Something distant called to her… a sound. A voice from a lifetime ago, another era when her world had been whole…

Derpy’s gaze flickered white and grey before descending back into blackness, the pain that came with consciousness rescinding the moment she returned to the dark. She knew not where she was, how she had come to be there- in fact, her mind knew nothing at all, not even if she was alive or dead. With the exhaustion that weighed her mind down like hardened steel, there was little incentive to rouse herself and face the conditions of the world and that or her body. To sleep, to rest here was enough for her tired soul…

The voice grew closer in her ears, reverberating and causing a cascade of memories that had been long dormant, buried deep, deep down in the subconscious of the blonde pegasus. This voice irritated her as much as it brought her pain, a horrible mixture of emotions. Derpy begged for it to leave her, to let her be- to fade away…

Words found their form alongside the sound of hooves- small ones, stumbling and crashing about with relentless energy and unhindered vibrancy that came with young life. A child’s voice spoke to her, calling out a name she had abandoned long ago, seeking her out…

Get up, it said. Get up, get up…

Derpy could feel the strain of exhaustion weigh down upon her more heavily, enrapturing her entire body and encasing it in glass, begging for her to relinquish any attempts of revival. It was too much, too much… too painful to reenter the waking world…

Get up, get up, get up! Said the voice, insistent and purposeful as it pressed against her side. Time to get up!

“I don’t want to get up,” Derpy mumbled in protest. If it weren’t for the tiredness that wracked her limbs she would feel totally weightless. No earth beneath her hooves, no wind pressing against her wings, just an emptiness- save for a tightness around her right rear leg…

Get up, get up! You must get up! The voice pressed firmly, shaking her insistently. You have to get up!

Derpy’s eyes fluttered, the black flooded with shades of grey and brown. Her world was blurred and unfocused, consisting of shapes and distorted patterns of a world that had gone topsy-turvy, leaving her disoriented and massively confused. This was not heaven, this was not earth, she was not anywhere at all…

The pain in her body came to live in an instant like a writhing animal, taking her breath away with is intensity. Her body ached, wracked with bruises and sores from the horrendous ordeal that had been the storm above. She felt a myriad of scratches crisscrossing her body in bloody patterns, her coat drenched in mud and debris the likes of which she could not name.

Derpy’s world came into focus right alongside it, the shock of her return to reality helping clarify where she was- if she could figure it out at all. Before her eyes lay broken trees and a muddy, rock-filled landscape. She looked down to see… the sky… the sky! She looked “up” and saw a mess of brambles and tangled thorns “above” her, lying in wait like a beast, its mouth outstretched and awaiting its prize. The tightness on her leg returned and the mailmare looked to see she was hanging from a rather formidable tree, a tangle of vines having wrapped around her hoof and leaving her to rot like bait for a predator.

Derpy’s heart begin to pound madly, a staccato rhythm that allowed panic to blossom within. She had to get out of this. She decided to fly up to the branch from which she hung to get herself free and then find her bearings-

The moment she outstretched her wings an agony unlike anything she could ever have imagined struck her like a bolt of lightning, searing her body with the pain of a hot brand and taking her breath away. Taking a few moments to recover from the pain and she came to recognize its source- her wings… No, not both, but her right wing… it was broken.

The pegasus brought herself up through sheer effort to examine her wings, mourning over their sorry condition. The storm had left her nearly bare, perhaps brought about by her fall into the tornado. With few feathers to speak of she looked like some sort of absurd chicken, leaving her in little doubt that her flying capabilities were limited- even without a broken wing, a pegasus needed feathers for lift and drag.

Exhausted by the effort, Derpy let her body fall again, the blood rushing back to her head and leaving her in a daze. How long had she been here, hanging from this place? The red weal around her leg spoke to at least a few hours, if not longer. The sky ‘below’ her was a deep iron gray, with only the bare minimum of light seeping in through the thick cloud cover. Surely the storm was still not above her?

As her vision returned, the mailmare shook herself, trying to reign in her madly beating heart. If she stayed here too long, she would attract attention- or simply die from the amount of blood rushing to her brain. Every pegasus was taught early from birth the dangers that could come with flight, including poor body composure. She would have to free herself somehow.

Derpy tried tugging her leg out from the coils of the vine, perhaps wondering if sheer force would release her from its grasp. After a few seconds, however, reason caught up with her: if her body had been caught by this vine, then surely no exertion from a weakened mare would be enough to loosen it now. There would have to be another way-

“Ah!” She gave a cry of pain as her wings retracted back to her side, she having unconsciously let them air out, an instinct bred in pegasi when floating. Her mind was acting on basic survival skills, betraying her wounded frame. It would be will against subconscious will to get herself free.

Slowly, more careful than before, Derpy brought her upper body forward and examined the vine that ensnared her. It was thick, perhaps a couple of inches wide. Strong enough to hold weight, but not thick enough to endure an overt amount of punishment. Perhaps… it would be an old, old instinct, but it was possible she could bite her way through.

She leaned forward and hesitantly sank her teeth into the bark, doing her best to ignore the foul taste of the wood on her tongue. Pushing down even harder, she managed to scrape off the outer bark, leaving soaked wood exposed beneath the outer shell. She relented for a moment and let her form relax, slowly allowing her upper body to descend so as to avoid blood rush. After taking a minute or two to rest, she gave another attempt, her teeth scraping into the wood and pulling it apart strip by strip, splinter by splinter. She could feel herself beginning to strain against the vines, her weight allowing her to sink closer and closer to the earth. It would only be a little longer now-

There was a faint Pop! and the vine could bear her no more, snapping apart and letting her fall. She was free-

Derpy looked down and suddenly remembered the myriad of thorns and brambles that lay beneath her-

Pain be damned, she unfolded her wings in an attempt to avoid the landing but was not enough to grant her air. The blonde mailmare fell straight into the patch, crashing straight through until she found earth, brambles tearing and clawing at her flesh until she heard a horrible Snap! And a thick branch, covered in massive thorns, slammed directly across her face and buried itself deep in her eye.

A horrible, quaking shriek ripped across the broken landscape. A relentless, unbearable sound that spoke of excruciating agony. The sound echoed across earth and rock and sky as Derpy’s anguish reached nightmarish levels, her left eye now brutally scared and seeping blood as the thorns settled deep into the exposed pupil. She writhed and twisted and pulled against her brambly prison, pushing her way through with such violence that every clawed hook the vegetation could offer only tore at her all the more deeply, the panic she felt causing the branch still imbedded in her flesh to sink even deeper…

Derpy pulled until she could pull no more, stuck halfway through her expedition to leave this tangled web of thorns and mud. She felt as if she was going to tear out of her skin, her breathing entering her and leaving so quickly that she was already exhausted. She had allowed herself to be consumed by this mess of brambles, consuming her like a cat with a mouse. All the while, the unimaginable pain that screamed from her eye was impossible to ignore, the crimson flow that had seeped from it no longer visible beneath the cloud of black that had enveloped it within a matter of seconds. There was nothing she could do- her left eye was gone, blinded from the damage it had endured.

Derpy pushed down with her front hooves, pressing against the branches before her in the hopes she could begin to free herself. Gritting her teeth against the pain as more brambles tore against her forelegs, she managed to loosen herself somewhat and slowly but surely, the mare extracted herself from her wooden prison. When she finally breached the outer layer and into the open world, it was all she could do to not collapse and fall into tears. She still had one more task to complete…

Derpy hobbled over to a nearby puddle and assessed the condition of her face. The pegasus gave a wince at the sight of her bloodied self, hardly able to look at her eye- still bearing the weight of the branch that had imbedded itself in her flesh. Getting as close as she could to do the water and peering into the distorted reflection, she could see the thorns that had assaulted her were curved- not dissimilar to fishhooks. If she were able to manage it, she might be able to free the branch and throw it aside…

An uncomfortable position for any pegasus, Derpy fell back onto her rump and slowly, carefully, grasped onto the broken branch with her forehooves, gripping it as tightly as she could manage without causing more damage. Already the pain was extreme, the smallest shifting of the thorns tearing at her exposed eye even further. She could feel tears begin to flow from her eyes, the salt within searing her many open wounds like fire. She would have to do it now or else her will would fade-

Pushing with her right hoof, she forced the branch upwards while pushing the branch away from her eye with her left, a disgusting squelching sound entered the world alongside a fleshy, skin-crawling Riiiiiiiiip! and in just one, single movement- it was free.

Derpy gave a broken howl of suffering and tossed the branch aside, collapsing onto the ground so she could finally sob in peace. She didn’t dare examine the branch that had dug into her- she didn’t want to know what it had taken from her body along with it. It was horrifying enough to feel the air rushing where she should feel nothing at all, but to see it would only make it infinitely worse. For a time she could only lay there, unable to stop the tears as they flowed from her eyes and down into her exposed cuts and scars, only adding to her misery.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, but Derpy finally could cry no more, unable to shed a single tear. She was more tired than ever, caused by the onset of physical misery and the weight of her tears. It was a miserable effort, righting herself. She tried her best to ignore the sound of her body rising from the mud, unwilling to look-

“My uniform!” she cried, despairing at the state of her destroyed clothing. The blue uniform was now a uniform brown, covered completely in mud and debris. Only the inner layer, a white workshirt, looked like it retained any of its cleanliness. Wrestling it off, Derpy began tearing at it with her teeth and wrapping a thick sheet around her destroyed eye, covering it and keeping it safe from the outside world. Derpy was not the smartest of ponies, but she knew well enough the dangers infection could hold. She would have to get out of here and find help- real medical assistance from someone who knew far more than she.

But where was she? Derpy used her one good eye to survey her surroundings, finding them strangely unnerving in the uninhibited uniformity. Everywhere she looked all she could see was grey and brown, colors dull and faded that spoke of lifelessness. The skies above her still retained their thickness… no, wait a second… Derpy realized it was not just the cloud cover she was seeing, but a strangely thick mist that pervaded the land, hovering a good fifteen to twenty feet above the surface of the earth.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” she cried out, her voice ragged and as torn as her left eye. “Please, is anyone out there? Help!”

Her voice sounded thin, suffocated by the fog and dampened landscape. There was no life here, not even the smallest of creatures. Everywhere she looked, all that she could see were broken trees, rocks strewn across the wastes, and muddy ground. It was as if the storm had brought war upon this land. Wherever she had been flying, this was unrecognizable. She had no idea where in the wide world of Equestria she now stood. If was almost as if she had been transported into another world, another time… another dimension where the light and life of the kingdom she called home was nonexistent.

Derpy gave a shiver and she shrank into herself, unnerved by the trauma her body had been dealt and the devastation that had ravaged the world around her. She was lost, alone, and hurt without any sense of a way out. For all she knew there was no way out of this prison of grey and brown. She may have well died and this was her soul, awoken in some hellish afterlife the likes of which was spoken of only in the darkest of Luna’s nights.

“I want to go home,” Derpy whimpered, giving a great big sniff. “I want to be back in Ponyville, I want to be home. Someone get me out of here.”

Perhaps it was childish weakness, but some foolish part of her wished that she would hear the voice of one her friends, see a sign of life beyond her own existence. Maybe, if she was indeed dead, she could at least see her-

Derpy gave herself a vigorous shake and forced her fear-scarred mind to accept reality: she was out in the wilderness of Equestria alone. There was no one coming to help her. What had she thought before she fell into the tornado? They would never even find her body. She would never be seen again by a single soul she had ever known. No, they would never see Ponyville’s klutzy mailmare again unless she forced herself to find a way out of this place. If she was to see her village again, it would be by her own four hooves.

Derpy scanned her surroundings, slowly beginning to walk forward and out into the wilderness. It sent chills up her spine when the only sound she could hear were her own squelching footsteps in the mud, the emptiness of this dread place settling on her like a blanket. What had that storm been? A monster born from the outer realms of the sea? A freak incident that would never strike again? Or something… else? Derpy could not deny she had felt a horrible weight of anxiety moments before she had entered it, intimidated by its sheer mass and power. But there had been something… something otherish about the supercell. Something malignant and wicked about the beast. It had been no ordinary storm, of that she was certain. Some part of her mind, born from the stories passed down to her as a child, wondered if the legend of “living storms” had any basis in it after all. With what she had endured, it was not beyond belief any longer.

She paused and scanned the outline once more, the sheet of grey blurring blue with faint outlines far, far away. She could see something, but what it was she had no certainty. It was wide, of that she could surmise. But what… Derpy moved forward, willing the air to open up and reveal what lay before her in this wasteland. Hoping, praying it would be something that would allow her to escape this prison…

The fog cleared somewhat before her eyes to reveal a gigantic mountain, its peak spearing through the skies and pouring out into the skies above the clouds. Derpy’s heart began to pound, no longer from fear but from excitement. This titan of rock and earth could be her guide! Anything above the clouds would surely be able to point her towards Canterlot! After all, her flight path from Baltimare always took her right by the capital city. If she were to climb this mountain and ascend its peak, she would likely be able to locate Canterlot, and from Canterlot, ascertain which way would lead her…

“Home,” she whispered. Taking off at a manageable gait, Derpy hobbled along through the mud, feeling a pulsing sensation of excitement in her damaged eye. Perhaps it could sense its way home from atop that mountain… A way out of this grey place…

The pegasus stumbled along, heading towards the mountain that would point her home.

The dead lands were empty, the endless ceiling of grey unrelenting in its stifling cover of the world. None could penetrate it, none could escape it. All beneath the sheet of thick iron were bound to the world of rock and mud below, unable to rise above and seek freedom in the skies.

From deep within a briar patch, the smallest skitterings could be heard. The branches twitched and rustled with signs of life as the smallest of beasts, a tiny field mouse, snuck forth from inside the brambly cell it called home. The tiny creature sniffed the air, drinking in the defeated scent of wet air and sludge, its lightweight frame saving it from sinking into the quagmire. It had endured quite a great ordeal for being such a small animal. First a nightmare storm and then a crashing beast falling straight into the heart of its home! How much worse life could be, the small mouse could hardly wonder.

The small beast snuck across the land in search of food, most of its stores washed away in the rain. If there was a place where it could find fresh stocks, it would be capable of nourishing itself and beginning anew. The tiny thing had no desire to abandon its home, but to keep it, the mouse would need supplies. Now if only it could find some felled nuts or fruit in this mire-

Thwack. The world became terror as a harsh, heavy something fell onto the terrified mouse and trapped it in its grasp. Slowly pulling backwards, the sinewy hand of its predator dragged the madly shrieking animal towards its doom. Caught in the multi-fingered hand of an unknown enemy, the small mouse could only cry out and writhe against the hand that held it.

Free! The hand rescinded and relinquished the mouse from its grasp, and the stricken animal quickly began to race away before it became trapped yet again-

The mouse was struck dead before it could give even the smallest squeak of fright. Multitude of tentacle-like tongues struck out at the tin creature, ripping its flesh from its bones and peeling it away like bark, the dead animal feeding the mighty beast that had slew it. In a matter of moments, all that remained were bones still soaked in the poor mouse’s blood.

The monster gave a snort of disapproval, unable to truly relish its meal. Such a tiny thing could hardly begin to whet its appetite- how despicable were the times if this was all it had to feed on! Surely it could find better. Lowering the long trunk that was its neck, the monster’s head reached ground and began to sniff, drinking in the smells that had crossed the ground.

The monster gave a satisfied growl, its bulbous stomach lurching in anticipation. There was another scent. Fresh, too. The monster raced across the ground on all fours like a malformed lizard, scurrying across until it found the source of this delicious new smell- flesh! Flesh still dripping blood! The creature’s many tongues lapped hungrily at the taste, its predatory instincts coming alight once more at the small morsels it had discovered upon this thorn-ridden branch.

The monster gave a deep, guttural growl of anticipation, its three eyes peering out into the mist as if it could already see its wounded prey in the miasma. Out there was true prey, a feast that would satisfy its longings. A true meal awaited it…

The creature bent its head low and began skittering across the wastes, following the scent that would lead it to its prize.

Author's Note

Jeez. Never done anything like that before, that was savage. Holy crap...

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