The Only Thing That's Real
The walls were bleeding, which only drove Berry Punch to yawn wearily.
“Seen it.”
The hallway suddenly stretched into infinity within two seconds.
“You’ve done that already,” the purple mare reminded her new found companion.
Behind the walls, a colt’s voice sighed with resignation. “Look, I’m trying, Berry. It’s been a while since we’ve had anypony over.”
Berry rolled her eyes and trotted around the half-collapsed section of the foyer, being careful to not gouge a hoof on the fractured tiles and shattered floorboards.
The decayed remains of Summer Rose’s mansion had steadily gotten worse since the Rose family abandoned this once-proud ten room house a century ago. Every wall had curling peels of paint or wallpaper. The carpets were mangy and clotted with mold. All of the windows were cloudy with years of rain and compacted dirt.
Most of the furniture had rotted from too many years of termites and rain exposure. There was, however, a dust-caked but relatively unspoiled couch in the living room. Berry flopped down onto it, feeling as bone-weary as her octogenarian grandmother.
“Look, I was sent here because I needed to see a bunch of freaky shit without sticking a needle in my forelegs again.”
A voice under the floorboards whispered, “I used to get wasted on Dermorphin.”
Berry blew a raspberry. “Built a tolerance. Nowadays, I might as well drink Novacaine.”
“What about Heroin? It’s what got me through college. Well, it also got me in jail. That’s where I got the nickname ‘Needles’.”
“Makes me hyper. But so does coffee.”
“Xylazine?”
“Puts me to sleep.” She shook her head. “That’s the story of my life, Needles. I never seem to get anywhere, not even stoned. No matter how hard I try to get high, I always end up on the ground way too soon. I have the highest drug tolerance of any pony I know.”
“How did you find out about this place?” asked Needles from a distant shadow.
“When I got out of jail, some Royal Guard pony pulled me aside and told me that Summer Rose mansion is where the hauntings are as severe as any acid trip. It’s where a lot of thrill seekers have gone to get loaded, so here I am.”
“He told you about how ponies get high in this place and you still came?”
“My mom once told me that ghosts can’t hurt you. Only the living can do that.” Berry sighed, frowning. “It’s about the only useful thing my mother ever told me.”
“Let me guess. Broken home? Parents just don’t get you?”
She replied, “Nothing that melodramatic. My parents never beat me or anything, but I never did anything to make them proud of me, either. I’m kind of a blank slate when it comes to any real accomplishments.”
“But you have a selection of fruits for a cutie mark. Doesn’t that signify some special talent?”
Berry snorted. “It means I’m moderately talented at making wine. When I started drinking more and more of my home brewed bathtub booze, I got a buzz that I never got from doing anything else. Pretty soon, being drunk off my flank was all I ever wanted to do.”
“You never wanted to come down after that, I bet. Just like me.”
“I started hitting harder and harder alcohol, but not even Absinth, that steroid monster of a drink, could keep a grip on me for long. That’s when I hopped on the Heroin train. After I pissed away my college fund on that stuff, my parents yanked me down from the clouds. When they sent me to rehab, they disowned me, calling it ‘tough love’. After I got out, I just kind of . . . drifted.”
Berry picked up a dusty framed photo from the floor. Three ponies stared back at her from a century ago. “I suck at making friends. My jobs have never lasted longer than a week. The local jail always keeps a bed reserved for me for when I get drug-busted for the umpteenth time. I can’t think of one thing to look forward to.”
A translucent white hoof slipped over the couch and patted her on the shoulder. “The world gave up on you, that’s all. It’s given up on everypony that’s ended up here. You’ve led a lonely life, Berry,” said Needles sympathetically. “But you’ll never be alone here. You’ll never be bored, only as high as the moon in the sky.”
She smiled and tossed aside the photo. “Prove it. Take away my pain, Needles.”
Her fur trembled at the sudden chill that swirled around her. Then she steadily rose from her couch as the loss of gravity lifted the discarded photo and the couch from the decrepit floor. Berry chuckled. “Oh, yeah.” She said. “This is waaay better than Xylaxine.”
She drifted like a purple cloud all around the couch. She closed her eyes, feeling the numbness of a coma patient. One thought began to itch in the back of her mind, however.
“Hey, Needles?”
“Yes, Berry?”
“You mentioned other ponies ending up here. How many of them have come and gone?” She inquired.
“None of them have ever left, Berry.”
Her eyes snapped open.
“What?”
“They’re not that far away, I assure you. You’ll meet them all soon enough.”
“When will that happen?”
He snickered. “When you die, silly!”
Her back snapped back, as if hit with an electric current. Gravity returned, dropping her next to the couch. Ears flattened, Berry cried, “What? I never agreed to that!”
“That doesn’t matter,” replied Needles, matter-of-factly.
“Like fuck, it doesn’t! I’m getting hungry anyway, so I’m taking off.”
“Sure. Go ahead. Just trot out the front door.”
Berry tried to find where Needle’s wandering voice was coming from, but it was like trying to spot an agitated mayfly. Frustrated, she simply yelled behind her, “Watch me!” She opened the door, not watching her hoof turn the knob. “Sweet Celestia, if I knew you were a psycho, I wouldn’t have . . . “
She turned to see not the front steps, but the living room.
Her hunger suddenly forgotten, she cautiously stepped past the front door. Wide-eyed, she whipped her head between the two rooms. Both were exactly the same. Only the world was missing.
Gritting her teeth, she growled, “Let me out of here, Needles.”
The voice got closer somewhere in the rafter’s shadows. “What was the name of that Royal Guard, Berry?”
“What the shit does that have to do with . . .”
“Was it Sharp Lance?”
Berry gulped. “Y-yeah. Oh, fuck.” Her skin trembled. “He sent you here too, didn’t he?”
“That’s right, Berry. I and dozens of other junkies were guided here by that wonderful pony.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wonderful . . . he sent you all here to die! He had to have known that this place was a trap!”
White mist began to coalesce in front of Berry. He replied, “It’s not as if any of us dregs had better options, Berry. It’s okay to be scared, you know. The other ponies here knew that I didn’t want to starve like so many others before me, but I just didn’t have the guts to cut open an artery.”
A white pony formed from the mist. Something was odd about the head, Berry noticed. “Luckily, one of the ghosts found an old shotgun in the basement. He was kind enough to load it for me. It only took one moment for me to finally turn my life around.”
The top third of his fully-formed head was missing. Bone fragments floated above the blasted crater of his skull like a shattered crown. The colt’s clouded gray eyes leaked thick rivulets of milky goo down his sunken white cheeks. His yellow jagged teeth were displayed in a split-lipped grin.
“As you can see, I’ve never felt better.”
Berry slowly crept away from Needles, who held out a hoof that sported dozens of needle holes. “Soon, you’ll be as happy as me. Isn’t that what anypony ever wants? An escape from the pain?”
“You’re not going to shoot me, are you?” Her eyes darted around, looking out for his shotgun.
He chuckled as the rest of his solidified body reached the floor. “No, I’m sorry. I used the last two rounds on myself. I guess you’ll just have to starve to death. Or maybe you can hang yourself. Either way, you’ll never be homeless or lonely again.”
Backing away from Needles, Berry said, “All things considered, I’d rather be in jail.”
She turned and ran down a hallway. A few frantic moments later, she realized that the hallway was infinite again. Rows of doors whipped past her like train cars.
Needles cried out behind her, “Why are you running? I thought you said your life was a blank slate! What are you so afraid of?”
Berry resisted the urge to look behind her as she galloped, fearing that he might reach her if she slowed. “My life isn’t a lot,” she shouted defiantly. “But it’s still mine!”
“And yet here you are, trying so desperately to escape it. You’re obviously afraid of dying, but you don’t seem to want to deal with the world, either. I was brave enough to kill myself, Berry! Look at me now!”
“Oh, I got a real good look at you.”
“What do you think is waiting for you out there? The world tossed us all aside like gutter trash! Equestria gave up on us!”
“No, Needles. You just gave up on yourselves.” She skidded to a stop and reached for a door handle. “But I’m not giving up on me.”
She saw, for a fleeting instant, Needles closing in on her. Then the door flew open and Berry fell flat on her back into the disintegrating foyer. She yelped from a deep stabbing pain. A cracked floor tile had driven a sliver of linoleum into her back.
When she jumped to her hooves, she shook her head, bright spots dancing in her vision. The door she had leapt through shimmered away like a waking dream.
She blinked. “Wait a second . . .”
Berry peered into the other end of the house. There was the front door.
Needles rose from the floor behind her. “That’s a nasty wound you got, Berry. I know how to make even nastier ones.”
The front door popped loose and floated away as the house’s walls exploded into a black void.
She turned her head and smiled at him. “So do I.”
She lifted a hoof and slammed the tile shard two inches into her back. The sudden explosion of pain made her scream.
The house was normal again. So was the front door.
“The pain’s the only thing that’s real,” she whispered as she broke into a full gallop towards the door.
“NO!” screamed Needles as he scrambled to catch up with Berry. “Can’t you understand? I’m trying to help you escape from the pain!”
“That’s my life in a nutshell, isn’t it? I’m done with escaping.” She grinned at Needles. “Well, almost done.”
Her hooves wrapped around the doorknob, which turned into a swarm of spiders.
Flexing her back muscles, the tile piece caused another shockwave of pain that blew the spiders away.
The door swung open. A tidal wave of blood washed over Berry.
The fragment was already hurting her back as much as possible. Frantically thinking of a solution, she struggled to keep hold of the door knob. The river of blood roared up to her chin.
Berry opened her mouth, bared her teeth and bit down on her right hoof as hard as she could. She screeched through the bloody mouthful of flesh as her teeth dug deeper.
The blood torrent disappeared. Only the sunlit woods could be seen. That was all she needed to see before she leapt as hard as she could across the front steps.
Struggling to not pass out from her two bloody wounds, she turned to see that the front door had closed. Needles banged on the windows, shouted at her, but she couldn’t hear him. Berry didn’t care. It’s not as if he had anything relevant to say to her.
Summer Rose mansion was five miles away from Ponyville. She had a long walk ahead of her, so she pulled out the tile shard and began to walk. The pain from her wounds were constant naggings, but they also reminded Berry that she was still alive.
My life may have been a blank slate, she pondered, but the best part about having a blank slate is that you can draw whatever you want on it.
She had no idea what she was going to with her life, but she knew what she would now never become; a pathetic ghost who could only scream at the growing distance between himself and the wounded, but now optimistic, mare.
Author's Note
While I was writing this, the neighbor across the street from my house died from a steady diet of pills and beer. On the night he died, the neighbor on the left side of my house gave birth to a baby boy. One life leaves, another arrives. Circle of life, man.
I couldn’t help but think that perhaps the neighbor who died thought the same things that Needles did. Or maybe he was didn’t give care whether he lived or died.
Considering what a dreg he was to me and my neighbors, now no one else cares, either.
Mind how you live your life, folks.
