//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 - Codenames // Story: Lullaby for Midlight // by Blankscape //------------------------------// "Ugh, not this again," Kirk said exasperatingly. We kept to a line walking down the tunnel. He held the flashlight behind us to shine the way, while in front of me Agatha followed his sentiment by the shake off her head. "Come on, guys. It's a lot more important than you think!" I had to try to convince them, our lives could very well depend on having proper codenames! "Sure, it is, Connie," Agatha tossed back with a turn of her bandaged head. "Just not as important as the fact the earth around us has been dancing nonstop for over an hour and the walls could bury us alive at any moment!!" She did have a point there. Indeed the walls were shaking and trembling and had been for a while now, but not terribly more so than when we had found Agatha and settled down to rest. But seeing as they had been going on for so long, anyone would be antsy being caught in an earthquake while exploring a cave. This was strange, why wasn't I? In any case, we had a good five or so hours of sleep, or so our phones told us. It was a peculiar sense of wonder and accomplishment that held me firmly in spite of our equine forms. We could fiddle them enough to turn the phones on and manipulate them a fraction of how we used to. It was amazing. But even more amazing that for some reason, their batteries were going in reverse! If only Aggie hadn't run away, we would have told her about it. And telling her now didn't seem like the right time. Speaking of Aggie, it was amazing and quite relieving as well that she was able to shake off the pain like it was nothing. And then I'd thought that after having treated her wounds, she'd be more receptive of my ideas too. But no, Mergo was still foremost on her mind, and Kirk just wanted to get this over with! Figures... Now I know how Gria and Monty felt when they had to deal with me when I freshly moved into Balfon. "Uh, Connie?" I stopped and turned as he called to me, which tore me from my thoughts. "What's up, Kirk?" The flashlight dangled from his neck when he dropped it from his mouth to speak, and with a hint of annoyance in his tone for that matter. "With Agatha being injured and all, she's supposed to be the one setting the pace, not you. So could you please speed up a bit?" "Oh—oh!" Looking forward, Agatha had gotten a bit farther from us, but only stopped for the lack of light, taking the chance to rest her aching body as she waited for us to catch up. "Sorry about that, Kirk!" Quickly closing the distance, we returned to proper formation. He had argued that this was the best way to set the pace, seeing it would be easy to keep track of our injured friend like this. But then again we were in the mercy of the earth, and there was no point to any of this...well, maybe for the sake of visibility, but that was about it. Agatha herself was just so focused on finding Mergo, and both she and Kirk just wanted to get out of this long tunnel when it hadn't even cave in on us. After all, so much time had passed, and for all its strutting and shaking, it hadn't followed up on its threats to bury us alive. But most of all it was just so frustrating they treated this so seriously, that they never thought once about the fact we were headed for another world. That this was the start of an adventure! The walls petered out of their vibration, giving us moments to breath in sighs of relief...though that was far from the end of it. As quickly as it settled, the tremors rebounded and intensified far beyond comfort! "Oh no..." Kirk grumbled through the light in his mouth. For that mental jynx I conjured, I couldn't help but curse myself. "RUN!!!" The pace turned into a mad dash that hurt my hooves. I didn't know if it was because we weren't used to walking on all fours yet or because our hooves needed time to form callouses, but they hurt even more as our run went on. But if my hooves hurt, I couldn't begin to imagine how much Agatha's hooves hurt, let alone her whole body! Our run was frantic and harrowing, every second felt like a minute and in turn ever minute felt like an hour. Down the tunnels we hurried in a gradual descent, thankful that there was never any fork in the path that would split us up, or that nothing had collapsed on top of us yet. Then abruptly Agatha stopped before us. The walls still shook relentlessly, and it seemed like she had given up. "Don't stop, Agatha!" I called to her as she calmly turned around. "We can't--" The moment I caught up to her I realized why she had stopped. The tunnel had opened into a chamber whose roof stretched into the darkness above our heads. Here the tremor stopped for no apparent reason, so I wondered with Agatha as we stared out into the cave and then to each other in mutual confusion. "Whoa." "I know, right? It just--" She was interrupted when Kirk crashed into the both of us from behind. Clambering up from the heap we had formed on the hard unforgiving floor, he crankily yelled, both for us coming to sudden halt and his wings that were pinned in our tangle. "What the hell are you guys doing stopping...in the middle..." He trailed off as the sudden change of our situation fully registered in his mind. "Whoa..." "I know, right?" Aggie started up again with the same words. "It just suddenly stopped shaking the moment I set foot here," she commented with a hoof  to the tapering corridor that lead back into the tunnel. "I still can't believe it!" "Damn, Mother Nature! You scary," he blurted as they locked eyes. Shortly after Agatha and Kirk both slumped down to the ground in a fit of chuckles, giddily grateful for the ridiculous and fortunate turn of events. Meanwhile I couldn't help but bear an incredulous look on my face as I surveyed our surroundings. Even with the flashlight in my mouth though, there was nothing in this chamber to be found, all except from one detail that could easily be missed. A strange detail on the ground that preceded the entrance. "This has to be investigated," I announced but Aggie and Kirk were too relieved to care at the moment. Upon closer inspection of the end of the tunnel, I spotted clumps of dirt dotting a line across the way. Flicking the dirt off the tops revealed hidden stony bumps protruding from the ground. One hoof after the other I tip-toed over the line they formed that separated the tunnel from the chamber. In that moment, it all happened in a rush! The walls felt like they were closing and shook violently that we had escaped their chase briefly! Unable to keep my footing, I slipped and hit my head on the wall. "Aaaahh!!" Before anything else could befall me, I threw myself back over the line into the boundaries of the chamber. "Connie! What's wrong?" The two of them approached, worried when they saw me collapse. I couldn't answer right away, for there was a splitting headache that wracked me as Aggie helped me get up. "I don't know, but the second I stepped back into the tunnel, everything shook and I-I think I tripped myself?... I don't know." We all looked to the tunnel and sure enough it was as still as can be. Ugh, my head... "Was that earthquake even real?" Kirk's wings flared open for a moment at my incredulous statement. "Of course it was real, we all saw the news. And that crack those scientist came to look at, it was as real as can be. I saw it myself!" The mention of the scientists made me shudder. Speechless for the moment and unable to make anything else out of it, Agatha reached a hoof over the line. In a moment she retracted her hoof, turning spooked before voicing out her own confusion as well. "Whatever's happening, it's only happening across that line." She pointed with a hoof down. My headache intensified as she pointed it out, but then it immediately mellowed when we heard someone approaching us from behind. "Agatha's right," another voice agreed upon joining in on our conversation. "That's the boundary right there. Quite straightforward its intent, keeping outsiders away." We all turned to see someone standing with the flashlight that I had dropped in hand. She was clothed in nifty high end leather overcoat that fit and accented her form well, tailcoat swaying slightly. Her arm ended abruptly in a stump and had been bandaged with a bit of blood blotting, but other than that, it seemed she was fine. And she was fine, really. The smile on her pink muzzle flanked by her pink shoulder-length bangs told us it was so. Her pone face was unmistakable, even in a crowd of clones like her. "Piper!" Kirk and Agatha yelled to great relief. "We were so worried! Don't ever wander off like that again!" Aggie doted as she took her legs in an embrace. Kirk only stood nearby, shaking his head and giving her a playful punch on her side. "And Agatha usually calls me the reckless of the bunch! Stop trying to one-up me, will you?" Oh, why was I clutching my head again? No matter, Piper was here and she was safe. "You dummy!" I yelled in my dash to join their embrace. With a hand on my head she tousled my hair as our eye met. "Don't you ever do that again!" "Quit your nagging, loves. I heard Aggie the first time well enough," she chuckled. Then her face turned serious as she regarded the stone stubs that lined the entrance of the chamber. "Can you tell us what that is?" She stepped forward to the line and hunkering down as she began to dig. In a few minutes, she had scrounged out a few of them from the dirt. "Here we are." She brought them up for all of us to see. The part that stuck slightly the ground was plain and rough, while the dirt clumped and clung to shape that was buried. Piper picked one up and with a tap to the ground, the dirt fell off to reveal a carved symbol none of us recognized. "It's a carving of a sigil. And by the looks of it, it was placed here not too long ago." "But what's a sigil?" Kirk asked further, the same question we all had on our minds. Her brow scrunched in thought for a moment. "Well, the short of it is this. A sigil is a proxy that lets a particular spell persist long after it was originally casted. Most are made of pliable stuff like wood, metal or stone. Real advanced ones are made of magick and are self-sustaining if you can believe." "So what does this one do?" Kirk asked again as Aggie and I followed intently. She directed our attention to the wavy prong of the cast. "See this part?" She asked to which we nodded. With careful taps Piper flicked away some of the dirt, tracing it a finger along its edge "It's the part that throws any would-be intruders for a loop. Can’t intrude further if you don’t have the stones to go on, can’t you? I’m surprised you three even made it this far, considering humes were always made out to the cowardly flaky types in old stories! Aha!" In spite of her well-meaning jab, we echoed 'oohs' and 'aahs' for her enlightening explanation. "So that means someone must not want us snooping around here." As Agatha uttered those words, the faint echoes of footsteps sounded off far behind us. All of our ears swiveled, but Piper's eyes in particular darted at the direction with vigilance. "It's not safe here," she whispered, cajoling us with her hand to the opposite direction. She shone the flashlight to the ground as she ushered us into a grotto hidden behind an outcropping of stalagmites. Settling snuggly into our nook, she flicked the light off. "We should be safe here, so long as we keep quiet." We sat there in the dark till the footsteps could be heard no more and the silence turned deafening. Though whenever we tried to speak, Piper shushed us down. "Um, Piper?" I chimed with my quietest voice. "What is it, Connie? Whatever’s out there could still be there lurking about!" She returned in an even quieter voice that still managed to convey her seriousness and the urgency of our predicament. I clasped my mouth to a close at her warning and time slowed to an anxious crawl as we all waited to something or nothing to happen. That crawl seemed to end sooner than expected when Piper sighed. "Sorry about that. I just didn't want us to get caught. So what's on your mind, loves?" We continued to speak in the dark over hushed tones. "Well...about your hand, what happened to it?" Aggie asked before I could. It seemed she took notice of as well as I did, so I assumed Kirk had been curious about it also. On the other hand, Piper herself had been caught off guard by our curiosity, as if it never occurred to her that we’d ever ask about it. She shook her head slightly and stifled a chuckle, taking a moment before speaking up. "Ah, this... Let's just say, I had a misunderstanding with a friend..." She fell silent again before going on, the tension in the air weighing heavier for every moment she let pass. "She probably won't forgive me for what I've done, and she has every right to be angry... But she's a powerful ally and good friend...no matter how she came to be. I just hope she understands once this is all over. That is all I ever hope for." She rested her hand over my shoulder, and addressed me directly. "Be brave, Connie...even when all others doubt, you must believe in her." Her voice was meek and rang out hazily in my ear, but never before had something resounded in my mind with such volume, with such authority...with this much compassion... We were all in the dark now, both literally for hiding away and figuratively for going after Mergo. And even though, her words seemed to push me further into this darkness, even though the others should have said something when they would, they listened closely...I listened closely. There was no shying away from this. "That's that then, loves. And I think the coast is clear enough," Piper concluded with a guess. "But just to be sure, I'll scout on ahead. Here, Kirk." She passed a clinking thing over to him which I assumed was the flashlight. "Not a peep out from that thing unless absolutely necessary, so keep it off you hear?" "Got it," Kirk answered, flashing it on momentarily as a joke. For that he received a slap on the noggin. "Oww." "You wise ass. You better keep that well at off if you want what's best for you lot. Are we crystal?" She increased her volume ever slightly. "Crystal as can be, Piper," I answered, with Aggie and Kirk following in their own mouthed and mumbled agreements. "Good, I'll be back within half an hour at most," Piper said, a slight chuckle escaping her for no particular reason. "That's all I'm going to need..." Her outline stood out slightly against the dark and was hard to make out, but for the flicker of light Kirk had loosed, I watched her silhouette as she got up and somehow navigated her way out of the grotto as blind as any of us. As the encroacher's footsteps had petered out in the distance, so too did her own footsteps echo and fade as she made her way into the darkness. Owing to the lack of light and Piper's instructions, it didn't take long for the others to fall asleep or for me to follow. ... ... ... ... ... ... "Attention, all passengers. We will be arriving at the Lhusu-Centurio Station shortly. Please mind your belongings." "Gaaahh!!....Oooh, my head." The announcement rang throughout the train car. At its blaring volume, I was rattled out of sleep but just didn't want to come out from the covers. "Once again, we will be arriving at the Lhusu-Centurio Station shorty. Please mind your belongings. Thank you." The announcement echoed once more, beckoning my musty and slumbered form to stir. Joints creaked and muscles ached for the uncomfortable position I had settled them into at this window side seat. My head ached for what little sleep I had gotten, though I still checked my phone quickly for the time. Over the slight throbbing of my eyes, it told me it had just turned ten in the morning, but I could care less. I was all by my lonesome in carriage, and it had turned freezing overnight as the train travelled over the misty ranges of the Lutia Mountains. So no one would've blamed me for having pilfered as many complementary blankets as I wanted and pulled down all the blinds. My bones were as cold and heavy as stone. Indurated beyond invigoration. Even as wholesome light from the idyllic Cyrilian countryside crept past the cracks and fell over my eyes, I only grumbled and turned over. Then again, it was an uphill battle return to sleep. The cheery afterglow that lingered in my eyes playfully swept the sand away and stirred thoughts into skimming wakefulness. With half-lidded eyes and half a mind, I entertained those thoughts. Clamored visions of the weary and worn traffic in a bustling metro that struggled to breathe crowned the center of my daydream, while calm echoes of birds chirping over the suburban sprawl that rested in its shadow coerced no hurry whatsoever and so offered the most fitful of respites. The moment I would step down into the station, it would all be a familiar yet refreshing break from the fast lane that was the Balfon lifestyle. But more importantly I remembered I would be seeing Aggie and Kirk again. I'd be seeing my best friends in the whole world for the first time in over a year. And for that I was happy. I couldn't help but crack a stupid grin right there. "Ah, here we go," a voice said, it's owner settling snuggly down into the seat next to me. "What are you smiling on about?" "Nothing...I just wanna get some more shut eye," I groaned past a heavy yawn, digging back into the covers. My voice had turned slightly muffled with the fabric over it, and she quirked her head wondering for moment what exactly I had said. When she figured it out, she went about her business. Namely talking to me and keeping me from sleeping. How wonderful. "These are some ritzy foodstuffs you folk have here. Such a wide selection."  The sound of plastics ruffling and crinkling caught in my ear, and as I hadn't eaten in while, my stomach grumbled. “Corn chips, rice crisps, dried fruits, and jerky, all at one stall? And that’s just what I could recognize! By the gods, you humes have it easy here.” "Snacks are snacks, no big deal. You’d be even more surprised if we ever drop by a convenience store." I pulled the blanket over my mouth down. "What did you get for Kirk? He likes it when I bring him snacks for other places." "I couldn't afford any more on what you gave me, so I just grabbed some no-name bars and candies they had lying around on the counter. Will these do?" She put one right in front of me to see, and I couldn't help but chuckle when I didn't recognize the brands myself. "Hah, that guy's fine with anything. Makes it more exciting for him when he doesn’t know what he’s eating, the dolt." "That's good then. By the by, what was it that you wanted again, love?" "Clover chips," I managed to mouth in my bundled state. The snack plopped onto my lap, but something was off. In fact the most important thing was off. "Open it please." "Connie, you've two good hands on you. I have only one for crying out loud!" Already tearing into her own snack, its barbecue scent wafted out and I couldn't help but cry. "Open the bag, Piper! I'm a zombie in the morning," I groaned terribly. "Oh, for nightmare's sake." Following an annoyed sigh, she took the bag of chips in hand and tore its top open, its processed flavor wafting as a cheesy goodness to the delight of my nose. Piper placed the bag precariously on my stroller bag in front of me and pointed its gaping mouth right at me. The sight of the crisp yellow chips sitting in the bag waiting to be picked at was enough to rouse a lazy arm of mine out from the heavy covers, and I reached over to grab a piece. I reached and reached for the bag, but could only grasp at empty air. It was just too far. That pone, she had done that on purpose! "Piper." I turned to see her having finished a bag of chips, savoring the flavor powder that dabbed thickly on her fingers. She was really enjoying those snacks now, wasn't she? How quaint. "What is it now?" "I can't reach my chips all the way from here. Could you nudge it closer?" Following an exasperated sigh, she picked up and opened another other back of snacks. "Crane your back, you cacooned lout! I ain't moving another muscle at your behest." Left to fend for myself I bent over and forward, pulling the chips up from atop the stroller to my lap. With the snack in comfortable and easy reach, I began munching away while mulling thoughts in the meantime. In the absence of a proper breakfast, these processed cornflakes had done just fine. Meager yet fine. In the place of a queen-sized bed and covers I've never cared for, this cramped train seat and all these blankets kept me warm enough through the night. Quite cozy if I may add. In the stead of a thirty-inch flat screen TV, I pulled the blinds up some to soak in the view. Having just left the foot of the mountains, quaint Cyrilian farmland after another rolled by over the uneven and hilly landscape the railroad cut through. They had remained unchanged after all this time, even in the face of progress while also contributing to that very same progress. To it all roll by when came these trips of mine back to Cyril was a treat I always looked forward to. Most people I knew in Balfon hated travelling, whether it be on trains, boats, planes or whatever. They hated travelling outside their city, even in their own province, the ungrateful bunch. Even my parents, strangely enough, but they deserved some slack. On the other hand, I found it quite pleasurable. It was an experience unto itself every time I took this trip, a little ritual that had somehow grown on me. It was then I realized, in spite of my life changing over the lottery, I could survive with a lot less and be perfectly happy for it... Maybe that was why I kept coming back here. Soon a humble cityscape peaked over the horizon, announcing our imminent arrival. My heart turned warm and fuzzy at the sight of it, the feeling manifesting outwardly as another stupid grin I couldn't contain. So much so I couldn’t help but want to share this with my companion, however off putting it would make me seem to her. "Look, Piper, look! There it is!" I called with enthusiasm and pointed a finger across the hills over to my once home. Still a home in my heart. "Can you see it?" Munching away on her third or fourth bag of snacks, she came up right to the window and whistled as she took in the sight. "Wow...so that's Cryril, huh?" "Isn't it great? I mean it certainly is no Balfon...but I just can't help myself whenever I see it." A content sigh escaped me as I leaned on the window sill. "Hmm, it is...a quaint-looking place, isn’t it?" She regarded the city in a mild enough impression. It was a middling observation, though one I couldn’t help but agree with. It was what I honestly loved about the place. "It is very quaint, now that you mention it." "It certainly isn't as majestic as Verdandiel or as grandiose as Garriene had been." What she had said tickled me strange. "It kind of looks filthy and shady like a cesspool, if I look closely at some nooks," she continued, nose high atop her head arced back and a deigning tone painting her words. "Hey, wait a second here, don't go acting you can see it all the way from here!" I quirked my head to see her stare back at me with playful eyes. Piper continued to peer over whatever detail her eyes could latch on, as if it had to adhere to her every taste. Oh... I saw where she was going with this. She just wanted to put me down for having seen better places! Rub it in, would she... "In fact it looks way filthier than the once immaculate Salikawood, and even more reviling than the Tramdine Fens on the edge of the Graylands!" She loomed behind me while coyly taking hold of my shoulder. "Be reasonable now, I don't even know where in the world those places are!" I nearly rose from my seat as she kept on riding my nerves. "A dirtier seedier place than all the water-logged back tavern stalls I've had the displeasure of finding myself in!" Her grip on my shoulder tightened as her tone swooned in feigned distress. "Possibly more defiled than the fabled Stilshrine Necrohol of Aggripa!" "Now you're just being silly. Quit pulling my leg now, will you?" I jerked my shoulder away and buried myself in my blanketed sanctuary once more. For my apparently childish reaction, she loosed another chuckle. Ugh, this was getting annoying! "Mmmm…though in all honesty, Connie, it looks absolutely..." Oh great, here it came. "Perfect--" I literally burst out of my covers in an explosion, but even then Piper looked unfazed. "Yeah, yeah! I heard you the first time. It's not the best-looking place in the world and you’ve seen better! Can't I love it anyway because it's my hometown..." When her words fully registered, I deflated sheepishly as she smirked at my double take. "Come again?" "I said it was perfect." She turned back to the windowsill, resting a hand on it. Her riley attitude and that mischievous grin had gone and been replaced a pensive smile and wistful longing "For all its faults and blemishes." "Huh." So she was joking after all. “You really mean it?” She stared at the approaching city, her eyes not breaking from it once as she answered back. "I hope I get to see it in person someday. The girls would have loved it." There she said another thing that tickled me strange. She was being so weird today. "What do you mean, 'the girls'? We’re the only ones here. And you're on a train boarded for Cyril, silly. Of course you’re going to see it...in person...hmmm." Wait just a minute. Now that I cared to notice, something didn't quite fit together, a detail—no, details out of place. She had said so many strange things that didn’t make sense to me, and I had let them fly over my head just like that. And judging by that sly grin on her face as she snacked away, Piper seemed to know something. She was hiding something from me. Then suddenly took to a hearty chuckle, rattling me from my thoughts. "Ohohohoho, slip of the tongue there. I'd better get this over with before Crocellia throws a fit!" "Crocellia who? Piper, you aren't making any sense," I called out to her, the last of the blankets falling off from me. “In fact now that I think about it, you’ve not been making sense at—” Without warning, a great tremor erupted, and the whole world shook for several brief seconds. In the time it took to settle down, the train had come to a grinding halt as I curled down to brace my seat in the event of a crash. I was at a loss for words, though my mind still had the nerve to complain as I scratched my head. 'God, what’s happening now? We're right in front of Cyril! There's so much for Piper to see...' But when I looked out the window, a weight settled in my gut that threatened to sunder it like some frail sack. The city of Cyril was falling in, swallowed by a titanic maw that split open from the face of the earth. It was a scar that tore the very foundations of the city in two and propped it up as it jutted out in the air in cataclysmic proportions before swallowing it whole. My mind reeled over the simple act of even comprehending this disaster. “W-what the hell just—“ I struggled to speak, but that was only the beginning. As abruptly as the place I called home was taken from me, so too was my very bearing on reality. The train seat behind me was ripped away from its place by a vicious gust of wind. The calming blues of the cloudless sky and the lush greens the Cyrilian countryside fell to reveal a foreboding canvas of darkness that had always been there. And finally, the light from the sun was gone as if snuffed like a meager candle that flickered in the night. There I stood in the void, watching all of this unfold helplessly. But even more unsettling was that Piper was there, watching it all with a smile lost in wonder. Then her eyes turned to me. Softly those eyes, twisted in moonlight, fell upon me as I cowered and shrunk. And then with a chilling quality to her voice she spoke. “But then again, very little time passes while we’re here like this,” she recalled in a hushed and calm as she swept her bangs away to get a better view. She gazed out into the darkness seeing something I couldn’t and admiring it with all her being. Arms open wide, it was if she stood up to be enraptured by this unseen force that flew around us. I couldn’t fathom an inkling of her reasons at all. But the detail that struck me confusedly was the fact of her arm—the arm that was gone, her left arm that supposedly ended in a bandaged stump until just now. But now it was back as phantom of sorts, a lucent limb tinged in an ethereal hue. How in the world did she get it back… More importantly, how did I know that again? Piper had come with me on the train, and she always had that—AAAHH!! My head! It stung… The pain pierced my skull and raced down my body like electricity. Unable to hold myself up any longer, I shrunk down and curled as it surged through me. “We could stay here as much as we want and look at the beautiful moonlight, wouldn’t you agree, Connie? No one would be the wiser.” She loomed before my prostrated form and regarded me as a merciful god would an unknowing peon, her hand reaching out to offer whatever salvation she thought I needed. In a moment, our eyes connected. It was a spark...no, a worm that wriggled and slithered into my eyes. And then, past her head I could see it, a tiny wisp, fluttering and dancing. It zipped around and through my head, plucking ghosts of long forgotten scribbles from memories I didn't recall having. A shimmering bird rose gloriously from the ashes. With its wings it raised a crown high in the air. The wispy scrawls etched their shape into my mind. They trailed away into the empty void, and yet the further they flew, they more shone brightly with a hue that stood out magnificently in all the darkness. It was all beautiful…mesmerizing to behold… “Yes…yes, we could stay…” I mumbled as I got up, my legs shaky at first. Looking up, the wispy trail of moonlight remained, and I smiled at the thought of holding it in my hand, as would a child admire the butterflies they caught in a field. The dream flitted and danced just out of my reach, goading me to giving chase as a sudden impulse flared out in my legs. They showed me even more things. Things I would not normally know, things I could only hope to discover, and things beyond my mortal comprehension! Immaterial and value beyond measure, I could see all of eternity looping through every moment! “Let’s stay... Let’s stay…” I ran with all my might, as fast as my legs could carry me with no intent of stopping. They began to weather, tear and decay, and after a while it seemed I was pushing myself forward on sheer force of will. It felt like I had been running for days, week now, maybe even years… Eons… “Let’s stay, Piper. Let’s stay…Let’s stay!” But nothing else mattered, only chasing that tiny thing that whispered in my ear and fluttered out of my grasp. My face grinned widely, and maniacally I blurted out the wants and temptations that took root in my heart. “Let’s stay here, Piper! Let’s stay and chase that thing and make it ours!” "Hmm, then again..." Piper's voice cut through the darkness in a sinister pitch. “No!...” With a snap of her finger, the moonlight faded just before I could take hold of it. The end of its tail just slipped tantalizingly through my fingers. Apart from Piper who stood there in the void with me, I was alone without want. My heart sank. Everything lost meaning. “No...no…no, no, no, no, no!” I broke down. Tears ran down the face of my soul for having lost sight of it. “How could you!? It was so beautiful…Why?” I turned and was briefly stunned out from my sorrow to see her standing there. She was standing right where I had left her when I had started running. However, Piper saw things differently, taken by a bout of laughter as if she expected this to happen. “Oh, goodness gracious, I’d almost forgotten! This place always gets me that way. Why would I expect it to be any different for you?” Apart from the fit of giggles she could barely contain, she was calm and composed. She was without loss of breath, as if she had followed me all this time without even taking one step…or had I been mindlessly chasing that thing, running dreamily whilst anchored to the same spot all this time? She approached me slowly. “Now, now. We mustn’t tarry, lest we let that blasted princess get ahead of us.” “What are you talking about…what princess!? W-what… What about that thing!?” In my cascading confusion, I seethed angrily and clutched my head tightly. All the strands in my mind were fraying and it turned agonizing to even think! Had I still hair to pull I would have pulled all of it—AAAHH!! I looked to my hand and saw the bloody lock of hair that I had plucked from me head… The grips of my sanity were slipping in their hold. “Nothing’s making sense anymore!” Another bout of sinister laughter took over Piper as the void half swallowed her from the feet up. “It’s funny you should say that, love.” When it had swallowed her completely, her eyes gleamed from far above. Each of her eyes was as large as a moon, and they spied over the minutia of my every action. They were pure and immaculate, the same hue as those wisps of moonlight that danced around so tantalizingly and dredged dusty memories from my head. As sharp as the slitted irises that cut across its pupils, those eyes seared me with the gaze of its deranged light. I whimpered as my entire body flaked and molted. Suddenly I was no longer human, the hooves in front of me making it plain to see. My shed form was laid around me as a pile of ash-like snow, and when an ethereal wind flew past for a quick gander, the ashes scattered into its breeze. But before it left, it circled me as a shimmering mirror, briefly showing me for what I was. A small snowy pony with steel grey hair and blue eyes that glistened with the moonlight. But somehow that didn’t surprise me…I already knew this. Piper’s body was gone but her voice remained. Her laughter rang out continuously and maniacally as that all had happened. “Nothing make sense? Oh dear, me...hahahahahaha!! So nothing makes sense, eh? If only you could focus in on what truly mattered in your meager existence, then everything would make sense!” At the sound of her ongoing laughter, chains darted out from the dark and latched onto my wrists and ankles. I tried pulling myself free but to no avail. They were too tight, and simply trying to slide my digitless hooves out of them caused even more pain. When the pain became too much for me to try anymore, the chains began pulling back slowly, the sound of some hidden crank reeling them in. Without warning, the ground beneath me gave way and I fell. I screamed for my life and flailed for the slightest chance of finding some unseen purchase that stuck out from the void. Then chains yanked on my limbs as they went taut. The pain from having limbs nearly pulled from their sockets took me for the shock of my life. I was nearly unconscious. Though I wish I had been, because it seemed this wasn’t the end of it yet. The unseen crank now lowered me down till I touched to a smooth flat surface below. It was cold and made of metal. Then the pair of moon eyes high above me blinked away as they were close by a blackened lid. Exhausted and in agony beyond my wildest nightmares, I was listless and unmoving as a chorus of clattering metal and hushed voices moved around me in the dark. Their whispers and murmurs seemed to go on forever, and in the meantime, I caught my breath. To my terror, it seemed I would be screaming yet again all the way through. Blinding spotlights flared and caught me off guard. Moments later, the haze in my vision cleared, and I was met by a line of men in white, their faces hidden behind divisive masks and thick refracting glasses. The spotlights illuminated the area as most of them carried notepads and pens, while a pair at the lead sported a cruel and jagged scalpel in each hand. Then the realization dawned on me. I was in an operating theatre, and I was the subject of their dissection. A bolt of fear struck me like never before. “God, NO! Let go of me, you crazy bunch of--!” It was all I could manage before one of the cold assistants gagged my mouth with a drenched piece of cloth and pinned my head to the table. A needle was inserted into my arm, and the sedatives they pumped into my veins immediately took effect. Quickly getting to work, the surgeons started with a clean nick on my belly that opened up by the finesse of their skill. They pried my insides to a bloody open and leafed through its layers like some grotesque book. Even though my nerves had been numbed, I shuddered continuously as they carved me out like a husk. For every new discrepancy of my innards, they penned careful detail to paper so as not to forget. Their eyes were indifferent and calculating, regarding me as an object rather than the weeping eyes on my face that pleaded for them to stop with every fiber of my soul. There was no reaching out to them and I could only watch in horror as they toyed with my insides. It was when the assistants took hold of my intestines and yanked them out from cavity in my gaping abdomen that something about them all changed. In the process of extracting the organ out, they had torn its length in two. There was something significant about the spray of bile and blood, and the trickles of it splattering on the cold metal table that gave them some twisted kind of pleasure. Whatever they were looking for, it made them to grin from ear to ear, their yellow and plaqued teeth showing past the sterile masks covering their mouths, as if every drop split was an evident step towards the biomedical discovery of the century. They laughed and they giggled for every drop and went on working with intensified zeal. The blood that yet remained in my veins curdled, and even the splatters on the table managed to writhe with me as well. The curdling sanguine fluid sizzled and screamed for me where my voice was lost. The surgeons and assistants were ecstatic, laughing and reveling in my woe. “Should you really be screaming now, love? This is only the beginning!" Words echoed above the laughter over the static tone of old speakers. Even in my sedated state, I recognized that voice. Past the anesthesia my skin crawled for the utter cruelty. There above the operating theater, Piper looked down from behind the windowed viewing booth, her eyes cruel and slitted like the moon had been. She was eating a bag of clover chips leisurely, scarfing down bag after bag of chips with indulgent caricatured churns of her jaw. She watched giddily as the surgeons steadied my head and seared my eyes with a molten brand that burned its impression into my eyes and boiled my tears away. The pain was enough to make me to scream past the anesthesia. And I would have gone on screaming too, were it not for the surgeons reaching my lungs. It was out and bare now, steaming on the table, leaving me literally out of breath. “You know what else doesn't make sense?” It was too much for me to bear and my head fell back to the table with a thud. Terror took me in a vice-grip as the last thing I saw before my vision gave was Piper, high up the viewing booth, cackling with a maniacal look on her face and fingers dabbed in processed cheese. "A pony that can talk!" ... ... ... ... ... ... "No!!" The echoes of my voice leapt and bounded about darkened confines of the cavern. Startled and frightened, I shot up past the covers. “Connie?” Agatha inquired over a yawn, my volume and now ragged breathing having alerted her and roused her from sleep. Her voice was muffled and distant, as if she spoke from across a wall of fog. Or that it simply seemed soft-spoken because she had just woken up herself. Had I not recognized her, I would have turned paranoid for thinking that I was starting to hear ghosts whisper or voices that weren’t there. But I did recognize her voice, and it brought me some relief. Though I didn’t answer her yet…I couldn’t. I was disturbed, unhinged. That nightmare and the things I had seen…they were but wisps in a dense haze that began to fizzle out in the doldrums of the dark. I struck my hooves to my head in an attempt to distract myself, to forget it all. Yet even as I was forgetting, I was afraid for having seen them at all. Their fading visage sent a shiver down my spine. It made me shudder and tremble uncontrollably, even when it was not…wait, it was cold. In fact, it was freezing! Involuntarily my teeth chattered and my fur stood on ends. With sheer tenacity, a biting cold gnawed through my coat and the comforter that should have seen to the contrary. I wrapped my arms around myself like a vice and stroked my barrel to keep warm. How could Agatha just sit there so calmly when the temp was this unbearable? “Connie, is that your teeth chattering? Is something wrong?” She leaned over to get a better feel of me in this darkness, reaching a hoof to my head. She was so close I could almost see her face. But her doting presence felt overbearing, for which I pulled away. “I’m fine, Aggie,” I replied, shivering and chattering all the while. “It’s just so cold in here. Could it be because we’re underground? Why aren’t you cold!?” At first I was genuinely curious for the trivial matter of cave climate, but my tone turned annoyed when it was apparent she didn’t share my discomfort. “It is kind of cold, but not enough to get me shivering, I think,” she observed quite plainly, her hand leaving my forehead. “Are you all right?” “Of course, I’m all right. What’s a little freezing temp at this time of night?” That haughty front I put was meant to bolster my resolve and hide my weakness in front of Agatha. Though behind it, I wanted to collapse and curl into a shivering ball. “We’re here to have an adventure and save Mergo, aren’t we?” “Yes, we are, Connie. And I’m glad you’re so focused, but,” she answered back a bit concerned, trailing off for a moment. She fumbled about her person in the dark, and soon enough a dim light shone from a box surface as she brought her phone to my attention. “It’s three in the afternoon.” My momentary loss of bearings confused me for a spell. “So I was off with the time. Sue me. But seeing how deep we’re in, I don’t think a cave would about temp on the outside.” Agatha took another moment to leaf through my words before answering. “I guess you’re right. That was a bad comparison, but still it’s strange for you to be shivering like this.” She pointed the phone at me, and its soft glow somewhat caught in my eye. Not that it was unbearable, but it did make it difficult to look past its light and see her face, even at such a dim brightness. Somehow the chill turned slightly more so for the icing on my discomfort. “I’m mean, you did bring us some blankets in a spur of the moment decision. And it is a little brisk, but nothing to be shivering at. Look at Kirk! He’s sleeping like a log.” She directed the soft glow over our friend whose limbs sprawled and spread haphazardly. Snoring loudly all the while—now that I noticed, a wing and a leg of his twitched for the slight disturbance, but even for what covers he forewent, he slumbered on without a care in the world. Lucky dolt. He could sleep through an earthquake if he wanted… Oh… Tch, whatever, it didn’t change the fact that I was freezing. “For the last time, Aggie, I’m fine. I’ll deal with this somehow—GAAAAH!!” Ooooh…my head… A sharp pain flared out from nowhere… Ugh, I’d been having a lot of headaches lately, though I couldn’t remember why. “Connie, what’s wrong?” Agatha quickly rose to her feet. She fumbled around for the flashlight that was beside Kirk, illuminating the cave with its brighter glare in the flick of its switch. “Kirk, wake up!” “Ow!” Kirk yelled, having been conked on the head with a thud. “What…Agatha? Where’s the fire?” Distress painted her tone as she directed Kirk’s attention to me with the light. “No fire, and something’s wrong with Connie. She said she’s cold as ice!” Curled up and prone in front of them, the glare of its light shined in my eyes, causing the pain to increase two fold. I tried to reach for the flashlight in held between Agatha’s hooves and turn it away, but it was too far. The more its spotlight shone on my face, the more my senses spun and turned nauseating. There words fell on practically deaf ears, and I was starting to see double of them. All they did was banter back and forth while my vision swam even more cloyingly. What made it all worse was that the air bit down more cruelly with fangs of ice that only I could feel, for which I shivered terribly. Now wheezing seething mess myself, tears ran down my face for the excruciating pain as i shut my eyes tight and they worked around me. Murmurs were passed back and forth as they lifted my feet and placed my stroller beneath it. I felt a billow of air pass as they settled all the blankets over me. And lastly, Agatha propped my head over her flank. I dared to open my eyes in spite of the pain and I saw them arguing. My two friends looked to each other and exchanged concerned glances, not really knowing what else to do. Their faces were obscured, partially lit by the flashlight, and their mouths flapped open and closed as they bickered back and forth over what to do next, still essentially hesitating. I could barely move, delirious as I was. They resorted to craning my head up and cooing me with placating words, however muffled their voices sounded to me. "Connie, can you hear me?" Agatha asked, he face sweating bullets in her worry. I nodded in response. It was all I could do. "That's good. That's good," she said with a deep breath. She lifted me up from her flank and propped me up to lean over her chest. Thanks to this fever, I was limp as a ragdoll which only put more burden on Agatha, and I cursed myself for having gotten sick at all, the first thing to ever happen to me in our adventure. "Kirk, hurry it up, will you?" "I'm trying, Agatha, but it's not easy opening a bottle with hooves!" "Just bite the cap off, then!" Whatever illness beset me hit fever pitch. I was numb and couldn't even feel myself shiver anymore. Eyes and ears were all that remained yet even then, my vision narrowed into a tunnel and thick clouds corked my hearing. I was scared. "Aggie...Kirk...am I dying?" "Kirk, the bottle, now!!" Urgency impelled him to chomp down on the decidedly distasteful plastic. He twisted his head sharply, tearing the top of the bottle off which he then spat away.  Shaky hooves took hold of the bottle and balanced it before me to keep its contents from spilling. Both Agatha and Kirk leaned in as they consoled me. I couldn't tell who was talking anymore. "No one's dying on my watch, Connie!" The light touched their faces as they neared. "It's going to be alright, Connie. Just drink this." The jagged mouth of the bottle was lowered to my lips. ... Their eyes shone...they glimmered in moonlight... ... ... ... "GET AWAY FROM ME!!!" The bottle of water flew up in an arc and fell on the ground. Its contents spilled over yet no one paid it mind. My voice boomed into the cavern as I thrashed and flailed in their hold. Yet even then their arms tightened around me like a vice to keep me down. "Connie! Connie! What's wrong!?" The thing with Agatha's face spoke as she held me by my neck, coating words in false concern. The brute that wore Kirk's face was too tough to overcome, as he used both wings and hooves to pin me down with the certainty of his weight. Still I had to try if I wanted to escape. I threw my hooves about mindlessly, not caring where they hit and doubling my efforts when they hit anything at all. I didn't care, so long as I would be free. "Whoa Nelly! It's like she's possessed!" "My name's Connie, and it's you two who are possessed!" As I struggled, my eyes met theirs without ever breaking contact. I could see it in their eyes! "You're not my friends! You're not Agatha, and you're not Kirk!" They exchanged confused glances all the while pinning me down. "I know what you two are trying to pull! You both want me to fall asleep so you can put me back on that table, and then those guys with the knives can come in, cut me open and pry through my insides! Get all my blood gushing out of me!" Their hold continued to tighten the more I flailed, shrilled and growled. "This isn't real and you're just both part of this nightmare! I won't let you or Piper fool me anymore!" The brute in front steadied my head and forced me to look at him. "This is real, Connie! Who else could it be?" The seamless way the nightmare grafted Kirk's face on to him was so perfect and nearly indiscernible, it was disgusting to look at. So I spat at his face to distract him. “Yuck!! Seriously? This whole fiasco turns you into an animal and you start acting like one too—“ “Kirk, don’t you let up on me!” The Agatha impostor griped me tenaciously from behind. Were it not for her, I would have thrown that Kirk impostor off balance, and I would have been free by now! Her hold doubled as the Kirk impostor reassumed his position. "Just calm down and listen, will you!?” She took hold of my face and forced me to look at her straight in the eyes. “Look at me, Connie! It’s us! We’re here and we are real! We're not the nightmare!" Their eyes glinted in that sinister moonlight hue, I had to get away before it was too late! "You're lying! You're lying! You're lying! You--" A hoof landed across my face and gave me a good wallop. "Kirk, what was that for!?" My cheek flushed red for the impact and I turned to putty in their hold. I was nearly out of it, though skirting the line of the waking world and unconsciousness, I felt no emotion… I was…reset. "She was getting out of hand! At least it seems I've knocked out whatever crazy had hold of her." They eased upon their grip and laid me down on the ground. "Here, put her up on the wall." The haze in my vision cleared and focused in, and my hearing perked for the lack of impediment when their words registered vividly in my ears. "Connie! Connie, it's us!" Agatha called out. Her face was soaked in a flash sweat of worry, more than relieved to see me finally calmed down. "Maybe being away from the Balfon sun triggered some sort of withdrawal. Could she have been taking something when she was there?" Kirk offered his explanation partly as a joke. "Oh, shush you!" He was scolded for the inappropriate jab, and their attention returned to me. "Connie, it's us! Agatha and Kirk... Are you okay?" Tears welled in my eyes both in relief for their presence and regret for having caused them grief. It was them, my honest to goodness best friends! "Aggie...Kirk..." At my lucid response, their faces brightened into warm smiles that welcomed me back. "Thank heavens! Connie, you're fine!" Aggie rejoiced as she took me into an embrace. On the other hand, Kirk doubled over on his rump and sighed all of his worries on the matter away. His sights fell on the thrown bottle of water that barely held anything. He picked it up and finished it, less than a third of a glass. "She better be fine. We only have two bottles left." “Kirk…Aggie…ugh, I’m so sorry!” In her arms, I broke into tears unable to hold my emotions back any longer. Agatha herself broke into tears of joy as we took solace in each other’s presence. "I'm so sorry, but I was so scared. I was so scared of that nightmare!" "Oh, Connie, you must have been holding back all that stress. Please don't bottle it up like that again. We're your friends, and we're here for you. Like you're here for me." "I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..." Exhaustion fell heavy over my shoulders and my body slumped over into Agatha. "Kirk, could you please keep watch?" She spoke past her tears, her request causing Kirk sigh tiredly. "Sure thing," he answered and the lights promptly went out. "There, there, Connie. At least your fever is gone," Aggie cooed into my ear as she hummed a lullaby and rocked me in her arms. "It's alright now. So just sleep, and we'll talk about everything in the morning. We'll even decide on codenames like you wanted. In fact, that's the first thing we'll do when you wake up." I opened my mouth to answer, but all I could manage was a yawn. Still I'd like that... I'd like that very much... My senses turned inert to rest with me, though as I fell back to the familiar touch of sleep's soft embrace--ever the cold and gentle place that awaited us all--I couldn't help but listen in listlessly before they joined me. "We sure have been sleeping a lot, haven't we?" Kirk wondered, the flashlight clinking along in his grasp. "I supposed we have, but it can't be helped…" Agatha hummed in thought. Her voice twinged nonplussed at ridiculous possibility that had just dawned on her. “First me, then Connie… Don’t tell me you’re going throw a fit, too!?” "Who, me? No way!" Kirk replied without missing a beat, decidedly nonplussed ... ... “Anyway, who's Piper?"