One Way In And No Way Out
Pinkie Pie heard crying.
It was not a sound that she liked to hear, in fact it was one of her least favourite things to hear. She liked to hear laughter, make ponies laugh, but for a very long time now, she had only heard crying.
Whether it had been hours or days now, she knew not, but she had been listening to the crying off and on again. It seemed like it stretched back forever. Hadn’t the crying been with her since the beginning?
The pink earth pony shook her head, trying to clear it so that she could think straight. Straight. Straight like her mane? Hadn’t it been poofy before? Had it always been straight?
What was she thinking about again? Everything was so difficult to remember nowadays.
The sound of somepony crying grabbed her attention.
A slight twitch. That’s all it was, nothing more, but it terrified Pinkie. She shouldn’t have twitched. If she twitched, she might turn, and if she turned she might see-
No. Better to keep her focus on the door. The door made up one of three parts of her world. The door, the room, and the crying. They were her whole world now. She had decided not to pay attention to the crying, and the crying was inside the room, so she sat in front of the door, and waited, occasionally bringing a hoof up to test the doorknob again, but as always, the door was locked.
Nonetheless, the party mare sat in front of the door and waited. It would open. It had to open. That’s what doors did; they opened, and she was betting every bit she had that it would open again.
So she did what she could to occupy herself with nothing but the door, when it might unlock, and exactly everything she would do in order when she got out of the room. She thought of those things because if she didn’t then she would instead be forced to think of the crying. The crying which had once again started up-
Jamming her forehooves against her ears, she tried to block out the noise, but it passed straight through her like a knife; it permeated every cell in her body.
Somepony was crying and she wasn’t helping them. Pinkie Pie grit her teeth in an effort to stop thinking about it, to focus once more on the door and all of the wonderful things that she would do once she was on the other side of it.
She was struggling now though. And the crying had started once again.
Pinkie Pie reached out to check the doorknob. Locked.
She sighed and slumped her shoulder. Thinking of the future was getting harder and harder. Her mind drifted to the past, her past. She used to do anything to cheer up other ponies; she had always gone out of her way to make sure everypony had a smile and was never, ever, ever crying, not like-
The crying was louder now. Pinkie Pie shut her eyes in an effort to try and think of something else, but it was no good. She remembered when she had first found herself in the room, when she had first heard the crying. A shudder ran through the mare’s body at the thought, but her mind was acting on its own now, despite her better judgement.
She’d walked into the room, not entirely sure how she got there; it had been so long ago… or did it just seem that way?
The door had closed behind her and she had immediately tried to open it once more, to no avail.
That’s when she’d first heard the crying. It came from behind her, so she had turned around. The room was huge, and empty, but even with no light sources, she didn’t have trouble navigating it. The room was circular and featureless, and she could see about ten hoofsteps in every direction, but no more.
So she did what any friendly pony would do in that situation.
Pinkie Pie had gone looking for the crying pony, so that she could find out what was wrong and cheer up the poor thing.
The crying had gotten louder, and Pinkie had eventually come to the other side of the room, approaching the figure of a pony. It was hunched over, its back to her, but she could clearly see its body shaking, the pale coat barely visible as having a color in the strange lightless environment, a pair of small wings folded at its sides.
She had gone over to look at the pony’s face, ask their name and see why they were crying-
Pinkie’s head snapped back to its former place, her eyes wide and staring straight ahead at the door. While her mind had wandered, so had her gaze.
She didn’t even notice until she had almost looked behind her that she was no longer focused squarely on the door.
Once again, she reached out a hoof to test the doorknob. Locked.
She couldn’t let herself slip, couldn’t let herself think about the… the.. the thing behind her. It hadn’t moved at all yet, and dear sweet Celestia did she hope it never would! But she had to think about something other than the crying, had to focus on something else. Other wise she might think back to when she saw the face; those crying eyes.
Worse yet, she might be tempted to turn around and look at it again.
No, Pinkie shook her head a fraction of a centimeter in either direction, putting an unnaturally large amount of restraint into the action lest her eyes betray her and try to sneak a glance to the sides.
Giving a long sigh, the party mare snapped her gaze back onto the door and reached out a trembling hoof to test the doorknob. Still locked.
Trembling slightly, she strained her ears to hear over the echo of the crying coming from deeper in the room.
There had been something else for just a second. She hadn’t imagined it, as she was very good at imagining things and nothing of the sort had been able to distract her for a long time now.
There! There it was again? Was that… another voice?
Pinkie started sweating. Surely another voice meant somepony had found the room and were approaching the door to open it? Surely it meant she would be able to leave the room soon?
Trembling more, the pink earth mare leaned closer to the door. It was! She could hear it! Somepony’s voice, approaching from the other side of the door, although they were either very far away, or moving very slowly, because it took a very long time for her to even be certain that it wasn’t her mind playing tricks on her.
Frantically, she reached out to test the doorknob once more. It remained locked.
That didn’t stop her though. Somepony was coming! Somepony was going to let her out! She’d never have to worry about the crying again!
Her jiggling of the doorknob was so frantic that it started rattling loud enough to drown out both the voice from outside and the crying inside the room.
For the first time in what felt like weeks, Pinkie Pie stood up and allowed herself to smile. It was a tiny thing, but there was hope! And that was worth smiling about!
She finally let go of the doorknob and took a tiny step back, ready to bound outside and hug whatever kind, beautiful, wonderful pony had come to find her, to rescue-
As she let go of the doorknob, she saw it start jiggling of its own accord, a sight which brought true joy to her heart for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.
Pinkie’s ear twitched.
She had heard… no, that was impossible. The crying was covering it up. The darn, blasted, crying! Why couldn’t it stop? That… that thing at the back of the cavern, the dungeon, the infernal room, wouldn’t stop crying! Her teeth grit against each other slightly, but her heart soared as she could start to make out what the voice behind the door was saying.
She knew that voice! Knew it so well! It was one of her best friends!
Pinkie’s smile widened… while her heart plummeted.
She knew what the sound coming from outside was. Knew it because she had stopped each of her friends from making it at least once before.
A single tear came to Pinkie Pie’s eye, and threatened to overwhelm her.
Somepony outside was crying.
Author's Note
Hello everypony, I have returned from the land of the dead with a brand new short horror story!
Please be as critical as you want, I know it's quite a vague story and kinda pointless, but alas this is my first time publishing a horror short, and even so, I don't really have much experience in this matter. This was mainly just shoehorned in because i didn't manage to finish another horror story i'm working on in time for Halloween, so unfortunately, you're all left with what i came up with between one and three in the morning; not my proudest writing moment, but hey.
I mostly want this to be a learning experience, so I can reflect on this and see what may have been done right, what was undoubtedly done wrong,and whether it's worth pursuing this genre in future stories.
Thank you all for reading and hope you all have a fantastic Spook-o-ween! (Or Spookmare Night, whichever you prefer)
