The world around Apple Bloom was shrouded in a ghostly mist, the sky above sullen with overcast.
She discerned naught the form or physiognomy of the apparition which lingered beyond the veil of fog, for every time the filly looked over her shoulder, the pale, lambent eyes leering at her would melt back into the gloom; never too close, never too far, it wore the mist like a cloak, and the unnerving rhythm of its wheezing breaths was a deafening cadence amidst the silence of the desolation. As she walked, it stocked, but it seemed to prefer to keep its distance … For now.
This place was a queer perversion of Ponyville. It bore all the town’s familiar landmarks and locations, that was true enough, but there was no way this quagmire could be the hustling and bustling little hamlet to which Apple Bloom had been accustomed. Ponyville was a small but charming town, a happy place filled with friendly faces and thriving little businesses, a picturesque slice of smalltown middle Equestria. This place, however, something was terribly wrong with it. The trees were all dead, the fog silhouetting their gnarled boughs like elongated extremities outstretched in anguish. Pale shafts of light slanted through the apertures between their bare twigs and sprigs to lend the desiccated sentinels a sinister aura. The air was unseasonably chilly. The fog was so oppressive, vision was limited to just that of a stone’s throw, and the deeper Apple Bloom traveled into town, the thicker it seemed to get. And the silence, thought she. Where is everypony?
Just then … Clop, clop, clop, clop.
Apple Bloom’s ears perked up. She stopped, then squinted, straining her vision to the best of her abilities in hopes of recognizing the enigma in the mist. The gloom consigned the figure’s finer features to that of mere ambiguity, but the attire it affected provided aid in ascertaining an identity. “Sis, that you?”
No response. No acknowledgment. The stetson-clad figure merely began to amble off into the depths of the fog, hoof steps echoing audibly against the cobbled road.
“Hey, wait up!” Apple Bloom broke into a trot to catch up with her, undesirous of being left alone. The pace of the figure remained eerily casual yet, strangely, inexplicably, it managed to maintain its distance from Apple Bloom, despite the quick-footed filly’s brisk strides. “Wait, sis, don’t leave me!” As the desperation in the filly’s tone escalated, so too did her gait escalate into a loping sprint. “Are you mad at me, or somethin’?”
The chase led Apple Bloom to a junction where her sister banked right, down the business district of Gallopers Glen. Here Applejack was beginning to put some distance between herself and her sister. Apple Bloom’s desperate attempts to catch up to her were for naught, for she soon lost sight of her, like a phantom dissolving into the mist. Just as Apple Bloom was losing hope, she heard the rhythm of her sister’s hoof steps slowing up ahead. Maybe she would catch up to her after all.
A creak could then be heard, the grating protest of rusted hinges. Moments later, the filly came upon the chain link gate her sister must have just used. It was hanging wide open as if it had been hastily thrown aside. Apple Bloom cautiously leaned in to inspect the area from the threshold of the entrance. It opened to a gloomy alleyway which cut through a long row of brick-and-mortar businesses. She saw nothing from where she was standing but old, musty pieces of dilapidated furniture and grimy, foul-smelling dumpsters. This was the type of place that set off every stranger danger alarm her grandmother had ever instilled in her, but the knowledge that her sister had to have been somewhere nearby gave her the confidence to buck caution to the wind.
And so, the filly pressed on.
The fetid alley was long, narrow, and replete with detritus. Half the windows recessed in the higher walls were broken and boarded up, and the buildings on either side of her seemed to grow taller as she went along. The sensation that something was following her was ever-present—something that loved her not. Keeping her head on a swivel, the filly’s trepidation was an adhesive in her joints, slowing her eager pace to that of a nervous, tottering shuffle.
There was a sudden sound approaching her from behind, a sort of drumming, like the rapid foot falls of some creature with a twisted gait charging toward her at an alarmingly aggressive pace. Its howl was eldritch and something entirely otherworldly, a cry that would haunt the filly’s nightmares for the rest of her natural born life. It was like the deep, guttural death rattle of a bore being slaughtered in a fashion far too cruel to fathom, then wrung out through the distorted pavilion of an old phonograph being cranked in reverse! Apple Bloom started, red hair whirling as she whipped around … All that was there was empty alley, and the only sound she perceived was that of her own heart pounding away wildly in her chest.
It was at this very instant Apple Bloom came to the incontrovertible conclusion that she liked this place not at all.
The same white eyes she saw in the foggy streets were ubiquitous and omnipresent, leering down at her from the slatted windows of the garrets high above, peering out at her from the dark depths of iron sewer gratings, and watching from the hoppers recessed within the low walls of the buildings’ basements. Beady, white, and luminous they were, never blinking, never moving. Apple Bloom’s jaw quivered, her little heart pounded, but she forced herself to keep moving, pretending not to notice the white eyes which seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, fearing the possibility that the slightest glance in their direction could be perceived as a provocation.
As the filly trudged on, weaving between overturned trashcans, stepping over putrid substances, meticulously sidestepping clusters of broken glass from shattered malt liquor bottles, and skirting around other things better left untouched, she came upon an obstruction which served more as an annoyance than an obstacle. Three dumpster units had been rotated and positioned abreast of one another to form a barricade. All three of them were overflowing and ladened down with liners bulging at the seams with waste. The wheels at the bottoms of the heavy receptacles had been removed, making it impossible to crawl under them, and their tops looked far too treacherous and bristling with rusty objects for it to be safe to crawl over. Who would go through all this trouble just inconvenience her?
Apple Bloom placed her shoulder against the center unit, pushed with all her might, until she was red in the face from the exertion. She did the same with the other two, but her second and third attempts proved just as fruitless as the first.
The frustrated filly took a step back to reevaluate the situation once the futility of her efforts finally set in. Huffing, she eyed the corner of the center dumpster, then glanced back at her hind legs. Brute force, she thought, if it’s not working, you’re not using enough of it.
The recalcitrant receptacle thundered metallically as Apple Bloom blasted it with a powerful double-hoofed back kick. She looked back to survey her work and espied the scrapes in the pavement with renewed hope. The dumpster hadn’t moved much, but now Apple Bloom had established a pivoting point upon which she could focus her efforts. Buck after buck after powerful buck, Apple Bloom put her flanks and back into her labor, until the dumpster, now honeycombed in tiny hoof-shaped dents, had rotated on its outer axis just enough to accommodate the filly with a gap just large enough that she could squeeze through.
Apple Bloom stumbled forward after liberating herself from the narrow port she had created in the obstruction. She took a moment to dust off the dirt and grime that had rubbed off on her from the metallic containers before directing her attention forward and noticing the debouchment up ahead. It was an egress, an escape from the cramped confines of the alley which opened to an enclosed lot. An oddment, however, enwrapped the filly’s attention as she drew nearer. There, based at the center of the block of vacant land, as if put on display like some macabre art exhibit, stood a bed. A gurney, to be more precise, with a long black plastic bag stretched out over to top of it. Apple Bloom eyed it queerly as she entered the lot, perplexed as to why someone would wheel this out here.
She took a cursory look around to survey her surroundings. There was no sign of Applejack anywhere, but how could that be? Once her sister traveled down to this section of the alley, there would have been no other place for her to go. The area was parameterized by towering brick and concrete buildings which were set too close to one another for all but the lithest of alley-dwelling felines to slip between. That could mean only one thing, she supposed.
The filly returned her attention to the gurney. She was hesitant to touch it. “Sis?” she attempted, “if this is some kinda prank, you got me; consider me officially weirded out.”
The bag lay motionless atop its mobile pedestal. A grim commentary on the vanity that was the filly’s efforts.
“Sis, you can come out now.” Apple Bloom fidgeted uncomfortably. “Please?”
No answer. The bag remained still. The gurney remained still. The air was still. It seemed as if the world around her was standing still.
The filly chewed at her bottom lip as she finally extended a hoof toward the zipper. She took a moment to fortify herself with a long, deep breath, then dragged down the fasten. Slowly the tracks began to part and—mortal diction lacked the capacity to properly adjectivize the toxic tendrils escaping the slot of that bag. Poor Apple Bloom’s stomach heaved, her cheeks filled, but she managed to force her gorge back down, with an effort. Covering her nose, she pulled the zipper down about a third of the way before she dared to part the seam, and what she saw therein was not a sight meant for any child to look upon.
Her sister lay dead and rotting, her tongue black and swollen like a gelatinous slug in her gaping mouth, her jaw broken and contorted. Her eyes were sunken in, open, grey and lifeless. Her scalp was mottled with patches of frail hair and exposed skull.
Apple Bloom’s legs threatened to give out from beneath her. She stumbled backwards, but she managed to catch herself. She only managed to tear her gaze from the bag when she heard that horrible, distorted butchered pig noise coming from the alley. Her head whipped around, but she could see nothing down the fetid corridor beyond the dumpsters that had obstructed her path. Somehow, someway, someone or something had moved them back into place, trapping her.
A rustling sound suddenly demanded her attention. Apple Bloom’s focus then returned to the body bag. It was beginning to stir.
Apple Bloom’s bedroom was dark when her eyes opened. The scant rays of pale moonlight filtering through her window did not offer much in the way of illumination. A dream? she shuddered, not unperturbed by the revelation. Her little heart hammering, she clutched the sheets tightly up to her chin, not wanting to close her eyes for fear that that nightmare world she had just escaped would be awaiting her.
It took some time before she was able to work up the nerve, but she finally managed to summon the fortitude to get out of bed.
Chewing her lip, she snuck silently down the second story hallway of her home, her lantern bathing the walls in a soft, radiant glow.
Big Mac’s room was the nearest one to hers. Although, however comforting the company of her big burly brother would have been, Apple Bloom elected not to disturb him. The filly could remember her grandmother telling her once over breakfast that if she were to ever share a bed with a boy before she was married, she’d be shunned by everyone in town as the village bicycle. Apple Bloom didn’t understand, and when she inquired further, Applejack hastily interjected and changed the subject. Apple Bloom still didn’t quite comprehend the correlation between boys and beds and marriage and bicycles, but the idea of being shunned by the town wasn’t a tempting prospect.
Apple Bloom moved on until she arrived at her big sister’s bedroom. Carefully, so as not to wake AJ, she slowly opened the door, crept inside, then softly closed it behind her. Even though she was asleep, the sight of her sister alive and well was a boon to her nerves.
“Stupid dream,” Apple Bloom whispered as she placed her lantern on Applejack’s bedside table. “Stupid, silly … Horrible dream,” she shuddered as she eased herself next to her sister. She was getting ready to douse the flame, but then she decided to keep it lit. The light was an extra layer of comfort to her, and she liked the warmth it emitted. Apple Bloom watched the light dance for a time as she rested her head against the billow. Her pulse had slowed, and her eyes once again were becoming heavy. Yawning, she closed them.
“Sis?” came Applejack’s voice, sleepily.
Apple Bloom cracked an eye. “Yeah?”
“Bad dream?” her big sister guessed.
“Uh huh,” the somnolent filly said through another yawn. “I’ll tell ya about it tomorrow.”
“Only one thing wrong with that.”
Apple Bloom turned to face her. “Huh?”
Applejack then spoke in a voice that was not hers. “Ain’t gonna be no tomorrow, sugarcube.”
Apple Bloom’s eyes widened as her sister’s head rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, neck cracking. Her eyes were wide, expressionless … and solid white. Her unhinged jaw gaped unnaturally wide, and the distorted grunting squeal she projected was deafening.