Lyra's Dream: The Underville
Lyra was too busy staring at the wall in her bedroom to notice the tanker ship docking with the house next door. She sighed and ignored the fog of breath swirling into various undefined and uncomfortably familiar shapes. The tanker outside groaned quietly, so as not to disturb the mint green unicorn known as Lyra Heartstrings as she stepped off her bed and onto a floor full of fragrant flowers. Their scent filled Lyra’s nostrils with memories of foalhood past and trots through the isolated pathways beyond her family home in…in…
Lyra had trouble remembering. The thoughts weren’t arriving fast enough, despite the carrier docked outside with enough thoughts for the entire slumbering town of Ponyville. All awake, except for Lyra.
Her lyre sat unused by her bed. She didn’t look at it once. This saddened it and it began to melt ever so slightly into waxen dreams and burnt tears.
Down the hall, there was movement from Bon Bon’s room. Lyra stared at the bedside clock which read 2L:00bm. That made sense. She always appeared to wake up around 2am because of Bon Bon’s restless sleepwalking. Wait…
Lyra stared back at the clock again. It read 2L:01bm. That made sense. She always appeared to wake up around 2:01am because of Bon Bon’s restless sleep…wait…
Lyra pulled herself away from the clock with a start. Viewing the numbers unnerved her, as though they were tugging at the corners of her mind and pulling the fabric down around her hooves so she would curl up in their deception and stay locked to her bed. No clocks today, Lyra wanted to say, but did not.
The pony stood up on two legs and felt the floor move away from her. She dared not glance in its direction for fear of causing it anxiety. She moved to the doorway and entered the hall.
“Hey,” Bon Bon said as she smiled at Lyra and then strolled lazily into the kitchen. After returning a courteous nod, Lyra noticed light streaming from the window into Bon Bon’s room, though she didn’t remember when her roommate had installed the window in the first place. It was probably after the first sleepwalking incident which happened five hundred years prior…
Lyra shook her head. That didn’t make any sense and her house groaned. Bon Bon was not THAT old. Each reliable thought caused a creak to form at the edge of her range of hearing as the house began to beg for forgiveness. Lyra caught a glimpse of the interior of Bon Bon’s room…
She was still asleep in bed. Eyes closed, mouth open, snoring softly. But…
The green pony spun around to see her roommate also standing at the open door to the refrigerator. Not viewing its contents. Not pulling something out and drinking it. Just standing, with gaze directed at the freezer door and only a light breeze blowing at the stray strands of her blue and pink mane and tail.
It was at a time like this that words were dangerous and Lyra dared not speak. She moved slowly to tap her friend on the shoulder. No response save for a slight wobble in her stance. Lyra spun her around…
But her face was still somehow pointed towards the fridge. There was nothing except the hair again, and the tail again, and a back. Same pose. No response. Lyra started to spin her again and then reversed it when she realized there was no face. No eyes. Nothing.
Her heart beat faster. “Okay, okay…” Lyra began to say in half-caught breaths. “A dream. Right?”
The house groaned. She almost asked a question of her home until her mind thought better of it. Then, in a flurry of motion, the frigid Bon Bon ripped open the freezer door to reveal a cavernous interior which she skittered into and disappeared into broken ice shards far beyond the reach of the appliance’s back wall. Lyra heard Bon Bon, the sleeping-in-her-bed version, moan softly and whimper.
Who was that in the freezer? The cold winds nipped at the green pony’s coat. She shivered, but her faceless friend needed her. That’s why she ran away. Fleeing friends should never be forgotten.
With a bit of effort, Lyra pulled herself into the open freezer ice shelf. The glittering diamonds in the dark guided her way through the crunch of snow and frozen memories. Old food never rot here and nothing was ever forgotten, yet nothing could be pulled from its icy prison either.
Skittering down the way, the Faceless Bon Bon rushed upon Lyra…
And then there was nothing. An empty ice corridor. Lyra felt her heart jump. That should’ve woken her up. Lunging things always kicked her out of her dreams before. Why not now?
She wanted to go back and turned in the low light only to see another long path behind her. No turning back now…
As she crawled in the dark, her coat began to take on shades of white etched into the mint green. Much like her streaked hair, Lyra’s body began to resemble a melding of two colors fighting for dominance. Her mind felt the same way. “I’m not really here…” Lyra said.
Outside the fridge, the house cried as the floor dropped beneath the appliance. Lyra felt gravity pull her world down into an abyss as the refrigerator hit rock bottom and broke open to toss the terrified unicorn onto an isolated platform in the dark. She ignited her horn's glow.
There were pictures on the walls. Everypony Lyra had ever met and some she had forgotten, including herself. Every time she spotted a picture of her mint green form, the image faded from view. Somepony always replaced her, always laughing, always staring right back. There were hundreds, thousands of images spaced along the rock walls in the dark where only the light of Lyra’s horn magic filled the air.
Rubber playground balls rolled in the dark past her as she carefully crept past underground play areas for children, where parents took their babies to see them grow up to become older. The light didn’t reach down here, so neither did ignorance or understanding. Lyra was trapped in the middle of two extremes, standing atop the playground slide closest to the ceiling of the collapsed cave. There were scratches in the roof. Images Lyra remembered drawing, but she never came down her as a child…
Something caved-in far beyond the edge of her light. She slid down into a mass of pebbles and bottle caps and discarded chocolate. Was Bon Bon here? She loved chocolate. She loved play. She loved…
Lyra tried not to think about her friend who crept through the dark. She gasped as she realized in the distance that the Faceless Bon Bon was doing that very thing.
Every time there was a moan in the dark, a blue flickering light appeared above Lyra to give away her position to the pursued. Cloudsdale pegasi must’ve gotten stuck down here if lightning storms and abandoned clouds cried in the dark.
And that’s when Lyra saw it. Atop a hill covered in watery fissures stood underground Ponyville, with light from luminescent lichens and will-o-wisps flittering through the silent streets. The houses were the same, but older, covered in dark cave matter with overgrown natural formations blocking exits and entrances while faceless ponies motioned to each other like every other day in Ponyville.
Lyra was so terrified of them that she didn’t stop next to them when they turned and viewed her with featureless faces. She dared not look back in the darkness for fear of seeing the slowly growing mass of silent stalkers congregating behind her. She had to explore. She had to find the truth…
Sugarcube Corner was the most likely answer. Bon Bon liked sweets and any association Lyra could make at this point would lead her in the right direction, which might’ve been bad if associations were all she had left. Right…left…right…there was Sugarcube.
Pinkie Pie occupied the register. Somehow, she had got stuck inside the money machine and the faceless form of her doppleganger motioned to the food in the window. Lyra had to buy something if she wanted to save Pinkie Pie. The items in the case were as follows:
---Two Stolen Hearts---
Cost: fifteen summer nights
---Lyra’s First Tear---
Cost: Bon Bon’s Love
---Pinkie Pie’s Eyes---
Cost: twenty-two puzzles
---Lyra’s Smile---
Cost: ???
Lyra pointed to her own smile. “I can pay that price,” she said. The Faceless Pinkie held out her hoof to receive payment. Lyra noticed a candy, a bon bon, in her right hoof and handed it to the faceless mare. She walked to the back room and stayed there while Lyra operated the cash register and pulled out Pinkie Pie’s
skin. A costume, made out of her own body. “Oh,” Lyra said. She’d wear it, but it wasn’t Hearth’s Warming Eve yet. It wasn’t cold enough. She opened the zipper and looked inside for the washing instructions. It was written in a language she couldn’t understand. “I could never understand Pinkie Pie,” Lyra said. “Why are she and I so similar? I don’t wanna wear her today.”
The eyes were missing though. Open holes for Lyra’s own sight were visible in the head of the Pinkie suit. She glanced at the eyes in the case and they looked away. The price tag was gone. “That means…they’re free.” Lyra said as she scooped them up and they appeared in the suit, unmoving.
The Faceless Pinkie appeared in the doorway with hoof held out. Lyra stared. “I don’t…I don’t have anything.” The Pinkie Suit’s eyes stared unblinking at the slowly approaching doppleganger. Lyra grabbed the register and tossed it at the threat, only to see it collapse into a mass of fabric and featureless form. The money spilled out onto the floor, along with childhood toys Lyra found valuable. The rest of the items in the window case ran away.
The Faceless Bon Bon stood next to Lyra. Before the green unicorn could react, the Bon Bon gingerly grabbed the Pinkie Suit, put it on and left the mouth open to reveal her not-face. The eyes of the Pinkie suit, however, kept moving back and forth as they tracked the forms outside the store windows.
“You don’t…have to make me laugh,” Lyra said to her new companion. The Piebon shrugged. “Where do we go? I don’t know this place,” Lyra asked. The Piebon motioned to the back room and exited onto the cold street of the Underville night. It was the time when the will-o-wisps stuck to the ceiling and the biggest one of them, the Queen of Will, shone brightly at the edge of the cave lake nearly three football fields away. She was radiant, like a forbidden moon, and lit the way for her children scattered across the ceiling like forgotten constellations.
“It really is pretty down here,” Lyra said to her companion. The Piebon held her hoof as they walked to the frozen shore, where ice danced at the water’s edge. Chips of ground broke off and drifted away into the dark where the light of the Queen of Will would melt them before they sunk to the bottom. “I don’t understand this place,” Lyra said. “But I know it’s not…” She was careful to say something which wouldn’t anger her house, still waiting up above in despair at her lack of belief. “I know it’s not easy to understand. I want to understand, Bon Bon. Help me understand.” The repetition seemed more powerful, as if Lyra was trying to build something concrete by believing it enough times to make it real. The faceless Piebon turned to Lyra. Something flashed across its canvas expression before Lyra noticed the Pinkie suit eyes gazing at something behind her.
The crowd had crept upon them quietly. No more buildings were visible. Only ponies upright on their hind legs with no expressions to speak of. And behind them, taller ponies with longer legs, longer arms and harsher faceless faces. There were whispers at the corner of Lyra’s peripheral vision. And Piebon was nowhere to be seen.
Lyra saw ice flows in the water. She jumped and landed on one, only to catch a glimpse of herself in the reflection. She was older and more afraid. Her hair was completely white and most of her green in her coat was gone to reveal a silvering gray. The colors began to dance around each other, trying to figure out who was right and who was a liar. Lyra stared at her own arms and body where the colors weren’t yet in agreement with the reflection. She hopped to the next ice flow as it tipped upwards and she fell back into the water.
It was cold and suffocating. She tried to breath and talk but her lungs cried out for air. The light of the Queen of Will faded away as the surface of the lake floated further and further out of reach. Lyra was going to die and she didn’t know what to do. Worst of all, she was dying alone.
“It’s not real!” Lyra yelled through the gulps of liquid and defied its existence.
She awoke on the floor next to her bed, covered in sweat. Her lower body was still wrapped in the sheets tucked into the corner of her mattress. She pulled them out and sat against her night stand as her breathing began to calm. The clock had been knocked to the floor. It said 2:00am.
There was movement at the entryway to her room. For a split second, Lyra thought Bon Bon had no face, but as her friend knelt down next to her and held her close, Bon Bon’s smile, her caring eyes and her whole expression were clearly visible.
“Lyra, what happened?” Bon Bon asked. “You screamed out and I came running to your room.”
“Bad dreams,” she said. “You were there, but it wasn’t you. And…” Lyra stared outside. It was still and motionless in Ponyville. “…I think I saved Pinkie Pie. But your wore her.”
“I wore Pinkie Pie?” Bon Bon’s eyebrows shifted in confusion.
“I had to buy her body back. And the freezer…” Lyra got up and started walking to the kitchen to illustrate her point. She hesitated in front of the fridge.
“What?” Bon Bon asked. She moved in front of her friend and stood, in the same position as the dream, as she stared at the freezer door.
“Uhh…Bon Bon?” Lyra asked. She reached out to turn her friend around, and then waited before doing so.
Bon Bon opened the freezer and peered in. “Gosh, Lyra. You really need to clean this out.”
Inside the freezer was nothing more than old food, stuck together.
“Of course,” Lyra said. Her heart settled.
“You always do that,” Bon Bon said. “You have a dream, you think somehow it changed something in the waking world and then you dramatically go over to check it out. Nothing’s ever been different, Lyra.” Bon Bon smiled and hugged the unicorn. She turned to close the fridge and then looked at its contents. “Are you hungry, Lyra? I can thaw some of these vegetables so we can eat them for lunch tomorrow.” She pulled out a package of peas and carrots as the torn bag spilled onto the floor. “Oh drat!” Bon Bon said as she bent down to pick them up. The peas rolled under the fridge.
There was an echo as they bounced off something far below.
Lyra stood stark still. Bon Bon did not move for a second before peering under the fridge. “What?” She stood up and held the side of the appliance as Lyra pushed with her to move it out of the way. They both peered down at the ground.
A gaping hole sat in the middle of the floor where the appliance was only moments before. The sound of rushing water came from deep within. Lyra knelt down and ignited her horn’s glow as she stared in the void. There was ground about twenty feet below. A single playground ball rolled in the darkness.
Author's Note
I enjoy writing surrealist stories because the freeform narrative is a lot more entertaining to me as a writer when I'm warming up after long bouts without writing. In a way, these dreamscape stories can be seen as a prelude to longer works of mine.
I haven't been on Fimfiction in a LONG while, but I miss writing. It took me 1.5 hours to write this story. I should get faster if I continue practicing and then I can upload more tales for you lovely people/ponies!
I would love to hear your interpretations of this story. What do you think the imagery suggests about Lyra or her mind and worries?
-Boardgamebrony
