Lucid Dreaming

by WriterWings

Chapter 4

“L-l-lightning?”

Oh, please be okay!

“L-lightning? Can you hear me?” Night Ember began to cough violently, the dust and debris from what was once the cave suffocating his every breath and settling in his lungs. Covering his muzzle with his hooves, he frantically ran back towards the cave ruins, leaving behind snowy hoofprints in his wake.

“Lightning! Don’t worry! I’m coming to get you!” He shrieked, digging through the broken stones as fast as he could. But the more he dug, the more stones slid back into the pit he was making, so there was no way at all of uncovering anything — or anypony — that lay beneath.

After what seemed like an eternity, Night finally stopped, his hooves blistered and scratched from the sharp rocks. Tears pooled in his eyes, slowly making their way down his burning cheeks and dripping desolately down to the stony ground.

No. No, it couldn’t be.

Feeling all the energy drain from his body, he fell to his knees in grief, collapsing forwards until his head hit the snow before him with a silent thump.

Lightning Comet was gone.

As solitary snowflakes fluttered down mournfully from the bleak grey sky, Night Ember allowed himself to cry for the first time in a very, very long time.

---

I am floating.

I am floating, floating… but this time there is a light above me.

One solitary bulb of bright white light hanging just above my head, blinking and flickering as shadows and silhouettes are cast before me.

And they… they are moving.

Hello? Can anypony help me? Can anypony hear me?

I don’t think they can hear me.

But I can hear them.

…

Who is Night Ember? Why do the shadows keep mentioning that name?

I know it isn’t me. My name is Lucid Dreamer.

But who is Night Ember, and why do the shadows keep saying that he is trapped?

CLANK. More lights turn on, and I block my face with my hooves to shield my eyes from the harsh brightness. For some reason, simple movements like these take forever to accomplish, as if my hooves were moving through thick jelly.

“Welcome back, Night Ember.”

Night Ember? There’s that name again!

I cautiously open one eye, then slowly open the other. I am greeted with a group of strange ponies: a dark purple unicorn stallion, a grey earth pony stallion and a light pink pegasus mare. Reaching towards them, my hoof hits a smooth, hard surface, and I realise I am enclosed in a glass tank of some sort.

I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. The earth pony realises this, and swiftly pulls a metal lever located right beside his flank. I feel the world around me begin to tremble.

Oh no.

Is he trying to kill me?

I watch in petrified silence as the thick, viscous liquid that surrounds me starts to spin and spin, swirling me round and round as it drains out rapidly through a tiny plughole far below me. Slowly but surely, I surface to the top of the translucent gunk, and soon, the tank is empty and I can speak.

“What in Equestria is going on?!” Lucid shrieked, his voice still muffled by the glass.

The pegasus mare flicked one of the switches on the tank, triggering the opening of the glass surface, which slid smoothly to one side of the chamber. Lucid stepped out of the tank, eyeing his rescuers suspiciously.

“Who are you? Where am I?” He demanded. Gritting his teeth, he attempted to light his horn in apprehension, but…

“Wait. WHY AM I A PEGASUS?!?!” He screamed, frantically searching for his missing unicorn horn in desperation. What in the world was going on???

The unicorn sighed. “Anyone wanna break it to him?”

“Dibs not!” the earth pony replied hastily, touching his muzzle with his hoof.

The pegasus rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Ugh, cowards.” She turned to face Lucid. “Sir, are you Private Night Ember?”

“NO!” Lucid yelled, still feeling his forehead for his horn. “MY NAME IS LUCID DREAMER! AND YOU LOT HAD BETTER GIVE ME BACK MY HORN, OR I’LL… OR I’LL…”

The pegasus glanced at her unicorn companion worriedly, who simply shrugged. “The data we found did say he had a temper,” he reasoned.

“EXCUSE ME?” Lucid bellowed, his face growing hot.

“Look, buddy,” the earth pony began, “You’re Private Night Ember. And as for ‘Lucid Dreamer’… that’s who we all are.”

What in Equestria was that supposed to mean???

Then he realised.

“Ohhh,” Lucid replied, an explanation finally dawning onto him. “You’re all part of my dream. This is just a dream.” He nodded to himself, smiling. “That means I just need to wake up, and I’ll be back home.”

With all the force he could exert, Lucid slapped himself squarely across the face.

“YEOOWWW!” He howled in pain, rubbing his sore cheek. He glanced up hopefully, but the other three ponies were still standing in front of him.

“Nope, not a dream,” the pegasus simply remarked.

“But… but…” Lucid stammered defensively. “P-please, I have a wife, a daughter… I need to get back to them!”

“Honey Maple and Sweet Dreamer?” The unicorn offered.

“What? How did you know their —”

“Perhaps you’ll understand once you get your memory back,” the pegasus interrupted. “Sid? The memory antidote, please?”

Lucid gulped and watched uneasily as the unicorn passed a small vial into the pegasus’s hooves, who began to fill its glowing, bright blue contents into a syringe that she gingerly retrieved from a pouch in her utility belt. She then held it up in the light, squinting to make sure she had precisely the right volume of antidote for the injection.

“What is that? What are you doing? No, I don’t want —”

Too late. The two stallions tackled Lucid, holding him down to the white-tiled floor as he writhed and wriggled in panic. “HELP!” he screamed, but there was nopony who would come to save him.

“I’m so sorry, Night Ember, I really am,” The pegasus said sympathetically. “But we really don’t have time. The Programmer is coming, and we need to get out of here before he does.”

And with that, she stabbed the syringe needle into Lucid Dreamer’s flank.