Night slowly fell on the endless reaches of the deep desert. The distant mountains were as black as charcoal. The sandy floor below glistened with silver shimmers. The sky was dotted with millions of stars, all spread on a dark blue hue. The white moon glowed vibrantly, not allowing anything to slip in total darkness. It could be argued that the desert night provided more visibility than any light.
Applejack, now at the center of a lone plateau, reflected on her situation. She was alone in the deepest desert, kilometres away from anything. She was lost, poisoned, starving, thirty, dying.
She looked up to the night sky, not in hope of some celestial miracle, but of her utter defeat and hopelessness. She was insignificant compared to the still desert, a temporary speck in its eternal being.
“The stars sure look pretty tonight.” She told herself. “I guess I can come back home with experience. Well, if I even return home… Where’s the Ghost Pony now if he’s so helpful. I’m practically dyin’ out here. Face it, AJ, he’s a fraud. You did this for no reason.”
She looked down and examined herself once more. With the faint light of her lantern, she could barely see the disgusting scars on her knees, the infected bite mark on her belly, and all the dust and grime caught in her fur.
“Yep, this is pretty much what my feelings look like, hurt, gross, sick, tired, havin’ a bad headache…”
“Applejack…” A familiar voice whispered in her ear.
Applejack’s head snapped back up and looked around for the origin of the voice.
“Who’s that?”
“Don’t be silly, you know it’s me. Hehehe…”
It sounded like Pinkie Pie. In an instant, Applejack felt hope again. For a moment, she was free of despair.
“Pinkie? How the hay did you get here? And where are you?” Applejack asked.
“I’m hiding, come and find me! Hehehe…”
Listening to the voice, Applejack got up onto her hooves, picked up the lamp in her mouth, and searched around the top of the plateau for her friend.
“I don’t see you anywhere.”
“Want me to give you a hint? Hehehe…”
“Sure.”
“I’m at the bottom of the mountain…”
“That’s a bit obvious…”
Applejack trotted to the nearest edge of the cliff and looked down. At the bottom, a small black figure appeared in her hazy image. A red-ish hue emitted from the black speck. Perhaps it was pink that Applejack was seeing.
“Is that you?” AJ asked.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the rock below Applejack’s front hooves crumbled and fells down the cliff. Applejack leapt back from the collapse screaming. She dropped the lamp just short of the edge.
“Pinkie, are you okay?!”
No response was given.
“Pinkie?!”
Another voice called out into her ears, “Applejack…”
In a split second, Applejack got a blistering headache. Either by the poison or some part of her body failing, her head pulsated in pain and random spurts of blankness. The only think constant with AJ now was the new voice entering her mind and Applejack’s splitting headache. The memory of Pinkie Pie seemed to vanish.
“Rainbow Dash?” Applejack asked, rubbing her throbbing head.
“Want to do something awesome with me?” Dash’s voice asked.
“Sure, but I’m not sure where you are.”
“Trust me, I’m at the bottom. Just jump down from the cliff and I’ll catch you…”
Applejack looked over the edge of the cliff again to see a different dark figure on top of the rumble from before. AJ caught a glint of purple on the dark figure, perhaps from Dash’s mane.
“Are you sure you’ll catch me?” AJ asked.
“Yeah, it’ll be so awesome! Come on…”
“Okay, here goes nothing…”
“Applejack…” A third unknown voice echoed.
The headache doubled in pain.
“Fluttershy?!” Applejack groaned, barely able to recognize the voice.
“Would you kindly jump off from the cliff and join me? The desert foxes would love to have somepony to play with. Please…”
“Wait, I don’t remember seeing any animals down there. Wait, what happened to Pinkie?”
Another voice speaks to her, “Applejack…”
The pain tripled the double.
“R-Rarity?!”
“Would you be such an ever great friend and search for gems? I sense there are a ton of them at the bottom of the cliff…”
“Hold on just a minute,” Applejack moaned.
Applejack slowly backed away from the ledge as her mind strained to understand what’s going on.
“Where are all you ponies, and why do you all want me to go over that cliff?” She asked.
“Applejack…”
The throbbing infinitely increased.
“Oh for Pete’s sake… What do you want Twilight?” Applejack asked.
“Look at the stars…”
Applejack follows the voice’s orders and looks up, somewhat glad that it wasn’t a request to go over the edge.
“Legends say that each of those stars is a soul that has moved on to whatever awaits after death…” Twilight’s voice said.
“So, this doesn’t answer my questions.”
“They look down on the land, and everypony on it, watching them everyday…”
“I want answers now!”
“See those two stars next to each other? You know who they are…”
“What sick game is this? What are you and the other four of the lot up to?”
“There can be a third one with them…”
“Stop it!”
“Just go over the cliff…”
“I, said, enou-!”
But before she could finish, she accidently stamped onto the laying lamp. The glass shattered and the flame was released. The burning fire set her hoof ablaze, cooking everything. The shards of glass penetrated the hoof, splicing the flesh. A sharp, blood-curling scream escaped Applejack’s mouth. Both sharp surges of pain and slow agonizing torture flooded her body and mind.
She yanked her flaming back hoof from the broken lantern and tried to put the fire out. As she frantically brushed her hoof against the sand below, she felt the glass shards now embedded in her flesh moving around and cutting even deeper into her. It was nothing but pain. It was nothing but pain in an indifferent desert. It was nothing but pain in an indifferent world.
Out of instinct, Applejack pulled out the last water bottle and poured all of its contents onto the flames. Eventually, the fire was extinguished. Applejack was left in near-complete darkness, with only the moon to barely illuminate anything.
The pain in her hoof lingered on top of her other injuries, only made worse as she tried to stand. The mare flopped to her side, only to relieve a fraction of a percent of the agony. Now without a flame for heat and light, darkness and cold winds soon took over the plateau and the weakened body of Applejack. Whimpering and crying from the torture, Applejack continued to lay there for what seemed to be hours.
The five uncanny voices returned. They taunted her.
“Find me…”
“Do it…”
“Go to them…”
“Find your treasure…”
“Join them…”
“I’m lost…”
“I want to do it…”
“I want them…”
“They are my treasure…”
“I want to be with them…”
“Jump…”
“Jump…”
“Jump…”
“Jump…”
“Jump…”
“I am in pain…”
“I have failed…”
“I could not save them…”
“They are now under…”
“I must go to them…”
“End this game…”
“Go with your gut…”
“Go with them…”
“There is no hope here…”
“Join your-”
“AGH!” Applejack hollered, an attempt to keep the voices at bay.
Of course, this was only a last-ditch fail in a never-ending brawl. There was no hope of escape.
Except for one solution…
As quick as her destroyed body could go, Applejack sprung up to her hooves, dropping the hat in the process. She charged towards the cliff edge. Although the aching in her body escalated dramatically, she did not care anymore. She speedily limped onward.
However, upon reaching the edge, Applejack stopped and looks down. What was once a silver sand floor with rocks that have recently fallen had turned into a black abyss with no bottom.
They returned.
“Tired…”
“Depressed…”
“Sick…”
“Lost…”
“Alone…”
“No, I don’t have to listen!”
“You must…”
“You have no choice…”
“You cannot avoid this…”
“You cannot avoid us…”
“You cannot avoid them…”
“Shut up!”
In a fit of despair, Applejack bashed her head into the sand and rock, trying to get rid of her ghostly friends’ voices.
“We can not…”
“You know us…”
“We know you…”
“You know you…”
“You are you…”
After a minute of hitting her head, high pitched ringing started to fill in whatever silence Applejack could feasibly identify. This only made the uncanny voices more intolerable.
A warm, yet cold, thick liquid ran from her numb forehead down her face and dripped from her chin. She knew what it was by its mere metallic taste as some seems through her lips and onto her tongue. She looked over the edge again, this time seeing a pair of figures that looked to be hovering in the darkness.
“What is this?” She asked, the only three words to come to mind.
The five answered, giving just enough information.
“You know what this is…”
“You know who they are…”
“They are waiting for you…”
“There is nothing here…”
“Go to them…”
“No, no, no! These be mind games!”
“These are not…”
“Listen to them…”
“They are calling…”
“You can hear them…”
“They are real…”
“No!”
“Applejack…” An older stallion’s voice echoed from the abyss.
“Applejack…” A slightly younger mare’s voice echoed.
“Is it?”
“Come to us…”
“Jump into our hooves…”
“I-I can’t!”
“That’s right, you can’t…”
“You didn’t…”
“You are the reason…”
“You caused this…”
“No, I didn’t mean to!”
Tears started to pour from Applejack’s eyes and mixed into the blood dripping from her face. Images and faces from the deepest and darkest parts of her memory flashed before her eyes. The voices became more aggressive in tone.
“You did this…”
“You killed us…”
“No! Please!”
The voices turned violent. The desert sky surrounding her turned pitch black with the mountains.
“You murdered us!”
“You murdered us!”
“I didn’t murder you! I couldn’t do anything!”
At this point, the only things Applejack could see with her watery eyes were the two figures in the abyss and darkness.
“Butcherer!”
“Slaughterer!”
“NO!”
All seven of the voices then joined together. It was like a demon of some kind, roaring from every angle around Applejack’s dying body.
“End it all! Jump! End it all! Jump! End it all! Jump! End it all! Jump! End it all! Jump! End it all! Jump! End it all! Jump!” It demanded.
Then, just as Applejack was about to snap, an eight voice faintly whispers in her ear, a voice sounding just like her own, “Do it…”
“…Fine.” Applejack miserably replied.
In a single swift motion, Applejack leapt forward. She fell into the abyss.
However, just as it seemed that there was no return, something from the ledge bit her in the back of the neck. At first, Applejack thought it was another snake or monster that sought to torture her. To her surprise, it is not a sharp bite, or even a painful one. It felt like that of a mother picking up her child to comfort. Her fell came to an abrupt fault as the thing holding her bit firmly into the thicker flesh of Applejack. She winced.
“Who-who is this?” She stammered in her dying breath.
The mysterious savior doesn’t speak, only gave a very warm snort. Slowly, Applejack was pulled up by the unknown pony. As she was raised, she grew incredibly tired, practically sleeping.
From the absolute torture her body and mind have gone through, she surprised herself by how long she had been awake up to this point. As her eyelids grew heavy and blinked, the beauty of the desert soon returned from the darkness. The silver sands, the stars in the sky, and even the moon returned to her vision.
The ringing in her ears and the echoes of the voices ceased to exist as the mare slowly drifted to sleep. As her back made contact to the surface of the plateau, she was already fast asleep.
“Idiot…”