//------------------------------// // Day One (Part one): The chanting // Story: The Whispers of the Stars // by donceluzza //------------------------------// Whispers of the Stars Chapter 2: Day One (The Chanting) I wake up in a small glen with lilacs surrounding me. With a cursory glance to the left and right I find that I am alone. ‘Where is every pony?’ I get to my hooves and analyze my surroundings closely. The trees around me are clustered closer than trees should be; each tree’s bark is touching the one next to it. The forest itself is extremely dark with only enough light to see at least three yards ahead. The only way for me to go is forward, deeper into the strange forest. I silently wander through the only opening in the tree blockade and start walking down the path. Suddenly, I start to hear a strange and creepy voice. “Tickety, Tickety, Tockary, Tockary.” The voice chants in a repetitive fashion and continues to do so as I trot down the narrow path. The trees are still clumped together, compelling me to continue forward like a hallway made of trees. I continue to walk through the seemingly endless hall of trees as I start to feel a strange presence drawing closer to me. Finally, I see the outline of a pony in the distance. I run to the source of the shadow, happy to see another pony in this isolated forest. Unfortunately, I get close enough to see it is actually a pony’s head, burnt to a crisp and floating in midair. What is more horrifying, though, is what it is saying. “Tickety, Tickety, Tockary, Tockary; when finally they see, around I will be; and for the fillies and foals, then the final bell tolls.” My confusion turns to anger as the chanting continues to repeat without end. “Tickety, Tickety, Tockary, Tockary; when finally they see, around I will be; and for the fillies and foals, then the final bell tolls.” “Shut up!” I yell. “Tickety, Tickety, Tockary, Tockary; when finally they see, around I will be; and for the fillies and foals, then the final bell tolls.” “Shut up, now!” “Tickety, Tickety, Tockary, Tockary; when finally they see, around I will be; and for the fillies and foals, then the final bell tolls.” “ENOUGH!” “Tickety, Tickety, Tockary, Tockary; when finally they see, around I will be; and for the fillies and foals, then the final bell tolls.” I have had enough; I run forward and try to attack the floating head. As I grow closer to the head, it dissipates into dust in the wind. As I reach the place where the head had been, I find myself in another open field. This time, however, there are five available pathways through the trees to go enter. ‘What the hay is going on?’ The thought is cut short by a horrible howling screech cutting through the forest. I turn to face the source of the screech to see the outline of a pony head. I raise an eyebrow at the outline, but there is one thing attached to the ‘pony’ that steps into the light and causes my breath to get caught in my throat; a spider leg. Without hesitation, I turn back around and run down the left-most pathway hoping to outrun the monster. I gallop down the path as fast as my legs can carry me, but I cannot seem outrun the beast following close behind me. Another screech pierces the night air pushing me forward. As I continue to run, I pass by another pony. The pony is a young foal, probably female, whose coat color I cannot make out. “NO, DON’T GO THAT WAY!!!” I call after her, but she does not seem to hear me, nor does she see the monster that she is slowly approaching. Once she is right in front of it, the monster screeches, stopping the filly cold. The creature raises one large spider limb and brings it down on the filly with a sickening crack. I cringe and look away from the disturbing sight as it smashes the filly repeatedly and her screams join the screeches of the monster in a chorus that filled the night air. Realizing it is too late to save the filly from the haunting monstrosity, and that I have no way of fighting it, I run back down the path releasing the breath I had not realized I had been holding; regrettably leaving the half-eaten filly to her fate. The sounds of the creature catching back up to me echo through the narrow path. ‘Eating a little filly didn’t even slow it down!’ I dash forward pushing through the forest despite the burning sensation in my legs and chest. However, the farther I go, the more the horrifying creature grows in speed as if it is impossible to outrun this demonic predator. Finally, I reach the end of the corridor of trees. The first thing I see is the filly I thought had been eaten. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out of her mouth. “Come on, I’m getting you out of here!” I grab the filly and throw her on my back before picking up the pace again just in time to hear the familiar screech of the monster behind me. The filly once again tries to speak, but is unable to do so. Suddenly, the light that had previously surrounded me begins to fade. I turn to the filly on my back that is still trying desperately to speak. I shake my head and turn around again, but she still cannot make out any words. Then, all at once, the screech of the monster fills the air and the light around me fades. “Watch out!” The filly’s warning comes too late as I run straight off of a cliff and begin to tumble down its side. I try to pull myself along the cliff wall to slow the descent as I bang myself against the side rolling down the hill. The painful fall seems to take forever, but eventually, I land on flat ground. I cough the dust out of his throat and force myself up, ignoring the screams of my aching body. The filly is lying on the ground next to me, unmoving. Blood stains her coat and she has tears in her skin in several places. ‘Oh no, I forgot she was on my back! This must have happened when I was trying to slow the fall.’ I mutter a prayer to Celestia for the filly and decide to move forward. ‘There’s no way that ‘thing’ is real; it’s not possible!’ I think, trying to convince myself this just a dream. I slowly wander through the thick forest eventually stumbling across a small wooden cabin. The cabin is a traditional log built cabin with two windows in front. Flickering light emanates from the windows, implying a fireplace inside. I stop in my tracks to stare at the cabin. ‘Why is this out here?’ I wonder, ‘Even if this is a dream, where would I have seen that to make it in my dream? For that matter, who was that filly?' I stand there debating the merits and demerits of going in the cabin, but a familiar piercing screech through the forest makes the decision for me. I burst into the cabin to be greeted by a warm welcoming atmosphere. A fireplace was lightly burning at the end of the room with several empty rocking chairs surrounding it. A loud whistling from the kitchen, the room to the left of the fireplace, signals tea is ready. In the far right corner, on a table, is a record playing a light orchestral theme that softly fills the cabin. I feel as though I have been here before but I cannot remember when or where it was. In the kitchen, to the left of the fireplace, there is a small glass of wine sitting on the table in the center of the room. I know I should be smart enough to not drink liquids in a strange house that I essentially broke into, but my dry throat insists I take a drink. As I consume the liquid, the world around him seems to change. The soft beautiful instrumental song on the record player becomes dark and loud. The fire in the fireplace goes out and all of the sudden, the cabin becomes a lot colder. The rocking chairs that have been welcoming before are now tipped on their sides and riddled with bullet holes. I hear sounds from the basement, indistinct sounds that seemingly do not sound like anything. Outside, amidst the howling wind and blasting music, the creature’s screech is still audible. I stumble towards the basement stairs, located to wall right of the kitchen entrance, wondering if the strange wine is the cause of this. My vision is fine, but I can barely put one hoof in front of the other without stumbling. It feels as if my hooves are made of iron and I am underwater. My breathing starts to fall short as well as it gets very difficult to breathe. I keep moving slowly towards the basement stairs trying to ignore my body’s suffering. Once I reach them, I manage to take one step before falling down the stairs. After I regain my composure, I looked up to see that I am now trapped on all sides by what seems to be a metal box. There is only one small barred opening, like a dungeon window, in the front of the box. Through that window, I see a strange room made of stone with a staircase leading upwards in the front-left corner and a window on the right wall pouring light into the room. The room lacks any furniture whatsoever aside from a rectangular wooden table against the front wall and a small bed in the front-right corner where I see the small filly again. With the better lighting of this place, I can see some static apparition obscuring the filly’s face and her colors seem blurred. The only thing that is clearly visible is the filly’s cutie mark; it is a pony being stabbed by a knife. I try shouting out to her, but no words came out of my mouth when I shout. “Tickety, Tickety.” ‘Oh Celestia, that can’t be…’ but sure enough, the pony that walks down the stairs, and up to the sleeping filly on a small bed, was Rudy Mentary. Rudy was a criminal from my past life as a cop; a former teacher that went on a killing spree. The music from upstairs only seems to get even louder, but that does not stop Rudy from reciting his rhyme. “Tockary, Tockary.” “Stop; leave her alone you sick freak!!” I shout as loud as I can but Rudy ignores me and keeps going. “When finally they see.” “Stop; Rudy, stop!!” “Around I will be.” Rudy picks up a large carving knife from the table and sticks it between the filly’s ribs. As he stabs the poor filly, the music in the cabin starts to change. The filly’s eyes are now visible; they are a soft white with tears streaming down her face. “LET HER GO!!!” “Save me.” she cries. Those words sting in my chest. I am completely useless in this box; useless to stop Rudy from doing what he did best. “And for the fillies and foals.” Rudy turns to me with a dangerous glint in his eyes. For just a moment, our eyes met and Rudy acknowledges my presence in his cabin. ‘That’s right, I was here. This is where I captured Rudy!’ My instincts kick in and I realize what I need to do. “Alright Rudy, you’ve got me, so let her go. You want to kill me don’t you? That’s all you could talk about in jail.” Rudy seems to listen at the suggestion of killing me. When I had Rudy arrested, for the two days that it took to get him processed and sent to a more secure facility in Canterlot, Rudy would mutter all the terrible things that he would do to me once he got the chance. However, Rudy walks over to the the table and place a pile of school supplies on it. I never really knew what the things that Rudy used were supposed to be called. They were the graph helpers where one end was a fine point and the other would hold a filly’s pencil to help them trace. This one, the one’s Rudy is keeping, has all sharp edges. “No, Rudy.” Rudy stabs the V-shaped tracer into the filly’s eyes, his trademark, before picking up his carving knife again. “Then the final bell tolls.” He slits the filly’s throat as she screams for mercy, in pain, screaming for help. “Save me!” Those are her last words; the last words of Rudy’s final victim as well, the other one that I couldn’t save. Tears mixed with blood stream down her face as she drifts away. Then Rudy turned his attention to me again as the room’s temperature seems to increase. Rudy’s eyes now seem sad and distant as if he is suddenly out of it. The shadow of the creature appears behind Rudy; its eye sockets stare at the dead filly on Rudy’s bed. Rudy begins uttering some incoherent nonsense at the monster; his voice straining as he holds back tears. Without warning, the heat in the room increases again to the point where I can feel the sweat filtering down my brow. The monster does not seem interested in killing Rudy; it just simply watches him beg for his life in some foreign tongue. My hooves started to feel like I am standing on a hot plate. I look around to see that the box I am stuck in is the same, but it still feels like it is getting hotter. The monster stops looking at Rudy as it stares in my direction and lets out a terrible screech. My hooves are burning with pain as I try to lift my hooves off the searing ground. I slip and fall on my backside feeling my coat burn and singe. “Help, some pony, save…” the words get caught in my throat. I look to see that the filly is no longer on the bed where she was prior. I look around from my searing cell, but I still cannot locate her. What I do see, however, is that my cutie mark has been replaced with the little filly’s cutie mark; the pony being stabbed with a knife. I try to bang on the front part of his cell with my front hooves, but the front of the cell is just as hot. Regardless, I keep banging on the cell, screaming as my coat catches fire in several places. “Help me, please, some pony help me!!!” Rudy then turns to face me; his eyes tear stained and bloodshot. “I’m a respected professor, I could have had tenure, I graduated top of my classes. Why don’t they sit down and shut up?!” He growls those last words as he keeps staring at me. By now, I am unable to breathe, but I continue to bang on the cell with what little strength I had left. My lungs are full of smoke and my coat is burning; the only thing keeping me from rolling around screaming is my natural survival instinct. “They just kept talking and talking, why don’t any of them respect me? They should be respecting me… hay they should FEAR me!!” Rudy continues to recite the last monologue he kept reciting all the way to the high security prison in Canterlot. “All I wanted was respect.” he starts to cry again, “All I wanted was a small taste of respect, but they wouldn’t listen so I MADE them listen!!” The music from earlier picks up in intensity and continues to replay over and over again. I begin to slump down as the last of my strength leaves my body. Finally, the door opens, landing me in the same room as the monster and Rudy. “Surely Celestia should understand what it means to require a little recognition every now and then. I’m sure if you send her a message she’ll let me go; just let me talk to her.” I can barely keep my eyes open as the pain of nearly being burned alive continues to surge though my body. The monster circles me, but seems to be less interested than before. Rudy suddenly starts cowering in the corner where the bed is located and screams loudly. “DON’T, DON’T KILL ME PLEASE.” Rudy keeps shouting over and over, “DON’T KILL ME.” Rudy starts to shake in fear of the specter that apparently approaches him. “DON’T KILL ME *screeeeeee!!!* PLEASE.” I am unable to hear the name; it is almost as if the creature’s voice specifically drowns out that one word. “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME *screee!!* I’LL DO ANYTHING PLEASE *screeeee!!*.” Suddenly a loud bang rings through the air and a large bullet hole appears on Rudy’s face in between his eyes. Rudy now lays motionless on the floor, eyes wide open in fear, bleeding. The nearby monster now stands atop of me. The monster’s mouth seems to be underneath it as I hear a growl from above me. It bites into my hind legs as I feel sharp, sword-like teeth impale them, causing me to scream in more pain than before. The best I can manage, though, is a slight squeak as most of the air is already gone from my lungs. The blurred outline of Rudy is now upright and standing right next to me with the gunshot wound still in the center of his head and dripping blood onto my face. “Life from the innocent flows and flows; feeding and nourishing the young foals.” Another crunch and shot of pain tells me that the monster is still trying to devour me. “Then and only then will the foals be sated; and then can the Stars be mated.” “What…” is all I can manage between the current pain of being eaten alive and the fact that my lungs still have not recovered from the smoke inhalation. “The Darkness then must be cleansed with fire; its body then drained and thrown in the mire; The mire then will brew and bubble; with eyes however this will muddle.” I see darkness around the corners of my blurry vision. My life is ending; the pain is real, the fire was real, all of this is real. As darkness overtakes my vision, all I can hear is Rudy repeating one phrase in a singsong voice over and over again. “The walls have ears, the floors have eyes, every sound they hear, you can’t run but you can try.” I hear one last sickening crunch punctuate the words of the haunting rhyme as I suddenly hear two familiar words. “Save me.” ////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\ I awaken with a scream, covered in sweat. I find myself back in Derpy’s house on her couch, and that I have not been eaten. My breathing is ragged, my mane is a mess, but there are no scorch marks on my coat where I could have sworn I was burned alive. “Oh goodness, are you ok?” Derpy appears in front of me floating upside down. “Yes, Miss Derpy; it was just a nightmare.” Derpy lands and stomps her hoof, “That was not ‘just a nightmare’ you were screaming out like you were in pain!” I pull myself out of the makeshift bed. The covers I have been sleeping in are now just as coated in sweat as I am. “Look, I need a shower, so if I may…” “Alright, clean yourself up. I’ll make muffins, then over breakfast you’ll tell me what’s wrong mister.” Derpy flies over to the kitchen area, ‘She’d make a great mother.’ I slowly walk into the bathroom and step into the shower to the right. As I put shampoo in my mane, my thoughts drift to the nightmare. Something tells me it is important, but nothing in it made sense. The monster, the cage, the fire, the weird cutie mark, none of it made sense. It is not like I have never had nightmares about the ponies I could not save; I have been a cop for years before being kicked out. However, I have not had a nightmare for years about Rudy. Ever since I started drinking, Rudy had not really popped into my head. ‘Was there a reason that Rudy popped into my head? Is it because of the missing foal?’ I think back to the night that I had captured Rudy. Once we had gotten to the basement Rudy had already killed the latest victim, a pony by the name of Star Light. However, the pony in the dream could not have been her because of the eyes. The eyes, the only part of the filly I managed to get a decent look at. They were white, whereas Star Light had blue eyes. ‘Not a mistake one’s subconscious makes often.’ Once I finish my shower and dry myself off with a fresh towel hanging to the right of the shower, I trot back to the kitchen where Derpy is waiting with a plate of muffins and a stern look on her face. “May I?” I ask, pointing at the muffins. “Of course, just remember muffin or no you’re telling me what had you so spooked last night.” I chuckle a bit. ‘She is definitely the motherly type.’ I think as I sit down at the round wooden table and grab a muffin from the plate taking a bite. ‘She is a really good chef, too.’ The muffin is perfectly sized, perfectly flaky, and it has exactly the amount of sponginess that I have always wanted out of a muffin; perfect. “This is very good Madam.” “Thanks, but you can call me Derpy, now about your nightmare.” Derpy bites into a muffin that s sitting in front of her as well, “I’ve seen ponies have nightmares before but you looked like you almost died.” “That’s because I did, in the dream I mean, but that wasn’t all.” Derpy looks at me, expecting an answer. “I once was a cop, years ago back in Manehatten. I think that is the reason that Filthy’s brother asked me to come here.” I let out a sigh, “Back when I was a cop, there were a string of murders in Manehatten; school kids, all of them.” Derpy’s face contorts with shock, “The killer was pretty smart, and he didn’t leave many clues, except for his calling card. He stuck some kind of tracing device for math classes and such into the kids eyes, aside from that their throats were slit after they had been stabbed repeatedly.” “How could some pony do all that, to a child no less?!” “Things are different out there in the big city, the lawless make the laws, and the ones who run the firehouse start the fires.” “I’m glad I live in Ponyville then, geez.” “I saw that killer in my dream last night; he was with some young filly but I couldn’t make out who she was. There was also this monster…” I shudder as I remember the terrifying visage of the beast, “This creature had been chasing me, and in the end it caught up with me, and ate me alive.” Derpy flies over to my side of the table and puts a hoof on my shoulder. “You must have been scared; but you know, sometimes our dreams have ways of telling us things. Things that maybe we would rather not hear.” Derpy looks over at the clock on her wall. “Oh dear, I should get going. I have to go to work but you can stay here for a while longer; you know, if Filthy is still being mean today.” With that Derpy, gives me a smile and leaves the house flying off somewhere. After finishing another couple of muffins I pull out my journal and place it on the table. ‘Derpy might be on to something when it comes to the whole dream thing.’ There are still a few things that bother me about the dream. The first is the creature itself. ‘If dreams are supposed to be a look into our subconscious then what does that thing represent?’ I write down a basic drawing of the monster in my journal, writing ‘spider-pony’, next to it before placing it in my bag again. The really odd thing about the dream last night was Rudy mentioning that familiar rhyme again. ‘Not only that, but he said it the way that Filthy did, with ‘sound’ not ‘soul’. Why would my dream remember it wrong, or is it wrong?’ These questions fill my mind as more of the dream fills my memories; the song that played when I entered the basement, the monster not eating Rudy, Rudy’s strange gibbering in what sounded like a foreign language. In fact, why can I remember the whole dream seemingly without issue? Usually, one would be hard pressed to remember small sections of a dream, let alone the entire thing cover to cover. This is beginning to scare me. The dream was bad enough, but now I am actively thinking about it far too much. I start searching Derpy’s kitchen for liquor; drinking has always seemed to help me whenever I start to think too much. I do not see anything in any obvious place in the kitchen. ‘She must keep SOMETHING hidden.’ I search high and low throughout the kitchen, but I cannot find any signs of cider, wine, hard liquor or any such thing. ‘Can she seriously not have any?’ I am just about to give up when I find a bottle of cheap whiskey wedged in-between some flour and other baking supplies. With the simple thought, ‘Perhaps I can pay her back later.’ I take a sip of the whiskey from the bottle and immediately start to feel better. The sweet sting of the whiskey is slowly eroding the horrid memories of the previous night as it flows down my throat; the monster, the filly, my own immolation and death, all gone. I immediately stop drinking the previously full bottle as I remember what I was hired to do in the first place. ‘I do have to look into that filly’s disappearance.’ I put the bottle back on the counter with a good amount still in the bottle. I did not drink much of the whiskey, but it is still enough for me to lose my balance every now and then. I weakly walk out of Derpy’s house and stumble outside into the warm glowing day.