//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14 
// Story: The Edge of Madness 
// by SaltyJustice 
//------------------------------//

	I kept us walking on the way to the morgue.  I would need to talk to Midnight directly without any wind interference, I needed to know everything she knew, no matter how small.
"Tell me what you saw in Ponyville," I said.  If I kept it simple, she'd elaborate on the details she thought were important, which could help her remember.
"Couple of foals, little things, not even in school yet," she said.
"Those were the victims?" I asked.  She nodded as we walked.
"I didn't know them myself, but my parents knew their parents.  Nopony really talked about it much, it was kind of a shameful fact," she said.
"Did you find out who did it?" I asked.
"No," she said.
We walked in silence for some time.  The nearest hospital was the one attached to the mental hospital I had visited before, but I would need to bluff my way into the morgue.  No way they're let two dopy army cadets just trounce around in there.
"Did they ever find out what killed them?" I asked Midnight.
"I never heard, though I did hear they cremated the bodies the night after the murder," she said.
"Really?  Why?" I asked.
"I don't know, maybe they always cremate them?  I don't spend a lot of time in cemeteries, Miamore," she said.
The hospital was coming up a block away, and I still didn't have a plan.  I had neglected to get any sort of permission from the captain and a letter from Celestia was probably out of the question.  Night had fallen, she was probably asleep anyway, and me walking in with a letter out of nowhere would probably yield suspicion of a forgery even if I could wake her up.  Once again, it was time to improvise.
"All right, just follow my lead," I said to Midnight as we stood in front of the doors.
"How?  What are you going to do?" she asked me.
"Lie a lot," I said.
The hospital lobby was busy, far busier than the mental addition's lobby.  A tired looking nurse and a few assistants were filling out paperwork while a dozen or so ponies in all states of disrepair sat on benches or tufts of cloud.  One of them had a cast and a black eye, I noted, but was smiling and quite cheerfully chatting with what I guessed was his marefriend.  Everypony else looked miserable.  Probably with good reason.
"Name, injury, health number," the nurse said as we approached the counter.
"Actually we're just looking for the morgue," I said to her.
"Follow the hall on the left, turn when you see the sign," she said, and went back to her paperwork.  She didn't even care.
We navigated our way down the hallways, past rows and rows of patient rooms, most of which had closed doors.  I wasn't really interested in anything in them, and the few with open doors looked empty anyway.  Finally I saw the sign labelled 'Mortuary' pointing to a big set of brass double-doors.  The air took on a noticeable chill just outside of it.
Midnight arrived just ahead of me and pushed through the doors first.  It was like walking into a freezer, a wave of cold air rolled past us and into the hallway, forcing me to shut my eyes before they started to water.
The room was empty, in a way.  There were no ponies inside, perhaps the coroner had already gone home for the day, and the door hadn't been locked.  The body bags I had seen the guards carry the corpses away in were stacked in the corner, and the bodies were sitting on metal carts along one side.  There were also rows and rows of floatstone slabs which presumably came out of the wall if pulled on, probably loaded with bodies.  I didn't want to countenance that, I needed to stay focused on the task at hand.
"Midnight, watch the door, okay?" I said to her, "make sure nopony comes in."
"Why?" she asked.
"You'll see in a second," I said.
I wasn't going to be able to hide myself while doing this work, but I felt I could trust Midnight not to go blabbing about this sort of thing.  This was mostly a guess because I assumed she was like Minty.  She could keep a secret, probably, as long as I made sure to tell her it was a secret.
I closed my eyes and began to concentrate, but something felt off, very strange.  It was quite distracting, and interrupted my spell.  It was like something knocking on the side of my head when I closed my eyes.
"Whoa," I heard Midnight say.  I looked at her, and realized the invisibility spell had stopped anyway.
"That's why," I said.
I turned back around and tried to clear my head, ignoring the distraction and focusing enough to bring up the other sight.  It came slowly and haltingly, but I managed to bring it about just the same.
The parade of strange occurrences continued, as the other realm had taken on the appearance it does around a victim of the corruption.  Only Midnight's form was here, all the other wisps of light kept their distance, but why?  I could see no tar on the bodies, this place was clean, more or less.
I picked one of the bodies and gave it a closer look.  While the green fluid had faded in normal light, I could see it here, plain as day.  It was traced all around the body, in various patterns and designs running over nearly every inch.  Only a few spots on the back had no fluid at all, and the tail was clean as well.  It was the same story with the other body, and the green runes reminded me of the object I had sent Celestia.
That knocking hadn't gone away, though I tried harder to ignore it.  It was like somepony pounding a drum, or perhaps a heartbeat.  Come to think of it, it was a heartbeat, it was in the same rhythm as my own heart, but I was hearing it from somewhere else...
No, I was not hearing it.  I was feeling it.
It was getting louder and stronger too, making it harder and harder to concentrate, until I let the sight drop from sheer frustration.  Midnight was watching the hallway outside the door, trying to look professional as she did so.  I would need to report this to Tia, even if it meant waking her up.
A clang startled the both of us and we turned to see the source of it.  The body farthest from me, the cart it was on had bumped into the wall and let out a metallic ringing sound.  I hadn't remembered bumping the cart.
I think I saw it move.  My heart stopped.  These fillies were dead, but I was certain now I could see it the body moving.  The other one started to move as well, and not in the way a pony is supposed to move.  They were shuddering and shaking, slowly and quietly trying to stand up, the only sound they made was a rattling on the carts leaving a hollow ringing noise.
I backed away, nearly bumping into Midnight, who had stood stock still the whole time.  I glanced at her to see her face, but was not surprised to see the expression.  It was the same one I had seen many, many times, back in the old days.  Terror, confusion, horror, all mixed together to leave a stunned and helpless pony, unable to act.
"Midnight, wake up!" I shouted at her, and that snapped her out of her trance.
"What, what's happening?  They're dead!" she shouted, looking at me with a panicked expression.  Now I could see her eyes up close, and I could tell the fear was all the more real as she pieced together why they had cremated the bodies back in Ponyville.
"Ignore the heads, cut off the limbs, and don't let them touch you," I said, standing up on my hind legs and unsheathing my sword.  She did the same, but did not look the more confident for it.
Finally the beating sound had reached its full power, and the corpses stood up of their own accord.  Their eyes had remained closed this whole time, and only now did they open them.  That glassy stare, the unfocused look.  It was my dream, my nightmare, come to life.
The one closest to me came at us first, charging at us, wings flared, that damned unchanging stare.  I used the hilt of my sword to deflect the charge to the side and the filly tumbled off towards the wall, slamming into it with a sickening crunch.  I thought I had broken its neck on the impact, but that didn't stop it, it stood back up and leaped at Midnight.
She knocked it back down with her sword, gashing open its chest.  No blood came out, nothing came out, the ripped flesh just hung off the now exposed bone and the filly leaped at Midnight again.  The other one had stood up by now and came after me, these fillies were small and incredibly fast.  It leaped into the air and flapped once to get up to my eye level, so I repaid the gesture by cutting its nose clean off and dodging to the side.  It passed by me and landed, spinning in an instant and aiming a kick at my leg.
I didn't dodge in time, and the little filly's tiny leg connected with my own.  It was incredible, the weight of the blow suggested a pony four times her size as my leg gave out and I fell over.  The filly tried to stomp on my head, I rolled away and stood back up using the hilt of my sword as ballast.  Midnight was doing no better, though she blocked her attacker's body with her blade, the sheer force knocked her over.  Thinking quickly, I grabbed one of the metal carts and rolled it towards her attacker.
She didn't hear it clanging as it sped towards her, in fact, I wondered if they could hear anything at all.  The cart hit her in the back and tumbled over, forming a temporary block in front of her as she turned her attention to me.
Both fillies attacked me in tandem, and I didn't try to counter.  This whole time they hadn't changed that grim expression, the eyes didn't follow me as we fought and there seemed to be no brain activity whatsoever.
One came at me from the left and I danced nimbly out of ranged of the punch she threw, the other tried to intercept me but I leaped back as soon as she did.  Midnight stood up behind them and jumped forward, bringing her sword down on top of the filly I had cut earlier and bisecting it neatly in two.
The filly's body felt apart completely, I could see exposed bone cut like it was jelly, but no blood or organs tumbled out.  The corpse seemed to be made entirely of bone, skin, and grayed out fur coat, perhaps only the eyes remained.
Now outnumbered, it was no challenge to distract the remaining filly and carve it up.  Midnight slapped it with her forehoof to get it to turn around, and I cut its legs off from behind.  Though it couldn't walk now, it attempted to flap in order to keep attacking, so we cut off its wings.  It then tried to shift its weight and roll at us, continuing to make hostile actions despite being completely unable to.  I sliced it in half and it finally stopped moving.
Midnight had gone into shock by the time I had confirmed both bodies weren't getting back up, probably a mental defense mechanism.  This was the sort of thing nightmares were made of, and I couldn't let her know I was as confused and scared as she was.  She'd need to believe I knew what I was doing or she'd have a breakdown.
"You're Princess Cadence," she said, sitting down.  I supposed a change of subject wouldn't hurt.
"Yes I am, pleased to meet you," I said, offering a hoof.  She didn't shake it.
"I was gonna say you looked a lot like her, but I didn't want to be rude.  I figured you got that a lot," she said.  She hadn't taken her eyes off the corpses yet.
"Glad to know my disguise was one of convenience," I said, smiling.  Her expression was stony.
"What are these things?  Were those the fillies from the school?" she asked.
"Hmm, those were their bodies, but not their minds.  I'm still putting the pieces together myself, but I'm close.  Very close," I said.  I wasn't, but it wouldn't hurt for her to think I was.
"I want to go home, I don't want to be a soldier anymore," she said, finally taking her eyes off the bodies and focusing them on the floor in front of her.  She sat down and let her sword hit the ground beside her.
"Midnight, I need you.  You're now the second-most experienced soldier at this, even Captain Wintermere doesn't know what you do," I said.
She just stared at the floor.
"Please?" I said.  She looked up.
"Am I going to have to cut up more corpses?" she asked.  A tear came to her eye, she blinked to try to hold it back.
"I don't know," I said.  I hadn't even really regarded them as corpses when they attacked us, for me it had been just another battle.  This must have been Midnight's first real fight, and such a sick one at that.
"Okay, okay.  I can do this," she said, standing up again.  She sheathed her sword, I did the same, and she turned to look at me.
"But if I help you, you have to promise to stop fluoridating the tap water," she said.
"Deal."

Though we had butchered them up pretty badly, I could still make out what pieces went where when it was time to examine them.  We organized the parts into the shape of the original but kept the limbs split off from the body.  I did not know what animated these things, and I did not intend to it happen again.
The green markings had faded somewhat by the time I looked again with my sight, while Midnight watched the door.  I noticed they ran all over the body on the inside as well, touching the bones and muscle, but only being inscribed on the muscles, not the bones.  I wondered if the markings were related to the ones on the object I had seen again, before it occurred to me what they really meant.
I decided to experiment a bit to confirm my theory.  I leaned over the body I was examining and squeezed a muscle.  It was cold and clammy, but as I squeezed I could definitely see the green lines glow slightly brighter.  Next, I tried to rub the lines off.  It took some effort, but they did fade eventually, without leaving a stain on my hoof as I did so.  I tried rubbing off some more of the fluid from the muscle, until I had gotten most of it off.  Then I squeezed the muscle again, and it wouldn't move at all.  It was like squeezing a rock.
These are circuits.
Something had painted this stuff all over the body and then, somehow, made it come to life.  It could send signals to expand and contract all over the body, making the muscles move even if the creature was dead.  It made them dense and incredibly strong, immune to pain, like fighting a living rock.  The faceless ones had returned, not as themselves, but as us, using our bodies as their own.  
Perhaps the process hadn't been perfected, perhaps I was jumping to conclusions here, but I could not shake the feeling that this wasn't an accident.  The trap, the bodies, it was like these had been purposefully set up to try to kill me.  There was an intelligence at work, though I did not know where or who.  Had they found an accomplice?  One of their own?  Or perhaps their master had finally taken a more direct interest, the thought was enough to send a chill down my spine.
We left the bodies on the carts where we had found them, after fixing the room back up somewhat.  I made sure to leave a note for the coroner to cremate them, stating they may have contained some residue of the disease which killed them and they needed to be incinerated to prevent it from spreading.
I didn't know if we could cover this up at all, by now rumors would probably be spreading.  Dead foals tend to get noticed, and the scene was not accidental looking when I had found it.  Still, those bodies needed to be burnt, and I'd need Celestia to look into other cases of murders involving color being drained from the body, among other things.
I had a feeling the worst was yet to come, an overriding sense of dread that hung in the very air itself.  Perhaps it had always been there, and it was only now that Midnight and I could feel it, as we flew back to my residence to regroup.