One. Two. Three.

Three drips of water... somewhere.

One. Two. Three.

Silent in every other way, but those three drips... They were so clear.

One. Two. Three.

There was only one question. One aching, yet necessary question I had at the top of my head in this very moment. The one thing that I could think of besides keeping track of the drips of water.

Where was I?

I couldn't help but to groan as I sat myself up, my hand rubbing a very real, very sore bump on my head. It felt like I was hit by a truck.

And as if that wasn't enough, it was apparently pitch black.

This... wasn't normal. Obviously.

I flinched as another throb of pain traced over the bump on my head. The coarse black hair I had felt like needles as opposed to hair, each individual strand doing no more than seeming to aggravate the injury if I so much as grazed it.

What the hell happened? When did I get this?

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't bring myself to think back to what had recently occurred. Glancing around the pitch black room, I searched for any sort of answer but... well, its called pitch black for a reason.

Alright, don't panic. Lets uh... start from the top? Yeah, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Or at least a decent distraction from this headache.

About a year ago, I was out getting some groceries. I had walked my usual path home, taken out the same house key, and unlocked the same house door, more than ready to sit back and relax; watching some TV, or maybe even getting in touch with my old friends. What few I had, that is. Adult life kinda narrows that circle down.

Course, I didn't exactly expect it to be narrowed down even more severely by what happened afterwards.

When I opened the door, I just blacked out. There was no scream, no flash of light, nothing.

Next thing I know, I'm in a world of–-oddly enough--ponies. Not horses, ponies. Talking ponies at that. I'll be honest, I freaked the hell out at first. Thankfully, I was saved from a very real chance of insanity by an odd zebra who called herself Zecora.

It took me a while to get used to the fact that she spoke in nothing but rhymes. Then again, it probably should have taken me longer to get used to the fact that there was a talking zebra I was interacting with, but I digress.

Whatever the case, eventually she managed to explain to me all about where I was.

Equestria.

A land where ponies of all varieties were the main species.

Pegasus controlled the weather.

Unicorns could use magic, which, on a related note, was another freak out situation in of its own.

And 'earth' ponies handled things on the ground.

I also learned about Equestria's two princesses, its culture around "friendship", and some of the other creatures that lived in this world.

... I'm rambling, aren't I?

Lets get back on subject. A few months later, more than long enough after I had... gotten used to everything, I saved up enough money, or 'bits', to get my own place. As to how I did so? Odd jobs. Lots and lots of odd jobs. Turns out that if a pony is able to get someone to help them out with chores that don't involve their cutie mark, they're happy to pay for it.

Damn it, rambling again.

Once I had saved all the bits I needed, I found a nice place with a great view and a bustling street life, like I had been much more used to. Canterlot.

I thanked Zecora for her help, promised to pay her back for her kindness, and just like that I was off.

Believe it or not, I got lucky and got a pretty nice job as an engineer early into my job hunt at Canterlot. I always had an interest in architecture, plus I had been taking some courses on it, so I certainly couldn't complain. Hell, I even turned out to be pretty good at it!

Things were going pretty well for me, and life went on like that for several more months. I had a nice Heartswarming Eve with Zecora when I gave her a visit, made some new friends, got closer with my new coworkers, and had been assigned a particularly big project to work on... and that was it.

That was as far as I could trace my memories. I had no idea what that big project was, or anything beyond that. It was just... gone.

Okay, that's one avenue of explaining this mess gone I guess. Good news though! My eyes were starting to get used to the dark. I could still barely see anything, but it was an improvement! Heh...

I've really got to stop rambling whenever I get nervous.

Looking down at myself, I noticed I was wearing a gray tee and simple black pants that looked like they had more stains and holes covering them than they did clean portions. As for shoes? I didn't even get that privilege, it would seem, my bare feet seeming clearly visible and dirtied, as if I had recently walked shoeless through the mud.

Seriously, what the hell happened? I was doing well in Canterlot, I was absolutely sure of it. Yet here I am in the dark, looking like I was just run through a triathlon in the national capital of barbed wire, tar, and sharp corners.

Before I could really delay on that thought though, something finally came through the dark. A noise: An odd groan coming from I could only assume to be corner of the room.

For a moment, I hoped that it was metal, or wood, or... something? Yeah, great third option, "something", that's totally descriptive for what it could-

Damn it, FOCUS!

I pushed away my thoughts and the pain in as I tried to call out to the person, or pony. I stood myself up and began to walk along the side of the room, using my hands as reference, feeling them against the cold wall.

I waited for a few seconds, focusing on my hearing to see if I could hear that groan again...

"Hello?" Evidently, I didn't wait long, my voice leaving my mouth as the silence grew deafening. I didn't hear a response of any sort, so I just kept on walking, lightly biting my lips as that sense of nervousness began to tick at the back of my mind.

"Hello?" I called again. Yet, before I could call out a third time, I stumbled. I found myself tripping over some sort of lump on the floor. Fortunately, being as experienced with gravity as I am, I quickly deduced the most logical form to halt whatever harm might befall me into little more than a small inconvenience!

… In case it wasn't obvious, I'm joking. I landed flat on my face.

'Ow' couldn't even begin to describe how painful that was. For a while, I was pretty sure I had broken my nose.

I turned onto my back with a groan, holding onto said possibly brutalized nose as I felt what I figured to be blood spill out.

Just in case, I put one of my hands in front of my eyes, close enough that I could see it in the dark.

Yup, that's blood. Totally blood.

I covered my nose again with another groan, hoping that the bleeding would stop as I glanced over to where I had tripped. There, in that exact spot, was some weird looking... lump, I guess I'd describe it?

Joy of joys. At least nobody saw that...

"That seemed clumsy of thee. At least thou hast provided us with an interesting show." Oh, great, someone saw it. On a related note SOMEONE ELSE WAS HERE? My eyes widened as I heard a voice seemingly echo all around me, springing up into a standing position almost instantly.

"Who's there?!" Smooth. Real smooth.

To my surprise though, someone responded. Even more surprising, though, was the fact that it had a different voice than whose I had originally heard.

"You would be wise to be quiet." The last voice had seemed... off, sure. It echoed all around me and I couldnt really tell where it had come from in the slightest. This one? Different. I could tell it was female, at least, and I could more or less figure out where it had come from, but for some reason, it sounded as if two people were talking at the same time.

"Where are you?" My only response was a sigh before, to my surprise, the lump that I had fallen over began to move. Taking a step back, I watched as the lump took a more... unique shape.

A pony? Er... Kinda?

As it stood, I could see four legs, a mane, and a tail, like any other pony. When I looked closer though, I noticed that it didn't have any fur, favoring an odd black covering instead. It had a horn, like a unicorn, but it seemed jagged, and sharpened. Even its legs seemed different than those of any other pony's that I had seen, filled with hollowed holes of different sizes. In the darkness of the room, I could barely make out two green eyes, and the glint of fangs.

Hm. Well, on a scale of 1 to 10 on the "I'm-totally-dead-o-meter", this would be a solid 7...

Look, don't judge me, I have been dragged into a lot of stupid things. I lived in a forest of manticores for a while for gods sake.

"Hmmmm. I take it that you're our new roommate?" It questioned, taking a step towards me, which inevitably caused me to stagger back.

Okay, maybe I can bump that up to a 8. More pressing issues now though, specifically involving... a few things.

1. The fact that this thing called me its new 'roommate'.
2. The fact that it did so in a tone that could only be described as "sadistic" on a good day and "I'm going to skin you alive" on a bad one.

And finally, 3.

"Wait a minute. 'Our'?" I repeated.

I could this thing before me smile, much to my discomfort, its apparent fangs seeming suddenly more pronounced than I would have liked. Perfectly on cue, the familiar voice from before echoed around me.

"Hast thou forgotten of us?" I looked around the room again, but I still didn't see anything or anyone else in the room with me, aside from the fanged one in front of me that is.

In fact, that thing was laughing at the moment. A cruel, echoing laugh. I shuddered as I heard it.

"You won't be able to find her so easily." It said, shaking its head with what seemed like amusement.

I rose an eyebrow out of confusion.

What did she mean by that? It was one thing to hear voices from... well, everywhere, but not being able to see where they were coming from was a whole other barrel of fun.

Okay, rock and a hard place right about now. Lets hope that the friendly approach works, cuz otherwise I am absolutely doomed.

"So uh.. W-where am I?" I flinched at the waver in my voice, having hoped that I could at least keep some of my fear hidden. I could hear the laughter of both the creature with a sickly green mane in front of me, and that of the one I couldn't see.

"Thou art in the Canterlot dungeons."

The what? The Canterlot dungeons? Why was I here?

The green eyed pony in front of me chuckled as she saw what I can only imagine to have been a shocked expression appear on my face.

"You had better get comfortable." It said with a light hiss. "Whether you like it or not, we're going to be here for quite some time."

Next Chapter: Chapter 1: Time Passes [Here Again] Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 58 Minutes