With the help of Midna's magic hair, I smashed that sarcophagus to pretty little pieces in order to uncover the missing gear. Said gear, also known as a spinner for simplicity's sake, quickly found a place among my favorite tools, despite its bulky size and shape. Midna had muttered something about boys and their fascination with new toys, but her words largely fell on deaf ears – but it came to an end soon enough. In spite of the simple joy provided by spinner, the impending doom that had nestled in my stomach became more insistent the longer I stood, staring blankly at the big key in my hand.

"You'll have to go in at some point," Midna pointed out softly. I nodded absently at her remark but my gaze didn't falter; rather, its intensity increased with a sharp pang of dread.

"What if I die in there?"

"You won't die," she soothed. "Worse comes to worst, you have two fairies, remember? You'll be fine so long as you keep your head. I don't want to hear you shrieking 'what the hell' in there either; it detracts from your already meagre concentration abilities."

"Midna, I have one hand. A sword and a bow require two." Oh, that made her uncomfortable. Served her right. Not really. I looked at her almost sadly, resigned. "I'm going to use one before we go in – just to give whatever's in there a fighting chance," I joked weakly. Uncapping the bottle, I unthinkingly shook the glitter onto my nonexistent palm.

It flickered white.

Then an ivory.

And then that familiar tan of my skin, from working so many sunny days on the ranch.

Sweet Nayru, but my hand was back! The magic spiraled from my fingertips to my elbow, and even a little above, almost to my shoulder, seemingly probing for any additional damage. When the light finally faded, I had a fully functional appendage back in my arsenal. I wanted to sing. And maybe dance. This was a new lease on life. This was awesome. As if trying to prove this, I waved the restored fingers in Midna's astounded face, humming with excitement. "Look! She fixed it!"

A little more reserved than I would've liked, she simply replied, "But how permanent is it?"

"You've always got to spoil the fun," I complained sourly. "Always. It's your one purpose in life."

"At least I'm good at it."

Shrugging, I jammed the key into the lock but didn't turn it yet. Some vestiges of nausea clung to the sides of my ribs and the back of my throat, a mere annoyance instead of the debilitating sickness from the skeleton's chamber. Of course, the discovery of the spinner brightened my mood enough for the negatives of the current situation to dissipate a little. However, now that I stood before the last door, knowing absolutely that after this last challenge, the path to the Mirror was free and clear, the panic and nausea became more and more pronounced. Zelda's light flickered encouragingly. I took a deep breath as the door rattled into the ceiling and out of sight.

A huge skeleton lay sprawled in the central sandpit, its skull lying askew and half-buried in the sand. The whole layout of the room made me wonder exactly who the hell had decorated this place and decided that spikes and sand made perfect décor elements. We'd entered a circular chamber with no solid floor to speak of, and a door set high into the wall several stories over my head. Midna had vanished into my shadow as I'd stepped out onto the stone causeway, but now, as I came to a complete halt, she reappeared.

"Well this is just brilliant," I muttered, somewhat disgruntled by the intense disappointment. "Mister Monster over there's looking a bit on the thin side." Had the damn thing just waited around so long that it just up and died? What the hell kind of setup was this? I looked around, wondering how she expected me to get to the exit. "What the hell am I supposed to do now, fly-"

"Link, hush." Midna had frozen, her eye wide, her hand outstretched to stop any forward movement on my part. When she dematerialized abruptly, I knew something was up; and within another few seconds, that something showed itself.

"What's this, Midna? Have you found a new puppy to do your bidding?" drawled a rough voice with a foreign accent. Immediately my gaze was drawn to the skull, on top of which stood a tall figure with pale blue skin, draped in several ornate robes. The headdress might have been comical if I hadn't realized the gravity of the situation. "I suppose they are all alike to you, these Light-Dwellers. I should think that-"

"You think nothing, Zant!" shrieked my shadow suddenly. Appearing in full force with her eye blazing, Midna levelled herself with the strange being. "If you've done anything to him I'll-"

"What will you do, my dear Midna?" She seemed to be trapped by a familiar envelope of unseen energy, though she struggled fiercely. "Will your new pet bite me? Your companion has yet to feel the full wrath of my god-"

The arrow bounced harmlessly off his helmet, but I couldn't be blamed for lack of trying. Midna was released in an instant – and in another, I had been captured in her stead.

"You dare to face me, the messenger – the vessel – of a god?" shrieked Zant. He shook me like a rag doll, but I simply rolled my eyes. Living in the moment had made me bold, and quite frankly, I was enjoying myself.

"Actually, I came to prostrate myself before you, content to bask in your apparent godliness." He actually froze in that instant, and I heard him take a breath to say something, probably congratulatory to me and derogatory to Midna. This guy must have never heard of sarcasm. "Yes, I dare to face you, you stupid clot," I snapped at him. The idiot still hadn't thought to muzzle me, but I didn't care. "Why else would I freaking shoot you with an- ah!"

"NO!"

Zant let loose a furious howl as he tossed me across the chamber, and subsequently withdrew a black dagger that he thrust into the skull. I lost track of him when I hit the sand, but the suddenly writhing skull was quick to seize my interest. I'd floundered a little as I'd hit the steep, shifting slope; I ended up clawing my way back to the solid stone that ringed the room, and just as I righted myself, Midna tossed the spinner at me. Only then did I turn around to observe what I was up against.

Mr. Monster didn't look half-bad, raging as he was with his bony arms flailing. I managed to avoid the scolding temporarily as she suggested that I aim for the dusty spine buried beneath the sand. Whatever drove the fossil was giving it the power to spit torrents of fire and smoke at portions of the track, but thankfully for me, excluded the ability to see properly. Easily dodging the attack, I glided around until I had a clear shot at the skeleton's spine before launching myself down the slope. Midna screamed something at me just as the stupid monster howled, his body tumbling farther into the pit.

"Farore, Nayru, and Din," I swore loudly. Instead of collapsing like I'd hoped, the damn thing propped itself against the ground and sicced an entire army of little skeletons at me. They wouldn't have been a problem if my fingers hadn't started to lose their solidity again. Even with my sword jammed into a sheath relocated to my belt, I couldn't use my bow to snipe at them because I didn't have adjacent fingers to hold the arrow. The spinner also refused to accelerate perpetually; after a minute or two of contact with the rough sand, it needed recharging, and I did not have the coordination to snipe and gun the damn thing. Frustrated, I aimed for the ranks, sword out and ready to be swung like a bat, the despair invading my thoughts being held at bay by Zelda.

At first, the spinner sliced unmercifully into their ranks, so that I thought I actually had a chance at chipping away at more vertebrae. Instead, just as I got close enough to sever the cartilage, one of the skeleton soldiers knocked me clean off the spinner and into the quicksand. I struggled to grasp the gear, only to discover the utter loss of my right hand and forearm. Awkwardly hugging it between my elbow and chest, I managed to free my sword hand and throw it over the top, kicking desperately in an attempt to tread the shifting sand as it rose to my chest. But it was no good. The sand filled my nose and my mouth and all I could comprehend was the immense weight and smell and dry-dampness of it all. In another moment, I wouldn't be able to keep my eyes open; it was like the earth had decided to swallow me whole, and just to mock me, the soldiers hacked at my exposed shoulders while I drowned there, helpless. For all of a frenzied moment I wanted to let it happen and give in to the black spots – until something dark blasted a crater into the sand, taking out the skeletons in its violence. And then a tiny palm caught the back of my collar.

Still miraculously clutching both the spinner and my sword, I shook the sand out of my hair as I coughed up my lungs and what had to be half the freaking desert. Midna hovered behind me, tossing something across the room to keep the monster occupied while I recovered.

"Is it just your hand? The one?"

"Uh, yeah," I spluttered, shuddering at the feeling of sand between my teeth. But I determinedly pushed myself onto my knees, and then to my feet with minimal wobbling, brandishing the sword with my remaining hand.

Midna turned her face to me, obviously worried. "You still have one fairy."

"I can't use it yet. I'm going in-"

She nodded her assent and I gunned the spinner over the sand, cutting through the undead troops with renewed vengeance. I had to avoid several more fire balls from the reanimated fossil, but after two tries and a lucky hit, I finally managed to cut into its spine enough for it to give up and go back into its hole to die. Except it didn't. All the sand drained out of the place with the destruction of the torso, but oddly enough the skull remained on the newly-appeared packed-sand floor. When I hopped into the exposed pit, I noticed the opened flood gates that must have drained the sand to some other part of the complex. Lovely. Had the engineers stumbled across the skeleton and just decided it'd make a great plug?

Midna flitted over to an exposed gear slot at once, her expression anxious, her hand clamped over her arm. Stumbling over the spinner, I skidded over to where she was and narrowed my eyes at her. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing," she snapped, pointing sharply at the floor. "Just raise the platform so we can leave before anything else happens. Half your face is shadow."

I cast an unconvinced look at the motionless skull, but set the spinner in the groove anyway. However, just as I began to gun it, a crippling wave of sickness made me stagger sideways, nearly toppling clumsily to my knees. Somewhere nearby, I heard her gasp something into my ear as she grasped my shoulder.

"Are you hurt? Link, answer me!"

"N-no, I-" Dry heaves wracked my frame before I could answer properly. I was on my knees, trying to hold the floor at bay while the intense malaise surged through my body. Struggling to breathe, I squeezed my eyes shut and- It was gone. The Triforce burnt brightly in its stead, Zelda's presence dangerously solid in my mind, like a concrete thought.

'Hold on. You're so close.'

"Link? Link, answer me, for Din's sake!"

"S-sorry! It's uh, it's gone now," I stammered. "It's gone. What the hell happened?"

Midna shook her head desperately, pointing at the abandoned spinner with renewed urgency. "I told you, the twilight is tainted here; we have to hurry-"

"I have no desire to stall." Especially not after that episode. After a few seconds of rapid gunning, the stone dais on which we stood began rising out of the floor; the faster I moved, panting heavily, the higher it rose. Midna followed the ascent wordlessly with her mouth set in a grim line. When it settled at a respectable height, I jumped off the spinner and stared disbelievingly at the door, still a good throw away with no distinguishable means of reaching it. I was just about to hop back on and rev it some more when the rumbling started, and the skull screeched at me, I spun around, drew my sword, and thought vehemently, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

But no, the joke was on me – although I definitely wasn't laughing as the damn thing charged at me, knocking me off the edge and sending me tumbling into open space. I hit the ground below with a solid thump, Midna spiraling out of my shadow and begging me to get up; the fall had knocked all the air from my lungs and the fuzziness back into my vision. Reeling slightly, I pulled myself to my feet and made a dash for the spinner track set into the wall. Taking her cue, Midna darted back into my shadow while I gunned the spinner, raced around the raised platform, and marveled privately that I wasn't yet dizzy enough to topple off the gear.

We'd nearly reached the top when the goddesses-damned monster thrust his ugly mug in my face and spat – of all the things a flying skull could spit – a freaking huge fireball. I jumped at the last possible second, sending the spinner careening wildly across the gap, but no sooner did I touch down on the outside wall, did he fire another. I ended up leaping from side to side until, leering, he swooped in close and I leapt again, out of furious passion, and landed inside his reeking mouth, forcing him to tumble out of the air and land heavily on the ground.

"Go for the sword!" Midna shouted, and I nodded, rolled, and stabbed the obsidian blade with my own until pieces of it began to chip. The force of the blows sent spasms through the skull, rocking it from side to side violently as I struck again and again. By the tenth strike, it had reared up into the air once more, though it seemed to falter slightly, and for a moment, the fire that burned in its eyes dimmed. Needing no more encouragement, I launched myself at the track.

It didn't last long. I swore harshly when I missed my target entirely, sending me plummeting towards the ground. "Why can't you just stand still!" I screamed at it. The disembodied head sneered at me from high above and I glowered right back, livid. I had been lured into this goddesses-damned adventure; I had been almost-killed countless times, twice by my own goddesses-damned partner; I was suffering from having random bits and pieces of my body practically vanish, and now, now I finally realized that I'd be damned if I let this thing kill me. Since entering this awful place, all I'd wanted was to curl up in my own goddesses-damned bed and take a well-deserved nap. But wait- I couldn't do that, because I'd lost my bid for citizenship and gotten exiled all because I'd dared to defend myself. This skull had roused something frightening within me, spurring me into leaping back onto the spinner and racing back up the wall to where it hovered.

"Coward!" Midna materializematerialized, surprised, when I started shouting at the skull. It didn't acknowledge me, so I assumed it was deaf. Maybe it was for the better. Didn't stop me from screaming. Hurling myself into its gaping mouth, I sent it crashing back to the chamber floor where I slashed at the sword unmercifully. "DIE!"

With the angriest blow yet, the blade finally shattered at the core with a shockwave that radiated outwards and knocked the feet out from under me. The noise from the explosion rocked my ears into a comforting deafness, during which I stared disbelievingly at my shaking hands, almost forgetting to breathe out with all the inhaling I was doing. Midna flitted out of my shadow in an instant, her hands braced against my heaving shoulders.

"Exhale!" she commanded. "C'mon, stop taking such big breaths; you're going to pass out. Link-" Black spots had begun popping before my eyes and she slapped me, turning my face so that she could see my eyes. "Link! Breathe OUT!"

I huffed at her, struggling to control the urge to swallow the entire atmosphere. After several moments, my breathing had levelled out and I choked out a soft cry. "I-I just killed that thing, right?" The world felt shaky, and the air seemed too insubstantial in my lungs. I wanted more, but Midna held me tightly and shook her head.

"Just breathe out for me, okay?" she murmured quietly. "Just keep breathing out- You did a good job... Just breathe out, Link."

"Midna, I killed... It's dead now… right?"

"Yes, yes it's gone. We have to get back to the top; the door should be open-"

My eyes had caught her shoulder again, this time spying the jagged blue-violet gash that parted the velvet skin. "Your arm."

"I'm fine," she snapped, suddenly impatient. "We'll take care of it when we're out of here. We need to get you out of here, now."

Getting shakily to my feet, I pulled my hat down over my ears but I couldn't step onto the spinner – the only part of me that hadn't turned into a shadow or a spirit yet appeared to be my left thigh and maybe my sternum. Even if I knew where to put the spinner, I wouldn't be able to operate it. Midna swallowed what looked like panic before grasping my upper arm and tugging, leading me over to the gear slot, my last fairy clutched in her hand. The fairy only restored my right hand and my lower legs, probably due to the way we released her, but hey, I wasn't complaining. Within minutes, a stone causeway bridged the gap to the door, and we stumbled across and into an ornate, open-air stairwell. As I concentrated on taking step after step, the "tainted twilight" issue kept resurfacing in my mind so that I couldn't ignore it anymore. Maybe Midna hadn't been herself, had been affected in a similar way by whatever was making me weak-kneed and light-headed. With the way she kept trying to usher me up a series of stairs that abruptly appeared in my limited field of vision, I began to single-mindedly believe that there might be some relief at the top of the flight. Nayru, but I could only hope.

My hand was slippery with cold sweat, my stomach churning with icy apprehension. My mind felt empty, spent. We emerged into a darkened courtyard of sorts, the warmth of the air somehow displacing me to the point where I very narrowly avoided a vicious slash from some shadow beast. Midna gasped beside me.

"Use your sword!" she urged. "Link? Goddesses-damn it, can you hear me?"

"Got it," I muttered, twisting away, but I couldn't stand on my own anymore and crashed to my knees, instinctively knowing that this was it. For a split second the world faded to black, and then I woke up with my cheek pressed to something sandy and warm. Somewhere nearby, something screeched horrendously. Seconds later, claws tore into the exposed flesh of my face, the opacity of which apparently didn't matter to crazy shadow monsters, and I tried kicking out, moving away, but my movements were so uncoordinated that I just fell motionless once again, struggling to breathe. Midna's voice shrieked in the background. Then hands pulled me upright, so that I sagged against something roughly my height and weight; when I squinted at the person holding me, I caught a blurry glimpse of a young blonde man with a tanned, angular face.

I leant heavily against the man until we reached a central figure, a huge statue of some cross-legged woman. Midna's voice issued from his mouth. I stared for an uncertain second, wavering, before finally setting the offered spinner to the track with a disintegrating hand. The man and I rode it unsteadily until it levelled off at the top, where he gestured repeatedly at a gear-shaped indentation. Several minutes of his frantic gunning forced something out of the sand down below, something that radiated an awful, dense sort of despair that irresistibly drew my interest. A sick fascination blossomed in me. I had to see it. Spinner in hand, I made to ride it back down the track, to the thing that emitted such a terrible aura, but only made it halfway down the statue before my vision flickered dangerously and I lost my balance, landing bodily in the thick sand. Midna was shaking me this time; I could feel her tiny hands moving, patting my face and jostling my shoulders, but my body wouldn't respond to my commands. Had I solidified into a shadow?

Something white flashed out of the encroaching gloom, and in an instant, I realized it was Zelda's Triforce beating away the stifling darkness. 'Link..'' Her voice filtered through now, but it was distant and small; this was the brink, I knew, and if I didn't distance myself from it, I'd go tottering over into oblivion. 'Link... You've... Get up... Please, Link... Mirror... Okay? Link?'

"Midna..." Her hand grasped mine and I held it like a lifeline – the contact with the Triforce was forcing it all away, clearing my mind, hammering control back into my limbs while the twilit magic restored my hands. When I finally detected the night sky and my general surroundings, I almost felt ashamed of my heavy breathing and weak responses.

"Holy Nayru," I gasped, struggling to sit up despite the leaden spinning in my head. A large circular something glittered malevolently in the starlight, drawing my attention, and I staggered upright until I could edge closer. "Is that the Mirror?"

"You should sit down," she replied nervously, her eye shining brightly. "Sit down before you hurt yourself."

I shook my head and swallowed thickly. "I'm fine-" And I was, until that sick fascination, seemingly condensed into a volatile ball, leapt inside my chest, forcing me at the Mirror frame so that I stumbled, crashing headlong into it-

"DON'T TOUCH IT!"

But it was too late: My left forearm had smashed into the only remaining piece as I'd braced myself for the fall, the crackling black energy having already taken a hold of it and transformed the extremity into some wispy grey-green substance. I heard myself scream bloody murder; scream as the shadows wrenched me apart, seemingly demolishing me, piece by piece, while I was still alive and conscious; scream as something sharp sliced mercilessly into my chest, soaking my front with viscous lifeblood that I couldn't focus on; scream as I felt the acid burning through my veins as Midna pressed something against my flaming skin.

And just as suddenly as it had started, everything grew quiet, and very, very dark.