Trapped in my Mind

by MasterFrasca

Awake

My eyes flung open as I gasped for air, grabbing at the air in front of me with my hooves and trying to get some air into my lungs. My mind was in a state of shock as I gasped a few more times for oxygen, twisting my head from side to side to see who had tried to drown me. My heart raced and I closed my eyes, rubbing them as I slowed down my breathing. Opening them again, I was greeted by the same blackness that I had seen when I first regained consciousness. Putting a hoof directly in front of me, I slowly advanced it closer and closer to my face until I could feel the warmth irradiating from it. I still couldn’t see anything. Had I gone blind? I didn’t remember going blind at all. In fact, I didn’t remember anything!

I didn’t know who I was or where I was. I didn’t know how I got here, and I certainly didn’t know how I was getting out. The room was silent and pitch-black, so I figured I must be in some abandoned place, but I wasn’t sure how the place could be so dark. Trying to think, I scratched my head and made a small discovery. I had a horn atop my forehead. I was a unicorn. Most unicorns could do magic, so I figured that I may as well at least try. Shutting my eyes, I concentrated on light. Bright light. I wanted to make nothing more than a spark, and I willed with every fiber for there to be light. I felt some sort of power grow in my head and I switched my concentration to it, willing it to increase and grow. Finally, I channeled it to my horn and thought of light again.

I opened my eyes and in an instant, the floor around me was flooded with a yellow glow. The ground was reflective and mirror-like, but the walls were nowhere to be found. Looking down, I saw a slightly blurrier version of myself staring back up at me, her yellow eyes piercing into mine. I noticed my green fur along with my green and white mane, frazzled beyond belief. I had more important things than hair to worry about right now though, so I looked at the surface of the ground itself. It was very reflective of the faint yellow light I was producing, and felt warm and hard to the touch. Testing its strength, I stamped a hoof down as hard as I could manage. It produced a sound close to that of hitting a piece of metal. The sound rang out and echoed off of the unseen walls and ceiling.

A few seconds after the echo died down, my ears picked up a faint ringing seemed to come from the distance. Perking my ears up and concentrating on the sound, I could distinguish that there was definitely a sound, and it seemed to be getting slowly louder. Trotting towards the ringing, I tried to figure out what would be making a noise so high pitched and so steady. Now the ringing was clearly audible, and I stopped, figuring that I had gotten close enough to it to hear it clearly. The sound hurt my ears a bit, so I started to back off in an attempt to quiet it down.

Every step backwards only seemed to cause the sound to amplify and I started to sprint away from the ear-piercing noise, blindly running into the dark abyss. I couldn’t concentrate on producing light with my horn anymore, so I just prayed that nothing was in front of me. In my attempt to run, I stumbled and collapsed onto the floor, smashing my head against the hard surface of the ground beneath me. My brain howled in pain, not only from the newly acquired headache from hitting the ground, but also from the sound, increased to the point where I swore my ears were bleeding. Putting my hooves on my ears, I shouted in pain, wishing that my life would end soon so that the horrible sound would end.

Then I went deaf, or at least it seemed to be that way because the sound instantly stopped barraging my ears. My heavy breathing slowed and my head throbbed as blood rushed towards the bruised spot on my head. Opening my clenched eyes, I saw I was still trapped in the black room, but at least I hadn’t collided with anything during my frenzied sprinting. I probably wouldn’t be conscious if I had. Willing light back into my horn, I clenched as a surge of pain ran through my head. It was too painful to keep the light going, so I sat down and closed my eyes, trying to think of what to do next.

“Lyra’s awake,” A voice suddenly sounded in the distance. It sounded masculine, but it didn’t sound like he was shouting. It was almost as if he were just on the other side of the wall because his words were audible, but muffled by something. “It looks like her mind is still in limbo though. She’s not sleeping anymore, but she’s fully conscious now.”

Disregarding what he was saying, I gathered all of my strength and shouted, “Hello? Can anypony hear me?” I waited a few seconds, but there was no response from the male voice.

“That means that we need to act fast if we expect to pull her out alone,” another female voice said to what must have been the male. “We don’t want to reset her again, because I’m not putting her back for another week. If we do she may never wake again.”

“What do you mean, ‘wake up again?’” I shouted to the female, suddenly panicking. They were talking about me. I recognized the name Lyra as soon as I heard it. It was my name, but what did the voice mean when it said I may never wake up again? I was awake right now, wasn’t I?

My heart started pounding in my chest as I tried to decipher what not waking up meant. Suddenly, a wave of paranoia overcame me as I felt as if something was watching me. I willed my light to extend as far as it could, but my eyes didn’t catch any shadows or deformities in the ground. Lurching around, I thought I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Getting the feeling that somepony was still behind me, I twisted my head to catch the flick of a shadow.

“Hello?” I called to the void, sweat starting to form on top of my head. “Is there somepony else here?” I didn’t like the tension in the air around me. It felt as if something was just outside my line of vision. I fixed my eyes on a point in the distance and looked for even the slightest movement…

“Doctor, she’s shown up on the scanner!” the female voice shouted in my ears, making me jump back a few feet. “You need to get her out, now!”

“Who?” I called to the voice, not expecting an answer back. “Who’s on the scanner?”

Before I could get a reply, my ears picked up on a low rumbling sound in the distance. Instinctively, I crouched down on the floor and covered my ears with my hooves. I didn’t want another sound piercing my eardrums that day. This noise, however, grew to the point where I could feel the ground shaking. Uncovering my ears, I stood up and stared into the distance, trying to discern what was making the noise.

My feet were knocked out from under me in less than a second as a massive wave of green liquid swept past me. In mere moments my body was overcome by the slick, green substance. I tried to paddle to keep my head above the rushing surface, but it felt as if my hooves were flailing around in nothing. A few seconds later the current was pulling me down under the surface longer and longer, almost to the point where I couldn’t get back up in time to catch my breath. The liquid itself tasted like mouthwash, and every time I opened my mouth to snag a breath of fresh air, some of it got in and burned my tongue and the back of my throat.

My eyes burned and tears were streaming out when I heard a muffled voice shout, “Get that paralyzer out of her mouth! If she ingests any of it, she could go into cardiac arrest, and we could very easily lose her!” the words hit my ears, but I was in so much pain that at the time their meaning was lost to me.

“Stay with us Lyra,” the voice commanded as my heart started to slow down. I was on the edge of consciousness when the hazy voice whispered, “Clear!”

A jolt of energy surged through my body as I coughed up a bit of the green liquid, looking around in the black nothingness. I was lying on the floor, breathing heavily with my heart pounding. Willing the light back into my horn, I looked at the ground again, noticing that it was no longer covered in that green liquid. In fact, it looked as if the stuff had never come through. I rubbed a hoof through my fur and mane to see if any of it had stuck, but I was dry as ever, not counting the perspiration from the ordeal that just happened.

“She’s getting close,” the female voice shouted off to my right, “pull her out!”

“I’m not done with the calibrations and back-ups,” the male voice responded. “If I pull her out now and something goes wrong, there’s no chance that I’ll be able to recover her mind. She’ll die.”

I agreed with the male voice, even though I don’t see how I could have been asleep. I already felt many different types of pain, and the mere shocks alone should have startled me enough to wake up gasping for air. That’s how I found myself in this place though…

“Odd, isn’t it?” a new voice suddenly whispered in my ear. It sound snake-like and menacing, and I couldn’t tell who or what could produce that kind of hissing sound. “You find yourself in a room full of voices, and yet they all lay a deaf ear on your troubles.”

“Hello?” I managed, starting to nervously glance from side to side. “Who is that? Who’s speaking?”

“It’s me, Lyra,” the voice replied, seeming to come from every direction, “your savior.”

“What do you mean, ‘savior?’ What are you saving me from?”

“Those voices, Lyra. The voices want you to leave here. They want to experiment on you, test you, and know what makes you…tick.” The last word sent a chill down my spine, and my gut was telling me to run. To hide. To do anything I could to get away from this new voice. I took off towards the direction I was facing, hoping that whatever was in the dark couldn’t follow me too far. I ran for about ten minutes when suddenly I saw something just at the edge of my light.

There was a wall in front of me.

Turning to the left I ran for a few seconds until I was met with another wall. Both were made of the same shiny and hard material as the floor, and both were in pristine condition, not having any kind of scratches of scuffs on them at all. They weren’t faded or dilapidated in any way, but they also blocked me from going any further away from that voice. Turning around, I decided to see if the other direction would have been a better choice.

There was a wall blocking my path.

“But that’s impossible…” I muttered, slowly backing up. I had just run for over a minute from that direction. There was no way that one could exist there.

“Is it now?” the demonic voice hissed in my ear, “Were you running for ten minutes, or ten seconds? Do you remember?”

My heart was racing as I tried to run the only direction that was left. A few seconds later I was met with a wall. Turning around I haphazardly started running again, but before I could take a few steps, the light from my horn cascaded on the dark black wall. Suddenly, my endless void had become a black box, and I was trapped inside.

“Help!” I cried out, starting to panic. I had hoped that the voices could hear me, but they didn’t respond.

“Come now, Lyra,” the voice responded after my cry.” Nopony can hear you, and there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. So why don’t you rest your hooves and let me help you out a bit.”

I started to panic, the walls suddenly seeming closer than they had been before. My light was reflecting off of three of the four, and I was staring towards the direction of the fourth, watching for any kind of movement. I started to back up, but almost instantly, my back leg bumped into the wall, stopping me from moving. Sliding down, I waited in fear for something to happen to me.

“Just rest,” the voice hissed as I saw something materialize just outside the edge of my light, “and let me take over for a while. Come now and give me a great big…” the voice paused, as a pair of glowing red eyes appeared in the gloom and a massive smile appeared under then, dripping with what only could have been blood, “…smile!”

My heart skipped a beat as my throat suddenly tightened up, constricting my breathing. I was wheezing as my light distinguished. I couldn’t pay attention as I felt the glowing eyes piercing into my soul. I wanted to run, but the walls were blocking me in, and even if they weren’t, I couldn’t move a muscle. My vision started to blur as the thing came closer and closer to me. I felt glued to the floor. My muscles gave out and I slumped to the floor, accepting that I was going to die.

My eyes started to droop as the voice whispered into my ear once more, “Sleep, Lyra. It’s my turn now.” I started to close them as the figure started to fade away.

ZAP!

Comments

[Akkura]

Wow, nice start, looking forward to more.

[Alitaria]

wow, i am going to have to keep an eye on this
just one nit-pick though

so I just prayed that noting was in front of me.

but that's all i noticed

[MasterFrasca]

1601653 Fixed. I try to look these things over, but something always trips me up... Thanks!