Silent Ponyville: Reunion
Fairytale monster.
Part 5
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You moron!
His thoughts quietly berated him, because he wouldn't dare to speak another word after hearing that. Had it heard him talking to himself? Maybe it was just passing by...he could stand still and silent and it would just wander off. But his watch was still making that noise. Was that loud enough for it to hear? He stood there waiting for any other sound, any other sound at all, not even letting himself breathe audibly as his eyes jumped from window to window looking for any movement.
...
His ears twitched as the clip clop of metal shod hooves started coming closer.
Maybe it had heard him, maybe it hadn't, but it was coming closer either way and this plan wasn't working. He had to hide.
Lance looked around in near panic but the only suitable hiding spot was the bar. It would keep him out of sight but if that thing outside came in it would be of little use. He turned off his light then ducked under the hinged pass through and around the bar out of view, but that blasted watch was still buzzing. No amount of fiddling with the dial up top had any effect either, it was still completely broken but still able to make that sound. He set it on the floor and was about to try and smash it before his common sense kicked in to tell him that doing so would only enhance the racket. Could he throw it away and distract it? He wouldn't be able to toss the watch nearly far enough inside there though...
The hoof steps stopped. Lance could only try and muffle the noise from the watch with his hooves as he cowered behind the bar. The thing outside made its way to one of the windows. He heard another metallic groan, much softer this time, before another sharp scrape preceded the sound of the boards cracking and snapping from an impact. A hiss of steam was followed by a dull clang and more splintering of wood, a sequence repeated several times as he could only guess it was wrenching the broken boards free and tossing them aside one by one.
That was good wasn't it? It wasn't breaking down the door. If it was looking in through a window instead, it might not know he was there. But why check if it wasn't suspicious? Couldn't it hear the persistent buzzing of the watch under his hooves? It would be foolish to just assume it couldn't. If it came inside what would he do? There was no time to think. It had finished tearing the boards off and the cafe was deathly quiet once again. Lance held his breath as the watch buzzed louder than ever.
...
It made a sound. Something like a mare sighing in disappointment at the same time as a beast let off a low growl, both sounds seeming to accompany one another instead of uniting into anything like a natural voice. Then to Lance's immense relief, he heard hoof steps trailing away from the cafe at the same time as the buzzing of the watch began to relent. Both sounds grew quieter and quieter until he was left alone in the silence once more.
He finally let out the breath he'd been holding.
He dared to peek his head around the corner of the bar. The window to the left of the door had indeed been ripped open but there was otherwise no other damage. It probably wasn't the wisest thing to do but curiosity compelled Lance to creep up to it and sneak a look outside. He was just in time to see the outline of something big retreating into the mist, a sight that made him duck his head back down out of the window in short order.
That had been too close. It had been a miracle that she, or so the voice suggested it was a she, hadn't heard the watch. He held it in one hoof and looked it over once more. Why had it done that? Another turn of the top dial confirmed it was completely broken, no resistance, clicking, or winding noises that one would expect from a time piece at all. As much as he wanted to find out how exactly that noise had come out of it, he didn't have time right now, and it was too much of a risk to bring it along when it might randomly decide to do that again and possibly give away his position to 'her'.
He pulled the makeshift necklace of chain and twine off. The question of what he was going to do with the surgical light was easy enough to address as he simply clipped it onto the tool strap going across his chest. It would be more stable and much easier to point it where it was needed from there anyway. He set the watch down on the nearest table, then got his map out and spread it open on the floor in front him before turning his light back on.
The library, or rather the crater the library had left behind, wasn't far. He just had to head north up the street, take the first left and it was dead ahead. Lance was quite thankful that it wouldn't be a long trip since that thing was still out there. He needed a plan if he ran into her but there wasn't much to work with. This cafe was his only shelter so far. It seemed to him the only plan possible was to just remember exactly where this place was so he could run back there and hide. While it was far from an airtight plan it was better than nothing.
That was it then. He folded the map up, stashed it back in the saddlebag, turned his light off, then placed his hoof on the front door knob. Unexpectedly he found himself unable to turn it, but it wasn't because it was locked, or because there was some obstacle blocking the door. It was just suddenly not in him to do it. Why not? He looked back to the watch on the table, but not exactly voluntarily. Something was compelling him to do so almost like it was answering his question.
Really? That thing had just nearly gotten him caught, he had every good reason to leave it behind, and now he couldn't find the will to leave without it? Why? He'd never seen it before...or had he?
"I might actually be crazy..." He muttered under his breath as he begrudgingly retrieved the watch and replaced it around his neck. This time when he tried to open the door he only felt an amount of hesitation one would think quite reasonable after what had just almost broken in.
He could think about what the watch meant to him later. His mind had to be focused right now so that he didn't make another misstep that would render his earlier good luck moot. Lance stepped as lightly as possible so that the sound of his hooves on the cobblestone would neither give him away too easily, nor make it hard for him to hear that thing coming as he made his way up the street. So far so good, and there was the left turn, he was almost there.
He stopped at the corner and took a cautious peek around to find the coast clear...for at least as far as the fog would let him see. That was all the assurance he would ever get in this place. He swallowed nervously and then moved back into the street at the same wary pace. It was getting to the point where he actually missed the sounds in the fog outside of town. They'd never cornered him in a cafe then torn a window open, and they'd only put him at unease instead of making him actually fear for his life. Fortunately there wasn't much time for him to dwell on these thoughts before something once again distracted him.
His head perked up at the sight. There in the middle of the street ahead, was a pony lying on its side. Was it the mare that had lead him to the map? Suddenly emboldened he moved closer and dared to speak up, "H...hello! Were you by the library before?"
The fog pulled back bit by bit as he advanced and the pony lying in the street became more than just a silhouette. It was indeed a mare, colored a pale mottled gray. She wasn't moving.
"Are you...alright?" He asked as he moved closer. It became apparent she had no tail or mane, nor even a coat. The gray color was her skin. Two dark brown leather straps went across the back of her head. As he looked on he caught on that she wasn't just not moving, she wasn't breathing either.
"Oh no..." He muttered as he picked up the pace, heedless of the soft buzzing his watch began to give off.
The mare suddenly twitched as he approached. Had that just been a post mortem spasm? As he stepped closer there came another, and another, escalating with each repetition into a full on body convulsion while his watch buzzed ever louder. Finally the mare stirred. She was still alive.
"Hang on!" He said, galloping over now. There was obviously something wrong with her. Why else would she be lying there alone in the middle of the street in this strange place? Lance wasn't about to let the only other soul he'd run into perish.
Despite his enthusiasm he was still forced to a screeching halt once she rolled back onto her two hooves and looked over at him. Yes, only two hooves. Her two front legs ended at the wrist joints, forcing her to stand with the stumps pressed painfully into the cobblestone and keep her head lower to the ground. The lower half of her face was covered with what resembled a rusted metal oxygen mask held in place by the straps going across the back of her head, bound so tightly that he could see the scars where they had bitten into the flesh. Two sharp edged segments traveled across the front of the mask, lining up with the straps. Her eyes were covered by what looked like a hastily done skin graft, and her ears were half chewed off, held permanently against her head. The mare's body periodically convulsed, concurrent with the choking and gagging sounds of somepony trying desperately to draw breath but only finding water to pull into their lungs.
Her mask...was filled with water...
"Who did this to you?!" He regained his composure, moving in to assist her as she moved toward him on her stumps in an awkward limping motion that wasn't helped by the periodic spasming, "Hang on, I've got to get this mask off of you!"
Lance reached a hoof out but had to draw it back immediately. She had begun to twitch her head to and fro in efforts to dislodge the mask, and it was making the edged segments swing about dangerously.
"Hold still, you're going to die if I can't-" He was cut short by his own shout. Another twitch of her head caused the two rusted frontal blades to slice across his right foreleg. Lance stumbled back a few steps and looked at the set of two fresh cuts beginning to stream blood down his leg, "Listen lady I'm just trying to-" He was cut off again by the need to dodge away. She was still advancing.
This drowning mare wasn't trying to get his help, she was attacking him!
There was no point in trying to help her any further. He could only see it resulting in more pain on his part, and if she was this lively while clearly suffering from an extended bout of hypoxia on top of her mutilation he doubted she even needed any help. Lance circled around her and ran down the street, noticing how the loud buzzing in his watch quickly died down. He glanced back long enough to see she had fallen behind and given up the chase, dropping back to the ground and now looking every bit as dead as she had when he'd first spotted her.
What the hay had that...monster been? It was too small to have been whatever had broken through the wall outside of town, but too slow to have been the mare he'd followed into the town square. And that sound it had made, that horrible, horrible choking noise... he felt nauseous just remembering it. It was the sound of a patient dying. It triggered instincts that he had honed over years that had nowhere to go since there was nopony to save here. Lance had been toying with the idea of opening the box there in the crater but the two near misses he'd just been through encouraged him to toss it in his saddlebag and then go straight back to the cafe. Fortunately, the crater was still where he'd left it after he crossed the street.
He wasted no time, flying right down to the pile of dirt in the center, quickly digging the box up again, and finally shoving it into the other still empty saddlebag before flying back up to street level. The racket he'd made back there trying in futility to get that drowning mare to cooperate had surely already given him away, so now he had only to worry about getting back as fast possible. Despite the urgency of the moment he was still forced to stop yet again as his watch started to buzz just before he came across the still form of the drowning mare again.
It was now between the two corners of the street he'd encountered it on, a good distance from where he'd last seen her lying still, in the exact same position as before. She had moved in his direction when he wasn't looking.
Lance shook the chill out of his spine and dashed past, trying to block out the blaring watch and the single choking noise she managed to utter as he passed by her. He felt another shock of dread to his heart when he reached the street he needed to turn right on and saw another drowning mare lying in the middle of the intersection. The notably cleaner mask and the diagonal scar across the upper half of the face made it quickly apparent this was a second, different one. How many of these things were there?
There was no way he was stopping to try and help this time. Lance galloped right past her and headed down the home stretch to the cafe. He was almost there. It didn't matter if one of those creatures was in the cafe, there were more than enough doors to hide behind. He would have all the time he needed to think things over and come up with what he was going to do next, he just had to make it there first. He saw the edge of the building emerge from the fog and put on one last burst of speed.
Then Lance saw the wrecked carriage that hadn't been there before.
Right in front of the door.
With somepony standing in the middle of the street looking directly at him.
His watch sprang to life with that grinding, buzzing noise yet again.
She stood at least two and a half heads taller than him. Most of her body was hidden beneath a sheet covered with various blood stains, held in place by a series of frayed, old looking ropes. The only parts he could see directly were her chest, lower neck, and legs. Some sort of plated neck restraint trailed downward to a crudely shaped steel mantle covering her chest. Her legs displayed a tan colored coat, ending in hooves covered by greaves that looked just as roughly hammered into shape as the mantle and neck restraint above. On all of this armor he could see a series of bolts that could only be going directly into her flesh. His eyes ran up the trails of dried blood on her legs to the still red remnants of a series of gashes suggestive of overtightened manacles. Somepony had wanted her to stay put, and she clearly hadn't listened.
Though the sheet hid the rest of her he could tell a few obvious things. Her snout was a bit longer than a typical pony's, even one of her size. She was evidently a unicorn judging by the horn that rivaled that of a princess, and there was a very large lump on her back. The ropes going around her torso and holding said lump in place were particularly numerous, suggesting that it was a pack of some sort being held in place...or maybe even a passenger being restrained.
As she persisted in standing there looking at him his eyes darted back over to the cafe, and the wrecked carriage blocking the door. She had moved it there after he'd run out, hadn't she? She'd never actually left at all. She must have been waiting just out of sight for him to leave to spare herself the trouble of looking, and she must have known he'd be returning, else why bother blocking the door? He looked over to the window to see it was still open, but it was so far off the ground that there was no way he'd be able to scramble through it in time to avoid being grabbed by...whatever she might grab him with.
He swallowed hard again and looked back to the blood stained sheet covered face still silently examining him. Lance wasn't getting back into that cafe. The watch hanging from his neck continued to buzz loudly as though screaming for him to run. It didn't seem like a bad idea. She looked to be restrained and weighed down, surely he could outrun her, right?
...
Lance made to turn and flee but his assumption proved disastrously wrong. She reacted the instant he had begun moving, and with a metallic screech of protest from the restraints on her neck she covered the distance between them in an instant. Before he could even shout in surprise she effortlessly knocked him off his feet as she slammed the side of her shrouded head into his ribs. He hit the cobblestone with a pained grunt, the wind knocked out of him and his side burning from the near fracture. Despite being disoriented he still had the presence of mind to try and scramble to his feet, but his efforts were cut short by a metal clad hoof pushing his head back onto the street.
He was dead. There was no way he could get away from her. This was it. He mentally cursed Twilight Sparkle for getting him into this death trap of a place with whatever spell she had obviously botched as he awaited the push downward that would cave in his skull. But it didn't come to pass. Instead he looked up to see a black tendril snake out from between two of the plates on her neck restraints. It slithered downward and wrapped around his neck several times before it tightened. She removed her hoof, but it was no act of mercy. It was only so she could lift him clear off the ground and hold him in front of her, watching as he struggled and choked while she strangled him.
Lance tried with all his might to escape, but his fore hooves could not wrench the tendril free from around his neck, and his back hooves weren't long enough to connect with her at that distance. It was hopeless, all that had changed was that he was now going to suffocate instead of having his head stomped flat. His vision darkened and his body grew weaker with every moment more that he was deprived precious oxygen. Then he heard a gurgling gag from somepony that wasn't him...
His half lidded eye spotted the drowning mare approaching from behind the shrouded monster that was slowly killing him. She was headed for him...but his current attacker just so happened to be in the way. The drowning mare either couldn't see this, or just didn't care as she continued obliviously trying to get at him.
The much larger monster of a pony gave Lance a vicious shake that dislodged the two hooves clinging to the strangling tendril. His limbs had begun to feel much heavier, and now he simply let them hang at his sides as his lungs burned and his heart pounded in panic. As much as his body was screaming at him to save himself...he couldn't do anything. His eyes slowly closed and consciousness slipped away...
The next thing he registered was his own deep gasp finally pulling air into his lungs after the impact from being dropped on the cobblestone had jostled him awake. The monster that had just nearly killed him made an unnatural groan of irritation as she wheeled around to face the drowning mare that had just put two fresh cuts into the back of her leg. Her hoof slammed down into the mare's back and held her there, making a sickening crack and causing the lowlier creature to let out a cry of pain and start struggling to free herself. There came a familiar hiss and an only slightly less familiar dull clang as steam vented from beneath the sheet covering her face and a single metal bar fell free from the underside of her snout, positioned like a jaw of some sort.
She held the smaller pony down as her head lowered and the single jaw closed on her leg tight enough to break the bone and force another tortured cry from her victim. The drowning mare was promptly yanked into the air and slammed back down into the street, her wailing finally silenced as her skull made contact with the cobblestone, the sudden trauma setting her entire body to twitching uncontrollably.
While the larger unicorn monster dealt with the intruder Lance struggled back to his hooves, the strength returning to his limbs with every breath he took. The towering pony looked back at him with the convulsing mare still hanging from the leg gripped in her steam powered jaw just as he turned and ran with nary a peek back at her. There was another monstrously deformed sigh of disappointment behind him followed by a second crack of flesh and bone on the street, but Lance couldn't be bothered to notice. He couldn't be tasked with even thinking straight for the few minutes he spent just running in terror, heedless of the direction he was going, just wanting to get as far away from those monsters as possible.
He'd known something was wrong with this place but things had just careened past 'wrong' into some status he had no word to describe. What the hay was going on? Why hadn't he run into any of those mutilated, choking mares while he'd been searching for the map and finding his way to the cafe before? Who had done that to them? Why was that towering unicorn pony so strong, and why hadn't it just killed him as casually as it had killed that other pony?
The buzzing of his watch again broke through the haze of questions and panic assaulting his mind, snapping him out of it just in time to see another drowning mare twitching to life in the street ahead. He nimbly sidestepped it and continued on before it could fully wake.
"Okay...okay...okay...where am I going?" Lance asked himself between breaths as he kept running. Talking to himself had already given him away once, but he needed so desperately to hear a normal voice right now, even if it was just his own, "Gotta...hide somewhere..."
The box from the crater was still in his saddlebag. He still needed to open it; there had to be something useful in there with all the trouble he'd gone through to get it. But he needed somewhere to safe to stop. Wire cutters weren't something anypony without a unicorn's horn could use on the run, and he wasn't about to stop running with those monsters now in the street unless there was a building to duck into. Yet more boarded up buildings taunted him as he glanced to his left and right, refusing to offer him their shelter.
Wait...there it was again...small spatters of blood in a trail...
Was this the same trail he had followed before? No, it couldn't be, none of the houses around him looked remotely familiar. What were the odds it was left by the same mare that had lead him to the map, and then marked the cafe's location for him? Any other day, any other place, he would have dismissed it as coincidence, but after what he'd just seen, odds and probabilities were the last thing on his mind. Besides, if nothing else it was better than just running around in a panic at random.
Given how fast he was galloping the trail felt fairly short this time. Just two turns in the street before the trail veered off to a gated fence surrounding one of the houses. Lance stopped, panting to catch his breath as he surveyed the yard within. The grass was just as dead as every other bit of grass he had seen, there was an old grey gnarled tree, and a rusty, collapsed swing set, but no sign of another one of those monsters. The gate looked to be padlocked so he skipped trying to open it and jumped over instead.
"Right...they can still see...and can probably get through the fence...but I guess it's progress..." He muttered to himself, still catching his breath. Lance turned toward the house and saw that while the front door and windows were both boarded up, the back door was not. His inner panic finally relented just the slightest bit as he walked up and found it unlocked.
It was a small cottage, and proved to be just as much an abandoned mess as everything else. There wasn't much exploring to be done there either. The only other door besides the front and back doors was the door leading into the bedroom and bathroom, and it looked like the lock was broken. He couldn't open it. Still, there were no monsters in there and he could keep out of sight. It would do.
The adrenaline that had been pumping through his system ever since having his return to the cafe interrupted had abated, and now the two deep cuts on the front of his foreleg were nagging at him with a vengeance. The bladed mask that had cut him had been old, rusty, and there was no telling where it had been before that. He needed to clean his wounds, but the spigots in the small kitchen were unresponsive and given the general state of disrepair he doubted he'd want to use what might come out of them for cleaning cuts anyway. So a thorough cleaning was out for the moment, but he could still try and bind them. He began to poke around looking for anything that looked like a medical kit.
Nothing of the sort turned up in any of the usual places one might put one, and the cuts still throbbed insistently at him, so he began to look in less conventional hiding spots. Finally, having exhausted every other drawer, pantry, and cupboard, he rolled his eyes at himself for even bothering as he checked the fridge. It was completely empty inside, barren of even shelves...save for a very small roll of gauze sitting on the bottom.
Lance regarded the gauze roll for a moment before shrugging and picking it up. Finding medical supplies in a random fridge was certainly one of the less strange things that had happened to him that day after all. He turned on his surgeon's light and held it in his mouth while examining the cuts, removing what debris he could while wincing at every bit of contact with his hoof before binding them snugly to stop the last of the bleeding that hadn't yet clotted. There had been just enough gauze left over on that roll, and now he was back to square zero as far as medical supplies went.
He fastened his light back onto his saddlebag's belt strap and got back to business. Lance pulled the box out of one saddlebag, and the wire cutters out of the other. Two snips later and he was at last able to open the box with a soft creak of its hinges.
The inside was lined with dried leather that looked to have been splattered with blood at some point. His eyes widened in slight alarm, but the two objects inside distracted him from this newest bit of unpleasantness. One was a key with the words 'Manehatten Heights Apartments' engraved into it, and the other was a plain black marker. They both inspired a raised eyebrow, but particularly the key. He was nowhere near Manehatten, what was a key to an apartment complex from that city doing here in Ponyville?
Lance sighed with resignation. The library had moved spontaneously, everypony had disappeared, the fog outside seemed to be a trickster entity of some sort, somepony was ramming walls through businesses, there was a cafe that was certainly not built in Ponyville, the streets were filled with mares that by all logical means should not be alive, he was being stalked by a monster of a unicorn, and he'd just ducked into a house he was lead to by a hemophiliac pony of which he'd only ever gotten a single brief glimpse. It was no use trying to logic this weirdness away. All he could do was accept that it was weird and try to figure it out anyway.
So...then...perhaps this apartment complex from Manehatten was actually in Ponyville somewhere? He'd already been through two buildings that hadn't been where they should have, a third wasn't out of the question. But where could it be?
He pulled out his map and opened it. While he was busy trying to find things, where was he right now anyway? He certainly hadn't kept track of where he had been going while running for his life...
Oh.
There he was. In the cluster of buildings south of the park. Right where the second bloody hoofprint now stared him in the face. The map had never left his side, nopony else had ever gotten hold of it, but there was a new bloody hoofprint right there in front of him all the same. Totally made sense.
"Just go with it." He reminded himself as he looked the map over. His searching was for naught though. None of the buildings he saw on this map were anywhere near large enough to possibly be the Manehatten Heights Apartments. It would have been a rectangle that could easily fit three of the town square's central pavilions inside, and that pavilion was the largest building he could see on that map.
...
"Wait, what?" He said suddenly as he looked up from the map at nopony. How the hay had he known what the general size of the building would be? Had he been there before?
No, it wasn't important right then. He needed to find the place more than he needed to stay there trying to remember things. Lance was not going to go outside again and just stumble around until he found the place, not with the streets full of monsters. But there was no telling where that building could be beforehand either. Maybe if he planned his searching a bit more diligently...but the map in front of him was of the normal Ponyville. There was no way of telling whether or not it was correct anymore after all these changes had happened. There was also the more pressing question of just where he would hide if he ran into that she-beast in the bloody sheet again.
Lance grumbled in frustration and removed the key and marker from the box only to get another pleasant...well, relative pleasant, surprise. On the bottom bit of leather lining the inside of the box there was an imprinting of a small section of a map. It portrayed a large building and several features around it. There was a river with a bridge going alongside it, with two buildings on the other side. At first glance it looked to be about the same scale as the map he'd gotten from the town square. When he set it on top of the map, he saw that it was exactly the same scale. All he had to do was find where this section of the map on the leather fit with the rest of it.
After a few moments of sliding the box around on top of the map he found it. The Manehatten Heights Apartments were now, apparently, located to the east of the town square on the other side of the river, across from the bookstore. He'd been right next to it while trying to find his way to the hospital and he'd never even spotted it thanks to the fog. Something was wrong though...
He pulled the cap off the marker and copied the section from the bottom of the box onto his map. Then he drew a line that traveled through the spa, joke shop, ice cream shop, and bookstore, and saw that if the line were to continue it would go right through the middle of the apartment complex. The wall that had blocked his way to the hospital was going through it...but he knew, somehow, that it was a fairly tall building, it would easily go over that wall.
Maybe the apartments were his ticket over to the other side? The fog had proven incapable of turning him around unless he went right into it, so all he had to was find a way over the wall inside the complex and then an exit on the other side, then he could finally make it to the hospital like he'd been trying to do in the first place.
"Hay of a detour that all was..." He muttered bitterly as he refolded the updated map and stashed it back in his bag along with the new key and the marker. No doubt the wire cutters would prove useful again later so he would take them along as well...or he tried to at least. When he looked over to grab them from the spot on the floor where he'd left them, they were gone. He looked around the floor immediately around him thinking he'd just nudged them out of place without realizing, but there was nothing. He stood and looked over the entire room but found no trace of them. They were just gone.
Alright, he was mysteriously out one pair of wire cutters but things could have ended up so much worse after running into that tall, murderous unicorn. Lance put the disappearing tool out of his mind and closed up his saddlebags. The door proved a touch more difficult to force himself out of this time, the memories of the things outside still fresh in his mind. But he'd had time to think now...he was prepared. They would not surprise him this time.
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The journey back through town had proven tense but bearable. He'd only heard that unicorn thing hissing steam once, and it had been at least two streets down from where he was. The drowning mares were also actually quite manageable with all the open space on the streets for him to use to maneuver around them, and if he kept moving not even the bit of creeping they did while he wasn't looking made them a threat. He just had to keep his distance, keep moving, and he was relatively safe from getting another set of cuts on his legs.
Well...safe assuming he didn't run into a handful of them at once...or even just one in less spacious environment...
Lance had also noticed a pattern now that he wasn't occupied by the cold grip of total panic. The watch's buzzing wasn't random at all; it only made that sound when he passed near one of the drowning mares. His memory of the incident was still a little clouded by his complete lack of coherent thought at the time, but he was reasonably sure it had responded the same way to the presence of that other, much larger unicorn. Such a detection device would surely come in handy, and the revelation made him glad he hadn't smashed it back at the cafe.
There was the bookstore again, meaning he was practically in spitting distance of the apartments if his newly updated map was correct. He approached the river and looked both ways, finding the bridge in the distance over to his right. Lance was on course. He took a quick flight over the river and sure enough, after he had taken a few steps forward upon touching down, the large apartment complex emerged from the fog in front of him.
It had a number of architectural design techniques in common with the cafe. Had that been from Manehatten too? If it was, why Manehatten?
"Get inside now, then think." He told himself as he pushed open the front gate. Lance was close enough to the front door in spite of the fog, but he could also see the still form of a drowning mare off to his left. It was already starting to twitch awake so he had to move fast. He briefly rummaged through his saddlebag and got the key ready before running to the door as she got up to her hooves and stumps then started shambling towards him. The choking sound approaching behind him ate at his nerves and suddenly his hoof was shaky enough that he was struggling to get the key in the lock as she drew ever closer.
Finally he let out a quick breath of relief as the key slid into the lock. He wasted no more time before pulling the door open, stepping inside, then turning just in time to slam the door right in her face. It was pitch black inside the lobby, and the only sound was the monster outside repeatedly striking the door with little effect.
He turned on his light...