//------------------------------// // 92 - Solo Operation // Story: New Endings, Old Starts // by David Silver //------------------------------// Chapter warning. This story is generally soft and squishy and I love it. This chapter has blood and an injury. This is a warning. Comforting walked right up to the house. She had brought nobody with her. That was intentional. She would walk right in there and figure it out! It wouldn't be so bad... right? She reached up for the handle and, with a creak, she pushed it open. "Hello?" But only silence responded to her call. "Not here to make any trouble, promise." She stepped in out of the comforting light of day, into the dark interior that only grew darker with every step. "You've scared a lot of kids..." Could whatever it was hear her? Comforting had no way to be sure it could, if there even was a force to hear it in the first place. Comforting pressed forward into the gloom. Right! Light! She fished out her phone, even its screen harshly glaring as she swiped and pulled to find the flashlight button. Click! Suddenly, it was lit around her. "Not like a video game at all." There was no specific beam where it was lit and everything else was dark. The light shed by her phone made everything around her a bit brighter, while sending out a conical beam of even brighter light. "This isn't so bad..." But then, why was her voice wavering? Get it together! She wasn't a little girl. Well, alright, she was one of those, but she'd seen scarier! She'd literally died before. What could that house have to spook her? Everything was fine! Perfectly fine... She couldn't see that line she had been following, but she remembered what door it was. Rushing up to it, she reached for the handle and gave it a twist, or tried. The knob rattled in her hand, refusing to turn more than a little in either direction. "Oh..." Shoot. Locked? Comforting had many skills, picking a lock not being one of them... She reached for a solution, but her pockets had nothing but the container of already-devoured gum. She had to throw that out... Chaos magic wasn't going to solve it for her. She was there to relearn how to get things done with her own hands! She screamed. It felt like the proper reaction to the sudden bang that echoed around her. The front door had slapped shut, sealing her in the house. She had her phone out, so she wasn't in the dark, even if it felt mighty gloomy all around her. "I'm not here to make trouble, promise..." Maybe she should have just closed the door herself? That would have been polite, right? She shivered as she backed away from the locked door. "There has to be another way..." She panned the phone around slowly, trying to make sense of things. Her light reflected off something, a shiny spark. She rushed over to it in an almost frantic scramble. It was a mirror, or bits of a mirror. Like someone had thrown it against a wall and its remnants were there, fallen to the ground, reflecting the light of her phone. "Oh..." That didn't... seem useful? Still, she could see fragments scattered about. She crouched down and slowly settled each piece back into the mirror. That went there, this.. slotted there. The mirror was mostly intact, just a few had come free. She wiggled into place with the clink of glass on glass. "And..." The last was hard to get into place, jamming against the other pieces. She angled it and muttered in concentration as she tried to-- "Ow!" Glass was sharp. Broken glass was the worst variety when it came to that. It had just pressed right into her thumb. From touching it to being inside her finger, it had all happened in a flash. A dull ache radiated from the injury, and it just kept getting worse as red dripped free of her. She had hurt herself, and not mildly. "Ow... Ow! Stupid..." That had been dumb, she scolded herself, but the pain kept ramping up. "Ow..." Her vision blurred. It kept hurting more and more, and she was crying, and it was getting hard to focus on much of anything but how much that was hurting. She dropped the dangerous glass to the ground and shoved her thumb into her mouth, but sucking on it just made a lance of purest white pain shoot through her. She cut that out, but kept the thumb in her mouth, having no better place for it. Chocked sobs forced their way free of her. She was messing up. She was messing everything up! The coppery taste of blood was filling her mouth, and too dang quickly. She'd bleed to death, thumb in her mouth, in some creepy old house. The thought of it brought more tears to her eyes. Fluttershy would be beside herself. Twilight would blame herself for allowing the trip at all, and she'd die, again, maybe forever, for being a super dummy. Calm! She had... to be calm... First step, she had to get help. She tucked her phone half in a pocket, allowing the light to shine freely as she hurried as best she could. Each movement seemed to jostle things, making it hurt more in little spikes of sharp pain. Comforting hurried to the front door... And there was no knob. She patted it down, as if the knob had just misplaced itself and she'd find it with a little work, but no, there just wasn't a knob to find, just the empty spot where a knob belonged. Pressure! Right... She had to apply pressure. That was a memory making itself clear. She drew the thumb free hesitantly and paused, shaking hand hovering in the air. How? Only one thought really came to mind. She grabbed it with her other hand and curled her fingers around the thumb, squee-- It was not a word that got free of her. It was a wail of horrible pain. But it was that to live. She didn't want to... She had to! She kept the pressure up, vision almost entirely occluded by the pain as she looked around for a way out. Windows, they had those, but they were caked with dirt and shut. Locked? Only one way to find out. A pity both of her hands were busy... "Dad?" Could he hear her? They were a world apart, but then, he was Discord. "I really messed up... Please, if you can hear me." But nothing seemed to be happening other than the injury she was holding together as best she could still being a problem. "Anyone..." She sank to her knees with a whimper. "Anyone at all..." She heard a step! It wasn't a shoe-covered step, or a naked human foot step. It had claws, tacking on the wood of the floor. Had she somehow drawn a wolf to her injury? Did that town have wolves?! "Calm down," she muttered to herself, shaking like a leaf. "Calm down..." The steps were coming from above her, heavy thumps, little clicks. A bear? What sort of animal would make those noises? Whatever it was, it was awake, and moving. She might be devoured, alive, or bleed to death. Both? Both was not off the table of options. "Phone!" She kept blurting words. It was about the only way to think through it all. "Phone..." She grabbed awkwardly for her phone with the fingers of the same hand with the injured thumb. With some effort, she unlocked it and quickly tapped and slid her way to the contacts. "Yes..." There was Sunset, about her only contact. Not the only, but one of an elite few. She pressed it firmly. It didn't ring. It picked up, instantly. "Hello, you've reached Sunset Shimmer--" Comforting kicked the phone with white hot fury and frustration. It was no time for voice mail! Wait... "I need that." She followed after it. This wasn't hard. It was about the only real source of light around in the gloom. She fished it out from behind the couch she had kicked it and got it back in her pocket with a miserable sigh. Wait, she didn't hear the steps anymore. Had the animal gone away? Or at least fell asleep? She couldn't know... "Window." She raised her hand to it, using the same fingers to hook into it and feel around. "Latch latch latch..." She ran along the corner slowly, feeling for one, at least until she bumped into something that wasn't wood or metal. It was another set of fingers. She yelped in terror, hopping back. The hand was there... looking? at her. It had no eyes, but its attention seemed impossible to deny. "Hello?" Sure, it was a severed hand, but it wasn't jumping to strangle her... "Sorry if I'm intruding." It took its first two fingers and tapped them with its thumb. It made other strange gestures. "I... Are you... talking?" Was that sign language? A pity she didn't know that, but still, it was talking! She thought? She couldn't be sure. "This is a long shot, but I cut myself." She held up the thumb, still held firmly with her other hand. "It hurts, a lot... and this can't be safe... Do you know how to deal with it?" She was asking random hands for medical advice... She didn't see a lot of other options. It ran off. Running is a generous statement for something without any legs, but its fingers made great makeshift legs and it scampered out of sight down the hallway, zooming out of sight all too quickly. "Um..." She could wait for it, or try to follow it... Moving brought pain. She sank to the floor instead with a tired whimper. "Please be a nice hand..." Comforting took a slow breath, forcing it. "Have to calm down..." Maybe one of her other friends? She awkardly flopped her phone to the ground and got to tapping. Red splashed on it. She retightened her grip, but the damage was done. The phone turned off. "Waterproof my a... Ugh..." She tapped anxiously at the power button, but no, the phone seemed dead. Thump-click, thump-click. Those heavy clawed steps had picked up. They were coming down stairs? It was getting closer. Comforting clenched inwards, curling in place. "Don't eat me..." The slow steps reached the bottom? It was at her level. She could hear it slowly approaching, through the dark hallways. With her phone busted, it was dark, way too dark. She could only hear the clicking, drawing closer. "You are hurt," noted a female voice. "Badly." "Y-yes?" It was talking. That was good, right? wait... "Do you have a dog, miss?" "Yes and no." Thump, click, drawing closer. "Yes... and no... How did you hurt yourself?" Comforting pointed off in the dark. "There was a broken mirror. I was fixing it... That was dumb." "Very foolish," agreed the unseen female. "Why?" "I..." Why had she done it? "I was intruding... It felt like a nice thing to do..." "Very nice. Very foolish." Her face became visible as she leaned in. A woman, a normal woman! "I'm unsure if you want my help." "If you can help, please?" Comforting raised her still bleeding thumb, clutched as best as she could. "Wow that... looks bad. Nnng..." A little whimper rose from her, fresh tears. She didn't want to die like that. "I'm sorry..." "Very sorry." She reached a hand. That hand was too familiar. It was that hand, but clearly attached to her as she took hold of Comforting gently. She had two of them, but clearly favored the one that had been scampering about. "Very serious... May I pick you up? You are in grave danger." "Go--!" Her statement was cut off, being picked up into the air and pressed against something warm and fuzzy. She squinted against the dark as she was carried off. The thing holding her had the hands of a human, the face of a human, but the torso? It was like a werewolf had her in her grasp. The tap-clicking was its feet, echoing beneath them as they pushed deeper into the house. "Um, thank you..."