A DJ's Experience

Chapter 3 - Labyrinth

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I have woken up in strange places many times in the past, ranging from a damp lawn in Fillydelphia after partying hard in Manehattan to a bathroom stall in the West Manehattan University. But this one? This one beat them all. When I woke up, I saw that I was in a dark, and depressing small stone corridor. I looked up, attempting to see the state of the ceiling. I was surprised that I couldn’t actually see the ceiling through the darkness.

“Okay,” I took a steadying breath, trying to get over the small size of the corridor and started to use the mental checklist that I normally use for situations like these, ‘Surroundings checked out, I’m in some sort of maze. I need to light up my h-’ I cut myself off. I couldn’t feel my horn. No horn means no magic, and no magic means no light. And that is in no way good.

Logically speaking, this would be impossible. But, I’ve seen my share of scary movies to recognize that this was a typical starting scenario. And, from the same experience, this is where shit starts to hit the fan. As I assumed, the walls started to move inward slowly but surely making the already cramped space even smaller. My mind began to race, I could feel the blood pulsing through my veins. Fear began to take hold, making me shake almost uncontrollably. Soon it became hard to breathe and I knew that I had to get out of that area as soon as I could to avoid dying. I tried to gallop but the space was so small now that I had to do a panicked fast trot while I moved the only way I could go. Forward.

I barely made it to the end of the corridor as the walls closed behind me, catching a small amount of tail hair. I tripped and fell hard onto the stone floor as the hairs ripped themselves out of my skin. I winced in pain and then almost immediately noticed that I had to continue to gallop as the walls of this corridor had started to close in as well. I got back up onto my hooves and made a break for it, fear making my heart pump faster than ever before. The walls were getting closer, but I was only halfway through the trapped hallway. I pushed myself to go faster and started to yell as the walls came ever closer. The exit was right there, but I realized that I wasn’t going to make it. So, gathering myself while still galloping for my life, I lept for the end of the small corridor. Time seemed to slow down, the walls came together just as I made it out of the hallway. I hit the ground hard and rolled to the opposite wall just to have the breath knocked out of me, but I had made it out alive and that was what counted. A few seconds later and I was up, I looked over my body and came up with only a few minor scrapes. Looking around, I noticed that this time, the walls weren’t closing on me and that in fact I had come to a crossroads. I was shaken and a little scraped up yes, but I had gotten out of that hellish experience alive. I didn’t even know if the walls were done with me yet, but for now, I was trying to make my heart not come out of my chest and calm myself down a bit so I didn’t have a panic attack.

The two paths leading off from this area were too dark to see anything that wasn’t just mossy walls or stone flooring. There were three options for me to take, just stay here and live out a very short and sad life, take the left path or take the right path. “Well, there is always a sure way to decide these things,” I said as I raised my right hoof and pointed at the right path, “Eeny meenie miny mo!” I alternated pathways four times and my gaze landed on the left corridor. “Ok, left corridor it is,” I said as I went down the right corridor.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

        After a good ten minutes and so many twists and turns, I had come to yet another corner, but this one was different. The walls and floor were still the same yes, but I had caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure rounding the corner. With no other way forward, I decided to follow the shadow. Around said corner was a clearing with four other pathways leading off of the circle, in the middle was a rotted building that looked like it was once a hospital. I slowly trotted into the clearing and was about to go around the rotting hospital when the walls surrounding the other four entrances and the ones behind me suddenly closed in and blocked any way out.

       Feeling very closed in suddenly, I galloped to the where the nearest exit had been. I looked all over the wall for a button of some sort that would make the wall retract but to no avail. I slumped against the wall and looked towards the building in the center slowly slowly mumbling, “No no no no no no, please Celestia no,” I recognized I was clearly on the edge of insanity.

        Looking to the door, I caught a glimpse of a shadowed… arm? Just entering the hospital. Quickly glancing around to see if I had any other choice of direction, and upon finding none, I felt that familiar sense of dread as I cautiously trotted towards the entrance. I half expected to see a ghostly image of a face in one of the windows just looking at me as I looked up at the forboding structure. It gave off the vibe that I should not be here if I wanted to preserve my sanity and life, unfortunately, since I didn't have any other option, I had to go into this place if I ever wanted to get out of this damn labyrinth.

The shadowed figure I had seen earlier disappeared through the door. Giving me even more of an incentive to not go into the rotting building, but alas, I decided to trot towards the hospital.

“I am not looking forward to walking into this place,” I mutter to myself. The wooden steps creaked as I applied weight to the steps as I went up to the door. Then something odd happened, I couldn’t smell any of the rot, mold, or general muskyness that came with abandoned buildings, nor could I feel any dust in the air slightly choking my lungs. I pushed my way inside to see that it was pitch black, like everywhere else in this damned maze.

Once fully inside, I saw that I was in the hospital’s waiting room which had the generic white rooms and blue carpeted floor. The entire room looked rotted, as if it was a piece of moldy food that’s been in the fridge for far too long. The ceiling had collapsed in, absolutely crushing any sort of admittance desk and making a ramp to the second floor. I glanced around quickly to see if there was any sort of light switch for light, seeing none, I ventured up to the second floor, driven by the urge to explore the building. To my utter bewilderment, the second floor was absolutely enormous, far too big to be held by the building that I saw from the outside.

“Damn,” I said, flinching at the sound of my voice echoing throughout the impossibly big room. I heard grinding noises coming from the floor as if gears were turning just below my hooves and I looked behind me. I saw that the ramp that I used to come into this room was closing up behind me. The blackness was suddenly much more foreboding and somewhat terrifying than it was a little bit ago. I heard soft shuffling sounds coming from all around me but I couldn’t see anything.

A light suddenly turned on with a clang, illuminating a set of stairs just as the first claw of some sort of… thing was on placed on my back, drawing blood. “Yess… stay heeree and weeee can take you away from the pain,” came a whispering voice from right behind my ear.

I bucked but didn’t hit anything, dismissing that fact, I galloped as hard as I could towards the light. The shuffling noises became louder as they too seemed to gain speed, I tried to listen closer over the sound of my own hard breathing and hoof impacts. It seemed as if there was a pack behind me, as if wolves were chasing down prey. I looked behind me, saw nothing and immediately tripped up the stairs.

“Damnit, I don’t have time for this,” I said, I was injured, there was no getting around that fact. I didn’t have time to do anything, so I got up and went up the stairs as fast as I could with an injured leg. The shuffling sounds were dangerously close, I picked up some clanging noises coming from the base of the stairway and felt the ground below me shift with each interval of noise. I was steadying myself when a claw wrapped around my back leg and something bit into it, biting a chunk of flesh off. I cried out in pain and desperately tried to kick out with my other leg, it impacted on something soft and what sounded like a foal’s scream could be heard as whatever it was fell of the side.

Crying, I finally got through the door at the top of the stairway and slammed it firmly shut behind me. I heard and felt several thumping noises as the things that were chasing me threw their bodies at the door, trying to break it down. I looked around and saw that I was on one the higher floors of this damned hospital because of the remnants of a number on the wall. Tears blurred my vision as I looked to my back leg that was the source of pain and all feeling fell away as I saw what was causing it. The bit leg was entirely black and the black was coming from the gaping wound that was oozing blood. I became suddenly became lightheaded, my mouth went dry and I fainted against the door.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

A while later I woke up. It was extremely difficult to tell time in this place but just by looking at the blackness that had spread to my hip, completely destroying my cutiemark, and my wound looked better than it looked when I pasted out earlier. It seemed that while my entire leg was numb and the blackness had entirely covered the surface of it, it had regenerative powers. I noticed that I was in a medical research room of sorts. I attempted to get up, only to have my leg completely give out when I put pressure on it. I used the handle of the door that I was slumped against to support myself. I supported myself on the wall to one of the counters to look for some sort of brace to put on my leg and something to support myself on. All I found was a crutch, so using that, I made my way out of the room. I looked around to see myself in a perfect looking hallway except for the lights. It seemed as if some of them were bleeding the blood that was supposed to be coming from my unbandaged leg.

“You know… that stuff on your leg? It’s going to kill you eventually unless you do something about it,” came a smooth voice from somewhere in my head. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the voice, knowing fully well what was happening. “Oh do you now? Do you actually know what that stuff is?” the voice asked.

I sighed, “No, but I think I’m going insane. I have more important things to do than talk to fake voices in my head,” I replied testily. I limped my way to the nearest room, looking for supplies.

“You aren’t going to find anything in these rooms,” the voice in my head informed me. “The thing you’re looking for is somewhere on the top floor. And I’d recommend hurrying if I were you. Also, your leg is fine and you don’t need that support anymore, moron,” it added.

I looked back at my body to find that both of my legs were covered in the inky blackness but I could now feel them. They felt wrong somehow but I decided to take the voice’s advice and hurry to the top floor. So I galloped to the nearest flight of stairs and started to ascend.

Once there was no more stairs to climb, I was out of breath and the blackness was halfway across my barrel. I hurried into the only room on the floor and saw that there was only one desk with two cabinets on each side of the room. The door slammed shut behind me and instantly disappeared only to leave a blank white wall.

“Okay, so here’s the deal. The desk holds the thing to get rid of the blackness which is now up to your forelegs by the way. Now here is the choice, one of the cabinets has the key to the desk and the other leads to certain death. You have five minutes… choose wisely,” The voice explained to me. It was right, I could already see the blackness enveloping my chest. It was moving at an alarming pace which suggest that I had five minutes until it engulfs me completely.

I trotted quickly to the desk to see that there was no indication of which one to choose. So after inspecting the cabinets for any sign of the right one. I came up with no clue what-so-ever on which to choose. I thought back through my experiences here, and only came up with terrifying and dark. Wait a minute… dark is the opposite of light and there is always light at the end of a tunnel. I looked towards the cabinets and noticed that one of them was glowing ever so slightly. ‘It has to be this one’ I thought. Looking back on it, it probably wasn’t the best of my ideas.

I trotted over to the glowing cabinet, took a deep breath, and opened it. When my hoof touched it, the doors slammed open and a wild maniacal laugh echoed in my head, ‘Wrong one, wrong one, wrong one, wrong one…” the words echoed over and over as I plummeted towards the ground. The last thing I ever saw was a glowing white key pointed up and then everything went black.