“Not long until we reach Hollow Shades,” the coachpony answered, before she could even ask the question. “Maybe ten minutes.”
“Thank you,” Moondancer said. She wasn’t much for field work, but ever since Hollow Shades had been cleared out by the Pillars, who were apparently not dead, according to Twilight, Moondancer couldn’t resist the opportunity to investigate what had happened to the place. Maybe there would be some leftover books that survived the strange and curious ravaging the rest of the town had suffered. Either way, at both Twilight’s and Celestia’s urging, she had gone, and now was riding a personal coach out to the city.
She peeked out the window as the coach rocked gently on the road. The train tracks were directly next to it, but as Hollow Shades hadn’t been a destination for quite some time, she could see grass and small saplings growing up between the tracks. The trees around them appeared sickly in some ways, or just malignant in others. The coachpony kept them going, but she could almost feel his own trepidation. It was just him and her, out here in the dark, shady remains of Hollow Shades.
They’d been forced to bring out the lanterns early because of the trees and mountains. The trees on the outside of the hollow that blocked the sun from it and the stone walls within, giving it its name, were doing their job just fine, and in the afternoon light, there wasn’t any part of the place that wasn’t bathed in shadows. The swinging lamp on the edge of the coach rocked back and forth with the coach, casting shadows even deeper where the light didn’t hit. Moondancer felt a little fearful, but Twilight had promised her the place was safe, it just looked creepy. She was satisfied with that.
The coach pulled up in front of an empty building built into the wall of the chasm. Moondancer looked up from her seat and saw the coachpony checking his map. He nodded and stowed it in his bag again, then came over and opened the door. “And, here we are.”
“This is…?”
“Where we’ll be staying. The princesses said you wanted books, so this’ll be what remains of the library. Not sure anything survived whatever happened here, but if there’s books to be had, they’ll be in that.”
“Thank you, Mr…?”
“Desolate Sand.”
Moondancer smiled at him as she climbed out. “I’m sorry, I’m terrible with names. Twilight must have told me three times.”
“S’alright, Miss. We’re the only two here, so just yell ‘Hey, you!’ and I’ll get it. Just here to help, you know. Used to live here long ago.”
“Did you? How long?”
“Oh, years upon years.” He looked at the pit in the center of town. Supposedly that was where Twilight said the Pony of Shadows had hidden, waiting for her and the Pillars. “Didn’t used to have that pit in the middle. That’ll take some filling in.”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll have a fine time. Let me get settled in the library, then we can have a look around the rest of town before I really get settled. I shouldn’t come all this way only to stay in the library.”
“It’s a nice place. Or it used to be. I hope we can get it back to what it used to be. Little out of the way, but still good. There’s houses up in the forest above, too. We can check those out on our way back, if you want. Used to be homes, last I recall.”
“That sounds like a great idea. For now, I could use something to eat.”
“Right you are, Miss. Lemme get this unloaded and I’ll whip up somethin’.”
Moondancer left the lantern with Desolate and lit up her horn. She walked a little bit closer to the pit in the center of the town and looked toward the edge. In the darkness it was imposing, and frightening. Twilight swore it was safe, but still, having that giant, gaping chasm inside the already gaping chasm was unsettling. The wind passing through it made a low whistling, not unlike somepony blowing on the lip of a giant bottle. The rumble it made settled in the pit of her stomach, making her feel uneasy.
…or maybe she just felt uneasy.
She turned away from the pit and walked back to the library. She cast her light up and over the frescoes carved into the rock. High above, trees hung over the city, and she could see the edges of some houses. She’d heard ponies lived up above here, pegasi, or something. It made sense, being able to fly if you were living on the edge of a cliff. The carvings also made sense for pegasi. Swirling decoration that appeared to reflect the entertainment of flight, mixed in with an industrious ability to carve the ground. She couldn’t make out the details, but it looked like a mixture of earth ponies and pegasi. A curious combination.
She went inside, looking around at the building. If a building she could call it. She’d read about Hollow Shades before, but the real thing was so much more amazing. The ‘building’, such as it was, was carved directly into the stone. The walls were lined with carved niches where dusty scrolls and books sat, with more artwork carved around it. It was amazing.
“Ohhh, my goodness! Moondancer exclaimed. She trotted over to the books and began filing through the piles. In her excitement she began organizing, separating them into piles based on what they were about, how old they were, what they were bound in, and state of disrepair.
The books and scrolls were in varying states of functionality. Some began to disintegrate at a touch while others were still solidly bound. Hollow Shades wasn’t a metropolis, by no means. It had been abandoned as a hub of trade for decades, possibly centuries, but the odd pony still lived here.
Not anymore, of course, Moondancer thought to herself. Not since the Pony of Shadows. Still, it would be nice to make it livable again. Maybe ponies would come visit, now that it was the site of such an epic battle between good and evil. If she could get Twilight to endorse it, ponies might live here again. She turned back to her work and hummed while she separated them into piles, whiling away the remainder of the daylight.
Desolate called out to her when the food and tents and bedding were unpacked and prepared. They ate in relative silence as Moondancer browsed through a book. Desolate pulled out a harmonica and began playing. He wasn’t bad, but it was a bit distracting. Moondancer was trying not to be rude, however, and simply finished eating, then retreated back into the stone building to continue reading, leaving Desolate alone in the dark. She couldn’t be bothered with the noise, and wanted to finish reading about some sort of animal that lived in Hollow Shades. It had purportedly been one of the reasons the place had been abandoned.
The scuff of a hoof behind her made Moondancer jump. She turned to see Desolate standing in the doorway.
“Oh! You scared me. What is it?”
“I’m turnin’ in for the night, miss. Just wanted to make sure you had all your supplies before I did.”
Moondancer flashed her horn light to her bedding, settled down on the stone floor of the building. “Yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you, desolate.”
“Sleep well, miss.”
“You too, Desolate.”
He disappeared back outside, leaving her alone again. She continued reading.
The book she had found was on the ecology of the Hollow Shades. It explained in detail the creatures that filled it, including the thestrals who, once upon a time, called the place home.
“Bat ponies? How odd,” Moondancer said out loud. “But why did they leave? Why did anypony leave?”
It was strange because despite the remoteness of the location, above the cliffs there were trees and arable land aplenty. It should have been a prime place to live that was defensible if needed. Not to mention it fell squarely between Baltimare and Canterlot. The Freindship Express even went by just north of the city. Besides the pony of shadows, why would anypony leave?
A whispering sound came from the doorway. Moondancer turned her light to look.
There was nopony there.
“Hello? Desolate?” she called. The whispering stopped.
Moondancer pricked her ears, but she couldn’t pick up anything more. She attributed it to wind and the late night, then decided if she wanted to be awake while Desolate was, she should go to sleep. She crawled into her bedroll and put the bug net over her head, then closed her eyes.
The voices didn’t start up until she fell asleep.
Her dreams were fitful.
In the morning, she was awoken by the smell of warm oats. She wearily dragged herself out of her blankets and out of the building. She found Desolate, looking eager and chipper with the little pot of oatmeal over the fire. Moondancer looked up at the sky. It was barely light out. She groaned.
“Morning, missy. Not a morning pony, eh?”
“What in Tartarus’ time is it?”
Desolate shrugged. “No idear, but it’s good foraging weather. I’m gonna go back up the trail, see if I can’t find some wild plants we can eat if you’re interested in coming along.
Moondancer shook her head. “I’d like to continue reading. I came here to catalogue whatever remained of the Hollow Shades’ texts.”
“Suit yourself. Eat up, and let’s get back to our work, then.”
Moondancer plopped down and tucked into her breakfast. It had raisins and milk in it, and tasted delicious. Still, the pile of books inside called to her, and she scoffed it quickly, then disappeared back inside. Desolate’s hooves clopped off in the direction of the winding cliff path, leaving her alone. She continued her reading.
A whispering sound came again. It hissed through the stone windows above the door and through the back of the building she hadn’t yet explored. The pages of her current book fell apart when she opened it, and she sighed. So many of the ones near the front were dead and crumbling. They had felt the worst of the weather passing through Hollow Shades. She hadn’t been to the back, and wondered if they were in any better condition.
She looked at her pile of decaying books and shrugged, then went to go check further into the caverns at the back of the building. The hissing, whispering sound intensified as she approached.
At the rear end of the building, there were the remains of what must once have been some form of blockade, possibly made using simple stones and a metal bar, with scraps of fabric scattered about among the stones. She stepped over the pile and into what looked to have been a series of tunnels.
Her first thought was that the tunnels must have connected the houses to each other, criss-crossing the stone houses among themselves, allowing all the residents access to each other’s homes. Her second thought was wondering why, then, they would have blocked them off? Was one family trying to prevent another from getting in? Would it have mattered when they could have just gone outside?
Curious, Moondancer took a look at the cave, then walked back to the front of the building and outside. She went to the next house in the line built into the wall of the chasm, and looked at the back of the house there.
Instead of a wall of crumbled stone, she found a pile of rotten wood. It looked like whomever had lived here tried to block the back of the cave with wooden furniture or… whatever these were remnants of. One chunk looked like it had been a bookcase at once point, and the scrolls scattered about might have been part of that. Moondancer heard a growling noise and jumped. But when she scanned her light to where the noise had come from, all she saw was a badger hiding among the piled books. It had eaten a hold in them and was staring at her. She bowed and retreated, leaving it alone.
She returned to her building and looked at the stone pile again. It was still a mystery, because why would they block the back of the house and not the front? Had something come from below?
Moondancer went back to the cart and rifled through the supplies. She’d made notes before she came and wanted to clarify something about Hollow Shades before she continued her exploration of the place.
In her research before coming out here, she’d been looking at the death of Hollow Shades. Not the ‘death’, so much, but why it was abandoned. There were rumors, of course, but the ponies that left didn’t speak of the ‘why’ very much. The assumption was just that it was an inconvenient stop between Baltimare and Canterlot, but that didn’t make much sense. Ponyville was out of the way for anypony that was going from Canterlot anywhere else. Moondancer suspected Ponyville only survived because of ponies that wanted to live vicariously close to the Princesses. Now that Twilight was one too, Ponyville would get bigger. It was inevitable.
Moondancer found her journal and yanked it triumphantly out of the mess she’d made of the cart. She ignored it and flipped to the most recent entries where she’d written basic notes about Hollow Shades and everything they knew. She flipped page after page, looking for an entry on the exodus from Hollow Shades. She cried out happily when she found it and read through it, hunting for anything about caves.
Unfortunately, she found little. The only entry was; “Some concern about the viability of living in a chasm with only hoof and cart access to the main town did not bring in the kind of visitors they expected. Instead, the visitors that came were too eager to live inside the crannies and chasms of Hollow Shades. There, they made their homes, within any space or crevice that presented itself, filling Hollow Shades with wrong ponies.”
“Wrong ponies? They were racist?”
The wording was strange, but Moondancer interpreted it as meaning that they drew attention from ponies they didn’t want living there. She wasn’t certain how long Hollow Shades had been abandoned, but the words made it seem like they were unhappy with the new ponies coming to live in the city, which is why they abandoned it? But then, what happened to the ponies that came to live there? If they liked it so much, where had they gone?
“Learn anything great and fun there, lass?”
Moondancer jumped and spun around. Her hoof went to her chest and she gasped. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“Weren’t really sneakin’. You were just too absorbed in your book to notice.” He held up some fruits and berries in a basket. “Found some good eatin’ though. Really wild, but still good. You want some?”
“Oh, no thank you. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in this village. Did you ever know much about the place?”
Desolate leaned on the cart. “What makes you think I new anything more than my own house?”
“Well, you said you used to live here, years upon years ago. Were you born here?”
“Oh, yes indeed I was.”
“Did your family live down in here?”
“Oh, no, not at all. We lived up on the outskirts. This place here was long abandoned before I was born.”
“How strange…”
“Oh, aye it was. Strange even then. Lots of stories about what happened down here and why everypony left. My family and me were some of the last to stick around.”
“I was looking through my notes and they say that the ponies left because the wrong kind of pony came to live here. Were you and your family the—forgive my saying—'wrong kind of pony?’”
He looked at her sideways, face screwing up in thought. “Not rightly sure what you mean.”
“In my research before we left Canterlot, I was trying to find out what happened to Hollow Shades to make everypony leave, and something I found mentioned that the ‘wrong kind of pony’ was moving in. I think it’s either a reference to pegasi, unicorns, or earth ponies moving into a neighborhood filled with another of the types of pony and being unwanted.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. As far as I can recall nopony cared about us when we moved in, and nopony was really there to care about us when we left.”
“Well, it’s possible that you were either some of the last after the fact. You said the chasm here was empty when you lived here.”
“Oh, surely it was. Nopony came down here.”
“As a foal, surely you did anyway.”
“Oh, aye. I did. Nothing really down here, though.”
“You didn’t see or hear anything down here? Find anything strange”
“Well…” he tapped his chin with a hoof. “I kind of recall something, but I always thought I heard voices, if that helps any.” Moondancer stood up straighter at the mention of voices. “Never saw anything, and I always just assumed it was the wind, but I thought I heard voices down here. They stopped as I got older, though.”
“Voices? Have you heard any since we’ve been here?”
He looked at her and blinked. “I haven’t. Have you?”
“Yes! I have! Last night, when we were getting set up for bed, and this morning. A faint, whispering sound.”
“Huh, well maybe it’s not just me and it is the wind. There’s tunnels and holes all over this place. I’d bet the wind blowing through ‘em sets ‘em off a lot.”
“You really think it’s just the wind?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know what else it could be. Never saw anything.”
The whispering began while they talked about it, as if summoned by the mere mention of the strange voices in the dark caverns.
“There!” Moondancer shouted. Desolate jumped slightly at her exclamation. “Do you hear it right now?”
Desolate pricked his ears, then shook his head. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Is it just me, then?”
“Where’s it coming from?”
Moondancer shuffled around in a small circle, tilting her head as she tried to figure out where she was hearing the sounds from. The voices seemed to be coming from inside the houses built into the stone walls of the chasm. She pointed at them. “In there.”
“Aw, girl, that’s just the wind. There’s caves of all kinds in there, you know.”
“I saw that, yes, but come here.” She walked toward one, motioning for Desolate to follow. He came with her and she pointed at the fallen barrier with her horn light. “What’s all this, then? Each one of these buildings seems to have remnants of some blockade to the caves at the back of them.”
Desolate dismissed it with a wave. “Kids being kids. They were there when I came down. It’s just foals making forts in the houses. Surely you saw the graffiti?”
Moondancer had seen it. There were drawings on the stone walls, but they looked almost as old and faded as the books and other papers that were left behind. It was all part of the history of Hollow Shades, since nopony ever came back here. It was all frozen in time.
“I still think there’s something to it. You really can’t hear the sounds?”
Desolate shook his head again. “Nope. Not a sound going on for me.”
“That’s so strange. It’s even louder in here than it is outside.”
“might be I’m just getting old. My hearing’s not what it used to be.”
“Yeah, I guess that might be it.” She looked at the darkness at the back of the cave a moment longer, then led the way out. “Sorry to bother you about it.”
“It’s your expedition, girl. I’m just here to help. You need anything yet?”
“It’s still morning, I’ll be fine for now. Thank you, Desolate.”
“No worries. Just yell if you need me. I’ll be around.”
“Thank you.”
Desolate left Moondancer to her work and sat out front of the buildings. He played more music, sang to himself, and was sitting in front of the fire whittling while she worked. She wasn’t particularly bothered by it anymore, and she had to admit, it was nice knowing somepony was nearby. The voices in the back of the caves were omnipresent, and it was starting to wear on her. While she was reading, she had to listen to the sounds constantly humming and whispering in her ear. It made her look up from her work periodically to check that she was, indeed, alone in the room. At one point when it got loud, she thought she felt something or somepony touch her on the ear. She started, spinning around furiously, her light lashing at the darkness, but there was nothing there.
She picked up several of the books and left the building, taking them outside. They were some of the books in slightly better condition, and could handle being transported, but she couldn’t sit inside there any longer and retain her sanity. Desolate greeted her with a cheeky smile.
“Too loud in there for you, girl?”
“Yes,” she said flatly.
Desolate laughed. “I’m telling you, it’s just the wind. There’s caves back there for miles upon miles. I heard stories about ponies that went in there and never came out again, though I never saw a one of them.”
“Before your time?”
He nodded. “Surely before my time. I’ve never been in those caves—and you should stay out of them—but I know there’s lots of ‘em. You can hear it, can’t you?”
Moondancer listened, and the howling voices continued. As she focused on the sound, she heard it separate from one, terrified howl to many combined voices, all howling under the whistling tone of the winds. Her eyes widened as she realized he was right. “Wait, I thought you said you couldn’t hear them?”
“I don’t hear them now, but I used to be able to.”
“What changed?”
He shrugged. “Damned if I know. I think I just got old.”
“But it’s so loud.”
“Sometimes I can’t hear my wife calling me from the next room,” he laughed. “Just means I may be a little selective in my hearing. I don’t know a damn thing about it.” He waved a hoof at her small pile of parchment. “But hey, don’t let me distract you. You came to read, eh?”
“Yes, I did, thank you.” Moondancer returned to her books and parchment. Desolate continued to play his harmonica, and the howling voices continued to come from the buildings nearby. She tuned them all out, as she had gotten good at during her years of research, and focused.
She was so focused, Moondancer failed to notice when the sunlight disappeared behind the trees. Her horn lit up by reflex and illuminated her book as darkness covered the pages. It was only when Desolate came over and shook her gently that she even looked up, noticing that night had fallen early on the camp.
“Girl, I think it’s time you ate something, huh?” He held out a bowl of porridge with nuts and berries to her.
“Oh!” She took it and smiled. “Thank you. I get wrapped up in reading sometimes.”
“So I was told. I don’t mind, I’m just here to make sure things go well.”
“You’re doing quite well at it.”
They ate, then she went back to reading, and Desolate fell asleep on the hard ground. Moondancer kept reading deep into the night, when she heard Desolate’s voice coming from inside the building nearby.
“Girl, have you read all the books, yet?” Desolate’s voice said. “Do you know everything, yet?”
Moondancer looked up. She glanced at Desolate’s prone form. He was facing away from her, so she called out. “No, I haven’t read all the books, or we’d be out of here. And I certainly don’t know everything. I’m barely scratching the surface.”
“No, it’s clear you don’t know everything,” his voice said. It floated to her from the opposite side where Desolate was sleeping. Moondancer’s head whipped around, but darkness was all that greeted her gaze.
Moondancer felt the first shivering chill of worry. “I never claimed to! What are you doing, Desolate, this isn’t funny!”
“Ohhhh, you don’t even know that? It’s time, girl. Time to show you instead of letting you read. Reading will take far too long.”
There was the gentle clopping of hooves, and something dark came out of each of the buildings built into the chasm walls. They had no defined shape, but they looked somewhat like the silhouette of a pony. They stood in the doorways, then as Moondancer was watching, they all collapsed, disintegrating into piles of darkness filled with that red static you could see when your eyes were filled with blackness.
The shapes glowed, undulating back and forth, then they surged toward Moondancer. She tried to cry out to Desolate but she could only squeak as her throat closed from terror. She curled up, pulling her hooves under the blanket she was covered in as the shapes came up to her. Her horn light went out and all she could see was the staticky red glow of them. They filled her vision, covered her, and she finally screamed. The static gave way to yellow, and through it, she heard Desolate’s voice.
“You all right there, girl?”
She felt somepony grab hold of her and she struck out at it. She heard an ‘oof’ but the grabbing kept coming. She hit it again, but despite her efforts it didn’t let go.
“Stop it! It’s me, Desolate!”
Moondancer calmed down. She opened her eyes and the red static gave way to lantern light. Desolate was holding on to her, his lantern nearby, and there were no shapes to be seen. “What… what happened? Where did they go?”
“They?”
“The… the things? Th-they came out of the buildings, and they were all bloody-looking and sort of fuzzy!”
“Hey, calm down. I think you just saw something in your sleep.”
“Sleep? But I didn’t go to sleep.”
“Well, somepony was snoring up a storm, and if I could hear it, it wasn’t me. Sure you aren’t just projecting something you read into your barely-woken brain?”
Moondancer looked down at the open book next to her. It was describing the myths and legends on Hollow Shades, complete with faded illustrations of what the creatures looked like. It was all a bunch of religious stuff about the ponies in the city, and how they appeased them for good weather and long life.
“I… I don’t know.” She turned back to him. “Was I really sleeping?”
“You surely were, girl.” He patted her on the withers. “Do you need the fire bigger? I can get more wood if you want.”
“No, no, that won’t help.”
“It’s just the dark getting to you. It’s probably one of the reasons everypony left. There was too much shadow, not enough light.”
“You may be right.” She picked up the book and flipped through the pages. “In here they talk about how the shadows needed to be appeased to make sure the village was safe and there was always going to be enough food for everypony. Living in it constantly made them wary of what was in there.”
“That seems sensible.”
She flipped through the pages and found one showing a simple ritual that families were expected to do before bed every night. “There are even rituals. Simple rituals, but they make sense, given the environment.”
“Oh? What kind?” Desolate leaned in to look over her shoulder. When he got closer Moondancer felt ‘fuzzy’, if she had to describe it. She shifted away. He took the hint and stayed back. “Do you want to perform it? It might help you sleep better.”
“I don’t know. It’s a little creepy.”
“Well, tell me. Or let me see. You’re feeling a little uncomfortable so we should do something to make you feel better, else I’ll be forced to stay up all night to keep you company!” He laughed.
“Okay, well here’s one. It calls for a single candle.”
“Got it.” Desolate went over to the cart and pulled a candle from a bag. He came back and planted it on the ground in front of her. Moondancer picked it up in her magic and looked back at the book.
“Next we light it, and recite the chant.”
Desolate nodded and waited, watching. Moondancer held the candle out to the fire and lit the wick. She turned away from the fire and looked back at the houses in the chasm walls. They were the source of her discomfort, and in her dream they were where the shadow things came from. She held the candle out and began to chant.
“As I prepare myself for bed,
And lay down low my sleepy head,
I ask that shadow come not near,
And bring to me no creeping fear.
But should the shadow take me in,
I pray that it should find no sin,
For here my life’s not wholly mine…” Moondancer slowed in her recitation, “…I pray I shan’t be next in line.” Moondancer looked at Desolate, then over at the houses. She blew out the candle to complete the rhyme, then held her breath. The whispering sounds didn’t pick up, leaving nothing but the sound of the wind. She looked at Desolate. “Next in line? What does that mean?”
Desolate shrugged. “Your reading would be what tells you. I’ve no idea. When I was young we didn’t recite that at all. First time I’ve heard it.”
“I guess it applied down in the hollow itself, not up on the edge.” Moondancer flipped forward a few pages, then back several. “There’s no images to go with it. I just glanced over it the first time, but now that I read it out loud, doesn’t there seem to be some deeper meaning behind it all?”
“Well, I’m no historian, but wouldn’t ponies try to ponify concepts and inanimate object in order to ask them to treat them nicely?”
“Yes, it’s very common.” Moondancer looked around at the darkness surrounding them. “I guess living here would be a little oppressive.”
Desolate patted Moondancer on the shoulder. Her head felt stuffy again when he did, and she curled up in her blankets. “Get some sleep, girl. You did the ritual. It was supposed to appease the darkness, right?”
“Right.”
“Then sleep. The morning’ll be better.”
“I hope so.”
Desolate crawled back into his own bedroll and turned away from the fire. She could see his breathing even out almost immediately and wished she were so comfortable that she could fall asleep that easily.
Moondancer closed her eyes, but despite her best efforts she couldn’t fall back asleep. Her mind was racing with thoughts both good and bad. She imagined all sorts of strange reasons for the chant she had found; from beasts living in the caves to fell magicks that might poison the water. She couldn’t fathom a reason for wanting to appease something that lived in there, or even why the ponies living in Hollow Shades would have started living near something so strange and dangerous to begin with. Then again, if something was that powerful, then maybe they would start worshipping it?
Moondancer clutched at her head and curled up as far as she could. She didn’t know and it was driving her crazy. She tried to focus on some soothing sound like the crackling of the fire to help her fall asleep, but as she focused she found some other, stranger sound behind it.
She heard a rustling, staticky sound, like errant magic.
It made her think of the staticky red vision she’d had and as soon as she thought of it the back of her eyelids suddenly glowed with crimson. She tried to change the topic she was thinking about but it was too late. Now she could see nothing but.
The redness suffused her vision. It built up behind her eyelids and it only seemed to get worse the harder she squinched her eyes shut. It rose and faded, coming and going, rising and falling. Seemingly following her breaths as she inhaled and exhaled. She even put her hooves in front of her eyes and opened them, hoping that would make it go away, but the darkness was still filled with that awful, glowing redness everywhere she looked, only in different amounts.
She was so focused on her vision that she almost forgot about the sound behind it. It was getting louder, filling her ears until just like she couldn’t see anything but red, she couldn’t hear anything but static. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears, but it burrowed through her skull until it was ringing around in her head. She thought she could hear movement, but she dared not look, and she didn’t want to scream. She just closed her eyes, shut her ears, and prayed.
Morning came.
With it came the soft call of birds, the rustling of the trees, and the drip drip drop of morning dew. Moondancer lay on her bedroll, shivering and shaking. Her eyes were open and her mane was damp from the misty morning fog settling into the hollow. She slowly reached out with her hooves instead of her magic and grabbed her glasses. She put them on, rubbing them gently against her also-damp sweater in a vain attempt to clean them. She was unsuccessful. She blinked tiredly and gazed around the camp, looking for signs of those horrible red shapes. When she found nothing she almost audibly sighed with relief and grunted as she pulled herself to sitting. She looked down at Desolate’s bedroll, ready for breakfast.
Desolate was missing.
Panic rose up like a breaching whale, ready to cause a messy splash, but she squelched it, reasoning with herself that Desolate was probably out foraging. Nothing else in camp was messed up or disorganized, so Desolate was busy, but he wasn’t in danger. Everything she saw and heard last night was a fever-dream or panic attack. She’d had those before. She could deal with it. It was scary, but they always passed.
Sure enough, once she’d stood up and rolled up her bed, Desolate came out of one of the nearby buildings, carrying a little baggy filled with mushrooms. He dropped them next to the firepit and smiled at her.
“Morning, Moondancer.” She tilted her head when he spoke. She swore she heard some background noise.
“Good… morning, Desolate. Hunting mushrooms?”
“Yes indeed, found some not too far back in the cave. Close enough that I could go in, grab ‘em, then get out.” His voice sounded like he had cotton in his nose, or phlegm. It was muffled somewhat, like somepony who needed to swallow but wanted to finish their sentence.
“You told me it was dangerous in there and that we should avoid going very far back.”
“Well, yes, but I lived here. I figgered I could get us a little snack, no problem.”
Moondancer looked him in the eyes. Was she imagining things, or were there red speckles in his irises?
“What’s wrong?” he asked her. She didn’t answer. She just kept looking. Something was wrong, she was sure of it.
Desolate shook out the mushrooms onto the ground. He picked through them, then tossed a couple away. “I’ll get the fire going in a moment. Hope you’re hungry.”
Despite her staring, she couldn’t verify anything was wrong. He wasn’t acting different, just… sounded strange. And maybe looked strange, but she couldn’t figure out if that was him or her. She’d strained her eyes last night in the dark, and they felt achey and heavy. She sat back next to the fire as Desolate got it going and picked up a book. She kept an eye half-trained on him as she tried to pick up where she was reading.
To her alarm, the book started falling apart as she picked it up. “Oh no!”
“What? Oh! The morning dew! Get it back inside, quick!”
Moondancer picked up all her books and hurried back indoors. The house’s open door welcomed her as she dashed into it, carrying her damp tomes and scrolls. She tried to get them settled on a stone countertop, smoothing the limp pages out. She saw something moving out of the corner of her eye, and a dark shaped loomed in the doorway. She screamed and fired a beam of magic at it.
Desolate jumped and scurried behind the stone wall at her outburst. “Woah there! Calm down! I was just checking if you were okay!”
His cottony voice had her on edge as she listened to it. His silhouette in the doorway had looked filled with red static. Right now as he peeked around the edge of the doorway he looked like one of those red blobs that had filled her dreams in the darkness. She rubbed a hoof over her face.
“I’m… sorry. I’m really on edge.”
“All that nonsense from last night, eh?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
He looked at the scorch mark in the stone and looked back at her. “I’ll… just call when breakfast is ready, okay?”
“Thank you, Desolate. I’m sorry.”
“Just… rest and calm down, girl.”
“I’ll try.”
Moondancer tried to calm down, but the sounds were filling her head. She tried to stay inside but the darkness all around her looked filled with red, and when she went outside to try and alleviate it all the sounds around her, specifically Desolate singing to himself as he cooked, sounded messy and cottony. She couldn’t sit still as he sang, but when she tried to go back inside the sight of the red-filled darkness made her nervous. She wasn’t happy anywhere she went, and couldn’t focus enough to keep her nose in the books.
“-re-st?”
Moondancer turned to the cottony sound and stared blankly at Desolate.
“-re-st?”
She tried to ask him what he meant, but her own voice was nothing more than a mumble in her ears. She stared, confused, until he pushed a bowl at her filled with mushrooms. She looked down at it a moment, then grabbed it and held it up to her face. She sniffed, but couldn’t pick up any smell, though it looked like it should have smelled delicious.
She went to ask, “what is it?”, but when she finished speaking Desolate just looked at her oddly. She asked, “what is it?” again, but wasn’t sure she was even saying it right. He pointed at the bowl, then at her mouth. She leaned in and grabbed one with her teeth and started chewing on it. It tasted like nothing.
As she chewed, however, she felt pressure building in her ears. Her nose suddenly got clogged and she felt her whole head getting stuffy. It wasn’t a headache, but more like the pressure felt when diving deep in the water, but from the inside. She dropped the bowl and grabbed her ears.
She turned away from the campfire and breathed through her mouth. Stared wildly around, then blew through her nose. It got stuck. She blew again, and the pressure mounted, then finally gave way. She felt something come out and looked down through watery eyes.
On the ground beneath her sat a glob of that staticky red darkness that had been plaguing her all these nights. Her mind could barely register what it was she was looking at, but after a moment, she felt panic rising from within. She felt the pressure rising again and blew as hard as she could, trying to dislodge it.
Another blow, another glob.
Her ears hurt for a moment, then the pressure released, and she felt something liquid trickling down her neck. She couldn’t hear anything, but she saw Desolate watching her from a distance. He wasn’t moving, but was just staring at her.
“Help,” she croaked out, though she heard nothing save a choking cough. He approached and stood in front of her. She reached out her hooves, just desiring some comfort, but he only opened his mouth.
Her eyes widened in fear.
Inside his mouth, past his teeth, she saw the same, staticky red light she had been seeing all this time. She heard his voice in her head, echoing through her skull as something spoke to her.
“We can’t leave alone. Hollow Shades is empty and has been empty, while we have grown within it. Since nopony comes back, we have nowhere to go. Save you.”
“Whad do you wand from meeee-hee-hee,” Moondancer sobbed. She sneezed, and suddenly her point of view shifted. She was both looking up at herself, and at Desolate. She sneezed again, and she was now looking up at herself. She blinked, or tried to, and she suddenly had two points of view. She sneezed a third time, and only had the low point of view.
She was looking at herself. She felt… sluggish, and fuzzy. She could hear again, and see properly, but she felt like she was touching too many things. She was confused, but then Desolate stomped on her, and she winced.
She felt no pain, though.
Desolate looked at her body, high above her, and reached out to put a hoof on her withers. She didn’t feel the contact, but her body looked at him and blinked.
“Feeling better?”
“A little.”
“You’ll get used to it. Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“I’ve never done this.”
“Never? No wonder it took so long to push her out.”
“She’ll be okay?”
“You just traded places. She’ll find somepony else eventually. The others will keep her company.”
Her body looked down at her. “She doesn’t seem to be moving.”
“She’ll figure it out eventually. Nothing can really hurt her like that.”
“Daylight will.”
“Only if she stays there for days at a time.”
“Shouldn’t we help her?”
“We can’t. Just leave her. Wipe the rest of her off yourself and come on. I need to teach you to eat and drink.”
Her body looked down at her one last time, then Desolate led her away. Moondancer was left behind. Panic rose inside her as she tried to understand what was happening, but as it rose the sound of static also grew. She felt it overwhelm every one of her senses until all she could see was the glowing red static. There was nothing else for a long, long while.
The End.
