Amnesia: Forget Your Past

Forget Your Past
Chapter 10

Daniel clumsily reached for some sort of support as he clumsily made his way onto his feet again. ‘Could this day get any more hectic,’ he thought while hiding in a closet near the door. As he stood in the surprisingly empty closet, his breathing became long and heavy and beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. Eventually after a long time of tension, Daniel heard the Gatherer approach the door. The corridor he had fallen into was wide and long in length, so the distance between him and the monster was at least three metres long. Daniel noted that this was a monster with a magical aura glowing around its hands. After some time of fiddling with the door, the monster gave up and blasted it down with its magic. Daniel had seen people claim to have the power of magic, but seeing it actually performed in front of him was a very phenomenal experience for him.

Not seconds after the door was blown down, the winged Gatherer rushed in looking around frantically. Looking for him. The two Gatherers stood there for a minute or so, almost as if having a silent conversation. Daniel could definitely hear some murmurs. After their pleasant conversation, the two monsters split up again. If it wasn’t for the fact that the area the closet stood in was very dark, Daniel would have been sure that intelligent creatures (they had proven to be intelligent in the last hour or so) such as these would have suspected the closet as an excellent hiding place. The winged Gatherer continued down the corridor while the magic Gatherer floated out of the door. If he wasn’t in a situation where his life could be at risk, Daniel would have found the Gatherer floating out of the door a very funny sight.

Silently, he looked out of the closet down the corridor and out of the broken wooden door. When he was sure both ways were clear, he stepped out of closet and began to walk down the corridor in hoped of finding something useful. As far as Daniel knew, the big steel gate led to somewhere important, maybe even where Alexander was hiding. The gate was too heavy to have been lifted manually, there had to be some sort of machine to lift it. But where was it? Once glance over the railings told him immediately where. The corridor he was standing on had in fact transitioned into a balcony overlooking the rest of the balcony that went down to the bottom of the room where a machine with an innumerable amount of cogs which led to where Daniel presumed to be the gate. A lever was connected to the machine. It likely activated the many steam pipes that moved the cogs. At the end of the corridor/balcony he was currently on was another room which probably held many spare parts for the machine.

Daniel continued his walk down the balcony until he reached the end. He inspected the condition of the machine. Many of the cogs were too stiff to be of any use at all for the machine and the pin holding the lever stand in place was broken. Daniel had seen the extra room and knew what he needed. Spare cogs, oil and a new pin.

He walked up to the door and pulled on the handle. Daniel had obviously forgotten that the winged Gatherer had to have been somewhere secluded in the machine room as his lungs almost burst as he jumped at the sound of a Gatherer behind the door. With his vision blurred once more, he stumbled rapidly down to the bottom of the balcony of which was relatively dark and with many small areas which he could somewhat fit in. He hid under a stone table which stood under the balcony which cast a long shadow over it. He sat there, waiting for the Gatherer to pass.

Applejack had stood at the castle door scoulding the three fillies for their foolishness. They had followed the six mares with no consideration for their own safety when coming into an extremely dangerous area. The three fillies had been cowering in her shadow, but not because of her.

“...and tha’ is why you do not follow us...”

“Um, big sis? Behind you.” Applebloom interrupted just loud enough for Applejack to hear. With a confused expression, Applejack turned just in time to see a clawed hand knocked her to the floor. The three fillies didn’t have enough time to scream before they were next.

Twilight and Fluttershy had been majorly confused. Twilight had heard the metal crashing and Fluttershy had seen the biped walk in. It only made sense that the biped was in the machine room. The two mares didn’t know what to make of this, so Twilight told Fluttershy to search the machine room while she went to find the others. Naturally, while she still wanted to find the biped and aid it, she was rather frightened by its presence and of the dark, unnatural castle. When Fluttershy heard and saw the door creak open, she was staying put amongst piles of machinery. Reluctantly, she walked out towards the door and opened it.

“Hello? Is anypony there?” She quite hopefully yet silently asked. Silence. Fluttershy continued down towards the bottom of the room via the balcony path. It was unlikely to have gone back out the door as it was probably trying to find a place to hide away from them. Eventually, she reached the machine at the bottom of the room. Nothing had seemed to have changed. Ready to leave it at that, Fluttershy turned and caught a glimpse of a pair of eyes under the stone table. The eyes disappeared as fast as they had appeared. Fluttershy subconsciously recognised the eyes, and they had the same expression as when she looked down at it sympathetically in the stairwell. Fear. Fluttershy didn’t hesitate, however, to run out of the room and inform her friends of what she had seen.

Daniel had never seen a Gatherer run out of the area before unless it was chasing him. Not taking the opportunity for granted, Daniel slowly crept out of his hiding place and made the upwards trek back to the store room.

When he opened it, he smiled slightly at the sight. As he predicted, the room was the home to millions of spare parts. It’s as if the owner of this castle expected something to go wrong. He pocketed a pot of oil and a spare pin; he decided it was better to wait until he knew how many he needed before retrieving them. After jabbing the pin back into its place and oiling the rusty cogs, he came to the conclusion that only one cog needed replacing. After successfully replacing the cog, he activated the machine. He smiled warmly as the satisfying sound of success reached his ears. The machine jarred slightly, but it immediately kicked into action. Without a second thought, Daniel ran to the gate knowing that the Gatherers would be startled by the sudden noise of machinery (thankfully, all the Gatherers were in the kitchen at that moment in time playing ‘hide and seek’ with one of their colleagues).

As he approached the gate, the smile on his face grew even wider, but was immediately replace with shock as he fell through the ground near the gate. Daniel fell through the floor, only to emerge outside the castle at the edge of the island it stood on. Luckily for Daniel, the area beneath him was not devoid of a floor as he hit a wide ledge of grass and mud on the edge of the cliff. As he hit the floor, he blacked out.