The water in the darkness was cold, settling deep in Link’s bones. The farther away from the light he went, the harder and harder it became to breath. His eyes stung as he descended deeper and deeper into the void, the ability to see diminishing. He turned back and looked to the light, a now-faint ray of hope in the distance.

As he progressed, the icy chill began to magnify and the water felt heavier; thicker. Small beads of ice began to collect on his Zora Mask with each exhale, the bubbles of oxygen freezing upon contact. This water was strange. It almost felt...alive. Then, when he least expected it, something touched his leg. He spun around, readying his bare fists, but saw nothing. Again it grazed across him, this time over his shoulders, but the entity fleeted away before he could catch a glance of it.

He could hear something hissing in the deep, followed by small waves of parted waters rushing over his body. It was like a black wind rising from an ancient battlefield, the feel of immemorial death and destruction following in it’s wake.

“What sacrifice, will, and treasures naught...have ye yet to bring, to bargain, to wrought?" A darkly, aged voice said into the deep, ripples of sound making the waters shift and recede. “What sleeping death doth secretly toll...the ever-raking vice of the sinking narrow?”

Link did not understand what the voice was telling him, riddles cloaked in ancient tongues. It seemed to move, to circle him, speaking like a ghost from the depths.

“Search the environs for secrets forbade...and fly to the heavens in a sundered dark shay. Keep to this deep, cleave to it’s play...but find ye shall not, nor shall ye stay.”

Link caught sight of a long, serpentine tail, whipping through the waters, but it disappeared again before he could get a clean look.

“Begone, foul-earth creature, depart hence from my lair...and take these things with thee, take thy despair! Let go of thy heart, surrender thy might...give up thy courage and lose thine spent life!”

The waters began to bend and swirl, wrapping Link in the impenetrable cocoon of an icy embrace. He could feel his very breath being sucked out of him, the Zora mask notwithstanding. His body dropping to the now-dry ground, the waters parted and created a hurricane-like funnel, of which he was the eye. All the air was sucked out of the cyclone, and Link was left there, helpless and alone.

“Feel thine blood boil, thine lungs of red sand...and know ‘twas I who parted this man. Leave this grand temple, this eternity mine...and be one with the dead; the victims of time!”

“Link!” A soft, adolescent voice said over the raging storm. “Here!”

Singing through the water like supernal angel’s wings, the Master Sword cut through the funnel and lodged deep in the hard ocean floor, the white hilt glowing with heat and power.

“Cut through the darkness!” The youth’s voice said as it fled away. “Fall not to the Leviathan!”

“Beastly Zora, cursed of the cursed,” the monster rhymed, “interfere here, and thy fate will be versed!”

The whirlwind of waves seemed to weaken at the Master Sword cutting through the outer wall, a thin streak of lighter-colored streams in Link’s sight. He retrieved the fabled blade, Evil’s Bane, feeling it’s power coursing through his veins once more. He was distraught when it was lost to the sea, but now his doubt began to recede as the blade of the Goddesses was once again in his hands; the power to surmount any evil.

With one mighty vertical slice, Link sundered the rushing ocean winds, the swirling vortex tearing itself apart and settling into a dead, stagnant waste. He again saw a fleeting tail in his peripherals, flicking in the darkness, just outside of his sight.

“Escape thee may try, and thy breath thee may cherish...but live ye shall not, and verily thou shalt perish!”

A strong wave pushed through the undertow, pushing Link away a few meters. He held dearly to the Master Sword, it’s white blade giving him some scant light in the darkness. Instinctively, he spun around, seeking sly evil at his back.

Rushing towards him with uninhibited malice, a massive jaw was unhinged and threatening to consume Link in all it’s hatred. Multiple rows of barbed, decaying teeth cut through the waters, revealing a dark morass that was it’s gullet. Within that simple glance of the creature, he saw eons of slain mortals.

Barely able to swim to the side as the head snapped at his chest, Link dropped his sword down upon it’s neck, slicing clean through it’s flesh. The Leviathan reeled and screeched as it’s lifeblood escaped into the waters, thick darkness spreading from the wound. Link pushed away from the creature by planting his boot on it’s body and shoving as hard as he could, giving him some distance from the creature-enraged.

“Flee, Link!” The voice that helped him came up from behind. “Come with me!”

Link turned and saw a Zora, strangely red and orange in color instead of the blue-skinned river people that he remembered. She could not have been older than fourteen; just a child. She had a sharp face and large blue eyes, reminding him much of Princess Ruto from his own childhood.

“Come!” She said with a sense of dire urgency. “You can’t kill the Leviathan, no matter how hard you try. You must swim away!”

Link turned to look again in the direction the beast had swam, a dark trail of blood lining the waters that headed towards the blue light in the distance.

“No!” The Zora grabbed Link by the arm, pulling him away. For such a small one, she had tremendous strength. “Fight here, and you’ll die!”

Hardly ably to fight against her muscular fins, Link sheathed the Master Sword and took her hand, letting the Zora-child take him farther out into the darkness, away from the light.