Gray's Gone

by ArmOfSorrow

The Lost Facility

“Good morning, sunshine.”

“…What? Luna?” I muttered, before standing up and taking a look around me.

For some reason, I was standing in Central Park. Looking around, I saw the oh so familiar, bastard-that-brought-me-here spectre.

“How was your nap?”

“Pleasant, until you showed up. How am I here?” I asked, giving him the usual glare.

“You should know that you aren’t actually here. I’m not done with you, yet. This is just a small mirage, to avoid showing you what the rest of my domain looks like.”

“Uh huh. I thought your domain was just a bunch of shadows and darkness?”

“Only a small portion of it. However, I didn’t bring you here to discuss my living conditions. I felt another glimpse of what life was like back home would sate my desire for tormenting you. At least for a little while.” The smokey face started to chuckle, before the scenery around me changed.

My apartment appeared before me, the same but totally different at the same time. The wall paint was the same, along with the T.V and all the appliances, but there were pictures on the walls, the furniture was different, and the carpet seemed new. Or just clean.

“What’s all this?” I asked to the spectre, who was standing beside me.

“This is your apartment. Duh.”

“I fucking know that. I meant why is all this stuff different?” I pointed to everything that had changed, my arm still nothing more than a haze.

“Oh, well, this is in about three years. I thought it would be good for you to see how well your family does without you.”

The second he finished, an auburn haired woman walked into the room and plopped down onto the couch. ‘Who’s she?’ I wondered, before a second person walked into the room, this time a brown haired guy with a lot of stubble and wearing USMC ACUs, and sat on the arm of the couch. ‘And this dude?’

I walked around so that I was standing in front of the two, and gasped at what I saw.

The auburn haired woman was Renee, who had apparently gotten rid of her hair dye. ‘Holy shit.. I had forgotten what color Renee’s actual hair was.’

Turning to look at the guy, I suspected that it was Renee’s boyfriend, but was surprised again to find that it was Casey. Holy shit, Casey.

“Casey! What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted, before I realized that they couldn’t hear me. ‘That’s right… three years… He joined the Marines.’ I thought, before retuning my attention to my siblings.

“You ready to go?” My sister said, fumbling around in a purse for her keys.

‘A purse?’ Jesus, my sister was really gonna change; she usually hated purses.

“Aye, the training starts today. We can’t be late, sis.” Casey said

“Oh relax, it’s just a forty-five minute drive to the airport, and then an eleven hour flight to Ford Island, as long as you make the flight, you’ll be fine,” my sister replied, taking out her keys with an “ah hah!” and jumping to her feet. “Come! It’s traveling time.”

As my siblings walked to the door, they both stopped at a table against the wall. Leaning over, my brother was saying something I couldn’t hear, while my sister watched. Then, he stood up and quickly walked out, like he had remembered that he was in a hurry.

My sister giggled after he left, and spoke to herself “Don’t worry, as emotional as he gets, he’ll be fine. And in about ten weeks, he’ll be back!” She grew serious for a second, and her eyes misted over, as if she was about to cry. “Almost exactly where you were, bro. Just three years younger than you were.”

‘What is she talking about?’ I wondered, as I watched my sister leave the room. ‘Ford Island. Sounds familiar, isn’t that where them moved the sniper progra-’ I stopped mid-thought when I realized what my brother was doing.

I couldn’t think, I couldn’t react, I couldn’t move, even in this spectral form.

‘He… followed me… Why?”

My heart started to hurt, physically and mentally, at what my brother had decided to do with his life. Not that I was ashamed, or angry, but that he had decided to give up everything else he had planned and become a sniper.

***

There was a flash of light, and I bolted into a sitting position.

“Mason, are you alright?” Said the Princess, looking alarmed.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a nightmare,” I said, as I stood up and began to check my weapon and ammo. “When are we heading into the mine?”

“Fairly soon, I should say. I’ve had the guard patrolling the area, to make sure there were no outsiders so that we are not ambushed. Are you prepared to move in?” Luna said, as she watched me check and double check all of my weapons.

“I’m ready when you are,” I said, and walked over to stand beside her.

“Then let us head out. I’ve decided not to bring any guards with us, considering how Nightstalk was taken completely by surprise. It will be only you and I.”

“Alright, it’s no problem.”

Together, Luna and I left the shack and walked towards the mine. Standing outside was a batpony, at attention with some weird straps on his wings.

“What’re those things on his wings?” I asked Luna, who promptly explained that since he was a pegasus pony, he was able to use wing blades, which were quite literally blades on his wings.

“Oh. That’s awesome.” I exclaimed, and the guard smiled.

“Good luck inside the mine my Princess, sir, we’ll be waiting outside for your return,” said the batpony, who then stepped aside for Luna and I to enter the mine.

Inside, it looked like a typical cave. There were only two exits, the one we came through and one that led deeper into the mine, with a table holding a lantern, a map, and various mining tools.

I picked up the map and studied it, trying to find a reference on the map for where we were. Upon finding it, I saw that there were two more caves ahead of us, with a tunnel connecting each cave together. Inside the circle representing the final cave, there was a question mark with the words “Unknown substance/material wall”.

“I guess that’s our destination,” I said, and rolled up the map and stuffed it in my pocket. “Princess, stay behind me please, I think I can react the quickest to an attack.”

“If you believe so, then so be it. I will provide a light for you,” said Luna, as her horn lit up with a bright blue light.

I flicked on the tac-light attached to the SCAR, and said “Thanks, I’ll keep this on to see further ahead.” I began to walk forward, testing the gravel under my feet, trying to make sure I wouldn’t slip. The mine smoothly angled down, and the tunnels connecting each cave together spiraled so that each cave was directly below the last.

“Careful…”

My head snapped up at the sound, and I began to mutter “Not now, you fucker, not now.”

“What was that, Gray? Have you noticed something?” Asked Luna, who came up beside me to check if I was ok.

“Thanks Princess, but I thought I heard a voice. It must’ve been my imagination, or a stupid ghost or something.”

“If you say so, though I highly doubt it was a ghost of any sort.” Luna returned to her position behind me, shining the light slightly brighter to increase her own vision.

“Hey, I am NOT a stupid ghost. I’m a personality.”

Thankfully, the spectre said nothing after that, although it confused me as to why he identified himself as a personality.

Once we reached the third cave, the change was immediately obvious. There were scaffolds just about everywhere, along with abandoned mine equipment laying spread out all over the floor.

And, the biggest structure in the room, evidently wasn’t pony-made or natural.

It was a giant slab of black, seemingly formed into the wall, the size of airplane hangar doors. Next to it, was a rectangle the size of a normal, human door, also black.

I walked up to the giant slab and took a close look at it. I pushed at it; it was hard. I rubbed it; it was smooth and crinkled, like cellophane. I rapped it with a knuckle, and it rang like metal.

The door next to it was identicle, but after about a minute of gawking at the smaller rectangle, there was a loud, high pitched buzzing, and a small square of the rectangle depressed to show a glass square with red buzzing lines.

I heard a female voice say “Please press your right thumb against the fingerprint scanner.”

Freaking out, I stepped away from the door and the fingerprint scanner slid away, once again returning to the solid black rectangle it was before.

“Holy fuck. Holy fuck. Princess, this isn’t an ancient pony tribe ruin, it’s something Human,” I said, before stepping forward once again and watching the fingerprint scanner appear, alongside the same female voice giving instructions.

“Who is that mare? Where is she hiding?” Asked Luna, taking a cursory glance around the cave.

“There is no woman, it’s a recording. Kind of like a letter, but a voice instead of writing.” Thinking ‘Why not?’ I pressed my thumb up against the fingerprint scanner, where a needle promptly popped out and pricked me, sucking a drop of blood into the scanner.

“DNA identifying.” Said the female voice, before speaking up again.

“Species, Human. Last known national affiliation, the United States of America. Last known mental capability, one hundred percent functional. Welcome, Mason Gray, to Fort Lewis Army Base. It has been fifty thousand, two hundred and twelve years, three months, one hundred and six days since your last recorded visit to any United States military facility.”

The door slid open, revealing a dark passageway lit by red emergency lights.

“Please excuse the power inefficiency, our prime nuclear generators gave out forty-nine thousand, one hundred and twelve years, six months, and twelve days ago.”

“Holy fucknuts.” I said, standing slackjawed at the passageway. That damn spectre hadn’t sent me into an alternate universe after all, he had sent me into the future. So far into the future, that humanity didn’t even exist anymore and magical ponies ruled the earth.

“This is what a humans structure looks like? Interesting… Pray tell, what is the material of the doorway made out of?” Luna said, examining the hangar doors the exact same way I did.

“I don’t know, Princess. This isn’t any Human structure, it’s a Human military base, from far into my own future it seems. The technology is probably just as alien to me as it is to you.”

“I see. Well, I shall go retrieve the guards. Please wait here, so that we can all explore these ruins together.” Said Luna, excitedly, before galloping off.

“Oh, great. Leave me here in the dark with no armor and no light except for this tac-light. Thanks,” I said, before sitting down cross-legged on the cave floor.

I fidgeted around for several minutes, nervous in the dark. We hadn’t checked each cave particularly carefully, so I was nervous about the possibility of any infected ponies staggering around.

I removed the mag from the SCAR, pulled out a bullet, and clicked the mag back in, twisting and turning the bullet in my fingers as I looked around. In the twenty round clip, after my initial encounter with the ponies and the kills yesterday, I still had eleven rounds, not counting the one in my hand.

There was a loud clang in front of me, coming from the red-lit hallway. I jumped to my feet, and pointed the light into the hallway, catching a glimpse of the light reflecting off of something shiny, before the reflection disappeared around a corner.

“Ah, shit.” I said to myself, before slowly walking into the hallway. I knew it was a bad idea to follow whatever it was into the base, but I couldn’t resist for some reason.

As I stepped through the threshold, into the hallway proper, the door slid shut behind me and the red emergency lights flickered off, plunging me into total darkness, save for my tac-light.

‘No going back now,’ I thought. I sighed, steadied my nerves, and took one step at a time into the base, slowly following whatever it was that had caught my attention.

“Hehehehe…”