over, clutching her sides. Even Link is grinning a little.

“It’s true!” I state, getting a little agitated.

“Really, now?” Link says.

I feel my cheeks heat up. “Yes, really! Why else do you think I said it?”

Midna waves her hand from her spot on the ground. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful—okay, maybe I do, but how do you expect us to believe you?”

I open my mouth to fire a comeback, but I know she has a point, so I mutter, “Well didn’t you come from another world, too?”

They fall silent almost immediately.

“How did you know that?” she asks, quietly but dangerously.

“I already told you. I know what’s going on, where I am, and I know many people who don’t know me and I know of events I never was there to witness.”

Link gives me a deadpan look. “So you were telling the truth?”

“Of course.”

He slowly looks to Midna, and they seem to communicate through their eyes. After a moment, he looks back at me. “Fire away.”

At least he’s giving me a chance, right? So I do exactly what he commanded.

First, I tell them a little brief excerpt about our history, to give them an idea about how our society is. Then I tell them about schooling and our government system, and cars. Link even surprises me with saying that he wished he had one. Next, I try to explain one of the hardest things. Computers, electronics, TV, and the internet. The whole time they stay quiet, trying to absorb our way of living. I’m not sure if they get it, but their expressions say they don’t.

Eventually, the sun starts to set, dying everything pink and purple. Grasshoppers sing nearby, and crows answer with a melancholy caw. The light wind tickles the back of my neck, and I shiver before focussing again.

Now for the ultimate leap. There’s really no way to put it gently, so I don’t sugar-coat it. They aren’t supposed to be real. Link looks like what I’m saying is absolutely ridiculous, his lips parted and his brows furrowed; as I explain the franchise Nintendo has built on them and tell them about all the games. From the original Legend of Zelda to Oracle of Seasons, Skyward Sword, and everything in between.

Lastly, I get to my point of how I got here. From waking up in the forest to the Skull Kid, all the way until Link saved me. Midna looks like she understands it for the most part, and Link’s cerulean eyes look glassed over and emotionless. I tell them about my piece of the Triforce, and Link asks to see it. I show him the three faint triangles of power, wisdom, and courage, and the shaded middle triangle. He says he doesn’t know what it is, so now I have no leads.

“Also, you never talk in any games,” I tell Link.

“Really? But I talk all the time. That’s what most people do, right?” He looks like the whole idea is preposterous.

“Yeah. So I guess this is the first time I—or anyone, really, has heard you speak.”

“So do I sound how you thought I would?” Link asks me with a gleam in his eyes.

I smile widely. “Better.”

“Do I ever talk?” Midna asks gleefully.

“In the one game you are in, yes, you are the only one that talks,” I tease. She mock pouts, then laughs. Then she moves to a different topic, making hand motions with her turquoise fingers.

“So, the internment,” Midna tries to say.

“Internet,” I correct. She nods.

“So the internet is powered by...that...stuff...” She improvises ‘electricity’. “And you can explore the world and learn things about it without moving?”

I smile slightly. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“And your world is bigger than Hyrule?” she wonders. I nod my head.

“Yup, many times bigger. Hyrule is a speck of dirt compared to where I come from.”

“And those TVs...” Link speaks up, “They let you look at things happening in the world even if it’s not happening near you?”

“I think you guys get it.”

Link continues, “But you can’t touch it even though it’s in front of you?”

“Pretty much. And about the game consoles, your game isn’t the only one.”

“Really? There’s more?” Midna asks, appalled by the idea of there being so many things.

“Yes. Most of them come on a disc”—I make a circle with my hands—”and you can play lots of games on them.”

“Really? All on one disc?” Link inquires.

I shake my head. ”No, there is one game per disc, usually. There are thousands of games, though, and millions of discs.”

Midna falls onto her back beside me. “Ugh, too many numbers.”

Link and I laugh. Before she can complain about the numbers, I’d like to remind her of my math class. I grab the remains of a crumpled sticky note long forgotten in my pocket, and hold my hand out for a pen. Link gives me a plume from his pack, and I write some basic freshman algebra on it.

-12x^3y+28xy^2+18x^6-42x^4y

I hold it up, and her eyes widen like it’s an illegible Java script computer code. “Factor it,” I challenge her.

She takes it from my hands, her eyes repeatedly scanning back and forth. “What is this language?”

I smirk. “English. My home language. But those are numbers with variables, not real words. It’s math.”

Midna gazes back down with big eyes. “This can’t be solved.”

I gently take it from her. “Sure it can. Watch.” For a few moments, I stare at it, and then scribble the answer below before holding it back up.

= (2xy-3x^4) (-6x^2+14y)

“See?”

She crosses her arms and gives me an incredulous look. “I still say it’s impossible.”

At that moment, I get a brilliant idea. Well, brilliant to me; but terrifying to anyone on the receiving end.

“Oh, and a lot of people have done spoofs of games, too!” I add.

“Spoofs?” Link and Midna question together.

“It’s something that makes fun of an original idea.” They both look like they understand, mostly. “There are a lot of spoofs people have done of the Legend of Zelda games.”

“Really?” Now Link and Midna look regretful. “What kind of things do they say?”

I start getting mischievous. “Well, one of my favourites are all the stereotypes people have come up with.” Just thinking about it, I laugh.

“What stereotypes?” Link looks kind of scared to know.

“You know, how you never talk, just grunt, break pots and...”

“And what?” he prompts.

I lean over and whisper in his ear the last one. When I back away with a smile, I see him giving me an exasperated glare.

“These aren’t tights,” he comments, looking a little weary.

Just by hearing that, Midna breaks out laughing. Good thing she’s laying down, or she would have fallen again. Link’s eyes have gotten serious, and he glares at me. There’s no anger in it, so I don’t get scared.

“And just for the record, I broke a pot one time by accident, but I swear I paid the lady back in full.”

“Sure you did.” Midna rolls her eyes.

Link glowers at her. “If I recall correctly, you were the one that broke it and hid in my shadow before the shop owner noticed. I was the one who bailed you out.”

She jumps to her feet, clenches her tiny fists and meets him face-to-face. “Well, you recalled wrong.”

“Hey, everybody calm down,” I try to mediate as I push them apart, but their scowls are locked on each other. “I think maybe we should sleep for the night.”

Link nods in agreement. He is about to get up, but I grab his wrist. He looks down at me, and I murmur, “Do you believe me?”

He says in a low tone, like his words are a taboo, “I think you’re telling the truth, just because you have so much backup. It’s impossible to make all of that up.”

I feel a weight lift off my chest and I give him a meaningful close-lipped smile as my hand falls from the leather of his worn gauntlets.

“I’ll take watch. You guys go to sleep,” he replies.

“But I’m not tired.” I yawn deeply, contradicting my own argument. Knowing that I can’t possibly take it back, I slide under the blanket, with Midna to my right. Link sits down on the other side of me, and then looks to the forest. I curl into a ball, and the sheet shifts.

Link smiles slightly as he looks at how Midna cuddled up to my side, and then whispers, “You never told us your name.”

Really? I must have gotten really carried away.

“Neri,” I say. He sits back up, and takes his shield off his back. Then, with one last phrase, I fall asleep. “Thank you for everything.”