The Deep Sleep

Flash woke up in the middle of the night, he couldn't move or say anything and there was something his room.

"It's cold outside." he said. "My bed...I can't move...is somepony there?"

The shadowy figure away from his bed turn around and screeched at him, moving towards him at a fast pace.

"ARGH!" Flash screamed and before he knew it, he was suddenly unconscious.

Moments later, a metal noise went off and Flash opened his eyes to find himself in a different room, it was completely dark and there was a flashlight on the floor. He picked it up and looked around to find a green vase and as soon as he picked it up, a door mysteriously opened.

He ventured through the door and down a dark hallway before coming to a large room with a cyan blue crystal on either side above the middle door. "Where the Faust am I?" Flash asked. "This isn't the crystal castle."

He went through a door arch on his left to find a rope pulley system and a note on the floor, he picked it up and read it:

Hello Bert, I'm sure this note gets to you somehow. So you've followed this stupid traveller even though you knew what's gonna happen. You are at the bottom depth now, there is nothing beneath you. It's important that you avoid the bottom feeders. They sense motion, so don't make any sudden moves near them. Also, don't go to the Dark Church, the darkness there will suffocate you. Find a ladder, it should take you back to the surface. Sincerely, yourself.

"Yourself?" Flash asked. "I wrote this, is that what this means?"

Flash left the room and went to the door on the right, a wooden door on his left in the hallway was opened, he found a hammer, a screwdriver and a opened green book, he picked up the objects and looked at the book that had a bit of useful information.

The Bottom Feeders

They live at the bottom layer of the realm of dreams, feeding upon everything that comes near there. Even the shadow ponies fear them. They are blind, but can sense vibrations and movement. By staying perfectly still you should be safe.

"Well it says safe, even though it appears to be smudged." Flash commented as he left the closet and went down the hallway to see a statue and a locked door. Seeing there was no way through it, he turned to the statue and had an idea.

"Maybe this screwdriver will be useful." He used it on the statue's mouth and it worked, he picked up a small cyan gem. Then he used the hammer on the vase and smashed it, revealing another shiny gem. "Well, I have two gems, but I'm not sure where they go, maybe the dark church?"

He then gulped and walked to the main room and up the short stairs to the entrance, he came across a skull statue that had two holes in the eyes shaped like gems. He put one in the left eye and the other in the right eye, the statues was now lit up and a doorway on his left slid open.

"Well, this may be a really bad idea, but into the dark church I go." he said, putting his bravery first and walked inside.

With his flashlight on, he could see the place was totally dark, there was a door at the end, but it appeared to be locked, he didn't want to stay in here for long and suffer the consumed darkness around him. He then saw a small gem on a wall, he picked it up and the door behind him slid shut. He quickly the gem on a blue hole by the door and it opened, he trotted quickly and after a while, he was at the end of the church and saw a handle on a pedestal.

"That must be for the rope pulley thing, time to grab this and get the heck out of here!" he exclaimed, grabbing it quick and turning back. The darkness was getting thicker as he tried to escape. He was back at the room with the shiny gem on the blue hole, realizing he had to put it back into it's original hole, he took out the gem and placed it in the grey hole, the exit door slid open and he galloped out of there.

He exited the church and went back to the left room with the rope, breathing a sigh of relief. He put the handle on the pulley and it locked in. He then used it to pull the rope up and thought of what that did, he walked back to the hallway on the right and saw that the door he though was locked was now open. He looked up to see a rope pulling it up and commended it for being a clever system.

"Maybe the Crystal castle should have one of those." Flash said. "I could ask Shining about it...if I ever find a way to escape from this place."

he walked through the doorway and stepped in a low water level, he was now in the sewers and kept on walking to find a door to a room in front and a bar gate on his left. Suddenly, a low humming noise was heard from the far end of the tunnel and something odd moving by.

"Oh Faust!" he exclaimed. "That must be one of the bottom feeders, better make no sudden moves if I go down there." He walked into a room and gasped at the sight, there was a clown and he appeared to have been hanged by the rope. Flash shook his head and learnt at what he had just done.

"Oh no, no, no, no...that must be Bert." Flash cried in horror. "Did that rope I just pulled killed him?"

But he knew this wasn't the time to break down, he had to get on with escaping from this world before it's too late. He looked at a display of a lock system with the rope on a board and he picked up a small stool by the corner. "Maybe if I use this stool under a door, I can use it to raise those bars and continue my progress."

He went back to the hallway and placed the stool under the wooden door. He then went to the room with the rope pulley and used the handle to bring the rope down until it stopped. He walked back to the hallway and saw that the stool was blocking the door's way, it worked and all Flash had to do was crouch down, it was wide enough for him to squeeze through.

He was back in the sewers and the bars on his left were raised upwards. He moved slowly down the newly opened tunnel and to his left, there was nothing, but he got a free shock on his right. There was a bottom feeder the letter and the book mentioned, he wanted to gallop away, but doing so would end him up being free food for the monster.

So he very carefully looked around and saw a lever on his left, he pulled it gently and a door to his right opened, but there was a ticking noise. He had to get through that quick before it shuts, he was able to do so and just in time, he jumped through the doorway before the bottom feeder could sense the sudden movement.

As he stepped into the new room, the door behind him shut tight and he pulled the curtain over it. He explored the new room he was in. He saw a locked box on a table and on his left was bathroom. He went inside there and found a gold key and a piece of paper that had a weird diagram on it.

"Well, that's a nice T or F, but I see no I or G." He commented. "But then again, it may be an answer to a puzzle, I should keep hold of it."

He came across a locked door and used the gold key to unlock it, he stepped into a different hallway that had bricked walls and some shades of blood on the walls. He then was in the centre that had a wheel on a pedestal and a display with open slots on the far end as well as a hatch.

"That hatch must have the ladder, I've found my exit." He said happily as he tried rotating the wheel, but it seemed to be stuck. "Dammit, guess I can't do that yet."

He went further down the hallway and came across two wooden rooms and another smaller room. He went through the smaller room and saw a mushroom stuck on a few bits of wood, feeling curious, he used the hammer to crush the mushroom which spilt out oil.

"Yuck!" Flash said in disgust before noticing a stone tablet on the side, he picked it up and left the room.

He went to the smaller room and found a tiny locked hatch and a grease can. He picked it up and went back to the other room and used the can to scoop up some oil, thinking that it might come in handy. He explored the rest of the big room and picked up a wind-up key and saw a stone tablet across a window, but it was too small for him to reach.

He walked all the way back to the wooden room on the far side and placed the wind-up key in the locked box. As the box began to play a bit of twinkle music, the room around him suddenly began to go darker and a doorway was then opened on the left which revealed nasty spike traps.

"Yikes!" Flash exclaimed. "I better not go in there, unless I can find a way to shut it down."

He then went back on the room that had the metal door, but it was now gone and instead, there was a skeleton body as well as a stone tablet, he picked it up and left. He trotted back to the other wooden room and went into the smaller room. The tiny hatch was now gone and there were a few cogs spinning in motion.

Flash took out the screwdriver and threw it inside, the cogs began to squeak until it stopped completely. He heard the noises of a machine far away grinding to a halt. So he went back and saw that the spike crushers had stopped, he gulped and walked past them before coming across a kitchen room with the window he saw earlier.

"Now I can get the stone tablet, that means I have three now." He said. "There must be one more around here...oh look, a cinnamon toast, but I'm not hungry."

He left the kitchen, back down the spiked hallway, past the room, past the bricked hallway and back to the other room. He went to the end and saw a wheel hatch that needed something. He poured the oil from the can on the hatch and it began to loose it's grip, he was then turned the wheel and it opened.

He climbed down a ladder and found the final stone tablet, but it was guarded by a bottom feeder. He went to the doorway to a room on his right carefully and there was pile of barrels and boxes and on the far end were a stack of plates, he then had a cunning idea.

"Maybe if I throw this hammer at the plates, it'll get it's attention and then I can grab that stone tablet, but I only have one shot at this." Flash sighed. "So long, hammer."

He threw the hammer at the plates, they smashed on the floor and the bottom feeder began to move to that area. Flash quickly grabbed the stone tablet on the far end by the ladder and climbed up on it quickly before the bottom feeder came back. He breathed a sigh of relief and closed the hatch.

Flash now had the four stone tablets, so he went back to the bricked wall and to the centre with the wheel and the stone tablet display at the other end, it was time for a bit of puzzle solving. Using the diagram on the paper he found, he placed each stone tablet to the corresponding slots. Once all four were in the correct slots, he heard a click and the hatch above the hell flew open and out came a ladder.

"Alright!" he said proudly. "This is my ticket out of here!"

He then began to turn the wheel and the ladder began to come down. But just as he was halfway, the wall with the stone tablet display was knocked down and out came a bottom feeder, closing in towards Flash.

"Oh Faust! Gotta turn this faster!" He exclaimed as he began rushing the wheel till the ladder was in his reach. "Argh! I'm out of here!"

He climbed up the ladder and made it out of there just in time, he then closed the hatch and with his flashlight he looked around the dark room. "Wait, that looks familiar." He said before he looked at the mirror, suddenly the trembling around his hooves began to shake. There was a reflection of not Flash, but a shadow pony.

"Is that...me?"

Suddenly, he had flashbacks of the well, the dark tunnel, the shadow pony at the end, to him it all made sense now.

"Now I remember..." he said, shaking. "...I was in that well...they got me!" He tried not to cry in anger. "All this time I've been...ONE OF THEM!" He then cried, certainly not the emotion a royal guard would be proud of. "I'm a monster, one of them...where's Princess Luna when I need her?"

He walked to the room through a doorway and saw a wooden door and then saw a flashlight peering into the room, He kept his hidden away, hoping he wouldn't be seen. "Oh my Celestia!" he whispered. "Is that me or is it another traveller who is stuck in this world?"

As soon as he opened the door, the traveller began to turn around and gallop away. This was Flash's way out of a here, a chance to finally wake up. He just had to catch him, perhaps posses the sleeping body, a body he would wake up in.

"But do I really want to?" Flash asked. "Have I really become a shadow pony too easily, a monster I feared so much?"

But whilst he was contemplating his options, the traveller got away and the doors began to close tightly. Flash knew that this was it for him, he hesitated and he let that traveller go, believing that this cycle cannot continue. He would remain here forever, here in the deepest sleep...

...or so he thought when the one and only Princess Luna appeared from above.

"Flash Sentry..." she boomed gently. "...awaken."

Flash nodded and closed his eyes, he then felt his mind beginning to shut down...and when he woke up, he was back home.

On his bed in the crystal kingdom, he smiled and began to cry tears of happiness to himself. He was back in Equestria, back to the living where he truly belonged, he wasn't the shadow pony, he was his normal self. He then vowed that from this day on, he would pray to Luna to keep his dreams safe and sound.

THE END!