Silent Ponyville: Inferno

by TheDovahshy


II: Suspiria De Profundis

Chapter 2


Applejack slowly crossed the bridge into Ponyville, only able to see a few meters in front of her due to the dense mist that had overtaken the town. Halfway across the bridge, it started snowing. ‘What in tarnation? It’s colder than it oughtta be, but it sure as hay ain’t cold enough for snow’, she frowned, confused by the peculiar act of nature. Staring at the falling specks, she noticed that they weren’t white, as snow should be, but grey. ‘Wait just a second, this here ain’t snow; it’s ash!’ she mused in her mind as to where the ash could be coming from, but could think of no answers.


By now Applejack could truly sense that something was wrong. She wasn’t about to turn back, though; if something in town was wrong, she was going to find out what and fix it. She also noticed the smell of smoke lingering in the air. She finished crossing the bridge and noticed something on the ground in the middle of the road in front of her. It was a charred newspaper, almost completely burned, except for a front page story, although even some burn marks covered some of the story, which read:


Inferno Rages Through Ponyville

By G-------ms

Last night a fire blazed through the town of Ponyville leaving destruction in its wake. The fire left ----nies dead, a-----------y in critical condition in the hospital. Two ponies have been missing since the fire, and parties are still out searching for them.

The fire came from the direction o----------------------------rfree Forest, though the causes currently remain unknown. The fire then spread across the town, engulfing nearly every structure in flame, as the fire continued to spread.

The inferno raged for almost an hour before Rainbow Dash managed to rally the pegasi in town to put out the fire with rainclouds. It is thanks to the pegasi’s quick reaction that the loss of life wasn’t larger. Rainbow Dash could not be reached for comment.

Among the dead are the ------------------ as well as


The rest of the newspaper was charred, rendering it unreadable. She put the paper down and continued her walk into town. She soon saw the faint outline of a building through the blinding fog, and trotted towards it. As she got closer, she realized that the building was still run down and burnt, the walls blackened and charred, the windows broken, and the roof caved in.


Applejack was about to move on across the street when she heard a whimper come from the building. She walked around to the front door of the decayed building and entered, and found a green unicorn sitting in the corner, staring off into space.


“Hello? Are ya’ll alright, there?” Applejack asked while slowly walking forward. The green unicorn didn’t budge, continuing to stare off into oblivion. Applejack then noticed her cutie mark, a lyre, causing her to recognize the catatonic unicorn in front of her. “Lyra? What’s wrong, sugarcube?” Lyra jumped slightly.


“Oh, um, I, uh…I’m sorry, I was just resting”, Lyra giggled nervously, eyes darting all over the place. “Uhh, what, um, what are you doing here?”, she asked, finally looking at Applejack.


“Ah’ve just come back from Canterlot. What’s happened ‘roun here?”, she asked the cowering green unicorn with curiosity. “This place is’n even worse shape than when ah left”, the words stung as they left her mouth.


“Nu-n-nowhere s-s-sa-safe….”, her whimpering was becoming quieter and more disconnected. “B-b-big one g-gets you in light, other one in d-d-da-dark. F-feeds on…”, she slowly stopped talking altogether, and just stared off, catatonic.

Disturbed, yet wanting to help, Applejack decided the best course of action was to head across the street to Sugar Cube Corner. She walked across the road, the ash starting to pile up on the ground, and soon she could see the bakery that housed her friend Pinkie Pie, though the sight only brought on more dismay. Through the fog, she saw the building burnt and blackened, still smoking. The walls facing toward her on the second floor were gone, letting her see into Pinkie’s room, which was also blackened and desolate.


She entered the bakery and looked around. The inside of Sugar Cube Corner did not look as tarnished as the outside. The room wasn’t burnt, but items were strewn all over the place. The other thing she noticed was that it looked like nopony had been in here for years, there was a thick layer of dust covering everything, and dozens of spider webs adorned the various corners of the room.


“Hello? Is there anypony here?” she asked, a sense of fear becoming noticeable in her voice. There was no reply. She decided to look around, try and find anything that might give her a clue as to what was going on. She looked out of the only window still intact, and saw her reflection, when she noticed a large shape coming towards her in the reflection. She quickly spun around in shock, only to find nothing there.


She sat down and tried to calm herself. ‘T’weren’t nothin’. Just calm down now, y’hear?’ she thought, as her heart began to slow. As her breathing slowed and silenced, she heard a noise coming from upstairs. It sounded Pinkie Pie’s phonograph giving out static. She slowly made her way upstairs. Creak. Each step she took up the staircase emitted a loud creak, which dragged the ascent to a seemingly endless trudge for her.


She reached the top of the stairs, and began down the hallway. When she reached the first door, she opened it to find a dark room full of furniture and odd tidbits piled on top each other, a musky smell escaping the doorway. The static wasn’t coming from this room, so Applejack turned to leave. As she started to walk further down the hall a bright light appeared in the room. She walked back in and found a lantern, wondering what caused it to light up suddenly, and she began to feel even more uneasy.


She took the lantern, knowing it could come in handy, despite the eerie circumstances in which she obtained it, and then proceeded down the hall. She reached the door to Pinkie’s room, and noticed long claw marks all over the door, as well as a busted spot, with the wood broken out towards her. By now every fiber of her body was screaming at her to turn and run as fast she could and escape, yet she seemed to be pulled forward by some otherworldly force. She pushed open the door and stepped inside.


Despite her previous view into the room, pinkie’s room was now remarkably untouched, save for the missing wall that looked into the fog covered streets of Ponyville and the large portion of the roof that was gone. Applejack was never often in this room, but the furniture still was where it had always been. There was an armoire to the left of the door, the bed on the wall to the far left, near the door to the bathroom, and a small table on the wall to the right, in the corner, near the missing wall. On the table she found the source of the static: a small, portable radio. She walked over to the table, noticing a soft cool breeze coming from outside, rustling her coat and mane. She picked it up and noticed something else on the table where the radio had been. It was a small, turquoise pentagonal tablet with the image of a dog carved into one side and a cat on the other. She felt that it might be important, though she couldn’t explain how, so she put it in her bag, then turned her attention back to the radio.


She fiddled with the on/off switch, yet not matter how many times she switched it, the static continued. She figured the switch was broken, then moved on to manipulating the volume knob. She turned the knob to the left, but the noise remained constant. She turned the knob right and the volume still did not fluctuate at all, continuing to scream static. She turned the knob back to around where it originally was, then turned the radio over and checked the battery hatch. She removed the cover to find that there were no batteries inside. Shivers ran through her body when she noticed that the static was starting to roar through the speakers even louder than before.


Fear was beginning to well up inside her, and the radio blared louder and louder. She just barely heard a creek behind her through the roar. She turned around and froze, cold washing over body. On the other side of the room the armoire’s doors were open. There were neatly folded bed sheets at the bottom, with a sack of flour on top. The armoire began to shake, become increasingly violent. The sack of flour was thrown to the ground as something began to emerge from between the folded bed sheets. The sheets parted as the head of the creature began wriggling through into the room.


The head was pony like, but warped, with skin stretched over where the left eye should have been, as well as over the right side of the mouth. Its skin was charred black, and a ball of smoke filled the one eyehole. It continued to slither out of the armoire, head striking the floor and letting out a hollow moan. When the legs had finally freed themselves, the creature stood up, fully showing its imposing stature. It was very much like a pony, but stood upright on its hind legs, which were distorted and bent at unnatural angles, and the front legs were wrapped around and seemingly grafted onto the charred torso. The shoulders, or rather what remained of them, were very wide, while the neck flopped from side to side.


The creature continued to advance on Applejack, who remained frozen in place with a mixture of shock and fear. When it had nearly reached her position, it reared its body back before striking with its head in an overhead arc towards her. She was finally able to move, barely dodging the creatures lunge. She reared her hind legs back and struck it in the shoulder, though it only reoriented itself, showing no signs of pain. The creature swung towards her, and it caught hold of her tied up mane. Grasping at her, it swung towards the hole in the hole in the wall, launching her into the street below.


Her right rear leg struck the ground first, sending a wave of pain throughout her body as she collapsed into the street. As she started to get up, a light siren started in the distance. The static from the radio was fading out, and she noticed the monster that had attacked her was stumbling its way back inside of Sugar Cube Corner. She spotted the radio on the ground by the bakery, and ran over and grabbed it, then placed it in her pack. The siren continued to wail in the distance, and the grey smoke was beginning to turn orange, and the smell of acrid smoke began to fill her nostrils. She looked in the direction that the orange, billowing smoke was coming from, and noticed it was coming from over the hills, towards Sweet Apple Acres.


“Oh Celestia, no!” she cried, as she began to race towards her home. It was not long until static started hissing form the radio again, and she slowed down to a brisk walk. A dull throbbing pain was pulsating throughout her hind leg, and was spreading fast. She sighed; she would definitely have to mend it up soon, which didn’t seem likely. As she passed one of the houses, barely visible in the thick, orange haze, she heard a familiar sound.


“Kill me”, a raspy, high pitched voice whined. “Help me…” Applejack noticed that the voice seemed to be coming out of the radio as well, penetrating through the static. Accompanying the voice was the sound of labored breathing and wheezing. The voice continued, and she noticed a thick roll of black smoke lurch out from the side of a building. The smoke hung close to the ground, and was slowly moving towards her. AS the fear began surging through her again, she sprinted even faster towards her farm, soon leaving the town and coming to the road that led to her destination.


She ran for what seemed to her to be an eternity, though in reality was only a couple of minutes, her radio now perfectly silent, when she was forced to make a grinding halt. The road, and indeed the surrounding world, ended in a cliff that dropped off into oblivion.


“What’n tarnation?” was all she could mutter at the sight of the newfound edge of the world. After thinking for a few seconds, she leapt over the fence to her right, and began making her way through the orchard, around the drop-off of the cliff. As she went further into the orchard, the smoke began to grow thicker, and the trees more dense. Every few moments going further, she thought she heard steps behind her, trying to match her own, but never saw anything as she looked back. She continued on at a quicker pace until she found a clearing in the orchard. There was a small hill in the middle of the circular clearing, with a wall of trees making any more progress unlikely. She climbed to the top of the hill to try and get a better view of the area, but as she reached the top, she found a hole that went straight down.


Seeing no other way forward, applejack pushed her trepidation aside and began to descend into the gaping maw of infinite blackness beneath her. As she plummeted into the abyss the sounds of fire overhead grew louder, and soon as she looked up, she saw flames lick the mouth of the hole as the inferno blazed in the clearing above, causing her to grow increasingly hot. She climbed further down for what seemed like an eternity before the ladder stopped; the hole above now appeared to be nothing more than a twinkling star on a moonless night. Defeated, she was about to climb back up when she heard a cracking, and the legs of the ladder near the top of the hole broke, releasing her into the crevasse of unfathomable calignosity. She blacked out.







Rarity was headed towards Sweet Apple Acres to spend yet another blissful day with that beautiful orange mare with a soft, silky blonde mane. For the past few months since she had accepted her feelings for Applejack, she was filled with a near constant feeling of bliss. Just as Applejack had said, the other ponies in town were supporting of their new relationship, much as they were for Lyra and Bonbon, as Rarity had learned soon after that day.


She arrived at the front of the Apple family home and knocked on the front door. There was no answer. She knocked again, and soon heard a slow shuffling come to the door. The door opened to reveal a sickly looking Big Macintosh.


“Hello, Big Macintosh”, she said with a smile, politely avoiding any mention of how languid he was. “Is Applejack around, by any chance?” she asked as the anticipation continued to well up within her.


There was a slight pause before he answered with his trademark “eenope”, though his voice sounded thinner and strained. Rarity’s face darkened with disappointment briefly before replying, though unable to hide the frustration in her voice.


“Oh, well, I see. Is she out in the orchard, perhaps?” she asked


“eeyup. Western patch today.” he answered.


“Thank you very much, Big Macintosh, take care!” she replied, ending the conversation to head off towards the western part of the apple orchard. Big Macintosh closed the door and headed back to his bed to get some rest. Rarity was becoming disheartened, she was almost certain that Applejack had forgotten what today was.


It was a year ago today that Applejack had knocked on the door to her boutique one night after drinking a large amount of cider; a year of almost pure joy and delight for the both of them, spending constant time with each other, truly learning each other’s small quirks, and the various things that made them click. Despite how different they both were, they complemented each other near perfectly; if any two mares were meant to be together, it was the two of them. Rarity marched on, fuming and tearing up; she was going to give Applejack a piece of her mind.