COMA

As she opened her eyes again, she was stood on a small platform of stone in a room of dark oak. The constant sound of ticking echoed around the chamber. Almost like a clock.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

She quickly peered over the candlelit room, but as far as she could see, it was mostly empty. Except for one thing - a fancy wooden door in the same shade as the rest of the room, decorated in brass. The handle was old and dusty, to the point where it looked like it was days away from falling off. Nopony had been here in a long time, it seemed. The voices were still talking, but now muffled and distant. It was hard to make out what they were saying.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" She cried out.

...

No response. Despite her disappointment, she remained vigilant as she pushed down on the door handle. However, the door seemed to be blocked by something. Just pushing wasn't going to do. Trying to force it open with her magic didn't work either, so she eventually resorted to throwing herself with her entire body weight against the door repeatedly, until the objects behind moved and she fell flat on her stomach. She coughed as she stood up from the dust cloud the books she'd knocked over had kicked up, and looked up in awe as she saw what was behind the door.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

It was a massive clocktower, filled with gears and pistons, and other clockwork machines she didn't know the purpose of. The floor she was now standing on didn't reach more than a few meters out before turning into a dead drop down, the brass machinery stretching down until it was out of sight. The segments all creaked and clanked together as they moved, seemingly unmaintained for a long time. But nonetheless, they kept the massive pendulum above her swinging. It was truly a sight to see, too bad it was apparently all just in her head. Though, the more she looked at it, she noticed that something had gone wrong - The remains of a bridge were standing on both sides of the pendulum, as if the pendant had torn straight through it. The gap looked too wide too jump, anyways. And even if she could jump across, she had no way of getting up on the bridge in the first place. It was several meters above her with no clear path there.

Twilight had grown tired of walking, but at this point there wasn't much else she could do. Various pipes reached into yet another corridor on the opposite side of the room, which was also the only way out of the clock room which wasn't locked, save for where she came from. The floorboards bent slightly as she stepped on them, just enough to scare her each time she took a step but not enough to give way. She tiptoed the rest of the way to the opposing corridor, where multiple pipes connected and stretched into different rooms. The corridor was relatively short, however, as it led into another major hall.

The room was large, but not as big as the previous one. All the pipes stretching from the other room stuck to the wall and crawled up to the ceiling, where they ended in hoses which hung down from the ceiling and connecting into something standing in the middle of the room - A pony. This was the first sign of sentient life Twilight had seen since she'd woken up, or rather fallen asleep. Twilight rushed forward to see if they could help her in any way, only to notice that it wasn't alive. But it wasn't dead. Not a statue, either. It was made of a complicated set of brass plates, connecting into movable limbs, creating a beautiful piece of art. It even had a mane of what seemed to be extremely thin gold wires. Only one piece was missing - There was a small hole for where the tail should be. But, there was no such part anywhere to be seen.

Unlike most of the things in this clockwork mess, the pony was silent. It was hard to tell due to the various noises of steam vents and pistons, but no noise or movement was coming from inside. It was unpowered. Maybe broken. Obviously, a piece was missing, but where would she find that? And how would it even help? She figured she might as well look for it - None of this was real, anyways. Is there really a point to anything if you're trapped in your own mind, unable to change anything in the real world? Well, it wouldn't hurt to keep herself busy. It was rare that anyone woke up from comatose, but she didn't want to think about her potential death, so keeping herself busy was a good option to distract herself.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

The room also had a staircase in the corner. A staircase that spiralled all the way around the room and onto the next floor. As there was no other way but back, she ascended the stairs. However, the upper floor was not what she had imagined. It looked like it had been some kind of an archive in times past. But now, shelves had fallen over and papers covered nearly the entire floor. She picked one up and looked at it, it seemed like some kind of a report at first glance, but all the forms were completely empty. The room was a mess, and there were no other doors but the one she came from. Just as she was about to leave, something glinted in her eye. She turned back around, scanning the room closely, until she spotted it - A keyring, hanging from one of the few bookcases that was still standing straight. It was caught on a drawer, suspended high in the air. Higher than her or her magic could reach. Immediately, she looked around for a way to the keyring, but no clear path was available. Unless, if she made if on top of the bookcase, she could just climb down the shelves and get to the keys that way. She couldn't climb up the bookcase, however - she wasn't strong enough for that. But, in the mess of broken shelves and all, she could probably find some other path.

She begun by stepping onto a fallen bookcase, stretching from one side of the room to the other, ramping a few meters off the ground. From there, she leapt onto a semi-collapsed shelf mounted to the wall, barely able to hold her weight. Next, she jumped towards the top of a neighbouring bookshelf, which was as tall as the one holding the key. However, she slightly missed the jump, and got stuck hanging with her upper body holding onto the top of the shelf, and her lower awkwardly hanging off to the side. In a panic from the threat of falling, she started shaking and rocking in an attempt to reach the top of the bookcase, but her idea backfired as it started leaning forward.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

All Twilight could do was hold on for dear life as the bookcase toppled forward and started to fall over, plummeting towards the ground and immense speed. Just as Twilight braced for impact, the bookcase got caught on something - The bookcase on the other side of the room, holding the key. The bookcases were taller than the room was wide - They couldn't fall over completely, they'd get stuck on each other. As she looked down, she noticed she was hanging barely above the drawer the keyring was caught on. She reached her leg out, and kicked the drawer as hard as she could. It loosened slightly, but not enough to fall down. With another kick, the drawer plummeted to the floor. But, just as she let out a sigh of relief, her grip slipped and she too fell towards the hard ground underneath.

After her second near death experience in the last minute, she opened her eyes once more to realise she'd landed in a large pile of papers. They had mostly braced the fall, but not entirely. In some way or another, she felt something in her back had moved out of place. And it hurt. Hurt enough to lose conscience. But, just as she felt herself slipping away, she heard it again.

"We're here! I hope we're not intruding on anything."

"No, Mrs. Velvet, you're not. Twilight hasn't had a visitor in a few days."

Days? A few... Days? No, that wasn't possible. She'd heard them talking just a moment ago. It couldn't have been more than an hour, right?

Right?