This is the Last Train Car

Chapters

Chapter 1: Breakfast
Chapter 2: Night Train
Chapter 3: The Inexplicable
Chapter 4: Night Train
Chapter 5: The Second
Chapter 6: Data
Chapter 7: The Third
Chapter 8: Night Train
Chapter 9: Deeper
Chapter 10: Vermis Anularis
Chapter 11: The Last Train Car
Epilogue

Chapter 1: Breakfast

The sun had risen exactly one hour and seven minutes prior, and once again Celestia had outdone herself with another beautiful sunrise, rich with streaks of crimson and scarlet that poured across the clouds of the sky above. Those clouds had since cleared, though, and the sky was clear and blue. A slight chill ran through the air, but only enough to make the morning invigorating and quiet.

In accordance with the normal tolerances of her schedule, Sparkler had already sat down to breakfast. This breakfast, as per usual, consisted of a single large muffin. She was in the process of pealing it when the quiet of her morning was interrupted by a rather thunderous sound of hoofsteps on the stairs in the rear of her house. Her roommate, it seemed, had awoken far earlier than normal.

Berry Punch entered the kitchen and immediately walked to the icebox. As usual, she passed over the wide variety of breakfast foods available to her and instead took out only several plates of various fruits, which she condensed onto a single plate. Then, humming, she set this down on the kitchen table and produced a bottle of punch.

“Isn’t it a little early for punch?” asked Sparkler, taking a small bite from her muffin.

“What kind of a question is that? It’s never too early for punch!” Berry poured herself a glass and sat down.

“And I should have expected that,” said Sparkler. She was not especially annoyed by it; she herself rather detested especially sweet foods. Punch was not her favorite beverage, and what Berry ate and drank was her own business. However, Sparkler levitated a small paper bag onto the table. “My mother came by earlier today. She brought muffins.”

“Muffins?” Berry’s eyes lit up, and she opened the bag. With some difficulty- -as an earth-pony, her dexterity was limited- -she removed one of the muffins. She raised an eyebrow and looked to Sparkler. “Blueberry?”

“Close. Serviceberry. And the other one is loganberry.”

Berry smiled and seemed to visibly salivate. “Oh, mane! Your mother has taste!” She looked over at the one that Sparkler was eating. “And what did she bring you?”

“Bran. Sugar free. No raisins.”

Berry winced. “Well, that certainly sounds like it has…um…fiber.”

“It does.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a loganberry? Oh, wait, no. I forgot. Fruit makes you gassy.”

Sparkler groaned, and tried to change the subject. “So, you’re awake early.”

“Of course I am!” cried Berry, nearly jumping up. She reached toward a pile of papers and pulled out one. She passed it to Sparkler, who immediately recognized it as a train schedule. Seeing that, Sparkler immediately sighed. “You’re taking the train again, I see?”

“I am! But look a little closer!”

Sparkler did. She did not see anything out of the ordinary. It was an ordinary timesheet, although a bit worn in odd ways. It also had a strange smell that she found strangely unpleasant but could not place. Of course, belonging to Berry, that was not entirely unusual.

“They opened a new time slot!” said Berry, nearly jumping from excitement. Sparkler had not seen her this overjoyed since her family had begun sending muscadine shipments to Ponyville.

“Where?”

“On the back!”

Sparkler flipped the page over, scanning down the page. Nothing looked unusual until Berry preempted her search by pointing out a timeslot far down at the bottom.

“One fifty to Canterlot…wait, AM?!” She looked up. “Why in Equestria would they need a train to Canterlot at that time? Is the station even open?”

“I didn’t think it was either!” giggled Berry. “But it turns out it is! I already bought tickets!”

“Wait, you? YOU? You’re going to be awake at two in the morning? To ride the TRAIN?”

Berry’s expression suddenly became deeply serious. “Sparks- -”

“Don’t call me ‘Sparks’,” sighed Sparkler.

“You should know more than any pony how much I love riding the train. And this new line? It’s something of a secret.”

“Secret? Berry, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would anypony want to keep the train a secret?” She turned around, facing where she knew the tracks were. “I hope it doesn’t blow the whistle…I have work early for the rest of the week.”

“They didn’t even advertise it. Most of the train schedules don’t even list it because it’s so knew.”

“Or because ponies don’t really need to go to Canterlot that early. Do you even need to- -oh, what am I saying, of course you don’t. You’re riding round trip. Again.”

“Of course. Why would I want to go to Canterlot? I mean, aside from the elderberries.” Berry motioned with her hooves. “Half the doors have those weird round handles…”

“Knobs.”

“Excuse me?”

“They’re called ‘knobs’.”

“Do you know how hard they are to operate with hooves? No, you don’t. Because you got a horn. How, I have no idea.”

“I stole it from you in your sleep.”

Berry reached for her forehead, and Sparkler smiled. Berry frowned. “Don’t do that. I can’t tell when you’re being sarcastic.”

“It still doesn’t explain why you’re awake right now.”

“Because I’m excited? I mean, come on, NEW TRAIN! So I figured I would get up at six, and then be ready to go by one.”

Sparkler raised an eyebrow. “You realize it’s six twenty two AM, right?”

Berry’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“No. Not this time.”

“So you’re not eating dinner?”

“No. This is breakfast.”

“GAH!” cried Berry. “I got so psyched, I woke up at the wrong six!” She slammed her head down on the table, covering it with her hooves but not before rolling a grape toward her mouth. By this time, Sparkler had finished her muffin and stood up.

“Well, I suppose you have more time to prepare. Or to get some work done, for once.”

“Or eat blueberries until I burst.”

“Or that. Preferably not, because I don’t want to clean it up. Again.” Sparkler opened the kitchen window, allowing the cool air to enter. She took a deep breath, smelling the air. “I’m going to go to work now. Enjoy your train, Berry.”

Berry lifted her head from the table. “When have I ever NOT enjoyed a train, Sparks?”

Chapter 2: Night Train

When it finally came time to venture out toward the train station, the air had taken on a very different feel. What had been a somewhat warm day had become cold without sunlight, and the town had been consumed by a strange sort of stillness. Few of the streetlights still burned at this hour, and every path was empty. This was the nature of small towns, the way they were strange and almost alien when every pony had gone to bed and been lying still and warm for several hours already.

Berry Punch had come to relish this time of night. It was not something she saw often, but it was impressive and familiar every time she had to attend work in the late night. As a filly, she had spent many hours wandering between the rows of her family’s ancestral vineyards, looking up at the stars overhead. Now she greeted that night as an old friend, and as a stranger- -because in a town, it took on a far more ominous tone. In the fields, she was alone, but she was meant to be. Here in Ponyville, the town seemed almost ghostly, and standing amongst the silent and dark houses somehow made Berry feel far more alone than her family’s land ever had. It was that very feeling of isolation that made this night feel so magical.

Reaching the train station was easy. She had gone there numerous times in her life, although admittedly never at this hour. As she approached, she was momentarily apprehensive, wondering if she had mistaken the time. Sparkler had, of course, been correct; there was really very little logical reason for this train to be running at this time. Ponyville was a tiny town, and had remained tiny even after Twilight Sparkle had established her royal court in the vicinity. The day trains were already running nearly empty. A night train was almost unheard of, save for perhaps in the busiest lines around Manehattan.

This doubt was crushed almost as soon as Berry reached the station. The main body of the station was indeed closed, but the platform itself was open. It’s bright, crisp electrical lights were running at full power, casting a strange and eerie glow against the enormous train and causing Berry to cast several shadows simultaneously.

Berry could not help but giggle and stamp her feet at the sight of it. Not because it was funny in any way, but because it was REAL. The train actually had come late at night, arriving silently and with no indication of its existence apart from a tiny footnote at the end of late-printed train schedules. Berry had found it- -and she was going to ride it.

Like always, Berry took a moment to walk up and down the platform. The train extended backward into the darkness, a system of modern passenger cars that from Berry’s assessment were brand new, built in the latest style for commuter trains: consistent, even, understated but efficient, with independent suspension and auxiliary breaking systems installed in each car and linked by class-G second-generation couplings.

Then there was the engine itself. Berry felt herself tingling as she looked at it. It was the element she had not told Sparkler about, largely because she was not enough of an optimist herself to believe that it was true. There had been rumors, but they were just that- -rumors. Now Berry Punch saw that they were true. The locomotive itself was not the normal steam engine that served Ponyville; that one was resting in one of the auxiliary shed, the coal in its engines still smoldering in preparation for an early-morning start with the 5:30 express to Appleoosa.

Instead, this was a Continuum class experimental engine. As far as Berry knew, only three had been constructed, and none had yet been put into commercial use- -save for this one. Many ponies within the train-enthusiast community doubted that they even existed, but Berry Punch knew better. She had been present when trains were still drawn by teams of ponies, and witnessed the birth of the practical steam engine- -and now this.

The engine, according to what Berry Punch had read, had been designed by a magic researcher in Canterlot by the name of Moondancer. It was based on extremely ancient schematics recovered from the ruined redoubt libraries of the Crystal Empire. What the device the schematics had actually been for had long-since been lost to history, but it had quickly been understood that the central aspect of the design was for an engine, one that ran not on fuel but on magic itself.

Building such an engine had been impossible until the resurgence of the Crystal Empire; crystals of the correct structure and nature simply could not be found anywhere else, and the knowledge of how to cut them was thought to have been lost with the extinction of the crystal ponies. Now, though, it had been built- -and Berry Punch was there to see it: a sleek, almost threateningly large metallic engine, devoid of any windows or smokestacks or external mechanisms, alive and humming with energy.

A cold wind blew suddenly, and Berry Punch shivered. She raised the rim of her jacket higher, and suddenly realized how dark the world looked around her, save for the stark and artificial light of the station. It was like a strange island, different from the dark outside only in the presence of the bright cold light. She was just as alone as she had ever been- -the platform was empty. There was no conductor, and the service counters had closed many hours before. The ponies had gone home, and the train now stood in silence without the sound of a churning engine or puffing steam. Somehow this made Berry feel even colder.

The doors to the main cars were open. The light inside seemed warm, lit no doubt by the crystals fed with magic from the central reactor of the engine tasked with pulling the train. That light looked warm, but it gave Berry pause. It occurred to her that there was no real reason for her to ride this particular train, and that it was late. That she could return home and go to bed, where it was warm and still.

Instead, though, she found herself stepping up onto the train, her hooves leaving the ground and elevating onto the vehicle. The crystal light became brighter, and Berry felt herself breathing deeply, smelling the scent of the car: the smell of whatever cleaning fluid they used, and the odor of the plastic and wood that were used to make the seats and carpets. The smell told her that her assessment had been correct: these cars were indeed new.

At the top of the short set of stairs, Berry looked around, trying to find whoever it was who was supposed to take her ticket. She saw no one, though, although it became apparent that the car was not entirely empty. Several other ponies had elected to take the night train as well.

There were not many. Toward the front of the car was an earth pony in a guard-cadet uniform, asleep with his helmet set beside him. He was no doubt on his way to Canterlot to start a career in the military. Why he had taken the late train was unclear: perhaps to have just a little bit more time with his family before leaving, or because it was all he could afford.

Slightly behind the young stallion was an older one, dressed heavily against the weather despite winter still being several months away. He showed no sign of tiredness, and in fact had taken out yesterday’s paper and begun to read it. To Berry, he seemed an insomniac, not taking the train out of any particular need but because for him it was no different than any other train at any other time of the day.

Farther toward the back of the car was a couple, a pair of thestrals. They shared a seat, and were both quite alert, laughing quietly and whispering to one another. Their kind was something of a rarity in Ponyville, but in their case it made sense why they would prefer a late train. As nocturnal creatures, a train that ran in their equivalent of the afternoon was no doubt a great boon.

The only other passenger that Berry was able to see was a yellow-colored earth-mare, but she was not sitting. She instead passed through the door on the far side of the car to move further down the train. Berry only saw her for a moment, and saw that she was impeccably dressed. What was strange, though, was that Berry had not seen her get on before her. The platform had been empty outside, meaning that this mare must have stood up and moved as soon as she had seen one more pony entering the car.

As rude as that was, Berry ignored it. She instead sat down on one of the benches and looked out the window at the station. The glass of the window seemed oddly thick, and it made the pure white arc lights of the station seem strangely red.

Then the train began to move. There was not really any warning, and as odd as that seemed Berry Punch could barely contain herself from excitement. The acceleration was rapid but perfectly smooth. While in some respects it lacked the charm of a steam-powered startup, it was intriguingly different and strange. There was no real sound apart from the couplings shifting and the wheels of the cars beginning to turn, and there was certainly no scent of coal smoke. Likewise- -as Sparkler had hoped- -there was no whistle. Just silent motion.

The train quickly got up to speed. Outside the windows, the light of the station faded and was replaced by blackness and the barely visible moonlit rise of the land outside. Despite being barely able to see, Berry felt the familiar turns of the track and the trundle of the train as they took the track northward toward Canterlot. She had traveled this path hundreds of times before, at all times of the day- -save for night. This was new and different- -and somehow strange.

From what she could tell, the train was moving incredibly quickly. The normal Ponyville steam train would have been struggling at almost maximum capacity to move at these speeds, but the Continuum was seeming to have no difficulty whatsoever. There was no shuddering of the cars, or lurching changes of speed. The ride was perfect, and Berry had a curious feeling that she was not even moving.

The trip between Ponyville and Canterlot through the Mountain Pass Line normally took two hours. As fast as they were moving, Berry was sure that there was no way they would get there in less than one. That meant a round trip in three to four hours, a perfectly reasonable time for a relaxing train ride.

As she settled in, Berry Punched opened her saddle bag and produced one long flute glass, which she set next to her. She then filled it with some richly colored punch. Doing this was normally somewhat difficult due to the rumble of the train, but on this particular night it was possible to do it with ease. Berry Punch was quite pleased.

So she sat, sipping her punch and watching the darkness roll by. In front of her, the cadet was hugging his helmet and snoring lightly. The old stallion behind him had reached the sports page in his paper, and over his shoulder Berry could see that he had taken a great interest in an editorial about some hoofball coach and his controversial training regimen. On the other side of the train, the thestrals were giggling and quite possibly kissing. Berry did not mind much; she had been young at one time as well, even if she had never been a thestral.

After a while, though, she began to feel the train settle into a long straightaway that led up toward the mountains. Berry decided that this was an ideal time to stretch her legs. She carefully set her glass down- -it was highly unlikely that any of these few ponies would bother with it- -and walked past into the isle.

She turned and headed for the junction to the next car. As she had expected, the threstrals were both covered with their leathery wings, and two pairs of eyes watched her pass with stifled giggles. Berry smiled- -she genuinely did think that it was funny- -and continued to the small door that led to the cars behind hers. She was glad to find that it had a handle instead of a knob, and she opened it, easily passing through the thin moving floor onto the next car.

To her mild surprise, she found this one to be completely empty. It looked- -and smelled- -exactly like the first, but there were no ponies in it. Berry paused. It struck her as odd, because she thought she had seen another pony enter this car. Eventually, she just shrugged. No doubt she had gone further back into the train.

Berry quickly forgot about this as she walked through the car toward the next juncture. She opened it and passed through into another train car, this one also identical to the first- -and also empty.

“Wow,” she said to herself. “Sparkler was right, wasn’t she? Nopony wants to ride this train.” Berry was not sure how it made money, but she found a way to rationalize that. No doubt this was a test run of the new engine, done at an off hour to ensure that it could accommodate the track and schedule without breaking down before they used it to augment the tried-and-true steam engine.

So Berry continued through the train, moving from car to car. As she did, she began to feel strange. Something started to feel odd. Initially, she did not notice it beyond the way one might notice themselves beginning to develop a cold or experiencing a backache after a long walk. It was instinct, a distant thing that a reasonable mind pushed to the back of consciousness in order to focus on the task at hand.

But Berry Punch had no real task. She was just walking, and the thought began to rise to the surface of her mind far faster than it would have if she had been given any other kind of task. It was by the fourteenth or perhaps fifteenth car that she stopped, confused.

“No,” she said to herself. “That isn’t right…”

She tried to think, to remember exactly how many car she had walked through. Of course she had not been counting- -there was no reason to- -but she knew that it was a lot. Far too many for a normal commuter train. The standard train only had a maximum of six cars, and a long-range train with sleeper and diner cars had at most ten. This train had far more than that- -and none of them were sleepers, or diners. They were all identical commuter cars: all built exactly to the same specifications, and all empty.

Once again, Berry Punch’s mind began to rationalize. It made sense to load the train heavy- -after all, they were testing it. That was logical and clean, a good reason for the train to have this many cars- -but for some reason, Berry felt her heart beating quickly in her chest and her eyes wandering, looking from seat to seat and corner to corner. It was just so silent, and so empty, with her as the only pony occupying a space that she felt she was not meant to be in.

“They’re just extra cars,” she said to herself as she stepped forward. For some reason, she wanted to turn back, to return to her seat and drink the rest of her punch very quickly. Instead, she refused to turn. That would be giving into her fear, to be doing something ridiculous. This was a train. Berry Punch knew trains in the same way Starlight Glimmer knew kites- -it was something she loved, even if it was not part of her special talent. It was her primary hobby, something she knew as much about as any other pony in Ponyville.

So she kept going forward. One car after the next passed by. Berry did not want to count them, but she could not help herself. First there was one. Then five. Then ten. As she moved through them, she felt herself accelerating, first to a fast walk and then to a trot- -and then to an outright run. This did not make sense- -somehow, none of it made sense. She needed to get to the end of the train- -if she got to the end, everything would be alright.

Except the end never did come. She kept pushing through empty car after empty car, sprinting all alone through the emptiness surrounded by nothing but the same repeating room- -until finally she burst through into one that was different.

Berry Punch almost collapsed with joy. She had thought she was going insane, or trapped in a nightmare, but now she knew that she had been right. The world was indeed logical; the train was simply unduly long. She actually started to laugh at herself- -until the laugh caught in her throat as she looked around the car.

The car was identical to the others, and now held no passengers- -but it was different. And familiar. In one seat sat a newspaper, neatly folded with the sports page open. Behind it, a seat was occupied with a saddlebag- -and beside it, a single flute-glass filled with berry punch.

“Wh…what?”

The train suddenly slowed, and Berry Punch watched as the glass tilted and then slipped free of its perch. It fell and shattered, staining the carpet with deep red fluid. There was no pony around to notice. The train was empty.

The station appeared next to the train, but it was on the wrong side. Then Berry saw that it was not just on the wrong side- - it was the wrong station entirely. She knew the Canterlot station extremely well, and knew that this was not it at all. It did not have the same lights, or the broad curving platform, or the delicate unicornic architecture on the stationhouse. Instead it was simple and wooden, its lights now fading in favor of the rising sun.

This was the Ponyville station. Berry Punch was back to the exact location that she had begun the trip.

Chapter 3: The Inexplicable

Contrary to popular belief among the ponies of Ponyville, Berry Punch did in fact have a job. Like the vast majority of earth-ponies, she worked in the agricultural industry. Specifically, she was in charge of managing the imports of her family’s products into the greater Ponyville market. The climate was unfortunately quite poor for the growing of most berries and grapes, but the demand was high for fresh produce, jams, and especially punch.

Because of this occupation, Berry Punch almost invariably worked at home late in the afternoon, usually over a glass of punch. Or three. On this particular day, she had already reached the fifth glass but had barely managed to balance a single invoice. Every time she would try, she would get distracted, remembering vividly what had happened on the train and how none of it made sense.

She needed to get to work, but eventually just pushed her paperwork to the edges of her desk and groaned. Nothing was getting done. Her mind only seemed to want to focus on what had happened to her the night before. It was in Berry’s nature to rationalize, to find the logical reasons for any event. It was an aspect of her personality that made her a good businessmare, and one that had never been infuriating until now.

While she was sitting and thinking- -but coming to no clear conclusions- -she heard her door open. After a few minutes, Sparkler entered, back from her job organizing Mayor Mare’s reelection campaign. She was dressed in a suit with her hair tied back, and was carrying a briefcase.

“Hey,” she said, setting the briefcase down. She looked at Berry’s paperwork. “Do you need help with that?”

“I don’t have the budget to pay you.”

“You don’t need to pay me. I like organizing things.” She picked up a paper and winced. “Wow. A triple order of canned units for the retirement home. And pie season is just warming up. Do you think you can get these orders filled?”

Berry snatched the paper away from Sparkler. “I always do,” she snapped.

“Snippy! Berry, I’m just trying to help.” Sparkler untied her mane and allowed it to hang down past her horn as usual. “Did your train ride go poorly?”

Berry sat up, and started opening her mouth to speak- -but then closed it. “It was…unusual.”

“Unusual? In what way?”

“I’m not sure yet,” said Berry, softly. She looked up at Sparkler. “I’m going again tonight.”

“Again? Seriously? It’s at two in the morning. That’s a lot, even for you.”

“Something happened. I couldn’t review it properly.”

“Something?” Sparkler paused. “Did a stallion pinch your flank again?”

“No.”

“Oh. So it was a mare this time.”

“NO. Not that. It’s just…” Berry paused, and then shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m just going to do it again. I have to be sure.”

“Be sure of what?”

Berry Punch did not answer- -because she did not even know herself.

Chapter 4: Night Train

It was night again. In a way, it was identical to the first- -there was really no way to differentiate it from the first. Both had been clear nights, one after the next, and no two days could have been closer in their consistency and atmosphere- -and yet it could not have been more different.

Somehow, it seemed so much colder. The wind was not strong, but the dampness in the air forced Berry to pull her collar high through the slow, silent walk to the station. The town was still just as empty, but it seemed larger and darker, and Berry found herself irrationally concerned that the ponies within were not just sleeping but had for some inexplicable reason left their town abandoned entirely. The only sound was her hoofsteps on the gravel.

Eventually, she did reach the station, but unlike the night before she did not approach it directly. Instead, she diverted to the east and took a long walk down the path adjacent to the tracks. There were no lights out there, which made walking difficult, but the moon was still bright enough to allow her to see the path and, more importantly, the train.

This time, she counted the cars. This proved to be a mistake, as the number she found offered no reassurance. There were five cars, a standard length for a short commuter train. For some reason this made her heart beat faster and her chest feel tight.

Of course, it was entirely possible that the train had a different number of cars this night than the night before. There was no reason why the operators would need to load it the same every night, especially if the first load was lighter than they expected.

Except that a shorter train still did not explain how Berry had ended up in the car she had started at without ever having turned around- -but that was something she would rather not think about.

Berry climbed onto the platform and looked at the train. It was identical to the way it had been the night before, silent but humming with energy that could not quite be heard. The lights from inside the cars were still as warm and inviting as ever, but for some reason, Berry hesitated. She had ridden hundreds of trains in her life- -some of lesser or greater quality than others. She had ridden narrow-gauge trains that trundled along the top of sheer cliffs in griffon territory, or the trans-Yakberian railway through the far north where the train had gotten snowed in three times over a two week trip. She had been through jungles, and the trans-channel tunnel between Prance and Bitton, and at least five cog railways- -one of which lost its cogs halfway up Deadmare’s Mountain. In all that time, though, she had never felt herself hesitating like this.

“Excuse me.”

Berry squealed and jumped into the air, nearly falling over in panic. She whirled around as though she were being attacked, wishing that she had brought some pepper spray- -only to find a very surprised looking stallion.

“Oh,” she said, catching her breath. “You scared me! Don’t do that!”

“My apologies,” he said. He had a distinct Canterlot accent, and Berry caught herself staring at his horn. It was far longer than the horns that she was used to in Ponyville.

“Are you…are you looking at my horn?”

“No,” said Berry, despite staring directly at it.

“Oh. Well…okay, then, I suppose.” He looked at the door of the train. “Are you taking this train?”

“Yes!” cried Berry, perhaps too loud.

The stallion stared at her for a moment expectantly. Berry was not sure why- -until she realized that she was blocking the door.

“Oh,” she said, blushing, “sorry.” She climbed up the stairs and into the car. The stallion followed as well, and sat down on the far side of the train while Berry sat down on the side nearer to the station.

“Are you going to Canterlot?” he asked. He apparently did not realize how foolish of a question that was- -literally any other pony would have of course been going to Canterlot.

“No,” admitted Berry. “I just like riding the trains.”

“Ah. I had a cousin who did that. Which must mean…” His eyes drifted toward Berry’s cutie mark. She shifted to give him a better view; she was both quite proud of her cutie mark and appreciative of the attention of stallions. One of the difficulties of living with a much younger mare- -and a unicorn, nonetheless- -was that stallions either took the pair as a couple or focused all their attention on the more bejeweled of the two flanks.

“Are you staring at my flank?”

“No,” said the stallion, although it was both apparent that he was, and that he was confused that Berry did not have a cutie mark relating to trains.

“And you’re going to Canterlot.”

The stallion looked surprised. “How did you know?”

“Because that’s where the train goes.”

The stallion seemed to consider this for a moment. “Oh. Oh, that does make sense. Yes. I was visiting my daughter.” He looked around. “I had no idea that there was a train out tonight. It wasn’t on any of the lists at all! I only saw it as I was wandering around.”

“At night?”

“Well, it certainly isn’t day outside, is it? I’ve always been a great fan of Luna’s work.”

“Then how did you know the train was going to Canterlot?”

The stallion pointed. “It’s facing the correct direction, isn’t it? Why? Is it going somewhere else?”

“My timetables say it goes to Canterlot,” said Berry, compulsively checking them just to make sure.

The train suddenly started moving.

“Oh,” said the stallion. “Well, it’s too late now.”

For some reason that thought made Berry shiver. She turned to her window and watched the red-tinted lights of the station retreat behind the train. Almost as the lights were no longer visible, Berry Punch stood up and reached into her bag.

From it, she removed a glass paperweight in the shape of an apple. It was a common Ponyville souvenir available at pharmacies and shops and even the train station during the day. Berry Punch had picked it up for a bit. It was certainly not something that she would put into her household décor. Although she enjoyed a tall jug of cider as much as any pony- -or perhaps even more than other ponies- -she was not a fan of apples. They were too large and too crispy, not at all like berries or grapes, and the Apple family was one of her main fruit competitors. The glass apple would serve her purposes here, though.

Berry stood up and set the paperweight down on her seat. The stallion across the aisle looked up, confused. “Where are you going?”

“I want to see the view from the rear of the train,” said Berry. Then, after a moment of consideration, asked: “do you want to come?”

“Perhaps later,” he said. “I’m awfully tired. Dealing with my relations can be a terrible hassle.”

“I hear that. I’ll be back soon.” Berry paused, hoping that she was not as right as she might possibly be.

She passed into next car, mentally counting to two. As she anticipated, it was empty.

“Okay,” said Berry to herself, starting walking again. Her hooves clicked on wooden floor, one after the other as she approached the far end. It got closer and closer until she had reached the door. Then, after a strangely long pause, she opened it- -and found herself in another identical car.

“Three,” she said to herself, finding that she was breathing rapidly. She started walking forward, but found that she did not want to- -but the alternatives were worse. She could not bear to turn back, as it would make this entire trip pointless. Likewise, she could not sit down. To stop moving was by far the worst thought of all. To be alone here, in the third car, with two ahead of her and two- -she hoped so badly two- -behind.

“This is crazy. This is ridiculous!” she said, stomping forward. Four. She moved quickly, passing through the fourth car, and slammed open the fifth car. She entered it, and found that it was still the same as all the others. Just another car. The last car. “See!” said Berry, her voice rising with panic. “The last one! Car number five! No more beyond it!”

She walked to the last door. Beyond it would be a small balcony over the coupling, an area where a pony could stand if they so chose to look out at the tracks and land receding behind the train. Berry swung it open- -and found herself staring into yet another train car.

“No,” she said, closing her eyes and covering them. “No no NO NO!” She lowered her hoof slowly and peeked through it- -but it was still there.

Six. This was the sixth car. There were only five. Berry had counted them. There had been no mistake. The car at the front had been the fifth; there were only five. Yet now she was standing facing a sixth- -another car. One that had not been there when she had seen it before.

“They…they must have linked more on afterward,” said Berry, her voice barely a wheeze. “Linked them after I got on…” Except that there would have been a sound. A sensation as the cars behind struck the original cars and linked to them. A vibration of some kind. If they even did that- -Berry Punch was almost one hundred percent sure that no one would ever add an extra car at the station platform, especially on a train with only two passengers.

By this point, Berry was shaking- -and yet she still felt herself moving forward toward the door at the far end of the sixth car. She pulled it open with a shaking hoof.

Seven. Now she ran. She did not know why, but she could not control it. She reached an eighth. Ninth. Tenth. Fifteenth. Twentieth. Twenty seventh.

By this time, Berry Punch was panicking. To reverse was almost thirty cars, and even then, that was no guarantee that she would get back. There was only forward, toward the rear of the train. For some reason, this direction registered in her terrified mind as “deeper”. All these cars, all the same, all identical and all empty. They were all empty, and each led to another- -another that should not exist.

She began to scream and burst through one last door panting- -and collapsed to her knees when she saw a glass apple sitting on a bench halfway down the train. Next to it was the stallion from before, lying back and snoring loudly. Berry Punch began to laugh- -but her laughter collapsed into tears. She had made it back to the start, and she was safe- -but she had never reversed.

It made no sense, and she stood up, feeling more tired than she ever had. Confused, she looked out one of the windows, trying to see through the darkness. She realized that, as ridiculous as it sounded, she was looking to see the train on the other side, to see if it was connected in a loop. That of course was an impossibility- -the tracks just did not work that way, and there was no way that she could have gone through the engine without noticing it- -but she could not see anything anyway.

Still confused, Berry turned around toward where she had come. She had to know, to see- -and she felt herself walking toward the door.

“Why am I doing this?” she asked no one. “I should just sit down. Drink a glass of punch. Or a bottle. Or five. Then go home, and go to bed.”

Instead, she opened the door and stepped through. She fully expected herself to be back in another car, the one she had gone through before- -but instead she found herself in the engine.

This confused her to no end, but only for a moment. Of course the door led to the engine. The car she had boarded on was just behind it, the first of five. That was the way the train had been set up- -and yet there had been a passenger car here just a moment ago.

For a moment, Berry paused, and then felt her chest tightening again as she realized that there was no crew. Then she remembered that of course there were no engineers. That was something she had known from the start, although it had been buried in the back of her mind.

The Continuum was entirely automated. It was one of its key features, an element that made it unique among engines. The cabin had no gauges or instruments of any kind, just flat plating over the machinery and channels beneath. In the front area where fire would be on a steam train, there was a glow through thick radiation resistant glass from the crystal reactor inside. Berry Punch could feel the vibration of the crystal core inside her bones. Had she been a unicorn, she had no doubt that her head would be throbbing from the force of the magic within.

Somehow, Berry found this calming, staring at that glow of this machine as it pulled the train along in silence without any pony intervention. In this state, she found herself sitting and contemplating what this meant. The implications were somewhat profound.

This train would run forever. The crystal reactor inside had enough power to function at full power for millions of years, if not longer. The engine itself had nearly no moving parts, and what parts it had were made of specialized alloys that would take millennia to break down. If no one stopped it, this train would continue to run long after Berry Punch had grown old and left the world of the living. It would last until the end of time, circling the track between Ponyville and Canterlot.

Berry considered the idea that the tracks would probably wear out, but even that was not a sure thing. As long as a train ran on top of them, they would never rust. They would last an indeterminate amount of time. In Berry Punch’s mind, she saw the train running on long-decayed tracks, stopping at abandoned stations in towns where no pony lived- -or continuing to make the loop so long that whatever strange race came after ponies were long extinct wondered what this machine was, and why it stopped at grassy, empty spots in the uninhabited wilderness.

This line of thought considered for some time as Berry watched the engine. Then she felt the train slow. It did so smoothly, without any sign of applying breaks. There was no sound or shuddering; instead, it simply slowed and finally stopped. The humming of the crystal drive never once wavered and never slowed.

The train had come to a stop in Canterlot. Berry stood up, and returned to the car. She was happy to see the stallion from before sitting up suddenly, looking around confused at the train’s sudden stop. Her relief fell when she saw the look of confusion on his face.

“You’re here,” he said in disbelief.

“Yes. You were asleep.”

“That does explain the drool,” he said, brushing it off his coat. A coat he had not been wearing when he stepped on the train. “Although I am surprised to see you.”

Berry paused. “Why?” she asked slowly.

“I didn’t think you would take another lap.”

“Lap? I don’t understand.”

“The train. You told me you were riding it to Canterlot and back. I’m just terribly surprised that you did it again.”

“Again? What in Equestria are you talking about?” Berry gasped. “Did you drink my punch?”

“No,” said the stallion, slowly and clearly beginning to become nervous. “You took the train three days ago. And now you’re here again.”

Berry’s jaw dropped. “No,” she said. “It hasn’t been three days.”

“Yes it has. I stopped at Canterlot to deal with some terrible accounting issues and go through a business meeting. Now I’m on my way back.” He turned his hoof toward the window across the train from him. “See? We just arrived. That certainly isn’t the Canterlot station.”

Berry looked. To her horror, it was the familiar façade of the Ponyville station. She was once again back home.

“But that’s not possible.”

“What do you mean?” said the stallion, standing up. “The train runs from Ponyville to Canterlot, but it also runs back.” He pointed at her seat before walking to the front of the train to exit. “Don’t forget your apple.”

Chapter 5: The Second

Berry Punch nearly staggered into her house. She had never felt so tired in her life. The adrenaline keeping her standing had left her almost as soon as she had stepped off the train, and the weight of three days that she could not remember began to weight on her quickly as she tried to reach her home. Not one pony tried to help her. They pointed and laughed and spoke under their breath. To them, she was just Berry Punch being Berry Punch again.

When she finally burst through her door, Sparkler was standing in the front room, once again organizing the various aspects of it to make them even. When Berry arrived, Sparkler was in the midst of reshelving the two books that she owned like the wingless and highly dyslexic Twilight Sparkle she essentially was.

“Berry,” she said, not looking up as she produced a ruler and compass and began to align the three potted plants in the room. “I was getting worried. Have you seen my glass apple?”

Berry threw it to her, and Sparkler caught it easily in her magic. “How long have I been gone?” she asked.

Sparkler sighed. “Three days. You should really tell me when you’re going to be out like that. Contrary to popular belief, I do get concerned.” She set down her compass and turned to Berry. When she saw the look on her roommate’s face, though, her disapproving gaze became one of great concern. “Berry,” she said. “Something happened. Something bad, didn’t it?”

Berry stared at her, and then nodded. She walked to the couch and nearly collapsed onto it. Sparkler pulled up a rather uncomfortable looking chair and sat down. “Do you need to go to a hospital again?” she asked.

“The train,” said Berry, looking up at Sparkler with wild eyes. “The train…it…it was too long…”

She proceeded to tell Sparkler the story, of what had happened to her and what she had found. As soon as she started, she regretted it. All of it made her sound insane, and it was quite apparent that Sparkler was not believing a word of it. Still, once she started, she could not stop. There was nopony else to tell; Berry had very few friends- -and she felt that if she did not tell somepony, she might just go mad. If she was not there already, of course.

When the story was done, Berry was crying and desperately needed more punch. Sparkler, though, waited a long time before responding.

“Berry,” she said, “how much punch have you had?”

Berry stood up suddenly, throwing Sparkler’s coffee table out of alignment. “I knew it! You don’t believe me! You think I was punched and- -and- -and dreamed it all up!”

“Correct. I don’t believe any of what you just told me. It’s all far too bizarre.”

“Well, then, you can cover yourself in leaves, go to Sweet Apple Acres, and let Applejack buck the apples out of you for all I care!”

“She’s a bit too young for my taste. You know that.”

Berry Punch glared at her friend. “I should never have told you. I wasted both our time.”

“No. Not really.” Sparkler spread her hooves. “I’m still willing to help.”

Berry blinked, confused. “But you said you don’t believe me.”

“That is correct. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to help you. As skeptical as I may be, this is something that requires a clear, organized approach to investigation.”

“Investigation?”

“Yes.” Sparkler stood up. “Either your brain has finally turned to vinegar, or something much darker is afoot. And either of those things requires a quick action.”

“You think I’m insane.”

“And if you are, you need help.”

“And if I’m not?”

Sparkler’s expression darkened. “I pray to Celestia that such is not the case.”

ղ��

Chapter 6: Data

The pair regrouped that night. Or, rather, Berry Punch was suddenly awakened from where she had fallen asleep on her desk as Sparkler touched her shoulder.

“GAH!” she cried, tipping a nearly empty glass of punch onto the floor. Sparkler caught it in her magic.

“Please don’t spill,” she said. “I know it’s your room, but I hate having the floor stained. You know that.”

“Sorry,” said Berry. “Sorry…Sparks, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Sparkler. Two syllables. It’s not hard to remember.”

“Sorry.” Berry ran her hoof down her face.

“You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” groaned Berry, sarcastically.

“It’s not new. You never look especially good.”

“I look a lot like you.”

“Then perhaps I have self-esteem issues.” Sparkler shrugged. “But on a more serious note, you really should sleep. In a bed.” She set the punch down on a coaster set on an end table. “And don’t drink this. You know what it does to your blood sugar. The doctor said- -”

“The doctor can cover himself in leaves- -”

“And have the apples bucked out of him by a member of the Apple family. Yes, I know. But he is right. Your diabetes- -”

“Prediabetes,” said Berry, pouring another glass of punch in a cup that had the stains from older punch dried in the bottom. “And it’s my punch. I’ll drink it if I want.”

“Fine. Because stallions certainly like dancing with a mare with no feet.”

Berry groaned. “Did you find anything?”

“I think so,” said Sparkler, putting down a pile of papers and notes on Berry’s desk. All of them were neatly collated and organized, but Berry knew that Sparkler had not read a single one. “I spoke with Twilight Sparkle.”

“Seriously? She actually talked to you? She never talks to us.”

“She is one of the leading experts in magical theory, not just in Ponyville but in all of Equestria. The mare who built your Continuum engine is one of her dear friends.”

“Who isn’t one of Twilight’s ‘dear friends’?”

“You mean aside from us?”

Berry flipped open the top binder. The notes were copies of texts, replicated by a spell, but some of them had Sparkler’s characteristic blocky writing with many of the letters reversed. Most important, though, were the pictures and diagrams. “And what did she say?”

“Quite a bit. And a lot I didn’t understand. My sister is more adept at that sort of thing than I am.”

Berry looked up. “Dinky? She’s, like, nine.”

“Yes. She is. And already applying for magic school in Canterlot. Should I call her?”

“No. I don’t want to get a kid involved in this. It’s bad enough I have to deal with a twenty year old filly.”

“I’m seventeen.”

Berry looked up and nearly spat out her punch. “What the filly, Sparks? Seventeen?”

“Yes. You were at my last birthday party. If I recall, I had to pull you out of the punch bowl. After you drank all the punch.”

“Great. That’s just great. Now I feel old.” She paused. “And what does the town think of me, then, living with you?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question?”

Berry rubbed her temples. “No. No I don’t.”

“I didn’t think so.” Sparkler took out another binder and opened it, gesturing to the contents with her hoof. “I followed the lines of reasoning you suggested. You are correct.”

“About what?”

“About the fact that this is a test of Moondancer’s engine. Although from what I gather, it was never meant to be actually used by ponies.”

“But it stops and boards.”

“Yes. Just like it would in operation. But no one is supposed to get on it. Its space on the timetable was a misprint.” Sparkler sighed. “In all probability because of an error on my mother’s part.”

“What about the train itself?” said Berry hurriedly.

“A great deal of technical stuff. See binders four B through sixteen G. But from my understanding, all previous tests showed no anomalies in its behavior. Certainly nothing that would cause the events you described.”

“Grape nuts.” Berry’s harsh language surprised Sparkler, but she elaborated. “I was sure that the new engine had something to do with it. What about the cars?”

“They’re just cars. The same as all the new commuter trains have. Five per load, though. Twilight was very specific about that. Although she did not know too much more.”

“Why?”

“Why? She’s a Princess, Berry. She’s not involved in trains. Although she did give me Moodancer’s address. You can write her if you want.”

“Maybe,” said Berry. She unfolded several more binders. The one that struck her most contained a partial diagram of the ancient notes that had described the original crystal reactor. The manner in which they were drawn and the unorthodox style of faded runes used to annotate them was somehow ominous and unpleasant, and Berry could not help but wonder what the machine pictured in the diagram actually was. “So what are you telling me?”

“I’m telling you that it’s just a train. Or it should be.”

“And should we just leave it at that?”

Sparkler blinked. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just a train. Maybe I did have too much punch. Maybe I’ve finally pickled my brain in fruit sugar. Should I just let it go? Leave the train be? I mean, if I just don’t go on it anymore, it isn’t a problem, right?”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean you should not give up on this. We still have not reached a conclusion.”

“That my mental health is decaying?”

“Or that something really is wrong with the train.”

Berry raised an eyebrow. “But I thought you didn’t believe me?”

Sparkler sighed. “I saw the notes, Berry. And I don’t like them. I can’t read what they say…”

Berry lifted the notes and pointed to the runes around the incomplete diagram of the ancient reactor. “I don’t know if anypony can read these, Sparks.”

“Sparkler. But it’s more than that. Those pictures. I don’t like them.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’s because I’m a unicorn. I didn’t realize what that locomotive was. And I don’t like it.”

“I didn’t take you for a luddite.”

“Opening up ancient secrets is never wise. We’ve both seen that enough times.”

Berry nodded. They had indeed. Tirek, Discord, the alicorn amulet- -there were many things that were best left in Equestria’s past.

“So…I think we need to investigate the train itself.”

All Berry could do was inhale sharply. “I was afraid you would say that.” She looked at Sparkler, and saw the fear on her face. “Just the two of us?”

Sparkler shook her head. “No. Two is too few.”

“Too few for what? You don’t think…” She trailed off, and Sparkler nodded.

“That this could be dangerous?”

“Or that I could be?”

“Either way. With a pair, the loss of one leaves one all alone. And if I really do end up standing on the sixth train car? I don’t want to be alone.” She shivered. “We need a third.”

“We’re not taking Dinky.”

“No, of course not. I was thinking a different sister.”

Berry Punch’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t mean…”

“Berry, who else do we have?”

Berry looked down at the schematic, and closed the binder. She sighed, and then groaned and put her head on the fake leather cover. “Fine,” she said, lifting her glass of punch and draining it with her head still down. “She is the best choice…but I hate that you have to be right. We’ll go ask Cheerilee tomorrow.”

+��<�

Chapter 7: The Third

The night had not been easy, but in the light of the day things were better. Berry Punch had indeed had dreams, but she could not remember them. They had not involved trains, exactly, but something else. Darkness, and sounds that could not be heard in a place where there was no air to breathe. She had been surrounded by cataclysmic silence- -and within that noiseless and soul-crushing sound that was almost a voice but that never could be.

The darkness had subsided at Celestia’s will, and Berry had awoken much later with half a bottle of punch to stabilize herself, followed by a breakfast of various fruits. Sparkler had, as normal, awoken early and already called out of work. She sat mostly without speaking, waiting.

The two departed later in the day after the supplies had been packed. Both of them wore coats, but the town was so much warmer when the sun was high in the sky. It was the same town as at night, when the only source of illumination came from the arc lights of the train station and the strange glow of the train itself. It was a pleasant day, and Berry was happy- -but in a hollow way. She was so glad, and at the same time so afraid- -which only made her savor the sane and well-lit aspect of the world even more.

As they ascended the hill toward the Ponyville schoolhouse, Berry turned to Sparkler.

“Don’t tell her,” she said.

“Tell her what?”

“What I saw. What I told you.”

“Why?”

“She’ll think I’m insane.”

“I think you’re insane.”

“Yes, but you’re not my sister.” Berry Punch turned and looked down. “I’m not an idiot. I know she worries about me. Just, please. Don’t tell her. Not the specifics.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to ask for her help if we can’t tell her what’s wrong. Besides, she’s Cheerilee! No pony is more understanding and patient. I should know, I was in her class when she was student-teaching.”

“Come on, Sparks. I already feel terrible. Now I feel really, really old.”

“If you call me ‘Sparks’ one more time, I will slap you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Yes, I would. And not lightly. Hard. The way I slap Rainbow Dash.”

Berry stopped. “When have you slapped Rainbow Dash?”

“Surprisingly often,” sighed Sparkler. “Cider makes her hoofsie.”

“I don’t want to know.” Berry started walking again up the familiar hill. It was not something she relished. Even if her sister was in charge of the entire town’s education, she still recollected back to the era when Hickory Paddle had been the town teacher.

The students were just being dismissed. It was Friday, and most of the students were ecstatic to be free for a time. All of them were adorable, but Berry Punch did not really know their names. That would have been weird. Some, though, she did know.

“Oh, look, there’s your sister.”

“What?” said Sparkler. “Oh! There!” She raised her hoof and waved to the small purplish-gray unicorn, and Dinky- -looking mortified and strangely pale- -lifted a book to shield her face.

“Oh. Oop. She’s embarrassed now,” said Sparkler. She sighed. “Sometimes sisters are confusing.”

“You have no idea,” muttered Berry.

Some of the students had not yet left the schoolhouse. Specifically, a number of colts and Scootaloo. Berry Punch very easily recognized the look in their eyes. It was the look that most ponies look at Cheerilee but never her when they were together.

Cheerilee, of course, was happy to speak to them. As soon as she saw her sister, though, her expression fell. “Students,” she said. “Why don’t you go outside? I need to have a chat with my sister.”

“Sister?” A pair of small unicorns looked to Cheerilee, and then Berry Punch. The slower of the two looked again, but the smaller- -a fat, bluish being- -stared at Berry Punch. “A sister? You have a sister?”

“Can teachers have sisters?” asked the taller slow one. “Is that even possible?”

“Who cares? What matters is if SHE has a cheerleading costume too!” Berry glared at the colt, and he winced. “On second thought, I need to go and do the thing.”

“Wait,” said the slow one, “what thing?” He paused for a long time. “Are we wearing the cheerleading costumes now? Again?”

Cheerilee sighed and ground her teeth, and then shooed the various children out of the room. Within a matter of seconds, the only ponies there amongst the smell of chalk and paste were the three violet mares.

“I can’t believe you,” said Berry, angrily. “That’s MY cheerleading uniform! You were never even on the team!”

“It’s not like you fit in it anymore anyway!” hissed Cheerilee. She sighed. She did that a lot. “Why are you here, Berry? I highly doubt you’re here to finish your education.”

“I don’t need to finish it. I know enough math to do our family’s orders. Alone.”

“Clearly. With an emphasis on importing punch, no doubt.” She rolled her eyes.

“You little- -you hypocrite- -”

“Ms. Cheerilee,” said Sparkler, trying to break the tension.

“Sparkler,” said Cheerilee, seeming a bit more cheerful. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Have you been keeping up with your studies?”

“I’m afraid I can’t afford the special education.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, if I can help- -”

“Oh, no! I’m doing quite well. I’m working with the mayor on her reelection.”

“I can tell.” Cheerilee pointed. “You have some gray hair dye on your collar.”

Sparkler’s eyes widened and her face darkened by several shades of red. She immediately started trying to rub it out, and Cheerilee turned to Berry Punch.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I do love these students, but you know how children can be.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Cheerilee’s jaw clenched. “Not everything is a dig, Berry.”

Berry glared at her, and then took a breath. “I know. I know.”

“You two are worse than Dinky and myself,” said Sparkler, having cleaned the hair dye off her lapel. “It’s kind of weird seeing my old teacher and my roommate like this.”

Cheerilee looked at her and sighed. “I may be a teacher, but I’m also a pony. Just like you. And Dinky loves you. But to be honest, I do have concerns with you living with…her.”

“Oh, come on!”

“You’re a thirty year old mare living with a teenager!”

“And you’re a thirty five year old mare living ALONE!”

Both Cheerilee and Sparkler gasped. “Berry!” whispered Sparkler. “You went too far that time! Please, you’re sisters!” She turned to Cheerilee and lightly pushed Berry aside. “And this is not conducive to our purpose coming here.”

“Purpose?”

“We came to ask for your help.”

“Help? From me?”

Sparkler nodded. “Your sister, Ms. Berry, thinks that she found a safety hazard on the new night train.”

“There’s a night train? I didn’t know that.” Cheerilee’s eyes widened. “A safety hazard? Sparkler, I’m just a teacher, if you think there is a danger, you should report it to the proper authorities!”

“It’s not that kind of emergency,” said Sparkler. “At least not yet. We’re not sure. But Berry is really concerned, and she wanted to get out opinion on it before we cause a panic.”

“You too?”

“Yes. But as organized as I am, I’m not as learned as you.”

“Well, I would hardly say I’m learned. Twilight would be far superior. And she would be in keeping with the color theme.”

“It’s not about color,” said Berry.

“Twilight is very busy,” said Sparkler, “and she and I…don’t mesh well. Berry recommended asking you.”

Cheerilee’s eyes widened as she looked to her sister. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” said Sparkler.

Berry looked up, and then down at the floor. “We don’t get along sometimes,” she grumbled, “but I don’t trust any pony more than I trust you. You’re my sister.”

Cheerilee looked at her for a long time, and then sighed. “You really want my help?”

“We both do,” said Sparkler. “It would really help. And I don’t like to see sisters fighting. It makes me sad.”

There was a moment of pause, and then Cheerilee looked at her sister. “I do have lesson plans to write, and I have to clean this place…but I’ll do it.”

Berry actually looked surprised. “You- -you will?”

“Of course. We may not like get along. Often.”

“Or ever.”

“Or ever. But you ARE my sister. If you ask for help, I’m not going to say no.”

“Thank you,” said Sparkler.

“Let’s just hope this mysterious ‘hazard’ isn’t as dangerous as you two seem to think it is.”

Berry looked at her sister, and at Sparkler. “I hope so too…”

Chapter 8: Night Train

Travelling through the night was better with other ponies. Berry was not willing to admit it, but being with her sister and Sparkler made her wonder how she had ever been brave enough to wander Ponyville at night. It seemed impossible now, and the time she had done it seemed so distant. Somehow, though, she was still afraid.

“It certainly looks creepy at night, doesn’t it?” asked Sparkler. Both she and Cheerilee were bleary eyed and tired looking.

“Tired, Cheerilee?” asked Berry.

“No,” said Cheerilee with a hint of defiance. “Being a teacher sometimes requires some very late nights.”

“With your students?” asked Sparkler, clearly confused. Cheerilee shot her a quite nasty look, and this only seemed to confuse her more.

“There it is,” said Berry, her voice shaking. She pointed, and was surprised how weak her legs felt.

“Oh wow,” said Sparkler, her own voice showing a tiny bit of apprehension. “It’s real.”

“You sound afraid,” said Cheerilee.

“I know. It’s…it’s different at night, isn’t it?”

They approached the train from the rear, taking the path along the side of the train. The moon was a thin crescent above, but this time Sparkler was present and was able to produce a bright blue light from her horn to light the way.

“How many cars?” demanded Berry.

“Berry- -”

“How many cars?!”

Cheerilee and Sparkler looked up.

“I count five,” said Sparkler. “Five and the engine.”

“Cheerilee?”

Cheerilee turned sharply. “Just like she said.”

“How many!”

“Five! Berry, I know how to count! I teach it! And all of my students are very good at it!” She paused. “Except poor Snails. He’s a little slow. He can only get up to four.”

“Five cars,” said Berry. “Five and the locomotive. Five, five, five. Remember that.”

Cheerilee looked at Berry as though she were insane. For all Berry knew, that might even be the case. Sparkler, though, just looked afraid.

They stepped onto the platform, and Sparkler almost immediately cried out and grabbed her horn.

“Sparks, what’s- -”

Berry was silenced by a strong slap to the face that nearly knocked her off her feet.

“Sparkler!” cried Cheerilee.

“I warned you!” said Sparkler. She then winced again. “Owch!”

“What’s wrong?”

“My horn,” groaned Sparkler. She looked up at the train. “That vibration, it hurts.”

“I don’t feel anything.”

“You’re not a unicorn.”

“Is it bad?”

Sparkler paused for a moment, and then shook her head. “No. It’s getting better. I think I’m getting used to it. Still a headache known. Darn it, what is in that thing?”

“A magical crystal engine,” said Berry, rubbing her cheek. “Ow…you slap Rainbow Dash that hard?”

Cheerilee gasped. “You hit Rainbow Dash?”

“It’s a long story,” grumbled Sparkler. Her headache was clearly making her somewhat irritable. “But my name is ‘Spark-ler’. There is a ‘ler’.” She sighed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. You kind of hit like a filly.”

Sparkler harrumphed, and then turned to the train. “So are we getting on or not?”

“Do you actually want to?”

Sparkler paused. “No. And I don’t know why.”

“Oh please, it’s just a train,” said Cheerilee. She stepped up onto the train. “You two are the ones that dragged me here in the middle of the night without even telling me what we’re looking for. And I’m cold.”

Before either of the others could stop her- -something they both had a strange urge to do- -Cheerilee disappeared into the train. Berry Punch and Sparkler then looked at each other before far more hesitantly stepping onboard.

“It’s empty,” said Cheerilee, looking around.

“That’s to be expected,” said Sparkler. “It’s not advertised, and who wants to take a train at two in the morning?”

“Somepony, clearly.”

“I like trains,” said Berry in her defense. She walked to the center of the train and took a seat in the exact location she had the last two times. Sparkler sat on the bench across from Berry, and Cheerilee on the far side of the train across from both of them.

“Well, this looks new,” said Cheerilee. “Very modern.”

“I like it,” said Sparkler. “But at the same time…I don’t. I think it’s that engine. Why couldn’t they just use steam? I like steam. Who doesn’t like steam?”

“Coal prices are going up,” said Cheerilee. “Somepony has apparently started marketing a soup made out of it. Celestia knows why.” She sighed and leaned back, almost as though this train were somehow comfortable. Berry watched her. If only Cheerilee knew what she knew.

“So,” said Sparkler. “When does it start?”

“When the other ponies get here, I suppose,” said Cheerilee with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Almost as soon as she said it, though, the train began to move. Sparkler winced almost imperceptibly, and looked up at Berry.

“Huh,” said Cheerilee. “Speak of the devil, I suppose.”

Berry immediately sprung into action. She stood up and took out the same glass apple as before.

“That’s my paperweight,” said Sparkler. It was not a protest, but a declarative statement. She watched as Berry set the apple down.

“What is that for?” asked Cheerilee.

“You’ll see,” said Berry, darkly. She looked to her sister and friend. “Now we need to go to the back of the train.”

“Do we have to?” asked Sparkler.

Berry did not answer. She could tell that Sparkler knew that something was wrong, either from the story of what this train was like or from a perception of something that was only barely perceptible to earth-ponies. Instead, all she could do was walk toward the door to herself.

“We need to go that way,” she repeated. Behind her, Cheerilee and Sparkler looked to each other. They hesitated, but they got up and followed Berry to the next car.

“Two,” said Berry as she entered it. It was the same as the other car, identical in every way- -and utterly empty.

“Two? Are you counting? Why?”

Berry did not reply to her sister. She hoped that she would not have to. Walking forward was so difficult- -and yet like before Berry felt herself accelerating.

“Three,” she said as she entered the next train car.

“There aren’t any ponies here,” said Sparkler, looking around. “Five cars, but no one here.”

“It’s kind of nice,” said Cheerilee. “Very quiet. But it must be boring riding this train all the way to Canterlot.” She paused. “Come to think of it, I’ve never been to the capital. Do you think we could stop there before we leave? Maybe take a trip around the city? I was thinking of taking my class up there for a field trip.”

“I’ve never managed to get to the Canterlot station,” said Berry as she reached for the junction to the next car. She opened the door and stepped into another identical car. “Four.”

“I…I don’t like this,” said Sparkler. She was beginning to become agitated. “Why don’t I like this?”

“Calm down,” said Cheerilee, almost using her teacher-voice. “It’s fine.” She looked to the windows. Land was passing outside in the dim moonlight, but where they were was impossible to discern in the darkness of the night. “Although to be honest, this is a little…eerie. Being on an empty train like this.”

“Is it empty, though?”

Berry stopped just before reaching the door. That was the last question she wanted to hear, because it was the very last question she ever wanted answered. It was an absurd and ridiculous question, one that should have been easy to answer- -but one that made her feel cold, despite the warmth of the car around her.

“Well,” said Cheerilee after a long moment, “no. I suppose not. We’re on it, aren’t we?”

Berry took a deep breath and opened the door. Once again, another train car. “Five,” she said as she stepped into it.

“Berry,” said Cheerilee, following her sister into the car. “Isn’t it time you told me what this is all about? Why are we walking through the train like this? What is this ‘hazard’ you were talking about?”

“Fifth car.” That was all Berry could say. “Fifth car…”

“Berry!” Cheerilee put her hoof on her sister’s shoulder, stopping her. They were in the middle of the train car. “Stop! What is wrong with you? Of course this is the fifth care. This is the last train car. What is going on here?”

Berry stared at her, and when Cheerilee saw the look in her eyes she lowered her hoof. She was still confused, but as a sister, she knew that something was very, very wrong.

With a deep sight, Berry started walking again. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. The distance to the last door seemed so long. It should have opened and led to darkness, and the receding iron tracks that trailed behind the train. That was what Berry wanted so badly. The darkness, and the rails. Except she already knew that it was a sight she would never see. Not on this train.

She threw open the door and stepped through.

“Six,” she said, her voice rising to high laughter that had no clear emotion driving it. She was relieved- -relieved that they could see it too, that she was not insane- -but at the same time, so very afraid. It had happened a third time. There were only five cars- -and they were on the sixth.

Sparkler’s jaw dropped as she stepped into the car and looked around. “W…what?”

Cheerilee, likewise, looked surprised, but her confusion quickly soured. She laughed humorlessly. “Ha, ha,” she said. “Very funny, Berry.”

“I don’t think this is funny at all,” said Sparkler, her voice wavering. “There…there were five. I counted them. And I counted them here too. Five, and an engine. We started in the first. And this…”

“Is the sixth,” said Berry. She turned to the other two violet mares. “Six cars. So far.”

“So…so far?”

Cheerilee rolled her eyes and groaned. “Of course. Of course you would do something like this.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Yes you did!” Cheerilee waved her hoof around the room. “Seriously? I have a job! I can’t make my own hours, or sleep until noon, or spend the whole day on the train when I don’t feel like pushing papers and coming up with new names for grapes!”

“Cheerilee- -”

“You dragged me out here in the middle of the night to play a PRANK? I’m tired, Berry. I don’t spend all night on the town like you do. Neither of us are young anymore!”

“It isn’t a prank!” snapped Berry. “Look around you! I didn’t do this! How would I even do this?!”

“I don’t know, but you figured something out!” She lowered her head onto her hoof, clearly suffering from a headache. “You know what? You can stay back here. In number six. Leave me ALONE. I can’t deal with you right now. I’m going to go back to the front car, and I’m going to take a nap, then wake up and go shopping for fancy school supplies in Canterlot!”

With that, Cheerilee turned around and began walking toward the front of the train. Berry Punch’s eyes widened. “No!” she cried, chasing after her sister. “Lee, wait! You can’t go the other way! You can’t go backward!”

“You’re not going to stop me!” screamed Cheerilee, slamming the door in Berry’s face.

The door was immediately thrown open by magic. Berry jumped, but then looked back to see Sparkler standing behind her with panic in her eyes.

“You were right,” she said. “And we need to go. NOW.”

“We can’t get off,” said Berry. “It’s a train! We can’t leave until it stops!”

“Then we need to get HER! We can’t be separated!” Her eyes flitted around the room. “This is all wrong! We can’t- -we can’t get separated!”

Berry knew that she was right, and nodded. The pair of them then chased after Cheerilee. The whole time, though, Berry could not help but continue counting under her breath. This time in reverse.

“Four…three…two…”

She then burst into the first car, where Cheerilee was already about to take her seat. “Cheerilee!”

“Berry Punch!” said Cheerilee, now using her teacher-voice in its entirety. “I do not think I should have to repeat myself to you. I still love you, because you are my sister, but I am just so PEEVED right now.” Sparkler gasped at her rude language. Cheerilee sat down in her seat facing the front of the train. “Just go to the other car. Or the engine, I know how you like to flirt with the engineers. If I calm down now, maybe we can have a tolerable day together in Canterlot. Or you’ll get completely punched by nine in the morning. Like usual.”

“Lee, please! I’m not joking here! Something is really wrong here! Look at poor Sparkler!”

“Yes. Congratulations. You scared the road apples out of a poor girl who had to take time off of her work to contribute to this farce. And I’m going to be up all night tomorrow doing what I should have done tonight. I have a life outside of school, Berry, and I’d rather not have you taking all of it up.”

“Me?! You hardly ever talk to me! Nopony ever talks to me! No one wants to hang out with the punch pony, noooo, she can’t control herself! Let’s all love the beautiful teacher who gets to date Big Macintosh because she got to go to school instead of having to work the fields!”

“You didn’t even graduate! And Big Macintosh? That was one time! ONE TIME!”

Berry Punch raised her hoof to point angrily and took a deep breath to yell, but she was interrupted by a high and terrified squeak from Sparkler. She turned, annoyed to have been interrupted, as did Cheerilee. Both of them immediately fell silent when they saw that the young unicorn was shaking with terror and pointing at an empty seat.

“What is it?” said Berry. “What do you see?” She looked to the seat. It was completely empty.

“I don’t see anything,” said Cheerilee, immediately sounding concerned for her former student.

“Exactly,” said Sparkler. “The…the apple!”

Berry nearly injured her neck turning her head back to the spot. She gaped as she realized that Sparkler was right- -there was no glass apple. She was pointing at Berry’s seat.

“It must have rolled off,” said Cheerilee.

“How?” Sparkler turned to her. “We didn’t speed up or slow down. Or hit a bump. Not one this whole time?”

“Then somepony- -”

“There is nopony here,” said Berry. “You saw that yourself. And the engine is automated. It doesn’t have a crew.”

“No crew? Are you sure?”

“I don’t know a lot of things, Lee. But I know trains.” Berry suddenly dropped to her knees, looking under the seat.

“What are you doing?”

“When I rode it the first time, I had a glass of punch. When the train stopped in Ponyville, it spilled.”

“You spilled punch on the train. Of course.” Cheerilee rolled her eyes.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me,” said Berry without even looking. “We both grew up on a berry farm, you know how that stuff stains.”

“Your point?”

Berry gestured toward the perfectly clean floor. “No stain.” She paused. “And come to think of it…it didn’t spill in Canterlot…”

“So they changed the order of the cars,” said Cheerilee, although the tone of her voice was changing.

“They can’t,” said Sparkler, her voice growing faint. “I talked to Twilight, I learned the route…the train, it doesn’t stop.”

“It has to stop.”

Sparkler shook her head. “No. No it doesn’t. After the test run, they divert the track. It circles during the day for endurance testing without stopping at any stations. Then they connect it back for the dry runs at night.”

“So the first car is always the first car,” said Berry, feeling as though she was hearing somepony else saying those words.

Cheerilee stood up. “So I must have miscounted.” She started walking toward the door to the front of the train, the one that normally led to the engine. Berry almost screamed.

“NO!” She cried. “Cheerilee, don’t!”

It was too late. Cheerilee threw open the door. The engine should have been on the other side. Berry had seen it. She had been there. Instead, though, she looked past her sister into yet another train car- -one identical to the one they were already in.

“Wh…what?” said Cheerilee.

Berry felt as though she were starting to faint. This was the reason she had never reversed and gone back, because this contingency was always lurking deep in her subconscious. It was the one that she could not bear to face- -and yet here it was.

“No,” said Sparkler, taking a step back. “No no no no…that’s not right. I counted. I COUNTED.” She turned to Berry. “So did you. Each car. We were in the sixth…and this is the first. Where we started.”

Cheerilee looked back at them, and Berry looked up at her.

“The…the apple isn’t here either,” she said. Before Berry could stop her, she stepped into the car.

“Ms. Cheerilee, no!” whispered Sparkler. She followed Cheerilee through the door, as did Berry. Not because she wanted to go that way, but because she simply could not bear to be alone.

Cheerilee was clearly agitated. It was apparent that she had counted too.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “I mean…you could have added more cars to the back. Somehow. But this…the train is moving.” Cheerilee looked out the window where the land was passing by. “And…” She trailed off, and then suddenly sprinted forward to the next door.

“Don’t go that way!” Berry chased after her, but did not stop her. Cheerilee threw open the door- -and revealed another train car, the same as the rest.

“No!” she cried. “That doesn’t make any sense! There- -there can’t be this many!” She turned around. “There were five cars- -and we went back six- -and now…this is…” She grabbed her head, and her eyes flitted around the car. “It can’t…it can’t be like this…”

“But it is,” said Berry. She looked at Cheerilee. “We…”

“What?”

“We can’t go back. I don’t think it will let us.” She pointed at the rear door. “We’re only allowed to go deeper.”

“Deeper? Why…why would you say it like that?”

“Because that’s what it is,” said Sparkler. She was on the verge of tears. “But…but it doesn’t matter. Both directions…they both go the same way. Deeper.”

The three ponies looked at each other. None of them knew what to say, and all were more terrified than they ever had been in their lives. Each of them had faced danger in their lives- -monsters, centaur overlord, natural disasters- -but this was different. Those things were terrible and dangerous, but they were known. They were visceral and apparent, with known patterns of action and ways that they could be defeated or at least avoided. On this train, the situation could not be more opposite.

“I’m sorry,” said Berry at last. “I should have just left this alone. I should never have brought you two here.”

“No,” said Cheerilee. “You should have got Twilight Sparkle and her friendship avengers or whatever they are and had THEM deal with this. None of us are qualified for this! We’re a teacher, an organization unicorn, and…you.”

“I know, I know- -”

“But we ARE here. And I’m glad you did. In a way.”

“What?” said Berry and Sparkler at once.

“I knew you were afraid, but I didn’t realize you had seen…this.” She hugged her sister, and Berry was taken aback. “And whatever this is, you shouldn’t face it alone. We may not be Twilight, but I’m sure we can figure a way out of this. And then we really can call in the appropriate ponies to deal with…whatever the nuts is going on here.”

They turned to Sparkler. “I do not agree,” said Sparkler. “I just want to go home. But…”

“But what?”

“But I’m going to stick with you two. And…we’re going to make this out.” She gulped. “I hope.”

Chapter 9: Deeper

They began walking. In Berry’s mind, they were moving toward the “back” of the train, but according to Sparkler both directions- -forward and backward- -were one and the same. Berry did not understand how that was possible, but she did not really understand the rest of what was going on anyway.

When they reached car number nine- -according to Sparkler, who had been assigned the count- -Berry stopped and opened her bag. “I brought some supplies,” she said. “Food, water, that sort of thing.”

“For the love of Luna, please tell me you brought cider,” said Cheerilee.

Berry removed a bottle and gave it to her sister, who looked quite visibly relielved. Cheerilee pulled the cap off and swallowed half the bottle. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I really, really needed that.”

“Ms. Cheerilee!” cried Sparkler. “You- -you’re a teacher!”

“Not right now. Now I’m a mare in the night car of a train that only has five. I’m on the verge of freaking out. I think I deserve a little cider.”

Sparkler looked at her a bit more disillusioned than before, and then held out her hoof. “I’m next.”

“Cider isn’t for fillies.”

“I’m legally emancipated. I have a job. I pay rent. My mother had me when I was my age.” She paused, trying to figure out if that made grammatical sense. “Cider. Punch. I don’t care, I need some sugar. Right now.”

“Here,” said Berry, giving her a bottle of punch.

“Berry! You can’t give her that!”

Sparkler removed the cork and took a swig. “Eew,” she said. “That is a LOT sweeter than I thought it would be. What is in this?”

“Seventeen different types of berry,” said Berry, taking the bottle back and taking a much larger swig. “It’s the good stuff.” She put the bottle back.

Cheerilee turned and looked toward the rear edge of the car. “How far do you think it goes?”

“The last two times? It was about thirty cars.”

“Thirty?”

“About?” said Sparkler nervously.

“I…” Berry paused. “I don’t know. But I think…”

“What?” demanded Cheerilee.

“I don’t know if it was the same number each time.”

They looked at her. “What?”

“I didn’t count, but…I felt like it was more the second time.”

“It CHANGED?!”

“Is that really beyond the realm of possibility here?!”

Cheerilee was about to shout in response, but her anger faded. “No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

Sparkler let out a stifled sob.

“Hey, hey,” said Berry, putting her leg around Sparkler’s neck. “It’s going to be okay.” She hugged her. “I’ve gone through this twice already, remember? All alone. And this time, we’re together!”

“But what if that makes the train longer?”

That made no sense, but Berry and Cheerilee both looked at each other as though that were a reasonable and logical conclusion. Each wondered to themselves: “what if it does?”

“I still got through it twice,” said Berry. “And it’s just cars. They’re empty. I mean, come on! If This were just a train in the lot, this would be the most boring thing in the world.”

Sparkler looked at her, and then sniffled as she smiled. “Yes, it would be, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” said Cheerilee. “All we need to do is keep going.”

“Deeper.”

They all froze. “Yes,” said Berry, the happiness and reassurance fading from her voice. “Deeper.”

They continued, but at the same time, so did the train. Crossing a car only took a fraction of a minute, and each time Berry was watching for the one train car that would have a glass apple sitting on one of the seats. That train car did not appear quickly, though.

“Forty six,” said Sparkler as she stopped in the middle of yet another identical train car. “This…this is car forty six.”

“I have the same number,” admitted Cheerilee after a long moment. She turned to her sister. “You said there were only thirty.”

“I said that it was longer the second time. And this is the third time.”

“Or longer,” noted Sparkler. “This train has been running for five days. This is the sixth day.”

“I don’t know if we have any guarantee of that,” said Berry.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Cheerilee.

“Nothing.”

Sparkler stared at Berry, and then turned to Cheerilee. “The last time she was on it, she was there for three days.”

Cheerilee’s eyes widened. “Three DAYS?!”

“Sparkler!” snapped Berry. “You’re making the situation WORSE!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to- -”

“You rode the train for THREE DAYS?!”

Berry turned to her sister and addressed her calmly. “Apparently.”

“Apparently? APPARENTLY? Berry, I have students! I- -I didn’t call in a substitute! We were supposed to be covering algebra on Monday!”

“You have a student who can’t count to five,” said Sparkler.

“And I have your sister who spends half the time not listening and learning trigonometry under her desk. Being the ONLY teacher in this town is VERY hard!” She turned sharply to Berry. “How did you ride the train for three days?!”

Berry looked into her eyes. “It does something to time. I don’t know what or how to describe it. I walked through thirty cars, at most thirty five. That took, what, forty minutes tops?”

“It takes us twenty three seconds on average to pass a car,” noted Sparkler.

“Both ways,” added Cheerilee.

“No. Just one.”

Cheerilee raised an eyebrow. “One?”

Berry nodded solemnly. “That’s how it works. After you get through, you end up where you started. With the glass apple.”

“That…that doesn’t make sense!” Yet, despite this assertion, Cheerilee turned to the side of the train and looked out. “The train isn’t ring-shaped. It- -it can’t be!”

“No. It’s straight. But that’s how it works. Those are the rules. Forty minutes. Then maybe another half hour in the engine, watching it…go. Just over an hour. We should only have been halfway to Canterlot.”

“But three days had passed,” said Sparkler. She looked out the window too. “Cadence’s shiny flank…”

They group started walking again. They passed several more cars. All the same, all empty. It was maddening

“Do you think it’s weird how they’re all the same?” said Cheerilee. “I mean, they’re all…what are these called?”

“Commuter cars. They’re all commuter cars,” said Berry.

“But if this was a real train…they would be different. There would be different cars.”

“If it were a real train, yes.”

“What bothers me is how quiet it is,” said Sparkler, looking around. “Do you hear it?”

They stopped and listened. Berry already knew what to expect, but to her horror she found that Sparkler was right.

“There should be sound. I’ve ridden this railway before. There are turns. Bumps. Inconsistencies.”

“Joints where the track segments meet,” suggested Cheerilee.

“But this train…there’s no sound. It’s like we’re not even moving.”

“We have to be. We would have felt if we stopped.”

“I didn’t feel the stops in Canterlot,” said Berry Punch. “I don’t know if…”

“If this part even stops,” said Sparkler, finishing the sentence.

They all shivered. Berry shook her head and tried to resist her craving for punch or even at this point cider. “What car are we on?”

“Fifty four,” said Sparkler. “It has been one hour and six minutes since we left.”

“You don’t have a watch,” said Cheerilee.

“I don’t need one. I count the seconds.”

“We should be halfway to Canterlot,” said Berry. She looked to the floor. “The grade should be starting to change as we hit the mountains.” She reached into her bag and took out a cork. She dropped it on the floor, and it bounced once before lying perfectly still. “Level,” she said. “We’re level.”

“Where even are we?” asked Cheerilee. She looked toward the windows. There was no moonlight now, and no partial silhouetted impression of the land passing by in the distance. Even the lights inside the train did not penetrate very far. From where she was standing, Berry could not see the ground. In fact, the light seemed to just stop. All that stood beyond was pure, still darkness.

“There’s nothing out there,” she said. “It’s just…black.”

“There has to be something,” said Sparkler. “I know for a fact that the moon was out. And if there were no lights in the forest, then there have to be stars!” She crawled into one of the seats and sat down, looking out the window.

“Sparkler,” said Berry. “We need to keep moving. You shouldn’t sit down. Not here. It’s not…”

“It can’t be just darkness,” said Sparkler, almost spitting the sentence out. “It can’t be. There’s land out there. The tracks- -the train only goes where the tracks are! That’s how a train works! Isn’t it?”

Berry paused. “Yes. That is how a train works.”

“And we know where the tracks go! So…so…” She looked out into the void, cupping her hooves on the glass. “Why does it feel so cold?” she muttered to herself as her breath struck the glass and froze instantly into etched patterns of frost.

Then there was screaming. Berry at first just closed her eyes, not knowing what was happening or how the pure silence had suddenly been rent with a cry of terror when it had been so horribly quiet before. She stepped back, trying to cover her ears, but as she did she opened her eyes and saw Sparkler lying in the isle, writhing as she screamed. Cheerilee had already rushed forward and was trying to help.

Berry saw Sparkler’s eyes, and when she saw them, it broke the spell that seemed to have been cast over her. She rushed forward too to her friend’s side.

“Sparks!” she cried. “Sparkler! What’s wrong?!”

Sparkler opened her mouth one more time but all that came out was a thin spray of saliva. There was no sound, and that made the frozen scream all the more horrible. Then she tensed and fell on the floor before going limp.

“Sparkler? SPARKLER?!”

“She’s still breathing,” said Cheerilee. She put her hoof to Sparkler’s neck, “and she still has a pulse. I think she’s just unconcio- -”

“I saw something,” said Sparkler. Both Berry Punch and Cheerilee jumped at the sound of her voice. Although Sparkler was lying still, she was still quite clearly awake. Her eyes were distant but alert. Slowly, she pulled her lower legs forward and grasped them with her front legs. “I saw it….I saw it…”

“Saw what?”

Sparkler opened her mouth to respond, but all that came out was low sobbing. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know!”

“How can you not know?” demanded Berry.

“Berry! Leave her alone! Can’t you see- -”

“It was so BIG,” said Sparkler. “Bigger than anything. Bigger than I could see…bigger than I could think. Realize. Reckon. Establish…”

“Sparks,” said Berry, kneeling down next to her. “You’re not making any sense.”

“I saw it,” said Sparkler, her eyes shifting toward Berry. Berry almost recoiled. Sparkler’s pupils had narrowed into tiny dots, and she did not blink. “But not with my eyes. Like…like the train. The way you FEEL it. Inside you. That we…that I…that nothing is out there. Nothing at all. And yet I SAW SOMETHING.”

The train suddenly jolted. Berry punch was knocked back, as was Cheerilee. The force of the impact caused the lights to flicker, and then vanish. Berry suddenly found herself in utter darkness- -and impenetrable silence.

“It- -it’s getting in!” she screamed, even though her voice never returned to her own ears. She stood up, struggling to find the edge of a seat to grasp- -but her hoof found no purchase. There were no seats. The aisle was the same distance as every other aisle, barely wide enough for two ponies to fit side by side- -and yet Berry found herself taking step after step to the side, reaching out for something. Anything.

Then her hoof struck something- -but not a seat. It did not have the standardized angles of the wood and plastic furniture that the train had. Instead, it was organic and wet- -and as Berry Punch grabbed onto it, she felt it recoil from her touch. It had moved.

Before she could scream, the lights flashed back on. Berry found herself still standing in the central aisle and holding onto the edge of one of the very seats that she had been searching for. At her feet lay Cheerilee, rubbing her head.

“Lee!” cried Berry, dropping to her sister’s side.

“Ohh,” groaned Cheerilee. “I haven’t felt this bad since those CMCs poisoned me and Big Mac and I…” She trialed off as she realized that Berry Punch was holding her. She cleared her throat and sat up. “I’m fine,” she said. “I tripped on…something.”

“Something?”

“Something!” cried Cheerilee defensively. “And I fell! I think- -no, I DID hit my head. Ow.” She rubbed the back of her head. “What about Sparkler?”

“She’s…” Berry looked up, but then froze. Her heart felt as if it had stopped, and as if in doing so it had left every one of her organs to fall to the floor. There, before her, the aisle was clean, empty, and perfect. Sparkler was nowhere to be found.

“Berry?” Cheerilee sat up, and then her eyes widened. “But- -she was just there!” She grabbed Berry tightly and shook her. “We have to find her! She- -she has to be here!”

Cheerilee, though injured, stood up and began to look around the car, checking in and under each seat, calling Sparkler’s name. “Sparkler! Sparkler, where are you?”

Berry was not able to make herself stand. Her legs felt like overcooked noodles, and she was sure they would never be able to support her weight. “She’s not here.”

“But she was! Just a minute ago, before the lights- -” Cheerilee gasped. “She didn’t!”

“In the panic, she must…” Berry closed her eyes and swallowed. Her throat felt so dry. “She must have run. To the next car.”

“Alone? No, there’s no way- -”

Berry willed herself to at least attempt to stand. After a moment, she was able to, but found that she was shaking badly. “Where else could she have gone? We’re on a train, aren’t we?”

“But…” Cheerilee trailed off. She knew that Berry Punch was right. She instead looked from one end of the car to the other. “Then we have to find her.”

“Yes,” said Berry. “I know that.”

“But which way did she go?”

Berry shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. There isn’t a difference.”

Chapter 10: Vermis Anularis

“What are we on now?” said Berry, turning to her sister.

Cheerilee stopped jogging and took several deep breaths, trying to regain a normal rate of breathing. “I don’t know,” she said. “By my count? We’re over one hundred. Getting…getting close to two.”

“Mine to,” said Berry.

“Why are they all the same?!” screamed Cheerilee suddenly. “Every single one! Why- -why are they all the same?!”

“I don’t know!” screamed Berry. “I don’t even know WHAT is happening! How am I supposed to know WHY?” She took a step forward, putting her hoof on her pounding head. She removed a bottle of punch and took a sip, only to find that it was empty. She then threw the bottle away, knowing that there was very little chance that they would ever see it again. It would be left here for as long as this train ran- -wherever here was, and for however long that was. “Did…did I do something? Does this train just hate me? I used to love trains! Why is this one doing this to me now?” Berry looked around wildly. “And where is she? WHERE IS SHE?!”

“Berry,” said Cheerilee, her sister’s panic forcing her to regain composure. “We’ll find her!”

“And what if we don’t?! It’s my fault she’s here! She’s only seventeen! What if- -what if we DON’T find her? What if we don’t get her back? What am I supposed to tell her mother?”

“If she did run ahead,” said Cheerilee, putting her hoof on Berry’s shoulder and speaking carefully. “Then that means she’s ahead of us. Which means that when we do get back, she’ll be there too. It’s a train, isn’t it? It’s not like it branches.”

Berry looked at her sister. “You’re…you’re right,” she said, calming down slightly. “As long as the lights don’t go out again.”

Cheerilee’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you say something like that?”

“I don’t know,” said Berry, shaking her head. “I just- -”

“They won’t go out. They’ve only gone out once so far. When we hit that bump.”

“The bump…”

“It felt pretty big. Do you know what it might have been?”

Berry thought for a moment, and then sadly shook her head. “No,” she said. “From everything I can recall, this track is supposed to be very smooth. But the grade didn’t change either…they might have put the train on a different track.” She paused. “No. They had to. All these cars? Somepony would have to notice.”

Cheerilee suddenly smiled, and then tapped Berry on the shoulder. “That’s right!”

“What’s right?”

“This train, it’s got to be a mile long! Somepony on the outside has to see that, don’t they?”

Berry thought for a moment. “Lee, I don’t know if that’s how this works.”

“We can see them from the inside. Why wouldn’t other ponies be able to see them from the outside? This train must be enormous. And if other ponies can see it, maybe they can come to help us!”

Berry looked into her sister’s eyes, and then smiled. She did not feel reassured in the slightest. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. Maybe.” She turned slowly. “But until then, I think we need to keep going.”

“Do we?”

Berry turned back to Cheerilee. “Do you want to stay here?”

Cheerilee looked at her for a moment, and during that time Berry had a strange fear that her sister would say yes. They had been on the train for perhaps two, maybe three hours- -but they were both getting tired. So very tired. And if Cheerilee really did want to stop…

“No,” she said. “But no more running. I’m a teacher, not a marathon runner.”

Berry smiled out of shallow relief. “Okay,” she said, “no more running, then.”

Time passed, but as they got deeper and deeper into the train exactly how much time became increasingly difficult to determine. It seemed that each passing minute had come to mimic the train itself: in the same way that ever car passed identical to the one behind it and the one before it, each minute seemed to pass identical to the last. Hours must have passed, but to Berry Punch, time seemed not quite to cease but to lose its relevance in this strange world.

“Berry,” said Cheerilee. “We have to consider the fact that we might need to camp here.”

“I’m not stopping,” said Berry. “Not without Sparkler.”

“But we’ve been going for hours. Or…”

“Or days? It hasn’t been days, Lee. Look out the windows.” Berry pointed. “It’s still night. The sun hasn’t even come up.”

“I don’t know if that’s night,” said Cheerilee, her weariness and fear breaking through her composure. “And I don’t like looking at it. I can almost see things moving next to us.”

“Then don’t look. If you need food, I have some. If you need cider, I have one bottle left. But we’re not stopping.”

Cheerilee looked at her sister not with anger but with concern. Still, she acquiesced. “She really is your friend, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

Cheerilee sighed. “You always were better at making them than I was.”

“Ha! Yeah right. Everypony always loved you more. And I was just left in the background.”

“What? No, Berry, that’s true at all!”

“Which one of us got a date to the Pony Prom?”

“I did, but- -”

“And I was home all alone that night.”

“Because you put yourself into a diabetic coma on punch! You were in the hospital for days!”

“And you always had the fashionable hair, and the fashionable clothes, and got to go dancing while I had to work.”

“Yes, but you have a cutie mark in berry work! You love berries!”

“But does that mean it’s all I’m allowed to do?”

“You don’t understand! How do you think I felt? What else was I supposed to do? Do you know how many days I wished I could have a berry mark, just so that mom and dad would accept me, like they did you?”

“You can suck a fat strawberry! Mom and dad were always PROUD of you. And I was just the other sister, the ORDINARY one.”

“They don’t think that- -”

“No, not anymore. Now I’m the punch girl. I’ve almost doubled our market share, but what do I get? I hear them whispering about punch and trains when they think I can’t hear. So why not give our family what they expect from me?”

“Because you’re not that kind of pony.”

Berry stopped. “Says who?”

“Says me. Or says I…say I? It doesn’t matter. You’re not one to give up.”

“Says the mare who makes fun of me every single time she sees me for not finishing school.”

“Because I’m disappointed that you didn’t. Because you could have! But look at where you are now!”

“On a train. A train that somehow has over two hundred and fifty cars now. With my only friend lost somewhere on it.”

“And you haven’t stopped. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be running after her! And this isn’t even your third time in this place!” Cheerilee pointed at the train around her. “If I had seen this, even once? I wouldn’t have come back. Not for a million bits and for Snails showing literary competency. I would be terrified.”

“What I should have done, you mean. I should have stayed back. This is my fault! Sparkler’s lost, and you’re at risk, and I don’t know what to do. All I know is to keep moving forward.”

Cheerilee smiled. “Exactly.”

Berry looked at her. “I wish I could see the world like you do. Everything’s always so clear for you.”

“Not always. You can’t tell, but I’m freaking out right now. A lot. If you weren’t here, I probably wouldn’t be nearly this calm.”

Berry took that as a compliment, one of very few she had received from her sister in their long shared lifetime. “And if you weren’t here, I’d probably be about five cars ahead, collapsed and crying into my punch. Sparkler was right.”

“About what?”

“That we needed three.” Berry shivered. “Actually…she was really right. To the point where it’s scary.”

“Nothing about this place isn’t scary,” said Cheerilee. “I don’t know why. It’s just a train, but I feel so…strange.”

“I know,” said Berry, approaching the next door. “I feel it too.”

They continued for several more cars before Berry began to notice a change. It was slight, and in retrospect it had been going on for some time at a level that was so subtle that she had not been able to notice it. Cheerilee apparently noticed as well.

“Ugh,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Why does it smell like that?”

Berry took a few deep breaths, and managed to catch the odor before her nose adapted to it completely. It was not bad, exactly. Far from it in fact. It was just different. The cars had initially smelled new, full of fresh carpet, plastic, and paint. Now they smelled different. It was not difficult for Berry Punch to place it.

“It smells like a train.”

“I know that. Obviously. But…it doesn’t. It smells…”

“Old,” said Berry. “It smells old. Just like the antique trains. There’s one up in Vanhoover, an old line that they converted over to a scenic historical circuit. It only runs in the summer. When they open the cars in the spring, this is what they smell like.”

“But this place is brand new.”

“I know.” Yet somehow it smelled centuries old, like rich, dry wood covered in ages of old varnish that only partially held in the smell of a time when ponies had smoked cigars and enjoyed strange fragrant drinks- -and something else. There was a hint of sourness as well, as though the cars had not been maintained for some time. As if they were starting to mold and decay underneath the virgin seats and perfect modern surfaces that made up their façade.

“I don’t like this,” said Cheerilee as they approached the next door.

“Understatement of the century,” replied Berry. “Come on.”

She pushed open the door, and they stepped into yet another identical train car. The only differentiation was that the smell of oldness was even stronger than before.

Almost as soon as they were both in, though, the train suddenly shuddered. Both of them knew what this meant, and both cried out as they grabbed each other. The lights did not flicker, but rather went out entirely in an instant.

Except there was still some light. Whether it was the residual magical glow of the cut crystal bulbs or some other inexplicable source, the car was still just barely lit. The glow was far dimmer than even the smallest candle, but it was enough. A Berry Punch looked out into the seats, she saw the eyes staring back at them. Every seat was full, and although she could not see their bodies she saw their eyes reflecting some unseen light as they stared back without blinking or moving. Berry was sure she screamed.

Then the lights returned. The eyes vanished, and the seats were empty- -but the aisle was not.

“Sparkler!” cried Berry. She released her sister and took a step forward, but stopped when she saw Sparkler’s face. Sparkler bore no expression, and her eyes were cold and empty. Her pupils were condensed to the point where they were no longer visible, and her eyes had grown strangely white

“Sparkler? Sparks?” Berry took another step forward. Sparkler still did not react. She showed no signs of motion, or of recognition that her friend was there.

“I don’t think she’s breathing,” said Cheerilee. “Oh Celestia…what…what’s wrong with her eyes?”

“Shut. UP,” hissed Berry. She turned to Sparkler. “Sparks, it’s me. Berry Punch. We…we were worried about you. We didn’t know where you went. We thought…well, Sparks, we thought we lost you.”

“Nonconvex.”

Berry took a sudden step back. Sparkler’s voice sounded hoarse, as though she had been screaming. Now it was quiet and raspy.

As she watched, Sparkler’s head tilted up slowly in a way that looked as though she was struggling before she was still again. She did not appear to be able to see.

“Wh…what?”

“Nonconvex. The structure is nonconvex. Even. With a surface accessible from every internal point. Simultaneously. Every point can reach any other point at any time.”

Berry looked to Cheerilee. Cheerilee looked gravely concerned. “It’s geometry,” she said. “I don’t know why she’s saying it.”

“Nonconvex,” said Sparkler with more emphasis. She took a jerky step forward, and Berry took a step back. “Toroid. Nonconvex.”

“Sparkler, I don’t understand. You’re…something’s wrong. Calm down- -”

“A ring. A convex ring. Every point reachable from every other point without crossing intervening space outside the boundary of the body.” She took another step forward, and she began to laugh silently. “Then what’s in the center?”

“Sparks, you’re scaring me.”

Using her nickname usually got some reaction. This time, Sparkler did not even seem to notice. “A shape,” she said. “A circle. Very convex. The ratio of the internal area to the circumference. One half radius.”

“Cheerilee, why is she saying that?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“A sphere. A three dimensional object. The ratio of surface area is one third radius.” Sparkler took another large step forward. Tears were dripping from her eyes, but her mouth had been forced into a horrible pained grin. “A fourth dimensional object. One fourth R. A fifth dimensional object. One fifth R. Sixth, one sixth R. Seventh, one seventh R. The demarcated area grows in relation to the boundary as the dimension increases! It INCREASES! INCREASES!”

“But what about one dimension!” cried Berry, covering her face from Sparkler’s manic approach.

Sparkler froze instantly. “One…dimension?”

“You started at two. What about the first dimension?” Berry turned to Cheerilee. “What’s a first dimension?”

“A line,” stated Cheerilee.

“A line!” repeated Berry. “What about a line?”

For the first time, Sparkler stared directly at Berry with a look that was far from neutral. It was a look of pure hatred, and it seemed to last forever before she burst into laughter. This time, her voice was not raspy and weak. It was loud and almost booming, to the point where Berry was able to feel it resonating inside of herself, making her want to laugh herself out of pure terror.

Sparkler lowered her head, and her eyes began to change. The whiteness faded, replaced by red.

“Why- -why are her eyes doing that?” said Cheerilee, looking from Berry to Sparkler as the both of them retreated toward the door to the previous car. “Oh Celestia, why are they getting bloodshot like that?”

“It’s not blood,” said Berry. “She’s a unicorn. Her blood…it’s silver.”

“Indeed, it is,” said Sparkler. She looked up at them- -except it was immediately apparent that it was not quite her seeing through her eyes. The red had stained them completely, stripping away any features they had possessed before. There were no discernable irises or schlera, or even pupils. They were pure red- -and yet, somehow, both Berry Punch and Cheerilee could tell where they were looking, as if something within them- -some strange optical organ that ponies normally lacked- -were shifting just beneath the surface.

“Who…who are you?” asked Berry.

Sparkler smiled. Her eyes did not. “The mare you are looking at is named Sparkler.”

“But who is the mare we are speaking to?”

The red eyes locked onto Berry Punch for just a moment, and then the mare behind them smiled broadly- -but did not answer.

“Lee,” said Berry, looking over her shoulder. “Walk back. Slowly.”

“But Sparkler- -”

“Just do it!”

Cheerilee gulped and nodded. The pair of them stepped backward toward the door they had come through. Sparkler did not follow them. She stood still, watching.

The pair of ponies passed through the door and closed it, locking Sparkler in the next car. Then they turned- -only to see her standing in the center of the car they had just entered, facing them.

Both screamed, and Sparkler laughed. It was like a parody of her normal laugh, as though somepony were trying to copy it.

“You have both wondered,” she said, stepping toward them with grace that Sparkler could never hope to move with. “Haven’t you?”

“Wondered what?” asked Cheerilee. She was shaking badly.

“If it was the same train car. Over and over again. Do you think they are actually different? That this train is any longer than five cars?”

“Is it?” asked Berry.

The red eyes focused on her. “Defiant. You are defiant. And yet you just tried to leave me behind.” She glared. “I thought you wanted me. I thought I was your friend. You were looking for me, weren’t you?”

“We were looking for Sparkler.”

“And I told you. The mare before you is indeed your poor, innocent friend.”

“But you are not.”

Sparkler grimaced. “You seem strangely sure you are speaking to something at all.”

“What are you?”

The grimace grew into an outright frown. “Your thinking is not logical. It does not flow. Sparkler understands that now. ‘What’, ‘when’, ‘where’, these cannot be differentiated. Not easily.”

“You’re part of the train,” suggested Cheerilee.

Sparkler gave a thin smile. “And you are a fool, teacher, if you think you’re still on any kind of train at all.”

“Then what is it?” demanded Berry.

This made whatever Sparkler had become smile much more widely. “Prinn knew her name, and I have thrice called to the whippoorwills. But what am I? I am the Gate that was opened, that you chose to step through. That pulled her through. A Doorway that I’m afraid leads only one direction.”

“No,” said Cheerilee, shaking her head and stepping back. “No! We don’t- -we can’t be here! We don’t WANT to be here!”

“Cheerilee,” said Berry. “You need to stay calm- -”

“I will NOT stay calm!” Cheerilee was beginning to panic. “You- -you- -me- -her- -I can’t be here! WE can’t be here! We shouldn’t be here!” She dropped to her knees. “What- -what have we done? What have we done to deserve this?”

Sparkler’s red eyes suddenly became horribly cold, but her smile became so wide that Berry thought her face would split. Slowly, Sparkler stepped forward and put her hoof under Cheerilee’s chin, allowing her tears to drip over it. “Do you think that your actions mean ANYTHING?” she whispered. “The pony who revels in the hungry gaze of her students because it reminds her of the attention she will never receive from stallions?” She turned to Berry. “Or the mare who is drowning herself in excess while deceiving herself into believing she isn’t so lonely?” She paused. “Or this poor girl, one risking the career of a good pony for the sake of some childlike impression of love?” The last word appeared difficult for her to say.

The red eyes turned back to the pair of violet sisters. “Actions do not have consequences,” she said. “There is no such thing as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. What you decide has no bearing to your final fate. It was no sin of yours that brought you here.”

Berry stared into the red eyes, and felt her mind ache. Still, she kept her eyes open- -and smiled. “I made the decision to get on this train, didn’t I?”

The red eyes stared back, and the smile faded partially- -but remained true. “You did,” she said after a moment of contemplation. “You decided your fate. And the fate of your friends as well.”

“Then I’m sorry, Sparkler.”

“For condemning her in this way?”

“No,” said Berry. “For this.”

In an instant, Berry drew her right front hoof back- -and then slammed it forward with all of her strength squarely into Sparkler’s nose. The silent air was filled with a loud crack, and the force was so great that Sparkler was sent head-over-heels, sprawling and tumbling backward violently toward the center of the train from the force of the blow.

“BERRY!” cried Cheerilee in disbelief. “Wha- -why?!”

“I have my name for a reason,” said Berry, flexing her shoulder. She was indeed not as strong as she had once been, but that had probably ended up working in Sparkler’s favor.

“But you- -you just hit her!”

“Yes, Lee. I can see that.” Berry looked at Sparkler. She was lying on her back and not moving, but more importantly not speaking. Cheerilee stood up, and the pair of them approached slowly.

“Where did you even learn to do that?”

“Uncle Falcon showed me. A long time ago. What? Do you think I just sit around drinking punch all the time?” She shrugged. “Besides. She hit me before, didn’t she? She knew what to expect.”

Berry knelt down beside Sparkler and picked her up. Two thin trails of silver fluid were dripping from Sparkler’s nostrils, and she groaned. Her eyes opened partially, and they were not red.

Almost as soon as she touched Sparkler, though, Berry heard a sound from across the car. She looked up just in time to see the door to the next car close, and to see the flank of a yellow mare passing through.

“You!” she cried. Berry started to stand up- -but felt a hoof tighten around her neck.

“No!” said Sparkler, her voice once again quiet and hoarse. Her eyes were still grayish, but they were clearing slightly each time she blinked. She looked afraid, but Berry Punch had never before felt so relieved to see her friend. “Don’t follow her! She’s not a pony! None of them are!”

“Sparks, you’re not making- -”

Sparkler pulled Berry in closer. “They never were!”

With some difficulty, Sparkler attempted to stand. She could not balance properly, and wobbled to the point where she nearly tipped back onto the ground. “Ow,” she said, reaching for her nose. She looked at her hoof, and when she saw the silver fluid, she looked up at Berry wide-eyed. “Did you hit me?”

“Well, I had to do something!”

“But violence is never the answer!”

“Well it was in this case, wasn’t it?”

“I hate to agree with that,” said Cheerilee, “but it was.” She looked at Sparkler and steadied her before offering a handkerchief. “You were saying…things.”

“I know,” said Sparkler. She wiped her nose and then turned to the pair of sisters. “We need to get off this train. NOW.”

“We’ve been trying,” said Berry.

“No. You don’t understand. You have no idea how much danger we’re in!”

“Sparkler,” said Cheerilee, “slow down- -”

“There isn’t time to slow down! My mind- -the Gate- -I could see through it. Into it. Not completely, not nearly completely. If I had, I don’t think…I don’t think I would have come back.”

“I don’t know what that means- -”

“It means I have some ideas. Vague, foggy. And some are just feelings. But this place, it’s not a train. It’s…” She cried out in frustration and pounded her hoof against her head. “It was so clear before!” she screamed. “Now I can’t- -I can’t remember!”

“Stop it!” cried Cheerilee, grabbing Sparkler’s hooves. “Stop! You don’t need to know it now! We both know!”

“But it knows we’re here now! And they’ve always known, and watched- -and- -and I- -”

Berry Punch pushed Cheerilee out of the way and leaned forward. Before Sparkler could react, Berry kissed her on the lips.

It was a short exchange, and Berry quickly pulled away, wiping her lips on her foreleg in disgust. “Yick,” she said, grimacing. “You taste like unadulterated bran.”

“Berry!” cried Cheerilee, several octaves too high. “You just- -”

“Well I needed some way to shut her up! And if I hit her again, she’d probably end up looking like her mother- -”

Berry Punch was rudely interrupted as she was slapped backward with tremendous force.

“How DARE YOU!” cried Sparkler, her horn still glowing. She stuck out her tongue. “Eew eew eew! You taste like bad punch!”

“Clearly not enough bad punch,” groaned Berry. “Because I will need a LOT more before you actually start looking good. Ugh. The sixth time I’ve kissed a mare, and I still can’t stand it.”

“Excuse me! I’ll have you know that I’ve been told that I’m an excellent kisser!”

“Well, hopefully you’ll get a chance to kiss something that’s not me soon enough. Because I am NOT doing that again. Eew.” Berry turned to the windows, and then climbed on one of the seats. “If this train is as dangerous as you’re saying it is, then I guess it’s time for some desperate measures.”

She reached for the window latch, but was immediately yanked back by Sparkler’s magic. “NO!” she cried.

“Sparks, it’s the only way! If we can’t get to the end, it’s out a window!”

“Are you insane?!” cried Cheerilee. “This train has to be going at sixty miles per hour minimum, if you jump- -”

“It isn’t moving,” said Sparkler.

Both Berry and Cheerilee turned to her. “What?”

“It isn’t moving. It hasn’t been for some time. At least not this part. That’s why it’s so silent. Only the front part moves.”

“Then where in the name of damp boysenberry are we?”

“I don’t know,” said Sparkler, even though her tone indicated that there was a chance she might have at least suspected a location. “But believe me- -and you have to believe me!- -The ones out there are so, so much worse than the ones in here!”

Berry and Cheerilee looked at her, and could see the wildness in Sparkler’s eyes. Berry looked out the window, and saw only blackness- -and was glad that it was all she could see. Perhaps it was because she was an earth-pony, or perhaps it was luck that she could not see- -but she knew that Sparkler was right. She could not see them, but she felt them. Things of enormous size that watched but could not themselves see.

“Right,” she said, turning away from the window. “Then what do we need to do?”

“There’s no other way off,” said Cheerilee. “It’s a train. There’s only one direction we can go.”

“No,” said Sparkler. “It’s not a straight line. There many directions, but only one that we know how to go.” She turned slowly toward the door on the far end of the car. Whether it was the one that Berry Punch and Cheerilee had passed through before did not matter, but to Sparkler, it was clearly the correct one- -hopefully. She walked quickly toward it, and then broke into a gallop.

“There’s not much time!” she cried as she tore open the next door and entered the next car.

This time, Berry refused to let her escape. Her and Cheerilee lost no time in following her, not caring if she was going in the right or wrong direction. All that mattered to each and every one of them was that they not leave the side of the others- -because now they knew that the train was not empty. It never had been. Sparkler had been lucky. If the group became separated again, Berry knew that none of them would be so fortunate a second time.

Chapter 11: The Last Train Car

Soon, they were all sprinting. None of the three were athletic ponies; not one of them was a farmer who spent every day tending crops, or a Pegasus with an occupation in the hearty fields of weather management or athletic performance. They were a teacher, a merchant, and a manager- -but they still ran. Toward something and away from something, and yet toward and away from a series of identical rooms, escaping from each toward a place that was exactly homologous, each praying to every alicorn they could name that they would see the glass apple and the exit.

Train cars passed by quickly now, one after the other. Aisles, seats, doors, repeated without any among them counting how many passed. Every single one was the same- -and yet Berry began to notice them changing. It was the same way the smell had come, and the same way it had continued to grow into something fetid and unrecognizable in the deepest of the cars. Each car looked the same- -but somehow, Berry began to realize just how much the benches resembled the pews in some strange church, and how the ceilings looked like the arching vaults of a dim cathedral.

The cars were bigger than normal train cars. Massive, even. Far greater than any train should have been able to carry. In fact, they barely looked like train cars at all- -and yet they were still identical. The same as they had been the first time Berry had seen them. Identical in every proportion, color, and design- -and yet somehow Berry had just never realized, nor could she now comprehend how she had never noticed that this was no longer a train at all- -and that it never had been.

There were other riders. Berry never saw them, and never looked at them- -but she could feel them. They were watching from the seats behind, their heads slowly turning as the three ponies passed by. Even though Berry never once looked back, she knew that they were slowly standing, rising from their seats as though they were trying to disembark- -but she never once heard the sound of their hoofsteps. There was no sound apart from the rapid hoofsteps of the three violet mares, and their heavy breathing and occasional whimpers of fright and desperation.

Then the train shifted as if it had struck a bump in the track. Except that if what Sparkler said was true- -if the train was not moving- -it could not have. Yet still it lurched and shifted. The lights began to flicker.

“NO!” cried Sparkler. “Not again!”

Just as the crystals faded, she ground to a stop and with a tremendous effort lit her horn with the brightest and most dazzling glow that Berry had ever seen. Both she and Cheerilee had to shield their eyes from the glow, but as bright as it was it was barely bright enough to illuminate the seats closest to the aisle for two rows in front of and behind them.

Beyond Sparkler’s glow was darkness- -except that it did not seem to be a lack of light. Wherever Sparkler’s touched, the train car was a train car. It had semi-comfortable seats and a floor with conservative, high-traffic carpet. Where the light did not touch, the train car seemed to end- -and Berry Punch had the mad idea that it did.

She could not see what lurked in that darkness, but she could hear it. Sloshing, wet sounds of things moving at distance that should not have been achievable in the narrow train car, and the low groans of an unidentifiable material shifting around them. She felt the hot moist air in that darkness, and smelled the familiar scent of a profoundly old pony-made structure mixed with damp rot.

“Sparkler!” screamed Cheerilee, her voice rising several octaves higher than Berry had thought possible. Cheerilee pointed at the edge of the darkness, and saw that it was getting closer. Sparkler’s light was not fading- -in fact, at Cheerilee’s cry it had only grown stronger- -but it was illuminating less and less. It was as though the darkness were growing thinner and pushing inward.

“Sparkler, we have to move!” cried Berry.

“I- -can’t!” gasped Sparkler, struggling hard against the darkness. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. The amount of concentration she was using had rendered her unable to move without risking the glow collapsing completely.

The darkness pressed forward suddenly, eating nearly a foot of space. Through the fading light, Berry Punch was almost sure that she had seen the surface of the nearest seat change- -but was glad that the darkness obscured it before her brain could comprehend what her eyes were seeing. Had she known what lay beyond that glow, she might have run into it screaming- -and never returned.

What she did begin to see was the reflection of eyes. Cheerilee screamed when she saw them as well. They were bright specks of white light in the darkness, tiny and wide-spaced, vastly unlike the large and expressive eyes of ponies. These eyes expressed nothing and held no response. They only watched in the silence, seeing the light but refusing to approach.

There were so many, and Berry saw them moving easily through where there should have been seats. Some stood back, far beyond where the walls of the train car should have ended- -if its walls even existed in the darkness anymore, or if whatever boundary stood in the distance could be considered a wall at all. This was a train, and they were the passengers- -but this was not a train, and they were not ponies at all.

“Sparkler!” cried Berry, grabbing onto her friend, “don’t give up!”

“That’s easy for you to say- -” She cried out as the darkness crept closer.

“Lee!” shouted Berry. “We have to move her!” Cheerilee looked at her sister. Her body was shaking and she had nearly frozen. “LEE!”

Cheerilee gasped, and looked at Berry as though she were seeing her for the first time. She closed her eyes and nodded. Together, her and Berry picked up Sparkler. As a unicorn, Sparkler’s body was oddly light- -but she was terribly weak, and she felt cold. Berry did not know how it felt to use magic, but it was quite apparent that Sparkler was vastly overexerting herself. She was clearly in pain, and her light was beginning to pulse and falter.

Outside her perimeter, the eyes began to move. There was a sound of something wet and large shifting, but not hoofsteps. The owners of the eyes moved without sound as they converged on each other. As they did, their eyes seemed to merge and shift. Berry stared, transfixed. She had envisioned them as something like ponies, but the way they were moving and the way perspective was changing around her meant that such a form was surely impossible.

“They’re like stars,” she whispered.

“Berry!” cried Cheerilee, “don’t look at them!”

Berry gasped, and tried to turn away. Before she did, though, she hesitated- -and saw the hundreds of reflective circles merge into a single pair. These did not just reflect Sparkler’s light, but seemed to glow from within. Berry suddenly recalled the way the pure white lights of the station looked through the tinted glass of the train cars: dull red and strange.

Then, suddenly, she was pushed to the side. Cheerilee had just hit her, hard, and although Berry had barely felt it she felt herself turn away from the train car and toward the door to the next one- -or where she knew that it had to be. She and her sister pushed forward, carrying Sparkler over them like a light- -or a beacon. At first, all her light revealed was more isle and the edges of more and more seats. The car they were in seemed long- -impossibly long. For a moment Berry wondered just how far they would need to go to reach the door- -if this one last train car went on as the rest of the train did, stretching forever deeper into this darkness and emptiness. She felt herself beginning to lose hope, and Sparkler’s weight on her back began to grow heavier as the light around them started to fade.

Then it came. The door appeared as the darkness receded from it slowly and with great difficulty, barely showing the edges of whatever strange living flesh dwelt beneath it. Berry did not even slow. She shouldered Sparkler’s weight onto Cheerilee and ran straight into the door, slamming it open with her shoulder. It gave silently, but she felt something in her shoulder pop and break. The pain was intense, but Berry barely noticed as she fell headlong into the train car. She then felt another pain as Cheerilee tripped over her, tipping Sparkler halfway into one of the seats beside her.

Berry unleashed some choice language and rolled over, grabbing her injured shoulder. The pain subsided somewhat after her tirade, and she lifted her head. “Cheerilee?”

“I’m here,” said Cheerilee, partially standing and rubbing her head. “Ow…”

“Sparkler?” Berry’s breath suddenly caught in her chest, and she tried to stand up before wincing and rolling back on the ground. “Sparks? SPARKS?”

She suddenly felt a gentle force across the fur of her cheeks. Sparkler sat up shakily. She was pale and nearly green from exertion, and the glow from her horn had vanished. “I’m here,” she said. “And I hurt.” She lay back down and groaned. “I need to sleep. For a year. Ideally being snuggled by a mare with very soft chest fluff.”

“We can’t stop now,” said Berry, breathing hard. “The train, the thing behind us, we have to- -”

The train suddenly jerked again, and Sparkler sat up wide eyed while Cheerilee froze. Berry almost screamed, but instead cried out in pain as something heavy struck her directly in the forehead, causing a blaze of stars and other assorted lights to flash through her vision.

“Dingleberries!” she swore, grabbing her face. “My face! What in the name of hot buttered Celestia- -”

She was interrupted by laughter. This only made her more angry. Berry sat up suddenly, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, and was about to scream at her sister and Sparkler when they both pointed.

“Look!” cried Cheerilee. She was laughing, but tears were also running down her face.

Berry turned, and she suddenly burst into laughter as well. The object that had struck her in the head lay next to her, having only rolled a few inches down the train car. It was a glass apple.

“Ha!” she cried, standing suddenly and then almost falling when she tried to put weight on her injured leg. “The- -the apple! We’re…” She looked out the window of the train. The apple had fallen because the vehicle had come to a stop; it had fallen off the seat, just as her punch glass had days before. They had even landed in the same spot- -Berry had been lying in the stain of her spilled punch when the apple had struck her.

The station outside was not the one in Canterlot. They were back in Ponyville. The train had come to a stop, waiting for them to disembark.

“We’re here!” cried Cheerilee. “Oh my stars, I’ve never been so glad to be in Ponyville!”

Sparkler almost agreed, but instead just burst into tears. Berry understood how she felt.

With a shaking hoof, she picked up the apple and turned to the open door on the edge of the car. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go. Before it starts up again.”

At that suggestion, Sparkler and Cheerilee both rushed to the door. Berry followed with some difficulty due to her shoulder, but she was still able to reach it. As she stepped down the stairs, she paused and looked back at the last car. It was the same as the rest, identical to the way every other car had ever been. An ordinary commuter car, complete with efficient looking seats and a downright boring carpet with just one red stain in it. But the others had all been the same too. They were all the same- -all identical, down to the last.

Then she stepped off into the darkness. The night was very cold, and she shivered as Cheerilee helped her onto the platform.

“Your shoulder,” she said.

“It’s fine,” said Berry, which was something of a lie. “If it’s bad in the morning, I’ll go to the doctor. But first, I need help.”

“Help?”

“The clock. The station has a clock. Every station does. We need to get to it.”

Sparkler’s eyes widened, because she knew what Berry was saying. “You want to know how long we’ve been gone?”

Cheerilee’s joy suddenly faded as she remembered that element of riding this particular train. “Oh Celestia,” she whispered.

Still, she did not abandon Berry. together, they walked to the clock. It was not large, but it was quite accurate. It consisted of a round dial that told the time on a twenty-four-hour scale, as well as a mechanical system below that showed the day and date behind a plate of glass.

Sparkler lit her horn- -something that quite clearly pained her, even though she was barely able to produce a glow with the strength of a candle- -and Berry looked up at the main clock.

“One fifty,” she said, confused. Then she looked down at the base of the clock, which indicated the date. She inhaled sharply.

“Sweet Luna,” said Sparkler. She turned to Berry, her eyes wide. “That’s today’s date. I mean…that’s the day we left.”

“That’s not possible,” said Cheerilee. “That’s the time we got on the train. The time we left!”

As she said it, Berry heard the slightest screech of metal moving against metal. She looked over her shoulder, as did Sparkler and Cheerilee. That sound had been the only indication of the train departing, as it was otherwise silent. Berry watched as it pulled away from the station without a sound as exactly five empty cars trailed behind it on their way toward Canterlot. As it left to continue its journey, though, for just a moment she thought she caught the glimpse of a mare standing in the last train car- -watching her as the train departed. Watching, and smiling.

Epilogue

Life returned to normal. There was no simpler way to put it. That was the way things worked in small towns like Ponyville. When bad things happened, ponies joined together to overcome them, and then progressed onward.

Or that was what Berry Punch wished she could believe. Except that the world never really worked the way it was supposed to. In reality, it was more like the damaged ligament in her shoulder. The doctor gave her bandages and medication that she never bothered to take, and she eventually healed- -but the pain never really went away. The slight limp grew less and less, but it would never truly be gone, and whenever storms came Berry would think of trains and hard metal doors.

It affected them each differently. Sparkler seemed to take it the worst. She became more quiet and reserved, and even slight sounds would startle her if she was not expecting them. Berry also began to notice that her punch supplies were dropping faster than usual, even from bottles that she had not yet opened.

Still, although Sparkler had changed, she was not broken entirely. She remained her normal organized self, and redoubled her efforts in the mayoral campaign, which eventually led to an inevitable victory. She could still laugh, and if anything she seemed to only have slowed because she was taking time to look at the world, to savor the light and peace that many ponies had forgotten existed in Ponyville. Berry Punch understood, and although the guilt over what she had done to Sparkler never really left her, the two still lived together with a lives not that different from those they had lived before.

Cheerilee had responded differently. In fact, her reaction had been the opposite. She had refused to acknowledge any of it at all. If Berry ever tried to bring it up- -which was rare- -Cheerilee would change the subject, or pretend that it never happened at all. Only when she had drank too much fresh cider at the yearly cider day had she broken down and cried.

Even if she refused to admit it, though, what had happened on the train had changed her. Perhaps one of the only positives of the event was that Cheerilee and Berry Punch were able to at least stand in the same room together, and to talk without any of the anger and jealousy they had been harboring before. They understood each other better, and trusted each other a little more. Whether that was worth what they experienced was something Berry had contemplated many times, and even after three months she had still not come to a sure conclusion.

As for Berry, the effect of the train was not clear cut. If anything, her life was the least changed by it. Sometimes she really did wonder if it was just a bad dream- -and other times she would awaken at night terrified that somehow she had never left the train at all. In either case, though, all she had to do was walk to the living room she shared with Sparkler and look at the central coffee table. Sitting in a dish in the center as the focal point of the entire room, she would invariable see a single glass apple.

Her love for trains had not changed, but it had been tempered. She did not know how long it would be before she could ride at night again, or alone, even during the daytime. Even when she would lie awake at night thinking of what really had been in those shadows, she could only sometimes venture outside at night, and even then she would never go to the town train station. Not in the dark.

The Continuum engine had never gone into full production. It had failed the test it had been given. Not because of strange happenings aboard its five passenger cars, though. The reasons had been far more pedestrian. It had come down to, of all things, the automation system. From what Berry understood, the train was able to stop at the stations- -but unable to stop at any other time. Its engine had been designed to run forever, and that what it apparently intended to do. Supposedly it had nearly run down a girl on a scooter without even attempting to apply the brakes- -if it even had any. Nor was it possible to stop it for track repairs, or to assign it to different lines. It ran on one line, stopping when it chose to do so with whatever sort of brain its creators had given it- -and did nothing more.

That, combined with the extremely high cost of producing the crystal engines, had led to the Continuum’s demise. There was talk about creating smaller engines of a similar design to power ponyless carriages, but Berry never bothered to care about such things. What mattered to her was trains.

Supposedly, they had switched the Continuum engine and its five cars to the auxiliary track. It had been left out on a long path of trails through the distant wilderness to continue its cycles for as long as it could survive, never passing near pony civilization and never stopping as it moved through Equestria. It would never pick up another passenger again. Without the Ponyville station, it would not stop to pick them up. Berry Punch, Cheerilee, and Sparkler had been the last ponies ever to ride it- -and according to Sparkler, they had been the only ones ever to do so.

Except that on some nights- -the nights when Berry found herself awake, sitting at her window with a glass of Punch and looking at the dark and sleeping town- -she would sometimes see lights in the distance. She would try to look away, but she never quite could. There was no sound except silence- -no whistle, no sound of steam or screech of brakes- -but she saw the distant station lights illuminating something just at the edge of her vision.

It was the reason she could not bear to venture toward the train station at night- -because she was sure that some nights at exactly ten minutes to two, she would see a second set of lights. They were almost invisible against the harsh arc-glow of the station, but they were unmistakable. Berry Punch saw the warm, inviting glow of a softer light, the kind cast by crystal lamps. A glow that passed through windows that hardly looked red at all from the outside as it waited,

On those nights, the lights stood there in the dark only briefly, inviting weary passengers to board the night train.