The Holeby Unwhole HoleChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 1The season had grown late. The cold airs of late September had not yet arrived to the town of Ponyville, and the trees hung still and heavy with aging foliage, leafs that would never again be as green and verdant. Yet the scent of fall could still be smelled when the winds were right, when the wind blew from the north, rustling leaves and swaying trunks throughout the EverFree Forest. It was on this late summers day that it began. It came without being detected by pony eyes or ears, something unseen and unfelt in the distant perimeter of their town. In the EverFree Forest, a place of swampy ground and long-buried things in ancient hillocks, surrounded by trees whose histories no pony could recall, or perhaps that no pony had ever known. There were some places- -many, in fact- -within Equestria that could be considered dark. Those that had been so since the dawn of time, and some before, or those contaminated by curses or dark magic pushing through from distant an unspeakable places. This was not one of those places. It was an ordinary part of the forest, one that had never been differentiable from the rest. The only part of it that might now have alluded to what it had become, though, was the unusual and penetrating silence that had slowly come about in the past weeks. No cicada called, and no birds sang. Nothing rustled in the underbrush. Only the sound of the empty, lifeless wind through the trees could sometimes be heard- -and even that had come to sound strangely distant. Then this silence was interrupted- -by the sound of children’s laughter. “HA! You can’t catch me!” “Yes I can!” “Not without your scooter!” “You have stubby legs!” “I’ll make your HEAD stubby!” “That doesn’t even make sense!” One of the three young fillies burst through the underbrush. Her head was turned back, and she was about to shout that she WAS fast- -at least as fast as her beloved sister, or maybe even faster- -when she went over the edge into the gaping hole beyond. Scootaloo screamed. Her tiny, useless, atrophied wings buzzed, but to no avail. She began to plummet- -only to be suddenly grasped in a field of pale green magic. “Oop,” said Sweetie Belle. “We almost lost Scootaloo!” “That’s the third time this week,” muttered Applebloom, carefully picking her way past an oddly diseased blackberry bush. “I totally could have made it,” protested Scootaloo. “Sure you could,” said Sweetie Belle, lifting her and setting her back on the ground. “And I could sprout wings and barf cupcakes.” “Eew!” “Isn’t that actually a unicorn medical condition? I’m pretty sure I read that it is,” suggested Applebloom. Not even ironically. Sweetie Belle was about to protest, when her eyes were suddenly drawn to the hole that Scootaloo had nearly fallen into. She immediately gasped, her breath seeming to cease as all thoughts except for the hole left her minds. And what a hole it was. It was wide- -not exceptionally, but far wider than would be considered ordinary or reasonable- -and had perfectly straight walls. It might have been a well at one point, except that there was no sign that the walls were made of stone or rock. They were just dirt, descending down far into the blackness where the bottom could not be seen. Applebloom looked into the hole, as did Scootaloo. Each of them stepped to the very edge, and none spoke for several minutes as they stared into the mysterious blackness. “Whoa,” said Applebloom, finally. And that was all that could be said. Chapter 2The Great and Powerful Trixie (the most beloved pony in all of Ponyville, according to a very scientific poll that she herself had conducted) leaned forward across the outdoor Formica table. Her hat flopped over her eyes, and she adjusted it magically so that she could get a better view of the food sitting on a small, green-rimmed plate in front of her. Sitting upon the plate were three small rolls of white rice and seaweed. Her eyes flitted upward to the pony sitting across from her. “The Great and Powerful Trixie does not know how she feels about this…soo-sheeee.” Starlight stared back at her, both amused and slightly confused. “It’s fine. Try it.” “Trixie does not know.” Trixie poked at it. “I don’t know how I feel about raw things.” “You mean a raw avocado roll?” “Avocado is a suspicious fruit!” protested Trixie. “It has no practical use! It is the toe-sock of fruits!” “But it’s good in guacamole.” “Heresy! Guacamole is disgusting! It doesn’t taste like anything at all!” “Then you’ve never had good guacamole. Come on.” Starlight pushed the plate closer. “Eat it. I’m paying. And I know you need it.” Trixie gasped. “Are you saying Trixie is too THIN? That my flank is not adequately rounded and Celestia-like? I’ll have you know that I just purchased a new leotard, and I guarantee that I fill it out quite well- -” “But you don’t eat!” “The Great and Powerful Trixie eats many delicious and expensive foods!” “No. You graze outside of town when you think nopony’s looking.” Trixie blushed. “You…saw that?” “I’m Starlight Glimmer. I see everything.” Trixie huffed. Then she leaned forward and stuffed the rolls into her mouth. “Well?” “They thaste thtoopid,” said Trixie, shoving the rest in her mouth and swallowing. Starlight laughed. She could tell that Trixie liked them, and Trixie could tell that Starlight knew. It was how their relationship worked. Especially with regard to restaurants. New ones had been arriving steadily in town since the construction of the Castle of Frienships, as more ponies flocked to what would surely one day be a thriving city. Trixie, despite being great AND powerful, was both poor and not very adventurous. She greatly enjoyed new foods, but would never go out of her way to find them. That was Starlight’s job. And it worked. “Next week we can try the pizza place on first.” Trixie looked up just before she attempted to eat all of the wasabi. “This Pete Zah. Does he also have food? Will he bow down to Trixie’s greatness? Her POWERFULLNESS?” She paused. “Is he hot?” “Um…” The awkwardness of the situation was defused almost instantly as three loud children raced down the street, two of them in a wagon and the third pulling the other on a scooter. Trixie immediately grabbed her condiments and the last sushi fragment as if the fillies were about to steal them. Across the street, a blue Pegasus and a yellow-orange earth-pony were approaching from the opposite direction, perhaps discussing the next race at the Running of the Leaves- -and how not to get beaten by an (admittedly beloved) nerd this time. “Rainbow Dash! RAINBOW DASH!” Rainbow Dash turned. “Scoots! What’s up?” Scootaloo was so excited that she nearly fell off her Scooter and derailed the wagon carrying her friends. They hardly seemed to mind, though. All three of the fillies were wide-eyed and looked about to burst with excitement. Perhaps Starlight detected that something was wrong, that their pupils were just a little bit too wide, and their gazes a little bit too distant for their level of excitement. If she did, she did not say anything. If she had, things in the end might have been different. “Whoa, WHOA! What is it? Did you kiss a griffon or something?” Applejack elbowed her. “Don’t encourage bad behavior!” “What? I kissed a griffon at her age and I turned out fine!” Applejack frowned. “You…kissed a griffon? A guy griffon, right?” Rainbow Dash darkened. “Um…yes?” “Rainbow Dash Rainbow Dash Rainbow Dash RAINBOW DASH!” “Scoots, I’m right here! Don’t wear my name out!” That joke usually quieted Scootaloo relatively quickly, but at this point she was jumping so fast she was nearly vibrating. “We found something in the woods!” “It’s not another skeleton, is it?” Applejack shivered. “Because you’re supposed to leave those there. I got in soooo much trouble the last time- -” “No, no, not this time!” Applebloom was climbing over Sweetie Belle to get out of the wagon. “No! We found- -” “We found a HOLE!” cried Sweetie Belle. “Hey, I wanted to tell them!” “Wait,” said Applejack, raising an eyebrow. “A hole? You’re all excited over…a hole?” “Well when you put it like that- -” “But it’s not just a hole!” squeaked Scootaloo. “It’s the most amazing hole EVER! You have to come see it!” She grabbed Rainbow Dash’s hoof. “Come on! COME ON! You have to see it! It’s so COOL!” “Well…I do like cool things. And I’m not scheduled for a nap for another thirty minutes or so…So I guess I can make some time.” She ruffled Scootaloo’s hair. “Sure. Show me where this so-called ‘hole’ is.” “Now just wait a minute,” said Applejack. “Rainbow, you may know cloud stuff but you couldn’t tell your rump from a hole in the ground! I’m coming too.” The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked overjoyed, and excitedly led the pair of adult ponies back the way they had come. Starlight waved to them as they passed, and they waved back. Trixie, meanwhile, jealously guarded the condiments that she had already begun hiding in her cape. “All that excitement over a hole?” muttered Trixie. “Trixie is FAR more interesting than some pit. I mean, I can understand earth-ponies, they love dirt…but Pegasuses too?” “Pegasi. And you know how kids can be.” “I don’t have any children! Who have you been talking to?!” Starlight blinked, and then began to laugh. Trixie looked confused for a moment, and then joined in as well, even if she did not know why. “Come on. Let’s get back to the castle before it gets dark.” Trixie nodded and stood up, the soy-sauce in her cape jingling, and joined her best friend on the way up the hill toward the vicinity of where the both of them lived. Chapter 3The night was dark and moonless, and Trixie dreamed of strange and terrible things. Twice that night she awoke, both times in a daze and both times desperately needing to make water- -but too afraid to venture out of her cart and into the depths of night outside. When she finally awoke, she was screaming and covered in sweat. Light was pouring in through her cart’s window. Celestia had already raised the sun, and it sat above the land, as warm and pleasant as it was distant and passive. On an ordinary day, Trixie might have stayed in bed for a few hours longer. She did not technically have a job. Still, she was a performer, and there was work to be done. That, and she really needed to pee. Trixie normally lived roughly in Twilight’s front yard, or what was rapidly becoming a courtyard. Near this was a grove where she normally did her business, as her cart lacked any semblance of plumbing. It was purposely very near where Twilight grew a small garden. Although they were technically something similar to friends, Trixie was still mildly vindictive if only because Twilight had gotten wings while she had not yet figured out how to obtain a pair (short of wing-growth tonic obtained from a pair of peppermint-maned twins, which was at present not helping at all). As she was watering Twilight’s melons, Trixie became aware of two ponies passing. Like most of the residents of Ponyville, she had no idea what their names were. They were, however, talking, so Trixie listened, wondering the whole time if they were speaking about her. “Did you see it?” That one was a mare. Perhaps one with a flower for a name. She sounded excited. “Please tell me you saw it!” “I’m on my way there right now.” A stallion, not quite excited but happy and polite. “I heard about it from Berry, she went to see it last night.” “I know! I was there! You’ve GOT to see it! It’s the most amazing thing in the WHOLE WORLD! I mean, I know it’s just a hole, but…gah, I don’t know how to explain it! It’s like you can’t stop staring at it!” “Well, if it’s that impressive, I’ve just got to, don’t I?” “You DO! I’m on my way there right now!” “To see it again?” “Yeah! I hardly even slept last night! I was just wired! I designed six new arrangements and did all the orders for the next month! I don’t know how, but it just…it inspires me!” Trixie harrumphed. They were not talking about her at all, unless she was the “hole”. And if that was the case, it was probably insulting. She stood up and kicked some dirt behind her. Then she made her way into town. The situation did not improve, and Trixie’s day worsened. Not only had she slept poorly, but now the entire town was alight with talk- -and none of it about her. Everywhere she looked, everypony was constantly excited. Almost all were talking about the hole; it was in their every conversation. Word had apparently traveled fast, and many were talking about their experience with the hole, either because they had visited it late on the previous night or in the several hours since the sun had come up (none went during the night, as no pony would ever enter or even approach the EverFree at night, not for any hole in the whole world). Others were voicing their intention to go. Many seemed to be missing. Trixie stopped at a drink stand, intending to buy a large smoothie to be put on the tab she never intended to pay for. Much to her chagrin, though, the smoothie pony was away- -no doubt visiting the hole. “Stupid hole,” muttered Trixie, largely to herself. “First it’s taking all the attention that rightfully belongs to Trixie, and now it’s taking Trixie’s smoothie too!” She puffed herself up under her cape. “Trixie is MUCH better than any hole! Better than a chasm! Better than an entire CANYON!” She then looked both ways, mainly to see if ponies were listening- -but also to see if any were watching. When she saw that none were, she stuffed the fruit meant for the smoothies into her mouth and hat and departed quickly. Her day continued this way, and she grew more and more annoyed. She seemed to be the only one. Most of the Ponyville residents were intrigued and happy, gladly listening to their friends and stories about an amazing wonder in the forest. Trixie thought that the whole thing made them seem like profound hicks: after all, their lives were apparently so boring that the most interesting thing that had happened in months was the opening of a sinkhole. It was annoying but not worrying. At least not on a conscious level. Not at first. There was fear, but it was deep, and with Trixie it manifested as anger. Anger that eventually grew to the point where Trixie, as much as she was loathe to, felt she needed to speak to Ponyville’s de-facto leader. In this, she proved not to have a choice. She was heading home to her cart to get a rack of posters (to post throughout the town; she unfortunately did not yet have enough funds to hire a promotor) while Twilight was leaving her enormous, overly ostentatious, ugly castle. Twilight, of course, was followed by her pet/child dragon Spike, trotting along with a long piece of parchment and holding a purple quill. “You have a meeting with the town council, then an assembly at the local school, then the discussion on library usage- -” “Spike, please. I know my own list!” “You said that the last time. And who was the one who had to deal with the town zoning commission? That was me.” “And you did a great job!” Twilight ruffled his fringe, or what Trixie roughly thought of as hair (even if it was more like a kind of fin). “Twilight!” said Trixie, trotting toward her. Twilight cringed slightly- -enough for Trixie to notice- -but she smiled anyway. Trixie approached her and felt the familiar sense of grave annoyance. Twilight’s alicornening had left her several inches taller and with a horn that was already growing far longer and harder than Trixie’s own, both features that made Trixie’s inferiority complex itch. Still, she sucked it up, because she had a grievance. “Twilight, I was walking through town- -” “Not riding a chariot pulled by children this time?” muttered Spike, rolling his eyes. “That was one time! ONE TIME!” “Spike,” said Twilight, “we talked about this.” “The Reformed and Repentant Trixie walks on her LEGS! And sometimes in a cart when the pony pulling it does not notice that Trixie climbs in the back!” “Wait, what?” “Which is not the point! Twilight, I’m annoyed!” “So what else is new?” sighed Spike. “Spike!” “All the ponies!” continued Trixie. “They’re all talking about some hole, and not about ME!” Twilight looked at her, and then chuckled. “Do not laugh at Trixie!” “Trixie, I’m not laughing at you- -” “Really? Because it looks like you are.” “No, no.” Twilight calmed herself. She started to walk, and Trixie begrudgingly followed. “I’ve heard about this hole. Actually, for well over an hour. Without a stop. From Rainbow Dash. Even Applejack put in a good word for it.” “And you don’t think it’s weird? All this attention to…a hole?” “Well, I suppose it is a little strange…but this is a relatively rural town, populated mostly by earth-ponies. Their culture may assign a greater significance to it than ours does.” Her eyes lit up. “Spike, right that down! I’ll conduct a sociology study on comparative social value of landforms.” “Already wrote it down. Before we even started talking.” “Great!” Twilight turned back to Trixie. “I’m actually scheduled to take a look at it myself, just to see what it is. I mean, I’m sure it’s just a hole, but I might as well see what all my friends think is so much fun.” “But…what if something’s wrong?” Twilight stopped walking. “Wrong?” “Don’t you think it’s all…weird?” Twilight tilted her head. “I guess so. A little bit. But it makes ponies happy, doesn’t it? I mean, Ponyville is a great place. My favorite place, in the whole world. And if there’s another wonder being added to it, then, well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” “I…guess…” Twilight put her hoof on Trixie’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re worrying about other pony’s safety. It’s a sign that you’re really coming along in learning the value of harmony and friendship. But it’s just a hole. I’m sure there’s nothing to be afraid of. And if there is, I’ll fix it. I am a Princess, after all.” Trixie frowned, but did not agree verbally. Twilight smiled back, and then continued on her way. “You can come with me if you want.” “No thank you. I am FAR too busy to gawk at some smelly hole. I have a magic act to plan. Starlight will be helping me in the afternoon, too. It’s going to be spectacular! Amazing! Profound!” “And probably messy,” added Spike. “I’ll make a note to get the cleaner set up.” Trixie almost paused to protest, but realized that was probably a good idea, especially if the sawing-in-half trick went wrong again. Still, she felt uneasy as Twilight and Spike departed. As if they had not really understood. The sun crossed slowly through the sky until it came to the end of its path. As it began to set, its color began to change, slowly turning from white-yellow to pale orange. Later that day, red would cross through the sky, producing a beautiful sunset painted against the clouds that any pony could see- -not that any ponies would, though, as none would be looking up. Trixie was busy at her cart when Starlight arrived. She was setting up a stage, not for performance but simply to get placement down as well as trick passageways that she had assembled for tricks requiring rapid disappearances. Sure, Starlight could teleport her- -and she could teleport herself, sometimes- -but doing in the old fashion way always seemed more reliable. Even if sometimes she got stuck. “Starlight! There you are! Quick!” Trixie leapt into her cart and began to rummage through. “Before we start, I want to fit you for the assistant’s costume. I hope you like leotards, because that’s what you’re going to be wearing. It’s not as fancy as mine, but we’ll have matching leggings- -” “Um, Trix?” Trixie looked up. Anytime Starlight said “Trix”, it meant she was about to say something that Trixie did not want to hear. “What is it?” Starlight looked embarrassed. “I know how important this is to you, I really do, but…” “But what? Butt’s are for Celestia, Starlight. What are you talking about?” “Is it possible we could…reschedule?” “Reschedule? My performance is in three days! I have to practice! Starlight, this is very important to me!” “I know, but…well, the whole town is having a party. Down at the hole.” Trixie’s jaw clenched. “The…hole?” Starlight nodded but could not meet Trixie’s eye. “You’re ditching me for a HOLE?!” “I’m not ditching you! Twilight asked me to come, and I came to ask you to come! With me!” “What, like a date?” Starlight blushed. “N- -no- -” “Starlight, you’re my assistant! My Slightly Less Great but Secretly More Powerful Assistant!” She smacked her lips. That was probably too long of a title. “I want you to be part of my show!” “I know! But Pinkie’s throwing the party, and you know how good she is at it!” “I don’t care! I don’t care if Celestia herself is throwing it with royal cake!” “And Maud! Maud’s been more excited than I’ve ever seen her, you know how much she loves landforms! She wants to do a thorough inspection- -” “Starlight…are these…excuses?” Starlight pawed the ground. “Well, it’s just…I’ve already seen it. With Applejack and Rarity. And it was really cool.” She paused. “I don’t know how. I mean, it’s just a hole in the ground…but there’s just something about it. Something profound. I can’t stop thinking about it. I really want to go back, to show it to all my friends.” She looked up. “I want you to come too.” Trixie looked at her, nearly aghast, and then turned away, wiping sweat from her face- -or at least pretending to. In actuality, she was wiping away tears. “Fine. If you want to go see a stupid hole instead of help me practice, go ahead. Have fun at the party. But I have work to do. All alone.” “Trixie, come on- -” “I’m not trying to guilt you, Starlight. But you should feel guilty. You’re breaking a promise. For a HOLE. Think about that while you’re there.” Starlight sighed. “I will.” Then she left, and Trixie was alone. By then, it was too late. Chapter 4The effect continued into the next day, much to Trixie’s chagrin. While the day before the town had been abuzz, now it was practically humming with energy. Ponies were laughing and prancing more vigorously than they did even near royally-mandated holidays, all of them seeming energetic- -but at the same time, oddly distant. As if their minds were on something else. They performed their tasks and jobs with greater vigor and inspiration, but at the same time with greater distance. Trixie’s morning smoothie was a brand new flavor- -something that never happened- -but the bananas in it had not been peeled, and the whole thing had barely even been mixed. When she stopped at the café for breakfast, they had new hay burritos en masse- -but somepony had mistakenly used straw instead of hay, and Trixie spent most of her breakfast time trying to cough it out. Ponies repaving parts of the road had done so far faster than had been planned- -but in the process failed to grade the road, and very nearly sealed Scootaloo in asphalt. Scootaloo, who should have been in school but was sneaking out to see the hole- -and Scootaloo, who as one of the first to have seen it, who was already beginning to manifest the more sinister symptoms of prolonged exposure. To Trixie, it was all more than annoying- -but as the Greatest and most Powerful pony ever to walk the face of Equestria, she had grown accustomed to tolerating annoyance. Still, she was beginning to feel strange. Strange in a way she did not understand consciously. The summer day was not as warm as it had been. The morning was cold, and the leaves would change soon. They would burn in colors brighter than they ever had, and then they would die and fall. There was work to be done. The coolness of the morning made Trixie shiver and wonder what the weather would bring, but there was no sense in complaining. The weather ponies never listened to her suggestions anyway. She had not gotten to her posters the day before, and she was behind on her practice. Additionally, she now darkly acknowledged that there was a chance she might need to write Starlight out of the act entirely. That is, if she insisted on going to raging parties and seeing holes instead of helping like she promised. Little happened out of the ordinary until late in the day when Starlight approached Trixie from the main street. Trixie, of course, pretended that she was not even there. “Hey,” said Starlight. “What is that? Is that the sound of wind? Or maybe hot air?” “Trixie, come on. I said I’m sorry.” “No. No you didn’t. You were a jerk, Starlight. And believe me, I know how being a jerk feels.” “Trixie.” Starlight’s tone was serious. “I can’t find Maud.” Trixie paused from putting up her poster. “Maud?” “She was at the party last night, but…” “You know how Maud is,” said Trixie, quickly. “She’s sensitive. She’s probably back at her cave.” “I already checked. She wasn’t there. I don’t think she ever went home.” “Well, then, she’s probably at your stupid hole- -” “The hole is not stupid!” cried Starlight, loud enough to cause Trixie to jump. Trixie looked at her, eyes wide in confusion. Starlight was breathing hard, harder than she should have been. Her pupils were strangely narrow, but they began to widen, if only slightly. “Sorry,” said Starlight, running her hoof over her face. “I didn’t mean to yell. I didn’t sleep much.” “To busy partying?” “No, I went to bed early. But I was…thinking.” “About what?” Starlight did not answer. She just shook her head. “I already checked the hole. As soon as I woke up. She wasn’t there, but…” She trailed off. “What?” “There were ponies there. Two of those little girls. Some others. They were just…standing there. Staring down it. Not even moving.” Trixie shivered. “It must be some hole.” “It is,” said Starlight. She sounded terrified. “They…they didn’t look good. Especially the girls. I…I don’t think they went home. I think they were just there. The whole night.” “In the EverFree? Even I wouldn’t try that, and I’ve dragged a cart through some hairy bush.” “I know. I think…I think something’s wrong.” It seemed like it took a great deal of effort for her to say it, and when she looked up Trixie gasped. Starlight looked tremendously old. “What should we do?” “I don’t know,” said Starlight. “I just don’t know.” Chapter 5Trixie dealt with the problem the way she dealt with every problem in her life. She ignored it. And at first it seemed to work. Looked at from a sideways perspective, burying her head in her own work and the preparations for her performance, the situation seemed to improve. The fervor of the hole slowed, to the point where an unobservant individual- -by failure of perception or by choice- -might have thought that it was just a passing fad, a strange anomaly that had intrigued the simple townsfolk for a while before turning into a simple roadside attraction in the back of the town’s consciousness. Perhaps it would have, in time, if it had been given a chance. If the effect had not been so virulent. But those effects were the ones Trixie could dismiss the best, because they were the most frightening, and it was so much easier to live in a world where everything was stable and ordinary, and nothing was scary at all. She ignored how the ponies of the town began to move slowly, or how pale their bodies seemed to become. She walked right past an angry screaming match in the middle of the street, where Cheerilee was screaming at her students to stop going to the hole and to stay in school- -even when she herself was sneaking out during quizzes to stare into it. She ignored how three particular fillies were no longer seen in town, or how Applejack had stopped delivering apple orders, and how Rainbow Dash kept making excuses not to attended Wonderbolts muster. Their eyes had become distant, as if those things no longer truly mattered. They could not go too far from the hole. They could not bear it. All this, Trixie was able to ignore. She focused instead on how the days were growing colder, and how clouds were beginning to drift across the sky faster as the seasons began to change. Summer was leaving, and fall would begin soon. The air had a strange smell in it, one that Trixie normally greatly enjoyed for how happy and sad it made her at the same time- -but this year, for some reason, it smelled badly of decay. It was on the day before her performance that she finally had some time to do some regular shopping. On this particular day, she chose to go into a particular new shop that she had never been in before. “So,” said Trixie, leaning over the counter and eying the clerk. “Explain to Trixie why she would want to drink this dirty leaf water.” Jasmine Leaf looked at her, and then quickly away. Her eyes could not stay still for long. On a normal day, the local tea-pony’s coat would have been a rich mulberry, and her hair a bright pink. Except now her body had grown pale, and her mane was beginning to rapidly gray. Parts of it stood up at intervals. Almost like she had woken up with it like that, but not quite. More like she had not gone to bed in some time. “It’s not dirty,” she said, her voice croaking. She tremored, and began to scratch her forelegs, both at the same time. Deep marks where her body hair had been worn away were already forming. Her jaw was clenching repeatedly, and she could not stop turning her head to face west. Toward the direction of the hole. “Really.” Trixie tilted the cup of brown water. “Because it looks dirty to me.” “It’s not, it’s tea, it’s good- -I- -I love tea, it’s my favorite…” She trailed off, and suddenly turned west again. “I…tea is good. Tea is a good thing. You…can you…” She burst into tears. “I can’t!” she screamed, tearing herself from the counter. “I just can’t do this anymore!” “But what about selling me stuff?!” “Take whatever you want, I don’t care anymore! I have to see it! I JUST HAVE TO SEE IT!” The door slammed, and Trixie was left alone in an empty tea shop. The situation had become disturbing. So disturbing that Trixie did not even try to take as much as she possibly could from the shop, even if she did not like tea. On a normal day, she would have carried out as much as she could take- -and then taken a second trip. This day, though, was wrong, and as Trixie stepped outside she shivered. It was not really cold, but seemed strangely chilly to her. And suddenly it all seemed to become visible to her. How deserted the streets seemed, and how the few ponies that wandered through them were slow, dirty, and did not look too unlike Jasmine Leaf had: pallid, tired, and somehow distant. They tried to continue their days, doing as they had before, but their gaze was always distant, even as they clung to the vestiges of what had once been their special talents. Each and every one of them looked sick, and each and every one of them looked like they would rather be somewhere else. “Hey! HEY!” Trixie grabbed a passing stallion, and earth-pony with an hourglass cutie mark and a scarf. She did not know his name, and had never cared to learn it. She had no emotional bond to him- -and yet her heart was racing. “What’s wrong with you?” She slapped him hard in the face. “You sell produce or something, don’t you?” Another slap. “Well, SELL PRODUCE!” Another slap, and the stallion blinked. “H…huh?” he said, as if waking up (if only barely) from a deep but uncomfortable sleep. “Oh. Trixie. I was going to go to…to your show. But I don’t think I can make it.” He sighed, his lungs rattling badly. “Sorry.” “What’s wrong with you?” asked Trixie, suddenly horrified at how desperate she sounded. “I…I don’t know. I guess I’m just a little ill. I had so much energy before, but now…” “You’re thinking about the…” Trixie gulped. “…the hole.” The stallion’s eyes lit up with perverse joy, as if the energy the town had shared just days before had flowed back into him in full force. As if he had remembered his very purpose in life. “Oh, the hole! Have you been? It’s such a wonderful thing! So beautiful, so inspiring! It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” He paused, his head suddenly wrenching itself westward. “I think…I think I need to go back. Yeah. That will help, I’m sure of it…” He wriggled away from Trixie. Somehow, he was incredibly strong, even if he was beginning to atrophy badly. Trixie had to let him go, and he shambled through the streets, followed by two earth-fillies. One was the pink rich one, and the other was the silver probably-rich one. Except at this point both looked mostly gray. “Silver Spoon, I can’t believe that they would…hole,” said the pink one. “I mean, it’s like…hole. Do they even know who I am…hole. I don’t…they’re…hole. I can’t…why…hole…” “I know, Diamond Tiara. You’re’ always right,” breathed the filly beside her. She was badly limping, and her mane was filled with prickers and diseased underbrush- -as if she had spent a great deal of time over the last few days in the Forest. Something had gone wrong. Trixie suddenly understood that. She was not sure what, and, more importantly, not sure what to do. Her only thought was to get help, so she ran. She did not know why she ran, in the same way that she did know that it was already too late- -it was something deep in her consciousness. If she had known in directly, she might have given up, sat down, and panicked. Because she knew that Twilight had already seen the hole. She made her way toward the castle, running faster and faster as she went- -and only slowed when she saw Starlight crossing the street toward her. Immediately, Trixie felt so much better. Starlight would know what to do. Starlight always knew what to do. Except that Starlight seemed strange. Her eyes were foggy, and her expression distant. Her mane was streaked with white, and her already pale lavender coat had almost become gray. Except unlike the others, she looked afraid. “Starlight! STARLIGHT!” Trixie stopped, gasping. She was sweating underneath her cape and hat. Even though the whole world seemed so cold. “Starlight, something’s wrong! All the ponies- -they’re sick! Or something! Or maybe really stupid!” Starlight looked at her. There was a distant glimmer of recognition in her eyes, and she groaned. “I know,” she said, her voice hurried. As though something were trying to push that line of reasoning out of her head. “Something…something happened. I can’t…I don’t…” “Wh- -what?” Starlight shook her head. “It’s not magic, I tried- -tried to analyze- -and it’s not a contagion, it isn’t transmitted but it…but it took Maud…” “Maud?” Trixie felt her breath catch. Maud was her second-best friend. “W- -what do we do?” “I don’t know,” whispered Starlight. “I just don’t know…” “That’s not good enough!” cried Trixie. She grabbed Starlight by the shoulders and shook her. She was so very thin. “I can’t do this on my own! Something bad is happening, but I don’t know what it is or what to do! I need help!” Starlight’s horn suddenly flared, and Trixie was knocked back by a massive punch to her gut. “Stop yelling!” shrieked Starlight, putting her hooves to her ears. “STOP YELLING! I- -I can’t focus! It won’t stop! I can’t- -I can’t keep my mind away from…from…” She trailed off and looked up with blank eyes. Yet the intelligence remained, at least partially. “I can’t stop thinking about it, Trixie,” she said in a monotone voice. “Every thought turns back to it. Every chain of reason, every logical path…I can’t think. Not about anything else. And the worst part is…I like it.” Trixie had started crying, but had not notice. Her ribs hurt bad, but not nearly as bad as her heart. Trixie would of course never accept that it was too late for Starlight, but it was. Her life had already ended on a warm summer night, surrounded by friends, when she had first looked into the hole. Violet light erupted near Starlight, and Twilight appeared. However bad the change had been for normal ponies, it had been worse for Twilight. Her already thin alicorn body had grown gaunt and faded, as if she were barely there at all. Her once keen (and, to Trixie, excessively naïve) eyes were now hard and translucent. “Spike, take a note…Dear Princess Celestia…please come at once. You have to see it. They all have to see it to…to…” She looked down and realized that Spike was not beside her. A distant look of sadness crossed her face. “S…Spike?” And then it was gone. Slowly, Twilight turned her narrow face toward Trixie. Then she smiled. “Hello Trixie.” “Twilight,” peeped Trixie. “You don’t look so good.” “But I feel okay,” she said. Her voice was distant. “Say…have you been to the hole yet?” Trixie froze. Her blood felt cold, and her heart seemed to stop for a moment. If Twilight wanted her to go, there was no stopping her. Starlight shook her head. “No. No, Trixie doesn’t need to go to the hole.” Twilight seemed confused. “She…doesn’t? Oh…” She smiled again. “I was just being friendly. It really is pretty. I was going to write a book about it…a book about holes…THE hole….and I wanted to share it with all my friends. But if Starlight says you don’t need to go, that’s okay too.” They both stared at Trixie for a long moment, seeming to look through her- -and then suddenly their heads turned west, as if they were being called. “I need to go now,” said Starlight. “Goodbye, Trixie.” “We’ll see you soon,” added Twilight, distantly. There was a flash of violet, and then one of blue. And then Trixie was all alone. Chapter 6She stood on the stage and looked out- -out at empty rows of seats, silent in the cooling air. This had been her last hope, her last vision of everything turning out alright. If they would have come to her show. Maybe still sick (but in her mind, they were all better; somehow, through some means, the problem had been solved). Starlight would be standing beside her, and the ponies would be cheering for her as she performed the tricks she had painstakingly planned for months. Except now there would be no show. At the start, Trixie had tried- -she had really tried- -to make it go on, but it was not the same. There was just no way to perform without an audience. There was no point in it. And now, as she sat on the splintery but well-polished wood of her stage, she looked out and realized that this was all real. That things were not going to get better. She stayed for an hour, still clinging to the last threads of hope that somepony would come. Even just one, solitary pony. On a normal night Trixie would have considered that a grave insult, if just one pony came to a show, but now she would have considered it a miracle- -but none came. Not even one. So she left the stage and walked the town. That, she quickly realized, was a mistake. Perhaps she could have found some way to justify why there were no ponies at her show. Maybe she had promoted poorly, or they simply did not like her. She could have convinced herself of that eventually, and driven away the realization that she was no forced to face head-on. The town was empty. No ponies walked the streets. No shops or stalls were occupied, and no ponies looked down from their windows. Doors stood open, shifting in the wind, and uneaten food still sat on the tables of the outdoor cafés. Near Carousel Boutique, Trixie had even for a moment thought she had seen a pony- -and her eyes had lit up with hope- -only for her to realize that it was a display mannequin, one placed outside in the morning but that had now come unmoored. It had drifted, the rack that held it bumping into the wall of the building repeatedly. The clothes it wore had mostly blown away in the wind, and were strewn across the street. “H…hello?” asked Trixie. As if the mannequin might answer. Or as if there was another pony to answer- -but there were none. And Trixie knew why. Slowly, Trixie turned her head. Toward the west. She did not know where it was, exactly, as she had never been there- -but she knew that it was where they would be. At the hole. Doing what, she had no idea, but she knew that something had to be done. It was a question of who- -and it was a question that was answered as Trixie slowly began walking in that direction. She was at first surprised, but knew of nothing else that she could do. There was no one to call for help. All the friends she had in all of Equestria were in this town, and by now they were all at the hole. There was no one left to help. Thoughts occurred to her that maybe she could find some way to contact Celestia, or Luna, or some other pony- -but she had no idea how. Spike was gone, and the post office stood empty. And if she ran, she would not know where to go- -and might come back too late. Yet she did start to run. Not to get help, and not away. But toward the west. She only stopped as she crossed the last buildings of the town and entered the narrow paths through the fields that bordered the EverFree Forest- -and only stopped because she heard a voice. Trixie screamed, more out of surprise than outright fear. She jumped, her horn sparkling and flashing with some useless spell that would do very little to help her in a fight. Fighting, though, would not be necessary. Trixie knew that as soon as she saw the pony standing behind her, waiting in the shadow of a building. She was a Pegasus. A pale one. But she did not look like the others had. Although her mane had become somewhat disheveled, and her eyes were strangely bloodshot, as though she had been crying. Her expression was strong and hard, though, and her gaze intense. There were no tears now. “Fluttershy!” cried Trixie. “You almost gave Trixie a heart-attack!” Fluttershy stared at her. She just stood there. Then she spoke. “Trixie,” she said, her voice clear. “Don’t go that way. Please.” Trixie looked at her, and then down the path. “They’re out there,” she said. “I know. At the hole.” Trixie looked back. “But you’re not.” Fluttershy shook her head. “No.” “But why? Why aren’t you like them?” Fluttershy stared past Trixie, into the Forest. “Because I KNOW.” “How? Why?” Fluttershy slowly turned toward Trixie, and their eyes met. “Because the animals. The animals that went there…THEY NEVER CAME BACK.” Trixie stared back. Fluttershy’s eyes seemed distant, but not like Starlight’s had. Her mind was not able to wander. She was not able to escape the reality that surrounded her. She had never seen the hole. “We have to help them,” said Trixie. Fluttershy shook her head. “If you go there, you won’t come back either. I don’t know how I know that, but I know it.” “Well what else am I supposed to do?!” screamed Trixie, her voice cracking. Yet even then, Fluttershy did not react. Fluttershy did not answer. She did not need to. Her choice was already evident. It was a choice that Trixie wished so dearly she could follow- -to stand here with Fluttershy, to dwell safe in an empty town, or perhaps to escape entirely. To go to some far-off place like Cloudsdale or Detrot, Canterlot or maybe even Manehattan, to forget a little town called Ponyville ever even existed. Fluttershy could do that. Perhaps because she was afraid, or perhaps because her sense of survival was far more keen than Trixie’s would ever be. In either case, because she had already given up hope. Trixie had not. Clouds began to gather in the sky. Approaching the EverFree, the weather ceased to belong to the domain of Pegasus control- -but further, that uncontrolled nature was beginning to seep into Ponyville. There was no longer anypony to control the flow of clouds, or which ones would bring rain or cold breezes. Trixie pulled her collar close to her as the temperature began to drop, hoping that it would not rain. The path from the fields led uphill, and soon trees were visible. Trees that no longer looked quite green. Wind blew slowly through their trunks, coming out from the place where they grew thick and dense. It carried with it the scent of the swamp and the forest, and something else. Like the perfume of several of the townsfolk, mixed with something darker. Trixie only hesitated for a moment before forcing herself to walk down the well-worn path into the woods. Trees loomed on every side, nearly silent save for the slight rustle of their leafs against the wind. High above, the sky was gray, and the clouds were rolling by quickly, driven by a powerful wind that did not reach the ground. All around her was the scent of dying leafs. The path sloped upward, but only slightly. It was rocky, but not exceptionally so, and not at all overgrown. Not anymore. Yet, the whole way, Trixie felt herself breathing harder, to the point where the only sound she could hear was the rush of her breath in her own ears. Then she saw them. There was no time to prepare for it, to think about what might be there: she simply came to a clearing. A clearing that only days before had been filled with foliage and underbrush, although both of those had now collapsed into gray and crumbled, with the rest having either been trampled or pulled out to make way for ponies. The trees that had shaded the hole and overlooked it had likewise undergone changes, losing parts of their bark and all of their foliage- -as if they had been poisoned, or perhaps drained. This was where the entire town now stood. They were silent. Each and every one of them. They stood, all in a group, all staring in the same direction but no longer necessarily west. They were staring at the hole. At it, and down it. All of them were pale, and not one of them moved. The expression in their eyes was no longer distant- -but neither was it joyful. It was simply horribly, terribly intense. Trixie stared at them from a distance, not knowing what to do. Some dark instinct had frozen her: that she must not get near them. That they were diseased and broken, that Fluttershy had been right- -that it was too late and that the only option was to escape before she too was infected. The hole was beyond them. Surrounded by them. Above them ran an endless stream of gray clouds, and a chilly breeze ran silently through the clearing. No pony moved, and there were no leafs left to fall from the diseased trees. No animal made a sound. Neither did any pony. Then it began. The most horrible thing possible. As if they had been waiting. It started with one of the mares closest to the hole, one who Trixie could barely see through the crowd. Trixie barely knew her, but her name was Daisy. A flower pony, one of barely any consequence- -but still the one who went first. It was as if the slight, frigid breeze that came through the trees had caught her as it passed, giving her just the slightest push she needed. There was no sound. She simply tilted and fell forward, and then vanished down the hole. It moved like a wave, and there was no way for Trixie to stop it. Those that were closest seemed to lean, fell, and were gone. Those that were Pegasi did not open their wings or attempt to fly. They just fell. The rest began to move forward, moving closer to the hole now that they were given a chance- -and they fell too, dropping silently into its depths. “NO!” cried Trixie. “NO! WAIT!” None even turned. Applebloom, the last remaining of the fillies who had first found the hole, struggled to her hooves and dropped in. Behind her was Applejack, then Rarity. Then more. And more. Trixie rushed forward, silently and desperately praying to every Princess she knew that the hole would fill, that the ponies would not drop very far, that there would be too many and that soon it would be packed with sleepy ponies in a great heap. That they would be close enough that she could maybe find somepony to help pull them out. That they were not gone for good. Except the hole did not fill. Nor was there any sound from it. No sound of ponies hitting the bottom. No thump or vibration, and no screams of descent. Only silence. “Twilight! Help them!” Trixie tried to force her way through the crowd toward the deathly thin alicorn Princess. It was not hard. The ponies all felt light and weak- -except that their forward progression could not be stopped. It was already too late. And it was already too late for Twilight. She reached the edge and never looked back. She fell to her side and plummeted like a stone, turning as she fell, looking up one last time at the sky. Perhaps wishing she could see the sun one last time- -except that it was obscured, and her blind eyes would not have seen it anyway. “No! NO!” Trixie tried to grab the nearest pony. He was a stallion, a blue one, and he had a name that Trixie had never learned. He was of no consequence to her, but he was nearest. Trixie grabbed onto him, trying to slow him with every ounce of physical strength she had- -but he did not slow. He pulled her forward, toward the hole, until she eventually had to let go for fear of being drawn in with him. Then she watched him enter the hole, dropping off its edge and falling into the inky darkness with ten other ponies. All sinking silently, not looking at anything in particular. Trixie looked up, tears in her eyes, and looked at the dwindling numbers. There were so few left. Then her eyes spied a color that might once have been pale lavender. “Starlight! STARLIGHT!” Starlight actually stopped, just on the edge of the hole. Trixie ran to her, and Starlight turned. For a moment, their eyes met, and there was recognition in Starlight’s gaze. Recognition and sadness as she slowly tilted. As her hooves ceased to hold the earth at the edge of the hole. Trixie was not fast enough to pull her back, and those eyes stayed locked on hers, staring with profound sadness the whole way, until they disappeared into darkness and Starlight was forever gone. Then and only then did Trixie collapse. Not that it mattered. Starlight had been one of the last, and now there were none. No more ponies save for a blue unicorn with a long, white mane. A mare who wept bitterly in an empty clearing, alone save for a deep and empty hole. She cursed it. Cursed it even though she did not understand it, and through her tears, she looked into it. What she saw in that darkness, none would know. She alone was immune to it, as she had come too late. As she understood, and saw the sadness it had brought. That sadness insulated her from the false-joy that it had brought the others. She was not as fortunate as they would be. And yet she stood. Though it had no pull on her, she walked to the edge, weeping. Weeping because there was nothing left. Then she fell silent. Tears streaming down her face, she held her breath- -and leaned forward. Her hooves lost their grip, and she fell. Toward the only friends she had ever had. None would know what had happened in those woods. None dared approach it. Neither the forest, nor the abandoned village that stood just beyond it, overgrown with vines, with plates still sitting on the tables. As if the entire population had simply gotten up and walked away, leaving behind the happy lives they had once lived. A castle filled with decaying books, a rotting magician’s stage in the courtyard, endless fields of dying apple trees surrounding a crumbling farmhouse, a group of skeletal mannequins that looked as though they had lost their skin and silken flesh trying to flee a collapsed boutique. These and hundreds of other things. Things that ponies feared, even though in truth, their fear was misplaced. Only one had survived. A hermit, left alone and broken. Ponies feared her like they feared the cursed village, but she remembered what had been there. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, explorers would come to her- -never to the village, of course, but to her cottage on its outskirts, surrounded by stranger gardens and many stranger animals- -and they would ask her to tell them what had happened. From the look in her eyes, they knew that she remembered- -but would never say. Yet, many of these explorers would note how she would sometimes drift off and look toward the west. She would never go that way, but would stare. Longingly. As if she were expecting an old friend to return from that way. But none ever did. It was not until the latter years of her long life, many decades later, where she overcame the fear. Where she felt the longing for the friends she had once known, and the ones she had been too afraid- -too cowardly- -to even try to save. It was on that day that she ventured to the forest that no longer had a name. And what she found was nothing. Nothing at all. There was no hole, and no clearing surrounding it. Perhaps because it had been filled in, or had collapsed long ago, washed in by the random and unstable rain of the forest. Gone and erased as easily as the population of the town whose name had by then been long forgotten. That was what she would say, had any pony bothered to ask her in those last months of her life. Had she herself not been forgotten, save by the animals that kept her company. Yet, late at night, she would lay awake at night with one thought running through her mind. An insane, impossible thought, one that she feared would drive her insane if she even paused to acknowledge it. The thought that, perhaps, somehow, the hole had never even existed at all.
Chapter 1The season had grown late. The cold airs of late September had not yet arrived to the town of Ponyville, and the trees hung still and heavy with aging foliage, leafs that would never again be as green and verdant. Yet the scent of fall could still be smelled when the winds were right, when the wind blew from the north, rustling leaves and swaying trunks throughout the EverFree Forest. It was on this late summers day that it began. It came without being detected by pony eyes or ears, something unseen and unfelt in the distant perimeter of their town. In the EverFree Forest, a place of swampy ground and long-buried things in ancient hillocks, surrounded by trees whose histories no pony could recall, or perhaps that no pony had ever known. There were some places- -many, in fact- -within Equestria that could be considered dark. Those that had been so since the dawn of time, and some before, or those contaminated by curses or dark magic pushing through from distant an unspeakable places. This was not one of those places. It was an ordinary part of the forest, one that had never been differentiable from the rest. The only part of it that might now have alluded to what it had become, though, was the unusual and penetrating silence that had slowly come about in the past weeks. No cicada called, and no birds sang. Nothing rustled in the underbrush. Only the sound of the empty, lifeless wind through the trees could sometimes be heard- -and even that had come to sound strangely distant. Then this silence was interrupted- -by the sound of children’s laughter. “HA! You can’t catch me!” “Yes I can!” “Not without your scooter!” “You have stubby legs!” “I’ll make your HEAD stubby!” “That doesn’t even make sense!” One of the three young fillies burst through the underbrush. Her head was turned back, and she was about to shout that she WAS fast- -at least as fast as her beloved sister, or maybe even faster- -when she went over the edge into the gaping hole beyond. Scootaloo screamed. Her tiny, useless, atrophied wings buzzed, but to no avail. She began to plummet- -only to be suddenly grasped in a field of pale green magic. “Oop,” said Sweetie Belle. “We almost lost Scootaloo!” “That’s the third time this week,” muttered Applebloom, carefully picking her way past an oddly diseased blackberry bush. “I totally could have made it,” protested Scootaloo. “Sure you could,” said Sweetie Belle, lifting her and setting her back on the ground. “And I could sprout wings and barf cupcakes.” “Eew!” “Isn’t that actually a unicorn medical condition? I’m pretty sure I read that it is,” suggested Applebloom. Not even ironically. Sweetie Belle was about to protest, when her eyes were suddenly drawn to the hole that Scootaloo had nearly fallen into. She immediately gasped, her breath seeming to cease as all thoughts except for the hole left her minds. And what a hole it was. It was wide- -not exceptionally, but far wider than would be considered ordinary or reasonable- -and had perfectly straight walls. It might have been a well at one point, except that there was no sign that the walls were made of stone or rock. They were just dirt, descending down far into the blackness where the bottom could not be seen. Applebloom looked into the hole, as did Scootaloo. Each of them stepped to the very edge, and none spoke for several minutes as they stared into the mysterious blackness. “Whoa,” said Applebloom, finally. And that was all that could be said.
Chapter 2The Great and Powerful Trixie (the most beloved pony in all of Ponyville, according to a very scientific poll that she herself had conducted) leaned forward across the outdoor Formica table. Her hat flopped over her eyes, and she adjusted it magically so that she could get a better view of the food sitting on a small, green-rimmed plate in front of her. Sitting upon the plate were three small rolls of white rice and seaweed. Her eyes flitted upward to the pony sitting across from her. “The Great and Powerful Trixie does not know how she feels about this…soo-sheeee.” Starlight stared back at her, both amused and slightly confused. “It’s fine. Try it.” “Trixie does not know.” Trixie poked at it. “I don’t know how I feel about raw things.” “You mean a raw avocado roll?” “Avocado is a suspicious fruit!” protested Trixie. “It has no practical use! It is the toe-sock of fruits!” “But it’s good in guacamole.” “Heresy! Guacamole is disgusting! It doesn’t taste like anything at all!” “Then you’ve never had good guacamole. Come on.” Starlight pushed the plate closer. “Eat it. I’m paying. And I know you need it.” Trixie gasped. “Are you saying Trixie is too THIN? That my flank is not adequately rounded and Celestia-like? I’ll have you know that I just purchased a new leotard, and I guarantee that I fill it out quite well- -” “But you don’t eat!” “The Great and Powerful Trixie eats many delicious and expensive foods!” “No. You graze outside of town when you think nopony’s looking.” Trixie blushed. “You…saw that?” “I’m Starlight Glimmer. I see everything.” Trixie huffed. Then she leaned forward and stuffed the rolls into her mouth. “Well?” “They thaste thtoopid,” said Trixie, shoving the rest in her mouth and swallowing. Starlight laughed. She could tell that Trixie liked them, and Trixie could tell that Starlight knew. It was how their relationship worked. Especially with regard to restaurants. New ones had been arriving steadily in town since the construction of the Castle of Frienships, as more ponies flocked to what would surely one day be a thriving city. Trixie, despite being great AND powerful, was both poor and not very adventurous. She greatly enjoyed new foods, but would never go out of her way to find them. That was Starlight’s job. And it worked. “Next week we can try the pizza place on first.” Trixie looked up just before she attempted to eat all of the wasabi. “This Pete Zah. Does he also have food? Will he bow down to Trixie’s greatness? Her POWERFULLNESS?” She paused. “Is he hot?” “Um…” The awkwardness of the situation was defused almost instantly as three loud children raced down the street, two of them in a wagon and the third pulling the other on a scooter. Trixie immediately grabbed her condiments and the last sushi fragment as if the fillies were about to steal them. Across the street, a blue Pegasus and a yellow-orange earth-pony were approaching from the opposite direction, perhaps discussing the next race at the Running of the Leaves- -and how not to get beaten by an (admittedly beloved) nerd this time. “Rainbow Dash! RAINBOW DASH!” Rainbow Dash turned. “Scoots! What’s up?” Scootaloo was so excited that she nearly fell off her Scooter and derailed the wagon carrying her friends. They hardly seemed to mind, though. All three of the fillies were wide-eyed and looked about to burst with excitement. Perhaps Starlight detected that something was wrong, that their pupils were just a little bit too wide, and their gazes a little bit too distant for their level of excitement. If she did, she did not say anything. If she had, things in the end might have been different. “Whoa, WHOA! What is it? Did you kiss a griffon or something?” Applejack elbowed her. “Don’t encourage bad behavior!” “What? I kissed a griffon at her age and I turned out fine!” Applejack frowned. “You…kissed a griffon? A guy griffon, right?” Rainbow Dash darkened. “Um…yes?” “Rainbow Dash Rainbow Dash Rainbow Dash RAINBOW DASH!” “Scoots, I’m right here! Don’t wear my name out!” That joke usually quieted Scootaloo relatively quickly, but at this point she was jumping so fast she was nearly vibrating. “We found something in the woods!” “It’s not another skeleton, is it?” Applejack shivered. “Because you’re supposed to leave those there. I got in soooo much trouble the last time- -” “No, no, not this time!” Applebloom was climbing over Sweetie Belle to get out of the wagon. “No! We found- -” “We found a HOLE!” cried Sweetie Belle. “Hey, I wanted to tell them!” “Wait,” said Applejack, raising an eyebrow. “A hole? You’re all excited over…a hole?” “Well when you put it like that- -” “But it’s not just a hole!” squeaked Scootaloo. “It’s the most amazing hole EVER! You have to come see it!” She grabbed Rainbow Dash’s hoof. “Come on! COME ON! You have to see it! It’s so COOL!” “Well…I do like cool things. And I’m not scheduled for a nap for another thirty minutes or so…So I guess I can make some time.” She ruffled Scootaloo’s hair. “Sure. Show me where this so-called ‘hole’ is.” “Now just wait a minute,” said Applejack. “Rainbow, you may know cloud stuff but you couldn’t tell your rump from a hole in the ground! I’m coming too.” The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked overjoyed, and excitedly led the pair of adult ponies back the way they had come. Starlight waved to them as they passed, and they waved back. Trixie, meanwhile, jealously guarded the condiments that she had already begun hiding in her cape. “All that excitement over a hole?” muttered Trixie. “Trixie is FAR more interesting than some pit. I mean, I can understand earth-ponies, they love dirt…but Pegasuses too?” “Pegasi. And you know how kids can be.” “I don’t have any children! Who have you been talking to?!” Starlight blinked, and then began to laugh. Trixie looked confused for a moment, and then joined in as well, even if she did not know why. “Come on. Let’s get back to the castle before it gets dark.” Trixie nodded and stood up, the soy-sauce in her cape jingling, and joined her best friend on the way up the hill toward the vicinity of where the both of them lived.
Chapter 3The night was dark and moonless, and Trixie dreamed of strange and terrible things. Twice that night she awoke, both times in a daze and both times desperately needing to make water- -but too afraid to venture out of her cart and into the depths of night outside. When she finally awoke, she was screaming and covered in sweat. Light was pouring in through her cart’s window. Celestia had already raised the sun, and it sat above the land, as warm and pleasant as it was distant and passive. On an ordinary day, Trixie might have stayed in bed for a few hours longer. She did not technically have a job. Still, she was a performer, and there was work to be done. That, and she really needed to pee. Trixie normally lived roughly in Twilight’s front yard, or what was rapidly becoming a courtyard. Near this was a grove where she normally did her business, as her cart lacked any semblance of plumbing. It was purposely very near where Twilight grew a small garden. Although they were technically something similar to friends, Trixie was still mildly vindictive if only because Twilight had gotten wings while she had not yet figured out how to obtain a pair (short of wing-growth tonic obtained from a pair of peppermint-maned twins, which was at present not helping at all). As she was watering Twilight’s melons, Trixie became aware of two ponies passing. Like most of the residents of Ponyville, she had no idea what their names were. They were, however, talking, so Trixie listened, wondering the whole time if they were speaking about her. “Did you see it?” That one was a mare. Perhaps one with a flower for a name. She sounded excited. “Please tell me you saw it!” “I’m on my way there right now.” A stallion, not quite excited but happy and polite. “I heard about it from Berry, she went to see it last night.” “I know! I was there! You’ve GOT to see it! It’s the most amazing thing in the WHOLE WORLD! I mean, I know it’s just a hole, but…gah, I don’t know how to explain it! It’s like you can’t stop staring at it!” “Well, if it’s that impressive, I’ve just got to, don’t I?” “You DO! I’m on my way there right now!” “To see it again?” “Yeah! I hardly even slept last night! I was just wired! I designed six new arrangements and did all the orders for the next month! I don’t know how, but it just…it inspires me!” Trixie harrumphed. They were not talking about her at all, unless she was the “hole”. And if that was the case, it was probably insulting. She stood up and kicked some dirt behind her. Then she made her way into town. The situation did not improve, and Trixie’s day worsened. Not only had she slept poorly, but now the entire town was alight with talk- -and none of it about her. Everywhere she looked, everypony was constantly excited. Almost all were talking about the hole; it was in their every conversation. Word had apparently traveled fast, and many were talking about their experience with the hole, either because they had visited it late on the previous night or in the several hours since the sun had come up (none went during the night, as no pony would ever enter or even approach the EverFree at night, not for any hole in the whole world). Others were voicing their intention to go. Many seemed to be missing. Trixie stopped at a drink stand, intending to buy a large smoothie to be put on the tab she never intended to pay for. Much to her chagrin, though, the smoothie pony was away- -no doubt visiting the hole. “Stupid hole,” muttered Trixie, largely to herself. “First it’s taking all the attention that rightfully belongs to Trixie, and now it’s taking Trixie’s smoothie too!” She puffed herself up under her cape. “Trixie is MUCH better than any hole! Better than a chasm! Better than an entire CANYON!” She then looked both ways, mainly to see if ponies were listening- -but also to see if any were watching. When she saw that none were, she stuffed the fruit meant for the smoothies into her mouth and hat and departed quickly. Her day continued this way, and she grew more and more annoyed. She seemed to be the only one. Most of the Ponyville residents were intrigued and happy, gladly listening to their friends and stories about an amazing wonder in the forest. Trixie thought that the whole thing made them seem like profound hicks: after all, their lives were apparently so boring that the most interesting thing that had happened in months was the opening of a sinkhole. It was annoying but not worrying. At least not on a conscious level. Not at first. There was fear, but it was deep, and with Trixie it manifested as anger. Anger that eventually grew to the point where Trixie, as much as she was loathe to, felt she needed to speak to Ponyville’s de-facto leader. In this, she proved not to have a choice. She was heading home to her cart to get a rack of posters (to post throughout the town; she unfortunately did not yet have enough funds to hire a promotor) while Twilight was leaving her enormous, overly ostentatious, ugly castle. Twilight, of course, was followed by her pet/child dragon Spike, trotting along with a long piece of parchment and holding a purple quill. “You have a meeting with the town council, then an assembly at the local school, then the discussion on library usage- -” “Spike, please. I know my own list!” “You said that the last time. And who was the one who had to deal with the town zoning commission? That was me.” “And you did a great job!” Twilight ruffled his fringe, or what Trixie roughly thought of as hair (even if it was more like a kind of fin). “Twilight!” said Trixie, trotting toward her. Twilight cringed slightly- -enough for Trixie to notice- -but she smiled anyway. Trixie approached her and felt the familiar sense of grave annoyance. Twilight’s alicornening had left her several inches taller and with a horn that was already growing far longer and harder than Trixie’s own, both features that made Trixie’s inferiority complex itch. Still, she sucked it up, because she had a grievance. “Twilight, I was walking through town- -” “Not riding a chariot pulled by children this time?” muttered Spike, rolling his eyes. “That was one time! ONE TIME!” “Spike,” said Twilight, “we talked about this.” “The Reformed and Repentant Trixie walks on her LEGS! And sometimes in a cart when the pony pulling it does not notice that Trixie climbs in the back!” “Wait, what?” “Which is not the point! Twilight, I’m annoyed!” “So what else is new?” sighed Spike. “Spike!” “All the ponies!” continued Trixie. “They’re all talking about some hole, and not about ME!” Twilight looked at her, and then chuckled. “Do not laugh at Trixie!” “Trixie, I’m not laughing at you- -” “Really? Because it looks like you are.” “No, no.” Twilight calmed herself. She started to walk, and Trixie begrudgingly followed. “I’ve heard about this hole. Actually, for well over an hour. Without a stop. From Rainbow Dash. Even Applejack put in a good word for it.” “And you don’t think it’s weird? All this attention to…a hole?” “Well, I suppose it is a little strange…but this is a relatively rural town, populated mostly by earth-ponies. Their culture may assign a greater significance to it than ours does.” Her eyes lit up. “Spike, right that down! I’ll conduct a sociology study on comparative social value of landforms.” “Already wrote it down. Before we even started talking.” “Great!” Twilight turned back to Trixie. “I’m actually scheduled to take a look at it myself, just to see what it is. I mean, I’m sure it’s just a hole, but I might as well see what all my friends think is so much fun.” “But…what if something’s wrong?” Twilight stopped walking. “Wrong?” “Don’t you think it’s all…weird?” Twilight tilted her head. “I guess so. A little bit. But it makes ponies happy, doesn’t it? I mean, Ponyville is a great place. My favorite place, in the whole world. And if there’s another wonder being added to it, then, well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” “I…guess…” Twilight put her hoof on Trixie’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re worrying about other pony’s safety. It’s a sign that you’re really coming along in learning the value of harmony and friendship. But it’s just a hole. I’m sure there’s nothing to be afraid of. And if there is, I’ll fix it. I am a Princess, after all.” Trixie frowned, but did not agree verbally. Twilight smiled back, and then continued on her way. “You can come with me if you want.” “No thank you. I am FAR too busy to gawk at some smelly hole. I have a magic act to plan. Starlight will be helping me in the afternoon, too. It’s going to be spectacular! Amazing! Profound!” “And probably messy,” added Spike. “I’ll make a note to get the cleaner set up.” Trixie almost paused to protest, but realized that was probably a good idea, especially if the sawing-in-half trick went wrong again. Still, she felt uneasy as Twilight and Spike departed. As if they had not really understood. The sun crossed slowly through the sky until it came to the end of its path. As it began to set, its color began to change, slowly turning from white-yellow to pale orange. Later that day, red would cross through the sky, producing a beautiful sunset painted against the clouds that any pony could see- -not that any ponies would, though, as none would be looking up. Trixie was busy at her cart when Starlight arrived. She was setting up a stage, not for performance but simply to get placement down as well as trick passageways that she had assembled for tricks requiring rapid disappearances. Sure, Starlight could teleport her- -and she could teleport herself, sometimes- -but doing in the old fashion way always seemed more reliable. Even if sometimes she got stuck. “Starlight! There you are! Quick!” Trixie leapt into her cart and began to rummage through. “Before we start, I want to fit you for the assistant’s costume. I hope you like leotards, because that’s what you’re going to be wearing. It’s not as fancy as mine, but we’ll have matching leggings- -” “Um, Trix?” Trixie looked up. Anytime Starlight said “Trix”, it meant she was about to say something that Trixie did not want to hear. “What is it?” Starlight looked embarrassed. “I know how important this is to you, I really do, but…” “But what? Butt’s are for Celestia, Starlight. What are you talking about?” “Is it possible we could…reschedule?” “Reschedule? My performance is in three days! I have to practice! Starlight, this is very important to me!” “I know, but…well, the whole town is having a party. Down at the hole.” Trixie’s jaw clenched. “The…hole?” Starlight nodded but could not meet Trixie’s eye. “You’re ditching me for a HOLE?!” “I’m not ditching you! Twilight asked me to come, and I came to ask you to come! With me!” “What, like a date?” Starlight blushed. “N- -no- -” “Starlight, you’re my assistant! My Slightly Less Great but Secretly More Powerful Assistant!” She smacked her lips. That was probably too long of a title. “I want you to be part of my show!” “I know! But Pinkie’s throwing the party, and you know how good she is at it!” “I don’t care! I don’t care if Celestia herself is throwing it with royal cake!” “And Maud! Maud’s been more excited than I’ve ever seen her, you know how much she loves landforms! She wants to do a thorough inspection- -” “Starlight…are these…excuses?” Starlight pawed the ground. “Well, it’s just…I’ve already seen it. With Applejack and Rarity. And it was really cool.” She paused. “I don’t know how. I mean, it’s just a hole in the ground…but there’s just something about it. Something profound. I can’t stop thinking about it. I really want to go back, to show it to all my friends.” She looked up. “I want you to come too.” Trixie looked at her, nearly aghast, and then turned away, wiping sweat from her face- -or at least pretending to. In actuality, she was wiping away tears. “Fine. If you want to go see a stupid hole instead of help me practice, go ahead. Have fun at the party. But I have work to do. All alone.” “Trixie, come on- -” “I’m not trying to guilt you, Starlight. But you should feel guilty. You’re breaking a promise. For a HOLE. Think about that while you’re there.” Starlight sighed. “I will.” Then she left, and Trixie was alone. By then, it was too late.
Chapter 4The effect continued into the next day, much to Trixie’s chagrin. While the day before the town had been abuzz, now it was practically humming with energy. Ponies were laughing and prancing more vigorously than they did even near royally-mandated holidays, all of them seeming energetic- -but at the same time, oddly distant. As if their minds were on something else. They performed their tasks and jobs with greater vigor and inspiration, but at the same time with greater distance. Trixie’s morning smoothie was a brand new flavor- -something that never happened- -but the bananas in it had not been peeled, and the whole thing had barely even been mixed. When she stopped at the café for breakfast, they had new hay burritos en masse- -but somepony had mistakenly used straw instead of hay, and Trixie spent most of her breakfast time trying to cough it out. Ponies repaving parts of the road had done so far faster than had been planned- -but in the process failed to grade the road, and very nearly sealed Scootaloo in asphalt. Scootaloo, who should have been in school but was sneaking out to see the hole- -and Scootaloo, who as one of the first to have seen it, who was already beginning to manifest the more sinister symptoms of prolonged exposure. To Trixie, it was all more than annoying- -but as the Greatest and most Powerful pony ever to walk the face of Equestria, she had grown accustomed to tolerating annoyance. Still, she was beginning to feel strange. Strange in a way she did not understand consciously. The summer day was not as warm as it had been. The morning was cold, and the leaves would change soon. They would burn in colors brighter than they ever had, and then they would die and fall. There was work to be done. The coolness of the morning made Trixie shiver and wonder what the weather would bring, but there was no sense in complaining. The weather ponies never listened to her suggestions anyway. She had not gotten to her posters the day before, and she was behind on her practice. Additionally, she now darkly acknowledged that there was a chance she might need to write Starlight out of the act entirely. That is, if she insisted on going to raging parties and seeing holes instead of helping like she promised. Little happened out of the ordinary until late in the day when Starlight approached Trixie from the main street. Trixie, of course, pretended that she was not even there. “Hey,” said Starlight. “What is that? Is that the sound of wind? Or maybe hot air?” “Trixie, come on. I said I’m sorry.” “No. No you didn’t. You were a jerk, Starlight. And believe me, I know how being a jerk feels.” “Trixie.” Starlight’s tone was serious. “I can’t find Maud.” Trixie paused from putting up her poster. “Maud?” “She was at the party last night, but…” “You know how Maud is,” said Trixie, quickly. “She’s sensitive. She’s probably back at her cave.” “I already checked. She wasn’t there. I don’t think she ever went home.” “Well, then, she’s probably at your stupid hole- -” “The hole is not stupid!” cried Starlight, loud enough to cause Trixie to jump. Trixie looked at her, eyes wide in confusion. Starlight was breathing hard, harder than she should have been. Her pupils were strangely narrow, but they began to widen, if only slightly. “Sorry,” said Starlight, running her hoof over her face. “I didn’t mean to yell. I didn’t sleep much.” “To busy partying?” “No, I went to bed early. But I was…thinking.” “About what?” Starlight did not answer. She just shook her head. “I already checked the hole. As soon as I woke up. She wasn’t there, but…” She trailed off. “What?” “There were ponies there. Two of those little girls. Some others. They were just…standing there. Staring down it. Not even moving.” Trixie shivered. “It must be some hole.” “It is,” said Starlight. She sounded terrified. “They…they didn’t look good. Especially the girls. I…I don’t think they went home. I think they were just there. The whole night.” “In the EverFree? Even I wouldn’t try that, and I’ve dragged a cart through some hairy bush.” “I know. I think…I think something’s wrong.” It seemed like it took a great deal of effort for her to say it, and when she looked up Trixie gasped. Starlight looked tremendously old. “What should we do?” “I don’t know,” said Starlight. “I just don’t know.”
Chapter 5Trixie dealt with the problem the way she dealt with every problem in her life. She ignored it. And at first it seemed to work. Looked at from a sideways perspective, burying her head in her own work and the preparations for her performance, the situation seemed to improve. The fervor of the hole slowed, to the point where an unobservant individual- -by failure of perception or by choice- -might have thought that it was just a passing fad, a strange anomaly that had intrigued the simple townsfolk for a while before turning into a simple roadside attraction in the back of the town’s consciousness. Perhaps it would have, in time, if it had been given a chance. If the effect had not been so virulent. But those effects were the ones Trixie could dismiss the best, because they were the most frightening, and it was so much easier to live in a world where everything was stable and ordinary, and nothing was scary at all. She ignored how the ponies of the town began to move slowly, or how pale their bodies seemed to become. She walked right past an angry screaming match in the middle of the street, where Cheerilee was screaming at her students to stop going to the hole and to stay in school- -even when she herself was sneaking out during quizzes to stare into it. She ignored how three particular fillies were no longer seen in town, or how Applejack had stopped delivering apple orders, and how Rainbow Dash kept making excuses not to attended Wonderbolts muster. Their eyes had become distant, as if those things no longer truly mattered. They could not go too far from the hole. They could not bear it. All this, Trixie was able to ignore. She focused instead on how the days were growing colder, and how clouds were beginning to drift across the sky faster as the seasons began to change. Summer was leaving, and fall would begin soon. The air had a strange smell in it, one that Trixie normally greatly enjoyed for how happy and sad it made her at the same time- -but this year, for some reason, it smelled badly of decay. It was on the day before her performance that she finally had some time to do some regular shopping. On this particular day, she chose to go into a particular new shop that she had never been in before. “So,” said Trixie, leaning over the counter and eying the clerk. “Explain to Trixie why she would want to drink this dirty leaf water.” Jasmine Leaf looked at her, and then quickly away. Her eyes could not stay still for long. On a normal day, the local tea-pony’s coat would have been a rich mulberry, and her hair a bright pink. Except now her body had grown pale, and her mane was beginning to rapidly gray. Parts of it stood up at intervals. Almost like she had woken up with it like that, but not quite. More like she had not gone to bed in some time. “It’s not dirty,” she said, her voice croaking. She tremored, and began to scratch her forelegs, both at the same time. Deep marks where her body hair had been worn away were already forming. Her jaw was clenching repeatedly, and she could not stop turning her head to face west. Toward the direction of the hole. “Really.” Trixie tilted the cup of brown water. “Because it looks dirty to me.” “It’s not, it’s tea, it’s good- -I- -I love tea, it’s my favorite…” She trailed off, and suddenly turned west again. “I…tea is good. Tea is a good thing. You…can you…” She burst into tears. “I can’t!” she screamed, tearing herself from the counter. “I just can’t do this anymore!” “But what about selling me stuff?!” “Take whatever you want, I don’t care anymore! I have to see it! I JUST HAVE TO SEE IT!” The door slammed, and Trixie was left alone in an empty tea shop. The situation had become disturbing. So disturbing that Trixie did not even try to take as much as she possibly could from the shop, even if she did not like tea. On a normal day, she would have carried out as much as she could take- -and then taken a second trip. This day, though, was wrong, and as Trixie stepped outside she shivered. It was not really cold, but seemed strangely chilly to her. And suddenly it all seemed to become visible to her. How deserted the streets seemed, and how the few ponies that wandered through them were slow, dirty, and did not look too unlike Jasmine Leaf had: pallid, tired, and somehow distant. They tried to continue their days, doing as they had before, but their gaze was always distant, even as they clung to the vestiges of what had once been their special talents. Each and every one of them looked sick, and each and every one of them looked like they would rather be somewhere else. “Hey! HEY!” Trixie grabbed a passing stallion, and earth-pony with an hourglass cutie mark and a scarf. She did not know his name, and had never cared to learn it. She had no emotional bond to him- -and yet her heart was racing. “What’s wrong with you?” She slapped him hard in the face. “You sell produce or something, don’t you?” Another slap. “Well, SELL PRODUCE!” Another slap, and the stallion blinked. “H…huh?” he said, as if waking up (if only barely) from a deep but uncomfortable sleep. “Oh. Trixie. I was going to go to…to your show. But I don’t think I can make it.” He sighed, his lungs rattling badly. “Sorry.” “What’s wrong with you?” asked Trixie, suddenly horrified at how desperate she sounded. “I…I don’t know. I guess I’m just a little ill. I had so much energy before, but now…” “You’re thinking about the…” Trixie gulped. “…the hole.” The stallion’s eyes lit up with perverse joy, as if the energy the town had shared just days before had flowed back into him in full force. As if he had remembered his very purpose in life. “Oh, the hole! Have you been? It’s such a wonderful thing! So beautiful, so inspiring! It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” He paused, his head suddenly wrenching itself westward. “I think…I think I need to go back. Yeah. That will help, I’m sure of it…” He wriggled away from Trixie. Somehow, he was incredibly strong, even if he was beginning to atrophy badly. Trixie had to let him go, and he shambled through the streets, followed by two earth-fillies. One was the pink rich one, and the other was the silver probably-rich one. Except at this point both looked mostly gray. “Silver Spoon, I can’t believe that they would…hole,” said the pink one. “I mean, it’s like…hole. Do they even know who I am…hole. I don’t…they’re…hole. I can’t…why…hole…” “I know, Diamond Tiara. You’re’ always right,” breathed the filly beside her. She was badly limping, and her mane was filled with prickers and diseased underbrush- -as if she had spent a great deal of time over the last few days in the Forest. Something had gone wrong. Trixie suddenly understood that. She was not sure what, and, more importantly, not sure what to do. Her only thought was to get help, so she ran. She did not know why she ran, in the same way that she did know that it was already too late- -it was something deep in her consciousness. If she had known in directly, she might have given up, sat down, and panicked. Because she knew that Twilight had already seen the hole. She made her way toward the castle, running faster and faster as she went- -and only slowed when she saw Starlight crossing the street toward her. Immediately, Trixie felt so much better. Starlight would know what to do. Starlight always knew what to do. Except that Starlight seemed strange. Her eyes were foggy, and her expression distant. Her mane was streaked with white, and her already pale lavender coat had almost become gray. Except unlike the others, she looked afraid. “Starlight! STARLIGHT!” Trixie stopped, gasping. She was sweating underneath her cape and hat. Even though the whole world seemed so cold. “Starlight, something’s wrong! All the ponies- -they’re sick! Or something! Or maybe really stupid!” Starlight looked at her. There was a distant glimmer of recognition in her eyes, and she groaned. “I know,” she said, her voice hurried. As though something were trying to push that line of reasoning out of her head. “Something…something happened. I can’t…I don’t…” “Wh- -what?” Starlight shook her head. “It’s not magic, I tried- -tried to analyze- -and it’s not a contagion, it isn’t transmitted but it…but it took Maud…” “Maud?” Trixie felt her breath catch. Maud was her second-best friend. “W- -what do we do?” “I don’t know,” whispered Starlight. “I just don’t know…” “That’s not good enough!” cried Trixie. She grabbed Starlight by the shoulders and shook her. She was so very thin. “I can’t do this on my own! Something bad is happening, but I don’t know what it is or what to do! I need help!” Starlight’s horn suddenly flared, and Trixie was knocked back by a massive punch to her gut. “Stop yelling!” shrieked Starlight, putting her hooves to her ears. “STOP YELLING! I- -I can’t focus! It won’t stop! I can’t- -I can’t keep my mind away from…from…” She trailed off and looked up with blank eyes. Yet the intelligence remained, at least partially. “I can’t stop thinking about it, Trixie,” she said in a monotone voice. “Every thought turns back to it. Every chain of reason, every logical path…I can’t think. Not about anything else. And the worst part is…I like it.” Trixie had started crying, but had not notice. Her ribs hurt bad, but not nearly as bad as her heart. Trixie would of course never accept that it was too late for Starlight, but it was. Her life had already ended on a warm summer night, surrounded by friends, when she had first looked into the hole. Violet light erupted near Starlight, and Twilight appeared. However bad the change had been for normal ponies, it had been worse for Twilight. Her already thin alicorn body had grown gaunt and faded, as if she were barely there at all. Her once keen (and, to Trixie, excessively naïve) eyes were now hard and translucent. “Spike, take a note…Dear Princess Celestia…please come at once. You have to see it. They all have to see it to…to…” She looked down and realized that Spike was not beside her. A distant look of sadness crossed her face. “S…Spike?” And then it was gone. Slowly, Twilight turned her narrow face toward Trixie. Then she smiled. “Hello Trixie.” “Twilight,” peeped Trixie. “You don’t look so good.” “But I feel okay,” she said. Her voice was distant. “Say…have you been to the hole yet?” Trixie froze. Her blood felt cold, and her heart seemed to stop for a moment. If Twilight wanted her to go, there was no stopping her. Starlight shook her head. “No. No, Trixie doesn’t need to go to the hole.” Twilight seemed confused. “She…doesn’t? Oh…” She smiled again. “I was just being friendly. It really is pretty. I was going to write a book about it…a book about holes…THE hole….and I wanted to share it with all my friends. But if Starlight says you don’t need to go, that’s okay too.” They both stared at Trixie for a long moment, seeming to look through her- -and then suddenly their heads turned west, as if they were being called. “I need to go now,” said Starlight. “Goodbye, Trixie.” “We’ll see you soon,” added Twilight, distantly. There was a flash of violet, and then one of blue. And then Trixie was all alone.
Chapter 6She stood on the stage and looked out- -out at empty rows of seats, silent in the cooling air. This had been her last hope, her last vision of everything turning out alright. If they would have come to her show. Maybe still sick (but in her mind, they were all better; somehow, through some means, the problem had been solved). Starlight would be standing beside her, and the ponies would be cheering for her as she performed the tricks she had painstakingly planned for months. Except now there would be no show. At the start, Trixie had tried- -she had really tried- -to make it go on, but it was not the same. There was just no way to perform without an audience. There was no point in it. And now, as she sat on the splintery but well-polished wood of her stage, she looked out and realized that this was all real. That things were not going to get better. She stayed for an hour, still clinging to the last threads of hope that somepony would come. Even just one, solitary pony. On a normal night Trixie would have considered that a grave insult, if just one pony came to a show, but now she would have considered it a miracle- -but none came. Not even one. So she left the stage and walked the town. That, she quickly realized, was a mistake. Perhaps she could have found some way to justify why there were no ponies at her show. Maybe she had promoted poorly, or they simply did not like her. She could have convinced herself of that eventually, and driven away the realization that she was no forced to face head-on. The town was empty. No ponies walked the streets. No shops or stalls were occupied, and no ponies looked down from their windows. Doors stood open, shifting in the wind, and uneaten food still sat on the tables of the outdoor cafés. Near Carousel Boutique, Trixie had even for a moment thought she had seen a pony- -and her eyes had lit up with hope- -only for her to realize that it was a display mannequin, one placed outside in the morning but that had now come unmoored. It had drifted, the rack that held it bumping into the wall of the building repeatedly. The clothes it wore had mostly blown away in the wind, and were strewn across the street. “H…hello?” asked Trixie. As if the mannequin might answer. Or as if there was another pony to answer- -but there were none. And Trixie knew why. Slowly, Trixie turned her head. Toward the west. She did not know where it was, exactly, as she had never been there- -but she knew that it was where they would be. At the hole. Doing what, she had no idea, but she knew that something had to be done. It was a question of who- -and it was a question that was answered as Trixie slowly began walking in that direction. She was at first surprised, but knew of nothing else that she could do. There was no one to call for help. All the friends she had in all of Equestria were in this town, and by now they were all at the hole. There was no one left to help. Thoughts occurred to her that maybe she could find some way to contact Celestia, or Luna, or some other pony- -but she had no idea how. Spike was gone, and the post office stood empty. And if she ran, she would not know where to go- -and might come back too late. Yet she did start to run. Not to get help, and not away. But toward the west. She only stopped as she crossed the last buildings of the town and entered the narrow paths through the fields that bordered the EverFree Forest- -and only stopped because she heard a voice. Trixie screamed, more out of surprise than outright fear. She jumped, her horn sparkling and flashing with some useless spell that would do very little to help her in a fight. Fighting, though, would not be necessary. Trixie knew that as soon as she saw the pony standing behind her, waiting in the shadow of a building. She was a Pegasus. A pale one. But she did not look like the others had. Although her mane had become somewhat disheveled, and her eyes were strangely bloodshot, as though she had been crying. Her expression was strong and hard, though, and her gaze intense. There were no tears now. “Fluttershy!” cried Trixie. “You almost gave Trixie a heart-attack!” Fluttershy stared at her. She just stood there. Then she spoke. “Trixie,” she said, her voice clear. “Don’t go that way. Please.” Trixie looked at her, and then down the path. “They’re out there,” she said. “I know. At the hole.” Trixie looked back. “But you’re not.” Fluttershy shook her head. “No.” “But why? Why aren’t you like them?” Fluttershy stared past Trixie, into the Forest. “Because I KNOW.” “How? Why?” Fluttershy slowly turned toward Trixie, and their eyes met. “Because the animals. The animals that went there…THEY NEVER CAME BACK.” Trixie stared back. Fluttershy’s eyes seemed distant, but not like Starlight’s had. Her mind was not able to wander. She was not able to escape the reality that surrounded her. She had never seen the hole. “We have to help them,” said Trixie. Fluttershy shook her head. “If you go there, you won’t come back either. I don’t know how I know that, but I know it.” “Well what else am I supposed to do?!” screamed Trixie, her voice cracking. Yet even then, Fluttershy did not react. Fluttershy did not answer. She did not need to. Her choice was already evident. It was a choice that Trixie wished so dearly she could follow- -to stand here with Fluttershy, to dwell safe in an empty town, or perhaps to escape entirely. To go to some far-off place like Cloudsdale or Detrot, Canterlot or maybe even Manehattan, to forget a little town called Ponyville ever even existed. Fluttershy could do that. Perhaps because she was afraid, or perhaps because her sense of survival was far more keen than Trixie’s would ever be. In either case, because she had already given up hope. Trixie had not. Clouds began to gather in the sky. Approaching the EverFree, the weather ceased to belong to the domain of Pegasus control- -but further, that uncontrolled nature was beginning to seep into Ponyville. There was no longer anypony to control the flow of clouds, or which ones would bring rain or cold breezes. Trixie pulled her collar close to her as the temperature began to drop, hoping that it would not rain. The path from the fields led uphill, and soon trees were visible. Trees that no longer looked quite green. Wind blew slowly through their trunks, coming out from the place where they grew thick and dense. It carried with it the scent of the swamp and the forest, and something else. Like the perfume of several of the townsfolk, mixed with something darker. Trixie only hesitated for a moment before forcing herself to walk down the well-worn path into the woods. Trees loomed on every side, nearly silent save for the slight rustle of their leafs against the wind. High above, the sky was gray, and the clouds were rolling by quickly, driven by a powerful wind that did not reach the ground. All around her was the scent of dying leafs. The path sloped upward, but only slightly. It was rocky, but not exceptionally so, and not at all overgrown. Not anymore. Yet, the whole way, Trixie felt herself breathing harder, to the point where the only sound she could hear was the rush of her breath in her own ears. Then she saw them. There was no time to prepare for it, to think about what might be there: she simply came to a clearing. A clearing that only days before had been filled with foliage and underbrush, although both of those had now collapsed into gray and crumbled, with the rest having either been trampled or pulled out to make way for ponies. The trees that had shaded the hole and overlooked it had likewise undergone changes, losing parts of their bark and all of their foliage- -as if they had been poisoned, or perhaps drained. This was where the entire town now stood. They were silent. Each and every one of them. They stood, all in a group, all staring in the same direction but no longer necessarily west. They were staring at the hole. At it, and down it. All of them were pale, and not one of them moved. The expression in their eyes was no longer distant- -but neither was it joyful. It was simply horribly, terribly intense. Trixie stared at them from a distance, not knowing what to do. Some dark instinct had frozen her: that she must not get near them. That they were diseased and broken, that Fluttershy had been right- -that it was too late and that the only option was to escape before she too was infected. The hole was beyond them. Surrounded by them. Above them ran an endless stream of gray clouds, and a chilly breeze ran silently through the clearing. No pony moved, and there were no leafs left to fall from the diseased trees. No animal made a sound. Neither did any pony. Then it began. The most horrible thing possible. As if they had been waiting. It started with one of the mares closest to the hole, one who Trixie could barely see through the crowd. Trixie barely knew her, but her name was Daisy. A flower pony, one of barely any consequence- -but still the one who went first. It was as if the slight, frigid breeze that came through the trees had caught her as it passed, giving her just the slightest push she needed. There was no sound. She simply tilted and fell forward, and then vanished down the hole. It moved like a wave, and there was no way for Trixie to stop it. Those that were closest seemed to lean, fell, and were gone. Those that were Pegasi did not open their wings or attempt to fly. They just fell. The rest began to move forward, moving closer to the hole now that they were given a chance- -and they fell too, dropping silently into its depths. “NO!” cried Trixie. “NO! WAIT!” None even turned. Applebloom, the last remaining of the fillies who had first found the hole, struggled to her hooves and dropped in. Behind her was Applejack, then Rarity. Then more. And more. Trixie rushed forward, silently and desperately praying to every Princess she knew that the hole would fill, that the ponies would not drop very far, that there would be too many and that soon it would be packed with sleepy ponies in a great heap. That they would be close enough that she could maybe find somepony to help pull them out. That they were not gone for good. Except the hole did not fill. Nor was there any sound from it. No sound of ponies hitting the bottom. No thump or vibration, and no screams of descent. Only silence. “Twilight! Help them!” Trixie tried to force her way through the crowd toward the deathly thin alicorn Princess. It was not hard. The ponies all felt light and weak- -except that their forward progression could not be stopped. It was already too late. And it was already too late for Twilight. She reached the edge and never looked back. She fell to her side and plummeted like a stone, turning as she fell, looking up one last time at the sky. Perhaps wishing she could see the sun one last time- -except that it was obscured, and her blind eyes would not have seen it anyway. “No! NO!” Trixie tried to grab the nearest pony. He was a stallion, a blue one, and he had a name that Trixie had never learned. He was of no consequence to her, but he was nearest. Trixie grabbed onto him, trying to slow him with every ounce of physical strength she had- -but he did not slow. He pulled her forward, toward the hole, until she eventually had to let go for fear of being drawn in with him. Then she watched him enter the hole, dropping off its edge and falling into the inky darkness with ten other ponies. All sinking silently, not looking at anything in particular. Trixie looked up, tears in her eyes, and looked at the dwindling numbers. There were so few left. Then her eyes spied a color that might once have been pale lavender. “Starlight! STARLIGHT!” Starlight actually stopped, just on the edge of the hole. Trixie ran to her, and Starlight turned. For a moment, their eyes met, and there was recognition in Starlight’s gaze. Recognition and sadness as she slowly tilted. As her hooves ceased to hold the earth at the edge of the hole. Trixie was not fast enough to pull her back, and those eyes stayed locked on hers, staring with profound sadness the whole way, until they disappeared into darkness and Starlight was forever gone. Then and only then did Trixie collapse. Not that it mattered. Starlight had been one of the last, and now there were none. No more ponies save for a blue unicorn with a long, white mane. A mare who wept bitterly in an empty clearing, alone save for a deep and empty hole. She cursed it. Cursed it even though she did not understand it, and through her tears, she looked into it. What she saw in that darkness, none would know. She alone was immune to it, as she had come too late. As she understood, and saw the sadness it had brought. That sadness insulated her from the false-joy that it had brought the others. She was not as fortunate as they would be. And yet she stood. Though it had no pull on her, she walked to the edge, weeping. Weeping because there was nothing left. Then she fell silent. Tears streaming down her face, she held her breath- -and leaned forward. Her hooves lost their grip, and she fell. Toward the only friends she had ever had. None would know what had happened in those woods. None dared approach it. Neither the forest, nor the abandoned village that stood just beyond it, overgrown with vines, with plates still sitting on the tables. As if the entire population had simply gotten up and walked away, leaving behind the happy lives they had once lived. A castle filled with decaying books, a rotting magician’s stage in the courtyard, endless fields of dying apple trees surrounding a crumbling farmhouse, a group of skeletal mannequins that looked as though they had lost their skin and silken flesh trying to flee a collapsed boutique. These and hundreds of other things. Things that ponies feared, even though in truth, their fear was misplaced. Only one had survived. A hermit, left alone and broken. Ponies feared her like they feared the cursed village, but she remembered what had been there. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, explorers would come to her- -never to the village, of course, but to her cottage on its outskirts, surrounded by stranger gardens and many stranger animals- -and they would ask her to tell them what had happened. From the look in her eyes, they knew that she remembered- -but would never say. Yet, many of these explorers would note how she would sometimes drift off and look toward the west. She would never go that way, but would stare. Longingly. As if she were expecting an old friend to return from that way. But none ever did. It was not until the latter years of her long life, many decades later, where she overcame the fear. Where she felt the longing for the friends she had once known, and the ones she had been too afraid- -too cowardly- -to even try to save. It was on that day that she ventured to the forest that no longer had a name. And what she found was nothing. Nothing at all. There was no hole, and no clearing surrounding it. Perhaps because it had been filled in, or had collapsed long ago, washed in by the random and unstable rain of the forest. Gone and erased as easily as the population of the town whose name had by then been long forgotten. That was what she would say, had any pony bothered to ask her in those last months of her life. Had she herself not been forgotten, save by the animals that kept her company. Yet, late at night, she would lay awake at night with one thought running through her mind. An insane, impossible thought, one that she feared would drive her insane if she even paused to acknowledge it. The thought that, perhaps, somehow, the hole had never even existed at all.
