Fallout Equestria - The Eerie

Is it peculiar if I don't feel remorse for my actions?

I’d always felt disconnected from my father, like he and I were just too different for me to be sired from his loins. But was that menial emotional gap why I felt it so easy to snuff out my father’s life?

Much of my childhood is a blur these days. Perhaps it's just how chaotic the whole experience was that it just lends itself to the whole experience being a blur of half materialized memories and thoughts I'd myself buried in regret.

I did see her a lot though. The smiling and calm face of my mother. Flashes of wilted memories I'd once had of the mare who'd brought me into this world.

I'd gotten over that forlorn cry for my mother a long time ago. It's blocked out, or perhaps rage and anger had blocked that maternal warmth she gave me as a colt. But recently she was all that made sense, the only memories that were clear.

She’d been gone for years, but she dominated my thoughts. She held my attention unlike anything else. I wonder if she forgave me?  I wonder whose side she took that night as our home burned and father met with the grisly fate, spalled apart beneath the hooves of a great beast.

It'd been awhile since Darkwater Down was attacked, but I still felt that lingering indecisiveness of whether or not I had actually murdered my father. I wondered a lot that if I'd been stood up before some court of justice over the incident if I'd be found guilty of murder or not.

If I’d just pulled the trigger and let the shower of buckshot smack into the hide of the monster, would it have done anything? The old buck had squeezed off one shot before me, right into it’s damn face, and all it did was scrunch it’s muzzle up at him, like he’d tickled it’s nose with a feather.

Perhaps I could've pulled the monsters attention away from my father long enough for the soldiers to arrive and help, but would I survive if I did that instead?

Did I really deserve to live more than my father?

My mother and my father were all that'd been clear for a while. I had no recollection of time or real life anymore. I'd been asleep for so long that it seemed as if I didn't dream anymore. Instead wandering aimlessly, waiting to wake up again. Occasionally I'd see a memory flash, a nightmare begin and end, or a dream flutter hopelessly as it tried to take hold. But as I'd come to realise my mind was much too scattered to focus for long.

There was, however, one constant beyond the old memories.

She looked tired today...this month...this year, however long it'd been since her last visit. Her normally huge curious eyes were sunken, wilted and tired. Her melodic voice seemed much flatter. Something about her was off this time.

She came in from the purple haze beyond the great, impermeable miasma in my mind. Walking her tiny filly body into the enormity that was this centuries old portal through the mighty wall.

We both stood silently facing out into the undulating purple fog beyond the wall out into that hellish land called Penumbra. Waiting for "it."

The noise which made me fall to my knees in agony was nowhere to be found. We were alone.

    "He hasn't come back?" North's voice queried.

I shook my head. "Not since the first time I saw it." I responded equally as timidly as North had spoken just now. It felt wrong to call that thing I saw a "he" like North did.

It took a while for me to accept what was going on. Could you blame me? It was madness, a voice in my dreams? A filly who could read minds?

But more and more I began to submit to the idea that it was true. North had warned me something bad was going to happen, she could feel something was off and that very same day my squad was attacked.

It took a while for me to see things her way but I trusted this filly. That thing I'd seen in the fog clouds was the key to what happened that day. And part of me hoped it'd show it's face again.

But it seemed that hope was short lived, the pony in the shadows had never come back again.

    "He's following me again." North admitted quietly to me in a quiet murmur, shuffling in close till her side pressed against me. "Stalking my head, flicking through my memories."

I turned to look at the filly who was still nervously staring out into clouds beyond the gate she'd just entered from, a lot more afraid than normal. "What?" I responded curtly if perhaps a little impolitely.

    "Every time I close my eyes Mister Ashes...he's there, taunting me, threatening me..." She sighed. "Asking about you."

I could feel my eyes widen in surprise as she admitted this to me. "What do you mean...asking about me? North how long has this been going on for?"

She shrugged "a week maybe...he attacks me every night...I can't sleep, he never leaves me alone." She winced a little as if pained by something. "I can hear his voice in the back of my head. "He's obsessed with finding you, it's all he talks about, he never shuts up about you..."

I shook my head and put a hoof on her shoulder in a move that shocked both her and me for the same reason. Such acts of warmth were unusual if not totally alien to me.

    "What's it saying about me?" I said in a much sterner tone of voice.

North turned her back on the fog and the gate entrance with a sigh "He's interested in you...I don't remember exactly what he said but I think there's something "off" about you that has him  fascinated or obsessed with you, like you have something nobody else does." She began trotting off into the other side of the wall.

    "What could be so interesting about me that it's doing this for? I don't feel special...has it said what it is that's so special?"

North shook her head as she walked away rather dismissively. It was a somewhat rude gesture, but if she really had gone a week without proper sleep I'd forgive her for being less warm with me. "If I knew, Mister Ashes, I'd tell you."

She stopped as she stepped out onto the crumbling asphalt road of the Equestria side of the wall. She took a deep breath and I saw her small body tremble as if she suddenly relaxed a lot more.

    "I don't think that he is choosing to stay away from you, Mister Ashes. I think that maybe he just can't come back..." North said, a small smile appearing on her lips as she turned slowly to face me. "Your walls...I've wandered around in my dreams a lot and you're the only pony with walls like this...I think maybe he can't get in here."

I craned my head to look at the walls behind us as I exited the gate through the wall. "You think so? You think maybe that's why he's so interested in me, because he can't fuck with my head?" I said with a prickle of shame realising I'd just swore in front of the filly.

    "Maybe. Maybe he just finds you really attractive and he wants to ask you out," The young mare quipped in a welcome ease of the tension, I laughed weakly with her for a moment.

North looked up at me and smiled, her tired eyes seeming a lot warmer now before the colour disappeared. "I...need your help mister Ashes..."

I looked at her worried as we began to walk aimlessly into the cloudy emptiness. "S-something's happened to me...things aren't too good right now and...I need help."

"What with? You're being really vague North. I can't help you if I don't know what it is I need to help you with."

“I’m in the Melancholy Bay hospital...they think I’m…”

I felt gravel beneath my hooves as a familiar voice called out to me. "Ashes, honey! Come back inside, it's way too cold for you to be running around out there. Come back inside before you catch a cold!"

I smiled as I looked into the warm familiar face of my mother. Her coat was nothing like mine or Dust's or my father. Her’s was a vibrant and colourful blue, and her mane was a wispy white which was long if a little dirty and unkempt looking, the kind of mare who never brushed her mane.

    "Is that your mother?" North asked quietly as we both stared at her. North seemed a little confused as she stared at the mare.

I gave a short little nod of affirmation to her. "I think all this time asleep is starting to dig up old memories. I don't like to think about my mother. She reminds me of... you know...what happened. But I guess I gotta put up with that. I like thinking about her, the nostalgia she makes me feel is really comforting, reminds me of a much less depressing time."

North eased up a little as I tried to explain who this mare was, but the filly seemed tense still, shy in the kind of way that a young filly would be around a total stranger. "No offence mister Ashes but...something feels off with her..."

I felt a pit in my stomach and I sighed. "Yeah she's ..it's a long story, but uh..." I took a moment to try think the best way to put it. "Well let's just say I was supposed to have a younger brother but...something happened."

North looked to me for a moment and nodded, her eyes opening a little in understanding. "Oh...yeah okay..."

    "Yeah she uh...got a little weird after she lost the foal. My guess is depression..." I began, "if you've guessed then yeah...that's what caused things to go downhill with my dad. He blamed me for what happened to her."

North kept nodding slowly in understanding before I shook my head. "Whatever, it's not important. No need to kill the mood like that. I promise I'll tell you the whole story some day when I wake up and we meet again, but you know it's a bit of a touchy subject for me."

I paused looking at the rows of graves. Each one engraved in a garbled mess of gibberish words I couldn't make out. "How long have I been asleep North?"

    "I think almost a month, it's definitely been more than two weeks." She responded looking at me. "I think it's about time you woke up Mister Ashes."

I nodded to the filly. "Yeah I think you're right." I said, taking one last good look at my mother's smiling face as she and my home bled away into my mind.

Time to wake up.

* * * * * * * *

Why is the pain the first thing to come back?

The world bled back to me, light struck my eyelids, coaxing me awake. The rhythmic throb, dull and heavy like a hammer on a drum coursed through my head, temple to temple, pounding relentlessly. I gasped involuntarily, my throat producing a gravelly and coarse sound. The arid air rolled down my windpipe the dryness of my throat stung horrifically, as my lungs filled with air. The feeling was so foul I was sent into a coughing fit. Any attempt to clutch my throat or recoil in pain was met with painful protest from my aching muscles and joints.

With some effort I managed to adjust to the harsh lighting of the room, blinking the bleariness out of my vision, one of the curtains to the room was ajar, letting burnt orange light seep through the gap, could’ve been a rainy dawn, or a warm dusk. There was no way of telling in my state.

A sharp pain in my left eye welled up as I tried to strain my eyesight to focus. In the back of my mind I saw a flash of a white shelled monster bucking his hooves down into my face. A phantom of agony climbed up my spine as the horrible pain of what happened to my eye returned.

The faint image was abruptly bisected as his hoof crumpled my eyeball, like a hammer on a tire. I felt my stomach lurch as I recalled the revolting sound. My gut tied up into a knot, forcing me to raise myself up. Gravelly sputters and dry wheezes jolted my frame, coming and coming again and again till my fit was interrupted.

    “Goddess, Private Ashes, if I knew that was the first noise you’d make when you woke up, I’d prefer you stay asleep.” I heard a croaky, sickly, albeit familiar mare’s voice say to me.

Once my coughing fit subsided I turned my head up slowly to look at the pony in the hospital bed beside mine.

It was Soft Gale. She was all but entombed in cotton bandaging and splotched with adhesive poultice soaked patches. As sensation returned to my muzzle, it was assaulted by the overwhelming smells, the main ones being of sanitizer, stale sweat and from Gale; citrus. She was doused in it, probably an artificial odorant to allow people to visit her without being repulsed by the stench of the chemical cocktail she was caked in.

Even still, she had that incorrigibly cocky smile, spirit as unflappable as ever.

I mustered the best smile I could. “Damn Gale, aren’t you a little old to be dressing up like a Daring Doo villain?” It hurt to speak, my throat and my mouth felt dusty from the lack of moisture. I looked to my right and confirmed I did infact have a saline drip. It was depleted, however, and looked as if it had been as such for some time.

She rolled her eyes dismissively with a tsk. “Har har,” she croaked mirthlessly. “Everyone wandering in and out was doting on you, y’know. Seriously, I think it’s the most popular you’ve ever been. For fifty caps, let’s say, I could cripple your ass and make this arrangement permanent.” She teased, her voice sounding like a hoofful of sand was grating against her vocal chords.

I tried to spin around and hang my hooves off the bed, which I did eventually manage to do, but it took a while and a few slow movements which didn’t help with my aches or my nausea. I got the feeling that if a nurse was in here they’d probably be insisting I not move, which was probably wise.

But beyond a very upset stomach and aching joints and muscles I felt fine. Which only made me more anxious. Should I feel fine, should I be in pain, how much pain is an acceptable amount of pain?

I stared at Soft Gale who looked around uncomfortably as I observed her. “See anything you like Private?” she murmured with a weak attempt at a chortle to try break up the awkwardness of the moment.

    “Oh...sorry I just..your bandages, what the fuck happened to you?”

Soft Gale made a motion which I assumed was her trying to nod. “More like what the fuck didn’t happen to you, Ash,” she said, wincing as she raised her hooves a little. “This is all from the Blackwater. I got some real nasty burns from it. Lucky to be anywhere near normal looking after what happened in those caves.”

“What do you mean...didn’t happen to me?”

Soft Gale rolled her eyes again, a tick that only really came out when speaking to me it seemed. “Take a guess genius. Look at your own body if you need the hint. You didn’t get any burns whatsoever. Do you have any idea what it was like to listen to those nurses and doctors bicker about that? Like twice a day they’d have an argument about why you weren’t getting burns.”

“And none of them would believe me when I said it was Nova Reductadi,” another familiar voice spoke. I turned around to see the clean cut, no nonsense shape of Gloom standing in the door looking at me. She shot me a gentle smile as she stepped in.

“I should really thank you Ashes. If this was pre-war Equestria you would’ve proven my thesis and I would’ve gotten a big fat cheque and a lot of grant money.” Gloom spoke, walking to our beds. “Granted...you’re the wrong gender. My thesis paper initially said Nova Reductadi was a trait exclusive to mares but...hey,” the mare said not really bothering to greet me or acknowledge me beyond that. It wasn’t just me either, the mare treated all people as apathetically as me and Gale. But I’d long since accepted that was just who this mare was.

Gloom was very similar to Dust in a way, they both seemed to exhibit a distaste for social etiquette. While they both showed a distinct ambivalence, or perhaps fundamental misunderstanding of them, Dust seemed to partake in such things as a way to “fit in” or “be polite”. Gloom seemed to simply ignore them and live without partaking in them.

I nodded slowly trying to take it in. “So...what does...Nova Reductadi do?”

    “It's just a genetics quirk. Blackwater isn’t like an acid or a chemical, it's an arcane substance. The burns it causes are Necro-magical burns that deconstruct cells in such a way that they can’t be replaced. So your skin where the Blackwater touched just starts to die and fall away until it gets to the thing it can’t consume, being the bones.” Gloom began, looking at Soft Gale. “But we do have arcane medicines to reverse the bulk of it, if we get them to the patient fast enough, which is why Soft Gale smells like a chemical plant explosion right now.”

Gloom stepped to me and took my hind leg as it hung off the bed rather roughly to feel the skin and the coat on it. “Luna of the night you stink Private…” Gloom said, unable to help herself with a smirk. “Anyway, I wrote in my thesis that--well I won’t go into detail, but I had a theory that it might be possible for somebody to be born with a certain genetic makeup that just ignores the Necro-magic, which I did say would require a certain level of Estrogen be present…” she began before her eyes caught my empty saline bag.

Soft Gale giggled as Gloom muttered her observations aloud. “So the reason Ashes is a flop with the mares is because he is one! Shame most lesbians don’t like the whole ‘cut marble on your jawline’ look.”

Gloom rolled her eyes at Gale’s quip, shaking her head as she stared at the IV stand. “Sweet Celestia., aren’t you dehydrated, Ashes?” Gloom asked, moving over to the bag.

“Yeah...a little bit...I could use a drink.”

Gloom rolled her eyes, reaching up and gently removing the empty bag “Can’t rely on these nurses to do anything, I swear. Hold on I’ll be back,” the mare said trotting out of the room promptly.

I looked back at Soft Gale with smirk before we both sat, letting the silence overcome us, “So uh...what’s been going on...in the waking world?”

Soft Gale stared confused for a moment before her face changed and she figured out what I was asking. “Yeah uh...you won’t get a summary execution…” she began blushing slightly, “You single hoofedly pulled a filly and a veteran out of the jaws of death all on your lonesome, Ash. Some guys with a hell of a lot more stripes than us came in. You’re popular as all hell for it, and according to one of them, ‘put yourself on a fucking untouchable moral podium’. You’re a postercolt now, which I guess rubs your name off the high council’s shit list for now, y’know, for the sake of morale and all that.”

    “One eye Ashes, hero of the scouts!” she chirped with a little approving giggle. “That’s what they call you in the barracks. ‘Oh dude did you hear of One eye Ashes? He totally fought off an entire swarm of bloodlings with a fuckin’ sledgehammer!’” she said, twisting her voice to purposefully make herself sound like a schoolyard foal talking about some comic book hero.

I couldn’t help but feel incredibly flattered by that. Was she lying or had my little advent in the caves really been that big a deal that I’d earned some reputation. The smirk on Soft Gale’s face made it all too clear that the mare was guilty as sin in regaling my “heroic tale”. Perhaps it was just to embarrass me, perhaps she genuinely admired what I did, or perhaps Soft Gale knew that embellishing my exploits would probably save me from a firing squad.

I felt a creeping sense of pride beneath my skin. “Ashes the One eye Hero”, but that pride disappeared quickly. These ponies thought I was some kind of hero. I was a murderer. I’d been in prison as a colt.

They deserved a hero a lot better than me.

Soft Gale looked away for a moment “So uh...there's not Court Martial, but…”

    “But…?”

Soft Gale cleared her throat. “There will be a meeting. The High Council was waiting until you woke up. Your little motion caused a mess in the chambers. A lot of the veteran captains are really spooked by what happened at Safehouse Tempo. I know you don’t know a whole lot of the classified info private, but a lot of things that weren’t meant to happen...happened, and the council is really worried.”

Soft Gale paused for a moment. “They might promote you and Allure. They’re going to run with the angle of ‘bravery and valiant fighting in the face of insurmountable odds’, but to be honest it's more because…” the Mare bit her lip as she thought about her next words as best she could. “Its because you and Allure saw too much.”

I was about to ask her to elaborate, but we heard the clatter of hooves on tile and gentle chatting in the hallway as Gloom returned with a shorter mare. She had a light pink coat and a tightly tied back red mane, she wore a short uniform dress with yellow bands and pink butterflies on it.

The nurse stared at me as she nervously trotted around and fixed the IV up. She fumbled with it for a moment more, staring awkwardly at me instead of looking at what she was doing. I heard Gloom clear her throat loudly, and the Nurse seemed to get the message, looking back and hooking the saline bag up properly.

Apparently the nurse did something wrong, as she stepped over to look over Soft Gale’s various drips and medicines. Gloom rolled her eyes again, shifting silently into the IV stand to straighten them up, fiddling with what I presumed was one of the valves.

    “What time is it?” I asked all the ponies in the room. Not to any of them in particular.

“It's about twenty past ten in the morning Mister Ashes,” the nervous mare said quietly, looking back to me after checking Soft Gale.

Something about the mare was awkward. Perhaps it was the way she stared at me, or that her eyes wouldn’t break contact with mine no matter what she did, but she seemed strange. I hated to think it could be a possibility, but was she perhaps “starstruck”. Was I really that famous? Or simply that disfigured...

Gloom stepped toward me a bit. “He’s been lying in bed for like two weeks, you think maybe you should help Private Ashes here? Perhaps show him where the showers are, Nurse Thrush?”

The nurse nodded and stepped back. “Would you like me to go get you a wheelchair mister Ashes?”

I shook my head. “No no...I can walk, don’t bother.”

    “You really think that’s smart Private Ashes?” Gloom said raising a brow. “You’ve not had to stand your own weight for a while.”

Without responding I leaned over my bed stepping off gently. My hind legs shook and tremored as weight was forced upon them for the first time in a fortnight.

I kept easing more and more of my weight onto my legs. I paused as I tried to gain a more stable footing. I felt the aches climb up my legs, up my bones and joints and into my body as I stood on my own for moment. With the lack of balance and creaking of my entire body I felt kind of like a ship anchored at sea, producing weary, pained notes as I swayed unsteadily back and forth.

It was amazing how little I respected my own body's efforts. Now that every muscle from my hooves to my ruined eye ached, I truly got to appreciate how many processes go into simply keeping a pony standing normally.

I took a step, another, and another before my footing became unstable and I clutched the side of Soft Gale's bed to prevent myself from toppling over as my legs oscillated like plucked guitar strings before they gave out from underneath me.

Gloom laughed softly and sighed. "Yeah okay, get him a wheelchair please, Thrush, before he embarrasses himself." The medic mare ordered, the timid mare staring as she left the room.

"Stallions,” she tsked, shaking her head. “I swear, does everything you colts do have to be a dick measuring contest. It's okay to be a little less active when it hasn't even been an hour since you woke up from a two week coma, Ashes.” Gloom scolded me in the way only a mare with no penchant for humor could.

I managed to pull myself back up to an unstable footing as we watched this Nurse Thrush roll a chair back to me, holding it out as I tried to maneuver myself around and sit down, sighing as my aching muscles almost thanked me for getting the weight off them.

The nurse took the saline off its stand and hooked it to a purpose built stand on the chair itself. Soon after we began to wheel out of the room and down the hallway. I saw Gloom staring intently at me and the nurse from between the hospital beds. The medic mare pursed her lips, her scrutinizing eyes narrowing before we left the room and entered the hallways.

The hallways were busy, I should’ve probably suspected that what with it being the main hospital for a major military faction in Penumbra, but it was almost surreal. Clean polished floors, patients wheeling along in chairs like me, doctors well dressed and clean. I had to admit even in Dark Water down things got a little cushy, but it seemed at least that ponies out there acted properly, the kind of way you’d expect a populace to act two hundred odd years after a world war destroyed the planet.

In here felt almost like a time machine, like I was back in the office of that mayor, experiencing the memories of another pony from long before the war.

I could feel ponies staring. Not out of spite, but many were catching glances. Presumably observing the ash grey colour unicorn stallion missing an eye.

I was starting to get worried that this whole ‘maimed hero’ thing might get out of control.

We finally arrived at a door. Nurse Thrush pushed the door open and took us into a tiled and sterile looking bathroom area. A long hallway with doors on either side which I presumed were shower stalls. My nurse pushed another door and exposed a small room big enough for three stallions. A shower head hung over us, and in the middle was a white plastic chair.

She wheeled me to the chair and helped me shift my body off to be seated there instead.

I swallowed hard, symbolically swallowing my pride as I realized I’d probably have to deal with a mare bathing me at least for a while.

She smiled at me, closing the stall door behind her. Moving closer, she gently took the bandages around my eye and slowly unwrapped it, exposing the dressed pad. “This might hurt a bit, but we gotta clean it Mister Ashes.”

I nodded, clenching my teeth tight as she slowly peeled the adhesive tape off. Needless to say exposing a wounded eye was a painful experience, but given I’d had reinforced glass crushed into it, removing this bandage was the least painful thing to happen to my left eye.

I was thankful there was no mirrors in here. I was far too scared to look at my ruined eye out of fear I’d start dry heaving again. I could feel the cold air against the wounds. It was an all too painful reminder of the new disability I’d have to spend the rest of my life with.

The nurse smiled, turning the hot water on. I couldn’t help but let out a sigh even as embarrassed as I was. Hot water was truly a magical thing. It was an experience like no other. Feeling the hot water rush over my aching muscles and joints. Assuaging their protesting pangs as the warm beads all but beat the stiffness out of them.

    “You a religious pony Mister Ashes?”

I blinked as I heard the confusing question, turning my head to the Nurse who moved back taking several sterile chemical smelling soaps from some packaging. She waited patiently for an answer.

Too patiently.

    “I uh...no I guess not. I mean my dad was of faith, but I never really was one for faith, the sisters are long dead so...not many gods left, you know?” I responded with a confused tone “Why are you interested may I ask?”

The nurse piped up with a cheerful smile “Oh but mister Ashes there is a god! The sisters were merely false leaders. No, no, our god, he offers salvation to those who seek it, enlightenment to those who earn it!” she said with a smile, which as my eye stayed glued to it, grew quickly more frightening.

    “...what the fuck is…” I began to stammer out before she continued.

The nurse grinned stepping back and pressing her rear to the door to keep it closed “So tell me mister ashes.”

The whites of her eyes adopted a hellish blood red tinge, like a droplet of blood tainting a still pool. Her lips pulled back and revealed a pair of frighteningly sharp fangs like primitive karambits forged of ivory, and a forked tongue flicking inside her alien looking mouth. “Why did you try refuse the will of The Great Old one? He seeks communion. Only two kinds of pony would resist; a pony yet to learn of The Great Old One’s majesty, or...”

I felt my heart begin to beat faster, I took in a deep breath and prepared to yell before the nurse snapped forward pressing a hoof to my mouth to keep it shut. “A heretic!” she hissed playfully, moving her teeth to my neck in what could have been mistaken for an intimate embrace. “You’re not a heretic, are you Ashes?” she asked teasingly, backing me against the wall, her breath rolled over my coat, humid from her salivations.

I could feel her gruesome incisors press to my neck, more and more pressure being placed on my skin.

I yelled into her hoof as loud as I could, thrashing out and shifting on my seat. My hind legs bunted into her chest, sending her flying back into the door with a loud snap of the wood splintering as the door to the shower shook on its hinges.

    “HELP, SOMEBODY! I NEED HELP” I screamed trying to struggle to my hooves as this monstrous mare flickered with a red and white magic. Producing a shrill note she lunged, powerfully bucking from the floor and colliding against my sluggish form as I tried to dodge right. We caught eachother on the shoulders sending my spinning back first into the door which shook and splintered even more. As the nurse tried to regain her footing and spin back around, I lunged my weak body toward the door handle, my horn flaring uselessly to grab it before I yelled out, resorting to slamming my hoof down on the handle to open the door and tumble out of the shower stall and smacking like meat on a counter onto the cold, thoroughly cleaned white tiled floor.

    “HELP!” I bellowed as loud as my lungs could. Pushing my hooves against the cold tile floor I yelled as my body  fought against gravity in painful protest. Blood flowed down my foreleg, evidently the IV had been ripped from my arm in the struggle, dripping onto the floor. I pulled myself up, grasping the basin of the large sinks on the far wall, using them as a pseudo rail to haul myself along toward the door. “SOMEBODY HELP!”

I could hear the soft click of her light hooves on the tiles behind me as I pulled myself along. The clicking grew faster, and I knew she prepared to lunge. I tried to spin myself around to face the jump, but she was much faster than my crippled body, leading her to pounce into my shoulder.

For a moment she struggled to remain on top and pin me down. My muscles screamed in protest, but with a monstrous yell I managed to pull her off of me onto the tile. I clenched my teeth and with another scream I slammed my hoof into her head, caving it in with a sickening crunch, spraying a mist of disgusting brown coagulated blood. In the adrenaline I hit her again and again. The sounds gradually transitioning from loud, decisive thumps to blood curdling squelches as she stained more and more tiles from the seepage of her crumpled dome.

I tried for one more strike, but my adrenaline could no longer overpower my weakness. I fell against the basin of the sink as the mare pinned beneath me twitched. The brown blood, which reeked of rusted metal, bubbled from her ruined face onto the tiles. I panted desperately as I tried to regain my breath, staring up at the mirrors on the wall above the sink. My face covered in brown sickly smelling blood, my foreleg and chest drenched in my own red ichor. I stared at myself weakly in the mirror, my gaze fixed on my left eye.

Milky white. My iris and pupil a ruin of white hue and red, my eye socket marred with scars and deep cuts from the glass. With what weak strength I had I reached up and touched my eye, swallowing as I drank the image of my distorted gaze in.

I heard the door creak open and the familiar voice of Gloom speak as she stepped in, stopping dead in her sentence when she saw the sight before her.

I turned my head slightly to face the mare breathing deeply as I tried to calm down from the adrenaline.

    “Fuck.” Gloom managed to force out, staring at me.

“Yeah...fuck.” I spat back weakly, letting my head lean on the basin.

* * * * * * * *

ACT II

“A choir of madness.”

_______________________________________

    “I didn’t think it was possible but I think somehow your aim got worse,” the rough as gravel voice of Quartermaster Cola quipped. She trotted over to me, cigarette smoldering in her lips, and shook her head. “Now I’m no expert, but I think it's because you lost an eye.”

I gave a defeated sigh, pulling the bolt back and ejecting my last round, doing the usual safety protocols and clearing the rifle, placing it back on the bench I was shooting it from.

To my left Allure smirked rather proudly as she wound her paper target’s rail back to her. Almost as if fate had stuck my polar opposite beside me. Her target didn’t have a single bullet outside the tiny aiming circles, her grouping was as tight as it physically could be. The mare made it look like a game for foals.

    “I thought you said it shouldn’t matter, Gloom? What happened to ‘your right eye is your dominant eye anyway’ huh?” I asked, stepping away from the firing range.

Gloom shook her head “I never said that, I said it shouldn’t be that bad,” she responded. “I figured as much anyway. I didn’t take into consideration that maybe you just really suck at shooting.” the medic said, for the briefest moment a smirk appearing on her face.

Allure, upon clearing her own rifle, stepped over to me as well. “Well I mean we could give him a battle saddle with a targeting matrix on it, right? Why aim when you can get a machine to aim for you?”

Quartermaster Cola chuckled as she gathered up our rifles and took them back to the reloading bench. “Yeah, and are you paying for that?” The middle aged mare leaned back against the bench and knicked her cigarette between her words. “We find like one functioning targeting matrix saddle a year, and the soldiers and the Steel rangers have pretty much exclusive claim to those seeing as they need them more for the heavy weapons they shove on those exoskeletons.”

Allure nodded with a considerable blush, no doubt embarrassed at having her suggestion shot down so promptly.

Cola tapped her hoof in thought for a moment. We all did. It wasn’t wise to have a pony in your squad who had a distinct inefficiency for fighting. The thought of me being a drag on my squad was worrisome to me. I didn’t want to be a dead weight. A ranger who couldn’t fight was about as worthwhile as dirt.

    “Well I mean…” Cola spoke up, looking me up and down, “He used a hammer at Safehouse Tempo, right?”

Gloom looked at the quartermaster with a considerably unimpressed gaze. “You’re kidding, right. I mean as a pony who spends every hour of her working day around firearms you can’t seriously be considering that?”

Cola shrugged shifting her smoke from one corner of her mouth to the other. “I’m serious. In fact I’ve been pushing for melee to be added in for ages. Unless you got a Cast-Scope, range is pretty much gone once you get into the Eerie fog. Stock Ashes with some decent armor, give him an actual combat hammer, and you have a pretty devastating soldier,” she began, “I mean take into consideration that at that range firearms could be too cumbersome to react to multiple targets, plus I’ve seen some freaks in the highlands slip barrels not a second before they fire and close in. It’s harder to slip one hundred and eighty degrees of steel swiping at ya.”

Cola nodded, seeming to like her idea more and more as the rest of us just watched on.“If he has a decent swing and magic strength, he could do some serious freakin’ damage. A strong stallion with a good hammer swing is just as good as a bullet in a lot of cases. Plus you don’t gotta reload a hammer, and there’s no need to carry ammo. The only limiting factor is stamina I guess, and from what we seen he’s got spades of it already.”

    “Yeah but now you got him bringing a hammer to a gunfight.” Allure spoke up again.

Cola shook her head, standing up and looking around. “You’re scouts, Private Allure, the objective for you isn’t to get into fights, it's to avoid fights at all times. Reality is if scouts aren’t equipped for actual combat roles, gun or not you’re just as much at risk of dying as Private Ashes is if he ran around with a hammer.”

There was suddenly a deep knocking at the door. In the entrance to the firing range stood three heavily armed rangers who looked to me and Allure, gesturing for us to follow.

    “Oh yeah, I forgot we were on a timer.” Cola said spinning around to look at me. “Expect a letter from me at some point. I’ll get to work on something special for you.”

Our guardians looked tightly strung. They scanned the room and the hallways as we approached them and began to leave. Ever since my little ‘incident’ in the bathroom, things had gotten a whole lot less casual around the Lighthouse and the surrounding bases, so I’d heard.

    “Ashes, Allure,” Gloom said, halting us briefly which greatly annoyed our guardians.

She looked at our escorts, walking closer to us gesturing for us to bring our ears closer so she could whisper. “You’re going to deny it, because what you will learn will go against every single thing you’ve learned so far in your entire life, but it's true, all of its true and is a result of hundreds of years of study and testing,” she pulled her head away. “Just accept what you read, it will make the process a lot easier for you.

Allure and myself started at Gloom with confusion, the medic mare waving her hoof, gesturing for us to leave. “You’ll know what I mean when you see it, now go, don’t keep the High Council waiting.”

We moved down hallway after hallway, each sharp turn in the winding corridors and each step down a staircase only made the tension increase. I knew I was to expect a promotion to Veterancy, but for some reason it felt very off. There was no jovial sense of celebration, nobody was excited for our ‘achievement’. Everybody seemed worried, like some great burden was about to come to us.

We reached the High Council chambers. The proceeding hallway was guarded by four stallions in towering power armor who carefully watched our approach with weapons almost as huge as my hind legs mounted to their saddles.

As we passed, security grew no less fearsome. We were magically frisked by some unicorn mare casting some spell custom made to find concealed weapons. And we were subjected to a number of small oral tests. Questions only Rangers could possibly know.

We were finally allowed to the doorway to the High Council’s courtroom. I did the honors of pushing the doors open and stepping into the Jury rigged Courtroom I was now decently familiar with.

I heard the light chatter stop, and nothing short of sixty eyes fell on us. In the middle around their ornate wooden table sat the High Council, with a notable new edition of a towering Griffin I knew as Talc seated beside the elderly First Commander Neon, current leader of the Rangers of Alwhinny.

There were a great deal of notable faces in the room. Of course Speakeasy and Tall Tale were there, and sitting by them were the familiar faces of the First Commander of the Engineer corps, as well as two others I vaguely recognised as Captain Folded Iron, First Commander of the Soldier Corps, and the middle aged mare who was Captain Keen Eyes the First Commander of the Sifters. And of course in the corner away from all of them was that same Zebra. Captain Shae First Commander of the Reach garrisons. The latter of which showed a distinct interest to me, his eyes watching intently as I stepped in.

There was another I noticed. He was a very elderly looking Ghoul who stared with a disconcerting smile at me. He was out of uniform too, in some pre war business suit, which while it was clean, it had seen better days, and evidently a considerable level of use. His ruined ghoulish face was familiar, like I’d seen him before, but who was he?

The middle aged stallion who I presumed was the Speaker for the trial cleared his throat and spoke up. “The Proceeding will now resume. As I understand, First Commander Neon, General of the Remnant Rangers of Alwhinny, wishes to take the stand and address the High Council.”

The entirety of the Court stood from their chairs as our commanding officer struggled to his hooves from his seat, walking his elderly self up the wooden stairs to take the stand. “You may be seated,” the old stallion grumbled. His face had the consequences of his actions written across it, marred with old scars, not unlike pale, jagged trenches sprawling across his face, accompanied by the weary, but acutely keen eyes of a buck who spent his life painfully aware of all around him. His gait was heavy, like there was a hidden weight burdening him. His sagely gaze crossed over us. With a rumbling in his throat, his weathered and wilted vocal chords produced clear, hard words.

    “We are the Remnant Rangers of Alwhinny, our organization was forged in earnest when the world ended those many nights ago. When the thousand mouth tide besieged this great wall nearly a century and a half ago, those few remaining rangers held the line for days against the onslaught of The Great Hunger,” the old stallion spoke, bracing his frail body against the podium he stood behind. “The day that siege was broken and those abominations were driven back into the highlands, the rangers of Alwhinny swore that until such time that Penumbra was washed clean of its hellish infestations they would protect what was left of Equestria from the horrors this land had spawned, and that oath still holds up to this day.”

There was a rabble of quiet voices, a few voiced confirmations “Here Here”, and other such speak.

    “Bravery and refusal to succumb to fear when faced with the uttermost aberrations that ever had the misfortune of crawling out of a foal’s nightmare is the lynchpin of our core philosophy. Both Private Allure and Ashes displayed great gallantry when forced into what most officers would describe as an unwinnable situation. They fought and bled and continued to fight to the point of collapse. They displayed the strength and resolve to remind those freaks why they scatter to their hovels when our squads roam. These actions make them not only heroes to their peers, but model rangers, the kind of soldiers Veterans should all strive to be.”

I saw the faces of several rangers shake with disapproval, voicing their doubts in unclear mutterings. It seemed this praise was unpopular to a great deal of them, especially to Speakeasy and Tall Tale, the former doing a much better job of masking it.

    “Thus Private Ashes and Private Allure are to be promoted to Veteran Rangers as of this moment on. They are to begin scholarship in the lamphouse library at the beginning of this final month of autumn. For the record keepers that date is a week and a half from now. Upon completion of their tests they are to resume normal rotations with Captain Speakeasy and his Scouts.”

The hall erupted into noise, as those in favor and those against bickered loudly amongst themselves. First Commander Neon slammed his hoof against the podium, the decisive sound reverberating like a gunshot in an echo chamber, silencing all. “There will be order in this Council! You are Rangers, not bickering foals in the schoolyard! The decision is final!” the elderly stallion roared.

Our commander craned his thick, stiff neck towards the smiling ghoul in his ruined suit. The stallion in turn faced him. “Bookkeeper Solitude,” the old stallion spoke. “Do you agree to take these presented Rangers under your scholarship?”

The ghoul turned back to me and smiled once again. “I do, your honor.”

    “Bookkeeper Solitude, do you see Private Ashes and Private Allure as worthy to learn of the restricted codes of the Remnant Rangers of Alwhinny?”

The stallion’s rotted, thinly flesh coated skull bobbed in the affirmative and chuckled, his voice accompanied by a rattle from his centuries of weathering. “Yes your honor, yes I do.”

I didn’t even have enough time to feel the pit in my stomach open. The clamorous din of the discontented quickly picked up which was again scolded away by First Commander Neon and his hoof banging against the lectern.

    “The Council will now break for a short recess. When the Council resumes we must discuss a much more...pressing issue,” the elderly high commander said looking at me before turning to face the stands. “It is strictly prohibited to the High Council members, the First commanders and NCO’s, all personnel who do not meet these requirements are not welcome to return when we resume.”

* * * * * * * *

I zipped the bag up tight, massaging my forehead as a dull ache manifested at the base of my horn. I felt a sharp stab each time my hoof touched the bandages.

    “You still haven’t told me where you’re going, Ashes,” Allure said, reading a book on her bunk.

I shrugged, slinging the bag onto my back. “Why do you want to know where I’m going?”

Allure shrugged, marking her page and closing the book. “Because maybe I want to come?” she smiled. “If we’re going to be locked in the top floor of the lighthouse for a week, I want to at least go somewhere to help clear my mind,” she said standing up off her bunk. “So...where are you going Ashes?”

I shook my head, giving into her incessant almost childish attempts to make me spill my secrets “Melancholy Bay.”

She gasped and shoved a hoof into my shoulder. “You’re going to MY hometown and you didn’t even tell me! You prick!” she rushed over to her floor chest and opened it.

    “What are you doing?”

She smiled, taking a shirt in her hooves and tossing it onto the bed. “Packing my things, I’m coming with you!”

I opened my mouth to protest but I let it go, it was no use trying to convince her. She seemed intent on joining my quick visit to the port town. Instead I paused and spoke up once more. “Say uh...don’t tell anybody this, but Bookkeeper Solitude? That ghoul that's going to be our instructor when we do the veteran training? I think I recognise him.”

Allure looked at me curiously as she stuffed some civilian clothes into a briefcase. “Really, where from?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but I was cut off by a knock from a young stallion at the door, perhaps only a few years older than North, wearing the coat and clothes typical of the walls courier service.

    “Letter for Mister Ashes,” he said, taking a pause to recite the words written on the worn, sagged envelope he was holding.

I approached him, reaching for it before he moved it away, clearing his throat expectantly.

I shot him a glare as I looked at the letter in his hoof. My eyes were drawn straight away to the telltale overly ornate hoofwriting of my sister. I turned to look at him. “You kidding me. I don’t tip wall couriers, I only tip the courier who made the journey.”

The courier frowned at me. “Excuse me sir, I did carry this letter!” he said with a snide shake of his head, defending and upholding his lie.

    “Oh yeah, a colt as young as you carried that letter all the way from Fillydelphia did you?”

The Courier moved to open his mouth to defend himself but closed his mouth. He had no response to offer, and just handed the letter over before leaving.

I shook my head and stepped back into the room, opening it with my magic. Allure watched intently. “From your sister?”

I nodded, taking the letter out of its envelope and tossed it into the dustbin by the door.

Allure looked disappointed as she continued to gather her things. “Dang, I was hoping it was a letter from Lemon Zest. He hasn’t sent a letter in a while, I’m starting to get worried…”

____________

My dear brother.

I have no idea if you will be awake when this letter arrives. I hope dearly you make a speedy recovery. I regret that I couldn’t be there at your bedside, but work has considerably picked up here in Fillydelphia and I dare not ask my master for another leave of absence.

The day I write this the delegates sent to the wall have returned and told master and myself of the negotiations. I’m not really supposed to tell anybody of negotiations but you were deployed when the delegates arrived and you are my brother of course, so you deserve to know.

It seems as if the Master wishes to build allegiances. I have to admit I did doubt he was doing this out of the kindness of his heart. It seems he’s worried of recently made enemies, and as of late he’s trying to secure strong allies. Your organisation can expect ammunition, armor and weapons. So far, from the talks it seems the master is even willing to supply soldiers. If I’m not mistaken he’s taken a great interest in the Rangers.  Perhaps he intends to stake a claim in Penumbra, it's hard to tell, his motives are difficult  to read, even for me.

Regardless, please write soon brother, I am worried sick about you.

~Dust.

_______________

Master. The word almost propelled from the page and struck my nose hard enough to water my eyes. I couldn’t imagine anyone, irrespective of threat or charisma able to get her to use such a title. But there it was, she’d changed more than me, and probably without the physical deformity that comes with it.

I sighed and folded the letter up, walking to my hooflocker and placing it with my other letters before I locked it. Another thing to add to the list. I’d totally forgotten about my sister, the last thing I remember was writing a letter to tell her I’d nearly died and was going in for more surgery.

Truth be told I’d almost expected her to write me off and just wait till I’d woken and tried to contact her. I was surprised she was being this worried for me. My warm brotherly side said it was because she cared about me, but I knew Dust. She was cold and cynical. My own cold and cynical side niggled at the back of my mind. She probably felt like that having me alive in the rangers kept her on good terms with her boss.

Getting to impress him because she can easily get in tight with the object of his desired allegiance, no doubt looked good for her if she was hunting for a promotion. My rising in rank benefits her more than me, naturally she’d be sincere in correspondence.

“What’d she say?” Allure asked, smiling at me from across the room as she packed.

I shook my head “Does being a nosey prick come with the territory of being a sniper?” I replied back in humor. “She’s just worried I died. I need to write back to her at some point.”

Allure nodded, throwing a now packed bag onto her bed. “You should, it’s a rare thing in this world to have a sister who would care so much as to get a letter to you from Fillydelphia. It can’t be cheap to get a courier to make that journey,” she said. “I uh...take it that Gloom still isn’t aware of your sisters day-job?”

I shook my head looking at the bag now filled with clothes. “Of course not, how the hell do I break it to Gloom ‘Oh hey you know that horrible nightmare city which, you, through some sisterly miracle managed to escape from and are now constantly looking over your shoulder in fear of slave-chasers, yeah my sister works for them.’ I don’t think that would go down well.”

The mare nodded in a gesture of sympathy. “I know, but she does deserve to know at the very least.”

I nodded. “And I will tell her someday, just when I don’t need to worry about a whole bunch of other shit,” I responded. Glancing back at her I saw how furiously and haphazardly she stuffed her clothes into the case, afraid I’d abscond before she could match up her socks. I couldn’t stop the sigh slipping out. “You really are determined to tag along, aren’t you?” I grumbled, preferring to humour her instead of continuing this uncomfortable line of conversation.

Allure giggled and gave a sharp nod. “Yup, I sure am, I have two weeks and a whole lot of family to chat with. You couldn’t stop me coming along even if you tried.”

I pursed my lips and shrugged it off “Fair enough.” I responded zipping my bag up. “I could use your knowledge of the town anyway.”

    “What was it you were saying before, about recognizing Bookkeeper Solitude?”

I took a breath and a moment to pause and think before I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it, it's probably nothing. I doubt it's the same stallion anyway.” I lied, perhaps trying to placate my own anxieties more than hers.

My mare roommate looked at me with a crooked brow. “Whatever, anyway why do you need my knowledge of the town? Going on one of Melancholy Bay’s famous pub crawls?” she said with a cheerful laugh. “Because I may or may not be very knowledgeable on that.”

    “Lets just say I need to find somepony specific.”

* * * * * * * *

I hated trains.

I’d never been on a train in my life besides this one time, but I knew already that I hated it. Lucky for me it was probably the only working train in Equestria so I’d luckily never see it again.

I gave a sharp swallow as my nauseous stomach churned from the motions of the train shifting up and down on its rails. My eyes almost spun in my head as the world flew past outside the left window and the grey titanic wall flickered past out the right window.

    ”Isn’t this magnificent Ashes!” Allure grinned even more gleefully than usual, ignorant or ambivalent to my extreme nausea. “Name ONE other place in the world that still has a working train and railroad!” she said peering out the window like some excited child, staring at the wall that rose above the rails.

I shook my head , the unfortunate side effect being my entire consciousness swam, like my brain did one full rotation inside my skull. I caught myself biting back a gag as the nausea hit my gut hard. “It's not that impressive...it's just some old steam junker...with three carriages.” I managed to squeeze out of tight lips. Able to smell the upwards creeping bile off my breath.

    “You have no appreciation for these things Ashes, it’s a train, a working steam train. This is amazing, do you have any idea how much engineering it must take to keep something like this running when there are no more factories to make the parts?”

I stood up and took another deep swallow. “I need to use the bathroom,” I mumbled to the filly, cunningly masquerading as a mare. “I’ll be back in a second,” I said leaning my weight into the rows of chairs in the carriage as I eyed the lavatory at the rear of the carriage.

The carriage was full of faces, staring faces. Even with my head spinning and my stomach threatening to give out, I could feel their eyes burning into the back of my head. They stared at me, at my scars, at my missing eye and the hasty bandages and patch that covered it. Each eye I felt on me was like lead. It weighed my steps, made my movements more deliberate. I didn’t like it one bit.

    “He calls for you in his dreams, but you do not answer,” a voice mumbled beside me.

I felt my heart leap into my throat and I snapped my head to the source of the voice. All I got was a stallion with his head leaning on a hoof as he read a book. “W-what was that?” I asked the stallion who just peered up and looked at me confused. “Pardon...did you say something sir?” he asked me.

I blinked and shook my head limping away. “N-no its nothing sorry, I thought you were somepony else.”

    “To run from his will is to run from inevitability. His day will come and he will awaken. Ask yourself when he does awaken from his slumber Mister Ashes, do you want to be on his good side?” another voice muttered, this time a filly who was looking out the window excitedly sitting in her seat. Her tail swishing jauntily back and forth, never missing a beat, not unlike a clock’s pendulum.

    “W-what? I replied

The filly turned to look at me just as confused as the other stallion did. The pony that was presumably her father turned and shot me a death stare as she wrapped his leg around his daughter, as if shielding her from me. His steeply furrowed brow, jaw tightened angrily, it reminded me of strained and fraying rope. I don’t know why.

Something was wrong.

I needed air, I needed water, I needed to throw up.

    “You can run from me Mister Ashes, but you can never hide. I am everywhere. I have tens of thousands of eyes watching you. Tens of thousands of ears listening to every word you speak., A blanket stitched from a hundred thousand rags, stolen from the bodies of the dead who now speak with me,” an old stallion mumbled as he stood up from his seat, adjusting the circular reading spectacles sliding down his muzzle, turning his elderly body around and observing me.

I looked at him as best I could, my delirious gaze barely able to focus on him.

    “Oh! Pardon me, I didn’t see you there son, go on by!” he said with a warm simper, gesturing to me as I stumbled past.

I finally reached the door of the lavatory and clumsily thrust it open, falling to me knees and emptied the contents of my stomach. A moment later and this would’ve ended much much worse for the pony responsible for cleaning this train.

    “You doing alright in there sir?” a soft voice asked from the hallway. A middle aged mare in some kind of dusty old official's uniform complete with a blue peaked cap. Best guess was the conductor for the train. She gave me a worrying smile which made it hard to read her motive, perhaps it was pity or sympathetic, perhaps something more sinister.

I nodded my head turning my eyes back to look away from the mare. “I’m fine just...motion sick.”

I could see out of the corner of my eye the mare giving a nod of confirmation before she walked down the hall back toward the seats.

A blanket stitched from a hundred thousand thousand rags.

I wonder how long these “Rags” intended on following me.

* * * * * * * *

The rest of the train ride was no more pleasant than it started, at least I had nothing to throw up after that. But that didn’t mean I was less nauseous or scared. I was trapped in some horrible limbo. The train was filled with them, for every three ponies it seemed there was one of those Bloodlings. I could feel them looking at me, their eyes watching, impatiently. Each bead of ocular lead burrowing into my skin.

I wonder if this new fan of mine did this on purpose. It seemed very eager on making me part of whatever queer hive or cult it was part of. Every time I’d met these Bloodlings they’d been hostile to me, but now there was at least half a dozen of them in this very room with me and instead they sat and stared.

Perhaps the ‘Rags’ had unintentionally slipped into a limbo. They couldn’t attack me lest they lose their disguises and expose their true faces from their masks. But on the adverse side of things I couldn’t do a damn thing either. I’d look like I’d gone mad if I started screaming about “fake ponies” and “Bloodlings in disguise.” and I’d probably end up in a ward if I tried to attack one.

It was comforting to think this Bloodling stalker could make mistakes so foolish, but the opposite was more likely. “Rags”, it seems, had planned this, meticulously listened to my conversations and watched my every movement and purposely stacked this train with imposters just to unnerve me. it wouldn’t be a massive leap to assume this nausea was planned too. I had to itemise everything I had ingested, or had physical contact with, a particularly horrific thought.

How many vague faces, how many invisible ponies walking in the background of my life had been this same stranger following me? How many times had I partaken in some conversation or spoke secrets in confidence to others only for one of those thousands of ponies to be nothing more than the ghost of some pony dead and long since forgotten, sauntering around in control of some scheming puppetmaster?

For hours me and whatever this thing was controlling these monsters were forced to enjoy a ‘pleasant’ train ride. Which despite my continuing -  maybe even worsening -  illness gave me plenty of time to think. I could feel paranoia clawing at my neck. How many of my ‘friends’ were still my friends?

One thing was for sure, I couldn’t be alone, and I couldn’t let my friends be alone. That was exactly what “Rags” wanted, a moment of careless thought, a reprieve in vigilance and it’d sweep in for the attack.

The train arrived at the Station, and with trembling, enfeebled legs I wandered close to Allure out of the train, ignoring the litany of smiles from the sides as I exited. To feel solid ground on my hooves was refreshing, a greatly needed sense of normalcy after hours of the uncanny.

Melancholy Bay was freezing, the overcast sky let in a meager sunlight, and the wet concrete of this rusty station hinted that it’d been raining earlier. The smell of salt was on the air, and as we stepped out from the train station onto an overlooking plateau I stared in awe at the enormity before me on the horizon. A shimmering churning mass which stretched as far as the sky.

The ocean, I’d never seen the seas before.

Along the gloomy looking shore was a town, as big as towns got in Alwhinny. It wasn’t as big as Berryripe Bleaks, but it dwarfed Darkwater Down. I could see pastel figures between the mossy stone and the faded red bricks, sickly and dirty looking boats coming and going from the large concrete port that acted as the centrepiece of the whole town.

A town spared from the madness and ruin,  Alwhinny County’s calling card. A town with life. A town with order, society and to beckon romanticism and hope.

As we walked down the steps from this overlooking plateau to the lower parts of the town it seemed that Allure picked up on my wondering gaze. She’d previously been talking though I rather rudely had not been listening or speaking.

It was a beautiful town, not at all like what the Penumbra Highlands were normally like. Penumbra’s towns had been built fast to accommodate the rapid influx of population. This usually meant dreary concrete and prefabricated houses. But Melancholy Bay was a beacon of the old world, a reminder that there was a world long before the smoke spewing factories, sleepless cities and enormous mines.

The houses were all hoof built, with a style that only earth pony minds could summon. No facades, no garish architecture, just cobblestones and red brick with tile and steel roofs. Humble and simplistic.

Out there in the ruins of the world houses like this were annihilated by bombs, bulldozed to build glass monoliths, or simply left to rot when the ponies who cared for them were turned to ash.

There wasn’t a single shanty in the whole town, and that was what was so utterly amazing about the sight. Berryripe Bleaks was bigger, but the large town was mainly made of ruined houses and shanties cobbled together from found materials. Darkwater Down was mainly Wooden structures as trees were all we had anyway.

Besides the odd jury rigged repair job, all the houses were that same stone and brick. I could even see ramshackle construction sites with builders and carpenters erecting that very same brick and stone that this town was made of.

“See I told you Melancholy Bay was beautiful,” Allure smiled as we paced through the stone streets, passing dozens of citizens about their business. “Nobody ever believes it until they see it. I blame the name...and the fish,” Allure said cheerfully.

The view of brick and stone was only broken up when one looked too far to the east and that enormous concrete monolith pushed its way into view, standing mile after mile along the coast until the concrete met the ocean, where it pushed its way into the waves for several hundred metres before it ended in a large lighthouse. Nothing like the towering Lighthouse of the Sisters way back south, it was a functional lighthouse which once guided hulking barges, cargo ships and navy dreadnoughts along the rocky coast of Penumbra now spent its days shepherding the tiny fishing trawlers and merchant boats to its docks.

Whereas the wall seemed like some imposing force everywhere else, looming over the world like some faceless monolith,  I could see now see the wall for its real self. Here the wall stood not imposingly but protectively, this vulnerable town and its helpless ponies nestled into the bosom of the titan. The concrete bulwark thanklessly guarding its helpless citizens from the unnatural horrors that lurked both east of the wall in the unending night and the evil that gazed enviously from the wastes to the west.

    “So...Melancholy Bay hospital?” I heard Allure speak, finally growing tired of my whimsical romantics.

I shook myself free of my empty mind and turned, giving the mare a nod. “Yeah...I need to visit somebody.”

Allure pointed a hoof to the North East, at a white brick building around four stories tall on the coast just before the craggy dry grass of the dunes began. “Who are you visiting and why did you insist I not come?” she asked as we walked along the streets toward this tall building.

I took a moment to think about a response before I shrugged. “Family, and its personal is all. I have something I need to discuss in private with her…” I paused a moment as that creeping paranoia crawled back. “Actually...come with me to the hospital and just stay in the lobby. After I’m done here I want to hit the town, I could use your knowledge…”

* * * * * * * *

    “She’s right in here Mister Ashes.” the doctor said pointing to a door on the end of the stark and sterile white hallway, marked 404 on a metal plate. “If you don’t mind me asking what was your relation to her? Lilly Flower at reception didn’t say, she just told me you said you were related.” the mare said pausing a few feet from the door and lowering her voice to a whisper.

    “Yeah...I’m her uncle I said lying through my teeth with all the stone faced ease a colt who’d grown up skipping church and bluffing to a harshly religious father could muster. “I heard what happened I came as soon as I could.”

The doctor mare nodded. “We’ll go in now. I must warn you Mister Ashes...her condition has degraded significantly,” the doctor warned, looking into my eyes with a genuine look of pity and sorrow.

    “What happened to her?”

The doctor sighed. “Her mental state has decreased rapidly. Her father, Mister Sticky Wicket,  he recently...was submitted here for mania and necromancy burns. Apparently he and young North Star went into Penumbra for work with the Rangers, and well...his symptoms were telltale with Blackwater burning. We could treat the burns, and he didn’t lose any limbs, but...he lost his mind, we’re afraid.”

I nodded, I didn’t have to fake that shock. I’m not even sure why it came as a shock to me. How did I forget Sticky Wicket had rushed down into the caves with me? Of course he was burned by the blackwater, and unlike Soft Gale, he lost the metaphorical coin toss for his mind.

    “And North...did she get, burned?”

The mare shook her head. “Remarkably no, not so much as a rash or irritation. She must have been wrapped up tight, shame her father didn’t follow suit,” she sighed moving to the door. “Just please keep in mind she’s very delusional, Mister Ashes. She’s had real problems with paranoia. We can barely get her to eat or take her medication lest she has an episode and gets aggressive. She thinks her recurring nightmares are the result of something invading her mind.”

I felt a lump in my throat which I promptly swallowed. This exact situation was why I was being so secretive and careful. They genuinely thought North was insane.“Wow that's...really heartbreaking. I promise to be careful with her, but the least I can is try talk to her right, if it gets her eating again it will be worth it.”

The nurse nodded and put on a smile as she knocked the door. “North Star?” the nurse said in a soft and gentle voice as she opened the door and slowly walked in. “Somebody has come to visit you!” she smiled, stepping aside and letting me in.

In the corner of the room curled up against the wall was the filly I’d once described as bright and melodic. That had most definitely changed. Her hair was greasy and she looked like she hadn’t properly bathed in days. Her coat looked damp like she was constantly sweating. Her eyes were red and that bright cheerful gaze was now ruined in lieu of dark bags under her eyes.

She looked at me and her eyes shot open, almost as if her mood had changed immediately upon seeing me. She opened her mouth to speak but I cut her off quickly.

    “Niece!” I said loudly trying to wink only to realize I only had the one eye to try that with. “I know it's been a while but it's me, I’m your dad's brother, Ashes?”

North looked very confused but her expression changed once she made the connection in her head. “Of c-course I remember!” she said with a smile.

I turned to look at the nurse who kept that cheerful grin up, nodding to me. She backed out of the room and closed the door behind her.

I trot my way over to the filly who rather unceremoniously latched on to hug me. I was unprepared for such intimacy, but I wasn’t going to stop her. Now that I realized what she’d been through, even somepony as cold as me could use a hug after that.

I waited a moment for her to calm down, but she didn’t. In fact the heaving in her small frame betrayed the fact that she’d started crying. I sighed, intimacy made me nervous but I needed to put that aside. I reached down and wrapped my hoof around her as she began weeping.

    “They think I’m crazy Mister Ashes…” she sobbed, her voice muffled as her face was pressed into my side.

I didn’t know what to say to her. What did you say to a filly who’d been through what she’d been through? I could imagine the loss of family. I’d had it happen twice, and as North was very aware I was considerably responsible for it happening the second time.

But to be shoved into a tiny room and kept under lock and key and to be told day in and day out that thoughts you knew were real were delusions? That would be enough to break even the strongest ponies.

I knew already what she wanted me to do, and I knew that I was going to have to explain to her why I couldn’t. I was cold but I wasn’t heartless.

    “North...I know that you’re going to ask me to get you out of here...and trust me if the situation was that simple I would, but there is a bigger problem right now. Something that makes things very dangerous for me and ponies I actually care about.”

She looked up at me with teary red eyes. At the very least she was willing to listen.

    “Some...thing is hunting me, stalking me, even now. I can bet that son of a bitch is sitting patiently in the lobby with Allure waiting for me to leave.” I began. “Bloodlings, North. They’ve followed me back to the wall, and it seems whatever is in charge of them is very adamant on killing or kidnapping me.”

North nodded and kept listening. “This...bloodling infestation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The Rangers are in a panic, and I’m pretty sure more and more ponies are dying every day. I’m not sure how deep they’ve dug their hooves in, but that's precisely my problem.”

“W-what do you mean Mister Ashes?”

I sighed and held her tighter as it got difficult to say. “I can fight them...my friends are soldiers, North. We can fight them if they come for us, but you’re a filly, not a soldier. If one tries to attack you…” I tried to continue but I lacked the heart. “They don’t attack somebody unless they know for a fact that their cover won’t be blown. My guess is that their strongest weapon is their ability to disguise themselves. They’d sooner wait than let their cover be blown.” I looked at the door and listened to the gentle muffled sounds of hooves moving on tiles.

“These rooms are monitored day and night. Reception has armed guards, cameras, and security doors. This ward ironically is the safest place for anybody when there's an army of those things infiltrating the rangers. I hate to say it, but as long as you’re in this hospital you’re very, very unlikely to be attacked. Whatever is controlling these things won’t risk blowing its cover to try get to you.”

North nodded slowly. “S-so you want me to stay?” she asked with an absolutely unbearable hint of disappointment.

I nodded shamefully and hugged her tightly again. “I need you to stay here North, until I know that the outside is safer for you. As soon as this situation is handled I will come get you out of here, but for now this is the safest place in the world for you to be. In here you’re watched by guards, fed real food, and have a roof and bed. That's more than I can offer you right now.”

“If you need to, you can come see me in my dreams. Even if you have to do it every night that's fine, but the reality is this ward is the safest place in the world for you to be until I figure out a way to deal with this Bloodling problem. Just play along, eat when they give you food, bathe and drink, do as they say and behave, they are keeping you safe.”

North nodded slowly, sniffing and using her hoof to wipe the tears from her eyes. “O-okay, I understand,” she said softly. “But...you have to promise you will come get me out of here when it's safe...please,” the filly begged.

    “I promise, I will come get you out of here as soon as I handle this Bloodling problem.”

North looked up at me and gave me a curious look, and for a brief moment I saw the flicker of that light return to her saddened eyes. “How will you handle it Mister Ashes?”

* * * * * * * *

I watched over the sandy coast as the sun began to kiss the horizon. The only time of day the world got sunlight was dusk and dawn. I’d told Allure I needed to go for a walk and had left our hotel room to stand on the beach. But I wasn’t enjoying the sights, I was waiting.

Along the docks and the cobblestone road above the beach I could see ponies shuffling, citizens and workers. The crowd of a thousand empty faces. Strangers, ponies who may as well have been ghosts to me.

It was in there, one of those thousand faces was under the control of this thing. In that patchwork quilt of earth ponies and unicorns one of them was fake, at least one of these ponies had to be a puppet made of rags.

I saw one pony separate from the town's nightlife beginning to swell near the taverns and inns. I watched carefully as this bright yellow earth pony mare walked down the stone steps to the sand and paced toward me.

I was watching very carefully, my heart began to race as the pony grew closer to her target which had so foolishly left himself alone and isolated, the perfect time to try attack. She spoke up in a husky voice, almost playful and seductive. “Enjoying the sights stranger?”

I knew mares like this one from home, the cheerful type you’d see hanging around at taverns looking for handsome stallions to buy them drinks and take them home.

    “You know for something trying to be mysterious, you sure are predictable. I knew you couldn’t resist.” I said to the approaching mare. Who giggled in response, walking closer.

I turned to face the pony who stopped a few feet away from me, shooting me an unnerving smile. I looked into her eyes and tried to probe the face of this vibrant mare, so cheerful and full of life, but I saw nothing. Her eyes betrayed the deadness inside her. No matter how big your smile was, no matter how seductive you tried to be, no matter how convincing your facade was, there was always a flaw in the mask.

    “How do you live with yourself?” I asked the mare. “Every single pony..all these faces you wear...does it ever occur to you they were once alive, that they had hopes, and dreams and aspirations. I’m genuinely curious, have you deluded yourself into thinking that your faith makes what you do okay somehow, or are you really just a monster and you don’t care about all the lives you’re destroying just to hunt me?”

Those eyes just grew more dead  and her grin just grew wider. “Since when have you cared Mister Ashes. You don’t know this mare, you didn’t know those ponies on the train, you’d never met that nurse. Why is it that you care about them now?” the mare cocked her head to the side as she looked at me, stepping closer. She moved her lips to my neck nuzzling it like she was my lover. Another sinister giggle escaped her lips as she moved to my ear.

“Before I took them they were nothing to you. They may as well have been actors in a play, or faces in the background of some great painting. Until I came along they were merely voices singing and adding harmony to the great big song called ‘Ashes Life’” she whispered. “You didn’t care about them before me, even if you’d like to pretend otherwise. Their death is the only thing that gave them meaning to you. These strangers are only real to you because I make them real. I pull their little strings and force them into your life.” The mare gently lifted a hoof and pressed it to my chest, caressing it before I stepped back and pushed her away from me.

    “I’m not a monster Mister Ashes. I don’t bring an end to their lives like you accuse me of. I give them life. I make them part of your story.”

I shivered as her eyes stared into mine, those shallow looking glassy orbs worn like a mask, the soul of this pony poorly imitated while her corpse was danced around on strings for the sick amusement of some monster.

    “No more.” I said gritting my teeth in anger. “No more killing alright? I’ll play your stupid fucking game, I’ll come meet you and your precious god, just stop. There is no reason for the innocent to keep suffering like this.” I shot back, my body seething with anger and disgust.

She giggled again. “How do you know they are innocent?” she asked. “Like I said, Mister Ashes, these ponies were nothing. All of them are disposable, meaningless creatures living their empty selfish lives. How do you know she was not a murderer or a rapist. If I told you she spent her weekends hacking dogs and cats to death with a meat cleaver, would you know any better?”

“How do you know she was any of those things?”

The mare almost bounced as she laughed, the monster wearing this mare like a face was ecstatic like I’d asked it a question it’d waited for me to ask.

“Because she isn’t dead Mister Ashes, she’s in here with me. Every memory she ever had, her dreams, her hopes...her sins. I can feel and see them all. I don’t kill them at all. A blanket stitched from a hundred thousand rags, Mister Ashes, like scrap cloth on the floor of a mill. Each piece is a different size, shape and quality. On their own they’re useless garbage waiting to die or be swept away, ignored in a great meaningless heap as they all wait for the end of days.”

She stepped closer to me and I rather quickly took a step back. “But together all of them sewn into one great patchwork…” the mare said, her grin slowly fading back into a content looking smile. “They have purpose...their meaningless little lives suddenly have meaning. There is no “you” behind this mare Mister Ashes. This mare is me and I am her. I am not a rag nor am I multiple rags, but I am a hundred thousand rags in one great tapestry.”

The mare spun around, walking away from me with a cheerful hum. “Do not worry about coming to find me Mister Ashes, I will bring you to me, or would you rather keep running from me?” She laughed growing more distant as she skipped away before stopping. “Hah...who am I kidding, you never had a choice to begin with.”

I kept my body tense and my teeth clenched tight, my jaw refusing to unlock as I watched that yellow mare walk up the stone stairs, and in the blink of an eye she bled into the crowd of ponies milling and walking about the paths of the town, disappearing into a tide of faces just as quickly as she’d appeared.