Hollow Hope

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.