//------------------------------// // Supernatural Recurrence // Story: Land of Equines // by Daddy Joe //------------------------------// Supernatural Recurrence July 4th, 2014 I drove along a lonely path in the dead of night, patrolling the Everfree Forest. Since the activity of any occult creatures have died down in all three territories, I felt more relaxed. Speaking of that, things have been... sort of been doing well ever since Twilight banished the Wraith. At least that's what I thought. Everything was going so fine up until a few days ago. You see, strange things have been happening lately, directed towards me, actually. I don't know why Twilight and Spike can't hear it, but I can occasionally hear that same voice back from June 14th. It has the same vocal tone; deep, low, and rather sinister. However, I can't understand what the words even are. The voices are very brief and cuts out, almost as if the voice is trying to exist as sound but can't. I haven't really let Twilight know about this because I don't want to worry her, plus this is remarkably mild activity. Nothing too serious. I know that I'm not suffering any mental illnesses or going insane, so everything I'm hearing is one-hundred percent legit.... I kinda wish I was wrong. After this one, fateful night, everything in my life started going to Hell. Near the middle of the Batchu territories was something deep in the forest that caught my eye. Slowing down the vehicle, I pulled over to the side of the dirt path as I stared onwards into the foliage. There was a suspiciously ominous glow that flickered a short distance away. I then applied the parking brake and shut off the Defender, equipping the Igneous and my other hunting gear. Now inside the dense forest with my flashlight on, I pushed various amounts of branches and stepped over shrubs that got in my way. It was extraordinarily quiet in this part of the Everfree Forest. The sound of sticks snapping and foliage rustling echoed throughout the forest. As I started approaching the intriguing foreign glow, I did a quick pulse with the X-ray sensor, only to find no orange figures upon sweep. To my confusion, this glow turned out to be an itty bitty flame that seemed to be just sitting there. The fire somehow wasn't burning any of the grass, but I didn't leave it there just for it to grow into a violent blaze. With the fire now stomped out, I started to sweep the area for any pranksters who could be doing this as some idea as a joke, but I found nopony. As soon as I canned the search, a fleeting scream reverberated in the forest, causing me to uneasily flinch. "Woah, what was that?" The scream was to my left, so it was southward. I sprinted in that direction as fast as I could to catch up to the origin, sweeping with the X-ray sensor as I continued onwards. The scream didn't sound very far away, so I stopped running after going about two-hundred meters or so. I quietly breathed as I listened closely for any sounds that were out the ordinary, sweeping the area once again. Something then started moving away from where I was facing, the foliage swishing from side to side. "Hey! Stop right there!" I ordered, sprinting towards the bush. I swiftly swooped down in an effort to grab the presumed suspect, but nopony was behind the said bush. Whatever made that bush move was now going further in the forest because there was a white flash behind me, further down in the direction I was going. "What the hell is that?" I couldn't comprehend on how fast this individual was moving so fast, but I started piecing it together. It was unsettling, but I narrowed the possibility down. "Is it you? I can hear you over there." I said to the invisible entity. Calmly putting the Igneous to my right side, I walked to whole way over to where the flash came from and paused. Another brief flash went off but more to the left. I then walked over to that area until stopping once again. When I looked up from the ground, I was now standing a mere distance from the dilapidated house that housed the many symbols and numbers. "Oh, man." I gulped as I moved round the side of the the house and up to the front door. Clenching my hands into fists and squeezing my eyes shut for a moment, I now realized that Twilight's Wraith explanation was false and the spell had failed. Whatever this is, it led me back here intentionally. And so, I stepped into the building and just stared without much thought. Everything inside appeared to be unchanged from the last time; creepy and unsanitary as shit. Everything was very quiet and still. I walked across the living room carpet and sat on the old couch that say against the wall in the back, the cushions depressing all the way down. I pulled out the X-ray sensor and pressed the button that sweeped throughout the whole house and no figures showed. In a logical case, that means no one is inside the house but me. "Hm." I sat on that couch for a decent amount of time. Nearly the whole time I heard The Figure walking around down the hallway and in the room with all the symbols, which was only about thirty feet from where I was at. Eventually, I could hear it walking towards me, down the hallway, and stopping on top of a squeaky floorboard. Now that it was standing at least fifteen or so feet away, I stood back up and switched the Igneous on, humming. "You keep talking to me when I'm around my friends. Why don't you talk to me now?" I asked the unseeable entity. With no response, I did my best to walked towards it while trying not to act uneasy. That was hard. I myself then stepped onto the lose floorboard, looking at the symbol etched bedroom. I took a peek inside and the symbols were still in their original positions, followed by going to the basement door. Opening it, I felt a horrible feeling of dread as I examined the bloodstained walls. The copious amount had to a of dribbled down near the ceiling and collected on the wooden stairs. Something terrible definitely happened in this house. "What happened in this basement? Better yet, what happened in the bedroom?" I asked, but still no response. My ire started to grow on The Figure's resistance. I bet a million bucks it knows the answer to these questions I'm asking, but it doesn't want to give out the information so easily. I now decided to walk into the center of the living room and ask it another question. "Look, I don't know what you are. I don't know if you're some sort of alien, ghost, or something else beyond understanding. I don't even know what the symbols in that bedroom mean. Maybe everything that I thought was religious mumbo jumbo is true, but what are you? What type of creature are you?" I asked it. Like before, I expected to not receive any response, but right when I was about to give up and leave the house for good, The Figure replied in a low, sinister voice. "Look at the stars, and come back here." I didn't even look in the direction of The Figure's response, I just kept my head down. Obediently, I turned to the front door and walked out into a clearing near the house. When I looked up into the starry night, I didn't even know what I was looking for, but part of my "answer" made itself shown. Three white lights silently hovered across the sky and right above me; two on the bottom and one of the top, creating a pyramid shape. My eyes were locked on them like a fly on horseapples, but when I blinked for just a millisecond, the lights had vanished into thin air. "Where'd you go?" As instructed, I disorientedly went back inside the living room and was met with a shocking sight. An orange beam of light with no source shined on a guy who was slightly older than me wearing a red shirt and blue jeans, sitting in a recliner that wasn't situated there minutes ago. "Hello?" I said, holstering the Igneous. The man looked up at me without a word. With the limited amount of light, only a few spots on his face was shown with light while the rest was shaded. His hair was slightly unkempt. "Come here." the man said, signaling me with his left hand. I then willingly got closer to the seated man and crouched down to his level, a cold pocket of air blowing on my face. "What is it?" I asked. "I--I--I don't really know what to say. It has been quite sometime since I... well, talked to someone decent." "Look, I was told to come back in here to find out what this figure is. Do you know what it is?" I asked. The man situated himself in the chair and top-half portion of his head shined in the omninous light. I could see that his eyes were becoming glassy, welling up with tears. "It wasn't in my power, honest! It was their fault and they took me away from my home and everything... There's some people in this world that do horrible things!" the man said, keeping his calm composure. "That's true, but what is this creature. Did they bring it in?" I asked. "They did, but... but..." the man said, trying to spew the last words of his statement out. "But what?" "I can't tell you what it is. It won't let me directly tell you." the man said. "Why not?" I asked, my eyes quickly scanning the room. "I can't tell you anything anymore, man. But, I have to give you this." the man said, reaching over the right arm of the recliner to retrieve something off the floor. I slightly backed away from the man as I had no idea what he was getting. "I... I have to give you this." The man seemed to be reluctant as he slowly presented me a small cubed box with red etchings in the palm of his hand. He then waited for me to take it out his hand, which is what I did. Relaxing my fingers, the box now sat in my palm, looking like a little toy to me. "Now, when you leave this place, you go and run away from this place as far as you can. Leave your friends behind and get away from them as far as you can. I'm not sure what they can do." the man said, guilt now in his tone. "What do you mean by that?" I asked, standing up and getting assertive, but it was short-lived. The man now reached and grabbed a wooden shotgun from the right side of the chair again. I backed away in horror up to the front door. Raising his head upwards, he placed the butt of the gun on the carpet and pressed the barrel up against his chin. *CHKK-CHKK* "I had no choice, Caleb......" Those were the mans last words before he pulled the trigger. The shotgun let out a deafening bang as a mix of the muzzle flash and a red mist sprayed. I shielded my eyes and lost my footing, falling onto the ground outside in complete shock. "Oh! Oh!" I repeated, quickly pushing myself back up and jumped inside. The recliner and the man that was just there a second ago was now gone. There was no trace of the blood or even the smell of gunpowder. Fearing for what I did tonight, confronting this entity, was about to doom myself and my friends, I dropped the cube that was now ridded of the red etching and smashed it to pieces. At that point, I sprinted away from the building and didn't look back until I reached the Defender, driving home for the night and abandoning my patrol. Like I said, I never should gotten close to that fucking thing and stayed away.