The Long Dark

by NeverEatTheLemonsAlone

Floor One - Limbus

When she awoke, it was dark.

She was lying in a room of cold gray granite, the roof broken above her. Sunlight streamed in through the small hole that she had presumably fallen through. She shakily rose to her feet and tried to fly out, but cried out in pain instead. Both of her wings were broken. The fall must've damaged them.

She preferred to not dwell on what had happened, and instead on finding a way out of these caves. She could be stuck down here for a long time with badly broken wings, and preferred to not starve. So instead of standing still, she moved on, finding a small tunnel that led out from her landing zone.

For a long time, she wandered the dark caverns. They were totally, utterly pitch-black. A feeling of desolation and loneliness swept over her. Endless tunnels sprawled out before her, and she had no way of seeing, none at all. Occasionally she tripped over something in the darkness, though what it was, she couldn't see. Stone of some sort, cold and unyielding and carved into regular shapes, and that was all she could glean from her senses. The air was cold.

Jeez, she thought, who knew there was a cave like this underneath Ponyville? I bet Twilight would love to explore this place.

Each hoof she brought in contact with the ground sent a series of echoes murmuring around the tunnels and caverns, bouncing back to her many times, disorienting her and slowly frazzling her nerves. If anything, the constant echoes only reasserted how lonely she was. There was nopony here. She was, for the first time in a long time, truly, utterly, brutally alone.

Being a pegasus only made everything worse. If she had been an earth pony, it likely would've been easier on her. She loved the sky, and more than that, she craved it. She missed it as though she were a tiny foal, separated from her mother. Not many in modern Equestria knew, least of all her, but pegasi actually need the sky to live. If they aren't touched by fresh air in long enough, they will begin to waste away. The same goes for earth ponies needing soil and stone, and unicorns and ambient magic. In exchange, they gain the magical energy required for flight, impossible strength, and active magic, respectively.

It wasn't long until she was looking for something, anything, to keep her company. She held her breath more often than not, walking as quietly as she could, listening for any noise at all. She heard nothing except for her own faint, echoing hoofsteps and the blood pounding in her ears. The inky blackness all around her was unlit, and nothing she could do would let her see. With no other sound and no way to fill the empty hours as they dragged on by, she began to talk to herself.

"Come on, girl," she murmured, "you've been through worse. After all that, are you going to let a cave beat you? Hay no, you're not! You're going to find a way out of this, just you wait and see!"

The interminable time ticked on, endlessly rushing past her. Somehow, she never hungered or thirsted, though she felt as though she'd been wandering for days on end. The isolation was beginning to take its toll, and she began to laugh at things that weren't said, and to cry about things that had never happened. Visions appeared before her, hallucinations that flickered before her feverish eyes. Once, she even thought she saw an exit, and she ran at it, nearly breaking her snout on the stone cave walls.

So it was fortunate, then, that she began to hear a noise. Not just any noise, actually: a voice.

"God?" it whimpered, far away, "Where are you? Are you down here?"

The pegasus gasped and dashed straight for the source of the voice. It evidently heard her too, because she heard hoofsteps drawing closer until she could feel the breath of another pony on her face. "Hello?" she softly spoke.

"Are you trapped down here, too? Do you know where we are?"

By the voice, the pony was definitely a stallion, and an older one at that. His voice was frail and weak. The pegasus shook her head, though she knew he couldn't see her. "I have no idea. I don't even know how I got here. I blacked out and woke up here. I guess I fell through the ground."

"And I as well." spoke the stallion.

There was a long period of silence in between them before the pegasus spoke. "What's your name?"

"Teller," he responded, "Story Teller. No points for guessing what my job is," he chuckled briefly, "and you?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue caught. "I...I don't know. I can't remember my name. I can remember everything else about my life. I can remember everything I've done, everypony I've met, everything I've saved, but for some reason, I can't remember my name."

"Well," Teller mused, "I suppose if you hit your head hard enough in the fall, something of that sort could happen. I think you'll be okay, though. Any good magical doctor could fix that up."

She nodded. "Who were you talking to earlier?"

His tone carried confusion. "What? I didn't say a word before you showed up."

"No, you totally did," she argued, "you mentioned someone named God or something like that."

"My girl," Teller slowly replied, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

Did I imagine all of that? she wondered, lifting her head up for a moment to gaze at where the ceiling presumably was, and when she turned back, all was silent. Teller was gone.

A hole of despair carved itself into her stomach and she banged her hooves on the ground, crying out in frustration.

"Yeah, well I don't need you either! Go away, Teller! See if I care!"

She cared deeply.

---

She had no idea how much longer she spent, wandering those caverns. Her fur and mane grew haggard, and she could feel her eyes drooping from exhaustion. "So...tired..." she mumbled, stumbling through yet another pitch-dark cave.

"Just...going to.....go to.......sleep........."

And so she laid down, and slept.

Comments

[Lost_Marbles]

Woah, woah, woah. Wait a minute? The main character is Rainbow Dash? *checks character tag*

Well I'll be. I know I should have checked the tag earlier, but until the one time you mentioned "Rainbow" in the chapter, I thought the character was some OC. You really should have an indication of some sort at the beginning of the story.

Okay, I have something else to say: You've done an excellent job with the atmosphere. It is incredibly thick and boding. You had me at the edge of my seat. That really got me invested in the story. I'm enthralled by this cave and am eager to learn more about it.