Chapters Author's Note
Before you read, look here. This is important.
Where am I?
You slowly come to your senses, your eyes open, but no light reaches your eyes. Your entire body is numb, as if all of your limbs are missing. You rest your head back down, realizing there is no pillow supporting your head. You stretch, flex your wings, then open your eyes again and stumble to your hooves. Your eyes already adjusted to the dark. You try and remember how you got here, but your mind seems blank. In fact, you can't even remember your own name! You can't remember anything about your past! How could this happen?
You look at your surroundings, it's a white, padded, dark room. Much like that of an asylum room. Actually, that's exactly what it looks like. There is also a small bed with no mattress in the corner, and one side of the room has a padded door which is wide open. You notice something on and below it, and look closer.
Is that... Blood?
No... There's no way...
You trot closer to the door, and get a closer look at the fluid, it smells horrible. And looks somewhat fresh, too. Considering it is still dripping off of the door.
With a now racing heartbeat, you walk through the exit, carefully avoiding the stains below your very hooves. As you walk into the dark hallway you notice a putrid odor. Much like the blood, but ALOT stronger, and something else... You can't quite place it.
With nothing to do, you open your mouth and call out. Nothing else to do, anyway.
"Hello? Is anybody out there? Where am I? Hey!"
No response.
"Helllloooo? Is anybody out there? I need help!"
Complete silence.
You start to grow very nervous. There's no way all this blood is real. It's smeared all over the doors, walls, and even the ceiling! This can't be happening, you can't stand to be in here another moment. With the panic growing stronger, you start to dart down the hallway.
The only sound that can be heard is your hoofsteps. Your vision begins to tunnel, and you ignore how much blood you just galloped through. The only thing in your mind right now is the exit. You need to find it, this place is terrifying. And you can't escape the feeling of being chased. At some point, the asylum metal doors became wooden, office-like ones.
You turn around, and for a second, it looks like something was there, but in a second, gone... You could have sworn something just moved back there. Maybe you kicked up blood or something? Maybe it was your tail. But it's worth a look... The hallway seems to go on forever anyway. This entire place seems like a maze, hallways become more hallways.
You slowly backtrace to about the spot you saw the movement, seeing nothing. There are two doors on either side of you, one is partly opened. The other is shut, and on the other side you hear... Breathing?
Deciding not to take your chances with whatever was just chasing you, you decide to open the other door. As you push it open you see another asylum room, just like yours, except the bed has a mattress. Nothing of interest.
You turn around and put your hoof on the other handle, which turns out to be freezing. Almost painfully cold, in fact. You slowly turn the handle, and cautiously open the door. As soon as you do so, a strong wind gusts out of the room and blows your mane back. You hear scuffling inside.
"Hello? Anybody inside?" You ask, failing to not sound terrified.
"Please! Don't come any closer! I didn't do anything!" You hear the silhouette of a pony yell from the far-right corner.
"Hey, I'm not trying to hurt anyone, I'm lost, pal. I woke up in one of those cells, and I just want to get out of here. Mind getting me to an exit?" You ask, calming down as you realize you aren't alone.
He doesn't respond.
"Hey, I'm asking you a question. You alright over there?" You ask, flipping the light switch. The light flickers, before dying out. As it does so, you get a better view of what is in front of you. He is an Earth pony, hiding in the corner with a knife clutched in his hooves. Blood stained his face, but the most alerting fact was his eyes, however.
Better yet, his lack of having any.
"Whoa, you oka-" You are cut off as he gets up and screams, running at you. Before you have time to react, he is on top of you, and at some point, he began attempting to push his knife into your chest. He is really strong, you realize. His Earth Pony strength outmatching your smaller Pegasus muscles. The knife inches closer and closer, and you begin to run out of options.
As you think, you feel the knife touch your chest, cutting the skin. You begin to scream. On the opposite side, the other pony is laughing like a psycho. You feel the knife pushing deeper, blood spurting out from the chest wound. You close your eyes, and accept the fact that this is your last moment. It's a shame you had to die so soon without any answers, you don't even know how you got here. You will die alone in here, by a stranger's blade, and nopony will ever find your corpse.
You notice the laughing is now silent, and the knife doesn't hurt anymore. You slowly open your eyes, only to find the other pony gone. Aware that you may be bleeding to death you look at your chest, and to your concern, you are unscathed. It as if the knife never even touched your skin. It's bizarre, and unexplainable.
You continue to lay down, catching your breath. One side of you tells you it was real, the other half doesn't want to believe it. You rub your eyes and slowly stand up, you are more than eager to leave the room. You exit back into the hallway, and miraculously, the lights flicker to life. The hallway illuminates and all doubt of the liquid being blood vanishes.
You start to trot back down the hallway, with no idea where to go, what is happening, or what has happened, fear resurfaces in your heart.
You feel like you've been trotting for an eternity, you keep hearing whispers, but can't pinpoint from where, suddenly you hear two normal voices conversing, it sounds like it comes from directly behind you...
"He isn't worth it"
You turn around, and see nopony there.
"It is disgusting me, too."
Hearing it behind you again, you turn around. Again, nothing is there.
"It can hear us now..."
"Such a shame it had to waste our time."
You keep looking back and forth, the voices always behind you.
"It's a killer, too."
"Hear that, you're a killer."
"You shouldn't be here."
"You should kill yourself, nothing will stop you."
You give up on finding the two, and begin walking again.
"Find the knife, find it, and stab yourself."
"Do it, die for us!"
These voices can't be talking to you. They are cruel!
"Check the rooms, find a knife! Get the knife!"
You are really getting tired of this.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!" You scream at the ceiling, hoping to silence the voices. Luckily, it seems to work.
As fear turns to anger, you stomp your way deeper into the asylum. The blood has begun to make out words like 'help' and 'save us'. This doesn't add to your spirits of escape.
You hear hoofsteps, just around the corner crossway in the halls, they are slow, and cautious.
Now realizing the danger of others, you creep to the edge, and peek around the corner. Your company doesn't notice you, and you take advantage of getting a good look at the other pony.
She is a minty-green color, with a brighter green mane. Her eyes are a shade of bright Gold, you can't see her cutie mark from your current angle.
You have been observing for a while now, she seems unarmed, and you decide you could take this mare on in a fight if she acts out. Suddenly, she stops. As if you had called her by name, she looks right into your eyes, and her ears splay back. She gets a look of fear, and takes a step back. Her pupils shrink to pinpricks.
"Who are you?" You ask the stranger.
She jumps back, frightened. She takes in a shuddering breath before replying weakly.
"Please don't kill me, please. I'll leave, don't hurt me." Her words trail off into staggered breathing.
You step out of cover and slowly trot closer, holding out a hoof innocently. You shrink down a little and do everything you can to seem less intimidating.
"I won't hurt you, as long as you don't hurt me. I do want to know though, how do I get out of here?" You ask her, stopping a few feet away.
She looks confused, and locks up. You can see why she hasn't run yet, one of her legs is raised, she doesn't look like she wants to put any weight on it. After a few seconds, she lets out a breath and gets a look of relief.
"There isn't one..." She replies.
"There has to be, how else did we get in here?" You ask again.
"There was, but you won't get through. Trust me, you can't escape this place." She looks like she's calmed down, you can now see the bags underneath her eyes, indicating her lack of sleep.
"Look, I don't know where I am, and I can't remember anything that happened more then an hour ago. All I want, is to get out of here, and live my life again."
"And I told you you can't leave! There really is no survivable way out! They'll kill you if you try to leave!"
What is she talking about?
"Who are 'they'? Why would they hurt me?" You ask, confused.
"You really don't know? They've been here since the disaster. They kill everyone. Even each other. I don't know anything else about them."
"Fine, well what are you doing in here? I haven't seen too many others around. Not a lively place?" You ask, not wanting to get yourself killed you might stick with this more experienced pony. Her ears perk up at your question.
"I was looking for something to eat back at the working quarters, but you walked up and cut me off. Not that I mind, I've been here for years, and you are the first pony I've seen since the disaster that hasn't chased me..." She replies, avoiding your gaze.
"What's this disaster you keep mentioning? Is that why there's blood everywhere?" Yeah, that last bit was a little too obvious.
"Where have you been all these months? It was when all of the monsters came out and killed us all, and started turning us into them. That's how I-" She's cut short when all of the lights spark and shut off. Leaving you two in the dark, you only know where she is by the glowing of her eyes.
"Come on, let's get out of the halls, this is creeping me out." You say.
"Yeah, me too." She whispers.
"Follow my hoofsteps."
You turn around and start walking for the hallway you just exited, rounding the corner by memory, you feel the walls for a door. Feeling a handle, you open it and walk inside. Your eyes are now adjusted to the dark. You hear her enter and you shut the door quietly, you check the light switch again, seeing it is also broken.
"Name?" You ask the mare.
"Hm?"
"I didn't hear your name"
"Oh, I'm Lyra, you are?" She greets.
You introduce yourself as well, and give a friendly smile.
"So, since I can't remember a thing, tell me everything about this place. From since you got here to now." You order.
"Oh, well... Where to start. This place used to be an active asylum. Just like any other, we'd talk about the outside world, why we got locked up in the first place, things like that. Eventually, ponies started to disappear. The guards would look for them, and sometimes go missing, too. The vanishing got more frequent, until one day..." A tear leaves her eye as she continues.
"All of the missing ponies came back, but they were cut up, some had claws, some had spikes in them, they looked disfigured. And they were really fast. All of them had black eyes. They mauled us to death, one by one. Until only a few of us were left, we hid along the asylum, and survived as long as we could. But sometimes I still hear screaming, that's when I know there's one less of us. The exits are really guarded, I think they are under orders or control, since they seem to work together." She finishes, her head is not hanging low, and tears drip from her face.
"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was that bad. I wouldn't have made you say it if I knew it'd be that deep" You try to console her.
"It's fine, it's just..." She runs up and pulls you into a tight hug.
"I can't believe I finally have someone to talk to, I've been alone for months with nopony to talk to but myself, please don't leave me, I hate this place, I need a friend!" She trails off as she openly cries into your arm.
"Hey, it's fine. I'm glad I'm not alone, too. And I can't imagine what you've gone through. I promise, you'll get out of here. I'll do anything." You say, patting her on the back.
You sit there for a while, at some point she stops talking and falls asleep, and so do you.
You wake up with a warm feeling on your stomach, you groggily open your eyes to see a mint colored mare snuggled into your chest. The memories of recent events come racing back into your mind. You lay your head back against the office wall and relax, assuming you'd wake up when she did.
That's when the voices start up again.
"Kill her, she's slowing you down."
"She knows, she wants to kill you."
"She doesn't like you, she hates you, everyone hates you."
"WE hate you, that's why you're going to kill her."
"Do it, break her neck now!"
The voices continue on like this, slowly getting louder as they scream inside your skull. And the volume doesn't stop there. They are screeching orders into your skull now. It's making it hard to think. You get up, rolling Lyra onto the floor, and clasp your hooves over your ears to no avail. They get louder and louder, you've started yelling at some point, and start to smash things in the room to let off some steam. Suddenly, the voices just... Stop.
It went from screaming to nothing in just a few seconds... Just like that... Strange.
You turn around and see Lyra's horn glowing, staring at you with concern, but most of all, fear...
"Y-you alright? You're scaring me..." She asks, backing up as she did so.
"Yeah, I'm fine. What did you do to my head? And how did you know how to do that?" You respond.
"You started talking quietly, and mumbling. Then you just got up, and started screaming. You put holes in a few of the walls and started just freaking out, so I cast a spell I invented and usually used on myself. I assumed it was the voices, so I made them go away. It worked, right?" She asks.
"Yeah, yeah. Does everyone get those in their head? They aren't very polite..." You say.
"Well, I don't know. I didn't have them until this all started, but I think everyone does. I just feel bad for the Earth Ponies and Pegasai that have these problems, they can't make it stop."
"Right, well, no going back to sleep now, let's go. You said there was food somewhere, right? You are probably starving, and I know I am." You say.
"Oh, uh, right. The employee lounge. Or at least I think that's what it is. Yeah, let's go." Lyra speaks.
After about half an hour of walking and talking she has told you alot about the area's history. As well as some of her actions in this place. This asylum was like any other. Crazy ponies in, deceased or cured out. It went on like this for many years, until one day, the first disappearance happened. Followed by another, and another. Guards who started trying to find them vanished, too. It was so bad that almost 100 ponies vanished. A few weeks after the first disappearance, they came back, but... Different. They had black eyes, and no fur. They were mutilated and hardly speak. They didn't even seem to remember any of their friends, they just started killing everything mercilessly. Some had claws, others fangs, all of them had the ability to rip a pony to shreds in seconds if they got too close. Ever since the outbreak, this has been the asylum.
You take a look at Lyra, it's really a shame she's in here. She was visioning creatures called 'Humans' for some time, she began to see more and more of them, until it practically ruined her life, and got her stuck in here. She had a best friend whom she lived with, but she couldn't remember the other mare's name. All she knew is it was some sort of candy. She lived in Ponyville before all of this, and was friends with most of the town before her hallucinations kicked in. Bad things happen to good ponies you guess. Now that you think about it, she doesn't seem crazy at all. She doesn't look like she's having any form of hallucinations. Actually she's pretty funny, her life has alot of weird tales to tell about it.
"-and so I told him 'if you didn't like me you wouldn't have been crazy'" She laughs, you pitching in. She continues speaking.
"Anyways, we're here. Don't try the fridge, it's all spoiled. Everything else is in the cabinets. It's enough to keep me alive. Now it's here for you, too." She says.
"Right, how many times did you come here?" You ask her, moving to the far edge of the room and opening the cabinet. You find nothing but bread and hay. Not bad, but not the best.
"Oh, not much. I'm usually too scared to come out here alone, but with you here I just feel... Safer. I don't know really." She tells you, finding food of her own.
"Is that why you were about to pass out when we first met?" You tease.
"No I wasn't!"
"I thought you were going to have a stroke."
"I wasn't scared, I'm telling you!"
"You're eyes shrunk, you backed up, and begged me not to hurt you. You DID sound friendly!" You continue joking.
She huffs and starts rummaging through more of the food, filling a bag with a little hay and some crackers. She avoids the bread, probably moldy.
"So what DID happen to your leg?" You ask her, breaking the silence.
"This one?" She holds up the table-leg splint on her right hind leg. "Well, I was running from one of them, and it picked up a desk and through it at me, when it smashed, this leg was broken. I had to run with three legs, I only survived when I hid myself inside one of the bathroom stalls." She finishes speaking.
"Wow, I'm just glad you're alive. Does it hurt anymore?" You ask.
"Only if I put weight on it, thanks." She answers.
It stays silent after that for a while, the two of you filling bags with food to eat. You were STARVING, you don't remember the last time you ate.
Not that you remember many things at all right now... Moving on...
You head movement, not from either of you. You turn around and see her staring at you, frozen with fear. You hear a loud thudding, and quickly turn around to see a figure slamming on the wooden door a few feet behind you. Before you can run, it slams through the door and breaks into a full sprint right at you. It knocks you into the kitchen corner of the room, and starts slamming you into every object it can as fast as possible. Doing it's best to injure you, you hit it's flesh, finding it to be hard and rough, hurting your hand. You look around for something, anything you can use to save yourself. Each thud is giving you more stinging pain, and your vision is starting to fade fast. You find something, but have to hesitate to grab it, you don't want to have to use it.
On the counter, is a sharp, serrated, kitchen knife.
The beast answers your question first, slamming your head down on the counter with a 'crack', you scream in agony, you're certainly bleeding now. You reach out your hoof and grab the blade of the knife, pulling it closer you take the handle. You pull your hand far behind it's back, tense up your forearm, and begin rapidly running the knife through everything in it's back that seems important. Neck, chest, spine, you name it...
The beast squeals and falls to the ground, spazzing out before stretching it's body to full length, and collapsing. It's last breath spent. With one look you take in the full glory of it. The beast has black, cloudy, eyes. It's head is covered in nails, and it's skin looks to be severely scarred. It's body just... Bends in ways a pony's shouldn't. You turn to look and Lyra.
She's cradled in the corner, making herself as small as possible. She's under a desk, shivering. You can tell she's crying, and you're holding a bloody knife, probably not making a nice scene here.
Wait, bloody knife. You take that thought a step further.
I never killed before. You continue your thought process.
I just killed another form of life, for the first time. I just stabbed somepony to death... They are curled up on the floor to prove it, they're dead, and they wouldn't be without you.
Your legs give out beneath you, and you feel like vomiting. But the pain in your back beats you to it and you black out, before falling asleep.
As you groggily come to, you feel something, movement in fact. You feel like you're bouncing slowly, up and down.
You decide it's best to look at your surroundings now, since you'll probably end up dead in a few minutes. You look around to see you are in the same hallways as usual, and beneath you Lyra is struggling to carry you down it. Her head swivels side to side, looking at every door and exit she sees.
"Lyra?" You ask, hoping to get her attention.
She gasps and sets you down gently, not that it wasn't agonizing on your back, but at least she didn't try to. She turns you around and hugs you tightly, crying again into your arm. She keeps repeating something.
"You were gone, you were gone..." She mumbles, starting to cry.
You reach a hoof forward, wiping the tear away, before holding her face in your direction. Her reaction was starting to make you very nervous. More than usual, that is.
"What do you mean gone? How was I was gone? Gone for what?" You ask.
"You were... Gone. You passed out, and I checked you and... Y-Your heart wasn't beating, you weren't breathing, and you weren't answering me! I don't know how you're alive now, I'm just so glad you're still here!" She cries, holding you closer.
You pat her on the back, and take up her job of looking around. You hear hoofsteps.
"Come on, let's go. I think something's nearby." You tell Lyra, waking her up from her episode.
"Right, yeah, I was just going back to my 'home ' I call it." She says, emphasizing the wide use of the word home.
Suddenly, one of the doors break, and you see the figure you just killed fly right at you before there's time to react. It cuts your throat with it's claws and pushes your head into the floor, screeching into your face. It hurts so badly, you already hope it just kills you. Every inch of your body feels like it's full of needles. Your eyes shut and you brace for a finishing hit that never comes. When you look out, it's gone, just like before. You're curled up in a ball in the hallway, and Lyra's at your side, eyeing you with concern. She darts down and crouches at your side, shaking you and yelling something into your ear. The ringing is too loud to hear, it's muffled. The pain was real, you don't know if that actually just happened. Last time it turned out to be nothing. You slowly regain auditory sense.
"-p get up come on! Not again, get up dude! This isn't funny!" Lyra frantically yells into your ear.
You shoot back up, getting back onto all fours with a tremendous lack of balance. She is already at your side, helping support your weight.
"I'm fine, where is it?!" You shout, gasping for air as you do so.
"Where is what?!" She yells back, getting frantic.
"I SAID I'M FINE!" You scream. You didn't mean to, but the mixture of confusion, fear, and disbelief are starting to get to your head.
She responds accordingly, and recoils back. A good seven or eight paces in fact, you thought she was running, until she stopped and turned around, still keeping her foreleg back to provide room to escape.
You take your time to look around. The door wasn't ripped off the hinges, you weren't bleeding, there wasn't a creature, it was... Another episode? Right, that probably was it.
"Sorry, I'm just getting worked up in these halls. I feel so.... Exposed here. Let's just go before something else happens, alright?" You plead, really getting tired of the bad timings of these things.
She just nods, and waits for you to start walking. You get the feeling she's not comfortable near you anymore, which hurts, but you can't think about that right now. It doesn't matter that the only friend you had is afraid of you, you just need to get out of here. No matter if she likes or hates you, you need to leave.
So you start walking, hopefully not to be interrupted again.
