Blank Slate

by Integral Archer

Chapter III

The door which is marked “Spare Parts” is nearly always left open. It opens upon a very small room on the floor just above the basement, just below the living quarters, two floors below the cafeteria. The room or, to speak more accurately, the closet, is quite small, about one meter by one meter by three meters. No lightbulb illuminates this hovel for tools; in order for one to see the haphazardly placed, rusted parts, many of which broken, the door must be opened entirely to allow the wan rays of the light from the fluorescent bulbs which line the hallways of Stable 2 inside.

The hallway in which the room sits is quite narrow; and the door, when open like this, would block the path of anypony who tried to pass through. This is not the only impediment, though; even during the odd moment when the door is closed, one can still find the Pip-Buck repair technician in the middle of the path in one of six poses, each pose more obstructive than the last: standing, crouching, sitting, prone, lying on her back, or prostrate. Each one of these poses corresponded to the difficulty of a problem. If she were to say to a Pip-Buck’s owner: “this is a standing problem,” the owner would breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that she would have it back to him within fifteen minutes. In any of these poses, she and her door would block the path—if anypony ever came down that hallway.

The hallway, not the prototyping room, was the Pip-Buck repair technician’s work station, for she found herself often quitting the sparsely supplied prototyping room, replete though it was with assorted power tools, in search of a part that was nowhere to be found. Upon retrieving it from the aforementioned closet, it was never longer than five minutes before she found herself needing to return for another part. It was much easier just to take everything she needed, litter the hallway around the closet with the tools she used the most often, and do her work there. Power tools, no matter their ingenuity in construction, lose all their usefulness in the absence of needed parts.

The Pip-Buck repair technician was named Littlepip. And, at this particular moment in time, she was crouching.

Sprawled out on the concrete floor in front of her was a large white piece of construction paper, about two feet by two feet, upon which were the orthographic projections of one of the oldest models of Pip-Bucks, a generation II model.

She jumped to the other side of the projections, trying to make sense of something that she was beginning to think didn’t exist. Then, she looked back to the Pip-Buck she was floating, screwdriver at the ready. She alternated her sight between the two: first at the Pip-Buck, then at the projection, then at the Pip-Buck, then at the projection again. At last, after two cycles of this process, she jumped to the right side of the paper.

“Damn first-angle projections,” she whispered to herself, scratching her head with a hoof in confusion.

She had not worked on generation II Pip-Bucks often, for they were only worn by the oldest of the inhabitants of Stable 2, and the greatest of their problems usually amounted to one that could be solved by shoving a pencil into their reset buttons. But this one now—this one would not even turn on.

She had been forced to reference the orthographic projections, but the only ones she could find on file were first-angle ones. If one is accustomed to third-angle projections, one looks upon the first-angle projections of a familiar electronic as if it were an alien device.

Littlepip let the screwdriver and the Pip-Buck fall to the floor, and she collapsed. She was now sitting.

She looked to the Pip-Buck sitting on her own forehoof. Its frame was an outer metal cast of a sickly gray, almost green color, and it was only beaten in nauseousness by the green of the Pip-Buck’s interface. A small grated speaker on its front was quietly playing music.

Littlepip, in that state of absentmindedness brought on by mental fatigue, fell victim to the next symptom—that is, procrastination. First, her eyes went to the wall of the corridor. She stared at one of the infinitely many points on the endless strip of gray metal that lined the walls of Stable 2. She looked left: long, tubular florescent lightbulbs illuminated the gray of the walls and the gray of the floors. The lightbulbs gave off a white that had no ability to dilute the gray. She looked right: more walls, same ceiling, same floor, just as much gray.

She looked behind her, and she nearly started with surprise. Though the wall behind her was the same gray, at a single spot a piece of letter-sized paper hung on the wall via a thin piece of tape. Compared to the rest of the stable, the paper was tiny, negligible; but, with its colors and content, the paper seemed to have the ability to repel the entirety of the gray, warming those who looked at it, comforting those who read it. Its background was a bright orange. Its subject was a pretty mare staring coquettishly at the camera. Across this sort of poster, in bright green letters, read:

Velvet Remedy, Rerecorded
New Hardware, New Technology, Same Great Songs
February 8th-February 14th, 12:00 p.m., on Cucro’s Frequency
A new, high quality recording every day for a week!

The words, the colors, the mare seemed to burn into the coldness of the metal wall with their vividness. The longer Littlepip stared at the poster, the more she smiled, the more her heart throbbed. The stare of the mare felt soothing, encouraging, and Littlepip felt herself pulled toward it with an inexplicable force. If maybe she could touch it, jump inside it, then everything would be fine—and when her hoof pushed it against the wall upon which it sat, when she felt the cold metal behind the poster, she recoiled and fell back to the firm, icy ground.

Littlepip shook her head and sighed. She moved her hoof across the knobs of her own Pip-Buck, her eyes glazing over as the familiar screens flickered past one by one. They were all the same. She had seen them all a million times. As her eyes began to close, the screens blurred more and more into similarity—except for one.

She opened her eyes. Her brow furrowed, like a mare doubting a sight that she had taken for granted all her life.

Most of the Pip-Bucks’ task screens were nearly identical. They were plain, dreary, and dull, all asking for input to perform tasks that most would never need to be used. But one screen stood out from the rest for a very singular reason. Once that reason was recognized, none could hold a Pip-Buck and look at it the same way ever again. And, at that moment, Littlepip recognized that reason on the “About” screen.

About screens all display the same thing: version number, firmware number, the model name, the model number, the year of foundation of the company that made those aforementioned things, etc. But the Pip-Buck’s About screen showed these things only as a consequence and instead seemed more eager to display, using nearly the entire screen, the face of Stable-Tec: the Stable Colt.

The Stable Colt is a cartoon colt and the mascot of Stable-Tec. He has a short, blonde mane molded into a singular shape, seeming to be held in place only by static electricity; this changes depending on what occupation he is depicting. He is usually depicted holding out his hoof in some gesture of amicability. These aforementioned details are all trivial. The Stable Colt is not.

Upon his face, the Stable Colt bears a wide smile. This is the only thing that does not vary in all his depictions. It is a wide smile and his defining characteristic. But the smile doesn’t match the eyes. It is discordant with his posture. It seems to be glued on, hiding a grimace of malice. As it stands, the smile the Stable Colt wears looks affected, disingenuous. His countenance is like that of a venus flytrap, luring in its prey with the aroma of sweet honey and nectar, just waiting to turn around and bite down its teeth.

He’s everywhere. He’s plastered on the halls of all the stables. He’s on the logo of Stable-Tec. He is lurking beneath the folds of every piece of clothing. If one looks closely while eating cereal—the flakes of which are shaped in his own image—he can be seen on the tip of the spoon. And in every single instance, he is looking at you straight in the eye, no matter the angle at which you look at him. And the smile always seems to be tacked onto his expression at the last second, as if he bared his teeth at all other times, only quickly smiling in response to the unexpected gaze of the stable dweller.

None would look at that smile and say: “That’s a smile of deceit.” But none would look at it and say: “That’s a smile of friendship.” Though if they had to pick one, all would lean toward the former.

Littlepip shuddered.

About one fathom away from the aforementioned poster lay another poster on the same wall, approximately the same dimensions as the first one, that is, the one with the mare. But this was their only similarity. This second poster seemed to ooze its presence into the air with a sort of lugubrious effort. The first poster was a bright yellow and red exclamation which barely managed to contain the spirit and the energy exuded from its subject. It was a bolt of lightning in the form of a piece of paper. But if this first poster was lightning, the second poster was composed completely of gallium. Gallium, Littlepip thought, that’s what it is. It’s gray and flimsy, and it melts instead of shines. There would always come a point in the day when Littlepip would not see the poster but would instead see a repulsive and viscous liquid which was reluctant to run down even the most steepest of slopes. The slope, in this case, was supposed to be the stretch of wall upon which it sat and which seemed tailor-made for it; but Littlepip could swear that its true goal was the slope of her consciousness—she could certainly feel it there leaving its slimy trail in no apparent hurry. Its monochromatic appearance instantly conveyed the intentions of its creator, Stable-Tec, and the Stable Colt was, of course, its subject. There were three identical ones this time side by side, each with the same blank stare, each with the same mirthless smile. The three stood in a line, and on their backs, piled to the top of the poster, was a mountain of debris. But it was impossible to tell where each pile started and where each pile ended; the debris seemed not to be three different loads but one monstrous pile of trash spread out equally among the carriers. Little lines indicating movement of the trash implied that stray pieces were falling over and over themselves and that the pile was endlessly shifting its weight. The bent knees of the three implied the load was heavy but certainly not heavy enough to remove their smiles. Across the bottom of the poster, heavy, bold text read:

You work for all
All work for you
Bless the overmare
Sacrifice is our virtue!

Posters of these kind were spread all over the stable. The stable dweller is all too familiar with them: They decorate the walls of her nursery. When she grows out of her crib, their messages and their morals are taught to her in her schools. When she sees them as an adult, she nods and thinks no more of it. She passes these posters every day and gives none of them a second glance or a second thought. In the context of the stable, they seem appropriate.

But the Pip-Buck repair technician bore a great secret: It was a dark, deep, dangerous secret in the recesses of her heart. It ate away at her as she worked and pulled her mind away from all thoughts of labor and sacrifice. It was an evil thought, a contrarian one, a selfish one, one that made the blue fabric of her uniform irritate and caused her skin to break out in a rash, one that she had told nopony, one that nopony could learn lest she be seen as an outsider, lest she be alienated:

She liked the poster with Velvet Remedy better.

Littlepip slapped her head as the notion recurred to her. Horrible, ungrateful thought! Where had she been born? The stable. Who had educated her? The stable. Who had shaped her into the diligent worker and productive member of Stable 2 she was today? The stable. Whom did she work for? The stable. Who protected them all? The stable. Who gave to her so much and asked so little in return? The stable. Did it not thus follow that the stable should be the subject and attention of all her thoughts and praise? Littlepip knew this. She followed the line of thinking. She agreed with each premise. She agreed with each argument that followed. She agreed with the conclusion, and she agreed that any contrary opinion was evil.

Yet she found herself staring at the poster of Velvet Remedy more than the other one.

She remembered the old tales, the classic ones of survival. The stable’s library was replete with a thousand variations of the same story, wherein a disaster happens, a shipwreck, an earthquake, an alien invasion, something which separates and divides; and in each of those stories, the small remaining banded together. Each was forced to put her interests behind herself for the sake of the rest, for the sake of survival—and the ones who refused, the ones who did not want to pull their weight, were either killed or brought the whole group to ruin. The details differed, but the message was always the same: in a lifeboat, independence drowns survival with its brazenness. Was the stable not a lifeboat in a sense? How would it float if she did not adhere with the rest? How could it move if she were paddling in another direction? She knew the moral well enough: should a single egotist declare himself too great for his fellow castaways, the boat spins, it founders, and all perish.

Despite this, she smiled when she saw the colorful poster, and that smile vanished in the presence of the dark one. She knew it was a fantasy, but her heart rejected all attempts by her brain to relegate it to solely the fantastic.

She knew it was contrary. She knew it was selfish, destructive, even. Yet she couldn’t stop herself. The poster of Velvet Remedy had only appeared about a month ago, but it had instantly captured her attention, more so than the Stable-Tec posters ever had. She turned her back from the ubiquitous gray and green ones which bore similar messages, morals, and depictions of solidarity; and, instead, she stared at the selfish ones, so bright, colorful, and appealing. The hall where she worked was barren; but, somehow, the advertisement had found its way right in front of her door, staring at her day by day. And from that point on, she looked forward to getting up, looked forward to getting to her tools, and being able to look at the poster while she worked and passed the time. A week had passed thus; and when Littlepip had realized she had done nothing for that entire week but stare at that damned poster, she had recoiled, gasped, collected her premises, and understood the horror that such a preoccupation implied. The poster was an evasion, distracting her from what was actually important; it was hindering, pleasant to the immediate senses, but insidious in its appeal. She knew this—but she still could not bring herself to tear it down. She made a strained effort to look at the other one, but her eyes were drawn back to the guilty pleasure like a magnet. She had been unable to fight it. Eventually, Littlepip created in her mind a time bank, where for every minute she spent looking at the dull poster, she could reward herself with a minute of looking at the bright one, all the while endeavoring to keep her head straight, her countenance unreadable, so that none would ever know how she felt toward them, none would ever suspect that she carried thoughts other than how to care for them and the stable, and she continued to walk among them, looking just like them—but, in reality, an invisible aberration.

The music stopped. A voice could faintly be heard taking its place. Littlepip turned up the volume. A deep male voice, smooth, full of bounce, color, and arrogance, speaking with the stereotypical accent and dialect of a lower-class worker, but which was still charming and amicable nonetheless, was heard saying:

“And what is your opinion of that recording, Ms. Velvet Remedy?”

Littlepip turned the volume up to its maximum setting as she got up and began to head in the direction of the basement.

“The more I listen to it,” an airy female voice responded, “the more problems I find in it. At the beginning of the bridge section, I cringe every time I hear that broken chord. At the end of the refrain, the last note is drowned out. I suppose the recording equipment couldn’t handle the sublimity of that last note.”

“That’s true,” said the other voice, with a chuckle. “But would you believe me if I, Cucro, told you that I feel the exact same way every time I hear it as well? And would you believe me if I told you this is something from which you need not suffer any longer? Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve, through nopony’s efforts but my own, created the final . . . remedy?”

Littlepip slapped her hoof across her face and made a growling noise from the bottom of her throat that was one part laugh and nine parts groan.

Velvet Remedy laughed. “I’ve always suspected that Cucro and Cucro’s Frequency are trying to win my favor, but I’d never thought I’d hear it put in such blatant terms by the stallion himself.”

The male was heard to gasp exaggeratedly. “Presumptuousness!” he said, in the airily indignant tone a female actor portraying a bourgeoise in an old black-and-white movie would assume. “Presumption of intent! How dare you!” The intonation of these last three words was sufficient to allow Littlepip to see the haughty and mischievous turn of a smile on the speaker’s lips.

“Have I misinterpreted?” said Velvet Remedy.

“It doesn’t matter!” Cucro sputtered with the affected growl of an aristocrat. “Presumption of intent! Cucro’s Frequency is a high-quality, high-class broadcasting program. We—and by we, I, of course, mean I—won’t tolerate such abominations of logic as the presumption of intent, just as we won’t tolerate poor recording equipment. I’d expect such comments from my listeners of lower intellect—the same listeners who, in vain, attempt to wound me by applying to me such labels as selfish, egotistical, arrogant, incorrigible—but not from you.”

“You are mistaken,” she immediately responded, “for I think of you in terms of those labels as well.”

“Ah, but is your understanding of those words on the same level as those who use them to insult me?”

There was a brief pause. Velvet Remedy was heard to draw a sharp breath; but, before she could say anything, Cucro interjected: “I forgive you. I suppose you can hardly be blamed for that comment. It was only the natural reaction to hearing yourself broken and mutilated. That’s how I feel. To hear anything less than perfection on my frequency! To hear your words and voice unjustly fractured, as we have just now, because of my willingness to suffer the stable’s abuses! The stable’s built-in audio channel is an abomination of nature. You say I’m trying to win your favor? That is only the superficial reason. I’m trying to win my own favor. I’m trying to win Cucro’s Frequency for Cucro. If the label of an incorrigible egotist has never been applicable to me, it certainly will be tomorrow.”

“Elucidate,” said Velvet Remedy.

“For the past months I have, laboriously, slaved over this recording setup. I thought I couldn’t find a piece. I thought it were a lost cause. But I found it. I have built a completely new recording system, and it sounds”—he was heard to kiss his hoof—“beautiful. Starting tomorrow, at twelve p.m., you won’t sound tinny and whiny anymore. You can say it came from anywhere you please: you can say that Celestia dropped it as a gift to us; you can say it’s because of my skill; you can say that it was a side-project I undertook in addition to my regular duties. But if you ask me, it comes from my ego. ”

“You’re a master with words, Cucro. That’s exactly the way to my heart. Do you write poetry?”

Littlepip burst out laughing. She opened the door marked “Boilers, Storage, Courtyard, Plumbing, and Maintenance” and headed through.

The hiss of rushing gas, the crack of metal: an all-too familiar sound to Littlepip, to any frequent listener of Cucro’s Frequency—the sound of the opening of an aluminum can filled the speaker. A gurgling sound bubbled through. When the noise ceased, Cucro groaned contentedly. “Stable-Tec beer, fillies and gentlecolts,” he said. “The finest homemade brew, just like your mother used to make.”

Then, he added: “You know, Ms. Remedy, I think that you respect me a lot more than you like to let on.”

“And are you presumptuous enough to believe that I ascribe any value as to what you think?”

“It’s not a presumption. It’s a conclusion drawn from simple facts. A mere observation. Here I am. Here you are, day after unremitting day, in my inviolable domain.”

“Your point being?”

“It seems to me that you’re placing an overwhelming amount of faith in me and my ability. For the sake of argument—exempli gratia, as we learned folk like to say—suppose that I feel too tired tomorrow. Suppose I don’t want to turn on the radio. I can do that, you know. And you wouldn’t be able to stop me. Nopony knows how the radio works but me; I saw to that a long while ago. Suppose I give no show. What would you do then?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who are you, Ms. Velvet Remedy? A singer. But what is a singer in a world without sound? Nopony. Who are you without sound? Nopony. Who here in Stable 2 controls the radio, id est, controls the sound? None other than Cucro. Suppose I turn off the sound of Stable 2. At a touch of my hoof, you’re mute. At a touch of my hoof, your listeners are deaf. What would you do then? Do you have a contingency plan?”

“I don’t need one.” Her voice pierced the static-filled air with the sharpness of a spear.

“And why is that?” he responded. Nothing in those syllables suggested confrontation; they were the sounds of an adversary who asked nothing better than to be bested.

“It’s the same reason why you go to all these efforts for your frequency. It’s why you spend sleepless nights tuning it, augmenting it, caring for it as if it were an extension of your own body. Turning it off would be no different for you than if you were to stop your own heart.”

“And how do you know I wouldn’t stop my own heart just to spite you?”

“Because that would be spiting yourself.”

“And how do you know that I wouldn’t spite myself to spite you?”

“Because you’re selfish, egotistical, arrogant, and incorrigible.”

Littlepip gasped.

“And you are absolutely right,” said Cucro. And he laughed.

Littlepip perked up her ears at this sound. Cucro had always had a singular laugh, and she always noticed it on the rare occasions he used it. Littlepip was only familiar with the laughter of her peers: a snide, mocking sound, used to ridicule and desecrate. Cucro was the only pony she knew of whose laugh was one of pure exultancy. She didn’t understand it, and she didn’t know why it filled her with warmth every time she heard it. Now, she tried to imitate his laugh, but it came out strained and forced, and she didn’t like the sound of it.

She stopped trying and listened:

“Besides,” replied Velvet Remedy, “you know as well as I do that the lovely ponies of Stable 2 only tune in to Cucro’s Frequency for me. Good luck trying to find listeners without me.”

“Yeah!” exclaimed Littlepip, eagerly staring at the speaker of her Pip-Buck, which was getting increasingly hard to see in the growing darkness of the basement.

“Well,” snorted Cucro, “in that case, to my listeners, I must absolutely, unequivocally, without a doubt, not remind them that you have a performance in the auditorium at seven p.m. tonight. Do miss it, Stable 2. What you should definitely not miss, however, are her rerecordings, which are on, as I have no doubt you’ve forgotten—”

It was here when her reception cut out. Littlepip had reached the depths of the basement.

The basement possessed none of the white fluorescent lighting that the rest of the stable had. In complete contrast, it was pitch-dark. Though most would shudder at the thought of going from complete sight to blindness, Littlepip strode boldly into the darkness without a second thought. She was quite comfortable in the basement. At first, she had found her occupation taking her there—for when parts couldn’t be found in the closet, they could be found in the basement—but then she had noticed the complete darkness: a rarity in the constant lighting of the stable. Without light, she found her thoughts organizing themselves as if on their own accord. When thinking was needed to be done, this was where she went. She did a lot of thinking. Thus, she could traverse the vast plane of the basement with her eyes closed.

Through touch and smell, she found her way to where the parts were kept. She buried her hooves in the assorted debris and withdrew them after the elapse of three seconds when she felt only metal. She wanted the third-angle orthographic projections of a generation II Pip-Buck. Papers, she was looking for. Where were papers? She could find metal no problem, but she had never seen papers. There had to be papers. She flicked on the lamp of her Pip-Buck, and she was simultaneously surprised and upset to finally perceive the reality of the basement, hitherto only experienced by the sense of touch, translated to the sense of sight. Everything that stood was where she had always felt it; but a pang of regret came, a longing, sad reflection, when she saw the crumbling, decayed nature of the fences, the cabinets, the shelves, everything that she had known only by touch before. She had imagined everything here beautiful, perfect; her reasoning was that since nopony ever came down there, nothing could be destroyed. Innocent, naive, even sweet, line of thinking, but one flawed, discordant with reality. Nature desires to be in a state of chaos. An old, dead, controversial philosopher once called this phenomenon: “A wonderful thing.”

By the light of her Pip-Buck, she searched for fifteen minutes in vain. There was nothing. There were papers of other projections, probably ones that would be useful in the near future, but none that she was looking for. She turned around and walked back the way she came, her head bowed in dejection.

Littlepip walked for some time thus. She did not notice the soft light of the Pip-Buck undulating across the dank floor as her forehoof moved in a periodic motion. She had forgotten to turn the lamp off.

She walked for twenty minutes before she rose herself from her reverie. She was still in the basement? Where had she been going? What had she been doing? How could she have gotten so deviated from her original course of action? She brought the Pip-Buck to her face and looked at the local map. The arrow marking the direction she was facing indicated that she was staring directly at a wall. Beyond the wall, there existed nothing. Not possible, she thought; I can feel the open air in front of me. She brought her hoof upward to illuminate the space. She jumped back with a start.

She was at the door of Stable 2.

It towered above her, a nearly perfect circle ten feet feet high and ten across. It was spoked like a wheel, and it fit in its reservoir in the shape of a gear. Its hinges and facade were decaying. But, through the rust, like the eye of a beast glaring at its prey in the middle of the night, a small yellow spot, though covered with rust, formed the shape of the number two.

It was pitiful, like everything in the basement, but it was the zenith of wretchedness. It bent over her like the hanging body of a flayed carcass. The air seemed to rush toward it. Space around it condensed; objects in its vicinity seemed to stretch and shrink toward this omnipresence, drawing everything, even light, and thus, one’s gaze, to it. But it felt alive. Though it was dark, though cobwebs could be seen here and there, though the panels looked dead, though no lights signaled activity, it emanated a breath of life. The light from the Pip-Buck cast oblong shadows into the indentations and crevices of the door; and, for a second, Littlepip thought she perceived a mouth, one on the verge of yawning, one ready to open and consume all that it was supposed to protect. It seemed to be watching, waiting, motionless—but merely dormant.

Littlepip had only seen it in pictures. None ever went down here. They were even forbidden as children from coming down here. Their foalhood bets had brought them many improper places: the boiler room, the freezer, the psychiatrist’s office, the personal bathroom of the overmare—but none had proposed, nor had even thought of, spending the night at the door of the stable. From the sleeping quarters, they could feel it underneath them, two floors down, moving, quivering, informing them of its presence.

Littlepip had not planned to come here, nor did she plan on ever coming back here again. She was about to run away, never to speak of this incident—when she stopped, suddenly. She gazed at the yellow number two. What did it contain? Did it contain anything at all, even? She would not come back here. But she didn’t want to leave without knowing first.

She approached and pressed her ear to the metal. It was cold, colder than the corridors near her closet.

She heard nothing. No, there had to be something, she thought. A door that big, sealed so firmly, did not keep out nothing. She listened. She stood thus for fifteen minutes.

On the sixteenth minute, she thought she could perceive something: a trickling, a running. Perhaps the blood in her ear? No, a definite stream. A stream of water. There was a little brook just outside the door of the stable. It was running slowly.

The racing of her heart blocked out this sound. She took a step back; inhaled deeply, tasting the stale, foul air of the basement; and waited for herself to calm down. Finally, she chose a new spot; the metal was colder than before, but it brought comfort to her burning face.

Again, for the first fifteen minutes, nothing. Where was her brook? Nowhere to be heard. Twenty minutes elapsed. Still nothing. She made an ultimate strain of her hearing.

A scratching noise. Something rubbing against dirt. Something rubbing against metal. Something rubbing against the door. There could be no doubt now. Something was listening for her, too. More scratchings. Movement. Whether it was alive or not, it moved with an unpredictable intent. First to the left, then to the right. It scratched. She could hear its breathing.

A deafening roar shook her skull.

It could not be described as the roar of a wild animal. If it had been animal, the sound was the perfect translation of the single element composing its entire being—malice; this thought scared her more than the sound itself. She tried to scream in response, but no sound found its way from her throat. Immediately, she took to her hooves and bolted in the direction whence she had come. All her muscle memory had left her in regard to the location of objects in the room. A presence filled the space behind her, approaching her, ever-accelerating, swallowing up the ground she had just traversed. She heard the falling over of metal. She slammed a knee against a concrete wall. She raced blindly, confusedly, madly, unthinkingly, putting nothing but faith into her run, using hope alone to guide her to the exit. She dared not look behind her.

Light. The staircase and the corridors above. They seemed impossibly far away. Her breath resounded in her skull. She ran. She felt the entity nipping at her heels. A stumble meant death. She could feel its breath on her neck. The staircase did not seem to be getting closer. Time had lost meaning; the creature was devouring it. It was regurgitating the floor it had consumed and putting it in front of her; the staircase seemed to be farther away with each step. She closed her eyes and put herself into her final sprint.

The tip of her foot missed the first step. She stumbled—but with her other forehoof, she caught herself on the second step, losing no time in her escape. Up the stairs, up toward the light she went, and the more her sight returned to her, the more the entity slunk back. It disappeared when she reached the first floor. She did not stop running until she had made it to her personal chamber and locked the door.

Her Pip-Buck clock read eleven p.m. She collapsed upon the bed. The silence, the sound of the blood in her ears, and the feeling of her pulse in her temples were horrible. She turned on the radio of her Pip-Buck, asking whoever was on the other line to protect her. She heard:

“. . . confusing. Now there is something wrong. Well, fillies and gentlecolts, it’s well past Cucro’s bedtime, and he needs to turn in. He enjoyed talking to you today. Don’t cry, my little ponies! He’ll be here tomorrow, bright and early. But he needs his beauty sleep. Big day tomorrow, so I’m going to—oh hell, almost forgot!” She heard the crumpling of paper. When Cucro spoke next, the words came out like bullets from a machine gun, without the fluff, color, and energy that he had put into every single word that day: “I need to say that I feel my mind tired and my muscles aching after today’s broadcast; and every time my body hurts, every time it screams in pain, I’m glad, because pain tells me that I’m giving. Pain is a primitive feeling, left from the days without language, without shelter, when we lived isolated from one another, when we were at each other’s throats for scraps of food or for dry firewood; pain is the remnant of the time when we hated one another, when it told us that we were losing for ourselves. But whenever my body hurts, whenever I’m drowning in my own sweat, I smile, because I know what that means: it means that my life is fading away, drawing from me and feeding you, my family, Stable 2, and sacrifice—”

Littlepip slammed the off button on her Pip-Buck with such a force that pain shot up through her foreleg. She felt the blood pulsing through the bruise, and she smiled. It was a dull throb, and it felt like a release. Perhaps this is the kind of pleasurable pain that Cucro was talking about, she thought; only, unlike him, I’ve never felt it after work.

The voice, as always, had been carefree—and assuring. She forgot the machine gun speech and thought about the slow, deliberate, cool drawl that had shunted the silence during the entire day past. Littlepip let the voice run through her head as she closed her eyes in contentment, almost with sublimity. When the voice ran out, when it exhausted itself, she was forced to turn it off with the same intent as she had turned it off from her Pip-Buck’s speaker.

She shifted over to her side. Gradually, the silence came back to her. As it began to whine its indescribable tone, she turned to her other side. It grew louder, unbearable, and she put her hooves around the sides of the pillow, pushing the cotton against her ears. But the scream of silence persisted and ate away at her and her chance of sleeping. It was only two hours after she had put on an old recording she had saved on the hard drive of her Pip-Buck of Cucro’s Frequency that she found any sleep.

Comments

[Twi-Guy]

The monster in the basement scared me, this whole story scares me. Such a place shouldn't exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWbbjvYmN8A