//------------------------------// // Chapter 19: Stuck in a Nightmare // Story: Batmare: Arkham Asylum // by TheDarkMare16 //------------------------------// The elevator opened up after finishing its carriage. I stepped out of the elevator and heard a distant cry. I looked at a window in a small space with doctors and some insane patients inside. “Please, Dr. Zecora, don’t do it!” a doctor cried out. “There is no Zecora, only Scarecrow!” a distorted voice replied back. I looked in the room and saw that a small gas is emitting in there, causing the ponies in there to panic at an alarming behavior until it is completely erratic. The light flickered on and off as the ponies panicked louder and more fearful. I spotted a twisted shadow when the light flickered. I clenched my teeth in anger because I know what that gas is. The doctors and patients cried, panicked, and screamed in pure terror. Some are clawing at their legs, most likely bugs. Some are clawing at walls in horror and one insane patient clawed at the window in front of me. “Get me out of here, oh Celestia!” a doctor cried. I spotted the shadow, which is wearing a hood and has a somewhat auto-mail arm at the right front leg. As the doctors and patients are becoming more and more terrified, I looked around the room to search for the pony that is causing this madness. An iron barred gate blocked my passage to intercept the pony that quickly galloped in front of me, out of sight. I didn’t have time to make out whom but I know who it is: Doctor Zecora Stripes aka Scarecrow. Zecora was a newcomer to Ponyville years ago. She is a skilled and talented pharmacist in medicine and drugs for the hospitals. What really fascinated her is her obsession in ponies’ phobias. Ever since she was little, she was teased about her scrawny appearance and her fidgetiness. She worked at Arkham years after she graduated and started to perform private and disturbed experiments to doctors, psychiatrists and patients of her newly developed Fear Gas: a hazardous, dangerous, and malicious gas in any form, solid, liquid, gas, or plasma, can get inside a victim or victims’ mind and make their deepest, darkest phobias and fears so frighteningly real, it can kill them. She is one of my most dangerous enemies in psychological terms. She is too fascinated to what I am afraid and yet, she is too angered and determined to crawl into my mind, trying to break me, but I will never be broken. Now, Zecora has been transported from Ponyville to Arkham as an insane, former friend of us Mane 6 and the citizens of Equestria, another resident in Arkham. Unfortunately, the poor doctors and patients died of fright in the room. The area I’m in now is the Secure Access. Beside me, a dusty old room is coated in cobwebs and is plastered with Mane-iac’s poster with kissy marks on it. On an old stand on the weak table in the room have a harlequin hat and a name plate on the table. That room is an old psychiatrist office and I know who’s: Doctor Sweetie Drops. “Ooh, it looks like the good Doctor has started early. You’re appointment isn’t for hours, I’m sure you’ll bust through when she’s ready. Tell me, Bats, what are you really scared of? Failing to save this cesspool of a city? Not finding the Commissioner in time? Me, in a thong?” Mane-iac stated and asked. She laughed at the last comment and switched off from the intercom. I need to venture further in the Secure Access to track down my brother and avoid the Fear Gas soon as possible. I spotted a weak wall at the end of the Access and sprayed some Explosive Gel on it and I pressed the button to destroy the wall to allow access. I entered a small passageway and entered a janitorial utility section with multiple grids and ventilation systems and gears grinding like clockwork. As I dropped and galloped to and fro in the section, my vision is starting to get more angled and I feel a little distorted as I travel further until I met at a lower section of the Lower Corridor. When I met at the window of the Corridor, I spotted a white pony with a blue accented hair with some gray lines and wearing the same overalls and tie he wore earlier: it is my brother, Shining Armor, and he looks and sounds weak. “Please, help me, Batmare…,” he pleaded weakly. I stood in shock as my brother has been dragged by somepony or something. I need to hurry before he gets into any more harm. I looked at a grate and pulled it and entered the ventilation duct to enter the Lower Corridor. After pushing the grate at the end and stood up, I saw a horrific site: my brother, lying on his haunches beside a wall and he is not moving. I walk slowly to Shining Armor and check for any pulse, but atrociously, I did not find any. A small tear formed at my eye and my voice quivered a little bit. I lowered my head. “I’m sorry, Shining,” I said somberly. I close his eyes in respect. I heard a thud at the end of the Corridor on my left. I need to tell Oracle the truth. “Skyla…I—I’m sorry…I was too late,” I apologized quietly and gravely. What I want to expect was a sob or a yell from Skyla but what I didn’t expect is a standby mode. “I’m sorry, the number you have dialed isn’t available,” a standby voice announced. I’m starting to feel perplexed of this behavior of Oracle. “Skyla, are you there?” I asked. “Please hang up your phone,” the voice added before switching off. I narrowed my eyes and starting to see flickering lights at the end of the hallway. Beetles, cockroaches, and other insects start to crawl from the walls left and right. What I saw is the same figure I saw from the Secure Access earlier. I walked further in the infested Lower Corridor as some tiles from the walls start to crumble and shatter when they hit the floor. The minute I met at the door at the end of the Corridor, the entire paranormal phenomenon has ceased abruptly, stopped. Everything was dead silent. I opened the door that leads to a deathly environment, the Morgue. In the Morgue, several doors lined up in vertical and horizontal order is obviously for the deceased to be buried, cremated or any other method. It’s what you expect of your everyday mortuary. Alongside are tables on a small ramp for identification and autopsy reports with jars on a tool table. Two fluorescent lights hang above the dark room and a small mist hang over the room, giving it a creepy, ethereal and ghastly feeling. I heard a chilling and raspy whispering but likewise from my career, I always held my ground. “You shouldn’t…be here! You shouldn’t be here! You shouldn’t be here, get out of here! Get out of here! Get out of here!” As the threatening whisperings became louder every time I walk around the morgue, the cadaver cases started to slam the doors by themselves in a repeated cycle. A droned out tune rang out in the morgue to elevate the disturbing atmosphere. Having enough, I leave the Morgue to go back in the Lower Corridor but I entered back in the same Morgue as before but this time, everything is dead silent. On the tables are three body bags, thankfully, they are closed. But the body bags shook violently, desperately wanting air. I used my Detective Vision to see whose bodies are in the bags but my vision is not working but it is followed by a cackle. Ignoring the cackle, I walk up to the first body bag to see the bodies myself. On my right, I unzipped the bag and saw a body I did not expect to see. In the bag, a medium-colored blue stallion with a blue accented mane and tail and his golden irises are grayed out and leaved at a dead white. He dons the same suit before his demise and I know who this is and I am in complete aghast. “Father?” I asked. The body leaned its head towards me and opened its plagued mouth. “You should have stood up to him, daughter, like a mare!” the corpse exclaimed with an echo. Taking a back from the sentence of my deceased father, I walk to the other body bag and open unzipped it. The pony is a mare, a very light lavender coat with a light violet and white mane and tail, neatly combed with a pearl necklace. The same pearl necklace was the very cause of their premature and traumatic demises. This mare-. “Mom?” I asked shockingly. The mare tilted its head towards me. “Help us, Twilight, don’t let us die!” the mare shrieked in a raspy voice with the same echo that my father said. I do not like this one bit. Night Light and Twilight Velvet were my parents, alongside with Spike and my brother; they are the only ponies and dragon I truly care for in this prejudiced world. They were extremely wise and caring for me and my siblings, they helped this city from the scum that is trying to destroy it. They gave it their all and they created Sparkle Enterprises, the main organ to pump the filth out but they were taken by a desperate, greedy, and disgusting griffon that shot them with a pistol just for my mom’s priceless pearl necklace. My dad asked the robber for anything they can give him but the griffon shot him and my mom when she is crying over his body. The robber looked at me with a scared look, took my mom’s pearls and ran away, leaving me to cry over the bodies. My brother was in Canterlot for the Royal Guard training but heard the news and he was crushed. I feel for my brother but personally, I saw the murder first hand and I was destroyed, my innocence died along with them. A spark was set on fire inside of me, an angry, livid, vengeful, and dark personality rose and grew stronger when the years pass. A promise that I made myself for my parents: I will do anything and everything, even if it cost my life, to protect this city and save the innocent from the evil, even the ones who doesn’t deserve to live on, I will save lives, no matter what. My brother was immediately Captain of the Royal Guard, fighting to protect the innocent like me but not in a scale like my own. He never knows who I am until the time is right. After seeing the bodies of my parents, I looked to the last body bag. Dreading to think it could be Spike or Shining Armor in the bag. I open the bag and expect one of those two to be revealed. But the body is still breathing, unlike the two undead ones. This one has a black and white striped pattern on the sides. Wearing torn brown clothing with stitched pants with tapes around the back hooves. It has a mechanical forearm at the right frontal hoof but it can be removed, like a glove. The body laid there for a few seconds before it popped up to me with its black irises obscure in its makeshift, scarecrow like mask with two gas mask filters at the end underneath a small hood. The eyes then glowed to a bright yellow and it made me feel disoriented and vertigo. I fell down and I stood up. After standing up to gain firmness, the body and the body bags are gone. What really surprised me is that the Morgue’s surroundings are disintegrated like a surreal-themed artwork. The tiles on the floor are disappearing until they ended at a precariously drop over a whirlpool-like vortex at the very bottom of this void. To gain process, I jumped over the ridges of the disintegrated morgue and climbed up to a sturdy area where there as much as little of the Morgue is remained. The distorted hallways now have the gray skies this world has and the very floor is a deathtrap if I take one misstep. When I stood up behind a wall of the Lower Corridor and Morgue, my head starts to twirl and twist in irregular proportions as I heard a cackle. I shook my head and held it to clear my mind when I heard something I do not want to hear. Behind the wall, several meters away, is Zecora, or Scarecrow, standing in a gargantuan size and height, 100 feet tall at max, towering above the twisted world she created. Her right hand is a mechanical glove with four syringes filled with the same hazardous gas that created this world in liquid form with surgical tubes on the gauntlet for refilling. Luckily, the distance between us and the wall is the only thing that can keep my safe from the giant Scarecrow. The only way for me to get out of this world is to beat Scarecrow to restore my mind back to normal. I spotted a shining light at the very top of this world. I saw that the light’s source is my Bat signal, the very symbol of my iron will, determination, courage and a shining example of justice. I know what I need to do. “POOR LITTLE BAT, YOU’RE IN MY WORLD NOW!” the Scarecrow stated, introducing me into her twisted world. She turns around in a 360 to scan the entire world to search for me. Luckily, I can hide behind small walls and corners to hide from the eyesight of the Scarecrow. If I get caught, she can easily destroy my mind and I will be twisted, forever. As soon as Scarecrow turned her head, I galloped a column to hide from her gaze as she turned back around to scan the world again. I left the column and ran to find another spot to hide from her oscillating gaze. The rumbling of her gaze shook the unstable ground. Some of the tiles crumbled and fell into the bottomless vortex below. I remained firm and continue to hide behind crumbled ruins of the Morgue/Lower Corridor to avoid detection. “EVERYTHING YOU SEE IS UNDER MY CONTROL!” the Scarecrow cackled. I ignored her words and spotted the tallest column that can hide me from the gaze very well. In front of me is a weak wall that can be accessed by my Explosive Gel and can distract the Scarecrow, allowing me more time to get to the top. After her gaze has passed, I galloped to the wall and sprayed the Explosive Gel on the wall and hid back to my hiding spot before the gaze returned. I pressed the detonator and the wall exploded, alarming Scarecrow. “WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?” Scarecrow asked. She floated quickly to the area where I am hiding to observe the destroyed wall. She looked carefully around the wall and I saw that she is moving to the other side of my hiding spot to search for me. I quickly moved out of the range of the light, giving me a chance to gallop through the passageway and up some platforms to gain higher ground above the distorted world. After good seconds of observing, Scarecrow shook her head in annoyance and went back to her position to search for me. Behind the wall at the top, on a small walkway, edge of this world is the Bat signal, still shining as my only way to leave this world. After Scarecrow scanned the top, I quickly galloped to the signal and pushed it to an angle that can shine on Scarecrow. The creaking of the signal alarms her. “WHAT WAS THAT?” Scarecrow asked to herself. She looked around the world until she spotted the Bat signal that is shining at her direction. After adjusting the ray to its angle. The light blasted an extremely bright ray at Scarecrow, brightening the world around me and her. Scarecrow screamed in agony as the bright photon ray blasted her and her twisted world to obliteration. “AAAAAGGGGHHHH!” Scarecrow cried out in pain. Everything as I know it brightened to a white. I remained firm as everything changed around me and I held my head as it’s slowly becoming clearer as everything around is back to normal. I’m in the same Morgue as earlier before the incident happened. No body bags, no ethereal voices, no banging, no mist, no Scarecrow, nothing. Everything is back to normal. I finally cleared my head from the Fear Gas I was dosed back on the elevator. I called myself from the experience of the frighteningly real world I was introduced to. I know that Scarecrow escaped the Morgue when I fought back but I know this is not the end of her. I need to expect more of her eventually. “Can you hear me? Twilight, what’s going on?” Oracle asked frantically after a long period in the twisted world I was in. I was relieved to hear her voice again. “Oracle, I’m okay,” I replied softly and relieved. “What happened? I’d lost contact, are you sure you’re alright? Have you found my dad?” Oracle asked. “I’m fine, had a little run-in with Scarecrow and slowed me down. I’ll get back to you in a bit,” I replied. I switched off and head towards the exit to get out of the Morgue, the location of nightmares, death, and insanity.