“...This story has aired on three radio networks and is available for sale in all major centres, along with the last songs Vinyl Scratch ever produced, saved on the single record in the wreck of her house. If anypony, anyone spots her, please…I just want my Vinyl back.”
The same voice I hear every day, the one that reminds me of everything I’ve done, lost, and love. The voice that begs me every day to return while telling the whole world the story of why I can’t. The voice that echoes soft and tinny through the smoky air and my heart.
“Hey Cherry, could you please turn that Celestia-damned depressing radio off?! She’ll drive me to suicide!”
Cherry Cup paused in polishing a row of the old bar’s shot glasses as she replied to the bruising beer-swiller of a stallion dirtying the end of her pristine countertop. She smiled sweetly as ever as she replied, “I don’t know Cinny, I think it’s a bittersweet story, you know? Like those old Canterlot tragedy plays.”
In the smoke-heavy air, the dull brown form of one of the bar’s stoutest regulars, whose name I’d picked up was Cinder Block, grunted dryly, “Sure, except if you haven’t read any paper or magazine in the last two months, you’d know that this actually happened. For real. The great Octavia Philharmonica pining over the radio, hoping her undoubtedly long-dead marefriend will return to her. The Gendarmerie are still looking for that blasted pony. Personally I hope they find a body.”
“Hey!” Cherry squeaked at the far larger earth pony stallion, leaning over the stained oak counter, “Watch what you say about Vinyl Scratch! She was awesome!” She stared at him with all the threatening force a tiny rose-coloured unicorn could, her lilac eyes glowing with determination.
“Emphasis on was.” The workhorse grumbled into his tankard, “You heard what she did to all those ponies. Lands sake girl, you bought this bar from Berry Punch, you saw what happened to her! I wouldn’t be surprised if that Vinyl Scratch offed herself just from the shame.” He shifted around his seat as his work-worn hooves sought a better grip on his chosen poison.
“Well I dunno...” An eavesdropping tan-coloured Pegasus interjected. He meandered up to the bar, sporting a moon-spangled quill as a cutie mark, with a swish to his tail that implied confidence, perhaps a little over-confidence. In his eyes, excitement flashed as he continued, “Have you ever listened to that whole story?”
“Just about the only thing K-Kolt plays nowadays…” Cinder Block rumbled.
“Can you blame Octavia?” the pegasus replied, “I’m Moon Skritch, a writer, a researcher. I’ve got...a personal stake in this whole situation. I understand how she feels.”
“Oh?” Cherry raised an eyebrow, “Are you...are you related to Vinyl? Or one of the mares who got...Taken?”
Moon Skritch shook his head, “No, no...look, you know this is bigger than just Ponyville, right? You heard how it all started?”
"You c’n say that again,” Cinder Block grumbled. I noticed that while Cinder Block’s rear hooves were firmly on the floorboards beneath him, Skritch’s danced lazily in the air. “Me an’ my work crew were there two months ago. We helped clear what was left of Vinyl Scratch’s house out of the street, and we moved the eight bodies dead in the back yard. You townsfolk didn’t see them, you were too busy out front. Withered and dry they were. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’d been there a week before we picked ‘em up.”
Moon Skritch nodded. “Life is not kind to the Taken.” He looked up, straight into Cherry Cup’s surprised eyes. “I’ve seen them, you know. Soul Taps. Held one myself before I came groundside. I don’t blame VInyl one bit. The magic in those things, it’s...compelling.”
“Soul Taps? That’s what they’re calling them?” Cinder Block chortled, “Way I heard it, Vinyl Scratch built those infernal machines herself. Those ‘Soul Taps’ were nothing more than gruesome music makers, microphones that listened to the true essence of a pony, sucked out their Soul to make a Song. A backfired experiment.”
Then Moon Skritch laughed. It was a bitter laugh, a hint of derision, “Music makers? I just came groundside last month. I was there during the Royal Inquiry. Those Soul Taps are so much older than just Vinyl, they date back to before the Lunar Rebellion!”
He leaned in to Cinder Block sharply, and the much bigger pony quailed. “Those little constructions of gears and teeth were meant to be weapons. Cloudsdale had wanted to break away from Equestria back then, but to do that they needed magic. That’s what Soul Taps were meant to do: Take the latent magic of a pegasus or earth pony and harness it. In reality they just bled it all out. Speed varies between ponies, but once they are pierced by those devices, everything that makes them them will slowly fade away. The Cloudsdale Senate back then saw the damage Soul Taps could do and hid their creations away in the heart of their City’s securest locations. But you know what they say in Cloudsdale…”
“Cloud walls hold few secrets.” Cherry breathed.
“All it took was some city filly getting loose on the Factory grounds, and the Soul Taps were loose again.”
I couldn't help but recognize this young pegasus’ flare for the dramatic. And I wasn’t the only one; the small dingy bar seemed to wait with baited breath, curious eyes blinking open in the booths and along the tables.
Of all the curious faces looking in, Cinder Block’s was the voice that cut through the air first. “Fer Celestia's sake, haven't we ponies put up with enough already? Nightmare Moon and Discord... and that Changeling invasion! And now us normal ponies have a bunch of half-dead zombies walking around causing trouble.”
“They’re not zombies!” Skritch shouted. Every murmur in the building stopped in the wake of his outburst. The weight of the silence pushed in on me. “They’re not zombies, they’re ponies. Do you have any idea how many of them there are? Or how many of them you’ve actually met? Octavia, Lyra Heartstrings, Bon Bon, Berry Punch, Carrot Top, Noteworthy? They’re all Taken, now.”
“Yeah, and who do they have to thank for that? Vinyl Scratch.” CInder Block slammed his tankard down with finality.
In the wake of his words, I choked.
Skritch just sat and glowered at the larger pony, silent. Cinder Block grinned his triumph. But he was not quite finished. With a twisted grin, he turned around, eyes scanning the ponies gathered in the bar, all looking back at him, til he found the only pair of eyes that couldn’t meet his own.
Mine.
“I wanna know what Ghost thinks. So how about it, what does the Ghost think of Vinyl Scratch? Helpless innocent? Martyr? You think she’s still out there, pining after her lost life?”
I lifted my head slowly. Eyes watched me, as they used to. Only now, their eyes were not welcome. I gritted my teeth and brushed my lank grey mane aside as I said slowly, clearly, in a whisper everypony could hear:
“Vinyl Scratch was weak. She let herself and her friends – Octavia – down. She failed, and she deserved what she got.”
In the silence that followed my hoarse words, I stood up from the corner booth I’d hidden in and padded up to the bar counter. I kept my empty eyes down, head low. I hid behind my colourless mane, once so full of vivid spirit. Of course they’d never recognize me. I was small already, but under the wary gazes of the other patrons, I felt like a foal. I placed a few worn bits of the counter with a soft touch and turned for the door. Cherry Cup looked at the golden coins on her polished counter numbly. “But you never bought anything…”
They all watched me leave in the silence. When I reached the door, I took a steadying breath of the brisk night air and stood still for myself. Then, as I took the final step out of the bar, I shot back over my shoulder:
“Cinder Block is right; Vinyl Scratch is dead.”
*****
Ponyville evenings were one of the reasons I decided to move here years ago. They were so quiet and calm, I could listen; really listen to myself. I heard thoughts I never knew I’d thought before, thoughts the City had drowned out: thoughts of settling down, making a place my own, making a family. I’d thought about somepony else for the first time in my life, and I’d been happy. She’d been happy.
Then I ruined everything; I drowned it all out with music. With Songs.
You were weak.
My eyes snapped open as I snorted. I was in an alley between two houses, I don’t know whose. Across the dirt street were three of the shabbier buildings in town. One was a dormitory of sorts, for wayponies and the like, the other was a shed filled with building materials next to the bare foundations of the house they were intended for, and the last was a bar. Cherry’s Cup, specifically. On this edge of town, nothing existed past them but fields all the way to the Whitetail Woods, and nopony cared a whit. Around me, the midnight air chilled everything to silence, leaving the world in peace.
Me though, I was arguing within the confines of my own mind.
Leave me alone, at least tonight.
You don’t deserve that and you know it.
I looked up into the few lights burning on this edge of town, so near the place I had called home and yet further than life from death itself. I could not return to what I had taken for granted, and so I was left with this; the darkness, the quiet and my memories.
I can’t stand being alone with my thoughts. Because there in the silence and the shadows, Her voice still lives to mock me.
You can never be free from your crimes. They’ll follow you til the day you finally give up and just stop breathing.
Get out of my head, Angel. I killed you. I filled your body with metal and dropped a building on your withered corpse. You’re dead.
Need I remind you, Scratch, so are you.
It was a few hours before I saw any movement at the bar. I think it was around midnight when the door burst open and the pegasus story-teller finally stumbled his way out. I regarded him in the dark, my grey eyes tracking him as he wearily stumbled his way towards the dormitory hall. He wasn’t drunk, I could see that. He wasn’t smiling inanely or falling over himself. He just looked sad. Slightly angry. Even from across the street, I could feel a low hum in the air. Now that he was alone, I could almost hear his Song already.
It looked like I’d get to talk to him tonight after all.
He didn’t see me approaching in the dark. He’d already reached the door by the time I made my way to his side, and he never saw then. It’s difficult to notice a pony that’s missing the essence of themselves. I watched him as he raised a hoof slowly to the door before giving a dismal sigh and headbutting it instead. He lay there for a moment, as if in thought. I decided to intervene.
“You’re Taken.”
“G-gahh!” He jumped about four feet to the left, and I heard a very loud screech in the back of my mind, like a broken reed in a saxophone. I ignored it and watched Moon Skritch as he gasped for his breath. I took in as much information about him as I could. A tan coat, messy black mane, dark eyes that definitely had seen some things, but were still young and naïve. Ruffled feathers and a bitter twist to his mouth that spoke more of previous pain than mere annoyance. He was young and smart and angry, and thus I judged him. By the time my eyes finally locked with his, he had judged me too.
I don’t know what he saw, but I imagine his eyes raking the form of a small thin unicorn, seeing her bone-white coat and strengthless ashen mane, her stony eyes and sagging shoulders. He probably took me for a beggar or lost child, even though I was actually years his senior.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing sneaking up on ponies in the dark?!” he blurted. Then, he heard what I had said, “And what in Equestria are you talking about?”
I cocked my head to the side, flashing him a wan smile, “I heard you in the bar over there, heard your story. You said you had a personal stake in the situation. Something else I noticed; your left foreleg.”
He instinctively pulled his leg back, hiding it, but I’d already seen the scar there. I said it again.
“You’re Taken, aren’t you?”
His eyes trailed over me again. I felt like squirming away, but I didn’t. His eyes lingered on my neck for a moment, and I couldn’t help but reflexively raise a hoof to cover the round puckered scar visible there. But he’d seen it, and suddenly he found the others my thin fur only barely concealed. I heard a few fast chords of a song I didn’t want to hear.
“You definitely are,” he muttered, watching me, weighing me up. “You’re a unicorn. A unicorn in Ponyville. From what I heard, that must make you-”
He froze. His eye widened. “You must be Vin-”
In the blink of an eye, my hoof blocked his mouth and my eyes burned into his from inches away. “No,” I whispered, “She’s dead. If you want to live, then you’ll shut up right there.”
My voice wasn’t the same. It used to carry some force behind it, but now I just sounded…tired. It was at the same time hopelessly pathetic and almost spine-chilling. He stopped trembling as I said it and stared back. Then he raised a hoof and touched it to mine. He didn’t push it away; he was inspecting it.
I pulled back, feeling sullied.
“I’m not one of you, “He said slowly, but not unkindly, “This scar on my leg was given to me by one that is. My best friend, a guitarist from Cloudsdale. He tried to talk one of those Soul Taps into me, but I rejected it. He wouldn’t accept that. I was lucky to get away in one piece.” He turned the foreleg in question towards me, baring the old, mostly healed bite mark standing out from his fur. “I’m here to find him.”
“Why.” I said, dry, “You said it yourself, the Taken cannot be restored.”
“Can’t they?” He finally shot me a genuine, daring smile, one that nearly broke my heart. “I heard you nearly had it right yourself. I also hear they’ve finished your work for you in Canterlot. I will find him and take him there. It’s all I have left to do.”
“A cure?”
Hope. a spark in my heart I refused to let smolder. This was a pipe dream, hopeless. I hardened my heart.
“If it is, then Princess Luna is really good at pretense,” Skritch replied, “I can’t wait out my friend's death. I’m going to help him. I would think you have ponies you’d want to help too.” He reached forward and touched my hoof, then in a cold, almost tangible wave, I felt him. His sympathy. his Song.
I recoiled, trying to rub his presence off me, make myself free of it, but I couldn’t. He didn’t know it, but he’d let me in. I heard a cheerful melody played in a pair of guitars, an improvised tune to bring joy to the heart. He felt something for me, and I learned everything about him. I heard his Song, and so did She.
He’s got a really strong heart. He’ll make a fine Song.
“No!” I grunted and pulled my hooves into myself, forcing Her out.
He dropped down and stepped up to me, but stopped, “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you!” He thought he was the cause of my pain. If anything I was going to hurt him.
“I-I hear it…” I stuttered, eyes clenching. “Celestia help me, I hear it.”
“H-hear what?” He asked. He crouched in front of me, looking up into my face. My eyes cracked open to see him, then more when I saw the look of concern on his features. He didn’t know what to do. He knew my crimes, but he also saw a weak filly hiding in the dark, somepony who needed his help. I breathed a shaky breath and said;
“You.”
His eyes widened at that, and I knew he understood. “And…And what does it sound like?”
I looked into his eyes, and for the first time in months, I felt a modicum of comfort. I held back a tear as I whispered, “It sounds... kind.”
We were silent for a long time.
I heard singing break with light across the street. I darted my eyes to Cherry’s bar, and saw Cinder Block stumble out, roaring drunk. He was tumbling in our direction, and I heard a discordant noise in the back of my head.
I lurched back from Moon Skritch and trotted into the shadows, “I-I have to go!”
“Where to?!”
His call stopped me in my tracks. I looked back at him, not understanding. “The further away from me you are, the safer you’ll be. I won’t risk anypony.”
He stepped forward, resolute, and asked boldly, “And what about Vinyl Scratch, where is she running to? Who is she running to? She deserves your care too.”
Hadn’t he heard me earlier? “I told you. Vinyl Scratch is dead.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, “She might be, but you aren’t. Will you let what’s left waste away?”
What was left of her. What was left of me. His words echoed around in my head, a far more welcome voice in my thoughts. A cure. Hope. I needed that hope, that purpose. I felt the spark take root in my heart. I turned back to Moon Skritch, one more question on my lips.
“You spoke in the bar about how that first filly got into Cloudsdale. Do you know how Angel did it? How she got the Taps out?”
“Angel?” He asked, blank. Then he remembered, “Angel, that’s what you called the mare who Turned you, isn’t it? You think she was the first? She doesn’t even count. No, the first was some filly from Canterlot, more than a decade ago.”
Smart boy…
More than a decade…? I knew Angel had been Turned six months ago, and in that time she had rampaged from town to town, Turning over a score of ponies, who went on to either Turn others or serve her whims. If she could do that in four months, what could another do in ten years?
He was right. I spoke again, putting steel into my voice this time. “I need to go.”
He swallowed, then asked, “Where are you going?”
I felt the fortitude grow in my chest. I couldn’t stay here. For the ponies around me, I had to keep away from them, or risk letting Her hear their hearts singing. For Skritch, I had to leave before She acted on what She had heard. For myself, I had to leave just to stop from wasting away, and maybe, just maybe, stand a chance of saving what was left. I uttered a final word as I faded, a gray ghost against the darkness of the night,
“Canterlot.”