//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Bittersweet Sour, Part 8 // Story: Chronicles of an Unknown World - The Awakening // by Blue Blaze {COMET} //------------------------------// {*Omniscient point of view, Unknown Location*} A single pony sat alone in the forest of dark destinies, her knowledge of how she got there unknown to her. The sky was painted a terrible purple, one colour that projected the term 'omen' perfectly. The ground was an equal shade, but duller, and with less life, if one considered it to be possible. All the grass was dead and gave way to the cold earth. No cloud was visible to the naked eye. A sole tree sat on a hill in the distance, dead and contorted. A large hole in the trunk gave the oak a mouth, with the dancing wind carrying its scream. A reflection of the pony's past stood tall in front of her; a tombstone with words unreadable to the mind's eye. Several other stones and signs littered the nearby area, a thick dark mist swirling around each one. She didn't have to turn her head to read what they all had to say; she somehow knew every single one of them. Rosemary. Aloe. Bell Perin. Berry Frost. Lyra. Rainbow Dash. Applejack. Fluttershy. Spike. Mom. Dad. She wept for the ones she had lost. The ones not found. The ones she could not see for one last time. "Why..." she cried. “Why did this happen? All my friends... My family... Everyone I knew and loved..." She wanted to stop crying, but her eyes didn't listen to her. She wanted to collapse, but her legs didn't budge. She wanted to set everything right, but couldn't. She wanted to drop dead and join the others, but fate had other plans for her. "Twilight!" The pony in the graveyard looked up. Leaning on the grave was Rarity, one of her very best friends. One that used to be her very best friend. "How could you?" "Rarity? I... What?" the pony squeaked between her sobs. "How could you let me die? How could you let me die like this? You could have saved me! You could have saved me and Sweetie Belle!" Sweetie Belle was suddenly standing on Rarity's back, a discoloured mess of black, white and grey. The filly gave the pony a sorrowful look. "I'm sorry Rarity. I'm sorry..." she stated, as if those words would make everything better. Her eyes closed, not accepting the fact that was standing right before her. "You could have used your magic to save me? So why did you save an alien but not your best friend?" Rarity demanded. "I tried, Rarity, I honestly tried, but..." "This is all your fault! You could have saved us Twilight! You could have saved us all! You could have saved us! You could have saved us!" Rarity's last sentence repeated several times over. The pony couldn't bear to open her eyes, and yet she was still seeing what was before her. Rarity leaned over her tombstone, drilling the words into the pony's being. Soon, other voices joined her. Eyes still closed, she saw Fluttershy appear from the right. "You could have saved us!" Then Applejack approached from the left. "You could have saved us!" Next, Rainbow Dash from the sky. "You could have saved us! She collapsed due to the sudden weight on her back. She turned her head, seeing a certain purple-scaled individual. "You could have saved us!" The royal princesses descended from the heavens. "You could have saved us!" "Princess..." The pony muttered. Her eyes could not stop the water works. All the ponies she met in her life slowly surrounded her in a circle, anger in their expressions. "You could have saved us!" Finally, her mother, father and brother appeared right before her. "Mom... Dad... Shining..." she whispered. "You could have saved us all!" "I'm so sorry..." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- {*Omniscient point of view, Sugarcube Corner*} Twilight awoke to a startle. She didn't scream, she didn't jump, she just lifted her head slightly. The purple unicorn pony concluded that that was the worst dream she ever had. Vivid images of said dream replayed in her mind several times over. She shuddered, getting over the emotional aspect of the thoughts. Her body was still slick with perspiration, slowly soaking the covers of the bed and making her clammy. Her skull pounded like a thousand punches. She winced, holding up her hoof to her horn and quietly wondering what was making her head hurt so much. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark confines of the room. She scowled in realization, her memories catching up to her. Groaning, she flipped over in the bed and covered her head with a pillow, wishing to go back to the dream world and not the horror she woke up to be in. The walls around her suddenly made a terrible, deafening groan. Cracks and splinters from the wood inside the infrastructure could be heard all around. The room seemed to twist in pain as a lightning-fast wind battered the building from the side. The windows rattled, trying to keep the raging storm from coming into the house. Twilight lifted up the pillow and watched in horror as the the wall before her seemed to stretch sideways. "Oh no..." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- {*Omniscient point of view, Sugarcube Corner*} The human ran. Dashing down the hall, his sub-conscious urged him to find Pinkie posthaste. He had no idea where she went or how she dissipated so fast, but he had a feeling that he needed to find the pink poofball, no matter what. Reaching a door to his left, he steadied his breath as his heartbeat before reaching and twisting the doorknob. Inside, he found a supply closet. (Huh. Go figure.) he mused. Swiftly shutting the door, he continued onward, taking only a few steps before he reached the next location. The bipedal took a right and grabbed the door handle firmly before turning and swinging open. Another supply closet. (What? Now this house is just messing with me!) His feet quickly turned around and off he went again. Turning a corner, he spotted the doorway to the Cake's bedroom, where Twilight currently slept as of that moment. (I'll just skip that, don't wanna disturb Twilight from her rest.) he analyzed. The bipedal figure slowly tiptoed across the door, but stopped an inch after. (Wait, what if Pinkie Pie is hiding in the Cake's room? Then I would have missed her completely!) Retracing his steps, he carefully took a hold and spun the door handle, flinching as it squeaked. (Damn it, stupid old door handle!) Griffin opened the door just enough to peek in. There Twilight was, in the middle of the bed with nothing around her that was unusual. A red clock on a small shelf beside the bed softly ticked to the beat of time. There was no sign of any crazy, depressed pink pony anywhere in the room. Satisfied, he cautiously shut the door and silently sprinted down the hall once more. The next door showed itself to the desperate alien. He grabbed a hold of the handle, praying silently that this would be the last door he would have to check. As his hand turned, the door knob didn't seem to budge. Confused, he tried again. He let his frustration get to the better of him and started rattling the handle and hitting the door, grunts of scorn escaping his breath. (God damn it! If out of all the other doors this one's locked, then that must mean that Pinkie Pie's in here! She must have locked herself to keep me out!) Griffin concluded. He swore under his breath ramming the door with his shoulder, having no success. "Occupied! Occupied!" a female voice shouted from behind the doorframe. Griffin immediately backed up, realizing what he had been banging on the entire time. "If you really need to go that badly, there's a bathroom downstairs!" Ms. Cake said. "Oh!" Griffin exclaimed. "Uh, sorry! I didn't know that this was a bathroom! I'm sorry for bothering you!" He immediately shot off down the hall, not wanting to worry about encountering Ms. Cake on what he just did. The baker made a puzzled hum before shaking the strange occurrence off of her. (Fuck, I'm running out of doors!) his head swore, swiftly running across the hall at an unmatched speed. He remembered two doors before the stairs to the first floor. (What did Pinkie Pie say before? Something about the twins? Mr. and Ms. Cake have a son and daughter, don't they? I remember them mentioning it after Twilight went up to talk to Pinkie. But which room is the baby room again?) Suddenly, the floor beneath him shook violently, causing him to lose his footing. He quickly reacted by rolling, but the action didn't help keep his balance from the sudden vibrations beneath him. He laid down, trying to get a grip on the carpet to say in one place. The roar of the earthquake wrecked his eardrums. (What the fuck is going on now?) he wondered. The walls around him began to creak and groan in distress. He could hear the timber beyond the walls crack in distortion. The ceiling seemed to stretch up higher, as if something was pulling it upwards. When the shaking stopped, he could clearly hear the wind outside whistling furiously against the outer surface of the building. "Aw crap."