Beep… beep…
Ruby knew them at once. Dishes. Sink. Little window. The spice rack. Sideboard with cups and paper plates from the party. The kitchen. The place she realized she shouldn’t be.
Faintly through the ceiling, she heard the muffled sound. Beep… beep…
This time, it all made sense.
Her insides were like tar, sticking to her skin from beneath, thick and impenetrable and pure, pure black. Yet somehow, it didn’t matter. Somehow, she found she didn’t care. The pain promised not to hurt so much now, if she did the right things. It was… peaceful.
Part of her waited for the thump of the zombie. It didn’t come.
She felt very strongly she should leave this kitchen – maybe the zombie was on its way. Out through the door promising anything, which delivered nothing more mundane than the same narrow hall, the same front door, the same set of stairs. She wandered through or past them in a daze. The living room was empty too.
At the top of the stairs, there were the usual four doors. The bathroom, no. Piña’s room, no. Her own room, maybe, but she didn’t think of it anymore as “her” room. She wasn’t sure she ever had.
That left the fourth door. Berry’s room.
But that was the trick, wasn’t it? None of these were really bits of her home, not even outside the world of dreams. They looked familiar, they had the same face, but it was like seeing that face hollowed out into an empty mask. Once its own living, breathing thing. Now part of a soulless mass.
Beep… beep…
Her ears tickled. The sound was much stronger up here. Without fully understanding why, but dreading what she might find, she entered the only room in the house she’d never been allowed in.
Yet beyond the door, there was no bedroom. Berry was nowhere in sight.
Despite the frantic calls from the depths of her spine, Ruby took it all in with a serene eye.
White walls, bleached as washed bones. Open space, both breathable and choking with disinfectant. Curtains and beds placed higgledy-piggledy, as if the dream was having trouble coming to grips with the cruel bindings of orderliness. The hospital ward.
Beep… beep…
Ruby wandered along, but slowly, more filled with a softening awe than with any sharp terror. She couldn’t see the machine making the noise. She could imagine it, staring coldly back with its dead, red eyes as though fuelled by lifeless blood.
Beep… beep…
Soon, she was past the centre of the room. She could see the doorway to the corridor outside, and for a moment the murmurings and hoofsteps of busy doctors suggested themselves to her ears.
She looked to her left, and then the terror seized her at last. She stopped in shock. She couldn’t breathe.
There were two beds side by side. There was something large atop each bed – pony-sized, but one slightly smaller than the other. There was a white sheet completely covering each shape.
Beep… beep…
Ruby wanted too much. She wanted to fling the sheets aside and see for herself. She wanted to run. She wanted to unsee everything. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted someone to find her, tell her it was a prank. She wanted to scream and rage and throw herself away. She wanted so much that she stood there and took it, unable to get anything at all.
Pain crystallized in her eyes. Evil gripped her throat. She fought back, wishing the cold didn’t sting her cheeks.
Beep… beep…
The machine didn’t care. The machine just watched. She could smash it, but the beeping would never leave her alone.
Beep… beep…
Something groaned behind her.
All the tension melted away. Her throat was clear. Her eyes lost their lustre. Ruby turned around.
The zombie was there.
Standing quite still in the middle of the room. Swaying gently in the listless breeze only its mind could sense. Three of its legs were normal, the fourth hung much lower than healthy sinew and flesh should allow. All in all, it only looked terrifying in chunks: pink shiny flesh here, a rib exposed there, mane full of holes where it had shed clumps, and a drool that trickled to the floor like an invalid with no self-control.
Its face gazed obsessively at the tiles near its hooves. Its groans were helpless. Its pain seemed weak.
Beep… beep…
Ruby wanted something, all right. She wanted to crawl out of her own skin.
Yet the odd, cold peace trickled in again, like a white virus. Every cell in her body gave up one by one to its wonderful horror. Behind her fear, she felt it all made sense now. It all made so much sense. She didn’t deserve to flee.
Against every last instinct screaming at her to recoil in disgust, Ruby walked up to the zombie. It didn’t seem to notice, or care, or even be aware of anything but a small patch of floor. With revulsion panicking at the back of her mind, Ruby reached forward and tilted its head up.
Berry’s face gazed back through pure white eyes.
Beep… beep…
Berry’s mouth hung open stupidly. Ruby could see its teeth.
Wincing every inch of the way, tears burning her face, hating herself for everything, Ruby offered up her own small neck.
Beep… beep…
At first, the zombified Berry didn’t move. In some way, it seemed either surprised or uncertain. Then dead instinct took over. It stirred. The teeth grew, spread out, surged forwards.
Beep…
Sharpness.
Beep…
A crunch.
Beep…
Then, there was no more pain for Ruby.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
And Ruby screamed out of her own head, fell off the bed, hit the floor, kicked off the grasping blankets, blindly smacked into the wall, yelped, burst through the bedroom door in the dark, hurried downstairs to the moonlit glow of the front door’s lone window, ignored the thumps upstairs, rammed into the door, rammed it again, rammed into it kicking and screaming, screamed to a screech over the noises of someone stirring, remembered, rushed into the kitchen, flicked on the lights, dived for the drawer, tore it open, grabbed a key, cannoned into the door, fumbled with the lock, wailed, fumbled harder, unlocked it, smashed into it, threw it open, and felt freedom cool her face before galloping for her life into the night.
Sobs wouldn’t leave her alone. The air bit into her skin, her fear drew away like a mouse from an ice block, and she crunched over the grass not caring which street she took, flinging herself round corners in a desperate attempt to shake off anything coming for her. Her mind was thrown into a maelstrom, grasping at anything that made sense, but all she knew was that she couldn’t stay in that house another minute. She was amazed she’d lasted this long.
Down a few more streets in the dead stillness of Ponyville past its bedtime, she started to think she needed a plan. Her lungs were urgently trying to kill her. Painfully, but welcoming the relief, she slowed to a stumbling stop and took several greedy breaths, desperate to feed her weak brain until it could fight back against the fear.
Ruby came to a halt. She recognized the bakery nearby. Soon, she realized where she had ended up.
Finally, Ruby’s sobbing deflated. Tears oozed. Chest pains settled down.
Ruby felt the terror fading away.
She couldn’t go back.
She knew.
What she knew, she wasn’t sure. Out here, under the sleeping twinkle of faraway stars, her own memories felt a long way away, as if she’d dropped them along with the key to the front door. The buildings didn’t move, and didn’t glow, and didn’t seem to breathe at all through any pony bodies. For the first time in her life, she was alone and free.
Around her, the air chilled her in its attempts to cut deeper to her bones. Freedom came with a price.
Nor did she want to stay alone. Once her breathing came back, she wanted hooves, the reassuring weight of a loving body, someone to squeeze it all away. Someone who had something she wanted.
Dinky.
Derpy.
It didn’t matter what Ruby did next. She was free. She just did it, mindlessly.