The Dead City

Part 2: WATER

If asked which is more painful, drowning in water or drowning in darkness, I would choose the latter. Being crushed by water, devoid of air and sinking—that is undoubtedly painful. But in darkness, when your heart is beating like a drum, when the blackness swallows you whole...

It is sucking me dry. Fluttershy’s kindness warms my heart but not my soul. We have been walking in shadow for hours. She has not spoken. It is as if the darkness has snatched her voice away. We walk in silence.

Then I hear the clattering of bones.

* * *

The first time I saw a bonewalker was when I woke up on the Bucklyn Bridge. The image still haunts me.

At first, it didn't see me. It was digging into something, a body, I imagine. I never found out and I don't really want to know. The walker was like something out of a horror story. Its flesh was rancid, rotting. Its eyes were gone, its sockets hollow. It made no sounds other than the clattering of its bones that, with no muscle to separate them, rubbed and scraped together in a horrible song of noise.

I still don’t know how the bonewalkers can exist. I’ve never seen a pony turn, but when they do, they become monstrous.  I don’t know what causes a pony to turn into a bonewalker. Maybe their bites make ponies turn. Maybe it’s a disease. The walker on the bridge never looked up from its feast. I re-entered the city with my mane standing on end and my bladder a little less full.

Now my bladder is completely empty, my mane like the teeth of a manebrush, rigid and unyielding. My training sergeant back at guard school told me that I shouldn't be afraid of anything, not even death.

I'm not afraid of death. But living death...

The sound grows closer and closer. Fluttershy grasps my hoof. I am defenseless. The walkers will be here soon.

This is the…

“Over there!”

“Got it, Rock!”

New voices, coming from behind a metal door, the same door from which the clattering had come. I hear grunts and shrieks and a constant thwuping noise. In a matter of seconds, the clattering stops.

Silence. Then the voices start again, one deep and male, the other carrying and female.

“Alright, Lakota?”

“Fine, Rock. Skinnies got anythin’ good on ‘em?”

“Since when’s a bonewalker had anything good on it?”

“Fair point. But why were they active?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Bonewalkers only come around when they smell flesh…”

“They probably smelled us, Cody.”

“Think back, Rock! That zebra gave us that lifecloak potion, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Brief silence. “Seraphina?”

More silence. “No. Her pendant’s not going off. It’s not her.”

“Wanna cast equem revelio?”

Equem revelio. The pony revelation spell. So this Lakota is a unicorn.

“Rocky, my magic’s so low that you’d probably have better luck castin’ a spell than I would. But we ain’t alone.”

“What if it’s an animal?”

“What if it’s not?”

“There’s the door.”

Before Fluttershy can cry out, I clasp a hoof over her mouth and, with her, slowly back away from…

“The door. It’s locked. Know what that means, Rocky?”

“Step aside, sweetie.”

CRASH!

The door splits in two, careening off loudly into the depths of the sewer, and in the doorway looms a huge minotaur, his hide gray as fog and his horns like gold. He sees us, and I try to pull away.

I run out of ground.

“Son of a…!”

The minotaur leaps through the air and grabs us both by our necks, pulling us away from the ground, or lack of it. Turning on his hoof, he throws us both into the wall, and my horn nearly breaks. The pain is sharp and intense, but brief. I wearily get up and face my attacker.

Only he’s not attacking anymore. He’s just standing there, looking at me curiously. A pony appears to his right, a beautiful yellow-maned unicorn with skin the color of the sun, with an unknown cutie mark that is covered in bandages, wearing a leather jacket and carrying a crossbow. Seeing the weapon, I put my hooves up. Fluttershy moans and begins to cry.

“Wait, Cody!” the minotaur exclaims, noticing her expression. “They aren’t rats! They were about to touch the water!”

“What?!” the unicorn says, eyeing me closely. “Huh…I guess you aren’t sewer rats…”

“Begging your pardon,” I say, “but what d’you mean by sewer rat?”

“You obviously ain’t been down here for too long,” she replies. “Sewer rats are ponies who’ve been…well, taken by the water.”

“Taken by the water?”

“Yup. You’ll have to excuse Rocky’s behavior. Seems like he was merely tryin’ to save your lives.”

“What?! He threw us against the wall!”

“You mean you’d rather touch the water than have a little headache?!” the minotaur says incredulously.

I stiffen. “What’s wrong with the water?”

The pony and the minotaur look at each other, and to my left Fluttershy gets up, tears in her eyes.

“That…hurt…”

“I’m really sorry, missy,” the minotaur says calmly and concernedly, “but I couldn’t let you…”

“There’s something in the water. If you touch it, it…well, it takes you.”

“Takes? You mean kills?”

“No. I mean takes. By the way, I’m Lakota and this is Rocky.”

She sets her crossbow down and launches into an explanation. “We first found out about the water when there were four of us. Me, Rocky, my little sister Seraphina, and a griffon who’d been in-town for a baking contest or somethin’. When everything went haywire, Rocky got us all down here through the subway tunnels. That is, before the subways were bombed and flooded. We haven’t been aboveground since.”

“But what about the water?” I ask impatiently.

“Well, the griffon was thirsty and we noticed the water had gone black,” Rocky chimed in, walking over to Fluttershy and comforting her. “Ever seen black water before? Neither have I. Both Cody and I knew somethin’ was up with the water, but when we found the griffon it was too late. He’d taken a sip.”

“And?”

“And…” Lakota’s eyes well up slightly. “And…it was horrible. Horrible. Something jumped out of the water, something big and dark and…it took the griffon and dragged him under, and a second later something popped back up…a piece of beak…”

I feel like throwing up. Lakota goes on.

“When the thing jumped out…we all got splashed. My sister took the brunt of it, dang near covered in it, and it hurt like heck. That’s how I got this here bandage. Don’t think my cutie mark will ever be the same. But…Seraphina, she freaked and…she fell into the water.”

Even though I’ve never met this mare before, I feel a pang of sadness and sympathy, as well as terror.

“She was quick. Smart, too. She jumped out as soon as she fell in, but…the monster thing came back. Rocky and I tried to fight it, but we couldn’t see it in the dark. I heard Sera scream and gallop off, and by the time I got a light out, she was gone. We tracked her hoofprints, but we haven’t had…had…”

She says nothing more. She doesn’t need to. I go to her, ignoring the pain in my head. “I’m sorry. I have a missing sister, too. She was with me before the Corrupt and the bonewalkers started showing up.”

One gives off a very unusual expression when confused and saddened at the same time, so I can’t in words describe the look she gives me. “What do you mean by Corrupt?”

“You know…the shadows? They can’t go in daylight?”

“Sorry, no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Really? You’re lucky, then.”

“I didn’t catch your name, by the way.”

“Shining Armor. And this is Fluttershy.”

But she doesn’t acknowledge the yellow pegasus. Rather, her jaw drops and her eyes grow wide. Rocky steps away from Fluttershy momentarily to observe me.

“You’re Shining Armor? The Shining Armor? Married to Mi Amore Cadenza?”

I nod.

“Holy mackerel,” she gasps. “You’re Captain of the Royal Guard! You survived!”

“Well, yes. That’s why I’m down here. I was about to go across the Celestial Bridge when Fluttershy here pushed me away before that thing in the river took the bridge out."

Suddenly her face is grave, as if she had a dream and I had just shattered it. “Celestial Bridge is gone?”

“I’m afraid so. I was going to find my wife and sister.”

“They’re probably with friends of mine,” Fluttershy pipes up, smiling tenderly as the minotaur returns to dressing her head wound with a bandage from the pack on his belt. “They escaped the city before…well, this.”

Lakota gives me a once-over with her eyes, as if she's unsure of whether or not I’m the real Shining Armor. However, moments later, she nods and picks up her crossbow.

“How much magic you got in you, Shiny?”

“Barely any. In fact, none.”

“Shucks. Me too. Looks like I gotta protect all of y’all. Don’t worry, Rocky will…”

“What makes you think we can’t protect ourselves?” I interrupt.

She puts a hoof up to calm me. “Easy there, Shining Armor. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I’m just sayin’ if you wanted to tag along…”

I consider the possibility for a moment. We have nowhere else to go.

“Okay. We’ll tag along.”

“If that’s alright with you,” Fluttershy whispers.

Lakota smiles. “Well then, good to meet y’all. C’mon, Rocky and I were heading toward the South Hoofshire train station before you showed up. We need to get back to the surface.”

“How are you going to get to the train station through the sewer?”

She smiles deviantly. “I’ve got my ways. Just a couple of tips, though I don’t want to sound like I’m belittlin’ your combat experience, Captain. Don’t stray too far. Don’t make any unnecessary noises. And in the name of Celestia, don’t touch the water.”