Apple Bloom lay on her bed as she scribbled away crusading ideas while she waited for dinner. Her ears attuned to the sounds of Applejack cooking downstairs. She patiently waited for the distinctive sound of plates scraping onto the table, telling her that food was ready before her name was even called. Applejack could faintly be heard talking and laughing with Granny Smith downstairs as she cooked.
Apple Bloom glanced at her clock, like she had countless times before. This time however, something was wrong. Time briefly seemed to stop as she glanced over. The second hand sat idle for slightly longer than it normally would, before resuming ticking at its normal pace. It was as if time forgot it was supposed to move, until being observed reminded it.
Initially, Apple Bloom didn't notice anything was off. Then, the silence hit her. Sound no longer emanated from downstairs, and the world felt suddenly colder.
Lifting herself off her bed, she trotted towards her door, briefly eyeing her clock before stepping outside. "Applejack?" she called down hopefully. No response came. With ears flat and head held low, she trotted down the stairs. A completed stir fry sat on the counter, beside a stack of four plates, but it was unattended. Applejack and Granny Smith were nowhere to be seen.
Panic setting in, Apple Bloom scouted the house, checked the barn, and ran through the orchard, crying out the names of her family all the while. Big Mac was missing too. Everypony was.
Returning to the house, four freshly served plates sat on the table, each holding a sweet and sour serving. Who moved them? Where was everypony? It was as if she had wandered into a movie set with all the props but none of the actors.
Apple Bloom retreated to her bedroom, withdrawing from the weirdness. Her coat prickled; her room was different. Her crusader drawing had been moved, bedsheets overturned, and her door was ajar. Someone, or something, had been here. Why couldn't she hear them?
Sneaking downstairs, she sat at her normal seat. Although her family wasn't there, a meal had been lovingly prepared for her, and she was too hungry to turn it down. Two of the four plates looked considerably emptier than they were the last time she saw them. Was Applejack out looking for her? It felt like she was a figure in a dollhouse being set up with imaginary friends.
She ducked her head under the table, then brought it back out. A few more vegetables were missing from the plates. She repeated her experiment, hoping to catch the perpetrator, but no explanations were yielded. She never caught any motion; silverware sat lifelessly on the table. She helplessly watched as her vacant house shifted in stop-motion, meals seemingly eaten by phantoms between each blink.
Apple Bloom began to eat her meal in nervous silence.
Apple Bloom wandered through an empty Ponyville. Every pony, and even the animals, were gone. She poked her head into storefronts, freshly stocked with produce. A new work-in-progress dress sat in Rarity's boutique, and today's mail filled post-boxes, many at the wrong address. Apple Bloom looked between each still life, before settling on the clock tower. A few days had passed, yet the town looked lived in, like it was only just left behind.
Missing posters hung from every corner, smiling photos of Apple Bloom watching her drift through the deserted streets of the freshly raptured town. She tried leaving notes, but they never stayed. Her influence seemingly always got overwritten. The loneliness followed her persistently like a bully, antagonising her. She wanted nothing more than to hear another voice, another sound. She wanted to tell her family she was okay.
The pain of seeing her town play along without her was worse than if the town was abandoned. The world mocked her, refusing to even acknowledge her isolation. Instead, it taunted her with a happy life, just out of reach. She felt tantalisingly near to everypony else, like in a prison of glass. Was life avoiding her? Wherever she went, it felt like everypony left a moment before she arrived.
Apple Bloom dutifully actioned her morning routine for a week as if nothing was wrong. She woke up, went downstairs, and ate the breakfast normally prepared by her family. This morning however, she froze in the doorway, breath catching in her throat. Three plates of pancakes sat on the table. Not four, three. Tears forced their way out as even the table setting neglected her. Did her family abandon her? They didn't know how close she was, or how their meals were still appreciated. She felt as invisible to them as they were to her.
She felt unwelcome sitting in her usual seat, with no plate in front of her. She assumed there was no harm in eating the other meals, but it didn't feel right; they weren't hers. None of them were.
Apple Bloom would go hungry that night.
The missing posters were gone now. She wasn't sure if they had been taken down, or simply neglected to be replaced after nature tore them away. It didn't matter. Another hopeless day in limbo was capped by a lonely walk home.
A wooden memorial bearing her name sat in front of the house. She'd watched the progress of its construction as if someone were digging her grave. Apple Bloom could only imagine how they felt when she disappeared. Dead ponies shouldn't see the heartbreak they leave behind.
She slinked back to the bedroom she still slept in. Today, however, she found no bed. Furniture and belongings alike were moved or missing; her room was being cleared, like she'd moved out. A large picture of her with her family had been added to her wall beside her clock. Printed below the photographic tribute was the text:
We love you Apple Bloom, please come home.
She stared at the picture, wishing she could.
Apple Bloom slept on the floor that night.
