Equestrian Souls

Undeath is a very static thing. There's no real reason to sleep, or eat. Hell, I don't think I could if I tried. I used to try to recall the taste of food or remember what it was like to dream, but those memories have long since faded. I feel nothing as I sit. Much of who I used to be has been lost to the sands of time. And indeed, even time itself is meaningless as I sit in my cell.

My cell. I've become very well acquainted with this room. I can tell you the most mundane things about this room. It has roughly seven-hundred bricks lining it's walls that I can count. There's a small pile of hay which has become so rotted that chunks of it no longer exist. There's a hole in the ceiling that I've never been able to get through (I stopped trying long ago). There's even a large crack that mice sometimes scurry through.

This has been my life for longer than I can recall. Time has no real meaning to an undead. Nothing changes around you, so you have no reason to mark the passage of time. I could have been here for a year or a century. It makes no difference to me. Time move on, and I sit and wait to go hollow.

Hollow. The word sends a shiver down my spine. I've seen hollow ponies before. They mill about in the halls sometimes as they roam the prison. They terrify me. Not because they're particularly dangerous to me in my cell, but because I know that one day that will be me. A husk of a pony doing nothing but attacking anypony who isn't hollow yet in the vain attempt to gather souls.

Souls... there's a word that makes me lick my dry, cracked lips. I don't know what they are exactly, but I want them. I guess they're like food for the undead. The only thing I can say about them for certain is that they keep ponies from going hollow for a bit longer.

I let out a rattling sigh. There's no point in thinking about souls. There's no way for me to get out of this cell, save for the nigh impossibility of a guardpony having gone hollow and wandering by with a key.

I stare down at my hooves. I look terrible. My fur is mostly gone, revealing the putrid flesh beneath. I look like an apple after it's left to rot in the sun for a few weeks. Hell, I probably smell like it too. I let out another sigh. I don't even remember what color my fur was. At least I have my name still.

Ember Heart.

Whenever I feel myself slipping away, I recall my name. It anchors me. No matter how close to becoming hollow I become, remembering my name always drags me back from the edge. I allow myself the faintest of smiles. Another sign that i'm not hollow yet.

A loud thwump pulls me from my reverie and I look up. There's a body in my cell. A hollow that fell through the hole in the ceiling? I look up in time to see a unicorn in worn armor slip away from the hole.

For the first time in a long time, I stand. My joints pop in protest as I stretch. I move over to the new occupant of my cell and begin picking through it's belongings. I take the tattered cloak it wore and throw it over myself. At the very least it offers a bit more protection than the nothing I was wearing. The body also has a broken sword, which I suppose could be used in a pinch, should a hollow attack me. More important than either of those, though, is a key.

If I still had a heartbeat, I'm sure it would be pounding. I carefully levitate the key up with my magic and slip it into the lock of my cell door. I hesitate for a fraction of a moment before I twist the key. The door opens with a groan of protest.

I can scarcely believe it. I would have never dreamed that someday I'd be free of that cell. I take a tentative step out from the cell. Then another. I'm trotting down a hallway now. Its just as worn and decrepit as my cell. There are a few other cells lining the halls as well, but these are all empty.

A few hollows lurk in the hallway, but they make no move to attack. Either they don't sense enough souls in me to warrant the attack, or they've been hollow for so long that they've lost even the ability to care about souls. Neither is a very comforting notion.

I make my way through the hall, heading up a spiral staircase at the end of it. I make my way carefully, silently hoping that this isn't some complicated trap to murder one of the last sane ponies in this prison. Was it murder if I was undead? I shook the thought from my mind. That was way to philosophical to think about right now.

The staircase lead out to the bottom of a tower. Looking up, I could see remnants of a staircase that had crumbled to the ages long ago. As far as I could tell, the only way up would be if I was a pegasus. I continue onward, stepping into a walled courtyard. The stone of the buildings is much different above ground. Rather than the dull gray bricks below, the above-ground portion of the prison is a muted purple stone. I can see no crevices in the stone. As far as I can tell, its all one solid piece. Certain parts of the structure look a bit less faded. Newer walls perhaps?

I shrug and turn my attention to a coiled sword thrust into the ground. Above it, a crystaline spike protrudes from the ceiling, ending a foot or so before the hilt of the sword.

Now that I focus on it, the sword seems... comforting? Familiar? I can't think of the word. I instinctively hold a hoof towards the sword, and fire springs up around it. The word bonfire comes to mind, though from where, I do not know.

I sit and relax for a moment. There's a tinge of comfort from this bonfire, though I cannot say why. Vague feelings of familiarity seem to fill the air. Have I been here before? Maybe it's just the fact that I'm free of that cell for the first time in forever. I exhale one last sigh of comfort before getting to my hooves. I cannot stay forever, even if it is a tempting prospect.

There's an ornate double door ahead of me, the only way forward. It takes a combination of my pitiful telekinesis and pushing with my hooves for the damn thing to open enough for me to pass through. A grand entry hall stands before me. Or what was once a grand hall, I suppose. Many of the pillars that support the hall show signs of aging, a few having collapsed under their own weight. A faded blue carpet stretches from the door I entered through to a matching one on the other side. There's a door leading off to the left, but I could care less about that. I know, deep down, that the double door is the only thing separating me from true freedom.

Heedless of anything around me, I cross the hall at a quick trot, my hoofsteps echoing off the walls back to me. Before I'm halfway across the hall, somepony steps out from behind a pillar up ahead and stands in front of the door out.

"None may leave this place." The pony says. From the sound of the voice, it's clear that this is a stallion. He's decked out in an ornate golden barding. An orange wing holds an equally ornate halberd to his side, ready to be used at a moment's notice.

"But... Why?" I ask, keeping my distance.

"None may leave this place." He says again. I silently note that this is the first conversation I've had since being forced to come to this place and my partner doesn't seem to be the brightest candle. My guess is he's not too far off from going hollow.

"Okay... let's try a different topic. What's your name?" I ask. Maybe if I can get him to open up, I can get past him.

"None may leave this place." Maybe not.

I sigh. Clearly this is headed to one outcome, and its one I am not to keen on, considering my only weapon is a broken sword. I levitate the 'weapon' from underneath my cloak and keep it at the ready as I take a tentative step forward.

"Look, I've been here a long time and so have you. You could come with me. You may not think it, but you're just as much a prisoner as I-" I'm flying through the air before I can finish the sentence. The pegasus had closed the gap and struck me with his weapon before I even knew what he was doing.

One of the pillars stops my flight with a sharp cracking of bone. 'That can't be good.' I rise to my hooves, ready to stand my ground this time. My ribs feel like they're on fire. I'm silently grateful that I don't need to breathe.

I look around frantically, but my foe is nowhere to be seen. I glance up just in time to spot him diving from above. I roll to the side just in time to avoid being skewered. Before I can ready myself for a counter-attack, the pegasus gives a snap of his wings and pivots in the air around his halberd, delivering a powerful kick that forces me through the pillar I had just hit. The entire thing crumbles as I soar through the air before hitting the ground and roll to a stop.

My body refuses to listen to me when I tell it to stand up. I can see the pegasus approaching, a confident swagger to his steps. He stops short of me and prepares to strike the killing blow.

"Please," I plead through the pain. "I don't want to die."

Fear. It's an emotion that I didn't know I could feel anymore.

"None may leave this place." Comes the emotionless response. The last thing I see is his halberd swinging down towards my head.

I'm sitting at the bonfire again. I blink in shock before jumping to my hooves with a cry of shock.

'A dream?' I pat myself with a hoof, checking for my injuries from my fight. I toss off my cloak, checking for any signs of my previous fight. There are no signs of injury, but I let out a scream of horror at what I do find. Beneath my cutie mark of a flame shaped like a heart is a dark swirl of blackness. It wasn't there before, this I know for certain. I look to the other side of my flank and find the same black swirl. I know this marking. I've seen it on a few of the hollow ponies roaming the cells below me.

The Darksign.