Marble.

Marble walls, floors, ceilings—there didn’t seem to be anything in this hallway that wasn’t made out of the stuff. It all felt too surreal… liminal? Like the expanded lore that ruined the mysteriousness of the backrooms, only this wasn’t just some render of an abandoned palace hallway made in Blender. A render of a marble floor couldn’t feel cold and smooth to the touch as it pressed against this body's furred shoulders and belly.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t turned into a bruised apple from the force of the impact. Instead, I could only stare incredulously at the white ceiling seemingly twentyish feet high above (I didn’t have a yardstick to check), wondering how I hadn’t broken anything important.

Falls from only a few inches could kill people if they landed wrong, and I knew my name would have ended up in an obituary had I been human during this whole farce. So, how was this any different? How was this body so robust?

Horse thing or not, this body was still made from flesh and bone. I… I should have died on impact. Or at least wish I had, right?

…

That headache from earlier still persisted in bashing my forehead, and the marble walls and ceilings weren’t excellent conversationalists. I plucked my head from the comfy floor and sighed. My hooves tingled as I attempted to upright myself, but the shakiness in my legs told me how angry they were that I was trying to stand up.

Words couldn’t explain the fear that was squeezing at my insides like a crushed soda can, but the fear of being caught had overtaken my fear of this cursed body. I was wanted now. A runaway, delirious patient. That alone was enough justification for them to hunt me down like a rabid dog, and that’s before they dropped that proverbial bomb on me.

A simple “cure” for my amnesia wouldn’t be enough. They’d poke and prod me, pump me with enough drugs that would make a Benadryl addict afraid, and wipe my consciousness and replace it like it’s a USB flash drive. I was, or rather, this body was important to royalty. A princess.

For all intents and purposes, I was a ghost needing to be exorcized. They’d never stop pursuing me, if only at the princess's behest for stealing one of her toys.

This fear was enough to get me to my knees. A small mercy.

Walking, however…

It was as easy as breathing, somehow. But anything else? Even if I had the manual for this horse, it might as well be in a completely different language. Before I even thought of moving at all, I found that my left hind leg was already brushing against the foreleg ahead of it. The front leg bounced in place, eager to be let off its leash.

I let go.

The image in my mind was clear, even with the headaches.

Clop. Clop.

I winced as my hooves clanked against the marble floor. Not just from the sound, which I doubted I’d ever truly get used to, but everything else. My hooves felt like hands, and no amount of skull-smashing pain or dissociation would stop me from noticing the similarities. If I tried hard enough, I could feel myself flexing and gripping at the stone tiles, just like I had before with Nurse Pumpkin’s hoof.

Clop. Clop.

Different verse, same as the first.

Left legs. Right legs.

Slow and unsteady quickly became the opposite as I reached the end of the corridor. A foal at birth was supposed to be able to bolt as soon as it left the womb, and this scenario felt eerily similar. I made a right at the intersection ahead, bounding down another corridor.

Silence still reigned supreme in these empty halls as I passed yet another almost identical hallway, and I quickly lost track of how many I had trudged through after the sixth or so. The headaches were slowly fading into the monotony, at least.

More time passed. Minutes? Hours? Was I going in circles?

Cautiously, I peeked inside a few doors and found nothing apart from cramped supply closets and dusty storage rooms. Had I not been turned into a mutant horse, I would have assumed that I had been teleported directly into Dracula’s castle from all the cobwebs and spiders that hung in the far corners of the room undisturbed for countless years.

Again, I moved on. More empty hallways. More—

My ears twitched. A door opened behind me in the distance, and the sound was loud enough to wake the dead in the silence. Voices? Conversation?

Foot…hoofsteps. Closer. They’re coming closer.

Faster. I gritted my teeth, fleeing from my imaginary pursuers. There hadn’t been any hide or hair in this marble maze, but I wasn’t keen on sticking around to find whoever was rich and pretentious enough to have this monstrosity commissioned.

That was the plan, at least, until I tripped.

Thankfully, there was no one around with a smartphone to catch me planting my face into the ground and hiking my ass in the air like an ostrich. And also, thankfully, the red carpet I had stumbled into wasn’t musty and stained with hoof prints and literal horse shit. Instead, I was greeted by a dark and cloudy sky.

I clambered up to the window with my forehooves, hoping that it was at least at ground level as I heaved—

—and immediately curled up into a ball and held my breath.

The rain hadn’t stopped, but that didn’t matter to the dozens of golden horse soldiers that manned the walls and towers that stood imposingly on the other side of the glass. Thankfully, and by thankfully, I mean thank you, Jesus, Buddha, and whatever other gods had taken a moment of pity on me, as they were all looking in the opposite direction.

There weren’t any marching down the yellow cobblestone paths and grassy fields to dogpile my ass, but I knew I couldn’t rest easy yet. I was trapped on the wrong side of these walls, and I didn’t need to rub more than two brain cells together to realize that I was trapped in this palace with a possibly irrational royal family.

I hunched over and crawled down the hallway, and my imagination exploded as it concocted tracers that shattered the glass windows and impacted the walls to my side. I could almost taste the gunpowder on my horse lips as I saw gun-toting horsies bursting through the ceilings and walls like a pod of Kool-Aid men in my mind’s eye.

None of this happened, of course. Despite the EKG and other modern machines I had noticed in the hospital room, they seemed more of an outlier than anything else. This was all archaic in comparison, and I was starting to doubt if I was even in the same building or time period as that circus act I escaped from.

This thought settled my frayed nerves, if only a little.

My legs carried me off into the bowels of the palace, almost as if on autopilot, despite my constant spine-tingling and erratic ear twitching from every noise and shadow. I should have kept a mental note of where I had been or tried to note how many turns I made and where, but I allowed instinct to guide me through the winding halls, down a flight of spiral stairs, and to a solitary wooden door.

The chilling air was crisp, almost sharp, scraping against my body. Purple clumps of matted fur stood upright as I hesitantly pushed my right arm into the squeaking wooden frame, and I could feel sparks of electricity shoot through it like static as it slowly gave way.

White tarps and stacks of crates jutted up toward the ceiling like outstretched arms, and I almost felt nauseous from the non-Euclidean size of the room, which seemingly stretched out three times larger and taller than any other room before it. I bit my lip, bele—knowing that it was all a matter of perspective due to my smaller stature.

Surprisingly, there was a distinct lack of dust and cobwebs for me to sneeze at as I cautiously stepped forward. My footsteps echoed through the room, bouncing off the many crates and piles like a ping-pong ball as my eyes locked upon a specific white tarp at the farthest end of the room.

Instinct pushed me toward it, and I fell forward as my purple stumps clumsily clutched at the smooth fabric. Thankfully, the purple-rimmed mirror underneath didn’t even flinch as the tarp fluttered to the floor like a falling leaf.

My heart still stopped all the same.

Hazel eyes stared back at me.

Human eyes. Warm, sun-kissed pale skin with a coating of a light tan. A mop of brown hair that desperately needed a buzz cut.

I stood up, reaching my right foreleg toward the reflection until it brushed against the cold glass.

The reflection in the mirror reached out with its left, its fingers splayed out as the palm pressed against the invisible barrier separating us. Their hand retracted as I pulled my stump away with a somber expression.

This was my reflection. This… was me. The real me.

It took all of my willpower to not smash into the mirror at full speed. I didn’t have a way to breach the barrier or crossover to the other side, assuming this wasn’t some enchantment or mirage. The idea crossed my mind that I’d see this reflection in every mirror—taunted by the fact that my old life and any sense of normalcy were just out of reach.

My gut instinct told me otherwise. This mirror was special. It was my ticket out of this nightmare, and I needed to figure out its secrets and what made it tick. I just needed to keep looking; there had to be a spell or artifact that would let me through. Something, a ritual or sacrifice, anything!

My reflection stared back at me with wet and puffy eyes.

Doubt crept into my thoughts, snuffing out the small ray of hope I desperately held onto. It was too good to be true. A scam. For all I knew, it was enchanted to show my deepest desires like the Mirror of Erised, and I’d wither away and die while staring at my reflection, wondering what could have been. I’d never see my family again. My friends. They’d never know what happened to me or how I didn’t choose to abandon them for this.

Even if it wasn’t, I still had no idea how to cast spells or how magic works. I didn’t know how I’d get back to the mirror if I escaped the castle.

I turned away, no longer able to look myself in the eye.

“...makes you think we’ll find anything here? The ward was tripped all the way back in the west wing!”

The sound of clanking armor and clopping hooves rushed down the stairs, and I immediately bolted for cover behind a row of unmarked wooden barrels. Barely a second later, I could feel the air grow heavy and hot, almost as if someone had cranked up the thermostat by fifteen degrees.

“I honestly don’t, but can you blame me for wanting to stretch my legs a bit longer?”

“Shit. Shit. Shit!” I hissed as I curled into a ball on the floor. There was no way out but through them! What the hell was I supposed to do now?

“I want to agree with you, I really do, but the Captain’s gonna chew us out again if we decide to take the scenic route back.”

“The Captain is gonna chew us out for coming back empty hooved.”

“...Touche.”

The door opened with a bone-chilling creak.

“See? Told you so,” a male voice spoke out, and I winced as their armor clanked and shifted with each step they took. “Empty.”

“I never doubted it wasn’t,” a female voice responded mirthfully. Orange light spilled into the room a few moments later, casting shadows across the marble walls. “But it never hurts to be thorough in your duties, private.”

“Ugh. Hopefully, somepony else will have some good news for the Captain then.”

“Don’t you mean chewed out first because this was a complete waste of time?”

“Hmph.”

I pressed myself tighter against the floor, almost hoping I’d melt into a puddle. My heart was beating like thunder in my ears, but I held my breath, praying they wouldn’t come any closer. An agonizing moment of silence followed, and my lungs burned inside my chest with each passing second.

“I say we call it,” the male soldier muttered impatiently. “There’s nothing here.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” the woman asked playfully. I could hear her shift her weight from the slight rustle of fabric as she tilted her head. “Unless you’re that eager to stand at our post for another four hours…”

“No, I’m not—”

“So let's just take a quick peek then, ok? It’s not like we have anything else to worry about right now.”

“What about the alarm?”

“What about it?” The woman horse’s clopping hooves echoed loudly enough in the room that my entire body felt the vibrations. I didn’t need to peek around the barrels to know her gait was slow and aimless, like a bored teenager waltzing through a local Walmart. “If there was an actual intruder skulking about, they would have tripped every alarm on their way out of the west wing, assuming they aren’t already upchucking whatever they ate for lunch from the perception and dilation wards.”

“They could have found a way around them, couldn’t they?”

“You mean the very wards and spells hoofcrafted by the hornheads under the crown’s employ? The ones that the Princess spares no expense for? Please, you’d be more likely to rediscover the lost Crystal Empire before anypony could brute force their way through them.”

“I don’t know, Candle. This doesn’t feel like a fluke or some false alarm, ya know? My gut is telling me that something’s up.”

Slow and deliberate. The air in my burning lungs eased out of my too-long throat and into the air like a plume of smoke as my paranoia ate away at me. It was a cliche horror movie trope, but I couldn’t stop my mind from racing to the worst conclusion—that my pursuers were waiting for me to look up before snatching me.

“Listen, Swifty. You know better than anypony else that I’m as vain as the rest of them in the guard, but I know you well enough to know that something is eating away at you, and it doesn’t have anything to do with this wild goose chase. What’s up?”

“I’m not sure now’s the best time—”

“Horseapples!” Candle, I’m assuming, barked. Her tone no longer had any of the playfulness that infested it before, and I felt like I was suddenly listening to a script reading for a medieval reboot of All My Children: Abominable Horses Ahoy. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? You’ve been jumpy for weeks now, and I know it has nothing to do with the stick lodged firmly up the Captain’s plot.”

“I…” Swifty hesitated. “They’re just dreams, Candle. I hardly remember them half the time, but you shouldn’t work yourself up over this. Believe me, I’m fine.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Swift,” Candle insisted. “You do remember them, don’t you? That’s probably why you’re so on edge lately.”

“Candle…”

“Tell me I’m wrong. Or better yet, tell me what’s in these dreams that have you so spooked.”

A pregnant pause hung in the air, and I could feel my furry face drenched in sweat as it trickled down my forehead.

“Scratching… tapping,” Swifty elaborated. “I can hear it in the walls every time I close my eyes for bed, and… look, I know this all sounds absolutely silly and everything, but this place just gives me the creeps, ok? I can’t escape this place even in my dreams—I’m always stuck here, no matter how much I want to think about anything else.”

“It's not silly.” Armor jingled and cloth rustled as she embraced her scared comrade, or at least from what I could gather from huddling behind my little slice of hell. “Look, I get it. This place can mess with your head even after being whitelisted for the perception wards, but I want you to do something for me, ok? Stop worrying about the palace, the Captain, the nobles, and just… breathe.”

In. Out. I let myself breathe slowly and steadily, matching the tempo of the guards until I took the edge off my paranoia. I was still terrified, but a burgeoning hope swelled in me. I just needed to be patient, and they would be gone in a few minutes.

Everything was going to be ok.

“...Thank you. I-i’m fine now.”

“Just hang in there for me, alright? We’ll grab a few drinks after our shift, and you can forget all about—”

The darkness evaporated.

I didn’t scream, couldn’t if I wanted to. There hadn’t been any time to react; only that one moment, the whole room was shrouded in mostly darkness, and then I saw Sauron's eye sweeping over my hiding spot the next.

“Candle? Candle! What’s wrong?”

Orange light spilled over the mirror afterward.

…

“Celestia… eugh! It’s just that damned mirror!”

“Mirror?”

“I won’t bore you with a history lesson, but just a heads up? Don’t touch it. Don’t stare at it. Just pretend it doesn’t exist,” Candle’s authoritative tone brooked no arguments.

“Why? It’s just a gaudy-looking mirror, isn't it?”

“Swift.”

“The princess wouldn’t leave dangerous artifacts lying around here—”

“Swift.”

Silence. My borrowed spine tingled.

Something was burrowing inside me. Was it a presence? A feeling? A stray thought? This time, there were no flashes of clarity behind it, no memories of a past life I never lived. It was almost an absence of feeling, and nothing in the English or Equish language could begin to describe this thing.

My borrowed legs pushed against the floor—against my… our will.

My head peeked out of cover, horn first.

A pair of hazel plate eyes blinked back at me.

“I’m only looking out for you, kiddo. You know that, right?” Candle sighed, and her spell evaporated with her exhale. As quickly as our eyes met, she turned, brushing her tail against the clueless guardpony beside her. How didn’t he see me? “Let's get out of here… unless you want to stare at your reflection all day.”

“...You’re the bossmare,” Swift nodded, turning to follow her up the narrow staircase in a seemingly blind stupor.

I didn’t move an inch until they left.

Author's Note

If you'd like to preread or edit for newer chapters coming out in the future, feel free to let me know! Soaring does a fantastic job, but some guy in a Godzilla costume broke into his house and ate his kidneys :(

Make sure to share your condolences and well wishes with Soaring on his fimfic page!