Silent Ponyville: The Office
Author's Note
A very short silent hill-esque story I came up with to shake off the cobwebs and try an unfamiliar genre(for me) I.E. horror. I want to see how terrible or not terrible I am at writing.
DISCLAIMER:
I do not own any characters depicted.
Silent Ponyville
Fluttershy stood in the middle of an expansive room of smooth off-white stone, illuminated by a sourceless artificial light. The upper limits of the chamber were lost to shadow and criscrossed by thick cobwebs. The Pegasus stood on quaking legs and let out a fearful sigh as she realized that she was all alone.
She stood still for a moment, chest heaving and tears threatening to flood down her cheeks. The horrific sound of what awaited her was audible from the other room- the creaking, plodding noise of gargantuan clockwork machinery with the occasional painful scream breaking through the cacophony. Fluttershy clenched her wings in close to her body and whimpered. The anguished cries
that reached out from beyond the blank walls finally spurred her to action and she started to walk forward accompanied by the lonely echoing cadence of her hooves tapping the bare stone. She began to slow down gradually, weighed down by the realization that she would not escape this hideous fate no matter what she did. She knew it was hopeless this time and wished her friends
were there to quell the sickening feeling rising from her stomach. They would know how to handle this. Twilight would surely have come up with a plan of some kind by now.
Fluttershy forced the thoughts away. It didn't matter and it was up to her now. The distraught Pegasus finally stopped, head bowed and staring into the floor. She ran over the events of the previous night in her memory still not willing to believe this was really
happening. She had gone to bed at the usual time after tending to her animals and bidding goodnight to them. As always she had curled up on her lush mattress with the window open to allow the warm early summer air into her bedroom. She had fallen asleep to the hypnotic sounds of the crickets outside. And then? Did she just wake up in this horrible place?
No, she was starting to slowly recall something else that her fear-addled brain had blacked out. She had bolted awake sometime in the middle of the night, startled by something she could not put her hoof on. Something had been out of place, but she did not recall what it was nor did she remember going back to sleep. That must have been when the monster took her she decided. Some
sort of spell to put her under and transport her to this dungeon. A tall wooden door stood before her, braced with iron and decrepit looking. She probed it with a hoof and found the door was still quite sturdy despite it's appearance. A rusted pull ring hung from the center of the door just above a keyhole.
She placed an ear against the door and held her breath trying to detect any noises on the other side but the only thing audible was the same incessant grind of machinery. She next lowered her head to the keyhole, peeking through. On the other side, framed in the shape of the keyhole, was a hallway similar in appearance to the chamber. Blank stone. A noise like that of something heavy scraping across concrete boomed from some distance behind her, causing her to jump and twirl around. She clamped her hooves over her mouth to avoid screaming but there was nothing there. A few tense seconds ticked by but no monsters made themselves known. Fluttershy sighed and turned back to the door, rising to her hind legs and pushing against the wood with all her might.
The door relented and announced her entrance with a deep groan of rusty hinges. Compared to the outer chamber this hall was absolutely claustrophobic. The same harsh ambient light was present here. The sounds of the machinery were muffled thankfully and Fluttershy picked up her pace a bit hoping to get free of the noise as quickly as possible. The noise faded into oblivion and the minutes began to pass.
Click, click, click. The monotonous grid of perfectly aligned stone tiles passing underneath her was almost hypnotic. She started to wonder where exactly she was and how big this dungeon could have been. Surely it could not go on forever. But it didn't have to, she thought. It could be just big enough to get lost in and starve, or dehydrate, or... Fluttershy's pulse began to rise.
Would she ever see the daylight again?
She shook her head and sprung into a light jog. The clicking of her hooves rose in frequency until she was dashing down the corridor, tears trailing down her cheeks. Ahead, the hall twisted into a turn leading to the right. Fluttershy rounded the corner at top speed but quickly gasped, skidding to a halt.
Standing in the middle of the floor before her were several dozen mannequins like those Rarity used in her shop. The white bodies were lined shoulder to shoulder all of them facing her as if they had been waiting. The heads had been removed and what appeared to be megaphones rose from the wooden neck stumps, the entire display looking like an art project gone horribly wrong.
There came a very peculiar squeak from one of the mannequins as Fluttershy stood unsure of how to proceed. She blinked. The things began to twitch in quick erratic movements, shifting their posture this way and that on creaky legs. One of them took a single step forward and Fluttershy retreated a pace in response. But she couldn't go back she reminded herself. She had to get out
of here, to see her friends and animals, all the familiar things she painfully hoped to see again. More of the mannequins were starting to follow the example of the one approaching her. She shouted and leapt, stretching her wings and taking to the air. This caused them to spring into motion and they dashed forward in a jerky clattering stampede.
Fluttershy gasped and rose as high as she could without clipping the ceiling and shot forward past the mannequins. They contorted in odd angles that would have broken the back of a living pony as they rose to their hindlegs and reached up to swipe at her underbelly. She landed on the other side and hit the floor running as fast as she could, her hooffalls and ragged breath drowning out all other sound.
Fluttershy spotted a door standing open to her left- the first one she had seen in the hallway and without thinking she scrambled past the arched stone portal into the room beyond. She did not bother to check wether the mannequins were pursuing and slammed the door shut immediately. She leaned against the door and huffed until she had caught her breath once more.
A look at the new surroundings suggested she had entered a library of some sort. Tall shelves lined the wall of the circular chamber, filled with equal parts book, dust and cobweb. In the center of the room was an old wooden table surrounded by chairs and supporting a couple piles of books. A coppery candleabra burned on one end of the table, the wax overflowing and streaking
across the table, dripping into a hardened pool that had accumulated on the floor. She approached cautiously but noted it was entirely silent here. It was time to pony up and start working this predicament out, she decided resolutely. She looked over the book piles and found they were all without a title of any kind, the pages contained between bare leather covers.
She nudged one of the books toward her and opened it. "Oo-o-oh my" She breathed, flipping the page. She turned another page and then another faster and faster. The pages all contained images of herself. The photos must have been taken secretly, they depicted her carrying out her normal everyday routine- feeding one of her animals or working in her garden, walking the path from her cottage into Ponyville and completely oblivious to the photographer in each one. The last photo she saw before slapping the book away showed her empty bedroom, lit by warm late-afternoon sun streaming in through the window. She found her curiosity had been extinguished by fear of what else she would find on the pages.
Deciding there were no valuable clues to be found in the books, Fluttershy began to search the room for a way out unwilling to venture back into the hallway where Celestia-knew what else was lurking. The ceiling above her was dome-shaped but offered no exits that could be seen. Her eyes fell back downward to the bookshelves.
She had company of sorts. Tucked between the books in one of the shelves at eye-level was the head of a Pony, it's wide jet-black eyes directly on her. Judging by the upturned corners of it's mouth not hidden by the surgical mask it wore, the thing was grinning at her. It blinked, eliciting a pitiful "eep!" from Fluttershy and then withdrew itself into the black vacant space behind the shelves. A few books were pushed back in from the other side, blocking the emptiness beyond from view once more. "Leave. Me. ALONE!"
She shouted.
Panic once again overtook the Pegasus and she fled the room back into the hallway, lungs beginning to burn as she ran onward. The maw of a wide stairwell loomed up in front of her suddenly. She slowed back down to a walk and started up the steps, wings drooping slightly from exhaustion. As she ascended, the omnipresent light began to diminish until her surroundings became an abstract smear of shadows. The stairs ended finally but the space beyond was solid black.
Her stomach threatened to expel it's contents when she considered what may be waiting there. A noise came to her on the stairs, from somewhere ahead. The far-off tweeting of a bird, she realized after closing her eyes and concentrating on the distant sound for a few seconds. Was she close to the exit? This small spark of hope, the thought of emerging from a cave or wherever she was, back into the familiar forest around her home, motivated her to slowly ascend the last dozen stairsteps.
As soon as Fluttershy was clear of the stairwell, there was a sharp click that thundered from above. She was blinded with a sudden piercing white light and squeezed her dark-adjusted eyes shut, shaking her head as she blinked furiously. The room that came into focus was another generic stone chamber, the limits of which she could not see. The circle of light that surrounded her was not enough to see the other end of the room. It was a spotlight, she realized, following her movement precisely as she darted back and forth a few times in a futile attempt to escape it.
Something crashed to the floor behind her. A metallic gate had fallen over the passage to the stairs blocking any retreat she might want to make. From the darkness, a gust of air washed over Fluttershy and she nearly gagged. The stench of rot came along with the breeze. As she was considering moving forward, a loud slam resounded from somewhere in front of her. Before she could react further, another spotlight appeared clicked on but this one was oriented on a hideous creature standing only a couple feet in front of her.
It was a massive Pony, or at least it had been one at some point. A bulging blood-stained thing easily larger than any stallion she had encountered. In the middle of it's head, where a Unicorn's horn would be, was a large drill that had been haphazardly implanted directly into the thing's skull, blood and gore oozing from where machine met flesh. A tank of some sort was grafted onto the Pony's back in similar fashion, wires and tubes piercing the skin in several places. She could hear it's heavy breathing from behind the surgical mask it wore over it's snout. Fluttershy could only cower as it walked wordlessly toward her.
The drill in the monster's skull spun into motion with a high-pitched roar. Fluttershy suddenly became aware that she was screaming as the monster loomed directly over her. But it wasn't a scream of terror this time. It was a war cry. An ode to the things her friends had taught her, a single momentous sound that proclaimed she would not let them down and allow herself to be killed without a fight. She leapt, assisted with a mighty thrust of her wings and spun in the air, aiming a kick directly into the creature's face. Nothing. Her hooves only made contact with air and she slammed into the ceiling.
She dropped like a rock back to the stone floor. The droning of the drill was still in her ears as she blacked out.
Fluttershy's eyes opened slowly. She was laying on a hard surface, her cheek pressed against cold stone. She lifted her head, wincing at the throbbing pain that shot through it. She let out a whimper. An array of lights danced on a wall in front of her but as her vision came into focus she found it was actually occupied by a control panel full of blinking lights and screens.
She squinted in order to see what the screens displayed and found the scenes on them were of familiar streets. It was footage of Ponyville shot through what must have been hidden cameras. Pinkie Pie bounced into view, approaching one screen and shrinking from another simultaneously.
Fluttershy clambered to her feet as she remembered the monster and wondered why it hadn't killed her. In front of the control panel was a chair and only then did the confused Pegasus realize it was occupied. She backed up with a gasp as it slowly swiveled around. Occupying the chair was an all too familiar face.
"W-w-w...w-Wynona!!?" Fluttershy stood aghast as Applejack's pet stared at her, tongue hanging out as it panted and appeared oblivious to the terror it was inflicting.
"This...this was your work all along!"
Fluttershy was wheeled out into the reception area of the dentist's office in a wheelchair. Rarity and Rainbow Dash were already waiting and greeted their friend with a smile each, though Dash's was more due to the loopy way in which Fluttershy was rolling her head and moaning about dogs. "Oh wow, she is on another planet!" Dash started to laugh but fell silent after a grave look from Rarity. "Oh, do you have to be so rude? The poor thing is terrified of the dentist. She said she couldn't sleep all night". Rarity used her magic to move a stray lock of pink hair from her friend's face.
"She's all ready to go" Colgate told them cheerfully, "The anasthesia should wear off before too long but make sure she doesn't do any flying for the rest of the day at least. It's pretty strong stuff".
"We'll take care of her" Dash promised as she stepped up and took control of the wheelchair, "That's what friends are for"
"And don't forget to brush your teeth!" Colgate called after the three ponies as they rolled out of the office and into the warm afternoon. The door glided shut and Colgate was alone in her office. She sighed, a satisfied noise that signified another day completed in the never-ending war on cavities. Colgate walked over to a small circular mirror hanging on the wall with a bright
pink sign beneath it reading 'SMILE!'.
She considered her reflection for a few moments and then put on the biggest grin she could muster. "Some Ponies just can't handle the tooth!" She gave herself a wink.