Down the Rabbit Hole
Chapter One: Down the Rabbit Hole
It was a beautiful day in Equestria. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and all of the ponies were out enjoying the day. After all, today seemed even more magical than usual, and Ponyville itself is a pretty magical place already. So everypony was out and about, busying themselves with some task or another. Rarity was giving out sun hats, Fluttershy was playing with her animals, Applejack was on vacation in Appleloosa, and Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were probably out pranking somepony since the weather was perfect for it.
That left a very bored Twilight Sparkle alone by the river.
Spike had pleaded she leave her abode in the library and go outside. Partly because he was sick with a slight summer cold and wanted left alone, and partly because she had been inside reading, reorganizing, and filing away her past to-do lists for two of these lovely days now. He didn’t even let her take a book as he shoved her out and locked the door behind her.
“’That’s unhealthy Twilight,’” she mocked, swishing a hoof through the cool water. “’Go have fun Twilight.’ I WAS having fun! Who doesn’t enjoy organizing and reading about obscure pony history? That’s lots of fun. And all those papers I have to write. I’ve got a deadline! Oh…” Twilight shut her eyes and groaned. This is gonna be a bad day…
“Damn it, I’m going to be late.” Her eyes flipped open and head popped up at the unfamiliar voice. A stranger? Maybe he needed help finding his way around! Thank Celestia!
“I can help! My name is Twilight Sparkle and…” She jumped to her feet and eagerly looked around. But no one was there. “Um, hello?”
The only other creature there was Angel. Her tail drooped in disappointment at the sight of the cranky little white rabbit. “Oh, Angel. What are you doing here? Fluttershy’s going to be worried sick about yo-”
“I don’t have time for this!” he snapped back. And so he hopped away. Twilight’s jaw dropped to the ground. How long have I been in the sun? I must be hallucinating. “Damn it, I’m not gonna make it!”
“Angel!” Twilight yelled, galloping after him. “Wait! Where are you going?”
“There’s no time for waiting!” She groaned. How ridiculous she must have looked to all the other ponies, chasing an imaginary bunny and…
Where was everypony? It was if they all had disappeared. But Twilight didn’t have time for questions. This was the most interesting thing to happen all day, and possibly the strangest thing since… Okay, a lot of weird things happen to us on a weekly basis, but Angel talking! I need to study this! ….Oh, and take him back to Fluttershy.
Before she knew it, Twilight was at Fluttershy’s house right by Everfree Forest. At this point, maybe the yellow Pegasus needed to know that a certain rabbit of hers was running around talking and apparently missing appointments.
“Fluttershy!” she hollered, then shut her mouth in a panic. She hit a hoof to her forehead. “Nice one, I probably just scared her off. I’ll just get him myself! If she can catch a rabbit, I can too!”
Conveniently, Angel was in the garden, scurrying around frantically. When he saw the lavender unicorn coming for him, he promptly stuck out his tongue, and then ran under a bush by the wall of Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight grinned. “I got you trapped Angel!”
When there was no reply, she started to inch forward. Twilight cautiously looked under the bush. There was a gaping hole underneath it. Peering into it, she let out a startled gasp.
“Oh no! This thing goes on forever! He’s probably hurt! I better get Flutter-”
Just as she was turning around, a pair of hooves shoved her down the hole. Twilight fell screaming hysterically, trying to use her magic to save herself, but her horn would only shoot… confetti?! What was going on?
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” she wailed. Finally, her lungs gave out and she was gasping for air. Twilight twisted violently in the air, unable to tell which way was up and which way was down in the pitch black tunnel. “AAAAAAH!”
After about five minutes of this, a worn out Twilight stopped yelling. The shock of falling had worn out. “Shouldn’t I have hit something by now?” She also observed that her speed of descent had decreased dramatically. And while the top of the hole was now pitch black, she swore there was a light near the bottom.
“This is all very curious,” she muttered, watching a desk and some books float by. “Am I dead? Did I hit the bottom and this is death? At least there’s books.” But as she reached over to pick up a book, she found the pages were blank. Book after book, all of them were full of white paper. “OH COME ON!”
After awhile, she found a quill and some ink. “Let’s give writing a shot.”
And so Twilight wrote about what was going on for awhile. After her jaw started cramping (her magic still wouldn’t function correctly), she gave up on that too. “I’ve been falling for hours. This is so weird. And… who pushed me? I swear I saw a flash of yellow, but Fluttershy wouldn’t do this. Besides, I’m obviously not thinking clearly.”
Suddenly, the purple unicorn hit the ground with a soft thump. However, the book she was writing in hit her with a loud thump. She yelped in pain, falling over and holding her head tightly. “Ow, ow, ow…”
As the pain subsided, Twilight finally got to her feet. A little shaky, she attempted to levitate the book and quill. It seemed to work just fine, and she wrote as she started walking.
“I’ve finally hit the bottom. I’m in a room full of doors. Big doors, fancy doors, little doors, and a door on the ceiling. Is that the one I fell in from?” She stopped to inspect the room further. “I’m going to try opening one now.”
Twilight put down her journal and reached for the handle of a big, red and green polka dot door. Locked. She tried a smaller, bright blue door. Also locked. Door after door, every single one was locked. Finally, she tried kicking and scratching the doors, sobbing hysterically.
“I’m trapped!”
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It felt like hours had passed, but Twilight Sparkle was starting to correctly suspect that time didn’t run normally in this place. She didn’t want to open her eyes unless she woke up by the river again. The river! That’s it! This is only a crazy dream!
She had tried to convince herself she was imagining all this for awhile. It was sun poisoning. She had caught Spike’s fever and was delirious. It was a dream. But every time she opened her eyes, the room was still there and she was still alone.
“Alright Twilight, pity party is over,” she scolded, getting to her hooves. “We are getting out of this stupid little room if it’s the last thing we… oh?”
In the middle of the room, there was a crystal table that most certainly was NOT there before. One very large key sat on the top. “Where did you come from? Oh, I don’t care!” Gleefully, she snatched it up and tried it on the biggest door. “Darn, that doesn’t fit.”
Door after door, the key was simply too big to fit into any of them. Finally, Twilight had gotten to the very last one (excluding the one on the ceiling which she couldn’t reach). This door was too small for a foal to fit through. Still, desperately she shoved the key in. Click!
“It works! HAHAHA!” Twilight leaped around for a moment, taking a moment to write down her success. “Of course, the last door in the room is the one that opens. But it’s so small, I’ll never fit in there.” Her tail and ears drooped, the excitement now fading back to misery. “Well, I can at least look.”
Opening the door, she looked in with one purple eye. Inside (well, outside), was a beautiful garden. There were flowers like she had never seen, and a large hedge. She could even hear laughter!
“Oh, I wish I was smaller!” she whined, getting to her feet. Just then her stomach rumbled. “Heh, maybe if I starve for a bit, I’ll be small enough to squeeze through.” She chuckled to herself, writing frantically.
But, on the table, a bottle had appeared. Twilight cocked her head, but slowly she was beginning to get used to this. On it, there was a big pink bow and a tag that said “Drink me!”
As crazy as her day was, Twilight was still Twilight. “It may be poisoned.” Carefully, she parted some fur on her arm and dabbed in on her skin. After having no reaction, she put a single drop on her tongue. A tingly sensation overwhelmed her, but it passed within the blink of an eye. She waited a little longer.
“I suppose its okay,” she said, and hungrily she drank a gulp. The sensation that followed was so powerful she must have fallen and hit her head. Dizzily, she opened her eyes and gasped. “The room is so little!”
She panicked, pushing her hooves frantically around. One foreleg shoved open the biggest door, but at this size, there was no way Twilight could even fit through there. Her magic was also out of whack, and she ended up spilling ink all over the journal she had been writing.
“Now Twilight, calm down!” she ordered, but she couldn’t will herself to stop shaking. “You’re not a filly! Come on, things will be fine.”
“But they aren’t! I’m huge and alone and miserable and I’m surrounded by doors and I won’t ever get out and I wanna go home!”
“Deep breaths, deep breaths…”
“I’m going to be here forever!”
Finally, Twilight’s panic won over, and she burst into tears.