The Castle

by Discombobulated Soul

They're Here

They're here.

I know they're here, I know it.

They have to be. I just need to find them.

The grand halls stretch around me, almost seeming to twist and turn before my gaze. I can't go very far before I stop in my tracks, too scared to continue. I'm crying, still sobbing profusely like I've been since I was thrown in here.

I hate it here. It's big, and scary, and my friends are nowhere to be seen.

But I know they have to be somewhere. They would never leave me.

They can NEVER leave me.

I shoot to my hooves, my puffy eyes bulging as I hear a screeching roar from the hall in front of me. Some...thing comes barreling down at me, and I turn to run away.

It's fast. It's fast like Her. It's fast like Rainbow Dash.

"Rainbow Dash!" I cry out, but she's not here. She can't help me. She can't give me the speed I need. She's not there to help soften the blows, to build up my pain tolerance with her constant roughhousing.

I duck through a door and bite back a scream at what I see. Body parts litter what may once have been a kitchen, spread randomly about and covering every surface with their mess. A severed head peers at me from over the lid of the pot it's in as I creep past, wincing when the lone lung I step on collapses with a loud squelch. Legs dangle from the ceiling on metal wires, plucked pegasus wings are laid on the stoves waiting to be grilled, and all manner of organs are scattered across the floor.

"Applejack!" I call, but she's not here. She can't assist me. She can't supply me with the sustenance I require. She's not there to cook meals for me, to feed me when nopony else WILL.

The thing enters behind me, but is thankfully so preoccupied with snapping up the body parts it comes across that I can sneak away unnoticed. I scamper through the first doorway I see, which leads to a room-sized refrigerator that I'm grateful to find empty.

It's cold in this area and I shiver uncontrollably in attempts to warm up.

"Fluttershy...?" I whimper quietly, but she's not with me. She's not anywhere nearby. She can't drape her wings over me to warm me up. She can't substitute as a blanket when there's not enough to go around like she usually does. Like she's supposed to do.

This doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense! Where's Pinkie Pie to cheer me up when I'm sad and scared? Where's Rarity to stitch me up when the wounds are too great?

I wait in the fridge for a few minutes more before the chill becomes too much and I slither out, checking madly to make sure the thing has left. Thoroughly unnerved by the once-kitchen, I beeline to the door I entered through, but stop abruptly in confusion upon passing it.

The halls have moved. I don't recognize this area, but it should be the very same, because I know I went through the correct opening!

Can't anything go right for me?! EVER?

Something catches my attention, though: It's a doorway, but for whatever reason it looks like nopony remembered to actually put a door in it. It's kind of this imposing square-shaped arch, but it really grabs my attention and I start to move towards it.

Maybe my friends are in there? They could be so close, mere feet away! I have to do it. I have to see!

I step through the open doorway. At the far end of the room beyond is a mirror, which I scamper up to. I rear up on my hind hooves to look into it, and...

I see.

I feel.

I...

I KNOW.

There's a window right next to the mirror, and I look outside. What I gaze at, it's...just so wrong on so many levels.

The noonday sun is yellow. It's yellow! In what world is the sun yellow?!

The sky is blue! THIS is insane!

The city is alive.

This Castle is alive, bustling with life and vigor and it's too much it's crazy is what it is why on Equus would this be how things are it doesn't make any sense and things have to make sense that's how I know they're real and so this can't be real there's just no feasible way for it to ever be real!

I tear out of the room, sprinting faster than I've ever gone before. Rainbow would be proud, if she were here. But I know she isn't here. None of my friends are.

The only ones here are them. They're here.

I leave the Doorway and reason returns. The universe is restored to its rightful order.

I can know peace AGAIN.

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Ah, alright, so it's not eldritch Equestria, she's just cursed nine different ways to Sunday. I wonder if it was Discord or Sombra...

[MysticMane]

I think I kinda got it? “THIS I KNOW WILL NEVER EVER ever be real AGAIN”

[Ohel]

This story is so good, can't wait to see how it continues.