“Sweetie Belle! You’re going to be late for school!”
Thisisalovestory
Sweetie jolted awake at the sound of her sister’s voice. The room spun slightly as she came to. She had been having a nightmare, but couldn’t remember it in detail. Only the certainty of fear remained in her sweat soaked form and thumping heart. She got up from the bed and caught her breath, then left the room and found herself on the landing.
It was still dark outside, which didn’t make any sense. Her sister had called out saying she was going to be late for school, but it was getting into summer. It shouldn’t have been dark out at this time. What time even was it, for that matter? She should have checked the bedside clock before she’d gotten up.
Maybe her sister’s voice had been the last remnants of her dreams, bleeding out into the waking world. That didn’t seem likely though, Rarity always woke her up for school.
She turned to head back to her room, and found that the doorway had vanished entirely.
“Sweetie Belle! You’re going to be late for school!”
Sweetie jolted awake. Her mouth was dry, sheets soaked in sweat. She must have had a nightmare, but when she concentrated the thought got away from her. It seemed so obvious in those few seconds of partial consciousness, but it had totally vanished now. It made her feel uneasy.
She got out of her bed and left the room to go get ready for school. It was a good thing that Rarity woke her up, she was terrible for oversleeping. But instead of setting her clock to go off five separate times, she could relax at Carousel Boutique. Rarity always woke her up.
When she came out onto the landing, it was pitch black. But that didn’t make any sense, it was nearly summer. Only for some reason, it didn’t feel so strange to her. It felt like it had been strange once and she was still adapting to it. Like the revulsion had been reflexive, not active.
She headed further down the hallway, and as she passed the stairs she looked down. There was something in the showroom, some red light she could see over the banister. The glare obscured whatever it was, maybe it wasn’t anything other than a red light.
But then, maybe it was something more.
Sweetie tiptoed backwards, suddenly feeling very frightened, like she’d stumbled across something she had never meant to see. And the very second she finally uttered a tiny whimper of fear, the light got brighter.
“Sweetie Belle! You’re going to be late for school!”
Sweetie jolted awake, afraid for a reason she could only half remember. She rolled out of bed groggily. When her rump hit the ground, she took a moment to emit a long, strained groan of effort and exhaustion. She got up and tried to shake some sense into herself. It only barely worked.
Sweetie made her way to the door and gently pushed it open. As she stepped out into the hallway, the darkness frightened her. She didn’t know why. She wanted to go to her sister’s room and cuddle up with her and cry about the nightmare she’d had.
She knew Rarity cared about school. She woke Sweetie up for it every single morning whenever Sweetie stayed over. Rarity would likely tell Sweetie there was no time to cuddle and that she had to get ready. But school could wait, Rarity would understand. The idea of having no more time to do these things made Sweetie want to hug her sister even more.
But she didn’t know why she wanted to do that in the first place. She hadn’t had a nightmare. She’d had a dream, a dream about walking to her sister’s room, and then she’d seen some red lights? Was that it? But that was hardly a nightmare.
Sweetie Belle walked past the stairs, and despite herself took a cursory glance down and was relieved to see that there weren’t any red lights. But she still wanted to go to Rarity’s room. And even if it didn’t make obvious sense, it felt like it did.
So she kept walking, longer and further and deeper into the tangled mass of corridors. Some far off sound seemed to increase with her growing unease. It was like radio static, steadily building in the dark. She had to reach Rarity's room soon, didn’t she? This was the boutique, it wasn’t too big. It certainly wasn’t this big. She turned back to see her room only a few metres behind her, but she’d been walking. Sweetie knew she’d been walking.
And as the static got louder and tears started to fall, she finally called out for her sister. Not a single sound left her mouth as she called, shouted, screamed her throat raw. And when she turned around, she saw the long stretch of the corridor heading off into pitch black oblivion. Then, to her terror, she saw it when she turned back too.
“Sweetie Belle! You’re going to be late for school!”
Sweetie clambered out of bed, remembering her nightmare for a second before it melted into the background radiation of general fear. She needed to get to Rarity’s room. It felt important. Her legs moved on autopilot.
“Sweetie Belle! You’re going to be late for school!”
The voice called out again, and it made sense. Rarity always woke her up for school, the only times she didn’t were when she wasn’t in the house. No, not ‘wasn’t in the house’. Rarity lived here, if she wasn’t around then Sweetie had to stay with her parents. She never stayed in the boutique alone. If Rarity didn’t wake her up, then she must have been with mum and dad. But Rarity had woken her up. So she must have been in the Boutique.
“Sweetie Belle! You’re going to be late for school!”
Sweetie pushed to Rarity’s room. Tears had started to blur her eyes and it was so stupid because Rarity had woken her up, here in Carousel Boutique and she wasn’t going to be late for school. She just wanted to talk to her sister. Not the faint shout she got every single morning. She wanted to really talk to her, she needed to. Sweetie got to the door, and hesitated for a second.
“Sweetie Belle! You’re going to be late for school!”
She nearly recoiled when she realised that her sister’s voice had been playing in the exact same tone, like a recording. Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. She thought of backing away and heading back to her room, but that seemed so much worse. There was something that felt profane about entering that room, like she was going to see something she couldn’t ever recover from.
“Sweetie Belle! You’re going to be late for school!”
She fought away the abject terror at that voice, artificial and with none of Rarity’s warmth, tinged with the artificial hum of radio static. But Sweetie couldn’t turn back, so she pushed open the door.
It was even darker in here than out in the hallway. Sweetie squinted in the gloom and prayed she wouldn’t hear that snippet of Rarity’s voice again. Thankfully, all was totally silent. She looked around desperately, needing to feel her sister’s warm coat and hear her real voice more than anything.
For a second, she managed to make out what looked like the seamstress sat up in bed, facing away from her. As she went to call out, the sound of the door slamming behind her made her wheel around in shock.
But there was no door there, just the wall. And when Sweetie looked back to talk to her sister she could finally see the room. Some light was beginning to filter through the curtains. The bed was freshly made, but the wardrobe was empty. It looked like Rarity had left shortly before Sweetie arrived. She walked closer to the bed and saw that someone had placed a single white rose there. For some reason, this made Sweetie Belle want to cry.
“I guess I just missed her,” she said aloud for reasons that were so much clearer in her chest than her head. Sweetie Belle turned away from the bed and walked to the curtains. When she pulled them open, there was no morning light of Ponyville. Just a bright, scorching red.
Sweetie Belle awoke gently as the sun hit her eyes. The curtains at Carousel Boutique were just thin enough to let the perfect amount of light in. She rubbed her eyes for a moment, banishing sleep and tears both.
And the whole of the Boutique was totally silent.
