//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Silent Ponyville 4 // by SamRose //------------------------------// Little Octavia sighed, staring up at a wooden ceiling despondently. One of her hind legs was gently swinging back and forth on the couch, as her head rested against someone’s lap. For the life of her she couldn’t remember who it was she was resting against, but they felt familiar… Warm even. Their voice responded to her sigh, but it was a distorted, eerie mess of vocals. She couldn’t hear their voice anymore, yet she somehow knew exactly what they were saying. “I’m just… Sad.” Octavia murmured, sighing again and rolling over onto her side. “I don’t wanna go back home. I hate it there.” The voice spoke again, that same garbled gibberish as before. “Yeah, well, I don’t care! I don’t like how they treat me! I just… I just wanna stay here forever!” Another response, though this one elicited anger in the young filly. She rolled onto her back and pointed up at the face she could not see. “No! No parties! I am SICK of parties!”     O   O O     Octavia woke with a sharp gasp, pain racking her chest. She doubled over coughing, bringing her hoof to her mouth as her insides rattled violently. It was several moments before her coughing subsided and her breathing began to calm, though the pain still lingered. When things finally settled enough she pulled her hoof back and saw that she had coughed up blood. She groaned loudly, pushing herself up off the cold cement floor. Her head was spinning as she focused her eyes on the dimly lit room, trying to figure out where she was. As the details started to fall into place, she felt her heart sink. It was the small, square, concrete room from her nightmares. The room she always found herself in again and again and again. Had everything been a dream then? Were the last few hours nothing but a vivid hallucination? Was she trapped in her own head once again? She tried to move her body and a sharp pain made her collapsed, her chest convulsing with coughs once more. Her pain echoed in the tiny room, each violent cough seeming louder than it actually was. When her fit had finally calmed down, she groaned and lifted her head, looking down at her body. In the center of her chest, where the tendril had pierced her, was freshly recovered scar tissue. Touching her chest with her hoof, she could feel the ridges of the healed skin underneath her coat. Turning to look at the rest of her body, she saw that every wound that had been inflicted on her had received the same treatment, every single one had scarred over. The pain she felt, the scars on her body, the sinking realization in her gut... Everything she had experienced today had been real.  She really was trapped in this nightmarish hell. But if that was true... “...Then where am I?” Octavia muttered out loud. Something shifted in the corner of the room and she let out a yelp, fumbling against the ground until she was scooting away from it, staring into the dark corner, panting heavily. Her eyes took a moment to adjust, but when they did her eyes went wide. There was a dead body in the corner of the room, back pressed against the wall, gnarled black hair hanging down from its head and covering its body. It was laying in a pool of long-since dried blood, and its body was a faded white-gray. A cockroach moved around the body, stopping to flick its antennas about, before scuttling away and vanishing. A hoof shot to Octavia's mouth in horror as her back hit the wall, trying to put as much distance as she could between her and the body in the tiny room. The fear, the dread, the anxiety, the reality of everything she had seen and felt being real crashed down upon her all at once. She had never escaped her nightmares, they had simply bled into reality. “No... No, no, no, no!” Octavia shuddered, lowering her head and pressing it between her hooves. Her body was wracked with fear, quaking at her very core. All of this pain and torment was far, far too much, and she wasn’t even being given the courtesy of death. She was forced to survive and endure this continued torment. “No… No please…” Octavia stuttered, her sobs echoing out around her, “Please… No more… I’m sorry…” Hitched sobs continued to below from Octavia, as she laid curled up on the cold cement floor. She had never wanted any of this, she had never meant for any of this to happen. She had just… She let out a long whine, lifting her head up enough to slam it down against the ground, the fresh pain rattling her senses. She shuddered and sniffed, rubbing at her face as her sobs began to calm down. “It’s… It’s going to be okay Octavia…” She muttered to herself, curling up tighter into her ball. “It’ll be okay. You’re okay. Just… Just stay calm Octavia…” She muttered to herself, repeating the words again and again. “You’re okay Octavia, you’ll be okay. You’ll be okay… You’ll be okay…” Again and again she repeated to herself. It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. She needed to reassure herself again, and again, and again. It was so hard to believe the words coming out of her own mouth, to actually believe that everything was going to be okay. After all the hardships, after all the pain, after the nightmares she had faced, how could anything be okay?  But she repeated the words again and again, just as she always had. When everything was going wrong, when everything hurt, when the world was putting her down, she repeated the mantra that had gotten her through so many awful times before. With one last hiccup and another rub at her face, Octavia placed a hoof on the floor and slowly managed to stand herself up. Her legs were wobbly and pain still echoed throughout her body, but she couldn’t stay in that room. She refused to stay in the place of her nightmares. Shifting around, she spotted a small wooden table in the opposite corner of the room from the body, with her saddlebag on top of it. She was about to question how they got there, before shaking her head at the thought. There was no point in questioning it at this point. She walked over to the table and reached a hoof out to retrieve the saddlebag. “I watched…” A deep, distorted voice spoke up from within the bag, causing Octavia to flinch and pull her hoof back. “I could do nothing but watch. When everything was over, I saw myself through the gap. The only me, is me… Are you sure the only you, is you?” Octavia paused for a moment, staring at the bag, before letting out a sullen sigh, her ears flattening against her head and looking away. “...No. I’m not certain that the only me... Is me.” She spoke softly. She reached out for the bag and opened it up, pulling out the tiny phonograph and listening it spark to life. “The gap in the door…” The phonograph staticed, “It’s a separate reality. Can you make it through that realm? Can you learn the truth that you’ve locked away?” “...I’ve not much choice in the matter, do I?” Octavia muttered, staring at the device as it continued to crackle. The voice, so familiar from her dreams, from the nightmares she had experienced again and again. She never knew where the voice had come from before, always too afraid to look inside the bags the voice had spoken from. “...Who are you?” “...You already know the answer to that question.” The voice spoke, growing more distorted before finally cutting off. The phonograph was silent, and Octavia had a feeling it wasn’t about to spark back up any time soon. With a saddened sigh she put the phonograph away and checked what else remained inside. The only thing left was an envelope with a piece of paper inside of it. She pulled it out and opened the letter, expecting to find something written inside of it, but found the paper completely blank. A blank letter inside of a blank envelope. She put everything away and attached the saddle to her back once more. With everything in place she stepped up to the wooden door that was attached to the square cement room, took a deep breath, and pushed it open. Octavia’s eyes widened as she saw where she was, having expected anywhere but here. Lockers lined the hallways that lead to classrooms, before opening up to a main auditorium. Signs hung on the walls pointing out the directions to the gym, nurse’s office, Principal’s office, and the other numerous classrooms that filled out the building. It was Ponyville Elementary, just as she remembered it back from her days of attending alongside Pinkie. “It… It can’t be…” Octavia muttered quietly, stepping forward as the wooden door closed behind her. She glanced around, nostalgia hitting her at her core. How many years had it been since she’d stepped inside these halls? Much like everything else in town, it was decayed and rusted, with layers of dust covering everything, but she remembered so much of it so easily. She could practically still hear the laughter of foals playing in the halls, the sound of teachers giving lessons in their classes, the shuffle of papers and saddlebags all around them, the constant gossip and rumors that children would share amongst each other.  She could still remember Pinkie looking so frightened just to be there, encouraged only by the fact that she had her older sister there to protect her. Octavia’s hooves felt like they had moved on their own and she soon found herself standing in front of the Principal’s Office. Without even thinking about it, she lifted her hoof and pushed the door open. “Well Ms. Pinkamena Diane Pie, we recognize that you have been homeschooled for most of your life, but upon testing you on the Ponyville Standardized Test your score was not high enough to acknowledge a graduate level pony. So we are requiring you to take at least one year of public school here in Ponyville.” Octavia stared in shock as the ghostly image of the Mayor spoke from behind the desk. In front of her on the chairs were the ghostly images of herself and Pinkie as fillies, listening to the older mare explain everything to them. In stunned disbelief, Octavia slowly walked around the images, getting a better look at the scene as it played out. “W-What?! I have to go to school!?” The phantom Pinkie deflated in her chair, pouting loudly as she stomped her hooves against the seat. “But learning was so booooooring!” “Now, now Sis,” The phantom Octavia spoke, her older self turning to look at the filly, “it won’t be that bad. Just… Think of all the new friends you’ll be able to make! You’ll have a lot more ponies to invite to your parties.” Octavia stared at her younger self, seeing the exhaustion wracked within her features. There were some clearly visible bags under her eyes, her hair wasn’t nearly as kempt as she normally would have kept it, and her voice was clearly haggered with stress and exhaustion.  And yet, she never spoke up about any of her own issues that she was dealing with. Taking care of her sister meant everything to her in that moment. “But… But…!” Pinkie responded, looking up at her sister pleadingly. The younger filly was clearly oblivious to how tired her older sibling was, only worried about her own issues involving the school. “...Tell you what.” Filly Octavia spoke slowly, forcing a comforting smile on her face. “If it’s alright with the mayor, I’ll… I’ll go to school with you. How does that sound?” Octavia stared at the face of her younger self, seeing… No, feeling, just how much she didn’t want to do that. How much she was against the idea of going to a public school when her own test scores had meant she was more than smart enough to have graduated and moved on. How desperately she just wanted to be done with it all… ...And she was putting all of those feelings aside for her younger sister. “I don’t see why not.” The Mayor spoke with a smile, nodding her head as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Never once questioning why an older sister would go to her sister’s Elementary school for comfort. “Really!?” Pinkie practically sprung up from her seat in excitement and joy. “Oh my gosh, you’re the bestest big sister ever!” The young filly sprang from her chair and hugged the older one, squeezing her as tight as she could with a big bright smile on her face. Octavia wrapped her own arms around her sister and smiled, though she looked down at the ground with a distant, tired look in her eyes. “Anything for you sis…” And with those words, the phantoms evaporated into the air, as if carried off by the wind. The room returned to silence as Octavia just… Stared at the scene that had played before her, a lump in her throat as she felt the burning sensation of tears at her eyes. She wiped at her face, swallowing the lump in her throat as she looked away. She remembered that scene, she remembered that day. She remembered how tired she had felt, from the move, to getting Pinkie accustomed to the town, to ensuring that she would have a normal life growing up… “That was… So many years ago now.” Octavia spoke, shaking her head at the memory. “What’s the point in feeling sorry for myself when I was younger… I became who I am, and there’s nothing that can change that.” She stepped up to the desk and saw a square blue tile laying on top of it, with a fish engraved onto it. Knowing how this sort of thing went at this point she quickly pocketed the tile. With the room otherwise empty she made her way back out into the school hall. “Do you make a habit of visiting schools for foals?” A familiar filly’s voice spoke up. Octavia turned her head in surprise, seeing Ellie standing in the hallway, leaning against the lockers and looking at Octavia with a bored look on her face. “...Not particularly.” Octavia sighed, shaking her head. “More often than not, I seem to find myself in places like this against my will.” “Sounds pretty normal to me.” Ellie said with a huff, pushing off from the lockers and walking off deeper into the school. “I don’t think anyone wants to come here willingly.” Octavia had a small chuckle at that as she followed after the filly. “I don’t know. From what I hear from Pinkie, Twilight always enjoyed her time at school.” She shook her head at that. “If only we were all that lucky…” Octavia walked down the school halls quietly, following after the little filly. Neither of them really spoke, just a silent trail that felt so familiarly walked. It wasn’t too long before Ellie turned towards a classroom, pushing the door open and stepping inside. Octavia stopped and glanced at the room number, realizing it was her old homeroom from back when she attended. Stepping into the room, she was hit with a wave of emotions. “Octi!!” Filly Pinkie’s voice called out, the phantom image of the young girl rushing across the classroom. “Octi, wake up!” Pinkie demanded, rushing up to Octavia’s old school desk. Slumped over in her chair was filly Octavia, clearly having been fast asleep when the younger filly shook her. “Ugh… Huh?” Her filly self sniffed, rubbing at her tired eyes before turning to look at Pinkie. “O-Oh, hey Sis…” “Octi, you promised to take me party shopping after school today!” The hyperactive younger sister said bouncing in place. “Stop sleeping already and come on!” “Oh, is… Is school over?” Her younger self yawned, shaking her head softly. “I’m sorry Pinkie, I just… Lost track of time.” “You’re always sleeping these days Octi, why is that?” Pinkie asked with a tilt of her head. Octavia felt a tug in her chest, remembering the reasons. The stress over moving to the new town, the stress of keeping her sister happy, the stress of the nightmares that had been keeping her from proper rest, the stress of working any time her sister wasn’t looking to scrounge up some extra bits, the stress of spending those hard earned bits on all of the food and supplies her younger sister needed for all of her parties, and the stress of still being stuck in a school for foals… “Guess I’ve just been feeling fairly lazy lately.” The filly chuckled, deflecting Pinkie’s worries. The bags under her eyes seemed even heavier for the lie. “Come on, let’s head to the party store.” “YAY! Party store! Party store!” Pinkie bounced with her usual excitedness, long since forgetting any worries she had about her sister’s well being. Filly Octavia let out a sigh and followed Pinkie out of the classroom, their phantoms vanishing into the air and leaving a green tile on Octavia’s old desk. “Were you a good student when you were in school?” Ellie’s voice spoke up, Octavia turning her head to find the little filly rummaging through one of the desks, clearly looking for something.  “...One of the best.” Octavia let out a single, dry laugh at that. “Slept through all my classes but aced everything anyway.” Because she had been older than all of her classmates and had already learned all of the materials they taught. It wasn’t something she was proud of. “Were you one of those nerdy know-it-alls who rubbed it in everyone’s faces?” Ellie asked in annoyance, clearly disliking those types of ponies. “...No, I never tried to be.” Octavia sighed. “I kept to myself and hated every moment of it.” And hated everyone as well. “I guess that doesn’t make you completely bad then.” Ellie said simply, finding the things she was looking for; a blank sheet of paper and a box of crayons. Having claimed what she came into the room to get she hopped down from her desk and made her way out of the room. Octavia watched her curiously before turning to look back at her old desk, stepping up to it. Examining it, she found that the green tile had the carving of a cat on it. With nothing else to do she tucked the tile away into her saddlebag before quickly exiting the room.  Her eyes looked down the hall and saw the edge of Ellie’s tail turn off into the cafeteria. Following the filly she began to hear the echo of voices bouncing off the walls in the distance. The closer to the cafeteria she got, the louder they became, as if the cafeteria was filled with the young occupants it normally would be when it was time for lunch. Looking around the corner Octavia half expected to find the cafeteria bustling with young foals given the sound, but her eyes only fell upon a single, phantom image of her younger self sitting at one of the tables. The young Octavia was by herself, eating a simple lettuce and cucumber sandwich all by herself. Suddenly, something struck the back of the filly’s head, causing her to nearly choke on the bite she had just taken. After a rough swallow, she lifted her hoof up to her head and flicked away a spitwad that had been lodged into her hair. She turned around and growled, three more phantom foals emerging, all who were about Pinkie’s age. “Ooooh, get something stuck in your hair?” One of them callously laughed. “You really should be more careful, you never know what might be flying around here!” Another of the three laughed. The third put a straw in their mouth, before spitting a fresh spitwad straight at Octavia’s head. Octavia flinched upon being struck, letting off a deep growl as she brushed the spitwad out of her hair.  With anger boiling in her blood she got up from her seat and walked over to the three foals, glaring hate down upon them. “You three are asking for trouble, aren’t you?” Filly Octavia hissed between grit teeth. Rather than be intimidated, the three foals merely laughed at her display. “Oh noooo, is the older kid mad at us?” The first foal laughed. “What is she gonna do? Bully us?” The second foal dramatically placed their hooves against their face as they mockingly spoke. “I can’t handle three foals teasing me! I better attack them!” “I will inform the faculty about your behavior.” Octavia snarled, knowing full well she couldn’t lift a hoof against them physically. This threat, however, only seemed to make the three foals laugh harder. “Oooooh noooooooo, the older kid is gonna tell the teacher on us!” The third foal mocked. “She simply couldn’t just IGNORE us! She should be the more mature one about this whole situation!” Octavia went to open her mouth to retaliate, when something was slammed against the top of her head and suddenly her entire head was soaked. From the immediate smell and taste that passed by her lips, she’d just had an apple juice carton dunked on her head. This, of course, was hilarious to the three foals who began to run away. “Don’t take it too personally Octi!” The first foal called out as they ran, “Foals will be foals after all!” Filly Octavia stood there, anger boiling up inside of her until it faded and she hung her head. She felt it, the shame, the humiliation, the bitterness, the anger… The sinking resignation that not only had she willingly signed up for this, but it was what she deserved. There would be no reporting the foals that day, or the next day, or the day after that. She would simply take it, each humiliation after the other, until the long year was finally over with and she could escape that hellish establishment. The phantom of Octavia finally faded away, and on the lunch table where her younger self had been eating was a red tile with a snake carved onto its surface. Octavia just stared in silence at where the images had been, having forgotten just how awful the bullying back then had been. And the kids had been right, she was the older one, she was supposed to brush off the things children do and just move on with her day. Especially since she wasn’t going to be in school for nearly as long as Pinkie would be.  It had been so long ago that she really had just… Forgotten all about it and pushed everything aside. After all, who could still be upset about the dumb things that happened at school after all these years? “Do you ever draw?” Ellie’s voice broke the silence. Octavia lifted her head up, spotting the filly just a table away. Ellie had a crayon in her mouth, doodling away at her sheet of paper as if nothing else in the whole world mattered. “...I haven’t since I was a foal myself.” Octavia spoke somberly, walking over to Ellie’s table. “I would doodle in the margins of my worksheets sometimes, but once I got my cutie mark…” “A lot of adults seem to be like that.” Ellie spoke, putting down one crayon and picking up another. “They get older and they stop doing fun things. If that’s what it means to become an adult, I don’t ever want to grow up.” Octavia’s instinct was to say ‘It isn’t all bad’, but for some reason the words got stuck in her throat. “I guess I can’t argue with that…” She morosely murmured. She stepped over to where the red tile lay on the table and picked it up, actually taking a moment to examine it this time.  Each of the tiles had a bit of weight to them, and the detail on the carvings was rather astonishing. She could feel the small bumps and grooves that textured the animal on the surface, and it almost felt like there was a hint of warmth to them. Almost as if the tiles themselves were alive. She put the third tile away and lifted her head in time to see Ellie hopping off from her seat, leaving the paper and crayons behind as she walked away. Curious as to what Ellie had been drawing Octavia walked over to the sheet of paper and glanced down at it. Depicted on the drawing was a happy little family of four. A Mother, a Father, and two sisters, one colored in pink, and the other colored in grey. The picture was wholly familiar, yet so foreign at the same time. She wondered to herself if perhaps the buildings in the background were meant to be a farm… Octavia shook her head before following after Ellie. Back in the Hallway Octavia looked around, before spotting the familiar silver hairs of Ellie’s tail slipping through yet another classroom door. Without hesitation she walked up to the door, only to stop once she read the name of the classroom. “The Music Room…” It was a room that Octavia had become all too familiar with during her stay in Ponyville. After all, it was the very room where she had earned her cutie mark. As if on cue, a haunting melody began to play from within the room. A melody that Octavia was all too familiar with. Lifting her hoof to the handle, she pushed the door open and found the phantom of her younger self near the back of the room, holding on to a smaller practice cello meant for foals. She was gently strumming along the strings as her younger sister sat just feet away, enraptured by the performance.  Octavia merely watched as well, stepping into the center of the room and taking a seat for the solo concert. There was an odd feeling to watching your younger self play right before your eyes, but Octavia could feel the swell of nostalgia and pride in her chest from the performance. It was a near and dear piece to her heart, a Beethooven classic. The performance slowed down as the song neared its end, the final chord hanging in the air before the bow fell from the instrument. Pinkie instantly replaced the slow melody with the clapping of hooves, cheering on her sister for a wonderful performance. “Gosh Octi, you’re amazing!” Pinkie said once her clapping had ending, bouncing up onto her hooves. “Music really is your super special talent~!” “So it is.” Filly Octavia said with a sad smile, gently putting the instrument down. “Though, it’s exactly that reason that I needed to talk to you Pinkie.” “Oh? Talk to me about what?” Her sister asked curiously, suddenly perking up with a bounce. “Oh! Oh-oh-oh! Is it that you’re going to play the songs at my parties personally! Because that would be super duper AMAZING!” Filly Octavia winced at the declaration, and older Octavia remembered the feelings. The guilt at knowing that wasn’t the case, the reality that she didn’t want to play music for Pinkie’s parties, the sinking dread that she had attended nearly every single party Pinkie had thrown since they had moved to Ponyville and she was… So tired of parties... “N-No… Not quite Pinkie…” Her younger self spoke up, waving her hoof in a way to tell Pinkie to calm down. Her younger sister seemed to get the hint and stopped bouncing in place, tilting her head confused. “You see Pinkie… I have my special talent now, it’s creating music. I’m quite good at it and… And I need to nurture that talent.” “Okay…” Pinkie responded, suddenly not liking where this conversation was going. “So… As a result, I’ve been doing a lot of research on the matter and…” Filly Octavia took a deep breath to steel her nerves. “For that reason, I’m planning on moving to Manehatten once the school year lets out.” “...W-What!? You’re leaving me?” Pinkie asked bewildered, shock and hurt apparent in her voice. “B-But… But I thought we were going to live here together forever!” “Pinkie…” Her younger self spoke softly, already feeling the pain of breaking her younger sister’s heart like this. “I told you when we moved here before, didn’t I? That I didn’t know if Ponyville was where I wanted to live…” She turned around, looking out the window towards what had once been a bright and sunshiny day. “Now that I know what it is I’m good at, what it is I want to do with my life… Ponyville just isn’t the town that can support me or my dreams.” Filly Octavia sighed, turning to look back at Pinkie. “I did promise that I would at least stay here until I knew what I wanted to do, and I know what it is I want to do now. You have a stable place to live, you’ve got ponies and friends that care about you, and you’ll most likely have a job you love once school lets out too. “But me? I wasn’t meant to stay here, especially not in this school, and not even this town. Manehatten has amazing art programs, and so many jobs for musicians. They foster talent and improve creativity, and there are so many opportunities there… If I don’t start now, it’ll only be harder for me when I get older. You understand, don’t you?” The sad look on Pinkie’s face spoke volumes. Her quivering lips and tears about ready to burst made Octavia fear that maybe her sister wasn’t going to approve, that she was going to beg and plead for her older sister to stay… And Octavia wasn’t sure if she’d have it in her heart to keep turning down her sister if she truly begged with her whole heart. But Pinkie didn’t say any words like that. Instead, she jumped forward, wrapping her hooves around the older filly and buried her face into her chest. “You at least won’t forget about me, right?” Pinkie whimpered, trying to suppress her sobs as the tears began to flow down her cheeks. “No, of course not sis. I could never forget about you.” Octavia returned, wrapping her own hooves around her sister in return. “You can write to me as much as you like, and I promise I’ll return every letter you send.” Pinkie nodded at that, squeezing a little tighter. “I… I don’t want you to go Octi…” Pinkie muttered, Octavia’s heart nearly freezing at hearing those words. “But… But if this is really what you want, I won’t stop you. You deserve to be happy too sis…” Octavia felt her eyes begin to water and burn at those words, leaning forward to bury her face in her sister’s mane and squeeze her a little tighter back. The two sat there in a sad embrace, before the image of the phantoms faded in the air as well. On the ground where the two sisters had been hugging was a pink tile with a bird engraved onto it. “It never gets any easier, does it?” Ellie’s voice spoke up, Octavia turning her head to see the filly looking over the rusted and dusty instruments that lay scattered about the rooms. “Saying goodbye to family… Friends…” “You have to have friends first to say goodbye to them.” Octavia sighed, shaking her head. “Family is even harder to say goodbye to because of that…” “How have you done it?” Ellie asked, a tilt to her head. “How have you said goodbye?” Octavia was silent for a minute. Staring at the tile of the bird. An image of freedom, of taking flight, of going anywhere you wanted… And of being able to fly away from danger. Of being able to escape from your hardships on gentle wings. Or it could just as easily represent that you were destined for a cage. A cage to be toyed with as a pet for those who were bigger than you. “I haven’t.” Octavia said simply, walking up to the tile and picking it up.  She never said goodbye, not properly anyway. The words may have escaped her mouth, but that was exactly what it meant. Escape. Escape from her troubles. Escape from her responsibilities. Escape from her life. Octavia was a runner. She always had been, and she always would be… Her ears perked up as she heard the wail of a distant siren, lifting her head to look up at the dusty window and into the pitch black sky outside. The siren grew in intensity from somewhere far away, echoing all around her and piercing into the very folds of reality around her. The room itself began to peel away. The ground, the walls, the ceilings, and all the objects in the room, peeling away as if it was old, dried up paint being picked up by the wind. Chipped away bit by bit, floating into the air and disintegrating into nothing, revealing what had always been hiding just underneath the very walls of that school… A cage. A cage for a bird desperate to escape. The rusted, bloody steel of that nightmarish world surrounded her once again. The floor gave way to rusted chain link fence and bloodied hooks hung from the ceilings. Distorted and ugly party decorations loosely hung from the walls, as if thrown up there without a care in the world. The rancid scent of blood and decat once more filled the air. “You can try to run, if you think it’ll make a difference…” Ellie’s voice echoed from somewhere far away, from a realm that was not the one Octavia stood in. “But if you do, you’re likely to just end up hurting yourself again...” The siren finally died down and once more the looming sense of dread weighed heavily on Octavia’s shoulders.  “I suppose it never ends.” Octavia murmured with a shudder. Knowing full well that only more torment awaited her, she turned around to face the cold, rusted steel door that had replaced the old wooden one. She took a deep breath, let out a shuddering breath, then pushed the door open and stepped out into the hallway.