Parking garages make Lightning feel claustrophobic. Even now. The lot is still full of parked cars, windows broken and tires deflated. The lights don’t work here, hence the flashlight in her hooves.
There’s also a lot of water flooding the place. Lightning hovers above it, but Fiddle isn’t afraid to wade through it. She pops the trunk of an SUV and looks inside. She asks Lightning to hold the light steady so she can see.
Lightning is a pegasus: she needs air to fly in, wind to fill her wings. She gets none of that down here. With the light on Fiddle, she can’t see anything around her. That makes her nervous.
Fiddle pulls her head out of the trunk and shakes her head. Nothing. They move on to the next car in the road, a sleek black sedan. As Fiddle looks in the back, Lightning’s ear twitches. She snaps the light towards the exit.
There’s nothing there. Fiddle sighs. They’re never going to finish if Lightning can’t keep the light focused on her. Lightning rolls her eyes and moves the light back, although her heart is still beating fast.
There might be Ravagers down here. Lightning heard from the Precinct ponies that Ravagers like hiding underground.
Fiddle grunts. They’ll be fine. She unzips a saddlebag she found and rummages inside. Hang in there, almost done.
Lightning does, but her eyes wander again. She notices the pipes running above them, crawling along the ceiling. They extend into the darkness, beyond her sightline. Looking down, she sees bits of paper and trash floating in the water.
She doesn’t understand how ponies can live underground in a place like this. Don’t they feel cramped? Aren’t they scared of the roof crashing down on top of them? Or spiders? Lightning Dust shivers at that. Her greatest fear is probably being buried alive. This place really isn’t helping her.
Fiddle reassures her that she’s almost done. Just a few more cars to go. She moves on to the next one, the light throwing her shadow against the car.
As she continues her search, Lightning stares into the darkness. She feels like something’s staring back at her. If she squints, she can see shadows dancing in and out of her vision, dots drifting about freely in a sheet of darkness.
Her eyes have adjusted a little bit by now. She can make out the silhouettes of other cars and the numbered pillars of the garage. As her eyes sweep the room, she wonders how easy it would be to set up an ambush in a place like this.
Lightning shakes her head. This isn’t a train of thought she’s interested in riding right now. There’s a bang, and Lightning drops the flashlight in surprise. She quickly realizes it’s just Fiddle closing the car door.
After a few seconds another light fills up the room. Fiddle is holding their second flashlight, looking somewhat amused and very disappointed. Lightning gives a sheepish grin. Can they leave now?