Clock Tower: The Rudella Legacy

Chapter One: The Bludgeoning Psychopath, Sledgehammer

Sunset rolled up the letter and placed it into her saddlebag, staring at the alicorn bottle that housed it. She glanced over at the fountain, still red with the blood-like substance. Her mother must’ve anticipated the possibility of the bottle found by the wrong people, so she must’ve had an elaborate system to dirty the water so that the seal wouldn’t be easily undone.

“Great, that just means I have to find some other way to fill this.” Placing the bottle in her saddlebag as well, she made her way back to the hole in the fireplace and crawled back out. Dusting herself off, she made her way toward the bathroom door only to find the same insignia burned onto it. “This one isn’t glowing like the other one...Maybe…” Her horn lit up and she tried turning the knob. Much to her surprise, it was unlocked, yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the door to open.

“I guess I’ll try the kitchen sink.” She walked back down the stairs and headed in the direction of the dining room. Walking past the table and chairs, she enters the kitchen and stands in front of the sink. She places the bottle underneath the faucet and turns the water on.

Much to her dismay, only a single drop falls into the container. “Now how am I supposed to fill this thing?”

Walking back out into the foyer, Sunset sits on the stairs and lets out a huge breath. Having come so far to find her mother yet unable to even begin her search, she started giving up hope. She looked around the foyer from her resting place. A book laid on a table in one corner of the foyer. It happened to be one of her mother’s favorites. Perhaps she was reading it the day she disappeared.

On the other side of the room, an intricate vase sat on top of another table. Her mother told her about the vase, about how her father spent hours picking it out and bringing it home to her. Sunset smiled as she recounted the tale in her head.

Her gaze quickly locked onto the vase again. She had remembered something about the item that she didn’t think about before. “Mom used that vase to place a flower for Dad on the anniversary of his death. Maybe…” She stood and walked over to the vase. Placing the bottle on the table, she levitated the vase and shook it. The distinct sloshing sound of water could be heard echoing from the mouth of the vase.

“Perfect”, she whispered in victory. Uncorking the bottle, she tipped the vase and pour its contents into the container, having just enough water to fill it. The alicorn bottle glows with a pale blue light just as she empties the last drop into it. Once it subsides, she puts the vase back down and corks the bottle, rushing back to her mother’s bedroom door. “Here goes nothing.”

Sunset unseals the alicorn bottle, splashing some of the water on the symbol on the door. It glows brightly for a few seconds before exploding into ethereal shards. Sunset covers her face to prevent any shards from harming her. The pieces, however, never seem to make contact with her. Instead, they just pass right through her, dropping to the floor before disappearing completely. Sunset tries the knob again, giving easily and allowing her access.

Letting the door swing open, she walks into the master bedroom. She closes the door behind her and locks it, in case the mad lodger decides to return. She pauses and surveys the room. Pictures of Sunset and her father adorned the various dressers around the room.

Not wasting another second, she starts her search for any hint of her mother’s whereabouts. Sifting through documents on her desk to pulling books one by one from the bookshelf reveals nothing. Sunset left no rug unturned or drawer unopened, determined to find something she could use.

Several minutes of searching turned up nothing. As she began losing hope yet again, Sunset took a seat on her mother’s bed. Just as she was about to lay down, one of her hooves hit something hard. Giving the exact same spot a couple of knocks, she pulls the sheets back to reveal a book.

“Looks like it’s bookmarked to a certain page.” She opens the book, leafing through a hoof-full of pages before coming to the bookmark. What she sees on the page causes her to jump off the mattress in fear.

The illustration showed an elderly stallion wearing a derby hat and a large overcoat. He had a frightening look in his eyes, almost as if he was driven by some ungodly force. The words underneath the image finally gave this unsettling man a name: Sombra.

Sunset was startled by a sudden noise. It sounded like someone was playing the piano. Rushing over to a small radio kept by her mother’s nightstand, she hit the stop button on it. Assuming that the button was broken, she opened the disc tray instead. The disc inside wasn’t spinning, nor was the radio turned on.

The music kept playing, louder and louder until Sunset had to cover her ears with her own hooves. Frantically searching for any other source of music in the room, she stumbled and knocked over paraphernalia, turning the once orderly room into one of chaos.

The piano grew louder still, finally forcing Sunset out into the hallway. As she opened the bedroom door, a bright light blinded her but did nothing to slow her down. Her vision impaired, she felt her way down the hall toward the stairs. She came to a sudden stop.

“What’s going on? The railing should be right…” As her sight returned, she looked at her surroundings. Instead of the hallway leading up to her mother’s room, she found herself in a hallway with walls of stone. The door behind her was old, but it definitely wasn’t the same as the one she came out of. She ran back, thinking it was some sort of parlor trick. As she turned to face the direction she came from, something knocked her away and almost made her lose her balance.

The insignia that Sunset has seen many times before glowed brightly, a magical barrier now blocking her way back. Sunset, still unsure of what’s going on, grabbed the alicorn bottle again. Just as she was about to splash the barrier, the same strong magical force sent her flying, forcing the door at the other end of the hall open.

She found herself outside in the cold evening air, landing on her side against a cobblestone path. Before she could get her bearings straight, a loud explosion shook the ground, the din of an alarm filling the atmosphere. Sunset could hear something else in the skies above. The entire night sky was dotted with large bomber airplanes, very similar to the ones found in history museums. In their wake, a series of bombs were being dropped onto the city below them.

Sunset jolted upright and ran for cover, fearing for her life. Another explosion, much closer than the last, tore a church apart just as she ducked under a broken-down bus. Her hiding spot wouldn’t last, however. Another bomb dropped on the building that the bus rested against, causing a tower to crumble under its own weight.

Sunset sprinted from under the bus and jumped down a small flight of stairs, the debris from the tower crashing down onto the sidewalk with enough force to knock the bus onto its side. As the bombs blanketed the streets above her, she could do nothing but hold back tears, afraid that she might not survive the encounter.

Just as soon as they had started, the explosions stopped. The planes sounded much further away than when she arrived, leaving the city with nothing more than the sound of the still-wailing klaxon. Sunset slowly made her way up the staircase and looked around. Fires from the aftermath of the bombing started to rage, turning the once-darkened street bright orange.

“Okay”, Sunset started. “Let me just piece together what happened. I came home, met a strange man implying something happened to my mother, I now have a bottle of holy water which I used to undo a magical seal on my mother’s room which led me back out into the streets of…” She looked around for any road signs or maps she could use. One of the still-intact buildings had a flyer stuck to it.

It looked like an announcement for a piano competition. The location printed on the flyer was all she wanted to know. “Manehattan.” She didn’t stop reading. The date under the city name only fueled her fear. “24th of December, 1942!?”

The same song as before started to echo from a nearby tunnel. Calming herself, she listened to the tune and immediately recognized the piece. “That sounds like Clopan’s Fantasie Impromptu. Who could be playing that in the middle of all of this?”

Following the sound of the piano, she trotted down the tunnel and came to a raised platform, a magnificent view of a concert hall in the distance.. “Could that be where they are?” The mystery pianist continued playing the song, stopping suddenly after hitting a few incorrect notes. A few seconds of silence followed before they started playing the piece all over again.

“I need to get to that concert hall.” Searching for a safe way down to the streets below, she came up to a gate. However, when she tried reaching for the handle, the insignia that has plagued her since returning home glowed on the grating. Not wanting to repeat the same mistake, she instead reached for the holy water and splashed it on the door. The symbol dissipated just like the one before, but left Sunset without any water.

She glanced back at the tunnel she came from. There was a small fountain just a few feet away from the gate, water flowing from a manticore’s head onto a small man-made pond below. Walking up to it, she dipped the bottle into the pond and corked it, the bottle glowing as it purified the water within.

Sunset ran back to the gate and turned the handle, quickly making her way down the flight of stairs on the other side. Once she reached the bottom step, she realized that she entered a shopping district. With a renewed sense of panic, she ran up to each door and knocked loudly, hoping to see another soul.

“Hello? Can anyone help me?” No answer. Every door she tried left her feeling even more isolated with no hope of making sense of where and when she is.

At the end of the street, a lamp shone over a doorway to a tailor shop. It was the only one lit apart from the street lamps, drawing Sunset to the door like a moth to a flame. She knocked on it a few times before speaking. “Hello?” No reply, same as all the others. However, there was something off about this particular shop. Pushing on the door lightly, she found that it was open.

She made her way inside, the bell over the entrance ringing as the door moved. Not wanting to let the cold in, she closed it behind her. Sure enough, this was a tailor’s shop, but it looked like a struggle happened here. There were torn dresses and suits strewn about the floor, shards of glass littered among cloth scraps.

Sunset made her way to a door behind the front counter and tried to open it, looking for any occupants or perhaps even the owner. To her dismay, it was locked from the other side. She instead made her way upstairs to the second floor and walked along the railing.

Following the path of the balcony overlooking the ground floor of the shop, she made her way to the door at the end and opened it slowly. There were another flight of stairs leading down into a workshop, possibly where the owner works. Quickly walking back down to the first floor, she finds the workshop in complete disarray just like the main shop floor. She walks up to a desk, perhaps to search for any means of communication with local law enforcement. Instead she sees a slightly yellowed newspaper, a disturbing article printed on the front page. Sunset picks up the paper and reads it.

Hearthswarming Day Tragedy! “Sledgehammer” Strikes Again!

Hearthswarming Day, 1942 - Manehattan Uptown Shopping District:

Sweetie Belle, aged 10, was found murdered in Carousel Boutique. Her body was discovered by her older sister Rarity, an up-and-coming fashionista in the industry. Ms. Rarity claims to have found her sister unconscious and bleeding from a blow to the head. Paramedics arrived on the scene and concluded that the victim died instantly as a result of the blow, as a subsequent autopsy also revealed. The bludgeoning in question is said to have been caused by a large hammer, swung with enough force to throw the young girl against the wall just outside of her bedroom.

It is speculated that the method used to murder the victim falls within the same modus operandi as the serial killer known as Sledgehammer. Police have no leads as to the identity of the murderer, but is believed to be a copycat killer basing his or her work on the string of murders perpetrated by a local rock farmer.

The Manehattan Police Department urge anyone who may have information regarding this crime to call their hotline…

She couldn’t continue reading the article. The images that accompanied the news were too graphic. If the date on the flyer and on the newspaper were true, it was too much even for this time period.

Sunset heard a loud thud coming from upstairs, followed by the screams of a young filly. “No! Stay away! Someone help!” The thuds became even more frequent, followed by a gruff male voice.

“Come on! I just want to play with you, little one!”

“No, don’t come any closer!” The filly screamed again, causing Sunset to drop the newspaper and run upstairs. The door at the top of the staircase flew open, the filly being slammed against the opposite wall with tremendous force. A spatter of blood was left where she hit the surface as her body slumped over and came to a rest on the top step. She was clearly no longer breathing.

A large hulking figure walked out from the filly’s bedroom, laughing to himself as the blood pooled around the young filly. The figure was a large unicorn, easily taller than most adult stallions. Using his magic, he hoists a gigantic hammer over his head and roars triumphantly.

“Ha ha ha ha! I did it! I killed her!” This stallion was clearly out of his mind if he’s celebrating a homicide like this. Sunset slowly and quietly backed away from him, her position compromised as one of the steps creaked under her weight. The stallion looked in her direction, meeting her eyes with his own psychotic stare. “Looks like I’m on the nice list this year. TWO FILLIES FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!”

Not wasting a moment, Sunset runs toward a door and tries getting it opened. In her panic, she didn’t notice it was locked at first, but quickly realized her mistake and ran through, slamming it shut behind her. Thinking on her hooves, she ran behind one of the large velvet curtains hanging by the store windows. Thankfully, they were large enough to cover her completely with no one searching for her being the wiser.

The door from the workshop crashed open, being torn completely from its hinges. The unicorn stallion stepped through, chuckling to himself the entire time. “Where are you, little filly? I just want to have some fun, don’t you?”

True to his nature, the psychopath started sniffing the air like a hound. Sunset held her breath as the stallion drew closer to her hiding spot. Fearing for her life yet again, she felt a sense of dread starting to consume her, bringing her closer and closer to a panic attack.

Just as she was about to run out, the stallion started walking away, laughing and sniffing the entire time. He broke through the front door of the shop and made his way onto the streets, leaving Sunset alone.

She finally let her breath out, her chest pounding from the scare she experienced. Her legs felt weak as she moved from behind the curtain, sitting on her haunches as she caught her breath. Tears started welling in her eyes. She found herself lucky to survive an encounter like that, yet she could do nothing to save that young filly.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” she said, sobbing loudly.

“It’s alright.”

Sunset suddenly felt cold. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she saw the young filly. On her head was a large gash left by the blow from the madman’s hammer. Blood trickled down her face and onto the floor, her dress stained in a crimson hue from earlier.

“You’re a…”

“A ghost. Yes…” The young filly had a sad expression on her face. “But please don’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could do to save me even if you wanted to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was already dead days ago. What you saw tonight has already happened, like how a song on a record can be played over and over long after the actual performance.” She took hold of Sunset’s hoof with both of her own in an effort to calm her down. “My name’s Sweetie Belle. What’s yours?”