Walking in Shadows

by Moonlit_Stardust

Rating: mature
Tags: Violence, Tragedy, Twilight Sparkle, Anthro, Profanity, Applejack, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Death, Human, Rainbow Dash, Adventure
Length: 5116

Long have the shadows been, but now one walks them. A being not of this world, cast to the shadows.

A being dropped into a dark forest of shadows, ripped from his reality and shoved into another.

Seeking help he finds nothing but pain and torment, what will he do?

The shadow path is now open to him, for he Walks in Shadows. Where will the Darkness take him? Well let’s find out.

Published 2020-08-20 21:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2020-12-31 22:10:55 UTC

Shadow of the Forest

I find myself laying down on what feels like dirt, very much in pain, though why I don’t know. The last thing I remember is walking down the stairs outside of my apartment and that’s it. It’s an odd feeling, having a gap in your memory like this. You know something is meant to be there but no matter how hard you try, all you come up with is a white blank and a headache.

I move my hand slowly to my head, it hurts like hell but then again what doesn’t at this point. Rubbing my head seems to make some of the pain go away but now I have to get up off the ground and I just know it’s gonna suck Horse Dick.

…..One word: ow.

Okay I am unstable as all hell, but I am now standing and from one look around I feel like I am in a demented version of the Sequoia National Park. It’s just tree after tree after tree as far as I can see in every direction. I don’t like this one bit, mind I love the outdoors….. But this place has this kind of bad mojo about it and every instinct I have is telling me to get the fuck out.

“Well, I have a sudden fear for my life” is all I can mumble right now and boy is my throat and mouth dry, It feels like I have gargled sand.

I need to get out of this forest, it gives me the creeps to no end. But which way do I go? I guess it can be any direction seeing as all there is are trees in any given line of sight. So look around, what’s the thinnest underbush in any given vector. What was it people said? The thinnest amount is the way most traveled?

Looks like the thinest is to my general left from where I was laying when I woke up, that might just be the best way to go. I must be close to the edge of the forest, maybe less than a mile or two? If I was any deeper the underbrush would be taller and thicker. I need to keep a decent pace but at the same time be careful and as quiet as I can be, as there is no telling what lives in this place.

“Right” I mumble “I don’t know how long I have until Dark, so let’s get moving” and what kind of predators come out after dark goes without being said.

With that in mind I start my hobling walk, it still hurts to move but it’s lessening the longer I move. I can only hope that the pain will be gone before I get out of this forest, I know I am no longer on Earth if by nothing other than the taller than they should be Trees. With how close they are together, it’s a wonder how I didn’t end up inside of one when I was…..transported here? Portaled here? However I got here.

You know, now that I am on that train of thought how did I even get here; where ever here is, in the first place? I mean I know I am not in my world anymore as that was easy to tell from the get go, but just how far off the mark am I that being transportaled here made every fiber of my being hurt.

Hell, how do I get back? I left so much behind, my mum, my home, my dog. Can I even go back home? Am I stuck here never to see everything and everyone I love! No, no, no I can’t start thinking about that, not now, I need to find a way out of this forest and maybe someone to help me. Survival first, then breakdown.

Thinking of that, am I alone here? If not then what kind of beings exist here, will they be friendly or will I be attacked on sight? Can they even speak the same language? Do they even USE vocal communication like I do?

As this is all spinning through my head I start slowing my pace through the brush of the forest, eventually leading me to stop in a small clearing. I can see more light ahead of me signaling an edge to the forest and my freedom of it.

But as I stand there I start to think if I even SHOULD leave the forest, at least should I leave it now. I don’t know what is out there or even IF there is anything out there to begin with. For all I know it could be a barren wasteland or a desert.

Then again I know little about the forest I am in anyway, for all I know it could be far safer out there. As it stands I am still getting that creepy feeling even though I am slow close to the edge of this place.

So I guess it is a toss up between staying in here and potentially dying and going out there and also potentially dying, boy what a choice!

I let out a sigh and sink down against a tree, I guess I can peek out past the tree line and see what’s out there. If it’s a barren wasteland I can just stay in here and follow the edge until I find more hospitable lands and if it’s not I can head out of this creepy forest and find whatever passes for civilization.

With my plan of action in place, my sanity at it’s breaking point and my adrenaline pumping I get up and head for the light at the edge of insanity. As I pass the tree line my sight is robbed from me for a moment and as it comes back I am astonished.

Green fields, flowers and small animals, trees much smaller than the monsters in the forest, bushes and to my relief I can see the tops of what I can only assume are buildings in the distance. They are still a good distance away, maybe two and some change miles but it is at least comforting to know that who ever calls this planet home is civilized to a small margin.

Once my astonishment passes I start walking to what I am going to call a small village, it will take a couple of hours due to the distance, but at least I might be able to find help.

Or so I hope, for all I know it could be a village of Cannibals or cut throats and I am walking to my doom.

As I am walking I get this feeling of being watched, though I quickly shrug it off as the animals paying attention to what they think is a predator. Though that feeling doesn’t go away and as I reach the half mile into my walk the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I start hearing a low but growing whistling sound.

I stop and spin in place, trying to find the growing sound. As the sound reaches an ear splitting volume I look up, the last thing I see is a blue appendage connecting with my forehead.

Thwak!

Then black.

Author's Note

Well here we go!

The Chamber Beneath

I jerk awake what feels like moments after my less than stellar impact with whatever the hell it was, my head is killing me to boot. It has brought back all the aches and pains from my arrival ten fold.

I try and bring my hand up to rub my head, but find that I can’t move it at all. I open my eyes and look down to my right to see my wrist. Bound in some type of binding. I then slam my head up and around looking at where I am, the area I am in is poorly lit and small. Maybe about the size of a small Basement from what I can see from my limited angle.

I experiment with my legs, only to find that they are bound too. I start jerking my arms up and down, there is some give to the rests on, what I can only assume is a chair, it would take time but I would be able to free an arm. Now just to figure out where I am and how to get out, I also need to figure out what to do if what is happening is what I think is happening and work out a plan of escape with force if nessicary.

Okay so assuming I was knocked out, and it's looking far more likely that was the case, then I need to keep quiet. I am in a place that I know nothing about and among what I can only assume is a hostile people.

I also need to keep moving my arm in the restraint, as I can feel the rest it is attached to moving more and more. I don’t know how long I have been here or how long I have been out like a light, for all I know it could have been hours or days and with no windows I have nothing to judge the sun's movement by.

It’s been roughly an hour since I came too in this room, and so far nothing has come down to greet me. I can’t decide if that is a good thing or not though as it might mean I have been left down here to rot. I am starting to get Hungry and have been thirsty since I woke up, didn’t trust any water I found not to give me the shits so I never touched any of it out in the forest.

About another hour, I think, later I start to hear what I assume in movement above me. It sounds like a good number of people, if I had to make a guess I would say between three and eight. They are walking around what I can only assume is multiple rooms, though that’s a guess at best. But if it’s right, then that means the above space is larger than the area I am in.

It’s maybe another thirty minutes before I hear the creaking of stairs in front of me, from the Rhythm it is only one person coming down them. I force myself to slump forward with my head down as I hear the pair of feet hit the last steps and the landing to the basement.

After a few moments there is a creaking sound and a few more steps that now sound like clacking metal.The sound of the approaching clacking get’s nearer and nearer as a resounding creek thud comes from the door likely closing behind the person entering the room.

The clacking sound stops right in front of me, whoever this is must be observing me. I try and keep my breathing steady and focus on my hearing so I can try and understand my situation and how to get out of this person's captivity. I move my wrist slightly to check the rest it’s tied to, it’s loose enough that one good yank will pull it away and free me.

I listen as the person starts moving again; to my left, around the back of me and then around my right side and back to the front. Completing a full circle, the scratching of a pen (did they always have that?) on rough paper and a slight Hum follows. It’s only a moment before I start hearing a few mumbles, though I can’t pick anything out with how low volume it is.

It’s maybe a minute or so later that I hear the first words spoken, thankfully in English, by my my captor.

“Subject shows no signs of waking yet, though whether that is due to head injury or not is yet to be seen”

If you suspect I have a fucking HEAD INJURY then why haven’t you taken me to a hospital ya cunt!

“To recount for the record: the Subject is a bipedal, hairless, ape like being. Due to a run in with a certain Overzealous friend, the Subject has been in a coma like state for three weeks, two days, eight hours and as such I can not assess the Subjects mental acuity, intelligence, ability or lack of to speak”

Oi! I am not an ape you Cunt! But holy hell three weeks? I must look like a mess, have they been feeding me or even giving me water or a substitute?! Then again, they likely don’t know what I eat and that also likely explains the aches and pains I have.

“Subject is of at least 6 feet or greater in height, has fur on it’s head with light coatings on it’s four apendages”

Appendages? Doesn’t she mean arms? There is a clacking sound again and within a moment I feel a soft poke at one of my arms.

“Subject has soft, but likely durable hide with visible if taught muscle structure underneath”

Oi! Stop it with the poking, stop it!

“When examined closer during subjects coma like state, it’s mouth sports both canid like incisors and flat crunching teeth inductive of both a Carnivorous and Herbivorous diet”

Okay so scratch my previous thought, they DID know what I likely ate, the more I hear the more I am starting to dislike this person.

“Subject has been showing general signs of malnourishment and Dehydration after two weeks, thus at the end of this session I will be attempting a revival spell to see if the subject can be forcefully awoken, though I will only do so after taking various samples”

Wait what? Spell? DID I get kidnapped by some Cult or something? And what does she mean by Samples?! Okay, okay I will wait for her to get in close to try and cast this so called “Spell” at which point I will attempt my escape through Force. I am NOT waiting for this Crazy Cunt to do something irreversible to me.

“I will now take blood and tissue samples from the Subject, though I will do so by Hand as we do not yet know what kind of reaction the Subject will have to Magical Fields”

Magic? What the hell is she talking about? I am really not liking this, but at least she is getting closer to me and that is exactly what I need. From the sounds of the clacks, I just need to wait a moment more.

Any moment now, wait for it. THERE! I Thrust my hand forward with Force and the Chair Rest comes away with the sound of popping wood, once it comes free I swing it and my hand to my right. Within a moment the swing makes contact with Flesh and then all that is heard is a Girly squeak and resounding thud.

“Eep”

Thwack

Thud

Author's Note

Chapter 2 on its way, let me know what you guys think and if you see a mistake point it out!

Ascending into Light

I freeze in a moment of stunned silence, before I start scrambling to get my restraints off. It doesn’t take long to do so, they are just simple Nylon-like straps that are firmly held in place by wire ties. As I am doing this I am also keeping my ears open to sounds and movement on the floor above me, I don’t think anyone heard the commotion, but I also don’t want to be caught flat footed if they did.

After about a minute or so of fiddling with the restraints I am finally free of them, but I am far from out of the woods just yet. I stand up and look around, it is indeed a basement or some equivalent and is just chock full of scientific equipment with the chair I was restrained to in the direct middle of the room.

The room itself is rather large, maybe twenty feet by thirty feet with a good ten or fifteen foot ceiling. There are no adjoining rooms, well none that I can see anyway and other than the plain wood door leading to what I assume is stairs leading up and the massive amount of previously mentioned equipment I see nothing more of interest.

Though I can identify a few of the machines sounding me; heart monitor, Electrocardiogram and even an Intravenous pump system. It’s odd though, you don’t really see these outside of a hospital, mostly due to the expense of the systems and the knowledge needed to program and run them. Whoever it is that was using me as a test subject must…. Be…..well…..

Fuck.

If my captor has all this Expensive equipment, then they are from a very well off family or connected to some type of government department or or chain of command with a good amount of influence and money. Which is very bad for me as I just whacked said person over the head with a very heavy and very dense object. Much as I don’t care about the person who tied me to a chair and has likely been experimenting on me for the entire time I have been out like a light, I also don’t want to be hunted like a wild animal should they be dead or bleeding out.

I look back towards the chair and then behind it, laying there on the ground is, well I don’t know how to explain it. The shape is Humanoid, but that’s where it ends. It, no she definitely a she, has a Violet, almost Purple, fur on her body and a protruding snout with large-ish eyes. She has two arms ending in humanoid fingers and two Unguligrade legs ending in what I can only suspect is hooves.

What’s odd, well more odd, is that she is wearing a very...Form fitting school girl-ish uniform that accentuates her curves in a very beautiful way. On top of her head, just above her eyebrows is what I can only guess is a Horn or some other bone-like protrusion.

As I look at her head I can see where I hit her, it looks just as bad as I expected. There is a large Gash, though it’s not bleeding very much so she won’t bleed to death at least. But I suspect that she is going to have a major headache when she comes too. Serves her right in the end, I am not a test subject that one can study just because I look different.

I spin back around and start making my way towards the door she came though, with closer inspection it is as I though a wooden door but with iron barding running from left to right and from top to bottom. It almost reminds me of those old castle doors you see in pictures, the ones that are designed to be used as holding points when the castle is under attack. There seems to be a pull handle in place of a doorknob but I kind of expected that by the way the door looks.

I reach out and grab the handle and very slowly start pulling the door open, it gives low creaking noise as the hinges move but otherwise its smooth. Once the door is fully open I can see a short hallway that leads to a short staircase that ascends a good five or six feet to another door of the same type I am holding open. So chances are this next door either opens out onto the outside of the building above me or, and this is more likely, it opens to the inside of the building I am under.

I am hoping more for option two as I begin climbing the stairs, it would mean I would be less exposed to hostile elements and would give me an opening to…..liberate some food if possible before I attempt to retreat to the forest I was in before being knocked out. It may have been giving me a bad feeling, but at this point I feel more welcome in it, then I am here.

I can now see a bit of light coming from under the door now that I am less than a foot from it, so it is a toss up as to where it leads, though I am guessing to an interior by the amount of light. I reach the top of the stairs and subsequently the small landing in front of the door and as i do I lean into it and listen for movement for a time. It is only a minute or two later of listening and getting no noise that I step back and out of the way of the door so I can open it.

I pull the handle and it slowly opens with a creak even WORSE then the one before. I flinch at the sound but keep slowly opening it, the worst that can happen is that the other sets of foo-hoof falls that I think was other persons that came into the building with the girl down below. The door fully opens and I am treated by the very last thing I expect to see, it's a bloody LIBRARY!

What in the bloody Fuck is this shit, I was under a Library this entire time! How, no WHY does a Library have such expensive medical equipment in it’s basement…...was I held captive and tested on by a Librarian? That makes no sense, the equipment alone likely costs as much, if not more than every single book on each and every shelf in here! This makes no sense, none whatsoever.

Oh fuck it, I just need to get out of here before something else happens and then and only then can I try and parse out what in the actual fuck is going on. Okay, look around and what do I see, hmm a lot of books, a stairway leading up to my left and…..Ah ha a Door that more than likely leads out of this confusing hellhole!

I need to be careful though, even a slight look at the floors tells me they are wooden and wood means creaking. Okay one foot at a time, slow and steady closer, closer…...Okay now quickly but quietly open the door and….

Creeeeeaaak

Gah! Does no one oil these door hinges or do they get some sick pleasure out of the sound! Right light is now streaming in from the open door and I am out! I am Free! Now just to sneak away without bei-

“Hey, where do YOU think you are going monster!”

…..Fuck.

Author's Note

Okay a bit late, but I got the Rewrite done and I am happy with it. Though the downside is the next two chapters have to go though the same type of editing :facehoof:

Anyway Enjoy the chapter and if anyone spots issues let me know :pinkiehappy:

Under blue clouded skies

I look around for where the voice came from, I see no one…..I slowly trail my head up and see a blue furred girl hovering on Wings just a few feet in front of me.

….Well considering that I have already seen a woman with a Horn on her head and dressed like she came straight out of a Teacher themed porn video, I shouldn’t be surprised by a Girl with Wings who looks like she just walked out of a Gym.

This girl has blue furred skin, on her back is a pair of large blue wings that are currently lightly flapping to keep her in a hover. She is wearing black gym shorts that leave little to the imagination and a tight white sports bra. Her hair is very distracting as it has every color of the rainbow and is tied into a ponytail.

I just stare at her, I know I have seen that shade of blue befor-.....Oh this Bitch, this is the Bitch who knocked my ass out with a sucker punch to the face! It explains why my memory shows the flash of blue coming from above me and why I didn’t hear her before she hit me.

Hmm, let’s piss her off, not like she can do any worse to me at this point. I mean I know how she knocked me out and now that I am aware I am NOT in fact alone here she can’t get the drop on me anymore.

I slowly raise my fist up, once it’s pointed at here I slowly and methodically….Raise my middle finger and flip her off. The effect is almost instant, her jaw clenches and her perfectly timed wing beats fall out of sync causing her to fall out of the hover she was maintaining and lands on her rear on the ground with a soft Thump.

I keep my face neutral as I start to walk right by her, but it is taking all my might to keep my laughter in my head. It had been so long since the last time I was able to do something like that, mostly due to how many people take it!

I hadn’t gotten more than twenty feet before the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and on pure instinct I ducked and threw my elbow up. Moments later there was a grunt and low cry of pain above me, after which a blue blur comes landing on the dirt hard in front of me before rolling to it’s feet and turning back towards me.

It’s Blue Bitch again.

I stand back up quickly as she starts her charge towards me, within a few moments she is on me as I throw myself to the side and out of her path. She at this point starts skidding to a stop so I charge towards her and takle her to the ground.

I land on stop of her, stradling her sides, her wings spread open. In my Adrenaline saturated mind I drop my right knee on her right wing and twist, with a sickening crunching sound and her wailing scream I break her wing.

Before I can do much more, a glint of gold comes from my left and I am forced to roll right and off Blue Bitch to avoid a lasso. As I roll to my feet I glance in the direction that it came from to see a well built and VERY busty orange woman standing there reeling in the lasso.

The woman is a little over five feet tall, golden blond hair and dazzling green eyes. She has muscles on her Muscles from what I can see of her exposed skin, which is quite a lot considering she is wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes, a tied red checker shirt that stops just below her impressive bust and a set of Knee high boots over her Hooves and on her head is a faded brown stetson with a notch in the rim at the front.

I look behind me and realize the fight landed me close to the edge of the Forest I had made my way out of, maybe less than a dozen yards just beyond a row of buildings. Looking back at the woman in front of me and more specifically her muscles, I know that trying to fight her would likely land me in a world of hurt and right back into the mad purple woman’s lab again.

So with a two finger salute I turn on my heels and start a mad dash for the Forest, behind me I hear a yell of frustration and surprise. It only took a few minutes but I made it into the forest deep enough to lose any followers.

I stop after a few minutes of running and slide down the side of a tree, the Adrenaline wearing off as I sit there and the shakes of withdrawal start taking over my body with a vengeance. It becomes all I can do to not pass out from the sudden dizziness, so I struggle back to my feet and keep moving.

It was another maybe thirty minutes of walking before I stumbled into a clearing, it was very large at maybe a football field across and at it’s center was a large and old building that almost reminded me of a Town Hall out of one of those central US towns. It was weathered and had vines and grass growing up and around it, but otherwise looked like it was only maybe thirty years old at best.

With fatigue setting in at a more rapid pace I started out for it’s front door, it wasn’t more than a few hundred feet but it felt like miles. I got to the door and pushed on it, with a creak and moan of metal reinforced wood it opened.

The inside looked new, dusty and dirty, but new. It almost looked like it was abandoned less then a few months ago, it’s creepy but I have no other shelter. I move my way though the main greeting area and to a door at the far end behind what I assume was the receptionist desk. I swipe my hand on the glass of the door and reveal…..symboles, at a guess I would think this is the writing script of these bastard beings.

After a few moments of staring, I push on the door and open it. Behind the door is a rather large office, a Desk and chair in front of me and to my right a large lounge Couch. The walls are adorned with pictures of various beings and the right side of the office has a corner to corner, floor to ceiling bookcase.

With my quick look around done I make a beeline for the couch, damn whatever bugs and creepy Crawlies that might be inhabiting it! I reach it and fall facefirst on in in a puff of dust and am out like a light, my last thought being ‘damn those bastards’

With that darkness overtakes me and the realm of dreams awaits.

Author's Note

Well Happy New Years everypony! I figured as it's New Years Eve that I would lead in 2021 with a New Chapter!

I am fully expecting Flak for this chapter and welcome it! I did say this was gonna be a Dark story and this is just the beginning!

As always tell me what you think, what I can improve on and how you like the chapter!