Broken Feathers

by That Avi Nerd

Prologue

"Mom!" Rainbow Dash called out, her voice echoing into a dark oblivion. "Dad!"

"Rainbow!" Her mother, Firefly, yelled back. But something was off. The voice that came from her only barely reached Rainbow Dash, even though the pegasi were only about twenty yards away. Her father, Spectrum, was also saying something, but his words were lost to the black void that surrounded the three; the only indication that he was speaking at all was his moving lips.

Rainbow Dash flared her wings, pushing down on them to propel herself forward. She felt her hooves leave the invisible ground. Wind blew past her mane with each flap of her wings as she went faster and faster.

Nothing happened.

She didn't go anywhere. She flapped as hard as she could. The wind grew to deafening levels. The air in front of her began to form the shape of a cone. A bead of sweat ran down her face. Everything she had. Everything she was giving it. None if it mattered. As much as her mind told her, she wasn't going anywhere. With a lacking of scenery aside from the black void around them, and her parents not far in front of her, there was no way to tell if she was actually moving or not.

But she kept flying. Flying towards the calls of her parents, trying desperately to hug them. Still, nothing happened. If anything, they were getting farther away from her, if their decreasing size was anything to tell by.

"Wait!"

Rainbow's words never reached her parents. They were caught in the rushing winds, falling behind her as she flew along.

"Dash!" Spectrum shouted, but his voice was barely over a whisper.

Rainbow Dash pushed herself even harder. Her breathing was ragged, slowly becoming weaker. Her wings cried in pain. Every recess of her mind screamed at her to stop. But she didn't. She kept going. She couldn't stop. She wouldn't stop. She didn't stop. That was, until something extraordinary happened.

From the hooves up, her parents began to disintegrate in front of her. It was slow at first. Gradually, the bottoms of their hoofs faded away, carried off to the side like sand in the desert wind. The process took a few seconds to consume their hooves, after which it sped up slightly.

Why can't I get close to them?! Rainbow Dash mentally berated herself. Again, the pegasus pushed herself, only to once more fail; no ground was made up.

The decay of her parents continued in front of her, and there was nothing she could do about it. Rainbow Dash watched as their lower legs deteriorated next, steadily increasing speed as the more their legs were consumed. In half the time it took for their hooves to disappear, their legs were nearly gone.

"Dash!" The voice belonged to her mother, but her mouth didn't move. Rainbow's name simply formulated from nothing, only to dissipate back into the black void around them. With one powerful down stroke of her wings, Rainbow Dash sought out to push herself past whatever barrier was standing in her way. Instead, her wings failed, going limp and falling to her sides Rainbow Dash dropped several feet before crashing, flipping hoof over hoof.

When her crash steadied, and the pegasus laid still on the invisible ground. She bolted upright, desperate to run towards her parents in the hopes that she could save them. When Rainbow looked to where they were just standing moments ago, all she saw was the last specs of dust floating away in a soft breeze.

"No!" Rainbow Dash mouthed the words, but nothing came out. She failed. Her parents were gone and it was all her fault; she couldn't get to them in time. She slammed her hoof into the invisible ground. "I was so close!"

The pegasus bowed her head, lamenting what had just occurred before her very eyes, how she had been unable to stop it. The possibility of escape from this realm, or even what this realm was, was far from her mind. All she cared about now was the empty space that had once held her parents.

"Rainbow!" The voice that called didn't sound like either one of her parents. When she turned to face the source, Twilight Sparkle stood staring at the pegasus. "Rainbow, come on!"

Twilight turned in the opposite direction and trotted away. Rainbow Dash flew after her, but something was wrong. The air felt as if it was vibrating. Almost as if she were standing on the ground in the midsts of an earthquake. But she wasn't standing. She was flying. The motion caused the pegasus to rock back and forth, compensating so that she wouldn't fall from the sky. Twilight seemed completely unaffected by it, not moving a bit from her path.

"Twilight!" Rainbow Dash said. "Wait! Something's wrong!"

The alicorn didn't listen. Rainbow Dash was about to call out again when a sickly noise rang out. She recognized it almost immediately. Her mind flashed back to her race through Ghastly Gorge, just moments before the avalanche. But there were no rocks here, were there? No, there couldn't be. It was just an empty, black void, just as it had been the entire time. Then she decided to look up.

A boulder fell towards her. Rainbow Dash rolled to the left to get away but the boulder followed her evasion. The pegasus tried zigzagging. Still, the boulder followed her. She tried flying to the right, perpendicular from Twilight. Sure that she had lost the boulder, Rainbow Dash looked up to make sure. It hadn't missed a beat. The rock was still falling towards her. By now, it was very close.

In a matter of seconds the two collided. Rainbow Dash slammed into the invisible ground that had apparently only been inches below her. She could have sworn that she was higher up than that. When she tried to get up, something tugged on her wing, stopping the mare at a crouch. The boulder sat on her left wing, which was now clearly broken. No pain imitated from the join however.

"Help! Twilight!" Rainbow Dash tried to pull herself from the grasp of the boulder, stretching her feathers. Every attempt failed. Then she tried to use her legs to push it off of her. That too, failed. "Come on..." She gave the brown rock one last buck in the hopes that it would at least crumble. The mare didn't even phase it.

Rainbow Dash looked over the top of the rock to where Twilight should have been. Where she hoped that she would have been. Instead of seeing a lavender alicorn running to her aid, she only saw a white light. It was harsh enough to force Rainbow Dash to squint and before she knew it, the light was growing. She couldn't tell how far away it was, or how fast it was moving. But when appeared to be the size of her outstretched hoof, it released a resounding flash that turned everything white.

Comments

[Walker Talker]

I don't comment that often on story's........good job buddy.

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

You have my attention...