Tales from the Everfree RestStop

I should begin this by say that I am truly sorry to anypony who read Chapter 4. I had no idea what was going to happen, the Element Bearers and the Royal guard have assured me that every trace of the story has been removed from the internet, and that there's nothing to worry about.

If you where unfortunate enough to have read Chapter 4, try to forget everything. If you experience nosebleeds, dizziness, migraines, or hallucinations, go immediately to the emergency room. If you have a recurring dream of being on an island made of song, yes, you read that right, song, under no circumstances should you approach or attempt to open that blue door with a painting of a crow on it. Just wait till Princess Luna comes and destroys it.

If you haven't read Chapter 4. There is no Chapter 4, it doesn't exist, forget it, forget you ever heard of it.

Now then on to the actual chapter. By now you probably know that there's a crappy little RestStop on road that runs through the largest part of the Everfree Forest, and that weird things have been happening here for as long as I can remember. Several of the Princesses have personally asked me to stop writing about it, following the events of, well chapter 4. Once again, I am sorry. But I explained to them that what happened was a one time thing and in the three years I've worked here nothing like it has ever happen, so they agreed to let me keep writing, as long as if another thing like it happened again I would first pass it by some moderators, which is a polite way of saying death-row inmates. Celestia gave me the email address of a death-row prison warden and said that if I used a special code, which I'm not going to write down, that they would take care of the rest. I'm not sure if this is morally ethical or not but the "Moderators" are on death row so I guess that their going to die either way. Maybe I'll if that weird thing that caused all this shows up again I'll just not mention it in my journal and try to forget I ever saw it.

I'm not actually working right now it's the first legitimate break I've had since writing and posting the Chapter 4. It seems like so long ago that I started writing this when in reality it's only been a couple of days, time moves funny here, flowing fast and slow at the same time, like molasses out of a shotgun. It's been a good thing that I've been keeping a journal I got a couple minutes before the battery on my new laptop dies, and I think now might be the perfect, if not only change to transpose my journal entries before the battery runs out or the blood loss gets to me, at this point it's a race to see what happens first, before any of you worry I've already called Blue. He didn't answer but I left him a message telling him where I am and that I need a right to the hospital. Right after he picks up dinner for the Wormwood orphans, Chopper and his little sister. Blue and the other deputies have been taking turns checking on them, and bringing them food in an attempt to make the whole thing less tragic. They've been living on their own ever since the incident that totally did not happen in the nonexistent Chapter 4. There I go again off on a tangent, I guess I'll get right to it and write up my journal entries while I still can. There are a lot of them so get comfy, I've also dated them since it's been multiple days and nights since Chapter 4. I'll do this in later chapters if there are greater spaces between posts.

November 2nd, 9:00 pm: So much has happened since the Nightmare Night incident that we're not aloud to talk about, I've been much more busy dealing with the aftermath along with the Cult. The Mathmatists have been cleaning out our inventory on a daily basis, planing ahead for some sort of secret event, that I only get to here about in hushed murmurs and whispers. As I would expect Night is coming earlier and the weather's getting colder. The lawn gnomes have followed me back to the RestStop. I went to take a piss earlier and found them littered around the store, I know their the same ones because they have the name tags I gave them in the same places I stuck the tags to their little bodies, I guess they prefer this crappy little RestStop over my crappy little cottage near the Everfree, I can guess why, I'm hardly ever there and most of the rooms are dusty as crap, I would sell it and come live in the little shack behind the RestStop with BugSpray, but the Boss deducts some of my pay for rent money, plus I can barely stand working all the way out here, if I had to live here and never leave I'd lose my damn mind, and like I said a few chapters ago we don't want or need any of that going on. Anyway I collected all the little gnomes and set them up in various places behind the register.

November 3rd, 2:00 am: The thing in the trenchcoat is back, he's standing just outside the door staring in, and he's been there for almost an hour now. On the bright side, no name based pun intended, I haven't had a customer come in since he showed up. On the not so bright side, I can't help but thing that he's trying to put thoughts in my head, he won't be able to though, I've had way too much practice. I've also started calling it a he, because I've noticed that it doesn't have female breasts common with Minotaurs and other bipeds, how I even know what female Minotaur breasts look like is my business. I probably should have mentioned this earlier but Pillar came in today before the sun went down. He sat in one of the booths drinking coffee for a while, eventually Cloud Slasher showed up. Slasher had a word with Pillar before storming up to my register shouting at the top of his lungs, he grabbed a display of lotto scratch offs and threw it across the room. It was obvious that something had upset him, that's when I took off my headphones.

"Everything okay?" I asked stupidly. I knew damn well that everything was never okay.

"Did you hear a word I just said?" Slasher asked in annoyance. I explained to him that I had taken to listening to music through headphones to drown out the sound of screaming that had begun to periodically radiate through the air vents, I guessed the screams must have stopped a while ago, or maybe I had simply just imagined them, or maybe I was just reliving the events that happened in Chapter 4, either way I didn't need the headphones anymore. At this point Blue walked into the store, his white mane and mustache looking whiter than normal.

Slasher, I could see became instantly aware of the deputy's presence. "Where is he?" He half whispered, half growled. "Where's the other one?"

"BugSpray?" I asked.

Slasher sighed. "Sure, "BugSpray"."

"He's not due for another twenty minutes."

"Well when he gets here, tell him we need to have a chat." With that, Slasher let out a shrill whistle and left the store, Pillar jumped out of his seat and followed close behind, and Blue helped me pick up the mess and put the lotto display back together without asking a single question, I wish more ponies could be like Blue.

When BugSpray got to work he told me he had been having weird dreams, dreams of something enormous, living, breathing, underground, the dreams always end the same way, with the RestStop collapsing into a giant sinkhole, and that when he woke up he could feel a kind of tingling sensation at the point of his horn, like when Chrysalis would give the hive orders through brainwaves. I told him that Slasher was looking for him, that's when BugSpray grew solemn, and asked me if he could show me something. In the freezer behind a stack of boxes labeled "Non-a-prior", Whatever the fuck that means they've been here longer than I have, there was a blanket, and behind that blanket was another Pillar.

My first question for BugSpray was, "You stole the body back?"

He looked at the ground sheepishly and shook his head like a filly that had just gotten busted for cooking meth.

"You killed another one?" I asked.

"It wasn't me this time, I swear." BugSpray said pulling back the blanket past the dead Pillar's face to reveal a deep gash on his heck. "I followed him from when he last stopped by, I was going to ask how there could be two of him, when this big pack of TimberWolves showed up and jumped him, I turned into a fire drake to scare them off but when I did I noticed that they had already ripped out his windpipe, so I brought him back here and put him here when you went to the bathroom."

"Wait did you notice any of the lawn gnomes outside." I asked.

"Yeah actually, when I came out I saw one holding the door open, why?" He asked.

"It's nothing, I guess I should start keeping an eye on them." I replied. We agreed to wait for Slasher to call us like he did last time and we'd explain what happened.

3:00 am: The thing in the trenchcoat is finally gone. He left claw marks on the glass of the front door, I checked the security footage to confirm my suspicions, he always stays outside the range of the cameras, why can't I remember what his face looked like?

3:30 am: Smoker was the first customer in the store after the thing in the trenchcoat left, I told him that I was surprised that he was still alive, he mistook this for a compliment and said "thank you." I asked him if he was ready for the "big event", but he just stared at me blankly. I could tell that he had no idea what I was talking about, so I filled him in on how I had put it all together, the unusual cultist activity, the hushed whispers, the buying up of all of our supplies, I could tell that something was about to happen. Smoker went pale in the face, then ran out of the store before I could finish, the 2 bit frozen drink still in his hoofs. I know I should write up an inventory loss slip for the theft, but I just can't bring myself to do it, as hard as it is to explain there's just something about Smoker that makes me genuinely feel sorry for him.

6:00 am: I caught myself digging again. I don't know how long I was out there, or who was running the store while I was gone, the hole was so deep now that I nearly couldn't climb out of it on my own. I should maybe consider the possibility of one day seeing a doctor, or at least tying a long rope to somewhere and throwing it down into the hole for an easier exit.

8:00 am: Smoker is currently crying in the dry storage closet. I could barely make out the story through his sobs. Apparently Smoker was sent on some kind of "Vision Quest" for the last week and had no idea what the other cultists had been stocking up for, when he went back to the compound earlier he found the whole place completely deserted, beds were left unmade, some plates had food on them, a fire still burning in the fireplace, everypony's robes were still in their personal milk crates next to their sleeping bags, but the ponies, all of the ponies were simply gone. Smoker isn't taking this very well, but I have a business to run, so I asked BugSpray to help me carry him into the dry storage area. I figured that he could work through some stuff in there, and maybe when he's done he'll just go home. I can't help but feel like this is my fault, I mean I know I never gave exact details of the Mathmatist compound, but I made ponies aware of their existence by posting information about them on this site, I know Celestia says that ponies are free to follow whatever religion they desire, but that still doesn't change the fact that most ponies aren't comfortable with cults, even if their way out in the Everfree forest away from everypony else. But who know's maybe I'm just over thinking things.

November 4th 9:00 pm: That Pegasus that talks to animals just left, she said that all the snakes are gone this time, but I have my doubts. I tried to also get Rocco and his clan to leave but she said that they where, "Very insistent to stay." I told her to try again. She tried giving Rocco some kind of death glare to intimidate him into obeying, but Rocco responded with his own rabies foam filled snarl, which promptly scared the living day lights out of her, and me. I wasn't surprised that little stare didn't work, Rocco's one of the only things I know that constantly gets his ass kicked by a manticore, and still gets up meaner than ever the next time around.

November 5th 7:00 am: Rocco and Scar had another one of their brawls, only this time it was interrupted by a pack of TimberWolves. Oddly enough Rocco and Scar worked together to scare them off and kill who ever stayed, before going right back to each other's throats. I'm beginning to think that their little fights are less about territory and more about personal honor at this point. I'm not sure if animals have a sense of honor, but there's clearly some kind of respect shared between the two, underneath all the resentment, I mean.

5:00 pm: Pillar came into the store again today, and made some thinly veiled threats. He asked about BugSpray to, but I told him that I was tired of being the go-between, and he had business with BugSpray he needed to take it up with BugSpray. That's when Pillar started getting weird.

"You know this place is just a big experiment, and your the little mouse." Pillar said.

At this point I was done with his shit, so I asked him to either buy something or leave. So he bought a pack of toothpaste, and started to undress in the store and rub to toothpaste into his fur.

"They tell me that something's wrong with your brain, is that true?"

I tried to be polite and avert my eyes and answered. "Yeah."

"You have some kind of mental condition?"

"Yeah." I answered again.

"That's too bad."

At this point Pillar's fur was coated in toothpaste. He walked over to the frozen drink machine, and filled a large cup with the sugary red concoction before turning it upside down on top of his head. Then he shook himself violently, flinging bits of cold sticky debris across everything from the ceiling to the walls, some of it landing only face but I tried not to let him see me flinch. I knew this was all just some elaborate attempt to intimidate me, and I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

"What is it exactly?" He asked as he trotted back to where his pile of clothes waited for him.

"What?" I asked.

"What is your condition? Paranoia, Schizophrenia, you Gay?"

"No." I answered. "It's some kind of chronic insomnia, I basically means I don't sleep."

"You don't sleep." He asked sounding genuinely interested. "Like, never?"

"I can't fall asleep, I haven't slept a single day since I was a kid, I got my cutie mark the day I was diagnosed with it, I don't know if it's some kind of rare genetic condition or if I was destined to get it. I tried to get it cured but nothing worked, a couple years ago I tried to have Princess Luna put me to sleep but she could do it, not even with the combined power of the three other princesses, the doctor say I'll be fine but one day it'll probably kill me, probably through shock or something like that. But until then I handle the effects as best I can, mostly by working here."

Pillar nodded, a look of gleeful realization on his face. "That must be it, that must be why "he" can't reach you."

"Why who can't reach me?"

Right then, Slasher came into the store. He wrapped Pillar in a blanket and ushered him out to the waiting vehicle. A moment later he came back in and offered me 150 bits for the security tapes for tonight. I gave them to him and before he could leave I asked. "Hey, before Pillar said something about somepony not reaching me, you know anything about that?"

Slasher looked at we with surprise which he soon masked by a cold stare before saying "It's none of your concern, just enjoy those hundred fifty bits, and don't mention this to anypony."

I found his statement strange but didn't care either way, I wonder what I'll spend this money on.

9:00 pm: I was beginning to suspect something wasn't quite right in the store. I've been finding empty candy bar wrappers, strewn about, security tapes mysteriously deleted, strange noises coming through the walls in the middle of the night when I should be alone, at least more strange noises than usual. At first I assumed it was just the raccoons, but now I know the truth, now I know that Smoker has been living here for the last two days, he just walked out of the supply closet wearing a bathrobe, nodded to me as he grabbed a stack of flower jerky and went into the bathroom. It had not even occurred to me that Smoker had never left. I also noticed that his cutie mark was a 4 leaf clover with a yellow star in the middle of every leaf. This leads me to believe that his special talent is just plain dumb luck, mostly since he was the only one to not go missing from that whole cult disappearance. Maybe one of these days I'll ask his name.

November 6th 4:00 am: It finally fucking happened. I suppose it was only a matter of time, I know that I should be feeling regret, or shame, or any other emotion that people normally feel after something like this happened, but all I feel is embarrassed. I came out of Zombie Mode a couple of hours ago with a shovel wrapped in my magic, I'd been digging again, and this I had made some serious progress, the hole was, or I should say IS around 7 feet deep at this point, the steep walls made of loose red clay, it took me a while to realize that I was staring up into an inky black night peered with uncountable stars, when some of the bigger celestials started to move. I realized those stars were actually the soulless red eyes of the mutant raccoons staring down at me over the edge of the hole, probably looking for food, shameless beggars. I chucked the shovel out of the hole, and that's when I heard it. Imagine the sound of a sword hitting a watermelon, like a solid wet THWAK. Now imagine the watermelon gurgling and falling over like a sack of potatoes, whoa this metaphor's kinda getting away from me here. When I climbed out of the hole, I saw the shovel standing upright, with the business-end firmly lodged in the bottom of the neck of a still twitching Pillar. The Pillar was almost dead when I got to his side, in some kind of final act of defiance he spat blood in my face and wheezed out a toothy laugh before falling still. I felt the slightest amount of respect for him, before I entered a mental state that I can only describe as subdue panic. The first thing I wanted to do was find something to wrap the body in because surely, Cloud Slasher would come looking for it soon.

When I went into the store I was surprised to find that Smoker had taken it upon himself to work the cash register while I was gone. He was currently ringing up one of our regulars, Neat Freak a pony with a soap bar cutie mark who always bought soap and boiled peanuts. I grabbed the tarp off the shelf took it outside and that's when I learned something. Pillar is heavy, like really heavy. I understand that a body is basically just a meaty, fleshy, water balloon full of guts and excrement, but nothing could prepare me for how leaky, and gross, and heavy a dead pony can be. It was only by some miracle that I managed to drag Pillar through the back door, and into the freezer without being seen, took all my strength to pull the mass behind the boxes under the stack with the other three, and when I had finished I had worked up a sweat, even the cold of the freezer wasn't enough to keep me cool. As I stood there letting my breath come out, and letting the adrenaline wear off, I took stock of my situation. That when it dawned on me, THERE WERE 4 PILLARS IN THE FREEZER WITH ME, 4 PILLARS, WHERE THE FUCK DID THE OTHER TWO COME FROM? The freezer door opened and I turned to see Smoker pulling in a dead Pillar by the legs, he stopped made eye contact with me, and when he saw the dead Pillars at my feet, I said the only thing I could think of. "Well this is awkward." Smoker and I decided to open a bottle of Strega, and have a few drinks, he explained that he had accidentally killed Pillar a couple times, once while he was fixing the roof of the shack and the back end of a hammer had gotten stuck in Pillar's skull, once when he had broken Pillar's neck while slamming open the bathroom door, and just now when a light had come loose and slammed Pillar in the face before one of the bigger pieces of glass slit his throat. I was beginning to understand that Pillar was surprisingly easy to kill, at one point BugSpray came into the freezer to get a box of cookie dough, didn't even acknowledge all the Pillars.

I'm sorry to stop here but my laptop battery is at 5% right now, so it's obvious that I won't be able to transcribe the rest of my entries before time runs out, and I don't even have enough time to tell you how I even ended up at the bottom of that hole underneath the store, with a broken leg. And I don't mean the one I've been digging, I mean the one that was behind the locked door near the freezer. But I can tell you that I can hear somepony moving around above me, which is good because I'm not entirely sure I'm alone down here. Now if your reading this I means that I managed to upload my story, if your not then, what even are you? Somepony just called my name from the top of the precipice, I think it was BugSpray, I wonder what happened to Blue? Actually why didn't Blue ever so up, or at least call back. Come to think of it, I seem to remember Blue didn't survive the Nightmare Night incident, wait then how the hell was Blue there when Slasher showed up that one time? I promise that if I survive long enough to recharge the battery on this thing, I'll come back and tell the rest until then I guess this story is to be continued.