Silent Ponyville: Reunion

by Chapter 17

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Sex, Crossover, Silent Hill
Length: 198798

Lance Strongshy subjects himself to a mind delve to try and salvage the wreckage of his medical career

When Lance Strongshy's medical career is endangered due to relentless nightmares depriving him of sleep, his daughter Fluttershy once again overlooks the horrible past she suffered at his hooves and enlists the help of her friends to cure him. But, when the only sufficiently expedient solution turns out to be a certain spell that Twilight was instructed to never cast again, it becomes uncertain if their efforts will save him, or utterly destroy him.

A sequel to JakeHeritagu's Silent Ponyville 2, read that first if you haven't already: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/4868/Silent-Ponyville-2

And THAT one is the sequel to JakeHeritagu's Silent Ponyville so if you haven't read either here's where you should start: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/106/Silent-Ponyville

(First cover art by http://manwhomurderedtime.deviantart.com/ )
(Current cover art by http://www.fimfiction.net/user/SamRose )

Published 2012-03-10 18:24:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-11-29 05:09:47 UTC

Part 2

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

The fear of loss tends to create fear of the truth.

Part 2

The quiet hilltop proved not so quiet as Dash's story spanned the time it took for their sun set admiring to turn into star gazing.

"And then Soarin did this psycho fast corkscrew, then did a u-turn, and was able to double back soon enough to actually fly through the spiral of storm clouds he'd just made before they dissipated!"  She narrated excitedly as she zoomed about in the air doing a miniature recreation of the maneuvers.

"I bet that trick would look even better with a rainbow trail!"  Fluttershy suggested from her spot lying on the grass with her hooves folded beneath her.

"Yeah...heh...yeah it would actually..." She replied, eyes drifting contemplatively to the side as a cocky grin snuck onto her face, "I should practice that one a bit...nothing I can really show off since it's Soarin's trick but it sounds like a good challenge."

"I'm sure you can do it Rainbow Dash...and um...I'm sorry to interrupt your story, if you're not done yet that is, but...we need to talk."  The gentle mare's tone turned quite serious.

"Oh, sure, what's up?"  Four cyan hooves touched down on the grass next to her and Fluttershy was joined by her marefriend lying at her side.

"I told you not to hurt nurse Soft Cure, and you said you wouldn't, but then you did anyway.  Why?"  She asked quite directly.

"No, I said I wouldn't give her a set of bruises to match the ones she gave you, and I didn't."  The still fresh memory of backhoofing the intruder put a smile on her face.  Fluttershy sighed sadly and looked downward briefly.

"Dash...you know what I meant.  You heard me plain and clear and you just didn't listen.  I want to know why."

The saddened look on her face sobered Rainbow Dash's expression lightning fast, "Well if you walked in on some pony beating me up how would you handle it?"

"Um...I would try to protect you of course, and if I had no choice but to hurt the other pony to do it, I would.  But if you told me not to hurt them and had the situation under control, I'd listen to you."

"What if that pony had been using me as a punching bag when I was a little filly though?  Wouldn't you think she deserved a little payback?"

"Maybe so."  Fluttershy admitted, "But that doesn't change the fact that I would still listen to you if you told me to stop and weren't in any obvious danger Rainbow Dash.  I know it made you angry, and you had every right to feel that way, but it...it kind of hurt me that you didn't trust my judgement...or just didn't care."

Any enjoyment drawn from having retaliated earlier that day instantly vanished as Fluttershy uttered that sentence.  Dash hadn't even thought of it that way and the thought that she had hurt her dear marefriend really stung.  She opened her mouth to explain herself but no further words of adequate quality to defend her own actions came to mind before she closed it and looked away toward the ground.

"I...I just..." She gave a frustrated sigh, "You're right.  I'm sorry Fluttershy.  I just got so mad seeing that and I couldn't think of anything but putting a hoof right through her face.  I guess I only used protecting you as an excuse to do it...even though you really did have things under control.  I know if you really do ever need my help you'll ask for it, you're your own mare and I never meant to make it seem like I thought otherwise."

Fluttershy gave as warm a smile as her bruised cheeks would tolerate and then placed her hoof atop Dash's, "Thank you Rainbow Dash."

Her rose colored eyes looked back to Fluttershy's and she returned the smile, scooting over to snuggle up against her as the night air cooled around them, "What was she doing there in the first place anyway?  I caught a little snip of what you were talking about before I saw you all bruised up and my vision went red, but nothing I could put together."

"Oh...um...well...it wasn't...I mean...um..."  She stuttered as her eyes flitted about, attracting Rainbow Dash's curiosity.

"C'mon, what was it?"  She repeated.

"It's...it's my father."

The cyan pegasus' eyes widened before narrowing in displeasure at the mention of that...thing that dared call itself a pony, "What about your father?"

"He's having...nightmares..."

Now her face turned blank, "Nightmares?"

"Y-yes."

"...like yours and Pinkie's?"

"I suppose they'd have to be...if they're keeping him from sleeping...like they are."

...

Rainbow Dash, when asked later in life, would find it difficult to recall any other time she had laughed harder then she did after being informed of the poetic justice taking place.

"And this is why I wasn't looking forward to telling you.  It's not funny!"  Fluttershy retorted with a hoofstomp as she watched her marefriend rolling in the grass holding her sides and kicking her back legs through her peals of laughter.

After a few moments and substantial effort Dash was able to calm down enough to speak, wiping tears from her eyes as she did, "Why not?  If anypony has it coming, it's him!"

"You don't understand!  When Pinkie and I had our nightmares we had plenty of help to cover for us, but who can possibly just take over for the best doctor Cloudsdale's ever seen?  This is more than just his well being at stake here!" Fluttershy looked down again, "And apparently I triggered it somehow when we went to the hospital..."

Dash stopped laughing.  She rolled over back onto her hooves and stood up again, brushing some grass off her shoulders before speaking, "Fluttershy, please don't do this again.  You're not responsible for his issues, no matter how much you might feel otherwise, especially not after what you went through to make peace with your past."

The gentle yellow mare wanted to object again but thought better than to derail the conversation away from the topic she was interested in pursuing, "Maybe I'm not.  But I still think we should help him somehow."

Rainbow Dash shook her head, "I still don't understand how you can care about him but...if it's what you really want..."

Fluttershy nodded.

"...then I can't really just leave you hanging." She once again took her spot lying next to her, "But have you really thought this through yet?  I mean...we only really know one thing that helps with nightmares like that you know."

"I know...I know...I don't want to even think about doing that yet though.  Couldn't we talk to Twilight?  We told her how terrible that spell is, maybe she can find something less...um...bad."

"Yeah, that's a good first step.  But what if she can't?  If you're serious about this, we need to decide how far we're willing to ask her to go and then not hesitate if the time comes."

She regarded her with a bit of suspicion, "Rainbow Dash, are you doing this because you want to help me or because you want to hurt him?"

"I'm doing this because I want to help you, and hurt him." The cyan pegasus replied without a hint of shame in her voice.

Fluttershy practically jumped to her feet, not having expected such a frank and malicious admission from her about something so deadly serious as the fog shrouded nightmare that had almost ripped them apart, "That's...that's an awful thing to say Dash!  I can't even begin to describe how horrible that place was!  To send another pony there knowing full well what will happen out of spite is just...just...mean!"

Rainbow Dash flopped over on her side as the mare she was leaning against stood up, leaving her to look at Fluttershy sideways, "Well maybe that horrible place should be visited by a horrible pony that deserves it for once?"

Fluttershy silently bit her lip and looked away as her marefriend got back to her feet with a soft grunt.

"Look, here's the truth, no sugar coating.  You can't say word one to convince me that your dad is anything more than a filly beating monster who lets others use his reputation as an excuse to help him get away with it.  I don't care how much your mother's dying affected him, what he did was still wrong!  So the thought of him getting his flank put through the wringer in there holds a lot of appeal for me.  I'll help you, because I love you, but I am not going to fake being nice about it when it comes to him."  Rainbow Dash explained.  Her voice was stern but Fluttershy knew it was just because they were discussing her father and not that she was actually angry with her.

"I...I guess that's fair enough...but I need you to promise not to lay a hoof on my father or nurse Soft Cure again, okay?"

Rainbow Dash pondered the request for a moment, "How about my knees or elbows?  Those technically aren't hooves."

Fluttershy was not amused, "Rainbow Dash..."

"Maybe just follow them around with a lightning cloud?  I mean, no part of me would even be touching them if they got zapped!"

"Dash..."

"How about just a thunder cloud I can scare them with?"

Okay, now she was a little amused, "Hehehe-I mean, no!"

"Rain cloud!  They're gonna be so wet every time they go outside!" Rainbow Dash persisted enthusiastically while rubbing her hooves together in a faux villainous fashion.

Fluttershy was forced to bring a hoof to her mouth to stifle her giggling before she aimed a smirk at the rainbow maned aviator and nuzzled up against her, giving her the most diabetes inducing pleading look she could muster, "Pretty pleeeeaaaaase?"

"Oh...that is just not fair!" Dash lamented as those formidable blue eyes were unleashed, prompting Fluttershy to then mercilessly flutter her eyelashes, "Argh!  Okay okay you win!"

"Always works." She boasted with a smug grin, "Though, you know, I don't think I'll get mad about a raincloud following nurse Soft Cure every great once in a while."

"Heh, I'll remember that."  Dash replied as she coaxed Fluttershy's head upwards with a hoof and then shared a soft lingering kiss with her, both mares closing their eyes and basking in their love under the light of Luna's moon.  After their lips parted they were left to gaze into each other's eyes adoringly, "I missed you Fluttershy, I hope you can come with me to the next show."

"I missed you too Rainbow Dash, I really did."

...

"Um...I do need to ask you to do one last favor tomorrow though...I don't think you're going to like it..."  Fluttershy said, suddenly quite timid again.

"Hey, don't worry, whatever it is I'm here for ya!"  Dash replied with gusto.

"Well...um...you see..."

This wasn't his bed.  This wasn't even his house.  What was this?!  He looked around in confusion to see he was in a giant rectangular cage of some sort, the walls made from bars that gave it the look of a jail cell, the floors and ceiling both made of grating.  The metal was bent, dented, scratched and rusty as though nopony had maintained it for a great length of time.  From the sparse light of a single lantern hanging from the middle of the cage's ceiling he could make out a pole extending downward from each corner, apparently the only things keeping the entire assembly from plunging into the inky darkness below.

He was currently seated in the corner, and shook his head to make sure he was seeing everything right as he got back onto his hooves.  The motion caused the cage to sway slightly, setting the latern to gently swinging back and forth and making the shadows around him dance.  His eyes were drawn to an object in the center of the cage that he wasn't entirely sure had been there before.  It was a gurney with one pony occupant lying deathly still, their features hidden by the dirty, old looking sheet that covered the entire thing.  He swallowed nervously and began to slowly approach it, compelled to do so by a sudden curiosity that he would otherwise probably ignore in a situation as strange as this one.  Perhaps in some bid to see who it was below the sheet he cautiously extended a hoof, aiming to pull the mold ridden fabric off the dead pony, but before he could do so a thick black length of some sort passed down over his field of view and he was suddenly being strangled.

Whatever it was that had him by the neck yanked him backwards off his hooves, the bars of the wall slamming painfully into his back as he was held tight against them.  His windpipe wasn't completely shut, but he was still having to try with all his might to pull air into his lungs.  If he was merely alarmed before, what began to happen before his eyes threw him into all out panic.  A disgusting black liquid began to seep out of the dead pony beneath the sheets with a sickening squelching sound.  The black stains it formed started to spread outward in trails as though it were more a swarm of insects with a purpose than simply another liquid, and then the pony he thought to be dead began to slowly writhe.

Something hit the outside of the bars directly behind him with a metallic clang.  He shivered as he suddenly felt hot breath tickle his back, the vocal cords that the air was being forced through sounding otherworldly and unnatural but vaguely feminine.  He tried in his terror to turn his head but found it impossible to do, especially after the thing around his neck contracted in response, briefly shutting his windpipe completely in warning.

The pony beneath the sheets turned its head upward, presenting the facial profile of a mare as it opened its mouth.  He heard a high pitched wail that seemed to come to his ears from a great distance in all directions at once.  It was subdued and relatively quiet yet it still managed to painfully pierce through his skull for unknown reasons.  Then came the scrape of metal just behind his head as the thing holding him against the bars moved.  Seconds later he drowned out the distant wail with his own strangled cry of pain as an angular, metallic spike erupted from his chest.

He was released and fell limply to the rusted metal grate below him that then shattered with the impact of his weight and released him into the void...

Lance's body shivered hard as his bloodshot eyes opened.  He looked around in a panic, suddenly wanting to start running and never stop.  His hooves carried him two steps on pure instinct before his mind became fully conscious and took control again.  The mental fog lifted and he realized he was in the study of the Cloudsdale home he and his late wife had bought over two decades ago.  The stacks of papers he had been looking over on his desk before dozing off had been scattered in every direction when he had stood up while still half conscious.  He let out an exhausted groan and looked up at the clock, blinking the last traces of sleep away until he could see it clearly.  A mere hour and a half had passed since he had last checked it, and he wasn't even sure of when he had fallen asleep.

His headache was predictably back with a vengeance.  Fortunately the bottle of pills he didn't even bother to keep stashed in a drawer here at home sat invitingly atop his desk.  He retrieved another double dose and shortly after he had swallowed them there came a loud knocking on his front door.

"That better not be Soft Cure again..." He muttered while exiting the room and heading down the stairwell.  He heard a second set of knocks, a third, and then a fourth before his front door was even in sight.

"I'm coming I'm coming!"  He shouted irritably as he approached and put his eye up to the peephole to see who his visitor was.  It was a sky blue pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and red rose eyes looking none too pleased to be there.  That face was oddly familiar...he could swear he'd seen her in all the papers a while back but couldn't quite place why she had been there.  Deciding to just wing it instead of keeping his visitor waiting any longer he opened the door, having to squint as sunlight flooded into the much darker interior.

"Can I help you?"

"Wow, you do look like something the cat dragged in."  Rainbow Dash said immediately as she looked him over from head to hoof.

The corners of Lance's mouth were tugged downward in a hurry, "Ma'am, I'm not exactly the thin skinned type, but I'd rather you just state your business if you have any instead of just standing here commenting on my appearance."

"Oh don't worry, I've got business with you.  Name's Rainbow Dash."  She replied as she looked back to his face.

The name finally clicked Lance's memory into proper order, "Oh, you're the winner of that Young Flyer's Competition everypony couldn't stop talking about last year...and an element if I recall correctly.  What brings you here?"

"Fluttershy sent me."

He raised an eyebrow briefly but then connected the dots in his head.  Of course she would know his daughter, she was an element too.

"I see.  Miss Dash, my daughter and I no longer keep in touch and I have nothing to say to her.  If you have no other business with me I will be going back to my studies." He replied with an even, professional tone.

"Yeah, I know, that's why she sent me instead of coming herself.  Can I come in?"  Rainbow Dash asked in reply.

"And for what reason would I invite you in Miss Dash?"  Lance asked rather reasonably considering he had never before talked to this mare.

"Because you probably don't want to discuss your little nightmare problem out on the street like this."

The good doctor's eyes shot open in shock and he was left without words for a few moments before he remembered himself and the situation he was currently facing, "Come in."

He opened the door and let her step past before closing it behind her and asking the question most immediately on his mind.

"Now if you would be so kind, could you tell me exactly how you found out about my condition?"

"Your nurse paid Fluttershy a visit and tried getting the details of a certain conversation out of her with her hooves.  I guess she's good at beating little fillies into silence but not so much at beating information out of full grown ponies.  Why the hay is it so dark in here by the way?"  She asked, going off on a tangent after she finished answering.

"I see..."  Lance ignored the last question and moved on, her apparent knowledge of Soft Cure's past with his daughter having made him curious, "Exactly how much of my daughter's past do you know about?"

"Pretty much all the juicy bits that would land you in jail if she didn't love you enough to ask that I keep them to myself."  The glare on her face as she replied made it plain that she was extending some effort in not throttling him just thinking about it.

"And who are you to her that she would trust you with such sensitive information?"  He asked as he stepped closer to demonstrate his lack of fear of the cyan pegasus.

"I'm her marefriend."

Lance blinked once before another set of dots connected, "Oh...a filly fooler is she?  I guess she still hates colts." He remarked with something nearing amusement.

Rainbow Dash remembered being told of the particular bit of abuse that had led her marefriend down that path.  It made her so happy to have Fluttershy in her life, but knowing that she would not have been there but for the abuse she suffered at this bastard's hooves tore her up inside.  Having it thrown in her face so flippantly, by him of all ponies, made her want to beat his face in until nopony could recognize him through the mess she had made of him.  But the element of loyalty had a promise to keep.  Instead of throwing hooves in his face she let her mouth keep doing the talking.

"You know what?  Let's not talk about Fluttershy anymore.  I made a promise to her that I wouldn't lay a hoof on you, and hearing you talk about what you did to her like it's just what you had for lunch the other day is making it seriously difficult to keep it."  She requested harshly while staring death at him.

"So you know about my daughter's past, and you know about my condition, but you apparently haven't yet told anypony else about either.  So why are you here exactly, or have I guessed right and should just go get my checkbook?"  He asked, staring right back at her with nary a hint of intimidation.

"I'm here because Fluttershy, despite everything, wants to help you, and my friend Twilight Sparkle knows a spell that might do the trick.  If you're interested, we can fly to Ponyville right now.  Fluttershy will be staying home in her cottage way outside town today just so you don't have to worry about running into her.  I'll be outside waiting for five minutes and then I'm leaving.  Make it quick."  She stepped past him and stepped out the door, slamming it behind her hard enough to rattle the hinges and make Lance wince.

After pausing to make sure the wall shaking door slam hadn't knocked anything over he was left to sit in the middle of his livingroom and weigh his options.  On one hoof his daughter's marefriend seemed to unabashedly despise him, and that did not exactly engender trust.  On the other, he had learned long ago that ponies intending harm would rather act in secret instead of declaring their hatred to the object of their malice and making themselves stand out for scrutiny.  Rainbow Dash didn't strike him as the sharpest tool in the shed so if she had really meant to destroy him he felt reasonably sure she would have tried already.

There was also the issue of Twilight Sparkle to consider.  Rainbow Dash was kind of sketchy in this instance but miss Sparkle was the well known apprentice to Princess Celestia herself, yet another element of harmony, and reportedly a scholar much like himself to boot, though obviously in a different field of study.  Between the young flyer champion's honesty, hostile as it may be, and the royal apprentice's reputation alone, this proposed solution was beginning to look legitimate enough to look into.  His schedule was clear thanks to his indefinite 'vacation' anyway, so at the very least he could fly over and see Twilight Sparkle for a consultation.

His mind made up, he stepped out his front door to see Rainbow Dash waiting there for him as promised, "Alright."

"What the hay does this spell do that's so special it can't be replicated by anything else?!"  Twilight Sparkle shouted to nopony as she threw her hooves up in the air in despair.  The library was a mess of books once more, each and every scattered tome regarding nothing but magic that had any little thing at all to do with the pony brain or psyche.  None of them had a spell that were anywhere near what she needed in this case.  Pony psychology was apparently a very delicate thing due to how complicated a functioning mind was, and most of the spells erred on the side of caution, meant to gently prod and influence a mind back into order over a long period of treatment.  The Mind Delve spell was a blunt, unsubtle, explosive sledgehammer in comparison.  After the research she had spent all day pursuing she was becoming convinced that the pony that had concocted such a spell was one of those insane geniuses.

Not in the 'that pony is such a genius that it's insane' sense either, more the 'that pony blew up half a continent just trying to find a way to eat his dinner without first having to fix it' sense.

All the same, the book in which it was written still sat menacingly on her bookshelf.  She peered over at it now in thought.  Had she read everything about the spell?  She did have a habit of only looking through the summary of a spell's purpose, effects, and casting instructions when she was looking for a spell in a hurry.  Perhaps there was some bit of information she could take advantage of in the several pages devoted to providing more details about the spell that a caster might not necessarily have to know in order to just use said spell.  The first time she had used it on Pinkie it had seemed to work well enough, so she hadn't felt obligated to go back and look.  The second time she was even less inspired to do so after her three friends had so adamantly told her never to use it again.  But now it seemed to be the only place left for her to look.

'That book' as she had become accustomed to calling it, as though uttering its true name would summon a fire breathing dragon that hated books right into her library, lit up with magic and levitated over to her.  She opened it and quickly flipped through the pages until she came upon those fateful spell instructions once again.

"Ah, here we go!  Just one page more..."

She flipped the page, and was immediately met with the basic summary of the next spell in the book.

"Huh?  Wait..."

Thinking perhaps this particular book just didn't have the extra pages of information for any spells at all, she flipped another page, only to see the extra pages for this unrelated spell there plain as day.

"That's strange..." She pondered while flipping through the rest of the book then returning to the Mind Delve's page, "Nopony tore it out either...it's just...not here...and it's the only spell in the whole book that doesn't have it!  No history, no notes on proper use or the magical reactions it uses to do what it does...or even who first discovered it..."

The book closed and lowered to the floor at the same time the purple unicorn did so herself, tucking her hooves in beneath her as she let out a frustrated whine at not being able to find a way around this.  Surely the royal library in Canterlot played host to a more robust selection that would more likely have the solution she was seeking but there just wasn't time now!  She looked down at 'that book' and felt like it was mocking her for her defeat.  The only way this could get any worse was if Pin-

"Hey Twilight!  You get any new cookbooks in?  I want to have something new and scrumptious for my next party!" Pinkie Pie said as she pushed the door open and strolled inside.

...why?

Quick as a flash 'that book' was magically yanked behind her out of Pinkie's sight line, "Oh!  Hi Pinkie!  Uh sorry about the mess, guess my studying got out of hand!"  Twilight explained before laughing nervously.

"It's okay, I understand completely!  You oughta see the kitchen at Sugar Cube Corner when I'm improvising together a new recipe!  Flour, eggs, and sugar all over the place!  I practically turn white by the time I'm finished, makes me look like a ghost pony!  It's actually pretty handy at Halloween parties!  But I make sure to only use that flour ghost costume for them, or else ponies would start saying the Sugar Cube Corner is haunted and stop going there, which would make me super sad, and the Cakes super poor!  Though I suppose they'd be super sad too because they were super poor!  Yep, baking sure isn't for the faint of heart!  One slip up and blam, you just-"

"Uh, you said you were looking for a new recipe?  The books about baking should be on that shelf over there."  Twilight interruped the stream of consciousness with a point of her hoof.

"Oh, thanks!" She said before hopping over to investigate, causing the purple coated apprentice to visibly relax.

"Whew...that was a close one-"

"Hey whatcha reading?!" Twilight jumped to her feet as Pinkie's excited voice suddenly came from behind her, as though the pink pony had teleported seconds after she had stopped being directly observed.

"Oh that?  That's nothing you'd be interested in at all, I was just about to put it away in fact!"  The book glowed with magic but was held still beneath a pink hoof.

"Hang on a sec!"

"No no no you don't want to read that!  It's so...so boring!  Yes, boring!  The baking books are over there, they're much more informative and exciting, you should go read them!  And not this book...that is so boring!"  Twilight rambled desperately as the book repeatedly tried to tug itself out from under Pinkie's hoof.

"You're a bad liar silly!  If it's so super boring why've you been trying to hide it since I came in here, is it one of those saucy romance stories I keep catching Rarity read-"  Pinkie's eyes shot open in recognition and she jumped into the air with a large gasp, "Twilight!  Why are you reading this book?!"

Aw, SHOOT!

"Oh uh, no reason!"  Twilight bluffed, eyes flitting back and forth with unease before she attempted a very awkward smile.

"You're not going to cast it on anypony are you?!"  Pinkie asked as she zipped over to stand in front of Twilight.

"I...might have to Pinkie."

"No way!  You can't!" She said as she briskly shook her head.

"Pinkie, have you ever heard of the famous Cloudsdale doctor, Lance Strongshy?" The purple unicorn asked thinking if she perhaps explained herself Pinkie would understand how it had come back to this a little better.

"Yes! ...just now!"  Pinkie replied with a nod.

Twilight groaned and brought a hoof to her face, "Okay, Fluttershy came in this morning and told me that he has been suffering from nightmares not letting him sleep, just like the both of you had been.  It's been affecting his work, badly.  This is an incredibly good doctor we're talking about here Pinkie, nopony can replace him, and every day he can't do his job because of this there might be a pony's life he can't save!"

Pinkie sat wordlessly looking downward, thinking things over for a moment, "Okay...I see your point but....this spell again?"

"Trust me Pinkie, the library is in such a mess because I looked through every single relevant book I had in here, not just books about dreams either!  I poked through pyschology, neurology, the works!  There is no other solution in this library that's as timely as we need it to be.  If I had time to go to Canterlot I would, but Fluttershy came in just this morning apologizing over and over for the short notice before she told me that Rainbow Dash had gone to invite doctor Strongshy over here to see me this afternoon!" Twilight explained while motioning to the large piles of books that were occupying the library floor, "Her face was also kinda bruised up...something about squirrels she said?"

"Aha!  I knew it!  But...wait...how do they know a famous doctor anyway?  And if he's so famous, how come they seemed to be the only ponies in town who know anything about his nightmares?"  Pinkie asked as she looked off in a random direction while the gears in her sugar saturated head turned.

"He's a hero in Cloudsdale and they're both from there so I didn't think it very odd that they knew him really...but you're right about that second part..."  Twilight brought a contemplative hoof to her chin, "From the sound of it he didn't want anypony getting word of it...so why do Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy suddenly know all about it all the way here in Ponyville?"

"You know, this might have something to do with what Fluttershy saw in the other Ponyville.  She hasn't told anypony but Rainbow Dash one thing about it yet."  Pinkie said as she pointed a hoof.

"If that's true, we might want to put a rain check on trying to solve it on our own, out of respect for her wishes."  Twilight replied with a nod.

"Yeah, it's probably for the best..."

With that the library door opened once more, prompting both ponies to shift their attention to the two newcomers.  Lance stood there still looking the worse for wear and next to him stood Rainbow Dash whose face remained determined to make it known to everypony she was standing next to the last stallion on the entire planet that she would ever want to stand next to.

"Here you go.  I'll be outside to make sure nopony interrupts, and to make sure that you leave right after you're done."  Rainbow Dash said to him as Pinkie bounded up.

"Doctor Strongsomething!  Don't worry, we'll go in with you and make sure you don-WOOP!"  Pinkie yelped as she toppled over and began moving along the floor.  She shook the stars out of her eyes and looked to see Rainbow Dash dragging her out by her tail, "Heeeeey!  What are you doing Dashie!?  We can't just-"

Her protests were cut off from Twilight and Lance's ears by the cyan pegasus having pulled Pinkie out of the library entirely and closed the door.  This understandably caused both of them a bit of confusion before they faced back towards one another.

"Good afternoon miss Sparkle."  Lance said with a respectful nod of his head.

"Good afternoon doctor Strongshy."  Twilight replied in kind before her horn lit up and the piles of books moved toward one side of the library to be sorted back onto the shelves later, "Apologies for the mess, I've been in kind of a rush ever since my friend Fluttershy told me you might be coming."

He kept his light surprise in check before it made it to his face.  Apparently this pony didn't know that Fluttershy was his daughter.  If even the pegasus that hated him outside wasn't spreading that bit of information around he didn't want to ruin his good luck and do it himself by accident, "Thank you for seeing me in any case miss Sparkle.  Your rather...unpleasant blue friend out there tells me you might have a spell to treat my problem?"

Twilight bit her lip briefly, "Yes...I do...I'm hesitant to use it to be perfectly honest, but I can't seem to find any alternative that won't take months."

"I don't have that much time to wait." He replied, prompting her to nod.

"I thought as much.  Okay, first I'll use a spell to see the dreams that have been causing all the trouble."  She said as she stepped closer to him.  She closed her eyes and concentrated briefly until the tip of her horn lit up.

"This...might not work, but it's worth a try."  He said as he allowed her to touch the tip against his forehead.

There was nothing in sight.  Absolutely nothing except for the weather worn slab of concrete upon which she sat, suspended by rusted chains from whatever passed for a ceiling that was shrouded by the void of blackness overhead.  The only sounds came from below, far, far below.  They were so distant as to be nearly inaudible, but what she could hear was awful; the faint echoes of hoarse cries of pain, sinister cracking sounds, and the scrape of metal against metal.  There was a grim urge to see what was making these sounds but from her spot trapped upon that slab of concrete at an unknown height there was no way she would ever be able to.

Twilight broke contact with Lance and shook her head, befuddled expression on her face.  While she was thankful for not being mentally assaulted by disturbing images and sensations again,  she did bemoan the lack of information their absence caused.

"You were right...it didn't work quite the same that time.  It was sure wierd and creepy but nothing like what I saw when I looked at the nightmares my friends were having." She said apologetically.

"That doesn't surprise me.  You see miss Sparkle, I only remember the dreams for a few seconds that I can only describe as 'intensely horrific' after waking up, then they quickly fade."  He explained.

"Well that makes sense I suppose...but if you can't remember them, are you sure you need this spell?"  The hesitation she was still feeling was obvious.

"Does this face lie?"  Lance asked as he pointed a hoof at his eyes.  Twilight couldn't help but shake her head in agreement.  Even if she couldn't see the dreams for herself the effect they were having on him was obvious since he looked even worse than either Pinkie or Fluttershy had when they came to her for help.  In fact, her not even being able to see the dreams much less their root causes made him an even more appropriate candidate for a spell meant to dig up unknown psychological issues.

"I really have to warn you though doctor Strongshy...this is not a spell to be trifled with.  Everypony apparently experiences it differently, and it is so intensely unpleasant that my friends requested that I never use it again the last time I cast it on them.  Are you sure you don't want to think this over?  Maybe sleep on it and come back tomorrow?"

"To be frank miss Sparkle I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to coherently think at all if this keeps up.  I'm no stranger to high risk, painful treatment with a longer term benefit that is worth the initial trouble either.  So while you have my thanks for properly informing me of the risks, I'm going to have to ask you to cast your spell anyway."  Lance replied with certainty.

Twilight let out a nervous breath, "You're sure then?"

"I am." He repeated and closed his eyes.

He'd had more than fair warning about this.  If he was willing to take on whatever risks the spell presented she couldn't exactly just say no, and so she closed her eyes again.  Her horn came to life and as a sense of dread washed over her she placed the tip back upon his forehead...

Part 3

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Real Enough.

Part 3

What...what just happened?

Lance's eyes drifted open to see he was in a darkened room lit only by what scant beams managed to slip in through the gaps of the boarded up windows.  He was lying on his side down on the floor for some reason, and there he stayed for a few moments as he tried to piece recent events back together in his head.

There was the trip to Ponyville, walking into the library, talking to Celestia's apprentice, then closing his eyes waiting for her to cast the spell, then...waking up to this.  What was this anyway?  He got back to his hooves and stood to look around.

It was the library but...it wasn't the library at the same time.  As he had noticed already, the windows were boarded up from the inside.  The shelves were empty, instead looking like they had been turned into makeshift cages, covered in improvised bars of sturdy twigs tied with twine.  He looked up to see a collection of similarly constructed empty cages hanging from the ceiling.  Not a book in sight.  The colored carvings and panelings in the walls that had once brightened up the place were now faded and mostly worn away, almost unnoticeable next to the various trails and holes suggesting a termite infestation that had long ago run its course.  It looked like nopony had even set hoof in the building for twenty years or more.

This was...not right.  There was no way this could have been the library of Twilight Sparkle.  A scholar of her caliber would never allow this place to descend into such a dilapidated state.  It wasn't just dilapidation either; the cages were clearly a sign of some squatter who had occupied the place, hopefully long gone by now.

Perhaps in her inexperience she had botched the casting, and accidentally altered it into a teleportation spell...that...just so happened to send him to another building...that had the exact same structural layout as the library...

Yeah...that didn't sound ridiculous.  At all.

He rolled his eyes at his own thought process.  While he was at it he might as well ponder whether or not he had just been transported hundreds of years in the future...though he had to admit that seemed the more plausible of the two.  Was this even worth mulling over right now?

Wait...the spell had supposedly been mental in nature...so was any of this even real to begin with or was it just some kind of dream he was having?  He brought his hoof up to his face and gave his leg just above the wrist joint an experimental bite, resulting in a wince of pain on his part.  Alright, he seemed to be lucid enough to control his actions, and although it wasn't a very scientific method the bite to his leg was enough to convince him he was awake.  As far as he could tell, this was real, and indeed worth mulling over.

The next thing Lance grew curious about was his exact location.  If he could just get a glance at the nearby buildings it would probably be enough to go on, if his memory of the view of Ponyville from the sky was reliable.  He approached one of the boarded up windows and peeked out of one of the gaps to find the view wasn't very helpful at all.  The only thing he could see was the tall, ill tended grass extending out for a distance before a thick fog hid it from view entirely.  This wouldn't be much of a problem though, all he had to do was step outside and take a few steps away until another building came into view.  After rounding the corner into the small entryway he brought his hoof up to the door knob.

It proved uncooperative, refusing to move with an obstinate click.  He tried turning it a few more times just to make sure it wasn't just sticking on something but got the same result each time.  Okay, the door was locked. A tad bit more inconvenient but still nothing to fret over.  He would just look for the key.  It had to be inside the library...cage...house...thing somewhere, else how would anypony be able to get out?  That aside, even if he couldn't find a key he could just buck the door down, but it was still a bit early to resort to something so drastic.

The sparse light was difficult to search by, so he gave thanks that this room didn't appear to have anything in the way of small nooks to check.  The cages in the walls were all empty, as were the ones hanging from the ceiling, and there was nothing on the...on the...what was that?  'Random assortment of wood nailed to a stand' was the closest description he could think of.  Was that supposed to have been a table?

"Focus." He told himself with a shake of his head to get himself back on track.  There was nothing in this room immediately useful, and definitely no key, so the stairs were naturally his next destination.  There were two sets, or at least there had been two sets.  One was missing entirely, resulting in a tall dim room with a boarded up door fifteen feet up on one wall.  Confounding as it was it at least simplified things somewhat.  He ascended the other set of stairs, finding a very out of place door of iron bars greeting him at the top.

Beyond the bars the lighting was even more sparse than below, having just one boarded up window from the loft above for light to seep through.  The loft itself was enclosed inside a panel of gated chain link fence that was bolted over it, which was just as out of place as the bars currently keeping him out.  The rest of the room was too dark to tell much of anything about, and he did not look forward to searching for a small key in such conditions.  Fortunately something then caught his eyes and gave him an alternative to poking around the dark with his hooves.

It was a quick glint of light off of something metallic that was hanging off a nail in one of the boards covering the loft window.  Normally he would consider the prospect of going after something just because it was shiny a bit simple minded, but from his spot stuck inside this 'unlibrary' he couldn't find it in himself to care.  The door of iron bars remained in his way though.  Looking down, he saw a simple bar latch holding it closed from the other side.  He tried fitting a hoof through to no avail, then tried again with his snout and failed once more.

"Hrm..."  There was nothing downstairs both small enough to fit through the bars but strong enough to lift the latch.  Perhaps if there had been a horizontal crossbar in the door at any point he might have been able to untie some of the twine and use it as a makeshift pulley but there was no crossbar to be seen.  He knew one more, much simpler solution, but he was hesitant to use it if there was anything else to be done.  He didn't seem to have any choice though.

Lanced pressed an ear to the bars to listen.  Dead silence.

"Anypony there?  Anypony at all?"  He asked the heavy darkness on the other side.  It did not answer.  Nopony was there...

Or at least nopony answered...

"...Alright then."

He extended one of his wings, lining it up between two of the bars next to the latch before carefully sidestepping toward the door with his body lowered.  It fit between them easily, and the bar was soon resting atop the thickest part of his wing near the shoulder.  With the remainder of his wing extended out into the quiet darkness he pushed upward.  The bar came up a small distance quite easily but then stopped.  He was about to bemoan his luck, but after giving it another push he found the latch bar wasn't hopelessly stuck on something, just very resistant to moving, probably attached to the wall by a loose bolt that was rusted over.  This would take just a bit longer than he had thought it would.  He pushed upward again, maintaining the force this time.

The latch kept moving slowly upward as his wing remained pushed into the darkened room.

Bit by bit.

Little by little.

He was almost the-

"Agh!"  He exclaimed suddenly and practically stumbled away from the door.

Lance looked back and flapped his perfectly intact wing a few times to work the pain off.  A slight movement on his part had pinched a nerve in just the right spot to send a harmless but irritating flash of pain through his shoulder.  Unsurprising really, wings were made for flying, not pushing up stubborn, rusted over latch bars.

Hoping he wouldn't accidentally do that again he unfolded his wing and got back to it.  It took only seconds more before the rust finally gave way and the bar moved aside easily, letting him push the door open with a soft creak.  Even with his eyes adjusted to the low light he couldn't make out anything about the state of the room except for the small bit of stairs leading up to the chain link panel gate.  This gate was also latched but fortunately it was neither rusted over nor on the opposite side of the gate, giving him easy access to the loft.  He trotted over to the window to claim his conspicuously well polished prize.

It was a silver pocket watch hanging from a matching chain.  The engraving on its covering face depicted a staff with a single serpent coiled around it.  He reached up and pulled the chain free from the nail, and noticed the sound of something small being tossed about inside as it moved.  A press of the button on top unlatched the cover and let the small object drop with a clink to the floor.  Even in the dim light he could see it was a key, hopefully the one he sought.

After grabbing the key he examined the watch, finding that both hands were stone still.  He brought it to his ear and gave it a shake to find that the key hadn't been the only thing rattling around inside of it.  It made enough noise for him to conclude it was broken entirely.  Though he couldn't think of many uses for a broken watch he still didn't want to just leave it there.  Perhaps he just liked the look of it, maybe it reminded him of something, it might have even just been because it was the only clean thing he had found in this whole building, but for one reason or another he felt compelled to take it with him.  The chain proved too short to loop around his neck, so both chain and key found themselves gripped in his mouth as he turned to leave...or at least started to leave.  There was something lying at the base of the wall next to the stairs that he hadn't seen on his way in.

Heavy chains littered the floor, reddened with what he hoped was just rust.  Attached to them were a few fasteners that looked to have been pulled out of the wall.  He turned back to the boarded up window and noticed another somewhat alarming detail.  The boards currently over it seemed fresher, less weathered.  The only few pieces that looked old enough to match everything else were all broken off before they got so much as a foot in from the window's edge.  There was something else too...even in the dim light, if he squinted he could make out words crudely scratched into one of the newer boards...

'It got out.'

Suddenly he found himself leaving.

He made sure to hurry back across the darkened room with just enough restraint to keep from tripping over some unseen object before he hurriedly fumbled with trying to get the latch back on as he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.  He made it about halfway down the stairs before he stopped to look back, feeling first an odd sense of relief that the door was locked and out of sight around the bend, and then puzzlement at his own actions.

What the hay had just happened?  Had he really just panicked his way out of a dark room that he was reasonably sure had been entirely empty?

"Just jumping at your own shadow."  He chided himself, voice muffled by the chain and key gripped in his mouth.  Normally he wasn't the type of pony to talk to himself, but it seemed to calm his nerves now.  Even if that whole set piece up there wasn't just the efforts of some squatter deciding to mess with the heads of the next occupant before they left, there was no logical reason to let it get to his head.  If 'it' had actually gotten 'out', then 'it' would be 'out' and not 'in' where he was.  Besides that, there had been enough time after 'it' got out for somepony to board up the windows again.  Had 'it' desired to get out so badly that it broke out of its chains and bashed through the first set of boards there was no reason to think it would just stick around afterward.

Lance descended back to the main room and went straight to the door.  To his relief the key fit, and after giving it a turn the door knob was far more cooperative.  He could leave whenever he wanted to now, but he had a little something else to address first.  Though he did want to take his broken watch with him he didn't want to have to carry it in his mouth the whole time either.  Thankfully there seemed to be more than enough material around that would be useful in fixing that problem.

He broke a small section of the twig caging off one of the walls before sorting out the wood bits and unwinding the twine.  With a bit of difficulty in the low light he tied one end of the twine around the clasp at the end of the chain, and the other around the loop at the top of the watch.  It fit around his neck now and left his mouth free, so while he would be sure to replace the length of string with something more resilient later on the problem was at least taken care of for now.

When he approached the door again he noticed that the key was gone from the lock, even though he was sure he had left it in there.  Thinking it had simply fallen out without his noticing he looked down to the floor, but it wasn't there either.  It was like it had just vanished into thin air.  Was he locked inside all over again?  He raised his hoof back to the knob to find his worries unfounded as it turned just as easily as before.  Being able to open the door was what mattered most,  there was no sense in wasting more time here worrying about a missing key he didn't even need anymore.

The door clicked shut behind him and left him alone outside.  It was much colder out in the open, the foggy air heavy with the chill of a late autumn awaiting the winter just round the bend.  One thing that hadn't changed from inside the tree house though was the complete lack of sound around him.  Being no stranger to the ground, Lance had expected to hear the sounds of nature, or ponies talking as they went about their business off in the distance, even just the chirp of a bird overhead.  But there was nothing.  Just grass and the fog...and this house.

He took a few steps away then turned and looked up to take a gander at it from outside.  The leaves had all fallen off and the tree was now a deathly grey color.  Dark green parasitic vines crept up from the base and only added to the library's sense of desolation.

Even if he found that this place was indeed actually Ponyville, knowing that would do nothing to answer the new question that sprang to mind...what had happened here?!

The sound of wood creaking and then snapping followed by rapidly retreating hooves suddenly came out of the fog behind him  He spun around and spent a few moments looking for any movement in the mist before calling out.

"Who's there?  Hello?!"

No answer.

He stood rooted to the spot for a while as he found himself resistant to investigating what had made that noise.  What else was he going to do though?  Go back inside the house so useful that the only valuable thing inside it had been something that let him leave?

"Relax."  He reminded himself.  Those were hooves running off, that meant a pony.  It was just a pony.  There was no reason to be nervous.  Lance pushed forward into the fog, aimed in the direction he had first heard the sound coming from.  Instead of buildings as he had expected, he only encountered more and more grass.  Was he even in town at all?  This made it look like he was in the middle of a field...

At last something broke up the monotony of the grass.  A dirt path came into view and it was the best thing he'd seen since waking up.  Paths lead somewhere, hopefully somewhere that wasn't so strange in this case!  As he closed the distance he spotted a small pointed wooden sign on the other side as well, holding even more promise of finally revealing exactly where he was.  He eagerly crossed the path to get a better look at it.  The first detail that popped out at him was that, judging from the empty nail holes and the splintering of wood, there had been two signs pointing opposite directions but one had just been wrenched off, partially explaining the noise he had heard.  He brought his attention back to the remaining sign.

"...Ponyville?"  He read it aloud, scarcely believing it.  The building he had just left had been structurally identical to the library he knew for a fact was in town.  All the same, here he was reading a sign giving him directions how to get to town.  So he wasn't in town after all...but how the heck did an entire building just up and move to another location?  Confusing as it was, at least it told him where he wasn't, and now he had a path to follow.  None of his questions had been answered but his situation had still improved a bit all the same.

Just as he was about to set off down the path another sound from the fog startled him, this one of much more consequence than breaking wood and hoof steps.  It sounded like a huge landslide back in the direction of the library that sent a tremor through the earth beneath him.  The library was familiar territory to him so he felt far less hesitation before trotting back the way he had come.  But what he found was not familiar territory.  It wasn't even territory in any sense.

The library and the entire visible landscape in either direction were all gone.  Lance stood with mouth agape looking into the yawning, fog shrouded chasm that had replaced them.

He tried not to ponder his situation too much as he trotted down the path.  It was a remarkably easy feat with the constant distraction of the odd sounds that had started coming from the fog all around him.  None of them were particularly threatening, just the odd snap of a twig, or what sounded like hoof steps on grass, or the rustling of unseen foliage.  They didn't strike him as just a part of the ambiance though.  Instead of pondering his overall situation he found himself just trying to figure out exactly why these sounds were starting to bother him so much.

They were out of place, he concluded.  Just like the bars and chain link fence in the library.  No sounds that would logically precede them were ever heard, neither were any sounds that would logically follow after them.  The sounds just....got there...somehow.  It didn't make sense.  Was he even actually hearing these things?

Lance shook the thought out of his head.  Wracking his brain wondering whether his ears were playing tricks with him or not was just as unhelpful to him right now as dwelling on the general situation.  It would be of no benefit to fray his own nerves so that he couldn't think straight.

He jumped again as a twig broke a distance behind him...on the path he'd been walking all this time...upon which he'd seen nary a twig.

"Ignore it...the sounds aren't hurting you...just ignore it and keep moving." He said to nopony.  This time talking to himself had the added benefit of busying his ears with something other than waiting with dread for the next sound in the fog.  His own reassurances did little to stop him from picking up the pace to hasten his progress though.

He could soon see the silhouette of another sign in the fog to the right of the path.  Lance didn't stop but was still able to read it with a glance as he passed by.  It simply said 'Ponyville' again, pointing in the direction he was already going, not even giving an idea as to how much farther it would be.  He shook his head and faced forward again, "Well that was certainly helpfu-

WALL.

Lance had nearly bungled right into it.  The sign must have been far enough away for the fog to completely hide it from view while he had been glancing at it.  It was a mossy cobblestone wall, strangely enough built right across the well worn dirt path.  It extended off into the fog on both sides and was tall enough for the top to be hidden above.  It looked solid and sturdy, surely not something he could just break through on his own.  So, basically, it was no problem to the medically gifted pegasus at all.

Lance unfurled his wings and flew upwards.  Young pegasi were always taught never to fly through dense fog in an unfamiliar place, but this short flight over a wall seemed hardly daunting enough to worry about that.  The fog above proved even thicker than the fog below, and in short order he found his sight completely obscured.  Even the wall right next to him vanished from view entirely.  He slowed his ascent and began to periodically stick his hoof out to feel for it.  After about four prods the cobblestone gave way to air, and his blind hoof found the top of the wall at last.  He flew over and lowered himself down to the ground, back on the path once more.

That's when he saw the sign.

It was a sign that said 'Ponyville' pointing at the wall he had just flown over, on the opposite side of the road than the last one he had passed, as though it were the same sign and he'd just turned around.  But how could that be?  He'd been facing the wall his entire way up, he was sure of it.  Just to double check his own senses he turned and flew back over the wall to find the same sign, and then flew over a third time to see the sign there yet again.

Okay, this had to be somepony playing a trick on him.  The upper room in the library may have been a tad elaborate for a simple prank but just placing two reasonably identical signs pointing in opposite directions was an easy task.  He knew exactly how he could put a stop to this right now.

Lance flew up along the wall but instead of going over he perched on top of it.  The fog was so thick that it wouldn't be an easy task to clear it but being able to see both signs at once to put his mind at ease would be worth it.  But when he brought his hooves up to try and gather the fog into easier to move cloud puffs it only flowed around them as it would for any earth pony or unicorn.  He growled with irritation at this latest infraction of Equestrian physics and then flailed one hoof around for a while in a futile attempt to find purchase.

This wasn't working.  But no matter, he still had one more idea to try.  He drifted back down to the ground then drew an X in the dirt with his hoof.  Fast as he could manage he leaped into the air and swiftly flew back over the wall, landing with a grunt before turning.

The X was there.

"Wh...what?!  No...that..."  He shook his head.  That couldn't be.  That was impossible.  In disbelief he drew a circle around the X and flew over the wall yet again.

The X inside the circle was there.

He stood there dumbstruck looking at the drawing on the ground in utter shock.  Was the fog actually turning him around without any sign of doing so aside from his returning to the same side over and over?  Could it still just be a trick?  If it was a trick it put the upper room of the library to shame at this point.  Was it possible for somepony, or even a group of ponies, to see what he had written and then make an exact copy of it on the other side before he could get over the wall, and do so invisibly, in complete silence?  It was starting to make the fog turning him around sound like the more sensible of the two nonsensical explanations.

Lance wordlessly took a seat at the base of the wall, keeping his back to it.  He didn't care about the sounds in the fog at this point.  All he wanted to do was take a breather and try to think this through, even if thinking had already proven completely ineffective against the ability of this place to seemingly ignore the way the world works at a whim.  Obviously he would just have to wander along the wall until he found a way through or around it, then double back to find the path again, assuming the path was even actually on the opposite side at all....or that there even was an opposite side.

"Look out!"  A colt yelled from above, breaking Lance out of his thoughts.  A half second later the same voice cried out as Lance heard him hit the ground behind the wall and skid along the grass for a few feet before coming to a stop, letting out a groan of pain.  Seconds later hoof steps galloped up to him.

"Are you okay?!"  An out of breath mare asked him.

"Urgh...yeah...hang on...GAH...okay, I can still move it, probably just a sprain."  The colt replied.

Lance stood up and tried to shout over to them, "Hey over there!  Hello?!  Can you hear me?!"

"What happened?"  The mare asked.

"I was taking a nap during my break, then next thing I know, that black maned hotshot clips the cloud I'm sleeping on and I wake up just as I'm falling off!"  The colt replied with no lack of annoyance at recalling the tumble, "Not the easiest thing ever to smooth off from free fall just as you're waking up."

"Hello!?  Hey!"  Lance kept shouting, apparently to no effect.

"I'm sure it was just an accident, he's never struck me as the type of pony to do stuff like that on purpose." The mare assured the colt.

"You know him?" He asked.

"Well, not directly, but I see him around a lot and everypony seems to like him."

"Pfft.  Count me out of 'everypony' then.  If he were such a good guy he'd be down here apologizing by now."

Lance snarled in frustration then reared up on his hind legs while drawing in the deepest breath he could before he dropped back down and let out a bellow in one last attempt to get their attention, "HEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!"

"Oh cut him some slack, maybe he didn't see you.  There's no reason to work yourself up over what might not be anything."  She scolded the colt, apparently still not hearing anything amiss on Lance's side of wall.

He sighed in exasperation and sank back to the ground grumbling instead of wasting anymore of his breath on half deaf ponies.

"'Might not be anything'?!  I nearly broke my wing!  I'll be grounded for a good week as it is anyway!  I know you don't really understand where I'm coming from, being an earth pony and all, but injuring another pegasi's wings is never a case of 'might not be anything'!"  The colt explained.

"Hrmph...earth pony huh?"  The mare replied with an almost amused tone before Lance heard her unbuckle a set of saddle bags she must have been wearing and let them drop to the ground.

"...uh...oh...um...sorry."  The colt said sheepishly.

She chuckled, "It's okay.  You're not the first, you won't be the last.  Nopony really looks at a pegasus and thinks 'gardener'."

"Why do you wear that though?  That must be really uncomfortable to work in."  He asked, his voice making it obvious he was imagining how it would feel to have his wings trapped in such a way.

"Not much of a choice really.  I have to carry around my gardening tools in something and they don't really make these with pegasi in mind.  You get used to it though."  The mare answered.

"I guess..."

"Now come on, let's get you to the hospital."

"Wait what?  I don't think my wing's that bad." He said in objection.

"Doesn't matter, we're going to the hospital." She repeated.

"No, really, you don't have to do that, I know the way there and you look busy." He objected again.

"It's fine, I'm kind of self employed.  Besides, you almost wrecked my garden, I think you at least owe me a walk through town." The mare countered.

"Oh...uh...I guess if you put it that way, sure." The colt relented, clearly unsure of how to respond to her tone this time.

She laughed softly again at the nervous edge to his voice, "Good, let's go."

"I...thanks.  I didn't catch your name?"

"Oh right, sorry, it's-"

Lance nearly leaped out of his skin as the conversation on the other side of the wall was brutally interrupted by the sharp hissing of steam in the fog a distance off to his left.  He was back on his hooves without realizing it, staring wide eyed into the mist.  He heard the screech of metal scraping against metal before something impacted the wall hard enough to make it visibly quake beside him.  There was a pause before it happened again, the strike joined by the sound of the cobblestone cracking from the force this time.  With one last metallic screech he heard the wall give way and collapse in a clatter of falling rocks, then silence.

He waited for something else to happen, but nothing did.

...

Had that...had that been 'it'?

...

"No, focus." He told himself again.  There was something wrong with this place, he was certain, but that only made it all the more important that he keep his wits about him.  Right now he wanted to get to town and there was a wall in his way which the fog would not let him fly over.  He had no clue how far it extended in either direction from the path, but he did know there was a breach in the wall now.  If 'it' had indeed been what had broken through just now, it was either unaware he was there or just not interested.  Going to investigate was the most timely solution to the problem that this wall had become.

Even with his logic trying to reason away the tension gripping his chest, the more primal parts of his brain screamed at him to stay put all the same when he forced his hooves onward alongside the wall.  He continued to disobey them but thought it wise to at least pay them a little attention, making every effort to move quietly and stay ready to gallop away as fast as he could if it proved necessary.  His eyes never stopped scanning the fog around him looking for any sort of looming shape or movement as he crept along.

After what Lance felt was far too long a time the breach in the wall finally came into view.  If the size of the hole was anything to go by whatever had made it was easily two heads taller than he was.  He slowly poked his head through, looking around to find nothing there on the other side, though with how thick the fog was there could still be anything there just out of sight for all he knew.  The important thing was that he had a way through the wall now.

Lance took a deep breath and let it out to steel his nerves before he stepped through.  Once more, nothing happened.  Opting to not push his luck by staying put he doubled back along the wall with cautious haste.  The creeping fear of yet another inexplicable return to the same side of the wall was eased when he came across the path again, this side free of both the sign and the drawings he had made in the dirt.  He briefly considered looking for the two ponies he had heard talking but yet another mysterious rustling of foliage in the fog compelled him to resume his trip into town.  Besides, they had been heading for a hospital, which meant they were probably headed in the same direction as he was anyway.

Following another ten minutes spent trotting along the path ignoring all manner of mysterious noises, Lance finally saw the end of his trip within sight.  It was a large wooden sign at the side of the road, well weathered with barely any paint remaining.  Even with most of the paint missing he could still read the stark white letters meant to contrast against the uncharacteristic black paint:

Welcome to Ponyville

Part 5

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Fairytale monster.

Part 5

You *moron*!

His thoughts quietly berated him, because he wouldn't dare to speak another word after hearing that.  Had it heard him talking to himself?  Maybe it was just passing by...he could stand still and silent and it would just wander off.  But his watch was still making that noise.  Was that loud enough for it to hear?  He stood there waiting for any other sound, any other sound at all, not even letting himself breathe audibly as his eyes jumped from window to window looking for any movement.

...

His ears twitched as the clip clop of metal shod hooves started coming closer.

Maybe it had heard him, maybe it hadn't, but it was coming closer either way and this plan wasn't working.  He had to hide.

Lance looked around in near panic but the only suitable hiding spot was the bar.  It would keep him out of sight but if that thing outside came in it would be of little use.  He turned off his light then ducked under the hinged pass through and around the bar out of view, but that blasted watch was still buzzing.  No amount of fiddling with the dial up top had any effect either, it was still completely broken but still able to make that sound.  He set it on the floor and was about to try and smash it before his common sense kicked in to tell him that doing so would only enhance the racket.  Could he throw it away and distract it?  He wouldn't be able to toss the watch nearly far enough inside there though...

The hoof steps stopped.  Lance could only try and muffle the noise from the watch with his hooves as he cowered behind the bar.  The thing outside made its way to one of the windows.  He heard another metallic groan, much softer this time, before another sharp scrape preceded the sound of the boards cracking and snapping from an impact.  A hiss of steam was followed by a dull clang and more splintering of wood, a sequence repeated several times as he could only guess it was wrenching the broken boards free and tossing them aside one by one.

That was good wasn't it?  It wasn't breaking down the door.  If it was looking in through a window instead, it might not know he was there.  But why check if it wasn't suspicious?  Couldn't it hear the persistent buzzing of the watch under his hooves?  It would be foolish to just assume it couldn't.  If it came inside what would he do?  There was no time to think.  It had finished tearing the boards off and the cafe was deathly quiet once again.  Lance held his breath as the watch buzzed louder than ever.

...

It made a sound.  Something like a mare sighing in disappointment at the same time as a beast let off a low growl, both sounds seeming to accompany one another instead of uniting into anything like a natural voice.  Then to Lance's immense relief, he heard hoof steps trailing away from the cafe at the same time as the buzzing of the watch began to relent.  Both sounds grew quieter and quieter until he was left alone in the silence once more.

He finally let out the breath he'd been holding.

He dared to peek his head around the corner of the bar.  The window to the left of the door had indeed been ripped open but there was otherwise no other damage.  It probably wasn't the wisest thing to do but curiosity compelled Lance to creep up to it and sneak a look outside.  He was just in time to see the outline of something big retreating into the mist, a sight that made him duck his head back down out of the window in short order.

That had been too close.  It had been a miracle that she, or so the voice suggested it was a she, hadn't heard the watch.  He held it in one hoof and looked it over once more.  Why had it done that?  Another turn of the top dial confirmed it was completely broken, no resistance, clicking, or winding noises that one would expect from a time piece at all.  As much as he wanted to find out how exactly that noise had come out of it, he didn't have time right now, and it was too much of a risk to bring it along when it might randomly decide to do that again and possibly give away his position to 'her'.

He pulled the makeshift necklace of chain and twine off.  The question of what he was going to do with the surgical light was easy enough to address as he simply clipped it onto the tool strap going across his chest.  It would be more stable and much easier to point it where it was needed from there anyway.  He set the watch down on the nearest table, then got his map out and spread it open on the floor in front him before turning his light back on.

The library, or rather the crater the library had left behind, wasn't far.  He just had to head north up the street, take the first left and it was dead ahead.  Lance was quite thankful that it wouldn't be a long trip since that thing was still out there.  He needed a plan if he ran into her but there wasn't much to work with.  This cafe was his only shelter so far.  It seemed to him the only plan possible was to just remember exactly where this place was so he could run back there and hide.  While it was far from an airtight plan it was better than nothing.

That was it then.  He folded the map up, stashed it back in the saddlebag, turned his light off, then placed his hoof on the front door knob.  Unexpectedly he found himself unable to turn it, but it wasn't because it was locked, or because there was some obstacle blocking the door.  It was just suddenly not in him to do it.  Why not?  He looked back to the watch on the table, but not exactly voluntarily.  Something was compelling him to do so almost like it was answering his question.

Really?  That thing had just nearly gotten him caught, he had every good reason to leave it behind, and now he couldn't find the will to leave without it?  Why?  He'd never seen it before...or had he?

"I might actually be crazy..." He muttered under his breath as he begrudgingly retrieved the watch and replaced it around his neck.  This time when he tried to open the door he only felt an amount of hesitation one would think quite reasonable after what had just almost broken in.

He could think about what the watch meant to him later.  His mind had to be focused right now so that he didn't make another misstep that would render his earlier good luck moot.  Lance stepped as lightly as possible so that the sound of his hooves on the cobblestone would neither give him away too easily, nor make it hard for him to hear that thing coming as he made his way up the street.  So far so good, and there was the left turn, he was almost there.

He stopped at the corner and took a cautious peek around to find the coast clear...for at least as far as the fog would let him see.  That was all the assurance he would ever get in this place.  He swallowed nervously and then moved back into the street at the same wary pace.  It was getting to the point where he actually missed the sounds in the fog outside of town.  They'd never cornered him in a cafe then torn a window open, and they'd only put him at unease instead of making him actually fear for his life.  Fortunately there wasn't much time for him to dwell on these thoughts before something once again distracted him.

His head perked up at the sight.  There in the middle of the street ahead, was a pony lying on its side.  Was it the mare that had lead him to the map?  Suddenly emboldened he moved closer and dared to speak up, "H...hello! Were you by the library before?"

The fog pulled back bit by bit as he advanced and the pony lying in the street became more than just a silhouette.  It was indeed a mare, colored a pale mottled gray.  She wasn't moving.

"Are you...alright?"  He asked as he moved closer.  It became apparent she had no tail or mane, nor even a coat.  The gray color was her skin.  Two dark brown leather straps went across the back of her head.  As he looked on he caught on that she wasn't just not moving, she wasn't breathing either.

"Oh no..." He muttered as he picked up the pace, heedless of the soft buzzing his watch began to give off.

The mare suddenly twitched as he approached.  Had that just been a post mortem spasm?  As he stepped closer there came another, and another, escalating with each repetition into a full on body convulsion while his watch buzzed ever louder.  Finally the mare stirred.  She was still alive.

"Hang on!" He said, galloping over now.  There was obviously something wrong with her.  Why else would she be lying there alone in the middle of the street in this strange place?  Lance wasn't about to let the only other soul he'd run into perish.

Despite his enthusiasm he was still forced to a screeching halt once she rolled back onto her two hooves and looked over at him.  Yes, only two hooves.  Her two front legs ended at the wrist joints, forcing her to stand with the stumps pressed painfully into the cobblestone and keep her head lower to the ground.  The lower half of her face was covered with what resembled a rusted metal oxygen mask held in place by the straps going across the back of her head, bound so tightly that he could see the scars where they had bitten into the flesh.  Two sharp edged segments traveled across the front of the mask, lining up with the straps.  Her eyes were covered by what looked like a hastily done skin graft, and her ears were half chewed off, held permanently against her head.  The mare's body periodically convulsed, concurrent with the choking and gagging sounds of somepony trying desperately to draw breath but only finding water to pull into their lungs.

Her mask...was filled with water...

"Who did this to you?!"  He regained his composure, moving in to assist her as she moved toward him on her stumps in an awkward limping motion that wasn't helped by the periodic spasming, "Hang on, I've got to get this mask off of you!"

Lance reached a hoof out but had to draw it back immediately.  She had begun to twitch her head to and fro in efforts to dislodge the mask, and it was making the edged segments swing about dangerously.

"Hold still, you're going to die if I can't-"  He was cut short by his own shout.  Another twitch of her head caused the two rusted frontal blades to slice across his right foreleg.  Lance stumbled back a few steps and looked at the set of two fresh cuts beginning to stream blood down his leg, "Listen lady I'm just trying to-"  He was cut off again by the need to dodge away.  She was still advancing.

This drowning mare wasn't trying to get his help, she was attacking him!

There was no point in trying to help her any further.  He could only see it resulting in more pain on his part, and if she was this lively while clearly suffering from an extended bout of hypoxia on top of her mutilation he doubted she even needed any help.  Lance circled around her and ran down the street, noticing how the loud buzzing in his watch quickly died down.  He glanced back long enough to see she had fallen behind and given up the chase, dropping back to the ground and now looking every bit as dead as she had when he'd first spotted her.

What the hay had that...monster been?  It was too small to have been whatever had broken through the wall outside of town, but too slow to have been the mare he'd followed into the town square.  And that sound it had made, that horrible, horrible choking noise... he felt nauseous just remembering it.  It was the sound of a patient dying.  It triggered instincts that he had honed over years that had nowhere to go since there was nopony to save here.  Lance had been toying with the idea of opening the box there in the crater but the two near misses he'd just been through encouraged him to toss it in his saddlebag and then go straight back to the cafe.  Fortunately, the crater was still where he'd left it after he crossed the street.

He wasted no time, flying right down to the pile of dirt in the center, quickly digging the box up again, and finally shoving it into the other still empty saddlebag before flying back up to street level.  The racket he'd made back there trying in futility to get that drowning mare to cooperate had surely already given him away, so now he had only to worry about getting back as fast possible.  Despite the urgency of the moment he was still forced to stop yet again as his watch started to buzz just before he came across the still form of the drowning mare again.

It was now between the two corners of the street he'd encountered it on, a good distance from where he'd last seen her lying still, in the exact same position as before.  She had moved in his direction when he wasn't looking.

Lance shook the chill out of his spine and dashed past, trying to block out the blaring watch and the single choking noise she managed to utter as he passed by her.  He felt another shock of dread to his heart when he reached the street he needed to turn right on and saw another drowning mare lying in the middle of the intersection.  The notably cleaner mask and the diagonal scar across the upper half of the face made it quickly apparent this was a second, different one.  How many of these things were there?

There was no way he was stopping to try and help this time.  Lance galloped right past her and headed down the home stretch to the cafe.  He was almost there.  It didn't matter if one of those creatures was in the cafe, there were more than enough doors to hide behind.  He would have all the time he needed to think things over and come up with what he was going to do next, he just had to make it there first.  He saw the edge of the building emerge from the fog and put on one last burst of speed.

Then Lance saw the wrecked carriage that hadn't been there before.

Right in front of the door.

With somepony standing in the middle of the street looking directly at him.

His watch sprang to life with that grinding, buzzing noise yet again.

She stood at least two and a half heads taller than him.  Most of her body was hidden beneath a sheet covered with various blood stains, held in place by a series of frayed, old looking ropes.  The only parts he could see directly were her chest, lower neck, and legs.  Some sort of plated neck restraint trailed downward to a crudely shaped steel mantle covering her chest.  Her legs displayed a tan colored coat, ending in hooves covered by greaves that looked just as roughly hammered into shape as the mantle and neck restraint above.  On all of this armor he could see a series of bolts that could only be going directly into her flesh.  His eyes ran up the trails of dried blood on her legs to the still red remnants of a series of gashes suggestive of overtightened manacles.  Somepony had wanted her to stay put, and she clearly hadn't listened.

Though the sheet hid the rest of her he could tell a few obvious things.  Her snout was a bit longer than a typical pony's, even one of her size.  She was evidently a unicorn judging by the horn that rivaled that of a princess, and there was a very large lump on her back.  The ropes going around her torso and holding said lump in place were particularly numerous, suggesting that it was a pack of some sort being held in place...or maybe even a passenger being restrained.

As she persisted in standing there looking at him his eyes darted back over to the cafe, and the wrecked carriage blocking the door.  She had moved it there after he'd run out, hadn't she?  She'd never actually left at all.  She must have been waiting just out of sight for him to leave to spare herself the trouble of looking,  and she must have known he'd be returning, else why bother blocking the door?  He looked over to the window to see it was still open, but it was so far off the ground that there was no way he'd be able to scramble through it in time to avoid being grabbed by...whatever she might grab him with.

He swallowed hard again and looked back to the blood stained sheet covered face still silently examining him.  Lance wasn't getting back into that cafe.  The watch hanging from his neck continued to buzz loudly as though screaming for him to run.  It didn't seem like a bad idea.  She looked to be restrained and weighed down, surely he could outrun her, right?

...

Lance made to turn and flee but his assumption proved disastrously wrong.  She reacted the instant he had begun moving, and with a metallic screech of protest from the restraints on her neck she covered the distance between them in an instant.  Before he could even shout in surprise she effortlessly knocked him off his feet as she slammed the side of her shrouded head into his ribs.  He hit the cobblestone with a pained grunt, the wind knocked out of him and his side burning from the near fracture.  Despite being disoriented he still had the presence of mind to try and scramble to his feet, but his efforts were cut short by a metal clad hoof pushing his head back onto the street.

He was dead.  There was no way he could get away from her.  This was it.  He mentally cursed Twilight Sparkle for getting him into this death trap of a place with whatever spell she had obviously botched as he awaited the push downward that would cave in his skull.  But it didn't come to pass.  Instead he looked up to see a black tendril snake out from between two of the plates on her neck restraints.  It slithered downward and wrapped around his neck several times before it tightened.  She removed her hoof, but it was no act of mercy.  It was only so she could lift him clear off the ground and hold him in front of her, watching as he struggled and choked while she strangled him.

Lance tried with all his might to escape, but his fore hooves could not wrench the tendril free from around his neck, and his back hooves weren't long enough to connect with her at that distance.  It was hopeless, all that had changed was that he was now going to suffocate instead of having his head stomped flat.  His vision darkened and his body grew weaker with every moment more that he was deprived precious oxygen.  Then he heard a gurgling gag from somepony that wasn't him...

His half lidded eye spotted the drowning mare approaching from behind the shrouded monster that was slowly killing him.  She was headed for him...but his current attacker just so happened to be in the way.  The drowning mare either couldn't see this, or just didn't care as she continued obliviously trying to get at him.

The much larger monster of a pony gave Lance a vicious shake that dislodged the two hooves clinging to the strangling tendril.  His limbs had begun to feel much heavier, and now he simply let them hang at his sides as his lungs burned and his heart pounded in panic.  As much as his body was screaming at him to save himself...he couldn't do anything.  His eyes slowly closed and consciousness slipped away...

The next thing he registered was his own deep gasp finally pulling air into his lungs after the impact from being dropped on the cobblestone had jostled him awake.  The monster that had just nearly killed him made an unnatural groan of irritation as she wheeled around to face the drowning mare that had just put two fresh cuts into the back of her leg.  Her hoof slammed down into the mare's back and held her there, making a sickening crack and causing the lowlier creature to let out a cry of pain and start struggling to free herself.  There came a familiar hiss and an only slightly less familiar dull clang as steam vented from beneath the sheet covering her face and a single metal bar fell free from the underside of her snout, positioned like a jaw of some sort.

She held the smaller pony down as her head lowered and the single jaw closed on her leg tight enough to break the bone and force another tortured cry from her victim.  The drowning mare was promptly yanked into the air and slammed back down into the street, her wailing finally silenced as her skull made contact with the cobblestone, the sudden trauma setting her entire body to twitching uncontrollably.

While the larger unicorn monster dealt with the intruder Lance struggled back to his hooves, the strength returning to his limbs with every breath he took.  The towering pony looked back at him with the convulsing mare still hanging from the leg gripped in her steam powered jaw just as he turned and ran with nary a peek back at her.  There was another monstrously deformed sigh of disappointment behind him followed by a second crack of flesh and bone on the street, but Lance couldn't be bothered to notice.  He couldn't be tasked with even thinking straight for the few minutes he spent just running in terror, heedless of the direction he was going, just wanting to get as far away from those monsters as possible.

He'd known something was wrong with this place but things had just careened past 'wrong' into some status he had no word to describe.  What the hay was going on?  Why hadn't he run into any of those mutilated, choking mares while he'd been searching for the map and finding his way to the cafe before?  Who had done that to them?  Why was that towering unicorn pony so strong, and why hadn't it just killed him as casually as it had killed that other pony?

The buzzing of his watch again broke through the haze of questions and panic assaulting his mind, snapping him out of it just in time to see another drowning mare twitching to life in the street ahead.  He nimbly sidestepped it and continued on before it could fully wake.

"Okay...okay...okay...where am I going?"  Lance asked himself between breaths as he kept running.  Talking to himself had already given him away once, but he needed so desperately to hear a normal voice right now, even if it was just his own, "Gotta...hide somewhere..."

The box from the crater was still in his saddlebag.  He still needed to open it; there had to be something useful in there with all the trouble he'd gone through to get it.  But he needed somewhere to safe to stop.  Wire cutters weren't something anypony without a unicorn's horn could use on the run, and he wasn't about to stop running with those monsters now in the street unless there was a building to duck into.  Yet more boarded up buildings taunted him as he glanced to his left and right, refusing to offer him their shelter.

Wait...there it was again...small spatters of blood in a trail...

Was this the same trail he had followed before?  No, it couldn't be, none of the houses around him looked remotely familiar.  What were the odds it was left by the same mare that had lead him to the map, and then marked the cafe's location for him?  Any other day, any other place, he would have dismissed it as coincidence, but after what he'd just seen, odds and probabilities were the last thing on his mind.  Besides, if nothing else it was better than just running around in a panic at random.

Given how fast he was galloping the trail felt fairly short this time.  Just two turns in the street before the trail veered off to a gated fence surrounding one of the houses.  Lance stopped, panting to catch his breath as he surveyed the yard within.  The grass was just as dead as every other bit of grass he had seen, there was an old grey gnarled tree, and a rusty, collapsed swing set, but no sign of another one of those monsters.  The gate looked to be padlocked so he skipped trying to open it and jumped over instead.

"Right...they can still see...and can probably get through the fence...but I guess it's progress..." He muttered to himself, still catching his breath.  Lance turned toward the house and saw that while the front door and windows were both boarded up, the back door was not.  His inner panic finally relented just the slightest bit as he walked up and found it unlocked.

It was a small cottage, and proved to be just as much an abandoned mess as everything else.  There wasn't much exploring to be done there either.  The only other door besides the front and back doors was the door leading into the bedroom and bathroom, and it looked like the lock was broken.  He couldn't open it.  Still, there were no monsters in there and he could keep out of sight.  It would do.

The adrenaline that had been pumping through his system ever since having his return to the cafe interrupted had abated, and now the two deep cuts on the front of his foreleg were nagging at him with a vengeance.  The bladed mask that had cut him had been old, rusty, and there was no telling where it had been before that.  He needed to clean his wounds, but the spigots in the small kitchen were unresponsive and given the general state of disrepair he doubted he'd want to use what might come out of them for cleaning cuts anyway.  So a thorough cleaning was out for the moment, but he could still try and bind them.  He began to poke around looking for anything that looked like a medical kit.

Nothing of the sort turned up in any of the usual places one might put one, and the cuts still throbbed insistently at him, so he began to look in less conventional hiding spots.  Finally, having exhausted every other drawer, pantry, and cupboard, he rolled his eyes at himself for even bothering as he checked the fridge.  It was completely empty inside, barren of even shelves...save for a very small roll of gauze sitting on the bottom.

Lance regarded the gauze roll for a moment before shrugging and picking it up.  Finding medical supplies in a random fridge was certainly one of the less strange things that had happened to him that day after all.  He turned on his surgeon's light and held it in his mouth while examining the cuts, removing what debris he could while wincing at every bit of contact with his hoof before binding them snugly to stop the last of the bleeding that hadn't yet clotted.  There had been just enough gauze left over on that roll, and now he was back to square zero as far as medical supplies went.

He fastened his light back onto his saddlebag's belt strap and got back to business.  Lance pulled the box out of one saddlebag, and the wire cutters out of the other.  Two snips later and he was at last able to open the box with a soft creak of its hinges.

The inside was lined with dried leather that looked to have been splattered with blood at some point.  His eyes widened in slight alarm, but the two objects inside distracted him from this newest bit of unpleasantness.  One was a key with the words 'Manehatten Heights Apartments' engraved into it, and the other was a plain black marker.  They both inspired a raised eyebrow, but particularly the key.  He was nowhere near Manehatten, what was a key to an apartment complex from that city doing here in Ponyville?

Lance sighed with resignation.  The library had moved spontaneously, everypony had disappeared, the fog outside seemed to be a trickster entity of some sort, somepony was ramming walls through businesses, there was a cafe that was certainly not built in Ponyville, the streets were filled with mares that by all logical means should not be alive, he was being stalked by a monster of a unicorn, and he'd just ducked into a house he was lead to by a hemophiliac pony of which he'd only ever gotten a single brief glimpse.  It was no use trying to logic this weirdness away.  All he could do was accept that it was weird and try to figure it out anyway.

So...then...perhaps this apartment complex from Manehatten was actually in Ponyville somewhere?  He'd already been through two buildings that hadn't been where they should have, a third wasn't out of the question.  But where could it be?

He pulled out his map and opened it.  While he was busy trying to find things, where was he right now anyway?  He certainly hadn't kept track of where he had been going while running for his life...

Oh.

There he was.  In the cluster of buildings south of the park.  Right where the second bloody hoofprint now stared him in the face.  The map had never left his side, nopony else had ever gotten hold of it, but there was a new bloody hoofprint right there in front of him all the same.  Totally made sense.

"Just go with it." He reminded himself as he looked the map over.  His searching was for naught though.  None of the buildings he saw on this map were anywhere near large enough to possibly be the Manehatten Heights Apartments.  It would have been a rectangle that could easily fit three of the town square's central pavilions inside, and that pavilion was the largest building he could see on that map.

...

"Wait, what?"  He said suddenly as he looked up from the map at nopony.  How the hay had he known what the general size of the building would be?  Had he been there before?

No, it wasn't important right then.  He needed to find the place more than he needed to stay there trying to remember things.  Lance was not going to go outside again and just stumble around until he found the place, not with the streets full of monsters.  But there was no telling where that building could be beforehand either.  Maybe if he planned his searching a bit more diligently...but the map in front of him was of the normal Ponyville.  There was no way of telling whether or not it was correct anymore after all these changes had happened.  There was also the more pressing question of just where he would hide if he ran into that she-beast in the bloody sheet again.

Lance grumbled in frustration and removed the key and marker from the box only to get another pleasant...well, relative pleasant, surprise.  On the bottom bit of leather lining the inside of the box there was an imprinting of a small section of a map.  It portrayed a large building and several features around it.  There was a river with a bridge going alongside it, with two buildings on the other side.  At first glance it looked to be about the same scale as the map he'd gotten from the town square.  When he set it on top of the map, he saw that it was exactly the same scale.  All he had to do was find where this section of the map on the leather fit with the rest of it.

After a few moments of sliding the box around on top of the map he found it.  The Manehatten Heights Apartments were now, apparently, located to the east of the town square on the other side of the river, across from the bookstore.  He'd been right next to it while trying to find his way to the hospital and he'd never even spotted it thanks to the fog.  Something was wrong though...

He pulled the cap off the marker and copied the section from the bottom of the box onto his map.  Then he drew a line that traveled through the spa, joke shop, ice cream shop, and bookstore, and saw that if the line were to continue it would go right through the middle of the apartment complex.  The wall that had blocked his way to the hospital was going through it...but he knew, somehow, that it was a fairly tall building, it would easily go over that wall.

Maybe the apartments were his ticket over to the other side?  The fog had proven incapable of turning him around unless he went right into it, so all he had to was find a way over the wall inside the complex and then an exit on the other side, then he could finally make it to the hospital like he'd been trying to do in the first place.

"Hay of a detour that all was..." He muttered bitterly as he refolded the updated map and stashed it back in his bag along with the new key and the marker.  No doubt the wire cutters would prove useful again later so he would take them along as well...or he tried to at least.  When he looked over to grab them from the spot on the floor where he'd left them, they were gone.  He looked around the floor immediately around him thinking he'd just nudged them out of place without realizing, but there was nothing.  He stood and looked over the entire room but found no trace of them.  They were just gone.

Alright, he was mysteriously out one pair of wire cutters but things could have ended up so much worse after running into that tall, murderous unicorn.  Lance put the disappearing tool out of his mind and closed up his saddlebags.  The door proved a touch more difficult to force himself out of this time, the memories of the things outside still fresh in his mind.  But he'd had time to think now...he was prepared.  They would not surprise him this time.

The journey back through town had proven tense but bearable.  He'd only heard that unicorn thing hissing steam once, and it had been at least two streets down from where he was.  The drowning mares were also actually quite manageable with all the open space on the streets for him to use to maneuver around them, and if he kept moving not even the bit of creeping they did while he wasn't looking made them a threat.  He just had to keep his distance, keep moving, and he was relatively safe from getting another set of cuts on his legs.

Well...safe assuming he didn't run into a handful of them at once...or even just one in less spacious environment...

Lance had also noticed a pattern now that he wasn't occupied by the cold grip of total panic.  The watch's buzzing wasn't random at all; it only made that sound when he passed near one of the drowning mares.  His memory of the incident was still a little clouded by his complete lack of coherent thought at the time, but he was reasonably sure it had responded the same way to the presence of that other, much larger unicorn.  Such a detection device would surely come in handy, and the revelation made him glad he hadn't smashed it back at the cafe.

There was the bookstore again, meaning he was practically in spitting distance of the apartments if his newly updated map was correct.  He approached the river and looked both ways, finding the bridge in the distance over to his right.  Lance was on course.  He took a quick flight over the river and sure enough, after he had taken a few steps forward upon touching down, the large apartment complex emerged from the fog in front of him.

It had a number of architectural design techniques in common with the cafe.  Had that been from Manehatten too?  If it was, why Manehatten?

"Get inside now, then think."  He told himself as he pushed open the front gate.  Lance was close enough to the front door in spite of the fog, but he could also see the still form of a drowning mare off to his left.  It was already starting to twitch awake so he had to move fast.  He briefly rummaged through his saddlebag and got the key ready before running to the door as she got up to her hooves and stumps then started shambling towards him.  The choking sound approaching behind him ate at his nerves and suddenly his hoof was shaky enough that he was struggling to get the key in the lock as she drew ever closer.

Finally he let out a quick breath of relief as the key slid into the lock.  He wasted no more time before pulling the door open, stepping inside, then turning just in time to slam the door right in her face.  It was pitch black inside the lobby, and the only sound was the monster outside repeatedly striking the door with little effect.

He turned on his light...

Part 6

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Familiar places.

Part 6

It was...so clean.

The lobby was spotless.  Nothing looked broken or worn down, nothing was noticeably out of place, there was no trash or debris anywhere, and Lance couldn't even see a speck of dust on anything as the circle of illumination from his light moved across the room.  It was as though he had simply walked in moments after the janitorial staff had finished their nightly rounds and departed.  Lance took a few steps into the room while the drowning mare outside apparently gave up, letting his watch quiet down once more as it shambled away.

He should have been happy about this.  Considering his profession he found simple general uncleanliness disconcerting, never mind the complete and utter filth he'd endured ever since he'd woken.  Now here was this practically sparkling lobby and all it did was fill him with a new level of dread.  Did that mean there were ponies here?  But if there were, why would they even bother keeping the place cleaned up considering the state of the rest of the town?

I'm not going to get anywhere by just standing here asking questions...

Lance didn't dare to let the thought be anything but a thought.  Hearing a voice of which he knew the source in this madness was a small comfort, but he was fairly certain it had been his comment to himself back in the cafe that had given him away to that sheet shrouded giant.  His internal monologue would now remain internal, since he had lived for quite a while now and was fairly keen on continuing to do so.

Now that he was inside, and reasonably sure he was safe, the next order of business was finding the way over the wall and then finding an exit on the other side.  If his memory served well enough the wall would be tall enough to block out the ground floor and the first floor, so if he could get up to the second floor his way should be clear.  He looked around the lobby, seeing nothing of note save for the receptionist's desk, a couple of couches for waiting ponies to sit on, and the door leading into the apartments standing just slightly open, giving him a narrow preview of the darkness beyond.

The receptionist's desk seemed like a good place to start.  Lance was growing tired of walking around unfamiliar territory hidden in either darkness or fog.  If there was a map of any sort behind the desk it would make his path a lot easier to pick out.

But first he had to quietly shut that blasted door so the hairs on the back of his neck would go down.

With the door taken care of he made his way to the desk.  His search didn't take long.  In fact one couldn't even call it a search; as soon as he rounded the side of the desk it was over before it had even began.  There was a bundle of four emergency floor plans stapled together and taped to the wall, one for the ground floor and each of the three stories above.  Lance actually hesitated a moment before plucking them from the wall, half expecting something horrible to happen for how easy they had been to find.  Nothing did...

Yet.

He decided it was best not to let it get to him, hard as that may have been.  After all, he'd plucked the map of Ponyville off the bulletin board outside just as easily and nothing particularly awful had immediately happened as a direct result.

Lance placed the map on the desk and focused his light on it.  There was no other way out of the lobby aside from the door leading outside and the door inward that he had just closed, so which way he was going next was no question at all.  Where he would go afterward was his primary concern.  It only took him a moment to find the lobby on the map before looking for a stairwell or elevator to get him up to the second floor as quickly as possible.

The apartments were arranged around an H shaped trio of hallways, with  six of the cheaper, smaller apartments going along the central hallway with the entrances to another four deluxe balcony apartments at each end of the two side halls, totaling ten apartments per floor.  According to the map after exiting the lobby he could turn left to use the stairwell, and right to head toward the elevator.  There was another stairwell in the corner of the building opposite to the first, one that should be the other side of the wall.

Perfect...well, perfect assuming that the elevator worked or the stairwell wasn't blocked off.  In spite of the lobby's tidy appearance he had little doubt his trip up, over, and down would prove more complicated than just a trip up, over, and down.  Despite how much sense this town didn't make, it seemed to operate on a twisted set of rules all its own that was beginning to pick up on.  There was never any direct route anywhere.  It was like something was always running ahead of him setting up an obstacle course to navigate for little more than its own amusement.

He gave the three other floors a glance to find they had roughly the same layout save for the odd utility closet and the designated land lord's apartment in one of the deluxe rooms on the third floor.  Now that he knew what to do all that was left was to go out and see how it was to be done.  The building's layout was simple enough but he put the floor plans in his bag to take with him anyway, just in case.  After he closed his saddlebag he walked out from behind the desk and turned toward the door leading deeper into the building.

It was cracked open again.

Well...I...guess that saves me the trouble of opening it...

Lance knew it would be difficult to impossible to find any other positive points to the discovery so he pushed it into the ever growing pile of cast aside dreads and worries and moved forward.  The hinges creaked quietly as he opened it, and after no more than two steps inward be heard his watch begin to buzz softly.  The subdued sound set him to looking in each direction frantically, shining his light ahead, to his left, and finally to his right before he saw it.  It was another drowning mare lying dormant at the end of the hall, just in front of the elevator door.

He waited a few moments but it didn't move the least bit.  Apparently he was far away enough to keep it from rousing.  A small measure of the tension eased from his body, but he was left worrying about what would happen when he turned his back to it.  The first one he had run across had crept a ways down the street while he hadn't been looking.  Would this one do the same even though he hadn't yet woken it up?  Out there it had been merely unsettling, but with the way the drowning mares swung those bladed masks back and forth it would be outright dangerous in these cramped hallways.  As much as Lance hated the idea of interacting with these things any more than necessary he also knew that predicting their behavior would probably save his life.

Five seconds.  That was it.  He would look away for five seconds.  If it got close enough it would surely make those stomach churning choking noises and give itself away before it got too close.  He would keep the door open too.  The lobby was big enough to move around in so it was a good escape room if the need arose.

He turned his head and looked down the left hallway toward the stairwell door.

Five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

One.

Lance might have felt his neck pop if he had turned to look back any faster.  It was a somewhat welcome sight that greeted him though.  The drowning mare hadn't moved an inch.  Apparently if they weren't woken at all they couldn't creep when unobserved.  He could use that.

Looking past her, he could see that the elevator was down there with them on the ground floor.  The buttons to the side looked to be in working order, in keeping with the rest of the building thus far.  It was possible the elevator was working.  If he could just use it to go straight up he might bypass an entire potentially monster filled floor and have the deed over and done with all the quicker.  But he'd have to go through the drowning mare before he would even have a chance to see if it was working.  The wound on his leg stung just a little more as he mentally recounted his recent first tussle with one of them out in the streets.

Getting near one of them was unacceptable, but their consistent movement towards him seemed predictable enough.  Perhaps he could lure this one into the lobby and close the door to trap her inside?

Oh, right, the door had already proven a tad unreliable.  Scratch that.

At the moment he could only conclude it was best to leave her well enough alone way at the end of the hallway.  One of the other rooms on ground floor might prove useful for safely containing her though.  The deluxe apartment door almost right next to her was out of the question obviously.  He looked down the center hallway to see four rooms available before a familiar cobblestone wall blocked off the rest of the floor.  Off to his left was, of course, the other deluxe apartment.  Only five rooms to look through.  It wouldn't take long to find something suitable.  Mindful of not getting a stop closer to the drowning mare he stepped into the center hallway and tried opening the first door on his right.

It looked like the lock was broken.  He couldn't open it.

Make that four rooms...he moved on to the second door on the right.

It looked like the lock was broken.  He couldn't open it.

So...three rooms then?  Lance turned toward the door on the left closest to the cobblestone wall.

It looked like the lock was broken.  He couldn't open it.

He couldn't quite contain his grumble of irritation but he doubted the sound would wake the monster lying still around the corner.  Before he could move to the last door in the central hallway though, a number of details about this door caught his eye.  The other doors had been plain oak doors with wood grain finish.  This one was painted white, and the small brass plaque on the wall next to it that should have displayed "Room G-8" instead said "303".  It was even printed in a different font than the other room number plaques.

This isn't even the third floor...

"Lance?" A mare asked from the other side of the door.

"Yes?" Lance answered reflexively in harmony with another voice on the other side of the door.

...

WHAT?!

"Are you sure you're okay with this?  You look...troubled." The mare asked.

He tried opening the door again, turning the knob harder in an attempt to force it open as his apparent namesake replied, "Yeah, I...sort of am.  We've only been dating for three months...it just feels a little soon to be doing this you know?"

"Yeah...I know.  But you'll be able to put money back faster if you can split rent with somepony, and...well...I don't mind having you around more."

The door was no good.  But he had to see into that room now.

His eyes darted over to the last door in the central hallway left unchecked, room G-9.  Lance had no valid reason to believe he would have any more luck seeing into 303 in G-9 than at the door, but it was worth a try.  He moved quickly and rather than finding a fourth broken lock, the neighboring apartment's door proved accommodating and allowed him inside.

"I don't really mind being around more either...but...I guess I just worry that if I move in with you you're going to find I'm not quite the pony you thought I was and start second guessing what you think of me."  The colt replied.

The inside of G-9 was bare, clearly lacking a tenant.  He entered into the main room consisting of a small kitchen to his right with the rest clearly intended as a living room.  On the left there was a short hallway with three doors that doubtlessly lead to the apartment's bedrooms and bathroom.  Yet again, everything looked clean and tidy...save for the small hole in the kitchen wall.

As he approached he could see it was a pipe that looked to have been installed through the wall with a noticeable level of clean cut professionalism.  Did it go all the way through the wall into the other apartment though?

"Like what?  Can you think of anything that would make me think less of you?"  The mare asked, her voice coming through the pipe clear as day.  It did go all the way through the wall!  Lance peered through it, having to back off and blink a few times as his eyes adjusted to the abundance of light on the other side.  The two ponies weren't visible though.

"Well...no...not off the top of my head but you know how the story always goes.  You have a young couple moving in together thinking it's going to be utter bliss, then a month later they're at each other's throats over the little things about one another they've found they just can't stand."  The colt answered.  From the sound of it they were standing just to the right of the pipe's line of sight in 303's living room.  Lance maintained his vigil.

"Maybe, but this isn't a story, this is the real world, this is...us.  We can do something different than the story.  I'm sure we'll get in each other's mane plenty with enough time, but none of that ever has to mean we enjoy each other's company any less.  I know it's a gamble but...if I make that gamble, I want it to be with you."  The mare said.

This...this was...what was this?

The colt sighed, "Thanks...that means a lot to me.  I still feel nervous about it all though."

"I am too a little...I don't think it's possible not to be."  She agreed.

"Heh, there'd probably be something wrong with us if we weren't."

She chuckled softly, "Probably...but you know you don't have to do this if you really don't want to.  None of the paperwork is signed yet, nothing changes until we both want it to."

There was another small pause before the colt made up his mind, "Well then we need a pen don't we?"

"We do!"  The mare replied enthusiastically, "They have applications down at the front desk, meet me there?"

"Sure."

"Yay!" She cheered before Lance could hear somepony opening a desk and rummaging around inside.

The sound was quickly forgotten though as he saw the colt step into the pipe's sight line on his way to the door.

Lance's eyes slowly opened wide as he looked him over.  Amber coat...dark red, shorter mane...blue eyes that were yet to be burdened by years of medical work...and that unmistakeable scalpel cutie mark.  There was no other conclusion to reach.  He might have been hallucinating, or maybe this place had been drilling into his mind deeper than he thought possible, but regardless of the cause he was looking at himself as he had been long ago.  This wasn't a pair of ponies just randomly appearing in unlikely places...these were memories.

But then that could only mean the mare was-

He winced as a sudden ringing in his ears coincided with the memory borne doppelganger freezing in place like time itself had stopped on the other end of the pipe.  Lance tried to keep looking to see if anything would happen but the ringing became too intense and he was forced to pull his eye away from the hole to press his hooves to his ears.  Moments afterward it stopped quite suddenly, leaving him to slowly let his hooves move away from his ears as he wondered what the hay had happened.  He looked through the pipe again, but the lights had gone out and nopony was making a peep on the other side anymore.

The fateful crash he had heard out near the wall, the date in the cafe, and the colt and mare deciding to live with each other...these weren't two ponies he was encountering at random at all.  They were his memories from long ago, never forgotten but having gathered a fine layer of dust in his head for how little he had looked at them for so long.  But what were his memories doing splattered all over the landscape now?  Could that mean this place really was inside of his head just as Twilight Sparkle's description of her spell had suggested?  A lot of things would make a bit more sense if that were true but Lance couldn't accept it.  Everything felt too real, too present, there was no way he was asleep, and the cuts in his leg in particular were a persistent reminder as they continued to throb painfully beneath the bandage.

More questions.  Always more questions with no time to answer any of them.  He needed to keep moving and find a way over the wall.  When he turned around to leave he was met with another unexpected sight.  On the opposite wall of the living room there was an image of a pony painted directly onto the wall with a rectangular slab of metal going across it, held in place by one padlock at each end.  The pony was wearing a red robe and golden crown, and the halo of a sun surrounded her head.  In one hoof she grasped a chalice, in the other a single stalk of some white plant with leaves going up the entire length.  There was something engraved on the slab in elegant script:

Thy path may be lit by the grace of the saint

She asks of ye two gifts in tribute

Only thee who can bring life from the earth shall find them

"...okaaaaay..." Lance couldn't help but mutter in bewilderment.

He left the strange sort of altar behind and decided to give the bedrooms and bathroom a look.  The bedroom locks were both broken, but his detour paid off when he entered the bathroom and found a medical kit in the sink that was quickly deposited in his saddlebag.  Finding nothing else of interest in G-9, he found himself in the central hallway once again being confronted by an unexpected sight.

There was a note nailed to the wall next to the door of G-2 across from him that hadn't been there before.  Wouldn't he have heard somepony hammering the nail in?  No matter, he ripped the note from of the nail all the same:

Dear Esteemed Guest,

Your presence here has only recently been brought to my attention, but it was in a most unpleasant matter.  However the damage done was minimal at worst and one could not really expect somepony who has only so recently arrived to really know any better, so no hard feelings!

However, I politely ask that from now on you refrain from looking too much into doors labeled 303.  Feel free to pass by them if need be, but please do so in a timely matter and avoid lingering near them any longer than absolutely necessary.  Heed this one request and I see no reason for us to experience any unpleasantness.

Thank you for your time!

Strange...did that mean there were more room 303s?  Did all of them contain memories of his past?    He wasn't sure he could honor the request in this note if that was the case.  True, now that he was thinking back he remembered a great deal about those days but if he could see himself that meant there was a chance he could see her too...and he wanted that dearly.  He was briefly unsure what to do with the letter before he just slipped in his saddlebag.  A piece of paper didn't take up much room and something to write on might prove useful later on.  Or maybe he was just becoming a pack rat pony.

There was one more door to check before he either went up the stairs or tried to trap the drowning mare to free up the elevator.  Still ever mindful to maintain his distance from her as he rounded the corner, he headed down the hall to the unobstructed deluxe apartment, G-1.  The unlocked door afforded easy access, a welcome surprise since he had been half expecting yet another broken lock.  The interior was quite spacious; the living room was larger and had a fire place, the kitchen had far more space for a cook to move within, and between them was a dining area that had a sliding glass door out to the patio.  It let in the light from outside and was thus the first room in the apartment complex that wasn't pitch black.  Unlike G-9, this room also sported a full complement of furniture in pristine condition.  It looked like somepony actually lived there.

A plastic bottle rested on the table, and as he moved closer he could see it was some generic brand health drink.  He gave a grunt of amusement before checking to see if the seal on the cap was unbroken and stashing it.  There were plenty of health drinks available making miraculous claims but as a medical professional he knew those claims for the snake oil they were.  It would still be handy to have if he got thirsty though, something told him that bottled consumable liquids were at a premium here.

There was nothing else of interest in the kitchen, and the door that he assumed was to the bedrooms and bathroom had another broken lock.  When he looked out of the sliding glass door to the patio however he saw a vial of some sort lying on the cement just short of the railing.  The door slid open with a bit more noise than he would have liked as he stepped outside and picked it up.  There was a small amount of clear liquid inside and the vial sported a warning label that made it obvious the contents were a highly corrosive acid.

Lance hesitated for a moment.  His first impulse was to leave it there and avoid the risk of melting a patch of his skin off if it broke in his bag.  On the other hoof something that could eat through a bit of metal couldn't possibly not prove useful in this obstacle course of locks he was navigating.  He decided it was worth taking with him but he wasn't about to place it in his bags where it could potentially melt a chunk of everything else he was carrying.  Fortunately the front tool strap of the saddlebags had a holster of sorts that would do the job just fine, holding the vial away from his bags and in a place where it could be quickly removed if need be.

A sudden sound brought his attention to the view outside past the patio and beyond the perimeter fencing of paint black metal rods.  It was a dreadfully familiar clip clopping...but it was moving away.  The fact didn't stop Lance from dashing back into the room and only daring to look back once he was hidden to the side of the door.  The hoof steps had stopped...but within moments they resumed, this time much faster and headed right towards him.  The monstrous sheet wrapped unicorn burst from the fog and rammed headlong into the bars of the fence that proved ill capable of withstanding the force of the blow and bent inward with a metallic groan.

It had been the blasted door sliding open, it had to have been, he hadn't made a sound otherwise.  He got out of room G-1 as fast as his hooves would carry him away from the cacophony of bending bars and scraping metal.  The choice afterward was obvious.  He could either take up precious time trying to lure the drowning mare into G-9 or the lobby, or he could take the stairs up a floor immediately.

His decision was only further reinforced by the sound of splintering wood as the patio railing proved a laughably ineffective barrier.

Strange as his luck had been, it chose not to kill him in this instance and left the stairwell door unlocked, which was strange because it immediately decided to try and kill him anyway by leaving the stairs in a rusted, bent up, unusable wreck inside.  Luck's attempt on his life turned out to be a complete backfire though.  Lance looked upward to see the door to the first floor already slightly open just as the door to the lobby had been.

He heard breaking glass followed by furniture being tossed out of the way and G-1s door being bashed open.

Lance crouched low, unfurled his wings, then shot up to the first floor door and through it to relative safety.  He turned and looked downward just in time to see the shrouded monster pony break through the stairwell door.  She looked upward at him briefly before trying to use the stairs only to have the rusted support snap under her weight.  After letting out a beastly groan of frustration she looked around briefly, her gaze settling on a jagged bit of one of the broken supports sticking out of the wall.  She placed her side against it, beginning to move back and forth to use it as an impromptu saw on the ropes holding her sheet in place.

Whatever she looked like under that sheet, he could live with the mystery since being around her for any amount of time looked to be a quick ticket to a somewhat early grave.  He ventured a quick look upward to see that the door to the second floor was boarded up, and the door to the third floor was cut off by a rusted iron grating preventing any progress up past the second.  It was just as well that the stairwell wouldn't get him any higher now thanks to its new occupant.  He closed the door behind him.

The well kept appearance of the ground floor had somewhat diminished on the first floor.  The carpet was faded, stained, and worn through to the concrete in some places.  The light brown paint on the walls was just beginning to peel, and a look upward revealed some of the inactive bulbs were missing or broken.  Though the deterioration was unnerving, this was offset by the fact that Lance seemed to be alone in the hall on this floor and free to move about as he wished.

He checked the elevator first but to his dismay he found the button panel that might have been able to call it up to him missing, torn out if the jagged state of the hole where it had been was any indication.  The wiring behind it was left exposed, and one wire with green insulation had a segment conspicuously absent.  Did that mean the elevator wouldn't work at all?  How was he supposed to get to the second floor and over the wall then?

Lance grumbled irritably and turned back to the halls.  He may as well check the apartments...there wasn't much of anything else he could do.  This time he would just go through every door before bothering to investigate any he happened to find unlocked.  Apartment 110 was right next to him so he started there to joyously encounter another broken lock that seemed to add insult to the injury of the defunct elevator.

"Ugh..." He lamented as he stepped into the center hall.  His intent to check apartment 109 next was derailed as he saw another white door marked 303 in the place where 103 should have been.  This one was boarded up, and 102 proved inaccessible.  There was no way he would be able to see inside...but that was alright with him.  He moved over to this new 303 door and sat next to it with his back to the wall.  Getting to listen to her voice again was a gift all it's own, and he closed his eyes to let the memory play out in his head as she started to speak inside...

Lance quietly closed the bedroom door and made his way down the hallway, having just awoken from a good nap.  His body ached as it often did as of late.  Ever since they had moved in together he had thrown more effort into his weather service job, securing a few raises with more hours, and now he was signed up to begin fall classes at Manehatten University sooner than he had ever anticipated.  He was about to enter the living room when an only recently familiar voice gave him reason to pause.

"You know dear, it's still not too late to decide you two aren't that serious."

She sighed, "Mother, would you let this go?  Lance is a good, motivated, ambitious, hardworking, intelligent colt.  He cares about me, and we have fun being together.  I think that piece goes there."

Lance stopped and listened.  Her mother was visiting for the weekend, and he'd seen no end to her scrutinizing every little thing about him.

"Hrm?  Oh...oh I see, yes that fits perfectly, good eye!"  Her mother replied, apparently putting together a puzzle with her, "That's all well and good honey but...a stallion really ought to be able to support a mare financially and here you are practically paying for his education.  Here...this looks like it goes on your end."

"Thanks.  Things aren't like they were back when you met dad though mom, I've got a flower shop and a decent income, I don't need anypony to support me.  Besides, I'm not paying his way, I'm just helping him do it faster by splitting rent with him.  I picked Lance because I wanted Lance, and that's the way I like it.  I don't want to end up like you and dad sitting in your living room reading books so you can avoid talking to each other."  She paused before her eyes widened and she looked back to her mother after realizing she had been a bit too frank with her last remark, "I'm sorry mom, that wasn't necessary."

Her mother gave an amused chuckle, "I admit your father and I have sort of drifted apart, I can't really blame you for noticing.  If Lance makes you happy and you're doing well for yourself then...well, I guess I can't really complain.  I'm still going to worry though.  I'm your mother, it's my job, and even if you do like Lance I still know my daughter could do much better.  This piece doesn't even look like it goes with this puzzle at all."

"Hrm...put it aside for now, probably goes in the middle.  I guess that's fair enough, as long as you let us live our own lives."  She replied.

"I will dear, it'll be tough sometimes but I will."

From there the conversation steered back to the task at hand.  Lance waited a couple minutes more to negate any suspicion before he emerged into the living room with an only partially fake yawn, "Morning ladies."

"Oh, good, you're up.  I wanted to try that restaurant down the street for lunch but I didn't want to leave my daughter without any company because somepony was too busy napping."  Her mother replied in that delightfully passive aggressively pleasant manner of hers, producing an eye roll and smile from her daughter that only Lance saw.

"Well thank you for covering for me."  He said with a respectful nod as her mother rose to her hooves.

"I'll be back in an hour, love you." She said before giving her daughter a hug and heading toward the door.  Lance couldn't help but notice the comparatively cold sidelong glance he got as she passed by and out of their apartment.

"Brr."  He remarked after the door had closed.

"Oh shush, she'll warm up to you...or at least leave you alone eventually."  The younger mare in possession of his affections light heartedly scolded as he made his way over to her.

"I'd kiss you but I probably need to brush my teeth first."  He said as he sat next to her.

"Oh?  What's the occasion?"

"To thank you for standing up for me."

She gasped and gave him a good humored shove on his shoulder, "You were eavesdropping!  Bad pony!"

He chuckled as he took one step to right his balance, "I'm very sorry ma'am, how can I make it up to you?"

"Hrm..."  She brought a hoof to her chin and paused in thought before a smile graced her face, "Make two of those daisy sandwiches you're so good at, then meet me in the bedroom for lunch and something else we should finish before my mom gets home."  She answered with a wink before standing and heading down the hallway with an exaggerated sway to her step.

Her motions suddenly began to slow until she stopped entirely along with everything else, the sudden freeze in time accompanied by another sharp ringing tone.

Lance grasped his head in pain and stumbled away from the door, the penetrating ringing noise in his ears only relenting after he had done so.  He shook his head free of the disorientation and looked back at the door to see that it had been replaced with a wall of solid cement.

He sighed forlornly.  She had been good to him, even when he couldn't do anything but pay half her rent and not have much left over to help with food and bills after adding to his university fund.  Even though she had denied he was a burden he knew deep down inside that he had been, if only a bit.  But she hadn't cared.

He missed her so much...

...

After letting his head clear for a moment he turned to resume his sweep of the doors of the first floor.  Following another frustrating series of broken locks he had found only one door that was usable: apartment 108 directly across from what had formerly been 303.

Upon opening the door he was immediately greeted with the sickening noise of tearing flesh to accompany the buzzing of his watch.  He closed it instantly and stood there wide eyed with his hoof lingering on the doorknob.

Everything in his being told him to just stay put and not go inside, but he knew there was nowhere else to go from there.  He had to do it.  This door had to open.

He took another deep breath to bolster his resolve and began easing the door open slowly, stopping when the gap was just wide enough to get his head and light through.  The tearing sound had given way to what was unmistakably chewing, and even more alarmingly the first thing his surgical light revealed was a messy blood trail leading out of the kitchen and into the living room.  As much as he didn't want them to his eyes and light followed it deeper into the room as the chewing ended with a sickened swallow and the distorted voice of a mare catching her breath before the tearing sounds resumed.  After what felt like far too short a time he found the source of the sounds and the blood trail.

It wasn't a drowning mare, and it definitely wasn't the sheet shrouded beast pony pursuing him, but it was indeed a pony of some sort.  It was a different color on each side, dark red on the left, and a pale flesh color on the right, all of it covered with the scars of hundreds of healed over cuts.  The two halves were stretched over and nailed into one another in an alternating pattern, giving the appearance of a large stitch holding the two halves together.  The blood had come from another pony that he could only assume had been the room's tenant, who was now dead at this new creature's feet apparently being scavenged for sustenance.

The circle of light did not go unnoticed.  It stopped gorging on the fresh corpse and looked over it's right shoulder right back at him as its ears perked up.  The head itself was the oddest part of the monstrosity.  It wasn't a head so much as two half heads combined into one, the right half completely covered in dark red scar tissue and shaped like a stallion's head, the left half covered in blood, eyeless, sporting a maw of jagged teeth that stretched back well past the point that a pony's mouth should, and shaped like a mare's head.

Lance stood there with baited breath, preparing to run.  But it didn't charge at him as he was anticipating.  The scavenger just gave a vaguely feminine snarl of warning and resumed feasting while the left half of its head writhed in its scar tissue prison.  It didn't seem to care about him...for the moment.  It only looked to care about guarding its meal.  That might afford him some wiggle room inside of the apartment, but how much?  Was he really willing to test it?

The alternative was a stairwell full of sheet covered unicorn murder machine.  He was willing.

Slow and steady.

He eased the door open the rest of the way and crept inside slowly and quietly while the scavenger gnawed away.  Struggling to keep his breathing quiet from the sheer tension, he looked around for anything of note.  The kitchen was absolutely covered in blood, the various bits of cookery scattered all over after a deadly encounter of which the tenant had gotten the bad end.  The only other thing in the living room besides the corpse and the scavenger was a dirty mattress that made it look like the corpse was less of a former tenant and more of a former squatter.

Lance flinched as the scavenger brought the right half of its head up to swallow another chunk of meat before descending again.

Only the bedrooms and bathroom remained, but the hall to the right that lead toward them would only take him closer to the scavenger.  The door was right behind him though.  If things got hairy he had plenty of room to just turn tail and run.  It was the only thought that let him move his hooves forward and further.

He had taken two steps before it noticed his advancing and stopped all movement, beginning to let off a low growl as it crouched near the ground.  It still didn't go for him though.

Lance took another step.  Two more and he'd be able to go down the hallway and leave the creature in peace.

The mare half bit down on the neck of its victim and glared death at him with its eyeless gaze, the growl growing louder.

Another step.  Each one made his watch buzz louder.  It took a herculean effort on his part to remain in control and not make a panic driven sprint for it.

The mare half's mouth released the dead pony and the scavenger turned toward him, standing protectively in front of its kill as it snarled at him.

Lance and the scavenger stood stone still looking right at each other, waiting for one another to make any move at all.

...

Part 7

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Familiar places.

Part 7

...

The mare half's mouth opened wide and let out a distorted roar as it charged at him.  Lance moved in practically the same instant, throwing himself at the nearest bedroom door in the hall leaving the scavenger to slam into the wall behind him.  The first door didn't work.  As the scavenger was shaking off the daze he dashed to the second door and was able to open it.  He scrambled inside and closed the door just in time to block another charge, the creature letting out a pained grunt as the impact put a single crack in the door.  Lance backed away from the door as the scavenger growled loudly on the other side for a few more moments before he heard it go back into the living room, satisfied at having chased off the intruder.  His watch grew quiet.

He was safe again, though doubtful it would last long.

The wall separating the two bedrooms had been knocked down, creating one large room that had been converted into an indoor plantery.  Shelves lined three of the walls, stocked with planter pots filled with dead plants and dry, barren dirt.  But these aren't what he noticed the most.  There in the middle of the room, illuminated by what was probably the only functional light in the building, was a stool.  On top of it was yet another pot, but instead of a dead plant and arid soil, a single flower with cream colored petals stood proudly blooming from dark brown soil rich with nutrients.

The light from the ceiling mounted lamp glinted off of something in the soil that caught his eye, prompting him to move closer.  It was the top of a key, barely visible and mostly buried.  Lance was very careful to not disturb the flower as he moved some of the soil away and then pulled the key out, even taking a moment to replace the disturbed dirt afterward.  He brushed off the dirt clinging to the key and briefly examined his new acquisition.  It was gold in color, and on the top was an etching of a stalk of wheat.  Was it for that altar thing down in G-9?  Even if it wasn't it still unlocked something, so Lance gave it no further thought before depositing it into his bag.

The scavenger outside would probably still be busy eating so he would most likely be safe just going further down the hallway to check if he could get into the bathroom.  When he looked back to the one functional bedroom door though he saw another note nailed to it.  Had that been there before?  He plucked it off to find it was the same hoof writing as the note down found on the ground floor:

"Dear Esteemed Guest

Perhaps I was not clear.  Perhaps you are not aware of the meaning of the word 'linger'.  I make this assumption because otherwise it would mean you willfully disrespected my polite request and then we would have a problem.  So in the spirit of that assumption I present you this short list of synonyms and a general definition.

Loiter

Delay

Amble

Dawdle

Dillydally

Falter

Hang out

Hesitate

Procrastinate

Remain

Stay

Tarry

Vacillate

Wait

Linger.  'Leeng-Ger'  Verb.

To remain or stay on in a place longer than is usual or expected, as if from reluctance to leave: "Lance lingered near room 303 contrary to the polite request he had recieved."

There, clear as day, no misunderstandings.  Please do not linger near door 303 any further.

Thank you for your time!"

Willfully disrespected fairly aptly described Lance's reaction as he put the note into his bag indifferently and continued into the hallway.

His watch began buzzing again but this time he had been expecting it, and from the sound of the scavenger's renewed chewing it wouldn't give him any problems in the small distance from the second bedroom door to the bathroom door.  Inside he found another unexpected blessing.  The bathtub was missing, but in its place was a ladder that went up and through the ceiling into the bathroom of room 208.  Finally he would be able to get on the other side of that cursed wall!

After scaling the ladder and poking his head up into 208's bathroom, he instantly regretted that his head was the first part of him to be at floor level.  It was almost as bad as the mare's bathroom at the cafe had been.  The floor was covered with mildew and mold that looked to have crept down from the ceiling along the walls.  The mirror was missing, the porcelain fixtures had been broken, and the exposed pipes were rusted over.  That smell was back too.  Lance finished climbing the ladder and got his head away from the floor in a hurry.

The rest of 208 was in a similarly advanced state of neglect.  The paint was gone and the exposed wood had begun to rot through, the carpeting only remained on the border of the floors in ragged patches, the cement below was stained and cracked, and the furniture was half ripped apart.  It seemed the farther he got from the ground floor the more the apartment complex resembled the rest of the town.  No matter now though, all he had to do now was find a way down on the other side and he could leave.

He opened the door into the second floor's central hallway and turned right...and the wall was still there.

Lance stood in mute confusion for a moment.  Was the wall taller than he thought it had been?  He'd already flown over it a number of times, running into it on the second floor didn't seem right to him.  Was the section inside the building actually taller than the rest of the wall outside?  Why?

It seemed like such a pointless question here.  Why move the library?  Why have buildings from Manehatten pop up here in Ponyville?  Why fill the entire town with fog and monsters and memories?

His only answer was a resounding 'because'.

So this floor wasn't any good for getting over the wall either.  He'd just have to find the way up to the third floor and hope his luck was better.  Lance knew the door to the stairwell was no good from his glance upward earlier so the elevator was the next obvious thing to check.  It also seemed to be the only thing to check at all so far, every other door he could see was boarded over.  Strangely he welcomed the return of the boards that had plagued him outside for so long.  At least with them in place he didn't have to bother to check every single doorknob he came across.

There were no monsters in sight down either end of the side hall and he could see that both 201 and 210 were likewise boarded off.  It afforded him a tiny sense of security as he made his way over to the elevator.  He was met with disappointment again.  Not only were the buttons to call the elevator up not there, it looked like nopony had even built a place to put them in the first place.  The elevator door wasn't even a door either, it was just a series of fancy bars that resembled one.

Wait...there was something wrapped around one of them.  Something green.  Lance reached a hoof up and grabbed it, pulling it free to see that it was a length of wire with green insulation...just like the cut wire downstairs.  He could probably use this to fix it, and then surely the elevator would work, although the only pair of buttons he knew about was down on the ground floor behind the drowning mare...not to mention the other beast down there.  From the looks of things it was his only way up to the third floor.  He would have too make it work somehow.

He stashed the length of wire and then headed down the hall in the other direction, intent on at least giving the other end a look.  It proved a fruitful endeavor.

There was an open apple barrel in front of the externally blockaded stairwell door.  As he approached it looked empty, but once close enough he peered down to see what resembled cement that had been molded into the shape of an apple, a thick iron band going around the glorified rock.  Lance tipped the barrel over and allowed it to roll free out onto the floor.  In the full light he could see it wasn't one shaped chunk of cement, but two pieces split down the middle and held together with the iron band.  He gave it a nudge with his hoof and as it rolled onto its side he could hear the quite rattle of something inside.  Could it be another key?  How would he get it open though?

...of course!

He set the apple upright and pulled the vial of acid from its place in the tool holster.  Very carefully, he unscrewed it and poured the contents out onto a section of the band right in front of the split in the apple, then backed away a few steps as it started to hiss and smoke.  There was no telling how much tension was in that band, if he was too close it might come apart so violently that-

Lance flinched again as the band flew apart with a loud metallic snap.  The two halves opened up and the anticipated key did indeed fall onto the cracked cement floor.  This one had an apple engraving on the top.

He had found two keys, and there had been two padlocks at the altar on the ground floor.  That couldn't be a coincidence.  He clearly needed to find out what was hidden down there in addition to fixing and using the elevator to get to the third floor.  Now Lance had to backtrack his way down there...and he did not look forward to the last drop down to ground floor.  He was just about to pass by room 201 when he realized it wasn't actually room 201...

It was the dead of winter.  The first semester of Lance's classes had passed with him getting the highest marks possible, and now he was on break, with holiday vacation from his weather service job to boot.  They'd spent a lot more time together in the last few days than had become usual for them in the hectic previous months.  It was a little paradise for the two of them.

At the moment they were both in bed quite successfully warding off the cold with the assistance of three blankets and their own shared body heat as they talked of this and that long into the night.  Sleep would come eventually but they were in no hurry.  Neither of them had any place to be the following day.

"I'm glad this worked out...this whole thing with you moving in."  She said, snuggling against him affectionately.

"Me too...I thought getting my schooling here would be some long haul I'd just have to endure but with you around it hasn't felt like that at all."  He replied with fore hooves wrapped around her.

"Hehe...hey, Lance, have you thought about what we're going to do after you graduate?"  She asked, looking up at him.

His eyes moved away from hers as he looked contemplative for a moment, "Well, I haven't really thought about that, it just seems so far away right now.  I've still got years of study left, volunteer work, the MCAT, medical school applications...so much left to do.  I know I wanted to go home to Cloudsdale before I met you but now I don't even know if I want to do that anymore.  I guess I just don't know enough yet to say for sure."

"Hrm...fair enough...but if we're going to stay together long term I need you to answer one question for me."  She replied, voice a bit more serious now.

The change in tone really got his attention, "Okay, ask away."

"I want to have a foal someday.  Do you?"

"Yes."  He answered with nary a hint of doubt.

She smiled and kissed him before resting her head against his chest and closing her eyes, "Good...if you can say that for sure at least, then I'm happy.  Good night Lance...I love you."

"Good night-"

Before the name could be uttered the world once again froze in place.

Lance grimaced as he stepped away from the door with hooves once more over his ears until they stopped ringing.  Notes be damned, he was going to listen to his late wife's voice at every opportunity and that was that.  The door to 303 had once again been replaced with a concrete slab, this one cracked and slightly mossy to match the increasingly poor conditions of the upper stories.  It was time to move on now and take a short break from the squalor as he descended before heading up to the third floor, the condition of which he didn't want to imagine ahead of time.

As it happened he would get no such reprieve from the sordid conditions.  Upon getting to the bottom of the ladder down into108's bathroom he was dismayed to find that the conditions upstairs had inexplicably spread downstairs.  The bathroom was just as filthy, and in 108's hallway the carpet just as absent, the cement below just as cracked and chipped, and the wooden walls just as unpainted and rotting.  The scavenger was absent from the living room, but the now mysteriously age rotted corpse in the corner had been joined by two more, fresher looking half eaten cadavers.  This wasn't good.  Monsters he lost track of could never be good.

His watch remained quiet as he exited the apartment and headed down the side hall to the elevator door with the missing button panel.  Lance retrieved the bit of green insulated wire then sat down to free up his fore hooves for the somewhat delicate task of tying the wire back into place.  Moments later the last two ends connected with a spark that caused Lance to yank his hoof free and shake some of the shock out of it.  He was rewarded with the sound of machinery above and below in the elevator shaft finally whirring to life.

Now he had to get back down there.  He made for the stairwell door but just before he passed the central hallway his watch began buzzing again.  The followup growl made it clear he had indeed located the missing scavenger.

It was apparently much more aggressive without a corpse to nibble on, as Lance had to duck under an attempted pounce by the monstrous pony before he bolted off at a gallop for the other end of the hall.  The scavenger had to spend a few moments redirecting its momentum to more effectively chase its quarry, which bought Lance valuable seconds.  He used them to quickly look down after opening the door.  The dilapidation had spread all the way to the ground floor, but he couldn't see any sheet shrouded unicorn waiting below.  Just the discarded, torn, blood stained sheet it had been wearing and various cut ropes strewn about.

He looked back to see the scavenger almost upon him and made a split second decision between very likely death right in front of him or instant death that only might be there.  Lance quickly zipped out into the stairwell and hovered in place while he pulled the door shut and held it long enough to make sure the scavenger didn't escape.  The door shook a few times with the ravenous pony's efforts to get out but it soon lost interest and left Lance to do as he would.

He descended and looked out into the ground floor side hall through the opening that had once been a door before the shrouded unicorn had bashed through it.  His wings were spread and ready to get him back into the air at a moment's notice but it looked to be unneeded.  The watch was quiet, and if she was still down there with him she would have made it apparent by now, especially considering the racket he'd just made exiting the first floor.  The only monster remaining at ground level looked to be the drowning mare still lying still in front of the elevator.

The furniture barren apartment G-9 would be perfect to lure her in as it would afford him plenty of space to move around her and escape.  But first he had a couple of keys to use before he added the element of a blade swinging creature to the room.  The painting of the saint pony inside had not aged well during the spread of the decay from up stairs and was barely recognizable as a pony anymore through all the missing paint.  The metal plate had weathered it quite a bit better, and despite being much more rusted over now the engraved text was still very much legible.

"Your gifts ma'am." He quietly muttered as he retrieved the two keys and used them to undo the padlocks.  Lance had planned on letting the plate down to the ground slowly to avoid making any more noise but as soon as the second lock had been removed it fell off and it was all he could do to just get out of its way.  It landed with an ear splitting crash that would no doubt have been audible two floors up.  If he'd had any stealth before, he didn't now, and his best bet was to hurry and get whatever was behind the metal plate.

Which was all of nothing.

It was just more wall.  There had been nothing behind it at all.  Had it been a trick this whole time?  He directed an angry glare at the metal plate but saw that his irritation might be misplaced.  There was another engraving on the side that had been pressed against the wall and unviewable:

"#1: C4H4N2O3"

Was this somehow the saint's grace that would light his path?  He pulled one of the notes and the marker from his bag, copying down the sequence, crossed out letters and all, before labeling it "Saint's Sequence".  He stashed the modified note and when he tried to leave he spotted another such note newly nailed to the inside of G-9's door for him to read.  Whoever was writing them was persistent...and unnaturally quiet.

"Dear Esteemed Guest,

Really?

Really?!

I spelled it out for you, in an absurdly complete manner.  You're doing this on purpose.  I can't bring myself to believe otherwise anymore.  You just ignore my polite request, and then do even worse by finding both of them and then giving them to her!

You've pushed this a bit far...but not too far yet.  I'm patient.  I tolerate a lot.

Just take the thing you're thinking of doing, and expel it out of your head, just right out.  Then you can walk away, out the door over there, and there will not have been a problem between us.

That's all I'm asking.  Please.  Is that really so much?

Thank you for your time!"

More scrap paper to write on.  If the thing he wasn't supposed to be doing was getting on that elevator and getting the hay over the wall at long last this letter writer was going to be disappointed.  Before he could do that though he had one last bit of tricky business to partake in.

The watch buzzed in warning as he walked down the side hall toward the now functional elevator and its drowning mare guardian.  She began twitching to life, and after five more steps on his part she was on her hooves and stumps coming towards him, still making those gagging, choking sounds that made him sick to his stomach.  He backed off slowly, keeping pace with her so she wouldn't fall behind.  The two crept around the corner into the center hall and then through the door into G-9 where Lance lead her toward the right side of the living room.  When it looked like he had the needed clearance he finally galloped around her left side and back out into the hallway successfully.  With his way now clear he freely stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the third floor, the machinery springing into action and moving him upward at last.  He sat down and caught his breath during the trip upward, trying to calm his frayed nerves.

The elevator slowed and finally stopped on the third floor, but the sight that greeted him after he pushed the elevator door aside negated any calm he'd managed to scrap together.  There wasn't a trace of carpeting or paint anywhere to be seen.  The wooden boards that had comprised the walls had apparently rotted away entirely up here, leaving nothing but a metal grating in front of moldy insulation in their wake.  The cement floor was even more cracked, chipped, and worn away than before, leaving the rebar beneath exposed in several spots.  There were no lights strung up on the ceiling either.  It was the same shoddy, age worn, rebar exposing cement as the floor.

He shined his light down the hallway to see that this floor wasn't the same lay out as the previous ones at all.  It was a single hall, no side doors anywhere, about half the length of one of the side halls below.  The only door was at the end of the hall.  It was that same clean white door that he'd already seen three times before.  Door 303.  Except this time it was covered by an array of criss crossing, taut chains that would prevent anypony from opening it.  They were held tightly in place by three padlocks, each looking slightly different from the other and bearing an engraving of a number.  From left to right they were labeled #1, #9, and #3.

Hrm...hadn't there been a #1 in the saint's sequence?

Lance looked at the #1 padlock closer.  It was a number combination lock, four values.  So that was it!  He turned his head to pull the note with the sequence written on it from his saddlebag but was interrupted by yet another mysterious note from nowhere, right next to him on the wall, hanging from a section of grating that had been cut and bent inward:

"Don't."

...

Lance pulled the note with the sequence on it from his saddlebag and gave it a look.  If he took out the crossed out letters, all that was left was "#1: 4423".  Easy.  He input the four numbers and gave the padlock a pull to open it, adding a twist to slip off the chains attached to it.  A third of the web of criss crossing chains fell slack to the floor and would no longer impede his progress.

"...was that it?"  He asked aloud.  There were still two locks left and he didn't have any clue as to how to open them.  So now for all his effort he was left here on the third floor with a partially unlocked door that still wouldn't open, being only partially unlocked and all.  How pointless had that all been?

His ears twitched as they registered a new sound.  It was distant...blaring...

A siren.

Lance's surgical light, his only light source, began to dim and flicker with no explanation.  Was the charge running out already?  He tapped and shook it, trying to see if something inside just wasn't connecting properly to no avail.  The last thing he saw before his light went out entirely was the note hanging from the broken, bent grating.  It said something different now:

"FINE."

Part 8

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

What a nightmare.

Part 8

"Come on come on come on come on."  Lance muttered as he continued fiddling with the surgical light.  If the crystal's charge was depleted he didn't know what the hay he would do.  Getting up there had been an interesting enough journey on its own, he couldn't imagine how harrowing it would be having to go back down in pitch black with several monsters waiting for him on the way, not the least of which was that brutal shrouded mare...or once shrouded mare at least.  The siren off in the distance began to die down before quieting completely.  Lance let out a breath of relief as his surgical light finally began to flicker back to life, soon casting as strong a circle of light as ever.

He found himself wishing it hadn't.

"Wh...what the...." His eyes widened, his ears pulled back, and the color left his face as an unprecedented wave of terror smashed its way through him.

The chained door to 303 was gone, and as far as he could tell the halls were back in their usual positions rather than just the one single hallway.  The apparent rearranging of the third floor's layout was by far not the most jostling detail though.  Everything had undergone a macabre transformation in the period of total darkness.  The exposed rebar and cracked cement floor and ceiling had been replaced with an uneven, chaotic grid of poorly welded together metal plates, and the walls that had once been made of grating over molded insulation were now formed of oddly angled iron bars over what looked to be segments of stretched out leather held in place by hooks at each corner.  Everything metal was spotted with rust, and the skins that were stretched out looked to have dried only very recently.  There was not a stitch anywhere on them to explain how long they were.  Such a hide could not have come from any creature anypony had ever seen in Equestria.

Lance felt a strong urge to just run until he found the way out of there but he squelched the impulse.  If this altered version of the apartment building was anything like the one he had just made his way to the top of, all that would do is get him killed.

"Calm down...just...calm down...." It suddenly didn't matter to him if monsters nearby could hear him reassuring himself, he needed to do it.  A voice he could control was just about the only thing he had left to be sure he was sane now.  The mysterious deterioration of the apartment building around him as he had ascended had been taxing enough on his psyche, but now that everything had changed so drastically, so quickly, right in the dark in front of him, he found it difficult to keep up his earlier conclusion that he was awake and lucid.  This sort of stuff only happened in nightmares.

Nightmares and here.

He backpedaled a step and put his back to a wall...or at least the bars it was composed of.  Even this didn't feel particularly safe.  He could hear the air move steadily in whatever space was behind the stretched skins, almost like some sort of unearthly breathing.  But despite half expecting something to grab him from behind the bars, having something at his back still felt better than having nothing but the menace of a hallway full of open space just behind him.

Lance took a moment to just breathe and regather the thoughts that this most recent development had flung every which way.  This changed a lot of things, but it didn't change the fact that he still needed to find an exit on the other side of the wall...or just any exit at all for that matter.  He found himself caring very little which side of the wall he ended up on, just so long as he could get outside and away from...this.  The obvious first course of action was to check to see if the stair wells or elevator would offer him a quick exit, not that he was holding his breath over it.  If things continued as they had been going he would be lucky to find his path downward clear for even just one floor.

From his spot against the wall the elevator should have been to his right, but he shined his light over to see that there was no elevator to speak of.    The shaft didn't look obstructed from where he was standing though, so there was still the possibility of jumping down and breaking his fall with a beat of his wings.  His hopes were dashed as he stepped to the edge and looked down to see that the elevator shaft was blocked on the second floor by a rusted metal grating, with access to the second floor itself cut off as well by another wall of oddly angled iron bars.  But even though he couldn't get through the iron bars he could certainly see through them.  For all he knew there was something worth spotting on the other end.

After giving the ceiling a cautionary glance to make sure it all wasn't just an obvious trap of some sort, he hopped down and landed on the grating with a soft grunt before turning and shining his light down the hall.  It seemed the complex was degrading as he descended in much the same way that it had done so on the way up.  The rust had spread further on this new version of the second floor, and he even spotted another, deeper, far more unsettling shade of red spattered in several spots with nary an explanation.  He spotted one thing that made the hop down worth the trouble though.  Lance couldn't quite make out what it was but his light glinted off of something lying on the floor at the intersection of the side and center hallways.  If the recent past was any indication, it was surely something worth picking up.

There came a sound from around the corner that made him freeze.  It was a distorted, curious hum overlaid by a soft snarl, both bestial and feminine at once.  A gentle creaking and clicking of metal clad hooves on the floor followed and grew closer.  He didn't need to see anything to know who that was, and she had apparently spotted his light.

Lance spent an overlong second fumbling with the switch on his light before managing to turn it off.  With no other light source everything was plunged back into pitch blackness.  He silently stepped back from the bars and lowered himself down to the grating, keeping his hooves beneath him in anticipation of having to make a leap back up to the third floor should his effort at hiding in the dark fail.

The hoof steps and creaking continued until she reached the side hallway and stopped.  Lance heard her neck restraints groan as she looked down either side.

His body tensed.  Could she see in the dark?  It didn't seem like much of a stretch after having been able to see him just fine through the sheet she'd discarded at the base of the stairwell.

...

Wait...

The watch!

It started buzzing softly as the hoof steps started up again, heading straight for him.  There was no way anypony would miss the sound, especially as it quickly rose in volume in concert with the monstrous mare's proximity.  Lance knew if he moved to try and muffle the noise he would just make enough sound to give him away anyway.  He had to run.  His wings were about to unfurl when a recent memory flashed through his mind.  She'd been able to hear him muttering to himself back inside of the cafe, but had hovered outside, clearly uncertain if he had been there or not.  In the two occasions she had gotten definite sight of him, her response had been an immediate, zealous charge, completely unlike the measured pace of the hoof steps approaching him.

Could she not hear the watch?

If she could, if this hesitation on her part was all a feint, she would have to spend a few precious seconds pushing through the bars anyway.  He would have time to leap to safety and run...somewhere.  But if she couldn't hear the watch, he could just hide there and avert any suspicion.  He wasn't sure how much leeway in movement around the hellish apartment complex that such success would buy him but it was worth trying.  Lance restrained his racing breath to a silent crawl, not daring to move a single muscle as the distance closed, fearing that the sound of his heartbeat alone would give him away if the watch failed to do so.

The hoof steps stopped again, placing her just on the other side of the bars.  She was so close he could hear her every breath even through the insistent buzzing of the pocket watch.  Despite not having the sheet covering her any longer it still sounded as though her mouth was covered.  By what though?

He flinched as she struck the bars.  His wings extended and he was about to jump for it when he realized the expected groaning of the bars as they were pushed out of the way was not forthcoming.  She struck the bars again, and once again nothing was done to follow it up.

She really didn't know he was there...she couldn't hear the watch at all...but she suspected something enough to try and goad him into fleeing...

The revelation that his hiding spot in the dark was actually working in spite of the loud buzzing bolstered his resolve to stay there and not make a sound.  Just a while longer...he had to sit there still and silent for just a while longer, then she would go away and look for him elsewhere.

I'm not here...just go away...just go the hay away...

....

He heard whatever metallic object that was covering her face clink against the bars before she took in a long, slow breath.  The following exhalation sounded like a feral growl overlaying what was unmistakably a coo of delight.

Did she just-

The thought was cut short by a much more enthusiastic strike against the bars followed by the telltale groan of their bending to the force being applied as she began trying to get at him in earnest.  His hiding spot was compromised, and he made a wing assisted leap back up to the third floor now that there was no point in staying quiet anymore.  The cautious approach he had planned on wouldn't cut it now.  Even though the second floor elevator shaft bars had been thicker than the perimeter fence she'd easily plowed through outside it would only buy him maybe half a minute of running time.

He spent a few moments getting his surgical light switched back on through the adrenaline charged shaking of his hooves.  Now that he had been on the second floor the rust and spots of blood had spread upward to the third floor, just like the decay had spread downward on his way up.  There was no going back in this place.

How had she gotten up from the ground floor anyway?  The only reason he had been able to was because he had...

...wings.

"No no no shut up." He told himself.  It didn't matter how she got up there, what she had, or what she looked like, he just needed to get away from her as fast as possible.

He shined his light down the hallway and saw that the stairwell on the other end of the hall wouldn't be any help.  It was sealed by a metal slab that had been bolted to the wall and covered the door completely.  That left the other stairwell on the other side hall as the obvious next choice.  Another rending of iron from the elevator shaft put a terrified spring in his step as he started to gallop down the central hallway.  Aside from there being no cobblestone wall he saw only two details on his way, but they both made quite the impression.

The first was that the wall to his left along which he assumed there would be doors to apartments 302 to 304 had been replaced by a lightly blood spattered chain link fence.  It gave him a view into a large, dark, nearly empty space that had been hollowed out of the area that half of the apartments used to inhabit.  A spotlight that must have been aiming up from the ground floor partially illuminated the sole occupant of the small void, a single pony, hairless, faceless, and scarred, hanging upside down from a chain bolted to the ceiling.  It twisted back and forth, trying to free itself from the loop of chain holding fast to its ankle to no avail.  The other three limbs were held tightly against its torso for one reason or another that Lance didn't feel too keen on discerning at the moment.

The other was a white door to his right, standing spotlessly clean in defiance of the nightmare world around it and bearing a now familiar number.

The work over the last few years had only gotten more taxing on him.  He was working more hours at his weather service job so that he could cover more of his fair share while still keeping tuition paid off.  When he arrived home exhausted most every day he had just time enough to wash off the day's sweat before heading to his classes, after that he had just enough time to come home again entirely too late, and after that he had just enough time to do his studying before having not nearly enough time left to sleep prior to the entire process starting anew.

For his trouble his marefriend's mother had switched from suggesting he was a parasite to insinuating that he wasn't paying enough attention to her daughter...and he was a parasite.

There was no use in fretting over unwinnable battles though.  From his spot waking up warm in his bed with her behind him on one of the exceedingly rare days they both had off, he didn't much care about that anyway.  They hadn't planned anything in particular to do for the day so he didn't even bother checking the time after his eyes drifted open, something he enjoyed not doing very dearly when he could get away with it.  He yawned as quietly as he could manage then rolled over expecting to see her right there next to him.

"HLUUURG!"

As it turned out she was in the bathroom.

"Are you okay?"  Lance called out as he hopped out of bed, trotted into the hallway, and over to the bathroom door that was hanging half open.  The toilet flushed as he pushed the door.

"Do I-urp-sound okay?"  She replied somewhat bitterly before turning on the faucet and washing her mouth out, "Ah Celestia that tastes awful..."

"Will you be okay?"  He clarified.

"I don't know...it's been happening all week.  Just after you leave I wake up, and half an hour later I'm in here throwing up."  She said as she grabbed her toothbrush and toothpaste.

"Think you caught something?" Lance guessed while still standing there in the hallway.

She spent a minute brushing, then spit before getting around to replying as he waited patiently, "I don't think so...I haven't had a fever or anything, and you probably would've caught it too."

"Yeah true...I wonder if something's spoiled in the fridge and we just haven't checked the expiration date."  He guessed once more and looked down the hall toward the kitchen.

"With the way you keep tabs on that I doubt it." She replied with a look of amusement as she reached for a bottle of mouthwash.

"Who knows, I might have slipped recently without using the notebook."

"Oh come on now, it took me a whole year to convince you to stop cataloging the expiration dates  in that thing and I'm not going to let you start again." She said with a chuckle at the recollection of the well worn notebook that had taken up residence on the counter next to the fridge about a month after he had moved in with her.

"Alright alright...I'll give the fridge a look over though, I mean it's got to be something, somepony doesn't just throw up for no reason."  Lance said and started to walk back down the hallway.  He didn't make it to the third step before he heard the plastic bottle of mouth wash drop into the bathroom sink and looked back over his shoulder, "You okay in there?"

...

"Honey?" The silence was worrying and Lance trotted back over to the open door.  She was just standing there staring wide eyed into the mirror, "What's wrong?"

"Lance...what day is it?"

"Um...Saturd-" She rushed over before he could finish answering, the sudden movement caught him off guard and forced him back against the wall with his marefriend's wild eyed face only inches away from his.  The look on his face in response was understandably unsettled.

"No I meant the date!" She demanded again.  He took a moment recalling his mental calendar but apparently it wasn't fast enough for her.  Just as he'd opened his mouth she vanished from his sight and he felt a gust of wind as she literally flew into the living room where their calendar was pinned to the wall.

"Wait, wait what's wrong?" He tried asking as he galloped after her.  She ignored him though, wings still flapping as she hovered in front of the calendar tracing a path across it with her hoof.

"...No no no!" She cried out suddenly before rushing out the front door of the apartment with Lance in close pursuit.

"Would you just tell me what's wrong?!"

This wasn't like before.  It wasn't just him sitting there listening and letting the memories return to the front of his mind.  This was something altogether different that struck his mind in one instant impact that produced a feeling reminiscent of a physical blow.  He staggered to the side against the chain link fence with his eyes shut tight against the brief flash of pain.  After it had passed he shook the disorientation off and looked back toward the door.  It was no longer the spotless white door to 303, nor the cement wall that had replaced them before, but a thick rusted over iron door bolted over the smaller one.

There was also a viewing slot that was currently open.  Lance shined his light at it but only got a brief, inconclusive glimpse of who was on the other side before the viewing slot's cover was slammed shut.  A hiss of steam followed by the unmistakeable sound of one of the bars in the elevator shaft snapping apart moments later served to remind him of his predicament.  He galloped to the end of the hall and turned right to head toward the stairwell only to find no door visible in any part of that half of the side hall.

There was also the much more pressing matter of the half set of teeth bared at him.

It had been roaming at the far end of the hallway beyond the range of his watch but that was soon remedied, the volume of the buzzing rising in volume at an alarming rate as the scavenger barreled toward him.  There wouldn't be any corpse to distract it until it turned Lance into one.  With a scavenger on his right and the menace of the implacable monster mare behind him there wasn't much choice but to bolt down the hall to his left and hope for the best.  What he saw certainly wasn't the best but it would do: a door on the right at the very end of the hall that the maps from the ground floor had never indicated would be there.

He heard the scavenger's half jaw snap shut as it just barely missed biting into his leg.  Lance had long ago made it a habit to avoid flying indoors since sudden gusts of air knocking things over could potentially spell disaster in a busy hospital.  But this was no hospital, and he was rather keen on keeping his hooves attached to his legs.  A beat of his wings had his hooves off the floor and he flew down the hallway.  He reached out his hoof in preparation to grab the doorknob but the hind legs of the malformed beast pony pursuing him proved surprisingly capable as it made a lunge for him.

Lance felt the jagged teeth of the monster pierce his back left leg before he slammed into the floor only two yards from the door.  Just before the scavenger stood back up and started shaking his leg back and forth in a bid to tear a chunk of him free he heard a quartet of heavy hooves landing on the metal floor.  If he couldn't dislodge the creature before she rounded the second corner he was finished.

Seeing as he would simply be slammed into the floor again if he tried to take off he instead rolled onto his side, looked back at the famished monster, and aimed kick after frantic kick of his uninjured hind leg into the scavenger's face.  His hoof struck the featureless colt shaped side which seemed to react on its own, letting out muffled groans of pain and shaking about trying to escape the flurry of blows whilst its mare counterpart continued doing grievous damage to the leg in her mouth.  The galloping hoof steps quickly grew closer, she was halfway through the center hallway.  Lance relented in the assault for only a moment for the sole purpose of putting all of his strength into one last desperate kick which actually deformed the colt half's skull with a sickening crack.  The mare half let out a startled yelp, losing its grip in surprise as two of its legs went limp and pulled it down to the ground.

The familiar screech of her neck restraints heralded her rounding the corner but Lance was already grimacing in pain trying to put as little weight on his bleeding hind leg as possible while he wrestled the door open then flung himself inside.  Had he been thinking more clearly he might have thought to at least give a glance to what was beyond the door before making such a brash move.  His front hooves found no floor beneath them and by the time he recognized the room for the narrow drop to the next floor down that it was he was already halfway down.  At the very least he had enough presence of mind left to tuck in his wings before he landed on his back with a painful grunt.

"Uuuuungh..." He groaned as he rolled back onto his hooves and forced himself up despite the protests of his shredded leg.  There was an awful racket behind him at the top of the chute as his pursuer found she wouldn't be able to fit through to chase him down.  The discovery elicited an unnatural growl of annoyance followed by hoof steps on the floor above and a terrified whimpering.  A cacophony of cries of pain, screeching of metal, tearing of flesh, and splattering of fluids echoed down the chute before a hiss of steam, what sounded distressingly like a distorted moan, and a final crack of bone brought an end to it.

Lance stood there looking back at the open door, struck still with horror by the sounds he had just heard.

...

The groan of her neck restraints echoed down one more time and suddenly the cadaver of the scavenger landed at the bottom of the chute, limbs bent in ways they shouldn't have been, neck visibly crushed, and generally torn apart.  Lance winced at the flash of pain in his leg as he reflexively stepped back from the sight, eyes affixed onto the grisly remains and pondering how close he had been to such a fate himself.  The hoof steps trotting over to the central hallway above served to snap him out of it with the realization she was heading back towards the bars she had broken through.

The same bars that had separated him from that glinting object...

For all the chaos present in that place Lance had begun to catch on to a few things.  When a monster was near his watch would buzz.  When it looked like it would be a straight shot to something, it wouldn't be.  Finally, when something seemed placed in just such a way as to catch his attention, he would need it.  Now he just had to hope the wall was either breached or just not there anymore.  It seemed odd to be wishing for one less barrier between him and his aspiring killer but if it was there, he wouldn't be able to get to that glinting object in the hallway, and she'd just break through it and murder him anyway.

His strange luck held and he found the cobblestone wall somehow entirely absent with the object he sought giving another glint, his light once more illuminating it after he had limped around the corner.  He wasn't sure why she was so casually trotting through the hall above him after such an enthusiastic gallop before but he was thankful for the extra time.  There was no way he would beat her there with his chewed up leg but his wings were more than up to the task as he took to the air again.

The large open space was on his right now, and like before there was a section of chain link fence that let him see into it.  The hanging pony had descended to his level and now instead of twisting in a prolonged effort to free itself, it was shaking with panic as black blood streamed down its body from mysterious cuts in its skin that made it look like it was coming apart at the seams.

Lance ignored the unnerving sight and landed next to his latest prize, with seconds to spare from the sound of the approaching monster upstairs.  It was a key with 'G-4' inscribed on the handle.  He would not have thought of apartment G-4 when looking for an exit but seeing as the world around him had turned into a literal nightmare with no explanation he wasn't sure what to think anymore.

The trotting upstairs turned into a gallop again the moment he bagged the key, like she had waiting for him to do it.  Lance realized suddenly he hadn't seen a single door on this floor yet and he was unlikely to outpace her back to the chute that had saved him before.  He heard her hooves impact on the outside of the bars and tried to flee away only to be struck by the 303 engraving in his light at the far end of the hall.

She pushed past two ponies exiting the drug store, leaving Lance behind to apologize on her behalf  before catching up to her.

"Hey, will you please tell me what's wrong?!" He asked in exasperation, both of them catching their breath after the dash out of their apartment and through the city.

Her only response was to give him a nervous sideward glance before resuming looking up at the signs marking the various isles before cantering away, evidently having found the location of what she sought.  Lance followed after, silently, his own worry eating away at him.  She had never acted like this in the years they had been together, and now this new sudden outright terror combined with an unwillingness to explain anything filled him with dread.  She wasn't the sort of mare to obsess over her looks but she still preferred to preen her mane a bit before going out and she hadn't even done that before bolting out their door.  It made him want her to just keep searching silently through these isles instead of confronting what was making her act this way but he knew such thoughts were naive at best.

She stopped and started examining the contents of the shelves.

Lance followed her gaze shortly before his eyes shot open and his ear twitched.

"WHAT?!  I...!  You...!  But we can't...!  How could...!  The last time you weren't even supposed to be in-"

"Lance!"  She shouted to interrupt the flow of terrified thoughts leaking out of his mouth, "Please..."

The verbal slap to the face brought him out of it and he finally looked around to see several ponies staring at them.  As though that weren't enough, the pleading, dewy eyed expression on her face cut him to the core.  She was scared enough right now without him throwing gas on the fire.  His own panic adequately subdued by the pang of guilt, he cleared his throat, walked over, and calmly sat next to her.

...

"How the hay is anyone supposed to pick one when every one of them says 'best ever, most accurate, free kitten inside yadda yadda yadda'..."  She mused in a poor attempt to lighten the situation.

Lance did a bad job at faking a laugh as he joined her in looking over the various boxes arranged before them.  He vaguely remembered a passing comment by his professor during the week or so his class had been going over some of the chapters relevant to his...their current predicament.  Still somewhat unsure, he pointed toward the most familiar brand name, prompting her to look over to him.

"Are...are you sure?"  She asked.

"Not one hundred percent sure but...reasonably so." He replied in complete honesty.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out in a soft sigh before she grabbed one of the small boxes off the shelf, "Okay...let's go."

"I'm right behind you."

They made their way to the front register, his marefriend looking like she was going on a death march for some reason that eluded him.  To be certain this entire thing was unexpected and very serious, but he had never seen her as scared as she was right now, as though her entire world were falling apart around her with every step she took.  He couldn't tell whether it was out of character for her or just an aspect of her personality that had never seen before now.  He did know something for certain though.  She was hurting, and he wanted to do anything he could to make it better.

"Oh!  Congratulations!"  The teenaged mare at the register said cheerfully as she rung up their purchase.

He recoiled and groaned at the flash of pain in his head as he stumbled forward.  Another unearthly sounding utterance of delight came from behind him before her armor scraped against the deformed bars as she started pushing her way back through them.

Lance forced his eyes open and looked forward to see that same rusted iron door that had replaced door 303 before, only this time it stood open invitingly into the stairwell.  Without sparing a backward glance he flew toward it as fast as his wings could carry him.  As he sliced through the air he heard the telltale hiss and clink of her steam powered jaw opened right behind him with nary a hoof beat to explain her proximity.  How would he possibly lose her now?  Even if he made it through the door she would just catch him in the stairwell.

No matter how futile he seemed he reached deep and put on an extra burst of speed all the same.

The door was right there in front of him!

So close!

Her jaw snapped shut on nothing but air just as he sailed through the door to have it unexpectedly slam shut on its own behind him then dent inward as she failed to stop herself from charging right into it.  Lance heard her roar in frustration before striking the door repeatedly, each blow causing it to shake a bit but still hold fast against the onslaught.  She wasn't getting through this barrier.  He sat down and took the opportunity to catch his breath, realizing he was starting to feel quite dizzy.  His entire left hind leg was almost completely red below the wound that the scavenger had torn open.  How much blood had he lost?

Before he could get the med kit out of his saddlebag and remedy the situation his stalker gave one last indignant grunt before putting a final dent in the door that suspiciously resembled two back hooves and running off.  He wasn't safe enough to bind his wound yet.  She hadn't been able to break the door down but the building was made of plenty of other materials she could break through to get to him.  Lance had to keep moving and get out of the apartments.

He shined his light around to see the stairwell was less of a stairwell now and more just a single vertical room with nary a stair in it that linked the first floor and second floor.  The walls looked like the inside of a ventilation shaft, only more rusted over than anything he'd come across so far.  It was so severe that the thin metal was rusted completely through in places, revealing something he could only describe as fleshy gently pulsing behind it.  Lance didn't want to look at the walls anymore.

He was standing on a grating that covered half the room, making it a trivial matter to float down.  The floor was composed of panels of old sheet metal that were resting on another such grating that went wall to wall.  There were several gaps in the coverage allowing one to see downward and he became curious if there was perhaps a way to make it down to the ground floor.  After pushing one of the panels aside he was greeted by a none too encouraging sight.  The stairless 'stairwell' just kept going down and down beneath him with no door in sight.  In fact past a certain distance the light just sort of stopped as though the darkness were not merely the absence of light but some force all on its own that swallowed it.  He put the panel back in place.  Lance didn't want to look at the floor anymore either.

At least the door leading out looked normal enough, aside from the rust.  The latch stuck a bit but it was nothing a more forceful push downward couldn't power through.  The hinges were another matter though, and Lance was forced to grip the latch with both front hooves and grit his teeth through the pain of using both of his hind legs to pull the door back just enough for him to slip through.  The effort left him panting for breath and feeling even more light headed.  He looked back at his leg to see the wound wasn't bleeding quite as badly as before but all this activity surely wouldn't help it.  He needed to get out of there.

The first floor wasn't just more thoroughly rusted over and caked with splotches of dried blood.  The impossibly sized skins behind the now entirely rust colored bars were moving, periodically bulging outward as something behind them pushed on them.  What the skins hid he couldn't tell, nor did he care to know.

The chain link fencing had shifted position for this floor, allowing him to see the hanging pony that had once more mysteriously descended from another angle.  It was now twitching and convulsing in a manner impossible for anypony, obviously subjected to great pain by the trio of chains pulling it downward by hooks that pierced and stretched its flesh.

Why did he keep voluntarily looking at all these things?

Lance squeezed his eyes shut until he had stepped past it.  This floor was simple, if more macabre than ever.  There was a nice plain door at the other end of the side hall, and his access to the middle was cut off by a bevvy of long metal slats that were bolted across the entry into the middle hallway.  Only one way to possible go...which meant the door was probably locked.  He wouldn't know until he tried it though.

Halfway to his destination his accursed curiosity kicked in again and he couldn't help but look past the array of metal slats to the white door on the other side...

Part 10

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

After closing time.

Part 10

"Esteemed guests, we have come together today to bear witness to the marriage of Lance Strongshy, and Posey Blossom.  With the legal requirements of Equestrian law having been met, and with the license for their marriage being present, I ask now if each party is here before me today of their own will and accord."

The elderly judge pony turned toward Lance, who was dressed in the finest tuxedo he could afford to rent, "Do you, Lance Strongshy, come to this union of your own free will and intend to be faithful in marriage to Posey Blossom, as long as you both shall live?"

"I do."

Now the judge turned to Posey, who was clothed in a custom wedding dress that they had gotten at a discount from a long time customer who happened to be a tailor and dressmaker.  It was a very practical garment, but with small flora themed touches here and there that really made it all hers, and she treasured it, "Do you, Posey Blossom, come to this union of your own free will and intend to be faithful in marriage to Lance Strongshy, as long as you both shall live?"

"I do."

"And who presents Posey Blossom to be married to Lance Strongshy?"

"I do." Posey's stepfather answered from his spot beside her before retreating from the center of attention.

The judge turned back to address the small group of assembled family and friends of the couple, "The betrothed shall now recite the official vows as offered by Equestrian law."

Lance and Posey looked at one another, happier than they had ever been as Lance went first, "I, Lance Strongshy, do take you, Posey Blossom, to be my lawfully wedded wife. I promise from this day forward to be your faithful husband, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as I shall live."

"I, Posey Blossom, do take you, Lance Strongshy, to be my lawfully wedded husband. I promise from this day forward to be your faithful wife, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as I shall live." Posey said in return.

"The betrothed shall now seal their vow of marriage with the wedding bracelet." The judge instructed.

Lance turned to a unicorn standing off to his side that he had selected as his best stallion.  In accordance with procedure the aforementioned unicorn presented the hoof bracelet that Lance had given Posey that fateful day upon the rooftop.  As Lance took it from him, Posey extended her hoof so that he could bestow upon her that cherished symbol of love all over again.

"In pledge of the vow of marriage made between us, I offer you this bracelet. Let it be to you and to me, and to all the world, the symbol of the covenant of marriage we have accepted." Lance said as he slipped the bracelet back onto her hoof once more.

The judge smiled and began to address the wedding guests, "We have come together in this place and have heard the willingness of Lance Strongshy and Posey Blossom to be joined in marriage. They have come of their free will and in our hearing have made a covenant of faithfulness.  They have given and received a ring as the seal of their promises.  Therefore, by the power vested in me by Princess Celestia I pronounce that they are husband and wife, and declare their certificate of marriage both valid and legally binding.  You may now kiss the-"

Posey committed a slight breach of etiquette by taking the initiative before he could finish and pulling Lance into a passionate kiss.

"...groom." He said after a chuckle.

The wedding guests cheered and stomped their hooves in applause.

He couldn't focus.  His garbled mental screaming of demand managed to get his eyes partially open but they couldn't focus.  All he saw was a darkened blur as things moved slowly around him.  Wait, he was moving?  Yes...something was dragging him.  Something had him by his good back leg!

Lance tried to kick in self defense but all that resulted was a feeble movement of his leg, and even that small effort was enough to exhaust him back into the blackness...

Their wedding ceremony had been as modest as the bracelet that adorned Posey's hoof.  The two of them had a few years full of nights spent together, promises made and kept to one another, hardships endured side by side, and an ever rising, joyous devotion to each other that showed no sign of abating.  Neither of them needed an elaborate, expensive ceremony to make that devotion and love they felt deep down in their hearts any more real; the words and will were enough.  Regardless, they had made a few cuts in their budget for the few months that were to follow and had scraped together a decent amount of spare bits without having to dip into their savings, for they had the needs of other ponies besides themselves to consider.

Manehatten was quite the lonely place, an odd fact considering that it was one of the most populated cities in Equestria.  Lance had found out first hoof how easily one could find themselves isolated and alone even amongst a gigantic crowd of ponies before fate had knocked him off his cloud right into Posey's life.  Since then the two of them had made a small but very close circle of friends that they held very dear, and they were not about to let them go without a proper party at the reception after said friends had given up a chunk of their time just to witness the newly wedded couple's special day!

The only thing they had not provided themselves was the venue for the reception, which had been a real worry since their apartment was too small to hold a proper party and they wouldn't have enough bits to rent someplace.  Fortunately the friend that Lance had chosen as his best stallion from the university had been leasing a house in the suburbs at the edge of town to live in while attending, and he had been all too happy to let them hold the reception in his spacious back yard.  It proved the perfect place for it, allowing everypony to enjoy the clear skies and warm sun of one of that year's last late summer days before autumn would come rolling in, and removing them for a time from the constant background noise of the busy city environment.

"Thank you so much...Ranseur was it?"  Posey asked, having met many of Lance's friends for the first time that day and still attaching names to faces in her mind.

"Yes, Ranseur K. Mandeus, though my friends just call me Mannie." He explained with a friendly smile as he shook her hoof.  He was a cerulean coated unicorn with a short pumpkin colored mane and tail with eyes to match.  He stood only a bit shorter than Lance, had a slightly stockier build than him, and had the symbol of a cane with a set of bird wings on the top adorning his flank.

"Oh, would you mind?  That name's a lot easier to remember." Posey said with a slightly embarrassed look on her face.

"Not a problem."  Mannie replied with a nod.

"Thanks, I still can't believe I never met my husband's best stallion before the wedding rehearsals." She mused before taking another bite of her salad as the three sat there at the table conversing.

"You can blame him for that, we're both a shoe in to graduate magna cum laude but we're still competing over valedictorian and I've had my nose in books or quills on paper in every bit of spare time I can manage."

"Don't think I'm going to make it easier on you just because you let us use your yard." Lance quipped with a smirk.

"Wouldn't dream of it!" Mannie shot back, "I have to say though your husband is bloody brilliant, I don't know what sort of eldritch entity he made a deal with for the ability but he's been matching me and my constant studying while still doing weather duty."

Posey blushed and turned back to smile adoringly at her newly declared husband, "Yeah...he kind of is."

"But despite these obvious dealings with nefarious forces I still intend to give the ending speech at our graduation, I mean no offense but to go home after being outdone academically by a pegasus of all ponies...why, I'd never hear the end of it!" Mannie lamented before levitating a cup of tea to his lips and taking a sip.

"Try growing up in Cloudsdale after you find out you want to be a doctor instead of a guard or racepony."  Lance replied dryly.

"Or a gardener."  Posey added with no added moisture.

Mannie's teacup briefly went into free fall before his magic caught it once again and he swallowed his tea awkwardly, "Haha...ha...right...um...wow...so...yeah..."

Lance and Posey both snickered as their friend played the part of the metaphorical fish flopping about on deck after being yanked from the water with hook in mouth before Lance gave him a reprieve, "It's fine Mannie, lighten up, it's a party."

He cleared his throat and set his tea down, "Sorry all the same.  Anyway, how much did your infernal contract cost?" He joked, thankful for the topic shift after having committed such a faux pas.

"Oh nothing much, just a monthly offering of a still beating dragon's heart.  Didn't you know I also manage to fit fighting dragons to the death with a giant sword gripped in my teeth into my schedule?" Lance replied as Posey giggled and took another bite of her salad.

"Your dental bills must be disastrous then, one swing of that thing would rip half your teeth out at best!" Mannie pointed out.

"Nonsense, if you wrapped the handle with the right material it could be very teeth friendly."

"It's not a question of what the handle is wrapped in when a pony's teeth grips it, it's force to resistance ratio!  A weapon of that weight can not be swung without consequence while gripped in normal enamel teeth, it's just not-"

"Sweetie, there you are!" Posey's stepfather trotted to their table with her mother at his side, interrupting the argument that had been getting a bit silly.

"Hi Mom, hi Dad, I was wondering when you were going to make it to the reception!" Posey said as she stood up and gave her father a hug.

"Consider us fashionably late.  I confess I was a bit worried when you wouldn't let me fund the ceremony and reception for you, but this has turned out quite alright." He admitted while looking around at the proceedings and giving a satisfied nod of the head.  Her mother didn't seem quite as bright about the situation, seeming to notice several details she found quite unsettling.

"This was something we wanted to do ourselves, it wasn't just me being stubborn.  So don't worry Dad, if we really do need money for an emergency I'll ask for it, but we've got this covered just fine." Posey assured him.

"That's my girl." Her father replied warmly, "See honeybun?  Everything turned out fine."

"Hrmph...I suppose for a shotgun wedding it could have been worse." Her mother blurted out thoughtlessly.

Lance's eyes went wide, Mannie dropped his teacup outright, every guest in ear shot suddenly went silent, and Posey's ears turned downward in surprise and alarm.

"But...but I never told-" Posey began to stutter out but was interrupted.

"Oh please, I didn't have you so long ago that I've forgotten yet.  It's the right time of year and all of a sudden you two are going through all of this right out of the blue?  I had my suspicion for a while but now I come here and the usual glass of tequila sunrise you've had at every party I remember attending with you is missing, not to mention the empty salad bowls stacked six high next to your spot at the table."

"What?" Posey looked back to see that her mother was correct about the stack of bowls, and that she hadn't even realized she'd been eating so much, "Oh...wow..." She muttered, blushing with embarrassment.

Before she could react any further her mother stormed past her straight over to Lance, "How could you be so utterly irresponsible as to let this happen?!  I might have been able to overlook this shoddy wedding you forced on a mare who deserves so much more, but then you go and all but guarantee her financial ruin just because you couldn't keep yourself off of her long enough to properly plan you reckless cad!" After every sentence he made an attempt to open his mouth and defend himself but was cut off by the start of the next, making it impossible for him to get a word in edgewise.

Posey's expression had been turning from one of shock to indignation and then to outright anger as the verbal whipping had continued, "Mother, you stay away from him, we're talking, us, don't drag him into this!"

"Why not?  He's the reason you're-"

"No he's not!  For your information we planned this 'shoddy wedding' together, didn't you just hear me talking to Dad about it?!" Posey advanced while speaking and then placed herself between her mother and Lance, forcing her to step away from the table.

"How do you know that's true hrm?  You're probably just too infatuated with your puppy love to see how he's been emotionally manipulating you!" Her mother replied, talking down to her as though she were still a foal.

"Living together for four years and then getting married with a foal on the way isn't puppy love!  It's...love!  Why is this suddenly a problem anyway?!  You said you'd let us live our lives and now here you are on my wedding day making a fuss about it?!  You should just be happy that we're happy and that you're going to be a grandmother!" The perturbed bride chastised as she forced her mother further away from the table.

"I'll have you know I am ecstatic that my little girl is going to be a mother, but that just makes choosing the right husband all the more important and Lance does not have enough to offer." Her voice remained firm and determined but had lost some of its volume.

"How can you even say that after all he's done?  What more can he possibly do?  He already wears himself down to the bone studying and working, and you know what he did when we found out I was pregnant?  He proposed to me!  He stayed!  Lance did the exact opposite of what you almost convinced me every colt who wasn't rich would do!  I was so lucky to meet him mother, I didn't have to...have to..." Posey stopped speaking for a moment as a light bulb went off in her head, and it only took moments for her to find her voice again.  It came out in a happy yet spiteful laugh.

"And what is so funny?" Her mother asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That's it isn't it?  That's been it this whole time!  I don't have to suffer like you did and it just chaps your flank doesn't it?!  I get to be with who I wanted to be with and you're jealous!  I'm just, I'm just laughing because Lance and I have been worried sick about how you'd handle the news, and it seems so silly now to have worried about what a mare who's low enough to resent her own daughter's love life thinks!" Posey explained before another laughing fit overtook her.

The joyous response made her mother's face fall, betraying a deep sadness that seemed to protest the accusation as she backed away a step.  But she said nothing.  She made no effort to refute the claim, and that spoke volumes more than the look on her face.  A scan of the crowd of friends revealed not a single sympathetic face amongst them.  Even when she turned to her husband all she saw in his eyes was pity, as though she were only now realizing something he had known about her all along.

She closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself and then looked past her daughter at Lance, "Lance, you're no longer welcome in our household."

"Yeah what else is new..." Lance muttered under his breath.

"And Posey...enjoy the rest of your special day...but I think I'll be going for now." She continued before turning to leave.

Posey wiped a laughter induced tear from her eye and managed to stop giggling, "No, nonono, you don't get to just reject my husband like that and walk away.  We're together now, so if he's not welcome, I'm not welcome either."

Her mother stopped and looked back in response to the threat.  But she saw no conflict in Posey at all.  She was standing there smiling, perfectly willing to reject her own mother in favor of her husband if it was necessary.

Posey didn't need her anymore.

...

"You know you're always welcome sweetie." She offered forlornly, and then took the final steps through the gate to the side of Mannie's house.  A chorus of cheers, congratulations and questions regarding the date of a baby shower followed her departure as the mood immediately lightened.

Lance got to his hooves to go stand beside her...

His legs moved.  Slowly and sorely but they moved.  His muted appreciation for his newly reacquired ability was cut short by the realization that he was awake...or some form of consciousness that slightly resembled being awake in any case.

Lance forced his eyes open and found nary a thing to look at that wasn't shrouded entirely in darkness.  Such a lack of light had long since ceased to surprise him.  With some effort he managed to lift his head off of the soft floor.

Wait...what?

His head had been on something soft but it certainly had not been the floor.  He hoped it was just a pillow.  He really, really hoped it was just a pillow.  Given his recent experiences his mind could probably conjure up many thousands of other horrible things it could be, but for the sake of sanity he settled on it just being a pillow for the time being.

Looking around proved even more difficult than lifting his head had been, and though the one detail about the room he was able to discern was certainly interesting it still left him quite clueless.  It was a skylight, a small round hole in the ceiling that let in some of the fog filtered light from outside.  There must have been matching, aligned holes going up through each floor and the roof, though he never remembered seeing anything of the sort.  While it was true he hadn't been on this side of the wall during his ascent, he hadn't seen it during his descent into sheer madness afterward either.  But given that the layout of the entire building had been altered nothing was really out of the question anymore.

He let his head down on the soft object he dearly hoped was a pillow and felt immediate relief at not having to support the weight of his own head.  Lance was getting better...he could move a little more but if just looking around had been that difficult he wasn't going to entertain getting up and walking around just yet.  He closed his eyes and allowed sleep to begin overtaking him again.  Never in a million years would he have seen himself voluntarily going back to sleep in such a place, but in his condition he doubted he could even outpace one of the drowning mares, so whether or not he was awake if they found him mattered little.

Somepony was crying.

He jerked fully awake after recognizing the noise.  His hooves felt around in the dark and discovered there was nary a wife to be found in the bed beside him.  With a groan he rolled out of bed and onto his hooves, his body pleasantly sore from certain traditional wedding night activities that had gone on a good while longer than he had dared to dream.  His still tired muscles stretched a bit as he trotted down the hall into the living room to see what was the matter.

"Posey?  Are you okay?"

She was lying on the couch facing away from him with her hoof on top of a closed binder, obviously having closed it when she heard him coming, "I'm...I'm fine Lance...you can go back to bed."

Lance could tell she made a visible effort to not look at him as he stood there doubting her reply.  It was a battle she would not win though, and soon enough she turned to look at him with a poorly faked smile and eyes once again red from weeping.  He didn't say one word more, instead simply walking over, lying down on the couch across from her with the binder between them, and gently coaxing her hoof off and opening it as her face regressed back to its depressed, teary state.

It was her old family photo album.  Lance placed a spare hoof atop of hers as he flipped through the pages slowly, watching her grow bit by bit from the foal of years past, to the little filly of earliest memories, to the young mare awkwardly transitioning to adulthood, and finally to the mare whose garden he had nearly wrecked four years prior.  There were many other faces besides hers, but only two that showed up nearly as often.

They both looked like the very definition of content and happiness being there with their daughter.  As the years wore on from photo to photo that image of their familial elation did not erode even the slightest bit.  It was a book filled with memories of a happy family that had lived together in exquisite harmony for over two decades, all thanks to a mother who had set her own emotional needs aside for the good of her daughter, even with a broken heart that would have chained many a pony in despair.

"She...she used to be my hero you know..." She said before sniffing and wiping her eyes, "But you know how that goes...you grow up thinking these big ponies around you are all perfect...they know everything, they'll always save you and on and on.  Then you grow up..."

"And it never feels like you did...like you're still some little foal who doesn't have any idea what the hay is going on even though you're grown up proper." Lance interjected.  Posey nodded, looking down at the last full page of photographs, these particular pictures taken as a keepsake of when she had moved away.

"Then it hits you...those ponies who used to be your heroes have been in the exact same boat this whole time.  Just as...clueless and flawed as you." She continued.

...

"I don't think I handled things well Lance."

"You handled things like they needed to be handled." He assured her, closing the photo album and setting it on the floor before scooting forward and wrapping his hooves around her.  She gave another sad sniff before returning the embrace and nuzzling her face against his neck.

"No...I just got some idea in my head and then rubbed my success in Mom's face and rejected her...how is that handling it well?" Posey countered fairly reasonably.  Lance spent a moment trying to think of something encouraging to say but had to concede that she had cornered him.

"Okay so...maybe it could've been handled a bit better-"

She shivered and let out another sob, hugging him tighter.

"-BUT, but, Posey, you still did the right thing.  You stood up for yourself...you stood up for me." He said quickly before she could hate herself any more thoroughly, but he had the distinct feeling that it didn't do any good as she was still clinging to him just as tightly.

He sighed and stroked her mane gently, "I guess that doesn't make it hurt any less though does it?"

Lance felt her shake her head in response.

"I'm...I'm sorry I got between you two, for what it's wort-"

He found himself with his head quite suddenly grasped firmly but carefully between two hooves that made it impossible not to look right into her eyes.  She had apparently snapped out of it just to scold him, "Lance, no, I don't ever want to hear you apologize for that to anyone, she shoved you into that position, you got it?"

He nodded.

"Good." She said before releasing him.

Lance had succeeded in so much as Posey didn't seem to be crying anymore.  Instead, the sudden burst of almost angry energy fizzled into nothing, leaving the both of them awkwardly without words for a few moments.  Her eyes slowly drifted down and to the photo album lying on the floor.  He followed her gaze, and a thought that would more adequately cheer her up found its way through his mind.

"Look...that album right there still has a lot of pages yet.  I don't know how many more photos there will be of your mother in there.  I hope she comes around, and I hope there are plenty more added, but I don't know for certain if that will happen.  What I do know for certain is that the three of us-" His hoof brushed along the side of her belly, causing her to look back, "-are going to fill it with our own happy memories, and when this one is full we'll buy another and fill that one too."

It worked tremendously well.  As she looked back and thought about the little life growing inside of her the guilt and uncertainty that had roused her from sleep and forced her from her bed melted away in a warm tide of deep love and pride.  Even if her mother never talked to her again she still had a family, so everything was alright.  Substantially better than alright even.  Glorious, perhaps.

She looked back to him with tears that had once again been turned from bitter to sweet and kissed him lovingly, pulling him back into another tight embrace as it lingered and deepened.  Husband and wife didn't know how much time they spent in that one kiss but they both silently wished it could have lasted longer as they parted lips for lack of air.  A certain thought passed her mind as they lay there, foreheads touching as they caught their breath, but the tired look in her husband's eyes made her push it aside...for now, "Come on, let's get back to bed, it's cold out here." She suggested with a serene smile.

"Lead the way." Lance said as he got up and put the photo album on the small table in front of their couch.  He still looked like a pony that had been woken up in the middle of the night and needed to get back to bed, but the fatigue on his face did little to mask the sense of fulfillment that healing his wife's heart had instilled.

She proceeded down the hallway with a yawn, starting to feel the need for a good warm bed herself, "Hope you're not still sore in the morning."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." She looked back at him with a half lidded grin, "I'm not *done** with you yet.*"

His eyes were open.

Okay, he was still alive.  Alive was good.  He could work with alive.

Appreciative at not having been feasted upon in his sleep, the battered pony that was now a fraction of the pegasus he used to be found it substantially easier to lift his head and look around than last he had awoken.  The room was still predictably dark, lit only by the skylight he had hazy memories of spotting before.  He found his hooves were now substantially more mobile as well, allowing him to reach up and confirm that the soft object beneath his head was in fact just a pillow, and a very clean smelling one at that.  Lance must have still been in the pristine version of the apartment complex, he could think of no other place where one might find something so free of grime and rust.  There would prove to be little time for him to enjoy this tiny blessing though.

"Oh thank goodness!"

He froze.

Hoof steps rushed to his side and stopped, mindful that he was injured.  As he lie there stock still with his eyes wide open staring straight at the opposite wall the hoof steps circled around him while somepony inspected him.

"How do you feel?  I...used the first aid kit in your bag.  I'm no doctor but I think I did an okay job patching up what I could."

He had woken up...right?

"I had to use up all the bandages and disinfectant, but the bleeding's stopped..." She sniffed at his wrapped but still grievously wounded back leg, "And nothing smells off, like you told me it would if it was infected."

This was obviously another memory.  But when had this ever happened?

"I kept checking your forehead while you were asleep, and it doesn't feel like you're running a temperature either."

She stepped into the sight line he had been maintaining with the wall.

The pegasus mare before him stood just slightly taller than an average pony, with a cream colored coat, a chest length purple mane, and a trio of purple flowers upon each of her flanks.  She wore a plain blue saddle with built in bags at her sides.  Her violet eyes looked back at him, the concern that had moments ago been quelled by his awakening beginning to mount all over again as he remained still and silent.

"...Lance?  Are you alright?"

This had to have happened sometime in the past.  He just needed to remember it.

"Lance?"

When though?  When?!

"Lance please..."

Had he been this mute back then as well?  Had this even happened in his past in the first place?

"Please...just say something." She begged, her eyes beginning to shine with tears of worry.

He never remembered ignoring her like this.  His memory still worked right didn't it?

"Lance..." She placed a fore hoof on his, being careful to not get anywhere near the bandaged cut.

Oh goddess he'd actually felt that...

...

"Posey?"

He'd actually said that...he'd heard himself say that...

She sighed with relief, "Oh good, for a minute there I thought maybe you hit your head or something."

His brain suddenly cleared whatever obstacle had been keeping it from talking to his legs all this time, and within moments he found himself backed against the wall in terror, heedless of the intense pain of his chewed up leg protesting his actions.

"Wait!  Don't do that you'll rip something open!  What's wrong?!" She followed him, not quite yet making the mental link that his reaction was to her being there at all.

He cowered back against the wall even more.  She had responded.  He had spoken from something other than the script of his memory and she had responded in a fashion just as improvised.  What.

"You're not here...that's impossible!" He said to himself more than anypony.

Now she was even more confused, "What?  Why?"

"Because you're..." He stopped, letting himself back down into a sitting position.  Even if he was still asleep, even if this was a dream, saying what he was about to say to a pony that appeared to be his wife was still proving intensely difficult.  He looked down and let out a tense breath before looking up again, "You're...you're dead."

...

"...what?" Her expression was blank.

"...you're dead Posey."

...

It was her turn to slump shell shocked to the floor.  Her mouth wordlessly opened and closed a few times before she managed to speak again, "I'm...dead."

Lance didn't want to say it again, so he simply let the statement stand.  This wasn't a memory, so that meant it was obviously a dream he was bound to wake up from any second now.

"It's weird...a few hours ago I would've just called you silly for saying that.  I don't feel dead at all...and I don't remember dying, but then that's not something somepony would remember doing is it?"

Any second now.

"And nothing that's happened since I woke up outside makes any sense either.  I didn't feel sick anymore, and this saddle and a lantern were just lying there like somepony had left them specifically for me."

He wasn't waking up.

"I don't know how I got here or where this even is.  I've never been to this town in my life.  So why did I find Manehatten Heights here?  I might not know where this is but I do know it's not Manehatten."

Why wasn't he waking up?

"And when I came into our old apartment here it looked exactly like it did before we even started packing up to move to Cloudsdale, as though we'd never left."

Why aren't I waking up?!

"Even you're not quite right.  I mean besides...you know," She brought her eyes back up to look at him and made a gesture of her hoof to indicate the bloodied bandages all over his body, "You look older than I remember you."

Wake up!  Wake up!  Wake up for buck's sake!

"I don't know if that does mean I'm dead right now, but I guess if it were true, nothing making sense would sort of make a bit more sense...Lance?"

He was biting his foreleg again, just above the wrist joint.  His teeth applied more and more pressure as it continually failed to wake him.

"Hey, stop!  What are you doing?" She started stepping closer.

He didn't reply this time.  Talking to it in the first place had been a mistake.  It looked and sounded just like her, but that was impossible even for this place.  He had to be asleep.  He had to wake up.

"Lance stop it!" She was heading toward him at a canter now.

A normal bite wouldn't do it.  He needed something that hurt more, and as that thought passed through his head his eyes came to rest on the blood stained bandage covering the cut on his foreleg the drowning mare in the hallway had given him.  It still throbbed painfully beneath the dressing...a bite right on it would be excruciating.  He opened his mouth again.

"I said stop!"

Lance was briefly pressed against the wall as she bumped into him, throwing her forelegs around him before their weight re-centered and he was left standing there more dumbstruck than ever.  The inclination to hurt himself so that he could wake up vanished all at once.  He stood still in her grip.

"Are you done now?  What the hay were you trying to do to yourself?!  You're a doctor for Celestia's sake you're supposed to know better!" She scolded as she held onto him tightly, still worried that he might continue his bid for self harm.

But her worry was misplaced.  He was practically paralyzed.  There was nothing he could do to stop the deluge of a thousand tiny memories all coming back at once now that she was holding him.  The feel of her coat, the sound of her breathing, her familiar scent, it was all exactly as he remembered, the sensory memories reaching deep into his mind and linking to countless bits of history that he had kept sealed for oh so long.  Few of them were of any real objective significance at all, but they were a gospel to him all the same.

"...Lance?" She prodded as she relinquished her grip a bit.

He persisted in not saying a word.  Instead he silently leaned his head downward and gently pressed his ear to her chest.  She smiled and let one of her forelegs back to the ground, using the other to cradle his head, "Yeah...that works alright again."

She was right.  He heard her heartbeat clear as day.  It was strong and healthy, untouched by the ravages of the mysterious disease nopony had ever been able to diagnose.  His head rose again, and he looked her right in those same beautiful violet eyes that he had looked into while pledging his entire being to her all those many years ago.

He couldn't fight it anymore.  It took five more seconds before something deep inside of him shattered.

Lance hugged her as tight as his battered, exhausted body could manage.  Still mindful of his injuries, she was a deal more careful when returning the gesture as a restrained sob shook him, "I've been gone a while...haven't I?"

"You have no idea." He managed to choke out in reply.

Part 11

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

End of small sanctuary.

Part 11

He felt ashamed of himself.  He hadn't cried so hard since...since...

...

He didn't want to think of the last time he had cried so hard.  Not with Posey right in front of him, alive.  She had been so understanding, just like he remembered her.  She had let him hold her until he had practically exhausted himself all over again sobbing, even though this was the last place he should have been indulging in such shameful blubbering.  Lance wiped another tear from his eye as he watched her looking through his...well, her saddlebags.  There was no way she hadn't recognized them as the pair he had made for her all those years ago, but clearly she wasn't going to interrogate him about it just yet.

She was always so good to him...

"Just blank bits of paper..." She muttered quizzically before stepping around to the other saddlebag and unlatching it.

He couldn't help but smile at her for a moment before diverting his gaze to the apartment around them.  She had been right, it looked exactly like it had been before they moved back to Cloudsdale.  The chair and couch were in the same spots against the walls, the shelves were lined with the same books, and even the pictures on the walls were in the same arrangements.  The kitchen appeared likewise untouched, though obviously he couldn't account for the various pots and pans hidden in the cupboards.  There was not a spot of dust to be seen anywhere either, everything was just as pristine as the rest of the complex now that whatever nightmare he had slogged through had seemingly worn off.

"Oh, here!" Posey said as she stuck her nose in the saddlebag and emerged with a plastic bottle in her teeth.  Lance recognized it as the generic health drink he had picked up in apartment G-1 before the sovereign had rammed her way into the building.  His wife walked over and set it down next to him, "Drink this."

He still regarded the health drink as little more than snake oil.  But if somepony had been able to slap a label on it and sell it without getting arrested that meant the worst it could do was taste funny.  Lance popped the top off and gave it a curious sniff, finding it certainly smelled medicinal.

"C'mon, it'll help." She insisted while nudging the bottle a bit closer with her nose.

Hay with it, he had yet to drink a drop of anything since waking up desperately thirsty in the hallway.  He took a sip, found the flavor mostly bitter with a hint of strawberry to take the edge off, and swallowed.  Despite the unpleasant flavor the feel of even just that small amount of the cool liquid washing down his throat was incredibly soothing all on its own.  His body demanded that he drink the rest, an order he dutifully obeyed as he quickly downed the remainder.

The mixture soon proved capable of more than just slaking his thirst though.  Moments after drinking it a soft, numbing sensation began to spread throughout his body, reducing the sharp pain of his wounds to a bearable ache.  His limbs became lighter as a new vigor filled them and the prospect of standing up or even walking suddenly became less dreadful in his mind.  He blinked twice and then looked down incredulously at the empty bottle.

"What the...what's in this stuff?!" Lance asked as he poked the bottle with his hoof.  He turned it over looking for a list of ingredients on the label but was only greeted with the sight of an obnoxious yellow smiley face where such a list would usually be printed.  His investigation was interrupted by the sound of Posey setting a pot in the kitchen sink then turning on the tap.  She had apparently made her way to the kitchen whilst he had been enraptured by the bottle of miracle drink.

"I don't know, but before I found this place I spotted a bottle sitting on a fence post outside.  I was really thirsty and, well, I had no idea what it could do...I'm just glad you found one too." She answered while watching the pot fill.

"What are you doing?" Lance prodded as he eyed the sink with a worried expression.

"You're still thirsty right?" Posey responded before grabbing hold of the pot handle with her teeth and walking over carefully to avoid spilling any of the contents.

"Well, yeah, but I'm not exactly eager to drink any of the water from the pipes in this place.  Have you seen some of the bathrooms here?"

She was unable to reply until after she had made it over and set the pot full of water down right next to him, "No, but this water looks and smells and tastes fine to me so drink up."

"Water that looks and smells and tastes fine might still be-you drank this?!" He replied before his own incredulity interrupted him.

As it turned out Posey was not going to continue the argument any longer, "Do you see that blood trail right there?!" She asked while pointing back towards the door.

Lance looked past her to see that there was indeed a dark red path trailing from the door to...right where he was currently lying.

She only waited for his eyes to trail back from the door before starting in on him again, "That all came from you just from my dragging you in here, there's even more of it outside, and right now the last thing I need is for you to go all germaphobic on me again after I found you out there with your wings torn off and covered in your own blood so just drink the bucking water!"

...

"S...sorry Posey." He apologized meekly before sniffing at the water in the pot and giving it a cautious sip.  That was all his thirst needed to shove aside his learned paranoia.  After Lance began gulping down the water Posey allowed herself a sigh of relief before moving next to him and easing herself to the floor.  She understood of course.  A vast knowledge of infectious diseases came with the curse of...well, a vast knowledge of infectious diseases.  But that very moment after having lost so much blood was no time to let it control him.  She hated to yell at him but it was far from the first time one of them had found themselves needing to nudge the other back to their good senses.

Before long Lance had drank all the water and was left to lick at the bottom a few times to gather up the few stray droplets remaining.  Once the water-lust had died down the same fears as to the water's possible contamination came creeping back, but a look into his wife's face cut them off before they could find any more purchase.  They were replaced by something altogether more worrisome.

"You feeling any better?" She asked.

"A bit." He replied.

They settled into an uncomfortable silence.  There were countless questions to be answered but the conversation in which those questions would be asked was certain to be a painful one.  Neither of them wanted to be the one to start it, perhaps Posey most of all.  Despite the massive gap in her memory she could tell just from Lance's face in that awkward moment that she was about to tear open wounds far more numerous than the ones she had just cleaned and bandaged.  She wasn't so naive as to think she wouldn't inflict a few wounds upon herself in the process either.

...

All the same, she placed her hoof atop his.  They had to talk.

The gentle prod brought him out of his hesitation at least, "...I don't even know where to begin."

"That's okay...I don't really know either." She scooted a little closer to him, "Just...start with how you got to this town I guess?"

That was a fair starting point...doubly so in that he wouldn't have to think of ways to tip hoof around certain subjects.

"Okay..." He drew a breath and let it out before he began telling her about how his nightmares had been causing him to endanger the lives of his patients...

"After that, I woke up out there in the hallway.  Everything was back to the way it had been when I first came in, aside from the body bag, the police tape, and the writing...then again I hadn't been on this side of the wall yet so for all I know it might have already been there before I even came in here.  Then...here was apartment G-4 right in front of me.  You know the rest." He said in conclusion as his head rested on the carpet.  Normally he would be using his forelegs for a head rest but the pain of putting pressure on his cuts would far outweigh any comfort.  Lance wasn't looking at her anymore, and hadn't been for a few minutes now.  Posey hadn't taken the story well despite having told him several times to continue.  At around the point where the scavenger had torn his back leg to shreds he had looked away, because he clearly wasn't going to be able to finish if he saw what it was doing to her.

His concluding words hung in the air for a very long minute before he finally looked her in the face once more.

Posey was devastated, sitting still, hoof over her mouth, eyes reddened with tears streaming down her cheeks.  She set her hoof back to the floor and let out a shuddering, breathy sob before wiping some of the tears from her face with her other hoof, "You...you're telling me that while I was hiding in here...you were out there being chased by those things all this time?"

"I...yes, but, how could you have possibly known-"

"And that's not even the worst of it!" She wailed as she set her head on the floor and covered her eyes with her hooves, "You were in this same building when the worst of it happened!  No...not just inside this building...right outside our door!  I was less than twenty feet away while that screeching hissing thing was beating you...and...and tearing your..."

She grimaced even harder as the end of the sentence got caught in her throat and refused to come out, so she abandoned it and chose another route, "And I didn't lift a hoof to help you."

Words had always come to mind so easily when she was like this before.  All he would have to do back then was listen and wait for inspiration to strike.  Eventually he would always think of just the right thing to say or just the right thing to do.  But now...now he hadn't a single Celestial clue.  The bloody, bandaged wounds and the two stumps that used to be his wings were not something he could just talk away.  He'd never fly or walk without a limp again.  This damage was forever, and there was nothing he could do about it...but he could still say something despite it.

He reached out with a hoof and coaxed Posey into uncovering her tear reddened eyes, prompting her to look back to him with a sad sniff, "Posey, listen.  This happened.  There's nothing we can do about it now.  But none of this is your fault.  You didn't do any of this, and you didn't somehow allow this to happen either.  When I was in that other version of the apartments it's possible I was somewhere else entirely somehow.  Hay, I bet she could have done the same thing to me in this room and you would not have heard a thing."

She looked away and wiped another batch of tears from her eyes, contemplating his words but finding no comfort in them.

"Besides," Lance continued, "What if you had heard us out there?  What if you had come out and tried to stop her?  Can you think of anything that would have happened that wouldn't just be both of us ending up like this?  Where would we be then?"

Posey shut her eyes tightly, "I know, I know, it's better that one of us isn't hurt, but you're still telling me that it's a good thing you were alone out there with her and I don't want to hear it so let's talk about something else now okay?"

"Okay." He quietly replied with a nod.

She was silent for a long moment after that.  Her eyes were cast downward, moving to and fro in thought several times as she searched for something in her head she couldn't find.  Finally she swallowed and let out an uneasy breath of her own before speaking, "Lance...I can't think of any gentle way to ask this so I'll just come right out with it...how did I die?"

Lance visibly stiffened, barely managing to only widen his eyes only a bit.

Oh, you know, Fluttershy just confused 'see what you want to eat' with 'stab you to death', silly thing.

"I'm sorry...I know it's hard for you to answer but I just want to know." She apologized as she saw the obviously alarmed reaction, "Please?"

He was able to relax a bit before he betrayed any more of a hint as to how traumatic an exit she had made.  There was no way he could tell her.  While he had long ago come to terms with that fact that their daughter had turned into an absolute monster for a time, Posey would surely not take that bit of news well, especially right after hearing his story about how his wings had been clipped and his body mangled.  Lance slowly let his head back down to the carpet and closed his eyes...because if she was looking right into them as he spoke there was no way she wouldn't be able to pick his response out for the lie it was.

"We were...wishing you goodnight.  You gave Fluttershy a kiss and I put her to bed...then I came back.  We talked.  We just...talked.  I can't even remember what it was about but we talked like we always used to...like we hadn't ever since you got sick.  You'd been home for a couple weeks but, that was the first time it felt like you were really home.  I wondered why we did that at the time, just out of the blue like that.  But in hindsight I think it was because we both somehow knew what was going to happen." He paused.  Whether it was because he needed to cement the lie in his head or that he was actually finding lying difficult he didn't know, and he wasn't sure he even wanted to, "When I came in to check on you in the morning you were gone...the...the coroner determined that your aorta had ruptured...probably in your sleep."

Had that been too detailed?  No, wait, why wouldn't it be detailed?  It was the last night of her life, of course he would remember it well!  He certainly remembered the actual event well enough...probably even more than that.  Oh no, was his story not detailed enough?  Did the little things he actually did remember like the exact arrangement of her cards and flowers on the night stand even matter to her in this story?  Would she be suspicious if he didn't mention them?  No, that was crazy.  Or was it?  What if the entire thing hinged on it and he had just given himself away somehow?!  What would she think of him if his first attempt was a lie?!  What would she-

"Oh..."

...

Lance opened his eyes.

Posey was still there beside him, a bittersweet smile on her face, "So the last thing I saw was my little girl and my husband...that doesn't seem so bad..." She replied as she wiped yet another batch of tears from her face.

It was a lie.  It was a bold faced, fabricated, easily falsified, outright lie...and it made his being unable to not return her smile feel so wrong.  But he couldn't help it.  It was the look on her face;  still sad but greatly at peace all of a sudden.  It was beautiful.  It was everything he'd wanted ever since her death.  An unmarred jewel he thought he would never have been able to feel for himself or even just see, yet there she was right in front of him again.  Even if it was a lie, his wings had been a trivial price to pay for it.

Something was so, so wrong with him.

Posey's look of peace receded as something else occurred to her, "Oh goodness, Fluttershy didn't see did she?!"

A bright red flag suddenly went up in his head but he ignored it, "Oh, no, she...I...I closed your door and...I just told her mommy was gone.  I think it was maybe three hours before she stopped crying long enough for me to make the necessary calls...she wanted to go in and see you so much.  It would've been easier to just send her to school and act like nothing was wrong instead of telling her but...lying didn't seem right."

Ha.

She frowned and looked downward as though she'd somehow wronged her little girl in her passing.  Fortunately she seemed to resolve the emotion fairly quickly and gave Lance a soft kiss before nuzzling against the side of his neck, "You did good Lance...I wanted to see her grow up so badly...she did okay, right?"

Whatever entity in his mind that was responsible for red flag raising went above and beyond, tearing the flag from its pole before trying to smother him with it.  Unfortunately since she was pressed against him he could do little to hide the small flinch he made when she asked that question, "Lance?"

Well she did alright for a little filly whose father almost drowned her before deciding it would be better to rip her life apart piece by piece with abuse until she ran away.

"Lance." She repeated, pulling away from him.

"I'm sorry, I...she's fine.  She doesn't live at our house anymore, and we don't keep in touch, but she's fine." He replied truthfully.

"What?  Why don't you two keep in touch?" Posey asked with a slight head tilt of confusion, "Not even just a letter?"

Lance sighed in resignation.  It was time to lie again.  At least the realization made him look forlorn enough to be believable.

He looked away before speaking, "Posey, after you died she...sort of blamed me for it.  I never really disagreed with her about it either.  We almost stopped talking entirely, and it was like that for years.  Then one day when she was old enough she just up and told me that she was moving out.  I told her I'd miss her and...that was the last conversation we ever had."

His wife's expression quickly turned from puzzlement to somber sympathy as she nuzzled against him once more, "Oh goddess Lance that's awful!"

"It's okay honey.  She's doing fine...more than fine actually.  Our daughter's an element of harmony, she and her friends saved all of Equestria last year on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration.  I heard she's even in one of the stained glass windows in the royal palace at Canterlot." He said in an attempt to make her feel better.

"I don't know what the elements of harmony are.  It's good to know how well she's doing though, but she's not who I'm worried about you silly pony." She replied with a touch of admonishment in her voice.

"What?" Lance was genuinely blindsided.

"It's true I'd like to have a word with her about blaming her father, but she's clearly doing alright.  What about you Lance?" She looked him right in the eye as she asked the question, but then her eyes widened and she averted her gaze momentarily, "Aside from...you know...all of this." She clarified, making a circular motion with her hoof to signify their general location and his condition.

He raised an eyebrow, "Well...I still have our house.  It's in good condition.  Money's never been an issue.  I'm living quite comfortably when I'm not at work."

"You know that's not what I meant Lance."

...

"You're alone aren't you?" She concluded when he didn't make any further reply.

"Yes." Lance replied, thinking nothing of it.

"Why?" Posey asked simply.

"Why not?  I already met the love of my life, our daughter's grown up and healthy, I...was taking good care of all my patients.  Things just seem...done for me.  Why get involved in somepony else's life when mine has run its course already?" Almost without realizing it he set his head back down on the floor as he spoke, as though the words coming from his mouth were sapping his energy all on their own.  Perhaps that wasn't far from the truth either.

Posey pulled away again as the neck she was nuzzling descended, looking down at her husband with concern, "...to be happy Lance.  That's why.  You're talking as though love is something that only happens once...and like you're already dead.  I remember what you were like in those first dates.  I looked at you and saw a colt convinced he'd just have to endure life instead of live it, just like you said on the roof when you proposed to me.  You became such a wonderful pony Lance.  It just makes me sad...knowing that after I was gone you went back to how it was before."

Lance said nothing.

"You deserve to be happy, and I know that you're only truly happy with somepony at your side whether you admit it or not." She continued.

He didn't lift his head but he did look back up at her as he spoke this time, "What difference does that make now that you're right here in front of me, alive?"

"And how did you know this was going to happen?" She countered as she stood up, moved to his front, and lay down again, placing her head on the floor in front of his, "If it hadn't, you were just going to live the rest of your life alone like that right?"

"...probably." He confessed while moving his eyes away.

"I love you Lance...not the fact that we're married, not how you've been faithful to me...you.  I don't like that notion in your head that your life was over when mine was.  When I was sick it was a comfort to me, thinking that the stallion I loved wouldn't put a vow to a dead mare over his own happiness for the rest of his life.  Now I hear this...that when I died I dragged you down with me?"

She gave another sad sniff, drawing Lance's gaze just in time to see her cover her eyes again to stop any new tears from escaping, "I'm sorry, you've had an awful enough time without me crying any more, just...if we ever get pulled apart again, promise me you'll move on and be happy...alright?"

"..." There was nothing else he could have possibly said just then except, "Alright...I promise."

That peaceful smile came back to her face before she uncovered her eyes, still glistening from the held back tears, "Thank you."

The silence this time wasn't uncomfortable, but it wasn't particularly comfortable either.  It was just the two of them, together, despite every single bit of logic and sense having said it was impossible.  Everything was out in the open...or at least for Posey it was.  Lance had just lied.  They hadn't just been any lies either.  They were lies of the deepest sort that made the version of reality she was drawing so much comfort from nothing more than a thin facade.  Why had he done that?  What did he think would happen?  Was it possible that, deep inside, some part of him was foolish enough to think this wouldn't come back to bite him?

...

He needed her to trust him.

Yes...that was it.  That was the reason his lying was justified.  She would never trust somepony who had so viciously hurt her daughter over such a long time.  The last thing they needed in this place was to be second guessing one another, not with monsters all over the place.  When they got out and back to the world they knew and loved it would be fine if she found out.  No doubt he would never see her again, and he would probably be arrested and thrown in prison for his crimes, but she would be alive again.  The world would have Posey.  That was worth it.

Well you're just a saint aren't you?

"Um...are you still thirsty?" She asked, finally breaking the silence as she got back on her hooves.

"I could drink more." He admitted.

She nodded and took the pot back into the kitchen to refill it.  This time when she returned he drank much more slowly.  It gave them time to think without the lack of words being exchanged feeling so odd.  There was a lot to process...but most of it fell by the wayside in favor of a single driving question.  Neither of them knew how they got there in that strange, foggy version of a town neither of them had visited before, but they both knew they couldn't stay.  Even if the monsters didn't get them, even if their luck with the water pipes in G-4 held out, they would still probably starve if they just stayed there...starve or go insane, either seemed likely.

Lance felt that his thirst had at last been quenched when the second pot was around three quarters empty, and so he stopped, licked the water from his lips, took a breath, and asked the question for the both of them, "Now what?"

"Not that difficult a question to answer really.  You said you were only coming through here to go to the hospital right?" Posey answered with another question before she picked up the discarded health drink bottle and took it into the kitchen.

"Hrm...when I started in this direction I was under the impression I was following two other ponies that I would meet there, but that obviously isn't true anymore." Lance pondered, looking down at the remaining water in the pot before taking one last small sip and then wiping his mouth, "So...I have no idea what I would hope to find there now."

"How about medical supplies?" She pointed out as she turned the spigot off and pushed the cap back onto the now water filled bottle, "If nothing else we need to find you a change of bandages soon."

As she opened her right saddlebag and pulled out the bottle she had found outside, Lance looked down at his bandages.  He must have been out of it for a good few hours as they already looked quite crusty with dried blood, and they would only get worse.  It made his nose wrinkle unpleasantly, "Good point...wait, 'we'?"

Posey replaced the cap on the second bottle of water, made sure both were on securely, then walked over and picked up Lance's saddlebags by a strap in her mouth, carrying them over to him as she made a muffled answer, "Huv cowfe 'we'"

"But you're safer in here with all those monsters in the stree-" He was prevented from finishing his sentence by the cream colored hoof that had been shoved against his mouth.

"Do' efe..." She stopped momentarily to drop the saddlebag, lest her words be found difficult to take seriously, "Pleh.  Don't even *think*** about suggesting I stay here in the condition you're in.  If anything you should be the one staying here, but like hay am I going to let you out of my sight after the story you just told me, so we're going to the hospital together and that's the end of it.  Got it?"

Lance hesitated, but nodded in understanding, if not complete agreement.

She responded with a single nod of approval and lowered her hoof, "Now, where is the hospital anyway?"

"Um...a ways north up the road from here if I recall, it's marked on the map in one of my bags." Lance attempted to point at the aforementioned bag but the slight shifting of weight aggravated his back leg and caused him to wince.

The attempted gesture caused Posey to briefly grimace with sympathy.  For a split second she felt a serious doubt regarding her plan to get him to the hospital.  She knew Lance could still move, his fleeing from her to the wall earlier had shown that, but even at his fastest right now he was clumsy and, well, not really that fast.  If the monsters he had described were still out there he wouldn't stand a chance on his own...but would having her around be enough?  Posey had always been the more physical of the two, being the oddball pegasus who took after earth ponies as opposed to the oddball pegasus who took after unicorns, but she hadn't been in a single fight in her life, much less tangled with the sort of creatures Lance had just told her about.  That wasn't even taking into account the rampaging alicorn monstrosity.  If they ran into her again she had no idea what they would do...it would pretty much be over.

...maybe staying there a while longer would be best?

Posey closed her eyes and pushed the thought away as she stepped over to his saddlebags to get the map out.  Staying there longer wouldn't make the torn flesh of his leg suddenly regrow, and without proper attention and supplies they were risking his wounds becoming infected.  If they stayed there things would only get worse, not better.  It wasn't worth considering.

After unfolding the map and briefly widening her eyes at the two bloody hoof marks her husband's mysterious mare benefactor had left behind, she found the sketch of the apartment complex and wall he had made.  Her eyes followed the road northward past the park and found the hospital's location clearly marked on the west side, "Looks like a pretty simple trip then..."

"Don't count on it."  Lance remarked dryly.

Whilst Posey was rummaging around the apartment looking for anything remotely useable Lance had limped into the bathroom hoping the mirror inside was still intact.  What he found wasn't technically intact but still at least usable.  The top half of the mirror had been broken off, the shards scattered on the floor below, but aside from a few cracks the bottom half still managed to sufficiently reflect.  What he saw when he looked was a pony who appeared to be every bit as much of a wreck as he felt.

A thick gauze pad covered the gash that the sovereign's 'tap' had left on the side of his head.  It was held in place by a strip of cloth tied around his aching skull and covered with a bandage.  Though it covered what was doubtlessly the nastiest bit of the wound, there was unmistakable bruising peeking out from the edges.  Looking downward he saw the bloodied bandages wrapped around both of his forelegs where the drowning mares had cut him.  Those certainly hurt but they didn't impact his mobility too significantly.  No, that privilege was left to the last couple of injuries.

The two bumps where his wings had once attached to his body were covered by an arrangement of gauze pads, cloth strips, and bandage covering identical to the one on his head.  They were bound tightly to minimize the amount of painful rubbing he would have to endure every time he made any movement of consequence.  Finally Lance looked back at his chewed up hind leg.  Judging from the percentage of his medical kit's contents in which it was covered, this one had clearly caused Posey the most concern.  He could only imagine what sort of irreparable damage the scavenger had done to the muscle tissue before he'd managed to kick half of its head in.

In summation he was a flightless limping pegasus that would probably have an ugly scar on the side of his face the rest of his life...all of which he had already known.

"Why did I even come in here?" He grumbled to himself as he limped back out into the hallway just in time to see his wife pull her head out of one of the kitchen cabinets with another health drink in her mouth.  She set it on the counter as she spotted him, the surgical light attached to the front strap of his saddlebags making him difficult to miss.

"This is the only thing I could find, do you want to drink it before we leave?" She asked while holding a hoof up to keep from being blinded.

Lance briefly considered it but then shook his head, courteously switching his light off, "No, I'll probably need it more later, after the first one wears off."

"Okay." She said with a nod of agreement.  Posey picked the bottle up again and carried it over, carefully unlatching his saddlebag and slipping it inside, "There, you've got a bottle of water in your right bag, and the health drink in your left.  Everything else is just where I found it when you came in."

"Thanks honey." He replied with a gentle smile.

"You're welcome hubby." She said before giving him a quick kiss.

The bit of warmth they both felt at the brief but tender moment vanished in short order as they both turned to face the front door.

...

"Ready Posey?"

"No.  Are you?"

"No."

...

"Let's go then." Posey said as she took the initiative once more and pulled the door open while Lance turned his surgical light back on.  As much as she hated letting him go first there seemed little other option since he was the one with the light and the watch after all.

After limping out, Lance looked one way to see little else but cobblestone wall, and the other to see a blissful absence of aberrations, backed up by the the silence of his watch.  The miniature crime scene he remembered seeing earlier seemed to be oddly absent though.  Still, no monsters nearby, that was just spectacular.

"Looks clear." He said before starting for the exit with Posey right behind him, "Feels kind of weird to be walking out of our apartment on the ground floor instead of the third."

The remark caused Posey to lift an eyebrow in puzzlement, "What?  We never lived on the third floor."

Lance stopped just short of opening the exit door, "Huh?"

"Yeah, G-4 was always our apartment." She corrected with a point backward.

...

That was right.  G-4 had been their apartment.  So then...why did he keep seeing a door marked 303?

...

"Right, right...sorry...memory's not the best right now." He said dismissively before bringing his hoof back up the doorknob.

"Can't really blame you." Posey replied understandingly as she listened for any movement down both ends of the side hall.

Finally they emerged into the crisp autumn air outside.  It was somewhat refreshing after what felt like ages inside the pitch black apartment complex of variable cleanliness, but the omnipresent thick fog put a damper on any such relief.  There was no stoop or mat of any kind in front of the door, just a wedge of flattened dead grass that gave way to tall dead grass extending out into the fog, a testament to just how much the building didn't belong there.

"Okay, we just head left around the corner then go along the river until we find a way across." Lance said at a near whisper while recalling his mental image of the map.  He was thankful that this time he was actually talking to somepony.  She gave him a silent nod in reply.

The river was right where Lance remembered it thankfully.  They followed it north, Posey making sure not to outpace him, and the both them making sure not to make any unneeded noise.  The sound of the rushing water in the river was fortunately masking any of the rustling noises they made while navigating the tall grass, but at the same time it would probably keep them from hearing the watch until whatever might be approaching was practically on top of them.  Fairly soon they happened upon a row of dead, grey barked trees that looked to have been quite purposely planted in that arrangement.

"This must be the park." Posey whispered at his side.

"So there should be a bridge just a bit farther..." Normally this would've made Lance move a bit faster in anticipation but he was already moving as fast as he was able to.  Suddenly he stopped moving at all, leaving Posey to take a few more steps before noticing his absence and turning back.

"What?  What's wrong?"

"The watch."

He couldn't hear the buzzing but he could feel the vibration against his chest.  They both started looking around for any shapes in the fog and soon spotted the silhouette of a pony lying motionless on the nearby dirt path that lead further into the park.

"Oh no...that's one of them isn't it?" She managed to keep her voice to a whisper but it was quite obvious how difficult a task that was.

"Shh, it's okay, it's one of those masked ones so we just need to keep away and it won't do anything." He explained in a much calmer manner as he pressed onward, still glancing back to make sure he was correct all the same.  Posey swallowed her fear and followed close behind, trusting him to stay on the right path since she didn't dare take her off of the fog shrouded creature.  Lance proved correct though as it faded into the mist behind them without having made the slightest twitch.  The vibration of his watch had gone down considerably...but was still present, which worried him.

It wasn't much longer until they reached the thankfully still intact stone bridge, a sight Lance wasn't used to being so welcoming.  But before he could enjoy his new-found appreciation for river spanning architecture any further, he felt the persistent buzzing against his chest beginning to rise again as they grew nearer.  He was about to start looking around when he felt Posey tap his flank to get his attention.

"Over there, another one on the other side." She said while directing his attention across the river with a pointed hoof.  He could see it too.  There was another drowning mare lying in wait on the other side of the bridge.  Although Posey could obviously just fly over and land a safe distance away, there was no way Lance could cross without waking her up.  He sat down and sighed before turning back to his wife.

"Any ideas?"

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm her rattling nerves before bringing a hoof up to her chin, "Well...you said they were pretty slow right?"

Lance nodded.

"Then I could probably fly over and lead it away while you cross." She offered while spreading her wings.

"What?  No I..." He tried to object but couldn't find any logical grounds to do so.  It was actually a good plan.  He certainly couldn't think of anything better now that he tried, "...okay.  Just be careful, don't let it anywhere near you."

"I won't." She assured him with a brief peck on the cheek before turning and taking to the air.  On the other side she looked down and got her first look at one of the drowning mares without any fog in the way.  Posey found it...unsettling to say the least.  Having the pale mottled grey pony creature described to her was proving to be something entirely different than seeing it for herself.  The mare below really did look dead, but she knew better, she knew exactly what would happen when she touched down, and it was making it difficult to convince her wings to let her do so.  But she wouldn't let herself be deterred by her own fear.  This was for Lance.  With one last push of willpower she forced her wings to let her descend, and then stop flapping entirely to let her drop the short distance to the ground.  She was close enough so that she was certain it would wake up, but not so close that she was in danger of being cut.

That is why Posey found it quite surprising when the drowning mare did not respond to her presence in the slightest.

"Maybe this isn't close enough..." She muttered to herself before taking another step toward the creature.

Then another.

And another.

And yet another.

"What are you doing?!" Lance called from the other side.

Still no response.  Posey was probably five steps away from being in hoof's reach but the drowning mare was still lying deathly still.  Was it...was it actually dead?  Could they be that lucky?  Though she still wanted to be anywhere else besides next to one of those things the fear had at least subsided the slightest bit, letting her get even closer.  When there was still no response forthcoming she actually dared to reach a hoof out and poke the back of the drowning mare's leg.  Still nothing happened.  Even a second poke failed to provoke it.

Posey sighed with relief then flew back over the river to deliver the good news, "I think it's dead."

"It must be if it didn't do anything when you were that close...thanks for the heart attack by the way." Lance remarked, grateful that his wife was still alive and he hadn't chipped any teeth from clenching them so hard.

"Hehe, sorry." She apologized with a sheepish grin before they got moving again, still having a bit of distance to cover before they reached the bridge, "I don't know why it would just be dead though.  It didn't even look hurt."

They reached the bridge and turned to cross it.

"No bruises or anything?  I saw the big one smashing one against the ground before, she might have just been this way earlier...I hope earlier..." Lance said as he started across the bridge.

"Nope, nothing.  It's like it was just-"

She was interrupted by a wretched gagging noise.

"-ignoring me!" Posey said in surprise as her wings unfurled.  Her natural instinct was to put herself between it and Lance but she suppressed it in favor of trying her original plan, flying over the two and landing behind the drowning mare as it got on its hooves and stumps, "Hey over here!"

It ignored her still, beginning to shamble towards her husband.  Lance backed up a step, weighing his options.  There looked to be plenty of room on his side of the bridge, but he was neither sure of what was waiting in the fog behind him, nor certain that he could even maneuver around it like he had managed back in the apartments.

"Behind you!  Look!" Posey shouted in a continued attempt to get the creature's attention, "Right here!  Standing so close!  You could just whirl around and cut me!"

She was still ignored.  It was almost halfway across the bridge now.  Lance had his hind hooves on the dirt path off of the bridge and was preparing the turn around a limp away as fast as he could manage.

That tore it.

"Stop darn it!" She growled as she rather thoughtlessly grabbed the drowning mare's hind leg between her hooves and yanked backward.  It was unprepared for the sudden pull and hit the stone bridge surface with a pained grunt that got cut off by one of its periodic choking convulsions.  Despite the cream colored pegasus holding its leg, the drowning mare still tried pulling itself forward by its stumps, seemingly hellbent on getting to Lance no matter what tried to stop it.

Noting that she both had the leverage advantage and didn't seem to be in danger of retaliation, Posey gripped the drowning mare's back leg even tighter and starting pushing backward with her hind hooves.  The drowning mare's stumps proved laughably inadequate for gaining traction and despite her best efforts she was being dragged away from her target.  It only got worse when the two reached the loose dirt road, and worse again when Posey dragged her into the dew slicked grass.

The farther away from Lance she got the less lively the drowning mare became, until eventually her choking stopped and she was just as deathly still as before.  Posey stopped and gave the leg in her hooves a few test shakes just to be sure before she let go and caught her breath, "You...stay...there..."

"Posey?!  Are you okay?!" She heard Lance shouting as he limped across the bridge with all the haste he could muster.  All he had seen was his wife retreating into the fog with a monster in her hooves, for all he knew she was getting cut to ribbons.

She spent a moment more catching her breath before putting his mind at ease and starting back towards his voice, "I'm fine Lance!  Just stay there, I don't want her waking up again!"

That had perhaps not been the best move.  There might have been something else waiting for her in the fog she all too willingly back into, then what would she have done?  But in the end she had been fine, so she thought it best to chalk this one up to a cheap lesson and move on.  Besides, she had learned that these drowning mares didn't seem interested in her in the slightest.  Knowing that would make keeping them away from Lance a simple task indeed...well, simpler at least.

"See?  All in one piece." She said reassuringly as she got close enough for the fog to pull back and reveal a panic stricken Lance.

"I can't believe you just...!  I mean...!  There could have been...!  You might have been...!  You almost-" He semi-replied as several scoldings got stuck in his head all at once and clumsily tried to claw their way out of his mouth.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry I scared you again, but I'm fine." She apologized as she gently nuzzled against him again to try and calm him down, "Besides, now I know those things ignore me.  Next time we see one I can just push it out of the way for you and we can avoid all this fuss."

Lance was silent a moment before he let out a stressed, shaky breath then placed a foreleg around her and hugged her tightly, "Let's...just keep going."

"Good idea."

After finding the road they headed north and through a small group of seven houses.  Lance's watch had begun buzzing just once more during the trip but whatever had triggered it had fortunately missed them in the fog.  In short order they found themselves standing in front of Ponyville Hospital.  Unlike the cafe or the apartment complex this building looked like it undoubtedly belonged there despite the construction that looked much sturdier than the thatched roof houses all over town.  It was a modest building as far as hospitals went, but as Ponyville wasn't that large of a town it wasn't hard for Lance to imagine that it provided sufficient medical care to serve everypony's needs.  Now they could only hope there were enough supplies inside to serve their medical needs as well.

"That was a bit more straight forward than you said it would be." Posey observed as she trotted over to the front door.

"Probably means the door is locked." Lance replied as he limped after her, looking around again to check if they had any visitors.

She brought a hoof up to the handle and was rewarded for her effort by a stubborn click as it remained immobile, "Yep...wait, what's this?"

Lance finally made it to the door as Posey sat and picked something up off the ground.  It was a bundle of four rusty bolts held together by a ragged leather strap with a single word messily burned into it:

'WHY'

"What the hay..." She muttered, not quite sure what to say about her strange find.

"Keep that in your bag, we'll probably need it...somehow." Lance said, though he couldn't imagine what use four rusted bolts could be to them, he was sure he would soon be enlightened.

"If you say so." Posey said with a shrug before slipping the bundle of bolts into her bag, "So what now?  Do we look for a back entrance or something?  Maybe have me look for a window to fly into?"

"No, I couldn't follow you through the window, and we shouldn't split up." He replied as he leaned against the wall to give his leg a bit of a rest.

"Maybe there's another door then-..."

"Yeah, it would be worth looking I think.  If this is anything like Cloudsdale General or Manehatten General there's probably a few ways to get in." Lance pondered aloud.

"Lance."

"Though I doubt this place has as many."

"Lance."

"Then again if there was a way inside unlocked already why would we have even found this bundle of bolts right in front he-"

"Lance."

"Hrm?"

Seeing that she finally had her husband's attention, she pointed at the source of her worries, prompting Lance to turn around and see a familiar silhouette in the fog...

Part 12

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Expecting.

Part 12

"That's her isn't it?  The one that was leading you around?" Posey asked Lance at a whisper.  It seemed the natural assumption.  The sillhouette wasn't as large as she would have expected were it the monstrous metal clad alicorn her husband had described, it wasn't making a move to attack them either, and while she wasn't exactly sure how close one of those monsters had to be in order to set the watch to buzzing, it's current complete silence was reassuring.

Lance didn't respond at first.  He only stood silently for a moment before taking a single step toward the mysterious mare in the fog.  Just like back at the library crater the small move in her direction was enough to send her running back into the mist.

"Yeah...that's her."

Posey's first instinct was to take off and try to follow after her, but she only got as far as unfurling her wings before realizing she would be leaving Lance behind if she did so.  Instead, the two stood there looking off into the fog in the direction of the hoof falls that retreated rapidly until they were out of earshot entirely.

...

"She's fast." Posey observed, lacking much else to do at that very second.

"She left me in the dust even before I got mauled." Lance replied as he set to limping after the unusual guide.  He stopped as he felt Posey carefully put a hoof on his shoulder, looking back to face her.

"We're going to follow her?" She half stated, half asked.

Lance nodded.

"And you're sure you trust her?" This time her voice was all question, and when he thought about it, it was a very good question indeed...but he didn't need much time to resolve his answer before explaining to her.

"I do.  When I first came here and had no idea what to do, she gave me a map and a place to go.  When I was running around scared out of my mind she lead me to a safe place to rest and think things over.  If it wasn't for her I never would've found the apartments.  It's true that I never would've gotten so mangled if I had never found the apartments, but it's also true that I never would've found you either...if not for her.  So, yes, I trust her." He nodded confidently as he concluded, then added, "Besides, how am I ever going to patch up her wound if I don't keep following her?

His wife smiled and returned the nod, letting go of his shoulder and strolling past him, "Okay Lance, if you trust her then I do too.  Let's go."

He felt compelled to argue against her taking point but opted to keep his mouth shut and limp along after her.  As much as he didn't like it, the alternative of him taking the lead in his condition was laughable.  They had never kept track of little things that had been inconsequential before, like who was faster, or who was stronger, but thanks to current circumstances they had suddenly become very consequential, and she happened to be both of them.  But all of that logic didn't  placate him one bit.  It was still voluntarily letting his wife put her neck out on his behalf.  He hadn't liked it back at the bridge, and he didn't like it now.  However, he also knew she wasn't going to budge on the issue should he object, and they didn't have time to engage in an argument of which they both already knew the result.

The mare in the fog's last known direction took them further north up the road until they hit an intersection, at which point Posey looked to and fro, "Okay...now which way?"

"Look on the ground, should be a trail." Lance reminded her as he caught up.

"Oh, right." She said as she lowered her gaze to the cobblestone.  It was only a few seconds before she spotted the first small spatter, then another which didn't lead conclusively one way or the other, and finally one that was veering off to the right.  She looked back and pointed, "Looks like this way."

It was only four steps before she paused and looked into the fog past the top of the T shape of the intersection.

"You see something?" Lance asked, cautiously stopping behind her.

"It's not one of those things it's just...wierd...look." She said, inviting him to take a place at her side.  Lance accepted, stepping forward until the strange shape she saw in the fog loomed into his view as well.

It was a thick rust covered steel pole going down into a hexagonal base of cracked, mossy concrete with heavy bolts holding it steady to the ground.  His first thought was that it was holding up a water tower, but the sheer size of it made that unlikely.  Aside from that, a look only a bit further right revealed what had to be the town's wind mill, judging from the bit of one of the sails sticking out below the fog.  If the wind mill was there then having a water tower right in front of it made no sense at all.  But as it was a benign bit of strangeness, Lance felt perfectly fine dismissing it for now.  There were much more dangerous things to devote his thoughts to.

"We should probably just keep moving honey." He suggested.

"What could it be holding up though?  I mean something that big has got to be holding something up." She mused as she started down the eastward fork on the road.

"I don't really think it's worth worrying about right now." Lance said as he resumed limping along behind her.  His leg was beginning to hurt a little more but he wasn't about to stop to do anything about it before they'd gotten inside and found a safe place.

"Yeah, good point." Posey relented and continued onward, keeping an eye on the road to make sure they were still following the trail of blood spatters.  It lead them over another bridge, though fortunately this time the crossing was far less eventful.  The gigantic steel pole had only been the first of many as well.  There was another on the other side of the bridge.  Further down there was one right in the middle of the road they had to make their way around, and after that yet another on the side of the road to their right.  Even though there were better things to worry about, the presence of so many support poles made them both wonder all the more about what it was they were holding up in the fog.  As usual though they were shortly thereafter distracted from these thoughts by another oddity as the road ended.

And so did the ground.

It was another chasm just like the one that had swallowed up the library before.  Just before the edge was an odd tree, now obviously dead, that looked to have grown right up through the road and pushed the stones aside on its way.  Its placement wasn't what made it odd though.  That honor was left to what Lance at first assumed was a carving depicting a pony that had been tied with their back to the tree and their forelegs wrapped back around the trunk.  The face was, as expected, featureless.  As they approached though he could see that it wasn't a carving at all.  For one, a carving would've gone into the trunk, not outward as this did.  For another, it was actually a part of the tree, looking to have grown out on its own rather than be carved into shape.  The only thing about the wooden pony effigy that didn't look perfectly integrated with the tree was a metal panel on its chest with a tightly arranged nine by nine grid of holes.

"And I thought the poles were wierd." Posey remarked as she stepped forward and examined the unsettling tree.  Meanwhile Lance looked around the ground but found that the bleeding mare's trail ended there.

"I guess this is what she was leading us to." He said while moving to her side as she scrutinized the tree further.

"Well it looks like these holes are threaded for a bolt so maybe we're supposed to put these in there?" She pondered aloud, reaching into her saddlebag and pulling out the bundle they had found lying in front of the hospital.

"That'd be my guess, but what order?  There are something like forty million different ways to arrange four points on a nine by nine grid." Lance pointed out rather unhelpfully.

"Did we get a clue or something anywhere?" She asked while looking around again in case they had missed anything the first time around.

"Yeah, 'why'."

"What do you mean why?  So we can-"

"No no the clue was the word 'why' written on the wrapping of that bundle of bolts." Lance corrected, pointing to the aforementioned bundle held in her hoof.  She looked down at it and groaned with an accompanying eyeroll at her own momentary lapse of intelligence.

"Sorry, sorry." Posey said sheepishly before the two of them settled into another silence while they tried to think of a solution.  After a couple minutes she let out a sigh of frustration before she saw that look suddenly hit Lance's face.  It was the expression he always made when he'd figured something out, she'd never forget that expression after seeing him so often make it while poring over medical texts at home, "What is it?"

"The tree's dead." Lance said while he reached over for the bundle.

"And?" She replied as she handed it over.

"So what made it die?" He set the bundle on the ground and pulled a bolt free, screwing it into the left most hole on the top row.

"Um...I don't know, what made any of the plants here die?" She countered as she took a seat, watching in curiosity.

"Exactly, we don't know what made it die.  When somepony dies and we don't know why, what do we do?" He grabbed another bolt and screwed it into the right most hole of the top row.

"An autopsy?"

"Yes, and what's the first step to conducting an autopsy?" He asked further, screwing another bolt into the hole at the exact center of the grid.

Posey had to shrug, "Not a clue, never studied any of this."

"You make a Y incision across the chest." Lance took the final bolt and screwed it into the middle hole of the bottom most row, making the four bolts form a Y shape with one another, "Though the bottom segment usually goes a bit farther down than thi-"

He was interrupted by a sudden crack of wood that made him step back in surprise after he made one last turn of the bottom screw.  Lance was correct of course, the bottom segment of a Y incision did travel down the body a ways further than the provided grid reached, but apparently the wood had decided to shoot an ugly looking crack further down the wooden pony's front to make up for it.  As the two looked on a small stream of blood began trickling down from the crack, prompting both of them to wear an expression of mild alarm.

...

"Was...was there actually a pony in that-"

Lance was interrupted a second time by the metal plate falling off and clattering on the cobblestone below with a racket that made them both wince.  It revealed not the assortment of pulsing, distressed organs that Lance had dreaded, but rather a mildly blood spattered leather lined compartment much like the inside of the chest he had found in the library crater.  There was a nail sticking out with a key hanging on the end of it inside.

It took them several moments to recognize that they had nothing to fear.  The blood must have leaked out from inside the compartment when the wood had cracked, they hadn't just jammed four screws into a horribly trapped pony's flesh after all.  While a compartment partially filled with blood wasn't very comforting, they both still found it far preferable to having just unwittingly tortured somepony.  He allowed himself a sigh of relief before raising a hoof and plucking the key from its perch.

"Can we get the hay away from this thing now?" Posey said, obviously having had quite enough of this strange tree and the abyss beyond it, "After all that noise something's probably headed over here."

"I doubt it," Lance replied as he dropped the key into his saddlebag and resumed following behind her.

"Why's that?" She asked him over her shoulder.

"Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't start singing while we walk or anything, but the only ones I've seen out here besides her were those masked ones, and they don't seem too sensitive to sound."

"So what makes you so sure she isn't out here too then?" She countered as they detoured around the pole in the middle of the road again.

Lance had to think about that one.  He did have vague memories of her getting dragged away but those were nothing to be so cavalier over.  There must have been some cue that was missing, something his subconscious was picking up on without him realizing it, because he was never a pony to make kneejerk assumptions.  Then he realized how deafeningly silent it had been ever since they came out of the apartments.

"When I was out here before I would hear her doing something off in the distance every once in a while.  Haven't heard a peep out of her yet ever since we left." He reasoned.

"Okay, sure, but she didn't even know you were here back then from what you told me, maybe she's just being quiet now that she does?" Posey replied just as the bridge emerged from the fog ahead of them.

"Well...yeah...that's a fair point.  But, what can we do about it?  I'm already moving as fast as I can." Lance pointed out.  It was an evasive response but it was true enough so Posey decided to let it go with a quiet nod before resuming her vigilance of the fog around them.  Their trip back over the bridge was equally as uneventful as the first and they were quite soon standing at the intersection about to turn left so they could head south and return to the hospital.  Before they could go any further however Posey stopped dead in her tracks and looked down the road heading west while visibly tensing.

Lance was about to ask what was wrong when he heard it too, just as his watch began to buzz.  Something was galloping toward them beyond the sight of the fog.  The hoof falls were not metallic so he was at least able to scratch another attack from the sovereign off the list of possibilities.  The drowning mares were unable to gallop in the first place so that ruled them out too.  Was it the mare that had guided them there?  Why would she be running towards them instead of away from them?  Wait, no, it couldn't be her, she had never set off his watch, but if it wasn't her, a drowning mare, or the sovereign then that meant it had to be-

Posey cried out with fright and stepped back as the split headed scavenger leapt from the fog a good second or two before she had anticipated with its teeth bared.  It arced through the air right at her.  There was no time to dodge out of the way.

But instead of grabbing her by the throat it simply landed as the mare side closed her mouth.  From it's body language, it looked confused now, sniffing at Posey curiously as the terrified pegasus stood stone silent with eyes wide trying not to scream at the aberration before her.  She started to take another step back but a vicious growl from the scavenger in response made it clear it wasn't done inspecting her yet.

"Posey...just....stay still, maybe it will-"

The scavenger's ears twitched as it heard Lance's frightened voice and it suddenly lost all interest in his wife.  It deftly sidestepped her before charging straight at him with jagged teeth once again on full display as it roared for his blood.

Lance knew it was fast, but he also knew it built up too much momentum to correct course in a quick fashion when it charged.  Even so, the bit of agility he could summon up in the half second he had to work with was only barely enough to get him out of the lethal path of those jaws, and came at the cost of sending him toppling to the side as he lost his balance.  It was quick to recover after landing, and wheeled around for a second attack only to be knocked off its hooves entirely by a cream colored blur.  As the force of the blow rolled it over a few times Posey shook the stars out of her eyes then set her hooves back on the ground and spread her wings out to make herself look as large and intimidating as possible.

"You get away from my husband and go pick on somepony else who can actually fight back!" She shouted with a menacing stomp of her hoof, glaring daggers at the scavenger as it got to its hooves with a painful groan.  Meanwhile Lance had managed to get halfway up, his forelegs holding up his front half as he struggled to get his good back leg beneath him.  Once the scavenger had regained its senses it growled defiantly at Posey, now deeming her worthy of attention.  Posey didn't move.  She was scared out of her mind but she didn't move.  Even as the scavenger took a step forward and lowered itself in preparation to pounce she didn't give it an inch of ground.

Lance was frantically trying to stand.  He had to move.  He had to make it unnecessary for Posey to stand between him and that monster before she got hurt just as badly as he had, or worse.  Finally with one last grunt of effort he was up on his hooves.  Now he only had to...limp away...slowly...in a mad dash to safety....who was he kidding?  He was dead weight holding Posey down now.  If she had to constantly slow down and protect him like this it was only a matter of time before something awful happened.  She stood more of a chance on her own than she ever would with him.

"Posey, just go!  I'm not worth it!" He pleaded.

Posey noticeably flinched at his words, but then took a step forward to match the scavenger's own.  She still wasn't going to move.  That suited the monster in front of her just fine.  Its muscles tensed, but before it could propel itself into the air the colt side gave a muffled screech of pain that stopped both halves of the monster cold.  A spot had appeared on the side of its head and began rapidly spreading outward in a series of sickly black veins that seemed to be the source of its pain.  The mare half almost lost balance as the colt half's foreleg broke synch and began to ineffectually try and scrape the offending growth off.  After regaining its balance the non panic stricken half of the creature's head gave Posey one last glance before it clumsily turned around and receded into the mist from whence it had emerged.

A tense moment passed after the fleeing monster had grown silent in the distance along with Lance's watch.  She gave one last look around before letting out a shuddering breath as the raw fear of the encounter finally forced its way inside now that Lance was out of danger.  Posey turned and moved past Lance with uneasy steps, her body still flush with adrenaline.  He only got a brief look at her face in passing, but for some reason she looked more angry than shellshocked as he had expected, "Are you...okay?"

"No, I'm not okay Lance.  Now come on." Her voice was a strange mix of tone, fearful yet commanding, quivering yet forceful.  He did nothing in reply but to nod and limp along after her, saving his worries for later.  She seemed somewhat shaken up but otherwise fine so it didn't seem right to delay their trip to check her over.

Though they hadn't far to go it still felt like ages before they were blessed with the sight of Ponyville Hospital once more.  Lance's watch didn't make a peep as they approached either, adding to the pleasant feeling of impending safety as that meant there was nothing immediately behind the door either.

"The key." Posey said while holding out a hoof and not bothering to look back at him.  He blinked with uncertainty regarding her sudden curtness with him before complying, grabbing the key out of his saddlebag and placing it in her hoof.  She tried inserting the key but was unsuccesful for a few moments, getting progressively more frustrated over several tries before realizing the key's teeth were pointed in the wrong direction and cursing under her breath.  A quick key flip and a much more succesful turn of the lock later, she slowly pushed the door open and moved aside for Lance and his surgical light.

He stopped at the threshold and switched it on before peering inside what turned out to be a waiting room in name only.  Besides the entrance through which he was peering, there was only one other door that led further into the hospital on the left wall.  The usual assortment of chairs one would expect were absent, a few stray bits of wood being the only sign they had even been there in the first place.  The linoleum flooring was in poor shape and covered with a layer of dust, the wallpaper was faded and peeling in spots, and an oddly placed bit of sheet metal was bolted over the window that would have otherwise let incoming patients speak with a receptionist.  It was far from the model of cleanliness that the apartments had initially been but strangely that was somewhat of a comfort in it's own peculiar way.

"Looks clear." Lance told his wife as she stepped past him and into the room.  She took a few moments making her own inspection before concluding it was reasonably safe, then turned to look at him.

"Get in here and close the door." Posey ordered as she sat down.

Since he was about to do so anyway, the order was fairly easy to follow, a laughably obvious next step one might even say.  But he wasn't about to say as much with the mood she was giving off.  He couldn't really blame her for being out of sorts after the encounter at the crossroad but he couldn't put his hoof on what exactly had inspired this particular spike of anger.  Thankfully he was spared further contemplation by the sound of something tapping against the door above him after he closed it.  A glance upward placed the beam of his flashlight squarely on a lantern hanging from a hook on the inner side of the door, "Oh, hey, here's a lantern for you."

"What...oh, that's...that's good!" The discovery seemed to break her out of her ill mood as she got back to her hooves and was soon at his side with her front hooves on the door so she could reach the lantern.  She managed to grab the handle in her teeth and pull it free of the hook before setting it on the ground to check it over while Lance kept his surgical light focused on it so she could see what she was doing.

"Does it have oil?" He asked.

"I think so, it's got some weight to it." She replied as she looked for a knob, switch, or anything else that looked like it was meant to light the lantern, "Only one way to be sure though...here it is." Posey gave the knob she had found a few swift twists before the lighting mechanism ignited the wick, causing a much larger circle of soft orange light to join the smaller but much more concentrated beam cast by her husband's surgical light, "Good, it works." She said before she popped the top off and blew the wick out, "We've got your light for now so we should save the oil."

"I haven't exactly seen any spare oil lying around." Lance agreed while Posey opened her saddlebag and set the unlit lantern inside.  With that brief distraction taken care of she then visibly sank back into her foul mood from moments before, much to her husband's dismay.

"Lance, what was that back there?" She asked with a glare, taking a seat again and pointing toward the door through which they had just entered.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?  I mean the 'I'm not worth it leave me behind' nonsense you spouted!  How could you say that about yourself?!  Or ask me to do that?!" Posey clarified with a mix of creeping anger and sadness in her eyes.

He wilted, ears flattening against his head.  That wasn't the reason he had been expecting.  If anything he had anticipated it being the inconvenience he was quickly becoming in his injured state, not anger at what he thought had been an objective analysis...at the time.  Now that it was being put right in front of him again he couldn't help but feel that perhaps it had been a bit rash and inconsiderate, but at the same time he couldn't just dismiss how valid his assumptions had been, "I was...afraid for you, honey."

"And I wasn't afraid for you?!  I was terrified!  And it was hard enough without you back there telling me to run too!  I mean, after all you've done how can you think you're not worth defending?!" She exclaimed with a hoof of inquisition pointed at him.

"I...I don't-" He stammered before being cut off.

"Is it because Fluttershy blamed you?!"

"No, it wasn't-"

"Did my mother get to you?!  Did she convince you it was your fault or something?!" Posey interrupted again.

"No she didn't.  Nopony blamed me for letting you die-"

"But you still think you let me die don't you?" She countered.

Lance opened his mouth to speak but no words to refute her claim came to mind, soon closing his mouth and diverting his gaze down and away from hers.  She was right, there was no other way to interpret what he'd said just then, and the words had been honest.  It wasn't some sort of revelation for him though, even if Fluttershy had been the one to deliver the fatal stabbings to her mother, it had been his incompetence that had let her sink to the state she had been in at the time.  He'd always blamed himself for that, always.  But that wasn't what made him think he wasn't worth defending...not on its own at least.

She was a monster.  He knew it.  She deserved everything she'd gotten.  It was just.  It was right.  It was proper payment for having taken one life and ruined another.  So why now was he feeling a tug of guilt at having been the agent of that justice?  Had it been the visit?  Had he fallen for that...act?  What monster could act that way?

A manipulative one perhaps...

That's what was happening.  He was falling for it...badly.  No monster would act like she had unless it had been with some ulterior motive.

Perhaps that conclusion was horseapples.  Perhaps it wasn't.  All he knew at that very moment was that Posey needed him to be as supportive of her as she was being for him, and guilt made that difficult.  The concept of a manipulative monster toying with his emotions made it easier to push that guilt aside, so he took hold of that concept and used it.  Besides, if he didn't just admit to feeling responsible for her death she might keep pushing and find out about what he'd done afterward, and then he would lose her trust.

"I'm...sorry, honey."

His guilt ridden apology took much of the wind out of her anger, and it showed on her face as she stood up, "It wasn't your fault.  I never blamed you Lance...I know I probably said some nasty things but I did know better...you tried so hard...if you couldn't do it nopony could have." She said as she stepped forward and gently nuzzled him assuringly, "I know it's probably hard to let it go after so long, and you don't have to do it all right just now, but for the time being I need you here, not back when I died, okay?"

"Okay Posey." He replied while wrapping a foreleg around her and hugging her close.  They remained that way for a long while until Posey finally pulled away and wiped another bit of moisture from her eyes, smiling at him.

"Besides, nopony talks about my husband that way, least of all my husband...now let's go." She concluded before turning and leading him toward the only other door in the room.

"Careful." He warned as she brought her hoof to the doorknob.

"I'm not too worried, if anything was through this door it would have been trying to break it down already from all that noise I just made." All the same, when the door proved unlocked Posey opened it only a crack, just enough to peer through and see if there was anything waiting for them on the other side.  Curiously the linoleum floor stopped at the door, replaced with plain dirt.  The light seeping out through the crack in the door stopped well short of any wall, and most oddly of all she could swear she heard wind in the distance, "Um...could you get your light over here Lance?"

Her puzzled tone was none too reassuring.  He limped over, his wife opening the door a bit more for him as he approached.  The bit of light his surgical light cast on the situation only exacerbated their confusion.  The illuminating beam did indeed hit a wall...but that wall was so distant that it could easily be the outermost wall of the entire building, "That...is...interesting?"

Against his better judgement he pushed the door even further and stepped out onto the dirt, Posey following behind as he cast his light about to try and figure out what the hay was going on.  The both stood in mute confusion as they watched the circle of light move about in the far distance, hitting the far off walls with nothing in the way of obstacles to block it.

"It's hollow..."

Lance couldn't think of a choice of words better than his wife.  The entire hospital had been hollowed out, leaving only the outer wall and topmost ceiling, all of which had been braced with large bolted in iron bars to absorb the weight that the inner structures would usually hold.  There was nothing inside but the dirt ground.

"There's got to be something in here if we were led here though..." Lance pondered as he kept casting his light about looking for anything at all.

"Wait, there!" Posey said suddenly as she saw something on the ground briefly as the light passed over it.  Lance backtracked until they could see what was plainly a rusted metal trap door in the very middle of the shell of a building they found themselves in.

"Should we go check it out?  Lots of dark out there for something to hide in." He asked.  Posey still seemed unconcerned as she stepped past him.

"There's no fog in here, we'll hear and spot anything before it gets too close."

"Good point." He said while limping after her.

There proved to be nothing waiting for them in the dark, or at least nothing in their path to the trap door.  Upon closer inspection there was a latch on the end of the trap door opposite the hinges that was clearly meant to hold a padlock, but said padlock was nowhere to be seen and there was nothing to make Posey think twice before grabbing the handled with her teeth and pulling up and back.  It took her a few moments of pulling with all the strength she could muster, but as Lance was about to try and help her the rusted over hinges finally gave way with an ear splitting screech and let her pull the door open.  While his wife caught her breath he carefully peered over the edge.

"What's...what's down there?" Posey asked as she caught her breath.

"It looks like...asphalt? ...and that's a ventilation duct...that's...there's a roof down there." Lance said, hardly believing his own words.

"What?!" She said with just as much disbelief, but it was apparently dealt with quickly as evidenced by her next question, "Well, how far down is it?"

Being a pegasus Lance wasn't exactly one to judge a drop just by eyeballing it.  Pegasi never judged how far down something was, they just flew down to it.  But as he obviously no longer enjoyed that luxury right then seemed a good a time as any to start trying, "Um...I'm no expert but I don't think I'd want to jump down there without wings even if I wasn't already hurt."

"Let me see." She had apparently caught her breath, walking over next to him and sticking her head out beside his, "...yeah...good call."

"How are we going to get down there then?" He asked, but then stopped and mentally took a step back to a much more sane starting point, "Wait, first off, do we even want to go down there?"

Posey brought a hoof to her chin in thought.  It was actually a good question...but the answer seemed plain enough after a few moments, "Where else would we go?  We were led here just like you were led to the apartments before right?"

"Right."

"So, it just seems to me like it's a choice between going down there or wandering around outside aimlessly some more." She explained, once again pointing her hoof back the way they had come.

"This is a bit different though, back at the apartments I could have just gone back out the front door.  If we go down there I have no idea how we'll get back up...or, at least how I'll get back up." He pointed out in reply.

"You, us, same thing." She reminded him, "And you said the apartments gave you a way through the wall that didn't make sense...who's to say you won't get another way out of here that doesn't make sense?"

"So we just take it on faith after all that happened at the apartments?" Lance objected fairly reasonably.

"I know it's not the best plan but can you think of any others?" Posey replied with a shrug.

...

"Okay, so how are we going to get down there?" He asked again now that his need for a general sanity check had been sated.

"I guess I'll have to be your parachute." She suggested and turned, inspecting his back while trying to think of the best way to carry out the plan without aggrivating his injuries too much.

"You sure you can do it?"

"I've done it before, remember?"

"What?"

"Yeah, it was a few days after our first date, you wanted to see if your wing would work again so you tried jumping off a two story building like a dummy, and I caught you when your wing cramped up." Posey said with a soft smirk on her face.

Lance spent a quiet moment recalling the memory before his eyes widened in embarassment as he mentally confirmed the truth of her claim, "Oh, yeah...that."

"I would've expected better from an aspiring med student." She teased as she carefully climbed onto his back and wrapped her forelegs around his chest, her knees digging into his side.  She felt him wince at the new weight that was put on his leg, "I'm sorry, I know it hurts, this'll only be for a moment."

"Urgh...yeah, I know...well, here we go..." He said with much more conviction than he actually felt.  Lance hesitated a few moments more before finally summoning enough willpower to overcome his common sense and jumped down.  Posey's grip grew even tighter as the duty of supporting their combined weight suddenly shifted to her.  She flapped her wings as strongly and quickly as she was able as she held onto him, her efforts proving effective as their initially fast descent soon slowed to a crawl.  Soon enough Lance's hooves set down on the strange subterranean rooftop, "Got it!"

Posey let go and hopped off him, lying down to catch her breath again, "I...told you...I could do it..." She boasted triumphantly between breaths with a grin.

Lance returned her smile and brough his head down to kiss her on the cheek, "Thanks."

"No problem...now let's go." She said before getting back to her hooves and suddenly realizing she had no idea where they were supposed to go from there, "...um...where to?"

Lance took a moment to look around.  A rectangular area of dirt had been removed to accomodate the building he assumed they were standing atop of, the large walls and ceiling of dirt kept from collapsing by a series of wooden bracings much like the iron ones above.  They didn't seem to be creaking from the strain at all so he thought it best to not worry about them for now.  Bringing his gaze lower he soon spotted two rooftop structures that looked likely to be the building's roof access points, "Over there."

The structure to their right as they made their way over was a long rectangle, and the one to their left was about the same length except it was arranged in an L shape.  Both of them had two visible doors, but they were discouraged from checking the L shaped building first due to the very prominent boarding up of one of its doors.  The longer one by contrast only had a single padlock on the leftmost door labeled 'ELEVATOR CONTROL', and the other unmarked door was free of both boarding and padlocks.  Posey brought her hoof to the handle and looked back, Lance silently nodding in agreement before she opened it.

Inside was a stairwell leading downward.  The conditions inside weren't particularly menacing, just the same unkemptness they had both grown used to seeing by now.  They made their way down one floor before their progress was blocked by another oddly placed set of iron bars that completely cut them off.  Hoping to at least find out how many floors this underground building had, they turned their attention to that floor's door, only to find four empty bolt holes where the plaque bearing such a number would normally be.  Though the door proved uninformative, it at least made up for it by also proving to be accesible.

They stepped through it into a hallway.  The wall on their left looked like it had been full of windows, but the glass was now broken and gone, replaced by more wooden braces to keep the dirt from falling in...or at least any more of it from falling in.  There were already several small piles of it gathered on the floor beneath the former windows.  They could see the far side of the hallway, but only through the chainlink fence that was bolted into place to divide it in half.  On both sides there was also a pileup of empty stretchers...slightly blood spattered empty stretchers.  Lance had certainly already seen far worse but it did not bode well regardless.  Moving away from the slightly offputting sight they spotted another door on the right wall and made their way over, only to find that despite the handle moving easily it still wouldn't budge.  The lock must have been broken.

When they turned back they finally laid eyes on the open door to the elevator right next to the stairwell, and as luck would have it the elevator was on their floor already, "Well, down isn't exactly an encouraging direction but, again, not much choice." Posey observed as they stepped inside only to find the button panel had been covered with a thin but still plenty durable metal plate that been bolted over it, "...well...so much for that.  Guess we check the other elevator control door up top?"

"They're not giving us a whole of...is this writing?" Lance said, interrupted by the discovery that the scratches on the surface of the plate were not quite as random as they first appeared.  He squinted, focusing his light on it as he tried to make out the writing, "...'hallway'...'button'..."

"Hallway button?  I didn't see a button in the hallway." Posey recalled as she looked at the plate with him to confirm he was right.

"We weren't looking for a button in the hallway though so we might have missed it." He reminded her.

"No harm in checking again I suppose." She relented with a shrug before venturing back out into the hallway.  It didn't take them long to find it.  It was in the right side wall, located about halfway between the door with the broken lock and the stretcher piled divider fencing.  It was a small rusty button box that had been spliced directly into a wire through a hole in the outer wall.  It looked like just another feature of the dilapidation at first glance so it was no surprise they had missed it the first time.

"Okay so...the message in the elevator lead us to this button so...I guess this controls the elevator?" Lance estimated before Posey simply pressed the button while looking over to the elevator in question.  The cage-like doors quickly slammed shut and the elevator leisurely descended downward, "...well I hope we can get it back up here again."

"Uh...hehe...sorry..." Posey said with a blush of embarassment, "At least we know for sure you were right though."

They waited a tense few minutes before Lance pushed the button again.  To their great relief they heard the machinery spring to life again shortly before the elevator emerged from below up to their floor and opened invitingly once more, "Okay, no harm done!"

"But...wait, how are we going to do this?" She inquired as they both realized the obvious problem.

"I...don't know.  Do you think you can press the button and get in before it closes?" He asked.

"Not a chance with how fast they closed just now, I can be pretty fast but I'm not that fast."

They spent a few more silent moments trying to think of anything else besides the obvious solution to the problem.

...

Posey wordlessly opened her saddlebag and pulled out the lantern they had found above, "Good thing we found this when we did then."

"No." Lance immediately objected.

"Don't start, listen, it's plain as day we're not both going down in that elevator at the same time.  We don't know what's down there, we know it's safe up here, you're still hurt, I'm still fine, the only monsters we've crossed paths with ignored me for the most part, and the one that didn't ignore me only stopped ignoring me when I defended you.  Since you'll be safe up here, that won't be a problem." She explained as she took a moment to find the knob then lit the lantern anew.

"And you're so sure you'll be safe down there?  How do you know there's not something else down there that won't ignore you?" Lance persisted stubbornly.

"I don't know, but I do know that if there is, I can get away from it a hay of a lot better than you can right now.  That's why I've been in front ever since we left the apartments and that's why I'm going to be the first into the dark scary places we come across, understand?" She replied sternly.  He knew that tone.  It was the same one she'd used whenever he or Fluttershy had been sick and wanted to be up and about but had to be forced to stay in bed for their own good.  Neither of them had won that argument with her before, and he knew he wasn't going to now.  Besides, she was right.  He hated how right she was.

"I...I..." Lance slumped downward, defeated and unable to come up with a convincing objection.  He let out a frustrated but tired sigh before speaking, "How will I know when to bring it back up?"

"Good question..." Posey thought that one over for a while before continuing, "Tell you what, do your best to keep track of around...five minutes, then push the button again.  I'll try to be quick and look for a key or button or...something, but I can just go back down again if I need to, okay?"

"...okay." Lance complied, looking over to the button on the wall with a great degree of doubt in his eyes.

"Don't worry Lance, I'll be fine." She said with a parting kiss before picking the lantern up and trotting back over to the elevator.  He watched her go, feeling a tight dread in his gut as she turned around to look at him.  It still took him a few gut wrenching moments before he was able to force himself to press the button and just sit there while his wife calmly descended into the unknown depths below.

He took a deep breath and slowly let it out with a stressed shudder in an attempt to counter the thoughts of the thousands of possible hells he had just sentenced her to with that single button press.  But he couldn't dwell on that too long, he needed to keep track of time, and with his only watch busted all he could do was quietly count down the seconds...

"55...54...53...52...51-"

Lance's countdown was cut short as the elevator began coming up without his having pressed the button.  Posey must have found a way to bring it back up herself!  Feeling his spirits lifting again he ignored the spike of pain in his leg as he got back on his hooves and started limping toward the approaching elevator.  He managed to get within ten steps of it by the time it arrived, and opened of its own accord.

He eyes shot open wide as the sudden stabbing, sickening feeling in his gut and the tightness in his chest forced him to stop before he could make another step.

The elevator car was soaked with splattered blood on the back wall, a small pool on the floor, and a streaked trail leading outward.  The blood on the back wall seemed concentrated around a diamond shaped hole...and a few bars of the cage-like elevator door had been snapped in half.  He could only conclude something big had broken in, impaled his wife against the wall, and dragged her out...and he only knew one thing that did this sort of damage.  To describe his reaction as panic would be a delightfully tragic understatement.

"No, no, nonono, please Celestia no..." He muttered to himself as he limped into the car as fast as he could and started looking for some way, any way to make it go down, "Please!  Please!  Just take me down there!  I have to help her!  I don't know how I can but I have to for buck's sake!  Please!!!" He cried out, pleading with nopony as he tried in vain to wrench the cover plate off the panel, heedless of the agony coming from his leg with the efforts.

Somepony had heard him.

Lance stumbled backward in surprise as the doors slammed shut and the elevator car started to descend again.  He looked through the bars out into the hallway and caught a glimpse of a mare standing next to the button, faced away from him, her hoof lowered after having pressed it for him.  There wasn't enough time to make out any details about her before she vanished from sight.  Had that been the mare that had been leading him around?

"Thank you..." He said, wiping away the tears that had leaked from his eyes in his desperation of moments prior as the elevator descended into the unknown blackness below...

Part 13

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

On corticosteroids.

Part 13

"Come on come on come on..." Lance muttered as he stared intently at the cracks in the concrete walls of the elevator shaft moving upward outside of the door's broken and bent bars.  The descent was taking too long.  Not in the sense that he was desperate to find and help his wife either, it was objectively taking longer to go down than it had previously.  Either it was moving slower or it was taking him deeper into the building for some reason he couldn't quite put together.  There had only been one button to press up there so he had just assumed it was rigged to take the occupant to the same place every time.

In retrospect that might have been quite the silly assumption considering everything else that had been happening.

So was he just going to be deposited on some random floor, or was there some specific second destination the elevator was taking him to as dictated by some unknown sequence?  Either way, not only did everything point to Posey being in extreme danger, but now he wasn't even going to end up on the same floor as her.  That would obviously be disastrous even without his injuries but the extra disinclination toward mobility only made the problem all the more severe.  Every second he spent waiting for the elevator to stop and then limping around at a snail's pace afterward was a second Posey was alone with that alicorn monster, assuming she wasn't already dea-

"NO!" Lance shouted and closed his eyes tightly, cutting the thought off midway before it could fully complete itself.  Thinking like this wasn't doing him any good, but his treacherous thoughts couldn't help but gravitate toward that worse case scenario.  He opened his eyes and looked forward again, only letting himself see the cracks in the passing concrete wall, the only thing around him not currently covered in what might have been his wife's blood.  If his thoughts weren't going to reassure then perhaps his words would suffice.  What would Posey have said to him in a time like this?

...

"You're not going to do anypony any good shorting out your brain with worry when you can't do anything about it Lance.  The panel in here is covered, the only button you know for a fact makes this thing move is way up on the top floor, and this elevator is going to let you off where it lets you off.  That's all there is to it."  He took a deep breath and let it out, feeling the sharpest edge of his panic begin to dull.  The urgency was still there, as was the possibility that Posey was dead all over again, but his admission of the facts at hoof put something of a mental barrier in front of them.  They were manageable now.  He could use them instead of be overwhelmed by them.  "When this elevator stops, then I will deal with it."

Things proceeded normally for a few moments more as Lance pondered his situation through his new mental barrier.  He couldn't think of much good to see in anything at that very moment, though he supposed the building looking at least semi normal aside from being buried was a plus.  There was no perfectly clean lobby to lull him into a false sense of security before things went terribly awry.   If nothing else this new building at least seemed honest.  He wasn't naive enough to fool himself into thinking there might not be any more monsters inside but hopefully the architecture would stay where it was for the duration of their visit.

Then he found himself looking at a floor.

The cement wall had suddenly ended.  Now he was looking into some sort of secondary elevator shaft that ran alongside the main one.  It just so happened that the opposite wall was made of a marble tile pattern...the likes of which he'd never seen on a wall before.  But it had to be a wall right?  Floors were generally in a downward direction, and his inner ear told him he was still face forward.  So of course it was a wall...just an oddly done wall-

Oh.  Doors.

There were doors on each of the walls oriented in such a way as to conflict with his 'oddly patterned wall' theory.  Okay, so that wall was a floor.  The entire hallway he was looking into was just tipped on its side.  That was strange.  But it was a non threatening, safe strange.  The hallway was even just as ill tended as he had come to expect anything to be in that place.  But once again with eerily good timing his watch began to softly buzz to throw off his attempts at rationalizing away what he was seeing.

He began to look around as the watch grew louder.  Whatever it was, it was getting closer and fast.  Visions of clawed creatures crawling up the shaft intent on ripping the elevator car open to get to him danced in his head unhindered, but were thankfully erased as the buzzing reached a fever pitch and Lance looked forward into the vertical hallway.  There, standing on the 'floor' in all defiance of gravity, was a familiar blank, stitched together face looking 'up' at him as he slowly passed by.

Lance was frozen in place by uncertainty as he heard the soft ringing in his ears join the buzzing of his watch.  The deaf colt had stopped the sovereign from killing him...but then had smacked him across the face hard enough to beat a nightmare into him.  He'd left all those notes telling him to stay away from the door that had been showing him his own memories, and whether it was by intent or just knowing that it would happen, had let Lance fall into that nightmarish other version of the apartments.  But then, if that hadn't happened he would still be stuck on the other side of the wall...and he never would've found Posey in the first place.  It was impossible to know what to think of this creature.

The deaf colt for his part simply stared back at Lance as he descended, nothing else.  They were in line of sight of one another for only a few tense moments before the elevator car finally separated them.  The maimed doctor let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.  The oddly vertical hallway went on for perhaps another twenty feet before the entire strange encounter ended and the crack riddled concrete wall retook its place on the outer side of the elevator door.

"I get it...you're watching me," he replied to nopony.  That hadn't been an encounter so much as an announcement.  Judging from the first note he'd found after the initial brush with door 303, the deaf colt hadn't been aware of his presence in the apartments or perhaps even in the town at all before then.  Things were different now.  While nothing in this world seemed to have eyes, the sunken pits that took the place of them on that creature seemed to see a great deal more than anything else he'd run into.  There was no telling the extent of it but it was quite likely Lance had been under surveillance ever since then, even during the trip to the Ponyville hospital.  Once again Lance had no clue how to feel about that.  At worst the deaf colt had stood by and watched as horrible things happened to him, and at best he'd saved Lance's life.  "I suppose there's worse things around here to be omniscient."

The concrete wall ended again, this time opening into a nice normal horizontal hallway in an entirely sensible fashion.  Lance winced as the elevator car stopped abruptly before the door creaked open and freed him at last.  The sight of the drowning mare lying faced away on the floor less than five feet from the door made him suddenly hesitant to indulge that freedom however.

He experienced a brief moment of pure panic as he backed against the wall behind him.  With the panel covered there was no way he could possibly make the elevator door close to separate the two of them, nor could he ever hope to maneuver around it in his condition, especially when it was already so close.  Could he fight it, even with his injuries?  Thus far every time he'd gotten close to one he'd emerged alive but not without a nasty slice somewhere.  If that trend held true there would be no telling what damage one might do in his current state before he could kill it...if he could kill it.

Before he could despair any further he managed to pick out a few details that rendered his concerns null.  First, his watch was silent.  Second, though the drowning mare's lack of any motion had never been an indicator of its health before, the hole through its chest and its position in a puddle of its own blood at the end of the trail it had left whilst being dragged out most certainly were.  Lance realized with muted glee that not only was the drowning mare in front of him not going to kill him on account of already having been killed itself, but the blood splattered everywhere also wasn't Posey's.  The ensuing sense of relief was nothing short of immense.

That still left him with the problems of a missing wife and signs of the sovereign's presence in the building...well, those and an elevator he wasn't able to coax into letting him back up but that was a much less immediately important issue to him.  As he limped out into the grey concrete hallway he looked down at the drowning mare he was now sure was dead, else it would have been up and at his throat by now.  His watch was still quiet too, leading him to conclude that the watch only responded to monsters that were nearby and alive.  Thinking back, he couldn't recall a time one of them had died near him when there hadn't just been another monster to keep the watch buzzing.  This was another useful tidbit of information, once he found Posey they would no longer be surprised by any of those things playing dead around her.  When he tried to step past the corpse he noticed a familiar looking note lying in the pool of blood just in front of the drowning mare's face.

"Yes I am."

...

Well, that was actually somewhat comforting...he thought...perhaps.

It was definitely another note from the deaf colt, no doubt about it.  It was the same kind of paper, the same black ink, even the same hoof-writing.  The way the drowning mare had been killed was suggestive of the sovereign, but if the deaf colt had been there too it was sufficient reason to worry just a little less since she didn't seem to be able to do much to him.  He couldn't say he wasn't concerned with the note's menacing tone though.  Lance closed his eyes briefly then brought his head back up.  He'd grown quite tired of mentally ping ponging between fearing and being at ease with the deaf colt.  It was time to look around and move on.

This hallway was arranged in a similar fashion to the one up top, but didn't look nearly as worn down as that one had.  He had a feeling that was only because this one had never been made with any aesthetic touches to be worn down in the first place.  It was utilitarian, built for function and nothing else, which meant it was probably the building's basement.  That would also explain why being underground didn't seem to bother it any.  His path to the opposite stairwell door and elevator were unhindered this time, and once again there was a door on his right that he decided to save until after he had seen if he could improve his access to the other floors first.  The door to the stairwell just to the side of the elevator was boarded off from access, as was the counterpart door on the other side of the hallway, but the elevator next to it was standing open just waiting for a passenger.

Lance made the painfully lengthy trip over to the other side and stepped into the open elevator.  The button panel was uncovered in this one but there was only one button that wasn't missing and not a label to be seen anywhere that might give him a hint as to where it would take him.  Opting to take a cue from his wife, he raised a his foreleg and pressed the button instead of dwelling any longer on where it might take him.  Nothing happened though, no movement, no sound from the machinery above, it was completely inactive, either outright broken or just without power.  Neither would surprise him really.  Seemed he would be checking that door out after all.

It was unlocked and lead into a corridor that had four doors on his right before it made a right turn out of sight.  Unlike everything else he'd seen in this place so far, the doors were actually labeled.  The one closest to him was the maintenance room, followed by the boiler room, then the pump room, and the electrical room at the far end of the corridor.  As he made his way inward he checked each door and found that each one was locked.  It was peculiar how frustrated he didn't feel with every failed attempt at turning a doorknob by now.  If the locks weren't broken that meant there were keys for them somewhere, so this could be considered progress in its own strange way.  Now it was only a matter of finding them.

Content with making a mental note of the doors for now, he rounded the corner to be greeted by a fifth door, but this one looked decidedly different.  It was made of crudely bolted together metal plates complete with the prerequisite encroaching rust and would have looked much more at home in a prison.  This latch too was stubbornly locked, but that came as no surprise to him.  Whatever served as the architect of his journey wouldn't put such a high profile door there with no purpose in mind, nor would it just allow him in without any effort.  His tightening grasp of the mechanics of the world around him proved to be of little comfort.  He was still hopelessly trapped in a basement with five locked doors, one unpowered elevator, and another he was unable to operate.

Just this once he stopped short of mentally berating himself for making such a brash decision as to even try to go down alone.  True it had been a foolish choice, but how was he supposed to have known that it was a drowning mare's blood in the elevator Posey had just gone down minutes prior?  What else was he supposed to have done, wait for somepony else to go find out if she was alright in his stead?  No, absolutely not, if he'd learned anything in his long, storied career it was that time is always critical.  Lance had made the right choice.  His information had just been bad, and really, he'd already been trapped before then anyway what with the entire building already being in a gigantic hole in the ground.

Pain flared up in his leg again as he took a seat, but the momentary agony was worth it once the weight had been taken off of it entirely.  He would probably need to drink that health drink soon if he wanted to stay mobile but thoughts of moving about were starting to slip from his mind.  Now he began to ponder how long he would be down there in that corridor of locked doors.  If it was going to come down to either relieving his pain for the short term or saving what potables he had to delay dying of dehydration for as long as possible, then he didn't have much choice but to leave the bottle of health drink alone.  If he wouldn't be moving around much any time soon he wouldn't need it anyway.

Having reached a reasonable decision he found any further contemplation of his potential long term stay to be unhelpfully depressing and opted to move on.

Lance thought back to that drowning mare lying dead in the hallway.

"Oh...right, because a deformed pony lying dead underground is so much less depressing than being trapped," he could not help but remark to himself.  Something wasn't right.  Obviously it had been killed and placed after Posey had gone down and before she came back up.  Obviously it had also been killed by the sovereign...or maybe that wasn't so obvious.  He didn't really know what else in this place could be capable of cutting open an elevator door and messily impaling somepony, but that was where things started to not quite add up.  While he doubted his memory had been at full capacity at the time he was reasonably sure that she had been decimated by...whatever it was the deaf colt had done.  Now she was up and about again just randomly stabbing drowning mares?  He'd just let her do that?

Another odd detail was how cleanly...well, relatively cleanly, the drowning mare had been killed.  One wound, right through the heart.  That would kill somepony in seconds.  If his encounters with her were of any worth as evidence she never killed cleanly or quickly, and it was not just a matter of the apparent grudge she carried against him.  She'd taken her time killing that scavenger and it had been an almost unrecognizable mass of blood and meat by the time she'd dropped it down to him.  Her sadism wasn't selective.  So why suddenly go straight for the heart?  It was almost like somepony else had just wanted him to think that she had been the one to...

...

The deaf colt.

He was watching Lance.  He didn't want Lance anywhere near his precious door.  What better way to do that than trap him here with no door 303?  It wasn't too unreasonable a conclusion either.  He'd demonstrated more control over this world than any other creature had thus far.  It was entirely possible such subterfuge was well within his means.

But then why had the mystery mare that had been guiding him push the button that had put him there?  Had she been in on this the whole time?  Why had she lead him around in the first place then?  Wouldn't he have never found door 303 in the first place if not for her?   Lance furrowed his brow in puzzlement, this wasn't making sense.

Before he could continue failing to piece anything together he was compelled to jump back to his feet by the sound of a loud metallic groan followed by a snap and the sound of something clanging against the wall then bouncing on the floor a couple times before coming to a stop.  In spite of his fright the second spike of pain in his leg forced a groan of agony from him heedless of the sudden need to stay quiet.  His better judgement quickly kicked in and he clenched his teeth in his effort to keep from making any more noise until the pain became manageable again.  Fortunately no monstrosity of metal, hooves, and wings rounded the corner to finish him off.  He only heard the sound of light hoof falls fleeing into the elevator hallway.

Lance stood stone still for a few moments waiting for his watch to start buzzing, but it did nothing of the sort.  Biting back the increasingly intense agony in his back leg, he limped over to the corner and cautiously peered around.  There was nopony there, but the door to the maintenance room had swung open.  The locking mechanism had been cut out of the door, and the latch knob was lying in the middle of the hall a distance away.  Despite his initial fears this was plainly not the work of the sovereign.  It looked as though whoever had done this had taken a great deal of care in only cutting out the lock, leaving not a dent or scratch on the door; a level of precision of which he didn't think his nemesis was capable.

The several small spatters of blood leading out into the hall also spoke volumes as to who had done this.

Half of him entertained the notion of trying to get back into the hallway in time to perhaps catch sight of her, but the other half that had kept him alive thus far called the first half an idiot.  It would not do in such a place to simply hobble by an open door leading into an unexplored room that could potentially contain any manner of creature that would welcome the chance to emerge unseen behind him.  Besides, his guide had probably already teleported away by now.

The maintenance room door's latches were on his side of the door frame, making the open door block his view of the inside while he slowly approached.  As he drew closer he veered toward the opposite wall in an attempt to put space between himself and the entrance should anything nasty jump out.  He wasn't going to be able to react all that incredibly quickly in his condition but surely the extra breathing room was better than nothing.

Fortunately the room didn't seem to hold any surprised in store at first glance.  When he rounded the obstructing door he saw a room full of cabinets, tool boxes, several metal working and wood cutting machines, and a single work bench.  Usually the place would be full of tools, spare parts, and the various other supplies a custodian would need to make occasional repairs to the building's innards.  However the cabinets and tool boxes now all stood open and empty, occupied by nothing but a layer of dust, and the cables that would normally extend from the machines to the electrical outlets on the walls had been messily chewed through.  The only thing that kept Lance from sighing and moving on was the crowbar sitting right there on the work bench, spotless.

Lance had little to no reservations about grabbing it immediately; there was just no way it wouldn't prove useful.  Among the plethora of boarded over doors he had passed by there had to be some that would prove accessible after prying the boards off, as painful a process as that would be for him.  He also supposed it would make a passable weapon if he was forced to defend himself.  Even with it he knew his abilities in a fight would prove laughable but, again, it was better than nothing.  But both of those would come later...hopefully much later for the latter.  Right then he was only concerned with prying the metal cover off of the button panel in the elevator.  If somepony had gone to the trouble of covering it that meant there was something worth going after beneath it, hopefully something that would improve his options more than spending many painful minutes prying boards off of doors.

He left the maintenance room behind and emerged into the hallway to find that curiously enough the trail of blood spatters actually continued on toward the elevator instead of ending abruptly out of nowhere as he had expected.  Whether or not it continued past the drowning mare's corpse was impossible to tell though, as it became impossible to distinguish from the blood comprising the long smear leading out of the elevator.  Lance stepped past the dead monster and noticed something else amiss.  There was a grating lying on the floor of the elevator car.  From the looks of the edges it had been cut open in much the same way as the maintenance door.  He now dearly hoped it had been the mysterious mare guide that had done this, as opposed to some other creature with malevolent intent being able to move about and cut through things so quietly.

With due hesitation he poked his head into the elevator and directed his light upward toward the now open top, crowbar held firmly in mouth.  He saw nothing but the expected cables and the surrounding concrete walls above.  That was very far from meaning there was nothing there though.  Being in that elevator would be very...tense...from now on.  In spite of his reluctance he finally set hoof inside and focused his attention back onto the covered panel after one last dread filled gaze upward.  There wasn't much space but Lance was reasonably sure he could wedge the end of the crowbar in and start wrenching it free.  But it was going to hurt.  No matter what, it was going to hurt a lot.

As much as he wished to try and take his weight off of his leg again he wasn't about to sit down in that blood drenched elevator with his still relatively fresh injuries.  Thusly it was forced to take its fair share of his weight as he placed both fore hooves against the wall on either side of the panel.  When he forced the edge of the bent end of the crowbar against the side of the panel he felt it catch in the slightest gap between the cover and the wall it was bolted to, though it was clearly not going anywhere without a liberal application of elbow grease.

Between pulling sideways and a few strikes with his fore hoof he was able to force the side of the metal cover to bend outward slightly, allowing the crowbar to gradually sneak further and further inward.  Once he was sure he would have enough leverage to pry the cover off he grabbed the crowbar with both front hooves and leaned backward, letting his weight do the the work at first.  While he felt the cover give way a bit, it only moved so far before the bolts were able to hold it fast in place again.  He gave an irritated grumble, having hoped to not do what he now knew he had to do.

Lance tightened his grip on the crowbar and pulled back again, this time taking a much more active role in the process and putting his own muscle into it.  He made some more progress but it was clear he was going to need to use his hind legs as well if he wanted the cover outright removed.  By now he just wanted to get it over with and hesitated no further before planting the hoof of his good hind leg against the wall and pushing back while his injured leg kept him upright in spite of the searing pain it caused him.  He kept up the pressure, groaning in pain through grit teeth until at long last the bolts holding the cover in place succumbed to the force and snapped.

Deformed metal cover, crowbar, and maimed doctor all came tumbling to the floor at once.  The two metal objects made a loud racket in the confined space while the middle aged pegasus pony made a dull thud accompanied by an agonized exclamation through grit teeth.  The two wing stumps beneath his bandages had joined his leg in screaming bloody murder at him as he landed on his back, and the combined torment easily surpassed his ability to bear through it quietly.  As though that weren't enough he also received a sudden dose of mental stress upon opening his upward pointing eyes.

Something was looking down at him.

In the brief moment before it realized it had been spotted and pulled away from the hatch in the top of the elevator car, Lance caught a glimpse of a face that in no way resembled that of a pony.  It barely resembled a face at all.  All he saw was a flash of a vaguely flesh colored something and what seemed to be a pair of bloody blades opposite one another like some macabre pair of clippers.  Once it had fled from his sight he heard hoof beats retreating...straight up the elevator shaft.

Lance felt that he had little other choice but to lie there whilst the shock of the sudden encounter kept the pain mostly at bay...mostly.  The adrenaline fueled reprieve didn't last long however and fairly soon he was forced to roll back over onto his hooves lest his wing stumps begin hurting any worse.  He was also now fairly covered in the drowning mare's blood after his tumble and instantly launched into a mental tirade against himself for not having considered that before pulling the cover off.  His only hope now was that his own blood had seeped through the bandages and crusted over enough to keep the foreign blood out of his wounds because Celestia only knew what could be in that stuff.  Now he needed new bandages more than ever.

Over entirely too long a period of time he was able to fight through the pain and struggle back to a standing position.  He took a few deep, slow breaths to steady himself while letting his head hang low.  What had that thing been?  Was that her?  Had she been yet another hideous monster this entire time?  Thinking back he had only ever caught sight of her via silhouettes in the fog.  Was he honestly surprised?  What the hay had compelled him to just assume she was a normal pony after everything that had happened?  Did he now have three hideous monsters stalking his every hoof step?!

"Move on...move on," he instructed himself before opening his mouth and moving to grab the crowbar off the floor.  The same phobia that had sent his desperation for replacement bandages to new heights stopped him again.  His crowbar was now lying in the same blood.  "Great..." he grumbled before placing his hoof atop the tool and beginning to look through his saddlebags for something he could use to wipe it off.  Lance was not going to lose track of this one.

Midway through his fruitless search he was made privy to the fact that he had never lost track of anything in the first place.  He felt his hoof drop with an odd crunching sound and pulled his nose from the saddlebag just in time to see the smoldering rings of fire moving outward to both ends of the crowbar, leaving nothing but ash in their wake as though the crowbar had been mere wood this entire time.  The brittle husk that had once promised him just a tiny bit more freedom and even a bit of protection in that deformed world collapsed into a dark grey pile beneath the weight of his hoof.

...

"I guess I know what happened to the wire cutters and keys now at least," he noted sardonically as he brushed the ash pile away in frustration.  Lances eyes then fell upon the bent metal cover, noticing something that must have been glued to the inside of it.  It was a ragged piece of leather, folded over and held shut by a stitch made with razor thin wire, apparently hardy enough to have weathered the assault of his crowbar moments before.  Fortunately, despite the rough detachment from the wall it was clean of any blood, leaving him free to pull on the front flap of leather until the thin wire snapped and let the small package open.

There was another note inside but...he doubted very much that this one was from the deaf colt.  The hoof-writing was different; less neat, much more hurried and jagged.  The ink was a deep red instead of the stark black of before.  Even the paper was off, being both a notably different shade and far messier, as though it had been torn from a larger piece of paper instead of neatly cut.

"Five Steps Backward

Same As Always

Nothing Changes

Useless pERFECTION."

The message lacked the relevance to his current situation that the rest of the deaf colt's notes all made a point of displaying.  This was definitely not a note written by somepony who was keeping track of his every move.  He would not have been made to find it if it weren't somehow significant though so he stashed this note with all the rest before finally looking up at the button panel that had drawn him back in here in the first place.

Lance's efforts had paid off.  He'd gone from zero control over this elevator to having three button's worth.  They were in the usual vertical column arrangement, but the uneven and generous spacing between the three of them made it obvious quite a few were missing.  It seemed reasonable to assume the button at the very bottom of the panel was his current location and that the one at the very top would send him back up to the top floor which he already knew he couldn't progress into any further.  That left the one in the middle.  Would it just lead him back to the upturned hallway in which he'd seen the deaf colt?  How would that help him any?

Having been left with a dearth of other options he pressed the middle button anyway.  The door closed and the elevator began to ascend, leaving him to once again stare at the cracks in the wall as they passed on by while pondering his thoughts.  If this was just going to lead him to another staring contest with the deaf colt then he really was just as trapped as before.  He had been watching the entire way down and had seen nothing else besides that strange vertical hallway anywhere between the top floor and basement.  Perhaps something had changed while he hadn't been looking?  It would be far from the first time...

Yep...something had changed.  Instead of a horizontally impaired hallway he saw a painted white door designated 303 by a brass plaque near the top descend into view in front of him.  He could hear voices behind it...

"Where is she?!" Posey shouted as she burst through the door.

"BEH!" Lance jolted awake from his spot napping on the couch and promptly fell off in the grip of his waking panic.  Before his mind could even reorient itself she was already standing over him glaring down.

"Answer me!" she demanded as her husband's bleary eyes slowly blinked twice below her.

"What?  Posey?  What are you doing here?  We're supposed to meet for lunch after the-"

"That's right!  We were, but instead you leave me waiting there for an hour and a half so you can sneak that younger prettier mare in here and do Celestia knows what with her behind my back while you two talk about how ugly and fat I am!" she accused as she got snout to snout staring death at him, the menace somewhat tempered by the sparkle of moisture in her eyes.

As it turned out being accused of infidelity worked wonders in snapping Lance back to full consciousness.  "What?!  No!  I came home right after the exam and went to sleep!"

"Oh don't even try to deny it, I've seen you two together already!" she said, placing a hoof on his chest and pushing him back to the floor in response to his attempt to get back to at least a sitting position.

"Who?  When?!" Lance asked incredulously while ceasing his efforts to struggle back to his hooves.

"That orange unicorn mare with the blue mane!  You two were talking and laughing over a cup of coffee at the cafe without a care in the world if anypony saw you!  Well I did!  And now it doesn't matter if you tell me where she is hiding or not, I'll just find her myself!"

Before Lance could explain she had already flown off down the hallway and began ransacking the two bedrooms looking for the alleged seductress intruder.  He sighed and got back to his hooves before looking at the alarm clock he'd set on the table in front of the couch.  There had to be some reason it hadn't woken him at the appointed time...and it didn't take him long to find it.

"Lance you moron," he chided himself as he set the clock back down and sat there waiting for Posey to wear herself out.  She was about five months along and ever since she had started to show, the hormones in her system had been giving the insecurities she usually kept in check ample opportunity to rear their ugly heads all over again.  It was a strange, often scary new experience but he'd learned by now it was best to just stand his ground as nicely as he could manage until her good sense returned.

It took about ten minutes worth of various things being tossed around in the bedrooms before she emerged again, still fired up as ever while hovering in front of him.  "Okay, she's a unicorn, she probably teleported away or something but you are still in big trouble miste-why are you pointing at your alarm clock?  Stop trying to change the subject!"

"I'm pointing at the alarm clock because I set it to go off at 12:30 so that I could meet you at 1:00.  I neglected to check the AM/PM setting though so it was set to go off at half past midnight, and that's why I accidentally slept through lunch.  I'm sorry Posey," Lance explained calmly.

Posey's face went blank briefly before flaring up in anger again.  Her mouth opened for another retort, but then closed again as she fluttered over to the table and grabbed the alarm clock to see if his story checked out.  Moments later she set it down and turned on him again.  "Okay, maybe she wasn't here but-"

"That mare at the cafe was Mannie's new marefriend.  His birthday is coming up, and she wanted to interrogate me for present ideas for him so she invited me to meet for coffee one day after classes before I had to go to work," he said, pushing his luck by interrupting her.  It worked out better than expected though.

Her face went blank once more and this time there was no spark to reignite it as she sank to the floor feeling ashamed of herself.  "Oh my gosh Lance I'm so sorry."

"It's okay Posey," he said while placing a reassuring hoof on her shoulder.  She took advantage of the offered limb to pull him into a tight hug.

"No it's not!  You lose so much sleep just studying for your exams because you want to help everypony and here I am yelling at you and being paranoid just because you didn't show up for lunch once!  Now I'm not just fat and ugly, I'm mean too, I'm a terrible wife!" she cried while pressing her face into his shoulder and holding on for dear life.  He tried to say something to comfort her but it became apparent she didn't hear him over her own sobs, so he contented himself with just holding her.

She was fine inside of five minutes.

"Mood swings are dumb," she observed bitterly from her spot on the couch before taking another bite from her generously sized salad bowl that rested right next to an entire jug of cranberry juice that hell nor high water would take from her.

"It's just biology honey," Lance replied before polishing off the last bite of his daisy sandwich then getting up to take his plate into the kitchen.

"Well...biology is dumb then," Posey countered from the living room while he gave the plate a good thorough cleaning in spite of it only having had a few stray crumbs at worst.

"I don't know, I think the knowledge that particular field of science has brought hasn't done anything but improve our quality of life overall," he answered obliviously as he made his way back into the living room and sat down next to her.

...

The cessation of the steady chewing noises next to him caught his attention, and he noticed Posey staring at him again.  It was less the angry fire she had displayed earlier and more of a small smolder that was threatening to burst into one. "What?"

Posey sighed and placed a hoof to her forehead, managing to douse the unreasonable fire before it could get any worse this time as she pushed her salad bowl aside.  "Lance, I'm going to tell you something most stallions would kill for their wives to just com out and say, so pay attention okay?"

He nodded silently, obediently giving her the attention she had requested.

"Right now I just really need you to agree and support whatever I say, no matter how wrong we both know it is.  Got it?" she concluded with a hoof pointed at him.

Lance nodded once more.

"Good, let's try this again.  Mood swings are dumb," she stated matter of factually.

"Pretty dumb, yes."

"Biology is also dumb."

"Dumbest thing ever put to paper," he agreed in spite of his having lost countless hours poring over untold volumes of knowledge on the subject.

"And my husband is a big dummy for not telling me he was meeting his best friend's marefriend for coffee, and it's his fault that I became incredibly suspicious, so he will be sleeping on the couch tonight," she said while eyeing him warily.

"Now wait a minute!  That was no big deal and..."

Her expression belied the fact that she was neither interested in hearing, nor would she be swayed by his explanation at the moment.

"...by that I mean he's the biggest moron I've ever met and deserves what's coming to him," he quickly acquiesced, wisely choosing the path that would enable him to live and fight another day.

"I wouldn't go that far, and I really don't appreciate you talking about my husband like that," Posey said while still remaining at the same level of seriousness she had maintained throughout the conversation, eyes closed and nose slightly raised in an expression of faux haughtiness.

"..."

Once she had opened her eyes again the sheer level of confusion on her husband's face forced a giggle out of her throat that she tried to contain by covering her mouth, but the jig was clearly up and they were both laughing the last bit of tension in the room away within seconds.

"But, hehehe, but seriously though," Posey began while wiping a tear from her eye, "couch night."

...

"Can't I at least sleep in the guest bedroom?"

...

"Nope."

"Aww."

"Lance?  Lance?!  Lance!  Lance!!!" Posey's voice persisted with increasing desperation, periodically punctuated by a tap of her hoof against the bars.

He blinked and shook his head.  Door 303 wasn't there anymore, replaced by Posey standing on the other side of another set of iron bars.

"Posey!" he exclaimed as he stepped towards her with as much enthusiasm as his injured body would allow.

"Oh thank goodness, you were worrying me again!" she said with a sigh of relief as she took a seat.  "I thought the blood all over the elevator was yours at first but...you'd..."

"I'd already be dead if it was," he said, finishing the sentence she would rather not finish for herself.

She nodded in appreciation.

"You're alright too though, right?" Lance asked, looking her over.

"I'm fine.  The elevator stopped here, I got out, and I had barely set hoof outside when these bars slammed down behind me.  Then after a few minutes the elevator went back up without me...and then I see you going down in it right after that, looking at me like you'd seen a ghost with that blood all over the place.  Didn't you see me?  I was yelling after you so loud...I was terrified!" she answered, her face a mix of concern for him and relief that he seemed to be okay now.

His eyes widened a moment before his brow furrowed and he looked down in thought.

"...Lance?"

"That doesn't make any sense...when I was going down the first time I saw a hall full of doors going up and down, and that colt that saved me before was standing there on the floor looking at me...well, I guess it was the wall at the time, but you get what I mean, right?" he asked while looking back up to her.

"I...I don't...but go on?" she replied with a raised eyebrow.

"And just now when I came back up, door 303 was right here in front of me.  It even showed me another memory," he continued.

"What?  No, it wasn't.  I've been standing here yelling at you ever since you came back up." Her look of concern returned as he described things that didn't quite match up with her version of reality at the moment.  Lance broke eye contact with her again, his face going blank as everything failed to add up in his head.

...

"I'm actually going insane aren't I?" he asked without bringing his gaze back up to her.

"Lance, no, nonono," she said as she reached through the bars and put a hoof to his cheek.  "It's this place Lance, it's messing with you.  You probably are seeing everything you say you are, it's just not letting me see it.  It's not you.  Okay?"

"...okay," he replied as he softly pressed his cheek into her hoof.

"Good.  Listen, I had enough time to poke around on this floor a bit.  I can't go any further in but I did find this key that doesn't seem to unlock anything down here.  Maybe you can find some way to use it?" she explained before pulling the key from her saddlebag and holding it up for him to look at.  It was an unremarkable key, looked the same as any other save for the 'EC2' etched into the handle.

"I'll see what I can do...thanks Posey.  I'll keep heading up and see what I can find up on the top floor." He didn't want to leave her again but from the sounds of it she would be stuck there until he found some way to let her out elsewhere, so there was little point in delaying.

"Okay.  I guess I'll look around for anything we can use while you're doing that...it'll be a lot more useful than just waiting for you at these bars now that I know you're alright," she replied with a smile as he opened his saddlebag so she could drop the key inside.  "You be careful up there."

"You too." With a great deal of hesitation he stepped back and gave her one last fond gaze before turning his eyes back to the panel.

"I love you Lance."

"I love you too Posey," he said before pressing the top button.  The doors closed and she was out of sight again within moments.

As he ascended Lance pondered what the initials on the key could mean.  If he could remember anything that would direct his search it would be far preferable and much less time consuming than just trying to key in every door he came across.  Was it the electrical room in the basement?  If it was he was headed the wrong direction, but since he couldn't think of anything for the C or 2 to represent he didn't worry much about that possibility.

Wait...he knew!  They had seen it right after floating down from the empty husk of a hospital above on the roof.  There had been a door labeled Elevator Control.  That had to be it.  Maybe he could get the other elevator working?  Once he had reached the top floor he took a quick look around to make sure nothing had changed in his absence before slowly climbing the stairs back up to the roof.  It was rough on his leg, and he gave some more thought to drinking his health drink to alleviate the pain, but his life still wasn't in any direct danger and he thought it best to wait until it was.

He wasn't sure he was happy with somehow knowing his life would be in danger in the near future, but there it was.

Back on the roof, he turned toward the elevator control door adjacent to the stairwell door from which he had just emerged.  The key didn't work, but he wasn't discouraged yet.  The other L shaped structure on the opposite side of the roof was unlabeled but he would bet bits that the unboarded door it featured was the entrance to the elevator control room for the other unpowered elevator.  He was right, and the key slid in smoothly to unlock it and allow him entry.

Out of sheer curiosity he held the now fairly useless key in his hoof and watched.  Sure enough, it started to burn to a small pile of ash in his hoof within moments.  He found it strange that neither crowbar nor key had burned his hoof in the process, but he had better things to be doing besides adding more phenomenon to his lengthy mental list of strange things that had happened in that town.  It was time to figure out what was wrong with the elevator.

There wasn't much room inside, but that was only because there didn't have to be.  All this room needed to do was house the elevator's motor and pulley system and give workers a few switches and access to some of the more important wires.  Immediately in front of him was the currently inactive motor attached to the pulley system that seemed to be in good repair.  There was a chain link fence keeping him away from both but that didn't seem out of place here as it handled basic safety issues.  He was mostly interested in the panel in the wall off to his right.  Several bundles of cable came up to it from a hole in the floor, then continued through it over to the motor.  Lance unlatched and pulled open the cover, the obvious problem now right in front of him as he saw the main power switch set to 'OFF'.

Simple enough to fix.  Lance flipped the switch to the 'ON' position and heard the hum of power being restored to the motor, now ready and waiting for commands from the button panel below.  Quite content now that he was making progress again he closed the panel cover and turned to leave only to make another discovery.  There was another folded piece of ragged leather sewn shut with thin wire glued to the inside of the door such that he would not have spotted it until he tried to leave.  After pulling it open he found another note inside, this one obviously not from the deaf colt either with the same torn paper and red ink.

"No Matter What YoU LoSE

I'll Still Hurt YoU Twice As Much."

That still didn't tell him much as to what use this note and the other would be.  Still, his bags were not exactly lacking for room and he quickly stashed it with the first odd note he had found.

The trip down the stairs proved predictably much easier on him than the trip up had been.  Apparently he was also growing increasingly popular as there was yet another note waiting for him stuck conspicuously between the bars of the closed elevator doors.  This one was of the style he was more familiar with, the paper neat, the ink a deep black.  What had he done to tick off the deaf colt this time?

"Dear Estee...

No, you know what?  I think we're familiar enough to no longer be so formal.  Right?

Right.

To get to the heart of the matter I begrudgingly admit that I owe you something of an apology.  It seems door 303 is, strangely enough, actively following after you.  Don't ask me how, my guess would be as good as yours.  My point is, it isn't exactly fair to be angry with you for being near it when it keeps seeking you out for whatever reason, so you'll no longer be hearing from me when it finds you.  Not your fault.

Unlike that lock you took off.  That was very much your fault.  Still angry about that one but I can still let bygones be bygones at this point.  Don't do it again.  I mean it would be extra spiteful of you to do so after I saved your pathetic flank from her, right?  You pretty much owe me one.

I'd thank you for your time again but its sort of belongs to me already anyway don't you think?  Would be odd to thank YOU for something that's mine and all."

"Well somepony's certainly not bitter at all," Lance remarked as he stashed the note in his bag and stepped into the elevator.  Despite how ultimately unhelpful the note had been it was still something of a comfort to know he had a little extra breathing room now.

He pressed the middle button, figuring it wise to let Posey know what he was doing on his way down.  But when he had reached the barred off middle floor she wasn't there.  No reason to panic though...worry a little, yes, but not panic.  She had said she would be searching for supplies for them after all.

"Posey?  Posey can you hear me?!" he called out and waited for a reply.  One was not forthcoming though.  She must have been out of earshot  Lance pressed the bottom button with a sigh and got on his way.  It was better than lingering there longer and delaying his getting her out of there any further.

When he emerged down in the basement and began limping to the other side of the hall to get to the other elevator he noticed the telltale trail of small blood spatters already leading his path.  He swallowed hard and pointed his flashlight over to see the same kind of grating from the first elevator lying on the floor of the second, just as he had feared.  The thing he had gotten a glimpse of, whether it was actually the mystery mare or not, had been through and gone up while he had been away.

It didn't make him hesitate for too long though.  Freeing Posey was a potent motivator, and aside from that the creature in the elevator had enjoyed ample opportunity to attack him but had chosen not to.  Still, he gave the hole in the top of the elevator car a good long stare before actually pressing the button, wanting to at least not be taken by surprise this time, if at all.  Now having the power it required to serve his needs, the door closed and the motor far above sprang to life in order to start pulling him upward.  Even though it was really the least of his problems at the moment Lance still dreaded waiting through another lengthy elevator ride with only cracks in the wall to occupy his mind.

As luck had it, his worries were misplaced.

There was no concrete wall to speak of, and the strange reason for the numerous missing elevator buttons was made clear.  The floors they would have normally taken him to were missing.  They were gone entirely.  In their place was nothing but open space, the floors kept in their same positions by gigantic rusty steel beams, and the encroaching earth held back on the sides by a gigantic grating that looked to be made of the same material.  Lance could only stare slack jawed as he ascended, his elevator car surrounded by nothing but the vertical wheel rails needed to keep it in place as it moved about.

A boarded up entrance to another floor quickly passed by and broke him out of his shock.  He hadn't expected that to be there.  The entrances that would normally lead into the opposite elevator shaft must have all been cemented over, save for the one with the bars separating him from Posey of course.  Lance would pass by one other such floor during his ascent but that one was likewise barred from access by being boarded over.  Finally, he felt the elevator slowly and finally came to a stop at an unboarded entrance that lead into a familiar hallway cut in half by a chain link fence piled with blood spattered stretchers.  He was back on the top floor on the other side.

That left him only one door on his left side, so his next choice of action was rather obvious.  To his muted delight the door opened and he was finally let into a part of the building proper.  It was yet another hallway stretching off in both directions that lead around a corner on each end.  Since the corner on his left was much closer than the corner off to his right he opted to head in that direction first.  Past that turn, the hall connected with a corridor a short distance ahead on his right, then stretched on for quite a while longer before finally making another right turn.  He could see two doors on the right wall past the central corridor, and one more on the far opposite wall.  Lance took a few steps forward and looked down the aforementioned central corridor was never got a chance to count the doors, as he was distracted by what was sending his watch into another buzzing fit.

Lance became conscious of a feminine sounding panting noise, desperate in tone but strangely mechanical in how steady it was, coming toward him via the corridor.  He turned his light on the source of the noise just as they spotted one another.

It was a mare, wearing a ragged nurse outfit and hat.  She had no coat to speak of, and although her face lacked any sort of eyes she was not entirely featureless.  Her mouth was sutured shut with wire, and her ears were sewn against the side of her head with similar methods.  As though the wire suture over her mouth hadn't been enough there were several long, rusty nails that had been hammered down through the top bone of her snout and then out the bottom of her jaw.  Her neck, torso, and forelegs were wrapped with lengths of barbed wire, and below the wrist joint several more long rusty nails had been hammered through the front of her hoof and out the back.  Every bit of skin that was visible was a sickly pale color and covered with a network of small, black veins.  As she moved toward him in an unnaturally quick limping motion she suffered from odd twitches, no doubt in catastrophic pain from the bits of metal that had been wrapped around and forced through her.

As her unnerving panting grew closer and closer it became quite obvious to Lance that this barbed nurse was coming right for him.  There was no way he could outrun her, he had to find someplace to hide and there were only three doors close enough that wouldn't necessitate going towards her to get to.  He limped to the first nearest but found the lock was broken, the panting noise placing her just around the corner now.  Lance moved to the second that was labeled 'OR6' but was denied entry by the lock just as she rounded the corner and started covering the last bit of distance toward him.  The last one was quite a bit further away than the first two.  By the time he would get to it she would be so close that he would either find it unlocked or she would get hold of him.

Despite moving with all the speed he could muster she was still easily gaining on him, her breathing putting the hair on the back of his neck progressively more on end as she drew nearer behind him.  He was all but ignoring his leg now, the newest spike of adrenaline in his system dulling the pain so that he might get away and survive.  Both door and barbed nurse became closer, and closer, and closer, until his hoof was on the doorknob and she was practically breathing down his neck.  Something wanted him to stay alive, because the door was unlocked.  Completely abandoning his balance, Lance opened the door, literally fell inside, and then slammed the door shut behind him and held it closed with his good back leg as he pushed backward with his forelegs.

The barbed nurse gave the door a few halfhearted strikes before lingering in front of it a few moments more and then moving on, allowing his watch to calm down.

He lie there catching his breath for a few moments before struggling to his hooves, wanting to get that bit of business over with before the adrenaline rush wore off and he could actually feel the fresh hell his injuries were doubtlessly unleashing upon him.  With no further hesitation he fished the bottle of health drink from his pack and downed the contents; he was now in the requisite life threatening danger he had pondered earlier and would need to be mobile.  At least he had stumbled into a safe room in his bid to escape, and he knew for a fact it was a safe room because if there had been something inside his watch would have already given it away.

Wait...his watch...he hadn't been five feet from that thing in the elevator when he'd spotted it.  Why hadn't it gone off well before then?  No...no this wasn't worth thinking about right now.  The monster in the elevator had run away without trying to hurt him.  If it wasn't going to hurt him then he didn't really need the warning, and he didn't really need to worry.

Whether it was because he was genuinely curious or just wanted some more time spent safe in that room, he decided to look around a bit next.  It was mostly bare save for a metal and glass shelf with three drawers in the corner and several sockets on the ceiling.  If he had to hazard a guess he would probably say that this was an operating room, which would explain very well the 'OR4' label on the door.  That meant this building was, or at least had been, a hospital.  Thus far it was way too large to have Ponyville's hospital though, even with the missing floors it was already larger than the husk of a building above.  The shelves were visibly empty but the drawers contents were yet to be revealed.  After finding nothing in the first two Lance found a replacement health drink in the third.  He would have much preferred some fresh gauze but beggars couldn't be choosers.

Finding nothing else of note in the room he went back to the closed door, his timing proving fortunate as his watch buzzed back to life.  He heard the barbed nurse pass by outside, going in the same direction she had been going before as she walked on by.  Instead of poking his head out after she was away, he instead waited, wanting to confirm a hunch he felt.  Sure enough, within a couple minutes he heard her pass by again along the same route.  She was patrolling.  That meant he couldn't simply avoid the area she was occupying but at least her movements were proving predictable...so far.

Opting to follow behind her, he waited until she passed by again and then eased the door open while making minimal noise.  He crept out, but his efforts at stealth were spoiled as he shined his light down the hallway searching for doors to investigate, instantly attracting her attention.

"Oh you idiot," he scolded himself as he switched his light off.  He was about to retreat back into the room under cover of darkness but then noticed her panting wasn't getting any closer.  She had apparently lost interest with no light and moved along around the corner.  Knowing that would certainly prove useful.  For now he turned his light back on, careful to keep it angled down at the floor nearby so she wouldn't catch sight of it on a wall, and began checking doors in as much of a hurry as he could manage in order to stay ahead of her.  He zigzagged down the hallway, blocked by three broken locks in a row before discovering the furthest door on the right was unlocked.  The barbed nurse was closing in around the corner again so he slipped inside and shut the door behind him before she could spot him.  Lance was then puzzled by how suddenly his watch began buzzing as loud as it possibly could.  Had the barbed nurse suddenly moved very quickly to stand just outside the door right after he had closed it?

No, a familiar screech of metal accompanied by a curious yet monstrous murmur within the room answered, no she had not.

Part 14

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

On Corticosteroids.

Part 14

Perhaps, thought Lance, it would have been the wiser decision to stay out in the hallway and take his chances with the barbed nurse.  The very instant he heard the familiar screech he whirled around and backed against the door in a bout of reflexive terror, hoping against hope that it was just some brace or beam settling.

But no, there she was.

The sovereign was currently lying with her hooves tucked underneath her in the center of what looked to be a large operating theater.  Her plated neck brace gave one last groan as she finished raising her head to look at him, as though she had been asleep and had awoken at his intrusion. Lance stood stone still, eyes wide as dinner plates.  Neither of them did anything for a few gut wrenching moments which allowed Lance's rampantly naive sense of hope to start clawing its way back into his brain bearing the idea that just perhaps she had forgotten about him.

But no, her wings promptly flared open, her jaw dropped with a hiss of steam, and she took to the air every bit as voracious for him as before.

Lance had no time to think of a plan of action, not that he could have possibly come up with one had he been given time.  He'd only barely gotten away from the barbed nurse outside, what could he possibly do to get away from this monster?  All he could manage was an instinctive move backwards that only accomplished pressing his rump back against the closed door.  One might have expected their lives to flash before their eyes in such a situation but really, Lance had already been in a position of imminent death at the hooves of this abomination so many times now that his only thought in the fraction of a second that passed was a silent lament that there was no door 303 nearby to at least make his passing a bit less painful with a memory that would block his mind from the final ordeal he was about to endure.

Then she suddenly jerked to a stop and unceremoniously plummeted to the floor well short of her target with a loud series of clangs topped by a growl of frustration.

He was left standing there to blink in utter confusion before his frenzied brain managed to grasp the fact that he wasn't about to be annihilated.  Then he saw the chains around her and the new, fairly fresh cuts that they had worn into her flesh as she had struggled to escape.  They were keeping her bound to a thick iron plate that had been bolted into the floor in the center of the operating theater that would usually be occupied by an operating table.  Chain, plate, bolts, and the area of the floor immediately around them were riddled with the familiar black vein pattern.  Though any normal pony would have been more than adequately restrained by such measures, they didn't look like anything the sovereign couldn't power her way out of given enough time.

Yet even as she renewed her effort to struggle free now that he was right in front of her they held her back easily.  She planted her hooves on the ground and pressed forward, only making the chains groan from the strain without snapping apart.  She jumped back into the air and flapped her wings with all of her implacable might but merely remained hovering in the same spot for her trouble.  She landed and finally turned on the chains, closing her steam powered jaw on them with more and more power until the jaw itself was the first to flinch, a chunk of metal chipping off and impacting against the wall.  Nothing she could do was going to break the chain.

Lance stared on wide eyed.  It couldn't be...it was impossible that it was that easy.  He took a tentative step away from the door but immediately paid for it.  The sound of his hoof hitting the stone floor got her attention again and no sooner had she looked back at him than the black tendril slid out from beneath her neck plates before heading straight for him.  He let out a pitiable cry of terror and backed up even further this time, pressing his side against the door.  The sovereign's newest bid at getting a hold of him proved be for naught though, as her tendril stopped just half a foot away from reaching him.  He didn't move a muscle as she spent a final few moments straining to span the distance before realizing the futility and withdrawing the tendril as she began thrashing about with impotent rage.

Right then.  As long as he stayed with his side pressed against the wall he was safe from her...not that he was planning on staying.  All he had to do was move along the wall until his body was no longer holding the door shut, crack it open, and get the buck out of there as soon as the barbed nurse passed by again.  He started to slowly creep forward but stopped after a single step as another impact of metal against stone rang out.  A sideways glance revealed that the sovereign was lying down at the end of the length of her chains, watching him intently.  He swallowed hard and resumed moving from his spot in front of the door.

Once the door was clear he spent a moment trying to choose between either risking turning around or trying to awkwardly turn the handle and pull the door open with his good leg before a glint of light on the floor just in front of the room's other, broken door caught his eye.  A quick redirection of his light revealed that it was another key...another key he would probably need.  Lance only hesitated a moment before starting forward along the wall again, every limp taking him farther from the exit that would get him away from her.  Had he thought it over any longer he probably would've mentally talked himself out of it and taken his leave like some kind of sensible pony.

The nagging buzzing of his watch only barely avoided drowning out his slowly paced, uneven hoof falls as he moved along his narrow area of safety, and the lengthy, persistent creak of the sovereign's neck brace as she vigilantly tracked him.  Even considering that his back leg was injured it still felt he was moving at an intolerable crawl, but he didn't dare to go any faster.  All it would take now was just one errant step making him stumble only slightly to the side to ensure a bloody end for him.  He kept his eyes forward, unwilling to let himself look at her any further.  She may as well have been a precipice beneath a rickety bridge he was crossing.

Finally he was in hoof's reach of the key.  Lance opened his saddlebag, plucked the key off the ground, and stashed it inside.  Now he supposed he would have to do the same trip in revers-

He flinched as the door he had entered through opened behind him, causing his nerves to temporarily override his brain and force him to turn around.  He was outside of the safe area and within reach of the sovereign's tendril for a fraction of a second too long, but fortunately she was just as distracted by the noise as he was...and unlike him she had a clear line of sight of the newcomer who was apparently still standing just outside.  Judging from her reaction it wasn't the deaf colt, else she would have been struggling to get free of her chains for another shot if the way she had casually discarded Lance in favor of attacking him back in the apartments was any indication.  But he wasn't left to wonder for long before their visitor took a tentative step inside.

Lance recoiled as he was suddenly looking at the same 'face' he'd been confronted with in the elevator when the mare poked her head inside.  Save for her mouth, her face was entirely covered by a pair of angled, rusty metal visors, one above her snout and one below.  Two leather straps kept them tight against her head, each one seeming to turn into living flesh that melded into the metal beneath at the threshold of each visor.  Another two went around her head, though this pair remained normal, dead leather.  They held her ears down, and were every bit as tight as those on the drowning mare had been.  All four of the straps were connected to a central bit in her mouth that was held all the way back to her jaw bone, ripping into the corners of her lips and leaving her mouth permanently open in an agonizing faux smile.  Blood was dripping from her mouth, and he quickly figured out why.  From the inside of each visor protruded a metal rod, one had been punched up through her jaw, while the other had been forced right through the bone of her snout.  Inside of her mouth each attached to a thick blood covered blade, turning her mouth into a hideous sort of bolt cutter.  Her wounds were apparently not healing well, because from her mouth came slow but steady drips of blood.

His involuntarily grinning stalker looked at him a moment more before stepping further into the room.  There was another trio of leather straps around her torso, one across her back with the other two traveling downward around her midsection.  She had wings too.  Their feathers had been plucked out and three bolts had been drilled through the joints in each of them.  The stubby, featherless appendages were bound to her sides due to the bolts being attached to their counterparts on her other side by the aforementioned straps.  Her wings gave a small twitch against their bonds periodically but other than that they remained still.

Despite all of this she was still the most normal looking creature he'd yet happened upon.  Her movements weren't pained or sporadic even with all the excruciating work that had been done to her.  In fact she actually carried herself quite naturally.  She even had a normal beige colored coat with a light grey mane, though both were filthy with dirt and dust while her ragged mane and tail seemed to have had bits messily torn off.  Aside from her somewhat strained breathing she didn't make a sound.

It was only then that Lance noticed she was strolling right toward the sovereign.

"Hey, wait, don't do that!" he advised.  Despite her relative lack of deformity she was still without doubt a monster, but she was a monster he had come to depend on.  Of the many lies he had fed Posey following her inexplicable revival, his trust in this creature had not been one of them.  He was not eager to let her be smashed to death like one of the many drowning mares whose corpses the sovereign had left behind in the streets, or turned into a twisted bloody mass of flesh like the scavenger in the apartments.

His warning was unheeded.  She was getting closer to his tormentor, who had gotten back to her hooves.

"Stop!  You don't know what she'll-"

He was stopped mid sentence after failing to notice he had taken a step away from the wall in some ill considered bid to physically stop her.  The feeling of a tendril merely brushing against his chest was enough to make him react as if struck, stumbling back against the wall again.

"Look at me!  She did this!  Don't get any...any closer to..."

Lance stopped pleading for her to retreat.  It wasn't needed.  His stalker was already in hoof's reach of the sovereign and had gone unharmed.  Though he had only known the metal clad alicorn a short while he was fairly confident such a thing never happened unless she meant it to.  All she did was spare the stalker a passing glance before turning her attention back to the amber surgeon cowering against the wall as he wondered what the hay was happening.  The silent mare approached the chains that the sovereign had pulled taught, forced her jaws open with a painful effort, and bit down on one of the chains.  For some reason the black vein pattern covering them retreated from the point at which the blood covered blades had closed down.  Without that pattern covering it, the section of chain suddenly lost its supernatural resilience and succumbed to the encroaching blades, snapping apart.

A second wave of fear shot through him as images of the library and the blood covered chains that had been scattered about in the loft flashed through his mind; 'it' was about to get out again.

"What are you doing?!  Stop it!  You didn't lead me all this way just to get me killed did you?!" Lance shouted, his voice tense with terror and an edge of anger at this apparent betrayal.

The grinning stalker ignored him, taking another chain into her mouth and biting down until it snapped.  With only two chains remaining the black pattern that seemed to lend the restraints their strength gave in to the futility of the situation and receded down toward the floor until it had vanished entirely.  Her patience waning, the sovereign began pulling again, and this time the floor beneath the thick iron plate cracked as the bolts started breaking out.  Lance wasn't going to stand around trying to convince his former friend to stop betraying him anymore, and was already limping toward the door when she starting biting into a third chain.  By the time it snapped Lance had hobbled back into the hallway and closed the door behind him, as though that could stop his imminent pursuer.  He of course knew better and was already trying to think of some way to escape that didn't rely on him having anything resembling agility.

It didn't take him long to remember what had happened out on the street, how she had become so fixated on him that the drowning mare had snuck up behind her.  That had been sheer stupid luck, but this time he knew of a monster patrolling the very same hallways and almost exactly the path she would take.  He turned to his right and began retracing the route he had seen the barbed nurse take, if he was lucky the sovereign would burst out, follow him, and not see the nurse approaching from behind.  It had to work...he needed it to work.

He rounded the corner, still not hearing the telltale panting of the nurse.  That was fine, she would need to be a ways away at first for his plan to work anyway.  What did make him stop and briefly look back was the thunderous clattering of what sounded like hollow metal casings of some sort falling to the floor inside the theater.  Lance was motivated back to motion again as soon as he heard the door he had just exited violently crack open behind him.  This was it.  He only hoped the barbed nurse wasn't just around the next corner ahead of him where she wouldn't possibly make it back around in time to save him.  A glance over his shoulder rewarded him with the sight of the decimated door flying into the wall just before she galloped around the corner looking slightly different than before.

The armor plating that had covered the neck restraints between her muzzle and her mantle were now missing, allowing her deep sanguine colored mane to float free in the gaps of the metal framing.  She was visibly faster and less burdened, her movements causing less of a cacophony of grinding, scraping and creaking.  As though she had not been able to utterly destroy him easily enough before, now she was faster and would be able to get closer before he even heard her.  Thankfully he didn't have anything akin to sufficient time to be properly terrified.  Lance made it perhaps three more steps before he was roughly yanked off of his hooves by a familiar tendril wrapped around his midsection.

He quickly found himself held upside down with his hooves flailing uselessly up in the air, face to face with her, steam slowly seeping from the vents in her muzzle as she seemed to ponder what to do to him this time.  As he felt his panic rising ever higher at being so utterly helpless in her grasp once more, he was able to keep just enough presence of mind to glance over her shoulder and see the barbed nurse moving into view behind her.

Oh no...the panting...she would hear her before she got close enough!  Unless something else drowned it ou-

Lance let out a shout of pain as the sovereign suddenly tilted her head and closed her jaw down over the top of his snout before starting to squeeze, apparently having decided he didn't need half of his face anymore.  In desperation he ineffectually struck at her with his fore hooves, only managing to tap her visor and perhaps ruffle a lock of her mane slightly thanks to the awkward angle.  It was difficult to tell if the sound she made in response was one of annoyance, amusement, or both, but in any case he was given a brief reprieve from having his snout crushed in favor of being slammed into the wall before dropping to the floor on his side.  Shortly thereafter her hoof was pinning him to the floor hard enough that he worried his ribs would crack.  There was a flash of hope within him as he glimpsed the barbed nurse growing closer from his new low vantage point.

"Please!  Let me go!  Why are you even doing this?!" he plead as loud as he could to continue masking the sound of the approaching nurse's breathing.  "You're smarter than these other ones right?!  You can understand what I'm saying can't you?!  Just bucking listen to me!"

She wasn't listening.  As his entire attempt at talking to her was just distraction, that might've been just fine by Lance...save for the fact that her jaw was opening, her face was growing near to his, and he could hear somepony's breath quivering with anticipation inside of her muzzle.  But then she stopped, her ear giving a telltale twitch of recognition.  He noticed and began fumbling about in his mind for the first phrase that came to mind to shout but found his brain once more a blank slate.  He may have been convincing while trying to escape but there was no way anypony would believe any attempt of his to attract her attention away from something else was genuine.

"Wh...why me?!  Why do you kee-MMMMPH!" As her head moved away, her tendril wrapped around and held his mouth shut.  She looked back over her shoulder and would be hard pressed to not notice what her prey had been trying to prevent her from spotting.  Even though whatever face behind the visor was hidden, the look she gave as she turned back to face him made it clear she remembered the exact same incident that he remembered, and she was not going to be fooled twice.

Her tendril picked him up again and casually hurled him straight at the nurse attempting to interrupt them.  Even if he had still had his wings, he had been thrown with such force that he would have never been able to change course in time.  Whatever terrified noise he wanted to make in response didn't have time to make it from his brain to his mouth before hitting the intended target.  His vision was a blur of darkened hallway and the occasional glimpse of light until his tumble came to a rough stop against the wall next to the Operating Room 1 door.  While he tried to recover the breath that had been knocked out of him and shake the haze from his head, he was able to at least perceive two things.  He'd clearly knocked the nurse for a loop, now bearing several puncture wounds as consequence, and said nurse now had a back leg stuck in the galloping sovereign's jaw.

His brain recovered about a second too late, his efforts to just get back to his hooves cut short by the same metal clad hoof pinning him down all over again.  Lance winced at the loud hiss of steam before the nurse dropped to the floor, and despite the obvious danger she was still trying to get to him instead of escaping, dragging herself toward him as best she could with her fore hooves.  Rather than simply pin her to the floor as well the sovereign contented herself with continually pulling her backwards with a tendril around her back leg.  With much less patience than she had demonstrated with Lance, she grabbed hold of the nurse's hoof in her jaw and started slowly pulling back, forcing the joint to turn the opposite way for which it was designed.  The nurse screeched in agony and tried to pull away but nothing stopped the metal clad alicorn save for losing interest once the bone snapped from the strain and moving onto another of her joints.

Lance looked on horrified, unable to escape from the torture he was being forced to watch.  Fortunately the powers that were had some small pittance of mercy for him just then.  He attempted to look away down the hallway, past the splintery ruins of the door to the operating theater, to door 303 that had appeared at the far end where no door had been in the first place...

Why was it two in the morning?

Scratch that.

Why was he still conscious at two in the morning?  The night before his graduation ceremony?  He knew he needed sleep for such a surprisingly massive occasion, the bed was comfortable as always, and Posey was right beside him.  So why wasn't he sleeping?

"Lance?"

Now he wasn't sleeping the night before his graduation ceremony and he'd woken his ten month's pregnant wife from sleep she could definitely use.

"Can you not sleep either?"

Oh...never mind.

"How could you tell I was awake?" Lance asked as he turned over to face her.

"Just the way you were breathing...it wasn't like the way you do when you're actually asleep," she replied.

He smiled for the first time that night.  It was getting progressively more difficult to fool her about anything but he wouldn't have traded the sense of belong from being known so well by his loved one for the world.  "I didn't wake you up did I?"

"No.  I've just been...worried...all afternoon it seems like," Posey explained, looking away and pulling her half of the blanket closer.  "I can't even sleep."

His first thought was that it was just hormones affecting her mood again, but experience had thoroughly taught him that dismissing her feelings just because they were resulting from chemical imbalances was never an option.  Asking for some clarification though, that couldn't hurt.  "Do you feel worried about anything specific or sort of just...worried?"

She had to think about that one.  It had often been the case in the previous months that she would sometimes just begin to feel a certain away about nothing out of nowhere when there wasn't a more specific feeling to amplify at the time.  This time however she was fairly certain she knew.

"I guess it's just because it's getting so close to my due date...ever since I went on maternity leave and left the shop to the girls I haven't had much to do and...it's kind of hard not to think about everything that could go wrong or...how many ways I could be a bad mother for her," she said while subconsciously placing a hoof on her by now quite swollen belly.

"You're still so sure it's a filly?" he asked in reply.

Posey blinked and lifted her gaze back to his face, smiling after a moment.  He was obviously trying to change the subject, but thinking back briefly she concluded it was a topic that could use changing.  It was sweet that he wanted to distract her, it really was.  "I know I can't know for sure, but my friend Lilac has a little colt and she told me she was surprised he didn't break anything in there he was kicking so much.  Our foal's been so gentle so my first guess is filly...well...that, or something's wrong..." The smile quickly faded, her mind once more pulled back into the pit of worry from which it had only begun to emerge.

"Nothing has happened that gives me any reason to think anything is wrong with our foal honey.  All signs point to nothing being amiss," he gently assured her.  It didn't seem to do much good though.

"But there are things that could be wrong and we wouldn't know it until she was born right?"

...

"Right?"

Lance opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it and looked away.  Posey knew that look on his face.  He had it whenever his medical knowledge was getting in the way of just saying the usual 'everything is fine's and 'it will be alright's that most ponies would just helpfully reply with.  It had irritated her quite deeply a few times now but she had come to terms with the fact that he just hated telling lies and half truths to her when he knew better.  The only problem was he simply knew better on more occasions than most ponies...and really that was very rarely actually a problem when she thought about it.

He finally sighed and looked her in the eye again.  "Posey, I can't say there isn't anything that can be wrong with our foal.  At this point there's only so many things that even could be wrong without us noticing though...and...well, none of them are anything we could've done anything to help with in the first place."

...

Posey's face grew even more concerned and she broke eye contact to look down at her belly again.

"The statistical chances of any of those happening though are maybe three percent at worst...most of them are even below one percent!" he quickly added as though that would somehow remedy the actual problem she had with those things even being possible in the first place.

Her only reply was another pause followed by closing her eyes and heaving a sigh, "Just please be okay..." she muttered to the little life almost done growing inside of her.

Well that was just great of him.  Now she was feeling worse than ever because of him, and he was still awake at two in the morning the day of his suddenly important graduation ceremony.  Perhaps her estranged mother's assessment of his worth as a husband hadn't been so far off the mark in some ways.  "I hate that I'm getting so much worse at making you feel better," he confessed as he softly placed a hoof on her belly, right next to her own.

That seemed to snap her out of it a little.  She was making him fight an unwinnable battle between his own pragmatic medical sensibilities and the nigh impossible to sooth worries of a soon to be first time mother whose imagination was running amok.  The realization didn't make her worry any less, but she knew that wasn't quite fair to him.

"Lance, you're awake at two in the morning trying to make me feel better.  That means a lot all on its own you know." She moved a little closer and gave him a small kiss of appreciation. "But I don't think it's going to work...it's just something I'm going to feel until our foal's in my hooves safe and healthy."

"You've still got a month to go though honey...I can never be completely and without a doubt sure that nothing is wrong in the slightest, but I do know it can't be good for our baby if her mother stops sleeping for four straight weeks."

...

"I'll be a good mother, right?" she asked in her own attempt to change to a topic that was a bit more inherently resolvable.  She was thereafter pulled into a warm embrace at a somewhat awkward angle that accounted for her large tummy.

"You'll be a great mother, Posey," Lance replied without letting an ounce of hesitation into his voice.  He didn't see the smile that came back to her face but he did feel her return the hug and snuggle against him as she decided to just accept his comfort with no second guesses this time.

"Thank you..."  She didn't have to say anything more about it.  They both knew why she worried in this case ,and also why it wasn't needed.  Posey's mother had been a good, loving parent her whole life...up until the point where she had stood by and allowed herself to be removed from her daughter's life over an irresolvable grudge she couldn't let go.  So many years spent being the best mother she could be and she had let if all go, betraying a lack of respect for her own daughter's decisions that may well have never truly been there in the first place.  She desperately wanted not to do that to her own foal...ever.

But this time she was just able to give a mental shrug and think, 'So I won't.'  Posey had something her mother had never had.  Her lover hadn't galloped away in the night to become a regret that would shadow the rest of her life.  He had stayed to become a husband and father.  As long as Lance was there it was all the assurance Posey would ever need that she would be a better mother to her foal than her mother had been to her.

"I'm glad you were awake Lance...I would've-" She stopped mid sentence and blinked before pulling away from him just enough to look him in the eye.  "Wait...no I'm not, what are you doing not sleeping just before your graduation!?" she gently scolded, her concern shifting from the foal inside of her to the stallion in front of her.

"Well...it's just..." He sighed and gave his forehead a brief rub with his hoof before continuing.  "I don't want to ever call our foal an accident, but, it's just a fact that when I left Cloudsdale I always thought I would make sure I had a well established practice before I had kids.  Now here we are a month off from being parents and I haven't been able to think of specific ways to adjust for it, and the more I think about it the worse it gets.  The hours I'm going to have to put in to complete my medical training and convince the hospital staff that I'm worth attaching their reputation to as a doctor are going to be brutal, and I'll be making less than I do as a weather pony right now for a while at the same time you're having to pay other ponies to attend the flower shop for you.

"So...yeah, I'm graduating, that is great, no debating that.  Magna Cum Laude.  Valedictorian.  I think the attention it's getting is becoming strange, especially after they announced that the princess herself would be attending for some reason, and I'm not exactly any better with public speeches in front of huge audiences than I was when I crashed into your garden, but those are their own problems and I can deal with them.  I'm awake at two in the morning the night before my graduation because after that graduation I don't want to leave my wife and foal at home feeling deprived and neglected while all of her growing up happens as I'm someplace else advancing my career.  You deserve better than that..." Lance gave her belly another soft pat, "...and so does she."

The little foal growing inside of her suddenly gave a gentle kick against her parents' hooves, eliciting a quiet gasp from both of them.  After a silent moment they looked back to one another, smiled, and then shared a soft chuckle before turning their attention on their foal.

"Sorry we woke you," Lance offered in apology.

"So you think she's a filly now too huh?" Posey teased, always adoring when her husband would talk to their unborn child.

"Well...I obviously don't know, but 'it' was somewhat of a demeaning pronoun so I decided to just go with your guess," he replied, waiting until he felt another tiny kick before retracting his hoof.  "Besides, she doesn't even know what we're saying.  I doubt if she turns out to be a he that we're going to have to worry about some complex suffered from listening to his parents talk about him like he were a girl in utero."

"No, we'll have to worry about a complex suffered from listening to her father talk about how she's too dumb to understand us in utero," she said with a snicker and a playful bat at his shoulder.

"Hey, savor it, before we know it we'll be spelling words out when we don't want her to know what we're saying.  Then she's going to learn how to read and we'll never be able to slip anything past her again," he mused in response before they settled into a brief, comfortable silence that began to wear away the two sets of individual doubts that had kept them from sleep.

...

"Lance...you're up at two in the morning worrying yourself half insane about your child's future.  I think that's a good indicator you're going to be a good dad...even if you can't think of a solution right this very second," she assured him as she pulled up the blanket that had been nudged downward by their movements then nuzzled her head back into her pillow.

"Yeah...we won't be perfect, but I think we'll both make for good parents."

"Night...Poppa," Posey said with a tired smile before her ability to speak was decimated by a large yawn.  Lance couldn't help but repeat the procedure, first feeling a new sort of pride at his new monicker, and then succumbing to the mysteriously contagious nature of yawns.

"Heh...night, Momma."

The nurses' neck was in the grip of her jaw now, producing a steady series of sickening pops as the pressure slowly increased.  Her body was utterly broken, limbs bent in all manner of unintended directions, her breathing coming in even faster, desperate gulps of air.  She was twitching uncontrollably, her brain clearly having been robbed of the means to coordinate her movements even the least bit.  Black blood that continually seeped from a number of cuts and stab wounds pooled on the floor beneath her and covered the sovereign's horn.  With one last gut churning crack the flesh and bone in her jaw gave up and collapsed against the unrelenting onslaught.  The nurse's body gave one last hard convulsion and then she was still.  The sovereign lifted up her latest kill by the neck, glared down at Lance for a moment, and then casually tossed the carcass aside as a final measure of rubbing the failure of his plan in his face.

Before he could even finish blinking the vision away he let out another cry of pain as her tendril wrapped around and picked him up by his mutilated back leg.  He was left dangling in the air, letting out a muffled scream through his grit teeth as the whole of his weight pulled down on his leg.  She was thinking again, having perhaps changed her mind about the removal of half his face.  By now though...it didn't really make a difference to him.  The nurse had shown him that just staying away from the monsters at all was now an almost impossible task in his condition.  Even if whatever horrible thing she decided to do to him didn't outright kill him, he was sure to simply be killed off by another monster he couldn't escape from afterward.  Lance just closed his eyes, and tried to bear the pain in his leg while a headache from all the blood rushing to his head steadily built.  Whether he lived or died now wasn't in his control...perhaps it had never been in the first place.  The sovereign would do whatever she wished with him and he was helpless to do anything about it at all.  Somehow there was comfort in accepting this powerlessness.

Then she dropped him.

The brief free fall and the sharp impact served to snap him out of his resignation, the compulsion to flee and live suddenly able to reach his brain again.  With a tremendous effort he was able to get to his hooves and attempt to take a step before falling back down the floor.  After having been batted around, tossed into a monster, subjected to some sort of hallucinatory memory, hung upside down until his head hurt, and dropped to the ground again, he wasn't going to be just getting up and leaving.  Just in case he was able to shake off the mental haze, there was also a metal clad hoof pinning his tail to the floor.

He felt the jagged edge of her muzzle press against his side before she forcefully rolled him onto his back.  Lance looked up at her with eyes widened by confusion over why she had not just killed him and terror at the alternate possibilities that were all screaming through his mind as loudly as his watch was buzzing.  She took her time, head moving slowly as her gaze traced a path over his body as though she were inspecting him.  By the time his heart was about ready to burst out of his chest from the excruciatingly tense moments of nothing happening she had come to a realization she was none too pleased with, expressing as much with a angry snarl as she wrapped her tendril around his neck and slammed his back into the wall.

Lance choked and gagged for a moment before realizing he could still breathe, if only just enough to remain conscious.  She took a step towards him as he gasped for breath, his lungs burning with need for oxygen to maintain his ongoing state of panic that was only made worse when she lowered her head and began moving her horn in the direction of his neck.  Though he couldn't see the black blood drenched metal spike he most definitely felt its sharp tip press against his throat.  It was all he could do to just suppress the urge to try and struggle free so that he wouldn't accidentally move his neck forward even the least bit and end himself.  It didn't pierce his skin, but enough pressure was behind it to make it hurt as it moved downward.  He could hear her again...the breath in her mask quivering with an unnerving delight as she drew out whatever mutilation was about to be inflicted upon him.

He once again screamed in agony through grit teeth as she applied enough pressure to begin slicing into his flesh as her horn continued to lower.  Lance couldn't tell how deep it was cutting or if he was in danger of bleeding to death all over again.  All he could feel as the white hot fire spreading outward from the progressively lengthier cut.  One by one he felt the bandages around his chest go loose as they were cut through until finally he felt the blade pull away from him, leaving him once again with eyes clenched shut trying to stave off the pain.  He reflexively pulled in a deep breath as the tendril withdrew and let him drop forward to the floor again.  Before he managed to look up he heard her let out a strange sound that started off as a soft distorted moan but quickly turned into a frustrated growl.  After he looked up he got a short glimpse of his red blood sharing space with the black blood on her horn and visor before she gave him another 'tap' across the face that immediately knocked one of his teeth loose.

By the time his head stopped swimming and his brain could comprehend what his eyes were seeing again, all that was left to see of her was an ethereally flowing, dark crimson tail that was almost immediately hidden around the corner with the rest of her.  Then the pain came back full force.  Lance groaned and fell over onto his side, weakly spitting his tooth out along with a the generous portion of blood that had accompanied it.  He would need a mirror to see the full damage but a cautious feel with his hoof made him think the wound down his chest hadn't done any truly vital harm.  It was just incredibly painful.

He didn't feel like he was at all in danger of passing out again, but at the same time he wasn't going to be getting up for a few minutes.  Assuming nothing else dangerous came along he hoped to catch his breath and let the pain and bleeding ease up a bit.  Lance had ample time then to ponder a question he had already asked dozens of times but that seemed just then to be more relevant than ever before.

What the hay just happened?

Part 15

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

On Corticosteroids.

Part 15

His newest wound was still raw but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.  Lance didn't dare look down at his hooves for fear of what he would see covering them.  After trudging through so much rust, dirt, mold, grime, and Celestia knows what else, not looking at them was the only way he could get himself to use those filthy hooves to apply pressure to a fresh cut.  He supposed it wasn't worth worrying about at that point anyway; whatever was on his hooves, it probably wasn't nearly as bad as what had been covering the horn spike that had cut him.  No doubt there was a fair amount of the same sort of contaminants all over the steam powered jaw that had plucked his wings off too, but the bumps on his back where they had once been weren't any more inflamed than he would expect sloppy amputation stumps to be, so perhaps it was just adding needless stress to worry so much.

On the other hoof that was probably only because Posey had properly tended to them while he had been out cold.  Whatever disinfectant had been in the med kit she had used, he most definitely needed to find some more of it.

Lance wasn't about to do that lying there wallowing in fatigue though, a move made doubly unwise by the prospect of another monster finding him there.  At least he wouldn't have to worry about the nurse pony anymore.  He rolled onto his hooves again and pushed his body upward, finding that the cut in his chest did indeed make the effort more painful, but it was not so deep that he would lose any mobility in his fore legs.  There were of course a plethora of additional scrapes and bruises all over his body after so much rough treatment, but when compared to his more debilitating injuries they pretty much failed to register at all.

He looked over to the barbed, and now quite twisted nurse's carcass, still lacking any sort of answer for what had just happened between he and the sovereign.  She only needed to get hold of something once to kill it, but there he was having thrice been in her clutches and he was not only still alive, but still adequately mobile.  There had been nothing stopping her from doing far worse, nothing at all.  Even when the deaf colt had stepped in she'd already had all the time in the world to tear off whatever she wanted, but had only chosen two things he could easily remain alive and moving without.  In fact if it weren't for his torn up back leg he would probably still be fairly agile overall.  It was the one injury that really plagued him, and she hadn't even been the one to do it to him.

What had kept her from caving in his skull back on the streets?

What had kept her from hopelessly crippling him back in the hall of the apartments?

What had kept her from sinking her horn spike into his body instead of cutting him just then?

"Posey's waiting and you're standing here wondering why you're not dead instead of doing something because of it," Lance scolded himself as he turned his attention back to exploring the building.  He could run circles in his own head trying to make sense of this place that he already knew never made any sense after he freed his wife.

The hall only had two doors that remain unchecked, Operating Rooms 1 and 2.  Room 2's doorknob was functional but locked.  Lance thought to try the key he had snatched from the far door in the operating theater but the lock wouldn't accept it.  Given how close the key had been to the door he wasn't that surprised.  The investigation of Room 1 proved even more brief, the lock being broken sparing him from having to check any keys.  He turned, awkwardly made his way around the painfully twisted, black blood covered husk that used to be the nurse, and saw that the door to Operating Room 5 had been boarded over.  The door after that though gave him a brief moment of hope.  It was labeled 'Storage Room'.  If there was anywhere to find good medical supplies, he couldn't do much better than a storage room on a floor with an array of operating rooms in a hospital.

When the doorknob moved in a completely normal, unlocked fashion he felt a small but long sought after ray of hope...one that was promptly cut off once he had the door open.  The shelves inside were completely bereft of anything remotely resembling medical supplies...or much of anything at all for that matter.  A rusty metal pipe resting on the middle shelf on the far wall was the sole object occupying any of the closet's shelf space.  Next to it was the stain of a long dried blood splatter that trailed downward off the front of the shelf, suggesting the pipe had been used as a weapon and then placed there.  His eyes tracked it down to the floor, and after a brief thoughtless pause of shock he wondered how fixated he must have been on patching himself to have only now noticed this.

It was a mannequin, unattached to any sort of stand, lying on its side with its hollow plaster head caved in.  Its wide open head was surrounded by the dried remnants of a large pool of blood on the floor, with similar stains around the 'wound' itself, and a fair amount more spattered over the front of its body.  The entire scene looked like somepony had struggled with the mannequin before managing to smash its head in and placing the 'murder weapon' on the shelf.

Still...it was just another mannequin...right?

Lance stepped forward and leaned down to inspect it.  Despite all of the old blood stains all over the place there was simply nothing biological inside the mannequins broken head.  Had he really expected anything different?  With one last act of caution that would under any other circumstance be considered insane, he gave the mannequin a poke with his hoof.  Aside from the light plaster material being pushed along the floor maybe half an inch from the meager force he exerted, it did nothing.  Lance couldn't help but give a soft sigh of relief, think himself perhaps too wary in this case.  The monsters he had seen so far had all looked alive.  True, they were unnatural creatures, several of which probably shouldn't have been alive, but they looked the part all the same.  To think that a mannequin would just come to life and attack him was somewhat silly.

Having dealt with his bout of paranoia he began pondering what use he could make of the pipe.  It looked sturdy, and as he picked it up off the shelf he could feel it did indeed have some weight to it.  Surely it would make a better means of defending himself than just his bare hooves in his condition.  If it was to be his weapon that meant he needed to keep it some place easy to get to in a pinch, so he fastened it in one of the tool straps on the front of his saddle bags.  Being that it was a blunt weapon he doubted he could get enough force behind it to make it useful while gripping it in his mouth.  He would have to use his fore hooves then, which meant he couldn't move while using it.  That suited him just fine really. If pretty much any of the monsters spotted him while he was any appreciable distance from a good hiding spot he wouldn't be able to outrun them anyway.  The fact that it let him avoid putting the filthy thing in his mouth didn't hurt either.  With nothing else of use in the room, he took his leave.  There was only one hallway left to look through now, the one that the barbed nurse had been walking through when she first spotted him.

When he limped over and looked down that last hallway he paused before giving an irritated frown at the sight before him.  Every door was boarded up, save for two that were already standing open in another moment of suspicious convenience.  It would have been nice to have his options so obviously laid out in front of him a while back when he had been fleeing from the barbed nurse.  He probably would have preferred the two doors to have just been closed though...instead of standing open like there was somepony else roaming  around silently.  The thought that it could be Posey briefly passed through his mind but he knew there was no way she wouldn't have come running to help him by now after the racket the sovereign had made with him.  Perhaps they had just been open all this time?  No acts of some unknown entity required?  Yeah, that sounded agreeable enough.  There was no precedent that he should be so lucky as that but the idea was sufficiently reassuring to let him check the first room labeled Recovery Room 2 on his right.

Recovery rooms were places where patients who had just undergone surgery would be kept whilst sleeping off their anesthesia, usually located close to the operating rooms in case of a complication.  They were made to be very calm, quiet places that would minimize the stress a patient would inevitably feel when suddenly waking up in pain after having been cut open.

This room fell well short of that standard.  The bed missing entirely was sort of expected, and even though the cracked clay vase on the bedside table was full of wilted, rotted flowers it still meant somepony had cared enough to put them there in the first place so he supposed it wasn't that bad.  The writing on the wall was another matter.  It was raggedly carved into the plaster of the wall, small trails of dried blood leading downward at several points as though somepony had worn their hoof down to the quick in the process of making it.

'IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE'

Lance swallowed back the wave of anxiety and resentment the phrase inspired.  The location and presentation was unsettling enough as it was, but there was something else to it, an edge only a doctor would feel.  He never begrudged any of his patients for whatever they believed the afterlife to contain and he never would.  But such beliefs were a luxury he could never afford to lean on.  He was a doctor.  His duty was to preserve the lives of his patients, to keep the reaper from tearing families asunder, to extend lives that would have otherwise been cut short.  For any of his patients to openly seek comfort in the thereafter...it meant he had failed at even just making their lives in the here and now viable or adequate.  Lance knew that feeling all too well, and he'd known it far before Posey had even become ill.  Ponies always talked about how many lives he'd saved but they never spoke or thought of how many he'd let slip into the void.  He didn't get that luxury to just forget them either.

After momentarily closing his eyes and refocusing himself he gave the room one last search.  There didn't appear to be anything of use, or even anywhere for such things to be hidden.  He would not have refused any supplies but he was thankful to be able to leave that 'recovery' room all the same.  He turned to do so but before he could manage it he noticed something in the layer of dust covering the floor.  It was a pair of trails leading outward, splitting into four out in the hall like somepony had pushed a four wheeled object out of the room and then turned.  Had they always been there?  Lance squinted and looked closer, seeing that they were unmistakeably fresh.  The bare bit of white tile between the two ridges of dust didn't have a speck on it.  So when had they been made?  They were quite visible, but could he have possibly just missed them when he had been looking down the hall the first time?

"Wait a minute," he muttered to himself as he looked up and down the hallway again, casting his light along the floor.  The nurse had been patrolling right through there.  He'd just seen the sovereign walk off around the corner along the very same route.  Why did he only see his hoof prints leading to Recovery Room 2's door and neither of theirs?!  Lance closed his eyes again and gave a quiet growl of frustration.  The number of things he was having to just ignore in order to not waste time was starting to get to him.  For now it was more productive to just follow the trails.  They were leading him somewhere, and as there was only one other accessible door in the hallway it wasn't hard to guess where.

Lance made it maybe two limps toward the door before he was suddenly brought to a halt by a stabbing pain in the wound on his chest.  He gave a strained grunt as he felt what he could only assume was his own blood trickling down his leg.  His mind scrambled for some explanation for the apparent tearing open of his cut but within three seconds the agony was completely over just as suddenly as it had begun.  Being understandably confused, he stopped only long enough to let out the breath he had apparently been holding before checking himself over.  There was plenty of blood already on his fore legs but it was all from having applied pressure to the previously fresh laceration; it was all dried over now, none of it was fresh like it would be if it had only now bled out.  He tentatively touched his slashed chest again and looked at his hoof.  It did have a little fresh blood on it but nothing all that alarming, certainly nothing that would've caused such a fuss in any case.  Obviously something had happened to him but he seemed fine now.  If there was anything to this he was sure it would come back and give him something more tangible to worry about soon enough.

Once back outside his eyes followed the path of the four trails.  They didn't go very far.  Just as he had guessed they traveled past a single set of doors before turning left into the only other unblocked doorway.  As he approached, a sign on the inwardly opened door came into view, so worn that it took a few more steps closer until he was able to read 'Nurse's Station' upon it.  Lance stopped for a short moment, understandably hesitant considering recent encounters but reasoning that if there was another nurse waiting for him inside his watch would give him due warning.  What he would do with that warning he wasn't exactly sure, but it seemed odd to let uncertainty delay him after having already jumped into a hole with no readily apparent way to get out again.  With his watch still silent Lance looked into the room, keeping a bit of a gap between himself and the door, just in case.

There was a wheeled gurney in the middle of the room, each of the four trails ending at one of the wheels.  The metal was scratched, notched, and covered in the usual rust.  Something or somepony was on top of it but it was impossible to tell who or what exactly.  It was deathly still and covered by a...Lance wanted to call it a sheet but he wasn't sure if that was the best word for it.    It looked like skin  varying in color from light brown to an inflamed dark red, but looking closer he could also see tiny interwoven cloth fibers.  It was as though somepony had taken a patch of skin, grafted it into the cloth's weave, and let it grow throughout.  It was pulled tight and somehow held in place on the gurney's underside.  The tight sheet of mysteriously fleshy 'cloth' was apparently inadequate to restrain what was beneath, as it was aided in this task by a trio of leather belts that were fused together where the buckles would normally be.

His watch was still quiet, nothing in the room was moving, and he was in no apparent danger.  It did little to alleviate the dread clutching at his chest though.  Maybe he could just...pass up this room too?  No...he knew he couldn't.  It would be foolish to not look around and risk missing something that could make the difference between he and Posey making it out of there or not just for the sake of sparing his nerves further rattling.  At worst the object on the gurney was a corpse, something he knew better than to fear.  Lance forced himself forward into the nurse's station.

There were a few file cabinets missing their drawers along the left wall, a paper holder above them that was supposed to hold individual nurse assignments and patient information, and a few chairs against the right wall that were all missing their seats.  Above the chairs there was a keyring with three keys hanging from a nail that was pinning a note to the wall.  He took the keyring first, pondering briefly how generous it was to suddenly find three keys all at once before stashing them in his bag.  He then tugged the note free of the nail.  It wasn't from the deaf colt, and it wasn't one of the vaguely threatening red inked notes he'd found either.  It was plain college ruled paper with a nice black cursive hoof writing.

Nurse Tender Care,

We'll be bringing the first trainee up to observe today, but for some reason the administrator doesn't want to bring the second up quite yet.  Something about devoting attention to them one at a time or some other such nonsense we haven't done in all the time I've worked here.  In any case, we have the stock room tended to already so the second trainee won't have anything to do.  I think he deserves something to do for showing up and being willing to help, and I heard your friend Clean Sweep needs some help fixing some things up, so if you could, send him to the basement to lend him a hoof.  Thanks.

"Been there done that," Lance muttered softly in sympathy.  Then his watch was buzzing as loudly as it possibly could in tandem with the squeak of wheels behind him.  He dropped the note and whirled around in panic about as gracefully as one would expect a battered, limping, wingless pegasus to do so, ending up stumbling sideways until his side impacted the wall opposite the door.

The gurney was gone.  No sooner had he made this discovery than his watch fell silent again.

With an expression of alarmed bewilderment he cast his gaze about the room for any sign of anything at all that might want to splatter his insides on a wall, but found himself alone.  After calming down a moment and regaining his hoofing, he limped over to the door and poked his head out looking off to his left to see nothing then toward the first door that he had found standing open.  It was now closed and boarded over just like the rest.  Even the tracks along the floor that head lead him into the nurse's station in the first place were missing.

This obviously did nothing to improve his state of wide eyed confusion.  Clearly not believing what his eyes were seeing he hobbled back over to Recovery Room 2 and pressed his hoof against the planks nailed over it.  They were real, no questioning it.  The wood was as worn, weathered, and dust covered as the rest of the interior of the hospital as well.  This hadn't just been done while he had been poking about in the nurse's station.  Perhaps it had always been there and he was only now seeing it for what it was.

Lance dearly hoped Posey had been right back at the elevator.  Right now the thought that this was all some external force just trying to mess with his very sane head was one of his only comforts.  If she was wrong, if this was all just his mind slowly cracking as he dreaded it might be, it did not speak well for their prospects of escaping this place.  Then again if this was all just in his head why was he actually getting injured?  Hallucinations couldn't cut, maim, or dismember somepony, and he sure as hay hadn't been doing this to himself.

...hadn't he?

His attempt at mental self diagnostic was cut short by the rising buzz of his watch and a quickly approaching sound to his right.  It was the feminine sounding, desperate, yet unnatural steady panting noise again.

"No."

Yes.

He looked over in time to see the barbed nurse limp around the corner and hesitate a moment to let one of her forelegs snap back into place with a sickening crack before going right for him.  She was covered in her own blood that moved like various trails of ants going across her skin.  Whenever it made contact with one of her wounds it would briefly ignite into a small black flame and sear the injury shut.  The nurse could regenerate just like the deaf colt had after the sovereign had impaled him.  Lance fled as quickly as he could manage but soon realized there was no point in doing so.  She was faster than him.  But now he had a weapon.  Abandoning the already non existent hope of escaping, he instead pulled the pipe free of the tool strap and turned back to face her.

"Stop!  Don't come any closer!" he warned as he stumbled backward into a sitting position while using both hooves to hold the pipe threateningly above his head.  She was undeterred, and in fact seemed spurred on by how her quarry had stopped for her.

No idea why I thought that would work.

He would only have one shot.  She finally lunged for him, hooves extended to pull him into her excruciating embrace.  Lance brought the pipe down, making a solid connection with the top of her head that sent her face planting to the floor with a nasty black gash.  She was only dazed though, her movements after her fall being calculated ones to get her back on her hooves instead of the frenzied struggles of a creature mortally wounded.  He wasn't going to give her a chance to hurt him.  He raised the pipe and smashed it into her skull again, this time feeling something crack that sent her into screeching convulsions.  Once more, another strike, a second cracking of her skull and she was gone, her head smashed in.  Lance waited a good ten seconds to make sure she wasn't getting up just yet before he got back to his hooves.

The strange guilt he'd felt killing the drowning mare while trying to get away from the sovereign in the apartments was absent this time. It was most likely kept in check by the knowledge that the barbed nurse would probably regenerate the damage soon anyway, probably even faster than before.  If it had only taken her that long to recover from having her entire body broken piece by piece she would probably shrug off the single but grievous injury in barely any time at all.  He had to get away from her before that happened.  The floor's exit leading to the elevator and stairwell was pretty much just around the corner so it wouldn't be difficult.  After putting the blood covered pipe away he limped out and immediately felt a bit safer once the door was closed behind him.

Now that he was back in familiar, monster free territory, taking a breather seemed more of a good idea than a death wish.  He needed to gather his thoughts anyway, take stock of what he had picked up in there and what he needed to do nex-

"GAH!" Lance cried out as he reflexively flicked his hoof to dislodge whatever he had suddenly felt slithering down his leg.  All he managed to accomplish was to splatter some black substance onto the floor that immediately began moving back toward him.  Upon lowering his gaze he saw there was a fair bit of it still on his fore leg moving down toward his hoof as well.  Without thinking he placed that hoof to the floor in preparation to back away but then, curiously, the black liquid that had been covering it started moving along the floor in a path leading around him and under the door behind him, soon joined by the portion that he had first flicked off his hoof.  None of it seemed to care about his presence in the least.

He stood stone still, not daring to look away.  When it had all slipped beneath the door leaving him unharmed, he let out a breath that he was very aware he'd been holding.  What had that stuff been?  Why had it suddenly been on his...

...

Following a hunch he looked down at his pipe to see that it was now completely clean of the nurse's blood.  That explained it.  She couldn't regenerate if she didn't call all of her pieces back after all.  Lance grimaced as that realization lead to a second, far more disturbing one.  When the sovereign had cut him the nurse's blood had been all over her horn.  That meant the sudden spike of pain and the trickle of liquid he'd felt down his fore leg earlier was most likely the bit of that blood left behind in his wound forcing its way out.  He shivered in disgust and fought back a brief wave of nausea at the thought of it having been slithering around just below his skin all that time.  Even if he did find a medical kit and a safe place to clean and re-bandage himself soon, he'd be lucky to not just slowly die of infection if the monsters somehow failed to do so.

"Nothing you can do right now, nothing you can do right now, nothing you can do right now," he muttered with closed eyes to try and stop his skin crawling.  It wasn't working.  He mentally reached back and felt about in his mind for the track he'd been derailed from, needing something to distract himself.

What had he been-...right, taking stock.

The doors to Operating Rooms 2 and 6 were both functional but locked; he would need to find a key or some other way into them.  Speaking of keys, he had four now.  The three on the keyring were pretty easy to figure out, the note they were found with had mentioned the basement and he knew for fact there were three locked doors there.  The fourth loose one that he had plucked from the floor in the operating theater before his last beating was more of an enigma though, as it had been devoid of any identifying marks.  He had no idea of what use it was so he would just have to keep it at the back of his mind.

"I'm okay..." he reminded himself now that his mind was back in order and his skin didn't feel like it was the victim of a swarm of imaginary parasites.  It was probably a wise next move to head back down to the basement and unlock the doors down there, surely he'd find something interesting in at least one of them.  When he turned toward the elevator his plans changed.  The door to the stairwell was right next to it, free of any obvious barriers.  It was worth a shot at least, though after the view of the vast empty space between floors he'd gotten he wasn't sure how much.

The doorknob clicked obstinately.  Somehow he wasn't the least bit put off by this and simply pulled the unmarked key from his saddlebag, unlocked the door, and opened it before putting the key away.  He took one step forward before his brain caught up with the rest of him.

...

Okay, just where the hoof am I?

Lance was sure of it.  There hadn't been any process in his mind wherein he'd realized the door was locked, remembered his key, and then thought to try it.  Those had been the unthinking, automatic actions of somepony who had performed a certain task countless times before.  The door and the key had individually failed to spark any memory but together they had spanned the gap and touched upon something.

He knew this building was a hospital already, apparently one he'd already been in a great deal.  It was definitely not Cloudsdale General though which meant that it could only possibly be one other building...but he didn't accept it just yet.  Better to wait for some other proof before reaching a conclusion.  For the moment it was simply less unsettling for this to be coincidence inspired déjà vu instead of a second building ripped from his memory and implanted into the landscape...quite literally in this case.

Continuing in now that he sorted out the rogue automated process in his brain, he saw that the stairs leading up were blocked by another set of rusted iron bars, while the stairs leading down were clear.  He started having second thoughts about venturing downward as he remembered the aforementioned vast expanses of empty space between floors.  If he was going to reach the floor below, there would be a preponderance of stairs he would need to make his way down.  Lance was reasonably sure he could make it down even with his leg taken into account, but that same leg ensured that a trip upward of similar distance would be horrendous at best assuming it was even possible for him in the first place.  He supposed a quick look to check how far down the stairwell extended couldn't hurt though.  Carefully minding his rear leg he descended one flight of stairs and looked downward, catching sight of the door that would lead into the next floor down if there even was one in the first place.

Somehow he doubted the building had 303 floors...

"What's this?"

"Well you said you were nervous last night so this morning I dug this out of the closet.  It was a gift from my father, I'm letting you borrow it for today."

Lance cocked an eyebrow.

"Stepfather," Posey clarified with a deadpan stare.

"Ah, yes, sorry!"

"Anyway, back when I had opened the flower shop and gotten my first order for a floral arrangement, I was really nervous.  It was my first customer ever, it could've made or broken my chances of being able to do what I loved for a living.  He saw what a wreck I was and gave this to me, telling me he'd had it when he'd opened his first shoe shop that had ended up making him a success, and that he hoped it proved just as much of a good luck charm for me.  I know this is just your graduation but you're not going to have a career that's so neatly summed up as just opening a shop somewhere, so I suppose it's close enough." she continued while checking Lance over to make sure his gown and cap were both on straight.

"I suppose...although, from what you're telling me this helps with financial success more than making speeches-"

"You're doing that thing where you think about something too much and accidentally sound like a jerk about it again dear," his wife interjected.

"-but I'm sure it will help with those too and I really appreciate your lending it to me," he concluded after making a sharp turn in his sentence to acknowledge Posey's observation.

"Better," she replied with smile and a nod.

Her husband looked down at the object he held in his hoof briefly before foolishly deciding to open his mouth again, "How long was this in the closet though?  I mean, you did clean it right?"

Posey opened her eyes wide in surprise before sighing and placing a hoof on her forehead in irritation.  She wanted to yell at him for that, she really did, but for one thing she would be remiss to make a scene on such a special occasion for him, and for another she knew her husband well enough by now to know that his bouts of germaphobia were just his reaction to being nervous. "Just...just put it in your pocket with the cue cards...I swear you are so lucky I know better than-"

"Oh  my gosh why did just say that?!" Lance interrupted as he realized the true depth of his faux pas and felt compelled to at least properly voice his bewilderment at his own rudeness.

"...I didn't clean it, no, I was under the delusion I was giving it to a normal pony," she said, managing to at least sound somewhat good natured in her teasing.  "I can give you something else though that I did clean."

"Hrm?"

"Yeah, just this morning I brushed it clean with a paste-like fluoride solution," she went on with a soft smirk on her face before pulling him into a good luck kiss.  Predictably Lance couldn't find anything at fault with it.  Once their lips parted they were left smiling and looking into each others eyes just like so many times before, his nervousness and her irritation both forgotten for the moment.

"Thanks.  I know how much you don't like going out like this but it means a lot to me that you came," Lance told her as they took half a step back from each other while ignoring the loud requests to procure a room from his less mature classmates.

"My hubby only gets to graduate once, I wouldn't miss it for the world...and neither would Fluttershy," Posey replied as she followed him over to where the graduating class was lining up to wait for the band to start playing.

"Heh...c'mon honey I was fine with calling our foal 'she' but you really should at least hold off on using the filly name we picked until we know for sure one way or the other," he said as he took his place at the front of the line in front of Mannie.

She giggled, still hardly believing she was only a few weeks from becoming a mother, and gave her husband one last affectionate nuzzle, "Fair enough.  Now get out there."

"Yes ma'am!" Lance replied before his wife wandered off to join the other friends and family of the graduates. "Ready Mannie?"

"Quite, you?"

"In the sense that I know you're there to restrain me if I attempt to flee once we get in front of that huge crowd of ponies, yes."

"I always did get the interesting work," Mannie mused with a smirk just as the band began to play, signaling the beginning of the procession on stage.  He did wind up having to prod Lance with his hoof when he briefly froze up at the sight of so many eyes right on him but other than that the trip to their seats went smoothly for everypony involved.  Fairly soon they were left bored out of their minds quietly talking amongst themselves whilst the speeches prepared by the faculty and other students went on one after another.

"You know for this one single moment right here I'm sort of glad you beat me to valedictorian.  You have to actually pay attention to this," the cerulean unicorn remarked.  They both had plenty of friends outside of the university, but within its walls they had spent years maintaining a rigorous study schedule, which meant that aside from one another, Mannie and Lance did not have anypony they would call 'friend' while attending their classes.  So while the rest of the graduating class who had come to know each other very well were emotionally invested in the words being read at the podium, the two magna cum laude graduates failed to feel the impact.

"It's not that bad.  Besides, this is the last time we'll ever see most of these ponies, maybe switch topics to something less, I don't know, snide?" Lance suggested, keeping his voice low.

"Good point I suppose, uh...how's Posey?" Mannie asked after taking a moment with a hoof at his chin to think of another topic.

"Well medically she's fine, a little under a month until she's due and no signs of trouble," Lance replied while his eyes drifted off in thought on that topic.

"You don't sound-"

The conversation was briefly interrupted as one speech concluded, warranting a hoof stomp applause that quickly died down as the speaker stepped away from the podium so that the next graduate could take their place.

"You don't sound very sure," Mannie continued after taking his seat again.

"No, I'm sure there's nothing wrong.  But that doesn't stop her from worrying herself to pieces every night when she tries to get some sleep anyway," Lance replied, looking back at him.

"...did you tell her about any of the more subtle birth defects that can possibly happen completely at random?" his friend asked with a very suspicious look as though he already knew the answer.

"No....well...I may have admitted they exist but I didn't tell her about any of them," he answered in all honesty.

...

"You idiot."

"What was I supposed to do, lie to her?" Lance asked defensively.

"YES!" Mannie scolded a bit too loudly, drawing glares from several of their nearby classmates.  "Sorry..." he apologized meekly before turning back on his friend.  "She's a first time mother Lance, when you don't see any signs of anything going wrong you just tell her 'everything will be fine' not 'there's a .0001% chance your foal might be born without a frontal lobe'!  How am I not even married and I know this better than you?"

The soon to be first time father half opened his mouth to reply but then immediately shut it, stopping and looking away with a furrowed brow to think of anything to defend himself but coming up short.  "Okay.  I messed up, bad.  You're right.  I just have...I just have to...oh for crying out loud how am I supposed to fix this?"

"I kind of doubt it's possible at this point really.  Just be glad you didn't do it sooner, it's not as if you're the first husband to say something stup-..."

"I've got to at least try, I can't just let Posey stack this on top of the stress she already must be feeling from the pregnancy alone, especially after she came out here tonight for my sake," Lance said before falling into another brief period of thought, heedless of Mannie suddenly being struck silent.  "...wait a second, do you think that side project we were working on would be feasible if we lowered the...Mannie?"  He was stopped mid sentence after looking back up again to see Mannie staring wide eyed at something behind him.  Before he could properly investigate a regal yet gentle voice politely spoke up in the same direction.

"Excuse me, this spot wouldn't happen to be taken would it?"

"Well uh, we had seats assigned but I guess if you really need to you can..." Lance managed to say before turning around completely and being struck by much the same expression as Mannie was wearing.  There before him was Princess Celestia in all her royal splendor, smiling warmly as her polychromatic mane and tail gently floated in the unseen ethereal current.  She was flanked by two royal guard unicorns, one of which immediately stepped forward and aimed a menacing glower at the two graduates as he advanced.  He was colored a dull brown with piercing yellow eyes and a very visible scar across the top of his snout.  The emblem on the front of the golden armor that denoted his captain rank bore a recreation of his cutie mark, an angular steel grey shield with a single white glint pattern near the top corner.  When he spoke, he did so in a severe but hushed tone indicating he was quite aware of the potential disruption of their sudden presence on stage.

"You heard the Princess!  Get your flanks up and move five meters back, then maintain that distance at all times or else!"  Just as he had finished speaking a golden glow gripped his tail and pulled him back to the Princess' side.

"Captain Gleaming Aegis, I appreciate your vigilance as always, but that will not be necessary.  Please wait for me outside, I would like to disrupt the proceedings as little as possible," Celestia explained as the glow of her horn died down, releasing her royal guard captain who promptly saluted, shot Lance and Mannie another glare in order to ensure they were on their best behavior, then headed for the exit in tandem with his fellow guard as ordered.

Having spent half of his life in Canterlot, Mannie was the first of the two to recover from the surprise presence of royalty and give a bow as protocol dictated, "Your highness."

"Oh no need to bow, this your day in the sun after all," she assured the both of them with a slight wave of her hoof as she stepped closer and took a seat next to Lance.  "I apologize for my captain's behavior, he comes from times much harder than these and I fear he is often heavy hoofed in his interactions with the public.  I can only hope his successor is a bit more even tempered."

Finding that his eyes had indeed not been fooling him, Lance shook the surprise out of his head and finally found his voice again.  "Uh, no problem your...Highness!" he managed to awkwardly reply, making it clear he was entirely new to speaking with royalty.

Celestia nodded in acknowledgement, wearing a thoughtful smile as always, "I take it you're the Strongshy fellow everypony's talking about?"

What little poise Lance had managed to cobble together once again vanished at that question, replaced by yet another confounded express, "What?  What do you mean your Highness?  Why would everypony be talking about me?"

It was now the Princess' turn to wear a confused expression, though as always she managed to be orders of magnitude more graceful about it, "Why wouldn't they?"

He was silent a moment before looking away towards the crowd, not really looking at any of them but finding it was a bit easier to search his memories while not looking royalty in the face as she awaited his answer.

At his continued puzzlement she decided with an amused but pleasant chuckle to give him a hint, "Mr. Strongshy, look at your classmates.  Do you see a single set of wings amongst them?"

Lance snapped out of his internal search and took the Princess' suggestion, looking past Mannie to the array of seated graduates beyond.  He saw many unicorn horns, and a few plain earth foreheads, but everypony's back was bare.  There was not a single wing among the graduating class that was not amber in color and attached to him.

"No," he replied before turning back to look at her, "but why is my being the only pegasus in this group of graduates suddenly such a big deal?"

"It's not, Mr. Strongshy.  Your being the first pegasus to graduate from this institution on the other hoof, is."

He blinked.  Twice.  Lance then rubbed the sore feeling out of his eyes and looked at the door again.  303 was predictably absent.  What was in its place looked like somepony had tried to make a cement wall only to have a hole melted through it later.  Judging from the size he wouldn't have much trouble ducking through it even with his bad leg.  Ducking through it to what though...that was the key question.  Just looking in to see couldn't hurt tho-

...

Oh who was he kidding, looking into things in that place ended up hurting far too many times to ever develop a sense of security about it.  Still, looking down at the hole in the concrete barrier, he couldn't help but feel compelled to investigate out of some grim curiosity, like he was standing at the edge of a pit resisting the inexplicable tug to throw himself over.  Foolish as he knew it was, he started limping toward the next flight of stairs leading downward...well, not just the next flight, but the last flight.  Any further progress downward was blocked by another barricade of iron bars...and a pair of the gurneys he had seen in the nurse's station.  There were more trails in the dust behind them, going through the bars like they had somehow been pushed through them.  Lance still found them just as unnerving as before, even more so now that there were two of them.

"So...what, you left to get a friend or something?" Lance remarked in a misguided attempt at lightening the tension gripping at his gut.  If anything it just made it worse.

His watch was still quiet though so he decided to move along instead of talk to inanimate objects anymore.  Rather than just duck through the hole away from the gurneys as he wanted to, he managed to maintain enough good judgement and wait next to it for a few moments and give the watch time to warn him of anything on the other side.  He took the continued silence as either a good sign or an indicator that there was nothing on the other side of the melted hole in the wall, just as his earlier elevator ride had suggested.  When he ducked down with a quiet groan of pain to shine his surgical light inside however, his observations suggested otherwise.  Either the floor to which he had just descended had only then appeared, or the trip one floor down in the stairwell had somehow covered the cavernous distance he had seen in the elevator.

"Well that was convenient for once," he muttered before stepping through the hole, his slightly crouched stance making the few hoof steps sting just a little bit more than usual.

Part 16

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Stay away.

Part 16

Once free of the hole Lance stood back to his full height with a grunt and shook off some dust that had scraped off onto his back.  Before looking around he made sure to take a few steps away from it lest something from outside take advantage of his carelessness and grab him.  The windows were broken on this floor as well, with even more of the dirt outside having pushed itself in due to increased pressure at the deeper depth.  He could see a wall of solid looking concrete blocking off the remaining two thirds of the hall.  To his right rear, the door to the elevator was not only boarded up, but blocked by another large pile of dirt for good measure.  He probably wasn't going that way.

That made his path forward fairly clear at least; the only way available was through the door to his left.  As he moved forward he stuck close to the wall opposite the windows to spare his leg the misery of having to deal with his hooves sinking into the piles of soft earth.  The door was unlocked, but just as he was about to push it open something occurred to him, prompting him to look back over to the concrete wall.  He was supposedly on the middle floor now...the same place he'd last seen Posey from the other elevator.  She had to be somewhere on the other side of that wall!

Lance's first impulse was to call out for her but his good sense stomped the idea flat as he was drawing in breath.  The only thing that was likely to accomplish was attracting unwanted attention, and he wouldn't be much good to her as a corpse.  He briefly pondered knocking but pushed that idea aside for much the same reason.  Besides, he had no idea how thick the wall was, and even if it did prove thin enough to not block the sound entirely she would have no idea it was him anyway.  He still felt a small tug of hesitation as he stepped back to the door, but his resolved was bolstered at the thought of Posey being forced to live out her last alone in the dark with no idea what had become of him.  He had to get her out and soon.  As to how they would both escape this literal pit of a hospital afterward he hadn't a single clue but clearly it was healthier to focus on the smaller, more immediate problem in front of him for now.

Finally passing through the door Lance was confronted with yet another corridor that featured four boarded over doors to his right and a single normal looking door on the left toward the far end where it took a left turn.  With the doors to the locker rooms and rest rooms so visibly barricaded it was simple matter to stop and check the door to the day room as he limped by, though he found the lock broken-how did he already know where all these doors lead?!

Lance put a hoof to his forehead in an attempt to massage away the newest wave of ache.  It was no use.  He may as well just admit it.

"This is Manehatten General..." he muttered to nopony.  More specifically it was one of the middle floors, half occupied by rooms for long term patients with the other half reserved for general care facilities and amenities for the hospital staff.  He'd gotten the last bit of his medical training and seen his first ever patients in this place.  But before any of that...

...

That didn't matter right now.  So what if it was Manehatten General?  Buildings from other cities appearing where they had no business being was not something new to him anymore.  There was still a mare that needed freeing and that was what mattered.

His new found focus didn't survive unscathed for long.  Around the corner there was a trio of the strange flesh clothed gurneys awaiting him, politely arranged along the left wall to give him space to pass, with trails in the dirt and dust below suggesting they had been pushed through the rather solid looking wall on the right and across the corridor.  Lance predictably found his hooves briefly uncooperative, stopping in place just long enough to confirm that nothing was moving and his watch was still blissfully quiet.  They persisted in doing nothing as he forced himself past them, yet at the same time seemed to dare him to speak up again.  He dearly hoped that keeping his mouth shut this time would prevent four from greeting him when next they met.

Past the gurneys the corridor took a right turn into a pair of double doors that would allow Lance into the half of the floor devoted to patient rooms.  With one last look over to the gurneys to make sure they hadn't mysteriously vanished, he closed the door behind him.  If the tracks he had seen so far were any indication it wouldn't actually function as any sort of viable barrier against them, but there was at least a little sense of ease to be had in letting the door block them from view.

If his memory was accurate the floor's hallway traveled around in a rectangular shape from that point.  The longer segment going off to his right lead to another door on the far side that would lead to the examination rooms, the visiting rooms, the doctor offices, and most importantly of all a door that would let him into the elevator hall on the other side of the cement wall.  However he thought it was wiser to go down the shorter segment in front of him and at least check around the corner first.  It wouldn't do to let himself be ambushed just because he had momentarily forgotten to be thorough.

Lance's decision was soon vindicated, his watch starting to buzz before he had even reached the corner.  It was a subdued noise, indicating a distant threat, so he felt safe in poking his head around the bend to take a look.  All the doors were either boarded up, cemented over, or curiously absent altogether save for one in front of which a barbed nurse stood.  As soon as she caught sight of the beam of his surgical light she turned and started for him, her oddly calm breath quickly picking up to the expected tempo.

He quickly switched his light off and retreated back into the safety of the pitch black darkness to wait for his next move.  If the expected patrol route went in his direction first, he would have to make a slow retreat backward to the door through which he had entered and then try to follow her at a safe distance.  Hopefully she would start moving away and let him skip to the following part instead.  All of this planning was rendered moot as the noises he heard in the dark made it sound like she had done the last thing he expected.  There were a few more hoof steps in his direction before she turned and, rather than starting a patrol down the hallway, merely moved back to her initial position and stopped, her breathing calming down again.

Wondering if perhaps he had misheard, he crept back to the bend and turned on his surgical light.  The nurse was still there, in the exact same spot, spotting him all over again.  They spent a brief moment repeating the same dance of pursuit and avoidance only for the same thing to happen as the first time.

So, this nurse wasn't patrolling the hallway like her counterpart upstairs.  This one was guarding that door specifically.  There must have been something worth keeping an eye on inside, which told Lance he would most likely be required to go inside and get it somehow.  That was a big problem though as he could only think of two immediate solutions that were both bad.  If he tried to lead her away he had no doubt she would easily be able to catch up to him, and while the encounter upstairs had shown it was possible for him to best the nurses in a fight, that was needlessly risky and ultimately futile as he would have precious little time before she regenerated.

He sighed quietly, turned, and flicked his light back on.  There was little sense in choosing either option before he had even properly checked the rest of the floor.  For all he knew there might be a more viable alternative practically in hoofs reach and thanks to this particular nurse's lack of movement he could take his time looking.  Lance returned to the first corner and aimed his light down the longer length of hallway he'd initially passed on.  The first four doors were obviously impassable, with one actually having been cemented over as though the ever-present board barriers would not have been discouraging enough.

The fifth door he checked, specifically the third door on his right, was free of obstructions and moments later proved to even have a working doorknob of all things.  With a last cautious look around to reaffirm that he was safely alone he gingerly pushed it open.  Immediately a wave of warm, dank, sickeningly musty air struck him head on, forcing him back a few steps as he struggled to keep his coughing fit from becoming too loud.  After getting a lid on his coughing he looked back up to the partially open door trying to remember what the hay was in there as he waited for the nauseating air to thin out a bit.  Where had he smelled that stench befo-

...

"Please don't be the shower please don't be the shower," he quietly begged in spite of already having remembered as much as he nudged the door open the rest of the way.

It was the shower room...or at least it had been.  Judging by the shape it was in now it had not only suffered from neglect but somepony had quite enthusiastically taken a sledgehammer to the place.  There were broken wall tiles littering the almost just as broken floor, the shower heads and valves had all been messily torn out and were nowhere to be seen, and while the metal dividers had been similarly removed there was still one left lying covered with rust and peeling paint on the floor near the far right corner of the room.  The damage to the walls was extensive enough to expose a great deal of the rusted piping behind them, but the wall to his left had clearly gotten the worst of it.  Moving from the edge of the wall to the center, the chips and cracks turned into ever larger missing chunks and broken pipes until finally ending in an opening just big enough for a full grown pony to squeeze through.

But Lance wasn't paying much attention to any of that, content to find the mold covering everything from floor to ceiling far more disconcerting.  He wasn't even sure he could call it mold anymore.  It was definitely a fungus of some type, with many root like tendrils of various sizes ranging in color from deep red to a deathly black.  But how could it have grown so much?  It obviously had plenty of water, but the room around it was made of concrete and tile without so much as a splinter of wood from which to draw nutrients.  He had little doubt that he could live with the mystery from his spot safely outside, but there was sure to be something else of importance inside that hideous room.  With a last look downward to make sure the cuts on his forelegs were well covered, he forced himself through the door.

As he took a hesitant step inward and looked around a bit longer he was able to decipher a pattern to the distressingly rampant growth.  The large tendrils branched out repeatedly into smaller tendrils, losing their red color until becoming completely black at their thinnest.  He also found that they all seemed to be spreading from beneath the divider panel lying on the floor.  A closer look revealed that it wasn't lying on floor so much as it was bolted in place over a hole big enough to just barely peek out along the outside edges.  The thickest red colored roots were emerging from within, where the food source of the fungus must have resided.  Lance was momentarily curious as to what was inside and drew closer, but when the unmistakeable scent of decay began to overpower the moldy stench, and the quiet sound of many small creatures crawling through something that could only be described as 'juicy' reached his ears, he quickly decided he wasn't that curious.

There was only one other point of interest in the room.  On the left side of the far wall one of the pipes had been broken and then bent up and outward with an odd addition.  An oval had been cut out of the side of the pipe and a curved section of glass, apparently shaped perfectly for the pipe, was held over it with a pair of iron manacles.  Inside there was an off white colored round object about the size of a tennis ball resting against a small metal rod that kept it from rolling back into the pipe.  To the side of the glass was a phrase written on the pipe with what Lance was thankful he could immediately pick out as only being red paint...fresh red paint that was suspiciously untouched by the ravages of time that had worn down the rest of the room, but still only red paint.

YOU WANT ME

...

So apparently he wanted what was in the pipe.

How was he supposed to retrieve it though?  The pipe was far too small to put his hoof inside so that was immediately ruled out,   There was quite a bit of rust covering it though...perhaps it was worn through enough for him to just break it free?  Even though that option struck him as uncharacteristically simplistic of this place it seemed worth a shot at least, so he stepped forward and somewhat hesitantly gave the pipe a decently strong pull.  As predicted he wasn't so lucky.  Despite the rust and wear the pipe was solid and there would be no breaking it free of the wall.

The dank air and the rampant growth in the room suggested that there was already plenty of water in the system, so if Lance was lucky it would simply be a matter of finding a valve to turn.  With all the holes in the wall and the fungal roots all over everything there certainly was no lack of places to hide one.  Opting to start simple, he began moving left along the wall keeping his eyes on roughly the same level as the pipe in order to trace it backward.  He only made it a few steps before he happened upon a particularly thick patch of fungal growth with telltale cracks in the concrete coming out from behind it.  He reached up and gave the gnarled mass a gentle tug, finding that it broke free of the wall rather easily.

It had been concealing yet another hole in the wall, inside of which was unmistakably another section of the same pipe.  This one featured a valve that nopony would have ever been able to get to or make use of had the hole in the concrete not been there, as though making a valve that nopony could ever use had been the plan from the very beginning of construction.  He reached in and gave the handle a twist, feeling brief surprise at how smoothly it turned when by all logic it should have been consumed by rust much like every other metal object in the room.  There was no resultant sound of water running in the pipe, and a look to his right confirmed the inactivity.  He gave a disappointed grumble and closed the valve again.  There must have been an issue with the pump system elsewhere.

Rather than dwell on the matter any further he turned his attention to the large hole in the left wall.  It looked sizable enough for him to squeeze through, saddlebags and all, and as he shined his light through it he also saw that the room beyond was orders of magnitude cleaner than the shower room.  The tile was still chipped, the walls were still cracked, and there was still the expected bits of mildew on the walls, but for whatever reason there was no jungle of mold and fungus waiting for him on the other side.  It was easily the least horrible wash room he'd come across so far.  He stepped forward, taking a moment to make sure his saddlebags actually fit before entering the second room.

When he drew his first breath it became apparent that the cleanliness of this second room had come at a price.  Though it was no more powerful an odor than had been in the shower room, the different nature of said odor triggered an altogether more unpleasant mental response.  It was biological rot, the sort of smell that would emanate from a hideously infected, necrotic wound...or a corpse.  Lance tried his best to suppress another coughing fit and covered his nose with a hoof.  He then flinched and wiped his hoof off before repeating the motion, having recalled what that same hoof had just been walking through moments prior.  He looked around for the source of the smell and didn't take long to find it.

Against the wall opposite the barricaded door was a steel bathtub bearing its fair share of rust around the edges.  It was typical hospital fare, constructed of something that wouldn't stain because nopony would want to be washed in a tub made of porcelain that had been tinted an odd red color on the inside from years of medical service.  The tubs current contents were a testament to the necessity of such a design.  Water was at least present in the mixture but that hardly mattered.  It was some horrid maroon colored essence of putrescence that skirted the line between a mere broth and outright soup.  Something...or somepony had been rotting in that tub for quite a while before being removed.

But the worst part about that tub was the glint of light he saw shining from the depths as his surgical light passed over it.

Lance was a doctor.  To say he had seen and done unpleasant things in the course of that career would be a gross understatement.  He had always been well served by his sense of professionalism and duty to his patients though. He'd always maintained a mental barrier that ensured he would go to any lengths necessary to save or even just improve one of their lives.  This was slightly different.  There were no patients to be strong for, so his mind took little issue with immediately discarding the possibility of something of use being in that tub as far too disgusting to be true.  His eyes were probably just playing tricks with him.  All he needed to do was look just a tiny bit closer, see there was no glint and there never had been, then he could just move along and put such silly thoughts behind him.

The same glint shined back at him.  It was in the exact same spot.

"Oh there is no way in Tartarus I am reaching in there," he said to himself as he turned to leave.  He figured he would just return later with something of sufficient length to drag the object out of the 'water'.  His pipe was probably adequate for the job but he would much rather look for something else he could discard, never touch again, and generally forget the existence of altogether after use.  But that plan didn't pan out for him in the least.  He was prevented from even just leaving the room in the first place, stopped cold by the sight of four of the strange gurneys sitting in the previous room, arranged in a two by two square seemingly just so he could see all of them through the hole.  Then his watch started buzzing again.

Lance looked down at the malfunctioning time piece resting against his chest and then back up again.  The gurneys were motionless and had never been able to trigger his watch in the first place..well, never set it off while he could see them at least.  He turned back and looked about the room in a mild panic, even going so far as to inspect the ceiling, but there was nothing moving in that room except for him even as the buzzing grew louder and louder.  Then the door was savagely broken open in a hail of splinters.

He tried with all of his feebleness to bolt through the hole between the two rooms but that wasn't going to work either.  There was a single mighty wing flap and a hot hiss of steam behind him just before he felt a painful tug on his tail that pulled him right off his hooves.  He didn't even try to crawl away after that, his bid to escape from most definite danger to mere implied danger was useless.  Her jaw grabbed his good leg before she lifted him clear off the ground, leaving him hanging upside down trying to get his bearings back as she carried him away from the door with his head a mere inch or two from the floor.  Following a few seconds of dangling he was carelessly dropped preceding that familiar tendril wrapping around his neck and lifting him up again.  At about the moment he felt her metal clad hoof press against the back of his head, he finally looked down and realized the position he was in.

"NO-"

Splash.

The wave of absolute revulsion that shot through his body as his head was dunked into the broth of decay in the tub was unlike any he'd ever felt before.  She certainly seemed to enjoy it though.  He could feel her shiver with glee, her body pressed against his back as she held his head down against the bottom of the tub.  The unprecedented disgust passed quickly though, replaced by the more primal concern regarding his quickly dwindling oxygen.  Realizing she hadn't pinned his legs in any way he started struggling, trying to do anything at all to wrench free but his efforts against her now were just as much in vain as they had always been.

Lance stopped trying to force his way out, knowing it would only drown him faster.  Was she really going to just end him right now after passing up so many previous opportunities and letting him get so far?  Why?  Was she just bored with him now and discarding him like every other moving thing she'd encountered?  Or was this just another tease at killing him?  For all he knew she would yank his head out just before he was about to drown and then do some other horrible thing to him next.  He couldn't just sit there and see what she did though, this wasn't a situation where he could pass out and hope for the best.  The only thing to do was assume he was either getting out of there on his own or leaving his water logged corpse in that wash room.

His lungs began to burn with need and he started getting light headed, signaling that he needed to think of something in that very instant while he was still able to think at all.  The best he could do was realize that getting his head out of the water was impossible, so he needed to find some way to get the water out from around his head instead.  Using up a bit of his precious oxygen he struck the side of the tub with his hoof hoping that the general neglect had left it brittle enough for him to punch a hole through it.  All he accomplished was accelerating his own demise and rattling his starving brain with the loud bang that echoed through the water.  Growing more desperate by the second he reached his hooves out beneath the water, looking for something, anything he could use to save his own wretched life.

Lance's left hoof brushed against something and he heard a soft metallic clinking noise.  What was that?  Then it hit him, the glint in the 'water' from before had been the chain attached to the drain.  He strained to reach it again, and when he had it back in hoof he gave it a single hard yank that dislodged it while his body began defying his brain and trying to draw breath.  His whole body twitched as his lungs were foiled in their attempt to kill him by his stubbornly closed mouth, the alicorn pinning him to the tub giving another coo of delight at such an urgent sign of distress.  Even as he felt the current of the water moving toward the drain he was becoming more certain that he had been too little too late.  Every moment was quickly becoming nothing more than a struggle to keep from sucking in the horrid mixture, panic further eroding his will with every passing second.

Just a bit longer...

Just a bit longer...

Just a bit longer...

Just a bit longer...

Just a bit longer!

Just a bit longer!

JUST A BIT LONGER!

Lance opened his mouth.  The very immediate threat to his continued existence at least had the benefit of making him completely indifferent to the taste of the cold, foul liquid as it was sucked down his gullet.  At the moment the broth of decay made contact with his airways he reflexively swallowed, his throat spasming in a last ditch effort to seal off his lungs.  The attempts at coughing that followed only served to produce a sickly gagging noise and entice his tormentor further.  Now the only thing left to do was wait to pass out completely.

She had been an odd one, the alicorn.  Lance had never gotten the impression that she was picky in how she killed her victims.  Obviously he was wrong, if only in his particular case.  It didn't seem of much use to ponder the reason anymore though.  If anything he was just thankful she'd held off long enough for him to see Posey again.  He really hoped she'd be alright...it seemed likely at least.  None of the monsters bothered her and she was a clever mare.  Yeah, she'd be fine without him, perhaps even better for it.  Fluttershy would be alright too...not that he cared or anything.  Soft Cure...well...Soft Cu-

The next useless gag unexpectedly proved not so useless.  Lance couldn't tell exactly how low the 'water' in the tub was, but it was low enough to let him actually force the liquid out of his throat.  No longer content with just waiting to fade away, he caught a second wind and began racing to cough up as much of the putrid fluid as he could.  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, his throat relaxed its grip on his airways and he took the single most precious breath of his life.  He was still coughing and sputtering but for the love of Luna he was breathing again, his lungs racing to make up for lost time, his body sagging with fatigue, and his eyes unable to quite focus on anything as he recovered.

Her backing off and wrapping her tendril around his mid section barely registered with him.  The yank into the air followed by the painful drop into the tub, however, registered quite capably.  The sovereign once more had his undivided attention, the amber surgeon unable to do anything but look up in dread anticipation from his spot lying on his side still trying to catch his breath.  She was silent for a long moment and then gave a brief distorted hum before turning and walking away, apparently satisfied with her work for the time being.  Lance took no issue with her departure as he continued lying there letting his mind piece itself back together.

Unfortunately the first thing that sprang to his reassembling mind was the fact that he'd just taken a generous gulp of the tub's contents.

He started retching the instant the thought came to him, barely managing to get his head over the side of the tub before the contents of his stomach came up.  By the time he had stopped throwing up he was surprised that one of his rear hooves wasn't lying in the nauseating maroon colored puddle on the washroom floor.  After taking a moment to rein in the resulting headache he unsteadily got back to his hooves and stepped out of the tub.  Strangely enough, he didn't feel paralyzed with disgust like he had upon realizing the truth of the barbed nurse's blood bursting out of his chest wound, even though this easily rated going completely catatonic.  His still healing fore leg cuts had been submerged in the rotten soup, his head with all its gashes had been held under, he'd even swallowed the blasted stuff, at best he was probably now playing host to a small army of necrotic flesh eating bacteria.  But he couldn't bring himself to feel much of anything about it.  It was like this newest incident was such a heinous violation that it was impossible to react to it sufficiently, so he wasn't even going to try.

Well, as far as strange ways to react went, he had to admit that this one wasn't too bad.  It would be best to take advantage of it and move on lest his latest brush with death truly catch up with him.  The sovereign had even made him a convenient exit that would save him the trouble of squeezing through the hole in the wall again.  Lance tried to limp out into the hallway but got distracted before completing the first step.  His fore hoof had brushed against something on the floor that let off a metallic jingle.  Looking down he saw that it was the chain from before, still attached to the rubber stopper he'd pulled from the drain to save his own life.  But the chain wasn't the only thing attached to it.  Hanging from the plug by a length of brittle looking string was another key labeled 'OR2'.

Rather than ponder how much easier things might have been had he just plucked the key from the tub instead of hesitating, Lance silently stashed away his newest find and tried to exit again, wanting absolutely nothing to do with that room anymore.  Ever.  This time he at least got one hoof and his head through the broken door frame before yet another interruption.  Checking to his right, he saw nothing amiss, but when looking to his left he saw another door 303 that he was certain had been cemented over before he'd entered the shower room.

Part 17

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Stay away.

Part 17

"...what?" Lance said, completely dumbfounded.

"Yes," the Princess replied with a nod.  "You are the first pegasus to ever stand here, much less deliver the valediction.  This is really the first you're hearing of this?"

"I...suppose so..." He let his gaze drift away with a puzzled expression, quite understanding Celestia's skepticism as he looked out over the crowd again.   How could he possibly have missed this ever so slight detail until now?  Sensing that he was beginning to feel a bit foalish, she spoke up again before he could give the topic of his own ignorance any further thought.

"Actually I am not surprised.  With all the effort you doubtlessly had to put forth to get here, it is probably for the best that you were focused on more immediately important things instead of allowing surrounding events to distract you," she conjectured assuringly.

Lance's eyes snapped back up, realizing he was being addressed again.  But his pause continued a bit longer as he spotted a certain mare lingering at the back of the audience, trying to see over the crowd but lacking her usual mobility and confidence that would have her pushing her way to the front.  The look of bewilderment left is face, replaced by a soft smile of his own as the pieces in his head that the surprise of this newest development had knocked loose quickly began moving back into place.  He looked back to the princess at last and nodded in agreement.

"Yes your Highness, much, much more important things."

"I thought so," she replied, giving a nod in return before curiosity compelled her to glance over in the direction he had been looking, seeking what sight had so visibly altered his mood.  "Oh, is that your wife over there in the back?"

Lance blinked, once more dazed and confused at how she had so quickly deduced their relationship, "Um...yeah...how did you know?"

"Well...I've, just seen that look in her eyes before."

"What look-buh!" Lance started before looking back towards his wife and seeing that she seemed to be trying to make Celestia spontaneously combust via sheer force of will, a fiery glare pointedly fixed upon the royal mare daring to speak to her husband without the express written permission of his wife.  The barely restrained rage quickly died down when she realized that both her husband and the princess had spotted her and snapped out of it.  Posey's face broke out in a heated blush of embarrassment before she hid her face behind a hoof, mortified at having been caught staring death at royalty...by royalty no less.

"Yes that look."

"I uh, I assure you your majesty she is the most wonderful mare I've ever met it's just...well, we're a couple weeks shy of starting a family and she's been a bit...I guess tense is a good word for it," he explained hastily as visions of his dear wife being locked in a dungeon flooded his suddenly paranoid mind.

"I understand completely Mr. Strongshy, no need to-..." she began, quite used to having to ease the panic of ponies who had been unfortunate enough to commit even some of the slightest breaches of etiquette in her presence, after which they would typically react as though they were going to be drawn and quartered for it.  But rather than finish her sentence she paused, something clearly connecting in her head before she abandoned her first statement and rerouted into a simple question:  "You're expecting you say?"

"Er, yes, yes we are," Lance replied without elaborating further.  The dissipating sense of panic had made it somewhat difficult to catch up with the sudden mid sentence shifting of topics.

Rather than reply she looked back out toward Posey again, watching the heavily pregnant mare nervously trying to look everywhere but back toward her.  Celestia let out a thoughtful hum as the smile returned to her face in a different form.  Hers was the subtle grin of a pony who had just found something they'd been looking for.

"...Is something the matter...your majesty?" he asked hesitantly.

"No, nothing's the matter at all.  In fact I daresay it's even better than before.  I'm quite glad I delayed my departure to speak with you, this talk of ours has proven quite pleasantly enlightening," she said with a cheerful nod of her head.

"Oh?  Why's that-I mean, if you don't mind my asking?"  He mentally cursed himself.  It would not do now of all times to let his curiosity make him speak out of turn.

"Of course I don't, but allow me to ask a few questions of you first?"

Lance silently nodded.

"How do you think earth ponies would react to an earth pony who finds that, say, astronomy is their special talent?"

"I don't really see them finding it that odd honestly," he replied after taking a moment to sort through his thoughts on the matter.

Celestia nodded, having expected such an answer.  "And a unicorn that finds they have a knack for botany, what would other unicorns say of that?"

"Um...I don't think they would see it as unusual either."

"But what about a pegasus who, for instance, sees a forest path and chooses to walk along it instead of fly over it, how is that pegasus treated by their peers?"

Lance was about to repeat his answer a third time but wound up holding his tongue, finding that it did not ring true in his head this time.  He fell into another pause during which the expression on his face became a bit less bright and his ears drooped.  His memories held the right answer and it wasn't difficult at all to find it.  "He gets left behind, called lazy and worthless, nopony invites him to anything, his name becomes the class term for 'loser', and the only mare in all of Cloudsdale that ever deigned to speak with him only did so on a bet."

...

"You know the problem I speak of then," Celestia said, opting to move on instead of apologize for digging up memories she hadn't meant to, which would only allow him to dwell on the topic even further.  "I have never liked this double standard that allows earth ponies and unicorns to grow into the ponies they were meant to be while young pegasi are either driven from their homes by culturally encouraged contempt for supposed 'weakness', or simply molded into somepony they do not wish to be, all for the mere acceptance that should have been theirs by birthright.  Worse still, this assumption of what is 'normal' has become so pervasive amongst pegasi that the unicorns and earth ponies have been slowly adopting it themselves more and more with each passing decade."

The memories of a certain comment from a certain unicorn about how ashamed he would be to lose to a pegasus surfaced, and Lance found himself glancing back at his best friend for a moment.  Mannie didn't catch it, but that was only because his own eyes were diverted, the look of guilt on his face making it clear he was remembering his own words with just as much clarity.

"Unfortunately this is not something that can be done away with by decree, and though I've long been indirectly applying pressure for such change, pushing too hard can have the effect of making ponies push back and make things even worse, seemingly out of sheer principle.  In the end this is something only the pegasi themselves can fix.  You can then imagine how thrilled I was to hear of your accomplishments Mr. Strongshy, though I admit I had some reservations.  Many who come here seek knowledge only in pursuit of their own fortune and prestige.  Yet the way you have remained ignorant to the significance of your own accomplishments, clearly devoted to your family and your studies, speaks to me of a pony of genuine kindness, with a sincere desire to better himself for the good of others.  I could not have asked for a better pegasus to accomplish what so many others have said would be a mere 'waste of wings'." She finished speaking with her head held high, clearly proud of her subject and wishing for the detractors she had put up with over the years to be there and see what their doubt had amounted to.

Once again Lance found himself in mental disarray, only able to stammer and begin replies only for them to be cut off before they quite made their way out of his mouth.  This was different though.  No longer was he confused or nervous.  Instead of having what little grace he could usually manage shattered by shock and alarm, it had instead been warmed to melting point by the light of such high praise being heaped upon him, by royalty no less.  Finally he managed to just smile and say, "Thank you Princess Celestia."

"You are most welcome Lance Strongshy.  Now, though I would love to stay longer and meet this wife of yours, I must be going.  I hope you will enjoy the rest of this special day, and I look forward to great things from you and yours," she said in parting.  The royal alicorn and the two magna cum laude graduates exchanged a final respectful bow of the head before she made her way off stage and toward the building's exit to join her royal escort outside.

Celestia found herself stuck right in front of the door, a familiar sugar frosted scent reaching her nostrils.  A look to her side had her staring at a long table filled with paper plates holding slices of her long running friendly nemesis that were meant to be enjoyed by the graduates and their loved ones after the ceremony.  She bit her lip, looking to and fro whilst she fought a brief, futile battle against temptation before one of the cake bearing plates lit up with a golden glow and levitated into the air to follow her outside.

...

Followed by a second.

...

Followed by a third that lit up, moved two inches, lingered, then came to its good senses and stayed where it was.

"Wow..." Lance said to nopony in particular.  Without a royal presence demanding his attention he was able to begin feeling the full weight of the place in history into which he had so unwittingly stumbled.  He, along with Mannie, had also failed to notice the cake caper that had taken place near the exit, however it still made sense such events would be present in the good doctor's mind because-

"You seriously didn't know?" Mannie chimed in at his friend's continued silence, only to for their exchange to be interrupted by yet another round of applause upon the conclusion of a speech.

"Not in the least...wait, you knew?!" He turned back to the cerulean unicorn with an incredulously raised eyebrow after he had sat down again.

"If I had known you didn't, I would have told you.  I just assumed you weren't making a big deal out of it," Mannie said with a shrug of his shoulders.  "Congratulations, by the way.  Hope you're ready for this."

"For what?  The scrutiny of every major medical pony for the rest of my career?"  That would have been enough to worry about on its own but then his fellow graduate went and made it worse.

"Well that's true enough I suppose but I was talking about your speech."

"Huh?"

Oh, right.  He was supposed to speak...at a podium...in front of over one hundred other ponies.

"And now before we proceed with the passing out of diplomas," the master of ceremonies said from his spot at that very same dreaded podium.

Naturally Lance had been bracing himself for this...up until Princess Celestia had deigned to actually walk up and talk to the two of them herself.  That sort of took his mind off of his impending public speaking.

"A very gifted student that I'm sure none of us could have anticipated would like to offer some final words."

By now the mental defenses he had been so frantically constructing had all fallen back into piles of rubble from lack of attention, and the thought of hundreds of eyes being on him was free to blindside him all over again.

"Here to give the valediction..."

What was he supposed to say now that he knew?  Were they expecting him to say something special?  He hadn't written anything at all about being the first pegasus of academic note in his speech!  Lance was about to look like an oblivious fool in front of everypony!

"...Lance Strongshy."

The obligatory applause signaled that he should probably get to his hooves and walk over to the podium.  While his legs dutifully obeyed and began carrying him toward his doom Lance still wasn't quite done navigating the newest bout of anxiety.  But halfway through the seconds long trip a single thought suddenly and forcibly silenced all others.

This is stupid.

...

This...was stupid wasn't it?  All he had to do was stand at a podium and read his speech, that was it.  So what if he didn't say anything about being the first pegasus graduate?  Why should he have to say anything about it?  It should never have been something so strange as to warrant any mention at all, much less this deluge of attention.  Lance was just another aspiring doctor getting his degree and that was all there was to it.  It was the most normal thing in the world for him to do and if anypony else thought it was odd they were free to continue being wrong whilst he lived the life he had been planning on living anyway.

And so he stepped up to the podium with a degree of confidence of which he had never before thought himself capable.  He read his speech just like any other non winged valedictorian would, still feeling a bit wary of the many eyes upon him but finding comfort in the sight of his wife at the back of the audience looking positively radiant with pride now that the jealousy and fearful embarrassment had worn off.  Once the final words had been spoken and he wished his classmates good luck in the future, he relinquished his spot on the stage and returned to his seat with nothing more than the usual applause.  The graduating class lined up and received their degrees then stood together for one last round of hoof stomping applause before the usual hat toss and dispersal into the crowd to be with the ponies dear to them.

"Lance I'm so proud of you!" Posey gushed, her eyes sparkling as she gave her husband a peck on the cheek and then hugged him tightly.

"Thank you so much Posey.  I never would've made it here if it weren't for you." Lance said as he hugged her in return and enjoyed being able to just hold her close after spending the past few days as a pony shaped ball of stress.  Granted he would probably just turn into said stress ball all over again as the birth of their foal grew nearer, but it seemed to him a much more welcome worry in comparison.

"Oh horse feathers, even if you'd crashed into somepony else's garden you would've made this happen anyway, " she lightheartedly admonished as she finally let him out of her delightfully crushing grip, "It's not like I was the one staying up all night going through big stacks of text books."

"No, but you were making my life incredible just by being there, and that counts every bit as much from where I'm standing," he answered as the three of them started moving out of the crowd.

She couldn't help but giggle a little at the sappy reply, "Okay, fine, I'll admit to helping a little but that is it."

"I guess I'll take what I can get," Lance acquiesced with a grin.

"So where's your marefriend Mannie?  I was looking all over the place and didn't see her," Posey asked after they finally had some breathing room near one of the auditorium's walls.

"She had to work today, but as soon as she gets off we're going to hit the town to celebrate," Mannie answered.  Though outwardly he seemed perfectly content with it, there was still a slight edge of disappointment to his voice.

"Her boss couldn't even give her a little time off for this?" Posey persisted with a soft frown, finding it hard to imagine ever missing such an event in a loved one's life.

"She probably could've managed if she'd pressed for it hard enough, but her job still isn't quite one hundred percent secure and things have been a bit rocky over there so she didn't want to rock the boat any...plus I guess we're just not that serious yet," he explained before ending with a sigh.  "What can you do though?  These things take time."

"Oh!  Uh, when does she get off work?" Lance asked out of the blue, having set a derailed train of thought from earlier back on course.

"Ummm...assuming no surprises come up I'd say about three hours or so, why?"

"I was thinking-"

"E...excuse me, Mr. Strongshy?" an excited yet nervous voice spoke up from behind him.  Lance turned around and came face to face with a young, white coated, blonde maned, blue eyed pegasus mare who still looked to be of high school age.  She wore a black pair of glasses and was holding something beneath her wing.

"Yes?"

"I was...was wondering if you could sign my copy of the Equestrian Medical Association Official Compendium of Diseases and Conditions?" she asked as she pulled the aforementioned book from beneath her wing.  One could tell it was a very serious text because the authors had not made even the slightest attempt at alliteration.

"Uh...I would but I don't have a-"

She then held out a pen with her other hoof.

"-pen...okay then I don't see why not," he said as he took the book and pen and added his signature to the inside cover.  Signing an autograph felt really strange to him but it was only half a moment's trouble and it seemed to mean a lot to her, a fact made doubly apparent by her reaction as he gave the book back to her.

"Thank you so, so much!  I'm sorry to butt in it's just, I've always been the 'wierdo pegasus girl' at school for as long as I can remember because I wanted to get a medical degree instead of a weather job.  Everypony kept telling me nopony wants a brainy pegasus who just wastes their wings and I was starting to lose hope but then I heard about what you were doing and it really, really helped.  I wanted you to know that, and I'm so happy I got to tell you first hoof, thank you again!" she rambled excitedly, practically bowing before joyfully cantering off back into the crowd shouting with glee to her father about her success.

...

"Well...that was kind of weird," Lance confessed whilst turning around as soon as he was sure his fan was out of earshot.

"So what were you trying to say before, Lance?" Posey reminded him in an attempt to shift topics away from the second female of the night who had approached her husband before any further irrational thoughts could slither into her mind.

"Let me talk to Mannie for a minute," Lance said before he pulled his colleague aside and began talking to him in a hushed voice beneath the general murmur of the crowd, leaving Posey to stare curiously at the two as she tried in futility to pick up any snippets of the conversation.  After a couple minutes that felt far too long to her the two graduates seemingly came to an agreement before motioning for her to follow them outside, which caused her curiosity to take on an edge of worry.  It did not help matters when they took a moment looking around to confirm they were alone before Mannie started speaking to her in a very serious tone.

"Posey, I don't have the last of my medical training or my license to practice yet, but does my degree earn me a fair measure of trust with you?"

While she couldn't have claimed to know what exactly she had been expecting, she was sure it hadn't included such a question.  She remained in silence, looking downward as her eyes switched their focus between random spots on the floor while her mind toiled in uncertainty.  Her head rose and with a last glance towards her husband she answered.  "I...guess that would kind of depend.  What are we talking about here exactly?"

"Posey, I think Mannie can help us see our foal," Lance explained.

"What?!" Posey exclaimed prior to both Lance and Mannie making a subdued yet severe shushing noise.

His head reeled even more than usual.  That had been a long one.  Lance slumped back to a sitting position in the middle of the door frame attempting to soak in another round of pain in his head, eyes held tightly shut.  This wasn't the backlash he'd felt from the memories back in the apartment, it was something new.  Before it had felt like somepony else had taken a plank to his skull.  Now the ache was radiating outward from within.  The pain wasn't as severe as before but it was steady and grating instead of sharp and jostling.  There was no way he could be sure if it was just his condition deteriorating or something...else, but either way it was not a good sign.

After the pain had subsided a bit Lance looked up to see the dirty cracked cement he had remembered instead of the latest instance of the increasingly intrusive door.  It was becoming less and less like he was just stumbling upon it by coincidence and more like it was waiting in ambush for him...kind of exactly like the last note had warned him about.  He would have to be careful with where he looked from now on.  His condition was bad enough without also inviting periodic migraines on top of everything else.

That and he wasn't really interested in seeing what was coming next again.  Quite repelled by the thought in fact.

He struggled back to his hooves and got on his way again, heading to the last bit of the area that was unexplored off to his right.  The only door he could see ahead that looked accessible was opposite a left turn that he knew would lead him right back to the barbed nurse sentry.  This made his next choice of direction rather obvious, but he supposed there was no reason he couldn't spare a quick leftward glance before going through the door.

There was a surgical lamp hanging from three wires that had been wrapped around a board nailed into the ceiling just before the corridor made another left turn into the section guarded by the nurse.  It was the sort of light one would usually find mounted in the ceiling of an operating room to ensure the staff had sufficient light to work by.  The wires kept it at about the height of an average pony's head, angled so that it would shine into the next bit of hallway were it turned on.  A cable extending from the back of the light fed into a hole in the wall that looked to have been punched through by the same sledge hammer that had wrecked up the shower room.

Lance spent a moment just looking at it before the use of such a thing finally dawned on him, prompting him to limp his way over to examine it more closely.  Both nurses he'd come across so far had been particularly attentive to his light, and had lost interest in pursuit when he had been in the dark.  If he could get the light turned on it would likely lure the nurse away from the door she was guarding, allowing him to loop back and slip in with his light turned off.  As he drew closer and was finally in hoof's reach he made sure to keep his light pointed in a direction that would not get the nurse's attention, the soft buzzing in his watch serving as a reminder of her presence.

Unfortunately for his plan there didn't seem to be anything in the way of a switch on the lamp.  If there was some sort of switch inside the wall he wasn't getting at that one either since the hole was just a bit smaller than hoof size.  From the looks of it the lamp was either powered and on, or unpowered and off, no switch involved.  There was obviously no power in the wire then, something he could hardly be surprised about after spending so long with naught but his light to stave off the suffocating darkness all around him.  Just another thing on his list to fix then.  It would not be the first time he was forced to do menial labor in a hospital while his degree went unused.

Back to the door then.  It was functional and unlocked but after opening it Lance found himself stuck standing in the open doorway anyway, staring ahead.  The walls to the left and right were fine as far as abandoned, filthy hospitals went, but the far wall where this newest addition to the unbearable gauntlet of hallways took a right turn was another matter.  It was neither wood nor concrete, looking instead like another wall of worn, rusted, scratched up metal straight out of the nightmarish architecture of the apartments, covered in a familiar pattern of black veins for good measure.  For a split second Lance feared he was about to be plunged into a similarly awful place, but heard no siren in the distance, nor did his light flicker in the least, so he limped onward despite his reservations.

It quickly became apparent that this questionable section of wall wasn't part of the main building at all.  Normally the space it occupied would house that floor's doctor's offices, but judging by the jagged edges of the floor and wall around it, they had been torn out and replaced by a steel box that resembled a vault.  The formidable looking door he saw upon making his way around the corner only added to this image.  Although he obviously couldn't tell how thick it was he could venture a guess that it was plenty thick, and a complement of horizontal metal rods fitted into a frame just in front of it served to complete the none too subtle hint that one might well look elsewhere.  Lance couldn't help but also noticed the door's handle though...it was just a typical door handle with a keyhole beneath it on the right side, and actually looked fairly puny in comparison to the rest of it.

As had become his habit he reached up and tried turning the handle, resulting in an overwhelmingly predictable click.

Lance spent a moment looking at his own bandaged hoof as it lingered on the door while he came to grips with his latest lapse of pattern recognition.  He let out a low grumbling sigh, placing his hoof on his forehead.  "No, really, that was completely worth trying," he muttered sarcastically to himself.

"Lance?!"

His eyes opened wide, his ears perked, and his head shot up at the sound of the familiar voice.  Turning quickly to the opposite wall he saw the lone unbarricaded door standing cracked open the slightest bit.  Completely abandoning the caution that had kept him in a state that could arguably be called alive, he hobbled forward and pushed it open without a second of hesitation.

"Lance!"

It was Posey.  She was on the other side of a barricade straight out of a prison's visiting room.  The security in said prison must have been fairly lax though, as they were not forced to talk via an intercom, and there was even a slot in the bottom of the reinforced glass for the exchange of items.   Lance gave a moment's thought to somehow breaking through the glass but there were already a few hoof marks where he assumed his wife had already tried bucking through it, and if she couldn't do it he sure as hay wasn't going to be able to either.

"I thought this was the floor you were on!" he said as he limped up to the glass barrier, finding it difficult to miss the abrupt shift in her mood.  At first she had been quite happy to see him, but in the few moments it had taken him to cross the small visiting room her shining smile had quickly turned to a distraught frown.  "Are...are you okay Posey?"

"Am...am I okay?!" she repeated incredulously, her eyes tearing up a noticeable bit.  "Lance what happened to you?!" she half scolded, half wailed as she she continued taking in the even more damage state in which she found her husband.

"Oh...right..."  Since last Posey had seen him he'd been tossed into a heavily breathing pin cushion, had his chest cut open, had been nearly drowned by somepony who had enjoyed doing so far too much, and that same somepony had been beating the tar out of him in general throughout both incidents.  To put it lightly he imagined he was something of a sight.  "Honey I...I..." he stammered, finding it hard to choose what to tell her first, or whether he should even tell her at all, especially the part where he'd been forced to swallow-

And just like that his mental quandary was resolved.

"I'm sorry, but can we talk about this later?  I don't really know how I'm not whimpering in a corner somewhere right now, and I don't want to tempt fate by thinking about it," he said in complete honesty without further hesitation.

Posey gave a last sad sniff, and then closed her eyes before brushing off the gathered tears and giving a reluctant nod.  "Okay...probably better to focus on getting out of here anyway right now," she said to herself more than anypony.  She took a breath to let herself level off before continuing.  "Um...so did the key help?"

"Yes, a lot, it was for the second elevator control room on the roof, I'd still be stuck going between the basement and that little section of the top floor if you hadn't found that," Lance replied.

"You might not have gotten even more hurt eith-"

"Posey," he interrupted firmly.

"Sorry," she relented with a sigh.  "I got kind of antsy just waiting so I started looking under the heavier bits of furniture in here and found these."  After opening her saddlebag and rummaging about for a moment she pulled out a pair of worn, dirty single bit coins and placed them in the slot, pushing them over to his side of the barrier.

"Two bits?  What could I do with money here?" Lance asked, genuinely drawing a blank.

"I don't know, what could we have done with a bundle of four bolts when we found them?" she countered.

"Another good point."  He took the offered bits and dropped them in his own bag, trying to trap them between two notes lest they both scatter and be nigh impossible to find later.

"And there's a switch on the wall behind you."  She pointed over his shoulder towards the door.  Lance turned expecting something like a light switch, which in retrospect was truly a triumph of hope over experience, only to instead see a more cumbersome looking toggle like one might find in a power plant.  It was currently closed.  "I have no idea what it does but it has to do something, right?"

He nodded before limping over and opening the toggle, breaking whatever circuit it was maintaining.  They both looked back at the resultant sound of something on Posey's side of the barrier clattering open, apparently having lost power.  "Well that's interesting," Lance mused, looking the toggle over.

"What is?"

"There's a light I need to turn on to distract a nurse on the other side of this floor but there's no power to-"

"A nurse?" Posey interrupted with a curiously furrowed brow.

"I'll tell you that later too.  I just need that light on and there's no power to it, but this side of the floor is getting power just fine," he continued as he returned to the barrier.

"Huh...I guess this floor works on two fuses?" she suggested.

"Either that or some random wire in the wall is broken at Celestia knows what point.  I like the fuse idea better though, let's go with that."  It was a sensible choice really.  If ripping open walls and tracing wires through the whole building was what would be required of him to get out, they were pretty much stuck there so it wasn't worth contemplating.

"So did you find anything useful on your side?" Posey asked, trying to check the progress on his end without prodding into the cause of his additional injuries that he was unwilling to discuss quite yet.

"Just a pipe and four keys.  I know what the keys unlock and they're all on my side...but does the pipe sound useful to you?"  Despite the pause he didn't sound reluctant to hand it over in the least should she need it, even though it was his only means of self defense.

It only took her a moment and a thoughtful glance back in the direction the clattering sound had come from to decide.  "I don't know, but I want you to keep it anyway.  I can still fly, but I can't protect you from here, so if one of us is going to have something solid to hit those monsters with I want it to be you."

"Okay," he said somewhat feebly, clearly remembering some of the recent events he would rather not ponder.  The conspicuous look on his face prompted another curious expression on Posey's own.  "I'll tell you about that later too," he said before she could ask.

She let her eyes drift downward and nodded wordlessly in reply.  Neither of them spoke for a lengthy moment as she closed her eyes and took another deep breath, exhaling somewhat shakily before saying something Lance hadn't expected her to say.  "I'm sorry I dragged the both of us into this Lance."

...

"Wh...what?  You didn't drag us into this!" he denied adamantly.

"Yes I did.  You were trying to tell me that we would be stuck down here and I didn't listen."  She laid her head down on the small shelf in front of the barrier, still unable to look at him.

"You didn't listen because you were right.  I would have come to the same conclusion you did Posey, only without you I'd just be trapped here forever because I never would have been able to turn on the other elevator.  Don't apologize just for helping me honey, because that's what you're actually doing."

After a long pause she looked up at him again, that same sad look still in here eyes.  His words clearly hadn't done much, and neither would hers.  He was still just as much of a cut up, bruised, broken mess and she was still just as unable to do anything about it.  She lifted her head off the table and blinked away another set of tears before speaking.  "I'm going to go see what that noise was, probably more useful than sitting here losing my mind," she said, seemingly finished with useless apologies.

He gave another silent nod.

"Stay safe for me okay?" she pleaded as she backed away from the barrier and turned to depart.

"I'll try."  That was about the best he could do for her.  Following a second lengthy moment she was finally able to bring herself to let him slip from her sight again.

...

"Goddess I have to get her out of there," he said under his breath as he left the forlorn visiting room.  She had been so confident when they first stumbled upon the buried hospital, but now it was cutting Lance to the quick to see her whither and blame herself more and more every time they met up.  What was worse was that unlike the apartments where it had been clear he just needed to grab two keys, there was absolutely no goal in sight in this much larger, much more complex facility.  It was becoming like a treadmill he had been stuck on for entirely too long, and he was forced to see Posey break down a little bit more with every step.

Enough of that then.  This floor was clear and he hadn't seen a way to go down any further.  The next logical step was heading back up to the top floor to see what was in Operating Room 2, especially considering how hazardous to his health obtaining the key had been.  Surely there would be something worthwhile inside.  He hobbled his way back out into the patient room area and headed left, passing by the bathing room that had nearly been his tomb and the mold infested shower room that was now distressingly gurney free once more.  Opting not to think of where they might have gone he pressed onward back into the first hallway intending to reach the stairs and leave that place behind for the moment.  But alas...there was another interruption that he noticed.  It was the door to the day room on his right as he stood facing the exit into the stair well area.  The lock had been broken earlier but now it stood partially open.

Five sets of trails in the dust were leading into the wall around it.

Part 19

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Stay away.

Part 19

The knob finished turning, and with a soft creak the door started to swing inward.

A gasp of surprise forced it's way out of the mouth of the mare outside as the door suddenly slammed shut.  There was a moment of stunned silence before the knob attempted to turn again, this time being foiled by the grip of an amber hoof belonging to the pegasus stallion currently leaning his weight against the door.

Lance blinked.  Had he actually just slammed the door in his wife's face?  Was he really now holding it closed?  Had he thought about this in the least?!

"Lance are you...why are you holding the door closed?" she asked incredulously.

No, no he had not thought this through in the least.  What was left of his logical side saw no issue with letting her in.  The memory through the peephole was altered and falsified, and even if it were not, it had taken place a few years after Posey's death.  No pony in their right mind could ever accuse him of infidelity for that.  Yet the side that had just all but forced him to throw himself against the door like she was an encroaching monster screamed at him to stay put, to not let her see or hear anything of it, to keep it hidden from her forever no matter how ludicrous an aspiration that was.  As much as he wanted to let her in, there was a lingering, irrational terror keeping him glued to that spot.

"I...just...stay out there for a few minutes okay?" he practically begged, spurred on further as he heard a certain illusory mare in the next room let out another moan.

"Why?  Lance what's going on?  Are you hurt?!"

"No it's fine it's just-"

"If it's fine why are you holding the door closed?!" she inquired pointedly, her voice a mix of worry and confusion.

"I don't want you to see what's in here okay?!" he snapped back at her like a cornered dog.

"What?!  What could possibly be so bad that you have to keep me out here alone in the hallway after you wandered through Tartarus and back trying to get me free?!" she snapped back, her growing frustration expressing itself further as she turned the knob and tried to force her way through the door.  Lance still had her on weight though, and the scant inch she was able to open the door slammed shut again half a moment later.

"Wait...just please wait, I...I don't want to talk about it right now."  His voice lost its edge as the sentence came to an end, dulled by how understandably poorly his wife was reacting.  Lance felt her remove the weight of her body from the door and sit down in the hallway with an exasperated sigh.

"At least tell me you're not any more banged up than when I last saw you."  She too was a bit more calm now, though her voice was still tinged by tired irritation.

"Well...to be honest I got a bit of a burn on my leg but that's it, nothing serious," he replied with a brief downward look at himself.

"What?  Now you found a monster that burns you too?!" she retorted, the sound of her jumping back to her hooves quietly echoing down the hallway.

"Sort of, it doesn't breathe fire or anything but-"

Wait...monsters!

"Posey!  There's some sort of nurse out there with you!" he warned her.

"Huh?  Where?!"

"It's patrolling clockwise around the hallway!"

There was a brief pause before she spoke again.  "Lance, I've been through this entire floor and I haven't seen or heard a single trace of anything in here.  I'm perfectly safe out here.  Did you really see a nurse out here or are you just trying to change the subject?" she inquired suspiciously.

...

"I saw that nurse and those gurneys just as much as you saw that masked mare and that dog pony thing outside," he answered.  It was hard to miss the resentment in his voice from her having suggested that he would take their situation so lightly as to use it to deflect conversation.  "I saw that weird vertical hallway and the deaf colt in the elevator too, you didn't think I was trying to change the subject then, did you?" he added.

"You don't have to be so defensive Lance...I'm just worried about you...and you're kind of scaring me right now.  I know I said it was this place messing with you before, but why all of a sudden are you seeing all these things and I'm not?" Posey asked, her words more like thoughts spoken aloud than any sort of question directed at him.

There was a pause during which neither of them spoke.  It was typical amongst awkward moments in that every second felt like an hour or so, but in this case the time was helpful.  Lance felt the building tension in his chest slowly relent as the words of the heated, bitter exchange between the two of them drifted further and further away until they both remembered what they meant to one another.  They could hardly be blamed for arguing, considering their position deep underground in the buried floors of an abandoned hospital and all the stress that said position imposed upon them.  Lance slowly sat down, still holding the door closed but not quite so emphatically as before.  Then Posey finally broke the silence.

"I see it you know.  You're not only hurt physically.  Something happened besides my dying and it's hurting you even more than your wounds are."

Lance didn't respond, simply letting his head hang and his eyes close as a fresh wave of guilt washed over him.  Things were only made worse by the way the sounds made by the false mare next door steadily increased in frequency, pitch, and most distressingly volume.  He hoped against hope that she wouldn't hear it from her spot outside in the hallway, or else the hurtful thing he was doing to her would be even more pointless than it was already.

"I want to help you Sweetheart, but...well you're literally holding the door shut on me.  I can't think of a more appropriate metaphor than what you're doing right this moment," she continued.

He let out a shaky sigh, keeping his eyes closed as he raised his head again.  "Posey...I'm sorry...I can't-"

Their conversation was interrupted by the brief, distant sound of hoof steps at the corner of the hall far off to Lance's right on the other side of the wall.  His ears twitched as he heard Posey give a sharp gasp after apparently having turned her head to look.  There was another moment of silence, this one much briefer but far heavier.  Once more Posey was the first to speak, but this time only doing so in a terrified whisper.

"I think somepony is out here with me..."  They both realized that her uttering a single word, no matter the volume, had been a mistake the second the gleeful, hideous snarl and hiss of steam reached their ears.

Lance ignored the noises in the next room, the buzzing of his watch, and the icy terror that shot through his body as he struggled to his hooves as fast as he could before pulling the door open...or at least trying to.

"Lance let me in!" Posey screamed as she realized she wasn't being ignored this time.

A sensation of dread gripped at his heart like a thousand tiny knives as he repeatedly tried to open the door only to find the doorknob remaining stubbornly still.  The sensation grew ten fold as he removed his hoof only to see that the door had somehow locked itself and the small tab that could normally be turned to release the lock had been welded into place.  Metal shod hooves advanced at a leisurely trot down the hallway as the monstrous alicorn took its sweet time advancing upon the love of his life.

"Lance please!" she cried as she banged on the door.

"I'm trying!" he shouted back as he uselessly fumbled with the doorknob.  He quickly gave up and started throwing himself against the door trying to break it open.  The thought passed his mind that he would be breaking the only barrier that could possibly stand between the two of them and the sovereign, but doors had long ago proven to be a laughable barrier against her anyway.  Between the loud bangs made by his injured body slamming into the door he could still hear the doorknob rattling as Posey tried to turn it from the outside.

"You locked the door?!  Why did you lock the door?!"  She slammed her hooves into the diabolical hinged wooden panel, her desperation peaking as the approaching alicorn made a sound not entirely unlike an amused hum.

"I didn't lock the door Posey!" he adamantly denied before ramming the door again, heedless of the pain in his shoulder or the protest of his leg.

"Then who bucking did?!"

"I don't know!  It locked itself!"

"What, like how you saw that nurse that doesn't exist?!?!" she yelled angrily, throat tightening in sorrow and rage at the apparent betrayal.

He ignored her incisive observation and tried to put his shoulder through the door again.  Only after his repeated efforts did it even let off one crack.  It was possible for him to break it down but there was no way he would manage it before the sovereign got to her.

"Run!"

He didn't have to tell her twice.  Lance heard the flap of wings and a wracking sob as Posey took to the air and flew down the hall to his left.  Her pursuer gave a distorted growl of disapproval as the metallic hoof falls came to a stop to the right of the door.  Just as he felt a hint of relief that his wife had escaped, he heard her cry out in surprise before she grunted from the impact of being brought back to the floor.  As the metal clad monster let out a pleased murmur, the hairs on the back of Lance's neck stood on end as he remembered what had happened when he had tried flying away from her back in the apartments.

"No!  Let me go!" he heard her scream as she was dragged back toward the sovereign.

The door cracked a bit more as Lance put every ounce of desperation into throwing himself against it.  He didn't care if his shoulder dislocated and every muscle in his leg tore, nothing would stop him from destroying the barrier that kept him from helping his terrified wife.

"Stop!  Please!  No!" Posey begged, being drawn closer with every word, her protests only further enticing her tormentor.

His eyes stung as tears of approaching despair blurred his vision, every blow against the obstinate door proving entirely too little.  He had to keep trying.  There was nothing else he could do.  He became aware of a metal helm scraping against the door, the sovereign seeming to sense the anguish within the room and savoring it like an alluring perfume.  Lance managed to ignore it but was forced to stop in horror by what he heard next.

Posey strained with effort, flapping wildly as she tried to break out of the tendril's grip with pure wing power.  The sovereign growled in mild annoyance before slamming her back to the ground hard enough to let her husband hear her bones cracking through the door.  If Posey was saying anything he could no longer distinguish words from the terrified wails of pain that forced their way into his ears like jagged ice picks.

"No!  NO!!!" he bellowed, going completely berserk and utterly disregarding the damage he was doing to himself  as he made a final effort to break the door in time.  Her cries of pain stopped, replaced by shallow, terrified breaths and the metallic groan of the sovereign's neck braces.  The sadistic alicorn drew another lengthy breath and let it out with a delighted shudder, the same as she had with Lance.

Then there was screaming, tearing, snapping, splattering, and moaning.

The horrendous cacophony was suddenly silenced by a final loud crack of wood as the door failed to hold back the injured stallion any longer.  He stumbled until he fell against the opposite wall of the hallway and looked around frantically...but nothing was there.  There was no blood, no Posey, no sovereign, nothing but the same empty hallway without a single sign of the struggle he had heard...and the same nurse.  She was about two doors down the corridor following her usual clockwise route, and had not failed to notice the abundance of noise he had been making.

For once, Lance was actually relieved to see her, but that wouldn't make her catching up to him any less painful.  Knowing that running away would only lead to her catching up to him he quickly glanced about trying to find a hiding place.  He remembered there was a storage closet around the corner but he wouldn't reach it before she reached him.  The room he'd just broken out of was still fairly well lit and now lacked a door so it would not do for a hiding spot either.  That left the operating theater across from it, the entrance to which had been left in a splintery broken mess in the sovereign's wake after his first visit.  Even though it too was missing a door, it was much darker, and much roomier.  He switched off his light and limped inside, moving along the same wall as before to put some distance between himself and the door.

Through the deathly quiet he heard the barbed nurse's panting move down the hallway and linger in front of the door.  She moved closer, perhaps sticking her head into the operating theater to look for him, though Lance obviously couldn't tell in the pitch black.  After a few moments she abandoned the pursuit and resumed her patrol pattern, leaving him to safely catch his breath as his watch fell silent.  He also figured turning his light back on wouldn't hurt either as long as he was careful where he pointed it.  While the dark did keep him well hidden, it still didn't suit him if he had any say in the matter.

Lance clicked the light on and immediately recoiled.  A drowning mare's corpse, quite possibly the same one he'd seen before in the basement, was lying there right in front of him.  Her body bore an array of bruises making it look like she had been beaten to death.  She was at the end of a streaked trail of blood suggesting somepony had dragged her inside quite recently.  Since he had stumbled into the room in the dark there was no way he would have noticed before then, heck, he was lucky he hadn't tripped over her.   After the initial shock wore off he also noticed the black inked note nailed onto her face.

"So there I was, minding my own business, and out of nowhere this stallion up and walks right into a very private room as though the *bucking vault door** wasn't a clear enough signal that he was not welcome there.  This was even more interesting, because that meant he had gone to great lengths to get the key after all the trouble I went to in order to hide it.  How did he find it I wonder?  Why did he go inside where he wasn't welcome?*

Then it hit me.  Maybe he didn't know any better.  Maybe this poor stupid stallion was simply unable to feel empathy for the feelings of others at all.  I mean that would be strange since only *very young and very stupid foals** lack such capabilities, but it would explain a lot wouldn't it?  Like how he took a lock off of a door he knew he shouldn't touch, or invaded my private room, even after I saved him and then took the extra step of taking that door away when it started showing him things he didn't want to see, those would both be explained by a pathological lacking of empathy.*

I decided that I should give this stallion the benefit of the doubt.  Since clearly his mind wasn't making him feel sympathy pains like it should have, it was up to me to make him feel those pains in its stead.  Now maybe he knows what it feels like to have his private space invaded.  Maybe next time he has the opportunity to do something he shouldn't, he'll remember how much it hurts me YOU  THICK SKULLED INCONSIDERATE PIECE OF

I'm sorry, that wasn't necessary.  You probably get the point by now anyway.  But, just in case, I think I'll leave that room the way it is, so that both she and you have something to look back at if you ever forget the lesson in empathy you learned in there.

You're welcome by the way."

...

Lance silently got to his hooves and proceeded to direct a cold glare down at the dead, note laden drowning mare.  It was the only expression of his anger he could afford at the time.  You're welcome?  You're welcome?!  Beating him over the head with door 303 had been bad enough, now he was falsifying his memories and fooling him into thinking his wife was being torn to shreds, then expecting to be thanked for it?!  Had he been a stallion of less discipline he may have given the drowning mare's corpse a good kick to vent his anger...but he could not afford such venting.  He was being watched.

If this 'friendship' with the deaf colt cost having to endure emotional manipulation and obstruction, then he was perfectly happy being an enemy.  But just as he had pondered before while trying to size up Rainbow Dash, true enemies didn't invite scrutiny by calling attention to themselves.  Therefore, Lance was only going to keep going, and hope against hope that he would soon find the way to free his actual wife, get out of that hospital, and leave the wretched deaf colt to wallow in a pile of unbound chains and open locks.

The tactic of following behind the nurse in the dark had worked flawlessly before so he saw little reason not to use it again.  Lance waited at the door with his flashlight off, grimacing slightly at the sounds he could still hear through the opposite wall, until the nurse passed.  He silently followed her around two left turns, then stopped and let her limp away far enough to quiet his watch when he heard her make a third.  After waiting a while to be safe before turning his light back on, he once more found himself right where he had intended.

It was a short trip around the corner to his right, and then he was at the exit door pushing it open.  He stopped in fright once he had done so.  The gurneys were back.  All five of them were arranged in a neat row against the opposite wall, doing nothing.  Lance was frozen in place, unsure of what to do.  His watch had failed to alert him before the roller had emerged back in the day room, but prior to that there had been so many times when they had seemingly ignored him.  There was one thing he knew for certain though; he wasn't going to get to the elevator any other way besides this hallway.  He would just have to take a chance and hope the gurgling noise would be enough warning if they decided to attack again.

Lance crept into the hallway, watching them closely.  They did nothing.  He limped over to the elevator door and pressed the button, casting his gaze back at them as he waited for it to open.  They still did nothing, and they persisted in doing nothing even as he hit the button for the basement, causing the doors to close and block the gurneys from sight.  He took a seat, a confused and worried look on his face.  It was not as though he had wanted to be attacked again but it was difficult to figure out how to deal with something so unpredictable.  Before he had time to dwell on it he felt the elevator come to a halt and then stepped out after the door had opened.

During his trip to the intersection of the T shaped floor layout he thought to glance over to the opposite elevator.  The first drowning mare's corpse was indeed absent, leaving nothing behind but the pool of blood it had been resting in.  "Sick bastard used her twice," he muttered as he turned into the corridor with the three doors the the keyring in his bag would soon unlock.  The most obvious needed fix was to replace the missing fuse in the electrical room so he opted to start there.

There were no terrifying sights waiting for him inside, it was only a plain albeit neglected electrical room.  He had expected a generator of some sort but apparently it was elsewhere, leaving little else to the room aside from four fuse boxes along the opposite wall and a utility drawer to his right that stood open with empty shelves.  Save for the far left fuse box, each of them were held shut with steel plates that were bolted into the cement wall behind them.  Lance took a seat in front of the only accessible one, wincing as he did so.  The last health drink wasn't going to last as long thanks to his ramming his way out of Operating Room 2.  Now noting that he had even less incentive to waste time, he opened the fuse box and located the empty slot before retrieving the lock box that he had almost been melted over from his pack.  Another few moments and the fuse clicked neatly into place, his success punctuated by the lock box it had resided within promptly and quietly burning to a pile of ash next to him.

"Next room then."  While he didn't have anything in his rag tag excuse for an inventory that leaped out at him as the solution for either of the other rooms, he was sure he would figure something out.

He struggled back to his hooves and proceeded to the next door, the pump room.  True to its name, there was a pump at the far right side of the room feeding a network of pipes that traveled along the wall before curving upward into the ceiling.  It was currently inactive, though a small red light on the front panel indicated it was indeed getting power.  Hoping for a simple solution Lance simply stepped forward and pressed the conspicuously green "on" button.  The pump hummed to life and not a second later the flow of water in most of the pipes was drowned out by the sound of splashing behind him.  Lance turned toward the wall and had little trouble tracing the cascade of water back up to the source of the problem.

In the web of pipes there was section conspicuously absent, now leaking a miniature torrent of water that was flowing along the subtly tilted floor toward a drain in the corner.  As he stepped closer he started to realize that the length of the missing section and the width of the pipe itself were both stunningly familiar...

"Oh...no..." he said with another grimace as he pulled out his pipe, the only weapon with which he could currently defend himself.  "Please don't fit, please don't fit, please don't fit," he muttered as he held the pipe up.

It fit.  It fit perfectly.

Lance spent a long moment frowning at the solved problem in front of him before begrudgingly screwing the pipe into place.  The flowing of water through the pipes around him was again audible now that the splashing noise was gone.  Even though it was technically progress, he couldn't help but feel the sound was just mocking him and his new found disarmed status.

"Whatever's in the shower room pipe better be good," he grumbled as he made his way to the last door labeled 'Boiler Room'.  He unlocked the door, the keyring burning to ash in his hoof the second he had withdrawn the key from the lock.  After taking a moment to wipe the few bits of ash that persisted in sticking to his hoof, he made his way inside.

It was most definitely a room, and there was most certainly a boiler.  This room was a bit more square in shape with the large, only very slightly rusted boiler occupying the entire left half.  Despite the rust it still looked quite capable of serving its function, except that, judging by the temperature in the room, it was doing nothing of the sort.  A cautious hoof placed on the outer surface only confirmed this further; it was completely lacking in heat.  Lance backed off a few steps and looked about curiously, trying to find some way he could re-activate it even though he still wasn't sure how it was going to help him.

"Hello..." he muttered to himself as he limped over to a hinged panel near the floor on the right side of he device.  The rust apparently hadn't gotten to it that badly since he was able to pull it open quite easily.  After getting down to a lying position with a bit of difficulty, Lance shined his light inside.  He could see a small central nozzle next to a series of larger nozzles that lead to the section beneath the main boiler tank that was contained within a heat shield.  On the other side of the smaller nozzle was, much to Lance's relief, a button labeled 'Reset'.  He was no boiler expert, but this set up looked very much like the sort of home based water heater he had tangled with a few times in the past.  All he would have to do is light the small center nozzle then close the panel and turn the gas up without the risk of blowing himself into assorted, charred, amber and red colored bits.

It took him a few moments to locate the small lighter in his saddlebag.  Once he had it firmly in hoof he flicked the flame on and held it over the small nozzle while reaching in with his other hoof and clicking the reset button.  After a few button presses the flame caught and burned brightly, lighting up the inside of the machine a flickering orange.  Lance closed the panel before proceeding to let out a pained groan from the effort of getting back to his hooves.  The gas dial was not difficult to find, located just a bit above the panel he had just closed.  Strangely enough there were no numbers he could use to set the temperature, only an on setting and an off setting.  Seeing little point in waiting for the little flame inside to accidentally flicker out, he promptly turned it to the on position.

It worked, perhaps a little too well.  Instead of the expected sound of a series of gas nozzles lighting aflame, the resulting sound bore more resemblance to a small explosion beneath the boiler tank.  Lance shied away a step, fearing the machine was going to break open and unleash a gout of flame, but it held steady as the room temperature began to quickly creep upward.  The lighter in his hoof also reduced itself to ashes, leaving him to shake ash from his hoof again in the wake of his success.

"Okay...that was worth doing...I guess," he only half reasoned as he turned and made his exit, the room already becoming too hot for comfort.  His business in the basement concluded, he returned to the elevator, stepped inside, and hit the button for the top floor.  There was an unguarded door and a functioning water valve awaiting him, and it wouldn't do to waste any more time.  While he wasn't expecting bright lighting and cupcakes to be waiting for him up top, he at least hoped the gurneys had decided to move on by the time he arrived.  Lance got his wish...sort of.

Instead of five gurneys, he was treated to the sight of another, much fresher looking trail of blood on the floor.  As he followed it down the hall with his surgical light, he also saw that the pile of empty, bloodied stretchers had been tossed aside on both sides of the bars that were now broken and bent enough to make quite the large gap.  The trail lead all the way back to and up the stairs that had first allowed he and Posey to enter, and poking his head around the corner revealed that it also went down the staircase that was just adjacent to him.  With a tense gulp and another brief questioning of his sanity Lance followed it downward.

As he descended he wondered if this was the work of the grinning stalker, since making him follow trails of blood had been a major part of her behavior thus far.  But that didn't fit.  Not only was there way too much blood, but had it been her the bars above would have been cut, not bent and broken.  The whole thing was too sloppy to evoke the deaf colt's presence either...which left one possibility that Lance really, really didn't like.  This was only made worse as he saw the trail leading through the hole into the middle floor, right where he was headed.

It persisted in predicting his route as he moved further inward through the thankfully gurney-less outer corridor and into the central rectangular hall of patient rooms.  The trail lead straight ahead and down the distant right turn, giving Lance the opportunity to divert along the other, much closer right turn and check the shower room first...but he quietly declined and continued following along anyway.  If nothing else he needed to see where the nurse was and if he needed to avoid her.

Lance turned off his light again as he rounded the corner.  As anticipated, the surgical lamp was now shining brightly and quite capably holding the nurse's attention, leaving the door she had been guarding unattended as she appeared to...nuzzle the lamp.  Strange.  He wasn't about to turn his light back on and risk her seeing another, moving light source appear, so instead he limped along with one hoof feeling at the wall to his left until he felt a door that was both actually a door and not boarded up.  Lance felt around until he found the door knob and started to turn it.

Wait...

Did the blood trail lead inside?  He couldn't tell in the dark...and such a thing would be very good for him to know.  Figuring that advance warning was worth the risk he carefully pointed his light directly downward at the floor and switched it on.  Yes...yes the blood trail was definitely leading inside.  What was in there exactly...or rather, who was in there?  As much as he suddenly didn't want to open the door he knew there was nothing to be done about it.  He'd been lead to that door, and that meant he needed what was inside.  Steeling himself for the worst he opened the door and pointed his light inside.

...

"Well...this could have been worse I suppose," he said under his breath.

Unceremoniously pushed into the corner of the floor was another drowning mare, this one much different than the one the deaf colt had been using to toy with him.  Her limbs were gnarled and broken, and her body was ravaged by cuts, puncture wounds, and missing bits of skin that been messily torn off.  Her blood was left in splatters all over the room, but one spot in particular on the wall commanded the most attention.  It was a distinct hexagon drawn in her blood, centered around another ragged, folded piece of leather that was glued to the wall and held shut by very thin wire.  Above it was another bit of large lettered writing, this time showing no signs of the writer having run out of 'ink'.

YOU LOVE ME

Somepony he most certainly did not love had been busy since trying to drown him...somepony was also resourceful enough to fly back to the surface and get some replacement 'paint'.  On the bright side that somepony was nowhere to be seen or heard.

If there was anything useful in the room it would be in the improvised leather envelope.  But as soon as he had stepped into the room his watch began buzzing.  He cocked an eyebrow, looking over his shoulder and thinking that the nurse outside was too far away to trigger the watch.  If it wasn't her...then that could only mean...oh goddess was she still alive?!

Lance took another step inward and the battered and broken drowning mare gave a hard convulsion and gag.  She whimpered and whined pathetically between futile attempts to breathe, trying to get at him but unable to do anything but writhe uselessly on her broken, dysfunctional limbs.  He cringed at the sight, the inexplicable sympathy arising again as he proceeded to move around her at a safe distance then pull the piece of leather open and retrieve the note inside.  It was the same as the last two he'd found, written in jagged writing with dark red ink on torn paper.

"Stop Partway ThROUGh While They Split In You

And Give Us More To Cut

A Week Or Four Plus Two Days More

To Leave It In Your Gut"

This note was even more cryptic and disturbing than the last two...and he still had no idea what use they were supposed to be!  He found the other two in his bag and placed the new one next to them.  Even if he didn't know what to do with them he might as well keep them together so he could find them quickly if need be.

Another pained gag brought his attention back to the crippled drowning mare.  She was still in the exact same position, her useless struggling more enthusiastic for his being nearer.  The pain she was suffering was obvious, and unlike the nurses she would never heal that sort of damage.  Putting her out of her misery would have left him somewhat more at ease about the situation, but since he was lacking both his pipe and a pair of buck worthy back legs his only options to do that were all likely to get him sliced up some more.  He couldn't risk it.

"Sorry..." he said quietly as he switched his light off and exited the room with a sigh.  Lance moved right along the hall, feeling his way through the dark again until he reached the corner and moved out of the nurse's potential line of sight.  He clicked his light back on and headed for the shower room, hoping that the lingering smell from the adjacent bathing room would be overpowered by the smell of the rampant mold.  Never before would he have ever anticipated being in a situation where he was hoping to smell mold but there he was.

Thankfully he was right, he couldn't detect a whiff of the stench that had almost unmade him.  Still, he didn't want to smell the mold for long either so he hobbled his way over to the valve without delay and gave it a few good turns.  The water in the pipe began moving swiftly and within seconds he heard the hollow thump of a tennis ball sized off white sphere hitting what was left of the floor tiles and rolling toward the center of a room until it bumped into one of the fungal roots.  He picked it up and gave it a brief inspection...finding that the object looked to be composed of very old bone tissue...

...

All recent things considered, Lance found himself unable to feel anything but apathy towards the inexplicably biological construction of the sphere and merely tossed it in his bag.  Obviously there was something inside that the layer of bone was supposed to protect from the elements but he could break it open it later.

Two down, one to go.  He had to find some way of getting the other sphere inside of the ice column below without freezing to...was the room filling with steam?  Lance turned back to look at the pipe.  The water flowing out of it was steaming quite energetically, probably thanks to the boiler he'd taken the time to turn on.  It reminded him how much he longed for a good shower and a fresh set of bandages...but he wasn't about to trust any of the water from these pipes. As he moved closer the amount of heat he felt also made it quite clear that the water was more than hot enough to horribly scald anypony who dared stick their hoof in.  Then it finally struck him, the ice column below and the scalding water connecting in a very obvious way to the thermos waiting in his bag.

Lance pulled out the thermos, unscrewed the cap, and then very carefully held it at an angle beneath the pipe so that some of the water flowed inside while keeping his hoof at a safe distance.  Once it began overflowing he just as carefully replaced the cap, not feeling quite as sure of his plan as he had been a second ago.  It was only an average sized thermos, even if the water inside was burning hot, how much could he hope to accomplish with so little?  But, regardless of his doubts, it was still the only lead he had left, it was worth checking out.  He made his way back to the stairwell then down to the improvised lift, fortunately finding that his lift pass was good for another trip.

He soon found himself standing in the cafeteria at the edge of the layer of frost on the dirt, pondering his problem intensely.  How could he possibly melt so much ice with so little water?  Lance had to think of some way to do it, some very quick way that would get him in and out of the penetrating cold as fast as possible.  Was the trick that he had to take multiple trips up and down?  No, that wasn't it.  The water from one thermosful would surely freeze while he was getting another and make the problem even worse.

"Wait...I don't have to melt the ice..." he said before pushing forward into the kitchen.  It didn't take long for the cold to start getting to him, especially with the layer of moisture the steam from the shower room had left on his coat.  But it worried him little, this would not take long.  As soon as he had the ice column in sight he limped over, pulled out the thermos, then opened it before splashing its entire contents on the surface of the ice at once, trying to cover as large an area as possible.

The effect was instantaneous.  Cracks tore through the now steaming column as the sudden difference in temperature compromised the crystal clear ice, like luke-warm water being poured into a glass full of fresh ice, only on a much more extreme scale.

"...I have to break it!" he declared triumphantly as he proceeded to slam the fairly solid thermos against the side of the cracked section.  It didn't break, but the sound of the cracks creeping deeper was encouraging.  He struck again, a third time, and a fourth time before the ice finally shattered in a hail of frigid chunks that released the orb inside.  Lance managed to grab it before it could roll beneath one of the counters and proceeded to make a hasty exit before any of the blood in his limbs could freeze.

Warming himself took even longer this time, but that was fine by him.  He had two new items to look over, and hopefully their contents would prove more useful than the note the nurse upstairs had been guarding.  Both orbs were identical in every way, right down to the odd bone material that seemed to have been grown that way instead of being constructed.  They even had seams reminiscent of a skull, but of what use would such a skull have been to any sort of creature at all when it had nothing in the way of holes for veins or nerves?  Lance shook himself out of his wondering, reminding himself that time was still of the essence and his curiosity over such biological oddities could wait.  He needed what was inside of them.

Once more taking note of the seams, he got an idea that seemed harmless enough to try.  Lance took one of the orbs in each hoof, positioned them so that their seams lined up, and then smashed them together as hard as he could.  They both split open with a hollow pop...letting two leather pouches held closed with fine wire drop onto the dirt in front of him.

"Oh no..." he groaned.  He pulled each pouch open, and as he had feared they both contained crumpled up notes in dark red ink.

"Split In Two Down To Your Throat

Sever Hooves And SLIcE Through Neck

Stuff Them In And Sew You Shut"

"Cuffs On Hooves

HUnG Upside DOWn

Sawed In Half

Head Saved For Last"

He let out a long, tired sigh.  After all the time, work, and pain he had endured, all it had gotten him was a series of five cryptic, threatening notes.  There were no keys left.  He'd found no codes of any kind.  All of his leads had been exhausted, as had he.  It was only some ridiculous sense of invested effort that made him put the last two notes into his bag next to the three others before he wearily got back up and returned to the lift.

The only thing left unsolved was the lock box in the vault over which the deaf colt was so protective.  When Lance finally reached the vault door it was closed but, despite the deaf colt's zeal, the horizontal rods remained retracted, leaving the door unlocked.  Strange, one would think after how poorly his 'benefactor' had reacted to it being opened in the first place that it would be locked tight.  Oh well, he no longer had the key for it anyway, so it was better that it had remained unlocked instead of sealing him out forever.

He pushed the hefty door inward again, but rather than the muted groans from the other side of the glass he had been expecting, he heard muffled, vaguely feminine cries of pain and the unmistakable cracking of bone.  Lance limped a few steps toward the glass to see what the source of the noise was only to have his watch begin buzzing and blood run cold when a familiar ear-less, faceless colt's head rose into view behind the glass as the sounds of suffering ceased.  Though it was impossible to tell what it was exactly through the distortion behind the glass, Lance saw a black vapor dissipating from where the deaf colt's mouth would normally be.

The two stared one another down for a few moments before the deaf colt descended again.  The door then slammed shut with a loud clang behind Lance, startling him into turning around and seeing the note now attached to the inside of the door with what resembled a railroad spike.

"You know I'm flattered you want to get my attention so badly, even if it means *ENRAGING ME*, but really this is just getting pathetic.

How old are you?  How old are you, and you're acting like this?  You don't consider my feelings, you don't feel gratitude, you don't even think 'hey, maybe I'll close the door behind me', all you see is what you want.  You are like a spoiled child crying out for attention.  I'm not going to teach you anything by giving it to you though.  So you know what?  Stand there and watch all you like.

Petulant brat."

Lance turned round again, realizing that the pained lamentation and fracturing of bone had resumed.  He did not recognize the voice, nor did it even sound like that of a normal pony.  The important thing was that the deaf colt was not currently paying him any more attention, and that suited him fine...it was not as if he had any idea what to do anyway.  With a dearth of any other options, Lance limped over and settled down in front of the lock box that was still welded solidly to the floor.  The combination lock stared back at him, still at the initial position of "0,0,0,0,0,0".  He stared at it in exhaustion, and with no real thought behind the action switched it to "1,0,0,0,0,0" and hit the button.  Predictably, Lance had failed to stumble upon the most bone headed simple combination in the history of combinations, and it remained locked.  He let out another weary sigh, closing his eyes briefly.

"This isn't going to work..."  If all he could do was guess combinations, he could pretty much plan for both he and Posey to die of deprivation and infection before he got anywhere near the correct answer.  It was a bad plan and he thus abandoned it, starting to dig through his bag again looking for even the slightest of alternate leads.  Also predictably, no magic slips of paper that just happened to have the code written on them had spontaneously appeared in his bag since last he checked.  The only things from the hospital he still had were the red inked notes...

"...Fine, let's look at you," he said to himself with a grumble as though somepony had been pestering him about something incessantly for a long time.  On closer inspection he concluded that...the writer's hoof writing and grammar were both atrocious.  They were adequate in so much that he could tell what the words were and whether each letter was capitalized, but beyond that it was a mess.  Almost every word was capitalized for absolutely no discernible reason, save for certain words that were formed almost exclusively from capitalized letters, save for one or two letters in each-

...

Feeling a metaphorical hook catch, Lance took another look over each of the notes.  One line in particular seemed to confirm his suspicions:

"HUnG Upside DOWn

In each note, all the words that were fully capitalized contained the same lower case letter.  "Okay...that has to mean something..."  He pulled his red marker out and reviewed each of the notes again, writing the special lower case letter down below the text of each.

"N...O...H...P...C...wait a minute...."  Save for the P, Lance had seen each of those letters in a position of significance twice before.  Taking a moment to retrieve the bit of paper he'd written the apartment's saint sequence on, he confirmed that these were the same 'useless' letters from before.  So...what did that mean exactly?

"Five Steps Backwards..."

"...Useless pERFECTION"

There had been no P in the saints sequence, but alphabetically it was the letter directly after O.  The "Five Steps" bit also made that particular note sound like a starting point.  Did that mean the letters were an indication of how to arrange the notes?  Having little else to try, Lance took a moment rearranging the notes into the same alphabetical order as before; C, H, N, O, P.

"What next?" he asked himself.  There were many ways the notes could be interpreted but his needs of the moment helped trim a great many of them away.  Lance needed a number to unlock the box, and the notes were the only thing he had left.  If he couldn't somehow derive a number from them, they were useless to him, so numbers were the only logical thing to look for.  Assuming the P note was the starting point, Lance moved back to the O note:

"No Matter What YoU LoSE

I'll Still Hurt YoU Twice As Much."

Twice as much, meaning he had to double something.  What had he lost that could be summed up in a neat little number though?  He spent a few seconds thinking it over before the obvious answer came to him.

"Two wings..." he said while glancing back at his wing stumps.  He doubled that number then entered it as the far right number on the lock.

1 0 0 0 0 4

"Cuffs On Hooves

HUnG Upside DOWn

Sawed In Half

Head Saved For Last"

This one was a bit easier as Lance now had a number to work with.  There was only seemed to be one mathematically relevant bit too, indicating that he take his 4 and saw it in half.

1 0 0 0 2 4

"Stop Partway ThROUGh While They Split In You

And Give Us More To Cut

A Week Or Four Plus Two Days More

To Leave It In Your Gut"

The image of a saw being left to fester in his gut for so long made Lance cringe a little.  Other than that it seemed fairly clear, he split 2 into 1, and then...well, it said 'plus' so he supposed that meant adding the indicated 30 for...

"No that's not right," he muttered as he looked it over again.  'While They Split In You And Give Us More to Cut' made him think he had almost fallen for a trick.  A wound was being discussed, and the only things that could both split and create 'more to cut' in a wound were cells, which used that as a method of multiplying.  So it instead of adding 1 to 30, he proceeded to multiply 2 by 30.

1 0 6 0 2 4

"Split In Two Down To Your Throat

Sever Hooves And SLIcE Through Neck

Stuff Them In And Sew You Shut"

There was only one note after this one, he was close to the...wait, what?  He had found five notes, where had the sixth one come from?

"WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE?!"

Lance looked up to see the deaf colt paying him quite the rapt bit of attention despite his earlier words.  The sight only made him even more certain he was onto something, encouraging him to brush his frantically written note aside and resume his work.

The 'split in two' in this note left Lance little in the ways of alternate interpretations, so he divided his 60 down to 30.  After that, he noted the 5 total extremities that had been cut off, and how they had been 'stuffed in', obviously alluding to basic addition, which left him with his final number.

3 5 6 0 2 4

Ignoring the sound of the deaf colt's hoof banging against he glass in another bid to get his attention, Lance finally something resembling high hopes as he pressed the button to the side of the combination lock again.  This time he was rewarded with the particularly satisfying click of the outer latch flipping open, giving him free reign to take what was inside the lock box.  The first thing that greeted him upon opening it was another note resting atop his actual prize:

"LEAVE IT HERE.  LEAVE.  IT.  HERE.  PLEASE."

The new note proved about as effective an obstacle as the last.  After he had, perhaps a bit spitefully, crumbled the note and thrown it over his shoulder, he picked up the very old looking key beneath it.  The design was positively ancient, and looked more like it belonged in an old style castle dungeon or prison than in a hospital...

...rather similar to that door at the far end of the basement now that he thought of it...

His next destination quite obvious, Lance deposited the key in his bag, got up, and turned back toward the door, pausing as he realized the note had changed.

"You look tired...you should really take a break and rest."

"Not going to happen," Lance replied, pulling the vault door open and immediately regretting it.  His watch went from the moderate buzz of 'keep an eye out' straight to the harsh mechanical screech of 'you are probably going to die now' as the open door revealed at least seven barbed nurses standing outside that all immediately began pushing their way in.  He desperately tried to close the door again, but before he could manage to start moving the heavy metal plate in the opposite direction one of nurses lunged for him, forcing him to stumble backwards to avoid her.  The nurses spread out as they entered and by the time Lance had regained his balance they had him surrounded...but, oddly enough they were not advancing.  They weren't even looking at him.  Instead their collective eyeless gaze seemed to fall upon something directly behind him as he started to hear a ringing in his ears.

He looked back over his shoulder to see the smock clad, bandage covered visage of the deaf colt directly behind him, somehow having gone through the glass while Lance had been looking away.  He barely had time to react before his skull was rattled by the strike of his front hoof....

Lance's eyes slowly drifted open.  He found himself lying in an unfamiliar bed inside of an unfamiliar room, his muscles still pleasantly sore from certain activities that had been indulged before having fallen asleep.  His ears twitched and his eyes shot fully open as he heard a mare softly sobbing behind him, his chest gripped with dread as he felt a deep sense that he had done something horrible wrong.  Rolling over, he saw the mare in question; a white coated, blonde maned pegasus mare seated on the other side of the bed facing away from him, her front hooves protectively gripping her shoulders as she quietly wept.

He sat up in bed, finding himself at a loss regarding what to do.  While he obviously felt the need to comfort her, there was also another nagging feeling keeping him away, as though he knew it would do more harm than good, but not why.  As the seconds ticked by and turned into minutes though, his hesitation waned, replaced by the guilt of just leaving her there crying alone.  He reached a hoof out to touch her reassuringly on the shoulder.

She reacted the instant his hoof made contact, screaming at the top her lungs as if he'd just stabbed a red hot spike through her shoulder.  With a flap of her wings she fled to the corner of the room, beginning to frantically scrape at the walls in a panicked attempt to escape, not daring to look back at him as a red blemish at the spot where he had touched her began to grow and bleed.  It soon opened into a full on wound, blood pouring down her back as the flesh inside began to visibly rot.  Her screams grew more desperate and distorted as more and more of her body was consumed by the spreading decay.

Lance came back to reality mid stumble, barely managing to avoid falling over.  Half of his face was numb, the nurses still stood at attention, and the deaf colt was already drawing his hoof back for another blow, having already figured out he wasn't falling down yet.

"I knew it...it was only a nightmare you showed me!" he shouted defiantly, trying to overcome the ringing in his ears as he felt his body growing mysteriously weak.  "It wasn't my memory at all-" his continued proclamation was cut short by another strike of a front hoof...

"Here you go Mr. Strongshy, congratulations," the doctor said with a smile as he handed Lance his newborn daughter.

"Oh my gosh Lance...she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen..." Posey said, joy overcoming her fatigue as she lie panting in exhaustion on the delivery room table, tears setting her eyes to sparkling as she looked at the little pink and yellow angel in her husband's hooves.

Lance looked down fondly for a moment at his daughter...then looked toward his wife, saying nothing.

"...Lance?" she prodded, thinking he was perhaps too overcome to think of anything to say.  Then she realized the rest of the medical ponies in the room were also staring at her, smiling softly while otherwise doing nothing.  Shouldn't they have been checking over their daughter to make sure she was healthy, or at the very least drying her off and wrapping her in a blanket?

...

"What's...what's wrong...what are you all doing?" she asked nervously at their continued silence.

Lance shifted his gaze toward the door, at which point a nurse standing near it reached over and locked it while never looking away from his wife.

"Why are you locking the door?" Posey's voice was beginning to cross over from nervous into outright distressed at the strange behavior around her.  "Wh-hey!" she weakly protested as a pair of orderlies then pinned her to the bed.  "What's going on Lance?!"

He looked back at her again, smiling a moment longer before he looked back down at their daughter...and placed a hoof over her snout, covering her mouth and nose and preventing her from breathing.

"Lance...Lance what are you doing?!" she cried in alarm, starting to try and struggle against the orderlies who smiled down at her.  "Stop it!"

Lance ignored her, watching as his daughter started to ineffectually push against his hoof, her body running low on oxygen.

"Lance stop it!  Bucking stop it!  What are you doing?!"  Tears started running down her cheeks again, these ones anything but happy as she tried with all her might to push the orderlies off of her.  But the birth and the drugs had taken too much out of her, she was not going to be escaping their grip.  "You're killing her!  You're killing our baby!" she screamed in terror and desperation as the hospital staff around her continued to do nothing to stop him.

As his daughter slipped out of consciousness he finally looked back at his wife, the same placid grin on his face as he spoke.  "It's okay Honey...this way I get to keep you."

Posey was left to wail and sob in futility, struggling to the last against the serenely beaming hospital staff as she watched her baby girl finally shudder and die in Lance's hooves.

There was no stumbling or recovering this time.  Something inside Lance had been cut to the core, and it was all he could do to unceremoniously collapse to the floor in a wretched heap from the force of the blow.  A sound wanted to come out of his mouth but it caught painfully in his throat, vision once more clouded by tears.  He was crying...but why?  It...it had merely been another of his repressed dreams right?  Besides, what did he care about the fate of a monster?  Why should he voluntary shed a single tear over her after what she had taken Posey's life and ruined his?!

He tried to get up but his body was no longer cooperating.  His limbs were now so heavy that it took all of his remaining strength just to wipe the tears from his eyes.  The ringing in his ears had effectively drowned out all other sound, and the pain of his injuries was receding into a numbness that was spreading through his entire body.  He was so tired.  Within moments he couldn't even form half a thought anymore as the malaise besetting him began tugging down on his eyelids.  Before they closed entirely he managed to catch a glimpse of a note resting right in front of his face.

"No...really...I insist."

Part 20

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Stay away.

Part 20

"Posey, before I say or do anything, I need you to promise me that what happens here never leaves this room," Mannie requested of the pregnant mare with all due seriousness.

She took a step back and looked around.  They were in one of the campus labs.  The blind over the door window was shut, and the lights were off save for a single table lamp in the far corner of the room so that they would not be spotted outside.  The trip over there had been just as sneaky and secretive, and now with the unicorn graduate making her take a vow of silence on top of everything else, she felt that she was entitled to at last get some answers before proceeding any further.

"Why?" she asked pointedly.

"It's like I said before, neither of us has a medical license to practice, and as though that weren't already bad enough, the thing we may or may not be doing here hasn't been put through formal testing by the Equestrian Medical Association yet, so it's not even approved for medical use by doctors who do have a license.  If word gets out that we were even back here talking to you like this, we could be in deep trouble," he explained while maintaining the same grim expression.

"How deep?" she prodded further.

"Approximately 'never allowed to touch a scalpel ever again' deep," Mannie clarified.

Posey's eyes widened a bit and she looked back at Lance and the scalpel adorning his flank, the worry on her face quite obvious.  "I...I don't want to do this if it's as dangerous as it sounds...doubly so if it's going to get you in that much trouble."

Lance stepped forward and gave her a gentle, assuring nuzzle.  "Posey, it's not dangerous at all, this is just a red tape issue.  We're not going to get caught either, everypony else has either left already or they're still at the party."

His words didn't seem to have all that much effect.  She was left standing there looking down at the floor, silently weighing all of what she had just been told.

...

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure honey."

Posey gave a last long pause, then drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh of resignation before turning back to Mannie.  "Okay...I promise that what happens here won't leave this room."

He smiled, content to now proceed in a bit less of a heavy hoofed fashion.  "Excellent!  Now, even though I'm fairly confident we won't get caught, I'd like to avoid tempting fate by getting through this as quickly as possible.  Just stand right there and I'll get the easy part out of the way, then Lance can field any questions you have."  He pointed a hoof as he spoke, indicating an area of the lab fairly free of such trifles as tables and chairs.

Posey strolled over to the indicated spot but stopped midway as something occurred to her.  "Wait, you're not going to try using a spell of scrying are you?"

"Oh no, trust me, we know much better than to try that," he replied with a nod as she stepped into just the right position.  "Right there's good, have a seat."

She complied, her expression still worried yet now fairly curious as to what was about to happen.  Mannie took a step forward, examined the area around her as though trying to eyeball the measurements of the space, then closed his eyes before his horn lit with a soft blue light.  Within moments a magical field in the shape of a dome materialized around her and the cerulean unicorn opened his eyes again to survey his work.  Whilst he was doing that, Posey looked around her at the clear shimmering barrier, reaching out a hoof on a whim to try and touch it.  To her surprise it was not really a barrier at all and her hoof passed right through it, not even feeling the usual soft tingle one typically felt upon contact with magical energy.  "What the..."

"Yeah, that's not actually a barrier, you can walk right through it.  Seems to be stable too, so if you please, would you kindly stand as still as you can and close your eyes?" Mannie requested as he very purposefully strode to a certain spot outside the barrier.

"Why?" she asked as she fulfilled his request, sitting patiently with eyes closed despite her lingering reservations.

"You'll see, this will only take a minute or two."

"Fine."  As she sat there with her eyes closed she heard the quiet shimmering of two low level spells being cast in front of her, then two hoof steps as Mannie moved a bit to her right, still outside the dome from the sound of it.  He cast another pair of spells and moved a bit to the right again, repeating the process until he had gone round her full circle.

"Alright we're done, you can open your eyes now," Mannie said once he had finished the last pair of spells.  Posey opened her eyes.

"Gah!" she exclaimed as she flinched backward slightly.  There was a set of two perfectly round red circles in front of her, the images held inside of the field one atop the other.  Inside of each was a silhouette of her own shape, made up of all the colors of the spectrum in an arrangement she couldn't quite decipher as anything in particular.  She turned her head side to side to see that she was surrounded by similar pairs of red, silhouette laden circles, all portraying her from different angles.

"Heh, see?  No way somepony wouldn't flinch if that suddenly popped up right in front of them, hence the closed eyes," Mannie explained briefly.

"Yeah I guess...so um, do I just...step out or...?" she asked after looking about again a bit awkwardly.

"Yep, don't worry, physical matter won't interfere with the images."  Mannie's gaze did not meet hers as he spoke, the unicorn now completely occupied applying a critical eye to the many images on the dome he had just created.  Posey gave a mental shrug and stepped out of the dome, approaching her husband with a veritable swarm of questions buzzing about her head regarding what had just happened.

"What just happened?" she queried as she settled back to a sitting position again at his side.

"Want me to start from the beginning?" he asked, smiling at her like a pony being asked to tell a story they really enjoyed telling.

"Hehe, sure."  She giggled a bit, the expression on his face putting her somewhat more at ease.

"Well about six or so years ago the researchers over in Canterlot discovered that there's a very, very low level magical energy permeating pretty much every location in the known universe at all times.  Furthermore they discovered that it moves through different types of physical matter and reacts to various types of magic in a very predictable fashion.  When Mannie read about this in one of the scientific journals he has scattered all over his house-"

"I'm helping you see your foal and you're criticizing the clutter in my house, nice," Mannie remarked without bothering to look away from his work.

"-it got him thinking about how we've needed an alternative to the spell of scrying for a long time now, something we could use for medical imaging that wouldn't cause complications when used on patients with weakened, or in an unborn foal's case, undeveloped metabolisms.  We looked into things a bit deeper and found out about one of the spells they used in their research; a flat magical field that would mark where background magic passed through it over a certain speed, and even color code it to show how fast it was going."

"Wait, so you just blasted this background magic stuff right through both of us?!" After mentally piecing together what he'd just said, her expression changed ever so slightly to that of a mare whose offspring may have just been threatened, which rest assured was none too pleasant a thing for one to have aimed at them.  Lance seemed confident enough to continue without stammering an apology though.

"Yes actually, every image on the dome was made by Mannie using his own magic to nudge a bit of background magic through you and out the other side of the dome in a cone shape.  But the thing is, we didn't do anything except move something around that our foal, and every foal, have already been constantly exposed to since the very second of conception with no ill effects.  It's about as dangerous as standing in a light breeze," he replied.  Initially his explanation had no effect and his wife kept glaring at him pointedly until she appeared to conclude that she might be overreacting.

"Fine.  You never struck me as the mad scientist type who would endanger his own kids so...I'll let you off the hook for now," she relented in quite the begrudging tone.  "But I swear to Celestia, the second she comes out with three wings or a hoof coming out of her forehead or something I'm divorcing you!"

"Fair enough," Lance replied with a smile and a nuzzle, grateful to have her trust.

"So those colors inside my silhouette on the images he made, are those supposed to be my insides?  They didn't really...look like anything," she pointed out now that she was a bit more familiar with the procedure.

"Yeah we noticed the same problem.  The only way I could see the technique working was if we were somehow able to take many images from different angles and compile them together into something more coherent, so Mannie modified the spell to make that happen and, voila!" he answered, ending with an exaggerated, theatrical motion of his hoof toward the dome and the unicorn graduate currently working on it.

"Since we only want to see your foal, I'm going through each image and erasing the visual data we don't want right now that would cover it up," Mannie chimed in as he finished erasing the bulk of the last image, then moved to place himself between the young couple and the dome.  "I've got the general area isolated, let's take a look!"

The dome flashed white, the array of trimmed down images disappeared, and the two expectant parents were briefly left craning their necks trying to see what the cerulean unicorn was looking at.

"Huh...triplets."

"WHAT?!" Posey and Lance both exclaimed before they could manage to slap their hooves over their mouths and stare at Mannie in wide eyed terror.

"Heh, kidding!  No way I'll be able to see your kid yet, there's still plenty of imaging to delete.  I'm just checking to confirm I'm on the right track before I keep going," he said with a mischievous grin before another touch of his horn caused the dome to flash white and return the images to their former positions.

The two pegasi said nothing, opting to instead express their severe lack of amusement via a set of icy cold stares.

"Oh come on, that was the only time I'll get to do that without getting sued, cut me some slack."

The only thing keeping the pain throughout his body from feeling any worse was how much more his head hurt in comparison.  Things were not improved in that regard by the grating sound of squeaking wheels beneath him that seemed to bite into his temples every time he heard it.  The mechanical buzzing was no help either but at least it was a constant noise instead of a periodic sharp jab in his ears.  Lance could feel that he was moving, and as he finally forced his eyes open just the slightest bit he could see the blurry image of a ceiling moving overhead of him.  He'd caught somepony's attention though.  His ears started to buzz again, the sound quickly overwhelming all others.  His body grew numb and heavy again as he was pushed back into the blackness.

When Mannie had said 'the easy part' earlier, he probably should have said 'the quick part' instead, or so Lance mused as he gently stroked Posey's mane.  She had fallen asleep about an hour ago and now lay leaned against him, chin resting on her fore leg while she snored quietly.  He looked up at the clock to see that about two hours had passed since Mannie had begun, and despite his earlier confidence he was starting to worry that the janitorial staff might stumble upon them.  There was no way he was about to rush his colleague though.  Having a thorough grasp of the intricacy of the equine body made him appreciate how daunting a task it was to isolate one particular part using nothing but a series of images that looked like little more than tie dye patterns to the untrained eye.

As it was, his patience was rewarded.  "I think I did it," Mannie said finally, wiping a bit of sweat from his brow.  He wasn't some kind of magic wonder kind so maintaining such a complex spell for such a long time had left him feeling rather worn out.

"Really?" Lance half whispered, not wanting to wake his wife unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Yeah, take a look," Mannie said with a tired smile as he turned and stepped aside for him.

Lance's eyes widened at the sight, his lips curling into a much more energetic grin as he began nudging Posey awake.

"Mm-wha?" she mumbled as her eyes fluttered open drearily and she lifted her head.

"Posey, look." He pointed over to the magical projection that Mannie had spent the better part of two hours crafting.  She rubbed her eyes a moment before following his hoof to squint blearily at something inside of the dome.  A spark of recognition hit her, her brain drifting further out of its sleep induced fog as she stood up and moved closer while her eyes slowly widened, sparkling with wonderment.

"That's...?" Posey only began to ask as she circled around the edge of the dome, looking with barely repressed joy at the magical projection inside of it.

"It is...I had to make a few adjustments to factor in for the little bit of moving she did while I was taking the images, but that's her," Mannie replied, the combination of his own fatigue and the tears welling up in the pegasus mare's eyes convincing him to sound a bit more reverent.

The three dimensional magic projection of their daughter was colored a flat white as a result of all the colors from each flat image combining, but that hardly mattered to her.  She saw a tiny little pegasus foal waiting to be born, curled up, comfortable, and healthy, looking exactly as a pegasus foal should.  Posey had seen images of that sort hundreds of times in various books she had taken to reading since becoming pregnant, but this had one obvious advantage over the others.  This was her foal...or rather, it was their foal.

She took a seat and wiped the tears from her eyes before turning to Lance, beaming at him brighter than any sunrise he could remember.  The short laugh that followed was genuine and warm, a sound not heard by him since the combination of advanced pregnancy and worry had begun sapping the spring from her step.  "I told you it was a filly," she all too happily gloated as he retook his place next to her.

"And I told you she was perfectly fine," Lance fired back as he found her smile altogether too contagious to resist.

"No, you told me there was..." she paused mid sentence and let out a soft chuckle again.  "You know what?  It doesn't matter what you told me anymore.  This is...this is incredible," she acquiesced, turning to again marvel at the image of their little filly.

"So think you'll rest a bit easier now, even though I can't console my wife worth beans?"  He looked at her with a brief sidelong glance, now also quite content to admire Mannie's magic work.

"Yeah...our little angel's perfect."  She proceeded to practically squeeze all of the air out of his lungs with the ensuing surprise hug.  "Thank you so much Lance..."

"Erhem."

"...and Mannie," she added gratefully with a nod toward the unicorn before letting her husband breathe again.

"You're welcome.  I'm just sorry we can't transfer it to something more permanent for you yet," Mannie said with an apologetic look back at the projection he would soon have to dissipate.  "But even if we had already figured out a method to do so, it's too big a risk to leave any evidence that we did this."

"I understand," she replied reluctantly, looking again at the image of their daughter and trying to cement it in her mind's eye as thoroughly as possible.  "I'd like to keep it too... but we'll be seeing Fluttershy in full color in a few weeks anyway, so it's not so bad."

"Alright...if you're sure."  Even though the magic needed to maintain the spell had become quite a drain on him he wasn't about to let the image disappear until the mother got her fill of it.

...

"Yeah...I'm sure," Posey finally said after taking one last long moment to look at her precious little Fluttershy.  The dome and the projection within both flickered and then winked out of existence, Mannie letting out a sigh of relief now that he could finally relax.

"Whew...now let's get out of here before somepony finds us and asks for an explanation huh?"  Lance and Posey nodded in agreement with him and fell into step behind him.

"Thank you again Mannie, that was incredible.  I really hope it catches on so you two get as famous as you deserve to be," she repeated while Lance broke from the group to grab the robe he'd left on a chair near the door.

"It still needs some work.  Either we need to find a way to make it more magic efficient, or else it's going to have to become a procedure for a specialist.  I can't imagine being a general practitioner and having to go through that spell every day," he replied, a somewhat sheepish expression on his face.

When Lance picked up his robe he heard a quiet metallic jingle from one of the pockets and was reminded of something rather important that he should do before he forgot.  Rather than toss the ceremonial garment across his back as he had planned to, he set it back on the chair and stuck his hoof into the inner pocket.

"Are you coming or not?" Posey asked teasingly from her spot standing in the door Mannie was holding open for her.  Lance pulled the object he sought from the pocket before turning back toward her.

"Yeah, just giving your dad's watch back to you before I forget.  Tell him I said thanks for letting me borrow it."  He held the silver colored watch out to his wife as it began buzzing for no apparent reason.

The mechanical buzzing sound bolted him awake, the good doctor feeling more energetic than he ever had before whilst waking up in that place.  How long had he been out to have apparently rested away the deep lingering pain he'd felt before?  But, more importantly, why could he suddenly not move?!

His face was pointed toward what looked to be an oddly clean tile wall, and that was all it was going to be pointed at for the foreseeable future.  When he tried to move his head he found that it was strapped tight to whatever surface he was lying on.  As he tried to move his legs he found they were in a similar state of immobility, prompting another bout of panic to begin seeping into his veins.  He struggled to free himself to no avail, and then upon involuntarily blinking a black inked note appeared, nailed to the wall where a quarter second prior there had been nothing.

"Oh...you weren't supposed to be awake for this part...

But hey, let's look on the bright side, at least now we can see if this works instead of waiting, right?"

"See if what works-"  He was interrupted by the agonized scream that ripped its way out of his throat.  His injured right rear leg suddenly felt as though it had been pierced through to the bone by a thousand red hot needles all at once.  The sensation shot up his leg and spine, stopping at the base of his skull and causing his entire body to reflexively convulse in his restraints in an effort to get away, but to no avail.  When his lungs had been emptied of air by his outburst, he was left taking ragged breaths trying to maintain his sanity as the pain spiked and then slowly began receding until he felt nothing.  He laid there panting for air, recovering from whatever the hay had just been inflicted upon him when he barely managed to focus his eyes on the note and notice that the text had changed.

"That looks good enough.  Out you go."

Lance gave another twitch of surprise as he felt a needle sink into his neck preceding the burn of an injection.

"Oh, thank goodness I found you!"

"Hrm?"

"Yeah, I've been looking all over the place for you, we need your help!"

"You do?!"

"Yes, something's come up, something that needs your unique talents!  Only you can help us!"

"Alright then, what's the problem?"

"Well, Ms. Oakie is complaining about the sun in her eyes so we were really hoping you could go grab a cloud and put it in a nice place in front of her window."

Graduation from a prestigious university, magna cum laude, valedictorian, a royally attended graduation where the princess had personally spoke to him, he'd even helped pioneer what was sure to be a revolutionary medical imaging technique...

And for all his success he'd spent nearly a month doing what could be called 'grunt work' with little to no exaggeration.

It had been positively surreal.  The second he and Mannie had stepped into Manehatten General seeking medical training and internship they had been met with open hooves as though they'd been a couple of expected heroes.  They'd been put through the usual orientation, everything was going smoothly, they'd both gotten their hospital passes...and then Mannie had been whisked away to be instructed by some of the best doctors in the city whilst Lance had been assigned trivial tasks the likes of which the janitorial crew usually dealt with.  Of course, he'd asked about this situation, repeatedly and insistently, but every time he'd been fed some line about the hospital staff wanting to give each of them their full attention instead of diluting their training...whilst having taken in three graduates other than himself in the weeks since then anyway.  Meanwhile bills still needed to be paid, and though they were somewhat fine for the moment, Lance and Posey would need significantly more money upon Fluttershy's birth.

Lance subconsciously put a little more force into closing the apartment complex's front door than he had intended, producing a slam that lightly rattled the wall.

"Hey, wise guy, that ain't your door, handle with care, yeah?" the gruff looking stallion seated at the front desk with a magazine in hoof berated him.

"Sorry...bad day," Lance muttered in reply as he stepped past him.

"Whatever, I've heard it all pal, you're nothing special," the stallion said dismissively as he returned to his reading.

"Apparently..."  He sighed and opened the door into the first floor hallways, pushing the negative thoughts aside.  Posey wouldn't need his moodiness to deal with in her condition.  As though fate had been reading his thoughts, the first thing he saw after opening the door was the very mare in question standing in the hallway.

"Lance!" she said, her voice unsteady, as was her stance.  Her breath was fairly labored and she was wearing the white saddlebags they had packed ahead of time with supplies they would need for a surprise hospital vis-

"Oh my gosh, Posey!  Give me that!" he exclaimed, bolting over to her side and hefting the weight of the packs for her.  "Come on come on...wait, where's Bluebell?!  She was supposed to stay here to help in case this happened!"

"I sent her to get another bottle of cranberry juice almost an hour ago!" she replied as they made their way out the front door past the apathetic, magazine reading stallion.

"An hour ago?!  There's a corner store two blocks from here, what's taking her so long?!"

"Fifty-seven bits forty-eight cents...fifty-seven bits forty-nine cents...fifty-seven bits fifty-seven cents...oh wait...that's not right...um..." the elderly pony said, pausing to try and remember his place before shrugging and casually pushing the massive pile of one cent pieces back to the other side of the counter.  "One cent...two cent..."

There was a predictable chorus of groans from the massive line of ponies behind him waiting to pay the store's single cashier for their purchases, the expression of frustration reaching a crescendo as one particularly aggravated colt galloped out of the store screaming.  Among the many ponies in line was a blue earth pony mare with a light purple mane holding a bottle of juice bearing the likeness of a cranberry on the front of the label.

"Oh for pony's sake, they'll probably be celebrating the baby's first birthday by the time I get out of here," Bluebell grumbled.

"Wait, seriously?!  You couldn't wait for me to get home and then send her?!" he asked in exasperation as they emerged into the sunlight.

"I need my cranberry juice Lance!" she retorted ever so reasonably before groaning as another wave of labor pains hit her.  The two briefly ceased their bickering as they were confronted with the sight of carriages and carts blocking the road entirely, as was usual for Manehatten rush hour traffic.  Their plan to grab a taxi to get to the hospital wasn't going to pan out.

"Um...um, okay!  Wait here!" Lance said after a moment's thought and took to the sky.

"What?!  Lance what are you doing?!" she yelled up at him as he flitted about grabbing up every stray bit of cloud he could find.

"We're flying there!" he called down.

"Are you insane?!  I can't fly like this!" she pointed out with actual reason this time.  Lance dropped to the ground with the large cloud he'd assembled.

"I know, that's why I'm going to push you there on this," he said, motioning for her step aboard.

"What?!  What if I fall?"

Her husband groaned with frustration, briefly placing a hoof to his forehead before leaping back into action and reshaping the cloud a bit to include some impromptu safety rails along the edges.  "There!"

"Are you seriously suggesting a few cloud rails are going to keep me from falling if we run into anythi-"

"Posey we need to get you to the hospital as soon as we can and there's rush hour traffic and I don't know what the hay else to do right now so please just get on the cloud!" he snapped as he more firmly motioned for her to step onto the cloud.

"Okay...you're right, you're right, we need to just get there, we shouldn't be arguing," she relented as she boarded the cloud.

"Right," he agreed as he placed his hooves on the cloud and took to the air, trying to maintain a balance between speed and caution as they started their hopefully fast trip across the city.

"Good."

"Excellent."

"Alright."

"Great."

Five minutes passed.

"Did your wings shrivel up without doing weather duty all the time or something?!  Why aren't we there yet?!" Posey yelled, eyes squeezed shut as another wave of pain hit.

"Maybe we would have been there two hours ago if somepony had realized she was going to foal sometime before her water broke and said something to her friend!" Lance retorted as they flew over a gridlocked intersection right next to a construction site.

"Well excuse me for not picking out the one weird thing among the eighty-seven bazillion weird things my body's been doing for the past year!  You did this to me anyway when you didn't-" her voice was drowned out by the loud honk of a horn, "-before-" and then another honk masked the end of her sentence.

"Are you kidding me?!  I wanted to get a-" Beep beep! "-but you kept pulling me back and then looked back and told me to-" appropriately enough his voice was then overwritten by the noise of a jackhammer below.

"It's your fault for listening to me!  You should've known I was close to-" her utterance was forever rendered a mystery by an oblivious construction worker's use of an impact wrench.

"YOU didn't even know!"

"THEN...um...uh....we're here!" she said in a blatant attempt to change the subject.

"I know!" he confirmed as they flew in through the sizable door of the lobby balcony meant specifically for incoming pegasi.

"Great then!" she yelled at him in a voice rather at odds with her stated mood after they landed.

"Good!" he replied in much the same manner while helping her off of her cloud.  She was immediately set upon by a duo of nurses who didn't have to ask many questions given her appearance and the way she was verbally tearing the throat out of the nearest stallion.  As soon as it was clear that she would be properly tended to by the hospital staff, Lance turned and galloped off to get himself a set of medical scrubs.

"I love you!" she shouted after him, no less angrier for the tender words she was using as the two nurses lead her away toward the maternity ward.

"I love you too!" he replied over his shoulder before barely managing to avoid knocking over a stock colt's cart as he cantered down the hallway toward the nearest supply closet.

Lance was even more efficient than usual given the occasion, and in almost no time at all he had procured the sought after hospital wear, found out which room his wife had been taken to, and finally arrived.  To Posey however that 'no time at all' felt considerably longer, and being separated from her husband for so excruciatingly long a time allowed her unstable mood to dull just a bit.

"You made it," she said adoringly, managing a somewhat strained smile as she reached out her hoof for him...a hoof that went ungrasped as her husband proceeded to look over the machines monitoring her vitals and briefly chat up the two attendant orderlies regarding her condition.  Posey would have listened to the words being exchanged, but she was far too busy becoming irate all over again while seemingly being ignored.  "Any time now Lance!" she seethed.

"Sorry, I had to check everything.  You're doing fine Posey," he answered as he finally took her hoof in his and squeezed affectionately.

"I don't exactly feel fi-"

A green unicorn mare in surgical scrubs much like Lance's then stepped into the delivery room with a light brown unicorn stallion in similar attire at her side.

"Alright sweetie, Posey was it?  Let's see how you're..." The doctor paused, looking at Lance.  She recognized him as somepony that worked at the hospital, but he wasn't anypony who worked under her.  "Who are you?"

"He's-"

"Wait, I recognize you!  You're that pegasus the administrator told us to keep away from the patients!" she interrupted again as her brow furrowed into a glare.

"What?!" Lance and Posey both exclaimed simultaneously.

"Nurse, remove this pony from my delivery room."  With a commanding wave of her hoof the stallion at her side nodded before his horn lit with magic and Lance found himself lifting into the air surrounded by a telekinetic aura.

"No no he's-"

"Don't worry ma'am, we'll make sure he's dealt with.  He's some political stunt of Celestia's but we're not about to let that sort of thing make us pair our patients with patently unqualified ponies," the doctor explained as she levitated a clip board with Posey's medical information in front of her face.

"Hold on a second, put me down, she's-" Lance wasn't able to finish his sentence before the nurse stallion stepped out of the room and pulled him along whilst his hooves flailed uselessly in the air.  With no hope of reaching the doctor's ears he turned his attention to the pony currently levitating him away from the door.  "You have to listen to me, I'm-"

"Save it, I don't know what made you think you could barge into a delivery room like that but I'm sure the board of directors will love to hear about it," the nurse replied dismissively.

"I thought-"

"Not interested buddy," he cut him off again.

"Would you just-"

"Not.  Interested," he repeated, shooting the pegasus stallion in his magical grip a cold stare that clearly indicated things would only get worse the more he protested.

However, two could play at that game.

"Hey." Lance put as much intense force behind his words as he could, and it most definitely made the nurse pay attention.  The unicorn's face was initially that of somepony responding to a bothersome, unworthy challenger, but as he turned his head his confidence almost audibly shattered.  He was captured by the most intense stare he had ever witnessed, the pegasus putting every ounce of his frustration behind his eyes as they sought out his captor's willpower and mercilessly crushed it into a fine powder.  "Put.  Me.  Down."

There was but a moment more of silence between the two before the unicorn's magic released him and Lance's hooves fell back to the floor.  With that bit of business out of the way he was about to fully explain himself and get things sorted out now that he had a captive audience, but as fate had it, none of that was necessary.

"Nurse!" the doctor called out from the open door of the delivery room.  They both turned to see that an absolutely livid Posey had her trapped in a headlock, whilst meanwhile one of the orderlies sat slumped to the floor in the delivery room behind them, stars practically circling his head as he reeled from a blow that neither of them had seen land.  "Could you bring him back please?  Apparently he's the father."

Sweet Celestia...what had been in that needle?

Lance wasn't sure if he was awake or even alive as he raised his head off of the bed.  He tried to ascertain where he was but the room wouldn't come into focus or stop spinning.  There was a lingering sort of nausea but he couldn't tell whether he was actually the one feeling it or not.  His brain was so dysfunctional that the sensation came off as him being aware of somepony else feeling it.   At least he knew his ears worked, because for one he was able to comprehend that he didn't hear the warning buzz of his watch watch anymore, and that he did hear something messing with what sounded like a nearby doorknob.

It was a persistent, repeated rattle, coupled with a periodic groan of metal that made it sound like something was trying to chew it from outside.  But as he listened, things changed.  The buzzing sound of his watch slowly eased back into existence, joined by an odd panting noise approaching.  All sounds of metallic rattling and chewing stopped, replaced by hoof steps frantically fleeing in the opposite direction.

He knew that he should know what all of those sounds meant, but that was about as far as his thoughts could carry him.  The state of his brain...he just hated it.  It wouldn't let him do even the slightest thing save for lying there confused like a big brainless slug.  The only thing he could do for it was retreat back into his head, so he closed his eyes and covered his ears, shutting out the rest of the world and forcing himself to go back to sleep in hopes that whatever was swimming in his veins would have run its course when next he woke.

Part 21

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Stay away.

Part 21

It was official.  They had gone from expectant parents to actual parents.  The attendant doctor had encountered no trouble getting the little foal to cry so they knew she could breathe properly, and after drying her off a bit she was swaddled in a warm baby blanket and handed over to her mother.  The newborn filly had a yellow coat, the natural middle ground between her mother's cream colored coat and her father's amber fur, a very short pink mane that would no doubt grow into something wondrous if she was anything like her mother, and her father's blue eyes.  Fluttershy let out a little confused squeak, finding the sudden onslaught of new sights and sounds a bit unsettling.  She was answered by the overjoyed sob of her mother who gently held her close, doing what she could to offer her daughter some comfort on that day that had been so taxing for the both of them.

Lance looked upon the scene with the expected pride and joy, but it didn't quite connect.  He couldn't let it just yet, as there was still something to sort out.  After summoning the willpower to tear his gaze away from his daughter, he turned on the doctor with a rather cross expression.

"Thank you for your help...now could you maybe explain the whole 'political stunt' comment?" he asked as politely as he could manage.  The middle aged, emerald green unicorn mare sighed and took a seat, clearly having anticipated that this discussion would come.

"Alright, you deserve an explanation, but I have to be brief since I have other patients that need to be seen," she began.  "The administrator heard the news of your graduation, same as everyone else here and, well, she said it didn't exactly 'pass the smell test'.  Being a pegasus herself she had a strong suspicion you weren't nearly as good as you appeared to be, and that you'd been allowed via royal interference to ride on Mr. Mandeus' coat tails."

Lance's expression fizzled into a blank stare before reigniting into an outright glare.  "That's not true!  I've-"

"Let me finish," she interrupted, holding up a hoof for silence.  "After your wife cold clocked my orderly when she was trying to put me into a headlock-"

"Sorry..." Posey said sheepishly.

"-your stepping up to take his place in assisting me, especially the calm way you conducted yourself when your own wife had that blood pressure dip during the birth-"

"I'm not apologizing for that one."

"-has gone a long way in convincing me that the administrator doesn't know what the hoof she's talking about in this case.  Also, no need to apologize Mrs. Strongshy, if you're not prepared to get mauled by a laboring mare you shouldn't be working in a maternity ward," she concluded with a reassuring smile directed at the new mother.

"Then you'll put in the good word for me?  I can get my medical training?" Lance asked hopefully.

"I will do what I can to make that happen, no guarantees though.  Hopefully I can get you back alongside Mr. Mandeus inside of a week.  Now, stop worrying for a bit and go say hi to your daughter."

Visibly relieved, Lance held out a hoof towards the doctor.  "Thank you again, you have no idea how much this means to me and my family."

"You're most welcome Mr. Strongshy, make good on this opportunity.  If any of you need any assistance the nurse's station is right down the hall," she said with a smile as she shook the offered hoof then made her departure to let the new family grow more acquainted with one another.

Lance took his place next to his wife and daughter, finally feeling he could settle in and start acting like a father instead of a doctor with that bit of business out of the way.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you Lance."  She didn't dare take her eyes off of Fluttershy as she spoke.  The newborn had shifted around a bit in her blanket to snuggle against her mother, her little legs still moving a bit every once in a while as she tried to sleep off recent events.

"Why?  If anything I should be apologizing to you for yelling back.  You were in labor...I didn't really have any excuse."  Lance was similarly captivated by their daughter, having a feeling that neither of them would mind if this conversation took place with no eye contact betwixt them in the least.

"I think my being in labor was a good excuse for both of us...plus that whole stone walling business that I only now heard about."  The edge to her voice at the end of her sentence did not go unnoticed by either of the other ponies in the room, Lance wincing a bit while Fluttershy gave a distressed whimper in response to her mother's tone taking a turn for the worse.

"You didn't need me coming home and complaining with the condition you were in.  If it had still been a problem after the birth I would've brought it up then," he replied.

"Nope," she said with a shake of her head, careful not to disturb their daughter again.  "That's not how this works Lance.  You're right, I probably wasn't in the best condition to find out about this but it's not about what's convenient for either of us, especially now.  I fully intend to lean on you in times where you're probably not in the best condition to be leaned on, and I'm not going to let resentment build and drive you crazy just because you're dumb enough to think you have to be this stone pillar that can't do the same in return when you need me.  Got it?"

Lance was silent for a moment and then nodded humbly.

"Good...now hold your daughter," Posey said with a smile, holding their newborn up for him.

He moved a bit closer and then, with more caution than he had ever exercised before, he gently accepted the little bundle of Fluttershy.  Noticing the movement, she looked up at him sleepily from her spot warm and safe inside the blanket, and yawned before shifting around and closing her eyes again, snuggling closer to his chest in complete trust of her father.  It finally connected and hit him full force as he looked down at the new life in his hooves, soon reducing him to little more than a quivering smile and tear stained cheeks.  Posey beamed at him, her own eyes sparkling from his reaction, then leaned forward and kissed his cheek as he greeted their daughter.

"Hi Fluttershy...welcome to life."

Huh...that was strange...he wasn't in terrible pain upon waking up this time.  His vision was very blurry however, and he brought a hoof up to his eyes to discover that once again they were heavy with tears.  He'd been crying in his sleep.

"For buck's sake," he quietly swore at himself as he wiped the moisture from his eyes.  He had to stop this...he knew what she'd turned into, there was no use in getting worked up over what she used to be.

As he moved his hoof away from his face he couldn't help but notice the very fresh looking bandages in which it was now wrapped.  Looking down at himself he saw the rest of his bandages had been similarly replaced, and none of the wounds hidden by said dressings were giving him the least bit of grief anymore.  Even his right rear leg wasn't hurting, and he moved himself a bit to get a look at it, scarcely able to believe he couldn't feel such a grievous injury.  Unfortunately, when he moved the leg into view, he was unpleasantly surprised by the sight of a black veined metal brace over the bandaged wound, the strange pattern appearing to have spread onto the bandage itself and then down into his skin.

He lay there looking at the contraption in wide eyed horror...yet, he made no attempt to remove it.  Despite appearances it didn't seem to be doing anything bad to him, and until it did there really wasn't any reason to go messing with something that looked to be jutting inside of a crippling injury.  Lance let what tension he could out of his system with a long exhaled breath, trying to put it out of his mind.  It would be much better to find out where he was instead of worrying.

The room was clean in the same way that the apartments had initially been clean; spotless, but only managing to elicit dread for it.  From his spot laying on the bed, there was a door directly in front of him, a bedside table with a lamp to his left, and behind him was...

...

Well, at least now he knew exactly where he was.  The plaster in the wall behind him bore a familiar message carved in just above the bed regarding the status of everything in heaven being fine.  He was in Recovery Room 2 on the top floor.  Suddenly the cleanliness of the room was even more off putting now that the memories of how it looked before came back to him.  Had the deaf colt done this?  Why?  What sense did it make to do something like this after Lance had enraged him by opening the lock box in his-

THE KEY!

Lance hopped off the bed and started looking around the room urgently.  Where was the key?  Where was his watch?  Where was anything of his?  Had the deaf colt taken them all?  How was he supposed to get out now?  What could he possibly-

"Oh," he said aloud as he spotted the saddlebags sitting on the floor in the corner, bringing his panic to a screeching halt.  He leisurely cantered over and looked into the front tool holders to see that his watch and surgical light were both stashed within.  Better yet, upon opening the bags themselves he found everything where he had left it, key included.

Absolutely nothing was missing...which of course begged the question, why had the deaf colt not at least taken back the key over which he had been so protective?  Actually...why had he let Lance get the key at all?  For that matter, why had he let him open the first lock at the apartments?  He was obviously able to intervene in a big way, and yet for some reason all he could do prior to Lance actually doing what he'd been told not to do was leave threatening notes.

"Moving on then," he muttered to himself as he put his gear back on.  It was an interesting question to ponder but at the same time it wasn't of much consequence; even if he was somehow able to confirm it, it wouldn't change his plans in the least.  Once the last strap of the saddlebags was pulled tight he had every intention of walking out, but was stalled as he turned and spied another note resting on the bed.

"I think our relationship didn't start right and I'd like to be the bigger stallion and extend an olive branch even though you keep hurting me so badly.

Because I'm nice like that.

So despite your callous disregard for my feelings, I did all of this for you.  Don't you feel better now?  Isn't that room nice?  Doesn't it make it easy to just stay there for a while?  A long while?  Don't you feel grateful, like you want to repay somepony's kindness?  It's a good one I bet, that feeling you have, because I did this for you.

I hope your head's cleared up now.  I hope we're better friends now.  I hope you help rebuild the bridges you set ablaze, and that we can learn to trust each other.

P.S. The door's locked from the outside."

"What?!"  Lance dropped the note and stepped over to the door.  The handle was useless, just as he had been told it would be.  Hoping to find it had merely been stuck he tried forcing it several times but to no avail, and to make things the worse the sound attracted unwanted attention.  His watch began buzzing, prompting him to look up and see the face of a barbed nurse looking in at him through the small window in the door.  He reflexively flinched away as she banged her hooves against the door trying and get at him, but had about as much luck as he had in getting through.

"Okay...okay there has to be a key somewhere in here," he reasoned, but quickly saw that any key he found in that room would be useless.  The handle had no keyhole.  "No key then...maybe a screwdriver...or another crowbar, or...anything!?"

The next ten or so minutes were spent tearing the room to shreds looking for anything what so ever that might have helped him in the least.  But there was nothing, absolutely nothing.  When that idea didn't pan out he started trying brute force out of desperation.  Trying to buck the door down was no use, his strongest kick only managing to scuff the door's already peeling paint.  He made an attempt to break the locking mechanism too but that held fast just as well as the door.  Lance was trapped.

Feeling hopelessness start to weigh down upon him, he took a seat with his back against the wall right next to the very resilient door, gaze cast downward at his cleanly bandaged hooves.  The deaf colt had done some fine work on him, now that his regretfully plentiful spare time allowed him to really look at it.  It wasn't just the clean look of the wrappings either, he was now able to move around with ridiculous ease compared to the ordeal that every step had been previously.  All that searching, lifting, bucking, and pulling he'd just done hadn't made his battered body hurt in the slightest.  Were he to hazard a guess, he felt like he had just about all of his mobility back, sans the ability to fly of course.

"All dressed up and nowhere to go," he lamented under his breath.

Lance didn't know how long he spent there looking at the floor, or how many times his watch started and stopped buzzing as the nurse patrolling outside passed by the door, but eventually a change in pattern caught his attention.  Instead of peaking and then fading his watch simply kept buzzing, indicating she had stopped in place for some reason.  He looked up towards the door, then started getting to his hooves to see what was happening.

For little more than a second he heard the galloping of metal clad hooves rush toward the nurse outside, a hiss preceding a bone cracking impact.  Lance ceased all efforts to stand, instead opting to shrink into the nearby corner as he heard a familiar chorus of distorted moaning, cracking, tearing, and splattering, until at last it came to an end with one last sickening snap....then silence.  It was her again, right outside.  She'd killed the nurse, and if the persistent buzzing of his watch was to be counted on, she wasn't leaving yet.

The glass of the window shattered from the force of the blow that dented the metal inward.  To be certain, Lance was terrified, but he did not move from his corner.  What point was there?  If she wanted him caught, and could see him, he would be caught.  His imagination ran wild with what torturous treatment he would be subjected to next as her ventilated metal muzzle poked in through the broken window.  He heard her take a slow, deep breath, letting it out with a pleased shiver as her senses picked up on his presence within.  The muzzle retracted, and another two savage impacts deformed the door even more before a final mighty yank tore it free of its hinges.  Lance curled into a protective ball, instinctively covering his head with his fore legs despite knowing it would do no good at all.  The sound of the door bouncing off the wall and landing on the floor after being tossed aside echoed down the hall...

And then nothing happened.

It took a moment for him to recognize that no part of his was being cut up or torn off then dare to look up.  She was nowhere to be seen.  Even as he poked his head out the door and turned his light on to investigate, he caught no sight of scarred, tan coat or flowing, sanguine tail.  The only sign that he hadn't been hearing things was the mangled, broken, headless barbed nurse corpse lying just to the left of the door.  The way looked clear, the elevator was practically just around the corner, and it could take him straight down to the basement.  Lance took his chances and bolted for it, too afraid to derive any joy from the fact that he could run at a good gallop again.

Lance all but broke the down button as he hammered it with his hoof over and over until the doors finally opened, then flung himself inside and gave the button for the basement a similar round of abuse until they closed.  He stood tensely in the center of the elevator car as it descended, expecting some other anomaly to block his progress, but nothing of the sort occurred.  When the doors opened again he took it a bit more slowly, moving further into the basement at a brisk trot that soon placed him back in front of the formidable door that looked to have been borrowed from a prison.  With a combination of curiosity and dread, he retrieved the deaf colt's precious key from his saddlebag and used it, wondering what fresh hell awaited him as he pulled the door open, the long unused hinges screeching as they were forced to move.

At long last he directed his light through the door and looked inside...standing there for a moment, blinking at the pair of violet eyes looking back at him from the other end of the room.  It was Posey, brandishing an old broken chair leg covered with patches of moss that she had evidently torn from the single bit of furniture in the room.  Upon seeing that it was her husband that had opened the door and not some monstrosity she let out a gleeful gasp and dropped the weapon, zipping over to him with a flap of her wings.

"Lance, you're okay!" she exclaimed as she hugged him tightly.

"What...how did you get in there?" he asked, returning the embrace.

"There was a trap door, and I had nowhere else left to check out so I opened it and looked inside.  I saw something twinkling on the floor below so I thought I'd fly down, see what it was, then fly back up, but as soon as I landed somepony closed the trap door and I couldn't get it open again," she explained.

"So you've just been sitting here in the dark the whole time?"

"Pretty much...it wasn't so bad.  I mean, I was worried about possibly being trapped forever, and I was really worried you were going to get badly hurt with nopony to help you, but you found me again, and you actually look a lot better than last time I saw you, so I guess everything worked out."  She released him, taking a step back and looking his new, clean bandages over with a smile.  Then she spotted the black veined brace on his back leg.  "Um...that's...?" she asked, pointing to it with her hoof and a cringe on her face.

"I don't know what it is either, but I can actually move faster than a trot without any pain, so I'm leaving it there for now," he replied while moving his right rear leg a bit in way of demonstration.

"That's good then I suppose, I'm keeping an eye on it though, that just doesn't look right," she relented.

"You and me both," he nodded as he turned, walking down the basement corridor with her at his side.  "Let's get going, we've got to..." Lance paused, furrowing his brow.  "I actually don't know what to do next, I used up my last key opening that door for you, and getting that key was a real pain in the flank."

"Oh, right, one second."  Posey opened her saddlebag and spent a moment looking for something before she emerged with another key in her mouth.  Once he'd taken it she was free to talk again.  "That twinkle wasn't just a trap, that key was in the room back there."

He nodded in approval and looked down at it.  It was unspectacular, just a generic key, with the only identifying mark being the number nine etched onto the key handle.  The only room with that number he knew of in the hospital was Patient Room 9 on the middle floor...but he distinctly remembered it being barricaded.  A key wasn't going to get him past that.  Then it hit him.  When he tried remembering a bit further back he realized that the key in his hoof wasn't for any of the doors in the hospital at all.

"This is for one of the locks on 303," he concluded.

"Huh?"

"Yeah.  The three locks holding all the chains in place were labeled 1, 9, and 3.  I opened lock 1, here's the key for lock 9," he said, holding the key up while a smile dared pull at the corners of his mouth.  "That means we're almost out of here."

"Good, so you know where 303 is?" she asked with a smile of her own.

Lance opened his mouth to speak, stopped, and shut it as his enthusiasm took a nose dive.  "No...actually...I've been all over the hospital and I haven't once seen the real version with all the locks and chains.  You haven't seen it on your side?"

Posey shook her head.

He let out a grumbling sigh and sat down.  "We're at square one again then...but now at least you're free so you can-"

"Yeah, I think it's better we're together now too," she cut him off while taking a seat next to him.  When he tried to complete his sentence he was met with a look from her that somehow managed to be both affectionate and stern at once, as though she were daring him to complete the self destructive thought he had been stating aloud.  Lance wisely opted to change the topic.

"I just don't get it though...if I-"

"We."

"...we were meant to just get trapped down here, what was the point of all these things I've been doing for Celestia knows how long now?  Why didn't we just get sealed in a room like you did?  Sure as hay would've saved us a lot of time."  He let his frustration seep into his voice freely now.  Somehow merely having her there at all was making it possible for him to vent.

"Maybe we're not trapped and we just don't know it?" she suggested as she nuzzled against him supportively.

"How do you mean?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow as he none the less reciprocated the affectionate gesture.

"Remember the elevator, when you scared the daylights out of me because you were seeing door 303, and I couldn't?"

"Yeah."

"What if that's not the only place that happened?  What if you were staring the actual door in the face earlier and didn't even know it?"

That was...actually a good point.  He let his gaze drift back towards the floor, brow furrowed in thought as he delved back into his recent memories.  Posey hadn't been with him for all that time, so he had no way of really confirming if anything he'd seen had been an hallucination or not.  But on the other hoof, there had been one room where something he'd heard had been confirmed as not being real.  He subconsciously swallowed a bit nervously as he recounted the sound of Posey's desperate screams from the outside of Operating Room 2, even though he knew now that they had not been real.

Now that he thought of it, that room was starting to sound very suspect.  If there really had been nothing in it, why had it been locked in the first place, and why had the deaf colt been compelled to suddenly step in and make him never want to return?  There was something else to it too, something he didn't want to spend too long pondering.  Considering where it had been hidden, he never would have even come close to finding the key to OR2 on his own if not for a certain somepony's 'assistance'.  That certain somepony also hated the deaf colt enough to actually stop torturing Lance just to take a shot at him.

Though she'd obviously enjoyed the little incident at the bath tub, what if there was something more to it?  The deaf colt was the only one Lance knew of that the sovereign couldn't just tear apart on a whim.  What if guiding him to something very important to the deaf colt was just her way of getting at him indirectly?  Lance knew she was more intelligent than the other monsters he'd encountered,  but could she really be that intelligent or was he giving her too much credit?

Still...it seemed it was worth it to go up and give OR2 another look.

"I have an idea, come on," he said, a bit of confidence seeping back into his voice whilst he got back to his hooves.  There was just one rather important detail he had to sort out before they got there though.

"Good, where are we headed then?" Posey asked as she fell into step at his side.

"Operating Room 2 on the top floor...but, Posey, listen," he started as they exited the corridor and trotted over to the elevator.  He opened the doors and the two of them stepped inside before he pressed the button for the top floor while weighing his words carefully.  "I wasn't lying when I said I've been alone...but I did try.  I...really, really tried."

The elevator started lifting them upward, and Posey found that a slight tilt of the head was the only sufficient expression of her confusion at the sudden topic shift.  "Um...what?"

"I tried to move on with a mare I'd grown very close to after you died, but I guess it just went too far, too fast, and now it will never work out," he explained further, unable to meet her gaze.

"...why are you telling me this right now?" she asked, her confusion refining into a general sense of foreboding.

"Because..." he let out a long unsteady breath, momentarily unable to talk from his own discomfort.  "Because the deaf colt used that against me in that room.  I saw...intimate things that didn't really happen, and just left.  When you mentioned how I'd been seeing things that weren't there, it made me think back to that, and now I'm wondering if he wasn't just scaring me off because door 303 was actually in that room."

There, it was out finally.  Telling her had been like getting is wings plucked off all over again, but it needed to happen.  He had to destroy the power that he was letting that room exert over him, and this was the only way.  Lance dared to look toward his wife again, not sure what to expect.  Posey was clearly not pleased at what she had heard, but even though her displeasure was plain on her face, it seemed she was carefully considering what to say instead of reacting to some emotional blow.  She was silent until the elevator came to a halt, the tension in Lance's gut ratcheting a bit tighter every second before she mercifully chose to speak.

"Is that all?"

"...yes?"  Once again, Lance wasn't sure what response he had been expecting, but he knew that hadn't been it.

"Then I don't care."

He stood, giving a wordless blink at how her words didn't match her expression in the slightest.

"Okay, I do care," she started as she stepped past him, pushed the button to open the doors, and strode out.  "But what kind of wife, or pony in general for that matter, would I be if I held that against you in any way what so ever?  The phrase was 'til death do us part' right?  Well, death happened, we parted, and I'd be pettier than my mother ever was if I held a grudge against my husband for continuing to like mares after I'd died.  Now which way is it?" she asked as she stopped at the door leading inward.

"Go left, and just follow the hallway, it'll be on your left side," Lance said as he nudged his way past her, wary of the possibility that the nurse might have regrown her head and started walking around again.  This was aside from the other, much bigger problem that was still on the same floor for all he knew.  "Also, technically, I swore to love and cherish as long as I shall live, and I'm still alive."

"Lance, please don't split airs over semantics right now, just don't.  Let's get this over with-why are we stopping?" she asked after almost bumping into him after he had stopped at the intersection and looked down the hall to his right.  To his relief the barbed nurse was still in the same place and just as dead.  Either losing the head entirely actually did kill them, or the sovereign had carried the head a ludicrous distance away to ensure the nurse would stay down longer.

"Just checking something, come on," he said as he resumed his trot toward the operating rooms.  In less than a minute they were in front of Operating Room 2, waiting a moment as Lance steeled himself and then opened the door.

His hunch had been correct.  The hole in the wall, the writing above it, the section of missing wall, and the sounds from the next room over were all gone, leaving a plain white room with one fairly dominant feature.  Door 303, the actual door 303 with chains and all, was on the opposite wall occupying the section that had previously been missing and crossed over with rebar.  Lance turned back to look at Posey and gave her a tired smile.  "Good call honey."

"Good call yourself, you're the one that knew what was up here," she replied, returning the expression.

He stepped into the room a bit reluctantly, half worried that everything would revert the second he set hoof inside.  "If this is anything like it was the first time, you might want to fly out of here before-"

"No, and the next time you ask me to leave I'm going to hog tie you and drag you through this myself," she cut him off as she stepped past him with all due determination.  "Understand?"

"...yes dear," he sighed.  Over the years he'd learned that there were times when one could argue with Posey, and there were times when it would only prove a waste of energy.

"Good.  I've spent who knows how many hours in the dark worried sick about you, I'm not going to let you out of sight, let alone abandon you now that I have you back."  She strode over to the door and turned to face him as she spoke and he caught up.

All he had to do now was get the key and undo the lock...and then whatever would happen would happen.  The memories of the apartment nightmare were still vivid in his mind though, and that stayed his hooves as he wrestled with the fear gripping at his chest.  Posey said nothing, standing and waiting patiently, certainly in no hurry herself after the story she'd been told when he'd first woken up.  Yet but just being there at all she did everything for him.  He gave her one last look and the thought of her being there with him, of the possibility of their escaping, of bringing his wife back to the world that was so much worse for her absence, enabled him to finally fish the key out of his saddlebags.

A note held in place beneath the chains was there to greet him when he brought his head back up with the key in hoof.

"Amazing...simply amazing...after everything I've done for you, here you are.

Don't think I've been off doing something else, I've been watching your every move.  But I foolishly figured you couldn't possibly do something as terrible as what you're about to do to me after I spent so long fixing you.  So I said nothing.  I trusted you.  But it's becoming increasingly apparent that you're only capable of thinking about your own self interest.

Yelling doesn't work.

Hurting doesn't work.

Healing doesn't work.

I guess nothing can fix you, can it?"

"Was that here when we came in?" Posey asked, noticing he was looking at the note fairly intently.  "Why's it blank?"

"What?  You can't see the writing?" he asked.  It probably sounded far too casual a reaction considering she was implying he was hallucinating again, but he just couldn't bother with sounding incredulous after everything he'd been through.

"No, what does it say?"

"Nothing important." Lance reached up, tugged the note free, and let it fall to the ground like the irrelevant scrap it was.  He then took hold of the padlock with the number 9 etched onto the front with one hoof and inserted the key with the other.  The lock popped open, and with a final few tugs the chains that had gone slack were pulled free and left in a pile on the floor.

...

...

...

Lance's surgical light began to flicker and fade.  He didn't bother checking to see if it was malfunctioning this time.  The siren blaring in the distance followed, sounding a bit closer this time even though they were underground.  Husband and wife looked at one another, each knowing yet at the same time not knowing what was about to happen.  Posey closed the distance between them and hugged him tightly, as though it was the only thing keeping them from losing each other again.  They said nothing as the world faded to black around them, the only exchange of words occurring when Lance caught a glimpse of the discarded note on the ground as he held his beloved close.

"You monster."

Part 22

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Sickness unto foolish death.

Part 22

The siren finally fell silent.

...

...

...

"Are you still there?" Posey finally asked, causing Lance to flinch.

"Yeah I'm here...are you?"  At any other time, in any other place, it would have been the most ridiculous question in the world.  But at the moment the only thing about that question that would make him feel ridiculous was not asking it.

"I think...does your light work yet?" she suggested somewhat hesitantly.

"It should." Lance proceeded to fiddle with the switch on his surgical light until it clicked on again at last.

They both immediately shrunk backward as they were confronted with two hideously smiling, pale ponies standing stone still right in front of them.  Unlike last time, Lance recognized them for what they were before any outright panic could set in.  The way Posey's exclamation paused midway and then petered out entirely suggested she had just come to a similar conclusion.  They were just mannequins...again...although their appearance made it difficult to use the word 'just' when describing them.  Their outer surface was scratched and cracked, with trails of dried blood making it look as though they had been mauled to the point of bleeding to death.  They hung from pairs of chains descending from the ceiling, and over the mouth of each were nailed two identical photos of a forced, bloody smile with missing teeth and bruised gums.

Having confirmed they weren't actually under attack, Lance looked around this new version of Operating Room 2, quickly encountering that familiar feeling of regret for having turned on his light.  Two mannequins flanked the place where Door 303 had been.  What was left was similar to the missing section of wall he had first happened upon, only instead of crisscrossing rebar it was vertical, rusted iron bars.  The floor and ceiling had both been replaced with unevenly spaced grating made of haphazardly welded together bits of rebar, and both had shifted position a good six inches upwards and downwards respectively.  Above and below them were strangely complex arrays of pipes and ventilation ducts that had all rusted and worn through, allowing a deathly black mold to seep out and up along the walls.  But he'd been expecting such a hideous change of scenery this time.  He tried to not focus on any of the fine gruesome details and turned, looking for what was really important: a way out.

There was a door to each side and one behind them.  While they were all of similar rusted metal construction, each one bore distinct markings.  The door to their left bore an etching of some kind of nail or pin, while the door on their right displayed the much more obvious image of a needle being threaded.  Even though he could also clearly see something written on the door behind them he didn't step closer to read it quite yet, finding himself more curious to see if there was anything behind the iron bars that had once been Door 303.  His inquisitiveness paid off, for as he shined his light through he saw a railed catwalk on the other side leading across a chasm to a platform built around what could only have been an elevator shaft, though the side with the door was not facing toward them.  He also spotted another catwalk in the distance coming in on the left side of the platform from parts unknown, but he wasn't much concerned with that compared to the elevator itself.  Shifting his gaze from side to side, he also saw there were two paths traveling onto the catwalk just beyond the bars.  Surely the two side doors lead to them...but could it really be that easy to escape this time?

His suspicion was replaced with concern as he turned back toward Posey and saw that she was handling all of this about as well as he had the first time.  She had fallen to a sitting position, slowly looking around with wide eyes as she processed a level of shock that even the abhorrent things that had already happened to them could not have possibly prepared her for.

"Posey...you alright?" he asked, stepping forward and placing a hoof on her shoulder, hoping the touch would bring her out of it.

She said nothing, content to let her wide eyed look of alarm slowly descend down to her hooves and linger there.

"Posey," he repeated, his worry increasing as she continued to not reply.

She let out a shuddering breath, bringing one of her hooves up to rest atop of his hoof on her shoulder.  "I'm not alright Lance...I'm really...really not alright.  But I said I wanted to be here with you, and I meant it.  I'm not going to make you wait until I am alright though, because I don't think I will be until we get out of here."

"I know the feeling, trust me," Lance replied as he gently nudged her in an attempt to coax her back to her hooves.  "But I can see an elevator through those bars.  If we can just get one of these side doors open we can finally leave."

"That almost seems too good to be true," she observed a bit skeptically as she obliged him.  Without further delay they both picked one of the doors to try opening, and to their complete lack of surprise they were both locked.  Their attempt at opening the third door leading into the hallway was also met with the familiar obstinate click, but this time it was a bit more distressing.  They were trapped...again.

"Okay...is there a key or something somewhere?" Lance thought aloud while starting to look about.

"It would have to be hanging from something, a key would just fall through the grating here if it dropped " she pointed out a bit unhelpfully.  "Wait, what did that writing on the door say?"

"Oh of course, the writing," he scolded himself as he trotted back over to examine it.  The text was a bit worn but it was still fairly legible.

One may only lie

One can never lie

One path may save you

One question is permitted

"Sounds like that old story with the two ponies at the fork in the road...I never figured out how to solve that one," Posey said after reading it.

"It's simple, all you have to do is ask one of them which way the other one would say, and then take the opposite way," he explained.  Posey took a moment to think it over but within moments seemed to grasp the logic.

"Oh, I get it now, because if you're asking the liar, he'd say the opposite of what the truthful one would say, and if you're asking the truthful one, he'd tell you the lie that the other would say, right?"

"Exactly," Lance confirmed with a nod.  "I guess we're supposed to ask...one of the mannequins?" he continued as he turned to the pair of plastic abominations with a raised eyebrow.  They were the only other things in the room that even bore a resemblance to something capable of answering a question.

"The world just changed around us in seconds Lance, would it really be that far out of left field if they found a way to answer after that?" she said as she too turned around.

"Good point."  Arbitrarily choosing the left mannequin, he moved directly in front of it and looked it straight in its complete lack of an actual face.  "Uh...which door would she tell us to take?" he asked while pointing toward the other mannequin.

...

He set the pointed hoof back down on the floor as a lot of nothing continued not happening.

...

Lance sighed and turned back towards his wife.  "Well now we're locked in a room and I feel a bit more like an idiot than I did twenty...seconds...ago."  His statement lost steam as his gaze moved past her, back towards the door, seeing that something had changed whilst neither of them had been looking.  Posey couldn't help but notice this and cast a look over her shoulder.

"...so that probably should've made some noise, right?" she asked with concern as she examined the sizable gash that had been gouged into the metal of the door, effectively crossing out the phrase 'one question is permitted'.

"Yeah...should have," he replied.  He'd lost count of how many times these sorts of things had happened to him by now.  Did that phrase being crossed out mean that his question had registered somehow?

She turned back to look at him, but a repeat of the previous events played out with roles reversed.  "That uh...probably should have too, right?"

Wasting only half a moment with raising an eyebrow, Lance spun around to see that the left mannequin's mouth photograph had moved from its face to the pin engraved door right next to it, held in place by a single large railroad spike that had been punched straight into the metal.  "Yeah...probably," he repeated.  "I guess that's the door she said the other would pick...so that means this other door is the way out," he said confidently before both of them jumped at the sudden click of the needle engraved door unlocking itself.

"That's a good sign," Posey observed with a glimmer of hope in her voice as they stepped closer.  Lance nodded, allowing himself a small smile before he opened the door.

Nothing awaited them but a solid wall of cement with black mold seeping from the cracks.

"What?" he asked nopony in exasperation.  No sooner had he said this than a cacophony of bending and snapping metal sounded from outside the iron bars.  "What?!" he repeated with more urgency as they dashed over and looked out.  The catwalk that had once promised freedom was missing, evidently having fallen into the void below and leaving nothing behind but the bent and twisted railing on their end.

"You picked the wrong door?!" Posey said with something of an edge to her voice.

"I picked the right door Posey, that logic puzzle is older than dirt, the answer that is also older than dirt can't suddenly stop being right!" he snapped back as he stepped over and tried the pin engraved door.  It was still locked, provoking a single, frustrated slam of his hoof.  "I wasn't wrong."

"I'm not necessarily saying you were, but-" she was cut short as Operating Room 2 proceeded to grab their attention one last time with the sound of a soft metallic creak behind them.  After the resultant twirling of heads, they were both greeted with the simultaneously welcoming and ominous sight of the riddle laden door standing ever so slightly open.  The words on the door had been altered again, this time a bit more drastically, with a new phrase gouged into the metal in a much more chaotic hoof writing than the original four.

One may only lie

AND ONE CHOOSES TO

One can never lie

One path may save you

One question is permitted

They both stood there in cautious silence, expecting some aberration to let itself in through the newly opened point of entry, but nothing of the sort happened.  After what seemed far too long a time Posey mercifully eased a bit of the tension off by speaking first.  "Right then...the writing's gone and we're not stuck in this room anymore...good enough for me," she said, creeping forward and craning her neck to try and see what was in the hallway beyond.

"Yeah...wait, the writing's gone?" Lance began before spouting the obvious question.

"Yes, look," she replied, pointing directly at the text that still stood there silently accusing her husband...as far as he knew.  "It's like it was never there to begin with."

"..."

"..."  She placed her hoof back on the ground and looked at him with a slightly tilted head.  "Lance?"

"No, you're right," he said, the lingering conflicted look vanishing from his face.  "We need to get moving.  There was another catwalk leading to that same elevator.  The best we can do is look for some way to get to it."

She nodded.  "Any ideas?"

He shrugged as they approached the door.  "Turn right?  That's all I can think of," he answered as he reached for the knob only for his wife gently nudge him aside.

"Lance, I know you're fixed up a bit but I'm still faster," she explained, giving a demonstrative flap of her wings.  "Please let me go first...this is already hard enough without watching you stick your neck out first too...okay?"

Of course he wasn't okay with it.  He wanted her to stay as safe as possible at all times.  He wanted to be the only one who had to subject themselves to any danger.  He wanted her home...so there could be a home again.

That's not how this works Lance.

"...Okay," he complied with great reluctance.  She nodded and switched on her lantern before pushing the door open fully and cautiously stepping out to look around, wings held open in readiness in case a quick flap backward was needed.

"Um...I don't think your 'turn right' plan is going to work out quite yet," she said, looking back over her shoulder at him.  He stepped out behind her and immediately saw why.  The floor was gone save for a single bolted together rusty metal bridge connecting the door of Operating Room 2 with the entrance to the operating theater directly opposite.

But that wasn't what made Lance nudge Posey along almost the instant he spotted it.  Her lantern was adequate when it came to lighting up an area, but when it came to sheer reach, Lance's surgical light beat it by a quite literal mile.  When he looked around he immediately spotted a few things lurking beyond the range of her lantern.

Roller gurneys.  On the walls.  Two to their right and three to the left.

"That door's fine let's go!" he urged as he gave her flank a gentle push.

"Agreed!" Posey said as she opened the door with all due haste and held it open just long enough for the two of them to get through before slamming it shut again.  "What the buck were those?!"

"If you see them again, move along and keep an eye on their undersides," Lance said, figuring it wiser to just tell her the important parts for now.  "While we're at it you should probably be the one carrying this if you're going first," he continued as he plucked the surgical light from it's spot beside his watch and held it out for her.  Hampering the lead pony with such a limited range of view was simply not going to cut it.

"So they are monsters then?  Why didn't your watch go off?"  She passed her lantern over to him in exchange and then clipped the surgical light to one of her saddlebags as she questioned him further.

"They don't set it off unless they come out."  He spent a brief moment wondering how he was going to carry her lantern, but was soon able to find a strap that would serve his purposes.  Now that they were re-situated he pointed at her new light.  "Try it out."

He didn't have to tell her twice.  As both of their eyes followed the beam of light around the room they saw that the operating theater had been struck with the same lack of a floor that had befallen the hallway.  The only way forward was a path made of more crisscrossing, welded together rebar that jutted out along the tiled, grimy, black mold infested wall.  It traveled around the left side of the room, leading to a set of stairs on the far end would get them up to an archway that had been gracelessly bashed through the wall at about the same height as the observer seating would have been.  There was of course no railing, because clearly that simple comfort would have been far too generous.

There was one more feature that kept Lance from moving quickly along the path of rebar.  It was another hole in the left wall near the far corner, one that must have been bashed through with much more care judging from the way all the piping was still intact.  The pipes were sufficiently close together to make entry quite obviously impossible, but that still left a lot of space through which something might reach through and grab either of them.

"Careful," Lance whispered.

"Right," Posey replied as they both pressed onward along the path, doing their best to keep the contact of hooves against metal as quiet as they could manage.  When they neared the dangerous looking corner their pace slowed, Posey creeping forward until she could see behind the pipes.  Evidently the going was safe, but Lance couldn't help but notice the fear in here eyes as she looked back and motioned him forward.  His curiosity piqued, he did what he had repeatedly come to regret in the past and looked beyond the pipes.

It was the storage closet from which he'd gotten the pipe.  The hole went straight through its back wall.  The door was now barricaded shut from the inside with a combination of planks and crime scene tape, and a body bag resting in a puddle of very old looking blood had replaced the 'murdered' mannequin.  As was the case before in the apartments, there was a white flower resting atop of it and carvings of the phrase 'FIRST DO NO HARM' covered the walls.  It seemed the rollers weren't the only familiar sight following him around.

"Um...I think it's just a mannequin in that bag...I think," he said to Posey as though it would somehow make the image any less disagreeable for her.  It took her a few steps to form any sort of response as they started heading up the stairs.

"That part of the oath was always a bit weird to me," she said, clearly trying to shift topics away from their general surroundings.  He wasn't about to prevent her from doing so, still remembering clearly how he had previously resorted to talking to himself just to preserve his own sanity.  She could have started talking in complete gibberish and he would've been just as happy to listen and respond to her voice.

"What do you mean?"

"You're a doctor, shouldn't it be obvious you're supposed to be curing your patients instead of harming them?" she asked in reply as they neared the top of the stairs.  She made certain to keep her eyes forward, taking her duty as pointmare quite seriously.

"Yeah, that is obvious, but it's not what that part is talking about," he started as Posey took the last step upward and moved aside to make room for him.  "It's not just about how you're supposed to heal your patient, it's about-"  He stumbled at the last step, groaning and bringing a hoof to the side of his head as his ears started to ring sharply and a splitting headache suddenly shot through his skull.  There was some vague awareness of a firm hoof on his shoulder and a distant murmuring but it did little to pierce the confusing fog of pain into which he had been plunged.  Finally the excruciating episode started to recede.  Following a few blinks Lance was able to comprehend his position slumped down near the top of the stairs, and hear his wife trying to get his attention.

"Are you alright?" she asked, hopeful for a response now that he seemed to have his wits about him.

"Yeah...now I am."

"What happened?!

"I have no idea what that was.  It was like..." he began as he started standing back up, shaking off the last of the disorientation.  Now that he could think clearly, he couldn't help but recall the headaches he had started suffering after each encounter with Door 303...only this one had been much more severe.  What the hay did that mean though?

"It was like what?" Posey pressed as he continued to not complete his answer.

"Uh...nothing, it's nothing," he said dismissively as he took the last few steps upward.  It was a time for moving and escaping, not for stopping and thinking.  That time would come later.  She looked at him pointedly, as though she were about to keep pushing about his thoughts on the manner, but after a few moments she silently relented so they could continue onward.  Lance was not the only one who wanted to delay any sort of clarity in favor of getting out of there.

For how recklessly the archway had been bashed through the wall, the passage proceeding it was remarkably clean cut, going straight through the surrounding pipes and ventilation ducts.  The only thing marring the concrete walls was the grime and mold that had steadily dripped from the plumbing.  The tunnel traveled forward a short way before turning left and hitting a dead end, the only way out being a worn out vent panel in the floor.

"Let's hope it's not too far a fall," she muttered as she crept closer, peered down and shined her light through the vent.  Lance stood back patiently, knowing his lantern wouldn't do much good.  After a few moments of applying a critical eye to things Posey looked over at him, bringing a thoughtful hoof to her chin.  "It's not that far but...I'd rather not have you jump down on your own."

"Same thing we did to get down to the roof then?"

"Yeah, give me a minute to get this vent off without making a racket first," she agreed before trying to ease the panel open as carefully as she could manage.  The latch joint looked tenuous thanks to the ever present rust, and there would doubtlessly be quite the noise should it fall to the floor below.  Thankfully she was able to open it and ease it downward with only a small creak to mark the occasion.  With a sigh of relief at her success she motioned Lance over before climbing onto his back again and holding tight with her legs, signaling with a nod that he was clear to jump.

Lance approached the hole in the floor with doubts that were only made worse by his inability to even see the floor.  There was nothing for it but to trust Posey.  He took a last breath to steel his nerves before hopping down into the darkness.  She grunted with the sudden effort needed to slow his fall but didn't have to keep at it for long.  Four strong flaps were all that was needed to set his hooves safely on the floor...although 'safely' wasn't a word on either of their minds after they finally got a proper look around.

The once white plaster walls of Recovery Room 2 had been stained a dull brownish yellow, accentuated by dark red where streams of liquid had cultivated a strange mildew, and the phrase he had twice seen carved into the wall was missing.  The tiles that had made up the floor had all been ripped out leaving it an uneven mess of damp concrete for them to stand on.  Nothing remained of the bed but a rusty bent bed frame with an ominous crimson puddle beneath it...and there was something in the corner.

As it turned out, the phrase on the wall hadn't vanished entirely.  One part of it remained, it had just moved...and multiplied.  The words "EVERYTHING IS FINE" had been repeatedly carved into the flesh of a corpse hanging in the corner.  It was a stallion, colored an unnatural grey where there wasn't a trail of blood staining his coat red, as though the color had been bled right out of him.  Aside from the macabre calligraphy there were two more distinct wounds on his back along each shoulder, both held closed by a mess of staples.  They could not see his face.  It was pinned into the corner by a leather strap, both ends of which had been bolted to the wall whilst the middle had been nailed into the back of his skull.  Below him was a black garbage bag that they could only assume had been placed there to catch the blood dripping from his back hooves which were dangling in the air below him.

There was also a very old, rusty, slightly dented stapler lying on the ground at the foot of the bed, but somehow that seemed less immediately important to them.

"Please tell me the door works," Posey implored as her eyes remained locked on the suspended corner carrion.  She was answered by the turning of a doorknob and a gentle creak behind her as Lance found the door quite cooperative.  "Thank Celestia," she muttered with a relieved exhalation as she turned and moved past Lance, taking a step into the hallway.

"Wait a second," he said said as he walked to the bed frame, opened one of his saddle bags, and picked up the stapler.

"What are you...alright, that's probably a good idea," she started, but then relented upon remembering how a random bundle of bolts had eventually let them inside the hospital in the first place.

"You should have seen how many random things I was carrying before we met up again."  He deposited the stapler and snapped the bag shut before they both made their way into the hall.  "Did they follow us?" he asked, his voice just barely above a whisper.

Posey took her cue to search for the gurneys they'd fled from earlier.  Thankfully, as she moved the light about, neither of them saw anything of the sort.  This second length of hallway was much like the first, containing nothing but a seemingly endless fall below with only a single walkway to move along.  Rather than just skip directly to the opposite door though, this one extended a ways to the left, ending at a door about midway through the hall that Lance remembered as the floor's nurse's station.

"Looks clear," Posey whispered back before they started to head for the door, still moving slow to minimize noise.  As it turned out, this proved a wise decision, enabling them both to hear the gentle squeak of wheels...directly beneath them.  They both stopped dead in their tracks, their eyes  practically yanked downward to see the familiar group of five gurneys on the wall underneath the grating.  Pausing only a moment to shoot an unnerved glance at one another, they then bolted for the open door, disregarding how much noise they made.  Lance made it a point to quickly shut the door behind them and spend a moment with both forelegs holding the door closed, if only to give them a moment's false sense of safety.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think I'd have to look beneath us," she apologized.

"You and me both, don't worry," he assured her as he warily dropped back down to all fours.  It was not as though he could do anything to stop them from finding them again, much less do so by just holding a door shut.

"That was just...mean."  She looked around the nurse's station as she spoke, the brief encounter only having made her more acutely aware that they needed to look everywhere.  Fortunately the station was easily the least unsettling room she had seen so far.  Most everything was merely covered in old dirty sheets, leaving her unable to identify what anything in particular was, but none of the shapes struck her as anything particularly out of the ordinary for a small office...save for the small, slightly stained lump in the sheets covering the ceiling.  But it did not move, nor did her husband's watch buzz, so she ignored it for the time being.  Easily the best feature of the room though was the door on the other end that indicated they wouldn't have to go back into that blasted bottomless hallway again.

"Oh yeah...just sneaking up on us is so mean," Lance mumbled bitterly to himself under his breath, quietly wishing he could be so lucky for that to have been all anything had done to him in that hospital.

"Hrm?"  Her ears perked up, having thought she heard words in his last exhalation.

"Nothing...just sour grapes."

"...I can't really blame you," she replied with a nod.  Though she still didn't know the specifics of what had transpired since being separated at the elevator, the sight of him spoke volumes.  He then attempted to step past her toward the door only to be stopped again by a gentle hoof reminding him that she was lead pony.  Lance sighed softly and took a step back without any protest to let her open the door, deciding to keep his eyes on the other door behind them with a sidelong look...just in case.  There was the sound of the doorknob turning, the sound of the hinges groaning as the door opened, and then the sound of Posey gasping before taking a step backward.  This demanded his attention slightly more than an inactive slab of rusted metal with a still doorknob.

When he turned his head again he was greeted by the sight of a metallic room turned red and brown from rust and general decay.  The bottom half of the far wall was made of a combination wood and steel bracing whilst the top half was made of reinforced glass.  On the floor with her back against that same wall was the dead body of a barbed nurse.  Her forelegs were pinned to her chest by yet more barbed wire, and a metal collar attached to a chain was around her neck.  There were large bite wounds all over her body, each injury surrounded by seared flesh...and for some reason they weren't simply regenerating.  But, alarming a sight as it was, the corpse was not what made him stare in bewilderment.

He recognized that room.  They were back in the vault, on the other side of the divider where the Deaf Colt had initially been standing.

"Do these rooms ever stop getting worse?"  She had not stepped any closer to the door and wore a disquieted grimace as she continued looking at the dead mare.  On the other hoof she hadn't retreated any further either, so that was something.

"They did last time...just hope they do again...I guess," he advised as he stepped around her to poke his head into the room.  There were two more dead nurses hanging from hooks off to the left side of the wall, and to his right there was an entryway with nothing remaining of the door that had been there, save for the snapped hinges to which it had been attached.  Thanks to the limited radius of his lantern, he wasn't able to see that far beyond the entrance or through the divider, though the glass looked far clearer than it had previously.

The sight of her still injured husband going ahead of her snapped Posey out of it, reminding her of the task she had taken upon herself.  She set her reluctance aside and followed him.  "I wish I could be as pragmatic as that about all this," she said as she looked to her left and then shied away from the two hanging nurses.

"I'm just as scared as you are Posey...the only reason I might not show it right now is that I've seen things here that worry me a lot more than a corpse does," he explained.  "Like for starters, that door we just stepped through wasn't supposed to be there, and if it had been there before, it would only have lead into another hallway.  The last time I was in this room it wasn't even on the same floor as the other rooms we've been going through."

"Okay...that is pretty worrisome," she replied, eyes slowly widening as he detailed the sheer scale of the changes the building had undergone.  "Let's just...can we please keep going?  I don't feel comfortable being a mare in this room."

"Hang on."  Acting on a hunch, Lance approached the divider and peered through the glass.  The lantern's light only revealed a portion of a chipped, cracked concrete floor and a single leg of some piece of furniture.  "Can you help me see into here please?" he asked her.  Posey nodded, moving to a spot at his side and shining the surgical light through the glass for him.

It wasn't nearly like what Lance remembered.  The little slice of nightmare was gone, replaced with a fairly clean room, though one that was visibly in need of a good dusting.  There was a table in the middle with a chair at each end, one of which was bolted to the ground and had manacles on the arms.  The whole set up looked like an interrogation room...one that was exceedingly more severe than those in any of Equestria's police stations.

A glint of light on the table caught his eye.  "Wait wait, go back," he said while tapping Posey on the shoulder as the beam of light moved along.  After she had focused the beam back on the table they could see there were five sheets of paper arranged in a circle on top of it, and in the center of that circle was a key.  Were those the same notes he'd spent so long gathering before?

"Can we break this glass?"  She gave the pane a couple curious taps, quite keen on finding a way to shorten the length of their trip.

"Probably not, it'd be better to look for a way around," he answered as he turned toward the empty doorway.  Posey took her spot in the lead again, causing her light to reveal the long corridor that awaited them...

The long...narrow corridor with worn rusty pipes for walls...the end of which they could not currently see past...

"...are you sure we can't break the glass?" she repeated, looking back at him over her shoulder.

"Maybe if we had the right tools...but we don't."  He suddenly looked none to eager to proceed himself, obviously having much the same sort of second thoughts she was.  "I've seen the sorts of hoof strikes that kind of glass can take, we're not getting through it on our own," he continued, justifying his decision to himself as much as to her.

Posey nodded, still having the same qualms but finding herself willing to trust his judgement.  She advanced about three body lengths into the corridor before stopping to check that Lance was right behind her.  They then fell into step with one another, moving steadily along in the cramped quarters heading toward Celestia knew what.

"I swear Lance, when we get out of here I am going to fly up and do flips just for the sake of doing flips," she mused.  Being a pegasus, she wasn't much better than Lance when it came to small,  closed in areas.

"You can do them for both of us," he replied behind her, actually managing a slight smile even though he knew she couldn't see it.

"I'm...I didn't mean to bring that up.  It's probably hard enough on you already without me-"

"No, Posey, it's fine, I-"

The both blanched at the abrupt sound of a door closing and wheels squeaking behind them.  Both pegasi cast sidelong glances backward, unable to turn their bodies, and saw that the once bare entryway now had a quite solid looking door.  They could only guess that the gurney that had appeared in front of it had something to do with it.

"Nevermind it's not fine!" Lance corrected as his watch began to buzz.

Part 23

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Sickness unto foolish death.

Part 23

Posey didn't have to get a look at the snout-less, pony shaped mass of stitched together skin that emerged from beneath the gurney.  The sound of it's gurgling and the loud buzz of her husband's watch told her all she needed to know.  Lance was trapped between the two of them and the only way she could fix that was by running for the end of the tunnel as fast as she could.  She bolted, thankful to hear Lance fall in step behind her as they both fled from the abomination behind them, the end of the passage still nowhere in sight.

At first they seemed to be outpacing the gurney bound creature quite capably, the squeaking of its wheels quickly growing more distant behind them.  But their early lead didn't last.  A few moments after, it stopped falling behind.  A few moments after that it began to gain on them, the combination of its wheels and momentum starting to make up the difference.

"Just keep going!" Lance shouted to her as the roller grew ever closer.  The hair on the back of his neck felt like it was standing completely upright, every fiber of his being telling him to turn around and look.  But he knew it would do no good, both of them did.  His breath started coming heavier and his legs began to ache with more than just fatigue.  Despite having been tended to, his injuries still left him with physical limits that were being pushed dangerously close to breaking by his moving that fast.  As the moments ticked by like small centuries, his wife pulled further ahead bit by bit while his failing stamina eased him closer to the roller.  How blasted long was that tunnel?!

Finally, when it sounded like the pained gurgling behind him was in hoof's reach, he spied the end of the passage over his wife's shoulder.  The exit was a bit narrower than the average doorway, though it still looked like a pony would fit through.  He could only hope that wouldn't be the case for their pursuer.  Reaching deep to find his last vestiges of energy, he put on a last burst of speed to catch up to his wife and evade the roller for just a bit longer.

The very instant Posey had cleared the doorway her wings flew open and canceled out her momentum with a powerful flap.  Lance dashed out immediately after her, hanging a right and sounding like he was about to have a heart attack, desperately sucking in ragged gasps of air.  Half a moment later she was shaken by a loud clang as the gurney failed to fit through the opening.  Her eyes widened in fright as she finally got her first glimpse of the creature, saw the dripping hole where the lower half of its face should have been, and the way it quivered in an agonizing rage, but she stood her ground, determined to stay between it and her husband now that they weren't trapped in that passageway.  It looked right at her, the featureless upper half of its face managing to glare at her before a strong retch shook its body.

She let out a yelp of surprise as Lance grabbed her and flung the both of them to the side.  Just before they hit the floor she heard a splattering of liquid right where she had been standing, and after they both landed with a grunt there came a progressively more intense hissing sound.  Posey got back to her hooves as fast as she could, only stopping a moment to note that Lance's watch had suddenly gone completely silent before pointing the surgical light back toward the doorway.  The gurney was absent, vanished without so much as a sound of squeaking wheels retreating.  Neither of them knew where it was now...but at least it wasn't there anymore.

They were standing on another catwalk made of rusted metal grating over a bottomless void...and the section she had been standing on before being grabbed  was completely gone.  Nothing remained of it save a ring of thinning smoke rising from the edges of the hole that it had left behind.  It was suddenly crystal clear to her what the gurney things could do and why Lance had pulled her off her hooves.  Had she stayed in that spot there would be about as much left of her as there was of the walkway...but on the other hoof she wouldn't have tried to stay in that spot in the first place had she known they could do that...and Lance was at least that familiar with them.

"So when were you going to tell me they could do that?!" she asked, turning to glare at him as she pointed back to the missing section of catwalk.  Though she tried to keep a measured tone, her irritation at having almost gotten herself melted was quite plain.  It was short lived though.  Lance was leaning heavily against the wall, head hanging low, still panting to catch his breath.  She found it difficult to remain angry at the sight of her bandaged up, wounded husband looking exhausted, and her expression softened.  Instead of glowering at him any further she instead stepped a bit closer and set herself to keeping an eye out while he recovered.

It was another large, bottomless room with a single walkway, though the decor had changed a bit.    The walls were covered in gigantic swathes of the same strange fleshy cloth that covered the top of the gurneys.  These had been cut in several places, the incisions held open by hooks at the end of wires that extended down into the darkness beyond their sight.  The open cuts revealed yet more piping behind the cloth, packed ludicrously tight together and seeming to teem with some sort of crawling black ooze.

"I didn't...I didn't think that-" Lance coughed a few times, clearing his throat.  His breath was still heavy but obviously he had rested long enough to try and talk again.  "I didn't think they...would go after you...you know...like outside...I thought that I...was the only one...who would have to...worry about it," he finally managed to say before putting his weight back on all four hooves, ceasing to lean against the wall.

"You going to be alright?" she asked, managing to relay her concern while not sounding any less angry at him.

"Yeah...I'll be fine...just hurts a lot," he replied, taking a few more moments before he raised his head again.  "That was...that was stupid of me to go and...assume like that.  I'm sorry Posey."

"..."  She stared at him a few moments more before closing her eyes, taking in a breath, then letting it and her irritation out at once.  "Honest mistake then.  Don't let it happen again," she said, managing a small smile.  "Do you have one of those drinks?"

"I think so.  It was frozen when I found it, it should be alright now though."  It only took him a moment to find the bottle in question.  The placement near to his body heat made it simple to locate.  Much to his distress however it was still mostly ice with little more than a paltry sampling of the miracle drink having collected in the bottom of the bottle.  "Seriously?  How long ago did I find this?" he asked...and couldn't really think of the answer.  He'd spent so much time unconscious that it would be impossible to recollect...and come to think of it neither of them had seen so much as a single clock their entire time there.

"Better than nothing," Posey pointed out as she popped the top of the bottle off for him.  Lance silently agreed by drinking what he could of the concoction.  Despite how little of an effect it had compared to a proper dose, he was still thankful it took a bit of the edge off for him as he put the lid back on and stashed the bottle again.  That run really had done a number on his still healing body.  He could only hope nothing had torn.  "Good, come on, you can tell me all about those things while we walk," she said as she started to make her way along the grated path with husband at her side.  The walkway led to the right along the wall, following it until about midway on the opposite side, at which point it crossed the room, ending at another door.

It took a few moments for Lance's muscles to ease back into a familiar walking pattern without a sharp ache, but he replied once he was certain he would do fine.  "You've pretty much seen everything those gurney things can do now...assuming they don't have some other trick I haven't seen yet."

"Okay, anything else I should know?" she pressed further as she tried to avoid looking at the walls any more than was absolutely necessary.

"Um...those nurse mares in the room back there used to be alive and limping around."

Posey stopped mid-stride and looked over at him with slightly widened eyes.  "With the barbed wire and everything?"

"Yeah...I don't think we need to worry about them though.  They're slow enough that I was able to stay away from them even before I got patched up," Lance elaborated as he held up a bandaged hoof demonstratively.  His face fell slightly as he remembered the ultimate result of his last encounter with the deaf colt in the vault however.  "Though we might be in trouble if we run into a lot of them in a closed space...just look around if you hear really heavy breathing."

"That's it though?  No teleporting?  No gravity defying?  No upchucking acid?"  She resumed their leisurely paced trip along the walkway, casting a quick glance about them to make sure there were no more gurneys in sight.

"Nope," he assured her.

"That sounds pretty tolerable for once," she mused as they started to make their way across the section of catwalk that spanned the room's bottomless depths.  "Are you going to tell me how you got so banged up now?"

"Can we...save that for later?"  Lance diverted his gaze away from her, suddenly having a bad taste in his mouth...and a pain in his chest...and a burning on his leg...and an ache in his head.

"Alright...I'm sorry to pry.  I'm just trying to keep talking right now," she apologized, stopping at the door and looking back towards him.  "I can't believe you went through this alone for so long," she lamented with a sad frown as she reached for the door handle.

"When this is behind us, I will tell you everything you could want to know about it, but right now it is literally the last thing I want to be reminded of," he said quite decisively.  She nodded in understanding once more before turning the door's handle and opening it...or at least starting to open it.  By the time the door was a quarter of the way open she immediately slammed it shut  and backed away, holding a hoof up to her nose as she coughed and gagged with eyes held tightly closed.  Lance opened his mouth to ask what was wrong but then a wave of dank air bearing a frighteningly familiar stench that had been sadistically doubled in intensity assaulted him.  He was taken by a similar coughing fit, made all the worse by the ever present lump of fear in his stomach suddenly growing spikes.

"What the buck is that?!" Posey retorted after she managed to avoid emptying her stomach.

"I'm sure we're going to find out," Lance managed to reply before gagging again.  His first impulse was, of course, to run away from that room and never return.  But the lesson he had learned regarding what happened to ponies who refused to stick their hooves in was still sticking with him.

"Please tell me you're kidding," she said in disbelief before looking back towards the rusted over metal door.  As it turned out a pony who specialized in growing colorful, pleasant smelling flora did not fare well when confronted with what smelled like vaporized rot.

"It's either the door or the hallway."

"..." She let out a shivery sigh of resignation before turning back toward the door.  She couldn't really argue with that point.  Posey put her hoof back on the doorknob while placing her other hoof over her nose, then reluctantly pulled the door open and looked inside as Lance stepped up next to her.

The bathtub was gone.  Instead, the now inexplicably round room sported a central pool that was half full of the same wretched 'water' that Lance remembered and surrounded by six panels of rusted, blood spattered chain link fence arranged in a hexagon.  Above the pool was suspended the body of a stallion, held aloft at the ankle by a chain bolted to the ceiling, and held in place by more chains bolted to the inside of the pool and ending in sharp hooks that were dug into his flesh.  He was covered in cuts, dark bruises, and his head from the jawline upwards was submerged in the liquid decay.  As though all of that weren't enough, a plethora of black fungal tendrils were emerging from the sides of the pool, extending outward along the floor before going up the wall.  Lance could see the hole bashed through the wall to the shower room to their right, but the direct way there was blocked by a seventh panel of chain link that was missing the blood spatters of the others.  They would have to take the long way around.

"Come on, I don't want to be in here long," Posey said, her voice made somewhat odd by her covered nose.  Lance promptly followed after her, trying as he might to keep his eyes off the worryingly reminiscent sight in the center of the room.  They only made it a few steps before their ears twitched and they both stopped, both ponies hearing the sound of Lance's watch beginning to quietly buzz.  They looked about frantically anticipating another appearance of a gurney...but nothing happened.  No gurney or creature of any sort appeared, and though the buzz did persist it did not get any louder.  There was definitely something to be worried about, but it didn't appear they could do anything about it yet, so Posey looked back and motioned for them to keep going.

The shower room hadn't changed quite as much as the bathing room had, retaining it's rectangular shape if little else.  The mold and fungus in the room was even thicker than last time and there was little remaining that it had not destroyed.  Yet more ridiculously thick and elaborate piping had been exposed by the destruction of the walls, the entire needlessly complex assembly left to rust away and leak as various black and dark red tendrils intertwined with it.  Why were there so many pipes?  No plumbing system needed that many pipes!  Though the way out that Lance remembered was covered to the point that they would need a hatchet and about half an hour's worth of work to make it usable, that was rendered moot by the gap in the piping on the opposite side of the room just barely large enough for a full grown pony to squeeze through.

Following a brief bout of removing and replacing saddlebags to fit through the gap, they emerged into a what he remembered to be a linen closet.  The wall to their left had been knocked down so that the closet essentially became an extension of the adjacent corridor, and the shelves were obscured by hanging sheets stained with what he hoped was only partially blood.  Though he felt a slight twinge of curiosity as to what was behind them, the nagging sound of his watch made sure he left well enough alone this time.  Most important of all, he was able to finally take a breath of...well, it wasn't exactly fresh air but it was certainly an improvement.

"Oh thank goodness," Posey muttered, taking Lance's removing his hoof from his nose as an 'all clear' signal.  She still grimaced briefly upon noticing the lingering smell of mildew but she could hardly complain after the bathing room.

"What's following us?" Lance pondered as he looked at his watch before peering out into the hallway.  The passage to his right was blocked off by a dented, scratched up, partially corroded steel  barrier that was bolted in place, and that was as far as his lantern light extended.

"Is it that gurney thing again?" Posey asked as she stepped closer to him and took a look for herself.  Of the six doors they could see, only two were accessible; the second to farthest door on the left, and the door on the opposite end of the corridor.  The farther door had a sizable padlock holding it locked, but that looked a great deal more negotiable than the piping that had seemingly burst out of the wall across the frames of the other four doors to prevent any access.  She noted with some distress that the walls there were still sporting a few tears that were made to look like fresh, held open wounds.  Just about the only good thing was the lack of holes in the grated floor through which one could fall into the endless black abyss below.

"No, if it were, we wouldn't hear the watch until it was right on top of us, remember?"

"Well I don't hear any 'really heavy breathing' so it's not one of those nurses either, maybe it's just broken?" she suggested.  Lance had to admit that the option that didn't include a monster lurking silently out of sight was pretty appealing...but...

"I hope not.  You'd have found me dead in the street before I would have been able to find you in the apartment if it weren't for this thing," he reminded her.

"We'll just deal with whatever it is when it shows itself then, I don't want to stay in one spot so those gurneys can find us again," she replied, moving warily into the hallway.

"Somehow I doubt they ever lost track of us," he muttered to himself as he followed suit.  The buzzing of his watch continued to remain steady.  Maybe Posey was right, maybe it was broken?  For it to do something like that, a monster would have to be following them at an almost unchanging distance.  Was it possible to do something like that with the hospital's new layout and completely elude their notice?  He brought the watch to his ear and gave it a shake, hearing broken parts rattling around inside to his very brief horror before his memory kicked in again.  "Oh, right, this was broken when I found it," he said quietly to himself, managing an amused grin as he thought of how glad he was that Posey hadn't noticed that.  She would have-

"GAH!" Lance flinched back from whatever it was that had just brushed against his ear, and in the second or so it was close enough to his lantern, he saw a tendril withdrawing back into the darkness above.  The blood drained from his face for a moment before he turned to his wife, "Posey!  Get the light up there now!"

She whirled around in confusion but complied with his adamant request, first feeling a sense of dread upon spotting the retracting tendril before escalating to match his sheer horror as she traced it upward to the source.  The ceiling was a grid of metal bars that was far more distant from the ground than any ceiling a sane architect would design.  Atop of them was standing a large, tan coated, crimson maned alicorn mare wearing a crudely shaped steel mantle on her chest and matching greaves on her hooves, each piece of armor looking to have been bolted straight into her flesh.  She was covered in cuts, and her head was trapped inside of a angular, horned helm attached to a series of restraints traveling down her neck.  Her tail and what parts of her mane that were exposed through the gaps in the restraints drifted unnaturally through the air in defiance of gravity.  She looked like some mockery of the Equestrian royal caste.

Well that explained the watch at least.

"Oh Celestia it's her," Posey practically squeaked, ears folding down in fear as she recognized the monster her husband had described.  "Lance, run!" she shouted, and was about to follow her own advice except that he didn't move as expected.

"Wait, look back up!" he requested of her instead.

"What?!"

"Please!" he urged instead of wasting time trying to explain himself.  Posey swallowed and then aimed her light back up to find the sovereign still standing in the same place, only sparing her a passing glance of curiosity before riveting her eyeless metallic stare back at Lance.  He likewise stood still, squinting his eyes trying to make out some important detail for a moment before coming to a conclusion.  "She can't get through those bars."

"Huh?  Why not?" she asked incredulously.  The bars that comprised the ceiling didn't look like anything the monstrous mare couldn't power her way through if Lance's stories were to be believed.

"It's the black pattern all over them.  I don't know how, but it makes it impossible for her to break things," he replied as he started to walk down the hall, seemingly indifferent to the metallic hoof falls that began following him from above.  "And if there were any other way to get at us she'd be finding it instead of watching us so...we're about as safe as we can possibly be while she's this close."

"That doesn't really make me feel any better," she confessed as she fell into pace with him, letting him take the lead just that once so she could keep an eye on his biggest 'fan' up above.

"Me neither," he agreed, pulling open the unlocked door so they might escape the unwelcome gaze.  Posey stepped in and he immediately followed, shutting the door behind them.  They found themselves standing in the visiting room in which they had earlier met when Lance had flipped the switch for her, only now it looked like a crime scene waiting to be found.  The middle divider had been smashed through from the other side, and there were several closely grouped together blood splatters that turned into a longer streak that lead right through the wall to their right.  It looked as though somepony had broken through the divider, knocked down the pony on the other side, smashed their head into the floor repeatedly, and then dragged the body out the door that used to be there.

"I recognize this place...that's good, right?" Posey said, making a poor attempt at finding a positive side to the macabre sight before her.  "There used to be a door there though..."

"Well it's gone now," Lance replied for little other purpose than conversation.

Beyond the divider, the wall had been knocked down and a couple of metal grating dividers set up in the hallway, providing a straight path into the other side of the vault.  As they advanced, the buzzing of Lance's watch finally died down entirely, indicating there was no path above that the sovereign could use to continue following them.  It was almost a relief stepping into the mostly normal interrogation room, though were it under any other circumstance Lance would just as well have never set hoof in there.  Posey kept an eye on the door behind them while Lance stashed away the key and set to examining the notes on the table.

"Wait...these aren't the notes I picked up before..." he thought aloud as he picked one up.  Not only were they not the notes he remembered, they weren't notes at all.  The key had been surrounded by five unused instant film sheets.

"Something wrong?"

"Not really...just not what I expected I guess," he answered, putting the film sheets away.  "Let's go."

Curiously, as they went back across the wrecked visiting room, Lance's watch neglected to make any noise, a fact which they had both clued in on by the time they reached the door.  They stopped, glanced down at the busted, unexpectedly quiet time piece, and then back up to one another.

"Do you think she wandered off?" Posey guessed with a look at the still closed door in front of them.

"She's only ever wandered off after......she wouldn't have wandered off yet," Lance replied, interrupting himself mid sentence to deflect away from topics he did not yet feel comfortable discussing.  There wasn't much else to say after that.  They were left hesitating at the door a few moments before Posey took a courage steeling breath and pushed it open before they stepped out.  A look upward and another down the hall confirmed the silence of Lance's watch.  They were alone again; no sovereign, no nurse, no gurney, nothing.

"Only one thing to do then," she said, looking over to the padlocked door.

"Yep," Lance agreed as he retrieved the key from his pack.  He was about to undo the lock when he paused, looked at the key, then looked back at the other door.  After spending what felt like a year and a half in the hospital trying to work things out, here they find a key almost right next to the door for which it was made, and then the single greatest threat to either of them vanishes.  It was all too generous.  "That's not good."

"Hrm?"

"Let's just say this place has a habit of trying to make up for things it's about to do to you," he explained, undoing the padlock and twisting it free, after which both lock and key burned to small piles of ash.  Lance's words proved prescient, as the first thing they saw upon opening the door was a sizable section of the ceiling bars resting on the floor with blood smeared at the very neat looking cuts on each end.  They froze for ten solid seconds before either of them said anything.

"I thought you said she couldn't get past those bars!" Posey snapped, rather unsettled at the newest development.

"She can't, no," he said as he hurriedly moved past her through the door.  Wherever they went from there, Lance knew they would have to do it fast now.  There was no telling why the sovereign had not simply broken through the door to get to them after being freed, and he wasn't interested in staying to find out.  The new room was yet another bottomless pit with a single grated path, this one leading to their right where he remembered going down the stairwell to the elevator.  He started following it at a trot.

"So there's somepony who can then?  You forgot to say something about that too?!" she needled him as she caught up with him.

"Posey I have been having the second worst time of my entire life ever since I woke up in that library, I'm not going to remember every single thing at every single moment so cut me some bucking slack here okay?!" he retorted as they reached the stairwell door.  His hoof rose to open it, but the instant he made contact the rusted hinges snapped and the door fell backward...and kept falling.  The stairwell was gone...it was just another bottomless pit.  "There were stairs here...and an elevator..."

Before he could lament their misfortune any further his mind was brought back into sharp focus by his watch's metallic screech all too quickly rising to a fever pitch as a quartet of metallic hooves landed on the walkway behind them.  They only had time to whirl around and utter half a terrified exclamation before the sovereign surged forward and knocked them both off of their hooves and into the former stairwell.  He couldn't hear Posey or manage to reach for her in the sudden pitch darkness...there was only the rushing of wind past his ears as he thought how nice it would be to have time to apologize to her for yelling.

"Lance...honey, wake up...please..."

Was that...wait...what?

Lance groggily opened his eyes, his head pounding as he saw his wife's face illuminated by the flickering light of a lantern running low on oil.  Her eyes were sparkling with tears, her face a model of fear and worry as she looked down at him, seemingly oblivious to the small stream of dried blood that had been left behind by the scabbed over gash on her forehead.

"I'm...sorry," he mumbled like they were the last words of a dream he'd been having.  Though his mind was becoming more awake with every moment it did nothing to quell his confusion.  They'd just been free falling down a bottomless pit last he had checked.  That memory didn't quite match with his still being alive in the present.

"Oh thank goodness," she said in a quiet sigh of relief before nuzzling him affectionately.

"What's...where are we?  Didn't we just get..." The thought was left only half formed as he looked up, seeing a void of blackness overhead.  Posey clicked on her surgical light and aimed it upwards, illustrating that it was indeed the same stair-less stairwell into which they had been so violently shoved.  "How did we..." he started, his sentence once more ending in a confused silence.  When had he even fallen asleep?  His eyes then widened before he looked back to Posey, seeming to see the gash on her forehead for the first time.  "Are you alright?!" he said, the sight of his injured wife seeming to pull him through the process of waking up just a tad bit faster.

"It's fine, I hit the wall after she knocked us out the door, it still hurts a little but the bleeding stopped," she assured him while helping him back to his hooves.  "I don't know how we're still alive, and I don't know where we are," she continued, leaving it on a bit of a negative note as she started examining their surroundings again.  There were...more pipes...so many more pipes.  It was like the near endless hallway from before extended into what resembled an entire maze around them.  The ground was damp and dirty from untold thousands of leaks in the worn plumbing, and for the sake of his sanity Lance only let himself assume that there was only water trickling from those leaks.  The worst part though was that he found it absolutely impossible to recall where they were, even after having spent so long wandering around.

"Where did she go?" he asked, jumping right to his next concern.

"I don't know that either.  Your watch hasn't made any noise and I haven't heard any clanking or hissing since I woke up," she replied.  "Did anything like this happen the first time?"

"No, last time I remembered what put me to sleep, and when I woke up everything was back to the way it was before."  He looked down each direction of the four way intersection into which they had 'fallen'.  There was no way to distinguish one path from the other, in fact distinguish the edges of a wall from the wall behind it was even proving difficult.  Not only did the densely packed piping blend into itself, he could actually see the air subtly distorting at random in small spots.  Navigating would prove almost impossible unless they could find something to follow.  Fortunately, somepony still seemed to be looking out for them.

"Um, do any of the other paths have blood on them?" Posey asked as she spotted a few small spatters of blood and remembered their mysterious guide mare from before.  Lance took another look around, and even with the limited radius of his waning lantern light he could tell there were no blood spatters on the other path.

"I guess that's the way we're going then," he concluded before she started following the trail at a walk.  This time there was a bit more room, enough so that if needed they could switch places, but not so much that they could walk side by side comfortably.  They settled into a nervous silence for a while as they followed the trail, taking turn after turn that Lance tried and utterly failed to keep track of in his head.  If they got lost he doubted they would have time enough to make use of the 'turn left' trick.

"So what let her out back there?" she finally asked as the silence got to her.

"Hm?"

"That monster alicorn thing, what let her out if she couldn't get through those bars?" she clarified now that she had her husband's full attention.

"It was that mare the lead us through the fog...she's not quite as normal are her silhouette looked," he explained, immediately regretting it as his brain caught up with his mouth and remembered their current situation.

"Wait...and now we're following her again?" Posey asked incredulously as she stopped and looked back at him.

"Yeah I know, I thought the same thing when I realized, but I still trust her...I mean, we have to right now unless you've been keeping a mental map of this place better than I have."  He hoped that pointing out their circumstances would prevent them wasting any more time arguing like the married couple they were...and it worked.  She looked at him pointedly a moment longer before putting her eyes forward again and continuing to trace the trail of spatters.

"Fine...you're right," she admitted begrudgingly.  For some strange reason she didn't seem to take kindly to ponies letting husband mauling monsters out of their cages.  Following a few more turns spent in silence while her anger softly smoldered, they happened upon a dented up iron door with the blood trail leading right through it.  Since the watch was still quiet they felt little hesitation in entering, though Posey did open the door a bit slowly in case there was a gurney in waiting.

Though three of the walls were still made of the densely packed piping, the rest of the room was fairly normal.  It was a simple, somewhat cracked cement floor, and the fourth wall's worst offense was mere dirtiness and a slot shaped hole that had been messily carved through.  Above it were the words 'TRADE YOU' next to five squares, all written and drawn with the same white chalk.  "This again," Lance said as he opened his bag to retrieve the five instant film sheets.

"You did this before?"

"Sort of, I bought a lift pass with one of those bits you found."  He set the five film sheets in the slot, and they remained there for a few moments before being pulled out of sight with a few hesitant tugs.  Following a couple seconds more of waiting, a small box was pushed through and fell to the floor.

"And there's somepony back there?" she asked, crouching a bit to try and look through the slot.

"I tried talking to them already but whoever it is doesn't seem interested," he replied as he picked the box up and opened it.  There was a bundle of five staples inside.  He removed them, discarded the box, then pulled out the stable gun he'd found in the nightmarish recovery room and loaded them in before putting it way.  He still wasn't quite sure of what use they would be.  They weren't long enough or plentiful enough to do anything but mildly annoy even the least threatening of the creatures they had encountered.

"Seems like an odd thing to use film sheets for," Posey pondered as they started for the door.  "They already had you use one bit to buy something, why didn't they just ask for the other?"

"I don't know, and if somehow the staples get us out of here I don't care."  Lance's attempt at opening the door was thwarted by the lock that neither of them heard click shut.  They were left to stare at the knob in confusion and try turning it a few more times as they became increasingly unnerved before a sound from behind the slot distracted them.  The sound came a second time, clearly being the click and whir of a camera taking a picture now that they were listening.  It repeated three more times, then after another lengthy pause they saw the five film sheets pushed back through the slot with images slowly appearing.

As they approached, the images grew more and more clear until they were fully developed.  Lance stood there in shock, every thought in his head briefly banished by the intense fear that suddenly gripped him.  Posey's hoof raised to her mouth, her eyes going wide and tearing up, the distraught mare's breath suddenly coming faster in panic before she practically threw herself at the small slot in the wall.

"Fluttershy, baby, are you in there?!  Say something sweetie!  It's mommy!" she shouted as she desperately tried to see through the slot to the other side to no avail.  "Please!  Just please say something angel!"

Lance picked up one of the photographs.  Despite every fiber of his being wishing it were otherwise, the image failed to change or disappear.  It was a close up shot of his daughter's eye when she was a little filly, her lid half shut and bruised from the swelling left behind from a vicious blow.  The other four were similar close ups of other bruises, gashes...or fractures she had suffered under his care.  In fact, he remembered each one distinctly.

"Lance what are you doing just standing there?!  We have to get in there!" she cried as she struck her hoof against the slot as though expecting the sheer drive she felt to get through would cause the wall to crumble.  Snapping back to reality, Lance scooped up the five photos and hid them away in his bag before replying.

"Honey I don't think Fluttershy's actually in there," he said, trying and barely managing to sound calm as he lowered his head to gaze through the slot.  There was nothing there.  Even the scant bit of light that should have shined through the slot failed to appear.

"Somepony in there just took photos of her!  What more proof do you need?!" she shouted angrily before shoving him out of the way and trying to see into the room herself.

Lance stumbled to the side a couple steps before catching his balance again.  "Posey, I heard you on the other side of a door before, and you weren't actually there.  Besides, Fluttershy isn't a filly anymore, she grew up!  I even know where she lives and everything, how could she be here as a filly again?"

"I don't know Lance how could I be here alive again?!" she retorted sarcastically, wiping away the tears that were starting to burn her eyes.  "Do you even know where we are, or when we are?!  Who are you to start saying whether or not things can happen here?!" she continued yelling as she got right in his face.

"I don't know Posey maybe I've been out here getting my flank handed to me a little longer than..." he stopped himself before he contributed to the argument anymore, letting his frustration ease a bit while Posey stood there glaring at him.  Once he had calmed down a bit he tried answering again.  "Honey, Fluttershy is not on the other side of this wall.  If she were she would be terrified.  She would be right there the instant she heard your voice, and you know it," he said, drawing her into a hug that she was a bit hesitant to allow.

"You...you can't know that for sure...maybe she's hurt..." she said while making a single meager attempt to pull away from him.

"We would hear her crying if she were, you know that too," Lance assured her as he held her close.  "Fluttershy is safe and sound in her cottage Posey, all grown up with her own life.  She's fine."

...

Posey gently pulled away from the hug and stepped back over to the slot, bringing her head down to it again.  "Sweetie...if you're in there...mommy and daddy are going to the elevator.  Please meet us there...okay?"  She took a further moment to wipe away her tears again, then looked back at Lance.  "Just in case."

He nodded in understanding before they both returned to the door, the conspicuously silent lock having undone itself during the interruption.  Upon stepping out, Lance's watch started to quietly buzz.  Then they became conscious of the flapping of wings briefly passing overhead.

"Posey...does this place have a ceiling?" he whispered as audibly as he dared while looking up into the blackness above.

"I don't know...I never checked..." she replied with just as much caution.

The wing flaps stopped shortly before metal touched down upon metal above them and buzzing intensified.  They could hear the creaking of a set of restraints...followed by a pleased, bestial murmur and a hiss of steam as somepony in the darkness spotted them.  They didn't bother shining the surgical light upward.  It didn't seem necessary compared to running for their lives.  It was only the barest of coherent thought left in Lance's head that made him look on the ground for the blood trail that had changed direction.

"Can we turn off the lights and hide somewhere?!" Posey said as she kept pace behind Lance.

"I tried that already, she can smell us!"

There was another sound of iron clad hooves landing as the sovereign touched down on the ground and started after them.  Neither amber stallion or cream colored mare dared looked back as they fled, Lance in particular feeling particularly grim about their prospects.  Running away from her never seemed to work out...and yet he didn't hear her gaining on them as they ducked and weaved through the maze.  She was fast and nimble as ever of course, but she was also bigger than them and had to move through the same cramped quarters.  The constant changing of direction must have been throttling her speed to the point where she couldn't catch up with them!

She did not fail to notice this though.  With a final frustrated growl and a spiteful striking of the obstinate pipes, they heard her take wing again and fly up into the darkness over top the maze.  His watch abruptly began screaming at him as she landed ahead of them this time, tendril already emerging from her mane.  Lance took the next right turn, coming to the obvious conclusion that no trail was worth following if it lead them straight into that.  That thought did little to negate the fact that not only were they trying to avoid a sadistic beast in a maze she could easily fly over, they were now lost while trying to do so.  The situation only grew worse as she landed in front of them again, forcing Lance to make another unplanned turn.  For all he knew they were being herded into a dead end!

Following a third close encounter, he was running out of stamina again, his breath coming heavier as he realized that he was starting to move slower despite his best efforts.  But then a flash of a light grey tail retreating around a corner a ways down his current path caught his eye.  Still trusting her with both of their lives, he dutifully took the indicated turn when they reached it, greeted by the sight of the grinning stalker moving down the next necessary turn.  The buzzing of his watch died down a little, and next he heard the impact of the sovereign's hooves, they were where Lance and Posey would have been if they hadn't made the suggested turn.  In this moment of panic and terror he was at least able to feel some bit of satisfaction as he heard roaring and banging pipes while their pursuer threw a fit at their absence and took to the air again.

With one last turn they emerged into a long, wide open corridor where the walls of pipes were covered in the same creeping black ooze from earlier.  They were both exhausted, Lance doubly so as he was forced to stop and catch his breath despite an ever so intense desire to keep going.  This at least gave him a chance to look around, following the beam from Posey's light as she did the same.  Then he saw something that gave him a second wind: one of the thick, rusted metal doors that had saved him in the apartments was sitting there open at the end of the hallway.

"Come on!" he shouted weakly as he started toward it at a gallop.  The sovereign touched down again behind them, just outside the corridor, before forcing her way inward and quickly gaining on them now that there was no maze to negotiate.

"Lance!?" Posey exclaimed at his side as the gap between ponies and monstrosity grew alarmingly small.

"Trust me!" They reached deep to put out one final burst of speed, crossing the threshold of the door and wincing at the momentous clang it produced as it slammed shut behind them, a second one sounding as the sovereign once again careened right into it.  Lance collapsed to the floor, completely worn out and well aware of what had happened whilst Posey looked back in wonder at the door that had just moved of its own accord.  After catching enough of his breath to let his eyes focus, he brought his head up again to take in their new surroundings.

It was Fluttershy's old room.  The walls had peeled and rotted and the window had been broken out, leaving holes that showed the nightmarish grating behind them.  There was equal parts dust and mold covering the damp carpet, save for one corner in which her bed used to reside.  The carpet was clean there, having been covered by the bed until very recently from the looks of it, suggesting that somepony had been sleeping in that room for a long time despite all the decay going on around them.  In the center of the room was another mannequin, this one free of any photographs, blood, or cracks.  It would have been fitting for a store display in fact, save for five marks that had been drawn on with a black marker.  Each was a square, one located where the eye would be, one on the back the head, one on the side of the body, one a bit further up where a pegasus wing would attach, and one on the lower right front leg.

"We're...safe in here then?" Posey asked, pausing to sniff back the tears that were welling up again.  She didn't need any of the absent furniture, toys, or crayon drawings pinned to the wall to recognize her little girl's room.

"She won't...get in...at least," he replied, still out of breath and trying to struggle back to his hooves.  The impact current events were having on his wife were not lost upon him, but at the moment he was more concerned with getting the both of them out of there alive.  Being trapped in a room with no other apparent exit and a murderous alicorn guarding the only entrance was not a good place to accomplish that.  There had to be some other way out.  "You alright?" he asked her again.

"I think so...it's just that, looking at this and thinking about how much I missed is kind of hard...especially after those pictures."  She wiped the tears from her eyes and sniffed again.  "I know this can't really be her room though," she continued in order to assure the both of them that she was still sane.

"No, her room still looks a lot nicer than this," he replied, telling the truth for once.

She smiled at him.  "Good."

The moment was interrupted by another clang from the sovereign slamming herself against the door outside.  Followed by another...and another...and finally the clang was joined by an audible crack as the plate hinges bolted into the wall started to tear free from the force of the consecutive blows.  Apparently the armor plates she had shed in the operating theater had been heavy enough to prevent her from such assaults in the apartments.  With them gone the heavy iron doors were now just another delay tactic.

"Uh...um...okay!  There's another way out right?  We just need to find it," Posey said hastily, trying her best not to panic as she looked around frantically.

Lance cast his eyes about with just as much fervor but found nothing, there was just broken down walls and a mannequin...with five squares on its body.

"...No..." he said under his breath as he started to realize what was being asked of him.  He had five pictures of Fluttershy's injuries about the size of those squares...and five staples to use for them.    There had to be some...other way though.  Some other way that wasn't so suspicio-

He flinched away from another deafening impact that caused a bolt to shear off and shoot across the room.  There was no more time.  He had to do this.

"I know what to do Posey," he said somewhat hesitantly as he retrieved the pictures and then the loaded staple gun.  She stopped searching and looked back towards him, her eyes flitting over to the door before the sovereign slammed into it again, the metal and the wall around it breaking and deforming enough to create a visible opening.

"Hurry!"

Lance paused, finding one last mental barrier staying his hooves.  But when he looked back at Posey once more...that was all he needed.  There really was no telling what she might infer from what he was about to do.  But if it made her hate him...if it made her never want to be with or speak to him again...she would still be alive.  His own deep reaching terror was no excuse to let her die.

He picked up the first photograph of his daughter's bruised eye and stapled it onto the square on the mannequin's face.

"Oh…he did, did he?" Her father said walking up to Fluttershy. Fluttershy looked up at her father, taking a step back from him getting so close.

Fluttershy fell to the ground as her father's hoof hit her hard across the face. The candy bar slid across the room.

He picked up the next photograph of Fluttershy's bruised leg and stapled it to the appropriate square below the mannequin's wrist joint.

"What have I TOLD you about FLYING without permission!? You're NOT allowed to do it even in the house!" He yelled at her, gripping her hoof hard.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She cried out as tears streamed from her eyes, her hoof hurt like crazy as he gripped it hard.

The third picture he picked up was of a bruised wing joint stuck at an unnatural angle...he only stopped for a second to clear his vision before stapling that one to the side of the mannequin's back.  Something was getting in his eye.

His mouth reached down, gripping down hard on her wing, forcibly extending it despite all of her efforts to shut it.

"NO! NO DADDY PLEASE! STOP!" She cried out as pain shot through her back. But it was too late, he wasn't going to stop.

"Stop it," he ordered himself bitterly under his breath as something continued to get in his eye.  He recognized the subject of the fourth picture as Fluttershy's bruised ribs.

"F-Father…I…" Fluttershy hiccuped, trying to say something, anything to explain the sight before her father.

However, she was silenced. Her father's hoof struck her, hard. Her small body was sent sailing across the room and smashed into the wall. She let out a yelp of pain before hitting the ground.

"Stop it," he repeated, rubbing what was clearly just random debris from his eyes before taking a long look at the final photograph.  He was broken out of his paralyzing hesitation by the next strike against the door that resulted in a particularly worrying crack of stone and snap of metal.  A look over his shoulder revealed the sovereign pushing her head in through the small gap and trying to pry it open the rest of the way.  Lance quickly stapled the final picture to the back of the mannequin's head amongst the cacophony of screeching metal.

Without warning he pushed her head down under the water.

Fluttershy scrambled at the unexpected movement, her mouth and nose filling with water as air escaped her lungs. Her hooves flailed as she tried to push herself up out of the water, but the hoof holding her down was too strong.

The racket suddenly died down.  When next he looked back all he saw was the sovereign's horn spike withdrawing from the opening she had wrenched apart.  There were no more strikes against the door.  For whatever reason, what he had done had convinced her to stop.

Lance looked to his wife again, hoping to see some relief on her face but only finding a harrowed, unnerved expression as she shifted her gaze from his slightly reddened eyes to the mannequin and back again.  Her mouth open, then shut again as she briefly examined the ground before finally finding her voice.  "How...how did you know where to put those?"

"It's...not hard to tell if you look-"

"No, I mean, sure the eye...and the wing...but the other three are so close up...how did you know where to put them?"

...

"When your little girl gets hurt you remember it," he answered weakly, unable to meet her eyes.  The staple gun in his hoof burned to ashes, it's purpose fulfilled.

...

He was saved from having to explain any further by the sound of a soft, ethereal sob that came from everywhere and nowhere all at once.  As they looked on, small rivulets of blood began trickling from the points at which the staples pierced the mannequin.  They gathered in a rather tiny pool at the base, and after a few more moments there came another sob as the pool rippled with an invisible hoof fall.  The wracking ghostly sobs continued as small, bloody hoof prints trailed from the mannequin to the wall, whereupon a final hoof print appeared on the wall.  It smoked, then glowed a bright orange color before the smoldering heat spread outward and consumed the entire section of the wall, revealing a grated door that had been previously hidden from view.

...

"I guess she was a bit rambunctious at times...accidents happen," Posey said, though neither she nor Lance were sure as to whom she said it.  She stepped past him toward the door.

"..." he followed after her, his eyes still more interested in the floor than looking her in the face.  "Yeah..."  He passed through the door and...suddenly the floor looked oddly familiar.

"Lance..." Posey took a step back and nudged his side to get his attention.  He raised his head again.

They were back at the room inside of which they had first started, or at least a near perfect replica of it.  The mannequins from before were both gone, and the second walkway in the distance was traveling to their right instead of their left.  It was the second catwalk they had been looking for all that time at last.  But how were they supposed to figure out which door to use now?  There was nopony to ask...but there was a pair of phrases adorning the doors to the path of needles and path of pins that proved helpful.

One answers with lies

One answer is all

Lance knew this was his last chance to get it right, and there was no pony or mannequin to ask, no age old riddle that had a logic proofed solution to lean on.  The clues didn't make it seem like he was even allowed to ask a question anyway, only give an answer.  How would that be anything more than a guess?  It would be about as reliable as just taking the first answer given in the old riddle with the two ponies at the intersection...only now that he thought about it, it wasn't.  The tricky part of that old riddle was that there was no immediately apparent way to tell the lying pony from the honest pony.  Their current situation was different...because no matter how he tried to justify doing so, he had been feeding his wife falsehoods and half truths ever since she asked about her death.  There was no confusion over which pony in the room was the liar this time.

"Posey...I'm going to pick a door.  Then I want you to go and open the opposite door.  Got it?"

"Um...sure?" she said in a voice that didn't sound sure at all.

He spent a moment pondering which door to choose before remembering that it really didn't matter.  "That door is the way out," he said, pointing to the door of needles.  It replied with the click of the lock opening.

Still not quite understanding, Posey walked over to the door of pins and was quite surprised when the knob she had assumed had remained locked instead worked flawlessly and let her pull the door open.  There was no wall of concrete this time either, only a clear passageway that she assumed lead around to the catwalk.  They spent a few moments in a heavy silence, his wife adding a few things up in her head before speaking again in a completely unreadable tone of voice.

"Lance...they were accidents...right?"

Part 24

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Sickness unto foolish death.

Part 24

...

"Wh-...what do you mean Posey?  Of course they were accidents."

She spent the longest time simply standing there facing the door.  Then she shivered with a sad sigh that bordered on an outright sob before finally turning to look back at him.  Tears were quickly forming in her eyes, and her mouth gave a single subtle quiver as though she were restraining herself.  In an instant of silent panic Lance's mind went in what felt like a hundred different directions trying to think of what he had done, what he had given away, how much she knew now, or how the hoof he was now going to fix any of this.  His thoughts were refocused as she finally made clear exactly what it was that had doomed him.

"That's that same voice you used before...the first time I fell and couldn't get up, and you told me I was going to be okay," she clarified, turning the rest of her body around to face him and taking a moment to wipe yet more tears from her cheeks.  "I never forgot that voice.  It worked so well the first time," she continued, pausing to make a short sound that tried to resemble a laugh but only managed to cut Lance's heart in half when he heard it.  "But I figured out pretty quick.  That was what it sounded like when you had to lie to a patient...so they wouldn't panic."

Lance's ears flattened as his scattered thoughts were concentrated into a single ice cold spike of fear that jammed its way into the back of his skull.

"I noticed back at the apartment.  The little things you do when you're talking to me, they were...different then.  At first I just sort of ignored it.  I mean, with all the stuff you'd been through, nopony would blame you for acting a bit off.  But even aside from that I really...really trust you...so that was all the more reason to keep some of my thoughts to myself," she started to explain, her words coming as though finally saying them were some form of relief.  "But...you're lying Lance.  Why is that?  What happened to Fluttershy that was so bad you can't tell me about it?"  She started to approach him, her teary eyes fixed upon him with greater scrutiny than ever before.

For a moment his brain ceased to function.  Only when he took half a moment to glance away from her was he able to grasp at any of the potential explanations his brain was fabricating.  He took the first one he could get a hold of, forcing it through his mouth before he could hesitate even longer.  "She was...bullied at school Posey."

"She was bullied to the point where they broke her wing."  She didn't believe a word of it and having his implication repeated back to his face made it sound just as ridiculous to him in turn.  But coming up with another explanation would only look more suspicious so he allowed himself no other choice than to stick with it.

"Yes...she wasn't talking to me remember?  I...didn't hear about it until-"

"So you, the greatest doctor Cloudsdale has ever seen, failed to notice our little filly coming home with bruises that escalated to a broken wing."

"..."  His mouth opened but then slowly shut before he looked downward.  He couldn't look into those tear filled violet eyes anymore...it was too much.  But she wasn't going to let it go.  She sat down in front of him and a pair of cream colored hooves took hold of his face, gently coaxing his gaze back up to meet with hers.

"You don't have to be so afraid Lance.  I'm your wife...there is nothing you can tell me that will make me stop loving you, okay?" she assured him, trying to coax him out of whatever shell within which he had trapped himself.

It was working.  His vision once again blurred as the tears he'd been able to restrain started breaking free all over again.  He closed his eyes tightly as if trying to force her out.  "Yes there is."

"No."  She let go of his face and pulled him into a tight, warm hug.  "There isn't."

He spent the longest time standing there with his eyes closed, chin resting on his wife's shoulder.  This was it.  There was no way out anymore.  His already shallow capacity to effectively lie to her had been utterly exhausted and now there was nothing left to do but let her go...because that was the only thing that could possibly happen.  But...he'd made some small amount of peace with that already in just putting the photos into place, hadn't he?  Was it really in him to admit the truth to the ridiculously loving mare holding him?

But again...there was no choice anyway.

Lance opened his eyes and exhaled in a shuddering sigh as he tugged at every mental chain holding him back.  "Posey...you didn't really-" he was stopped mid sentence, his eyes shooting open in horror as he saw that a cleanly written note railroad spiked to the wall.

"Kindly shut her up."

The spike of fear that had remained lodged in his skull gave a sudden gut wrenching twist as images of the dead barbed nurses rushed through his mind sporting Posey's face.  He would defy the blasted deaf colt all he needed to in order to get the two of them out of there and home.  But he had no idea what he would do to Posey if properly provoked.  He couldn't take that chance.  All thoughts of confessing fled from his mind in an instant.

"I didn't really...what?" she prodded at his continuing silence.

Lance pushed her away as gently as he could considering the circumstances.  "N-nevermind, we need to get out of here, we can talk about this later," he stammered, the fear plain on his face.  It was not the sad fear of before but more visibly frantic, a fact Posey picked up on as she raised an eyebrow and looked behind her at what he might have possibly seen.  Apparently seeing nothing, she returned her eyes to him with more than a hint of confusion shading her previously gentle expression.

"No, we can talk about this now."

"You don't understand, it's not safe here-"

"Why not?  She could've gotten through that door in another minute but chose to stop," she said, her hoof pointing toward the partially broken door.  "We have the right door, and the elevator is right over there, open and waiting for us," she continued, pointing at each of the mentioned objects in turn.  "We're not being chased, we know the way out, so why can't we do this here and why is it not safe exactly?" she asked again, the confusion in her voice slowly turning to irritation.

"Shut.  Her.  Up."

"Posey...please, trust me!" he plead in desperation.

"Lance, I love you...but you've been lying to me and I can't ignore that.  If you want me to trust you again then...you're going to have to prove I can before I do, alright?"  Her mood was quickly elevating past irritation from having come so close to getting the truth out of him but then suddenly having it jerked away for no reason readily apparent to her.  Those violet eyes he could barely manage to face were shimmering with tears again.  It was actually hurting her to have to say such things to her dearly beloved.

He took a moment to put a mental damper on his panic.  Maybe she would listen to him if he just explained what he had seen.  He knew before he even opened his mouth that it was going to sound ludicrous but since ludicrous was the new normal there wasn't any sense in not trying.  "There is a note from that deaf colt on the wall behind you telling me to make you drop this Posey.  I'm fine with telling him to buck off if it's only my flank on the line, but I am not risking you, okay?"

"Oh...right, so there's an invisible note on the wall behind me that so happens to let you just comfortably ignore this like you want to, right?" she replied sarcastically, briefly wiping a hoof across her eyes.

"Posey, look at me!" he demanded, looking her dead in the eyes.  "I am not lying about this.  I would never lie about seeing something here that you can't, because we are the only ponies here, and if we can't trust in each other to keep ourselves sane then it's all over!"

"Then not taking advantage of your dead wife by making up whatever's convenient to fill all the years of her daughter's life she missed might have been a better start!" she retorted angrily as her irritation finally bubbled over into outright painful fury.  "Do you not even respect me enough to tell the truth just this once?  Because you used to!"

"SHUT HER UP *OR I WILL*."

The much less patient change to the note effectively obliterated Lance's mental damper.  Without a second's thought more he grabbed Posey's hoof and tried to force her to her feet.  "Come on!  We don't have time to argu-"

He was silenced by the back of Posey's other hoof striking him across the face, stunning him into releasing her.

"You keep your hooves off of me!" she shouted, getting right in his face before he even had time to bring a hoof up to his aching cheek.  Her eyes widened as she realized she had just hit her husband, but then closed tightly just long enough for her to remind herself what she was doing and wipe away another round of tears.  When next she spoke her voice was trembling with a mix of grief and rage.  "Lance...I don't know what your problem is...but you had better figure it out..."

...

"Because I am not moving one more step until you tell me everything...so you can either get over yourself and explain things, or you can just leave me here."  As shaky as her voice was, it was untainted by even the slightest speck of doubt.  There was no questioning that she had every intention of sticking to her ultimatum.

He stood there silently looking back at her, absolutely lost.  Then a flicker of movement caught his attention.  It was the note behind her again.  The black inked text had ignited into an unnatural black flame that quickly consumed the paper it was written upon...and then moved on to start burning away the wall around it.  "Wait, no!"

Seeing again where his eyes were pointed, Posey looked over her shoulder to see for herself that the wall was very quickly being turned to pitch black ashes in the wake of a furious black fire.  They both watched on in equal parts terror and awe as it proceeded to burn the entire room, distorting the air around them as though giving off intense heat even though neither of them could feel the slightest change in temperature, even when it passed directly beneath their hooves.  Once everything around them had been burnt to black ash, it started falling apart.  The inexplicable bending and blurring of the light around them became even more intense, each individual detached particle shrinking and vanishing from sight entirely like they had never existed in the first place.  All that was left untouched by the ravaging black flames was the massive metal door that now stood there, sitting on the floor with no frame attached.  Something on the other side gave it an almost comically gentle tap, causing it wobble perilously before falling over with a final ear drum rattling clang.

The sovereign was lying there with hooves tucked beneath her.  She looked at the the two stunned ponies a moment before starting to calmly get back to her hooves.  Lance hadn't placated her with his earlier pseudo confession in the slightest.  She had merely chosen to wait patiently instead of waste any more of her seemingly endless stores of energy, as though she knew what would inevitably transpire.

"Run," Posey said in the odd sort of clarity that sometimes accompanied a sudden spike of adrenaline.

"You firs-"

"Run!" she repeated, shoving him toward the elevator.  It seemed they were now both on the same track when it came to there being no time to argue.  The monster alicorn mare casually trotting their way had seen to that.  Lance made a break for the elevator, not agreeing in the slightest with Posey's decision to place him in front but finding there was nothing he could do about it now but just go as fast as he could manage.

Curiously, even with Lance's pace holding her back, they seemed to be quite readily outpacing their pursuer and her oddly relaxed pace.  But about halfway across the catwalk, Lance realized that the sovereign was no longer their primary motivation for moving faster.  The elevator door had begun closing at an alarming rate.  It took him a fraction of a second to realize that he wouldn't be able to get there in time at his pace.  But he knew somepony with a ready set of wings that would be able to manage it easily.

"Posey!  The door's closing!" he shouted over his shoulder.  She didn't seem to need much more in the way of explanation, and despite wanting to keep herself between her husband and the monster mare, she was in the air and dashing overhead towards the door in half a moment.  Leaving her husband to fend for himself for a few seconds was far preferable to guaranteeing they would be trapped on that walkway with  the sovereign.

Posey zipped through the closing doors and whirled around expecting to find a button to open the doors, but there was nothing save for a hole where a button panel had been, and some hanging, torn wire behind it.  Completely lacking any other options, she was forced to try and force the door back open with her hooves.  Whatever was pushing it closed was very determined though.  The gap was already too small for Lance to fit through and it was still slowly inching closed despite her best efforts.  "Hurry!" she cried out to her husband as he drew closer.

"Just push the open button!" he replied, out of breath as he reached the elevator and started giving what meager assistance his battered could provide in keeping the door open.  Their combined strength only managed to stop the door from closing any further, and the sovereign was still looming ever larger behind him.

"There is no button!" she retorted, panic saturating her voice as her mind raced, trying to think of anything they could do to save him.  But there was nothing to be done for it, except to pry the door open with brute force.  No further words were exchanged, for that would've wasted oxygen the two of them needed.  They both strained audibly against the closing door, trying to summon every ounce of strength they could and...it started to work.  The halt of progress miraculously turned into the gap widening half an inch, and none too soon as the metallic hoof steps grew closer behind him.  He tightly shut his eyes, trying to block out the unsettlingly familiar presence behind him, focusing completely on the door and being reward with an obstinate creak as they gained another inch of clearance.  There was hope!

The small speck of optimism he had cultivated was mercilessly snuffed out as his ears began to ring.  Upon opening his eyes he was greeted to the sight of the black veins creeping inward from the sides of the elevator door, but that paled in comparison to what he saw inside.  The deaf colt was standing on the ceiling behind Posey, his 'eyes' focused solely upon Lance.  He opened his mouth to warn his wife but before he could utter a single syllable he saw two blinding flashes of red light.  Just like that the ringing in his ears overpowered every other sound, he could feel nothing, no thoughts in his head could connect, and his body went completely limp, as though the numbing effect he had experienced in the vault had skipped the brief ramp up and hit him all at once.  He was forced to see Posey's face, screaming and horrified for him, before the doors slammed shut and the elevator car quickly rose up the shaft without him.

As the ringing in his ears steadily subsided the significance of what had just transpired finally dawned on him.  He was instantly back on his hooves, banging against the closed metal door for a few moments before trying to pull it open himself.  When that proved fruitless Lance looked for a button, or a crowbar, or a section of nearby railing that had been broken free, anything he could use to open it, hell bent on getting back to her even if it meant that he would have to climb the elevator shaft himself.  There was nothing to be found though.  This wasn't some puzzle left behind for him to solve.  With all his options exhausted he slammed his hooves into the door again, letting out a frustrated, unintelligible shout of rage.

His anger was drowned out by the mental static of undiluted terror as the touch of metal against his neck reminded him of a rather important somepony.  Lance's body went rigid.  He briefly pondered jumping over the railing to get away from her but even if that weren't already an insane idea, she'd probably just pluck him out of the air anyway.  She stepped even closer, and with the muzzle of her mask still planted against his neck she pulled in a long, slow breath that sent his skin crawling just like it had in the apartments.  He wanted to tell her to stop, to tell her to get away, but his immediate instinct was buried beneath his hopelessness; it would do no good, why even bother?

There was no more time to ponder it though.  Suddenly a tendril was around his neck and hoisting him into the air.  His back legs flailed and he reflexively reached up to try and free himself, but before the threat of suffocating again could even register he was jerked to the side before another impact knocked the wind out of him.  It was only after the tendril had wrapped around his midsection and over his legs, immobilizing them, that he was able to register what had happened.  She had tossed him onto her back and pinned him with his legs held against her sides, spaced such that she would have no problem utilizing her wings.  He wasn't about to see what she was going to do or where they were going to go though, the last bit of her tendril that held his head down also happened to cover his eyes, blinding him.

Lance heard her make a half snarling, half humming sound of contemplation, also feeling her neck muscles tense from looking upward.  Before he could think too deeply into her actions she made an about face and started to gallop back along the walkway.  He could hear the decrease in lingering echoes around them when they retreated back into the pipe maze, but past that he was entirely lost.  There was no map in his head against which to compare each turn he felt her make, so deducing even the slightest idea of where they were was simply impossible.  Even if he had miraculously produced a perfect mental map during the chase, he was not in the best of mental states to make use of such theoretical maps from his spot strapped and blindfolded to the most sadistic pony he had ever met.

His head bumped into the back of her neck as she came to stop and looked upward again.  Then he felt her wings unfurl, the muscles beneath him flexing as she launched the two of them into the air with a strong flap.  Normally Lance welcomed the sensation of rising into flight but at that very moment all it managed to do was make him feel sick...er.  The sound of each wing beat began echoing off distant walls once again, signifying that she was now above the pipe maze in the dark void from which she had first spotted them.  She flew upward for a long while, until at last he felt her reach out with her forelegs and grab hold of the edge of some metal...thing he couldn't see.  Once all four greave clad hooves were on solid ground, she made sure that he wasn't getting too comfortable from his spot on her back.

Lance's only warning was the feel of her neck flexing before the sudden touch of metal against his left thigh caused him to flinch.  The sovereign took another long breath, making him wonder if she had only stopped to partake of his scent again.  She proved him disastrously wrong when the sharp hiss of scalding steam mixed with the searing pain that suddenly shot down his leg and the scream of agony that shot out of his mouth.

"Lance?!" came Posey's voice in the distance.

An invisible iron vice clamped down around Lance's chest as he suddenly realized exactly what was happening.  The sovereign was after his wife...and for that task, he was serving as fantastic bait.

"POSEY GET OUT OF-"  The section of tendril around his head rearranged itself slightly so that a section could cross the top of his snout and hold it shut.  He heard Posey let out a terrified yelp as she too recognized what was coming for her, his captor responding by bolting in the direction from which the sound had come.  Timed slowed to a crawl for him.  The excited panting of the sovereign in hot pursuit, the periodic splitting of wood and snapping of metal as she burst through ineffective barrier after ineffective barrier, all of it was secondary to the gory images of Posey tearing through his mind, and the knowledge that were they to come true, it would be all his fault.

His ears twitched as he heard a particularly loud clang ahead of them prior to feeling the alicorn beneath him make a concerted effort to come to a stop before hitting whatever barrier had just separated her from her quarry.  She let loose a distorted roar before striking it with all her strength, terrifying Lance further as he heard the metal bend and creak just like the previous heavy door she'd nearly gotten through.  Posey would not be able to rely on it for long.  But, curiously, after a couple moments spent trying to bash through the obstacle, the sovereign just...stopped.  Then Lance found himself the center of attention again as the bit of tendril holding his mouth shut grew slack.  Her muzzle met his thigh again, on the exact same spot no less, and another hiss of steam heralded a second, even worse shot of excruciating pain as the searing hot vapor struck the blistering burn marks she had already made.

He knew better now though.  It took an extraordinary effort but he managed to bite back the scream trying to claw its way up his windpipe.  She replied a seemingly amused grunt before she turned toward the wall to their left.

The tendril slid off of him, and he couldn't possibly scramble off her back fast enough.  Lance ungracefully plummeted to the metal grating below and frantically looked about, hoping to not see his wife anywhere near them.  The 'decor' was that of the two upper floors, with sheets of the strange fleshy cloth stretched over the walls and cut open to expose the black oozing assortment of densely packed pipes behind them.  They were in an oddly placed turn in yet another blasted hallway, one that stopped at a formidable looking steel door that bore the scars of the sovereign's frustrations, turned to the left, continued a mere ten feet, then turn right to simply keep going in the same direction.  It was not a layout he recognized from any part of the hospital, whether it be from his recent lone delve or his recollections of the days past in Manehatten.  But what really counted was that Posey was nowhere in sight, and as long as that held true he didn't really care about anything else.

The brief chance he'd been granted to get his bearings was brought to a swift end as a metal shod hoof callously bashed him against the wall, leaving him lying on his left side with his back against it.  Still desperate to lead her as far from Posey as possible he tried getting back to his hooves but was struck stone still with fright as the sovereign slammed her hoof down right in front of his face, a motion that would have crushed his snout flat with but an inch's difference in placement.  He slowly looked up to see her unseen gaze boring a hole through his skull, relaying her 'polite' request that he kindly lie still more effectively than words could ever manage.  Having made sure her catch was staying put, he noticed with some alarm that her leer was now slowly moving along his body, her breath still coming a bit heavier even though he knew for fact that she couldn't possibly be winded from such a chase.

It was alright...he didn't have to run...Posey had already run, right?

Her slow head movement came to a stop, finding herself very interested in the metal bracing around the grievous wound to his right rear leg.  A tilt of the head betrayed her curiosity, made only more obvious as she examined it more closely.

Yeah...there was no way she was still behind that door...she was a smart mare...

Another hiss preceded her head suddenly shooting forward and capturing the brace in her jaw.  The machinery in her helmet gave an audible strain as it tried to bite through but the black veined metal proved just as ridiculously resilient as ever.  Once she had grown irritated enough with the effort, she lashed out against the wall with her hoof in a fit of rage, tearing through the sheet of flesh and bending the pipes behind it.  It didn't take her long to come up with an alternative solution, one that apparently required her to wrap her tendril around his midsection again before slamming him against the opposite wall, taking special care that he landed on his other side this time.

All Lance had to do was not scream...if he didn't make another sound Posey would have no reason to come back...

The sovereign almost immediately put his resolve to the test, forcefully bringing her hoof down on his fresh and tender burns and twisting the rough, rusted greave into them.  Lance's eyes shot open and he barely managed to cover his mouth in time as the sharp edges of her hoof armor cut through the already horribly sensitive skin.  The way his body shuddered with the sudden agony, the muffled sound restrained behind his hooves, they sent a delighted shiver along her spine and she promptly twisted her hoof in the other direction.  She spent a while just doing that...moving her hoof in new ways, trying to elicit an even better reaction from her amber coated plaything.  Then, apparently remembering why she had begun grinding her hoof into his thigh in the first place, she gave a reluctant, monstrous sigh and set about making her bait a bit more suitable.  Suddenly Lance was without the aid of his hooves in quieting himself, his all too enthusiastic torturer having used her tendril to pull them away from his mouth and pin them to his chest.  She started pressing her hoof into his burns even harder, forcing him to grit his teeth, close his eyes tightly, and arch his back as his body instinctively tried to do anything it could to escape the unremitting pain.

That was it...he could do it...he could take what she was dishing out without making a sound...

Then something new started.  He felt something sharp press against his side and turned his head just in time to see her horn break the skin over one of his ribs and start dragging the blade along the bone.  For his part he still managed to not cry out, shuddering as every bit of his willpower subdued the needed exclamation to a distressed gurgle in his throat.  Posey might not have been able to hear the noise he made but somepony sure had, the sovereign unable to contain a distorted moan as she finished with one rib and moved to the next.  She could feel his resistance breaking, her breath coming even heavier as she pushed him closer and closer to giving in for her.  But that proved entirely unnecessary as Lance opened his eyes to see the single worst thing he could have ever seen in that particular moment.

Posey was standing there in the open doorway.

"Get off of my husband!" she shouted at the alicorn aberration, her eyes filled with tears and fury.

Time seemed to slow down for him.  Suddenly the sovereign's imposing presence was gone.  She made a mad dash straight for Posey and Lance swore that he saw his wife completely ignore the charging beast and look straight at him.  She smiled at him.  It was the bittersweet expression of somepony who had won...at great cost.  The next moment she was knocked off her hooves, and the moment after that the sovereign kicked the massive door closed behind her, cutting Lance off from the two of them.

Then the screaming started, accompanied by an unnatural, sultry sigh.

Lance leaped to his hooves and grabbed the door's handle only to find it broken and useless.  He wasn't going to get through it.  There had to be another way into that room, there had to be!  His first instinct carried him around the corner to his left, a move that proved correct when he saw the beginnings of a door on the right side at the very edge of his...of Posey's lantern's light.  There was no other place it could lead but into the room with Posey.  He had no idea what he could possibly do once he was inside but he had to get inside!

His hoof was just about to touch the doorknob when a flicker of light at the far end of the hallway caught his eyes.  It was a spontaneously activating ceiling light that blindsided him with the illuminated sight of door 303.

Part 25

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Sickness unto foolish death.

Part 25

Lance stepped out of the entryway having just gotten home from a long, long first shift at Cloudsdale General.  Being the first qualified pegasus at a hospital that had been starved for residential surgeons for so long was about as demanding as he had thought it would be.  Still, the warm welcome he had received had more than made up for it, and really there wasn't even anything to make up for in the first place.  He was living his dream, and now he got to come home to their newly purchased Cloudsdale home to see his wife sitting on the couch in the living room with a sleeping foal in her hooves.  She turned as she she heard him come through the door, and smiled at him as he stepped into view.

They both looked tired as the dead.

"About time," Posey teased quietly.  "What happened to 'two day shift'?"

"Between a couple emergency patients and telling the administrator what proper equipment looks like it turned into just shy of a three day shift," he replied in a soft whisper as he walked over and gave her a soft kiss, then looked down to admire his peacefully sleeping daughter.  "Was she good?"

"About as good as an infant foal can be."

"That bad huh?"

"Yep," she confirmed with a nod.   "I figured you would be home sometime tonight, so we just camped out here after she finally fell asleep."  She ever so gently elevated Fluttershy, offering her to her father who then, exercising the utmost caution, took the sleeping filly in his hooves.  There was a hushed gasp as she fidgeted about and made a soft whining noise in her sleep, but she did not wake up as her parents had feared.  They both sighed in relief, then Lance lifted off the ground in a gentle hover toward the stairs and up to Fluttershy's room.  Once she was tucked into her crib and still resting quietly, they retreated back to the hallway and silently closed the door behind them before heading back down to the couch in the living room.

"So how was your...days?" she asked once they had settled down next to one another.

His first reply was a beleaguered sigh.  "Remember when I said Cloudsdale General was just a glorified waiting room for Canterlot Medical Center?"

She nodded.

"I was exaggerating even less than I thought I was," he said while bringing a hoof up to his forehead.  "With their set up, the best they can do is stabilize a patient and arrange transportation.  There wasn't enough staff, the training they had was bare bones, their equipment was outdated-I mean, the oxygen masks they had weren't even up to snuff.  I had to explain to somepony why they started making them with more exhalation vents and clear plastic.  Why did I have to explain that to somepony in a hospital?"

Posey placed a hoof on his to snap him out of it.  "Other than that though?"

"Other than that..." he began, lowering his hoof.  "It was...great...I got to operate, and nopony asked me to move a single cloud or anything.  The administrator thinks he can solve the funding issues by pressing the whole 'pride of Cloudsdale' angle with the city council, especially considering all the attention that was given to my graduation.  Everything's really looking up from here Posey."  He ended the explanation with another tired, yet genuine smile.

"Good, it's been a long three days and I didn't want you coming home grumpy on top of it," she replied with a half lidded grin before giving him a proper welcome home kiss now that young eyes were comfortably tucked into their crib.  He quickly set to more actively participating, and neither of them kept track of time until they parted lips to catch their breath, leaning nuzzled against one another as they did.

"I'm sorry I haven't been here to help more.  How about I take over tomorrow, hrm?  Let you get a little 'you' time and catch up on some sleep?" he offered.

"Mmm that sounds lovely...but right now I'm more concerned with getting a little 'us' time," she whispered before placing a nip on his neck that was quite difficult to misinterpret.

"Seriously?" he said in disbelief before coming to his senses and stammering a clarification.  "I mean...yeah, I'm not going to turn you down...but you look exhausted Posey," he pointed out with a bit of concern.

"I know, I really am, and you don't look much better off either," she started, a soft blush on her cheeks as she backed away from her advances a little.  "But...we're both here, we're both awake, Fluttershy's asleep...and it's been months Lance...months upon months.  I don't know when we're going to get another chance like this.  We might just have to take what we can get even if we're both run ragged."

It was true.  First Fluttershy had been born.  Then Lance had been busy with the internship at Manehatten General.  Then they'd had to go house hunting in Cloudsdale.  Then there was the big move back home and all the settling of accounts and moving of objects it entailed.  Now Lance was having to put in even more time trying to whip Cloudsdale General into shape.  Throughout all of it, every single thing they did, they did while also taking diligent care of their much beloved daughter.  Life as of late had simply set the treadmill speed to maximum, torn off the dial, and left them to try and not fall off.

"That's a good poi-"

"But if you're too tired I'll understand," Posey said with faux disappointment as she stepped past him, letting her tail brush against the underside of his jaw.  "Guess I'll just get something to drink and go to bed then," she continued teasingly as she started walking toward their kitchen.

Half a moment later a smirking stallion had dashed beneath her and lifted her off of her hooves on his back, eliciting a pleasantly surprised squeal from her before climbing the staircase.

"Oh no, somepony help me, I'm being ponynapped by this brilliant, handsome stud!" she said in feigned distress as she hugged him tightly from her spot atop of him.

"Wait what?  Why can't I be rescuing from something instead of ponynapping you?" he asked, briefly dropping his confident smirk from moments prior.

"I called you brilliant and handsome, what more do you want?" she replied in playful derision, the married couple sharing a quiet chuckle before Lance stepped into their bedroom and closed the door.

To their credit they managed to get within a yard of their bed before they heard the splitting cry of a foal whose world was absolutely shattering around her from having woken up hungry and alone in the dark because that was seriously the worst thing.

They both sighed as Posey hopped down.  "I got it, get comfy," Lance said as he turned toward the door.

"Thanks sweetheart."  Though some of the enthusiasm had left her voice she was sure to at least give his rump an assuring pat on the way out.

Lance was still learning when it came to being a father, but at that point months into Fluttershy's life he was at least getting the basics down.  He managed to get her fed, check her diaper, and gently rock her back into a deep enough sleep that he could tuck her back into her crib inside of fifty minutes.  After taking a moment to confirm that she was sleeping comfortably and soundly, he flicked the light back off and returned to the master bedroom.

Posey lay there with her limbs stretched out every which way, making a soft snoring noise as her unconscious body tried to claim as much bed space as it possibly could.  He sighed in an odd mix of amusement and disappointment before he pulled a blanket over her that she immediately pulled around herself in her sleep.  Lance leaned in and kissed her cheek, being careful not to wake her and figuring he could bear sleeping on the couch that night if it meant she was able to get a full night's rest.

Screaming.  Flesh tearing.  Bone cracking.  Disturbingly enthralled, bestial moans.

He'd been in the hallway hadn't he?  Why was he suddenly back in front of the steel door looking at a note that had been spiked to it?!

You know, something occurred to me.  You really didn't keep up your half of this friendship like I did.

Buck the note.  He didn't have time for the notes.  He had to get back to the door before it was too late!  He ran around the corner to his left again, trying to keep his eyes focused to the right so he wouldn't be able to see when door 303 lit up at the far side.  But as soon as he rounded the corner he came face to face with it, the blasted door seemingly having read his mind before shifting to the exact spot he would be looking.

"Posey!"

"BEH!" she cried out as she rolled right off the bed in her waking alarm and took the blankets with her.  She soon became conscious of a familiar high pitched wailing that had kept her awake many a night.  When she managed to disentangle herself from the blankets she looked up to see her husband standing there with a look of complete helplessness on his face, a pediatric medical book tucked under one wing, and Fluttershy bawling her eyes out while looking up at him from her spot on the floor beside him with a bit of gauze wrapped to her knee.

"I'm sorry, I know you were napping but I just can't get her to stop!" he lamented in as apologetic a manner as he could.

She maintained a deadpan stare while she slowly looked from him, to Fluttershy, and back again.  "You're serious?"

"Uh..." he stammered, shades of inadequacy somewhat diluting his alarm.  When he wasn't immediately forthcoming with anything else to say, Posey grumbled and stood up, stepping out into the hallway and heading downstairs with her husband and daughter following behind.  "She um, she was chasing me around in the living room right?  Then she accidentally tripped over her doll and scraped her knee."

"I do not need this right now," Posey mumbled as her husband continued to talk with such volume that he was audible over the keening cries of their daughter.

"So I took her into the bathroom, cleaned the scrape off, then put some disinfectant balm on it and bandaged it.  It said 'pain relief' on the label.  They can't put that on there unless it relieves pain right?"  He was still a bit paranoid about medicinal goods that weren't passed over a pharmacy counter, especially when they were used on his daughter.

She said nothing as they entered the living room.  Still all but ignoring Lance's ramblings, she looked about at the mess of toys and pillows that Fluttershy had made of the place in her play time, and set about to grouping a few of said pillows together.

"I mean I understand it doesn't take effect instantly or something like that but it's been twenty straight minutes and she's still crying her lungs out!  She's not hungry, her diaper's clean, and I've spent the last ten minutes flipping through this book looking for congenital nerve disorders that might cause this sort of thing!" he continued unabated, now freely pursuing whatever horrid scenarios his mind could conjure without a second's thought as to their validity.

Satisfied with her work, she looked back to her husband and pointed a hoof at the few assembled pillows.

"What are you...honey this could be serious, and it could get more serious if we don't diagno-"

"On.  The.  Pillows." she said through her teeth, her deadpan stare having not gotten any friendlier as she continued pointing at them.

Lance decided to do the reasonable thing and just go ahead and lie down on the pillows before the scary mare he'd married got any scarier.

No sooner had he done this than Fluttershy crawled into his hooves, snuggled against his chest, and let her eardrum piercing sobs simmer down to a mere whimper.  He looked down at the little bundle of foal in his embrace with a stunned look on his face, followed by a prompt droop of his ears and an examination of the floor next to him, so struck was he with the distinct sensation of being the stupidest sentient organism on the entire planet.  "Oh."

"How do you rock her to sleep at night and then not instantly think of that?" she scolded wearily as she flopped down on the floor by his side and leaned against him in spite of her irritation.

"I don't know...I...guess I sort of ran away with-"

"I mean...yeah," she interrupted, "I know you're a doctor, with this whole knowledge base I'm blessed to never have to worry about, and I know I might not have a lot of room to talk after the way I acted when I was pregnant, but didn't your parents ever just hold you when you hurt yourself as a kid?"

"No," he replied matter of factly.

...

"Wait...really?" Posey asked in sad disbelief, her ears lowering much the same as her husband's.  "Do you...do you just mean you never got hurt as a kid?"

He sighed and gave Fluttershy a soft pat on the back after one of her whimpers was interrupted by a hiccup.  "No, I got hurt as a kid same as everypony else.  My parents just weren't the...parenting sort of ponies I guess."

"You never did really talk about them..." she pondered aloud.  "You'd think I would've started needling you about it a long time ago this far along into our relationship."

"Heh.  I think after how 'fun' it was to deal with your mother you might've just felt it wiser to leave well enough alone," he replied, raising a hoof to make the appropriate air quote gesture.

"Maybe so, but now I don't.  You're kind of the father of my kid now.  This is the sort of thing we need to know about each other...and I need to know you trust me as much as I trusted you when I told you all about my mother, alright?"  As she spoke she lowered her head down to the little foal in Lance's hooves and gave her forehead a gentle peck.  Fluttershy looked up at her, and though her eyes were still a bit red from crying, she none the less returned the gesture by briefly touching noses with her mother.  Although she hadn't grasped the specifics of such actions she apparently had already caught on to the affection behind them.

Posey had once again managed to trap Lance in a position of not having a single valid argument with which to counter her point.  There was a brief period of mental resistance but in the end he had to just take solace in the fact that there wasn't much to sift through and just get it over with.  "Okay honey, what do you want to know?" he relented, briefly distracted as he felt Fluttershy snuggle back against him.

"Whatever you're comfortable telling me."  She placed her hoof atop of his.  "No rush."

"There's...not much to tell really.  I'm not quite sure what they did exactly, probably accountants of some sort.  They were always, always busy.  I guess they must have had some really demanding clients.  I honestly don't know why they had me, I mean thinking back there were no signs that I was...a surprise," he began, careful to avoid the use of the word 'accident' around his surprise daughter.  "I've kind of concluded that having a kid was something on their to do list.  Except they didn't raise me so much as just cross me off.

"Don't get me wrong, I never went hungry or anything.  They were excellent providers but...that's practically all they were.  I didn't get bed time stories, I got audio recordings to listen to as I fell asleep.  After I learned to read I didn't get advice so much as I got books to read about anything I was curious about.  I got passed from sitter to sitter to sitter, and then when I was old enough to stay home alone, I did that most of the time when I wasn't at school.  They had pictures of us all on the wall, everypony who came to our house thought they were so proud of me...and on an intellectual level I know that was true.  I had a hard time feeling it though.

"Between a home life like that and the way the other foals treated me like some kind of nerd plague at school, I got overly comfortable with the prospect of just being by myself my whole life.    So after I graduated, I told the folks I would send for help if I really needed it, then took off for Manehatten because I heard their university had turned out a lot of prestigious doctors in the past.  Then after a couple years of getting nowhere...I almost crashed into your garden."  He couldn't help but smile at the memory of the last bit.  It had always struck him as odd that he, as a pegasus, had wound up with a wing injuring crash being one of the most cherished events of his life.

"Crashed into my life more like it," she added with reassuring nuzzle.  "So does...this thing with your parents still bother you?"

"Yeah...it does a little bit."  He paused for a moment, considering his words.  "It makes me feel...behind the curve I guess, like everypony else got at least some semblance of a socializing and parenting class while they were growing up, and I missed it."

Despite her sleep deprivation she couldn't help but chuckle, though she was interrupted by a large yawn that took a while before it allowed her to speak again.  "Look around Lance.  Think back before we first met and compare it to what you have now.  I think you're learning for yourself just fine Doctory Strongshy."

He sighed and looked down at Fluttershy, clearly not buying into Posey's assurances.  "Right, learning so well that I don't even think to just-"

She gently cut him off with a hoof briefly placed over his mouth.  "Life isn't surgery Lance.  You can afford to mess up, and you're going to, so you just need to get comfortable with the idea and roll with the punches alright?  Besides, you just took the extreme risk of waking me up from a nap, and with how little I've gotten to sleep this week," she started before a yawn cut her off and took some of the menace from her words, "you may as well have poked a dragon in the eye.  Only good fathers poke dragons in the eye for their daughters.  Case closed, now stop implying my husband is a bad father."

Lance still didn't particularly feel like smiling, but he put one on for her.  "Alright Posey...and might I say you are the most patient and understanding dragon I've ever met...plus you still have beautiful bedmane," he added, the fake smile turning into a genuine smirk.

"Shush, pillows don't talk," she replied as she shifted position to lie perpendicular with him and rest her head on his back just behind his wings.

"Wait, you're actually going to sleep right here?"

"Yep, you woke me up so you get to help me finish my nap," she reasoned before yawning for a third time and letting her eyes close.  "S'only fair."

He was about to offer some form of protest but then after a small movement in his forelegs he looked down again to see Fluttershy nodding off herself.  He didn't need to fake his smile that time, leaning his head down to brush a stray strand of pink mane from her face with his nose.  There wasn't any pressing matter he had to attend to anyway, he could manage to help his family get some sleep.  "Night you two."

"Mmm, night," Posey murmured.  "You know, not to be mean, but I'm glad your parents were just the neglectful sort."

"What?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, not quite sure how to take the sentiment.

"Just..from the way you were acting I half expected that they had beaten you or something."

The distressed gurgling noise that first reached his ears was something awful that he instantly recognized.  Somepony was in the most extreme of pain but had become far too damaged to express it.  But he didn't know the specifics.  He could not know the specifics because he could not see through the steel door and note in front of him.

So it only made sense that I not keep my half up either.  You can have these back.

Another sickening crack behind the door accompanied the horrible jolt down his spine as he realized what was happening.  He could hear every slice of skin, every tear of muscle fiber, every spatter of blood, every exhaled breath both tortured and thrilled, as though the door weren't even there.

"Not now, not now!" he plead in desperation as he rounded the corner and made another attempt at the door that would lead him back to Posey.  Lance moved his right hoof along the wall and kept his eyes focused on the floor, because if he couldn't see any doors he wouldn't be able to see that door.  Unless it were in the floor...like it was.

Lance heard a large mare sighing in contentment in time with another crack of bone as he stared dumbstruck at the door 303 on which he had somehow come to stand.

"Happy Anniversary, Lance," Posey offered as she held up her glass of champagne for a toast.

"Happy Anniversary, Posey," Lance reciprocated, the no longer newly wedded couple clinking their glasses together before enjoying a sip of their drinks.

They had elected to limit themselves to one glass that evening despite the special occasion.  Fluttershy's first birthday had taken place about a month ago, and although her sleep pattern had become more predictable with age, and she was sleeping soundly at that very moment, there was still no guarantee it would remain that way.  Still, this anniversary was already far better than their first.  They had been so busy with a newborn Fluttershy at the time that the date had come and gone without their being any the wiser until a month after the fact.

It was not a fancy affair, just like the wedding it commemorated.  This time the lack of extravagance wasn't due to a lack of funds so much as a lack of assistance.  Despite their best efforts, they couldn't find a baby sitter, which had ruled out an evening at a nice restaurant or something of the sort.  Instead they had opted for a quiet dinner together on the back balcony, where they could peacefully enjoy one another's company and watch the sunset like they had been unable to do since the move to Cloudsdale.  There was also the matter of gifts to exchange, and since they had already partaken of dinner before moving on to their one drink of the evening, it seemed a proper time to open them.

"So, I hope you don't mind that I skipped ahead about a decade for this one," Posey said with a smile as she set down her glass and pushed a small packaged wrapped in white paper with silver ribbons over to him.

"Skipped a...what?" Lance asked, ignorant of whatever traditions she was referencing.

"You know, you're supposed to wait until the fifteenth to...oh, just open it!"  Her smile grew as she gave it another nudge toward him with her snout.

"Okay okay," he relented with a chuckle.  The wrapping paper was easily torn through, leaving him to just pluck the top off the box to reveal what was inside.  It was a silver pocket watch...but not just any silver pocket watch.  "Wow...is this...this was your father's wasn't it?" he asked, holding up the timepiece for the both of them to admire.  "There's something different though...I don't remember this rod and serpent on the cover at my graduation."

"You shouldn't!  I couldn't just dig my father's watch out of the closet and give it to you as an anniversary gift, so I had it customized with something a little more 'you'," she said as she pointed to the newly etched engraving with her hoof.  "You're lucky the jeweler knew his symbols.  The first design I asked for was the cane with the wings, but when he heard it was for a doctor he pointed out that the rod and serpent was a better match."

"Wow...are you...really sure you want me to have this?"  Impressed as he was, he was still holding what amounted to an heirloom that had been rightfully passed down Posey.  But her only response to maintain her smile and nod enthusiastically.

"Yes, I'm sure.  My father gave it to me, so it's mine, and I can give it to whomever I want, and I want you to have it.  It'll do Equestria a lot more good in the hooves of a doctor than a business owner," she replied with the utmost certainty.

"Well...thank you Posey.  I love it," he said gratefully as he replaced the watch in its box.  "I'll keep it in my coat pocket at work.  I can't wear it during surgery, but if I have it close at hoof at all other times the good luck should have a chance to concentrate enough."  He could still scarcely believe himself capable of saying such sappy things and meaning them...but he took it as just being proof that Posey had changed him for the better.  Now, with lucky watch safely in his possession, it was time to fulfill his half of the gift exchange.  "Your turn," he said as he pushed a notably larger present wrapped in light green paper and a purple bow.

"Hrm, doesn't look like fine china," she pondered curiously as she examined the box.

Lance laughed quietly and shook his head.  "Posey you're seriously going to have to fill me in on whatever it is you're talking about later, because I have no idea."

"Will do!" she said with another nod before promptly obliterating the wrapping paper separating her and her present.  One pop of a box top later and her eyes grew large and sparkling.  "Oh my gosh Lance!" she gushed as she pulled a music box that she had recently grown quite acquainted with through the window of a local store.  It was structurally simple, but the various engravings along the side of the box were of exquisite artistry, depicting a pattern of some of Posey's favorite types of flowers.  Carefully opening the hinged top, she proceeded to wind the little crank inside and then let it begin playing the song she had before only been able to hear through glass.  "You skipped over two decades for this one," she proclaimed happily.

He wasn't going to bother asking what she meant that time, instead choosing to just bask in the joy she was radiating.  "So...you like it then?" he asked as though it weren't already abundantly clear, bearing a telltale smirk.

"No it's awful," she replied sarcastically with a knowing giggle.  "How did you know?"

"See, I used my super husband powers to deduce that you wanted this music box when I saw you doing this number at the mall," he explained before feigning an absolute trance in the direction of the music box.

"Oh shut up!" she faux scolded with a playful sock to his shoulder before pulling him into a tight hug.  "Thank you so much Lance, this is wonderful."

"You're welcome Posey.  Sounds like a bit of a sad tune though," Lance observed, having never heard it for himself until that point.

"I like it.  It can be sad, or soothing, or bittersweet.  It's a very versatile song to me," she clarified as she continued cuddling up against him.

"Hrm...I don't hear it, but I guess I'll see what you mean if I just keep listening."  He returned the gesture, and they spent a blissful few minutes listening to the melody together as the internal spring inside the music box wound down.

There was no sound behind the door anymore.

Why wasn't there any sound?!

He was back where he started again, there in front of the steel door, reading another note in silence broken up only by the soft buzzing of his watch.

This isn't a bad time...is it?

A single mote of anger suddenly surged past his horror and panic, prompting Lance to tear the note off the wall in a useless display of contempt before leaving it to glide to the floor as he made another attempt to get to his beloved.  He wouldn't make it though.  He could not make it.  As though the complete silence did not speak sufficiently enough to that end, the hallway packed to the brim with copies of door 303 filled in the gaps.  Every door was now the white, numbered abomination.  There were doors on the wall space between doors.  There were doors in the floor.  There were doors in the ceiling.  The corridor had been transformed into a procession of white painted, hinged wooden panels, and for the first time he wanted desperately to be looking at the nightmarish assemblies of flesh, blood, rust, and metal instead.

Clear as day, as though right next to him, he heard a single, weak, exhaled breath of somepony completely giving up...on everything.

He tried to scream but never got the chance.

Lance squinted at his house in the distance as he neared the end of his trip home following another long shift at the hospital.  Something was wrong.  It wasn't just the usual paranoia he expected of himself either; something was observably, seriously wrong.  There was a small speck of yellow and pink in the front yard without a cream and purple colored dot to go with it.  The weariness of the last couple days swiftly forgotten, he put on another burst of speed to cut through the air even faster and land in front of his family's abode all the sooner.  Fluttershy was lying there in a miserable heap, sobbing softly to herself...alone and unattended in their front yard.

"What are you doing out here sweetie?  You know you're not supposed to be out front alone," he asked as he approached, folding his wings back against his body.  Fluttershy looked up with reddened, tear laden eyes then scrambled to her hooves and ran over to him.

"I'm...I'm sorry Daddy..." she managed to choke out as she hugged one of his forelegs, clearly believing she was now in trouble in addition to whatever terrible thing had just happened to her.

"Shh, it's okay, I'm not mad," he assured her before gently picking her up so she could get on his back.  He felt a little pair of hooves take hold of the back of his neck, followed by his daughter burying her face in her father's coat as her body shook with another tiny sob.  "Just tell me what happened, okay?"  He stood there waiting patiently until Fluttershy could manage to form words through her weeping.

"M-momma she...she was yelling at me and...and then...then..." she started before being briefly cut off by a hiccup, "then she pushed me out here and...and closed the door and...and I tried going back inside like you and momma told me to daddy...but the door was stuck and...and she yelled at me to go away!"

Lance's looked at her in disbelief that had already started turning into all out anxiety by the time he opened his mouth to reply.  "You remember the talk we had about telling the truth and fibbing?"

"Uh huh," she answered with a nod, wiping her eyes to try and see more clearly.

"You're not fibbing are you?" he asked with a critically raised eyebrow.

"No daddy!  I'm not fibbing!" she said with an emphatic shake of her head.  He didn't say anything, simply looking briefly at the cloudy ground before looking back up to their front door with worry.  They would certainly find out one way or another wouldn't they?

Lance gave their front door a few solid knocks.  "Posey, I'm home, can you hear me?"

Hoof steps quickly approached the door, followed by a series of clicks as the lock and dead bolt were undone, followed by the door opening to reveal a perfectly normal looking Posey standing there before him.  He briefly felt relief as he looked into his wife's smiling face.  "Welcome back honey, you wouldn't not believe the day I've had-" she started before she spotted the little filly sitting on her husband's back.  Her smile quickly morphed to an alarming scowl of annoyance.  "I told you to go home little girl!  Didn't your parents every teach you to not sneak into other pony's houses?!" she scolded, her voice laden with genuine anger.  Fluttershy whimpered and made her best attempt to hide herself in her father's mane.

Lance stood there gobsmacked with mouth agape, still scarcely believing what was happening even though it was indeed happening right in front of his face.

"What?"  Posey asked incredulously as she spotted his expression.  "I go to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich and when I get back to the living room she's just sitting there on our couch acting like she lives here.  What else was I supposed to do besides shoo her out?"

...

"Lance?" she prodded again, starting to look a bit worried at his continued lack of response and sustained look of complete shock.

"Posey...this is Fluttershy..." he said finally, moving his head aside so that she could get a better look at their offspring.

"Oh, good, you found out her name, maybe we can find her parents so I can give them a piece of my mi-"

"She's our daughter!"  Of all the corrections he had ever anticipated having to make for her...this had never been one of them.  "Is this a joke or something?  Because it's not funny!"

"What?  That's...that's impossible, we don't...have a...daughter...?"  Her words progressed quickly from confidence to confusion.  By the time she had descended back into silence she wasn't looking at Lance so much as just gazing at nothing in his general direction, her eyes moving slightly at intervals as though struggling mightily with something she didn't understand.

"Yes we do, she's right here, do you seriously not remember her?  Her room is right upstairs Posey, she does live here, she has lived here, for years now.  She just decided last month to name her doll Ashley after that filly from her favorite bed time story that you read for her at least three nights out of the week?  Uh...she was helping you in your garden four days ago and accidentally stepped on one of your flowers, then felt so bad that she wouldn't let you do anything else until you showed her how to plant another one?" he said, throwing any specific memories that came to mind to try and making something, anything stick.

Now Posey was the one being silent and bewildered.  She sank back to a sitting position, staring down toward Lance's hooves, still lost in thoughts that just weren't adding up.  Slowly, her gaze rose to look at the two of them, unable to think of anything to say, eyes pleading for some kind of answer to present itself.

...

"Mommy?" Fluttershy squeaked before hiccuping a second time.

He could swear he saw the exact moment when the right spark went to the right place in her head.  Posey's nebulous expression solidified into a tearful, mortified grimace as everything lined up again and she realized what she had just done.  "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry angel!" she sobbed as she plucked her daughter off Lance's back and trapped her in a tight hug.

"Mommy you remembered!" the little filly said, overjoyed to be in the warm embrace of her mother's hooves again.  The bliss of her youthful ignorance spared her from realizing the implications of what had just happened.  As far as she was concerned all was right with the world once more.

"Yes, I remembered...I'm sorry I did that sweetie, mommy's never going to do that again okay?"  Posey apologized, fighting the urge to break down and cry from the overwhelming guilt now jabbing at her chest.

"Okay Mommy," Fluttershy replied.  She was trying to return the hug but such small fore legs as hers could only do so much in reciprocating.  After one last squeeze, her mother gently set her back down on the floor and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead after pausing to wipe her eyes.

"Go uh...go play with Ashley baby, I want to...hear about how Daddy's day went," she suggested.

"Okay!"  Their daughter proceed to scamper off to find her best friend in the next room, leaving the two parents alone with one another.

....

....

"So um...that... that just happened," Posey finally said, wringing her hooves with concern.

"Have you been feeling alright?" Lance asked as he brought a hoof up to her forehead.

"I guess?"  She brushed his hoof away.  While neither of them knew exactly what was going on, she knew for a fact she didn't have a fever of any sort.  "I was...sort of walking a bit off kilter for an hour or two the other day for no reason...but that stopped, so I shrugged it off as being tired or something.  That's nothing to worry about right?  I mean how does that jump all the way to forgetting who my daughter is and...and..."  She couldn't complete the sentence.  Instead she shifted topics a bit so that the sound of the crying she so desperately wanted to do right then wouldn't draw Fluttershy back into the room.  "We need to see who's available to babysit.  I don't want her stuck in a hospital waiting room for hours and hours."

"I'll take care of everything honey.  Go get some tea and try to relax in the meantime okay?  It's...probably not something worth worrying too much over...maybe you just get really weird migraines," he lied quite blatantly.  His words very much contradicted the thoughts blazing unbidden through his head, but he'd learned that sometimes the last thing somepony needed to hear were his actual thoughts.  This qualified as a 'sometime', several times over.

Posey nodded, managing to force a small smile for him.  She knew he wasn't telling her what he really thought, and he knew he wasn't fooling anypony.  But that was alright.  Sometimes a deception that was both obvious and accepted by everypony was the only way to move ahead while keeping chins held upward.  "Please hurry Lance...I never want to do that to her again...ever."

There was still no sound behind the steel door.  There was no new note there to greet him either.

The only thing that had changed was the copious flow of blood seeping from beneath the door and dripping through the grating into the blackness below.

His breath wanted to come faster but he felt like he couldn't breathe.  There were a million things he wanted to say but found himself without any words to say them.  He wanted to scream but couldn't make a single sound.  All he could do was move.  He ran back to the corridor again.  It had returned to the expected rusted, bloody architecture.  There was no door 303 to stop him.  Finally he was able to reach the right door, able to twist the nob, and able to get into the room at long last.

The floor was cracked, mold riddled concrete with exposed, rusted segments of rebar instead of more grating.  There seemed no other reason for this sudden change than to let him get a good look at the large bloody hoof prints leading off to his left.  Lance traced them back to the source, off to his right, and just like that he felt like the contents of his chest cavity had disappeared into a black void that was trying to make his ribcage collapse inward.  He moved slowly, step by painful step, toward the steel door, stunned but somehow still able to will himself to motion.

Just in front of the door, there was a sheet that was almost solid red for all the blood that had stained it.  It hid six lumps beneath it, none of which seemed to be connected to one another in the least.  The center lump was the largest, about the size of an average pony's torso.  It was surrounded by the other five, four of which resembled limbs...with the fifth in front unmistakably being a head.  There was so much blood splattered everywhere...the floor...the walls...the door...the ceiling.  As he moved closed he felt his hoof tap something and his gaze jerked downward in surprise.

It was a copy of 'The Mastery of Sewing' with a spool of thread and a needle sitting atop of it.

His face contorted in a brief spike of rage as he batted the book aside, before the short lived flame was snuffed out by the mental static that was making him feel everything and nothing all at once.  He could swear he even heard buzzing in his ears even though his watch wasn't making a peep.  Lance's brain felt utterly broken and useless, leaving his body no other choice than to act on impulse, and what else could one so completely destroyed as he do in a room where a sheet was covering something of potentially intense interest...assuming it was real?

It could be a trick...it could be another hallucination...maybe it was a dream he was having without any memory of going to sleep.  Those things had happened already.  They could happen again, right?  There was a chance that none of this was real...or at least he needed there to be one.

Lance stood there trapped inside his head as his hoof moved without his permission, taking hold of the sheet.  He spent what felt to be a very long while like that, unmoving, like his body was giving his brain a chance to interject.  When no objection was forthcoming his hoof started to raise up, taking the sheet with it.  It didn't get very far.

When he saw the single lock of blood encrusted purple hair his brain started working again, and the tides turned completely.  Everything the mental buzzing had been holding back suddenly came crashing into him all at once.  He stumbled backward and collapsed to lie on his stomach as his legs became useless, closed his eyes tightly as the sudden flood of tears made it impossible to see anything, and covered his head with his hooves as the wail of pain once restrained came tearing out of his throat.  So consumed was he that he didn't notice the accompanying blaring of a siren in the distance.

The lantern...her lantern...that had been his last source of light, finally flickered out and died.

"Why didn't you get me sooner?!" Lance retorted as he flew through the air next to a light green coated pegasus mare that lived in the house next to theirs.

"I tried, they told me you were in surgery and couldn't be interrupted for anything!" she explained, ignoring the irate tone behind the words just tossed at her.

"Well you...I...augh!" he relented with great frustration.  There was nopony to blame, or yell at, it had all been down to bad luck and he hated it.

The Strongshy house came into view as they banked past another large cloud then put more speed into the home stretch.  He hit the ground at a gallop and barely slowed down to open the door, practically ramming through it and sprinting past the entryway into his living room.  Posey was lying on the floor, covered in a blanket with her head resting on a pillow.  Fluttershy was sitting next to her, the two of them apparently having been passing the time reading through one of her beginners reading books while waiting for help to arrive.

Posey had collapsed and been unable to get back to her hooves despite her best efforts.  She had told Fluttershy to go get the neighboring mare she knew was trustworthy, and had then asked her to send word to her husband.  With how much time had passed since then, she had been lying there helpless for upwards of four hours or more.  In spite of this she was smiling, talking her daughter through sounding out the new words and keeping her calm in the midst of the crisis she was going through out of nowhere.  But as she noticed Lance entered and looked up toward him, she could still see the fear in her eyes.

"Hello dear," she greeted him.  She shifted beneath the blanket in an apparent attempt to at least sit up, but her legs still weren't cooperating.  Fortunately Fluttershy was already faced away and moving toward her father, missing the helpless sadness that briefly flashed across her mother's face.

"Hi daddy," their daughter said, holding her hooves up for a hug that her father happily provided.

"Hey kiddo...you and momma holding the fort okay?" he asked in as calmly a manner as he could fake.

"Mhm, she's helping me read the book you bought me," she replied.  Posey had managed to keep her calm but...beneath the usual childish contentment was a note of uncertainty.

"Well, you did good angel," he said, setting her back down on the floor.

"Um, Fluttershy sweetie?  Can you go...keep an eye on mommy's flowers for a while?"  Posey asked.

"Okay mommy," Fluttershy said with a dutiful nod before moving to the back of the house and out into the back yard.  Neither of them felt very at ease letting her out of sight but they knew she was safe out there at least.

"I'm...I'm going to go, alright?  I'll still be next door if I can help with anything," their neighbor chimed in as she likewise moved toward the front door.

"Thank you so, so much for helping us," Lance said in parting, wanting to make up for having yelled at her in his distress.

"Hey, what are neighbors for, right?" she replied with a bittersweet smile before taking her leave.

He was at Posey's side in an instant, a hoof place on top of hers.  "What happened?" he asked with all due concern.

"I uh...I started having another...episode of not being able to quite walk straight.  It started getting worse this time though...and kept getting worse until...this," she said before blinking away the encroaching water in her eyes.

Lance didn't reply at first, sparing a moment to take a deep breath and push the panic he felt as a husband aside.  He needed to be a doctor now.  "Okay so...you've been on the medication for about two weeks now and this is still happening...and getting worse.  Posey I know you hate the idea of it, but we can't look for a babysitter this time, we need to get you back the hospital now, I...they can't do much for you here.  Fluttershy will be just fine at the daycare," he said, pausing briefly to correct himself.  As a family member he wasn't allowed to work directly on Posey's case...though, in his case, the rest of the Cloudsdale General staff was quite open to suggestion.

"Okay...but could you carry me to the bathroom first?  I...I couldn't ask the neighbor before she left to get you...I was too embarrassed," she asked, her voice cracking before she brushed off more tears against her pillow.  Lance nodded, pulling the blanket off of her and hoisting her up on his back before carrying her down the ground floor hallway.  She started openly weeping then, overwhelmed by suddenly being so helpless that she couldn't even do this for herself anymore.

"Honey listen...this'll wear off like the other episodes in a bit, alright?  We just have to hang in there for a while longer and be patient."

"...I'll try."

"Posey...you're going to be okay."

Part 26

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Point of view.

Part 26

Lance once again clawed his way back to consciousness in an unfamiliar place, having not remembered falling asleep in the first place.  Even for how often he'd endured the experience, it never got any less confusing.  His eyes drifted open and began to take in his surroundings, his brain mindlessly processing the images as his memory reoriented itself in the background of his head.  He was in what he could identify as an elevator car, though one that was taller and narrower than any elevator car in which he'd ever ridden.  The door was open, but the opening was mostly covered in yellow crime scene tape.  On the other side were the remains of a hallway that had collapsed and mostly filled with dirt and rock save for a spot of open floor, occupied by a single white flower lying in a pool of coagulated blood.

He next registered that a burned out lantern was lying on the floor next to him.  Naturally this made him wonder where the light to see all of this was coming from, a question answered moments later as he spotted the blood spattered surgical light lying in front of him, the beam pointed outward into the ruined hallway.  But he'd been carrying the lantern, not the surgical light...hadn't he?  How had it ended up there?  Bit by bit the individual parts of his memories switched on and connected.  The door...the nightmare...the chase...the maze...the elevator...the burns and deep cuts, all checked off in his head one after another.

Then the last piece fell into place, his memory activating in full.

His eyes widened slightly, focused intently on the single white, ever so slightly sanguinous flower in the hallway.  Tears began blurring his vision and streaming down his cheeks, but he made no motion to wipe them away.  Lance trembled pathetically, letting his head drop back down to the floor as his every breath started to come with great effort.  There was no outburst this time, no eruption of emotion.  There was only a vast, cold, empty expanse inside of him now, devoid of purpose or hope.

Posey had come back.  She'd been dead for the better part of two decades and against all logic he'd found her again.  The world could have had Posey back and been a bright, welcoming place again.    But no...in finding her it seems he had preemptively wasted such a grand, impossibly beautiful gift.  The moment she'd laid eyes on him her fate had been sealed.  Now she was dead again.  Not only dead, but had suffered one of the most gruesome, painful deaths he had ever been forced to hear...and it was all his fault.  Knowing that he'd let her die once because of his incompetence, and practically killed her himself a second time over...there was just nothing left in him after that.

What was he supposed to do?  For that matter, how was he supposed to summon the will to do anything at all?  Everything was coming up blank.  Even before having run into his inexplicably revived wife there had been something moving him onward through the fog filled streets and the rusted bloody nightmares, something fundamental pushing him to survive and escape past the basic need to live on.  It was gone now...completely and utterly absent, leaving not even a memory of such motivations in its wake.  Now all he could recall was some old stallion too stubborn to realize that his life had been lived and the world was well and truly done with him.  Maybe it was better to stay there...perhaps it was for the best that he just accept his place in the ground.

Something else held a decidedly more proactive position on the matter.

From the dead silence suddenly came the distorted ring of an elevator bell in sore need of maintenance.  The elevator car shivered, knocking loose bits of dirt and dust as the engines far above came to life and began to pull upward.  Then the doors began to close, causing Lance's body to break free of his despairing apathy the moment he realized he was about to be taken someplace that could only be even worse than this one.  He made a weak dive for the doors to try and keep them from closing but it was a useless effort, the motion placing his reach a couple inches shy as the doors cut off of his view of the slightly sanguinous flower in the broken hallway.  There were a few creaks around him as the long unused metal reacted to being called into action once more, followed by the familiar sensation of rising and the steady whir of machinery.

He laid there in silence a while before slowly rising to a sitting position and heaving a shuddering sigh, finally moving to wipe the tears from his cheeks.  "You can't even let me just stay here?" he asked aloud.  "There's no more doors to open here.  Doesn't that make it the best place to keep me you bucking idiot?!"  He lashed out in futility, striking at the closed door and getting nothing but a briefly aching hoof for his efforts.  As always the sense of something watching him hung heavy in the air, but nothing ever replied to him when he desired it.  It was an ever looming presence seemingly just behind him but silent as the grave...but he couldn't be bothered to care anymore.

The droning of the machinery around him gave him something to focus on, something to drown out the lingering echoes still bouncing around in his head.  He needed the sound.  Silence just brought the screams back.  His eyes would stubbornly remain open until the burning sensation forced them shut.  The droning sound that he needed was making him want to close them, but he could do this no more than he could bear the silence.  All the darkness brought were images of a blood stained sheet and a lock of his wife's hair.  It was all he could do to simply exist.

An unknown eternity passed in that elevator.  Even if he had been inclined to check, there would have been no way to mark the passing of time or estimate the distance he was traveling.  The only things he could tell for certain was that time was indeed passing and that the transportation upwards was ongoing.  Maybe there was no destination.  Perhaps being trapped in an eternally moving elevator alone with his thoughts was the final price of his failure.  They were devious thoughts after all, positively malevolent in fact.  They ignored the droning sound keeping back the silence, and ignored his open eyes fighting back the dark, cutting directly into his memory to the core and never letting him stop remem-

The sudden distorted chime of a bell caused him to nearly jump out of his skin.  There was a destination after all.

His gut briefly lurched at the sudden deceleration and the doors opened, letting in a chill potent enough to let him see his own breath.  The beam of his surgical light lit up a circle of plain concrete wall on the other end of the fairly small room, but there was something immediately in front of it that cast a large shadow.  Lance looked down to the familiar sight of a copy of 'The Mastery of Sewing' resting beneath a spool of thread and a needle.

...

"Well buck you too," he muttered somberly as he remained there in the elevator with no intention of exiting.  He'd been placed in the elevator against his will, but nothing was stopping him from just staying in there instead of subjecting himself to any further torture.

...

...

...

At first he mistook the ringing in his ears for the perceived noise one would hear over intolerably boring silence, but it took on an unnatural edge as it steadily grew in volume.  It advanced from mere noise to a standout irritant, then to a worrisome drone, and then to a very real pain.  His hooves rose to grip his skull as it was wracked by an inexplicable pressure that got worse with every moment.  Lance's groan of distress quickly changed into an excruciating cry of pain that got stuck in his throat as he barely managed to avoid falling on his side while the agony intensified....then suddenly stopped.

As the ringing faded away, the first sound that came back to him was his own labored breathing.  Then something else followed.  His ears perked up.  Now forgetting the intense tinnitus and migraine of moments prior, he picked up his surgical light and replaced it on the front strap of his saddlebags.  The melancholy that had held him rooted to the spot was soon burned away by a new singular fixation as he got to his hooves and stepped out of the elevator, carelessly knocking the book and spool aside in passing.

Somepony in the next room was crying, sobbing uncontrollably in fact.

Lance heard the elevator door close behind him but paid it no mind.  This new room looked to have been a storage room at one point.  The segments of the walls that weren't just plain concrete were lined with bared, dust laden shelves.  In one corner of the room were the remains of a few broken mannequins that were thankfully only broken mannequins and not grisly murder scene recreations.  Most important though was the wooden door with a few patches of unpeeled light blue paint directly to his right.  It also featured a working, unlocked doorknob.

The storage room was at the back end of a short hallway leading off to the right.  There were a few boxes sitting along the walls, one of which was overturned with a bolt of white cloth having rolled out suggesting this was a clothing establishment of some sort.  Along the middle of the hallway were doors for the employee restrooms and break room on the left, and another unmarked door on the right, all four of which were boarded over.  His only way forward was the farthest, unbarricaded door on the right, and judging from the direction of the sobbing noises it would lead him directly to the source.

This door too featured a working, unlocked doorknob, but it proved a bit less simple than the first.  The hinges moved about a quarter inch before stopping as the door was blocked by something on the other side.  Not wanting to have to needlessly engage in another key hunt, Lance opted to first try and test the obstacle's resilience with an old fashioned push.  He planted his burned but still good back leg on the floor and put his shoulder into the door, finding that the obstruction on the other side had started giving way with a decent bit of effort on his part.  Judging by the noise it made, he was pushing wooden crates of some sort...and the wrenching sobs had stopped, replaced by hoof steps uneasily backing away from him.

He figured he should probably announce himself before trying to push the door open, considering the setting.  Lance opened his mouth and drew breath to speak but the timing proved disastrous.  The bout of activity had upset the settled dust, which caused his efforts to result in a coughing fit that prompted the hoof steps to rapidly move away in a much less hesitant fashion.

"Wait-" he tried to say before being interrupted by another cough.  He heard a locked doorknob rattle in panic before the hoof steps retreated further.  Opting to skip the introduction, he gave another push, his still damaged body strengthened by urgency.  He couldn't lose track of that pony.  The crates blocking the door moved a bit further this time, giving him enough room to squeeze through.

It was a clothing store.  Dust covered mannequins wearing torn up, moth eaten dresses stood in the broken, barred over front display window.  One of them caught his eye in the brief glance he afforded the place, bearing no dress nor even a speck of dust in complete contrast to the others.  The only other detail he bothered to notice was a small mirror on the wall to his right.  The hoof steps were around the right corner ahead and would quickly lose him if he didn't move fast.  He rounded the bend into the half of the L shaped storefront containing the sales desk on his right and a set of four fitting rooms in the far left corner that, save for the farthest, were all missing their curtains.  More importantly he caught sight of the hem of a light blue dress retreating up a set of stairs past the sales desk.

By the time he galloped past the first fitting room a door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, and while he was making his way up the stairs he heard yet more doorknob rattling as somepony on the other side tried to lock it with little success.  When he was three or so steps from the door the occupant abandoned the effort and ran to the other end of the room before knocking something over.  Lance opened the door just in time to hear a chair leg crack as it was pulled free and held aloft as a weapon by the pony he had followed.

"Get away!  Get the hay away from m-..." the pony began to shriek but then stopped and stared at the amber stallion that had stepped into the room.  The improvised weapon dropped to the ground with a dull clatter as the two stood there staring at one another in disbelief and confusion.  The mare was wearing a light blue dress.  Her mane was disheveled and her eyes were still red from crying.  The fur on her face was stained a dull crimson in two places.  One was a trail left behind from the bleeding of scabbed over gash on her forehead.  The other was a much fresher looking blood spatter.

Nothing much went through either one's head for a while.  They had effectively smashed all possible thoughts out of one another's heads by merely spotting each other.

...

"But...you're dead..." she finally squeaked as her brain recovered.

"I'm dead?" he replied, putting a hoof to his own chest.

"You...at the elevator, she...I saw..." she rambled in a weak voice, sitting down as her eyes ceased to focus on anything in particular.  They shifted about seemingly at random, like she was looking over some contraption that refused to work and she could not figure out why.  She let out a shuddering sigh, bringing a hoof up to rest on her healing gash as she gently shook her head.  "I'm not getting sick again am I?  I remember it so clearly..."

"...what did you see?"

She broke out of her trance, setting her hoof back down on the floor and looking at him with a painful grimace as her eyes teared up again.

"Just push the open button!" he replied, out of breath as he reached the elevator and started giving what meager assistance his battered could provide in keeping the door open.  Their combined strength only managed to stop the door from closing any further, and the sovereign was still looming ever larger behind him.

"There is no button!" she retorted, panic saturating her voice as her mind raced, trying to think of anything they could do to save him.  The door gave a metallic groan as they failed to keep it from closing another inch, and again as they lost another, leaving only enough width for their hooves now.  She grit her teeth, eyes held tightly shut as she poured everything she had and whatever else she could find into the futile fight against the closing door.  Her concentration wavered however when she felt her husband's hooves move away from hers.  "Lance?!" she asked breathlessly, opening her eyes.

She was answered by a final two metallic hoof falls and a monstrous murmur.

"Posey, get away from the door," he told her, his terrified eyes not daring to look back.

"No!" she spat back while glaring daggers at him, her surge of anger at his request making her try to pry the door open all the harder.

"Get away from the door!" he repeated with far less patience.

She didn't even dignify such a stupid request with a reply this time, closing her eyes again and concentrating on the impossible task set before her.

"Posey get away from the doo-"

That time got her attention.  Her eyes shot open to see that he had been cut off mid sentence by the tendril wrapped tightly around his neck to cut off his windpipe.  The only sound he could manage was a weak gasp or two as the appendage coiled tighter round his throat like a python then lifted him off his hooves.  The sadistic mare moved closer, nuzzling her metallic muzzle against the side of his head and giving a soft shiver of excitement as he started to reflexively struggle from lack of air.

"Stop!  Stop!" Posey begged desperately, unable to do anything else as she was forced to watch her husband start suffocating.  "Put him down!  Please!" she screamed as though the increased volume would do anything to sway the sovereign's actions.  Unfortunately the alicorn was feeling cooperative in that particular instance.  Instead of forcing the already traumatized mare in the elevator to watch her husband slowly asphyxiate, she allowed Lance to grace Posey's ears with the sound of his sucking in air as the tendril relaxed its grip only so much.

Any further breath he would have taken was violently cut off by the horn spike that swiftly jammed itself through his throat and between the elevator doors.  He made a weak gurgle as his single visible, wide open, bloodshot eye looked in at his wife for the last time.

"Laaaance!!!"

The tendril gripped as tight as it possibly could then, and started lifting him up.  The horn spike stayed where it was.  She was treated to the tearing and cracking noises of a stallion being bisected accompanying the sovereign's shuddering moan on the other side of the door.  Something ruptured inside of him and a brief burst of blood caught the already distraught pegasus mare by surprise, staining her chest and part of her face red.  Posey didn't see what the alicorn did afterward.  She was too occupied with falling to the ground, covering her face and screaming as though she'd just been splashed with acid.

"After that, I woke up in that same spot...only the elevator was here.  I...stumbled out...for the sake of moving I guess...just...kind of along for the ride," she continued haltingly.  "I remember grey and brown and dark and...then this dress.  I was cold...and I could still look down and see your...I could still see it all over me so I...put the dress on...without even thinking about it.  Then I looked in the mirror and it was still all over my face...I couldn't cover it up and...I didn't want to try and wipe it off or clean it because...it was all I had left of you.  I just started crying.  I couldn't stop.  And now here you are and I...I don't know if you're here or what you are or...I don't know what to do."  Posey looked at him, lost and alone even though there was another pony right there in the room with her...supposedly.

It took Lance a few moments to realize she was waiting for him to do something, anything.  It took a few moments after that to realize his hoof had subconsciously risen to his neck and lower it.  He idly swallowed for little other purpose than to fill the gap as he tried to think of something.  What he wanted to do was step over there, throw his hooves around her, and never let her go after having gotten her back against all reason twice now.  But what he needed to do was...he had no idea what he needed to do.  If she was as confused and grief shaken as he was, being approached by what may very well be a hallucination might only make things worse.  He only knew one thing for certain, that even if what he had seen wasn't real, he'd still seen it.

"She'd never do that."  Posey's head tilted ever so slightly at the certainty in his voice when he said that, and he found himself surprised at himself as well, especially considered whom it was they were discussing.  "I know it sounds crazy after what you just saw of her but trust me, she doesn't want me dead or else I wouldn't have even made it to the apartments," he clarified, though he hardly thought it would be of much comfort to her.

"If what I saw didn't happen, then what did?" she asked pointedly, much to Lance's relief.  Searching for clarity was a more proactive state of mind for her than simply being lost.

"She dragged me away and tied me to her back.  She had my eyes covered so I didn't see where we went...but soon enough, she takes off after something and I hear you, running for your life.  You found one of those thick doors to hide behind, but then she dropped me on the floor and started...using me as bait," he said, skipping over some unpleasant details.  "It worked and...then..."  He closed his eyes a moment.  "I saw you die Posey," he concluded, skipping further over some even more unpleasant details.

His wife was quiet a moment, her eyes soon after drifting from him in thought.  There didn't seem to be anything like shock in her demeanor, which in any other circumstance would be odd considering she had just been told about her own death.  Then again, it was the second time she had been informed as such.  Perhaps she was just getting used to it.  "But...if none of that was real, then whose blood is this?" she asked further while pointing at the newer blood stain on her face.

"I don't know...if what I saw wasn't real then where did these come from?" he countered as he looked over at the cuts on his side and the burn on his thigh.  Posey gasped and covered her mouth at the sight, having not noticed them until just then.  Lance's expression flattened to a deadpan stare at nothing as his blunder dawned upon him.  "Good job comforting your wife idiot," he scolded himself.

"No no it's...well it's not okay, but you're still alive.  That's what's important...at least I think you are," she reasoned, even though it didn't seem to sway her mood for the better in the least.

For another overly long moment they lingered in their respective spots, each looking at the other and yearning to just behave like the two married ponies they had known themselves to be.  But confusion stayed their hooves...perhaps it even went so far as mistrust.  Neither of them were attempting to reach out and comfort the other like back in apartment G4.  Posey had been so happy to see him, and so shocked by his behavior upon seeing her.  Now they were both acting the exact same way, like whatever disease had brought Lance to that place had now spread to her.

Posey finally broke the silence, seemingly reading his mind with her first words.  "This is how you felt back at the apartment when you realized it was me, isn't it?"

"Probably," he answered halfheartedly, still not moving toward her for fear of scaring her even more than he had managed since getting out of the elevator.

"...Come here."

"..."

"...Please?" she repeated.

Lance hesitated only a moment longer before approaching at a very unthreatening walking pace, stopping and taking a seat within hoof's reach.  Posey's hoof slowly raised, cautiously coming to rest against his chest as though she expected him to actually be some fragile porcelain replica of her husband that would shatter at the slightest touch.  But she only felt fur and the rise and fall of his breath.  It wasn't enough for her though.  She looked him in the eye briefly before easing her head downward and putting an ear where her hoof had been.  Then she heard the sound of the heart she'd just seen sliced in half.

Her fore legs wrapped around him and held him tightly as she melted into him, face buried in his chest, tears wetting his coat as she gave up trying to figure anything out and just took her husband back.  It only took a few moments for Lance to silently agree with her and return the gesture, his head rested atop of hers as all the thoughts he'd mentally grappled with in the elevator fled from the warm body in his embrace.  She was trusting him to be real.  How could he not do the same?

But however good it felt to have each other back, they would have to keep moving if they wanted it to stay that way.  "Okay...we should go honey," he began as he made an attempt to let her go.

She answered by tightening her grip and giving a small whine of protest.

Lance didn't say anything in reply.  He just smiled and resumed holding her.  She'd given him all the time he'd needed back at the apartment.  He wasn't going to let that kindness go unreturned either.

"So the front door is locked?" he asked, looking up at Posey as she descended the stairs after him, her now empty lantern in tow rather than the surgical light.  It had taken some convincing to get Lance to keep it, the cream colored mare having insisted that he would need the far superior visual range it offered if they once again got separated.  They would need to find some replacement oil for her though.

"Yeah, seemed like a good idea to try the option that didn't trap me first," she answered while taking a moment at the bottom step to make sure her lantern was securely fastened in place.

"Must be a key somewhere in here then."  Lance looked to his right at the abandoned store.  There were shelves all over the place and plenty of things that could be moved.  He sighed at the thought of the search ahead of them.  "Plenty of places to look too."

"Have they ever been hidden in a completely random place though?" she asked in reply.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, from what you've told me, whenever you've needed something it was placed so that you would notice it.  Instead of worrying about every nook and cranny we could save a lot of time by just looking for anything odd," she explained, motioning toward the very same bounty of nooks and crannies that was making Lance worry.

"Hrm."  Lance started scanning the abandoned store around them.  Nothing in particular jumped out at him as he slowly moved toward the store front.  Everything looked pretty much what he would expect an abandoned, perhaps even looted store to look like: dust everywhere, a lack of many useful items, the front display window bashed in, and nopony around to make a single peep.  He turned back towards Posey, and then noticed something off to her right that he'd walked past twice already.  "That looks promising," he said as he approached the only dressing room with the curtain drawn.

Since his watch was silent, and the dressing room probably wasn't large enough to fit one of the watch defying roller gurneys inside, he felt fairly sure he could reach up and draw the curtain aside without incident.  The dressing room obliged him by not containing any horrifying monsters, but he couldn't say the sight that greeted him was exactly welcoming.  The dust had been displaced in the corner of the small booth with some hoof prints around it as though somepony had been sitting there very recently.  There was a screwdriver lying on the floor in the middle, which he assumed had been used to carve the words into the wall:

MAKE HIM GO AWAY

MAKE HIM GO AWAY

MAKE HIM GO AWAY

MAKE HIM GO AWAY

"I don't know what's worse...that stuff on the wall or the fact that it doesn't seem so bad in comparison anymore," Posey mused grimly as Lance picked up the screwdriver.  He didn't really say anything, just stared at the words a few moments then directed his attention to the newly acquired tool like he was trying to avoid somepony's attention.  She noticed the odd moment of silence but didn't pry.

"It's not a key, but maybe we could use it to take the doorknob out entirely," he said as he deposited it in one of the front pouches of his saddlebags.  It seemed a waste of time to go to the trouble of stashing it in the bags themselves just for a trip from the dressing room to the storefront door.

"I didn't get a good look before, but if there's something to unscrew it would probably be on the inside."  She followed behind him as they returned to the door in question.

"Yeah, kind of counter productive otherwise I would imagine," he replied as he focused his light on the doorknob and took a look.  There were indeed a few visible screws, and an experimental prod proved the screwdriver to be of the right size to deal with them.  Lance spent the next couple minutes disassembling the doorknob, until at last he was able to let one half drop onto the floor next to him to rest amongst a small assortment of screws as the other half fell off and landed on the ground outside.  He then looked down at the tool in his hoof as it promptly burned to ashes like everything else he'd used correctly, pausing a moment then sighing.

"Doesn't that always happen?" she asked in response to the brief spike of melancholy.

"It does.  I was just thinking it might've made a good weapon.  But then again, it was pretty small, and I don't want to get that close to something I have to stab," he replied, looking down at his watch to make sure nothing was amiss before pushing the door open.

There was fog outside alright.  A lot of fog.  So much fog in fact that there didn't appear to be any ground at all.  They both peered out with puzzled expressions on their faces as any sort of traversable surface continually failed to appear.  Then in a bout of curiosity, Posey gingerly stuck her hoof out and poked it down into the fog obscuring the ground, a soft metallic tap sounding and echoing downward as she hit something hard, cold, and slightly wet.

"What the..." she muttered as she ventured out another step with similar results.  In another moment she had all four hooves outside, finding herself on a flat stable surface, albeit one that was impossible to see beneath the thick fog carpeting it.  "Feels like that grating from before...it's solid enough to walk on but where they hay are we?" she asked while looking all around as Lance cautiously stepped out to join her.  As chilly as it had been inside, it was even colder outside.  Not colder than the arctic kitchen in the bottom of the hospital of course, but still cold enough to be bothersome.

A sudden noise made them both give a start before looking back to see that it had just been the door swinging shut again as it would normally do, but that wasn't all they saw.  There was a college ruled piece of paper taped to the outside of the door with a message written on it in blue ink.  Lance plucked the note off the door.

"Is that from your...uh...'friend'?" Posey asked as she moved beside him.

"I don't think so, it's the wrong color ink and the wrong hoof writing," he pointed out as his eyes scanned over it.

My Dearest Love Shimmershine,

I understand.  Really I do.  You're quite the busy mare and you don't have as much time to spend with me, the stallion who loves you and risked getting in trouble with his boss in order to help you, as you would like.  But that's fine, I'm willing to go the extra mile to let us be together.  That's why I had to break the window to get the key to your store, I needed it in order to have a replica made for me.  This way I can come by whenever I want and you learn to not change your lock so I don't have to break your window just so we can be together anymore.  You're welcome dear.

With All Of My Love,

Eiffel

P.S. Thank you for letting me in

"I...think he's doing it wrong," Posey observed with slightly widened eyes as she finished reading it.

"No kidding," Lance agreed as he let the note drift to the fog covered metallic ground.  They were then distracted by a second sound, this one far more distressing than the first.  It lasted about a half a second and consisted of the sound of a very short scuffle and a mare screaming from the back of the shop.  He spared a second to exchange a quick glance with his wife before pulling the front door open again and looking inside.

The hoof prints they had left in the dust before were all gone.  Now only a single trail remained, leading from the door to the farthest dressing room in the back.  The curtains had been pulled shut again, were now boarded over, and a small trickle of blood seeped out from behind it.

...

...

"We should leave," Posey suggested with even wider eyes.

"Yes," Lance agreed again, letting the door go before they moved along past a building next to the boutique that resembled a run down cafe of some sort.

"Of course you'd be blocked off," he said bitterly as he looked up at the remnants of a sign hanging from the top of the abandoned store.  The only bit that was left of it portrayed the telltale red cross of a medical establishment.  Worse yet he could clearly see a few spare bits of medical supplies on the shelves inside beyond the painfully barred windows.  The throbbing sting of the large second degree burn on his leg and the cuts on his side were now joining the slowly returning pain from everything else.  Whatever the deaf colt had dosed him with had been powerful, but no medication lasts forever.

He spared a moment to open his pack and pull out the still mostly frozen health drink.  A little more of it had melted, but the tiny little sips it was offering him weren't very effective anymore.  He would need another full bottle, or better yet something more powerful, because not being able to walk straight for the pain of it would not make him a very helpful to his wife.  "Did I suddenly stop radiating body heat or something?" he grumbled as he drank of it what he could and stashed it away again.  It took a bit of the edge off but there was definitely still an edge to be felt.  Maybe he should leave it alone longer, let more of it melt before-

"Lance!" he heard Posey call out on the other side of the street.

"Yeah?" he called back as he got to his hooves with an irritable grunt.

"This place is unlocked," she said, pointing her hoof as he limped his way over to her.

The store's sign was completely missing and the windows were boarded over to make looking inside impossible.  But just as she had said, the door was unbarred and the handle seemed to work.  It figured that the least welcoming place they'd come across since leaving the boutique was also the most accessible.

"Better than staring at burn cream through bars," Lance replied as he noted the silence of his watch and then pulled the door open.

The fog had made it difficult to tell the size of the building from the outside, but the first glance inside made it blatantly apparent.  It was easily the size of three or four of the other forsaken businesses they had trotted past, and that was just what they could see of the front area.  There wasn't much at all there though...just a sales counter off in the distance and what looked like a rusted, dented up refrigerator wrapped in chains sitting there in the middle of the empty sales floor.  Behind the counter they could see a door that might have lead them inward were it not for the boards nailed over it.  Unlike the boutique, there was only the very lightest layer of dust on everything, probably owing in large part to the tremendous increase in empty space.

With the chains on the refrigerator making it plain they weren't going to get it open on their own, the counter was the only place that might be hiding anything of interest.  They started heading for it, but as they drew closer to the lone appliance in the center of the room it became difficult not to notice a few other details.  The dents were mostly in the refrigerator door...and they were mostly outward like something on the inside had made them.  Below the door there was also a dark maroon stain left behind by blood that had leaked out onto the floor and dried up.  They found themselves altering course slightly so that they could have a bit more of a comfortable distance from it as they passed by.

Given the grisly sight in the center of the room they were both silently anticipating something even worse behind the counter.  But for once their expectations were subverted for the better.  As they rounded the side, Lance caught sight of the second most beautiful thing he'd seen since last waking up.  Resting on the floor underneath the counter was a first aid kit, with the clasp undone.  Fearing for a moment that it was a trick, Lance lifted the lid.  To his relief he found that although there were a fair amount of things missing, it still had a decently sized roll of gauze, a couple tubes of ointment, and a packet containing four pain killer pills remaining.

"Are those pills safe?" Posey asked, looking down curiously at the tablets she couldn't quite recognize on sight.

"Yeah, they're the same kind I have at home," he replied.

"Good," she started before rummaging around her pack until she found her bottle of water.  "Take them and I'll start fixing you up a bit."

"Here?" he asked, giving the macabre refrigerator a sidelong glance.

"Well it's cleaner in here than the boutique was, we can hide behind the counter, and if anything comes in through that door way over there we'll hear about it long before it spots us.  Now lie down," she explained, wanting to cut off any objections before he could manage to say them.

He took another glance toward the door, then nodded to her before easing himself down so that he would be easier to work on.

"Good, just tell me if I'm doing anything wrong okay?" she requested as she reached for some ointment.

"I will," he replied.

They didn't say a word to one another aside from the odd sharp intake of breath and quiet apology whenever her hoof brushed a cut or burn just a little too firmly.  Some part of him wanted to just talk with her then, but the rest of him wanted to be fixed up and on its way before anything else could find them.  Posey appeared too concentrated on her work to ponder one way or the other.  It didn't take long before the ointment and gauze were both used up.  His left thigh was now bandaged over, and the dressings covering his midsection had received a new layer to cover the trails carved over his ribs.

"Too much more of this and I'll have married a mummy," she mused aloud, signaling that she was finished and he could get up.

"Thank you," he said before getting back to his hooves, taking it slow.  The combination of ointment and pain killers was starting to kick in by then.  He took a few experimental steps and found that he was once again fairly mobile with minimal pain.  While he would still have to be on the lookout for a health drink that wasn't so stubbornly frozen, this would at least keep him going for another few hours.  "That feels so much better already."

"When we get out of here you are confined to the couch for a week you hear me?" she ordered, her words at odds with her mannerisms as she ever so gently nuzzled against him.

"To recover or because you're mad at me for getting hurt?"  He was unable to help but smirk slightly as he asked the question.

"Both.  I hate having to see you like this," she clarified further as she pulled back and placed her water bottle back in her saddlebag.

Wanting to take advantage of his newly re-found mobility, Lance turned back toward the front door, only for his slight increase in enthusiasm to be stomped flat by an odd detail.  "Posey...nothing came in here, right?"

She quirked an eyebrow and looked over in the same direction.  "No, I checked a few times.  Your watch didn't make any noise either."  Posey had planned on following that with 'why?', but she soon spotted 'why' and froze just the same as Lance.

It was the refrigerator.  The chains were gone.

...

"It's only a refrigerator...we'll just go right past it and-"

They both jumped as a loud bang came from the center of a room.  Followed by another.  And another.  With each noise the neglected appliance shook slightly.

"...like I said, we'll just go right past it while never taking our eyes off of it then out the door," Lance continued with a bit less certainty behind his words.  Posey nodded, going first just in case.  She wasn't about to let some kind of fridge monster undo all the bandaging she'd just finished.

They moved with all the haste they could manage while still staying quiet and giving the impromptu prison a wide berth.  Whatever was inside didn't seem able to break the door latch...and as they drew closer Lance realized his watch was still not making a peep despite the proximity.  He found himself growing curious as to what was inside but had no idea where the compulsion was coming from.  It felt like when he had tried to abandon the watch hours upon hours ago in the cafe and found himself unable.  So despite every lick of good sense remaining in his head, Lance slowed to a stop, leaving Posey to continue on briefly before noticing he wasn't behind her anymore.

"Lance?  What are you doing?!" she asked at a whisper.

"...I...I think we have to...open it?" he replied sounding as though not even he was believing what he was saying.

"Wha...huh?!"  Posey looked at him as though mice had just started crawling out of his ears.

"I know I know, but trust me...please?"

"...I'll...okay.  I've got your back," she acquiesced in exasperation, moving closer to him.  Every instinct she had was quite visibly telling her she was about to have to beat something off of her temporarily stupid husband.

He took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and started forcing himself toward the increasingly noisy appliance.  The door shook with each blow, the intensity seeming to increase a little with every step he took toward it...that or his nerves were playing tricks with him again.  It seemed to take ages but finally he was within hoof's reach of the door latch.  Half preparing himself to dodge to the side, he slowly reached forward.

The sudden lack of noise was somehow worse than a louder one would have been.  Lance stopped cold as the banging inside of the refrigerator stopped for no readily apparent reason.  When the rusty hinges gave a loud creak and the door began to slowly swing open he hurriedly backed away a couple steps.  Nothing emerged.  There was nothing inside even capable of emerging.  There was only dried blood spatters all over the inner walls.

And on the single shelf remaining inside sat a copy of 'The Mastery of Sewing' with a spool of thread and needle atop it.

He blinked, then scowled as his body slowly realized it wasn't about to be attacked.  "Fine," he grumbled as he picked up the two items.

"What are those?" Posey asked once she too had confirmed they were safe for the moment.

"They were left next to yo-...they were left in the hospital after we got separated," he started, closing his eyes tightly and pausing a moment to come up with a less horrible way to word it.  "I saw them again when I got off the elevator, and here they are now for a third time.  I think if it's going to keep escalating like this I'd rather just take the blasted things already."

Lance had done quite a good job explaining where the two items had come from, but he'd done nothing to explain what they were, so Posey looked down to the book in his hooves.  "Oh wow I haven't seen that book in ages, I remember you had this even before we moved in together," she mused, easily recognizing the sewing related tome.  "Why is it important now though?"

...

He took another moment to close his eyes and fabricate an answer.  "I...I don't know."

...

"Maybe you should look inside then?" she asked with a discerning look on her face.  It seemed to strike her as the next obvious step that he should have already thought of on his own.

He couldn't exactly just say 'no'.  In fact doing anything other than opening the book would make his discomfort even more obvious.  So he set the book on the floor and opened it, finding the reason for it's importance night instantaneously.  Posey's resultant gasp at the sight made him feel as though he were falling into a familiar trap all over again.

There was another picture taped to the very first page.  It was of their daughter, still a filly, with partly bloodied bandages wrapped around her head.  She was sitting with a deflated, weary posture, facing away from the camera in what was clearly their Cloudsdale home.  Behind her lay Ashley, somewhat crudely sewn together again.  Beneath the picture, written directly on the page with a thick black mark was a single sentence.

I tried again daddy father.

When Lance looked over to his wife again he found her with eyes closed, taking deep breaths as she tried with all her might to keep herself together.  He didn't say a word.  Finally she opened her eyes and looked at him with a stare intense enough to practically bore a hole through his skull.  "We have to go home."

He still didn't say a word for a while.  Now he was being pulled back to the depths of the hospital, back to a conversation that had been interrupted.  She'd given him a chance down there.  The one thing he never wanted to tell her and she had been so open and accepting of him that for one instant he had thought that maybe, just maybe, he could stop hiding so much and tell her the truth.  Then it was gone...had been gone forever as far as he'd known.  He'd wasted the chance to trust her with the truth the same way he had trusted her with everything else.  This was a second chance...and even though it still hurt him so much to even think about telling her, he was getting tired of being with her and being anything less than overjoyed for her presence.

"Posey...down there before we ran for the elevat-"

"Not now."

"...what?" he asked incredulously.  This had been the same mare who had threatened to stay there unless he confessed everything to her after all.

"You were right down there...we really don't have time.  I mean look what happened after that Lance.  I...still want to know everything you were trying to tell me but not now," she explained while looking down at the photograph.  "I can't even really tell if this picture is real or not can I?  If I can see you...die...and then find you alive again, it seems like a fake photo would be foal's play.  So...I don't know if Fluttershy is here or not...but I know for certain you are."

The minor shock slowly faded from Lance's face, replaced with...he didn't know what.  There was no sense of relief, or comfort, or surprise, or anything he could quite put into words.  Just a vague sense that...something.

Having noticed his lack of reply, she continued.  "Right now I want to get you out of here Lance, and that photo is giving us a clear enough destination.  If Fluttershy really is there, then we'll find her...but right now I need to think about the stallion I know for a fact exists.  So let's just go alright?"

...

"Alright."  He pushed the vague feeling aside, leaving it to gnaw at the back of his mind until it hopefully faded away entirely.  "Do you have any ideas about how to get there?" he asked, trying to move the conversation toward more practical matters.

"I don't even know where here is," she confessed with a worried look on her face as they moved toward the door.  "It's not still Ponyville is it?"

"I don't think so.  I don't remember any of the buildings I passed by looking like these," he replied as he pushed the appliance store's front door open and took a step outside.  His eyes traveled upward back to that red cross symbol above the medical supply store across the street...then they widened slightly as something clicked.

"There, see?  That wasn't so bad, the salesmare was very nice, and now we'll have a dryer that doesn't make Fluttershy run to our room crying about a monster banging around in the laundry room when we want to let it dry a load overnight," Posey said cheerfully as they stepped out into the sunlight.  Lance sighed, though he still easily wore a smile as he briefly glanced up at the medical supply store across the street before replying.

"You'd think I'd be getting used to the taste of crow by now," he joked as he looked back to her, having expected a far more troublesome time of replacing their old dryer.

"Lance?  What is it?" she asked as he continued looking up at the broken sign.

"Posey...I think we're back in Cloudsdale..."

Part 28

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Lost cause.

Part 28

"NO," Lance said as he tore the note off the wall and began trying to rip off the remaining tattered wallpaper with his hooves.  "There was a door here!  Put it back!" he demanded as though somepony were listening, finding naught but sturdy wood behind what little wallpaper he actually managed to remove.  "Posey!  Can you hear me?!"

Nothing.

"She was here....I just got her back!"  His hooves grew still on the wall, his body trembling with the rage he was using to desperately fend off the familiar dread gnawing at his gut.  It was like being torn in half.  Part of him wanted to start moving that very second to try and rescue her.  The other part could only remember the pattern that had played out twice now.  It only ended with him and a corpse.

...

He ineffectually struck the wall once more out of spite and dropped back to all four hooves.  Even if there was a script he was doomed to follow, the only alternative was doing nothing.  Besides, there was no massive subterranean sprawl laid out before him this time.  There was nothing more than his house, a single residential building of reasonable size.  One could only fit so many surprises in so small a space.  If he had managed to survive the hollowed out underground husk of Manehatten General, surely he could navigate his way through his own abode, no matter the obstacles.

"Be quick about it.  She can't kill Posey if I get to her before she can even stand up," he muttered to himself as he started taking stock of his surroundings a bit more thoroughly.  It looked about as destitute and abandoned as the boutique and the appliance store had been.  Their furniture was gone.  None of their pictures hung from the walls.  Even the scraps of wallpaper looked unfamiliar.  There was nothing left but the architecture itself to remind him of their once happy home and, owing to recent years, even that wasn't a very welcoming sight anymore.  That was fine though.  They had no reason to stay any longer than was absolutely necessary.

Having been through this process twice now he set himself to checking which doors weren't broken, a task that would be made much simpler by his already knowing their locations.  Mindful to not step in the still fresh trail of clumsy blood spatters and crimson hoof prints the sovereign had left behind, he stepped into the hall.  There were no planks or barriers or any other kind of obvious obstruction to clearly mark the impassable doors, but it was not as if there were many doors to check either.

Lance proceeded to make no progress at all as he was met with a series of rattling, useless doorknobs save for two.  One of the hall closets was unlocked, and inside a health drink awaited him, sitting on the lone small shelf that hadn't been torn from the walls for whatever unfathomable reason.  Though the presentation was suspect, he knew his pills were going to wear off sometime in the near future and took the bottle anyway.  The other door that still worked was the one for their guest bedroom, but it hardly mattered.  He was only able to force it open enough to peek inside and see that, much like their dining room, it was stuffed to the point of inaccessibility with boxes upon boxes of random baggage onto which only the likes of a compulsive hoarder would hold.

The lack of progress wasn't exactly encouraging but at least it had been quick so far.  With the entire cloud level floor cleared he followed the sovereign's bloody trail over to the stairs and carefully made his way up to the second floor, his eyes downcast to make sure his hooves didn't accidentally step on the potentially slippery fluid while his watch started to buzz softly with the increased proximity.  Strangely, when he reached the top the bloody trail didn't immediately lead out into the hallway like he would have expected.  Instead it detoured along the upstairs hallway, going in and out of one door he could see before turning the corner out of sight and then doubling back toward the balcony.  They had clearly only heard her stumble and collapse onto the balcony before, when had she gone into these other rooms?

In what was perhaps not the most well weighed decision, he poked his head out the archway that opened up from the hallway to the railed walkway leading over the living room and along the wall to the balcony.  She was still lying there, catching her breath and looking quite worse for the wear.  Despite her extensive fatigue she still seemed fairly aware of her surroundings, audibly straining as her metal covered head scraped along the balcony floor and came to rest looking squarely at him.  Lance flinched back into the hallway, rather relieved when he didn't hear any iron clad hooves approaching.  Fortunately there was no reason to ever try that again, leaving him to the doors that he assumed were the only ones unlocked.

A quick walk-through of the upstairs hallway confirmed his assumption with another series of rattling doorknobs.  There were in total three remaining unbroken knobs attached to corresponding doors that looked a bit different than all the others.  One at the end of the hallway just past the stairs looked to have partially burned by some strange kind of fire that had left everything else in the vicinity completely untouched.  The second around the corner bore a series of cracks and dents as though somepony had taken a hammer to it.  The last at the very far end of the hallway looked water damaged and moldy.  Lance knew exactly which rooms laid behind each one...and because of that, he first chose the burned door.

There was no smell of smoke, nor was the doorknob hot in the slightest.  With no reason to suspect any lingering fire on the other side, he opened the door.  The sight that greeted him left him standing there dumbfounded yet again.  Lance had been correct about there not being a fire on the other side of the door, but that had been the only thing he'd been correct about.  Instead of his office, he was now looking into a burnt out version of the entryway of his house as though he'd just opened the front door.

"What?" he couldn't help saying.  He took a step inside and saw that by all appearances it was an entire copy of his house attached to the side, unfortunately including the entirely inaccessible kitchen.  Yet, he hadn't seen anything of the sort whilst he and Posey had been outside.  While this wasn't the first time the place had taken liberties with basic physics, he couldn't recall any other occasion that had been quite as egregious.  For that matter...the large blood trail that had led him inside was nowhere to be seen.  It was not a case of simply being harder to spot on the burnt floor either, he couldn't see a drop anywhere.

He took a first cautious couple steps inside, the charred patches on the floor crunching only slightly beneath his weight but still holding together.  Despite feeling solid enough, Lance didn't exactly trust them, and made note to keep his hooves on unburned floor whenever it was possible.  Even at that, the unburned boards creaked worryingly beneath his hooves.  It would have been a bad enough situation without his also having no idea what was beneath the floor boards of this spontaneously appearing side house.

In addition to the obvious fire damage, the living room had a markedly different arrangement of furniture.  Rather than a lone chair and rusty safe, there was a charred bed frame and mattress sitting in the corner, and a metal bust of a mare sitting on top of a square, crack riddled, concrete pedestal.  The bust was held together by a series of shoddy looking welding seams, and as he stepped closer he noticed two electrodes attached to the base at each side.  Each one was hooked to a wire that traveled down along their respective face of the pedestal and then vanished into a pair of holes in the floor.  Now that he was closer Lance also spotted a pipe on the back side of the pedestal that had been hidden by the bust at a distance.  Near the top it bent inward, the opening pointed directly at the small metal statue.  In defiance of the charred architecture around it, the pipe was covered in a layer of frost.  A quick step around revealed that, like the wires, it went down and into the floor, leaving Lance with no readily available way to trace the source of either.  That didn't strike him as a problem though.  He knew well he'd find out soon enough.

It only took him a glance to write off the dining room.  The ceiling high stacks of boxes filled with old newspapers were still there, only far blacker now.  Without much reason to linger downstairs, he headed upward, pausing at the second highest step when his watch began to buzz softly.  There was something up there but it was still a ways off yet.  Now even more wary of his surroundings, he took the last step up and poked his head out to make sure there was nothing on the walkway or balcony.  But something was on the balcony.  Something still staring back at him, lying in the exact same position she had been back in the main house.

Lance swiftly retreated out of her sight just as before.  "What the buck?" he muttered under his breath.  There was still no pursuit.  Following a confused few moments Lance decided it didn't matter.  If the sovereign still couldn't even stand up, she could be in as many simultaneous places as she wanted to be and it wouldn't matter.  "Just messing with you more Lance, move along," he urged himself as he placed his focus back on searching his 'house'.

His office door was unlocked, but he only pulled the door open a crack, very briefly, just to check that it worked.  The hall closet's doorknob was broken, as was the bathroom's much to his relief.  With every step down the corridor his watch buzzed a little louder but he paid it little mind knowing the source was on the balcony with a severe case of blood loss induced jelly legs.  As he turned to check the door to their home library however, a familiar panting noise to his left proved that this assumption was dead wrong.  The barbed nurse had been standing just past the door to Fluttershy's room, blocking his way to the master bedroom and putting her one good lunge away from giving him an assortment of puncture wounds.

A muttered obscenity preceded him barely managing to step back fast enough to avoid her embrace, turning tail and bolting for the nearest door he knew would let him in.  He didn't know what was in that most likely burned crispy version of his office, but his watch had been quieter over there so he was reasonably sure it wouldn't kill him.  Lance cast a glance over to the nurse to see she was nearly close enough for another attempted hug before hurrying inside and slamming the door shut.  He kept his hoof on the knob to prevent anypony turning it from the other side, and within moments he heard the insistent scratching of the panting barbed nurse trying to get inside as his watch screamed bloody murder at him.

For a moment he thought this one would be more persistent than the others, but soon the scratching abated and he heard her limp away back to her post, his watch calming down.  Lance let out the breath he'd been holding, then turned around to see an office surprisingly well lit and organized considering the location.  It was 'an office' and not 'his office' because he instantly recognized the sight of the third floor office from Cloudsdale General that had so long ago been assigned to him.  Things were made all the stranger by the version of himself over a decade younger seated at his desk, and another familiar mare wearing a pair of light blue saddlebags standing on the other side, facing toward his doppelganger.

"Hrm."  The younger Lance inspected the mare closely as though looking for something, but couldn't quite find it.

"You don't remember me?" the even younger looking blonde maned pegasus mare asked with a hint of disappointment.

"I can't say I do," Lance replied with a shrug.  "Should I be able to?"

"I can't say I blame you, it's been so long and all...oh, wait!" she said cheerfully as an idea popped into her head.  She took a seat, spent a moment rummaging about her saddlebag, and then pulled a black framed pair of glasses out, putting them on before looking at the surgeon across the desk again.  "How about now?"

This time there was a visible spark of recognition to his face.  "Oh my gosh you're the teenage filly that asked for my autograph at my graduation," he said, hardly believing it even as he said it.

"Right!" she said with a bright smile before putting the glasses away.  "I've been wearing contacts for years now but it's paid off a few times to still have these nearby for backup."

"So you're working here now?" he asked, still a bit dazed by such a small piece of his past seeming to come back out of nowhere.

"Yep, as a nurse to start.  During orientation I heard somepony mention you were working on the third floor, so I wanted to come up and say hi before my first shift if you weren't busy," she explained, standing back up after latching her saddlebag closed.

"Ah, well then, welcome aboard," Lance replied with a polite smile, and then remembered his manners a little better.  "And uh, I didn't catch your name?"

"Thank you Dr. Strongshy, and my name's Soft Cure. It's an honor to meet you again," she answered before turning to leave.  Instead of stepping out though, she stopped, pausing a moment and then looking back at him again.  "Uh...I know this is probably weird of me to ask but...are you free for lunch later?" she asked a bit hesitantly.

"I...um..." He looked over at his scheduled appointments and surgeries for the day, finding his usual gap of free time for lunch a bit late in the afternoon.  "Sure, I suppose," he said with a bit of uncertainty of his own.  None of the staff had ever come up to his office just to say hello before, much less asked him if he was free for lunch.

Then Lance, Soft Cure, and the entire office began to burn away in dark red smoldering flames that left not even ash behind.  As Lance looked on, the reality of his home office replaced that of his workplace completely, the flames traveling from the ceiling downward until they coalesced into a glowing red number 303 on the ground that sizzled with heat and boiled away, leaving the unsettling scent of cooked blood lingering in the air.

The Lance of the present momentarily stood there looking at the spot the blood drawn 303 had occupied.  Then he looked up to see his home office, just as charred as he initially assumed.  His desk had been broken in half and had fallen to the floor, his chair was missing entirely, and his once stuffed shelves were now empty while the ashes that were undoubtedly the remains of his medical books laid scattered on the floor.  He shook the daze from his head and then looked again, reasonably confident that this was real when the same incinerated office was there to greet him a second time.

"Did...she do this?" he wondered aloud, realizing that circumstances were somewhat implying it.  The 303 on the floor had clearly been drawn in blood, there had been a trail of it leading into his office door in the uncharred version of his house, and there was currently only one pony in the house bleeding everywhere.  But was the sovereign even capable of such, and if true, what had been keeping her from doing it all this time?  Had she been simply enjoying herself too thoroughly to bother, or had something changed?  Did it have anything to do with the restraints getting torn off?

Thankfully the sight of some kind of dial on the wall to his right distracted him from such troubling thoughts.  His interest was further piqued when he noticed a pair of wires traveling down from the dial to the floor, insulated identically to the wires he'd seen hooked to the electrodes on the bust downstairs.  Since he wasn't going to find out much else otherwise, he gave the dial about a quarter turn.  It gave a click at the first movement, and then a quite audible electric hum began emanating from the wall behind it.  The dial proved to be less of a dial and more of a timer, ticking back to its original position bit by bit until it clicked off again and the humming ceased.

The matching wires made him strongly suspect that it was doing something to the bust downstairs, so he turned the timer to the full duration and then peeked out to make sure the nurse was still safely around the corner before emerging and heading for the walkway where he'd be able to look down.  It then struck him that wandering back into the sovereign's line of sight was a slightly less than ideal plan and he corrected course to the stairwell.  Once he'd made his way down and back into the living room he found the welded together metal bust glowing red with heat from the electric current passing through it via the electrodes.  For a split second he feared inadvertently starting a fire but then realized the obvious fact that there was nothing left that hadn't already gone up in flames.

The red glow of the metal slowly grew brighter as the electric current hummed relentlessly.  But after a few more moments Lance heard the faint sound of a click upstairs.  The current instantly cut off, and the glowing heat of the metallic bust began quickly dimming.  As he watched it cool he couldn't help but notice how the front-most welding seam glowed just a bit brighter, suggesting it was going to give out far earlier than the metal it so haphazardly bound together.  By now he was getting the distinct impression that there was something he needed inside, and that seam was surely going to be the key.  But how was he going to take advantage of it?  Even with full duration it didn't get hot enough to melt off, and he wasn't exactly eager to place his hooves on red hot metal to try and pry it open when it was at its most malleable.

Then he remembered the pipe hiding behind the bust.  It was now free of frost thanks to the heat given off by the bust, but the icy coating having been there at all implied the pipe was supposed to carry something very, very cold.  There was probably another switch, or dial, or button somewhere, something that would hopefully make the pipe cool off the back side of the bust incredibly quickly.  If Lance could time it so that it happened when the bust was at its hottest, the entire back half contracting could potentially deform the still red hot front half and exert enough pull to bust the seam open.  He'd never really done any kind of metal forming work before but he knew the basic concept of thermal expansion and it sounded plausible enough.  Now all he had to do was find the switch or button in question.

The now strangely uncluttered dining room struck him as a good place to start.

He didn't waste time wondering where the stacks of charred boxes had gone.  They were just gone, and that was that.  The watch didn't buzz any louder as he approached but he was still cautious after the unexpected run in with the nurse upstairs.  There was a light coming from the far left side of the room, and when Lance looked within he spent another moment befuddled at the sight in front of him before his recollection of recent events clarified the matter and he fully stepped in to get a better view.

About halfway in, the room abruptly transitioned into clean white tile flooring with just as clean white walls that he recognized as cloud construction.  Against the wall was a familiar cafeteria table, two ponies seated across from one another with plates of salad in front of them, the blonde maned mare of the pair now wearing a brand new nurse outfit.

He had apparently walked into the middle of a lull in the conversation, as Soft Cure took a bit of salad and chewed peacefully while the older stallion across from her sat there awkwardly.  The past Lance looked thoughtful for a while, as though figuring out the right way to ask something.  Eventually he apparently concluded there was no polite way of asking, and waited until she'd swallowed to speak.

"Um...don't take this the wrong way but...have you been...tracking me...more than is healthy?" he asked, his words punctuated by several uncertain, eye averting pauses.

"Oh...stalking, you mean," she said, her ears lowering as she examined the table and her face turned a slight bit pink.

"It's not that I don't appreciate being asked to lunch, it's-"

"No no it's fine," she said while raising a reassuring hoof.  "Celestia knows I've asked myself that a few times, I wasn't exaggerating back then when I said you were an inspiration and all.  But, no, I don't have some Lance Strongshy shrine hidden in my closet," she joked.

He replied with a quiet chuckle, now amused at his own paranoia more than anything else as he managed a soft smile that set her a bit more at ease as she continued.

"You've been in medical journals so much that it's kind of hard not to know where you work if you have even a remote interest in the field, so I wouldn't have had to look far had it been my intention to arrange all this," she said with a motion of her hoof to indicate the general area.  "But, the truth is, I'm just here because Cloudsdale needs well trained medical pegasi, and I didn't see much use in doing anything less than becoming one."

"Yeah...same here," he said with a nod of understanding.  "It still feels really strange for a staff member to bother asking me to lunch, not to mention that staff member being somepony I talked to for a few seconds just once years ago who came back out of nowhere.  I know I've just made things a bit...strange by asking that, but I would've felt worse not saying anything," he explained before taking a bite of his lunch.

"I understand, and I agree, clearing the air always helps.  I know it sounds silly but um...part of the reason I asked is because you're the only familiar face in the whole building for me."

Lance shot her a raised eyebrow before swallowing.  "Really?"

"Yeah, I was the only bookish pony in my group of friends growing up, so they're off on their own careers now.  I don't really have any friends in Cloudsdale anymore, so I figured since I had approached you once before it would be easier a second time...or something," she said, pausing as though realizing the words didn't make as much sense as she had thought they would before saying them.  Her mind moved on though, apparently to something that made her smile and laugh a bit.  "You should've seen the reactions I got when asking about you.  Apparently some of the other new hires think you have a glare that sears tumors right out of a patient."

"Huh...well, it's true I was looking rather intently at a tumor last week, but I'd probably give more credit to the twenty or so tools that were in my hooves during the surgery," he replied, a brief moment of curiosity as to what other ridiculous rumors about him were floating around passing through his mind before he dismissed it as inconsequential.

"Hehe, so um...if this still feels weird I'll understand if you don't want to meet up for lunch or anything again," she offered while trying not to sound disappointed.

Lance pondered this.  He remembered when he'd first gone to Manehatten without a friend in the world and then been only further embittered by the struggles there.  He recalled how things had opened up once Posey had convinced him to give other ponies another shot and get to know a few.  Then there was the slight feeling of isolation he'd been detecting within himself lately.  Between work and family he'd neglected to build any sort of social network for himself in Cloudsdale.  He loved his work, and he loved his family even more, but after actually having friends in Manehatten it felt strange to have his only non professional conversations take place with his wife and his daughter.  Lance decided that being available couldn't hurt.

"You know what?  I'll get over it.  We'll probably end up working together some days anyway," he said after a few silent moments.  Soft Cure offered a smile and nod in reply before she was set alight in smoldering red flames that steadily consumed her and the rest of the scene in front of him.  Rather than reveal the actual room and a sizzling 303 as before, the flames moved toward his half of the room.  Not knowing what to expect, Lance hastily backed away toward the door until it became apparent the crimson fire wasn't coming after him.  It began moving upward, inexplicably creating ashes from nowhere as it rose.  Lance made out the shape of two ponies before the room was momentarily enveloped in an intense red glow that forced him to shield his eyes.  When he opened them again he was looking at himself and Posey, eating dinner together on a night long before she'd started getting sick.

"I'm glad you managed to get the weekend off, Fluttershy will be really happy to see her dad in the morning, assuming they don't have to call you in," Posey mused with a tired smile.  "So how was work?"

"Pretty much the usual operations and examinations, nothing too severe or complicated, and no emergency cases came in.  It was a relatively calm shift all things told," he replied before taking a drink of water from his glass.

"Hrm, that's good," she said before a yawn occupied her for a few seconds.  "I wish they'd let you go a bit earlier in the day though, I'm always so tired the day after nights I stay up late waiting for you."

"Nopony said you had to," he answered.  "I don't mind coming home to a dark house if it means you're getting some rest Posey."

"I know, I just like being able to say hi before I hit the hay," she explained, silent for a few moments as she took a bite of the pasta dish she'd put together.  "So your shift was three days long but nothing at all interesting happened?" she pressed, sounding skeptical.  They often had differing definitions of 'interesting'.  It wouldn't be the first time one of them would have had to press the other to apply a slightly different filter to their recollection of events.  Lance paused, trying to think of something besides medical files, operations, and treatments, and then recalled the conversation he'd had just over three days ago at that point.

"Oh...I've got something," he said.

"Yeah?" she asked, her interest piqued now that it appeared they might discuss something that wasn't saturated with medical jargon that the untrained ear wouldn't wholly understand.

"We've got some new staff at the hospital, and do you remember that teenage filly that got my autograph at my graduation?" he asked.

"I vaguely remember trying not to give somepony else a death glare after I did it to Celestia," she replied.  There was a quiet moment occupied only by mutual chewing until she pieced together the implication behind the two halves of his sentence.  "No."

"Yep, she got through university and now she's working at Cloudsdale as a nurse getting her final bit of training and starting her career."

"Huh, well good for her.  I didn't know you were involved in hiring though," she said, her voice shifting subtly as she examined him with a slightly more critical gaze that he failed to notice.

"I'm not, she actually came up to my office before her first shift to say hello, even asked me to lunch.  Nopony at work has ever done that before," he noted fondly as he took another bite of pasta.

"...You don't say," she deadpanned, setting her fork down and watching him chew like a cat eying an unaware mouse.

He swallowed.  "Apparently I have a scary reputation among the staff or something?  I don't know.  Anyway, she seems fairly competent at first glance.  Hopefully we've got another reliable medical pony on hoof," he continued obliviously.

...

Posey waited until his eyes visibly widened, her husband having just then heard the click of the metaphorical landmine upon which he had just stepped.  "So I know she's younger than me, but is she prettier too?" she asked with a menacing tilt of the head.

Lance's just as metaphorical squad mates took his dog tags and fled out of the blast radius leaving him alone and terrified.  "I wasn't-I didn't-it's not like-I'm not-" he babbled as a veritable legion of denials all tried to force their way out of his mouth at once and only managed to come out as fragmentary nonsense.

She let him verbally flail a few seconds longer before she snorted, her face contorting into an amused grimace before she started laughing outright.  Lance was stuck in uncertain blinking silence until she managed to recover.  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just had to," she consoled him while wiping a laughter induced tear away.  "It's fine honey I'm not angry, or jealous, or anything," she said, picking up her glass to take another drink.  She wisely set it back down before she could manage to take a sip, another wave of the giggles overtaking her that would've made her spit it out.

"You're....fine?" he repeated cautiously.

"Mostly...I mean, I would have rather heard about you meeting an interesting stallion since I worry like anypony would, but I trust you more than enough by now, and besides, it's not like I didn't still have stallions for friends even after we got serious," she assured him, and then sighed.  "They were all back in Manehatten though like the rest of my...our friends."

"..." Lance now set his fork down as well.  "Are you okay here honey?"

She yawned again.  "Just a bit of cabin fever I guess.  Sometimes I really miss being able to go out and see friends, you know?"

"I'll be here tomorrow, you could go out and stretch your wings a bit while I take care of things here," he offered, but she shook her head without having to really think about it at all.

"No.  You might have to be called in on an emergency for one thing, and for another, you're gone for long enough that I like to be home with you and Fluttershy when you're off.  Thank you though."  She gave him a smile, placing her hoof on his atop the table.  "Don't worry about it, I know things will get better from here...and they're already pretty good as it is."

His moment of concern having passed, he turned his hoof upward and took hold of hers, returning her affectionate expression.  "Thanks."

"You're welcome.  While we're on the subject though...tell that new nurse of yours that your wife demands she make sure my husband takes care of himself at work if she's going to get the privilege of my allowing her near you," she replied in mostly teasing jest.

"Heh, I'll pass it along dear."

Before the two apparitions could resume their meal, the crimson flame returned to sear them out of existence.  There was no transition to a third scene, only a charred, ashen room made to feel cavernous by the small table and chair for one, sitting isolated in the center with nothing but a curiously unburned gramophone sitting in the corner for company.  Another bloody glowing 303 on the floor sizzled and evaporated, but it didn't hold Lance's attention nearly as well as the now completely unblocked back door.  The doorknob was even functional, and for a fleeting moment he thought he had found a way out.  His hopes were dashed when he opened it to see nothing but a fog filled void on the other side instead of their back yard.  Out of curiosity, he picked up a decently sized chunk of charcoal from the floor, held it out the door, and dropped it, expecting to at least hear some kind of dull clang eventually.  No sound came back to him even after a solid minute.  He sensibly chose to close the door after that, muttering that he probably should have known better than to get his hopes up.

The lonely bit of furniture didn't have any apparent use, but the gramophone had a record ready to play.  Knowing it wouldn't be there unless he had to listen to it, Lance gave the crank a few turns and then let it play.

There was silence initially, but soon he picked out the sound of ragged male breathing.  Hoof steps followed, growing closer and then stopping, preceding what sounded like two bundles of papers being dropped.

"Who are you?" the voice of a young stallion asked, apparently the pony that had been catching his breath.  "What am I doing he-"

"No," another stallion interrupted, his voice sounding much older and more rugged like the growl of an old wolf.  "Let's go back to that first question, only lets ask it about you, because I don't know who the buck you are and neither does anypony else whose signature matters, and really, that's why you're here."

"What the hay are you talking about?" the young stallion asked, an uneasy edge to his voice.  Lance could pick out the sound of chains being gently rattled like somepony were struggling.

"But I do know this pony," the older stallion continued, completely ignoring the question of the younger.  "You know her too, right?"

"..."

"She's quite talented isn't she?" the older continued, audibly leafing through one of the paper bundles.  "Why, if this service record is to be believed, there's not a target she could get eyes on and not be able to put a crossbow bolt right through it.  Lives can be entrusted to this mare and she will deliver them from evil."

"..."

"She didn't that day though...because nopony with brass knew who you were and you just needed to stand out so badly," he continued, punctuating his sentence with the sharp sound of the dropped stack of papers landing on the table.

"My job is to make sure everypony walks away, and that's what I was trying to do!" he denied adamantly.

"Come on now boy, we both know better.  If you had been doing your job you would've taken the situation for what it was and prioritized, but what you did instead was strut into a situation you couldn't handle with delusions of grandeur, fame, and promotion in your eyes.  That's all he was to you."

"You're wrong!"

"No.  I'm right.  Look at all these promotion requests on your record, every one of them denied," the older said while leafing through what must have been the other bundle of records.  "I look at this and I see some punk with a dangerous entitlement streak who thinks he deserves prestige without having to earn it, but you did so well at the academy that your superiors were willing to overlook it.  You've actually done quite well up until now, to be fair," he confessed before another impact of dropped papers was heard.  "But then here it was...the perfect situation.  You pull it off and you get fame and fortune.  You screw up and nopony says its your fault, because she was irreparably unstable and nopony would blame you for hesitating to order the shot on a mare.  He dies and nopony gets the blame...and that is something I just can't tolerate."

"Wh...what are you going to do?!"

"I'm going to let you go."

There was a brief silence of disbelief from the younger.  "What?"

"That's right...I'm going to let you go, forget all of this, completely let you off the hook, and turn myself in for kidnapping...so long as you can tell me his name."

The quiet that ensued was kept from yet more complete silence only by the steadily more panicked breathing of the younger trying desperately to remember the name and save his own life.  But it was not to be.  Lance heard a movement, and then a frightened exclamation that got cut short by a rope tightening painfully around a snout.

"His name was Kip."

The wince inducing snap of a pony's limb breaking and muffled screams preceded the needle reaching the end of the record, sparing Lance from having to listen to any more of the younger stallion's ultimate fate.

...

"What the hay did that have to do with anything?" he wondered aloud as he took the needle off the record and moved it aside.  The scene he'd just heard wasn't the switch he was looking for, but he still knew it had to have some kind of purpose, so he mentally filed it away.

There was nothing left in that room worth looking at, so his thoughts drifted elsewhere.  It was only his thoughts, and not his body, because he knew the only doors left to check were all upstairs being guarded by that nurse.  He needed to get by her, but trying to dart past her was likely to end badly.  A less direct method would be preferable if he could come up with one.  Luring a monster into a room and then maneuvering around it with the extra space had worked once before with a drowning mare, but the barbed nurses were just a bit too fast for that to be a safe bet.  Trapping her in the office wasn't a good option either, as he'd need to go back in there to twist the dial linked to the electrodes.

...

Finally, he recalled her scratching insistently at the door and got an idea that might just work.  Lance made his way back up stairs intent on first double checking that the office door still worked, but stopped in his tracks at the top of the stairs when he heard that very door open.  Somepony was panting for breath nervously as they emerged, and then Lance heard his own voice speak up.  "What the HAY was that in there?!" his younger self asked harshly.

Realizing it was another vision of his past, he took the last step up to see himself in blood spattered surgical scrubs glaring at a visibly shaken orderly in the Cloudsdale General surgical wing.

"I...I don't know, I just froze, I don't know what-"

"You had better find out then before you set hoof in my operating room again, because if Soft Cure hadn't been there fix it, we'd be writing down the time and wheeling the patient to the morgue right now," he interrupted furiously as his eyes kept the orderly rooted to the spot with fear.

"I'm sorry, it, was just so...I didn't know what to...it was just a mistake," she plead, her eyes tearing up.

There was no pity waiting for her.  "Just a mistake.  You almost killed somepony and it's just a mistake.  Would you honestly be saying that in defense of somepony else if they'd killed a patient, or do you expect to get special consideration just for being you?"

She opened her mouth to speak...but couldn't find one word to say.  Her gaze lowered in defeat with an accompanying sniff.

"The pony on the table gets no second chances, so neither do we.  If your nerves get the best of you right when the patient needs you the most, you'd best consider whether or not you belong here," he said with a note of finality before turning and trotting back into the operating room.

The Lance of the present stood there watching as the stress wracked, humiliated orderly bit back her tears and walked off down the hallway, slowly vanishing from sight as she left the apparent limits of the vision.  He felt a deep pang of guilt.  Not because he had been harsh with her, but because he was no longer the sort of pony who could tell somepony off for such mistakes.  He'd lost patients before but they all had been either lost causes or the victim of the sort of unpredictable complications that the cruel randomness of life tended to dish out.  Now he was the one who had killed a patient for stupid reasons.  Why had he continued doing surgeries in his sleep deprived condition instead of saying something to anypony?

Soft Cure stepped out, followed by the rest of the team wheeling the patient to a recovery room.  Lance lingered behind, standing beside her as she looked off in the direction of the fallen orderly with her ears lowered.  "I didn't overstep my boundaries did I?  Your hooves were already occupied, she was panicking, and I knew the patient would bleed out if nopony did anything."

"Technically yes, but my team and I aren't going to tell any of the higher ups if you aren't."

"I won't."

"Good.  They hate unproven hooves on a patient's innards.  Even if it saved somepony's life, there's likely to be litigation if word ever gets out.  Now, can I ask you something?"

"Hrm?"  She looked toward him, her ears perking up attentively.

"You do know it's not standard procedure to have the attending nurse scrub in and watch the surgery before they set the patient up in a recovery room, right?" he asked pointedly.

"..."  She looked away from him nervously, expecting she would soon be joining the orderly in exile.  "Yes."

"I've looked at your file Soft Cure, you're a tad bit overqualified for just being a nurse, care to explain that one?" he continued, maintaining an even tone.

She felt a small glimmer of hope at having not been yelled at yet.  "I wasn't confident enough in my ability to handle pressure when it wasn't just a cadaver on the table, and then I heard the nursing staff here was a bit...below par, so I decided I'd be better there."

Lanced nodded.  "Well it seems some part of you still aspires to more, but the bad news is you're too good at your job for me to recommend putting you elsewhere."

"I know," she said with a sigh.

"But the good news is nurse practitioners do exist.  I could probably pull some strings to get you the training you need, and having a link between the surgical team and the nursing staff might ease some of the tensions there," he continued.  "That is, assuming you're interested."

"..."  She looked away and bit her lip uncertainly.

"I'm not going to make you do something you don't want to do though, but I can't let you keep sneaking into the OR without proper supervision and guidance either, so you have a choice to make.  Now go prep the patient for recovery and find me when you've made a decision," he said in parting, the shadow of the past stepping past his present self and leaving Soft Cure behind.  She hesitated a while longer before the restless look on her face resolved to a much more familiar expression of determination.  But she didn't follow after him yet, trotting out of view to attend to her duties first.

The scenery burned away behind her, leaving a third 303 on the floor to sizzle out of existence...and something else that hadn't been there before.  It was a trail of discarded clothing leading down the hall and around the corner.  He recognized the bulk of them as parts of the nurse outfit that Soft Cure still wore during her shifts.  The only exception was a familiar white lab coat lying near the corner.  Lance felt the beginnings of another pang of guilt, but he mentally blocked it, having better things to do with his time now that there were no visions to impede his progress.

He opened the office door wide so he wouldn't have to waste any time opening it with the barbed nurse on his heels.  This time when he approached the corner he was duly cautious, hugging the far wall to keep as much initial distance from the nurse as possible.  Her panting resumed the moment they laid eyes on one another, and it only took until her very first movement toward him for Lance to turn and flee back to the office.  Once safely inside he put a hoof on the doorknob, glancing to his right to double check that she was still interested before pulling the door shut and waiting, his watch growing louder by the second.

Once he heard her start scratching at the door, he turned the knob and shoved it open with all the force he could muster.  The sudden push took her by surprise, and with only her back hooves on the floor she was knocked backward, leaving her to roll over and get back up while Lance galloped past.  The clothes trail lead around the corner right to the master bedroom door at the end of the hall, but he still took a moment to check the doors to their home library and Fluttershy's room, both of which had broken locks.  He reached the bedroom just as the nurse was rounding the corner behind him, and much to his relief the door took pity upon him and opened at his urging.

Lance gave another quiet thanks that the creatures couldn't operate doorknobs before realizing he'd once again stepped into his Cloudsdale General office, only this was a far different version from the first.  There was a chalkboard completely covered in writing, with many lines of potential illnesses that had proven incorrect crossed out.  Large stacks of medical books had practically buried his desk.  But most striking of all were the walls.  They were completely smothered in black inked notes held in place by a multitude of push pins.  The chalkboard, the books, the notes, they were all leads that had gone nowhere.  Every letter of every word was written in futility.  The haggard doctor in the middle of the room served as the focus, every bit of hoof scribed failure pointing squarely at him as he stared mutely toward his desk.  He took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder, raising a hoof to his eyes.

He flinched at the knock on his door.

"Lance?  Lance are you okay?" Soft Cure's muffled voice came from outside.

...

The door opened and Soft Cure stepped in, frowning with worry as she closed it behind her.  "Lance...you need to rest."

"No," he stated simply while not looking back at her.

She stepped closer.  "You've been up for three days straight Lance, you need to sleep.  You're not going to do her any good like this.  Even Dr. Mandeus is taking time to make sure he doesn't become a mess."

"That's why I was valedictorian and not him," he answered with a growl to his voice as though his inability to keep his tone even and cold was enraging him.  "Get back to your shift, nurse."

She stepped even closer, seeming to ignore the flippant failure to use her name.  "Look, Lance, this isn't working, you're making no progress and you're hurting yourself."

"What makes you think I give a flying feather about hurting myself?" he said, his voice wavering noticeably as his head lowered.  "Get out."

"And what makes you think we don't?"

"Why should you when I'm bucking useless, even at my best, at the time it counts most?!" he retorted, voice breaking, still not daring to face her.  "Just.  Leave!"

She didn't.  His trusted head nurse and assistant instead dared to place a hoof on his shoulder.  "Lance."

He flinched but didn't slap her hoof away.  "Don't touch me," he attempted to command, his voice breaking again as his body shivered with a half restrained sob.

Soft Cure did quite the opposite.  The beleaguered doctor found himself firmly in the grasp of a warm hug, and despite every professional instinct telling him to maintain his composure and remain the hospital's pillar, he couldn't do it anymore.  Another painful sob escaped him as he sat there defeated in the embrace he would never admit to having so needed.

"I'll bring you a cot, pillow, and blanket.  I don't care if you sleep in your office but for your family's sake get some rest.  Will you do that for me?" Soft Cure asked as she nuzzled against the side of his neck and squeezed him pleadingly.

Lance attempted to answer but found himself only able to take a sharp intake of breath before shuddering in an attempt to at least keep his shameful weeping quiet.

"It's okay Lance."

The scene and the bloody 303 that had generated it burned away.  Lance was standing in a bedroom again, but it wasn't the bedroom he and his wife had shared for so long.  It was a fire scarred version of the bedroom he'd briefly ventured into at Soft Cure's apartment that one wine addled night.  On the left wall there was a small insulation tank labeled 'LN2' linked to a familiar looking pipe by a ball valve complete with bright red handle.  The bed she kept in the far left corner was cut in half lengthwise by a large metal wall marked by rust and char marks, the rightmost side giving way to iron bars spaced only just too close together for a pony's head to fit through.

He could hear Soft Cure quietly crying, like she was lying on the bed on the other side of the wall.  The stab of guilt he'd fended off earlier came back full force as he trotted over to the bars and tried to look in to no avail.  Lance knew better than to assume she was actually back there, but even that didn't help much.  It still left him standing at those bars...pondering how much she had helped him over his career, how much she had been there for him as a friend, and all he'd done to repay her was leave her crying alone in her bedroom after something that should've never happened...then kept her at foreleg's length ever since.

Lance tore himself away from the bars.  He had better things to be doing than wishing that an apology to a noise behind a wall could be valid.  The small gallon tank of liquid nitrogen was clearly what he'd been looking for.  From the occasions he'd used the substance before, it wouldn't have been his first choice of coolant because of how quickly it evaporated, but he could only assume the pipe was somehow insulated and cooled to prevent that happening before it struck the back side of the bust.  It had to be under quite a bit of pressure too to be able to make it along the length of the pipe as well.  He couldn't be sure how much of the tank was filled with the coolant and how much was filled with pressurized air, so he wasn't willing to test it out and potentially lose what was left.

There were unfortunate implications however.  Now that it was apparent he needed to set the dial in the office to maximum duration, then gallop to the bedroom and open the valve, it was now also apparent that he would have to get past the barbed nurse two more times.  He could no longer hear her scratching at the door so it he could assume she was back at her post.  The door trick probably wouldn't work at the end of the hallway where she would likely either fall against a wall and remain on her hooves or back into his path where it would be easy to grab one of his legs.  It didn't seem like he had any other choice than to try and move past her like he'd feared attempting before, but he could at least improve his chances of slipping past undetected.

Lance moved over to the door, placed his hoof on the knob, and then turned off his light.  In the pitch black he slowly opened it, then took a few cautious, quiet steps out.  His watch was buzzing a bit more loudly now, and he could hear the nurse's dramatically less severe idle breath ahead.  Taking extreme care not to make a single sound, he pressed against the left wall and crept forward, the buzzing growing louder and the breath growing closer all the while.  There was no way to look ahead and see if he had room to squeeze past so he was left to silently pray in the dark that he wouldn't feel barbs against his side as he closed in.  The tension rose to near breaking point as he heard her exhale right next to him while his watch sounded like it was tearing itself apart inside.  But there was no prick of a barb, and no puncturing embrace as he moved past unharmed.  It took a great deal of effort not to sigh in relief.

Then one of the burned boards beneath his hooves cracked and he heard a sharp gasp directly behind him.

Without any spare time to switch his light back on he had to gallop forward into pitch black navigating on memory alone.  He turned right, the lack of his suddenly running into a wall telling him he'd gone far enough prior to changing direction.  Lance raised his right hoof and ran it along the wall, slowing himself a bit but giving him a way to tell where his office door was in the dark.  The instant his hoof had nothing to touch he knew he'd reached the opening to the walkway across the hall from his office, and so turned left frantically feeling about for the doorknob as the panting closed in on him.

After a tiny eternity he felt it, pulling the door open and practically diving inside before trying to slam it shut.  It didn't work, stopping before it could manage to close as the nurse let out a pained cry.  An icy chill shot down Lance's spine as he realized the nurse had gotten close enough to hold the door open.  He felt it being pulled open and redoubled his efforts to keep it closed and, more importantly, keep her pinned, as he had a feeling the pain of having a door slammed onto her repeatedly wouldn't be sufficient discouragement.  His spare hoof felt about in a near panic before he felt the sharps tips of her barb covered hoof stuck in the door.  He opened the door a bit wider and pushed it back, a pained grunt of his own escaping as the barbs pierced his skin before he finally managed to pull it closed.  The amber pegasus stopped to catch his breath and turn his light back on, thankful that for all his trouble the dial was still there waiting for him.

There wasn't much time though so he cut his rest short.  If he waited long enough for her to lose interest and stop scratching at the door he wouldn't be able to use it to bash her out of the way again.  Lance turned the dial as far as it would go, restarting the electrical hum before returning to the door and repeating his earlier actions of turning the knob then putting all of his strength behind the outward push.

Unfortunately he had failed to note how the scratching noises had stopped after he had turned the knob.

The door flew open with no resistance and Lance was suddenly face to face with the nurse that had taken an anticipatory step backward this time.  In that split second he knew he wasn't agile enough to move around her out of the way of the coming grievous embrace, and his momentum wouldn't let him retreat in time either.  His only option was to go through her.  With a second burst of power he slammed headlong into her just as she was about to grab hold of him.  Lance shouted in agony as the rusted barbs covering her forelegs scraped along his back and gave him an array of shallow cuts, but she was still sent tumbling backwards out onto the walkway.

He didn't spare a second moving his flank back down the hallway as fast as he could manage, barely remembering to pull the bedroom door shut behind him before bounding to the valve and opening it.  He was rewarded by the hiss of pressurized air pushing coolant through the pipe, and then the even more gratifying sound of the metallic snap of a weld seam rupturing in the room below soon after.

"Oh thank Celestia I was right," he said aloud as he stopped again to catch his breath.  He could still hear the subdued sobs of his nurse from behind the wall on the far side of the room...and oddly enough even after waiting a couple minutes there was no scratching of barbs on door to interrupt it.  While the barbed nurses were by no means the fastest creature he'd dealt with, he knew they weren't that slow.  It occurred to him that she might have decided to stop scratching at doors entirely after it had gotten her in trouble the first time, but even as he approached the room's only exit there was no increasingly loud warning buzz from his watch.  Stepping back out, there was still no sign of her.  She wasn't hiding in his office either, nor was she still lying there on the walkway.  He seemed to be alone upstairs...save for the sovereign on the balcony...now looking in his direction as she quite capably held her head off the ground.

The sight of his tormentor starting to visibly recover put a spring of dread in his step as he hoofed it back downstairs.  Just as he had hoped, the bust had pulled itself apart, and something inside had fallen out onto the floor.  It was a small triangular tablet bearing the engraved image of a pony tied to a stake over a large fire with the words 'The Faithful' carved below it.  The other side was mostly blank save for a single letter L.

"Must be for the safe," he muttered as he slipped it into his saddlebag.  That meant there were two more to find, probably one behind each of the other doors back in the real...well, closer to real version of his house.  He returned to his 'front' door, glad to be free of the charred black mess around him.

Except that when he pulled the door open, he was greeted with more of the same.  The fire damage had spread back into the house proper.

Part 29

Silent Ponyille: Reunion

Lost Cause.

Part 29

"This again," he muttered to himself as he closed his office door.  The blackened entryway no longer stood out as prominently now that its surroundings were charred a matching black color.  The floor beneath him still felt fortunately solid despite the sudden onset of extensive fire damage.  The soft yet persistent buzzing of his watch told him that the sovereign was still lying on the balcony, and he was content to take its word for it.  So while everything was relatively fine for the moment he wasn't sure he would be able to say the same thing when his burned out house had also become rotten and battered.

Lance sighed and took a moment to fish his newest health drink from his pack and drink about a third of the bottle's contents.  The pain was slowly coming back, but it wasn't so bad as to require the whole thing yet.  The cuts on his back weren't anywhere near deep enough to worry about too much, annoyances more than anything.  He knew he should be worried about infection from the rusted, filthy barbs that had been covering the nurse, but he was worrying less and less about such things.  If the dip in the tub alone hadn't already reduced him to a festering, inflamed mess, then he doubted anything there could.

So the question was, how exactly did infections just stop happening?

He put his drink away, moved down the hallway to the corner, and peeked around to the two other doors still waiting for him.  No matter his worries about the building's condition, he couldn't do anything but keep going.  The thought didn't do much for him as he approached the battered door though.  It was next in line.  It was only natural that it would be the one he'd enter after the burned door...but he couldn't bring himself to open it.  He stood there staring at it, rooted to the spot for a solid minute or so before tearing his gaze from it.  There was nothing forcing him to go through it next, so why should he?  He'd get to it eventually.  No need to continue standing there justifying it to himself.  Lance started for the molded door at the end of the hallway...which was also now bearing a note with black writing.

You're killing her.

...

"You've had enough time to watch me," he started as he tore the note off the door.  "There is no way you don't know that my wife is the only thing keeping me going.  But you want me to stop.  So that brings up an interesting question doesn't it?" he continued while staring at the doorknob.  "If you want me to stop so badly, why haven't you done the one thing that you know would most immediately make me give up?"  Lance's hoof took hold of the doorknob and turned.  "So either you can't...or you won't."

He opened the door.  The entryway that greeted him was ever so slightly at odds with the damp, mold infested panel of wood he'd just pulled aside.  It was almost pristine, without even so much as a speck of dust coming into view of the beam from his surgical light.  Even with how meticulous Lance could be, he couldn't manage to recall a time in all the years spent there by he and his family that the house had ever looked quite so clean.  Aside from one detail, the place would have passed for a real estate agency's open house.  He was fairly certain the blood red numbers drawn here and there on nearly every uncovered surface would have been a deal breaker though.  Every 303 was crossed out by a black X mark that he could only guess was keeping them from showing him anything.

"You really don't want me to see something," he pondered to himself as he moved into the living room.  It was in much the same pristine yet sanguine graffiti riddled condition, with a quiet, steady tapping noise that would normally make him want to start checking pipes.  There was another bust in the same spot as the first, but the bed had been replaced with a gurney, thankfully a clean looking, unoccupied, completely inanimate one.  Though located in the same place, the bust itself was different, this time made from one solid, formidable looking sculpted piece of metal instead of having been put together with slipshod welding.  It also served as the indirect source of the tapping noise, a drop of water falling from above onto its forehead every few seconds.  Lance looked up to see a hole that had been precisely cut into the ceiling, complete with a paneled border and everything.  It exposed a single pipe, ending in a spigot with its valve opened just enough to let the water steadily drip.  As far as he could tell somepony had gone to great lengths to...slowly make the floor wet?

Something else was slowly creeping up on him the longer he spent in there.  He couldn't put his hoof on it either, it was just some intangible sense that something was off, and it had nothing to do with the numbers.  Everything was silent except for the dripping noise, his watch, and his own breathing, but that in itself wasn't odd at all.  It was something more extensive, like somehow the possibility of further sounds ever existing had been switched off.  The air felt heavier, every movement bringing the almost imperceptible feeling that he was having to force the air around him to give way rather than it flowing around him on its own, even though moving about wasn't any more difficult than before.  It was probably nothing though.  Probably.

There were no stacks of boxes filling up the current version of his dining room so it seemed the next logical choice.  The now expected bevvy of crossed out numbers continued in there, only interrupted by what looked like a wooden shipping palette bolted onto the wall on his left side as he entered, with the numbers seeming to thicken as they got closer to it.  There were words crudely carved into it, and although the message was so nearly illegible that it took him a moment to work out what it was saying, the intent of the writer still became clear in the end...

"I DON'T WANT TO"

...or at least as clear as a sentence fragment could manage.

"Don't want to what?" he muttered to himself as he continued looking the room over.  There was another gramophone waiting for him in the corner, and the obligatory glance at the back door reassured him there was still no way out.  Perhaps as some sliver of mercy, this version had been boarded shut, saving him the trouble of getting his hopes up in the slightest.  Their table was gone again, but this time there hadn't been so much as a hoof stool left behind to replace it.  The room felt much larger for all the missing furniture, making the trip over to the gramophone seem a bit longer than before.

The label on the record was a different color than the first.  Lance was left to imagine what sort of unrelated nonsense he was about to listen to as he gave the crank another few turns to move things along.

The recording began with the sound of hoof steps hurrying along a cobblestone street at a brisk trot.  As the unnamed pony continued, the clopping of their hooves was joined by a crowd's murmur drawing closer and closer.  The hoof steps came to a stop before the first voice spoke.

"What's the situation?"  Lance recognized the voice as that of the younger stallion he'd heard in the first recording.  Apparently he'd either made a miraculous full recovery or, far more likely, these were events that had taken place before the first record.

"An early morning patrol found a mare walking the streets alone looking visibly distressed, so they approached to ask if she was alright.  She cut one of their cheeks open with a scalpel and ran off.  The injured guard's partner helped him to the hospital, and they found out that same hospital had a patient sneak out last night matching the mare's description.  They got word out, another patrol spotted her, and apparently she didn't think she could outrun them because she made a beeline for that cafe right there, and now she's in that alley with some old stallion's grandson who she's threatening to slice open unless we let her go," a mare's voice explained in reply.

"We obviously can't do that...okay, what else do I need to know?  What's her problem exactly, why was she in the hospital?"

"We don't know exactly, but if she can give a guard a lopsided smile and then lead another two on a chase I'd hazard a guess her problem wasn't physical," the mare pointed out.  "Frankly we don't have the kind of time to figure that stuff out, she's getting more paranoid by the second, and if the captain hadn't told me to wait for you I would've already gotten on that roof with my crossbow and put her down."

"So...that's your recommendation here?  Kill her?" he asked with an ever so subtle hint of disapproval.

"Yeah.  Yeah it is.  I've been here watching her for over two hours.  I've seen ponies try to tell her nopony wanted to hurt her, that everypony only wanted to help her, but she's still not budging.  Every time somepony even starts to get near her she reacts like they're a bucking monster.  I don't know what's wrong with her or how long they tried to fix it, but as far as I'm concerned time is up.  The world will probably be better off with that colt in her hooves than it would be with a mare that would take an innocent foal hostage," she answered with little to no hesitation in her words.

"Okay then.  I'll take it under advisement.  Stay off the roof, if she spots anypony up there she'll panic.  You have any other details for me?  Things about the hostage I need to know?"

"What?  You can't be serious, you're going to try to talk that down?!"

"I asked for details, not questions, now are you going to help me or am I going to have to pull rank on you?"

...

"What do you need?" she asked hesitantly.

"Anything you can give me."

"All we know is that the kid's grandfather Laughlin was taking him out for breakfast while his parents were getting a surprise party ready for his birthday, the kid's name is-"

"So nothing useful then. I'm going in."

Before the as of yet unnamed stallion made it two steps away, the needle reaching the end of the record cut off all sound.  Lance took the needle off, leaving the gramophone to spin down.

"..."  He wanted to be able to say something about how the stallion had deserved what had become of him.  He wanted to hate him for his stupidly letting his ambition get the best of him at such a sensitive juncture, snuffing out an innocent life before it could barely get the chance to live.  He wanted to feel as though he could call somepony like that out for their callous apathy for another pony.  But even though all of those things were true, it had been a long, long time since he could say them in good conscience.

Now all the was left of the first floor was the hallway, which turned out to be a quick search, more of a glance really.  His surgical light fell upon door after door that had been boarded up until it reached the end of the hall, where the laundry room door waited with no visible obstructions.  Lance trotted the length of the corridor to check the doorknob, and found that it was unbroken, but locked.  There would be a key somewhere, and since he'd already searched the first floor that meant it had to be upstairs...hopefully someplace other than the balcony.  His watch was still warning him about his friend up there.

Lance made it four steps upward before his ear twitched and he stopped.  He looked toward the wall to his right and waited.  He could've sworn he'd heard some sort of squeaking sound outside the 'front' door, in the upstairs corridor of the central house, but it had been so faint it could likely have just been the house settling.  After another few moments he disregarded it as a needless distraction and continued upstairs.

Upon reaching the top he spotted two unobstructed doors and noticed that the numbers seemed to have been strewn even thicker upstairs.  His office was open in this version of the house too,  and the second open door was to his home library at the corner of the hallway.  He passed each one up though, intent on making sure he didn't blunder into another monster this time by clearing the corridor first.  There was nothing alive waiting for him around the corner, though what he did find was was not all that pleasant either.  A set of iron bars a few feet past Fluttershy's bedroom door blocked him from getting any closer to the master bedroom, the numbers and crosses getting so thick that the walls around the door were practically solid black with the occasional red spot.  The door itself was strangely bare save for another crudely carved message.

"LET ME"

He was beginning to rethink his whole 'open house' sentiment.

Lance momentarily felt both frustrated and appreciative at the writer's apparent inability to use complete sentences.  It was irritating not being able to make out the blur that resulted from the lack of clarity, but he simultaneously doubted that he wanted to see any of this clearly anymore.  At least he didn't have to ponder it any further; there were two rooms with which he could distract himself.

His home library had long served as a refuge where he could simply sit down, relax, and read things that had little to nothing to do with his job.  He had many a pleasant memory of evenings spent with his wife at his side as they both read whatever had their attention at the time.  They'd even taught Fluttershy to read there...which was a thought that made him suddenly want to get the search over with already.

The window that had once let sunlight into the room had been covered with taped on newspaper, the couple bits of furniture were gone, and the shelves that had once housed their books now laid bare. The only thing that remained was the grandfather clock near the far corner of the room that had for years ensured nopony lost track of time while reading. It still looked to be in fine condition, thought it wasn't working at that very moment.  The pendulum inside of the case had ceased to swing and the weights were at their lowest position.  Were it to ever tick again it would need the routine weekly pull on the two center chains to lift the weights back up, but that would be tricky.  A heavy chain was wrapped tightly around the case, keeping the door held shut.  Lance looked around the clock curiously but found nothing in the way of a padlock holding the chain together, it was all just one looped length of chain.  He wouldn't be sliding the chains off the top or bottom of the clock either;  the case was the timepiece's thinnest part and they were so tightly bound he had doubts that he could move them at all.  It seemed that this was something he would have to come back to later.

Lance moved on along the hallway to his open office, and what he found there was even less helpful than had been his chained up longcase clock.  Though there had been plenty of reading done in that room, none of it had been relaxing.  This was his business room where he read up on his various medical journals, studied new editions of the Equestrian Medical Association Official Compendium of Diseases and Conditions religiously, and handled the family finances because as distant as his accountant parents had been some things about them had rubbed off on their son.  Over the years it had become partially filled with boxes containing various documents and records, many of which would probably never have been needed but he had always figured it was better to be safe than sorry with such things.  To his now complete lack of surprise, none of those things were there anymore.  There was only his desk...with a rather curious thickening of numbers and crosses beneath it on the floor and another message messily carved into the top.

"PLEASE STOP"

"Sorry, I can't," he apologized to the writer.  He planted his front hooves on the side of the desk and pushed in attempt to see what it was hiding, but unexpectedly found that it absolutely refused to move.  Lance blinked in confusion and then looked downward, knowing full well that his desk had never been that heavy.  Though a sudden arbitrary change in weight would have been par for the course for recent events, the desk's weight had nothing to do with it.  It had been bolted to the floor...which meant this would be another thing he would have to come back to later.

The amber, blood, and bandage coated pegasus emerged into the hallway with brow furrowed in frustration.  Thus far he'd found a dripping pipe over a bust, a record that told him nothing, a locked door with no key, a door he couldn't reach because of some bars, a chained clock with no padlock, and a desk that might be hiding something but couldn't be moved.  The burned out version of his house had been self contained...perhaps that didn't hold true for this one.  Maybe skipping the battered door had been a bad idea after-

Lance just about leapt out of his skin as a loud crash of cracking wood sounded downstairs, followed soon after by an even louder rending and groaning of metal.  He stood stone still with his gaze transfixed upon the stairwell next to him in case anything was about to come up at him, but nothing did, leaving his watch to continue with the soft buzzing that had been nagging at his ears ever since entering the house.  There was only the steady noise of a repeated metallic tapping below him, daring him to descend and investigate.  With everything else leading to a dead end, he let out an unsteady breath and crept downstairs...stopping briefly as he heard that sound outside the door again.

The racket had come from the far end of the first floor hallway, and Lance saw the aftermath as soon as he looked right after stepping off the last stair.  The door to the laundry room had been bashed down and now laid in splintered pieces all over the floor.  Somepony had taken something with two red handles and jammed it into the top of the dryer so hard that it had pierced right through the metal and deformed it to the point that the rotating drum inside was now getting caught on something repeatedly.  There was a trail of dripped blood along the hallway floor, too copious to have been left by the grinning stalker.  Yet Lance hadn't heard any fluctuations in the buzzing of his watch, so the only other creature he knew could have done this hadn't moved...right?

He quietly trotted to the door and cautiously peeked inside to find the room unoccupied, then entered and turned the dryer off to stop the grating noise it had been making.  The two red handles sticking out of the top looked like a tool of some kind, so Lance took hold with both hooves and with some effort and time was able to wrench it free.  It was indeed a tool, a heavy bolt cutter in fact.  He instantly thought of the clock upstairs, but only managed a couple steps before an even better idea came to him.  Instead of the chains on the clock, he could just save himself any further trouble and cut the chains holding shut door 303!

With a new spring to his step Lance stashed the bolt cutters in his bag then hurried to the front door and turned the knob to open it.  All that resulted was the door opening a half inch before hitting something on the other side.  He let out a quiet grumble to himself, frustrated at this new obstacle.  After closing the door again he peered out the peephole to see if he could catch sight of what was stopping him, hoping that whatever it was would not prove so heavy as to be immovable.

The sounds outside hadn't been the structure settling after all.  There were two flesh sheet covered roller gurneys parked right in front of the door frame, the other three waiting on the ceiling and each wall.

Lance recoiled from the door with a sharp gasp, suddenly wanting to get as far away from it as possible.  He hurried back upstairs, quickly making his way to the library and shutting the door behind him, his breath coming a little heavier as he pondered the futility of running.  They moved freely in the unseen spaces, and he didn't have near enough eyes to stop them.  He'd been left alone so far though...best not waste time and tempt them to change their minds.

He brought the bolt cutters back out and caught a link of chain between the blades before snapping through them.  The chain length instantly fell to the ground in a noisy clatter, and the handles of the tool broke off as it began burning away to ash in his hooves.  Lance took a moment to hurriedly dust the ash off his hooves before opening the front panel of the clock case and pulling down on the chains until each of the weights were just below the clock's face.  He then moved the pendulum to its leftmost position and let it begin swinging freely.

It was like he could feel the first tick...and then the next, and then the next.  With each tick of the newly active clock, the vague feeling of all consuming stillness that he'd noticed when first entering ebbed away.  When it was entirely gone he breathed a sigh of relief, as though the very air around him had stopped weighing so much upon him.  But nothing else happened...the clock was now ticking away and that was all.  He'd revealed no new item or opened any path by doing this, and those gurneys were still outside, assuming they hadn't just let themselves in yet.

Wracking his mind trying to think of anything else to try, Lance opened the door again only to receive another shock.  His surroundings now quite well suited the rotted plank of wood that lead back to the 'normal' version of his house.  Most of the buildings he'd been through had been abandoned, but this one had been left behind for quite a while longer than any of them.  The air was moist and cold, his surroundings were covered by large patches of mold and bits of fungi that had rotted away a good chunk of the structure, and the smell of mildew was heavy in the air.  The house had an infection that had been left to relentlessly eat away at it for decades.

He stepped out and looked around in dreadful awe at the changes.  The floor felt a bit less stable but still able to support his weight reliably enough. What he was walking on could still roughly be called 'carpet' but he never remembered carpet making a squishing noise with each step.  A great deal of the walls had been rotted away, baring the now dank and filthy insulation, broken wiring, and rusted pipes that were normally hidden.  What was left of the bars blocking his way to the master bedroom were a testament to the extent of the water damage.  They had rusted to such an extent that they were unable to so much as hold themselves together, now mostly laying in scattered rust red bits on the floor leaving only the segments directly connected to the wall to maintain their laughably ineffective guard.  It was difficult to tell if the black color covering the walls beyond was black mold or the cross marks anymore, and the door had been rotted to the point where the already hard to read message from before was now entirely gone.

Lance stepped through the boundary that the bars had once kept, his back hoof errantly knocking another rusted bit of metal from one of the lower segments in the floor.  The doorknob assembly of the door wasn't faring any better than the bars, and he had only to nudge his hoof against the door to make it swing inwards.  He flinched as the door hinges likewise gave way to their disrepair, the top hinge snapping free of the wall before the sudden shifting of weight broke the lower one.  The door fell, the fairly tame impact against the floor proving enough to make the rotted plank fall into two pieces with an assortment of wet wood bits between them.

He set his hoof down and looked up from the mess that had once been a door.  This room had been a treasured place to him...once.  It's actual state looked nothing like the squalor before him, but it suddenly occurred to him that it might as well have for the way he treated it.  The mirror above the drawer-less dresser was broken, the glass from the room's window was missing and the screen panel that had once accompanied it was blotched over with mold and fungal tendrils.  It was certainly a distressing sight but it wasn't until his eyes roamed over to the bed that things began to take a turn for the sinister.

Their bed frame was absent, leaving only a sheetless mattress on top of a box spring.  It was stained a horrible orange maroon color in patches all over, and there was what he could only assume was dried blood that had pooled on the floor after trickling over the side.  In the middle of the mattress was a hole only a little larger than the space a pony would occupy while lying down.  Tight leather straps held it all in place, the ends of each strap held fast to the floor via bolted metal plates.  They crossed over the hole in varying, sometimes overlapping angles, allowing one to look inward but not enter...or exit.  Lance approached the hole and hesitantly peered downward, greeted again by an infinite unending blackness that even his surgical light couldn't penetrate.  He could also hear that same quiet, unending sound of exhalation that he'd heard in between the floors of the hospital...only this time it surprised him by pausing briefly and resuming, as though changing to an inhalation.

He would have left the room immediately save for having caught sight of something shimmering on the dresser when the beam of his light passed over.  It was a small key with an attached tag on which the words 'FOR A GOOD TIME' were written with an accompanying heart symbol.  Though he no longer immediately needed a key, he assumed it would prove useful later and stashed it away before getting the buck out of there.

Lance took a glance to his left into the library as he passed the corner of the hallway.  The rot from the rest of the house had taken advantage of his absence and moved right on in.  Whilst the clock was now in a severe state of mold riddled, fungi eaten disrepair it still manage to tick onward somehow, though the sound was so severely distorted from it's formerly comforting rhythm.  He moved along towards the stairs but was stopped by the sound of voices in his office.

"Lance, please, you're not looking at this reasonably," came Posey's voice.

"Posey?" he replied as he trotted up to the office door and looked inward.  It was indeed Posey, but she wasn't standing in the present.  He saw his younger self seated at the desk looking over their bank statements as his wife stood next to him with a distinct frown.

"How am I not looking at this reasonably Posey?  We just spent a bunch of money on buying this house and moving in just a month ago, and we need to have enough on hoof at all times to take care of Fluttershy.  I'm sorry, we just don't have enough to safely spare right now," the young Lance replied as he looked over at her and pointed his hoof at the form he'd been examining.

"Honey, we have plenty, and even if things might be a bit tight for maybe a week if I go ahead and buy it, did you see  your last paycheck?" Posey countered.

"Just because I'm making more doesn't mean we can afford to buy whatever luxuries we want yet sweetheart, we need to wait a bit longer and make sure things are stable here first," Lance said with a note of finality before opening a desk drawer and slipping the form into a folder inside.

"Luxury?  Lance...my cutie mark is three flowers.  I'm a gardener.  I love growing things, as a job or as a hobby, it doesn't matter to me.  It's as much a luxury to me as being a doctor is to you.  I just thought you'd realize that I kind of left my dream job behind in Manehatten so that you could go after yours," she replied in a bout of exasperation that soon gave way to plain old sadness.

"..."

"Lance it's not like I think you're a bad pony for wanting to make sure our daughter is well provided for.  But, I guess I don't see this huge risk that you're seeing.  I only see a little bit of a chance that you won't take that would make me so much happier here at home, because Fluttershy is wonderful and I love her dearly but if I had this cloud enchanted soil to make a nice big garden with, it would be absolutely perfect," Posey pressed further at his lack of reply.

"Wait," his present self muttered.

"I'm still thinking like I'm on intern pay aren't I?" Lance asked after a brief pause before sighing.  "Might be something you and Fluttershy could do together too...and you're right, it really isn't fair."

Her expression brightened a bit and she smiled at him with a nod.

"Okay...you convinced me."

She gasped happily. "Really?"

"Yep, send them the check before I change my mind," he said with his own nod and smile.

"Well since you insist," Posey agreed with a smirk before walking toward the door.

"What...not even a hug?" Lance asked behind her.

"You don't get a hug or kiss just for not being a jerk," she teased back while looking over her shoulder and sticking out her tongue at him.

"Whatever, you'll just ambush me later," he replied with a smirk of his own as he pulled the latest issue of his medical journal of choice from the shelf.

"Oh you think so huh?" she answered with a quiet chuckle. "...Probably."

Time stopped in the scene, and then it slowly burned away into nothingness.  The vision of his office in its pristine form was replaced with an empty neglected room containing a desk that had fallen apart through the apparent ages, revealing the blood red number 303 beneath that promptly boiled away.

"..."

"Yeah," she reluctantly agreed with a sigh.  "Just such a shame to see them like this after you insisted on buying the cloud enchanted soil for me."

"...what?"

"Hrm?  Don't you remember?  I was too worried for Fluttershy to spend the money on it after we moved up here, but you insisted because you knew how much I loved gardening.

"..."

"Lance?"

"Yeah, I...remember that."

"Just...keep moving," he ordered himself before hoofing it downstairs.  If this was anything like the burned version of his house, he would have to figure out some way to get something out of the bust in the living room, and hopefully do so before the roller gurneys decided to come insi-

Never mind.

Once he'd stepped past the entryway he saw all five of them arranged in a semi circle in the living room, with the bust as their apparent focus.  It was the hospital day room all over again, save for the small favor of them being right next to a door this time.  Though he did not exactly expect it to prevent the door from closing on him if it desired as much, he took a moment to duck into the entryway and preemptively open the door anyway.  With his escape route semi-secure he craned his neck around the corner to get a look at the bust.  The dripping water from the overhead pipe had slowed considerably, likely partially blocked from rust, but it made little difference as the water had clearly already done its job in the ages that had passed so quickly.  What once had been a solidly constructed metal bust was now only the bottom half of one that had yet to rust away completely.  Unfortunately he wouldn't be able to see what was inside until he got closer...much closer.

"As long as there's five I'm fine," he muttered to himself, keeping his eyes glued to the undersides of the gurneys as he crept closer and closer to the bust.  The urge grew stronger and stronger with each step until it was practically an unseen knife stabbing at his gut...and that was before he knew he'd have to turn his back on them.  It was alright though...deep down he knew his ears and watch would warn him if any of them were going to act up...or if it was.  He still wasn't entirely sure how to refer to it...them...whichever.

Lance took a deep breath and turned toward the bust, finding what he was looking for immediately.  He reached in and retrieved another small triangular tablet, this one bearing an engraving of a withered pony hanging upside down, manacled and chained inside of some kind of rectangular metal caging that was suspended from the ceiling.  The inscription below the image read 'The Heretic', and Lance turned it to see a letter C on the opposite side.

His watch's steady buzzing switched all at once to calamitous screeching accompanied by a flurry of squeaking wheels behind him.  A shock went down his spine and he whirled around to confront...nothing.  The gurneys were all gone without a trace...but now that he was looking back toward the dining room he could not help but notice how clean it had mysteriously become.  He glanced around quickly, breath still a bit accelerated from the sudden adrenaline spike as he made certain that they were truly gone before stowing away the tablet and continuing.  Lance only made a step or two into the dining room before he saw a young filly Fluttershy, his wife, and himself approach the back door.

"Ready to go see the shooting stars my little angel?" Posey asked melodiously, looking down at the small yellow filly with a smile as she opened the door.

"Yes!" she replied excitedly as her little wings gave a couple flaps of excitement.

"Hang on dear, don't you want to put on a coat?" his past self asked, wearing his old coat as he held out Posey's and Fluttershy's.

"What?  Why?  I barely ever wear a coat.  I like the cold, it's refreshing!" Posey replied, the cold air from outside already starting to make her breath visible.  The younger Lance wordlessly made a subtle head motion toward their daughter, prompting Posey to turn his attention back to her.

"I'm j-j-j-just l-l-like M-M-M-Mommy!" Fluttershy proclaimed proudly as she stood there shivering in the doorway.

Posey's eyes widened briefly before she snatched her coat from Lance's hoof and starting putting it on.  "Um I mean it's a good idea to wear our coats when it's cold out, you might catch a cold and colds are no fun!"

"Oh! Ok-k-k-kay!" the little filly said as she walked over to her father and let him start putting on her coat.

"Actually it's not the cold itself that makes you sick, but staying warm does improve your chances of keeping away the things that do," Lance explained as he got his daughter's coat on then pulled the little hood over her ears to keep them warm.

"Thank you Daddy," Fluttershy said, fidgeting a bit until the cold weather garment fit comfortably.

"You're welcome sweetie."

"Can I go outside now Mommy?" she asked her mother, turning to look up at her.

"Yes Fluttershy, Mommy and Daddy will be right out, don't try and fly over the fence again," she gently warned her.

"I woooon't," the little filly whined as she finally got to go outside and look up at the sky.

"Thanks Lance," Posey said quietly after their daughter was out of earshot.

"No problem, I'll just have to remember this next time you give me grief about all the mistakes I made so far," he replied with a smirk as he stepped past her, eliciting a scoff from the purple maned mare.

"Oh like my list of stuff you've messed up isn't ten times as long," she snarked back with a chuckle.

"Whatever," the younger Lance blurted out dismissively as he looked back at her over his shoulder still wearing that same smirk.

"Jerk face," she scolded, though the way she giggled and followed behind him completely took any sting out of her proclamation.

Once she'd closed the door behind her, it lit up with another blaze of smoldering red flame that consumed the entire room and bared the rotting present anew.  Lance turned to his left, seeing that the pallet once bolted to the wall had decayed to ruin exactly like his desk, exposing another hidden 303 that burned itself away into an ill smelling vapor.  He looked back toward the door out of which the visions of his past had stepped with a haggard, fearful look in his eyes.  Every bit of that memory had been true...

"I was cold..."

"...so I...put the dress on..."

"..." he turned and walked toward the front door, unable to shake the dread in his stomach that was steadily growing more and more tense.  As he was about to reach the entryway he heard a stirring and a few sharp hoof falls behind him from above.  Lance looked over his shoulder and up to see that the bloodied alicorn was now sitting on the walkway over the living room, resting her head on the railing as she leered intently at him but made no move otherwise.  They regarded one another for a few long moments before Lance tore his gaze away and stepped into the entryway.  He placed his hoof on the rusty doorknob, and then remained there looking at the floor with a distant, blank expression.

If only there had been monsters waiting for him instead of memories...

Part 30

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Part 31

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Part 32

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Part 1

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

The fear of loss tends to create fear of the truth.

Part 1

Something was wrong.  As she walked in to start her shift there was a noticable abundance of worried faces and hushed voices in the lobby as she made her way to the front desk.  She could hazard a guess as to what it regarded but thought it best not to jinx anything by saying it out loud.

"Morning Nurse Cure.  You might want to wing it up to the administrative office."  The receptionist said, reading the look on the white coated pegasus mare's face before she could even speak a word.

Oh no.

"Thanks."  She said with a prompt nod before turning and walking back out the front door.  They did have a working elevator but it was primarily for injuried pegasus ponies that were unable to fly, for everypony else there was a series of entrance balconies, one for each floor, running up the side of the building in a column.  Soft Cure flew right to the top where the clerical workers and the Cloudsdale General administrator kept the hospital in organized working order, away from the often hectic environment of the lower floors.  It was impossible for anypony to miss the crowd of curious ponies babbling around the adminisrator's door.

No no no no no no!

"Don't you all have better things to be doing?"  She scolded as she approached the group.  They all glanced over to her, their excitable murmurs stopping for a moment before they resumed the wild mass guessing amongst themselves.  Soft Cure gave an indignant gasp at being ignored and tried again, "I'm serious!  Just get back to your desks, you're creating a scene!"  She repeated with a stomp of her hoof.

"Hun, the scene was made when the administrator pulled Lance in there lookin' like he'd just seen a ghost, if you wanted to keep a scene from being created you're a bit late."  One of the clerical mares answered her finally.  The nurse's eyes narrowed in irritation.

"My name isn't 'hun'.  The name tag that patients look at when they first meet me doesn't read 'Nurse Hun'."

"Whatever, sweetie!"  The mare answered dismissively before turning back to her circle of friends.

Soft Cure glowered after her but decided it wasn't worth adding a petty spat between coworkers to the already tense atmosphere of the room, opting instead to just pace her nervous energy away while she waited.  It wasn't much longer before the door opened and the room went silent as an amber colored colt in a white lab coat with a dark red mane who looked just shy of middle age stepped out with his gaze aimed low, closing the door behind him with a rear hoof.  He then spotted the first pair of hooves in front of him and looked up at last to see the assembled crowd.

"Were you all really so bored that you had to stand out here and wait?"  Lance observed bitterly, squinting at all the ponies around him through eyes surrounded by dark rings of fatigue.

"So did you just get fired or wha-URF!"  A younger stockroom colt piped up only to be interrupted by a kick to the ribs by nurse Soft Cure.

"Oh, go put some gauze rolls on a cart or something!"  She chastised the colt as he retreated, aiming a sour look back at her.  She then turned back on the crowd, "Everypony, back to work, nothing to see here, you've all got much more important things to be doing instead of pestering Dr. Strongshy!"

There were a few grumbles but the administrative staff obliged her and dispersed back to their desks and their paper work.  Soft Cure turned to face the doctor but before she could get a word out he had already stepped past her.  She took a few quick steps to catch up before matching pace at his side.

"Are you alright Lance?"

"No."

"What happened?"

He didn't answer as they approached the floor's entrance port.  Lance leaned forward a bit, looking down and taking a noticably long moment to gauge the drop to the third floor that housed his office.  He stepped back, having to take a moment to regain his demonstrably poor balance before he took to the air and flew downward to the target floor.  Nurse Soft Cure was right behind him, concern plain on her face as she watched him stumbling through actions he normally did without thinking every day.

"What happened?" She repeated.

"Do you really want to discuss this?" He asked with an obvious twinge of annoyance in his voice.

"Of course I do." She replied immediately.

"Then shut up and wait until we get to my office." He said in a harsh whisper.

Her eyes widened briefly at the severity of his response, but she mentally shrugged it off and fell into silent step behind him.  The moments passed by as Soft Cure tensely looked this way and that as though expecting an attack but they were soon safely in his office behind a sound deadening door.

"I'm sorry to be so short with you nurse, but there are already enough sharks circling without adding more blood to the water by discussing such sensitive matters out in the hall where anypony passing by could hear them."  He explained as he walked over to the section of wall dedicated to holding his medical degree and the various honors that been bestowed upon him for his years of work.  He paused for a moment then shook his head to wake himself up a bit more.

"You...you're not looking well."

He ignored Soft Cure's observation and answered her earlier question instead, "My patients have suffered from a string of complications resulting from my treatments and surgeries recently.  They were all mistakes.  A misdiagnosis here, a poorly thought out prescription there, maybe throw in a poorly tied suture or two.  Just yesterday one of my patients died in her sleep from post surgical internal bleeding that no doctor with my experience should have made the mistake of allowing to happen.  Her family is filing a malpractice suit against the hospital, and the other patients I've misled and butchered the past week might be following behind them."

"Oh...no...the administrator...he didn't...did he-" She did a poor job masking the rising panic in her voice but did not finish the question before she was interrupted.

"No.  Though they had every right to fire me if you ask me.  Officially I'm just on vacation.  Taking some time to clear my head."  He looked away from the degree and accolades he had brought shame to and wandered over to his desk, opening one of the drawers and reaching inside, "Unofficially, they're questioning whether I'm worth keeping around, reputation or not, and I'm to hide away until they decide what to do with me."

She let out a breath of relief, but the sharp panic only turned into a dull dread in her chest instead of dissipating altogether, "Lance, if there is anything I can do to help you, you had better tell me, alright?"

"I will." He said, obviously not meaning it as he pulled a fresh bottle of pain pills from the drawer.  He held it between his hooves and pulled the top off with his teeth before carelessly letting some spill out onto the desk.  After seperating six from the rest he took the chosen pills in hoof and downed them without even bothering to get some water.  The remaining strays were grouped together and then swept back into the bottle.

While he did this Soft Cure furrowed her brow in thought, following a hunch as she walked over to the small trash bin next to his desk.  Inside was a fairly alarming amount of empty pill bottles matching the one he had just taken double the recommended dose from.  Her attention shifted back to him, noting that though he'd had lines under his eyes for years now they had been unusually severe for a while, not to mention the dark rings around his eyes.  He also looked thinner, and now that she thought of it he hadn't seen him eat one bite in months.  She had pulled off more than enough consecutive all nighters to know a very common cause of headaches, eye strain, and nausea...

"Have you been sleeping well?"  She asked, stepping over to stand in front of his desk.

He flinched, face visibly darkening, "Nurse Soft Cure.  I told you, just now, that if I need your help I will ask."

"Well pardon me for not believing you after seeing you've let yourself get this bad.  What is it?  Insomnia?  This is something we can treat you know." She persisted, but immediately regretted it.

His hooves slammed onto the desk, causing Soft Cure to step back and lower her ears in wide eyed surprise as he released his anger full force upon her, his haggard eyes boring a hole straight through her, "Who are you to be talking to me about what we can and can not treat?!  Do you think I haven't tried everything already?!  Do I strike you as the type of pony who would simply allow this condition to persist?!  If I could make any of the medications actually work I would endure sleeping as long as I needed to be at my best for my patients but it's like my brain just won't let me out of self preservation!"

"E...endure sleeping?  What...do you mean, endure sleeping?"  She asked nervously.

"I..." His anger seemed to dissipate and his head flopped down the desk with a sigh, "I feel like a stupid little foal saying this but...dreams."

"...Nightmares?"  Soft Cure asked raising an eyebrow in disbelief, "I don't get it...I mean, I can understand why you'd have them Lance.  We've both seen some terrible things here...well, you more than me...uh...obviously." She coughed awkwardly, "I guess what I'm wondering is why now are they suddenly so bad that you can't sleep?"

"I don't know." He closed his eyes to give them rest as he spoke, "I don't mean that in an 'I find it difficult to figure out' way either.  I can't remember them when I wake up.  But every time I can manage to fall asleep I'm forced awake by the dreams inside of two hours, like clockwork.  I only remember what it's like waking up from them, and every time it's so traumatic for some reason that I immediately regret having fallen asleep."

"Forgetting dreams isn't unusual but that doesn't leave us much to go on..."  She brought a hoof to her chin and thought back.  Soft Cure probably paid more attention to Lance than any other pony in the hospital, much to the detriment of a social life already atrophied by years of dedicated medical study.  The mistakes on his part hadn't started all at once but she remembered thinking how odd they were coming from him of all ponies.  At first they were small things she could just correct and move on without much more thought since really, catching little errors here and there and generally being a second set of eyes was just part of her job, but they had begun to add up until they were in this current mess.  She first began to really notice it shortly after...

"Lance...how long ago did this start?"

He knew that tone.  It was the one she used when asking a question she already knew the answer to.  His only response was to open his eyes again, the dark look back on his face to warn her of the territory she was approaching.  It was answer enough for her, so she simply asked her next question.

"What did she say to y-"

"That is none of your business and I would thank you to not press the issue." He cut her off sharply and lifted his head off the desk, "I'm going to fill out the proper paperwork to make sure my patients are all covered during my absence, and then I'm going to leave.  Go start your shift."

"But-"

"Go.  Start.  Your shift." He repeated firmly.

Soft Cure shot him a hurt look of worry before wordlessly walking out of his office.  If, perhaps, she had been persistent enough she may have gotten some information from him, but that would only fray his nerves further.  Besides, there were two sides to the conversation that had taken place that day, and if Lance wouldn't tell her anything there was another source to seek that she had always been much better at coercing...

"Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness!" The hurried pegasus muttered through the broom handle in her mouth while sweeping up the last remnants of the mess of bird seed that had been unleashed by a hungry little mouse chewing through the sack.  The offending mouse squeaked for attention from his place in time out atop the nearby table as his tiny stomach rumbled, having been caught before he could partake of his ill gotten gains.  The yellow pegasus turned towards him and frowned before setting the broom down at her hooves.

"Don't you squeak at me in that tone of voice mister!  You have your own food, you don't need to go stealing any bird food!"  To another pony her brand of scolding might have been adorable but the mouse took it quite seriously, cowering back while aiming a devastatingly cute pair of big shiny eyes at his benefactor.  Her face softened and she sighed before walking up to pet the little creature assuringly.

"I'm sorry I raised my voice at you, Rainbow Dash is coming home from that air show in Stalliongrad she was invited to by the Wonderbolts later today, and we were going to go spend some time together this afternoon.  That means I've got to get all of the chores done early, so I'm in an ever so urgent rush and perhaps a teensy bit on edge.  But that doesn't change the fact that you still need to stay out of the other animal's food little friend, and if you're just a bit patient I'll be getting some food for you in no time, can you do that for me?"  She explained and held her hoof out.  The little mouse nodded in understanding and hopped aboard so Fluttershy could lower him back to the ground.  He scampered across the floor and disappeared into the hole in the wall in which his family lived.

"Good boy." She said after him with a warm smile on her face at last.  It only lasted long enough for her to look back down and see the broom at her hooves, reminding her again of the task at hand and forcing another sigh out of her, "Right."

She was about to pick the broom up again when she was interrupted by a familiar tug on her mane that directed her attention over to a white rabbit pointing at her front door.

"Is something wrong Angel Bunny?" She asked as she knelt down to his level.

He shook the paw pointing at her door for emphasis.

"You want outside?  But there's a rabbit door you can use already."  She guessed, looking over at the small door in question.

He shook his head.

"Is something wrong with my front door?" She guessed again, examining her door to see if perhaps there was a rusty hinge.

He shook his head more fervently and pointed again while stomping his foot for even further emphasis.

"...do you want it painted a different color?"  She was rather at a loss at this point.

His paw hit his forehead hard enough to be audible before he pantomimed a knocking motion.

"Oh, you want to tell a knock knock joke?" Fluttershy stood back up, sounding a bit more sure of her guess this time.

Angel Bunny gave her the most deadpan stare he could manage.

"Won't you need something to write with though?" She asked, recalling that though she could talk to animals, doing the reverse was always a bit more difficult.

It was unclear where the little white rabbit had obtained a pillow on such short notice but one clearly hit the oblivious pegasus in the face just as a hoof knocked on her door.

"Oh, somepony's at the door!  Maybe Rainbow Dash got home early!" The smile returned to Fluttershy's face as she flew over to the door while Angel Bunny threw his paws in the air in a quite sarcastic celebratory gesture then hopped off to find a carrot.  She hovered in front of the door to check if there were any small critters beneath her before she landed and pulled the door open.

It was not Rainbow Dash.

"Oh!  Um, hello...can I help you?"  Fluttershy instinctively shrank backward at the sight of the unfamiliar pony.  It was a white coated mare wearing a conspicuously inconspicuous ensemble complete with sunglasses, a wide brimmed hat, and a plain mid length dress that hid her cutie mark.  She didn't bother to offer her own greetings in return, instead just stepping in as Fluttershy was forced to move aside to accomodate her.  The mysterious visitor turned and poked her head out of the door, looking around to see if anypony had seen her enter before she shut it.

"I...I...guess you can...come in."  Fluttershy practically squeaked.

"Fluttershy, I need you tell me just one thing and then you never have to see me again."  The incognito pony finally spoke up as she faced back towards her unwilling hostess.

"N-nurse Soft Cure!  What are you doing here?" She wasn't quite as nervous anymore.  Their history was rocky to say the least, but at least this was a pony she actually knew!

"Getting some answers is what I'm doing!  Now, what did you say, or do, to Lance when you visited him?"  Soft Cure asked as she pointed an accusing hoof.

"Huh?  Um...with all due respect Miss Cure...well...th-that's between my father and I." Fluttershy answered while taking a step away from the pointed hoof.

"Let's not do this the hard way, what did you do?!" Soft Cure repeated and advanced menacingly.

"I don't...I don't know what you're...t-talking about...we just talked."  The familiarity did little to stop this new rattling of her nerves as she backed away and stuttered her reply.

"Don't test me you little brat!  Tell me!" Her blue eyes glowered at the younger pony over the top of her glasses.

Fluttershy's rump bumped against the wall as she ran out of room and was forced into a sitting position to keep her head moving away from the childhood tormentor glaring daggers at her.

"I didn't do anything to him Miss Cure!  I wouldn't dream of it!"  She adamantly denied as she remained practically pinned against the wall.

Soft Cure stared at her silently for a moment before she raised her hoof and swiftly brought the back of it across her former charge's face, eliciting a yelp of pain from the frightened yellow mare.  A heavy silence settled over the room as the nurse looked down at Fluttershy, who slowly brought a hoof up to her numbed, quickly bruising cheek as though her mind needed time to realize she had just been struck.

"I didn't fly all the way over here and put up with that irritating pink pony who, by the way, gives the most rambling, useless directions ever, just to get back talk from you!  Do you know what's happening to Lance?!  No, of course you wouldn't, you abandoned him the first chance you got!  I don't know what's going on in that head of his but I have been watching him wilt away ever since your visit, because of nightmares apparently so bad they make even a veteran doctor and surgeon unable to sleep!  You said, or did something that set this off, and I have all day long to stay here and 'talk' to you until you tell me what it was!"  The anger and bitterness that had built up over years of rejection quickly seeped into her voice as she spoke, reaching a crescendo that she punctuated by giving Fluttershy another hoof mark on the other side of her face to match the first.

Tears ran down the element of kindness' face as the all too familiar pain of Soft Cure's hooves began to set in.  She didn't feel the old grip of terror on her chest like before though.  Nopony had ever laid a hoof on her in anger since that time long ago...since she was a little filly...a little filly being towered over by adult ponies with whom she looked eye to eye now.  There was no fear, just an internal voice asking her why she was still putting up with this.  She wouldn't raise a hoof in her own defense against her father...but against his nurse?  Even the question faded from her mind then, replaced with something else entirely that turned her blank expression of shock into a scowl that would have made the little bird seed thief from earlier try to claw his way through a wall to get away.

"Get out."  Fluttershy growled in a low voice.

"What?!"  Soft Cure retorted through clenched teeth.

"Get out."  The bruised mare repeated, louder this time.

"Don't you dare talk to me like that after all the trouble you've caused!"  Soft Cure shouted as she brought her hoof up a third time.  It would never get the chance to inflict a third bruise.

"I SAID GET OUT!!!"  Fluttershy screamed as she reared up and sent Soft Cure flying backward with a gust of wind from the strongest flap of her wings she could manage.  The nurse landed with a pained grunt then quickly rolled back onto her hooves and stood, only to have the anger she had been venting suddenly snuffed out entirely.  It seemed like a paradox that somepony so gentle looking would be able to wield a weapon so potent, but it seemed Fluttershy had inherited the soul crushing stare of her father.  The tables had turned and now it was Soft Cure cowering away from Fluttershy, who stood her ground with wings flared out and head held high to make herself look as imposing as possible.

"I am not a little filly anymore nurse Soft Cure!  You can not just come into my house and hit me until I do what you say!  You are not welcome here!  Please leave!"  Fluttershy demanded politely as she stared down her unexpected visitor full force.  So focused were the two mares on each other that they neglected to notice the door opening.

Soft Cure gulped in terror but managed to convince her hooves to stop carrying her back towards the door, her voice actually trembling as she replied, "I...can't...I can't leave until I find out how to help him.  I'm...I'm not leaving!"

"Uh, yeah." A third voice suddenly spoke from behind the nurse.

Both mares turned to see a cyan pegasus familiar to both of them standing in the doorway looking none too pleased with the situation she had just walked into.

"Yeah, I think you actually are leaving."  Rainbow Dash said as she glared murder at Soft Cure while closing the door behind her, "But not just yet."

"Rainbow Dash!  You did get home early!" Fluttershy said happily, seeming to forget her rage of moments prior.  She smiled gently, her bruised cheeks reminding her not to overdo it.

"Care to explain those hoofmarks on my marefriend's face Ms. Only Other Pony In The Room?" Unlike Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash had no problem with playing the role of aggresor when the situation called for it, and did it ever.  With a much more athletic looking and very, very angry pegasus blocking the only escape route she knew of, Soft Cure was suddenly sweating bullets.

"You...you don't understand, I-"  She stammered out before Rainbow Dash was directly in front of her in no seconds flat.

"No I think I understand pretty well!  You hit Fluttershy in the face!" There was a comical squeaking noise as the vengeful weather pony got right into the nurse's face, their snouts scrunching together, "Twice!  What, did you feel like reminiscing about the good old days when you beat up poor abused little fillies?!"

"But-"

Rainbow Dash didn't bother letting her finish.  Soft Cure was suddenly on the ground with a sky blue foreleg holding her in a headlock, "You are so lucky you work in a hospital lady!"

"Wait!"  Fluttershy cried out as she zipped over to stop things before they got out of hoof.

The cyan pegasus answered with a groan of disbelief and looked up at the mare she loved, "Really?  You're just gonna let her get away with it again?"

Fluttershy nodded, "It's okay.  I already told her she's not to come back ever again.  Just let her leave."

Rainbow Dash leveled one last glare down at the nurse trying to make her own grimace resemble a disarming smile, then sighed in exasperation and let her go before standing.

"Fine.  I was going to give her a pair of bruises to match yours, but I won't."

Soft Cure let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as she too stood up.  Unfortunately she made the mistake of not proceeding to move out of hoof's reach of her new nemesis.

"Thank you ever so much Rainbow Da-"

THWACK

"Okay everypony, is everything here?!  It is!  Yay!  Oh my gosh this is gonna be the best surprise in the history of surprises!  We're gonna get the Equestrian party record keeper ponies down here and tell them about it and they'll be like 'Wowie zowie an outdoor surprise party of this size in broad daylight, that's an Equestrian record!' but first Rainbow Dash is gonna come out and be like-"

The door to Fluttershy's house burst open and Nurse Soft Cure careened out minus hat and sunglasses sporting a prominent black eye.  After she landed on the ground in a heap she looked back in fright to see Rainbow Dash framed in the doorway.

"If I see you in Ponyville again there's gonna be trouble!"

"Hrm, no, that's not what she'd say after she saw all these super duper fantabulously fun decorations!"  Pinkie continued obliviously as the party posse she had assembled gave a collective gasp at the goings on behind her.

"Whoa...I was just out here two minutes ago, where'd all this come from?!" Rainbow Dash marveled, briefly forgetting recent events at the shock of seeing streamers, party hats, benches full of confectionery delights, and a large banner welcoming her back in large rainbow colored letters all seemingly materialize out of thin air in the short time she had been inside.

Also there was a fully inflated bounce house.  The question of how it was put up in less than two minutes still baffled Equestrian physics majors a great many years later.

"Yeah that's more like it! ...also, SURPRISE!"  Pinkie shouted merrily as she spun around to face the guest of honor.  Her beaming smile faded after a few moments, realizing her fellow party posse members had missed a step before looking back at them, "Hey, we're all supposed to say it at once remember?"

"Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy scolded as she stomped out the door behind her, "I told you not to...oh my!" She stopped in her tracks at the sight of the festivities, but was greeted with yet another chorus of gasps at the sight of her bruised face.

"What's everypony so gaspy over?"  She turned back to the two pegasi and got her answer, "Oh my gosh Fluttershy are you okay?!"  She zipped over in a pink blur and started looking the yellow coated mare over at one angle after another in rapid succession, "Are you bleeding?!  Are your teeth okay?!  How many hooves am I holding up?!  Does this hurt?!"

"Ow."  Fluttershy replied softy after Pinkie poked her cheek with a hoof, "I'm fine Pinkie, nothing an ice pack won't cure."

"Well what happened?  Did you get attacked by that roving gang of bandit squirrels I saw last week?  Don't let their size fool you, those little critters can pack a punch, and I'm an expert on punch!"  The pink party pony continued.

"What happened is already taken care of and over, nopony needs to worry about it."  Fluttershy assured her and the crowd.

"Oh no!  Her marefriend is beating on her and now she's making excuses to protect her!  The horror!"  Lily cried out, ever the drama queen.  As liable as she was to cry wolf over a puppy sniffing at her garden the scenario she suggested was at least plausible this time.  Rainbow Dash found all eyes on her rather quickly.

"What?!  Why would I even do that?!  I love Fluttershy!  It was that white pegasus right the-...where'd she go?"  She had begun to point at the spot Soft Cure had landed only to see that the nurse was nowhere to be seen.

"Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!"  She chastised herself as she galloped away along the road into town, thankful the emergence of that brutish pegasus and her former charge had distracted the crowd long enough for her to escape.  Normally she would fly if she were in a hurry but going along the road instead of profiling herself against the sky made it less likely any potential pursuers from the party would spot her.

But nopony escapes from Pinkie.

"Hi!" She said while popping out of a bush to the side of the path right next to the fleeing nurse.

"YEEP!" Soft Cure squeaked as she lost her hoofing in surprise and faceplanted right into the dirt.

"Woops!  I know you pegasus ponies like using your wings and stuff but you should really try to practice with your legs more, trust me!  You looked totally funny though!  You were like WHOA, then BAM!  Unless you scraped your knee or something, then I'd kinda feel bad, you didn't scrape your knee or anything did you?  If you need a band-aid I've got ones with cupcakes on them!  Well, more like little pictures of cupcakes, wow could you imagine band-aids with actual cupcakes on them?!  Those would be the best band-aids ever!"  Pinkie rambled as she looked Soft Cure over while expertly balancing a ribbon wrapped box containing a slice of cake on her head.

"No.  I'm fine.  Just perfectly fine.  I have a black eye and dirt in my mouth, but I'm just peachy."  She deadpanned while letting her head remain where it was on the dirt.  Her wit went unappreciated, as Pinkie had proven immune to sarcasm on many an occasion and would not disappoint on this one.

"Oh, that's super great!  Anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't throw you a party like I usually do for new ponies I haven't met before, but this morning my Pinkie sense went off like crazy and I knew Dashie was coming home early and she's one of my bestest best friends ever so it was like 'duh!' I had to throw her a welcome home party today!  I'd ask if you could stay for this one but Dashie said you were in a hurry and had to go, I think she's kinda sore at you for some reason!"

"No...really?"

"It's okay though, I'm sure she'll get over it then next time you come to visit I'll throw you my patented ponyville welcome party!  But just so you don't feel left out from this one , I brought you some cake!"  She placed the colorful little box in front of the grounded nurse, still sporting her cheery grin as always, "I've got to get back now, my duties as the Ponyville Party Pony demand my attention, now you go and have a swell day, okay?"

"I'll see what I can do." She half growled with narrowed eyes.

"Great!  Ciao!"  Pinkie replied in her usual bubbly manner, bouncing her way back down the path back towards Fluttershy's cottage while she hummed a tune.

Soft Cure continued to glare at the box in front of her as though it were responsible for all her woes as of late.  She grit her teeth and raised a hoof to smash the gift, but found herself unable to do it, holding her hoof still in the air until she finally groaned in defeat and grabbed the box's ribbon in her mouth as she stood back up, "Stupid...crazy ponies being so nice at the same time they're being so irritating..."

She found herself in the middle of town sitting at an outdoor table of one of the local cafes feeling sorry for herself and holding some ice wrapped in a washcloth over her eye.

"Well good job, nurse.  Your idea to come out here on little more than a hunch was a rousing success!  Now not only are you no closer to helping that brilliant colt who doesn't love you back, you've also got a lovely shiner to complement the dirt all over your dress and your missing hat and sunglasses, both of which you liked very much.  Oh, and this cake.  I don't even know what this cake looks like.  It's probably pink."

She opened the box.  It was pink.

"Yep.  Pink.  On pink.  This cake suffers from chronic pink."

"Who are you talking to?" Asked a random colt whose curiosity had been piqued by overhearing her monologue.  Her looks, aside from her dirty dress and black eye, may have also played a factor.  She definitely looked like a pretty mare in need of pleasant company after a bad day.

"I am talking to this slice of cake, it has been a long day for me, do not ask, please go away, thank you."  Soft Cure replied without even looking away from her formidably pink conversation partner.

"Uh...kay." He obliged her.

"So cake, you are quite literally the only thing I have to show for having come down here.  I don't suppose you have some secret scrap of psychological wisdom to share that would fix everything?"

...

The couple sitting at the next table promptly moved one table away while looking at her oddly.

...

"Okay, good, the cake doesn't talk.  I'm at least not going insane to boot.  But you, cake, are still not very much help.  I bet you don't even taste that good."

She took a bite and chewed slowly.  Then stopped.  Then chewed a few more times.  Her eyes grew large and dewy with joy at the sheer rapturous miracle of flavor resting on her tongue.  Never would she have anticipated such a simple confection being so delicious.

"Oh my gosh this cake."

...

Her cake high suddenly crashed back down to earth as something devastating occured to her, "Sweet Celestia now I'm going to have to come back and talk to the pink one on purpose if I want to buy any more!"

The party had proven to be grand, but it was a Pinkie party and that was to be expected.  The guest of honor had spent quite a while with her eye on the horizon like a guard hound but when she finally saw a pair of white wings and a long blonde mane headed away from town she had relaxed considerably and finally gotten back into the swing of things.  Quite some time later the sun was setting and partied out ponies were waving their farewells as they trotted off down the path talking amongst one another about how spectacular an afternoon it had been.

"You sure you don't need any help cleaning up Pinkie Pie?  This was a big one, after all."  Rainbow Dash pointed out as she looked around at the menagerie of discarded cups, plates, napkins, streamers, party hats, one blacked out Berry Punch, and bits of confetti littering the ground around Fluttershy's house.

"We'd be happy to help...if you want."  Fluttershy offered as well.

"Nah, thanks girls, but I'm an expert!  Years of throwing parties have transformed this pony into an efficient post party pickup professional!  I'll have this all cleaned up in no time!" Pinkie responded, brimming with confidence as she expertly wielded a small broom handle with a nail on the end.

"Really sure?  I mean the sun is already setting and-" The cyan pegasus was interrupted by a pink hoof pressed to her mouth by a pony who suddenly looked fairly serious.

"Look Dashie, last time we did this whole 'which pony picks up after the party' bit things got really weird up in the bath tub afterward, then that totally crazy storm thing hit, then I died but came back, then we were in space and stuff.  Let's not tempt fate by doing it again hm?"  Pinkie explained.

Rainbow Dash looked very, very confused and what sounded like a muffled "What?!" was heard behind Pinkie's hoof.

"Just go hang out with Fluttershy, I got it all covered here!"  She continued, the infectious smile springing back onto her face as her hoof lowered.

"Uh, okay, if you insist?"  Rainbow Dash relented with an eyebrow still raised quizzically.

"I do!  Now, you two have a super good night!"  She faced the mess left behind after the party, lowering her body in preparation to pounce with a dangerous looking smirk, "Now it's just you and me...HYAH!" She jumped headlong into the fray with a flurry of cleaning.

Rainbow Dash looked over at Fluttershy to find her looking just as confused as she was, "Did that really happen?  'Cus if it did I must've conked my head afterward something fierce."

"If you did then I did too, because I don't remember any of that either."  Fluttershy replied, shaking her head.

"Just Pinks being Pinks then I guess."  She concluded with a shrug of her shoulders, "Well now that I've got you all to myself, you up to watching the sunset on a nice quiet hilltop?"  It wasn't a suggestion one would typically expect of Rainbow Dash, but if it made Fluttershy happy, then it made her happy.

"Oh that sounds just wonderful-ow."  Fluttershy started but then winced as she smiled just a little too much.  Rainbow Dash felt a brief flash of anger at the reminder of the scene she had walked into earlier, but rather than let it get to her anymore she decided to just let herself enjoy the rest of the evening with her marefriend.

"You need some more ice?"

"No, it's fine now, the swelling's gone down, it's just going to be sore for a bit is all."  She lifted herself off the ground and hovered next to her love, leaning her head down to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, "Let's go find that hill."

Rainbow Dash nodded with a smile and a soft blush on her cheeks and took to the air with her, "When we get there I'll tell you all about the show!"

"Ow!  Quit pokin' me with that stick!"  Berry Punch said blearily off in the distance.

"Hey, you fall asleep in a pile of empty cups at a pinkie party, you assume the risk of accidental poking if you stay there during clean up!"  Pinkie explained through the aforementioned stick in her mouth.

Part 4

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Gloomy View.

Part 4

By the time he saw the outlines of buildings in the fog, the path beyond the sign had gone on for so long that Lance was half convinced the first thing he would see was the back of the same blasted sign.  The only thing in his way now was a fairly wide stream with a current that seemed unusually strong, and a stone abutment on each end covered with years of moss.  He scrutinized the fog above.  His first impulse was to just fly over to other side of the stream, but after the difficulties he had endured at the wall the fog gave him pause.  But then again, he had actually flown up into it back there.  If he just flew beneath it he would probably get to the other side just fine...right?

...

"Oh buck it."  He muttered as he unfolded his wings and took to the air.  There was little sense in giving it too much thought since the worst that could happen was just ending up on the same side again...or somehow falling into the water below and getting soaked.  True, it would only make him colder, but the last thing he needed right now was another irritant in the midst of all this insanity.

All four of his hooves soon landed on the opposite shore, and a quick glance up confirmed the buildings were still on the same side.  Things had proceeded in a smooth, logical manner for the first time since he had woken up.  Part of him wanted to take it as a sign of his luck improving but he really knew better than to let his hopes triumph over his experience like that.

Returning his mind to the present, he began thinking of what to do now that he and his broken watch had at last made it to town.  His first instinct had been to find somepony else and find out what the devil was going on but as he kept moving further into town the buildings seemed every bit as dilapidated, boarded up, and abandoned as the library had been.  There was nary a peep of sound, and he noticed that even the odd sounds he had been hearing all the way here had ceased to stalk him.  Nopony was there...either that or they were doing an exceptional job of hiding.  Except for those two he had heard chatting behind the wall that is.

They had been heading toward the hospital, so perhaps that would be a good first destination.  Where was the hospital though?  He'd gotten a fly over view when he and that Rainbow Dash mare had first arrived but no building had screamed 'THIS IS A HOSPITAL' to him, and he was a pony who knew his hospitals.  Now that he thought of it, where was anything in this town?  He had never so much as visited due to his daughter having chosen it as her new home.  He needed to run into either a Ponyville resident familiar with the area or a map, and given how much the place resembled a ghost town a map was the more likely of the two, but he had no idea where he'd find one of those either.

Lance had little other choice than to choose a direction and check each of the houses, so he turned to his left and headed down the street.  It sounded like a long, laborious task in his head at first but as he passed by boarded up door after boarded up door he realized it wouldn't be quite the plodding chore he thought it would be.  This proved to have quite the downside though, as with each inaccessible house the chances of finding any clues pertaining to...well...anything felt like they were slipping further and further away.

"Helloooooo!  Is anypony there?!"  He called out in frustration after passing yet another inaccessible house.  Once again, nopony answered.  Either there was nopony there...or there was something out in the fog worth leaving him at the mercy of in order to remain hidden.  Neither one was very pleasant to think about but he hoped it was the former and not the latter, because if there was something out here he had probably just practically invited it over.

Lance decided to keep moving instead of thinking about it anymore.  There would be time to think later, right now he needed to act, no matter how increasingly futile it was feeling.

Boarded up door...boarded up door...boarded up door...boarded up doo-

Wait.

Lance stopped in his tracks and gave another look to the house he had just passed.  The L shaped layout actually looked familiar.  Yes...yes now he remembered, it was a house near the library.  If he recalled correctly he could just turn left around the corner, pass one more house, cross the road, and that would take him straight to the library.  That seemed a likely place to find a map, perhaps not the most likely place, but he hadn't a clue where much anything else was in this town.

He rounded the corner.

But then...hadn't he just woken up in the library?  No no no, that place filled with cages couldn't have possibly been the library, no matter how similar it was.

He passed the house...

Besides, even though the buildings here were decrepit they all looked to be in roughly the same place as before he'd woken up.  There was little reason to doubt the original library wouldn't still be in the same place...was there?

He crossed the road...

The grass that he knew surrounded the library was still there, it was patchy and dead, but it was still there.  Everything was different but still in the same place.  Surely it would only be a few more steps before he was standing in front of the...of the...

...

"I...guess it...was the...library."  He admitted as he sat down dumbfounded.  It was an absurd admission to make.  Buildings didn't just relocate themselves on a whim.  Perhaps with some applied ingenuity of engineering it would be possible for a coordinated group of ponies to relocate the entire library in one piece...but why would they bother?  Furthermore why move it out to the very edge of some ponderous fog filled canyon and then do nothing with the freed up space in town?  As logical as it wasn't...it had happened.  He found it rather impossible to argue otherwise while looking down into the library sized crater in front of him.

"Okay...okay, what now?" Lance asked himself after shaking the befuddlement out of his head.  It was the upper room of the library all over again, except now he'd much rather search one dark room for a key than have to wander around at random looking for Celestia knows what in a town full of boarded up houses and fog.  As though that weren't an already daunting enough task he also had to do it knowing full well that whatever had broken through the wall was out there...somewhere.  He didn't know what it was but he knew he didn't want to run into it.  Prodding about with his hooves in the metaphorical dark all over town wouldn't serve that purpose very well at all, he had to think of another way.

It was fortunate that no idea immediately sprang to mind to keep his brain busy, because it gave him a moment to see instead of think.  What he saw was at the bottom of the crater, similarly colored to the dirt it was half buried in but far too rigid in shape to be just another random rock or dirt clod.  Having a grand dearth of other options he flew down to take a closer look.

It was a crudely constructed wooden box that looked to have been lying buried beneath the library.  He could see rusty hinges on one side so it was clearly meant to open from the top, but was prevented from doing so by a pair of sturdy looking wires that were wrapped tightly around it.  His curiosity piqued, he spent a moment digging the dirt out from around the box until he was able to pull it free.  Something was rattling around inside, which only egged him on to find out how to open it all the more.  To his disappointment the wires went around in one circular segment instead of having two ends meet and twist together.  Had that been the case he might have been able to untwist them and open the box, but as it was he couldn't see himself getting access without something to cut the wires with.

That was another odd thing about it.  It looked to have been buried, for quite some time in fact.  Lance would think the wood it was made of would have rotted away by now, or at least be brittle enough from rot to break open.  But as he held it in his hooves and turned it this way and that while looking it over it felt solid as a rock.  He even went so far as to set it on the dirt and give it a few solid strikes with his hooves only to see he wasn't even making a mark on it.  There was no way he was breaking it open.

Still, he was a doctor, not a carpenter.  As peculiar as such resilient wood seemed to him, it was entirely possible it was just exceptional wood from some exotic tree of which he'd never heard.  Moving on.

It would be impractical to bring the box with him at the moment so for now he buried it back in the dirt, figuring that if anypony else had wanted it they would've taken it far before he found it.  Now he needed to go find something to cut the wires with.  He was still confused about...well...everything, but it felt good to have a specific objective in mind again.  With a push of his legs and a flap of his wings he flew back to the edge of the crater ready to begin the search...

Until he was immediately distracted by the shape of a pony that turned and galloped away into the fog upon seeing him.

"H-hey wait!  Come back!"  He galloped after the sound of the retreating hoof falls on the cobblestone.  Had that been one of the ponies he'd heard at the wall?  No matter, it was a pony, and he needed a great many things about this place explained, "I'm not going to hurt you!  I just want to ask some questions!"

His assurances did little to dissuade the mysterious retreating pony from quickly leaving him behind.  Either this pony was a champion sprinter or Lance just wasn't as fast as he remembered being.  While it was true that he could probably fly low to the ground faster than he could ever run, he doubted it would make enough of a difference after losing so much ground, and the thought of getting lost again now that he had some smattering of a clue where he was made him hesitate all the more.  He was left standing in the street panting to get his breath back as the hoof steps grew further and further away until they finally ceased entirely with a lingering echo.  The pony was gone.

He stared off into the fog after it for a while before giving a final sigh and turning to leave, head hanging low at having lost the only other soul he'd seen in this entire place.  But before he could get on his way his downturned gaze had an unexpected benefit.  There was a trail of small dark red spatters on the ground following the path the pony had taken.  Lance furrowed his brow as he began to worry on top of everything else.  That was blood, no denying it.  Had that pony been bleeding?  It didn't look too bad judging from how little of it there was but it still suggested somepony in need of medical attention.

In any case his own lack of agility and the possibility of getting lost again were not going to be an issue any longer, and he immediately set to following the small trail deeper into town.  He kept an eye out for any unboarded doors as he went but the bulk of his attention was spent just trying not to lose the trail.  The individual spots of blood were tiny and spaced apart enough that the extra scrutiny was necessary.  He was lead down the street past a well, around the corner, up the adjacent street, then to his right and along that street before passing beneath an arch that served as an entrance of sorts to a much more wide open area.  There was a dead tree to his left, and further off just short of disappearing into the fog he could see two pairs of faded, torn banners flanking a fountain statue that had likely at one time resembled a pony.  Now the head was missing, as were the two front legs, and what was left remaining was covered in cracks, chips, and moss.  This could only be the town square, as he remembered seeing just one fountain in the entire town when he'd flown in.

Lance's ear twitched and he snapped his view straight ahead.  The fog had been blessedly silent ever since he'd made it to the town proper, so it was a bit jarring to suddenly hear the steady breathing of a mare.  The blood spatter trail was leading him straight toward the source.  Had he caught up already?

"Um...are...are you hurt?"  He asked as he advanced slowly, passing between the fountain and the banners on its left.  She didn't seem to react at all to his question, "Listen, I'm a doctor, if you're hurt I can help.  I don't have any bandages or anything but I'm sure we could find some if we just look together."

Still nothing.  Lance took a few more steps forward and suddenly the steady breathing ceased entirely.  There were no hoof steps of her running away either.  Had she just stopped breathing?  Now fearing the injury was worse than he thought, he quickly closed the remaining distance.  The trail ended at a bulletin board in front of the pavilion, no pony in sight, and no more trailing blood spatters to follow.  There was no way she could have moved away so quickly and been so quiet...it was like she had just up and vanished into thin air...

Was the fog just playing tricks on him again?  But he'd actually seen what had been making the sounds this time...hadn't he?

"Where'd you go?!  Come back!  I'm not going to hurt you!" He shouted in no particular direction, casting his eyes around the surrounding fog to see if he could spot anything.  After a pause he sighed and brought a hoof to his forehead, "Yeah, Lance, she just went through all that effort to get away but she's totally going to come back just because you said it was okay a third time."

He put her out of his mind for now.  She might have lost a bit of blood but she was obviously feeling chipper enough to silently teleport at will.  What now?  A glance at the boards all over the pavilion's doors and windows made it quickly apparent he wouldn't be getting into that building either.  The bulletin board...what was on the bulletin board?

...

He'd seen many a heart warming sight in his career, but at that time it seemed like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

The map tacked to the board was in pristine condition in defiance of everything else he'd come across since waking up.  Well...pristine aside from the bloody hoof print in the lower right quarter of the map.  He grimaced as he noticed it.  Perhaps that mare had been real after all?  At the center of the hoof print was a building not far from the town square marked 'Ponyville Cafe'.  That's not where he was headed though, so he disregarded it as a mere curiosity.  The destination he sought was a ways north and just a smidge-o-meter west, where a building only a bit larger than most of the others was designated 'Ponyville Hospital'.

"That tiny thing is a hospital?"  He thought aloud incredulously.  Then again, Ponyville was quite a small town compared to the metropolis that was Cloudsdale, he supposed it made sense their facilities wouldn't need to be as large.

Now the only question left before he went on his way was whether to take the map with him or not.  Would anypony else need it?

...

Was anypony else even actually there at all?

"No no no....no."  Lance said as he forced the thought from his mind.  He wasn't crazy.  He knew what he'd heard and what he'd seen.  Something strange was definitely going on, but there were certainly other ponies here, odd as they had thus far behaved.  But would they need the map or not?

Come to think of it they probably wouldn't.  They were all Ponyville residents and, unlike him, they already knew how to get around.  His was by far the more pressing need.  With his mind made up he pulled out the four push pins holding the map to the bulletin board and soon had it on the ground in front of him.  He took a moment to look it over and get his bearings straight before folding it up and...

...alright now just where was he supposed to put this thing?

Between having to leave the box buried in the crater where the library had once been and now having to hold a folded up map in his teeth, the lack of any storage space was definitely becoming an issue.  He still wanted something that could cut that box open first and foremost, but he'd be keeping an eye out for a bag of some sort too.  In the meantime he'd just have to hope he wouldn't run into anything else he'd want to take with him as he set off for the hospital.  According to the map it wouldn't be that difficult of a trip, all he had to do was head down the street between the ice cream shop and the book store then stay on it until he saw the hospital on his left.  Of course...the sign pointing him into town had made that trip look just as simple at the time, so he reined in his enthusiasm as he walked around the pavilion then crossed the square.

Apparently his aim had been a little off.  Instead of seeing either the ice cream shop or the book store, the first building to greet him was the collapsed remnant of the spa.  Curious, everything up until now had looked to be sturdy, if neglected.  As he started moving to his right toward the street he sought, he saw the joke shop, the ice cream shop, and finally the bookstore, each of them now a pile of wreckage barely recognizable as the buildings they had once been.  He didn't have long to wonder how they had come to be that way though.  It only took five steps toward the gap between the ice cream shop and book store before a familiar cobblestone wall loomed into view.

"Oh not this again!"  It was strange how accustomed he was becoming to talking to himself.

The wall ran right through each of the businesses as though it had been built elsewhere and then rammed through each of them when it was somehow put in place.   Just as before Lance couldn't see the top of the wall through the fog above either.  He glared death up at the fog before letting out a growling sigh and walking over to one of the ruined buildings.  After finding two suitably sized splintered wood planks he arranged them in a reasonably unique V shape then flew over the wall only to land right next to the same V shape on the same side.

"What a surprise.  Why did I even bother with that?"  He grumbled through the map in his mouth before taking a seat and unfolding it, "Okay...the direct route is no good then..."

He pored over the map looking for any other routes to the hospital but soon realized the futility of it.  Lance had no earthly clue how far that wall went.  For all he knew the segment cutting through the shops was just another part of the same wall that had stopped him before he'd made it into town.  Though he knew he could probably just walk alongside it to find out for sure that would mean staying outside for a great deal of time longer.  He wanted to avoid that.  Was that just his nerves bringing down his better judgement though?  Knowing how far the wall went would probably be very helpful...

His head darted upward away from the map as he heard something else in the distance, clear on the other side of the town square.

A hissing of steam.  A groaning of metal.  Then something that gave a sickening crack as it slammed into something else.

He instantly concluded that his better judgement was fine, and it was telling him to get the hay off the streets now.

Lance could actually feel his heart beating faster in his chest as he looked down at the map again, eyes instantly drawn the bloody hoof print centered around the cafe.  He didn't have to think about it long before he refolded the map and stood.  That mare had lead him to the map in the first place, maybe it was a good idea to take her advice again.

"We'll do it your way."  He muttered under his breath as he quietly made his way around the pavilion and then back into the more densely constructed part of town, all in an effort to circle around the spot from which he'd heard that dreadful sound coming.  He passed by another few boarded up houses before seeing the Sugar Cube Corner bakery on his right.  The cafe was just two streets north of him now.  His body grew more tense with every step as his need to remain quiet fought tooth and hoof with the urge to just gallop the distance and be done with it.  There was no telling if the cafe would even offer any shelter in the first place so there was little sense calling attention to himself.

Two streets later and he had finally made it, but even in his anxious state he had to stop and stare upon seeing it.  The building had no business being in Ponyville.  While the rest of the buildings were quaint and lent themselves rather well to the town's rural countryside setting, this one stood out like a sore thumb with its well designed but comparatively blunt brick and mortar construction.  It looked more akin to something one would see in the middle of a large city.  There wasn't even a sign declaring it as the cafe he was looking for.  That was as far as his thoughts went regarding how peculiar a building it was though, for they were interrupted by his spotting the door.  It wasn't boarded up like the windows were.

Much to his delight he found it unlocked after cantering over past the railing of the outdoor dining area.  He was all too happy to leave the fog outside and close the door behind him with a quiet click.

The inside of the cafe was about as dark as the ground floor of the library had been.  He would certainly welcome more light but if this was all he could get it would be just enough to look around with.  It wasn't a very large place anyway.  Booths were lined up back to back along the windows, there was a bar opposite to him, and a look around the corner revealed further dining space with tables to go with more booths.  The general decor made it look like one of those family unfriendly establishments that served drinks after a certain hour, or at least as far as he could tell.  There was dust everywhere, a few broken glasses on the floor he'd make sure to avoid, and even a plate or two on some of the tables, one of which even still had the dried, rotted husk of what looked to have at one point been a daisy sandwich.  The place wasn't just as dimly lit as the library had been, it was also just as abandoned.

But what was so special about it that the mare had bothered, while bleeding from some unknown wound, to mark it on the map for him?  Whatever it was, he wasn't going to find it just standing there.

A ways to the left of the bar was door with a note tacked to it that said 'Restrooms'.  Considering the condition of the rest of the building he was hesitant to go through it without exhausting his other options first.  He took a look in the extended dining area next and found two more doors.  One lead outside into the railed in dining area out front but was boarded up, and he assumed the other lead into the kitchen, but if that was true it was a strange door indeed.  It looked normal enough at first glance, but kitchens usually had double swinging impact doors so somepony could nudge them open while carrying a tray of food.  This one was just another solid oak door with knob and everything, but it was surrounded by an obviously hastily made section of concrete wall.  It looked like somepony had ripped out the usual double doors and replaced them with this one as quickly and haphazardly as possible.

This door was locked, but it was probably for the best.  There were no windows leading back into the kitchen so it was probably pitch black in there.  Unfortunately that left him with no other choice but to check if the restroom door was unlocked.  He rounded the corner back into the bar area with a grumble but was stopped before he could reach the door in question.  There was a note on the bar, covered with enough dust to make reading it in that light impossible.  Lance picked it up then shook the dust off, coughing a few times in response to the cloud it kicked up.  The penmanship was very...casual...to put it kindly.  Even without the dust he had to take it over to one of the windows where the lighting was a bit more reading friendly.

Eiffel,

I can't really fault you for trying to help out another pony, but the next time somepony needs to stash something here for safe keeping be sure to talk to me first instead of just cramming it all into the store room upstairs.  The bulb burned out in there to boot, and I'm too old to be going around climbing all over that stuff from the boutique while trying to replace it.  You got us into this mess so I'm leaving it up to you to fix it, but I did leave the lantern upstairs for you.  Tell the nice filly from next door they owe us one.

"Hrm...a lantern would be nice right about now."  He said while pondering how dark it must be further into the building.  Maybe the lantern was still there?  Unlikely...but still worth a look.  Where were there any stairs though?  There was only one place left to check.

The back room behind the unlocked door with the 'restrooms' note only proved his need for a light source all the more.  Were it not for the open door letting in a scant few beams of light from the window it would be impossible to see anything at all in there.  Lance was able to squint and make out the expected pair of doors for the stallion's and mare's rooms across from him, and to his right there was a set of stairs that would no doubt take him to the store room mentioned in the note.  The bit of light let in by the door wouldn't be of any help to him if he chose to climb them though, he would be going up blind.  But he didn't really have any choice, so he'd just have to be exceedingly careful.

It took him a nerve wracking couple of minutes spent pausing every step to feel around with his fore hooves to make sure the next step was there and sturdy, but soon enough his hoof extended and hit the outside of a door instead of another step.  One more moment passed before he found the door knob and gave it a turn before pushing the door open.  Inside he could see a crate with a lantern glowing weakly on top of it as its supply of kerosene waned.  With such a limited supply it only gave off enough light to illuminate the top of the crate it rested on.  Lance sighed with disappointment but stepped forward anyway.

"I'm lucky it's even here at all..."  He reminded himself as he approached.  It was yet another thing to carry around but if he could find some kerosene later it would definitely pay off...or would he have to bother?  Lying next to the lantern was something he was quite familiar with, but something he couldn't believe was there of all places.

It was a surgical crystalline focus light.  The unicorn ponies at Canterlot University had designed it about five years back specifically for use in surgery, and Lance had sworn by it ever since.  It used a central magic light emitting crystal placed inside of a concave mirror to make a focused beam instead of sending flickering light in every direction the way a lantern would.  A switch on the side was able to turn the crystal on and off, enabling the user to preserve the magical charge for when it was needed.  When the charge did run out eventually it was a simple matter of having a unicorn recharge the crystal, or just finding another one to replace it.  But best of all, it had a clip on the back meant to attach to a surgeon's scrubs.  He could attach it to his broken watch's chain and not have to even bother with carrying it.

Another flicker from the lantern reminded him he would only have its dying light for so much longer, so he quickly picked the surgical light up, checked to see that the crystal was in place, attached it to his watch chain, then flipped the switch hoping that it would work.

It did.

"AAAAAAAHHH!!!" He screamed before lashing out with one of his hooves at the suddenly visible pale white abomination of a pony standing on the other side of the crate.  It toppled over and Lance looked around in a panic, seeing more of them in the circle of light as it flitted this way and that.  They were peeking out from around the boxes and bags in the store room, looking right at him.  He backed up toward the door, expecting them to leap out at him at any second...and then he noticed they weren't moving...

They were mannequins.

They were mannequins from the boutique next door that the note had mentioned.

Lance paused, suddenly very glad he was alone with nopony else who might later recount this incident.  With a sigh of relief he walked over to the mannequin he had knocked over, stood it back upright, and regarded it awkwardly.

"Um...sorry...I guess."  He said before turning to leave.  Lance stopped at the doorway, picking up the map he had dropped and then pondering his own actions, "Wait...did I just apologize to a mannequin?"

He looked back to see the group of them still looking right where he had been standing.

"...couldn't hurt."  He concluded as he closed the door behind him.

With the added light the trip back down the stairs was considerably less taxing.  But the added ease did little to make up for finding the door he had left open when he went upstairs now closed.  Was somepony else there after all?  The knob turned, so it wasn't locked, but when he tried to push it open he found it wouldn't budge in the least, no matter how hard he pushed.  There was something very heavy on the other side and he was not going to get out that way.  That only left the two rest rooms.  Hesitant as he was to go in either of them he would rather do that than just sit there stuck in the back room.

The door to the stallion's room was locked, and he was again glad to be alone lest walking into the mare's room be just that tiny bit more awkward than it already felt.  The place was just as much of a mess as he thought it would be, and pitch black save for what his light was pointed at.  Both mirrors were broken, the pipes leading to the three faucets were rusted over and full of holes, one of the faucets had been broken in two, there were shards of porcelain all over the floor, which was teeming with mold left over from stagnant water that had dried up a long time ago.  If the mare's room looked like this he was glad the stallion's room had been locked.  But the decay aside, the main problem was that there just didn't seem to be anything of use in there at first glance.

What about the stalls?  He looked over each one in turn, finding them all latched shut save for the one at the very end in the corner of the room.  Lance hesitated, briefly checking beneath the door to make sure it was actually unoccupied.  Perhaps he was just being paranoid but this place was making it seem increasingly necessary the more of it he saw.  He nudged the stall door open and let it swing inward with a grating creak from the hinges.

The toilet had been ripped out.  Behind where it should have been there was a hole in the wall roughly large enough for a full grown pony to walk through while crouched.  It went straight through the building to the kitchen, right through the insulation, plumbing, and the scant bit of wiring in between.  It made no sense but he didn't stop to question his good fortune as he squeezed through the poorly made tunnel.

He was thankful to be away from the smell of mold as he emerged into the kitchen.  There was probably no shortage of spoiled food in there but judging from the lack of stench it was either contained or just so old it had gotten through the ugly part of rotting away already.  The oven was gone though...it must have been before the double swinging doors had been replaced because judging by the empty space it left behind there was no way anypony was getting it out through the new single door.  He shrugged it off and went on his way, only to be reminded once more that the door was locked with an irritating click of the knob.  There was a keyhole though, that meant all he had to do was find the key.

It proved difficult.  He looked in every drawer and cabinet, on top of every counter, in every little place he could think of, but there was no key in that kitchen.  Perhaps it was in one of the other rooms he had been through and he had just missed it?  He was about to squeeze back through the tunnel when something else caught his attention,

"So what did he say?"  A mare asked from behind the kitchen door.

A colt cleared his throat, clearly about to eat crow, "He uh...he was really sorry, and he even paid back the money I spent getting my wing wrapped up."

She chuckled, "See?  Told you he was an okay colt."

"Yeah...yeah you were right."  He admitted.

Lance practically sprinted back over to the door.  It was the mare and the colt from the wall again.  He pounded on the door, "Hey out there!  Can you hear me yet?!"

"Speaking of your wing, how's it doing?"  She asked.

"Technically, I can fly again, but the doctor wants me grounded for three more days, just to be safe.  No lasting damage though."  He replied.

"Okay, still deaf...spectacular."  Lance observed bitterly as he sat down and glared at the door.  Wait a minute...how did the wing sprain heal that fast?  It had only been hours ago when he'd crashed!

"That's great!  Bet you've been going crazy, huh?"  She asked sympathetically.

"Actually no, it's been good time to catch up on my studies."  The colt answered.

"Oh, you're a student?"

"Yeah...well...not yet...to be perfectly honest right now all I'm doing is the weather service to save up for university.  It's kind of slow going but in the meantime I can study on my own."  He confessed.

"Wow...that's...going to take a while."  She replied.

"No kidding...but enough about that...tell me about yourself."

"There's not really that much to tell...I'm a flower pony who just happens to have wings.  After I got my cutie mark I realized Cloudsdale wasn't the place for me so I moved here, and here I've been ever since, working as a gardener."  The mare explained.

"Can't really make a living off gardening in a city with no ground." He observed.

"Exactly."

"And while I'm thinking of it I uh...got you something."  The colt said before Lance heard him set something down on the table.

"What?  This is just our second date, you didn't need to get me anything." She said in surprise.

"It's okay trust me, you'll-wait, this is a date?  These were dates?!"  He asked in quite a bit more surprise.

"Oh, well, only if you want them to be."  She replied hopefully.

...

"Yeah...actually...I do want them to be."  He answered confidently.

"I'm happy to hear that." She said cheerfully, "But you still didn't need to get me anything."

"Just open the box."  He said as Lance heard him slide the box a bit further towards her.

"Hehe, fine!" She said in mock irritation, "...what's this?  Saddlebags?  But...oh my gosh it has straps to hold my gardening tools in...and holes for my wings!  Does it fit?"

There was a brief sound of cloth rubbing together as she slipped them on.

"It fits!  This is...this is great!  Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome."  The colt said.

"I haven't seen anything like this in the stores...did you make you this yourself?  You did didn't you?"  She prodded teasingly.

"Heh.  Guilty!"

"Well good job, even with the bit of weird stitching right here."

"Thanks, that was sort of an accident.  I can sew fine but sometimes that stitch just comes out from sheer habit since I'm studying to be a..."

...

A what?  Studying to be a what?

Lance stood up and put his ear to the door.  Silence.  Were they gone?  Who the hay just gets up and leaves mid sentence like that?  What were a pair of deaf, time skipping ponies even doing just waltzing around this weird place like it was nothin-

His mental ranting was stopped by the sight of a key being slipped beneath the door.  He stared down at it incredulously for a while before picking it up.  It fit the lock perfectly and within seconds he was pushing the kitchen door open.  All the tables from the dining area were gone save for one.  On that lone table rested a pair of worn, aged saddlebags, faded purple in color.  Were those the saddlebags the colt had just given to the mare?  They looked so cheap and used, how could she have gotten excited over such a ratty gift?

Still, he supposed he should at least pick it up and return it if he ever managed to run into them.  Despite its obvious age it still looked fairly usable.  He hoped they wouldn't mind him borrowing it for now, because holding the map in his mouth had already grown quite bothersome.  When he opened the bag to slip the map in he got yet another surprise.

There resting at the bottom of the bag was a pair of wire cutters.

He stared a moment longer before inserting the map and putting on the saddlebags.  This was all too strange...and too good.  Suddenly he had everything he'd been looking for, and he couldn't escape feeling like he was going to pay for it all somehow.

Lance forced the doubt from his mind once more.  It didn't help to dwell on it.  All he had to do now was go back to the library crater, open that box, and see what was inside.  He'd figured the rest out from there.

When he proceeded to round the corner back into the front bar area he saw what had been blocking his exit from the back room before.  It was the missing oven from the kitchen, plus every table and chair that had been missing from the extended dining area.  He had no clue how any of that had gotten there without him hearing anything in the least and he didn't feel like stopping to wonder at it right now, so he promptly ignored it and turned toward the door.

Before he could open it he heard a quiet mechanical grinding noise that began to grow louder and louder as he looked around for the source.  It sounded like it was coming from right beneath his head...was it his watch?  He looked down and held the broken watch in one hoof to find that it was indeed the culprit, and the sound was getting even louder.  It was like all the gears inside were going the wrong directions and grinding their teeth together.

"How do I turn this off...I didn't even wind it up..." He said as he looked the watch over.

Then he heard the scrape of metal against metal.

Right outside.

Part 9

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

What a nightmare.

Part 9

For a length of time spanning mere minutes it sure felt like the longest wait of their lives as they stood next to one another in their bedroom watching a timer on the nightstand tick down.

"..."

"..."

"...how did this happen?"

"I don't know!" She cried out in reply as though a dam had burst, "It's just like you said, I wasn't supposed to be in season last time, but here I am now, when I should be, and I'm not!  How am I supposed to know anyway?!  You're the doctor here!  You tell me!"

"What?  How am I supposed to know either?" He replied as she began pacing, "I only just this morning found out about any of this.  Why didn't you tell me sooner if this was happening all week anyway?"

"I didn't think it was important, you didn't either at first, remember?!  And just what are you implying by asking that anyway?!"  She stopped pacing to look right at him.

"You don't need to yell.  I'm not implying anything." It was something of a lie of course.  He had the same bits of paranoia that sometimes plagued any young stallion still piecing together the life they aspired to, but he wasn't going to give any of them a foothold in his mind, and he most certainly wasn't going to voice them.

"The hay you're not!  What is it?!  Do you think I'm some sort of crazy mare obsessed over getting a foal?!  Do you think I lied to you to get one?!  Is that it?!" She advanced upon him, forcing him to take step after step backward until his hind legs hit the bed.

"No!  That's ridiculous!  I've never thought any of that and I don't think that now!" He said, his voice also gaining an edge as she so aggressively put him on the defensive.

"So what I'm just ridiculous to you now?!" She said, pushing their snouts together as she glared at him.  He wasn't going to back away this time.

"Oh stop it!  I haven't said one word to imply anything at all and you know it!  You're the one standing here making oddly specific denials out of nowhere, did you think about that?!  Where is all this coming from all of a sudden?!" He retorted, finally matching the volume of her voice.

"Maybe I'm just scared out of my bucking mind!" She shouted back at him.

...

He'd never seen a pony wilt so devastatingly as she did just then.  All the anger in her melted to nothingness and she took a few steps back, letting her head droop to just above the floor as she blinked back more tears.

He could swear he physically felt the sudden whiplash in her temperament, but he soon adjusted and placed a gentle hoof on her shoulder, "What are you scared of?  I...I've heard you talk about having a foal fondly...I can understand being upset and worried but...scared?  It just doesn't seem like you."

She leaned the side of her head against his foreleg and sniffed, a few tears gliding down her cheeks, "I'm scared...I'm scared because-

Ding!

They both looked at the timer on the nightstand, then at each other before they hurried out to look at the test lying on the bathroom counter.  She went in first, leaving Lance to once more stand in the hallway looking in.

She looked at the test.

...

She looked at the box.

...

She looked at the test again in hopes that reality had somehow changed in the seconds she'd been looking away.

It had not.

She backed away from the counter and sat down with her back to the wall, face contorting into a sorrowful grimace.  Her eyes shut tight in a futile attempt to restrain her tears and a few strained sobs forced their way out of her.  Lance darted into the room to comfort her but found himself with her forelegs around his neck hugging him tightly after she threw herself into him.

"Please, please don't leave, please don't leave pleasedon'tleavepleasedon'tleave!" She begged him adamantly as she cried into the side of his neck.

He was momentarily stunned before he placed a foreleg around her neck in return, "Is that why you're acting like this?  Why would I ever leave you?  I love you."

She sniffed and let him go, wiping some tears from her eyes before replying, "I...I never told you why my mother is so hyper critical of you."

"I just assumed it was because she was your mother." He interjected.

"Heh...well, I guess that is part of it." She admitted while actually managing to smile briefly, "But that's not all of it.  You remember how distant my parents are with each other?"

He nodded.

"That's because my father isn't actually my father..." She averted her eyes while revisiting the painful memory, "My actual father was somepony my mother met just after she'd moved into her own place...they...hit it off really well.  She always told me that, aside from the time she spent with me while I was growing up, the couple of years she spent with him were the best years of her life.  Then they...made a mistake in timing...and then she was pregnant with me...and he just left while she slept after making all sorts of promises.  She never saw him again after that and I've never met him.  Mother didn't think she could raise me on her own so she started making eyes at one of her more well off stallion friends that she knew fancied her."

"So, she...didn't really love him?"

"She...liked him enough I guess.  I grew up loving him just like anypony would love their father and I didn't think anything was the matter.  But then when I was old enough and mother caught me paying a bit more attention to colts she took me aside and told me the truth.  Ever since then it's been 'look for a rich colt' this and 'make sure he can take care of you' that and 'get some dirt to use if he tries to leave' this." She couldn't help but give a short, subdued chuckle, "You're lucky I wanted to tick her off enough at the time or I never would've learned that was a bunch of horse apples."

Lance nodded with a smile, sensing she wasn't done yet and letting her continue.

"And now here we are...in the same situation that broke her heart and made her so bitter.  That's why I'm scared Lance.  All those things she told me are just suddenly grabbing me by the neck and I never thought they'd be able to."  She raised her eyes to look at him again as fresh tears streamed down her cheeks once more, "I can't make them shut up in there either...and it's not fair to you because you've never done anything to make me think they're right...and even when I knew that, I still yelled at you just because I thought if I could make myself hate you it wouldn't hurt as much when you left."

She broke down into another sobbing fit, this one much quieter and all the more heart rending for it.  He found it impossible not to pull her into another hug and hold her as she let out the anxiety that had been hiding for years unseen waiting to pounce at such a vulnerable moment in her life.  Lance knew he had to do something about this.  Something that would quash the fears her mother had planted in her once and for all.  He wouldn't have her going to sleep every night plagued by doubts that he would be gone in the morning.

When she had cried herself out and was quietly nuzzled against him he spoke up, "I need to go do something."

She moved back out of his embrace, "What?  What do you need to do?"

"I can't tell you yet."

"..." She looked away biting her lip at the thoughts that suddenly welled up in her head.

"What can I do to make you know I'll be right back?" Lance asked.

"...I don't think there is anything."

"Then...you're just going to have to trust me."

"...Okay Lance.  I'll try."

He was snapped out of it by the sharp bite of the bars against his side as he stumbled sideways away from the slats with that same post impact headache that had afflicted him twice before.  He didn't bother looking back at door 303 again, it would be gone.  Knowing he would soon recover he pushed ahead to the conspicuously clean door and reached for the knob knowing full well it would probably be locked with some key three floors down hidden behind Celestia knows what that would only let him get to it after he'd solved some riddle or another.

It opened.

Lance stood there and blinked at the rusted over elevator interior for a moment.  He looked over at the door in disbelief, but its apparent ease of use hid no secrets, it really had been as easy as opening it.  The only odd thing was the message carved into the inner side of the door:

"The way out is useless."

"How encouraging." He muttered before limping into the elevator and turning.  There was no button panel in the expected spot right next to the door.  He began looking around for it but his search was interrupted by the cable snapping two floors above.  The fall was too quick for him to even react but the sudden drop and equally sudden impact sent him right to the floor.

Lance struggled back to his hooves coughing at all the dust that had been kicked into the air.  The way out of the elevator and into the ground floor was no plain door.  It was like a bloody, rusted, bank vault door.  The suspiciously clean locking mechanism in the center was a keypad bearing an intimidating array of twenty six buttons that covered the entire alphabet without so much as even a hint about the length of the needed code.  He looked up to see if there was an emergency hatch in the top of the elevator but there was only another grid of bars keeping him inside.  Lance was trapped, and the only way out was a code he couldn't even backtrack to look for.

Also there was a chorus of bending, groaning, snapping metal parts above him.

His mouth went dry.  She had gone back to the elevator shaft and waited.  Now that she had him contained in a nice little rusty sardine can she was burrowing down through each of the barriers to peel it open and do to him what she had done to that scavenger.  He looked around frantically for any way that he might possibly escape but found nothing.  His panic reached new heights as his elevator car prison shuddered with the weight of the beastess that had just landed upon it and his watch buzzed in alarm.

"Thinkthinkthinkthink!" He chanted in order to keep his mind from spiraling into uncontrollable, useless terror.

WAIT!

The way out was useless.  The keypad was for entering letters.

He knew then that the door worked fine, he only needed some useless letters to open it, and the saint's sequence that had undone one of Door 303's padlocks just so happened to have four of them.

Lance scrambled over to the keypad and held up a shaky hoof as he tried to remember the letters through the screeching sound of impending death above him.

...C!  The first letter had been C!

What was the second what was the second-

H!

He felt the hot kiss of vented steam on his flank shortly before one of the bars above snapped.

Third letter third letter third letter what was the third letter.

His hoof trembled in front of the keypad, just as useless as his memory was proving at that very instant.

Another bar snapped.  Then another.  And another.  He heard the bars screech in protest as she started applying force and bending them inward.

He didn't dare look up.  Seeing her straight on would only guarantee he'd never remember in time.

"Nonononononono-"

...

N, O!

The vault door gave a loud clank as the inner mechanism unlocked.  Lance completely disregarded the pain as he threw himself against the door and pushed with all his might until the open crack was big enough for him to squeeze through.

The ground floor's floor wasn't the same poorly welded together metal as above.  It was just like the bottom of the stairwell: a grate over a bottomless pit of darkness.  Whatever hid behind the barred in skins that served as walls were also more active than ever, Lance could clearly see that the objects pushing out from behind the stretched skins were hooves and faces.

He flew.

It was a single hallway once more but this one turned into the central hallway rather than go straight across.  He rounded the corner just as she got through the top of the elevator car and galloped after him.  Lance was overjoyed to see another iron door sitting there open for him ready to save his life just as the last one had.  The instant he had passed through it he was rewarded with the loud metallic clang of its closing behind him.  His watch buzzed louder as she approached on the other side but another angry strike against the outside assured him this door too would hold up against anything she could dish out.

Lance took the opportunity to catch his breath, letting his head hang low as his entire body trembled.  The buzzing of his watch quickly quieted down as she galloped away from the door to hopefully leave him be.  Looking back up after a few moments revealed the welcome sight of an 'EXIT' sign glowing red in the darkness ahead.  Just a bit more and he would be free of this nightmare.

As he limped toward the sign he saw the bars on his left give way to another chain link fence window.  It showed the bottom of the hollowed out space in which the now absent hanging pony had resided.  It was a floor of dirt that made it look like Lance was gazing outside as the beam of his light searched back and forth to if anything was out there.

He only found one thing.  It was a trash bag wrapped in chain.  Something suspiciously pony shaped was inside and deathly still.

Lance didn't so much lose interest as had his interest suddenly repelled by the sight.  He turned back to limp closer to the sign but stopped as he noticed that his watch had grown quieter but hadn't stopped buzzing entirely.  His light moved up and down the hallway until he found the source of the noise, a drowning mare lying right in front of his door to salvation.  This discovery was coupled with another disturbing revelation signaled by the sound of the slats from the floor above snapping from a certain monster mare's advance.  The welded together metal slabs above him that served as the floor of every story above were rusted so badly this far down that a weak spot had formed just above the exit.  She was going to break through it.

Drowning mare or not he needed to be out of there before that happened.

The creature in question quickly twitched to life and got to its stumps as he approached.  Lance backed away as she started to shamble toward him making the choking noise that sickened him so much.  He watched how she moved, swinging the mask blades back and forth as she limped toward him.  The option of jumping or flying over her was briefly considered before the mental image of his own guts spilling out of the belly he had so enthusiastically presented to her ejected it straight out of his head.  He only had one more idea and he needed to act on it fast.

The beastess above hammered her hooves against the weak spot of the floor once.

Lance had been forced back to the chain link window by now, trying to grasp the timing of the back and forth motion the drowning mare was continually making.  He got the rhythm at last and when next he saw his chance he leaped forward with his good leg, grabbed the side of her head as she began swinging, and used her own momentum to slam her head into one of the bars opposite the chain link window.  It proved less hardy than he had hoped and broke, hurting the drowning mare but not knocking her out like he had hoped.  He gave a cry of pain as her swing back the other direction caught his unwounded foreleg.

Rust colored dust dropped from the ceiling in front of the door as a crack suddenly appeared from another blow from above.

Lance acted as quickly as his wounded legs would let him.  He turned as she was winding up for another swing and bucked with his good hind leg, resulting in her bashing her own head against the already considerable force of his hoof.  Her skull audibly cracked and she dropped to the floor, twitching and convulsing in pain but unable to move as blood flowed copiously from the gash in the side of her head and dripped down into the abyss below.

Another strike widened the crack a considerable amount, just one more and the once shrouded mare would be through.

He stood and bucked his good back hoof into the drowning mare's head again.  She was still shaking, crying out in agony between choking convulsions.  Lance couldn't just leave her there like that.  He couldn't possibly explain why but he just couldn't.  Another buck produced another sickening crack of bone and she finally lay still.  He quickly shook some of the blood off of his fetlock and then flew toward the door.

Too late.

The ceiling collapsed in front of him in a flurry of rust, falling metal, and four metal shod hooves that landed with a clang against the floor grating.  He angled his wings to counter his forward momentum and in the few moments it took him to bleed off enough speed to turn around he got his first look at her without a sheet covering.

The reason for the irregular length of her snout wasn't due to her snout at all, but rather the angled rectangular metal muzzle that covered it.  Steam was released from the ventilation slits running along each side of it, and the two circular joints at the back turned as the metal bar of her jaw dropped.  Her eyes along with the rest of the upper half of her head was hidden by a visor made of the same metal, her horn looking less like a unicorn's horn and more like a long angular spike.  Her body was striped by cuts worn in by cruel chains that had once confined her, and in place of a cutie mark on her flanks there were bloody red hexagons where the skin had been cut off entirely.  Her tail was a deep sanguine color and drifted unnaturally as though it were submerged in water.

The pair of tan wings spread wide also made it apparent that this was no unicorn he was dealing with.

Lance let out a cry of terror and fled from the this horrid mockery of Equestria's sovereign race but was stopped midair and slammed into the grated floor by the black tendril around his back leg, just as before.  The sovereign let out a distorted but clearly pleased hum from behind him as she started dragging him backward.  As he looked up to frantically claw at the floor in whatever way hooves could possibly claw he saw that the heavy iron door that had moments ago halted her had transformed into the door 303 from the top floor, complete with the two yet to be undone padlocks and chains.

When he opened the door to enter their apartment he found her lying there in the living room.  She'd been waiting there the whole time, a tissue box sitting next to her, tear stained tissues crumpled up and dotting the floor around her.  The sound of the door opening had drawn her attention and now she looked up at him, both happy to see his return and worried from not knowing exactly what was going on.  Lance just smiled back at her and neglected to set down his saddlebags as he motioned her over.

"Follow me."

"Okay." She said as he stood up.

He lead her down the hall to the stairwell and then up to the roof access.  There were clouds dotting the early afternoon sky but it was by no means a particularly cloudy day, the bits of concentrated vapor only serving to provide some pleasant scenery and give the weather ponies napping spots.  Otherwise they were the only ones on the lonely rooftop.  Perfect.

Lance lead her over to just the right spot and motioned for her to sit down.  She complied, looking around and then back to him, confused about what was going on as he stood before her and started to speak.

"I came here to Manehatten to get my medical degree, and just that.  I never thought of making any friends.  I never thought of meeting a mare.  I certainly never thought of meeting the love of my life, but that happened when I met you.  I never planned on having an adventure either, but when I met you, that happened too.  My world's changed from a lonely, unforgiving trial to be endured to a warm, welcoming place where I see potential on every horizon.  Thanks to you I've seen some of the most wonderful parts of life that I had long ago given up on ever seeing, but that was before I almost crashed right into your garden those years ago.  I want to see more of life with you..."

Lance paused to pull a dark blue box out of his saddlebag.  He opened it, set it on the ground, and turned it to face her before nudging it towards her with his snout.

She gasped and brought a hoof to her mouth.  Inside the box was a plain golden hoof bracelet adorned with three modestly sized diamonds.  Her already reddened eyes welled up with yet more tears as she looked up from the box to him, realizing just what was happening.  This time she was crying for a much happier reason.

"In fact, I want to see all of it with you...Posey...will you marry me?"

He was knocked off his hooves as she tackled him to the ground in a hug yelling yes for all the world to hear.

Well...he was going to die.  At least the last memory that had been ripped to the forefront of his mind had been a very dear one.

Curiously enough the door to 303 was still there, for the first time.  One could hardly blame Lance for not noticing as his headache raged and the sovereign was pulling him closer.

He felt the tendril withdraw and for a split second the hope of getting up and running rose in his heart only to be squashed by the two metal covered hooves that were suddenly holding his forelegs down as she stood over him.  Lance tried pulling out of her grip with his two hind legs to no avail.  She had him pinned again.  His breath started coming faster as the sheer gut wrenching realization of his own utter helplessness sank in while she did...nothing.

WHAT IS SHE WAITING FOR?!

Her head lowered and he felt the side of her metal muzzle travel slowly down his mane as she took in another long breath just like she had at the elevator shaft.

Lance's skin crawled and he felt a renewed need to struggle, "No no let me go get away from me!"

She replied with a grunt of amusement overlaid by some strange beast's growl and let one of his forelegs go so she could backhoof him across the face.  The motion came across as a mere tap but the force of the blow made his head swim so that he was able to do little as the tendril wrapped around his neck, lifted him into the air, and slammed him into the ceiling.  His back popped and the impact from the ensuing fall forced the air out of his lungs, leaving him writhing in pain and disoriented with blood streaming down the side of his face as she re-assumed her position with her hooves pinning his forelegs.

A soft hiss and the heat of released steam on the back of his neck brought him out of it.  Something tugged at his mane and it suddenly fell free, making him realize with a start that she had just taken the pink hairband that had been holding it back.

"Don't take that!  Give it-hrmfffff!" Lance began to protest but was cut off as the black tendril wrapped once around his neck before moving up to ensnare his snout and hold his mouth shut.

There was another hiss above him, this one much more severe.

Her jaw reached down, gripping down hard on his wing, forcibly extending it despite all of his efforts to shut it.

He let out a muffled cry as pain shot through his back. But it was too late, she wasn't going to stop.

CRACK!

Lance screamed louder than he ever had before as the sovereign snapped his wing.  The tendril had let go of his snout seemingly only to let her listen.  He tried to start struggling again but all it accomplished was to make him realize she still had his wing gripped in her jaw.

She still wasn't going to stop.

His agonized wail filled the hallway with renewed vigor as she planted a hoof in his back and started to pull, slowly, savoring every subtle snap as the internal tissues that kept his wing attached to the rest of his body broke from the strain one by one.  With one final crunch Lance lost all feeling in his wing, moments before she let the severed extremity drop to the ground right in front of his wild, terrified eyes.  She was tearing him apart.

Her jaw clamped down on his other wing, and she quivered with delight at the resultant cry as she started to apply pressure again...

Lance was unexpectedly yanked off the ground as something caught her attention and she neglected to release his wing before standing back to her full height.  Despite the distraction his wing snapped all the same from the sudden jerking movement that put the entirety of his weight on the already partially cracked wing bone all at once.  Through the haze of pain, fatigue, and horror that had practically rendered him catatonic he saw what was fascinating her so much that she couldn't even enjoy the pain she was inflicting upon him.

An inky black substance was seeping out from beneath Door 303 and traveling up to the locks in thin trails resembling a swarm of ants more than the liquid it was.  When the black trails touched the iron of the chains and padlocks they spread much more rapidly across their surface, now adopting a look more reminiscent of veins.  The two padlocks clicked open and fell to the grated floor, soon to be joined by the chains that held the door shut.

Door 303 opened.

Lance became aware of a soft ringing in his ears as something emerged from the darkness behind the door.  It stood just slightly shorter than the sovereign, and was decidedly less armored.  The shape of its head was suggestive of a colt, but it was otherwise devoid of distinguishing characteristics.  The front of the snout was smooth while the sides were visibly strained, like some kind of skin mask had been pulled tightly over its mouth and sewn in place.  Lance could even see the scar going around its face where the stitch had been made and then poorly removed, and another such seam scar traveling up the head from the top of the first scar ring.

This colt's ears were also missing, and not just in the sense that the ear flaps had been severed.  There were two deep depressions in the side of his head there the ears should have been, indicating that the internal hearing mechanisms had actually been carved out to render him deaf, trails of dried black blood left running down each side of his head.  He was wearing a white smock that was cut in half from the bottom of the chest down, the two halves held against his forelegs by several bandages on each leg similar to the bandages that covered several other spots of his body.  Every piece of cloth he wore was stained in various places with the same black substance that had seeped from beneath the door, apparently the creature's own blood, and the same stitch seam scars from his head could be seen over his entire body.

The sovereign was not happy to see him and let it be known with an angered growl.

She slammed Lance to the ground again, planted a hoof in his back, and tore off his last broken wing in one quick agonizing yank before kicking him aside into the bars.  He was a cut, bruised, dismembered, bleeding, terrified mess, and it was all he could do to just tuck his hooves beneath himself and lie there beside the bars trying not to pass out while pretending he didn't exist.

She charged the deformed interloper, who didn't seem the least bit fazed by the attack.  Even when her horn pierced through his chest and he was lifted off the ground his only response was to quietly stare directly at her from his spot hanging there impaled.

The ringing in Lance's ears grew louder.

The sovereign seemed fine at first but then her legs began to slowly give out like her strength was being sapped away.  Her body began to tremble and she let the deaf colt's hooves back to the floor despite her best efforts.  The mysterious malaise pulled her down to the floor, retracting her horn from his chest, and with a final resentful groan she fell over onto her side and was still.

The deaf colt stood there gazing down at her as the black blood oozing from his chest wound suddenly vaporized into what resembled a black flame that covered the injury then quickly died out, leaving the spot on his chest where the grievous damage had been inflicted free of any deformation  that had not been there when he walked in.  Then he looked straight at Lance.

He was still there cowering against the bars.  There wouldn't be any running now.  The leg that the scavenger had attempted to feast on would always slow him to a limp, and with his wings gone it was no longer something he could bypass.  More immediately he had lost an alarming amount of blood, and still more was dripping down into the abyss below.  Lance would be surprised if he could make it ten more steps in this condition.  If this deaf colt wanted him dead he supposed it might be the preferable way to go rather than the slow death the sovereign had seemed intent on.

Another rush of fear washed over him as the deaf colt stepped over her still form and walked toward him.  Lance weakly shrank back against the bars as he grew closer and closer.  The deaf colt stopped in hoof's reach of him and inspected him from head to tail, giving Lance a tilt of the head when they finally locked gazes with one another.  The staring contest was promptly ended when the deaf colt's hoof struck the bruised and bloodied side of his face.

He awoke in an unfamiliar, very bright place.  No...this place wasn't bright.  It was a single bright light source right above him.  It was so bright it was hurting his eyes but for some reason he couldn't move his head to look away.

There other ponies moving all around him.  Who were they?  Did they know where this was?  Had they brought him there?

And then the pain started.

It had always been there.  His waking mind was just taking its time comprehending it.  It was bearable at first but it grew, and grew, and grew, and never stopped growing.  It hurt so much.  It was the worst pain he'd ever felt and everything in his mind was wishing with all his might that it would stop.  He tried to move but the rest of his body was just as paralyzed as his neck.

He tried to scream but nothing came out.  His eye flitted about in panic as the pain grew impossibly worse with every passing second.  Why didn't the ponies moving around him notice him?  They just kept doing what they were doing instead of helping him.  He wanted to scream for them.

Help me.

Help me!

HELP ME!

HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP M-

He was still there in the nightmarish hallway with the deaf colt standing over him.

What the hay had that been?!

...

No...he knew.

That was one of the nightmares that had been keeping him from sleep for all those weeks leading up to his 'vacation' from the hospital.  Why had he only remembered it now?  He looked back up at the deaf colt.  Had that thing just punched it right into him somehow?

"What...are you...?" Lance struggled to say.  He didn't have enough strength left to even wait for an answer though.  No sooner had he asked the question than the same siren that had heralded the nightmare's coming began blaring in the distance once more.  He found himself unable to hold his head up and his eyes open any longer.  As he lingered in the black space between the waking world and unconsciousness he felt the deaf colt nudge the side of his saddlebag.  Before he fully succumbed he heard the sovereign groan indignantly as she was dragged away, and the rattling of chains as Door 303 was resealed.

He was, amazingly, still alive.  His mouth was dry, he was desperately thirsty, his entire body hurt, and even just thinking about moving made the pain even worse, but he was still alive.  Lance ignored the protests of his body and looked around.  It was still pitch black save for the beam of his surgical light but everything was back to the pristine apartment complex he had walked into.  Not a speck of dust anywhere, and the exit door stood there just waiting for him to leave the wretched place.

Lance braced himself for a few moments knowing that getting back to his hooves would be a miniature ordeal in his condition, and then he got to it.  He didn't know how long it took him groaning in pain with his teeth grit there in the dark, but he eventually managed it.  The sound of a slip of paper gliding down to the ground caught his attention, and he reached down for it thinking one of the notes in his saddlebag had fallen out.  He was incorrect.  This was a new note that had been resting on the side of his saddlebag...right where the deaf colt had nudged him.

"Dear Esteemed guest,

What did we learn?"

He didn't think he would be taking that one with him.

The cobblestone wall was finally behind him, so that was one good thing that had come from that nightmarish clusterbuck at least.

The spot where the drowning mare had been killed was a bit more interesting.  In her place was a stuffed, bloody body bag, with a single white flower resting on top.  The space around her was cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape, and the words 'FIRST DO NO HARM' were carved over and over into the wall behind her.

As though he'd had a choice.

Finally there was the door marked G-4 to his left.  He looked at it blearily before sitting down and sifting through his bag to find the key marked G-4.  Why not?  He needed to rest and patch himself up, if the room was clear and safe it would probably be wise to make the stop before he went anywhere else.

He held the key up to the knob and found himself unable to keep his hoof from trembling so badly that getting the key in the keyhole was impossible.  He let out a weak growl of frustration and brought a hoof to his face, closing his eyes and trying to relax before trying again.  It still took a few tries but eventually he hit home and unlocked the door.  Glad to be over that mountainous molehill he pushed the door open at last.

...

After all of that...after the ascent to the top...and the descent to the bottom...and every brush with death he'd just miraculously squeezed through...after all the pain he'd just endured...only then was he truly struck dumb and unable to say or do anything.

....

"...Lance?"

He fell to the ground unconscious again.

Part 18

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Stay away.

Part 18

Lance took his time pondering whether there was any way at all that going inside wouldn't be considered completely insane.  After some very intense thought on the topic he concluded that no, there was not...but he had to go in anyway.  Obviously there was something he needed in there, but now there was something more to it.  Certain very recent events had implanted within him the idea that if he didn't do these insane things despite knowing full well they were insane, something even worse might end up happening instead.

Or perhaps he was just being paranoid...there really wasn't, nor had there ever been, any way of telling.

The lump of fear in the pit of his stomach stayed his hooves a moment longer before he nudged the door open and peered inside the formerly inaccessible day room.  Dirt and grime covered the worn down floor tiles but curiously the dust that seemed ever present in the rest of the building was absent.  Lance looked around quickly, his uncertainty spiking as he realized there was no trail on the floor he could use to safely pinpoint the location of the five gurneys.  Following a tense half minute of illuminating nothing but the overturned furniture pressed against the walls, he spotted them arranged in a semi circle around a small metal box...located at the far corner of the room, the single spot furthest from the door.  Of course they would be there.

He had been right next to the gurneys a number of times already yet, from their spot clear on the other end of the room, far from being able to harm him in the slightest, they had never looked more intimidating.  But he would need whatever was in that box...so he spent a final moment gathering his courage, reminding himself that these gurneys had never hurt him, before taking a step inside.  Lance's ear twitched as the sound of his hoof hitting the floor echoed above him in a way entirely uncharacteristic of a room of that size.  He started looking up, the beam of his surgical light rising up along the wall...and up...and up...and up as he quickly discovered the reason for the room's strange acoustics.  When finally he saw light hit the ceiling it was easily two hundred feet above him.  He kept looking up wide eyed, trying to remember if he'd seen such a large tower in the void between floors on his way up but pulling a blank.  It made about as much sense as a stairwell that compressed the distance from one floor to the next into the space of a single flight.

At the very least he was able to plainly see that there were no malcontents lurking in the vast empty space above him.  But somehow that observation proved of little comfort as he brought his light back down and started to advance toward the gurneys.  With everything else he had seen, how easy would it be for that place to just materialize something in the now darkened void above when his attention was turned?  It hadn't happened yet but but that only made the thought that it was perhaps overdue to happen nag at the back of his head even more sharply.

Lance was suddenly halted by the sound of wood creaking above wrenching his eyes and light back to the ludicrously large expanse above.  There was still nothing.  Normally he would scold himself for letting his nerves get to him, but by that point he was quite appreciative they were going to the trouble.

His watch maintained its silence as he covered the last of the distance to the box and the assembled gurneys.  As always they remained outwardly unthreatening while at the same time making the amber pegasus feel like somepony was breathing down the back of his neck.  For a while all he could do was stare at the metal box on the ground and wonder with dread what would happen when he dared to pick it up.  Lance swallowed nervously and looked back up at the gurneys that had been growing in number with every encounter.  At least this time they had lead him to something of value.

"Th...thanks," he offered timidly.  It couldn't hurt...right?

Well, there was no sense in dragging things out any further.  Lance undid the clasp of the lightest feeling saddlebag, saw that there would be more than enough room for the entire box, plucked it off the ground, and tucked it away in his bag before taking another glance at the quartet of gurneys that, thankfully, were continuing to remain absolutely motionle-

WAIT.

A pair of hooves set down on the floor behind him an instant before his watch jumped all the way from pristine silence to a fever pitch of buzzing that made his heart try to break out of his ribcage again.  The reflexive attempt to turn around was again foiled by his leg, sending him stumbling sideways a few steps as a horrible gurgling, retching noise reached his ears.  There was only a split second to look at the gurney that had somehow appeared behind him before he was forced to act on what precious little information he was able to comprehend; there was some pony shaped thing beneath the gurney, that sound could only mean it was about to vomit something up at him, and he'd already had enough of being covered in liquid foulness to last him a good lifetime or two.  He managed to get enough balance onto his good leg to push forward and avoid being in the path of the ensuing eruption of dark red blood that splattered all over the floor.

The flesh covered gurney itself had not changed, but an emaciated pony's front half had now emerged from an unseen hole in the underside.  It's skin was formed from oddly shaped patches of various deathly shades that had been sewn into place, dried blood caking the edge of each patch.  It was like somepony had flayed the skin off of the poor wretch and tried replacing it with pieces cut from many different corpses.  It was missing any trace of eyes like all the other creatures, but more uniquely it was also missing the entire lower half of its face.  The snout had been removed in a single clean cut, leaving behind a toothless, blood dripping maw that was impossible to close.  As the roller aggressively used its front hooves to drag itself closer it quivered with agony and rage, the former gurgling and retching replaced by the sick wheezing of a pony trying to breathe with a compromised lung.

But none of this was as immediately alarming to Lance as the way the blood it had just spewed at him began to sizzle and smoke as it corroded the flooring.

"What?!" Lance exclaimed as he took off limping in the general direction of the room's exit with all the haste he could manage.  His efforts did little to put any distance between himself and the sound of the squeaking wheels behind him.  In fact, with every painful step the fleeing stallion took they started to get closer, the creature behind him gaining momentum and closing what precious little gap there was.  The gurgling noise started to seep into its strained breathing again as what he could only assume were its lungs began to fill up with acidic blood anew.

He was doing an even worse job of running away from this one than he had with the barbed nurse!  Unless he did something different he would end up a twitching, bloody, smoking, roughly pony shaped mass on the floor long before he reached the door.  Instantly his thoughts turned to the pipe that had resolved the nurse problem and he stopped to grab the impromptu weapon.  His mistake of not taking the gurney's momentum into account struck him from behind and sent him stumbling forward after a grunt of pain.  After barely managing to avoid falling over, he pulled the pipe out at the same time as he heard another loud, retching gurgle signalling that his time was short.  He gripped the pipe with both hooves and aimed a solid swing at the roller's head.

Clang!

The metal frame of the gurney had interrupted the arc of his swing.  There was no way he would be getting at the roller with anything but a stabbing motion, the sort of attack he would either need a sharper weapon or less mangled legs to make any use of.  He would not be killing this one any time soon.

There was also the whole 'about to be sprayed down and melted' issue.

With a last wretch the roller spit up another batch of the acidic blood.  Lance flung himself out of the way, barely managing to avoid the worst of it as a jolt of pain shot through his injured right rear leg.  He then smelled burning hair before felt his other rear leg practically light on fire.  Looking back in a brief moment of panic, he was a bit relieved to see that his back leg had gotten misted at worst.  It hurt badly but there was no deep damage, only a moderate corrosive burn on the skin that left the leg just as useable as before.

The roller's wheezing brought him out of his brief self diagnostic, the monster content to sit there well within range while it prepared another salvo of acid.  He looked back toward the door still half a massive day room away and struggled to his hooves, the mere touch of the air moving across the burn on his leg setting the nerves aflame.  As he hobbled away the creature's next strained breath came out sounding more like a grumble, as though it was begrudging his making it go to the trouble of moving.

If Lance had made it halfway to the door before his pursuer had been able to attempt to dissolve him, there was hope.  All he would have to do is maintain his pace and he was sure to reach the door before it could attack again.  But that was no longer as trivial as he would have liked since it felt like his dodge moments prior had just undone any healing his leg had managed.  Every step was now excruciating and he wasn't exactly in a position to chug down the health drink in his bag.

After ages of agony that had somehow compressed themselves into tens of seconds, Lance was in hoof's reach of the door.  He didn't remember closing it behind him on his way in but that was of little consequence.  Only a raise of a hoof and a turn of a doorknob separated him from freedom.

The doorknob just kept turning, attached to nothing.  The lock was broken.

...

"Why is the lock broken?!"

His presence in the room alone was proof that he wasn't crazy.  The door had been open, but now it was just as closed and useless as when he had first passed by it.  His escape route was cut off, and he was cornered.  He turned and faced the roller that was nearly ready to attack a third time, his mind racing to think of anything he could possibly do.  If it came down to having to continuously evade this monster, he and his battered, weakened body would lose in short order.  There had to be something, there had always been something!

Wait...there was something!   He was even in the perfect spot to take advantage of it!  Lance side stepped, placing himself between the acid spewing horror and the doorknob.  He would need just one more good dodge now.  There was no way to know exactly how much damage the corrosive blood would do to the door, but even if it just partially damaged the locking mechanism it would be that much easier to try and bash it open.  He stared the roller down, waiting for the coming attack, confident that he would be able to see it coming after having already witnessed it twice.

His body tensed, preparing for another painful exertion as the monster started retching again.  But instead of the resultant spray of acid he had expected, it paused, looking at him for an unusual moment...and then turned its head before spewing its corrosive payload against the adjacent section of wall, leaving both the stunned doctor and door behind him untouched.

"Wh...what-" Lance didn't get to finish his confounded utterance before the roller suddenly pulled itself forward, ramming right into him.  He was knocked back again, his left side slamming into the wall followed shortly by the gurney's metal frame pinning him on his right.  Then the pressure started increasing.  He was being slowly crushed against the very same door he had sought to fool the monster into melting for him.  Quickly realizing his body would break long before the door did, Lance started trying to push back, to pull himself free, to just escape in any way...but it was too late.  Even if none of his legs had been injured in the slightest, they were all pinned and useless.

The next thing he knew he hit the ground in the hallway just outside.  As he looked around in a frantic daze trying to discern what had happened, he heard the door that had just burst open bang against the gurney as it attempted to swing closed again.  Expecting the roller to continue its assault, he pushed himself away with his good leg while looking back, only to find that the flesh clothed gurney was inert and his watch was quiet.  Lance spent a moment catching his breath, not taking his eyes off of it until it was beyond clear he was in that strange, threatening, unnerving, but still living state that this place dared to call 'safe'.

There were large, bloody gouge marks in the metal of the door's lock where the mechanism had been cut clean through, and as Lance let his eyes drift downward he spotted a familiar trail of small red blood spatters leading down the hallway toward the elevator and stairwell.  His stalker had saved him, and she was leading him somewhere else...again.  As he struggled back to his hooves for what felt like the millionth time he couldn't help but wonder if she could be trusted after having freed that sadistic monster mare.  He let out a final shaky sigh while the newest rush of adrenaline started to wear off...only to spike all over again as he looked around and realized that the four other gurneys had followed him outside while he hadn't been looking, now quietly positioned around him with their sides against the walls, leaving the hall unblocked.

Trust issues be damned, he was getting away from that blasted room!  His hooves carried him through the last section of hallway at a rate probably ill advised for such an injured pony, the near blinding pain worth enduring just to escape before anything else happened.  After he had slammed the door shut behind him he fell back on his rump, another groan of pain catching in his throat as he grit his teeth waiting for the wave of pain to subside.  It took a few moments before he was able to see straight again, at which point he immediately set about to rummaging through his pack looking for the health drink he needed so desperately.  Soon he was left with an empty bottle in hand, having drained its contents in record time to ease the deep cutting aches all over his body.

From thinking the stuff was useless snake oil to practically being an addict for it...that had certainly been a quick turn around.

Now that he could see and think straight his thoughts turned to the box over which he had just almost been crushed to death.  He fished it out of his saddle bag and looked it over.  It was old and rusted as was to be expected, and there was nothing to keep him from opening it save a simple latch.  The box opened with a small whine of its rusted hinges.  The inside was lined with uncharacteristically gentle looking padding, upon which rested the welcome sight of the exact sort of fuse Lance and his wife and just been discussing.  He closed the box and stashed it away again, figuring it was wise to leave the fuse inside of it where the glass casing wouldn't be cracked by the sudden movements that were so often inevitable.

Standing up wasn't so mind rendingly difficult now, which was good because he had a bit of a trip to make.  The next step was obviously heading back up to the top floor then taking the elevator down to the basement so he could unlock the electrical room and make use of the newly acquired fuse.  Even the grinning stalker's blood trail was heading in the same direction, which he supposed was a good sign that he was on the right track.  But as he entered the stairwell again he noticed that the trail did not lead along his intended route, but instead went down the stairs past the set of bars that had previously blocked his progress.  They had been cut through, the now severed ends left slightly bloody exactly as the lock on the door had been.

He should have just kept going up as planned, should have ignored it, by all sane logic should have felt lucky to be alive and stopped pushing his luck.  But he didn't have a choice.  Complaining, hesitating, resisting...all that would accomplish would be making him stay there longer.  As Lance forced himself past the bars and down the stairs he couldn't help but wonder if this sense of resignation was what it felt like to lose one's mind and not even know it.

Well, maybe there was another health drink down there?  That sounded sane enough.

The stairwell continued down another flight before abruptly ending in a short passage leading to some sort of cage bolted on to the side of the concrete structure surrounding him.  The floor of this cage didn't appear to be a floor at all, but rather a platform to be raised and lowered via the chains attached to each corner.  They rose upward into four holes in the ceiling that he assumed hid a pulley system.  On the right wall, before the concrete gave way to the metallic cage, was a ticket booth that had no place being in a hospital.  He was unable to see if anypony was inside because the reinforced window had been boarded over.  There was a wooden sign hanging at an angle from a single nail, and as Lance's curiosity compelled him forward he saw that the writing on it said, "Lift Pass: 1 Bit".

He looked back over toward the platform again and couldn't see any sort of button or switch on the inside of the cage that would allow him to operate it himself.  There didn't seem to be any other option, and he supposed Posey had to have found those two spare bits lying around for some purpose, so he retrieved one from his bag and dropped it in the bowl shaped exchange slot beneath the window.  After the noise of the coin dropping had reverted to silence he was left standing there waiting to see what would happen, feeling progressively more foolish until he heard steps on the other side.

"Posey?  Is that you?" he asked, moving his head side to side trying to find even the smallest crack in the boards he could see through.  As far as he knew she was the only other pony there.

The hoof steps approached the window and he heard the mysterious pony on the other side scoop the coin out of the slot.  It wasn't Posey, there was no way he would not have been heard with so little distance between them, and she would never ignore him.

"Who are you?  Are you trapped here too?" Lance continued to prod as the unseen vendor continued to disregard his questions.

A ticket was put in the one bit coin's place before the hoof steps retreated from the window and out of earshot.  He was alone again.

"Well...thanks I guess," he said as he took the ticket.  Speaking aloud felt much less strange this time what with knowing there was actually something alive on the other side.  He gave the ticket a brief look to see it was just a generic ticket with no special terms or instructions on it.  Seemed there was nothing more to do now besides just step onto the lift to see what would happen.

As he set hoof on the lift he could feel it shift beneath him, responding to the added weight of an occupant.  He couldn't see anything that would hold the lift platform steady in transit so he moved to the center, resolving to hold as still as possible lest the lift start swinging unmanageably.  There was a loud clank above him as the lift began lowering into the vast and dark void, a series of quieter followup clanks sounding off as the pulley device did its work.  It was not long before even that bit of noise faded in the distance and he was left in unbearable silence wondering why he couldn't even see any sort of wall of dirt nearby, even though by all counts there should have been one.

The silence wasn't quite silent though.  He became aware of a very subdued sound coming from every direction in the darkness.  It was a sort of quiet hiss, like a soft exhalation that he kept expecting to end, but it never did.  Trying to get his mind off the sound he pointed his surgical light downward through the grated lift platform to get a glimpse of his destination but it was of little use.  Just like the inexplicable pit in the nightmare at the apartments the darkness around him seemed to swallow the light before it could hit anything.  For the duration of the trip downward he was left at the mercy of an imagination that had never been known for showing any, several times flinching at other distant noises he couldn't rightly distinguish as being real or imagined.  At least one of them sounded like a pair of wings...

Lance got another jolt as the lift suddenly tilted, the platform having been just slightly off center, leading to the corner catching on the side of the hole it was intended to descend through.  The problem was quickly taken care of though.  The platform had little difficulty slipping off and banging against the opposite side before re-stabilizing itself and finally setting down on the dusty floor.  He was clearly still alive despite the rough landing, so Lance shook off the tension and stepped off only to see that the door leading into the lower floor was an altogether too familiar white painted-

"No!" Lance shouted while averting his eyes.  Nothing happened.  He continued to remain in the present instead of being suddenly yanked into the past.  "I...I have no idea who or what I'm even talking to right now but...just go away alright?!  I don't need to remember Posey...I have her again, and I can't get either of us out of here if I just keep looking backward."

...

He cringed in response to a sudden loud cracking of wood and looked up again.  Door 303 was gone, door frame and all having been somehow ripped out in a fraction of a second.  There was a note nailed to the wall next to the jagged hole it had left behind:

Too much of a good thing *friend*?

That's okay.  I'll fix it for you.  Because that's what friends do.

They help each other.

Lance silently glared at the note before none too gently shoving it into his bag with the rest.  Perhaps the door really had been following him of its own accord back in the apartments, but he was now entirely certain that it had been in the deaf colt's control ever since.  The entire time his notes had been making it sound like he had nothing to do with it, he'd been practically beating him over the head with it until he was sick of it.  Some favor it was to stop the problem he himself had started.  Oh well, this suited him just fine, he really did need to keep going forward more than he needed to see things he already remembered.

Emboldened out of little more than sheer spite for being manipulated, he looked into the next room fully prepared to push on and finish this.  There was...dirt...a lot of dirt.  Just like the floor above, the windows here had also cracked under the pressure, only the effect was much more severe.  There was no spot on the floor that hadn't been covered with at least four feet of dirt, save for directly in front of the doorway where it was at least polite enough to have gathered into a ramp.  He wasn't going to let this deter him, and now even more thankful he'd chosen to use up his last health drink he scaled the small, somewhat soft hill.

His access to anything other than the door immediately to his left was cut off by ceiling high dirt, making his next move of ducking under the half blocked door frame rather obvious.  It was difficult to tell exactly what the next room was at a glance since it was little more than dirt everywhere, but the general dimensions of the room combined with how low in the building it was led him to guess that it was the ground floor waiting room.  The only object of any true interest was a mound of dirt where the receptionist's desk would be.  As Lance drew closer he saw the mound was just the excavated dirt from a hole that had been dug down to the very same desk.

He peered downward and saw yet another key resting there waiting for him.  After an attempt to reach for it proved laughably impossible he gave a sigh of resignation and made the short climb down to pick it up.  It was rusted over and covered with another black vein pattern, very reminiscent of the strange vault door he'd been looking before last finding Posey.  Obviously this was the key...at least he hoped it was.  His first instinct told him it was too rusted over to possibly function but the second instinct he was becoming increasingly attuned to told him it would work just fine.  He put the key away and climbed out of the hole with a bit of difficulty.

The only other way out of the waiting room he could see was through a small side room that he remembered had doors to the bathrooms and another to the floor's central hallway.  There was another door behind the receptionist's desk that would take him to their documentation room, but it was half buried in dirt which meant opening it would involve far too much digging.  After entering the side room, fate spared him another bout of hygiene related horror, as the doors to the bathrooms were both present and similarly blocked off with dirt.  The third door to the hallway was clear though, so he ducked under it and into the corridor.

Lance wasn't particularly claustrophobic, but being so far underground in increasingly narrow rooms filled with enough dirt to place the ceiling about a foot above his head was starting to nag at him.  Even if closed in spaces were not a particular phobia of his, he was still a pegasus used to having the whole sky if he so desired it.  It was of some relief then that the four doors he could see were all closed and blocked off, letting him just take the turn on his left and save significant time.

There were two doorways opposite one another, both of them open and passable.  From memory he knew that the left one was to the ground floor day room, where the more mobile patients could come down and visit with family more easily, and the right one was to the cafeteria.  While the cafeteria was completely dark, there was a soft orange light in the day room that caught his eye.  Pointing his light at it revealed it to be a lighter sitting on a broken section of cinder block which had a wire wrapped around it that both held the lighter in place and kept it lit.  Not wanting to let any more of the butane inside burn away he promptly limped over and twisted it free of the wire.  If nothing else it would be a source of light should his surgical light run out of power.

When he turned back to the door he saw something that he had missed while coming in.  To the right of the door was a sheet encrusted with old looking blood, held down by a set of tent stakes.  It was hiding something sticking out from the ground...something that looked unnervingly like a mare's face.  Lance looked at the newest macabre sight only a moment before breaking his eyes away and heading for the door.  His watch didn't warn him of any danger so dwelling on it would do him no good, and if it somehow turned dangerous later he would just deal with it.

After crossing the corridor he entered the cafeteria.  There was not a single one of the usual tables in sight, obviously having all been buried.  Despite his efforts to ignore them he could not help but notice another three of the blood encrusted sheets as well.  The actual door into the kitchen on the other side of the room was unusable, but he would still be able to get in since the open section of wall through which ponies placed and received orders looked like it would be easy enough to get through.  The useless door still held his interest though thanks to a glimmer of light on the elevated ground in front of it.

As he drew closer he saw that the glimmer had come from the last untarnished spot on a thermos lid sticking out of the dirt.  It took a bit of effort but after a minute or two he was able to twist free the entire thermos, quite worn but intact and still looking like it could hold liquid, though at the moment it felt empty.  A quick uncapping and look inside not only confirmed that it was empty, but also that no pony in their right minds would ever drink anything that had been held inside of it.  The term "liquid tetanus" came to mind.  He brushed off as much dirt as he could before stashing it, noting with some irritation that his bag was becoming stuffed with random objects that for all he knew might be useless.

Next up was the kitchen.  On approach he could feel the air around him take a sharp turn for the colder, and looking down he noticed a notable layer of frost on the ground.

"Oh, good, they have enough power to leave the fridge on for Celestia knows how long but I have to nearly get melted for a fuse to turn on one light," Lance grumbled under his breath as he made his way in, sliding down a small hill of the intruding earth to the actual floor.  The divider had apparently kept the dirt clear of the kitchen for the most part.

If the device responsible for the sudden shift from notably cold to positively arctic was a mere open refrigerator then Lance was secretly a fire breathing six armed dragon.  He was shivering in seconds thanks to still being a bit damp from his little dip one floor up, frost already forming on the tip of his nose as he nudged open the swinging door to the kitchen proper.  Unfortunately it was even colder inside, a fact reflected by the layer of white ice that had gathered on the various counter tops, cupboards, and drawers.  But these were trivial compared to the column of crystal clear ice located at the back of the room where he could only assume it was coldest.

There was something trapped inside the column.  Though his view of the object was distorted by the light refractions inside of the ice, he was sure it was a round, off white object just like the one stuck in the shower room pipe.  His comparison was made all the more relevant when he spotted the writing on the wall next to it in the same fresh red paint.

YOU NEED ME

"Yeah I get it." Lance remarked with a shiver, the cold increasingly getting to him.  Curiously, the last two letters were thinner than the rest of the writing, the last stroke of the E looking positively anemic, as though the writer had run out of paint.

So then, all he needed to do was break the ice.  It looked formidable but it was still just ice, right?  He shook some of the gathering frost off of his hooves before approaching, the freezing temperature quickly numbing his face and forelimbs.  It was obviously a bad idea to stay there so he would have to content himself with one good test swing before getting the hay out.  Lance drew his pipe, raised it, then smashed it against the side of the column as hard as he could.

Nothing.  Not one crack.

Having had more than enough of the local temperature, he began making his way out, stopping only to observe one more curiosity after exiting the swinging doors.  It was a health drink lodged in the dirt just to the side of the opening through which he had entered.  To his chagrin it had been frozen solid...but he supposed it was still better than nothing.  He took it with him as he climbed out and back into the cafeteria, moving away from the kitchen until the temperature normalized again.  It wasn't exactly warm, but it was not so cold that he couldn't breathe on his hooves and rub them together until the feeling came back.  Once paranoia regarding frostbite was no longer a concern, he wrapped the frozen health drink in a spare bit of note paper to hopefully absorb most of the water it would perspire while thawing, then placed it in his pack, making sure it wasn't next to anything he'd mind getting a little wet.

That was it then.  Barring any surprises on his way out, he had explored everything not sealed off by the rampant dirt.  As fate would have it there was in fact one little surprise on his way out.  After exiting the cafeteria and turning he saw an emptied can of red paint and a brush lying discarded in the junction of the T shaped hallway.

That...that had already been there right?  Yes that must have been it...he must have just missed it the first time through just like the health drink in the kitchen...and the blood sheet covered face in the day room.  The explanation was just plausible enough to suppress the tingle along his spine and let him continue on his way.

Fortunately the ticket he had paid for hadn't been for a one way trip, so when he stepped back onto the lift and retook his position in the center the chains were pulled taut moments before he began rising.  Lance took another mental inventory while trying his best to ignore the disconcerting noises around him.  He needed to get power to that light, and water to that pipe, both of which seemed the sort of things one would be able to fix from the basement.  The column of ice was a different beast though.  It had been cold enough in that kitchen to make him worry for his well being simply by standing there, especially when he had been right next to the column.  The only source of heat he was carrying was the lighter he had just found, but somehow standing there in such intense, freezing cold waiting for the its tiny flame to melt through the solid ice did not strike him as a good idea.  He would just have to solve the first two problems and hope a solution for the third would present itself in good time.

Lance was brought out of his thoughts by the clank of the machine overhead growing louder as he was pulled closer.  A brief moment to brace himself against another slightly uneven arrival, this one much less severe than the last, and he was on the middle floor again.  As much as he wanted to get back down to the basement and start finally sorting things out, his memory kept him from going up the stairs to the elevator straight away.  The key he had found dug up from the dirt below and the key he had found attached to the drain stopper from the tub of rotten broth both opened doors he would be passing on his way up.  It would be wise to take a look while he had the opportunity.

The recent encounter still fresh in his mind, Lance cracked the door open and took a cautious peek into the hallway running alongside the day room that had almost claimed him.  There were no roller gurneys waiting for him...whether that was a good sign or a bad one was anyone's guess.  He took advantage of their absence for the time being and retraced his earlier steps, knowing the nurse further inside would be of no threat from her spot at the apparently precious door as he made his way past "that" room with understandable haste.  Moments later he was face to face with the  formidable vault door again, hoof rummaging about his bags until he pulled out his newly acquired key, still covered with a bit of dirt which he brushed off before inserting it into the lock.  The following turn prompted the horizontal rods holding the door in place to retract into the wall nigh instantaneously with an ear splitting clang only made worse by the deafening silence that had preceded it.  He took a moment to let the surprise and ringing in his ears wear off before pushing the door open with some effort, the heavy barrier letting off a metallic creak as it swung inward.

The inside of the vault was much like the outside; a little slice of nightmare made real.  Across from him was a divider, the top half formed of reinforced glass while the bottom half was made of a combination of wood and steel bracings.  Seeing what exactly was on the other side of the glass was...difficult.  There was a heat shimmer or something similar on the other side of the glass distorting his view to the point that all he could make out was a general coloring of red and brown  and some mottled white shapes on the other side...vaguely pony like mottled white shapes.  Two of them were against the far wall, almost like they were hanging from something.  The third was on the ground...and it was moving in soft writhing motions.  Lance became aware of the sound of quiet, raspy groans barely managing to penetrate through the glass and suddenly decided he was more concerned with his own half of the room.

It was comparatively simple.  Just a rectangular section of room, walls, floors, and ceiling alike formed of the same dirty, rust covered metal.  There were only two major points of interest, one of which was puzzling, and one of which was...rather distressing to look at really.  The first was a large lock box welded to the floor on the right end of the room.  It was held shut by a six digit number lock for which Lance obviously did not know the combination, nor was he inclined to start at "0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0" and then go through each of the million possibilities until he stumbled upon the right one.  Obviously it was written somewhere and he had only to find it.  The distressing bit was on the other end of the room, taking the form of an old metal collar resting on the ground at the end of a chain leading to a plate that had been bolted into the wall.  On the floor around the connecting chain were spots of varying size that looked to be of a much deeper red than the more orange tinted rust surrounding it...

Clearly the lock box had been the only important detail and it was not worth bothering to ponder how that blood got there.  Lance promptly made his way out of that particularly strange room then headed straight for the stairwell and upward.

The "OR2" on the tub key was obviously pointing him toward Operating Room 2 on the top floor.  Once at the crest of the physics bending section of stairs, he made the brief trip to the corner of the corridor encircling the operating theater and its surrounding rooms then turned off his light and waited.  Getting to his destination wasn't going to be as simple as just limping over to it since this nurse insisted on patrolling her floor, but the plan wasn't complicated.  He heard her approaching to his right along the predicted clockwise route around the theater, and held himself especially still, going so far as to even hold his breath as the panting noise and hoof steps came to a stop right in front of him.

She hesitated in that spot for a moment that went on far too long for comfort.  Memories of the monstrous alicorn sniffing him out in the darkness of the transformed apartments returned, and Lance began to wonder if the deformed nurse standing in front of him in the pitch black dark wasn't capable of a similar trick.  He was about to start retreating when she proved his assumptions wrong and started walking away from him just as he had expected.  As quietly as possible, the amber surgeon let out the breath had been holding and followed her around one right turn, then stopped when he heard her turn again, waiting until he was sure she would be too far away to notice his light before turning it back on at last.

He'd done that just right; Operating Room 2 was almost in hoof's reach of where he was standing.  Wasting no time he quickly retrieved the still rather foul smelling key, unlocked the door, then slipped inside and closed it behind him well before the barbed nurse could circle round again.  For the first time he was glad when a key burned to ash in his hoof, since it took the abhorrent stench with it.  Hopefully he would never have to smell that again.

Thinking about that particular event was still a little much and Lance had to suppress a gag before looking around.  It was just a very dusty, very empty, plain white room, with the only remotely interesting features being a section of missing wall criss crossed with rebar across from him, and a peephole in the wall to his left.  The room beyond the larger hole in the wall looked like a perfectly normal, if somewhat small, living room.  It even had a ceiling light on, the illumination partially flooding into the bare operating room to the point that if he had felt the inclination, Lance would have been able to turn off his surgical light and still be able to see for the first time in what felt like ages.  If the room beyond the rebar had any occupants he very much envied them for apparently being spared the miseries of the rest of the building.

His thought of potential occupants proved startlingly accurate when he was made to jump at the sudden sound of a door bursting open beyond the far right corner of the room as two sets of hooves clumsily made their entrance before slamming that same door shut.  Lance then caught a brief glimpse of two ponies passing by the rebar covered hole in the wall, their drunkenly flushed faces practically glued together in a deep kiss as they attempted to navigate through the building without parting lips.  One was an amber coated pegasus stallion he certainly hoped he was familiar with, and the other was a blonde maned, white coated pegasus mare with a pink nurse uniform that had already been half pulled off.

That was odd...he didn't remember seeing another Door 303 anywhere, yet there it was, plain as day, a memory of a night he liked to pretend never happened.  A few dangerous questions had been asked in his office, a few too many drinks had been consumed at a bar, a few answers had been given out of either trust or manipulation, and the entire thing had ended with an ill considered trip to a certain nurse's Cloudsdale apartment.  Perhaps it had been the wine, maybe he had been too lonely to think straight, it might have even been that in his drunken stupor he'd intended to use his own body as a bribe in exchange for silence, but no matter what the reason, it had been wrong.  Fortunately his shame had caught up with him in time to cut the whole thing short before he had betrayed...

...

Who would you have been betraying, exactly?

Another door was recklessly pushed open behind the wall to his right.  He knew this time it wouldn't be closed.  They had been alone in her apartment at that time after all so why should they have bothered?  Then he heard the two of them fall onto the bed, the mattress springs offering a brief creak of protest for the less than gentle treatment.

"Oh Lance..." she said in a breathy moan that was muffled through the wall.

He sighed heavily.  Now was the part where he stopped, apologized, and left, leaving a sobbing mare behind him who would then proceed to be just as alone and miserable as he wa-

The memory in his head and the memory being played out in the surrounding rooms jarringly broke synch as he heard a sharp moan of bliss that he distinctly remembered never happening.  After a moment of confusion he hobbled over to the peephole and peered inside, the iris of his eye contracting at both the flood of light after spending so long in the darkness and the shock of what he saw transpiring on the other side.

"No...no!  That didn't happen...that didn't happen!  Stop!" he shouted, completely unsure of whom he could possibly be talking to and perhaps unable to care.  "I didn't do that!"

Oh.  Your devotion to a corpse is just...touching.

"Lance?  Is that you shouting in there?  Are you alright?"

He froze.  That was Posey's voice.  She was out in the hallway.  How?  Why now of all times?!

Lance backed away from the peephole and saw something even worse as his light incidentally lit up the wall just above it.  There in the most exquisite black inked calligraphy he had even seen randomly scrawled onto a wall were the words "For Posey", complete with a black arrow pointing downward.

He heard the doorknob start to turn.  "I'm coming in!"

Part 27

Silent Ponyville: Reunion

Quiet surroundings.

Part 27

"...What?" she responded incredulously, looking around at the surrounding buildings.  "That can't be...Cloudsdale uses cloud construction.  None of these buildings are made from clouds at all," she continued, looking at the wood, brick, and mortar constructed buildings lined up along both sides of the street.

"But look, it's the appliance store we bought our dryer from, and that's the medical supply store that was right across the street from it," Lance replied, pointing a hoof at both buildings in turn as he mentioned them.

Posey followed his hoof, offering each building a discerning squint before bringing her gaze back down to Lance, briefly looking away with a thoughtfully furrowed brow.  "Yeah...I do remember it...but can we really say this entire place is Cloudsdale just from two buildings?"

"Fair point," Lance admitted while looking down the street both ways, trying to recall as much of the layout as he could remember.  He had spent the majority of his time at the hospital or at home, having never been the 'out and about' sort of pony save for the nights he and Posey had been able to find some spare time to go out on the town together.  Something came back to him though, causing him to fix his eyes on the fog shrouded street to his left.  "We should go that way and see if that furniture outlet isn't six stores down on the right."

"Good idea," she said with a nod as she fell into step beside him.  They proceeded along the street, counting the barricaded doors off until they hit the aforementioned sixth.  Their eyes moved upward to see the torn up remnants of a sign that was now displaying roughly one third of a sofa.  "That's a bit more convincing...mind if I try one?"

"Go for it," Lance replied with a nod.

Posey took only a moment to think before starting off at a slow trot.  "Toy store, three buildings past the intersection, on the left.  The one where we bought Fluttershy's doll."

Her husband spent a brief, unnoticed moment looking a bit crestfallen before dutifully following after her.  They soon reached the end of that particular array of barricaded doors, getting a bit of a respite before finding the start of another at the other side of the intersection.  Posey veered to the left to take a diagonal route across the street, and soon the building she had predicted would be there loomed into view as the fog gave way.  There was no sign there to make it immediately apparent that she had been correct, but as they grew closer the trio of doll sitting there in the barred over display window made it obvious.

All three faced away toward the inside of the store, each curiously missing their manes and tails as though the doll maker had stopped partway through and decided to just throw a little dress on each of them.  One of the dolls was partially scorched black, another was moth eaten and mildewy, and the third had  red spattered bandages going across its head.  Neither of them really felt the need to comment on it, as though mentioning it would somehow enable the grim looking dolls to 'win' in some way.

"Alright...I still don't think this is Cloudsdale but so far it's a good replica," she relented as she turned away from the window toward Lance.  "There's still the whole 'brick and mortar cloud buildings' thing, and since when was Cloudsdale right over Ponyville?  We only traveled up...right?" she asked, her concluding statement quickly becoming less assured until it turned into another question.

"I'm not even sure about that anymore," he replied with a shake of his head even though he too remembered nothing but a elevator going up.  "But think about it, we can't touch the fog here even though we're pegasi."  He reached down and passed his hoof ineffectually through the fog covering the ground.  "And fog is basically just low clouds, so the clouds here probably can't support us, let alone make entire buildings.  This might be the only way Cloudsdale can even exist here."

"Let's just go with that for now I guess," she said with a nod before looking thoughtfully down both sides of the street.  "On the bright side, if this place has the same layout as Cloudsdale, we know how to get home."  She had already started off in the general direction of their house at the same brisk trot as before, maternal instincts tugging at her even though she knew the photograph from the sewing book may well have been just another lie.

"Sorry we can't just fly there," Lance said with a melancholy glance at his still very wingless back.

"It's not your fault...even if we could, I doubt the fog would let us," Posey replied with a smile as she looked back at him over her shoulder.

"Shouldn't we have seen or...heard...something by now?" she asked quietly for little other reason than to at least put a tiny dent in the oppressive silence as they continued walking along the street that had formerly consisted of clouds.  The intended path was impossible to miss, as the surrounding doors and alleys had all been cut off from access by various combinations of boards, bars, cracked concrete, and metal slabs.

"Is it a bad thing that we haven't?" Lance replied rather sensibly, though replying or even speaking in the first place at all back on the ground would not have struck him as sensible in the least.

"I suppose not but...it feels like it's going to happen you know?  I kind of wish we could get it out of the way already," she explained while maintaining her vigilant watch of the fog around them.

"Yeah...crazy as it is I know the feeling," he reluctantly agreed as he continued maintaining his pace behind her.  They had started out at a bit of a quicker clip, but the lengthy walk had taken its toll on both their nerves and his body and now they were at a normal walking speed.

...

...

...

"What do you think is holding this place up?" she asked again as another topic of conversation she could use to stave off the silence crossed her mind.

"Hrm?"

"This Cloudsdale isn't made of clouds, and the clouds themselves don't even work, right?  And it sure feels like this place is much higher judging from how cold it is,  so what's keeping it up here?" she clarified, sparing him another backward glance.

"Good question."  Lance's brow furrowed, his gaze wandering down and to the side as he gave the topic some thought, trusting Posey to continue keeping an eye out for the both of them.

...

"What about that huge pillar we saw?" he said after a few moments, bringing his eyes back up.

"What pillar?"

"It was before we went into the hospital out in the field, remember?"

She spent an idle moment trying to recall what he was talking about.  "Oh, yeah...just the one pillar holding this whole place up though?" she asked a bit a skeptically.

"With all the fog it'd be a bit silly to not think there could be a lot more of them out of sight," he pointed out.

"That's true...well, truth is I don't really care what's holding us up as long as this place doesn't collapse from under..." she stopped, her ear twitching briefly.  "Wait."

Lance stopped just shy of running into her dress clad rump.  "What is i-"

"Shh," she cut him off, looking ahead of them and to the left very intently.

...

Off in the distance they both heard a quiet mix of gagging and whimpers, then a brief moment of silence before a prompt 'thunk' and a nauseating slurping noise.  Whatever it was, it was off to the side of the path they needed to continue along to reach their home...and possibly Fluttershy.  Posey looked back at him as the distant slurping was accompanied by a pathetic whine, and he nodded in silent agreement that regardless of what was ahead they needed to stay the course.

The veered off to the right a bit to gain some distance and forced themselves ahead.  It wasn't three more steps before Lance's watch started to softly buzz, confirming the presence of another monster.  He gulped softly, hoping that the fog would be sufficiently thick to keep married couple and monster unseen by one another as they passed, but it was not to be.  Even with the small buffer zone they'd put between them, a somewhat familiar shape loomed in the fog to their left as they kept their eyes glued to the source of the noise.

It was a scavenger...only...it wasn't.  It still had the basic shape of one, feral, divided in two, only half a mouth to speak of...but it was unlike any of them they had encountered before.  The mare half now looked emaciated and weak, skin even paler than before, the jagged teeth that had once filled its mouth absent leaving nothing but discolored, diseased looking bare gums in their wake.  Its mouth was held forced open by dark red growths from the stallion side tipped with curved barbs that hooked into the sickly looking gums.  The fearsome, vaguely feminine growling from before was now reduced to the pathetic whimpers and whines they had been hearing.

Whatever had happened to this creature, the dark red stallion side had fared much better.  It was now covered in a familiar pattern of black veins, and looked to be much more than the glaring weak point it had previously been.  Not only was it not withered like the other half, it looked a tad more well muscled than before, and as the ear of the mare half gave a twitch, the double sided head paused and then rose to look at the two ponies on the side of the street.  The stallion half still didn't have a proper mouth, but it now had a hole at the end of its half snout from which an angry red proboscis like tongue emerged and currently looked to be attached to something lying concealed below the layer of fog.

The scavenger remained like that, staring suspiciously at the two of them as the mare half gave another pained whine.  At last the stallion half made a move, the scavenger's head jerking to the side as it dislodged the proboscis with a painful sounding tearing of flesh, another, much sharper, blood covered barb revealing itself as the tongue's tip was lifted above the fog.  They didn't get a very good look at it before it was promptly jammed down the mare half's throat, eliciting more of the gagging and whimpering sounds heard earlier as it struggled fruitlessly while being force fed the blood that had been sucked from what must have been a fog shrouded corpse.

As the two of them looked on wide eyed in shock, the barbed tongue was finally withdrawn, leaving the mare half to gasp for breath while it darted beneath the fog, lodging back into the scavenger's current carrion of choice with a meaty crunch.  The scavenger hastily moved around the hidden cadaver, repositioning itself so that the stallion half concealed and shielded the mare half before it pulled back and started dragging away it's meal.  Neither Lance or Pony moved a muscle.  If the newly altered scavenger wanted to leave, they weren't about stop it.  As it retreated further, it became a silhouette in the fog, and then disappeared from sight entirely, leaving the two ponies to wait another moment for Lance's watch to quiet down before letting out the breath they had been subconsciously holding.

"That was different from the last one, right?  It's not just me?" Posey asked, still wary of her own senses.

"No, you're right, they didn't look like that before," Lance confirmed for her.  "It wouldn't have retreated like that either...they used to either attack or stand their ground.  That one looked like it wanted to run away and hide," he pondered as he looked at the ever present wall of fog into which it had retreated.

"That was a poor choice of direction then, everything's blocked off that way, you saw it," she added before turning to continue their trip.  "Come on, I want to get home so we can get off the str-EEP!" she cried out in shock as her hoof failed to find anything beneath it, sending her falling forward into the fog and downward.

"POSEY!!!" he shouted in alarm as he dashed forward in hopes that she had grabbed onto something and could hold on long enough for him to pull her u-

"What?" she asked as she casually popped up from the clouds, held aloft by the flapping wings Lance had apparently failed to consider in his moment of panic.

"Uh...nothing," he said, sheepishly backing up a couple steps whilst once again feeling like a complete moron for a few moments.

"Okay," she replied with a nod before turning her attention to the sudden lack of ground she'd just encountered.  "Stay here, I'm going to see how big this gap is."

"Be careful," Lance urged, the earlier shock still sifting out of his system.

Posey proceeded to start repeatedly dipping under the clouds in different places, continually wearing a disappointed but determined look as she time and again found nothing but thin air beneath.  Her search grew more distant, eventually carrying her beyond the visual range the fog permitted and leaving Lance to gaze into the mist while his worry gathered into a tense knot in his gut.  Finally he was relieved to hear a definite sign of life.

"Lance?!" she called out, apparently having become disoriented in the mass of indecipherable white mist around her.

"Over here!" he shouted in reply.  It only took her a few moments to fly back into sight and land next to him before refolding her wings.

"Bad news, it's not a 'gap', it's more of an 'endless chasm'.  There's nothing out there, the 'ground' just stops," she explained while catching her breath a bit.

"So we can't go any further?"

"Not unless we could both fly, and I'm not sure that'd be wise even if we could.  I would've stayed completely lost out there until my wings cramped up if I hadn't had your voice to follow."

He sighed, the news suddenly making him feel even more tired than before.  "...okay, but that picture was definitely leading us here right?  So there has to be something," he thought aloud before starting to look about at the area around them.  Nothing seemed to catch the attention of either of them at first, but a few steps forward parted the mists just enough to make a mark on a nearby wall visible.  It was directly next to the spot where the scavenger had been sucking its quarry dry.

"What's...oh," Posey started, losing a bit of enthusiasm after she trotted closer and recognized the mark as just another streak of blood on a wall.  "Nevermind."

"What is it?" Lance asked as he caught up and stood next to her.

"I thought that might have been something but...blood on the wall isn't exactly anything special here," she pointed out, that familiar feeling of something completely insane making perfect sense briefly passing over her.

"Not really," he replied with a nod.  Then he paused, squinting his eyes at the sanguine marking on the wall.  It wasn't just a random spatter like they were familiar with.  The shape was round...and of a rather familiar size.  Out of curiosity he stepped closer, lifting a foreleg and placing his hoof against the wall just adjacent of it.  The two profiles matched with a rather unsettling perfection.  "This is a hoof...maybe it was from the pony that split thing was...eating?" he pondered, feeling that simply saying 'eating' might be a nice alternative to actually describing what they had seen.

"As in a struggle?"

"Perhaps."

"If it was a struggle, it was a very neat struggle...I don't see another speck of it anywhere, it's just this one hoof mark," Posey said as she looked around at the surrounding area.  "I...I suppose there could be some on the ground...but still, what pony fighting for their life just leaves one neat hoof mark?"

"Yeah, you're right," Lance agreed.  "So if it wasn't accidental, maybe it's...pointing at something?" he continued, blurting out the first thing that crossed his mind, for lack of anything better to go on.

They both looked up in near unison.  There was a sizable crack in the cement wall of the building, out of which stuck a haphazardly folded piece of paper.  Lance couldn't help but groan at the sight.  He was getting so sick of notes.  Posey on the other hoof had a bit more of a useful reaction, taking to the air with a quick couple of wing flaps and tugging the note free before landing and unfolding it for the two of them to read.

"Heaven Ascends, Into Kingdom United."

"..."

"..."

"...what the hay is that supposed to mean?" Posey asked quite understandably.

"I have no clue," Lance answered as he closed his eyes and rubbed his increasingly sore forehead.  "It's probably some ridiculously impossible riddle, and we'll have to be driven to the point of insanity before we make enough crazy assumptions to solve it."

"Sounds like you've...done it before," she observed, looking at the note with a bit more worry in her eyes.

"I did.  Let's just hope that's the only one we have to find."  He found himself staring off into the fog toward where they now knew the ground came to an end.  Of all the things that had happened to him down there, he was now being irritated by the shadow of the blasted notes.  Compared to everything else, that bit of improbable mental gymnastics had practically been him getting a break to catch his breath, yet here he was complaining about it after the fact.

Maybe it was just a way to avoid having to think of the other things that had happened down there.

"There's still a way we can walk back to our house, right?" Lance finally said after taking a last moment to try and remember any alternate overcloud routes and coming up blank.

"Mhmm, I remember one other way," Posey said before stashing the note away and heading back the way they had come, looking extra wary since the scavenger had already retreated in the same direction.  "It's a good bit longer though, so if you need to rest just tell me."

"I'll be fine," Lance said despite the fact that the walk thus far already had him feeling a bit sore.

"Okay, cheer up a bit though hrm?  We're going right past the amusement park," she said in jest as she once again looked back at him over her shoulder.

"I can't believe they got rid of the park," she quietly lamented with a soft pout on her face as they made their way down the lane after the lengthy trip.

"Yeah...Cloudside Park opened on the other end of town...and everyone went there instead...so Nimbusland eventually had to close down," Lance explained, panting from the long walk.  Despite his fatigue he would still have to admit the trip there had been easier than their trek from the apartments to the hospital had been back on the ground.  It hadn't been entirely free of monsters; they had run into a few more of the altered scavengers and even two nurses that Lance hadn't counted on seeing out and about.  Fortunately the scavengers still seemed more interested in getting away from them, and the combination of preemptive warning from his watch and the ample room to move about had let them avoid the much slower nurses.

"Dad used to take me there all the time when I was a filly," she replied, still keeping her eyes ahead in case anything new decided to emerge from the fog.  It didn't help that said fog was also making it impossible to tell where exactly they were along their home lane.  She'd resorted to simply looking at houses as they passed to see if any looked familiar.  "At least we got to take Fluttershy there a couple times before it closed," she continued with a bittersweet sigh before something else occurred to her.  "Did the two of you ever go to Cloudside after...?" she asked, stopping and turning so she wouldn't have to give him yet another sidelong look over her shoulder.

"Um...no," he replied, diverting his eyes briefly as he let that overly simple but still technically truthful answer stand.

...

"That's too bad...maybe we could all go together after we get out of here," she suggested as she resumed the trip, still abiding by her promise to let him open up about whatever had happened to their daughter in his own good time.

"Maybe...wait, I recognize this house," he said as his glance off to the left for a distraction proved fruitful.

Posey looked back and followed his gaze upward, raising an eyebrow as she failed to see anything familiar about it.  "You do?"

"Yeah, I fly over it every time I go to work."  He had caught his breath from the brief pause and moved past Posey, now the more well oriented of the two of them.

"I...I can't remember ever seeing this house," Posey said while still scrutinizing the profile of the house against the fog.  She didn't get a reply from Lance, but she couldn't help but notice the sudden absence of his hoof falls on the fog shrouded grating.  She turned to look at him again, hoping nothing had silently carried him off during her brief distraction.

"Um...they only built it about ten years ago," he explained after the proper words finally came to him.

"Oh...so it was...alright.  How much farther do we have to go?" she asked, making another quick topic shift as she caught up and assumed her position ahead of him.

"Not far now, that's the seventh house on the right as you're coming out our front door."

The last short leg of the trip was made in silence.  Their latest reminder that Posey was walking around post mortem certainly hadn't helped morale, but the sudden rise in tension came more from the anticipation of what had become of the house they had worked so hard to make into a home together, or whether it would be there at all.  He could even hear Posey counting off the houses as they passed, like it was yet another monster about to emerge from the fog before them, and he couldn't really blame her.  Lance couldn't even imagine what it would be like to enter someplace so personal that had been without him for nearly two decades.

...

Or maybe he'd been there already.

"One," she muttered before their house finally came into view.

It was just as abandoned looking, boarded up, and barricaded as the rest of the houses with one addition the others lacked.  Surrounding the house was a high chain linked perimeter fence topped with more gnarled than average barbed wire, the metallic barrier sporting the expected layer of rust, no doubt having been helped along by the water vapor constantly hanging heavy in the air.  The only way a non flying pony would ever get past such an obstacle unscarred was a padlocked gate facing the street.

Posey stopped.  As Lance watched with curiosity and a bit of worry, she did nothing but look onwards at the home from which she had been missing for such a long time.  He heard her breath catch before she sullenly took a seat right there where the sidewalk was supposed to be located.  After another moment her body shivered with a soft sob.  Her husband could think of little more to do than just move next to her and-

"No no no I'm fine," she urged him as she placed a hoof on his chest before he could take a seat next to her.  "We need to keep going, she might still be in there," she continued even as she wiped her eyes.

"I'm...sorry, for what it's worth," he replied.

"What?  Why?  It's not your fault I've been gone so long...or that it looks as bad as everything else does here."

He didn't say anything in answer, only looked at her, then up at the house morosely before turning his attention on the gate.  Unlike the rest of the fence, the padlock that kept him out was free of rust, tarnishes, or anything else that might suggest it was anything other than completely structurally sound.  It would take something far heavier wielded by somepony far stronger than he to break it off.  He raised his hoof to take hold of it and gave it a look, finding another of the number combination locks that that place seemed so fond of using.  It was a three number combination, each one between zero and nine.

"One thousand possible answers," he muttered.

"Doesn't seem productive to count how many straws of hay there are before trying to find the needle you know," she commented as he once again engaged in a bit of needlessly discouraging math.

"Right um...let's see that note again I guess.  At least I won't have to figure it out alone this time," he said, seemingly trying to add a positive note to make up for the demoralizing probability he'd just gone and said out loud.

"No you won't."  She managed a smile for him before pulling the note from her pack for the two of them to look over.

...

"I still have no idea what this means," she said, inadvertently speaking for the both of them.

"Heaven ascends into kingdom united...how are we even supposed to get a number from that?" he asked quite unproductively.

"Um...ascends...maybe the highest possible number?  But what would the rest of it be there for then if that was the only word that mattered?   And why the hay did they bother using a comma and period if they were just going to capitalize every word?"

"At least this one doesn't detail a murd-...wait."  He took another look at the note.

"Doesn't detail a what?" she asked with a slight amount of concern.

"...There's no way it's that simple," he said, seemingly oblivious to her question as he took hold of the lock again and started dialing in a combination.  Posey opened her mouth to press the whole 'murd-' issue further but thought better than to interrupt him since he seemed to be on to something.

After dialing in the combination, a last tug undid the padlock, allowing Lance to then push the gate open.

"What was it?" she asked before flinching at both note and padlock burning to ash in their hooves while once again leaving not a single burn mark on them.

"Five, seven, five."  He stepped into their front yard, taking another cautionary look around.

She furrowed her brow in thought, going over the single sentence that had been on the note, but still failing to link it with that particular sequence of numbers.  "How did you get that?"

"The words were nonsense, I realized it when you mentioned the capitalized letters," he explained as he pulled the gate open further, inviting her in.  "And those letters were H, A, I, K, U."

"So five, seven, five, makes sense."  She gave a nod of understanding as she accepted his invitation before closing and re-latching the gate behind her.  As usual, anything that really wanted through the gate would have no trouble but closing it behind them still gave them some false scrap of security.  "Speaking of which, remember that weird tree with the key to the hospital in it back on the ground?  Where we only had the word 'why' for a hint?"

Lance nodded.

"Don't you think it would've been simpler to just say the word 'why' sounds like the letter Y instead of that stuff about autopsies?"

"Oh...yeah, I kind of over-thought that one," he admitted.  Since the front door was barricaded, no discussion was necessary before they both started heading around to the back.

"Ever so slight...ly...oh come on," she practically growled at the sight that greeted them upon rounding the corner.  There was little other than flower beds braced with rotted wood planks and containing what resembled barren, lifeless sand more than fertile soil.  Despite this, the flowers she had spent hours tending were still there, only now they were dried, faded, withered husks.  She stepped closer, curiously touching one with her hoof only to have it snap and fall, silently breaking into a small scattering of plant dust and eliciting a mournful whine from the cream colored mare.

Lance was about to ask what she had been expecting exactly but immediately thought better of it.

"It's not like I was expecting them to be just fine or anything, but they should've been rotted away entirely by now, you know?" she started in a spontaneous fit of mind reading.  "I didn't have to see this.  Everything else is bad enough already."

"No offense, but I'll take the dead flowers over the everything else if I had a choice," he replied honestly if not tactfully.

"Yeah," she reluctantly agreed with a sigh.  "Just such a shame to see them like this after you insisted on buying the cloud enchanted soil for me."

"...what?"

"Hrm?  Don't you remember?  I was too worried for Fluttershy to spend the money on it after we moved up here, but you insisted because you knew how much I loved gardening."

"..."

"Lance?"

"Yeah, I...remember that."

"Good," she said with a soft smile.

Their point of entry into the house was fairly clear; the back door leading into the dining room was unbarricaded, though what lay beyond was obscured thanks to the boards covering the large windows that had given them many a lovely view with their dinner.  Posey, still taking point, opened the door, and her snout immediately scrunched a bit as a waft of stale air, smelling of old paper with a slight touch of mildew, struck her.  Had her house smelled like that in any other circumstance she would have been mortified, but after the suffocating mess that the transformed hospital had been it was almost pleasant in comparison.  She took a step in, the source of the odor immediately obvious as she laid eyes on a room stuffed with boxes of old newspapers stacked to the ceiling, to the point there the only visible floor was a small path from the back door to another door across from her that she knew would lead into the living room.

"Did we-" she was interrupted by a cough, "-did we have a door there?  I could've sworn you could just walk into the living room from the dining room."

"I didn't add one later...that's new for both of us," he replied, likewise noticing the smell and just how relatively bad it wasn't.

Unsure of what to think, but sure that standing there thinking wouldn't get them any closer to finding her daughter, Posey trotted over to the door.  Following a pause to check that Lance was still right behind her, she brought her hoof up to the knob and pulled it open...immediately regretting it.

She was there.  She was lying right there in their living room.  Surrounding her on the floor was an assortment of bloody yet neatly cut restraints that had once been around her neck.  Now all that remained on her was a line of puncture wounds where the bolts had previously secured the bracings to her neck, save for one remaining segment that a dirty, beige colored, grey maned pony in a painful looking set of straps and visors was currently gripping in her bloody, bolt cutter like mouth.

The grinning stalker looked over at Posey, then gave a distorted, screechy squeak of terror before letting go of the last bit of the sovereign's restraints and fleeing into the nearby hallway.  Once the shot of icy terror had passed through her spine, Posey was about to strongly suggest that she and Lance get back out into the yard but that plan changed quickly once they realized the huge stacks of heavy boxes had lost balance and were teetering on the edge of falling over towards them.  If they tried for the back door they would just get themselves trapped beneath the hoarded papers, leaving Posey with no other choice but to grab Lance's hoof and pull, sending them falling into the living room just as the avalanche of junk slammed the door shut.

"We have to get the door open, right now," Posey said in rising panic as she jumped back up and started trying to force the door open to no avail.  Lance just as hurriedly scrambled to his hooves and gave her what assistance he could, but even with both of them pushing, the door budged open perhaps half an inch at best.  There was simply too much collapsed weight blocking it now, and it was the only escape route they had that didn't lead right past the sadistic beast.

An irritated, unnatural snarl focused them back upon the reason they were so frantically trying to escape.  The sovereign was looking toward the hallway down which the stalker had fled, clearly rather angry at having been abandoned before the job was properly done.  She did not dwell on it for long though, soon rising to her hooves with an uncharacteristic malaise instead of taking wing and lunging for them.  Her black tendril emerged from her unusually gravity laden mane, wrapping around the last segment of restraints still bolted to her neck and pulling.  Her body shivered, and an odd combination of a growl and a distorted whine emerged from her metallic muzzle as she seemed to make the first expression of pain Lance had ever seen from her.  After a steady few moments of effort the bolt finally wrenched free of her neck, a fresh gout of blood streaming down from the newly opened wound and dripping onto the floor to join the rest of the crimson fluid pooled there.

With that bit of unpleasantness out of the way she started uneasily advancing toward them, having to stop several times to avoid losing her balance.  Were this any other monster they might have taken her apparent weakness as an invitation to try and get past her, but there was no doubt in either of their minds that even at death's door this mare was capable of tearing them limb from limb.  It was all they could do to stay quiet and just hope to Celestia that she lost interest...somehow...like she'd never done before prior to doing something horrendous.  She finally stopped, just in front of them as they stood hopelessly backed against the door they couldn't open as Lance's watch screeched at them.  Her head was hanging low, and her breathing was labored, but it was not from eager anticipation so much as having to catch her breath.  Each second passed with all the ease of a knife being pushed into their gut, their eyes briefly glancing toward one another as they just waited for the sovereign to do anything.

Her head rose about an inch and they both flinched.  It rose another foot in Posey's direction and Lance had placed himself between the two mares before he'd even registered that he was moving.  The sovereign's head made another curious tilt as her exhausted yet penetrating eyeless gaze bore a hole into him again.  He didn't move.  He didn't even break eye contact.  His was the terrified face of a pony trying to do something when there really was nothing to be done, a stare that would frighten nopony, ever.  Lance's eyes weren't commanding...they were begging.

The metal visor remained transfixed upon him as though its owner doubted what she was seeing.  But eventually she heaved a tired, growling sigh of acceptance that sounded disappointed more than anything.  Lance thought nothing of it though, all he was was the sovereign turning and leaving, finally stumbling once and leaning on a wall a moment before getting her balance back and retreating down the same hallway as had the stalker.  She was gone, and Posey was still in one piece as his watch fell quiet again.

"What the hay did you do that for?" Posey scolded, furious but still keeping her voice low as he turned back towards her.  She was glaring at him with watery eyes.

"I...I didn't want what I saw back in the hospital to actually happen," he said, only now realizing that he too had a few tears to blink away.

"And you think I'd be fine with watching you get cut in half again?!" she replied in an even harsher whisper.

...

"I wasn't thinking, okay?"

Their ears twitched, both of them catching a sound through the wall and falling silent to try and track it.  It was the sound of heavy hoof steps on their stairs slowly ascending.  Once they reached the second floor they moved overhead, Lance and Posey looking up at the ceiling to track their path until they came to a stop.  Then they heard the sound of a large body all but collapsing to the ground and remaining there.

"She's on the balcony," Posey muttered.

"Come on, there's got to be another way out."  Lance didn't even need to mention that they had to locate said way out before somepony started feeling better.  Their living rooom was now bare save  for a single chair in the middle of the room facing a large rusted over safe and the practical lake of blood the sovereign had left behind.

"Did all this come from her?  How is she still alive?" Posey wondered as she made certain not to accidentally step in it.  For all she knew it was poisonous to the touch.

"I don't know, but you'd be surprised how much blood can come out of a small hole in a pony's neck...or several," Lance explained as he scrutinized the safe.  There was no dial combination lock, just three triangular indentations and the words "Schedule Departures" scratched into the rust directly above them.  He made a mental note of it and then moved along to the next part of the house since the living room didn't have anything else of interest.

The only other way out of the living room that wasn't currently blocked by about twenty years worth of hoarded news copy was the same escape route the stalker and sovereign had both taken.  Thus they approached it with caution even though Lance's watch was still silent.  Before they would reach the first floor hallway, they would pass by the entryway and front door on their right, and the entrance to the kitchen on their left.  As their objective was currently just to escape the building, both sets of eyes naturally veered to the right.

Door 303 was waiting for them instead of their front door.  It was not the version that would trap Lance in a memory and then disappear either.  A single lock holding together a last few chains made it clear that this was the nightmare provoking, actual door he'd been slowly unlocking bit by bit much to a certain somepony's chagrin.  The significance of finding it right off the bat was lost upon Posey, but the amber coated surgeon who had twice been forced through horror upon horror just to locate it was left standing there, blinking in confusion at how impossibly easy it had been.

"We're going to have to take off another lock just to get out of here," Posey observed with dread.

"Yeah," Lance answered simply as the sensation of being blindsided continued to linger.

Posey gave a soft shiver at the idea of descending into another nightmare.  "The first one was bad enough...I can't even imagine what it'll be like in our own house Lance."

Her husband had little words of comfort at that moment.  They hadn't been attacked on the way over there.  The sovereign was suffering from severe anemia and letting them be.  The door was right there out in the open.  All of this was going to cost them dearly, and the possibilities left him absolutely petrified.

"Maybe there's a...health drink or something in the kitchen," she continued, hoping to distract herself from thinking of the matter at hoof any further in the face of his complete lack of a response.  Lance nodded in agreement and turned to follow her as she walked into their now thoroughly dust covered, slightly moldy kitchen.  Just as he was about to step in however, another sound from their balcony pulled his eyes upward.  It was four hooves clumsily planting themselves on the floor, then a moment of silence before he heard another large body collapsing, followed by a half-hearted clang.  As far as he could tell she had just tried to stand, failed, and then lashed out at the metal railing.  He let out a nervous sigh.  There was a huge price to pay, and a sadistic ticking clock over their heads.

And then he looked forward again to see that the kitchen entrance was gone.  The wall now continued where just seconds before it had opened to allow passage, now bearing a note with familiar black writing nailed to the wall.

"Welcome home."