Hey guys Bright here and let me just say, recovering from an injury SUCKS.
Recovering from an injury when you can't fall asleep, sucks worse.
Recovering from an injury when you can't fall asleep, while simultaneously hunted by a sociopathic lackey of a dark god with a personal vendetta against you, sucks even worse.
But what sucks even more worse is having to do all of the above, and still being called into work, because as the Boss puts it, "The new guy is a complete and total moron, with willful and malicious idiocy that borders on the criminally insane." And so, here I am, against the doctor's advice, and my own better judgement, at the shittiest, most batshit crazy RestStop in all of Equestria, only a little worse for wear.
What's really incredible is that I've only been back a day, and there's already a body count, more on that later. My right hind leg is in a cast from the ankle to flank just below my Cutie Mark, and I've elected to use crutches. Because unsurprisingly, the RestStop is not wheelchair accessible. The cast has several signatures and messages, which is very strange because I have no memory of anypony signing it. But it could be a result of the pain meds, or maybe everypony signed it after the surgery while I was still doped up on medical opioids, and a metric FuckTon of painkillers. Here's what the little messages say.
Try and stay out of trouble-B.S. This one's from BugSpray.
LUCKY WAS HERE❗From whoever Lucky is. This one's also in crayon.
Get well soon-Twilight Sparkle. From Princess Twilight.
Feel better darling-R.💎 From Rarity.
🎈Call me when you get out so we can have a party-Pinkie.🎈From Pinkie Pie.
Feel awesome-R.D.🌈 From Rainbow Dash.
You can tough it out-A.J.🍎 From AppleJack.
Hope you feel better.🦋 From FlutterShy.
I'll call you if I need you back at work. From the Boss.
Feel well Dreamless One🌙 From Princess Luna.
Be seeing you soon-C.S.❌🗡 From Slasher. How did he even get into my hospital room?
There's also this one note that was taped to my legs. It's got Celestia's crest on it. Here's what it says.
Dear. Bright Eyes.
I hope this letter finds you well. Rest assured, that a warrant of arrest has been placed on the Pegasus pony known as Cloud Slasher, and he will be brought to justice. It pains me to see one of my little ponies harm another, and I wish you a speedy recovery. I have also begun an investigation on these Pillar Plants as you call them. We have taken the deceased Pillars in for autopsy. The original Stone Pillar claims he has no connection with Cloud Slasher, other than Slasher attacking him in his residence and draining him of a significant amount of blood. As stated in your Journals the Pillar Plants seem to have the cell structure of Timberwolves infused with pony biology. This was done by a type of Elder Magic practiced by the Titans, back before the original Alicorn, Holy Cross, sealed them in various tombs across the land, putting the more violent ones in a death like sleep, while the others where free to meditate so long as they did not meddle in pony affairs. This information was spread as legends when Luna and myself where children. Only spoken of in fairy stories and ghost tales. As such we are unsure how much of this information is reliable. However there's no need for you to be concerned. I merely mention this because I feel you have the right to know, being so involved with this. As I said before I wish you a speedy recovery, and my condolences for the death of your friend, Blue Star during the incident which took place on Nightmare Night. It should please you to know that he was promoted to Lieutenant in the wake of his death. I believe I should be getting back to my duties so I'll leave you with this. Should you ever wish to speak call me, and I shall make an appointment for you.
Sincerely. Princess Celestia of Equestria.
She also gave me her phone number. I didn't even know she had a phone. I wonder if the doctor will let me keep the cast after it comes off. I also noticed a final signature which was in a language I didn't recognize it. Which is annoyingly cryptic. It was also done in sharpie fairly recently I might add since when I touched it, I got ink marks on my hoofs. I would check the tape logs to see who or what I let get so my "delicate area" but the Boss had every camera in the place removed. I guess there was something about finding that secret room full of security camera feeds to bring personal privacy into the public discussion. I feel like the act of removing ALL of the security cameras was a bit of an overreaction, especially with Slasher still out there. Like Celestia said, the Royal guard have issued a warrant out for Slasher's arrest, as well as confiscated the dead Pillar, and the remains of the bomb, they're taking this whole thing very seriously. As for "Pillar" things have gotten a little more interesting, as Celestia said in her letter, the "Real" Pillar had no connection to Slasher in the slightest aside from that one police report of an assault Pillar had filed on a Pony matching Slasher's description. Due to the whole situation of his dead doubles going public, along with statements from me, BugSpray, The Boss, and Farmer Jr. which connected him to Slasher, he's suspended his election campaign and made several media statements say that he had NOTHING to do with any of this. The Sheriff's been sending a new deputy, an EarthPony by the name of CrackShot out here to check on me at least twice a day, once around lunch, and again after the sun goes down.
CrackShot isn't from around here, which is why he agreed to replace Blue as the new RestStop babysitter. He's around average height and weight. With a Brown coat, with his mane and tail being a much darker brown, and a mustache thick enough to plant a yard flamingo in. His Cutie Mark is and old fashioned Pirate pistol with a little explosion coming out of the barrel. His eyes constantly Telegraph the statement "Knock that nonsense off." I've yet to see him smile even once. I'm not sure if CrackShot will become the next Blue, or the next Slasher, right now he could go either way. CrackShot was the one who dropped he off at work today. I'm not supposed to walk any long distances for a while, which is fine guess.
I mean it's not like I WANT to walk back and forth to a place I barely spend any time at, especially with my busted leg, I can't even count the number of times, I've been jumped by a pack of Timberwolves on my way back and forth to from my house, and If that happened while I still have my gimpy leg, it would be game over.
On the way to work, we drove past the Vehicle that belonged to the Griffon with the beard. The one staked in place on the side of the road with the tree growing. I asked CrackShot about it, but he just shrugged and said that I should worry myself with other Pony's business. I asked him about the Griffon, and he just shrugged and said that he probably got lost in the woods like some other Ponies. A search and rescue effort was underway along with the Ponyhunt for Slasher, and he was confident that they would find both of them quote "one way or the other."
After CrackShot dropped me off today. I went about my regular shift starting duties. I reconciled Smoker's til, not at all surprised to see that he was somehow 150 bits over. I logged all the invoices that had piles up while I was out, the I emptied the trash cans, I was hoping that I might run into the Bathroom Cowpony. But the only thing I found in the Colt's Restroom was an obese Minotaur, punishing the toilet and surrounding air with an unholy fury that deserves it's own scary story. The sun was just starting to go down when I hobbled my way out to the dumpster, balancing trash bags against my crutches, and probably looking like a baby deer learning to walk, if that deer was drunk, and fat, and carrying several bags of garbage. The scorched earth near the dumpster was the same as I'd left it, blackened down to the subsoil. I looked to the place past the trees was another patch of smoldered remains, one that I incinerated past all hope of identification, just to make sure it was actually dead.
Before I turned to go back in I noticed something odd on the side the dumpster. At first I thought it was a children's toy stuck to that dirty outside wall, but the I realized that it was moving, breathing, crawling, slowly eating the gooey drippings off the rust of the dumpster. It looked like a giant tomato caterpillar, it was about 8 inches long, and as it got darker I swore I could see the thing give off it's own light source. The squishy caterpillar thing didn't seen to mind my presence, it even let me feed it an old taffy that I had in the pocket of my apron, it was mint and I didn't really like it. The critter glowed a little brighter as it ate the taffy I gave it, and I gave it a gentle pat. Its hide wasn't as wet as it appeared, in fact it appeared to be covered in tiny clear hairs.
"Hm you're not so bad." I said while it nibbled at the candy. "I guess not everything out here needs to be scary."
It wiggled and crawled away to a place in the back of the dumpster with more gunk, and I went back inside.
Smoker has taken up smoking again. He had quit for a while, but then explained the suffering he was causing himself by not smoking grossly outweighs the suffering he was causing us through secondhand smoke, mathematically speaking it didn't make sense for him to quit. I was hoping that he was beginning to shed his cultist philosophy after the entire compound mysteriously vanished but now I'm starting to fear that he can't be rehabilitated. Then again, he could just be using his "faith" to make excuses for smoking again. Whatever, today was a pretty normal, well not normal, but average day at the RestStop. We had some strange ponies visit, we had some normal ones visit to, and along the way I went into Zombie Mode, finished a book that I've been reading, made some boring Journal entries, and even got online to browse the internet for a while, there's another package sitting under the counter addressed to me from a return address I don't recognize. I took a gamble with that last package and it turned out to be something great. But that was before Slasher tried to kill me by feeding me to his dark god, and once again my gut is telling me not to open it.
I got a phone call today at the store a few hours after sundown, It was pretty late, hard to say when. Smoker was asleep in his hammock in the dry storage room, and I couldn't remember the last customer. This was somewhere in that temporal wasteland between dusk and dawn I wander into when I forget I have a phone that has a build in clock. I answered the phone.
"Hello"
"Bright listen very carefully. You don't know me, but what I'm about to tell you will save your life. But only if you follow my instructions, and do exactly what I say. In the drawer to your right is a pencil and paper, get then, write this down, these are the rules to your survival, make sure everyone inside reads them." I did as he said and started writing.
"Number one. Do not leave the store, do not go outside under any circumstances, if your Changeling friend is in his little cabin bring him inside, I don't care if he's balls deep in Princess Celestia right now, get him, bring him inside, and don't let him or that Pegasus who lives in the closet go outside, tell them if they do the thing will kill them."
"What thing, you mean the thing in the trenchcoat?"
"The Qalupalik? Nah that thing's jumped ship yesterday, everything has all the animal, monster, even some of the plants, they sensed what was about to happen and bolted, all accept that family of stubborn Raccoons, and this manticore with one eye."
"Wait you know what it is, what is it?"
"I'll tell you about it some other time there's no time right now. Number Two. Do not drink the tap water, don't even touch it, don't smell it, don't look at it, it's bottled water from here on out."
"Number three. Don't trust your eyes, your eyes can be liars, make you see things that aren't really there, only believe in what you can touch, hear, and smell, never taste anything though, if you taste something, it can force it's way inside you, and possess your body, if anyone wants to come in you open the door and poke them."
"Where?"
"ANYWHERE IT DOESN'T MATTER, JUST FEEL THEIR SKIN TO MAKE SURE IT'S NOT A ILLUSION"
Right then I heard a knocking at the door. I looked to see a trio of ponies with a wagon outside. It was AppleJack, along with her big brother and grandmother. I had forgotten that our shipment of applesauce was scheduled for today.
"Hang on I got to go help the Apples move in a shipment of applesauce."
"WHERE YOU EVEN LISTENING DON'T GO OUTSIDE, YOU GO OUTSIDE AND YOU'RE DEAD."
"Look it's right out there, there'll be three ponies with me and BugSpray. Two of which being the strongest Earth Ponies in Ponyville, and one of those two being one of the bears of the Elements of Harmony, I'll be fine."
"Fine. Go get your applesauce, and then don't go outside for ANYTHING, I'll be waiting for you to come back."
I grabbed my crutched, walked up to the front of the store and yelled. "JUST A SEC I GOTTA GO GET BUGSPRAY." Before moving out back to get my changeling friend. Found BugSpray asleep in his bed, I poked at his face a bit to both wake him up, and make sure he was in fact real. I then told him he had to wake up, and that the shipment of Applesauce was here. He begrudgingly buzzed his wings, flew out of bed and up and over the RestStop. I went around the side, when I got to the dumpster I noticed something. The glowworm from this morning had formed itself into an enormous cocoon against the back of the dumpster, I can't explain why exactly, but this filled me with some sort of, I don't know, what's the exact opposite of existential dread?
Euphoria?
Existential Hope? Is that what optimism feels like? Again, I don't know, it doesn't make any sense, but seeing the weird garbage eating caterpillar thing begin the brave journey of transformation gave he this tingling feeling in my soul, like this was some kind of sign. It reminded me of this old filly's story, The Worried Caterpillar, just when the caterpillar thought that his world had come to an end, he became a butterfly.
"With everything that's been going on, my world's been feeling like it's coming to an end for a while too little buddy." I said to the cocoon. "Maybe I'm also on the verge of a metamorphosis, maybe this job doesn't have to be so strange and scary, maybe it can be strange and cool." At that moment, I decided that whatever hatched from the cocoon, be it a Butterfly, or moth, or monster, I was going to name it Light. I was turned to go help BugSpray, but then I remembered the mutant Raccoons that would love to have this little guy as a snack.
I gently picked up the cocoon in my magic and carried it with me out front where BugSpray and the Apples where busy moving some crates of Applesauce into the store.
"Well hey there young'n." Granny Smith said from onto of the wagon. "Yer that feller AppleJack's been talking 'bout, the one who can't fall asleep right."
"Yes ma'am." I kindly replied. "Uh, this my sound strange but, can I touch your hoof? I just want to make sure you're real. With all the pain meds I've been on, I'm not to sure about anything anymore."
"Sure thing sonny." Granny Smith said extending a hoof, which I pressed to my own for a couple seconds.
"Thanks. Oh and can I trouble you for a jar to put this cocoon in?"
"Sure, but why you pluck it outta the wild in the first place."
"Well, around here we've got a kind of Raccoon problem around here, and those little vermin will eat anything they can get their mouths around. One of them even killed a Cobra, and wears it little a hooded scarf from SaddleArabia."
"Say no more. I got a little something here, just a sec." Granny Smith said before reaching into the back and taking out a large jar with a twist on lid. "You put that little cocoon in here, and poke some holes in the top."
"Thank you." I said taking the jar in my magic and placing the cocoon inside. It just about fit with there.
"Well hey there Bright." AppleJack said walking up to me with Big Mac and BugSpray by her side. "I'm glad yer' back work'n here, to be honest that Pegasus friend of yer's is kinda weird. Kept flirting with me and accidentally blow'n smoke in my face. Took all I could to not buck his teeth out, and took even more to keep Big Macintosh from doin' the same."
"Y'up." Big Mac said with a twinge of bitterness in his voice.
"Well to be honest he's not really my friend, he's just I guy I work with." I replied. "He use to be in this misguided cult that tried to end all suffering by blowing up the entire planet, but then all of them went missing and he started living in the RestStop. Normally I'd tell you to go break his face but I kinda owe him since he's the one who pulled me out of that hole in the back room."
"Am I your friend?" BugSpray asked.
"Yes"
"Oh, well, be seeing ya." AppleJack said awkwardly.
"Oh, One last thing, can I touch both of you for a second. I just want to make sure you're both real, all the pain meds have made my mind all crazy, and it's hard to tell sometimes."
"I guess so."
"Y'up."
I patted my hoof on AppleJack's chest, then Big Mac's.
"Alright that's all I needed thank you."
As me and BugSpray went inside he asked how I was feeling. I told him the pay was tolerable, he nodded like that was the kind of answer that he was looking for and said. "Oh yeah I also noticed that the phone was off the receiver so I hung it up."
"Hm well that's not good."
"Why not?"
"Well there was this guy on the phone saying we shouldn't go outside for anything, he said the was something out there."
"Well I won't be going back to sleep anytime soon so I guess I'll just stay inside. Is there anything else he said."
"Yeah, he said not to drink the tap water, and to touch everything because our eyes can be tricked."
"Is that why you asked to touch A.J. and Big Mac?"
"Yeah."
"Should we wake up the new guy?"
"Nah just let him sleep."
I went behind my counter, and put the jar on my desk while BugSpray when off somewhere else. I had just finished poking l bunch of little holes in the jar's lid, when suddenly the Griffon with the beard came into the store. I almost didn't recognize him as the same Griffon that went off into the woods after the creature he called an Anglerfish. He had lost weight, his beard was more unkept, and he smelled like he bathed in a tub of pee that somepony had farted in.
"Oh hey, you're still alive, cool."
Did I mention that he was holding a pistol when he walked in? The thought crossed my mind for the briefest moment that I wondered "what happened to his big gun?" I didn't have time to ask him, he quickly found the locks on the doors, used them, then covered the short distance to my register, gun extended and directly aimed at my face, between my horn and my eye brows.
"WHY THE HELL DID YOU HANG UP ON ME?"
"That wasn't, me that was BugSpray."
"WHO ELSE IS IN THIS BUILDING."
"Well let me see." I said thinking. "There's you, me, BugSpray, the other cashier, unless he went into town again, and this little guy in the cocoon, probably the raccoons to."
At that moment BugSpray walked out of the freezer, and (No pun intended) Froze at the sight of the bearded Griffon still pointing the gun at my head. He might have been tempted to take action if he hadn't been carrying a 50-Pound bag of frozen corn over his shoulder. Instead he just raised his free hoof and said softly, "Hey man, we don't want no trouble, if your after the cash go ahead and take it, ain't no heroes here."
The Bearded Griffon laughed in an obnoxious way and said. "Well there's at least one. The name's RazorBeak, and I'm here to save your sorry asses."
BugSpray and I made eye contact. A lot can be conveyed in just an instant if you know the person you're looking at. He was trying to see what I wanted to do I was trying to tell him to relax, this was neither the worst, nor the weirdest thing to happen in that room.
"Okay." I said. "What do you need us to do RazorBeak?"
"First off in need to ask did anyone come into contact with the tap water?" When we both shook our heads no he continued. "Okay listen, there's something EVIL under the RestStop. Nobody's leaving here until I understand what it is, because I know that someone's working with that thing, I saw it in my dreams, I know you have to.
"Actually, I can't fall asleep, BugSpray didn't you mention some weird dreams?"
Right then Smoker walked out of the dry storage closet stretching and yawning. RazorBeak snapped him into a chokehold before he even knew what was going on and jammed the gun against his head.
"ARE YOU FUCKWITS EVEN LISTENING TO ME?" RazorBeak screamed. "I JUST TOLD YOU THAT THIS WORLD, AS YOU KNOW IT, IS JUST A FACADE. THERE'S A DEVIL HERE, AND ONE OF YOU IS WORKING FOR HIM." He looked at both of us for some kind of reaction. I don't think he got the one he was looking for, I just shrugged and said. "Neat."
Right then Smoker surprised the fur off everypony by half yelling half laughing, "LET'S DO THIS, I'M NOT AFRAID TO DIE!" Before reaching up, grabbing the gun pressed against his head and pulling the trigger.
Now I've seen a lot of weird stuff working at the crappy RestStop. I've been nearly killed once or twice. I've watched the same pony die over and over in front of me. I've seen things that may or may not be real because I can't dream, and sometimes I wonder if my mind is making up for that in other ways. I've seen ball lightning, ponies without fur with blue skin, a pony with two head, a talking dog, and Elvis Prancly impersonator that my have been a little too convincing. I've seen so much weird stuff in that room but this. This was the first time I saw a look of surprise like that on anypony's face, and it was absolutely priceless.
"Wha-What the hell is wrong with you ponies?" RazorBeak asked backing away from us.
"There ain't noting wrong with us, Mr.Griffon." Said Smoker now free from the headlock. "The real question, is what the hell's wrong with your gun?"
"How'd you know I was outta ammo?"
"I didn't."
There was a loud thud as BugSpray dropped the sack of corn. He was next to talk. "I think maybe you should get outta here pal, while you still can."
"Afraid I can't do that." RazorBeak responded. "Not until this thing is dead, and not until I-"
I heard a wet thunk before I saw anything, before RazorBeak went lip and hit the ground. When My eyes caught up to the situation, I hoped that what I was seeing was a hallucination, but the look of fear on BugSpray's face told me that this wasn't the case. The Pony standing behind RazorBeak, holding a bloodied shovel. The Pony that had just saved our hide was smiling a toothy delighted smile that he only made after inflicting the kind of pain he just inflicted, with his bleeding Cutie Mark contrasting the pearl white color of his teeth.
"Hey Bright." Said Cloud Slasher. "You miss me?"
He stuck BugSpray and Smoker in the walk-in freezer. Smoker is and always has been a go with the flow kind of pony, so he went into the freezer voluntarily. BugSpray put up a fight which is why he ended up bruised, bloody, and barely clinging to consciousness. From what I could see, RazorBeak looked like he might be dead, at best he was out cold in the slowly spreading pool of his own blood. Slasher pulled a couple of chairs out of storage and placed them both in front of the cash register facing one another. He made me hobble over to the first one, then spun the other around and sat in it backwards like a "Cool" school teacher from the 90s.
"I want you to know-" He said. "I'm not mad at you, neither is he, he wanted me to relay the message."
Slasher's face still had specks of green blood in it from when had heated the crap out of BugSpray.
"Your boss?" I asked.
"Yeah he was upset at you for what you did to Pillar, or Pillar's Clones I should say, he wanted me to show you what happens to bad children, you where supposed to meet him, but the that all got cocked up, huh."
"I-I-I guess it wasn't my time to die." I answered. That's when the smile faded from Slasher's face he shook his head at me and said, "Die? No-no-no-no-no, you weren't supposed to die, you can't die we need you."
I saw some movement behind Slasher but tried not to break eye contact. I was RazorBeak, he was alive, and right now my best shot at getting out of here. He was moving on the ground regaining consciousness, but miraculously not making any noise. I tried to keep Slasher distracted. "Your boss tell me more about him, who did he find you, who is he?"
Slasher chuckled and said. "Oh he's got a lot of names, but you'll meet him soon enough, and this time, we will not be interrupted."
"What about my friends?"
"I don't care, they could join us, they could die, they make no difference, I mean it's not like your the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, we don't need the full set of RestStop employees we only need you. By the way Bright, I wanted to ask, did you guys even figure out who placed that bomb?"
I laughed softly. "Yeah the police took it, they know it was you, they know everything, well almost everything. In the grand scheme of things they know very little, but they do know you tried to kill me and put the bomb in the RestStop.
Slasher shook he head again. "Wrong on both accounts. If I wanted you dead you'd be dead already, did you know that the knife on my Cutie Mark can materialize into an actual knife, see we Pegasi have our own little special magic abilities, we call them Quirks. Number two, a bomb, seriously not my style, I don't even know how to make a bomb."
"But I do." RazorBeak said from right behind Slasher before yanking his head back and (no pun intended) slashing Slasher's neck with the point of his beak, neatly slicing his head halfway off. Blood erupted out in a couple spurts, then stopped, and Cloud Slasher was no more. I was sure there was more he wanted to say but couldn't.
"That's whatcha get." Said RazorBeat as he flung Slasher's lifeless body onto the floor, his blood pouring out and mixing with all the rest. It was gonna suck for the Pony who had to clean all this up. On the plus side, Slasher was dead, and I know how RazorBeat got his name now. When we opened the freezer we found that Smoker had gone all bad nurse on BugSpray, sticking clumps of frozen meat all over his face. "For the swelling." I made all of us a fresh pot of coffee, and we all took seats around the booths at the window. Just incase a nosy passerby decided to... pass by, we put a trap over Slasher and moved the wet floor sign next to it. For about half an hour we just sat and drank coffee in the pregnant silence. When we were all done with out third cups, BugSpray finally spoke, his jaw and over all face was swollen to Tartarus and back, but we could still understand what he was saying.
"Uh so why haven't we called the cops yet? This is clearly self-defense, I got the face to prove it."
"Yeah." Said RazorBeak after some lengthy deliberation. "Yeah let's call the cops, that'd be good, but tomorrow, you and me gotta have a serious talk Bright."
I called CrackShot from the only phone in the building with any reception, Slasher's Cell. The deputy listened to what I told him, which was the basic and most simplified version of what happened that night, and he said he'd be on his way right after he got out of bed and put is uniform on. I called the Boss next, he was not happy, he then told me next time I should call them first. Wait nexttime? Right now the others are at their booth staring at the window, Scar's scratching at the door like a cat, which I have never seen a manticore do before, and I'm sitting at my laptop documenting the night while the memories are still fresh I know this isn't over yet, and I think the RestStop is gonna have to close for a day or two but when it opens up again I'll be here, be writing my journals, and doing my best to ignore anypony who walks through those doors.
I guess that means this is to be continued.