A Dimly Lit Hallway, and a Stranger Shrouded by Darkness... (Part 1)
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A Dimly Lit Hallway, and a Stranger Shrouded by Darkness... (Part 1)
Slowly, Twilight opened her eyes. Everything was a blur, unfocused and unclear, but it was apparent by the hard concrete floor that she was no longer in her bed; or in her library for that matter. Twilight tried to get up, but found that her muscles were far too weak to move; it felt as if she was being held down by some sort of invisible force or as if she was drugged. Fear began to grip her as her surrounding became clearer and clearer as her eyes focused and the blur in her vision cleared. Her now re-established vision revealed her location to be a dimly litted cement box, encroaching upon her at all sides and blocking any and all ways of escape. Her fear grew even further as the realizations and implications in her mind began to align. Not only did she not know where she was, but she was trapped being restrained against her own will. Something about this in Twilight's mind screamed "DANGER!!!" and naturally, Twilight began to panic.
Twilight tried to move once again, but found that she could only move a little; she took note that whatever was making her muscles weak was wearing off. So instead, she tried to call for help. However, the attempt was unsuccessful as the moment she opened her mouth, only a series of dry coughs came out. It was at this point that she realized that her mouth and throat were as dry as a desert, making speaking near impossible. Despite this, Twilight tried again.
"H-hello?!" Twilight wheezed out just barely
There was no response, silence resounded in her enclosed space. So she tried again.
"Hello-o?!" Twilight tried again, nearly hacking out a lung in her attempt.
Again there was no response, and Twilight's fear grew ever larger.
In realization that calling for help was getting her nowhere, Twilight resorted to plan B. Her muscle, though still weakened, were now strong enough to move, and strong enough for a solid kick. So, gathering as much strength she had in her hind legs, she gave a strong buck to the back wall of her cement prison in a small hope that she might break free...
...only for her kick to hit nothing but air...
Momentarily confused, Twilight used her now regained strength to look around her surrounding a bit more carefully. It was only then realized she was not in a cement box at all; relatively speaking. Instead, she found that she was facing one of the corners of a long, grey, and dimly lit hallway that she was currently residing in; a hallway consisting of sturdy looking cement walls and eight doors placed several feet from one another, plus one at the end of each hallway. The hallway carried an eery silence within it, making Twilight just that much more uneasy.
Finding the strength to stand, Twilight slowly and carefully stood up on four hooves and faced the door closest to her. Twilight examined the door. The door held no upstanding or noticeable features, it was just a plain, grey door. However, there was something that caught Twilight's attention about the door's doorknob. The doorknob held a round, ball-like design, with a small complex keyhole facing outward. It was nothing that could ever be gripped by hooves, but rather talons or claws, and the keyhole design was like nothing Twilight had ever seen before. It made Twilight wonder briefly who could have designed the doorknob and it's lock, but she shook it out of her head as she decided to not worry about it until she got out of here, wherever this was...
Thus, she attempted to turn the knob with her magic. Her aura surrounded the knob, however it refused to turn; it was locked. This caused Twilight to mentally huff in annoyance, she had figured that would have been the case. However, she was not about to give up yet, she figured that there had to be at least one door in this hallway that would be unlocked. So she staggered over to the next nearest door, only to find that one to be locked as well. Next one, also locked, Next one... Also locked. Twilight's stress, fear, and anxiety began to grow as every door she attempted to open turned out be locked. With growing desperation, she even tried to force some of the doors open with all of her magical might... it was still not enough. Whatever kept these doors seal shut was much stronger than her.
Twilight was practically an emotional wreck by the time she reached the last door, at the opposite end of the hallway she started at. She was without hope that this door would be unlocked, and far too afraid to find out. So she simply stared at that last door with a growing depression inside of her. She began wondering why this was happening to her, why her in the first place, what exactly she had ever done to deserve this, if she was ever going to see her friends or family again, the typical things a pony or person goes through when faced with a hopeless situation.
Eventually, Twilight gained the courage to begin approaching the final door. Fear and stress gripped her heart tighter with every step, threatening to stop her heart all together; it almost did when she reached the door. The door was like all the others, and likely locked like all the others, but Twilight had to try. She had to get out of this place, before it consumed her. Slowly, Twilight reached out with her magic to attempt to open the final door.
"It won't work, I already tried." Twilight suddenly heard to her left.
Twilight would have let out a startled screech if it were not for her dried throat. Instead, she went into another coughing fit as she focused her eyes on the source of the voice... Her heart nearly stopped as she began to frantically back away.
The owner of the voice was sitting in a the corner of the hallway, just within a shadow. Though it spoke Equestrian, and most of its features were blotted out by the darkness the creature resided in, Twilight could clearly tell that this thing was not a pony. Given Twilight's situation, her weakness, and fear, Twilight immediately assumed the worst of the creature and fled to be as far out of reach as possible. It might have been a bit rash on her part, as she did trip multiple times and gave the creature plenty of opportunity to strike in her attempted escape. However, it is safe to say that Twilight had a lot on her mind at that time.
As soon as Twilight felt that she was a safe distance away, she turn quickly to face her assumed enemy... however, found that it had not moved an inch from its position in the corner. It merely stared at her for a moment before it started chuckling, before bursting out into a strong laughter. The laugher held no malice behind it, but yet is sounded... just wrong. There was no happiness behind it, no humor, it was crazed and desperate. It was forced, not real laughter. The mania and hysteria behind the voice was enough to put the mare even more on edge.
Eventually the laughter began to change, subtly, but still noticeable. The hysteria and desperateness were still present, but the craze and mania were ever so slowly dissolving and fading. It was at that moment when the laughter turned into something else entirely... the creature was now sobbing.
"T-the purple unicorn is scared of me... W-why is it so afraid? Am I-I sooo terrifying? W-why would my own imagination be s-so scared of its creator?! M-my own illusions... B-but why..." The creature muttered to itself through sobs.
Twilight watched with a cautious curiosity as the creature continued to cry to itself, muttering barely coherent sentences. Twilight was completely stumped on what to do. Though she was still very wary of the creature huddled in the corner, she couldn't help but feel that she had jumped to conclusions a fair bit too quickly. The creature didn't seem to hold any malice intent and has not acted aggressively as of yet.
Twilight began to think. She thought perhaps that this creature was in the same situation she was currently in, though she didn't quite know for how much longer. For all she knew, this creature could have been in here for a long while, and had drove itself a little crazy while trying to find a way out of here; it didn't exactly look all that mentally stable judging by it ramblings and accusations of her being an "Illusion." However, she believed that it must have some sort of sanity left; otherwise it would probably be a bit more animalistic. Twilight quickly hypothesized that if this thing was still capable of speech and thought, then perhaps it knows something about this place... How they got here... maybe even a way to get out if she was lucky...
Twilight made her mind up quickly, and chose to try to talk to the unknown creature; figuring that it was her best and only shot. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but yet again she found that only a series of dry coughs and hacks came out. Her throat was still dry as as desert and was making communication impossible.
After finishing her coughing fit, Twilight found that the creature had suddenly stopped talking to itself, and instead had its intention upon her once again.
"O-oh! I-I'm sorry. I forgot! Y-you must be thirsty! M-most of those who come through here a-are usually t-terribly thirsty when they arrive!" The creature exclaimed apologetically, reaching behind itself.
From behind it's back, it produced a bottle-like object and proceeded to roll it across the floor towards Twilight. Twilight took an instinctive step back from the rolling object that stopped a few inches from her, cautious of what the stranger was trying to give her, before she realized what it was exactly.
It was a bottle, made of a strange flexible material that contained the one thing she needed. Water.
Without hesitation, she picked up the bottle of water, quickly and violently uncapped it, and began to rapidly gulp down the precious liquid.
"H-hey! Slow down! I-it's not good to drink it so fast! Y-you'll make yourself sick!" The creature stuttered out.
Taking the creature's advice to heart, Twilight slowed down in her consumption of the precious life water. It was actually working a lot better than trying to drink it all in one go, it relieved and revived her aching throat and dry mouth with better efficiency. Twilight finished the bottle moments later, placing the bottle down beside her. The bottle had relieved her thirst partially, to the point where she believe she could talk without the risk of coughing her lungs out, but she was still plenty thirsty. Twilight silently regretted her foolishness of trying to drink the bottle too quickly, but she was happy that at least she was not longer at risk of dying of dehydration... least for now.
"A-are you alright now?" The creature asked, reminding Twilight of its existence.
Twilight was a bit startled by the voice, despite the fact that its source had yet to move from its corner, and felt a small spike of regret from her forgetting the creature was even there. Without thinking, Twilight responded.
"Y-yes, I am fine. Thank you." Twilight responded softly, being careful not to irritate her throat too much.
"I-I am glad to hear that..." The creature responded timidly.
A minute passed in silence. Twilight, not knowing what else to do or say at that moment, decided to try to get a better look at the creature. It sat still in its corner, twiddling its claw like appendages at the end of its arms among each other as it apparently found interest in a certain spot on the wall across from it. Twilight couldn't make out it's facial features as the darkness of the shadow he sat in prevented her from making out particular features. However, she was able to make out the overall shape of the body. His overall body was a small and thin frame, a wide and flat torso with five limbs connecting to it. It's head was fairly oval shaped and had no snout to be seen, only a triangular nose that protruded from the center of its face. His ears were small and round, and not pointed and large like hers. It also appeared to have short cut mane that lied on top of its head, if there was a tail somewhere on it, she could not see it. It had a long pair of legs, much longer than its arms, that ended in what she assumed was its feet; she couldn't tell what exactly its feet looked like due to the fact that it was covered with a pair of worn and torn boots.
In fact, its entire body appeared to be wearing some sort of clothing; most of it appeared to be in the same condition as its footwear. It looked as if it had been wearing this clothing its entire life.
Twilight would have spend longer trying to figure out every aspect of the creature's shape and appearance, but then she remembered that she had questions to ask. She started with the most pressing one.
"Where am I?" Twilight ask the creature, regaining its attention.
Though Twilight couldn't really tell from her perspective, she had a feeling the creature was giving her a confused look; mostly judging by its head slightly tilting to the side.
"A hallway." The creature answered simply, it was answering her as if it was obvious.
"No... no... I mean, where are we exactly." Twilight asked again, slightly irritated by the creature's last response.
"A hallway... is it not obvious?" The creature answered once again, seemingly more confused than before.
Twilight huffed in frustration as she tried to figure out a way to reword the question in a way that it could understand. Twilight briefly wondered how somepony could lose it so mentally that he or she couldn't understand the obvious context of a question, how long it could have possibly been down here... alone... However, Twilight shook it out of her mind as she reworded her question, there were more important things to figure out at the current moment.
"Where is this hallway exactly?"
The creature froze for a moment, as if thinking or trying to remember something. However, it didn't last long as his attention was brought back upon Twilight.
"I-I don't know... least I don't remember... I don't think I am supposed to remember... not now at least..." The creature responded.
Twilight was confused by this response. She wondered what it could mean by that?
"What do you mean? You use to remember and you forgot? What do you mean that you are not supposed to remember?" Twilight asked demandingly, she was going to get to the bottom of this.
"I... I know that I am here for a reason... I am waiting for someone... or something... someone or something was suppose to arrive and take something from me... Two things actually... they are very important, and could not fall into the wrong hands... or hooves... I also know that I am not suppose to remember why I am here or how I got here until those important things are taken care of..." The creature responded.
"Important things? What do you mean important things? What are they? Why are they important? Who is suppose to claim them? Tell me!" Twilight near snapped as the stress and frustration of the situation got to her, bombarding the creature with her questions. She said it a little more harshly that she had intended.
The creature visibly shrunk back from Twilight's bombardment as if it was struck, shying away from Twilight and crawling further into it corner, looking like it was about to start crying again. It was at this point Twilight realized that she was probably being a little too aggressive with her questioning, and she felt her ears fold bad as she felt a ping of shame course through her. Though her situation was desperate, it gave her no right to treat others this way; especially when their situation was likely just as desperate as her's.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to scare you, I just need to know... I... Would you please forgive my aggressiveness?" Twilight apologized.
The creature appeared to become more comfortable upon hearing Twilight's words and eased up, returning to it's previous position.
"I-It's alright... I-I'm sorry... I can't remember much." The creature replied shyly, emulating the image of Twilight's good friend Fluttershy.
"It's alright. Let's start over, my name is Twilight Sparkle, pony of the Land of Equestria. Do you have a name? Can you remember that at least?" Twilight
The creature appeared to think for a moment, trying to remember a name, any name, that it was ever given. It took a few moment until Twilight could see a light bulb switch on in his head.
"M-my name... my name is Scriptor, Scriptor Tails. Human Citizen of the Spark. I think..." The creature responded.
End of Part I