//------------------------------// // dieenenahole // Story: Lost of thoughts // by CraftAids //------------------------------// He was thinking. Well, he was trying to. He didn’t have much to work with. He wanted safety; he had no defences. He wanted to remove these aching rocks; his hooves did nothing to them. Simply put, he didn’t know anything. So, he tried to think and pay attention to his surroundings. It would have gone so well if a drop of water didn’t fall from the sky and into his invisible, broken-open head protrusions every few seconds, supplying him with an indescribable, but unpleasant, feeling. He wasn’t much practiced at ignoring getting hit by something in the inside of a non-existent space in his head over and over. Nearby, a small rocky cliff face extended across his very limited field of vision. Conveniently, his hooves had brought him right up to a crevice in the wall which ran down from what he thought was the top of the cliff to its foot. The crevice entrance was just wide enough for him. Stone chunks and dirt piles formed the crevice path floor and the cliff split formed curved walls, hiding most of the path up. The path promised unseen edges and difficult angles, a meandering and steadily uphill passage. A small stream drained out from it, making a puddle below. At the entrance, he had stopped. Change didn’t feel safe, regardless of the confusing, unnatural fields he had walked through. There was nothing to be gained, from what he could tell. The forest behind and the forest above, to him, weren’t much different. Why climb when he already had a perfectly good forest to wander, lost in. He would feel exposed in that trial. More time contemplating this was more time trying to stand still while rain pelted him in the nothing. He tried, again, to think about what he should do next and became frustrated. He shuddered and shook his head in some vain attempt to throw off the water. His legs began moving. He pointed his face to the sky and let the rain hit him, but at least he wasn’t staring at rocks and doing nothing while being driven crazy. He squeezed past the first narrow bit of the crevice. He was glad to be doing something different. He found deep holes in the folds of rock to either side. He lifted his front up and onto a rock and pulled his lower half up behind. On the next dirt slope, his hooves slipped a little, and he scrambled to keep his footing, hooves grinding and head lowering so that he could see. The dripping stopped his thoughts again, and he put his head back up. He charged up the next bit of pathway ramp. His heart rate rose from the exertion and it was altogether unpleasant. He turned left, without looking, head still in the air. As he stumbled down into the dark hole in the wall, it just felt right. He lowered his head and looked into the dark. He could make out dim stone floors getting dimmer deeper in. The cave brightened slightly, like the moon had escaped cloud cover outside. The sounds of rain faded slightly. He looked over his shoulder. Two blue orbs over a set of screeching, white teeth lunged from the cave entry. Weight knocked him off his hooves and into the wall, removing the air in his lungs. Parts of his body became warm and soggy as green masses flew from the black thing's mouth and stuck him to the wall. He gasped, and green goo filled his neck with bitter numbness and slime. It felt like when you are about to bring a loogie up into your mouth, but he didn’t feel the need. Instead, he tossed and flailed and generally panicked. He did nothing useful. He did not feel like he was suffocating. The green goo formed into a bulb around him. Thing’s mouth closed and a green fire lit above it’s two blue orbs. The fire revealed a clearer image of this random cave and its walls and the black, sharp, body with webbed wings and four legs. A jagged black spike sat at the flame’s center, holes covered its body and wings, and it was panting. It pointed the spike at him and he started feeling tired. The dark, grey skin-rock in his forehead warmed, then it heated, then it burned. Black began to spread from his head and into the green sac. The blackened goo itched. He closed his eyes and cowered in pain and fear. He went still, ceased his struggling, as the fear and pain faded in spite of how his flesh still burned. The creature felt proud, victorious! It had a pony ready for consumption. First, it would drain its emotions. Then, it would take the pony home, where it would have its emotions restored in order to be tended to by dream weavers. Last, all the pony's love and joy would be filtered out and added to the food store. It began the basic draining spell. It tasted bad, but that was to be expected during capture, when things were usually terrified. The creature also didn’t feel fuller. It’s head hurt a little. It watched the pony flail less and then stop. The pony just looked at nothing. The creature’s headache got worse. A black discoloration was spreading in the goo sack. Something was wrong, but the big bug couldn’t concentrate to figure out what. Its eyes were heavy. It stumbled. It did not survive three more minutes. He waited. At some point, the green stuff dropped him. At some point, the black remains of the goo dried, flaked off and stopped burning. At some point, he found himself looking at a dead body with the vague thought that walking into the dark caves was a good idea. He walked into the dark.