The Deep Sleep

When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. - Friedrich Nietzsche

A moment of a jolt and Flash suddenly opened his eyes to find himself in his bedroom in the crystal castle. He found a silver key on the drawers that wasn't there before. Getting out of the bed, Flash walked to the bedroom door and tried to use the key unlock it, but it didn't seem to fit the keyhole.

"That's weird." Flash said. "This key always fits this door, why isn't it now?"

Then he saw another drawer that had a slide on it which appeared to be locked, he used that key and it worked with the sound of a click, he slid the draw slide up and found a cyan box that was locked.

"Shiny..." he commented. "..well, this isn't so bad."

But no sooner he grabbed the box, the whole room suddenly changed. The ceiling and most of the walls evaporated, even the locked door disappeared.

"Me and my big mouth." He moaned before looking back at his bed and getting a free shock. "Argh!"

There was a skeleton pony lying in his bed, one of the bones however appeared to be loose. Despite his best efforts against his curiosity, he approached the skeleton and took the loose foreleg bone before turning around and leaving the bedroom. Flash was met with three routes, his left showed a stairway down to somewhere, in the middle was a doorway that looked to have been walled up, yet there were cracks in the middle and to his right was another step of stairs but went deeper and darker.

He walked to the left first and down the stairs till he heard a ringing noise, into the room he went and the ringing was louder. Unknown to him, it was a telephone, something or someone seemed to be calling Flash for some reason.

"Whatever that is, I know that we don't have that in Equestria." Flash said. "Does this mean that I'm dreaming?"

He picked up the phone and placed it down on the table to hear the call. "Wake up..." the voice whispered. "...you have to wake up..."

"Wake up, so I AM dreaming!" Flash exclaimed. "But why do I feel like I'm awake already?"

"...You have to escape..." the message continued. "...the lighthouse...beware of the dark..." The message ended, but then went back to the beginning of the message as if it was on repeat.

Flash was beginning to feel disturbed, he looked at the cupboard door and opened it to find a flashlight, but had no batteries. He checked the draws on the right, but the top one was locked.

"A flashlight will come in handy, but where can I find batteries for it?" he asked before leaving.

Since the middle doorway was blocked off but with a few cracks showing, he took a deep breath and ventured into the deep and dark stairway on his right, he walked into a lightly dimmed room that had a desk with a written piece of paper and a bell next to it.

Flash picked up the paper and began to read it, hoping to find some answers about the world he's in.

I'm sure this note gets to you somehow. At this point you should know all of this is not real. I hope the inner awakening went well and that you have a full, lucid control over the dream. Sincerely...

He stopped reading it the moment he saw who wrote it. "Princess Luna?!" He yelled before looking upwards at the ceiling. "WHY?!" He slammed the paper down on the desk and sighed angrily before he felt a pain jolting through his head. "Ow! What is this pain...wait, I remember now. I was doing my patrol duty around the castle when one of the legs on a crystal statue gave way. It was about to fall on one of the crystal ponies when I galloped and shoved the pony out of the way, but I wasn't able to move away in time and the statue crashed down on me. The impact must've been so strong that I ended up falling...into a coma!"

He shook his head and looked into a room that had a pipeline which seemed to be leaking water on the floor which made a puddle.

"But if that is true, this doesn't explain why Princess Luna wrote that letter or how I am suppose to wake up."

He left that room and went down another flight of stairs to find himself in what was a boiler room. There was a dry cloth in the bucket, he picked up the cloth since he was curious again and then came across a main boiler and a pile of coal. He picked up a piece of coal when he thought back to how one coal can bring you luck, because he was going to need it.

He looked closer through the window of the boiler door when suddenly, he saw hoofprints and screaming from inside. "Who or what the heck was that!?" Flash exclaimed, after getting a shock. "Hmm that stand on the right may be missing a lever or something."

He then thought of the bone he picked up and to his amazement, the bone neatly fitted in the lever hole. He pushed it to the right and the fires inside the boiler dies down before phasing out completely. He then touched the wheel to try and open it, but the wheel was too hot to be turned.

"Ouch! Even in a dream, there's such a thing as pain?" Flash left the boiler room and thought of an idea. "Maybe I could wet this cloth and it'll be cold enough to turn the wheel." He went back into the small room with the pipe and placed the cloth on the puddle, it was now soaked.

He went back to the boiler room and used the cloth and his hooves to turn the wheel and then the door opened. He looked inside to find a smaller silver key and he was about to leave till he saw half of a number at the back of the boiler interior. He used his left hoof to sweep away the loose signed dust and soon it revealed a four-numbered code, Eight-zero-three-four.

"Hmm, gotta remember that code and hey, maybe that small key I found could unlock that top drawer." Flash left the boiler room and walked upstairs and upstairs back to where he started and went down the lighter stairway and back to the room with the phone.

He used the small key and it unlocked the top drawer, he opened it and there was batteries for the flashlight. He put them in and gave it a test on a dark part of the room and it worked, Flash now had one prime and useful flashlight. He went back to the room with the paper and the bell and opened the door next to it.

It was completely dark, so he turned on his flashlight and at the far end he saw a short message which showed "Wake up" and a doorway.

"Oh I'm trying to..." Flash commented before he went into the dark hallway. He pointed hi flashlight at a shelf and saw a golden statue of a pony, he took it and went into a room on his right and saw a message on the wall with a toy horse in the corner.

Little Cody is lost without his plushie tiger.

"What does that even mean?" Flash asked before leaving the room and going to the opposite doorway and finding a window at the end that shone a bright light. He walked closer to it until he saw a note on the left in a dark corner.

YOU ARE NEXT! It's time to pay a price for things you don't comprehend.

"Pay a price? What did I do wrong?" Flash cried before taking a deep breath and walked to the window.

He walked over it and found himself on the outside, to his right a stairway to another window, there was a third one above him but it was out of reach. So he went down and walked through the window and came across a bricked room with a metal door and a keypad on the side.

"Strange, we don't have that kind of security." Flash commented. "Oh but wait, maybe something will happen if I put in that code. Eight, zero, three and four." He used his hoof to push the numbers he said and a small light next to the numbers went from red to green, the beep also confirmed the code.

He looked at the circle lever by the doors. "Got it, now maybe I can push that lever around like a clock to open the doors." He did so and it revealed a dark hallway with no end in sight.

He turned his flashlight on and went down the hallway that seemed to last for a while until he came across a few barrels, a door and a pickaxe that was being held on a holder. He plucked up a little, thinking back to the cracked wall at the start, he took the pickaxe off the holder.

Suddenly the door flung open and out came a shadow pony of sorts and was moving towards Flash at a quick pace.

"ARGH! Okay what is that?!" Flash yelled as he began to gallop away. "HE'S COMING TO KILL ME! GOING BACKWARDS! HEEEEY!" He got out of the dark hallway and back into the lit room and used the lever to close up the doors. "CLOSE IT, CLOSE IT, CLOSE IT, CLOSE IT, CLOSE IT!" The door was then completely shut. He breathed a sigh of relief and looking up. "WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT?!"

He left the room through the window and went to the end of the stairs to find a hook, he picked it up. He then reminded himself to trace his steps back all the way back to the room with the cracked wall. He used the pickaxe and made a hole in the cracked wall, he gave it another hole and then after a third hole, the cracked wall evaporated.

"Hey look, it's freedom, question mark?" he commented before going through the door way and found himself outside, next to a beach. "A beach net? Hmm, maybe if I combine this with the hook..." after a moment of working over it, he had a hook embedded in the net. "Aha! Maybe I can use this and go up to that unreachable window."

He went back inside and all the way back to the windows by the stairs. He threw the hooked net on the unreachable window and the hook landed on the window rim. "Yeah! Now I can climb like Tarzan." He said happily before frowning. "Shining Armour makes me watch those movies as punishment, don't ask."

He climbed up the net and into a room to find a table with a blue phone, a tape recorder and a small gold key. Flash now realized that it wasn't a pony talking to him, but a recorded message. Although in Equestria, there wasn't such a thing, so this was new to him.

At least he had the gold key now, he thought of the small box, so he used the key on it and it unlocked, he opened it to see a small and shiny gem. He left the room, climbed back down the net and walked all the way back to the beach outside. He saw a lighthouse at the end, and walked upwards and up to the top floor to where there a bulb, but it had no light.

"Maybe this gem can be the source of light, I hope." he said as he put the gem in the bulb and then in a flash, the light bulb began to shine around the lighthouse. "I think that did something, other than give the lighthouse what it was missing."

He walked back down and out of the lighthouse, only to get a free sudden scare again, there, standing in front of him were a group of shadow ponies and they were blocking the way. "Oh that's just great, I have nowhere to run I guess." Flash moaned.

He walked back into the house and saw one of the shadow ponies following to him. "I have to escape...this isn't happening...I have to wake up!" He was back at the top, but he wasn't alone for long. The shadow pony caught up to him, but Flash wasn't about to go down without a fight.

"Oh hi...yeah, gonna fight you...get back I say, get back!" He used the levers on both sides to guide the light until it was aimed directly at the shadow pony. "YEAH! Gotcha, blasted ya into dust!" He sighed and smiled before the world began to disappear around him. "Woah...what's happening now?" Before he could say anymore, a massive light enveloped everything.

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Inside the Crystal hospital, Shining Armour was watching over Flash through a glass window. Just then, he saw Flash begin to open his eyes and move his head. Shining gasped and called out for a nurse. "Quick, I think Flash is coming to!"

Flash shook his head, sat up on the bed and looked around to see himself in a hospital room. "Am I awake?" He asked.

"Flash Sentry." Shining said as he walked into the room with a nurse.

"Oh uhhh, hello sir." Flash replied nervously. "What happened to me, sir?"

Shining chuckled. "Flash it's okay, I'm not on royal duty at the moment." he then smiled. "According to the nurse, you went into a coma after that statue fell on you."

"A coma?" Flash asked. "So everything I did was just a dream?"

"What do you mean by that?"

Flash shook his head. "Oh it's nothing."

Shining showed a hint of concern towards him. "Flash, I want you to be honest here, please."

"Alright." Flash replied. "All I remember is wandering around a world, there were too many dark places. There was also a message by Princess Luna and then I was at a beach with a lighthouse and then after getting the lighthouse to be on, I just woke up."

Shining breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Princess Luna was able to keep Flash on his hooves and his mind focused whilst in a coma. "The nurse says you should be out tomorrow, just don't worry about your duty. The other guards can take care of your patrol until you get back."

"Alright err...Shining, err sir." Flash winked.

Shining chuckled again. "Don't push your luck, mister...just kidding." he winked and then left the hospital.

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The next day arrived and Flash was able to go back to the castle, but as he walked on, he kept remembering the deep dream he had. The nightmare was over, but to Flash, his life had changed forever. Was it really all just a dream during his coma or were those creatures real?

Flash decided that he had to know, he just had to know the truth and he couldn't stop thinking about it. He had to go back...back to the deep sleep.