Within You - [Twibra]

Two

From the very peaceful and restful sleep he was having, only a headache could take him out.

The stinging sensation that felt like it was crushing his skull forced him to open his eyes and regain the consciousness he didn't even know he had lost.

He subtly moved his gaze around him, but he could only see the same thing as before: nothing.

The total darkness that inhabited wherever he was was completely limiting his ability to see.

He had no idea where he was or what had happened. His mind was completely blank.

From the softness and sponginess that he could perceive beneath him, he deduced that he was lying on some kind of bed, so he looked for a way to move, but at the immediate moment of doing this, he felt a pain that could be described as one of the worst he had ever experienced.

He couldn't indicate where, since it had been something general; Every muscle, joint, and internal part of his body had felt like being impaled by hundreds of swords.

Nonetheless, he tried again.

He obtained almost the same result as the previous time, but with less intensity; so, ignoring the pain, he set about trying to at least sit up.

He still couldn't see anything at all, but the pressure he could feel surrounding his hooves and neck, along with the sharp, hard metallic noise of the chains rubbing against each other and hitting the ground, quickly solved the puzzle about where he was.

He wanted to test the length of the chains by walking a little forward, and also hoping to know how far his probable cell extended.

His response was obtained only a few seconds later, when he finally collided with something that, from the resounding noise it made, he knew was crystal.

"Crystal? The only crystal prisons are in..."

Everything made sense now.

In a matter of two seconds, he knew how, when and why he was where he was.

His second defeat in the empire, the magic of the crystal heart reducing his body to pieces and then having to endure the cold again as he felt every part of his body come back together, every piece of bone, muscle, skin and tissue having to rebuild without him being able to do anything about it but to suffer the torture.

And when the ordeal finally seemed to be over and his body had finished the regeneration process, someone appeared.

In his mind the memory remained blurry, he could not recognize the faces of the ponies he had seen, but he did remember seeing alicorns.

An alicorn was always synonymous with royalty. Or at least almost always.

And royalty weren't exactly people he admired.

"I have to get out of here."

He didn't waste any more time and started channeling the magic within him in an attempt to use it, however, at the first small spark that appeared in his horn, the pain that his head experienced was something he simply could not explain.

As a result of this, he couldn't help but let out a loud moan, also putting a hoove on his head with the intention of making the pain lessen its intensity a little.

"Damn it, what is it now?" He blurted out into nothingness, bewildered as to why he wasn't able to use magic.

Before he could think about anything else, the sound of several locks being opened interrupted him, little by little the light beginning to illuminate the place as a door opened.