Chapters There once was a legend of a pony who still lived when even Celestia was just a filly. Of a pony who was not like other ponies -- a young mare who chose to differ from others in a way only she adored. This particular mare... erm... filly started walking on just two hooves already in her infant years. Even her own parents said, "We don't even remember if her first steps were on four hooves or two."
While still in her childhood years, her parents let her do as she pleased -- either not paying too much heed or simply laughing whenever she walked by, saying things like, "When are you finally going to start walking like a civilized pony?" or "How's the weather up there?" The mare felt sad, knowing that not even her own parents could accept the way she wants to live, but that did not stop her... As the years went on and she grew older, the small giggles from just her parents turned into mocking laughter of all her classmates and even common ponies walking around the town.
when she reached the age of a fully grown mare, others wouldn't accept her at work for that simple fact, telling themselves, "If I wanted freaks to work for me, I would have written that on the wanted poster: "Attention! Clowns wanted!"" The mare was now an official social outcast. How she wished that the laughter would just stay laughter, for she had already grown accustomed to it and could easily ignore it. Sadly, not even that much kindness was shown to her. She was soon confronted by other ponies of the town and brought to the mayor. The crowd presented her to the mayor and shouted things like, "She's possessed!", "We don't need her kind here!", "Just look at her! Does she look like a normal pony to you?" and, truth be told, she didn't. As the years went on, her bones adapted to her way of life and her legs grew longer... much longer than anypony had ever seen before.
The mayor of the town happened to be one with barely any mind of her own and was merely a puppet of the townsponies. It didn't take much convincing for the mayor to expel the outcast from town to a place where she couldn't bring harm to anypony... the Everfree forest.
Since that day, many centuries have passed, and the ponies of the town have become much friendlier and considerate of others since then... Surely, if the mare were to have lived at this time, such harsh measures would not have been required. Things were peaceful now, and nopony had seen or even heard anything about the mare... and yet, the legend was not forgotten. The first ponies to have ever retold the legend even gave her a name -- Slender pony . Parents would tell the tale to their children to discourage them from trying to leave the house at night, and their children would tell the tale to their own children, and so on, and so on... and so, the legend was kept alive up until this very day, but of course, legends like that don't scare fillies and foals these days... on the contrary -- they encourage them.
And so, a few fillies once decided to venture far into the Everfree forest... They went missing for many days until they were finally found near the Everfree forest's entrance, but the worries of their parents did not end there. The fillies were alive and unharmed... but they were asleep... so deep asleep that not even the combined powers of Celestia and Luna could awaken them. These fillies were put in beds in the Ponyville hospital in hopes that they would finally awaken some day.
The recent events scared other fillies and foals enough to make them never want to go near the Everfree forest again. However, things did not stay safe for long, as the young ponies started disappearing from their houses at night... Since ponies would no longer come to her, the slender pony would have no choice but to come to them. The town panicked. Every parent started keeping a close eye on their children, but the slender pony could not be evaded so easily... She still managed to snatch their children at the moments they least expected it. Just a second of glancing in another direction was all it took for a young one to disappear. Those very same fillies and foals, just as the previous ones, were soon found unconscious near the entrance to the Everfree forest.
***
The last filly that was kidnapped happened to be a friend of Applebloom. Applebloom wasn't about to leave it that way. Either out of excessive bravery or just plain foolishness, she was determined to go after the one responsible for robbing her of her friend, no matter the risks. Of course, the Apple family, like the rest of the families, always had somepony keep a close eye on their children. Applebloom happened to be taking a walk through the city market that day with her sister, Applejack. As soon as Applejack turned to pay the shopkeeper for the goods she bought, Applebloom simply took off straight towards the Everfree forest. By the time Applejack noticed, her little sister was barely still in her sights.
"Applebloom! Get back here!" she shouted out as loud as she could, hoping that Applebloom would stop and turn around, but to no avail. Luckily, the young and capable flier, Whitemane happened to be walking by at that very moment. He was someone who was always happy to help a friend in need.
"Don't worry, Applejack! I'll get her back!" Whitemane told the anxious mare and started flying towards Applebloom as fast as he could.
"Please do, Whitemane..." Applejack whispered.
Whitemane flew fast, but by the time he got to the entry of the forest, Applebloom was already out of his sights. "Ughh..." Whitemane sighed. "What have you gotten yourself into, Applebloom?"
Whitemane flew after her, but as the forest gradually grew thicker and darker, he was eventually forced to land. He landed and followed her tracks on hoof. He ran as fast as he could, thinking to himself along the way, How could she have gotten so far ahead of me? She was just there a second ago, and then, all of a sudden, I can't see her and she's already half a mile into the forest ... As he ran, preoccupied by his own thoughts, it took a while for him to realize that he had already ventured into the very depths of the Everfree, where it was so dark that he couldn't even spot the tracks anymore. He stopped running, but he didn't stop moving forward. He looked around, but he couldn't see past his own nose.
Something soon caught his attention... something bright. He walked towards it, and once he got closer, he saw what it was. "A flashlight!?" he said out, bewildered by the eerily convenient sight. "Heh, well, I don't know how that got here, especially with a full battery, but it's like a light at the end of a tunnel to me right now... almost literally," he quietly added.
Whitemane picked up the flashlight, pointed it around and soon found Applebloom's tracks again. He didn't hesitate to follow them. Where the hell am I? I've never seen this part of the Everfree before, he thought to himself.
He followed the tracks with a puzzled mind. Scratching his head, he went on thinking about all the question he had previously asked himself until the moment something caught his attention once again. He walked closer to it and stopped for a moment while staring at it... He knew now exactly where he was. He spotted a lone, giant tree in the dark. On its shaft there was a page of white paper with something scribbled on it. He walked up to the tree and picked up the page. The page was nearly all black, but a few letters were still intelligible. "Too late to turn back," he read the words on the page out loud.
"Hmph... we'll see about that." Whitemane dropped the page, turned around and started walking back, but as the flashlight he was pointing forward revealed the way ahead, he spotted a fence standing in the same spot he had just arrived from. It puzzled Whitemane even more. "Huh? This wasn't here before..." The puzzled look on his face faded quickly enough and got replaced with a cocky smirk. "Nice try." Whitemane tried to fly over the fence, but couldn't, no matter how hard he tried... it felt like the feathers of his wings were glued to his back so hard he couldn't even open them with the help of his hooves. "Uggh! What in the...?!"
He struggled for quite a while trying to open his wings, and when he realized he couldn't, he tried climbing over the fence, but to no avail. The fence was so slippery that his hooves just slid off as soon as he touched it. The fence angered Whitemane so much that he kicked it, but it was so slippery that he tripped and fell just from kicking it. That annoyed him even more. He got up and spit at the fence.
"Fine then! I'll play your game," the disgruntled pegasus shouted out and started walking away from the fence in the direction of Applebloom's tracks. He now knew that he could not get out, but at least he had hopes that he could find Applebloom and try giving her a boost over the wall so that at least she could escape. He walked past the tree on which he had found the page and soon spotted a wall made of red bricks, just standing in the middle of the forest.
"Somehow that just doesn't surprise me anymore." He walked up to the wall, looked at it for a moment and walked right past it... a simple brick wall wasn't enough to catch his attention for long. He then looked at the wall from the other side and noticed another page.
"What's with these pages? Is the slender pony actually some kind of prehistoric teacher?" he asked himself, right before he started yelling at the top of his lungs, "HEY, SLENDY! YOUR METHODS ARE WORKING! MOST TEACHERS SUCCEED IN PUTTING THEIR STUDENTS TO SLEEP ONLY FOR THE DURATION OF THE LESSON, BUT APPARENTLY YOU'RE SO BORING THAT YOU MANAGED TO PUT THEM TO SLEEP FOR GOOD!" He took a few deep breaths and calmed his voice. "Man... all this slender nonsense is really getting to me."
He picked up the page. This one had a lot less unintelligible scribbles on it, and the words were easier to read. "Doesn't talk... doesn't understand... just wants you," he read the words out loud and then arched his brow. "I already know all the mares want me, I don't need some stupid page to tell me that..." He paused for a moment to think about what he just said. "I hope Applebloom wasn't around to hear that..."
He ruffled up the page and tossed it behind his back before continuing onward. His own joke got him in a good mood, but just as he had only just stopped thinking about all the unexplainable things puzzling his mind, he heard some footsteps near him. He immediately pointed his flashlight towards the direction of the sound. "Applebloom?" he asked, but got no response. He then heard the same noise again from a different direction. "Who's there!?" he yelled and pointed the flashlight towards whatever was causing the noise. "Show yourself!" he yelled again after hearing the sound of footsteps coming from behind him.
After the fourth time, the noises faded. "Damn it! Just when I was starting to enjoy myself," he said with frustration in his tone. "Whatever." He followed the tracks once again. As he walked on, he noticed that the flashlight's brightness was slowly dwindling. "Darn... better get a move on"
Whitemane started walking faster. He soon came across a bridge with a river flowing under it. After getting closer, he noticed another one of the pages just lying there in the middle of the bridge. Oddly enough, it wasn't glued to it or anything... The place around him was as still as the mountains. Not a single branch on the trees was moving, and so the page was never moved by wind. Whitemane came closer and picked up the page. This one had nothing but scribbles and drawings of ponies walking on their hindlegs on it. Whitemane's face suddenly turned a bit pale, and a strong frown embedded itself on his lips... He seemed to recognize the art style.
"Pencilneck... he always did love to just draw, rather than write or say anything..." Whitemane did not mourn for long, though. He ruffled up the page as he did with the others and threw it into the river.
All of a sudden, Whitemane got startled by a sudden noise coming from behind him. He reacted immediately, turning around and pointing the flashlight towards the direction from which he heard the noise coming from "Huh?" It was just a crow squawking. It got scared by the flashlight and flew away. "Oh... just a dumb bird. Yeah, you'd better fly away..." He suddenly seemed baffled. "Fly? Wait what!? How did?... DAMN IT! MIND SHARING YOUR TECHNOLOGIES WITH ME, YOU BASTARD?!" he furiously shouted at the bird which was already too far away to hear him.
After his sudden outburst, he sighed loudly and changed to a more peaceful tone. "Look at yourself. You're already talking to birds now. Hmm..." He rubbed his chin. "Which reminds me -- if I ever get out of here alive, I should bring Gilda here."
He laughed. One of Whitemane's strategies for always staying in a good mood was saying a joke out loud and laughing to it. Even if he was the only one laughing, it was still always better than nothing. After putting himself in a good mood again, Whitemane returned to following the tracks in an even quicker pace than before. Even though the hoofsteps were clearly bringing him closer to finding Applebloom, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he was just walking in circles... The trees around him all just seemed so alike, almost as if they were cloned or something. Whitemane soon saw the remains of an abandoned hut in the dark. It was small, made of wood and had no windows, so there was no peeking inside before entering.
I don't suppose I need to knock here, Whitemane thought to himself as he approached the hut and slowly opened the door. "Hello?" he quietly said. After getting no response, he walked on in and took a look around. All the walls were so dark that he couldn't tell whether there was a wall there or was he just seeing the dark of the forest. But the flashlight was still bright enough to reveal that there was nothing at all inside of the hut. No furniture, no shelves... there was, however, something still inside of it... another page, hanging by the wall. This one was nearly all just black, so it was rather hard to spot.
He walked towards the page to pick it up. The few short steps separating him from the page seemed like such a long trip, and it puzzled him how his hoofsteps caused no noise whatsoever. He was expecting squeaking boards at the very least. When he got closer to the page, he was ready to pick it up, but something just didn't seem right to him. He decided to just read the page and leave it there.
Reading the words from this page felt like reading subliminal messages... they just shaped together with the black colored background of the page incredibly well. It took a while for him to understand that the page has something written on it, but eventually he figured out all the words. "Never look behind you," he read the words out loud and grinned. "Heh, well, thanks for the advice, but I'm not about to walk out of this hut backwards. Sorry." He laughed and quickly turned around. He was about to start walking back towards the entrance of the hut, but just as he turned around, something frightened him so bad it knocked him off his hooves.
The door opened, and outside the hut stood slender pony herself. Whitemane's eyeballs shrank to the size of an apple seed, and his heart started beating so fast it sounded like a spinning minigun, but his breath stood still, for he dared not make a sound, hoping that Slendy only responds to noise.
It was dark, and Whitemane had his shades on too, but even with all that, the pale face of the slender pony shined in the darkness like a star, and it was staring right at Whitemane, just like Whitemane was staring right at it. The face was the only thing he could see in this darkness. He couldn't even spot any shape of the face. It seemed just round, with neither a mouth, nor eyes or a nose.
The door squeaked as it reached the point where it could open no further, and then it started slowly shutting. Those few short seconds of the door closing felt like an eternity for Whitemane. His entire life just flashed by his eyes as he stared at the pale face of the creature. The door then closed, but shortly after that, it opened again, but this time there was no slender pony standing outside the hut. Whitemane started breathing again after seeing that it was gone. What a relief it was for him. It felt like pouring rain after walking several days through a desert with no water.
But even after regaining his breath, he still lied there for some time, just staring at the door which was now closed again. His heart soon sank back into its common rhythm, and Whitemane slowly got up. He picked up his flashlight -- which somehow didn't break after falling out of his hooves after he fell -- and started walking towards the door.
If the speed at which he was coming in seemed slow, then even that seemed like the speed at which Rainbow Dash performed her sonic rainboom compared to how slow he was moving now. He kept breathing loudly on each hoofstep... and there were many of em. When he got to the door, he kicked it open several times before finally going through.
"You can never be too safe," he said to himself. He opened the door, popped his head out and took a swift glance in every direction to make sure the coast was clear. He quickly jumped out of the hut and started searching for the tracks. There was no sight of them. He walked around the hut and finally found them coming from underneath the hut at the other end of the hut.
"How in the?" He raised his eyebrow as a response to the sight. "This hut must have not been here before... but how is that possible? It has clearly not been moved for years, centuries even, maybe!" he convinced himself. "Never mind. That's nowhere even near the weirdest of the things I've seen today anyways."
He followed the tracks, hastening his traveling speed once again. He was just a step away from running now. There was no way he could WALK any faster at this point. Along the way he kept getting the urge to point his flashlight behind himself every few minutes, which he did. He couldn't shake the feeling that Slendy was on his tail.
He walked fast and soon reached the site of the next page. it was glued to a giant rock. This time it was easy to read, so Whitemane just fast read it while walking by, nearly just ignoring it. "Never look at it!" he recited. "You don't say? Huh... where was this page earlier?" he snidely added. "Well, actually, never mind. It's not like I heeded the last page's warning... he he." He laughed quietly. This time it was more of a nervous than a cheerful laugh. He continued walking forward without changing his pace, and his flashlight's brightness grew more and more dimmer with each passing second. While he walked, he did not even spare the time to look back anymore... Either because he didn't have the time or it just seemed like a bad idea.
He soon saw another page that was nailed to an ancient-looking monument. He did not even bother studying it. All he needed to know is that it was a mossy statue of some griffon, and the head of the statue had broken off, so it was impossible to recognize the griffon. Whitemane just passed it with the same routine as with the last page site. Once again, the pages contents were easy to read. No eyes, no ears, no nose, but still always finds you, he read the words without saying them out loud.
He didn't even get puzzled this time, neither by the monument nor the page. He was so preoccupied with keeping up his tempo that he simply forgot what was written on the page shortly after. These tracks go on forever! he thought to himself. Following them seemed pointless, but even if so, turning back was even more pointless now. He pushed forward, breathing heavily as he went on. He was tired as hell, but stopping was about the last thing on his mind.
He heard the hoofsteps again but dared not point his flashlight towards that direction this time. At first the sound kept coming from random directions, but eventually it started seeming like they all lined up and the sound started coming directly from behind him. It felt like each step Whitemane took had an echo.
***
Whitemane walked endlessly through the slender pony's domain in hopes of finding Applebloom... Sadly, it was already too late. Applebloom had already been found near the Everfree forest's entrance by her family. Unconscious, just like the other fillies and foals.
"No!" Applejack shouted as she ran closer to her unconscious sister and gently picked her up in her hooves, placing her head on over own shoulder. As if her sister's grim fate wasn't bad enough, Applejack was also worried about her friend, Whitemane. Both of them had gone into the forest nearly simultaneously, and yet, there was still no sign of him.
The Apples spent quite some time grieving before they finally brought her to the hospital and put her in one of the beds near the rest of the victims of the slender pony. Many ponies were curious about Whitemane's disappearance, but only one pony knew the answer. Although she decided to not tell anypony, convinced that the last thing the ponies of the town needed is a feeling that not even adult ponies were safe anymore.
Whitemane was still walking through the forest. He soon reached the next page, which was hanging by an old lamp post. He had to slow down to be able to read this one, though. Whitemane suddenly froze up after reading the page. "Hoofsteps stopped... can't hear him, but he's there, I kn...." The last word on the page was unfinished, and it looked like its writer was pulled away before he or she could finish it.
Whitemane froze from fear when he stopped hearing the hoofsteps behind him... He had just realized that he was in the same situation as the filly who got grabbed while writing the page. He knew his end was near, but he wasn't about just give up after all that he's been through.
He mustered up what was left of his strength and ran... He ran as fast as he could. He ran for quite some time, breathing heavily and not stopping for anything, but then, something caused him to stop dead in his tracks. The reason for him stopping was not the fact that he was exhausted... it was because of the page he saw on one of the trees. He could recognize the hoofwriting on it from a distance.
He slowly walked up to the tree and started reading the words on the page. He walked slowly, despite the danger he was in, because at this point his fate didn't even matter to him anymore... He knew now that he had failed, and not just himself... Whitemane stood still and stared at the page for a few minutes. The text on it was... shocking... to say the least. Additionally, the bottom of the page was soaked with tears.
Whitemane... I'm sorry...
He knew now that there would be no point to anything he does. His fate was already decided, and it was the same as the rest of Slendy's victims... or so he thought. He decided to make an easy meal for her and not run anymore... Just let her take him like that. In utter despair, Whitemane hung his head. He was about to fall to his knees and just start crying, but something puzzled him once more as he looked down. He saw a clean page and a pencil near it.
It didn't take long for him to figure out what it meant. Apparently the slender pony lets each of her victims write something down before she takes them... As if she was giving them their last words... and the last page was for Whitemane.
He picked up the page and the pencil slowly, but also with great fury kicking every corner of his brain. He was barely holding it together to not ruffle up the page and break the pencil. He was determined to get this done.
He walked forward, but not too far. The nearest tree was as far as his anger would let him go. He lifted up the page and held it against the tree and started writing on it. He wrote viciously. It was surprising how the pencil didn't break from the pressure, for he wrote with it as hard as a smith beats steel with a hammer. He put all his anger and sorrow into these few words.
"I'm not afraid of you!" were the words he wrote on the page.
The flashlight was at the edge of its batteries, and the light was dim and started periodically flickering. It was no good to him at this point anyways, so he just bashed it against a tree, shattering the glass and tossing the leftovers behind himself, hoping to at least hit slender pony on the head.
There was only one thing left to do now...
Whitemane took off his shades to get a good final look at his assailant. He closed his eyes. Step by step, he slowly turned around, lifted up his head and opened his eyes, even though he needed not even open them to know what was going to be in front of him. He was as close to Slender pony as he could ever get. At this point, Whitemane's face was about as impassive as Slendy's... There was no more fear in his eyes, and his face was no longer pale. Even though he was staring right into the face of his own demise, he wasn't about to give it the joy of grabbing another terrified, helpless victim.
So he just stood there as what was left of his sanity just started fading away. All his life just flashed by his eyes again, and he barely still had the strength to stand. With his last breath, he repeated the same words he just wrote on the page, "I'm not afraid of you!"
Slender pony had no way of making any kind of expression, but it still seemed as if though she was... surprised... even a bit frightened by Whitemane standing up to her like that. No one had ever done that before. However, it was still not enough to stop her from taking his life.
Whitemane started collapsing, but he did not hit the ground. Right before his body hit the ground, lightning struck between the two, and as the light faded, neither Whitemane nor Slendy could be seen anymore.
***
Whitemane's body was the first one to never be found, but his sacrifice was not in vain...
Applejack was sitting near Applebloom's bed in the hospital at this time. The rest of the Apple family had either lost hope or simply didn't have the time to be there for her right now. Applejack was the only visitor at the time, and visiting hours were nearly over. The nurse had already asked her to leave, to which she eventually responded and got up and started walking towards the exit.
It was at this very moment -- just when it seemed like the last vestige of hope had faded without a trace -- that Applejack heard a moan coming from behind her. She immediately turned around and saw her little sister moving her head. She rushed over to her without hesitating. "Applebloom!" she cried out as she watched her sister open her eyes.
"Applejack?... Is that you?" her weakened sister whispered.
Applejack hugged her sister tightly. Her tears of sorrow had instantly turned in to tears of joy. "Yes, Applebloom, it's me... I'm here for you... I always have been," Applejack answered softly as her tears kept raining on her little sister's coat.
The nurse got impatient. She wondered what could be taking the visitor so long. This was the only part of her job she hated. She knew how hard it must be for the poor soul, but she still had no choice but to make her leave. After a loud sigh, the nurse went back to confront Applejack. "Miss, visiting hours are over. I'm going to ha..." She stopped her sentence when she saw the visitor hugging her sister ever so sincerely, as well as the rest of the fillies and foals getting up and rubbing their heads. The unexpected sight caused the nurse to drop her pen and notes and stand breathlessly.
"You sure you can't give us just one more minute?" with a line of tears still covering her eyes, Applejack asked the nurse with a heartfelt smile on her face.
All of a sudden, the nurse dashed away and exited the hospital, but she returned soon afterwards, along with half the town. The hospital was cluttered with ponies within seconds, and all of them were marching towards the room where Slendy's victims were kept. Parents rushed over to their children and wrapped their hooves around their shoulders. Big Macintosh and Granny Smith ran over to Applejack.
You said you'd get her back, and you didn't lie about it... Applejack thought to herself. Words can't express my gratitude for saving my sister, Whitemane... Thank you... I only wish I knew where you are right now, so that I could tell you this in person .
Little did she know that Whitemane's struggles had only just begun...
There's something you don't see every day. A once prosperous town, full of ponies that were happy with their lives, now turned in to a stain of what it once was. Desolate, shattered, with buildings barely still standing, sounds of old squeaking doors coming from every side while the wind blows through the broken windows, and with the only living being within the nearest hundred mile radius being an unconscious blue-coated pegasus with a mane and tail of black and white colors.
Whitemane woke up moaning and rubbing his head. "Uugh...." He felt weak and could barely push himself off the ground. He got up and started curiously looking around. "Where the hell am I?"
***
Whitemane started walking forward, deeper into the town, looking sideways each moment in hopes of seeing someone that could help him answer his question.
"Where am I?..." he repeated. "How I wish that was the only question I had. More importantly -- WHO am I? And what am I doing here?"
It was a long journey to the other end of the town, but being preoccupied with trying to remember anything about himself, Whitemane didn't even notice the time passing. After what seemed like mere moments to him, he was already nearing the center of the town. The main building of the town was blocking his path now, he could have gone past it, but that would mean leaving the town, and he had little interest in doing so, for the time being.
Instead, he gazed upwards and noticed the sign hanging on the main building. It was barely comprehensible. Taking off his shades for a moment made understanding it easier. "Coltifornia," he read the name of the town out loud. "I... I know that name... I know this town... I... I used to live here!" he declared to himself, but that was about as much as he could remember for now. "But I don't remember it being this way... What happened here? What or who could have caused this?"
Whitemane questioned himself again and again, as if asking the questions to someone other than himself. After a while of thinking, all he could come up with is a temporary answer that would motivate him to keep moving.
"The name of this town made my memories less foggy. I know I used to live here, but I don't even remember my name, or even what I look like, but if the name of the town helped me remember even this much, then maybe I should keep searching for other things that might help me remember..." He stopped moving and began inspecting the sights around him. "But where to begin? There are so many houses out here, I'll starve to death before I get a chance to check them all!"
A loud noise suddenly drew Whitemane's attention to one of the houses. It was the sound of a door slamming itself against the wall when the wind blew it open. "I guess that's my call." Having no better plan than just following nature's direction, Whitemane proceeded to investigate the house. The door slammed shut in front of his eyes as he got closer, but that did not stop him. He walked up to the house and for some reason decided to knock, but as soon as he touched the door it just fell out of its hinges and hit the ground. "Why did I even try that?" he asked himself after a short pause.
Without a moment to think anything over, he went on in and started looking around. The first thing he noticed was a mirror. He moved closer to it. Remembering how he looked also made him remember his own name. "Whitemane! That's it! My name is Whitemane!" His own mane suddenly caught his attention. "Glad to know my parents didn't put much effort in naming me... Wait... My parents!" He pushed his hoof against his forehead as he struggled to remember. "I still can't remember them."
Whitemane kept looking around the house in search for more answers. Oddly enough, the mirror was just about the only thing in the house. There wasn't even any furniture aside from an empty wardrobe. The window was broken. That's why the wind could cause the door to slam so hard. Whitemane left the house shortly after checking the wardrobe and finding nothing in it. He walked outside the house and started walking back the way he came here in the first place while looking around for anything that could help him remember anything... or anyone.
Along the way, he was preoccupied with his thoughts, as always, but right now, something other than his lack of memories was puzzling him too. Now, for the second time already since his arrival here, he thought he heard hoofsteps behind him. For the first time, he heard them when he turned his back on the main building, and the other was just now when he left the abandoned house with the empty wardrobe. He looked back instantly, but there was no one there.
It started raining soon, and it rained heavily, but Whitemane still remembered a few practical things from his life. For instance, one about rain -- the harder it pours, the faster it end. Whitemane decided to just sit out the rain in the nearest abandoned house. He ran to one that's door had already fallen out of its hinges. At least I don't have to knock this time, hehe, he thought to himself in an attempt to cheer himself up. He ran inside the house and started shaking to get the water out his coat. He then looked around the house. A picture hanging by the wall immediately drew his attention.
"I remember this one!" he exclaimed. "We used to play... what the hell did we play together?... Meh, doesn't matter. Maybe i'll remember later." He walked up to the wall, picked up the picture and looked at the white-colored unicorn in the picture. He felt happy remembering something again. All of a sudden he started laughing vigorously. "Ha ha ha ha! This one had the best name in town. "Scrappy Coco" Ha ha ha ha! I think I forgive my parents now for naming me the way they did. If anyone ever tells me that my name sounds stupid, I'm just gonna reply: "Hey, it coulda been worse!""
This certainly put Whitemane in a good mood, and while he was laughing, the rain had nearly ended entirely. He hung the picture back on the wall and walked back out of the house, despite the small rain still being present. Just before he walked out of the house, he stopped and shifted his sights backwards for a moment. "There it was again... Is my imagination playing tricks on me or am I being followed by a highly trained assassin or something?" he asked himself "BAH! I wouldn't really even care, either way."
Just as he exited the house, the rain ceased, and in its stead, a bright sun lit up the entire sky. That was the first time he saw the sun since he got here. It looked beautiful, but what was even more precious was the rainbow that just became visible as the sky got clearer. "Ahh, what a beautiful rainbow..." He gazed at the sight with a warm smile, right before shouting, "Wait... Rainbow! Rainboom! I remember seeing a Sonic Rainboom here! It was beyond any of the beautiful things I had ever seen in my life, and it was an inspiration for me and..." His monologue got halted by another gap in his memory. "Ugh! My memories keep deceiving me! Who else was there with me that day?"
For a moment he wondered about what was the point of trying to remember things if they only brought more questions. Nevertheless, he walked on. "These questions have to end with something." Was his excuse for now.
***
Whitemane walked for quite some time without seeing anything of interest. He could already see the part of the town at which he arrived. "Great. Right back where I started... What now?" Whitemane didn't think he could get much more out of this town. It kinda seemed pointless, but at the same time, he didn't want to leave either since in here he at least had a minor hunch about what he was looking for, but out there he wouldn't even know which direction to go in. "Well, I guess I should get going then... again." He rolled his eyes.
Whitemane turned around and started walking towards the other end of the town again in hopes that there was something he missed. This time he thought of a new strategy. Instead of just constantly looking left and right, he wouldn't take his sights off the right side, and vice versa on his way back. A few steps was all it took for him to spot something interesting. A house, probably the only one in this town with some paint still on it. It even had a doormat that said "welcome".
Huh? This house seems so familiar... how did I not notice it before? he wondered. He ran closer to the house and tried to open the door. Oddly enough, it was locked. "Bah! Most houses here don't even have doors! And one of the few I was actually interested in turns out to be locked... Bucking perfect!... Wait a minute." Either out of plain curiosity or because he remembered something, Whitemane decided to check under the doormat... Well I'll be damned. There actually was a key under it... I guess the movies don't lie.
Whitemane stared at the key, thinking. "There's only one way I could have known this..." Whitemane was about to unlock the door but paused for a second while glancing at the key in his hooves. "This key is rusty as hell... Better be careful here. I only get one chance."
Indeed, rust was about the only thing still left of the key. It looked like even the slightest breeze of wind would cause it to disintegrate. Slowly and carefully, Whitemane pointed the key towards the keyhole and pushed it inside. He paused for a moment, trying to decide whether he should just put all his strength into it and just be done with it in a second without even having to worry about the key, or if he should go nice and slow, hoping that it wouldn't break.
He decided to go slowly, realizing that if the door is locked with a double lock then all he would gain by doing it fast would be making it easier to break in. The key was already inside the hole, all that remained to be done now was turn it... He began turning it around slowly as sweat kept pouring down his temples. After half a minute of not-so-intense action, the first circle was done with. The door was indeed locked with a double lock. Whitemane let go of the key for a brief moment and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
"Phew..." He sighed with relief. "Looks like I made the right choice." He grabbed the key again and started turning it around for the second and final time. He was about to be done and have the key still usable, but right before he could finish, he heard the hoofsteps behind him again. He got infuriated and just turned the key swiftly, which caused it to break. It didn't really matter, however, since the door was opened in the process. Whitemane turned around sharply right after he heard the key break.
"STOP!" he exclaimed, but there was no one in sight. "I'm not going to hurt you. Please, come out. I just want to talk." He tried to reason with whoever it was that was following him, but to no avail. "Well, buck that! You wanna stalk me? Then so be it! Just know that if I do see you, next time I won't be so friendly... Sorry, bud. You just blew your chance."
Whitemane spoke loudly, in hopes that if there really was someone following him, then they would hear him. Nevertheless, that was not his prime concern at the moment. The door was open and Whitemane went in. Odd... The door didn't even make a noise when opening. It was as though it was brand new. Whitemane looked around. After just a few seconds, something had already caught his attention. A picture of him in his youth, and another foal that looked almost just like him, standing by his side.
"Blackmane!" he exclaimed in an overjoyed tone. "Now I remember who I grew up with and who was the one standing by me when I saw the Sonic Rainboom. It was my own brother! Boy, how I wish he'd be right here with me now! But what about..." He looked around and hung his head in sorrow after not seeing any other pictures. "My parents... We grew up without them. It was just me and Blackmane... No wonder I couldn't remember them."
He stood with his head hanging low for some time, grieving about the parents he lost in his youth and remembering the good times he had with his brother. He then lifted his head up as newfound confidence lit up his face. "Right," he said and shook his head. "Time to move on. I think I've found out just about everything there was to find about this place. Now I just need to find out how I got here and what to do next."
He walked out of the house, but just as he exited and was about to close the door, he heard the hoofsteps again. This time, inside the house, which seemed fairly odd to him, seeings how there was no way someone could have gotten in here without him noticing. He turned around swiftly to confront whoever was there. "HA! Got you no..." Whatever it was he saw, it freaked him out so badly it caused him to fall on his back from sheer shock. "WHAT THE!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
At first his guess was that it was just a REALLY tall pony standing on just two legs, but then he noticed that it was as pale as the moon and had no eyes, ears, mouth or nose. He started crawling backwards. The... "whatever it was" clearly wasn't taking any steps, but it still seemed as though it was moving closer to Whitemane. "WHAT IN THE BLAZING HELLS ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?" He shouted out loudly as he kept crawling back. He crawled until his back touched a wall and he could crawl back no further.
He couldn't back away any further, but that thing was getting closer to him with each second. Whitemane's legs were stiff from the sudden shock and he couldn't get up. He was breathing loudly and sitting with his back against the wall. Without having any idea of what to do, he just closed his eyes, hoping it would go away. He kept them closed for nearly half a minute, and when he finally opened them, the thing was gone.
After a brief moment, he started feeling his legs again and his breathing stabilized. He could get up now. He looked around to make sure the coast was clear. "What in the blazing hells was that thing?" he asked himself. "I guess that answers who was following me... Now all I need to find out is what it was and what does it want from me... Come to think of it, it doesn't even answer that question, seeings how I still don't know WHAT exactly was following me." He threw his forelegs upwards in frustration, right before lowering them and holding them crossed over his chest.
Whitemane then noticed that the wall he was holding his back against was a house with a scarf stuck in its door. "Huh?" The scarf seemed somehow familiar to him. He touched the scarf and recognized it. "I know this house..." he quietly whispered as he opened the door and ran right in. In the middle of the room there was an old rocking chair with an old blanket on it.
"This was old pony Joe's house!" he shouted out as another blank part of his memory revealed itself "I still remember listening to his wild stories. Ha ha! Those were the times. I remember him telling me and my brother about the creatures of the Everfree forest. The Chimera! That one was scary, but still nothing compared to the Hydra! Ha! Even those two combined would kneel before the..." He paused for a moment as his mind went into a state of dismay.
"Slender pony... SLENDER PONY! So THAT'S what's following me! I... I remembered it all now," he declared and began reciting the restored part of his memory, "I went into the forest to fight the slender pony! Can't really remember why, though, but apparently things didn't quite work out, seeings how I'm... here, with barely any memories left in my head, and that thing still following me around... Damn... You could almost say that thing made me its bi***! What in the blazes was I thinking trying to fight it?" He facehoofed himself. "Either way, I still need to figure out how to get out of here."
***
Whitemane walked back and forth over a small line while trying to come up with an escape plan... Apparently that really does help you think, just like in the cartoons. "Think, Whitemane, Think! If I'm here after losing a fight to that thing, that probably means that it wants me to be here... but why?" he asked himself and stopped pacing. "And why exactly here? Ah! it must be trying to tamper with my memories, seeings how this place was important to me... Hmm..." He rubbed his chin. "What's most important now is figuring out how to get out of here, coz I doubt I can just fly away like that... Wait... FLY! BUCK! I'm an idiot! all this time I coulda been flying!" He facehoofed himself.
"At any rate, I don't think I can just fly away like that, coz I remember that thing just kinda... DRAINING me when I faced it, and then I just... collapsed... and after that I can't remember anything else. I must be stuck in some kind of artificial nightmare or something like that." He scratched the back of his head while recalling something else. "I remember old Joe saying that it feeds off of memories, so right now I need to get back my most influential memories in order to weaken that thing, maybe then I can break free... YEAH! Whitemane, you're a genius!" he exclaimed in an overconfident tone. "And the best way to remember something is by reliving it! But there must be more to my life than this... I know I didn't stay in this town for most of my life. I must have left one day, but HOW? and WHEN?"
Whitemane's pondering was interrupted by the sound of hoofsteps outside the house. "BUUUCK! No time to find out now. Gotta move!" Whitemane darted out of the house and started flying towards the main building. No longer on hoof, he reached his destination very swiftly. "All right, umm... if I want to relive my memories, I need to leave this town the same way I did before... Now, if only I kne..." Whitemane turned his attention towards something popping out from behind the corner of the main building... It was a pony's skeleton.
Whitemane gulped loudly as he approached the skeleton. "Sweet mother of mercy..." he whispered. "This was... They never... They just remained here when I left... The town got deserted after the Sonic Electrocosion incident and these ponies were never even given a proper burial..." He hung his head in shame and sorrow. "Maybe I deserve to be here..." For a moment there, he was just about ready to just give up and let Slendy take him. "HECK NO!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Whitemane doesn't just give up! If there's one skeleton here, then where are the rest of em?! There can't be just one! I'm onto you, Slender! you're playing mind tricks on me to make me give up... Well, it's not gonna work!" he shouted out loudly, cursing Slendy's name in his mind.
"I remember now how I left this town..." He began retelling everything he remembered from that day, "Ever since my brother and I saw the sonic rainboom, we realized that it wasn't a myth and kept striving to perform such a feat ourselves some day, and even though it still mainly seemed like just a little hidden motivation to always keep us going, my brother actually managed to pull it off one day," he said with a wide grin on his face, but it started rapidly fading from his face after a short moment. "But something went horribly wrong..." He hung his head.
"Just as the skies got ignited in the same colors as his mane, the huge wave of energy came crashing down on our town... I remember feeling a little jolt of lightning-like energy course through my body as it reached me. As I recall now, me and my brother were resistant to the effects of lightning due to the fact that our mother was struck by lightning not long before giving birth. I couldn't make anything of it at the moment, but as I gazed around myself, I noticed that the other ponies of the town weren't as resistant to the energy as I was... I..." He lost his breath for a moment as the horrid image came back to him. "I didn't know what was going on... They were all on the ground, shaking like crazy... I went to see if they were alright after they stopped shaking, but..." The memory was too painful to even repeat out loud... A single teardrop left Whitemane's eye before he could muster the strength to continue.
"I had never even seen death in my life, and then, just like that... I saw so much of it... I... I was speechless... The only thing I wanted was to just wake up and realize it was just a horrible nightmare, and then, I saw him... My brother... I saw him hanging in midair in the middle of the town, I saw the immeasurable pain in his eyes as he looked upon his hooves and realized just what he had done... I will never forget the last day I saw him as he left Coltifornia with a river of tears coming from his eyes..." As his story went on, the pain in his soul only grew in force.
"At that moment, the only thing I wanted was to know that I'm not alone, and so I flew after my brother in hopes of catching him... I never did catch him... I just collapsed after hours of nonstop flying and awoke... at someplace else..." All of a sudden his face was lit up with newfound hope. "Someplace else! That's it! If I repeat the same action, I might just jump over to another part of my mind where I can regain new memories... Darn, but what if it doesn't work? Then I'm stuck here forever... Am I willing to take such a risk?"
He asked to himself and pondered on the thought for a moment. His thinking soon ended with the sound of hoofsteps coming up from behind him again. His reflexes caused him to instantly just turn around. There she was... Slender pony. Less than twenty feet away from him... That's all the motivation Whitemane needed. "YES!" he shouted and instantly took off. He flew as fast as he could, just as he did in the very same situation in ages past. "I hope this works..."
He flew for hours, constantly plagued by the feeling that something just wasn't right. "So... I just Fly? That's all I do now? This seems too simple. Well, apart from the fact that I quite literally have to fly until I run out of breath... Well, at least I know that Slendy can't catch me at this speed," he convinced himself and kept flying with a relaxed mind. As the hours went by, his exhaustion finally caught up with him. "I think the moment is nearing," he said through a yawn. "I just have to... keep flying... until I..." After another yawn, Whitemane simply fell asleep in midair.
***
After an uncertain amount of time had passed, Whitemane woke up and began rubbing his eyes. "Huh? I think I did it. This must be the next part of my mind where I'll find more memories." Whitemane started looking around. "That can't be right..." he told himself as the sights around him became more familiar. "This is the same place I was before, only... It seems alive again. Restored to its former state." As he gazed around, he saw all the things that would befit any common town. The shops were open, the buildings looked new and the streets were full of satisfied ponies. Hmm... Maybe I came back here when I grew older? he wondered. He decided to start a conversation with the nearest citizen to see if anyone recognizes him. "Excuse me..."
"You!" with eyes wide from both shock and fury, the pony he had just addressed shouted and pointed his hoof right at him. "What are you doing back here!?"
"Erm..." Whitemane was completely dazed by the unexpected response. "Pardon me, I don't--"
"Don't think even for a second that we are going to welcome you back, you monster! You and your brother both belong in the forest!"
"WHAT!?" Whitemane jumped back from shock, and his shades slid half-way down his face in the process.
"BEGONE, MURDERER! There's nothing for you here!" the other pony said in an unforgiving tone.
"Wait! Please! I just want to--"
"I don't want to hear it!" the citizen interrupted him. "GUARDS! GUARDS! THE TRAITOR HAS RETURNED!"
Whitemane's face turned pale at the sight of the guards catching wind of his presence. Without so much as a second of consideration, he tucked his tail and flew away, only stopping a good distance away from the eyes of the townsfolk. "What was that all about?" he asked himself while trying to catch his breath.
"Don't pretend like you don't know," a familiar voice came up from behind him.
Whitemane turned around and saw the last pony he expected to see. "Blackmane?" he lowered his shades and asked without closing his mouth after speaking out the name.
"Stop wasting time and lets go already!" his brother retorted. "I know damn well you've got as much reason to be here as I do, but there's nothing we can do about it now..." After the harsh reply, Blackmane calmed himself and quietly added and hung his head, "Celestia has spoken."
"Wait, what?" Whitemane asked, confused with the response. "Hold on, hold on--"
"Hold what on?" Blackmane snapped right back into his fierce tone. "Stop acting like a child, Whitemane! You know what must be done. Why did you try to return to the town?" He took a few steps towards his brother and glared into his eyes. "Do you really want to die BEFORE we fulfill our task?"
"What!? What do you mean "BEFORE"?" the other sibling asked with a raised eyebrow.
"WE ARE MURDERERS, WHITEMANE!" Blackmane shouted at the top of his lungs. "We killed all those innocent ponies and didn't even organize a proper burial for them! Such acts are not tolerated in Equestria! Princess Celestia herself ordered us not only expelled, but cast into the Everfree forest to find our deaths while trying to confront the slender pony! Now will you stop acting like you didn't know about this and just come with me?!" he yelled at his brother in a voice devoid of compassion.
The words of his own brother frightened Whitemane ever so greatly... He could not believe that instead of going to confront Slendy by his own mind, he was instead punished and sentenced to it by Celestia herself... And to think that his own brother would treat him like this -- the very same pony that swore to only ever raise his voice and hoof against those who would dare raise theirs against him... It was simply too much. "No..." Whitemane whispered after a long pause.
"Lets go, Whitemane! We haven't got all day!" his brother retorted, completely ignoring Whitemane's remark.
"No... NO! NO! NO!" Whitemane dropped on his knees and grabbed his temples. "This can't be true!"
"Am I gonna have to drag you there?" Blackmane said in an intimidating tone. "GET OVER HERE ALREADY! YOU'RE NOT MAKING THIS ANY EASIER!"
The memory seemed more and more implausible to Whitemane with each passing second, and he didn't seem to recall anything like this ever happening. However, he did remember his brother, and he KNEW that he would never say such awful things to him... He was always optimistic, even in the most hopeless moments. "This isn't real..." he whispered while glaring at his brother with clenched teeth.
"What!?"
"YOU'RE NOT REAL!"
"Whitemane, what are you--"
"SHUT UP!" Whitemane covered his ears and shouted. "DON'T TALK TO ME! YOU'RE NOT MY BROTHER!"
"Don't be stupid, Whitemane..." Blackmane replied in a calm tone. "Now, I'm gonna give you one last chance to come peacefully, before I--"
"Before you WHAT?!"
Blackmane didn't answer and stood silent.
Whitemane took his silence as a sign of weakness. "HUH!? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, HUH?! That's right! Nothing! Coz there's nothing you can do! Coz you're not real!"
"Whitemane..."
"I SAID SHUT UP! I'M NOT FALLING FOR YOUR TRICKS, SLENDY!" Whitemane closed his yes and started vigorously rubbing his head from both sides. "Gotta wake up. Gotta wake up! GOTTA... WAKE..."
"UP!" Whitemane woke up screaming and with sweat pouring down his temples. He began looking around himself and quickly realized that he was in the middle of a grassy field without anything of interest within eyeshot. "Phew... Just a dream." He wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I knew this wasn't going to be that simple... Slendy is still messing with my mind. I need to get out of here as fast as possible!" After another quick glance around him, he suddenly shouted out, "Damn it! Which way? I don't remember where I flew in from."
Whitemane didn't need long to figure it out, though. The obvious answer was right in front of him... or rather -- behind him. The scuff marks that his body left on the ground after crash landing made his direction obvious. "Right," he told himself as he got up and took off. He flew for days, just as he did back then. Even then it wasn't easy making such a trip, and as time went on, it only got harder. The exhaustion from the countless hours of flying alone was unbearable, but with that combined with the sleepiness that Slendy was enforcing upon Whitemane...
"Must... keep... flying," he whispered whilst barely still drawing breath and shook his head. Shaking his head every now and then helped him stay awake longer. "Gotta be sure..." he began panting heavily between his sentences. "To collapse from...*pant pant* exhaustion... not...*pant pant* Sleepiness..." At this point, he didn't even have enough breath left in him to yawn. Oddly enough, his extreme level of exhaustion that caused him to pant every second helped him stay awake, seeings how he couldn't keep his eyes closed because of it.
Whitemane's wings soon failed him. He couldn't keep up his speed or altitude no matter how he tried. He began slowly descending while still doing what he could along the way to stay in the air for as long as possible... or at least lessen his speed of falling. It wasn't long before he finally slammed himself against the ground. He couldn't move his wings, so he kept crawling forward while he still could, but that did not last long at all... as time itself started moving slower in front of his eyes, he finally drew his final breath of air after an amount of time that seemed like an eternity to him, but actually lasted less than a full minute. This time he let the sleep claim him without any fear. For he knew that it was not from sleepiness, but from sheer exhaustion.
He did the best he could in repeating his escape and had no fear of falling asleep. For even if this was not the right way to leave this part of his mind and advance to another, then he simply had no clue of how else to accomplish such a feat... At least this way he got to go down fighting -- just like he had always wanted.
All that was left to do now... was hope.
And that hope was not in vain, for Whitemane soon awoke, now feeling as if he had just been treated with Equestria's best health care while he was out cold. He raised his head up from the ground and saw that he was no longer in the grassy field. "I did it... It actually worked."
He said to himself and quickly got up. For the first time in days, he actually felt great. Both full of life and ready to face what ever new challenges Slendy has to throw at him. After taking a quick look around, he began recalling the place he was now in. It was the same one where he awoke after chasing his brother for days. Although he found it weird how that time he woke up in the bed just next to him, he figured that he had just fallen out of it and made nothing of it. This place was where he got raised by his foster parents. He even remembered the name of the town -- Mareington.
He didn't take long before leaving the appartment. He checked some shelves, wardrobes, even the fridge, but there was nothing in any of those. Aside from the furniture, the apartment was completely empty, and so Whitemane decided to not waste any time and go out to the streets. The sooner he's done with this part of his memory, the smaller the chance that he'll have to face Slendy again.
***
Whitemane left the building and started walking in the direction his gut told him to go. It was cold outside, but Whitemane was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he barely even noticed the chilly weather.
Strange... he thought to himself. It's like I didn't even need anything else from there. I just remembered it all from one gaze upon that room -- my foster parents... I think I remember just about all the years I spent with them... Yeah, I think I remember the last time I saw them... I... He hung his head in sorrow. I didn't even say goodbye... I don't remember how or why I left, but it must have been either not in my plans at the moment or I simply didn't feel like telling them about it... Yet another mystery of my mind that I must uncover. He set that notion as his prime target. "Well, better get a move on then."
Whitemane quickened his walking speed, but the cold finally decided to remind him of its presence now.
"Brrr." His body shook itself and he began rubbing his hooves against his sides to warm himself up. Damn, it's surprising how the mind can just make the cold go away when you don't think about it... He gave into his thoughts. There's one memory that always seems to slip from my mind, though... "WHY THE HELL AM I WALKING AGAIN!?" he exclaimed and took to the skies. That, however, did not make the weather feel any warmer, although his heart still felt warmer knowing that he will reach his destination sooner this way and ultimately spend less time out in the cold.
How big is this town? he wondered. I hope I find something interesting soon, coz my wings are getting stiff from the cold. I might have to stop soon to try and find shelter for at least a few minutes, otherwise I'm gonna freeze my flank off, but with Slendy on my tail, that might not be the best idea. Like an answer to his prayers, he soon found his way blocked by a large building. Ahh, finally something familiar. he thought to himself. The rest of these building just don't seem to ring a bell... It's like they're just artificially created by Slendy to keep my mind from finding something out.
When he got closer to the building, he recognized it immediately -- It was the school he used to go to. "WOO! There have to be some answers in a place like that. That's probably one of the biggest buildings in the whole town!" he shouted excitedly and flew right towards the door, swiftly closing it behind himself as he went in. The temperature inside was noticeably warmer, but still not a place you could call warm, however. He gazed along the long, stretching corridor. He could not see the end of it. All he could see were countless cabinets along the corridor.
Oh boy... I'll be Slender food in no time if I decide to check each and every one of em. I should probably just follow the corridor and see if I can find a cabinet door that seems familiar... he told himself and started moving forward. My gut hasn't let me down so far... Lets hope it won't start now. After consulting with himself, he went along the corridor while looking at each and every door along the way. So far nothing seemed familiar. His mind was puzzled along the way, just as it was for the longest part of his journey. He kept thinking about the thing he said to himself earlier. The one about Slendy wanting him to be here.
Hmm... Not necessarily. He rubbed his chin. If Slendy wanted me to be here, then why would she be chasing me? This might not actually be a nightmare controlled by her, but a way of my mind trying to break free from her control over it... Either that or she might have just been bored and decided to play a game with my mind and decided to just let it roam here... And maybe it proved stronger than she had expected and she is no longer in control of it, however, she's still doing what she can to stop me from uncovering all my memories.
"BAAH!" Whitemane exclaimed after a prolonged moment of thinking. "If i keep puzzling myself like this, I'll most certainly miss the door i'm looking for!" Whitemane shook his head. Focus, Whitemane. Gotta keep my mind on these doors. You never know when one might be... One of the doors caught his attention. The one i'm looking for...
The door looked no different than the others -- same handle, no number card on it, no markings or anything else to tell it apart from any other door, but somehow Whitemane just felt a very peculiar, yet familiar aura drawing him towards it. Nevertheless, Whitemane had to start somewhere. He pushed the handle down only to discover that the door was locked. "Damn it!" he shouted in frustration. "I wonder if all of these doors are locked."
The door looked too heavy to be knocked down, so Whitemane walked on forward. He was about to try opening the door nearest to this one to see if it was also locked, but right before he could place his hoof on its handle, he heard the sound of a door lock being unlocked behind him. He looked back, but there was no one there. Out of plain curiosity, he took a few steps back and tried opening the previously locked door again... To his utter astonishment, It was now unlocked. "That probably isn't a good sign... but I'm not about to leave it either."
Whitemane went in and started looking around. It was just a typical classroom. Whitemane recognized the classroom. He used to study math here. It looked just like it did the last time he saw it, except there was no teacher in here this time. He started walking around the classroom. He remembered one of his classmates each time he passed one of the tables. Blazer... Manegenna... Grindel... Richor... He paused for a moment upon trying to recall the last name. Can't remember his full name. All I know is that we all just called him Richy... I remember all these ponies. They were once my classmates.
A few tables that he passed, however, did not ring a bell. Hmm... Perhaps there's something more to these few ponies than simple classmates. He had soon walked past each corner of the classroom apart from the teacher's desk, which is where he went now. Ahh, good ol' Silvertongue. No wonder they called him that. This was one of the few teachers that actually made studying a delight. He walked over to the windows and peeked outside and saw the school's playground. As he looked at different parts of it, he remembered a few more classmates.
No wonder I couldn't remember those two from just the tables, me and brae... As he looked through the window, he spotted a pale face on the other side of the glass. "AAHH!" he shouted in terror and collapsed to the ground. He looked back at the window, but couldn't see past the tables that were now blocking his sight. He got up to look at the face again, but it was gone. That wasn't Slendy... he told himself while still breathing heavily. I remember that pony. He died in the tragic accident during father son day... What... Why did I see him?... Slendy must be trying out some new tricks. I got to get a move on!
He rushed towards the classroom door. I coulda sworn I left it open, He tried to open it but couldn't. "No..." he whispered as fear began seeping into his thoughts. He bashed the door as hard as he could. It didn't open, so he kept body-slamming against it. "This isn't happening... She can't be here already!" After realizing that his efforts were futile, he started looking for something in the classroom that could help him bash the door open. All he could think of was just taking one of the smaller tables and using it as a battering ram... which was exactly what he did. He lifted it up with his hooves and cleared a path for him to be able to get a good speed boost while ramming the door with it.
"Here goes nothing..." Whitemane ran towards the door as fast as he could while holding the table, hoping it would bash it open, but right before he made contact with the door, it opened. "BUUUCK!!" he shouted as he realized that he wouldn't be able to stop himself before slamming against the wall in front of him. Right as he rammed it, the table broke, and he himself got knocked off his hooves from the impact. He was alright, just slightly dizzy. "Uugh..." He rubbed his head before getting up. As he looked behind him, he noticed the door closing itself behind him.
"You bucking..." He glared at the door without a speck of mercy in his eyes. "Damn it! I swear to Celestia, if this table wasn't broken, I'd still ram that god-damned door, just for the heck of it!" After calming down a bit and wiping the dust off of himself, Whitemane started walking down the corridor again while saying his thoughts out loud along the way. "So... Slendy wants to try and scare me using my memories of lost ones... What's wrong, Slendy?" he asked while gazing at the ceiling. "Can't finish the job on your own?" His voice echoed through the corridor. Something tells me I should keep it down...
The voice didn't echo for long. Whitemane figured that this meant that the corridor must be nearing its end. He walked forward faster than before, and he could soon see the stairs leading to the next floor. However, something caught his attention before the stairs. It was the school's cafeteria. He figured he'd check it out before heading upstairs. Without much thinking, he went on in. It was a cafeteria like any other. Nothing unusual about it. Nevertheless, he went on scavenging it for memories, and the very first table in it caught his attention.
"Aw yeah! Now this is a nice memory." He approached the table with a wide grin on his face. Me and my buddies used to spend nearly every break playing card games at this very same table. We never got caught, and so we never switched tables... He placed his hoof on the spot he used to usually sit in. His grin turned into a heartfelt smile as he reminisced about those days. "How I miss those good old times..."
The table seemed to have some kind of lump on it. Either that or it just had something hiding under the tablecloth that made it look like that. Whitemane placed his hoof under the tablecloth and grabbed what seemed to the cause of the lump. He pulled it out and smiled widely as he he gazed at the four cards that looked exactly like his cutie mark.
Whitemane -- Ace up the sleeve... or just Ace... Hehe... Yup, that's how they used to call me back in the day. I sure did love holding these babies... And I even got the cutie mark to prove it.
Whitemane enjoyed every second he spent dwelling in the past, but he knew that he could not stay here for long. Nothing else here caught his attention, so he put the aces back down on the table, keeping one of em as a good luck charm. As he put them down, he noticed something strange... The lump on the table was there again, despite the aces not being there anymore. "What the?" Whitemane placed his hoof under the tablecloth again and checked for what else might be under it. He kept searching, but there was nothing there. "Is my mind playing tricks on me?! This lump can't be made up by just thin ai--" Before he could finish his sentence, something underneath the tablecloth grabbed him and began pulling him towards itself.
"BUCK!" he exclaimed "WHAT IN THE... LET ME GO!" he kept shouting at his anonymous assailant as more of his body started disappearing under the cloth. Simply trying to pull his foreleg out didn't seem to be working, so he decided to push himself away from it by putting his hindlegs against the edge of the table. After a good push, he managed to break free and fell to the ground. He immediately got back up and saw that the lump was now gone. "Phew." He sighed with relief and tried to wipe the sweat off his forehead... but something just quite wasn't right.
"SWEET MOTHER OF GOD! NO! AAAAHHH!" he shouted in sheer terror as he looked over his shoulder and saw a stream of blood coming from where his right foreleg used to be. He then gazed back at the table and saw his foreleg sticking out from under the cloth, and an endless river of blood dripping from it. He fell speechless, but not breathless. He started breathing so loudly and rapidly it seemed like he would faint from shock much sooner than from loss of blood. He then turned around after hearing a noise coming from the direction of the cafeteria's entrance... As if things weren't bad enough already, slender pony herself was just a few steps away from him.
He panicked and tried to run, but just as he took the first step, he immediately slipped on his own blood and hit his head against the floor. He moaned and wanted to rub his head, but he was still subconsciously trying to do it with his missing leg.
As he opened his eyes and gazed upwards, he saw Slendy's pale face closing in on him.
***
"NOOOOO!!!!" Whitemane woke up screaming and breathing so loudly you could almost hear the echo of his breathing. He was down on the ground near the table. His first thought was checking if his foreleg was still there. "Phew." He sighed with immeasurable relief as he used the same leg to wipe his forehead clean of sweat.
The mountain of Fillimanjaro wasn't heavy enough to describe the weight that was lifted from his heart just now. His second thought was checking if Slendy was near. He shifted his sights left and right and calmed his heavy breathing after realizing that she was nowhere near Okay... I think I liked you better the way you were back at Coltifornia, Slendy, he admitted. Slender pony was nowhere near, but the two recent events still felt like they were slowly sucking the life out of Whitemane... Memories kept becoming more and more dangerous. "Gotta keep moving!"
Whitemane quickly got up and ran towards the stairs to the second floor. As he reached the second floor, one of the very first doors there instantly caught his attention. The door was ajar. Whitemane rushed over to it and ran right in without even taking a look around, instead he froze up in the center of the room and stared at the end of the room which was opposite to the entry. It was a filly and foal playroom, and there were still lots of toys on the shelves. One particular toy caught his full attention though. A giant clown toy. It was the size of a fully grown stallion.
"Hah! I remember this thing..." He approached the toy with a slight grin on his face. "Creepy-flank clown. We used to scare some of the lower grade students with this thing... Boy, If only I knew that one colt had a strong fear of clowns, things might not have ended up so badly... Poor guy." He hung his head in shame. "Well, at least we never got caught... And we kinda learned our lesson too... At least we didn't go around scaring anypony else after that." He went closer to the toy shelf and picked up the clown. "This thing is kinda creepy. Call me a sissy, but I wouldn't want to sit in the same room with this thing for too long... What kinda sick parent would buy this for their children anyways?"
Whitemane put the clown away and started looking around. He walked around the room, inspecting just about everything in it. "Well, seems like I've got nothing left to--" All of a sudden, he got startled by something and jumped back. After a short pause, he snickered. "Must be just my karma catching up to me," he told himself as he picked up the clown that had just freaked him out. Without much thinking, he simply tossed it somewhere behind his back. "Huh?" He noticed something on one of the shelves. Something that was under the clown and only now became visible. It was an old photo album. He picked it up and opened it.
Well, whaddya know... It's the pictures of all the groups that used to study in this school. He began turning the pages until he found his own group. Ahh, some familiar faces, finally. I think I remember everyone in here... but where's... Whitemane couldn't find himself in the picture. Why am I not in here? he wondered. Something occurred to him then. Wait! I wasn't there when this was taken. I left the school before the graduation ceremony... Darn! If only I could remember why and where I went. That's about everything I still need to find out about this place.
After putting the album back on its rightful shelf, Whitemane turned around and started walking back towards the door. "Lets hope I don't have to stay here for much lon--WOAH!" Whitemane tripped on something and fell to the ground. "Damn it! What the..." He rubbed his head as he looked for whatever made him trip. After realizing what it was, he shouted furiously, "Bucking clown!" Whitemane picked up the clown toy and threw it against the wall outside the playroom. "I knew karma wouldn't let me get away that easily."
Whitemane got up and went out of the playroom, but right before closing the door, he heard a whisper coming from behind him.
"Whitemane..."
"What the?..." He looked behind himself with a raised eyebrow.
"Whitema--"
"Nope!" he interrupted the voice and immediately shut the door. "I ain't got time for this bullcrap, Slendy!" the exasperated pegasus retorted and began walking away from the door. "Just one more memory... That should be enough to get me out of--" After just a few hoofsteps, another door caught his attention. "That was fast..." Whitemane approached it and tried the handle. He didn't know if the door was locked or not, but the handle wouldn't go down. It would barely budge at all. "Damn it! Come on!" He kept trying to push the handle down. "What the?" For a second there, he felt as though someone else was moving the handle. He let go of it and watched it move by itself. "That can't be good," he muttered.
Whitemane backed away from the door a bit and kept watching it. "Hello!? Is someone in there?" There was no response. The handle just kept moving. "Are you stuck? Can you find a way to open it?" he asked and received no reply. "HEY! I'M TALKING TO YOU!" he shouted, but there was still no response. "Damn it!... Must be just another one of Slendy's tricks. I best mov--" The handle finally went all the way down and the door started opening up very slowly. "Not sure if that's a good sign..."
Whitemane felt uneasy and slightly exhausted as the door started slowly opening itself. He had a good hunch of what that meant... His doubts were wiped clean as he spotted a black sleeve coming from the gap. "BUCK!" he exclaimed and started backing away from the door. He walked backwards along the corridor, in the direction of the staircase. He walked slowly, constantly keeping a steady eye on the door to see if Slendy decides to come out. He kept backing away until the moment he bumped into something... Whatever it was, It felt... alive.
For a moment there, Whitemane thought it was all over -- slender pony has him! The door was just a trick into bringing him into her clutches. His legs got a bit stiff from fear. The intervals between his breaths grew longer and sweat began forming on his head. Fear caused him to freeze solid. He either couldn't move or just didn't see the point in it anymore. He just thought it was all over.
Nevertheless, Whitemane didn't feel like just giving up. He knew he had to at least try. He mustered his strength and just ran as fast as he could. Miraculously, he managed to break free from Slendy's grasp. As he ran along the corridor, he passed the door where he previously saw the black sleeve sticking out from. Obviously, it wasn't there anymore since Slendy was right behind him now. Whitemane kept on running and had already spread his wings to start flying, but then he decided to look behind himself. "..."
Whatever it was that he saw, it caused him to stop running. For a short moment, he simply stood there and stared down the corridor. after which he started walking back the way he came. "BUCKING CLOWN!!!" he shouted furiously and kicked the seemingly ubiquitous clown doll that had an uncanny knack for freaking him out. This time the toy went bouncing down the staircase. Whitemane watched it tumble down all the way to the first floor as he kept breathing heavily, loudly and angrily. "All right, Whitemane. Calm the buck down! Gotta keep it together." After a loud and long sigh, his tone grew quieter. "It was just a stupid toy... A really annoying one, though."
As the clown tumbled out of his sights, something else took its place... something tall, black and with a face as pale as the moon itself. "THAT, however, IS NO TOY!"
***
Whitemane started running down the corridor again. At first he figured he'd run down the corridor and just see where it leads him, but then he noticed the open door again. He figured that if he'd keep running, he probably wouldn't have a second chance to check this door, but at the same time, going in there might mean burning the bridges. Slendy might not give him a chance to get out if he gets in. Just one more memory... that's all I need... he thought to himself. "Buck it! I'm going in!"
He decided to take his chances, for if he had missed this door that could have had an essential memory in it -- perhaps the last one he needs -- then not being able to get back there would mean being stuck in here... It was an "All or nothing" game for him now... He knew what was at stake. He jumped into the room and swiftly shut the door behind him and backed away from it.
He stared at the door for a moment, hoping nothing would open it. "No time to play watchpony!" he shouted to himself and started looking around the room "Memory, memory... gotta find a mem--" One of the first things he noticed was a broken window. When he looked in a different direction, he remembered just what this room really was -- a nurse's room. "Yes! This is it! I remember now. Damn, was this a lucky draw... Speaking of which..." He pulled out the ace which he had stored in his inventory earlier for good luck.
Authors note: ...What!? All ponies have inventories! Don't you watch the show? ... Seriously, though -- where do they sometimes put their stuff?...Imaginary pockets or something?
Whitemane kissed the ace. "You did your job well, baby! Keep up the good work." He put the ace back in... wherever he took it from. "Yes! Yes! It all ended here! This was where I was diagnosed with that... lack of joy in life disease, thing..." He grinned sheepishly. "Hehe. Couldn't remember its name back then, still can't..." He got a bit carried away from the funny realization. "Anywho... The nurses were going to give me some kind of treatment, but I wasn't gonna sign up for that bulls***! Hells no! I left as soon as she pointed that needle at me."
He looked at the broken window again. And that's how I left... I just left everything behind. After life deprived me of the last of my friends, I simply couldn't enjoy anything in life anymore. I just didn't give a damn about anything, and so I just flew away... To Ponyville... Yeah! The ponies here told me it was a nice place, and that was about all the motivation i needed. Whitemane took a moment to dwell in his memories again. "Heh... So it all comes down to this again? Just... flying and trusting my gut?" Whitemane heard a noise behind him. He turned around and saw the door handle moving. "A little motivation... neat!"
Whitemane sprung himself right out of the window in an instant. As he left, the door behind him opened up. Slender pony walked in and gazed out the window just in time to see Whitemane fade from view. She stared in the direction she last saw him before he faded out of view.... She stared for a long time... Nopony knew what thoughts lurked in her sinister mind... If she even had one... What kind of personal mind could there be for one who only feeds off of the minds of others? A mind of her own? A mind of one of her victims? Or perhaps just the empty voice of the slender spirit...
Whitemane was on his way to Ponyville. This shouldn't be as hard as last time... At least I hope so. Last time I had to literally fly until I could fly no more, but this time I just have to fly until I reach Ponyville. Hmm... He rubbed his chin. I remember the flight taking just a few hours, but how do I actually leave one part of my mind and enter another? And how do I even know if it hasn't already happened? I guess I'll just have to find that out over time.
Whitemane flew fast and was soon past the borders of the town of Mareington. Ponyville was still a considerable distance away, but it was still nothing compared to the last trip he had to make to switch parts of his mind. Last time I was unconscious while that happened, but what happens when I'm not unconscious? Will I just fall asleep at one point anyways and wake up in Ponyville? he wondered. "BAAH! Just gotta keep flying. I'm sure I'll find that out eventually."
Slender pony felt Whitemane's mind struggling from far away. She still had a high influence left on his mind, but that was not enough... She decided to execute a curse. She did not say a word or even make any move, but Whitemane still heard the words echoing in his head, ringing as loud and heavy as thunder from a bolt of lightning striking the ground next to him.
"You are your own worst enemy, Whitemane!"
"AAAAAGH!" Whitemane exclaimed and covered his ears, hoping it would lessen to noise in his head. It was so loud that it wouldn't even let him fly straight, let alone think. He couldn't even properly hear what were the words in his head. The echoing continued and only grew louder, eventually causing Whitemane to collapse. Whitemane's brain just sort of stopped operating from the massive noise. He fell unconscious in midair. He could still see the sky above him as he fell towards the ground, but there was nothing he could do. Paralyzed seemed like the right word to describe his state.
Indeed it was, for as Whitemane reached the ground and his body slammed against it, his eyes remained open, and he did not feel a thing when he touched the ground. He just kept staring mindlessly up to the sky, unable to move a limb. Every part of his body was numb except his eyes, which he could not close even if he wanted to.
***
The echoing soon faded away and he could hear again. His ears were the first part of his body to come alive, right before his brain. Then he slowly started processing the noises around him... He heard so many wonderful things. He heard all of his friends around him. He heard the birds, the ponies gossiping in the streets, the sound of pegasi dashing over his head.
Then he could feel his nose and started sniffing the air, and it felt wonderful. It felt as if though there was a basket of strawberries right besides him, as well as a bucket of flowers on his other side. He then saw the sun hitting its most brightest point in the sky. Its light would drive any other pony blind if they stared at it as long as Whitemane did, but luckily for him, his shades were still on. But even if so, he still wanted to close his eyes, for the sun's brightness pierced through them, but he couldn't.
Why did nopony come to help him get up after seeing him fall from such a large height? He wondered and soon got his answer.
"Whitemane?"
He heard the voice of a familiar mare calling his name. He felt her touching his foreleg, trying to help him up. Who was this mare, he did not yet know, but he wanted to find that out, more than anything. Is this... Home? he asked himself Is it all over?... Am I finally back? he wondered. The warm touch of the mare beside him was all he needed to start feeling again. He felt reborn. He got up to get a closer look at his savior, but at the mere blink of an eye, she was gone... and so was everything else. The sounds of the birds, the gossip, the pegasi over his head, the smell of flowers and strawberries, The sunshine, the clouds, The green grass and blue sky...
He was right about one thing -- This was home... but it wasn't over yet. The skies were black without a single cloud in sight. The grass looked more like the fields on a rock farm, and the houses were deserted. There was no doubt now that this was the last place he was in before he faced Slender pony, for it was the darkest town he had seen so far. He realized one thing now -- the deeper he goes into slender pony's lair, the darker it gets.
"I wonder who... AAAGGGH!!" He covered his ears again as the echoing started coming back. It was nowhere near as loud as last time and faded much sooner, but it still wouldn't let him keep a clear mind. Slendy had put a curse on him. Every time he tried to think, the echoing would come back and prevent him from doing so. Since the words weren't so loud now, Whitemane could make out what he was hearing.
"You are your own worst enemy, Whitemane!"
He didn't even need to think to realize what that meant. He also realized that this must mean that Slendy is losing her grip on him if she had to resort to such a thing as a curse. Each time he tried to think he ended up in the same position -- holding his ears to try lessen the noise in his head, and so Whitemane just pressed on, finally able to properly inspect his surroundings now that his mind was no longer puzzled by any thoughts. His first course of action was following the direction from which he heard the mare's voice coming from. For all he knew, it might lead to a memory involving her. He followed the path until he came across a fork in the road.
He knew not which way to go, and he couldn't exactly stop to think either, but something caught his attention before he could decide which way to go. He thought he saw a purple pony's tail disappearing behind one of the buildings. He instantly assumed that might be the same memory trying to show him a sign and followed it.
He flew towards it quickly, but there was no sight of it after going around the corner. Nevertheless, the right way was clear now, so he kept following the path. He soon came across something of a clearing and a lone, tall-standing, very fancy-looking building. It seemed to be a bit isolated from the rest of the buildings of the town. Whitemane recognized the building. "Rarity's boutique," he said in a satisfied manner.
That's about as much as he could say without hurting his mind. He flew towards the building and went inside. No thinking was needed to see that the pony living here was one who loves fashion and always tries to look fancy and walk in style. Whitemane remembered Rarity and her sister, Sweetie Belle as he walked around the house. He even remembered her voice and knew that it was nothing like the voice of the mare that tried to help him earlier.
There wasn't much for him to see here. He never really visited Carousel Boutique all that often since him and Rarity -- despite having a friendly relationship -- often didn't quite see eye to eye. He proceeded towards the exit, making a quick stop by one of the mirrors in the house. He looked at his own reflection. It seemed as if though he was about to ask himself a question, but then something else caught his attention. He saw The silhouette of a pony skipping by behind him in the mirror.
"Who's there?!" he exclaimed, and quickly turned around, but there was nothing there. He heard the door squeak as it closed after someone leaving. Could this be the pony that tried to help him earlier? He dashed outside just in time to see the pony's tail disappearing behind a corner and flew after it. This time the tail seemed more like pink than purple. A large, pink building that almost looked edible was the sight that appeared before his eyes right after he went around the corner. "Sugarcube corner... Heh."
Sugarcube corner had barely any color left in it. It was nowhere near as pink as it once seemed... Might have just been the dark skies affecting his vision, but Whitemane saw that that was not true, for it looked just as gray on the inside as it did on the outside. "Pinkie Pie..." he spoke out the name that he had just remembered. "She used to love every corner of this sugar-coated funhouse." He hung his head in sorrow. "Good thing she's not here to see how dark it looks now."
He walked around the building, checking the cupboards, shelves and even the fridge in naive hopes of finding something tasty. He remembered Mr. and Mrs. Cake as well, not just Pinkie Pie, but none of their voices sounded like the one he heard earlier. He couldn't stand in one place thinking for long. He got what he came for here, and had to reluctantly move on. He turned around and saw somepony leaving the building. "WAIT!" he shouted.
That, however, didn't cause the pony to slow down. Yet again Whitemane found himself in a wild goose chase for memories, following some mysterious ghost pony... Who knows if it was a good or a bad omen. For a brief moment, he got the idea to stop following the pony... However, the next sight he witnessed erased that idea completely.
The door opened again, and a purple hoof was the only thing Whitemane saw appear from the gap in the door. The mysterious pony did not reveal the rest of its body, however, it was most certainly clear that this was not the hoof of Slendy. The hoof gave a sign to Whitemane to follow it shortly before disappearing and shutting the door. A purple tail, then a pink one, then a purple hoof... what is one to make of all this? Whitemane, unfortunately, could not stop to think and decided to follow it to the end, after all. He jumped outside and tried to spot the ghost pony but couldn't see it anywhere.
"Damn... What now?"
***
There wasn't really much choice where to go at this point, so he decided to leave Sugarcube Corner behind himself and go in the direction he would have went in had he not spotted the building in the first place. He flew straight forward and passed quite a few house of the town, but he still could not find the ghost pony anywhere. He did see something strange ahead of him, though. The shape seemed to resemble a big tree that was growing within the boundaries of the town for some reason. "Huh... must be some kind of sacred tree or something."
As he got closer to it, the shape became clear to him -- it was actually somepony's home. "Why would somepony want to live in a tree?" he asked himself. The echoing returned as he tried to think, but it seemed much weaker than before. In fact, he did not even find the need to cover his ears this time. However, thinking straight was still damn near impossible. If earlier the echoing caused him to go numb and lose his balance, then now it barely even made him dizzy for a second.
After giving his body a vigorous shake, he ditched the headache regained his former state. "I guess I'll have to find that out by myself." He walked closer to the entrance and gazed upwards, right before entering. "I gotta admit, though. That is one big-flank tree." Surprisingly enough, this door did not squeak at all as he opened it. A quick look at the shelves stuffed with books reminded Whitemane of the owner of the house. Ahh, of course. Twilight's library. How could I forget... lolz
He walked around the room and stared at some of the books for a while. He figured that some of these might be able to help him, but he had neither the time nor the clear mind to simply start reading now. After a quick circle around the room, he proceeded upstairs, to Twilight's bedroom. He remembered her assistant, Spike after seeing his tiny bed. He did not stay upstairs for long. There was just one more detail that caused him to hesitate as he walked past Twilight's bed. Heh... Deserted for years, and yet it still looks as if though she was here to keep things tidy.
The first thought he had after walking outside was taking a deep breath of fresh air, but the air here made it feel like he was breathing the same air, over and over again... Just cycling through his own handful of air reserves ever since he got here. "Damn, am I going to be glad to breathe fresh air again after... IF this ends." The grim look of the town saddened him as he looked over everything once again... The buildings... The grass... The sk...
"What in the?" he asked with a raised eyebrow as he gazed upwards. The sky itself was just as black as it was before, but right there, just barely hanging in the sky above Twilight's library was a big white cloud... Was Equestria slowly returning to its former look? Is Slendy's curse truly coming to and end?...Is this the beginning of her end? Either way, Whitemane felt joy as he saw the one white cloud in a pitch black sky. He flew towards it simply because he felt like remembering what the life before all this occurred felt like.
He reached the cloud, grabbed it and started climbing it, but freaked out about something as he reached top of it. Something freaked him out so badly that he lost his grip of the cloud and fell down. However, the fall did not hurt. He sat there staring at the cloud for quite a while... No matter how impossible it might have seemed, he knew what he saw...
After another short moment, the sound of a tired yawn came from the cloud and he saw a pony stretching its hooves over the edges of the cloud. After that, the pony gazed down towards Whitemane. The two ponies stared directly at each other, and the blue pegasus with the rainbow-colored mane simply giggled at the dumb look on Whitemane's face.
"Rainbow Dash?..."
He did not get an answer to that. The pegasus simply left her cloud and flew upwards to the black sky and started kicking the clouds. Whitemane could still do nothing but only gaze at her in awe... Deep inside, he knew he was overjoyed to finally see a friendly face. So overjoyed that he could only sit and stare as the sky turned from black to blue as Rainbow Dash did what she was born to do. After she cleared an opening in the sky, she flew down to Whitemane and helped him get up.
"Come on, you slowpoke," she said and flew back up to the sky. Whitemane followed her after a few seconds. They both flew through the opening in the sky, and Rainbow Dash then pointed at something, directing Whitemane's attention towards it.
"Wooooaaaahh..." With eyes wide open from sheer awe, Whitemane stared at the magnificent sky city of Cloudsdale. All of this came so suddenly, he couldn't finish cheering for one thing when the next one was already there, and more just kept coming. The next thing to catch his attention was the trail that the Wonderbolts left behind themselves after dashing over his head, and right after that, the next thing... Another familiar voice coming behind him.
"Whitemane?"
"That voice!" There was no doubt in his mind now. The soft, gentle, angelic voice he had just heard was the very same one that he heard upon his arrival to this part of his memory. He turned around as he recognized the voice of the mare that was the first one to find him. "Fluttershy!" he exclaimed in an overjoyed tone.
"Oh, umm..." The shy pegasus broke eye contact and crossed her forelegs behind her back. "I'm not interrupting you, am I? If I am, I can just come back later..." Her eyes then met with those of the young pegasus who was still just gazing at her with that dumb grin on his face. "If not, then... Would you be so kind as to follow me? If you're not busy that is... There's something I would like to show you." Fluttershy flew through the opening in the sky, back towards the ground. Whitemane did not hesitate to follow her, especially since Rainbow Dash had already gone back to taking a nap on her lone cloud in the sky.
Along the way, Whitemane started thinking to himself. I remember once promising to be a guardian angel for Fluttershy... now it seems as though our roles have changed... The grin on his face grew even wider as he suddenly realized something. HA! I can think straight again! The echoing has nearly faded completely, and it seems like my memories are coming back to me by themselves... Slendy's grip on my mind must be weakening more and more. Now it seems like she's just barely still holding on and her grip is slipping away with each second.
Whitemane had already arrived at Fluttershy's cottage before he could finish his thought. He landed on the grass which was now just as green and soft as the sky was blue and majestic... Equestria was slowly regaining its former beauty. "What was it that you wanted to show me, Fluttershy?" he asked upon entering the cottage.
"OH!" Fluttershy suddenly exclaimed. "That can wait. Applejack wants to see you... I think it's urgent. She's at the town's market right now. I think you'd better hurry," she suggested in a tone so gentle that it seemed impossible to refuse.
Applejack? Whitemane remembered that Applejack was one of the last ponies he saw before the incident with Slendy. All of this might be over sooner than I think... My memories are coming back to me like wildfire. He nodded and did just as Fluttershy suggested.
"Oh! And, umm, please, do come back later..." Fluttershy stared at the floor and scuffed her hoof on it. "if you want to, that is... If you have the time... Bye!" she shouted right as Whitemane reached the door.
Fluttershy went off to feed her animals. As Whitemane took a glance at her animals, he noticed the one pet that he had hoped to one day see in a bowl of rabbit soup... Angel bunny. "Heh... not the best memory."
Whitemane left Fluttershy's cottage and set a quick course for the town market. Along the way, he stopped in midair to bear witness to the beautiful sights around him... Everything was just like in the vision he saw earlier at this very same point -- streets crowded with ponies, green grass, blue skies, pegasi dashing by... and the air was more than just fresh... Strawberries and flowers... He was about to sink into a day dream from the mesmerizing scent, but he quickly remembered that he was not here for that. Right... gotta focus... It's not over yet! he reminded himself. He tried to spot Applejack in the crowd, but it was no easy task, given how many ponies there were in the market at that moment.
"Applebloom! Get back here!" a voice suddenly yelled.
Whitemane spotted Applejack after hearing her voice and the looked towards the Everfree forest and saw Applebloom running towards it. "This is just the way I remember..." Whitemane whispered to himself. He knew exactly what had to be done now. "Don't worry, Applejack! I'll get her back!" Whitemane told the anxious mare and started flying towards Applebloom as fast as he could.
"Please do, Whitemane..." Applejack whispered.
Whitemane flew just as fast as he did in his memory. Each step now brought him closer and closer to his destination, and the path was just the same as it was before -- he had to land and start running after her, just as he did in the first place. The forest kept getting darker and darker as he ventured forward.
So, it's finally all coming down to this again... he told himself as the last blanks in his memory started filling up. Everything... every bush, every branch, everything is like Deja vu for me. Only a small portion of my memory is still blank. Slendy's holding on to my mind with but the edge of her tail... I wonder what happens when I find her... How do I actually break free from her grip completely? How do I break these chains? How do I stop this curse, once and for all?
He spotted the flashlight on the ground. I guess I'll find out soon enough... Not much further now. Whitemane followed Applebloom's tracks into the deepest part of the Everfree forest. Everything was just the way it was before... Well, everything apart one thing... Instead of the giant tree in the middle of the forest with the page on it, there was the slender pony herself. Whitemane looked behind him and noticed the gate popping up behind him again, and he also felt his wings getting stiff. There was nowhere to run... but he did not even think of running this time.
Whitemane stood there staring at her with about as much fear in his eyes as slender pony had in her's... They stared at each other for quite a while, but eventually Slender pony took a step forward. An unwelcome visitor was in her forest and she had to get rid of him. She took one step after another, drawing closer to Whitemane with each second, but he did not budge at all. She was already close enough to Whitemane. As close to him as she was to most of her victims when she would start draining their minds, but her methods had no effect on Whitemane. He stood fearless. It almost seemed like the only reason why he couldn't fly was because he did not want to. He then said something that caused Slendy to cease her advance.
"Have you forgotten what I wrote on my page?"
She dared not take another step forward after that... never had she faced one immune to all her tricks before. She had no more control over his mind. His memories were that which was keeping her in control of him, and now she had nothing left with what to sustain herself.
"I've come back for that which is rightfully mine!"
Their roles had changed now -- Whitemane was the one to take a step forward now. A slow step, just one, but that did not cause her to react. Then he took another step. Two more and it would mean stepping on her hooves, but one more was all that was needed. Whitemane realized that his moment of triumph has come as he saw Slender pony take a step back. "Fear... Funny thing, ain't it?" He started taunting the slender pony. "Tell me... How does your own medicine taste?"
He mocked her as he kept walking forward, forcing her to back up. His walking turned to running after another brief moment, and the giant tree was right behind Slendy. She had nearly no room left to keep backing up, and it looked as though she was about to trip. Whitemane knew that it was either now or never.
"TIME FOR YOU TO WRITE A PAGE!" He let out a furious shout as he pounced towards her... This was the real moment of truth. Right here and now. Slender pony was within his grasp now and he had nothing to fear, but he still could not keep his eyes open as he did so. He simply hoped that he would be free of this curse as he opened them. At the mere blink of an eye, Slender pony was gone... vanished without a trace of existence... Whitemane, howeve,r did not see her vanish into thin air, or even feel it. All he felt was him making contact with the big tree.
He slowly opened his eyes, backed off the giant tree and started gazing around himself. He did not see Slender pony anywhere, and the gate was no longer there. He did not even need a flashlight to see that now... The forest suddenly just all felt so bright. One thing was still quite peculiar, though. The page on the tree was still there, but Whitemane was too overjoyed to think about such a minor detail right now. He laughed out loud and long, celebrating his major victory.
"She's...gone... It's over... HA HA HA! IT'S OVER! I'M FREEEEEE!!! THE CURSE HAS BEEN LIFTED!!" He kept jumping around and yelling the same phrases over and over again for some time. When he was done celebrating, the first thought he had was running back to the town to see if the fillies in the hospital were now awake as well. Running was not necessary, as he could now easily fly through the forest. It was brighter than on any summer's day
He reached the town in just a few minutes and stopped to look at it from the bushes before revealing himself. His joy was multiplied when he saw one of the fillies that was a victim of Slendy's curse now freely walking through the streets of Ponyville. Whitemane laughed in joy once more before jumping out of the forest. He started walking towards the town and waited to be greeted as a hero...
But the response of the first mare to see him was nothing like what he had expected...
***
The mare didn't stare at him for long. With eyes wide open from terror, she started backing away while pointing her hoof at him.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" The mare screamed, attracting the attention of the ponies around her, who had the same reaction after seeing Whitemane. It wasn't long before the entire town started rampaging through the streets of the town, screaming, panicking, running and bumping into anything in their way as they looked back to make sure Whitemane wasn't near them.
Whitemane just stood there staring at what he could not explain in any way. He was completely stunned by the reaction of the ponies. The streets of the town were now empty, and all the windows were shut tight. After a few minutes of staring, Whitemane started walking through the street of the town. He walked while looking at each and every house around him. All he could sometimes see were ponies peeking at him behind blinds and shutting them as he gazed towards them.
Has Slendy turned me into a ghost? Was one of the first thoughts that came to his mind. What else could be causing such a freak out? Even as a ghost, somepony might recognize him and maybe not be so frightened. Whitemane took a glance at one of the windows again. A few mares were peeking at him and became pale from fear and immediately closed the curtains when he looked towards them.
One of the mares managed to encourage the other to peek again to see if he was gone, which she did. Whitemane was not gone, however. On the contrary -- she saw him staring directly at her. The mare nearly fainted. They both backed far away from the window and hid in a closet. Whitemane just kept staring at the window with wide eyes and an open mouth... It was not the mares that interested him... It was his reflection. It frightened him about as much as he frightened the mares. He started backing away from the window.
"No... NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! THAT CAN'T BE TRUE!" he reiterated and grabbed his head in a panicking state. He thought for a moment that he was still dreaming, but the thought did not last long... He fell to his knees and let out a loud scream, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" After which he fell down to the ground and burst in tears. "This isn't happening... This can't be true." Some of the ponies peeking at him got curious of his behavior.
"The page... THAT PAGE! I got to go back!" he said to himself and got up quickly and darted back towards the Everfree forest, leaving the ponies in the town utterly confused. As he flew on, he couldn't stop thinking about that page he saw back at the forest before he left. That was the only thought in his mind. He reached the spot soon and stopped at the tree while gazing at the page on it... His fears were true. That was indeed, not the same page he saw the first time he arrived here. The signature at its bottom reminded him of his last words to Slender pony.
"TIME FOR YOU TO WRITE A PAGE!"
He ripped the page off the tree, still unable to believe what was going on. He gazed at it for a long time, until the moment his hooves got numb from holding it and it simply slipped out of his hooves and slowly levitated to the ground... but he still stood there with his hooves held up as if he was still holding the page... He had just realized what had really happened. The contents of the page made him sure of it. They were written by the last victim of the slender pony...
"Just as a ship must always have a captain, so must this forest always have a slender pony... Good luck!"
The End?
Months had passed since anypony had last seen or heard of Slender pony. Many still mourned over the disappearance of Whitemane, especially Applebloom, Applejack and the rest of the main six. All the ponies knew that whatever it was that Whitemane did in there that day caused the fillies and foals to awaken and make Slender pony cease her attacks. Many will remember him as a hero and now tell his legend as well any time they tell the legend of Slender pony... Only now they knew that it was no legend.
The parents finally thought it was safe to let their children walk freely in the streets, but some still kept them indoors, saying that, "That's just what Slender pony wants us to think! As soon as she sees that we have let our children walk freely again, she'll start another series of kidnapping!"
Although most of the fillies and foals were glad to walk free again without fears, one filly still could not rest her mind so easily... Applebloom was the only one to ever see the Slender pony up close, and not just once, and something seemed strange to her when she saw her again, here in town... It just didn't seem like the same Slender pony she saw before.
***
Applebloom was right about one thing, but she had no idea what had actually become of Slender pony. The spirit of slender now dwells in a different body. Over the months, Whitemane realized more and more about the curse of Everfree forest as he sat in the middle of his forest thinking about it all... For that was all he could do.
His head hurt more and more with each passing day. His memories deceived him -- they did not disappear, but they kept becoming corrupt and unreal. Instead of the good times he had in his childhood, he remember nothing but awful nightmares. His mind got more and more corrupt every day, he now knew why Slender pony had to kidnap all the young ones -- their memories are pure and beautiful. They're the only thing that can sustain the Slender spirit from completely taking over his body.
Whitemane resisted as long as he could, but he knew that eventually it would grab hold of him... He would cry if he could, for he now knew that he had not accomplished anything by defeating the Slender pony, but merely delayed the inevitable. He felt pathetic like that, not being able to do anything. Not even tell anypony about his torment, as he was the only one that could hear his own voice now.
As the corruption started taking over even larger portions of his mind, he suddenly had the craving to visit Ponyville every now and then. He sort of tried to train himself to resist the temptation by looking at the young ponies of Ponyville from afar and not going any closer. Part of his mind wished ever so greatly to snatch one up, but whatever was still left of the real Whitemane in there did not allow it to do so. He repeated the same action for a few days until he got noticed. A young filly stared at him for a while, and she knew he was staring right back at her. However, she did not scream or run.
Whitemane fled back to the depths of his forest immediately and just sat there as if nothing had happened, just as he always did -- with his head hanging low and his hooves wrapped around his knees. He sat without making a move for hours every day. He just did not see the point of anything anymore. It's only a matter of time now... The only thought in his mind now was to go and scare the ponyfolk before he turns completely, so that they would at least expect the kidnapping to start once more and be ready for it.
"Hello?"
He heard someone calling out... He recognized the voice -- it was the same filly that was staring at him not so long ago. "No... NO, NO, NO!" He felt the slender spirit taking over him. The gate appeared behind the filly and she had nowhere left to run. "No, Applebloom! Why are you here!? You need to get out of here, NOW!" He knew she could not hear his voice. He got up and turned around, and here they were again -- staring at each other. Whitemane struggled hard not to pounce at her. The slender spirit tried to take a step forward and Whitemane tried to take a step back, which left the two minds at an impasse, unable to move at all.
"Whitemane?" the filly whispered.
"She recognized me..." Whitemane told himself "I don't know if that's a good sign or not." Whitemane had a page with him. Since he could not move, he instead wrote and threw the page over to Applebloom. The words on it were large in size and there was no mistaking the content.
"YOU NEED TO LEAVE, NOW!"
"I... I don't understand, Whitemane..." the filly replied with much grief in her eyes. "Why?... What... What happened to you?"
Applebloom's sad look gave Whitemane enough strength for the moment. He forced the gate behind her to disappear and pointed towards the way out of this place. Applebloom, however, did not want to leave. She instead took a step forward, to which Whitemane quickly responded by holding his hoof out and pointing towards her as if saying "STOP!" He collapsed to his knees. He could barely resist the temptation. Applebloom saw him suffering and wanted nothing more than to help him. Whitemane knew that and so he wrote one more page and threw it to her.
"Please..."
Applebloom started crying after seeing Whitemane's torment. She wanted to come closer, but after she heard a metallic noise behind her and looked back, she reconsidered... Pieces of the gate behind her were reappearing. Whitemane was at the edge of his sanity. He looked up at Applebloom with a look on his face that you could almost read... Every part of him was screaming "RUN!"
And finally Applebloom responded and ran away, just before the last piece of the gate sealed itself behind her. She ran fast and didn't look back.
"Run... Run as fast as you can, Applebloom... I'll come for you soon..."
***
Meanwhile, back at Ponyville, Applejack was talking to Twilight.
"Hey, Twilight? Have ya seen my sister Applebloom today?"
"Yes... Yes I have," Twilight replied while staring behind Applejack with wide eyes.
"Really? Where?"
Twilight pointed behind Applejack. When she turned around, she saw her sister running towards them with her eyes full of tears.
"Applebloom! Where have ya been?" she asked in a scolding manner.
Applebloom did not say a word. She just ran up to her sister and locked her hooves around her.
"Hey, now... What's the matter, Sugarcube?" She comforted her sister.
"It's Whitemane..."
***
Back at Twilight's library, the three ponies spent some time talking. Mostly listening to Applebloom as she told them everything.
"Well, now... That sure is... something..." Twilight rubbed the back of her head. "Are you sure it was him?"
"I'm positive!" Applebloom quickly replied.
"But how do you know that for so sure?"
"I just know!"
"But ho--"
"I JUST DO!" Applebloom yelled, interrupting Twilight and leaving both her and Applejack silent for a moment. "You weren't there to see him... I was."
"You're darn lucky to have gotten out of there safe and sound, I'll give ya that..." Applejack scolded her. "But even if what you say is true, what can we do about it? Ah don't think even Twilight's magic could release Whitemane from such a curse."
"She's right, Applebloom... I know nothing about curses," Twilight regrettably admitted.
All three ponies frowned and hung their heads.
"So... what?" Applebloom said with a frustrated look on her face. "Are we just gonna give up on him?"
"I never said that," Twilight replied. "My magic might not be strong enough to handle such things, but I think I know somepony who might know a bit more about these things..." Twilight turned around and picked up a quill and parchment in her magic and levitated them over to her assistant. "Spike, take a letter. To the princess."
"Yes, Ma'am!" Spike replied and grabbed the two objects, ready to begin writing.
Twilight had Spike send a letter to Celestia, requesting an urgent meeting. Luckily, the princess was not busy at the moment and sent a flying carriage for her. Twilight reached Canterlot soon enough and told Celestia everything about their grim situation.
"This is indeed an urgent matter..." Celestia said in a stern manner. "But what makes you think that I can help you?"
"I..." Twilight stuttered. "I just thought that--"
"Twilight..." the princess interrupted. "The well being of you and your friends is vital for me, but I'm afraid you're going to have to seek help elsewhere for this matter."
"But where!?" Twilight asked with a touch of despair in her tone. "Where can I find help if not even the almighty Celestia can aid me?"
"Oh, I think you already know, Twilight..." Celestia replied slyly, confusing her prized student in the process.
"Huh? I don't..."
"Twilight... The slender spirit is a resident of the realm of nightmares."
Authors note: I am SO sorry about this. I used to have an old story called "The realm of nightmares" on my fimfiction page. (now deleted coz it was just plain horrible
Twilight gasped and her eyes widened. "But... That means..."
Celestia handed Twilight a sealed document. "This will grant you permission to take the book... Now go, Twilight! Your friend needs you!"
Twilight nodded and quickly ran back to her carriage and flew back to Ponyville. By the time she got back, the rest of her friends had shown their concern for Whitemane by joining Applejack and Applebloom at Twilight's library to wait for her. They saw her land and thought she was about to come back to them, but what happened instead left them a bit puzzled. She ran in the opposite direction -- Right into the Everfree forest.
"What in tarnation?!" Applejack raised her eyebrow. "Twilight's runnin' away! She's going after Whitemane all by herself!"
"WHAT!?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "We can't let her do that!"
"You're darn right we can't! Lets go girls!"
Applebloom, her older sister and the rest of Twilight's friends started running after her, but by the time they got to the entrance of the Everfree forest, Twilight was already coming out of the forest carrying a large book.
"Ah, you're all here! Perfect!" Twilight rejoiced.
"What, where, how, when?" Applejack asked in a bewildered state.
"There will be plenty of time for questions later, but right now we need to get back to the library, and I do mean NOW!" Twilight insisted and ran past all of her friends.
The ponies shared a series of confused looks between themselves after seeing Twilight run off.
"What was that all about?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"No clue... but I guess we'd better go find out," Applejack suggested and led the rest of the ponies back towards Twilight's library.
Back at her library, Twilight didn't hesitate to place the book she was carrying on the table. Seeing it inspired a feeling of uneasiness in her friends.
"T-Twilight... That's the..." Applejack gulped loudly.
"I know, Applejack, but listen! I know this book is dangerous, but right now it's the only way to help Whitemane," Twilight explained.
"But how!?" Applejack asked, still unconvinced by Twilight's words "How can a book so evil help for a good cause?"
"Simple! The spirit that cursed Whitemane is one of the residents of the realm of nightmares, and this book might help us send him back to his realm," Twilight gave a reply that seemed obvious to her.
"I don't know, Twilight..." Applejack nervously replied. "You know what happened last time you used this book. Slender pony kidnapping our young ones is trouble enough, but combine that with the grown up ones getting trapped in the realm of nightmare... That might just doom the entire town"
"That won't happen!" Twilight stomped her hoof on the ground. She seemed convinced about her idea being right. "The spirit that dwelt in the realm has been dealt with... The book is much safer now."
The rest of Twilight's friends still didn't look too eager to comply, but for Whitemane's sake, they were willing to take the risk.
"Ah hope you know what you're doing, Twilight."
"I hope so, too, Applejack..."
Twilight opened the book and started slowly turning the pages, one after another, looking for one that might have something written in it about the slender pony. As she turned the pages, the room suddenly felt a lot colder, and a few ponies even got goosebumps. Nopony was really convinced about this. Finally, Twilight stopped at one page.
"I think I found it..." Twilight declared. "The Slender spirit." Twilight started reading the contents of the page out loud, "The slender spirit cares not whether its victim is one of its own kind or not. All it needs is a host to carry out its bidding. Even the sinister creatures of the realm of nightmare found this spirit to be a threat to their realm, and so the nightmare spirit had this creature expelled to Equestria."
"That's just the legend!" Rainbow Dash shouted out of impatience. "We need something to help us get rid of it!"
"I'm looking! Be patient ,please, Rainbow!" Twilight retorted and continued reading, "The Slender spirit claims its victims by making them fear it. That's its only weapon -- fear. Once inside a host, the spirit consumes their memories, corrupting the sanity of its victims and leaving nothing but am empty shell forced to do its bidding. Only the memories of the young and pure can sustain the sanity of the host and keep their memories pure, but not for long. The spirit eventually tries to take over, again and again. As long as there are memories to feed on, it will not stop."
"Still nothing important..."
"Keep reading!"
"If by chance the host of the Slender spirit is destroyed, the spirit would jump into the host that destroyed its previous host."
"That explains what happened to Whitemane!" Applebloom interjected. "But we still don't know how to free him of the spirit."
"There must be more here, I know it!" Twilight turned another page and began thoroughly inspecting the next one. "Hmm..."
"What is it, Twilight?" Fluttershy asked.
"That's all there was written about the Slender spirit by the original author of the book, but here's an entry by an anonymous author. It might have something to do with it."
"Better than nothing..." Applejack added. "Lets hear it!"
Twilight started reading the entry, "My friend got taken by the Slender spirit... it matters not now who he was before. He's nothing but a lifeless soul thief now. He was still himself for about three months until the Slender spirit took total control over him." Twilight paused for a moment. "Applebloom!" she suddenly exclaimed and turned towards the filly. "When did you first see Whitemane as the slender pony?"
"About three months ago... Why?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Then by now he must already be at the very edge of his sanity..." Twilight frowned. "You really were lucky to have gotten away unscathed today, Applebloom..."
"There has to be more!" Rainbow Dash insisted "We can't give up yet!"
"There is! Please, don't rush me!" Twilight retorted. "I know we haven't got much time, but please, Rainbow Dash! I need a clear mind for this!"
Rainbow Dash didn't say a thing. She simply crossed her forelegs and pouted.
"Thank you..." Twilight kept reading, "However! The minds of the young ones can sustain his sanity... Not for long, though. From what I've seen, the spirit gets hungry again after a maximum of 3 days... Hmm," Twilight paused again, but none of her friends felt like interrupting her again. "That's it at this entry, but I see another one with the same hoofwriting!" Twilight began reading the next entry, "HA! I got it! I know how to get rid of the spirit! If the host is destroyed, then the spirit must jump into the host that destroyed it, but what if it gets destroyed by, say... a random disaster? A falling chunk of metal? An arrow... something.. .ANYTHING! Anything that doesn't have a soul! I got you now, Slendy!" Twilight stopped reading and stood silent for some time.
"What is it, Twilight?"
"There are no more entries by the same author... Whatever happened, I don't think he succeeded."
***
The ponies hung their heads in despair. For a few minutes, nopony dared to say a thing until Rainbow Dash finally broke the silence.
"So... that's it? We're just gonna do nothing?"
"Seems like it..." Twilight regrettably admitted. "Best we can do now is hope a big tree falls on him."
"How can you even say that!?" Rainbow Dash yelled, shocked by Twilight's lack of faith. "There's always hope!"
"Is there!?" Twilight snapped back at her. "Coz I don't see it! Even the realm that created it didn't know how to get rid of it!" Twilight paused for a moment, but then her face suddenly got lit up. "Wait a minute... That's it!"
"What is?"
"They banished it! They didn't know how to destroy it, so they banished it! All we need to do now is send it back!"
"You make it sound like that's going to be easy..." Rainbow Dash said in a tone lacking amusement.
"Well, it's a start, at least... You got any better ideas?" she asked while glaring at Rainbow.
"No," Rainbow Dash answered while avoiding Twilight's reproachful stare. "Eh, I guess it's better than nothing." She shrugged.
"Indeed," Twilight agreed. "Now, if you could just let me THINK, maybe we could actually make something of this!" After the harsh rebuke, Twilight sat down and began rubbing her chin while Rainbow Dash only crossed her forelegs and stuck out her tongue at Twilight. As if having eyes in her back, Twilight instantly turned around and glared at the pegasus that was now waving at her with a sheepish grin on her face. Ignoring Rainbow's gesture, Twilight turned back to thinking. "Hmm..."
"Got anything?" Applejack curiously inquired.
"At first I thought that if we were to send it back, then what's to stop it from being sent back here again? But then I remembered that it was the nightmare spirit that sent it here, and it no longer exists! So if we were to actually send the spirit back, then it would actually stay there for good!"
"That seems logical," Applejack approved the notion.
"See! I told you it's not hopeless! We just need to keep tying up the loose ends! Think, ponies, think!"
"Rainbow Dash is right, everypony. I'm sure we can come up with something if we put our heads together..." Twilight noticed Pinkie Pie slowly leaning towards her with a wide grin on her lips. "Don't give me that look, Pinkie. I didn't mean that literally."
"Aww..." Pinkie frowned.
All of the ponies started thinking while also subconsciously performing simple acts that helped them think, such as pacing or rubbing their chins.
"Hmm... AHA!" Twilight suddenly exclaimed.
"What is it, Twilight?"
"A spell! The nightmare spirit must have used a spell to banish the Slender spirit, and this book has a collection of all the shadow spells. I bet there's one for banishing spirits there."
"Good thinking, Twilight!"
Twilight turned the book to its last pages where all the spells were written down. Twilight drove her hoof down the page, looking for the right spell. Surprisingly enough, they were arranged alphabetically. "B, b, b, ba, banish... Banishment spell section! Found it! Page 357." Twilight turned the book to the said page and started looking through all the banishment spells. "White noise banishment... Earthshaker banishment... king of shadows banishment... Ah, here it is! Slender spirit banishment..." Just a few seconds after she started reading the spell, Twilight frowned in despair.
Applejack gulped loudly after seeing her grim expression. "I'm afraid to ask..."
"Only the one who sent the spirit here in the first place can send it back..." Twilight quietly replied.
everypony stood silent for a moment... At this point, they all were out of ideas... and hope.
"But that means..."
"There is nothing we can do for him, Applebloom..." Twilight looked at the frowning filly with much regret in her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"But... but isn't there always hope?"
"I wish there was, Applebloom..." Twilight hung her head and closed her eyes. "I wish there was." She closed the book and went upstairs.
"Where are you going?" Fluttershy inquired.
"To send a letter to Celestia."
"And what are you going to tell her?"
"That I've failed."
***
Twilight disappeared upstairs, but she came back down soon afterwards with her head still hanging ever so low. All the ponies looked at each other with eyes full of dry tears and sorrow. No words needed to be said. Their faces alreadu told everything. They would have gone on like that for some time, but it was getting dark, and Rainbow Dash realized that there was no reason to prolong this meeting.
"So what do we do now?"
"Go home," Twilight replied impassively. "Tell the mayor, alarm the ponies of the town that the Slender attacks are going to continue." Twilight stopped near Applejack and looked into her eyes. "Take Applebloom home, Applejack, and hurry... It's not safe for her at this hour."
"I hear ya," she replied and started heading towards the exit while trying her best to hide her sadness. "Lets go, Applebloom."
All the ponies except Twilight started walking towards the exit with Applejack up front. She was about to open the door, but then they heard someone knocking. That really confused all of them.
"You expecting any guests, Twilight?"
"No," Twilight replied with a puzzled look on her face. "Especially at this hour... I wonder who could it be."
"Well, whoever it is, he's got some explaining to do." Rainbow Dash got irritated by the sudden knocking and opened the door to confront the visitor. All of a sudden, Twilight imagine that it could have been Whitemane behind that door and wanted to yell, "DON'T OPEN IT!" but it was too late. The door was open. However, the pony standing outside looked nothing like the slender pony... He was a white unicorn with a blue mane and tail and was nearly twice the size of any other pony in the room.
"Who in the blazes are you?!" Rainbow Dash interrogated the unwelcome guest.
The unicorn walked inside, ignoring Rainbow's yelling.
"HEY! I'm talking to you, buddy! Where do you think you're going?!"
As if deaf, the unicorn simply walked past every other pony in the room and walked straight up to Twilight. "Princess Celestia sends her regards, Twilight Sparkle." The unicorn bowed before Twilight. "I come bearing a gift of hope in this dark hour."
Twilight was both flattered and confused at the same time. "Who... Who are you?"
The unicorn smiled. "Strange... I thought you would have realized by now, judging by how much time you've spent staring at my cutie mark. I think you know quite well who I am."
"But... but it can't be..."
"Aah, yes, I probably should have mentioned this right away..." His smile suddenly turned a bit sheepish. "Princess Celestia might not have been completely honest with you on the day that the nightmare spirit was defeated," he explained. That, however, did nothing to lessen Twilight's confusion.
"But... Why would she hide you? I don't understand..."
The white unicorn paused for a moment and then replied with a warm smile, "Lets just say that she thought it was for the best... for everyone."
Twilight shook her head from the sudden and overwhelming revelation. "By Celestia... Then it really is so! You did survive! You Are Sunwell Dawnstar!" she exclaimed while pointing her hoof at the visitor.
The unicorn bowed before Twilight once again. "At your service."
"You... You were once the nightmare spirit. Does this mean that you can send the Slender spirit back from whence it came?" Twilight asked and nearly fainted after seeing Sunwell reply with a firm nod. "By Celestia..." Twilight was so excited she could barely stand on her hooves. She nearly collapsed, but Sunwell caught her before she reached the ground.
"Are you alright, Miss Twilight?" he asked in concern for her well being.
"More than ever, thank you... By Celestia, you really are a sight for sore eyes." Twilight blushed after realizing the spot she was in. She got back up on her hooves and cleared her throat to take everypony's eyes off of her cheeks. "Right... So, how do we do it then?"
Sunwell walked over to the table with the book on it and opened a page which appeared to be completely blank. Twilight remembered seeing this page before.
"This page... The only blank one in the book. Why is it blank?"
"This is the spell page. It's blank because there is no active spell currently placed on it. When the nightmare spirit banished the Slender spirit from the realm of nightmares, it used a light banishment spell on this page and made the Slender spirit's host look into it, so in order to send it back, we need to make it look at the same page, only with a shadow banishment spell on it instead."
"Sounds easy enough... So all we need to do now is--"
"Oh! I forgot to mention one thing." Sunwell interrupted. "The host of the Slender spirit needs to be awake. If he is completely controlled by the Slender spirit, then it will not look into the page... Only what's left of the host's sanity can force it to look into the page. And even if this ritual were to succeed, its effects could prove highly dangerous to the current host's life. There's no guarantee that we can save him AND banish the spirit."
"Gosh..." Twilight's expression lost its former confidence. "That might be a problem."
"Why is that?"
"According to the book, Whitemane would be completely taken over by the Slender spirit by now."
"Hmm...That is, indeed, a problem."
"No!" the youngest pony in the room shouted. "Whitemane's spirit is strong, I know it! He should still be sane right now!"
All of a sudden, a loud scream echoed through the streets of the town, making not only the still awake ponies in the library run outside, but also waking up half the town and making them pop out their heads from their windows to investigate the cause of it. They soon discovered that the cause was a panicking mare that kept running around and screaming.
"MY BABY! WHERE'S MY BABY!? SOMETHING TOOK MY BABY! HELP! HELP!"
The ponies stared at the desperate mare for a brief moment, after which Twilight looked into Applebloom's eyes with a nervous expression. "I don't think so, Applebloom..."
The moment of silence was soon interrupted again by Rainbow Dash. "What now!?"
Even Sunwell was out of ideas at this point. "I don't know..."
"I do!" Everypony directed their attention towards Twilight. "The book said that the minds of the young ones sustain the sanity of the host for a short period of time. If He just kidnapped some unfortunate child, then that means that right now Whitemane should be himself for a while!"
"By Celestia, She's Right!" Sunwell approved of the notion. "We need to hurry. It's now or never! MOVE!"
***
Back at the slender pony's domain, Whitemane had just regained some of his true memories... It felt good while it lasted, but he could not forgive himself long enough to even enjoy the memories. He grabbed his own head and began cursing himself. "NOOOO! This is wrong! WHY CAN'T I STOP!? DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOOOOU!!!!" Before he could finish cursing himself, he was interrupted by the sound of eight pairs of hooves running towards him. "No....Applebloom! What have you done!?"
Applebloom took a few steps closer to him than the other ponies. "Whitemane, were here to help!"
Whitemane responded with a gesture that told her to back away and started backing away himself.
Applejack pulled her sister back. "He's not Whitemane yet, Sugarcube... You can't get too close to him."
Their words confused Whitemane. "Yet?!... What do they mean "Yet"?!"
Twilight tried to reason with him. "Whitemane! We know it's you! Were going to get you back!" She turned to Sunwell and told him to start casting the spell into the blank page of the book.
"Are you sure you want to do this? Remember what I said- there's no guarantee that he will survive this! Chances of it are rather slim!" Sunwell reminded.
"It's a risk we have to take!" Twilight answered with a confident look on her face and stomped her hoof. "It's either that or letting him roam here forever!"
"Understood." Sunwell nodded, opened the book and began chanting in an unknown language.
Twilight tried to reason with Whitemane again. "Whitemane! Were going to banish the Slender spirit from you! Were going to use a spell to send it back to the realm of nightmares. But..." Twilight paused and hung her head for a moment.
"But what?" Whitemane wondered. "What is this all about?"
Twilight read his expression. "There's no guarantee that you will survive the process... Are you willing to risk undergoing it anyway?" she asked in a compassionate tone.
"Is she actually even asking that?" Whitemane laughed. "Hah! Good one!" He wrote something on a page and threw it over to Twilight.
The emotion that engulfed her after reading the page could not be described by any known word.
"I would gladly embrace death myself rather than keep bringing it to the ones I love... A dead friend is better than a living abomination."
Her state was soon interrupted by Sunwell. "Miss Twilight Sparkle! The spell is ready!" Twilight could not say a word at the moment. It almost looked as though she was about to start crying. "Twilight?"
She looked up to Whitemane as if trying to ask for his last words, in case she'd never see him walking again. And Whitemane responded immediately by dropping on his knees and putting his two hooves together as if pleading for her to do this. She knew what had to be done. She turned to Sunwell and nodded, and he nodded back to her. He then started walking towards Whitemane while holding the book wide open. The page that was blank just a moment ago was now emitting a shroud of darkness.
"Whitemane, If you can hear me, look into the book!"
Whitemane did not hesitate to respond. He walked closer to the book and put his head near it. The darkness engulfed his head, and then his entire body, which caused him to shake vigorously. The ponies gazed at the horrid sight, wishing they could help him, but all they could do was sit and hold their breaths while hoping for the best. Every limb of Whitemane's body was shaking. It looked like the darkness had an effect on him which was similar to the effect of electricity. The sight continued on for quite some time, until finally...
"Look!" Applebloom pointed towards him as she noticed the darkness leaving the edges of his limbs. His blue coat was becoming visible again. First the limbs, and then the tail and mane, which actually only partially differed from how it looked. It was now part white, just as it was before. Whitemane's body was no longer shaking. Most of his limbs were already free from the darkness.
Every part of the darkness soon left his body completely. The book then closed and Whitemane collapsed to the ground without make a sound or move. The ponies were all holding their breaths now and all of them had the exact same thought in their minds, "Unconscious or dead?".
Applebloom was the first one to rush over to him, and no one dared to stop this time. The rest of them followed her right away. He wasn't breathing. The first sign of live was negative, so Sunwell placed his hoof on his chest to check if his heart was still beating, and the rest of the ponies awaited his response. None of them moved any more than Whitemane did.
After a few seconds, Sunwell lifted up his head, ready to give a verdict.
***
The spark in everypony's eyes, as well as the hope in their hearts faded away instantly as Sunwell slowly shook his head. They all let their hooves down and started mourning for the loss... Well, All of them but one.
Strange how such a victory is at the same time such a defeat. The ponies tried to calm themselves and their friends, saying that this had to be done and that this was what he would have wanted, but that was simply not enough to rid them of their tears. It was truly a victory... a major one, but no major victories can come without a major sacrifice.
One riddle yet remained, though. The one pony that wasn't mourning... Who was it? If you guessed Sunwell, then you guessed wrong... It was Rainbow Dash. She remembered the story that Whitemane once told her, about how his village got accidentally purged with him as the only survivor. Why him? Because electricity could not kill him. He was born to endure such a strike. The way Whitemane was shaking back there reminded her of the way somepony shakes after being exposed to electricity, so she still had a hunch that he might be alive.
She thought so until the moment she gazed into Whitemane's eyes which were barely visible through his shades. She was now staring into his eyes, just like he was staring into her's. All remaining doubt got cleared from her mind the moment she saw him wink at her with his usual cocky grin.
The Real End!
