//------------------------------// // Consideration of Claustrophobia // Story: Fluttershy Digs Deep // by MagicS //------------------------------// “I really wish I could just have something go easy for me for once...” Fluttershy was stuck. After navigating her way into a small tunnel that she hoped would finally take her to Moleville, she found it getting increasingly narrower before she could no longer press forward. She thought though that she was taking it very well. Instead of screaming her head off and panicking she just felt a little bit upset. She was helped by the fact that her light was still on and she could see, and also by the fact that she wasn’t totally stuck. She could fidget and squirm to get a little movement going. If she worked hard enough she might be able to dig and push her way forward and get to a portion of the tunnel that was a little wider. That still didn’t make her happy though. She could feel her wings scraping along the wall, her extra appendages getting stuck on edges and making things a little more difficult. And Fluttershy was a very lithe pony already who didn’t take up too much space so this tunnel really wasn’t meant for her species. With a grunt of effort she dug her back hooves into the ground and tried to use them to push forward. Currently to no avail as she was still stuck in her spot. “What do I do? I must be the only one who’d get stuck like this and not have anything to do about it,” Fluttershy pouted. Rainbow Dash would probably complain a lot about being stuck here too but she’d fight a lot harder to get out immediately. Fluttershy just wasn’t sure if she had the strength to do that. “Hnngh!” Fluttershy grunted as she tried pulling herself through with her front hooves. There wasn’t anything to really grab onto though, she just had to brace her hooves against the tunnel and try to pull like that. She could feel her body straining and stretching a bit the more she pulled but the back half of her still wouldn’t budge. Even if she could get through now she was probably going to hurt her wings trying to. Now she was starting to get a little nervous, and tired. If she tired herself out trying to get out of this tunnel while she didn’t have any water… that could be bad. But she didn’t know what else she could do right now. Maybe just wait and hope that some moles would come through here? That didn’t seem like a very good bet though. And she still wasn’t totally sure they would be friendly. Fluttershy knew at least that the more time she just stayed here in her cloud of pessimistic worries the farther away Angel was getting. She could not spend a whole day stuck here. It was kind of surprising that something like this hadn’t happened to her earlier. She was definitely bigger than most of the things that lived underground, she knew that for a fact. But traveling through the tunnels and caves had been easy so far as far as space was concerned. Aside from the very first “rabbit hole” she dug down through. Maybe her luck had just run out and now she was going to have to deal with more cramped tunnels like this? Maybe all of Moleville was very cramped? It’s possible it wasn’t even really a town at all in the way she would traditionally think of one. Wouldn’t it be normal if moles lived in a totally different way from ponies? Well, she would’ve figured the same about snails and slugs but they had two pretty normal cities back there… Though that kind of only added to the weirdness of what she had just been through with them. Fluttershy’s mind was getting ahead of her again, she could think about that stuff when she wasn’t in a predicament right now! She needed less thinking (Twilight) and more doing (Rainbow Dash). She tried flexing with her wings and pushing harder, trying to rotate herself and see if she could find maybe some slightly wider spot in the tunnel and slip on through it. All she ended up doing though was making herself feel like she was tumbling around in a washing machine. At least her hardhat kept her head safe as she scraped it along the edges of the tunnel. Though she didn’t feel like she was getting loose right now maybe she could disturb the earth enough or somehow scrape a little away to get on by. Not like she need much room. Just a millimeter or so and she bet she could finally pop her wings on through and get back on her way. She scrambled with her hooves behind her and did her best to gyrate and shift her body, trying every single angle she could and pushing and pulling to get out of being stuck. “Come on, Fluttershy! Come on, you can do it!” She quietly cheered to herself. It made her feel better for some reason, especially when she visualized it was actually her friends cheering for her. “Grr!” She grunted as she made another turn and then flopped on her belly, panting in exhaustion. “I think… I don’t exercise as much as Rainbow Dash...” Running around and taking care of all her animals certainly entailed a lot of exercise but it didn’t exactly build muscle. Her wings weren’t very strong either, maybe if they were she could actually push them through. But for now Fluttershy just had to glumly stare at the tunnel ahead, still lit up for a good dozen or so feet by her hardhat light. Flicker~ A static buzzing sound came from right above her head. Fluttershy’s eyes widened while her pupils shrank to pinpricks. Flicker, flicker~ Staring up at the top of her head in horror, Fluttershy watched as the light on her hardhat started flickering on and off before finally turning off completely. Leaving her in total darkness. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.” Fluttershy quickly brought a hood up to the hardhat and started flicking the switch on and off but it didn’t even slightly turn on again, didn’t even give her a dim light to work with. The battery was dead and now she was stuck and blind. All that panic that she was a little proud for avoiding until now came rushing into her. Her heart raced and her hooves frantically scrambled and clawed as she tried to get herself out of here. Tears came to her eyes as Fluttershy began to hyperventilate once again. “Why?! Why did it have to go out now, here of all places?!” She cried and pointlessly tried turning it off and on again. But she was still stuck in pure darkness. “Help!” She shouted. “Can anypony hear me?! Please help! I’m trapped in here and I need help!” Fluttershy repeatedly called for assistance but just like all the other times she shouted into these caves she didn’t get any answer. “No, no, no, no...” She whimpered a few more times while her wings beat and her hooves looked for any way to free her. Rational thought had left her mind and all concerns about saving her energy had disappeared. Fluttershy had to get out. Now. Was the tunnel getting narrower? Were the walls closing in around her? That’s what it felt like. Fluttershy couldn’t shake those scary thoughts that the dark tunnel was now trying to swallow her up and she’d never get out. Her panicked cries echoed back and forth through the tunnel as she moved and clawed around like a drowning rate trying to save itself. It was almost comical when due to her frantic movements she finally popped loose. Fluttershy tumbled forwards, faceplanting briefly onto the hard rock floor of the tunnel before picking herself up and crawling forward at full speed. Despite freeing herself she hadn’t even seemed to realize it, the terror was still inside her and everything was still dark around her. She had to get out of this tunnel at all costs. Fluttershy’s paranoia and her burgeoning claustrophobia were causing her panicked scrambling and amnesia of all safety concerns when it came to navigating these underground tunnels. If only she could see ahead. If only Rarity’s gift just had a little bit of juice to even give her partial vision she could calm herself down. But for now she was still trapped in darkness and that was a very big problem for someone running through uncharted tunnels. Fluttershy’s mind couldn’t even comprehend that at the moment though. What it could comprehend was that the tunnel actually got a little taller. Instead of closing in on her and becoming more difficult to traverse, Fluttershy was able to stop crawling and stand up. So long as she kept her head low, and run. Her breath still came out in terse and ragged pants and her jaw was clenched tightly shut but Fluttershy ran through the pitch black tunnel as fast as she could. That ended very quickly though. One second there was ground under her hooves and then the next there was only empty air and Fluttershy was falling. On reflex her wings shot open but they clipped the unseen rocks around her and made it impossible to fly or even glide. With a breathless gasp, Fluttershy collided with the hard ground some ten feet below. And then she was out just like the light.