Dearest Beloved

Chapters

Last Call
Secure In Denial
Those Unknowable
From The Depths
Only By Circumstance
And They Went Beneath The Earth
And They Wept, Beneath The Earth
The Shadow Of Death
Of Bad, And Worse
In A Kingdom By The Sea
All That Is Beyond
All Is Dust
Epilogue: Never Without You
The Turning Away
The Deepest Of Darkness

Last Call

Chapter One: Last Call
~BlackRoseRaven

It wasn't that the world was any more different today than it had been yesterday; it wasn't that this wasn't a land of hopes, and dreams, and opportunities for all. For everyone who cared enough to look for them, who was tenacious enough to hold on. It was just that some fences were higher, some doors were shut tighter, some ladders were longer for the ponies trying to reach that fabled 'happiness.' And for better or worse, sometimes those barriers were greater than a pony's strength to persevere.

And sometimes, when you thought you'd reached the end of the journey, there was a landslide, an avalanche, a catastrophe, and you found yourself at the foot of the mountain again, with a whole new set of obstacles to push through.

Some ponies just couldn't catch a break, reflected Last Call. He sighed a bit, the chair creaking under his weight as he sat back and rubbed slowly at his forehead, tired eyes barely able to make out the page in front of him. Some ponies just can't finish the song.

He tapped his hoof against the incomplete sheet, and then he simply pushed himself away with a grimace, stumbling a little on his hooves, still half-drunk from the cheap bottle of beer someone had bought him down at the bar. But he could never get more than half-drunk on the cheap piss they sold as beer around here.

How the hell had he ended up here? He asked himself that question all the time, but the answer was never really any different, was it? He'd been too humble, too quiet, too easily pushed aside, and the talent you had didn't matter as much as the talent you said you had when you were hobnobbing with the upper class.

He'd been there. Tasted it! But in the end he hadn't made the cut. And that had been okay, back then, when he'd been young and love had been strong, and...

Before things got hard.

Last Call shook his head as he dragged himself down the hall, scowling to himself. How many dreams had he put on hold? How many things had he never done? How much-

“You have that look on your face again.”

Last Call turned a dry look towards the mare who had spoken: a small mare with a kind smile and eyes warm with a spark that the world just couldn't beat out of her. Then again, coming to this little village had been her idea in the first place: to get away from the hubbub, she'd said. So he could work and collect himself, she said. It had nothing to do with the nature reserve nearby, where she had a good job and made more money than he had ever managed even when he'd been in that medicore-

She smiled at him, and he hated himself for being so bitter, dropping his head slightly before he mumbled: “Long night.”

“They wouldn't be so long if you'd go to bed.” answered the mare, and he smiled a little.

“I don't know about that. Sometimes that makes it longer.” he said, and he wasn't sure if that was innuendo or a confession.

But she knew him well enough to just smile in that way she did, walking over to him and reaching up to gently touch his face. He closed his eyes as he tilted his cheek against her, studying her silently, wanting to apologize for always being such an asshole, but her eyes told him not to, and that little smile reminded him that it was okay.

They looked at each other for a few moments, and then he shifted a little before he finally pulled away, glancing awkwardly away as he said finally: “So what did you want to do today?”

The mare only shrugged as she turned and headed over to pick up a mug of coffee from the counter. She was so graceful as she turned towards him, somehow always managing to balance the cup on one hoof while moving smoothly with the other three; her grace and pale coat reminded him of an angel, a ghost. “Didn't you have that meeting today?”

“It's not a meeting.” mumbled Last Call as he looked awkwardly away. He hated calling it that. It made it sound so formal, like it was ever going to actually lead to something...

But she just smiled at him as she stood in front of him with that mug of coffee half-extended towards him, and he looked at her for a moment before he finally took it between his hooves. He looked down at it for a few seconds, then he smiled briefly before he sipped at it and muttered: “You always know what I need.”

As he sobered and woke up a little, it became easier to focus, but his eyes still wandered away from her, couldn't stay on that beautiful mare as he half-mumbled: “But... you know, if you need to do anything, just... I can move things around for you.”

“I know.” she said with a smile, before she turned away to head back to the sink. His eyes slipped towards her as he sipped at his coffee, watching her back, studying her before she glanced back at him, and he only caught a flick of her blue eyes before he hurriedly looked away, staring off into the corner as he sipped lamely at his coffee.

He felt her smile before she turned her eyes back to what she was doing, and he hesitated for a moment before he looked down and sang under his breath: “Never thought I'd live my life with you, or that you'd make a liar like me tell the truth...”

“Never thought I'd sing this song, admit that I might have been wrong... but I'll do it all for you, for you, for you...” sang the mare in return, her voice soft, beautiful, gentle: a voice that couldn't lie. A voice that had enthralled him the first time he'd heard it. And while so much else had become faded or wrinkled in time, her voice remained pristine.

Last Call gave a quiet laugh as he glanced away, and then he closed his eyes before he murmured: “The only song I ever wrote for you.”

“I only ever needed one, Call.” she said softly, not looking back at him, but only working, diligent, calm, gentle, and with that everlasting smile on her face as she washed the dishes in the sink; all these little things, she always did without being asked, without any complaint, without any help from him.

He cleared his throat and rubbed at the side of his head before he turned away, and he grimaced a little as he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Bags under his eyes, mane all a mess, and he smelled of more than just booze...

“The heater's warm, if you want to take a shower.” the mare said, and he smiled at her back before quickly looking away when she glanced over her shoulder at him. But they caught each other for the briefest moment all the same, the stallion shuffling in the spot and looking abashed before he mumbled and nodded, turning away to hurry towards the bathroom.

He turned on the water and let it run for a few minutes while he just sat there on the smooth floor tiles: he was amazed how she even kept this part of the house so clean. No dirt in the corners, no buildup on the sinks or anywhere else, for that matter. Everything was always so neat.

He hated it.

He smiled briefly, then finally slipped under the spray, grimacing at the heat: but it was better to burn a little than to try and fiddle with the taps and get pelted by freezing water. Getting burned was a luxury: ninety percent of the time, all they had out here was cold water, thanks to the crappy water heater they depended on.

And she always tried to make sure he got to have his hot showers when he needed them. Which was less often than he should take them, but...

Well, she said she liked him smelling like a 'stallion's stallion.' She said she liked the cold water. She said she liked to cook, and clean, and her job...

He stood there under the spray, head bowed, hot water beginning to chill as it flowed down his face like tears. He stood there until the water became lukewarm, and then he finally roughly shoved his hooves through his mane and squeezed out his tail a few times before he stepped out and grabbed a towel to bury his face in it, scrubbing violently at his features until they were clean, and there weren't any traces of his not-tears left.

After a few minutes, he emerged from the bathroom, dry enough, he figured, even as he left wet hoofprints behind him as he wandered the house like a ghost. The mare was gone: probably to do one of a hundred other chores she had taken on for him.

God he felt so helpless sometimes.

He shook himself out briefly, then glanced up at the door as he heard a knock. He crossed the creaky hall and opened the door to find a unicorn standing outside: with his dun coat and his dark mane, he could have been almost been his twin; the only real differences were their eyes and their cutie marks. Last Call's was a coda; the unicorn's was a lighthouse.

“Hey, Call. You're running late.” he said, and Last Call grimaced and nodded before he turned, shoving the towel around his shoulders back up over his head to uselessly try and dry the rest of his wild mane. “Do you need a second to primp your mane?”

“Shut up, short stack.” Call said absently, and the unicorn huffed a little at him as Last Call headed down the hall, hesitating and chewing on his lip before he shook his head quickly, tossing the towel haphazardly over a chair as he asked: “Hey, Furor, do I need anything?”

“Doubt it. Happenstance said that he wanted to talk to you about a jingle or something you're supposed to be writing for him.” answered Furor, and Last Call sighed a little: he knew that Furor knew that he hated it when he called it that... even though that's exactly what Happenstance wants. Just like I know...

“I wish you wouldn't work so hard to try and piss people off.” Last Call said dryly, and Furor gave a dry smile in response.

“I never really have to work to piss you off, Last Call. You're always angry.” Furor hesitated for a moment, and then he asked awkwardly: “You okay?”

Last Call looked at Furor for a moment: his one sort-of-friend in this whole little village, likely only because they were both asshole outcasts who no one else really wanted to take in. But then he only shrugged before he said finally: “Yeah. Always. Let's go.”

The unicorn only shrugged, but he didn't question the earth pony as he joined him, the two heading down the short stone walk together to the dusty, dirty road that led into the village. As always, Last Call couldn't help but glance almost warily at the other homes they passed, squaring his shoulders and pointedly averting his eyes from any stares he received from people he still thought of as the 'locals.'

He would never be a local here, he thought. Even if the mare had fit right in...

“So uh... how's the wife?” Furor asked after a moment, and Last Call scowled a little. He hated it when people called her that. True or not. He hated being a husband. He hated thinking of her as his 'wife.' Like they were duties, or jobs, or responsibilities.

“She's fine. We're fine, Furor.” grumbled Last Call, before he changed the subject, muttering: “Do you ever stop and really look at this place? I mean, the architecture, everything is so old. Some of it doesn't even look Equestrian.”

“Never knew you were so into architecture.” Furor remarked, and Last Call only rolled his eyes with a sign before the unicorn asked almost abruptly: “How did a guy like you ever get to know a guy like Happenstance, anyway?”

Last Call couldn't help but give a wry smile at this, shaking his head before he said finally: “Past lives, I guess. That's all.”

“Helpful.” Furor remarked, and Last Call only shrugged, not feeling like getting into it at the moment. He didn't really know Furor that well, and they were mostly friends because they were both misfits and jackasses who no one else really wanted to put up with: not a great platform for trust.

Then again, Last Call supposed he didn't really do 'trust' that well, anyway. Not even with that mare. The one who lived in his house, did everything for him, who he...

He shook his head quickly, then scowled as Furor asked: “How's that song going?”

“Do you practice being a jackass or does it just come naturally?” Last Call asked bad-temperedly, and Furor looked at him innocently in spite of the fact- “I'll say it for the thousandth time, then. I don't talk about my past.”

“Asking you about a song. Not your past.” Furor answered, and Last Call sighed, but then the unicorn simply shrugged before he asked instead: “What about your wife, then? I haven't seen her for a while. How's she doing?”

“Good.” Last Call answered stiffly, wondering – not for the first time – if Furor did this on purpose: chose all the worst subjects to ask about, then continued to needle him about it in his roundabout way.

He glanced over at Furor, then asked almost abruptly: “What about you? Can't imagine a life-of-the-party pony like yourself doesn't have a mare of his own.”

“I've never been much of one for pets. Particularly pets I need to clothe, feed, and board.” Furor responded in his dry way, and Last Call smiled wryly, half-amused and half-irritated.

“You're a real poet, Furor.” Last Call said as they passed through the village market, heading towards the few businesses that managed to keep up here: a mom-and-pop store, a bar, and the hotel where Happenstance would no doubt be waiting for them, likely in the restaurant.

And just as they expected, the moment they entered the restaurant side of the hotel, Happenstance waved at them cheerfully from the corner he was occupying just about all by himself, calling: “Hello, hello there! Oh, good to see you, come join me for breakfast, will you?”

Last Call smiled a creaky smile as Furor sighed and shook his head, then he winced slightly when Last Call muttered out of the side of his mouth: “Abandon me with him and I'll tell him where you live.”

“And you wonder why ponies like you.” Furor said ironically, before he sighed and nodded grudgingly as they approached the table and sat down with the jolly stallion.

Happenstance smiled warmly at them, clapping his hooves together in front of the bib he was wearing, an eclectic and enormous meal laid out in front of the pony. Last Call forced himself to smile and not to look at the pile of food as the chubby pony said cheerfully: “Last Call! I was so pleased with the first half of that little melody you wrote for me and my company. I know it's all very unprofessional of me, but I was hoping that you could have the rest of it by the end of next week. Is that possible?”

“Uh... yes, no problem.” Last Call said awkwardly: he knew if he wanted to, he could probably churn out the rest of the stupid jingle in a single night, let alone a week... I just don't know if I can make myself care enough to. “Is that-”

“Oh, come now, boys, you have time, and I have the bits to pay for anything you like.” Happenstance said kindly, and Last Call grimaced inwardly before the chubby pony beckoned quickly. “Excuse me, miss, waitress? Would you please bring the coffee with you when you come to take my friends' orders? But no rush, dear! I know you must be busy.”

Last Call and Furor awkwardly looked back over the restaurant: apart from them, there was only a stallion jotting notes in a book on the other side of the restaurant, looking even more hungover than Last Call had been when he'd gotten up.

The waitress lounging at the bar heaved a sigh as she clambered to her hooves and made her way around to the back of the restaurant. Happenstance only smiled as he turned his eyes back to the stallions, clapping his front hooves together as he asked: “How's your wife, Last Call? Doing well, I presume? I know you were very proud of how well she was doing at work!”

Last Call smiled awkwardly: he only ever talked about her work because that was the only part of their lives he wanted ponies like Happenstance to know about. “Yeah... she uh... recently she was put in charge of the day walk expansion... you know, guided tours through some of the old ritual sites that belonged to the original Equestrians.”

Furor cocked an eyebrow at this as Happenstance's eyes gleamed, asking with interest: “Really now? That's quite a lot for one pony to handle! It sounds like she must be doing very well for herself!”

“She is.” Last Call almost mumbled, and thankfully he was spared any further conversation on the topic when the waitress approached their table and put a mug in front of him before pouring him a full cup of coffee.

Furor declined by awkwardly pushing his cup back and not so much as looking at the waitress, which made her glower before she threw down the menus and stalked away. Last Call couldn't help but smile sourly despite himself at the sight before he said wryly: “Furor, you really have to work on your social skills.”

“My social skills are fine. It's everyone else who needs work.” Furor replied dryly, and then he picked up his menu, glancing through it before he let it fall back with a sigh. “I miss the city. At least you could get something decent to eat there.”

Happenstance only smiled, however, far from put off by Furor's complaining or deriding as he said cheerfully: “Not to worry, my friend! I know you're not big on breakfast, but you'll have to join me for lunch at this quaint little place-”

“I'm really not interested.” Furor said bluntly, but even that didn't stop Happenstance or wipe the smile off his face: Last Call reflected that it seemed like the chubby stallion was the only pony he had ever met too good-natured to be effected by Furor's lack of tact.

“Well, think about it! You know what they say, haste makes waste in all things. That's why I like it when we can take our time here, friends.” Happenstance said easily, before he smiled as the waitress came back, saying before anyone could react: “Two lumberjack specials for my friends, please! And I'd also appreciate it if you could bring out a pot of tea for me, dear. Thank you very much.”

“Uh. Thanks, Mr. Happenstance.” Last Call said awkwardly, as he grabbed his and Furor's menus to pass them back to the waitress. She glanced at them quizzically for a moment, then simply shrugged and walked away, floating the menus beside her.

“Coffee, too!” Furor shouted the moment the waitress reached the doors, and Last Call sighed at the way the mare stiffened and glared over her shoulder.

“Yes, coffee would be a wonderful idea, I could use a refill myself. But in your own time, dear.” Happenstance added kindly, smiling as he said cheerfully: “Sorry, that's all my fault! I should have asked, Furor, please excuse my negligence.”

Furor looked nonplussed for a few moments, then he awkwardly shrugged. Happenstance, meanwhile, tented his hooves over his half-eaten plate of food as he pickd up, as if they had never been interrupted: “I know, friends, we're not always on the best of terms and that we don't always see eye-to-eye. And that's fine! I do hope that all the same you'll be willing to lend me just a little bit more of your time, but I understand if you have to go.”

Furor began to get up, and then he winced when Last Call grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back down into his seat, saying pointedly: “It would be rude to leave before we had our meals, at least.”

Happenstance only smiled in his benign way, and then he asked: “So would it be at all possible through your wife's connections to rent the trail after hours? You see, I've gotten all mixed up in one of the local festivals... they call it the Alignment. It's an annual tradition around here, sort of like Nightmare Night, but apparently this year is special for some reason. I thought it would be just marvellous if I could convince the park to do a tour of those old ceremonial sites in the woods. I'm sure that-”

“The Alignment is not a festival and it's not a joke.” growled a voice, and Last Call looked up in surprise as the reek of alcohol and soil hit his nose. He leaned back slightly as he saw the pony who had been on the other side of the room was now standing right beside them. His teeth were grit, his bloodshot eyes bulging, a vein throbbing in his neck, and Furor shivered a little as Last Call leaned uncomfortably away.

Happenstance, however, quickly rose his hooves as he apologized: “Sir, I certainly didn't mean to come across like I wasn't taking it seriously. I know that it's a matter of, uh, religion, so to speak, to some of the local-”

“The Alignment is not a joke. It's not a celebration and it's not part of any 'religion.' It's when reality grows thin enough for Kzkttrrrkt to stretch into our reality, and this year the stars will aid-”

“Lectern, you either go and sit over there in your corner, or you get out of here.” the waitress said firmly as she came quickly over to them, and the ragged stallion turned towards her with a snarl of disgust.

Last Call winced: not just at Lectern's aggressiveness, but at the sight of the side of his face. It was pockmarked and sunken, like he'd had an infection that had never healed and rotten away the flesh beneath.

Lectern suddenly looked back at them, then he said in a calmer voice that all the same had a clear undercurrent of malice: “Don't play with things you don't understand.”

With that, he turned and stormed off towards his corner of the restaurant, and the waitress grimaced before she said quickly: “Sorry, Lectern is a little crazy but he really doesn't mean any harm. He just gets worked up around this time of year.”

“Yeah. I can see that.” Last Call said dryly, before he shook his head quickly, then glanced over at Furor: but the unicorn was visibly settling himself, clearly relieved that Lectern had moved a good distance away. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. Thanks.” Furor said, and then he hesitated before asking almost apprehensively: “What is that thing he was talking about?”

“Oh, that's the proper name for the Kiz, I do believe.” Happenstance said quickly, nodding with a smile: he seemed strangely undisturbed the whole turn of events, sounding rather pleased with himself as he explained: “The Kiz is... like an elemental force, although of course I could very well be wrong describing it as such. The natives local to this region believed in it and... I wouldn't say worshipped it as much as they paid it tribute, in hopes that it would leave them alone. All pish-posh of course: some of these legends are all wrapped up with other bits of nonsense. Don't forget how Nightmare Moon was supposed to be 'aided by the stars in her escape,' as I believe the tale goes.”

Happenstance smiled, looking cheerful, almost exuberant: if there was one thing the pony loved, after all, it was an excuse to show off how much he knew about old pony's tales. Last Call didn't exactly care himself, but he was surprised when Furor asked: “I thought Nightmare Moon wasn't actually a legend, though.”

“Oh, well, I suppose I did misspeak, on technicality: the Mare in the Moon is the legend, while we all know that Nightmare Moon was Princess Luna.” Happenstance said almost apologetically. “What I mean to say is that over the years, many other pieces and foibles from other legends and myths have coalesced here into the tale of the Kiz. The Kiz is supposed to be responsible for all sorts of things: bad luck, freak accidents, things that go against the natural order set forth by the princesses... you know, your usual bundle of tales and superstitions used by more primitive peoples to describe why things are the way they are in the world.”

Furor scowled ever-so-slightly, but to Last Call's surprise, for once he didn't open his mouth. And Happenstance blithely continued on, as he smiled over at Last Call: “But it's all very important to the townsponies, and I really want to make the most of it for them. As you know, the village's finances have been in a bit of a pickle and they almost couldn't make the festival happen this year... I felt that after how good these people have been to me, picking up the tab is the least I can do for them.”

Happenstance smiled, then he looked up with a chuckle as the waitress came back towards their table: Last Call hadn't even realized she had left. He wasn't exactly interested in Happenstance, either, but instead trying to resist the urge to look back over his shoulder at that old hobo, Lectern: he could feel the stallion's eyes burning holes in them even from across the restaurant.

“So, Call.” Last Call winced a bit as his attention was brought back to Happenstance, even as plates were set down in front of him and Furor. “I hate to press the matter, but will you talk to your wife about it? It would mean the world to me if we could work something out for tomorrow night.”

“I...” Last Call chewed on his lip, before he said finally: “She's at work right now. I guess that if it's that important-”

“Yes, yes! That would be excellent, if you could go and talk to her about it right after breakfast, then!” Happenstance said happily, oblivious to the way Last Call's eye twitched. “I mean, if it's no trouble, of course, but-”

“But yes. I... guess I can do that.” Last Call finally said grudgingly, nodding to Happenstance even as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The last thing he wanted was yet another reason to be indebted to that mare...

Furor glanced at him oddly, but Last Call decided to avoid further conversation by picking up his fork and helping himself to the pancakes in front of him. He ate slowly, pointedly keeping his head down, but Happenstance was undeterred as he said warmly: “That's excellent, then, Last Call! I would be truly indebted to you, truly! While I have a few pressing engagements, I'll be in the market this late afternoon... perhaps you could find me there then? I'll be there until nightfall, don't worry. Perhaps I could even treat you to dinner! And you too of course, Furor, if-”

“I think I'll pass. I'm about ready to go, Call, whenever you are.” Furor said as he pushed the full plate away. Last Call looked awkwardly at the unicorn for a moment, then he looked over at Happenstance, but Happenstance was still smiling, still as pleasant and jovial as ever as he winked, reaching out to take Furor's plate and pour it into the pile of food in front of him.

“Well, you won't mind if I help myself, then! Gosh, they just make the most delicious pancakes here, really.” Happenstance said cheerfully, and then he added: “And don't feel you have to stay yourself if you'd like to go, Last Call. Not that I want you to rush off or anything, just that I know you must have had your own plans for today and I've gone and put a wrench in that, I realize.”

“Yeah, I... don't worry about it, I mean, I didn't have anything huge planned for today.” Last Call said after a moment, giving an awkward quarter-smile to Happenstance. It was true, he hadn't had anything planned for today... but that didn't take away from how frustrating it was to feel like somebody's messenger boy.

Happenstance chuckled, then looked over at Furor; but before he could even ask, the unicorn said dryly: “Think I'll be pretty busy for the next few days.”

“Well, that's fine, that's fine. Don't worry, though, Furor. I'll save a spot for you, just in case you're interested. I know what a people person you are.” Happenstance said kindly, and Furor scowled horribly in response.

Last Call moodily picked a bit at some of his food, and then he finally pushed himself up from the table, excusing himself with: “Thanks, Mr. Happenstance, but uh. I should get going for now.”

“Of course, of course. I know you have more things to do than my silly business!” Happenstance said pleasantly, and Last Call gave an awkward smile before the chubby stallion added cheerfully: “Just come find me tonight, Last Call! Whether or not you're successful in this endeavour, I still want to compensate you for your time!”

Last Call smiled awkwardly, and then he muttered some excuse as he stepped away from the table, Furor hurriedly following after him as they crossed the restaurant towards the exit, neither looking back.

As they passed Lectern, Last Call couldn't help but glance towards him, and he nearly stumbled into the wall when he saw that Lectern was glaring at him openly. The two looked at each other as Furor shifted nervously in the background, before Lectern said quietly: “Don't meddle in things you don't understand, boy. Whether you think it's fairy tales or not. Fairies bite.”

Last Call swallowed a bit, even as he gritted his teeth, tried to be aggressive, tried to come up with some snappy one-liner. But it was only a moment before he turned and nearly bolted through the doors, Furor following as Lectern glared after them ruthlessly before he turned his cold, angry eyes towards Happenstance, who only smiled and waved politely from the table piled high with food in front of him, seemingly oblivious to the anger of the scarred stallion.

Author's Note

Alright, here we go. The first chapter of the new charity story. This story is driven by comments, voting, and donations: you can make donations HERE. Please let me know in a private message when and what you've donated: every dollar counts as an additional vote, and can be split between both Karmic and Plot choices as you see fit. I'm open to giving better rewards for larger donations, and they can be discussed with me in private message. Character slots, plot points, and other things are all up for discussion at this point, and the earlier you buy, the better.

This story uses Karmic Choices and Plot Choices to advance the plot. Karmic Choices will help determine Last Call's character and how he reacts to certain situations. Plot Choices will determine the advancement of the storyline. To vote, please comment below with which choice you'd prefer to see.

Karmic Choice:

A. It's early, but Last Call feels like he could use a drink.

B. It's too early for a drink. Last Call feels he should clear his head a different way.

Plot Choice:

Shrug off Happenstance's request.
Go talk to the parks office. She should be able to open up a trail for a few nights.

Secure In Denial

Chapter Three: Secure In Denial
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call sighed a little as he dropped his head against the cupboard, mumbling under his breath to himself as he looked down at the half-drank cup of coffee on the counter. It tasted like ashes in his mouth, and that wasn't because he had made it too strong. Everything was flavorless and he felt exhausted, and he knew that in spite of his best efforts, he was going to end up collapsing, one way or the other. He was just... he was tired.

He was tired, and it was a kind of tired that went beyond physical or mental exhaustion. It wasn't a drunk-tired, either, or a sad-tired: it was a 'trapped in an endless gaping void' tired. He wanted nothing more than to go to bed, but something kept stopping him.

It was a weird feeling. Part of it was maybe a childish resistance to napping: he wasn't a foal or some old stallion, and he had already lost the entire day to Happenstance's stupid errand. The other part of it was a desire to do the same thing he always did when the stress got too much: retreat into the artificial womb of his office, surrounded by his work, his unfinished projects, his bottles of booze and all the things that made him happy.

If they made him happy, though, why the hell was he always so miserable?

Probably because he always felt like the choice was between living his own life, and living the life she had set out for him.

Last Call looked down into the coffee, then he studied it for a few moments before he murmured: “What a miserable piece of crap I am.”

He laughed a little, then he shook his head before he pushed himself away from the counter, licking his lips as he looked first towards the bedroom, then towards the office. He shifted uneasily on his hooves, then shook his head before he muttered: “I should stay up, though. I shouldn't sleep. Sleep is for the weak. Sleep is for people who deserve the rest.”

He sighed a little and let his head droop as he fought against tiredness, wandering slowly away from the kitchen and heading into the living room. It was perfectly clean, the windows that looked out onto the mowed yard just about crystalline: the only smudges were from him. Just like the only mess was from him ruffling the newspapers, and disturbing the logs by the fireplace.

He was always the one who made the mess. She even did the yardwork: what a stallion he was.

Last Call shook his head, then he turned around and headed towards the bedroom. He lingered outside the door, silently stroking over the wood before he sighed a little as he whispered: “Sorry.”

He turned away, lethargically dragging his hooves down the hall as he made his way to his office: the only room she didn't clean or take care of, because he didn't let her. Because this was his, and like everything else of his, it was a wreck, a mess, a mishmash of failures jammed together into some barely-coherent chaos.

Last Call slid himself slowly into the chair at his desk, staring at the papers in front of him. He stroked a hoof over the mess: here was a half-finished bar, there was a broken string of cords he'd jotted down that hey, they certainly sounded damn good in his mind, but where the hell was he going to put them? And there was Happenstance's jingle, that happy little song about happy little fruits and happy little vegetables that made it oh so clear that he was nothing but a hack.

He angrily swept his forelegs across the papers on the desk, sending them flying in all directions before he slammed his hooves down against the tabletop as he gave a short yell of frustration, and then he simply slumped, staring down at the empty desk full of empty promises written in blunt quills and sweat and tears across its surface.

He'd had such a good start. But he hadn't been aggressive enough. He'd let them push him aside. Had he wanted to fail? Back then, he'd been the provider, he'd been able to work a simple job while writing and performing music on the side, and she had been the follower, she had been the support, she had been the one who needed the help getting by...

When had that all changed? When had he let himself get pushed down, away from his hopes, his dreams, his fantasies? When had he started screwing it all up?

Hadn't it started because he'd let himself slip back a little, slow down his work? Hadn't it started because she had wanted to contribute more, and he didn't want her feeling bad? Hadn't it started because he'd been told to balance work and family more, so he'd missed a few appearances, stopped pushing as hard as he had been, he'd left himself slip...

He ground his hooves along the tabletop, then shook his head and closed his eyes tightly. That wasn't fair, was it? But at the same time, it was true, and it wasn't like this had been fair to him. This whole nightmare of a...

They were doing better. They had finally started doing better. He couldn't hold things against her for forever, that was ridiculous.

Last Call breathed out through his nostrils, then he dropped his face in his hooves. He was tired. He was tired and he wasn't thinking straight. He should go to bed and sleep.

Well, now he had to clean up his office thanks to his little temper-tantrum, but then he could go to bed. If he slept, things would make a lot more sense, and he wouldn't be such an asshole anymore. That was usually how it worked, anyway.

He sighed a little as he lowered his head a bit, then he simply rested his forelegs across the desk and dropped his head on them. He stared off to the side, thinking about how unfair life was, how idiotic it was that he had ended up here, of all places. When was he going to get his break? When was he going to get what he deserved? He had moved out here to make someone else happy... to make her happy. He thought if she was happy, he would be, too, but it wasn't really that simple, was it? Yet when he'd been happy, she hadn't been...

Maybe they weren't meant for each other. Maybe all those years they'd spent together had been just...

No, they had meant something. It had all meant something. It had meant worlds to him, and she wouldn't work so hard if it didn't mean something to her, right? For god's sake, she wouldn't cook, clean, do everything around the house and put up with the crap he piled on her constantly if she didn't love him.

But did he love her? Or was he just afraid of being alone? Or, worst of all, had he been so eager to give up everything because in spite of how miserable he was every day, life was so brilliantly easy when you had no responsibilities?

And yet if that was true, then why was it he only felt truly happy on those rare days when he was able to make his own money, so he could come home and feel like her equal, and tell her all about how he'd coached a class or tutored some kid or even just got to do some other stupid menial job that Furor had tricked him into doing...

But he wasn't much of a stallion, was he? He'd barely worked a 'real job' for any length of time in his life. The extent of the exercise he got was cutting pre-cut wood and carrying logs about twenty feet into the house. He snarled at everything, but ran away the moment anypony looked at him wrong.

He'd make a great dog. Except dogs were loyal.

Last Call sighed a little, stewing in silence, feeling miserable and exhausted and unable to move. He was well aware that he should at least put some effort into getting things back on the table, but it seemed better, more right, this way: sulking, with his entire life in shambles around him. Just like he deserved.

At some point, he nodded off, but it was only a brief spell before he was startled awake by a noise. He shoved himself up, staring back and forth wildly before he blinked a few times, then winced as he heard a tremendous thud-thud-thud that at first he thought was someone in the house, but then realized could only be one thing: someone at the door.

He nearly fell out of his chair, then stumbled out of the office, calling in a voice that cracked with his exhaustion: “Just a second! Just... I'm coming!”

He grimaced as he made his way into the living room, fumbling for the lights before he approached the door and yanked it open. He frowned in surprise as he found the sheriff standing outside, the grizzled old stallion frowning at him before he greeted tersely: “Last Call.”

“Yeah... uh... Sheriff Steel. What's wrong?” Last Call asked uneasily, knowing this wasn't a social call. He and the Sheriff weren't on the best of terms, after all: he'd never been officially arrested, but he'd spent enough time in the drunk tank, that, well... you could say we know each other.

Steel frowned as he studied Last Call for a few moments, and then he asked abruptly: “Have you been drinking?”

“No. No, I was... I fell asleep at my desk.” Last Call said, rubbing a hoof across his face. He hesitated, then blurted out: “I was running an errand for Happenstance today, actually. Sheriff, what's-”

“Last Call...” The sheriff hesitated, and then he sighed a little, and the grizzled, salt-and-pepper earth pony sighed as he reached up to take off his hat, shifting it in his hooves for a moment before he asked: “Were you at the parks office today?”

“I...” Last Call frowned, then he asked: “What happened?”

For a few moments, Sheriff Steel studied him, and then he slipped his hat back on before he asked: “Do you know Rainy Days? He works at the parks office.”

“Uh... yeah, I saw-”

“You know him. Okay.” Sheriff Steel cut him off, and Last Call clamped his mouth shut with a grimace. He'd dealt with the sheriff enough times to know there was a time to talk, and a time to shut up. “He didn't get home tonight. It's too late to search the trails-”

“Wait, what time is it?” Last Call asked uneasily, and the old stallion frowned at him.

“Going on eleven o'clock. Why, are you-”

“My wife. I... hey, are you here?” Last Call shouted as he turned away, looking back and forth almost desperately, but he already knew the answer. She would never leave him sitting alone in his office, any more than she would leave all the lights off. “Hey! Hey-”

“Call!” snapped the Sheriff, and Last Call winced before the old stallion said, in a quiet, serious voice: “Call, I heard you were out at the parks office. Were you?”

Last Call shifted uneasily, biting his lip before he said hesitantly: “I went to ask about something for Happenstance-”

“Happenstance hasn't been seen since this afternoon. When did you last see him?” asked the sheriff, and Last Call winced inwardly.

“I saw him...” Last Call bit his lip, then he said slowly: “I saw him walking towards the park office. The last time I really talked to him was when I was with Furor. Furor... Furor was with him after I was.”

God, what a piece of trash he was.

Sheriff Steel frowned a little, and then Last Call added suddenly: “I also saw Toadfall, he was... uh... walking to the parks office, too!”

“You saw him go into the office?” asked the Sheriff, and Last Call nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was a bad liar as it was, and he felt queasy, lying to a cop, selling out his only friend... but I can't just admit it. If Sheriff Steel came here, he thinks I'm the last person to see these people... sorry, Furor. I just... I just need some time.

Sheriff Steel studied him intently, before he said quietly: “If I hadn't been getting the runaround all night from Toadfall's people, I'd be dragging your sorry ass to jail right now, Last Call, and for a lot more than public drunkenness. Now, listen to me, and listen good: I'm going to be back here. Whether I'm back in a few hours or the morning depends on how much you've lied to me and how a deep a hole you've dug for yourself, you moron. What I recommend is that you get your damned head on straight by then and be ready to answer some questions, do I make myself clear?”

Last Call smiled uncomfortably, glancing awkwardly away, and there was silence for a moment before the Sheriff said finally: “Stay inside. One dumb kid missing doesn't mean anything, but a whole bunch vanishing all at once, and the way people act around the Alignment... just stay out of the way.”

“Are there any missing kids?” Last Call asked before he could stop himself, and Sheriff Steel frowned in surprise, cocking his head at Last Call. But since he didn't immediately jump on him, Last Call bit his lip before he said: “When I was at... er, walking to the parks office, uh... there was this filly. She had a raincoat on, big hat... she seemed uh...”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sheriff Steel asked, and Last Call smiled lamely as he dropped his head between his shoulders. “Call, go take a shower. I don't know if I believe you haven't been drinking or not, but you sure as hell need either a kick in the ass or a cup of strong coffee, and I'd recommend helping yourself to the latter before I help you to the former.”

Last Call nodded lamely, and Steel looked at him for a moment more before he sighed and said grudgingly: “Keep your head down. You're an asshole and an outsider, but there's worse in the village. And say hi to your wife for me. She deserves better than you.”

Last Call flinched and dropped his head, and Steel eyed him for a few moments more before he turned and walked away, vanishing into the thick darkness of the night. Last Call sighed a little as he let the door swing closed, resting his head against it for a moment as he whispered: “God. What have you gotten into, Call? And... everyone at the centre...”

He shifted uneasily, then he pushed himself back from the door. He stared at it for a few moments, then grasped at his head as he thought about all the stupid thoughts he'd been having, how he'd just sold out a friend for a few hours before he got dragged in and likely left to rot in a cell, and if they never found those ponies who had vanished...

This was just his luck, wasn't it?

No. There he was, whining, complaining, crying about it when he had a chance to do something. The police weren't going to search the forest tonight, but that didn't mean he couldn't, right? And as much as the thought terrified him... well, hell, maybe they really were all just lost out there in the woods. That was possible, wasn't it?

If he found them, he could be a hero. And he could maybe swallow some of that bile rising in his throat at the thought that the first instinct he always had was to blame everyone else and save his own sorry, worthless ass.

And if it was... well... if something had happened?

What if someone had... had hurt her?

Last Call trembled, but he gritted his teeth. He was exhausted, everything was running together in an incoherent jumble in his mind, he couldn't think right, and that anger he felt burn through him was more self-loathing than phantom hatred. He swore under his breath, then he stumbled around in a circle and ran towards their bedroom, shoving the door open.

It banged against the wall, then swung half-closed, the stallion halting in the doorway to stare into the bedroom beyond. The bedroom he hadn't set hoof in for weeks now, strangely sterile in its cleanliness, its perfection. From the clean, perfectly-made bed to the dusted tops of the bedtables, it was... hollow, in a word.

He took a breath, then stepped carefully into the bedroom, heading first to the closet to yank it open and grab a satchel out of the neat little shelves she had insisted they put in here. They had a spare flashlight in one of the drawers: he tested it to made sure it worked before throwing it into the bag, and it was joined a moment later by a map he grabbed from his wife's set of shelves, where she kept all the guides and maps and travel books...

He studied these for a few moments, then smiled faintly as he stroked over the spines of the latter, promising silently that he would take her wherever the hell she wanted one day, when things were better. He'd made that promise a thousand times, but this time he really meant to keep it: he knew she wanted to see the world, and he wanted to share it with her, to be... to be husband and wife again.

Last Call shook his head quickly, then he flung the satchel on before he hurried out of the bedroom. He stumbled to a stop in front of the door leading out, breathing slowly in and out before he mumbled: “This is stupid. This is incredibly stupid.”

It was an idiotic idea.

But was he really going to back out now?

The stallion gritted his teeth, and then he yanked the door open and stepped out into the cold night air, gasping a little at how it felt: it was like stepping into another world: like he had not only gone through a curtain, but like he had left everything that made sense behind, as he stood with the only light in the world spilling out from behind him into darkness that seemed eager to devour all life and warmth.

He breathed slowly, the night air scalding his lungs with how cold it was, his body shaking and head swimming. He was exhausted, but adrenaline was thudding through his veins, and in spite of all the things telling him this was a terrible idea...

Last Call bit his lip, then he turned around, staring into the light, the warmth, the safety, and the emptiness of his little household. So clean it was sterile. And too big, too vast, for one pony to live alone in.

He couldn't live alone. He'd never been able to put up with himself for very long.

Last Call hesitated a moment longer, then he reached out and grabbed the doorhandle, yanking it closed and cutting himself off from the light, leaving himself encased in shadows and darkness. He felt a strange mix of excitement and relief run through his veins, head swimming with emotions as he faced into the seemingly-endless night before he stumbled into the road and turned in the direction of the parks office.

He swore under his breath as he tripped almost immediately, barely catching himself. It was too dark to see. Before he could start shuffling in his satchel for his flashlight, however, he was caught by surprise when a faint light appeared down the road, glimmering quietly as if signalling to him.

Last Call looked at it apprehensively for a few moments, then he shifted briefly on his hooves before starting towards it. The little light never grew much stronger or brighter even as he drew towards it, and it weaved and danced down the street, zigzagging slowly away; but at the same time, it never weakened, nor moved so quickly that he wasn't able to gradually close in on it.

The stallion frowned uneasily as he drew close to the source of light, and he realized it was a candle being carried by a filly. A filly in a raincoat: the same filly who had haunted him before, who seemed to barely give him so much as a glance even as he caught up to her.

“Shouldn't you... be home?” he asked: stupid, he knew, but it was all he could think of. And slowly, the filly zigged to the other side of the road before she finally came to a stop, halting with a sigh as she looked off into the darkness, staring in the direction of the parks office.

“You should be in bed.” she said, and the stallion grimaced a bit as his eyes shifted off to the side. “What do you think you're doing, playing hero? Don't you understand that you're just getting pulled along by something so much greater and worser than you? That excitement isn't yours, not really: it's the excitement of the stars. And the greed of the things beneath the stars, who have already touched you and yours, who see you as nothing but sport.”

The stallion looked uneasily at the filly, before he blurted out: “What the hell are you?”

The filly smiled faintly, glancing back at Last Call as she answered: “Not so different. But not the same, either.”

Last Call scowled a little, and the filly gave a brief smile before she turned her eyes back in the direction of the parks office, saying quietly: “I can't really stop you from surrendering to its pull, though. But I can warn you, and give you advice and help you along the way.”

There was silence for a few moments as Last Call looked uncomfortably at the filly, before he asked: “Where is she?”

“Why don't you ever say her name anymore?” asked the filly, and the stallion only looked away. For a few moments, the filly studied him, and then she said quietly: “You should just go home and go to sleep. Things will get better. You'll move on, eventually.”

“I would never be able to forgive myself. Not again.” Last Call said quietly, and the filly studied him before she finally sighed, then nodded briefly.

“You know where to go.” the filly said, and then she simply blew out the candle, and Last Call winced as he was left in near total darkness. Alone, in the swollen shadows: the filly wasn't just out of sight, but her presence had been blown out as completely as the candle.

Last Call gathered himself as his eyes gradually adjusted to the minimal starlight, the stallion stumbling a little down the path. It wasn't much further to the parks office, at least, but he found it eerie that there wasn't a single sign of life here: not a sound, not a stirring, not so much as the faintest hint that anypony had been here for the longest time.

The stallion looked uneasily around: something told him it would be a bad idea to turn on his flashlight now. With his luck, he'd alert either Sheriff Steel or his deputy. It was hard to convince himself, especially after his run-in with the strange filly, that he was just going to rescue a group of lost ponies... but that had to be it, right? Nothing had happened, his mind was just playing tricks on him and he was paranoid and tired and letting some little girl telling horror stories get to him. All that Alignment garbage that had riled him up was supposed to happen tomorrow, anyway... Happenstance had probably just convinced her and a few others from the parks office to take a stroll, and they'd gotten lost on one of the back paths...

Because of course, she clearly didn't know every single path through this forest, nor was she experienced with trailblazing or star charts or anything like that... and I'm sure Toadfall just went along with it, since apparently no one knows where the hell he is, either...

Last Call grimaced as he slipped into the parks office, looking uneasily back and forth. What seemed like a tiny little box during the day now felt like a massive, empty expanse, Last Call's hooves seeming to echo through the room as he uneasily approached the counter. It was terribly dark, only the dim starlight filtering in through the windows to help him see, and the stallion moved mainly by taking tiny steps towards the few shapes he could make out-

Something moved.

Last Call froze as the darkness itself seemed to boil, a hump of shadows seeming to grow upwards behind the counter. The stallion trembled, holding his breath, his legs quavering and nearly giving out under him as he automatically squatted behind the counter wall, staring at the mass that seemed to undulate towards one of the windows: he had no word for how it moved. It was like a snake's slither, if that slither moved beneath its skin; it was like a squelching, but without sound nor slime; it was like a constant curling upon itself that rolled it without the thing ever twisting or turning its body.

For a brief moment, starlight shone upon it, and yet Last Call couldn't process it: all he saw was a mass, before he flinched and clenched his eyes shut tightly, ducking down low behind the counter, grabbing at his head as his mind filled with a thousand conflicting emotions. And then, it was simply gone, and last call breathed shakily out as he half-covered his mouth, nausea running through his stomach and confusion through his mind as he whispered: “What the hell was that?”

Was it some freak in a costume? Had some kind of magic gone wrong? Had something... dark and awful and terrible wandered out of the forest, was that what had...

No. No, no, no. He had imagined it. He had gotten so riled up, that he had imagined that horror: it was more likely that it had been some kind of animal that had wandered in through the open window...

Except the window wasn't open.

Last Call stared blankly at this: how had the thing just passed through the glass like it wasn't there? How had it been so ominous and awful and yet moved like vapour, or black air? Was it a ghost? Or was it something both lesser and morer, something... something...

Last Call slammed his hoof several times against his forehead, then he shook himself briskly and shivered a bit, muttering: “Just... just keep moving. You don't have time to think about it. You have to keep moving.”

He breathed slowly in and out, calming himself little-by-little before he hesitantly straightened, leaning against the counter as he looked nervously back and forth. Now that the thing was gone, it seemed strangely like it was brighter in here, like the shadow had pulled the darkness with it when it had left.

No, that was stupid: his eyes had just adjusted to the darkness, that was all. Last Call grimaced as he carefully made his way around the counter before his gaze settled on something on the ground, that stood out on the dusty tile because of its metallic glint.

It was a metal ring with several keys hanging from it, and the stallion swept this up and studied it before he muttered: “Right. She said they had to lock up the storage sheds because ponies were taking things from them and kids were sneaking into them to make out.”

He hesitated, then shrugged before slipping the key ring into his satchel: at worst, he could give it back later. But he knew there were supplies in the sheds: maybe they hadn't come back because someone had fallen off one of the embankments, or there had been some kind of accident...

God, what if someone had gotten hurt, and his wife was out there, trying to take care of them, and that... that thing wandered across her?

Last Call grimaced, then he shook his head quickly before he straightened and headed hesitantly to the window. He looked out into the darkness beyond, but there was precious little he could see: just a few feet of beaten dirt and grass, and then the deep shadows cast by the bulk of the trees, as they swayed and rustled in the breezy air.

He began to shift away from the window before he frowned slightly in surprise, moving sideways: it gave him just enough of an angle that he was able to look down one of the trails, and it gave him a strange sense of relief to see one of the lamps that marked the route glowing faintly. He knew those old oil lamps all had to be turned on manually, and if someone had gone through the trouble of doing so... maybe they really are just lost on a late night walk. What did she say about those lamps?

He thought for a moment, then muttered to himself: “They use them for evening walks in the summer, but in fall and winter it gets dark too quickly for it to be safe... in the summer, they have to send someone out every day or so to top up the fuel supply for all the lamps... maybe that's it, some of the lamps burned out and they couldn't light them up so they got lost because... the lamps went out.”

That sounded like a long shot. But at this point, the stallion was still willing to accept any explanation that made the world make a little more sense instead of less. And it did make sense, right?

God, he was so tired. He could barely think straight. He'd come barrelling out here determined to be a hero and now he was already so scared and exhausted he just wanted to run back home to bed...

Last Call grimaced and slapped at his own face a few times before he straightened a little, saying quietly to himself: “Okay. Okay, say I'm right. I should get some fuel from the back and... I'd need a ladder to reach the lamps, though. No, what about...”

He thought for a moment, then turned and felt his way towards the back room as he remembered something else that she had told him: when there were emergencies on the trail, they used flares to mark their route.

Last Call grimaced as he found the door, but it was locked. He almost gave up, but then remembered the key ring, pulling it out and fumbling around in the darkness with the keys and the lock, cursing every now and then under his breath until he finally felt the tumblers click and the handle turn.

He shoved the door open, then stared in disbelief: perched on one of the supply crates was the filly from earlier, her candle glimmering beside her, a faint smile lingering on her face as her sad eyes studied his hooves. “What do you think this is all going to lead to? Do you really think you understand at all what you're getting yourself into?”

Last Call mouthed wordlessly, and then he shook his head quickly before he asked weakly: “What are you? Are you real, or...”

“As real as everything else, I suppose.” The filly shrugged, then she carefully hopped off the crate and strode over to him, reaching up to gently touch him: Last Call shivered at how cold her touch was, and how strange her hoof felt: as a matter of fact, it didn't feel like a hoof at all.

He looked down uncertainly, but away from the candlelight, she was just a shape in the dark, one that warned him: “They crave to return to the world that was once theirs. But they've been sealed away for so long that all they know is starlight. They can't bear bright light for long, just as they can't see in the deepest, blackest darkness. They're reliant on sight for now, and on listening for your thoughts... every other sensation is new to them, after so long dormant.”

“What are you talking about?” Last Call asked in a whisper before he reached up to grasp at the filly, but then his eyes widened in shock as he passed through her limb like it was made of smoke. Through the darkness, he saw her smile faintly for a moment before she shook her head, as Last Call asked in a shaky voice: “What are you?”

“All that remains.” she answered, before she said quietly: “You'll feel them coming. If you do, hide. Either in the brightness of the light, or in the depths of the darkness. Don't get caught in the space in-between.”

“What the hell is going on?” Last Call shouted, but the filly was already gone, vanished into the shadows, like she had never been there to begin with. All that was left behind was her guttering candle on the crate in the store room as Last Call looked desperately back and forth, before he repeated in a whisper: “What the hell is going on?”

But there was no answer: only the oppressive silence and the greedy shadows that licked at him from all sides, as Last Call slowly sank back on his haunches, staring at the flickering candle in the storeroom as he helplessly searched for something, anything, to explain what had just happened.

Finally, he took an uneasy breath and decided that all he could really do was move forward, the stallion half-stumbling into the storeroom. He gave the flickering candle a wide berth, as if he was afraid touching it would cause another... delusion? Visitation? Who the hell was that filly? What had she meant by 'all that remained?'

Why had her touch been so cold, and alien?

Last Call rubbed slowly at his face as he looked around, before his eyes settled on a large box labelled with the item he was looking for. And to his relief, he found dozens of flares inside the box, the stallion grabbing half a dozen for now and throwing them into his bag.

He turned and headed back out into the office, looking uneasily back at the dying candle for a moment before he turned away. In the corner of his eye, he thought he saw shadows move, dancing across the floor and window, but the stallion forced himself to ignore it as he stumbled towards the back door of the office, stepping outside.

He felt like something was behind him.

He felt like there were claws, reaching out behind him.

He felt a gaping maw breathe down the back of his neck and if he turned around he would see it, see the thing, he would go mad-

Last Call slammed the door behind him and leaned back against it, trembling and breathing hard for a few moments before he steadied himself. He uncertainly looked back over his shoulder at the plain door, trembling, listening... but all he heard was the faint rustle of trees and grass, and the regular thrum of insects through the forest.

Nothing. He was getting worked up over nothing.

Goddammit.

Last Call breathed slowly in and out, steadying himself, before he turned towards the path leading into the forest. He carefully stepped forwards, trying to put everything else out of his mind: all he had to do was find his wife, and everything would be okay. They could go home, laugh about this later, and... everything would be fine. Everything was going to work out fine.

That was all he had left to believe in.

For a few moments, Last Call gazed down the forest path, trembling a little as he looked at the beacon of lamplight in the distance before he finally squared his shoulders and stepped into the unknown, intent on doing everything he could to save his wife.

Intent on proving, once and for all, that he was more than just dead weight.

Author's Note

Quickly edited, so as always feel free to point out any errors you might find. I was going to make this chapter longer but. I felt like I hit the end of it, and I didn't want to stretch it out too much.

Karmic Choice:

A: I don't need anyone's help. Especially not from...

B: I should accept any help I can get. Even from...

Plot Choice:

1: Did they walk down the Blue trail? It's a simple loop through the denser parts of the forest, and passes through an old logging site.

2: Maybe they had an accident on the Orange trail. It goes past a cliff, and several caves where they might have taken shelter.

Those Unknowable

Chapter Four: Those Unknowable
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call nervously made his way down the path, shivering at every rustle of grass, eyes snapping fearfully towards every shift of the trees. He was terrified: the fact he didn't even know what he was terrified of only made it all the worse.

He stopped beneath the first lamp, huddling himself in the middle of the light as he did a slow pivot and looked uneasily around. But as comforting as the light was, it made it harder to see out of, the darkness seeming so much deeper now that he was outside of it, the treeline on either side of the path nothing but rustling masses and the ground swarming with shifting shadows.

It made his head hurt. Why was the world he saw inside the light so different from the world he saw when he was out there, in the darkness?

Last Call grimaced, then he shook his head quickly before he nervously strode to the edge of the ring of light. He bit his lip for a moment, then he peeked his head forwards ever-so-slightly, and the sensation of leaning out of the lamplight was like plunging his face into cold water, or leaning over the edge of a cliff. It made him nauseated.

He shivered for a moment, but then forced himself to keep moving forward, out of the sanctuary of the light and down the starlit path. The shadows closed themselves greedily all around him as he walked, but he adjusted quickly to the feeling of being engulfed again in the cold and the darkness: it put his mind on overdrive, filled him both with a sense of danger and a strange, giddy feeling of safety. What was he but another moving shadow among a hundred thousand others, after all?

That feeling lasted until he reached the next lamplight, which he lingered at the edge of before nervously stepping into. And again, there was that warmth, and that feeling like his sanity returned... which was a particularly-painful sensation as he was forcefully reminded that no, the darkness here was not his friend, and he was being an idiot and risking his life for...

For her. He was doing it for her. It was insane and stupid and he felt like his mind was going to snap at any moment and he kept seeing things and hearing things but goddammit, it was for her, and that made it all worthwhile... didn't it?

It did. It did, he just had to believe in that.

Last Call took a slow breath, and when he passed out from under the lamp, it felt like less of a wild plunge this time. He made his way slowly down the path, facing the beacon of a lamp ahead-

The light flickered out.

Last Call trembled for a moment, then he checked quickly behind himself, frozen in the middle of the path. A dozen feet away, the lamppost stood resolute, still casting its bright, warm, safe glow, while ahead, there was nothing but deep, twisting shadow and darkness, shapes lit only by the cruel starlight. This was likely the last chance he had to turn around and run home-

Like a coward. Like a nothing. Like the piece of garbage parasite he was struggling so hard not to be.

Last Call trembled and faced forward, then he nervously reached into his saddlebag and dug out his flashlight. He fumbled with it for a moment, folding out the little arm that would let it hold on to the back of his neck so he didn't have to try and stumble along on three hooves.

He slipped it on, then pressed the button on the side, and it cast a faint glow over the ground in front of him. It was a little loose, so if he moved too much, it would likely fall off, but he was planning to take things as slowly and carefully as he could, anyway.

Last Call slowly made his way forward, the flashlight carving a path through the darkness until he reached the lamp that had just gone out. He frowned uneasily as he looked up at it, before he shook his head and reached back into his satchel, pulling out one of the flares. He hesitantly tossed it in his hoof for a moment, then shook his head again and put it back: he thought he could see a glimmer in the distance, and the path here twisted and turned a little, but there were no forks or intersections. He needed to save the flares for where he would need the extra help to find his way back.

The stallion made his way onward, doing his best not to panic at every grumble, every hiss: it was just the wind in the leaves of the trees, or the breeze rustling across the ground, or the movement of insects and small wildlife. Nothing to work himself up over. There was nothing behind him... nothing was trying to hunt him, or hurt him.

What had that shape been, though? Where had everyone gone?

Why the hell was this happening tonight?

Last Call grimaced a bit, but his eyes were focused ahead, on the sign he was approaching: the guidepost was ahead, and it was lit up bright as day by the lights attached to the top of it, a safe haven among the sea of shadows. He felt welcome relief as he approached it, stopping in front of the enormous map to decide where he was going to go: all the excitement of getting out here had made him forget that this wasn't just a simple trail, but there was a multitude of paths...

His eyes travelled across the map: Blue, Orange, Green, Red, Purple, White... how the hell was he supposed to narrow that down? He cursed under his breath, before his eyes shifted to the information at the side of the board, hoping helplessly for any kind of clue.

He was rewarded as he read the brief descriptions of each trail: almost immediately, the words 'traditional walk' and 'annual festival' jumped out at him. Both Blue and Orange trails had been used in the past for night hikes for what he was guessing was the Alignment celebration: they both passed through some of the historical sites that his wife had always been so enthusiastic about.

He remembered both trails: he had grouchily walked them with her, and Orange trail was much harder than the Blue trail, passing up into the cliffs a mile or so away and weaving through the mountains. Apparently natives had lived in the system of caverns up there, and they had found both strange artifacts and ritual sites that the ponies who had inhabited this land had once used.

Blue trail was a long loop through the forest: it was a very simple walk, but a wide one that passed through both an old, semi-restored logging camp and the base of the cliffs. Last Call remembered that had been one of their last walks out in the woods here before everything had gotten so stupid between them...

He shook his head briefly, then studied the map for a moment longer before he said quietly to himself: “Blue trail will let me get a look at everything. And if they are stuck out here, or if someone... someone somehow kidnapped them, that logging site would be a great place to hide out. I think that's the best place to start. And it passes by the base of the cliffs, so... if there was an accident...”

Last Call grimaced a bit, and then he frowned uneasily as something moved at the edge of his vision. He turned, and flinched away when he saw the filly from before was leaning against the edge of the sign, looking up at him with her sad red eyes as she said quietly: “You need to be more careful.”

“Who the hell are you?” Last Call snapped, leaning back slightly, trying to convince himself he wasn't terrified of this phantasm that was-

“Silent Wish.” answered the filly, and Last Call stared blankly at her, and she only smiled a little and shrugged as she asked: “What?”

“I... I guess I didn't expect an answer. You haven't really told me much so far. You've just been giving me all these... crazy, cryptic warnings.” Last Call said finally, before he nervously leaned forward a little, studying the filly as she remained passive, only watching him inquisitively from beneath her large, floppy hat, as the breeze ever-so-gently ruffled her raincoat. “Are you... a ghost?”

That sounded so stupid out loud. And the filly smiled at him, which made him feel even more stupid, before she answered: “I told you before. I'm all that remains. The last of... well, many things, I suppose. I'm only here now because reality is getting thinner and thinner.”

Last Call frowned at this, but Silent Wish only shook her head and held up not a hoof, he saw, but what looked almost like a claw. He paled slightly at the sight of it, barely hearing the filly as she warned: “The thinness in reality goes both ways: it doesn't just let me float to the surface, but the wrong step could drag you down into the depths. The Alignment isn't just about monsters escaping their prison... it's about the world, however temporarily, becoming a place where they can exist.”

“I don't understand.” Last Call said, and Silent Wish smiled sadly at him.

“I have the feeling that you will. And I'm sorry. I wish I could change that.” she said, and then her large ears twitched before her eyes narrowed suddenly, her features tensing before she whispered: “Oh no.”

Last Call frowned uneasily, then he stared in surprise as the filly vanished, even as her voice pleaded: “Hide, you have to hide!”

Last Call winced as he looked wildly back and forth, before he almost flung himself down to the ground and crawled quickly under the guidepost: there was just enough room between the bottom of the sign and the ground that he was able to squeeze under it and flatten himself in the dirt.

He winced and fumbled wildly at his flashlight, clicking it hurriedly off before he froze as he heard something: soft breathing, and a faint brushing through the grasses. He shifted ever-so-slightly, pushing himself a bit deeper under the board as he stared back and forth, but he couldn't see anything past the lamplight except for shifting shadows...

Something was moving out there, though. One, two... three, four steps. Its stride was strange and staggering, and it seemed to be in one place, then another. And there was that breathing: that loud, calm, in-and-out of something taking long, controlled breaths through their mouth.

“I smell you.” said a soft voice: he couldn't tell if it was male or female, but it made his blood run cold as he shivered under the map. “I know where you are.”

It wasn't lying. It wasn't lying, was it?

Last Call swallowed thickly as he grabbed uselessly at his satchel as the thing sauntered to the edge of the lamplight: he could barely make it out, though, nothing but slender, long, disconnected shapes... what the hell was it?

“Won't you come out from under there? Run for me. I'll let you escape if you run for me. You reek of fear and delusion. Run for me.”

Last Call trembled violently as he yanked out a flare, and then he took a slow, shaking breath as the thing began to slip forward, as he saw what looked almost like a moccasin enter the lamplight, attached to a single slender leg as the horrible thing whispered: “Run for me, or I will devour you where you lay.”

Last Call rasped for breath, shaking painfully before he suddenly lunged out from under the sign as he snapped the cap off the flare, thrusting it wildly towards the thing, and for a moment he saw gaping, terrible, hollow black pits widen in surprise before a red explosion filled his vision.

The hideous, furious scream that filled the air drove Last Call into action, the stallion spinning around and bolting in terror down the open path, his eyes wide with fear, the pounding of his heart the only thing louder than the beat of his heart and his hooves against the ground.

He stumble-ran down the path until he tripped over his own hooves, crashing painfully down into the dirt and skidding over the path before he scrabbled wildly at the dirt, yanking himself hurriedly off the trail and into the cover of the bushes. He rattled and crashed through the brambles and shrubbery before he yelped as he stumbled into a dirt, landing with a splash in a narrow creek.

He coughed and spluttered, shoving himself up before he froze as he heard something: a rustling, a hissing. He stood stock-still in the cold, filthy water, his eyes wide, his body shaking as something angry rushed along the path, then suddenly turned and rushed back, loud breaths rasping at the air as if trying to taste it.

Last Call could almost feel the anger of the phantasm as it bolted back and forth along the trail in its mismatched steps, snarling and growling. It was furious, and the stallion could only pray that it would somehow overlook him. But he didn't dare to try and move: it felt like even a ripple would give him away as this thing writhed in widening circles, stomping across both the trail and twisting through the brush on either side, even in its anger a thousand times more stealthy in the forest than Last Call could have ever been.

He wasn't even aware of when it left: only that several minutes had passed, and somehow, he was still alive, and at some point, everything had gone quiet again. There was only the faint rustling in the trees, and the occasional drip of water from his body into the creek, the stallion trembling for a moment before he gave a feeble laugh.

What the hell had that thing been? No, it had been wearing a boot... was there some kind of killer loose in the forest? Someone who knew the woods well, someone who had maybe taken this whole Alignment thing a little too seriously...

Last Call shook his head quickly, then he shivered a bit as he remembered the eyes he had seen. They had been like gaping abysses, swallowing even the sparks of the flare as it had burst into life: he'd never seen any pony with a gaze like that. Not even Toadfall: at least his eyes had ambition, and something more than... hunger.

He forced himself to stride to the edge of the creek, then grimaced as he grabbed uselessly at the embankment: it was too steep and too soft for him to climb up, however, and he gave up after a few moments of doing nothing more productive than getting his hooves muddy and tearing out chunks of weeds.

Last Call shook his head briefly, then he sighed a little as he turned to follow the creek, sloshing uneasily through the water as he nervously shifted a little. He was half-tempted to turn on his flashlight, but if that... that thing was still out there, he knew it would make him an easy target.

After a few minutes of slogging down the creek, the stallion almost bumped into a low bridge that crossed over it, which he was able to carefully hoist himself up and onto. He shook himself out with a grimace, then took a moment just to breathe and listen to the sounds of the forest around him, trying to get his uneven mind steady.

Fatigue ate at his senses and his body, and he was cold and dirty from the muddy water. The adrenaline that had barely kept him alive was gone and had stolen most of his strength with it. He hesitated for a moment, then reached up and tested his flashlight, before grimacing as it flickered violently. He smacked it a few times, but that barely improved the flickering beam: the water had likely damaged it.

He sighed a little, then reached back for his satchel, opening it and rooting through it. The flares were wet, but since they were self-contained, they would still likely work fine. The map he'd brought was a little damp too, but thankfully laminated, so he was able to bring it out and wipe most of the water off it. He paused as he studied it, then put it down on the bridge, shining the flickering flashlight over it as he traced the route from the parks office with his hoof, first to the signpost, then down the fork, until... “There. This is the bridge, and I can get to the Blue trail if I cut across this path and turn right at the next fork.”

He nodded to himself, then shivered as he looked around uneasily when a rustling made his sensitive ears prick up. He quickly turned the light off, then grabbed the map and stuffed it back in his satchel before he scrambled up to his hooves and hurried along the trail.

He could only see a few feet in front of him: the starlight was stronger than he'd remembered, but the trees seemed thicker, the branches stretching out as if they were trying to form a canopy over the trail. He looked uneasily at the sky before his eyes nervously switched back and forth, nearly jumping out of his skin at every rustle of grass, every twitch of the tree branches.

He reached the fork in the path, and swore under his breath as he looked to the right: the path gently sloped down here, but the trees on one side had all grown with a strange bend in them, forming a natural tunnel that was probably quite pretty during the day, but formed ominous claws in the darkness that blocked out all light. It was a dead black tunnel sloping down to a thicker, older part of the forest, and Last Call fidgeted worriedly for a few moments before he finally swore again as he reached up to turn on his flashlight.

It barely cut through the unnatural shadows, but it made the reflective blue tag that marked the trail he was looking for glow where it was placed on one of the trees. The stallion grimaced a bit as he mentally steeled himself, reminding himself this was the path he had chosen, this was the easiest and the best idea he had, and it wasn't like he was going to be any safer in the goddamn mountains, especially if that thing showed up again.

Last Call sighed a little, hesitating for only a moment longer before he started down the path. He looked anxiously back and forth, flickering flashlight swaying back and forth over the trail and every so often illuminating another of the blue tags that marked the path.

He felt like he was being watched, but he didn't dare turn off his light: without it, he'd be blind as well as vulnerable, and at least it gave him a chance to run if he heard something sneaking up on him. All the same, he couldn't keep his eyes forward or focused, stumbling a little as he looked back and forth and checked over his shoulder, breathing hard as he heard a stirring, a rumbling through the forest.

It wasn't that thing that had been stalking him before, though: he instinctively knew that, because that thing had been cold, and awful, and terrible. No, something larger, stupider, was trundling and stumbling through the forest in the distance, and Last Call froze as he rose his head slightly before his eyes widened as a horrifying howl cut through the air.

He immediately grabbed at his flashlight until it went out, staggering quickly to the side of the road before he half-fell behind the bushes and dropped low. He trembled violently as he heard the smashing and crashing through the forest growing louder, hating how dark it was, how the shadows made everything seem frozen even though, only a short distance away now and getting closer by the second, he could hear yelling and howling and screaming and... crying?

He rose his head ever so slightly, before flinching and ducking back in the bushes as something came falling out onto the path with a tremendous thud. His breath caught in his throat even as he fought the urge to raise his head as he recognized that wailing not as the scream of a monster, but the sobbing of... of a pony?

No, it could be a trick. Or by now, all that screaming and crying-

“O-Oh.... oh, thank h-heavens, this... the path. The path!”

He recognized that voice.

“Happenstance?”

There was a little scream, and then the strained, shocked voice of the chubby pony blurted back: “C-Call? Call! Oh no, Call, did he get you too? Call, oh, I can't see a t-t-thing, Call, Call, are you-”

“Shut up!” Call hissed as he scrambled out of the bushes, staggering towards Happenstance, but he grabbed the chubby pony more out of luck than anything else, half-covering his face with one hoof as he whispered: “We're not the only ones out here!”

“I know! I know, that mad pony is out here, and so are the others... t-the ones he hasn't killed, anyway.” Happenstance trembled, then he grabbed at Call wildly, hugging into him and nearly sobbing as he blurted out in a broken voice: “I couldn't do anything! He d-didn't want money or a-anything else I had to offer, he... he... he's mad, Last Call!”

“What happened? Where is she, where's my... my wife?” Last Call asked sharply, shaking Happenstance once, and he felt the stallion flinch before Last Call whispered: “Happenstance, if anything happened to her, I just... I could never...”

“Call, Call... please. Look. I don't know what happened, but we need to go tell Sheriff Steel that... that there's a mad pony out here on the loose! We need to get out of here!” Happenstance whimpered, and Last Call grimaced as he pushed away a little from the chubby stallion, who shook his head vehemently and grabbed hurriedly after Call, as if he sensed- “N-No, you can't just-”

“I can't just leave, Happenstance. Especially knowing that... that...” Last Call took a shaky breath, and then he trembled and shook his head as he fumbled for his flashlight, then clicked it on.

Happenstance squeaked and covered his face fearfully from the flash of bright light, and Last Call grimaced and leaned back, eyes widening slightly in shock at the sight of the chubby stallion: he looked like he'd been beaten, and savagely, at that. Some of the bruising over his stomach looked putrid, and the cuts and scrapes... “God, Happenstance, what the hell happened to you?”

Happenstance laughed weakly, then he slowly lowered his hooves even as he refused to look up at the light... or maybe it was just Last Call's eyes he was avoiding, as he halfheartedly patted on his own flabby belly. “D-Don't... don't you worry, I had plenty of padding to absorb the worst of it. I just... I... I wish I...”

Happenstance silently rubbed a hoof across his eyes as he lowered his head, trying to hide the trails of tears among the bruising over his face, and Last Call softened a little as he adjusted the light, shining it away from the stallion's features and instead over his body as he muttered: “You look like you did plenty already, Happenstance. What happened?”

Last Call glanced back and forth nervously, but even with all the other stupid things he knew he'd done tonight, he couldn't afford to wander into danger without knowing what the hell was out there, and whether or not... “Is... is anyone...”

“Yes. Yes, when I got here, Mr. Toadfall was waiting for me. He said we should take a walk down the trails and of course I was happy to.” That immediately struck Last Call as odd, but he kept silent as Happenstance continued: “A few others came with us, and... but after the first fork, we were attacked by something. I... I don't know what. Everything went fuzzy and the next thing I knew, I was tied up and blindfolded. I think we all were. I could hear Toadfall shouting but then there was this... this awful noise and he stopped... s-stopped...”

Happenstance swallowed thickly, looking away with a tremble before he whispered: “I could see shapes through the blindfold now and then, when we passed by these... these lights. I heard murmuring. Chanting! We were all tied up together, and then this... that brute started jerking us along, away from wherever it was, and...”

He breathed shakily, then shook his head before he closed his eyes, whispering: “I'm sorry. I'm useless. I tried to talk to him and he just... beat me, until I couldn't talk anymore. But someone else managed to slip out of the ropes and hit him over the head with a rock. Whoever it was started freeing the others, but then he was grabbed and...”

Happenstance shuddered, then he almost yelled: “We ran! We all ran, there was nothing we could do! He was like a... a monster, there was-”

“Keep your voice down!” Last Call grabbed Happenstance and shook him once, then he took a slow breath before he asked quietly: “So he took the entire group hostage. Was there anyone else there?”

“Yes. Yes, I know there couldn't have been more than five of us on the walk, but there were at least ten of us all trussed up together. He was incredibly strong, though. He dragged the whole line of us along like foals...” Happenstance trembled and shook his head, before he said almost desperately, even as tears rolled down his cheeks: “That's why we c-couldn't stay and fight, you don't-”

“Okay. Okay, I get it, okay?” Last Call reassured as best he could, wincing as he looked back and forth before he sighed a little, grinding his teeth together uncertainly. So there was some kind of muscle head, maybe some other crazies, and... maybe that's what I saw before. Maybe that's the asshole who jumped me. That has to be it. God, we should go back but... no. I bet that guy who attacked me is probably waiting for me back at the fork. By now he might even know Happenstance and some other ponies escaped, he might have been waiting to catch them...

“Happenstance...” Last Call said slowly, and he hated what he had to do, grimacing a bit as he said quietly: “I need you to hold out here. I know that's a hell of a thing to ask, but we can't-”

“Last Call, what are you talking about? We can't just hide in these woods, those... those monsters will find us!” Happenstance interrupted, staring with horror at the stallion. “Look, we need to head back to town, Sheriff Steel will know just what to do and-”

“No, we can't. I... I can't turn back now, Happenstance. Those ponies... I just have to...” Last Call shivered, then he shook his head and tried a different tack: “There's someone waiting out there to try and pick us off. The best thing we can do is go where they aren't expecting. Look, if there's enough people and we free them all, then we can escape! But...”

“That's crazy, Last Call!” blurted Happenstance, before he winced as his mouth was covered again by the stallion, who glared at him for a few moments before he sighed and lowered his head a little, letting his hoof drop away from the chubby stallion's face.

“Yeah. I know.” Last Call murmured, then he sighed a little and said finally: “I have to keep going forward. Happenstance, I just... I just have to.”

“Well, you... you can't go alone! And I'm...” Happenstance puffed out his cheeks a little, looking almost childishly up at Last Call. “I'm not going to let you go alone, either! Besides, you don't even know where to go, but... I can find my way back, I know I can!”

Last Call stared in disbelief at Happenstance, mouthing slowly, but Happenstance only shook his head vehemently before he said earnestly: “You can't expect me to just... run away now, or hide out here, can you? No, no no no! I have to help, Last Call, even if that means... even if it means going back towards that nightmare! But I c-can't, I just can't in good conscience let you go alone or leave those poor suffering people there!”

Last Call shifted awkwardly, trying to think of how to possibly respond before he sighed a little even as his eyes flicked nervously up. He could have sworn he'd heard something, and the pale illumination of his flashlight was bound to give them away if they stayed here any longer... goddammit. I can't believe I'm agreeing to this. “Just... look, we have to move quickly and quietly, then. And if we get spotted...”

“Don't you worry, Last Call. I'm not afraid.” promised Happenstance, before he shivered a little as he rose his head slightly, and Last Call winced as he heard a very distinct crackling through the distance forest. “M-Maybe you should turn the flashlight off.”

“Then how the hell will we see?” Last Call asked, before he picked himself up and started quickly down the path, the chubby pony yelping and stumbling after him.

Last Call felt maybe the slightest bit more confident, even if he only had found Happenstance... but it meant there were still ponies alive out there, right? And maybe it was just some ass holes, taking this whole Alignment ceremony too far... but what about that filly I keep seeing? And-

“We have to be careful!” Happenstance whispered loudly, and Last Call frowned slightly at the stallion, but Happenstance only shook his head hurriedly. “I know we passed through the logging camp ahead-”

“Then why the hell were you running towards me from the forest?” asked Last Call dubiously, already questioning Happenstance's sense of direction. If he had been blindfolded on top of that, after all...

“No, n-no, I know we must have! I remember the smell, of course!” Happenstance answered quickly, nodding rapidly as he stumbled up beside Last Call. He winced at the glare he received before his eyes widened in understanding, nodding again as he shrank down a little and whispered – although Horses of Heaven, it somehow sounded even more shrill and annoying – to him: “You see, I zigzagged through the forest. I... I don't know quite the route I took or even how long I ran for, I just... I just know...”

Happenstance deflated visibly, shoulders slumping and head drooping as he whispered: “I just know. I'm sure of it, Call. I know you don't think very much of me, but I'm sure of it.”

“I...what?” Last Call asked awkwardly, and he half-forced a smile, but Happenstance only looked at him bitterly.

“Oh, I'm not stupid, Last Call. I'm very well aware I'm nothing but a joke to most ponies.” retorted Happenstance, the chubby stallion looking away before he sighed a little as Last Call stopped, shifting away from the light from the flashlight as he murmured: “It's not that I don't understand, because I am a joke. I've always been a joke. But I... I'm not wrong about this.”

“I never... I didn't mean to say that you were. I just... wasn't sure myself. Happenstance, it's been a crazy night and uh... well...”

“No, no. I'm sorry. It's the wrong time to bring this all up. I just... it's been a long night. A terribly long night.” Happenstance replied with a faint smile over his shoulder, before he shivered a little and looked up as, to Last Call's surprise, they emerged out of the tunnel of trees, the stars once more visible above as the path widened and the forest thinned around them. “I hope we don't get seen...”

Last Call hesitated, then he reached up and turned his flashlight off. Happenstance gave a little whimper of surprise, but then he calmed down when the stallion reached out and grasped him gently by the shoulder, asking as his eyes adjusted: “Do you think you can walk?”

“Yes. Yes, there's no moon, but the stars are enough to see by, I think. Amazing, isn't it? So different out here than the city, where all the light just makes everything all that much... darker.” Happenstance mumbled, as he looked back and forth before he gave a small smile. “It could always be worse, couldn't it?”

“Horses of Heaven, don't say that, Happenstance.” muttered Last Call, and Happenstance laughed a little and mumbled an apology before Last Call shook his head and asked quietly: “Is there anything else that you remember?”

For a few moments, Happenstance was silent, but Last Call decided not to rush him: as bad as his own night had been, he had the feeling that Happenstance had gone through much worse.

And finally, Happenstance answered hesitantly: “Yes. There was... oh, I don't know. It sounds crazy... but I thought... the blindfold came loose for a moment, and I thought I saw a town. Not the village, but a completely different place. Yet it was all... it was like we were underwater. That's impossible, of course, we could all breathe, it wasn't wet, but all the same it was like was like the air was churning, like... like...”

Happenstance struggled for a moment, then he sighed and mumbled: “But it might have just been my mind playing tricks on me for all I know. I've... I've seen... nothing makes sense, why would anyone do this, Last Call?”

“I don't know. Lectern seemed like he was going pretty crazy over this Alignment garbage, and some ponies just... don't need a reason to hurt other ponies.” Last Call grimaced a bit, before he couldn't help but check back over his shoulder. He couldn't see anything, and while there was still that uneasy feeling of being watched, there was much less of being hunted now: it felt like at least for the moment, they had escaped any immediate danger.

Happenstance laughed a little at this, and even through the darkness, Last Call thought he saw the chubby stallion smile faintly. “I've always had trouble believing that was true. I know how naive that sounds, but... even now, I wonder... maybe...”

“What? The guy who beat the hell out of you was trying to protect you?” Last Call asked pessimistically, and Happenstance gave an awkward little chuckle. “I find that pretty hard to believe.”

“I, no, no, I don't mean that, I mean... but we all have to believe we're doing things, even, especially bad things for the greater good, don't-”

Last Call reached up and caught Happenstance by the shoulder, and the two came to a halt as the chubby stallion followed Last Call's gaze to what had caught his attention ahead: faint light in the far distance, like glowing orbs flickering beyond the trees.

They couldn't be at the edge of the forest, though: even the minimal starlight was enough to make the reflective blue tags that mark the trail glint now and then in Last Call's vision, alerting him they were on the right track. So that meant...

“That looks like the old logging camp just ahead... I didn't realize we'd come out so close to it!” Happenstance said, but he sounded almost as dubious as Last Call felt. “Do... those lights, do you think... I know that, well...”

Last Call swallowed the instinct to snap at Happenstance, instead saying as patiently as possible: “Look. We'll just get as close as we can, as close as we feel safe, and see if there's any movement. I... she showed me a way around to the back doors, the employee's only doors, if nothing jumps out at us. From there we should be able to get a sense of the whole camp.”

Happenstance nodded, looking relieved that Last Call had already come up with a plan... if you could even call it that. “Okay! I'll let you lead the way and stay behind you, how about that?”

“Great.” Last Call muttered, and he bit his lip for a moment before taking a slow breath as he started to lead the way forward again, ears pricked and eyes constantly shifting back and forth, every swaying branch a possible threat in the darkness, every rustle making him fear that something unknowable was lurking just ahead.

The light was further away than Last Call had realized: it was a few minutes, not a few seconds, before the trees began to thin out around them and the light began to noticeably brighten their surroundings. It made Last Call that much more tense as he stopped at the edge of the logging camp, nervously lingering behind a boulder as Happenstance crouched more behind him than the rock, making little nervous noises that Call did his best to ignore.

He swept his eyes over the logging camp, but while every single building and lamppost was brightly lit up, it felt desolate. He couldn't hear anything but the sounds of the forest and the shifting trees, and nothing seemed out of place, or different...

No, that wasn't true, he noted: there were a few open doors, and it looked like a pile of wood had been knocked over in the distance. But from here he couldn't really tell much, and Last Call sighed a little before he said finally: “Come on. But be quiet. Something might be in there.”

Happenstance nodded hurriedly, following maybe a little too close as Last Call felt his way carefully through the edges of the woods around the logging camp, careful to stay out of the light until he literally stumbled into the old picnic site he had been looking for.

He lingered for a moment, looking at the shoddy, beaten-up picnic table where he had spent such wonderful time with her, laughing, talking... just together. Pleasant memories, but at the time it had seemed so natural that he'd never imagined they would be among his best, his happiest memories with her...

Happenstance made a little noise behind him, and Last Call grimaced before he mumbled: “Just... getting my bearings. Uh... here.”

He led Happenstance to a narrow trail through the trees that seemed to lead away from the logging camp, but the serpentine trail twisted almost on itself and led around to the back of the fore mare's office, the employee's only door lit by a single flickering lamp. Last Call noted that said door was ajar, but he couldn't hear or see anything else... creepy, though. It's like the front of the camp is lit up, but everything else is dead and dark...

“Happenstance, why don't you stay here, and-”

“Last Call, I... I really don't want to stay in the woods alone. And I can't be any help here... let me at least come inside with you!” Happenstance pleaded immediately, looking fearfully at the stallion, and Last Call grimaced before Happenstance added: “If anything happens, I'll help, I promise that I'll help and-”

“Okay, okay. Keep your voice down. Let's... let's get a look inside.” Last Call said grudgingly, although he admittedly understood Happenstance's fear... and that if he did leave the chubby stallion outside, well, he probably wouldn't be here when he came back. At least inside he had half a chance... assuming we don't run into something in there.

Last Call crept towards the ajar door, then pulled it carefully open so he could peer inside. The short hallway beyond was empty, ending in a closed door, the single light on the wall flickering and casting shadows, the darkness coming and going and only for a moment revealing the filly-

Last Call flinched, but there was nothing there. He grabbed at his flashlight to turn it on, and the dim, waning glow of the light traced back and forth across nothing but garbage and debris before he shivered and muttered: “If that's you again, I wish you wouldn't play these goddamn games with me.”

“What?” Happenstance asked nervously, but Last Call only grimaced as he waved Happenstance's question off before he made his way to the door at the end of the narrow corridor, carefully pushing it open.

He emerged into the employee's lounge: he remembered how much she had complained about the way they had changed everything around here, how little of the original building floor plan remained. She'd always hated it when people changed things for the sake of change, or because it was the easy thing to do; it made him wonder for the hundredth time how the hell they could live together.

He smiled briefly as he drew the flashlight through the room: it was scattered, dirty, but otherwise there were no signs that anything was wrong here. He hesitated for a moment as Happenstance joined him, and then he said finally: “I'm going to check out the rest of the buildings. Stay here, Happenstance. You can lock the doors, that should be enough to keep you safe.”

“I don't know. I want to help you, Last Call!” Happenstance said worriedly, but Last Call only shook his head and gestured around the room.

“Look, if I need your help, I'll come back and get you, but it's better if just one of us looks around for now. Maybe you can take a look through the supply closet or something, or maybe just... rest, Happenstance. You look like hell.”

Happenstance smiled awkwardly as he rubbed at his bruised body, and then he sighed a little before nodding and dropping his head, mumbling: “Alright. Alright, if you insist, Call. I'll stay out of your way. But... just make sure you come back, okay?”

Last Call smiled awkwardly, then he nodded as he headed towards the door leading out of the employees' room, and further into the logging office. He hesitated for a moment, then reached up and turned off his flashlight as he noted the faint glow coming from under the door.

He nervously leaned into the door to push it open a little as Happenstance hurried up behind him, the two peering out into the empty lobby, where only flat signs and displays stood silent sentinel beneath the glow of fluorescent lights. Last Call shifted out of the room, then he nodded once to Happenstance, who made a little nervous noise before he closed the door with a whimper.

Last Call nervously wended his way between the displays to the front doors of the building: he noted that while they had been knocked ajar, someone had chained the handles shut on the inside. He couldn't help but jangle this gently, grimacing a bit at how heavy the iron links were, before he shrugged and turned.

He found his way across the lobby to the 'restored' office that had belonged to the fore mare, although he remembered how every time they had visited here, he'd gotten a lecture from his wife about how there hadn't actually been walls, how the office had been more of a formality than anything else. Even the wood they'd used had been wrong...

Last Call smiled briefly as he pushed open the door to the office, before he stumbled to a stop and stared in shock at the massive hole that had been torn in the wall. No, not torn: torn implied splinters, debris, crudeness. The wall looked more like it had been carefully cut away, with only the faintest of scorching around the edges of the near-perfect oval.

He stared in disbelief, before his eyes shifted towards the desk: part of it had crumbled away to ash, as had any other furniture in the way: the rest of it was still standing, but it varied from blackened and made brittle to what looked like grey dust. Last Call couldn't stop himself from reaching out to touch the desk, and he winced in surprise, almost falling over in shock when most of the furnishing crumbled away with a sound like a sigh, the rest of it toppling with a bang that sent up a cloud of dust.

Last Call coughed a few times and waved a hoof to clear it as he looked worriedly back and forth, but it didn't seem like he'd disturbed anything. After almost a minute, he finally gathered the courage to step across the office and lean out the hole, and his eyes immediately locked on another, similar wound in a building across the lit-up road... the sleeping quarters, he thought.

Last Call hesitated only a moment before he followed his impulse, stumbling out of the hole and running quickly across the road to the dormitory. He slipped past the chained-shut front doors to the wound in the wall, leaning carefully into it, his eyes darting back and forth... but apart from the hole, everything else seemed unmolested, the beds visible in the sleeping room all properly made and neat, the fluorescent lights haphazardly wired across the old rafters glowing brightly...

The stallion slipped through the hole, striding down the centre of the dormitory before he flinched in surprise and stumbled around as a voice chided: “You need to be more careful.”

He blinked and mouthed wordlessly: the filly was sitting on one of the beds, looking at him almost with concern in her red eyes, her messy mane and large, fluffy ears bare of the floppy hat she had been wearing before. Her raincoat shifted as she hugged herself, and Last Call grimaced and nervously stepped back at the sight of those strange, dexterous claws at the end of her forelegs as she murmured: “You're in great danger here, Call. There's something very evil, very close by. If it wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead.”

“So what, it doesn't want to kill me?” asked Last Call pessimistically, before he blurted out: “Why should I trust you? What the hell are you?”

“My answer won't change just because you don't understand it.” Silent Wish replied, and she sighed a little as she looked down at her little claws, flexing them absently: no, now that Last Call could see them a little clearer under the brightness of the light, they were both more and less than claws: furry little fingers, short but shifting, and something about the way the sleeves of her coat bunched and rippled...

He realized he was staring and that Silent Wish was only looking at him patiently now, and the stallion shifted a bit before he said: “I found one of my... one of the ponies that were taken. He said it was a big pony... maybe it's-”

“A thousand people hear the exact same story, and yet we end up with a thousand different interpretations of it.” Silent Wish said, and Last Call frowned a bit, although he understood. He just didn't understand what that had to do with anything.

But Silent Wish answered that question before he could ask it, as she said softly: “There are ponies who worship the Alignment. There are ponies who think the monsters locked away here are gods. There are ponies who believe they will be rewarded...”

“There are ponies who just want to see the world burn.” murmured Last Call, and then he shook his head before he said finally: “Look, all I care about is finding my wife. That's all I want. I don't want to stop these things or get involved-”

“You are involved. By living, by being here, you chose to be involved, Last Call. You don't get to pick and choose: it's one or the other, and your choice has already been made.” Silent Wish answered pointedly, before she grimaced and added, as her eyes shifted nervously to the side: “We don't have time for this, Last Call. Every second we waste arguing is another second that-”

“Bad things could be happening. I know. She always... she always said I had the worst habit of doing... that.” Last Call muttered, before he glanced up as Silent Wish smiled briefly at him. He recognized that expression, and he grimaced at the sympathy before he asked: “What do I do if I'm already screwed?”

“But you're not. The thing watching you is... curious. And it's not hungry, not yet: it's still very tired from the long sleep. You have to use that to your advantage to escape from this place, but... be careful.” Silent Wish looked uneasily around, murmuring: “This is a very bad place. Do you know what happened here?”

“Yeah. A long winter set in, and everyone died.” Last Call answered, and Silent Wish smiled at him faintly.

“Yes, winter came. But no, not everyone died. Some got sick, and some got tired, and then the bad thing came in the middle of the night. It breathed nightmares into the scared ponies and touched the ones who were starting to fall apart. And the maddened, desperate, insane ponies turned on their comrades and killed them, and ate them.” Silent Wish said softly, and Last Call shuddered before his eyes widened in horror as he looked around, and saw ponies, dying, screaming, half-eaten ponies, all writhing in the bed around them for a moment before they vanished into shadow once more. “But we shouldn't speak of such things when reality is already thin.”

“Y-Yes.” Last Call shivered, not knowing what else to say: it wasn't like there was anything he really could, anyway, as he swallowed thickly, looking fearfully back and forth, his mind struggling to catch up to to the present.

Silent Wish studied him, and then she looked up uneasily as the lights above flickered, murmuring: “It's coming. You have to get out of here, Last Call.”

“But where do I go?” Last Call blurted out, and Silent Wish smiled at him faintly.

“It doesn't matter. You'll go where they want you to at this point; you're too far in to turn back now.” Silent Wish answered, and then she simply vanished as the lights flickered again, Last Call cursing before he swore in surprise as the fluorescent bulbs above exploded one after the other.

He stumbled away, dropping his head and covering himself as much as he could as broken glass and diamond dust pelted him, before he lurched into a panicked run, lunging to the end of the dormitory and smashing through a door before he rounded the corner of a U-shaped hall.

He skidded to a halt in front of something that chilled his blood, mouthing wordlessly as he stared for a moment at the horrible thing before his stomach wrenched, and he staggered backwards and vomited loudly. His mind reeled and his legs quaked underneath him as he whimpered helplessly, eyes rolling in his head as the horrific, indescribable mass seemed to only watch him, and yet just being near it hurt, and if he couldn't stop his darting eyes from so much as glancing over it again he felt like his mind would break, like his skin would turn inside-out, like his heart would explode in his chest-

The thing stretched out a bizarre, malformed appendage from its writhing mass and gently touched him, and Last Call froze as the thing in the darkness spoke into his mind in images more than words.

Then it was simply gone, leaving a burning hole through the wall it shambled through in the shape of a perfect oval. Last Call's teeth shattered before he tried to turn, and only managed to slip in his puddle of liquid vomit, sending himself crashing down to the ground.

He laid there on his side for an indeterminate amount of time, just trying to breathe, to shake things off, to think. He curled up like a foal in the darkness, the only light coming from the faint stars outside as he rocked himself slowly on the spot, whimpering a little to himself as his whole body quaked with pain and terror.

But eventually, the fear faded, and the pain cleared his mind, and he was able to shakily drag himself up to his hooves, coughing and wheezing. He shuddered a little, closing his eyes tightly before he moaned and rubbed at his face, then whispered: “Dammit.”

That thing... it had showed him things. Asked him questions his mind had screamed senseless answers to. Told him to do things, but he couldn't remember what those things were. And it had said, in the most casual, offhoof way, that it wasn't going to kill him. He wasn't interesting enough to kill: it was more interesting to the awful thing whether or not he survived the horrors already chasing him, hounding him from every side.

Unless he got boring, it had said. Or unless it felt a whim to.

He was alive because of the whims of a monster he couldn't even look at.

That didn't make sense. Had it been a hallucination? Was he going insane? Things, monsters didn't work like this, and it didn't make sense!”

Last Call whacked himself with a hoof a few times, then he shook his head before he stared at the hole the beast had left in the wall. He reached out, touched the thin, burnt space in that hole, and then he whispered: “Didn't hallucinate that.”

He shivered, then stepped out through the hole, biting his lip. He had to decide what to do. He had to figure out where the hell to go, how to escape the monsters that the awful thing had hinted were already on the hunt for him. He had to-

A pop caught his attention. Last Call looked up, just in time to watch from the alley he had stepped into, as a lamp at the end of the alleyway exploded into pieces. And from the sounds of shattering and the vanishing light along the main road, he knew that one after the other, every light throughout this logging camp had either shattered or gone dark.

He was stranded in the darkness.

And something was coming.

Author's Note

A quarter of the way through the story now. Also, again, feel free to point out any errors I missed in my quick sweep.
I realize that stupidly, I haven't been putting the donate link in, even though this is driven by donations as well as votes. Please donate here if you're enjoying or want to affect the story. All proceeds go directly to charity.
Every dollar you donate counts as one additional vote: for example, if you donated five dollars, you could get 3 votes for Karmic Choice X, and 2 votes for Plot Choice X, or however you wanted to distribute them. Or, you can donate money to have your character appear in the story: five dollars gives you a minor appearance, and ten dollars multiple appearances. (Although it's a horror story so please be aware bad things might happen to good people.}
Now, on to the choices.

Karmic Choice:

A: Use Happenstance as bait.

B: Rescue Happenstance.

Plot Choice:

1: Last Call runs away. It doesn't matter where. He has to escape before the monsters arrive.

2: Last Call pushes his luck to investigate further. There has to be some kind of clue here.

From The Depths

Chapter Five: From The Depths
~BlackRoseRaven

It was cold, it was dark, and the only light came from the faint embers of the oval hole that had been burned through the wall next to him. Last Call could hear things, crawling and squirming eagerly through the deep darkness that blanketed the entire camp, and he barely resisted the urge to leap back through the hole into the dormitory.

Instead, he crept carefully down the alleyway to the end, breathing hard as he leaned out and worriedly looked back and forth. He tried to control his breathing and his wildly-beating heart, sure that one or the other was going to give him away... but for the moment, he saw that while the ground was covered in twinkles of broken glass and the only light apart from the stars in the sky came from the sparks that sizzled down every so often from the shattered lamps, it seemed like he was alone.

But he knew things were coming. The monster had told him as much: maybe it was calling them here, right now. Maybe they were just being naturally drawn here by the reek of malice in the air. What difference did it make, though? It came down to if he stayed here, he was dead.

He had to make a run for it. He had to get out of here...

Except Happenstance was still here, wasn't he? And he'd barely had a chance to look around, what if there was something else here? That godawful thing that had touched him, it had seemed like it was here for a reason... what if he ran away and missed out on finding what that reason was?

He could leave Happenstance behind...

Last Call shook his head vehemently at this, dismissing the thought almost as quickly as it came. No, he didn't like Happenstance all that much, but he couldn't just abandon him, either. Not when he was the one who had dragged Happenstance to the logging camp on top of everything else, when Happenstance had wanted to try and leave the forest in the first place.

Last Call bit his lip, then he swore under his breath before he made a mad dash across the dark street, hurrying back towards the foremare's office. He somehow made it to the front doors before he winced as he remembered they were chained shut-

He stumbled into them, and they swung open, making the broken chains jangle as shattered pieces of metal were kicked across the floor by the doors striking them. He stared at these, then flinched as he heard some unearthly hissing, scrambling quickly down the wall of the building and nearly falling around the side of the structure, near the gaping hole leading into the badly-remade office.

There was a hissing, a slithering, and then something awful and serpentine and disgusting lurched out of the doors, looking back and forth. Arms or wings or something stretched out of its sides, before it lowered itself to the ground as it slither-crawled out towards the centre of the road-

Last Call ripped his eyes away, his heart quaking in his chest, legs shaking, lungs aching as he forced himself to hold his breath so he wouldn't hyperventilate himself into unconsciousness or discovery. He could just make out the shape of that wretched thing in the starlight, and while it wasn't nearly as awful as the unfathomable beast he had come across earlier, it still made him panic in a primal, instinctual way.

He fought that panic as best he could as he crawled through the hole into the office, then stumbled through the ajar door into the hallway before letting it close behind him, finally letting out a weak gasp. But as the thing was out of sight and hopefully moving further away, he felt his sanity quickly returning.

He let himself slump for a moment, gasping breath in and out in the little hallway as his exhausted body gradually relaxed, and then he grimaced as he picked himself up and made his way as quickly and quietly as he could into the main lobby and behind one of the now-dark displays, nervously peering back and forth before he bolted across the room, keeping in the shadows as much as possible as he did his best not to look out the main doors in case that awful thing was still out there.

Last Call stumbled into the door leading into the employee lounge, knocking it ajar...

He skidded to a halt as the door swung open, blood going cold in his veins as he stared into the darkness beyond, not a single shred of light revealing what was inside those shadows. And yet, he already knew that Happenstance wasn't here, as he looked slowly back and forth before stepping nervously into the room and closing the door behind him, leaning back against it and flinching slightly at the faint snick of the lock automatically engaging.

He breathed for a moment, then whispered: “Happenstance?”

Nothing.

Last Call reached up and fumbled for his flashlight, turning it on with a click before he traced the dim light nervously back and forth: there were no signs of struggle, no hints as to why anyone would leave, and no trace of Happenstance. All he saw was that one of the supply closet doors was open, and a pile of stuff had been neatly arranged on the table in the middle of the room.

Last Call approached this, uneasily poking through it even as he glanced back and forth, as if Happenstance was just going to pop out at him if he looked around enough. It looked like he had been sorting the supplies he'd dug out of the closet before he'd vanished: while most of it was useless, the stallion did note that there was a pile of random batteries, a few emergency flares, and what looked like a set of keys.

These last things he scraped off the table into his satchel before he muttered: “Goddammit, Happenstance. Where the hell did you go?”

He was feeling more and more sure that Happenstance had left or been drawn out for some reason... or hell, maybe he'd panicked when the lights had gone out. But the lack of any kind of struggle was little solace for him: with the things now wandering the campsite, he knew that the likelihood Happenstance would survive... god, don't think like that.

Maybe he could find him, though. Maybe...

Last Call traced the flashlight back towards the door, then winced as it fell across Silent Wish, his breath catching in his throat before he let out a long wheeze. Before he could open his mouth, however, Silent Wish rose a claw in front of her muzzle, before whispering: “Turn it off.”

Last Call frowned, before he winced as he heard a scratching at the door, hurriedly grabbing at the light on his shoulder before clicking it off. He couldn't help but notice how Silent Wish's eyes almost glowed in the darkness, but he was too afraid to move, too afraid to speak, too afraid to even breathe as that scratching continued, growing more insistent for a few moments before it halted... and then something on the other side of the door gave an unearthly screech before all sound vanished.

“It's gone.” Silent Wish confirmed, and he heard a rustling as she approached him before her claw gently touched his hoof, making him flinch at how cold her touch was. “Don't turn on your light. Wallowers are like insects: they hide alone, but they always move in groups.”

“I don't understand.” was all Last Call could say, and Silent Wish gave him a faint smile.

“I wish you didn't have to.” she said, and then she gently grasped him and pulled him towards the back door, saying in a murmur: “It's getting easier for me to appear, and stay for longer periods of time. At this rate, I'll only have to leave you for short breaths, but that's not a good sign. Last Call, I don't know why that Vorpal spared you-”

“He said I was interesting.” Last Call said, and Silent Wish stumbled to a halt, looking up at him worriedly. “What? That... he said as long as-”

“Yes. I know. That's what they said about me.” Silent Wish whispered, before she shook her head and turned, half-yanking him onward, and the stallion winced, surprised at her strength. “We have to get you to where reality slopes upward, away from the chaos. If we can get you back to the village, it should be far enough to-”

“No, I have to at least look for Happenstance, and my wife is out there!” Last Call argued, shaking his head vehemently even as Silent Wish pushed the door open. “I can't... I won't leave either of them behind!”

“Yes, you will. You would, and we both know you would.” Silent Wish said, and the worst part of it was that her voice wasn't accusing, her tone wasn't cruel: it was almost gentle, and it hurt so much because Last Call knew from past experience that it was true. “That's not always the worst thing, Last Call. You're not the only pony who wishes he could trade his life for his friends, his family. And if death is certain for one, but not another, then the best thing-”

“Don't... you're... you don't understand.” Last Call whispered, but they both knew that this little ageless filly did.

Silent Wish only looked at him, before she sighed and said quietly: “The Wallowers are mostly blind from living underground for so long, but they're not used to the noises of this world, or the vibrations of soft earth. They've never felt ground like this before, they don't understand it. But that doesn't mean they're stupid. They'll listen for your voice and they'll follow your hooves very easily on hard surfaces, like this wood. But you should be able to feel when they're coming: don't listen for them, don't look for them. Just close your eyes and feel them.”

“I... I'll try.” Last Call said after a moment, before he blurted out: “Where do you go? Where do you keep vanishing off to?”

Silent Wish only looked at him for a moment, and then she gave another of her faint, sad smiles, as she answered: “Away.”

With that, the filly was gone again, and Last Call sighed a little as he stepped out into the pitch-blackness of the short exit corridor, nervously working his way down to the door at the end. He breathed slowly as he tested it before pushing it open, and he grimaced a bit at how the starlight almost bit at his eyes: it bathed everything in a cold, careless blue, melding the black profiles of buildings and trees and earth into an incoherent mess... and yet one that he had to step carefully down into all the same as he swore under his breath, hoping that Silent Wish was right.

But what did he do now? Where did he go?

There was nothing useful here in the office. There was nothing – probably – in the dormitories. When he closed his eyes, he could... he could feel those things Silent Wish had called Wallowers moving, squirming around, and got a sense of the direction they were in, like they were so alien to this reality that the air itself was trying to warn him where those beasts were...

He grimaced a bit as he nervously began to make his way around the back of the building: he thought for a moment about just trying to run away down the path, but he remembered that there had been that... that other, awful thing out there, and he was still afraid that if he tried to retrace his route, it would intercept him. It had been different somehow from these other beasts, more ferocious, more native to this world: that thought terrified him somehow, even more than what he had experienced in his short time here in the camp.

Last Call made his way to the edge of the building and began to turn, before he stared in blank disbelief at the sight of a translucent stallion, calmly smoking a cigarette. The stallion didn't so much as look at him as it flickered in and out of reality, before it looked up... and its head almost exploded when an axe smashed into it, sending the image crashing down in a heap that quickly fizzled out of reality.

Last Call hurked, but the only thing that stomped him from vomiting was the way his whole body froze up when the ghost reappeared, once more smoking a cigarette, once more calm, cool, collected, until those same events repeated only seconds later. This time, Last Call winced away in time, covering his face as he shuddered violently, and he was only glad that this stain in reality was silent.

Moving carefully, Last Call kept his head down and eyes on the ground as he strode past the ghost, doing everything he could to get by: he shifted just a little too close, however, as it once more was struck by the axe, and Last Call jumped forward with a gasp as this time, he clearly heard the scream of the stallion, the sound of flesh striking earth, and a rasping, panting, excited breathing that told him oh god it was right behind him it was-

Last Call flung himself forward as he looked back over his shoulder in terror, and there was nothing there. Nothing behind him, even though his heart was pounding in his chest and he felt horrible agony in his skull and everything was confusion and fuzz...

He moaned as he staggered against the wall, trembling and reaching up to grasp his head, before he shivered a bit as he brushed past one ear and felt wetness. He looked down at his hoof, and the faint blue starlight that slipped into this alleyway revealed a glint of blood: he was bleeding. He had felt that stallion's death. He had experienced the memories in that echo.

He was losing his fucking mind.

Last Call shivered, then he forced himself to stagger upright against the pounding of his head and the pain pulsating through his body. He gritted his teeth, fighting exhaustion and agony, but he knew that if he didn't manage to force himself to go on, he was going to die.

The thought of how much that stallion's death had hurt, and how quick it had been, compared to what those Wallowers would likely do to him if they were anything like the images he'd seen in his mind from that Vorpal creature, was just enough to give him the incentive to take a step forward. One step became two, two became three, became a stumble, a stagger, a broken, limping gait that took him to the end of the alleyway.

He leaned against the wall, breathing hard, but he noted that to his immediate left was an open gate leading into what he thought was the barn. He grimaced a bit as he stumbled inside, before his eyes widened as he immediately caught sight of a twisting, curling shape in the darkness at the other end of the long, open aisle.

Last Call tried to press himself against the wall, and winced as he instead fell through an open door into a stall. He thumped to the ground, and immediately heard a rasping hiss that told him that the thing had heard him, as the air seemed almost to thicken with its malice.

The stallion looked wildly back and forth in the darkness, barely able to make out where he was. He shifted backwards, and his hoof hit something hard and metallic: out of shock more than anything else, he flung it out the open doorway, and it clanged loudly into another stall opposite, followed an instant later by some horrific, shrieking shape.

Last Call ducked quickly out of the stall, stumbling along the dirt path as a tremendous banging and clanging reached his ears as the monster went berserk in the stall. He knew all that noise was only going to attract more of them, so he dashed deeper into the dark barn until he caught sight of a ladder, scurrying up to the top of it before flopping into the hayloft above, gasping as he wiggled himself forward on his stomach, not daring to leap to his hooves for fear that his steps against the wood would attract the creatures' attention.

He heard other wretched things squalling, rasping, screaming as they flooded into the barn, drawn by all the commotion: for a few moments, what Last Call heard was indescribable, like a pack of shrieking, squealing insects with a thousand jaws all biting and clawing at each other, rioting mixed with the sound of wood splintering and metal breaking. But after a painfully long few minutes, it quickly faded into rasping and rumbling, and soon after that, he heard and felt as the creatures shifted and twisted away.

Last Call moved carefully, crawling more than walking to the open door at the front of the hayloft. He eyed the simple pulley system that was used to move the haybales for a moment, then decided that would be idiotic to try: he also noted, however, that there were several buckets and rusty cans full of loose metal parts nearby, likely forgotten about up here since the last time they had done repairs on the old, mouldering barn.

Across from the barn was a fenced-in area where archaic piles of fossilized lumber were stored: he bet he could lob a bucket that far. The Wallowers had all converged at once, once they had been alerted: maybe he could use that to his advantage.

He couldn't just start throwing stuff and hope it would work, though: he needed a plan. He needed to remember the layout of the logging camp as clearly as he could and... where the hell he could even go from here.

The only thing that stood out in his mind was the cliffs: there was an old camp at the base, and of course all the caverns and paths that wormed their way through the mountains. But while he knew the layout of the logging camp here vaguely from his visits she had rarely been able to get him to walk all the way out to the mountains: that would have required more than minimal effort on his part, with little reward but maybe a smile, a kiss...

He'd kill for those things from her now, though.

Last Call shook his head, bringing himself back to the matter at hoof as he looked back and forth, before his eyes locked on a small building that sat on the outskirts of the cleared area. That wasn't any part of the original logging camp, but a tour centre, where the guides gave presentations and handed out pamphlets and maps...

If he could distract the monsters long enough to get across the street, then he could get into that little building and find not just the tourist maps, but the more detailed ones used by the guides and the occasional rescue crews that had to go and save some idiot who'd decided to run off the marked trails. There were dozens, if not hundreds of little offshoots and paths out here, and while only the easiest and the largest ones were marked, almost every inch of land all the way to and around the mountains had been clearly mapped out at some point or another.

Last Call bit his lip: he knew there were a few possible problems with his plan, such as the fact that he might not even be able to get into the tour centre if it was locked. But then he remembered the keys in his satchel, the stallion shifting so he could reach back into this and dig them out, tossing them lightly on one hoof before he grimaced a bit as he realized... even if I have the right key, I don't know which one it is.

He swore under his breath, then shook his head before he closed his eyes and lowered his head forward slightly, thinking quickly. He could figure this out. He had time still, because all those monsters were downstairs, and he was alone...

He bit his lip, wishing impulsively that he had help, even in the form of-

“You should be more careful.”

Last Call winced in surprise, then stared at Silent Wish, who frowned up at him disapprovingly... although she seemed almost as surprised as he was, he thought, she was just doing a better job of hiding it.

They looked at each other for a few moments, and then Last Call asked: “Can you help me? Did... I mean, did you hear-”

“Yes, but that's not a good sign, Last Call, and I was... there are other things I need to try and make sure happen, too. You're not my ward and I'm not your foalsitter.” Silent Wish sounded almost angry, and Last Call shifted uncertainly, but after a moment the filly sighed and lowered her head, adding quietly: “But maybe I'm just... frustrated. I'm sorry, Last Call. I shouldn't let this world turn us against each other, I should know better. But... next time, don't call for me unless you really need my help.”

“I really do, though.” Last Call said quickly, and Silent Wish frowned at him. “I need to get down to that tourist centre, but I don't know if I have the right keys. I was hoping that if I make some noise and distract those monsters-”

“Don't underestimate them. They're learning. They're going to figure out soon that someone's there, if they haven't already from your little stunt earlier.” Silent Wish warned, but she sounded less scolding and more worried this time before she bit her lip, then sighed as she said quietly: “Give me the keys.”

“What are you going to do?” Last Call asked uneasily, before he frowned as the filly half-turned away, opening her raincoat as she let her mane fall over her face.

The stallion opened his mouth again, before it went dry as she shrugged the heavy coat off and stretched out her wings. But they weren't normal wings, oh no: they were enormous, bat-like wings, and they didn't come from her back, but rather they were part of her... her arms, he thought stupidly. With her raincoat off and those wings bare, she looked like some kind of monstrous bat-chimera that turned its glowing eyes on him-

Last Call flinched before he could stop himself, and Silent Wish's eyes flicked away before she said quietly: “Just give me the keys.”

“Sorry, I... I'm sorry.” Last Call murmured, even though he shivered all the same as he stretched the keys out, hating how he couldn't hide the trembling in his foreleg, or the way he leaned away from her. It clearly hurt the filly, but she snatched the keys quickly away from him and didn't look back when he stepped after her, the bat-mare leaping out of the hayloft and soundlessly gliding to the roof of the tour centre.

Last Call dropped his head for a moment, then he shook it quickly and looked up: he could just make out the shape of Silent Wish as she landed silently on the roof and skittered quickly over it before easily making her way down the front wall to the doors, hanging off the wooden wall as naturally as... well... a bat. He could almost hear the faint tink of the keys in the silent air as she tested each one in the lock, before Last Call grimaced as he heard a low hissing, saw a shape twist through the darkness-

The stallion grabbed a bucket of bolts and flung it across the street, and it smashed against the chainlink fence. Silent Wish flinched, but thankfully didn't lose her footing on the wall even as the Wallowers screamed and converged immediately on the bucket, then wildly grabbed at the fence when they crashed against it and it rattled loudly.

Knowing he likely wouldn't have another chance, Last Call made one of the stupidest, most impulsive decisions of his life and he leapt out of the hayloft, crashing down to the dirt road below with a loud thump. He stumbled and fell on his face with a wince, before his eyes widened in horror as one of the snake-creatures whirled away from the fence, rapidly scanning the road, and the stallion immediately huddled as low as he could to the ground.

Thankfully, its attention was drawn back to its fellows as one of them managed to knock the bucket of bolts and screws rolling, the creatures chasing the sound. Last Call didn't waste any time in spite of the agony searing his body in climbing to his hooves and staggering quickly towards the centre, and he sighed in relief as Silent Wish yanked the door open, even as she hissed: “Are you crazy?”

“I think so.” Last Call said honestly: flinging himself off the hayloft had seemed like a good idea at the time, and he didn't know if he'd done it in a burst of panic or pure stupidity. The moment he stumbled inside, Silent Wish closed the door behind him and locked it again, and he shivered a bit as he simply rested on the floor of the centre, whispering: “I don't know what came over me. I just felt... an urge. A wild need to do... something, like I had to do it or I was going to be trapped up there forever.”

“Last Call, that's not good. You're letting them dig inside; and if they dig too deeply into your mind, you'll never get them out.” Silent Wish said worriedly, striding up beside him, and Last Call shivered a bit as he looked at her.

“Is that what happened to you?” he asked impulsively, and the filly looked away.

There was silence for a few moments, and then Last Call lowered his head as he whispered: “Sorry. My wife always said I was an idiot. And she was right, you know. She was right about a lot of things... about everything. I hated that, but now, more than ever...”

He shivered a little, then looked up at the empty space where Silent Wish had stood, unsurprised to see that she was gone. But why would she stick around with a wreck like him? She was only half-bat. Him? He was all vermin.

Last Call laughed dryly at this, then he slowly clambered to his hooves before striding across the room. He grimaced a bit and looked uneasily up as he heard a slithering, a tapping against the walls, and decided against turning on his flashlight for the moment: there was still enough starlight filtering in through the windows and the skylight in the ceiling that he was able to see by, letting him find his way to the back of the room and past the counters.

He found a door back here that let him slip back into a storeroom full of shelves of maps and guides and notebooks: here, he finally turned on the flashlight so he could look around the barren concrete room, searching carefully through the rows of shelving until he finally found what he was looking for: one of the park ranger's guides, full of not just local maps, but with all the emergency protocols, including common radio frequencies and the locations of watchtowers and emergency supplies.

He nodded to himself, tucking this away in his satchel before he turned around and found himself face-to-face with a massive, black shape in a hideous, dead-eyed stone mask, reeking so foully of rot and mud that Last Call had no idea how he hadn't noticed it before. He gagged violently as he staggered backwards, flinching away from the awful, putrid thing before he looked up in terror-

It was gone.

Last Call trembled, then swallowed thickly as he realized he could still smell it, as his body shook with fear and a chill ran down his spine, and he heard an awful, wet squelching behind him, that was joined a moment later by a raspy, chuckling breath.

Last Call bolted out of the room and slammed the door behind him, before he screamed and flinched fearfully when the lights flashed on. He slid backwards down the door, gasping and clutching his chest as he heard a disappointed sigh, and that putrid reek faded, leaving him alone, in silence, beneath the warmth of the simple lights of the little tourist building.

The stallion vomited the little that was left in his stomach into his lap, then simply sat miserably for a few moments, breathing shakily until he finally caught his breath. He rubbed a little at his parched throat, then shook his head before he slowly, painfully toddled to his hooves, stumbling a bit as he made his way over to a water cooler that sat against the wall.

He shoved his head under one of the nozzles and jerked on the spigot: what water didn't spill into his jaws poured across his face, washing away sweat and tears of fear, making him shiver a little from how cold it was, but restoring his mind, little-by-little. He felt terrified and confused still, but when he finally pulled his head back, he at least felt... well, not refreshed, no. That was going too far. But his throat didn't hurt, his thoughts felt a little steadier, and somehow, he was still alive.

But what the hell was it with things popping up behind him all the time now? And why had the power come back on? Did that mean the monsters were gone?

Last Call hesitated for a moment, and then he made his way to the doors of the centre, leaning his ear against one. But he couldn't hear anything outside anymore. Maybe the creatures really had moved on. Maybe he was okay.

Last Call straightened, then looked back over his shoulder, and his eyes widened as he saw that the storage room door had been knocked open, and the hideous, putrid thing was standing there, staring into the room with its dead, empty eyes, its trash-bag body shuddering eagerly as rotten liquid and filth dripped off a carcass that Last Call realized with horror wasn't slithering across the ground, but floating in the air.

The stallion stared for a moment, and then he spun around and slammed himself against the door before he screamed as it refused to budge, grabbing wildly at the handle, then at the lock as that awful thing came floating towards him, chuckling mirthlessly as tentacles of slime and malice stretched almost invisibly out from its body-

The lock popped open, and Last Call burst out of the tour centre and bolted back into the darkness, turning away from the logging camp and fleeing towards the mountains faintly illuminated beneath the stars in the distance. And not even the Wallowers followed, the snake-creatures fleeing and hiding from the masked, hideous thing as it floated ominously and unhurriedly down the path in silent pursuit of its chosen quarry, the lopsided mask on its faceless carcass glimmering with joyless malice beneath the cruel starlight.

She wasn't sure where she was. It was cold and it was dark and it was wet; oh, it stank, too. It was fetid, and awful, like rotting wood and... and oh god, she could feel something crawling on her. Her skin prickled beneath the whatever-it-was as she felt herself being moved, and shifted around...

No, wait. She wasn't the one moving. It was everything else that was moving around her.

She whimpered again, eyes opening, then clenching shut: all she could see was darkness, but it was a darkness that stung at her eyes like acid, a darkness she couldn't see, a darkness she couldn't fathom. She moaned weakly, not wanting to imagine what was happening as those putrid walls shifted around her again, like great, awful worms twisting past as she floated miserably in a hellvoid.

She clung to herself, the only thing she could dare trust in this vile blackness, as things rippled back and forth, before she whimpered and rose her head as she heard something in the distance: something above, maybe, calling to her? Calling out, crying out...

How could she possibly get there, though? She tried to move, and she felt those great unknown beasts squirm against her, making her flinch. And in this unknown, physic-less void, it was difficult for her to even stay focused, let alone move by herself.

But maybe she didn't have to.

She swallowed, then gritted her teeth before grabbing into one of the things moving past her, and she moaned as her hooves sank into its reeking flesh with ease. But the thing didn't so much as twitch, and as she felt herself being yanked upwards, she clung to it with all her might even though contact alone with this hideous thing made bile rise in her throat and her whole body shake with fear and pain-

A voice called to her, and she couldn't stop herself from looking up and opening her eyes-

She was bathed in light, and suddenly, she was out of the nowhere and sitting on the floor of an empty room. Shadows crawled across the walls around her, and strange bugs chittered and scurried and twisted across the ground, making her flinch away out of a primal fear: they didn't look like any kind of insect she had ever seen before, almost every one of them with an odd number of legs, with too-intelligent, glaring, hateful eyes, with pincers and claws and stingers and-

She looked up, and saw the unfathomable and endless and infinite. She trembled violently, going dead pale, reaching up to cover her muzzle as she stared into it, and it stared back at her, alive and yet dead, here and there and everywhere, a thing of places that never existed that it longed to escape from, but never could.

And yet even if it was not kind, nor was it unkind, either, as it asked her a question in images and shapes, and the mare trembled before tears spilled from her eyes as she nodded vehemently.

“Please don't hurt him. I'd do anything for him.”

It asked her a question, and she couldn't help but give a weak laugh.

“Love is something... is something more complicated than even you are.”

It was intrigued. It was not bored. And it was surprised, when the mare blurted out:

“Please don't let him die! P-Please...”

The thing from beyond the stars looked at her, and then it was gone, and the mare gasped as she collapsed to the ground, shaking violently, only able to hope that her message had gotten through, or that it had at least kept the thing curious enough about Last Call.

Then she winced as something smashed into the doors of the room, and something she knew, something she had heard before, something scheming and wretched and vile growled at her, and she looked over her shoulder with a shudder as one, two, three bangs tore through the room.

Something she knew was coming for her. Something she understood. Something made of earthly cruelty.

And perhaps, in the end, they had more to fear from their own monsters than they ever would from these entities of the endless beyond.

Author's Note

Same drill as always. I'm going to try and make the chapters a little longer from here on out to make sure I get things done in time.
If you are enjoying the story and want to contribute to its continuing creation, please make a donation to charity here. Donations give you an extra vote per dollar, letting you choose the route the story should take, and any donation of five dollars or above allows you to request a specific character be written into the story. The more you donate, the more you get, and I'm open to discussion on the subject.

Karmic Choice:

A. Happenstance ran off. Last Call shouldn't trust anyone.

B. Happenstance might still be out there. Last Call should swallow his pride and work with anyone else he might find.

Plot Choice:

Last Call notices a light, and follows it to a possible camp.
Last Call decides to try and lose whatever's following him by taking a ranger's trail into the foothills around the mountain.

Only By Circumstance

Chapter Six: Only By Circumstance
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call stumbled through the darkness, gasping for air, his eyes wide with fear and terror as he bolted mindlessly down the path. All he could think of was that he had to get away, he had to get away, he had to escape before-

He tripped, and went sprawling head over heels, rolling violently off the trail and crashing painfully down a steep embankment to finally roll to a stop in the middle of another trail, groaning and shivering in pain as he slowly picked himself up.

His hooves slipped out from under him and he fell back to the ground, his whole body pulsing with pain. He shuddered weakly, then pushed himself slowly up as he let out another faint groan, blinking slowly before he carefully clambered up to his hooves with a mumble.

He rubbed slowly at his face, then shook himself out as he looked blearily around. He felt like he'd just been hit by a train, and all the night's horrors and exhaustion were catching up to him. He had no idea where he was and he could hear the woods rasping and shifting around him, but he was too confused and foggy to make anything out of it.

He had been running for his life, but not even that seemed important anymore: everything hurt and the fall down the hill had disoriented him and taken all the fight out of him. He simply stood, head lowered, body shaking a little as he rasped for breath, feeling nothing but pain and heartache and a terrible longing to just... just turn around and give up.

“What would your wife say?” asked a voice from the trees, and Last Call sighed a little as he looked away. He knew she wouldn't just give up. She never gave up. She was too tough to give up.

Why did everyone use her as the measuring stick against him? That wasn't fair. She was someone he could never live up, never do more than crawl along in the shadow of. He was a helpless, toddling foal without her... was that what she wanted him to admit?

He shook his head slowly, then whispered: “It's not what she would say. She'd tell me it's okay. She'd support me, help me be a better pony than I ever really was on my own. But everyone else would look at me like I'm weak. They'd always compare me to hear and I never could measure up, really, but... how do you equal the sun?”

He laughed briefly, then shook his head again before he sighed as he looked up, catching sight of Silent Wish shifting through the trees above, moving with feline grace across the branches. And yet even that sight couldn't awe or frighten him, as he lowered his head and began to drag himself down the path, not knowing where he was going, what he was doing... how he would survive the night with all these horrific things that were out to get him.

But as the stallion staggered his way onward, he felt his gait beginning to straighten out, his breathing easing before he glanced up as Silent Wish asked: “Tell me about you, then, Last Call. What do you do? Who are you?”

“I don't know.” Last Call murmured, before he shook his head quickly and continued: “I'm a musician. I sing, play instruments, write music. Or I used to, at least. I just... I'm a jingle writer for Happenstance's products now, mainly, and I guess I... do sing-alongs with the foals at the daycare and...”

“And why is that not something to be proud of? Teaching, inspiring foals. Funny, how we're told that's one of life's greatest achievements, and yet we sneer at the ponies who do it.” Silent Wish smiled a bit, before she added quietly: “But maybe I'm biased because of how I'm trapped like this. Always a foal. Eternally a child.”

“What are you?” Last Call asked, even knowing how rude it was, and Silent Wish sighed in the trees as she shifted overhead. But as he looked up at her, he wasn't afraid of her... uncertain, confused, a little anxious, but she didn't scare him. She didn't have the malice that all the other hideous monsters had... and, well, she isn't a hideous monster, either. “I... thank you, by the way, for... you know. Keeping me alive.”

“I only hope that I'm doing you a favour, Last Call. Believe me. There are far worse fates than dying, and some of the entities here are far more cunning and manipulative than either of us can comprehend.” Silent Wish murmured, before she suddenly glided down from the trees, landing beside him. Last Call flinched a little, but it was more out of surprise than nervousness, and Last Call studied him for a second before she gave the smallest of nods as she turned her eyes ahead, the two walking silently side-by-side through the darkness together.

It made it a little more bearable, he thought, having someone here, even as Silent Wish murmured: “I don't think we're moving in the right direction, but it's hard to tell... and all the same, I think the route you took here has been blocked off by now. We'll need to find another way back to the village.”

“I don't think the village is far enough. Why is this happening now, do you know?” asked Last Call, but Silent Wish only shook her head.

“Things happen. That's all there is to it. I've been trapped in the void with these things for so long that eternity is nothing but a brief interlude, and I still don't know what they are, what their intentions are, who they are, or where they came from. The Old Ones, the Kiz or Kzkttrrrkt or the star-lords, I don't think it matters what we call them. They certainly don't care.”

“You called that thing before a Vorpal.” Last Call said, glancing over at the filly, and she gave a small smile.

“That's right. That's what I call it, but I don't know what it calls itself. I call it that because that's what...” Silent Wish quieted a little, looking down as she murmured: “That's what the Doctor called it.”

Last Call looked at the filly, but decided not to press his luck for now as he only nodded briefly, looking up as he murmured: “I guess we've all lost things, haven't we?”

“Yes. We all have.” Silent Wish stopped, then she said finally: “I'm sure anyone who knows anything about the Kiz can tell you more. But be careful: those who know about the Kiz are often corrupted by them, even if what they mean to do is good. But no sane person is driven to become a hero, do you understand?”

“Better than I ever wanted to.” Last Call muttered, before he shook his head and asked after a moment: “No one can stop this, can they?”

“You can only survive it. And I'll help you as much as I can.” Silent Wish answered with a small smile, before she shook her head slowly and looked down, chewing on her lip for a moment. They came to a halt, and after a few seconds, Silent Wish looked up and said quietly: “There is always hope. That's what the Doctor told me, and that's what I choose to believe, even now. You can't fight these things, but you can escape them, survive them, and... protect yourself. Not just your body, but your mind.”

“I feel like I've been turned inside out. Like who I actually am... it's all being peeled out of me. It hurts.” Last Call said after a moment, touching his own chest before he dropped his head and muttered: “I still don't know why the hell I jumped out of that hayloft.”

“You lose track of reality when the Kiz are around. The more powerful ones distort reality to such a degree that... reality twists on itself, loses track of what's real and what is not, and creates new shapes and life to fill the gaps left behind.” Silent Wish laughed faintly, shaking her head slowly before she murmured: “We call those Residue. The Wallowers and those primal weird are the Ichor, and the Vorpals and the greatest of the Kiz are the Malice. Not because they are malicious, but because of their effects on reality, because... they are anathema to us.”

“I find it funny you keep talking around the subject like it's not their fault.” Last Call said, although he supposed he understood, in a way, even if at the same time he didn't really want to.

Silent Wish only smiled briefly at him, then she shook her head with a soft sigh before she murmured: “All I know is that if we gaze too long into the abyss...”

“The abyss gazes also into you, yeah, I know.” Last Call answered, shaking his head briefly before he looked down and muttered: “I guess that's more true here than anywhere else, huh?”

He halted, then frowned as he looked back and forth, but Silent Wish was gone. Gone to... take a breath, or whatever she'd said before that she did, he figured, and he smiled wryly before he turned his eyes back down the path, only hoping that he was heading in the right direction.

It became easier to make himself move when he reminded himself of what he was doing here: he was going to find his wife, and then get out of here with her. She'd know just how to escape and as long as they got out of this forest, they would be fine. Their home had always been safe, hadn't it? The villagers certainly didn't seem to think anything had been out of the ordinary... and if this Alignment or whatever was responsible, then it likely had to do with all those old ritual sites and...

And he was just trying to reassure himself, blindly, again. No, he'd find the mare, they'd get out, and come morning, they'd run all the way to Canterlot. They could stay with friends for a while or something... she still had friends there, right?

Last Call shook his head briefly, then frowned a little, slowing his pace as his eyes caught on a light in the distance. He bit his lip, slowing down a little as he remembered what had happened the last time he'd followed a light in the darkness, but all the same he felt drawn towards it; and, as he drew closer, he realized it was a much smaller light than had come from the logging camp, which hopefully meant it was less interesting to whatever monsters might be lurking out there.

After a few minutes of slow walking through the darkness, he reached the source of the light: a weak lamp, glowing over a broken trail guide. It looked like something had smashed through it, leaving more than half the sign in wooden debris on the ground, but it was the other half, at least, that interested Last Call, even if he couldn't stop his eyes from wandering back to that jagged break and from wondering what the hell had done that.

He had fallen onto the Green trail. If he kept following this trail, he would cross both the Blue and Orange trails. If he remembered right from his brief look over the ranger's maps, there were a few unmarked paths ahead too, that led up through the foothills around the mountain and eventually to a pass that would take him up the slope.

He mused over his options for a few moments, then shivered a bit as he glanced over his shoulder. He was terrified that the ugly trash-bag masked thing was still following him, but he was also exhausted. If he pushed himself too hard at this point, he might make himself easy prey... and he had to remember that the monsters he'd seen so far likely weren't the only ones out there.

If he followed the Green trail, he could either rejoin Blue trail and go to the base of the cliffs, or he could even switch to the Orange trail and head further up into the mountains. Since the logging camp had been a bust and Happenstance had come running from who-knew-where, he guessed that the mountains were the next best place to look.

Last Call nodded a little to himself, looking up at the board for a few moments again before he murmured: “I guess I'll head towards Orange trail. Make my way up into the mountains and hope for the best.”

He looked uneasily one last time at the broken board, and then he shook his head before he finally pulled himself away from the guidepost, turning and heading out from beneath the sanctity of the light and into the grasp of the shadows. He grimaced a bit as strange shapes danced in his eyes as he made his way along the path, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw they were just branches and trees swaying in the wind...

Except there wasn't much of a breeze, was there? And how was it that entire trees seemed to be shifting and moving around?

He didn't want to think about that.

The stallion grimaced and lowered his head uneasily, chewing nervously on his lip and keeping his eyes to the ground. He needed to focus on where he was going, not on everything happening around him.

Of course, the moment he looked down, he felt terrified that the shadows were closing in all around him, that monsters were crawling eagerly through the dark towards him or the trees were leaning in to snatch him up in their claw-branches or maybe some great and terrible bird was about to swoop down from overhead-

No, he had to remember what Silent Wish had taught him. Not to listen or look, but to feel for the presence of those terrors. They made his skin crawl and brought ancient prey instincts to the surface once they drew close: now that he'd felt their presence, no matter how nervous or anxious he got, it would never compare to the feeling those monsters gave him.

He glanced up slightly, then blinked in surprise and rose his head higher: ahead, he could see a faint, cleared area where a guidepost stood, marked clearly by two coloured signs that marked the Blue trail and the Green trail. But in the distance, he thought he could see another light, flickering faintly through the trees: it was hard to tell thanks to the creeping darkness and the swaying forest how far away it was, but since it was visible...

He passed the crossroads, only glancing for a moment at the guidepost before he continued towards the light, letting it draw him onward down the relatively-straight path. The forest here was looser, the trees shorter and stouter and the ground underhoof was much tougher and rockier, growing firmer as he approached the great black shape of the mountain in the distance.

Last Call glanced uneasily up at this looming monolith against the starlight, and then he turned his eyes warily back towards the light in the distance. Now that he was getting closer and the cover was getting sparser, he realized it was likely just past the Orange trail junction: had there been a camp, or cabins here at some point? He couldn't remember, but from the light...

Well, he couldn't be sure of anything at this point, could he? The stallion grimaced a bit, then shook his head hurriedly: no, he couldn't start thinking like that. As screwed-up as everything was, things were mostly the way he remembered them: if the forest seemed strange, if the paths seemed a little different, well, that was because it was the dead of night, and Horses of Heaven knew that the mare had always had trouble dragging him out here even at the best of times.

It was a few minutes more before he drew close enough that he was able to make out a little more detail about what was ahead: just a little up the Orange trail, there was a small camp, brightly lit by portable quad-lights hooked up to faintly-humming generators. They lit up the area around the rectangular tents, illuminating stacks of lumber, corroded fencing, a port-a-potty and some scattered tools and workbenches, and it took Last Call a few moments to realize that this was a construction site of some kind.

What had they been building or repairing out here? She had never mentioned anything to him...

How selfish and stupid was that? How could he be mad about her not telling him about work when he always walled himself off, when how the hell could she have known that this, of all things, was going to end up happening?

He grimaced and shook his head briefly as he looked down, chewing on his lip for a few moments before he winced in surprise when a bright light suddenly shone out of one of the tents, blinding him. He staggered backwards under the spotlight, swearing under his breath as a voice snapped: “Who the hell are you?”

“Who the hell are you?” snapped back Last Call, and then he shook his head as he realized that he didn't know what else these people might be pointing at him, and moreover, that they might actually be people, not monsters, adding quickly: “My name is Last Call! I'm looking for my wife, is she in there with you?”

“Doubt it.” muttered a voice, and there was a tangible feeling of hesitation before the spotlight went out, and that pony sighed before she invited tiredly: “Come on up. Watch your hooves, the jerk who was here before set out traps.”

Last Call frowned uneasily, looking nervously at the ground as he rounded the lumber piles before he grimaced as he spotted one of said traps: it glinted on the ground, a naked metal maw eager to lunge up and bite him. “Bear traps. What the hell.”

Fleetingly, he wondered if they were any use against the monstrosities he'd seen, but either way, he figured they were probably much more of a danger to them than the things lurking in the darkness. He shifted around a few of them, asking as he approached the tent, noting the enormous spotlight standing sentinel just past the entrance: “So I guess you guys have seen them too, huh? Does that light work?”

“So far. They can't stand the bright light.” said the mare's voice grudgingly as Last Call entered the tent, and he frowned in surprise as he ducked around the spotlight to find two ponies, both looking at him warily.

One was a faded pink, with a messy, poofy mane and tired blue eyes, heavy with sleeplessness. She smiled at him a little, but it was a strained expression on her face as she introduced: “I'm Pink. This is Schmisse.”

She gestured at the other occupant, who was seated at a table: a bruise-blue unicorn stallion with dark, veiled eyes, his features gaunt and unsettling, his mane a dark copper so thick and ratty it seemed black. He scowled a little at Last Call, and the stallion grimaced as he met the unicorn's eyes through the cracked glasses covering them: he had seen that same cold blue somewhere before...

“Guten tag.” Schmisse said in a dry voice, before he carefully pushed himself away from the table and stood, gesturing at the empty seat across from him. “Sit, if you like. The pink one certainly won't.”

“Someone has to keep an eye on things.” Pink muttered, as she paced to narrow flap that covered a 'window' in the tent, pushing it aside and scowling out at the darkness around them. “We barely got here in one piece. Hey, Last Call, what did you see out there?”

Last Call glanced over at the mare: for some reason, her cutie mark of three balloons seemed familiar to him, but it was also faded. The whole mare seemed faded, really, as he studied her curiously, then he smiled briefly when she shot him a glower, answering: “Sorry. Been a... a long night. I don't know if you'll believe me if I talk about it. I don't even believe myself. I just want to find my wife and get out of here.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Schmisse asked dryly, as he sat back down at the table with a grimace of pain: Last Call frowned slightly, but he didn't notice any wounds across the unicorn's lanky body, but then again he supposed anyone who'd been here for long had probably taken more than one beating by now. And it sounded like... “We've only been here for a few hours, but even after escaping that psychopath-”

“Thanks to another psychopath.” grumbled Pink, and Last Call frowned deeper.

Schmisse only smiled dryly at this, answering sardonically: “Well, that has always been the least of bruder's flaws. But my point is that even working together we were only able to get this far. There are a few other ponies out there, but by now the monsters have likely taken them, or the madpony has reclaimed them.”

“What madpony?” asked Last Call, before he added quickly: “Do you know Happenstance? He said he escaped because of...”

It clicked into place, and Last Call hesitated only a moment before he said slowly: “Your brother. Toadfall.”

“Todesfall.” half-corrected Schmisse, his lips twisting in a sour sort of smile. “He was always proud of himself more than his heritage, though.”

“Guess your brother made a great impression on everyone he met, huh?” Pink asked ironically, and Schmisse shrugged before Pink continued as she eyed Last Call moodily: “I don't know how I got here. I was on the road, and someone jumped me. I woke up with a bag over my head, in a cell, tied up to a bunch of other ponies.

“Eventually we were dragged out. I don't know where we were going, but Todesfall managed to get free and broke a rock over the head of our kidnapper. They fought for a bit while a bunch of us slipped free.” Pink glanced over at Schmisse, and Last Call reflected that the mare was a very bad liar.

On the other hoof, Schmisse barely played along with Pink's story, the stallion shrugging as he said: “Todesfall and I found Pink after dear bruder drove the stallion away. Or rather, took the credit for doing so. Considering the things that ambushed us moments later, I think whether the pony was mad or not, he was smart enough to see the signs before they came upon us. We ran, and nearly tripped over this mare.”

Schmisse gestured almost dismissively towards Pink, who scowled horribly at the stallion, but the unicorn ignored him as he continued: “We fled here. The monsters were not fond of the light, and with a few bricks, Todesfall drove them away. They can be hurt... or at least some of them, can. There have been other things-”

“I haven't seen anything else.” Pink snapped sharply, glaring at Schmisse with an awful, painful desperation that Last Call recognized all too well: the desire to cling to whatever shreds of sanity you had left, even when you knew everything was impossibly wrong.

Pink was frightened under that cold, cynical mask. But Schmisse? Now that he knew he was Toadfall's brother, he could clearly see more than physical resemblance; but as similar as that coldness was, Schmisse seemed more cynical and nihilistic compared to the maliciousness that Toadfall exuded.

Schimisse ignored Pink, studying Last Call before he asked: “Do you know what I am talking about?”

“I haven't really tried to pick a fight with any of the monsters trying to eat me, thanks.” Last Call replied, and Schmisse smiled dryly.

“So you must be the coward he's always talking about. He was very taken with your wife.” Schmisse said, and Last Call gave a sour smile in response.

“Fantastic. Didn't know Toadfall thought that highly of me. But I'd trust my wife with the monsters more than him.” Last Call said, and to his surprise, Schmisse smiled again even as his eyes shifted away.

“Not a terrible choice.” Schmisse said softly, and there was an awkward silence for a few moments before the unicorn asked brusquely: “Where are you going, then? Where is she?”

“I don't know. But I heard from... a friend, uh, she said that there might still be people here. On the mountain, I think.” Last Call replied, fidgeting a little.

“She thinks this, or you think this? You seem to have met many friends on your travels tonight. And I cannot help bu notice none of them are here...”

“Happenstance ran off and Silent... my other friend, she's... around.” Last Call said defensively, glaring at Schmisse, who was eyeing him coldly as Pink shifted warily. “I don't know what you're thinking, but I-”

“I do not blame you for being a coward. Most ponies are. And I suppose it is better if you are going to run away at the first sign of danger than if you are going to murder us. I see clearly that you are no killer, after all, Last Call.” Schmisse said with derision, and Last Call glowered at him as Pink looked uncertainly at Schmisse.

But after a moment, the unicorn simply sniffed disdainfully and waved a hoof as he shifted back into his seat with a grunt. “Fine. Rest and recover. Do not expect us to-”

“Look, I just want to find my wife and leave, that's it.” Last Call snapped, glaring at the unicorn. “I didn't ask for your goddamn help, and I figure Toadfall would probably be happy to snap my neck and use me as bait, so I don't intend on sticking around here, either.”

Pink scowled at him, and Schmisse tapped a hoof against the tabletop before he asked abruptly: “Why the mountains?”

“There's... a cave system up there. I have maps. And if my wife wasn't one of the ones who escaped with you, she has to be wherever that psycho asshole who grabbed you all is. It's the best place to look and... I'm going to find her or...” Last Call couldn't quite make himself say 'die trying,' considering the circumstances, but he wasn't about to let his resolve waver either as he shifted a little on the spot, glaring at Schmisse.

Schmisse studied him, then he shrugged before he glanced over at Pink and said: “You said the ghost was-”

“There's no such thing as ghosts.” Pink muttered, covering her ears and lowering her head as she took a slow breath, and then she nodded once as Last Call looked at her uncertainly.

Schmisse, however, only nodded before he turned his eyes towards Last Call, ordering more than asking: “Show me the maps.”

“You could learn some manners, pal.” Last Call grumbled, even as he dug in his satchel. Schmisse only sat back as Last Call unfolded the general map of the area before he tossed down the ranger's guide, flipping through it even as Schmisse immediately began to trace his hooves over the mountain routes. “I have this, too, which details the emergency paths and shows where-”

“Yes, good, good.” Schmisse muttered, waving a hoof absently before he tapped on the map, asking: “Are these up to date? Do you know what this structure is, at the top of the mountain?”

Last Call frowned slightly as he leaned in, looking at what Schmisse was indicating, before he remembered an old discussion he'd had with her, how she'd said they should go sometime, and he'd been too lazy, too tired, too... miserable. “Yeah, the old weather centre. I know there's an observatory still there, and-”

“It may have been where we were taken. But these markings indicate the end of a road, not a trail.” Schmisse said, tracing a thick black line on the paper to where it became a thin, dotted path. “The key has been torn off this map, but this may indicate a lift, a roadway, a cable car... something we could take to a road.”

“Great. So if we climb up the mountain and sneak past the psychotic asshole who kidnapped us, we might be able to get to a road, which we can trot happily down until the monsters catch us and eat us.” Pink said sourly, and Last Call smiled wryly, unable to help but to agree.

Schmisse, however, only looked at them both with disdain before he explained, as if he was speaking to a child: “All roads lead somewhere. There will be homes, settlements, and these creatures may not desire to leave this forest. But if you would rather simply die here, by all means, go ahead. But I suppose I should not be surprised that a coward-”

“I'm not leaving until I find my wife.” Last Call said firmly, and then he hesitated before he added in a quieter voice, as he looked over at Pink: “And if we all move together-”

“We won't be any safer. I don't think the monsters are going to be more afraid of you than they were of Todesfall. No offence.” Pink replied dryly, before she hesitated, then muttered as her eyes drew towards the thin walls of the tent: “I guess it won't be safe here forever, anyway.”

“There are supplies in the other tents. See if you can find anything useful, and then we should leave, while the monsters are still gone and before the beasts that are trailing you catch up to us.” Schmisse said, and Last Call gave him a wry smile.

“I guess I can't blame you for wanting to move out before Toad gets back. No love lost, huh?” Last Call asked ironically before he could stop himself.

Schmisse studied him for a few moments, and then he gave a thin smile, answering: “I want you to consider what you know of my bruder, Last Call. And I want you to consider if he would approve or disapprove of leaving a stallion behind for the benefit of the group. Or for himself, if you want to cut through the lies.”

Last Call scowled a little at this, before Schmisse added in a quieter voice: “Be grateful that I am not entirely like my brother, or I would spare myself the frustration of your added weight. That goes for you as well, Pink.”

“Whatever.” was Pink's only response, the mare rolling her eyes before she said: “Watch your hooves, who knows where else Todesfall set those traps. There's a bunch of weird stuff in the other tents. Bring what you can and we'll divide it up between us.”

Last Call hesitated for a moment, then he simply nodded, turning and heading out of the tent. He figured that these two weren't going to cut and run on him, but all the same, he couldn't help but feel nervous: then again, the last thing he'd ever imagined was that Todesfall had a brother.

He stepped back outside, and noted the other tent was just as brightly lit up as this one: all the same, he approached it carefully, keeping his hooves where he could see them at all times. He couldn't help but notice, now that he knew what to look for, that Toadfall had set up a few conspicuous traps around the entrance of the other tent, where an unwary pony might step on their way to get supplies... where the hell did he even find these, anyway?

Last Call's question was answered when he pushed the tent flap open and stepped into a warehouse of the bizarre; while it had likely once been home to nothing more strange than pallets of lumber, construction supplies, and a messy rack of tools, these mundane things were overshadowed by piles of chains and stakes and bear traps, carelessly tossed aside satchels overflowing with what looked at first glance like garbage and rotting food, and lockboxes and security chests. Quite of the few of the last were open, revealing contents that ranged from innocuous, like flares and first aid kits and batteries, to unsettling, such as barbed wire and hooks and things he couldn't even identify.

Last Call fished around through the mess as quickly and carefully as he could, thankful there were a few already-empty satchels placed aside that he was able to immediately start tossing things into. He wasn't sure he had the stomach to try and clean out the other bags, which looked like they had been overstuffed with everything from apples that were now infested with maggots, to... oh God, is that a hoof?

The stallion nearly gagged as he turned quickly away, trembling a little as he did his best to convince himself it wasn't real, that his eyes were playing tricks on him, that it was something, anything else. He rasped a little for breath before he flinched and looked over his shoulder when a voice asked quietly: “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I... nothing seems like a good idea anymore.” Last Call answered, turning around as he studied Silent Wish for a few moments, before he asked quietly: “You sure you want to be here? They might not-”

“You aren't the first pony I've tried to help.” Silent Wish said, but it sounded strangely like an evasion as the bat-filly let her eyes travel slowly around the tent, before she murmured: “It's happening again. Time is losing its meaning: soon it won't even be useful as a measurement. You'll try and count the seconds, but then you'll look up, and realized that even though you counted as slowly as you could to a thousand... not a moment has passed.”

Last Call studied Silent Wish for a few moments, and Silent Wish gave a brief smile before she shook her head and murmured: “I apologize. It's... it's very hard, going back and forth. But you have to be careful, Last Call... as reality bends, it bends the ponies trapped here, too. And any plans you make are bound to fail.”

“I don't know. This... it sounds suicidal, and maybe it is, but... all I really care about is finding her, do you understand that?” Last Call looked down, shuffling through one of the satchels before he shook his head. “I barely remember the observatory on the mountaintop. I thought they'd converted it into a ranger's station, but then it went unused because it was too hard to get to... I don't remember any cable car.”

“That doesn't mean you're right, but Schmisse could be wrong, too. And that other mare... she doesn't know where she is at all. She's not from here, you know.” Silent Wish warned, and Last Call had the feeling she wasn't just talking about the area. “But realities are bleeding together. The Kiz exist simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. Who knows what they might cause to fall between the cracks of the worlds?”

“Why us?” asked Last Call almost desperately, and Silent Wish tilted her head with a slight frown. “I don't think we were chosen, I think we were all stupid enough to have wandered in here or unlucky enough that some asshole grabbed us for... I don't know, whatever rituals come with the Alignment, or maybe he thinks if he feeds the monsters, they'll leave him alone. But why are you helping me, and why are we still alive when if they wanted to-”

“You know the answer.” Silent Wish said gently, and Last Call lowered his head a little. “I can't change the answer just because you still don't understand, or don't want it to be true.”

Last Call sighed a little, and then he hesitated before he asked finally: “Are you going to come with us?”

“I'll try. For a little while.” Silent Wish answered, to Last Call's surprise. “I don't think they're dangerous, though. Afraid, strange, a little twisted, as we all are; but we have to be, to survive here. To be able to survive the Residue and the Ichor, and to be interesting enough to the Malice that they don't simply consume us outright.”

“Let the meat sit.” Schmisse said ironically, and Last Call and Silent Wish both looked up as the unicorn shouldered his way through the tent flap, studying Silent Wish for a few moments with his cold eyes, before he asked simply: “Is this your friend?”

“Yes.” Last Call said dumbly, as Silent Wish rubbed self-consciously at one of her wing-arms. “She's-”

“I don't care.” Schmisse said bluntly, before he strode over – hiding his limp well, Last Call thought – and grabbed one of the satchels, glancing through the supplies before he flung it over his body. He lifted the other in telekinesis, carrying it at his side as he ordered: “Hurry yourselves up. And cover yourself, fledermaus. Pink is... nervous.”

“You know, it makes sense that Toad is from Germareny, but why the hell are you the one who sounds like a stormtrooper?” Last Call asked sourly, but Schmisse only smiled dryly over his shoulder. “I... fine. We'll be there in a moment.”

“Good. I will not wait much longer.” Schmisse said, beginning to turn, but then he frowned as Last Call called him back.

“What's wrong with you?” he asked bluntly, and Schmisse scowled at him before he only snorted in contempt. “If you're injured-”

“I will not slow you down. Perhaps you could try and avoid doing the same.” Schmisse said acidly.

Last Call watched as the unicorn stormed out, and then he looked over at Silent Wish and said moodily: “Nice guy.”

Silent Wish only sighed a little, and then she strode over to a pile of safety equipment, half-glancing at the bear traps with a shudder as she passed them. “No matter how strong we may seem, Last Call, we are all being twisted by this. What we armour ourselves with is shaved away, what we try and hide within... it all comes to the surface.”

Silent Wish pulled a poncho free from the pile of protective clothing, throwing it quickly around her shoulders before she sneezed a little at the dust that filtered off it, and Last Call couldn't help but smile faintly as he shifted his sidepack back on, saying softly: “Even you, huh?”

“Even me.” the filly agreed after a moment, and then she strode out of the tent, and Last Call sighed before he followed after her, wincing a bit as he worried for a moment she might stumble into one of the traps.

But no, she moved swiftly, smoothly, soundlessly across the yard without triggering a single one, joining a scowling Pink and a stonefaced Schmisse. Last Call joined them as well after a moment, and then he asked, in spite of it going against all his better instincts: “Should we wait for Toad?”

“No.” Schmisse said, undeniable and final. And, to be entirely fair, not an answer that Last Call wanted to argue with anyway.

The stallion realized after a moment the three others were looking at him, and he grimaced mentally before he sighed, beginning to open his mouth: but before he could even ask for it, Schmisse passed him both the map and guidebook, and Last Call smiled awkwardly, tucking the map away as he flipped through the ranger's guide, his eyes travelling across the pages before he nodded once to himself and shoved that back in his satchel as well.

“We're going to take Orange trail up into the mountains to search the caves along the way for anyone else who might have escaped. They used to do a cave tour, so there'll be a ranger station halfway up: when we get there, we can decide if we want to try and take a shortcut through the caverns or if we should just go the long way around, depending on... what we encounter.”

Schmisse, to his surprise, only nodded impatiently, gesturing irritably at him as Pink shrugged, the mare not hiding her suspicion as she looked down at Silent Wish, but also not saying anything more than: “Fine. You and your... friend, can show us the way.”

Silent Wish nodded, and Last Call shrugged before he said, unable to stop himself: “Glad you're all getting along.”

All three glared at him, so Last Call only sighed before he said finally: “Try and keep the noise and light to a minimum. They hate light, but they're attracted to it, too. Well, let's... go.”

It was an awkward note to leave on, but all the same, Last Call took the lead, if only to get away from the discomfort of the situation. Silent Wish fell in beside him, and Pink and Schmisse followed behind, the mare frowning at everything and Schmisse keeping the pace with them despite the tremble in his legs, cold eyes focused forward as they headed out of the brightly lit campsite, and into the darkness and the unknown.

Author's Note

If you are enjoying the story and want to contribute to its continuing creation, please make a donation to charity here. Donations give you an extra vote per dollar, letting you choose the route the story should take, and any donation of five dollars or above allows you to request a specific character be written into the story. The more you donate, the more you get, and I'm open to discussion on the subject.
A little bit of quiet, but a very different sort of challenge for Last Call to rise to. Later tonight or tomorrow, I'll post the alternate routes for the first five chapter choices, so keep an eye on my page if you're interested in seeing that.

Karmic Choice:

A: Last Call should try and talk with his new companions, and find out what he can from them. Maybe he can get Schmisse to open up a little.

B: Pink is twitchy and Schmisse is Toadfall's brother and clearly can't be trusted. Last Call should keep an eye on them, not try and be their friend.

Plot Choice:

1: The tunnels are the best choice to avoid the monsters, and the pass is too dangerous to try and climb in the dark.

The tunnels are suicide. Better to risk falling off the mountain than being eaten by something inside it.

And They Went Beneath The Earth

Chapter Seven: And They Went Beneath The Earth
~BlackRoseRaven

The Orange trail was easier than Last Call had remembered it being: exhausting, because it was like constantly climbing up a wide stone staircase thanks to the jaggedness of the path, but there were still flickering lamps working here and there along the trail as they ascended the mountain: a good thing, because it had been less than five minutes and Last Call already couldn't see anything but a sea of twisting shadows behind them, which he supposed were likely the treetops.

The mountain still loomed before them, though, and cliffs rose and fell around them: it was like some great force had come either up or down this mountain, carving through the stone where it cared to and simply following the path of least resistance in other places.

Last Call paused and glanced back over his shoulder: Silent Wish was keeping up with him well enough, her poncho flapping around her, really doing quite little to hide her wings... but then again, Pink was pointedly ignoring her, her eyes shifting anxiously back and forth from the filly to the rest of the dark world around them. She clearly had seen or knew something was different about Silent Wish, but she was too anxious, too nervous, too deep in denial to say anything about it.

Schmisse, meanwhile, was plodding along at the back of the line. He was in pain, Last Call thought, but he was doing quite an admirable job of hiding it. The only tell was the faint limp and the double-step he took now and then, although it was clear that the uphill climb was wearing on him much more than the others.

They were making good time, though, and ahead, Last Call could see a guide marker, bright lamps flickering on either side of it: if he remembered correctly, that meant they were roughly halfway up the trail to the first rest stop. But as he glanced back, he thought that Schmisse-

Schmisse met his eyes moodily, then he said distastefully: “Perhaps it would be better if you kept your eyes front instead of worrying about me.”

“I'm not.” Last Call said shortly, before he shook his head, turning his attention back forwards as he muttered: “You know, it wouldn't kill you to try and not be an ass, Schmisse.”

“Why do all you Equestrians have such trouble speaking my name? Perhaps that is why bruder hid his behind your tongue, so the constant annoyance did not drive him to break skulls.” Schmisse said dryly, and Last Call sighed before the stallion added: “Not that he ever needed the excuse, of course.”

“Your brother. Swell guy.” Last Call agreed wryly, before he shook his head, hesitating for a few moments before he asked: “So are you... visiting?”

“Yes.” Schmisse said simply, and Last Call couldn't help but glance back with a cocked eyebrow, but Schmisse only snorted in response, saying distastefully: “We are forced to travel together because of circumstance. Nothing more. I will not humour your token friendship.”

“Fine, be an asshole, then.” Last Call said sourly, and they walked on in silence, the only noises coming from Pink mumbling a little under her breath and their hooves crunching through the dirt and gravel.

Last Call stopped in front of the guidepost, and he grimaced a little as he rubbed at his face for a few moments. He looked back at the others: Schmisse had a hell of a poker face, but couldn't hide that faint trembling in his limbs, and Pink looked downtrodden and afraid, and Silent Wish had her head low. Last Call bit his lip, then decided that since they had made him de facto leader anyway... “Let's stop for a minute. I'm tired and I want to take a look at this.”

Schmisse grunted, but he didn't argue at least, as he sat down. Pink looked worriedly behind them, but then she only nodded uneasily, nervously tugging at her satchel, as Silent Wish turned her eyes towards the large guide board, studying the sign for a few moments before she asked: “Does this route go all the way to the top of the mountain?”

“Yeah. There are two trails that do, if I remember right... Orange and Purple.” Last Call said, pointing out the markings on the map. “They both go up to the summit. Orange is the easier of the two and the safer. Purple is faster, but it's a lot steeper and there are bridges that I'd rather not get caught on.”

Silent Wish nodded slowly, and Schmisse looked meditatively across the board before he asked: “And the tunnels?”

“We're about halfway to the fork. There's a small ranger station set up there, and the first of the tunnels. I thought there were more caves, but...” Last Call looked past, studying the jagged wall of the mountain before he shook his head and murmured: “I guess not.”

“Who knows when those caves exist? Before or after this time, perhaps.” Silent Wish said, and Pink frowned uncertainly, looking uneasily at the filly.

Last Call smiled awkwardly, shrugging a bit before he asked: “So uh... well, I remember the public tunnels are marked clearly. There was a tour that used to go up to the summit.”

“What is at the summit?” asked Schmisse, and Last Call looked at him for a moment before he turned his eyes to the guide map, thinking to himself.

“The ruins of an old tower, the observatory or whatever it was, the ranger station, and an outlook. The mountain seems pointed from below, but that's because there's a thin cliff wall sort of sticking up in the air. When you're actually on the summit, you realize it has almost a flat top... she used to tell me about how they think in ancient times, some kind of... statue or totem was carved out of the mountaintop by the natives here...”

“She?” asked Pink, and Last Call smiled briefly as he looked away.

“My wife.” he said, and there was silence for a few moments before he said finally: “I don't know what's waiting for us. I'm surprised, to be honest, that we haven't run into anything yet. I... back at the camp, I saw these snake-like bug things. Wallowers, they were called.”

“Oh, so they were polite enough to tell you their names?” Schmisse asked dryly, and Last Call smiled wryly in response as Silent Wish looked awkwardly away.

“No, but... more than them, I was...” Last Call hesitated, then he said in a quieter voice: “There was something else. There were a few something-elses, actually, like... some floating thing in a mask, but also this... Vorpal. The locals follow this uh, religion or something called Kiss... Kiz...”

“The Kiz. Kzkttrrrkt.” Silent Wish said, glancing up. “And it's not a religion. Religions have rules, gods... rules to be obeyed. The Kiz, these beings from beyond the stars, are only curious, and hungry. That is what the Doctor told me, anyway.”

Schmisse lowered his head musingly, and Pink scowled a little as she looked apprehensively over her shoulder, muttering: “I... I just saw mad ponies, that's all. An asshole and some things moving in the darkness that might have been monsters but... maybe they were just-”

“Yeah. I was there for a while. Then the Vorpal touched me and I couldn't pretend anymore, no matter how hard I tried, how much I still want to say... maybe this is all a bad dream, or... maybe this is the prank to end all pranks or some psychopath's elaborate trap.” Last Call shook his head, and then he cleared his throat before he said finally: “It makes it easier if you talk about them. Acknowledge them. It seems crazy but... really, it's running away from the crazy. Proving you still know what's real and what's not, even if what's real is uh... crazy.”

Last Call laughed awkwardly as Pink only scowled at him, before she winced and looked up as Schmisse said matter-of-factly: “Demons. Grotesque wolf-beasts, with jaws too large for their heads. I think they smelled the blood on dear bruder.”

“Those Wretched. They're drawn by violence.” Silent Wish murmured, before she looked awkwardly away when Schmisse eyed her thoughtfully.

But it was Pink who spoke up, narrowing her eyes slightly as she said moodily: “You sure seem to know a lot about these things, kiddo. And don't think I haven't noticed you're not... that you're... different, too.”

“No different than you, Pink, from your insane ramblings.” Schmisse countered, and Pink scowled horribly at him as Last Call frowned. But Schmisse only shrugged dismissively, continuing: “If Last Call's friend has useful information, then let her keep her secrets. Just as you can keep yours as long as you continue to be useful.”

“So being an asshole, it's a family thing, right?” Last Call asked, and Schmisse smiled at him dryly.

“I doubt a coward like you is half as mouthy with my bruder. From what I understand, you ran away from him, even after he put his hooves on your wife.” Schmisse said, and Last Call snarled at him as he flushed with anger.

But then Last Call forced himself to take a breath before he said quietly: “Believe me, Schmisse. If your brother even touched my wife, it would be the last thing he ever did.”

Schmisse studied him for a few moments, and then he chuckled quietly before he remarked: “Well, at least you seem to believe that.”

Last Call looked sourly at Schmisse for a few moments, and then he said finally: “I can't tell where you stand with Toad. Do you like him or do you hate him?”

“He is my bruder. No more, and no less. I respect what he is capable of.” Schmisse answered, and Last Call smiled wryly at the shrewdness of Schmisse's words.

He leaned to the side slightly, noting the unicorn's cutie mark: symbols that he didn't recognize. And while he didn't know what they meant, he all the same understood them perfectly, as he said almost abruptly: “I write music. Play instruments, write songs, the whole nine yards.”

Schmisse studied him for a few moments, and then he said almost grudgingly: “My talent is for composition. I headed a museum, studied cryptography.”

Pink blinked at this, frowning and asking uncertainly: “What does art have to do with dead things?”

“No, no.” Schmisse shook his head, his accent becoming a little thicker as he searched for the right word. “Patterns, data... arrangements. I created them and I studied how to... unlock them.”

Schmisse seemed to get flustered when he thought that he had spoken incorrectly, Last Call noted: he couldn't tell if that was pride or ego, but it was nice to see that even Schmisse was neither infallible nor emotionless. “You worked with codes, right? Deciphering, solving old languages and puzzles and things like that.”

“Yes.” Schmisse looked relieved for a moment, and his accent all but vanished as he resumed his usual haughty poker face, scowling over at Pink. “And you, I suppose, are a fan of parties?”

“No.” Pink said shortly, scowling as she looked quickly away, before she shook her head and muttered; “I don't want to talk about my past.”

“None of us do, except our friend here. I hope you know how rude it is to ask so much of us while revealing so little yourself.” Schmisse added, and Last Call shifted a little: well, Schmisse had him there...

“I did just tell you that I'm a musician.” Last Call said, noting mentally at the same time that offering that bit of information had actually gotten the unicorn to say a little something about himself in return. “Well, what do you want to know? I don't think anything is really relevant about-”

“Todesfall told me your wife transferred out here because you got in a fight. Is that true?” asked Schmisse, and Last Call grimaced and shifted with a scowl, his eyes roving along the ground.

He wanted to say something like 'I don't remember' or talk about how much better her prospects had been out here... but that would be a lie, wouldn't it? And he had spent this entire time lying to himself already, but he supposed that even with as thin and damaged as reality had become... some facts just don't change. “It was... complicated. I was drunk.”

“That does not strike me as complicated. Only stupid.” Schmisse remarked, and Last Call looked at him sourly. “If you have a problem with drinking, you should not drink.”

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty.” Last Call grumbled, and then he added grouchily: “And I do not have a problem with drinking, I-”

“You clearly do not have a problem going around starting fights, so something caused it. I would say drinking. So I would assume from that you have a problem with drinking.” Schmisse said, calm and inexorable... and maybe a little maliciously-amused, although not in a vicious way. More in an... an asshole way. I don't know why I keep being surprised by the fact that he's an asshole.

Last Call only scowled, before Schmisse asked: “Are you used to ponies doing everything for you? Helping you? Perhaps that is how dear bruder was able to take advantage of you in the first place. Because you were easier for him to manipulate than your wife, correct?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Last Call asked moodily, and Schmisse smiled wryly.

“Todesfall has a... vulgar affection for mares. Do you think it was by coincidence that your wife was offered a job out here?” Schmisse shrugged, saying dismissively even as Last Call felt a chill run up his spine: “The only real question is whether or not bruder planned this from the start, or merely seized the opportunity your drunkenness presented. Your wife is-”

“My wife is fine. Nothing happened to her. And Todesfall... he hasn't had his chance and he never will get it, either.” Last Call said in a low voice, and there was silence for a few moments before Schmisse made a strange gesture, then simply nodded.

“Entschuldigung.” Schmisse said, then he let his head drop back, gazing up at the dark, starry sky for a few moments before he said abruptly: “It may not make sense to you, but for his many strengths, Todesfall is very weak. Cunning, ruthless, strong in body and magic, but prone to delusion and grandeur. That is my bruder. I am sure the only reason he has not poisoned nor suffocated me yet is because I am in charge of managing his affairs. A last act of humiliation from our parents: the infamous Nebelwerfer, to be watched over until he dies by his little brother.”

Schmisse chuckled a little, then he absently rubbed at one of his forelegs before he said finally: “We should get moving. We do not want him to catch up to us, any more than we want the monsters to find us. I leave it to you to decide where we go, Last Call. I will watch our back.”

“He didn't leave us to find help, did he? He left hoping that we'd die.” Pink murmured, answering her own question, and Schmisse simply shrugged.

Silent Wish shook her head, then she murmured as she turned: “The strongest, the people who thrive most in life are often the first broken by the Kiz. The inflexible, the ones who can't bend when reality does...”

“They break.” Last Call finished, and then he shook his head before he looked away from the guide board, gazing up into the darkness as he muttered: “But Schmisse is right. We should get moving. We can... talk more on the way.”

He shook his head briefly as he began up the mountain path again, stepping – reluctantly, as always – out of the circle of light and heading slowly up the trail. The others followed, and while their pace was slower than before, they moved a little bit better as a group, even Pink not staring as much at Silent Wish as Schmisse regularly checked behind them.

Soon, they were back on a trail lit only by the light of the stars, the mountain wall seeming to roil with living shadows, like it was breathing, and the sea of darkness below ever twisting and turning, as if the forest had given away to water and sand. But Last Call tried to focus only on the path ahead, nervously chewing on his lip, following not just the path, but the guardrail that ran along the edge of the trail with his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was follow what felt like a steady road right into a space in the barrier or over it, after all...

And yet it felt tempting to. Wouldn't it be nice, to just jump into the dark sea? Wouldn't it be good to give up? There was so much pressure, and maybe... maybe the mare was already dead. So he should just give up. He wasn't going to save her anyway, was he? Sure, if he found her... then what?

Give up, it whispered.

Silent Wish touched his side silently, and Last Call blinked as he realized he'd come to a stop, and the others were all looking at him. He felt clammy and cold, the stallion breathing slowly before he swallowed a bit and shakily pointed ahead, blurting out: “There.”

It distracted the others long enough for Last Call to recompose himself, as he looked in dumb surprise himself at the faint flicker of lamplight ahead. That was the fork they were looking for, and seeing it made things a little more bearable: they had made progress without running into any horrific monstrosities. That was all they could really ask for, Last Call thought.

They reached the fork after a few moments, and Last Call frowned uneasily as his eyes noted the ranger cabin he'd hoped to stop at had been burnt to the ground. He could smell something acrid and awful: some kind of fuel, he guessed, that had been used to start the incineration.

He studied it for a few seconds, before frowning in surprise as Pink muttered: “I don't like these rock formations.”

He turned towards her: the mare was studying the entrance to the mine, past the gaudy timbers and silly signs meant to attract children and child-minded adults, Pink nervously picking at one of the jagged rocks near the fake rail tracks that led into the tunnels. “Brittle. I don't trust these tunnels. And I don't know a lot, but I do know rocks.”

“What concerns you? Stability?” Schmisse asked, but Pink only scowled and shook her head.

“Not a collapse. I'm sure that if these tunnels were open to the public, they'd be shored up. But the footing is questionable. If we go off the public route, we're likely to find a lot of jagged rocks and narrow passages. I bet there's more than one place even in the public tunnels that narrows dangerously, too. If this mountain shifts while we're in a narrow section...”

“I've never heard of a mountain shifting.” Last Call said, trying to hide his apprehension, but Pink only gave him a sour smile.

“Well, you never grew up on a rock farm, either, I'm guessing.” Pink replied dryly, before she shook her head and turned her moody eyes towards the ranger cabin, adding quietly: “I also don't want to run across whoever did that.”

Last Call bit his lip, his eyes drawing over the ruins of the ranger cabin before he half-turned towards the other trails, but Schmisse almost immediately said: “We will be exposed if we take these paths upward. I can see from here that Orange Trail leads us into a gorge, not upward, and the other path must wrap around the mountain. I do not wish to be dragged off a cliff, Last Call, or worse, spotted by whatever is likely watching from above. The tunnels offer us secrecy, at least.”

“Unless there's somepony hiding out in them already who doesn't want to be found, or worse, an ambush at the end of them.” argued Pink. “I'd rather have a chance to escape than wander into a deathtrap.”

“I would rather have a chance to fight and die on my hooves than a chance to trip over them and fall to my death, sparing my enemies the work.” Schmisse retorted.

Last Call grimaced as he looked between them, before he looked towards Silent Wish, but the filly only shook her head before she said quietly: “I can't make the choice for you. Remember, the real threat will never be what you can see or predict, though...”

“Great choice. Die from being thrown off a cliff or die from getting squished under rocks. Or die in an avalanche, either way.” Last Call mumbled, and then he rubbed slowly at his face, wishing he had a drink: a little liquid courage would be welcome right now. “I think getting crushed is faster. Let's go through the tunnels, stick to the public paths as much as we can. Pink, I need your help.”

Pink glanced up, and while she clearly disagreed, she nodded grudgingly after a moment as she turned towards the entrance to the mines, grumbling: “Fine. Just... if something comes at me, you better do something, Last Call.”

“He'll run away, I'm sure.” Schmisse said dryly, and Last Call scowled as he walked up beside Pink, slightly taking the lead but letting her be the guide.

They headed into the tunnel, and Last Call was relieved to note that most of the lights mounted along the walls were still working. They were strung up by thick cable, while a few larger lamps stood sentinel here and there, casting a much brighter glow in the bubbles of space here and there through the tunnel.

They walked across rock that had been softened by dirt and sawdust that crunched beneath their hooves, following tracks that meshed too tightly to the ground to actually be used. They passed displays every now and then that talked about different cultures and mining, and small offshoots and nooks and crannies, until they eventually reached a place that Last Call had forgotten completely about, and made Pink stare and even Schmisse cock his head curiously. “What the hell am I looking at?”

Last Call smiled wryly over at Pink, then he looked back at the wooden face of a building that seemed like it had been jammed into the tunnel: it was all plain pinewood boarding, unvarnished and unpainted, with shuttered windows and a pair of heavy double doors that were... chained shut. Fantastic. “I forgot they had a museum exhibit in here. But my wife was always in charge of managing the trails and everything, she rarely came up this far because... I never wanted to walk with her.”

He quieted for a few moments, then cleared his throat and shook his head, continuing: “It looks like it's been sealed off, but there should be a way around to an employee access. If somepony came through here, then-”

“Nonsense.” Schmisse said distastefully, and Last Call frowned as the stallion strode over and grasped the lock in telekinesis, tilting it up and studying it intently before he glanced back over his shoulder, opening his satchel to produce what Last Call thought at first was a folding knife.

But instead, Schmisse unfolded a thin metal arm from the utility blade and withdrew a metal pick from the side of the utility tool, the stallion working quickly for a moment before looking pleased with himself as the lock popped open. He simply tossed this aside, then half turned as he tucked the tool back in his satchel, saying dismissively: “Foal's play. There is always another answer to any puzzle, so long as-”

Something smashed into the doors, and now free of the lock, they were able to snap open, the chain flying loose as one of the doors crashed into Schmisse and knocked him over. A shape came barrelling out of the doors as Pink yelled and ducked, and Last Call reacted on instinct, leaping forward and swinging a hoof out.

The pony shape collapsed backward in the opening with a thunk, blinking stupidly before he blurted out: “Call!”

“Furor?” Last Call asked disbelievingly, and then he looked up before swearing in horror as he saw the horrific things staggering eagerly across the museum floor towards them, grabbing Furor and half-flinging him out of the way before he hurriedly shoved the doors shut and threw his weight against them.

The monsters smashed into the other side of the doors, and Last Call gasped as he was almost thrown backwards, but Furor, Schmisse, and Pink all joined him a moment later, the four of them struggling to keep the doors sealed. Schmisse snarled as he grabbed the loose chain, twining it back through the handles of the door before he looked back and forth for the lock, but Silent Wish was the first to find it, running in and clamping it into place through the links, letting the rest of the ponies finally stagger back from the doors as the monsters battered uselessly against the other side of it.

Furor breathed roughly in and out, his cheek black and bruised, pulsating strangely as his whole body shivered. He gritted his teeth, then grasped at his head before he looked slowly up at Last Call, who smiled awkwardly as he held out a hoof and said finally: “Sorry.”

“I've... had worse. Thank you.” Furor said after a moment, bumping his hoof against Call's before he straightened a little. He frowned uneasily at Schmisse, studied Pink with confusion, then finally frowned at Silent Wish, clearly noting the discrepancies in her form even through her poncho, but then he simply sighed before saying: “Guess it's been a long night for everyone. Who are your friends?”

“Silent Wish is the filly, Pink is... well, Pink, and Schmisse here is Toad's brother. Toad is apparently wandering around here, too, and I saw Happenstance back at the logging camp, but... what the hell are you doing here, Furor?” Last Call asked, frowning at the stallion. “You don't have any reason to-”

“Oh, I don't at all. But Happenstance insisted.” Furor said tiredly, shaking his head slowly before he winced as something smashed against the doors again insistently. “I think we should get out of here, though. Those things... that's not going to hold them for forever.”

“It was bright in there. Whatever those monsters are, they are adjusting to the light, unlike the ones we saw in the forest.” Schmisse noted, and Last Call grimaced at this before he bit his lip.

“Let's head back to one of the junctions. We'll have to go off the path to avoid the museum, but we should be able to loop around through the other tunnels all the same.” Last Call said after a moment, and Furor smiled wryly at this.

“Like the blind leading the deaf.” he said dryly, and Last Call scowled at the unicorn. “Sorry, sorry. Natural instinct. Just... what are you doing here though, Call?”

“I'm looking for...” He frowned a little, then asked: “Have you seen her?”

Furor blinked in surprise at this, rearing up a little, and then he shook his head, his eyes shifting away uncomfortably as he muttered: “No, of course not-”

“Furor?” Last Call asked sharply, and then he bit his lip before he took a breath and softened his tone, asking quietly: “What is-”

All five ponies looked up at the sound of splintering wood, and Schmisse cut in shortly: “Those doors will not hold forever. We should move.”

Last Call grumbled under his breath, but then he gave a short nod before he turned back down the tunnel, leading them quickly away from the doors. Eventually, the sound faded, whether because the monsters lost interest when they distanced themselves or because the acoustics of the cave reflected sounds strangely, Last Call wasn't sure.

They stopped at an intersection some ways back the path, and Last Call rounded on Furor. Before he could speak, however, Silent Wish asked: “Did you get attacked too?”

“I... sort of.” Furor mumbled after a moment, shaking his head as he glanced away. “I didn't mingle much with Happenstance and his friends after he dragged me here, and after Toadsfall took them out on their little walk through the woods, I decided I'd go back home. I saw that creep, Lectern, though, outside the parks centre, and I decided I'd see what he was up to. I might not like Happenstance much, but... he is pretty much the only source of income for us both, and I don't want you starving, Call.”

Last Call smiled wryly despite himself, and then Furor continued, as Pink wandered around the junction, inspecting rock formations and offshoots: “Lectern took off like a rocket, though. I lost him somewhere down the Green trail. I wandered for a while, and then I felt...”

Furor seemed not to know how to phrase it, shifting a little before he shook his head and muttered: “Anyway, I ended up getting chased up the mountain. I tried to hide in the museum, but there were things crawling all over it. Angry things. I tried to leave, but the doors were locked and they chased me all over the place, until I finally panicked and... well, here we are.”

“Here we are.” Last Call said quietly: there were a lot of holes in Furor's story, but it sounded like he had been telling the truth about one thing, at least... “So you don't know where my wife is.”

Furor shook his head, and Last Call sighed a little before he muttered: “Alright. Let's just. Get through these tunnels, then, and hope that-”

The lights flickered violently, and in the flashes, Last Call saw something terrible and malignant: something that was everywhere around them and nowhere all at once, before everything went dark.

Pink hissed out a breath, and Last Call felt a hoof grasp his shoulder as Schmisse swore in his native language, before he growled: “Sound off!”

“Here!” Last Call said immediately, as Pink cursed in their general direction. “Silent, you can let go of my-”

“Uh. Sorry. That's me.” Furor mumbled, and Last Call gave a short laugh before he looked back and forth uselessly through the darkness. “Wait, the kid is... is that filly...”

“I can't see her.” Last Call said, knowing how stupid that sounded before he reached up and grasped at his flashlight, turning it on with a click. He scowled as he scanned the area around them, wondering uneasily if the filly had been forced away by whatever supernatural forces were manipulating them now as he scanned the area with the dim light.

The cavern seemed larger than he remembered it being, even if all the landmarks were the same, yet... twisted, he thought. The signs seemed to loom in on them, and the now-dead lights seemed to curl like bent trees towards them. The ceiling was so high up above their heads, yet every jag, every fang of rock, seemed like a tooth waiting to bite down on them from above.

“Is the kid gone? What happened to her?” Pink asked worriedly as she stumbled towards them, looking uneasily around as she added: “The rock formations have changed. I can't... I don't know what happened. Everything feels twisted.”

“You don't seem surprised.” Schmisse said, and while it wasn't accusatory, his tone was clearly suspicious, his cold eyes sizing Last Call up. “What do you know?”

“I know we're being watched. I know the only reason any of us are alive right now is because we're 'interesting' to the Kiz... to the Vorpal, or whatever the hell it is. Either you're interesting to them, or you're food.” Last Call said, scowling as he traced the light around before he grimaced as it halted on the passage they had just come down: the passage had visibly narrowed and become jagged on either side, meaning that they would likely slice themselves to ribbons trying to slip through there... so we have no choice. “We have to get out of these tunnels.”

“I told you this was a stupid idea.” Pink muttered.

Schmisse, however, only laughed shortly as he asked: “And how would this... mutation of reality be any different outside the mountain? Or perhaps you want us to be caught by that madpony?”

Pink scowled, but to Last Call's surprise, Furor spoke up quickly, saying with more tact than Last Call had expected him to possess: “Neither of you are angry. You're both scared. Don't fight. We have to work together.”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Pink nodded and Schmisse snorted, saying moodily: “Fine. Better to be in bad company than no company at all when there are enemies around.”

Last Call took out his guidebook, flipping through it to the caves before he muttered: “Assuming that the layout is roughly the same, we should be able to circle around to the side of the museum through this path. What we're going to deal with there, I don't know-”

“We are not soldiers or heroes, Last Call. We cannot go in, horns blazing – particularly when only one of us here has a horn – and simply blast our way through our foes. We must be stealthy. We are prey, not predators.” Schmisse said grouchily, and Last Call glowered at him for a moment before he nodded grudgingly.

“I know that. But I don't want to backtrack too far. If we get pushed back to the entrance, then what? Do we let things push us down the mountain and try to find a way around?” Last Call shook his head. “We... we have to push through. The more we let this... push us around, the less control we have over our own lives.”

It sounded ridiculous, but all the same, Schmisse remained silent and Pink lowered her eyes, nodding a little. Furor only sighed, then he said dryly: “I just hope you plan better than you talk, Call.”

“Shut up, Furor.” Last Call studied the guidebook for a moment, before he added quietly: “We might be able to bypass the museum, anyway, but we'll have to circle around to the side of it all the same. The employee entrances...”

“Locked. But who the hell knows now?” Furor asked dryly, before he grimaced as the flashlight dimmed and flickered. “Don't let that thing go out. It's so dark it feels like... like we're alone when there's no light.”

He fell silent as Last Call smacked the flashlight a few times, and Schmisse snorted and murmured: “We are all alone. Born alone, and die alone. Love lost.”

Last Call grimaced, then he muttered: “For now I'll keep it on, but if we hear anything I'll turn it off. Maybe we'll get lucky, and since those things have adjusted to the light, they'll be as blind as we are in the darkness.”

“Great. Monsters that are scared of the dark.” Pink grumbled, and then she sighed a little and said: “I'll stay ahead with you. Should we... is your filly friend okay, do you think?”

Last Call smiled briefly, then he said finally: “She'll be back. It's... don't worry about it.”

“I hope she is trustworthy. And that her reasons for helping you are true.” remarked Schmisse, and Last Call frowned slightly before he shook his head. For whatever reason, he did trust Silent Wish... and... well... I guess she has her reasons. There's all these ponies here, but... I guess...

No, it wasn't time to think about that. Instead, Last Call turned, directing the light towards the tunnel they had to take to begin leading the way forward. Pink fell in beside him and Furor hurried close behind, while Schmisse came last, only his eyes glinting in the darkness.

The tunnel they took was twisted and curving, occasionally ramping sharply downward: they often had to be especially careful in these places, as the slope was often thorned with sharp, biting rocks that would tear at them if they tried to slide straight down. In other places, they had to try and climb against jagged walls and over dangerous fractures: these wounds in the rock were never deep, but just wide enough for a hoof to slip into, and if any of them broke an ankle or a leg at this point...

Last Call shuddered a bit as he clambered up onto a shelf of rock, then turned around to help Furor up as Pink half-pulled Schmisse onto the rock wall. Schmisse gasped a little as one of his rear legs kicked, before he swore under his breath as he stumbled past Pink and leaned into a rock wall, clenching his eyes shut in visible pain.

Last Call began to open his mouth, and Schmisse snarled: “Sich verpissen.”

The stallion winced a bit, but Furor only snorted and rubbed moodily at his face as if he had a throbbing headache, muttering: “Then why don't you just give up and die, crybaby?”

Schmisse's eyes widened slightly as he stiffened, and in that moment, Last Call saw just how gaunt and gangly the unicorn really was, a moment before Schmisse gave a crooked smile as he shoved himself away from the wall, rasping: “Perhaps later. Stop slowing us down, frail little schmetterlingspuppe.”

“You Germarens have a word for everything.” Furor said sourly, but before he could start a fight, Last Call clicked his flashlight on and off pointedly, getting everyone's attention.

“Pink?” he asked, and Pink looked up, squinting and scowling down the dark tunnel, studying what she could from the dim glow of the flashlight.

“Safer formations ahead. It looks like it probably evens out. There's more signs that ponies have done work here, too... see how smooth that rock is there? And over there, that's not natural stone, that's layered over.” Pink said, pointing from the wall to a patch in the floor that was a slightly-different colour than the rest of the tunnel.

Last Call nodded slowly, and then he shone his flashlight ahead, leaning forwards and muttering: “I think I can see a wall somewhere down there. My light's hitting something solid, but I can't tell. This light isn't strong enough.”

Schmisse snorted at this, then he suddenly flicked his horn firmly, sending a flare of light streaking down the tunnel as Last Call blinked in surprise. The orb of light contacted with something and flashed brightly, illuminating the end of the tunnel for a moment and letting them clearly see the wooden wall of the museum before it faded, and Schmisse said grumpily: “There is your answer.”

Last Call hesitated, then he grabbed at his satchel and pulled out his guidebook. He flipped through it, then popped open one of the pamphlets that had been stuck inside, muttering: “Okay... we can either try our luck to cut through the museum and get back on the public route, or we can go around and see if our luck holds out with these tunnels.”

Pink snorted at this, opening her mouth, but then she licked her lips apprehensively as she looked back over her shoulder at the tunnel they had just clambered through, saying finally: “We're screwed, Last Call. We can't fight our way through monsters, but if we hit a dead end or a wall too jagged to climb, we're just as stuck. We'll just die slower.”

“I'm always for dying slower. I do not want to go back into that museum.” Furor muttered, shaking his head and shivering a little as he rubbed at his unblemished face.

Last Call scowled at the unicorn, then he said: “If you and Schmisse-”

“I'm no fighter. And you don't understand, anyway, it's... you don't understand.” Furor muttered, looking away.

Schmisse snorted, then he added distastefully: “I am not my bruder. I am not trained in combat magic. Perhaps I can resist one or two of the beasts, but I doubt I can fight a horde by myself. Furor, you were able to hide from them, though, were you not?”

“Yeah, for a little while. And it's going to be pitch black in there. The moment they see the flashlight, they'll home in on us. Without a flashlight? We'll probably walk right into one of them... assuming they can't see in the dark and won't come screaming at us the moment one of them sees us anyway.” Furor shivered, then he reached up and rubbed slowly at his face, muttering: “I can't be around those things again. They're just... rage.”

“You will do what you have to do, or we will leave you here. We are going to the mountaintop, one way or the other.” Schmisse said coldly, and Last Call grimaced as he looked uneasily away. “Well, which way do we go?”

“What? You seemed happy enough to be making the-”

“I am merely enforcing the system, not making decisions. You're the one who wants so badly to find his wife. So choose. Straight through, or dare more of this maze?” Schmisse asked forcefully, and Last Call grimaced as he looked uncertainly down.

He looked at Pink, and her gaze shifted away: if she thought the tunnels were hopeless, considering her expertise... but Horses of Heaven, he understood why she wouldn't want to go into that museum, either, considering the little they had seen of the things that had chased Furor out.

Furor looked miserable, caught between a rock and a hard place, but when he saw Last Call's eyes on him, he piped up weakly: “The tunnels are a chance. A chance, at least. The museum... isn't.”

Last Call looked at Schmisse, but he was unreadable, his eyes cold, his body clearly in pain, but of them all, Last Call thought Schmisse was the one most likely to plow ahead, in spite of the fact that... he seems like the most ready to die, too.

The stallion sighed, wished for a moment that Silent Wish was here, hoped briefly as he looked back and forth that somehow, she would appear... and then he simply lowered his head when she didn't. Perhaps reality wasn't thin enough here... perhaps it was too thin, and that was why she had been whisked away, and hadn't been seen since.

All he knew was that he had to make a decision.

And the wrong one could potentially kill them all.

Author's Note

If you are enjoying the story and want to contribute to its continuing creation, please make a donation to charity here. Donations give you an extra vote per dollar, letting you choose the route the story should take, and any donation of five dollars or above allows you to request a specific character be written into the story. The more you donate, the more you get, and I'm open to discussion on the subject.
Roughly on schedule. A little behind, but I should be able to make it up, assuming I have the time to work. As always, let me know if you see any errors. And yes, if you want to vote privately, please feel free to send me a message with your choices.

Karmic Choice:

A: Last Call should do everything in his power to protect his companions. She would do the same.

B: Last Call should not be afraid to remember they are all expendable, and all that matters is that he saves his wife.

Plot Choice:

1: Trying to cut through the museum is suicide. Last Call should go through the tunnels. There has to be a way through the tunnels.

2: The museum is the fastest route. The creatures will be blind in the dark. Last Call can rush through at worst and get to safety.

And They Wept, Beneath The Earth

Chapter Eight: And They Wept, Beneath The Earth
~BlackRoseRaven

She heard someone crying.

The mare looked up tiredly, blinking away the blood from her eyes before she slowly hauled herself off the altar they had left her on. A stone altar, for a sacrifice... but the shape hadn't been interested in 'sacrifices,' not really. They thought it was, but they were stupid, self-centred, and they chose to believe what they read in old, musty books and heard in their screaming nightmares rather than the truth, which was right in front of their eyes.

But they probably had never loved someone who was poison to them. They had never suffered for someone, or felt so dearly, so needfully for someone, that even if that person hurt them every single day... it hurt more to go without them.

The entity wasn't like that, no. But nor was it malicious, trying to kill them, trying to feed off them. It was just so alien, so different, that their minds couldn't accept or cope with it for long periods of time. How could you fathom something so different, so complex, and so unlike whatever you had seen before?

But there were points of contact, all the same. Even they knew that, though, she thought, but because of their prejudices and fears, they only saw the negatives.

Hunger. Fear. Confusion. Pain. Anger.

There was more than that, though. There was... interest, and longing. Not love; it would crush them if they tried to hurt or threatened it. Yet she had sat with it, like a bird in the jaws of an alligator, and it had never tried to harm her.

She had hurt, all the same, but the way it burned her was like when she had sat alone, all those winters ago, waiting, waiting desperately for Last Call, terrified out of her mind. She had finally gone inside, frostbitten, frozen tears forming on her face. But she didn't blame the winter for hurting her, any more than she blamed Last Call. It wasn't their fault, that it was the way they were: it just was what it was.

You couldn't hold something's nature against it.

She shook her head briefly as she stumbled a little on her way towards the faint, child-like crying. Her head hurt. Her whole body hurt. But her spirit was strong, and that was what mattered, what helped her to keep going, as she stopped just long enough to wipe some of the blood from her face before she pushed through the doors in front of her.

She stared down a long hallway beyond: seemingly endless, lined on either side with alien architecture and monstrous shapes. Her eyes roved back and forth along the walls: when she took her eyes off one thing, it was like it changed and became another: a blink, and she was seeing a dungeon full of corpses instead, many silently screaming, some still seemingly alive in states that they should have been able to exist in-

She closed her eyes, opened them again, and it was neither of those things: just a ratty corridor, with peeling wallpaper and cheap, warped wooden flooring, and the mare smiled faintly as she strode down this: that was part of the trick, she had learned. You didn't look at the things that made you afraid. Reality got itself twisted and tangled up into knots, but as long as you didn't panic, didn't accept it, you could change it, just a little bit. Just enough to make it possible to bear.

She stopped, watching silently as something unnameable twisted out of one of the walls and rushed immediately to the ceiling, vanishing in a puff through it, and then she shook her head before she turned back towards the loose doors at the end of the hall, and found herself face-to... to something, with the entity.

It hurt her mind to look at, but she smiled faintly before she took a slow breath and lowered her eyes, apologizing: “I'm sorry. I hate being so rude, but... I'm very tired.”

It asked her why they had hurt her so badly, in so many images and so few words.

“Because they're angry. Scared. I think, maybe... when you give some people the freedom to do things, they just have to do it, too. Maybe it's exciting for them. I hope not, though. I might just be angry.” She was quiet for a few moments, then she said softly: “I like to think that even when we hurt each other, we don't really mean to. If we could understand how much pain we were inflicting on others, it would make it different. Some ponies just... run away from that empathy.”

Empathy. It was interested in this concept. It told her a story that would take a hundred years for any pony to tell, but took the entity only a few moments, as an explosion of images and alien feelings rattled through her brain. It made her nauseated and shiver, almost falling over, and the entity... did it apologize?

“No, it's okay. I just... so much, so fast. I'm much weaker than you. I'm much... I don't think we process things as quickly as you do.” She whispered, as she touched her head, then absently wiped a trickle of blood away from one ear before she dared a glance up. And she thought she saw... a bit more of a shape in that cloud of darkness and shadow, maybe.

Then she rose her head slightly higher as she heard that sobbing again, asking: “Do you hear that? I want to... try and help them.”

The entity was curious. It said she was already hurt. It asked her why she would help something else when she was already injured. Shouldn't she focus on herself?

She opened her mouth, hesitated, then looked directly at the entity. The entity 'looked' back at her, and she felt it touch her mind. She showed it memories.

Strange, it did-not-say. Strange, how strange you are. You think I am strange, but to me, the strangeness of these races is far greater. Do you think the insects consider you hostile because you tread upon them unknowingly? Do the plants consider you hostile because you eat them to survive?

The mare shook her head, and then she murmured: “I know you're not. It's okay.”

The entity shifted maybe ever so slightly, and then it said something that she had not expected to her: it told her it did not want to be her enemy. It told her it did not come here, meaning to destroy. It told her... it was alone, and yet, it had been followed.

She nodded slowly, and the entity moved, both soundless and graceless, a swirling thrum of fog that puffed around behind her. She glanced back, and while it hurt her eyes to look into the empty space where she knew it was, all the same, she saw nothing there: the entity was both here and not, curious to watch.

She decided not to press the subject, turning her eyes forward: her body hurt, but it felt good to move. To have purpose again, as she pushed through the doors, wondering if their conversation had taken seconds or years as she strode into an abandoned, water-stained room. She looked back and forth before she smiled faintly as she approached a cradle in the centre of the room, where the faint sobbing was coming from.

She leaned over it, and reached down to gently touch the shape inside: a foal, she thought, but one that was twisted and warped, mutilated by circumstance. A foal that cried and looked up at her with cataract eyes before it faded from her sight, leaving only faint stains of blood and tar behind, and she lowered her head a little before she whispered: “It was nothing after all. Just reality, showing me... what we wanted. What we couldn't have.”

She touched her stomach for a moment, then she looked up uneasily as dust rattled down from the ceiling as the building shook. She looked around the octagonal room: at the stained and cracked and peeling and burnt walls, before she closed her eyes tightly and shook her head vehemently-

When she opened them, she was standing in another room. A forlorn, dusty dining room, cloth covers over the half-collapsed tables, clinging to them as if they could protect them from time and cruelty as well as dust. Rotten barrels full of rotten food sat in one corner, and plates were piled across a damaged countertop at the far end: a few had been shoved aside to make room for the books and the tools and the make-believe artifacts that one of the ponies had brought...

And there was a stallion behind the desk, frowning as he studied one of his books before he looked up and stared dumbly at her. He shouted angrily, and she flinched back as he ran around the table and bull-rushed her-

He stopped.

He was in the air, floating, weightless.

He screamed.

He was thrown down into the floor, with the force of a furious child flinging a toy that had displeased him.

There was blood, everywhere, and the mare shuddered as she leaned away in horror, breathing roughly in and out before she whispered: “D-Don't, please. I don't need you to protect me. They won't kill me.”

Why? It asked in her mind. Why protect them? They would hurt you. I stopped him, that is all. Why do you value their lives, hurt for them, when they care so little about yours? Or do you fail to understand how they see you? I can show you.

She didn't want to see.

She saw, anyway.

A bleating goat. A lamb, screaming. A slab of meat, poisoned, given to a hungry dragon. A gemstone that glittered in the middle of a trap, luring in diamond dogs.

Worse: mare-flesh. Lipstick. Crying in the dirt. Animal grunting. A smell. Musk. Used and discarded magazines with sticky pages.

Worse yet: nothing.

To some of them, she was nothing at all. Not a bait, not a toy: her life was valueless, meaningless, her existence futile, useless. They didn't care about her, whether she lived or died, whether she existed at all. They barely cared about themselves.

It hurt, but not in the way the entity thought at first. Did she feel surprise from it, as she wiped at her eyes slowly, trembling a little before she whispered: “Those poor ponies. I can't imagine living like that. I would rather hurt, and be afraid, and... suffer, than go through life feeling numb, feeling nothing. Imagine that, if you felt nothing... if instead of curious, or anything else, you only felt... empty, for all of your existence.”

The entity did not like that thought. She felt it shift through its memories, and caught glimmers and wisps of thoughts, before it drew back.

And yet even as it did, it stretched out, and suddenly, there was a pony standing in front of her, staring around wildly before he looked down at the blood, at all the blood around him, at the awful stains on the floor that had once been...

The stallion whimpered, pissing himself like a scared child, his whole body shaking violently as he mouthed wordlessly before he looked up in terror at the mare, but she only smiled faintly at him before she said finally: “I don't know how I got here. Reality...”

“Reality bends. What the hell do you think you're doing, Emptor? She wasn't trying to escape... were you, Miss?” asked another voice sharply, and the mare looked up at the stallion with the scarred face, who entered the room with two burly earth ponies on either side of him, one of them bandaged and bruised, the other staring at her with a hunger that made her skin crawl. “Take her back to her room. And don't touch her, idiots. The Kiz is interested in her. We need to figure out their connection before we... take any further measures.”

The mare smiled a bit, and then she nodded briefly once as the stallion looked around stupidly, fearfully, before he nodded and simply stared at her. But she preferred the company of the terrified stallion to the two giants, following him with her head down when he led her towards another set of doors.

It was hard to get back to her room: hard, because reality bent and changed around them, and the stallion was a mix of humiliated and frightened, which made his mind vulnerable to the twisting, the bending of the world. And minds influenced each other, as she had learned: it was hard to keep your own sanity when someone beside you was going mad. It was almost impossible to stop reality from twisting in ways you didn't want, from attracting the beasts and the fiends and the monsters, when someone else was all-but-screaming for them mentally...

“It's okay.” she said, when they rounded the same hallway for the thousandth time, and found themselves standing outside instead of in the mansion. The stallion looked at her, and the mare smiled faintly before she strode to the edge of the roof and gestured out. “It's not so bad, is it?”

The stallion stared at her, then he shook his head before he looked out over the sprawling and dark city. Grey skies swam above their heads, and the mix of constant fog and rain made it seem like the town was trapped beneath an endless, black sea: a town that sat outside of reality, upon a scar that only rose to the surface of Equestria every few years, for a brief, singular breath before it faded away.

“I hate it.” he whispered, and then he lowered his head before he asked weakly: “Can't you stop them? The boss says-”

“What he says and what the truth is are two different things. I'm sorry.” the mare said, and then she shook her head and added quietly: “If you stop being afraid, it won't be so bad. Everything hurts a lot more when you let it.”

The stallion looked at her silently for a few moments, and then he lowered his head and muttered: “Let's go. We... we need to go.”

The mare didn't argue, only nodding to him with a faint smile as she turned to follow him, lowering her head as she closed her eyes, and hoped with all her heart that wherever Last Call was, he was okay.

She was trying her hardest to be the mare he had always pretended she was, after all.

“I guess we'll go past the museum for now and see if there's any clear route through the tunnels. We'll circle back and try to push through the museum if we run into a dead end.” Last Call said finally, shifting indecisively as he bit his lip. It just felt like there was no good plan: Furor said the museum was suicide, Pink said the tunnels were probably impossible to get through, but it wasn't like either of them was enthusiastic about their other choices.

Schmisse shrugged, although Last Call felt a hint of disapproval from him, and Pink scowled a bit, but then nodded once as she mumbled: “I guess there's worse ideas. I guess.”

Last Call grumbled a little to himself before he muttered: “Would be a lot easier if you guys would help me at all. I'm not much of a leader.”

“You're not much of a stallion, either. But leadership does not fall only on those ready for it or accepting of it. Do your duty, Last Call.” Schmisse said distastefully, and Last Call scowled at him before the unicorn glanced over at Furor and asked: “Or were you always secretly the leader of your little party?”

“Parties are more than two people, usually. But look, Call, if you really need someone to say it, I think the tunnels are a better idea. I mean, I could be wrong, but I know that the museum is bad. And I'll take what might be okay over what is definitely not okay any day of the week.” Furor said dryly as he gestured at the museum door with a grimace.

Last Call sighed a little, nodding apprehensively once before he muttered: “Still feels like a mistake. But okay. Furor, Schmisse, does your magic-”

“You know I can't hold my magic for very long.” Furor said immediately, and Schmisse snorted at him, which only made Furor scowl. “What's your excuse?”

“Very well. Point taken.” Schmisse said dryly, before he shook his head and returned his eyes to Last Call. “It is better that we conserve our magic for when it is needed. This is not a movie, Last Call, where we never run out of energy.”

Last Call rolled his eyes, then he reached up and adjusted his flashlight before he turned and took the lead, muttering: “Fine. Pink, I need you up here with me, then. Let's... go.”

There wasn't really anything else to say, was there? If they stayed here much longer, there was little doubt the monsters would eventually sniff them out, after all:better that they kept moving and went on their way... even if that means we're going to run into trouble. At least it'll be... something.

Last Call snorted a little, then he shook his head when Pink looked at him oddly, before she grumbled and looked away as she muttered: “I hope we can trust you. You and that... weird little girl. How do you know she's not-”

“I know.” Last Call said forcefully, and then he quieted as he lowered his head a little, murmuring: “I just know.”

Pink shifted a little, then she nodded awkwardly as she glanced away. Last Call looked at her for a moment, then he turned his eyes back ahead: they were walking alongside the museum wall, still, and while for a moment Last Call hoped that they might be able to just circle around the structure, that hope was shattered when they hit a smooth stone wall that merged into the side of the museum.

“Someone took care of this, at least. Hopefully it means that they took care of the rest of the tunnels, too.” Pink said, although she didn't sound confident. Last Call couldn't really blame her, as he turned and shone his light around the small cavern they were in: there was a sort of natural archway leading down the tunnel system they would have to try and cut through, and it was half-blockaded by rickety boards and chains. I don't think they wanted anyone going past this point.

He walked over to the damaged, makeshift fencing, yanking a few of the chains loose with a grimace as Schmisse asked distastefully: “Is this kind of crudity common in Equestria?”

“The world is kind of screwed up right now, if you haven't noticed. Maybe it's a warning, though...” Furor said uneasily, and Pink snorted as she looked sourly over at the unicorn.

“You're the one who wanted to go through these tunnels. Changing your mind now?” she asked grouchily, and Furor scowled at her.

“I'm just saying we should be on our hooves, just in case-”

“Oh, yes. Because this has been a relaxing trek so far.” Schmisse said acerbically, and Furor gave him a dry look. “Tell me, is it habit for you to-”

“Guys, all of you, shut up.” Last Call said dryly, and when they all began to open their mouths, he simply clicked the flashlight off, leaving them in total darkness for a moment before he turned it back on.

The three looked at him grouchily, but he thought he saw an odd sort of smile playing along Schmisse's face as Furor rubbed at the back of his head and Pink mumbled an apology. Last Call nodded, then he took a slow breath before he said quietly: “Listen. We're all stressed out, and this is... getting to all of us, I know. But I promise, all of you... I'm going to do everything I can to keep us safe. To get us through this, and get us out in one piece.”

There was silence for a few moments, and Last Call smiled awkwardly before he turned around and removed the last of the chains, saying after a moment: “Let's go.”

They fell in around him in silence, but for the moment at least, Last Call was grateful: the last thing they needed was another argument. Everyone was stretched thin... even Schmisse, he thought. Maybe especially Schmisse... who knew what the hell was going on in his head, after all.

The tunnel, at first, seemed promising: it sloped gently downward, and while the walls were rugged and jagged, the ramping floor beneath their hooves was smooth, marked here and there only by the passage of hooves.

But at the bottom of the slope, Last Call could tell things were already going wrong even without Pink's help: the tunnel walls rapidly narrowed and the high ceiling dropped dangerously low above their heads, and every surface seemed to hungrily stretch towards them, like the rocks were eager to bite into their flesh.

They squished closer, then fell into single file, and Last Call swore under his breath as eventually he was forced to crouch a little. Even Furor had to duck his head a little as they made their way down the cramped tunnel, until Pink suddenly blurted out: “Wait!”

Last Call halted and began to glance back, then instead looked sharply down as he heard a crunching under his hoof, and Pink said nervously: “That rock is brittle and thin. It's more like shale than actual stone. If... if this tunnel hasn't been used in a while – and I'm guessing it hasn't – and we walk over a place where the rock beneath has shifted but the veil of shale hasn't...”

“Alle kinder setzen sich.” Schmisse said wryly, before he shook his head and said after a moment: “I will trust your judgment, Last Call. But of course, I am more willing to trust as you are far more likely to fall before I am.”

“Thanks, Schmisse, you're a real ray of sunshine.” Last Call muttered, and he nervously tested the shale plating, feeling it crack slightly before he settled his weight a little further on, moving-

The ground beneath him cracked, and Last Call flinched and tried to jerk back even as he fell forward, resulting only in him whacking the back of his head painfully off the ceiling before he stumbled forwards anyway, his hooves plunging a few inches through thin stone to painfully slam down in a shallow hole. He swore in pain as his ankle twisted, shaking his head violently as stars danced in front of his eyes before he grabbed at his head, feeling a bruise throbbing on one hoof as he growled: “Goddammit!”

He heard the others shift behind him, and Last Call sighed, chewing on his lip for a moment before he said finally: “We better turn back. I hate to say it, but this route-”

“What, it's too dangerous? Call, I'll go first if I have to. You don't understand, we can't go back through that museum, it's-”

“Quiet, Furor. Do not be a foal.” snapped Schmisse, before he added in a lower voice, surprisingly tactful: “We do not pick and choose our responsibilities. If you are so afraid of the beasts in the museum, then I would suggest you prepare us as best you can for them. But if the tunnel is too unstable and you die in the collapse, then we will have to go through that museum anyway, and our only source of information will be gone.”

Furor snorted at this, and then he nodded almost grudgingly before Call said finally: “It's too narrow for me to turn around. Schmisse, can you...”

There was a faint grunting, a short swear, and then Schmisse muttered: “Yes. And...”

A crack, and red light filled the tunnel as Schmisse lit a flare, the tube trembling faintly in his telekinetic grip as he grumbled: “This should at least mark our route, just in case. But if we are forced to double back yet again, I may question your leadership, Last Call.”

“You're more than welcome to it.” Last Call grumbled as the line of ponies began to shuffle backward: Schmisse moved them at a slower pace back out of the narrow tunnel, until all of the ponies were able to turn around, and once it widened enough, they reshuffled themselves so Last Call was in the lead, Schmisse carrying the flare a dozen or so more feet before he tossed it down at the entrance to the bottleneck.

They headed back down the tunnel in silence to the museum, Last Call feeling a worm of dread twisting through his stomach as he lowered his head a little. And what if the museum was too difficult to pass through? What if the monsters were too dangerous, or someone got injured? They were all getting tired, and he was at his limit, physically and mentally... Horses of Heaven, how had he been so stupid to get them all into this?

Where was Silent Wish? He needed her help. Where was his wife? He just wanted to find her and leave. Where the hell even were they? The mountains shouldn't be this deep, the caverns so vast, the tunnels so twisted, so turned, so warped and distorted...

Last Call grimaced as he shone his flashlight ahead, before he suddenly stumbled to a halt as they reached the archway leading back into the museum area: he had seen eyes in the darkness, glinting. He gestured back at the others before he reached up to quickly cover his flashlight with a hoof, breathing slowly before he winced as Pink asked worriedly: “What is it?”

“Shush.” Schmisse hissed, before the stallion frowned uneasily in the muffled glow, the shadows twisting across his face making him look gaunter, ghoulish. “Wait...”

“Something worse than anger.” Furor muttered, and in the darkness, he looked like a frightened animal, Last Call though, his eyes frightened and low, his shadow a twisted, humped thing in the reflected light. “Hate? Blind, stupid hate?”

Last Call began to reach up his other hoof to turn the flashlight off, before his eyes widened as a voice jeered: “I know you are there, Last Call! I am surprised to see you here... and is that you, little brother? Ever the hoof-polisher, aren't you?”

“Do not antagonize him, but you must not show fear to him, either. Bruder is a hyena: he will pounce on an exposed back, but cannot fight what dares face him.” muttered Schmisse almost urgently, before he rose his head and called back through the darkness: “And I am surprised that you are still here yourself, considering how eager you seemed to be to slink off by yourself. Have you been following me, dear bruder?”

Toadsfall laughed loudly in the darkness, before he mocked: “I do not believe in these... fairy tales and silly stories about monsters. They are nothing more than ponies, that is all I see. Ponies, and they are easily broken. It is the war all over again, Schmisse...”

Last Call uncovered his flashlight, and then he reared back in horror as Toadsfall loomed out of the darkness and into the light, his teeth bared in a grin that made his face look like a stretched mask, his eyes glowing with a fervent, sickening madness, his body unkempt and shaking. Stained hooves crushed against the ground, pawing at it eagerly as his nostrils flared, his head cocking slightly to the side as he greeted: “Well, good greetings to you all!”

“Grüß Gott.” Schmisse said ironically, and Toadsfall lunged forward in an instant, shoving Last Call aside to seize his brother by the mane, nearly shoving their faces together as he snarled in fury.

“There is no God.” Toadsfall hissed, before he smiled suddenly, shoving Schmisse back as he stepped back and brushed at himself: his suit was gone, Last Call noted, and he couldn't help but draw his eyes across the scars and strange tattoos over Toadsfall's body- “Admiring me, are you? Your poor wife! No wonder she never resists the other stallions. But I am certain that you do not either, do you?”

Toadsfall laughed, but Last Call didn't allow him to bait him, taking a slow breath before he said as steadily as he could: “We're in danger here. You're more than welcome to join us-”

“No, I have no interest in playing your silly little games, Last Call.” Toadsfall snorted in contempt, eyes narrowing as he studied Last Call for a few moments before he glanced over at the museum door, asking distastefully: “What are you doing here? It is idiocy to wander around in these tunnels. Why are you heading towards the summit?”

“My wife is up there. I am going to save her.” Last Call said quietly, and Toadsfall smiled in amusement at him.

“Your wife is dead.” he said casually, and Last Call gritted his teeth. “You know it and I know it. We all do. There's nothing you can do to save her.”

“I'm going to save her.” Last Call said icily, and Toadsfall laughed loudly.

“Fine! Then we head to the summit. Why are you waiting around here, wasting time? Having a little tour then? Do you even know what waits above? I do, Last Call. It is not shadows or bogeys or fairy-tale monsters, but very real ponies, waiting to prey upon the weak-minded like yourself.”

“Guess that explains why you've gone nuts.” Furor muttered, and Toadsfall turned towards him, cocked his head like a bird for a moment, and then suddenly stepped forwards and savagely punched the stallion, striking so hard that Furor was knocked sprawling in a burst of blood.

Last Call shouted as he jumped forward, but Toadsfall seized him with telekinesis and slammed him down to the ground before he simply snorted and slapped Pink across the face when she shouted and automatically began to shift forward.

“Leave them alone. They are weak. They do not need your bullying.” Schmisse said contemptibly, and Toadsfall laughed loudly at this. “And keep your voice down, you-”

“I what? I what?” mocked Toadsfall, before he grabbed Schmisse by the face and tilted his head roughly back and forth: Schmisse didn't move, but also didn't take his eyes away from Toadsfall, even as the larger unicorn mocked: “Isn't this always like little Schmissy? Stepping in for the weak, the poor, the whores?”

“Your actions measure your worth, Todesfall. You at least used to believe that.” Schmisse retaliated, but Toadsfall only snorted in contempt, rolling his eyes in disgust.

“Yes, perhaps they do. And all of you are beneath me. Not even stallions, but colts, and a mare? Mares are worthless meat to be bred and to serve stallion.” Toadsfall eyed Pink for a moment, licking his lips briefly as she shuddered on the ground and glared up at him defiantly, but then he simply snorted before spitting on her and saying disgustedly: “This one? Nothing. But your wife, Last Call... oh, she was pliant, and supple, and how I-”

“You shut the hell up about my wife!” shouted Last Call as he shoved himself to his hooves with a snarl, but Furor grabbed him, even as Toadsfall grinned... in excitement, in entertainment, Last Call thought with disgust.

“Make me.” Toadsfall said, before he scowled when Schmisse grasped his shoulder, narrowing his eyes at him. “Unhoof me.”

Schmisse only continued to look coldly at his brother until Toadsfall finally violently shrugged his hoof off, turning his attention back to him. He was like a rabid dog, Last Call thought with both fear and loathing, shrugging Furor off but nodding shortly to him to show he was okay, as Schmisse said in a low voice: “We must work together, Todesfall, if we want to survive. You say you know what is above. Well, what has your genius intellect deduced? That there are ponies? We know there are ponies. We know-”

“You know nothing. What do you know, but of the worms crawling inside you, little brother?” Toadsfall snorted in contempt, stepping back before he added casually to Last Call: “This one? This one is even weaker than you, Last Call. At least you hop to the defence of your whore. This one was not able to defend his. Why don't you surrender to the worms and die, little brother? Do us all a favour and rid us of your dead weight.”

Schmisse was silent, but Last Call could tell it hurt him, and Toadsfall smiled as he clearly saw it too, leaning in and whispering: “You think you're brave, isn't that it? Strong. But you are not. And in your heart, you know that you are not a brave little soldier, but a stallion made of tin. Less than that. What do the doctors say? One year, two? And I will make every single moment that you are alive hell, dear bruder. So why not surrender?”

“Because, bruder, I still have things to do. And no matter how great the pain is, the pleasure of owning you is great enough to compel me to stay alive.” Schmisse said coldly and calmly, and Toadsfall snarled before he suddenly slapped Schmisse across the face.

The younger stallion stumbled, and they both looked surprised for a moment, before Schmisse began to turn-

A hoof smashed into his face, and Schmisse was crushed down to the ground before Toadsfall stomped on him again, and again, a maddened grin spreading over his face before Last Call tackled him. They rolled together, but Toadsfall was on top in moments, slamming punches back and forth across his face as he snarled: “Poor little maus, so weak, so tiny! You-”

A rock slammed into the side of Toadsfall's head, knocking him off Last Call, but the unicorn rolled quickly to his hooves with a snarl as Schmisse steadied himself, glaring at him as his horn glowed. He began to lean forward, but then Toadsfall grinned as he flicked his own head sharply, and Pink gasped as she was jerked off her hooves and over to him.

He caught her in his strong forelegs, crushing her, his tongue sliding out to lick slowly up along her throat as he whispered: “I will kill her unless you do what I say. And you know that I will, darling little bruder. Now, get to your hooves, my three little colts. Don't make me ruin the pleasure-meat.”

“You son of a bitch!” Furor burst out, snarling, but there was fear in his eyes as his body shook violently, and Last Call could swear that it was almost like Furor had gotten a little smaller, like his coat had darkened slightly.

Schmisse only lowered his head, clenching slowly into the ground and trembling, and Last Call closed his eyes before he took a slow breath as he straightened up, saying quietly: “Don't hurt her. Look. We'll do whatever you want, but leave her alone.”

“Now I want to kill her even more.” For a moment, Toadsfall looked indecisive, but then he snorted and flung Pink down to the ground, and the mare gasped before she scrabbled away, glaring over her shoulder at him even as her body shook and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, do not look at me so longingly. Make yourself prettier and then I'll consider putting you to use.”

Pink swore at him, but Toadsfall didn't even seem to register it: was he off in his own little world? Had something happened to him in the darkness? Last Call didn't know, but he flinched as Toadsfall approached the museum door suddenly, blurting out: “No, there's monsters-”

“There are no monsters.” mocked Toadsfall, before he laughed as he approached the door and yanked it open, asking contemptibly: “There, look! Nothing!”

Last Call stared in horror as Toadsfall grinned over his shoulder at them, oblivious to the three horrific, half-melted pony-things that all looked up the moment the door opened. Then Toadsfall turned and looked into the hall, and to Last Call's further confusion, remarked: “What, are you afraid of a bit of darkness?”

Toadsfall stepped into the hall, and Last Call's eyes widened and Furor's jaw dropped as he carelessly strode towards the rotten, warped beasts: the creatures fearfully scrabbled away from Toadsfall into the darkness, and Schmisse shook his head in disbelief as Toadsfall sniffed disdainfully, then turned around and walked out, saying contemptibly: “Here is what we are going to do. If you are so eager to reach the summit, then I shall bring you there. There is a cult who paid me handsomely to use the ruins there. I desire to pay them a visit, anyway, and you will be the honey to lure out the bears, whom I shall then kill. One by one, I will kill them all... do you understand me, my soldiers?”

Toadsfall studied them, then he snarled: “I asked you a question! Answer me!”

“Yes. We understand.” Schmisse said quietly, and Toadsfall snorted in contempt before he tapped moodily on his chin.

“Not good enough. I cannot trust you yet. You must understand there are consequences for insubordination. You must know...”

Toadsfall looked between them, before he smiled as his eyes settled on Last Call, licking his lips slowly. Call looked back at him uneasily, before Toadsfall opened his mouth... then he suddenly looked at Furor, whispering: “Come here.”

“Leave him alone.” Last Call growled, stepping forward, and Toadsfall cocked his head in that curious, bird-like way again-

A moment later, Last Call was on his back, a hoof smashing down into his face again and again until Schmisse and Furor managed to wrestle the unicorn backwards. But Schmisse was slapped down before Toadsfall cruelly stomped on one his ankles, his brother crying out in pain before the unicorn rounded on Furor, seizing him and shoving him back against the wall.

Pink tried to lunge forward, but Toadsfall caught her in the air and flung her cruelly face-first into the ground with telekinesis, stunning her. He turned his cruel grin back to Furor as he rasped: “Little, like a filly. How cute you are. We should fix that. I do not want to think of you the next time I enjoy the veal of marekind.”

“What are y-” Furor didn't get any further as Toadsfall grabbed him by the throat, forcing his head back before he leaned in and bit savagely into his ear. Furor screamed, then clenched his eyes shut in agony as Toadsfall twisted, ripping Furor's ear off and spitting it aside before he snarled in surprise as he flung Furor to the ground, stepping back as his eyes widened in disgust.

“Bug.” he growled, as Furor covered his face, trembling in terror before he gasped in agony as Toadsfall stepped forward and began to kick him viciously again and again, screaming: “Bug! Bug! Bug! Bug! Stupid insect!”

Last Call had no idea what was going on, not until he stumbled up to his hooves, and his eyes widened in shock as he saw Furor was no longer the unicorn he'd known and half-befriended: instead, it was a changeling on the ground, sobbing quietly in his hooves, bleeding from the side of his head and covered in bruises, ribs broken, body shaking helplessly as Toadsfall loomed over him with a snarl. But then, as suddenly as his rage had come, the unicorn stepped back and laughed loudly, rounding on Last Call to ask cheerfully: “And what about you? Are you a worthless bug as well? Either way, it is fitting that your only friend in the world is nothing but a lie!”

Toadsfall laughed as he sauntered towards the doorway, before he glared suddenly back over his shoulder and hissed: “All of you, drop your packs, now.”

Last Call stared for a moment, but when Toadsfall began to turn, the stallion hurriedly nodded before he almost flung off his satchel. Pink and Schmisse both did the same, and Toadsfall levitated all three before upending them, his eyes darting back and forth through their supplies before he growled in disgust. “Not a single weapon! Not a single useful... fine. We will make do. Last Call... tie this around your precious friend's throat.”

“I... what?” Last Call stared in disbelief as rope floated over to him, and Toadsfall snorted in disgust, glaring at him angrily. “No, you nearly killed him, he's-”

“Fine. Carry your precious little pet. In fact, I like that idea. You can carry the bug and walk up front with him, be our living shield. Tie the rope around your own throat so I may guide you like the dog you are.” Toadsfall said contemptibly.

There was no point in arguing, Last Call thought, and he nodded after a moment, slipping the rope around his own neck and grimacing as he made a rough knot with it. He flinched when Toadsfall jerked on it, and the unicorn snorted before he said distastefully: “It will do. But as with all things, I see you have failed to meet my expectations. I would have preferred a noose.”

“Believe me, bruder. We would all prefer you tie yourself a noose.” Schmisse muttered, and Toadsfall glared at him for a moment, but then only smiled.

“I suppose that makes sense. At the moment, the only hoof that could possibly take my life is my own.” Toadsfall said, before he sniffed disdainfully as he watched Last Call struggle to get Furor onto his back and lift him up, breathing hard and grimacing a bit as he wiped blood from his torn lip and nostril. “I will not wait for you forever.”

Last Call bit back a retort, only nodding as he turned and headed carefully over to him, and Toadsfall eyed him critically for a few moments before he jerked his head towards the open doorway. “Go.”

Last Call didn't argue, striding into the museum even as Furor rasped weakly into his ear: “It's... dangerous.”

“It's more dangerous out here.” muttered Last Call, and Furor laughed faintly.

“Sorry.” he whispered, and Last Call simply gave a brief smile.

“I think you probably paid for it.” he murmured in return, before he flinched when he felt a jerk on the rope leash.

“Stop sharing romance with your little boyfriend, Last Call. Mare, you go next. Schmisse, follow behind me, just as you always have.” ordered Toadsfall, and Pink cursed at him, but then gasped when Toadsfall slammed his foreleg into her as she began to walk by, pinning her by the throat against the side of the door, her eyes wide with shock before he leaned in and whispered: “Talk back to me again, and I will tear the flapping tongue out of your face, do you understand?”

Pink whimpered and nodded weakly, and then she stumbled hurriedly into the museum, staggering up beside Last Call and cursing under her breath before she flinched as she looked ahead down the corridor.

Last Call had already seen them, lingering at the edge of the light, but they didn't seem to be coming any closer: the mutant, warped ponies shifted nervously back and forth near the bend of the corridor, but not like they were trying to ambush them: almost like they were trying to hide from them. No. Not us. Toadsfall. “So those things...”

“Chased me.” confirmed Furor, before he laughed faintly. “Guess I... I just...”

“Not your fault. Doubt they'd hesitate to attack us. But...” Last Call didn't have to say anything else, the others nodded before Last Call grimaced when a hoof slapped roughly against his rump.

“Move. We are heading to the east wing.” ordered Toadsfall, and Last Call simply nodded, starting forward.

He could hear the monsters, crawling in the walls, scurrying across the floor ahead, but rarely staying in sight for more than a moment, unless they were forced into a corner. Once, as Last Call shouldered through a door, he found himself almost face-to-face with one of the monstrous ponies in a cul-de-sac, which squished itself into a corner with a loud hiss, but even though he and Furor both flinched, Toadsfall only angrily snapped the rope and growled: “Stop jumping at shadows, cowards!”

Pink clung to the far wall to avoid going near the monster as they made their way out of the nook, but Toadsfall didn't seem to either see or hear it, even though the thing all-but-screamed when Toadsfall passed within a foot of it. Last Call winced, and wished Silent Wish was here to tell him what the hell that meant: did it have something to do with the way that reality had warped, and in return, bent and twisted them all?

Toadsfall, after all, he had never seen like this. Sadistic, ruthless, cruel, sure, but this was a whole new level of murderous, like Toadsfall couldn't stop himself anymore, couldn't hide his misogyny or how... how much of a freaking psychopath he is.

He half-glanced back at the unicorn, then he gasped as he felt the rope jerk sharply, Toadsfall saying contemptibly: “Eyes front, dog. We are marching into enemy territory-”

“You never saw real war. All your medals came from the rear. Which is I'm sure what you gave to the other officers for all your commendations.” Schmisse said contemptibly, and then he gasped as Toadsfall seized him by the face and slammed him viciously into a display case, cracking the inch-thick glass.

There was silence for a moment, and then Toadsfall whispered: “They called me Nebelwerfer.”

“Yes. There is great bravery in serving as magic artillery, burning foals and hospitals. They did not call you that because they respected you.” Schmisse glared at Toadsfall, ignoring the cuts over his face, the blood spilling down his cheeks as broken glass bit into him. “They feared you. They hated you.”

“Good.” Toadsfall turned, jerking Schmisse around and flinging him to the ground of the display room they had come to an undignified halt in. “That is better than respect.”

Schmisse laid on the ground, then he looked away with disgust when Toadsfall leaned down over him, saying softly: “Now get up, dear bruder. I want you to see what lies ahead. I want you to see the summit. I want you to see what I have achieved.”

“I did not know you had decided to lead a cult.” Schmisse said dryly, and Toadsfall laughed before he grasped his brother by the mane, rudely yanking him back to his hooves before he snapped the rope leash roughly, making Last Call flinch and face forward again, heading to the other side of the display room and doing his best to face forward, even as he listened intently.

“No. That would be idiotic. But they were a useful investment. I don't believe in any of the things they do, but they have brought... well, I will show you. And now that they have turned on me, I will kill them all, and take all their precious spoils, their treasures, their weapons.” Toadsfall said, and he sounded almost like he was dreaming, staring up at the ceiling even as he walked along, half-guiding them even as he followed behind with a strange smile on his face. “War, Schmisse. I will go back to war. I will go back to the killing fields, and I will sleep again.”

The group was silent as they made their way onward, and it was a strangely uneventful journey through the museum until they reached the eastern wing and one of the large galleries. Toadsfall shoved one of the art displays rudely over to get to the far wall, heading to a door lit by a red emergency light and shoving it roughly open before he paused, then said calmly, without looking back: “We are moving too slowly. We have to drop some dead weight.”

Toadsfall smiled as he turned around, saying coldly: “Leave the bug.”

“N-No... please, oh God no. Don't leave me in here. You don't understand... they're all so angry. They're scared, but they're angry, and...” Furor swallowed thickly as he helplessly clutched on to Last Call. “You don't understand.”

“Leave the bug willingly, Last Call, or I will kill that mare, beat you senseless, and have Schmisse drag your carcass to the summit.” Toadsfall snarled.

Furor shook his head weakly, and Last Call could swear that he could see the awful, hideous ponies beginning to swarm in on all sides. Toadsfall stood in the doorway, glaring at them, barring the only exit. What choice did he have, really?

But Furor was almost crying, beaten, completely unable to defend himself. Pink was shivering, bleeding, staring desperately, and Last Call's own body was at its limit, every part of him aching. Schmisse was only staring at the ground, and for all the fight he had given so far... did he have any strength left to resist Toadsfall, and Toadsfall's seemingly-endless cruelty?

“I'm waiting!” snapped Toadsfall, and Last Call knew he had no choice.

He had to make a decision.

Author's Note

Karmic Choice:

A: Sacrifice Furor. It's Last Call's only choice to survive. He has to reach the summit at all costs.

B: Protect Furor. Toadsfall is insane. Even if Last Call does what he wants, he'll probably kill everyone anyway.

Plot Choice:

1: Head directly for the summit by the fastest route.

2: Stop to rest at a ranger station.

The Shadow Of Death

Chapter Nine: The Shadow Of Death
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call breathed slowly in and out, looking across at Toadsfall with all the courage he could muster up. He felt Furor shift uncertainly on his back, but the stallion straightened as much as possible to keep the Changeling safe as he muttered: “Just shut up and trust me.”

He took a slow breath, then rose his head high before he said quietly: “No.”

“What?” Toadsfall straightened slightly in surprise, then he growled in disgust, the large unicorn framed in the light spilling in through the doorway as the glow from Last Call's flashlight danced over his features, making him seem ghoulish and distorted. “I think that I misheard you, Last Call. You would not be stupid enough to pretend you are not a coward at this point, are you?”

Last Call looked back and forth, at Pink and Schmisse, then he looked back at Toadsfall. There was no way he was going to just hand over Furor to this psychopath: there was no way that even if they listened to him, Toadsfall was just going to politely let them walk away, after all.

But what could he do? He couldn't protect Pink and Schmisse and Furor all at once, especially not with the rope around his neck. He could feel Toadsfall's telekinetic grip tightening slowly, angrily on the leash, and he wasn't strong enough to resist both Toadsfall's strength and his magic, especially as beaten-up and exhausted as he already was. And if Toadsfall got his hooves on any of them...

“Furor, get this leash off me. I don't care how.” Last Call muttered, and Furor grimaced before the Changeling gave a short nod as Last Call rose his head slightly and said clearly: “I am not going to give you Furor. And I'm... I'm going to give you one warning. I'll... I'll protect these ponies from you if I have to. It won't end well for you.”

Toadsfall laughed incredulously at this, staring in disbelief as he stepped forward. And Last Call shivered as he felt Furor fidgeting uselessly at the rope, but for the moment the ominous unicorn was too busy gawking at them to yank on the leash, asking disbelievingly: “Do you really think you can fight me, Last Call? You could not even... oh, do you care more about the pretty stallion on your back than your own wife? Are you a big stallion now, Last Call? Has buggering the bug made you brave?”

Last Call grimaced, before he looked back and forth as he realized they weren't alone. Monsters twisted and swarmed at the edges of the flashlight's glow, hissing softly, whispering among themselves. And as horrific and awful as they were, all their attention was on Toadsfall.

Schmisse and Pink, meanwhile, were edging away from Toadsfall towards the open door.: it wouldn't be long before the crazed unicorn took stock of the situation, though, and stopped them-

The leash fell away from around his neck, and Toadsfall snarled as he yanked on the rope when he realized it was no longer around Last Call's throat. He began to open his mouth, but Last Call whistled sharply, cutting him off before he mocked as brazenly as he could: “Who's the... the dumbass now, you dumbass!”

Toadsfall stared at him, and then Last Call reached up and clicked off his flashlight before he turned and bolted through the near-pitch-blackness down the way he remembered coming, cursing as he bounced off a wall as he ran back into the catacombs of the museum. Toadsfall gave a roar of rage, his horn lighting up brightly with a hellish radiance as he dashed after them, shouting angrily: “You will not escape me, Last Call! I will break every last bone in your body!”

Last Call cursed as he banged painfully into a wall, before he blinked in surprise as a dim, ill green light lit up the floor around him, Furor whispering: “Can't do much. Sorry.”

“It's enough.” Last Call muttered as Toadsfall blazed into the room behind them, looking back and forth with a snarl before he charged straight at them through the darkness. Last Call managed to shoulder through a door and slam it behind him, however, and then he winced as Toadsfall smashed into the other side of it before he heard a double-thump as the enraged unicorn bounced off and fell over with a curse, screaming profanities at them.

Last Call looked back and forth, then he grabbed what looked like a shelf beside him, yanking it over. It crashed down in front of the door, papers of some kind spilling out of it before Last Call stumbled back with a wince as Toadsfall smashed into the door. The frame rattled violently, and Last Call gritted his teeth before another smash knocked the fallen shelf back a bit, Toadsfall sticking his head into the frame with a snarl-

Last Call spun around and slammed both rear hooves as hard as he could into the door, and he was rewarded with a scream of pain as it smashed shut on Toadsfall's face. But his pleasure only lasted a moment before a swearing, furious Toadsfall began to pelt the door with blasts of magic, shaking the door with the force of his power as unnatural, toxic fire began to spread over it.

Last Call looked desperately back and forth before he hurried towards a divider on the other side of the office, grunting as he half-flung Furor over this before jackknifing it himself. He grabbed the Changeling to haul him back onto his back, but even as Furor clambered on, he rasped: “You don't have to-”

“You don't have to talk. Shut up and light the way, I can't see in the dark.” Last Call retorted, and Furor gave a wry smile as they stumbled across another office to a door, Last Call biting his lip and hesitating for a moment, hoof on the handle, before he shoved it open as he heard the door in the other office smash down.

He kept low, moving as quietly and quickly as he could across the room before he turned a corner, risking a look back: the eerie glow of poisonous fire and magic lit the area around the twin offices with ghastly radiance, and Last Call could see monstrous shadows dancing as Toadsfall rampaged around the office... but also the lurking, fearful shapes of the strange monsters, who seemed drawn to Toadsfall's madness.

Last Call quickly turned his focus back to escaping, hurrying back down the hall and into one of the large display rooms. He could hear Toadsfall moving again, snarling and spitting curses angrily at the air, and Last Call gritted his teeth as he stumbled quickly around a corner and headed towards the front of the museum, hurrying past displays and ignoring the things that shifted in the darkness at the edge of his vision.

He stumbled into the front lobby as Toadsfall roared from behind them: “I found you! Stop running, cowards!”

Last Call ignored Toadsfall as he hurried for the front doors: maybe if they fled back down the tunnels, he would be able to escape.

He yanked the doors opened, and he felt Furor's heartbeat stop as he stumbled to a stupid halt, the two staring in horror at the floating, hideous black blob that all-but-glowed in the light shining in from the tunnel lamps. Its stone mask cocked almost curiously as sludge and mire dripped from its trashbag body, the entity staring over them silently as Last Call trembled and stumbled backwards, then tripped with a wince, Furor spilling off his back.

He could faintly hear what sounded like screams of fear as monsters fled in all directions, and he was vaguely aware of Toadsfall coming up behind them, but the two could only stare as the awful, hideous thing studied them silently, judging them, Last Call thought. They only stared, shaking in fear, until Toadsfall stormed into the room, then snarled: “What is this?”

His magic lit up the entire area as he strode towards Last Call, before he frowned, then looked sharply up through the doorway. Toadsfall cocked his head, then he looked down with a snarl as he grabbed Last Call and slapped him roughly across the face, but Last Call only shook his head weakly, barely giving Toadsfall a glance even as the unicorn snarled: “What? What is it?”

“I don't know. It's... it's right there. Can't you see it?” asked Last Call disbelievingly, and Toadsfall snarled before he flung Last Call down, then he kicked Furor savagely in the side, making him gasp, but he barely looked up at the unicorn.

It infuriated Toadsfall, his horn glowing brighter as he stormed in front of the two, trying uselessly to get their attention as he turned his back to the hideous thing he couldn't see, screaming: “What are you idiots doing? Cowards, look at me! There are no monsters, there are no ghosts, there is no such thing! Look at me! I am your death! I am what you should be afraid of, you-”

A slimy, muddy tentacle twisted out of the thing and seized around one of Toadsfall's legs, and the unicorn shivered, frowning and yanking at it. He looked down, then snarled in surprise, jerking and tugging angrily at his hoof before he glared at Furor, spitting: “Your bug magic won't-”

Furor only shook his head weakly, crawling backward, as Last Call whispered: “That's not-”

“Shut up!” Toadsfall's horn lit up with hellfire as he snarled in rage, beginning to focus his violent magic-

Tentacles snapped viciously out all around his body, hefting him into the air like a toy, splattering him with black ichor and muck, and Toadsfall shrieked as his eyes went from maddened to terrified. His magic whiffed out as he struggled helplessly, jerking his limbs back and forth, but the tentacles moved with him, the floating, awful thing only cocking its stone face the other way as Toadsfall looked wildly back and forth, screaming: “Bug! No, S-Schmisse, I know it's you! Unicorn! This is...”

Toadsfall looked down at himself, then back over his shoulder, shaking his head wildly as he screamed: “There's nothing there! Where is the magic? Who is doing this? There's nothing there, nothing there, you fools! This is impossible!”

Last Call and Furor only stared in horror, watching as Toadsfall was swayed, almost rocked gently back and forth in the air by the horrific appendages that were now beginning to steam and sear into his body, and Toadsfall shook his head, shrieking, screaming, his eyes filling with tears, his chest beginning to heave as his eyes stared wildly around. As his fear grew, Last Call saw his little sanity visibly ebbing away, as he screamed: “N-No! No, there's nothing... I can't see... what are you doing? No... m-m-mutter! Mama, no!”

Toadsfall's eyes rolled in his head, pupils dilating, foaming at the mouth as he stared at the ceiling in horror, struggling and gasping as he screamed: “Mama, no! No, no, p-please! I promise I'll be good! D-Don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no, nein, nein, mama! Schmissy! Daddy! Schmisse, save me! Schmisse! Daddy! Please! Please! Please!”

Last Call heard a gurgling, wet chuckle, and then Toadsfall was suddenly yanked backwards, and the doors of the museum slammed violently shut, a moment before both Last Call and Furor flinched as the lights flashed on.

They were alone in the museum's front room, the lights on, everything peaceful and quiet... except for the strange, dark slime rolling down the front doors, that was. Last Call shivered, not wanting to get close in case that horrific thing came back for seconds, before he glanced to the side as Furor laughed weakly before he said tiredly: “Guess we are friends, huh?”

“We assholes have to stick together, Furor.” Last Call stopped, then he added dryly: “I thought you Changelings fed on love. I hope you don't think-”

“You did just save my life.” Furor stopped, then the Changeling lowered his head slightly, eyes shifting away as he murmured: “You saved my life and I won't forget that. But no. Some of us feed on different emotions... anger, for example. But we have to be careful not to lose ourselves to these emotions, because... well, I suppose you can imagine why.”

“Yes.” Last Call said, as he looked at the muddy doors, before he murmured: “Come on. Let's get out of here.”

“Yes. Yes.” Furor nodded briefly, before he grimaced a bit when Last Call stood up and walked over to him, offering a hoof. He half waved at him, mumbling: “I can walk-”

“Then walk.” Last Call grabbed his hoof before he could protest, grunting as he pulled him up to stand before he said quietly: “We're all in this together, asshole.”

“Yeah. Alright.” Furor offered him a hesitant smile, before he added: “I can't feel those things anymore... why do you think they left?”

“I don't know. Maybe the monsters can't stand each other. It feels a little like... we're shaping the horrors we see.” Last Call couldn't find the right phrase for it, shaking his head as he muttered: “The good and the bad, I mean. The things we believe or we're tricked into believing become real, or... maybe we're just experiencing personal hells. It was explained to me once that as reality bends, it bends us back, and strips us away until we become who we really are at our core. Maybe some of us bend reality more, some of us less. Maybe we're... maybe some of us are just better people when there's other ponies around to keep an eye on us, and in turn...”

“You don't know, is what you're saying.” Furor said, and Last Call smiled wryly.

“Yeah, pretty much.” he admitted, before he added quietly as he glanced around the lobby: “Still. Lights are on and Toadsfall is gone for now. Let's get going.”

Furor nodded, and then he and Last Call slowly made their way, side-by-side, back through the halls of the museum. And while the damage was still present from Toadsfall's rampage across the halls, there was no sense of distortion, and no fires burned, no shadows crawled, no monsters were hiding in the corners.

Even with their limping and stumbling, it was a short walk to the other side of the building. Pink and Schmisse were gone, but Last Call was half-glad for it: hopefully they had been able to hurry out to safety. They would be able to join up with them again later, he felt, as long as things didn't go terribly wrong.

The stallion shook his head briefly, and then he glanced over at Furor and asked: “You ready to leave, or do you need a minute?”

“The sooner we get out, the better. Don't worry. I'll walk the worst of it off.” Furor answered with a brief shake of his head, grimacing a little as he glanced back over his shoulder.

Last Call nodded a bit, and then he hesitated a moment, glancing back at the museum before he shook his head as he approached the doorway. He peered nervously out it, before blinking in surprise as Furor said: “Fast thinking. Turning the flashlight off. Nearly getting everyone killed.”

Last Call couldn't help but smile despite himself, asking: “So is this whole asshole thing just a Changeling thing, or...”

Furor gave maybe the smallest smile back in return, before he said: “I'm glad you're not too upset. Or afraid.”

“Furor, I hate to say it, but the last thing I'm afraid of right now is you.” Last Call stopped, then he couldn't help but laugh a little, shaking his head and giving another small smile to the Changeling. In any other circumstances, maybe, he'd be betrayed, and terrified, but... after everything I've seen tonight... “I'll be mad at you later. I just hope the others.”

“Schmisse knew. I don't know how he knew, but he saw through my disguise.” Furor said with a brief shake of his head, and Last Call frowned in surprise. “Look, can we get out of here? Those... monsters might still come back.”

“You said they were angry. I thought you fed off anger. Why would you be so afraid of them?” asked Last Call even as he stepped apprehensively out into the tunnel... but the public route was well-lit by the lamps cabled along the walls, and everything was smooth and quiet and... normal, and it felt good to keep up the conversation.

“Ponies only have to worry about stomachaches and dying when they overeat. We have to worry about being permanently turned by that emotion. Imagine if you were filled up with nothing but anger, all the time. Imagine how you would lash out.” Furor shook his head, grimacing a bit before he murmured: “But I guess I learned tonight there are worse things to be filled with.”

There was silence for a moment as the two limped on, and in the light of the tunnel, Last Call took the opportunity to actually study the Changeling beside him. He looked like the same old Furor in some ways: smaller than average, with small wings, and his horn wasn't all that much different: just a few jigs and jags, not the 'terrible maelspike' he had heard it described as by ponies who claimed they had seen the 'evil beasts.' He saw why ponies called them bugs, but his hide was smooth and the holes in his legs weren't as glaring as he thought they would be.

His large, round eyes shifted towards Last Call, and he smiled briefly before he said finally: “Going to start thinking Toad was right if you keep giving me those eyes.”

“Can't help it, Furor, you're just so cute.” Last Call replied wryly, and Furor glowered at him, with made the stallion grin slightly. “Guess I understand a bit more why you were always pissing everyone off. Must make it hard to keep friends, though.”

“Yeah. But at least some ponies seem hard to piss off.” Furor shrugged, and then he turned his eyes back down the tunnel as Last Call nodded briefly.

They limped their way to the end of the tunnel in peace, and found themselves standing at the exit of the caverns beneath a single flickering lamp, a broken guideboard creaking quietly as it swayed in the faint wind on the single support still struggling to hold it up.

“No sign of them.” Furor remarked, and Last Call nodded briefly before he reached up and turned his flashlight on, grimacing a bit as a sharp breath of wind cut across the mountain, stirring his mane and making them both shiver a little.

“Do you think...” started Furor, and he halted for a moment, then asked as Last Call cocked his head towards him: “Can we trust Schmisse? I felt a lot of conflicting emotions from him. And if Toadsfall really is his brother...”

“Yeah. I think we can. Look, if we find them and Pink is still in one piece, I'm pretty sure that'll clinch it. Besides, Toad seemed like he was ready to kill him, too.” Last Call shook his head, muttering: “Can you imagine growing up with that asshole as your brother?”

Furor only smiled wryly, and Last Call glanced at him for a moment before he grimaced as another sharp wind blew by, before his eyes widened slightly as he realized that the wind had brought white flakes with it. They faded before they hit the ground, but... it's a little early in the season for snow. “We better hurry.”

“Yeah. But I... I'll need to stop and rest a little.” Furor said with a hint of apology, glancing awkwardly away, and Last Call nodded as he smiled wryly, rubbing a bit of dried blood from his face.

“You and me both.” The stallion paused, then he approached the guide board, looking over it quickly before he muttered: “Okay. Where the trails rejoin, there should be another ranger station. Let's hope this one is intact.”

Furor only nodded, and he followed as Last Call slowly began up the steep slow, grimacing a bit: even if there was a guard rope, the path curled out on a dangerous, narrow ledge, and he knew that rope wasn't going to hold if one of them slipped and fell into it.

Something was off about their journey, though: it wasn't as dark as Last Call thought it should be, and while the snow seemed to be getting heavier, the stars were all glowing above, as if there were no clouds in the sky. Where was the snow coming from, then? Or was it just like nature itself had been warped by the powers of the whatever-this-was, and turned against them?

It reminded him of that awful day..

He shivered violently, shaking his head, not wanting to think about it. Instead, he asked over his shoulder: “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” grumbled Furor, before he and Last Call both grimaced and leaned into the cliff wall as the whole mountain seemed to shake with the gust of wind that ripped by, a wave of snow washing over them both before it settled back into a chilling rasp. “I hope Happenstance is still alive so I can kick his ass.”

“Me too.” muttered Last Call, before he sighed in relief as they rounded a corner; half-skidding down a gentle slope to a wide plateau. There was actually snow on the ground here, but the high walls around them guarded them from the wind, and Last Call could clearly see where the other mountain paths fed in.

At the back of this safe little niche was a ranger's cabin, which looked peaceful and undisturbed, lights shimmering happily within. Last Call and Furor traded looks, and then the Changeling gestured with his head at the cabin, saying dryly: “You're the boss.”

“I should have left you back there.” Last Call grumbled, but then he nodded, gesturing at the Changeling to follow.

Furor did so, nervously, but at the door, Last Call motioned for him to wait by the door, and the Changeling nodded with relief as he rested against the wall. Last Call hesitated for only a moment before knocking, and then he frowned as he felt a strange sensation of something brushing against him before a familiar voice called: “Yes?”

Last Call's eyes widened, and he flung the door open, leaping through before he stumbled stupid to a halt as he stared around at familiar walls that he hadn't seen for months, but that to this day, he still missed. Sure, when you lived in Canterlot, you didn't actually own anything but the empty space inside the apartment... but they had made the best of it. It had been some of the best days of their lives, until it had been... their worst.

He stumbled down the eggshell corridor to the living room, staring at the mare resting back on the little couch that had seemed so big in that little cozy room. He laughed faintly as he stared at her, but she only smiled, saying softly as her eyes met his with such love, such warmth, such misplaced faith: “I got the job.”

“No!” Last Call blurted out, and the mare blinked in surprise before her eyes widened when Last Call ran towards her and hugged her fiercely, burying his head against her as he whispered: “Please don't. I know you don't want to stay in Canterlot, and I'm happy to go anywhere with you... anywhere, but there. Let's start over. A new life. I love you.”

“What's wrong, honey? Did something happen?” she asked in confusion, and Last Call laughed faintly as he straightened, hesitating for a moment before he blushed when she stroked worriedly over his face. “Is this blood? Did you get in a fight again?”

“It's okay.” Last Call laughed faintly, shaking his head and smiling as he leaned back, grasping her shoulders and gazing longingly down into her eyes, before he licked his lips slowly. His trembles increased as she looked back up at him worriedly, before he let out a slow exhale, lowering his head and whispering: “This isn't real, is it?”

“Call, come on. You're scaring me. No, I don't have to take the job if it's going to stress you out, but... I mean, I never said that I wanted to move away from Canterlot-”

“But I know you wanted to get away, because...” Last Call opened his eyes, gazing into hers before he bit his lip, then he shook his head quickly as he looked up, asking weakly: “What is this? Is this a second chance, or is this just another piece of hell? Has reality fallen backwards on itself or...”

She looked up at him silently for a few moments, then she reached up and gently stroked his face before she grasped his hoof and pulled him, in that soft, easy, implacable way she had, out of the living room and back to the bedroom.

She sat him down on the bed, and he rested his front hooves in his lap, looking silently after her as she vanished into the bathroom, then came back with a wet cloth. It felt wonderful on his head, soothing him as she wiped the dirt and the blood away from his face, the mare asking after a moment: “Eddie's?”

“No. I promise. I was... I was trying to protect a friend. For once that's the truth.” Last Call said, and he gave a brief smile as she looked at him with a slight frown, then she winced a bit as he blew gently against her face. “See?”

She touched her lips, then smiled faintly as she touched the hoof she'd unconsciously kissed to his cheek, and he closed his eyes, resting his face against it as she asked: “Doesn't mean I should trust you, mister. You don't always need to be drinking to be starting fights.”

“I know. But I've been... trying a lot harder.” Last Call answered, giving another small smile as he lowered his eyes, then closed them as she silently kissed his forehead. “I missed you. I missed this. I want to make it all up to you, everything. I just... I don't know if I can sometimes. Is getting through this hell... will it be enough?”

“That's up to you.” answered the mare gently, as she took one of his hooves and squeezed it slowly. And when Last Call opened his eyes, he was in a hospital bed, and she was in her gown, so tired and pallid, and yet beside him. He remembered this, too: how the doctors and nurses had glared at him like he was the scum of the earth, and oh, he had been, but she had been an angel, the same as always, there beside him, to comfort him, incorruptible. Beautiful. Perfect and radiant.

He didn't deserve her.

She didn't deserve the hell he put her through.

That's why he tried to kill himself. He'd gotten drunk, and then jumped off the tallest building he could climb.

He'd been drunk out of his mind, so he'd imagined it was a lot taller than it actually was, and he'd landed on some poor farmer's fruit wagon, so he'd ended up more or less okay.

That happened the day after she'd miscarried their baby.

What an idiot he was.

What a fucking idiot.

But it had all make sense back then, he thought. He was broken and needed to be removed. Or maybe, in some drunken stupor, he'd thought if he died, the baby would somehow live. A life for a life; or maybe he had just been trying to apologize to her, he thought, for all the ways he'd ruined her life. For everything he'd taken away from her. For how he made her suffer, even when he tried so hard to help, to make her happy.

She had wanted a baby so badly.

They'd tried, so hard.

She had been so happy.

But because it was him, it had all gone to hell.

She silently wiped the tears away from his face, and he smiled faintly before he looked up at her and whispered: “I don't understand, still.”

“Because I love you. I love you so, so much. And I'm here for you.” The same as she'd said in the hospital. Going through an unknown, untold hell, and there she was, sitting at his bedside, the cause of all her trouble, telling him, him, that it was going to be okay.

How did he deserve her?

Well, the truth was, he really didn't.

He bit his lip, studying her for a few moments before he murmured: “I wish this had never happened. It was so stupid of me. I've always.. I've always been selfish, and I hate that. Even now, some part of me wants to say that you enabled that, encouraged that even...”

“You haven't always been selfish, though. You were always here with me. You always took care of me when I needed you to. You balanced me out. You always have, and you were always someone I could count on. You still are.” She smiled at him, and the stallion closed his eyes, trembling a little, before he opened them.

And now they were laying in bed together, side-by-side, and he wrapped his forelegs around her and hugged her fiercely as she clung back to him, whispering: “I trust you. I love you, and I know you'll keep me safe. But you need to take care of yourself, too. How can you save me if you can't save yourself?”

The stallion looked down, then he nodded once before he closed his eyes and murmured: “I don't know who I am anymore. I've done good things and bad things tonight. I've been smart, and I've been stupid, and I've been crazy. I just... I know it's all for you.”

“I know. I know. But it's not going to mean much to me to be saved if you die in the process. I'd be alone without you, Last Call. You're the only pony who's ever really understood me: who didn't care about... who I was, or where I came from, or the good, the bad, the in-between that I've done.” She looked at him with a faint smile, murmuring: “I know you have your flaws. But more than ever, I really believe in you. That tonight, you'll prove...”

She fell silent, looking towards the foot of the bed, and Last Call frowned before he half-turned as well, shivering a little as he realized there was no more room, no more apartment, no more reality around them: just a sea of blackness in which their tiny island of light floated, alone, so far away from the candlelight of the stars that watched them in the distance.

But they were not alone. Things moved in the darkness, shapes both real and not as she clung a little tighter to her stallion, whispering: “You'll be the stallion I knew you could be. Just remember... there are worse things in the darkness than the Kiz.”

They both looked down at the thing lurking just beyond their island of light, the unholy beast shifting menacingly through the shadows. It tossed its maneless head, strange antlers gleaming unnaturally in the light, its eyes so dark and vapid and black that they swallowed even the night around them.

Last Call could feel the menace, the hatred emanating from this thing, and the cold it brought with it. It shifted, and it was like two halves moved instead of one whole, threaded together by a coiling snake of blackness.

The thing whispered promises to them, but Last Call shuddered as he buried his face against his wife, who hugged him tightly as she murmured: “It won't tempt you. But it will try to take you. It's awake now because reality has bent, because the Kiz wandered across things that should have been left buried and frozen beneath the earth.”

Last Call shivered, then opened his mouth to ask a question, and the world twisted around him. He blinked, slowly, and then he took a quiet, uneasy breath before he half-closed his eyes, leaning shakily against the frame of the open door, tears rolling down his cheeks as Furor asked uneasily: “Call?”

“I'm okay. I'm... I'm here. I'm back. I never left.” Last Call murmured, and then he shook his head as he looked down at his bloody, tear-stained hoof, saying quietly: “I just wish that I had.”

“It's okay.” said a voice, and Last Call looked up, unsurprised, to see Silent Wish standing in front of him in the middle of the empty cabin, her poncho missing, her wings and body bare. She smiled at him, and after a moment, Last Call smiled weakly back before the filly said softly: “You need to be careful. Just because things seem okay, it doesn't mean they are. Reality twists and bends, and while there are things here that will help you... there are monsters that will help themselves, too.”

“Yes.” Last Call halted, then he shook his head before murmuring: “Furor, it's okay. Silent Wish is here. It's... safe?”

He looked querulously at the filly, and she shook her head, biting her lip nervously, and Last Call noticed, for the first time, that she had fangs. “No. It's never safe, not really. But there's enough time to rest. I don't know where Pink and Schmisse have gone, though... but I wasn't keeping very good watch. I was... scared.”

It was such a strange, naked statement from a filly who Last Call thought most ponies would call a monster, but as he studied her, he thought of how everything else had been afraid of Toad, too... except for that... that thing. But I guess... “I guess if anything proves you're just a pony like the rest of us, Silent Wish, it's that.”

The filly gave a brief smile, and Furor nervously poked his head in before he winced a bit at the sight of Silent Wish. But then he nodded and hesitantly strode inside. He gave another awkward nod to Silent Wish, then he turned and hauled himself over to an overstuffed armchair and dropped into it with a wheeze, rubbing slowly at his bruised ribs as he muttered: “I guess I can't really judge.”

Silent smiled a little, and Last Call laughed a bit before he closed the door. He nervously headed over to the one of the windows for a moment, gazing out at the plateau, but thanks to the shape of the mountain, it was hard to see much: if you looked away from the path for a moment, he thought, anypony could slip by.

That thought gave him a chill he did his best to throw off, shaking his head before he muttered: “We'll stay here for a little while, then head up to the summit. Are you going to come with us?”

“As much as I can, yes. But I might still have to run away, if things get too... intense.” Silent Wish said, her eyes shifting away.

Last Call studied her silently, and then he simply nodded before he turned to join Furor in the little sitting room, grunting a bit as he sat down on a bench and rubbing at his face. He smiled when Silent offered him a towel, nodding to her before he wiped at his muzzle and eyes, then he simply balled it up between his hooves and looked down at it, murmuring: “Just a few minutes to catch our breath. Are there any medical supplies here? There should be an emergency kit, at least. I'll patch you up a little, Furor. I was in Sun Scouts.”

“Of course you were.” Furor muttered, before he rubbed at his face and said dryly: “I think I've probably had a little more survival training than you.”

“Just shut up and let me help you.” Last Call answered, before a smile quirked at his muzzle. “Or what, are you trying to make me angry so you can, what, nibble?”

Furor chuckled a little despite himself, looking down and shaking his head briefly before he murmured: “Maybe later. But you've always been hard to snatch more than a bite or two from, Call. You're bitter. Not angry. You never stay mad for long. Makes me a little jealous.”

Last Call only smiled briefly, then he looked back over his shoulder in surprise at a clunking to see Silent Wish digging through a supply cabinet, before she turned around with a clearly-labelled emergency kit held in her little claws, asking: “This?”

“Thanks. But rest for a bit, kiddo. We're... we're going to be okay.” Last Call said: he didn't entirely believe that yet, and he felt drained and confused and a little empty... but there was a spark there, an ember, the first real beginnings of a belief that maybe he could pull through this.

Furor grunted a little and glanced away, and Silent Wish only smiled as she lowered her eyes a little, but neither spoke. Because whether it was delusion or honest belief, it was what they all maybe needed to believe a little, as they approached the summit of the mountain, as they wrestled their way through the darkness that had consumed reality.

Things were going to be okay.

Toadsfall stumbled through the forest, terrified and afraid, fleeing from the hideous thing. But it chased him relentlessly, and sometimes he heard the click-clack of heels against tile, and in those moments, he was a little colt again, running from mother, running from his punishment.

But she always caught up, and he always cried. Cried, like a little filly. Cried, cried, cried. Crybaby, crybaby!

Toadsfall stumbled, leapt down a muddy hill, and he landed at the bottom of a trench. He was covered in blood, fleeing from a platoon of soldiers. Not the enemy, but his own troops, who had mutinied against him.

No, that had never happened. They had been scared. He had owned the battlefield! If he was at war, he was safe, because in war there were no rules, no laws, no games to play!

There was only the killing, and he grinned, insane, as he charged out of the other side of the trench. They ran down on the zebra, and he laughed as he lashed out with magic, fortified by the focus ring around his horn, eyes mad and wild with excitement, and they screamed as he set them on fire and they shrieked for mercy when he beset upon their villages, but he burned them all. Every last one of them, he killed. And those who survived, he savoured crushing beneath his hooves.

It was exciting.

He slipped in the mud and he stumbled into a tree, and he gasped and inhaled the forest air, and he was running again, and he was scared again.

He stumbled and tripped and fell, rolling down another embankment. He landed at the bottom of a gorge with a curse, looking wildly back and forth: the little sanity left in his mind screamed at him, asked desperately how he could have fallen into a canyon when the only valley in the entire park was a dozen miles away from the mountain.

He scrabbled up to his hooves, shaking himself desperately off, before his ears twitched, and his body trembled, and he realized that everything had gone completely silent. The air was frozen, and the world was still, and there was no more sense of being pursued. Beneath his hooves, the ground trembled, and grew hard; the wind rasped through the trench, and then the air itself seemed to freeze, becoming like glass around him. He was afraid that if he moved, it would shatter.

Something breathed on his neck, but the breath was cold.

There was no more fear, as a hoof gently grasped his shoulder. There was only serenity and acceptance and a strange, hollow relief, as a voice said: “We offer you freedom. We offer you strength. We bestow our blessing upon you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Toadsfall said weakly, and he smiled as his head tilted back. There was no more thought or thinking. He was stripped bare, naked, helpless, essential. He was empty, and it was good. “Yes.”

It touched him. Reached into him.

There was no more Toadsfall. There was just a hollow shell, drooling and broken, alone in a place where even the beings from beyond the stars did not dare to reach. Alone with only a horror from the coldest depths of the loneliest of hells for company; alone with a thing that should not be.

The thing smiled.

The thing leaned in and whispered soothingly into the pony-shell's ear.

The thing breathed its poison into him.

The thing slipped away with one last lover's caress, before it faded from sight, content that its work had been done; delighted with the host that the foolish Kiz had chased right into its waiting embrace.

For a few minutes, the pony shell only stood, vapid and drooling, staring into nothing. Then, what had once been Toadsfall twisted and twitched, gurgled, then screamed. It rasped, hissed, then howled again, foam spilling from its jaws before it stumbled forward. It shook and raged violently against the darkness in the canyon, looking wildly back and forth as his blood froze in his veins, as his hooves and skin cracked as frost spread through his body and made it brittle, as bones contorted and twisted themselves.

He screamed as skin blackened and burnt with cold, as flesh rotted away. He stumbled, gurgling, a hell-shape in the darkness with an eerie, broken grin, consumed with madness and hatred as he chuckled and rasped, eyes that burned black with hate and hunger looking back and forth before he began to stagger eagerly out of the gorge, leaving a trail of frostbite and horsehair in his wake.

The wretched, soon-hairless thing ran eagerly, guided only by hunger, driven by faint shapes in memory and a desire to feed, and most deliciously to feed upon what had once been its kin. But it was beyond that now, without either family or friend.

All was food. All was to feed its hungers.

All would be consumed.

Author's Note

If you are enjoying the story and want to contribute to its continuing creation, please make a donation to charity here. Donations give you an extra vote per dollar, letting you choose the route the story should take, and any donation of five dollars or above allows you to request a specific character be written into the story. The more you donate, the more you get, and I'm open to discussion on the subject.
Sometimes things seem really good. And then they get really bad.

Karmic Choice:

A: Last Call should be prepared to make any sacrifices necessary in the journey ahead. He has to reach his wife. He has to save her. He owes her too much.

B: Last Call needs to remember his wife wants him to do more than save her. It's about more than just what he wants.

Plot Choice:

1: Last Call should head to the station at the summit. It's the most likely place they've taken her.

2: Last Call should head to the ruins and the excavation site. It's where a cult would hide out.

Of Bad, And Worse

Chapter Ten: Of Bad, And Worse
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call checked the bandages he'd applied to Furor, the Changeling smiling briefly at him before he lowered his head a little in humility, mumbling: “Thanks.”

The stallion only shrugged as he looked for a few moments at Furor: the Changeling had shifted his form back to the shape of the unicorn, and Last Call couldn't help but ask: “Are you sure that you want to...”

“It's more comfortable for me.” Furor half-answered, and Last Call shrugged before he looked over at Silent Wish, who smiled a little at him beneath the oversized ranger's jacket he had dug out for her to hide her wings. She had a small satchel on, too, with a few flares they'd dug up and some medical supplies: bandages and painkillers, mainly.

He checked his own gear: a satchel with some more supplies, a new flashlight with new batteries, a warm jacket to help protect against the elements and another that was his wife's size stashed away in the satchel. He was determined to do everything right: he wasn't going to screw things up this time, no matter what it meant he had to do.

It was a good thing they had stopped here to rest. He was aware that it might mean they wouldn't catch up to Pink and Schmisse immediately, but the rest and supplies would hopefully mean that they would be able to get through the rest of the journey to the summit without any serious difficulties.

Furor wrestled himself into a jacket, then he glanced over at Last Call as he brushed at himself, saying: “I'm ready whenever you are.”

“Alright. Let's get moving, then.” Last Call headed towards the door, turning on the new flashlight and smiling a little: it was hooded so the beam was much narrower, but it was far brighter. With a little luck, it would be easier for them to see where they were going while it would be harder for the monsters in the darkness to hunt them down.

Well, that was probably going a little far. But the narrower, and more concealable light would at least help with when they came across... whoever the hell these ponies were that were holding his wife hostage. Last Call nodded briefly to himself, then he opened the door-

He stared stupidly out at a chubby stallion, who gaped in disbelief back at him. Silent Wish and Furor both blinked and gaped, and Happenstance fell on his knees and nearly broke down into tears, rasping: “Thank God!”

Last Call blinked, then he stepped forward and grasped Happenstance, half-hauling him to his hooves as he blurted out: “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I was chased here!” Happenstance whimpered, looking up at Last Call as his whole body trembled. He was dirty and filthy, Last Call noted, and he seemed even more battered than before, the poor, chubby stallion struggling to hold in his sobs even as tears ran down his face and he blurted out: “I was so terrified! Oh, Last Call, I, I'm so sorry that I ran away, but when those monsters appeared I didn't have any choice? Please please please tell me I'm not insane, t-that you've seen them, that... how did you get here? How did you survive? They're everywhere!”

“Happenstance, hey, calm down, okay? Let's... let's get you inside.” Last Call was loathe to lose more time, but at the same time... poor bastard, look at him. And maybe... “What happened? Can you tell me that?”

Happenstance trembled and shook, but as they helped him inside and sat him down in a chair, he took immediate, clear comfort in the light and the warmth of the ranger station. His breathing slowed, and he scrubbed childishly at his face before he nodded a few times, saying finally: “I'm sorry. I just... it's mad, Last Call! I can't believe what's going on!”

Last Call smiled a little, nodding a bit before he said as gently as possible: “Yeah, I know. It's crazy. But so far, a lot of ponies seem to uh... still be okay.” He decided against mentioning Toadsfall, looking pointedly at Furor before he turned his eyes back to Happenstance. “What happened?”

“Well... after you left, the monsters...” Happenstance shuddered, shaking his head vehemently for a moment before he visibly struggled to regain his composure again as he scrubbed quickly at his face. “Sorry, I'm sorry, I just... I just ran. I don't know what else to say. They chased me all the way into the mountain, and I got lost in all the tunnels... I don't even know how I finally managed to get out! I just kept following one wall, like you're supposed to when you're stuck in a maze.”

“I guess that explains why it took you so long to get out.” Furor said dryly, and Happenstance smiled sheepishly and lowered his head a little.

“I know it wasn't the smartest. I didn't know what else to do, though... I was just lucky that it seemed like the monsters got lost in the tunnels, too.” Happenstance halted, then he shook his head and murmured: “But I thought I heard... screaming. And I... I saw something awful. I thought it was dragging someone away...”

Happenstance trembled, and Furor looked pointedly over at Last Call, but Last Call only nodded and said after a moment: “It's okay now, Happenstance, okay? Look, uh... we were with some friends, but... we got split up by... by monsters. We're heading to the summit. If you come with us, maybe we can find them.”

“The summit? Why are we heading upward?” Happenstance blinked in surprise before he fearfully bit at his hooves, shaking his head helplessly. “I, I don't think that's a good idea at all, we should get out of here as fast as we can, Call! I... unless that's what you plan to do? Yes, that must be it, the cable car at the top of the mountain might still work! I know it's been ages since they've used it, but there's always a chance, isn't-”

“No, I'm looking for my wife, Happenstance.” Last Call said firmly, and Happenstance blinked before the stallion bit his lip and added grudgingly: “But look. I'm not going to drag anyone along who doesn't want to come. If the car really is a way out-”

Happenstance gave an indecisive little noise, and Last Call cocked an eyebrow, the chubby stallion fidgeting fearfully before he mumbled: “Only if it works. Chances are it hasn't been used for quite a few years. And even if it does, the old road is well overgrown. Oh, Toadsfall would know more, I wish he was here.”

“You're the only one who does.” Furor muttered, and Happenstance looked at him curiously before he brightened suddenly.

“Furor!” he blurted out, like he was seeing him for the first time, and then the Changeling winced when Happenstance hugged him firmly. “Furor, my lad! You're okay!”

“That hurts!” Furor wheezed, and Last Call winced as he helped pry the chubby pony off his friend, sighing a little as Furor stumbled backwards before he scowled as he hugged his ribs with one foreleg, asking dryly: “Are we going or not? Look, it doesn't matter what our plans are. It won't be safe here forever, so we have to move forward, and whether we stay or go, the summit sounds like our next stop.”

“Schmisse was right about the cable car, which means he's probably right about them using it to move supplies, too.” Last Call said with as much hope as he could muster: if he sounded like he believed in it enough, maybe they would too. And Horses of Heaven know belief alone has gotten us this far. “You're right, though: no matter what we decide, we have to go.”

Furor grimaced but nodded, while Happenstance chewed apprehensively on his hooves, eyes wide and childish and frightened before he swallowed thickly and nodded. “I'll... I'll do my best, but... I just... I hope that none of those monsters follow us. You'll keep your flashlight on, won't you? I think they're scared of the light...”

“I think they're starting to get used to it.” Furor muttered, before he shook his head and gestured at Last Call, who nodded once.

“I'll keep it on while we move up the mountain, at least. I don't remember the path very well.” Last Call answered, and he gently patted Happenstance on the shoulder before he said quietly: “Just keep it together, okay? And... hey, grab a blanket or something. It's cold outside.”

Happenstance smiled a little, then he grabbed a blanket off the back of the armchair and awkwardly wrapped the fuzzy thing around himself. “Oh, don't worry too much about me, I... I have the extra padding, after all.” Happenstance laughed a little, looking awkwardly, almost shamefully down, and Last Call softened a bit before the stallion said hurriedly: “Let's just go. Before I lose my nerve and beg to stay here. I need to...”

He paused, looked at Silent Wish for a moment, then he smiled in embarrassment as he hurriedly looked away from the filly, mumbling: “I need to grow a little backbone, I suppose. I... I don't think we've been introduced, my name is Happenstance, and I'm-”

“Okay. That's good. Happenstance, this is Silent Wish.” Last Call interrupted, recognizing the beginning of a familiar spiel.

Silent Wish nodded awkwardly, before she blushed a bit when Happenstance thrust a hoof towards her with a smile, and she hesitated for a few moments before nervously reaching up to shake his hoof with one of her little claws. But Happenstance was next to oblivious before he asked curiously: “Aren't you a little short for a Night Guard?”

Silent Wish only scowled a little, and Last Call sighed, but admittedly there was a mix of amusement and relief there, too: if Happenstance hadn't been so oblivious, he might have started screaming 'monster' instead. “Let's go, guys.”

Happenstance nodded, and Last Call led the way out the door, Furor and Silent Wish following, and the chubby stallion dawdling along, last in line. He nervously pulled his blanket tighter around his body as they stepped out into the cool night air, but the snow had stopped, at least, although it had left more than a dusting of white in its wake.

Last Call grimaced a bit as he tromped his way to the path leading up the mountain: it circled around the outside of the cliff, and while electric lanterns flickered here and there along the route, for the most part it was just spaces of sparkling darkness next to a wall of black, above a sea of empty, shifting shadow. The snow both helped and hindered them: the trail glimmered under the starlight, but it could also be hiding any number of slopes, pitfalls, traps, crevices...

Last Call shivered a little, then he turned on his flashlight, and winced a bit at how brightly the snow in front of him lit up with the reflected light. It was almost blinding. He stepped onto the bottom of the path, then bit his lip before saying finally: “Be careful. Stay close to the wall as much as possible.”

The others nodded, and he turned before he began to make his way up, grimacing a bit as his hooves puffed up snow with every step. It was deeper than he'd imagined, and the stallion almost pressed his body to the side of the mountain as they fell into a single-file line.

Last Call stopped at the first island of light formed by a lantern, the stallion glancing at the electric light and studying it for a moment before he muttered: “Someone must have turned these all on recently. I wonder if it's a message from Schmisse.”

“No trail.” Furor pointed out, and Last Call nodded briefly.

“The snow seemed like it started after we got out of the tunnels, right? They might have ignored the cabin and kept heading to the summit. If they moved quickly enough...” Last Call shook his head: they had made their choice, either way. “Let's just keep going for now.”

“Oh dear. I hope they're alright.” Happenstance murmured, shivering a little as he clenched the blanket tighter around his body, looking worriedly up towards the summit. “We... we must have circled the mountain twice by now!”

“Not even once. The trail will move inward soon, though.” Last Call explained, glancing back over his shoulder with a small smile. “Let's keep moving, okay? It's easier if we move.”

Happenstance nodded after a moment even as he shifted worriedly, and Furor and Silent Wish both fell in behind Call. The stallion did his best to focus on what was ahead instead of trying to look behind him, moving a little faster now as he worried what was above, and whether or not Schmisse and Pink were okay.

They began to round a narrow bend, and Last Call grimaced a little as his eyes wandered away from the trail to look out into the endless, starry darkness. Then his eyes widened as he heard a half-cry, looking back over his shoulder in shock to watch as the snow broke away from beneath Silent Wish's hooves as she stumbled at the edge of the path, her eyes going wide with alarm as Happenstance gave a strangled little yell as he grabbed uselessly at her-

Furor turned and stepped forward, managing to grab Silent Wish by one foreleg, and for a moment, Last Call thought everything was going to be okay as Happenstance flopped uselessly down to the ground-

The mountain itself seemed to rumble, and Furor had a moment to look surprised before the powder spilled out from under his hooves, washing him and Silent Wish off the edge of the mountain. They tumbled down as Happenstance squeaked, snow spilling around him and brushing his blanket loose, but his heavy, uncoordinated body refused to be moved by the flood of snow as Last Call stumbled a bit, then shouted desperately down into the darkness.

But they were gone. Gone, fallen off the mountain, already out of sight. Last Call stumbled towards the edge, then winced when Happenstance scrambled forward and grabbed him, nearly throwing him back against the wall as he blurted out: “No!”

Last Call stared at him numbly, and Happenstance trembled violently before he shook his head as he whimpered: “No. No, no, no, please be careful! I... maybe we should try and go down-”

“I...” Last Call bit his lip, looking down the cliff, before he looked uneasily up towards the summit, torn between decisions. And yet he knew that if they had fallen all the way down the mountain... Furor... “No. I want to, but I know we have to head to the summit. I just... I have to do better.”

He looked down silently for a moment, thinking silently about how he always screwed up everything, no matter how hard he tried: maybe if he'd been faster, maybe if he'd been watching where they were going, maybe maybe maybe...

“Last Call, they might still... we can still get out of here. If we're fast enough, we can alert the Royal Guard, and the army can come in and they can drive off these... monsters. Furor's smart and stubborn and I'm sure he'll protect that little filly, I know he has a good heart.” Happenstance said, shaking his head vehemently before he forced a shaky smile. “But we won't get anywhere just... crying here.”

“Yes, you're right.” Last Call said after a moment, before he bit his lip and nodded, muttering: “Stay close.”

The chubby stallion nodded back, hurrying up behind Last Call as they continued along the path, Last Call making sure to test and sweep his leg through the snow with every step now, always staying close to the wall and constantly checking back on Happenstance. It took much longer than he'd expected to reach the summit at the pace he set, but all the same, they made it safely to the turn that led into a gorge.

They were sheltered from the cold wind and the snow in this crevice in the mountain, and while it made Last Call claustrophobic, the fact that they were passing old trail markers that had been nailed here and there into the stone reassured him... at least, as much as he could be reassured at this point.

His heart hurt. He felt like an incredible, miserable failure. How could he have let them fall? How was it that he had walked right past that loose shelf of snow, and they had...

Last Call grimaced a bit and focused back on the present, as much as he could. He focused his flashlight ahead, on a step of natural stone stairs that ramped up out of the gorge: just up these, and they would be on the short trail to the summit. He knew there was an excavation site, the converted ranger station or research facility or whatever it was, and apparently a cable car, all in the shadow of the monolith that had been carved on top of the mountain...

“Last Call.” Happenstance whispered fearfully, and Call frowned a bit, halting on the stairs to glance over his shoulder at Happenstance. The stallion looked up at him miserably, and Call frowned again in confusion before the chubby pony hung his head shamefully and mumbled: “I... I have to go to the bathroom.”

“What?” Call stared blankly for a few moments at Happenstance, and then he asked disbelievingly: “Here? Now? Happenstance, hold it-”

“I have been!” Happenstance whined, but his cheeks were flushed with humiliation, his eyes teary, his whole body shaking as he clutched at his stomach. “W-What do I do?”

“I... just...” Last Call grabbed at his head, then he said tiredly: “Just go to the bathroom. It doesn't even matter. We have... much bigger things to worry about.”

“I can't!” Happenstance squawked, and Last Call winced and gestured violently at him to be quiet. “I can't when someone's around.” Happenstance whispered, lowering his head shamefully before the chubby stallion mumbled: “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I haven't... I'm a very regular... I spent all day eating and of course I didn't think that-”

“Okay, enough.” Last Call said, maybe a little forcefully, and Happenstance wilted. Last Call grimaced, then he said after a moment: “Do it here, there's... plenty of nooks for you to. Do it in. I'll go up the stairs and just... don't keep me waiting, okay?”

Happenstance nodded awkwardly, giving a trembling smile as a few tears ran down his cheeks before he scurried away, then he whimpered a little and looked back at Call, asking: “Do you have another flashlight? I... I'm just...”

“Look, just take mine. You can signal me with it when you're done.” Last Call said after a moment, sighing a bit as he reached up and took his flashlight off. Happenstance looked both humiliated and grateful, lowering his head shamefully as Last Call slipped it onto him, before he turned and headed for the stairs: there was still enough light to see by, and if anything happened, he had a few flares in his satchel... although Silent Wish was carrying most of the supplies. Goddammit... “Just... be safe.”

“Yes. Yes, I will, and I'll flash the light up to you when I'm done and you can come get me.” Happenstance said hurriedly, before he turned and scuttled quickly off around a corner, and Last Call rubbed tiredly at his face before he turned and headed up the sloping steps of the gorge.

He grimaced a bit as he emerged onto the trail at the top of the mountain, looking uneasily up it: in the distance, he could see the outline of a building, while to the other side, there was the enormous, strange, carven monolith that stood atop this mountain. He had never really spent much time wandering around up here, thanks mostly to laziness, but he knew that in the summer months, at least, the weird, crushed-in mountaintop drew a lot of visitors.

He tapped his hoof for a few moments, then sighed and finally turned around, hesitantly making his way back down the steps as he called in a low voice: “Happenstance?”

He didn't hear anything.

Last Call frowned uneasily as he descended to the bottom of the gorge, asking uncertainly: “Happenstance?”

Nothi-

A low groan.

Last Call shifted uneasily as a flurry of emotions ran through him. Fear, anger, hope, regret, hesitance. He stepped forwards, grimacing in anticipation of-

Last Call found himself less than a foot away from the stone-masked shape, the floating, rotting thing cocking its head at him almost curiously, the stone surfaces around it shimmering with muck that writhed eagerly in its wake.

His breath instantly halted and his eyes widened, body freezing up for a moment as the thing studied him, and then a single, slimy tentacle reached out and almost playfully stroked across Last Call's face.

It burned.

It burned, like he had just been sprayed with acid, his eye swelling up, his flesh searing.

Last Call screamed as he staggered backwards, then he turned and broke into a sprint. His body bounced painfully off jagged stone as the monster floated slowly behind him, writhing and twisting its way through the gorge after the stallion.

Last Call crashed into the bottom of the natural steps, gasping and clawing at them before he began to stumble quickly up them, swearing violently under his breath before he staggered to his hooves and clambered hurriedly up to the trail. But the floating, wretched thing was closing in behind him, chuckling quietly as it sailed over the rocks and steps that Last Call had to climb, stretching its mire-tentacles out towards him-

Last Call hit the trail and broke into a full gallop, charging blindly through darkness illuminated only by starlight to the end of the path. He tripped over the lip of the vast crater, and then screamed as he went head-over-heels, painfully rolling down a slope of rock until he landed, prone, on a gentle slope.

He struggled to catch his breath for a moment before he shoved himself to his hooves and stumbled onward, looking back over his shoulder fearfully. He couldn't see the awful thing anymore, but he could sense it was still there, still following through the darkness.

Last Call looked out across the crater of the mountaintop, forcing himself into a jagged trot. He breathed hard as he focused on his objective ahead: the research station or the abandoned ranger station or whatever the hell it was, he couldn't even keep it straight in his mind anymore.

The facility stood on stilts at the edge of the crater, shored up against the inward curvature of the mountaintop. There were trails leading to it, but the ground was smooth enough that Last Call was able to ignore them and make his way straight towards the facility, before his eyes widened as he caught a glimmer of light flash through the darkness ahead.

“H-Hey!” he shouted, before he could stop himself. Immediately, the light vanished, but Last Call thought he could vaguely see shapes under the starlight, and he gritted his teeth as he looked fearfully back over his shoulder for any trace of the apparition that had been following him, before he looked quickly back ahead and blurted out: “Hey! I need help!”

The light in the distance flashed on and off, and Last Call figured that was as good a response as he could hope for as he hurried towards it. He looked again over his shoulder, then turned his eyes back towards the shapes beneath the starlight-

A light flashed on in his face, Last Call swearing and covering his eyes with his foreleg, which caused him to stumble and fall on his face. But a moment later, to his great relief, a recognizable voice asked: “And somehow, after all of this, you're still alive?”

“Yeah, Schmisse.” Last Call said, as he felt his relief, his joy, wilt in his chest, and he murmured as he climbed to his hooves without looking at them: “Yeah. Just me.”

There was silence for a few moments, Pink frowning at him as she lowered the flashlight and Schmisse hesitating, before the stallion said finally: “We need to get out of here. Your wife is not here, and we were not able to salvage much from the station. I found this, however.”

Schmisse glanced back at what looked almost like a wool sack he had strung around himself, floating a folder out of it, and Last Call frowned as he took this, opening it even as he muttered: “I don't think this is really the time or place for...”

His eyes widened as he looked down, and even in the ambient light, his eyes immediately locked on the picture of his wife, the stallion mouthing wordlessly to himself for a moment before he whispered: “What is it?”

But he was already processing it: these were personnel summaries, although they were covered with writing and strange symbols he didn't understand. He half-recognized one of the other pictures: Rainy Days, he thought the pegasus was named.

“A list, obviously. The cipher is simple: each of these ponies is...” Schmisse hesitated, then he shook his head and gestured quickly, muttering: “I do not wish to discuss this out in the open. Our luck will not hold forever.”

“Yes. You're right, there was something chasing me. It's slow, but...” Last Call looked back over his shoulder, then he looked almost longingly towards the station before he asked desperately: “Are you sure that-”

“I am sure. We move to the cable car.” Schmisse said firmly, and Last Call knew there was no point in arguing with him, and that any hope he'd had of finding his wife here was gone.

He passed the file back to Schmisse, who tucked it into his sidepack. The trio didn't move yet, however, all three of them feeling the same sense of hesitation before Schmisse turned towards Last Call and asked almost emotionlessly: “Is Todesfall dead?”

“I don't know. Something grabbed him and dragged him off.” Last Call answered, and Schmisse studied him for a few moments before he nodded and gave a faint smile.

“I wish you had killed him. But I know that would be asking too much.” Schmisse said, before he turned and said calmly: “Keep up. It helps to remember that the pain is only a sign you're still alive.”

Pink smiled wryly, and Last Call nodded once, grimacing a little as the unicorn set a brisk pace. But he and the mare both kept up as much as they could, even though Pink's ankle was swollen and she was visibly... well, Last Call didn't know what a good word for it was, but she didn't look very well.

He studied her silently, and Pink glanced up with a frown after a moment. She looked back at him, then maybe softened a little, however grudgingly. “Your uh, friends... I'm sorry.”

“They might still be okay. I hope they're still okay. I just... it's my fault. It's my fault for being stupid.” Last Call murmured, looking down before he shook his head and muttered: “But I know I can't live in the past. I still have to find my wife. I just... I had hoped I could be a better person than I was.”

“There's still time for that. I guess I'm learning that too.” Pink said with a brief shrug, before she turned her eyes back ahead. “Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. That doesn't automatically mean we should just give up and stop even trying to be decent to each other. It's not always about where you end up, after all. It's about how you get there. Maybe that part's even more important.”

Last Call looked at Pink, then up at Schmisse as the stallion snorted and asked moodily: “How? Or do you think we can die pleased with ourselves if we fed ourselves to the wolves?”

“You and Toad turned out a lot different, Schmisse.” Last Call said bluntly, and Schmisse stumbled a little, but then he smiled wryly as he looked back over his shoulder, his pace evening out as he rose his head slightly.

“I have always felt it is our actions that determine where we go in life. And since I am acutely aware that we are all dying, it is... easier to keep what I want from this life in mind.” Schmisse shrugged a bit, before he looked ahead again, saying softly: “All I have is this journey. There is no mystery for me, where it ends.”

Last Call lowered his head a little, studying Schmisse quietly as they followed a natural trail to the lip of the crater. The stallion hesitated there for a moment as the unicorn and the mare continued down the slope towards a vaguely-lit hump in the distance, turning his eyes to gaze silently at the ranger station, but from this angle he could see the broken windows, the slumping walls, the lifelessness of the husk of building; there was nothing there for him. Just false hopes.

“Last Call.” Schmisse said firmly, and Last Call glanced up and smiled briefly, nodding silently. There was no point in lingering, he knew that. He had just needed that moment. This was for the best: he imagined if he'd veered towards the excavation site, he would have missed them entirely, and spent who knew how long wandering around this dark mountain, trying to convince himself... she was here.

But she wasn't.

Schmisse turned to walk onward, while Pink lingered for a moment, then turned to follow. Last Call fell in last after a few moments, lowering his head slightly and keeping his eyes on the ground more than anything else.

It only took them a few minutes to reach the cable car station: the small outbuilding was crumbling, but Pink shone her flashlight over several crates that looked very new, and Schmisse fearlessly walked onto the platform, testing a makeshift but recently-repaired railing around the border as he muttered: “Crude, but it has been taken care of. Pink, the tram?”

Pink shone her flashlight over the cable car: it looked rusted and beaten up, but the cables that it slid along were intact, the magical machinery seemed to be in decent condition, and the vehicle itself was whole, even if most of the windows had been covered up. Pink began to lower her light, but Schmisse barked something in his native language, and the mare froze as Last Call looked up with a frown.

Schmisse strode slowly over to entrance of the cable car, drawing a hoof along the warped rim of the doorway before he scowled a little as his eyes settled on a shape half-illuminated just past the entrance. He reached down and grasped this, then grimaced as he slowly hauled it backwards, and Pink flinched as Last Call's eyes widened in horror.

Schmisse grunted as he half-tossed a body bag onto the platform, looking at it intently for a few moments before he glanced down at a hoof. Then he snorted before he leaned over it, even as Pink hissed: “What the hell are you doing?”

“It's not heavy enough to be a body.” Schmisse stated, and Last Call winced but didn't speak even as the unicorn unzipped the bag, then he scowled in disgust, leaning away in revulsion at the reek that gasped out of it. Pink covered her face and Last Call shuddered, but he couldn't look away even as Schmisse pulled the bag open with telekinesis.

It stank like death and rot, but there was no body, as Schmisse had said: instead, the body bag was full of stained cloth and ratty clothing, Schmisse sorting through this carefully with telekinesis before he lifted a shirt and muttered: “These have all been marked and tagged. There do not seem to be any remains... why were they keeping these? Or have they brought this many sacrifices recently?”

Schmisse paused, then he lowered his head in thought before he suddenly glanced back at the satchel on his side, pulling out a booklet with telekinesis and popping it open as he floated a shirt beside him. He murmured thoughtfully under his breath as he shuffled through the pages as Last Call and Pink both apprehensively joined him, the mare shuddering a little as Last Call uneasily looked at the body bag, before Schmisse clicked his tongue and rose his head with a grunt.

“What? Did you figure it out?” Last Call asked dubiously, and Schmisse nodded with a grunt.

“We found this logbook among the other papers. I took it with me because it was marked with this symbol.” Schmisse explained, and Last Call stared blankly as Schmisse showed him the spine of the book: he had no idea what he was looking at. “Dummkopf. Fine, do not worry what it means.

“This book is filled with initials, times, and locations. These initials match the names written on some of these articles of clothing.” Schmisse tossed down a shirt, picking up another sheet as he said quietly: “These are being used as... proof. As receipts. They have been moving corpses.”

“What?” Last Call asked again disbelievingly, and Schmisse only smiled wryly before he tossed the sheet down, turning and heading into the cable car. Last Call and Pink traded looks, then followed, and whatever else the stallion might have wanted to say died in his throat as Pink shone her light down the aisle and lit up the coffin-shaped lockboxes at the back of the transport.

Schmisse unhooked the clamps on one of these before anyone could stop him, opening it with a scowl. Pink immediately turned away with a gasp, but even as her flashlight's glow danced across the walls, in the dim ambience reflected off the metal, Last Call could still see the corpse of a young mare resting peacefully in the metal coffin, wrapped in a sheet and dressed neatly.

“God.” Last Call whispered, and his hooves dragged him closer, the stallion staring down in disbelief as his throat went dry, before he whispered: “Did they kill her? Did... did they kill-”

“No.” Schmisse said, surprising the stallion, and then the unicorn simply dropped the lid on the coffin even as Last Call saw the mare's eyes open-

Last Call wheezed, and Schmisse looked at him oddly before he glanced back at the metal coffin before he shook his head and lifted the log book in front of the pale stallion. “These ponies were already dead. This logbook includes two times, and the locations the ponies come from are always the same: either a funeral parlour or a hospital.”

“Why the hell would they want corpses? What are they doing with them?” asked Last Call weakly, before he blurted out: “The clothing-”

“Receipts. Proof. Both that the corpses have been moved and, I suppose, to prevent anyone from... getting cold hooves, I believe is the saying.” Schmisse answered distastefully, shaking his head shortly. “Perhaps they are ghouls. Perhaps they thought corpses would feed or keep the beasts away. I do not know and I do not care. All I know is that...”

Schmisse hesitated, and Last Call really didn't like it when Schmisse hesitated. “There were no corpses at the station. Perhaps they were moved somewhere else across the mountain, but...”

“But you doubt it. Why?” Last Call asked uncertainly, and Schmisse scowled as he looked at the metal coffins for a moment, then he turned and headed to the front of the cable car, past a miserable-looking Pink.

Schmisse absently tapped at the simple controls for the transport, then he sighed before saying finally: “There were no signs of storage where we were. Nor would you keep dead bodies in place you were perhaps using as a base of sorts.”

“You don't poop where you eat.” Pink muttered, and Schmisse smiled dryly over his shoulder at her before she asked shortly: “So are you saying this cable car isn't going to take us to safety after all? Or what, this mountain is full of hidden dead ponies?”

“I do not know.” Schmisse said moodily. “They would not be able to move corpses, however, through a property as large as this without at least the knowledge of-”

“Toad said something before about the cult paying him, helping them.” Last Call said abruptly, and Schmisse frowned at him. “But... why didn't my wife ever mention this? And what about the other ponies who worked here?”

“Perhaps they were involved.” Schmisse said, and he met Last Call's gaze steadily even as the stallion immediately snarled. “You cannot pretend it has not occurred to-”

“It hasn't. I know my wife.” growled Last Call, before he shook his head vehemently and snapped: “Look, it doesn't matter either way! Are we leaving or not? Even if this thing just takes us wherever they've been taking dead bodies, if it's a step closer to finding her, I'm going there, do you understand me?”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Schmisse nodded once before he said quietly: “There is no running back the way we came. We must move forward.”

“Great. I guess they're just a little ahead of us, anyway.” Pink mumbled glumly, and Schmisse smiled wryly before he gestured at her, and Pink absently unattached her flashlight to toss it in the unicorn's direction.

He caught it with telekinesis, bringing it over so he could study the controls as Last Call looked back at the cold metal coffins, and he bit his lip for a moment before he quickly reached out and sealed the one Schmisse had opened back closed. Pink snorted, and the stallion scowled over his shoulder at her as the mare said dryly: “Hey. If they want to come out, you should let them out. At this point, I feel like I could deal with zombies just fine.”

“You must come from somewhere weird.” Last Call muttered, and Pink snorted.

“Don't worry. Where I come from, they all think I'm crazy, too.” Pink halted, and then she lowered her head and murmured: “Imagine, spending your entire life as someone else. Shoved off in a little corner of your own mind, unable to control your own body, while someone laughs and guffaws and makes nice with every single pony in the world, it seems like. And then all of a sudden you get back in control because that... that spirit or that ghost or that monster or whatever it was moves on, and here you are. No one believes you when you talk about it, and everyone thinks you've gone loony. You can't keep up the smiles or the act she did, though, because you're not her. You're not the friend your former friends all liked and loved and laughed with.”

Pink quieted, and Schmisse snorted before he said without bothering to look back: “If they do not like you unless you are pretending to be somepony else, then they are not your friends, are they?”

“Easy for you to say.” Pink said sourly, glowering at Schmisse.

The unicorn began to respond, but then lights flashed on through the cable car as machinery whirred into life above and around them. The transport vibrated violently, Last Call nearly falling over as Pink winced and flung herself back in one of the bench seats, but Schmisse only smiled to himself before he turned to yank the sliding door closed.

His eyes widened as he saw a horrific thing was standing on the platform beyond, cataract eyes staring back and forth like a surprised animal at the light, frost steaming out of its lipless maw as it panted soundlessly. Its hooves shivered against the earth as its hairless, frostbitten body flexed, the bare muscle across its mutant frame visibly contorting and bulging as it writhed in blind confusion between the blare of light for a moment before it suddenly looked directly at him.

“Schmissy.” it rasped.

Schmisse slammed the door of the cable car shut, then shouted in pain as a hoof slammed through the sliding metal like it was made of cheap plastic, smashing into him with such force that he was knocked backwards in a spray of blood. The monster roared eagerly as it yanked its limb back, grabbing wildly at the door as Pink nearly fell out of her seat and Last Call gaped, until Schmisse howled: “Starte das wagen!”

Pink swore as she leapt to her hooves and hurried down the aisle, flinging herself at the controls and grabbing a lever to yank it back, and the cable car lurched before it began to slide slowly away down the cables. The monster howled in vexation as its hooves scraped against the broken door, pulling it off the rails before ripping thin trails through the metal wall beyond as it stumbled to the end of the platform.

Schmisse gasped as he clutched at his limb, Pink and Last Call both trying to help him, and he hissed at them before shoving them back. Pink winced, then cried out in shock as something crashed down on top of the cable car, and Last Call cursed before he dug quickly in his satchel, pulling out a flare.

Schmisse only examined himself, feeling lightheaded and detached: but he could recognize the symptoms of shock, just as he saw that the wound that had been punched in his breast looked at first glance like it was rotting... no, no, that wasn't rot. Blackened, and ugly, but there was ice in his blood. Frostbite, not rot.

The monster prowled across the roof, rasping hungrily before it screamed suddenly, stumbling, and Schmisse smiled wryly as he muttered, his words eerily calm: “I suppose Todesfall could not resist touching the cables.”

“Todesfall?” Last Call asked disbelievingly, and then he looked up in horror as he heard a twisted laugh above, before wincing as something punched down against the roof of the cable car with enough force to dent it.

“It is bruder, I am sure of it. I am...” Schmisse shivered, then flinched as Pink slapped him, his eyes flickering before he gasped in pain as the mare grasped him and dragged him back down the aisle.

“We need to help him!” she snapped, and Last Call nodded quickly as he pulled off his satchel and tossed it to her.

“Keep an eye on him, and I'll see if there's anything-”

He caught something in the corner of his eye, a moment before one of the windows shattered inward in a hail of glass and sent him stumbling, blackened, frostbitten Todesfall leaning in eagerly towards him with a gurgle of hunger. His jaws gnashed as his hoof stretched towards him, the monster trying to slither in through the broken window as he hissed: “Last Call!”

Last Call swore as a blacked hoof swung at him, nearly catching him before the stallion snapped the top off the flare. It burst into life, and Toadsfall screeched at the intensity of the light, covering his eyes before he screamed in agony when Last Call shoved it forward into his face.

Toadsfall shoved himself away from the cable car, and fell with a scream of frustration and pain into the sea of darkness. Last Call couldn't help but lean out the window, but all he saw were shadows below.

The flare sparked and hissed in his hoof, and Last Call looked at it for a moment before he grimaced and simply flung it down into the darkness below. If the woods caught fire, so be it: may Toadsfall and the whole park burn for all he cared. But the flare seemed to be swallowed up in the shadows they were passing over, and Last Call sighed a little before he frowned uneasily as a strange scent caught his nostrils. Brine, he thought. But they weren't anywhere near the sea.

Last Call shook his head slowly, then he finally pushed himself back inside the cable car, and then he smiled awkwardly at Pink, who was looking at him with an eyebrow cocked.

Schmisse, however, only chuckled quietly before he said tiredly: “I told you that you should have killed him.”

Last Call sighed, and then he shook his head before he looked back out the window, saying quietly: “Something strange is happening. I can't see anything out there. It's like everything around us vanished. Like it's only us.”

“I hope not. I have no problem with ceasing to exist, but... I do not desire to spend my empty eternity stuck with you two for company.” Schmisse said, and Last Call smiled briefly as Pink silently tended to the unicorn's wounds as much as she could. But Last Call could tell from her expression... “Why are you wasting this on me? Leave me to die. It is fine.”

Pink looked at Schmisse for a moment, and then she reached down and squeezed his wound, and Schmisse gasped in pain before the mare said in a low, rough voice: “You aren't dying. Not yet, anyway. Do you understand?”

“Mares. Bruder was only half-right about your kind. You all bring more pain than you do pleasure.” Schmisse retorted, but he nodded ever so slightly as he closed his eyes and murmured: “Give me something to do. One cannot die while there are still things to do. Let us discuss those files.”

Last Call nodded as he walked over to join the two in their huddle at the back of the cable car. But in the back of his mind, he wondered silently if they weren't all going to die with all their business unfinished, as the cable car rolled slowly through the darkness, surrounded only by shadow and eternity.

Author's Note

If you are enjoying the story and want to contribute to its continuing creation, please make a donation to charity here. Donations give you an extra vote per dollar, letting you choose the route the story should take, and any donation of five dollars or above allows you to request a specific character be written into the story. The more you donate, the more you get, and I'm open to discussion on the subject.
Not super happy with this transitional chapter, but we get to the part I've been waiting for next, which should be a lot better.

Karmic Choice

A: Last Call should take all the supplies he can, and leave Schmisse and Pink at the cable car station.

B: Last Call should share what he can with Pink and Schmisse, and continue to help them.

Plot Choice:

1: It is nighttime.

2: It is daytime.

In A Kingdom By The Sea

Chapter Eleven: In A Kingdom By The Sea
~BlackRoseRaven

The cable car rolled through the blackness, swaying ponderously as it sailed through an empty, endless sea of nothing. Last Call stared out the window at the infinite darkness beyond: it was like even the stars had vanished, as they creaked and clunked their way along the cables.

Pink was shifting nervously near the controls: she clearly wanted to turn back. Schmisse was resting against the cool metal coffins, breathing slowly and evenly, his eyes closed but very much awake as one of his front hooves traced erratically over the front of a logbook. Last Call wondered silently how much longer the unicorn was going to live, or if there was anything he could even do for him at this point.

They had gone through the logbooks for what had felt like hours: Schmisse, to Last Call's surprise, had grabbed quite a few papers and booklets, claiming they might be important, but Last Call thought it had been... maybe not so much desperation, but rather Schmisse's own weird way of normalizing things, clinging to things. Schmisse seemed fine with the fact they were being chased by hideous monsters; it was the mystery surrounding everything that was clearly getting to him, the desire to understand being rebuffed at every turn by the impossible.

Last Call guessed he could understand. It was probably hard to be frightened by freaks and monsters when you'd grown up with someone like Toadsfall for your older brother. Whereas meanwhile, the unicorn studied ciphers, mysteries, secret facts for a living...

Schmisse opened an eye, looking querulously at Last Call, and Last Call smiled briefly at him before he said: “I think we're close.”

“No. We're very far away.” Schmisse answered, but then he nodded briefly as he straightened a little, rubbing slowly at his soaked bandages. Then he looked down at the logbook in front of him, flipping it open and idly paging through it to the last page he'd marked up before they'd stopped, murmuring: “I don't understand it at all. The answer is here, but we're missing a crucial piece of information. The why... but nothing makes sense. Or perhaps this reality has simply not bent us enough to be able to see the answer.”

“None of us know anything about the Kiz. If Silent were here, maybe she could tell us, but...” Last Call fell quiet, and then he shook his head before he frowned uneasily as he heard a creaking, the cable car vibrating as if they had just passed through a dense patch of air.

He climbed to his hooves and walked over to the window as Pink tensed and Schmisse only frowned, and for a few moments, Last Call wasn't sure what it was he was seeing as he leaned forward. The stars were back above, but filtered through thick fog that reeked of the sea, and the cable car was creaking its way between brick and wood buildings, slowly lowering towards the ground.

Last Call mouthed wordlessly as he stared at the town they were calmly sliding their way into. What the hell was a town doing here? And why could he smell, almost taste, the sea? It was insane, impossible, as if...

Well, reality was already broken, wasn't it?

Last Call laughed weakly, and then he shook his head as he looked over at Schmisse as Pink stared out one of the other windows, the stallion finally saying: “You're not going to believe this.”

“At this point, I care about nothing and could believe anything.” Schmisse said tiredly, before he asked distastefully: “Aliens, perhaps? Another gauntlet? Are the cultists waiting for us?”

“We're coming into a town. It doesn't look like any place I've been to before, either.” answered Last Call with a brief shake of his head, and Schmisse frowned as Last Call leaned back out the broken window, gazing through the fog at the sprawling, rectangular buildings of the town they were descending into. “It looks like we're going to dock at a station ahead.”

“We should turn back.” Pink said almost urgently, and Last Call frowned in surprise over his shoulder at the mare, who trembled and shook her head vehemently. “No, no, this is bad, really bad, and we should turn back right now!”

“Do you recognize that town?” Schmisse asked, and Pink snorted and hugged herself as she looked nervously out the window.

“I don't need to know where we are to know this is bad news. How can you possibly think this is a good idea? Schmisse, you're dying, we need to turn around right now and get to safety, not-”

“Look, I need to find my wife-”

“Last Call, do you really think she's still alive?” Pink burst out almost desperately, gesturing at him helplessly. “And if you find her, do you really think that she's... how could anyone have come this far, survived this far, and not been part of that cult?”

“We weren't, and they must have brought us all the way up to that mountain... if we weren't being kept in that station, then likely the excavation site.” murmured Schmisse, and it sounded less like he was arguing with Pink and more like he was just speaking thoughts out loud that he had been steadily trying to work out on his own. “The real question is why they were bringing us... living ponies. Entführung is a big step up leichenschändung.”

Schmisse chuckled to himself, and Last Call wondered uneasily if the stallion was okay as Pink scowled and muttered: “We need to get you to a hospital, Schmisse.”

“I will never make it to a hospital. But I can perhaps make it to the answers to this mystery. If you are willing to help me, a little, of course.” Schmisse smiled briefly over at Last Call, and Last Call softened: as calm as he sounded, Call could see how hard it was for Schmisse to ask that.

He nodded briefly, and Pink grumbled under her breath before she sighed tiredly and dropped her head, mumbling: “Fine. Okay. I get it.”

She winced as the cable car screeched and groaned as it descended into the station, the trembles increasing through the cable car as the lights of the transport flickered violently. But after a few moments, it settled to a stop with a rumble as the machinery gradually geared down, then turned itself off with a hiss of dying breath.

No, just steam: it wasn't alive. They weren't travelling to their deaths in some great whale or anything ridiculous like that.

Last Call breathed slowly, closing his eyes tightly before he rubbed violently at his face, and then he looked up and said finally: “Let's just start by getting off this thing.”

Pink scowled a little, then winced as Schmisse forced himself up to his hooves: both she and Last Call hurried forward to help, the stallion cursing under his breath before he muttered: “I am fine, I do not need... either of you.”

“Don't be an idiot.” Last Call murmured as he and Pink helped Schmisse to the broken door. Pink and Last Call were able to shoulder it open together and half-carry the unicorn through onto the platform beyond.

Several other derelict cable cars sat around the perimeter of the wooden station, and only a single lamp glimmered, hanging from the roof of a long awning that hung over half the platform, supported by warped wooden timbers. Last Call noted as they passed beneath it that the lantern wasn't even magical in design: it was oil, with a heart of fire.

They entered through a set of large, swinging doors into the station beyond, and Last Call gestured with his head towards a set of chairs in the front corner of the room, near a set of pulled curtains. “Let's settle down there.”

Schmisse grunted, giving one futile attempt to shake the two ponies off before he allowed them to half-carry him over to the chairs. Last Call automatically searched the interior as they moved, noting that there were doors in the front and the back, what looked like lockers on one side, an abandoned counter to the other, and old fashioned lamp-lights hanging on chains filling the room with an ambience that would be pleasant... you know, if this place was supposed to actually exist.

Schmisse half-shoved them away as they reached the chairs, then he groaned as he dropped back into one with a grunt, a bit of blood spilling out from under the bandages as he gasped for breath. His head lolled back, and he seemed to fall out of reality for a moment as he looked off to the side, mumbling: “Ja, mutter. No, no... I speak the language fine, do you see? Hear, yes... it was a pun...”

He shook his head, then closed his eyes and rubbed slowly at his forehead as Last Call knelt in front of the stallion, grimacing a little before he murmured: “That... it looks like whatever's wrong with his skin is spreading.”

“We didn't bring the supplies in, did we?” Pink asked, and then she sighed and turned around, biting her lip as she turned away and murmured: “I'll go get them. But Last Call, I just... I don't think...”

“I don't care. I want to find my wife.” Last Call stopped, then he smiled faintly as he looked over at Pink, saying quietly: “But I'm not about to leave you guys behind either, okay? I know the only way we're going to survive this is if we stick together. I... I have to find my wife. But I can't... I have to do better.”

He glanced down, and Pink sighed a little as she murmured: “I think sometimes it doesn't matter if we do good or do bad, Last Call. It just... we are who we are. You can't run away from that, you can't escape that. Redemption... it's not as simple as 'do the nice stuff.' There's a lot of people and things that would take advantage of a nice guy like you...”

She stopped, then she looked up at him and asked: “What about your life? What if you die trying to save her? What if she's already dead?”

“I have to believe she's not. I don't... she's not.” Last Call shook his head, grimacing a bit before he looked silently over at Schmisse, muttering: “And... and if she is, I guess it's even more important that... I help the ponies I can.”

“That almost sounds naive. I almost admire that.” Pink murmured, and then she sighed and shook her head, shifting away another step before saying finally: “I'll go get the stuff out of the cable car. Try and keep him alive until I get back.”

Last Call thought her words stumbled a little, but he did his best to just smile at her before he turned his eyes back to Schmisse. He shifted towards him, and the stallion slowly turned his eyes towards him before he said softly: “Perhaps she is right. You should leave. Or at least, leave us.”

“I want to do everything I can to get you guys through this, too. I know I could just leave with the supplies, or you guys could have stayed on the carriage... you even could go back-”

“No. It is not an option for me. I will die going back. I will probably die going forward, too. But I would rather die facing the future than trying to run to what has already past, with my tail between my legs.” Schmisse answered, and then he shook his head a little before he grasped at the wound in his body, lowering his head slightly and closing his eyes with a soft rasp. “It is not the pain that is bothersome. I have spent my whole life in pain. It is the not-knowing. It is the frustration, the helplessness, the feeling of... needing another to be there for me. That was the worst part about the disease...”

He quieted, then chewed on his lip before he murmured: “I do not think, as cruel as Mama was to him, that it was all because bruder needed a keeper to lord over him. I think she made me his caretaker so he would also have to take care of me.”

Schmisse smiled briefly, and then he shook his head before he settled a little with a sigh, looking away as he murmured: “I wish you had killed poor bruder. Even he does not deserve this. And even if he does, it has made him that much more a threat.”

“Yeah.” Last Call couldn't think of anything else to say. He shifted awkwardly for a moment, then blurted out: “I'm not a killer, though, Schmisse. I don't... I don't think...”

“What does it matter what we think? It only matters what is.” Schmisse shook his head, then he patted one of his legs as he murmured: “Doctors thought I was mad. Thought I was a foal seeking attention. It is easy to disregard a child, after all, as fantastic and silly.

“Then one doctor, at the urging of frustrated Mama, ran a simple scan of my brain. I remember his face, how tight it got when he saw the results. The eyes... get small, the cheeks suck in, the ears fold back; the whole body tenses, the sound of hooves, scraping and pressing to the floor...”

Schmisse half-tilted his head, closing one eye slightly as he murmured: “If they had found it earlier, been more aggressive, the pain would not be so bad, my life would have been years longer. Tell me. Should I be grateful, do you think, for the years more I could have lived in pain thanks to the doctors, or should I hate them for the years fewer I'll have because they could not run a test, and thought lectures instead would help a simpleton foal?”

Schmisse's accent was thick, his voice slurring slightly, but he was all the same perfectly coherent. No, he was... emotional, Last Call thought, and he didn't know what to say, or how to react, or-

A scraping, screaming filled the air, and Schmisse blinked as Last Call rose his head sharply, before the unicorn gave a wry smile as he whispered: “Damn.”

Last Call swore as he realized where the sound was coming from and what it was, bolting across the lobby and shoving his way out onto the platform, but it was too late: the cable car was rolling slowly up into the darkness, away from the desolate town they had rolled into. All the same, he sprinted to the edge of the platform, almost tumbling off it into the gravel and broken lumber below as he shouted: “Pink! Pink, goddammit, Pink! What the hell do you think you're doing?”

But there was no response from Pink as she huddled in the cable car by the metal coffins, trembling and taking short whooping breaths in and out as she hugged herself. She stared at the ground, convincing herself this was the best possible thing she could do, at least for herself, and it had gone past the point where she could help any of them. Schmisse was dead on his hooves and Last Call was crazy, looking for a mare who was likely already dead, just like everyone else.

How could she trust him, anyway? Everypony he journeyed with ended up dead. She didn't want to die! She had just gotten her own body back, back in control of her life: she had been going back home, to finally take over the rock farm, to finally be somewhere where she could be happy... why, how had she ended up here? It wasn't fair!

She had to survive. She was so sorry it had come to this, but she was leaving. She would even send the cable car back if she could figure out how to, so when they came to their senses they could escape, if they were still alive.

She shook her head, then flinched as a voice asked her eagerly: “But doesn't this make life so much more wonderful? Aren't things better this way?”

“N-No, no!” Pink flinched away from the ghost, clenching her eyes shut and covering them with her hooves, but she knew it was useless to try and resist, as the spectre giggled, prancing up and down the aisle. “Go away!”

“I've never been gone very far, you know that! And I can't go away now, not when it took so long to get here!” replied the fiend brightly, and Pink swore under her breath, promising herself she wasn't going to look at it, she wasn't going to drop her hooves, she wasn't going to make it real... “Don't be a silly-billy! Whether I'm you or whether you're me, I'm as real as real can be!”

“Shut up!” Pink shouted, leaning up angrily as she swung her hooves away from her face, and she instantly froze as her eyes settled on the grinning ghost. It gave her a big, cheerful grin, shining with energy and exuberance from every part of its body, but its eyes were nothing but dead, sightless sockets.

It needed her to see. It needed her body to interact with the world. It needed her mouth to laugh, and her ears to hear, and most of all, her eyes to see...

Pink flinched away from the spectre as it bounced towards her, saying happily: “Wasn't it better? It'll be even betterer now, you know! Let's go away from all the pain and suffering and why don't you just laugh, laugh, laugh? Don't you remember how the song goes? Why haven't you been giggling, chuckling, tittering, hollering, laugh-laugh-laughing? That's the only way to keep the bad things away!”

“I won't let you back in!” Pink shouted desperately, shoving herself away and shaking her head violently. “You're not real! I want to live my own, normal life, just a normal mare, just a regular, simple pony, not as some laughing, sideshow freak! You ruined everything!”

“Oh, don't be sad, don't be mean! You can't hate everything we've seen!” the ghost replied positively, smiling at her again, hellhole eyes staring emptily into her soul. “Sure, it's been a heck of a ride, but not everything has been sad or bad or mad or wrong! All you have to do is let me in, and we can go back to all that, and live happily ever after!”

“You're only back because reality is thin here... b-because you're a monster, and all the other monsters are here, and... and...” Pink trembled, covering her head, shaking herself violently before she looked up and whispered: “Can't I just go home?”

“Silly, you are home!” answered the ghost before it leaned in and grasped Pink's face, and the mare went dead white as she realized it could touch her, and she could smell it, and it smelled of sugar and sickness and madness. “I just want to make you happy again, is that so wrong? And my new friends agree, you know! You know, I've always been great at making friends... I made so many friends when we shared your body-”

“When you took it over! I turned over one wrong rock in the field and you jumped in and sealed me away for... for twenty years!” shouted Pink, shoving at the ghost, but it was solid now, it was stronger now, it was so much more than she was and it bore back against her, pressing her helplessly back into the steel coffins as she moaned low in her throat. “N-No, no...”

The ghost only smiled brightly, unaware of the pain or the fear as it chortled childishly, then said happily: “Don't be a silly! You were right there with me! You loved the attention, being the centre of it all... I mean, I'm sure you did, I did so you must have did too! How can friends ever be a bad thing, anyway? Sure, maybe ponies don't always approve of my new friends, but I approve of my new friends, and that's what matters, right? No, they said, they all told me they'll help you see... madness and happiness, that's the way to be!”

The ghost smiled, and then it suddenly leaned in, hollow sockets locking on Pink's gaze before it said with a mix of frightening cheer and carelessness: “We just have to go deeper!”

Last Call heard Pink scream from where he was still helplessly watching the cable car ascend, ears and head raising before his eyes widened in shock as the cables supporting the transport snapped. One of them lashed violently over his head, slashing through a lamppost behind him, while the other twanged upwards as the cable car fell several dozen feet into the mist and shadows-

There was no sound of a crash. It simply fell, and was gone, and all that was left behind were broken, loose cables, and a sizzling third wire that crackled and bounced erratically across the stone, as if it was alive. Last Call stared into the fog and darkness for a few moments that was flowing along the buildings, lapping at the gravel below like a tide, and then he swallowed thickly before he whispered: “There's no turning back.”

He turned and headed back into the station, walking over to Schmisse with his head lowered. He glanced up at him, and the unicorn merely nodded before he said quietly: “We cannot run from this. Not from ourselves, not from our demons. Do you think, perhaps... this is punishment for our sins? Is this... not Hell, but Purgatory?”

“I don't know if I believe in either. Or Heaven, for that matter.” Last Call said after a moment, looking down as he chewed on his lip slowly. “I always thought... ponies controlled everything in the world. We were responsible, for everything. Heaven and Hell, God... I always figured they were controlled by ponies, too, and maybe... at the end of it all, if I could just fake that I was good enough, like I did my entire life...”

He fell silent, and Schmisse nodded briefly before he climbed slowly to his hooves. Last Call gently grasped him, and for once, the unicorn let himself be helped, leaning on the stallion as he murmured: “Karma, or reckoning, it doesn't matter. You have to get through this, Last Call. I find it difficult to care about what happened to your wife, but I do... hope you solve this mystery.”

“Maybe some mysteries shouldn't be solved, you asshole.” Last Call muttered as he and Schmisse headed to the front doors, and Schmisse smiled briefly as they shouldered through, and took their first steps out of the station.

They stepped onto a misty street, and Last Call grimaced as he looked uneasily at the sky: it was an errant, toxic twilight, stars twinkling faintly, miserably, but the horizon on fire with a greenish, unnatural pallor, like the sun had been crippled in a bottle. Strange wood and stone buildings loomed all around them: many of them seemed to be rotting from seasalt or otherwise in disrepair, their paint scoured away, the wood swollen and warped, the brick and mortar brittle and crumbling.

Schmisse gestured with his head down the road, murmuring: “Lanterns are burning. Have we gone back in time? Do you smell the sea, Last Call?”

“Yes.” Last Call said, figuring there was no point in pretending otherwise: but how had they gotten so close to the ocean, so fast? “It must have to do with the Kiz.”

“This is not formed from our beliefs... from theirs, maybe. Or the ponies who sought to bring us to their... idols? Masters? Tyrants?” Schmisse chuckled dryly. “They are likely none of the above. But that is likely what those idiots believe they are.”

Last Call nodded briefly as they continued down the street, and he shivered a little as he glanced up, before he stumbled to a stop with Schmisse. The unicorn frowned, then followed his gaze up to an open window, where a light glimmered faintly behind a translucent shell of a pony.

The ghost glared down at them with contempt, and Last Call shivered before he winced when Schmisse roughly shoved him, muttering: “Keep moving.”

“Ghosts are the last thing we need.” Last Call muttered, but to his surprise, Schmisse gave a dry laugh. “What?”

“I am sure they feel the same way about us. We are the ones intruding on their territory, after all.” Schmisse answered, and Last Call couldn't help but smile a little despite himself, shaking his head briefly as he lowered his eyes a little to the road ahead.

The fog made it hard to see, especially with the ill, green-tinged light shimmering down on them from the sky: where there was shadow, it felt as dark as night, but any open areas or curves in the street where the sun was able to shine, the ill, faint glow made the fog almost supernaturally thick, making it nearly impossible for them to see... but whether in light or darkness, there was the constant sensation of being watched.

All the same, they plodded on down the street, not knowing what else to do or where else they could go. Progress was slow, but steady: Schmisse breathed hard, but never complained, even as he trembled and shook, and Last Call was determined to carry the unicorn through this. In large part, for his own salvation and redemption, yes, but also because... “What the hell do I do?”

“Walk. We will find where we're supposed to go. That seems to be how things work here.” Schmisse answered, before he frowned slightly and stopped.

Last Call halted as well, before his eyes narrowed as he heard it: a panting, distorted by the mist. It was coming from somewhere behind them, although where, neither pony could say thanks to the fog-

“Schmissy.” rasped a voice, and Last Call winced before he swore under his breath: they were defenceless, wounded, helpless-

Schmisse shouldered into him, and the two stumbled down the road together, hurrying as fast as the unicorn could move. He took short, weak gasps every so often, biting down and holding his breath for so long between rasps that Last Call thought he was going to suffocate himself, while Last Call breathed roughly, his muscles aching with both a need to rest and a desire to bolt, fighting the urge to just drop Schmisse and run-

“We need to hide.” Schmisse rasped suddenly, and Last Call didn't question as the unicorn half-shoved him towards the buildings: buildings that all seemed to loom and tower over them, that had become warped and bent as they fled in terror from the rasping, panting thing behind them.

Doors and windows all slammed themselves violently shut as they approached, some locking by themselves, others visibly jerked closed by scowling spectres who denied them entry. Last Call gritted his teeth, but Schmisse only shouldered him onward down the row of houses before he suddenly jerked his head at a door that looked no different from any other, saying weakly: “There!”

Last Call didn't question, just hurried with the unicorn towards the door, and to his surprise, jerked it open with ease. He nearly stumbled, but Schmisse caught him against his body before the unicorn stumbled into the area beyond, Last Call following him in before he slammed the door behind him and fumbled in the semi-darkness until he heard it lock.

He grimaced as he stepped in something wet and slick that reflected the light shimmering in from a window above only faintly, while Schmisse breathed weakly, eyes fluttering as he leaned on something heavy and solid. He carefully felt through the darkness until his hoof clicked against glass, and he slid his hoof around the object: more by luck than anything else, he flicked a switch, and an oil lamp clacked to life to reveal they were surrounded by barrels and crates, several of which were stained with fuel, one leaking oil over the floor.

Schmisse studied the layout of the building for a moment: there was a high shelf above below the only window, which led out the back of the shack into who-knew-where: otherwise, it was a very small shack, the walls of which seemed formed purely by the buildings on either side of it. A storage shanty that had been inserted between houses, perhaps?

Funny, how even now he could obsess over the little details, the most unimportant of mysteries.

Something smashed into the door... no, not something. Toadsfall, Schmisse knew, as his mutilated brother screamed: “Schmissy! C-Call! Last Call!”

His brother gave a roar of rage as he pounded on the door, and the rotten wood began to give away immediately. Schmisse took a calm look around as Last Call panicked and shouted and tried to find the answer, but Last Call had always been a little... slow, Schmisse reflected. But he was a decent enough pony. He had tried.

So few ponies had ever really tried, especially when it came to him.

“Climb up to the window.” Schmisse ordered, and Last Call blinked before he watched as Schmisse took a breath, shrugging off his pain and fatigue as he stepped forward to form a step with his body, before he shouted over the sound of screaming and cracking wood: “I will not repeat myself! Climb up!”

Last Call flinched, then he scrambled onto Schmisse, and the unicorn hissed as Last Call used his body like a step. He scrambled half up the wall, but couldn't quite reach the shelf; or at least, he couldn't until Schmisse gasped and reared up on his hooves, giving him the last push he needed to grab the shelf under the window and struggle his way up onto it.

He half-stood for a moment in front of the window, and Schmisse smiled tiredly up at him, dropping back to his hooves, smeared with oil and blood. They looked at each other, and then Schmisse simply shrugged before he said simply: “Alles gute.”

Last Call trembled, and then he nodded, then he gritted his teeth before he shoved the window out of place, knocking it tumbling to the ground below before he leapt out into the alley, hitting the dirt hard and rolling painfully to a halt with a gasp, clutching at an injured foreleg.

In the storage house, Schmisse calmly picked up the flickering lamp, studying it as Toadsfall smashed a foreleg through the door, clawing wildly at the air. Schmisse's eyes flicked briefly up, and then they returned the smoke-stained glass of the lamp, the unicorn whispering: “Ringel, ringel, rosen...”

“Schmissy! Let... me... in!” Toadsfall screamed, ripping his foreleg back and catching the edge of the hole he had torn in the battered door, before he laughed, foam spilling from his lipless maw, eyes blazing with hate and wild fury and terrible hunger as he tore a plank loose from the door. “Let me in!”

“Schöne Aprikosen, veilchen blau, vergissmeinnicht...” Schmisse murmured, as Toadsfall seized the edges of the large hole he had made before he tore backwards, ripping the shattered door off its hinges before he lunged inside with a savage grin, seizing Schmisse by the shoulders and shoving him backwards, frost-skinned face shoving forward into his brother's as his lipless maw yawned hungrily.

And Schmisse looked back fearlessly as his hooves squeezed the lamp so hard the glass cracked, finishing in defiance: “Alle kinder setzen sich.”

Schmisse flung the lamp to the ground, and it shattered before the flames greedily caught over the oil Toadsfall was standing in, the monster's eyes bulging in almost comical shock before it tried to pull away. But Schmisse seized the beast's forelegs in his own, half-embracing him and half-grappling him as the fire rapidly rose around them, devouring both the old wood and their bodies as Toadsfall screamed in misery, his rotten, winter-tortured body twisting wildly, helplessly, in the all-consuming flame.

Last Call looked back over his shoulder as he climbed up to his hooves, staring in shock as the shack went up in flames. It burned violently, the flames licking out along the walls of the warped buildings on either side of them and beginning to spread down towards him like the fire had a life and will of its own, embers sparking out towards him like dragon's breath before the back wall of the shack exploded, and a screaming, burning Toadsfall staggered out, his whole body consumed with fire, the monster screaming miserably as his leathery skin cracked and peeled loose from his body in strips. Flesh bubbled and blood boiled as he gasped out smoke and steam and something else, something evil that had infested him, driven him insane, as he shrieked miserably: “Mama! Mama, no!”

Last Call stumbled backwards as snakes of flame twisted past him down either wall of the alley, shaking his head weakly before he stumbled around in a circle and bolted away, and Toadsfall screamed as he followed, a nightmare of flame as he stagger-stumbled helplessly after the stallion.

But there was nothing but agony anymore. No more hunger, no more desire, no more anything but pain, pain, pain, lighting up his entire being, mixing with torturous memories. He heard her, coming again for him, coming to punish him: he was helpless against her, helpless to fight her, helpless to stop her. Even when he'd grown up, grown strong, grown cruel, she snapped at him and he became a whimpering coward in her face and cried, cried, cried, but the tears meant nothing as they steamed on his cheeks.

He tried to run, but the flames caught up, grabbing him almost eagerly, pinning him down as they burned him mercilessly along with their ancient enemy. Toadsfall screamed as he was pinned, remembering how easily she had pinned him when he was a foal, how they had laughed at him, how she had cursed him and punished him, how she had forced him into a filly's dress and mocked him as her little girl, and how meaningless, meaningless, all his victories had been, when in the end he was nothing more than the bad little colt who had been his mother's least favourite daughter.

Toadsfall screamed, clutching at the ground, and Last Call stumbled at the mouth of the alley, looking back once and wincing as Toadsfall reached for him, shrieking: “Save me! S-s-save me!”

“You should have saved yourself.” Last Call whispered, and then he turned and stumbled away, knowing that even if he wanted to, there was no way he could have saved Toadsfall from his fate.

Last Call ran through the streets until he could run no more, and finally, he staggered to a stop in front of a large, old hotel, holding his stomach and resisting the urge to vomit. He stayed there for a little while: for as long as it felt safe to, anyway, before he climbed back to his hooves and continued to plod onward, toward...

He didn't know where. He just walked down the foggy streets, hating the fact he was blind to everything in this dismal twilight, while it was likely everything around could see him. He hadn't realized it before, but the ill light meant that he couldn't always tell where lanterns were burning, and where they weren't, too: some of these homes seemed almost occupied, while others were clearly devoid of life... what if he stumbled into something worse than ghosts, all because he couldn't see?

It was miserable, and he was alone, without a friend in the world. He'd failed everyone, he thought, as he wandered through the fog of the alien town. He pressed up against a wall as he reached a corner, taking a quick breath before he checked around it... and saw more of nothing.

He'd not only failed, but wandered into a world he didn't understand,with no clear path to follow. He was lost, confused, and completely alone.

How was he going to find his wife when he didn't even know where he was?

How could he hope to save anyone with no supplies, no information, no... nothing?

Last Call shook his head briefly, then he slapped a few times at his face before he murmured: “Stop it. Just... stop.”

He took a breath, then rounded the corner and started down the street before he frowned as he noticed something ahead. A shape in the darkness, that looked like it was searching for something.

Last Call slipped quickly to the side, taking cover behind a patio. He peered up over it through the railing, watching as the dark shape rumbled ominously through the air, apparently searching for something as it floated slowly up to a house.

Last Call realized what it was after a moment: the disgusting trash-bag thing, its stone mask tilting back and forth as it searched for something... him? No, it seemed like it had always been able to home in on him whenever it wanted...

He frowned in surprise as a door creaked open as the thing approached a structure, and a ghost appeared. The ghost seemed unafraid of the thing: in fact, it pointed, and the monstrosity turned to follow in the direction it had gestured as Last Call ducked slightly in fear... but the thing ignored his hiding spot completely as it instead sailed in another direction, towards what looked like some kind of run-down store.

Except the moment it got close, there was the sound of slamming doors before a wailing shape ran out of the alley. The monster was faster, however, a tentacle appearing and lashing out to seize the pony around a hind leg, hefting it helplessly into the air as it kicked and squirmed before howling: “Oh p-please, please, please, I-I-I-I'll do anything, anything, just let me go!”

“Happenstance?” Last Call asked in disbelief: he watched as the monster slowly floated down the street, parting the mist as it went, ghosts every so often appearing as the thing sailed by to jeer and point angrily at it. Or maybe they weren't gesturing at it, but instead at Happenstance, considering their reactions to him... but why? What's going on? Why did that monster capture Happenstance, where is it bringing him?

Last Call frowned uneasily, but then he slipped carefully out around the patio, creeping to the other side of the street to follow as stealthily as he could down the road. He still felt cold eyes watching him, and every so often, he could swear he saw a spectre glaring at him from a window or an alleyway, but for the most part, they ignored him, and he chose to ignore them.

He followed the howling and babbling of Happenstance, and the stink of the wretched thing, all the way to the rusting, open gates of a massive mansion... or was it more like a castle? He couldn't tell. It was a strange place, glimmering in the green tinted light, more stone than wood. Parts of it looked like they had half-collapsed, while other parts looked like they had almost unnaturally resisted the warping of both reality and time.

There was a bit of slime on the gate, confirming that the creature had passed through here: if Happenstance had been brought inside, did that mean there were other ponies in there, too? Was this where his wife was being kept, or was that too good to be true?

Too good to be true. Something hideous and evil was in there, he had nothing more than a flashlight to protect himself with, no information, no idea where he was, no way to escape, and...

And all he could really do was stop whining and move forward, whether he liked it or not. He had been led here. There had to be something here.

Last Call took a breath, then he carefully slipped through the ajar gates and made his way nervously down the misty path towards the looming mansion. He reached the front steps, and he grimaced as they creaked under his hooves, leaning his head down slightly to duck under the half-collapsed awning so he could reach the front doors: also ajar, he noted, and the wood was bubbling strangely where he guessed the floating thing had made contact with it.

But the moment he stepped inside, the doors were slammed behind him, Last Call flinching and whirling around to stare at the sight of several ghosts that glared daggers at him. He opened his mouth, before his eyes widened as the doors seemed to melt away in front of him, becoming nothing but a waxy, warped wooden wall as the ghosts vanished one after the other.

He stumbled backward, shaking his head weakly before he flinched and looked over his shoulder in surprise as a voice said softly: “I'm sorry, Last Call. I hoped... you would never make it here. That you would give up. That you would turn around and leave. That you would understand that... there's no real way to win. There's no real way out.”

Last Call turned around to find himself looking down at Silent Wish, who gazed up at him sadly, her eyes soft and gentle and fearless. He looked back at her, then he smiled faintly before he whispered: “You were always there when I needed you, but never there... when I got lost. You took away more from me than you gave, didn't you? I always felt so dependent on you... but you helped with that. Made sure to answer all the right questions and ignore the others. Carried supplies... then left. But you didn't mean to drag Furor off that cliff with you, did you?”

“I don't want anyone to be hurt.” Silent Wish shook her head quickly, fervently, before she looked up and said quietly: “You wouldn't stop. Wouldn't turn around. It became a matter of balancing what you could survive against the evils that were waking up. I hoped you'd just take the others back to the cabin if I took the supplies away, not that... what happened would happen. You might have survived there.”

“You said they weren't evil.” Last Call half-asked, and Silent Wish smiled faintly.

“The Kiz aren't. There are other things, though. Things that woke up, things that... we gave birth to, when they warped reality, or maybe were always there, in the darkness, and the Kiz accidentally disturbed them. Or maybe... they were our fault, things we tried to turn against the Kiz, but who had no interest in distinguishing friend from foe...”

Silent Wish chewed on her lip thoughtfully, and then she shrugged before continuing: “Schmisse is dead, Pink is gone, Furor is lost. Do you want to keep going, Last Call? You saw what happened to Toadsfall-”

“I will not become like him. I won't forget who I am. I'm going to save my wife.” Last Call said quietly, and Silent Wish smiled before she spread her bat-like forewings wide.

“Then you'll end up like me.” she said simply.

Last Call was silent for a few moments, and the Silent Wish's eyes widened in surprise as he said quietly: “I'll do whatever it takes to save my wife. I'll... find her, and get her out of here. Even if it means I have to stay behind. But I still believe there's a way out. Maybe... I'm sorry that you didn't find it, Silent Wish. But maybe while reality is still weak, maybe while these worlds can still be moved between... maybe if I'm fast enough-”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Silent Wish shook her head almost angrily, but then she took a breath and lowered her head, whispering: “I'm sorry. It would have been better for you if you'd gotten lost on the mountain, or tried to find another way down. You never would have ended up here, in the lonely town by the sea...”

“I thought the Kiz were sealed in the forest. Why are we here?” Last Call asked, and Silent Wish smiled briefly.

“The Kiz were everywhere at one time, Last Call. There's more than one of them...” She halted, then silently studied one of her claws. “I've been here so long, changed so much, I'm almost tempted to say, of us. And we're all drawn here, eventually. Every Kiz comes back to this little town, because it's near where the greatest, and the eldest, fell, and fell asleep.”

She shook her head, then looked up and murmured: “The Kiz find you interesting, Last Call. Have you not realized yet that's a double-edged sword? They find you interesting. That doesn't just mean they won't consume you, it means they won't let you go. They found me interesting, too. And they lured me here, in search of the Doctor. And then...”

She rose a bat-like limb, and Last Call smiled faintly. They stood for a few minutes in silence, until Silent Wish sighed softly and murmured: “I know you have a lot of questions, but I don't want to answer them all. I'm tired, Last Call. I'm tired, and maybe it's better if you find out the answers for yourself... you might not believe me otherwise. Please... please don't be mad at my friends, though. It's not because you're an outsider, I promise. It's because that... that poor pony who was possessed brought something evil in with him. They're scared and suspicious. The Kiz are already infighting... we don't need a monster here on top of that.”

“What do you mean?” Last Call asked, and when Silent Wish only looked at him, he realized how... exhausted she seemed, and he smiled faintly before he nodded once and asked: “Will... can I find my wife here?”

“There are only a few ponies left. I think... I think the Vorpal wants you to find your wife. I think he'll help you. But be careful... there are many Kiz here. Most are just watching, but a few are wandering. They can't all be... they aren't all kind.” Silent Wish said, and then she sighed softly before she closed her eyes, and Last Call's eyes widened as she became translucent. “I need rest. I need to go back to my own time and place. Not here. I've been underwater for too long.”

Last Call was silent as he tried to understand what was happening, but then Silent Wish was simply gone... gone back to wherever it was she came from, he thought uneasily. Was that it? Was it not just the fact that she was stuck in a different layer of reality, she was somehow trapped between the folds of time itself? Was that how she was able to be wherever she wanted to be, but why it was so exhausting? Did she exist everywhere at once, or was she really anchored to nowhere at all?

That hurt to think about.

Last Call shook his head, then he took a slow breath as he approached the only remaining doors on the other side of the entrance room. He winced slightly as a spectre appeared, but it only glared at him... no. No, when he looked closer, that wasn't anger. That was fear, wasn't it?

“I'm... just looking for my wife.” Last Call said, and the ghost shifted warily, but vanished after a moment, and he hoped, strangely, that his message had gone through.

Then he pressed his hooves against one of the doors and pushed it open, stepping over the threshold and into the unknown beyond, only sure of one thing:

The mare was here, and he was finally going to be reunited with her.

Author's Note

If you are enjoying the story and want to contribute to its continuing creation, please make a donation to charity here. Donations give you an extra vote per dollar, letting you choose the route the story should take, and any donation of five dollars or above allows you to request a specific character be written into the story. The more you donate, the more you get, and I'm open to discussion on the subject.
Confusing for now, but I don't want to do ten pages of exposition all at once. Two or three chapters left, and the next one will be an important one.

Karmic Choice

A: He stands between you and your wife, Last Call. Kill him.

B: Talk to him, Last Call. Don't become Toadsfall.

Plot Choice:

1: Last Call finds the study.

2: Last Call finds the altar.

All That Is Beyond

Chapter Thirteen: All That Is Beyond
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call limped slowly along behind the spectre of his wife: she glowed in the darkness, driving away the shadows that sought to close in on them from all sides, keeping the monsters that lurked just out of sight at bay with her warmth. She kept her pace slow and gentle for him, always stopping when he needed to rest, giving him small, reassuring smiles every so often.

She had always been there for him. Even now, here she was, guiding him. Leading him on. Helping him to move forward.

“But I don't want to move on. I don't want to... leave you behind.” he whispered, and the mare looked back over her shoulder at him, with kindness, with love.

“I know.” she said, before she turned forward and gently pushed open a set of doors, leading Last Call into another octagonal room: he wondered only briefly how she could still affect things, touch things, but at this point he had given up caring about... almost everything. If she wasn't here...

“Don't think that. I don't want to lose you.” his mare said quietly, and he felt awful for even having the thought again as they stopped in front of a stone table: an altar, like the one Happenstance had been on. But this one had a body.

Her corpse wasn't beautiful: it was rotten and stank and dressed in funeral garments that had been feasted on by the worms and the other necrophages. But as he stared at her, remembering her, and as her spirit, or simulacra, or whatever it is stood beside him with her warm and tender glow, that rotten corpse transformed into the beautiful mare he had loved and lost, rolling onto her side and curling her limbs in as if asleep.

The spirit touched the body, and it glowed for a moment before the mare looked up, blinking a few times before she smiled softly, raising her head slightly towards him as she whispered: “Hey, you.”

“Hi, you.” he murmured back, and he swallowed thickly as she reached up and touched him, reaching his own hoof up to gently stroke along her foreleg before he closed his eyes.

And when he opened them, he was unsurprised to look to the side and see Silent Wish standing there, gazing at him silently. He smiled at her faintly, and then he said the only thing he could think of: “I found my wife.”

“Yes. She's... here, now, though, Last Call. She, like me... can only take short breaths.” Silent Wish said almost apologetically, and then she smiled faintly as she added: “She's very strong though. This world... she hasn't allowed it to change her at all.”

“I had my husband to think of.” The mare studied the stallion for a moment, and then she turned back towards Silent Wish, giving her a small smile. “You helped my husband, didn't you? Thank you. I don't think this would have been possible without you.”

Silent Wish only shifted a little, smiling awkwardly as she lowered her head a bit before she murmured: “I just wish that I could have done more. I'm sorry you're trapped here. I'm sorry that... you were both right.”

Last Call laughed faintly, and then he shook his head slowly before he asked, even as he refused to remove his eyes from his beautiful, his loving, his everlost wife: “I wish it was different. I wish that I could have... I don't even... I can't fathom it. I can't imagine living without you. All the years, the days, the minutes I took for granted... I've been trapped in them, still, trying to find a way to make it up to you, trying to accept that...”

He stopped, then closed his eyes and murmured: “No. Never trying to accept. I never wanted to accept it. I still can't. You're here. You're here, and I came to rescue you...”

The mare smiled at him silently, and Last Call looked down before he whispered: “For the first time, I was ready to save you instead of myself. But I guess I was too late. I was... I was too late.”

There was silence for a few moments, before the mare said quietly: “You can still save yourself, though.”

Silent Wish hesitated, but then she nodded slowly as she said: “The Alignment is so strong in some places that there's little difference between reality and the Beyond. If it's strong enough for the Kiz to pass from their home to yours, then it's strong enough for you to go to your own world... but you could also end up in the home of the Kiz. And you don't want that. That's... that's how I died. That's why...”

Silent Wish studied herself for a moment, and then she bit her lip as she looked up and said: “The Alignment won't last forever, though. When the stars move again, the Kiz will either go home, remain here in the place just between reality and death, or they'll enter your world. The Malice will slumber or move on, while the Residue fade and the Ichor perish: they need the Malice to exist, as much as they need... us, in a sense.”

Last Call frowned slightly, but only for a moment as he returned his eyes to his wife, studying her before he said quietly: “They need us to give them form. To... to give the ideas, that fill in the holes. Lectern knew that in a way, didn't he?”

“In a sense. The Doctor knew about sacrifice, too: but he knew that it wasn't just the bodies or the risks that were the sacrifice. When the spirits were brought here, they were trapped here. Those ghosts are all the sacrificed, and without the presence of someone to make them real, to make them solid... with nothing to anchor them more than their now long-gone remains...”

Last Call closed his eyes, before his wife slid forward and silently wrapped her forelegs around him in an embrace, and he hugged her tightly back, clinging to her, trembling against her as he whispered: “I don't want to think about it anymore. I don't want to understand. I just want to take my wife and go home. Please, Silent Wish...”

He knew the answer already. They knew he knew the answer, but part of him refused to stop believing, refused to process anything that was going on, just selfishly, childishly continued to hope that there was some loophole, that it was all nothing but an error, an illusion, a mistake, that even if what had happened, happened, she had come back now, she was here, and why couldn't they just leave?

He knew why, but he refused to accept it.

She kissed his forehead, and he bit back a sob as he buried his face into her neck.

Last Call breathed shakily in and out, before he whispered: “I'm sorry. I love you so much. I wish... I wish it had been me.”

She only smiled faintly, soothingly stroking through his mane, filling him with warmth. Even now, she made him feel better: the pain was nothing but a dull ache in his body, less than a distraction, his tears and fears were unimportant, the feeling of loss was that much less. She was here with him, wasn't she?

Maybe that was the deadliest trap of all, here in this twisted reality.

He knew they had little time. He wanted to savour every moment of it together. He wanted to hug her, embrace her, love her, but most of all...

“No. I am. I'm so sorry.” he said quietly, trembling as he straightened and reached up to grasp her shoulders silently, looking into her eyes as he swallowed a little. He gazed at her, and she looked back with love, and compassion, and empathy he could never match. She had always been so warm, so giving, so utterly perfect, and he... he had dragged her down.

The least he could do was put aside his own feelings this one time, as he looked down for a moment, before he looked up and met her eyes. And here, in this twisted reality, he didn't need the words to speak, or to remember. He hugged her close as he rose his head, and he stared off into the distance as he lived through it again, as he watched drowned memories blossom in front of his eyes as much as in his mind.

He remembered that they had argued, but that was only the prelude. She had gotten so upset and he had shouted and barked. He hated himself for it: he was like a stupid dog, and he couldn't apologize enough for the fact he still wasn't able to learn to just talk rationally... that his first defence when he was scared or upset was getting mad, because it was easier to get upset or get drunk than it was to deal with things like a grown stallion.

He was so sorry for it. But what he was truly sorry was afterwards.

Last Call saw it all, remembered it all, lived through it again: there he was, alone in the house, with nothing to do. Miserable. Hating himself. Why had they fought over something so stupid?

He knew why. Because she wanted to help, but he didn't really want help, did he? Easier to be miserable. Easier to sulk and drink away his pain. So what, it was eight in the morning, who cared? He didn't have anyone to impress. She was the happy one. She was pretty, ponies flirted and joked with her, and even if he was there they just ignored him and she always treated him like a goddamn colt...

He sulked in the past, and in the present, or the future, or the whenever of this broken reality, Last Call whispered: “I'm sorry.”

His wife touched his face gently, and Last Call closed his eyes for a moment, hearing the reassurance, feeling her love, even now, for him. There he had been, stumbling around, drunk and stupid and angry for no reason, but she soothed him and said it was okay that he had been sad. Apologized, even, but that brought tears to his eyes, as he whispered: “Don't ever apologize. No, not for that. Not for... treating me better than I deserve. Not for trying to push me to be a stallion instead of a... a stupid dog.”

They watched again, as the Last Call of the past finished off his third bottle of beer. He tossed it into the sink... or rather, at the sink. It bounced off the countertop and hit the floor instead, shattering: he had always been a lightweight.

He wondered vaguely how many more bits they'd have saved if they had put that money away instead of into alcohol.

A lot, he reflected.

Last Call ignored the broken glass as he stormed over to the alcohol cupboard. He grabbed one of the bottles of whisky, and knocked it back straight from the neck. He was already in an angry fuzz: now he was quickly descending into stupid drunkenness.

Sure, he hadn't wanted to remember this day at all, wanted to just pretend it had never happened. But he thought the alcohol had likely helped him block all of this out. He drank a lot, but he rarely drank like this, and so early in the morning.

Unkempt, unwashed, naked, and half-drunk, Last Call got the brilliant idea that he was going to go out and tell that mare a thing or two. But no sooner was he out the door than he realized he was hungry, forgot where he had been going, and instead went wandering.

The other ponies he passed were blurs and shapes, that was all. There were few discernible landmarks through the haze of alcohol clouding his vision. He snorted, then snuffled, then spat to the side before he wheeled awkwardly around, likely not even realizing he was heading in a different direction now.

He ended up wandering down the highway towards Canterlot, not paying attention to where he was going. Everyone tried to avoid him, as much as possible: not that he was making it easy, with his twisting and his stumbling and his swerving.

And then it happened: he stumbled into the path of a wagon. The wagon tried to twist to the side, and instead ended up sideswiping him as the driver shouted at him angrily. It hit Last Call hard across the face and knocked him off the road, rolling down into the underbrush with a rattle and thud.

Did he hit his head? Or had he just been that drunk? Either way, he passed out. And when he woke up, it was dark, and he was lost and confused as he crawled out of the forest.

Back home, the mare was worried, afraid. And for the first time he realized how much it had hurt her. How scared she had been, finding the broken bottle, the ajar door leading out, the mess he'd left the house in: had someone attacked him? Had he hurt himself? Had he left in anger?

It hurt him so badly that she had been the most afraid of the last. He couldn't believe she'd be afraid of that, of all things.

It hurt so badly, to see her tears in these shared memories. But it was a pain he deserved, he knew. And before she could apologize, he hugged her, so tight that he was afraid she would break, as he whispered: “No. I'm sorry. You've never had to be sorry. You've never been the one who... screwed it all up. I'm sorry.”

He remembered how it had been late, and he had been hungover and sick and confused, and he had picked a direction and just started walking. He had realized a few hours too late he was stumbling towards Canterlot, but he just kept going. He still had a few bridges he hadn't entirely burned there.

He managed to find a place to stay, friends to take him in. They forced him to shower and clean himself up. He laughed a little over it with them.

His mare was crying, at home, afraid, miserable in the too-big, empty bed.

He hated himself.

She heard in the morning where he was. She said she was coming to get him.

He could have walked back home at any time, but he was lazy. Enjoying leeching off their hospitality, having fun. Convincing his 'friends' to have a drink with them. They did so, if just to shut him up, and because he promised to play an old tune for them.

He did better than that. They went down to the bar, where the morning drunks were all gathered, and he sang and he played the guitar and people laughed and tipped him money.

He was playing music while his mare walked from the little village to Canterlot to get him.

He was playing music, singing songs, getting drunk off shots, while his mare got caught up in the busy traffic heading into Canterlot in the early morning: the supply wagons, the food caravans, the workers all trying to get to their day jobs in the city.

And then it had happened: the tethers of one of the overloaded wagons had snapped, and it had come rolling, tumbling backwards. There had been a panic, ponies wildly shoving at each other to try and get out of the way.

He hadn't known what had happened. But now he saw, saw how the tired mare had reacted too slowly, been pushed, shoved, herded to the edge, and then she had slipped and tumbled over the guardrail, down the mountainside.

It mixed sickening with his memories of the bar: it was like he was seeing both at once, how, as he had been at the piano, badly hammering out a tune that they had all been singing along too, she had crashed down the rocks. Every chord he hammered on the piano seemed to mirror her body as she struck jagged stone and bounced limply down the mountainside, until she hit the ground as ponies roared and Last Call simply slammed his hooves against the piano.

He remembered there had been a sense of emptiness. A brief thought, about his wife.

And then it had turned to 'where is she?'

And then someone shouted for another, and he shouted back: “Another drink!”

He got drunk again. They all did. They laughed as they dispersed. This time, he wasn't so drunk he couldn't find his way out of Canterlot.

He walked right past the accident. He saw now, remembered now, how he glanced at the marked guardrail and the investigators, and he had thought: What kind of idiot falls down a cliff?

“Must have been drunk.” Last Call whispered, and then he laughed brokenly, clenching his eyes shut as he hugged her so fiercely, trembling in pain, only now seeing the error in his words. Only now fully understanding... “Oh g-god...”

She embraced him back, gave him the strength to witness, remember the rest. How he had gone home. How he had crawled into bed, figuring she had just gone to work. How he had been vaguely irritated that she hadn't been there for him. Work had always been more important to her, though. Pah, why couldn't she take a day off for him?

“I should have died instead of you.” Last Call whispered, and then he shook his head slowly as he grasped into her, looking up at her as tears fell from his eyes. Because now he knew the truth: he knew how much he had mattered to her. He knew how pathetic, how miserable, how utterly worthless he was. He knew... how much she had suffered, before she had... died. “I'm so sorry.”

She only stroked his face silently. How many times had they gone through that dance? How many times had they argued, because of something stupid he'd done, and how many times had she gone the extra mile to try and make sure he was okay, to try and help him, heal him? How deep and infinite was her love?

How fickle and stupid was he, to be unable to see that? To be upset by the tiniest things? To have always thought so little of her, when she had been his entire universe?

He hated himself.

And he had been unable to cope, unable to live with the thought of her gone. The sheriff had told him, and he'd cried like a baby. He had never attended her funeral. Too hard, too hard, he had whined and whimpered, and he'd gotten drunk instead.

He had holed himself up inside the house. Never leaving his office, never touching all the things that had been theirs. Any room they had shared, he passed through like a ghost, trying to keep perfect, so that he would never be without her.

Until he'd convinced himself she wasn't really gone. That hadn't been hard, though: it had started with just talking to the air, confessions, pointless apologies. Then it had moved into talking to her, and then having whole conversations with her that had graduated from mental to him, wandering around the house, like she was really there.

He spent a lot of time drunk, and a lot of time forgetting things. Well, that door was open, and he remembered closing it, so therefore there was someone else in the house; all those little things had started to add up in his broken, miserable mind, until one day, he'd forgotten the past, and there he was. Every day, he woke up to the same dream: the mare was in the house, taking care of him, doing all her chores perfectly, as she'd always done, before going to work.

No one had minded. No one had understood at first, he thought. He said things like “my wife is keeping me out of trouble,” and they thought he was talking about the memory of her. And if it helped him not wander around the town, drunk, then no one saw the point in trying to fix him.

The kind ones probably hoped it gave him peace, he thought.

The rest of them probably knew he deserved to suffer a little. More than a little.

He looked up at her, trembling, and she silently took his face in her hooves before she kissed his forehead and said softly: “I love you. I want you to know that. No matter what, I love you, and I have always loved you. I wouldn't be able to be here if I didn't love you. And you wouldn't have been able to be here, if you didn't love me. Last Call, I-”

“He's coming.” Silent Wish interrupted suddenly, and Last Call shifted, blinking rapidly as if awakening from a dream, before the filly blurted out: “He's coming!”

“Run away, Last Call. Leave. I'll stop him. I... understand them a little.” his wife said fearlessly, and Last Call stared at her. But she only smiled at him, tender, loving, before she looked into the darkness as the octagonal room seemed to stretch, as the walls distorted and warped around them, as black ichor began to spill down from the cracks and crevices in the stone.

Last Call looked at her as she carefully pushed him backwards, before he looked back towards a set of doors that had appeared in the now-distant wall, trembling violently, like they were struggling to keep themselves sealed. A way out: a way away from the dark hole forming in the walls ahead of them, that his wife bravely faced, stepping forward as if-

“You don't have to face this alone. I won't... I'm here. I'm not leaving you. I'm never going to abandon you again, and...” Last Call trembled, then he looked from her to Silent Wish, breathing a little harder before he almost ordered: “Get out of here! I know that he can hurt you both, whatever the hell he is. I'll... I'll distract him, figure out a way to lose him, but you get the hell out of here!”

“Last Call-” she began, but he shook his head firmly, looked at her desperately, and she met his eyes before swallowing thickly and nodding, turning to stumble away.

Silent Wish smiled at him faintly, then she turned to quickly follow after the mare as Last Call turned around-

It was right in front of him: the Vorpal, the dark and infinite thing that should not be from before. Last Call flinched at the sight of it, trembling and stepping back for a moment before he steeled himself as he forced himself to look up at this spectacular and unknowable beast.

The Vorpal seemed to gaze back at him, and oh, how it hurt to look at, how it hurt to experience, but at the same time, he saw... were those memories, or flashes of recognition, or just feelings, squirming their way into his brain like whispers from the Vorpal? He couldn't tell. But he felt his wife turn behind him, felt her own recognition, and it gave the stallion strength and courage enough to look up and whisper weakly: “Help us.”

The Vorpal was... it was not surprise, but similar. And it was intrigued. But Last Call knew it would take more than that alone, and he trembled before he continued: “I'll do anything to save my wife. Anything at all. P-Please... even if you're only just curious about us, interested in us... even if you just want to be entertained, then give me a chance to stop Happenstance. Just give me a chance. Wouldn't... wouldn't that be interesting? Maybe that's something you've never seen before. Please, let me... I want to save my wife! I love her!”

“Please, love is not 'interesting.'” said a derisive voice, and Last Call flinched before he gritted his teeth: the Vorpal was gone, and Happenstance was strolling towards him, looking around with boredom before he remarked: “Love? I've seen countless loves. The first one or two you see, maybe they could count as 'interesting.' But then after that? It's all the same. Boring. Simple psychology. And in the end, the cowards always run.”

Happenstance halted in front of Last Call, then he smiled before he clapped his hooves together, saying conversationally: “Lectern didn't survive this time. Of course, I can't take all the credit, as much as I might like to! You idiots craft your own nightmares, your own demises... even the mediums. But it doesn't matter anymore. I've had my fun and I'm getting very bored of this persona, but before I consume you, Last Call, I wanted to know what it's like to be an entertainer. Can you teach me to play guitar? I promise I'm a fast learner.”

Happenstance smiled at him, eyes glittering, daring him to resist and ordering him to submit, and Last Call looked at him for a few moments before he whispered: “I love my wife and I'm not going to let you hurt her. I'm not going to run away.”

Happenstance looked at him critically, and then he simply glanced past him, and the mare screamed in misery, stumbling backwards as the glow around her flickered, as beauty became cadaver for a moment before the mare caught her breath in a whoop and steadied herself, trembling as Silent Wish shouted: “Stop it!”

Happenstance clucked his tongue, then he scolded: “Children should be seen and not heard. That's a rule from the past I've become very fond of even now, you... oh! Oh, wait, I recognize you now, yes! You're the Doctor's little girl, aren't you?”

Silent Wish's eyes widened, the filly trembling violently as she looked up at Happenstance, who smiled smugly before he asked mockingly: “Do you want to see him again? I can arrange for that to happen, you know. Of course, we'll have to go to a multitude of places... but I'm curious, do you think if we gathered up every single piece of him scattered across all the dimensions, do you think we could paste him back together?”

Silent Wish bared her fangs, but her eyes filled with tears as she hissed at him like a cat. Happenstance only laughed, however, before he suddenly stepped forward and slapped Last Call out of the way like a toy, and the stallion hit the ground with a scream as all the pain of his broken body came flooding back.

Happenstance simply glared at Silent Wish, and she was flung back against the doors with enough force to splinter them before his eyes flicked to the mare, who trembled violently. But a moment later, Happenstance halted, and instead his gaze shifted behind her with a snarl of disgust. “Oh, what do you want?”

Behind her, the Vorpal floated, and Last Call trembled as he looked up, feeling the ominousness radiating from it. Happenstance seemed unimpressed, however, cocking his head at it before he laughed shortly. “Yours? No, the mare is part of a set of toys, all of which belong to me. Do not forget your place, little one. I am-”

There was a twisting, a surging-forward, and then Happenstance stumbled backwards with an unearthly scream as his face and part of his body was slashed through. His pony body tore like rubber, a blast of black smoke and ichor erupting from the wound as his hooves staggered wildly back and forth, tentacles and acid vomiting out of his jaws as his eyes became black pits that devoured the light around him-

And then, with a disgusting slurp, Happenstance's jaws worked as he swallowed the alien tendrils, sticky drool flying from his jaws as his mouth snapped closed before he shoved a hoof against the size of his muzzle, hacking and snorting with a disgusting, sludgy sound like he was sucking back snot. He smacked his lips a few times, then stretched idly to the side; he scowled, but the expression was forced and plastic, his bloated pony body seeming to hang off a twisted and mutant shape that was too large for it to contain, the wound in his chest a deep, horrific black pulsing and edged with white, the not-flesh of the pony suit he wore twitching and writhing around it.

He gurgled something in a language that hurt Last Call's ears at the Vorpal. And the Vorpal replied in a flood of images and thoughts that tore through the minds of all present, making them tremble in pain as Happenstance only scowled. But at the same time, Last Call felt the strangest feeling flood through his mind as much as pain. He saw strange and childlike images that seemed to be for him, and for him alone, crayon drawings and sunrises and a memory of his wedding day. He felt, as much as saw, a promise that things were going to be okay.

The pain was gone. Last Call breathed quietly as he climbed to his hooves, but Happenstance was oblivious to him as he snarled: “Ignorance! Perhaps you're the one who is too much like them! Their 'best' or their 'worst' qualities, it does not matter... they are less than the gn'rtra to us, why should I care what...”

Happenstance's eyes flicked to the side, and then he spun towards Last Call, who faced him resolutely even though that wound seemed to have a hideous pull of its own, and the eyes of the not-pony were dark and endless pits filled only with malice, as Happenstance asked in a growl: “What do you want?”

“Why are you here?” Last Call asked: he had no idea why he was asking, why it mattered, and Happenstance snorted in derision before he looked irritably in the direction where the Vorpal had been. But it was gone again; or rather, it was gone from sight, its presence still very much lurking around them, and Last Call felt like Happenstance was tracing after it, keeping an eye on it even as the not-pony faced the stallion.

“I told you. My desires are my own. I do as I please, as I like. If it pleased me to, I would leave you all behind... but as it is, I am irritated, and you are a source of that irritation, Last Call.” Happenstance growled, before he frowned when Last Call smiled wryly.

“Those all sound like very pony emotions.” he said, before he gasped in pain when Happenstance flung him across the room with only a glare, crashing into the stone wall opposite with a grunt.

“I am no 'pony!'” Happenstance roared in frustration, before he reached up and tore the wound in his body wider, revealing more of that putrid blackness inside of him: it writhed and twisted, full of evil shapes and twisting darkness, full of hate and pain and suffering. It wasn't like the Vorpal: this thing was cruel, and monstrous, and terrible. And, Last Call realized with a strange sense of satisfaction, it wasn't beyond their understanding. It wasn't like the Vorpal, infinite and limitless and confusing and everything at once. It was... simple. Disgusting, horrifying, and terribly, vilely simple.

“You're a monster. That's all you are. Whatever you were once, you've spent so long here, so long playing these games... is that what the Kiz are? Insubstantial, shapeless, until they find the thing they want to become? Do they come from beyond the stars just to study us, or are they looking to become more? Do you bend our reality because you exist... or because you want to exist?” Last Call asked, before he winced when Happenstance appeared in front of him, slamming him back against the bleeding cement and pinning him there, as waterfalls of black ichor slowly, stickily flowed down past the stallion and over his body.

“I do not care for your rambling.” Happenstance said contemptibly, before he frowned and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes narrowing at the sight of the mare glaring at him. “Are you that eager to-”

“Let go of my husband, please.” the mare said quietly, and Happenstance smiled in contempt.

“Or what?” he asked with disgust, pushing harder into Last Call, sliding him further up the wall as he rasped in pain and looked back and forth. And yet as much as it hurt, it was something physical, something to cling to, something anchored in this reality.

But this reality was bending: the ceiling was growing higher above them, the walls were shivering as they bled, the altar was trembling. The Vorpal was bending reality, and other monsters were moving at the edges of Last Call's vision: things in the shadows, lured by the hate and the anger. Ghosts, whispering back and forth among themselves, staring at the not-pony. Shadows and shapes that Happenstance seemed as oblivious to as Toadsfall had been to the monsters he had chased away; to the monster that had dragged him off to a fate worse than death.

“Because there's countless pony spirits trapped here, and while the Malice bend reality, they don't create the Residue. You can control the Residue and the Ichor, you can create bending in reality to manipulate us, to make our fears come after us, to make our hate turn on us... but we aren't scared of the dark, or hating ourselves, or blindly angry. There's a hole here; what will you do when reality fills it in?” asked the mare. “What do you think will happen if it fills in with hatred?”

“You aren't making sense. Has your poor mind broken already?” taunted the creature as it flung Last Call to the ground, and he coughed and spluttered before he looked grimly up.

“That's a very mortal thing to say.” Last Call whispered, and when Happenstance glared down at him, he asked before the monster could kick him: “Who did you kill first?”

“Personally? Many. But I was responsible for many more.” bragged Happenstance, as he rose his head, before he scowled when he sensed a presence behind him, snorting in disgust before he turned around-

Something stared down at him. Something with a thousand heads and a thousand eyes and a thousand bitter souls. It was monumental, so great and enormous it should not have been able to fit in the room, standing upon legs made from the melted-together limbs of ten thousand corpses. Happenstance stared at it, then he stumbled backwards, and his plastic face twisted into an expression of shock before he snorted and said contemptibly: “Oh, is this supposed to-”

The thousand-beast opened a hundred mouths that formed one immense jaw, screaming at him, and Happenstance staggered backwards with a look of disbelief before he leaned forward and snarled: “You are still nothing more than worthless mortals, no matter how many of you-”

A thousand jaws snapped down and seized into Happenstance, and he screamed in shock and disbelief as he was tossed into the air before the goliath swallowed him whole, then leapt down into the ground, passing harmlessly through it. Yet even as it left, Last Call could hear Happenstance screaming, shrieking in denial and disbelief: even as his pony disguise was shredded and his true form was revealed, he was devoured, torn into, ripped and wrenched apart, punished by the countless souls he had tormented.

Happenstance, after all, had stopped being something unfathomable: a being of beyond or not, he had become something they could all understand, that they could literally see the darkness, the malice, within him.

And as Last Call had learned from Toadsfall, monsters could prey upon other monsters.

The stallion shook his head slowly, and then he looked up: the room had returned to normal, and the mare was standing beside the altar, silently rubbing across it. Silent Wish was sitting near the doorway, her head lowered, looking strangely... sad, he thought. Their audience, of beasts and ghosts, had vanished, but the presence of the Vorpal lingered.

It had bent reality for them. Did that mean that maybe-

“No. That's not how it works. The Vorpal helped us stop Happenstance because you were right. Happenstance lost himself. Became something... else. Something wicked. Something tainted by the evils of this world. I think... I think he's going to leave now. Go back to his home, beyond the stars. This world is too dangerous for them, as strange as that may sound. They only hurt the people they want to study. Or worse, these people... hurt them.”

The mare quieted, and then she looked over at Last Call as she said quietly: “The Alignment is going to end soon. But we have one last place to go, Last Call. One last thing to do, before you can leave. One last thing to face together. Are you ready?”

Last Call looked at the mare for a few moments, and then he smiled faintly before he lowered his head, saying quietly: “The Vorpal is curious. Happenstance was a test. It just wanted to see what I would do. Things were never out of its control. Now it wants to see...”

He quieted, then he looked across at the mare, the two gazing at one another for the longest time before Last Call asked: “Are you really my wife? Or are you that... Vorpal, that other-being? Are you her spirit, or my memories of her, or a creation to... what, test love? To see-”

“The Vorpals study every emotion. Want to know everything about us. Some consume us. Some become us. Some even befriend us. But all of it is to learn about us. I don't ultimately know why: I think their reasons are ultimately beyond us.”

The mare looked down, chewing on her lip before she said quietly: “I wanted to save you. I love you, with all my heart and my soul. I wish you weren't here and yet... I'm... I'm so happy that you are. Does that make sense? I don't know.

“I only know that, even if the Vorpal helped us, at the same time, we... I know it doesn't care deeply enough to help us for no reason. That's why it's allowed... other people to help you, but rarely stepped in itself.” She glanced over at Silent Wish, who smiled faintly as her gaze shifted down, rubbing slowly at her eyes. “I miss you, Last Call. I love you. But I want you to be safe and free. I know when this is all done, I'll be free, too. But I'll... move on. And you'll... you have to stay here. You have a long life ahead of you still. I'll... I'll be waiting for you, wherever I go-”

“I'll never get there.” Last Call smiled faintly, whispering: “If there is something else beyond, I think that I'm going to... a worse place than you are.”

“I wouldn't be happy without you. I've never been.” she said honestly, and it hurt. It hurt so badly, and yet... it made him smile, so widely, even as tears rolled down his cheeks.

“I know. I'm sorry. I... I love you, Faith.” he said quietly, and the mare smiled at him radiantly.

She laughed, then lowered her head and whispered: “Thought you'd forgotten my name.”

“I never did. I just was too scared to say it. I've never felt that I've deserved Faithful Heart.” he murmured, and the mare smiled at him again before she stepped forward, then bit her lip and nodded, hesitating as she cocked her head as if listening to an unheard voice.

She turned towards the doors, looking at them for a few long moments before she nodded once more and murmured: “We have to go, Last Call. It's time.”

“It's time.” Last Call echoed, and he took a slow breath before he straightened. He followed her around the altar to the doors, and Silent Wish pushed them open, but didn't follow: this was something Last Call had to do alone. This was the final, the last thing he could do for his wife, as they walked down a long corridor together, first into the darkness, and then, into light.

Author's Note

A: PUNISHMENT

B: FORGIVENESS

All Is Dust

Chapter Fourteen: All Is Dust
~BlackRoseRaven

Everything was light. It glowed all around him, suffusing him, blinding him. Swallowing him whole. It was so much more frightening than being gripped in the darkness: at least the shadows hid you, concealed you. The light left you naked, and vulnerable: the light revealed your every flaw, revealed all the things you wanted to stay hidden forever.

It scared him, but all the same, he kept moving forward. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her there: she was both beside him, and ahead of him. She was waiting for him, and she was guiding him, helping him to find the way, supporting him, and stopping him from turning back.

And Horses of Heaven, almost every part of him wanted to do at this point was turn and run away. But there was a small but ferocious voice, telling him to go forward, telling him to make things right, telling him that it was time to make amends.

He lowered his head, but still squinted against the light, still kept himself moving forward towards wherever the mare was leading him. For once in his life, he fought the urge to close his eyes, to bow his head, to turn away; for once in his life, he moved forward instead of allowing himself to be held back. Out of every truth he'd come to realize, after all, the biggest about himself was this: he was the only pony who had ever held himself back.

The light swelled for a moment, and then suddenly it didn't so much diminish as objects seemed to emerge from that sea of brightness, filling in the world around him and leaving him standing in a familiar, sunny world he knew all too well.

Canterlot: majestic, beautiful, and entirely devoid of life; nothing more than a dream in this bent reality, and yet it was still Canterlot down to the last detail, from the towers that scratched the blue sky above the cracks in the cobblestone beneath his hooves. Even the smells in the air, of perfumes and flowers and baked goods...

Ah, not entirely, he thought, as he caught another scent on the wind: brine. A reminder that as real as the world was, it still floated within the sea of untethered reality. A subtle hint that things weren't over yet: there was still this one last test.

And then what? Was he just supposed to leave and go home? Would the Vorpal magically make everything better? Would he be vomited out of the Alignment? Or would he be trapped here, forever, unable to leave or escape...

That last wouldn't be so bad. Not if he was here with her.

He looked up, and he saw her standing in the distance, smiling at him faintly, and even though she murmured the words, it was like she was right beside him as she said: “Maybe that's not what I want, though.”

Part of him wanted to take that in the worst possible way. But he knew what she meant: the reason he wanted to run away, to get angry, was because he often felt so much like a foal compared to her. So lesser than she had always been. But that wasn't her fault: that was his own, for not rising to his own expectations, for expecting the world, somehow, to always pick him up and put things in place for him.

If he wanted to live his life as fully as possible, then he had to actually live. He couldn't just depend on the world to take him where he thought he wanted to go. He had to work for things, fight for what he cared about, and face, at times, failure, even when he tried his best.

Even when he gave everything he had, he had to realize that sometimes things just weren't going to work out.

Last Call strode towards the mare, but she always seemed to keep a short distance away from him, whether she walked away or not. Canterlot passed around him, but he paid little attention to it: it would never be as alluring, or beautiful, or as important as his wife was to him. He had eyes only for her.

He heard something slither in the shadows behind him, but he didn't look back, as his mare cautioned: “Be careful. There are still dangerous things here. There was something else that woke up along with the Kiz... something they disturbed. Something that hates both them and us.”

“Something that wants to use us to destroy them. And the Kiz are aware of it, but... not. Because like we can't understand them, they can't understand it. Happenstance... he was the closest to knowing what it was.” Last Call didn't know how he knew that: he just knew it was right. Maybe that knowledge stemmed from the fact that he had been the closest to Happenstance for most of the night; maybe it had bled into him from Toadsfall, who had been infested by the evil.

“Why were we all brought here? I still don't understand that.” Last Call said honestly, and his mare smiled, and maybe, just maybe, he managed to get a little closer to her.

“I don't know, either. I think that it was because there are other ghosts here, other... dead. The ones the Kiz weren't interested in... they were either consumed, or they vanished. I hope they're back home. I always like Rainy Days.” She smiled a little, glancing down as she murmured: “I wish I could have helped them, though, or even said goodbye. But it took a while to understand that... what had happened.”

“Yeah.” Last Call said quietly, looking down for a moment, and when he looked back up, she was closer, and he realized where they were heading, where these streets were leading to: in the distance, he could see the building towering over them all, the stallion licking his lips before he whispered: “I'm so scared of this.”

“I am too. But I love you. And you love me, I know that, too. It's time now, Last Call. It's time to settle things.” the mare said gently, and Last Call nodded briefly as he looked away, taking a slow, uneasy breath.

“I know. I know it has to be done. I just... I wish that it was easier. I wish that...” He quieted, then smiled faintly as he halted and looked down at the street for a moment, whispering: “No. I need to stop focusing on what I wish would happen, and just deal with what's going on right now. I need to... accept.”

“Yes.” the mare said softly, and he looked up, and there she was, right in front of him. As beautiful as the day they'd met, he thought, even in spite of the signs of age, from that hint of gray in her mane, to the beginnings of wrinkles across her face: laugh lines, more than worry marks, he thought. After all the hell he put her through, how had she always been able to find the time to laugh so much?

She touched his face, and he pressed against her hoof before she smiled at him and said quietly: “Please, Last Call. Just a little further. For me.”

“You don't have to ask. You never should have had to in the past, either.” Last Call said softly, and she smiled again before she slipped backwards, and he followed in her wake, striding slowly even as she seemed to glide ahead over the street, in the direction of the hospital.

She entered the building fearlessly through the sliding doors, but he lingered for a few moments, studying its cold, sterile face. It was a huge, unwelcoming, blocky structure: he hated it. He couldn't think of a single happy thing that had happened here: this was where his wife had been when she had miscarried. This was where he had been taken after trying to kill himself. The emergency room he knew every detail of from all the times he had ended up there: from binges, from getting beaten up, from long nights filled with busy crowds.

This was where his wife had been taken first, where her body had lain, before the other ponies had come and... well, apparently they hadn't cremated her, after all. They had stolen her body and buried a jar of ashes: had it been some other pony? Or had it been nothing but burnt cinders and an empty coffin?

Not that it must have been very hard for them to pass off, either way. He had just kept moaning and whimpering that it was too hard to take care of the preparations. Her friends in Canterlot had seen to everything themselves. They had both been orphans, after all: her parents had died years ago, and he had never really known his. Dad ran away; Mom loved the bottle more than him.

Still, that didn't feel like his ultimate failure: as bad as it had been, if he'd given her a better life, then he never would have had to worry about what happened to her in death, would he? The body was nothing more than a set of clothes, a husk that was merely cast off at the end of the day. The spirit escaped, and went... where?

He didn't know. But if one thing had come from this, he had come to believe that things were more complicated than just life, and death. There was so much in between: there was a transference of states that he couldn't even hope to begin to understand, let alone explain.

Last Call studied the front of the hospital for a few more moments before he approached and strode through into the lobby. The doors slammed shut behind him, but he had a feeling they weren't trying to keep him in: rather, as they shivered and something skittered against it, he felt like they were trying to keep something out.

“The fear, the pain, the suffering caused as a side-effect of the Kiz's bending in reality, it attracts... evil things. Be careful.” warned his wife, and Last Call nodded slowly before he looked around the lobby, shivering a little before his eyes settled on the open doors of the elevator.

As he headed towards them, he couldn't help but ask: “Why is it that the Kiz only cause bad things to happen to us, if they don't mean us any harm?”

“Because they're curious. Because when ponies are happy, they aren't as interesting as when they're... challenged. And, to be entirely fair to the Kiz, it's our emotions, our lashing out that creates the Residue and calls up the Ichor. It's not their fault that... most of us are a little broken. Most of us find it easier to focus on the negatives, rather than the positives.”

Last Call nodded briefly as he entered the elevator, before he frowned uneasily as the doors closed and the elevator trembled before it began to descend. He automatically looked up, but before he could ask, the mare answered: “There's nothing above to learn from. You have to go into the darkness, first, to be ready to examine yourself in the light.”

Last Call looked down, remaining silent until the elevator stopped, and the doors dinged open on a shadowy, murky hallway. He smelled must and rust and seawater, the stallion chewing on his lip for a moment as he gazed into the shadows beyond before he took a slow breath and stepped out of the elevator.

The doors dinged shut behind him, closing off the little light that the elevator had cast into the hall, leaving him in just a deep, empty dimness. He reached up to click his flashlight on, but it seemed like the light could only stretch out for a foot or so beyond his face before it was swallowed up by the hungry shadows. It seemed endless.

All the same, he made himself move forward through the darkness. It felt like he spent an hour, slogging through the shadows, before he finally glanced back over his shoulder, and stared in disbelief as he found himself looking at a solid stone wall that had crept up behind him, blocking his exit completely. He shuddered a little, then turned his eyes back ahead, and there in front of him was a door.

But wasn't that what he wanted, in a strange way? No way back, only a way forward. He needed to keep his mind clear, or this broken reality was going to best him.

He pushed through the door, and shivered as he found himself standing in a morgue. The lockers were all closed and sealed tightly, although slime and muck dripped from several of them, and the flickering lamps hanging from the ceiling did little to provide any comfort or light. They were just bright enough to let him see the centre of the room, where four bodybags lay on cold metal gurneys.

Last Call approached the first in line silently, studying it for a few moments: it was the only bag that was soaked in slime, leaking mug from its tattered, stained seams. Last Call hesitated for a moment, and then he reached up and nervously unzipped it. He shivered a little as he pulled the top back and saw Toadsfall, frozen in a snarl, eyes wide and terrified, drooling slime from his jaws as his skin seemed to writhe, like things were crawling inside of him; like even in death, he was still a hive for evil.

“Aggression is not confidence. Violence is not strength. He thought he was a king, but... this is his reward.” The mare's voice fell silent, and then she murmured: “But I never hated him. In spite of everything he did, to you, to us, to me. I felt sorry for him.”

“He tried to rape you.” Last Call said, remembering things that he did not want to remember. But how could he selfishly block that out because it made him uncomfortable, when for her... was I really always that bad?

“It's natural. More natural than you think. Keep it to yourself, deal with your own issues... talk to me, but only about the things I can fix. And it wasn't so bad, not really, but I was lucky, of course. I was lucky.” She quieted, then murmured: “It looked... like someone had hit him there, repeatedly. Left him deformed. I was drugged. It's funny what you feel bad about: I don't remember what I said to him, but it hurt him. He just slapped me around instead. And I think he might have cried. And then he left me in the bathroom and I fell asleep in the stall and... everyone knew, but no one wanted to do anything against the boss. But I was okay. It was a good sleep. He never really bothered me again.”

“I should have protected you. And you could have spoken up... I should have spoken up for you.” Last Call murmured, as he studied Toadsfall, and yet even as he talked, he saw what his mare was talking about. Teeth bared to hide the way his eyes widened; muscles frozen in flex, head jutted out to hide the splay of his hooves, the trembles he imagined had run through those limbs. What a strange, sad creature he was, Last Call thought: made out of lies, twisted and broken. Monsters were rarely born; they were made.

“It's okay. It all worked out, in the end.” the mare murmured, and Last Call nodded briefly before he shifted away from the table. There was nothing he could do or say now, as he moved to the next gurney, studying the bodybag there before he grasped the zipper and opened it.

It didn't look like a pony: it took Last Call a moment to realize it was the plasticky, ruined body of Happenstance. He hesitantly grasped it, but even that flesh felt like not-flesh, as the mare murmured: “Returned in shame, to where he came from. He became too much like us. Or too much like the worst of us, because that's what's the easiest to find. You don't see the good ponies because good ponies don't demand attention like bad ones do. Good ponies keep things going the way they should be. The bad ones invite chaos, and chaos is much more interesting... but much more short-lived. He thought ponies were made of evil because he twisted everything around him into doing evil or his bidding so easily: he failed to understand that every pony is made of a thousand different things. It's not about what you make a pony do. It's about what you bring to the surface inside them. Like you, Call... a lesser stallion would have run away by now, but...”

“I'm not good. I'm not... I don't think I'm much better than Happenstance or Toad, really. I just had a different goal to reach. I was chasing someone who... made me a better person.” Last Call murmured, and his wife gave a small laugh, and he closed his eyes as it tinkled through his mind like music.

“You're better than you think you are.” she said, and there was silence for a moment as Last Call studied Happenstance's discarded remains, before he finally shifted to the next in line.

He opened it, and looked at Lectern, frozen, dead, afraid. He hadn't known the stallion, but now he understood, at least, why he had been so angry at the diner. That maybe he wasn't a good pony: he had been twisted by his experiences, seduced in the end by the old, false texts that Happenstance had slipped to him. Manipulated and coerced; wasn't that the story of all their lives, though? One way or another, you were forced to make decisions, each and every day. There was no stopping, no slowing down: you either moved forward, or you didn't.

The stallion studied Lectern for a few more moments, then he gently closed the bodybag as he murmured: “Sorry.”

He didn't know what else to say, so he moved to the last bodybag, studying it for a few moments before he took a slow breath and carefully opened it. He looked silently down at the pony inside, and then he reached down and gently stroked a bit of mane away from his wife's face before he whispered: “I thought I never could have faced this. And I still don't know if I can, or even worse, if I can live out life without you. It seems like too much. It seems impossible. I love you so much, Faith. But I regret, more than I can begin to express, the fact I wasn't there for you when you needed me. I wasn't there for you at the end. I missed all those moments, all those goodbyes. I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay.” she murmured: not from the body on the table, but all around him. He closed his eyes, trembling for a moment as he leaned over the gurney, before he grimaced a bit as he felt a shifting before he looked down in surprise to see the body had simply vanished, and he was leaning on an empty metal table.

All the other corpses were gone, too: Last Call studied the empty room for a moment, before he glanced up as there was a faint beeping behind him. He turned around and was unsurprised, somehow, to see an elevator waiting for him, soft music humming out of the car... was that the song he had written for her, all those years ago?

Last Call rubbed slowly at his face, then he started forward, heading into the elevator car. The doors closed quietly behind him, and then the elevator began to rise, Last Call taking a slow breath before he asked quietly: “Where do I go now? What do I do? I just want to see you again.”

There was no answer, but Last Call hadn't expected one. He knew that he couldn't depend on her to lead him everywhere by the hoof, as much as he wanted her to. He had to realize that he was responsible for his own life, and he had to walk his own path, as little as he wanted to. He couldn't continue to wallow in misery and despair: for better or worse, it was time to move forward.

He didn't want to move on without her. But he didn't want to piss on her memory any more than he already had, either. Maybe if he could just find a way to be a better person...

The doors opened with a ding, and Last Call stepped out onto the roof of the hospital. He glanced back, but the elevator was already gone: it was just empty space behind him.

Here he stood, beneath a sunny sky, on warm summer's day, in the middle of a crowded city. Here he stood, facing his wife as she leaned over the railing that encircled the hospital roof, gazing out over the beauty and majesty of Canterlot.

Here he stood in a place it was impossible for him to have reached, years ago from the night he had set out, with a mare who had died. And that was without taking into account everything that had happened to him: the broken bones, the pain, the loss of friend and foe alike...

“Am I dead?” he asked, as he approached his wife, and the mare smiled faintly over her shoulder at him before she shook her head, returning her eyes out over the city.

“Not yet.” she answered, and he nodded as he leaned on the railing beside her. He looked at her, then followed her eyes, gazing into the distance: the skies were a beautiful painted gold and crimson, not a single cloud crossing that threshold between their world and whatever stretched beyond.

They just stood together, side-by-side, for the longest time, until Last Call looked over at her and whispered: “I don't want you to go.”

She smiled faintly, turning towards him with a soft sigh before she murmured: “I don't want to, either. But I have to. You understand that, don't you?”

“I do. And I hate it. And I'm sorry, at the same time, because I don't want you to leave, feeling guilty. I don't want...” Last Call struggled for a moment to find the words, and then he lowered his head and laughed faintly, shaking his head before he closed his eyes as he whispered: “It's not fair. I fought all this way for you. I came here to save you. I... you're here, and yet I can't do a goddamn thing. I failed you, again. And I hate myself for it. I don't even want to say 'at least I tried,' or beg or scream or cry... I just... I hate it.”

The mare nodded to him, looking at him silently for a few moments before she reached up and gently took his face between her hooves, and they looked at each other for a few moments before she said softly: “Sometimes you can do everything right, and it all still turns out wrong. I know you've learned that by now. It's not your fault; you're trying hard to be a good person. A better person than you were. I won't pretend you didn't have your faults, Call, but... I could always see the real you, deep down inside there. You could be a huge jerk to everyone. But...”

She lowered her head, then she leaned forwards, embracing him tightly, burying her face against his neck. “You loved me. I never, ever doubted that. You were always a pessimist and a jerk and sometimes you yelled when I wish you would have just talked and sometimes you ran away when I wished you stayed but... you loved me, and I felt that love, and knew that love.”

“I did. I always loved you. And I'm sorry for-”

“There's no time left to be sorry. There's no need for apologies anymore, either. I just... I just want one thing from you, that's all.” the mare said quietly, as she rose her head and smiled faintly into his eyes, and the stallion swallowed thickly as he leaned back a bit, grasping her shoulders as they studied each other before she whispered: “I need you to let me go.”

The stallion breathed softly, and his mare, his lover, his wife smiled up at him faintly before she said quietly: “You're all that holds me here, to this world. That anchors my spirit. I'm not full of rage or fear like these other ghosts... only love, for you. But I need you to... to let me go now. I've never asked this before, and I'm... I'm scared, but I want to go out there, on my own. I want to see what's beyond. I want to... I want to have an adventure. And I want to know you love me, you trust me enough that... when the time comes, we'll be together again. But it's time for me to go. We have to be apart, just for a little while.”

“I don't want to. I'm scared. I'm...” Last Call swallowed thickly, and then he slowly closed his eyes, taking a shuddering breath as he lowered his head. She kissed his face silently, and Last Call laughed weakly before he whispered: “I don't want this to have been for nothing.”

“It's not for nothing. You came all this way for me and I love you for it, more than I ever have before. I'll never forget it, or you, Last Call. But you can't be happy like this, and neither can I. Even if we escape, I'll just be a shadow... I don't want to be your shadow, a ghost. I want to be free. I want you to be free. That's... all we can do for each other. I want you to be free.” the mare murmured, and when Last Call opened his eyes, he realized that she was crying, tears rolling down her cheeks even as she smiled for him, smiled like she always did when something was hard, but she wanted him to be happy, she wanted him to...

Last Call embraced her fiercely, hugging her as tightly as he dared, and she clutched into him, trembling, as he whispered: “Don't. No. This isn't about me. This is about you. This is about what you need. I love you, Faith. I love you so damn much... but I understand. I'm so sorry. I just... I wish I could apologize for everything I did wrong.”

“I don't care about that, though. I only think about what you did right, and how happy you made me... and that you came for me. And that... now...”

Faithful Heart leaned back, and Last Call looked at her for a moment before he leaned forwards, kissing her. Their lips met, briefly, almost chaste and yet tender, loving, like the kiss of their wedding day, when they had kissed in front of all those ponies, like their first kiss lived anew...

And then it parted, and Last Call felt her pulling away, and it took all his strength of will not to clutch her in, to crush her against him, to catch her and stop her and pull her close...

Last Call clenched his eyes shut as his forelegs opened wide, letting her pull away, and then he fell forward on his knees with a gasp as the cold air ripped against him and thunder rumbled in the distance. His teary eyes opened, and he stared down at the mountaintop under his hooves before he gave a pained howl, slamming a hoof into the ground as he trembled violently before he let out a weak, broken sob.

All for nothing, he wanted to think.

It was all useless, he wanted to lament.

He wanted to scream and cry and shriek and temper tantrum.

He wanted a drink.

But instead, he forced himself to take a rattling breath, to remember his promise before he looked up, and blinked slowly, lethargically, before he shuddered a bit as he saw the Vorpal.

There wasn't really any pain, though, as he shifted back onto his rump, sitting back and only looking at the unknowable thing. Knowing it was unknowable and impossible somehow made it easier to take, easier to look at, easier to... almost understand, and he already felt so much pain and heartache that when its alien voice asked a flurry of images what he was doing, he barely felt the additional pressure to his mind.

He shook his head, waved a front hoof weakly, and then he said finally: “The only thing I can do, I guess. Saving her. Setting her free. Letting her go. But not for me. For her... do you understand that?”

It didn't. It was confused. Curious. Strangely... empathetic, he thought. Child's drawings again; was that all it was, a child? Was this why it had been sent out beyond the stars, because these ageless and formless things were the youngest of their infinite and unknowable lot, so they were sent out, to understand, to gather knowledge, to bring home...

Oh who the hell knew? Who cared? Last Call looked up almost with defiance at the Vorpal as he rubbed his face slowly, before he whispered: “I love her. If you can't understand love and the things it makes you do, the ways it makes you both better yourself and hurt yourself for someone else, then we are as alien to you as you are to us, and you'll never, ever understand us. Get lost. I'm not your lab rat.”

The thing was surprised.

It contemplated for a moment, and limbs and claws and tentacles stretched out from that mass, both threatening and thoughtful.

And then, suddenly, it stretched back into itself, then produced something else. Something that Last Call recognized very well, as it set it gently down in front of him, and he stared at it for a moment before the thing prompted him with an image, a voice, a whisper of memory it had shared from... her.

Last Call bit his lip, then he reached out and picked up the beaten acoustic guitar, whispering: “I usually charge for a performance, you know. Or at least you should buy me a drink, but... I don't think... I don't think I'll be drinking much anymore.”

Last Call closed his eyes, and then he took a slow breath before he began to play. His hooves stuttered a little at first, but then found their rhythm as naturally, as easily as ever, and soon after he picked up the words; his voice barely quavering in spite of the sobs that had shook him only moments ago, his face smoothing out even with the fresh trails of tears staining his cheeks:

“Every morning, the only reason I wake up,
Is so I can see you, next to me;
Every night the reason I go to bed,
Is just to lay down, next to you.

Oh, you're my faithful heart,
And my heart beats for you;
Oh, you're my faithful heart,
The one thing in life that's true.”

His eyes closed, he leaned forward on instinct, and it was there; his mouth found the harmonica as naturally as if he had put it on himself before the performance, playing a brief few bars across it before he leaned back, smiling faintly to himself as he continued:

“I never believed in love, you know,
Not even after we met;
First sight, first kiss, first night together,
No, I didn't believe even then.

It was after the months we spent together,
How I looked forwards to your smile;
Not your body, your curves, your flattery,
But just seein' you smile... for... me...

Oh, you're my faithful heart,
And my heart, it beats for you;
You know it's true, my faithful heart,
And how I love you too...

Love me tender, love me sweet,
I love the way you look at me.
I love your smile, your kiss, your touch,
How time with you is never too much.

My faithful heart, my faithful heart,
You know I love you true.
Faithful Heart, oh, Faithful Heart,
And I know, you love me, too...”

Last Call played a last few lines on the harmonica as his hooves strummed the song to a close, and then he lowered his head as he took a slow breath before he laughed faintly and opened his eyes.

And here he was. Alone on the mountaintop, with nothing but a guitar in his lap, the sun beginning to rise in the distance, and all traces of the Vorpal and the long night he had just lived through gone and faded away.

“I know it's not a great song, but it's not that bad. You didn't have to leave yet.” he murmured, before he glanced over his shoulder as he heard a quiet laugh.

He studied Silent Wish, who smiled faintly at him as she walked up behind him and gently touched his shoulder. He nodded to her once, and she nodded back, looking at him for a few moments before she said softly: “The Alignment has ended. Soon, I'll be gone, back in the space between spaces. But your wife is...”

“She's moved on. I... I'm glad. I guess I did what I set out to do.” Last Call glanced down at the guitar in his lap, before he reached up and absently touched the harmonica on the bars around his neck, chewing on his lip for a moment before he asked almost impulsively: “Don't you want to move on, too?”

“There are still things I have to do, for better or worse.” The filly shrugged a bit, then she smiled a little up at Last Call, saying finally: “But I'm glad you made it out okay. I'm glad the Vorpal... you convinced him to try something different. He saw you let go of something you loved. So he tried to let go of something that... I wouldn't say he loved either of you, but he was interested in you... and in her. So he tried letting go. It... must have been hard.”

“For everyone.” Last Call murmured, and then he shook his head before he straightened a little, rubbing absently at his face as he looked off into the distance, gazing silently at the brightening horizon. “I didn't make it out alone. I have you to thank.”

There was no answer, and when Last Call looked to the side, he couldn't help but smile faintly as he saw that the filly was gone. He hesitated for a moment, then simply nodded once before he looked down at the guitar in his hooves.

He strummed on it gently, then glanced up as he heard something; shouting, he thought. Calling out. He only looked curiously towards the edge of the mountain in the distance from his position on the far side of the bowl, until eventually, shapes emerged over the rim: ponies, he thought. He waved at them, but made no move to get up.

The Sheriff approached with several other large ponies, looking at Last Call with confusion as they drew in close. Sheriff Steel began to open his mouth, glaring at him angrily, but Last Call cut him off by saying simply: “My wife is dead.”

The sheriff closed his mouth as he and the other ponies came to a halt, and Last Call chewed on his lip for a moment before he looked back at the ruins of the ranger station in the distance, saying finally: “I think you'll find everything you need in there. It was... Toad, mostly. He and some crazy friends of his.”

“I think you better tell me what the hell happened here. We have a lot of disappearances reported: Mr. Happenstance never returned to his room last night, Mr. Toadsfall is missing, and we found that asshole friend of yours beaten up and at the bottom of the mountain. He'll be lucky if he wakes up.” Sheriff Steel growled, but then he frowned as Last Call gave a weak, relieved laugh, rubbing slowly at his face.

“Goddamn, Furor.” he whispered: and he had the feeling – or maybe it was just a hope – that he might not be in as bad a shape as he seemed. He'd seen what happened when Furor actually took a beating, after all. “That's one good thing to come out of this, at least.”

“You're not making sense-”

“Just... send your boys ahead. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not running anymore.” Last Call answered, and Steel frowned at him before he grudgingly nodded, gesturing sharply at two of the large stallions he'd brought with him: not deputies, just boys from town.

Steel turned his eyes back towards Last Call, and Call looked down at the guitar in his hooves before he strummed the strings, then looked up and asked finally: “Can I play you a song?”

The official report said that Toadsfall and Lectern had run some sort of suicide cult in the mountains. They found dead bodies and notes from the funeral homes and hospitals they had been shipped out of, which led to several arrests... not that Last Call really kept up with it all. He couldn't say he was sorry that Toadsfall was being demonized, but he felt bad about Lectern being reported as some kind of manipulative, schizophrenic psychopath. Lectern had honestly been trying to help.

He had just been misled. They all had been, really. But the stories were grisly: corpses that had been sold for crazed rituals involving sacrifices of the dead to pagan gods and fairytale monsters. A lot of the stories omitted or only mentioned offhoof that these sacrifices were meant for protection from evil things, but it was difficult to swallow, either way. There were a lot of ponies angry about the desecration of the bodies, and shocked at just how many were coming out of the mountain above. It was like every time they thought they cleared them out, they found more; Last Call wondered if that was an effect of the Kiz and the bending of reality, if perhaps up there, things were still a little bent and twisted.

And admittedly, when the ponies had come to inform him they had found his wife's remains, it had been terribly hard not to be a little upset. But he had reminded himself of what he had gone through, what they all had gone through during the Alignment... and in the end, he had been strangely thankful for it. For the chance to have a second funeral for her. To a chance to say goodbye again. For the private little farewell he was able to hold, in a special little plot they made for her and a few others in the national park she'd loved so much, in the shadow of the mountain he had climbed to find her... no, that they had climbed together, really. He never would have managed it without her, or Silent Wish, or all the others who had helped him reach that strange place beyond time and space.

Still, it could have been worse. Steel had kept a sharp eye on him for a while, but then finally grudgingly let him off the hook. Whether he still thought Last Call and Furor were involved didn't matter: they stoically backed-up each other's stories, and the newspapers already had their headlines. The fact Toadsfall and Lectern and a bunch of other ponies had vanished only made it sweeter, and meant that they had plenty of ponies to share the blame without having to waste time or effort on making any arrests.

Last Call felt that Steel didn't care about making the arrest, though, as much as he did about finding out what had really happened. But Last Call was aware that talking about it would just make him sound crazy and would probably give Steel a reason to arrest him and hold him accountable for what had happened. Even thinking about it made him feel crazy, after all.

Now, Last Call was back home. The first few days had been terribly hard: his wife's presence was everywhere, but she was gone, long gone, and it took a lot of adjusting. Finally, he'd stopped crying and pitying himself long enough to clean up some of the mess he'd made, had gotten easier. He started talking to her again, but this time, with the awareness that he couldn't bring her back. That an open door was nothing more than a door blown open by a draft, or that he'd forgotten he'd left ajar.

And eventually, being in her presence, feeling it all around him in this house they'd built together... it started to help, not hurt. He remembered the good times.

He remembered their last moments together, how she'd wished him well, how she'd sent him to live. How ultimately, she forgave him... even though she had also acted like there was nothing to forgive.

Last Call was going to be a better stallion. Better, not smarter or stronger, just better. That was all he needed to do. He was determined not to disappoint her, and to live his life to the fullest. To experience all the things he wanted to, to chase his dreams, like he'd forgotten to do because life had gotten so... easy, and repetitive, and he'd fallen into himself and let himself become the kind of person he'd always hated.

But she had reminded him who he really was. More than that, who he could be, if he was only willing to try a little.

Last Call was going to be that stallion, one way or another.

Maybe he wouldn't do everything right. Maybe, even if he did, something terrible would happen. Maybe there were other things still out there, waiting to trip him up, even hunting him, hounding him, eager to hurt him... but he wouldn't let any of it stop him.

He'd be patient. He'd be good. He would take care of himself, and be the stallion his Faithful Heart had believed that he could be. That was the least that he could do for her: be the stallion that she had always seen in him, live life to the fullest, and never, ever turn his back on her and who she had been, or being the stallion she had wanted him to be.

And one day, they would be together, again.

Author's Note

> THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU STOP READING IF YOU WANT THE STORY TO HAVE A HAPPY ENDING <

Otherwise, well. On to the epilogue.

If you enjoyed this story, please consider donating. I touch none of the money and all proceeds go towards sponsorship of a village devastated by the Syrian conflict. This story was determined by your votes, comments, and donations, and written in large part thanks to generous people willing to donate even a few dollars towards a good cause. Thank you for all that you have done.

Epilogue: Never Without You

Epilogue: Never Without You
~BlackRoseRaven

It was late, and Last Call had been reading quietly when the knock came at the door.

One, two, three.

Last Call frowned a bit, then he checked the clock: it was nearly midnight. Who was coming by this late? Was it the Sheriff, here to arrest him? Was it Furor? But no matter who it was, he couldn't just ignore it. He was better than that.

One, two three knocks.

Last Call strode over to the door, then he reached up to grasp the handle. For a moment, he felt a terrible chill.

The Alignment was over, though. The Kiz were gone. It had been a month since then, and nothing had happened. As a matter of fact, he'd finally started to sleep soundly again, in the bed he had always shared with his wife.

One, two, three.

“I'm right here.” he tried to say, but it came out like a croak. He shivered. Why was he afraid? Why had his blood turned to ice in his veins?

He bit his lip, then turned the handle.

He looked through the crack in the door, and he saw a mare. She smiled at him, and he opened the door before he could stop himself. He opened the door, even through he knew it was all wrong, that this mare was not his mare.

The mare strolled calmly in, covered in dirt and frostbite, icicles and innards hanging from her midsection. A few moments later, her hindquarters came after, moving with the same sultry stride even though they were disconnected from the severed front half of her body, only a twisting black fog acting as a bridge between her front half and her back half.

Last Call closed the door, as the mare smiled at him, looking at him with black, hollow hell-eyes.

“Thank you for letting me in.” she said.

Last Call only looked at her, at the mare who was not his mare. At the darkness that the Kiz had woken up. At the thing he had been warned about, and yet couldn't turn away. At the beast that had caught his scent, and he knew he could never escape: that if he tried to run away from, it would only do worse when it caught up to him again later. The face, the shape, the defiled beauty it wore now was proof enough of that.

She smiled at him, then strode past: first, her front brushed against him, and he felt her body was terribly cold, and she smelled not of rot, but of the earth, of frost, of frozen blood; a few moments later, her hindquarters switched gently against him, bumping into him before the rear half almost caught up to the front half that stood leaning against a door, before she said tenderly: “I'll be waiting, my love. Don't keep me waiting for long. It's been such a long time since I've been warm.”

With that, she pushed through the door into the bedroom, and it swung closed behind her, closing with a gentle click.

For a moment, Last Call considered running away. Fleeing into the night. Trying to escape. It was the sensible thing to do.

Last Call walked across the room and opened the bedroom door.

He looked inside. He trembled. He shook. He felt tears in his eyes, and his heart halt in his chest, and bile rise in his throat.

It wasn't her, but it was her.

It wasn't but it was.

It was her.

Last Call stepped inside, and closed the door behind him.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed right to the end of this strange and twisted tale. What happens to Last Call from here on out? I'll leave that to you to decide.

The Turning Away

Chapter Two: The Turning Away
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call licked his lips as he strode down the road with Furor tagging along behind him, feeling listless and uneasy as he did his best to not look back. He felt almost like they were being followed, but he knew that was just his mind playing tricks on him. Lectern was just a creepy old stallion who believed too much in old mares' tales, that was all.

“So are you actually going to do this favour for Happenstance?” asked Furor suddenly, and Last Call halted and looked back with a frown at the unicorn. “I mean, I thought you dealt with enough crazies as it is.”

Last Call grunted, looking away for a moment before he shook his head and said finally: “I can't really turn down Happenstance. I'd love to, but when you live on commission, the first rule is not to piss off the clients. I just... it'll just be a little bit of time out of my day, Happenstance will be happy, and... yeah.”

“Yeah.” echoed Furor, before the unicorn sighed and asked dryly: “Do you need some liquid courage? Because I sure as hell could go for a drink.”

“It's... it's too early to go for a drink.” Last Call said reluctantly, glancing away as he thought of the promises he'd made to the mare. And if he showed up with alcohol on his breath to her work... just. Just save it for later. “Since when are you scared of ghost stories anyway?”

“Since when the hell did you decide to be a good boy?” Furor asked, and Last Call gave him a dry look before the unicorn shrugged and said finally: “Look, I'm going to the bar. If you need me, I'll be there. If you're smart, you'll come join me and forget about this whole mess.”

“What, you afraid of Lectern or something?” Last Call asked, and Furor scowled a little before he snorted and shook his head. “I'll catch up with you later. You can come and-”

“Hell no. I've done my bit for today. No more meals with tubby and no more advice for you.” Furor retorted, and Last Call rolled his eyes before he frowned a little as he studied the unicorn. Sure, Furor was always obnoxious, but he felt like something was a little off about him. Like Lectern had freaked him out more than Furor wanted to admit.

“It's just stories.” Last Call said, and he didn't know if he was reassuring himself or Furor.

Furor glowered, but then he simply grunted and turned away, waving a hoof absently back at Last Call as he hurried off. The stallion watched him leave, and then he sighed and shrugged to himself before he turned-

He halted as his eyes caught something irregular between the pleasant little houses spaced along the street, the stallion frowning uneasily before he spotted a filly standing in the spot precisely between the two homes, giving him the feeling that he belonged to neither, dressed in a heavy raincoat in spite of the fair, brisk weather of the day.

She smiled at him, her big red eyes seeming to pierce his soul, but before Last Call could even think of what to say, the filly was suddenly gone, vanishing in a flick of her coat. The stallion mouthed wordlessly for a moment, and then he shook his head quickly, grimacing before he turned to hurry on. I have enough to worry about without dealing with weird kids too.

Last Call made his way onward, trying to focus on the task at hoof. It felt like a thousand things were nibbling at his mind, making it almost impossible to concentrate on the one task he wanted to. He needed to get his head on straight before he went to the park, he needed to do something to clear his mind...

Why was he letting this bother him so much? It was stupid and pointless. Lectern was nothing but a crazy old stallion and... and oh, hell, that was just an easy explanation, wasn't it?

He wasn't afraid of monsters under the bed or fairy tales. He was afraid of having to ask her for yet another favour, to feel like he was in her debt again, to be... less than a stallion.

Last Call scowled a little as he lowered his head, eyes shifting off to the side of the road even as he ducked past a pony, mumbling awkwardly in response to some happy greeting they spouted at him. Why the hell was everyone so nice?

He snorted a little, wondering moodily if that mare was right: he did have to complain about everything. Well, no... that wasn't something he really had to wonder about. It was true: every time something happened, he whined about it. And she always just carried on, through thick and thin, as if nothing really bothered her...

He wished he was more like her. But he didn't think that he could ever bear to tell her that.

Last Call sighed a little and shook himself out as he walked towards the edge of town. The park office wasn't very far away: maybe ten, fifteen minutes out. He could get there in no time if he really wanted to...

He didn't really want to. And if he showed up like this, he knew that it would look bad. No, he had to calm himself down, get his head on straight. Stop jumping at foals and make-believe.

The stallion nodded a little to himself as he continued down the road: it was only a few minutes before he was passing by the front of the parks office, but he barely gave it a glance as he continued on his way, following what was less a dirt road and more of a rough path through the wilderness.

He remembered when they'd moved out here together: Horses of Heaven, they'd both felt lost in spite of the path under their hooves, constantly second-guessing if they were going the right way or not because it seemed like they were following a road to nowhere. He'd wanted to turn around; she'd wanted to just keep going, of course, trusting that her colleagues wouldn't lie to her, that her friends were waiting just up ahead, that the job was there, the village was there, the everything-she'd-dreamed was there...

Don't be silly! she had laughed. My life is right here. Walking with me into the woods. And hopefully not running faster than me if we run into a bear.

She had always been a hopeless romantic. And he had hated how much it had made him smile.

Last Call sighed a little as he continued to follow the trail beaten through the forest, his eyes drawing slowly back and forth before he stopped and frowned a little. Just a few weeks ago, he'd had to walk to Canterlot, and as messy as the trail had been, there had still been a clear path through the woods. Was it just a trick of his eyes, or had the trail vanished from under his hooves?

“No, I guess... I took a wrong turn somewhere.” Last Call muttered to himself, even if a little voice in his head scoffed that that was impossible: how the hell did you take a wrong turn on a straight road?

“Easy, when it's a road to nowhere.” he argued under his breath with himself, then he shook his head quickly before he approached the seeming-end of the trail, nervously pressing a hoof around in the tall grasses as he leaned back and forth, staring through the trees that he could swear hadn't been there a few weeks ago. But there was no more road: only endless forest beyond, terribly deep and dark and eerie.

He shifted back and forth on his hooves, then he shook his head quickly before he muttered: “I... I guess I must have been so lost in my thoughts that I did... maybe I went down one of the game trails or something. Yeah. I mean, Happenstance got here, right?”

He nodded briefly to himself, then he narrowed his eyes as he felt... something. A prickling along his spine, a sensation like eyes were on him. He shifted, and he heard the grass rustle against his fetlocks, felt the dirt rumble under his hooves before he turned around, and stared in surprise at the foal from before.

She smiled at him: a pretty young thing, dressed in her too-heavy coat, little red eyes peeking out from under her hat, green mane all dishevelled even beneath the lid of her cap. She tilted her head slightly as if to look past him, and the stallion frowned and glanced back over his shoulder at the forest behind him before the filly said gently: “You can't keep running away from everything.”

Last Call whirled back to face her, and then he blinked in surprise as he saw the filly was simply gone, the stallion mouthing wordlessly for a few moments before he shook his head vehemently, reaching up to slap his face a few times before he mumbled: “What the hell, snap out of it, colt. Did I really drink that much last night?”

No, he knew he hadn't. It had been a hell of a night, but he'd been hungover and sober all morning and he'd been fine during his meeting with Happenstance...

No, he was just... he was tired. He was tired, that was all. That was why that asshole at the restaurant had freaked him out so much, that was why he was having so many second thoughts about Happenstance's request, why he was imagining ridiculous things, like that some filly he'd caught a glimpse of had followed him out here to a dead end in the forest.

He nodded a few times to himself as he tried to convince himself that he had convinced himself that everything was okay, even as that little voice in his mind asked him incredulously what the hell he was trying to do. But Last Call figured the best way to shut that little voice up was to put his back to the plainly-impossible, the stallion turning away from the end of the trail and heading back down the path.

But in spite of all the work he was putting into telling himself what was possible and what wasn't, he couldn't stop his eyes from darting around as he made his way back down the gradually-widening trail, searching for landmarks, offshoots, anything to confirm he hadn't gone completely insane.

Last Call stopped beside a small offshoot, narrowing his eyes at the thin, not-quite-path that branched away from what was clearly the main trail, and part of him wanted to declare that yes, this was clearly the actual road to Canterlot, while the rest of him wanted to ask him what the hell was wrong with him and why he couldn't just accept the fact that... the road vanished? That's not possible. Or did... maybe the forest grows that fast?

What a miserable excuse that was. Unless a group of earth ponies had been coming out here every night for the last few weeks to fill in the entire forest...

Was that really so hard to believe? Clearly this festival was important to the townsfolk-

So important that there wasn't a single decoration, a single sign, that they had left it to Happenstance of all ponies to take care of what Last Call strongly suspected was going to be comparable to a bland 'haunted haytrail' walk for a mix of foals and snobs and ponies who took storytime way too seriously, like-

Like you?

Last Call scowled at... well, at himself. Of course, his first instinct was to blame her, but even if he could see that smile on her face so clearly in his mind, it wasn't like he could pretend she was the one saying that. Or that any time she had ever said it, it had been with malice; she knew just the way to prick him, the ways that would sting, but never make him bleed...

He shook his head, then looked up as he realized his hooves had carried him a little further back along the trail, and now he was standing in front of the parks office, the stallion looking uncomfortably at the front of this for a few moments before he sighed and dropped his head.

Well, there was no better time than the present. And seeing as his attempt to calm down had just made him more nervous – because I'm too tired, I'm just... tired, letting my mind get carried away with me, that's all! – he might as well get this over with.

God, he wished he'd gone for a drink.

Last Call mumbled to himself as he strode towards the building, squaring his shoulders as he pushed into the front of the office. As usual, it was mostly empty, with only one employee sitting at the desk, absently stacking pamphlets. The pegasus looked up as Last Call approached, before he blinked and straightened, knocking the pile of pamphlets over before he blurted out: “Hey! Call, uh... Last Call, you're-”

“Yeah, uh. Hi.” Last Call half-waved as he stopped in front of the counter, giving a lame little smile before he asked: “Is she around?”

The stallion stared at him stupidly, and Last Call sighed before he said finally: “Uh, Happenstance wants to do some... walk or something for the... convergence or the awakening or whatever the hell the local festival is. Do you know-”

“Oh, oh! Oh oh oh, yes!” The stallion seemed relieved, nodding quickly as he smiled at him. “The Alignment! I've only lived here a few years, but it's always been a big thing with the locals... it's a fun few days. I think normally the city council handles it, but I heard they didn't have the budget this year. I'll need to set up a waiver, of course, you know there's always politics and red tape to worry about, but yes, we'd be more than happy to open the trails for that night.”

“Uh... great, then. Yeah. I should... you know, probably go talk to my... mare.” Last Call said awkwardly, and the stallion behind the desk laughed a little and only smiled awkwardly, and Last Call took that as his cue to head to the back door of the park office.

He paused, however, looking back over his shoulder and asking before he could stop himself: “The road to town, uh... it seemed like it was... blocked off. Is that...”

The stallion stared at him for a moment, then he shrugged a bit before he said finally: “Well, uh... last year it got pretty busy and they got a little backed-up. I know some tourists usually show up... the hotel is usually full this time of year.”

“Impressive.” Last Call deadpanned, before he cleared his throat quickly, hoping that the pegasus didn't notice the sarcasm. He forced a smile, then turned away and headed out through the back door, keeping his thoughts to himself until he was heading down one of the trails.

It was much more peaceful back here: the trails were all clearly marked, and every intersection was marked by a light post with an old-fashioned oil lamp. Anywhere the path narrowed, simple string guidelines were set up to prevent people from wandering off the path, and ponies kept not only the paths clean and well-trod, but the branches above trimmed, so the trees couldn't block out too much light or the view of the sky.

Last Call found her near one of the larger intersections, trimming the bushes away from a guidepost: the rectangular, hoof-carved map illustrated the entirety of the surrounding forest and its many trails, each of them marked a different colour. Last Call kept his eyes almost entirely on the sign even as the mare looked up curiously from her trimming, putting down the clippers before she asked: “Did you need something?”

“I got it sorted out. I guess... I figured I'd let you know and uh... you know. Ask if you could work out the details, though...” Last Call mumbled, his eyes shifting away from her before he rubbed at his face, then scowled as he quickly drew his hoof back, looking grumpily at the mud he had stepped in without realizing it.

She smiled at him, then she strode over to him and gently brushed some of the muck from his cheek, and he winced a little at her touch, his heart doing a double-thud in his chest, her touch electric. His eyes almost shyly flicked to her as she leaned in towards him, and they looked at each other in silence for a few moments.

Then he quickly stepped back, clearing his throat and brushing at himself a few times as he lowered his head embarrassedly, chewing on his lip before he mumbled: “I uh... yeah. Just wanted to let you know and um... Happenstance, actually, Happenstance wants to bring people here for the... festival.”

“The Alignment? Oh, they want to do a forest walk?” the mare looked at him dubiously as she rested a hoof against his chest, and oh, how he wanted so badly to slip away, or at least control the beating of his heart so she didn't feel that thud-thud, thud-thud... “Call, you know-”

“I know.” Last Call grumbled automatically as he reached up to grasp her wrist, and he squeezed it for a moment before he let it go, sighing as he stepped back from her, letting his eyes drop as he said: “I just thought I'd let you know. About Happenstance. I already talked to the guy inside, said it wouldn't be a problem. Just... I know that... these are your trails and uh...”

“Thanks, Call. Don't stress yourself out, okay?” The mare smiled up at him, with her infinite understanding and her infinite patience, and he lowered his head a little before he grimaced a bit when she said softly: “It's not your fault that things... we're okay, Call. But if you keep closing off and refusing to-”

“I'm dealing with it. I'm... dealing with it, I promise.” Call murmured, eyes shifting briefly away for a moment before he took a long breath, then he nodded once even as he scraped uselessly at the ground and refused to look up. “I don't mean to pressure you, but this is... important to Happenstance and I said I'd make it work. I don't mean to go over your head, either, or-”

“You know I don't actually own these trails, right? My job is taking care of them and preserving the forest. It's what I enjoy.” she said gently, and Last Call smiled briefly.

“Yeah, I know. I know. It's why we came out here. They called you up and... we came out here.” he said, and she chuckled quietly before he murmured: “I... I wish things were different but I... I regret it less every day, I guess. Things... maybe you're right and the stress of it all is getting to me.”

The mare looked at him softly, then she reached up and gently touched his face: he tried to pull away, then winced when her hoof grabbed his mane, his head tilting to the side before she cupped his cheek again as she said quietly: “I just want to see you smile again.”

Last Call looked at her, and then he gave a tiny, awkward smile, and she smiled faintly back at him as she said softly: “It doesn't count when you force it. I know you're smiling for real when I hear you say my name. Don't think I don't know how you refer to me. Or rather, don't refer to me.”

“How else am I supposed to try and flirt with all the mares?” Last Call asked ironically, and the mare smiled at him in amusement: infidelity, at least, had never been much of an issue between them.

She shook her head, then she sighed a little as she leaned forward, resting her head against him for a moment before she slipped past. He turned to watch her go, feeling a burst of longing as he opened his mouth, but he still couldn't force himself to speak her name, to say all the things he wanted to say: all the things he had almost been unable to.

“I'm going to go talk to Rainy, make sure everything's in order. I'll see you back at the house tonight... right?” she asked, and Last Call smiled briefly before he nodded once. He half-wanted to walk with her, but by the time he found the courage to ask if she wanted company, she was already gone.

He lowered his head, then winced a bit as a voice remarked calmly: “Call. Funny to see you here.”

Last Call turned with a scowl towards the stallion who had spoken: the unicorn was tall, lanky, with cold, cold blue eyes. Eyes of a sadist, Last Call thought as he grimaced a little, his body tensing slightly as he said shortly: “Toad.”

“Toadfall. I prefer Fall, as I think I've mentioned before.” answered the unicorn, but he looked amused if anything as his eyes flicked past Last Call, and the stallion couldn't help but shift to the side to block Toadfall's line of sight.

That earned a thin smile from the unicorn, who asked in his cruel, sharp voice: “Trying to hide something? Perhaps you were frittering away time with-”

“None of your goddamn business.” Last Call growled, then he stepped forward aggressively, glaring at Toadfall, who only smiled back fearlessly. Sure, Last Call was rough-looking, but he was impressively average overall: Toadfall, he knew, came from a military background, his clothes, mane, and tail all cut and squared precisely, his dark-coated body thin but athletic. And those eyes... those cold, cold blue eyes... “Stay away from her.”

“I'll go where I please, especially when it concerns my employees.” Toadfall retorted, before he mocked: “I heard that Lily's daycare does sing-along every day. Maybe you can put your 'talents' to use there, if you're done writing little jangles for idiots like Happenstance.”

Last Call scowled darkly: Horses of Heaven, he so badly wanted to punch this asshole out. But he trembled, when he looked up at those eyes, and that little voice started asking him desperately who the hell he was trying to impress and what he thought he was doing and this was a unicorn who-

“You just keep your eyes off my wife.” Last Call said finally, and Toadfall smiled at him condescendingly. Last Call only growled, however, before he turned away-

“I don't go back for sloppy seconds, Last Call. She was good, but not that good.”

Last Call ground his teeth together slowly as he glared over his shoulder furiously, but then he only shook his head sharply before he turned sharply away. He knew Toadfall was just mocking him, trying to lead him on, trying to make him do something stupid, and goddammit, he wasn't going to, he wasn't, he wasn't...

Last Call stumbled into a run, and Toadfall laughed loudly behind him, and god, Call wished that a tree or a meteor or the goddamn sun would fall on that bastard and crush him, just crush him out of existence, and, and...

Last Call stumbled half into the woods, dropping on his rump and telling himself he wasn't crying as he rubbed a foreleg violently across his eyes, clenching them shut as tight as he dared. Eventually, his trembling faded, and he breathed slowly in and out, sitting back against the tree and looking miserably up towards the sky as he whispered: “Coward.”

Coward.

Goddamn coward.

The stallion silently shifted back against the tree, looking down as he rubbed slowly at his face before he shook his head and closed his eyes. It was a lie, he knew. He didn't know why he let Toadfall get him so riled up. But the bastard always knew what to say, and always got the upper hoof, especially ever since...

He didn't want to think about that.

Why was it the worst people always ended up being the ones in power? Darlings of the politicians or with some seat on some important council? Why did they get to run villages and towns like their own little kingdoms, with everyone too afraid to stand up to them, to do anything about them?

Last Call laughed dryly to himself. No, that wasn't really it: Toadfall wasn't really all that. It was just that Toadfall was one of the village overseers, with his eyes on the mayoral seat, and he liked to haunt places where ponies could be found vulnerable, or alone...

Creepy bastard.

But really, what the hell was he doing out here today of all days? Was he really just wandering around here for no good reason, or had he been stalking...

God he should have punched him-

And then what? Gotten his ass kicked? And then likely thrown in jail for the night, because Toadfall was one of the ponies who controlled the town budget, and if the sheriff and his only deputy didn't do what they were told...

Last Call scrubbed grumpily at his face, then he frowned before he stared in disbelief as he realized a filly was sitting beside him... no, not just any filly. Her: the little girl in the raincoat. “Hey!”

“Hello.” the filly said, and then she winced only slightly when Last Call grabbed her by the shoulder, the stallion even more shocked to realize she was real. “I would appreciate it if you could loosen your grip.”

“You've been following me!” Last Call snapped, but the filly only looked at him, undaunted, and after a moment Last Call loosened his grip, grimacing but keeping his hoof on her shoulder as he said moodily: “Don't try and run away again. I want to know why you're following me, kid.”

“You seem like a good listener. And you need to listen, very well.” said the filly quietly, and Last Call frowned slightly. “The Alignment is coming. Not the festival, but a true Alignment... one that hasn't happened for centuries. You need to leave.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Last Call asked disbelievingly, and then he shook his head vehemently before he straightened and said flatly: “Look, kid, I don't get what you're getting at, but I don't have time for games. If you want to talk to someone about the Alignment or whatever, I suggest you go find that loon, Lectern.”

The filly only smiled, however, saying quietly: “Lectern has been here too long. He's too suspicious. He's old, and tired, and wants it to stop... but those ponies are the ones most easily manipulated by the darkness. If you gaze for too long into the abyss-”

“You fall in, right, got it. Look, kid...” Last Call stood up and scowled as he brushed himself off, before he looked back at the filly before he did a double-take as he realized... she's gone.

He looked back and forth, then circled stupidly around the tree before he mouthed wordlessly. The filly was gone, just... gone. “What the hell...”

He circled the tree stupidly again, then looked back and forth through the trees before he shook his head uneasily as he staggered backwards onto the path. He grimaced a bit, then he forced himself to take a slow breath, muttering: “Look. Everything... there's an explanation for everything. I don't care, I just... I don't care, it doesn't matter. No way in hell I'm going to join Happenstance on his stupid walk anyway, and I don't... I don't believe in fairy tales or...”

Last Call closed his eyes tightly, steadying himself as much as he could before he turned, swearing briefly under his breath. No. He had to get it together, he let that asshole freak him out and now he was letting little kids playing stupid games get under his skin... at least she was real, right? She was real and just making up some crap about this Alignment, like every other asshole seemed to be happy to do today...

Last Call scowled as he made his way back to the parks office, but he skirted the outside of it this time, not wanting to see anyone. All the same, he hesitated at a window, looking in to see that stallion at the desk writing something down as the mare talked away to him, before she paused and looked up, as if she'd felt his eyes on her.

He ducked away sheepishly, then turned and scurried towards the road and ran back towards the village before anyone could see him, swearing at himself again under his breath. He stumbled and slowed after only a few minutes, already tired and slouching, his head hanging low, his eyes downcast as he mumbled: “How can this day get any worse?”

“Hello there, Last Call!” Happenstance's voice came cheerfully, and Last Call slowly closed his eyes before he sighed tiredly and turned his attention in the direction of the chubby stallion, who came waddling happily towards him. “How are you doing? Why, I was just thinking that if you like, I can go over myself to the parks office... I heard that my good friend Mr. Toadfall is in town for the celebration!”

Last Call looked dryly at Happenstance, wondering moodily if he should point out that Toadfall wasn't the 'good friend' of anyone, but instead he settled on saying: “I already talked it over with my... my wife and uh, one of the park... officers.” Was he an officer? Or just a desk clerk? Oh hell, it didn't matter, he'd said it was fine. “Anyway, yeah. It should be fine. They said they've done it before, so... it should be fine.” I hope.

Happenstance smiled brightly at this, nodding fervently before he said warmly: “Excellent! I think I'll go talk to Mr. Toadfall all the same. He and I get along splendidly, you know. He would have been absolutely brokenhearted if we didn't get this walk done this year... but they just didn't have the budget! That's why I stepped in, of course... well, that, and it's such a pleasure, such a pleasure to help this little town out when it's given me so much!”

“Yeah.” For some reason, that made Last Call shiver, lowering his head uneasily.

“Dear boy, are you alright?” Happenstance asked worriedly, and Last Call smiled awkwardly. “I hope you don't mind me saying, but you look like you could use some rest.”

“It's been a long day. But it's still... I thought you were going to be busy until the afternoon-”

“Why, I was. It's four in the afternoon now!” Happenstance said with surprise, and Last Call mouthed wordlessly: where the hell had he lost all that time? No, he clearly remembered everything, and it had only been a few hours since... “I think you might need some rest, Last Call. Or... oh, we could get an early dinner together-”

“No, no, no!” Last Call said hastily, shaking his head vehemently before he gave an awkward, crooked smile. “Uh... I mean, sorry, Happenstance, I'll have to take a raincheque. I... I think I feel a headache coming on, that's all.”

“Well! Rest up well tonight then, and I'll make sure to let your wife know-”

“No, please don't. I... I don't want her worrying about me.” Last Call said, his eyes flicking briefly to the side, and Happenstance gave him a kindhearted smile.

“Last Call, don't go carrying these weights all by yourself. They're not all yours to carry. And besides, I need you healthy for tomorrow! I want you to enjoy the fruits of your labour!”

“A walk in the woods?” Last Call asked pessimistically, and Happenstance chuckled and smiled at this.

“It's more than that! I want you to see the smiles, the happiness, what the Alignment means to these people! And perhaps at the end of it all you could play a little music for us! I'm sure you must know Symphony for the Moon in A minor, don't you? It would be perfect!”

Last Call laughed awkwardly, looking away and mumbling: “I... I don't really play in public anymore-”

“Try.” Happenstance encouraged, and Last Call sighed a little before he gave a brief nod, looking awkwardly down at the ground as he scraped a hoof against the path.

“I have to go. But... yeah. I'll... I'll see you.” he said finally, and Happenstance smiled at him warmly.

“Excellent. I'm looking forward to it, Last Call! Take care!” Happenstance said brightly, patting the stallion on the shoulder before he strode past, humming cheerfully to himself.

Last Call looked over his shoulder at Happenstance, and then he shook his head briefly before he sighed softly and turned his eyes back ahead, shrugging once to himself as he made his way back towards his home.

He was tired, that was all. He was tired, and he needed some sleep. He'd drank too much last night, and made himself stupid for today, and now he had a headache and he... needed to sleep.

He just needed to sleep, maybe in his own bed, the bed he had shared with her. Maybe he could dream of the past they'd spent together and tonight, she would wake him up when she slipped into the room, and for a little while, it could just be them, and nothing else would matter.

But for now, he just had to get home, and into bed, and then... sleep.

Author's Note

This hasn't really been fully checked over, which I apologize for, but I'm on a bit of a schedule thanks to some trouble getting moving with writing. Still, if I can push out a chapter every day or two, we should be well on schedule, and the nice thing is I can edit errors as they pop out, so please don't be shy about pointing them out.

Now, more importantly:

Karmic Choice:

A. Last Call heads home, and goes to sleep, in bed.

B. Last Call heads home, but wanders the house instead, and ends up in his office.

Plot Choice:

There's a knock at the door. Last Call gets up to answer it.
There's a knock at the door. Last Call ignores it.

The Deepest Of Darkness

Chapter Twelve: The Deepest Of Darkness
~BlackRoseRaven

Last Call grimaced as he made his way slowly down a corridor, nervously following a wall with his flashlight off. The dim lanterns cast just enough of a glow for him to see by, even if they left such thick and twisting shadows along the floor that Last Call was afraid to look down at his hooves, lest he realize he was walking through nothing but a black sea and sink into it.

He shook his head briefly, then he shifted uncomfortably as he reached a corner, leaning carefully around it. It was empty, but he thought he could hear voices and other vague sounds...

He frowned a little: was that click-clack the sound of silverware? It seemed out of place, he thought, as he slipped around the corner and then hesitated by an ajar door, before he pushed slightly on it.

Inside, he saw a dozen translucent ponies seated around a table, ghostly utensils in their hooves clicking against ghostly plates filled with rotten, maggot-covered food. Flies buzzed around the table and lanterns, but that low hum was mostly overwhelmed by the constant click-clack of silverware as Last Call shivered and stepped back, before he flinched when an angry ghost appeared in front of him, shouting silently at him before it slammed the door angrily in his face.

Dust hailed down from the ceiling as the whole hallway seemed to shake, Last Call looking fearfully back and forth before he winced and looked up as he heard hooves race across the roof. He froze, breathing hard in and out, before he closed his eyes, took a breath, and steeled his resolved.

His eyes opened, and he turned towards the end of the corridor, and he found himself face-to-face with the monster from before.

It floated silently, studying him, leaking reek and filth as its stone mask cocked curiously. Last Call staggered back a step, but the monster made no move to pursue him. It only watched him for a few moments, then suddenly turned away, floating silently to the now-open door at the end of the corridor and sailing through it to vanish into the shadows on the other side.

What did that mean? It had spent this whole time chasing him, attacking him, and now it was ignoring him? Was it because it had claimed Happenstance? Or was it perhaps because he was here, in this other-world, stuck in this mansion that was its lair...

That didn't seem right. It was more complex than that, but it did have something to do with the fact that they were here of all places, that this, one way or the other, was the end of the road. Last Call grimaced a bit as he uneasily made his way forward, biting his lip nervously as he reached the doorway, then stepped through-

Laughter, sunshine, and blue skies greeted him. Last Call stared stupidly around, the house gone, before he squawked when someone ran into him and knocked him sprawling. He hit the ground hard and she landed on top of him, knocking the wind out of him, before she blurted out: “I'm sorry! I'm late, I'm sorry!”

“Hey!” Last Call snapped, and it was like he didn't have control of himself as he popped to his hooves, whirling to glare at the frightened-looking mare. He was a slave to his memories, asking grumpily: “What the hell-”

“Hey yourself!” snapped another voice, and there were instantly two more ponies at her side, glaring angrily at him as the mare shifted lamely. “You can't talk to another pony like that, much less someone noble, you peasant!”

“You can eat my entire ass.” Last Call snapped back, and the look of shock on the stallion's face had been wonderful enough to embolden him. “I'm not afraid of-”

And then the other unicorn had picked him up and stuffed him in a garbage can with his magic. The mare had whispered an apology to him before running along with her friends. Well, they weren't really her friends. She had been a bit of a doormat when they'd first met.

He guessed, as the darkness spun out around him, ponies would still say that about her relationship with him. But they didn't understand. They didn't know how strong she really was. It was easier to think of it as weakness, than try to understand how someone could be so generous, so compassionate, so kind and wonderful...

And then he was walking again, still smelling vaguely of garbage as he made his way to the charity concert. He got there a little late, but at least now he had an excuse.

What a twist of fate it was when he got on stage, and he spotted those three in the audience, nice and close to the front of the stage. He slammed a hoof against his guitar, then twanged the strings obnoxiously as he glared right at them and announced: “I got a special song for some of my favourite ponies in Canterlot coming right up.”

He eyed them, and one looked defiant and the other looked nervous and the mare, well, she just shrank down in her seat. He felt a little mercy for her, but he was still pissed as hell.

Angry songs didn't sell well, especially at concerts, though, so instead, as he played the guitar, he went with ridiculous. Ridicule was easier to make funny than scorn, anyway, and better suited off-tune singing and beating on an old acoustic:

“I know this old lunk, he's a real sloppy drunk, met him just a minute ago on the street. Felt like a year, while as he stank of beer, he lectured me on the best places to pee.”

They all looked startled at first, but Last Call knew music. He knew music damn well. He knew how comedy – even crappy jokes like his – transcended just about every barrier, as long as you sang it in the right voice, and with the right amount of seriousness and skill and style.

“This old lunking stallion, he caught me a dallyin', around with a mare who I swear came onto me. He picked me right up and said buttercup, if you want to be kissin', you best be kissin' me.”

That got a few more laughs. And he swore he saw the mare smile a little even as her friend slammed his hooves angrily against the table. The unicorn had some issues.

It was a really bad idea to show the guy on stage making fun of you that you were getting to him.

“He pulled me right in, but I leapt right out, and he immediately started to pout. His friend leapt right in, 'ain't he good enough for you?' I said 'he ain't, and you sure ain't too.'”

That got more of a chuckle. He liked how pissed off the unicorn assholes looked. He liked even more how the mare who'd started all this nonsense was smiling a little. He met her eyes, winked at her, and then he teased:

“I added: 'hey that mare, she came onto me! I was mindin' my own business, and she fell on me like a tree!' He scowled and he said, 'maybe you hit your head, I'm the one you should be-”

One of the unicorns picked up a bottle and flung it at his head, and Last Call, to his credit, did his best to duck, but it slammed into his face and knocked him sprawling. He landed on his back, and he was once more in the hallway, staring up at the peeling ceiling above with his hooves tented on his breast, looking strangely peaceful as he breathed slowly in and out.

“She came and saw me afterwards. Apologized. Said she had been in a hurry. Official business and all that. She hated her job. She hated the ponies she worked with. It didn't take me long to learn that.” He mulled things over for a moment, then sat up and climbed to his hooves, looking down the hallway and smiling briefly to himself. “Not all her friends were assholes. But there wasn't much in Canterlot for her. There was nothing that she really wanted to do. There was nothing she felt terrible about leaving behind. As long as she had me, she said...”

He quieted, then he started forward, heading down the corridor to a T-shaped intersection. He checked both ways before he grimaced a little: there was a stairway to one side, but several doors and what looked like another corridor offshoot as well.

Last Call chewed indecisively on his lip for a moment, before he rose his head slightly as he heard a muffled voice complain: “This isn't what I was promised. This isn't what any of us were promised!”

Last Call crept towards the voice, leaning against a doorway and frowning slightly as he lowered his head: he was able to just peer through the crack at a pair of ponies inside, one of whom was siting on a barrel, and another who was hunched in a corner by a lantern, nervously looking around as he fiddled with something. “The charms don't even keep us safe!”

“Okay, look. Lectern was talking out of his ass about a lot of this, yes. But of course it's not easy. We're here to find a way to seal this stuff away.” reasoned the other pony, and then he looked nervously at the door: it took all of Last Call's will not to jerk away, to remind himself he was probably safe in the shadows unless he moved too much.

Whether or not the pony saw him, the stallion nervously pulled his coat tighter around his body, fearfully shifting closer to his comrade as he added in a mutter: “Still, if you want to try and make a break for it...”

“No way. Have you seen how many ghosts are out there? And apparently there's even worse things, too. Maybe if we offer up another sacrifice...”

“They're not really sacrifices. They're already dead. You don't sacrifice dead bodies... I think.” mumbled the other stallion, and Last Call grimaced, feeling a burst of anger, wanting to suddenly rush in and attack these two ponies: maybe if he had the element of surprise, he could- “You want to go up to the second floor and talk to Lectern or find the bodies, be my guest. I'm not leaving this room. It's safer than the halls. Things wander the halls.”

Last Call slipped back from the door, and then he quickly made his way down the corridor, moving as quietly as possible to the staircase. He climbed up it, grimacing at how it squeaked and groaned with every step he took before he rounded the stairs to head quickly down another hallway, and then he swore under his breath as he reached a junction.

Ahead, he saw a dead end, and to his left, he saw a long – too long, impossibly long – corridor, doors shivering along its length. Last Call frowned uneasily, then looked to the right, and he saw a strange, writhing mass blocking the hallway.

Last Call frowned at this: the more he stared at it, the more the slime and ichor seemed to shiver, to twist on itself, to take more of a form and shape. He tilted his head slightly, before his eyes widened as a limb twisted up out of the dark mass, and Last Call flinched and hurriedly turned away, but he knew it was too late.

The slime twisted upwards, becoming a pony-like mass covered in thorns and divots, its chest ripping open to reveal a gaping, hideous maw full of eyes as it screamed in fury at him. Last Call made the mistake of looking back at the thing, and he staggered before he screamed himself and broke into a gallop down the too-long hallway, doors slamming violently shut down the entire length as translucent ghosts fled in all directions from the oncoming terror.

The monster oozed more than ran behind Last Call, jerking itself violently back and forth as it rasped and gurgled, hooves shuddering against the earth as it propelled itself on a serpent of slime. It screamed and squealed, leaving a viscous trail of sludge behind it as the malformed jaw stretching down through its chest gnashed wildly, the countless eyes staring eagerly at the back of the stallion as its jerky, sludgy movements rapidly closed the space between itself and the earth pony.

Last Call gasped as he sprinted down the hall, staggering and stumbling a little as he shook his head vehemently, mouthing fearfully before he looked back and screamed in terror when the thing lunged at him. He leapt forward on instinct more than anything else, and the sludgy maw-beast crashed to the ground behind him, splattering apart into a mess of dark goo that shivered eagerly across the earth before it rapidly began to piece itself back together over the floorboards, large teeth already snapping and crashing eagerly together as its jaws grew larger and wider, tearing the monstrosity further into two lethal halves.

Last Call looked ahead, before his eyes widened as he saw a ghost gesture violently at him, pointing him towards an open doorway. There was no time to think, only to react, as he swerved and skidded painfully sideways before lunging through the open door and crashing down on his chest with a gasp in another short hallway.

He breathed hard for a moment, before wincing and staggering up to his hooves as something slammed itself ferociously against the door. He stepped slowly backwards as the immense force crashed against it again, before he swore and spun around when it smashed yet again into the door and splintered it,teeth and greedy tendrils of slime forcing themselves through cracks in the wood.

He ran to the end of the hall and plowed through the door, then he slammed it shut behind him. He winced in surprise and staggered away as a steel shutter fell down over this, trapping him inside the room, but he didn't even bother to look back, pacing nervously away from the door as a tremendous force crashed against the other side of it, a furious voice roaring in rage before Last Call gasped as something grabbed his shoulder.

He whirled around, swinging a hoof out, and Happenstance squealed as he was knocked sprawling, blinking stupidly and mouthing wordlessly as he stared dumbly up at Last Call. Last Call stared back at Happenstance, before he reached down and half-jerked the stallion up to his hooves, asking disbelievingly: “What are you doing here?”

“Those... monsters grabbed me! What are you doing here?” Happenstance blurted out, staring with disbelief at Last Call as he awkwardly rubbed at his bruised face, before he added with weak vehemence: “You hit me!”

“Sorry?” It wasn't much of an apology, but all the same, Happenstance's face cleared with a relieved smile before Last Call shook his head and asked: “What happened? I came looking for you, but all I found was that... monster.”

“That Residue grabbed me! Awful thing, nasty, awful thing! I tried to get away but it swallowed me whole, then spat me out somewhere else!” Happenstance exclaimed, shivering violently before he shook his head and covered his face, trembling violently. “I... I wanted to run, I tried my very best, Last Call, but it found me and grabbed me and dragged me here anyway! I was helpless! Utterly... utterly useless and helpless...”

Happenstance looked like he was going to break down into tears, but Last Call reached up and grasped his shoulders gently, saying quietly: “Hey. This is... the answers are here, Happenstance. We just have to figure out what's happening. I heard Lectern-”

“Dratted Lectern! I bet he's behind this!” Happenstance blurted out, slamming a hoof angrily against his other, and then he winced a bit before he suckled on his front hoof, even as he mumbled: “I know, I know. He was all... going on about Kiz this and Kzkttrrrkt that-”

“Lectern is here, but I don't know what he and these ponies are doing. They think they're trying to seal the Kiz, but I think they're just making these things... this twisting of reality, even stronger. I don't know if the Kiz can be stopped. But I know my wife is here and I just... I want to get her, save her, bring her out of here.” Last Call said quietly, and Happenstance chewed fearfully on his lip as he looked anxiously at Last Call. “I want to get everyone out that I can. I have no idea how I'm going to do that yet, but I think it can still be done.”

Happenstance lowered his head a bit, and then he gestured helplessly around at the room they were in: octagonal, made of water-stained stone, with an ugly altar in the centre. The dented, damaged shutter was on one side of the room, and a set of double doors stood opposite, Happenstance saying urgently: “But there's no way out! They locked the doors and it sounds like there's... there's something nasty behind that other door! You certainly didn't seem to be running from shadows, after all!”

Last Call grimaced a bit, then he shook his head before he turned his eyes towards the double doors, chewing on his lip before he said finally: “There has to be something. I'll check the doors. Maybe you could tell me how you ended up here, specifically. Did the monster bring you here?”

“Yes. Awful thing.” Happenstance shuddered and hugged himself as he looked fearfully around. “I don't know what it wants with me. Maybe it's going to eat us! I don't want to be eaten, Last Call!”

Last Call ignored Happenstance as he approached the doors and grasped one of the handles, and then he frowned as he easily pulled it open. He looked out into the empty hallway beyond, then looked back at Happenstance, pointedly cocking an eyebrow, but Happenstance only gave an awkward little laugh before he lowered his head and said meekly: “They were locked before. I swear it. You... you believe me, don't you? Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so useless-”

“I believe you, it's okay.” Last Call said quickly, not giving Happenstance the chance to start another session of self-loathing and bawling. “Let's just get moving while we have the opportunity. It looks pretty deserted for the moment, at least. I want to try and find Lectern. I feel like he has a lot of the answers to this.”

“Y-Yes, let's find him! We can... we'll get him to give us the answers whether he likes it or not... right?” Happenstance went from ridiculously puffing out his chubby little cheeks and body to whimpering and cowering in a moment, and Last Call sighed a little before he simply nodded, which made Happenstance nod enthusiastically. “E-Excellent, then! Let's go!”

“Let's.” Last Call said after a moment, and then he shook his head briefly before he pushed his way out of the doors, then grimaced when Happenstance barrelled into him, stumbling a little before he scowled at the stallion, who gave a meek smile and dropped his head with an awkward little laugh.

Last Call shook his head a bit, then he looked back and forth down the corridor: they were standing in the middle of another T-shaped junction, but while two corridors stretched off into abysmal darkness, one was faintly lit by oil lamps. Last Call gestured at this one, and Happenstance frowned before he whispered urgently: “But that one looks like there might be those... scary people down there!”

“Yes, Happenstance. We're trying to find Lectern. The sooner, the better.” Last Call said patiently, before he frowned a little as he asked: “I thought that monster brought you here.”

“It did! But I told you, I escaped for a little while, I saw those... those nasty ponies who tried to drag me off again. They're all over here! And you... you think they work for Lectern?” asked Happenstance worriedly, and Last Call sighed a little, deciding it was better to just hope that Happenstance figured things out as they moved.

“Let's just find him for now. One way or another, this is all connected.” Last Call answered as they made their way down the dimly-lit hall. He frowned a bit as he stopped beside a door, looking into the distance: the lanterns beyond were unlit, and the hall seemed to just fade into dark shadows. Maybe that meant...

He looked at the door beside him, then he shouldered into it, pushing it open to step into a secluded study. Last Call looked curiously around for a moment, and then his eyes widened as he saw a pony on the other side of the dusty, book-strewn shelves that caged in the centre of the room, the stallion quickly striding to a gap in the shelves and leaning through to find an empty desk lit by a single lamp, and nothing more.

The pony-shape was gone. Had it been a ghost? No, it had felt more real than that, and yet less distinct. An echo, a stain, something else, Last Call thought, as he wiggled between the shelves, Happenstance coughing and sneezing in the dust as he asked worriedly: “L-Last Call? Are things okay? Did you see something?”

“Maybe.” Last Call muttered as he looked down at the desk, frowning as he noticed something traced in the dust. Some kind of symbol, he thought, but then he cursed when Happenstance stumbled through the shelves and bumped into him, catching himself against the desk and grimacing as he blotted the symbol out when his hooves wiped through the dust. “Dammit, watch where you're going, Happenstance!”

“S-Sorry!” Happenstance whimpered, sounding like he was about to cry, and Last Call sighed a little before the chubby stallion added hurriedly: “Look! Another door!”

Last Call looked up: yes, through the rotting shelves, he could see another doorway, lit by a faintly-glowing lantern. But something told Last Call he wasn't done here yet, as he straightened a bit and looked at the wall beside the desk, his eyes trailing across dusty, black and white pictures.

They were so old they had been distorted by the passage of time more than the twisting of reality. The frames were rotten and the glass had broken or fallen out in places, and Last Call frowned before he reached up to pluck a loose picture out of one of the frames, looking at it curiously.

It showed a group of noble ponies in rich clothing, including a judge in black robes. The judge was a chubby earth pony, with a benevolent smile, his mane not properly tucked under his wig. Even in the judge's robe, he looked silly, harmless; he looked exactly like Happenstance.

Last Call slowly looked over his shoulder at Happenstance, who frowned worriedly at him before he leaned forwards. He saw the picture, and he did a double take before he asked incredulously: “Is that me?”

Last Call turned to face Happenstance as he put the picture aside on the desk, and Happenstance frowned, before he suddenly smiled. And when he smiled, he was no longer some silly, harmless idiot. His eyes became malicious, and his face tightened, like all that fat was just a mask... and it was, wasn't it, Last Call thought, as he asked quietly: “Who are you?”

“I'm Happenstance! Dear old quirky Happenstance! The helpless fat-ass doormat who other ponies walk all over because he's just so gosh-darn nice and too much of a wimp to ever speak up for himself!” Happenstance slapped his front hooves on either side of his face, laughing loudly as his eyes glittered with cruelty. “Happenstance, gee whiz, he can't do a thing on his own! Happenstance, gosh, he's so silly, so useless, so stupid! Happenstance...”

Happenstance grinned, licking his lips slowly before he bared his teeth at Last Call, mocking: “Always in the right place at the right time.”

“You. You organized the walk. You wanted this to happen. But I thought it was tomorrow, not tonight! Why tonight?” Last Call shouted, stepping forward, and then in a flash he was pinned by his head back against the wall, picture frames knocked loose and falling to the floor below to shatter as he gasped in pain from the force of impact and the hoof crushing painfully forward into his skull.

“Please, festivals never take place on the day the events actually happened. That's just not possible. And the stars move at their own pace... do you think they really care what you or I or anyone else has to say? Do you think your little planet matters?” asked Happenstance derisively, and then he flung Last Call down to the ground before he leaned over him with a contemptible smile as Last Call uselessly clutched at his throbbing head, wheezing for breath, vision swimming.

“Yes. It's all because of me. Lectern, you know, he survived me once. He didn't know it was me, of course: the only time I ever get my own hooves dirty is when I decide to ensure that work has to be cleaned up personally, or other Ng'th'gtha... oh, excuse me, other Vorpals, as you call them, interfere. Because of the Alignment, several other Vorpals have awakened, and one in particular has been playing with my toys.”

“Your... your toys?” wheezed Last Call, before he gasped when Happenstance stomped on his chest, feeling the floorboards crack beneath him.

“Yes, my toys!” Happenstance said cheerfully, before he grinned down at Last Call. “You should be honoured. I mean, not only by me, spending all this personal time with you, with explaining my great and majestic plan to your tedious little mind, but the fact that I deigned to play with you fleshsacks at all. You're all very boring, you know. You cling to life so miserably. You could all be so strong! But you're just all so very... weak.”

Happenstance flicked a bit of dust off his shoulder, and then he continued: “Anyhow. Lectern bested my maze and escaped. That was ten years ago. Every year since, he's been preparing for a major Alignment... for the Alignment we are in right now. Of course, it was I, through other sources, who informed him that it would come... and how to fight it. Oh, don't worry, Last Call. There's truth mixed in with my lies. If he was smart enough to figure it out, he could very well harm another Vorpal.”

“W-Why... why do that?” Last Call asked incredulously, but Happenstance only laughed.

“Why do I need a reason? Reasons are what constrain you mortals. Me? I'm merely bored. Why do you think I created this body for myself? It amused me. It's amused me for several centuries now. I try a new persona every few decades, you see: I move to a different part of the world, and try something different for a while.” Happenstance smiled, dark eyes glittering. “When I first arrived? I decided I'd be rich, and powerful. I advised a warlord. I was respected, even feared.

“It got boring, quickly. I could do, or have, whatever I wanted, any time I wanted. It left me wanting thrills and excitement. So after the warlord died – excuse me, after he passed on from one too many arrows to the face – I allowed myself to be driven into exile. I became a vagrant, wandering, homeless... it was more exciting, but... not quite right.

“But ah, then I tried to be a merchant! I murdered a family and took their caravan of goods, and this was much more my style. I like...” Happenstance fumbled for a word, and then he clucked his tongue, looking down at Last Call meditatively. “You're a creative type. What's the word I'm looking for? A word for entertaining, interacting...”

“Performance art?” Last Call asked sourly, still trying to wrap his head around what the hell was going on, and then he flinched and gasped when Happenstance stomped on him.

“No, that's two words, you dolt. But you understand I see, all the same. Yes, I loved enchanting ponies... of course, it took me quite a long time to properly develop this silver tongue. Still, merchant, marketeer, salespony, this has always been my favourite. Ponies are so easy to manipulate if you know what to say! And once you get better with your words, it becomes such a fun game to turn friend against friend, to convince ponies to give their worst enemies a second chance, while counselling those foes to wait for the right moment to stab them in the back...”

Happenstance smiled almost dreamily, before he frowned as Last Call blurted out: “But why? Why play with ponies like that? Why are you-”

“Why not?” Happenstance asked pettishly. “You're not on my level. You're less than an insect compared to me. Do you consider the feelings of a bug before you crush it beneath your hoof? Oh, no, some of you ponies actually do, nevermind. Fine. Do you consider the... the emotions of a blade of grass before you eat it and its entire family?”

Last Call stared at him with disbelief, before he rasped: “We're more than... than plants!”

Happenstance snorted and shrugged, then he replied almost kindly: “To each other, perhaps. But to me, no. You're roughly the same: organics responding to fluctuations in chemical changes brought on by external stimuli.”

Happenstance paused, then he stepped on Last Call's face, crushing his head slowly down against the floor as he leaned down and whispered: “Whereas I decide what I want to do, based purely upon my own will and decisions. Not merely a mockery of 'free will' brought upon by inherent chemical signalling within my grey matter. Meaning that no matter whether or not it makes 'sense,' I can do whatever I please.”

“So did Toadsfall.” rasped Last Call in defiance, even as he trembled under the hoof.

For a moment, the creature in the pony suit scowled, but then he suddenly grinned as he brought his hoof back, touching his own chest as he remarked: “Touche. Or so you think, at least. In reality, this is the part where I should throw my head back and laugh, because Toadsfall was the same as the rest of you. More than that, really: he was built and dependent completely on the external driving him. It was what made him exceptionally easy to manipulate... but those who act independent and dominant in the public eye are often the ones who most desire to be controlled. Submissives in bed. And poor little Froggy, well, he always wanted to get himself fucked.”

Happenstance grinned and licked his lips slowly, before he yawned loudly as he stretched, turning away to absently poke through the books on the shelf. Last Call struggled to get up, but he had no strength in his body: his ribs hurt, his head was throbbing, his eyes could barely see thanks to the stars and shapes dancing across them, and all he could hear was Happenstance, cheerfully rambling on: “Toadsfall was paid by two sides: Lectern's little salvation brigade, and of course, by me. We were very good friends. I acted very frightened when he told me about the mares he raped and whenever he acted like the big dog, threatening me. But I completely controlled the agenda, of course, and I think he liked that. Poor Froggy! I had so many plans for him. But they were all ruined when that Residue gave him a chance to escape, and he ran right into the arms of an old enemy. We couldn't touch him, then. He got himself infested with a different kind of darkness, then... not that the Kzkttrrrkt are really 'darkness,' of course. We're beyond that. Beyond your labels.”

He paused, then turned and added critically: “That's very racist, by the way. I've tried being racist twice. The first time I owned a bunch of zebra slaves. I've heard all sorts of nasty names for them, most don't roll off the tongue very easily. I was very popular with the town, they loved how well-behaved my servants were. That was one of my favourite lives. They called me some... zebra name, I don't care enough to remember it, but it meant 'Great Evil' or something like that, because I never bothered hiding myself around them. They thought I was some evil voodoo beast, there to punish everyone. Well, it made them feel better.

“The second time? Not nearly as successful. You ponies change so fast! One year all you want is to see a zebra beaten in the streets for looking at a unicorn, the next you just about want to shove that zebra on top of her. You would all be so much happier if you just did what comes naturally and avoided each other except for whenever you have to murder and maim one-another.”

“You're crazy.” Last Call whispered, and Happenstance smiled in amusement.

“We just discussed I am beyond your labels. Did you forget? Do you need a refresher?” Happenstance asked curiously, before he leaned over Last Call and asked softly: “Do you really think you're going to see your wife?”

Last Call trembled violently, and then he gritted his teeth before he leaned up and growled: “If you hurt her-”

“The only pony I've hurt here is you!” Happenstance snapped, sounding offended as he pointedly stomped on Last Call's chest, driving him deeper into the cracked floorboards and making the stallion scream in agony as one of his ribs broke, before Happenstance mulled over his own response, rubbing at his chin as he mumbled: “Well, in the last few minutes, the only pony I've hurt is you. I didn't kill your wife, though, Last Call. In fact, to my great disappointment, I don't think I managed to kill anyone tonight. I almost managed to shove that nasty little medium off the cliff, but then that idiot Changeling grabbed her and they both had to be knocked loose... but do you know how disappointed I was when I didn't hear them splat? All I can hope is that the Ichor has eaten him by now, even if the medium got away.”

“Silent Wish...” Last Call shook his head weakly, somehow unsurprised that Happenstance was behind that: every time Happenstance had been with him, something had happened, after all, and the stallion had promptly vanished. “The monsters... you're behind all of it.”

“Only the bending of reality. You shape all these monsters yourself. That's the one thing you ponies have that we don't, you see... fearsome emotions. Emotions that create a mould, which this reality all too eagerly fills in as it attempts to heal and explain away its wounds. Miraculous! Terrible, yes. But miraculous.”

Happenstance idly circled around Last Call, and then he added idly: “But it shouldn't surprise you. Ponies, every day, make themselves believe in things that don't exist. Heaven, Hell, God, that they matter, that their lives have meaning, that they have free will... that their loved ones aren't dead and gone.”

Last Call gritted his teeth, and then he pushed himself up as much as he could, and Happenstance cocked an eyebrow over his shoulder at him with a patronizing smile as Last Call hissed out: “Either kill me, or get out of my way. I'm... I'm going to find my wife. She is not dead.”

“Fine. We'll go together.” Happenstance remarked, and then he suddenly leapt forwards and slammed both front hooves viciously down on Last Call's chest with such force that he was slammed through the floor, crashing down into a corridor below in a hail of splinters and plaster.

Last Call moaned in pain, writhing weakly on the ground before Happenstance leapt down through the hole in the ceiling, landing over him with a wide grin. He leaned down and winked, then he seized Last Call by the neck and hauled him forcefully to his hooves, saying easily: “I'll make a deal with you, Last Call! If, somehow, you can stop yourself from giving me away, I'll play along and only kill a few ponies. Heck, maybe I'll even let some of them get out alive. I think it would be fun to watch you struggle to keep up your character. What do you say?”

Last Call hissed weakly, and then he gasped when Happenstance pressed a hoof into his ribs and whispered: “Or, you can just cry like a little baby, and I'll murder everyone we meet. What do you say?”

Last Call clenched his eyes shut, and then he nodded weakly before he whispered: “My ribs are broken.”

“My heart is broken, Last Call, by how callous you've been! You should apologize to me!” Happenstance retorted in an injured voice, and Last Call scowled for a moment before Happenstance whispered: “You wouldn't want me to get upset now, would you?”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Last Call managed to force out: “Sorry.”

“Good.” Happenstance sat back, slapped at his own face a few times, and then he gave that cheery Happenstance smile... but now that he had seen it, Last Call could sense the maliciousness there, could see the evil malice in his little beady eyes as he said cheerfully: “Onward ho! Don't you worry, I'll poke you in the right direction.”

Last Call took a slow breath, and then he rasped painfully as he began forward, staggering down the corridor as Happenstance strode beside him, feigning a twitch now and then before he firmly poked Last Call in the side when they reached an intersection. Last Call moaned, stumbling and feeling nausea roll through his body before Happenstance asked worriedly: “Last Call? Gosh, are you okay?”

Last Call bit back his retort: well, it wasn't that he could even get the words to form in his mouth, which he didn't dare open anyway for fear of vomiting. Happenstance scowled a little at him, before he growled: “You're not very in character right now, Last Call!”

“My character... has broken everything.” Last Call rasped back as he stumbled slowly down the corridor, and Happenstance snorted, eyeing him critically.

“Pain is no reason to be tart. As a matter of fact, pain is a reminder you're still alive, Last Call, even though you've done nothing to deserve it! You should be grateful for that pain.” Happenstance reprimanded, before he groaned and slapped himself, muttering: “Look at me, getting all bent out of shape, dropping my own character. Shameful!”

He shook his head with a huff as they approached a doorway, before he loudly cleared his throat and said loudly: “Last Call, are you sure about this?”

“Keep your voice down.” Last Call muttered, and Happenstance sulkily glowered at him, but didn't say anything as Last Call forced himself to add: “We don't have much of a choice. We have to... I have to find her.”

Happenstance grunted, then he whispered loudly: “C. C-minus.”

“Bite me.” Last Call mumbled as he pushed through the doorway, before he frowned uneasily as they stepped into a corridor that was filled with ghosts. But as Happenstance stepped in, the phantasms hurriedly fled, although Happenstance seemed as aware of them as...

“Why couldn't...” Last Call remembered his deal, and he rephrased the question in halfhearted hope for an answer as they made their way slowly, stumblingly, down the hall: “Why couldn't Toad see the monsters?”

“They weren't his nightmares, I suppose. The Ichor and the Residue are formed from the Malice... they are attracted and only hunt certain ponies. Ponies with particular... regrets, I suppose.” Happenstance paused, then he added with a too-big wink: “I guess I'm lucky that none of them seem interested in me, huh? Right?”

“Yeah. Real lucky.” Last Call muttered as they made their way to the end of the corridor, before he flinched in surprise as the doors down the entirety of the hallway opened, then slammed violently.

Happenstance flinched slightly too, then he scowled as he turned around, looking uneasily back and forth before he quickly shouted, his voice full of false fear: “Gosh, they're all around us! We better move fast!”

Last Call sighed as he shouldered the door open, stumbling through into a large cafeteria. And then he did a double-take as he realized there were actual ponies here, the ponies looking back at him with dumb surprise as Happenstance staggered through after him, then he stared before screaming: “Oh no, Last Call! Monsters!”

“They're not monsters.” Last Call said tiredly, not even knowing why he was responding. Habit, he guessed. “Where is Lectern?”

The two large, hulking stallions that had been approaching both hesitated in their advance, frowning uneasily before a voice snapped: “Stand down!”

The ponies stepped aside, and Lectern frowned as he strode forwards, asking coldly: “What are you doing here? I remember you both... idiot, you're the one who started all this, and you were with him, you-”

“I just want to find my wife.” Last Call almost shouted, stepping forwards with a tremble. “You... you took my wife, she was one of the ponies on the trail-”

“What? What are you talking about?” Lectern frowned in surprise, before he shook his head as he glared at Happenstance. “I did no such thing! He and his idiot friend were the ones leading that group. I've worked to try and save the other ponies brought here, but I highly doubt any of them are your wife if-”

“I want to see my wife! She's here! I know she's here!” shouted Last Call furiously, staggering forward, and even Happenstance seemed surprised by the outburst. “Where is my wife? Where is she?”

Lectern stared at him, and then he looked up in surprise as a voice cried out: “Last Call!”

Last Call's eyes filled with hope and relief as he spun towards that sound, smiling brightly, and all the pain vanished and everything he'd gone through up to this moment felt worthwhile as the mare leapt suddenly down from the stairs, running towards him. But then she skidded to a stop as Lectern stepped into her way, holding up a hoof and sounding almost desperate as he shouted: “Wait!”

“Say the word, Last Call...” whispered Happenstance, suddenly sultry, seductive, sweet. “Say the word, and they all die.”

“Wait! Just wait a moment, and listen to me.” Lectern said, quiet and firm, and Last Call gritted his teeth as his wife looked at him desperately, helplessly, from behind the scarred stallion. “This is not what you think it is.”

“Come on. I'll even make it nice, unlike I did with you. Bet you've always wanted to see someone explode.” Happenstance almost whined, as he sinuously dragged his body against Last Call's side. “What do you say, huh? I know! Yes! You say yes!”

Last Call trembled, but he didn't look at Happenstance, keeping his eyes on Lectern as the scarred stallion explained quietly: “I still do not understand what they want, what they are. Only that they bend reality, and somehow, bring nightmares to life. But... they do more than that. Their presence twists time. You've seen the ghosts, dragged here, trapped here... but unable to communicate with us. They scream and shout and react to our presence, but-”

“He's so boring! Don't you want him to die?” Happenstance murmured in his ear, before he shouted fearfully: “Last Call, we have to run away! I... I don't care, this is a bad pony, look at him! He was trying to distract us!”

Lectern scowled, but he continued, undaunted: “But the ancient texts told of speaking with the dead, as the dead could act as a medium between the Kiz and between ourselves. The dead, trapped between worlds, were closer to the Kiz, and less affected by their horrors than us. This act was called sacrifice, because the dead could still be taken, could still be harmed...”

“N-No... no... you killed-”

“We didn't kill anyone!” Lectern said desperately, and then he shook his head before he sighed and looked back at the mare, saying with such agonizing, painful honesty: “I'm sorry. You know what I have to do.”

The mare lowered her head, trembling for a moment, before she smiled. She smiled, and looked up in that way that told the stallion she was going to sacrifice for him, hurt herself for him, give him what he didn't deserve-

He stumbled towards her, shoving away from Happenstance and staggering past Lectern, who made no move to stop him as Last Call leapt at his wife-

He passed right through her, hitting the ground painfully behind her with a cry of pain and anguish, his eyes full of tears. He trembled on the ground, whimpering weakly, shaking his head in helpless denial before he choked on a sob as her hoof gently touched his shoulder... like a warm breeze. Warm, and comforting, just like it had been on that day, that day he didn't want to remember, refused to believe.

He had lied to himself for years, hadn't he? She was always out. The house was always perfect but she was never there. He was always a mess and never took care of himself. All the other ponies played along: he was insane, they thought, but more sad than dangerous, and it was a quiet sort of insanity.

Better let him sort it out. Understand on his own.

But he didn't want to. He would never want to. He couldn't live alone.

God he just wanted to touch her, one last time.

Last Call trembled, before he clenched his eyes shut, tears rolling down his cheeks as the phantasm of his wife hugged him tightly from behind: as tight as her ethereal body would allow, anyway, her touch a faint and secret thing, like a cloud that could wisp away at any time as she whispered: “I'm so sorry.”

“We brought the remains of the dead, recent and not, here. We've been gathering bodies for years: with their bodies close by, the twisting of reality-”

“Okay show's over bye now.” Happenstance said irritably, and with a wave of his hoof, one of the large stallions exploded into chunks of gore. Lectern stuttered to a halt, before Happenstance gestured irritably at the other bodyguard, who was flung off his hooves and smashed through a table before he was jerked into the air, crashing into the ceiling with enough force to crack it before he simply fell.

“You.” Lectern whispered, before his eyes widened in shock as Happenstance appeared in front of him with a cruel grin, pony body nothing but a cheap suit over something hideous and derelict and alien that writhed just beneath the surface.

“Me. Come on, Lectern. I'll give you a chance to run away again. Last Call, don't go anywhere. I'll be back for you.” Happenstance said, and before anyone could react, he seized Lectern by the shoulder before he simply vanished.

Last Call trembled on the ground, and then he lowered his head and whispered: “It was all a mistake. A cosmic joke. I... I can't... I wanted so badly to believe... is that why everypony just... why... they all knew. Didn't they? Didn't they?”

Last Call almost howled the last, clawing into the floor before he looked weakly up at the sight of his wife, the mare smiling, and that holy radiance she glowed with wasn't just in his mind anymore, he realized, as she stretched a hoof towards him and whispered: “You can't leave until you see the truth. Come on, Last Call. Let me show you the truth.”

Last Call stared at his wife, and then, with the little that remained of his strength, he forced himself up to his hooves with a weak nod, lowering his head as he said weakly: “Anything. I'm... I'm ready.”

The mare nodded, then touched his face gently before she turned around, silently towards the gaping darkness of a doorway, and Last Call followed.

Author's Note

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Karmic Choice:

A: The Malice is coming. Maybe he can't be killed, but he can be distracted. Protect her at all costs.

B: The Malice is coming. Everything has gone wrong. Save yourself.

Plot Choice:

1: Last Call remembers the Accident.

2: Last Call remembers the Argument.