Wretched Hive 3: The Gray Pony

The gray pony opened his eyes to an open ocean. Sunlight poured from holes in a clouded sky and several square columns jutted from the water like crumbled foundation beams. Kernel looked down, the water was too murky to see the bottom of, yet his hooves could feel solid ground without even his entire legs being submerged. He sloshed toward the columns. A black substance that seemed neither solid nor liquid dripped from long, rectangular indentations lining the rows of the beams.

Past the strange, blocky columns was some kind of whirlpool with a much thinner column jutting from it. He trotted closer, keeping an eye on the current encircling it.

“Even if I fall in,” he thought to himself. “This is just another dream. It won’t be pleasant... But I won’t die.”

He stepped cautiously toward it, seeing some kind of writing on the post sticking out of the hole. He found himself walking backwards in place as he maintained enough balance to read the post. Kernel squinted and the wear on the post itself made it difficult to perceive what appeared to be a number. With a sudden glare bouncing off the lettering, “070” stared at him with an emptiness in its circles.

Blinded by the light, Kernel didn’t feel the current picking up. He turned and tried to gallop from the gaping hole in the water while the currents kept him in place. A column in the distance tipped from the current, dropping something into the water. Kernel picked up the pace, but wasn’t getting any farther from the hole. The object floated on the currents, making its way toward the hole.

It was a foal’s book. Sporting soaked and charred covers and pages too destroyed to be of much use, Kernel was almost sad at its state. He smiled though, as he realized now that these columns were the bookshelves and he was on floor 70 of that “infinite” library.

“And I can’t die,” the gray pony reassured himself. He took a deep breath as he turned back toward the hole and let the waters pull him in. “The way out’s at the bottom, after all.”

The gray pony fell into the hole, a great waterfall replacing the staircase he knew. He calmly closed his eyes and waited.

Kernel landed safely in the waters at the bottom. Looking around, dust filled the air and the only light was from the waterfall. It landed on the remains of the old staircase, now just bunch of numbered signs. Kernel smirked and looked for the door.

There were only decrepit bookshelves and open, hoof-deep waters.

Kernel looked in all directions, trying to find some way out. He sloshed around, unsure of where the reading table was.

A piece of white paper floated in the still waters. The gray pony picked it up. On it was a strange drawing of that creature whose picture was ripped in two the last time he was here. The web-like growths were now accompanied with some dragon claws and the creature itself appeared more reptilian than the original.

Something splashed behind him.

Kernel turned around to find nothing out of the ordinary. There was not even a ripple on the surface of the water. He turned around to find the creature from the paper staring at him, in the flesh.

"Who are you?" it asked in a familiar, haunting voice.

"K-Kernel?" the gray pony whimpered.

"Really?" the creature asked, crooking its head. It shrugged it off. "Well, I'm Elegiac."

"Ellie... Jack?"

She giggled. "No. 'L,' 'E,' 'Jahy,' 'Ack!'" she sounded out.

"Okay, Elegiac," he managed to pronounce correctly. "How do we get out of here?"

Elegiac shrugged. "I dunno, I never actually felt like going anywhere else." She crooked her head. "What do you have in mind?"

"This may sound strange," Kernel admitted. "But I was asked to find you for some kind feast."

"I'm not the main course, am I?" she asked him with a nervous laugh.

"Not that I know of..."

"Good enough for me!" Elegiac turned and beckoned with a large smile.

The pair made their way through the sunken library until they found a familiar door. The entire door was covered in dust and cobwebs. Spiders rested among the webs; it was impossible to tell if they were still alive.

Green magic pulled the door open. Kernel turned to find the gem on his new friend's forehead pulsating in green light.

Elegiac jumped through the threshold. “Come on, Kernel!”

The gray pony followed the creature through the webs to find themselves under a crescent moon. The dry, dusty road they stood on went straight down a neighborhood of pony homes.

“A... A pony town?” Kernel looked around. “This isn’t right!”

“I thought we just needed to leave the...” Elegiac stammered until her mind finally blanked on the past completely.

“The library?” the gray pony said, attempting to finish her question.

“Was that what it was?” She crooked her head, then shrugged it off. “Whatever, let’s just get going.”

Kernel nodded and they started to make their way through the town. The moonlit shadows danced in the corners of their eyes. The broken windows of the empty houses assured the gray pony that they were alone, yet the feeling of being watched couldn’t be shaken off.

Lights flickered in the windows of the last couple houses at the end of the road. The road itself seemed to be ending just a few paces beyond the flickering, but Elegiac was not slowing down. Kernel paced himself, trying to steady his breaths, but soon found himself falling behind.

“Well, look who’s here!” a male voice yelled from behind them.

Kernel and Elegiac turned to find a familiar unicorn standing in the middle of the road. His pale yellow coat was stained red with blood, and a sinister smile crossed his snout. He chuckled as one muddy hoof after the other stomped its way toward the pair.

“Don’t we have some unfinished business, Oasis?” the unicorn growled. Bones cracked and writhed out from his sides, forming skeletal wings. “This is going to be fun!” He laughed maniacally as his eyes turned from white and brown to red and black.

“RUN!” Elegiac screamed in a chorus. Kernel couldn’t tell if the other voices were his imagination or not.

They ran from the psychopathic unicorn, past the houses and beyond the road’s end. They both glanced back to confirm the monster’s terrifying pace, and by the time they turned back around they found themselves running through a graveyard. Headstones ranging from the plain to the complex flooded the horizon. Elegiac grabbed Kernel and leaped behind one of the larger ones.

Hoofsteps stomped past them. Intense growling hanged over them. Elegiac kept a claw over Kernel’s snout. The sounds slowly closed in on them.

“Where are yoooou?” the unicorn called out in an off-key taunt. “It’s me! The Desert Mirage!” The maniacal laughter sounded off, louder than ever before.

The laughter stopped.

“Foresight?!” the unicorn called out.

Elegiac released Kernel as she turned and popped up from their hiding spot. The unicorn was just in front of them, but both she and her pursuer stared at the edge of the graves. A changeling-like silhouette stood among the graves. The unicorn galloped towards it.

Kernel poked his head up as Elegiac followed a bit too closely behind the unicorn. He rushed to catch up to her. Fortunately, the unicorn seemed focused on the shadowy changeling in the fog.

“Foresight?!” the unicorn called out again.

The shadow grew twice as large. A changeling queen lunged from the fog and snatched up the unicorn with its giant fangs. She snapped him in half and tossed him aside.

“Chrysalis!” Elegiac cried out in joy. “You saved me!”

Chrysalis stepped forward, her body subtly twitching. Slowly, green magic ripped her snout down the middle, allowing it to open sideways.

“WRREEEAAAAAKPTH!” the queen screeched, its mouth opening both ways at once.

“No!” Elegiac screamed as a wind blew papers through the wind.

“WRREEEAAAAAKPTH!”

“I’m not a wretch!” she screamed back, as Kernel began to recognize some of the papers in the wind. “I’m a changeling!”

“WRREEEAAAAAKPTH!” the queen screeched. Images flew by on the papers. Kernel could read a few of them: siren, dragon, pony, and other papers flew around in a cyclonic wind. Graves were disappearing.

“I can be whatever I want!” Elegiac screamed in the eye of the storm.

The winds converged, sending all the papers into her. Light burst forth, blinding Kernel. Everything was screaming.

Then there was silence.

Kernel knew his eyes were closed. He feared what awaited him now.