怪談とポニー Ep1 - Canterton High: Ponynormal

“Ohhhh!” Misty Lagoon winced, regaining the consciousness; her entire body went numb, curled under the table. ‘How long did I stay senseless?’

She carefully listened for a while, until the signals of necessity to straighten became painful. With a quiet moan Misty half-rolled half-crawled from under her confined cover. Nothing disturbed the dark silence around. Misty raised on her hooves and was to grab onto the edge of the furniture pile, as millions of tiny needles pricked her legs – her blood flow was finally restoring. The familiar rainstorm behind the window told her that she wasn’t out of senses too long.

Terror chilled girl’s blood at the thought, what could have happened if she had been found during her unconscious time. Checking her flashlight, Misty found out that it was still working. Thankfully she held it close to her chest, when fainted, thus managed not to crash it against the floor. Examining the room with the beam of light, the girl froze shining the blackboard, goosebumps ran up her back again – there was a large indentation at the place of former drawing, the wood concaved covering in a web of cracks. How much force and rage one needed to put into that blow?

However, she was still alive. The girl wanted to believe the same regarding her friends. But there should be some reason for such strange behaviour of the ghost.

‘That vision. It was so vivid!’ Misty remembered the details, waiting till she could feel her legs entirely. The image of that mare stood in front of her inner sight, tying the parts into the coherent whole. ‘So, the mare on the sketches they found, princesses’ teacher and the missing teacher of Canterton High are the one actual pony – Fran Von Selle… No wonder I recalled the name sounding Prench…’

Getting around the furniture barricade, the girl took a few more confident steps to the class door.

‘I need to get into the principal’s office!’ that thought was the most natural within given circumstances. ‘There is a chance, I can find the missing details.’ Her heart skipped a beat from the next daring thought. ‘Knowing everything I may be able to face the ghost and help my friends getting out!’ Her own sudden teleportation to the art class told Misty that her friends may easily be scattered somewhere inside that creepy building, unable to find the exit.

‘Anyway, I’d better have the ghost of Fran (she called her that, almost assured of the correctness of the assumption) behind me, than somewhere ahead in the unknown place,’ Misty was to admit, approaching the door and bracing herself to grab the handle.

However, the hallway, when she peeked through the slightly opened door, was empty, except the same furniture rubble, barely lit by slowly blinking lamps. The girl pocketed her flashlight and sneaked to the stairs, doing her best not to pull or hit anything. Misty entirely turned into ears, ready to rush into the nearest nook at the first strange sound. It seemed to take her an eternity to reach the aim, moving that slowly.

‘Now, careful!’ she tried to calm down the racing heart, putting both hands on the door handle; biting her lip from tension, Misty slowly pulled the door upwards a bit, turning the knob and opening at the same time not to produce even the tiniest sound.

The stairwell was echoing. Too loud to be safe. Holding her breath, Misty was to plan each step, each movement. When she reached the landing between floors, sound from the hallway above almost gave her a seizure. First, something fell on the floor and rolled, followed by the sound of flapping wings, panicky flouncing among the obstacles they occasionally bumped into. The high pitch shriek, ripping the silence shortly after, made Misty shiver all over. Rattling hoofsteps rushed towards the sounds, thankfully they receded from the girl, which felt dying inside a little. Something large hit the wall with a deafening crash as if a bookcase was thrown across the room. The glass shards rained on the floor.

By some miracle, Misty unfroze during the moment of raging destruction above; the idea to use it for cover dawned at her and the girl dashed downstairs, jumping over several steps at once.

‘Finally! The ground floor!’ Misty snuggled to the wall of the students’ lobby, hiding behind the column, and listened. ‘Never ever I will now say anything bad about the birds,’ chuckled she inwardly. Meanwhile, the rumbling above faded, but at least she knew, where the enemy was last time.

‘Was she an enemy ever?’ wondered Misty genuinely. At times she felt as if guided by the ghost. ‘By all means, she could do that in a more civilized way though!’

From her place Misty saw the locked principal’s office. Pondering in her hideout couldn’t solve the main problem: she was to open that door without the key, simply saying, break through. Naturally, that gave Misty a few seconds, before the ghostly mare could reach her.

‘One or two actually…’

That called for some planning. The filly already decided to use the same flame extinguisher shimmering in the flashes of lightning on the school vestibule floor.

‘I have time for one strong hit!’ decided Misty, examining the office door closer. A row of lockers behind her back offered a hideout of some kind. Pretty lame as the girl was to admit, but she wouldn’t be able to reach anything else in time.

The metal cylinder was truly heavy: dragging it to the door Misty regretted that she wasn’t as strong as Windy or Flaunty. She swallowed a lump, driving the concerns and tears deeper inside, and inhaled.

The extinguisher hit the lock downwards with a loud crash, knocking out a spark: the lock fell in two parts, one fell inside and the metal handle dinged under Misty’s hooves.

“HIYA!” miraculously not dropping the heavy thing, Misty forcefully threw it further into the corridor, producing even more noise. What she heard from the upper floor told her to hurry. In a wink Misty rushed into one of the lockers; catching the small barred window on top, she forcefully slammed it. Thankfully the doors were tight enough to stay closed.

With bated breath, Misty could see a small part of the hallway through the slanted metal slats. The followed silence, broken only by the muffled thunder outside, was deafening. In a moment, seeming eternity for her, the girl heard the familiar dripping, the metallic smell trailed up her nostrils. It sounded as if somepony squeezed themselves through a narrow fleshy gap and softly fell on the floor right from the ceiling on the left, outside of her view. Misty was on the verge of fainting when the barely discernible whispering reached her ears. Or maybe they were groans of pain. Or maybe they were just in her head…

The girl felt herself again when the hoofsteps began approaching slowly. Somepony ran something sharp across the locker doors, making them tremble and rattle. Misty choked on air.

‘Pull yourself together, you foal!’ gritting her teeth, Misty backed up into the shadow, doing her best not to touch the locker walls or door. ‘A bit more and I turn into plaice… Please, please, just don’t look inside!’

Misty muffled herself with both hands not to squeal like mad when with a heavy sigh the fingers dragged and scratched on the surface of her locker… She could see the flowing mane of the ghost mare overshadowing the barred opening; the glint of light in her wide-open eyes peering along the hallway. Then, as suddenly as it clawed, the terror released her, girl’s head cleared, as the shadowy figure left her view, the rattling of the lockers distanced and finally faded.

Feeling like a jelly, Misty leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment; her body slowly remembered how to breathe and drive the blood through the veins. It started brightening under her closed eyelids…

The corridor seemed endless, blending into the smudged array of doors, lockers and dim lamps under the ceiling. She ran like never did in her life. Her breath trembled from terror and daze, her heart thumped heavily, tears trailed down her cheeks. On that race for her life, she looked over the shoulder once, throwing away from her face several strands escaping her manedo – the hoofsteps, echoing in the hallway, were not only her own. Unable to hold a scream inside, she found out that her chaser was closer than she thought. Pressing one hand to her billowing chest, she picked up the hem of her long old-fashioned dress in the desperate attempt to double the speed. The silhouette behind her back was shortening the distance menacingly.

Gasping for air, she dashed around the corner, storming into the double doors and entering the swimming pool. Something forcefully hit the doors from another side, making her stagger.

“Caught ya! End of the story…” a dark stallion figure tumbled into the room behind her. He breathed heavily, but found the effort to squeeze out an insane grin; dim light shone in his eyes. “Did you think you could get away with that?” the tint of festivity in his voice was unbearable.

“What else do you need?” she inhaled, sucking the air convulsively, trying to stay calm and reasonable, but realizing at the sound of her voice that she failed terribly. “It’s all history. I left them before we met, the rest is none of your business. I broke… with her completely, understanding the reasons against our feelings. I left Celly!!!”

“Celly? You still call her Celly,” bitterly muttered the stallion. Then his eyes shone bright and he shouted, unable to hold it. “That was never enough! You always loved her! You always belonged to her! Don’t lie to yourself at least… And I… I was the backup resort, right? RIGHT?! Every time I caressed you, Fran, I saw her reflection in your eyes,” for the short moment he looked pitiful and devastated, almost adequate.

“I tried…” quietly repeated she, finally regaining her breath. “But you ruined everything! You exactly convinced yourself of losing to a filly…”

“Shut it!” a strong hit threw her on the floor; filling with blood a scratch swelled on her cheekbone, making “Misty” raise the hand to shield her face. Amazedly she stared at the unfamiliar thin delicate fingers trying to protect her from the stranger’s rage. The stallion glared at his ring and pulled it off the finger furiously, throwing away with a clang. “Shut up, Fran!”

“I know the reasons making you reconsider going out with that filly!” there was nothing normal left in his look at that moment. “Know what, I can make you capable to wait, till the alicorn princess becomes legal!” a long thin curved stiletto appeared in his hand, shining as one with his mad glance and grin.

“AHHH!!!” Misty couldn’t hold her gasp inside, her heart was ready to jump out of her chest and a few seconds she simply caught the air like a fish thrown on the shore. Shivering, she raised her hand and tried to push the locker door with the trembling fingers… succeeding from the third attempt only.

That vision frazzled her completely, at the same time, it gave almost all of the answers. Even the grimmest ones. Except for maybe one answer – ‘Where’. But Misty thought, she managed to find that one herself.