Twilight was starting to look sincerely disturbed, and with good reason. This pony, whoever he or she was, had tried to figure out the Slendermane and gotten themselves killed for their trouble.
"Well... I mean, since we're here, we should probably get a look at the notes..." I suggested, lifting a paper up with my golden magic. Everypony took a few steps away from me. "What?"
"It's just... don't you think it's dangerous?" Rose whispered.
I rolled my eyes. "It's not any more danger than we're already in!"
No response.
I tossed the paper aside. It missed its mark, fluttering to the floor between us and landing upside down.
"What the hell..." I bent down, looking at the page. It had a symbol almost carved into it, each single line created by angry and reckless scribbling.
A circle with an 'X' through it.
"Hey! I've seen that before!" Pinkie recognized. "It was-"
"On the tree!" We realized together.
For sure, that same symbol had been etched into the bark of the tree we had found the note on. All that could be heard was the steady heartbeat which pulsed quickly in each of our throats. But the silence was broken after only a moment.
There was a far-off rumbling that filled the air, and soon the whole trailer was shaking on its already unreliable base. A squeaking sound accompanied the rattling, and a single screw popped out of the ceiling.
"We gotta go!" Twilight yelled, making a break for the door. I skittered after her, trying hard to find steady hoofing on the metal floor covered in paper.
"Wait! The notes!" Rose scrambled to grab as many papers as she could hold in her mouth, while I chased Twilight out of the trailer and almost fell trying to come to a stop.
Rose galloped out a moment later, her mouth full of many random papers which she spat out on the ground.
We all watched as the roof finally let go, falling with a tremendous crash and an explosion of notebook paper. We stood for a moment, panting heavily from the adrenaline as the papers floated down around us. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. But it was not to last long.
"Oh my gosh! Where's Pinkie?" She glanced between the two of us before leaping at the rubble. She dug through it like a wild animal, completely forgetting her magic as she pawed through the garbage for her friend. Rose gave me a look, and soon all three of us were searching for any sign of the pink mare.
We didn't find anything.
Twilight was oddly silent. Rose sat down hard. I growled and kicked a piece of metal.
"He took her..." Twilight's quiet voice was just barely audible above the hum of the forest.
Rose rubbed her shoulder, but Twilight shoved it away. "I'm gonna kill him."
"Wh-what?" I stuttered, looking at Twilight in shock and horror.
"Nopony touches my friends and gets away with it." Twilight's voice was like a low growl, much more terrifying than any scream would have been.
"C-come on, Twi," I stuttered, trying to pull her away. She smacked me across the face hard enough for it to sting.
"I'm not just moving on. I'm going to find Pinkie Pie," Twilight insisted. She stood, looking almost cocky as she stared into the forest. "Hey, Slendy! Come out, come out wherever you are!" she called, her voice both sing-song and chilling.
We all listened intently, and were rewarded with a distant rattling sound.
"Damnit, Twilight! What the hell are you thinking?!" I screamed, my distress and fear turning to anger.
Twilight turned to face me. She had a fire in her eyes that burned into my chest. "If I bring him here, I can follow him back and find Pinkie."
"Th-that's insane!" Rose stuttered.
"Not just insane, it's a death wish!" I agreed, turning to leave. "Come on, we gotta go!"
The rattling sound came again, this time accompanied by a chill in the air that seemed to suck the warmth from our bodies.
"Twilight..." I whined, becoming uneasy. I shuffled my hooves uncomfortably, still not wanting to abandon her completely.
She shushed me, stepping towards the edge of the trees. Rose and I took a few steps backwards, trying to keep ourselves safe.
Twilight seemed to growl. "SHOW YOURSELF!" she screamed with violent intensity. Rose and I jumped, ducking into the trees behind Twilight and watching through a bush.
The tall, lean pony emerged from the shadows and mist, its empty face staring right at Twilight. Twilight sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth, taking a shaky but hesitant step back.
Slendermane lifted one of its tentacle-like appendages off the ground, resting the very tip under Twilight's chin. She stared, wonder struck, into the featureless face. They seemed to stand still like this for hours, Twilight hypnotized and Slendermane carefully calculating his advantage.
Without warning, his snapped the tentacle like a whip, tossing Twilight a few feet into the air where she hung, limp and unconscious. I could have sworn Slendermane grinned.
She stayed there in the air for about a minute, supported by an unknown force. Her body was simply crushed into a tiny ball, impossibly fast, the forest reverberating with the sounds of snapping bones and squishing flesh. Just the faintest magical aura hovered around her, though it was too translucent to discern a color.
And he strode off. That was the worst part: Twilight was just another creature he had murdered, and she didn't count for anything.
"Oh my god... oh my god..." Rose kept repeating this meaningless phrase, getting louder and more hysterical each time until she was crying uncontrollably.
I pulled her close, trying to quiet her as I rocked her back and forth.
I didn't even know her I thought, Not really. But she was willing to sacrifice herself for her friend. I think that's enough to go by, at least in my book.
Rose's sobs were now only small whimpers and sniffles. She pushed away from me, crawling out of the bushes. She shook herself, bits of twigs and leaves flying out of her mane.
I followed, standing defiantly as I stared into the mist that had swallowed such a brave pony.
"Come on..." I murmured noncommittally.
Rose sniffed. "Why?"
"Because Twilight died trying to save Pinkie. Now we have to save both of them. And its not gonna happen just sitting here." I lifted a paper off the ground, looking at the hastily scribbled words and pictures. "I mean, we've got a map, what else do we need? North is probably the way to go."
Rose cleared her throat, wiping the last of the tears away from her bloodshot eyes. This forest was getting to her, I could tell. She wasn't crying for Twilight, not really. She was crying for herself.
I knew this all too well, because the forest was getting to me, too. I wasn't going to cry, but I wasn't going to die, either. I was going to make it out of this place alive. And, if I got my way, everypony else would, too.