Tempestas

The truth was out, there were only two ways Cherilee knew how to spend her summers: Reading books and/or getting drunk. These kinds of things happened when your only friend knew her wines and you tried to escape reality as much as possible when you weren’t working. The saddest thing about all this wasn’t the fact that this was how she spent her free time, but rather that it ended up turning her mornings into hell itself.

Why?

Because hangovers suck, that’s why. Her head was aching with what could only be described as a pain easily likened to a drill trying to force its way out of her skull and with a loud moaning she let the world know how she felt about that. Trying to make a grab for her sheets she turned to the other side, hoping to find some resemblance of peace while lying on the left side rather than the right. However, her hoof only grabbed air and her normally somewhat comfortable bed felt more like a stone floor. She didn’t quite remember that hangovers could be so bad that they made your bed feel like a bloody rock. Grimacing, she rolled on her back, spreading her arms out and groaning once more. What was I doing last night? She asked herself quietly, not quite remembering how drunk she got.

Fuck, I hope I didn’t do anything stupid. Cherilee tried to open her eyes, but found the light too bright and quickly shut them again. “Meh,” she mumbled, “I should sleep a bit more.”

It was either that or she could go and drink a glass of water. Not that she had anything against water but there were things she’d rather not do right now. Doing anything was really low on her priority list, with her head hurting as much as it did. Instead, she would simply enjoy the morning by sleeping through it. She let herself be calm and listened to the rain hammering against the windows and the waves crashing against the rocks outside.

Wait. . . Waves? Rocks?

In another attempt, she tried to open her eyes once more, slowly, letting the painful light take over. She stared at an unfamiliar ceiling, made of old wood that looked nowhere like the kind she used in her home. The planks were all wrong, the color was too brown. Something was wrong. She decided to stand up, slowly, trying not to move too quickly. She felt how her hooves touched the cold stone the floor was made off. Her house was mostly wood, and not so stale. She tried to grasp where she stood.

A room with a hearth, a sofa, a table, chairs, cabinets, but none of them were familiar.The floor, that stone, she looked down again. Marble? She stood on a marble floor with roots and vines crouching up the walls. Where in Tartarus name was she? She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the throbbing of her head and made to the next window. She saw drops of rain smashing against it and heard the thunder roaring near wherever she was.

Then she looked outside the glass and her eyes widened in shock. She could see the ocean waves coming from the darkness, with thunder clouds soaring above, a bolt of lightning illuminating the distance only to reveal more waves rushing towards wherever they were. She looked a bit down and saw a cliff going down, though she expected it to be less than ten meters. Down there a small light shone, probably a lantern.

“Where am I?” She asked again.

“A lighthouse of sorts, young lady,” she heard a gentle voice off in the distance. She turned around and stared at another pony. White he was and water was dripping from his blue mane and black jacket.

“Who are you? W-What do you want with me?”

The white stallion gave her a smile, before he bowed. “Fancypants is my name and dear lady, you needn’t fret, judging from your reaction you and I are in the same boat, so to speak. I just awoke in another room.” He pointed behind himself, before moving towards you. “Do you mind if I ask, but, you would be?”

“Cheerilee. . .”

He stopped in his tracks, tilted his head sideways. “I feel like I heard that before. Say, do you know a Rarity?”

She stared at him a second longer. Was he acquainted with Rarity, their town’s own dressmaker? If so, didn’t that mean he was a friend? She simply had to inquire about it: “How do you know Rarity?”

“We’re friends,” he said, although his mind seemed to wander off somewhere else in that moment. Cherilee didn’t really care about that, all she did was take a deep breath, before she grunted, the hangover making her feel incredibly bad. She tried to hide it, though. She was good as hiding hangovers, it could almost be considered her special talent.

“Well, I guess, glad to meet you," she said, deciding to at least try to be diplomatic. "You said we’re in a lighthouse?” She asked.

“Yes,” he answered, “You go through that door there and you get to a hallway, I woke up in one of the three other rooms there. A small bedroom.”

She grimaced. Why does he get the bedroom? But she said nothing, instead let him continue.

“There’s three other rooms, but they’re all locked and I couldn’t go far outside because of the storm. And while we’re at it, despite it being a lighthouse I saw no way to climb the tower, maybe there’s an access on the other side but I found this door open when I came back.”

The female pony stared at him, not knowing what to say, instead she simply seated herself by the window. “Did you see a road of sorts?” She asked, then.

"No,” he answered moving closer to her and then seating himself by her side. “As a matter of fact, we appear to be on an island.”

“Bullocks,” Cherilee gave as an answer, rubbing her hooves over her face. “I’m never touching alcohol again.”

There followed a silence to that comment and only the rain sounded from the outside. Cherilee couldn’t help but close her eyes again, since that made her feel at least a bit better. She hated drinking until she forgot. Well, she hated forgetting things in general, but drinking was one of these things were she hated it especially.

“Shouldn’t we panic?” She mumbled.

“There’d be the point? Also, all we need to do is wait until the storm settles down and then we can explore this island. You’re in luck, I’ve been in situations like this before and a lighthouse isn’t really what I would call ‘Not safe’,” he said.

The mare nodded. “You’re right.”

“What we could do, though, is try to knock on some doors. See what sorts there are. We may need some food I mean and maybe there’s some in one of them.”

Cherilee couldn’t help but groan at the thought, but relented. “Fine, I’d rather rest up a little, though. I’m not feeling to well.”

Fancypants nodded. “Well, you could settle down on the couch and leave the hard work to me,” he offered.

“No, thanks,” she answered with a smile. “four legs kick doors better than two.” Despite everything, she wanted to know more about whatever place she was in. Her thoughts were still in disarray and maybe they could find some water to drink, anything to clear her head a little. So they stood up, making to leave the room. Cherilee looked around one more time, seeing something move in the corner of her eye. “Friggin’ hangover,” she mumbled, hating how her mind tried to play tricks on her.

They moved out to the floor, where one door, right to their left, clearly led outside, the next door, right across where they stood seemingly led to the bedroom. There were three other doors, as Fancy had said, one on the end, and one more to each side of the hallway. All that was covered in the light of a pair of candles, standing on table between the two doors to the other side. As the duo moved towards those doors, Cherilee noticed how every piece of wood in this house seemed old, be it doors, furniture or even the ceiling. It made her feel really uncomfortable, but at least the doors would easily be knocked down if they wouldn’t open.

“How long were you awake, now that I think about it?” She asked her companion, looking at the first door to their right.

“Around an hour, I’d presume. I already checked out the doors and went outside once. We’re dangerously close to the cliff and only one small path leads away from the house. In this weather, I didn’t feel like walking down there.”

She giggled, “Yeah, that was a good decision, but, if you were awake for an hour, does that mean you went into my room some time ago, already?”

He looked at her strangely, as she tried to open one door, but it didn't budge. “I. . . It was locked, actually.”

That made her stop for a moment. “Locked? But how did you get in just now?”

They both looked at each other for a moment. The rain swept across the water, the sound of the waves and the sudden bursts of thunder reminded them of the storm outside. “We should see what’s in those rooms,” he then said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but the quicker we find answers, the faster we might get out of this predicament.”

She nodded turning around and smashing her hooves against the door in an attempt to break it, but it stood unfazed. “Wow, this thing is harder than it looks.”

Her comrade stood by her side and looked at her queerly. “Let me try,” he said and made for it, achieving exactly the same result as she did. “Sturdy beast.”

“Let’s try the others,” she said and went to the next door.

Bang!

The sound echoed from across the hallway. And again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

It came from the other side, they both knew. Somebody was hammering against the door, loud and quick. Cherilee and Fancypants turned towards the sound, not knowing what to do. There wasn’t just a hammering, though, but something else, too. A faint sound Cherilee couldn’t quite make out, but it sounded close to a voice. It was so far away though, she couldn’t make it out. The hammering didn’t stop, but went on for a few more seconds, before the periods between the bangs became longer, the sound quieter and quieter.

Suddenly, Fancypants sprung into action, storming towards the door and putting his hoof on the doorknob, pulling it. Wasn’t the door supposed to be locked, too? She only wondered for a second as the door swung open and something fell to the ground before them, red spilling across the ground.

The mane of that pony was tangled, yellow and red, her coat gold. Cherilee didn’t know this one, but she sure knew one thing, that this stranger's face was a ruin. She couldn’t avert her eyes from it, since she saw the wounds beneath the hair. Deep lines spilling blood went over her face, from her forehead down to the chin. The one eye she saw was slashed through. Whoever she’s is, she’s as good as dead, and whatever got her. . .

Cherilee slowly lifted her gaze from the pony and stared into the room. At least she tried to, but the unnatural blackness seemed to cover up the entirety of the room, like some piece of cloth. Just looking at it made her hairs stand high and she didn’t know why. The candle’s light moved slightly and for these few moments, the sound of the rain was the only thing she heard, that and a distant voice, whispering into her ear, begging her to walk closer to the darkness, to the silence. She felt strangely intrigued by it. On one hand, it seemed like a bad idea going into that room, on the other, she somehow knew that there wasn’t any other choice.

She saw something move. Fancypants, closing the door with a bang. Staring at her for a second, but not saying anything, instead he picked the other pony up. “Help me with her,” he begged her. For a moment, she wondered if she should open the door again, find out what it was that had been calling her, but she saw the wounds of the pony. It wasn’t just one eye that was gone, but both of them.

“Yes, yes. . .” She said, but didn’t quite know what to do. “The couch, get her to the couch, while I try to find something to treat her with.”

Fancypants hurried and so did she, going through the cabinets, eventually finding a first-aid kit under a piece of paper. The paper she ignored, the kit, she pulled out and made to work on the golden unicorn that bled out on the sofa. She opened it, but it was Fancypants who began to work on the other pony with his magic.

“I’ve been in worse situations, so I’m quite good at this. This is nothing for an old adventurer like me,” he said, trying his best to assure her while he stopped the bleeding.

All Cherilee could do was take a step back and seat herself on the floor. Suddenly she noticed how clear her head was now. She didn’t know what was going on, where she was or who these ponies were but now one thing was clear. This was actually a pretty bad situation and she didn’t quite know how to handle it. The pony merely looked at Fancypants treating the stranger. The sofa stood by the hearth, where the fire was burning. Had there been wood in there when she had first awoken? She didn’t remember.

Her eyes went up, to look above said Hearth and found something else.

“Fancypants. . . Were there letters on the walls before?”

He looked up from the other pony. “What? Letters? No, not that I remember, why?” He asked and turned around looking at the letters written on the stone wall above the fire. Huge, ugly red letters formed words that made Cherilee’s skin crawl.

I HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL

THE GAMES ARE ABOUT TO BEGIN AND I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO MISS THEM

The thunder roared outside, while the rain was crashing against the windows of the lighthouse in the middle of the sea. Cherilee suddenly remembered. She wasn’t supposed to be here, the first day of school was at the end of this weekend. All the children. . . She wasn’t meant to be here, she knew and tears formed in her eyes.

Still, the long night had only just begun.