Adriftby JazzamanChaptersBoardingRoseStarDarknessEscapeBoardingThe ocean’s vastness was nothing new to Nova. Having grown up on a coastal town, the teal unicorn mare was used to boarding and disembarking boats and ships. However, something struck her as odd tonight. The sea was not as she expected; it was unnaturally calm, and the late night fog rising from the water coupled with the storm that had been prepared by the local weather pegasi to shower that night, did little to comfort her—she, along with two other ponies, a unicorn stallion who went by the name Star blazer, and an Earth pony mare named Rose stem. The trio had been chosen to investigate a ship that had been discovered in the waters off the coast of Balitmare. From its time of discovering, the ship had not responded to messages sent out by the coast guard and was slowly drifting into busy shipping lanes. The Coast guard had quickly ruled out the possibility of pirates, as even pirates weren't dense enough to sail into the path of other ships, leaving only the possibility that the ship was a drifter. So, Nova, Star blazer, and Rose stem had been tasked to go out, board the ship, and sail it back to port where it would be assessed, then most likely scrapped. Nova was sitting in the galley below decks aboard the tiny recovery vessel they had been assigned. It was old, and it creaked and the hull leaked and the gyro would get stuck here and there, but it did its job, which was to float ponies from point A to point B. If it were up to the crew, though, the rust bucket would have been torched for scrap years ago. Nova was the navigator, and a good one at that. Ask her and she could tell you just about every single reef, sandbar or shallow waterbed from here to as far north as Fillydelphia. Star blazer was the Captain, or at least that’s what he’d have you believe. In truth, he was simply ‘the pony who drives the boat’. However, no matter which ship he sailed, he always piloted them as if it were his own, shouting orders and remaining stoic, yet powerful in times of crisis. Rose stem was a jack of all trades when it came to ships. She did everything that the others couldn't, or in most cases, wouldn't do. As a result, her creamy white coat had dulled to a more greyish-black after years of battling with temperamental engines and leaky pipes. Her pink mane however, seemed to retain it shine, no matter how much her oil-to-hair ratio seemed to increase. The small boat rocked slowly from side to side as Nova scaled the steep stairs from below decks to the bridge. The bridge was more like a room than an actual bridge, the only differences were the rows of windows, and the captain's wheel and navigation table. “How long”? Nova questioned, her voice retaining the slightest hint of worry. She wasn’t scared of the drifting boat itself, but she had never been on a recovery mission before, and was rather wary at what they might find aboard... like spiders; just thinking about them sent a shiver up her spine. “Bout’ three minutes,” Star blazer respond, his strong accent still prevalent, even after living in Equestria for so many years. “So what's the deal with this drifter? I kinda zoned out during the rundown,” Nova admitted sheepishly. Star blazer sighed and turned to face her. “The Coast Guard spotted the ship earlier this afternoon; it was drifting with the currents and wasn’t responding to radio transmissions or previous attempts with a signal light,” he answered flatly. “So...?” Nova said, drawing out the ‘o’. “So,” star blazer started, “we go aboard and see what the issue is. Worse case scenario, there’s no crew. If the ship can still move under its own power, then we sail it back to port, If not... Rose works her magic.” As if saying her name made her appear, Rose popped her head from around a doorway, her entrance made clear by the jangle of her toolbelt, her face was covered in grease and she held a spanner between her teeth. “You calleth’d?” she said, her cheery voice slurred around the tool in her jaws. “No,” Star Blazer responded in an annoyed tone. “But since you're up here, you might as well stay.” Rose sat back with a pointed look and returned the spanner to her tool belt. “I never planned on going.” Star blazer rolled his eyes. “Problem solved then.” “We’ll be there in a few minutes.” Nova intervened wisely. “Have you got all your tools your gonna need? I don’t want you having to walk back and forth between ships.” “More like between a ship and a bathtub toy,” Star Blazer muttered. Rose gave her hips an energetic shake, earning a metallic clanking from the many tools on her belt. She grinned. “Yep!” Nova chuckled. “You didn’t even look.” “I didn’t have to,” Rose replied with a little smirk. “I can feel them.” “Tune in next week for episode two of the tool whisperer,” Star Blazer said with sideways leer. Rose glared playfully at him. “Shut up and steer or you’ll plough us into a reef.” “Not a chance,” Nova added. “There’s no reefs within fifty miles of us.” She stated matter-of-factly Star Blazer let out a long breath. “I forgot your brain’s a compass.” He looked back out the window. “I’m trapped on a floating bath toy with the tool whisperer and the pony shaped compass,” he grumbled in a playful manner. “Maybe next they'll be...” He trailed off, eyes picking out a silhouette in the distance. The two mares followed his gaze out the window and their eyes fell upon a massive black shadow looming behind the blanket of fog pushed down to the sea level by the cool winds from the north. As their little boat chugged nearer, the fog parted to reveal the bow of a large bulk cargo ship, Its hull was painted a dirty, dark green, however you would be forgiven if you had thought it was brown or grey; decades of rust had accumulated over the hull and the paint had been mostly lost at the waterline. The scupper holes cut periodically along the length of the deck left long gray streaks below them from years of water running down the side of the hull. Painted just below the deck on the curve of the bow the was name of the ship in faded, white letters. ‘Everfree’. As they approached, Star blazer killed the engine and their small vessel drifted silently towards the towering ship, bearing for the mooring rings and ladder mounting the rusted hull. Nova’s eyes scoured the hull of the ship as they drifted silently closer. The air was dead silent apart from the quiet licking of the water against the hull of their recovery vessel as it sliced through the smooth surface. From here, the fog obscured the view of the superstructure and stern, giving her very little view of the ship itself. Their vessel gently bumped the hull of the Everfree, filling the silent air with the sound of steel on steel. At the moment of impact, the lights upon the recovery vessel flickered once, then went out. Rose squealed, and the other two ponies in the cabin turned and looked at her with amused smiles. Rose looked up at the dead light ceiling, her expression changing from surprise to one of annoyance. “Damn things are on the blink again,” she stated, trying to regain her professional appearance. “Must have knocked some wires loose with that bump.” Star blazer just grumbled in acknowledgement. “Lets get to work,” he said as he opened the creaky door to deck and mounted the first metal rung on the side of the Everfree, leaving the semi-safety of the smaller vessel. Rose tied their ship off to the moorings, then started after him. Nova hesitantly stepped out onto the deck, staring up as the hull stretched away and over their little boat. The rusty anchor hung from its chain just below the deck, still, menacing. A small shiver ran up her spine and she swallowed the knot building in her throat. She didn’t like the look of the ship one bit. It just felt wrong. She reached a hoof out and wrapped it around the metal rung to begin her ascent. From the point her hoof touched the rusty piece of steel, a chill ran up her leg to her shoulder, then spread through her entire body and right down to her bones themselves. She quickly shrugged it off as nothing more than a chill on the wind. The climb up to the deck of the rusted ship took longer than it should have. No matter how she tried, Nova just couldn’t shake the feeling that this entire ship was... off. It had begun to rain by the time she crested the ladder and dropped down to the deck beside her companions. Nova looked skyward with a disapproving scowl. “Really now?” she said exasperatedly to the clouds. Star Blazer looked around the expansive deck of the cargo ship, its only interesting features being the rust that covered nearly every surface and the cargo crane that was affixed to the starboard side of the ship. It hung overhead like a set of gallows, the chains hanging from the pulley at the end of the swinging arm jangling quietly in the soft breeze. Nova blinked a few times to make sure she was seeing straight. “You can’t tell me this ship traveled here under its own power.” Rose shifted her stance. “It does seem a little... old.” Star blazer flicked his tail. “Well, it’s here, and we’re standing on the deck.”He said tapping his hoof on the deck to confirm his statement. He paused and lowered his voice. “It had to get here somehow.” Nova took a few cautious steps forward, her hoofsteps tapping eerily on the steel deck. “Well this is... interesting.” She turned to rose. “I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get this thing running if the engine room looks as bad as the rest of the ship.” Rose looked genuinely insulted. “Nova... this is me you’re talking to.” “Still though,” Star Blazer said in a gruff tone. “I don’t want to stay here for a month while you pound rusty parts with a wrench. We might have to head back and get a full crew.” Rose nodded slowly. “Possibly. though I still want to have a look before—” There was a metallic groan from the chain spool mechanism a little to the left. “What was that?” she asked, ears perked as her eyes darted around the deck.” Nova turned towards the giant, rusty spool set in the deck. “I’m pretty sure it was the anchor spool.” She took a step forward. “What do you expect?” Star Blazer asked with a half-shrug. “It’s old.” He squinted at Nova. “Don’t screw with it, Nova.” Nova looked at the large spool, examining the old and rusted locking mechanism.. “This thing is—” A loud crack filled the air as one of the teeth snapped free, and Nova jumped back like the spool had been a snake trying to bite her. Steel screamed as the rust broke and flaked away, the entire spool unwound slightly as the anchor dropped a few feet below, out of sight. “Nova...” Rose asked slowly. “What did you do?” “I-I didn’t do anything,” she stammered. Something vital snapped and the whole spool churned into a blurred mass as it spun out, the chain slipping through the hawse in the deck railing. Flakes of rust and sheared metal flew like shrapnel as the chain zipped the short distance across the deck, unwinding from the spool with the sounds of a zipper, only deeper and much, much louder. Nova pinched her eyes shut against the flying debris of rust, still backing away. There was a quarter second of perfect silence, then a deafening crash from over the side of the deck, then it went dead quiet. The three ponies on deck exchanged horrified looks, then raced to the railing. What was left of their puny vessel sat below. Most of the main structure had been destroyed, bridge included. Lodged much farther down in the ship, was the massive anchor of the Everfree. “No way,” Rose whispered, horror struck. The chain still connected to the spool snapped with a loud ‘ping’, and the rest of the chain snaked from the side of the railing, pouring down like a steel waterfall on the remnants of the recovery vessel. The combined weight of the anchor and chain was too much for the hapless little ship, and it pitched dangerously to the right a few second before it capsized. “Well...” Star blazer said, voice dead of emotion. “I’m glad that wasn’t my ship...” “What are the chances of that?” Rose balked. Nova’s jaw trembled slightly as watched the underside of their vessel bob silently in the water, bubbling around the sides. There was a rush of air from under the water the plashed up to the surface, then the ship slipped under, slowly disappearing into the dark waters. With one last splash, the captain’s wheel popped out of the water and settled to float below the ladder, bobbing slightly in the waves. “Well I guess we’re not heading back to shore on that thing,” Nova said dejectedly. Rose laughed, but it was forced and tense. “Well, Star... You always said you’d love to see the day when they put that old bucket out of service... It’s out.” It was ten minutes or so before any of them formed another rational thought. It was Star Blazer who jarred them all back from semi-consciousness. “Well, I guess we’re taking this tub back to shore; let’s find a way to get this ship moving.” Rose jumped into action and motioned for them to follow. They made their way across the deck of the ship, towards the superstructure near the stern. They came to a bulkhead door at the base of the towering structure, and Nova tried to with doubt that it would open. She had been right. “It’s locked,” she said, looking back at them both. “Pshaw.” Rose pranced forward and produced one of the many tools from her belt. Ten seconds later and she had the wheel turned and the door squeaked open on hinges that had forgotten what oil was. Star blazer looked to Rose with a smile. “Ah, Rose, you're better than a set of keys any day.” Nova failed to praise Rose’s mechanical prowess as she stared into the dark hallway beyond the rusted bulkhead door. The smell of stale, dusty air filled her nostrils, and the occasional distant clang and groan of some unknown piece of metal settling far down in the dark, dank hallway echoed from beyond. None of the lights were on, and the prospect that this ship could have a crew was quickly dying in her mind’s eye. “Okay, we’ve got work to do,” Star blazer said, his authoritative tone returning. “Rose, I need you to go down to the engine room and see if its still functional.” “On it boss!” Rose gave a cheesy salute. “Nova and I will search for a working radio. Meet us at the bridge when your done,” Star blazer finished. Rose gave an affirmative nod before rushing through the door into the bowels of the ship. Author's Note Big thanks to Sorren for helping out on this one Go check out his stories! you won't regret it! RoseThe insides of the ship were just as Rose Stem had expected. It was the usual dull, cream-white walls that were for most part, hidden behind groups piping. Her hooves plodded loudly on the rubberized coating on the floor, echoing in the small space. Every twenty feet or so a fluorescent lighting fixture protruded from the ceiling, the flexible wire housing spanning between. Of course, they weren’t any use, as the ship didn’t appear to be under any form of power, leaving the narrow hallways of the superstructure in solid darkness. The only source of light was from Roses flashlight, which she held in her mouth as she made her way down the hall, the white beam slicing into the darkness and casting long shadows over the pipework. The Everfree groaned ominously around her as she cautiously progressed down the dark hallway. Each hoofstep earned a low moan from the floor panels that didn’t seem to like her weight. As she walked, she shone her flashlight into any room with the door ajar, not bothering with the ones closed. This seemed to be a crew quarters, and the periodically placed doorways were crew bunkrooms. Scattered possessions and furniture in a few of the rooms set her a little on edge. It almost looked as if there had been means of a struggle. Bed sheets lay unmade, chairs upturned, belongings scattered over the floor. “I don’t think there’s anypony here,” she murmured quietly to herself around the flashlight. “I don’t think there’s been anypony here for a while.” While Rose considered herself more of a happy-go-lucky pony, the pitch-black hallways and eerie ambience from within the ship managed to quell her normally-cheery demeanor. She continued on for a few more minutes, struggling to locate the engine room. Down, her greatest hint was to go down. However nothing made any sense. All of the signs that normally directed to different part of the ship seemed to be totally inaccurate. Rose found herself questioning her own direction when she mounted a flight of stairs, and stumbled across a room containing a massive bilge pump. If all of her years of nautical engineering experience had taught her anything, it was that the machines to pump water from the ship were usually mounted much lower in the decks. She left the room, still unsure of anything, and didn’t stumble across it again. She felt like a pony in a cartoon, with some masked villain creeping around ahead of her and turning the big arrows upside down. In the darkness, the only sounds she could hear was noise of the ship and the unsteady echo of hoofsteps on the steel grating. Rose stopped dead in her tracks and the hair along her spine prickled. Hoofsteps rung out behind her, like an echo, but she wasn’t moving anymore... Slowly, she craned her head back to face... a dark hallway, the same as it had been since she entered it. She forced herself calm and assured herself it had only been an echo, then turned back to face the way she had been going and continued on with her task of locating the engine room. “Honestly,” she grumbled. “It’s a giant ship. The engine room can’t be that hard to find.” She didn’t get far before a brutal stench hit her nostrils. She could only compare it a precious experience of hers, in which a rat had been trapped in heat exhaust... the smell of burnt flesh. A warm breeze gusted against the nape of her neck, fluttering her mane and intensifying the putrid smell, accompanied by a raspy, scratchy, grating noise. She froze, afraid to move. There was another gust from behind, and another... and another. Breathing. Rose screamed and broke into a gallop, kicking her previous notion of caution in the head. Something was behind her. The second pair of hoofsteps she had heard before found its way to her ears, only this time it was louder, more insistent. It was running. Rose dared not turn back, let alone confront whatever was behind her. The sound of her galloping hoofsteps drowned out the ones of her purser. She rounded corners, blasted through open doors in a desperate attempt to escape whatever it was she was supposed to be running from. She thundered around a corner and into a very degraded hallway. There must have been a pipe leak at one point in time, because the floor and walls were almost red with rust. Her hooves came down on a weak floor panel, and her right leg busted through the weakened floor, disappearing to the knee. With a sudden loss of balance, she flailed for a second, then fell over on her side. Breathing heavily, Rose quickly righted herself and pulled her hoof free. She stared back the way she had come... There was nothing. No pony, no beast, no monster, no breathing thing; Just a quiet, dark hallway. Rose breathed in deep, diaphragm shivering from either fear or exertion. If the creepy appearance of the Everfrees’ exterior had her unsettled before even boarding, now she was absolutely terrified. Her mind tried to convey what had just happened into a logical explanation, and the best it could do was: “Just the ship settling” “Just the ship settling,” she repeated aloud, as if hearing her voice say it made it true. She looked back down the hall. ‘ENGINE ROOM’, was painted on the door ahead in large, red letters. Rose was slightly taken aback, and a little annoyed, that a mad dash through the bowels of the ship had taken her to her location, yet level-headed, logical searching had completely failed her. Her expression changed to one of duty, as she remembered she had a job to do. She grasped the large spoked iron wheel of the door and forced it clockwise. The wheel ground against its rusted fitting with a squeal before the rust broke—giving up, it rotated easily. The locks inside the door disengaged with a quiet ‘thunk’ and the door swung open with a squeak opening into a large room. This was a hollowed out section on the lower deck of the ship. Unlike the hallways she had scoured before, this room was quite large, the ceiling towering twenty-five feet above. Two engines sat parallel to each other, aligned in the center of the room. They were worn, and definitely old, but appeared in nice and working condition. A quick once-over with her eyes proved to Rose that the engines and drive system were in working order, and a small grin teased at her features. That was the thing about engines: they never really seemed to break down unless you treated them wrong. Rose turned her light to the various gauges and valves adorning the walls and control panels near the two monster engines. She tapped the glass next to a pump system for the fuel tanks and a little bubble of air snaked away and up the pipe. It read fine. “Three quarters still left in the fuel cells,” she mused happily. Her eyes drifted to a yellow button that served as the backup lighting. She pressed it, and two orange-white lights flickered to life on the ceiling. It was a little bit of a hassle to check the oil, but after a moment, she nodded approvingly. “We’re in ship-shape... mostly.” She shrugged. “Not really... but we’re pretty good.” She gave both engines a quick checkup, mildly surprised to find that there really wasn’t anything odd with them. After fiddling with the various knobs, levers, switches and valves into their appropriate settings, her hoof founds its way down to the Master Ignition Switch. She pressed it in, and there was a click from the electrical panel on the wall. She closed her eyes as the glowplugs primed, waiting for the satisfying sound a diesel engine roaring to life. Instead, her ears were assaulted with a high pitched wail. It was a terrible, evil sound. They were foals, screaming, violins played with a rusty saw, screaming from the tandem engines like tortured souls. Rose dropped to the floor, covering her ears with her hooves. Diesels shouldn’t make that noise, they couldn’t make that noise. Her head felt like it would split in two, her stomach boiling. Rose pushed her ears as flat against her head, mouth open in a silent wail. The screaming didn’t seem to stop; in fact, it seemed to be getting louder, the bloodcurdling, tortured screams stabbing into her mind like hot knives. A memory of hers tried to dig its way out of her mind, asking for recall, one she had tried so hard to forget, one that had so nearly ruined her life. “No! Shut up!” she screamed, bringing her hoof down forcefully on the emergency stop button. The screams slowly died down as the engines returned to their dormant state. After a few moments, she regained some of her composure, but shaking violently. The engines’ horrifying screams, or whatever they had been, had brought forward a memory that she had so much difficulty coping with all those years ago. Her mind drifted again, unable to shake the memory. She began to recall that horrible night at the hospital, the night that had changed her life forever. She was so caught up in her thoughts that she failed to notice the groaning from the fuel line above her head. The rusty bolts sheared from the ceiling with unexplained force as the pipe snapped in two, raining its contents down upon Rose. except It wasn’t fuel. Blood spilled from the ruptured pipe, chunks of flesh and bile accompanying it, raining sloping to the floor and over the poor mare below, the smell of rotten flesh quickly replacing the oily smell. Rose got her senses about her fast, and sprang away from the torrent, her scream echoing off the steel walls. Shreds of flesh and hide had found their way into her mane, blood and bile had stained her coat a sickening shade of crimson yellow. It had gotten in her mane, and snaked its way to her mouth whilst she screamed. Her eyes went wide as her taste buds screamed their protest to her body and she heaved; the second time she emptied her stomach’s contents onto the floor. Hyperventilating, shaking like rattle, her eyes welled as she struggled to register something. This was all too much. “Wha?” she stammered, lips failing to form words. “N-no! What is this!?” she yelled to the ceiling. It took her awhile to focus behind the tears, but her eyes eventually found a plaque, mounted on the side of one of the engines. ‘Midnight’ The memory returned, this time stronger and more vivid than ever. She found herself drawn seven years into the past, unable to shake the trance coming over her. She cried out in pain as she was rushed to hospital, doctors and nurses quickly rushing her through the white, sterile halls. She wasn’t injured or sick, but her reason for being there was just as important—she was in labour. It was the foal of a stallion, whom she had met at a party in her more adventurous years. She hadn’t believed her doctor when she had gone to him, complaining of feeling ill and having him tell her that there was a tiny pony inside her. It had taken nine hours, nine hours before it was over, and at the end of it all, she had given birth... to a stillborn. It had been a miscarriage, her own child tragically taken from her before she had even seen it. It’s father had never been more than a stud who got lucky, and now with the death of her to-be foal, she couldn’t take it. She slipped into a depression, lasting months. Therapy seemed to help sometimes, but progress was a word hardly used for it. Rose wanted nothing more that her child... she had even already named her. “Midnight,” Rose squeaked, her voice barely audible, tears streaming from her eyes. What had remained of her cheery attitude had completely vanished. Only pain and suffering filled her. She stood up and ran as fast as she could and left the way she had come, unsure of where she was heading and not really caring. It was only after the bulkhead door had mysteriously shut and locked itself behind her, did the two massive, grey, lumps of engines churn to life, the normal rhythmic thumping of a typical diesel engine resonating gently throughout the ship. StarNova and Star Blazer had successfully located the bridge long ago, and had been waiting there for quite some time now, listening to the sounds of the storm outside as rain thundered against the glass. While they waited for Rose rose to either get the engines running or report back to them, Star blazer had busied himself reading the various manuals and records scattered about the room, none of which had given much insight to the Everfrees’ history or crew. Nova had spent a few minutes reading over some tattered navigational charts, but they didn’t make much sense, and she instead occupied herself with staring absently out the windows. The storm outside had worsened since they had come aboard, and the skies had gone nighttime-dark from the heavy cloud cover, only lit up by the occasional flash of lightning. Every flash lit her proportions up for a second, filling the bridge with a brilliant bright light, then thunder would boom shortly after once the darkness had returned. The strong ocean winds blew sheets of rain across the deck, and the entire ship pitched and rolled with the turbulent seas, the heavy chain dangling from the deck-mounted loading crane whipping angrily in the wind. After exploring the ship briefly, they had failed to find a radio, or any working electrical devices for that matter. They hadn’t expected anything tied into the electricals to work because they weren’t receiving any power from the generators tied into the engines, but the radios that normally came with a backup power supply were dead as well, which was a little daunting to the both of them. “Look at this,” Star Blazer said to Nova, snapping her out of her ocean-gazing trance. “The Everfree last made port over thirty-four years ago. It was scheduled to dock in Zebrica three months after it left port, and that’s the last written log.” Star blazer said, throwing a quick glance up from the log sheet. “What?” Nova turned, confusion written on her face. “Ships don’t just go missing like that; it’s not like its a book that falls down the crack between the bed and the wall, and one day like ten years later you’re cleaning under the bed you’re like, ‘oh, so that’s where that went!’” Star Blazer grinned at her analogy. “I’m not sure, but unless the pony filling out these logs had a very bad case of dementia, clear as mud, there it is, thirty-four years,” Star responded flatly.. “Does it say anything about what it was carrying?” Nova asked. “No,” Star responded. “Hardly anything on cargo. Any logs I found are either useless shreds or the papers are scratched out; it’s like somepony tried to destroy any logs of what was on this ship.” “But, why would they—” She was interrupted as a deep hum growled up from the depths of the ship. A second later the lights flickered to life on the bridge, the age-old fluorescent tubes humming and blinking in protest. One overcharged and burst with a flash of light and a little pop, raining shards of glass down to the floor. “Oh, Rose you magnificent mare,” Star said, a smile plastered on his face. “No time to waste then. Lets get a move on!” He trotted over to the wheel and motioned for Nova to take her post as navigator. She opened her mouth, ready to read Star their current heading and wind speed, but froze, blinking a few times to make sure she was seeing right. All of the navigation instruments were wrong. The Pelorus was somehow rotating freely, the small telescope it sported spinning lazily within its glass dome. The normally-precise radial compass spun clockwise on its dial, not caring at all about its job. Nova had heard stories of dancing compasses, but this was her first time ever coming across one. What really set her off more, was the fact that it was spinning, and not dancing. A compass would often ‘dance’ due to magnetic disruption. This one was not dancing, but simply spinning. Finally she looked over to the geographical compass. The Everfree was barely moving, yet the ‘True north’ bearing compass jerked around in its housing like the second hand of a clock. Nova looked over to Star, who wasn’t even paying her any mind. He simply stared out of the window, eyes stretched wide in shock. Lightning flashed outside the window, lighting his features and reflecting the fear in his eyes. “S-Star?” Nova asked, trying not to let her shaky voice show. “What’s wrong?” Trembling slightly, he raised a hoof and pointed out the window. Nova trotted up beside him and squinted to see what he seemed so spooked about, struggling to make anything out through the torrents of rain slicking the window and clouding the air, obscuring most of the deck. Her eyes picked the cargo crane out of the gloom, the chain swaying heavily in the wind. “What are you looking at?” she asked Star, a worried expression plastering her face at the way he seemed to pale. A bright flash of lightning lit the entire deck of the Everfree for a short second, casting the crane’s shadow across the cargo bay doors. There, hanging from the end of the heavy chain, was a distinct silhouette. It was a pony. Thunder crashed, shaking the entire ship, and Nova screamed as she hurled herself backwards. She fell against a filing cupboard and the both of them crashed to the floor in an explosion of yellowed papers. The sudden jolt snapped Star back to attention and his head traveled around to look at Nova where she squirmed on the floor. Nova looked back, horror and disbelief dancing across her face. “S-Star,” she stammered. “W-w-we’re the only three on this ship.” She squeaked. “Where’s Rose?” Star seemed to go paler still. “In the engine room,” He swallowed twice, breath coming in faster and faster bursts. “Come on!” he shouted suddenly, charging the door that led to the afterdeck beyond the bridge. The two unicorns rushed down the steep companionway as fast as they dared. Upon reaching the landing on the deck three level beneath, they made a hard right and reached the watertight bulkhead to the open deck. After a brief, frantic struggle, they managed to throw open the poorly-oiled door, only to be assaulted by the vicious winds and curtains of rain. Star and Nova exchanged a shared glance before charging out into the freezing weather. The two ponies trodded carefully along the deck, heads down and hunkered against the wind. Nova thought it rather silly they hadn’t grabbed any raincoats, considering the fact that they were probably stuffed everywhere aboard the ship, however she didn’t dwell on that thought for long. The chain that hung from the deck crane continued to sway and clank in the wind, the weight on the end flopping about haplessly in the torrents. Nova stood back, surveying the scene and trying not to vomit. Blood traveled in snakes through the water on the deck, trailing from the limp form suspended above. In the dark, all Nova could make out was a dark shape, stained crimson. A lighting bolt stabbed at the sky behind her and brought the scene into horrifying proportion. Rose hung lifelessly from the rusty hook bolted to the end of the loading chain, the tip of the hook protruding from her chest. Her forehooves flopped limply at her side and her head lolled backwards, eyes facing the dark sky. trails of blood ran from her wounds, down her coat and dripped from the tips of her hooves. Nova locked up as darkness overtook her again, heart practically stopping and welling up in her throat. Lightning struck again and the white mare’s head flopped forward, matted pink mane hanging around her head. The skin around her eyes was bloody red and raw, having been scratched at and torn, and a trail of blood ran down from each eye like crimson tears. Nova felt her legs growing weak. Rose... Her eyes, they were white, not the sort of white one would see when lifting a pony’s eyelid as they slept, but white, the pupil and iris merely ghosts of what they had been. Her foreleg was twisted sickeningly in the rusty chain, her coat squeezed and torn from the weight of her and the hook. “Wha? Ro...? I” She mumbled unable to form coherent sentences as her mind struggled to comprehend the scene before her. “Come on,” Star said somberly. “let’s get her down. Together, the two unicorns used their combined magic to levitate her off the hook. It wouldn’t budge at first, then gave way with a sickening squelch and rush of clotted blood. Gently they lowered her to the deck and laid her there. The gravity of the situation hit Nova like a train as she looked down at her lifeless friend. A torrent of emotions made themselves apparent. Shock, sadness, confusion, disgust and fear. A glance over at Star showed that he wasn’t faring much better. They stood there. Unmoving even as the rain and wind continued to batter their forms. Nova sobbed softly while Star simply just stood still conveying to vocal emotion although the look upon his face said more than enough. Nova shifted her gaze away from her friend’s body, unable to look at it any longer. Sniffing loudly as she wiped the tears away with a forehoof she found herself looking back up to the large, white superstructure they had emerged from. Through the storm, in one of the darkened rooms she saw a light move from one window to another on the right side of the ship’s structure, its orange glow flickering carelessly. “St-Star!” She started finding her voice again “Theres somepony up there!” Nova called over the wind. “Where!?” he called back, tearing his horrified eyes from rose and approaching Nova. His eyes followed her hoof to the superstructure, though the light had vanished by the time he was squinting through the gloom. Even though he didn’t see the light, Star had no reason to doubt Nova. “What did you see!?” he asked. “A light!” Nova pointed with her hoof to the window she was sure it had been. “It was moving.” Star growled in his throat, eyeing the dark window. “Second floor, window on the far right.” If there was another pony on board, he would get them for what they did to Rose. Without warning, he bolted, sprinting through the rain back towards the superstructure, leaving a distraught Nova lonesome on the deck. Nova followed more slowly, not wanting to be left on the deck alone, not wanting to be left alone at all. She stopped herself suddenly, unsure of whether to continue. She turned her head back to the foot of the crane, risking another glance at Rose. Her body lay there in the freezing rain, mane fanning out in the water washing across the deck. The few trails of blood she still had left to drain washed quickly away in the torrents of rain water as she ship rolled in the swells. The red tendrils of water amongst the clear washed across the deck like crimson snakes, before swirling down the scupper holes to the sea below. Her mangled eyes stared coldly back at her. Nova closed her eyes tightly and turned back. She tilted her head down toward the deck, tears threatening to show again “I’m sorry” she said quietly, barely audible over the waves and wind and rain. “I’m so s-sorry, Rose,” she whispered through gentle sobs. She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself before plodding slowly back to the superstructure, not able to bring herself to look at Rose’s blood-stained coat—the gaping hole in her chest. Or those cold, emotionless, dead... eyes. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Star blazer barrelled through the narrow corridors as he headed for where he was sure Nova had spotted the light. There had to be somepony else aboard; Rose didn’t just hang herself like that—nopony could. She couldn't scratch her own eyes out then impale herself on a blunted hook suspended several feet above the deck. No, it hadn't been her, which only left one option. Star rounded a corner and jumped over a busted ventilation pipe laying in the middle of the floor. The lights that had since lit up in the halls once the engines had started made navigating the ship far easier. At the end of the hall, one door remained ajar, swinging slightly with the roll of the ship. If his mental compass was correct, then this was the room he had been seeking from the deck below. He just wanted to charge in and bring justice to whoever was in there, but he stopped himself. It would be better to approach this with some caution. Whoever this pony was, they had just hung Rose from a hook ten feet in the air and tried to gouge out her eyes. There was a pretty good chance that this pony was batshit insane, and suddenly jumping in their face with nothing but accusatory words could prove rather disastrous. Star decided to approach this tactically. He stooped down to pick up a large section of iron piping that had come loose and fallen to the floor. His ears perked suddenly at what sounded like whispering tones from the hall far behind him. He whipped around so fast that he nearly fell over, but he saw nothing. Just an empty, derelict hallway. He breathed deeply to steady himself before turning back to the door. Slowly, he pushed open the heavy iron door just enough to slip his hoof through. Slowly, he slid his hoof up the door frame until he found the light switch. He flicked it quickly following with slamming the door hoping to catch somepony off guard. Two things failed in his otherwise-perfect plan. One, the lights didn’t turn on, leaving the room in its it’s nearly pitch-black state; secondly, there was nopony in the room, nor was there anywhere to hide. The room was practically devoid of any furniture, bar one small upturned table that would've been impossible to hide under. Star slumped a little in confusion, unsure of how to proceed. Even though it was a large room, there was only one door, which he had just entered through. If anyone had tried to leave, he would have passed them on the way up the stairs or in the hall. Had Nova imagined it? it was possible, in her aghast state, that she had imagined the light in the window. After all, he hadn’t actually seen it. None of this however changed the fact the Rose still couldn't have done those things to herself. Not even a freak accident and the worst luck could have done that to her. It had to have been somepony else. As Star entertained these thoughts, something flashed past in his peripheral vision. Although he had only caught the tiniest view, he was sure a figure had dashed past the door behind him, heading right. In hopes of catching what may have been the elusive murderer, Star started in pursuit, charging out the door and to the right. He danced twice on his hooves, then stopped, squinting at the wall three feet from his face. “Wha?” he managed to blurt out Absolutely, he was absolutely sure ... something had passed going in this direction, but the large, bleak and white wall rising up in front of him decided to test that claim. Was he seeing things now? Was he starting to lose it? The mysterious appearance of the Everfree. The anchor. The disturbing cargo logs. Rose... ‘Just what is going on, on this ship!’ his conscious screamed to him. Something awful was going on and Star was determined to find out. His train of thought was interrupted as the ship rocked dangerously to the right shaking him out of his stupor. The sudden jostle suddenly brought one large, glaring problem that had so far eluded him until this point to the front of his mind. He and Nova were trapped on a decaying cargo ship that was still drifting straight into the busy east coast shipping lanes. Urgency filled him. if they didn’t get the ship moving, the Everfree could collide with another ship—a possibility that was all too real. The big unicorn set an urgent trot for the bridge, rounding corners and making haste of a steep staircase. It was only a moment before he reached the bridge, crossing the room to the wheel. Star placed a hoof over the tandem levers marked on the side with many different engine settings and guided them forward, listening as the engines roared below decks, hearing the high-pitched whine mixing with the powerful grumble. Placing both hooves on the wheel, he spun thrice around counterclockwise until the wheel stopped. Reaching back to the throttle levers, he pulled the left one back to about halfway. The Everfree began to make a slow portside turn, the engines whining in protests as they ran up to speed. He was amazing that the engines ran as well as they did, even after thirty-four years of dormancy; it was amazing the fuel hadn’t gone bad or seized. He had at least been expecting a knock or a few hiccups from the engines, but they were running like the day they were new. Feeling as if a massive weight had been lifted, Star remembered Nova, and turned to see if she had yet arrived at the bridge. She hadn’t. A quick look out the windows proved that she was no longer on the deck. He swallowed a small lump in his throat. Why had he just run off and left her? “What? where is she?! Nova!” he called out at the top of his lungs his voice bouncing off the metal walls and reverberating throughout the deck. No response. ‘Oh no, no, no Celestia no!’ His mind raced, he was still certain that there was somepony else aboard and the last time one of his crew went off on their own... He shuddered remembering the fate that had befallen Rose stem. He had to find her, that was the only thing he could think. Nova wasn’t a weak pony by anyones means nor was she a stupid one but Star blazer couldn’t escape the feeling of dread building in his stomach. Whoever had gotten to Rose was definitely strong and definitely wasn’t somepony you wanted the pleasure of meeting. There was no hope for Nova if she was found. Star blazer breathed deeply as his expression turned into one that wouldn’t of looked out of place on a royal guard. With a steely resolution driving his actions he ventured back out into the after deck to find Nova. Once more the chocolate brown unicorn clambered down the steep steps of the companion-way he wasn’t quite sure where to begin looking but he had to start somewhere. He had only climbed down one flight before the stairs ran out and all that was in front of him was a short hallway with a large bulkhead being its only feature on the wall directly opposite him. Star paused to retrace his steps. Even though the ship was still new territory to him he had been up and down those very stairs at least four times now. “What the?” was all he managed to say as his brain tried to process what had happened. Cautiously and against his better judgement he approached the imposing iron door it seemed larger and heavier than other he had seen. When he reached up to open it he noticed that it was already unlatched and swung open with barely a squeak. After seeing that all moving parts on this ship were in desperate need of an oiling, the near silence of this door was quite jarring. The hair on the nape of Star blazers neck stood on end when a rush of chilled air raced out of the open door to greet him. Beyond the door, a narrow hallway stretched into the darkness. Star couldn’t help the feeling of dread that welled within him. He had seen plenty of darkened corridors on this ship but this one... it just seemed darker. It was almost as if the darkness was fighting back against the light from the ceiling lamp above him. If you could imagine a shade darker than pitch black this was it. It was terrifying it almost seemed...Hungry. Despite the less than inviting appearance of the hallway Star pressed on. Every fibre of his being screamed at him to back into the safety and warmth of the light but he ignored them. The door had been open and if that meant that Nova may have come through this way, Star was going to follow. DarknessStar Blazer had only walked a few dozen feet when the darkness had enveloped him completely. A glance behind him showed that the door he came through was still open and was still allowing the light to come into where he was it just didn’t reach him. Like the light at the end of a tunnel; visible but not useful. Suddenly Star felt his hoof get caught and stumbled before he pulled it out. Carefully he put his hoof back down where it had gotten caught, there was a shallow groove running horizontally across the floor. Navigating by touch, he followed the groove to the wall where it met a serrated edge running up the wall. Star knew exactly what it was. Most larger ships had heavy half-ton watertight doors that descended from the ceiling. in the event that the ship started to take on water. The water would trip a switch, which released a friction-clutch and the doors, would travel down toothed tracked on the walls before dropping the last half meter into a groove in the deck to insure a watertight seal. Star had just found one. He made a mental note to be cautious of these as there was bound to be more. After walking for a good minute or two more, The seafaring unicorn simply couldn’t take not being able to see any longer. ‘It was stupid of me to come down here without a flashlight. I’m going to have to go back and get one.’ Star wanted to kick himself for being so unprepared, but the notion of losing another of his crew forced him to act hastily. With a sigh he turned back to retreat to the bridge it was only then he noticed it. The light coming through the open door wasn’t there. There was no light in the distance and he hadn’t rounded any corners or closed any doors. His first thought was that the door had swung shut but he couldn’t work out how. There wasn’t any breeze inside the ship and the big iron bulkhead was rather weighty, it could have been the rolling of the ship, but he was sure he would have heard the door slam shut, there weren’t exactly a lot of noises in there that would have drowned it out. With the ‘disappearance’ of his only known exit, Star could feel the panic start to rise. Now that he was Virtually blind, he began to hear things that he hadn’t noticed before. He could make out the rhythmic thumping of the ships engines through the wall to his right, and the familiar moan of a piece of the ship settling met his ears. He also managed to pick up a sound that was different, one that he couldn’t quite describe. It was so faint at first that Star simply disregarded it. But as he stood there in the total blackness, it began to make itself more apparent. A quiet clicking, scratching noise as if a dozen cats were running on a tiled floor with their claws out. As he stood there trying to pinpoint its source the odd sound began to grow louder, as it echoed around in the narrow corridor. Stars skinned crawled when he realized the sound wasn’t getting louder. It was getting closer. Star turned and ran, Heading deeper into the bowels of the ship, away from the noise, and away from the exit. He still couldn't see anything but running blind seemed a better option than whatever was making that noise. He ran as fast as he could faster than was probably sane to go when you can’t see your own hooves, but the scratching clattering noise continued to gain. Wham! In his haste Star blazer had failed to notice the corridor turn to the left and had collided hard into the wall. The big unicorn fell to the ground in a heap, As what little vision he had quickly faded and fell into unconsciousness. When Star blazer awoke he wasn't quite sure where he was. He couldn't see anything and a gentle mechanical thumping could be heard somewhere through the wall. When his memories returned in a sudden rush he snapped back into full alert. He was still in the pitch black darkness but the sound that had chased him was no longer around. groggily he stood back up but immediately had to sit back down as a splitting pain manifested in his head. He resisted the urge to vomit but it was a losing battle. After regurgitating most of his previous meal onto the floor below he realized that he was concussed and that assuming his nose was broken wasn't too much of a stretch either. His eyes were still useless yet his ears had regained their above average hearing. This being the case he was able to pick out another sound, not too far from where he was. He recognized it almost straight away, after living with two less-than-emotionally stable sisters for most of his young life the sound was very familiar. Sobbing. “N-nova?” he said in a creaky weak voice. Star cleared his throat and tried again “Nova?!” He called this time with a normal voice laced with concern. No answer, yet the sobbing continued. He picked himself up off of the cold steel grates and steadied himself on shaky legs. His body protested and tried to bring him back down but he paid it no mind. Slowly he trudged along the corridor, the sobbing growing louder as he approached until it turned into a shrieking wail. The narrow hallway began to lighten up as he rounded another bend. at the end of the corridor it opened out into a large hexagonal room, there was no piping or grates on the walls, floor or ceiling they were completely bare apart from the rust stains the covered the lower half of the walls in a pattern resembling a raging fire.The whole room gave off a feeling that it shouldn't even be on the ship, as if it was negative space. But it was what was in the center of the room that caught Star blazers attention. A pony. A small extremely skinny mare sat hunched over with her back to star in the center of the room. A light source illuminating her from the beneath as if she sat atop it. There were tuffs of pure white fur scattered over the floor. leaving very little on the small mare exposing her skin and in turn her bones. burn marks charred her flesh where the fur had fallen away as she cried the movement of her body made a soft rustling noise, like one that burnt paper would make. She paid no attention to star as he approached the room. He stopped before entering instead standing on the threshold where the hallway ended. “Hello?” Star said in a quite hesitant voice, not sure if speaking to the distraught mare was a great idea. As soon as he spoke the pony stopped sobbing, however she made no attempt to turn around, and remained in her hunched over posture. The only other indication she made that she had heard was that the movement of her chest had stopped and the sound of her breathing ceased. “Ar-Are you alri-” He was cut short when the sound of the skittering returned this time much louder and much closer. Star looked around frantically to find its source but the terrifying sound seemed to be coming from inside the walls. He tried to move away but he couldn't. His muscles were frozen refusing to move whether it was out of fear or some other force he couldn't tell. His gaze became locked onto the burnt mare. A shriek of metal echoed out above him followed by a rhythmic clicking sound. The massive door above him had unlatched and was now beginning its slow descent down, at it was right above him. The clacking of the gears within the door meshing with the teeth on the wall was drowned out as the horrible clawing noise escalated in volume. The door began to push down on his back, He could feel the full weight of the door starting to transfer into his spine and legs.. His eyes still looking straight at the mare in the center of the room unable to look away. She still hadn't moved despite the noises. As the weight of the door began to become too much he thought he saw something. The mares’ head had moved ever so slightly to the left allowing Star to see just the side of her face. Just enough for him to see that her eyes were as dead as a corpses and as black as night. But what made Star blazer shriek in terror was that her mouth that was bent into a giant, terrifying, evil smile. The gears in the bulkhead squealed as they left their toothed guides and the heavy half-ton door dropped the last fifty centimeters into its groove. Crushing Star blazers ribcage. killing him swiftly in a painfully brutal display. Author's Note sorry for the shortness of this chapter I was without an editor for this as well :( Escape“S-star?!” Nova called out with a heavily shaky voice. The teal unicorn mare had been wandering aimlessly through the ship for roughly half an hour she had been completely alone since Star blazer had run off. Nova had tried to follow; the thought of been left alone on this ship terrified her but upon entering the superstructure again everything had changed. The door leading into the ships innards had lead her to a completely different area. She had passed through that door twice already but this time the entire interior of the ship had completely changed. No longer was there a long hallway before her and a steep set of stairs leading up to the bridge. Now she was in what appeared to be some form of galley and dining area. After pushing the initial shock of the sudden change of the Everfrees’ geography to the back of her mind the second thing the sailor pony noticed was that this part of the ship was Much darker than the rest. None of the lights were on leaving Nova to fumble around in the blackness. At one point she tripped on a warped section of the deck dropping her flashlight and cracking the bulb with ease. The fragile Light flickered twice before failing completely, plunging Nova into extreme darkness. Now, unable to see her hoof in front of her own face she began to hyperventilate. The Navigator dropped to her flanks and shook uncontrollably. She wasn’t just scared. She was terrified. With the encroaching darkness surrounded her in all directions her paranoia began to flare. Nova’s head whipped around in all directions, scanning the shadows. She was almost certain that every time her vision shifted a figure seemed to move just out of her peripherals. The terrified pony quickly turned herself around to leave when she realized something. Even though she couldn’t see more that a few inches in front of her she hadn’t moved that far from the door. When she had dropped her flashlight she had been standing right infront of it. It wasn’t there. The door was gone only a cheap wooden table sat where it should have been. Nova had witnessed some powerful magic in her time but nothing that could remotely come close to bending space time. This ship was just Wrong. Nova was interrupted from her thoughts as she sensed a light behind her. Turning around once again she looked down to see her Flashlight had somehow repaired and turned itself back on. The beam of light flickered in and out of existence and the Light itself seemed to be rocking back and forth erratically as if two colts were rolling it between one another. The erratic beam shone rather dimly onto the far wall, Nova follow the light with her eyes and began to stare at the rusty wall. The light still flickered, for a moment the wall would be lit then the flashlight would flicker out and the room would be dark once more. After roughly half a minute the flashes began to slow, Novas’ brow knitted and she moved closer. her muzzle was just a few inches from the wall, it was then a particularly long pause plunged the room into the black again. When it came back on Nova could help but scream. The entire wall had become a writing black mass of spiders. thousands of them all of different sizes and grotesqueness. The small unicorn immediately turned tail and ran, a sheer stroke of luck allowed her to find an open door as she quickly barreled through it. Once on the other side she slammed the heavy iron door shut before slumping against it shuddering violently and breathing shaky breaths. The distraught unicron raised her hooves to her face and began to weep. She couldn’t even begin to fathom what was happening her friends were either missing or dead, she was completely alone and just on the other side of the door her worst fear crawled over the walls. * * * She didn’t know how long she sat there, in the cold darkness crying her fears out. In that time she had come up with a plan. The Everfree may have been old but it wasn’t ancient, there had to be some kind of lifeboat or raft. Though right now Nova would have settled for a piece of driftwood she just wanted off the demonic vessel. Slowly she began to trudge through the ship. Now she appeared to be in the hallway between the crews bunk-rooms. The interior had changed its decor once again. No longer were the walls red with rust or falling to pieces now it was more as if a terrible inferno had raged through. The walls, floors, roof and doors were blackened and charred. a long thick black line of soot marked the roof and the plastic insulation on the electrical wires had bubbled and melted. Even though Nova could feel the steady heartbeats of the dual engines somewhere far in the distance the lights refused to turn on even after several fiddles with the switches. The small unicorn hung her head and sighed. Her face and eyes burned slightly from crying she closed her eyes but continued walking. It was only after a gentle sound met her ears that she stopped and looked up. The seemingly never ending hallway still stretched for what looked like miles ahead of her but that wasn't what made her entire body run cold and chills shoot through her. Emanating from a doorway on her left just ahead of her a very familiar jangling could be heard. The jangle of a mechanics tool belt. “I didn't have to,” Rose replied with a little smirk. “I can feel them.” The odd melody of spanners, hammers and screwdrivers banging against one another grew slightly in volume until it emerged from the door. A familiar figure exited the bunkroom the frizzy hair and unmistakable utility belt making it a dead giveaway as to who it was. Rose stem. That however was where the similarities ended. Her coat was white but it seemed dulled as if it hadn’t been washed ever. the gaping hole that the cargo hook had made was easily visible in both her back and stomach and she seemed slightly... transparent. like she wasn’t entirely there. But the most striking difference was her face. her eyes were wide and completely black the skin around then still scratched and bloodied. And her mouth was twisted into a horrifying crooked smile showing some very un pony-like teeth. Nova froze staring at the apparition that appeared as her friend. yet the specter didn’t stare back, it didn’t even acknowledge her as it simply walked from one door across the hall to the one adjacent. It didn’t make any noise, it didn’t look at her, it didn’t even seem to notice her. Tentatively Nova approached the door to the room that the phantom entered and quickly looked inside. As with all the other rooms this one was no different, furniture was upturned, bunks remained devoid of their mattresses and blankets which had most likely incinerated. As with all the other rooms its was deathly quiet with no trace of the figure. however something did catch Novas’ eyes. A slip of paper lay in the center of the room. Normally Nova would have found this odd as everything else around it had been burnt to a crisp yet the easily flammable piece of parchment remained unharmed, but from everything she had witness prior this almost seemed normal. It took awhile for Novas eyes to focus onto the words scrawled onto the paper but after they did the small mare got a very clear message GET OUT. Nova needed no further prompt as she quickly stood and turned tail. The two hastily written words providing a very clear request. Nova ran. faster than she had ever before she didn’t even notice the burning of her lungs she just kept running. She ran not only because the paper had asked but because more than once she swore that she could hear the rapid hoof steps of another behind her. She dared not turn around she couldn’t waste time she had to get out. All other ambitions and life goals didn’t matter to her now she had but only one aspiration Escape. Finally after what seemed like eons Nova burst through a door out onto an open deck. Rain continued to pour but it had died down in its intensity. She would have collapsed in relief then and there but she kept going. After taking a moment to collect herself Nova found that she was at the rear-most part on the ship. behind the superstructure below her propellers churned away. A small part of her was relived when she noticed that for now they weren't a danger to other vessels but a larger part also reminded her that she was very much still in danger. So it was with great relief when she looked over and saw a single solitary row boat perched above the railing. She wasted no time in boarding before swinging it and herself over the ocean and quickly began hoisting herself sea-ward. Once the small wooden boat hit the water and the ropes were untied a great wave of fatigue washed over the small mare. She collapsed into the bottom of the small life raft and began to cry again. She cried for many different reasons. Sadness over the death of her close friend Rose stem. Guilt over leaving Star blazer behind if he was still even alive. Fear over the horrific things she had been unfortunate enough live through. And over all, Happiness that it was all finally over. It was with such intensity that she cried she didn't even notice that the Everfrees' propellers had stopped and were now spinning in reverse. Pulling the evil vessel backwards toward the small, fragile, wooden boat And the small, fragile, weeping mare. Author's Note well how did i do for a first time writer? i know its not great or really worthy of anyone's time but i felt as if ghost stories on this site have been neglected. and whats scarier than ghosts? being trapped with a ghost. If you feel the ending was a bit rushed that's probably because it was as i was having trouble trying to wrap this up. but please: comment, rate, and if you like it Fav! if you didn't i would love to know why!
BoardingThe ocean’s vastness was nothing new to Nova. Having grown up on a coastal town, the teal unicorn mare was used to boarding and disembarking boats and ships. However, something struck her as odd tonight. The sea was not as she expected; it was unnaturally calm, and the late night fog rising from the water coupled with the storm that had been prepared by the local weather pegasi to shower that night, did little to comfort her—she, along with two other ponies, a unicorn stallion who went by the name Star blazer, and an Earth pony mare named Rose stem. The trio had been chosen to investigate a ship that had been discovered in the waters off the coast of Balitmare. From its time of discovering, the ship had not responded to messages sent out by the coast guard and was slowly drifting into busy shipping lanes. The Coast guard had quickly ruled out the possibility of pirates, as even pirates weren't dense enough to sail into the path of other ships, leaving only the possibility that the ship was a drifter. So, Nova, Star blazer, and Rose stem had been tasked to go out, board the ship, and sail it back to port where it would be assessed, then most likely scrapped. Nova was sitting in the galley below decks aboard the tiny recovery vessel they had been assigned. It was old, and it creaked and the hull leaked and the gyro would get stuck here and there, but it did its job, which was to float ponies from point A to point B. If it were up to the crew, though, the rust bucket would have been torched for scrap years ago. Nova was the navigator, and a good one at that. Ask her and she could tell you just about every single reef, sandbar or shallow waterbed from here to as far north as Fillydelphia. Star blazer was the Captain, or at least that’s what he’d have you believe. In truth, he was simply ‘the pony who drives the boat’. However, no matter which ship he sailed, he always piloted them as if it were his own, shouting orders and remaining stoic, yet powerful in times of crisis. Rose stem was a jack of all trades when it came to ships. She did everything that the others couldn't, or in most cases, wouldn't do. As a result, her creamy white coat had dulled to a more greyish-black after years of battling with temperamental engines and leaky pipes. Her pink mane however, seemed to retain it shine, no matter how much her oil-to-hair ratio seemed to increase. The small boat rocked slowly from side to side as Nova scaled the steep stairs from below decks to the bridge. The bridge was more like a room than an actual bridge, the only differences were the rows of windows, and the captain's wheel and navigation table. “How long”? Nova questioned, her voice retaining the slightest hint of worry. She wasn’t scared of the drifting boat itself, but she had never been on a recovery mission before, and was rather wary at what they might find aboard... like spiders; just thinking about them sent a shiver up her spine. “Bout’ three minutes,” Star blazer respond, his strong accent still prevalent, even after living in Equestria for so many years. “So what's the deal with this drifter? I kinda zoned out during the rundown,” Nova admitted sheepishly. Star blazer sighed and turned to face her. “The Coast Guard spotted the ship earlier this afternoon; it was drifting with the currents and wasn’t responding to radio transmissions or previous attempts with a signal light,” he answered flatly. “So...?” Nova said, drawing out the ‘o’. “So,” star blazer started, “we go aboard and see what the issue is. Worse case scenario, there’s no crew. If the ship can still move under its own power, then we sail it back to port, If not... Rose works her magic.” As if saying her name made her appear, Rose popped her head from around a doorway, her entrance made clear by the jangle of her toolbelt, her face was covered in grease and she held a spanner between her teeth. “You calleth’d?” she said, her cheery voice slurred around the tool in her jaws. “No,” Star Blazer responded in an annoyed tone. “But since you're up here, you might as well stay.” Rose sat back with a pointed look and returned the spanner to her tool belt. “I never planned on going.” Star blazer rolled his eyes. “Problem solved then.” “We’ll be there in a few minutes.” Nova intervened wisely. “Have you got all your tools your gonna need? I don’t want you having to walk back and forth between ships.” “More like between a ship and a bathtub toy,” Star Blazer muttered. Rose gave her hips an energetic shake, earning a metallic clanking from the many tools on her belt. She grinned. “Yep!” Nova chuckled. “You didn’t even look.” “I didn’t have to,” Rose replied with a little smirk. “I can feel them.” “Tune in next week for episode two of the tool whisperer,” Star Blazer said with sideways leer. Rose glared playfully at him. “Shut up and steer or you’ll plough us into a reef.” “Not a chance,” Nova added. “There’s no reefs within fifty miles of us.” She stated matter-of-factly Star Blazer let out a long breath. “I forgot your brain’s a compass.” He looked back out the window. “I’m trapped on a floating bath toy with the tool whisperer and the pony shaped compass,” he grumbled in a playful manner. “Maybe next they'll be...” He trailed off, eyes picking out a silhouette in the distance. The two mares followed his gaze out the window and their eyes fell upon a massive black shadow looming behind the blanket of fog pushed down to the sea level by the cool winds from the north. As their little boat chugged nearer, the fog parted to reveal the bow of a large bulk cargo ship, Its hull was painted a dirty, dark green, however you would be forgiven if you had thought it was brown or grey; decades of rust had accumulated over the hull and the paint had been mostly lost at the waterline. The scupper holes cut periodically along the length of the deck left long gray streaks below them from years of water running down the side of the hull. Painted just below the deck on the curve of the bow the was name of the ship in faded, white letters. ‘Everfree’. As they approached, Star blazer killed the engine and their small vessel drifted silently towards the towering ship, bearing for the mooring rings and ladder mounting the rusted hull. Nova’s eyes scoured the hull of the ship as they drifted silently closer. The air was dead silent apart from the quiet licking of the water against the hull of their recovery vessel as it sliced through the smooth surface. From here, the fog obscured the view of the superstructure and stern, giving her very little view of the ship itself. Their vessel gently bumped the hull of the Everfree, filling the silent air with the sound of steel on steel. At the moment of impact, the lights upon the recovery vessel flickered once, then went out. Rose squealed, and the other two ponies in the cabin turned and looked at her with amused smiles. Rose looked up at the dead light ceiling, her expression changing from surprise to one of annoyance. “Damn things are on the blink again,” she stated, trying to regain her professional appearance. “Must have knocked some wires loose with that bump.” Star blazer just grumbled in acknowledgement. “Lets get to work,” he said as he opened the creaky door to deck and mounted the first metal rung on the side of the Everfree, leaving the semi-safety of the smaller vessel. Rose tied their ship off to the moorings, then started after him. Nova hesitantly stepped out onto the deck, staring up as the hull stretched away and over their little boat. The rusty anchor hung from its chain just below the deck, still, menacing. A small shiver ran up her spine and she swallowed the knot building in her throat. She didn’t like the look of the ship one bit. It just felt wrong. She reached a hoof out and wrapped it around the metal rung to begin her ascent. From the point her hoof touched the rusty piece of steel, a chill ran up her leg to her shoulder, then spread through her entire body and right down to her bones themselves. She quickly shrugged it off as nothing more than a chill on the wind. The climb up to the deck of the rusted ship took longer than it should have. No matter how she tried, Nova just couldn’t shake the feeling that this entire ship was... off. It had begun to rain by the time she crested the ladder and dropped down to the deck beside her companions. Nova looked skyward with a disapproving scowl. “Really now?” she said exasperatedly to the clouds. Star Blazer looked around the expansive deck of the cargo ship, its only interesting features being the rust that covered nearly every surface and the cargo crane that was affixed to the starboard side of the ship. It hung overhead like a set of gallows, the chains hanging from the pulley at the end of the swinging arm jangling quietly in the soft breeze. Nova blinked a few times to make sure she was seeing straight. “You can’t tell me this ship traveled here under its own power.” Rose shifted her stance. “It does seem a little... old.” Star blazer flicked his tail. “Well, it’s here, and we’re standing on the deck.”He said tapping his hoof on the deck to confirm his statement. He paused and lowered his voice. “It had to get here somehow.” Nova took a few cautious steps forward, her hoofsteps tapping eerily on the steel deck. “Well this is... interesting.” She turned to rose. “I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get this thing running if the engine room looks as bad as the rest of the ship.” Rose looked genuinely insulted. “Nova... this is me you’re talking to.” “Still though,” Star Blazer said in a gruff tone. “I don’t want to stay here for a month while you pound rusty parts with a wrench. We might have to head back and get a full crew.” Rose nodded slowly. “Possibly. though I still want to have a look before—” There was a metallic groan from the chain spool mechanism a little to the left. “What was that?” she asked, ears perked as her eyes darted around the deck.” Nova turned towards the giant, rusty spool set in the deck. “I’m pretty sure it was the anchor spool.” She took a step forward. “What do you expect?” Star Blazer asked with a half-shrug. “It’s old.” He squinted at Nova. “Don’t screw with it, Nova.” Nova looked at the large spool, examining the old and rusted locking mechanism.. “This thing is—” A loud crack filled the air as one of the teeth snapped free, and Nova jumped back like the spool had been a snake trying to bite her. Steel screamed as the rust broke and flaked away, the entire spool unwound slightly as the anchor dropped a few feet below, out of sight. “Nova...” Rose asked slowly. “What did you do?” “I-I didn’t do anything,” she stammered. Something vital snapped and the whole spool churned into a blurred mass as it spun out, the chain slipping through the hawse in the deck railing. Flakes of rust and sheared metal flew like shrapnel as the chain zipped the short distance across the deck, unwinding from the spool with the sounds of a zipper, only deeper and much, much louder. Nova pinched her eyes shut against the flying debris of rust, still backing away. There was a quarter second of perfect silence, then a deafening crash from over the side of the deck, then it went dead quiet. The three ponies on deck exchanged horrified looks, then raced to the railing. What was left of their puny vessel sat below. Most of the main structure had been destroyed, bridge included. Lodged much farther down in the ship, was the massive anchor of the Everfree. “No way,” Rose whispered, horror struck. The chain still connected to the spool snapped with a loud ‘ping’, and the rest of the chain snaked from the side of the railing, pouring down like a steel waterfall on the remnants of the recovery vessel. The combined weight of the anchor and chain was too much for the hapless little ship, and it pitched dangerously to the right a few second before it capsized. “Well...” Star blazer said, voice dead of emotion. “I’m glad that wasn’t my ship...” “What are the chances of that?” Rose balked. Nova’s jaw trembled slightly as watched the underside of their vessel bob silently in the water, bubbling around the sides. There was a rush of air from under the water the plashed up to the surface, then the ship slipped under, slowly disappearing into the dark waters. With one last splash, the captain’s wheel popped out of the water and settled to float below the ladder, bobbing slightly in the waves. “Well I guess we’re not heading back to shore on that thing,” Nova said dejectedly. Rose laughed, but it was forced and tense. “Well, Star... You always said you’d love to see the day when they put that old bucket out of service... It’s out.” It was ten minutes or so before any of them formed another rational thought. It was Star Blazer who jarred them all back from semi-consciousness. “Well, I guess we’re taking this tub back to shore; let’s find a way to get this ship moving.” Rose jumped into action and motioned for them to follow. They made their way across the deck of the ship, towards the superstructure near the stern. They came to a bulkhead door at the base of the towering structure, and Nova tried to with doubt that it would open. She had been right. “It’s locked,” she said, looking back at them both. “Pshaw.” Rose pranced forward and produced one of the many tools from her belt. Ten seconds later and she had the wheel turned and the door squeaked open on hinges that had forgotten what oil was. Star blazer looked to Rose with a smile. “Ah, Rose, you're better than a set of keys any day.” Nova failed to praise Rose’s mechanical prowess as she stared into the dark hallway beyond the rusted bulkhead door. The smell of stale, dusty air filled her nostrils, and the occasional distant clang and groan of some unknown piece of metal settling far down in the dark, dank hallway echoed from beyond. None of the lights were on, and the prospect that this ship could have a crew was quickly dying in her mind’s eye. “Okay, we’ve got work to do,” Star blazer said, his authoritative tone returning. “Rose, I need you to go down to the engine room and see if its still functional.” “On it boss!” Rose gave a cheesy salute. “Nova and I will search for a working radio. Meet us at the bridge when your done,” Star blazer finished. Rose gave an affirmative nod before rushing through the door into the bowels of the ship. Author's Note Big thanks to Sorren for helping out on this one Go check out his stories! you won't regret it!
RoseThe insides of the ship were just as Rose Stem had expected. It was the usual dull, cream-white walls that were for most part, hidden behind groups piping. Her hooves plodded loudly on the rubberized coating on the floor, echoing in the small space. Every twenty feet or so a fluorescent lighting fixture protruded from the ceiling, the flexible wire housing spanning between. Of course, they weren’t any use, as the ship didn’t appear to be under any form of power, leaving the narrow hallways of the superstructure in solid darkness. The only source of light was from Roses flashlight, which she held in her mouth as she made her way down the hall, the white beam slicing into the darkness and casting long shadows over the pipework. The Everfree groaned ominously around her as she cautiously progressed down the dark hallway. Each hoofstep earned a low moan from the floor panels that didn’t seem to like her weight. As she walked, she shone her flashlight into any room with the door ajar, not bothering with the ones closed. This seemed to be a crew quarters, and the periodically placed doorways were crew bunkrooms. Scattered possessions and furniture in a few of the rooms set her a little on edge. It almost looked as if there had been means of a struggle. Bed sheets lay unmade, chairs upturned, belongings scattered over the floor. “I don’t think there’s anypony here,” she murmured quietly to herself around the flashlight. “I don’t think there’s been anypony here for a while.” While Rose considered herself more of a happy-go-lucky pony, the pitch-black hallways and eerie ambience from within the ship managed to quell her normally-cheery demeanor. She continued on for a few more minutes, struggling to locate the engine room. Down, her greatest hint was to go down. However nothing made any sense. All of the signs that normally directed to different part of the ship seemed to be totally inaccurate. Rose found herself questioning her own direction when she mounted a flight of stairs, and stumbled across a room containing a massive bilge pump. If all of her years of nautical engineering experience had taught her anything, it was that the machines to pump water from the ship were usually mounted much lower in the decks. She left the room, still unsure of anything, and didn’t stumble across it again. She felt like a pony in a cartoon, with some masked villain creeping around ahead of her and turning the big arrows upside down. In the darkness, the only sounds she could hear was noise of the ship and the unsteady echo of hoofsteps on the steel grating. Rose stopped dead in her tracks and the hair along her spine prickled. Hoofsteps rung out behind her, like an echo, but she wasn’t moving anymore... Slowly, she craned her head back to face... a dark hallway, the same as it had been since she entered it. She forced herself calm and assured herself it had only been an echo, then turned back to face the way she had been going and continued on with her task of locating the engine room. “Honestly,” she grumbled. “It’s a giant ship. The engine room can’t be that hard to find.” She didn’t get far before a brutal stench hit her nostrils. She could only compare it a precious experience of hers, in which a rat had been trapped in heat exhaust... the smell of burnt flesh. A warm breeze gusted against the nape of her neck, fluttering her mane and intensifying the putrid smell, accompanied by a raspy, scratchy, grating noise. She froze, afraid to move. There was another gust from behind, and another... and another. Breathing. Rose screamed and broke into a gallop, kicking her previous notion of caution in the head. Something was behind her. The second pair of hoofsteps she had heard before found its way to her ears, only this time it was louder, more insistent. It was running. Rose dared not turn back, let alone confront whatever was behind her. The sound of her galloping hoofsteps drowned out the ones of her purser. She rounded corners, blasted through open doors in a desperate attempt to escape whatever it was she was supposed to be running from. She thundered around a corner and into a very degraded hallway. There must have been a pipe leak at one point in time, because the floor and walls were almost red with rust. Her hooves came down on a weak floor panel, and her right leg busted through the weakened floor, disappearing to the knee. With a sudden loss of balance, she flailed for a second, then fell over on her side. Breathing heavily, Rose quickly righted herself and pulled her hoof free. She stared back the way she had come... There was nothing. No pony, no beast, no monster, no breathing thing; Just a quiet, dark hallway. Rose breathed in deep, diaphragm shivering from either fear or exertion. If the creepy appearance of the Everfrees’ exterior had her unsettled before even boarding, now she was absolutely terrified. Her mind tried to convey what had just happened into a logical explanation, and the best it could do was: “Just the ship settling” “Just the ship settling,” she repeated aloud, as if hearing her voice say it made it true. She looked back down the hall. ‘ENGINE ROOM’, was painted on the door ahead in large, red letters. Rose was slightly taken aback, and a little annoyed, that a mad dash through the bowels of the ship had taken her to her location, yet level-headed, logical searching had completely failed her. Her expression changed to one of duty, as she remembered she had a job to do. She grasped the large spoked iron wheel of the door and forced it clockwise. The wheel ground against its rusted fitting with a squeal before the rust broke—giving up, it rotated easily. The locks inside the door disengaged with a quiet ‘thunk’ and the door swung open with a squeak opening into a large room. This was a hollowed out section on the lower deck of the ship. Unlike the hallways she had scoured before, this room was quite large, the ceiling towering twenty-five feet above. Two engines sat parallel to each other, aligned in the center of the room. They were worn, and definitely old, but appeared in nice and working condition. A quick once-over with her eyes proved to Rose that the engines and drive system were in working order, and a small grin teased at her features. That was the thing about engines: they never really seemed to break down unless you treated them wrong. Rose turned her light to the various gauges and valves adorning the walls and control panels near the two monster engines. She tapped the glass next to a pump system for the fuel tanks and a little bubble of air snaked away and up the pipe. It read fine. “Three quarters still left in the fuel cells,” she mused happily. Her eyes drifted to a yellow button that served as the backup lighting. She pressed it, and two orange-white lights flickered to life on the ceiling. It was a little bit of a hassle to check the oil, but after a moment, she nodded approvingly. “We’re in ship-shape... mostly.” She shrugged. “Not really... but we’re pretty good.” She gave both engines a quick checkup, mildly surprised to find that there really wasn’t anything odd with them. After fiddling with the various knobs, levers, switches and valves into their appropriate settings, her hoof founds its way down to the Master Ignition Switch. She pressed it in, and there was a click from the electrical panel on the wall. She closed her eyes as the glowplugs primed, waiting for the satisfying sound a diesel engine roaring to life. Instead, her ears were assaulted with a high pitched wail. It was a terrible, evil sound. They were foals, screaming, violins played with a rusty saw, screaming from the tandem engines like tortured souls. Rose dropped to the floor, covering her ears with her hooves. Diesels shouldn’t make that noise, they couldn’t make that noise. Her head felt like it would split in two, her stomach boiling. Rose pushed her ears as flat against her head, mouth open in a silent wail. The screaming didn’t seem to stop; in fact, it seemed to be getting louder, the bloodcurdling, tortured screams stabbing into her mind like hot knives. A memory of hers tried to dig its way out of her mind, asking for recall, one she had tried so hard to forget, one that had so nearly ruined her life. “No! Shut up!” she screamed, bringing her hoof down forcefully on the emergency stop button. The screams slowly died down as the engines returned to their dormant state. After a few moments, she regained some of her composure, but shaking violently. The engines’ horrifying screams, or whatever they had been, had brought forward a memory that she had so much difficulty coping with all those years ago. Her mind drifted again, unable to shake the memory. She began to recall that horrible night at the hospital, the night that had changed her life forever. She was so caught up in her thoughts that she failed to notice the groaning from the fuel line above her head. The rusty bolts sheared from the ceiling with unexplained force as the pipe snapped in two, raining its contents down upon Rose. except It wasn’t fuel. Blood spilled from the ruptured pipe, chunks of flesh and bile accompanying it, raining sloping to the floor and over the poor mare below, the smell of rotten flesh quickly replacing the oily smell. Rose got her senses about her fast, and sprang away from the torrent, her scream echoing off the steel walls. Shreds of flesh and hide had found their way into her mane, blood and bile had stained her coat a sickening shade of crimson yellow. It had gotten in her mane, and snaked its way to her mouth whilst she screamed. Her eyes went wide as her taste buds screamed their protest to her body and she heaved; the second time she emptied her stomach’s contents onto the floor. Hyperventilating, shaking like rattle, her eyes welled as she struggled to register something. This was all too much. “Wha?” she stammered, lips failing to form words. “N-no! What is this!?” she yelled to the ceiling. It took her awhile to focus behind the tears, but her eyes eventually found a plaque, mounted on the side of one of the engines. ‘Midnight’ The memory returned, this time stronger and more vivid than ever. She found herself drawn seven years into the past, unable to shake the trance coming over her. She cried out in pain as she was rushed to hospital, doctors and nurses quickly rushing her through the white, sterile halls. She wasn’t injured or sick, but her reason for being there was just as important—she was in labour. It was the foal of a stallion, whom she had met at a party in her more adventurous years. She hadn’t believed her doctor when she had gone to him, complaining of feeling ill and having him tell her that there was a tiny pony inside her. It had taken nine hours, nine hours before it was over, and at the end of it all, she had given birth... to a stillborn. It had been a miscarriage, her own child tragically taken from her before she had even seen it. It’s father had never been more than a stud who got lucky, and now with the death of her to-be foal, she couldn’t take it. She slipped into a depression, lasting months. Therapy seemed to help sometimes, but progress was a word hardly used for it. Rose wanted nothing more that her child... she had even already named her. “Midnight,” Rose squeaked, her voice barely audible, tears streaming from her eyes. What had remained of her cheery attitude had completely vanished. Only pain and suffering filled her. She stood up and ran as fast as she could and left the way she had come, unsure of where she was heading and not really caring. It was only after the bulkhead door had mysteriously shut and locked itself behind her, did the two massive, grey, lumps of engines churn to life, the normal rhythmic thumping of a typical diesel engine resonating gently throughout the ship.
StarNova and Star Blazer had successfully located the bridge long ago, and had been waiting there for quite some time now, listening to the sounds of the storm outside as rain thundered against the glass. While they waited for Rose rose to either get the engines running or report back to them, Star blazer had busied himself reading the various manuals and records scattered about the room, none of which had given much insight to the Everfrees’ history or crew. Nova had spent a few minutes reading over some tattered navigational charts, but they didn’t make much sense, and she instead occupied herself with staring absently out the windows. The storm outside had worsened since they had come aboard, and the skies had gone nighttime-dark from the heavy cloud cover, only lit up by the occasional flash of lightning. Every flash lit her proportions up for a second, filling the bridge with a brilliant bright light, then thunder would boom shortly after once the darkness had returned. The strong ocean winds blew sheets of rain across the deck, and the entire ship pitched and rolled with the turbulent seas, the heavy chain dangling from the deck-mounted loading crane whipping angrily in the wind. After exploring the ship briefly, they had failed to find a radio, or any working electrical devices for that matter. They hadn’t expected anything tied into the electricals to work because they weren’t receiving any power from the generators tied into the engines, but the radios that normally came with a backup power supply were dead as well, which was a little daunting to the both of them. “Look at this,” Star Blazer said to Nova, snapping her out of her ocean-gazing trance. “The Everfree last made port over thirty-four years ago. It was scheduled to dock in Zebrica three months after it left port, and that’s the last written log.” Star blazer said, throwing a quick glance up from the log sheet. “What?” Nova turned, confusion written on her face. “Ships don’t just go missing like that; it’s not like its a book that falls down the crack between the bed and the wall, and one day like ten years later you’re cleaning under the bed you’re like, ‘oh, so that’s where that went!’” Star Blazer grinned at her analogy. “I’m not sure, but unless the pony filling out these logs had a very bad case of dementia, clear as mud, there it is, thirty-four years,” Star responded flatly.. “Does it say anything about what it was carrying?” Nova asked. “No,” Star responded. “Hardly anything on cargo. Any logs I found are either useless shreds or the papers are scratched out; it’s like somepony tried to destroy any logs of what was on this ship.” “But, why would they—” She was interrupted as a deep hum growled up from the depths of the ship. A second later the lights flickered to life on the bridge, the age-old fluorescent tubes humming and blinking in protest. One overcharged and burst with a flash of light and a little pop, raining shards of glass down to the floor. “Oh, Rose you magnificent mare,” Star said, a smile plastered on his face. “No time to waste then. Lets get a move on!” He trotted over to the wheel and motioned for Nova to take her post as navigator. She opened her mouth, ready to read Star their current heading and wind speed, but froze, blinking a few times to make sure she was seeing right. All of the navigation instruments were wrong. The Pelorus was somehow rotating freely, the small telescope it sported spinning lazily within its glass dome. The normally-precise radial compass spun clockwise on its dial, not caring at all about its job. Nova had heard stories of dancing compasses, but this was her first time ever coming across one. What really set her off more, was the fact that it was spinning, and not dancing. A compass would often ‘dance’ due to magnetic disruption. This one was not dancing, but simply spinning. Finally she looked over to the geographical compass. The Everfree was barely moving, yet the ‘True north’ bearing compass jerked around in its housing like the second hand of a clock. Nova looked over to Star, who wasn’t even paying her any mind. He simply stared out of the window, eyes stretched wide in shock. Lightning flashed outside the window, lighting his features and reflecting the fear in his eyes. “S-Star?” Nova asked, trying not to let her shaky voice show. “What’s wrong?” Trembling slightly, he raised a hoof and pointed out the window. Nova trotted up beside him and squinted to see what he seemed so spooked about, struggling to make anything out through the torrents of rain slicking the window and clouding the air, obscuring most of the deck. Her eyes picked the cargo crane out of the gloom, the chain swaying heavily in the wind. “What are you looking at?” she asked Star, a worried expression plastering her face at the way he seemed to pale. A bright flash of lightning lit the entire deck of the Everfree for a short second, casting the crane’s shadow across the cargo bay doors. There, hanging from the end of the heavy chain, was a distinct silhouette. It was a pony. Thunder crashed, shaking the entire ship, and Nova screamed as she hurled herself backwards. She fell against a filing cupboard and the both of them crashed to the floor in an explosion of yellowed papers. The sudden jolt snapped Star back to attention and his head traveled around to look at Nova where she squirmed on the floor. Nova looked back, horror and disbelief dancing across her face. “S-Star,” she stammered. “W-w-we’re the only three on this ship.” She squeaked. “Where’s Rose?” Star seemed to go paler still. “In the engine room,” He swallowed twice, breath coming in faster and faster bursts. “Come on!” he shouted suddenly, charging the door that led to the afterdeck beyond the bridge. The two unicorns rushed down the steep companionway as fast as they dared. Upon reaching the landing on the deck three level beneath, they made a hard right and reached the watertight bulkhead to the open deck. After a brief, frantic struggle, they managed to throw open the poorly-oiled door, only to be assaulted by the vicious winds and curtains of rain. Star and Nova exchanged a shared glance before charging out into the freezing weather. The two ponies trodded carefully along the deck, heads down and hunkered against the wind. Nova thought it rather silly they hadn’t grabbed any raincoats, considering the fact that they were probably stuffed everywhere aboard the ship, however she didn’t dwell on that thought for long. The chain that hung from the deck crane continued to sway and clank in the wind, the weight on the end flopping about haplessly in the torrents. Nova stood back, surveying the scene and trying not to vomit. Blood traveled in snakes through the water on the deck, trailing from the limp form suspended above. In the dark, all Nova could make out was a dark shape, stained crimson. A lighting bolt stabbed at the sky behind her and brought the scene into horrifying proportion. Rose hung lifelessly from the rusty hook bolted to the end of the loading chain, the tip of the hook protruding from her chest. Her forehooves flopped limply at her side and her head lolled backwards, eyes facing the dark sky. trails of blood ran from her wounds, down her coat and dripped from the tips of her hooves. Nova locked up as darkness overtook her again, heart practically stopping and welling up in her throat. Lightning struck again and the white mare’s head flopped forward, matted pink mane hanging around her head. The skin around her eyes was bloody red and raw, having been scratched at and torn, and a trail of blood ran down from each eye like crimson tears. Nova felt her legs growing weak. Rose... Her eyes, they were white, not the sort of white one would see when lifting a pony’s eyelid as they slept, but white, the pupil and iris merely ghosts of what they had been. Her foreleg was twisted sickeningly in the rusty chain, her coat squeezed and torn from the weight of her and the hook. “Wha? Ro...? I” She mumbled unable to form coherent sentences as her mind struggled to comprehend the scene before her. “Come on,” Star said somberly. “let’s get her down. Together, the two unicorns used their combined magic to levitate her off the hook. It wouldn’t budge at first, then gave way with a sickening squelch and rush of clotted blood. Gently they lowered her to the deck and laid her there. The gravity of the situation hit Nova like a train as she looked down at her lifeless friend. A torrent of emotions made themselves apparent. Shock, sadness, confusion, disgust and fear. A glance over at Star showed that he wasn’t faring much better. They stood there. Unmoving even as the rain and wind continued to batter their forms. Nova sobbed softly while Star simply just stood still conveying to vocal emotion although the look upon his face said more than enough. Nova shifted her gaze away from her friend’s body, unable to look at it any longer. Sniffing loudly as she wiped the tears away with a forehoof she found herself looking back up to the large, white superstructure they had emerged from. Through the storm, in one of the darkened rooms she saw a light move from one window to another on the right side of the ship’s structure, its orange glow flickering carelessly. “St-Star!” She started finding her voice again “Theres somepony up there!” Nova called over the wind. “Where!?” he called back, tearing his horrified eyes from rose and approaching Nova. His eyes followed her hoof to the superstructure, though the light had vanished by the time he was squinting through the gloom. Even though he didn’t see the light, Star had no reason to doubt Nova. “What did you see!?” he asked. “A light!” Nova pointed with her hoof to the window she was sure it had been. “It was moving.” Star growled in his throat, eyeing the dark window. “Second floor, window on the far right.” If there was another pony on board, he would get them for what they did to Rose. Without warning, he bolted, sprinting through the rain back towards the superstructure, leaving a distraught Nova lonesome on the deck. Nova followed more slowly, not wanting to be left on the deck alone, not wanting to be left alone at all. She stopped herself suddenly, unsure of whether to continue. She turned her head back to the foot of the crane, risking another glance at Rose. Her body lay there in the freezing rain, mane fanning out in the water washing across the deck. The few trails of blood she still had left to drain washed quickly away in the torrents of rain water as she ship rolled in the swells. The red tendrils of water amongst the clear washed across the deck like crimson snakes, before swirling down the scupper holes to the sea below. Her mangled eyes stared coldly back at her. Nova closed her eyes tightly and turned back. She tilted her head down toward the deck, tears threatening to show again “I’m sorry” she said quietly, barely audible over the waves and wind and rain. “I’m so s-sorry, Rose,” she whispered through gentle sobs. She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself before plodding slowly back to the superstructure, not able to bring herself to look at Rose’s blood-stained coat—the gaping hole in her chest. Or those cold, emotionless, dead... eyes. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Star blazer barrelled through the narrow corridors as he headed for where he was sure Nova had spotted the light. There had to be somepony else aboard; Rose didn’t just hang herself like that—nopony could. She couldn't scratch her own eyes out then impale herself on a blunted hook suspended several feet above the deck. No, it hadn't been her, which only left one option. Star rounded a corner and jumped over a busted ventilation pipe laying in the middle of the floor. The lights that had since lit up in the halls once the engines had started made navigating the ship far easier. At the end of the hall, one door remained ajar, swinging slightly with the roll of the ship. If his mental compass was correct, then this was the room he had been seeking from the deck below. He just wanted to charge in and bring justice to whoever was in there, but he stopped himself. It would be better to approach this with some caution. Whoever this pony was, they had just hung Rose from a hook ten feet in the air and tried to gouge out her eyes. There was a pretty good chance that this pony was batshit insane, and suddenly jumping in their face with nothing but accusatory words could prove rather disastrous. Star decided to approach this tactically. He stooped down to pick up a large section of iron piping that had come loose and fallen to the floor. His ears perked suddenly at what sounded like whispering tones from the hall far behind him. He whipped around so fast that he nearly fell over, but he saw nothing. Just an empty, derelict hallway. He breathed deeply to steady himself before turning back to the door. Slowly, he pushed open the heavy iron door just enough to slip his hoof through. Slowly, he slid his hoof up the door frame until he found the light switch. He flicked it quickly following with slamming the door hoping to catch somepony off guard. Two things failed in his otherwise-perfect plan. One, the lights didn’t turn on, leaving the room in its it’s nearly pitch-black state; secondly, there was nopony in the room, nor was there anywhere to hide. The room was practically devoid of any furniture, bar one small upturned table that would've been impossible to hide under. Star slumped a little in confusion, unsure of how to proceed. Even though it was a large room, there was only one door, which he had just entered through. If anyone had tried to leave, he would have passed them on the way up the stairs or in the hall. Had Nova imagined it? it was possible, in her aghast state, that she had imagined the light in the window. After all, he hadn’t actually seen it. None of this however changed the fact the Rose still couldn't have done those things to herself. Not even a freak accident and the worst luck could have done that to her. It had to have been somepony else. As Star entertained these thoughts, something flashed past in his peripheral vision. Although he had only caught the tiniest view, he was sure a figure had dashed past the door behind him, heading right. In hopes of catching what may have been the elusive murderer, Star started in pursuit, charging out the door and to the right. He danced twice on his hooves, then stopped, squinting at the wall three feet from his face. “Wha?” he managed to blurt out Absolutely, he was absolutely sure ... something had passed going in this direction, but the large, bleak and white wall rising up in front of him decided to test that claim. Was he seeing things now? Was he starting to lose it? The mysterious appearance of the Everfree. The anchor. The disturbing cargo logs. Rose... ‘Just what is going on, on this ship!’ his conscious screamed to him. Something awful was going on and Star was determined to find out. His train of thought was interrupted as the ship rocked dangerously to the right shaking him out of his stupor. The sudden jostle suddenly brought one large, glaring problem that had so far eluded him until this point to the front of his mind. He and Nova were trapped on a decaying cargo ship that was still drifting straight into the busy east coast shipping lanes. Urgency filled him. if they didn’t get the ship moving, the Everfree could collide with another ship—a possibility that was all too real. The big unicorn set an urgent trot for the bridge, rounding corners and making haste of a steep staircase. It was only a moment before he reached the bridge, crossing the room to the wheel. Star placed a hoof over the tandem levers marked on the side with many different engine settings and guided them forward, listening as the engines roared below decks, hearing the high-pitched whine mixing with the powerful grumble. Placing both hooves on the wheel, he spun thrice around counterclockwise until the wheel stopped. Reaching back to the throttle levers, he pulled the left one back to about halfway. The Everfree began to make a slow portside turn, the engines whining in protests as they ran up to speed. He was amazing that the engines ran as well as they did, even after thirty-four years of dormancy; it was amazing the fuel hadn’t gone bad or seized. He had at least been expecting a knock or a few hiccups from the engines, but they were running like the day they were new. Feeling as if a massive weight had been lifted, Star remembered Nova, and turned to see if she had yet arrived at the bridge. She hadn’t. A quick look out the windows proved that she was no longer on the deck. He swallowed a small lump in his throat. Why had he just run off and left her? “What? where is she?! Nova!” he called out at the top of his lungs his voice bouncing off the metal walls and reverberating throughout the deck. No response. ‘Oh no, no, no Celestia no!’ His mind raced, he was still certain that there was somepony else aboard and the last time one of his crew went off on their own... He shuddered remembering the fate that had befallen Rose stem. He had to find her, that was the only thing he could think. Nova wasn’t a weak pony by anyones means nor was she a stupid one but Star blazer couldn’t escape the feeling of dread building in his stomach. Whoever had gotten to Rose was definitely strong and definitely wasn’t somepony you wanted the pleasure of meeting. There was no hope for Nova if she was found. Star blazer breathed deeply as his expression turned into one that wouldn’t of looked out of place on a royal guard. With a steely resolution driving his actions he ventured back out into the after deck to find Nova. Once more the chocolate brown unicorn clambered down the steep steps of the companion-way he wasn’t quite sure where to begin looking but he had to start somewhere. He had only climbed down one flight before the stairs ran out and all that was in front of him was a short hallway with a large bulkhead being its only feature on the wall directly opposite him. Star paused to retrace his steps. Even though the ship was still new territory to him he had been up and down those very stairs at least four times now. “What the?” was all he managed to say as his brain tried to process what had happened. Cautiously and against his better judgement he approached the imposing iron door it seemed larger and heavier than other he had seen. When he reached up to open it he noticed that it was already unlatched and swung open with barely a squeak. After seeing that all moving parts on this ship were in desperate need of an oiling, the near silence of this door was quite jarring. The hair on the nape of Star blazers neck stood on end when a rush of chilled air raced out of the open door to greet him. Beyond the door, a narrow hallway stretched into the darkness. Star couldn’t help the feeling of dread that welled within him. He had seen plenty of darkened corridors on this ship but this one... it just seemed darker. It was almost as if the darkness was fighting back against the light from the ceiling lamp above him. If you could imagine a shade darker than pitch black this was it. It was terrifying it almost seemed...Hungry. Despite the less than inviting appearance of the hallway Star pressed on. Every fibre of his being screamed at him to back into the safety and warmth of the light but he ignored them. The door had been open and if that meant that Nova may have come through this way, Star was going to follow.
DarknessStar Blazer had only walked a few dozen feet when the darkness had enveloped him completely. A glance behind him showed that the door he came through was still open and was still allowing the light to come into where he was it just didn’t reach him. Like the light at the end of a tunnel; visible but not useful. Suddenly Star felt his hoof get caught and stumbled before he pulled it out. Carefully he put his hoof back down where it had gotten caught, there was a shallow groove running horizontally across the floor. Navigating by touch, he followed the groove to the wall where it met a serrated edge running up the wall. Star knew exactly what it was. Most larger ships had heavy half-ton watertight doors that descended from the ceiling. in the event that the ship started to take on water. The water would trip a switch, which released a friction-clutch and the doors, would travel down toothed tracked on the walls before dropping the last half meter into a groove in the deck to insure a watertight seal. Star had just found one. He made a mental note to be cautious of these as there was bound to be more. After walking for a good minute or two more, The seafaring unicorn simply couldn’t take not being able to see any longer. ‘It was stupid of me to come down here without a flashlight. I’m going to have to go back and get one.’ Star wanted to kick himself for being so unprepared, but the notion of losing another of his crew forced him to act hastily. With a sigh he turned back to retreat to the bridge it was only then he noticed it. The light coming through the open door wasn’t there. There was no light in the distance and he hadn’t rounded any corners or closed any doors. His first thought was that the door had swung shut but he couldn’t work out how. There wasn’t any breeze inside the ship and the big iron bulkhead was rather weighty, it could have been the rolling of the ship, but he was sure he would have heard the door slam shut, there weren’t exactly a lot of noises in there that would have drowned it out. With the ‘disappearance’ of his only known exit, Star could feel the panic start to rise. Now that he was Virtually blind, he began to hear things that he hadn’t noticed before. He could make out the rhythmic thumping of the ships engines through the wall to his right, and the familiar moan of a piece of the ship settling met his ears. He also managed to pick up a sound that was different, one that he couldn’t quite describe. It was so faint at first that Star simply disregarded it. But as he stood there in the total blackness, it began to make itself more apparent. A quiet clicking, scratching noise as if a dozen cats were running on a tiled floor with their claws out. As he stood there trying to pinpoint its source the odd sound began to grow louder, as it echoed around in the narrow corridor. Stars skinned crawled when he realized the sound wasn’t getting louder. It was getting closer. Star turned and ran, Heading deeper into the bowels of the ship, away from the noise, and away from the exit. He still couldn't see anything but running blind seemed a better option than whatever was making that noise. He ran as fast as he could faster than was probably sane to go when you can’t see your own hooves, but the scratching clattering noise continued to gain. Wham! In his haste Star blazer had failed to notice the corridor turn to the left and had collided hard into the wall. The big unicorn fell to the ground in a heap, As what little vision he had quickly faded and fell into unconsciousness. When Star blazer awoke he wasn't quite sure where he was. He couldn't see anything and a gentle mechanical thumping could be heard somewhere through the wall. When his memories returned in a sudden rush he snapped back into full alert. He was still in the pitch black darkness but the sound that had chased him was no longer around. groggily he stood back up but immediately had to sit back down as a splitting pain manifested in his head. He resisted the urge to vomit but it was a losing battle. After regurgitating most of his previous meal onto the floor below he realized that he was concussed and that assuming his nose was broken wasn't too much of a stretch either. His eyes were still useless yet his ears had regained their above average hearing. This being the case he was able to pick out another sound, not too far from where he was. He recognized it almost straight away, after living with two less-than-emotionally stable sisters for most of his young life the sound was very familiar. Sobbing. “N-nova?” he said in a creaky weak voice. Star cleared his throat and tried again “Nova?!” He called this time with a normal voice laced with concern. No answer, yet the sobbing continued. He picked himself up off of the cold steel grates and steadied himself on shaky legs. His body protested and tried to bring him back down but he paid it no mind. Slowly he trudged along the corridor, the sobbing growing louder as he approached until it turned into a shrieking wail. The narrow hallway began to lighten up as he rounded another bend. at the end of the corridor it opened out into a large hexagonal room, there was no piping or grates on the walls, floor or ceiling they were completely bare apart from the rust stains the covered the lower half of the walls in a pattern resembling a raging fire.The whole room gave off a feeling that it shouldn't even be on the ship, as if it was negative space. But it was what was in the center of the room that caught Star blazers attention. A pony. A small extremely skinny mare sat hunched over with her back to star in the center of the room. A light source illuminating her from the beneath as if she sat atop it. There were tuffs of pure white fur scattered over the floor. leaving very little on the small mare exposing her skin and in turn her bones. burn marks charred her flesh where the fur had fallen away as she cried the movement of her body made a soft rustling noise, like one that burnt paper would make. She paid no attention to star as he approached the room. He stopped before entering instead standing on the threshold where the hallway ended. “Hello?” Star said in a quite hesitant voice, not sure if speaking to the distraught mare was a great idea. As soon as he spoke the pony stopped sobbing, however she made no attempt to turn around, and remained in her hunched over posture. The only other indication she made that she had heard was that the movement of her chest had stopped and the sound of her breathing ceased. “Ar-Are you alri-” He was cut short when the sound of the skittering returned this time much louder and much closer. Star looked around frantically to find its source but the terrifying sound seemed to be coming from inside the walls. He tried to move away but he couldn't. His muscles were frozen refusing to move whether it was out of fear or some other force he couldn't tell. His gaze became locked onto the burnt mare. A shriek of metal echoed out above him followed by a rhythmic clicking sound. The massive door above him had unlatched and was now beginning its slow descent down, at it was right above him. The clacking of the gears within the door meshing with the teeth on the wall was drowned out as the horrible clawing noise escalated in volume. The door began to push down on his back, He could feel the full weight of the door starting to transfer into his spine and legs.. His eyes still looking straight at the mare in the center of the room unable to look away. She still hadn't moved despite the noises. As the weight of the door began to become too much he thought he saw something. The mares’ head had moved ever so slightly to the left allowing Star to see just the side of her face. Just enough for him to see that her eyes were as dead as a corpses and as black as night. But what made Star blazer shriek in terror was that her mouth that was bent into a giant, terrifying, evil smile. The gears in the bulkhead squealed as they left their toothed guides and the heavy half-ton door dropped the last fifty centimeters into its groove. Crushing Star blazers ribcage. killing him swiftly in a painfully brutal display. Author's Note sorry for the shortness of this chapter I was without an editor for this as well :(
Escape“S-star?!” Nova called out with a heavily shaky voice. The teal unicorn mare had been wandering aimlessly through the ship for roughly half an hour she had been completely alone since Star blazer had run off. Nova had tried to follow; the thought of been left alone on this ship terrified her but upon entering the superstructure again everything had changed. The door leading into the ships innards had lead her to a completely different area. She had passed through that door twice already but this time the entire interior of the ship had completely changed. No longer was there a long hallway before her and a steep set of stairs leading up to the bridge. Now she was in what appeared to be some form of galley and dining area. After pushing the initial shock of the sudden change of the Everfrees’ geography to the back of her mind the second thing the sailor pony noticed was that this part of the ship was Much darker than the rest. None of the lights were on leaving Nova to fumble around in the blackness. At one point she tripped on a warped section of the deck dropping her flashlight and cracking the bulb with ease. The fragile Light flickered twice before failing completely, plunging Nova into extreme darkness. Now, unable to see her hoof in front of her own face she began to hyperventilate. The Navigator dropped to her flanks and shook uncontrollably. She wasn’t just scared. She was terrified. With the encroaching darkness surrounded her in all directions her paranoia began to flare. Nova’s head whipped around in all directions, scanning the shadows. She was almost certain that every time her vision shifted a figure seemed to move just out of her peripherals. The terrified pony quickly turned herself around to leave when she realized something. Even though she couldn’t see more that a few inches in front of her she hadn’t moved that far from the door. When she had dropped her flashlight she had been standing right infront of it. It wasn’t there. The door was gone only a cheap wooden table sat where it should have been. Nova had witnessed some powerful magic in her time but nothing that could remotely come close to bending space time. This ship was just Wrong. Nova was interrupted from her thoughts as she sensed a light behind her. Turning around once again she looked down to see her Flashlight had somehow repaired and turned itself back on. The beam of light flickered in and out of existence and the Light itself seemed to be rocking back and forth erratically as if two colts were rolling it between one another. The erratic beam shone rather dimly onto the far wall, Nova follow the light with her eyes and began to stare at the rusty wall. The light still flickered, for a moment the wall would be lit then the flashlight would flicker out and the room would be dark once more. After roughly half a minute the flashes began to slow, Novas’ brow knitted and she moved closer. her muzzle was just a few inches from the wall, it was then a particularly long pause plunged the room into the black again. When it came back on Nova could help but scream. The entire wall had become a writing black mass of spiders. thousands of them all of different sizes and grotesqueness. The small unicorn immediately turned tail and ran, a sheer stroke of luck allowed her to find an open door as she quickly barreled through it. Once on the other side she slammed the heavy iron door shut before slumping against it shuddering violently and breathing shaky breaths. The distraught unicron raised her hooves to her face and began to weep. She couldn’t even begin to fathom what was happening her friends were either missing or dead, she was completely alone and just on the other side of the door her worst fear crawled over the walls. * * * She didn’t know how long she sat there, in the cold darkness crying her fears out. In that time she had come up with a plan. The Everfree may have been old but it wasn’t ancient, there had to be some kind of lifeboat or raft. Though right now Nova would have settled for a piece of driftwood she just wanted off the demonic vessel. Slowly she began to trudge through the ship. Now she appeared to be in the hallway between the crews bunk-rooms. The interior had changed its decor once again. No longer were the walls red with rust or falling to pieces now it was more as if a terrible inferno had raged through. The walls, floors, roof and doors were blackened and charred. a long thick black line of soot marked the roof and the plastic insulation on the electrical wires had bubbled and melted. Even though Nova could feel the steady heartbeats of the dual engines somewhere far in the distance the lights refused to turn on even after several fiddles with the switches. The small unicorn hung her head and sighed. Her face and eyes burned slightly from crying she closed her eyes but continued walking. It was only after a gentle sound met her ears that she stopped and looked up. The seemingly never ending hallway still stretched for what looked like miles ahead of her but that wasn't what made her entire body run cold and chills shoot through her. Emanating from a doorway on her left just ahead of her a very familiar jangling could be heard. The jangle of a mechanics tool belt. “I didn't have to,” Rose replied with a little smirk. “I can feel them.” The odd melody of spanners, hammers and screwdrivers banging against one another grew slightly in volume until it emerged from the door. A familiar figure exited the bunkroom the frizzy hair and unmistakable utility belt making it a dead giveaway as to who it was. Rose stem. That however was where the similarities ended. Her coat was white but it seemed dulled as if it hadn’t been washed ever. the gaping hole that the cargo hook had made was easily visible in both her back and stomach and she seemed slightly... transparent. like she wasn’t entirely there. But the most striking difference was her face. her eyes were wide and completely black the skin around then still scratched and bloodied. And her mouth was twisted into a horrifying crooked smile showing some very un pony-like teeth. Nova froze staring at the apparition that appeared as her friend. yet the specter didn’t stare back, it didn’t even acknowledge her as it simply walked from one door across the hall to the one adjacent. It didn’t make any noise, it didn’t look at her, it didn’t even seem to notice her. Tentatively Nova approached the door to the room that the phantom entered and quickly looked inside. As with all the other rooms this one was no different, furniture was upturned, bunks remained devoid of their mattresses and blankets which had most likely incinerated. As with all the other rooms its was deathly quiet with no trace of the figure. however something did catch Novas’ eyes. A slip of paper lay in the center of the room. Normally Nova would have found this odd as everything else around it had been burnt to a crisp yet the easily flammable piece of parchment remained unharmed, but from everything she had witness prior this almost seemed normal. It took awhile for Novas eyes to focus onto the words scrawled onto the paper but after they did the small mare got a very clear message GET OUT. Nova needed no further prompt as she quickly stood and turned tail. The two hastily written words providing a very clear request. Nova ran. faster than she had ever before she didn’t even notice the burning of her lungs she just kept running. She ran not only because the paper had asked but because more than once she swore that she could hear the rapid hoof steps of another behind her. She dared not turn around she couldn’t waste time she had to get out. All other ambitions and life goals didn’t matter to her now she had but only one aspiration Escape. Finally after what seemed like eons Nova burst through a door out onto an open deck. Rain continued to pour but it had died down in its intensity. She would have collapsed in relief then and there but she kept going. After taking a moment to collect herself Nova found that she was at the rear-most part on the ship. behind the superstructure below her propellers churned away. A small part of her was relived when she noticed that for now they weren't a danger to other vessels but a larger part also reminded her that she was very much still in danger. So it was with great relief when she looked over and saw a single solitary row boat perched above the railing. She wasted no time in boarding before swinging it and herself over the ocean and quickly began hoisting herself sea-ward. Once the small wooden boat hit the water and the ropes were untied a great wave of fatigue washed over the small mare. She collapsed into the bottom of the small life raft and began to cry again. She cried for many different reasons. Sadness over the death of her close friend Rose stem. Guilt over leaving Star blazer behind if he was still even alive. Fear over the horrific things she had been unfortunate enough live through. And over all, Happiness that it was all finally over. It was with such intensity that she cried she didn't even notice that the Everfrees' propellers had stopped and were now spinning in reverse. Pulling the evil vessel backwards toward the small, fragile, wooden boat And the small, fragile, weeping mare. Author's Note well how did i do for a first time writer? i know its not great or really worthy of anyone's time but i felt as if ghost stories on this site have been neglected. and whats scarier than ghosts? being trapped with a ghost. If you feel the ending was a bit rushed that's probably because it was as i was having trouble trying to wrap this up. but please: comment, rate, and if you like it Fav! if you didn't i would love to know why!
