Rarity's Colt: Snickers's Harmony Trials

I opened my eyes and was lying on a gurney, a sensation I knew too well at this point. Lights overhead flickered on and off like they were trying to decide which to choose. I scooted back and noticed my blanket, shouted, and shoved it off me since it was splashed with dried blood. My shout woke someone beside me up with a groan. There were cloth partitions separating us so I didn’t see who it was.

“Who’s there?” I asked warily. My limbs were all better and I wasn’t injured at all, which was a good thing, except for the whole waking up in a ruined hospital room from back home.

There was a girl’s squeaky yawn, a pause, then a scream from my right followed by one to my left. The one on my left got louder once that one realized she wasn’t waking up in a comfy bed at home. Hooves clattered on the floor to my right while two hooves clacked on the floor and then took down the cloth divider between us and got wrapped up.

I screamed, the voices screamed for both sides. I was standing on my bed and noticed my pillow was the torso of one of the pony stand-ins Rarity uses for her clothes and I ran to the end of my bed and jumped off, landed and slid because I didn’t have any shoes on and the floor was dusty… right into the cupboards against the far wall.

Dust and old bandages fell around me and I heard Silver Spoon. She quickly, carefully, trotted to me rambling, “Snickers? Oh, thank Celestia you’re here. I woke up in that hospital bed and it’s got blood on it and I was so scared and I was in school and I was tickling my tail and got a headache and I stopped and laid down and woke up here and where are we?”

She helped me up and hugged me, touching our noses together and when I breathed out she breathed in, and it went on for a couple breaths as we calmed down. I felt so relaxed after smelling her for a couple seconds I actually got my head around our predicament. The now moving sheet that was left moved and red hair popped out followed by Apple Bloom’s muzzle.

“Apple Bloom!” I shouted and moved past Silver Spoon. I got a scent of something sweet and earthy as I passed her and my mind slipped to where it was from. I ignored it, there wasn’t time and I had to get out bearings. I helped her out of the sheet; the only clean things in the room were those, and gave her a hug.

“Snickers, where are we? What the hay’s goin’ on? Ah was in class and then Ah was here… in a nasty bed that smells like day old rotten apples in a sack.”

“Ugh, again with the apple references. Can’t you come up with anything better?” Silver Spoon, I’ll say whined.

“Oh, great. What’s she doin’ here? Is this what the inside of her house is really like?” Apple Bloom said looking over my shoulder at Silver Spoon. Apple Bloom stepped back and touched her nose to mine and this time my breath calmed her, but it was only for a second before I felt a tug on my tail. I looked back to a pouting, yes, actually pouting Silver Spoon.

I rolled my eyes and looked at the double doors on one wall and the single door opposite. “Okay, we’ve gotta get outta here. What door do we choose?”

Both fillies picked the opposite set of doors, then turned on one another. “What’re ya thinkin’ Silver Spoon? The single door probably leads to the hall and the exit.”

“Uh, no. The double door leads to the hall and exit because that’s the one the doctors roll the patients into the room from. The single door probably leads to the bathroom or something. You can go there while Snickers and I go the other way.”

“Like hay Ah will! Ah don’t--”

“Girls!” I shouted and their ears pressed to their heads. “I will not have you both acting like foals right now. Silver Spoon, Apple Bloom, stand in front of me right now,” I told them. They rushed to comply and I saw a bit of pink in Silver’s cheeks. Do these fillies ever stop blushing around me when I boss them around?

Okay, dumb question.

“You two are here and stuck with me. I just saw Sweetie Belle and we barely escaped with our lives,” I told them and they gasped. “This, is, serious,” I told them with a tap of my hoof on the floor with each word. “I broke my leg and was bucked by an adult so hard I almost died,” I looked at Silver Spoon and then lingered on Apple Bloom.

Silver Spoon looked at Apple Bloom and was interested at the surprise on the yellow filly’s face. “What’s wrong, Apple Bloom?” Silver asked.

Apple Bloom blinked back into the moment and hesitantly looked at Silver Spoon. “An adult… buckin’ a foal… Ah’ve seen a farmhoof helpin’ and she bucked a cart when a bee went an’ stung her; broke the cart. And a mare buckin’ a colt like Snickers,” she trailed off as both fillies understood better the danger I was in.

“It was a stallion that bucked me, and if they didn’t force me to drink a healing potion, I’d have died with Sweetie watching.” I told them and noticed they moved so close their sides were touching. They needed the comfort I needed, but I had to have us on the same page in the same book.

“Was… was she alright?” Silver Spoon asked.

“Yes, just barely. We have to stay together, stay safe, and help each other. That means we all have to be friends for this, or one of us might die here.”

Silver Spoon sniffled quietly and when Apple Bloom looked over, Silver looked away from her. “Hey, Silver Spoon? It’s okay, Ah’m gonna be here with ya, just like Snickers.”

I nodded. “Exactly. We’re going to check between each door and then choose, alright? One door may lead into another place entirely, that’s how Sweetie and I started. Oh no,” I inhaled realizing finally, “I don’t know what happened to Sweetie Belle!” I stared ahead of myself into space, thinking of what could have happened to her.

“Snickers?” Apple Bloom’s voice returned me to the moment. “Ah’m worried about her, too. If we cross her, then Ah’ll help ya get her outta here with us.”

“I will, too,” Silver Spoon added with a weak smile. “I just wanna get out of here. I don’t wanna die, Snickers. I don’t want you to die, or even you, Apple Bloom.”

Apple Bloom looked at Silver Spoon deadpan. “Thanks, ya really know how ta make a filly feel special.”

“Hey…” Silver Spoon stopped and cocked her head. “Hey, I think I saw a shadow go past the window on the single door.”

“Really?” Apple Bloom asked and turned to face the door. “Hello?” She called out and both Silver and I rushed to reach her and cover her mouth.

“What is wrong with you?” Silver whispered. “Look at this place? It’s, like, horrible! What if the nurse staff is crazy or something?”

Apple Bloom snickered. “Are you sure ya’ll ain’t the crazy one?”

There was a quiet click we all knew. The sound of a lock activating. We all stared at the door and shivers and goosebumps ran across our legs and necks. Weird feeling as an equine, but it turned the what the fuck-o-meter to eight. I looked behind us and the fillies did, too. We didn’t see anything until we looked back at the door and the window was completely black. Like, someone painted over the window with black paint, black.

The flickering lights meant nothing to whatever lay beyond the locked door and window, and we didn’t want anything to do with it either. We turned and they moved to my sides, smooshing me between them so tightly I could feeling their muscles moving with each step we took. We reached the double doors and I nosed them open and we started to step into the hall when the lock clicked again.

We were still facing away from the single door, we stood tall and our ears focused back… then the handle squeaked as it started to turn and the three of us screamed and ran to the first doorway, ducked inside, and hid behind a desk.

“What the fuck is this place?” I asked. I felt a sting on my once broken leg and looked up at the two fillies sitting across from me under the desk. “Ow.”

“Ya ain’t supposed ta cuss, Snickers.”

I rubbed the spot she tapped me and pouted. “Why does it matter? I’m not doing good, okay?” My lip trembled as the memory of almost dying was still in my mind, even if I was quickly forgetting the whole even. Sweetie’s pain, being weak and helpless, then ending up back here and not knowing where Sweetie was brought me to silently dripping tears to the floor.

Silver Spoon leaned forward and wrapped her forelegs around me. Apple Bloom leaned in, too, and Silver Spoon let her in, we held one another in the silence. The three of us sat listening, holding one another under the desk for a few minutes. “Okay, I think Apple Bloom should peek out,” Silver Spoon suggested. I held my hoof between them before they started, rotated my foreleg slightly, and pointed the tip of my hoof to Silver Spoon.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because she’s the herd’s alpha mare right now and the responsibility’s hers.”

I looked at Apple Bloom, who was ready to decline, but the logic of pony society and instinct won. She quietly nickered and moved behind Silver Spoon, who found another reason to get even closer to me. Apple Bloom sneaked around the desk and shuffled her hooves across the floor so there wouldn’t be any noises as she reached the door.

“All’s clear, everypony,” she whispered so quietly we could barely hear her.

We all joined up and moved into the hall and towards where we hoped the exit would be, even though I had a feeling the exit would be meaningless here.

There was a loud screech and crackle of static from a PA system we didn’t even know was there and we screamed, holding on to one another. In a huddle, looking around for anything coming at us. “The hospital is closed due to emergency. Please follow the signs to the exits quickly and orderly. Staff will help guide you if you’re in need.”

The voice was cheery and calm, like a professional announcer casually telling the daily weather plan around the hospital.

“Okay, so,” Silver Spoon gulped, “we just find the signs and get out. Easy as one, two, three.”

“S-so,” Apple Bloom asked not hiding her fear as well, “anypony see any signs?”

We separated and looked around us. The hall was long with doors every several paces, nothing specifically popped out from the normal hospital scene; except the dark, dank, eerie nature and general unkempt mess of the place. “I don’t know, but this is exactly what hospitals are like back where I’m from.

“Only this one feels wrong and haunted, the ones back home are just in ruins. Let’s keep going, there might be a stairwell we don’t see.”

I felt two bodies beside me again and our steps synched so closely it almost sounded like one pony was walking down the hall. We reached the end and had a choice between right and left. We looked both ways and it was the same as the hall we were passing, so we chose right and went on.

*tick*

We all stopped and listened. “What was that?” I asked.

*tick*

The sound was ahead of us, from the room to the right. We all gulped and looked between one another and split with Silver in front, then me, and Apple Bloom behind. We slowly moved to the door and peeked around the corner like a totem pole to see inside.

*tick*

“Ah don’t see anythin’,” Apple Bloom whispered.

There was a low stuttering creaking sound and a door in the room opened slowly. I started to tremble starting at my ankles and then up to my knees. A small black ball rolled out of the bathroom and turned in a way it shouldn’t have been able to, rolling toward us. We watched curiously as it slowed to a stop by the threshold.

It pulsed twice and expanded a little. We backed up, our hooves clattering for grip. It pulsed again and a squirt of black colored ink shot into the room. It started a rhythm we all recognized as a heartbeat, each beat was pumping black congealed blood into the room.

*tick-tack*

Apple Bloom whimpered and I looked aside at her, her eyes were as wide as they’d go. I looked to my other side and Silver’s eyes were shut, her ears were flat, and she was running her hoof over her braid.

“Girls, let’s go, there’s nothing for us here,” I said and quickly moved past the nightmare scene. I looked in felt my stomach turn at the mass of clotted blood in the room that grew with each thud the heart made. I looked back and Silver Spoon was in place, still self soothing. “Silver, come on… don’t leave us.”

She opened her eyes and gasped, seeing how far apart we were. She got to her hooves and cantered toward us past the door. A monstrous roar accompanied a creature made from the blood in the room that stomped out and just missed Silver Spoon with a chomp from it’s unhinged tri-split maw.

Silver Spoon screamed and caught us in our mad sprint away from the blood beast. The fixtures along the hall shook and the lights flickered each time one of the monster’s four bloody legs impacted the floor, only instead of stomps it made an awful squishing crunch that was like pumpkins being smashed one after another, after another, after another.

Apple Bloom looked terrified to my left, Silver Spoon was stoically crying to my right, and at the next T intersection we turned left. The hallway was the same again, the monster was still behind with its crunching steps at a steady pace. The doors were closed, being a hospital I knew they wouldn’t lock, but taking time to check was time wasted when running from a monster made from fucking dead blood!

“Fuck this place, fuck Harmony, fuck that monster! Fuck this shit!” I turned to the first door on the left ahead and bit the handle, gave it a shove, and took a single step in. “Fuck that!” I shouted and ran to catch up with the girls who had tentatively slowed to a trot.

“What was in there?” Silver Spoon asked with a shaky voice once I was between them and we started galloping again.

“It was a fucking mannequin. Just standing there facing me. I’m not fucking with that and I’ll eat a box of soap, Apple Bloom, for the cussin’ I’m doing.” I looked at her and didn’t even think she noticed me that time. She was actually crying while we ran and dodged around random objects on the floor like paper stacks or dead plants. “Apple Bloom?” I asked starting to breathe a little heavier.

Apple Bloom sobbed and stumbled, but caught herself before she fell and caught back up. “I… Ah don’t wanna die. Not like this, Snickers,” she glanced aside to me.

I made a choice. “I won’t let you, you mean too much to me… I’ll distract it so you can both get away.”

My choice was vetoed by Silver Spoon yelling from behind us. “Snickers, I love you!” I looked back at the black blood monster as it bore down on Silver Spoon, who had stopped and was standing, looking at Apple Bloom. “And tell Scootaloo I loved her more than she’ll ever know, too.”

Apple Bloom and I stopped running and fell over, tumbling and rolling to a stop on our bellies facing the last moment of Silver Spoon as the creature fell on her, allowing the grey filly a final partial scream before she vanished under it. With a sickening crunch once Silver was engulfed, the creature melted into a puddle.

Apple Bloom wailed. It was a wail that tore through my heart and made me realize that Apple Bloom had liked Silver Spoon, probably loved, but just lost a friend. Bullying be damned, if Silver Spoon loved Scootaloo and me, than there’s a chance Apple Bloom loved Silver Spoon and was waiting for the chance to tell her.

The monster, and Silver Spoon, seemed to be gone and we were safe, as safe as we could be, at least.

I tried… fuck did I try. “A-apple Bloom? M-maybe she’s okay? Maybe it just took her downstairs or somewhere… there’s no body, Silver’s body, I mean.”

Apple Bloom was crying her little heart out and lay her chin on a foreleg and covered her eyes with the other. I moved over and wrapped a leg over her withers and she moved closer for the contact. “Fuck this place, Snickers. Ah hate it, Ah fuckin’ hate it. Ah wanna go home ta Ponyville. Ah wanna die old and surrounded by love.

“Ah wanted ta die with Silver Spoon lookin’ down on me after years tagether and growin’ old tagether.” That answered that. “Ah don’t wanna die here, Ah wanna go home with you and see Scootaloo happy, with or without ya. Snickers, Scoots…” Apple Bloom looked up to me and lifted her head. She kissed me and it was sweet.

“Scootaloo was plannin’ ta marry her foalsitter, her neighbor, after he started havin’ sex with her. She was three and he went ta jail... Ah know it was a secret, but Crusaders are honest with one another; no secrets and no lies. If Ah’m gonna die, Ah want ya ta know ta think with yet head and not with yer dangler.”

I listened and cursed myself for knowing, but not knowing. I nuzzled my nose under her chin. “Thank you, but we’re gonna get outta here. Both of us. Silver’s sacrifice won’t be for nothing, she loves you. Not loved, because I know she’s alive and waiting for us to find her. When we find her, you tell her how you feel and I’ll be right behind you to help you if you need it.

“Hell, Sweetie and Scootaloo will be there, too. I’ll set up a parade,” I booped her snout, “with the Winterbolts overhead drawing hearts overhead.”

Apple Bloom, despite her crying, weakly giggled. “If Scoots or Rainbow Dash heard you call the Wonderbolts the Winterbolts, they’d talk yer ears off.”

“See! You’re way smarter than me about a ton of stuff, you’re the one that’ll get us out of this place. I believe in you, and I know that together we can make it.”

Apple Bloom hiccupped and sniffled, stood up, then nodded to me. “Yer right, Snickers. Ah may be lost in some hospital of nightmares, but it’s only a bad dream. Ah’ll get ya outta here like a mare should,” she smiled, finally. “Ya be the damsel and Ah’ll be the brave mare, right?”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Sure… help, help. Won’t some mare save me from the scary monsters?” I said flatly. Apple Bloom grinned and it really encouraged me. She took the lead with me a step beside and behind her. “Forsooth, there cometh my mare to saveth me from the doometh that approacheth us-eth. What-eth shall I offer-eth my true love-eth?”

Apple Bloom laughed out loud. “Ya know,” she said giggling now, “Old Ponish didn’t have that many ‘eth’ at the end of the words? Ah should know, Ah was in a play or three.”

“Oh? But were you there? Did you actually speak Old Ponish or talk to somepony that does?” I asked.

Apple Bloom blinked and a second passed. “Snickers. Ah don’t think Ah’ve ever heard ya say ‘somepony’. But, ta answer yer question; yes. Ah’ve met Princess Luna, she was from back then.”

“Ha, sure. She’s the one that raises the moon and her sister raises the sun. All this magic and pony ignorance makes con artists’ jobs so easy, I swear.”

Apple Bloom buckled down. “They ain’t trickers, they’re real ponies that have real special powers. When ya get back ta school, then you’ll learn all about the truth of the matter.”

“Sure,” I replied sarcastically, “and then I’ll learn to walk into the ground and become one with the earth, because I’m an earth pony. Heck, I’ll learn to become a tree, why not?”

“Ugh! Colts are so thick headed sometimes! Why can’t ya just accept that we’re not gonna agree until ya see it happen or ya start belivin’ in the impossible?”

I poked my nose to her flank and she looked back at me. “Sorry, thinking with my head. Just wondering if we’ll get our marks for haunted houses, or something.”

Her eyes widened and she gasped. “Oh, yeah! But… Ah can’t get one without my friends. We’re supposed ta get one together.”

“Oh, puh-lease. The odds of that happening are, like, ten million to one,” I snarked.

“Oh yeah? How much do you know about cutie marks?” She snapped back and startled me from the suddenness. I remembered that these were really important to these ponies.

Ears flat to my head I looked down. “Not much. I’m sorry, Apple Bloom. I was just messing around and didn’t mean to make you angry at me.”

I bumped into her side and noticed she’d turned to block me. She turned to me fully and hugged me. “Ah’m not mad. Ah just don’t like ta be teased about not havin’ my mark yet… Ah guess Ah just reacted like Ah do when…” she fell silent and I hugged her back. I felt Apple Bloom trembling a little, even when she moved back.

I saw the lingering hurt in her eyes, but the hope I gave her was enough to keep her going with me until we reached a set of stairs. Ascending was rubble, for some reason that just was there. Like only the stairway was impassible, but there wasn’t any damage to the walls or anything. No debris on the stairs going down. Just a huge fuck you to logic and building codes; like who’d design a hospital solid as a brick shithouse, but make parts of a stairwell collapsible?

“Hey, Apple Bloom?” I said once we’d reached the main floor and were standing by the closed door leading into the main halls.

“Yeah, Snickers?”

I looked into her eyes. Serious time. “Whatever happens, we open the door and stay together until we’re out, okay?” She nodded firmly, agreeing with a single nod and dispelling everything I was concerned about.

There was a static noise and a mare’s monotone voice over the PA system. “Evacuate the hospital in an orderly manner. The hospital staff is here to assist you, please follow their guidance to the exits. The exits are located on each floor, marked by appropriate signage. Thank you.”

Chills shivered us both at the omen like way the mare spoke. We looked at one another and gulped. Apple Bloom stepped toward the door and opened her mouth, her jaw was trembling as she bit the handle and turned her head. The latch clicked and she let the handle go, stepping back to stand beside me as the door slowly creaked open.

“Fuck,” I whispered when I looked out into the hallway, “fuck, fuck, damn it.”

Apple Bloom was silent for a few seconds looking at the scene. “Yeah,” she whispered back. “Ah’m gonna get my hide tanned good fer this, but Ah really fuckin’ hate this place.”

Hearing her swearing was a little heart warming; it really helped to know that she was in as horrible a place as I was. So much so, that she’d violate her own linguistic limitations for and with me.

“Okay, here we go,” I said and took the first steps into the hallway with Apple Bloom by my side.