Chapters Silence.
That was all there ever was for him, the silence was sickeningly loud at times. It would pierce through his ears like a blade, digging further into his mind, picking away at what little sanity he had remaining. The only sounds that Ghastly Spells would ever hear on the rare occassion that there was, would be the faint creaking of the wooden boards in the house, echoing throughout the building as it settled for the millionth time that night. Or perhaps he could catch the occassional rattle of wind outside rustling against the trees, maybe even the slightest indication of his breathing, whenever it were that he would remember to breathe at all, the silence was so suffocating that he'd often forget to make sound himself.
Creak.
Ghastly Spell's hoof pressed down lightly against one of the rickety floorboards, the noise was sudden and partially bothersome, but an odd comfort at the same time. With a swift motion, he lifted himself off of the floor where he sat dormant for a while, the sudden change in position was disorientating, but only for a short time. Once he collected himself, he began to slowly trot towards the window, adjacent to where he sat before. It was around midnight now, with Luna's ever bright moon high in the sky, shrouded by darkened clouds, nearly invisible in the dark sky. The moon had always been a comfort for Ghastly, to see anything sheild it's soft light was more than unsettling, especially on nights like this.
Tap.
He froze, there was a sudden tapping somewhere in the house, or was it outside? He hadn't quite deciphered it's origins, nor did he have the time to, the tapping was sudden as it was short, and all the more frightening that way. His mind raced, the slightest of tapping would usually be nothing more than just a random noise, it could have came from anything and anywhere, but to most it would not matter, because as quick as it came, it left, and there was no use thinking about it any further. But still, his mind pondered the reasoning behind that tap as if his life depended on it, was it from inside? Surely not, it could have been yet another tree branch against the window, right? Just as always, a light tap, nothing more than the wind picking up outside.
But was it just a tap..?
Fear consumed his every thought, his eyes darted around the window, examining every crevice and corner, focusing in on every detail of the frame, the pane, the texture of the glass, the wooden planks barricading parts of the window, the draped black-out curtains slightly ajar, every signifcance. But he saw nothing, as it were before, and as it was now, the window was normal. It was what he couldn't find that bothered him, for outside the window, he could faintly make out the night sky, Luna's moon blanketed by darkened clouds, and in the distance, large trees stretching across the farthest aspects of his vision. That was all he could see, what he couldn't see, was a tree or branch, or anything close enough to the window to produce a tapping noise, he could hear it on all the other windows in the house, as trees were closer to them, but the one in his room did not normally produce such a sound, so why now could he hear a faint tap? Furthermore, how is it he heard a tapping noise all the other times? Was the rapping against his window something else this entire time? How had it so easily slipped his mind that there wasn't a tree near that window?
Tap, tap.
Suddenly, as if in sync with his racing thoughts, he heard it again. The same tapping, this time twice, caught in the panic of the moment, he still couldn't quite tell where it was coming from, his eyes were still glued to the window, glazed over as he stood there, frozen in place, his hooves ached with each moment that passed. After each tap that invaded his ears with noise, the silence that followed seemed to get louder, and all the more suffocating, Ghastly could feel every muscle in his body tense and strain in anticipation for the next tap, they were too unpredictable, never in a rythm or pattern of any kind that he could track, and that only added to the stress of it all.
Drowning in his constant thoughts and growing worry, the silence weighing heavy in the room, he decided he had to get out of there, if not to escape the mysterious tapping, then to escape his own mind, even if for a short while.
He craned his neck towards the door of his bedroom, so close, yet so far out of his reach for a long time, it had been ages since he had went outside, or has it? Has it been days? Perhaps only a few hours? This, he simply was not sure, but it wouldn't help to dwell in the thought, as he had been many times before. Ghastly shook his head roughly, shaking him away from his aching mind, he began a slow trot to the door, the floorboards creaked and groaned under him, his heart skipping a beat with every unwanted sound he produced, although it was a slight comfort in way, whenever they made a noise, Ghastly could be sure that he was the cause, he knew of it as fact, and that was reassuring. Ghastly stopped just in front of the door, his eyes darted down to the door knob, caked with a thin layer of dust from how long it had been untouched, much like everything else in the house. He raised a hoof towards the knob, but paused, unsure of what to do. Should he open it? Should he stay? He turned his head to look back at the room he was in, there was very little in that room, but much like his mind, it was somehow cramped despite being so empty, it had been abandoned for quite some time, even despite being lived in.
With a heavy sigh he turned back towards the door, the silence was thick, broken with the occassional sound he, or something else would make. His hoof was inches away from the door knob, it would be easy to simply open the door and step outside, perhaps things were different out there, perhaps the silence wasn't so heavy as it was in the room... Or perhaps it was just as bad as it is in here, what if he never escaped it?
Tap.
Something echoed from behind him, immedietly snapping him out of his thoughts, he froze just as he had before, he dared not move, he dared not turn around, that time, he knew where it came from, it was coming directly behind him in the room, surely it was, but it wasn't a tap to him, it wasn't just nothing , he knew that.
And that was what frightened him the most.
He kept his eyes on the knob, frozen in fear, he halted his breathing for the moment that passed, it felt like ages that he stood there, waiting, but waiting for what exactly? For the tapping to return? For whatever or whoever was making that noise to reveal itself? No, no, he wouldn't wait for that to happen, he needed to get out, he needed to escape.
Ghastly Spell feverishly placed his hoof against the door knob, it felt ice cold, but that didn't matter now. He slowly began to twist the knob, his eagerness growing with every passing moment, he anticipated the tapping to come back any minute now, to sound closer than before, until it was right behind him...
But that didn't happen.
He pushed the door open with a gentle nudge of his hoof, the door ominously creaked open, revealing the dark and empty hallway before him...
Creak.
Ghastly Spell's light hoofsteps echoed throughout the house as he walked across the hall, and out of his bedroom, the floorboards bent and groaned underneath him, he didn't want to wait, it wasn't as if he had a choice, he would never be able to rest with that wretched tapping torturing him, the origins still remained a burning question in his mind.
He trotted quietly until he no longer felt the lingering threat behind him, it had been quite some time since he recalled stepping out of his room. He couldn't even recall the last time he's looked into a mirror, but he hadn't the mind to do it now either way. The hall was dark, darker than he recalled, there were no windows shedding the faintest of light from outside, the only light he could see now, was the dimming light from his open bedroom, which slowly disappated behind him as he trudged further into the darkness.
The house was barely a home, it was cold and grim, much like himself. He could faintly make out silhouettes of paintings across his vision, but none he could fully decipher, he would have been able to recall the contents of the paintings and pictures before, if he had only thought to do so.
He paused momentarily, realizing he could simply light his horn.
"What an idiot..."
He muttered sourly to himself, he had a horn this entire time! Why hadn't he thought to use it before? Had it really slipped his mind like everything else? Had it been there the whole time? Ghastly glanced up at his horn, it was numb and cold from underuse for who knows how long, he sighed before closing his eyes, attempting to invision a bright light...
Flash.
His horn flared up with a soft spark of magic, it had momentarily caught him off guard, seeing as he hadn't used much of his horn at all for however long it had been. The tip of his horn glowed, emitting swirls and flares of faded and grey sparkles, he found himself entranced in it's light for a moment.. he never realized how long it had been since he saw anything other than the light of the moon, avoiding sunlight whenever possible, but this was a gentle, warm, and comforting light, as the sun is for most other ponies.
He focused on keeping his horn lit, and blinked away the spots of light swirling around in his vision, he looked around at the now illuminated hallway, then, at the paintings hung on the walls beside him...
The paintings were watching him.
Ghastly Spell's heart began to beat wildly in his chest, his body froze, for a moment he thought he would lose his concentration and his horn would go out at any moment. The paintings, they were watching him, he knew they were, yet he didn't know why he felt this way, he was suddenly overcome with such a primal fear, as if he was a cornered animal about to become something else's meal.
He no longer felt safe. As quick as it came, the comfort his light gave him disapated, much like the comfort of his room did when the tapping began, this was different, this was worse, he could see the eyes of each painting, each picture, etched with a look of disdain as they all towered over him upon the wall, remnants of the past he loathed and begged to forget. He didn't dare to move, anticiapting that the eyes of each painting and picture would move with him, and he would surely panic then, he didn't know what to do.
It seemed no matter where he was, he was at a loss..
Bang.
Suddenly, thunder cracked and roared in the distance outside, a loud, abrasive warning of the storm yet to come. It caught Ghastly off-guard, and he unfortunately lost whatever concentration he had newly obtained...
His horn abruptly stopped producing light, leaving him in the darkness...
The silence, the silence rang loud in his ears, more than it ever had before, he saw nothing, he felt barely much of anything, it was all so strange, he felt as if the whole world disappeared around him, the floor sinking below the depths of this void he was now suddenly surrounded by.
"Am I.. dead..?"
Ghastly pondered in his mind, he feared he had gone blind from how dark it was, any attempt to look around was futile, it all appeared the same, darkness, pure and utter darkness, there was nothing else. His horn felt numb again, and slightly warm from the prior use, he couldn't will himself to use it again, no matter how many attempts he had made, was he dreaming? Everything felt hazy, his couldn't feel his body, it was as if it wasn't even there, perhaps it too was lost in the void, that seemed to stretch out for infinity.
He still felt eyes on him, they lingered and burned into the back of his head, but whenever he attempted to find the source, it was in vain yet again. He felt the hatred in the stare, whoever was watching him absolutely hated him more than anything else, it terrified him to come to that conclusion, even within an infinate darkness he couldn't escape it, the eyes, the thing that hated him more than anything in existence, the tapping, the judemental entity that wouldn't leave him alone.
He knew of this entity well, ever since he was a foal, he knew of it's lingering presence, even when nopony else did. He was never able to catch a glimpse, but he always felt it's presence, it was comforting.. Merely for a while, before he became aware of the creature's contempt towards him. He felt it's presence now, as he always has, but this time it felt closer than it's ever been to him, only now, that everything else was gone, that all distractions ceased to exist, was it that the entity's presence became too much to simply ignore. He had been running from it all his life without even realizing, ignoring it's presence in hopes it would leave, explaining away strange things that would occur when he was alone, but it seems as though his blatant ignorance only made the creature's hatred for him grow.
And now here he was, trapped in what felt like a purgatory, trapped within silence as he always was, within darkness, and now trapped with it.
Warm tears stung his eyes and trickled down his cheeks, he wanted the pain to end, he desperately needed a distraction, he felt the eyes burning from all directions, it felt like the creature was everywhere, or that it was the space itself.
He wanted to scream, he wanted to yell, to curse at whatever it was that stared at him with such hatred, to ask why, but as he opened his mouth, the only thing that came out was more silence, a croak buried in his throat dispersed into nothingness. He began to grip at his chest, feeling it tighten with his panic, he desperately wanted to feel something, anything at all. He dug his hooves into his foreleg, ripping at the flesh in an attempt to pull it off, he felt the staring, but it was no longer around him, it felt as though it was inside him now. He feverishly pulled and clawed at his skin, he needed to get it out, he needed the feeling to stop.
Rip.
He bit down on his flesh, only feeling slight pressure in the midst of numbness, he peeled a layer of his flesh off, his canines made easy work of his foreleg as they punctured into his skin, he felt a warm trickle of thick crimson liquid encase his hooves, sputtering out with a quick intensity, but he still couldn't feel anything, he wanted to go further, to pull deeper at his skin until he was able to feel something, to feel anything at all would suffice. He ripped and bit at his flesh with more ferosity than before, working away at his leg, he could feel his mouth pool with blood, his jaw tightened once again around the remaining chunks of flesh on his foreleg, as he created distance between his head and his leg, his skin ripping straight off with a sickeningly satisfying tug. He went to bite down again, but felt the bare bone just beneath a very thin remaining layer of flesh, and yet despite his efforts, he still felt nothing of what he longed to feel again.
The staring intensified, he felt as though the entity was closer than before, which only made him more desperate, he wanted to wake from whatever nightmare this was, he had grown used to nightmares, used to the neglect from Luna, and the lack of protection within his dreams by her, but never had he felt so alone, so vulnerable, and so watched all at once.
Suddenly, he had a thought, a thought forgien to him, it wasn't his own, it was as if somepony invaded his mind and spoke from within him, he couldn't fully understand what was said or meant, it felt vague and distant, like a different language of sorts he could only barely recognize compared to his own, he could only sense the contempt within what the thought had produced, and the ill intent with the meaning, despite how cryptic and obscure it was.
" Hello..? " He inquired in his head, but those words did not leave his mouth, or rather, he could not hear his own voice break through the silence he constantly drowned in, although he sensed whatever entity invaded his mind could hear his response regardless. The silence continued, as so the darkness, no other response followed...
From the corner of his vision, he saw a glimpse of something, he didn't exactly know what it was, but it was a form of sorts... A figure, something somehow darker than the world around it that permeated the blank void, it seemed pony-like from what he could see, it was vague and blurry, as if it were a picture taken from an old polaroid with a dusty lense, it did not move from it's position for quite some time...
However, he could sense it's hatred ever growing toward him, as his mind began to blur, and fade into the nothingness...
Ghastly awoke a few hours later with a start, collapsed on the rough floor... The faint sunlight peered out from the curtains on the window behind him...
Blinking away sleep, Ghastly lifted his head up from the ground, what happened..? He seemed to still be in the hallway... His head pounded slightly, how long had he been out..? He felt a slight twinge of pressure on his body, he turned his gaze down to attempt at seeking out the source of the strange feeling invading his mind, that was when he noticed...
The large deep wounds coating his chewed and ripped flesh, Ghastly recoiled at the sight of himself, his right foreleg was massacred by deep scratching and biting of the flesh, leaving very little flesh at all, patches of his dark coal coat, which was now a tint of dried crimson, was missing, the rest of his emaciated body was covered in similar wounds, all self-inflicted it seemed. He was accustomed to his own self destruction, never the less, it never ceased to surprise him how far he would go in episodes of mania... He was surprised how little it hurt, he expected more of a burning sensation, like all the other times, but his body just felt.. Numb? Perhaps he was growing a tolerance to the pain after all this time.
He craned his neck to look back at himself, his black tattered coat draped over his malnourished body like a blanket, it covered his exposed bones poking out from within his flesh, where very little meat lied in between, his gaze turned to look towards his flank, where a cutie mark would typically etch itself, however instead of a symbol of talent, there was a large gash where flesh would be, ripped and torn from it's place and peeled roughly off by sharpened teeth and clenched jaws. One side was worse off than the other, there were very small colorations on the remaning skin that indicated remnants of his cutie mark, still clinging on to the bits of unteared flesh, now stained with his own blood...
Ghastly sighed, it was a sound that echoed throughout the hall, he glanced up toward the hallway he laid in, the pictures no longer held the same threat they did the night prior, a soft huff escaped his mouth, perhaps it was just his mind tormenting him after all... However, he made a mental note to remove the paintings eventually. Now it was to a matter of dealing with his new wounds... He hoped they hadn't sat untreated for too long, he couldn't risk another infection like the last few times, which resulted in awkward time spent at Ponyville's only hospital.
He propped himself up with his front hooves, starting on the one the least damaged, he expected a sharp pain immediately, but instead only numbness followed, as it had before, he was confused... But persisted without much of an issue. Ghastly stood up with a shaky start, he balanced himself, resting a hoof on the wall next to him for support, once the dizzyness from standing up disapated, he began to walk down the hallway, attempting to recall where exactly he kept the medical supplies... Had it been in the bathroom? He'd try there first.
His hoof grazed across the wall, feeling every ridge and edge of the old wooden structure. He reached the end of the hallway, where a door to the side lead to where he could only presume was the bathroom. He lowered his hoof down and trotted towards the door, the day time wasn't as frightening than nightfall had been, however, he still loathed the sunlight, no matter how much he'd barricade the windows with anything he can think of, the light always seemed to shine through regardless, perhaps a testament to Celestia's persistence. He gently pushed the door open and peered inside, it was dark, he recalled a few candles he had around the house, although he wouldn't bother finding one now. He took a deep breath and attempted at lighting his horn, it was stubborn, but with a faint spark of magic sputtering out of his horn, light quickly followed in pursuit and illuminated the small room in front of him. He was pleasantly surprised his horn still worked after the strain, perhaps he had rested longer than anticipated...
He stepped into the bathroom, his hooves clacking against the dirty tile floors, he wanted to try his hoof at a basic floating spell... But decided against it, he wouldn't want to bring any more strain on his horn, lest it burn out again. He propped his forehooves on the barren counter, the mirror was covered with a white dusty sheet over it, the mirror itself was dirty and shattered, he knew that much from the glimpses beyond where the sheet reached, and the broken shards rested on the counter and surrounding floor, he made a note not to accidentally step on any broken pieces. He opened the mirror that doubled as a cabinet, being gentle as to not tug the sheet off, as he suspected before, the medical supplies he was looking for were there... But there was very little left, the remaning roll of bandages was nearly gone, and the bottle of disinfectant was near empty now. He estimated it should be enough for right now, but he feared he would have to go out for more supplies... Lest he be left with nothing to clean future wounds.
He took the bottle of disinfectant within his jaws and set it down on a cleaner part of the counter top, he then repeated the process with the bandages. He had gotten used to doing everything with his mouth and hooves, despite having a horn and being fully capable of weilding magic, at least to an extent, he habitually forgot of his gift, to put it simply. He took the bottle of the clear, cool liquid, and unscrewed the lid with a click , it took some time to get it off, but once he did, he began pouring the alcohol steadily onto his wounds, he figured that this would surely sting, but much to his surprise, and slight curiosity, it didn't. Much like the last few times, he had anticipated pain to rush through, however instead it didn't hurt, it didn't feel like much of anything at all, it was just as numb as when he awoke, the only sensation he felt was the occasional pounding of his head.
" How strange... " He thought to himself, he didn't want to think much of it, but now that it had become too pressing of an issue to avoid, it seems as though he had to. Ghastly placed the bottle down onto the counter once he finished pouring it down on his wounds, it toppled over due to the lack of weight of being full holding it steady, he flinched at the sound it made when onto the tile floor, but that wasn't of great importance now... Merely another reminder that he needed to go out and get more. He began to very carefully wrap his wounds individually with as much bandages as there were left on the roll, after he was finished, he prodded at his wounds, starting with the one in the worst conditions; the gash on his flank, which had now been securely wrapped.
He poked at it with a hoof, expecting some sort of sensation... But... He yet again felt nothing, it was as if his hoof never made contact, he confirmed his suspicions with the rest of his wounds... How could this be? How could he not be hurting right now? Tolerance or not, he would be able to feel something, what was going on? He wasn't paralyzed, that was for certain, or else he wouldn't have been able to get up at all, so what exactly was happening? A twinge of concern slipped into Ghastly's mind, what if his wounds were more severe than he thought? Had he damaged something important? He gingerly bit down on his lower lip, glancing down at the empty bottle and non-existent roll of bandages on the floor...
" Shit... I'll have to go out and get some more. " He muttered to himself, the sound of his voice was hoarse, like chalk scraping against rough cement, he loathed the idea of having to go outside, especially in his condition, he knew ponies in town would be either disgusted, concerned, or both. None the less, he'd have to go out sometime soon, and unfortunately there would be no shops in town open at such an ungodly hour at the night, when he would prefer to be out. Therefore, it seemed clear to him he didn't have a choice, it was undoubtably obvious...
He'd have to go outside today...
