Rarity coughed, expelling dust from her lungs. Blackness surrounded her, although she could tell if that was because she could see from the particles of stone clogging up her eyes or because her horn-light had gone out.
“Twilight? Applejack?”
There was no answer. Rarity scrambled to her hooves, tripping and wobbling on the pieces of debris.
They had ran as fast as they could. Rarity remembered passing Zerephonzidas’s old office, but not much else. Twilight and Applejack had been the ponies in front, so when they ran…
Had they been left behind under the rubble?
Paying no heed to her breaking hooves and her tattered mane, Rarity tore at the rocks and dirt. All that happened was more and more pieces fell onto her, caking her forelegs and burying her progress.
“Twilight!”
She concentrated on the light spell, and her horn flickered to life.
The corridor had completely collapsed. Pieces of the ceiling were strewn around the ruins behind her, too. A long crack ran down the top of her hard hat. It had likely saved her life.
Had it saved the others lives as well?
Rarity rubbed dirt out of her eyes. She looked a mess.
She needed the other diggers. Where was Douglas when she needed him?
Her blood went cold. Was Zerephonzidas behind all this? Where was the sphinx?
Where was Rainbow?
Where was anypony?
Rarity stumbled away from the collapsed corridor and trotted, then cantered back to the dig site. She needed help. She needed to get to Twilight: she would know what to do.
“Please don’t be squashed,” Rarity prayed as she ran.
“Hello?”
The voice echoed in the collapsed ruin, bouncing off the still intact stone walls in an eerie fashion. Twilight’s horn lit up. “Anypony there?”
“I’m here,” came Applejack’s voice.
Twilight climbed over the broken rocks towards her friend. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Applejack grunted, prying herself loose of a stone. “Hard hat took a beatin’, though.”
“Mine too,” Twilight said. “And I think I twisted my wing.”
Applejack dusted herself off. “Well, that’s one way to wake up, I guess. I’ve got bruises everywhere, now.”
“Where’s Rarity?” Twilight asked. She looked around. “She was right in front of us.”
Applejack swallowed. “Yeah. Right where those rocks are.”
Twilight went cold. “You don’t think she…”
Applejack tried to lift up the stones, but even her considerable strength wasn’t enough to shift them. “Rarity’s tougher than she looks,” she said. “If we made it, so could she.”
Twilight took a few steps back. “I don’t think we can dig through that,” she said.
“Can’t you blast through it with magic?”
Twilight bit her lip. “I might bring more down on top of us.”
Applejack grit her teeth. “We don’t know if anypony will come and rescue us,” she counterargued.
“Yes, we do,” Twilight said, sitting down. “The cave in wouldn’t have reached the caves. Douglas always said they were too solid. The other diggers will come and find us eventually.”
Sweat was beginning to form on Applejack’s brow. “How long will that take?”
“I don’t know.”
Applejack’s back was against the rubble. Her pupils contracted as she began to assess the situation.
“I can’t stay here,” Applejack said. “I need to get out.”
“We just need to wait,” Twilight said. “Once the diggers get through enough, they can tell us how to help.”
“I can’t be near that thing back there!” Applejack said. “Whatever it was… it ain’t right.” She went back to trying to claw through the rubble. “I just… I need some fresh air.”
Twilight bit her lip. She also wanted out, but clawing through rubble wasn’t going to help anypony.
“Applejack, I need you to remain calm.”
“Calm? I can’t be calm in here. There’s who knows what behind us, in that room, out to get us! Remember that noise?” Applejack’s hooves went to her ears. “I don’t want to hear that ever again! It claws into your head… like screws diggin’ through wood. It wriggles around like snakes in the sand, and I need to get out…”
“It’s exactly because there are things behind us that I need you to be calm,” Twilight said. “Please. We need to escape, but wasting your energy isn’t helping.”
Applejack rested her head against the stone. She breathed in.
“I don’t want to be here any more, Twi’.”
“Neither do I,” Twilight said.
Applejack shook her head. “I mean here. The dig. This snowy cave. Even before this, I’ve not wanted to be here for a while.”
“Because of the nightmares?”
Applejack nodded. “That, and everythin’ else. I hate the dark, I hate the noise, the statues, and Zerephonzidas.” She lifted her head, trying to dispel the shadows in her mind. “I want to go home.”
“I know,” Twilight said. “Let me help you.”
“You better,” Applejack said. “You got us into this mess. I want you to get us out.”
Twilight bit her lip. She hated it, but she agreed with Applejack. She could have refused to help Zerephonzidas as soon as things became grim, she had ample opportunity to tell the diggers to stop… but her own curiosity had pushed her onwards.
She had to apologise to Rarity, if ever they met again. She had failed, and let her own quest for knowledge lead them into a trap they might never be able to escape.
Twilight turned her head back towards the corridor. She grit her teeth.
“We need to keep an eye out. There are glass statues down there and they might stop moving.” She looked at the blocked passage. “And Rainbow won’t be able to make it to us any more…”
“Zerephonzidas’s study,” Applejack said. “It’s more defensible than here. We can shore up the corridor with old furniture.”
Twilight nodded. “That’s a good idea. Come on, let’s go.”
Douglas bit his lip, and closed his eyes. He knew that sound all too well. He heard it in his dreams, and had it drummed into him every time he made a mistake. It was the sound of a ceiling collapsing.
“Cave-in,” he said. “Zereph’, cover your head.”
The large sphinx frowned, and lifted a paw over his head. “Something the others did, perhaps?”
“Maybe,” Douglas said. “Or it could just be a side-effect from our digging. Or something completely unrelated.” He rubbed his eyes. “Come on, we need to head back. We might be trapped in here.”
Douglas turned to leave, but Zerephonzidas held him back.
“Don’t,” he said.
Digger Douglas looked up at the sphinx, worry in his eyes.
“Why?” he asked. “Glass statues?”
Zerephonzidas didn’t move. “Maybe. Something has been following us for at least a minute.”
Digger Douglas remained very still. “What do we do?”
“You go behind me,” Zerephonzidas said.
There was a coughing sound from down the corridor.
“Eh, hey guys!” came Rainbow’s voice. “So, uh, this just in, there’s been a cave in.”
Zerephonzidas sighed. “Oh. It’s just you.”
“Yeah. The bad news is, I think we’re trapped,” Rainbow said, putting on her best winning smile. It was the smile she felt had just the right amount of obnoxiousness and charm. In reality, it mostly made her look like an idiot. “The good news is, I’m here now!”
“Hooray,” Douglas said. He sighed. “Let’s go look at the cave-in. We might be able to dig through if we’re lucky.”
Rarity burst into the dig site, covered in dirt. Bits of rock were caught in her twisted and matted mane. Now into the relative light, she realised she had cuts all over her body, most notably her back and flanks. She also had a large stone sticking into her rear leg, which she must have landed on when she fell.
The other diggers surrounded her.
“What happened?”
“Where’s Digger Douglas?”
“Was there a cave-in? We heard a noise…”
“Was it the statues?”
One of the diggers, a unicorn stallion by the name of Pick, pushed past the others. “Give ‘er some space! Lass is injured. Get ‘er some bandages!”
“You need to dig the others out,” Rarity exclaimed. “They’re… I don’t know where the others are!”
Pick led Rarity to a stretcher. “We’ll get to that once you’re not bleedin’ all over the carpet. Lie down.”
“You need to get to my…”
“You need to do as you’re told, lass. It’s gonna take more than a few plasters to heal up those cuts.” He shook his head as he examined the stone lodged in Rarity’s rear leg. “You’ve right done yourself in.”
Rarity grasped his hoof hard enough to crush the blood out of Pick’s foreleg. Her eyes were as hard as diamonds and twice as cold.
“If you don’t go and get my friends out of there this instant, I will lose my temper,” she said.
Pick swallowed.
“Right then,” he said. “Vec’, Cutter, go in there and check out what needs doin’. Wear ‘ard hats, no risks, don’t be silly billies, right?”
“Right.”
“Right!”
Pick sighed. “And someone get this lass a plaster and some antisceptic cream! Also a bloke who knows what he’s doing!”
Zerephonzidas’s old desk made its way into the decrepit corridor and was lain on its side. Several chairs were quick to join it, as were any rocks light enough to carry. It took twenty minutes to make an acceptable barricade, twenty more to shore it up so it was moderately solid.
Twilight spent the whole time hoping, wishing, praying that the glass ponies wouldn’t wake up and find them.
Applejack was already starting to feel the effects of fatigue again. This close to… whatever it was, Twilight wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t feeling at least some side-effects. The farmpony seemed more sensitive to it than her, but if Twilight was a betting pony, she’d have said that the feeling of dread and claustrophobia that was creeping up on her wasn’t entirely due to their situation.
There was a palatable feeling of wrong-ness in the air. An alien feel that slid into Twilight’s mind like a slug would slide under a door. Like worms crawling through dirt. It ran across the outsides of her brain like a centipede. It was toxic, radioactive, and stomach-churning. Twilight wanted nothing more than to be gone from this place.
She’d even be glad to see Zereponsidas, if only so the larger, powerful sphinx could provide some measure of protection.
Applejack shifted the heavy pieces of furniture silently.
“I hate to ask…” Twilight began, “But what are the nightmares about?”
Applejack shoved another half-burned chair into place behind Zerephonzidas’s old desk. “I dunno how to describe ‘em. I thought about talkin’ to Rainbow ‘bout them, but… well, there always seemed to be somethin’ better to do.” She put her shoulder into the barricade with a mighty shove. “‘Sides, I was real tired. Still am.”
“If they’re to do with this place, I think I need to hear what they’re about.”
Applejack breathed out, and leaned against the barricade. “They’re less nightmares, and more like… I dunno. Like somepony is talkin’ to me without usin’ my ears. Like I’m being held up against a wall with wires ran through each ear. I see flashes that make my head hurt worse than after hard cider and my ears feel like somepony’s drillin’ them with a spoon.”
“A spoon?”
“I reckon it hurts more’n a knife,” Applejack explained. “They’re bad nightmares, Twi’. I ain’t had none like ‘em. I’ve had nightmares where I’m runnin’ from dressers tryin’ to eat me, nightmares ‘bout old ponies without eyes, and nightmares ‘bout… personal things, but they ain’t like these.” Applejack looked Twilight in the eye. “These are just painful, and loud, and they never go away no matter how tired I am.”
“You don’t see anything at all?” Twilight asked.
“Nothin’ that makes sense,” Applejack said. “Sometimes I see hundreds of… ponies, just flickering, like they’re not there half the time I look. I see white, like static, or real thick fog. I see this… thing, like a great big tree trunk made of blackness, and somethin’s in there, wrigglin’...”
Twilight went very quiet.
“A tree trunk made of blackness?”
Applejack shrugged. “Somethin’ like that.”
“Zerephonzidas has been drawing that. And… whatever was in that room, before the cave in…”
Applejack looked away.
“I know.”
“Is that why you want to leave?”
“Yes,” Applejack said, without even an instant’s worth of hesitation. “I want to get away from that thing as fast as I can and never look back. You should want the same thing.”
“But…”
“If it talked to you the same way it talks to me, you wouldn’t want to be here. You would want to be back home in your castle with Spike, reading a book about ponies who have… ‘adventures’ like these.” Applejack rubbed her eyes. “Everypony wants adventures like these until they actually happen.”
Twilight turned to the dark corridor beyond the barricade. “Maybe.”
Applejack blinked twice. She was evidently trying to stave off sleep.
“You can take a nap if you…”
“No,” Applejack replied. “Not until I can’t manage bein’ awake one more moment. The more I’m awake, the less that thing can get in my head.”
“No way through,” Douglas said. “We’re completely trapped.” He sighed. “We’ll have to wait for rescue. I can’t get through this safely without tools.”
“We’re lucky we didn’t get caught in the landslide, then,” Rainbow said.
“Quite,” Zerephonzidas said. He eyed Rainbow. “You never mentioned why you were coming to see us. I thought you were to stick with Twilight and the others.”
“Twi’ wanted to know if you had found anything,” Rainbow said. “Applejack was getting super-sleepy, so we weren’t making much progress. We thought it’d be okay.” She looked down. “I hope they’re alright.”
Douglas sighed, and beckoned to Rainbow to follow him. “Come on, there might be a passageway further along.”
“I’m not familiar with these parts of the ruins,” Zerephonzidas said. “These were the servants quarters.”
“Didn’t mingle with the lowlifes, then?” Rainbow joked.
“No, I didn’t.”
Rainbow snorted. “Would it kill you to make a joke now and then?”
“I’m not in the mood,” Zerephonzidas said. “I feel what I’ve been looking for. It’s so close I can almost taste it.”
“Speaking of taste, I don’t suppose there’s any food down here that’d have lasted for five-thousand years? We’re going to start getting rather hungry rather quickly.”
“Encouragement to find an exit, I guess,” Rainbow said. “Pity we don’t have more than one flashlight.”
“You could have brought one,” Douglas pointed out.
“Well, you had one and Twi’ and Rarity were there too, so I never really needed one.”
“I feel wind,” Zerephonzidas said.
“Well, it wasn’t me,” Rainbow replied.
“He means a draught,” Douglas said. “Which means an exit!” He caught up to Zerephonzidas. “Where?”
“Down here,” the sphinx said. “It’s just a faint breeze. Cold.”
The trio went down into the dark. There, they found a portion of the ruin wall that had crumbled away, either in the recent cave-in or centuries earlier. A small tunnel, made of jagged, dangerous rocks, led somewhere.
“It’s too small for me,” Zerephonzidas said.
“Me too,” Douglas admitted. “I’d cut my belly open trying to crawl through there.”
“I can make it,” Rainbow said. “It’s a tight fit, but I’m smaller than both of you. I can climb through and see what’s there.”
“What if you get stuck?”
“Well, we’re all stuck anyway. Might as well see what’s up there. If I get stuck, well, I guess we’re back to waiting for rescue, right?”
“I suppose,” Douglas said. “Stay, safe, yeah?”
Rainbow nodded, and poked her head into the tunnel. “Yeah, sure. Because safe is totally an option when you’re stuck in a ruin full of killer glass statues and cave-ins.” She began to climb inside. “See you guys around.”
Twilight heard the sound of clinking. It was the sound of glass on stone, but to her it sounded like the very bells of hell had begun to ring.
“Stay behind me, Applejack,” Twilight instructed. “If you can, throw debris at them. If they shatter, they won’t get up.”
Applejack grunted. “My aim might be a bit off,” she said. “It’s mighty dark in here.”
Twilight bit her lip.
“Yes, it is.”
Oh, please hurry and get us out of here, she thought. Anypony…