She Who Walks Between The Petals
The white walls that smelled of fresh paint, the black worn carpet that was sprinkled with coffee stains and the office unicorn that looked down at her from the moment she walked in…
Magnolia knew from all those signs that she had fallen low. She was getting a corporate job, working for the stallion… becoming a cog in the machine of the underbelly of Canterlot.
What would her parents say if they ever found out that their daughter, a self-proclaimed flower child, was giving up the FLORA lifestyle? The glorious life of running from Royal Guards while selling hallucinogens flowers to her customers all around Equestria? That she was going as close to the straight and narrow as she could get before calling it quits before heading home?
Magnolia smacked herself with her hoof and wondered if she still had any more drugs in her system even though she had been waning herself off them for the last month or so. Her thoughts were beginning to sound like cheesy summaries off those rehab brochures that she had been looking into. As if she had the money to be spending 60 bits a week to stay in some facility in the middle of nowhere!
Oh God, her mind was wandering again! She gave herself another slap to the face and tried to focus on something else. Posters were splayed everywhere with words of ‘LET’S PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS!’
‘DAYS WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT: -100 days and counting!’
‘
SEXUAL HARASSMENT IS WRONG AND YOU ARE WRONG FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING NO!’
‘DRUG TESTING EVERY FRIDAY!’
‘SLEEPING WITH GLASS IS BAD.’
There was even a poster on the ceiling.
‘NECROMA DOES NOT EXISTS! BUT IF IT DOES, DON’T GO TO SLEEP!’
But regardless, the curved office chair that she was sitting on did feel nice. Magnolia could definitely see herself… protesting this place with signs and rallies. If she could get a job elsewhere… If only she could get a job elsewhere.
“Now, tell me again why the Lenora Gardens, subset to Lunatic Laboratories, should hire you?” The question hung in the air and died as the silence stretched. Sitting, her potential employer was lazily signing some documents while using the magic from her horn to open file cabinets on her left to place them away.
A wide window behind her future boss let in gleaming sunlight that seemed to invade most of the room before becoming a sliver before Magnolia’s chair. Yet the sunflowers sitting the desks and around the room seemed to be pointing in her direction.
She blinked. Then took a double take.
The sunflowers were gone- fromsomethingshedidn’tseeorunderstand-
“Wake up, Necroma.”
“You’ve seen my resume, Ms. Glory.” Magnolia stated as she bit her lower lip in an old habit to not storm out of the room.
She knew that she was well enough qualified for this job. Overqualified even! The nerve of some finicky secretary looking down at her as if she was a mere child over her head…
“Yes… I’ve seen it.” Noble Glory snorted as she levitated a paper out of the folder left on the desk. “Graduate of the University of Gardenia, interned with a Ms. Holly Wood for 6 month and etcetera. Fancy college folk talk is all that there is on this paper. I don’t care about any of that, Magnolia. Why should I hire you?”
“How rude, calling me by my first name! What kind of stupid interview is this?” Magnolia mumbled underneath her breath.
“You would think that this dinky, probably corrupted place would at least have professionalism?”
“Did you say something? Are you hard of hearing? Why should I give you a job?” Noble said blandly as she shuffled some more papers. Behind her, the curtains of the window creaked as they slid along the wide, sunny window as Magnolia tried to think of a good answer. When had there been curtains?
An old dank smell caressed her nose and Magnolia said the first thing she could think of.
“I’m good with plants.” Magnolia mentally slapped herself after saying that flimsy excuse. That was a stupid thing to say. Spent all those years at college and all she could say was that she was good with plants as if her cutie mark and college choice didn’t give that away.
Noble simply rolled her eyes. The curtains had fallen abruptly off the wall, the window that was to be hidden behind them now gone. Now there was nothing but a white wall with paint peeling away, showing flora wallpaper beneath. Magnolia raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to say something but Noble quickly replied.
“Yes, and I can move the stars above, just because I’m a unicorn. And here I thought that earth ponies didn’t like to be stigmatized into being merely farmers and cleaners? The job being offered has nothing to do with being good with plants.”
Why bring up the window, Magnolia thought, it could just be weird unicorn magic? A potential job is on the line here!
“Well as long as its plant related, I am good- no excellent at it! Please consider me for the job! I’ll do my very best.” Magnolia pleaded as she leaned forward out of her chair. Another smell, similar to rotting flesh, flicked at her nostrils and she soon sat back in the chair. Magnolia wondered if it was perfume Noble was wearing or did the whole place stank?
“You’re only cleaning up plants that died… could not withstand the experiments performed for the sake of Equestria. You don’t get a regular salary until you have worked here for two weeks but we do pay you to undergo training.”
“Does this mean I get the job?”
“Why are all of the college kids slow? No, you don’t. But I don’t think you’ll last two weeks.” Noble opened a drawer and put an envelope full of bits on top of the desk.
“Take it.”
“But I don’t have a job.”
“Of course, you don’t have a job. Nobody has a job in the Lenora Gardens. You’ve never heard of this place and you will tell no one anything, understand? If you do, expect a visit from… but we both know it would never get that far, would it Magnolia?”
“No.” Magnolia leaned over and picked up the envelope with her teeth.
“I’m glad we understand each other. We won’t be seeing each other again. You’ll be getting a letter in the mail telling you where you aren’t supposed to be and who not to be expecting. A pleasant evening, Magnolia Crescent. I shall be walking you out.” Noble descended down from her chair and walked outside of the room.
Magnolia took a double take as she looked at her boss’ chair, revealing that Noble Glory had been sitting on two very thick books and cushions to make herself appear taller while sitting.
“Uhhh…” Magnolia breathed out. Noble had looked so tall and-
“Are you coming?” The voice circled around Magnolia’s ears before she realized that she making a big deal over a unicorn with a height problem. There were far more important things to be considering. Her rent on her flat was overdue for the last two months and had she took drugs last night after all?
Gah, she had to keep herself together which required another slap. Ah, the pain from her right cheek kept her mind sharp. It was so easy, she thought, for it to become like goo and unusable.
“Wake up, Necroma.”
She trotted out of the room and into the hallway where Noble Glory was leaning against the wall, strangely only on two hooves. Magnolia only opened her mouth to say something but Noble beat her to it.
“It makes me feel taller… better about my height which isn’t something I like talking about. Lucky for me, the only listening devices in this building is in the office and conference rooms.” Noble smiled as she stretched her small, lithe body against the all-knowing white walls.
“There were listening devices in there? What?” Magnolia stuttered as began to back away from the weird unicorn in front of her.
“I was serious that I wasn’t going to be seeing you again. That wasn’t double talk. I have been resigned to somewhere else and frankly, I think you are a mud-pony moron with semi-fake credentials.” Noble admitted and cracked another smile.
“Wake up, Necroma.”
“That’s- You, You!” She smelled again the strange aroma that seemed to be coming through the cracks of the polished ceramic floors. Magnolia’s mind fizzled out as the intruding aroma shoved its way through her brain and decided to play with the plugs holding her sanity. Click. Click. Click. That stench was simply overpowering and she smacked the side of her face.
The pain that felt like a bucket of cold water that held her mind from succumbing to whatever the odor was lukewarm. Magnolia kept on hitting herself, hearing the sound of the envelope falling to the ground with the bits running for their lives.
Vaguely feeling her flesh being pounded in by her hoof but not really feeling it.
The hallway around her began to shift, her eyes watched as the walls began to warp and twist into something unnatural. There was a loud hum ripping, tearing through her ears. Those words, she didn’t understand. Who was saying them?
Who were they? Why were they all dying?
“Help us!”
“It took my wife! You have to help us!”
“We’re trapped!”
“SHE WATCHED THEIR STEPS!” A chant was shouted as her legs buckled and she nearly fell to the sick voice of a multitude becoming one.
Magnolia kept on hitting herself to make her snap out of this episode. Around her walls shuddered and creaked as if something was trying to claw through. There were so many voices of ponies fleeing something…. It hurt so much!
“SHE LOOKED DEEPLY IN THEIR DEPTHS!”
“Run!”
“Oh God, she’s coming!”
“What did we do to deserve this?”
Ah, it became silent. No more voices. Just hooves running, stampeding in a natural reaction to fear fromsomethingshedidn’tseeorunderstand and crunching sounds.
Then something dripped on her shoulder. Hot saliva that was ranked with odor, the stench that she just didn-
“Wake up, Necroma!”
“LED THEM WILLINGLY TO THEIR DEATH!”
Magnolia glanced up and Noble was shaking her as three other ponies dressed in white jackets were trying to pull her away. There was so much blood everywhere oozing out of her ears and Celestia’s teats if her face didn’t feel swollen.
“Don’t worry, Miss. We’ll get you to the hospital.” One of the ponies spoke up. He was a stallion with weird eyes like pools of darkness. Eyes, oh so familiar, and yet not.
“I haven’t waked up yet, have I?” Magnolia stated as the forms of Noble and the other two ponies melted away into skeletons that keeled over into a pile of bones.
“Come now, Necroma,” he said in a patronizing voice. “Don’t go to sleep. Don’t go to sleep again! We need you to be awake! We need you to be awake!” As he spoke, hundreds of ponies appeared, mostly sickly and of skin and bones holding them together.
“Leave me alone, you freaks! Fuck you. I am Magnolia, you fuckers!” Magnolia snarled as she struggled on to her hooves.
“But Necroma, who will eat us if you don’t!” he cried. They cried. IT Cried.
Running into the bellows of the cave, Magnolia screamed as long vines tried to gain a hold of her hips. She couldn’t stop
or even slow down for the vines would pull her deeper into the cave. And thus she screamed knowing that she would not be getting help but screamed that her body would remember that it was still alive and not all hope was lost.
Magnolia began to shriek as surging magic enveloped her and she lost herself. Lost herself was a stupid way of putting it. Very stupid. Everything became simple.
All there was now the need to feed and spread.
All there was now the need to feed and spread.
Magnolia abruptly woke up in her bed and fell back against her pillow with a sigh. Wait, since when has her cheap pillow felt so soft and… moved?
She opened her eyes to find herself lying in a shallow hole in the morning. Oh dear Celestia, where was she this time?
“Momma,” a little foal asked as his mother tried to walk faster by her. “Why’s that lady out here?”
“Pay no mind to her Nosy, she’s a weed head. Stay in school or you’ll end like her.” His mother replied.
“Hey, I graduated from Gardenia, you know! Gardenia! You and your snot nose-brat have no idea the life I live and if a mare wants to experience sleep walking, then she can!” Magnolia shouted as she jumped to her feet and attempted to chase after the stupid mare before slipping on the wet grass.
Her world became upside down. Ponies in her head in a strange memory were bowing and smiling as she ate them. Ponies tasted like~~~~
Her world became right and she closed her eyes as her head bounced against the soil. For a brief second, she slept, died before opening her eyes and getting up off the ground. Magnolia would never say that she was becoming suicidal or looking for somepony to notice her unhinged behavior.
No. Never.
Whatever was happening to her wasn’t because of her life of being a weed head. Or from working at the Lenora Gardens that she is beginning to question is even real though she receives pay. She just cannot remember even working there or if she still is. Or if the whole Necroma shit is real.
But what if sleep meant to die? Could death be the- Don’tevenfinishthatthought!
Magnolia looked around the park it had to be a park. She couldn’t have sleepwalked out of Canterlot and walked on to one of the trails. She looked up at the many trees and saw the many missing posters either taped or glued on to them. Magnolia approached one and smiled. It was a picture of a stallion with brown eyes that looked like splotches of mud. But when he’s dead, it looks like pools.
“I knew I saw you before. I don’t know if this Necroma stuff is real but if I find that place, can I really sleep?” Magnolia said stiffly and frowned. She could sleep just fine. But it wasn’t sleep. It was…
“Wake Up, Necroma!”
And she was losing to whatever was happening to her.