Maize

5 Decay

Twilight stood in the living room of the Apple family home, blinking and looking around in sudden confusion. It was exactly as she had seen it last: A cozy circle of farmhouse furniture, heavily worn and many times patched, all on a sturdy rug the color of autumn leaves; shelves and tables cluttered along walls papered in warm tones and plain yet homey patterns; paintings and photos representing four generations’ tastes and sensibilities hung on nearly every surface; and all of it bound together by the solid ribs of the house, the wooden posts, beams, and floors all stained a rich cherry that shone almost crimson in the gentle light. In the corner, Winona lay curled in a soft straw bed, gnawing on a long, thin bone in between soft, curiously plaintive whines.

The room was almost overwhelming in its clarity and detail, and it took Twilight a moment to realize she wasn’t having any trouble focusing on any of it. Gone was the bleary, washed out impression she’d had of the outside world, though in contrast, this was nearly as bewildering. There wasn’t an inch of the room that wasn’t in perfect focus at all times, and she could perceive details ranging from the minute grains worn into individual boards to the spacing between threads on quilts and cushions.

It was as if she had stepped into a theater and been blinded not by the sun, but by a projection, a mélange of information pushed upon her and overwhelming her senses in their painstaking clarity. It was so much to take in that she didn’t notice the humming voice right away.

As soon as she did though, she wondered how she could have missed it. It was unmistakably Applejack’s voice, and she sounded, to Twilight’s surprise, both happy and content.

“Applejack?”

No one answered, nor was there any change or pause in the wordless tune issuing from the kitchen. Twilight stepped forward, and was momentarily surprised that she could walk so easily. She had, for some reason, expected to be limping, or to have trouble keeping her hooves in line, or some such.

Why had she expected that? Oh well. It didn’t seem important.

She followed the sound of her friend’s voice, the walls and floor of the house sliding past her as if on rails. She felt oddly distant from herself, like she was an audience to her own perspective—removed, and yet still behind her own eyes. What an odd sensation.

She stepped through the door to the kitchen. There was Applejack, standing at the stove with her back to Twilight, humming that strange, tuneless, yet pleasing melody while she worked at something on the cooktop with her forehooves. In between them was the kitchen table, and—

And oh Celestia, what a table. Twilight’s eyes went wide at the sight of it, whether it was from hunger or simply to take in all the myriad colors and textures, she couldn’t have said. There were fritters and pies, a pumpkin stuffed to overflowing with bouquets of orange-and-gold mums and sunflowers, an entire ring of vibrant winter squash varieties sliced and presented, baskets of rolls swollen to bursting beneath crowns of butter, dishes of lettuce and kale tossed in glistening dressing with bright points of radishes, and mounds, mounds, of glowing golden corn, grilled and dripping with butter, paprika, cayenne, and black pepper that Twilight could smell even from where she stood.

She felt weak with yearning, and a pang of hunger rose up inside of her stronger than anything she thought she was capable of feeling. But stronger even than all of this was what drew her eye to the left side of the room: The water pump over the sink, and the clear, silver drops of water that were even then falling lazily from its spout.

“Twilight!” Applejack exclaimed, her hat cocking ever so slightly as she heard Twilight approach. “I thought I heard ya. Thank Celestia you’re back safe and sound. I hope you’ve got an appetite. We fixed you something real nice as our way of saying thank you.”

Applejack waved a hoof, gesturing to the room as she worked a spoon through the dish on the stove. “Y’all go ahead and get started. Whatever suits your fancy, it’s yours. Anything for such a good pony.”

Twilight didn’t hesitate a moment longer. With a single flap of her wings, she was at the sink, glass in hoof, straining against the pump with all her might. It took only one firm push, and water, sweet, clear, icy water, gushed out of the tap, spraying so hard it drenched Twilight’s hoof as she tried to fill the glass. She threw the cup back and drained it in one long pull, barely breathing as she stuck it back for another fill. It was a little strange for water, possessing a surprising substance and weight. It felt almost… thick, in the oddest of ways, as it dribbled from her lips and down her chin. But no matter. Her thirst overpowered all other thoughts.

She downed another glass, and then a third, before she finally set the glass aside and stuck her head under the pump, all but wrapping her lips around the spout as she strained for more. The pump seemed to be running dry, and the pipe shook and heaved as she forced more water through it. The liquid gurgled and spluttered, coming slower and slower until Twilight was practically sucking it out of the nozzle.

She fell back, panting for breath. “Oh, that is good…” When had simple water tasted so good? So rich?

She glanced over to Applejack, suddenly sheepish for the lack of manners she had displayed. But Applejack was gone, apparently having left while Twilight had been drinking. Perhaps she had gone to the cellar or the pantry to fetch something. And what remained was the food.

Twilight paused for the briefest moment, thinking that surely she ought to wait for Applejack or the others. It would be rude beyond imagining to start digging in to such a wondrous feast without even waiting for those that had prepared it. And there was something else, something nagging at the edge of her attention, insisting she wait, insisting she leave even, that she shouldn’t touch the food for… some reason.

But Applejack had invited her… and the smell was positively overpowering, a medley of smoky spices and salt and sugar, and something else, something she couldn’t quite put her hoof on beneath it all, that made her think of the texture of hair and skin beneath teeth.

She recoiled again, feeling more uncertain than ever. But why would that be? This was Applejack’s home, the ponies who had first given her food as a guest the very day she arrived in Ponyville. Nothing they served would ever be anything but the absolute finest—if a bit simplistic for some ponies’ tastes, maybe.

Ponyville. The name jarred something in her mind. Where was Ponyville?

“Outside, silly. Down the path.”

Twilight frowned, her ear twitching. Had that been her own thought? It sounded like her voice, although…

“What am I waiting for?” she asked herself—she was asking herself, she was sure of it. “All this food is being given to me. It would be rude not to take it. It’s all part of the cycle, after all. A pony needs to eat.”

The light from the lamps on the table flickered, dancing over the glossy, oily surfaces of the feast before her. Twilight moaned involuntarily.

“It’s time to feed, Twilight.”

Without another thought, she dove forward, practically falling onto one of the floor cushions surrounding the table. With manners that would have given Rarity an aneurysm were she not at the picnic table outside, Twilight scattered the silverware to the floor as she seized the nearest plate and sank her teeth into a massive buttered roll. Her teeth broke the tender, thin skin, pulling out rich fibers of warm, steamy crumb with audible tearing. Grapes burst, tender flower petals were minced, and she set to work on a butternut squash with a vengeance. Her mind was blank, wracked with the sensations of taste and texture flooding her mouth, drowning out the odd little notes that appeared in the food. Here, the squash had something oddly crunchy—a stray seed, no doubt—and there, the skin of a potato was oddly tough, and the dust that still coated it felt strangely long and tickly, forcing her to rend and rip it almost violently with her teeth.

Twilight tore through the table until she was full to bursting, pulling plates towards herself as if her legs were scoops. She groaned, wondering if this was how Spike always felt, if he actually was this hungry all the time as he claimed, and if she was maybe too harsh on him for his lack of manners. She was certain she would appall even the Apples if they came in and saw her going at it like this, and she was grateful she had been left alone for so long.

And she had been left alone for quite some time, she realized. The sun had disappeared outside, and the light came only from the oil lamps on the table. The rest of the kitchen was draped in shadows, and she imagined that soon it would be time for bed. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten so much.

Why am I so hungry, anyway? She wondered.

“It’s hard work,” Applejack’s voice said from somewhere behind her, “tendin’ the field.”

A gust of hot, rattling wind tore through the room on the tail of that last word, shaking the timbers of the room. The lamps on the table trembled, and the flames in their hurricane glasses guttered and vanished before Twilight could blink. Twilight choked and coughed, spitting out the glob of food that had turned suddenly soft and sour in her mouth.

“Applejack?” she asked, looked wildly around her. There was still light—a number of pale, dim shafts cut through the slats of the ceiling and cast white, dusty lines across the room, but they revealed nothing.

Twilight backed away until she hit the wall, yelping in surprise at the sudden thump. Her heart beat against her ribs, sending a heavy, repetitive thud throughout the room. When no answer came and nothing moved around her, she took a long, slow breath, concentrated, and launched a single mote of purple light from her horn.

The room appeared before her in stark shards of monochrome splintered by black shadows. She was in a room of plain, unfinished timbers that had shrunk and splintered over centuries of wear. The floor was hard packed dirt, and the fixtures, cabinets, and appliances of the kitchen were nowhere to be seen. It was more like the corner of a barn that had been long abandoned than the home Twilight knew she had just been inside.

Twilight’s eyes fell to the table still present in the center of the room, pulled from the inky blackness as the mote drifted over it. It was piled high with mounds of dark, shapeless matter, and lumpy protuberances rose at odd angles all throughout. She stepped closer, struggling to see clearly in the weak light, as the steady thud continued to beat inside her, above her, all around her. Then her jaw dropped, and her eyes flew wide in horror.

The table was piled with earth, a heap of black, spongy soil glistening with moisture that overflowed in slow clumps and trickles over the edges. For a moment, she thought that was all it was.

Then she saw the limbs.

Long, withered legs of every shape and size were visible in the dirt, lying barely exposed to the air atop its surface and scattered in broken and severed fragments along the edges. There were paws, and claws, all covered in shrouds of gray and black skin pulled taught with ruin. Farther in, there were glistening cavities of ribs still enclosed with the stringy matter of softened flesh. There were teeth, broken and scattered like seeds, or still implanted in mouths half buried in the loam and gaping wide at the half-tasted air.

Something wet was seeping and trickling through channels in the mud, pattering softly on the floor. Mold and mushrooms erupted in damp crowns and curtains all throughout, the pale veins of their mycelia stretching down where clods and bones crumbled against the slow and ceaseless advance of decay. And with the sudden crinch and scrunch of shifting earth and dry, tearing skin, Twilight realized that the mound was not motionless at all, but alive with the glinting and scuttling of thousands and thousands of insects.

She let out a revolted groan and backed away again until she collapsed, one hoof covering her mouth and another clutching at her stomach. Beetles, ants, and centipedes with their myriad needle legs coated the corpses and peeled and nibbled with their sharp little jaws. Some had even been killed and devoured in turn by their own kind, or by glistening, swollen-backed spiders that tickled and danced across their prey, all tumbling, all buried and emerging in turn from the black, churning soil.

Twilight looked down at herself, and screamed. She was coated in filth, her lips and jaw and neck and chest caked in black mud, and the wetness of something beneath it, something black and sticky and smelling of metal and rot. Something tickled at her cheek. She reached in, probing haltingly, and plucked out the white, friable shard of a little paw’s bone.

Her stomach churned and clenched, and she had only enough time to turn away before she vomited. She heaved over and over, mind blank except for the primal desire to rid herself of every ounce of corruption she now felt settling lazily into her core. She sat there for some minutes, choking and sobbing between heaves, until her body collapsed to the side, her strength utterly gone. She lay there, panting, listening to the repetitive, droning thump… thump… thump… that seemed to echo and pulse through the splintery wall she lay against.

Her body shook, and she just managed to raise her head, every muscle feeling like strings pulled to breaking. Thump… thump… thump… Her thoughts were bleary again, all nourishment expelled along with the sickness and decay. What she wanted was nothing more than to curl up and fall into oblivion, to stop thinking and feeling and, above all, not to ruminate on what had just happened.

Thump… thump…

“What is that?” she croaked, glaring at the ceiling. Could this place not even let her fade away in peace?

CRACK.

With an explosive shattering of timbers, the ceiling in the corner caved inwards. Twilight’s eyes snapped to look in the purple light, watching as the slats sagged at a lopsided angle. With a deep, long rush, almost like a sigh, a river of dirt flowed in from the hole and began piling into the corner of the room.

CRACK.

Halfway across the room, just behind the table, another hole burst open, vomiting soil downwards. Another hole burst, then another, and Twilight scrambled to her hooves, moaning as her muscles protested and her head swam. The room swayed and turned in her vision, and she fought to stay upright. She turned and took one halting step towards the door.

CRACK.

A hole opened in the ceiling directly above her head, a thin fissure that slit its way right between two slats, like a wound swelling and peeling open. Twilight had only an instant to see the dirt tumbling down on top of her, mouth open in a strangled cry, before it slammed into her and shoved her down to the floor. Twilight’s limbs tried to flail, and it was like swimming in syrup, pushing the clods and piles away with every motion. The weight grew and grew on her back, and it was all she could do to drag herself along the floor, emerging from the fresh heap like a worm and gasping for air. The mote of light flickered, swaying and darting erratically in the air as her ability to maintain even this most simple of magics wavered.

Another stream burst open above Twilight, sending the crushing weight sliding down on top of her exposed face. She swatted and dug with a foreleg, shoulder screaming in pain as she dug herself free, pulling and grasping at the swelling mounds with weak hooves as she fought to pull herself on top of them. The light dimmed, and she could barely see the ground rising in front of her—But she could still see the bones, the skin, the hollowed sockets of eyes rolling and tumbling in the dirt around her. She shoved her hoof down to push herself up and felt it sink into something both wet and sharp, like the bones of a fish. She coughed, spewing out dirt, and lunged towards the door, trying to gain momentum to slide down the earth and towards freedom.

Another stream burst open immediately above the door, blocking the dim view of the passage beyond in a cascade of black clods and white bone. Twilight floundered, feeling her back begin to sag deeper beneath the mound piling on top of it. Her light sputtered, on the brink of sparking out altogether. In one final, desperate heave, Twilight forced her head upwards, clenched her eyes, and poured her magic into the room.

Lightning sparked and crackled, searing her in its hot claws as it snaked across her skin, but the spell wouldn’t take hold of her. A resounding pop filled the room and starbursts flashed around her, but nothing happened. Again she poured out her power, and again the teleportation spell cut apart the space surrounding her, but vanished to leave her in exactly the same place.

Why isn’t it working?!

Twilight swam against the earth, climbing and climbing and climbing but getting nowhere. Darkness closed in, and her view of the door vanished as her light disappeared into the dirt. For a moment, there was only the rumble and groan of settling earth, and the roar of more crashing down from above. Then Twilight gave one last, guttural cry, heaved free of the dirt in a surge of desperate strength, and threw herself through the rain of decay towards were she thought the door to be. If she was off by even the slightest degree, she expected she would smash her skull against the wall and disappear beneath the tide.

But the wall didn’t come. She tripped, rolled down a slope of soft earth higher than any hill in Ponyville had ever felt, and came to bone-battering halt as her body tumbled onto the bare floor. The sound of rumbling dirt grew muffled and subdued as the door filled up behind her, then settled into silence.

Twilight lay panting on the floor, chest heaving. Sporadic twitches and spasms wracked her body, and her thoughts drifted in and out of coherence as black spots swam and blinked before her. The only thing that kept her from falling into immediate oblivion was the steady thump… thump… thump… coming from somewhere just above her.

She blinked, tilting her face to try and get a sense of where she was. She didn’t have the strength even to lift her head, but she tried to steady her breathing. If the ceiling began to cave in here, she knew she would have to run again.

Or, perhaps she wouldn’t. Perhaps should would just let the place bury her, and drift into blessed, blessed silence.

But the ceiling did not break. She was in a dim, cavernous space that was made of the same weathered wood as the kitchen had been, but far higher and more open. It seemed to be the interior of a barn, possibly the Apples’ barn, or something that resembled it. She didn’t know it well enough to say, but in any event this one was empty, stripped of hay, tools, or anything else familiar. It was like a coffin for dust, and dust seemed to be the only thing there, aside from Twilight. There was no sign of the bright, cozy living room she had come in through, but that hardly registered to her. She could barely remember having seen that place at all, wasn’t even sure she had seen it in the first place. It was like the vapors of a dream, granting her the ghost of warmth, fading with every second.

Thump. Thump.

Twilight turned her head sluggishly. She could see, by the light of the pale beams coming in through chinks in the walls, that there was a narrow stairway leading upwards, bare boards on a rickety frame nailed to the wall. It didn’t even have a guardrail. It ran to what she guessed was the hayloft, where the rhythmic sound seemed to be coming from.

Twilight whimpered, gathering her legs under herself and pushing her body slowly up. Her bandage was gone, ripped away in her struggle to escape the kitchen. Her shoulder wept gently, sending thick and slow rivulets to cut crooked paths down the mud caking her coat.

But no sooner had she managed to stand than she froze as something answered her pained moan. She turned to the shadowy corner, to the place where Winona had been and which she thought lay empty in the darkness. Now though, she saw it was not truly empty; there was a hunched shape, a vague, quivering mass that she would have mistaken for just another blot of darkness, a trick of her eyes, had it not begun whispering.

“…hooves… path… follow…”

She waited with her breath trapped in her chest for it to make some movement towards her. Was it the scarecrow, the thing that had hunted and lured her here? It certainly seemed broken and twisted enough, but somehow she got the sense that this couldn’t be one of the monstrous figures. There was no aura of malice emanating from it, no halting steps as it began to force its way towards her.

She almost turned and left it anyway. There was nothing here that could be of benefit to her, nothing whatsoever anymore that she could gain from searching or seeking. There was nothing in this place but death and ruin now, she was certain.

She would have turned and gone upstairs if not for the quiet, miserable sob.

Gritting her teeth, she held her breath and stepped hesitantly towards the thing, halting every few steps to try and determine what kind of threat it might be, all the while accompanied by that distant thump… thump… thump. She could see the shape of heaving, shuddering shoulders, a dark mess of what might be a mane, but little else. It wasn’t until she was almost close enough to reach out and touch it that she realized who she had found.

“Flim?” she gasped, putting a hoof to her chest in horror. “Or… Flam?”

The unicorn was the palest shadow of a pony that she had ever seen. She wasn’t even sure he was alive at first, as his skin hung in thin, limp shrouds over his skeleton, not unlike the half-glimpsed corpses in the room behind her. His mane hung down below his shoulders in limp locks glistening with grease, and his face was buried beneath a wild, unkempt beard.

But worst of all were his eyes. He never looked at Twilight—he didn’t even seem to be aware that she was standing there. He stared unblinkingly off into some great distance, looking up as if at an unseen sky, and his pupils were so small his eyes appeared almost white and blind at first. He sat on the floor, clutching his hooves around his chest, as he rocked and whispered feverishly to himself.

“Hooves on the path, follow it home… hooves on the path, follow it home…”

“Flim, or Flam, can you hear me?” Twilight asked tremulously. She reached out a hoof, but thought better of it and withdrew it once more. “What happened to you?”

He made no answer, muttering and shuddering.

“Flim,” she said again, tapping her hoof sharply against the wall. “Flam. What happened? Where’s your brother?”

His voice cut off mid-word, and he froze in place. Twilight half expected him to just keel over on the spot, but he sat perfectly still, as though listening for something.

“…Flim?”

“He’s in the field,” he whispered. “Him, and not him. Because he stopped. He stopped talking to me. Oh, brother of mine. But he won’t stop. No, he won’t stop, don’t you see? He won’t stop… following meeeee. Him, but not him. Out there. In the field. The ones in the field.”

“What do you mean?” asked Twilight, taking a step closer. “Is your brother… one of them? A scarecrow, out in the field?”

He made no response. He turned his face in a slow arc from left to right, as though watching something cross the room. Then, “We shouldn’t have done it, brother. We shouldn’t have fed them. We shouldn’t have let them… learn our taste… no way out, brother. Can’t find a way out. Oh, Flim. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

“It… it wasn’t your fault,” Twilight offered, lifting her hoof towards him once more. “There wasn’t anything you could have done. This place, it…”

She gasped and shrank back, snatching her hoof back and clutching it to her chest. Flam’s skin had startled her with its heat, seeming as hot as a stovetop in the cold, dank air of the barn. It was as if he had been sitting in the hottest desert sun until that very moment, and she thought she could smell the sharp, acrid scent of burning hair.

“What… what is…”

She stepped carefully around Flam, trying to get a clearer view of his face. It was only then that she saw there was something else in the room with them, lying on the floor in front of Flam, partially blocked by his emaciated body—a ragged shadow, a stain of darkness on the earthen floor that Twilight at first took to be a broad puddle. But as she gained a clearer view, and the dim light from outside brought it into greater clarity, she saw it was no stain, but a misshapen lump, a mess of scraps and stringed bits dangling from sharp, jutting bones…

She could see the wet glimmer of viscera still lying at its core, and the whites of its milky, softening eyes as they stared up at her from beneath a tattered straw hat and long, spiraling horn.

“I’m sorry, brother… I’m so, so sorry…”

Twilight’s body heaved, but she had nothing more to bring up. She pushed herself away from Flam, and he didn’t notice her go. He reached down and dug a skeletal hoof through the piled mess, prodding something wet and soft free with a feeble tug. Twilight turned and staggered away, but the whisper-mutter of his words followed her towards the stairs.

“Hooves on the path, follow it home… Hooves on the path, follow it home…”

She reached the steps just as the sound of a wet, gurgling bite reached her ears, like the crushing of a soft, rotten fruit, and she fell against the wall with a nauseated grunt. Up above, the steady thumping continued, louder now, she thought. She glanced blearily around the barn once more, searching for any other alternative she could take. There was no door she could see aside from the one now filled with dirt. There were no windows or hatches, no way out.

The path led only upward now.

Twilight swallowed, forcing herself to take a long, shuddering breath, then turned back towards Flam. Whatever had happened to him, whatever state he was in, she couldn’t just leave him, a fellow pony, to languish there alone. She looked up, bracing herself to approach the foul corner once more—

But Flam was gone. The corner was empty, and where the dark shadow had been in front of Flam, she could see clearly that only a clean, dim spread of dirt remained.

Twilight stared at the patch for a few moments, scowling at it with what little vague anger she had the strength to hold onto. Then, haltingly, she turned and began to climb.