Leap of Faith: Wolokai Vs. Life

"Sssslleeeeeeep!"

"SSSSLEEEEEEEP!!!"

"Sleeeeep....SSSSLEEEEEP!"

"Sweet Celestia how many of the bastards are there!?" Quill squeaked as he and Wolokai ran through the northern portion of Wolokai explained was a place called 'Silent Ponyville'. The place written in a story by the hooves of a writer whose work he adored, Silent Ponyville was the last place Wolokai had ever expected to end up. Now...he wasn't sure it was a place he'd expect to make it out of alive.

"I don't know!" Wolokai barked as he rushed up (according to the street sign they passed) 'Sugar Lane', being careful to stay out of hooves reach of the staked monster ponies that were growing in numbers and shambling towards them. The writer narrowed his eyes as he spotted another massive chasm before them towards the end of the road, signalling another dead end. He had hoped that the cliche' of Silent Ponyville would be broken in his mind, and that there may have still been a way out...but alas, they were stuck as expected.

Quickly scanning the area for any kind of escape area, Wolokai spotted a lone alley between two rusty brick buildings that looked empty of the monsters, a thick but small iron gate blocking the way. "Over there!" he shouted, directing Quill towards the entrance and turning his direction of running there.

"We've got to hurry!" Quill shouted frantically "They're almost upon us!". Indeed, the staked ponies were indeed drawing closer, the rotting smell of their decaying half-hooves fouling the air with a wretched stench. Wolokai bucked the gate open quickly and rushed inside as Quill let out a yell, tripping forward on his hooves and landing face first into the pavement.

"QUILL!" Wolokai screamed as the gate slammed shut behind him, a clicking noise echoing from it. He rushed towards the gate and tried his best to wrench it open...but to no avail. The gate was stuck. "Shit! Quill! Quill get up!" he screamed as the monsters drew closer.

Quill let out a low groan and lifted his head up, noticing that the gate wasn't moving despite Wolokai's best efforts to open it. "You go on!" He shouted as a thin line of red began to seep down from his forehead "I'll find a way back to you!"

"Quill you can't!" Wolokai screamed "This place is WAY to dangerous to travel alone in!" He continued to try and force the gate open, but no matter how hard she shoved or pushed, it would not budge.

"Just go!" Quill yelled back, getting to his hooves and rushing towards a small opening between the monsters "I'll find you, I promise!" One of the ponies made a terrifying stab towards Quill with one of its hoof-stakes as he ran by, missing the detective's flank by mere inches.

"Dammit!" Wolokai hissed as Quill disappeared into the fog, the grey ponies once again turning their attention towards Wolokai. He let out a soft curse and turned back towards the alley, rushing down it in hopes that there was a crossroads or another alley that he could escape out of and back into the streets where Quill was.

He ran for a good two minutes, but there was no other entrance or cross-roads to be found. Eventually, his pace slowed down to a quick trot...and eventually down to a sluggish walk. The adrenaline that had been pumping in his system only a few minutes before was starting to wear off, fatigue washing over him. He collapsed near a greenish-colored dumpster and panted, his lungs heaving for air. His chest heaved as he punched the garbage container with a spare hoof, his hoarse voice rasping out the word "Dammit...". He stared down towards the gritty cement in anger, his thoughts in complete shambles.

First the Library...now Silent Ponyville? What was next!? "Heh..." Wolokai laughed quietly, small beads of sweat dripping from his mane "If Heritagu could see me now..." he groaned as he shifted himself up into a sitting position, pushing his back up against the bricks of the building to his left. He looked down the way he had just come from, noticing that the fog hadn't traveled in with him, the same going for the other side. It looked like the other side of the alley turned to the right, making it impossible to see what lied on the other side. "Ok...Ok!" Wolokai breathed, putting his hooves over his eyes and trying his best to regulate his breath. "You've read 'Silent Ponyville', you know how this works...you know how to survive!"

He looked down at his vest, the pockets that adorned them. "Oh please...please let me have remembered!" He reached his teeth down towards the upper right pocket on his vest and gently lifted the flap with his teeth. Elation spread through him as he beheld a small notepad of paper and a tiny pencil resting in his pocket. "In case of writing ideas...thank goodness..." he muttered as he pulled the notepad out and placed it flat in his hoof. He took the pencil out with his teeth and clenched it gently above the eraser, bringing it towards the paper.

"Siwent Powywille" Wolokai muttered through the pencil as he sloppily wrote on the paper. "Munsters" is what he wrote on the next flap, looking up towards the opposite wall and thinking. Those gray ponies...the bags under their eyes made them look like they rarely slept...or if they'd ever slept before in whatever lives they had. 'Sleepless Ones' is the name that flicked through Wolokai's mind, the colt drawing out a crude sketch of the monster pony and adding a few notes to the side of the drawing. Notes like 'Slow' and 'Close Ranged' were added, as well as the question 'Tired?'.

He frowned as he placed his pencil back in his pocket and stared at the drawing.

Sleepless Ones...monsters of Silent Ponyville. They were different to whoever entered the town, he knew that. For Pinkie Pie it had been the 'White Fillies', a grotesque representation of Pinkie's sister who had been cut in half by a murderous mad-pony. These monsters had something to do with him...to do with his Insomnia perhaps and his nightmares. The stakes however...he had no idea what those could mean to him. With a quiet sigh, Wolokai pushed the notepad into his pocket with the pencil and closed the flap, looking at his watch. His eyes widened slightly as he watched the hands in the clock face move a lot faster then normal, the time in minutes working as if they were fifteen-second intervals, sometimes moving faster or slower. The current 'time' was around 7:51, with no idea of whether or not it was A.M. or P.M.

"The Siren echoes at 1:42 everyday" Wolokai whispered quietly "I bet the Otherworld works the same way as well...which means I better get moving if I want to find Quill before they start blaring." If there was one thing Wolokai knew about Silent Ponyville...it was that the Otherworld was NOT a good place to be trapped in. He pushed himself up onto his hooves and began his quick trot down the alley, turning left at the corner and emerging into another large stretch of the alley. It looked to be in the same state as the rest of the corridor, dusty and dirty with disuse. There was, however, what looked like to be an opening further down the way. With a small boost to his morale, Wolokai pushed himself into a light gallop, hoping that Quill would be in the surrounding streets.

As he burst out of the alley however, no sign of Quill could be seen, up or down the street. "Quill!!!" The Pegasus shouted, his hoarse voice cracking slightly from the exposure to the wet fog "Quill! Where are you!!?" Nothing but silence answered the writer as he looked up and down the street repeatedly, the boarded up houses and buildings casting dark shadows across him and the surrounding ground. He sighed, taking a glance to his right and looking towards the dense fog that rested just beyond a boarded up house. He had to get some sense of direction...any kind of direction as to where he was going. "A map..." he thought aloud "Everypony who came before me managed to find a map...a map and some kind of sound device that warned of monsters nearby..."

Then again...in Heritagu's story, his characters actually STARTED with those items...here...Wolokai didn't even know where to start. "Think..." he grumbled, quietly walking up the street "Where can you get a map of Ponyville...?" He narrowed his eyes and stopped, however, a thought crossing his mind. "Maybe...I don't need one." he muttered "I'm a mail-colt for Ponyville...I've memorized most of the town by myself already." He turned his head about slowly, staring at the various buildings and trees that lined the streets and local area. "All I would really need is some kind of familiar land-mark or house and I could pinpoint where I am easily."

He pushed on quickly, not wanting to get ambushed by a Sleepless One from the fog. It made him nervous...knowing those things were out there, prowling and probably stalking him from afar. What made it worse was the known fact that there had to be more than just Sleepless Ones in Silent Ponyville. He knew there would be more monsters...but the possibilities of what they could be scared the hell out of him. He had a broad range of problems circling his whole life it seemed...some apparently too traumatizing to remember. In a funny way...he actually hoped that one of these monsters would happen upon him, granting him a chance at a clue to what memories rested at the back of his mind.

For a moment, Wolokai entertained the idea of just climbing into one of the dumpsters and waiting the whole thing out, and that Quill would come looking for HIM rather than the other way around. A soft noise, however, shattered this thought entirely. It was very faint, the noise, but loud enough to just barely cause the colt's ears to perk. He held his breath, the side of his head towards the sound so that he could hear it a little better with his ear. His ear twitched a few times, his legs continuing to carry him forward towards the sound in hopes of making it clearer. As he moved closer, the sound began to grow clearer...and it made the colt gasp.

Ringing...like static mixed with a telephone, echoed from somewhere down the street.

"The sound device!" Wolokai gasped, breaking out into a full on gallop towards the ringing noise. The buildings became a blur as he raced down the street, the fog continuing to shroud the distant area from his sight. Finally, the colt slowed to a light trot as a small little shop came into view. It was of classic design, a little bit modified from the general structure of the rest of Ponyville...but most of all, it was a building the colt recognized. "Whooves!" he shouted, looking over the old, rotten sign that hung limply from a rusty chain on the front of the store.

Whooves Antiquities, Odds, and Ends!
For that 'Ancient' feel!

He smiled as he looked over the old, boarded up shop, his heart pushing through his body a feeling of elation despite the run-down state the shop was in. He quickly made his way over towards the door, putting a hoof on it and turning the handle. It opened with a loud 'CREEEEEK!', revealing the ruined interior of the building. Wolokai's smile faded slightly as he beheld the destroyed inside of the store, with shattered pots and splintered pieces of wood smothering most of the area. The windows were black with soot and dirt, a thick layer of dust covered just about everything. All the plants The Doctor cherished and hovered over were nothing more then a mud brown, shriveled mess.

"Sheesh...glad Whooves isn't around to see this" Wolokai muttered, taking a few careful steps into the shop. The ringing noise grew in intensity, drawing the colt towards the back of the ship. He was careful with his movements as he made his way past the broken debris and wreckage of the shop, making sure not to get any splinters in his hooves or to step on any shards of pottery. Eventually, he pushed his way through the broken in door that led into the back room, his ears perking to the loud ringing noise that echoed throughout the room. Most of the room was dark...save for a small glimmer of light that rested under a pile of wooden debris.

Walking closer to the wreckage, Wolokai carefully pushed some of the wooden fragments away, revealing what looked to be the tip of a metallic cylinder of some sort. With a careful push of his hoof, the cylinder popped out from under the wreckage, and revealed itself to be a flashlight of some kind in the shape of an 'L'. It was small in size, but the light it produced was near blinding. Curious, Wolokai gently picked up the light end of the flashlight and slipped it into one of his vest pockets, a wave of relief passing over him as the light slipped in perfectly and rested comfortably in his pocket. The button to turn it on and off was in a convenient place as well, near the top on the left hand side. It could be easily turned on and off by hoof.

Turning his attention back to the ringing noise, Wolokai aimed the light with his chest towards the pile of debris, the glint of another metallic object catching his eye. He pushed past the wood and winced slightly as his hoof slipped against the sharp edge of one of the splinters. He ignored the stinging pain, however, as he beheld a small, rectangular device with a red blinking light in its top left-hoof corner. He recognized it immediately, a smile passing over his lips as he exclaimed "My recorder!" It was indeed an old style tape-recorder that had this (according to him at least) really cool setting that allowed him to switch back and forth between recording and radio settings. It was a gift from Vinyl to him for his birthday, the colt making sure it was put to good use repeatedly.

He had often used it to record ideas or thoughts in his head about a certain writing project or just what he had on his mind. His therapist seemed to think it was a good idea, and he had often times remembered the hilarious nights he, Vinyl, and Octavia would have when they messed around with it and made goofy voice-overs of songs playing in the background of the house. "Those were such good times..." Wolokai muttered, a smile lingering on his lips. He slipped the ringing recorder into his lower left pocket, making the only usable pocket left the lower right one. He let out a content sigh as he looked around the room, his voice carrying across the shop "Well then...I have a light source, and now I've got the sound device that let's me know when.....

....when...."

He stopped, his blood running cold as the sudden realization of it all passed over him.

Noise....warning....MONSTER!

Wolokai let out a shrieking cry as a thunderous crashing noise echoed through the shop door, along with the sudden pain of something striking his side, sending him crashing into the far wall of the shop. He landed with a loud 'Thud', another cry peeping out of the colt's lips. A burning feeling rose from the colt's side as he looked up to see what had attacked him. He gasped as he beheld a monstrously large being standing nearby towards the broken down door. It looked like pony three times as big as Big Macintosh, with large bull horns adorning its front. Nails, colored with rusty blood, were embedded in the front two legs of the beast, covering most of its skin up to the hoof. It looked as if monstrous pony was covered in some kind of thick, brown slime, which was starting to emit a rather foul stench. The worst part of it all...was that the monster was laden with a supremely evil, ghoulish smile. The whites of its teeth shone nearly as bright as the flashlight, sending shivers up the colt's spine.

The bull-pony lowered its horns, aiming them directly at the colt as it pawed at the ground in a threatening manner. "Oh SHIT!" cried Wolokai as the bull-pony began to charge him, a savage roar echoing from the beast. Just before the monster could reach him, however, a loud 'CRACK' thundered out from beneath Wolokai, and the floor started to give way. "FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!" he screamed as he plummeted into darkness, the bull-pony letting out a guttural roar as it too fell into the blackness. The dual shouts continued for another five seconds until they were abruptly cut off by a faint 'Thud' in the darkness.

The ringing had stopped, silence returning to the abandoned shop. In the distance, however...noise was once again rising up...rising in the sound of a siren blaring loudly across the town.

From the doorway, the white fog of the outside, as well as the grey sky....began to darken.

It was time.

((~~IMPORTANT NOTE!~~))
(For those of you who may not understand what is going on, this part of the story is referencing to a place called 'Silent Ponyville'. For those of you who have NOT read Silent Ponyville, it is a direct reference to Silent Hill. The monsters in the stories and games often times represent the feelings or problems of the protagonist trapped in the town. For more info I would suggest looking up Jake Heritagu's 'Silent Ponyville' or looking up Silent Hill itself so that you're not confused by anything.

Thanks again to Jake Heritagu for permission to reference and include Silent Ponyville in this fiction!))