//------------------------------// // Part 13 // Story: Silent Ponyville: Reunion // by Chapter 17 //------------------------------// Silent Ponyville: Reunion On corticosteroids. Part 13 ------ "Come on come on come on..." Lance muttered as he stared intently at the cracks in the concrete walls of the elevator shaft moving upward outside of the door's broken and bent bars. The descent was taking too long. Not in the sense that he was desperate to find and help his wife either, it was objectively taking longer to go down than it had previously. Either it was moving slower or it was taking him deeper into the building for some reason he couldn't quite put together. There had only been one button to press up there so he had just assumed it was rigged to take the occupant to the same place every time. In retrospect that might have been quite the silly assumption considering everything else that had been happening. So was he just going to be deposited on some random floor, or was there some specific second destination the elevator was taking him to as dictated by some unknown sequence? Either way, not only did everything point to Posey being in extreme danger, but now he wasn't even going to end up on the same floor as her. That would obviously be disastrous even without his injuries but the extra disinclination toward mobility only made the problem all the more severe. Every second he spent waiting for the elevator to stop and then limping around at a snail's pace afterward was a second Posey was alone with that alicorn monster, assuming she wasn't already dea- "NO!" Lance shouted and closed his eyes tightly, cutting the thought off midway before it could fully complete itself. Thinking like this wasn't doing him any good, but his treacherous thoughts couldn't help but gravitate toward that worse case scenario. He opened his eyes and looked forward again, only letting himself see the cracks in the passing concrete wall, the only thing around him not currently covered in what might have been his wife's blood. If his thoughts weren't going to reassure then perhaps his words would suffice. What would Posey have said to him in a time like this? ... "You're not going to do anypony any good shorting out your brain with worry when you can't do anything about it Lance. The panel in here is covered, the only button you know for a fact makes this thing move is way up on the top floor, and this elevator is going to let you off where it lets you off. That's all there is to it." He took a deep breath and let it out, feeling the sharpest edge of his panic begin to dull. The urgency was still there, as was the possibility that Posey was dead all over again, but his admission of the facts at hoof put something of a mental barrier in front of them. They were manageable now. He could use them instead of be overwhelmed by them. "When this elevator stops, then I will deal with it." Things proceeded normally for a few moments more as Lance pondered his situation through his new mental barrier. He couldn't think of much good to see in anything at that very moment, though he supposed the building looking at least semi normal aside from being buried was a plus. There was no perfectly clean lobby to lull him into a false sense of security before things went terribly awry. If nothing else this new building at least seemed honest. He wasn't naive enough to fool himself into thinking there might not be any more monsters inside but hopefully the architecture would stay where it was for the duration of their visit. Then he found himself looking at a floor. The cement wall had suddenly ended. Now he was looking into some sort of secondary elevator shaft that ran alongside the main one. It just so happened that the opposite wall was made of a marble tile pattern...the likes of which he'd never seen on a wall before. But it had to be a wall right? Floors were generally in a downward direction, and his inner ear told him he was still face forward. So of course it was a wall...just an oddly done wall- Oh. Doors. There were doors on each of the walls oriented in such a way as to conflict with his 'oddly patterned wall' theory. Okay, so that wall was a floor. The entire hallway he was looking into was just tipped on its side. That was strange. But it was a non threatening, safe strange. The hallway was even just as ill tended as he had come to expect anything to be in that place. But once again with eerily good timing his watch began to softly buzz to throw off his attempts at rationalizing away what he was seeing. He began to look around as the watch grew louder. Whatever it was, it was getting closer and fast. Visions of clawed creatures crawling up the shaft intent on ripping the elevator car open to get to him danced in his head unhindered, but were thankfully erased as the buzzing reached a fever pitch and Lance looked forward into the vertical hallway. There, standing on the 'floor' in all defiance of gravity, was a familiar blank, stitched together face looking 'up' at him as he slowly passed by. Lance was frozen in place by uncertainty as he heard the soft ringing in his ears join the buzzing of his watch. The deaf colt had stopped the sovereign from killing him...but then had smacked him across the face hard enough to beat a nightmare into him. He'd left all those notes telling him to stay away from the door that had been showing him his own memories, and whether it was by intent or just knowing that it would happen, had let Lance fall into that nightmarish other version of the apartments. But then, if that hadn't happened he would still be stuck on the other side of the wall...and he never would've found Posey in the first place. It was impossible to know what to think of this creature. The deaf colt for his part simply stared back at Lance as he descended, nothing else. They were in line of sight of one another for only a few tense moments before the elevator car finally separated them. The maimed doctor let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. The oddly vertical hallway went on for perhaps another twenty feet before the entire strange encounter ended and the crack riddled concrete wall retook its place on the outer side of the elevator door. "I get it...you're watching me," he replied to nopony. That hadn't been an encounter so much as an announcement. Judging from the first note he'd found after the initial brush with door 303, the deaf colt hadn't been aware of his presence in the apartments or perhaps even in the town at all before then. Things were different now. While nothing in this world seemed to have eyes, the sunken pits that took the place of them on that creature seemed to see a great deal more than anything else he'd run into. There was no telling the extent of it but it was quite likely Lance had been under surveillance ever since then, even during the trip to the Ponyville hospital. Once again Lance had no clue how to feel about that. At worst the deaf colt had stood by and watched as horrible things happened to him, and at best he'd saved Lance's life. "I suppose there's worse things around here to be omniscient." The concrete wall ended again, this time opening into a nice normal horizontal hallway in an entirely sensible fashion. Lance winced as the elevator car stopped abruptly before the door creaked open and freed him at last. The sight of the drowning mare lying faced away on the floor less than five feet from the door made him suddenly hesitant to indulge that freedom however. He experienced a brief moment of pure panic as he backed against the wall behind him. With the panel covered there was no way he could possibly make the elevator door close to separate the two of them, nor could he ever hope to maneuver around it in his condition, especially when it was already so close. Could he fight it, even with his injuries? Thus far every time he'd gotten close to one he'd emerged alive but not without a nasty slice somewhere. If that trend held true there would be no telling what damage one might do in his current state before he could kill it...if he could kill it. Before he could despair any further he managed to pick out a few details that rendered his concerns null. First, his watch was silent. Second, though the drowning mare's lack of any motion had never been an indicator of its health before, the hole through its chest and its position in a puddle of its own blood at the end of the trail it had left whilst being dragged out most certainly were. Lance realized with muted glee that not only was the drowning mare in front of him not going to kill him on account of already having been killed itself, but the blood splattered everywhere also wasn't Posey's. The ensuing sense of relief was nothing short of immense. That still left him with the problems of a missing wife and signs of the sovereign's presence in the building...well, those and an elevator he wasn't able to coax into letting him back up but that was a much less immediately important issue to him. As he limped out into the grey concrete hallway he looked down at the drowning mare he was now sure was dead, else it would have been up and at his throat by now. His watch was still quiet too, leading him to conclude that the watch only responded to monsters that were nearby and alive. Thinking back, he couldn't recall a time one of them had died near him when there hadn't just been another monster to keep the watch buzzing. This was another useful tidbit of information, once he found Posey they would no longer be surprised by any of those things playing dead around her. When he tried to step past the corpse he noticed a familiar looking note lying in the pool of blood just in front of the drowning mare's face. "Yes I am." ... Well, that was actually somewhat comforting...he thought...perhaps. It was definitely another note from the deaf colt, no doubt about it. It was the same kind of paper, the same black ink, even the same hoof-writing. The way the drowning mare had been killed was suggestive of the sovereign, but if the deaf colt had been there too it was sufficient reason to worry just a little less since she didn't seem to be able to do much to him. He couldn't say he wasn't concerned with the note's menacing tone though. Lance closed his eyes briefly then brought his head back up. He'd grown quite tired of mentally ping ponging between fearing and being at ease with the deaf colt. It was time to look around and move on. This hallway was arranged in a similar fashion to the one up top, but didn't look nearly as worn down as that one had. He had a feeling that was only because this one had never been made with any aesthetic touches to be worn down in the first place. It was utilitarian, built for function and nothing else, which meant it was probably the building's basement. That would also explain why being underground didn't seem to bother it any. His path to the opposite stairwell door and elevator were unhindered this time, and once again there was a door on his right that he decided to save until after he had seen if he could improve his access to the other floors first. The door to the stairwell just to the side of the elevator was boarded off from access, as was the counterpart door on the other side of the hallway, but the elevator next to it was standing open just waiting for a passenger. Lance made the painfully lengthy trip over to the other side and stepped into the open elevator. The button panel was uncovered in this one but there was only one button that wasn't missing and not a label to be seen anywhere that might give him a hint as to where it would take him. Opting to take a cue from his wife, he raised a his foreleg and pressed the button instead of dwelling any longer on where it might take him. Nothing happened though, no movement, no sound from the machinery above, it was completely inactive, either outright broken or just without power. Neither would surprise him really. Seemed he would be checking that door out after all. It was unlocked and lead into a corridor that had four doors on his right before it made a right turn out of sight. Unlike everything else he'd seen in this place so far, the doors were actually labeled. The one closest to him was the maintenance room, followed by the boiler room, then the pump room, and the electrical room at the far end of the corridor. As he made his way inward he checked each door and found that each one was locked. It was peculiar how frustrated he didn't feel with every failed attempt at turning a doorknob by now. If the locks weren't broken that meant there were keys for them somewhere, so this could be considered progress in its own strange way. Now it was only a matter of finding them. Content with making a mental note of the doors for now, he rounded the corner to be greeted by a fifth door, but this one looked decidedly different. It was made of crudely bolted together metal plates complete with the prerequisite encroaching rust and would have looked much more at home in a prison. This latch too was stubbornly locked, but that came as no surprise to him. Whatever served as the architect of his journey wouldn't put such a high profile door there with no purpose in mind, nor would it just allow him in without any effort. His tightening grasp of the mechanics of the world around him proved to be of little comfort. He was still hopelessly trapped in a basement with five locked doors, one unpowered elevator, and another he was unable to operate. Just this once he stopped short of mentally berating himself for making such a brash decision as to even try to go down alone. True it had been a foolish choice, but how was he supposed to have known that it was a drowning mare's blood in the elevator Posey had just gone down minutes prior? What else was he supposed to have done, wait for somepony else to go find out if she was alright in his stead? No, absolutely not, if he'd learned anything in his long, storied career it was that time is always critical. Lance had made the right choice. His information had just been bad, and really, he'd already been trapped before then anyway what with the entire building already being in a gigantic hole in the ground. Pain flared up in his leg again as he took a seat, but the momentary agony was worth it once the weight had been taken off of it entirely. He would probably need to drink that health drink soon if he wanted to stay mobile but thoughts of moving about were starting to slip from his mind. Now he began to ponder how long he would be down there in that corridor of locked doors. If it was going to come down to either relieving his pain for the short term or saving what potables he had to delay dying of dehydration for as long as possible, then he didn't have much choice but to leave the bottle of health drink alone. If he wouldn't be moving around much any time soon he wouldn't need it anyway. Having reached a reasonable decision he found any further contemplation of his potential long term stay to be unhelpfully depressing and opted to move on. Lance thought back to that drowning mare lying dead in the hallway. "Oh...right, because a deformed pony lying dead underground is so much less depressing than being trapped," he could not help but remark to himself. Something wasn't right. Obviously it had been killed and placed after Posey had gone down and before she came back up. Obviously it had also been killed by the sovereign...or maybe that wasn't so obvious. He didn't really know what else in this place could be capable of cutting open an elevator door and messily impaling somepony, but that was where things started to not quite add up. While he doubted his memory had been at full capacity at the time he was reasonably sure that she had been decimated by...whatever it was the deaf colt had done. Now she was up and about again just randomly stabbing drowning mares? He'd just let her do that? Another odd detail was how cleanly...well, relatively cleanly, the drowning mare had been killed. One wound, right through the heart. That would kill somepony in seconds. If his encounters with her were of any worth as evidence she never killed cleanly or quickly, and it was not just a matter of the apparent grudge she carried against him. She'd taken her time killing that scavenger and it had been an almost unrecognizable mass of blood and meat by the time she'd dropped it down to him. Her sadism wasn't selective. So why suddenly go straight for the heart? It was almost like somepony else had just wanted him to think that she had been the one to... ... The deaf colt. He was watching Lance. He didn't want Lance anywhere near his precious door. What better way to do that than trap him here with no door 303? It wasn't too unreasonable a conclusion either. He'd demonstrated more control over this world than any other creature had thus far. It was entirely possible such subterfuge was well within his means. But then why had the mystery mare that had been guiding him push the button that had put him there? Had she been in on this the whole time? Why had she lead him around in the first place then? Wouldn't he have never found door 303 in the first place if not for her? Lance furrowed his brow in puzzlement, this wasn't making sense. Before he could continue failing to piece anything together he was compelled to jump back to his feet by the sound of a loud metallic groan followed by a snap and the sound of something clanging against the wall then bouncing on the floor a couple times before coming to a stop. In spite of his fright the second spike of pain in his leg forced a groan of agony from him heedless of the sudden need to stay quiet. His better judgement quickly kicked in and he clenched his teeth in his effort to keep from making any more noise until the pain became manageable again. Fortunately no monstrosity of metal, hooves, and wings rounded the corner to finish him off. He only heard the sound of light hoof falls fleeing into the elevator hallway. Lance stood stone still for a few moments waiting for his watch to start buzzing, but it did nothing of the sort. Biting back the increasingly intense agony in his back leg, he limped over to the corner and cautiously peered around. There was nopony there, but the door to the maintenance room had swung open. The locking mechanism had been cut out of the door, and the latch knob was lying in the middle of the hall a distance away. Despite his initial fears this was plainly not the work of the sovereign. It looked as though whoever had done this had taken a great deal of care in only cutting out the lock, leaving not a dent or scratch on the door; a level of precision of which he didn't think his nemesis was capable. The several small spatters of blood leading out into the hall also spoke volumes as to who had done this. Half of him entertained the notion of trying to get back into the hallway in time to perhaps catch sight of her, but the other half that had kept him alive thus far called the first half an idiot. It would not do in such a place to simply hobble by an open door leading into an unexplored room that could potentially contain any manner of creature that would welcome the chance to emerge unseen behind him. Besides, his guide had probably already teleported away by now. The maintenance room door's latches were on his side of the door frame, making the open door block his view of the inside while he slowly approached. As he drew closer he veered toward the opposite wall in an attempt to put space between himself and the entrance should anything nasty jump out. He wasn't going to be able to react all that incredibly quickly in his condition but surely the extra breathing room was better than nothing. Fortunately the room didn't seem to hold any surprised in store at first glance. When he rounded the obstructing door he saw a room full of cabinets, tool boxes, several metal working and wood cutting machines, and a single work bench. Usually the place would be full of tools, spare parts, and the various other supplies a custodian would need to make occasional repairs to the building's innards. However the cabinets and tool boxes now all stood open and empty, occupied by nothing but a layer of dust, and the cables that would normally extend from the machines to the electrical outlets on the walls had been messily chewed through. The only thing that kept Lance from sighing and moving on was the crowbar sitting right there on the work bench, spotless. Lance had little to no reservations about grabbing it immediately; there was just no way it wouldn't prove useful. Among the plethora of boarded over doors he had passed by there had to be some that would prove accessible after prying the boards off, as painful a process as that would be for him. He also supposed it would make a passable weapon if he was forced to defend himself. Even with it he knew his abilities in a fight would prove laughable but, again, it was better than nothing. But both of those would come later...hopefully much later for the latter. Right then he was only concerned with prying the metal cover off of the button panel in the elevator. If somepony had gone to the trouble of covering it that meant there was something worth going after beneath it, hopefully something that would improve his options more than spending many painful minutes prying boards off of doors. He left the maintenance room behind and emerged into the hallway to find that curiously enough the trail of blood spatters actually continued on toward the elevator instead of ending abruptly out of nowhere as he had expected. Whether or not it continued past the drowning mare's corpse was impossible to tell though, as it became impossible to distinguish from the blood comprising the long smear leading out of the elevator. Lance stepped past the dead monster and noticed something else amiss. There was a grating lying on the floor of the elevator car. From the looks of the edges it had been cut open in much the same way as the maintenance door. He now dearly hoped it had been the mysterious mare guide that had done this, as opposed to some other creature with malevolent intent being able to move about and cut through things so quietly. With due hesitation he poked his head into the elevator and directed his light upward toward the now open top, crowbar held firmly in mouth. He saw nothing but the expected cables and the surrounding concrete walls above. That was very far from meaning there was nothing there though. Being in that elevator would be very...tense...from now on. In spite of his reluctance he finally set hoof inside and focused his attention back onto the covered panel after one last dread filled gaze upward. There wasn't much space but Lance was reasonably sure he could wedge the end of the crowbar in and start wrenching it free. But it was going to hurt. No matter what, it was going to hurt a lot. As much as he wished to try and take his weight off of his leg again he wasn't about to sit down in that blood drenched elevator with his still relatively fresh injuries. Thusly it was forced to take its fair share of his weight as he placed both fore hooves against the wall on either side of the panel. When he forced the edge of the bent end of the crowbar against the side of the panel he felt it catch in the slightest gap between the cover and the wall it was bolted to, though it was clearly not going anywhere without a liberal application of elbow grease. Between pulling sideways and a few strikes with his fore hoof he was able to force the side of the metal cover to bend outward slightly, allowing the crowbar to gradually sneak further and further inward. Once he was sure he would have enough leverage to pry the cover off he grabbed the crowbar with both front hooves and leaned backward, letting his weight do the the work at first. While he felt the cover give way a bit, it only moved so far before the bolts were able to hold it fast in place again. He gave an irritated grumble, having hoped to not do what he now knew he had to do. Lance tightened his grip on the crowbar and pulled back again, this time taking a much more active role in the process and putting his own muscle into it. He made some more progress but it was clear he was going to need to use his hind legs as well if he wanted the cover outright removed. By now he just wanted to get it over with and hesitated no further before planting the hoof of his good hind leg against the wall and pushing back while his injured leg kept him upright in spite of the searing pain it caused him. He kept up the pressure, groaning in pain through grit teeth until at long last the bolts holding the cover in place succumbed to the force and snapped. Deformed metal cover, crowbar, and maimed doctor all came tumbling to the floor at once. The two metal objects made a loud racket in the confined space while the middle aged pegasus pony made a dull thud accompanied by an agonized exclamation through grit teeth. The two wing stumps beneath his bandages had joined his leg in screaming bloody murder at him as he landed on his back, and the combined torment easily surpassed his ability to bear through it quietly. As though that weren't enough he also received a sudden dose of mental stress upon opening his upward pointing eyes. Something was looking down at him. In the brief moment before it realized it had been spotted and pulled away from the hatch in the top of the elevator car, Lance caught a glimpse of a face that in no way resembled that of a pony. It barely resembled a face at all. All he saw was a flash of a vaguely flesh colored something and what seemed to be a pair of bloody blades opposite one another like some macabre pair of clippers. Once it had fled from his sight he heard hoof beats retreating...straight up the elevator shaft. Lance felt that he had little other choice but to lie there whilst the shock of the sudden encounter kept the pain mostly at bay...mostly. The adrenaline fueled reprieve didn't last long however and fairly soon he was forced to roll back over onto his hooves lest his wing stumps begin hurting any worse. He was also now fairly covered in the drowning mare's blood after his tumble and instantly launched into a mental tirade against himself for not having considered that before pulling the cover off. His only hope now was that his own blood had seeped through the bandages and crusted over enough to keep the foreign blood out of his wounds because Celestia only knew what could be in that stuff. Now he needed new bandages more than ever. Over entirely too long a period of time he was able to fight through the pain and struggle back to a standing position. He took a few deep, slow breaths to steady himself while letting his head hang low. What had that thing been? Was that her? Had she been yet another hideous monster this entire time? Thinking back he had only ever caught sight of her via silhouettes in the fog. Was he honestly surprised? What the hay had compelled him to just assume she was a normal pony after everything that had happened? Did he now have three hideous monsters stalking his every hoof step?! "Move on...move on," he instructed himself before opening his mouth and moving to grab the crowbar off the floor. The same phobia that had sent his desperation for replacement bandages to new heights stopped him again. His crowbar was now lying in the same blood. "Great..." he grumbled before placing his hoof atop the tool and beginning to look through his saddlebags for something he could use to wipe it off. Lance was not going to lose track of this one. Midway through his fruitless search he was made privy to the fact that he had never lost track of anything in the first place. He felt his hoof drop with an odd crunching sound and pulled his nose from the saddlebag just in time to see the smoldering rings of fire moving outward to both ends of the crowbar, leaving nothing but ash in their wake as though the crowbar had been mere wood this entire time. The brittle husk that had once promised him just a tiny bit more freedom and even a bit of protection in that deformed world collapsed into a dark grey pile beneath the weight of his hoof. ... "I guess I know what happened to the wire cutters and keys now at least," he noted sardonically as he brushed the ash pile away in frustration. Lances eyes then fell upon the bent metal cover, noticing something that must have been glued to the inside of it. It was a ragged piece of leather, folded over and held shut by a stitch made with razor thin wire, apparently hardy enough to have weathered the assault of his crowbar moments before. Fortunately, despite the rough detachment from the wall it was clean of any blood, leaving him free to pull on the front flap of leather until the thin wire snapped and let the small package open. There was another note inside but...he doubted very much that this one was from the deaf colt. The hoof-writing was different; less neat, much more hurried and jagged. The ink was a deep red instead of the stark black of before. Even the paper was off, being both a notably different shade and far messier, as though it had been torn from a larger piece of paper instead of neatly cut. "Five Steps Backward Same As Always Nothing Changes Useless pERFECTION." The message lacked the relevance to his current situation that the rest of the deaf colt's notes all made a point of displaying. This was definitely not a note written by somepony who was keeping track of his every move. He would not have been made to find it if it weren't somehow significant though so he stashed this note with all the rest before finally looking up at the button panel that had drawn him back in here in the first place. Lance's efforts had paid off. He'd gone from zero control over this elevator to having three button's worth. They were in the usual vertical column arrangement, but the uneven and generous spacing between the three of them made it obvious quite a few were missing. It seemed reasonable to assume the button at the very bottom of the panel was his current location and that the one at the very top would send him back up to the top floor which he already knew he couldn't progress into any further. That left the one in the middle. Would it just lead him back to the upturned hallway in which he'd seen the deaf colt? How would that help him any? Having been left with a dearth of other options he pressed the middle button anyway. The door closed and the elevator began to ascend, leaving him to once again stare at the cracks in the wall as they passed on by while pondering his thoughts. If this was just going to lead him to another staring contest with the deaf colt then he really was just as trapped as before. He had been watching the entire way down and had seen nothing else besides that strange vertical hallway anywhere between the top floor and basement. Perhaps something had changed while he hadn't been looking? It would be far from the first time... Yep...something had changed. Instead of a horizontally impaired hallway he saw a painted white door designated 303 by a brass plaque near the top descend into view in front of him. He could hear voices behind it... ------ "Where is she?!" Posey shouted as she burst through the door. "BEH!" Lance jolted awake from his spot napping on the couch and promptly fell off in the grip of his waking panic. Before his mind could even reorient itself she was already standing over him glaring down. "Answer me!" she demanded as her husband's bleary eyes slowly blinked twice below her. "What? Posey? What are you doing here? We're supposed to meet for lunch after the-" "That's right! We were, but instead you leave me waiting there for an hour and a half so you can sneak that younger prettier mare in here and do Celestia knows what with her behind my back while you two talk about how ugly and fat I am!" she accused as she got snout to snout staring death at him, the menace somewhat tempered by the sparkle of moisture in her eyes. As it turned out being accused of infidelity worked wonders in snapping Lance back to full consciousness. "What?! No! I came home right after the exam and went to sleep!" "Oh don't even try to deny it, I've seen you two together already!" she said, placing a hoof on his chest and pushing him back to the floor in response to his attempt to get back to at least a sitting position. "Who? When?!" Lance asked incredulously while ceasing his efforts to struggle back to his hooves. "That orange unicorn mare with the blue mane! You two were talking and laughing over a cup of coffee at the cafe without a care in the world if anypony saw you! Well I did! And now it doesn't matter if you tell me where she is hiding or not, I'll just find her myself!" Before Lance could explain she had already flown off down the hallway and began ransacking the two bedrooms looking for the alleged seductress intruder. He sighed and got back to his hooves before looking at the alarm clock he'd set on the table in front of the couch. There had to be some reason it hadn't woken him at the appointed time...and it didn't take him long to find it. "Lance you moron," he chided himself as he set the clock back down and sat there waiting for Posey to wear herself out. She was about five months along and ever since she had started to show, the hormones in her system had been giving the insecurities she usually kept in check ample opportunity to rear their ugly heads all over again. It was a strange, often scary new experience but he'd learned by now it was best to just stand his ground as nicely as he could manage until her good sense returned. It took about ten minutes worth of various things being tossed around in the bedrooms before she emerged again, still fired up as ever while hovering in front of him. "Okay, she's a unicorn, she probably teleported away or something but you are still in big trouble miste-why are you pointing at your alarm clock? Stop trying to change the subject!" "I'm pointing at the alarm clock because I set it to go off at 12:30 so that I could meet you at 1:00. I neglected to check the AM/PM setting though so it was set to go off at half past midnight, and that's why I accidentally slept through lunch. I'm sorry Posey," Lance explained calmly. Posey's face went blank briefly before flaring up in anger again. Her mouth opened for another retort, but then closed again as she fluttered over to the table and grabbed the alarm clock to see if his story checked out. Moments later she set it down and turned on him again. "Okay, maybe she wasn't here but-" "That mare at the cafe was Mannie's new marefriend. His birthday is coming up, and she wanted to interrogate me for present ideas for him so she invited me to meet for coffee one day after classes before I had to go to work," he said, pushing his luck by interrupting her. It worked out better than expected though. Her face went blank once more and this time there was no spark to reignite it as she sank to the floor feeling ashamed of herself. "Oh my gosh Lance I'm so sorry." "It's okay Posey," he said while placing a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. She took advantage of the offered limb to pull him into a tight hug. "No it's not! You lose so much sleep just studying for your exams because you want to help everypony and here I am yelling at you and being paranoid just because you didn't show up for lunch once! Now I'm not just fat and ugly, I'm mean too, I'm a terrible wife!" she cried while pressing her face into his shoulder and holding on for dear life. He tried to say something to comfort her but it became apparent she didn't hear him over her own sobs, so he contented himself with just holding her. She was fine inside of five minutes. "Mood swings are dumb," she observed bitterly from her spot on the couch before taking another bite from her generously sized salad bowl that rested right next to an entire jug of cranberry juice that hell nor high water would take from her. "It's just biology honey," Lance replied before polishing off the last bite of his daisy sandwich then getting up to take his plate into the kitchen. "Well...biology is dumb then," Posey countered from the living room while he gave the plate a good thorough cleaning in spite of it only having had a few stray crumbs at worst. "I don't know, I think the knowledge that particular field of science has brought hasn't done anything but improve our quality of life overall," he answered obliviously as he made his way back into the living room and sat down next to her. ... The cessation of the steady chewing noises next to him caught his attention, and he noticed Posey staring at him again. It was less the angry fire she had displayed earlier and more of a small smolder that was threatening to burst into one. "What?" Posey sighed and placed a hoof to her forehead, managing to douse the unreasonable fire before it could get any worse this time as she pushed her salad bowl aside. "Lance, I'm going to tell you something most stallions would kill for their wives to just com out and say, so pay attention okay?" He nodded silently, obediently giving her the attention she had requested. "Right now I just really need you to agree and support whatever I say, no matter how wrong we both know it is. Got it?" she concluded with a hoof pointed at him. Lance nodded once more. "Good, let's try this again. Mood swings are dumb," she stated matter of factually. "Pretty dumb, yes." "Biology is also dumb." "Dumbest thing ever put to paper," he agreed in spite of his having lost countless hours poring over untold volumes of knowledge on the subject. "And my husband is a big dummy for not telling me he was meeting his best friend's marefriend for coffee, and it's his fault that I became incredibly suspicious, so he will be sleeping on the couch tonight," she said while eyeing him warily. "Now wait a minute! That was no big deal and..." Her expression belied the fact that she was neither interested in hearing, nor would she be swayed by his explanation at the moment. "...by that I mean he's the biggest moron I've ever met and deserves what's coming to him," he quickly acquiesced, wisely choosing the path that would enable him to live and fight another day. "I wouldn't go that far, and I really don't appreciate you talking about my husband like that," Posey said while still remaining at the same level of seriousness she had maintained throughout the conversation, eyes closed and nose slightly raised in an expression of faux haughtiness. "..." Once she had opened her eyes again the sheer level of confusion on her husband's face forced a giggle out of her throat that she tried to contain by covering her mouth, but the jig was clearly up and they were both laughing the last bit of tension in the room away within seconds. "But, hehehe, but seriously though," Posey began while wiping a tear from her eye, "couch night." ... "Can't I at least sleep in the guest bedroom?" ... "Nope." "Aww." ------ "Lance? Lance?! Lance! Lance!!!" Posey's voice persisted with increasing desperation, periodically punctuated by a tap of her hoof against the bars. He blinked and shook his head. Door 303 wasn't there anymore, replaced by Posey standing on the other side of another set of iron bars. "Posey!" he exclaimed as he stepped towards her with as much enthusiasm as his injured body would allow. "Oh thank goodness, you were worrying me again!" she said with a sigh of relief as she took a seat. "I thought the blood all over the elevator was yours at first but...you'd..." "I'd already be dead if it was," he said, finishing the sentence she would rather not finish for herself. She nodded in appreciation. "You're alright too though, right?" Lance asked, looking her over. "I'm fine. The elevator stopped here, I got out, and I had barely set hoof outside when these bars slammed down behind me. Then after a few minutes the elevator went back up without me...and then I see you going down in it right after that, looking at me like you'd seen a ghost with that blood all over the place. Didn't you see me? I was yelling after you so loud...I was terrified!" she answered, her face a mix of concern for him and relief that he seemed to be okay now. His eyes widened a moment before his brow furrowed and he looked down in thought. "...Lance?" "That doesn't make any sense...when I was going down the first time I saw a hall full of doors going up and down, and that colt that saved me before was standing there on the floor looking at me...well, I guess it was the wall at the time, but you get what I mean, right?" he asked while looking back up to her. "I...I don't...but go on?" she replied with a raised eyebrow. "And just now when I came back up, door 303 was right here in front of me. It even showed me another memory," he continued. "What? No, it wasn't. I've been standing here yelling at you ever since you came back up." Her look of concern returned as he described things that didn't quite match up with her version of reality at the moment. Lance broke eye contact with her again, his face going blank as everything failed to add up in his head. ... "I'm actually going insane aren't I?" he asked without bringing his gaze back up to her. "Lance, no, nonono," she said as she reached through the bars and put a hoof to his cheek. "It's this place Lance, it's messing with you. You probably are seeing everything you say you are, it's just not letting me see it. It's not you. Okay?" "...okay," he replied as he softly pressed his cheek into her hoof. "Good. Listen, I had enough time to poke around on this floor a bit. I can't go any further in but I did find this key that doesn't seem to unlock anything down here. Maybe you can find some way to use it?" she explained before pulling the key from her saddlebag and holding it up for him to look at. It was an unremarkable key, looked the same as any other save for the 'EC2' etched into the handle. "I'll see what I can do...thanks Posey. I'll keep heading up and see what I can find up on the top floor." He didn't want to leave her again but from the sounds of it she would be stuck there until he found some way to let her out elsewhere, so there was little point in delaying. "Okay. I guess I'll look around for anything we can use while you're doing that...it'll be a lot more useful than just waiting for you at these bars now that I know you're alright," she replied with a smile as he opened his saddlebag so she could drop the key inside. "You be careful up there." "You too." With a great deal of hesitation he stepped back and gave her one last fond gaze before turning his eyes back to the panel. "I love you Lance." "I love you too Posey," he said before pressing the top button. The doors closed and she was out of sight again within moments. As he ascended Lance pondered what the initials on the key could mean. If he could remember anything that would direct his search it would be far preferable and much less time consuming than just trying to key in every door he came across. Was it the electrical room in the basement? If it was he was headed the wrong direction, but since he couldn't think of anything for the C or 2 to represent he didn't worry much about that possibility. Wait...he knew! They had seen it right after floating down from the empty husk of a hospital above on the roof. There had been a door labeled Elevator Control. That had to be it. Maybe he could get the other elevator working? Once he had reached the top floor he took a quick look around to make sure nothing had changed in his absence before slowly climbing the stairs back up to the roof. It was rough on his leg, and he gave some more thought to drinking his health drink to alleviate the pain, but his life still wasn't in any direct danger and he thought it best to wait until it was. He wasn't sure he was happy with somehow knowing his life would be in danger in the near future, but there it was. Back on the roof, he turned toward the elevator control door adjacent to the stairwell door from which he had just emerged. The key didn't work, but he wasn't discouraged yet. The other L shaped structure on the opposite side of the roof was unlabeled but he would bet bits that the unboarded door it featured was the entrance to the elevator control room for the other unpowered elevator. He was right, and the key slid in smoothly to unlock it and allow him entry. Out of sheer curiosity he held the now fairly useless key in his hoof and watched. Sure enough, it started to burn to a small pile of ash in his hoof within moments. He found it strange that neither crowbar nor key had burned his hoof in the process, but he had better things to be doing besides adding more phenomenon to his lengthy mental list of strange things that had happened in that town. It was time to figure out what was wrong with the elevator. There wasn't much room inside, but that was only because there didn't have to be. All this room needed to do was house the elevator's motor and pulley system and give workers a few switches and access to some of the more important wires. Immediately in front of him was the currently inactive motor attached to the pulley system that seemed to be in good repair. There was a chain link fence keeping him away from both but that didn't seem out of place here as it handled basic safety issues. He was mostly interested in the panel in the wall off to his right. Several bundles of cable came up to it from a hole in the floor, then continued through it over to the motor. Lance unlatched and pulled open the cover, the obvious problem now right in front of him as he saw the main power switch set to 'OFF'. Simple enough to fix. Lance flipped the switch to the 'ON' position and heard the hum of power being restored to the motor, now ready and waiting for commands from the button panel below. Quite content now that he was making progress again he closed the panel cover and turned to leave only to make another discovery. There was another folded piece of ragged leather sewn shut with thin wire glued to the inside of the door such that he would not have spotted it until he tried to leave. After pulling it open he found another note inside, this one obviously not from the deaf colt either with the same torn paper and red ink. "No Matter What YoU LoSE I'll Still Hurt YoU Twice As Much." That still didn't tell him much as to what use this note and the other would be. Still, his bags were not exactly lacking for room and he quickly stashed it with the first odd note he had found. The trip down the stairs proved predictably much easier on him than the trip up had been. Apparently he was also growing increasingly popular as there was yet another note waiting for him stuck conspicuously between the bars of the closed elevator doors. This one was of the style he was more familiar with, the paper neat, the ink a deep black. What had he done to tick off the deaf colt this time? "Dear Estee... No, you know what? I think we're familiar enough to no longer be so formal. Right? Right. To get to the heart of the matter I begrudgingly admit that I owe you something of an apology. It seems door 303 is, strangely enough, actively following after you. Don't ask me how, my guess would be as good as yours. My point is, it isn't exactly fair to be angry with you for being near it when it keeps seeking you out for whatever reason, so you'll no longer be hearing from me when it finds you. Not your fault. Unlike that lock you took off. That was very much your fault. Still angry about that one but I can still let bygones be bygones at this point. Don't do it again. I mean it would be extra spiteful of you to do so after I saved your pathetic flank from her, right? You pretty much owe me one. I'd thank you for your time again but its sort of belongs to me already anyway don't you think? Would be odd to thank YOU for something that's mine and all." "Well somepony's certainly not bitter at all," Lance remarked as he stashed the note in his bag and stepped into the elevator. Despite how ultimately unhelpful the note had been it was still something of a comfort to know he had a little extra breathing room now. He pressed the middle button, figuring it wise to let Posey know what he was doing on his way down. But when he had reached the barred off middle floor she wasn't there. No reason to panic though...worry a little, yes, but not panic. She had said she would be searching for supplies for them after all. "Posey? Posey can you hear me?!" he called out and waited for a reply. One was not forthcoming though. She must have been out of earshot Lance pressed the bottom button with a sigh and got on his way. It was better than lingering there longer and delaying his getting her out of there any further. When he emerged down in the basement and began limping to the other side of the hall to get to the other elevator he noticed the telltale trail of small blood spatters already leading his path. He swallowed hard and pointed his flashlight over to see the same kind of grating from the first elevator lying on the floor of the second, just as he had feared. The thing he had gotten a glimpse of, whether it was actually the mystery mare or not, had been through and gone up while he had been away. It didn't make him hesitate for too long though. Freeing Posey was a potent motivator, and aside from that the creature in the elevator had enjoyed ample opportunity to attack him but had chosen not to. Still, he gave the hole in the top of the elevator car a good long stare before actually pressing the button, wanting to at least not be taken by surprise this time, if at all. Now having the power it required to serve his needs, the door closed and the motor far above sprang to life in order to start pulling him upward. Even though it was really the least of his problems at the moment Lance still dreaded waiting through another lengthy elevator ride with only cracks in the wall to occupy his mind. As luck had it, his worries were misplaced. There was no concrete wall to speak of, and the strange reason for the numerous missing elevator buttons was made clear. The floors they would have normally taken him to were missing. They were gone entirely. In their place was nothing but open space, the floors kept in their same positions by gigantic rusty steel beams, and the encroaching earth held back on the sides by a gigantic grating that looked to be made of the same material. Lance could only stare slack jawed as he ascended, his elevator car surrounded by nothing but the vertical wheel rails needed to keep it in place as it moved about. A boarded up entrance to another floor quickly passed by and broke him out of his shock. He hadn't expected that to be there. The entrances that would normally lead into the opposite elevator shaft must have all been cemented over, save for the one with the bars separating him from Posey of course. Lance would pass by one other such floor during his ascent but that one was likewise barred from access by being boarded over. Finally, he felt the elevator slowly and finally came to a stop at an unboarded entrance that lead into a familiar hallway cut in half by a chain link fence piled with blood spattered stretchers. He was back on the top floor on the other side. That left him only one door on his left side, so his next choice of action was rather obvious. To his muted delight the door opened and he was finally let into a part of the building proper. It was yet another hallway stretching off in both directions that lead around a corner on each end. Since the corner on his left was much closer than the corner off to his right he opted to head in that direction first. Past that turn, the hall connected with a corridor a short distance ahead on his right, then stretched on for quite a while longer before finally making another right turn. He could see two doors on the right wall past the central corridor, and one more on the far opposite wall. Lance took a few steps forward and looked down the aforementioned central corridor was never got a chance to count the doors, as he was distracted by what was sending his watch into another buzzing fit. Lance became conscious of a feminine sounding panting noise, desperate in tone but strangely mechanical in how steady it was, coming toward him via the corridor. He turned his light on the source of the noise just as they spotted one another. It was a mare, wearing a ragged nurse outfit and hat. She had no coat to speak of, and although her face lacked any sort of eyes she was not entirely featureless. Her mouth was sutured shut with wire, and her ears were sewn against the side of her head with similar methods. As though the wire suture over her mouth hadn't been enough there were several long, rusty nails that had been hammered down through the top bone of her snout and then out the bottom of her jaw. Her neck, torso, and forelegs were wrapped with lengths of barbed wire, and below the wrist joint several more long rusty nails had been hammered through the front of her hoof and out the back. Every bit of skin that was visible was a sickly pale color and covered with a network of small, black veins. As she moved toward him in an unnaturally quick limping motion she suffered from odd twitches, no doubt in catastrophic pain from the bits of metal that had been wrapped around and forced through her. As her unnerving panting grew closer and closer it became quite obvious to Lance that this barbed nurse was coming right for him. There was no way he could outrun her, he had to find someplace to hide and there were only three doors close enough that wouldn't necessitate going towards her to get to. He limped to the first nearest but found the lock was broken, the panting noise placing her just around the corner now. Lance moved to the second that was labeled 'OR6' but was denied entry by the lock just as she rounded the corner and started covering the last bit of distance toward him. The last one was quite a bit further away than the first two. By the time he would get to it she would be so close that he would either find it unlocked or she would get hold of him. Despite moving with all the speed he could muster she was still easily gaining on him, her breathing putting the hair on the back of his neck progressively more on end as she drew nearer behind him. He was all but ignoring his leg now, the newest spike of adrenaline in his system dulling the pain so that he might get away and survive. Both door and barbed nurse became closer, and closer, and closer, until his hoof was on the doorknob and she was practically breathing down his neck. Something wanted him to stay alive, because the door was unlocked. Completely abandoning his balance, Lance opened the door, literally fell inside, and then slammed the door shut behind him and held it closed with his good back leg as he pushed backward with his forelegs. The barbed nurse gave the door a few halfhearted strikes before lingering in front of it a few moments more and then moving on, allowing his watch to calm down. He lie there catching his breath for a few moments before struggling to his hooves, wanting to get that bit of business over with before the adrenaline rush wore off and he could actually feel the fresh hell his injuries were doubtlessly unleashing upon him. With no further hesitation he fished the bottle of health drink from his pack and downed the contents; he was now in the requisite life threatening danger he had pondered earlier and would need to be mobile. At least he had stumbled into a safe room in his bid to escape, and he knew for a fact it was a safe room because if there had been something inside his watch would have already given it away. Wait...his watch...he hadn't been five feet from that thing in the elevator when he'd spotted it. Why hadn't it gone off well before then? No...no this wasn't worth thinking about right now. The monster in the elevator had run away without trying to hurt him. If it wasn't going to hurt him then he didn't really need the warning, and he didn't really need to worry. Whether it was because he was genuinely curious or just wanted some more time spent safe in that room, he decided to look around a bit next. It was mostly bare save for a metal and glass shelf with three drawers in the corner and several sockets on the ceiling. If he had to hazard a guess he would probably say that this was an operating room, which would explain very well the 'OR4' label on the door. That meant this building was, or at least had been, a hospital. Thus far it was way too large to have Ponyville's hospital though, even with the missing floors it was already larger than the husk of a building above. The shelves were visibly empty but the drawers contents were yet to be revealed. After finding nothing in the first two Lance found a replacement health drink in the third. He would have much preferred some fresh gauze but beggars couldn't be choosers. Finding nothing else of note in the room he went back to the closed door, his timing proving fortunate as his watch buzzed back to life. He heard the barbed nurse pass by outside, going in the same direction she had been going before as she walked on by. Instead of poking his head out after she was away, he instead waited, wanting to confirm a hunch he felt. Sure enough, within a couple minutes he heard her pass by again along the same route. She was patrolling. That meant he couldn't simply avoid the area she was occupying but at least her movements were proving predictable...so far. Opting to follow behind her, he waited until she passed by again and then eased the door open while making minimal noise. He crept out, but his efforts at stealth were spoiled as he shined his light down the hallway searching for doors to investigate, instantly attracting her attention. "Oh you idiot," he scolded himself as he switched his light off. He was about to retreat back into the room under cover of darkness but then noticed her panting wasn't getting any closer. She had apparently lost interest with no light and moved along around the corner. Knowing that would certainly prove useful. For now he turned his light back on, careful to keep it angled down at the floor nearby so she wouldn't catch sight of it on a wall, and began checking doors in as much of a hurry as he could manage in order to stay ahead of her. He zigzagged down the hallway, blocked by three broken locks in a row before discovering the furthest door on the right was unlocked. The barbed nurse was closing in around the corner again so he slipped inside and shut the door behind him before she could spot him. Lance was then puzzled by how suddenly his watch began buzzing as loud as it possibly could. Had the barbed nurse suddenly moved very quickly to stand just outside the door right after he had closed it? No, a familiar screech of metal accompanied by a curious yet monstrous murmur within the room answered, no she had not.