COMA

Twilight stepped back as the light from the crack faded, and the voices grew distant. The imposing silence made her realise
just how desolate and lonely she was, trapped in her own mind. Not even the clocks hummed their ever marching symphony anymore. Despite how intimidating the unstoppable passing of time was, the solidary ticking of clockwork had been the only thing she'd had to listen to. With them gone, she only heard the light strumming of her hooves, and flames.

...Flames? Those hadn't always been there, had they? She turned around from whence she came, only to see embers crawling in from under the door. The explosion from that pony must've lit the wooden walls on fire. The rising heat led to pipes in rooms around her whilstling aggressively, some causing the entire building to shake as they burst. The previously dark corridor had begun to light up from the dancing fire beneath, as it crawled through cracks in the floor. When shreds of the door behind her came flying as the temperature rose, Twilight felt that was her cue to run.

She sprinted down the corridor, narrowly evading collapsing walls and remains of destroyed pipes falling down. Around twists and turns, trying to outrun the raging flames behind her. They spared nothing that dared get in their way, so much so that the entire tower had begun to tilt, the creaking walls giving way to fire's unbearable fury. Wooden grains and pieces of metal were hailing from the ceiling like fiery raindrops from the sky. As she made one final turn, she saw it - A windowed door, displaying a field of grass outside. She amped up the pace in the final stretch, but fate had other plans.

Just as she was about to reach the door, a massive gear fell from above, crushing the ground and causing it to give way. The ground crumbling and falling before Twilight had her between a rock and a hard place - A devastating fall and scorching blaze. She turned around, to see the flames crawling ever closer. She attempted to back away, but as she approached the very edge of the remaining ground, she stepped on an outlying board, sticking out over the pit, causing it to break and for her to fall into the abyss below.

"Luna, can you visit to her? Inside her dream, I mean."

"I'm afraid not, sister. She is too far gone, even for me."

"Maybe she wasn't ready to bear wings, after all..."

Twilight opened her eyes. If it wasn't already clear before, the fact that she was dreaming was obvious now, as she was completely unscathed from the long fall. It was dark, and she couldn't see much except silhouettes washed in bluish tones, like under the night sky. The bedlam had stopped far up above, faint ashes sailing down from the tower's remnants. She lit up her horn to see through the thick shadows, to reveal what seemed to be an old, abandoned underground part of the tower. The room she was in looked like a cellar, it's planked walls collapsed and bent from the dirt behind. Webs of dust littered the room, clear signs of ages of unuse. The large piece of machinery that fell before her was nowhere to be seen. It must've landed in an adjacent room.

The room seemed to be in some kind of a cave, built far below the tower. It was also notably warm inside. Not burning like fire, but like stale air on a hot summer day. It was dead silent when she pushed open the door, as it immediately fell of it's hinges, the thump suppressed by the dust. The corridor behind was empty and looked to have been cleared out. If it ever served any purpose, it was gone now. The only things within were doors that lined the walls, each with a number like you'd see in a hotel. Silently, she pushed one of the doors open, revealing somewhat of an old bedroom. Only, the bed had snapped in half, and most other furniture was gone or broken. It was almost eerie seeing something that used to carry life be this empty.

All of the rooms looked the same, with differing durability of the furniture. All except one. It's walls had been scratched to Tartarus and the walls had been painted with symbols and spirals, none of which were familiar to her. All things carried a story, and they all form together to create history. Watching it from the future, knowing you weren't apart of it, is disheartening sometimes. It only further reinforced the feeling of solitude. The intense lonelyness. She didn't belong here, and she didn't intend to stay.

One of the walls in the room stood out to her. It looked more frail than the rest. As she approached, she could feel heat pulsing through the wood. There was empty space behind the wall. It must've been some kind of mining vent at some point. Neither she nor her magic were strong enough to tear the planks down, not even bucking it had any noticable effect. It did, however, bend slightly on impact. They could move, they could be broken. Especially with how old they were. All she needed was an axe or a crowbar or something of the sort. If dirt could tear down the walls of this place, so could she. She just needed a tool of some sort. Too bad most of the place seemed to be cleared out.

The only other way to go was at the end of the corridor. A rather large, plain door was stood there. She pushed it open, and inside she saw another one of those robots, except this one was a unicorn. It was standing on it's hind legs, clutching to a cross for support. Seemingly it had been used as a makeshift walking cane, even though it was a bit taller than an average pony, as well as the automaton. Unlike the other, this one appeared to only be a husk, mostly empty on the inside. A shell with all the important parts removed. Rather heavy, too. At first glance, it looked like this one too was missing it's key, but upon closer inspection, it had just snapped but was still lodged in the hole. The only other thing in the room was a door, blocked by rubble and broken planks. She guessed they must've landed there during the commotion.

The idea of finding a tool seemed like a lost cause. There weren't anymore places to look, and the places she'd passed through had all been empty. Bashing the wall with a rock from where she fell didn't work, either. Twilight sat down on the bed in the odd room. Is this where it ended? Would she just be stuck in this here forever? No, she was smart. Surely there must be something she can do... Think logically.

Rocks aren't optimal to swing as they don't have a handle for leverage. Even if she had one, she had no way to attach it to the rock. She could probably get a makeshift handle from one of the broken pieces of furniture in here. But she'd still need something she could attach to it. Like something she could slot into position. But where would she find that, here? This place was just full of garbage and a broken robot. Or, well, it wasn't broken, but the key was.

That's when she got an idea. She didn't actually need to crank the key manually, she could just rotate the piece still inside the robot with telekinesis. She hurried back over to the room, immediately beginning to turn the key around. Despite how hollow it was, it still seemed to contain enough parts to start. Well, kind of at least. One of it's eyes flickered to life, shining in pale blue. However, just as it raised the cross to start moving, it fell over from it's own weight, causing it's head to loosen. Disappointed, Twilight stared at the collapsed robot in front of her. She didn't exactly know what she expected it to do, but it wasn't this.

That's when she noticed it. The head was slotted onto a mechanical skeleton inside. That meant you could attach a handle to it. Twilight walked around the metal corpse and picked it's head up, it's blue eye still active, staring straight forward. It's horn sparked a bit when she removed it from the skeleton, presumably some kind of artificial magic now disconnected. She carried the notably heavy head back to the scratched room, placing it beside the bed. Now she just needed a handle. She left the room and once more began to walk through the other doors, looking at the broken furniture for a suitable handle. The boards beneath the bed were too long and the legs were too round. She even attemped to tear off the mechnical unicorns skeletal neck the head had been attached to, but to no avail. That's when she remembered - The very first room. The bed in there had been snapped in half. They'd be a suitable length to use as the handle.

She retrieved the head and rushed back to the first room, tearing off one of the boards from under the bed. It didn't take much effort, as they weren't very thick. She took the board, and stuck it into the head, which no longer glowed. The board fit almost perfectly, at least when it came to width and length. However, it wasnt tall enough to fill the entire hole. But it was too broad to fit another board in there. Twilight tried regardless, shoving another board into the hole with all her might. And to her surprise, it mostly worked. It damaged the boards, but the head was now snugly attached to the makeshift handle.

Brimming with hope, twilight returned to the room with the fake wall. Looking at the makeshift sledge, it seemed rather brutal, but it'd do. She raised the "hammer" aloft with her magic, and brought it down on the wall as hard as she could. The planks snapped in half, but were still in the way. The mechanical horn had also been lodged into the wall. She tore it back out, and continued wreaking havoc on the wall. And eventually, it fell.