Chapter One: Stay Out of the Everfree
Scootaloo looked at the dark, silent forest that opened ahead of her. Nopony would enter such place in the darkest of the nights, just a couple of days before the Nightmare Night.
Yet there she was. All alone, thinking of going in.
But what options did she have? She had caused all this by herself and now it was time for her to pay for her actions.
That’s what you get for bragging about your bravery. That’s what you get for saying that you could do anything. That’s what you get for calling out loud that you are not afraid of the Everfree.
Her friends had not swallowed this. They had demanded for proof. But how was she going to prove it?
The other two had not found a possible cheat-proof way to prove that she had visited the forest. She had almost got clear. She had almost managed to escape the sanctions of a lie.
But then Twilight had come out of nowhere. She had heard the little bragging. She had noticed her chance.
And so, Scootaloo was stuck with the task of going to the forest and bringing Twilight some poison joke so that she could perform some of her crazy tests to make the Nightmare Night even scarier. Scootaloo had no idea how Twilight was going to do that with poison joke, though.
She gulped loudly. Why now, the darkest of nights before the Nightmare Night itself? The forest was barely visible, only the outlines of the twisted trees catching Scootaloo’s eyes.
The fog that was circling around the thick trees wasn’t making it any easier. It cloaked even more of the scenery, making it nearly impossible to see clearly beyond one’s hoof.
But she had to go in. She was not going to go back and admit that she was a scaredy-pony. She couldn’t let her friends get the joy of mocking her, picking on her lies. She couldn’t let Twilight down.
She took a final look behind, just to see where the safety began, and took a step towards the forest.
She kept on taking steps, slowly getting closer and closer to the part where the forest officially began. As she did so, she could feel the warmth escape her body. She could feel the empty spot it had left behind get filled by pure coldness.
When she finally had reached the entrance, she was shivering. The coldness had taken over, making its way deep into her flesh and killing all the warmth she had felt before.
But when she took the one fatal step that placed her hoof inside the borders of the forest, there was no going back. She was doomed to go fetch some flowers in the middle of the night.
“It’s going to be okay. I just go there, find a patch of poison joke, take some of them and get out as fast as I can. Easy,” she tried to tell herself, but it was no use. The coldness and fear had come to stay.
She tried her best to ignore her stubborn feelings and started walking deeper into the forest, careful not to take a single step away from the safe-looking path.
As soon as the fog absorbed her body, the darkness got even deeper. Not even the light of Luna’s moon could penetrate the layers of leaves, branches and fog.
The good thing was that Twilight had forced her to take a small lamp with her. Without it she would basically be doomed.
She dug the lamp from the small bag she had with her. The lamp was magical. It could last for twenty minutes before the spark of magic died down.
She would have twenty whole minutes to get to the flowers, pick some of them and get back to the safety of the town.
In other words, she had twenty minutes to spend alone in a dark and scary forest, accompanied only by the dim light the lamp gave off and the possibly-dangerous creatures that lurked nearby.
Scootaloo tried to push such thoughts back. They certainly didn’t make this little trip any easier. She spent some time trying to figure how to light the lamp, turned it on by tapping the small button it had on the bottom and kept on walking deeper into the forest.
The further she got, the bigger the fear grew. Every step she took made the shadows get a bit closer to her. Every breath she took made her throat dryer and her body colder. Every tree that passed by looked scarier than the earlier ones. All this was slowly getting the better of the mind of the little filly.
And when she saw one of the shadows move, she just couldn’t hold it anymore.
“Aaah!” she screamed and jumped high into the air. The panic took over and soon enough she was running aimlessly, having no idea which one was the right direction.
After running for a mighty good amount of time, the stinging in her chest forced her to stop. Normally she would have been able to run through the whole forest, but the air was making her breathing harder.
As she stood there in the dimly lit path, violently inhaling more and more oxygen, she tried to think of a worthy plan. She could not go deeper to get the flower. It was just too dark and way too scary. But she didn’t want to go home with nothing, either. She didn’t want to be a loser.
She had to get the flower. There was no other way out.
After a while of thinking, she remembered a life-saving thing: Zecora.
She, if somepony, would have some poison joke stored somewhere. The fact that her hut was closer to Ponyville than the still-blooming patches of poison joke made the decision even easier.
Scootaloo turned around, made sure that she was on the right path and started walking towards the supposed location of Zecora’s hut.
But she failed to notice a single thing. One of the shadows was looking after her.
----»«----
The path to Zecora’s hut was in a better condition than all the other paths of the forest combined. Zecora took a good care of it, though Scootaloo didn’t know why. Almost nopony aside from Apple Bloom and Twilight ever visited her and she didn’t visit the town too often.
But on the other hoof, Scootaloo didn’t get a lot of things that Zecora did. Maybe it was just some zebra tradition.
The surroundings of the path were better, too. The trees didn’t look so scary and it was actually better lit than the other parts of the forest. All in all, Scootaloo felt a lot more conformable to walk to Zecora’s place than to walk to get the flowers by herself.
But what should she tell Zecora? Should she just say that the flower was for Twilight? Or should she lie? What if Zecora told Twilight that she had given the flower and then everyone would get to know that Scootaloo had been a scaredy-pony?
She could say that it was for pranking. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie did poison joke –related pranks all the time. It was completely safe now as the Ponyville Spa had the recipe for the healing bath.
But Scootaloo didn’t think that Zecora was much of a prankster. She took things so seriously sometimes.
Or she could just go in, chat nicely and take the flower when Zecora wasn’t looking. But that wouldn’t be too nice. Zecora had done nothing to her and she was planning on stealing flowers from her.
“It’s not stealing, I’d just borrow it,” she tried to say to herself, but it didn’t seem any better. She’d have to stick to telling the truth.
Soon enough she arrived to the small hut. Her lamp had started losing its brightness, so she would have to do this quickly. The spark had ten minutes left tops.
A quick look told that Zecora wasn’t sleeping. The lights were on and the door was open, welcoming everypony inside.
Scootaloo gathered all of her courage from the depths of her mind and sneaked close to the door.
“Hello? Zecora, you home?” she asked in a hopeful tone.
No answer.
“I’m coming in!” she yelled, but still got no answer.
After hesitating for a second, she pushed the door more open and stepped into the small hut. The smell that welcomed her in gave out the fact that Zecora had been preparing a brew. But the maker of the brew was nowhere to be seen.
“Zecora?” Scootaloo tried, but once again there was no answer. Zecora wasn’t home.
“Where would a zebra go at this hour?” she asked herself, but got no answer to that question either. Zecora usually left a note of some kind to tell the possible visitors where she had gone. But where could such note be?
Scootaloo took a quick look around the hut and noticed a small white note on the table right next to the brew. She rolled her eyes and walked over to the table, curious to see where Zecora had gone.
The note was simple.
I’ve run out of ingredients for my brew,
I’m sorry, my quest, but wait must you.
Well, Zecora was in the woods, looking for an ingredient. Scootaloo knew that sometimes Zecora could be out in the woods looking for things for days, so it was no use to sit down and wait.
Knowing that the time was running out, Scootaloo knew that she’d have to find the flower by herself. The problem was that Zecora had multiple shelves full of ingredients, most of them stored into brown jars that had no label on them.
But luckily she had heard something about the hut from Apple Bloom. Zecora kept herbs on the left, spices on the right and flowers on…
No matter how hard she thought, Scootaloo just couldn’t remember the simple advice. She’d have to dig through the shelves on the front and on the back of the hut.
Seeing that there was no other option, she started going through the jars that occupied the shelves.
Not until the floor was covered in shards she was able to find the familiar-looking flower. She pulled the safety pliers Twilight had gave her from her bag, carefully took one of the flowers out of the jar and dropped it into the bag. She then closed the jar and put it back to the now-empty shelf.
Her mission was accomplished, now she just had to get out as fast as she could. She was relieved by that fact. She’d get out of this damned forest and back to the safe town of Ponyville as a hero. She could already hear the envying whispers of her classmates.
She turned around, about to leave, but stopped when she noticed another, older-looking note on the table, right next to the earlier one. It had not been there when she had arrived.
Out of curiosity, she walked over to the table and took a good look at the note.
It was just as simple as the earlier one, but far more scary.
Those who stare into the abyss may eventually find the abyss staring back.
The text itself wasn’t scary, but the picture under it was. A tall, black figure stood in the forest, barely visible between the trees. It had a black skin and a white head, if the round shape on top of it was a head.
The body was not normal. It was tall and thin and seemed to have extra limbs in the back. The limbs were just as black as the rest of the body, creating a terrifying shape against the fog that was floating behind the thing.
It was standing on two hooves, if the lower limbs even were hooves. Scootaloo knew no living creature that could hold such a huge body only on two limbs.
The head was only a head. No face, no mouth, no eyes, nothing else but whiteness.
Something on the picture made her feel uneasy. The warmth the hut had given her was now pulling back, leaving the body of the filly just as cold as it had been earlier. Her mind was running in overdrive, trying to process the image.
All of a sudden her throat felt like it was burning. She started coughing, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. The coughing just kept on going and she was starting to feel bad. She quickly grabbed her bag and rushed outside, entering the darkness of Everfree again. As soon as she lost the sight of the hut, the coughing stopped and she could breathe well again. She had no idea what it had been all about, but she wasn’t about to go and find out. Heck, she wasn’t sure if she was ever going back to the hut again.
She turned to look forward for a second, just to make sure that the path was right. But when she turned back, the horrible feeling got back.
In the distance she could see a dark silhouette, darker than the night surrounding it. It didn’t take long for Scootaloo to realize that it was the same thing from the picture. That was all she needed to start shaking of fear. It was after her. It wanted her.
She tried to turn, to run, but her hooves refused to move. She was stuck on the place, looking at the figure that was looking back. The moment seemed to last forever.
But when Scootaloo blinked, the figure was gone. She immediately felt her hooves move as she collapsed to the ground. Her head felt like Pinkie was having a party inside, and that sure wasn’t good. Her vision was blurred up, making it hard to even see her hooves.
But she knew that if she stayed there, it would come. She had to get up. She had to get back to Ponyville. She had to get back to safety.
She forced her hooves to push her up. It hurt, but it was worth it. Soon enough she was standing and ready to run.
She shut her eyes, turned around and ran as fast as she could.
But running can be hard if you can’t see anything. After only a few steps she stumbled and felt a horrible pain in her left wing. She forced her eyes open, just to see her wing being twisted into a completely unnatural position.
She tried her best to ignore the pain, jumped up once again and ran as fast as her hooves could go, hoping that the thing would leave her alone.
Even though she didn’t look back, she knew that it was right after her. It was just as fast as she was, if not faster.
But she wouldn’t give up. She was fast. She could escape. She could get back to Ponyville.
The path started to get bigger. It was a good sign. It got bigger when you got closer to Ponyville. That meant that the town was just behind the corner.
She forced her hooves to go even faster, knowing that tripping would be fatal. The lights of the town were visible by now. Only a minute to go. Then she could rest.
She could see the river. The bridge crossing the river would be safe area. There she would be out of the reach of the thing.
She heard the drumming sound her hooves made when they hit the rough path. She heard the fast heartbeat that was coming from her chest. She could feel the pain the injured wing caused pulsating in her body.
Only a few more steps. A few more. A few…
When she could see the outlines of the houses, she finally stopped, careful not to look back. She immediately collapsed to the ground as her hooves were not strong enough to hold her body up.
As she lay there, she could hear the far-away screams of ponies that had seen her. She could hear the hoofsteps that were getting closer. She could hear the questions they asked from each other.
When she could see the figure of a pony in her own eyes, she let a small smile take over and everything went to complete blackness.
----»«----
Scootaloo cracked her eyes open. The afternoon sun was setting, casting an orange light into the room. Despite being a dim afternoon light, it managed to burn her eyes for a while, but she refused to close them. She had woken up and she sure was not going back to the same nightmare.
A quick look around the room told her that she was not home. The curtains were green, the bed sheets were green, the white beds were adjustable and she had some green hospital-clothing on. Her best guess was that she was in the Ponyville Hospital.
This guess got confirmed soon as a group of nurses rushed into the room. They told something about a shock, a broken wing and a surgery. They also told that there had been a whole lot of visitors whilst she had been asleep. The huge pile of presents and “get well soon” –cards that had been waiting behind the curtain were what they had left behind.
Soon after Scootaloo had opened some of the well-wrapped boxes, the nurses left, saying that she needed some sleep. She had just woken up, but they had refused to let her out of the room. She had no other option than to go back to sleep.
But there was nothing she should be afraid of. She had won. The thing had been too slow. She was safely in the hospital, out of the reach of the horrors of the Everfree. And she had proven that she was brave. She was a hero.
A small smiled formed up on her face. Scootaloo, a hero. That sounded mighty good.
She closed her eyes and let her thoughts wonder. She had a lot to do tomorrow.
As soon as the eyes of the filly shut, a tall figure appeared next to her bed, watching over the sleeping filly, its target.
Chapter Two: The Sanctions
Scootaloo watched the small colorful ball hit the wall, causing a silly noise. It bounced back towards her bed where her hoof was idly waiting for the impact.
Soon the ball met the hoof and with a small move the hoof sent the ball back towards the wall.
It might have sounded like a good load of fun, but after doing it for two hours straight, it was feeling like torture. But it was all Scootaloo had to do. The presents were all opened and the contents were taken back to the orphanage that served as her home. All she had been able to save was the ball, a pen and a sheet of paper.
It had only been a day. One night after the waking-up in the hospital. She had not slept. She had been too terrified. The nurses had left her alone in the dark. The door had been shut but the curtains had been open.
And for the whole long night she had stared out of the window, towards the distant border of the forest, looking for any sign of the source of her upcoming nightmares. She had missed the night of the nights, the feared Nightmare Night, and she surely didn’t regret it.
And for the whole long night it had stayed in its hiding place. It had been there, Scootaloo knew it, but it had not given its location out.
Only when the nurse had arrived to bring her the breakfast she had taken her eyes off the window and the scenery behind it.
The nurse had said a couple of well-chosen words for her about how sleep is important, but she didn’t care. What’s the point in sleeping when the horrors chase you to your dreams?
The nurse had had other news, too. Scootaloo had made a great recovery and she would be sent home, if you could call the lousy-looking orphanage a home, later this evening.
At that point it had been five hours. Five hours and she would get out. Now that might seem easy as a cake, but hospital time is different.
So after a good four hours had passed, she felt like she had been sitting on the bed for an eternity.
She was wondering where the others were. She had not seen anypony, save for the doctors and nurses, since the fateful night. What was keeping them from coming to see her?
But she knew that they had a reason. They would never leave her hanging.
She snapped her attention back to the reality, just to notice that the ball was lying on the floor and that her hoof was moving in the air, trying to hit something that didn’t exist.
She felt a little blush form up, even though there was nopony around. She halted the hoof and placed it next to her on the bed.
She stared at the wall for some time. How could anything in the world be as boring as this was? The doctors had said no to running, no to playing with the ball on the hallways and an absolute no to riding her scooter around. She had got the direct, and a bit rude, orders to “bucking stay on the Celestia-damned bed” and after seeing the condition of the doctor who had said those words, she had decided not to annoy the doctors and nurses any more.
She perked her ears up when she heard a sound come from the door. Soon enough the brown-coated unicorn she only knew as “the doctor” walked in. He was exactly the one who was taking care of her.
“So, eager to leave soon, are we?” he asked in a kind voice, giving Scootaloo a friendly look behind his glasses.
“Oh you bet I am!” she replied, voice full of enthusiasm. Could it be?
“Well, gather your stuff and go on. You are in a good enough condition to leave the hospital,” the doctor said in the same tone, keeping the smile on. That’s just why Scootaloo though that he was the best doctor in the whole hospital.
“Sure thing, Doc!” she shouted and hopped out of the bed.
“I’ll be waiting in the lobby. Report back to me when you are ready so I can check you out,” he said before going through the mostly-glass door, leaving Scootaloo to take her things and get rid of the hospital clothes. It was a relief.
Scootaloo immediately pulled the green piece of cloth off of her. It felt horrible to wear, the loose threads and badly done stiches constantly making her back itch.
After throwing the excuse of clothing to the bed, she took a look around the room. She didn’t have much personal things, the ball being the most important. She could leave the pen and the paper, what would she even do with them? Drawing wasn’t her thing.
She picked the ball up from the floor and left the room without even looking back.
And right behind the window stood a tall figure, silently observing the orange filly as she left.
----»«----
The lobby of the hospital was actually smaller than one would have though. It had only a little desk full of magazines, a hallway wide enough for a bed to fit in and the reception desk. Only one of the nurses was on shift, the others were probably having some more important things around. As Scootaloo couldn’t see Doc anywhere, she went to the desk in order to ask from the nurse.
“Excuse me, do you have any idea where Doc could be?” she asked, catching the attention of the mid-aged mare that was on shift. She took a couple of seconds to process the words of the filly before answering.
“Nope, haven’t seen him since I got to duty about ten minutes ago. If you need something, I think I could be able to handle it, too. Not always necessary for the doctor to be here.”
“Well, he was just going to check me out. I got sent home today, so…”
“Ah, okay, I can handle that. And the name was?”
“Scootaloo.”
“Okay… Ah, here it is. There we go, you’re now checked out and can leave the hospital area. Have a nice day!”
Scootaloo thanked the mare and started walking towards the main doors of the hospital. Her thoughts were racing. Not about the freedom, but rather about what happened to Doc. He had seemed like a pony that would not forget things.
But after a while of thinking of the possibilities she came up to the conclusion that Doc had had something more important, like an emergency case or a surgery.
The most important thing was that she was free and could return home. Home to the rotting building they called the orphanage. Waiting for somepony to come and give her a true home.
It didn’t seem tempting, but she had nothing better. No family wanted a trouble-maker. She wasn’t actually a trouble-maker, but all the families thought so and ended up picking some of the cute big-eyes babies that would do no harm and could be taught to follow the rules of the family.
But she still didn’t give up on hope. Someday, a pony would walk through the door of the orphanage, go to the front desk and ask for her. And she would run downstairs to meet her new family. And they would go to the real home. And she could live as a normal pony, just like she had always dreamed.
She let out a little sigh. What was it in her that made the families stay far away from the room she slept and spent time in?
The sun was setting fast and the darkness was starting to devour the land, forcing Scootaloo to pick up the pace. She would not be spending another night in the dark when it was around.
But no matter how hard she tried, the path to the orphanage was just too long. When she was halfway there, the darkness had already managed to take over the land, allowing the predators of the night wander.
Scootaloo was running at this point. She didn’t look back, but she knew that she wasn’t alone. She felt the presence of the unnatural.
The air around her was cold, seeing that it was already the late autumn. Shivers travelled up her spine, pushing the coldness deeper and deeper into her body. The shadows were embracing her yet again, making her heart beat faster and her mind run in overdrive.
And still, her hooves didn’t stop. They were still desperately trying to flee from the unknown predator that might or might not have been after her.
Only when she could see the borders of the fence that was surrounding the front yard of the orphanage could she slow down a little, but only a little, before dashing through the gate and officially entering the relatively safe area.
But not even then could she halt the hooves, running directly to the door and pressing the hopefully-functional button of the old doorbell. For her luck, it was working this time, and soon enough she could hear the hoofsteps coming towards the door.
As the door flung open and the owner of the orphanage could be seen she ran inside, to the safe and warm building.
The owner was, of course, a bit surprised. But before she could ask anything, Scootaloo started providing her with answers.
“Sorry I’m late, Miss Sunshine, but I got out of the hospital today and couldn’t make it here before dark,” she said and began waiting for the answer.
The look on Miss Sunshine’s face shifted from tense to friendly. “I understand, Scootaloo. Now, how was your stay? Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m fine, Miss. I just got a little startled by the dark,” Scootaloo answered.
“Well, that tends to happen, especially during this time of the year. Are you hungry or should I put your bed ready?” Miss Sunshine asked.
“I’m not especially hungry, so I think I’ll get straight to bed. And no need to do anything, Miss, I can handle the bed on my own. You can go to sleep as well,” Scootaloo answered. Of course she was hungry, the hospital food had been disgusting, but she didn’t want to bother Miss Sunshine at this hour.
“Well, if you say so. Good night,” Miss Sunshine said before walking into her room that was just next to the kitchen.
“Good night!” Scootaloo shouted after her before walking up the stairs to the second floor where her room was. While some of the fillies and colts had to share rooms, she had a completely own room, seeing that she was the oldest filly in the whole orphanage.
Her room was at the end of the eastern part of the building. She had a beautiful view over the flat landscape from there. If she would have had some skills in drawing, she would have had a roomful of drawings of that scenery.
She walked over to the door, turned the handle and violently pushed the door. Despite the fact that it was stuck, she could force it open, granting her access to the small room that served as her personal space.
She saw that the table next to her bed was filled with presents. The ones that had not fit to the table were on the floor and possibly in the closet. She’d have a mighty lot of arranging to do tomorrow.
But now she was just too tired to do anything. She just walked over to the bed and jumped on it. The bed greeted her with a soft, relaxing touch that almost immediately made her fall asleep.
She took a one last look around the room and shut her eyes, hoping for a better future.
But immediately as she shut her eyes, she could feel a nasty headache developing. She just tried to push it aside and fall asleep. It would be gone by morning.
But as it kept on getting worse and worse, she had no other option to open her eyes and go get some medicine.
But as she opened her eyes, she immediately started wishing that she would just have kept them shut.
Directly in front of her bed was a tall black figure. It stood all the way up to the high roof, silently observing her.
Scootaloo tried to shut her eyes and wake up from this nightmare, but found out that she couldn’t. Her eyes were nailed to the white face of the thing.
It was the same thing from the forest. Scootaloo was sure. The black skin, standing on two hooves, if those things were hooves, same tentacles in the back, same terrifying face.
The longer she stared, the worse the feeling got. Her eyes were starting to hurt, her snout was on fire, blood possibly flowing out, her heart was beating faster and faster and her mind was racing. There was no way out.
She would have screamed, but she found herself unable to. She was doomed.
As she saw one of the tentacles move slightly, as of it was preparing to do something, she started panicking. It couldn’t end like this. She had to do something. Something. Just something.
And then she got it. The ball that was on the bed next to her.
She gathered all of her power and forced her hoof to move towards the ball. When she felt her hoof move, when she felt the ball in her hoof, when she felt the hoof moving up, she got a sudden spike of adrenalin. She could so this.
With her last remaining powers she threw the ball towards the thing. It was the most powerful throw she had ever thrown. The power of the throw could easily take Big Mac down.
She looked at the ball, full of hope, as it travelled towards the head of the thing. She had done it. She would win.
And just as the ball was about to touch the head of the thing, just as Scootaloo was about to start celebrating, one of the tentacles shot from the backside of the thing, crushing all the hope in the little filly.
The tentacle positioned itself directly on the route of the ball before rocketing towards the ball. The tentacle easily penetrated the ball, sealing Scootaloo’s fate.
Scootaloo could only watch as the ball got torn to pieces that fell to the floor. She had lost. She had failed.
She just stared as the tentacle kept on going forward, directly towards Scootaloo’s chest. She just stared, hoping, praying and cursing her luck.
And as the tentacle found its target, as it penetrated Scootaloo’s chest, as it tore her heart into pieces, she let out a single tear. It was over. She had lost. She was a loser.
As the thing pulled its tentacle out of the small orange filly, as it disappeared into the dark autumn night, as it left a lifeless body behind, the peaceful, beautiful world of the ponies was no more the same.
