September (An MLP:FiM Fanfiction)
by Joshua Ekins
joshekins123@gmail.com
It was cold, an unimaginable cold.
Driven to such frigid temperatures, the air seemed hollow and empty, the frosty winds swirling with macabre majesty through the dilapidated corpses of a town in ruins. Each building lay crumbled and charred, and the remnants of once colourful walls lay scattered amongst the dirt and dust.
It was an endless scene of desolation. The earth was as black as night, the daylight skies as sullen and grey as the great storm clouds once stirred up by the legions of skilled pegasus flyers. Those proud and majestic creatures, creating dances of utter grit and beauty, flaunting their weather-changing abilities with grace.
But the skies were empty. No living creature, pegasus or otherwise, took flight through those ashen clouds.
The only sounds that resounded through the empty valley were the mournful howls of the chilling wind, and the occasional crash of another wall collapsing, its foundations sundered.
No movement could be seen in those empty streets. The roads were like ghosts of well trodden pathways winding through the graveyard of cheerful architecture. They lay still and unused.
Save for one. Only one roamed through the blanket of ash that covered the once charming town of Ponyville. A dejected, empty shell of a pony, living amongst the dead husk of a time past.
A fitting scene.
Her head hung low as her hoof beats gently sounded through the dead streets. She left long tracks through the thin layer of ash and dirt, her hooves barely lifting from the ground as she slowly walked. The frigid wind blew her unkempt mane in all directions, obscuring her vision.
So she kept her eyes turned downward. As her vision fell on the endless layer of decimation, her inner voice drowned out the silent world, churning away in her mind. She never slept.
Things are better this way. They are so much better for everypony. It needed to happen. I needed to be the one to do it. I know that now.
At that moment, a particularly powerful and freezing gust of air blew wildly about her. Feeling the cold bite straight to her bones, she gritted her teeth, raising her head to look for shelter. Through her wildly flying hair and the dancing dust and ash, she spotted a small formation of crumbled buildings not far away.
The young mare determinedly made her way towards the makeshift shelter, shuddering. Her legs felt weak, hardly able to support her skinny form, every blast of frozen air threatening to lift her to the grey skies and smash her body against the unforgiving rock. Yet, when she next lifted her head, through her squinting vision, she discovered she had already made it.
A large section of wall, constructed from stone with wooden supports, had fallen on a slant and propped itself up against the neighboring building’s remnants. Amongst the pile of broken stone, the two walls created a cubby hole of sorts, large enough to hold at least a few ponies. It didn’t stop the cold air from getting in, but it formed a shield against the screaming winds.
A shield that the mare was grateful for. The young pony hadn’t had a chance to get a good rest for a long time. Crawling her way through the rubble, she curled up in the darkened shelter, listening to the haunting music of the stirring winds.
She cuddled her own malnourished form, trying to generate some warmth. Shutting her eyes tightly, her inner voice still resounded in her mind incessantly.
Things would have been much worse than this. It was better to end it quickly.
She raising a shaking hoof up to her tangled mane, and pulled it over her face like a scarf, hiding herself like a young filly would.
If they could, everypony would thank me. They’re all in a happier place now.
“Shut up...”
Why? I did what I had to.
“It was wrong...”
It wasn’t. I know that.
“No, I shouldn’t have done it. Everypony is gone...”
Everypony is safe. I saved them all. They’re happy.
“They’re dead... and I did it...”
Yes, I did. Better to be dead than the alternative.
“Nopony deserves to die like that.”
Nopony deserved to live such a horrible life. I saved them from that.
“Yeah...”
I know that they’re all in a better place. All my friends. They’re all happy, and smiling. They’re all waiting for me to join them.
“They’re all looking down on me.”
Every single one.
The mare sighed in the darkness. The wind had died down slightly, the incessant howling like a soft echo. Despite the shelter, the cold seemed to seep up from the ground beneath her. It was as if the very foundations of the earth had given into the permafrost, the deepest caverns transformed into icy chambers of solitude.
It wasn’t the kind of cold that would kill your body, but it would destroy your mind.
The lone figure curled up in the darkness and lay still, feeling her heartbeat reverberate through the enclosed space. It was the only sure signal that she was still alive. It was the only way she was sure of it herself.
Every bleak day since that fateful September had felt like a ghost walk, a solemn march of death. Every endless grey morning had felt like another nightmare, a barren dream, and sleep was no reprieve.
Through the ash and filth, the lone mare would stumble towards the unknown.
Tormented by her own thoughts.
She hugged her legs close to her skinny body, and let the grim music of the wind lull her to into a haunted sleep, the screams of ponies still ringing true in her ears, and a vivid red showing through the colourless world.
--
Please, don’t do this...
Don’t you understand?! I HAVE TO.
No, please! There has to be another way... please!
I’m going to save you all!
Don’t do it!
--
The young pony awoke suddenly, her head pounding. She kept her eyes scrunched up tight, trying to force the memories away. Yet still they floated around in her blinded vision, the vivid red and the endless screams stabbing at her mind like a million daggers.
So she lay there, and let the feeling wash over her in tremendous waves of pain and suffering. Eroding away everything she used to be.
It was a while until the visions in her mind had died down, and a sullen calm seemed to blanket the world. She slowly opened her eyes, and gazed at the cracked rock of the walls sheltering her.
The sky outside was dark and grey, smeared with a horrible brown. She couldn’t tell what time of day it was. She hadn’t been able to since the world had turned this way.
Night and Day didn’t exist anymore.
She hadn’t seen the sun or the moon for what seemed like a lifetime. If somepony was to tell her that it had only been a few months, she wouldn’t have believed it. Not that there was anypony to tell her anything anymore.
Again, the loneliness seeped in, a toxic poison that sapped her will to stay alive. It stung her insides, and hung heavy over her heart.
Gritting her teeth, she fought against the feeling. Willing her weak limbs to lift her from the ground, she steadily made her way through the rubble, every step threatening to send her stumbling back onto the cold hard ground. Eventually, she pulled her way out of the wreckage, emerging blinking and disoriented into the barren landscape before her, illuminated in an unwholesome glow.
For months, she had foraged aimlessly. She had taken food where she could, whatever remained in the basements of the blasted dwellings in Ponyville, and whatever plantlife still lived. Finding that was extremely rare, however, and thus her diet had consisted of very meager offerings from old tin cans and moulding bread crusts.
Her stomach rumbled, like a cavern that had already caved in. She was once a happy, healthy pony, with no worries of food, and no shortage of treats. Now, her body was malnourished, slowly dying. Her once bountiful energy was now non-existent.
Ponyville was no longer the beacon of earthly goodness it had once been.
It was time to move on.
Gazing up at the sundered skies, she opened her cracked lips and muttered to herself, her weak voice piercing the silence.
“Maybe it’s not so bad in another town...”
She turned her vision towards the mountains that lay in the distance, their snowy peaks now obscured by the shroud of stormclouds. She knew what lay in that direction.
Civilization. Answers. Maybe other ponies...
Would they forgive me for what I’ve done?
She let her head drop back down to the ashen ground before her. She considered all the possibilities. Maybe she would find some kind of closure if she went to Canterlot. Maybe, if she visited Equestria’s capital city, she could finally see the whole picture. Maybe she would find some kind of solace. Steadily stepping forward, she made her decision.
“I’ll go to Canterlot.”
She knew it would risky, a dangerous choice to make. Without running trains, she would have to climb the mountains herself. A long and difficult trip. One wrong move and she could die in those rocky valleys.
A single errant step and she’d fall screaming into the rocky chasms below, coming to a swift and painless end.
The mare sighed.
I’m not that lucky...
--
Hour after hour, she lost herself in the wilderness.
Time passed by like some kind of intangible wind. Unmeasurable, invisible. Every step brought a kind of painful strength. Pangs of regret and hurt congealed inside her, creating a wall of determination and stubbornness.
As the crunch of fallen dead leaves and the soft shuffle of disturbed dirt sounded from beneath her hooves, she imagined the sounds swirling around her ears, like strands of sundered silk dancing in the cold breeze, their rhythmic mantra chanting to her, urging her to greater speeds.
She kept her head low, her eyes focused on the beaten path through the dead trees and rocky valleys. She ignored her pangs of hunger, but kept an eye out for anything promising, any kind of plant life she could sink her teeth into.
She had stumbled across a dying bush tucked away between a dead tree and a small cleft in the roadside not too long ago, and had managed to salvage a small pile of edible berries. Attempting to ration them, she had eaten a few and stored the rest in her tattered saddlebags. Yet still the hunger roared in her underfed stomach.
She just furrowed her brow and pressed on. Her heartbeat thumped proudly within her chest, a symbol of defiance beating like a crumbled wardrum of a forgotten civilization.
A swansong of a dying world, who’s few words twirled like poetry, every beat becoming absorbed by the energy of the earth. Those few words that spoke, “I’m still here.”
It was those few words that floated within the battered mare. She felt them glow hot inside her, flowing through her bloodstream like molten gold. Those few words that fueled her muscles, that fed her fortitude. She had nothing to lose.
As the landscape around the young pony transcended from rolling grey hills into more precarious rock formations and cliffs, she could feel her goal within reach. Straining her eyes through the thickening fog and darkling skies, the lone mare could make out an old pathway that wound its way through the clefts and alcoves dotting the sheer cliff that rose ahead.
This, she knew, was the rarely trodden pathway that acted as a shortcut to the city in the mountains. She could have taken the main road around the hills, but the journey would have been twice as long, and in her condition, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on for, anyway.
Still, raising her eyes at the jagged and dangerous path before her, she couldn’t help but swallow down a feeling of trepidation.
I have to do this. I have to know if what I did was right.
As she scanned the pathway, she noticed a few areas that would require her to leap large cracks in the rock strewn with boulders and the promise of death. Remembering how fearless she used to be, the barest hint of a smile cracked through her frown as a foggy memory resurfaced.
“It’s just a hop, skip and jump...”
As fast as it had come, the warm memory disintegrated, once again burying itself beneath layers of reality. Steeling herself, the young mare narrowed her vision, shifted her saddlebags into a more comfortable position on her back, and started the upward march.
However, her muscles seemed reluctant to respond. She had been walking for so long, she hadn’t been keeping track of how tired she had become, or how many hours had passed. She had no way to tell the time of day anymore, but she knew she had been marching for far too long.
Turning her head to and fro, she spotted a small sheltered crack in the old rock. Summoning what little strength remained inside her, she took hold of a large branch on the roadside, dragging it to the small opening, the dead limb held firmly between her teeth. Propping it up on the jagged edges of the gap, she turned her head and gripped the corner of an old blanket that was folded inside her saddlebag.
With a great heave, she pulled the warm grey sheet from the bag and draped it over the branch in one fluid movement. Quickly checking that it held firm amongst the many twigs, she lifted the edge and nudged her way into the cleft, huddling down in the darkness and grimly admiring her handiwork. The blanket sheltered her like a rigid curtain, blocking the cold winds, and hopefully discouraging any wild animals from bothering her while she rested.
If there are any left, that is...
She tried to push the thought from her mind, lifting her saddlebags from her back and laying them beneath her head to act as a pillow. As she lay down and shut her eyes, she once again cuddled her small form closer to herself.
With nopony left to comfort her, she had to learn to comfort herself.
That didn’t stop the nightly assailants from tormenting her, their dreamlike ways casting visions of the horrific catastrophe that had befallen Equestria. Weaving nightmares of innocent screaming ponies, the crying and pleading faces of her closest friends. The skies burning up in a grand maelstrom of flames and decimation. The solid ground cracking and crumbling, sundered by the unstoppable forces that battered it.
And it’s all my fault...
Still, she could feel the raw power of what she had done. She could feel the remnants of magical energy tingling through her veins. She could hear the whispers of the sinewy threads of pure chaos still dancing about her head.
The power still pounded through her skull, yet it was but a ghost. The last dregs of magic in its purest and most terrible form.
Yet enough remained to haunt her.
In a land now devoid of the natural magics that kept it in balance, the dying pony curled up in the dark was the only carrier of that fire.
Tormented and alone.
--
Why are you doing this? What is there to gain?
Nothing! There is nothing left for anypony anymore...
Please, we can get you help, you don’t-
No, Twilight Sparkle. You can’t help me. Nobody can save us. Nobody except me.
Please... You have to listen to reason... You’ll kill us all!
Of course I’ll kill you, silly filly. That’s the whole point. I’m saving you.
… I thought I knew you... how did this happen?...
It’ll all be over soon, friend. This world will end, but we’ll all be happy. Everypony will be safe and happy.
Please... Don’t...
You’ll understand… You’ll forgive me... when this is all over, you’ll forgive me.
No...
You’ll forgive me.
--
It had been an arduous journey, tediously treading through the seemingly endless narrow pathways up the mountains. She had no idea how long it took to make it up, but she had to rest three times along the way.
Each step she took now pulled at her heart. Her hooves felt as if they were made of lead. Yet, she kept moving forward, her head turned high as she gazed at the scene around her. It was quiet, the only sound to be heard was the echoing of her hooves on the dark cobblestone streets.
Canterlot, the shining capital of Equestria, home of the godlike alicorn royalty, was dead.
Her blue eyes shimmered with the hint of tears as she viewed the catastrophic desolation before her. Just like Ponyville, the buildings lay in ruins. Each roof caved in, walls crumbled, windows shattered. A darkness seemed to hang over the city, every street cast in shadow.
The grey fog drifted lazily, blocking out all perception of distance. Flakes of frozen dust danced before her vision.
Canterlot was nothing.
A ghost.
The lonely earth pony let her head droop down as the reality of her situation once again smashed her weak form, crushing her resolve, shattering what little hope had remained. There would be no answers here. There would be no end to the torment.
Shuddering with emotion, she could feel every frustration, every unanswered question and lonely day, every regret and mistake, all welling up inside her, stirring and bubbling like a boiling cauldron, the steaming-hot liquid crashing about itself in righteous anger.
Yet, all she felt was the numbing cold.
Standing alone in the middle of a long abandoned street, she let her tears fall freely. Her long mane hung limp over her face as she felt the sobs shake her body, each one a wave of unimaginable sadness, sapping her strength. Her legs buckled beneath her, unable to bear the pain, and she crumpled in a heap on the chilling, ashen stone path.
Her tears pooled about her, soaking her hair as she beat at the ground in frustration, and her shaking gasps resounded like heartwrenching music through the empty fog.
It’s all my fault... I didn’t save them...
Her shining blue eyes searched the ground beneath her frantically, involuntarily, as if trying to find an escape from the world. Her thoughts reached a burning crescendo within her mind as her limbs shook and the cold speared at her bones.
I destroyed it all, I killed them all... They’re dead, they’re not in a better place. They’re gone, they’re gone forever. I killed them all...
Once again, she could feel the throbbing pain of the dregs of magic within her. They seemed to be reacting to her emotion, urging her to stand. She ignored the feeling.
It’s all my fault, why did I do it... how did I do it? How?
The magic within her seemed to glow more incessantly. It pulled at her heart, attempting to drag her limp form. In her state, she couldn’t resist the intrusion, and she let the red sparks enter her body, filling her limbs with a hollow, unfeeling presence. Her body seemed to move of its own accord, and her legs shakily walked forward, barely touching the stone street.
With the dark symphony playing through her very being, she could hardly focus on where the magic was taking her. The broken buildings around her seemed to pass like a blur, the fog of her tormented emotions settling in to the foundation of the physical fog that hovered through Canterlot. All she saw was grey. All she heard was the sound of her own memories.
Yet, with a sudden stop, she felt clear headed. Her limbs no longer moved of their own accord. She shakily observed her surroundings, and felt overgrown grass beneath her feet.
Grass.. it’s alive... how?
She didn’t recognize this part of Canterlot. Be it the fog or her own tormented memories, the empty surroundings about her sparked no recognition. She could make out what seemed to be a dead bush nearby. There was a path paved with large flagstones, and many broken rocky shapes littering the grassy courtyard around her, hardly visible through the fog.
But one stone in particular seemed to reach out to her.
A horribly familiar face, a look of surprise cast in rock. Its statue lay smashed to pieces, the pedestal it had once stood on cracked and torn. She shakily approached the severed head of the decimated statue, which seemed to watch her as she moved.
Why would the magic bring me here... Was he responsible for what happened?
Her brow furrowed as she examined the face, the chaotic features.
Was there something inside me? ... something he left behind... something I couldn’t control...
Realization flooded through her as the stone eyes pierced into her psyche.
I was the only one who could have done it... I was the one he chose to end it all...
As she gazed at the old Draconequus head, a faded voice seemed to resound through her mind with simultaneously dreadful power and pitiful weakness.
Oh, Pinkie Pie... you are so deliciously chaotic...
--
The End.
