“But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart.
I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain.”
-Dracula, Bram Stoker, 1897
It was dark. Darker than any darkness I had ever known.
My name is Lucas MacArthur, and as I lay here in this cold, hard darkness, I thought I must have awakened from some horrible dream. The details of it eluded me at first, but as I pondered, I could recall the pain. The sudden, blinding pain. The feeling of weakness as my strength drained from my body, carried by the crimson tide of blood flowing from my chest.
I recalled how I had dressed that evening. Much the same as every evening, I had gone out in a pure white cotton shirt, with slender black trousers neatly tucked into a sleek black pair of well-polished longboots. My black hair was neatly parted, its locks falling in feathered sections to either side of my face, framing my fair appearance and deep, violet eyes.
I remembered entering the tavern. I remembered sharing a drink and a joke with an attractive young woman. I remembered that same woman's lover approaching me with ill intent. I had tried to pardon myself; to explain to this man that it had been a misunderstanding, and that I had not known she was spoken for. At first this seemed to placate the man.
But as I knelt on the wooden floor of the tavern, my life's essence spilling from a gaping wound through the heart, I looked up to see what had caused me such distress. The man stood over me, clutching a smoking pistol and wearing a sneering face.
“Not so high an' mighty now, are ya, MacArthur? Thought ya could just up an' seduce me girl? Yer family owns the mines; it don't mean ya own the rest of us!”
There may have been more to the man's speech, but I recalled no more. I must have finally bled out, because the next thing I knew, I was laying there, on that cold, hard bed in the dark. What a dream it must have been, to wake me in such a state as to feel so cold, as if the death I had suffered in my sleep had lingered on my body in waking.
At least, that was how I thought at first. How childish and innocent the mind behaves when first roused from sleep. As I gathered my wits, I realized that the hard, cold surface I rested on was no bed, but a sheet of metal; brass, by the scent of it. My hands felt around the space I occupied and found it rather cramped. Brass were the walls of this space, and so, too, was the lid of this enclosure. I pressed on it with what I could muster, but to no avail. I rapped on it gently, attempting to gauge its depth, and found it to be no more than half of an inch.
My predicament came to me all at once. I was not in a bed. I had not woken from a fitful, nightmarish sleep.
I was dead, and this was my tomb.
Perhaps dead is too strong a word for it. I felt myself for a pulse, but could feel no beating of my heart or swelling of my veins. My body was as cold as the metal encasing it, and if not for the comfortable cotton shirt and trousers I found myself wearing, I suppose I may have shivered, though perhaps the lack of a shiver may have been from the comfortable weight of my favorite sabre at my hip. In such a situation, it may seem strange to take heart in the possession of a blade, but it comforted me nonetheless.
As I took stock of these things, I realized: I was thinking, I was considering, I was reasoning. Was I not as dead as I supposed? Surely the dead don't ponder, and if they do, they certainly don't test their tombs. But if I were not truly dead, then I had been buried alive, with none expecting me to wake once more.
Panic began to set in. I must have cried out for help for hours. Was it hours? Perhaps it was a day. Multiple days? Surely I cannot have been in there for a week. Never did I stop calling for help, so wrapped was I in my desire to escape my metal prison that I took no notice of my words requiring no breath behind them.
I had abandoned my attempt to rouse help from outside. Hope had been lost; there was nobody around to hear me. Who would come to my aid in what I assumed must have been my family's crypt? Who would be there to hear me cry for help? No, I had resigned myself to laying in my brass coffin, waiting for madness to come and break the boredom. But then I heard a strange thing.
It was a voice. A light, young voice, full of mirth and missing the telltale echo of an underground crypt.
“Come on, Twilight! Whatever's made my Pinkie Sense act like this has to be just over here! It's getting stronger!”
I didn't much care who Twilight was, or what manner of perception Pinkie Sense was. All that mattered to me in that moment was that someone was there, and someone might be able to hear me. I immediately began to bang on the lid of my tomb with all of my might, crying out for aid.
“Help! Get me out of here! I'm trapped!”, I screamed, and to my great relief, I was heard.
“Pinkie, do you hear that?” a second voice chimed in. It was slightly lower, more curious than anything else. This must be Twilight.
“Yuppy yup yup! Sure did! I think it came from that big one over there!”
What seemed like hours passed, but it was surely no longer than a few minutes as they located me. I continued hammering steadily on the metal of my coffin, giving them sound to follow.
“Wow...this has to be it, right, Twi? I mean, look how shiny it is! Hello? Is anypony in there?”
I let out a sigh of relief. Sitting up as much as I could, I cracked a smile I knew my rescuers couldn't see.
“Thank the gods you came! I don't know how long I've been trapped in here...I've tried to shift the lid, but nothing works.”
“Well, hang on a second,” said Twilight's voice. “We don't even know who or what you are! I mean, this seems kinda weird...in a coffin that size, you'd run out of air in about an hour! How are you still breathing?”
This gave me pause. Twilight had been astute enough to question what I had missed; how WAS I breathing? It was then that I realized a simple, terrible truth.
I wasn't.
There was silence between myself and the two female voices for a bit as I marshaled my wits once more and spoke up.
“I must be truthful with you both: I think that I drew my last breath some time ago. I distinctly recall being shot and killed...I must have been entombed and risen as some sort of unliving thing.”
More silence.
“...Will you not release me, then?”
At this, the lighter voice spoke up once more. “Well, come on, Twilight! We gotta get him out of there!”
“But Pinkie,” whined Twilight. So this other girl's name WAS Pinkie. “he just TOLD us that he was dead! What if he's some kind of demon from Tartarus?”
“Well, DUH! If he was a bad guy, my Pinkie Sense would be warning me that something scary or nasty is gonna happen! This one's telling me he's a new friend!”
Twilight let out an exasperated sigh. It seemed this “Pinkie Sense” made as much sense to her as it did to me.
“Ugh, alright, fine. Could you at least tell us who you are?”
“My name is Lucas MacArthur, second son of Thomas MacArthur.”
“O...kay. Well, try and lay back from the lid, I'm going to try and peel it open like a tin can.”
“I've tried as best I can to do just that, why should you succeed where I cannot? It's made of solid brass!”
Pinkie chimed in at this, seeming excited.
“Well, of course! Twilight's just about the bestest unicorn ever! She can do all kinds of awesome stuff! This little coffin thing isn't a problem! You just sit tight, Lukie, and she'll have you out before you can say banana sunday! Oh, but not really, because I just said it! Hey, maybe we can all get banana sundays after we're done getting you out of there!”
I ignored her as she continued rambling, instead focusing on my tomb. I could feel it shifting; this girl must possess prodigious strength! Finally, the lid was wrenched free with a violent grinding sound, and what I beheld stole all words from my mind.
Two equine creatures, small in stature. One was a light rose color, with a mane that looked like it was made of cotton dyed a similar hue. Next to her (for I assumed these two to be my rescuers, and thus they must be the source of the female voices I had heard) stood a lavender horse with a neatly-trimmed violet mane. I could have sworn I could see a horn sticking out of her forehead. They both peered in at me, curiosity on both of their faces.
“Uh, Pinkie? That's not a pony.”
“Of course I'm not a pony! I'm a human!” I cried, in slight indignance and confusion.
“Well, welcome to Equestria, Mr. MacArthur! I'm Pinkie Pie! Oooh! This means I get to throw a 'Welcome to Equestria' party! I NEVER get to throw one of those! I gotta go get started planning! See you later, Twilight!” With that, the pink one was off like a shot, as if she had never seen me.
Twilight was less than enthused at the reaction. She watched Pinkie run off, then gave a soft huff at her companion's behavior. Turning back to me, she asked, “So, what exactly IS a 'human', and what did you mean when you said you remembered dying?”
However, I could barely hear her words. When Pinkie Pie had left, her head moved out of the way of the sun, exposing me to its light. I recall well the warmth of the sun; how it warmed me during afternoons spent in the gardens while I practiced with my blade. However, now it seemed like something I could not bear to see; and in short order, my head began to fog. I heard Twilight call my name several times, and even begin to shake me lightly, but that was all, and I swiftly drifted into an unpleasant, dreamless sleep.
Author's Note
First attempt at a serious (read: Non-Self-Insert) fanfiction. Make sure to let me know what you think, as positive response would really help get me motivated to get more chapters written.
