Across Equestria (c)

Sept. 6 8:03 AM

Lyra walked down the streets of Canterlot, scanning each store she passed. Bon-bon had stopped at a store a few blocks down the street and told Lyra  that she would catch up later. Lyra continued scanning. Nope, nope, nope. she thought, Ugh, where is it? Lyra had been looking for a particular store all morning, but still was not sure where it was. The storefronts were all starting to look the same to Lyra. She passed another store featuring dresses and gowns in the window. She and Bon-bon had taken a trip to Canterlot to go shopping and visit their friends Octavia and Vinyl. Lyra had told Vinyl they would be there at about two, and was looking forward to chatting with her dear friend.

A few hours passed, and Bon-bon had still not caught up. Lyra had stopped at a few stores, and was now carrying several shopping bags that were starting to get a little heavy. Lyra paused and set down her bags. Her head turned and looked down the streets for Bon-bon, but there was still no sign of her.

As time passed, Lyra started to wonder if Bon-bon might already be at Vinyl's house. Perhaps she couldn't find Lyra and decided to wait for her at Vinyl's. Lyra pondered this for a while. Maybe she had thought the same thing Lyra was thinking now and went there looking for her. Wherever Bon-bon was, it was most likely she was there. Lyra finally decided on this and turned on the road that led to Vinyl's house.

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Lyra stood at the door to Vinyl's house, perplexed. Nope, haven't seen her all day. Vinyl's voice echoed in her head. If she wasn't here, then where was she? Was she out on the streets looking for Lyra, just as she had been looking for her? Had somepony prevented her from coming? Lyra was not sure. Wherever she was, she wasn't here, and Lyra wasn't going to get any closer by staying put. She wandered back out onto the streets of Canterlot, leaving her bags at Vinyl's house to pick up later. The hot afternoon sun warmed Lyra's back until she was nearly panting. The streets were quiet. On hot days like this one, the ponies of Equestria were usually keeping cool inside or going to the nearest body of water for a day on the lake.

Lyra was not sure where she was anymore. The streets were no longer familiar, and many of the building were either run-down or abandoned. Sometimes it was hard to tell which was which. The run-down stores were just as-if not more-shabby as any deserted building. The ponies inside did not seem to be much either. Though Lyra could not see most of them, there were a few sitting on porches and decks drinking from dripping cold containers. Lyra walked on the other side of the street when she passed these ponies, and they all stared at her warily. Sometimes their eyes met hers with their hard, mistrusting stares, and it was at these times that Lyra felt the most unprotected. Her eyes immediately shifted away.

A deal of time passed, and a short deluge passed though, soaking Lyra's coat and leaving her mane soggy and messy. Lyra had spent a lot of time thinking as she was walking down these run-down streets, and was beginning to wonder if she had been erroneous in thinking that Bon-bon would have come this way. Lyra was frightened to be walking this way, and found herself feeling that something could pop out at her at any minute. Surely Bon-bon wouldn't have wanted to come this way either. Lyra was walking through an area that was mostly abandoned, and was wondering if she should turn back. As she was thinking through her day's fallacies, she started to smell something. It was not the sweet scent of candy, nor was it the familiar scent of another pony. No, this scent was something Lyra had never smelled before. It reminded her vaguely of the smell of the trash bin at home if it was left unemptied for too long. But it couldn't be that. This scent was far worse.  It was a terrible scent that filled her nostrils, leaving her nothing else to smell but the terrible stench. The overwhelming power of this smell made Lyra's stomach heave, and sprouted a slight headache at the back of her skull.

Lyra tried to identify where the smell was coming from, and pinpointed it inside one of the buildings on the right side of the street, the opposite side of where she was walking. She followed the terrible scent over to the broken windows of the building. Imprudently, Lyra stepped inside of the windowsill, carefully avoiding the broken shards of glass on the floor. Her hooves stirred up great plumes of dust from the old wooden planks as she walked carefully through the building's interior. She passed though an empty door frame into what used to be a kitchen. The dingy countertops were chipped along the edges and bore various stains and marks from a long period of use. Cupboard doors hung loosely on their frames, a few only hung by one hinge, one had fallen off completely. The cupboards all appeared to be empty. There was a dark space on the floor next to the cupboards that looked like it had once been occupied by a fridge. On the left wall was another door frame that led into a living area. Lyra trod into the next room

Perhaps a long time ago, the room had been used as a living space, but now it was no more than a weathered old mess. Dust bunnies huddled in the corners of the room, and the entire floor looked disgusting. Old scratch marks scoured the walls on the far side of the room, left there by some animal that had sheltered here a long time ago. In the opposite corner of where Lyra was standing, the was a gaping hole in the roof. Sunlight filtered through it weakly after the rain. The floor in that corner was still wet with rain, and was the only area in the room that was still clean. Along the wall to Lyra's left was another door that let to who-knows-where. It was not the hole in the roof, nor the scratches on the wall that caught Lyra's attention. It was the thing lying in the center of the sunlight that Lyra stared at. The powerful scent hit her again, this time mixed with the distinctive smell of wet fur, almost knocking Lyra off her hooves. Lyra could tell what  the smell was now. It was the scent that no creature, pony or beast, ever forgets. It was the smell that would haunt her for the rest of her life, always lingering at the back of her mind. It was the smell she would come to associate with this day forever. It was the smell of death.

In the center of the sunlight was Bon-bon, her legs splayed out like a starfish, her chin firmly resting on the floor. Her usually neat curls were wet and frizzy. Her tail was matted and stuck to the floor in a soggy, sticky mess. all over her body were bruises, brilliant splashes of purple and black against her pale yellow coat. In the center of her forehead was a large dent where her skull had been smashed by something, by what Lyra did not know. Her mouth was set in a permanent frown, her countenance looking as though she was attending a funeral, perhaps her own. There was a gash in her left foreleg, and blood was dried to the fur around it. The puddle of rainwater around her was streaked with blood from this wound, tinging the water pink. The terrible scent of death wafted from her body, filling the room with its stench. Somehow her body managed to smell both burnt and soggy at the same time, baked by the sun in the noon hours, then doused by rain in the afternoon. Lyra shut her mouth tightly at this sight, holding in both vomit and screams. She tried to get a hold of herself, but her mind was rushing with memories and the words Who did this? Who did this? Who did this.......