In the abyssal deep, far below the world, something woke up...

It was not a gentle awakening. His eyes shot open, his chest heaved as a fresh gust of air rattled his lungs. Every inch of him tingled as though he had lost circulation, his cheek was pressed uncomfortably into a cold, gritty surface. He tried to look around, to no avail. At first, he thought he had been blinded - darkness lay all about him. But as he slowly came to his senses, as his breathing gradually evened out, the black faded into a murky gloom. When the tingling vanished, he found he could move again. He groaned as he rolled himself onto his stomach. Hard, rough rock lay beneath him, awkwardly rubbing his fur the wrong way.

A rasping cough barked out of his throat when he tried to stand, causing him to fall back into the stone. Immediately, a terrible, fiery pain blossomed from his neck straight down to the junction between his hind legs. He almost blacked out - but some force within him clawed its way back from the brink. He refused to succumb again to the void.

He wheezed and rolled back over to his side. Getting up was not likely in this state. The best he could hope for was that somepony would come along and find him. He peered around, but still couldn't make out anything short of a few yards away. A thick, dark mist seemed to cover everything like a soft blanket.

Where was here, exactly?

He tired to think, to recall what had brought him to this place.

He remembered...nothing?

No, that couldn't be right. He had plenty of memories. Hadn't he? It was so hard to think. It was hard to do anything. He frowned, digging deep into his thoughts, as if unearthing buried treasure. He strained as hard as he could without bringing out another attack. Slowly, unbearably slowly, visions began to flicker across his mind’s eye.

To his great frustration, they were only impressions. The vaguest feelings and sensations. Ponies with no faces, no colors. Places with no names, that blurred when he tried to focus on them. Voices with no bodies.

It was as if his mind had been a great chalkboard, covered in formulas and notes from a great lecture, and somepony had decided to take an eraser to it.

Vigorously.

Unacceptable! He fumed, his anger giving him the strength to rise again. He had lost everything, he was a blank slate. Why? How? When? Who did this? These questions bounced around the inside of his head, shredding the fragments of memory to tatters, until it was all he could hear.

He threw back his head and screamed, a wordless, primal call of loss and rage. As the emotions poured through him, he suddenly realized that he could see.

There was a bright light coming from just above his eyes. He swatted at it with a hoof, only to stagger backwards when he hit himself in the horn.

My...horn? He had a horn. I have a horn, he realized, shocked that he didn’t know that already. Of course! He was a unicorn! Unicorns had magic! That meant the bright light was coming from him. He wasn't even sure how he remembered how to cast it. It had been more instinctual than anything else.

He took stock of what his light permitted him, running his eyes over himself, first. He had a snowy white coat that seemed almost ghostly in the pale glare, gray hooves, and an icy blue mane and tail. An emblem adorned his flank. A cutie mark, he thought. Or at least that's what the mares call them. Where had he remembered that? It was a storm cloud, with a trio of small snowflakes falling beneath it. He could not recall how he had gotten it. He sighed to himself. Why should I expect anything else? I don’t even know my name...

His body suddenly felt worn and stretched, as if it had been cast aside and stuffed with a different soul. He felt like a stranger in his own hooves. They were his, right? Yes. They had to be. His mind might be gone, but he had his body. His body. His magic.

But what had happened to them?

A glance down elicited a gasp. That had happened, so it seemed. A terrible, fresh scar ran straight down his front, bisecting him from chin to groin. Well, almost. At least he still had his stallionhood. That much had been spared.

With a ragged groan, he despaired his situation, before harshly chiding himself. Don’t be weak, you foal. Be strong. Survive! A surge of agony traced his scar. He had to clench his jaw tight to keep from yelping in pain. The light shining from his horn flickered wildly. But he managed to keep his footing, despite feeling like he was being ripped in twain. He had to get out of here. He could not live like this for long.

And so, trembling, he took his first steps forward.

The gloom extended all around him. Without the sight of the stone floor beneath his hooves, he might as well been floating in the middle of limbo.

The light helped immensely, but failed to show the boundaries of wherever he was. Only the misty dark kept him company. On occasion, he felt as though somepony had said something to him, sometimes from far away, once from right over his shoulder. He had whirled around, only to find the same nothingness. Furious at being toyed with, he’d come to ignore the faint whispers and cries.

He didn't have a particular plan. He didn't know where he was, or who he was, for that matter. But he had to move. Some primordial instinct told him that something about this place was wrong. Loitering here would be unwise.

After a time, he came to a great stone pillar in the ground. It hadn't been carved, the sides were too uneven, and yet they were smoothed, although lumpy. The thing was massive, he limped slowly around it and found it to be almost a hundred hoofsteps in circumference. It was tall, too. It stretched up into the dark heavens like an endless tree, disappearing when his spell's light lost its potency. Stalagmite. The word came unbidden, from where he did not know. Yet he knew the meaning. When water dripped down from the roof of a cave, it sometimes formed a mineral deposit on the floor, that grew and grew as the water continued to drip down. They took a very long time to form.

This one was easily wider than a house.

Wherever he was, this place was extremely old. Hundreds and thousands of years, maybe. He felt small and weak in the presence of the stone monolith. He didn't like feeling that way, for some reason. He began moving away into the darkness again, away from the stalagmite and the sense of insignificance.

He took some solace in the fact that he knew he was definitely underground. Somewhere, a rocky ceiling spanned the blackness. This place had boundaries, limits. It was not infinite. He found that oddly comforting. There might be a way out. Then he could go...home?

Where was home?

He scowled and pressed himself to go faster, gritting his teeth against the pain. His hooves did not echo the way they should have. This was a big, empty cave, right? And yet, they sounded muted. As if the sound were being swallowed up by the hungry void.

"Hello," he bellowed as loudly as he could manage, jerked into a raspy coughing fit.

He pricked his ears, awaiting the sound of his voice returning to him, bouncing off some distant wall. His grating breaths were the only source of noise.

Nothing. Not after a solid minute, spent counting off the seconds.

Not after two.

Or three.

He tried again. “HELLO!”

Again, not even an echo.

He sat down, hard, the strength seemingly leaving his body as air might leave a balloon. This place wasn't right. It was unnatural. It made him feel weak, useless, and above all, frightened. He didn't like that, not one bit. He was alone here. For the first time, his anger gave way to fear. The light on his horn sputtered out, leaving him once again shrouded in a murky veil.

In the blackness, something spoke.

"Greetings."

A deep, rumbling voice rolled out from somewhere behind him. Immediately, he spun back up - big mistake. The pain blossomed all over again in his chest, sending him crashing to the ground, which just brought on yet another wave of agony.

It was all he could do to ignite his horn again, gasping like a fish out of water.

Out of the dark stepped a monster. It was easily three times his size, dark blue, with a large, predatory head and a gaping bear-trap of a maw. Small, slitted pupils calculated his every movement, rooting him still. It moved with feline grace, a thin, whip of a tail ending in a grasping paw that lashed slowly behind it. "Ah," it said with an odd voice, "I was wondering where you'd gone. Come, on your hooves. She wants to see us. It is best to not keep her waiting." The light from his horn glimmered weirdly on the curious thick, golden rings it wore around its throat and forelegs. The choker about its neck had a scorched hole, right over the throat. He imagined that a large gem must have gone there, once.

"W-who...who are you?" he managed to right himself again, eyeing the creature warily. If it meant him danger, it would have done so already. He was defenseless in this state. "Where are we?"

Its grin was frighteningly large, shining, shark-like teeth gleaming.

"You do not remember, little pony?” the monster asked him, eyes widened with something between interest and malevolence.

“I remember nothing,” he admitted steadily, fixing the stare with one of his own.

It looked thoughtful for a moment, an expression he found looked somewhat ridiculous on its terrible face. “No matter. My name is Ahuitzotl. And this," he said, spreading his paws wide, "is Tartarus." Ahuitzotl's visage came within inches of his face. "Do you know what that means, little pony?" His breath smelled like blood.

He shook his head.

"It means that you are dead. Welcome to hell.”

He sat there, unmoving. How was that possible? He wasn’t dead. Banged up and amnesic, apparently, but he was alive, thank you very much. He was about to tell Ahuizotl off when the creature interrupted him.

“If you don’t belive me, then why is your little pony heart so still? I have seen this before, and it grows less amusing with each occasion. You would be wise not to test my patience. Now come, we are wasting time. The Grey could be upon us at a moment's notice. We must return while we can.” Ahuitzotl came about and began to pad away into a seemingly arbitrary direction.

He debated trying to conjure up some more magic to teach the monster a lesson, but none came to mind. In frustration, he placed a hoof on his chest. Fine, I’ll prove you wrong and end this charade, then I’ll get some real answers...

…

There was no heartbeat. His chest was a still as a corpse. He sat down in disbelief. There was no other explanation for it. His heart was not beating.

He was dead.

The implications of this were simply too great. His mind shut off, unable to comprehend this reality. Numbly, he got back up and plodded after the retreating figure. The light from his horn was much less intense than it had been before.

When he reached the beast’s side, he blankly asked, “Where are we going?” There was no emotion in his voice, nor his mind.

Ahuitzotl’s grin was frighteningly large, revealing row after row of serrated fangs. It didn't phase him in the slightest. He doubted anything would ever again.

“To meet your worst nightmare, little pony. We are going to see the devil...

…She has been waiting for you.”

Achievement Unlocked! - "It's Just A Flesh Wound."
Character Unlocked! - ???

-Perk: ???
Ally Gained: Ahuitzotl
Region Discovered: Tartarus