Frozen Moon

Chapter 3: All alone

You have been sitting on a bench at the station’s platform of which the train had left; it must have been almost two hours since she left. You simply sat there staring at the hooves that had caused all this mess.

You felt the bench move a little as somepony sits next to you.

“Excuse me, is everything alright?” a gentle female voice to your right asked.

You look to your right, to see who was talking. It was a unicorn mare with a light pink coat and a white mane; she was also wearing a police uniform. Your stomach made a somersault and you quickly look back in front of you.

“I’m o-okay, nothing to worry here” you say obviously nervous.

“Sir, you have been sitting here for at least an hour without moving an inch. Someponies told me that they thought you were dead” she says with a chuckle, trying to cheer you up.

“I’m just minding my own business” you say without looking at her.

“Rough day huh?” she asks

You let out a long sigh and nod in. You were getting more and more anxious every second. What if there was already any news on the investigation floating around, and what if she knew about it, and what if she knew that it was about a murder. Of course these were all speculations. But still, just the thought about getting arrested made you almost panic.

“Marefriend?”

The question takes you by surprise, but you manage to shake your head in reply.

“Good, because that filly you put on that train would have been way too young for you” she says with another chuckle and pats your shoulder.

“I should be going” you say and get up from the bench, your anxiety reaching its breaking point.

The police mare gives you a questioning look, “am I bothering you?” she asked with a hint of guilt.

“N-no… I just need to get going, I’m already late” you trot away as fast as you can, trying to suppress the urge to run. ‘Great, now you are also making others feel bad’ you think to yourself.

“Hey wait up!”

You turn around and see the officer heading towards you with a slow gallop. You unfold your wings and beat them as hard and fast as you can, shooting of towards the snow covered plains.

“Come back here!”

You feel a telekinetic pull on your leg, almost making you lose control of your flight path. Panic kicks in and adrenaline begins to rush through your veins, you kick frantically to get away from the magical grip.

You manage to break free from the aura and speed up as much as you can in an effort to put as much distance between you and the city, as fast as possible. You can hear the police mare yell something after you, but the wind in your ears blurs out the meaning of the words. The only thing you could think about, with your panicking mind, was getting away from there.

You fly for half an hour alongside the trees of the edge of a forest. You almost collapsed due to the exaction as soon as you land. You stumbled on your hooves, panting loudly.

You look around to see where you are. In the distance you can see a few trees and hills, but the city was long gone in the horizon.

You look inside the forest; it’s dark and very lush in plant life. There was something in the back of your mind that screamed at you that going in here was a very bad idea.

You try to catch your breath and make some distance between you and the forest; even if it was just a few yards, it felt a lot more comfortable. You sit yourself down underneath a tree and pull out the map from you saddlebag. You look at the area around the city and then at the position of the sun, after some quick calculations you have a good guess of where you are now.

You look at the large forest on the map, “Everfree forest” you read out loud. The name sounds somewhat familiar to you, but you can’t put your hoof on it. You shrug it off and return to the map and look on the opposite side of the forest from where you were now.

A little town called Ponyville caught your eye; it’s directly on the other side of the forest. It’s probably a good place to make a quick stop and fuel up before going any further. It is also close to Canterlot, which you figure, nopony will be looking for you; seeming it’s the capital with two goddesses who each control a heavenly body. And come on, what criminal will go straight towards there. Only idiots will, that’s who. This is also the reason why they’ll never expect you there. Besides, the forest wasn’t that big and you could probably fly over it in less than two hours if you keep up a good pace.

You stretch out your wings and wince as your left wing aches; the strain, of the fast flight you just made, making itself noticeable. It wasn’t a good idea rushing towards here; your wings are feeling numb and tired now. You decide to rest for a couple of minutes longer before heading out over the forest.

You look in the direction the city is supposed to be, a cold fear runs over your spine. What if there was a pegasus patrol unit looking for you right now, closing in at you when you are just sitting here. Leaving with tired wings right now didn’t sound half as bad all of the sudden. You hastily stuff the map back in your bag and take off over Everfree forest.

You fly over the dense forest its canopy. The constant silence around you, except for some birds and the wind in your ears, keeps your ears pointed up for anything that might be heard.

Suddenly a crow flies up from the trees right beneath you and squawks as it almost flies into you. Your heart makes a barrel roll in your chest and you nearly lose control of your flight, “stupid bird!” you yell after it. But the crow just flies off towards another tree below.

You were still trembling out of shock. The forest was getting to you, making you very jumpy.

“Okay, take a deep breath and relax” you order yourself, “It’s just a dumb forest, nothing to be afraid of. Just some trees, shrubs and small critters”

Right at that moment a whole flock of colorful birds flies up, also scaring you nearly to death… again. “That’s not bucking funny!” you yell at the birds.

Your yell was answered by a deep loud growl out from underneath the trees the birds just flew out of. You stop dead in your tracks and hover in place, gazing down at where the trees were moving. A low snarl, this time accompanied by barks and yelps of what sounded to be dogs or wolves.

You went through you options. Stay where you are and be ready to run like a little filly if something comes out or run in advance and be gone before it has a chance to reach you. There was also the option of going down there and check out what was happening. But you weren’t tired of living just yet, so you tossed that one aside.

As sudden as the sounds began they stopped, only the sound of a whining dog lingered for a few more seconds. You sigh in relief and begin flying again; you want to get away from here as soon as possible.

As you fly you get confused, yet again by an unfamiliar sound. It sounds like your wings beats have an echo to them, while you didn’t notice this before. You stop beating your wings and glide through the air for a moment, listening if you could still hear the second pair of wings; which wasn’t the case, to all your luck.

You turned your head and look back, nothing. You continue beating your wings and the echo reappears. You stopped and the echo stopped as well. “What the buck” you mutter.

You have got an idea. You begin to make a wing beating motion but stop halfway through; still there was a wing beat. You look around, searching for whom or what is making those sounds.

Your stomach turns as you look up. Right above you is a lion like creature with bat wings and a scorpion tail flying just a few feet away from you. When it notices that you are looking at it, with cheer horror in your eyes, it starts to beat it wings more powerfully and makes a dive towards you with out to you with outstretched claws.

Your survival instincts kick in and you make a nose dive straight down, while the beast starts its pursuit after you. You drive towards the canopy, pulling up right above the tree tops, your hooves touching a few of the tree tops. You can hear the beast crash into the trees, but that didn’t stop him, only slow him down. To your right you notice a small opening in the roof of leaves and branches, perfect for you to zip in and make it a lot harder for the significant larger beast to follow you.

You dive between the trees, barely managing not to crash; which was hard with the speed you were flying at, not to mention the lack of light. The beast growled in anger as it realized that it was going to lose you. You keep on flying until there was nothing to be heard from behind you anymore.

You land on in the mud, making a sliding stop. You sit down under a tree, gasping for air while chuckling like an idiot. You can’t believe how lucky you were just now. It could have easily taken you down if it wanted to, but luckily it was toying with you by mimicking your wing beats, pretty smart for a wild animal you have to admit.

After a moment you catch your breath for the second time this day and stand up. You’ve had been flying for a while now, if you were right Ponyville should be in sight with a bit of luck. You fly up above the canopy and look in the direction you’ve had been flying in. There is nothing but a mountain far off in the distance.

You’ve been flying in the right direction at the right speed for the right amount of time; you couldn’t understand why you couldn’t see it yet. It is one of the few things you were good at in school, acing in math, physics and geography class. You lowered yourself back under the tree tops again and let out exaggerated sigh.

This was about to go very wrong if you didn’t play your cards right. You were stuck in an evil forest with dangerous monsters lurking all around you, and all above that you were exhausted. You decided to fly for a few more minutes in the hope to see any sign of civilization, without being chanced by one of those things again.

You fly up again after your short break and head in the direction you were originally going. This time being more aware of your surroundings, making sure to throw a few glances up and back to see if you had any unwanted visitors. At least you are able to shake them of, being a lot smaller and faster.

You shake your head, you shouldn’t think like that. Just focus on the matter at hoof, fly and don’t think back of that beast, or the creepy forest below, or the crippling cold, or the fact that the sun was already half gone in the horizon. You just have to keep your head calm and collected, and everything will be fine.

Every wing beat was starting to take an effort, you are not sure you can hang on much longer. The sun has sunken behind the horizon completely by now, taking away your only source of light and little warmth. The stars and the moon provide are the only dim a light sources now, providing just enough light to make out the forest below and hopefully some clearings.

You are looking for a spot to land; the exhaustion is starting to take its toll on your body. You spot a very small clearing, thanks to the contrast between the snow and the dark branches. You descend towards it and make a clumsy landing, nearly toppling over.

After a few more wing beats you were up in a tree on the edge of the clearing. You climb up to the thickest branch you can find and plonk yourself down. Even with the little comfort of only a cloak for warmth and the discomfort of your position, you find it easy to relax a bit. After only a few second you can feel your eyelids grow heavy and you welcome the feeling of sleep. Now just hope you don’t fall out of the tree.

Every time when there was a sound nearby you wake up with a shock; if it was a bird that flew up or a critter running shooting out from a shrub. It didn’t matter; your mind was on edge. Not that you had suspected to have a good night’s rest in this place. But still it was very irritating to have a small panic attack every time you hear something. The worst was when the sounds were from larger creatures, these kept you up for at least half an hour, listening if it was coming closer or if it was just passing by.

The whole ordeal was very tiring none the less. You could feel yourself doze off again, letting it wash over you and hoping not to wake up again. But then you heard a grumble all to close for comfort. You sat up and pressed yourself up against the tree, trying to be as much out of sight as possible.

You peeked down, seeing a rabbit run by in fear. You gulped in fear. ‘Maybe it is nothing, just a scared critter nothing more’ you think to yourself, right before you hear a sharp yelp and a rumble of something big hitting the ground. Your heart stops for a second, but then it feel like a pint of adrenaline is shot directly into your bloodstream, making your heart almost jump out of your chest

The bush the rabbit shot out from shook vigorously and one of those lion things stepped out, this thing almost double the size of the previous one you had encountered earlier today. Also this one seemed to be missing an eye and had a lot more scars over its body.

You fought the urge to fly up and flee, but you were sure the thing would go after you, so you stayed put, trying to breathe as silently as possible. But with all the adrenaline rushing through your body it was a nearly impossible task. You could only sit back and watch as the beast walked towards your tree. You notice that it is holding something in its mouth, probably the poor animal that had yelped before.

Your luck hadn’t run out just yet. The beast lay itself down underneath the tree and placed the still squirming, now noticeable, rabbit in front of it. You could hear the little creature pant a whine in fear. The beast had it pinned down under its massive paw that dwarfed the rabbit.

This wasn’t feeding; this was fun for that monster. The rabbit was seriously hurt, leaving a small puddle of blood where one of its back legs was supposed to be. The beast lies itself down on its belly with the rabbit between its paws. It whacks the rabbit around between them, just like how a foal plays with a ball.

When it was done with playing it started hitting the small creature, letting its paw land on it, resulting in multiple painful yelps. It pinned the rabbit down and started to lick it, its rough tongue ripping through the wound of the lost leg. The pain was getting too much for the critter and it passed out, or died of a heart attack. The beast however found this less than amusing that its toy had broken.

It took the head of the rabbit in between its yaws and ripped the head off, followed by sickening crunches as it chewed up the rabbit its head. You feel nauseous and struggle against your gag reflex. You can only wait for the beast to finish its snack and hope for it walks away when it is done. After a horrifying and sickening minute the rabbit is gone.

The beast lies its head down on its paws and closes its eyes. You curse under your breath when the realization dawn upon you, it was going to sleep here. If the sun comes up the monster would easily spot you here, catch you and devourer you, just like it did with the rabbit. There is only one option left; Wait for it to sleep and try to sneak away as quietly as possible.

You waited for what felt like an eternity, just to be sure the beast was actually asleep. You very carefully peeked over the branch again, looking at that monstrosity. The beast lay curled up in a ball, taking slow deep breaths, its ears flat on its head. You slowly and silently make yourself ready to get out of the tree, fastening your bags a bit tighter and tucking your cloak away underneath it so that it can’t get caught on anything, which is one of the last things you want to have happen now.

You carefully lower yourself down to a lower branch and repeat this process as carefully as you can. You slowly make your way down towards the ground, but the lowest branches aren’t anywhere near the ground. You are now as low as you can go and the only way down now is making a silent glide.

You waited another few minutes to make sure the beast was still asleep and to gather some courage. You take a quiet deep breath and open your wings. You think that the beast idea is to carefully glide towards the clearing, getting as far as possible without flapping your wings.

You leap from the branch and glide towards the clearing. You don’t make it very far, but still manage to land silently. You sneak away from the tree, throwing a glance back towards the tree. The beast was still sleeping underneath it, which was a big relief to you. You continue slowly inching away, while throwing back glances all the while

You are now almost in the middle of the clearing and the monster is barely visible in this darkness. You stop for a second to make sure it is still there, focusing on the spot, you can still make it the silhouette. At least that is the thing right? You step a little closer to it and your heart sinks. The shape in the darkness you were focusing on was just a shrub, but that was not the worst part.

You hear a snarl from right behind you, causing the hairs all over your body to stand up straight in horror. You just made the biggest mistake in your life, only if you had focused a little better. You stood still for a few second, not hearing any movement behind you.

You dared to look back. The beast was in position, ready to lunge at you. But it was waiting for you to make the first move. Without a second thought you bolted back in to the tree line. The loud disturbances and growls behind you letting you know that it was following you. You ran as fast as you could, letting survival instincts taking over.

The straight path in the clearing gave the monster the opportunity to close some distance, but as soon as the two of you were in the thick woods it had a bit of a harder time to follow you. It still was very close to you, and through these woods your size wasn’t a real advantage. It was a lot denser here, but the trees a lot thinner.

You dared to peek back a glance, only to find the beast a mere meter or so away from you. It was literally smashing through the trees behind you. Your heart was beating painfully hard in your chest and your breathing was in rapid bursts. You aren’t able to keep it at this pace, your body hadn’t had any real rest whole night and you were tiring yourself out all day.

You want to get out of here, but the beast is too fast. You make a sharp right turn, nearly avoiding a tree that was in your way. The monster crashed right through it, not expecting the sudden obstacle in its wake.

Maybe if you can fit in some more of these agility tricks you are able to outrun it after all. There was another tree in front of you. You made a sharp turn to the left this time also using your wing to propel yourself into the right direction.

Behind you was another crash and snarl. You look back and see that the beast had lost another meter of distance. Maybe if you can find another open spot in the canopy you can dart out of here. And if the thing doesn’t see you fly away, by making enough distance, it will lose you.

You make another sharp turn to the right, however this time the beast expected it, and had more time to react to the sudden movement.

*whack*

The paw struck your ribcage with the force or a sledge hammer. The three sharp claws on it digging in your flesh. The air is knocked out of you and you are sent flying in the air, coming to a very sudden stop against a big tree trunk. You fall barely conscious on the cold muddy floor.

Your head is ringing, caused by the impact with the tree. There is a sharp pain over your side where the claws had struck you. But this pain is compensated by the pain in your wing, which is most certainly broken. You aren’t sure if you heard a crack on impact, heck you aren’t even sure where you are right now.

You realize that you haven’t been breathing for the past few moments, making your inhale reflex kick in. You take a deep gasp of air and find it already easier to think, although the pain wasn’t helping at all to clear your mind.

Out from behind the big tree that monster emerges. Stopping as it is in visible range to lick its claw clean that some of your skin and blood on it. This was pure intimidation; it was just trying to make you squirm in fear. Well, it is working.

You make a futile attempt to get up, but your body is too weak. The beast slowly makes its way over to you, clearly enjoying you in pain. In the mean time you have managed to get up on two legs by using the tree as support.

“Buck off!” you yell at the thing.

It swings its paw to your foreleg you were using for balance, making it collapse from underneath you with a crack and another wave of agonizing pain.

“You son of a bitch!” you scream out in pain while squirming on the floor.

It clawed towards your face, its claws barely missing your left eye, but still resulting in two deep cuts on your cheek and one on your forehead. Blood pours into your eye and blinds you. You tremble in pain and fear, but still look the beast in the eye.

It presses one paw on your cutie mark the other one on your neck, pinning your head to the floor. There is no escape anymore, you are certain that you are going to die. Now just awaiting the fatal bite and for it to start eating you alive. You can only brace yourself for the incoming pain of which you are sure is going to come next.

It presses down a bit harder and nearly closes off your windpipe. You can only take shallow wheezing breaths. In the corner of your eye you can see the beast lower it head. It prods your broken wing with its nose, making you wince while you would have screamed if you had the air for it. It licks away the blood that is seeping out from your side, its rough tongue ripping through the cut on your ribcage.

The pain was unbearable; you had the feeling of throwing up. You have to make an end to this, but there is nothing you can do. You start to panic and flail your legs around, causing even more pain since you also use your broken foreleg.

You somehow manage to strike the beast hard enough under its chin to confuse it. It flinches away from your squirming body, an amused look on its face. It sits down and watches the scene before it. A defeated pony with no way to escape, flailing around in pain and panic. To that thing it must have been an enjoyable sight since it was watching you with gusto.

You manage to calm down a bit and stop throwing punches and kicks in the air. You look at the monster that is calmly looking at you. You use your good foreleg to pull yourself towards the tree. But the beast does nothing, just watching your every move.

It is probably going to wait until you succumb under your injuries. You pull yourself a bit closer towards the tree and sit up against it. Your broken wing is hanging limply from your back, one eye closed by a constant stream of blood from your forehead and your broken leg resting on your lap. You must have been a horrible sight to see.

“Well” you say with a wince as another jolt of pain runs over your whole body, “You’ve got me”

The beast grins in return.

“So you understand me?” you ask.

The monster doesn’t reply.

“Scaredy cat” you say with a weak chuckle.

It gets up on its legs and lets out a bellowing roar, almost deafening you.

You are sure you are going to die anyway so there is no reason to be scared anymore. You’re either going to die now or within the next ten minutes, what’s the difference?

You chuckle again, enraging the beast even more. It raises a bloodstained paw, showing of its claw, and lets out another thundering roar. Okay you had to give him this; he sure knew how to be intimidating. You gulp and press yourself up against the tree a bit more. The beast sits down again after being sure that it had made its point.

Then it was silent, neither of the two of you making a single sound. Only the sounds of the winds and the dripping of your blood were to be heard. You can feel yourself grow weaker with every passing second. But still you manage to remain eye contact with your killer.

You think about your life, your pitiful life. You never managed to achieve anything in your life, just mess things up. You have no real friends, just a few acquaintances. Heck never even had a real filly friend, just a quick buck after a party once or twice. The only relief you have right now is knowing that Star is safe. She is the only good thing in your life, or at least she was, she’s gone too now. You are doomed to die alone. All of this mess just because of a single pony.

“What goes around comes around” you say silently, feeling even more strength slip out of you.

You never really believed in karma or in that kind of mumbo jumbo. But this made you doubt your decisions you made in life. Well no changing it anymore.

Your thoughts are interrupted by a sudden crash to your left. You look in the direction of the sound and spot a large silhouette that just had pulverized a tree by making an airborne crash with it. The newcomer was even bigger than the thing in front of you.

Two flames came out from the creature its nostrils, identifying itself as a dragon. The lion like creature was already standing in combat position and snarling at the dragon. You doubted if that thing even had a chance against to harm the dragon.

“Wasn’t the last warning enough for you?” the dragon said and stepped closer.

The monster snarled and lashed its scorpion tail around like a whip, but still stepped back as the dragon closed in.

“Now shoo! Or I’ll take your other eye as well!” the dragon bellowed and breathed a flame to mere inches away from the lion hybrid its face.

The beast yelped and jumped back. Then it quickly shot away in the cover of the darkness. You could hear it run for a few more seconds before the sound fades away. So instead of that thing eating you a dragon was eating you.

You looked at the dragon, concern in its face. It stepped forward and kneeled besides you. It waved a talon in front of your face.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a low but gentle voice.

You aren’t sure if this was sarcasm or sincere, is it offering help to you?

“Can you walk?” it asked.

It is all getting a bit too much for you. Your head is spinning, you feel nauseous and you are tired. You open your mouth to say something, but there is no sound, only a weak breath.

The dragon gently shakes your shoulder, “Hey stay with me”.

Your head feels heavy and it took effort to keep it up. Your head is bobbing from side to side.

“Ah fuck” the dragon mutters, “try not to fall sleep, can you do that?”

You weakly shake your head, so weak that it goes unnoticed.

“I’m going to pick you up now and bring you to a hospital” it explained carefully, “do not start to panic, and just try to stay awake”

The dragon gently picks you up. But still you groan in pain with the slightest movements. It flies up and beats its mighty wings through the night sky. Every wing beat send a wave of pain through you and makes your head spin even more.

You aren’t able to keep your eye open anymore and you let it fall shut, you need to rest. The feeling of sleep washes over you and you embrace it with open arms.

“No, don’t g…-“are the last things you hear before losing consciousness.