//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Amber Flames 
// Story: Bloodborne: Oligemia 
// by Digital Media Disk 
//------------------------------//

	An eternity later, Octavia began awaken, again. Thoughts came slowly at first. Her mind felt like millions of shards of broken glass trying to reassemble themselves, each piece trying to fit back together and remember where it went and what exact it was a part of. Octavia groaned and gave a weak sob, raising a hoof to rub her aching head which felt as if it had been given a good strong buck or two by a lifelong apple farmer. She could clearly see the rafters above her in the dim moonlight from the window. She sat up slowly on the operating table, then promptly fell back again as nausea engulfed her. Thankful that somepony had removed her restraints. Or did they snap off? She rolled to her side and eased herself off the table to fall to the floor, landing on some discarded parchment. She got to her hooves slowly, not caring about whatever it was she was stepping on. Serves Sharpened Scalpel right! I don’t care if I’m trashing his only copy of Hay’s Anatomy she thought to herself, giving the papers beneath her a few hard stamps out of anger. Whether the cure had worked or not, she was going to have words with the toll master for what he’d just put her through. There certainly hadn’t been enough forewarning, that was for sure.
After she vented some more of her anger and frustration, kicking the pile of loose-leaf sheets out to scatter across the floor, something finally dawned on her. She could see. It was not that her eyes were working properly again, thankfully the cure hadn’t damaged them or any other part of her she noticed, but rather that there was no source of light in the room, except for the moonlight shining in. Wait a second she thought. It was a new moon when I arrived at the keep and not a star in the sky. The moon can’t be out now. Yet there it was, a beautiful full moon, bigger in the sky than she had ever seen before, pouring down soft grey light through three tall windows in the far wall. Octavia stared at it a moment longer before she realized something else. There was only one window in the toll master’s office. She turned to observe the room, staring in disbelief. It was not the same one she had received the transfusion in. For one thing it was smaller, its interior more of a square instead the rectangular shape of the room in the keep. For another, it looked more like a true, albeit antiquated, medical ward than Scalpel’s office had. What she had actually woken up on was a wooden medical gurney, and there was another one beside it, neither boasting any restraints like the ones on the toll master’s operating table.  Between the two was an IV stand with two empty glass bottles hanging from it. Operating tools and primitive diagnostic instruments covered in dust and bottles caked in grime and grit were stacked in wooden cabinets that ran along the four walls of the room. There were two large chandeliers above, no doubt intended to give surgeons enough light to operative by at night, but now home to several hundred spiders as evidenced by the layers and layers of white webbing spun between their candles. Finally, there was a single door in a corner of the wall across from the windows with glass panes set into it, but they were so caked with filth that Octavia couldn’t make out what was on the other side of it.
Unfortunately, Octavia’s hooflocker that contained everything she had brought with her for the trip to Yharnaram was nowhere to be found. Putting a hoof to her neck revealed that even her pink bowtie had been removed, effectively leaving her with absolutely nothing. Great. That quack doctor just drugged me and dragged me off somewhere, then made off with everything I own! Forget having strong words with the pony. If I ever meet him again, I’ll give him two real reasons to wear bandages over his eyes, then drag him all the way down the mountain to the nearest police station! Fuming, Octavia turned and gave one of the gurneys a hard buck with her rear hooves, sending it crashing onto its side. These tables were not secured like the toll master’s. The sudden noise broke the silence of the room like a stone hurled through stained glass, and Octavia’s anger turned to startled fear in an instant. What was she doing? Did she want to attract more attention to herself? Who knew where she was right now, and who else might have overhead the racket she had just caused. For now, her best option would be to get her bearings, then find her way out of wherever it was that she was and back down the mountainside.
Octavia trotted over to the windows and peered out into the night. A dark, unfamiliar cityscape met her gaze, the moon its only illumination. In the distance she could see the silhouettes of two mountain peaks rising up to brush the top of the sky. I’m in Yharnaram she realized with a start. She had supposed that the toll master had simply deposited her in another part of his keep, or some other nearby building, but as she peered out the three windows, craning and turning her head to see as far to each side as she could, it seemed that she was somewhere near the center of the city.
Octavia stepped away from the windows, heart beating frantically. Of all the rumors and myths that surrounded Yharnaram, there was one piece of advice that everypony knew, often the very first anypony ever heard when learning about the city, one that every story teller or adventurer who claimed to know somepony who knew somepony who knew somepony who had been to the city agreed upon: never go out into the streets of Yharnaram at night. The reason why was never given, but if an inquisitive mind were to ask the one telling for it, they would more than likely be met with a hard stare and silence, as if the warning itself were more than reason enough to avoid such an utterly foolish act. Octavia had not planned to arrive at Yharnaram by dark herself, and though she thought she had left with plenty of time to make it up the mountain and have hours of daylight to spare, somehow the sun was setting by the time she reached the end of the road. She hadn’t thought of it much then, but hoped to lodge in the toll master’s keep for the night, before she knew the kind of pony who inhabited it of course. Even then, in no way would she have gone into Yharnaram until sunrise, but here she was, in the heart of the city, right around the middle of the night if the moon was any indication. She felt like a pony stranded on a small desert island with sharks circling all around. All she could do now was wait until sunrise, and then she would be able to freely move about the city. Whatever… whatever was out there in the darkness couldn’t get to her as long as she remained inside. In the morning she could leave if she wanted to, at least, that was what she told herself, but her words lacked conviction 
“You need only unravel its mystery….” The toll master’s words echoed back from earlier in the night. Hadn’t she been cured, hadn’t she, or at least given what was supposed to be Yharnaram’s cure? “Our city is a place to heal the sick…” the toll master continued in her mind. “When you come to know the secrets at its heart, you will have become whole in both mind and body once more.”
“The secret…” Octavia said aloud, musing to herself as she looked back out on the city. “The blood was supposed to be just the start. Do I have to find the secret of Yharnaram for the cure to work? Why?” She ran a hoof up her neck to where she remembered being given the transfusion, and her eyes went wide. She patted her neck in disbelief, first on one side, then the other. She turned away from the window, looking for a mirror of some sort. Taking a metal tray that held a strange assortment of pliers from one of the shelves, Octavia gently dumped its contents on the floor, careful to keep quiet about it, then rubbed it with a hoof to remove the remaining dust from its surface. Standing in front of the window and holding the tray before her, she examined her blurry reflection in the improvised mirror, specifically her neck. There was no mark, no puncture, no blood. Nothing to indicate she’d ever had a needle jammed into her at any point. Sweet Celestia! How long was I unconscious? she thought in disbelief.
A soft scrabbling noise on the very edge of hearing came from somewhere beyond the door at the other end of the room, causing Octavia to nearly drop the tray in surprise. She set it down gently, then listened, ears turning every which way to determine where the sound had come from, or if there had even been one for that matter. Aside from Octavia, the building had been silent as death since she had woken up there. Octavia listened a minute longer, but the noise did not come again. Nothing stirred except the dust motes slowly drifting through moonlight from the window. She released a breath she did not realize she had been holding.
A low rumble sounded, but that was simply her stomach. Octavia realized it had been some time since her last meal, and it finally occurred to her just how tired and hungry she really was. Perhaps there was somepony else in the building, one who could provide her with a hot meal and a warm place to sleep. One who hopefully doesn’t need to be paid she thought to herself, frowning deeply. Whatever the case was, it was either spend a night in this room with all of its knives and glass bottles and probably try to sleep on one of the operating tables—thank you, no—or try to find a better, safer place to rest somewhere else.  Thinking it over only for a moment, she made her way over to the room’s solitary door. Cautiously, she pulled the handle and slipped through it, careful not to make a sound.
She stepped out into a long, narrow hallway running off both to her left and right, and that showed much the same neglect as the room she had just been in. Dust and cobwebs covered the hall from ceiling to floor, and torn, faded wallpaper curled up the sides of the walls like remnants of bark on a dead tree. On a whim, Octavia picked the right side of the hall, hoping it would lead her somewhere safe. And perhaps to the kitchen if there is one. The hall was lined with multiple doors, identical to the one she had come out of, each with a brass plate next to its frame. She stopped and dusted one off to read Patient Room 27. Pushing the door open a crack and peering in, Octavia saw two rusted bed frames holding the remnants of what looked to be formless grey mattresses. The tattered remnants of white privacy curtains were draped around each, swaying gently in a breeze creeping in through an open window across the room. In the dim moonlight, they looked like transparent specters from a foals’ horror story. Octavia shuddered, and closed the door, continuing down the hall.
Well, that explained this building. She was in a hospital or medical ward of some sort, but one that didn’t look like it had been used in years. What kind of city or town of any size let’s their hospital fall into ruin? she thought to herself. Unless… a sliver of hope caught in her chest. Unless the cure works, and nopony in this city has need of medicine or doctors here! she realized. It still was well within the realm of possibility that Yharnaram really did have some sort of magical cure-all, even if it didn’t explain anomalies like the toll master’s apparently poor health, but perhaps there were even limits to something like the cure here. In any case, Octavia was not trying to find a cure for paralysis, just fix what was wrong in her head. A smaller, more feasible healing, she concluded. But still impossible for everypony else to fix, another side of her whispered.
Sighing, she came the top of a simple staircase which led down to a wider hallway below. Octavia stared down it, and was surprised to see a faint orange light flickering from under one of the doors in the lower hallway. Stealth forgotten at the hope of finding somepony else, anypony else to end her solitude, she quickly trotted down the stairs, uncaring of the creeks and groans the dusty wood made beneath her hooves
Octavia made her way over to the door the light was coming from, and, hesitating just briefly eased the handle down, and let herself in. She stepped into a virtual forest of gurneys, all scattered about the room in a disorganized mess. Some were overturned, and the whole jumble created a tangle of wood and metal that obstructed Octavia’s view of most of the room. Despite its desperate need of a good cleaning, the room still retained the sterile smell of a medical center, and Octavia saw a shelf near the door where she entered holding rows of identical glass bottles, all with the label “Alcohol Disinfectant”.
There was definitely somepony—or something… No! Stop it!—there at the far end of the room. From it came the warm, amber glow of a fire, along with soft, squishing and ripping noises, like somepony was tearing a mud covered fragment of cloth to pieces.
“Hello?” Octavia said nervously. The noises instantly stopped, and all was still. Something moved and for an instant, Octavia thought she saw a huge shadow play across the ceiling, thrown up by the firelight. “Hello?” she said again, suddenly unsure of whether it was wise or not to remain in the room. Silence answered her, and Octavia waited. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. A whole minute.
There was a dull thump, and a single gurney at the other end of the room was displaced, its path across the floor marked by rhythmic squeaking from a single rusty wheel. Octavia craned her neck over the mess of discarded medical equipment in the center of the room. She could just make out its shape rolling slower and slower next to a medical cabinet. Wait. Is there something else over there? She took a tentative step forward. The gurney trundled to a halt, and the squeaking stopped.
“Hello?”
The room seemed to explode as something massive and powerful crashed right through the middle of the gurneys in the center of the room like a ship plowing through water, sending them spinning through the air, smashing into walls, furniture and cabinets. The creature dove for Octavia with incredible speed, a giant wolf-like beast with covered in thick black fur. A muzzle filled with sharp fangs snarled, eager for blood, and two long, powerful arms reached for her with large, incredibly sharp claws. Terrified, Octavia only had time to fall to the floor before the thing reached her. She felt a rush of air as its jump carried it over her with mere inches to spare, and heard it crash into the shelf of bottles behind her. She leapt up and saw a set of double doors in front of her, where the creature had originally been. She charged toward them.
As she neared the other side of the room, she finally saw the source of its light. The mangled corpse of a bat pony lay on the floor, its head and limbs almost completely gnawed off. Beside it was a brass lantern containing a few shards of glass, and a single large candle that was slowly dripping wax to mingle with the pool of blood on the floor. Octavia charged past both and hurled through the double doors, into what looked like the hospital’s main corridor. 
She charged down it, dodging around piles of discarded medical equipment and refuse that lined the broad hallway. Thankfully, the corridor had a high, glass-paned ceiling, and moonlight cascaded through it like, clearly illuminating everything around her.
The sound of splintering wood and breaking glass echoed behind her, followed by a loud snarl and the dull clack of claws as the monster gave chase. It quickly began to gain on her, and, Octavia threw herself down a side corridor. In desperation she began to knock over objects as she ran past them, trying to slow down the monstrosity behind her, but to no avail. The creature deftly evaded her obstructions and continued to close the gap between itself and the frightened mare. She could hear it breathing from somewhere behind her.
As Octavia rounded a corner, a flash of color caught her eyes, and she thought she saw a pony vanishing through one of the doors that lined the hallway. Not thinking and not caring, she flung herself at the door with a cry.
Bolting into the room on the other side, she turned and slammed it shut. Just in time she saw an old iron bolt and shot it before the beast impacted with the door, shaking it violently. Octavia braced herself against it, expecting another shock as the creature would no doubt attempt to batter its way in. It didn’t come. She sat against the door, eyes wide and heart pounding, ear pressed against the door, listening for the monster. Nothing stirred on the other side. She waited for what seemed like an eternity, but nothing happened. Is it trying to lure me back out somehow, Octavia thought. The creature had already used surprise once, and had nearly killed her then. Perhaps it was hiding out in the hallway somewhere, waiting for her to feel secure enough to come out so it could kill her without having to go to the trouble of breaking through the door first. Octavia waited a bit longer before taking stock of her situation.
Quickly scanning the room, Octavia realized to her horror that she was trapped. The room she had chosen looked to be some sort of administrative office, its only contents a large wooden desk, a chair, a sagging book case filled with several dusty tomes and no other way out; no doors and not a window to speak of. Her gambled had also failed in that there was clearly nopony else in the room.
There was, however, one thing that stood out from all the bleak dust. A candle sat on the desk in a simple candle holder, bathing the small room in its gentle glow. It did not look like it had been there very long. In fact, the wax point at the top was just beginning to melt away from the flame right then.
Slowly easing herself away from the door so that the monster outside would not hear that she had abandoned her defense, Octavia made her way over to the candle. How strange. She had thought she’d seen a pony enter this room, but no light. Maybe it was just the terror of the chase and the darkness playing tricks on me, or am I starting to lose my mind in this place?, she mused worriedly. As she inspected the candle, she noticed that not only did the candle and candleholder look pristine, free of the filth that covered the rest of the building. Both looked brand new as if somepony had just taken them off of the shelf at a store and placed them here for her. She reached out a hoof to pick up the candle.
Then the wall across from her erupted in a shower of splinters, and the wolf monster catapulted through it. It was on Octavia before she could even scream, crushing her to the ground with its powerful forelegs. She desperately struggled and writhed beneath it, but was held tight by a grip stronger than iron around each of her forelegs.
Up close, the monster was even more terrifying. Yellow, predatory eyes sat above a harsh muzzle, and it seemed that the creature had even more teeth in its mouth than she first remembered. Its breath reeked of rotten flesh and death, and there was another smell about it, foreign, but in her panicked state Octavia could not place it.
The creature began to reach toward her with its powerful jaws. Octavia continued to buck and struggle, flinging her head from side to side to keep it from reaching her. It leisurely followed her movements like a cobra swaying back and forth to a piper’s tune. Idon’twanttodie!Idon’twanttodie! Oh Celestia, I don’t want to die!
Looking around helplessly, she spotted the candle, which had rolled off the desk and fallen onto the floor beside her. Its flame danced before her eyes, the last light she would ever see in this world. Fire… sometimes it was so pretty.
The monster snarled above her, done toying with its food. As the stench of its breath wafted over Octavia again, so did the other smell, out of place yet familiar. She looked to the flame on the candle one last time, and realization struck.
The wolf creature bent down again, this time going for her unprotected neck, intending to rip her throat out. With all of her strength, Octavia jerked her head to the side, seized the candle in her mouth, then reached up and rammed it into the shaggy fur as close to the top of the monster’s neck as she could get. The alcohol that had covered its back when it had first tried to tackle her and had crashed into the medical cabinet containing the disinfectant, the source of the smell that had followed it from that room, ignited, and flames engulfed the creature’s entire back.
The wolf monster let go of Octavia in surprise and pain, falling onto its back to try and snuff out the flames. It rolled back and forth, but continued to burn. It brushed against the book shelf, and like dry autumn leaves all the volumes it contained ignited, and then the ceiling.
Octavia leapt to her hooves, forelegs hurting where the creature’s claws had grabbed her, and ran. She bolted down the corridor. Perhaps if she could find her way back to the main hallway, she could find the main entrance. Don’t go out into the streets, a part of her said, but she ignored it.
Somehow, even though she was sure she was going the right direction, the main hallway eluded her. Too afraid to backtrack in case the monster was still alive, Octavia galloped through corridor after corridor, searching frantically for a way, any way out. She turned to go down one hallway and saw black smoke roiling like an angry thunderhead at the other end of it, so she followed it in the opposite direction. Coming around another corner led her out under a familiar, high glassed ceiling again, and a stifling blast of heat hit her. She had found the main hallway again, but now it was on fire.
Making a snap decision, Octavia galloped further into the hallway, keeping to the center to stay as far away as possible from the flames on the walls. The glass ceiling was no longer visible, obscured by thick, black smoke, and the objects strewn across the floor were all small bonfires for her to dodge.
The entrance to the building appeared ahead of her, two oak doors with beautiful floral hoof carvings in their surfaces reached almost all the way up to the ceiling flanked by large stained glass windows. Octavia could see flames were already eating ravenously at the wood work, and she put on a burst of speed. Sections of the ceiling above began to explode from the rising heat of the fire, and shard of glass fell like rain, some cutting her. She leapt over a burning hoof carriage, and stumbled the last few feet to the massive doors. She set her shoulder against one and pushed. It gave slowly, hinges complaining with a noise that set her teeth on edge as it crept outward. Heat from the fire made it harder and harder to breath, and Octavia found herself struggling to find footing near the door as flaming debris fell around her, forcing her to shift positions a couple times to avoid getting burned.
The door finally opened wide enough for Octavia to squeeze through, but she hesitated. Everything she’d ever heard about Yharnaram at night from everypony she had talked to about it said that the smarter choice would be for her to take her chances in a hospital on fire rather than go out into the city itself. There was a groan from back down the hall, and a large section of wall crashed down across it, and a cloud of smoke, heat and sparks washed over her. Well I guess that just made my decision for me. Octavia pushed her way through the door, and inhaled a deep breath of cool night air.
Something grabbed her rear leg from behind. Octavia tossed her head frantically and looked behind her, and her blood ran cold.
The monster was back. Somehow, it had survived the flames, though at a terrible price. Its fur was gone, and its skin with it, melted almost entirely away by the fire, leaving its body covered in little except blood, sinew and charred meat. It had reached through the gap she had created in the door and grabbed her rear leg in one of its claws. Now it was trying to pull her back into the inferno with it. She and fought back, trying to pull away with her free legs, but could not get loose. The creature snarled, and continued to drag her backwards.
Then there was an ear splitting crack as wood splintered somewhere above. The monster barely had time to look up before it was crushed by a flaming support beam that fell from above the doors. Its grasp loosened and Octavia shot forward, falling to roll painfully down the sweeping flight of stairs that led up to the building’s main entrance, and landed in a dazed heap.
The building groaned and rumbled behind her, and Octavia felt a tremor shake the earth beneath her. A concert of destruction played out as beams broke, pillars crashed down and smoke poured into the sky. Finally, in one great cacophony of light and despair, the hospital fell, folding in on itself as it collapsed inward. A wave of hot air and soot washed over Octavia, leaving her coughing and gasping for air where she lay.
A shrill cry pierced the night. Then a thousand more joined it. Guttural roars met hollowing screeches and almost pony-like screams to form an unholy chorus. In a long chain of puffs, the gas street lamps in front of the hospital and burst to life. Lights sprang up in the windows of the surrounding buildings, and shouts, snarls, rumbles, scrapings, clanks and countless other horrific noises seemed to come from every direction. Octavia felt terror settle deep within her soul as she realized what was happening. Yharnaram was awakening.