My eyes slowly flittered open, doing their best to adjust to the darkness which surrounded me. Yes, I was used to this by now. The bruises on my legs from where the cuffs held me in place, the bitter floor that smelled of mold, and the silence of all but my heartbeat and those awful rattling chains.
I don’t know how long I’ve been held here, or why. I know only that I had woken up on this very floor many nights ago, and have had no company since. The cell holding me was quite large, at least as big as my bedroom back in Ponyville. Every day a slot beneath the door to my cell would open, and one of my mysterious captors would slide a tray of food to me. It was decent stuff, too, not like the slop I had imagined might be given to prisoners.
Still, it feels strange to call myself a prisoner… That implies that I’m being punished for something, doesn’t it?
I was nothing more than a modest earth pony with a modest house and modest group of friends. But the one aspect of my life that was not humble…was him. Flaring Volt, the love of my life and now my husband to be. A unicorn from Canterlot, I met him by chance on his first visit to Ponyville. He needed help finding a place to stay for the night, but we soon began talking of much more. Despite how intimidated I initially was around him, the floodgates of my heart soon burst open, and I shared with him more than I ever have with another pony. After his third or fourth visit, he decided to stay in Ponyville for good; he claimed it was because the Cakes baked better confections than he’d ever tasted in Canterlot, but my boastful side always suspected that I had something to do with it as well.
Two nights before I woke up in this place, he proposed to me. We were sitting on a large hill overlooking Sweet Apple Acres, and the moon was full. We were chatting as we always did, about the things we had seen and done, when suddenly – and I do mean suddenly, he interrupted his own sentence halfway through – he asked “Do you want to marry me?”
He was so frank, so bold and honest, but that was how he had always been. I was never quite so happy and positively bursting with love as I was in that moment. That modest and shy side of myself told me that it must have been too good to be true.
And…well, here I am, I suppose.
I’m sure it’s been weeks or more since I’ve vanished, and he’s probably given up looking for me by now. Or maybe it’s actually that I hope he’s given up. He always had much more of an eventful life than I did; I didn’t want him to waste it searching for me when I might not even be found. Whoever was keeping me here, they wanted me to stay: they were feeding me well, and not hurting me at all. There was even a makeshift toilet within the range of my chains! If they had meant to hurt me, they would have done so already. So, though I’m ashamed to say it, part of me had resigned myself to being stuck here for a very long time. At least, I thought, I got to experience your love for as long as I could…
Just then, the door unlatched. My immediate assumption was that my food had arrived, but that wasn’t right. For that, it was simply a flap on the bottom of the door; this was the first time since my capture that the whole door had opened. I strained my eyes to make out the shape heading toward me, and the closer it got, the more it looked like…Volt!
My stallion! My love! It was really him! He had come to rescue me after all, and those dark conclusions, to which my mind had jumped, began to recede. It must have been that the drain on my spirit befuddled my sense of time; in reality it had probably been only a few days since I had gone missing. Now, instead of fearing for my life, my biggest concern became how much I had worried Volt, and how taxing this search had surely been on him. But I knew he would never blame me for any of this, not even subconsciously; that’s just the kind of pony he was. I was so happy to see him that it felt like all of my chains had been lifted. In truth, however, I was still quite literally chained to this damp and musky cellar floor.
Volt approached me, his pale green eyes glinting in the dim moonlight which shone through the small basement window. “My love!” I tried to call out to him, but my voice caught in my throat after just the first syllable. I had not spoken, not even to myself, in the time that I had been imprisoned here, and my body was not prepared for such a display. But I tried again, this time speaking only in a whisper.
”Volt…Thank you so much.” I had mountains of words to say to him, but I settled with those for now; leaving this dreadful place was, I’m sure, the first priority for both of us.
But as my fiancé trotted ever-so-slowly closer, I realized that something was amiss: he had not uttered a word. Was he simply being cautious, so as not to alert my captors? No, if that were the case he would have, at the very least, motioned to me when I spoke his name. “Volt…” I spoke again, this time as loud as my still-healing voice would allow. Yet again he did not respond.
He did not break his stride.
He did not even blink.
My heart sank lower and lower, until “shocked” and “disappointed” were as inaccurate to describe what I was feeling as words like “tickled” or “elated” might have been. This was not a natural sinking feeling. It felt more like my heart, my very essence of who I was, was being physically sucked away from me. The soft clop of Volt’s hooves against the cold stone floor, growing louder with each step, were the only noise present to remind me that the beating of my own heart was not the only sound in Equestria.
Though it isn’t right to call that creature “Volt.” At this point, even before it happened, I believe I knew. My fiancé was the most energetic pony around; to stealthily come to my rescue, only to not speak a word to me…He was about as likely to do that as he was to read up on the entire history of Canterlot.
No…this was wrong.
As I realized the truth, I hung my head. Not in disappointment, but in utter defeat. The thing that had taken the form of my fiancé must have noticed this, and gleefully shed its skin-deep disguise. The transformation happened very quickly, but I swear that I saw each instant of it, every moment tearing my heart into pieces all over again.
Volt’s bright purple mane, his source of endless compliments, was razed, becoming a dry and rotted mess. His calming blue coat was replaced by a disgusting, dark exoskeleton, putrid and full of holes. His horn, always so bright and powerful, was stripped and twisted into an unnatural monstrosity.
His strong yet gentle face, which I had promised to wake up next to every morning for the remainder of my life, was burned away. And underneath where it used to be lay the visage I had seen in my nightmares each night since I had arrived in this place.
But this beast did not attack me. It stared at me intently, that sinking feeling in my heart growing by the second. I became lightheaded and wanted nothing more than to be allowed to give in; to curl up in shame and accept whatever torture was coming to me. It never occurred to me that this moment was my torture, as well as the whole reason I had been abducted. I stared into those wide, soulless eyes for what seemed longer than an eternity, all the while completely paralyzed. I don’t know if this was due to fear or some kind of dark magic, but I suppose that detail doesn’t matter now.
Eventually, I was sure that I was going to die. I had never felt such sadness, such despair, as I did in that moment. I knew that, whatever it was doing to me, it had to be over soon...one way or the other.
And I was right. But not in the way that I had expected. The creature released me from its glare, and I glanced down at my body, taking note of the startling fact that I was completely unharmed. My eyes drifted back up toward the thing in time to see it flash me an evil smile, its small fangs shining in the moonlight. After that, it turned away and trotted out through the same door it had entered from. And that was all.
My head was spinning and my temples were pounding, but I slowly came to my senses and began to think. What exactly had that creature done to me? Could it have merely been meaning to scare me? Was my true torture still forthcoming?
But that was when I saw it: The door to my cell was open. That thing, intentionally or not, may have been the one to finally release me from this prison after all. My heart raced with excitement as I made to stand up, but I was quickly brought back to reality by way of the chains keeping me from moving more than a foot toward the door. In a panic, I looked all around the cell; eventually, one of my captors would notice the open door and seal me in again, eliminating any opportunity I would have had to escape. If I was ever going to be free, this was my only chance.
My eyes danced about the room, seeking anything I could use to break my chains, but these frantic thoughts turned out to be unnecessary: the key to my cuffs was right there at my hooves. Surely it had not been there this entire time? No, I certainly would have noticed that in the hours I had spent staring at that very floor, daydreaming of…something.
And yet as many times as I blinked my eyes and shook my head, the key remained. It was not an illusion. Could that monster have dropped it by mistake? Or was this simply its way of telling me “You’ve served your purpose; you’re free to go.” I don’t know. I don’t want to know. At the time, thoughts of why never even crossed my mind. All I knew was that this was my way out, and I was going to take it. I stretched my neck forward and lifted the small black key with my teeth, easing it into the cuffs, and turning.
I was free.
Not sparing even an instant, I darted through the dark corridors as fast as my weakened legs would carry me. I exited the cell and turned the first corner to my right; if the moonlight had been able to enter my cell directly, I must have been very close to the outer wall of this fortress. If I kept along that wall for long enough, I was bound to find the way out.
I turned, and I galloped, and once or twice I thought that I had heard somepony scream for help, but I was in far too much of a panic to save anyone but myself. Soon, much sooner than I expected, I saw light. The front gates were ajar.
I dashed forth from the fortress which had detained me for so long, and I remembered what it was like to be free. I saw the moon for the first time in weeks, fuller and brighter than I remembered it ever being. And for some reason, this made me feel…angry.
Although I was still close to that dreadful castle, my pace began to slow. Why would the moon make me feel this way? As I stared up at that glowing orb, my feelings only amplified. I felt depressed, livid, and lonely, but still I kept on walking.
“At least now I can go home,” I thought, but even this made me feel these terrible emotions. I didn’t want to go home. I had to get away from this prison, that much I knew. But “home” seemed like the last place I wanted to end up. I began daydreaming of the ponies I had once called my friends, and one particular stallion came to mind. I knew he had a blue coat, and a purple mane, but for some reason I could not remember his name. All I recalled was looking into his sad green eyes, and I felt disgust like I had never known before. Just the thought of this pony made me furious, and I quickly stamped out any memories that dared to bubble to the surface of my mind. Whoever this pony was, I never wanted to see him again.
I saw the north star and knew that Ponyville was to my left. Ponyville… My home, my friends…and him.
I turned to my right and continued on, determination in my eyes, and a black fire where my heart once beat.
