Dreamscape

Lucidity’s head whipped around at the sound of the disembodied voice, causing her to wince slightly from the sudden movement. “H-Hello? W-Who’s there?” she called out nervously, torn between the fears of having her question be met with silence and somepony actually responding. Seconds passed by, and it seemed that the former would win out as silence echoed noiselessly throughout the white emptiness making up Dream Limbo. Before long though, a slight shimmering began to answer Lucidity’s call. She caught it in the corner of her eye and turned around so as to better observe what was occurring.

A strange wave pattern had appeared in the center of Lucidity’s vision, slowly spreading outwards like rings in a pond before suddenly coming to a stop. The ripples in reality rapidly receded, coalescing into a bright pinprick of light. It stayed like that for just a moment, before quickly expanding into a startling, white flash that temporarily blinded the blue-eyed unicorn mare. As her vision slowly returned to her, Lucidity found herself face to face with an eerily similar-looking, blond-maned equine.

“You are,” the newcomer said simply in response to the question posed upon her arrival to the Dreamscape.

“Huh?”

“I’m you,” she clarified in a voice not unlike Lucidity’s own. Still not entirely convinced, Lucidity lifted a grey hoof up into the air and her double mimicked the action. She put it back down, prompting the other pony to do the same. Before she could follow it up with another motion, however, her doppelgänger interrupted, “Are we really going to do this?”

“Sorry,” Lucidity replied. “It’s just, when am I ever going to be in this situation again, you know?”

“The next time you look into a mirror,” came the sarcastic reply.

“Oh, ha ha, very funny,” Lucidity shot back. “You know what I meant.”

“Naturally. I am you, after all,” the other mare said teasingly.

“And just how is that possible exactly?”

“Well, I’m the physical manifestation of your subconscious. Right now, we’re using the Subconscious Plane as a sort of gateway between worlds through which we can communicate and interact.”

“Oh…” Lucidity responded awkwardly, not having any idea what all that had meant. An empty silence filled the Dreamscape as the utterance echoed away from the pair. That explanation created more questions than answers, Lucidity thought to herself. Trying to fill the void her words had left, she attempted to rekindle their conversation. “So what should I call you, then?”

“Well, considering that I’m mainly composed of parts of your personality, I think Lucidity would be a good fit, don’t you?”

“But won’t that be confusing?”

“Only to others,” Lucidity teased.

“So, why exactly are you here?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m you. I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

“Then how did you tell me about the Subconscious Plane? I’ve never even heard of it before, much less known it existed,” Lucidity pointed out.

“You came across the term in a book a few years back. Just because you skimmed over that little tidbit doesn’t mean I didn’t take a good look at the information and save it for later.”

“So I guess that means you don’t have any ideas on how to get us out of this nightmare?”

“Not really, no. I’m just as clueless as you are. But hey, two heads are better than one, right? I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something.”

“Even if those two heads are really just one pony?” Lucidity pointed out.

“Yeah, well… strength in numbers and all that. It’ll be fine, you’ll see. We just need to keep moving and focus on finding the way out of here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there clearly isn’t anything useful out here for miles around. Our only option is to go and look for the way out. Unless you happen to have a better suggestion?”

“No,” Lucidity conceded. “Alright then, let’s go.”

After what may have been many more miles of marching—the uniformity of the Dreamscape made it impossible to tell whether they’d actually made any progress or not—nothing had given the nomadic duo any indication that their search would be fruitful any time soon or end up as anything other than an abject and utter failure. “You know what we could do…” Lucidity voiced after an extended stretch of uncomfortable silence had passed between the two travelers.

“What?” Lucidity quickly responded, always grateful for a break in the monotonous lull of their journey in the form of an opportunity to talk to herself.

“Instead of just wandering around aimlessly—which clearly hasn’t accomplished anything except to waste our time—we should be preparing for another ambush from Luna. There’s still a lot that we don’t know about this place, and it would do us a lot of good to try and learn more about it.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Lucidity countered.

“Well, we could try to solve the mystery of your appearance for one, and Luna’s sudden disappearance after her last attack for another.”

“Don’t forget about that weird metal dome that just appeared randomly out of nowhere.”

“Right. Maybe we could do some investigating into, or try experimenting with…” Lucidity’s voice faltered, the day’s events finally catching up to and overwhelming her. She suddenly felt very panicked: pressures and stresses mounting, life-or-death duels, and an infinitely empty prison—it was all too much. She was about to completely break down when a sudden, eerie calm overtook her.

Lucidity stared blankly ahead, encountering the exact same scenery that she’d been seeing ever since she’d first arrived to these white lands. It was all around her, that constant, unchanging, blank backdrop that continually taunted her with its minimalist appearance. And just like that, she snapped. “Gah! Why is this place so empty?” she angrily shouted into the Dreamscape, with nothing but its oppressively silent, blank, white walls to answer her.

“Are you okay, Lucy?” Lucidity asked worriedly, using their shared foalhood nickname in an attempt to placate the clearly distraught mare.

“No,” Lucidity sniffled. “I’m not. I-It’s just…”

“Look, I know being trapped here must be incredibly hard on you. Not to mention that this whole Luna fiasco has probably frazzled your nerves in half.” Holding up a hoof to stop Lucidity’s oncoming objection, she continued, “Don’t even try to deny it. I’m you, remember? Now, where was I…? Oh, right! Look, you had a great idea there, Lucy. We just need to figure out what makes this place tick. All we need is a good starting point, and all our knowledge of the Dreamscape will easily snowball from there. Until then, we should probably just try and avoid Luna. Although, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a contingency plan for that, just in case. So, what do you say? Are you ready to show this place who’s boss!”

Still too emotionally drained to say anything in response, Lucidity simply nodded her head in agreement, following her subconscious’ lead as they once again strode into the vast unknown—this time, however, with a few clear goals in mind and, for the first time, the beginnings of a solid plan.