It was starting to snow.
Octavia remembered a time when the coming of winter was reason to celebrate and enjoy the season with friends and loved ones, to partake in Hearth’s Warming Eve and all the traditions it brought: hot chocolate, presents, and to warm yourself around the fireplace with your family.
Such thoughts had once comforted Octavia… but she dared not think of them now. She would not torture herself with the memory of seeing her loved ones lying dead in their homes, their mouths frozen with silent screams.
Octavia’s hooves slammed into the snow as she ran through the forest, her aged heart slamming into her ribs. Only her Earth pony strength allowed her to keep moving, but age had sapped much of it, and what little remained was fading fast.
Glancing back, Octavia saw nothing following her through the thick, dead trees surrounding her. She heard nothing but her ragged breathing, for the small crystal hanging around her neck still glowed, the silencing spell blocking out all other sounds.
She kept running.
The backpack shifted as its cargo bore down on Octavia's back. It was too heavy for the pony, but she did not care. She fought through the pain in her legs, through the rawness of her throat as she gulped in lungfuls of horribly cold air. In another life she would be spending this moment inside her warm, comfortable home, enjoying retirement with Vinyl and commiserating on their long and satisfying careers as two of Ponyville’s most famous musicians, but that was just a dream, a fantasy that she sometimes indulged herself in when the despair and the grief became too much.
Exhaustion forced Octavia to stop. She collapsed against a tree, gripping it for strength. Her legs were failing, and it was a struggle just to stay on her hooves.
She looked back once more.
There was nothing in sight, but she knew that was a lie.
Gasping from the pain, Octavia set off once again.
***
It was another half hour until Octavia came across a familiar cabin nestled amongst a small clearing within the forest. Small and unassuming it was, meant as a weekend retreat for a long-dead businesspony; now it served another purpose, one far more important than the refuge of someone long-forgotten.
Reaching the door, Octavia took the key from a pocket of her coat. The cold had taken away all feeling from her hooves, and it took a few tries to finally slide the key in and turn it, at which point Octavia shoved the door open and stumbled inside. It felt like she was shoving chunks of rubber around as she shut the door and slid beams into place, struggling to finally lock them in place.
Though out of the wind and out of the cold, Octavia was not safe. The temptation to collapse onto the floor and just lie there was sweeter than the honey pastries Pinkie Pie used to sell on Sugarcube Corner, but there was still so much to do before she could rest.
The locks and paneling were still in place since Octavia had left this cabin several months ago, once winter had yielded to the arrival of spring, and temporary safety descended on the wastelands. Dropping the backpack, Octavia took great care to ensure that the doors, windows, and chimney were still defended and fortified. Everything was in place, and the steel spikes in the fireplace had not rusted away. Satisfied that her refuge was safe for now, Octavia went to the wireless telegraph in the cabin's corner; a thin blanket of cobwebs had formed, which she dusted away. Turning the machine on, she sat down and tapped out her message to a specific frequency. When it had been sent, she sat back in her chair and waited.
Ten minutes later, and the ticker moved as a message came through from the outpost at the bottom of the mountain. It was short, but told Octavia everything she need to know.
Nothing had arrived since she had left that morning.
Octavia sent a reply: She would rest, and then check back in the morning.
Dragging her backpack behind her, Octavia went to a steel door at the back of the cabin. Unlocking it, she went through, locked it behind her, and descended the staircase into the lightless basement. Her legs quivered as she went, for they had reached their limit and were moments from giving out. The backpack scraped off each step, hitting the next with a heavy thud. Though it was pitch-black, Octavia knew the way by heart, and found the lantern and matches where she had left them months before. A strike of the match, and the lighting of the wick within the lantern illuminated the basement and the thick, soundproof panels upon the walls and ceiling.
With the door locked and the reassurance that the outpost hadn't seen anything, Octavia finally let herself relax. She pulled a comforter off of a cot in the basement's corner, lay down, and pulled it over her cold, exhausted body, asleep before her head lay down on the pillow, sending up a small cloud of dust.
The wind howled as Octavia slept, enjoying the last night's sleep she would ever have, for by this time tomorrow she would be dead.
***
When Octavia awoke, she instinctively got out of bed and checked her watch: it was ten AM; she had slept for ten hours, but her body was still sore from the exertion she had forced it to endure the day before. But that was of no concern to her: that had been the last time she would ever run.
Heading up to the door, Octavia checked that her silencing crystal was still working, which it was.
She undid the latches, cracked open the door, and peered into the cabin.
Everything was normal. Nothing was out of place. Nothing had been touched.
Hurrying to the telegraph machine, Octavia turned it on and tapped out a message to the station at the base of the mountain, asking if there had been any movement during the night.
She waited for a reply.
The machine was silent.
Octavia wasn't worried; the monitoring posts that had been set up all throughout Equestria were always manned once winter arrived, staffed by two ponies who sent and received messages day and night. Sometimes they were overwhelmed by the number of messages they had to send, which meant it could take up to an hour to get a message out.
Two hours later, Octavia was still waiting.
Octavia tapped out her message again.
Three hours later, and there had still been no reply.
A chill overtook Octavia, one that wasn’t from the cold. An outpost's transmission lines were magically enchanted to be immune to the weather or other mishaps. One of the operators was always manning the telegraph, which meant that if an outpost had stopped communicating, the operators were dead. And this mountain was abandoned; even the local wildlife had learned to flee once winter came.
There was only one thing that could have killed the operators.
An all-too familiar fear gripped Octavia, but she did not panic. Panic lead to terror, which led to acting rashly, which always led to death. Instead, she took her fear and let it drive her to recheck every lock, bar, and barricade inside the cabin. Every nut, every screw, and every bolt was looked over, tightened, and tightened some more.
Only the front door remained.
Breathing deeply, Octavia took one of her last flares and unlocked the door.
Ice-cold wind tore into Octavia’s face as she stepped outside, forcing her to squint as she looked into the forest.
There was nothing to be seen.
Octavia knew that was a lie.
Cracking her flare, Octavia breathed deeply. What she was about to do could not be undone. There was still time to flee; if she left now she could make it down the mountain in two to three days. There was an abandoned outpost down there; she could try to repair the long-abandoned telegraph machine and try to rally some other survivors at the nearest settlement a few hundred miles away, and then hurry to them where there might be strength in numbers.
Even as the desperate thought came to her, Octavia knew it was only a dream. A last, fevered hope from a mind that knew the end was coming.
Holding her flare aloft, Octavia took several minutes to gather all of her courage, all of her strength, and the memory of everyone she had lost. She let herself remember the memories that had been locked away for so long, that she had feared to see once more.
She let herself remember her loved ones lying dead on the floor, in the snow, and at the base of cliffs.
She let herself remember finding Vinyl's lifeless body in their home.
Octavia screamed. She screamed out her anger, her grief, and her rage, the sound going out into the dark like all the prayers, hopes, and dreams of those that this thing had taken from her. And even though her crystal's spell kept her from hearing anything, she kept screaming, spit flying into the wind.
At last, her lungs wracked with pain and her throat raw and scraped, Octavia went silent.
She watched the trees.
She waited.
Branches swayed in the wind.
Tossing the flare into the snow before the porch, Octavia retreated inside and threw the door shut, bringing the barricades down one last time, gasping as she did so. She had let the thing know where she was, and there was no turning back now.
All she could do now was wait.
Stepping back, Octavia collapsed onto the sofa, where she buried her face in her hooves and weapt.
***
The grandfather clock ticked as it marked the passing of the hours.
Her tears finally spent, Octavia stayed on the sofa. The grief and sorrow was gone, and all that was left was an all-too familiar emptiness. Doing her best to ignore it, Octavia kept her gaze on the front door.
She waited for something to happen.
Nothing did.
***
The storm picked up as night fell, winds howling as it roared past the cabin’s walls.
Nothing had happened since Octavia had screamed into the forest. There was no sign she had been heard. Some part of her hoped that she was wrong, and that she truly was alone upon this mountain, but she knew that was wrong.
It steadily grew darker inside the cabin, until it was almost impossible to see anything. Not wanting to wait for the end in darkness, Octavia finally got off the sofa, took a match, and lit the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, casting the entire cabin in warm, comforting light.
Heading down into the basement, Octavia used her matches to light the lantern hanging from the ceiling. When she retreated down here for her last stand, at least she would not face her end in darkness.
Turning, Octavia was about to head back upstairs when she remembered the backpack. It was still lying next to the cot where she had dumped it last night. With her time growing short, it was important to get things ready.
Going to the backpack, Octavia knelt and undid the zipper, grumbling at how she could have forgotten about something so important. Maybe age was finally catching up to her and taking...
Octavia stopped.
The hairs on the back of her neck were tingling, and she realized that something was very wrong. A quick look around showed that there was no danger in the basement. Was it something upstairs? There was no cold breeze going through the door leading down into the basement, though she could hear the wind blowing hard outsi...
The wind.
She could hear the wind!
Her heart skipped a beat as Octavia grabbed the crystal hanging around her neck, a crystal that was now dark. Her silencing charm had run out of power, taking away her only defense against the entity. With it, she at least had a chance of survival, however slim. Now, she had none.
Panic once again threatened to overtake Octavia, and it almost did; only several minutes of deep breathing calmed her down enough to think: she needed to act quickly and put additional protections in place. Barricade the door even more and fashion some improvised earbuds; they wouldn’t be enough to stop all sounds, but it would buy her time, something she desperately needed.
Heading up the stairs, Octavia headed for the kitchen.
She was halfway there when there was a knock at the door.
Octavia froze.
She turned towards the door.
The wind howled outside.
Centuries of instinct screamed at Octavia to remain still, which she did.
Nothing happened.
Perhaps she had imagined it. Fear was getting to her. She had known for years that she would inevitably face her end against this thing, but-
There was another knock.
The doorknob started to turn.
A scream died in Octavia’s throat as she rammed the sofa and drove it against the door before dashing to the basement door.
She was just able to close it when the sofa was thrown across the room.
The locks and latches were rammed into place, and Octavia rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping as she went to the backpack and reached inside.
The obelisk was heavier than it looked, chips, scratches upon the surface hinting at its immense age. Long thought lost when Canterlot had been annihilated, it had taken Octavia and dozens of other survivors years to finally find it buried inside a long-lost laboratory buried deep within the mountain, where the country’s greatest minds had tried to decipher the pictographs carved upon the black stone. Whatever they had discovered was lost to time, for all of them had perished; their skeletons still remained near the obelisk when it had been recovered.
That day should have been one of hope and joy. At last, the one thing that could possibly stop the entity was within the grasp of Equestria’s few survivors. But there was little hope to be found upon the artifact, only carvings of bipedal things fighting and killing each other, all driven mad by the entity that was now upstairs. There was writing upon the obelisk as well, but the only thing that had been deciphered was the entity’s name.
When that name had been spoken aloud for the first time, Octavia could have sworn that she felt something evil brushing past her, as if death had whispered the name of the one who would one day end her life.
No one had dared speak the name aloud again.
Yet, for all the warnings upon the obelisk, there had been one thread of hope: Equestria’s sole surviving archaeologist had been able to determine that the obelisk was not just meant to warn others about what had happened long ago, but was, itself, a weapon. Atop the obelisk was a knob embedded within the stone. It was meant to be turned, but no one knew what would happen when that happened.
That was why Octavia had come here. She had volunteered to gain the entity’s attention, lure it to this faraway dwelling, and activate the obelisk in the hope of destroying it. Others had protested, but Octavia refused to back down. She was old and had lost all those she cared about. All she had left was the chance, however small, of stopping this thing once and for all.
Holding the obelisk, Octavia took hold of the dial and turned it.
There were three loud clicks.
Octavia waited.
Nothing happened.
Octavia tried moving the knob again, but it didn’t budge.
She pressed her ear to the stone, listening.
There was nothing.
No… no, that couldn’t be it! Something had to be happening! Was the obelisk broken? Or was it-
Something hit the basement door.
“Come on!” Octavia pleaded as she tried to twist the knob, then tried to shove it down, pull it up, anything to make it work.
Steel dented as it was hit again and again.
Desperation forced Octavia to keep trying. It couldn’t end like this, not after so much had been lost! But nothing was working; the damn thing wasn't doing anything!
Something broke in Octavia. Years of hoping, of working, of trying to find anything to stop the entity had been the only thing keeping her going. She had finally found something that could do it; she had it in her hooves, and it had failed.
She had failed.
Everything she had done had been for nothing.
The door bulged as metal cracked.
“Celestia, be with me,” Octavia wept as she whispered the words. “Please be with me. Please be with me...”
The door shattered and was thrown off its hinges.
Wind blew into the basement, and the lantern was blown out.
Everything went dark.
All was silent.
Octavia didn’t dare move.
Something walked inside.
It started down the stairs.
Octavia shook.
The floorboards creaked as something stepped off the stairs.
Moving her hoof as quietly as she could, Octavia took hold of a flare.
The boards creaked again.
The entity was walking towards her.
The terror gripping Octavia was so great that she thought she would die.
It would be a mercy if she did.
The footsteps stopped.
Nothing happened.
Octavia could see nothing, but she heard the entity breathing.
A hand touched her shoulder.
Octavia cracked her flare, screaming in defiance and fear as red light filled the basement. And as the light spread, Octavia finally came face to face with the entity that had haunted her life for over thirty years.
Mariah Carey stood before Octavia, clad in robes of red and white, and she had the biggest, happiest smile imaginable as she opened her mouth and began to sing.
Octavia braced herself, knowing that she couldn’t… Wait. Something was wrong. She heard the words coming from Carey’s mouth; Octavia could even understand a few of them; how, she didn’t know, but she realized that the song was about something called, 'Christmas.' What that was, Octavia didn’t know, but she didn’t mind; the words coming out of Mariah Carey’s mouth were so pleasant to listen to, so lighthearted and full of cheer. Why… she wanted to hear them all! To just sit here and listen to everything this being had to say!
She laughed, so happy as Mariah kept singing, her smile getting bigger and bigger.
This was wonderful! This was…
Wait…
The words. Octavia didn’t understand them, but they were becoming obnoxious. They were swarming her mind, crowding out everything else. And not only that, they were burrowing deep, going into her very soul.
No… No, this… this was wrong!
She was losing memories. The memories of Vinyl, of her family, her friends, all of them were being erased by the words Mariah was singing, words that were taking over her spirit, consuming her from the inside out, destroying everything that made her, her.
“No!” Octavia screamed. “Stop! Stop!”
Mariah didn’t stop.
The words! Octavia couldn’t get rid of the words! They were swarming through her mind, growing ever louder, ever more obnoxious, drowning out everything else, and would never, ever stop, even until the end of the universe and time itself.
Octavia fell to the floor, screaming, howling, pleading as she smashed her head against the floor in a desperate, instinctive move to make the pain go away.
Illuminated by the red light of the flare, Mariah Carey kept singing, her smile unceasing.
Neither of them heard the obelisk click.
Neither of them saw it glowing.
