Deep Sleep
By: Jelonheoh
We have all been to the Deep Sleep at one time or another, only for a few seconds…not enough time for the evil to lash out at you. But some people are not as fortunate….
It was late in the evening and I was just trotting home from work…exhausted from the day. Can’t wait to get home and be lazy again. I thought to myself. As I turned into my driveway I heard police sirens in the distance. Wonder what that’s about? I muttered to myself as I unlocked the door and walked into my apartment. I immediately headed for the couch and turned on the TV and sure enough...there was a story on the news about what I witnessed. This 13 year old colt woke from a coma a few hours ago…and murdered his family. Police officers were dispatched moments ago to get to the scene. The news reporter said with a grim tone. Okay then! Enough TV for today! I was a little bit freaked out and very tired…so I went to bed and feel asleep…into that nightmarish world.
It was a strange dream I was in. I was in a room with green walls, an old bed in the corner, an old dresser with an acrylic vase on it, and of course a wooden door. I tried to open the door but found out that sure enough…it was locked. Well that’s just perfect! I said sarcastically. I ended up falling backward as I pulled at the door knob in vain. I ended up knocking over the vase and a small bruise on the back of my head, but on the bright side of things the vase contained the key….this…whole…time. Wow. I felt extremely stupid but at least I had the key.
But as soon as I opened the door the walls started to crumble and a loud scream came from the room over. I saw a figure standing there. Dressed in complete black and with a sinister smile on its face…it said: Welcome to the Deep Sleep, enjoy your stay and with a sinister smile the figure then disappeared…I have to get out of here! I decided to look around the room once more, thinking I might find something else that could help me. Instead I found an old skeleton in the bed that I supposedly “woke up” in. I ran into the hallway and closed the door behind me.
The only light source was coming from a nearby window. The illumination allowed me to see a doorway which was blocked with rubble and a staircase leading down. As I was thinking of what to do next…a phone rang in the room I heard the scream from. I cautiously walked toward the door and opened in. The room was almost completely bare except for a desk with 3 drawers and a ringing phone. I answered the phone and waited, a raspy voice kept repeating the same words over and over again. Wake up! You have to escape! You have to wake up before they find you! I hung up the phone but a loud scream sounded and the phone flew off the receiver and kept repeating the words. Well that’s not going to work. I was talking to myself. Am I going insane? No…now is not the time to think of my mental health. I have to escape.
I searched through the drawers, the top one was locked, the middle contained a flashlight, and the 3rd contained a strange small blue metal box that was locked. The keyhole didn’t look like it would fit any key I’ve ever seen. I took the box and the flashlight and headed out back into the hallway. The window now had blinds on it and even less light was coming into the hallway. I tried to reach and open the blinds but my hoof got burned! What is going on here? I asked myself the question even though I knew I didn’t have an answer. I could only go down the stairs that were at the end of the hallway.
Downstairs was extremely dark. I could barely see 5 feet ahead of me. I noticed a light switch nearby and flipped it. Let there be light! I chuckled to myself. The downstairs was eerie. There was a small desk with a bell and a hanger behind it for keys…I only saw one key. I took the key but it didn’t fit the small box I had, it must be used for something else. I Moved into a different room and saw a furnace, It was on but the lever to turn it off was missing. So I will need something to act as a lever to turn it off. I was trapped in a puzzle…and something didn’t want me to complete it, quite evident by the creature that ran by and slashed a claw across my back right as I was thinking of what to do. Blood came out of the open wound and I had to find something to clean the cut up. Then I noticed a bucket with a cloth in it…conveniently placed by a leaky pipe. I soaked the cloth in the water and was able to wipe away the blood. The creature that got me disappeared when I looked around for it. I had an idea all of a sudden…I needed a lever…perhaps the bones from the skeleton upstairs would work? It was worth a try so I ran upstairs to the room. I promptly took the bone of the skeletons arm as it was the only one that wasn’t broken completely. I ran back to the furnace…I know those creatures are watching me. I could hear there whispering become words: He won’t escape. He will be a victim. He thinks it’s all a nightmare…what a fool. My blood went cold…was this real? There was no way…is there? My heart was pounding in my chest as I used the bone as a lever. Surprised that the bone held I continued to pull it back. The furnace turned off. Maybe I should have a look inside? I thought. The whispering was getting closer. I reached for the handle to open the furnace. OUCH! I yelled it was extremely hot; I had to cool it down with the bloody soaked cloth. I opened the door and crawled in. Inside a furnace is not the best place to be.
It was full of ash. Typical of a furnace but something was out of place. There was something metal in the midst of all the ash; a small silver drawer key. “Strange how the heat didn’t melt the key.” I thought to myself as I picked up the key. Just as I picked it up I noticed something on the back wall of the furnace. There was a number and half of another…the rest covered by the ash. I wiped away the soot and ash on the metal and found a code: “7382”
Just then the furnace door slammed shut and I heard a gas leak along with a resounding scream: DIEEEE! I had to get out of here…and fast! The door from the inside was locked and a small creak sounded from somewhere in the furnace…the back wall? There was a small crack on the back wall; it was obviously under a lot of pressure from something. I knew what I had to do…I kicked the back wall with as much strength as I could muster and again and again until the wall gave in under the pressure and broke to reveal a hidden room behind the furnace. The gas that was leaking ignited inside the furnace and I quickly moved the wall I just kicked over back into place; but not without getting a few burns on my hoofs… first degree…nothing to worry about…Now…to explore this new area.
What?!...no…this can’t be right. I was standing in the exact same are as I was before I entered the doorway to the furnace area. Except there was a set of steel doors ajar. It was extremely dark inside whatever room the doors led to. And my flashlight still had no batteries…suddenly I thought of the locked drawer upstairs…perhaps the key I have opens it? It was worth a shot so I ran all the way back to an area I never wanted to go back to…to find only a phone…still repeated the words: Wake up! You have to escape! You have to wake up before they find you! However…there was no desk in sight. Where could it have gone? I went to the first room I started in and everything was gone as well…except for the dark figure standing in the corner of the room. “You might want to check the furnace” it said. “Why are you helping me?” I questioned that thing with anger. “Helping? Is that what I’m doing? No, for you see…I am merely prolonging this game” It calmly said back and then disappeared again. “Great” I muttered under my breath as I proceeded back to the furnace room and went through the steps to open the furnace all over again. The whispers of whatever those things were was becoming more and more frequent as I got closer and closer to the end of whatever this was.
Inside this furnace was…very strange. It seemed to bigger on the inside as evident by the huge desk now sitting there. I sighed “same desk…same locked drawer”. I opened the drawer that was locked previously with the key I had found in the other furnace and found something extremely useful…Batteries for the flashlight. “It’s about time I found you” I was talking to myself as I put the batteries in the flashlight. I could now proceed into the darkness beyond the steel doors. As I stepped in I saw a skeleton run around a corner and down a tunnel and into a side room. I would have followed if not for the fact I had just been hit on the head from behind and was unconscious.
I awoke in a strange room that was littered with old newspapers and the air smelled of rotten flesh. 4 specific newspapers were pinned on the wall: My filly went to sleep…and never woke up! , Mare’s husband possessed? , colt wakes from coma and kills family! The last article I saw made my blood run cold: It is time to pay the price for playing with things you do not understand. It was written in a crimson red liquid. It was blood. My blood…I looked down to see a gash across my abdomen. I was bleeding out and fast! The dark figure I had encountered so many times before appeared at that instant. “Looks like you could use some help” it said. “I thought you didn’t help people”. I replied. “That was before I regained my memories…you see, I was like you once…same routine day after day, night after night. But one night I went to sleep…and never woke up. I almost escaped this place but was captured and augmented into one of them…I escaped them eventually and began to roam this world, unsure what to do”. It said sadly as it tended to my wound. “So who exactly where you?” I asked. “I don’t exactly know…I only remember my family and friends; but not my name. But the things here simply call me shade…so that’s a start I guess” shade replied.
“Well then shade…how about you get me out of here?”
“Sure thing” Shade said with confidence as he opened a door that was in the corner.
“I didn’t even see that there” I muttered under my breath.
The door we opened led to the dark hallway I was in before. “so I was in the side room that I was going to follow that skeleton into this whole time?” I exclaimed. Shade said nothing, he just stared at me with a blank look on his face…can it be called a face? It’s more like a mask really. “I have to go” shade said. “But you just got here!” I argued. “I’ll explain later.” He said. And he then promptly disappeared.
“Well…just me and the scary tunnel I guess” I said to whatever was in the darkness as I turned on my flashlight and proceeded to the end of the tunnel.
You know the old saying: “there is always a light at the end of the tunnel”? well its true, I got to the end of the tunnel and stepped through a doorway into blinding light. After my eyes adjusted I could see I was standing on a staircase that led downwards to another door: as well as a window above it that I couldn’t reach. The light came from a false source. I thought I was outside but what was causing the light was a glowing orb of some sort. “Can this get any stranger?” I pondered to myself as I descended to the lower doorway.
Inside this door was a metal room that had a elevator looking door, there was a keypad near it and also a crank. “Hmmm another puzzle” I thought. I decided to get the keypad out of the way first, now what could the code be? 7382! I inputted the code and saw a light turn green. “I guess now I turn the crank” it was worth a shot. As I turned the crank the door opened slowly…inch by inch until it was ajar. It revealed another dark hallway. “Oh great” I said sarcastically. I turned on my flashlight and proceeded down the hall. The hall seemed to go on forever and in the back of my mind I was thinking it was hopeless, or that was what I was thinking until I saw a door at the end of the hall. I tried to open it and to my surprise: “locked like usual”. Then I noticed the items scattered around. There was a rack with a pickaxe on it and some old barrels in the corner. “Who knows? A pick might come in handy” I thought as I grabbed it off the rack where it was. Just then the door I couldn’t open unlocked and I saw 2 white glowing eyes appear, it was another one of those “things”. It came out of the door slowly and had its gaze locked on me. I ran as fast as I could, and it followed.
I rushed back through the open doors and quickly started closing the door with the crank. “Hurry hurry hurry!” was all that went through my mind at the time. WE WILL GET YOU! WE WILL GET YOU! The thing shouted and screamed with purpose as it sped up down the hall to try and catch me. The door closed with a resounding “THUD!” as the creature was about to get in. “no way in hell am I going back there!” I shouted. At that moment shade appeared. “Hello” he said with a stupid grin on his face (or is it a mask? I can never tell) Where the hell were you when I almost got killed a few moments ago?!?!” I questioned. “I don’t actually know, I can’t remember” he replied. “Anyway, I see you have a pickaxe. Have you tried it on the ruined wall upstairs yet?” he asked. I immediately hit myself in the forehead. Why didn’t I think of that earlier, oh yeah…because I almost died! We ran back upstairs to the crumbled wall, but not before I noticed a strange hook on the floor “strange” I thought as I put it in my pocket. We finally reached the wall. “Well here goes nothing” I braced myself and started swinging the pick at the wall. After 5 swings the wall was almost destroyed and after 15 a huge hole in the wall opened up. And shade had disappeared again. “Great” I said with greater sarcasm then before. I crawled through the hole now in the wall and was amazed at what I saw.
I found outdoors. It was a beach with a lighthouse in the distance and there appeared to be fishing nets on the shore. Never hurts to be prepared so I took one net. I proceeded to the lighthouse it hoped of finding something useful but only found a huge set of stairs, and when I climbed them there wasn’t even a light at the top of the lighthouse. With the light missing and me running out of ideas I headed back down to the hole in the wall. “THE WINDOW!” I shouted. I had an idea and I had limited time to use it. “if I use this hook and this net like this…yes…yes…a grappling hook is born!” I was talking to myself again but I didn’t care, I finally had a way to get to the window that was out of reach when I was at the staircase. I ran back down the stairs, through the metal doors, down the tunnel, and back to the metal stairs. I threw the makeshift grappling hook up at the window quite a few times before it snagged on the sill. I climbed up franticly into the window and what I saw made me realize something. “They tricked me”
I saw another wooden desk like the one I have seen so many times before with a phone off the receiver with a recorder by the talking end constantly repeating those words: Wake up! You have to escape! You have to wake up before they find you! It kept repeating it over and over and over. I was so angry that I almost didn’t notice the key sitting beside the phone. It was a very small key, barely the size of a bottle cap; it seemed small enough to fit in the keyhole on the tiny box I had.
I opened the small blue box I had picked up at the beginning of my adventure and a loud resounding DING was heard. Inside this box was a strange gem that released light in every direction. A blue diamond! I did all this….FOR A DIAMOND!?!?! I was angry beyond belief and was not thinking straight. If I was, I would have realized that was I held was the light source I needed for the lighthouse. All was quiet…there was no screams or shouts that usually sounded when I solved one of their puzzles. Nothing at all, or at least for a few minutes. The biggest shout of them all was heard throughout the building. YOU WILL NOT CHALLENGE US! YOU WILL NOT WIN! STOP HIM FROM GETTING TO THE LIGHTHOUSE! STOP HIM FROM GETTING TO THE-! Whatever was speaking stopped, it realized it just gave me the location of where I needed to go.
I jumped through the window and heard a CRUNCH! As I landed I my legs, pain shot through me. “Dammit! Broke a bone in my leg!” I screamed in pain and continued to drag on. Up the stairs, through the hallway. Around the dark creature sitting in the hall..wait..what? a very sinister creature was standing in the middle of the hallway and charged at me, a very strange weapon was melded to its arm that could shoot razor sharp projectiles; one of these almost cost me my eye, barely missing and leaving a small cut beneath my left eye. At that moment shade appeared for the 3rd time. “Run!” he yelled as he tackled the beast. “Run and don’t look back! GET TO THE LIGHTHOUSE!” he screamed as he fought the creature that would have killed me. I continued to drag on toward the lighthouse.
I reached the beach with barely any trouble except the occasional jump scare. I knew those things were creeping up on me so I quickly rushed to the lighthouse. But as soon as I got there and stepped inside. Something sounded from outside the doorway; a huge mob of those creatures was outside and were piling into the lighthouse after me so I did the only thing I could…run to the top! The things followed me up every flight of stairs. “This can’t be happening!” “I have to escape” “I can’t die now” “I HAVE TO WAKE UP!” I was telling myself floor after floor. I was clueless when I reached the top. I had the diamond in hoof and nowhere to run. Nowhere to run now…nowhere to run, pony; a sinister voice said. I was trapped, I failed to wake up…or did i? I leaped for the spot where the light would usually be with the diamond in hoof and put it in the slot and a blinding light was cast out the window. I dodged one of the creature’s attacks and quickly pulled the lever to realign the light to aim at the doorway. The creatures dispersed into particles, blown away by the wind…and then I woke up.
Where those creatures real? Or was it a nightmare? The fresh scars on my back and abdomen seem to be telling me that it actually happened, but my leg was fine. I had to know for sure…I had to go back…to the Deep Sleep. But little did I know…I was still trapped in my own nightmare. A resounding laugh sounded and from outside my window a glowing white pair of eyes disappeared and it spoke with a purpose:
WE WILL GET YOU!