//------------------------------// // Wait... What? // Story: The Basement // by D5ky //------------------------------// Twilight had no idea how long she fell through the darkness. Time had no meaning. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. It could have even been years for all she knew. But it did end. It didn't end with her smashing to the ground - in fact, when she landed, it was like landing on a cloud. She sat bolt upright in her bed, gasping. Bright light had replaced the darkness, and she had to squint as her pupils shrunk to the size of pinheads. After a few moments, she was able to see once more. Dark blue overwhelmed her senses, as every wall was painted so. She was in a room, lying in bed across from a large window, which allowed sunlight to pour in. She recognized the place - it was her old bed/study room in Canterlot. What on earth? she thought to herself. Am I... is this the afterlife? It was the only thing that would've explained how she had gone from falling indefinitely to lying in bed in her old bedroom. Her suspicions grew as she looked down. There was no trace of blood, nor a trace of her fatal wounds. I have to be dead, she realized, as tears again filled her eyes. She wouldn't ever see her friends in life again. She wouldn't see Spike again. She wouldn't be able to watch him mature into an adult, or see his futile attempts to win Rarity's heart. She wouldn't ever attend another one of Pinkie's parties again. The list went on and on, as her sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. "Hello there," a raspy voice said from behind her. She jumped into the air in shock, whipping around to face the new voice. The voice, it seemed, had come from an old stallion. So old, that only a few strands of his white hair remained. His grey skin was twice as wrinkled as Granny Smith's, and he trembled as he stood on his knobby knees. "I don't believe I've seen you before," he wheezed. "What is your name?" "Uhh," Twilight said, nervously. "Twilight Sparkle. What's yours?" He stood in silent thought for a few moments, then shrugged. "I never had a name," he said, indifferently. "Never needed one." Twilight raised an eyebrow in surprise, before remembering what her situation was. "Where am I?" she began interrogating. "Why am I here?" "You're in The Basement," the old stallion replied, squinting at her. "The Basement?" Twilight was perplexed. "Is this Hell?" "Is it, or isn't it?" the stallion said, unhelpfully. "That is for you to decide. After all, the beginning is different for everyone." Twilight's brain shot into overdrive, as she picked at every piece of the riddle in her head. What did the stallion mean? In the few moments that she spent thinking up a million scenarios, she couldn't figure out what it meant. "Why don't you go out there and find out for yourself?" the stallion rasped. "You're free to leave." He gestured with a hoof towards the exit. Twilight blinked, and to her surprise, the stallion had vanished into thin air. What on earth? she thought for the second time. She made a mental note to look up the symptoms for paranoid schizophrenia. She didn't know if the old stallion had been real, and if he wasn't, then she had a serious problem. Deciding she could accomplish nothing by staying in the empty study, she moved to the front door. Taking a deep breath, she used magic to push the doors open, revealing the outside staircase. She hadn't even taken three steps out the door when she was swallowed in darkness again. It felt the same as the darkness that she had been falling through, except this time, the trip was much shorter. She landed roughly on her hooves. Right smack-dab in the center of the Ponyville town square. Never before had Twilight felt a greater sense of confusion. She stared around the town square. I'm dreaming, she concluded. She had dreamt up the whole thing - from the letter from Celestia to these incredibly odd circumstances. That theory was crushed, however, when she couldn't wake herself up. Three hard pinches and two bites later, she was left as confused as ever. It was definitely Ponyville, but something was... off. Even though the square was full of ponies, the air had a much more eerie feel than usual, and she couldn't quite place what was wrong. "...And where is Twilight, anyway?" a distant voice drifted to her. If this was the afterlife, she didn't want to catch sight of her friends, or her mental breakdown would be imminent. She looked around in a rush, spotting a fruit cart not far away. She hid behind a barrel of watermelon, as Fluttershy and Rarity trotted past. "I don't know," Fluttershy replied in her quiet voice. "She was supposed to come help me calm down that rampaging hippopotamus, but she didn't come. She must have been terribly busy and forgotten. I had to calm the poor thing down while running away from it!" The voices of her two friends faded away. Twilight emerged from behind the watermelon barrel. So, her friends had noticed she had gone. But how long had she been gone? A few hours, a distant part of her brain informed her. You were supposed to sedate-- er, "calm down" that hippopotamus right after you got back from the castle. So this wasn't the afterlife. This was current life. Her brain threatened to switch to panicked overdrive mode, but she breathed deeply to calm herself. OK Twilight, she thought, coaching herself. You don't know about something. What's the first step? "...Research!" she said aloud. Emerging from her hiding place, she started weaving her way through the town square. Luckily, her new castle wasn't far from the center of town. Soon, the castle was in sight. She trotted right up to the front door, touched the doorknob first like she usually did, magically unlocked the deadbolt, and opened it. She had a brief glimpse of the inside of the neat, pristine throne room. Before she was swallowed in darkness again. And this time, when it faded away, she was right outside the front door of Cranky Doodle Donkey's house. "What the buck!" she exclaimed, annoyed, curious, and terrified at the same time. Whatever was happening here made no sense. It was as though the places that doors went were all scrambled around. No logical basis at all. She knew a lot of magic, but not even dark magic could have pulled this off. As far as she could tell, there was no way to get back to the castle from here. She turned, and lept forward hard, impatient. She just wanted to get some research done. But as she flew forward, not paying attention to where she was going, she smashed right into Big Macintosh, sending him and his cart of apples sliding back a few feet. She fell to the ground in a heap, as Big Mac skidded on his hooves to a halt, effectively saving the cart of apples. Not a single one dropped. "Oh my gosh," Twilight said, rubbing her side where she had smashed into him and sitting up. "I'm so sorry! I need to watch where I'm going! I--" "It's alright, Princess," Big Mac said, extending a hoof to her. "I saved mah' apples." She took hold of his powerful hoof, and he pulled her up gently, but firmly. "'Ave a good one, Princess," Big Mac said, nodding at her. He resumed trotting as though nothing had happened. As Twilight watched him walk away, she noticed something. The eerie feeling had gone. The air didn't feel as thick. "What is going on?!" she yelled, snarling in frustration. As smart as she was, she had no idea what was happening. Stick to the plan, Twilight, she thought, breathing deeply again. Research. (=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=) Her trip back to her castle was uneventful. She didn't come across any of her best friends, and she didn't suddenly appear anywhere weird. Whatever had been going on, it seemed to be over... for now. Twilight tore through book after book in her study, creating a huge mess in her frenzy. Soon, she was researching every genre, every section of her new library, for any mention of "The Basement." She even retreated to her actual basement, breaking into the few dark magic books she owned, looking for anything. The closest thing she found was a poem written in the corner of the back cover to A History of Dark Magic, and she wasn't even sure it connected specifically to "The Basement." When you have finally met your end, it is time that you descend. Falling down to your doom, trapped within your grief and gloom. You awaken in a place anew, but no, not new to you. It's a place where you have been, but for some time have not seen. The one greets you like a friend. The one who shall soon come to an end. For we all grow wise and old. Our cards are known; we soon must fold. But until then, even further we descend.  Trying to make it to the end. Frustrated and exhausted, Twilight retired to bed, despite it being four in the afternoon. Twilight went back the next day to finish her initial job, to check the palace for the Silent Snatch. Not wanting to take the risk this time around, she flew over the trees to the palace. She spent an hour creeping around the old place, until she was quite certain that it was empty. She wrote a report to Celestia, informing her of her findings. Of course, Twilight's curiosity got the better of her on the way back. She flew over the general area where she had been attacked, until she finally found the clearing. The hole was still there, just as strange as ever. Twilight cocked her head, pacing around it, taking in every detail, double-checking to see if she had missed anything the first time. What on earth could've formed this? she wondered again.  Even in her specific research on this hole the previous day, she couldn't find anything that described this hole, either. She wanted to jump down the hole.  After all, this time, she had her wings, and she wasn't dying. But something held her back.  Fear. This hole had seemed infinite, and had somehow healed her fatal wounds.  Then it had caused her to hallucinate about her old Canterlot bedroom, and some old stallion. Something about that was edgy. Backing off, she flew into the air again back towards Ponyville, determined to forget the hole. The next few days passed by uneventfully.  Twilight went about her daily business as usual, and soon, she had almost forgotten about her horrifying experience. But four days after she had been attacked, everything changed. Twilight woke up in the morning as she usually did, cleaned herself up, ate her oatmeal, and was standing up to look at her schedule for the day, she stopped. "What the--" she began, but she didn't finish. Her insides contorted, and she felt a horrible wave of cold.  She shivered violently, as she threatened to throw up all of her oatmeal.  She collapsed, barely managing to stay upright. But then, as quickly as it had come, it passed. "Ugh," she groaned, roughly getting to her hooves.  "That was weird..." When she had regained her composure a bit, she walked over to the list and resumed her daily routine.  She had to go to the market to buy some things. She walked out of the castle, heading for the marketplace. As she walked, the muscles in her upper flank twitched, and her tail began trembling. "Twitchy tail," she said aloud, suddenly panicking.  "Duck in cover!" She threw herself under a small balcony nearby, looking nervously upwards.  Then, she giggled. "Come on, Twilight.  Pinkie's twitching tail means falling objects." She began walking back into the open.  "You don't have Pinkie se--" *SMASH* Twilight crashed to the ground, with a prominent lump atop her head. "Uuuunnnnnhhh..." she moaned, barely conscious. "I'm so sorry, Princess!" a mare called from above.  "I'm always telling Strike to not keep his bowling balls on the windowsill!" Twilight got up, nursing her new goose egg with a tender hoof. "...Coincidence," she muttered, stumbling onward.  "Absolute coincidence." She continued without further incidents to the marketplace.  She bought her supplies and was about to head home when it happened again. Her ears flopped to the sides of her head. "What--" she exclaimed, before she remembered that last time this happened, she had been splattered with mud.  She looked around, and right to a mud puddle five feet away. Right as a little filly, screaming with joy, landed in it. For a little filly, it was a powerful hit.  Mud flew into the air, right at Twilight. "Oh come on!" she yelled, right as the mud hit her head-on.  She was inwardly thankful that she had magically stored everything she had just bought.  She was now covered head to hoof with wet mud. (=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=)(=) Twilight sat soaking in her new bathtub, letting the mud ooze its way off of her. "Maybe you do have Pinkie sense," she said, staring at the ceiling. "Oh, come on, Twilight," she began arguing with herself.  "Two coincidences in a row may be unlikely, but--" She stopped.  She remembered having this exact conversation with someone.  Except last time, it had been with another sentient being, not herself. She got up, hurriedly washed off the rest of the mud, and magically dried herself off.  She was about to exit the bathroom, when several things happened at once.  Her ears flopped, just like earlier.  Her eye muscles spasmed, and her legs threatened to give out beneath her. Wait, she paused, brain shooting into overdrive again.  Ear flop, eye flutter, knee twitch.  Beautiful Rainbow? No.  Opening doors. She looked back at her bathroom door, and leapt back from it just as it burst open and Spike came in. "Oh, sorry Twilight," he said, caught off guard.  "Didn't know you were-- where are you going?" Twilight ignored him, tearing through the castle and out the door.  Deciding to ignore the remainder of her day's schedule, she made a beeline for Sugarcube Corner.  It was time to get some "expert" info on this. Soon, she found herself at the doorway to the Cakes' sweet shop.  She opened it and went through.  Mrs. Cake was working the counter, taking down ponies' orders.  Twilight cut through the ponies in line and walked up to the counter. "Oh, hello there Princess," Mrs. Cake said, surprised.  "What can I get'cha?" "Nothing today, thanks," Twilight said, in a rushed voice.  "Have you seen Pinkie Pie?" "I believe she's upstairs," Mrs. Cake replied, glancing behind her.  "She's on break at the-- Princess?" In her rushed frenzy, Twilight had bolted for the staircase on the word "upstairs." She flew up the flight of stairs, and straight down the hallway to Pinkie's room.  She hammered on the door four times.  After a moment of silence, she knocked again, even louder.  As she was getting ready to hammer the door for the third time, it swung inward and opened, revealing a curious Pinkie Pie. "Pinkie, I need to ask you some questions," Twilight stated immediately, without preamble.  "It's urgent." "Okie-dokie," Pinkie said brightly, shifting sideways slightly as Twilight hurried into the room.  She shut the door behind her. "Sit down," Twilight said, as she sat down on Pinkie's bed.  "And please, tell the truth." "All righty!" Pinkie replied, completely ignoring that she had been invited to sit down in her own room and complying. "When did your Pinkie Sense start?" Twilight got straight to the point. Pinkie's eyes popped in excitement.  "Oooh, my Pinkie Sense?  That's a toughie.   Uhh... it started a bit after I got here," Pinkie said, more loudly than was necessary in a nearly empty room. "What happened? How did you figure out it was Pinkie Sense?" "Well..." Pinkie trailed off, thinking back to that day so long ago.  In her mind, she pictured the day. "I was moving the last of my stuff in with the Cakes," Pinkie began.  "I was almost done, and I felt really, really strange.  My tummy got all rumbly, but not like it does when I'm hungry or sick.  Then it was gone!  And later, I was getting all kinds of twitches!" Twilight's fears were confirmed as she recalled the feeling she had this morning. "Pinkie, this sounds crazy, so don't laugh," Twilight said, pleadingly. "Oh, I can't guarantee that," Pinkie said, suppressing a snorting laugh. "I... I think..." Twilight started. She couldn't do it.  She couldn't tell Pinkie what she thought.  She just couldn't. But she had to. "I think I have Pinkie Sense too!" she finished. Pinkie's mouth split into a wide grin, and she began hopping with glee. "Oh, oh, oh!" she screamed.  "You found it, didn't you?!" "Found what?" Twilight asked, now confused. Pinkie bounced up to her, getting right in her face.  Then, she grew unnaturally calm, wearing a knowing smile. "The Death Hole, you silly filly.  You fell through the Death Hole, didn't you?"