Return to Bittersweet Apple Acres

Thunder bellowed, shaking the walls of the facility like a mini earthquake as Flora engaged herself in the slasher film that had been provided to the patients of her wing of the building. It was a classic film that she had watched with her mother many times before, but she shunned those memories from her mind, knowing she wasn't here to stay like her fellow ponies.

The plan had changed slightly over the past few hours, seeing Sassy had been called as a nurse for any emergencies. Ironic, due to what was to occur. Sassy had taken the proper precautions to make sure the plan went off without any issues, despite the unexpected changes to the plan.

That was enough to assure Flora as she continued to watch the film. She was waiting for one specific scene to come to perform her fake stunt as part of phase one of her and Sassy's escape plan, the scene being a jumpscare that nopony actually expects on their first watch, but Flora knew the timing perfectly.

The sun's radiant light barely peeked through the upper window of the wide area, meaning the time for festivities beyond the walls of her prison were closing in. It was easily a two hour ride from Canterlot to Ponyville by car, therefore she was on a very strict time crunch.

The clock right above the projection screen read 8:46 pm, and the timed jumpscare was closing in, so Flora prepared herself for her act, knowing she had to be perfect. She only had one chance, so she had to make it count.

She counted down in her head, watching the movie carefully for her cue. Her nerves danced with anticipation; she'd awaited this moment ever since she had read that message Applejack had left her, and now, it was here. She could finally redeem the mistakes she'd made that had caused her friends' lives.

The moment came, the volume of the film boosting with the sound of a bass drum and a gothic piano chord. The raging storm outside played along with the scare, lightning flashing and causing the dark room to be lit with flashing light.

Flora began her stunt, pretending to start convulsing and falling from her chair. Collapsing to the floor, she continued her stunt, causing her fellow occupants to stir in alert, catching the guards' attention.

Their hooves closed in, attempting to control the situation.

"Everypony stay in your seats!" one of them commanded with strict force. "Everything is under control! Remain in your seats!"

As Flora continued her stunt, the guards attempted to break her from her facade.

"Bloom! That's enough!"

Flora didn't listen and continued her act, and when the guards' realized that their attempt of "controlling" the situation by striking fear into Flora wasn't working, only then did they start to panic.

"Bloom! Snap out of it!" one of them yelled in a desperate attempt to break Flora from her fake act.

Flora persisted, increasing her convulsions to the point that it looked serious enough to be a potentially fatal situation.

Then she just stopped, acting as if she'd lost consciousness. This made the guards really scramble.

"Oh shit! What do we do?!" one panicked. "Is she dead!?"

Phase one was complete.

"Calm down!" Sassy intervened, addressing the situation by checking Flora's pulse. "She's alive. This isn't the first time she's experienced this, and it's best she just rests in the nurse's station for now. I'll escort her, seeing you clearly have no clue how to handle a situation like this."

The guards had nothing to say as Sassy began to drag Flora from the crowd into a nearby wheelchair. She'd prepped for everything and was deadset on getting Flora out of that hellhole, and, so far, everything was looking solid.

The next step would be a waiting game, seeing the laundry was tossed down the chutes around 9 pm every night by the nurses. Luckily, Sassy would be the only nurse on duty, having slipped a fast-acting sleeping medication into the provided drinks everypony in attendence was already gulping down upon the start of the movie.

Patients and staff alike.

Having been only thirty minutes or so in, the timing was perfect, and soon everypony would be snoozing away to wherever their minds took them in sleep.

Upon arrival at the nurse's station, being only a single room with two free beds, a sink, and a bathroom, Flora had broken her ruse, wearing a smug grin.

"I swear you are the only pony with a brain in this place," Flora complimented.

Sassy smiled, closing the door to the station.

"I appreciate that, but we're far from out of the woods, Flora," Sassy replied with a serious tone. "We still have to get to the lower floor where the chutes are, and, while the ponies are out like a light on this floor, everypony is awake on the bottom floor. Therefore, I'll need you to be as quiet as a mouse if we are going to even have a chance."

Flora nodded in understanding, expressing a face of assurance.

"Good, now we just wait for the clock to strike nine, but, just to be absolutely safe, I'll need you to keep up the act until then. There's no telling if everypony on this floor is sleeping as planned."

Flora nodded again, moving onto the provided bed and pretending to sleep. The ticking of the nearby clock acted like a soothing melody that nearly sent her to sleep, but her drive for vengeance kept her wide awake for the long ten minutes.

Once the clock finally met 9 pm, Sassy got up and moved to the bathroom where she had stowed away a laundry trolley. It was currently empty, but the large rectangular container for the clothes was both deep and big enough to keep Flora hidden.

"Hop in," Sassy commanded, to which Flora broke her ruse and carefully maneuvered herself into the container.

The inside of the container did not smell pleasant at all, her nose being met with a mixture of the scent of body odor, piss, and mold. However, the smells that had permeated the labyrinth of horrors in the farmhouse had been far worse, so her senses became mute to the odor quickly.

Once she was settled, Sassy followed up with something Flora hadn't expected; Sassy had stripped down to only her cream-white fur, tossing her white lab coat into the container as a cover for Flora. She then changed into a backup coat to keep her identity as a nurse solid, returning to the trolley.

"Make sure you're covered well," Sassy ordered. "Most of the laundry smells like shit you don't want to know, so I'm sparing you those scents with my lab coat. I usually drench it with my perfume, so the trip to the lower floor should be more bearable."

She wasn't kidding; all Flora could smell was a strong and sweet scent that she swore she recognized. Most likely she'd caught it during her intervals between classes. Surely some mare with more bits than she had wore the same perfume.

She was thankful for the mercy of whatever smells Sassy was referring to, so she followed up by coating the majority of her body by opening up the attire and widening it to where it covered her entire body like a giant blanket.

Sassy checked as well to be sure Flora was fully cloaked, and once she felt it was safe enough to start moving out of the room, she moved to the door, opened it, and returned to the trolley. Securing a firm grip on the push handle, she started to maneuver the trolley out into the hall.

Flora knew movement meant that it was her cue to be as quiet as possible, so she covered her muzzle and remained as still as possible as Sassy moved from room to room to collect more cover for her. Sassy was careful to leave Flora room for air, and upon the container being a quarter full, she knew that was enough to assure that Flora was guaranteed to not be discovered.

She arrived at the elevator and pushed the down arrow, the doors sliding open shortly after. Lucky for her, the elevator was vacant, to which she sighed in relief, pushing the trolley into the confined space. Once the doors slid shut, she worked quick to check on her patient in hiding.

"Everything still okay, Flora?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am," Flora answered from under the clutter.

"Good, because now, the real challenge begins. Just keep quiet and still. We'll be there soon."

Upon the ding of the elevator and the doors opening, Sassy took a deep breath. She moved out of the claustrophobic space of the elevator and started towards the rooms, the fellow staff too occupied by work and magazines to even suspect Sassy carrying a patient in her load of laundry.

She was relieved as she did her job of collecting and tossing the laundry into the container, the procedure going the usual way it always did. She was finished in less than ten minutes, and, while there were many ponies lively on that floor, nopony had bothered her or intervened with her work.

That was due to her reputation, and it was working in her favor. Sassy wasn't one to socialize or pull shady stunts, or so they thought. She managed to keep her true intentions of working there hidden behind a smile and trust bonds with her patients, seeing she was literally saving their lives.

Nopony questioned or suspected her, allowing her to get Flora to the laundry chutes without any intermission.

Upon closing the laundry room door, Sassy let out a breath she'd unintentionally been holding in, wiping sweat from her brow and taking a moment to breathe.

"Celestia above, I'm not sure I can take much more of this shit," Sassy said out of the suspense currently permeating every one of her nerves.

Flora unearthed herself from the clutter of clothing and climbed out of the container, catching her own breath in rapid cycles. Having caught her breath, Sassy returned to the mission, knowing they weren't home free just yet.

"I don't even wanna know what the hell was causing my nostrils to burn," Flora complained. "Thank Celestia above that's over."

Sassy rolled her eyes, moving to the chute that was their ticket out of there. Flora followed, joining Sassy at the large chute.

"Alright Flora, once you get to the bottom, I want you to wait for me," Sassy informed.

"Why? I thought we were going down together," Flora questioned.

"Originally we were, but upon scaling the building today, I noticed cameras that survey the parking lot, and the upper floor isn't the only floor with a pony watching the cameras. Therefore, you're going to need to look less like a patient and more like an employee."

Flora rolled her eyes, walking back towards the trolley. She shuffled through the laundry, eventually finding her target; the lab coat Sassy had worn prior to leaving the nurses station.

It still radiated the perfume of Sassy's preference, which was a relief to Flora as she carefully maneuvered her hooves through the coat's armholes.

Sassy hoofplanted herself, feeling like an absolute dunce for missing that detail. However, there was one more thing that still needed to be accounted for; Flora's scraggly and unkempt locks.

"Alright, you got me, but we definitely need to do something with your mane. It's a dead giveaway."

Sassy followed by undoing her bun, her mane colliding to the floor and dragging as she made her way to Flora. She pulled Flora's stiff and thick curls up and maneuvered the manetie in many patterns, until it secured Flora's mane into a bun.

Upon seeing Sassy's mane in its natural form, Flora almost thought she'd been in the company of another pony. Not to mention that Sassy had a very potent natural beauty with her mane down, and she wasn't married or seemed interested in the idea.

"Something wrong, Flora?" Sassy asked, Flora unaware that she'd been unintentionally staring.

"Huh? Oh! No. I was just surprised, seeing I've never seen you with your mane down, Sassy," Flora answered.

"Oh, I see," Sassy assured. "I guess that's a fitting reaction."

Both of them giggled, returning to the matter at hoof.

"Let's go," Sassy commanded, moving to the chute first and positioning herself as if she were preparing to go down a playground slide. "I'll go first for safety. I'll let you know once I'm down there and am sure it's safe."

Flora nodded, following with Sassy sliding herself forward and allowing gravity to take its course.

She was out of sight in seconds, disappearing into the darkness of the chute's lining, but it wasn't long before her distant voice met Flora's ears.

"Come down! It's safe!" Sassy's voice called, to which Flora followed, climbing into and sliding down the large round tube.

The trip was around ten seconds, ending with a collapse onto the clothes that were yet to be washed. Another thing Sassy had been sure to prepare beforehand, otherwise the collapse would've been less soft and possibly bone-breaking.

The room smelled of mildew and had a cloud of dust very evident throughout the landing area. Flora hadn't expected anything less, standing back up on her hooves and moving to the door where Sassy was awaiting her arrival. She had already unlocked the aged wooden door upon her arrival, and upon opening it, the sound of raging rain and smell of a thunderstorm met Flora's senses.

Fresh air. A bliss she had been without for too long.

It was like a high from a drug, and the essence of the fresh outside air unclogged her cluttered lungs, already feeling like a free pony already.

"Let's go, Flora," Sassy ordered, stepping out into the raging storm.

Flora followed, stepping out into the shower of cool rain, soaking her mane and coat in less than seconds. She made sure to shut the door before leaving the prison she'd been wrongly forced into for far too long, and made quick action to catch up with Sassy, now at the top of the stairs that led up to the right side of the building.

Upon meeting up with Sassy, both of them hastily trotted forward to the front courtyard of the massive asylum, moving to the parking lot. They found Sassy's car quickly, working fast to unlock and open the driver side door, following with Sassy allowing Flora access into the aged car.

Pulling the passenger door open, Flora slid into the vehicle quickly, shutting her door along with Sassy. Sassy shuffled through her keys to find the ignition key, sticking it into its slit-of-a-home and waking the engine upon just a tilt in its solitude.

The engine purred like a kitten, Sassy shifting the car into reverse, backing out of the parking space, shifting to drive, and driving out of the place both she and Flora dreaded with every fiber of their being. As the Canterlot Hill Ward disappeared behind them the further they drove, Flora looked back one last time to give her kindest regards to her one-year hell.

"Goodbye forever, and fuck you," she stated, turning back to the view of the road from the windshield.

Sassy had activated the windshield wipers to give her better clarity of the open road. Upon passing the sign reading "you are now leaving Canterlot! Come back soon!" she felt a weight leave her.

It was a sense of relief unlike any other, but she knew she couldn't be fully relieved yet; she may have escaped the Canterlot Hill Ward, but there was still a whole other beast to conquer. She escaped from it once at the cost of her innocence, sanity, and best friends, but could she escape again?

She would find out upon arrival in Ponyville in a couple hours. She would return to Bittersweet Apple Acres yet again, but this time she would try to end the Apple Family Massacre beyond death once and for all.

She would either succeed or die trying, and upon one glance at the moon, a faint red tint starting to taint its ghost-white glow, she heard the laughter of Applejack echo in her mind.

"The time has come, Flora. Tonight, we either finish what we started or join Henry, Trevor, and Sarah in that place.

No more tears.

No more paranoia.

No more lies.

Tonight, the truth comes out, and Princess Flare pays for her injustice!"

With that stated, Flora laid back and closed her eyes. She needed every bit of strength she could muster, and upon the sound of the car fading to silence, Flora fell into a sleep she had desired for so long.

She was ready. Ready to risk everything, and prove her innocence.

Bittersweet Applejack and Princess Flare would finally be justified, no matter the cost.

END OF PART TWO