• Published 10th Aug 2014
  • 22,362 Views, 842 Comments

Dead/Light - Lord Destrustor



Twilight Sparkle wakes up buried alive. One of the words in the previous sentence was a lie.

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Rise/Awake

Everything was so fuzzy. All around me were thousands of strange blobs of indistinct color, mixing and weaving and colliding every which way, all so bright yet at the same time seeming to be plunged in inscrutable darkness. It was intensely weird.

That experiment was a total failure.

I had done all the calculations correctly, though. At least, I thought I did. I mean, I had triple-checked absolutely everything. It shouldn’t have blown up in my face, …again. I’d have to review my notes a few dozen times more, now. Ugh, why couldn’t I get it right? This was supposed to work! I was… pretty sure it should have worked. Maybe.

Hmm, the daze was still going strong. It usually faded after a few minutes, but this time it seemed to have decided to take its sweet time. How long had it been yet? I couldn’t even guess, I seemed to have lost all sense of time. I couldn’t even feel my hooves or my brand new wings. Nothing to worry about, though, It was certainly nothing more than a temporary bout of spatial unawareness. The blast had been surprisingly strong, no wonder I was confused.

Oh well, I’d just have to wait it out a little longer.

I kept watching the colors for a while, but something felt increasingly wrong, though I couldn’t quite place my hoof on it. I felt… tired, but still perfectly awake, like I was drifting off to sleep while within a dream. Or something of the sort. And the colors were more and more jarring. They were all familiar, and while I could probably name them all, they still felt off somehow. The fact that I couldn’t decide if they were blindingly bright or unnaturally dark was only one of my problems with them.

They were also strangely impossible to identify; I could see the different hues and the spaces they occupied, but deciding which color was which seemed impossible. Was that green, yellow or red? And this one; blue, purple or orange? I couldn’t tell.

I wished this daze would be over soon. It was getting upsetting, especially the sounds I could now hear. Distant wind, it seemed, but also like a whisper all around me.

And some sort of weird tugging sensation. What was that? It felt similar to the sort of exhaustion I would too often get from using too much magic. But this time was different, a stronger pull. As if my magic was pouring out of me entirely.

Wait.

This wasn’t good. Leaking magic is never, ever good. I tried to get it under control, to stop the flow. It was extremely difficult. There seemed to be a barrier of sorts, an unusual resistance to the whole process. The more I struggled, the harder it became, as if my very efforts were draining me. After what felt like hours, I decided I needed to try another approach.

I then remembered a piece of advice I had read in a book somewhere, about how struggling against quicksand only made you sink faster, or maybe it was about how panicking after a snakebite made the poison’s travel through your veins easier. Something along those lines. Maybe trying to force it just didn’t help.

I thought back to my lessons with Zecora, how she had taught me forms of meditation, ways to center oneself and reach new understandings and solutions to one’s problems. I really needed to get that magic back under control; it was beginning to run out. No sense in not trying her methods, frankly.

So I concentrated, on silence, on nothing. Ignored the freaky colors and weird sounds until they went away. I visualized myself, then the room around me, then the city around it, then the world and so on until I could see the whole universe in my mind, with myself in the middle. And then… plunged back into it all, with my focus unwavering and my mind set, letting myself sink to the bottom of myself in one great metaphysical dive. To let nothing stand in my way while at the same time refusing to oppose any obstacle.

It helped. The colors faded, the sounds vanished, I felt my magic had stopped leaking. I began to feel a soft surface beneath my body. There was still some resistance, though. Hmm. Good thing I’m a magical genius, I thought, immediately before realizing that it was an unbelievably arrogant thing to think. A few tweaks to the energies here, some minor stabilizing bindings there, just a pinch of healing magic, and a small jolt of electricity through my nervous system to chase the numbness, and voila! I could feel myself fully grounded now, back to normal.

I took a deep breath. It smelled like wet soil.

I opened my eyes, absolute darkness greeted them.

What?

I lit up my horn, only to find myself trapped in a small, richly padded room. No, not a room. A box. A small, pony-sized box furnished with thin, soft cushions of the purest white silk, with a lid of highly-polished varnished wood.

A coffin.

I was in a coffin.

That… that just couldn’t be right. I couldn’t be in a coffin. I couldn’t be in a coffin! Who put me there? Who did this to me?

What in Equestria was going on?

“Hey! Get me out of here!” I yelled, only answered by the oppressive silence. My voice was so hoarse, and my throat so dry, that I had barely recognized it as my own. I had to have been stuck in there for a while.

That I had only an unknown, rapidly dwindling supply of air worried me, but not enough to stop me from hammering at the wooden ceiling while screaming for help.

I had been buried alive.

The lid didn’t give way under the assault of my hooves. It didn’t even shake. It was like hitting a solid brick wall.

Or the underside of a metric ton of dirt.

Someone had literally buried me alive. I was at an undetermined depth, underground.

I screamed. For a while I just screamed, overtaken by the terror of the nightmarish scenario I had been put into. This couldn’t happen. Somepony had made a terrible mistake.

Eventually I forced myself to stop, realizing I should be trying to conserve air. I had to think rationally, logically. I had a way out of this. I had to have a way out of this! I couldn’t just open the lid and step out, but I had other options; being the element of magic and one of the most knowledgeable unicorns in the land opened a lot of doors. I could do this.

I could teleport out. Yes! I could just magic myself out of this tomb and out into the fresh outside air! I quickly estimated my reserves and frowned; I had just enough for a very short-range displacement. One very close teleport. I couldn’t just warp to my house, and probably not to any other familiar place, unless I was currently right under them. I could only make a few meters at most. I could’ve risked shooting straight up at maximum distance, but the prospect of finding myself falling from an undetermined height and potentially hurting myself wasn’t really appealing. While I indeed did possess wings now, I still wasn’t fully confident in my abilities, and already felt tired enough that even with adequate skill I probably would have crashed anyways.

I needed to test the waters, in a way. I could try some very specific, very small teleportations from different heights above me until I found a distance that brought only air, indicating the surface. They would only reduce my possible escape range by a few centimeters each.

The first try brought dirt. The second, a pebble. I was at least two meters down, it seemed. The third draw was the winner: nothing but an infinitesimal breath of fresh air was dragged into my prison. Three meters straight up. I could do this. I would be free in an instant.

I concentrated for a moment, pouring about half of my remaining reserves into the spell, and soon heard the telltale zap, and smelled the slight hint of ozone of a successful teleportation. My hooves landed on the soft dirt after a second. Sweet, glorious freedom at last!

The darkness of night greeted my eyes as I opened them, comparatively and refreshingly bright after the terrible penumbra of the coffin. A half moon hung in the sky as I looked around the graveyard in which I found myself. Unfamiliar in the darkness, I eventually recognized it as the Ponyville cemetery. I turned around to look at “my” grave, only to come face to face with an impressive, extravagant mausoleum.

The front bore an inscription detailing my name and most prominent accomplishments, as well as the dates of my birth and “death”. The date of my death was today. That was ridiculous. Who would do this? How was this even possible?

Someone had built a royal tomb for me in the span of a single day, just to bury me alive. What? Why? Had someone just made an attempt on my life?

I needed to find someone, anyone. Something so big was bound to have attracted some major attention, and I wanted answers. I thought about returning to Ponyville, but I remembered that there were two paths leading from here to there; one was shorter, but the other passed close to Fluttershy’s cottage.

I took the longer route. I needed to see a friend. It’s not every day you get buried alive, I would certainly call that a stressful experience. Fluttershy’s kindness would help me relax a lot.

It was strangely hard to walk, as if all my muscles ached, like being sore but without the pain. I felt… heavy, somehow. I must have cramped up a bit in that confined coffin. I’d eventually walk it off.

The night seemed cool, as indicated by the faint frost gathering on the blades of grass, but I felt fine. No doubt being cooped up in there without aeration raised my temperature, and I had yet to really start to cool down.

I wondered how long I’d been in there. Last I recalled, it was only a few minutes past noon when I failed my experiment, and now the night seemed well on its merry way. Whoever did this must have used or prolonged my unconsciousness to get me in there. Still, I felt slightly miffed that no one had thought to try to wake me up. I’d at least expect someone to have heard the explosion and rushed to my aid. Those responsible for this must have been very quick to get to me before anypony else.

And wasn’t the moon supposed to be just within its first quarter?

As Fluttershy’s cottage grew ever closer in the moonlight, I began to hear a faint, muffled agitation from inside. Small animal cries and persistent scratching echoed from within. As I stepped over the bridge crossing the little stream in front of her house, I even saw a few critters climbing out of the windows and running off into the night. How strange. I thought I heard Fluttershy’s voice through the din. She seemed to be trying to calm the animals down.

I came up to her door and knocked. The whole cottage went silent for a moment, before the frantic activity resumed with renewed vigor.

“Fluttershy! Open up, it’s me! I need to talk to you!”

Wow, my voice was hoarse. I almost sounded like Rainbow Dash. I tried to clear it by coughing while I waited. As more and more animals fled from the house through every possible nook, I heard hesitant hoofsteps approaching.

“Rainbow, is that you? I don’t understand what’s going on! All my animals are scared of something.”

The door clicked and started to open, letting Fluttershy’s mane fill the opening for a moment before her face slid into view. “If you don’t mind, maybe you could help me and then we… can… “

Her eyes widened as her mouth fell open, and she took a sharp, shuddering breath before retreating into the darkness of her home without another word.

I held the door and gently pushed my way in. “Fluttershy? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

I stepped into a small, smelly puddle. It was warm and smelled of… urine? Eww.

“Fluttershy? I think one of your critters made a mess on the floor! Where are you? Someone buried me alive! Do you know anything about that?”

I heard a bump somewhere in front of me. Straining my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a pony-sized lump pushing against the cupboards in Fluttershy’s kitchen. What was going on here? I got closer, lighting my horn to chase the darkness of the room.

In the bright glow, among the cowering animals I could see fleeing everywhere, sat Fluttershy, her hooves frantically trying to push her further back. She stared straight at me, repeatedly gasping in obvious terror, hyperventilating for some reason.

“Fluttershy? What’s wrong?” I tried to sound as reassuring as possible, so as not to scare her further. She really seemed terrified by something, though I couldn’t quite understand what. Why would she be scared of me? That made no sense. It was probably something behind me; it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d gotten in trouble by pure obliviousness.

Wait, something behind me? I spun around immediately, charging what little magic had returned to me in my horn in order to be ready.

Nothing. Not even a single one of my friend’s animals, just shadows in an empty house. I heard a knocking sound behind me, and felt a sudden rush of air. I looked back to see a recently-opened window above the sink, and Fluttershy gone.

“Wait!” I yelled, stretching over the sink to peek through the window, seeing Fluttershy gallop away at a speed I’d never thought she could muster. “Fluttershy! What are you doing? Where are you going? Fluttershy!”

She was already so far, I couldn’t hope to catch up with her, especially with how winded I still felt from being stuck in the confines of the coffin. And although I was recovering my magic, it still wasn’t nearly enough to simply teleport to her.

“Fluttershy…”

What had gotten into her? I dropped back to my hooves, in the total silence of the now perfectly-empty cottage. All the animals were gone too. What was going on?

I decided to just try somepony else. Applejack lived nearby as well. It was a shorter trip than heading to Ponyville anyway. I closed Fluttershy’s front door and left. I hoped she was safe. I’d never seen her so scared before, I still struggled to figure out what had put her in such a state of shock. Maybe whoever tried to assassinate me threatened her or something. Now I really needed answers about whatever was going on.

Hopefully Applejack would help with that. I followed the road in the silent night. Despite Fluttershy’s fear and the possibility that whatever had caused it might still be lurking around, I found the short journey far from worrisome. The calm darkness was serene, as if everything, every little creature of the night, paused their activities to let me pass unopposed. All around me was a ring of silence, an aura of tranquility. It was fairly relaxing. The fear of suffocating underground seemed so far away now. I felt good, more and more lively; my waxing magic building back up inside certainly helped in that regard.

Nighttime’s scariness was overrated. I was almost skipping by the time I passed the arch allowing passage through the gates of Sweet Apple Acres.

Despite the hour, a light shone from one of the windows. It was one of which opened to the dining room, near the back of the farmhouse. Deciding not to disturb the whole household by knocking on the front door, I approached the back porch.

I don’t really know what I was expecting to see; maybe one or more of my friends either planning my rescue or having a simple normal moment, unaware of my abduction. Whatever normal, innocuous activities might keep a farmer up this late at night I couldn’t quite fathom, but no matter.

What I didn’t expect to see when I peeked through the window screen, however, was my earth pony friend sitting alone at the table with a mug of cider in hoof and a few additional empty mugs littering the surface. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she quietly stroked her faithful dog’s head as it sat next to her in her glaring yet incomprehensible sorrow.

I stared for a moment, taken aback by Applejack’s unusual attitude. The sound of growling snapped me out of it, as Winona had suddenly tensed up and began barring her teeth in my direction. She probably didn’t recognize me in the darkness of the outside, as she was usually such a well-behaved dog.

I decided to just enter the home since my presence had already been announced. Besides, politeness could wait: I had a friend to try to comfort, and questions I needed answered.

“Good evening, A.J. ! What’s the matter tonight?” I said as I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Two things happened at once, both of which confused me greatly: Winona began barking loudly and aggressively in my direction, and Applejack shot up in her seat, eyes wide in… fear? No, no, no, surprise; she was surprised to see me, although I could understand why: ponies just weren’t supposed to be wandering this late at night.

I tried to speak over the barking to no avail; my voice just didn’t seem to project enough. After a few seconds of simply staring at me, Applejack finally silenced the dog with a yell of her own. Winona kept growling menacingly as the silence returned.

My honest friend eventually rose from her seat, pushing her mug away and commanding her dog to sit. She walked closer, hesitantly, almost fearfully, and in complete silence.

“Applejack, what in Equestria is going on?” My raspy voice made her recoil, her ears flattening against her skull.

“I reckon I’d rightly like to know myself.”

She took the last three steps separating us and slowly raised a hoof to my chest, holding it against my skin for a moment. She felt so warm in the cool night air.

“…Why yes, Applejack, I actually do exist, thank you. Now would you really mind explaining why everypony I know seems to be going insane?”

I then noticed how her eyes had widened and her pupils shrunk at my touch, before she quickly took her hoof away from me as if I was on fire. She opened her mouth a few times, seemingly looking for words. For a moment, all I could hear was the low growls of Winona, until a muffled gasp was heard from the stairs.

Applejack’s ears perked up and, while still looking straight at me, she said:

“Apple Bloom, I want you to go to your room, lock the door, and don’t come out until I say it’s okay.”

She waited a few seconds, visibly tensing up with each passing one, until a shout of “NOW!” caused a frantic scramble of hoofbeats to echo away upstairs. I heard a door slam shut.

My confusion and irritation reached new peaks. No one’s actions made any sense, and I had a feeling akin to being the only one in a room who had failed to get an obvious joke.

“Applejack, seriously! What in the world is going on? I get foalnapped and buried alive in a giant mausoleum built overnight, and no one seems to care! Who did this to me, and why weren’t you out there either kicking their flank or rescuing me? What. Is. Going. ON?”

She stared at me throughout my mild outburst, and I caught her quietly repeating “alive” under her breath. Her silence continued for a brief moment after I was done, her never-ending stare still fixated on me.

“Well?” I asked, snapping her out of her apparent reverie. She opened her mouth a few times, until she finally stammered:

“I… you… I… Let me get, uh, something real quick-like. I… think I have something to tell you. Don’t move.”

She rushed past me and out the back door, her steps rapidly quieting in the dark outside. I stood there, under the extremely and annoyingly, unnaturally angry gaze of Winona as she kept growling at me. She kept herself crouched close to the wooden floorboards, her legs spread wide and ready for anything, though I still had no clue what had her so riled up.

I heard the hoof-falls of my returning friend, but kept my eyes on her dog. She seemed poised to strike at me, and I worried that averting my gaze would only prompt her to do so. What was up with that dog?

As finally Applejack walked past me once more, carrying a white box by its handle held in her mouth, I was free to look away. I recognized the white box as it thunked on the table: it was the medical kit she usually kept in the barn, the one with which she cared for the occasional sick or hurt cow, sheep or pig residing on the farm. I wondered what she needed it for, and most importantly what it had to do with me and my still-unanswered questions.

She opened it briefly, just long enough to grab a single tool: a stethoscope. She hooked the ear buds on and brought the flat head to her chest for a moment, then to mine. She took a slow, deep breath as her jaw clenched and her irises shrunk just a bit further. Gulping, she then slowly placed the tool in my own ears and repeated the process. As she held the head to her heart, I could easily hear its frantic percussion as well as the wooshing rush of her every breath. A cacophonous melody of thumps and rushing wind, as if a dance was taking place on two carpets rubbing over one another, all of which happened in my very ears.

I then watched as she brought the instrument away from herself and slowly, hesitantly, placed it on my chest, at the base of my neck.

Silence.

Complete and utter silence. The drummers were gone, the storm muted, the dancers had gone home and their music had ceased, leaving nothing but an empty room plunged in darkness.

Silence. An endless, unbroken, total and smothering silence.

A dead silence.

“Twilight,” she whispered, swallowing hard as the smell of her alcohol-infused breath reached my nostrils. “You… You’ve been dead for a week.”

Author's Note:

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