Hollow Hope

"Ugh. Wish this thing worked." Cloudy fumbled and fiddled with the thing in her hooves--a flashlight, of the emergency hoof-cranked kind.

"Let me try--" Sunny pulled it into his magic field, twisting the crank; nothing happened. It didn't make so much as a whirr, nor did it emit so much as a candle's light. "I bet Torque would know what's wrong with this thing," he muttered, as he dragged it along behind him, next to the wrench. He'd have to find something to carry all this junk around in, soon.

"Eh, well. I can hide better in the dark anyway," Cloudy said, cantering on ahead.

"Stay close, Cloudy--!" But Sunny's voice was drowned out by a creaking, groaning echo; dust began to fall around them, the musty cave walls trembling and cracking. A piston jutted through the ceiling, and an iron beam fell down alongside it, crossing out the path Cloudy had taken; she loosed a brief shriek, before clapping a hoof over her mouth.

"Sunny!"

"I hear you," he said, poking at the twisted, rusted wreckage; it responded by shifting as a third shaft of iron came down from the ceiling, neatly cutting off the space Sunny was going to squeeze through. "Keep going! This part of the cave isn't gonna hold."

"...okay," Cloudy shouted back. "Stay safe, all right? I don't wanna run into that thing again, and I don't want you to run into it either."

"You too!" Sunny turned back, lighting his horn; there was a side passage here, and it would at least go somewhere he hasn't been yet. Perhaps it'll loop around to where Cloudy is, he thinks to himself, as he trots into the dark.

Rock and water gave way once more to rust and blood; Sunny wrinkled his nose at it, scowling. "How did all of this get here, anyway? Torque can't have built it all..."

He poked his head into the hall--wincing as he watched spinning sawblades, soaked in blood, just behind worn-down wire mesh so thoroughly corroded that it appeared to be moth-eaten. Satisfied that nothing in this saw-room was actively trying to kill him, Sunny stepped out of the door frame, and walked slowly past the blades. Something in the distance clunked, and he jumped nearly a foot in the air, as meat hooks shook themselves free of the ceiling and began idly swinging; a moment later, they began trundling along, dragged through the air by chains and gears. Behind the wire mesh, in the inky black, he saw more hooks--these ones laden with bodies. He turned away as the first body met the sawblade, trying not to think about the sickening crunch of bone and the wet slurp of blood leaving a carcass.

He picked up the pace after that. He didn't want to find out who--or what--put those bodies on the hooks.

Once the wire underhoof had turned to carpet, Sunny allowed himself a glance at the walls; and when he saw that they were covered in moldering, but intact wallpaper, he breathed a sigh of relief. The carpet was still stained with the disgusting off-white pus that it had been covered in earlier, but at least he didn't feel like he was in a butcher's back room. He tried the first door he found, and upon twisting the handle, walked in without a second thought.

It wasn't until the other pony in the room opened her mouth that he actually noticed her. Her coat was a gentle beige; her mane and tail were a deep scarlet that matched a scarf she had wound around her throat. A horn poked out between her curls.

"Having fun yet?" she said, and Sunny jumped again.

"What--who--"

"Long Night," she said, extending a hoof. Sunny shook it before he knew what he was doing. "I'm doing a little research," she explained with a yawn, as she pulled her hoof back and casually ran her tongue over it.

"What kind of research could you be doing at a time like this?" Sunny asked, trotting around the room. She monopolized it; the only furniture in the little sitting room was a single chair and a side-table beside it. Long Night reached for a red-covered notebook, lifting it from the side-table as she levitated a pen out from behind her ear.

"Did you know," she said simply, "that dreams are how our minds organize things?"

"How could you be talking about dreams at a time like--"

"Sunny. You knew this already, didn't you?" she purred, stretching across the arms of the chair. "You know how dreams can reflect our lives."

Sunny opened his mouth to object, but stopped short. He felt a strange, slowly-rising dread building itself in the pit of his stomach, not strong enough to act upon, but too present to ignore.

"Tell me, Sunny. Have you had any interesting dreams lately?" she said with a smirk. Reclined sideways across the chair, she levitated the notebook and pen away for a moment as she idly pawed at the carpet.

"...if you count all this--" He gestured to the room, and the world outside it--"As a nightmare, then yes. An altogether too interesting nightmare."

Long Night simply grinned from ear to ear. "Yes, it is, isn't it?"

Sunny reached blindly toward a wall--his hoof found a doorknob--and he was out of the room before he had time to think about it.

His ears pricked up as he heard a dull thud echo up the hall. A low growl caught his attention, and he picked up speed, galloping past a series of nailed-shut doors and rounding a corner--

Before him was a leonine figure, her bronze coat stained with blood and white ichor. Below her, a headless griffon-thing twitched--blood pulsed and spurted out of a hole in its flank, where the handle of a knife rested under the figure's golden paw. She frowns, and with a flap of her wings, she yanks the knife free and hops away from the disgusting mess. The bags under her eyes were hidden by thick circles of deep purple, clashing with the brilliant shock of white that framed her head.

"Gilda?" Sunny whispered.

"Hm?" The figure turned to him, trotting closer--and a moment later, he realized his mistake; she had no beak. This was a pegasus, not a griffon. "You talkin' to me?" she asked, tilting her head as she stuffed the knife into a sheath under her wing. "'Cuz my name's not Gilda. It's Glider. Gilded Glider...I guess I see how you mixed it up, though."

"Sorry," Sunny muttered. "I mistook you for someone else--"

"Don't worry about it. Any friendly face is a good one with these freaks running around," she grumbled, idly stomping on the headless monster's body with a hindleg. "Come on. I found a room with a lock that actually works." She beckoned him with a gloved forehoof, before turning to saunter away, her tail swinging as she strutted down the hall. Sunny followed, too relieved to notice.