The color of the flowers had faded to their last value in the sequence some time ago. Pocornia wasn’t sure when, but she knew it had been some time. She marched forward, her heavy hooves taking her to the top of a hill. The land below was offset by a set of trees, behind which rested a bulwark of metal fencing safeguarding a cemetery. That must be the place, she thought. How could it not be?
Pocornia made her way down the hill, following the path towards the cemetery. Her skin tingled, the cold air causing her to shiver slightly. She couldn’t remember it being this cold on any part of the gauntlet prior to here. Perhaps there was a reason for that, perhaps a purpose. She had a sense the world around her had begun to change somehow as if it were more...aware…
Pocornia looked to her left and saw something odd. Turning to get a direct look she suddenly felt shocked and appalled. She saw a set of withered leg bones tied together in a way that formed in X-shaped monument. Attached to the center was a decomposing pony skull, its fleshy tongue dangling in place of where its jaw once was. Pocornia began to feel ill as her eyes panned to the right. The husk of the pony hung by its arms from a tree, swarms of bugs flitting about, many embedding themselves into the remains. She sneezed, her nose having caught the scent of death.
Pocornia hung her head, attempting not to be sick. She held her mouth, controlling her breathing. After a few moments, she pushed herself forward along the path. She told herself not to look around, but her eyes betrayed her, drifting off over to her right. She thought herself crazy after seeing what was there, an incredibly splintered tree with an angry face on it. The face had eyes, glaring, hateful, which appeared to look down upon her. They seemed to scold her for having dared entered its field of vision. The tree began to snap its mouth at her repeatedly, twigs with sharpened tips in the place of teeth. She darted to the side a bit to avoid being grabbed by the tree’s frail stick fingers.
“Don’t touch me!” Pocornia growled.
Pocornia moved on, cautiously checking the trees around her to ensure that they would not sneakily wait for her to get close enough to grab her. Although, she did start to think that the trees ahead of her to be natural, not monstrous…
Pocornia sneezed again, the wind had picked up strength. The pungent smell of death reeked and she could not refrain from sneezing at it. The wind gradually increased until the noise it brought reached a crescendo. Dirt, pebbles, blades of grass and heavier things like small logs and decently sized rocks were being flung all about. Pocornia found herself amidst an unnatural wind storm that seemed hellbent on striking her with whatever projectiles it could lift and hurl.
The wind’s power had grown so fierce the numerous projectiles hindered Pocornia’s vision. She fell to her knees and began to crawl along the ground towards the cemetery gate. An odd light caught Pocornia’s attention. Looking to her right she saw a strange pulsating symbol etched into a somewhat flat-surfaced boulder which stood on end, like a monument, she thought. The top of the symbol looked like a small crescent moon, the tips pointing down. The crescent moon hovered above a larger image, a sort of serrated staff, or rod, with a wickedly carved scythe on one end and the blade of a pickaxe on the other. The whole symbol shimmered, a vibrant green color emanating outward. The image gave Pocornia an unsettling feeling, but she had to move forward. She knew she could not delay her mission any longer.
Pocornia continued to crawl along the ground. She looked ahead, but could not see much more than a few feet ahead of her. To her shock and dismay a skull, barely recognizable as once having belonged to a pony, rolled past to her right. Even given she only saw it for a moment she was instantly convinced it had been grinning at her. From the darkness into which it vanished she heard laughter. Laughter directed at her, laughter laced with hideous joy…
“I…I want to go home,” she wailed, “this is an awful place!”
Laughter was her only answer.
Pocornia continued to crawl her way forward. Suddenly she found herself surrounded by silence, as the windstorm died as quickly as it had begun. She dared not to speculate as to why, as fear and anxiety held her in a near-iron grip, but fear which caused her to stand and run forward toward the cemetery gate. She bolted down a wide cobblestone path that seemed to split into smaller paths. Most of those seemed to lead toward a collection of marked gravestones. Her eyes again registered movement. To her left one of the gravestones toppled over, crumbling as it fell flat upon the cold ground. There was a flicker of shadow.
“Who’s there?” She shouted, certain something, or someone, had to have caused the gravestone’s fall.
A pony poked his head out from behind a tree, his worn face appearing dry and cracked. One of his eyes was missing, replaced by a circular rock. He shuffled out from behind the tree, his gait awkward and slow like that of the injured. He gurgled, lifting his arms while emitting a wet raspy noise. His one marble white eye had locked its gaze onto Pocornia, a gaze that sent a new wave of terror surging through her.
Pocornia felt unsteady as her limbs began to shake. There was a noise behind her, something crunching, she thought, and she leaped to her left. Looking right she saw another pony shuffling towards her. Pocornia gasped at the mare’s mangled appearance. One of its legs was broken, part of the splintered bone sticking out of her calf. A chunk of the mare’s face had been shredded off, exposing her unnaturally sharp teeth within her mouth. It howled, an animalistic sound tinged with malice. It reached for Pocornia.
Pocornia stepped backward off the main path and towards another. Just as she gained a bit of distance between herself and the two...corpses...pursuing her, a third came into view. She meant to run, but then her eye caught sight of something different about the third pony. A symbol had been burned onto its chest and head, the exact same symbol she had seen earlier carved into the rock. A realization suddenly struck her. There had to be a connection between the symbol and the orb. At the moment she couldn’t say why but she knew it had to be true. Now motivated by both fear combined with a sense of excitement she rushed down the path away from the shuffling beast behind her. She wasn’t fully sure why, but even with death all about her, she felt a smile begin to adorn her face.
Pocornia came along a corner of the path with a wall built next to it. In the wall’s corner lay a blood-soaked pony, the shaft of a spear protruding from its chest. Impaled to the wall it appeared to hang lifeless, but as she approached it began to flail about wildly. Pocornia looked up to the right and saw what appeared to be a statue of a soldier, looking down at the pony speared to the wall. The soldier stood posed in a combat stance as if having just thrown the spear. She stood for a moment, looking up. Then the soldier turned its head and looked at her.
She stepped back. The gaze was vile. She felt it mocked her, judged her, and found her unworthy. The smile was a sneer.
“You do not belong here,” the soldier said, with a voice like the sound of gravel being ground to dust yet fueled by disdain. It nodded its head toward the pony hanging against the wall. “You will fail, and become like him.”
This moment was strange to her for a number of reasons, the primary of which she knew she should be afraid of the soldier-statue, but wasn’t. She was far more concerned with the shambling mounds of pony-flesh approaching from behind, particularly the one branded with the symbol. She needed to keep moving, but somehow she just knew the statue would not suddenly animate and join the chase. If Pinkie were here, or perhaps Octavia, they could have thought up some sarcastic response. But her mind didn’t work that way. She just turned her head away.
Pocornia returned to her task, continuing down the path. She was not sure of which way she needed to go, but the little details she kept noticing strengthened her belief the mausoleum was nearby. Ahead of her to the left the wall came to an end, the path turning before it. As she rounded the corner something forcibly grabbed her from that side. She struggled, moving to her right as she swung her left leg forward. Then she screamed.
One of the ponies, one of the dead ones, had bitten into her head just behind her ear. It began to shake its head, yanking her from side to side as its teeth pressed deeper into her flesh. Pocornia swung left, pounding the pony with her hoof. She again swung her left leg up into the jaw of her assailant, then swung her right leg down onto its head. She broke its grip and violently pushed it away, blood instantly gushing from her wound. She screamed again in response to the pain. The wound seemed to burn, a sensation that suddenly caused her to fill with anger. Her third scream was more shout as she pounded her assailant again, knocking it to the ground. Lamentably her third scream resulted in another response, one which had inconveniently slipped her mind. All around her the dead were alerted, made aware of her presence. A number of them moved towards the source of the noise, toward her. Chest heaving she looked about, looking for an avenue of escape.
A dead pony stood up from behind a gravestone and marched towards Pocornia. Out of anger, she gave it a well-applied kick to its stomach that launched in backward. She stayed put for a moment, her friend Songbird coming to mind and how she wouldn’t drop her tough as nails composure because of an injury. Pocornia then turned, watching a swarm of the dead waddling towards her, more than she could count. She looked for an opening between them, mapping out a path in her head as she advanced. She expertly weaved herself between the crowd, trotting to a fleetingly safe location. Her eyes surveyed everything around her, how was she meant to find a single key in a gloomy cemetery patrolled by the dead?
Pocornia sucked her teeth, noticing a stone pillar-shaped fountain spewing water into a circular base. She would start from the fountain and look all around, that was what she would do, she knew she would eventually find the key if she did so long as she continued to avoid the dead’s reach.
Time went on, Pocornia later hid in a row of bushes. She had been searching for what felt like an eternity. She was waiting for an idea to come to her while periodically peeking over the hedges for a spot to check for the key. She had searched every possible spot by now having used the fountain as her sort of guideline to follow yet found nothing. Her fruitless efforts made her feel hollow inside, she desperately wanted to return to her log cabin’s inadequate bedroll to sleep with her kitty “Wait, who’s feeding him. I hope he hasn’t snapped at Fluttershy…She doesn’t know where I keep my anti-venom.”
Pocornia hung her head, resting it on her hoof. She thought her concerns were trivial given her rightfully troubled conscience. Her eyes trailed the scar on her arm, the mark done for the sake of penance, her formal nickname, Popcorn… “I never deserved her.” After a few minutes spent quietly sobbing, Pocornia looked up. She saw something sparkling atop the tip of the stone fountain, something that had to be made of unnatural material for it to sparkle. ”What's that?”
Pocornia got up and ran as fast as she could to the fountain. She climbed atop it, extracting a piece of metal from the fountain’s pillar. “The key, it's the key!” She happily exclaimed while climbing back down from the fountain. Pocornia weaved herself around a few of the dead, hastily making her way to the gate.
The gate rested, rust having hardened the hinges in place. Pocornia walked up to it, jiggling the key within the lock until it finally turned. The chain holding the gate closed fell to the ground, Pocornia locked the gate behind her. She hoped it would keep the dead from shambling in uninvited. She then looked around and saw a single path that lead her down a slope. She looked for a hiding spot and hid the key before continuing down the path. Her confidence had been renewed, motivating her to move purposefully.
The Mausoleum came into view, a mostly square building with markings etched into the walls held together by a triangular. Pocornia stepped up to the steps, knowing this was her moment, the moment where she would either uphold her votive promise to her beloved Sapphire or succumb to failure and despair. She looked down into the darkened stairway, the door to it having opened before her arrival...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Octavia lay in her hospital bed, staring at the wall. Vinyl had left about thirty minutes prior, in pursuit of Songbird. In the interim, the nurses had returned and changed her bandages. In fact her entire torso had now been wrapped. Octavia had insisted on it.
The bandages should hold, she thought. They felt tight, firmly attached. They would have to hold. It was time she got moving.
Octavia reached to pull herself out of bed but then heard a voice.
“Where are you going, young one?”
Octavia looked up, into a pair of azure blue eyes attached to a body she had not expected to see standing next to her bed. But then she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. “Princess Luna…”
The Princess looked down at her, a slight…yet approving, Octavia thought, smile on her face.
“You need to rest, my child.” Luna stated, a hint of finality laced within her voice.
“Popcorn.” Octavia began, then swallowed hard. “Popcorn is in serious danger. I know it! “She paused, then blinked her eyes. “I need to go to her.”
Princess Luna slowly waved one hoof over Octavia’s head. In response she felt her eyelids growing heavy with sleep. Before they closed she heard Luna speak.
“And so you shall…”
———————————————————————————————————-------
The Dark Pony sat amongst the forest, his vision fixed on the barrier between him and his agent. “Again…” The Dark Pony whispered in the faintest of voices.
“You should have known I was coming.” Luna replied, stepping out from the wilderness.
“Perhaps I should have...” The Dark Pony replied.
Luna cautiously approached the Dark Pony, proceeding to sit near him. She respectfully left a bit of distance between herself and him, turning her head just enough to give him an apologetic look without meeting his gaze. “How many?”
The Dark Pony clung to silence. He struggled to recall how long those who previously heralded his desire had spent beyond the barrier before he assumed failure. Pocornia had certainly exceeded that time, but he could not bring himself to leave yet. He is certain that she is different somehow and that difference from the others will allow her to succeed.
“One thousand years...How many?” Luna asked again.
The Dark Pony launched a magical bolt at the barrier. Luna watched it flicker, seeing the tiny white floaters that made up the barrier wiggle in agitation. She looked back where the Dark Pony once sat, feeling a set of arms wrap around her from behind. The Dark Pony rested his textureless face against hers, whispering. “Wake up Luna…”
Luna awoke in her bed, finding it difficult to breathe. It was as if a set of hooves had been pressed against her throat. She flung herself out of her bed and walked towards the mirror on her dresser. Prints of another ponies hooves had actually been pressed against her throat leaving a mark so red that overpowered the deep blue color of her fur. Having nearly been asphyxiated in her sleep, she choked on her own breaths.
A guard burst throw the room’s entrance, the door slamming backward. “Princess, the ponies you requested an audience with have arrived.”
Luna nodded, following the guard out of her private chambers without delay.
———————————————————————————————————-------
Pocornia looked down, seeing a dark abyss, black fog aloft the seeming endless depths below. Was it like water, she wondered, dark water at the base of the stairs, how would she swim through if the interior of the mausoleum had flooded before her arrival? Maybe…she thought, maybe there were air pockets down there. She recalled having previously tasted swamp water, making her dry heave. She thought she would never fully get that taste out of her mouth.
She continued to watch, severe apprehension and anxiety had held her legs in place. The foreboding lower level seemed an unsurpassable tribulation, how could she continue her quest knowing that she may not be able to breathe down there. She sniffed, hanging her head while tears streamed down her face.
Pocornia started to see something, a memory of past events, the memory playing out around her like she was experiencing it in real-time.
“Popcorn, I serve...a powerful force and sometimes, I am told to find a pony, like you, to test.” The Dark Pony took a long deep breath. “Despite the nature of your transgression...You genuinely sought penance.” The Dark Pony pointed at Pocornia’s scarred arm. “Marking yourself...blade unto flesh.”
A strained thoughtful look appeared on Pocornia’s face.
“I think you deserve a second chance, to have your log cabin and Sapphire!”
Pocornia’s mouth dropped, her eyes growing wide. “how?”
Pocornia pondered the memory, recalling the raw emotions that had made her stop and think. That was what the Dark Pony was trying to do, to get her to stop and think. The raging emotions working against her mind gradually calmed the more she focused, allowing her to stop and think. “She is special…” she said to herself. “Better than any mare I have ever met…”
Pocornia confidently inhaled a breath in between her teeth, holding it as she valiantly charged down the stairs. Her love for Sapphire was worthwhile, too worthwhile for her to leave the gauntlet empty hooved.
Pocornia descended down a stone stairway. She quivered, fearing whatever may be at the foot of the stairway. The air grew thick, Her body and legs became cold to the touch, the unknown ahead of her crystalizing atop her fur like winter’s first frost upon a road. Her eyes traced something darting out from a spot covered in darkness. She felt a droplet slide down her forehead, down her face until it fell from her chin. Her hooves came out from under her, she had started to float while the area around her bent and twisted.
Pocornia looked all around, the blank and black scene reminding her of her transport from the waking world into the gauntlet. A detail stuck out to her, she had never been transported from the waking world into her nightmares, she just appeared in some place at some time, Pocornia had not stopped to think about it, but there was a growing need to understand the sensations toying with her. If she had to be transported like, did that mean she is now leaving the gauntlet?
“Hey!” Pocornia called out. “Heeeeeey!”
Something floated by Pocornia, she did not get a good look at it, but it was covered in darkness so dark that it had shape against the pitch-black background around her. She eagerly wanted to learn the identity of the shadow, be it the Dark Pony or something else. Probably not the Dark Pony, she thought, calling out again. “Hey!”
Pocornia looked down, watching the floor change from a cold black to a warm yet soft white. Strands of smoke continuously lifted up into the air, curving into an unsteady arch before evaporating. The laws of gravity suddenly applied, making Pocornia land and stand on her hooves. She moved around without direction. “Hello?”
Pocornia cast her eyes, searching for a horizon. Just as the world seemed without end, she noticed walls forming far off into the distance. Their surfaces bubbled, emitting a soft crackling she could barely hear. She looked up, searching for a sky yet saw nothing. She leveled her gaze, realizing that the twirling fog beneath her floated higher than it had before. It gradually rose above her, imprisoning her within itself. She watched a figure dart back and forth as if it were taunting her. She approached it, it having mysteriously disappeared once she moved towards it. Whatever it was, an anonymous figure, she knew it had to have hostile intentions. “I’m not scared of you, I made it this far!” She roared. “I want the orb right now!”
Pocornia looked behind her, seeing the figure darting around wildly. She turned towards it and shouted. “Give me the orb!” She demanded.
The figure stopped in its tracks, ceasing its in incessant game with Pocornia. “Give it to me!” Pocornia screamed.
The figure stood idle for a moment, still hiding behind the fog. It lifted a limb, Pocornia assumed it was a leg. The figure waved at her in a friendly manner. “C’mere!” Pocornia commanded. “Get over here…” Pocornia impatiently growled.
The figure leisurely strolled towards Pocornia, biding its time. Pocornia readied herself, anticipating a conflict. She firmly planted her hooves onto the ground, balancing her stance. She had risked so much to get here, wherever she was, to find the orb and she was so sure that she was about to face her final challenge. The orb must be here, she thought, and that thing must have it! She waited, watching the figure step out from the fog it had used to mask its identity. Her eyes widened, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing…
“Am I going insane?”
It was herself, but Pocornia saw that something was wrong with her. She watched herself limp towards her, her gait wobbly and unbalanced, the thin hairs of her frizzy mane having split, a scar on her face and busted purple lips. Pocornia also noticed her ear had been damaged similarly to her own, but the look in her eyes frightened her most. She knew, Pocornia could tell, she was burdened by truth, about her, what she did, and the very nature of the gauntlet she had been traversing.
Pocornia looked down at her shackled leg, the chain dragging along the ground. She wore a restraint on her chest that trailed down her legs, Pocornia thought that somehow kept her from walking, forcing her to limp. Her fearful eyes met her clone’s angered eyes. The anger…She could not understand the anger in her eyes. It was as if every other feeling had been drained from her, leaving nothing except unsoothable rage. “I know who you are.” She stated, glaring jadedly at Pocornia. “I know why your here.”
“You're not worth it…You don’t deserve it.” She stated.
“I…” Pocornia paused, her voice had cracked. “I…I can help you, just give it to me and I can help you.”
“You can’t reason with me…, but I can reason with you.” She replied.
“What?” Pocornia asked.
“That is why I am here.” She answered.
The clone stepped closer to Pocornia, entering her personal space, their muzzle’s so close together that they could feel each other’s breath against their faces. “You're not worth it…” She stated.
Pocornia took a step back, wanting to keep her clone out of arm’s reach. “What are you going on about?”
“Think about it.” She answered. “Even if you did use the orb to save her, don’t you think she will remember?” She explained, taking half a step closer to Pocornia. “She’ll remember you watching the living daylights leave her eyes, she’ll remember you being the last pony she saw…”
Every fiber in Pocornia’s being demanded her to rebuttal, but she clung to silence so she could listen.
“And when she does, she will tell everypony about it!” The clone announced. “She killed me, she killed me, she killed me!” The clone mockingly pranced around in a circle. “Every pony is gonna know and your friends will hate you!”
Pocornia felt herself boiling within, feeling worried and upset.
“They will all hate you, all of them because you are a bad pony!”
“Shut up, I have to do this!” Pocornia fired back.
“And then what, go to jail, no , you’ll spend the rest of your days in Tartarus?” The clone asked. “Face it, your just that bad, choking out a pony you claimed to love?”
Pocornia anger boiled over, she picked her hoove up so fast that the movement blurred as she slammed it back down. “You're an idiot!”
“Takes one to know one!” The clone gleefully retorted. “And I know how angry you can get!”
The clone pranced around in a circle, singing her words. “Oh Sapphire, my love, please forgive me!” She momentarily giggled at Pocornia. “Please love me again!” she stopped prancing, focusing her gaze directly on Pocornia’s, looking into her eyes. “I promise I won’t slam your head into a counter next time!”
Pocornia’s temper had blown, she charged after her clown, wailing like a mad pony. “Raaaaaagh!” She reached for her clone, only to pass through it, falling onto her stomach. The clone laughed at her, cackling like a deceitful child that had gotten its way. “Get angry!”
Pocornia rolled onto her back, looking up at her clone as it stood over her. “That's what you're good at, being angry!”
Pocornia sniffled, starting to weep lightly.
The clone looked down on Pocornia, her lips peeling back into a gleeful smile. “Do you remember what the Dark Pony told you before you came here?”
Pocornia shook her head.
“He said…if you die in here, you’ll die screaming.”
Pocornia watched the clone break apart, breaking into dust that was quickly swept away by the fog. Now, she was alone in a world not meant for her, left with nothing, but her thoughts. She could barely see a few feet ahead of her, the visibility having been drastically reduced. She did not know how to get out, where to go or how to proceed with her quest. It was like being in a prison of her own making, the fog being a prison cell. Maybe…this is it, maybe this is death. She wondered if that thought could be the truth, perhaps she had already died. Maybe that is why she can’t remember having descended down the mausoleum stairway, maybe she had been killed and was now doomed to eternity in a world filled with fog walls and silence. She sat down, folding her arms. She believed she deserved this, believing it a fitting punishment for her.
She didn’t pay it much mind at first, it seemed too subtle to be Noteworthy, but Pocornia felt herself shake slightly. The sensation gradually grew stronger, she started to feel her whole body shake. She stood up, quickly being thrown off balance by an earthquake if she could even call it that. She saw something dart behind the fog around her, dashing left then right. It grunted repeatedly like it was carrying a heavy amount of weight yet seemed to move at incredibly fast. Pocornia quickly swiped at her shoulder having felt something grab it. She turned around, her eyes meeting the familiar green glow of the symbol she saw as she entered the cemetery, the one imprinted on the foreheads of the dead, but she couldn’t see anything other than the glow. It shambled around as she backed up, something else reached for her leg. She pulled away from it, running off to the side. A guttural roar broke the dead silence of the prison, she shuddered.
A hoof latched onto her mane, she yanked away from its grip, a portion of her mane ripping out of her scalp. She squeaked and grimmaced, the pain radiating across the side of her head. She dodged another arm, looking to her side only to see an angry pony face with beady black eyes glaring at her. The pony hissed like a snake as it retreated into the fog. Something brushed along her leg, she looked down and saw the body of a snake slithering past her. She cocked her head left and right, seeing a crowd of figures approaching her. They had surrounded her and were descending upon her. She wanted to back up, but couldn’t as she would have backed into a trio of the dead. She realized all she could do was try to fly so she leaped into the air, desperately flapping her wings to gain some altitude. She looked, seeing something that bared resemblance to a snake or…vines, they were vines and they were preparing to strike. She could not land as doing so would center her amongst a crowd intent on consuming her. She flapped her wings, dodging an incoming volley of violent vines. After many successful evasions, she finally felt the sharp tip of a vine slash her face. She lost some altitude, but quickly gained it back then rose higher still until she felt the crown of her head hit something solid. She was trapped in a sort of box and could not get out, she noticed the vines preparing to strike again and reacted accordingly. A soft sound stroked her ears, but she paid it no mind.
The vines launched their attacks, managing to clip their target in several spots, the leg, the body and part of its wing. Pocornia buckled, losing altitude yet pushed past the pain and flapped her wings harder. She successfully dodged another barrage of vines. She again heard a soft sound, but could not discern what it was amongst the crackling vines. The sound beckoned her attention again, she thought she heard a word, but failed to interpret it. The vines again whipped themselves at Pocornia, but these strikes were much more accurate than those prior. Pocornia felt their sting, losing her own control in the air. She plummeted towards the ground, desperately trying to recover. Just as she did recover, the vines lunged at her again. Her body was struck repeatedly and now bled, the pain too much for her to bare. She finally hit and slid along the ground, hearing the sound again, it sounded like a mare’s voice..
The figures advanced towards Pocornia, slowly trudging their way towards her with their arms held out. She looked up at them, seeing a collection of the glowing symbols that grew larger the closer the dead got to her. Pocornia felt her chest tighten, a heavy strain upon her heart, a frightening cry beginning to build in her lungs. There must've been hundreds of them now, they were all moving towards her, hunger in all of their eyes.
She dreaded the horrific end that was about to meet her…
“Popcorn!”
“Huh?” Pocornia frantically looked around.
“Popcorn, it's not real!”
“Who’s there?” Pocornia asked.
“Don’t give up!”
“Octavia?” Pocornia wailed.
“Don’t be afraid, it’ll be alright, just wait!”
“They're going to get me, help!” Pocornia pleaded.
“Just wait for it to end!”
“Octavia!” Pocornia yelled.
“It’ll be okay!”
“Octavia!” Pocornia hollered.
Pocornia closed her frightened eyes, wrapping her head in her arms. She planted her face against her legs, daring not to look at her aggressor’s anymore. She still heard their steps, listening to them grow louder after each movement. She started to whine fearfully, sniffling. A set of hooves pulled her up, she latched on and tried to push them away until she saw that is was Octavia who had picked her up. “Don’t scream, no matter what, don’t scream!”
“Octavia!” Pocornia cried as she watched her friend fade away. The group of monsters now appearing in front of her, she backed up as far as she could, feeling her back pressed against an invisible wall. The urge to scream had never felt so alluring to her before, she tried to convince herself that it would be okay for her to scream, but another stronger force was at play in her mind. Her subconscious mind took over, raising her hooves over her mouth. She still whined and wept, but her inner self could not and would not let her scream. She released a long tense breath and closed her eyes, preparing for whatever came next.
A momentary reprieve humbled her senses…
Pocornia opened her eyes, the world around her had changed into a simple hallway made of black stone, but it was no ordinary hallway. Strange metal plates that looked like faces adorned the hallway with mirrors across from them. Both sides of the hallway were not linear with their decorations, each face on the left side looked into a mirror on the right side while the opposite was true about the right side of the hallway, faces on both sides staring into mirrors. A blaring roar echoed throughout the hallway. “Huh, what?”
Pocornia could not even begin to imagine what could have made that sorrowful noise…