"Too far..." a distant voice echoed. "Take them."
Ebony's eyes slowly opened. She felt cold. Ponies say right before you die, you feel cold. Or, at least those were the stories she heard as a filly.
"Relax," a new voice said. She didn't recognize it as belonging to one of her crew. She opened her eyes wider to see she was at the mouth of a cave. The sound of water rushing and crashing down outside made her ears perk up.
"Where am-"
"You're nowhere. But you are with a friend."
"S-Silver?" she asked, holding out false hope.
"I have no name."
Ebony shakily rose to her hooves; the mystery pony trotted over and helped lean her against the cave wall. She looked at the pony but all she could make out was a mask, and the fact that he was a stallion.
"Why am I..." She stopped for a moment, trying to focus on her words. She raised a hoof slowly and watched as it shook uncontrollably.
"You took a hit to the head. It's mostly healed I think," the mystery pony stated. His voice was low and he almost sounded uninterested. Ebony raised her hoof and pointed to the mask strapped tightly to his face.
"You're one of them," Ebony said.
"I was."
"Not anymore?" Ebony asked, confused.
"Not anymore," he replied.
They both sat in silence for a time. Ebony watched the masked stallion, waiting to see if he was going to attack her. She took a moment to look at the cave entrance and found the source of the water sound she heard before—they were behind a waterfall.
"You're from the outside... Why are you here?" the stallion asked.
"I am... was with an exploration team... They're probably all dead now."
"It is possible they are. More likely, they were taken," he said, turning towards the waterfall.
"Taken to where?" Ebony asked.
"To nowhere."
She glared at him. These vague answers were, ironically, getting her nowhere. "If you're not with them... Why are you here? And why do you still wear that mask?"
"Because I still believe," he said, still looking outside the cave.
"Believe in what?"
The stallion turned towards her and stared at her, the eyeholes in his mask allowing his piercing gaze to seemingly see right through her. "You wish to know where you are?"
Ebony nodded.
"We called it the Unspoken Lands. There is nothing here."
"You are here," Ebony told him. "I am here."
"I am nopony, you are nopony. He is the only one who exists."
"Who is 'he'?"
"Our Lord, the only one to exist, God."
Ebony felt colder than before.
"God is here?"
"Not here, not in this cave."
Ebony thought for a moment. This stallion was vague and all of her questions seemed to be useless. She looked to the waterfall again. The sound of it relaxed her and helped clear her mind. Without looking away from the waterfall she asked, "Why did you save me? Why aren't you like the others here?"
The stallion stopped looking at her and looked back to the waterfall. He was silent. Ebony waited and began to fear he wasn't going to answer.
"I am an outcast. I believe in God, just as they do. But..."
"But what?"
"I am... not sure."
Ebony rolled her eyes as she began to get more and more frustrated. "And my other question?"
"I saved you because it was right," the stallion said. After finishing that sentence he rose to his hooves and extended a foreleg towards Ebony. "Can you walk?" Ebony hesitated for a moment but thought that if he wanted to kill her, it would have been done already. With that, she grabbed his hoof and rose.
"If your crew was taken, I know where they'd be."
"And you're going to show me?"
"I will take you, yes." With that, the stallion’s mask began to glow. Or rather, something began to glow underneath his mask.
"You're a unicorn?" Ebony asked.
"I am nopony," he stated again. Effortlessly, the waterfall parted and he trotted out and onto the river bed. Ebony slowly trotted out and followed him. After they were a safe distance away, the waterfall became one again. Ebony looked around but saw nothing but trees—trees whose branches and leaves made it impossible to see the sky.
"Here," the stallion ordered. Ebony trotted over to him and looked to where he was pointing—it was a small spot of dead grass on the ground, but it didn't look like it had been disturbed recently.
"What?" Ebony asked, confused. The stallion was silent but he moved out of the way for her. Ebony stepped to where he was standing and looked to him one last time before she began digging. It didn't take long before she found it—a steel necklace with a small cube attached to it. Ebony picked it up and heard something rattle around inside.
"How do I open it?"
"You don't, not yet." The stallion looked to the forest surrounding them.
"Stop being so vague!" Ebony yelled. "You're telling me all this, but you might as well be telling me nothing!"
"What is it you wish to know?"
"Since you refuse to tell me where we are, or who you are, or anything about your group, I'll ask something else. What is this “god” you told me about?"
The stallion sat down and slowly looked to the sky. "God is not Celestia or Luna. God is here, in the Unspoken Lands, here were nothing exists but Him. I grew up here, we all grew up here."
"Why are you an outcast?"
"Because I know what God is. Many decades ago, a team of ponies came here. Much like your team," the stallion said, turning back to Ebony. "We captured them, I captured them."
Ebony glared at him. "Why?" she asked coldly.
"At the time I thought we were going to show them the ways of God... I was wrong. Our priest, a unicorn with no horn, pulled me aside one night and took me into the church. In the back of the church was a cave; deep within that cave were the team of ponies... and the hole."
"A-A hole?"
"God was in that hole. You couldn't see him... but you knew. I stood there, silent as the priest pushed the first pony into the hole. He never hit the bottom. One after one, the priest threw the whole team in; none of them ever hit the bottom. There were no screams, no cries for help... just silence."
In that moment, the whole forest seemed to go silent too.