“I’m coming, Wisp!” you yell, spinning around. Fighting with the door’s handle, you grunt, muscles straining. “Come on . . . come on.” The door breaks free with a screeching lurch, and you push it inward.
The room is still filled with the sound of Gigglers, and the scent of their death permeates the air. You start backtracking your path. “Wisp? Wisp!” you whisper. Something bright lights up in your peripheral vision, and you quickly snap your head around.
There it is again. A bright white flash lights up the room, and it’s coming from the area you fled . . . meaning . . . “Wisp?” You take off, heading towards the light. Even though you can hear the Gigglers, you can’t see them.
As you get closer to the flashes, you hear meaty thwacks and dying gurgles. Slowing down, you creep up on the flashes, and it sounds like you aren’t the only one; hellish laughter is all around you and seeming to do the same. Carefully peering around the pile of decomposing flesh, your mouth drops open.
Wisp is alive.
But more importantly, the Guard is standing over her petrified, crouching form. And it’s fighting back the Gigglers with ease. It hardly seems to be expending any energy as it utterly decimates each of the beasts that comes within its reach. Every couple of seconds, it’s horn lights up and blasts one of the Gigglers into a bloody mist.
The Guard is saying something; angling your ear, you catch its deep, resonating, metallic tone. “Refrain from attempting to damage high value Patient. Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction. Refrain from . . .” it repeats dully.
Seeing no reason to intervene, you watch as it effortlessly destroys creature after creature. Even the mutant Giggler doesn’t stand a chance; the Guard simply vaporizes it.
Eventually, the sound of laughter stops. The Guard’s soulless eyes observe the battlefield. Wisp slowly looks up at the metal beast towering over her. It looks in between its legs at her and drones, “You will be returned to your cell. Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction.”
Wisp cheeps quietly; you can barely hear her from where you are standing. The Guard bends down and opens it massive jaw wide. Wisp crouches closer and closer to the floor, eyes wide, ears flat against her head.
Something rattles from the dark doorway where Guard had originally been positioned.
The Guard pauses. It slowly looks over, neck creaking slightly in the sudden, eerie silence.
Peering around the Guard’s shoulder, you see a small completely black foal trotting out of the room. Catching sight of the Guard, it slows to a stop, blue eyes wide. The Guard bends it knees and, lets loose a horrible, screeching growl.
The foal doesn’t seem to reply, but within seconds, dozens of others walk out of the doorway, seeming to glide along the ground. They take up position alongside the first foal and stare at the Guard.
The Guard takes a step forward and growls. “Refrain from attempting to damage high value Patient. You will be returned to your cell. Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction.”
The first foal cocks its head to the side. “Hyah! We’re going to crack you open like a bug and slurp up your insides,” she giggles innocently, showing pointy fangs. There must be at least thirty of them now. “And after that, I’m going to chew on your eyes ‘till they pop and spew their wonderful, gummy, juicy flavor all over my tongue!”
As if that was the signal, the room exploded. The Guard and the foals rushed at each other. The Guard began vaporizing them with its horn, but there are too many; it only manages to hit one or two. It destroys each foal with it’s hooves as they come in reach, but the foals just turn into a black mist and reform seconds later.
Snapping out of your trance, you see your opportunity: Wisp is unguarded. Leaping over the pile, you dash over to her motionless form.
Not bothering to say anything, you grab her by the scruff of her neck and hoist her into the air. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the Guard slowly tumbling to the ground, foals covering every square inch of its body. Before it even hits the ground, you hear its chest being torn open as the foals enact their promise.
You decide it’s time to leave.
Turning around, you run for the door that leads to the exit.
But before you even take a full four steps, one of the foals cries out, “Look! A new friend!” Quickly glancing over your shoulder, you see that each of the foals is looking up from the meal and facing you. Rounding a pile, you lose sight of them, but you can hear their voices calling to you.
“He wants to play!”
“We’re only going to kill you!”
“I bet his juices taste good. . . .”
“Slow down!”
Putting more force in each step, you run faster, lungs heaving, Wisp bouncing against your chest. Spying the door rapidly approaching, you speed into the room and skid to a stop. Haphazardly dropping Wisp on the ground, you spin around and pull on the door. It slowly closes and you lock it tightly by turning the handle. You breath a long sigh and sit down.
A small bit of blackness begins oozing from all around the door. More and more darkness squeezes in through the edge. You should have know it wouldn’t be that easy. Once again picking up Wisp, you sprint down the long, dark hallway towards the beckoning glow of the exit sign. You reach it, but you have a problem.
It’s a dead end.
Looking over your shoulder, you see over two dozen different colored eyes glowing in the dark. You can hear them cheering as they rapidly close the distance.
Smacking each of the walls, you discover that they are solid concrete, same as the floor—the ceiling disappears into darkness above. Lighting up your horn, you quickly scan the walls, but you can’t find anything.
Wait! You can see a small button almost imbedded in the wall. You press it with your magic.
The floor instantly collapses below your hooves, sending you into the black abyss below. Again.
But something is wrong. You’re not going down. You’re going up.
You feel some sort of gentle pressure on your legs and ribs as you silently fly upward. Looking down, you see the foals following in suit.
After flying upward for a short time, you rise to the level of a dimly lit room. Breathing heavily around Wisp, you step out of the lift and observe your surroundings. The room has misshapen, illegible words written in blood all over the walls. You can’t read anything. However, there are two hallways leading out of the room; they are at opposite ends of the room. One has “There is no way out” written in blood on the door, while the other has “He lies” written in some sort of black fluid—but not ink, that much is clear. You can hear the foals getting closer; they are right behind you.
>“There is no way out” door.
>“He lies” door.
>Stay here and fight the foals.