She awoke in fear.
She tried to breath and retched; something was stuck in her throat. She was cold, wet, submerged. She opened her eyes and weak green light assaulted them through swirling gel. Shapes moved out past the edges of her vision. She tried to move a hoof, to find a way out, to escape, and as she did so, she could feel herself slipping back into the dreamless sleep.
She awoke in silence.
Cold, wet, but no longer submerged. Her eyes sprung open, a blurry reflection greeted her. She weakly touched her horn to the blurred reflection which promptly shattered outwards. She lay there for a moment before realizing she needed air, her hooves shot to her mouth and found purchase on an object there. With some pain and retching as she did so she pulled a long tube from her throat and dropped it. it made a sickening sound as it hit the floor.
The mare climbed to her hooves shakily and looked out from the destroyed tank, sides heaving with the effort of her breath. Dim white lights flickered overhead lights overhead, illuminating the surrounding area. The word antiseptic sprang to her mind but she quickly pushed the thought away. She climbed gingerly out of the destroyed tank taking care not to step on any of the glass before looking around.
The room was large, with a domed ceiling and two levels of walkways along its outer edge. Large dark machinery was hung above the tank, the purpose of which she could not begin to fathom. Some type of control consoles dominated the floor around the tank, although no one currently occupied those spaces.
She shivered, the mare once again aware of just how cold she was decided she needed to find something to clean the gel from her fur. She moved over to one of the consoles, hunting for something to keep her warm. Locating a lab coat on the back of one of the consoles chairs, she wiped the gel from her fur letting it slide to the floor with a wet splat.
It took only a few tedious minutes to clean the majority of it from her fur. The wings however, that was another story. With a flap she splattered the nearest areas with the cold gel. With a soft sigh she tucked the now cleaner wings against her body and wrapped herself in the lab coat. Failing, once again to notice the dark rust colored splotches along the sleeve.
Now clothed she once again took stock of the room, looking above all else for a way out. A door, small but serviceable, sat at the far end of the room. She hurried to it, dim light illuminated the passage beyond. She moved through this dim passageway, ignoring the vines hanging from above. The brackish water that tugged at her hooves from shallow pools. Coming to an intersection, she tilted her head for a moment, ears straining against the quiet, against her own heart beating in her ears then took the left path.
For ages she wandered through the dark passageways, water dripping from above, vines and tree roots in places blocked her path, forcing her to backtrack. She came across rooms, some filled with nothing but wet and dusty crates, others with machinery she could not even begin to identify. Words--came to her mind in rapid succession when she saw certain objects. The meaning lost, but words to attribute were just as important.
One feature among all others stood out to her, a series of massive cables seemed to connect each of the series of objects and for a time she followed them. Through one room to another, up and down flights of cold gray stairs, through large cavernous halls with detritus strewn about, small rooms with no light at all and finally to a door, she estimated three lengths of her body wide. This door was painted in rust, its frame engraved with some sort of runes. She puzzled at these icons, no words came to her mind and she was unable to parse their meaning.
The door itself stood ajar, a crack between itself and the gray walls surrounding it. Through the crack she could make out a larger room, but the light from the hall was only so strong and she was unable to see a bare fraction of it. A word came to mind as she thought through the problem facing her, "Light". And as she concentrated on the word, her eyes screwing themselves shut with the effort, a dim glow began to appear through her eyelids.
She opened her eyes, excited to behold what was beyond the door. For a moment, she could see the shape of it all. Words began to spring to mind but the light that had begun softly was rapidly gaining strength. Panic began to set in and she began to concentrate on the light again, in an instant it went from simply bright to blinding. She reeled back, attempting to get away from the burning orb. She collided with the far wall with a crack, and the light, along with her consciousness, were no more.
She awoke to a rumble from her center regions, with a groan she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Then rubbed them again, the world was blurry, unfocused. All at once something in her vision began to slide, the fuzzy lines and colors of her surroundings began to slip away. She blinked and the world spun before her eyes, for a moment everything resolved in perfect clarity before sliding back into the haze.
She sat against the damp wall, her back already soaked through the coat. With a soft sigh she heaved herself to her hooves and the world spun for a moment. Throwing a bracing hoof against the wall she dry heaved, the sensation of spinning slowly faded and she straightened, sucking her dry cracking lips slightly. Her stomach growled, and the word "Food" swam to the forefront of her consciousness. It felt right, and as she began to make her way slowly through the hazy world before her it felt like the most important thing in the world.
Time slipped away from her as she navigated through the hazy gray world of endless corridors and rooms, from time to time she'd rest in a intersection and as she rested she'd complete another piece of the mental map. It was slowly coming together in her mind, the twists and turns, the empty, the cavernous halls, the labs...
The first one she'd stumbled upon--it took some time for her mind to produce a word, the word that finally came to mind was "Evil". She could hardly bear to remember those rooms, the devices that she could only begin to guess at their usage, the dark rust colored splotches that were permanently stained into the surfaces. Shaking her head she banished the thought from her mind.
She continued on, searching for food and something to slate her growing thirst. During this search she came upon a small door, she attempted to push through it and found it stuck. Focusing on the door she began to study its construction, wood, old, but sturdy. A lock, badly rusted, was the only item of note she found while studying the door. Without a thought the word "Unlock" came to her mind, they were beginning to come more readily.
With a touch of her horn to the lock she imagined the rusted lock before her, and with some trepidation felt through the word. A grinding sound came from the lock and its ancient mechanism simply disintegrated. She stepped back as the door swung slightly inward with the squeak of unused hinges. Her momentary concern passed and she stepped forward, kicking the door farther open, revealing the almost cupboard like room beyond.
Shelves lined the walls, and she stepped boldly in to claim her prize, and a prize she found. A thick spun sweater, thin pants and a small cloth bag covered in a hard waxy material, she suspected that it'd hold liquids. Shedding the damp jacket she donned her new apparel, and then with the discovery that her new clothing had no pockets she put the jacket back on, and the bag into one of those pockets.
She continued to navigate the truly labyrinthine corridors, as her map became ever more and more clear despite the haze that surrounded the world. She found there were some of the various vines and roots she could nibble on without becoming violently sick, and by collecting the clearer dripping water she could sate her thirst.
Finally, her mental map was complete. She munched on a root as she thought through the puzzle. There appeared to be no way out, or at least none that she had run into. There was of course, the rust painted door, the only one that she had been unable to get into. She had realized as she puzzled on that door that her vision was likely not coming back on its own. Despite having no reference of time in her dim gray world she felt it should have returned by now, but she had her map and that was all she needed.
She'd of course run into sunken passageways, collapsed halls and rooms which had simply given out and were filled with muck and dirt but as she puzzled over the map. That door, it was the only one that made sense, it was on the highest level of the maze and she suspected--the way out.
It took almost no time at all to navigate back to the rust colored door after filling her pockets with edible roots and her water bag, as she had taken to calling it, with the cleanest water she could. She stood at the ajar door, looking over its lines, the massive hinges that should allow it to swing outward. It was here where she began, using a bit of broken wall she went to work first with magic and then with her hooves. Chipping away at the rust and the grime that had integrated itself in the mechanism.
She'd work until she couldn't anymore, then eat a little of the root, take a sip of water and rest. It was during one of these periods as she sat and worked on the coat, cutting slits in the back to allow her wings to stick through, that there was an almighty creak and with a crunch the rust began to come away in sheets. The door crunched open a little farther and the top hinge simply gave way with a crack, its bulk twisting the lower hinge as it crashed to the floor.
The glowing milky orb hung low overhead, neither the mist nor the haze in her eyes could distract from that shape. Nothing could distract her in that moment, not the sucking mud at her hooves, nor the bobbing lights out in the gloom beyond the brackish water that surrounded the little island. She stared up at it in wonder and at the back of her mind she felt a tug, a feeling of ease, of comfort.
She knew the word, it was ingrained in her soul.