Chapter IV;
Apple Bloom snorted as the first few rays of sunlight invaded her curtains and lightly caressed the soft outlines of her face. She jerked and snuggled deeper into her thick blankets becoming a prisoner in a world of fabric. She sighed contently as the thick syrupy warmth soaked into her very bones, worming it's way to her heart, she decided very quickly that this was the way that she wanted to stay for as long as she could.
'As long as she could' did not last very long because a large hoof reached out and prodded her flank, jerking her into wakefulness. Bleary eyed, she rolled over and stared up into the rugged, but smiling, face of her older brother, Big Macintosh.
She moaned, "What day is it?"
Big Mac stayed silent, but his smile grew even more.
Apple Bloom tried a different approach, "Is it Saturday?"
"Eeyup." came Big Mac's trademark reply and then he was forced to sidestep as he was almost bowled over by the yellow blur that Apple Bloom turned into, shooting across the floor towards the door with an ecstatic "Whoop!"
She took the stairs two at a time, flying down the white and red flight of steps, in her joy. Oh yes! It was Saturday, quite possibly Apple Bloom's favorite day of the week. Belay that, it was her favorite day of the week, not only was her big sister Applejack making apple and cinnamon pancakes (an old family recipe) but also no school, plus she could spend the entire day with her friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as they tried yet again to claim their cutie marks. She leaped off the last two steps and ran pell-mell down the corridor that led to the kitchen, already smelling the sweet smell of melting caramel wafting into her face. She ran past Granny Smith once again trying to water jam jars and then past their dog Winona, who yapped at her as she raced past.
She slowed through the courtyard of their home, meandering through a large patch of sunlight that warmed her coat. She waltzed through the golden rays that shone down and then craned her neck to gaze at the clear, pale blue sky through which a few cotton-candy clouds drifted. It was...beautiful. This was usual weather for Ponyville, but not many days ever reached a level of perfection such as this, clear and devoid of any foreboding, a day that made everything around them look lighter and happier. All around her, tiny colorful flowers of vivid red and purple bloomed throughout the garden, and the apple trees that touched the edge of Sweet Apple Acres shone with a magnificent and healthy brown sheen, the apples that hung off the already laden branches were a luscious red.
Apple Bloom looked even further beyond the estates and movement caught her eye.
A shadow flickered across the tiny clouds, long and serpentine, curling over itself like a mad snake and she could have sworn that laughter had floated down from the shadow, but it was quickly covered by a light breeze that sprung up. She watched as it rolled over and over in a mockery of dance and then disappeared over the horizon towards Canterlot Castle. It was a shadow that should have been familiar...but...
Apple Bloom snorted and dismissed the sight as a figment of her imagination, still trying to catch up with her still waking brain, "Silly thoughts make a silly pony" she said, knocking herself on the head and then walked through the nearby door way and into the kitchen, the smell of cooked apples warm in her nostrils.
She rounded the door into the kitchen, readying herself to be swept up into a big hug by Applejack, twirled around the room and then dumped onto the table for a big sweet breakfast with her family. But all that greeted her was an empty room, the sink devoid of dishes and the table barren of any cooking or eating utensils. There wasn't even anything in or on top of the oven cooking to produce the smell of apples that clouded the room.
Apple Bloom sniffed again and the smell of apples became bitter.
Curious, she let her gaze travel over the bright red beams and glazing white surfaces in search of her sister, thinking that Applejack was playing a game of hide-and-seek with her, "Applejack? Y'all in here? Hello, Applejack?"
Then her sister's familiar accent drifted out from out of the pantry cupboard that sat across the room from her. "Ah'm over here sis."
Apple Bloom skirted the green plank table in the center of the kitchen and tip-toed up to the double doors that stood slightly ajar. She pressed her eye up to the gap in between the doors and peered in, searching left and right for a glimpse of her sister's familiar orange coat. Nothing but darkness filled the cupboard, shadows that lurked in the shelves and everywhere she looked there was no sight of her hidden sister or anything actually in the cupboard. She looked closer between the gap, her searching eyes flicking left and right and up and down in attempt to find her sister. And then...movement.
Something flashed across the space in front of her eyes for a split second, there was someone in there.
"Applejack!" Apple Bloom threw open the green pantry doors with a whoop, expecting to be fallen upon in a smothering good morning hug, but her happiness soon became a strangled shriek of horror when she saw what was staring back.
A bleached white pony skeleton swung softly from a frayed rope attached to the ceiling of the pantry, vivid against the infinite darkness that replaced the inside of the food cupboard. As much as her mind wanted to refuse it, Apple Bloom knew that this was the carcass of her sister, only confirmed by the battered fedora that sat atop the skeletons shiny white cranium. She stumbled back and fell to her flanks, mouth agape.
"No, no, no...Applejack...this cain't be true, this simply cain't"
The environment around her was beginning to lose it's color, all brilliant greens, reds and white leeching to a chilling gray and the kitchen was suddenly larger, wider, as if the room was attempting to swallow up the young pony. A sibilant whisper hissed out of the clacking jaw of the hanging skeleton, soft like light breeze, as harsh as slander.
"Well all the truth does is make the heart ache, sometimes a lie is easier to take..."
Apple Bloom looked up with tear-dripping eyes at what had become of her sister and sobbed, staring into those dark empty pits with her own orange eyes, "You cain't be Applejack, she wouldn't lie. You're not Applejack, you're not..."
The skeleton clacked it's jaw, almost in agreement, and snarled from where it hung above her,
"You're damn right I'm not!" Then in a terrifying moment that felt as if it where trudging it's way through time, the skeleton ripped free of it's noose and leaped out of the cupboard at Apple Bloom who sat frozen in horror on the floor. Bony claws outstretched, tail lashing madly, it's jaw opened wide, wider than ever possible and then Apple Bloom was falling down between those cavernous walls of jagged teeth, falling into a blackness that was worse than death, a blackness that was the absence of anything.
Down....
Down....
Down....