Octavia sighed for the millionth time, pulling the blanket up underneath her chin and staring up at the black void covering her ceiling. She squeezed her eyes closed and forced herself to yawn, in some fruitless attempt to convince herself that she was tired.
Well, that wasn’t true. She was tired, but it was more of a physical exhaustion, and while her body seemed heavy and worn, her mind was working in overdrive. She opened her eyes and turned to her side.
She watched as Vinyl’s chest rose and fell in time with her breaths, mumbling something to herself in her sleep. With a defeated sigh, she leaned over and kissed her marefriend on the cheek, before gently tossing aside the covers and stepping off of the bed.
A few stray memories nipped at her mind as her hooves touched the ground. She remembered a vivid shade of hospital flowers, petals falling gently to the ground. She remembered a phone booth in a crowded diner as rain pounded against the roof outside, and the crackly whisper of a pony’s voice in her ear.
Octavia stealthily made her way through the bedroom, dodging shadowy objects and silhouettes that lunged at her from the darkness, fending them off in her mind.
She shut the door to her bedroom after she left it, glancing behind her to see a pale light from the living room below. The hallway seemed to blur beneath her hooves, with walls closing in around her and the ceiling towering above like a cloud in the sky. Gently, she descended the staircase, the lower floors bathed in a soft golden light awaiting her.
Something drew her to the lights, like a moth to a flame. Octavia stumbled through the familiar shell of her house, her hooves clumsily moving in front of her in a desperate search for sanctuary.
A harsh whisper seemed to echo throughout the house. A silent plea for help fell upon her ears, but it faded away as quickly as it had come. Do you? Can you? Will you? The chants filled her mind, bringing with it regret and all of its friends.
Octavia followed the lights into the dining room, where another pony was sitting with her back towards her. She paused in the doorway, watching her, before she decided to move. “Fiddle? Is everything alright?”
“Hm?” Fiddlesticks glanced behind her. “Oh, hey Octi. Did I wake you?”
“Not at all,” Octavia insisted. “I’m assuming you had trouble sleeping as well?”
Fiddle sighed and nodded wearily. “Yeah.” She rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn.
Octavia tilted her head at that. “Fiddle, you look exhausted.”
“I am, kinda. Haven’t been able to sleep in awhile,” she confessed.
Octavia glanced at the open book of photos that sat on the table next to her. Pictures of herself and her family stared back at her. She recognized the scenes from her early birthdays and trips to the local fair, and from concert recitals to moving out for the first time. But Fiddle wasn’t in any of them.
“Sorry,” Fiddle apologized, tapping a hoof on the book. “I was just… wonderin’, I guess. Wonderin’ what your life was like.”
Octavia sighed, taking the book in her own hooves and turning the pages. She tried to ignore the shadows that seemed to spill out from beneath the pages. “You don’t blame them, do you?”
“Rightfully? I dunno,” Fiddle replied. A few shadows danced behind her as she spoke.
Octavia put a hoof on a glossy photo gingerly. This one was from her parent’s wedding, long before she had ever walked Equestria. “I… I suppose that I can understand seeing things from their point of view,” she remarked. “I don’t know what I would have done in their situation either.”
“Yeah.”
A chorus of crickets continued their symphony outside the window. The moonlight covered everything in a silvery glow, tinting the world in a dreamlike haze. Octavia heaved another sigh. “You should have been in these photos, Fiddle.”
“Should I?”
“Of course. You’re still my sister. Life may have thrown us in two different directions, but nothing will change that.”
Fiddle didn’t reply, so Octavia turned another page in the book. A few pictures of herself in the grade school orchestra greeted her. The faces in the photographed seemed to blur and fade, shifting and changing with every second that passed by. She tried to ignore it.
“I still remember the day when mother told me that I had a sister,” Octavia mused. “It was… quite the shock, to say the least. I had no idea. You said that your mother told you, correct?”
Fiddle nodded in affirmation. “Yeah. Kinda had to, since I’d be growin’ up with Braeburn and Fritter. Never thought I’d meet my birth parents, though… and hay, nopony ever said anythin’ about me havin’ a sister.”
Octavia took her in carefully. She watched as Fiddle played with her mane, while keeping her eyes out the window and at the silent streets of Ponyville. She watched the way the fluorescent kitchen lights highlighted her face and mane, bringing out the bags under her eyes and weariness hanging over her like a stormcloud.
Something told her that she had to take a chance. Octavia reached out and grasped Fiddle’s hoof. “Fiddle… are you upset with me?”
Fiddlesticks recoiled. “What? No, of course not, Octy!”
“I can understand if you are,” Octavia persisted, tapping her other hoof on the photo album. “Because it isn’t fair at all. You should have been with me every step of the way.”
Fiddle sighed, dipping her head low in shame. “Well… I dunno. For a little bit, I guess I was angry. But not at you. You never knew about me. And, yeah, I reckon I could see things from their point of view. Couldn’t have been easy, havin’ to give up one of your foals…” Fiddle trailed off, absentmindedly rubbing the back of her hoof. The shadows shifted behind her, tugging at her sleeve and playing with her mane.
Octavia hung her head at that. “Fiddle… I’m sorry too. I wish I was there for you. I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”
Fiddlesticks gave her a small smile. “Hey, it’s no problem, sis. This fight… it’s one I’ve gotta do myself.” Even as she spoke, a shadow fell across her eyes, blocking them from meeting Octavia’s.
“No, I don’t believe that,” Octavia said firmly. “I couldn’t help you then. But please, let me help you now.”
Fiddle took a deep breath and nodded, but it failed to ward off the shadow across her eyes. “Alright, sis. Alright.”
They sat there in silence for a little longer. Octavia’s ear twitched as she heard a faint tapping sound somewhere from within the house, like a tree branch knocking against the glass. It was a strange little noise, as if the world was quietly asking her to wake up.
“So… is the guest room comfortable enough?” asked Octavia.
“Oh, yeah,” Fiddle replied dismissively. “It’s comfy enough. Bed ain’t the problem. Reckon it’s just my head. Thoughts keepin’ me up at night.”
Octavia rubbed her chin. “How so?”
“I dunno. It’s like… I’m not afraid of the nightmares anymore,” she began. “Now I’m afraid because… I’m afraid because the world I wake up in is always worse than the one in my dreams.”
Another bout of knocks echoed from throughout the house, but Octavia ignored them, trying to focus on her sister’s words. A hurricane of shadows was flying about behind her, like wraiths rising from the grave. They twisted and turned in the air, screaming and wailing in horrible screeches.
Octavia’s heart was pounding, but she nervously swallowed and tried to fight back her fear. She had to, for Fiddle.
“Lately, it just feels like I’ve been sleepwalkin’ through some horrible nightmare,” Fiddle muttered, her voice thin and glossy. She began rubbing the back of her hoof again, at the scars that would never quite fade. “So it’s gotten to the point where I don’t wanna sleep, but even when I don’t… things ain’t much better.”
The crickets outside fell silent, leaving Octavia and her sister alone in their strange little world. She could hear strange whispers in the night, calling her back to bed. She could feel the tug of sleep against her heart, as if calling her to rest.
But she couldn’t. Not when her sister was caught between two hells, one in her sleep and the other in her life. Octavia stood from the table and walked over to Fiddle and hugged her as tightly as she could, as if Fiddle would fade away if she let go.
Fiddle didn’t cry, but Octavia did. She cried for her sister, and for all the pain that the years had brought upon the both of them. She cried for all the time they had spent apart, and for the things she should have done but never did. Octavia cried because Fiddle couldn’t, because Fiddle had run out of tears a long time ago.
They stood in the dead of the night, as echoes of a knock resonated throughout the halls. They stood still as statues, as Octavia’s tears fell upon a faded photograph, as the stars twinkled above their house like tiny flares in the night.
Octavia squeezed her eyes shut and sobbed. The shadows swooped in around her, blocking out the light and trapping them. Darkness rushed in to fill the void and consume everything in-between. And she felt Fiddle slipping away from her hooves.
She tried, tried to keep ahold of her, but the wraiths screamed and laughed, pulling her sister away. And as Fiddle faded from her view, consumed wholly by the darkness, Octavia tried to scream. No sound came out.
A desperate, muted knock came from within, begging her to wake up.
Octavia shot up in her bed, gasping for air. She blinked a few times in an attempt to reorient herself, her eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness which shrouded her room.
Vinyl snorted from her right, turning over in her sleep. Octavia wiped at her brow, her heart still racing and her mind still burning. She still heard the wails of the phantoms in her ears, hidden beneath the voice of her sister and lurking behind every word.
She threw off the covers and raced out of the bedroom. Octavia came crashing into the banister, throwing out her hooves right before she slammed against it. In choking, heavy sobs, she fell to the floor, resting her forehead against the wooden pillar.
As she wiped the tears out of her eyes, she shakily pulled herself to her hooves and turned down the hall, pushing open the door leading into the bathroom. Octavia flicked on the light and went over the sink, splashing some water on her face.
The running water of the sink failed to calm her down much. She sighed, letting the cool feeling wash over her and melt into her system.
When she rubbed the water out of her eyes and looked up into the mirror, she saw Fiddlesticks staring back at her. Her sister blinked in surprise before slowly lifting a hoof and resting it against the glass.
Octavia copied the motion, feeling the cool surface against her hoof. “Fiddle,” she whispered. “I… I wish I could have found you sooner.”
Fiddle closed her eyes and sighed. “I wish I didn’t let you down,” she replied.
“You didn’t,” Octavia quickly protested. “Please don’t think that you have.”
Something shifted in the glass behind Fiddle. She glanced behind her nervously, ears pinning back on her head. “I… How can I not?” she asked.
From the misty fog behind her, Octavia swore that she saw a pair of eyes, shifting and burning their gaze into her sister’s backside. Fiddle pulled her hoof away from the glass, leaving a vibrant red hoofprint behind.
“I’m sorry,” Fiddlesticks whispered as she turned away from the mirror to face the creature behind her. As she did, Octavia’s eyes widened as she caught the glint of a knife in her hooves.
There was a crash from downstairs.
“NO!” Octavia scrambled out of the bathroom and practically flew down the staircase, darting through the darkness like a torpedo in the ocean.
She skidded to a halt at the edge of the kitchen. Her sister stood at the sink, shaking quietly and whispering some unheard words.
Octavia hesitated, hearing a ghost of a whisper against her ears, before crossing into the kitchen. She reached out and hesitantly placed a hoof on her sister’s shoulder.
Fiddle flinched and turned to look at her. Octavia gasped involuntarily.
Streams of red poured from Fiddle’s eyes, like water in a storm, and the same shade of red stained her hooves and body.
“Oh, Fiddle,” she whispered as she felt tears well up in her own eyes.
Fiddlesticks tore her hoof out of Octavias, trying to back away.
There was a loud knocking noise behind her. Octavia swore that she heard a voice calling her name, but it sounded far away and muffled, as if underwater. She turned around and froze.
From the shadows, a formeless beast appeared, groaning and shaking slightly. It stalked towards her, crawling across the kitchen floor and shrouding everything it touched in darkness. Fiddle whimpered behind her and cowered low, shying away from the beast.
The formless gray monster didn’t react to her cries, but instead slinked closer and closer.
Octavia narrowed her eyes, her fear drowned out by a rushing and sudden anger. “No,” she growled. “I won’t let you take her.”
The beast froze for a second as if confused.
“Do you hear me? You won’t take her!” She shouted as she planted her hooves in front of her sister. “You won’t! You won’t!”
From within the monster, a few shapeless wraiths spiraled into the air, wailing and crying, covering the world in their ink-like darkness. Octavia pinned her ears back, but hearing Fiddle’s cries, she remained stout. “You won’t!”
And the world became black around her. But through the wails of the phantom and the crying of her sister, she once again heard a booming knock, a desperate pounding and roaring voice. “You won’t!” she said again.
The world disappeared around her.
For the third time that night, Octavia woke up in her bed, in a field of fleeting memories and fragmented thoughts.
This time, however, the world seemed a little bit different. The bed was cold and empty, and there were no crickets chirping outside of her window.
As before, Octavia left her bedroom, into the house that was haunting her dreams. To her dismay, however, there was no light in the kitchen.
But still, she descended the stairs, making her way through the dreary world she was trapped in, tired beyond belief but filled with a mix of adrenaline and fear.
The kitchen was dark, but her eyes adjusted quickly. She made out the form of a silhouette sitting at the kitchen table. The pony turned to look at her as she entered. “Hey, sis.”
“Hello, Fiddle,” Octavia replied wearily. She remained standing at the entrance, staring at the pony in the shadows.
“I…” Fiddle’s voice wavered for a second. “Thank you. Really.”
“Fiddle, I love you. I always have and I always will. And I’ll be there for you. I promise.”
Fiddle nodded, her head bobbing up and down in the dark. “I just… I’ve been alone all this time,” she whispered in a voice softer than the wind.
“You’re not alone now,” Octavia reassured her. “I wasn’t there for you then. But I’m here for you now.”
Fiddle let out a low sigh, glancing at the spot where the monster used to be. “I… thank you. Just… thank you.”
Octavia reached out and flicked on the light switch. The kitchen was illuminated in a blinding light for a second, and when Octavia’s eyes readjusted, the kitchen was empty.
There was another knock, but this time, Octavia could place exactly where it was coming from: her front door. Gingerly, she made her way through the house and down the maze of halls, until she stood in front of the door. Another series of knocks came from behind it, along with a voice calling her name. Asking her to wake up, because the nightmare was over.
She reached out and opened the door.
When she awoke in her bed, there was life.
Vinyl’s snoring graced her ears, and she could hear the chirping of crickets from somewhere outside. The bedroom was washed with color, and the shadows remained where they were.
She gently set aside her blankets, kissed Vinyl on the cheek, and made her way downstairs. There was no light in the kitchen. The stairs creaked and groaned beneath her hooves as she gently walked down them, sparing a glance at the photos on the wall as she passed them by.
Instead of going into the kitchen, Octavia turned right, towards the closed door of the guest bedroom. She gently pushed it open and peered inside.
Fiddle was laying on the bed, sleeping peacefully in the early dawn’s light.
Octavia let out a low sigh of relief. She shut the door again quietly and smiled, before turning around again and trotting back up towards her bedroom.
As she sat back down on the bed, Vinyl turned towards her, bleary-eyed and slightly confused. “What’s wrong?” she muttered, concerned.
Octavia chuckled softly and kissed her again. “Nothing, love. Not anymore.”
A lone cricket began to sing outside the window. Its melody carried on and on, through the shadows and into the sky. Through the streets and branches it rose, and through the night it went, before it was lost to the wind and the moon completely.
