The walls of the surrounding tunnel are a mix of black and dark purple, the whole thing is barely big enough to stand in, and it's lit by tiny white, red, and yellow dots. A chill runs down 10013's spine as the terrifying certainty of where it is washes over it.
This can't be real.
It looks around, and finds the worried face of Smiley behind itself.
No no no no!
Somehow, 10013 knows what's about to happen, and the second it crosses its mind, the walls of the tunnel start crumbling.
"RUN!" screams 10013, and bolts ahead.
Unfortunately, while the tunnel is the right size for a drone, Smiley's slightly bigger size makes it more difficult to move while hunched up. 10013's blind panic wins, though, and it doesn't look at Smiley's progress, not until its mind catches a mental image of-
*Sad, betrayed face*
-which flickers only for the barest second before 10013 hears a painfully real:
*Crunch!*
10013 finally looks back just as the collapsing, strangely fleshy tunnel devours Smiley, leaving behind only a foreleg desperately reaching for 10013 which drops on the floor. The collapse stops, and so does 10013.
"I'm sorry, Smiley... I'm not 9999," sobs 10013, "I can't... I couldn't..." it grabs the foreleg, cradling it in its hooves, "I'm not High Score! You want too much."
The tunnel comes to life again, its starry walls wobbling and melting. 10013 scrambles to all fours, dropping Smiley's leg over which the tunnel pours in its pursuit of 10013 immediately.
9999 wouldn't let a friend- no, any drone die, and you are fleeing like a coward.
10013's hooves sink into the floor of the tunnel turning into starry quicksand, and it takes so much effort to take pace after pace. It's clear how this is going to end, and the familiar heavy weight and following agony of a tunnel collapsing on its back lights 10013's nerves, leaving behind only the clear knowledge that:
I'm not good enough.
Finally, the darkness takes away both the endless agony of the slow crushing and the weight of 10013's self-admitted inadequacy.
***
Gasping for breath, its chitin somehow covered in sweat, and wincing at the pain of the phantom crushing, 10013 finds itself standing on all fours inside the hive mind waiting room. The familiar silver lines marking the otherwise invisible floor set against the pitch blackness of the place slowly wash away the... memory?
"...what happened...?" breathes out 10013, still haunted by the recent experience.
A soft laughter of a voice, no details of which 10013 can identify, wraps around the drone like a warm and comfortable blanket.
"You can rest now, little drone. The nightmare is over," says the voice. Does it belong to a stallion? Mare? 10013 has no idea.
"Nightmare?" breathes out 10013, now worried even more by the unidentifiable intrusion inside its mind, "What... what's that?"
The voice giggles, melting a little bit of 10013's tension away.
"Dreaming is just a way your brain disseminates past events. If those events are troubling, it can turn into a nightmare like the one I sensed from you. Don't worry too much, none of what you saw or experienced was real, although whatever triggered it seemed to weigh on you rather heavily."
YOU ARE READING
They're... ON HOLIDAY?
Fanfiction[SEQUEL TO: They're EVERYWHERE!] Several years after the changeling invasion of Canterlot, queen Chrysalis gets an invitation to attend a cruise followed by a stay in a luxury holiday resort on an island belonging to the Griffon Empire. Supposedly...
