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I knew something was wrong as soon as I woke up, lying on my back and seeing strange patterns of colours all around. It wasn’t just disorientation due to waking up from unconsciousness either. I knew what that usually looked like, and this wasn’t it. Shaking my head to clear my vision, I sat up, with surprisingly little difficulty.

That was another unusual thing: no pain anywhere. Normally, if I was unconscious, I’d be hurting somewhere. This time, I felt fine, as though I’d woken up from sleeping. But I definitely didn’t remember dreaming, and I knew I didn’t go to sleep in the middle of the road. That meant I had to have passed out... or been knocked out.

That was it, I remembered. I was fighting someone before... At that, my thoughts stopped entirely. Beyond the start of the fight was a total blank. I could hardly even remember who I’d been fighting, which seemed strange. Did someone mess around with my memories, too?

“Was it you?” I asked my unknown opponent. “Well, I’ll find you. Somewhere in here.” As soon as I said the word ‘here’, I started to take a proper look at my surroundings. I was definitely underground, unable to see the sky beyond a ceiling covered in crystals, glowing a soft blue. The surroundings were lit by more crystals glowing in all different colours, the source of the sight that I woke to. As far as I could tell, I was in an alcove with only one exit, leading underneath two crystals like an arch.

“No time like the present, then,” I said, walking towards the ‘arch’ and passing underneath. “Gotta find a way out of here... And you, as well, of course.” With the vow made to my missing enemy, I passed through, and immediately stopped.

The rest of the cave opened up greatly beyond the alcove, though it was still lit in the same shade of blue as before. The ground quickly disappeared in front of me, leading to a cliff that revealed a great number of cliffs and bridges formed seemingly naturally out of the stone that made up the bulk of the mountain. Several of those pathways led into the walls, and covering said walls were more of the crystals, their rainbow lights breaking through the ambient light. Despite myself, I whistled slightly at the view, taking it in for a moment before setting off down a path to the right.

Despite the pretty view, though, there was no sound this far underground. No ponies passing through the streets, chattering and thumping their hooves against the ground. No birds in the trees, no wind in the air, no water flowing or even dripping as it would in a proper cave. The only sounds I could hear were those that I made myself: my footsteps, my fist tapping against the crystals sticking out of the ground and the walls, and my own voice. “Could this day possibly get any worse?” I asked myself, not even hearing an echo. The lack of sound was putting me on edge, and I shivered slightly at the cold in the air. “Stuck in a cave, away from all my friends, and to top it all off...”

A silhouette suddenly blocked my path, and I grimaced slightly. “I had to run into you again.” Even though I couldn’t make out all the details right away, the basic form was unmistakable: between the scarf, the coat and the hair, I couldn’t decide which part was the most dumb. “Well, we didn’t get to finish things last time, but now, we’ll settle it!”

He just stood there staring at me for a few seconds, before his mouth twisted into a smile and he punched his palm. “Yeah, just like that,” I said, getting ready to punch that stupid smile off his face. “This is for my friend, you son of a bitch!”