"Welp... off we go, then" Murmured Silver quietly. As he walked into the smallish cavern, he looked around, then he called out a loud "Hello?" Into the fickering light. As expected, he didn't get an answer, and he sighed as he walked down the main path. The buildings didn't seem special, really. One read "Barracks", one read "Supplies", another read "Communication", and then "Administration". Other than some smaller buildings for breakers or generators, that was it.
Wait, communication! Silver gasped as he connected the dots, and he rushed over to the Comms building. The door was locked, but when Silver gave it a shove, it creaked in protest, and... well, it collapsed. Over the years, water dripping onto the metal structure had thoroughly rusted it out, and the entire Structure came crashing down with metallic screeches and clanking. When the dust had settled, and Silver had finished coughing, he looked over the mess.... it didn't look good. Like the other buildings, it was just made out of sheet metal, so he lifted up a wall to look inside. There had been a lot of radio equipment and computers in there, but they didn't look good. What hadn't been squashed was thoroughly rusted, and the only thing working was a single computer monitor. The monitor being made of plastic seemed to be what had saved it, but it wasn't in good shape either.
Its screen was flickering and the outer edges were dim, but Silver was able to pick out some sort of logo he didn't recognise in the center of the screen. A star of some sort? It obviously wasn't a comms program, so he sighed and let go of the building, watching the wall slump back down. "Well, a screensaver isn't getting me out of here" He growled softly. As he turned around, the screen flickered, clearly struggling to even display the static image.
But he had already left. As Silver walked further back into the odd cavern, he noticed... the rock wall at the back of it seemed weird. It was oddly flat like the others, but... Ah, that was it. It had no deposits! Throughout the UnderWorld, there were tons of deposits of dirt, Granite, Coal... all sorts of rocks and minerals and everything. But this wall? Solid, unbroken, stone... something here was wrong. And Silver was going to figure out what.
Wait. Now that Silver was heading back into the cavern, he had picked up on something. There was more light, this time coming from ahead! He was certain now that something was in front of him, and Silver was going to investigate. He left the tattered remains of what was once a research station behind him, and he headed towards the pinpricks of light. To Silver's surprise, the light was something he knew, something he had grown up with. It was two everflame orbs, wearing cloth coverings that had simply began to succumb to their age and let some light through!
And what was between them was even more important. There was an empty hallway stretching back into darkness, and it seemed that a heavy, metal door was what belonged here. But the door was open, recessed into the floor, so Silver walked inside. Walking in, Silver could tell right away that this was some Equestrian hoofmanship. There were electric lights running along the ceiling, embedded into the brickwork. The hallway opened up into a much bigger hallway, and Silver was surprised to find that he seemed to be walking into a rather large area.
It was dark and eerie inside of the forgotten bunker, and Silver couldn't help but feel unnerved as he walked deeper into it. It was pitch black other than the light from his everflame lantern, and it was also silent. Mostly silent. He could hear water dripping somewhere in the facility, and the echoes of his hoofsteps almost sounded like somepony was behind him.
The hallway branched off into three smaller ones. Two hallways were labeled with lists of "Laboratories", and the one in the center spoke of things like Power and Electrical. That gave Silver an idea! If this place had power of some sort, then could Silver find a working computer or phone and call the Equestrians for help? Well, it was something to try!
On either end of the hallway that led to the power room, Silver could see shadowy racks of servers resting inside of huge rooms. That's what those things were called, right? Servers? Either way, Silver didn't care about those. At the end of the hallway, there was a room with transformers, battery banks, switches, and three cages that housed large, imposing electrical switches. Thankfully for Silver, all three of the locked-away switches were currently jammed into the "On" position, and it seemed that they corresponded to the three hallways of the facility.
So that just left the power. Silver was feeling pretty overwhelmed at that point, but he began to walk around the room and look for anything that seemed obviously out of place or not. At one end of the room, there was a lot of backup generators, labeled with numbers. But they looked like they hadn't been touched even when the place was inhabited! However, there was a panel on a wall that mentioned "Hydroelectric Power". Hydro meant water, didn't it? Did this place make power from water? There was a large lever reading "Main Power", so Silver grabbed onto it, and gave it a yank.
He didn't realize he had been so anxious about it until nothing happened, then he sighed. "Well, that didn't work" he grumbled. He pushed a button next to the switch that said "Go", and even though it stayed depressed, nothing still happened. So he sighed, and he turned to look elsewhere.
Buried deep in the cavern walls, not too far from Silver, a small pin was pulled out of a set of cogs. Then, they began to slowly turn. Screws submerged in a quickly-flowing underwater stream began to spin, and electricity began to trickle from the generators they were linked to. And behind Silver, that green button lit up.
A loud buzzing sound filled the power room, and Silver nearly left his own body as the sudden noise sent a razor sharp spike of terror through his heart. "Wh-" he stammered as he spun around, looking back at the panel wide-eyed. His heart pounded as he comprehended the illuminated button, and as he watched, more lights began to come on, the old, simplistic computer feeling power for the first time in decades.
And then, the lights along the ceiling began to buzz. Silver looked up with a nervous expression, not knowing what the buzz meant. It slowly grew louder, and while the lights did begin to emit a weak, flickering light, the noise was so loud! Something had to be wrong! Silver was looking for a place to hide from what he was sure was about to become a shower of broken glass when everything turned white, and he closed his eyes with a terrified squeak.
But... no broken glass. No cuts, no pain... did the lights work? It took a long time, but eventually, Silver was able to open his eyes. And once he got used to that, he was able to actually look around. And this place was bright! Equestrians were weird, not everything needed to look like their sun was shining on it... Still, this was good news. Silver smiled as he looked around the room, and it seemed like the facility was coming alive. Old fans began to spin, and air began to move through the old facility's vents, adding some nice, gentle background noise. Something started to make a grinding noise somewhere in the facility, but it didn't last for very long before it went quiet again, back to the smooth hum of the vents.
However, it wasn't loud enough to stop Silver from hearing something that echoed down the hall, from somewhere far-away in the facility.
"Hello?"