I was once a normal pony like you'd expect. Hopes, dreams, the whole deal. Most ponies who lived their lives in a Stable never knew what the outside is like, others leave and find out. I found out the hard way. Stable 56... Does it really matter? The numbers blur themselves out even in my dreams but I'll tell you as best as I can.

As a young filly, I had a few friends that gradually left as they got their cutiemarks and moved on to their Stable-assigned tasks. It took me years before giving up on it. Can you imagine, a fully-grown mare with a blank flank, I was a complete laughingstock. Passing ponies would give me vacant smiles, seemingly more out of social obligation to smile at the poor drudge than anything. The shame was visible in my parent's faces when we talked, the Overmare looked me up and down like she was taking in a circus oddity. I'd been given a default janitorial job, nopony needed a cutiemark to scrub floors. The position did little to help me find that elusive cutiemark. Not that I'd want a cutiemark in mopping but it'd be better than nothing.

Another day, another... well, another day. I got out of bed, taking a moment to check my Pipbuck, at least it was Friday, not that I had weekends off. Working nearly every day took a heavy toll on me, every day just blurred together and I never knew what day it was unless I checked my Pipbuck. I checked the closet for my jumpsuit, the light blue fabric felt nice in my hooves and the scent of lavender was very faintly noticeable if I put my nose directly to the garment. It was just a momentary relief from the inevitable day I knew would be ahead of me. The jumpsuit hugged me in all the wrong ways, it seemed as if some seamstress had it out for me. Heading out of my little stall, I ran into a friend from when I was younger. The mare stood out brightly against the gray halls, with a brightly colored dress of red against blue fur. She was an artist, a treasure to the Stable and beloved by all. (In hindsight, she was actually a pretty mean pony unless you could help her.)

"Evening, Brush. How are ya?" I gave her a wave and a smile as she passed by, to no response. Not even a glance in my direction. It was as if I were a ghost, I was taken aback by the disregard she'd shown. It couldn't be that I was a janitor that she'd ignored me then, perhaps the fault was my own. I wracked my brain trying to remember if I'd done anything to slight or wrong her to no effect. As I walked down to the bottom level of the Stable I put the interaction behind me, there were countless reasons for her to have been rude like that and it wasn't really me to hold a grudge. Level 6 of the Stable was undoubtedly the scariest, lights often went out as water pooled everywhere, shorting the circuits, and corroding everything. The senior janitors had assigned me this floor because none of them wanted to do it. I descended the maintenance stairwell slowly, each flight I came down became darker and more empty until I reached the doorway for Level 6.

A sign reading 'Level 6' sat next to the door, but the characters on the sign had aged and become rusted, now it read 'lc el o'. A single fluorescent light hung to the side, flickering slightly as the long pole of a light bulb teetered on its last legs. The door was moderately clean on this side, but I dreaded opening it, the opposite side of the door had rust along the tracks and produced the most horrible grinding noise as it slid open. I cringed as I pressed the button. The two halves of the door slid apart, the right one getting stuck in an almost-closed position. I needed to get an engineer down here to fix the door, but I never got any reply to my requests. I had a feeling my mail to the Overmare printed directly into a garbage can. Level 6 greeted me with its signature creepy hallway. An exact copy of the other levels, only this one was empty and darker. Where Level 1 had warm lighting placed in even intervals down the center of the hall, Level 6 had long fluorescent bars down the sides, many of which were either dead or dying. Between each light, the hall got significantly darker. My hooves trudged along the worn floors, a much darker shade of gray from the dirt and grime I could never seem to get out. I could scrub it with the strongest cleaner until I was dizzy and accomplish nothing. The halls in Level 6 were cramped, or at least felt like it, and around each corner seemed to lurk any nightmare I could ever come up with. The only noises to be heard down in Level 6 was that of the ambient hum of the generators that powered the entire facility and the water systems gurgling. Not a single pony was down here but me, it got pretty lonely.

My thoughts of the scary halls were interrupted as I felt my hooves go cold. Looking down revealed a massive puddle had formed and filled the hallway. "Oh. Well isn't this wonderful?" I asked to nopony in particular. The janitorial closet was further down, around a corner to the right, I'd have so much mopping to do today, the puddle kept going as I walked, the entire hall was filled with a nice layer a cold water across the floor that splashed up onto my jumpsuit and soaked through my coat. I glared down at my reflection in the water, a blank flanked failure glared up at me. Probably upset that I was just as bad as her. As I opened the door to the janitorial closet, the water slowly crawled around the seal of the door and into the dry room. I grabbed the mop and bucket as quickly as I could to defend my bit of dry land from the flood. The mop floated in the magenta cloud of my magic as I looked at my Pipbuck, hoping for something good to be on the radio.

"-and gentlebucks, thanks for tuning in again. It's your host, Disco Stargleam, welcoming you back for some good beats to get you ready for the weekend!" the radio host laughed, he sounded so disingenuous. A few mechanical sounds came from my Pipbuck before some generic rock music came on. Disco really needed to get some more music, I'd heard this one way too many times before. With little more than a shrug, I got to work cleaning up the water as the same old song belted itself from my Pipbuck.

Mop to water, water to bucket, bucket to drain. Over and over, until the halls were dry again. Three hours passed and now my clock told me it was nearing 10 pm. I tried not to think about it, but I knew ponies upstairs were having fun, it was Friday night. The only good thing about being on Level 6 was nopony could hear me scream, which I did a lot. Feeling a great emotion well up in my chest, I pounded the unforgiving laminate flooring with my hooves. I hated this job, I hated his Stable, I hated my coworkers, I hated the Overmare, and I hated the mare in the mirror more than anything in the world. Mopping up filthy water in a dark, empty prison while the other ponies had fun and friends. How could this be my life and how come nopony wanted to be my friend? Why wouldn't they talk to me?!

Further screaming and bawling on the floor brought me no help or any answers. Only itchy, dry eyes and a sore throat. I don't know why I even cried anymore, it's not like somepony would magically hear and come be my friend. Now that I'd worn myself out, the night's work would only be harder. I did a half-assed job, sloppily cleaning up the floors and changing out one or two lights if the bulbs fit. Since there wasn't any equipment delegated to Level 6, I gave the floors here a weak buffing with a rag, but no amount of work would ever clean these floors that nopony would ever look at. I'd never taken to exploring much on this floor, since it was just too creepy, but tonight I'd rushed and had two hours to myself down here. So I checked every door I could find, many were locked by maintenance personnel which had obviously not been down here in months or even years. Of the few rooms I was able to access, I ended up finding very little that I hadn't encountered before. My janitorial badge didn't open many doors. I did find an old terminal sitting in what appeared to be a small office that hadn't been used in nearly a decade but was left perfectly preserved.

Like stepping into a time capsule, I looked at some of the dated items. An old desk fan sat still next to a calendar left sitting on... September 4th, 17 years ago. I pulled a newer chair into the office and pushed the ancient desk chair to the side. Nothing against those chairs that spin, but I prefer my seats to be new and able to hold the weight of a pony. I took a look at the terminal, whoever used it left the password on a sticky note that had long since lost the sticky and fallen to the keyboard. I booted it up and typed in the password. 22LoveNote00.

I checked around the main menus on the terminal, checking for anything of interest. I did find an old game was plugged into the terminal. Booting it up, I was immediately entranced by the flashing lights. I had no idea that these computers could have games on them! It was even the kind of tape I could stick into my Pipbuck! I loaded the game and stared in amazement as a little pony appeared inside of a big maze, a few experimental key presses revealed that the arrow keys could control the direction the little green pony ran in. It looked like she was collecting dots or something. Then I ran her into a ghost. The game proved to be incredibly challenging, earning me several 'Game Over' screens before i managed to collect all the dots and get to the next maze.

I checked my Pipbuck, 2am. My shift was over, but I could look around more in this terminal, which got me to the Stable's internal mailing system. There were a few unopened emails from 17 years ago addressed to a pony named Love Note. I opened up the first one, titled 'Mare beneath the Moonlight'. Some unnamed address had sent pages of written smut to Love Note about a mare who'd met with some dashing stallion one night in a strange, fantasy garden. I have to admit, it was a good read so far and painted a very detailed picture. I saved that file to my Pipbuck for later reading. The next email was from the previous Overmare titled 'Stop'.

'Love Note, you need to stop this right now. Your stories are getting ponies curious about the outside and if I hear one more reference to your smut I'm going to snap. Your job is to write for the record keeping, not to produce trash novels. I'm giving you one last chance to just stop circulating this.'

It had remained unopened for 17 years, meaning Love Note was gone from her office before being able to read it. The most recent email, from only a year ago, had no title. I opened it up and read.

'Ruby Inkwell, you'll find this sooner or later. If you don't then I'm afraid there isn't much I can do to help you. There are big things ahead planned for you and you'll need to follow these instructions exactly if you want to make it out of this alive.'

An email, sent to an unused terminal, addressed to me? Unfortunately, the email contained nothing else but a reply box. I closed the email and went through some of the older ones. Many of them were fan letters from ponies all talking about whatever this Love Note had written. Several others had drafts of stories Love Note had sent to editors. Others, from an unnamed pony with which Love Note shared her drafts, also held sweet nothings sent between the two. I was a only a little jealous reading over Love Note's love notes. One email, sitting down at the bottom of the inbox dated only 16 years ago, caught my attention with an interesting title, 'Leaving for good'.

'Love Note, thanks for all the time you've given me, but it's time for me to sign out. Things have gotten bad in Ponyville and I'm afraid we may have to abandon the settlement if these raider attacks continue. I won't be able to access this terminal anymore and I'm not sure we'll be able to speak again.'

I checked the entire thread, it was a long conversation between the two. Love Note sent a heated reply.

'I understand you need to do what you need to do, but I really can't bear the thought of never hearing from you again. If you're leaving Ponyville, I want to come with. I know we've never met, but I want to get out of this prison and finally see you.'

'I'll see what I can do, but I don't know if I can do much from out here.'

There was a week-long gap between the next reply, the pony on the outside, who I still hadn't found a name for sent another email.

'I think I found the access code for the Stable door, but the situation out here has gotten worse. It's GGGala12. I'm going to be waiting right outside, but we need to get out of this town before the day is over.'

Nothing else. The end of the thread gave me an interesting bit of information. Maybe the code actually worked, I didn't know anypony named Love Note or even heard of a Love Note until I'd opened these emails. I wondered what became of Love Note. Had she really left Stable 56? It made me wonder what world lay beyond the sealed doorway. It had to be something better than the world contained within Stable 56. The clock read 4am, I headed back to my stall to get some sleep. Tomorrow would bring me another night shift cleaning floors down here. As I stepped out of Love Note's office, I noticed the water pooling up on the floor again, dripping down from the pipes along the ceiling. I almost grabbed my mop again but decided it wasn't my problem. I went back up the maintenance stairway to the empty 4am halls of Level 3 and went back to my stall for a lukewarm bath, food, and bedtime.

With the little ambient hum of the generators and the quite buzz of the lights, my hoofsteps sounded like thunderous explosions on the floor. The little stall door opened with a chime that rung like an alarm in the silent halls, revealing the comfortable 10x10 room I'd called home ever since I left my parents' home to live on my own. The thunderous hoofsteps stopped when I transferred from the laminate-covered metal to the soft rug I'd found on Level 6 and brought up with me on a similar late night. The carpeted floor was significantly warmer, or at least not hard and cold, to walk on and covered most of my room. A long pole hung next to my bed and the laundry basket where I deposited my jumpsuit, tomorrow's jumpsuit hung on the pole, followed by several other matching garments. My shower stall was cut off from the rest of the room by a metal sliding door, it wasn't really supposed to be used for baths, but if I placed a metal plate over the drain I could relax in a few inches of warm water. I did exactly that, setting my Pipbuck on the edge of the makeshift tub to read over some of the literature (I use the term loosely here.) I'd taken from Love Note's terminal.

Most ponies couldn't take off their Pipbucks, but I'd stolen a few diagrams from the technicians here, and found out how the lock was shaped. Using magic, I could feel around inside the tumbler of the lock and play with the pins. It required the finest telekinesis I could muster, but it was worth it to have this level of precision in the spell that everypony knew. Not really a big accomplishment, but I needed the tiny victory to get me through the days.

After a bit of fiddling, the Pipbuck popped off and I was able to have both hooves free while I read about the two ponies meeting in a veritable garden in the wasteland. Then it clicked, Love Note must've based this on her relationship with that pony from the emails. I wasn't sure how to feel about it, on one hoof it was weird knowing the backstory from it, but on the other, it was pretty good writing and kept a good balance between lewd and what felt like genuine romance. Regardless, I kept the files and limited myself to a single chapter.

After an all too relaxing bath with a story, I grabbed an apple to have before bed. Yes, I know it's bad to be eating right before bed, but I was starving and going to sleep on an empty belly is very difficult. I climbed into bed, the older box spring mattress crying out as I set my weight on it. I really needed a new mattress, and yet the Overmare seemed to miss my requests. I laid face down, with a pillow held in my forelegs to rest my chin on, any other position would hurt my back by the morning, but at least that pesky loose spring had fallen out of the bottom of the mattress and would no longer be around to stab my belly while I slept.

Author's Note

Thanks for giving this a read, I really appreciate the consideration. Obviously none of this is anywhere near final and if anyone has some ideas or edits you think I should make I'd love to hear it.
Additionally the cover art will be updating as the story progresses, it's not going to stay a sketch so you don't need to worry.