Escape from the Moon

Chapters

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six

Chapter One

She jolted upright from the bed with a scream, her hoof clutching her chest as phantom pain wracked her body. She remembered her chest exploding due to something coming out of it but what she could not place her hoof on.

Just like where she was… or who she was.

She frowned, closing her eyes as she tried to concentrate. She could look around in a moment, she needed to know what she knew.

She could remember the basics of life; what objects were, what her kind was called and how to move her body and speak. But her name…

“All I can remember is that damn dream,” she muttered under her breath, shaking her head at how weird it was and how real it felt. “I mean,” she let out a snort of laughter, rolling her eyes. “Who has that kind of dream anyways? I mean, it's like I woke up dead on arrival.”

She paused, tilting her head at the phrase. “Dead on arrival,” she repeated herself and tapped her chin. “D, O, A… Doa.” She said it to herself, smiling. “Better than nothing.”

With a name for herself, she examined herself, pushing the blanket off of her with her thaumatics. A light green coat with a yellowish mane with a beaker cutie mark on her flanks. She then inspected her wings, and while she didn't know exactly what she was looking for, instincts took over as she began to preen them, searching for any damaged feathers. Instead of thinking of what she was doing, Doa let her mouth work on its own and trusted herself to take care of her wings.

Smiling as all she did was a few rearrangement of her feathers, she finally tilted her head around to see where she was.

She was in a room small enough to the point of being slightly uncomfortable, on a bed with sheets that fell short of covering the entire mattress. The walls were prefab plastic sheets that would offer no purchase for her hooves, the floor looked to be hard metal and there was a thin light strip directly above her head that she could tell would be hard to sleep under. In the corner of the ceiling was a monitoring camera pointed directly at her, with a red light flickering.

The existence of the camera in her bedroom brought a number of thoughts to her mind, nearly all of them unpleasant implications but the one positive thought trumped them.

A camera watching her meant there were ponies watching and they could help her.

“Hey!” she shouted, waving her hooves and flapping her wings. “Hey, I need help here; I can’t remember anything! Hey!”

The camera just kept track on her and Doa frowned as she realized something; the entire place was so quiet. There was the soft sound of engines running, but they were clearly being muffled by silencers.

It was very unsettling.

Doa frowned as she lowered herself to the floor, eyeing the camera cautiously. Whoever was monitoring her clearly wasn’t going to respond to her and she was wasting her time in here. She still needed to figure out where she was, what her real name was and what was going on.

Doa tried to walk around her bed to get to her door, but she stumbled into her bed that was bolted in the dead centre of her bedroom andher bedframe was hard metal. Cursing under her breath as she shook her leg to wave off the pain, she examined her door. It was a completely bare diagonal door which made Doa tilt her head; she was sure that there should be some company brand on it.

Watching the door slide apart, Doa made her way into the hallway when the door almost closed on her, catching a few of her tail hairs. Letting out a yelp, she shot it an accusing look before she examined the hallway. Like her bedroom, the hallway was just slightly small enough to be uncomfortable. Directly in front of her was another door with one down to her left. As she literally had nothing to do besides explore, she walked towards the room with the door opening to a bathroom that held a toilet, a sink and a glass shower stall.

Doa smiled at the sight of a shower as she did kinda smell and it would feel good to wash up after that nightmare- Doa froze as she spotted a camera in the corner of the ceiling, that would give whoever was watching her a perfect view of her using the shower and the toilet. Wrinkling her nose at the lack of privacy, she also saw that there was a towel on a hook next to the shower stall, the same bland white as the walls.

Acting on instinct, she lit up her horn and a turquoise aura flew over to the door of the stall but frowned how sluggish it felt to use her thaumatics and how difficult it was to open stuff. She had to test her wings later to see if there was something wrong with her wings as well but first, shower time.

Stepping inside, she was relieved to see there was a bottle of bodywash on a small alcove, surprised to see this luxury in this spartan pace. She picked up the bottle and immediately wrinkled her nose; it smelled like industrial antiseptic. Gagging at the scent, she began to fiddle with the water temperature controls, settling on a medium heat with the shower head setting default on hard beads.

Frowning at this but resigning to just dealing with her poor shower, Doa began to rub down her body with the foul soap as she tried desperately to wrack her head for any memory of her life, where she was or what was going on. She felt a small stab of panic in her chest but she forced it down. She had been awake for less than an hour, she could act like an adult and keep her head on her shoulders!

Flicking her mane away from face, she turned the shower off and reached for the towel only to meet air.

“What?” Doa said, the towel and the towel rack gone and the wall smooth. Stepping out of the stall, she began to feel the wall only to see it was completely seamless. “How…” she muttered to herself, looking for any holographic emitters in the floor, walls or ceiling but found nothing. It must have been have some sort of advanced emitter setup that worked through the wall panel itself but…

Leaning forwards, she licked the wall and immediately regretted her actions as it tasted terrible. But not the electric buzz that should have been there if there were tiny emitters built into the wall.

Wiping her tongue with her hoof, Doa made her way to the sink as she shook herself dry, seeing her reflection.

She didn’t look all that bad; her mane short enough not to get in her face with her coat seemingly well built for drying quickly. Blinking her blue eyes, she tapped the sink bowl. “Okay Doa, you’ve still got a job to do,” she said to herself as she flashed herself a smile before she started to leave the bathroom and walk down the hallway to the last door. Stepping through it, she was in a circular room that a held a small meal table in the centre, and another one in corner with an antique style physical computer on it instead of having the standard holographic interactive module.

She would examine the computer later; she noticed that there was only a few a couple other doors. She would wager one would be a pantry and the other would be attached to another hallway, which meant she could confirm either that she was alone here or she had a private area all to herself.

Trotting carefully to one of the doors, she saw it slide open to reveal a pantry of tiny packages along both walls. Lifting one up with her thaumatics, she saw it was a dehydrated meal package of what was a basic meal of spaghetti.

Seeing as she wasn’t that hungry at the moment, she put the meal back where she found it and noticed beyond the packages there were a few cartons of labeled vegetables and fruits. Leaving it alone for the moment, Doa made her way out of her pantry and went to the other door, spotting several cameras on the ceiling and they were all focused on her. Flicking her tail, she walked through the hallway to find herself in a much larger circular but empty room that had only two more doors, one a highly reinforced door hatch and other was one of the other doors she had see before, and a staircase with a glint of natural light right above her.

She couldn’t help but let out a small squeak of joy; maybe seeing the outside world would jog her memory. Pumping her wings, she tried to fly up to the second floor but her wings wouldn’t give her any lift beyond a small hover before she had to land.

Scrambling on her hooves, Doa raced up the stairs, wondering where in the world was sh-

The world was above her head.

The world was above her head.

Slowly, she forced her eyes away from the celestial body to look around her to see she was a observation room, with glass walls all around her and she knew exactlywhere she was.

She wasn’t on the world, she was on the moon!

How in the world did she get up here, it didn’t make any se-

Her blood froze as she could not see something she should see. Racing around the deck, her heart began to thud in her chest as all she saw was the dusty expanse of the moon and nothing else.

There was no pathway connecting to another station, there was no moon buggy that would help her travel and most importantly, there was no launch station so she could leave the moon.

Finally coming to a stop, Doa reviewed her current predicament; she couldn’t remember anything of herself including her own name, she was on the moon with no way off and there were ponies watching her every movement but were obviously not going to help her.

She was trapped and she had no idea how she would escape from the moon.

Chapter Two

Doa felt her legs tremble at the sight of the world above, an urge to grab a space suit and search for something that could explain what was going on but she had doors she had yet to explore and there was a computer for her to examine.

Taking careful steps down the stairs as her hooves were still wet and slippery, she skidded a bit as she left the steps and almost crashed into the wall. Flicking her wing, she could see the room was not completely circular. Next to the hatch that lead out to the expanse of the moon was a small enclave that held a single space suit of bland orange material and an extremely old model helmet. It was actually a separate piece that would need to be twisted on to make a seal. Where was the built-in helmet that would form to match her head and was made of material that had a zero point zero two percentage of failures?

Walking over to the helmet, she marveled at how simplistic it was and couldn’t believe that this was once the lauded standard of stellar exploration equipment! She had it halfway down her head when she let her thoughts catch up to her.

Doa knew about the stellar expansion that led to a galactic expansion and formation of a number of different nations but couldn't recall what a single one was called. She knew that the planet above her was the coreworld of civilization but she could not recall what the name was. She knew that was a highly inferior spacesuit model but she could not for the life of her recall what the model was called.

Rubbing her hoof along the oxygen tank on the back of the suit, she saw it was suited to go right between her shoulder blades and if she had anypony to gamble with, it would provide to be uncomfortable to wear. Snorting as she held the suit up with her thaumatics, she could see it would a tight fit to wear with her wings pressed against her sides. Hanging it back up, Doa was about to check the last door when she paused and walked back towards her spacesuit. Disengaging the oxygen tank, she saw it was midway filled. Using her turquoise thaumatics, she slipped it into the recharging port and waited to see the amount increase before leaving.

Doa then trotted over the last door, keeping her eyes down and away from the planet above her head. Standing in front of the sliding doors, Doa found herself in what should have been a medical station. There was a single operating bed in the center of the room, a sink tucked into the corner with a mirror over top of it, and the walls were lined with cabinets that, logically, should contain medicines and medical supplies that would keep her healthy for a long time.

But there were no bottles or medical supplies and the doors were sealed up. Tugging on all the doors told her the same story; she was denied access to all but one. Opening it up, she was it contained a box of simple bandages and a box of gauze strips. Glaring at it, she felt whoever had placed her did this to spite her. How she knew this, Doa could not tell but she knew it in her heart.

Slamming the door shut, Doa stormed out of the room with her wings twitching angrily. As she walked down the hallway to her kitchen, she began to breath in and out to calm herself down.

Perhaps that computer would have some information for her. “But going to grab myself an apple or something,” she told herself, flicking her eyes around the small meal room as Doa made her way to the pantry with the door opening before she got there.

She then flicked her tail to her side as the door almost closed on it completely as she walked through the doorway. “Okay,” she said out loud, placing a hoof against her chest. “Note to self, watch out for doors.”

Shaking her head at how close she came to losing her tail, she opened the drawer that said apples and pulled out a nice red apple with her thaumatics.

Holding it next to her face, Doa stared at the door. “You are not going to try and cut my tail off again, are you?” she asked it, with the door opening slowly in front of her. Licking her lips, she darted through the doorway with her tail tucked between her legs.

Turning her head around, she saw that the door was still open and it took a few seconds before it started to close, much slower than the other doors.

“Jerk,” she scoffed as she walked over to the computer and began to turn it on, sitting down on the chair provided. “Okay, give me something good,” she muttered under her breath, slowly eating the apple. She saw it slowly load up a dull white background that was the same colour as the walls to show there were two accounts; a Guest account and an Administrator account. Going for the more private account, Doa saw she was locked out by a password which could literally be anything under the mo-

“Nope, not going to use that phrase,” Doa muttered as she went to the other account. The dull white background changed to an even more dull blue background that was so faded that it actually bothered her eyes. Scrunching her eyes, Doa saw that it had just one application installed; a word processor.

Opening the program, Doa went to check to see if there were any saved files she had written before only to find nothing there.

Letting out an annoyed grunt at this dead end, she decided to at least start creating a journal of sorts.

Day One-Year

Doa’s eyes traveled to the bottom right corner of the screen where it should have had the time date and the year but it was absent.

“Well isn’t that fun,” she muttered dryly to herself before going back to her journal entry.

Day One

Today I woke up with no memory of who I am or how I got here, here being the moon. The station I am on is ridiculously small and bare minimal supplies stocked if I am to be generous. There are no medical supplies on board, there is appears to be nothing on board to pass the time, there is only one space suit, helmet and tank with no back ups. Everything seems to have been built purposely small enough to tick me off and there are cameras everywhere, giving me no privacy whatsoever.

She paused, glaring up at the camera that was focused on the screen.

Speaking of, when I took a shower earlier today, the towel I was going to use vanished… and I just realized that I saw no washing or drying machine. So even if I were to wear something, which doesn’t seem to be an option up here, or had that towel, I would need to figure out how clean them or I would have to deal with dirty and smelling clothes for as long as I am up here.

Doa paused again, looking at the screen and rubbing her face as she sighed. Lifting the apple to her mouth, she took another bite.

There is no else beside me on board and I do not know why. I am managing the best I can, trying to figure out what is going on. I am going for a walk on the moon and hopefully spot something that can at least give me a hint to how I got here.

Doa.

She saved the file and was about to power it down when she tried something. Using a simple command to create a folder, she saw that nearly all the normal features were denied to her account but what was more strange was the memory percentage availability. It claimed there was a ninety percentage of data available to her for use and she was highly certain that her journal could not have eaten up that much data.

So whatever was on the second account may have a significant amount of information for her, maybe even the answers to all her questions.

She just needed to somehow crack a password that could literally be anything.

Groaning, Doa finished her apple off and realized that she had no way of dealing with her garbage. Leaving the core where it was for the moment, the mare began to make her way back to the larger circular room where her spacesuit was waiting for her.

Pulling it towards her with her sluggish thaumatics, she started to examine it to see how exactly one would put it on. While Doa still could not recall anything of her life, she somehow knew she was also slightly curious to how ponies got dressed in these things as it appeared to be one continuous material.

As she turned the suit around in her turquoise aura, Doa felt a tiny bit of slack at the horizontal middle point of the barrel section. Turning the suit to her face so she could see that section properly, Doa noticed that there appeared to be a completely continuous line along the suit that began to split the suit in half the more she placed her thaumatic on it, with the suit sealing up as she moved the pressure away from the spot. Biting her lip in concentration, she focused all her thaumatics on the split with the suit coming apart in two pieces.

Out of breath from the effort, Doa placed the top part of her suit to the side as she began to pull the lower half up her legs. “Dammit, it is like I am a Third instead of a Pure right now,” the pony said as she focused her turquoise aura on the upper half of her suit. “I hope my horn and wings heal so I can be a normal pony again.”

Standing still with her wings pressed against her side and her tail flat against her left leg, she dropped the suit over herself and did her best not to squirm as the suit sealed itself, the fabric wriggling to make itself one piece again.

“Well, so not going to get used to that,” Doa muttered as she picked up the oxygen tank. She saw it was full and placed it on her back, hearing it lock in place. She then flicked her eyes towards the helmet and tried to lift it with her thaumatics only for the suit’s seals to peel apart. Giving a bit of yelp of surprise, she cut off her horn and tried to reposition the suit back onto her body.

Doa could feel her face flush as she shuffled on the spot, annoyed at how touchy this suit was. She then shot a glare at the cameras trained on her, Doa reached for the helmet with her hooves and grunted at how hard it was to pick up without her innate tactile thaumatics.

“Cannot make it easy for me, can you?” she snapped, flicking her tail inside the cramped suit and feeling her wings press against the sides.

Taking a breath, she managed slipped the helmet over her head and twisted it in place, hearing the coupling mechanism snap into place before she heard a much firmer sealing sound.

Doa’s ears flicked as she then heard a beeping sound on the fetlock of her suit. Lifting up the leg to her face, saw it had a holographic display of the oxygen she had remaining in percentage.

“Nope, not in the slightest,” she grumbled. “Just percentage; no time, no estimation of how long it will last, just percentage.”

She made her way to the hatch and saw it had an actual lock on it. Granted it was just a lever, but it was something.

Pushing it down and pulling the door open, she stepped into the airlock with the door closing behind her with a hiss. On the middle of the right wall, there was a simple control panel that had only a few buttons, indicating what would seal and cycle the airlock and what would open either door. As with everything else on this station it was overtly, and at this point annoyingly, simplistic to use. Placing her hoof on it, she heard the room begin to drain of oxygen and depressurizing the room, the lights flashing red.

After about thirty seconds of waiting, the light in the middle of the two panels, the lights flashed green before going back to the normal dim white with the door to the moon’s beginning to open.

Walking forwards with her eyes closed, Doa only opened them when she felt the shift from metal to the dusty surface of the moon.

It was terrifying, the sheer wide empty expansion of the moon in front of her with nothing existing in almost all directions. Doa felt like she could walk in all directions never find anything, become lost forever and never find her way home, be trapped on the moon for all time.

It was also beautiful in its own way. The landscape had its own raw strength and power to it that was awe inspiring. And the stars; oh the stars. They stirred something with her heart, something powerful. They were free and unchained, and she would be like them one day. Free from anypony.

Smiling to herself, she turned around and began to examine the station’s exterior. It was made of the same dull material from the inside with no indication to the true owner of this station. It was almost like it was made just to exist and nothing more.

Doa moved her view from the sky downwards and blinked in surprise as she saw the base of the station. It seemed to have been welded to the ground; even if she had the basic tools to dig, she would never be able to get underneath the station. She could only guess why they would want to prevent her from getting there but perhaps there was a some sort of gap or clue they had left behind.

She made her way towards where the medical station was, keeping to her left with her eyes down, examining the base of the structure. She continued to walk with the sound of nothing flowing into her ears until she reached towards where her bedroom was, the absolute furthest part from the air hatch when she started to hear something, an actual sound!

Her ears flickered around, trying to pinpoint the sound when she realized it was coming from her fetlock. Raising it to her face and activating the holographic emitter, she saw that the oxygen remaining was just twelve perce-it just fell to eleven percent and was dropping fast!

Racing as fast she could, Doa made her way back to the entrance when she heard another sound that she instantly placed and caused her heart to drop even further.

Her helmet’s seal was coming apart, slowly sliding off to the side. She slammed a hoof to push it back in place, but tripped in the processes, tumbling in the lunar surface.

Doa felt her heart scream in her chest now, with only seven percent of oxygen left to her with her helmet moving again.

She flared her horn as hard as she could to keep the helmet on as she bolted forwards towards the air hatch; her suit was starting to peel off of her due to her thaumatics but she had to keep moving.

Doa could feel pinpricks of the cold air of space on her sides but she had to keep moving. She slammed her hoof on the panel to open the door, her fetlock screaming at her that she was almost out of air. Peering inside of the airlock, Doa actually saw the room was depressurizing itself again and taking its sweet time.

“Come on come on come on,” she muttered to herself, teeth clattering in her mouth as the coldness began to pierce her bones, forcing her to shut her horn off so her suit wouldn’t come apart but it was too late.

Holding her helmet as tightly as she could, Doa made sure to let out a breath of air as the vacuum of space pushed its way through her suit as she was finally able to dash through the doorway and slammed on her to shut the door behind her.

Closing her eyes as the airlock began to fill with oxygen, she fell against the side of the tunnel with her heart racing at her near death experience.

Removing the blasted helmet from her head as she was feeling extremely claustrophobic, Doa weakly tapped her hooves together as she gingerly slipped the suit off herself, a small smile on her face. “Okay,” she chuckled lightly as she got upright, swaying slightly. “New plan; take shower, crawl into bed and sleep for a week.”

Doa’s smile fell as when she reached the door, it did not open. Frowning in confusion, Doa pushed on the door but it did not budge. Pushing with her shoulder now with the door stubbornly remaining closed, the mare was examining where the control panel should be when she heard the pneumatic pistons of the door begin to hiss.

The door behind her.

With her eyes widening in terror, the door opened itself up and she was sucked out of the airlock. Crashing onto the lunar surface, Doa got to her hooves as fast as she could and dove for the airlock but the door had closed itself on her face.

Screaming in silent horror, Doa was bangging on the door when she felt an intense explosion in her chest. Falling backwards in absolute pain, she was aware that her lungs had just ruptured and exploded in her chest and Doa was left dying in complete pain on the surface of the moon.

She jolted upright from the bed with a scream, her hoof clutching her chest as phantom pain throttling her body. She remembered suffocating and flailing on the ground, the nightmare of her horrific death.

It’s not real, she thought to herself. It was just a bad dream.

The mare blinked her eyes, looking around the room she found herself in, unable to remember how she got here… or who she was.

She could worry about her new location later, she would need something to call herself.

All she could think of, however, was that nightmare. Where she had died and woke up after dying, and arrived to find herself in this place, whatever this place was.

“Wait,” the mare said as she placed her hooves on the bed. “I woke up dead on arrival…” Tilting her head as she muttered the acronym for that phrase, she cracked a smile. “Doa is a cute name.”

WIth that settled, Doa began to make her plans to figure out where she was.

Chapter Three

Day Three

Hello to anypony else reading this.

Doa let out a sigh as she rolled the apple next to her, still haven’t taken a bite of it.

“As if anypony will ever read this and careabout me,” she sighed, resting her head on her fetlock.

As the title suggests, I have been here for three days now and still I am no where closer to figuring out how I got here. I still cannot remember anything beyond that nightmare.

Doa shuddered at the nightmare of her dying by suffocation and her lungs exploding. She wasn’t sure why she’d had that nightmare but it had put her off from exploring outside for a bit, only going out this morning. A tentative term if anything as she had no way of measuring time’s passage. Still, nothing hadhappened when she had gone outside save for her heart racing the entire time. She was so glad when she got back inside although she could have spent a lot longer outside as her oxygen tank had barely dipped past ninety percent during the entire time she had been outside and she had been hyperventilating the entire time.

The equipment might be old, highly claustrophobic and impractical but it did the job.

Went outside for what I’m estimating was half an hour... Most of the time was to psych myself up to continue going around the station. The suit is currently hanging in the large room; had to clean it in the medical bay from me we

Doa froze as she almost wrote that in. While she was under no illusion everything that happened up here was being recorded and nothing she did was missed, she didn’t need to write that in. Hitting the delete key a couple of times, she continued her journal entry.

sweating all over the suit. Took a nice cold shower after cleaning the suit up. Just wish the towel on hoof wasn’t so itchy.

Doa paused to glare that towel resting next to her and squirmed, phantom itches were terrible.

Going to look up at the planet above me and see if I can recall anything this time.

Doa

Doa grabbed the apple in her thaumatics and dropped the towel over the chair to dry out and made her way toward the central larger room.

She climbed up the stairs, taking slow bites of her apple, tilting her head up to stare at the vast expanse of space and the planet just out of reach.

She was just out of luck, seeing the oceans of the planet with only a few ocean cities’ lights poking out from their depths. It was like she had a set of stars now; laying on her back, she began to make connections from the lights of the cities, imagined constellations from them and made stories for her creations.

Most of them involved ponies escaping from captivity.

Doa sighed, spreading her wings out as she chewed her apple. It was simple for her just to say her heroes escaped from their captors so she didn’t have to think about her own prison; it was easy to create happy endings for others when she couldn’t see how to create her own. It was easy to create stories with bad ponies that her heroes defeated when she couldn’t even imagine who was holding her on the moon. She could imagine the most of basic of stories to why they wanted to capture the hero, but she could not figure out why anyone would want a pony as average as her.

Doa scrunched her eyes up as she threw her apple core at the ceiling, the core making a dull thud as it bounced off the glass and when it hit the ground. Everything so far had been really testing her limits, especially the nightmares she had been having of her dying all the time.

For the last two days she’d had more nightmares of her dying. Thankfully she had felt none of the pain, but seeing herself die over and over again was not very pleasant. It didn’t help either that unlike most dreams, her dying in them didn’t end the dream.

If the dreams did continue, however, she could begin to calculate and predict how many times she would die and know when the nightmares would end. It wouldn’t be that hard to do all that math and it might even be fu-

She pushed herself upright as the world showed her some of the coastline with a massive force field over it. She watched the shield continue to grow, covering a vast expanse of land and it hadn’t seemed to reach its apex yet. But what really caught her eye was what was inside of it.

There was these massive - had to be massive if she could see them - plumes of yellow smoke, no doubt some sort of toxic gas, that they were containing from spreading outwards. The force field was covering what look to be about sixty six thousand square miles and she couldn’t help but feel some sort of awe at the sight.

The only logical choice why she was feeling like this had to be because she was impressed in how resourceful and determined the ponies of the planet were to protect themselves.

Her kind had come a long way from a simple herd and prey species, colonizing the galaxy under many banners and yet maintain peace among each other. She knew that were even a few Thirds in charge of galactic trade organizations, acting as merchants, bringing in wonders from far distant systems. There just wasn’t organisms that one could find on the coreworld and studying new flora and fauna would be something amazing to look forwards to.

Doa’s ear twitched as she thought of that. It wasn’t a memory of her life but simple deduction. She knew that her cutie mark was science related and her special talent had to be related to science. Doa was trying to go over the different branches of the science fields in her head to see if something triggered her memories but there were a large number of fields for her to examine and she was just going off what she could extrapolate from her own empty mind.

She had tried thaumatology, astronomy and biology, all falling flat.

Her thaumatics tended to short out when she tried to reach out and think through what she was doing, causing her turquoise aura to sputter out for a couple of hours until she was able to reach that weak level she was forced to call her baseline.

Studying the stars was an impractical choice for her as she had not been awake long enough to make a good mental map for the sky above her and Doa was forced to write it off for the moment. She would also need more time to do proper tests on her thaumatics, and by proxy her wings, to see if they were improving over time.

Biology was an almost pointless endeavour as she knew all the basic body parts in a pony; heart, lungs, kidneys, stomach, intestines, carbuncle, brain-

Doa let out a shout of surprise and pain as a sudden flare of light seared into her eyes, blinding her completely. Rolling around in pain, she felt the ground underneath give way and her falling to the ground.

Day Eight

I can confirm that every five days that there is some sort of solar flare that shorts out the monitoring systems for approximately five minutes. I also need to be careful not to be in the larger hub as the light can blind me for approximately two hours.

Doa snorted at that memory, flicking her tail. She had been stuck feeling her way around back to her bedroom. She was also glad that she hadn’t been on the second level as there wasn’t any railing to protect her from falling off and breaking her neck.

The thought of her dying made her shudder at the first memory she had; that painful nightmare of her being covered in acid rain in a tight box. It had put her off taking a shower for a couple of days but she finally succumbed after smelling completely rank to the point it was bothering her.

She just wished there was an actual towel in this place.

I am still no closer to figuring out why I am here or who is watching me or anything of my past. I will keep on trying to piece together what I can from my minimal surroundings and escape from this place.

Doa

The mare frowned; something told her that writing she was seeking a way into the other account was a bad idea. Still she felt it would be a major advantage when she finally cracked the code and saw what was taking twelve percentage of the computer’s memory.

As long as she had her head on straight, she would be fi-

Doa

Doa was not sure how she managed not to react to the whisper of sound but was grateful for it as it might give those watching her another means of controlling her.

Doa

Come to me

Letting out a yawn to mask turning her head towards the sound, the mare found herself facing a wall that she knew only held the vast expanse of the lunar surface.

Come to me

Great, Doa thought to herself as she went to make herself a supper, I’m starting to hear things.

She would investigate the source in the morning; she had made a routine of going out in the morning to explore the moon and again, it would be out of the norm and thus highly suspicious if she deviated from her standard method of behaving.

If it was still there and wasn’t her going crazy.

Come to me

Holding her head down to hide her eyeroll, Doa stepped into the pantry to pull out one of the dehydrated food packages at random.

“Ooo, it’s spaghetti again tonight,” Doa said to herself in a sarcastic tone.

Humming a tone to herself as she walked towards her bathroom to rehydrate the meal with the doors stealing more of her tail hairs. She paused and glared at the doors behind her, wondering if she would lose a leg or something to them one day.

Pulling the package open was always a struggle with her thaumatics and she had to resort to her teeth more than once.

Snorting as this package was proving to be difficult to open, she began the awkward dance of trying to hold it in her mouth and hooves while she provided enough torque to op-

Come to me Doa

“Gaah!” she shouted in surprise, tearing the food package open and the food spilling over the entire room. Swearing under breath as she gathered all the food she could with her thaumatics, she placed it back into the torn package and held it over the sink. Biting her lip as she struggled to hold it steady as she tapped the water control panel, she almost fell forwards as the spaghetti came back into an edible form.

Biting her lip the entire time as sweat poured down her face, Doa made her way back to the meal table and dropped it down, splashing over the table.

Sighing as she would need to clean this up later, she leaned down and began to eat her supper.

“Need to find material that I can make into a fork,” she said in between bites, swallowing the food down her mouth with a wince. It was overly sweet tasting compared to the others but she could deal with it. “So I can eat like a norm- a norm -” she began to gasp for air, panting to get anything into her lungs. Falling onto her back with her hooves scratching her face, Doa then began to thrash in agony as a sudden fire wracked her body.

She jolted upright from the bed with a scream, her hoof clutching her chest as phantom pain wracked her body. She remembered the sudden pain all over her body with her being unable to breathe, but she could not place her hoof on just what had caused it.

Just like where she was right now… or who she was.

She frowned, closing her eyes as she tried to focus on that important question.

Ignoring all the basics of life that flashed through her head, she needed to remember who she was or what her name was at the very least.

“But all I can think of is that damn dream,” she muttered as she wrapped her hooves around herself, shuddering. “So where am I?” she said to herself as she rubbed her throat, looking around. “And how did I get here…”

She paused, the thoughts of arriving here after that realistic death dream caused some to spark in her head.

“Well I came here after I died in that dream; something related to dead on arrival?” she said to herself as she made her way out of her bed, pushing the long blanket off of her. “I guess I could call myself Doa until I think of a better name…”

Chapter Four

Day Twenty

If my math is correct, in two days I will see the solar flares again and have some privacy to myself.

Doa eyed the computer and then the camera watching her. “You’regoing to miss me do all kinds of stuff,” she snarked, shaking her backside at the cameras before shuffling on her back legs. I really wish that they would have at least given me a chair for this computer table.

I might do some more exercises today and keep myself in shape. Either that or do another walk outside.

Doa smirked to herself as she wrote that line; after that painful dream of her being cut in half andseeing how the doors opened up, she had dashed through all of them. She felt like a complete filly from doing so but she couldn’t help herself.

I am still having those nightmares. I am averaging ten per sleep cycle with no deviation in what I am dreaming about.

Perhaps expanding what I am seeing will influence my dreams.

Doa

With that said, Doa saved her journal entry and signed out of her account, eyes briefly glancing at the second account.

Shaking her head, she brought the pear she had been snacking on to her mouth and taking another bite of it before dropping it next to the other cores.

She had no way of dealing with her garbage and something told her if she broke her toilet by trying to flush things down it, they wouldn’t help her fix it and she didn’t want to deal with her only bathroom flooding.

Eyeing the sliding door with caution, she waited until it had opened up before dashing through it with a squeak in her voice. She then eyed the door at the end of the hallway before squaring her shoulders and dashing through that one too. Turning her head around, she saw that the door was still open for ten more seconds before starting to close slowly.

Blushing and feeling completely silly at her fears, she trotted over to where her spacesuit was waiting for her.

Doa was slowly getting used to wearing the thing but it still caused her goosebumps when it sealed itself over her body. Pulling the oxygen tank from its recharging port, she went to examine how much-

Come to me

She let out a yelp of surprise, fumbling with the tank and wincing as it bounced off the ground a couple of times before she managed to pick up the tank and place it on her back.

The voice she had been hearing off and on was back. She still hadn’t written anything about it or done anything to address it. Doa still could not tell if it was just in her head or it was actually something talking to her.

As she could hear it in her helmet when she was outside, she was leaning to the former. Shaking her head, she thought to herself, As there is no such thing as magic, I’mclearly going crazy.

Come to me Doa

Picking up the helmet with her hooves and sliding it in place, Doa walked over to the hatch and let herself into the airlock.

Come to me

She flicked her ear at the voice calling at her. She had yet to truly explore the direction where the voice was coming from but all she could spot was the continuous plateau her station was on.

Still, it might be time to start exploring further.

Of course, she couldn’t just go where she was hearing the voices if the ponies keeping her were behind the voices.

With her head held up high, she trotted out onto the moon and took in the view. It was truly awe inspiring and it was kinda empowering to think this was actually hers.

“I am the only pony here, I don’t see any neighbours nearby and I highly doubt anypony will come and tell me otherwise,” she said to herself as well as to those monitoring her. “So I’ve got this whole front yard all to myself.” She blinked at her hoofprints all across it and wrinkled her nose. “Congratulations Doa, you remember something about yourself at long last; we hate to do yard work.”

Not even sure how she would clean it all up, she placed it low on her mental to do list and began to walk forwards.

That thought began to bounce in her head, the joke turning into something serious. If she did not like yard work, that more than likely meant she either lived with pissed off neighbours or she lived alone and that was the core world above her head.

If she lived alone on the core world, she must be either very wealthy or very important.

“Could I be held for ransom?” she asked out loud and cursed herself. They wouldn’t like her making any progress to her escape- she paused as she was now in front of one of the many pole-mounted cameras she’d seen scattered around in her walks, only this particular camera was beginning to spark with electricity. “Oh, you have to be kidding m-” she said as she spun around on her hooves and dashed for her now distant station.

That was as far as she got before a bolt of electricity slammed through her body, inflaming every pain sensor in her body before her heart gave out.

Day Fifty One

I swear if I ever get back to the core world, I am never eating spaghetti, cheese sandwiches, coleslaw, and especially nothing freeze-dried ever again. If it will give me the power to get even against those holding me here, I will not eat them again.

Doa

She saved the journal entry and was about to go her bed for a nap when she noticed something odd. Well, odder than normal here. The percentage of memory used went from fourteen to fifteen with new short journal entry and Doa knew it was fourteen when she had started making her journals when she woke up from that painful nightmare of burning alive.

If only she could break through the lock on the other account, she knew she would that much closer to uncovering everything.

Chapter Five

Doa leaned into her bed and began to fix her feathers on her wings as she usually did before she took her naps or slept for the night. Pulling out a few broken feathers, she flicked her wings free of any dead ones and pushed them under her bed. She might one day try and make a blanket out of them, she did have feathers collected after fifty one days of being up here all by herself.

She wasn’t looking forwards to taking a nap; not with her dying over and over again in them, but there was little else for her to do up here.

Closing her eyes as she braced herself for the horrors to come, Doa willed herself to sleep.

Her throat was ripped open by her own thaumatics, her mouth spasming
She had been thrown down a pit, slamming into spikes and remaining there for several days.
Her spacesuit had come apart while she was bouncing on the moon, sending her corpse flying into space forever with her mouth moving in some final shout
She had placed her hooves on her neck and twisted hard, falling to the ground with a smile on her face
She was freezing to death on the station, the heat stolen away, with her teeth chattering some wordless cry
She had withered away to nothing, all the food gone, with her croaking out her last words
She had been riddled with weapon fire, bleeding out against a wall.
There was a tremendous pain as if something had exploded from her chest, and then nothing
Something reached out of the wall and took hold of one leg, ripping it out of its socket and laughing as she bled out.
She finished tying her bed sheet into a knot, testing the strength of it before she was satisfied it would hold tight to the railing, then slipped the other end around her neck. Taking a deep breath, she threw herself off the edge, the noose tightening around her neck with her body and wings twitching for all of a few seconds, then she was still

Doa shot up in her bed, her chest heaving from the intensity of the nightmares. Flicking her wings around her, she quickly darted towards her bathroom to splash some cold water in her face.

She groaned, leaning on the counter as she tried to collect herself. She never had a good night’s sleep, not with her dying all the time.

Doa could remember how she acted when her throat was ripped out, some final cry of pa-

Doa blinked a couple of times before splashing herself with more water as to hide her actions.

It was a long shot, but she would just need to wait until the next day when the flare happened and she had complete privacy.

All she could do now was go over four of her dream deaths and replay them over and over again in her head.

She had gotten good at measuring time in her head, counting down the seconds in her head until the flare would come. She had even planned things so she would be in the bathroom when the flare would happen, the fact she had to be using the toilet at the time aside. As she was washing her hooves, she counted down from five to four, three, two, one-

The cameras’ lights died and she could test her hypothesis.

She began to mouth what she had been saying her nightmares into her mirror and as she thought, she could make out words!

“F-fl-flar-flare,” Doa said to herself, as the first word came to her and she rolled her eyes at how she should have expected it. If she had to give herself a word so she knew the message was safe, it wouldbe flare.

She moved her mouth to make the second word, a much shorter one than the other two. “B-bd-bed,” Doa blinked as she said that word to herself. How was her bed involved in all this?

The last one was the longest of the three, one she had repeated twice in her death dreams. “Com-pu-t, computer,” Doa said to herself, eyes widening in joy as she realized what she had been telling herself in her dreams. Somehow her bed had the answer to the computer! She had to check her bed n-

She schooled her face and walked out of the bathroom. Her time was up and she would have to wait until the next flare.

It had been the longest five days in her life. Doa had spent her time writing journals entries, exploring the perimeter of the cameras outside, exercising her wings, horn and body-which were all improving thankfully, albeit incredibly slow- but it was finally here. Doa looked at the computer, just finishing her fifty seventh entry and saying she wanted to take a nap. She did the count down in her head, knowing she would reach her bedroom in five, four, three, two -

The cameras died as she stepped inside and practically threw herself under the bed, and started to sneeze with all of her feathers brushing against her face.

Stop and think Doa, she lectured herself. It won’t be anything that is written down.
Doa stopped herself and thought of what tools she had to write a message to herself that would both last and be undetected.

All she had was her hoof and her horn… she began to feel around the corners of the bed for anything-

She was still pushing out her feathers out from under the bed when she found it, near the front of her bed. There were scratched in letters and symbols, C8E07A5FF2GE, and she was about to shout with joy when she realized that her feathers were out from under her bed and she would need to move fastto hide them back under the bed and get herself into bed.

Doing her best to shove all of her feathers into bed with her mind struggling to remember how much time she had left before the cameras came back online. Flaring her horn as much as she could, she forced her feathers back under bed and dove under the covers, trying to still herself and go to sleep.

With her tail twitching, Doa knew she was just fivemore days away from learning whatwas on that computer.

She was biting her lip as she waited for the next flare to occur. Doa had been out all day so she would have a reason to spend a lot of more time to write on the computer.

Final note to self, I do not care if I lose a quarter of my food supply, find a way to burn all supplies of spaghetti.

Doa

She saved the journal just as the flare hit. She then exited the account and went to the other one.

Administrator account
Please insert password

Doa saw the white box where she had to put in the password and was to type it in when she froze. It could be a trick by those holding her in place but shook it from her mind. Her thoughts were the only thing she had.

Come to me Doa

That and the voices in her head telling her to do stuff.

She typed in C8E07A5FF2GE into the box and hit enter.

Doa smiled as it actually worked; at long last she could finally see what was being hidden from here. The screen loaded up to show a desktop full of overlapping folders

Her smile fell from her face with a sense of dread and horror as she moved over to one of them and opened it up.

“No, no,” she said trembling, her mind struggling to comprehend what was in front of her.

It was full of journal entries from her.

She closed the folder and stared at the screen.

“How long have I been here?” she whimpered to herself, tears beginning to fall from her face. She logged out from the account and curled up into a ball under the table, holding her wings close to her as she sobbed to herself. What did these ponies want from her? Why were they doing this to her?

Why‽

Come to me Doa

Come to me

Come to me Doa

Except for that voice.

Pulling herself out from the table, the green mare knew exactly what she would. She would discover whatthat voice was; even if it killed her.

Or had killed her in the past.

Sighing into her hoof, Doa knew this was going to end one way or another.

Chapter Six

Doa looked at the computer one more time before turning around and making her way to her bedroom. She had no desire to see exactly how many folders were on that account; the fact there was more than one had shaken her. It also explained a great deal, with her countless death dreams being subconscious callbacks to what had caused her to start new journals. She had to be somehow resurrected each time she died with whoever was keeping her cleaning the slate so she would have no idea what was going on.

Her repeated deaths and resurrections were the only explanation that made sense beyond the one that was she was completely and utterly insane but Doa was hopeful it was not the case.

Although how she was coming back to life was something she could not explain; it was almost like something ponies in the past had called necromancy but there was no such thing as actual magic. This was why she had to discover what the voice was and why it was calling her to a place to get answers for everything that was going on.

Doa frowned internally as she reexamined the possibility that whomever was doing this to her was using magic. She almost snorted to herself as she thought of how ludicrous it was that magic was an option and how primitive a possible solution it was to rely on that old term. I mean, I could use my thaumatics to bring stuff to me, cause a bit of fires and a few other stuff but it is all based in logic and scientific reason! she thought to herself, remembering the old magic vs thaumatology debates. I could focus my aura to manipulate gravity to move objects around, cause enough friction to start a fire and so on! But real magic… that’s just nonsense! Doa shook her head as she made her way to her bed, finalizing her plans.

I can’t just go straight towards the voice. Doa thought to herself as she settled down. They would know something is up and I would need to go when there is a flare, she mused inside her head, raising a wing to her face as she yawned. Which means I will have to spend more and more time outside and get stuck outside when thereis a flare.

It would take time, a lot of time for her to pull this off but time was all she had.

Day Seventy Seven

I cannot believe I was stupid enough to get caught outside during a flare. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The reflective surface of the moon made the light of the flare bite into my eyes. I need to be more careful next time I am outside.

Doa

She groaned as she saved the journal. Doa then rubbed her face, remembering how bad the flare was for her. It had also heated up her entire spacesuit, causing her to sweat profusely and she had long been out of shampoo before this incident.

But if being sticky and grimy was the price for her learning the truth of the voice, she was willing to pay it.

It was her ninetieth day when she got a massive stroke of luck for herself. She was outside the station in her backyard, close to the camera marking the furthest distance she was able to go to and still make it back to the airlock in time. It was also in the direction the voice was calling her.

She had been doing a small circuit when a small meteor fragment had knocked the pole over.

Doa froze when it happened and knew she had two choices; she could make her dash now and hope they wouldn’t kill her or…

She dashed forwards toward the pole, her ears picking up a faint buildup of electricity. Moving fast, she lifted the pole and put it back into place. She gave it a nod and smile before moving back to the station, with the electricity dying down.

She had just proved that she was coming to accept her prison and was now beginning to look after it. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but itwould mean they would not be hostile to her being near the limits of her cage.

Just twelve more days.

Come to me Doa

Twelve more days then she would.

It was time, finally, at long last. She had put on her helmet and spacesuit with hopefully no sign of excitement or anything out of the norm. She had been missing journal entries on purpose, slipping on what one day was to the next.

Shehad been making perfect notes on when the flares were occurring, so she had to fight her instincts and create errors.

She had forced herself to be calm as she made her usual circuit around her station, making it wider as she got towards the place with the flare imminent.

She reached the camera when the flare struck and bolted towards where the voice was.

Come to me Doa

Come to me

I am, she thought to herself as she ran across the moon, seeing nothing at first but then a small hill. The hill then turned into a mound, the mound into a ridge, the ridge into a canyon wall riddled with holes leading deep inside.

Come to me Doa

She ran into the cave where the voice was calling to her, running down the slope of the cave when it felt like she had hit something odd, like she had hit molasses or something with her horn starting to ache. It was beyond her ability to explain properly but it felt like everything had slowed down excluding herself.

Come to me Doa.

Doa froze as she reached the bottom of the cave as what she saw did not make any sense.

Instead of being completely dark down here, there was a shaft of light just a few steps away. A shaft of light that did not emit outwards but it still was light. It made as little as sense as what was in front of her.

It was another pony, a mare who was completely translucent but it was still another pony. She was taller than Doa, with ophidian eyes and protruding fangs. Her cutie mark was that of a crescent moon. She was wearing what appeared to be antique armour, but what was really strange about the mare was that her mane looked to be ethereal in nature.

“You’ve come at long last,” the mare said to her without moving her lips, a smile forming on her face.

“Who are you,” Doa asked her, eyeing the mare and then the shaft of light. “And what is that thing?” It defied all logic, like everything in this meeting did but it was the most glaring in its logical impossibility and she had to deal with the biggest issue first.

“All in good time Doa,” she said as she suddenly appeared directly in front of Doa before dropping her head to rest against her shoulder. “Or,” she said whispering into Doa’s ear. “Should I say, Spliced Genome?”

With that, everything came back to her.

She remembered working in her lab in her house when the Thirds banged on her door for medical help. How she had serviced them as it was a better usage of her skills instead of testing what new pills would help stallions procreate more efficiently. How she had learned that there was a war going on between the Pures and the Thirds, how the Thirds were not thirds of a Pure but actual ponies with their own rights equal to that of a Pure.

She remembered how impressed they were with her abilities and offered her a chance to even the playing field with the Pures. They could pay her handsomely they said. She told them she didn’t care about money. They had begged her constantly about aiding them and she had told them repeatedly she was not interested. They then said they would at least like her to create some resistance medicine to the low grade chemical ammunition the Pures were using against them. She had agreed to join them.

She had quickly taken over that department of the rebels, creating cures for their illnesses and earning her stay with them despite being a Pure. She then was presented with the actual viruses and she felt herself invigorated like never before. She had been denied access to such things when she failed to become a full biochemist researcher due to her failing the morality test and was forced to become a consultant.

She had reworked the viruses, infectious bacteria and plagues into something better, helping them achieve their full potential. The Thirds had been happy with her at first. They became worried when she had stopped supplying them with the cures as she was more focused on perfecting her works than the war. The only time she paid the war any attention was to collect data in how effective her work was, monitoring the casualty reports carefully.

She then got her creative burst and began to make new viruses. New bacteria that overcame any barrier. New plagues that spread to the stars. She was so proud of what she had accomplished, her genius being proved every day. It did not matter that the war was over; she had no reason to stop her work just because the fighting had stopped.

She had been working on perfecting the Black Death when they broke down her door and dragged her away for trial. It was a lie, of course. They had already deemed her guilty of war crimes and they were just determining how to punish her. It was why she had been denied the right to say anything on her own behalf.

She laughed at them when they sentenced her to a thousand years of solitary confinement for her killing of twenty eight million lives directly and unaccountable billions of lives indirectly. She told them she would long be dead before she served even a tenth of that ruling.

That had been a mistake. They had gone into deliberation for a long time before coming back. They said that they were going to ensure she served all of her time.

They were going to make her immortal.

There was massive outrage at this action, many decrying the decision. She joined their voices, calling it idiotic as it would only give her time to prepare for her return.

The decision passed anyways and they had done something to her but she knew she was now incapable of staying deceased or aging anymore.

They had then taken her to the moon and the station that were to be her prison for the next millennium. She had mocked them for their short sightedness, saying she would still have her superior mind by the time she was free.

They then revealed that they had done something more to her; that whenever she died, she would lose all memory of life and they would keep killing her whenever they felt she was getting too close to remembering who she really was or when they got bored.

They then killed her in front of the station. She died for the first time and woke up in the bed for the first of many times to come.

She remembered them all now, all the deaths she had and all the times she had died. Everything was now connected and lead to this point.

Blinking, the flesh and blood mare flicked her eyes towards the translucent mare and said, “Who are you?”

“Somepony that has been waiting for you to come here so we can speak,” she said, flashing a fanged smile.

“How long-”

“Was I waiting for you?”

“Have I been here,” the mare said shortly, causing the taller one to blink rapidly before finding her composure.

“It has been one hundred twenty years, seven months, eighteen days, four hours and twelve minutes,” the mare replied, a grin on her face. “Give or take.”

The mare in the suit frowned before she repeated her question from the beginning. “Who are you,” she asked.

“I am a concept of a constant in the multiverse,” she said, tilting her head to the shaft of light. “There are many constants, big ones and small ones. What I am, what we are,” she tilted her head back to the other mare. “Are the concept of the banished pony. In the multiverse, they are usually sent to the moon, normally in this form,” she gestured to herself, pride emanating from the gesture. “For a thousand years before the stars aid our escape and return us to those who have cast us away.” She then poked the other mare in the chest with a hoof, her lips still unmoving. “Then there are the rare universes where the norm is ignored and others rise to the occasion, such as yourself.”

The mare took all this in and flicked her eyes to shaft of light. “And that?”

“An improper and broken gateway to the multiverse, only connected to one another universe at the moment,” she then walked towards the smaller mare. “Go through that and you will have made your escape from your captors. And if we work together, with you and I making a pact to help each other, we can gain our vengeance on both of our captors and punish them for daring to lock us away. What do you say?”

“No.”

That was clearly not the response the fanged mare was expecting, shock clear on her face. “What do you mean no?”

“First off, there are two options. One I have gone completely insane and thus all of this is completely pointless. Two, I have not and all of this is true. If that is the case, then I would be placing myself in your debt for unspecific gains in return. You are clearly more powerful than me on levels I cannot comprehend, thus it must be something I have that you do not have. I would be placing myself at risk you would take what you do not have from me.” The mare grinned upwards at the other mare. “No thank you. To continue with what was said before, if everything here is actual and not a fabrication of my possible fractured mental facilities, I would be able to exact my vengeance on my own if we are the same quote unquote concept without your aid, just the stars.”

The mare opposite of her was clearly off put by this before shaking her head. “I will waiting for you if you change your mind.”

“As they say,” the mare replied as she made her way to remove her helmet. “Do not hold your breath. Now if you will excuse me, I need to return to the station.”

The mare pulled the helmet off of her head and then twisted her head hard enough to snap it.

The mare shot up from her bed with a hoof across her chest. She was blinking around before tilting her head downwards.

“I just woke up here after dying, so I could call myself Doa for dead on arrival,” she said as she slowly tilted her upwards, her eye fixing on the camera. “But I think I prefer my own name, Spliced Genome, much better.”

Throwing her head back in laughter, Spliced Genome knew that those monitoring her were probably wetting themselves out of fear at what she’d do to them, now that their ability to rob her of her memories had been lost.

They were more than likely terrified because they had lost and she had won.

In a thousand years, the stars would aid her escape and she would make them pay.