I woke up from a bad dream I didn't remember. Emotions I thought long dead stirred like zombies, gnawing at my brain from the inside. Their return hit me like a bullet, leaving me as shaken and unsteady as my legs when I tried to get up.
The technicolor flash hadn't come alone. The ECG was dead, the bed wasn’t on its feet, and several small items were scattered all around. I lay against an overturned cabinet, its contents strewn out its busted door: a leather jacket, a set of pants, two shoes, and a Heckler & Koch submachine gun. I felt more naked without the last one than out of my clothes.
As much as I wanted to collect it all, it wasn’t an option. The six mares were stuck in a catatonic stupor, barely blinking back tears, and the captain and the princess were rubbing the blurs caused by the lightshow off their retinas. They weren’t going to remain like that for long. It was time for a tactical retreat.
The courtyard all the way down was empty and a window one floor above was open. The masonry bit into my fingers throughout the climb, but in the end, the reward came as an empty bedroom and a chance to gather the puzzle pieces. Something during my contact with Luna had given the wrong hint, and it got her spooked enough to take direct action. There was a game being played, that much was obvious, but the room was too shady to take more than a glimpse of the players, the cards they held, or the chips on the table. All I knew was that at least one wanted me out of whatever was going on, and Luna was a part of it.
Those questions promised to stay in my head for a while. This was Luna's turf, and I was naked in all senses of the word. The only things I had were a few skimpy bandages that didn't even cover my private bits. My stuff was still in the first room; I had to go back and get it.
The door budged to a push, showing an empty corridor – if the sound of hard hooves on stone was any indication, that was gonna change soon. The room closest to the staircase was unlocked, and from there, I watched the sources of the noise through a crack left open in the doorway. The two armored horses were relaxed, oblivious to the scene that had gone on one floor below, going past without a hint of suspicion. After they disappeared behind a bend, I was on my way.
Reaching the bottom of the staircase didn't ease my spirits or the pressure around my lungs, not even as I opened the door I wanted. They had set the furniture upright again, and tried to close the cabinet to no avail – a dent the size of a human shoulder had been caved in the side of it, stopping the lock from engaging. The clothes were folded neatly under the gun. The trenchcoat was heavy on my hands, and the answer as to why came when the pockets were emptied: five MP5 magazines, one empty Desert Eagle clip, and a grenade. It had been a good choice not to dive for the gun as soon as I saw it – I could tell the submachine gun was dry just from picking it up.
The sense of security I expected didn't come even after reloading it and making a stock check. Someone was trying to whack the human, but it wasn't Princess; the owner of this joint clearly had an interest in me. The apple had a rotten piece, but it was still red in the eyes, and until I had a way to discern who was with who, pulling the trigger was nothing but a way to create another enemy I didn't need.
As rudely interrupted as it was, I'd had enough sleep to feel an uncomfortable but fortunate sense of hyper-awareness. The sound of metal on stone outside the door registered before the door opened. I had barely hid under the bed before a familiar face stepped in. Cadance took a long look at the room, shock showing in her face, before she ran off calling for the guards. Whether that was a lucky break or not remained to be seen, but I wasn't going to sit back and watch. The room was a bit too reminiscent of a death row cell for me to be comfortable in it.
The windows let through peals of sunlight that made the light colors of the architecture gleam cheerily, but failed to light up the fog of autopilot I'd fallen into. Colors, noises and the impact of my feet on the floor all blended together as I moved, every second bizarrely feeling both sped up and slowed down at the same time. I'd fallen into a routine: slink quickly through the lit up corridors, hide when the guards come, run before they come back.
A metal and glass double leaf door with a view of a garden hit the brakes of my train of thought when it didn't budge to a push. Behind me, hooves clopped against the masonry, the steady march of impending capture. The corridor was as straight as a roller-coaster, without any doors on the sides; whoever was approaching had nowhere else to get to but to where I was. Outside, a shed leaned against a stone wall. It wasn't the smartest location to have a structure, but I wasn't going to spit the bone I'd been thrown.
A shadow crept around the corner, and I made my move.
*CRASH*
The doors didn't just fly open – the bronze of the frame warped around my foot, bending like boiled noodles. The scared squeak from the hall and the symphony of falling glass shards were backed by the clanging of the loose leaf against the rock of the walkway, briefly covering my footfalls.
The shed was closer.
“Over there!”
There was more adrenaline than blood on my body, stripping me of my humanity, primal instinct taking its place. The grip on the edge of the roof came easy, the lift even more so. The wall might as well have been a stair step given how little trouble I had to climb its irregular side.
A locomotive whistled from the other side, the carts it pulled low and slow enough to jump onto. I didn't need a prompt to do just that... but my ticket was confiscated before the trip started. The fall was broken by two limbs gripping my chest from behind, their owner angling our movement in a horizontal arc. I dangled like a falcon's kill taken back to the nest, unable to do anything as the smaller figures below looked in expectation.
The landing was surprisingly gentle, as the one holding me took the care to set me on my feet. The light of the sun vanished, hiding all the horses, leaving only a circle of light around me. I was on the spotlight, alone on the stage.
The submachine gun hit the grass under my feet, and real slow, I lifted my arms.