Hollow Hope

Chapters

1: Falling Down
2: Deep Machinations
3: The Bell's Toll
4: Carried Away
5: Gold
7: Further Down
8: Mother
9: Detached
10: Consummation
11: Into Fire
12: Daydream Believer
13: Crossed Wires
14: Rest
15: Daddy
16: Cold Sweat
17: Revelation
18: Incarnate
20: Absolution
21: Light
6: Enlightening
19: The Choice

1: Falling Down

Sunny,

I gotta talk to you. It's been too long, way too long. I finally got a break from basically running Griffonstone--without you--and I've GOT to talk to you.

So much has happened--and all it does is remind me of what we had, once. What you ruined.

I'll meet you in Hope Hollow.

-- Gilda

Sunny Skies frowns for a moment, folding the letter and tucking it under a flowerpot. He and Petunia have been getting along just fine, thank you, despite the bad news from the doctor. Gilda--he and Gilda were over and done with, ten years past due, impossible to recover. That's all there is to it; he'd simply tell her the past is the past, and that it will never come back. He trots up the stairs, passing the Royal Suite, which has been looking significantly better since he got Torque to do some work on it.

He steps into his bedroom, slips under the covers, kisses his wife on the cheek, and whispers 'good night'. She curls up next to him, and doesn't even bother asking about the mail--she knows that he'd bring anything important up with her.

A shrill, ear-piercing, blood-curdling shriek cuts through the night. Sunny bolts upright, eyes wide. He feels oddly cold, and as his eyes adjust to the dark, he also feels oddly gray. The covers have lost their bright-blue hue. The windows reveal nothing but deeper shades of black. "The color's gone?" he mutters to himself. And then, he realizes that someone else is gone, too.

"Petunia? Petunia!?" Slow realization sets in--he knows the voice--he knows who it was that was screaming in the night. It was his Petunia.

He gallops down the hall, leaping down the stairs--cursing, as he nearly sprains his knee at the landing. He's getting too old to be jumping around--but he can't help it. Petunia's out there, and she's in danger, and that knowledge simply overrides everything else.

As Sunny bursts through the front door of the hotel, he catches sight of a silhouette in the dark: a sleek, muscular figure, with wings and a wickedly curved beak.

"Gilda?"

But the figure turns, and starts walking away, out into the night. He picks up the pace again, breaking into a gallop--but stops short, as he hears a familiar voice saying unfamiliar things.

"There!" Moody Root shouts, and Sunny winces as he hears a blunt, wet impact. "Serves ya right for--ngh!--what ye've done to my tree!"

"Moody!" As Sunny rounded the corner of the fence, he saw that the gate had been smashed down. Whatever had come into Moody's yard, it hadn't asked nicely. Sunny ran through. "Moody, what happened? The whole town's lost its--"

He beheld a strange and disturbing scene--Moody, standing over a bruised and battered form, his shovel buried in the body below him. It had paws on its hindlegs, and claws on its front--but its head was missing, and it looked emaciated, its abdomen sucked inward so deeply that its spine was almost visible through the front of its stomach. Blood had pooled underneath it, around its backside--Moody must've caught the poor thing by surprise, attacking from behind.

"Mayor! Thank the Princesses you're here--"

"Moody, what in Tartarus are you doing!?" Sunny screamed. "That's a--"

"Shut up!" Moody hissed. "There might be more! They're gonna kill us, Sunny!"

"You're...you're insane," Sunny muttered. "That's why the town's lost color. You've all lost your minds!"

"I've lost my mind? Try talking to the bitch what tried to--"

Moody's words were stopped dead in a splatter of red, as three sharp talons suddenly speared through the front of his throat. Behind him, the decapitated, empty-bellied carcass lurched forward, tossing the old gardener to the side. Frozen in shock, all Sunny could do was stare, horrified, as the still-bloody cadaver slumped forward--clumsily putting one claw in front of the other. It had killed Moody effortlessly, and now it seemed as though Sunny was next.

"Moon save us," Sunny muttered. "I've lost my mind!"

The impossible creature lunged forward, and Sunny ducked--the monster's claws narrowly missed the tip of his horn, breaking him out of his frightened stupor. He turned tail and ran, galloping out of Moody's yard and into the street. Rounding the corner, he stopped to catch his breath, and thanked his lucky stars that the thing was missing its head--evidently, without a brain, it could barely walk. "What am I gonna do now? The festival was gonna happen next week..." He chuckles softly, ducking into the doorway of Torque's workshop. "What in the hay has gotten into me? I just saw Moody die, and all I can think of is that damn festival!"

With a gasp, he remembered the scream. "Aw, no--Petunia's out there! Moody said there might be more of those things..." Sighing, he leans against the door to Torque's place. "I'm no fighter--and who knows what kind of trouble she's gonnaaAH!"

With a squeak, the door swings open--and with a thud that shakes the dust off the rafters, he lands inside. A spring catches the door before it falls off its hinges, and the assembly swings shut with a bang.

2: Deep Machinations

"Ugh--" Sunny Skies groaned, picking himself up and dusting himself off. Torque's workshop looked different, tonight; the dimmed colors and even dimmer light were eating chunks of the room, leaving inky blackness in place of the shining metal and blacksmith's tools he knew.

"...Hello there!" he called out into the dark. No response.

Well, no pony response. He heard something grinding into motion--a rhythmic kerchunk and a hiss of steam, over and over. He couldn't quite see the pistons moving, but he knew what a steam engine sounds like, and this wasn't exactly it. "What have you been up to, Torque?"

He keeps his voice down, creeping further into the workshop, stepping gently around the bench in the center. At the far wall, he stops short, his eye catching on a single object, the only tool left on its rack: A hefty, cast-iron pipe wrench.

"...I'm no fighter," he mutters, "but I feel like I need this." He reached out, lifting the wrench with a simple levitation spell; it felt clumsy, but the weight would make up for that. His gut wrenched at the thought of having to deal with another dead griffon walking, but it was evident even to him that running forever wouldn't work.

Beside that, the doorway in the back of the room had been boarded up--though on closer inspection, the boards seemed rotted and weak. He hefted the wrench, and broke them down; if someone was still hidden behind them, they weren't safe anyway, and they would've responded to his voice. He briefly wonders if Torque is even here. He shudders at the thought of what may have happened to her.

As he stepped into the hall, he frowned softly, dragging the wrench through the air behind him. "How deep does this go? This place isn't that big. Is it?"

The doors on each side of the hallway were locked. Each and every one of them.

"Hello? Hellooo?" Sunny called out, but still there was no answer. "Oh, flapjacks. I'm never gonna find Petunia at this rate..."

But the next door he tried was unlocked. The handle wasn't stuck. In fact, it turned easily in his hoof.

"Oh, finally!" he said, stepping through--momentarily ignoring the sound of the pistons, as they grew louder.

On the other side, he found himself in a simple sitting room. There was a door on the left-hoof wall, and he could hear whirring machinery and hissing steam on the other side of it; and there were three portraits on the wall. In his excitement, Sunny ignored the portraits; instead, he beelined for the other door. Perhaps someone else was hiding in the machine room?

Inside the machine room, he found that the floorboards gave way to metal grating, and the wallpaper had been torn away, leaving only bare, tarnished copper. There was a railing at the far end, and beyond it, all Sunny could see was a single piston and some sort of crucible. The piston hissed, pounding into the crucible, squeezing white-hot metal out around itself. The room was hot, sweltering even, and he realized with a sad sigh that nopony was here. He turned to leave; the sight of the machine filled him with unease, anyway. He had no idea what it was creating, but he knew it would be done soon.

As he walked back out into the portrait room, he stopped for a moment to consider the portraits--first, a picture of somepony he doesn't know. "Wait--I recognize her," he said softly. "This is...my old secretary. She left around the time Gilda broke up with me. Yes, I remember her...but what was her name? Confound it, Sunny, your brain might as well be a pimento. Maybe I should've asked the doctors about my memory."

He sighed, stepping backward, and regarded the next portrait: his dear Petunia. "Oh, Petunia...every year of our marriage has been a blessing."

He catches himself short as he realizes the sound of pistons has changed, growing erratic and weak. "Is someone there?" he calls out, toward the machine room--but there's no response. He opens the door, lifting the wrench as he anticipates some clawed freak leaping out at him...

...and he sees the machine room again--but this time, there is no metal, and the piston moves like a dying animal, struggling to keep its rhythm. The crucible is cracked down the side. "What in Equestria...?" he mutters to himself, as he inspects the machine. "...well, this thing won't be creating anything anymore. I don't even know if anypony can fix this."

Left without answers, he shrugged, walked into the portrait room, and moved to the last portrait--and found a picture of Gilda staring back at him! "Huh? Oh, it's just...just Gilda. When did she have a portrait done?" Sunny murmured to himself. "She hasn't been out here for years. And why does she look so sad?"

Another clunk signified the sudden return of the piston's steady rhythm. He glanced back toward the machine room. "What now?" he said, as he pushed the door open again.

The piston was moving, but the crucible was gone entirely. "What the--somepony ought to turn that thing back off," Sunny muttered. "It's just wasting time, now. Nothing's gonna come of this."

His eye caught on a glint of metal, lying on the platform where the crucible once was.

"Is that...it can't be. That looks like the key to our bedroom. We lost it ages ago! What's it doing here?"

Without a second thought, Sunny rushed to the railing, leaning the wrench against a wall as he reached out with his magic to take the bedroom key. "Yes, this is exactly it. Pluck me and make a pillow, this is the key to the master suite..."

He nearly dropped the key as the door creaked open.

3: The Bell's Toll

"Hello!?" Sunny shouted, in unison with the young Earth Pony filly who had poked her head in.

Her coat was pale--and it took him a moment to realize that this wasn't the work of the mysterious grayness which had returned to the town. It worked well with the pink curls that framed her face, even though stray strands of mane had split off at frazzled angles. There were splashes of mud on her hooves, tinged a shade of red--Sunny hoped that it was merely the dense clay of the mountainside, and not something a filly's hooves shouldn't be covered in.

"Oh, thank Luna! I was starting to think I was all alone out here!" she said, sinking onto her haunches and leaning against a wall; she unclasped her saddlebags, letting them fall to the floor. "You've seen those things, right?"

"So I'm not going mad! Or, well, maybe everypony is," Sunny muttered. "I'm--"

"The mayor," the filly said. "Sunny Skies, right? My name's Cloudy." She offered him a hoof to shake, but--seeing as it was coated in all sorts of unfortunate things--they both quickly realized a hoofshake wasn't in order.

"I'd suggest staying put, but my wife--"

"My mom's out there, too," Cloudy says softly. "I hope she's okay."

"We'll find them. I'm sure of it," Sunny replies, hefting the wrench. "And...I'll make sure those freaks don't get to us. Or them," he said with a determined scowl, as the bell of the town's Celestian church began to toll.

"This doesn't look like Torque's workshop anymore," Sunny mumbled as he stepped through the door into yet another hallway. The wallpaper had changed three times over the course of their journey, and the wooden floor was now carpeted.

"I think this is the apartments on the other side of town," Cloudy said with a tilt of her head. "But how'd we get all the way over here? There's no way Torque's place connects this far out..."

She recoiled as her hoof touched a wet patch of carpet. Slick, oily, yellow-white pus stains were scattered across this section of the hall. The wallpaper, on closer inspection, was moldy; the paint on the ceiling was flaking off, revealing groaning rafters. As Sunny studied his surroundings, he realized that the halls had been getting progressively worse, and as he looked ahead, he saw that they would soon stop being hallways.

Up ahead, the carpet was tattered and torn to shreds; the ceiling fell away entirely; and the walls were replaced by railings and black void. Copper and steel, cold iron, and inky blackness.

"...you see it too, right?" Cloudy whispered.

"Yes," Sunny whispered back, as he took a step forward.

"You're not going in, are you?"

"Is there anywhere else to go?" Sunny said, glancing back at Cloudy as he trotted onward into Hell.

She followed him. What else could she do?

The hall gave way to steel grating and copper plating, and she followed him; they passed pumping pistons, metal pouring out of pipes that went to nowhere. An open trough ran under the grating, an aqueduct filled with what looked like blood. Sunny retched as they walked over it, but they pressed on.

Finally, there was a door, set into a rusted, stained wall of cast iron. Sunny glanced at Cloudy, and placed his hoof on the handle. They nodded, bracing themselves for whatever might come next, and he opened it.

On the other side was a cavernous room, with massive steel beams crossing the empty space above them. The walls were lined with pillars, or perhaps chutes, thrumming with mechanical motion. In the center of the room, a trough held what remained of something--something in flesh and blood, something which lived once.

Dangling above it on unnaturally long legs, a mangy beast dipped its head, ripping a chunk of flesh off of the prey. It twisted violently, and hurled the meat away, watching as it sailed through the air into a hole in one of the walls. As it turned back to its prize, its eyeless face froze in place, staring blindly--and Sunny got the unnatural feeling that it was staring directly at him. Its serrated, many-toothed mouth opened wide, in a vicious imitation of a smile; a low whine filled the air. Within moments, the thing had retreated through its hole, skittering away on spider-like legs.

"...what was that?" Sunny muttered, taking a step toward the hole from whence this macabre daddy-long-legs apparently came.

"Mayor?" Cloudy whispered, tugging at his shoulder and pointing--and Sunny's breath caught in his throat as he saw the apparently-dead pile of meat and bones slowly pick itself back up, groaning. It was a pony--emphasis on was. Chunks of its legs had been torn away--and there were similar signs of pain on its body, though they were covered by swollen, cancerous growths that made it sway grotesquely on its already-shaky hooves. Like the thing that was consuming it, its face was unrecognizable save for a single mouth that opened entirely too wide.

"Behind me," Sunny said, raising the wrench.

"You don't gotta tell me twice."

The monster's body began twitching, its legs shaking as it howled--and a moment later, Sunny saw it cross half the room in a split second. He blinked, and the thing was right on top of him, raising a hoof to strike--he dove sideways, as Cloudy ran for the opposite corner.

The thing howled again, and Sunny heard a wet thud as it smashed its hoof into the floor. Yellowed pus began dripping from its leg, falling through the floor-grates into the ever-present collection troughs, not one drop wasted. Another blink of an eye, and it was inches from Sunny--but this time, Sunny let the wrench fall, and bashed the thing across the face. One of its tumors burst, releasing more filth and making it screech in pain--it staggered back, and Sunny seized his opportunity, lunging forward and swinging the wrench again--this time making one of its forelegs crumple.

Sunny took a step back, huffing and gasping. The wrench's weight was starting to wear on his magic, and by extension, him. He watched, horror creeping onto his face, as the disgusting creature's leg snapped back into place, and it reared up, its head splitting open into a horrific mockery of a mare's happy smile.

"GOTCHA NOW, FUCKER!"

Cloudy leapt onto the thing's back, pummeling its head with all her might--scrabbling and kicking as it wheeled around. She slipped off, tumbling up against a wall with a pained grunt. She rolled to her hooves, but the monster was already upon her, and it reared once more--and this time, its hooves connected. Cloudy cried out, choking off a sob as the monster kicked her again.

Sunny poured his will into his levitation--he felt a twinge of pain as he strained his horn. The wrench rose again, and this time, he was swinging for the fences.

KRAK

As the wrench connected with the thing's head, Sunny could feel the bones shattering. It tumbled to the ground, a tangle of spasming limbs oozing bile. He brought the wrench down once more, a hammer against the anvil--again, and yet again, until the bastard's head was broken open, until its limbs finally stopped swinging.

"Haah...Princesses, that was..." Sunny sank to his haunches, dropping the wrench and squeezing his eyes shut as he gasps for breath. Cloudy sits next to him.

"We did it," she says, softly. "We're alive."

"Yeah. Yeah, we're alive." Sunny chuckles a little, despite himself. "Stuff me in an olive and call me a pimento. I'm alive."

"...you're a fuckin' dork, that's what you are," Cloudy said with a giggle and a wince. "C'mon, I don't even wanna look at that thing."

Sunny glanced at his handiwork, and quickly regretted it. "You're right. Do you think that hole leads anywhere?" he said. "That giant spider-thing went down it. And there's no other way out..."

"What if we run into it--I mean, maybe that's its nest!" Cloudy shouted, springing to her hooves.

"If it is, we're trapped in here anyway," Sunny said with a shrug as he stood up. "We might as well find out."

4: Carried Away

"Ugh. Wish this thing worked." Cloudy fumbled and fiddled with the thing in her hooves--a flashlight, of the emergency hoof-cranked kind.

"Let me try--" Sunny pulled it into his magic field, twisting the crank; nothing happened. It didn't make so much as a whirr, nor did it emit so much as a candle's light. "I bet Torque would know what's wrong with this thing," he muttered, as he dragged it along behind him, next to the wrench. He'd have to find something to carry all this junk around in, soon.

"Eh, well. I can hide better in the dark anyway," Cloudy said, cantering on ahead.

"Stay close, Cloudy--!" But Sunny's voice was drowned out by a creaking, groaning echo; dust began to fall around them, the musty cave walls trembling and cracking. A piston jutted through the ceiling, and an iron beam fell down alongside it, crossing out the path Cloudy had taken; she loosed a brief shriek, before clapping a hoof over her mouth.

"Sunny!"

"I hear you," he said, poking at the twisted, rusted wreckage; it responded by shifting as a third shaft of iron came down from the ceiling, neatly cutting off the space Sunny was going to squeeze through. "Keep going! This part of the cave isn't gonna hold."

"...okay," Cloudy shouted back. "Stay safe, all right? I don't wanna run into that thing again, and I don't want you to run into it either."

"You too!" Sunny turned back, lighting his horn; there was a side passage here, and it would at least go somewhere he hasn't been yet. Perhaps it'll loop around to where Cloudy is, he thinks to himself, as he trots into the dark.

Rock and water gave way once more to rust and blood; Sunny wrinkled his nose at it, scowling. "How did all of this get here, anyway? Torque can't have built it all..."

He poked his head into the hall--wincing as he watched spinning sawblades, soaked in blood, just behind worn-down wire mesh so thoroughly corroded that it appeared to be moth-eaten. Satisfied that nothing in this saw-room was actively trying to kill him, Sunny stepped out of the door frame, and walked slowly past the blades. Something in the distance clunked, and he jumped nearly a foot in the air, as meat hooks shook themselves free of the ceiling and began idly swinging; a moment later, they began trundling along, dragged through the air by chains and gears. Behind the wire mesh, in the inky black, he saw more hooks--these ones laden with bodies. He turned away as the first body met the sawblade, trying not to think about the sickening crunch of bone and the wet slurp of blood leaving a carcass.

He picked up the pace after that. He didn't want to find out who--or what--put those bodies on the hooks.

Once the wire underhoof had turned to carpet, Sunny allowed himself a glance at the walls; and when he saw that they were covered in moldering, but intact wallpaper, he breathed a sigh of relief. The carpet was still stained with the disgusting off-white pus that it had been covered in earlier, but at least he didn't feel like he was in a butcher's back room. He tried the first door he found, and upon twisting the handle, walked in without a second thought.

It wasn't until the other pony in the room opened her mouth that he actually noticed her. Her coat was a gentle beige; her mane and tail were a deep scarlet that matched a scarf she had wound around her throat. A horn poked out between her curls.

"Having fun yet?" she said, and Sunny jumped again.

"What--who--"

"Long Night," she said, extending a hoof. Sunny shook it before he knew what he was doing. "I'm doing a little research," she explained with a yawn, as she pulled her hoof back and casually ran her tongue over it.

"What kind of research could you be doing at a time like this?" Sunny asked, trotting around the room. She monopolized it; the only furniture in the little sitting room was a single chair and a side-table beside it. Long Night reached for a red-covered notebook, lifting it from the side-table as she levitated a pen out from behind her ear.

"Did you know," she said simply, "that dreams are how our minds organize things?"

"How could you be talking about dreams at a time like--"

"Sunny. You knew this already, didn't you?" she purred, stretching across the arms of the chair. "You know how dreams can reflect our lives."

Sunny opened his mouth to object, but stopped short. He felt a strange, slowly-rising dread building itself in the pit of his stomach, not strong enough to act upon, but too present to ignore.

"Tell me, Sunny. Have you had any interesting dreams lately?" she said with a smirk. Reclined sideways across the chair, she levitated the notebook and pen away for a moment as she idly pawed at the carpet.

"...if you count all this--" He gestured to the room, and the world outside it--"As a nightmare, then yes. An altogether too interesting nightmare."

Long Night simply grinned from ear to ear. "Yes, it is, isn't it?"

Sunny reached blindly toward a wall--his hoof found a doorknob--and he was out of the room before he had time to think about it.

His ears pricked up as he heard a dull thud echo up the hall. A low growl caught his attention, and he picked up speed, galloping past a series of nailed-shut doors and rounding a corner--

Before him was a leonine figure, her bronze coat stained with blood and white ichor. Below her, a headless griffon-thing twitched--blood pulsed and spurted out of a hole in its flank, where the handle of a knife rested under the figure's golden paw. She frowns, and with a flap of her wings, she yanks the knife free and hops away from the disgusting mess. The bags under her eyes were hidden by thick circles of deep purple, clashing with the brilliant shock of white that framed her head.

"Gilda?" Sunny whispered.

"Hm?" The figure turned to him, trotting closer--and a moment later, he realized his mistake; she had no beak. This was a pegasus, not a griffon. "You talkin' to me?" she asked, tilting her head as she stuffed the knife into a sheath under her wing. "'Cuz my name's not Gilda. It's Glider. Gilded Glider...I guess I see how you mixed it up, though."

"Sorry," Sunny muttered. "I mistook you for someone else--"

"Don't worry about it. Any friendly face is a good one with these freaks running around," she grumbled, idly stomping on the headless monster's body with a hindleg. "Come on. I found a room with a lock that actually works." She beckoned him with a gloved forehoof, before turning to saunter away, her tail swinging as she strutted down the hall. Sunny followed, too relieved to notice.

5: Gold

"This way. Don't get left behind."

Glider moved at a swift, steady pace--a marathon runner taking a brisk jog in the middle of the night. Sunny, meanwhile, lost ground at every turn--stopping to check every corner, eyes wide. "Would you slow down? I'd rather not get caught by surprise--"

He gasped softly as he ran into her. There was a brief tangle of hooves, and her wings flared out to balance her as he scrambled backward.

"Sorry! Sorry. I'm more out of sorts than--"

"Lemme guess: Than an orange in an apple orchard?" Glider snickered; her tail flicked back and forth as she started walking again. "You're such a fuckin' dweeb, dude."

As they picked their way past a jumble of furniture, Sunny spoke up again.

"When did you get here? I don't remember meeting you, and--well, I'm the mayor." It was true that he'd been busy preparing the festival, but he still made a point of greeting new arrivals.

"Late-night flight," Glider explained. "Got here right as the fog came in. This place is spooky when it's dark out. I kinda like it. Could do without the flesh-eating monsters, though."

"I see your point," Sunny mumbled as he negotiated a particularly wobbly armoire. "I'd rather save this sort of thing for Nightmare Night."

"You need a hoof?"

"No, no, I'm--" The armoire twisted under him, and he yelped as Gilded Glider scooped him up, floating a short distance before setting down with a scrape of hooves against floorboards.

She squeezed him for a moment; he could feel her breath, hot against his ear, before she let go.

"Almost there," she muttered under her breath, "but we got some trouble."

She pointed ahead, where two griffon bodies were lurching back and forth in the hall. She tugged her knife out of its sheath, licking her lips. Sunny raised the wrench; he didn't have time to think about it. Maybe this mare was some kind of sadist, but maybe that'd keep him alive for now.

As she lunged forward, he ran along behind her; she took the one on the left, tackling it to the ground, while he leapt at the one on the right, bringing the wrench down across its shoulder. He heard a slick, wet noise, and shut it out, focusing on crippling his target; he smashed it twice, three times, and it finally stopped moving.

Turning around, he caught himself staring at Glider--she brought the knife down again, adding another ragged opening to the griffon-body she had pounced on. Glancing up, she met his eyes--and grinned, arching her back slightly, tossing her head and letting her mane tumble back down. He bit back a grunt of disgust, and followed behind her as she started walking again. "We're almost there," she muttered, as they rounded a corner...

"So, come here often?" Glider smirked as she relaxed into the sofa. Stripping her saddlebags and the knife's sheath off, she crossed her legs and fanned her wings out, reclining into the cushions.

"Ha ha. " Sunny said with a roll of his eyes. "I'd rather be at home. The crowd around here is...well, dead. Kind of ruins the mood, I'd think."

"I know, right?" Glider stifled a chuckle; a little snort snuck out of her, and Sunny couldn't help but smile. "Then again--"

"Hm?" Sunny cocked his head to the side, tucking his tail under himself.

"I dunno," Glider murmured, uncrossing her legs. "Something about winning a fight does get my blood pumping."

Sunny felt sweat running down his face. "I don't follow," he whimpered.

Glider laughed--a short-and-sweet, barking, snorting laugh. "You're clueless, huh? Tell you what--you come over here, and I'll show you."

"You know what, I should go." Sunny hopped out of his chair, bee-lining for the door.

"Come on. There's nothin' out there that can't wait."

"My wife's out there," Sunny muttered under his breath.

"And what she don't know won't hurt her, right?" Glider murmured, as she slinked off the couch. Sunny didn't wait for her to continue; he yanked on the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge--Glider had locked the door behind them. As he turned around, his breath caught in his throat--she pressed her muzzle against his neck, purring just loud enough for him to hear. "C'mon. Pony like you, you wanna get a little wild sometimes, right?"

"Eugh!" He shoved her away, scrambling to the side. "I--I barely know you! And I'm married! What kind of colt do you take me for!?"

"The kind who knows a good catch when he sees one," she answers, as she stalks around the side of the room. "You've got the opportunity of a lifetime, here. I'll rock your world like she can't."

He shuffles sideways, and his hoof brushes against her saddlebags. "I don't care--I've got to find Petunia! She might be hurt!"

"If those things got to her, she's dead already. Might as well get over it while you can!" With a low growl, Glider pounced at him--and he ducked under her, scrambling for the door, dragging Glider's saddlebags along with him. His hoof scrabbled through the bag, closing around the key--he shoved it in the lock and twisted, as Glider untangled herself from the couch cushions--and he heard her scream as he slammed the door shut behind him.

7: Further Down

"I think we're getting closer," Sunny muttered, as he pushed open a metallic door. The floor was concrete, the walls riveted metal--save for one wall, which was papered over with the floral print of the town's newest motel. There was another door on the opposite side of the room, and Sunny beelined for it.

Scattered around the room, leaning against corners and braced against girders, were four paintings--a profile of Petunia, another one of Gilda, a somewhat worn-looking portrait of the secretary--and a painting of Gilded Glider.

"Who's this?" Torque said, as she peered at the image of Glider. "I haven't seen her around town. She looks familiar, though I can't put my hoof on it..."

"Never mind that," Sunny said, as he tugged on the next door; he heard a click, but it didn't move. "Looks like this is a dead end--"

He turned to leave, but suddenly the wallpaper burst open--three holes, all blasting thick, disgusting pus into the room. The gunk spilled onto the floor, rapidly coating it.

"Sunny!" Torque tried the door they came from, but scowled--it had locked itself! "Damn it all...! What in Taurtaros is going on!?"

Sunny's life flashed before his eyes. Drowning in pus was not his first choice, with regard to dying. He did not enjoy the prospect of getting that awful stuff in his mouth, let alone asphyxiating in it.

"We'll have to plug the pipes, or something--" Sunny grabbed the Gilda portrait, shoving it up against the wall--and to his surprise, iron clamps sprang out from behind the wallpaper, holding it in place. It bulged, but held; he'd bought them some time.

Torque grabbed the Glider painting, and placed it over the second hole; the clamps clunked into place. Finally, Sunny grabbed the portrait of his old secretary, and placed it over the third hole--

The painting burst open! Sunny howled as the horrific slime sprayed all over his face--he tossed the ruined painting aside, desperately trying to scrub it off.

"Dammit, Sunny--" Torque snatched up the painting of Petunia, and slapped it over the last hole. The clamps activated, and there was an audible clank as a drain opened in the floor. There were still puddles of pus at the end of it all, but they were safe.

Sunny brushed himself off, scowling at the papered-over wall. "...I was hoping we wouldn't have to use that one," he whispered, nodding to the Petunia portrait, which bulged slightly as it held back the tide.

"Well, m'afraid you didn't have a real choice in the matter. Now, c'mon--I think the door's unlocked now."

"How do you--" But Torque was right--she yanked open the door leading further in.

Riveted, plated walls gave way to concrete, gave way to rough-hewn stone.

"We're getting closer. We have to be," Sunny whispered.

"Shut up and turn off the flashlight," Torque whispered back, her head on a swivel. "It'll draw attention, and we ought to let our eyes adjust anyway."

As Sunny clicked the light off, his hoof slipped--and he clicked the radio on. For a moment, he didn't even notice--but then it began quietly emitting static.

"Sunny!" Torque cursed under her breath as Sunny fiddled with the flashlight. Up ahead, something lurched out of the darkness. It was impossible to tell what it was before Torque fired, and the deafening, blinding flash of the shotgun's muzzle flare was too fast and too bright to help. Sunny dropped the flashlight, clutching his ears as they rang.

"...know where we are now," Torque was saying, kicking the now-headless corpse over. "Keep moving!"

Sunny snatched the flashlight up, using the light from his horn to avoid tripping over the body as he ran after Torque.

Tunnel after tunnel--Sunny's ears were still ringing, and he wondered--will the shotgun's report deafen him, or will it drive him insane first?

Suddenly, Torque shot out a hoof, nearly punching him in the chest as she came to a short stop. "Out there!" she said under her breath--pointing out into the cavern ahead.

The first thing that struck Sunny was the thing leaning against the wall--a mound of flesh, with only vague resemblance to a pony. Its belly was distended to a cartoonish degree and covered in stitched-together scars; it flailed its pitiful hooves, moaning and gurgling as it rocked back and forth. It must've been twice the size of a normal pony. But the second thing that took Sunny's attention was far more important:

The daddy-long-legs thing was there. And it had Cloudy.

"Leggo! Let me go! Oh, fuck--" She cried out as the spidery thing slammed her against the wall, hissing softly. It held her there with one leg, and with the other it reached up to the corpulent mare's neck--pulling away a coil of rope. One end was attached to the enormous, swollen figure, and with deft motions, the daddy-long-legs tied the other end to Cloudy's neck, and wrapped the rest of the rope around her body loosely. Cloudy stared up at it, clutching a knife--shivering, whimpering, too scared to move as the daddy-long-legs leaned in...

It hissed sharply, tore the knife out of her hooves--and dropped her, scrambling away. The knife clattered on the stone floor, coming to rest in the middle of the room.

For a minute, Sunny laid in wait, hoping that the daddy-long-legs thing would not return. All he could hear was Cloudy's quiet sobbing.

Finally, he could bear it no longer. He nodded to Torque, who hefted her shotgun; and they quietly cantered out into the room. Sunny scooped the knife up from the floor with a quick burst of telekinesis, and ran to Cloudy as fast as he could manage safely.

"Sunny!?"

"It's all right, Cloudy. I'm here now. Let me just--"

Cutting a rope is not as easy as it looks. This particular rope--though frayed and moldy like everything else here--was quite thick, and to cut through such a rope in one swing, you would need a lot of force and a very sharp knife. Obviously, you can't just hack at a rope when your friend's tied up in it.

And as Sunny tugged and sawed at the ropes, the massive mare-beast stirred behind him.

"Uh, Sunny--"

"Ssh! The spider thing might hear us!" Sunny hissed, as he cut away another tangled length of rope. He was struggling to find the knot itself.

"But--"

Sunny scowled at Cloudy, and went back to sawing through the ropes, ignoring the low rumble emanating behind him. Finally, he freed one of her hooves--and she pointed with it, directly at the enormous, corpulent mare-thing.

Sunny turned to look at it. It glared back at him, opened its sickly, drooling mouth, and roared.

"Fuck!" Cloudy yelped.

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Sunny muttered. The giant reared back with one of its awkward, lanky hooves--Sunny gave up on untangling Cloudy, and simply hacked away the length of rope that led away from her. The beast swiped at them, narrowly avoiding Sunny's head.

"I've got her!" Torque shouted, galloping up and biting down on the ropes. "Hold tight, kid! It's gonna be bumpy!"

They ran for it, Torque dragging Cloudy, Sunny lighting the way; the beast howled in rage. Out there, in the dark corners, twisted little freaks were crawling in--mutated, disfigured, each one about the size of a filly, each one bearing a mouth full of sharpened fangs. They had only reached the middle of the room, and now they were surrounded.

"Of course. Of fuckin' course," Cloudy whimpered.

"Wait. They weren't there before," Torque muttered. "They weren't there until--"

"The mother called them," Sunny said, glancing back toward the scarred, swollen belly of the monster--the visibly pregnant monster. He had to fight the urge to vomit.

"Sunny?" Torque whispered.

"You've got the little ones, right?" Sunny replied.

"Yep. You got the short straw, huh?"

"Drew it this morning,"

8: Mother

BLAM! ch-chunk.

The deafening explosion of the shotgun going off next to her made Cloudy's ears ring. She hated it. She hated the beast that tied her up. She hated the beast which, until a few moments ago, she was tied up to; and most of all, with every fiber of her being, she loathed the spidery freaks that were now crawling out of the metalwork.

BLAM! ch-chunk.

She had always hated spiders. Freakish little things. All they care about is hooking you in, sucking you dry, and then filling your corpse with their creepy crawly children. She kicks at the ropes again--at first, she thought she'd get out in seconds, but what had looked like a loose bundle of ropes turned out to be a twisted and tangled knot. And Sunny has her knife!

BLAM! ch-chunk.

Behind them, Sunny ducked and stumbled--the mother of all creepy crawlies kept flailing its hooves, leaving him almost no room to maneuver the knife. He finally landed a single blow--carving a sickly red gash into the thing's side--but was rewarded with a hoof to his face.

BLAM! ch-CLACK.

"Sunny!" Torque shouted. "I'm not made of shells! Get on with it!" As Torque stuffed more buckshot into the gun, Cloudy finally freed a single hoof, and started tugging at all the others.

Sunny wiped some blood from his chin--cursing under his breath. The thing had busted his lip. This was, maybe, the first time he had been injured in years, and certainly the first time he'd been hurt in a fight. He had honestly expected that it would daze him--but instead, he is filled with a roaring rage--indignance, even. The beast hurt him. The beast was going to hurt the ponies he cared about! His townsfolk! Practically his family!

With an unholy howl, Sunny charged in--a hoof struck him in the side of the head, but he didn't even notice, barreling into the monster-mother and driving the knife into her belly. Stitches split open, scars bursting outward--and the thing howled in pain as a geyser of pus threw Sunny backward!

"Augh--!" He sputtered and coughed, spitting the filth out and retching.

BLAM! ch-chunk.

Torque kept firing. The little ones were hungry, and they were advancing as fast as she could fire--and the pause to reload only gave them more time to close the gap. Sunny galloped toward the monstrous mare once again, growling--

His world tumbled sideways as one of the monster's freakish offspring yanked his foreleg out from under him! He rolled to a halt, screaming in pain as the spider-thing sank its fangs into him.

"Shit--Sunny! Sunny!" Cloudy shouted, reaching out to him helplessly.

He wrenched the thing around--wrestling it to the floor as it tried to rip chunks out of him--and with a triumphant roar, he sank the knife into the thing's head. In its death throes, it released its grip on him--and he stumbled back into the fray. The mother was groaning, sagging, the flow of pus dwindling to a steady trickle--it looked ready to die.

"You--you can't take them from me!" Sunny howled, as he raised the knife. "I won't let you!"

He brought the blade down on the thing's scarred belly, slashing it wide open. Blood and pus washed out, coating the floor as the remaining spider-children scattered in fear. With a low rumble, the mare's twisted face fell still, staring blankly at Sunny.

He sank to the floor, dropping the knife, as his breath grew ragged. He had poured everything he had into ending this fight, and a nagging feeling in the back of his head reminded him that he was bleeding from one of his legs.

"Easy! Easy, Mayor." Torque arrived at his side, and lifted him off the floor, draping his injured hoof over her back. "That's it. Deep breaths. You gotta stay awake 'till we can wrap this thing up."

Cloudy--having finally freed herself from the ropes--trotted up next to them. "Hey, there's something in the gunk!" she said, pointing to a circular object, coated in slimy pus.

Sunny lifted it with his magic, letting the pus dribble off of it--revealing it to be a metal disk with a wriggling image of a snake embossed into it. He tilted and twisted it, peering at the writing. "I haven't a clue what this is," he muttered. "Can't make heads or tails of it--don't know what language this is--but I suppose it can't hurt to keep it."

"Mayor. You're bleeding," Torque muttered. "All over my coat, even."

"Oh," the Mayor replied. "So I am."

They started walking away--Sunny hoofed the knife to Cloudy, and Torque kept him upright while she kept the shotgun aimed ahead; and none of them noticed the tumor-bloated figure crawling out of the Mother's belly and into the darkness.

9: Detached

They stumbled out into the night--onto the dimly-lit, foggy streets of Hope Hollow. The rust and decay had disappeared, but shambling figures could still be seen in the fog.

"How'd we end up on this side of town?" Sunny muttered, squinting up into the fog. "We're right next to the sign..."

"I've been landing all over the place too," Torque said, shuffling slightly to give Sunny more support. "Whatever happened to the town, it's scrambling everything."

"Hey, guys?" Cloudy said, pointing up at a spire rising through the fog. "You think the church has anything?"

"Of course," Sunny replied. "Father Roan always has some medical supplies on hoof--"

He winced as he shifted aside. Torque grabbed his bad leg and tugged him back. "No. No, Mayor. You aren't walking on this one."

The doors of the church creaked open, and an echo bounced from column to column, kicking off of the hard stone and reverberating in the stained glass. They stepped slowly down the aisle, heads aswivel...

"Ah. So there are others in this world."

A bull was sitting in one of the pews, off to the side. His horns had strips of fabric wrapped around them, with writing scrawled on the cloth in a reddish-brown ink; he was sitting on a cushion beside one of the pews, cross-legged. As he stood, he draped the cushion over his back like a saddle, and smiled at the three of them. "I have not met you before--but, I know your face," he said, pointing at Sunny. "You are the mayor."

"Yes, I am--but I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you. You must be new 'round here," Sunny replied, unhooking his leg from Torque's shoulders and stumbling forward into his usual mayorly introductions.

He promptly fell over. The bull pushed a pew aside and stomped up to him, tilting his head and giving Sunny's wound a once-over. "You may introduce yourself later. This leg needs treatment."

"I'll grab the bandages," Torque said. "They're in the back, right?"

"Father Roan's office, yes," Sunny muttered through clenched teeth. "He might've locked it--"

"Don't worry." Torque pulled the pump on her shotgun, twisting and craning her neck to check the chamber--still loaded. "I can deal with locks."

The gunshot had echoed for quite a while, but thankfully, nothing had come to investigate it. Sunny flexed his leg, wincing; the splint dug into his leg in places, and the bandages were uncomfortably tight, but he could at least walk on it.

"So." The bull placed his cushion on the floor once more, and took a seat. Sunny laid himself down on one of the pews. Torque was pacing back and forth, glancing out windows, her shotgun firmly strapped to her shoulder. Cloudy was curled up on the floor, between Sunny and their new friend.

"I am called Ramooh," the bull said; he paused a moment, chewing thoughtfully. "You have seen the monsters?"

"Yes, we've dealt with a few," Sunny muttered.

"They're fucking everywhere," Cloudy added.

"And you?" Sunny asked. "You see them too?"

"I only see one monster," Ramooh replied. "Death, and all which follows it."

Sunny and Cloudy shared a glance. "So, what, the zombies are led by Death?" Cloudy asked.

"What? No." Ramooh shook his head, and one of the strips of cloth 'round his horns loosened slightly. "Death is the only monster I see."

"Right--we all see different monsters," Sunny murmured to himself. "I wonder if this is all some kind of waking nightmare..."

"You are more right than you think, but also wrong." The bull closed his eyes, drawing a slow, deep breath.

"What?" Sunny asked, tilting his head.

"This is a nightmare, yes. But it is not merely a nightmare. This is the work of a Rakshasa."

"Rakawhatnow?" Cloudy squeaked.

"It is a creature native to my home country," Ramooh explained patiently. "A beast which deals in illusions and trickery, and feeds on terror and despair. My people taught themselves how to fight against it, by inuring themselves to the nightmare. It is said a skilled student of the Bova could watch his family be torn limb from limb in front of him, and still strike true..."

"Because he knew it was just a nightmare?" Sunny asked hopefully.

"Because he knew it would happen eventually."

"Oh." Sunny's heart sank a little.

"Can you do it, though?" Cloudy asked. "You know this stuff, I bet you could kick it's ass."

"I cannot," Ramooh said, with a wave of his cloven hoof. "Not on my own. I had no patience for the Bovist teachings. To be immune to the Rakshasa's attacks, one must act without fear...and there is one thing I still fear."

"Death?" Cloudy asked. Ramooh nodded.

"So, we're doomed?" Sunny said with a disappointed sigh. "Just my luck, isn't it?"

"Not so. There is one thing you can do. It will greatly increase your odds of..."

"Winning?" Cloudy asked.

"Survival," Ramooh said with a shrug. "But you will not like it."

"I'd think I would like it better than dying." Sunny shrugged back. "What do I have to do?"

"How is it that ponies put it?" Ramooh scratched his chin, humming to himself. "When another is being unreasonable, and will not listen to truth, you tell him..."

"To pull his head out of his ass?" Cloudy muttered.

"Cloudy, you really need to--"

"Yes," Ramooh said, smiling wide. "You must pull your head out of your ass." Sunny stammered for a moment.

"But I--I'm not an idiot," Sunny finally grumbled, pouting.

"You are not an idiot. In fact, you are very good at lying to yourself. That is, as they say, the problem." Ramooh rolled his eyes. "You have been standing next to the cause of your anxieties this entire time, and even the blind can see it."

"Nonsense!" Sunny said, laughing it off. "I'm handling this about as well as any pony would."

Ramooh scratched his chin, humming to himself as he glanced between Sunny and Cloudy. "Cloudy, could you describe your parents for me?"

"Why?"

"Curiosity," Ramooh replied. "I want to know if I've run into them before," he continued, staring directly at Sunny.

"Well--" Cloudy sat up. "My dad--" She sank back down again. "He left when I was too young to walk. But my mom...she's got a brighter coat than mine, but we're both pink. Her mane isn't as curly--and she wears it combed back, not in pigtails. Oh, and it's two-tone. I'm...kinda jealous."

Sunny frowned, briefly. The mare Cloudy was describing sounded familiar--but he didn't remember the name, and besides, it would be rude to interrupt--

"Sunny." Ramooh's voice interrupted both Cloudy's words and Sunny's train of thought.

"Er, yes?" Sunny mumbled.

"You wouldn't happen to know this mare. Would you?"

"We-ell, she sounds familiar." Sunny makes a show of rubbing his chin, tilting his head, pondering it. "Can't say I know her, though."

"That is the story you are going with, then?"

"Wha--it's--well, it's true, so in a manner of speaking, yes. It's not a story, though," Sunny added. The beads of sweat forming on his brow begged to differ. Why, oh why did he feel so nervous about this line of questioning? "Let's leave it at that--"

"Cloudy."

"Y-yeah?" Cloudy stammered. She had been staring at Sunny for--well, to Sunny it felt like hours, but it couldn't have been more than a minute.

"You said your father abandoned you when you were very young, correct?"

Cloudy simply nodded.

"Now, wait just a minute," Sunny grumbled. "Let's not jump to conclusions about this. I'm sure the stallion had some reason for leaving, and I'm sure it's a good one. Most ponies are good at heart, after all."

Ramooh squinted at Sunny for a moment. "Perhaps it was not meant to be. Perhaps, there were...circumstances. A family feud, a lack of 'chemistry'. Or maybe the stallion had someone already--a lover with whom he would spend his golden years."

"What? That's absurd," Sunny scoffed, crossing his hooves. "Why would somepony risk his relationship with Gil--" His breath hitched in his throat. "With his 'golden lover'," he finished lamely, "all for one night?"

"Why are you so upset, Sunny?" Ramooh remained calm as ever--he seemed rock-solid, as though he was a mountain bearing the wind.

"Why, because--because of what you are insinuating!" Sunny yelled. "I mean, what kind of pony do you take me for? Some kind of--of homewrecker? Somepony who would take advantage and then just walk out!? No!" Sunny's voice rose to a feverish pitch as he screamed. "No, no, no! I wouldn't! I would not have sex with my secretary!"

His voice echoes for a moment.

"...my mom was a secretary," Cloudy whispers, and it is the loudest thing Sunny has ever heard. "How did you know?"

"I--I didn't! I'm sure it was a coincidence," Sunny said, laughing as sweat rolled down his forehead.

"She said Dad was her boss."

"I don't know what you're--"

"And then he left us." Cloudy took a step toward Sunny, staring up at him--her face was perfectly expressionless, but in it, Sunny saw everything he was afraid of.

"Please, kiddo, you've got the wrong pony!"

"Tell that to your daughter," Ramooh said, staring flatly at Sunny.

"I don't have a daughter!" Sunny shouted.

"And as long as you continue to say that, she--" Ramooh pointed to Cloudy--"will not have a father."

There was a moment of total silence. Torque, standing by the window, froze mid-step as she processed this.

Ramooh groaned, putting a hoof to his forehead. "You said your name was Cloudy, correct?"

"y-yeah," Cloudy mumbled.

"And you are the Mayor, Sunny Skies, correct?"

Sunny nodded.

"Sunny Skies," Ramooh said, pointing to Sunny. "Cloudy Skies," he added, pointing to Cloudy. "Do you have any questions?"

Sunny turned to Cloudy--who had a strangely awestruck, almost reverent expression. It was as if she had met some mythical figure for the first time, and was stunned by the realization that the myth was real.

"You're...really my dad?"

Sunny felt something resembling pride rise in his chest...

...and then, Cloudy's face turned sour, and Sunny's heart sank like a stone.

"You...you left me. You abandoned me. Me and my mom--the motel, and the ramen for every meal, and the hoof-me-down saddlebags with the holes in them--you abandoned us! You put us there!"

"Cloudy, I--"

"Shut up!" Cloudy's hoof met Sunny's jaw. His world spent a few moments in vertigo, spinning wildly, and when he regained his bearings, he saw Torque and Cloudy arguing at the front door of the church--Cloudy trying to leave, Torque holding her back.

"...I did say you would not like it," Ramooh mused, closing his eyes and sighing.

10: Consummation

Sunny limped into a niche between buildings, drawing in a deep and harrowed breath.

After the outburst, Torque had talked Cloudy down; but they both agreed that it was better if they went on without him. "I'll take her to the edge of town," Torque had said, "and see if we can get out of here." She had left him the shotgun, as he was in no condition to tangle with a monster. He checked the chamber of the gun again, muttering to himself as he scanned the street for more of the horrors--the horrors that he knew were lurking just around the corner.

In the distance, he saw a light--a flickering red neon. It was familiar to him--the local watering hole, "Snaredrum's Suds", was once a place where he would spend three nights a week. These days, he avoided that ruddy glow; it reminded him too much of the past.

He heard a low growl from the other side of the street, and with a start, he realized he was being watched by half a dozen figures crawling out of the next alley. His hooves carried him down the sidewalk as fast as he could manage, and he winced as he pushed open the door to the bar.

He slammed the door shut behind him, panting heavily.

"...'bout time you showed up," said a familiar voice. Sunny's body seized up--was it that madmare, Glider? Had he left the frying pan and leapt into the fire?

His eyes swept the room with frantic, panicked attention--and they settled on an even more familiar beak. It was Gilda!

"Gilda! Oh thank the Princesses you're safe!" he cried, dropping the shotgun by the door and rushing to the booth she was sitting at.

"Yeah. I told you I'd be here, dweeb. What happened to your leg?"

"One of those things bit a chunk out of it. I'm glad you made it here in one piece, those monsters are something else! Of course, you're you. I knew you'd make it."

"Monsters?" Gilda said, quirking an eyebrow. "What monsters?"

"Oh, so you only see regular ponies? Huh. I wonder if that means anything--seeing different monsters, that is."

Gilda squinted at him. "Sunny, are you...feelin' right?"

"Not really. I had a...run-in with..." He trailed off.

"Sunny--"

"Look, it's been so long, I didn't even recognize my own daughter--"

"Sunny." Gilda crossed her arms, her claws clacking on the table.

"And the zombie-things running around are taking a toll on me, too--"

Gilda slammed her fists on the table. "SUNNY!" she screamed, and he finally shut up. "I don't care! I didn't ask about your bastard kid, or your monsters, or--or whatever else you're talking about! I wanted to see you!"

Sunny's jaw dropped. "You..."

"That's right, dummy. I wanted to see you. I wanted to see if you'd changed. And you have. You've gone insane! You're fucking insane, Sunny!" She threw herself out of the booth, stomping away. "Have fun with your little family, Sunny. I'm not wasting any more time on it."

She stamped and clomped out the door, kicking the shotgun off to the side as she left. Sunny scrambled for the door, snatched up the gun, and rushed out after her.

"Gilda!"

He could see her through the fog--slim, athletic, unmistakable. She rounded a corner, and he followed soon after; she seemed always just out of reach.

At the third left, she stopped--and Sunny saw her, driving her wicked talon into the chest of one of the headless griffon-things! "Gilda! Hang on!"

And as he galloped--ignoring the growing pain in his leg--the fog parted...

"Wrong again, big guy. C'mon, you still don't remember my name~?" Gilded Glider purred, drawing her knife out of her prey with a slick grin.

"Sorry, sorry, I just--I could've sworn she was heading this way. You haven't seen her? She's--she looks a lot like you, but she's a griffon--"

"You mean like this one?" Glider said with a chuckle. Sunny's heart nearly stopped. "Relax! This isn't her. It's just one of the monsters."

"Don't scare me like that!" Sunny snapped. "Ugh, pour me a glass of milk and call me a milkmare. Everything's going exactly wrong."

"I know, right? Fuck, I could use a drink," Glider murmured, sheathing her knife. "And you look like you could use two. I got some scotch back at my place--good stuff. And there's no monsters there. Whaddaya say?"

"I don't know..."

"If it's about last time, I promise, I'll keep my hooves to myself."

"Sure. And I'm the queen of Sheepa," Sunny scoffed. "Besides, whatever booze you have won't compare to the Glenfilly I keep in my office."

"Ooh? Your place it is, then."

"I wasn't inviting you," Sunny grumbled.

"Look, buddy. Who would you rather spend your time with? More of these--" She gestured to the dead griffon-zombie--"or more of me?"

The golden liquid flowed into the shot glasses like melted butter. Sunny was still, shamefully, proud of his bartending technique--even if he couldn't actually mix drinks to save his life.

"Cheers," Glider said softly, and Sunny nodded. She took her shot right away; he hesitated.

"C'mon, dude. You can't raise your glass and not drink it. It's rude."

"...fine. If that's how you're going to be about it." Sunny tossed his back; the sting of alcohol was barely noticeable beneath the smoothly-aged flavor of the whisky. It had cost him many bits when he first purchased it, and he was glad to have bought it back then, because the price tag had only gone up since.

"So how's your day going?" Glider said, leaning over the desk between them.

"Horribly." Sunny left his glass sitting next to the bottle, steepling his hooves. "First the monsters, then Cloudy, then Gilda..."

"All your exes coming back to haunt you, huh?"

"In a sense. Cloudy's my--er, my daughter."

"Oh. Ex-marefriend?"

"Affair."

"Shit, man. That sucks." She reached for the bottle, and poured herself another shot--and one for him, too. He raised an eyebrow; she shrugged and set the bottle back down without another word.

"And then I run into my ex. Who broke up with me after that affair. And worse, she thinks I'm crazy. She doesn't see the monsters!"

"Whoa, really?" Glider murmured, scooting Sunny's glass toward him.

"Yep. True as twilight. She thinks I'm crazy now."

"Wow."

"And on top of all that, horrible monsters are trying to kill me. And so are you." Sunny smirked, and nodded to his newly-filled glass.

"Aw, shut up. One more won't hurt you."

"Glider, I didn't come here to get drunk. I came here because you guessed there wouldn't be any monsters around."

"And there aren't! Maybe scotch drives them off." Glider laughed--another short, barking noise, that made Sunny's heart jump and the fur on his neck stand on end.

"I don't know," Sunny murmurs, as he levitates his shot-glass to his lips. Another quick tip of the glass sends the drink down.

"I've never had luck with anything, y'know that?" Glider whispered. It took Sunny a moment to realize she was talking. They had gone through a respectable chunk of the bottle, and he hadn't expected Glider to be so quiet.

"...what do you mean?" Sunny whispered back.

"Studs. Mares. Had a griffon once--the barbs were fun."

"Barbs?"

"Do you really wanna know~?" Glider hummed to herself, smirking, daring Sunny to ask. Sunny, wisely, kept his mouth shut. "But that one ended too. Turns out ponies and griffons can't actually breed."

Sunny's heart leapt into his throat. "Wh-wh-what?"

"Yeah! Turns out that's not where hippogriffs come from. We had everything going--a steady job, a nice house, and Moon, the sex was so good..." She laughed softly, and put the bottle to her lips, chugging a triple-shot's worth of liquor at an inadvisable rate.

"But?"

"But he wanted a family. And honestly, I did too." She sighed, setting the bottle on the table--maybe a little too hard. Sunny winced.

"I--" Sunny trailed off. What could he say?

"You get it, don'cha?" Glider said, locking eyes with him. "How that can drive a couple apart. You care about each other...but you know it isn't what you want." She puts a hoof to the bottle, and scoots it across the desk to him; he takes it, considers pouring another shot--then simply takes a swig from the bottle.

"Yeah. Yeah, I get it--" When he opened his eyes again, she was staring right at him--right into his eyes. Her gaze pierced him, in much the same way that her knife pierced flesh. He felt exposed, vulnerable; he felt that he should flee--and felt that he should remain still, so as to not reveal himself.

"...what do you want, Sunny?" she asked; a chill ran down his spine. "'Cuz I can give it to ya. I can give you everything you want..."

She leaned over the desk, and fear filled his chest, froze his limbs.

"All you gotta do is take it, Sunny. Take everything you want, 'cuz nopony will stop you..."

He could feel her breath on his cheek as she whispered.

"I'll take you. You'll take me. We both get what we want."

"Glider--I shouldn't--"

"Take me."

She pressed her lips to his; he tasted iron, and whisky, and a spice he could only think of as 'gunpowder'. Her body was warm, and it quickly met his--he wasn't sure exactly how they ended up on the floor, but they rolled for a moment, and when he broke the kiss, she was under him, wings spread.

"Heh. You know, I'm usually the one on top." She bit her lip, kicking her hindlegs out. "Some ponies tell me I'm like a predator in bed. Tell you what--you make me your prey, and I'll let you finish inside..."

11: Into Fire

"...ngh..."

Sunny sat up, clutching his head, groaning as the flickering light of the lamp stung his eyes. "What in Taurtaros...?"

"I'll tell you what," Glider purred, as she rose next to him. She wrapped a wing around his shoulders, and nuzzled his cheek. "Four times."

"Four...shots?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'shots'," she said with a wink. "C'mon, stud. Let's make it five."

"wha--No! I didn't--look, I was drunk, I was--"

"You were fucking hot is what you were."

"Oh my Princesses, you're still drunk."

"Nah, just horny. I'm ovulating, y'see."

"You're what!?"

Glider rolled her eyes. "It means you knocked me up, dumbass. Now are you gonna go for another round or what?"

"No! This isn't what I wanted at all!"

"Bullshit," Glider spat, her lazy grin twisting into an awful scowl. "It's exactly what you wanted. I can see it in your eyes. You think you can't have me--you think you're stuck with that prissy little bitch Petunia--so you chased what you couldn't have. Then you finally figured out--there's no such thing as a thing you can't have. You can just take whatever you want!" She smiled, then, baring her teeth. "And now you have me. And I want triplets."

"But, Petunia--"

"But Petunia! But Petunia!" She rolled her eyes. "If you gave a shit about Petunia, you woulda been calling her name instead of mine. Petunia can go to Taurtaros for all I care. And if you aren't gonna fuck me again, then so can you."

"F-fine!" Sunny yelped. "Get out, then! I--I don't even want to see your face anymore!"

"What a fucking hypocrite." Glider turned to leave, and flicked her tail across Sunny's face--hard enough that it stung. "At least I know what I want. You won't admit it. You don't even know what's good for you. Pathetic."

Sunny buried his head in his hooves as she walked out--though he couldn't help but stare at her ass, while memories of last night flickered through his head...

"Stupid. Stupid! Sunny, you absolute buffoon!" Sunny pounded his hooves on the wall, cursing his wretched decisions. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he had gone on like this for an hour already.

"How could you just let it happen!?" he asked himself; he had no reply to give, so he asked another question. "Why did you think it was a good idea to drink half the bottle!?" Still, no answers came to him. He slumped into his chair, and glanced at the photo of Petunia that he had set beside the bottle. He hadn't even noticed it during the previous night's antics. He hadn't even bothered to flip it over, to pretend he wasn't a married stallion. Then again, if he had actually flipped it down, wouldn't that be worse? Would it not be even more terrible to acknowledge how wrong he is, to try and sweep it under the rug--to be unable to look his wife in the eye, because he slept with another mare?

"Augh!" He tossed his head, springing up from the chair and stomping around the office yet again. He took no consolation from anything; no matter how he turned the events over in his head, he only found more ways in which he could have stopped it, if he had only wanted to.

And that was the worst realization of all: That despite himself, he had wanted it. Glider was powerful, and confident, and sensual; she was beautiful--no, sexual. He feared her, but more than that, he did want her. He felt disgusting for admitting it, but Glider was honestly a better lay than Petunia was. And this little twinge of doubt--this sneaking suspicion that he had been choosing wrong the whole time--this only made him even more remorseful, because he knew that cheating on Petunia was wrong--that he was wrong.

He simply could not shake that belief. He--Sunny Skies--was wrong on a fundamental level. Something was terribly, horribly wrong with him. At best, he was hallucinating; at worst, he was an unfaithful husband. He twisted and turned and prodded and pleaded with the events of the previous night, and could not find an interpretation that didn't end in him being simply a bad person--a bad father--a bad husband. He had torn apart three different families now--first his secretary's, then Petunia's, and now Glider was going to raise a foal by herself.

Sunny's heart stopped in his chest as he realized--there had always been a monster in Hope Hollow. Long before the Rakshasa, before the town had turned gray, there had been a terrible beast preying on those around it. Something had to be done about it. Something had to be done about him, before he ruined yet more lives.

He lifted the shotgun. For a moment, he hesitated; he wondered if he was truly doing any good by this.

Then again, he had already left Petunia in the dirt. Who cared if he was there physically? He certainly wasn't there emotionally.

He checked the chamber; it was still loaded. Sweat soaked his brow, ran down his cheeks. He closed the chamber.

And then he pointed the barrel at his head.

Being a unicorn, he could pick any angle he liked; for a moment, he found it morbidly fascinating, wondering what the effect would be if he chose to do it from the side, or pointed the thing up into his mouth in the classic way. He considered aiming for the neck, going for decapitation, but then he recalled why the guillotine was no longer in fashion. That had been one of the most colorful conversations he had ever had with Gilda.

He ultimately decides to position the shotgun directly behind his head. Staring down the barrel makes him nervous.

He takes a deep breath, and--

12: Daydream Believer

"Dreams are such strange things, aren't they?"

Sunny blinked. The shotgun was leaning against his chair, and Long Night was curled up on a coffee table, idly batting at the cover of her notebook.

"Do you know what's even stranger than dreams, Sunny?"

"...No, I don't."

"Fantasies." Long Night sat up, grinning softly. "Nopony has control over their dreams, and everypony accepts that--even though it's not true. And fantasies--everypony acts like fantasies are totally within your control, but they really aren't."

"Really?" Sunny muttered, sitting up.

"Really. Thinking about it, I guess the ponies are the really strange ones. They get so upset about it, you know."

Sunny nodded, as Long Night stood up--stretching her legs, arcing her back.

"So many ponies want what they can't have, Sunny."

He felt sweat rolling down through his fur again.

"It is natural. Your mind evolved to seek out what it doesn't have, because that is how you survive. But you scream and beat your hooves on the floor when you realize it!" She giggles, staring at Sunny--and Sunny swallows nervously. She smiled at him, and locked her eyes on his.

"There are so many things you do by instinct!" she said with glee. "Things you learned from your parents, from your world, from your body. It feels natural--it is natural. It feels right."

"I--I don't like what you're implying," Sunny muttered. "My father didn't abandon me. He was--"

"More than a father?" She purred, never blinking.

"Wha--" Sunny sputtered for a moment. "Don't say things like that! My father and I never--"

"Then what about your brother?"

"I don't have a brother."

"...did they not tell you?" she said with a grin. "That's unfortunate. It really is."

If only one could truly glare daggers at another, Sunny thought.

"Anyway," Long Night purred, "how is Cloudy?"

"I...don't know," Sunny said. "She and Torque went to leave the town."

"Ah, yes. They're doing well, I'm sure. How old is Cloudy, anyway?"

"...fourteen." Sunny frowned.

"Oh? She's growing up well, isn't she." Night kept her eyes locked on Sunny's. "Fillies that age go through some interesting changes. I'm sure you've noticed, Sunny."

Sunny's mind seized up for a moment. He felt bile rise in his throat.

"A filly's hormones can drive her to do something regrettable. Or someone regrettable. You should stay...close to her."

"I don't--"

"One must keep it in the family, or so they say."

"What are you--"

"I'm sure you understand."

"I--I have to go," he muttered, grabbing his bags and the shotgun. Long Night simply waved at him, smiling innocently as he slammed the door shut.

He turned--and saw nothing.

He whirled back toward the room Long Night was lounging in, but it was gone.

There was nothing but black--no sign of anything, wall, floor, pony, or monster. Sunny found himself wishing that there was at least some sort of monster to be seen--that would be better than seeing nothing at all. He lit his horn, to no effect, and felt despair creeping into his limbs...

"...the flashlight!" he muttered to himself, reaching into his saddlebags. It clicked on easily enough, but to his dismay, he didn't see anything when he cast its beam around--not at first.

"What the...?" He stared at the odd little pink flowers--dozens of them, maybe hundreds, packed tightly into a flowing stream of bright color. "Are those...petunias?"

As he followed the trail with his flashlight, he saw them extend into the distance. There was nothing else to go on; he started walking, following the flowers wherever they may lead...

He passed shadows in the dark--shifting, blurry patches of nothingness that teased him with their shapes. Some of them looked like ponies he'd met: Torque. The secretary. Gilded Glider. Cloudy. He shuddered; if he were to shine his light on them, would he regret it? Probably.

Knowing that these were likely hallucinations was cold comfort to him. Whatever the Rakshasa was conjuring up for him, he was sure he'd loathe seeing it. Particularly in the case of the smaller, more feminine shadows.

He was so distracted by the shapes in the dark that he didn't even see the pony he bumped into. "Ah, sorry! Sorry. You're--"

He gasped softly. He knew those curls anywhere, that gentle smile, the soft fur tinted the color of her namesake. "Petunia!"

She wrapped her hooves around him, and in an instant the shadows fled. "Oh, Petunia--I've been looking everywhere for you! I'm not sure what's going on, but--oh, it's horrible!" He pressed his lips to her cheek, and wrapped his forelegs 'round her shoulders, and for a moment all of the horrors of the world did not exist.

But it could not last, and he knew it. "Petunia, I'm...I've got a lot to talk to you about. A lot to apologize for. There's things I--" He swallowed his pride. "I shoulda talked to you about it a long time ago, long before you and I got married. Things I didn't want to admit--"

"Who are you talking to, Sunny?"

Sunny jumped up with a yelp, and spun around--and he was no longer in the pitch-black room. Instead, he was in another metal hall, and Ramooh was staring at him quizzically. He turned back to Petunia--but Petunia wasn't there. His heart sank as he put the flashlight away.

"Nobody," Sunny muttered. "We've got some walking to do, don't we?"

"Try not to let it get to you."

"Huh?" Sunny stumbled a bit over a patch of riveted metal.

"You are anxious. Your head spins like a top, constantly searching for the threat you believe to be present. It will not appear when you are looking for it."

"So, what, am I supposed to--"

"Relax? Yes. You will solve nothing by spending your time wallowing in panic. You recognize the danger. Everyone knows this. Do not be afraid; focus on what is in front of you."

They slowed to a stop. What was in front of them, in fact, was a bottomless chasm.

"Wow. Real good advice, Ramooh."

"What can I say? At least you did not fall in while you were searching for monsters."

Sunny peered over the edge. He waved his light about, and saw nothing at all. No spikes, no concrete, not even a hint of what would happen if he fell. For all he knew, if he walked off the edge, he would fall forever.

"Well. Nothing to be done about it." Ramooh turned to leave, but Sunny caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, and when he pointed his flashlight at it...

"Petunias?"

"Hmm?" Ramooh stopped in his tracks, tilting his head as he glanced back to the pit. Off to one side, where Sunny was pointing his light, a carpet of brilliant pink flowers was hovering over the void.

"I'd recognize them anywhere. They're--they're my wife's flower, you see." Sunny leaned down to sniff at them. Yes, they were real--or they smelled real, anyway.

"Interesting. I wonder what the meaning of this is," Ramooh mused.

"I have an idea," Sunny muttered, "but it might seem a bit crazy."

Sunny took a step out onto the flowers.

He took another step.

He planted all four hooves in the flowerbed.

He did not fall. Ramooh grinned.

"Stay close," Sunny said. "I think it's gonna curve around a bit."

"Right behind you," Ramooh replied, as they tiptoed along--following the petunias' path.

13: Crossed Wires

The trail led, eventually, to another catwalk suspended over the depths; and from here, it led to a thick cast-iron vault door, set into a wall that vanished into the distance on either side of them. It creaked as Sunny turned the wheel, and groaned as they pushed it open, stepping into a wide, dimly-lit chamber.

In the center of the chamber, between the rusted columns which held the whole thing aloft, there was a statue, set atop a plinth. At one side, there was a podium, and in the center of that podium was a hole or socket of some kind--perhaps designed to fit a handle or wheel. There along the edges of the plinth were three sets of writing in a language Sunny could not identify. On the other end of the room, an archway was blocked off with iron bars.

Sunny walked up to the plinth, digging through his saddlebags. "I think I have something for this--ah!" He pulled out the crank-handle that Torque had pulled out of the flashlight. "Yes, this looks like it'll fit..."

"Should we not read the text?" Ramooh said, trotting up. "I can translate."

"No need," Sunny said with a chuckle. "There's only three words--three positions--and the statue's already facing one," he explained, "so that one can't be the right one."

"You are making quite a few assumptions, Sunny."

"Trust me, this has got to be some kind of metaphorical puzzle thing. That's how it's been the whole time, hasn't it?"

Ramooh shrugged, and began walking around the statue, chewing ponderously.

Sunny lined the crank-handle up with the socket, and it slid in with not even a hint of resistance. He turned it as fast as he could, and the statue slowly ground along to match; he brought it to a halt upon the second word, and looked to the iron bars--which had not moved.

"Hm. Must be the other one," Sunny muttered. Ramooh did not answer; he simply stared thoughtfully at the word the statue had come to rest upon.

Sunny turned the crank in the other direction, and the statue began rumbling around; and as it slowed to a stop at the third word, Sunny glanced up at the iron bars blocking the exit--and saw that they had not moved.

"What? That can't be right."

"I told you," Ramooh said softly, "you are making quite a few assumptions."

"There must be--a button, or a lever, or something--"

"Sunny."

"Well, I tried all three of them, and surely one of them is the right one--"

"Quiet!" Ramooh shouted, and Sunny fell silent. "...I apologize. I do not enjoy yelling like that. But if I did not, you would have continued for far too long."

Sunny sighed, and nodded.

"Now--" Ramooh pointed to the first symbol. "This word is in my native language. 'Avidyā'. It means 'ignorance'." Sunny nodded.

"And this one--" Ramooh pointed to the second word--"is Raga, or desire. You might call it greed, or lust--it is both. And the third--Dvesha--is 'aversion', particularly to things that are painful or annoying."

"With you so far," Sunny said.

"Do you know what we call these in Bovism?"

"No."

"The three poisons. Also, the root of all evil."

"I see."

"Your assumption," Ramooh continued, "was that you needed to pick one..."

"...but all three of them are wrong," Sunny whispered, his eyes lighting up.

"And thus the student is enlightened," Ramooh said, grinning. "I always wanted to say that."

As Sunny twisted the crank, the statue rotated to face forward--toward the gate which barred their way.

The bars sank into the floor.

"Do you hear that?" Ramooh whispered, just barely audible above the sound of their hooves on the catwalk.

Sunny stopped in his tracks, and cocked an ear. Indeed, he did hear it: a low, almost-whiny sound, far away but rapidly approaching. He looked ahead, and then behind, leaning against the wall to their left and glancing across the railing to their right.

Out in the dark, a bright pinprick was speeding toward them--growing steadily.

"What is that...?"

The pinprick resolved into two points, then into two spotlights--aimed directly at Sunny. He squinted, and just barely made out a chrome grille with the word 'MUSTANG' emblazoned on it.

He yelped, shoving Ramooh out of the way as the truck smashed through the railing and into the wall behind them. Steam burst out through the crumpled hood as the radiator was crushed to a pulp. One of the doors buckled outward, and spiderweb cracks spread across the windows. Inside, Cloudy fought off the airbags and shouted various profanities.

"Cloudy! What in the ten tabernacles of Taurtaros are you doing here!?" Sunny yanked on the door, but it wouldn't budge; Ramooh stepped up beside him, and together they wrenched it free. Sunny cringed as it fell off its hinges, while Ramooh quietly helped Cloudy out of her seatbelt.

"I don't know!" Cloudy sputtered. "Torque was driving, and then--I heard churchbells, and--and she was gone! I didn't even notice until I saw you guys!"

"Hmm. Nothing seems broken," Ramooh whispered. "How many hooves am I holding up?"

"...wait, your hoof is split. Do you count it as one or two?"

"Good enough."

"Wait a darned minute," Sunny muttered. "This is Moody's truck! How did you get the keys? Did you break into his house!?"

"No! Of course not."

Sunny sighed, wiping the sweat off his brow. "Thank heavens--"

"I hotwired it." Cloudy idly buffed her hooves, yawning.

"You WHAT!?"

"Oh, shut up. You're not my--" Cloudy paused for a second. "Huh. I guess you kinda are my dad."

"If I may interrupt." Ramooh stepped between Sunny and Cloudy. "Were you not on your way to the next town?"

"That's just it. We were crossing a bridge when I heard the bells," Cloudy explained. "We should have been on our way to Appleoosa by now, but I ended up here instead, and Torque--I don't know where Torque is."

"It is worse than I thought." Ramooh turned to Sunny, frowning. "The Rakshasa is holding the town hostage. Anyone who tries to leave will instead be dragged back into the illusion."

"Then Torque is--"

"Somewhere else, Sunny. Focus on what is in front of you." Ramooh turned and started walking, following the path once more. "I suspect we will return to the real world soon. I hope it will be somewhere near my apartment. I have something to pick up."

14: Rest

"There we are." Ramooh pushed open the door, revealing the dimly-lit street outside the motel. Shuffling figures lurked in the alley across from it, but they seemed idle and disinterested--or perhaps simply unaware.

"I suggest you find a room and sleep. It may not feel like it, but it has already been hours since the illusion set in." Ramooh made his way up a flight of stairs.

"How? I don't have a key to--"

He was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. Cloudy leaned down, grabbed another rock, and hurled it through the window of the manager's office, breaking the other half of it; she reached over the shards, unlocked the window, and lifted it, hopping through. A moment later, she hopped back out with a pair of keys, and pointed to one of the second-floor rooms.

"I'm...well, I'm not sorry that I hit you," Cloudy said as she rolled over. She had immediately claimed the bed, and Sunny was sitting on the loveseat across from it. "But I am sorry for...for, y'know..." She scowled, and groaned, and shoved her face into a pillow. "What am I try'na say?" she growled.

"Well, don't ask me. I'm as confused as you are!"

"Are you?"

"Yep. When I realized you were my daughter, I was--well, I have to admit, I was expecting a right hook."

"Heh."

"But I was also proud."

"...Really?" Cloudy asked, sitting up.

"Really." Sunny hopped off the sofa, and sat next to Cloudy. "You're a strong young mare who doesn't lose her head, even when the end of the world happens. If I hadn't--" He swallowed, and took a deep breath. "Your mother--she did a good job," he said, and he left it at that.

"Thanks. I think." Cloudy sighed. "But now I'm even more confused."

"How so?" Sunny asked--and he nearly jumped out of his fur when she leaned against him, and wrapped a hoof around his shoulders.

"Before I found out about--y'know--I thought you were a real nice guy. You gave a damn about me. And even though you aren't much of a tough guy--"

"Hey!" Sunny laughed softly, and patted her shoulder. She laughed, too.

"...you really pulled it together when things went bad," she said, with an uncharacteristically gentle smile. "You were strong where it counts. And, y'know, you still are."

He squeezed her gently. She sighed, and pressed into him for a moment.

"...well! We should get some sleep. I'll take the couch," Sunny said, letting go of Cloudy.

"What? That tiny thing? It won't even fit me!" she shouted.

"But there's only one bed," Sunny muttered lamely.

"We'll share it. Sheesh."

Sunny was wide awake.

He had very pointedly laid down facing away from Cloudy, but there was still only half a foot of space separating them, and not even a blanket.

Her side of the bed was warmer, and he could tell even from six inches away.

What he wanted to do was--well, several things: he wanted to jump out of bed and curl up on the couch; he wanted to roll over and wrap his hooves around Cloudy; he wanted to--

His train of thought derailed, messily, as he felt Cloudy shift around behind him. A few moments later, his train of thought burst into flames as she wrapped her hooves around his barrel, and then it exploded when he felt her breath on his neck. It was the complete and total manifestation of the absolute nightmare scenario--Cloudy not only did not mind having him in her bed, she seemed to want him there...

Did he even know what was going through her head? Maybe she was simply cold. Maybe she wanted entirely platonic snuggling. Certainly a hormonal young mare would be reasonable enough to know that he was multiple decades her senior, that it would be completely inappropriate to--

Her hoof was sliding down his barrel, along his belly. She was moving slowly, but she was moving, and in exactly the wrong direction. Sunny had to do something--he couldn't just let her. Could he? It would be wrong, on every level. He would have to stop her. But what if she was simply dreaming--what if he woke her up, and had to explain that he was trying to stop her from--

He shook his head gently, and placed his hoof on hers. No, he had to at least try to make this right--he guided her hoof back up along his body, and held it at his chest--she can cuddle, as much as she likes in fact, but that place was off-limits. Cloudy stirred in her 'sleep'; it almost sounded like she grumbled something, but Sunny didn't hear it.

He laid there, breathing slowly, as he carefully tried to disengage from her. She was still fast asleep, of course, but he didn't particularly want to wake her up, and he kind of needed to do some thinking.

After prying her hooves free--the filly had a shockingly strong grip--he slipped silently off the bed. The motion felt familiar; he had often slipped away from Gilda in the early hours of the morning, when he had business to attend to.

It had made it easy to sneak off with his secretary.

He cursed under his breath, and stepped up to the window, peering through the blinds. Unfortunately, there were no monsters there to take his mind off of things. He turned back toward Cloudy, and watched as her chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm.

She was a beautiful young mare. He hadn't really paid attention to this, up to now, but after last night, after she--he shook his head, and cleared his thoughts. After last night, he couldn't ignore her anymore. He wanted to run--to get her out of his head, by putting the entire town between them. How could he continue protecting her, when he saw her like--

"Sunny?"

She yawned, propping herself up on one foreleg, letting the other drape across herself. It was entirely accidental, Sunny was sure of this.

"Oh, there you are. Ya scared me." She smiled at him.

"Sorry. I just--I had to think."

"Yeah?" She smirked at him, and rolled over, tossing her mane. Now he wasn't so sure it was an accident.

"I was trying," he muttered, "to work out where my wife is."

"Oh." Cloudy frowned slightly. "Guess we'd better go find Torque, too."

"You said you were crossing the bridge, right?"

"Yeah! She was still there when we got to the sign. Do you think she's still there?"

"Worth a try. We can look for Petunia on the way there. I haven't the foggiest where she'd be, anyway..."

15: Daddy

"Do you think my mom's okay?"

Sunny shuffled to a stop; his blood ran cold, for a moment. He hadn't even thought about it.

"...I think she's fine," Cloudy muttered. "She's...she doesn't get out much, anymore. She's probably still in her apartment."

"Ah."

They continued in silence. The streets were empty.

"She drinks a lot," Cloudy said softly.

"I...I'm sorry."

"You should be, you--" Cloudy paused, took a deep, shaky breath, and continued. "I don't know, all right? I guess it's...half your fault? I'm still mad at you for leaving. But--I guess you don't get to choose how my mom handled it. I'm just as mad at her for giving up."

A bell tolled in the distance.

"We'd be a lot better off if she'd find a stallion, but sometimes I wonder if she even wants to."

"What do you mean?" Another bell rang, its deep tone rolling over the town.

"Most of the guys she brings home are--well, they're as bad as she is. Drunken party stallions. Total assholes. Pretty sure some of them were doing more than just booze."

"What? In my town!?"

"Man, you really have your head jammed up there, huh?"

Sunny looked thoroughly confused.

"...forget it. The one that gets me is that one time she had a real nice guy--maybe not somepony from the right side of the tracks, but...he actually noticed me. Spent time with me. He taught me how to hotwire a car!"

"You sound way too excited about that, young lady."

"Well, at least he didn't cuss me out," Cloudy said. "Didn't throw stuff at me, either. He treated me like I was, y'know. His daughter."

"...so what happened?"

"Oh, he's a bad influence," Cloudy whined, imitating her mother. "He's gonna get you into trouble with the law. I don't like the way he acts around you. Yeah, treating me like a waste of space is fine, staring at my ass is A-OK, but give me the time of day and it's curtains for you!" She kicked a loose cobblestone, and it flew across the street, clacking as it bounced off someone's wall. Another bell rang.

"Who stared at your--"

"Everypony stares at my ass," Cloudy said, glaring at him. "You stared at my ass."

"Wha--I did not!"

"Sure ya didn't." She scowled, and stared at the ground for a few moments, as the bells rang again.

"I'm...I'm sorry," Sunny muttered.

"Sorry doesn't fix things."

They kept walking. The bells finally stopped ringing.

"...don't make a big deal out of it--" Cloudy cut herself off as her hoof clanked against the metal tiles. As they glanced around, they found that the road had disappeared, and that now there was only a metal catwalk running through the void.

"...not again," Cloudy whined. "Ugh, we were almost there!"

"It's the churchbells," Sunny murmured.

"Huh? What, you think they're making it happen?"

"Maybe not, but haven't you noticed--every time we come here, the bells were ringing."

"...huh, you're right. Don't think it'll make a difference, though."

In time, they came to a mighty tower, rising through the void.

"This is the only way through, isn't it," Sunny said, pressing his hoof to the door.

"Yep. Think there's something nasty on the other side?"

"With our luck? Absolutely."

Cloudy chuckled. "Yeah, I'm ready when you are. And, uh, Sunny?"

He nodded.

"Don't...don't overthink anything, okay? Not yet. At least wait 'till we're out of here."

Sunny smiled a little, and pushed open the door.

Inside, the walls were cob-webbed; the floor was wrought-iron grating, rusted in some places, thinly coated in pus elsewhere. Troughs full of blood and jism ran under the floor, leading into massive vats full of the stuff.

"You ever wonder what this place is supposed to be making?" Cloudy whispered.

"I don't think it's making anything."

"I mean, it looks like a factory. Or maybe a really big butcher's shop. It's making something."

Sunny opened his mouth to speak--but Cloudy clapped a hoof over it, and pointed up. Slowly, on a thick rope of webbing, a slim figure was descending. As it approached the ground, its legs unfurled, holding it high above them. As they held still, it turned this way and that, as if to search through the cobwebs on the walls--and with a shrill cry, it plunged two legs into the webbing, and yanked out a pony-shaped bundle.

He felt his stomach churn as the daddy-longlegs opened its mouth wide, and a thick, wriggling length of muscle shot out, piercing through the bundle of webs and into whatever was left inside. Cloudy backed away, whimpering softly.

The daddy-longlegs sat there for a moment--the muscle throbbed gently, though whether it was sucking something out or pumping something in, Sunny couldn't tell. Eventually, the sack lost its shape--balooning out into an amorphous blob--and the longlegs dropped it, letting it burst open and release a glut of foul yellow-white slime into the waiting troughs below. A crowbar clanked against the grating, the only thing that hadn't dissolved.

Sunny lifted the shotgun off of his back, and swallowed nervously. The beast seemed stronger than ever--and when he took aim, and fired, the shot bounced off, apparently without even a scratch.

His blood froze in his veins as the thing turned to stare at him--and his heart stopped when he saw its face.

Where there had previously been a blank white facsimile of a pony's head, Sunny could now see his own head, grinning that frighteningly too-wide grin. It licked its lips.

"Run." Sunny shoved Cloudy away, screaming. "RUN!"

16: Cold Sweat

CLANG
The abstract form slammed into the wall, moments away from breaking Sunny in half; he had narrowly avoided it, and was galloping for dear life along the outer wall of the web-room.

Cloudy was running with him--faster than him, even--he winced as his bad leg buckled, stumbling into the wall. He picked the pace back up as the Abstract Daddy's massive legs began stomping along toward him. With a yelp, he turned--tumbling--as the thing's clawed feet overtook him. He fired the shotgun up into the monster's belly, but the shot scattered again; one of its legs slammed into his side, and with a painful, choking cry, he flew through the air. His head bounced when he hit the floor, and his vision doubled for a few seconds. The shotgun skittered along the floor, and he didn't bother to reach for it.

He wondered, for a second, if this is how he will die. As much pain as I'm in, he thought, maybe dying won't be so bad. Maybe while this thing sucks him dry, Cloudy can escape. The thought comforts him, if only for a moment; he closes his eyes, and waits for the sudden stabbing pain...

He felt a pair of clawed limbs clamp down on his shoulders, dragging him to his hooves, as the long-legs sank to its knees before him. He felt hot breaths on his face--the monstrosity's foul stench made his nose itch. The meat-tendril snaked out of its hole, throbbing, pulsating as it dragged across his cheek.

shunk

The creature hesitated, for a moment. It slowly turned its head, staring balefully at Cloudy--who had snatched up the crowbar from the floor, and driven it into the monster's shoulder, through a gap in the chitinous plating that covered it.

"Get your filthy fucking claws off my dad."

Sunny's eyes snapped open, and through the blur, he saw his daughter--he saw the tears in her eyes, and the twisted, enraged scowl on her face, as she twisted the crowbar, prying a chunk of carapace loose--his daughter, fighting to save his life. And, Sun and Moon bear witness, he was proud of her.

With a deafening bellow, the long-legs lurched upward, dropping Sunny and bringing Cloudy with it--she yelped, letting go of the crowbar and tumbling to the floor! Sunny rushed to her side, ignoring the twinge of pain in his ribs and the sting of his bloodied leg.

"Cloudy!"

"Ngh--keep moving! We gotta get that armor off it--"

"Cloudy, I--"

"We can talk later! Kick that thing's ass!"

Sunny wrapped a leg around her, and held her tight for a moment--she threw her hooves around him, and held him close--and then, with a curt nod and a confident smile, she untangled herself and started running around the edge of the room.

"Hey! Ugly! C'mere!" she shouted. "Y'want a snack? Come get some!"

Sunny scrambled for the shotgun--its weight felt reassuring, as he hefted it in his magical field. It felt like a true weapon, now--it felt like something powerful. Sunny felt strong--he felt a surge of will that he once thought he'd lost forever.

Behind him, the long-legs bellowed, charging at Cloudy--she leapt out of the way, and it crashed into a metal pillar, crumpling to the floor. With a triumphant cry, she jumped on it--kicking at the crowbar, which was still stuck fast inside the monster's armor. The long-legs growled and sprang back up, sending Cloudy scrambling away--

"Over here, you--you son of a bitch!" Sunny yelled, and the monster lurched toward him. "That's right! You and all the disgusting, freakish things you've done--you wanna go? You wanna have a li'l tussle? COME AND GET IT!"

It charged at him, howling indignantly, at a speed that no mere pony could reach--and Sunny scrambled aside, as it CLANGed into another metal pillar! As it sank to the ground, he wheeled and brought both his hindlegs down on the crowbar, breaking a massive plate of chitin off with a sickening snap.

"You! I'm sick and tired of you!" Sunny cried, as he snatched up the crowbar with his good hoof. "All you've ever done is make everything worse!"

He took a wild swing with the crowbar, and hooked another chunk of its carapace, tearing it clean off. The monster groaned, its legs spasming.

"Every time you touch something, it makes me sick! It makes me die inside!" He jammed the crowbar up into the base of its neck, and pried, and even more of the thing's plating came loose--exposing the back of its skull. He planted the barrel of the shotgun there, and the thing whined pitifully.

"I will never--ever--let you hurt me again!"

He pulled the trigger, and the monster's grey matter splattered across the grating, dribbling into the troughs below. The pus turned a dark red as blood seeped into it.

"...it's done?" Cloudy muttered, trotting up beside him.

"It's done."

"I don't...like you," Cloudy said softly, as they walked through the unending halls. "But that--that doesn't mean I don't care about you, all right?"

Sunny nodded. "I was...worried."

"Yeah?"

"That you'd never want to see me again," he whispered. "That you'd be better off if I was--"

"Dead? Hell no! I wouldn't just let you die. What kinda pony do you think I am?"

Sunny chuckled a little. Cloudy laughed. "No, no, you're--you're kind of a dick, and I'm still mad at you for leaving, but..." She sniffles a little. "You're my dad. I can't make that go away. Heck, I don't want it to go away. I just want you to do your frickin' job already."

"Hey, I'm trying!" Sunny laughed, and Cloudy slugged him in the shoulder, and soon she was laughing too.

Sunny stopped, suddenly, and took a knee. "Hey, c'mere. Hop up."

"Oh, come on. I'm a grown-ass mare, I can walk--"

"Shut up and hop on. I gotta do my job, right? Gotta start somewhere."

She rolled her eyes, and grinned, and clambered up onto his back. He shook a little as he lifted her up--she's nearly fully-grown, after all--but he's able to carry her, and his steps get steadier as he goes on.

17: Revelation

The room looked familiar--with a set of paintings on the wall, and pus-stains on the floor. The paintings sagged a little, as if they had been holding something back, but the pressure had gone away.

"What's up with this?" Cloudy muttered, poking at the portrait of Petunia.

"Some kind of puzzle, I bet," Sunny said, as he trotted up to the portrait of Gilda. "That's what it was the last couple of times. Try the door?"

Cloudy tugged on the door, and it didn't budge. "Yep, locked."

"Fantastic." Sunny started to pace, humming to himself.

"What I don't get is, why's there a picture of my mom? Nobody wants a picture of her. Especially not when she looks so strung-out."

Sunny frowned, and opened his mouth to speak--but he stopped himself as he recalled the last time he dealt with these paintings, and the gushing, foul-smelling slime that was coming out of the walls. The secretary's painting was special--specifically, it fell apart when he tried to use it...

...like a broken condom. Sunny winced as he remembered the 'prep work' he did for that night--stabbing the condom wrapper with a pin, ensuring that the condom would fail. He was going to get his way, no matter what...

"Cloudy, give me the knife."

"What? Why?" But she tossed the knife to him, and he caught it with a simple burst of magic. He walked up to the portrait of the secretary, and stabbed it.

"Wh-what the hell!?" Cloudy said--and then she stammered out another "what the fuck" as pus dribbled out from behind the portrait. A rusty key clinked as it hits the floor.

"There. We can leave now." Sunny grabbed the key, and quietly unlocked the door with it.

"But--how'd you know to--"

"Cloudy, how do you think your mom ended up with you?"

Cloudy fell silent as she tried to wrap her head around it. It only took her a few seconds to connect the dots; she looked...disappointed, for a moment, and angry, but she said nothing as she followed Sunny out the door.

"I'm sorry--"

"Don't be," Cloudy said, cutting him off. "I always wondered if mom really wanted me."

"She didn't expect you. But she doesn't--not want you."

"How do you know?"

"She stuck around," Sunny muttered. "And for what it's worth--I'm sorry I left."

"...apology accepted," Cloudy said, as she bumped his shoulder. "Now let's get outta here."

The next door they opened led to sunlight, or what was left of it. It was still filtered through the awful fog-clouds that had settled over the town, and it was still impossible to see more than twenty or twenty-five feet ahead, but the light still stung Sunny's eyes as he stepped into the street.

"It feels like sunlight," Sunny said, "but I don't know if it's real sunlight."

"Me neither," Cloudy muttered. "C'mon, let's keep moving."

But Sunny wouldn't move--his eyes were locked on something in the alley across from them.

She had a soft pink coat, and a lovely purple mane that curled and bounced whenever she moved her head. Her hooves were spattered with ugly black, and she had a two-by-four slung over her back, with the same oily substance dripping from one end. Sunny saw her, and with an awe-struck voice, breathed out a single word:

"Petunia?"

She turned her head, and locked eyes with him, and her smile burst with joy as she walked--then galloped--toward him. He met her in the middle of the street, throwing his hooves around her, kissing her cheek, crying and laughing.

"Oh, Petunia--I've been so worried about you--"

"Forget that, Sunny--your leg! What happened to it!?"

"The--the monsters, they--"

"You mean those machines?"

"Do they look like machines to you? I see zombies."

"How strange. I guess Ramooh was right, they really are different for everypony--"

"You've met Ramooh!?"

"Yes! If it weren't for him, I'd still be trapped down there!"

"Uh, guys?" Cloudy clears her throat, and the two of them turn to her.

"Oh! You've met Cloudy! I was wondering where she'd run off to. She hasn't given you too much trouble, has she?" Petunia smiled at him again--at once innocent and forgiving. Sunny swallowed his pride.

"She's..."

Sunny took a deep breath. There was no putting it off--he could lie to Gilda, and to his secretary, and to himself, but he couldn't lie to Petunia.

"...she's my daughter, Petunia."

"Huh? But you told me...you didn't..."

"I know. I...I have a lot to talk about. Let's go find somewhere to sit."

The Rainbow Mart could be best described as a convenience-store-meets-diner. Half of it was filled with odds, ends, snacks, and cold beverages, while the other half was a chrome-and-neon kitchen, complete with a set of barstools that were lubricated daily so the little foals could spin them as much as they wanted. On any other day, the whole store would be clean and sparkling, but today the filth and grime of the otherworldly horrors had snuck through the cracks, leaving stains on the countertop and making the food look questionable at best.

"...so, that's how it happened," Sunny said, rubbing the back of his neck with his good hoof. "You came along years later. I always told myself it wasn't important, but..."

"That was a lie," Petunia said simply.

"Yes," Sunny replied. "Yes it was."

"...I hope you understand why I'm upset," Petunia whispered, taking Sunny's hooves in hers. "This is--a lot to take in. And it's all things you should have told me when we were talking about the skeletons in our closets."

"I didn't want to chase you away," Sunny whimpered.

"I understand. I'm upset with you--I'm disappointed in you..."

Sunny winced.

"But it's all right," she said softly, stroking his hoof.

"Is it though?" He sighed, turning away. "I spent such a long time, just--pretending nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong. What I did was wrong, Petunia."

"It was! But you want to fix it, don't you?" Petunia reached out, gently brushing his cheek--guiding his eyes back to hers--and gave him another heart-melting smile. "I'll be there with you, Sunny. I'll help you make things right, no matter what that means. Even if I'm...not happy...with what happened." Her smile faltered, but only for a moment. "In sickness and in health, right?"

Sunny smiled back.

In the back of the kitchen, something went clunk. "Hey guys!" Cloudy yelled. "I found some hashbrowns! It looks like they're still good, too! Oh, and the grill works now."

"I'd better go and make sure she doesn't hurt herself," Petunia said, hopping up from the booth they were sharing. "She's...well, she's family, isn't she."

"Yes she is."

"That's the one good thing to come out of this, I think. You have the foal you always wanted." She trotted away, as Cloudy started twisting knobs on the griddle behind the counter.

Sunny sighed...and then tweaked an ear, as the front door opened.

"Having fun, Sunny?" Long Night said, as she took the seat opposite him, setting her red notebook on the table.

"...yes," Sunny replied, narrowing his eyes at her.

"I thought you liked my lessons," she said, tilting her head; her ears flicked back and forth. "By the by...did you know that fear and arousal are the same?"

"No, and I don't want to--"

"Sssh. Sunny. Don't raise your voice." Long Night gave him a cheshire grin. "You wouldn't want to upset them, right?"

He frowned, and nodded slowly.

"Good." She straightened up, licked her hoof, and slicked back her mane. "Now. A pony's fear response is the same as its arousal response. Ponies like to think they're different things, but their bodies don't see a difference."

Sunny glanced over Night's shoulder, as Cloudy and Petunia laughed with each other. The sizzle of diced potatoes on a griddle echoed through the silence.

"Yes, she was."

"Scared?" Sunny asked.

Long Night simply grinned wider. "Think about it, Sunny. When you want to take a pretty mare home, what kind of date do you bring her on?"

"...a scary movie," Sunny muttered.

"And how...scared...do you think Cloudy was? She's arachnophobic, you know. Spiders, oh, she hates spiders. They make her heart pound. Make her legs quiver."

"Get out."

"Aww. Don't you like knowing things? Wouldn't you want to know more?"

"I said get out."

"Don't you want to know if she wanted it?"

Sunny's breath caught in his throat. "What do you--"

"In the motel room, the night before. You remember, don't you?"

"How do you know about that?" Sunny growled.

"Better question: Why didn't you let it happen? Nopony would know. You would've been happy. She would've been happy."

"What would it cost, though? It's wrong--"

"What's so wrong about enjoying yourself, huh? Why is it that everypony else gets to have what they want, but you don't?" Night was leaning across the table, her face inching closer to Sunny's by the moment. "What's so wrong about taking what you want, Sunny? Everyone else does it."

"But--I wouldn't hurt her. She's my daughter."

"Oh, you don't wanna hurt her. Maybe you oughta take a page from Glider's book. Think about it--didn't Glider get what she wanted?"

Sunny scowled. "I'm not Glider. I'll never be Glider."

"Fine. I'll see you around, Sunny. Let me know when you're ready to be happy." Long Night snatched up her notebook and slinked out, flicking her tail as she trotted away.

18: Incarnate

As they trotted out of the diner, Sunny felt a twinge of regret. Maybe he should've kept the facade up for longer, so Petunia could go home without having all of this on her mind.

...or maybe he simply wanted to pretend nothing was wrong. He shook his head. Pretending would lead nowhere.

"Right. I'll keep looking for Torque. You two should find someplace safe to stay."

"Sunny, please. I've handled myself just fine up to now--"

"Ah ah ah! No. I insist. I've done more than enough worrying about you, Petunia. You don't deserve to be risking your life like this."

Petunia frowned. "Sunny, please. We have more to talk about."

"...I know, sweetpea. But I want to talk about it when I'm not worried about zombie attacks." Sunny threw a hoof around Petunia's shoulders and kissed her cheek. "Also, I need you to make Cloudy simmer down. She's saved my keister on more than one occasion, but she's gonna get herself killed if she keeps going."

"Aw, come on!" Cloudy sneers at Sunny, rolling her eyes. "I'm not the one with a busted leg!"

"You also don't have a shotgun."

"...shit, I guess you're right."

"Language, young lady."

"You're not my mom. Technically." Cloudy smirked a little. "But yeah, fine, I'll cut it out."

"Now, so far, our house has been safe." Sunny nodded toward the clock-tower--toward home. "I want the two of you to go home. Be quick about it, I don't know when the bells are gonna ring again."

"Of course. Ready, Cloudy?"

"Ready." Cloudy snapped off a quick little salute to Sunny, and Sunny laughed softly as he returned it. He felt his spirit rise as they walked away.

Petunia's finally safe. Now he can work on fixing this.

"Now, if I were Torque, and I got completely lost...where would I go?"

Sunny mumbled to himself as he trotted down the endless streets.

"...I think I might be completely lost. Damned fog."

In the distance, he heard a cry of pain.

"Huh? Is that Ramooh?" Sunny checked his shotgun--still loaded--and cantered toward the noise, wincing as his bad leg struck the cobblestone.

Through the fog, he made out three forms--a pony, a bull, and a hooded, cloaked figure. The cloaked being took a swing--Sunny recognized the polearm, for he had seen it dozens of times in old books of farming techniques: it was a scythe.

The blade of the scythe clanged against Ramooh's horns, and he roared, tossing his head and knocking it away. "You will not take me today!" he howled, as he charged forward--but the cloak whirled, and the apparition vanished! As the cloak spun away, the scythe arced down, tearing a bright red line along Ramooh's side and cutting away the very ends of his tail tuft.

Behind them, Sunny saw Torque, caught between running for it and leaping into the fray. She caught Sunny's eyes, and yelled out to him. "Sunny! Run for it! This thing's unkillable!"

But Sunny ignored her protests. He didn't want to hear it. He was tired of running--running from monsters, running from family, running from lies. He felt--all at once--a bizarre clarity, a terrible dread, and an incredible sense of peace. He realized, in that moment, that there would be no difference between running and fighting; for no matter what he did, death would come to him, just as it would for all of them...

...so why bother running from it?

"Sunny, what're you doing!? Get outta here!"

"No more." Sunny grunted as he lined up the barrel with his target. "I'm not running today. If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die doing my sun-damned job."

"Sunny? Moon damn it all, Mayor, y' can't--"

B L A M

Torque's screaming was cut short by the sound of buckshot against bone. The cloak whirled away, leaving only a skeleton--a shadow of a pony, wielding a rusted farming tool. Sunny pumped the shotgun, staring down Death itself. He was acutely aware of what that scythe would do to him, if the skeleton were to gain the upper hand, and yet--

B L A M

He walked forward, in serene fury, as the second load of buckshot took a couple of ribs off of the skeleton. It screeched, whirling its blade and stamping its hooves. Sunny, unshaken, pumped the shotgun once more and took aim.

B L A M

This shot caved in the skeleton's skull, and it howled like a wild beast. It charged at him full-tilt, blade twirling behind it...

...only to crumble to dust as it met him, nothing more than a foul wind.

Sunny did not feel triumph; he knew that he had simply delayed the inevitable. But he felt...content. Good. He had bought time for his friends, and that was the best possible outcome. Maybe it wasn't triumph, but it was good.

"...holy shit, Sunny." Torque trotted to a stop next to him as he brushed the dust off of his face. "Where did that come from?"

"...well, I--I don't know how to--"

"He was enlightened," Ramooh said, standing up. He groaned softly. "He learned the lesson that--hah--that I never did understand..."

As Ramooh walked, he stumbled. Torque and Sunny caught him, barely. "You really hurt yourself, didn't you? We need to find shelter," Sunny said. "I sent Cloudy and Petunia back to my place, it should be safe--"

"No!" Ramooh shouted, nearly falling over again. "Sunny, the Rakshasa--it hides in the place where the nightmare began! It hides where your darkest fears and desires lay dormant!"

"But that would mean--" Sunny gasped, and dug through his saddlebags. In moments, he had the key to his master bedroom in his hoof.

"Oh, no."

"We'll hole up in the motel," Torque said. "You get back home. Save her."

"Wait--you will need this," Ramooh stammered, wincing, as he reached back onto his saddle--and held out a curious little pyramid-shaped piece of stone. Its surface was lined with runes. "It is a powerful tool, passed down through generations. The demon within is called Flauros. Call upon it when you are ready."

20: Absolution

Long Night staggered back, blood dribbling down her forelegs. There was a fist-sized hole in her chest--bones were jutting out of it.

...no, bones were growing out of it, her body changing to reflect Sunny's expectations of it. Night scowled, as Sunny threw away the shotgun.

"You...bastard. You found me. How did you find me? How!?"

She howled, leaping at him--he grunted, his head bouncing against the floor grating. The odd little vial flew out of his saddlebags, landing close by, its scarlet contents shining in the dark.

Long Night froze. She sniffed the air, and a look of horror slowly crawled over her face.

"What is that? What--how did you find that!? Did that bitch Kerfuffle give it to you!?"

Her face contorted into rows and rows of viciously sharp teeth, her fur shimmering with stripes of black.

"ANSWER ME!"

Sunny watched as she lowered toward him; he laughed softly, as he realized that--from another angle--this could be mistaken for a kiss--an especially lethal kiss, but the idea amused him.

The laugh made Long Night pause, and Sunny took the opportunity--kicking upwards with his hindlegs, he knocked her aside--she twisted through the air, landing on her hooves with catlike grace.

"I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill all of you!" she screamed. "You, and your wife, and your kid, and the whole fucking town!"

"I'm sure you will." Sunny grinned softly, as he reached into his saddlebags. "Say, do you know a fellow by the name of..."

He yanked the pyramid out of his bag. "FLAUROS!"

As soon as he spoke its name, it floated out of his hooves, whirling around, the stone sliding and shifting in impossible ways. A beam of energy shot out of the pyramid, brilliant blue--and it pierced through Long Night, making her screech in pain and terror. Her body sank to the floor...and then rippled and hissed, shifting and twisting until it was unrecognizable. Her hooves lengthened into claws; her body turned a burning orange, striped with black. Her fangs grew even longer, until her face was an endless mess of jagged teeth. Her tail narrowed until it was whip-like, coiling and snapping.

"Sunny Skies," she hissed. "I'll have to remember your name, now. I'm gonna make this last."

By the time she pounced, he was already moving--scooping up the vial as he went. He wasn't sure what it was, but if the Rakshasa hated it, it must be useful.

She slammed into the wall behind him--and he heard it creaking. The metal groaned--and then it gave way. The rakshasa clawed at the grating below her, scrambling away from the abyss. Beneath them, the troughs of blood and sweat and oily slime were starting to leak as they buckled under the strain. The floor was rattling, and at the edges of the room, chunks of it were starting to break off and tumble into the dark.

"Sunny!" Behind him, he heard a crackling noise, and he turned just in time to see the glass break. The awful, foul-smelling ooze spilled out and flowed through the grates, and Petunia coughed up some of it as she struggled to her hooves.

"I've got you!"

She jumped down, and he reached out with his magic, groaning a little as he took the strain. It was just enough to let her land gently.

"I'm with you, Sunny."

"You need to run for it."

"Nonsense. In sickness and in health, right?" She smiled. "Go help Cloudy!"

With that, she turned and charged at the rakshasa, screaming a madmare's warcry.

Sunny ran to the next tank, and gasped as Cloudy jumped down onto his back.

"Don't tell me you want to fight too," Sunny muttered.

"Fuck yes I'm gonna fight," Cloudy said, twirling a knife in her hooves. "What, you think I'd let you get yourself killed?" She hopped off, and ran into the fray; Petunia staggered for a moment as the rakshasa swiped at her, but when Cloudy dug her knife into the beast's paw, it howled in pain.

Sunny turned to the third tank--but Glider was already gone. A moment after that, the pipework above collapsed, crushing what was left of the third tank; there would be no going back for her. Sunny muttered a silent prayer to Luna for safe passage, and grabbed a length of steel pipe.

Petunia and Cloudy were running interference, letting the rakshasa tire itself out trying to chase them. Beneath their hooves, the floor was trembling, and all of the walls had tumbled down. Cloudy yelped as she dodged a falling chunk of wrought iron. They didn't have much time, now.

"Hey! Nightlight!" Sunny laughed, as the rakshasa turned to glare at him. "Yeah, that's right! I'm talkin' to you!"

"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" it screamed.

"Yeah? Come on. Do it. Stack my fucking pancakes."

It screeched and squealed and howled, but soon the noise blurred together into a single, pointless noise. And as the rakshasa threw itself at Sunny, he smiled...and jammed the pipe into its mouth, propping it open. Its jaw strained against the metal, threatening to bring those razor-sharp teeth down on his hoof, but...

The rakshasa felt weightless, as though it were a mere figment of his imagination. He could pin it down with a hoof.

As the rakshasa thrashed, he bit down on the cap of the vial and yanked it off, tossing the red liquid down the rakshasa's gullet.

A low whine filled the room. It slowly rose, in pitch and in volume, as the rakshasa began to glow from within. The floor rattled, the pipes began sliding off into the abyss, and before their eyes the rakshasa melted--skin and fur and bone and muscle, all boiling away, until the last crimson droplets sank through the floor.

"Thank the stars," Sunny said. "It's over."

And then the floor fell out from under them, and they went hurtling into the dark...

21: Light

Sunny yelped as he sat up, throwing off the covers. Sweat rolled down his body, ice-cold, stinging his eyes; it hurt almost as much as the sunlight pouring in through the window.

He took a couple of deep breaths, his eyes darting 'round the room--searching for the next monster, wondering if the rakshasa had dragged him into yet another nightmare.

"...Sunny...?"

Petunia rose beside him, yawning. For a moment, he wondered if the rakshasa itself was just a nightmare--a terrifying experience that he would never share. But then, Petunia laid her hoof on his--and it was speckled with black oil and white stains.

"...we need to talk," she says softly.

Sunny knocked on the door. He waited; the address had been out of date, and he fully expected it to be wrong.

The door creaked open. He could see Cloudy lying on a bed in the back, still asleep. And before him--was his secretary. She was ragged, her mane a tangled mess, her eyes puffy and red. He could smell alcohol on her breath, and it wasn't even 10 AM yet.

"...what do you want."

Sunny almost laughed to himself. He had spent the entire ordeal thinking of her as merely his secretary, but now--now he remembered her name.

"Harvest Rose," he said softly. "I have a lot to apologize for."

"You do."

"And I have a lot I missed out on," Sunny continued, "and a lot that I ought to have done, that I didn't do. I can't change that. But what I can do..."

He held out a check. Rose took hold of it, squinted at it--and her eyes went wide when she read the amount.

"...I can be here for you now," Sunny said. "I can be here for Cloudy. I can't change what I've done, but I can make it right. I want to make it right."

"You know what?" Rose chuckled. Her eyes flickered between his face and the check, and every time she looked up there were more tears. "This is a good start."

He opened his hooves to her, and she wrapped her hooves around him. In the back, Cloudy sat up, yawning--and she smiled when she saw Sunny standing in the doorway.

"There's just one thing left," Sunny muttered, as he and Ramooh stopped on the bridge leading out of town.

"What is that?"

"Exactly the question I had." Sunny dug through his saddlebags, and pulled out the odd little stone circle he had found after killing the 'mother'; the snake carving in the center still seemed to wriggle as he turned it in his hooves.

"Ah. I recognize this," Ramooh said--he cleared his throat as he took it in one cloven hoof, turning it over. "It comes from a particular village, in the old country. The people of the village found tree branches in the river, which had been worn down until they looked like snakes; and these were said to bring fertility. Talismans like this make great souvenirs." He hoofed it back to Sunny, who stared at it with an odd sort of apprehension.

Without a word, Sunny threw the talisman out into the river. It skipped twice, and slipped under, never to be seen again.

"There are ponies who would pay good money for one of those," Ramooh mused.

"I've paid more than enough, thank you." Sunny shook his head, and turned back toward town. "Are you sure you don't want to stick around? We've got another Rainbow Festival coming up!"

"I have business in Canterlot," Ramooh said simply.

"Ah, well. I have to go check on Torque and Moody anyway," Sunny replied.

"I will write. Oh, and should you require advice on fatherhood--" Ramooh searched his saddle's many pockets, grumbling to himself. "Why do I not pack paper and pen at all times?"

"Oh! Allow me." Sunny produced a piece of cardstock and a pencil from his bags, and Ramooh scrawled out an address.

"My father, Daiya Krishna, was not perfect--no being in this world is perfect. But as a father, he is wise. You would do well to ask his advice."

And with that, he left; Sunny stood there and waved, until Ramooh rounded the bend in the road and vanished behind the trees. Sunny tucked the card into a pocket, and trotted back into town. He had his own business to attend to; he had a family to take care of.

6: Enlightening

Sunny yelped as a pair of hooves yanked him away, off-balance, off-kilter. One hoof clapped over his mouth, and the other pulled him into a closet; his captor kicked the door shut.

"Quiet!" Torque muttered under her breath. Sunny obeyed. Stomping hooves thundered past the door.

"...princesses alive, Mayor, you've had a bad day."

As soon as Torque let go of him, Sunny sprang toward the door, gasping for breath. "Torque! Oh--oh my goodness, you--"

"Scared ya? Sorry aboot that. Had to get you out of the way." She stood up, dusting her overalls off--and pointing a shoulder-mounted chunk of black steel and carved wood directly at his head.

"What in Equestria is--"

"S'called a shotgun, Mayor. I know most ponies live in peaceful times, but I've had reason to use it before, and there might be reason to use it now. I need you to answer a couple questions, Sunny."

Everything seems just a little bit distant when you're staring down the barrel of a gun, and Sunny had already had enough reasons to never leave his bed again. He was out of things to say for this sort of thing.

"First question: What's your last name?"

"Skies!" Sunny yelped. "Sunny Skies!"

"Good. Second question: Where are we?"

"Hope Hollow!" he squeaked. "For Sun's sake, Torque--"

"One more question!" Torque snapped. "Name every member of your immediate family."

"Puh--" His throat felt dry, all of a sudden.

"Well?" Torque shifted forward, pressing the muzzle of the shotgun into Sunny's chest.

"Petunia!" Sunny squealed. "D-don't kill me!"

"Relax, I'm not gonna kill ya. Had to make sure you were actually you."

Sunny collapsed onto the floor, clutching his chest. "Oh thank goodness. Ohh, I thought you'd gone nuts. Like I haven't, heh."

"...don't relax too much. We en't out of the woods yet."

Sunny gulped, as he opened the door just wide enough to peek through. Through a window set into the opposite wall, he could see the long-legged monster from before, delicately stepping over the fountain in the center of town. From this angle--yes, he could tell he was back in Torque's workshop. Somehow.

"Where did all of this come from?" he whimpered.

"Och, I'm sure I've got some where-is-it-from-o-meter lying around here somewhere. How should I know?"

Sunny stifled a chuckle, and Torque rolled her eyes and grinned. "I always could count on your sense of humor, Torque."

"Well, I can always count on you askin' me to fix things."

"...speaking of..."

Torque sighed, as Sunny grabbed the flashlight out of the saddlebags--the saddlebags he had essentially stolen from Gilded Glider. Even though Glider was...unstable, and possibly out for blood, Sunny felt a twinge of guilt at having run off with everything that Glider had. Even if there wasn't actually anything in the saddlebags when he had run for it. Come to think of it, he forgot to bring the wrench...

Torque's voice snapped him out of his reverie. "Well o' course it isn't working! You stuck a crankshaft in the battery compartment!"

"What?"

Torque held up the flashlight--and the crank, which she had simply pulled out. "You can't just stick yer crankshaft in things and be done with it! It doesn't work that way." She turned and started digging through a bin in the back of the closet. "Lucky you, I've a battery that fits this thing."

With a couple of clacks and an annoyed grunt, she turned around and gave Sunny the flashlight. "Flick the switch to this position for light, and this position for the radio."

"It has a radio?"

"It's a survival flashlight. They put all sorts of stuff in these things. This one's solar powered, so no need to stick that crank handle in there."

Sunny flicked the switch, and Torque winced--he had it pointed directly at her face. With a stammered apology, he clicked it off.

"...but wait, if it's solar-powered, how is it working? It's been indoors this whole time."

"I don't know, Sunny Skies, you tell me."

Sunny glanced outside again. The longlegs thing was gone, and so was Glider--there were hoof-shaped dents in the walls where the madmare had apparently taken out her frustration, but no other sign of her.

"...you haven't seen a filly around here, have you? Pink mane and coat, name's Cloudy?"

"'Fraid not, Mayor."

"Last I saw her was in--some kind of tunnels. It can't have been real, though--"

"--because blood isn't our chief export?" Torque said with a raised eyebrow.

"Exactly." Sunny couldn't help but shudder at the thought.

"She has to be out there somewhere," Torque continued. "I was in that place too, and I made it out. If she kept walking, she'd be fine..."

"...oh my Luna. She ran into that thing's nest."

"What?"

"We got separated at a fork in the tunnel--there was a cave-in--"

"Calm down, Sunny, you're gonna give yerself a heart attack--"

"Torque, she ran right into that thing's nest! We have to go back down there!"

"So, they look like monsters to you?" Torque said softly, as they trotted back down the hall.

"...what exactly am I supposed to call a headless, bloodthirsty griffon corpse? It's a zombie. A monster. A ghoul!" Sunny grumbled, as they rounded another corner. All of the hallways looked the same--that wasn't the problem, the halls looked the same when he was in there too--the problem is that none of them look the right kind of same. There's no yellowed pus stains, no rusted iron panels, no green-tinted copper traces or rivets. He can't even find the room where Gilded Glider tried to--

"They don't look like monsters to me," Torque said. "You know what I see?"

"What?" Sunny said. Maybe this will keep his mind off of things.

"Ponies. Just...other ponies. Axe-wielding maniacs, sure, and they all look like somepony did a number on their faces, but not monsters. Just ponies."

"Huh. That...doesn't seem scary at all."

"Oh? You haven't met a lot of ponies, have ya? Then again, I guess the real nasty folk don't say hallo to the mayor." Her eyes fell to the floor. Her hoof had just landed in something sticky. "Then again, some of 'em look like you."

"What?" Sunny stumbled, putting a hoof against an iron beam for support.

"Och, they don't look like it when I see their face. But when I see 'em from behind, they look like ponies I know. You. Petunia. Your old secretary. Haven't seen any li'l fillies yet, but knowing my luck, there's a bouncing baby surprise waiting in an alley with a knife."

Sunny grunted, and pressed on, as churchbells began to ring...

19: The Choice

Sunny pushed the door open, stepping into the town hall. This was supposed to be home. He felt as though he was further from home than ever.

"Cloudy? Petunia?" No answer. He sighed, closing the door behind him, and started walking up the stairs.

There were the bedrooms, and here was the door to his study, slightly ajar. He opened it, wondering if Cloudy and Petunia were hiding there.

Inside, he saw...a body. The head was disfigured beyond recognition, but the body looked familiar--a grey coat, and the tail was a bright white once upon a time. He glanced at the cutie mark, and chills ran down his back.

"Is that...? No, Sunny. You...you must be seeing things."

He turned his attention elsewhere--and saw a bottle of red liquid, lying next to the corpse. As he levitated it, peering inside, his eyes caught on one of the windows--it was wide open. He didn't remember leaving it open.

He tucked the bottle into his saddlebags and walked over to the window, shutting it--only to find that the glass was broken. "What the--who--"

He threw the window back open and stuck his head outside--and he saw something on the ground below: a prosthetic hoof. A hindhoof, to be specific, and one he was quite familiar with.

"What was Kerfuffle doing here?" Sunny muttered to himself. The church's bells began ringing again.

"...never mind. I don't have time for this!" He cantered out of the study, kicking an empty bottle of Glenfilly and sending it flying out over the stairs. He wheeled around, bearing straight for the master bedroom. As he whipped out the key and shoved it into the lock, the walls began to rot away.

He turned the key, and threw open the doors...

The bedroom was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a grand hall of metal, with steam billowing out of floor grates and blood pouring out of aqueducts. Sunny squinted through the clouds of steam, trotting forward...

He stopped in his tracks as he saw it--an enormous machine, fitted with three massive glass tanks and covered in pipework. His eyes grew wide as he saw what was in the tanks:

"Sunny? Sunny! Oh thank Celestia you're here!" Petunia shouted, slamming her hooves against the glass. "Please, you have to do something!"

"Dad? Dad!?" Cloudy was in the tank on the other side, rubbing her bruised shoulder. "I can't get out! This thing's hard as hell!"

In the third tank, in the back, Gilded Glider was sitting in the center, taking deep breaths and fiddling with her knife. Even Sunny could tell, she was just as panicked as the others.

Sunny soon realized why all of them were so desperate to escape: valves clanked open, and a steady stream of the ever-present pus began filling each tank.

"What--oh goddesses--"

"Dad! Help me!"

Sunny ran up to the machine, looking for a lever, a button, anything--

"You only have time to save one, Sunny." Long Night purred, rubbing up against him; he jumped away, yelping.

"When did you--"

"I'm always here, Sunny. Now, let me give you a hint." She grinned, licking her lips; her cream-colored coat seemed to glow in the dim light. "You only have one shell left, don't you?"

Sunny glanced at his shotgun. He pulled the pump back, and sure enough, there was nothing left in the tube; only the one in the chamber. He shoved the pump forward, glaring at Night. "You...!"

"Ah ah ah! Don't waste it, Sunny. That shell will break the glass on one of these tanks. You could save them. But you have to pick one~!"

"Please, Sunny!" Petunia yelled. "I'm--I'm your wife!"

"What about me!?" Cloudy screamed. "I'm too young to die!"

"Come on, Sunny--" Petunia yelped as a blob of slime struck her head, dousing her. "Forget her! You have to--"

"What the hell do you mean, forget her!?" Sunny yelled back. "She's our daughter!"

"She's your daughter! Not mine!" Petunia screamed, slamming her hooves against the glass. "Please! I just don't want to die like this!"

Sunny glanced toward the tank in the back. Glider caught his eye, and winked. Memories swarmed his head; for a moment, he saw Gilda in that tank, alone and losing hope. His head started to ache--he turned away, toward the tank Cloudy was in.

Cloudy had fallen silent, and was staring at him--and now she was desperately treading water, trying to keep her head above the growing pool of sludge.

"Pick one, Sunny. Clock's ticking. Unless you'd rather see all of them drown?" Long Night laughed. "Didn't think you were into that."

Sunny took a deep breath. He didn't have time to think--he lifted the shotgun, took aim, and pulled the trigger.