//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11: Unexpected help 
// Story: Dream Whisper 
// by Dream Whisper 
//------------------------------//

After having brought Rainbow Dash out, nothing happened for an eternity. I was not able to move because of the pain, but I was not really dying either. After the pain had receded very slowly, I was not quite sure, what to do. I had to find some food, but I was too spiritless to do anything. Luckily, nature is always prepared. When my stomach started to growl, the hunger surpassed my depression. I went around and found some other berries. I stood there, for a moment, not sure, if I should try again, but my stomach forced me to eat something. I swallowed some berries and thought about my further stay; If I could get up to full power again, I could try to get out of this strange dream, but did I want to? What was out there for me? Just rules and punishment. There was nopony waiting for me, nopony caring for me, nopony for whose sake I should return. If there had been a reason to get out, I would have taken it. 

Obviously, I decided to stay in the dream for the while. I built up a small home for myself, made from some logs and a lot of branches. It was quite nice, almost like a camping trip. I had to still improve my house with the time, but it was still better than nothing. I did live a life, not really great, but not awful either. It was like living a stagnation. Nothing really happened. It was, if you would call it that way, just plain boring. You had to do your work, like finding logs or making fires, but it was not fitting. I didn't feel like that was what I was supposed to do, if I really was supposed to do anything. 

After finishing my second floor, I went to go fishing with a newly made fishing rod. This was the moment, when finally something happened. Almost like an excuse for me to finally stop wasting my own time creating this happy illusion; Finally time to get back to reality, not having to tell myself beautiful lies to let me forget the pain of my failure. This whole 'I can stay in this dream' thing had just been an excuse, but I had not wanted to realize it. In that final moment, I could let the lies fall down like autumn leaves and finally leave this delusional place. 

What happened? Well, you could say, I had some unexpected help by an unexpected visitor. In midst of the bright day, there was some light starting to shine close to the sun. It got brighter and brighter, until I had to look away. A big shadow descended down to the ground. It was the one pony in all of Equestria, I had never expected to see ever again. She was standing right there. 

Princess Luna. When the light started to fade, Luna fell to her side. 
“Princess Luna?! What... How... Why?” 
I was unable to stumble more than these few words in utter surprise. I ran towards her to help her getting up again. She was calm, but serious. 
“Dream Cry, I have come here, because we need you.” 
I spoke before she could finish her reasoning. 
“Why did you come to me? I am a murderer. I have failed everypony.” 
Luna was still calm, but her voice was filled with visible impatience. 
“Calm down. We need you now and there is not much time to explain.”
I wouldn't go without a reason. At least I wanted to know, why they needed me. 
“You will have to spend the time to explain it to me. I am not coming with you without knowing, what expects me.” 

Luna was annoyed, but luckily she understood my concern. 
“Fine. You will have your answers: 
First of all, you are no murderess. I was attacked by the Timberwolfes and well... I know, you have somehow caused that dream to affect me more than I would have liked to, but it was not your intention. You have proven your good intentions often enough. I am not saying, you have done everything right, but we need you now. It's not about right or wrong anymore. I know, you can help us. In the end, you have brought me back.” 
I was stunned. What kind of threat could lead them to this decision? 'It's not about right or wrong anymore'. What else is it about then? The look in her eyes was too serious to be ignored. Something told me, that I should go with her. There was nothing of interest here anyway.

“And... Have you decided to help yet?” 
Luna asked carefully. Even if I came, how should I help? I don't have the best talents. How should I help them in reality by entering a dream? Where and how should I help at all? So many questions, which were not answered yet. 
“Yes.” 
My own voice was surprisingly definite and determined. 
“I don't know, if I can even help, I can't make any promises.” 
Luna was visibly relieved. 
“Then let us not waste any more time. I can explain much more, when we are finally back in Canterlot.” 

Then she disappeared. Now it was time to get out of this strange dream. I still did not know, whose dream this was. There was no dreamer I could see or feel. It was time to use magic again. This time, I had to do it without the help of Rainbow Dash's rainbow explosion, but this time, I also did not have to create a big shield for anypony. It was hard, very hard. It took me almost a quarter of an hour to build up enough energy to sense the whispy lines. However, once those lines arrived, it got much easier. It was time to pull myself back

I shielded myself, feeling the pain of the magic running through my body. I managed to keep my composure and carried on. The whsipy lines got more and more opaque, until they finally obscured everything. Then, everything disappeared. Only darkness around me, no noises or anything, but when I shouted 
“Hello?” 
somepony answered: 
“Hello!”. 

I was not sure, where I really was. 
“Hello. Where am I?” 
The other pony answered again: 
“am I?” 
I should have known. It was only my echo...  However, if I had an echo, I must have been in a hall or in an abyss. I made a light in the room with my magic, illuminating my surroundings. Ugh. Seriously, if I would get money for each time I made a stupid discovery, I would be rich by now. Of course, I was still in the same giant hall, I had entered Rainbow Dash's dream in. I don't know, how I could have not thought of that. 

I turned around, nopony here. If I remembered this right, the exit was down further in the hall. I headed towards the staircase. It would be an eternity getting up there again. Instead,  I could use some magic. Without wasting another heartbeat, I lifted myself up, slowly but steadily. This was definitely faster than walking up all those stairs, but probably not really easier. Performing magic often uses the same amount of power as manual work. Except you find shortcuts. 
For example, if I would like to lift up a bucket with magic, it would take me the same amount of power as it would take, if I would do it manually. 
However, if there was a giant wall between me and the bucket, I could still lift the bucket with my magic easily, but I would have big problems getting to the bucket by hoof in the first place. 

When I finally got to the top, I was really exhausted. Why did they build so many stairs anyway? I tried to open the door, but obviously I was too weakened to do it. I waited for my strength to recover, but when I tried it again, nothing was moving. I slowly got angry at the door for not opening. I threw my whole body against it, but again, nothing. Then I took all my power, backed a bit off and tried to magically open it. Nothing. Either I have gotten completely weak, or something was blocking this door. I already had another idea: If I couldn't go straight through the door, maybe I could go upwards a bit. So I started working on the ceiling with my magic, slowly digging into the cement. For an eternity, I was just able to crumble small pieces of cement every once in a while and get some hooves deeper. 

Then, suddenly, the whole ceiling crushed onto me. I luckily didn't get hurt badly, but it was hard to get rid of all this debree. The dust in the air didn't make the breathing easier. When I removed the first bits of debree, I started to wonder why the sun was still not shining into here. It was completely black outside, I couldn't see anything. After freeing myself from most of the debree, I started to investigate. When I got closer and closer to the exit, I noticed, that there wasn't fresh air either. 
Something was wrong. I leaped out, at least I tried to. Something blocked me in flight and I fell back down. When I climbed up again, I noticed that, in fact, it was not outside, but there was a black stone, one I had never seen before. I should have been outside by now; The hill of the entrance had not been so incredibly steep. I further investigated the black stone. It was pitch black, only ... spongy. I started to rip the spongy stone apart with my magic. Sometime I would have to finally get out of the hill. 

It took some time to finally breach the surface, but when it was finally done, it was worth it. The sun and the fresh air were quite a refreshment after the time stuck down there. I slowly climbed upwards. When I finally got out, I could have almost gone back down again. 
I looked around: Only the black rock all around me and in midst of this black stone sea there were two towers standing. One, crushed down to to the base, and the other one, only standing halfway up. This once has been Canterlot. I looked around. Nothing but these two towers and the ground made of black stones. I slowly walked towards the two towers. How long have I been gone? This question really hit me hard. I mean, one day Canterlot is in all of it's beauty, then you come back some day and everything is gone. How in Equestria, did this happen? I mean, a whole city replaced with a black sea of stone? That's insanity. When I got closer and closer, I started to spot some rooftops sticking out of the ground. 

Holy Celestia! Rooftops out of the bucking ground. This meant, that the houses were crushed by this black stone. If you think of Canterlot, it's not a small city, the houses are tremendous. They were covered in this black stone up to the roofs. The only way I heard of stone being liquid was from an eruption. Which meant, that ... oh buck. How many ponies did live in Canterlot and how many could get away fast enough in case of an eruption? This was terrible. I was walking towards a giant, black graveyard. How in Equestria could this have happened? I mean, Canterlot had never been a volcanic area. 
Maybe a misguided spell? Maybe a new experiment by Twilight Sparkle, which had failed? Maybe even my fault, when I tried to bring Luna back? I decided to not think about it further, to save myself from breaking out in tears over this catastrophe. I hoped, I would find at least something within the towers. 

Step for step I trotted forward, over the giant black graveyard. The rooftops all were burned and you could even see into some houses through the burned ceiling. Mostly, there was just the black stone, but sometimes, there were ponies, burned to ashes. A mare cowering in an edge with her filly, knowing of the fatal fires spreading in their room. I stumbled. I could almost hear their screams. Meanwhile, clouds had already arrived, blocking off the sun. Without the control of pegasi, it would start to rain here very soon. Almost in the exact moment, when I finished that thought, the first drop of water fell onto my back. Some houses were big enough for people in the upper floors to have survived. When I encountered such a house, I decided to go inside, even though my legs started to hurt badly. 

I got onto the 3rd floor or so, had to climb a little bit up to get into the broken window. This floor was just wasted from the fire, nothing was close to being alive. The stairs in the room to my left were so badly destroyed, that I would not even be able to get up any higher. At least I thought so in the first moment. Upon returning in the room, I had entered, I saw, that there was a hill of debris, just high enough to get me through the hole in the ceiling above it. The fourth floor was also empty, even though it was not crushed that badly. You could still see the burned ashes of the tables, of the cupboards and even of the ceiling. The stair case was just intact enough for me to get up. Two of the steps broke down, when I tried to step on them and I had to skip both. Luckily, the other stairs were holding my weight. The fifth floor didn't bring any good news either. I looked around in several rooms, but I only found the bodies of four dead ponies: Death from either the smoke or their wounds. There was nothing I could do here. 

There were no living beings in this graveyard anymore. I should not even have tried looking for any for my search had been doomed to fail from the first moment. This was not Canterlot anymore; It was now a city of death.  A wasteland, where once had been a place filled with life. I remembered, how the ponies ran around here, happily, unaware of their future. They had families, they had hobbies, they had friends, they had love, they had memories, they had lives. Now, everything was crushed. It was utterly disgusting.

The rain had turned into a fully grown storm with lightning and thunder, when I finally arrived at the end of the graveyard. I had tried to enter a couple more houses, but every of my attempts to find something living had failed. When the weather had started to get worse and worse, I skipped my visits and started to gallop away from this doomed place. The tower I was looking to get into was just ahead: the royal tower. The sun was now fully blocked, and it was as dark as in a night. The thunder roared in the background and I had to enter this creepy ruin of the royal tower. Luckily, there was a window just on the height of the... ground.