Hollow Hope

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...