“You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”

-The Happy Mask Salesman

“No no no no no! Stupid Zant! AHH!!” Zoe screamed at her TV screen while the eerie tone of the game over music played. She had been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for hours now, and had finally gotten to the boss of the Palace of Twilight, Zant. (only after suffering much pain from those stupid hands) She had been doing great keeping up with Zant’s shifting phases, but had met her match at his final phase.

‘Those fricking spinning blades… I thought I wasn’t that bad at this game. I guess I need to focus more on dodging his attacks,’ She thought as she looked right to check the time on her bedside clock. 2:54 am. ‘Crap! I didn’t think I’d been awake this long! I need to go to bed.’ She looked longingly back at her TV. ‘But, Zant… *sigh*. I guess I’ll sleep. Maybe I can look at this fight with a clear head in the morning and take him down.’ She threw down her controller, in what could only be called a tame rage-quit, and fell into the soft, inviting surface of her bed, completely forgetting to shut down her Wii. Pulling up her warm blankets, her last thought before going to bed was, ‘I should get up and turn off my Wii… but pillows.’ She then buried her face in her velvety pillows and almost immediately fell into a deep sleep, having her first lucid dream in a while. Little did she know what was going on a world away, yet just a few feet away from her…

“Link, wake up before I force you up!” Midna shouted, her voice echoing through the darkness. She was in that weird black void that her and Link were always mysteriously teleported to whenever he passed out in battle, crouching over his limp body. “LINK!!!!” she continued, yelling at the top of her lungs, knowing that as long as she kept yelling, it would eventually get through his thick skull.

The weak body in front of Midna fluttered its eyes open, taking in the darkness around him, and the small imp-ish figure in front of him. “Wha-what happened? Midna? Where are we?” Link asked, finally regaining consciousness.

“Where do you think? You passed out again. We’re in Void-land. Hopefully we’ll go back soon. We usually get teleported out of here pretty quickly.” Midna responded to Link’s question, adding a bit of sass to her tone like she often does. Link sat up, feeling better, but still quite weak compared to how he felt just a little while earlier in front of the boss door. He looked around him, seeing if there was anything, anything at all in this dark void, knowing that it was a fruitless attempt, since he had been here before and done the same thing. But this time was different. To his surprise, there was actually something in the usually-empty area.

“Midna, look! There’s something over in the distance. It looks like a box of… light.” He stood up and strode towards it, hearing Midna stand up behind him.

“Whatever it is, I wouldn’t get to close Link. We don’t even know where we are, let alone how dangerous this place is. That thing could spawn a huge monster, for all we know.” Midna warned as she skeptically followed behind Link.

“No, I don’t think it is. I don’t know why, but I have a hunch it’s not too dangerous.” Link countered.

“That’s what you said about Arbiters Grounds, Link. Look how that place turned out.” Midna shot back, not missing a beat.

“Okay, fine, but we still made it through there didn’t we? And got a cool spinning skateboard out of it. I think my hunches can lead to good things.” Link said.

She sighed “Fine, I guess we can check it out, It’s not like we’ll be here long anyways. At least, we shouldn’t be.” Midna agreed, strenuously.

“Good.” Link replied. By this time, they had reached the square of light that was just hovering there in the darkness. It was maybe three feet tall, and four feet wide, showing an image glowing white.

“Look,” Link said. “It’s like a glowing pictograph.” It was an image of a few shelves and a set of drawers, with a door to the right, on the wall to the shelves diagonal. On the shelves were small statues of people. There was a man holding a gun and a notebook, with a ring on a string around his neck, a man with bright yellow shoulder-length hair, holding a gun and a chocolate bar with a rosary around his neck, a woman in a yellow jacket taking a picture of a man in a top hat and a young boy in blue, and so many more. But the one that caught Link’s eye the most was one of a teen clad in green, with a wolf behind him, and a small imp in a stone hat riding that wolf. It was him, as a man and as a beast, and Midna. Link couldn’t think for a moment as his eyes registered what he was seeing. Finally, he forced out a few words.

“Midna, look.” Link said as he pointed to the figure. “It looks like-“

“Like us.” Midna finished as she and Link both stared wide-eyed and open mouthed at the image. Link reached out to touch the figure, only to be stopped by Midna clamping her small hand on his forearm.

“No, Link, we still don’t know what this thing is. I wouldn’t touch it, to be safe.” Link stared at her, their arms still hovering, then turned to the picture. His curiousity won out. He looked back at Midna.

“Sorry.” Link said as he reached out and touched the image right on where it displayed their figure. As he did, several things happened. Midna reached out to and tried to pull him back, yelling: “NO!!!”. As Link came into contact with the picture, he was sucked through. It felt to him exactly like when Midna would warp him to a different part of Hyrule through twilight portals. He tumbled out onto a soft surface, and quickly looked behind him, at where he came from. There was a quick flash, and the bright light shut off, revealing that it came from a large black rectangle. He turned around to look at the room he was now in, seeing the shelves with those creepy figures, a door in the same place, and a set of drawers, also in the same place. Except there was one thing he hadn’t seen in the image. A bed, to his left, with a sleeping person in it, her face buried in her velvet pillows, dreaming about the victory dance she would do the next day after beating her greatest foe yet.

She would not do that the next day.

Midna stared into the darkness, her mouth agape again, hoping that Link would pop back through. But she knew better. He was gone.