A Crooked Clockwork Maze

"Come on, come on! Where is it?"

The air shook with a rumbling noise of gears and machinery, percussed with the sound of frantic hoofsteps on metal. The noise reverberated off of a rusty, jade-colored floor, echoing loudly along its dilapidated, metal tiles. It cast off into the void above and came right back in every other direction. A dense, bluish-green fog choked the place, appearing to shift and undulate in time with the noise as it stretched to infinity.

"Where IS IT?!"

A voice pierced through the rest of the noise, and the chant of "is it is it is it is it" repeated rhythmically and continuously around its original speaker. He quickly regretted shouting, as rather than fading in volume until the noise of machines took over, the echo began to contort and become warped. The space between the "is"s and the "it"s grew shorter and shorter, until the two words phased into each other and dissolved into a cacophony that only added to the noise around it.

"At least let me get out of this blasted--yes!"

Up ahead, he spotted his exit: a circular ring of metal, big enough for a large pony to fit through. It hung in the air, suspended just a few inches off the ground by an unseen force. The space inside of the ring was comprised of an assortment of curved metal bars and gears, crisscrossing through it at all angles, filling in the shape of a sphere. Several levers, attached to nothing yet fixed in the air, lay dotted around the invisible orb in the ring, waiting for a pony to move them around.

He quickly got to work, pulling levers and twisting around parts of the gate with practiced movements. He watched as each pull of a lever caused one of the metal bars or series of gears crossing through the sphere to turn, then suddenly vanish into thin air. The smell of rust and oil filled his nostrils as he worked. He still hadn't gotten used to the stench in this damned place. He tried his best to ignore it.

When he was one pull of the lever away from the exit, only a single, featureless bar of metal crossed through the sphere at the center. All the other levers were lined up evenly around the metal ring, leaving a small gap for one more. As he pulled the final lever into place, the bar slowly began to vanish from the middle outward. In its place grew a sphere, dark and featureless. When the final lever was pulled into place, the sphere grew to fill the whole space inside of the frame, and its surface shimmered into focus. The sphere now clearly depicted a deep blue chamber, distorted as if it were viewed through a crystal ball.

He took a step back, and then dove into the sphere. Without losing speed, he landed on a dark azure floor, his hoof clanking loudly on it. Metal. Of course, everything had to be made of the same stuff in here, he scoffed. Behind him, a sphere showing a jade-colored room slowly shrank out of existence, but he paid it no mind.

This room was much like the last one, but much more complex. The floor splashed up into webs of staircases and catwalks, crissing and crossing and twisting and spiraling in all directions around an infinite chamber. Were it not for his current situation and detest for this place, he would have almost appreciated the abstract beauty of it. Of course, he found it hard to stop and appreciate something when it was actively trying to kill him.

He huffed loudly as he ran. His wings were no longer able to lift him off the ground, and running instead of flying felt awkward and unnatural. He hated this place. He had said so to himself many times, knowing fully well that he was alone.

Absolutely alone.

The noise in this chamber was worse than the last. The floor had several holes eroded through the panels, exposing an ocean of gears and roaring machinery that echoed infinitely around the room above. Wincing, he spotted a square archway sprouting from the floor and dashed toward it. When he passed through the threshold, the sound began to die down as he found himself heading down a large, metal corridor.

He looked up at the ceiling. Several tiles were rusted away, and from beyond them his gaze was greeted with a galaxy of spinning gears and belts. Several of them seemed to vanish at certain points, and others were powered by an invisible force. He grimaced at it, as if there was somepony up there watching him suffer like this. He quickly shook his head, remembering the task at hand--that being survival--and broke into a sprint down the hallway.

A sudden sharp pang washed over him. He keeled over, and watched with disgust as his very body began to change shape before his eyes. It contorted, shifting only slightly before stopping. Just as quickly as it had came, the pain had passed, and he stopped transforming. He grimaced at what he was slowly becoming. What this place was turning him into. With a frustrated sigh, he quickly stood up, and sprinted at a faster pace.

The wretched maze of machinery blurred past him at the hallway began make sharp turns at impossible angles. He felt another pang trying to make its way through his body, but willed it away. Just a few more trials and he'd be out. If he ever found whoever had thrown him in here, whoever committed the most heinous of travesties required to even gain knowledge of this place's existence, he'd--

No, don't think about that. That's not important in here. He steeled himself, remembering to concentrate only on what was in front of him. Unfortunately, he did so too late, and ran straight into a cube of light.

"Gah!" Bright, yellow light suddenly stung his eyes. Blinking did nothing to assuage it, as the blazing glow pierced right through his lids like they weren't even there. He stumbled forward, wincing in pain. He flailed to keep his balance, and finally managed to poke his head out of the other side of the light. His vision immediately grew dark, and he fell to the ground with his body still halfway in the light cube.

Another pang hit, and he started convulsing on the ground. He forced his teary eyes open, and tried to sift out his surroundings from the veil of black burning his retinas. Retinas. Oh great, he was thinking of biology at a time like this. Just great.

He scoffed at his pitiful attempt at humor. His eyesight slowly returned, and he fought through the pain to crawl along the ground. Ahead down the corridor were more cubes of light, each one displaying a three-dimensional shadow where the back of his body still intersected with the first cube. The shadow writhed and slithered as he struggled forward, and he suddenly felt at a loss for strength. Another pang hit.

"No!" he attempted to scream, though his voice was hoarse, "I refuse--gnng--to die here!"

With a burst of willpower, he managed to stand up as he changed form yet again. He shivered as a sudden chill spread through his body. He stumbled forward on wobbly legs, looking up at the accursed gears and cogs above him.

"Damn you," he croaked. His leg gave out from under him and he lost his footing, stumbling sideways into a nearby wall. He struggled to get back up, but all he could manage was to turn and sit slouched against the metal.

His head lulled around his neck. He barely kept it from having to look down at his horrible, disfigured body. The roar of machinery began to dilute into sweet silence. His breathing became slow and heavy, right when he had finally learned to ignore the stench. His strength finally left him, and he had to watch himself transform one final time as he hung his head down and died.