COMA

"We brought flowers. May I?"

"Sure, there's a vase on the nightstand."

"How's our daughter doing?"

And then... Silence. One of the voices she recognized, the one she guessed belonged to a doctor. The other ones were familiar, but once again, she couldn't put her hoof on why. From what she heard, one must be... Her mother. But that's impossible. How could she forget her own mother? Despite her denial, it was true that she just couldn't remember her mother's face. Or the way she talked. Or... Well, anything.

She opened her eyes once more, her head resting on the paper underneath. The clocks around beyond the walls were still ticking, just as loud as before. Despite how we perceive it, time keeps passing. With or without you. As soon as she stood up, she felt a sharp pain in her back - She'd fallen down. From where exactly or why, she couldn't remember, but she knew she needed that keyring that was lying slightly further down the hill of papers. Once more, she tried to stand up, and this time found relative success. Even though her back's complaints, she had managed to stand up.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

As she looked closer on the ring, she noticed that one was not like the others - A wind-up key. Like one you'd see in toys. Only, this one was relatively large. Roughly the size of her eye. The rest of the keys had gnarled, eccentric shapes. They didn't exactly look like they'd fit in any kind of lock. But, none of this was real anyways, so she lifted the keyring up with her magic as she moved back towards the main room with all the machinery.

On one side of the room was a door. She'd tried to open it before, but it was locked. Maybe one of these distorted keys would fit? It seemed ridiculous, but the sky's the limit in a dream. First, she tried a key shaped like a spiral staircase, which was too large to even fit in the lock. The next key she grabbed crumbled to dust before she could tell what it even was. The third one was just a blank slate. Nevertheless, she stuck it in the lock, and rotated.

Click.

Surprisingly enough, the door slid open, revealing the room behind. Somehow, it was even more dusty than the rest. It seemed to be some old classroom, or at least something of the sort. In the middle of the room, there was a table with a few blue papers laid out on it. There was also another staircase, leading to the floor above. First, she approached the table. It had multiple blueprints and sketches from the mechanical pony a few rooms over. Maybe she could find out what the missing piece was based on them. She knew how to read blueprints.

She moved around blueprint after blueprint, displaying how the interior works, the lights in its eyes, and other inner machinery, until she spotted one that displayed the pony's side. Attached to the spot where a pony's tail should be was a clockwork key. Just like the one hanging on her keyring. Was this it's use? Despite that she was eager to try it, she first checked what the staircase in the room led to.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

She now had a frontal view of the swinging pendulum. She was standing atop one half of the broken bridge. From this perspective, it was easier to see that she had no chance of making it to the other side. Besides, the risk of getting hit by the pendant was not worth it. She turned back around and made her way towards the room with the clockwork pony.

The pony had not moved. It was just as still as last she'd seen it. She didn't expect it to move, but it was almost a bit disheartening that it had no idea of what was happening around it. Well, soon it would. Maybe. If they key works. And if it will even become alive. She circled around to the back of the pony, removing the wind-up key from the ring and sticking it in the empty slot. So far it had not responded.

Twilight grabbed ahold of the key with her magic, and wound the pony up a few times. At first, nothing happened. She waited a couple minutes, and just as she was about to leave, she heard a steam vent release within the room. One of the hoses had disconnected from the pipe which was now spewing thick steam into the room. The mechanical pony shook as it sprung to life, eyes lit up by yellowish headlights, and started marching straight forwards, tugging at the cables and hoses as it moved. The pipes creaked as they were pulled from their foundation, and the whole pipe structure started loosening from the ceiling.

"No! Stop! It's gonna break!" Twilight yelled out to the pony, which did not take note of her existence. Instead, it pulled the hoses harder and harder, until they fell off completely and smashed through the floor, leaving a massive hole. The pony itself, now detached from the hoses, kept walking towards the room with the pendulum. Twilight practically hugged the wall, shimmying over the narrow piece of floor that still remained. She made it across just in time to see the mechanical pony step out onto the weak flooring. It was barely strong enough to support Twilight, so when the pony stepped onto it, it gave way and it fell straight through. Twilight sprinted over to the newly formed hole and looked down, noticing how the fallen pony had gotten stuck in the gears, causing the pendulum to stop and reset.

Tick...

Twilight ran back up to the broken bridge. Even though it wasn't that thick, the pendulum could maybe be used as a makeshift platform to get to the other side. If the pony got crushed, the pendulum would begin to swing again. If she was going to do something, she'd have to do it now. Twilight reached back, sprinted, and jumped...

She narrowly landed on the pendulum. looking down onto the machinery below, she watched as exactly what she'd feared happened - gears and springs were being flung around from the lifeless pony still hanging in the clockwork. As parts fell off, the machinery started to move slightly, making the pendulum to start picking up momentum once more. It was now or never. Once more, she took a deep breath, balanced herself as well as she could, and leapt.

It wasn't exactly a smooth landing. She'd made it over, but she'd landed straight on her back and rolled a few meters. A loud crunch was heard from below as the automaton was crushed to bits, the steam inside of it erupting and causing it to detonate. With that, the entire machine started coming down, and Twilight watched as the pendulum fell into the abyss below. Despite all the hardship she'd faced, she'd made it over. The only thing left to do now was see if it was worth it.

She pushed open the door on the side of the bridge connecting to the wall. Inside was a poorly lit corridor. The only light coming in was through a large crack in the wall. With no other choice, Twilight stepped inside and peered through the crack. There was nothing outside. Just pure white, streaming into the room. Even though she couldn't see anything outside the crack, she could hear - again, voices. Talking about her.

"Doctor, why is she looking so, umm... Pale?"

"Yes, I must say she's looking, err... Rather unwell."

"We haven't yet been able to diagnose her sudden loss of colour.

"Well, you better hurry up or I'll diagnose you with my hoof in your face!"

"Cool it, Dash. They're doin' the best they can, y'hear? An' what's up with you, Pinkie? You ain't usually this quiet."