Chapter 13: Yellow Flame Before Darkened Eyes

Faith was reminded of her presence in the world after having stared at the fair coloured band for several minutes, remembering with the greatest nostalgic detail the day she received it. She clenched it firmly in her hoof and held it to her forehead. “I’ll get back, Mom.” She whispered in monologue. “Just you wait.”

The dependable Pegasus returned the belt to her left hind leg and fastened it tightly, shrugging Cantor’s foreleg from her shoulders and rising to her hooves with a renewed air of determination.

“Come on, boy,” She said freshly, addressing the stallion who was still trying to recover his breath.

Upon hearing her sprightly voice, Cantor raised his head to look at her. To his surprise, and in a way, relief, she was grinning. Returning the expression, he spoke with a similar mental fixation as well. “We going?” He asked, excitement of a pre-holiday foal in his voice.

“Yup.” Answered Faith with a sharp nod. “Let’s go kick some extra-terrestrial ass!”

“Ha ha!” Cantor replied agreeably as he too stood up with purpose.

The pair made their way to the service hatch-type exit to the tower’s exterior. Peering out of the small window in the centre of the square door, several tornadoes could be noted at various locations in the landscape, whipping up the amber sand in a tall, thick funnel that stretched from the horizon to the dirty white clouds miles above.

Lightning flashed far in the distance as black storm clouds made their gradual and ominous journey around the planet. The thunder could be heard faintly as distant drum beats, and although the assurance of the separation between the storm and the ponies was reassuring, it was clear that it would eventually be on top of them. They had an abundance of time before the storm got close enough to cause any real disturbance. But in contrast, they faced hindrances of unknown severity that may lie in their way.

There was one more place to check. If whatever laid above was anything other than salvation, there was a good chance that it would spell 'the end' for the ponies. They knew this, but they had little options other than to try. In fact, they had no other option.

“Ready for this, Cantor?” Asked Faith, turning to lock eyes with the alicorn.

With a confident and determined nod, the stained stallion replied. “Let’s do this.”

And with that, the reinforced latch on the service hatch was pulled open, and the hurricane-strong winds instantly tore the door outward, making it crash and bang violently against the banister on the scaffold-type walkway.

“Bloody Hell!” Cantor gasped as the wind rushed in with untold force, peppering his and Faith’s coats with small, sharp pieces of sand. “Come on! Let’s go quickly.” He ordered, climbing out of the hatch, being bombarded by the forceful gale as he helped Faith climb through the opening.

There was a hasty unanimous decision to leave the door open in case they needed to return once again. The two clung to the railing with a foreleg as they climbed, shielding their eyes from the force of the wind and sand with their other hoof.

The grid-work metal steps, despite being dry as a bone, were difficult to walk on. Rust had eaten away at the corners of each step, and the violent winds had bent the rotten iron into thick, jagged splinters: just one more thing to be wary about besides the everlasting threat of slipping and falling the very long way down to an inevitable, messy death.

The stairs reached a platform where a small margin of rest was available. Faith followed suit behind Cantor, who was hanging exhausted from the rusted banister.

“Come on, Cantor, we need to move!” Cried Faith with an encouraging tone of urgency.

"Yeah..." Cantor replied with a gasp, spitting out of exhaustion. "Just lemme... catch... my breath..."

Faith began to grow agitated, and scraped her hoof along the ground in aggravation. "No, Cantor," She began, finding she had to yell to be heard over the sound of the wind bombarding the side of the building. "We have to get back inside quick. Who knows what's in this air? I mean it's breathable, but there could be some kind of toxic chemical in it." She coughed and spat a mouthful of grit. "Not to mention all this sand we're breathing in." She added spitefully.

With a weak nod, Cantor dragged himself to his hooves, entirely dependant on the rough, uncomfortable railing for stability and a sense of direction. Still gasping for air, beginning to grow more concerned about why he was struggling to breathe so badly, the alicorn pulled himself up just a few steps before collapsing once again with the wind whistling through his ears.

Faith, who was following closely behind, tripped, and nearly fell over the stallion's soft, bloodstained form. "What the Hell, Cantor!?" She exclaimed with angst. "Don't just stop here! We still have a way to go!"

Gasping for air he was not getting, Cantor shook his head helplessly. "Can't...!" He wheezed. "I can... bare... barely... breathe..." He continued to lie in frustrated and breathless exasperation, dragging himself up one more step before giving up. "You... You go on... go on ahead..." The winded alicorn weakly gestured a hoof up the stairs. "Go... Go on ahead... I'll... I'll catch up..."

Seeing Cantor roll onto his back and lay there in total vulnerability, Faith reared her head slightly and gave a sour expression. "Oh, no, you don't." She scourned, tugging at the eviscerated pony's blood-blotched foreleg. "I ain't letting you die out here. Not with all we've been through already." Faith grilled with empowerment. "...Hell, I'll carry you if you won't get up!"

Without the will to protest, Cantor merely lied on the uncomfortable scaffold stairs and struggled to take in any means of a breath, all the while having the old iron steps carving grooves into his back.

Having been met with the 'silent treatment', Faith wasted no time in scooping Cantor up and over her head. With a laboured grunt, the grey pegasus was oddly thankful for the absence of a unicorn horn; it made this whole movement much simpler... She felt the stallion's body roll down her neck and come to a stop just behind her whithers, his soft underbelly seeming to add an element of elasticity to the somewhat cumbersome weight of the over-spent pony.

"Damn..." Faith grumbled under her cargo as her legs bent slightly. "For somepony with no muscle, you sure do weigh something!" She joked, yet the silence that replied was message enough to inspire her to get moving again. And she did just that.

With untold effort, the pegasus mare, who could not be regarded a whole lot better off, carried her cumbersome load up the many remaining flights of stairs, keeping no record of the progress she had made and simply focusing on climbing higher and higher - now with twice the normal weight straining her legs.

Faith was not one to give up without a fight, and since failure was no longer an option, she ploughed on passed her limit, climbing each flight of stairs like a different mountain, halting only for a breath or two before beginning the next, all the while being pelted relentlessly by shards of sand which burned like scatter-shot against her toughened coat.

After what felt like miles of rough, afflictive climbing, Faith was nearing the end of her physical tether. She pushed and pushed her body: urged it to carry on walking up these unending steps. With next to no flair in her state of mind, and all the flame in the world shredding her tired legs, the sturdy mare began to falter, her knees buckling with every grevious step she took.

But then she noticed something: up above, there was no black skeleton of a stairwell. Instead, turning her head skyward, Faith could only see the endless domain of filthy clouds billowing like milk in a rich cup of coffee. Knowing that she was on the last leg of her journey - for better and for worse, the enduring pegasus lowered her head, allowed herself a provocative grin, and put every ounce of strength into climbing these last few gruelling, mountainous steps.

She finally reached the top, barely able to drag herself over the rusted iron threshold with Cantor's weight slowing her down to a crawl. Mercifully, Cantor had recuperated enough to not prove solely dead weight, and managed to 'dismount' his taxi.

Falling to the sharp floor in a most uncoordinated heap, Cantor wasted as little time he could in clambering back onto his hooves. He made his way aimlessly toward the door, stepping over Faith who was panting heavily on the floor taking a well-deserved, but not at all comfortable break. The strong winds disrupted his path, making him stumble and lurch like a drunkard. Regardless of these impediments, the 'semi-alicorn' reached the small service hatch on the side of the building; the entrance to the calm air of the interior.

He was, in an odd turn of consequence, eager to get back inside. What horrors would unfurl later on was little concern to him at the moment: he would just be glad to get out of this punishing wind and catch his breath.

With panicked hooves, Cantor fumbled around the edges of the door for several seconds before coming to the ill realisation that there was no clear way of opening the door from the outside; there must've been some kind of key or mechanism which allowed access from this windy exterior.

"Stupid dicks that built this place." Cantor cursed in a less-than hushed tone, yet over the howling of the wind and the bombardment of sand, Faith didn't hear.

"What's taking so long!?" She called out in one rapid breath, peering up from the ground slightly to see.

Cantor punched the door in frustration with the side of his foreleg. "The damn hatch doesn't have... a... a handle on the outside!" He called back, his lack of breath becoming less of a hindrance.

"What the hell!?" Faith cried out in anguish, pounding the floor in front of her viciously. "So we're trapped!?"

Suddenly, Cantor's ears perked up, and he lifted his head to peer through the small glass window set in the bulky metal door. Though he could see nothing but darkness within, he was sure to loudly verbalize his thought process. "Don't worry!" He called with a gasp and a fierce grin. "I got it-"

Pressing the muzzle of his shotgun as close as he could to the flat of the window, Cantor fired off two shots in quick succession, not expecting to break the glass on the first shot, yet not wanting to think about the pellets scratching his foreleg and face as they bounced off the re-enforced window. His theory, however, was found to produce a flaw; as the first round sailed through the thick transparent substance with ease, allowing the second follow-up shot to give whomever there may have been on the other side a very prickly facial.

With ears ringing from the blast, Cantor reached through the 'open' window and fumbled on the other side for the latch with haste. In little time, he traced the smooth plastic-wrapped handle of the locked door, and tugged it upward. With a satisfying 'clunk', the large door became loose and begun to open outwards with relative ease.

But then, with dreams of silence in his head, Cantor's self-amused smile vanished as the triumphant wind caught the inside of the hatch and tore it the rest of the way open like it had done before. Cantor was not anticipating this, but even if he was, there was no way he could have pulled his foreleg out before the door was wrenched by the wind.

The service door was battering Cantor's right side as it trembled violently in the wind, while the stallion's left side was crashing repeatedly against the side of the enormous metal building. And yet, this bombardment was the least of his worries: what really sent that signature shiver down the alicorn's spine was the dismaying void stretching beneath - of which he could not see the bottom.

The sight would not have been at all daunting if Cantor had his wonderful trait of flight; in fact, he may have actually leaped off in high spirits... But seeing as this was not the case, the one-winged alicorn clung to the thick piece of metal for dear life, scrambling with his one good rear hoof to try and gain some grasp on the safety of the rickety catwalk.

His panic was quickly diluted, though, when a smug-looking grey face poked out over the side of the railing, peering down at him with amused golden eyes.

"Hey, Cantor!" Faith called loudly with a grin. "How's it hangin'!?"

"Oh, shut up!" Cried Cantor in response, mildly amused from the pegasus' remark despite his situation. "Can you get the door closed so I can climb up!?" He called with the previous waft of panic creeping into his tone.

The scenario, which the pegasus found great amusement in up until now, suddenly became capaciously more dire when the weight of the alicorn stallion caused the bolts securing the top hinge of the ample door to shear off.

As the hard piece of metal fell from its fastenings on the door and struck Cantor on the forehead before making the long journey down, the riled alicorn felt the hatch buckle under his weight, and he slipped down a foot or so until he found himself to be dangling just above the floor of the catwalk.

With an initial cry of panic, Cantor reached out with his left foreleg and gripped one of the hand-rail supports, while calling to Faith and clutching at the pieces of metal which were suspending him above the tremendous drop. "Faith!" He yelled in destitute. "Pull me up!"

"It's alright, I got you..." The pegasus replied as she grabbed the mid-point of Cantor's right foreleg and began to pull him up.

Faith was straining as she pulled Cantor to safety. Not feeling too easy with breath herself, she waited for Cantor to be able to hook a knee over the railing before giving a helpful as always comment. "Holy, crap, Cantor!" She exclaimed. "Ever heard of a treadmill?" Asked the grey mare before grunting a laugh.

Cantor was able to somewhat pull himself up after swinging his good hind leg over the catwalk's edge, and managed to roll over into the minimalist security of the flat, solid surface with an elderly groan.

Once again, and unsurprisingly, Cantor was found to be out of breath, but somewhere within his quick gasps for air, he managed to offer "Thanks" to the pegasus who, for not the first time that day, saved his life.

"Don't mention it..." Faith replied, standing with her forelegs spread slightly, bowing her head and breathing deeply. "Just... hurry up and get inside." She added firmly.

Cantor laughed as best he could and closed his eyes. "I wish more mares said that to me..." He said, trailing off with a smile.

Faith rolled her eyes. "You had your chance." She replied, sounding somewhat sore despite wearing an amused grin. "Come on," She continued with direction, "Lets get out of this wind..."

The two equines clambered through the hatch back indoors. Cantor, barely able to stand up once through, used Faith as a strong support, but the pegasus didn't mind her unofficial free service.

The air inside the building was unfamiliarly moist and muggy, and it carried an indistinct, yet noticeably unpleasant taste. The floor was coated with some kind of stagnant dew, and the lighting was very dim and flickering. There was a good helping of blood on one spot of the wall and a large splattering over the floor beneath. The fact that there was no body - not so much as a skeleton was unnerving but not a great cause for concern. A pipe above where the ponies had entered had split at some point in history, and was leaking an odorous liquid onto their scared hides. The strong gale from outside was forcing itself through the small square opening, making a shrill whistling as it blew the contents of the room about.

The damp, shadowed room was shrouded in an eerie cloak of tension - much like the rest of the facility. However this particular chapter carried a foreboding omen in its air: alien to the past building in a way which put the young alicorn more on-edge than his companion - for reasons he was uncertain, yet nevertheless fearful of.

"...Well this is nice." Faith stated, attempting to slice through a portion of the dense atmosphere.

Cantor sighed, eager to explore, yet unwilling to discover what lie in wait under the cover of darkness. "Come on..." He gently grumbled. "Let's move..."

And with that, he broke away from Faith with a trusting nod, walking towards the closed metal door with a depleted demeanour. The pegasus followed closely in tow.

The pair reached the door and paused for a nervous second. With a wave of uncertainty, Cantor struck the button to send it rising into the ceiling, its neglected pistons making a sickly screeching sound as they pulled the heavy slab open.

Like a mist, dry, frigid air wafted slowly into the room. Despite having the external gust blowing harshly against their tails, Faith and Cantor felt the chill creep out and caress their forelegs as if an ice box had just been opened in front of them. Cantor shivered, yet it was not the cold pricking his bones which made him shudder... Instead, it was the eternal blackness that stretched beyond that gave the stallion the textbook definition of unease.

"Oh, crap." Faith offered as a confide. "How the hell do we get tied up in shit like this?" She asked with reluctance, rubbing her back leg anxiously with her other rear hoof.

"Did-" Cantor began to say, but halted when he noticed the panicked knot in his neck distorting his voice. He cleared his throat into his hoof and tried again. "Did I ever tell you I'm afraid of the dark?" He asked sheepishly. Faith laughed.

"How old are you, ten?" She replied with an amused smirk. Though in due time, she gained several layers of apprehension. "Still, we're not going to get very far standing around looking at where we've gotta go, so..." She trailed off, leaving the rest to Cantor's imagination. "So unless you want to start a new life in this room, Cantor, I suggest it's best we get moving - I'm starving. When we get home, I'm gonna eat a whole bale of hay."

Almost in response, Cantor's stomach grumbled loudly. Clutching his belly with a forehoof, Cantor replied. "Oh, please don't mention food..." He said with a pained expression.

Faith, recently seeming to find humour in everything, chuckled again. Regardless of whether it was forced or nervous laughter, it felt nice for both ponies to hear. "Alright..." The mare replied with an accepting nod, taking the first step into this new strain of unknown. "Come on, 'tripod'..." She called mockingly. "Let's go..."

With a riled snort, Cantor followed Faith through the opening and into the corridor beyond. The light from the previous room proved itself valuable, as Faith only lead the way for a number of seconds, stopping just short of the edge of the previous light's threshold before relaying her troubled proclamation in her own true fashion.

"Shit..." She spat through bared teeth.

"What is it?" Cantor asked from behind, drawing up close to the pegasus' side.

Faith gestured a hoof in the direction of pitch-black progression. "Flitter was the only one out of us three that had a light on her gun." She explained, turning around to face the alicorn with agitated eyes. "In this darkness, in corridors like the ones we just came from, we could get lost real easy..." She said with a huff.

"Well, why don't we try and make some kind of torch?" Cantor proposed.

"With what!?" Faith replied with angst, clearly in a fluster.

"That room where we came in," He started to say, once again making the forcible gallop of the wind coming from outside noticeable. "It looked like some kind of maintenance room -- like a janitor's. Maybe if we searched, we could find something to burn and something to carry it around with." Cantor proposed, already deciding it was the best (and only) idea worth a small deal of trouble.

"Hold on," Faith began, halting Cantor as he started to walk backwards. The alicorn stopped and turned his head slightly to listen. "What are we gonna light it with?" She questioned, adopting a slightly disgruntled tone. "Even if we find some supplies, we don't have any matches..."

"I've got some matches." Stated Cantor, unbuckling his saddlebag and rummaging for the small box of matchsticks.

Faith cocked her head and furrowed her brow. "Since when did you have them?" She asked, sounding oddly impressed.

"Don't you remember?" Said the stallion, turning his eyes downward to look at what his hoof was touching. "I asked the health and safety guys to give us a box of matches each... You know, like how we've all got a few syringes of morphene and some bandages despite not being 'the medic' part of the team..." He stated with a focused frown. "Speaking of which, I wonder what happened to Cloud Nine and Blue Bolt..." He added - regardless of the fact that he had a good idea about the fate of the couple.

There was a short moment's silence before Faith cleared the air. "I think..." She started quietly. "It's safe to assume they probably didn't make it."

Cantor took a moment to stare solemnly at the ground, coming to terms with the notion that he and Faith were not just the only two ponies for hundreds of thousands of miles around, but also, that they were the only pair of souls who knew this story. The alicorn need not confirm with his partner that their survival was of the utmost importance - for if they should die out here, their memories, and the stories of their late allies would be forever lost.

"Yeah..." The stallion sighed quietly. "I had that same idea, too." He said, looking at faith's barely visible hooves.

"Hey," The pegasus began with an elevating tone. "Let's make sure they didn't die for nothing." She said with that headstrong smile of her's.

Cantor, after a second, returned the look with a similarly determined nod of his head. "You're right." He stated, pausing briefly to allow the moment to clear up. "Come on," Cantor continued with a grin, turning about and leading the way back into the gusty room. "Let's find some cloth or something to burn."

Following suit with a slight skip, Faith rolled her eyes. "What is it with you and setting fire to things?" She asked with an auspicious chuckle.

In a position that bore discomfort to most, Cantor struck the deep maroon head of the narrow and frail matchstick along the waterlogged roughage upon the side of the soggy cardboard case. Despite the stallion's apparent agression with the incendiary article, no results past a few feeble sparks were yielded.

"Damn." Grumbled the alicorn around the box in his mouth, the foreleg holding the thick piece of pipe growing heavy as he struggled to hold the weight of the saturated fabric wrapped around its end.

Faith, growing impatient with Cantor's best efforts, groaned tiresomely. "Give me that." She hissed, taking the makeshift torch from the stallion and held it out in front of her, dripping small amounts of the liquid she had been assured was flammable onto the floor.

With both hooves now free to work on the matches, Cantor managed to strike one of the explosive splinters along the rough side of their box firmly and fiercely enough to make it crackle into life and begin to slowly burn away at the stick. Being a self-certified 'pyrotechnic', Cantor held the match upside-down for a moment, inviting the warm flames to climb smoothly along the length of the wood before touching the burning timber to the underside of the bulbous bundle of blue material, instantaneously deploying licks of flame across the entire surface.

With luck having already proven itself to not be on the ponies' side, the pair of equines took the discovery of several thick, unworn, but most importantly: dry cache of old jumpsuits as more of a break than any embodiment of 'good luck'. There were roughly six of the full-body articles of clothing, dark blue in colour and as thick as canvas. The styling would have been enough to make a homeless stallion scoff, yet the visual appeal of the attire was the least of the ponies' concern, as soon enough, they had been wrapped around a length of spare pipe and doused in a conveniently - placed tin of highly flammable lubricant. And now, they were on fire.

"Quick," Cantor began, unsteadily rising to his restless hooves. "I don't know how long this thing is going to burn for." He relayed, stuffing the stout container of ignition fluid back into the right pouch of his saddlebags: the other sack almost bulging off its buckle with a couple of the heavy suits stuffed less-than neatly inside.

The duo quickly made their way out of the dampened room; now laced with a bitter chill from the sandy wind forcing its way in from the vast outside. They were mindful of their surroundings despite upholding a hasty demeanour as they trudged through the long, dark maze of hallways. It was difficult to see why the facility had been built in such an oddly intricate manner - though it was decided that the creatures who built it in the first place would have had plans which made a world more sense.

Maybe it was the pressing darkness constricting Cantor and Faith to almost touch that caused confusion to take dominance in their minds. That same frozen, stale darkness paired with the urgency of finding another source of light before the torch ran out of its fabric fuel sparked fears of loss and separation between the pair of battle-worn equines. Regardless, they pressed on, though still under the oppressive and constant threat of an ill encounter in the dark.

"How come there's lights on through the rest of this building, but not here?" Faith asked openly, her voice little more than a whisper, though she was mildly shocked to have spoken so delicately.

Cantor shrugged, which afflicted his already haphazard pace as he stumbled along at the pegasus' side. "I think all those other lights were from a backup generator or something." He replied firmly: his voice so calm it sounded almost unnatural.

Faith was swayed by the stallion's odd tone. Though it would have been insulting to ask if he was 'alright', she opted for the next best thing, and openly asked what the matter was.

Despite having a distinct modesty and a firm discomfort in sharing his problems, Cantor decided that idle conversation would act as a sufficient distraction from his tingling nerves. "I'm just..." The alicorn began, hesitating for a brief moment. "...A little scared of the dark, that's all. I know it's a stupid thing to be frightened of - for my age, at least, but..." He said sheepishly, letting a stricken sigh from his badly bruised lungs before continuing. "I just can't stand being confined in the dark."

"Wow," Faith remarked with eyebrows raised. "Sounds like you've got a touch of claustrophobia, too. What's not wrong with you!?" She cried with a laugh, her smile dying abruptly on her lips once she caught sight of Cantor's humourless face. "O-Oh..." She started, sounding surprised, carrying a clear note of apology in her tone. "Sorry..." Said the pegasus, sounding hurt in the wake of her own failed attempt to lighten the mood. Instead, all she had done was condemn herself and Cantor to another awkward silence.

Once again, a cold, heavy hush set in, and through the absence of noise spare the quickened pace of the ponies' hoofsteps, Cantor found himself almost surprised that the tormenting, grim voice that had plagued him many times before had not began with yet another dark, sarcastic remark to nudge him closer to the border of insanity. Despite the internal isolation churning unwelcome feelings of unease in his stomach, Cantor leaned in a little closer to Faith as they turned a left-hoof corner and persisted in their demanding trek through the halls.

A long while passed, and little seemed to change: every corner bore the same three sights: pitch black darkness, grey walls and flecks of blood... "At least the latter aesthetic held an ever-changing air of decor." Cantor thought bleakly, growing increasingly aware and concerned by the ratio of blood to bodies - being that there were none of one and a copious amount of the other. In a way, Cantor was relieved: not having to stare at the floor to make sure he didn't accidentally 'pop' another half-decomposed head was a mild comfort, though the mystery of where the bodies had gone unsettled him to a great extent. He didn't ask Faith whether she was fretting over the same problem, but by the way she was solemnly following every dried patch of blood with her head as she trotted by, it was clear she was thinking deeply of something...

The silence practised by the two was gradually being replaced by a steady, rhythmic 'clunking', like a door being repeatedly opened and closed. Faith and Cantor had looked at each other when the sound first made its weak presence heard. However now that it sounded less than a great many corridors away, the pair came to a standstill, their ears focused toward the endless dark of the hallway beyond.

"...Sounds like a good time." Cantor stated, staring at the pegasus beside him with a forced smirk. To his surprise, Faith was wearing a much less poised expression, and seemed gravely fearful of what was to come. It was only now that he became aware of how uncharacteristically quiet Faith was being, and realising this buried the alicorn's bottle a little more. "What's the matter?" He asked openly before noticing the dwindling condition of the flaming cloth. "Oh, wait a minute..." He said, handing the makeshift torch to Faith and unbuckling his bulging saddlebag.

It was almost a mutual sensation of release for Cantor and his tired supply bag as one of the long articles of work clothes was dragged out and carefully wrapped around its gently burning comrade, feeding the flame and beginning the cycle all over again. During the act of wrapping, Cantor was momentarily sidetracked from the mysterious source of the ominous pounding by the notion of how remarkably long the last jumpsuit burned for. It must have been seven or eight minutes since it was set alight in the first place, and without a layer of highly flammable liquid singing off half the fabric from the beginning, who was to tell how long this one would last.

Holding his tongue limply between his teeth as he concentrated on the final knot in the unconventional light source, Cantor reared up as best he could on his one good leg and firmly tightened up the long sleeves bound up around the head of the torch. Taking the pipe back from the pegasus, Cantor gave the metal tube a testing shake, and satisfied that the binding would not slide off the end under regular circumstance, he turned his attention back to the oddly frightful Faith.

"You're awfully quiet." Cantor began with a light laugh and a wink. "What's up? Usually you're the one rearing to go; giving me mental vigour." He said with a confiding nudge to Faith's shoulder.

The grey mare shot a sickly glance down the hallway to where the haunting sounds were coming from before returning to try and seek any kind of comfort in her friend's close proximity. "I've got a really shit feeling about this one, Cantor..." She murmured shakily, dabbling for solutions yet finding none before the stallion asked the obvious.

"What other choice do we have?" He replied gently, feeling Faith's reluctance on an uneasy level of mutuality. He almost added impossible suggestions of where they could go next, but felt as though that may be somewhat adding insult to injury. "...We should just... Keep going, and keep our wits even more about ourselves than before." He suggested, tugging at the mare. She resisted at first, then slipped into a burdened walk, and stayed closer than ever to Cantor's side as they continued this twisted venture.

How strange, thought Faith, that the tables were now turned: and that she was seeking a psychologically strengthened sense of protection from Cantor. He was more than a stone's throw away from the bravest of ponies, though far from a coward, and despite the ravaged condition of his body, her protection still seemed to be his main concern. "Maybe it's all part of his nature..." Faith pondered, casting a glance over the broken shield embossed upon the alicorn's bloodied flank.

Due to the absence of all but one feeble light source, the grim corridors and the unsettling banging, the journey took several minutes longer than it would have done if it had been strode out in green pastures under the warming sun. Alas, the ponies eventually made it to the source...

Rounding one final corner, the steady clunking was prominent enough to hear a hydraulic hiss during the interval between each heavy beat. The pony duo was weary as they crept into sight of the source. With an odd cocktail of comfort and fear, both Cantor and Faith let out mixed sighs as they set eyes upon a small, finite bar of light expanding and shrinking in unison with the heavy clockwork droll.

The scene replicated images in Cantor's mind of something like an elevator repeatedly opening and closing: unable to seal itself fully and embark on its vertical journey because...

The notion caught in the alicorn's mind, and somehow, the end of his cryptic muse made it past his lips. "...There's something stopping it..." He murmured - just loud enough For the on-edge pegasus to hear.

"What?" She hissed, unable to maneuver her eyes anywhere but in-front. "What are you saying? What's stopping what?" She questioned, her voice stiff from the surplus adrenaline, sounding increasingly more threatened by the unsightly images in her head of how this situation could unfold.

Without an option left, Cantor decided to suck it up and press on, whispering "Let's check it out." Before starting towards the repetitious door - albeit at a very slow pace. Even at this crawling speed, he felt a world more brave than he usually did. A thought denouncing his actions as 'stupid', 'foalish' and otherwise 'irresponsible' crossed his mind for a spell, but he let that quarrel slide. If it were not for Faith by his side, there was no way he would have entertained the idea of venturing into this rank of unknown peril. He was thankful for her company, but questioned whether or not she felt the same.

"What the... Hell...?" A very terror-stricken Faith breathed as she neared the doors with Cantor. What looked like a bruised magnolia hoof was protruding from the opening could be seen, appearing to rise a little each time the elevator doors came in to squeeze at the flesh.

Faith was petrified, yet her legs still carried her until some of the horror instilled by the trembling discovery was dismayed with the realisation that she recognized this pony.

"Cloud!" She cried with astonishment, losing the need for Cantor's security and rushing over to take a look at the deathly still pegasus. Despite the chilling probability that all she may find would be a corpse, Faith still wore a mildly alleviated smile as she stepped up and peeked through the now wide open doors to the well lit room, becoming bathed in its pale mint-green illumination. She heaved.

Cantor had been somewhat left behind by his supposed 'comrade', and had fallen to his knees after having exerted himself through walking. He took it as a bad sign when he watched Faith reel away from the elevator with a whinny of violation and coughed up what little she had in her stomach onto the floor: merely adding a contribution to the sickly stains and smells already dominating the air.

"What is it?" Cantor called out, trying to sound concerned over his exhaustion.

Finding her footing after a wobbly session: almost feinting for the first time in years, Faith turned to face Cantor, staring with remorse and a morbid reverence for a second before snapping back to gape into the elevator, biting hard onto her lower lip in lieu of what she saw, then turning back to look at the stallion; looking pale and shaken.

"Just..." She started, taking on a persona carrying more stress and hopelessness than could be considered healthly. "...Screw this..." She added with hesitation. "This is just... fucked..."

Curious, if indeed more unnerved by the pegasus' reaction, Cantor slowly rose and made his way towards the elevator, keeping his eyes trained upon the flexing hoof, having dark visions of it whipping back inside the small box of the room. He had to keep telling himself that it was no more than a dead body devoid of all possibility of movement - though he needn't for long. Soon enough, he had reached the opening, and his presumptions set in place by Faith's outcry were confirmed. It was, indeed the body of the chestnut-maned pegasus, Cloud Nine.

"Bloody Hell..." Cantor breathed in astonishment; partly (and he was not proud of this) because he was baffled as towards exactly how the body got here in the first place: he hadn't seen anything like the door to an elevator since he came around, and there was no way the mare or her husband could have gotten in from outside... The other chilling convention of the corpse was that its eyes had been gouged out. There were no signs that suggested care had been taken in removing the optical organs: the eyelids too, were missing, and the gaping holes in Cloud Nine's head were surrounded by splatters of blood.

The past experiences of that day had extended Cantor's boundaries of what was truly 'chilling'. But as his eyes drifted upwards from the desecrated body, the words written sloppily on the rear wall of the elevator made his blood run cold.

It had clearly been written in blood - and by its powerful red colour and the shine it gave in the teal light of the elevator, not too long ago, either.

Turning to Faith with revulsion, Cantor slowly shook his head and spoke. "How the hell did this happen...?" He asked in a bereaved hush.

The blonde pegasus, her face a sickly shade of green raised her eyebrows and shrugged weakly. She opened her mouth to say something when the entire hallway lit up for a split second, the flash accompanied by a painfully loud 'crack', and she instantly fell to a heap on the floor.

Faith's agonized scream merged with the ringing in Cantor's ears: a cocktail of disruptive pitch.

The fallen mare let out a pained, but moreover confused groan, clutching at the red hot pain at the top of her right foreleg as her body jolted backwards a couple inches with another catastrophic explosion and flash of stark light. She wailed in explicit pain as a gushing trail of blood began to flow from a large cavity in her underbelly and grasped at Cantor's hooves for aid.

The alicorn snapped his head in the direction of the bursts: further down the endlessly black hallway. Two glints of light reflected from the open elevator's own illumination swayed like two spirits dancing in unison some distance away.

Raising his gun, Cantor focused on the two sprites of light mechanically moving from side to side and shouted as threateningly as possible. "What the Hell is this!?" He cried, his trigger-finger aching profusely, though he didn't want to waste his last shot on something he would surely miss.

The incident with Flitter downstairs had severely crippled his ammo supply - which was already in poor collection when he searched Red's body for more shotgun shells.

There was no reply from the hall: why would there be? "I swear I'll fucking shoot you!" He growled, convincing himself of his own threat despite knowing it was an empty one. Cantor had started to ponder why he had given such a warning: everypony else apart from himself and Faith were all dead, and this place looked far too old and forgotten: too stained with age old blood to hint towards any suggestion that its previous inhabitants might still exist...

Yet the alicorn did not get much time to think over his question further before a large object came hurtling from the inky darkness and struck the end of his nose. It felt as though he had been blasted in the face with a flamethrower: the searing heat quickly spreading up his now bleeding nose and into his eyes, making them water at the edges.

He didn't get a chance to speak whatever the first profanity came to mind as another blunt object came sailing through the air and struck him in the chest. It hit the stained fur and dropped to the floor with a 'clang'. Peering down at his hooves, Cantor noticed that it was some kind of miniature hammer - chrome finished and looking remarkably clean contrary to its setting.

Faith's cries had died down to desperate chokes and grievous breaths. She managed to wheeze Cantor's name, and as he turned to look at her with apologetic eyes for his lack of knowledge of what to do, another bigger, much heavier object struck him all across his front side, knocking him to the floor.

He landed next to Faith, his eyes falling perfectly in line with her own. Blood was trickling thinly from her mouth as tears from those golden eyes filled with real mortal terror and pain saturated her cheeks.

Cantor noticed her trying to grab a hold of his hoof. He reached out to touch the trembling pegasus, gripping her tightly, he noticed the grey hoof was sodden with freshly drawn blood. He was barely able to see through his teary eyes, though he could confirm the sound of rapidly approaching hoofsteps. The next thing in Cantor's world was a brief, blinding blow to the back of his head. And then,

nothing.