//------------------------------//
// In A Kingdom By The Sea 
// Story: Dearest Beloved 
// by BlackRoseRaven 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Eleven: In A Kingdom By The Sea
~BlackRoseRaven

The cable car rolled through the blackness, swaying ponderously as it sailed through an empty, endless sea of nothing. Last Call stared out the window at the infinite darkness beyond: it was like even the stars had vanished, as they creaked and clunked their way along the cables.
Pink was shifting nervously near the controls: she clearly wanted to turn back. Schmisse was resting against the cool metal coffins, breathing slowly and evenly, his eyes closed but very much awake as one of his front hooves traced erratically over the front of a logbook. Last Call wondered silently how much longer the unicorn was going to live, or if there was anything he could even do for him at this point.
They had gone through the logbooks for what had felt like hours: Schmisse, to Last Call's surprise, had grabbed quite a few papers and booklets, claiming they might be important, but Last Call thought it had been... maybe not so much desperation, but rather Schmisse's own weird way of normalizing things, clinging to things. Schmisse seemed fine with the fact they were being chased by hideous monsters; it was the mystery surrounding everything that was clearly getting to him, the desire to understand being rebuffed at every turn by the impossible.
Last Call guessed he could understand. It was probably hard to be frightened by freaks and monsters when you'd grown up with someone like Toadsfall for your older brother. Whereas meanwhile, the unicorn studied ciphers, mysteries, secret facts for a living...
Schmisse opened an eye, looking querulously at Last Call, and Last Call smiled briefly at him before he said: “I think we're close.”
“No. We're very far away.” Schmisse answered, but then he nodded briefly as he straightened a little, rubbing slowly at his soaked bandages. Then he looked down at the logbook in front of him, flipping it open and idly paging through it to the last page he'd marked up before they'd stopped, murmuring: “I don't understand it at all. The answer is here, but we're missing a crucial piece of information. The why... but nothing makes sense. Or perhaps this reality has simply not bent us enough to be able to see the answer.”
“None of us know anything about the Kiz. If Silent were here, maybe she could tell us, but...” Last Call fell quiet, and then he shook his head before he frowned uneasily as he heard a creaking, the cable car vibrating as if they had just passed through a dense patch of air. 
He climbed to his hooves and walked over to the window as Pink tensed and Schmisse only frowned, and for a few moments, Last Call wasn't sure what it was he was seeing as he leaned forward. The stars were back above, but filtered through thick fog that reeked of the sea, and the cable car was creaking its way between brick and wood buildings, slowly lowering towards the ground.
Last Call mouthed wordlessly as he stared at the town they were calmly sliding their way into. What the hell was a town doing here? And why could he smell, almost taste, the sea? It was insane, impossible, as if...
Well, reality was already broken, wasn't it?
Last Call laughed weakly, and then he shook his head as he looked over at Schmisse as Pink stared out one of the other windows, the stallion finally saying: “You're not going to believe this.”
“At this point, I care about nothing and could believe anything.” Schmisse said tiredly, before he asked distastefully: “Aliens, perhaps? Another gauntlet? Are the cultists waiting for us?”
“We're coming into a town. It doesn't look like any place I've been to before, either.” answered Last Call with a brief shake of his head, and Schmisse frowned as Last Call leaned back out the broken window, gazing through the fog at the sprawling, rectangular buildings of the town they were descending into. “It looks like we're going to dock at a station ahead.”
“We should turn back.” Pink said almost urgently, and Last Call frowned in surprise over his shoulder at the mare, who trembled and shook her head vehemently. “No, no, this is bad, really bad, and we should turn back right now!”
“Do you recognize that town?” Schmisse asked, and Pink snorted and hugged herself as she looked nervously out the window.
“I don't need to know where we are to know this is bad news. How can you possibly think this is a good idea? Schmisse, you're dying, we need to turn around right now and get to safety, not-”
“Look, I need to find my wife-”
“Last Call, do you really think she's still alive?” Pink burst out almost desperately, gesturing at him helplessly. “And if you find her, do you really think that she's... how could anyone have come this far, survived this far, and not been part of that cult?”
“We weren't, and they must have brought us all the way up to that mountain... if we weren't being kept in that station, then likely the excavation site.” murmured Schmisse, and it sounded less like he was arguing with Pink and more like he was just speaking thoughts out loud that he had been steadily trying to work out on his own. “The real question is why they were bringing us... living ponies. Entführung is a big step up leichenschändung.”
Schmisse chuckled to himself, and Last Call wondered uneasily if the stallion was okay as Pink scowled and muttered: “We need to get you to a hospital, Schmisse.”
“I will never make it to a hospital. But I can perhaps make it to the answers to this mystery. If you are willing to help me, a little, of course.” Schmisse smiled briefly over at Last Call, and Last Call softened: as calm as he sounded, Call could see how hard it was for Schmisse to ask that.
He nodded briefly, and Pink grumbled under her breath before she sighed tiredly and dropped her head, mumbling: “Fine. Okay. I get it.”
She winced as the cable car screeched and groaned as it descended into the station, the trembles increasing through the cable car as the lights of the transport flickered violently. But after a few moments, it settled to a stop with a rumble as the machinery gradually geared down, then turned itself off with a hiss of dying breath.
No, just steam: it wasn't alive. They weren't travelling to their deaths in some great whale or anything ridiculous like that.
Last Call breathed slowly, closing his eyes tightly before he rubbed violently at his face, and then he looked up and said finally: “Let's just start by getting off this thing.”
Pink scowled a little, then winced as Schmisse forced himself up to his hooves: both she and Last Call hurried forward to help, the stallion cursing under his breath before he muttered: “I am fine, I do not need... either of you.”
“Don't be an idiot.” Last Call murmured as he and Pink helped Schmisse to the broken door. Pink and Last Call were able to shoulder it open together and half-carry the unicorn through onto the platform beyond.
Several other derelict cable cars sat around the perimeter of the wooden station, and only a single lamp glimmered, hanging from the roof of a long awning that hung over half the platform, supported by warped wooden timbers. Last Call noted as they passed beneath it that the lantern wasn't even magical in design: it was oil, with a heart of fire.
They entered through a set of large, swinging doors into the station beyond, and Last Call gestured with his head towards a set of chairs in the front corner of the room, near a set of pulled curtains. “Let's settle down there.”
Schmisse grunted, giving one futile attempt to shake the two ponies off before he allowed them to half-carry him over to the chairs. Last Call automatically searched the interior as they moved, noting that there were doors in the front and the back, what looked like lockers on one side, an abandoned counter to the other, and old fashioned lamp-lights hanging on chains filling the room with an ambience that would be pleasant... you know, if this place was supposed to actually exist.
Schmisse half-shoved them away as they reached the chairs, then he groaned as he dropped back into one with a grunt, a bit of blood spilling out from under the bandages as he gasped for breath. His head lolled back, and he seemed to fall out of reality for a moment as he looked off to the side, mumbling: “Ja, mutter. No, no... I speak the language fine, do you see? Hear, yes... it was a pun...”
He shook his head, then closed his eyes and rubbed slowly at his forehead as Last Call knelt in front of the stallion, grimacing a little before he murmured:  “That...  it looks like whatever's wrong with his skin is spreading.”
“We didn't bring the supplies in, did we?” Pink asked, and then she sighed and turned around, biting her lip as she turned away and murmured: “I'll go get them. But Last Call, I just... I don't think...”
“I don't care. I want to find my wife.” Last Call stopped, then he smiled faintly as he looked over at Pink, saying quietly: “But I'm not about to leave you guys behind either, okay? I know the only way we're going to survive this is if we stick together. I... I have to find my wife. But I can't... I have to do better.”
He glanced down, and Pink sighed a little as she murmured: “I think sometimes it doesn't matter if we do good or do bad, Last Call. It just... we are who we are. You can't run away from that, you can't escape that. Redemption... it's not as simple as 'do the nice stuff.' There's a lot of people and things that would take advantage of a nice guy like you...”
She stopped, then she looked up at him and asked: “What about your life? What if you die trying to save her? What if she's already dead?” 
“I have to believe she's not. I don't... she's not.” Last Call shook his head, grimacing a bit before he looked silently over at Schmisse, muttering: “And... and if she is, I guess it's even more important that... I help the ponies I can.”
“That almost sounds naive. I almost admire that.” Pink murmured, and then she sighed and shook her head, shifting away another step before saying finally: “I'll go get the stuff out of the cable car. Try and keep him alive until I get back.”
Last Call thought her words stumbled a little, but he did his best to just smile at her before he turned his eyes back to Schmisse. He shifted towards him, and the stallion slowly turned his eyes towards him before he said softly: “Perhaps she is right. You should leave. Or at least, leave us.”
“I want to do everything I can to get you guys through this, too. I know I could just leave with the supplies, or you guys could have stayed on the carriage... you even could go back-”
“No. It is not an option for me. I will die going back. I will probably die going forward, too. But I would rather die facing the future than trying to run to what has already past, with my tail between my legs.” Schmisse answered, and then he shook his head a little before he grasped at the wound in his body, lowering his head slightly and closing his eyes with a soft rasp. “It is not the pain that is bothersome. I have spent my whole life in pain. It is the not-knowing. It is the frustration, the helplessness, the feeling of... needing another to be there for me. That was the worst part about the disease...”
He quieted, then chewed on his lip before he murmured: “I do not think, as cruel as Mama was to him, that it was all because bruder needed a keeper to lord over him. I think she made me his caretaker so he would also have to take care of me.”
Schmisse smiled briefly, and then he shook his head before he settled a little with a sigh, looking away as he murmured: “I wish you had killed poor bruder. Even he does not deserve this. And even if he does, it has made him that much more a threat.” 
“Yeah.” Last Call couldn't think of anything else to say.  He shifted awkwardly for a moment, then blurted out: “I'm not a killer, though, Schmisse. I don't... I don't think...”
“What does it matter what we think? It only matters what is.” Schmisse shook his head, then he patted one of his legs as he murmured: “Doctors thought I was mad. Thought I was a foal seeking attention. It is easy to disregard a child, after all, as fantastic and silly.
“Then one doctor, at the urging of frustrated Mama, ran a simple scan of my brain. I remember his face, how tight it got when he saw the results. The eyes... get small, the cheeks suck in, the ears fold back; the whole body tenses, the sound of hooves, scraping and pressing to the floor...”
Schmisse half-tilted his head, closing one eye slightly as he murmured: “If they had found it earlier, been more aggressive, the pain would not be so bad, my life would have been years longer. Tell me. Should I be grateful, do you think, for the years more I could have lived in pain thanks to the doctors, or should I hate them for the years fewer I'll have because they could not run a test, and thought lectures instead would help a simpleton foal?”
Schmisse's accent was thick, his voice slurring slightly, but he was all the same perfectly coherent. No, he was... emotional, Last Call thought, and he didn't know what to say, or how to react, or-
A scraping, screaming filled the air, and Schmisse blinked as Last Call rose his head sharply, before the unicorn gave a wry smile as he whispered: “Damn.”
Last Call swore as he realized where the sound was coming from and what it was, bolting across the lobby and shoving his way out onto the platform, but it was too late: the cable car was rolling slowly up into the darkness, away from the desolate town they had rolled into. All the same, he sprinted to the edge of the platform, almost tumbling off it into the gravel and broken lumber below as he shouted: “Pink! Pink, goddammit, Pink! What the hell do you think you're doing?”
But there was no response from Pink as she huddled in the cable car by the metal coffins, trembling and taking short whooping breaths in and out as she hugged herself. She stared at the ground, convincing herself this was the best possible thing she could do, at least for herself, and it had gone past the point where she could help any of them. Schmisse was dead on his hooves and Last Call was crazy, looking for a mare who was likely already dead, just like everyone else.
How could she trust him, anyway? Everypony he journeyed with ended up dead. She didn't want to die! She had just gotten her own body back, back in control of her life: she had been going back home, to finally take over the rock farm, to finally be somewhere where she could be happy... why, how had she ended up here? It wasn't fair! 
She had to survive. She was so sorry it had come to this, but she was leaving. She would even send the cable car back if she could figure out how to, so when they came to their senses they could escape, if they were still alive.
She shook her head, then flinched as a voice asked her eagerly: “But doesn't this make life so much more wonderful? Aren't things better this way?”
“N-No, no!” Pink flinched away from the ghost, clenching her eyes shut and covering them with her hooves, but she knew it was useless to try and resist, as the spectre giggled, prancing up and down the aisle. “Go away!”
“I've never been gone very far, you know that! And I can't go away now, not when it took so long to get here!” replied the fiend brightly, and Pink swore under her breath, promising herself she wasn't going to look at it, she wasn't going to drop her hooves, she wasn't going to make it real... “Don't be a silly-billy! Whether I'm you or whether you're me, I'm as real as real can be!”
“Shut up!” Pink shouted, leaning up angrily as she swung her hooves away from her face, and she instantly froze as her eyes settled on the grinning ghost. It gave her a big, cheerful grin, shining with energy and exuberance from every part of its body, but its eyes were nothing but dead, sightless sockets. 
It needed her to see. It needed her body to interact with the world. It needed her mouth to laugh, and her ears to hear, and most of all, her eyes to see...
Pink flinched away from the spectre as it bounced towards her, saying happily: “Wasn't it better? It'll be even betterer now, you know! Let's go away from all the pain and suffering and why don't you just laugh, laugh, laugh? Don't you remember how the song goes? Why haven't you been giggling, chuckling, tittering, hollering, laugh-laugh-laughing? That's the only way to keep the bad things away!”
“I won't let you back in!” Pink shouted desperately, shoving herself away and shaking her head violently. “You're not real! I want to live my own, normal life, just a normal mare, just a regular, simple pony, not as some laughing, sideshow freak! You ruined everything!”
“Oh, don't be sad, don't be mean! You can't hate everything we've seen!” the ghost replied positively, smiling at her again, hellhole eyes staring emptily into her soul. “Sure, it's been a heck of a ride, but not everything has been sad or bad or mad or wrong! All you have to do is let me in, and we can go back to all that, and live happily ever after!”
“You're only back because reality is thin here... b-because you're a monster, and all the other monsters are here, and... and...” Pink trembled, covering her head, shaking herself violently before she looked up and whispered: “Can't I just go home?”
“Silly, you are home!” answered the ghost before it leaned in and grasped Pink's face, and the mare went dead white as she realized it could touch her, and she could smell it, and it smelled of sugar and sickness and madness. “I just want to make you happy again, is that so wrong? And my new friends agree, you know! You know, I've always been great at making friends... I made so many friends when we shared your body-”
“When you took it over! I turned over one wrong rock in the field and you jumped in and sealed me away for... for twenty years!” shouted Pink, shoving at the ghost, but it was solid now, it was stronger now, it was so much more than she was and it bore back against her, pressing her helplessly back into the steel coffins as she moaned low in her throat. “N-No, no...”
The ghost only smiled brightly, unaware of the pain or the fear as it chortled childishly, then said happily: “Don't be a silly! You were right there with me! You loved the attention, being the centre of it all... I mean, I'm sure you did, I did so you must have did too! How can friends ever be a bad thing, anyway? Sure, maybe ponies don't always approve of my new friends, but I approve of my new friends, and that's what matters, right? No, they said, they all told me they'll help you see... madness and happiness, that's the way to be!”
The ghost smiled, and then it suddenly leaned in, hollow sockets locking on Pink's gaze before it said with a mix of frightening cheer and carelessness: “We just have to go deeper!”
Last Call heard Pink scream from where he was still helplessly watching the cable car ascend, ears and head raising before his eyes widened in shock as the cables supporting the transport snapped. One of them lashed violently over his head, slashing through a lamppost behind him, while the other twanged upwards as the cable car fell several dozen feet into the mist and shadows-
There was no sound of a crash. It simply fell, and was gone, and all that was left behind were broken, loose cables, and a sizzling third wire that crackled and bounced erratically across the stone, as if it was alive. Last Call stared into the fog and darkness for a few moments that was flowing along the buildings, lapping at the gravel below like a tide, and then he swallowed thickly before he whispered: “There's no turning back.”
He turned and headed back into the station, walking over to Schmisse with his head lowered. He glanced up at him, and the unicorn merely nodded before he said quietly: “We cannot run from this. Not from ourselves, not from our demons. Do you think, perhaps... this is punishment for our sins? Is this... not Hell, but Purgatory?” 
“I don't know if I believe in either. Or Heaven, for that matter.” Last Call said after a moment, looking down as he chewed on his lip slowly. “I always thought... ponies controlled everything in the world. We were responsible, for everything. Heaven and Hell, God... I always figured they were controlled by ponies, too, and maybe... at the end of it all, if I could just fake that I was good enough, like I did my entire life...”
He fell silent, and Schmisse nodded briefly before he climbed slowly to his hooves. Last Call gently grasped him, and for once, the unicorn let himself be helped, leaning on the stallion as he murmured: “Karma, or reckoning, it doesn't matter. You have to get through this, Last Call. I find it difficult to care about what happened to your wife, but I do... hope you solve this mystery.”
“Maybe some mysteries shouldn't be solved, you asshole.” Last Call muttered as he and Schmisse headed to the front doors, and Schmisse smiled briefly as they shouldered through, and took their first steps out of the station.
They stepped onto a misty street, and Last Call grimaced as he looked uneasily at the sky: it was an errant, toxic twilight, stars twinkling faintly, miserably, but the horizon on fire with a greenish, unnatural pallor, like the sun had been crippled in a bottle. Strange wood and stone buildings loomed all around them: many of them seemed to be rotting from seasalt or otherwise in disrepair, their paint scoured away, the wood swollen and warped, the brick and mortar brittle and crumbling.
Schmisse gestured with his head down the road, murmuring: “Lanterns are burning. Have we gone back in time? Do you smell the sea, Last Call?”
“Yes.” Last Call said, figuring there was no point in pretending otherwise: but how had they gotten so close to the ocean, so fast? “It must have to do with the Kiz.”
“This is not formed from our beliefs... from theirs, maybe. Or the ponies who sought to bring us to their... idols? Masters? Tyrants?” Schmisse chuckled dryly. “They are likely none of the above. But that is likely what those idiots believe they are.”
Last Call nodded briefly as they continued down the street, and he shivered a little as he glanced up, before he stumbled to a stop with Schmisse. The unicorn frowned, then followed his gaze up to an open window, where a light glimmered faintly behind a translucent shell of a pony.
The ghost glared down at them with contempt, and Last Call shivered before he winced when Schmisse roughly shoved him, muttering: “Keep moving.”
“Ghosts are the last thing we need.” Last Call muttered, but to his surprise, Schmisse gave a dry laugh. “What?”
“I am sure they feel the same way about us. We are the ones intruding on their territory, after all.” Schmisse answered, and Last Call couldn't help but smile a little despite himself, shaking his head briefly as he lowered his eyes a little to the road ahead.
The fog made it hard to see, especially with the ill, green-tinged light shimmering down on them from the sky: where there was shadow, it felt as dark as night, but any open areas or curves in the street where the sun was able to shine, the ill, faint glow made the fog almost supernaturally thick, making it nearly impossible for them to see... but whether in light or darkness, there was the constant sensation of being watched.
All the same, they plodded on down the street, not knowing what else to do or where else they could go. Progress was slow, but steady: Schmisse breathed hard, but never complained, even as he trembled and shook, and Last Call was determined to carry the unicorn through this. In large part, for his own salvation and redemption, yes, but also because... “What the hell do I do?”
“Walk. We will find where we're supposed to go. That seems to be how things work here.” Schmisse answered, before he frowned slightly and stopped.
Last Call halted as well, before his eyes narrowed as he heard it: a panting, distorted by the mist. It was coming from somewhere behind them, although where, neither pony could say thanks to the fog-
“Schmissy.” rasped a voice, and Last Call winced before he swore under his breath: they were defenceless, wounded, helpless-
Schmisse shouldered into him, and the two stumbled down the road together, hurrying as fast as the unicorn could move. He took short, weak gasps every so often, biting down and holding his breath for so long between rasps that Last Call thought he was going to suffocate himself, while Last Call breathed roughly, his muscles aching with both a need to rest and a desire to bolt, fighting the urge to just drop Schmisse and run-
“We need to hide.” Schmisse rasped suddenly, and Last Call didn't question as the unicorn half-shoved him towards the buildings: buildings that all seemed to loom and tower over them, that had become warped and bent as they fled in terror from the rasping, panting thing behind them.
Doors and windows all slammed themselves violently shut as they approached, some locking by themselves, others visibly jerked closed by scowling spectres who denied them entry. Last Call gritted his teeth, but Schmisse only shouldered him onward down the row of houses before he suddenly jerked his head at a door that looked no different from any other, saying weakly: “There!”
Last Call didn't question, just hurried with the unicorn towards the door, and to his surprise, jerked it open with ease. He nearly stumbled, but Schmisse caught him against his body before the unicorn stumbled into the area beyond, Last Call following him in before he slammed the door behind him and fumbled in the semi-darkness until he heard it lock.
He grimaced as he stepped in something wet and slick that reflected the light shimmering in from a window above only faintly, while Schmisse breathed weakly, eyes fluttering as he leaned on something heavy and solid. He carefully felt through the darkness until his hoof clicked against glass, and he slid his hoof around the object: more by luck than anything else, he flicked a switch, and an oil lamp clacked to life to reveal they were surrounded by barrels and crates, several of which were stained with fuel, one leaking oil over the floor.
Schmisse studied the layout of the building for a moment: there was a high shelf above below the only window, which led out the back of the shack into who-knew-where: otherwise, it was a very small shack, the walls of which seemed formed purely by the buildings on either side of it. A storage shanty that had been inserted between houses, perhaps?
Funny, how even now he could obsess over the little details, the most unimportant of mysteries.
Something smashed into the door... no, not something. Toadsfall, Schmisse knew, as his mutilated brother screamed: “Schmissy! C-Call! Last Call!”
His brother gave a roar of rage as he pounded on the door, and the rotten wood began to give away immediately. Schmisse took a calm look around as Last Call panicked and shouted and tried to find the answer, but Last Call had always been a little... slow, Schmisse reflected. But he was a decent enough pony. He had tried.
So few ponies had ever really tried, especially when it came to him.
“Climb up to the window.” Schmisse ordered, and Last Call blinked before he watched as Schmisse took a breath, shrugging off his pain and fatigue as he stepped forward to form a step with his body, before he shouted over the sound of screaming and cracking wood: “I will not repeat myself! Climb up!”
Last Call flinched, then he scrambled onto Schmisse, and the unicorn hissed as Last Call used his body like a step. He scrambled half up the wall, but couldn't quite reach the shelf; or at least, he couldn't until Schmisse gasped and reared up on his hooves, giving him the last push he needed to grab the shelf under the window and struggle his way up onto it. 
He half-stood for a moment in front of the window, and Schmisse smiled tiredly up at him, dropping back to his hooves, smeared with oil and blood. They looked at each other, and then Schmisse simply shrugged before he said simply: “Alles gute.”
Last Call trembled, and then he nodded, then he gritted his teeth before he shoved the window out of place, knocking it tumbling to the ground below before he leapt out into the alley, hitting the dirt hard and rolling painfully to a halt with a gasp, clutching at an injured foreleg.
In the storage house, Schmisse calmly picked up the flickering lamp, studying it as Toadsfall smashed a foreleg through the door, clawing wildly at the air. Schmisse's eyes flicked briefly up, and then they returned the smoke-stained glass of the lamp, the unicorn whispering: “Ringel, ringel, rosen...”
“Schmissy! Let... me... in!” Toadsfall screamed, ripping his foreleg back and catching the edge of the hole he had torn in the battered door, before he laughed, foam spilling from his lipless maw, eyes blazing with hate and wild fury and terrible hunger as he tore a plank loose from the door. “Let me in!”
“Schöne Aprikosen, veilchen blau, vergissmeinnicht...” Schmisse murmured, as Toadsfall seized the edges of the large hole he had made before he tore backwards, ripping the shattered door off its hinges before he lunged inside with a savage grin, seizing Schmisse by the shoulders and shoving him backwards, frost-skinned face shoving forward into his brother's as his lipless maw yawned hungrily.
And Schmisse looked back fearlessly as his hooves squeezed the lamp so hard the glass cracked, finishing in defiance: “Alle kinder setzen sich.”
Schmisse flung the lamp to the ground, and it shattered before the flames greedily caught over the oil Toadsfall was standing in, the monster's eyes bulging in almost comical shock before it tried to pull away. But Schmisse seized the beast's forelegs in his own, half-embracing him and half-grappling him as the fire rapidly rose around them, devouring both the old wood and their bodies as Toadsfall screamed in misery, his rotten, winter-tortured body twisting wildly, helplessly, in the all-consuming flame.
Last Call looked back over his shoulder as he climbed up to his hooves, staring in shock as the shack went up in flames. It burned violently, the flames licking out along the walls of the warped buildings on either side of them and beginning to spread down towards him like the fire had a life and will of its own, embers sparking out towards him like dragon's breath before the back wall of the shack exploded, and a screaming, burning Toadsfall staggered out, his whole body consumed with fire, the monster screaming miserably as his leathery skin cracked and peeled loose from his body in strips. Flesh bubbled and blood boiled as he gasped out smoke and steam and something else, something evil that had infested him, driven him insane, as he shrieked miserably: “Mama! Mama, no!”
Last Call stumbled backwards as snakes of flame twisted past him down either wall of the alley, shaking his head weakly before he stumbled around in a circle and bolted away, and Toadsfall screamed as he followed, a nightmare of flame as he stagger-stumbled helplessly after the stallion.
But there was nothing but agony anymore. No more hunger, no more desire, no more anything but pain, pain, pain, lighting up his entire being, mixing with torturous memories. He heard her, coming again for him, coming to punish him: he was helpless against her, helpless to fight her, helpless to stop her. Even when he'd grown up, grown strong, grown cruel, she snapped at him and he became a whimpering coward in her face and cried, cried, cried, but the tears meant nothing as they steamed on his cheeks.
He tried to run, but the flames caught up, grabbing him almost eagerly, pinning him down as they burned him mercilessly along with their ancient enemy. Toadsfall screamed as he was pinned, remembering how easily she had pinned him when he was a foal, how they had laughed at him, how she had cursed him and punished him, how she had forced him into a filly's dress and mocked him as her little girl, and how meaningless, meaningless, all his victories had been, when in the end he was nothing more than the bad little colt who had been his mother's least favourite daughter. 
Toadsfall screamed, clutching at the ground, and Last Call stumbled at the mouth of the alley, looking back once and wincing as Toadsfall reached for him, shrieking: “Save me! S-s-save me!”
“You should have saved yourself.” Last Call whispered, and then he turned and stumbled away, knowing that even if he wanted to, there was no way he could have saved Toadsfall from his fate.

Last Call ran through the streets until he could run no more, and finally, he staggered to a stop in front of a large, old hotel, holding his stomach and resisting the urge to vomit. He stayed there for a little while: for as long as it felt safe to, anyway, before he climbed back to his hooves and continued to plod onward, toward...
He didn't know where. He just walked down the foggy streets, hating the fact he was blind to everything in this dismal twilight, while it was likely everything around could see him. He hadn't realized it before, but the ill light meant that he couldn't always tell where lanterns were burning, and where they weren't, too: some of these homes seemed almost occupied, while others were clearly devoid of life... what if he stumbled into something worse than ghosts, all because he couldn't see?
It was miserable, and he was alone, without a friend in the world. He'd failed everyone, he thought, as he wandered through the fog of the alien town. He pressed up against a wall as he reached a corner, taking a quick breath before he checked around it... and saw more of nothing.
He'd not only failed, but wandered into a world he didn't understand,with no clear path to follow. He was lost, confused, and completely alone.
How was he going to find his wife when he didn't even know where he was?
How could he hope to save anyone with no supplies, no information, no... nothing?
Last Call shook his head briefly, then he slapped a few times at his face before he murmured: “Stop it. Just... stop.”
He took a breath, then rounded the corner and started down the street before he frowned as he noticed something ahead. A shape in the darkness, that looked like it was searching for something.
Last Call slipped quickly to the side, taking cover behind a patio. He peered up over it through the railing, watching as the dark shape rumbled ominously through the air, apparently searching for something as it floated slowly up to a house.
Last Call realized what it was after a moment: the disgusting trash-bag thing, its stone mask tilting back and forth as it searched for something... him? No, it seemed like it had always been able to home in on him whenever it wanted...
He frowned in surprise as a door creaked open as the thing approached a structure, and a ghost appeared. The ghost seemed unafraid of the thing: in fact, it pointed, and the monstrosity turned to follow in the direction it had gestured as Last Call ducked slightly in fear... but the thing ignored his hiding spot completely as it instead sailed in another direction, towards what looked like some kind of run-down store.
Except the moment it got close, there was the sound of slamming doors before a wailing shape ran out of the alley. The monster was faster, however, a tentacle appearing and lashing out to seize the pony around a hind leg, hefting it helplessly into the air as it kicked and squirmed before howling: “Oh p-please, please, please, I-I-I-I'll do anything, anything, just let me go!”
“Happenstance?” Last Call asked in disbelief: he watched as the monster slowly floated down the street, parting the mist as it went, ghosts every so often appearing as the thing sailed by to jeer and point angrily at it. Or maybe they weren't gesturing at it, but instead at Happenstance, considering their reactions to him... but why? What's going on? Why did that monster capture Happenstance, where is it bringing him?
Last Call frowned uneasily, but then he slipped carefully out around the patio, creeping to the other side of the street to follow as stealthily as he could down the road. He still felt cold eyes watching him, and every so often, he could swear he saw a spectre glaring at him from a window or an alleyway, but for the most part, they ignored him, and he chose to ignore them.
He followed the howling and babbling of Happenstance, and the stink of the wretched thing, all the way to the rusting, open gates of a massive mansion... or was it more like a castle? He couldn't tell. It was a strange place, glimmering in the green tinted light, more stone than wood. Parts of it looked like they had half-collapsed, while other parts looked like they had almost unnaturally resisted the warping of both reality and time.
There was a bit of slime on the gate, confirming that the creature had passed through here: if Happenstance had been brought inside, did that mean there were other ponies in there, too? Was this where his wife was being kept, or was that too good to be true?
Too good to be true. Something hideous and evil was in there, he had nothing more than a flashlight to protect himself with, no information, no idea where he was, no way to escape, and...
And all he could really do was stop whining and move forward, whether he liked it or not. He had been led here. There had to be something here.
Last Call took a breath, then he carefully slipped through the ajar gates and made his way nervously down the misty path towards the looming mansion. He reached the front steps, and he grimaced as they creaked under his hooves, leaning his head down slightly to duck under the half-collapsed awning so he could reach the front doors: also ajar, he noted, and the wood was bubbling strangely where he guessed the floating thing had made contact with it.
But the moment he stepped inside, the doors were slammed behind him, Last Call flinching and whirling around to stare at the sight of several ghosts that glared daggers at him. He opened his mouth, before his eyes widened as the doors seemed to melt away in front of him, becoming nothing but a waxy, warped wooden wall as the ghosts vanished one after the other.
He stumbled backward, shaking his head weakly before he flinched and looked over his shoulder in surprise as a voice said softly: “I'm sorry, Last Call. I hoped... you would never make it here. That you would give up. That you would turn around and leave. That you would understand that... there's no real way to win. There's no real way out.”
Last Call turned around to find himself looking down at Silent Wish, who gazed up at him sadly, her eyes soft and gentle and fearless. He looked back at her, then he smiled faintly before he whispered: “You were always there when I needed you, but never there... when I got lost. You took away more from me than you gave, didn't you? I always felt so dependent on you... but you helped with that. Made sure to answer all the right questions and ignore the others. Carried supplies... then left. But you didn't mean to drag Furor off that cliff with you, did you?”
“I don't want anyone to be hurt.” Silent Wish shook her head quickly, fervently, before she looked up and said quietly: “You wouldn't stop. Wouldn't turn around. It became a matter of balancing what you could survive against the evils that were waking up. I hoped you'd just take the others back to the cabin if I took the supplies away, not that... what happened would happen. You might have survived there.”
“You said they weren't evil.” Last Call half-asked, and Silent Wish smiled faintly.
“The Kiz aren't. There are other things, though. Things that woke up, things that... we gave birth to, when they warped reality, or maybe were always there, in the darkness, and the Kiz accidentally disturbed them. Or maybe... they were our fault, things we tried to turn against the Kiz, but who had no interest in distinguishing friend from foe...”
Silent Wish chewed on her lip thoughtfully, and then she shrugged before continuing: “Schmisse is dead, Pink is gone, Furor is lost. Do you want to keep going, Last Call? You saw what happened to Toadsfall-”
“I will not become like him. I won't forget who I am. I'm going to save my wife.” Last Call said quietly, and Silent Wish smiled before she spread her bat-like forewings wide. 
“Then you'll end up like me.” she said simply.
Last Call was silent for a few moments, and the Silent Wish's eyes widened in surprise as he said quietly: “I'll do whatever it takes to save my wife. I'll... find her, and get her out of here. Even if it means I have to stay behind. But I still believe there's a way out. Maybe... I'm sorry that you didn't find it, Silent Wish. But maybe while reality is still weak, maybe while these worlds can still be moved between... maybe if I'm fast enough-”
“Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Silent Wish shook her head almost angrily, but then she took a breath and lowered her head, whispering: “I'm sorry. It would have been better for you if you'd gotten lost on the mountain, or tried to find another way down. You never would have ended up here, in the lonely town by the sea...”
“I thought the Kiz were sealed in the forest. Why are we here?” Last Call asked, and Silent Wish smiled briefly.
“The Kiz were everywhere at one time, Last Call. There's more than one of them...” She halted, then silently studied one of her claws. “I've been here so long, changed so much, I'm almost tempted to say, of us. And we're all drawn here, eventually. Every Kiz comes back to this little town, because it's near where the greatest, and the eldest, fell, and fell asleep.”
She shook her head, then looked up and murmured: “The Kiz find you interesting, Last Call. Have you not realized yet that's a double-edged sword? They find you interesting. That doesn't just mean they won't consume you, it means they won't let you go. They found me interesting, too. And they lured me here, in search of the Doctor. And then...”
She rose a bat-like limb, and Last Call smiled faintly. They stood for a few minutes in silence, until Silent Wish sighed softly and murmured: “I know you have a lot of questions, but I don't want to answer them all. I'm tired, Last Call. I'm tired, and maybe it's better if you find out the answers for yourself... you might not believe me otherwise. Please... please don't be mad at my friends, though. It's not because you're an outsider, I promise. It's because that... that poor pony who was possessed brought something evil in with him. They're scared and suspicious. The Kiz are already infighting... we don't need a monster here on top of that.”
“What do you mean?” Last Call asked, and when Silent Wish only looked at him, he realized how... exhausted she seemed, and he smiled faintly before he nodded once and asked: “Will... can I find my wife here?”
“There are only a few ponies left. I think... I think the Vorpal wants you to find your wife. I think he'll help you. But be careful... there are many Kiz here. Most are just watching, but a few are wandering. They can't all be... they aren't all kind.” Silent Wish said, and then she sighed softly before she closed her eyes, and Last Call's eyes widened as she became translucent. “I need rest. I need to go back to my own time and place. Not here. I've been underwater for too long.”
Last Call was silent as he tried to understand what was happening, but then Silent Wish was simply gone... gone back to wherever it was she came from, he thought uneasily. Was that it? Was it not just the fact that she was stuck in a different layer of reality, she was somehow trapped between the folds of time itself? Was that how she was able to be wherever she wanted to be, but why it was so exhausting? Did she exist everywhere at once, or was she really anchored to nowhere at all?
That hurt to think about.
Last Call shook his head, then he took a slow breath as he approached the only remaining doors on the other side of the entrance room. He winced slightly as a spectre appeared, but it only glared at him... no. No, when he looked closer, that wasn't anger. That was fear, wasn't it?
“I'm... just looking for my wife.” Last Call said, and the ghost shifted warily, but vanished after a moment, and he hoped, strangely, that his message had gone through.
Then he pressed his hooves against one of the doors and pushed it open, stepping over the threshold and into the unknown beyond, only sure of one thing:
The mare was here, and he was finally going to be reunited with her.