Why You Should Be Scared of the Dark

Why You Should Be Scared Of The Dark

I’ve heard it said that it’s not the dark that ponies are scared of; it’s the possibility of things hiding within it. The ones that tell me that always speak with such conviction, proud of their apparent conquest of an absence of light.

They’re wrong.

I have 47 lanterns in my house. At least three in each room, in case one goes out. They burn from sunset until dawn, and I have enough fuel to last me a year on my own. I sleep on a mat on the floor; a bed has too many shadows underneath it.

In fact, no furniture that has an empty space underneath. Or if it does, it needs to be open enough that the lanterns can illuminate it. That one might be a bit much, but there’s no such thing as too careful. Not where this is concerned.

I sleep during the day, when it's safer. Well, I could never manage to get to sleep at night even if I tried. Just seeing those empty, black windows is enough to keep me up. Even if I draw the curtains across it doesn't help; I know it's out there, watching. In some ways it's more comforting to keep them open. At least that way when I see it grinning at me from behind the glass I know I'm safe.

It's been three years since I first encountered it – I admire its patience.

***

I used to be a cart pony – one of the poor bastards who lugged full mine carts back to the surface. The one I was fixed to was Shaft 27, a copper line and one of the deepest we had. There were always three of us in a shift: me pulling the cart, a miner and a prospector, both of which were unicorns. Earth ponies like me were far better at pulling the cart than unicorns; levitation can only hold so much for so long, and pegasi won't have anything to do with something that far underground. Gets them all jittery.

The prospector always went first, sensing the ores in the rock and highlighting them, and the miner would... well, mine, blasting the walls with magic to pull out the ore inside. In the gemstone mine we heard they used diamond dogs, but they've got no interest in metal so we had to stick with unicorns. Once excavated, the unrefined chunks got thrown in my cart, and on we went.

The shafts were all pre-dug by another team before we showed up; we'd roll down to the bottom and then work our way back to the surface. It was quicker than working downwards and coming up after because I could run down much faster than I could pull it up, and since we were going slowly on the ascent by choice we saved a fair bit of time. It also stopped me having to pull a full cart the entire way; it was at its heaviest when we were closer to the surface.

Once you got round the first corner in those mines, it was pitch black. It didn't make sense to light the whole thing when portable light sources were so much cheaper and more efficient, and in dire straits the unicorns could make their own light. We all wore helmets; mine had a light where the unicorn's had a hole for their horns. There were always stories about that, unicorns that had broken their horns when a rock or something fell on them, but better a broken horn than a caved-in skull.

On this particular day I was with Dustkicker – a damn fine pony who'd do anything for you without a moment's hesitation. He was also one of the best miners I ever had the fortune to meet; quick and accurate, never needing more than one bore hole to get to the prospector's target. I've seen miners that couldn't aim straight if their life depended on it, taking multiple tries at every stop. I hated those guys – the longer we took meant the longer I was holding the cart up. I think Dustkicker and I still hold the fastest shaft clearance record, which should say something, but it's been a while since I was last there.

We wouldn't be breaking any records on that day. Our prospector was a mean old son of a bitch whose real name I never found out. Everyone just called him Gristle, himself included.

Gristle was infamous among the ponies of Shaft 27. I should be clear and point out that most everyone treated the cart-ponies like shit. It came with the job. You work some place like that, the unicorns still haven't quite come to terms with modern living, and an earth pony isn't worth squat to them. Oh, there were exceptions – Dustkicker among them – but the majority eyed us as they might something particularly unpleasant they'd dug out of their hooves.

Gristle, bless his heart, was a shining beacon of equality. He hated everyone just the same. Unicorn, Earth Pony, Pegasus, Gristle didn't care. If you weren't Gristle or Princess Celestia (who he seemed to hold in almost sickening esteem), he couldn't have cared less if you turned up dead the next day.

I'd like to say he was at least good at prospecting, but I'd be lying. Even newbies had a better success rate than Gristle. Often he'd make me wheel back a few metres because he'd spotted a vein that he'd 'missed'. Given his track record, most of us assumed he did it intentionally.

Going back even just a few steps with a cart full of rocks is no small feat. You can't turn round once you're harnessed in, and it takes a good while to detach so the only worthwhile method is to literally walk backwards, and that's not easy when you're dragging something as heavy as the cart behind you. One slip and you'd be sent rolling down the tracks to an early grave.

Dustkicker, when I was with him, would offer to carry the rocks up to me himself in situations like that, which I was normally immensely thankful for. Gristle would have none of it.

“If he's not carrying the rocks, then what use is he?” was his argument. Often I’d find myself wondering if Gristle's missing teeth were from being kicked in the face, followed by considering seeing if he could lose any more.

***

“Why'd we get stuck with him?” I whispered. “Did we piss someone off?”

“Hell if I know.” Dustkicker shrugged. “It's only a week, and then he's rotated off again. I think you've got me for another month.”

I laughed. “However will I survive?”

“What's so funny back there?” Gristle's voice was sharp, grating. It put me in mind of sawing through metal.

“Nothing.” Dustkicker was a crappy liar, but Gristle had heard it all before.

“In that case you can both shut the hell up. If you're talking, you ain't working.”

“We're on the descent,” I pointed out. “There's not much to it.”

“It's still work. Your yapping's not productive, so keep your hooves moving and your lips shut.”

In terms of management, prospectors were really no higher than a cart pony, no matter how much they liked to imagine so. They were more valuable to the company, reflected by their pay, but they certainly weren't in a position where they could order a miner or cart pony to do anything. But this was Gristle, and we kept our voices subdued to avert any further ire.

“So word in the bunkhouse is you’ve got yourself a new mare,” said Dustkicker.

“Word in the bunkhouse is often notoriously exaggerated.”

“Aw, come on. Just between us, and I won’t say another word.” This was a lie, but the sort that everyone made. Word travels quickly in a small community like that.

“What’s there to say? She's classy, probably too much for me, but she doesn't seem to let it faze her. Real musical too; plays cello in a small band up Ponyville way. I hear they do pretty well.”

“And how is she between the sheets?”

Dustkicker took my shoulder-punch gracefully.

“Alright big guy, a Gentlecolt doesn't kiss and tell, I get it. She's gotta be pretty good for a reaction like that though, huh?”

I gave him a warning glare, which he met with a shameless grin. I couldn't help but do the same.

“End of the line,” said Gristle, and I pulled the cart to a stop.

“That's odd.” Dustkicker didn't need to explain. The diggers – the ones that laid down the track – would normally only leave a metre or so of extra path at the end of a tunnel. Here they'd continued for some unknown distance, leading down into a deep, oppressive darkness.

“Probably just some new regulations,” said Gristle. “They're making these mines worse every damn day.”

“They?” I asked.

Gristle shot me a mean squint. “Don't play stupid. And get that damn harness off, maybe we can actually get something done that way.”

I bit back my retort, fiddling with the buckles with my teeth. Dustkicker helped out with the back bracer that I couldn't reach; a big screw on each side, as well as some finer straps that were too precise for magic.

“While you boys play with each other, I'm gonna take a piss.” Gristle strode off into the darkness, horn flaring with light. “If you'd kindly spare me some privacy?”

I turned away as he asked, occupying myself with the harness, trying to ignore the awful sound of Gristle relieving himself.

“Ain’t that one hell of a symphony?” muttered Dustkicker, just as appalled as I was.

“I’ve heard better,” I replied.

Busy with the harness and stifling our laughter, I can't tell you when Gristle’s light went out. I only know that when I looked up he was lost in the blackness, silence the only thing that greeted me.

“Gristle?” I called. “You okay there?” No answer. No sound but the occasional clink as Dustkicker undid the last few straps. He'd moved on to my other side now, and I couldn't wait to be free of that heavy bracer. Gristle's games were not welcome. “Come on, you're the one who wanted to get to work.”

This time a short shuffling answered. Hooves, dragging against stone. Shit, I thought. He's hurt himself.

I was only half wrong.

The shuffling drew closer, towards the light my helmet emitted around us. It was staggered, uncoordinated. A sliding limp. Each one felt forced, as if the pony causing them was pulling himself along with the last ounce of energy in his body. Dustkicker had stopped unstrapping me, instead watching with the same nervous gaze I had.

When Gristle stepped into the light, it took a second or so for me to realise. I knew something was wrong just at a glance, but at first I couldn't place it. I started with his hooves, assuming damage to be the cause of his broken gait. They were fine, the grey coat as matted and filthy as ever but otherwise normal.

Dustkicker saw it first, giving a strangled half-yelp. As my sight moved up to Gristle's face, past the permanent snarl on his lips, my own reaction was, I imagine, very similar.

His eyes were gone. Not gouged out, or damaged; they were simply missing, as if something had scooped them out of his head. Two red hollows stared back at us, past us. Through us.

There was a moment where we were frozen. Gristle, having reached his goal, seemed unsure how to proceed, and Dustkicker and I were too stunned to immediately react. Even now I don't know what the appropriate response would be. What would you do if you were presented with that situation?

Dustkicker made the first move; a step towards him with the beginnings of a question forming. It was probably something like “Are you alright?” or “Do you need some help?” or some other inane bullshit that only someone as scared as we were could come out with. The only real question in that scenario is “What the fuck happened to your eyes?”

As it turned out, I'd never hear what Dustkicker tried to ask. Perhaps it was just that. Before the question could leave him, Gristle opened his mouth and answered with a scream.

It rattled. You could hear the pain and betrayal in that scream, breaking out from his old, bitter lungs and shaking his body as it escaped. Stopping in his tracks, Dustkicker turned to me, desperation in every facet of his features. “What the hell do we do!?”

I tried to keep my voice calm, but was forced to raise it to be heard over Gristle's screaming. “First get me out of this thing!” I motioned to the last couple of buckles he had yet to undo. “I can't do shit while I'm stuck here!”

As soon as Dustkicker moved back to my side, things got even worse. Something in the darkness grabbed Gristle's hind-leg, which had still been shrouded in shadow, sending him sprawling to the ground. I think one of his front legs broke as he fell, hanging limply after his landing. His good hoof scrabbled at the ground, looking for purchase, but there was none to be had on the carved-smooth floor. He raised his head, looking at me with utter desperation, those empty circles somehow managing to find my face. But I was still strapped in with no way to reach him, Dustkicker at my side. And so, alone, Gristle was dragged backwards into the empty blackness. There was silence again.

It was brief. Gristle started screaming again, this time short bursts of agony compared to the continuous wail from before. Snapping sounds accompanied each new cry.

I spun to Dustkicker. “Get me out of this thing, we need to go!”

“I... I...”

“NOW!”

He nodded and took to my straps with shaking hooves. Even I could tell he was taking too long, the fear getting to him.

The snapping stopped, and Gristle's sobs were all that remained. A final, single ripping sound echoed through the tunnel, and then even his crying ceased.

Once more all that could be heard was the jangling as Dustkicker frantically tried to release me. I was left staring straight at the darkness, which is when I first saw it. The maw that has followed me since I escaped that mineshaft. It was flecked with red and hanging in the blackness, seemingly suspended by no living beast, as if it belonged to the dark itself.

And then, slowly but surely, the light that surrounded us started to be pushed back. I don't know how else to describe it. The shadows around the edge of our corona started to move closer, pressing in against the brightness. The jaws came with it, shining white razors of teeth, grinning as it moved to devour us both.

I will not pretend I was honourable. I will not write a lie, write that I told Dustkicker to leave without me. In fact I told him the opposite – that he had to stay, had to free me. That he couldn't leave me down here with that encroaching thing. I would have preferred us both be swallowed by the blackness that for him to give up and run. I didn't want to die as Gristle had. Alone.

Dustkicker couldn't bring himself to abandon me, and it's him I have to thank that I'm writing this at all. I don't know that, had our situations been reversed, I would have done the same.

“Hurry up!” I cried, my voice shrill.

“I'm nearly there, hang on.”

The teeth loomed ever closer as our light dwindled. “Dustkicker, come on!”

“Got it!” he yelled triumphantly, pulling the last of the leather straps free and taking off up the tunnel. I skittered round the end of the cart, only to find myself jerked back, slamming against it. “The screw!”

The shadows were nearly upon me. This close, I could feel the cold in their depths. And yet Dustkicker was still here. From where he stood his horn shone, blazingly bright, fixed on the screw that held me tight. The second it was free I shrugged clear of the bracer which hit the floor with a loud, reverberating clang. I wasted no time in tearing up the tunnel, escaping just as the first wisps of darkness began caressing the back of my hooves. Any later and I would have shared Gristle's grim fate.

The batteries in my helmet died halfway up the tunnel. They shouldn’t have done – there was a whole day’s worth of power left in them when we departed that morning – but not much that happened in that tunnel made sense. It was only half a second before Dustkicker illuminated his horn, but it was quick.

Tendrils wrapped themselves around me, circling my legs and torso. I shouted out but more grabbed my muzzle, holding it shut and preventing further shouts. Its touch was icy cold and immaterial, even as I struggled it felt like I was barely being held at all. Before it could drag me back into the tunnel Dustkicker’s horn finally lit up, surging with light and saving me for the second time.

He never told me what he saw, but his eyes went wide and his mouth hung open as he turned to look at me, at the thing that had grabbed me. The light was too much for it though, its coils retreating back into the safety of the depths below.

And now there was a repeating slamming sound from the bottom of the shaft, like metal against the walls, moving closer each time. We broke into a run, what else could we do? Neither of us had any desire to see what was causing it.

The noise moved faster than we did, and even as we turned that final corner into the sunlit opening it was hot on our heels. With a final crash the wall behind us shook, and as Dustkicker practically dragged me out I risked a look back. Among the cloud of settling dust was a hunk of twisted metal. Our mine cart. And behind them were the teeth, melting back into the blackness of the tunnel, dragging the cart’s remains with it. They were still smiling.

***

We never set foot in a mine again, both quitting on the spot. Our story was that Gristle had run off into the darkness and disappeared, leaving us stranded. When the manager asked if we would show him where, we kindly told him he could go fuck himself and that we'd never return for love or money.

I think we were probably under suspicion for a while, given Gristle's history, but there was no evidence and his body was never found. It wasn't as though we could have buried him, not under six feet of solid rock without leaving a mark. He'd vanished, along with the mine cart. Soon enough the authorities backed off and we were back to our lives.

Or what was left of them. It wasn't done with us yet.

Dustkicker didn't last long. Four months or so. I hope it was quick; hanging can go either way. I guess he thought it was the only way to finally escape it, but I think he made a mistake. Death is, after all, an unending darkness. When I found him swinging gently from the rafters, eyes bulging and tongue swollen, his expression was one of pure horror. It's probably that look that's kept me from doing it myself.

I decided to finally document this today, because a week ago my lights started going out. One by one, they go out, and each time the dark gets a little closer. It's done waiting. Perhaps it was building up its strength, perhaps it's just run out of patience, but each night more and more flicker and die. It's coming for me, and I don't know whether to wait for the inevitable or do something about it.

This probably won't be found until it's too late. Either I've gone missing or turned up dead, though the end result will be the same, no matter what.

So you should be scared of the dark, because it's not going to stop after it's done with me. Watch your windows at night, keep your lights on, and hope against hope that you never see its teeth. Once it's shown you them, there's no hope for you.