The dreams I had in the nights leading up to the event should’ve tipped me off. Things no eye would want to see, no head would want to hold. Things I both struggled to remember and fought to forget, and all inside a darkness that was somehow… deeper. Y’know, I’m aware language is a difficult thing to master, but as phrases go, “fear of the dark” isn’t exactly correct. It isn’t a fear of the dark, so much as of what might be in the dark. But then again, if ponies went around calling it that, well, that would essentially be admitting there could actually be something lurking where your eyes don’t reach, now wouldn’t it? It ain’t a nice thought. Believe me, I know.
Another thing: ponies who “fear the dark” understand the blackness as a place where terrible things may be hiding, but the way I see it, they’re looking at it wrong. See, what most ponies don’t realise is that darkness doesn’t just hide these supposed creatures; it also stops us from perceiving them. Think about that for a minute. If these creatures truly are so horrible, do we really want to bear witness?
It starts, as it always does, with a knock at the door, loud and insistent, waking me up.
I grumble drowsily, glancing over at the clock on my bedside drawer. It’s just gone twelve. Apple Bloom, Big Mac, and Granny have gone to Appleoosa for a few days, so I’m all alone.
And it’s very dark.
Still drunk with sleep, I flounder my way out of bed, quickly fumble to light a lantern, stumble down the stairs. Whoever is at the door knocks again, desperate like. Fully awake by this point, I set the lantern down on top of the small table by the entrance to the kitchen, then cautiously approach the front door.
“Who is it?” I ask with a confidence I don’t feel.
The voice which answers is utterly awful, raspy and strained. But what’s infinitely worse is that I recognise it.
“Applejack,” Fluttershy croaks weakly. “Applejack, it’s me. Please open the door. It’s Fluttershy. Please. I need your help. …There’s something in my throat.”
Hurriedly opening the door, I gasp. Turns out Fluttershy’s new voice isn’t the ghastliest thing about her. My timid friend is a right mess, and no mistake. Her hooves are caked, smeared with black dirt, her pink mane is tangled, probably drop Rarity into a coma if she saw, and there is a nasty-looking gash on her forehead, a shocking red stain on an otherwise lovely face.
“Fluttershy!” I exclaim. “W-what happened?”
Fluttershy looks up at me with those pitiful blue eyes. “Applejack, please,” she begs tearfully, “g-get it out. Please get it out of my throat.”
“I… I… how? H-how do I do that?” I ask her.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Fluttershy whimpers as she paws at her throat, slumps to the floor.
I turn away from her for a moment, my heart bashing against my ribs, trying to keep it together as I wonder if the first aid kit has anything that might help. Suddenly, Fluttershy makes an odd sound from behind me, and I turn…
…just in time to see her throw up about a pint of blood.
I instinctively back away, gaping wide-eyed at my friend as she coughs and splutters, wipes at her watery eyes with blood trickling down her chin, her neck, like fast-growing roots.
Once I’m fairly certain Fluttershy isn’t liable to vomit a second time, I carefully approach, put my hooves around her. I am just about to ask if she’s all right, offer her a bed to lie down in, but then something on the floor catches my eye, and I find myself taking a closer look at the foul-smelling, gory puddle. Now that all the blood has spread itself out, I can see that there’s something else there; something solid, something… feathery?
“Is that… is that a bird?” I ask disbelievingly.
This only seems to further distress Fluttershy. “Oh no,” she whispers, I think more to herself than to me, “oh no. What have I done?”
I stare at the wet, lifeless little wren – tiny beak, round body, pointy tail – uncomprehendingly. “Fluttershy,” I eventually manage, my voice nearly as hoarse as hers had been, “what in tarnation is a dead darn bird doin’ lodged in your throat?”
“I don’t know,” Fluttershy squeaks breathlessly. “I was walking, there was this creature– it was a hole in the ground, like a cave, and I went into it and–”
“Stop,” I interrupt, feeling my chest constrict painfully. Thump! thump! goes my heart. “Stop. What cave?”
“It... it was on the edge of the Everfree,” Fluttershy tells me quietly, eyes fixed on the bloody wren, and I feel my stomach drop about a mile straight downward.
“Oh,” I say, rubbing at my eyes. “Oh. Oh. Please tell me you didn’t… please tell me you… did you go inside, Fluttershy? Did you go inside the cave?”
“Yes?” Fluttershy replies, finally meeting my gaze, confused. “Or at least… I... I think I did? Does it matter?”
I groan, place my hooves over my face, resist the urge to scream. “No, I can’t believe this. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, Fluttershy, why?”
“I don’t understand,” Fluttershy whines, looking from me to the bird, then back again.
I place my hoof on my friend’s cheek, force her to look me in my eyes. “Fluttershy, now listen here, sugarcube: I need you to tell me exactly what happened tonight. Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”
“W-well, I–” Fluttershy begins, but I quickly cut her off.
“Deep breaths, sugarcube,” I tell her firmly. “Deep… breaths. Do it with me now.”
We breathe.
“Well,” says Fluttershy, once I’m satisfied she’s breathing more or less normally again (or as normally as a pony constantly on the verge of a heart attack can breathe), “I was out on one of my nightly walks around the perimeter of the Everfree, when I saw this strange creature. One that I’ve never seen before. It was small and furry, upright, with these big, luminous eyes. It looked like a… like a tall chipmunk, but when I tried talking to it, it just scampered away from me. I… I followed it into the forest – I’m not sure how far, but I… I don’t think it was very far – until I saw it disappear into this big hole in the ground, which I’m pretty sure was a cave. I… was worried about the creature’s safety, so I went down into the hole after it, and the next thing I knew, I was running through the orchard toward the farmhouse with–” she glances at the wren, shudders “–that in m-my throat.” Fluttershy indicates at the gash on her forehead. “Th-that’s where I got this. The orchard, that is. I fell. When I was running.”
I take my hoof away from Fluttershy’s face, sigh, sit down on the floor. “Fluttershy, you really shouldn’t have gone inside that cave,” I say, massaging my temples, feeling the pounding of my pulse. “I’m a complete idiot, a stupid idiot, for not mentionin’ it to you before now. There are… old stories about that place. Stories my family told me when I was a young’un.”
“W-what kind of stories?” Fluttershy asks me nervously.
“Bad ones, Fluttershy. Real bad,” I laugh shakily, fighting to curb the tremor which has crept into my voice. “Gave me nightmares every darn time. My old relatives told ’em so as to kill our youthful curiosities in the event we ever found the cave ourselves, and what can I say? Those stories sure did the trick.” I pause, look away. “They told me that… that there are things buried down there. In the cave. Things born elsewhere, that don’t adhere to any natural law, or at least… none that ponies a-are aware of. They said these things are caught up in a slumber so deep, so absolute that it could be mistaken for death.”
And that’s when the bird moves.
Fluttershy and I jump, shrink up against the staircase, clinging to one another.
The wren starts squirming about on the floor. Its little limbs are all over the place, like it’s dancing to the beat of some awful, soundless melody, feet scrabbling, wings twisting, and for a moment, I think – even hope – it’s trying to clean all the scabby, coagulated blood off itself. But then, with a wet snap, the bird’s tiny body splits down the middle, and several fleshy tendrils burst out from inside of it. The wren opens its beak, shrieks piercingly, and Fluttershy and I watch as it flails its way into the shadow under the daybed.
For a time, the two of us are swallowed by a silence almost physical.
“Fluttershy,” I finally say, tense, “whatever that thing is, we need to kill it right now.”
Fluttershy, despite how clearly terrified she is, looks at me with disbelief. “W-we can’t,” she whispers. “The poor thing is probably just as afraid of us as we are of it! A-and it’s hurt!”
“It’s unnatural!” I exclaim, then quickly lower my voice, keeping my eyes fixed anxiously on where the lantern’s light doesn’t reach below the daybed. “If we don’t get rid of it, who knows what it might do if it gets out!”
Fluttershy frowns at me disapprovingly. “Or maybe we could show a little compassion and take care of it, then bring it back home when it’s well enough to be on its own.”
And before I know what’s happening, Fluttershy has trotted over to the daybed and confidently poked her head underneath it, making soft sounds as she tries to lure the creature out.
“Fluttershy, for the love of– what are you doing?!” I shout, but find I am unable to move. “Get away from there! Are you crazy?!”
But then she’s back. And it is clinging to her, little legs wrapped around her foreleg. But it’s not a wren anymore. It now looks like a pegasus filly.
If I could’ve taken a step back, I would have. However, my back is already up against the banister, so I’m forced to settle for a horrified gasp. This is wrong. This is so wrong. How certain I am of this is what scares me more than anything else. I don’t know what this creature is, or what it wants, but it is surely evil. Of that I’ve no doubt.
“See, Applejack?” says Fluttershy dreamily, without looking at me. “It’s just a little filly. A little pegasus filly…”
She sits herself down with her back to the daybed, holding the creature close, lovingly, pressing its small, round face into her chest, wings curled protectively around them both. The creature watches me solemnly with its large, borrowed eyes, an abnormal violet which fills me with unspeakable dread.
“Fluttershy,” I whisper furiously, trying unsuccessfully not to meet the creature’s chilling gaze, “stop. Stop it right now. Keep away from it.”
Still, Fluttershy won’t look at me, eyes only for the creature she embraces, so tender. “Oh, Applejack,” she says adoringly. “She’s such a beautiful little soul. So perfect. I’ve always wanted a filly of my own…”
Sick with fear, I’m about to speak, continue pleading with Fluttershy, but the creature beats me to it.
“Tired…” the little pegasus filly groans, shrill, nuzzling Fluttershy weakly, “…home… hungry…”
Then its eyes roll to white, and it throws up all over Fluttershy. She doesn’t even blink as the thick, black substance strikes her. Some of what the creature has spewed out spills onto the floor and scatters, and leaning forward slightly, unable to help myself, I’m appalled to see it isn’t liquid. It’s dirt.
“Oh my,” says Fluttershy, appearing highly concerned as she examines the creature, which moans in agony, “you poor thing. We need to get you home right away!”
“BENEATH BLACK STARS,” the creature says in a voice ancient and monstrous, “BETWIXT THE FOLD AND THE BROKEN COLUMN.”
I whimper and shrink from the source of the voice, that horrible, unnatural voice. I know I need to rush over there and tear that thing away from Fluttershy, see if I can break whatever... influence it has over her, but it’s like I’ve lost the ability to control my body. “Don’t!” I scream urgently. “Don’t go back there! Fluttershy, don’t you dare go back!”
“DELIRIUM,” the creature continues, clawing at its face as though there are insects crawling over it. “HELL IS NOT A PLACE.”
“Applejack, I have to. My baby is sick,” Fluttershy informs me apologetically, still apparently determined not to look in my direction. “She needs help. She needs my help.”
“MY KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND ANGER,” the creature rumbles furiously. “EDGES WORN ROUND, CORNERS EATEN AWAY.”
I wrap my forelegs around my head, sink, begin rocking and sobbing.
“There, there,” I hear Fluttershy murmur, soothing. “It’ll be all right, my little friend. It’ll be okay.”
“DO YOU REMEMBER DEATH, MY TINY ACOLYTE?” asks the creature, speaking as if to the sky. “ALONG FAITHLESS SHORES AND INTO THE OTHER?”
Then there is quiet.
A terrible scream from Fluttershy breaks it.
I raise my head slowly.
My friend is standing there, looking into my eyes, into me.
“Fluttershy?” I say.
“DON’T WAKE THEM UP!” she bellows, swings her hoof. It connects, and I welcome oblivion.
I woke just after sunrise, and as soon as everything came back to me, I knew precisely what I had to do. Fetching a coil of my strongest rope from the barn, I ran all the way to the Everfree Forest and, without hesitation, plunged into its lush darkness. I think I always knew where it was, somehow. Maybe a clue in one of the old stories gave it away, maybe not, but at any rate, the cave was exactly where I expected it to be. It also looked just how I imagined.
Securing the rope to a nearby rock, I lowered myself down into that hell. Then, by lantern-light, I began digging, using my hooves, not caring about the oily, black dirt which got into my eyes, into my mouth. It didn’t take me long to find her. She wasn’t buried very deep or very far. And by some miracle, to my intense relief, she was still alive.
But that wasn’t what will forever stay with me until the solace of death, which may, in fact, be sooner than I expected. No, what will haunt me until the day I die is not that I found Fluttershy buried alive in a hole, which was, by all accounts, of her own making. As I hauled my unconscious friend out of that nightmare cavern, I found myself barely able to breathe, and I think the only thing that kept me going was my incomparable fear of the place we were running from.
No, see, it was the words, carved into the wall of rock inside the cave and to the left of the entrance, the same words Fluttershy screamed at me that night in a voice which did not belong to her. I didn’t dare guess their true meaning until later that day.
At the time, I thought she meant the creatures from beyond, said to slumber within the cave. But one thing my relatives never seemed sure of was why the creatures came to Equestria in the first place. I think I know why. I think they were running. Running from something. But it was too late. Whatever they were running from already had them, or else it followed.
Because when I was sitting next to Fluttershy at the hospital, watching over her while she slept, I started to feel uncomfortable. Physically uncomfortable. I felt like my heart was beating out of time and much too quickly to be normal. It was almost like I had two heartbeats.
