Trapped

I open my eyes to see a dirt road with train tracks before me. My eyes struggled to stay ajar. I don't have much time! Why am I here? I've gotten so close that...

"Now you won't be able to breathe a word of this to anyone."

I squint my eyes to a pony standing tall before the sun. I could only make out the silhouette.

"Thwarting my plan to open a restaurant chain here will be futile now."

I really don't have time for this.

"I wasn't thwarting anything! I was saving some ponies' lives!" I squeal.

I try to stand, but find that I'm bonded to the train with a rope. My heart sinks as I feel the tracks rumble.

"Please...NO!"

The pony walks away leaving me abandoned on the tracks.

"NO!!!" My voice cracked and tears ran down my cheeks.

"LUNA-

BROOOOOOOOOOMMM
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"Rose? Rose?!"

I open my eyes to see nothing. As if I hadn't opened my eyes at all.

"I can't see anything." I blurt out, my own voice being unfamiliar to me.

A small light shines from a point and gets exceedingly brighter until I can see a dirty cyan face stare at mine. It was Colgate, and see lit what seems to be a cave of some sort with her horn. I look around and wonder what we're doing in a cave. I don't particularly care for the dark and I doubt Colgate does either.

"Did you get help?" Colgate asks as if I knew what she were talking about.

I cock my head to the side continue to look around. I feel totally clueless as to what's going on, but I can tell from Colgate's body language that she does have the information.

"Then that poor mare must've died." Colgate says with a sigh, looking down toward the ground in disappointment.

I stared at Colgate as If she were speaking Greek like she used to do just to make me mad. She picked it up while learning magical spells when she lived in Canterlot. Whenever she wanted to say something stupid, she'd say it in Greek and we'd laugh as if she told a joke. I've always tried to emulate this by speaking Latin, but Luna barely teaches it to me anymore, so I can't cause the laughter that Colgate can.

Basically, I didn't know what she was talking about.

"If she died, then you must've forgotten everything. AGAIN." Colgate sounded a bit annoyed now. She let out a huff and put a hoof on my head.

"Look. I've had to do this three times already, but I'll tell you again." I blinked at the strength in her voice. She was obviously upset.

"I don't know how we ended up in this cave, but we did, and we need to get out of here because if we don't, we'll die."

She talked to me like I was a kindergartener. It made me feel as If I'd done something wrong.

"So, I've been using this spell that an old class mate taught me to connect with the outside world to get help. That's where you come in. I'm using the spell to transfer your mind into another pony's body."

My eyebrows raised. Not out of shock, this just sounded pretty cool.

"I'm trying to get you to become another pony so you can help us out of here."

I poked out my lips and nodded. I didn't let her words sink in. I walked over aimlessly till I found a hard, sedimentary wall. Colgate shined her horn on it. Her face showed she was annoyed with her dimmed eyes and pouting lips

"Yup, that's a rock." Colgate said casually and quiet.

I walked over another wall with my heart getting a bit faster as I found another wall.

"That - that's a rock, Rose." Colgate was becoming impatient indicated by her casual stuttering.

Fear crept up my throat as I desperately searched for some opening or some change in the walls of some sort.

"Rock. It's all rock. That's a rock," Colgate pointed aimlessly with her hoof, but her eyes trained on me, "that's a rock, that's a rock, that's a leaf," Colgate smiled as she pointed at the leaf and broke her gaze from mine to look at the little green leaf on the floor, but the she looks back at me and pointed at the ceiling not smiling anymore, "but that's a rock. It's all rock. I rock. What's that? A rock. You know what rocks my socks? Pfft, socks. Not as cool as rock. I named this one Tom."

She's going a bit insane. She's starting to talk like a certain Pink pony who works at sugar cube corner.

"How long were we in here?" I ask, trembling.

"About seven hours. Well, now that your up to speed with everything rocky-"

"How come I can't remember anything?"

Colgate bounces a bit and answers my question. "The last mare you occupied was a vigilante. A certain pony wanted her dead, apparently. Right when you were about to save us, you died, thus erasing your memory. This is a big inconvenience because I can only retain a bit of information as to what you do outside of this cave. The rest would be up to you to remember if only you could have stayed alive. You probably found out where we are. I don't know now."

I clear my throat. "So now what?"

"We try again." She smiles somewhat devilishly.

The light in her horn goes out and I'm startled by the immediate darkness that follows.

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"Octy, you alright?"

I look around somewhat shocked to see a market cart before me. I look around to see that I'm in line for carrots. It was bright and sunny out with a calming cool air. I don't remember feeling any of this warm light a second ago...

"Octavia."

The name only catches my attention because it's said in my ear as if it were being directed to me. I turn to the source on the sound to see a snow coated unicorn with a wild blue raspberry mane. It was Vinyl Scratch. I had met her pretty recently with the whole Discord ordeal.

"Oh, hey, Scratch." I say, with a voice not my own, then I realized what was going on.

"You okay, Octy?" Vinyl said, lifting up her glasses to closely examine me.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine."

I must be in Octavia's body. I quickly realized that I'm stuck In a cave someplace with Colgate, and I'm running out of time.

"Vinyl! Um...." I search for an excuse to leave. " I need to......I do- I need to use the bathroom, yeah."

"I didn't know you hated shopping that much. We could go home if you'd like."

"It's...quite alright," I stammer as I try to stay in character, "I just feel as if we need to go out and look for missing ponies." I smile awkwardly leading Vinyl to believe I've gone crazy.

"You need to lie down." Vinyl says leading me home.

It took an hour to get back home. The whole way there I became more and more anxious. I wondered what had happened to my own body. Is Colgate still alive? Are we breathing? Each step towards the house felt like a step away from my objective.

"Vinyl," I started, "I-

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"GAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

I ended up back in the pitch black. I heard heavy breathing beside me, but I couldn't see whose it was. I made a safe be It was Colgate.

The breathing slowed down a bit until it was finally inaudible, and a light came shining from in front of me again. Colgate was sweating.

"Are we...saved?" She asked in a way that made me very scared you say,

"Not yet...."

She put the light out on her horn. It was probably to conceal her anger towards me. Or perhaps it was to save her energy. Regardless, the cave is black again and we are silent.

I hear Colgate clear her throat before speaking. "Ready to go?"

I catch butterflies in my stomach. For the past few minutes, I was laying on the cold ground, and when I stood up, I became a bit nervous.

"Yeah."

I closed my eyes and waited to end up someplace elsewhere. Before I did, I felt Colgate's horn touch my forehead. I wondered how she did this kind of a spell. She isn't that powerful a unicorn, but she graduated 5th in her class. I think that's a bit of an accomplishment.

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"GO GO GO GO!!!"

I'm in a bar, and the first thing I see in front of me is a bunch of liquor. I already knew who's body I was in. However, there was a super small glass that Berry seemed to have been refusing.

"Come on, Berry!" I hear somepony in the crowd yell to me. "Drink it!"

I'm in a drinking contest, but that's not even the bad part. I look at my table and it's littered with shot glasses and empty bottles of liquor. If I were half the drinker Berry Punch was, I'd be considered a heavy alcoholic. However, I can only knock back a few shots of tequila before I'm on my butt searching for the city of Atlantis in my glass.

I don't really feel drunk, just a bit buzzed. This only proves that Berry Punch's liver is extreme. I let out a hiccup before disappointing the crowd by setting down my glass. Everyone continued to egg me on. The crown began saying "Drink it, Drink It," in unison, and the roar was enough to convince me.

"Alright, Alright," I say in Berry Punch's voice. She has a beautiful voice, especially when she's singing, but she's always drunk or tired so no-one notices.

I stare at the liquid before me. Its in a shot glass that's so small, an ant couldn't drown in it. I wondered why it was so small. Just to give the crowd something to cheer about before I embark on my journey to find myself, I ask for a bigger glass of this stuff. Everypony cheers.

The bartender comes with a larger glass and pours the strange liquid into the cup.

"Don't drink too much of this stuff." The bartender warns carefully. I was having second thoughts now, but the crowd was over powering and I could probably drink seven of these tiny cups with my own body. Even though I don't know what the drink is.

I grab the cup and sniff it before I knock down the whole cup. A strong, slightly bitter taste burns my tongue as it washes down. I can easily detect herbal properties in the drink. I smack my tongue to get a better aftertaste and I get a strong floral hint of more herbs.

I get mixed reactions from the rest of the bar. I heard cheering for sure, but I also heard "yuck!" and "whoa!" but the most shocking was,

"Berry?! Wow, I thought you hated absinthe."

I think I died a bit inside.

Absinthe. I've heard of it before. It's a liquid so powerful, Berry Punch has refused to ever try it again. It's been banned in prestigious cities such as Canterlot by Celestia herself. It's been known to drive ponies insane and cause a strong addiction to the drinker. I think I took about five servings in that one cup.

My heart drops, and for a moment, I believe it's the onset of a seizure of something.

"Call a doctor.." I barely manage to let the words escape my mouth. I find myself trembling uncontrollably and my mind goes elsewhere. The last time this has ever happened to me was when I was messing around in the Everfree forest with Daisy. We found a strange plant that smelled sweet, so we ate it with similar side effects to the ones I'm currently suffering from.

I let out a bellowing hiccup before I fall unconscious.

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