Amnesia: Forget Your Past

Forget Your Past
Chapter 8

Daniel had found it! The castle he had seen on the island he resided on for a few hours. The tree he had knocked down was still there and still in place. It was perfect. Daniel confidently marched towards the edge of the cliff where the tree-bridge was and cautiously clambered across. When he crossed, he looked up to the castle and exhaled deeply. ‘I’m coming for you Alexander,’ he thought. And with that he marched onwards, unaware of the six mares looking for him inside.

Scootaloo had overslept next to the biped that night. She had been persisting on attacking his legs to get him to come back to Ponyville. It was not complying. Scootaloo was extremely disappointed to awaken and the biped not being there, only her two friends staring down at her with concern. Slowly, fighting the urges to keep on resting, she rose and shot her friends a stern look.

“What?” She asked them sharply.

“Are ya’ll okay? You seem a little down.” It was true. Scootaloo was deeply disappointed but also somewhat afraid. The biped, the same one that had gotten her out of this mess before, had abandoned her. There was no turning back now, they had to keep going. They knew where they were heading, they had overheard Twilight mention their location several times and Scootaloo knew relatively where they were going.

“I’m not ‘down’, I’m just a bit annoyed. I mean, that creature just left us here by ourselves and expects us to be able to fend for ourselves?” She began to shout, but immediately looked towards the floor in sorrow. “No, it saved me once, I can’t ask anymore from it.” She lost her interest in the floor and looked up to her friends again. “Well there is no turning back now! We have to follow it. Come on! I know the way... I think.” And with that she ran off towards the castle with her friends in tow.

“But wait! Scootaloo! I want to go home! It’s cold out here!”

“Do you expect us to be able to get back without that creature? We have to find it.”

“Ah hate ta say it Sweetie, but she ain’t wrong.”

“All right girls, we’re here. Now, if we are going to find the monster more effectively, we are going to have to separate each area so it can’t proceed without our say. Do we each know our places?” Twilight questioned them. The hall filled with “Yes,” and “I think so,” and “It’s so... dark.” Twilight nodded in satisfaction and continued. “Good, now then. If you see the creature, call out to us as loud as you can. If you hear somepony else calling out, call out as well so the rest of us can hear you. Move out!” And with that, the six mares spread out in different directions. Applejack stayed in the Entrance Hall which where they had met. Pinkie Pie went into the Storage Area connected to the Kitchen next to the Entrance Hall. Fluttershy went into the Stairwell that led to from the Entrance Hall to the storage area and other such areas. Twilight went to the Machine Room that used to open a large gate leading to the Throne Room. Rainbow Dash went to the Throne Room itself and Rarity went to the Royal Dressers Room located in the Stairwell.

Daniel silently opened the large double doors that were the entrance to the castle. Despite their old age, they hardly creaked at all. The castle looked bigger on the inside than on the outside. On the far wall of the hall were two long and narrow banners, their colours long since lost. A large podium with five small spheres branching off on stands and one large sphere on the top stood tall and proud then the end of the hall. Two corridors web off in two different directions with several rooms inside. The walls are lined with glass windows with pictures of obviously famous events stained into the glass.

Daniel walked up to the podium with interest to see a small hole in the front. ‘A key!’ Daniel thought. He began to look around for some sort of chest. There were none in sight. ‘Of course, it is never that easy’ Daniel thought, rather disappointed. He decided to explore the corridor on his left first, in some hope that one of the storage rooms contained the key. Two more doors led to two rooms in that corridor. Daniel tried the nearest one, and his eyes met a stone table with a lot of papers on it. Lining the walls were bookcases with a huge array of books likely in another language.

He walked up to the table to see a very clear drawing of some sort of lantern. Then there were instructions as to the construction of the lantern with gibberish written next to each illustration. The first drawing showed an empty lantern casing. The next illustration showed a small contraption being fitted into the lantern. The contraption was very similar to a compass, only without the needle and N, E, S and W. The contraption fitted into the base of the lantern, but Daniel was unaware of what it was for. The third and final drawing showed the lantern being lit by a particular fire in the entrance hall, one behind the podium. Daniel noticed that the top drawing showed the lantern shining on the key to the entrance. Daniel was unaware of what the meaning of this was, but he had no other choice but to construct the lantern.

He went through the next door to see piles upon piles of weird and wonderful cogs and springs as well as plates of steel and other metal pieces of machinery on the floor and on shelves. Large containers dotted the long room and likely contained an even wider variety of machinery. ‘Wonderful,’ Daniel thought, ‘The pieces are likely to be in here somewhere. Guess I better get searching.’ And get searching he did. He began to throw different bits of metal over his shoulder and he dived into piles of bits and bobs till he found a small curved metal contraption like the one in the picture. With nothing else to go with, he pocketed it and continued his search.

Suddenly, his vision blurred and he heard the groans of a Gatherer. Thinking fast, he hid behind one of the large containers in the room. He could hear the door being smashed open. When the door opened, all the metal pieces that were blocking the door poured out of the room behind the Gatherer that stood there. After a few seconds of standing there, the Gatherer walked away, satisfied that the noises that filled the room were just pieces of metal falling off of the shelves.

Daniel emerged from his hiding space at least five minutes after the Gatherer had left. Cursing himself for being so careless, he began to silently search for the lantern. After opening the containers, it did not take him long to find the lantern shown in the drawings.

Daniel cautiously walked out of the corridor into the hall. He remembered that the drawing had told him to light the lantern with a flame behind the podium. He was not entirely sure why this specific flame had to be used, but at this rate Daniel wouldn’t argue against the existence of magic. So he lit the lantern and immediately, a small aura began to glow in the direction of the other corridor Daniel had not explored. Daniel did not understand what witchcraft was going on here, but remembering the illustration, he marched onwards whilst silently hoping that the aura showed the location of the key.

The other corridor had many barrels dotted around and a door around the corner which held a storage room. When Daniel entered the corridor, the familiar sounds of a Gatherer filled his ears. He crouched down behind a barrel and waited for the Gatherer to turn the corner. After some time of waiting, he went around the corner to see the Gatherer looking at something on the wall of the far end of the corridor. It seemed rather intrigued by something there. Daniel cautiously opened the door behind the Gatherer and looked inside. The room was filled with several stacks of shelves and a cupboard which held tools of all sorts. Daniel wanted to make sure this Gatherer wasn’t going to follow him, so he picked up a hammer from one of the shelves and threw it into the hall. The result was a loud clattering sound that echoed throughout the building. This got the Gatherer’s attention and immediately it ran over to the source of the noise.

Daniel’s heart was pounding in his ears at this point; it was almost giving him a headache listening to it. He lifted the lantern again after lowering when hearing the Gatherer. He followed the glowing aura to a wall in the corner of the room. Some stone bricks were out of place in wall and Daniel carefully pulled them out without making a sound, in fear of startling the Gatherer again. Against his will, the wall crumbled making a loud smashing sound as it hit the floor. Daniel clenched his entire body as the loud noise resounded throughout the castle. When the dust cleared, Daniel rushed to the end of the narrow corridor that had appeared behind the wall. It was more of an opening in a cliff side rather than a corridor, as the walls were covered in cobwebs and the stone making up the walls was jagged like teeth.

When Daniel reached the end of the corridor, he saw the key floating above a stand made of stone, surrounded by a blue, magical aura. Daniel didn’t have time to question the laws of physics; the Gatherer must surely have heard the loud crash of brick against stone. He grabbed the key and ran to the door. As he ran into the hall out of the corridor, he rushed crouched down again and snuck up beside the larger podium in the hall. When he reached the podium, he turned to see the Gatherer walking into the corridor. Daniel didn’t want to stay for much longer, and tension was already building in the air. He hastily placed the key into the hole after missing a few times. When he turned it, the whole room made a loud roaring sound. Daniel wasn’t sure if it was machinery, but he knew the Gatherer had heard it, as it had exited the corridor and was now lashing out at him with the whip arm, trying to catch and ensnare him. Daniel managed to duck behind the podium, and began to feel the sensation of going down. Indeed the floor beneath him was shifting into a staircase. He quickly ran down and looked up to see the staircase reforming back into the ceiling. He had escaped for now...

Applejack was outraged. It had been the creature making noises throughout the Entrance Hall. It had progressed through down the staircase and taken the key with it. While Applejacks rage began to build up, fleshy webs began to form around the room. Applejack saw this and immediately felt like gagging. The smell of rotting flesh filled the room and an angry roar emitted throughout the room. A powerful entity was angry at Applejack for not catching the biped, for this entity could not yet interact fully with this world and would rather watch the biped die at the hands of these ponies. Applejack wasn’t staying in here for much longer. She ran towards the entrance and kicked it open, much to the surprise of three fillies who were about to open in.