//------------------------------// // The Worst Day Since Yesterday // Story: Mother of Invention // by zaponator //------------------------------// Applejack did not wake gently. She coughed and sputtered, desperately sucking air into her lungs as she was thrust forcefully into the waking world once more. The first few deep breaths were somehow filled with water, only exacerbating Applejack's coughing fit. She pushed shakily up to her hooves as her mind slowly unclouded itself. The rain was pouring down in sheets, exactly as it had been when she'd passed out on the beach. The left side of her face had become caked in wet sand as she had laid there for who knows how long. Applejack shook her head to clear it, spitting out one last mouthful of rainwater. She tasted metal on her tongue as she did, and carefully brought a forehoof up to her muzzle. It came away red, and Applejack could only stare at her stained hoof until a loud blast of thunder snapped her out of it. No time to worry about things like that. She needed to get to shelter. She paused only to wipe some of the blood from her muzzle and check that her hat was secure upon her head. Fortunately, her nose was no longer bleeding profusely, and her signature headgear was safe and sound. Applejack let out a sigh as she felt the old, familiar stetson atop her mane. She was getting distracted. Her head was still scattered. Applejack forcefully returned her hoof to the ground and focused on the here and now. She trotted into the treeline, hoping for a little cover from the relentless downpour. Unfortunately, the thin canopy this near to the island's edge did little to protect from the torrential storm. Applejack considered forging deeper inland, but there was no guarantee that even the thicker canopy would do much against such an intense rain, and with her visibility so limited she ran the risk of getting completely lost. Not to mention that every second she spent being soaked to her bones was increasing the chance of catching cold. That was not something Applejack wanted to deal with on a deserted island. A new solution came to mind, and without wasting any time Applejack set off at a trot through the jungle. She glanced skyward as she walked, hoping to catch some clue as to how long she'd been out. The tumultuous, overcast sky failed to tell her anything, which only caused Applejack to frown. For all she knew, nightfall could be fast approaching. She pushed those thoughts aside for now. It could just as easily still be afternoon. There was no sense getting worried for what might amount to nothing. Instead, she focused on the path before her. The jungle was only visible for about ten feet in all directions before fading into the surrounding curtain of water. The going was slow, but Applejack was making progress. She thought she recognized the immediate area, and could only trust that she was heading in the right direction. Before her mind had a chance to wander, Applejack's ear twitched. There was something, just on the edge of hearing. Something was out of place underneath the incessant roar of the storm. For a moment, her ears folded down from a particularly loud blast of thunder. She didn't even need to look up to know that the accompanying lightning never came close to reaching the ground. In the very instant her ears raised back up, Applejack caught it. An unholy shriek that caused her stomach to drop to her hooves. "No, no, no, no, no," Applejack whispered, her voice lost in another blast of thunder. Then came the one thing she was dreading. Applejack felt her guts twist uncomfortably, more than just the fear she'd already been feeling, more than any fear she'd ever felt in her life. Like something horrible had crawled inside her and was working its way into her very being, tainting her to her core. Quite simply, Applejack felt wrong. Then, the fear settled in. It was irrational, insane, but Applejack wanted nothing more in that moment than to curl into a ball on the ground and await her fate. With tremendous effort, Applejack managed to push down the sudden surge of ice-cold fear enough that she could move her shaking legs. She wasted no more time. Applejack set off at a sprint while the effect was still weak enough to allow it. Another shriek echoed across the jungle, this one somehow clearly audible over the sound of the storm, as if this time it wanted to be heard, and nothing would ever stop it. The inequine shriek sounded again, at the exact same volume, but somehow closer. Applejack panted desperately as she sprinted full-bore through the jungle. She was no longer sure if she was on the right track, but there was no going back now. Whatever that thing was, the storm had only encouraged it. The queasy wrongness in her belly was steadily worsening no matter how hard she ran. It was catching up. The treeline appeared suddenly, and never was there a more welcome surprise. Applejack would've whooped for joy if she'd had the breath. Her destination was at hoof. She burst out of the jungle without slowing, and sped up the slope that greeted her. The muddy jungle floor gave way to gravel beneath her hooves as Applejack ascended towards salvation. The shriek came once more, this time sounding like it was being screamed directly into her ear. She stumbled as the sickening, twisting feeling redoubled. The cave entrance loomed before her, and Applejack summoned the last of her strength to throw herself inside. She couldn't be sure that she was safe, but staying in the cave had seemed to work for the first couple nights. Besides, even if she had wanted to keep running, Applejack couldn't summon the strength to get up from where she'd landed on the cold stone floor. She was drained, mentally and physically. Still, drained as she was, Applejack managed to squirm until she was turned to face out of the cave entrance. The feeling of wrongness remained, but it wasn't getting any worse. It wasn't getting any better, either. Applejack squinted her eyes, staring out at the treeline past the thick curtain of rain. Even without the constant rainfall, there was little light to see by. Applejack wasn't able to make out anything in the darkness, but the rapid beating of her heart and the twisting of her guts told her well and clear that it was still out there. A booming blast of thunder echoed out across the jungle, and for a moment the world was lit up with brilliant blue light as lightning arced across the sky above. There, in that split-second of illumination, something caught Applejack's eye. The lightning lit up most of the island, but the canopy allowed only a small bit of light through. Still, just past the treeline, in the darkness of the jungle beyond, something stood out as darker than the space around it. Some indistinguishable shape, unaffected by the brief flash that lit up the rest of the island. It was impossible to make out in the dimness, but time seemed to freeze as Applejack's gaze snapped to the patch of blackness. It was different from the surrounding darkness, different from real darkness. More than a simple absence of light. It was the infinite and all-consuming darkness that only exists in dreams… and nightmares. It made the nearly pitch-black jungle look bright by comparison. It was painful to look at, like something inside Applejack was being lost simply by allowing her eyes to point in the blackness' direction. Attempting to focus, to discern a shape from the inky blotch, only resulted in a dull pain behind her eyes. The sickly, wrong feeling redoubled. Applejack's ears folded flat against her skull, and she couldn't help the pitiful whimper that escaped her throat. She wanted to get out, wanted to shoot to her hooves and sprint out of the cave, out into the jungle or anywhere but here. And then Applejack blinked. Once more the island was plunged into darkness as the lightning's illumination ended. Had it really only been a split-second? Applejack had felt like she was staring for minutes, at least. Was it some sort of trick, or had adrenaline simply slowed her perception of time? She shook her head quickly, and then peered out into the jungle once more. The patch of blackness was no longer visible, and the horrible feeling worming its way into her core had vanished instantly. Upon realizing that she no longer felt 'wrong', Applejack would've stumbled if she were standing. The sudden change was staggering. The few times she'd encountered that… thing in the past, it had never disappeared so suddenly. Applejack's heart still thundered in her ears, but it was slowly returning to a reasonable rate. The only other sound was the constant background roar of the storm, punctuated every so often by peals of thunder. She sighed, but didn't let herself relax too much. In the relative peace, a powerful headache was finding the time to make itself known. On the plus side, it didn't feel like her head was splitting open. The headache was merely a faint echo of the pain that had incapacitated her on the beach. Still, it was far from pleasant. Applejack decided to scoot a ways deeper into the cave. She still didn't trust her legs to carry her very far, but she managed to shuffle into a relatively comfortable position on the dry floor farther from the entrance. It took a few moments to gather up her scattered thoughts. She knew exactly how she'd ended up on the island, now, but recovering her memories had left too many questions unanswered, and the answers it had provided were of no use to her at the moment. If nothing else, she knew that her friends probably thought she was dead. The thought tore at her. Her friends, and worse still, her family could be hurting something fierce at this very moment. However, as much as it pained Applejack, she couldn't focus on that. She had to focus on how her supposed death would affect her. The fact of the matter was, it made any rescue arriving all the more unlikely. While the idea of waiting around for an airship to pick her up had been appealing, it was looking more and more likely that Applejack would have to save herself. She had already thrown out those messages in bottles, but she would have to take some bigger steps towards getting home if she ever wanted to see her family again. Applejack winced as a blast of thunder shot a jolt of pain through her aching head. Planning her escape could wait. She laid her head down on crossed forehooves. There would be much to do, and she was just too tired to think about it all right now. If nothing else, she could allow her mind to go blank and get a few hours' rest while waiting for the storm to blow over or morning to arrive. Tired as she was, there was no chance at all of Applejack getting any sleep that night. Whatever was following her seemed to have left, but Applejack was taking no chances. Her eyes never left the cave entrance as she sat motionless, waiting, watching for any movement from the stormy world outside. She wasn't sure how long she sat there, but in the end, it was long enough. First to go was the thunder and lightning. The intermittent blasts became less and less frequent, until one last bright bolt arced across the sky in the distance. Next, the rain slowed down until it was nothing but a lazy pitter-patter. Still, Applejack stayed sequestered in the safety of her cave. She couldn't risk the storm kicking back up just when she went outside. Finally, the last few drops of rain trailed off, and the island fell into complete silence. Applejack's ears perked up, and she lifted her head from her hooves. It took a few bleary blinks to clear the haze from her vision, but once Applejack could focus clearly she saw sunlight streaming through the open mouth of the cave. She pushed up to her hooves with a bit of effort and stumbled out into the light of day. The entire landscape before her glistened with a million lingering drops of rain, clinging to each leaf or blade of grass and reflecting the sunlight like diamonds. Sunlight. Right. Applejack was getting distracted. She glanced skyward to gauge the time of day, shielding her eyes with a forehoof. From what she could tell, the sun was only a few lengths above the horizon. Still morning, then. In addition, the entire sky was blue and clear as far as the eye could see. Not a single trace of the previous day's harsh monsoon remained. Applejack wasn't sure if such big weather was supposed to clear up that fast without pegasus intervention, but at least it fit with the storm's near-instantaneous appearance. In any case, Applejack decided it was probably best not to question it. Pausing momentarily to stretch her stiff limbs, Applejack mentally assessed the day ahead of her. She would need to light a new fire. Actually, she would probably need to gather an entirely new stock of firewood. The stuff under the thick jungle canopy surrounding her camp would be dry enough, but the supply she'd stocked in the clearing would be absolutely waterlogged. She would have a lot of work ahead of her, and the day was already partially wasted. If nothing else, Applejack hoped that her shelter had withstood the downpour. Reminding herself that the day was already getting on, Applejack set off down the hill and into the jungle. She hadn't removed her saddlebags when she laid down the night before, and the straps were beginning to dig into her back uncomfortably. It certainly didn't help that the bags, and Applejack herself, were still soaking wet. Applejack tried to push those things out of her mind and simply focus on putting one hoof in front of the others. A bush rustled in the distance to her left, but the sound barely registered in Applejack's exhausted mind. She plodded along, and soon enough the discomfort of her saddlebags and the dampness clinging to her coat were all but forgotten in her monotonous march through the undergrowth. The plants beneath her hooves were covered in raindrops at first, but they became more and more dry as Applejack went deeper into the jungle. Eventually, where the canopy was thick enough to block out even most sunlight, she was walking on dry ground again. The air, on the other hoof, was humid and stifling. The sun wasted no time in warming the island until Applejack felt like she was in a sauna. It came as a relief, and no small surprise, when Applejack stumbled out of the treeline and into a very familiar clearing. She hadn't realized how long she'd been walking. A quick glance at the sun's position indicated that several hours had indeed passed since she departed the cave. Applejack shook her head in a vain attempt to focus, but only succeeded in making herself dizzy. Maybe she needed sleep more than she thought. "Ain't no point complainin' about that now, is there?" she muttered to nopony as she trotted over to her little encampment by the not-so-little boulder. She quickly shed her saddlebags and set them down in the grass to dry, before unstrapping the knife sheath from her left foreleg and placing it next to them. Fortunately, the grass of the clearing was entirely clear of any moisture. Direct sunlight did wonders, it seemed, and Applejack decided she could spare a few moments to experience it herself. Her satisfied sigh echoed across the clearing as Applejack spread herself out comfortably in the soft grass. She allowed her eyes to close, but willed off the siren call of sleep as she rested in the warming sunlight. It was a different sort of warmth from the choking heat of the jungle, and it was far more welcome. It chased away a lingering chill that Applejack hadn't even known was there, and dried the last drops of water clinging to her coat and short mane. After far too few minutes, Applejack grunted and forced herself back to a standing position. There was still work to be done, after all. She only spared one last quick glance at the brightly burning sun where it hung in the deep blue sky. "Thanks. I needed that," she said, tipping her hat to the Celestial orb. First things first, she checked up on her fire. As expected, it was completely and utterly extinguished. All that remained was a soggy mess of ash and coals. Applejack sighed and ineffectually poked at the fire pit with a forehoof, before turning to inspect the rest of her camp. Most of her firewood supply had been destroyed, as she'd thought, but there were enough salvageable sticks at the very bottom of the stack that she could make one more fire. That was the best news she'd had all day. At least she could wait until she was fully rested before heading out to gather a new stock of wood. Next, Applejack trotted on over to the river at the edge of the clearing. Sure enough, when she peered in at her reflection she found bits of sand still clinging to the side of her face, and dried blood running down from her nose and staining her face and neck something fierce. She dipped her head in the cool water and rubbed at the mess with her hooves. It took a bit of doing, but she managed to get her coat back to relative cleanliness. Either that, or the orange shade of it simply hid the lingering stains of blood, but that wasn't a thought Applejack wanted to entertain. She walked back over to her campsite, and dreading what she might find underneath, finally turned to her lean-to. She inched towards it carefully, tentatively poked her head inside, only to find… everything was perfectly intact and dry. The roof of sticks and plant-matter had, surprisingly, managed to insulate her living space from the effects of the storm. Applejack let loose a long sigh of relief as she gazed at her pink blanket and thought of a warm, dry sleep that night. Her gaze fell upon the rubber chicken sitting with its back against the rock, and she couldn't help the little giggle that escaped her throat, nor the little smile that accompanied it. "'Least you stayed dry last night, little guy." She glanced over to the various things she'd gathered from the cottage ruins, and her smile faltered slightly. The knick-knacks had stayed dry, at least, but they still carried a few troubling thoughts. Applejack trotted inside the shelter and examined them more closely. She checked the strange book first, as a tiny drop of water could cause severe damage. It was, as she'd initially assessed, completely dry. Not that it mattered, since she still couldn't read the stupid thing. With a snort, Applejack tossed it back down and turned to the rest. The locket, and the picture inside, were similarly undamaged, much to Applejack's relief. She spent a few moments to observe the smiling face of the pony within before gently setting it down. Her eyes fell on the canvas bag containing several seemingly generic gemstones, unremarkable if not for the mysterious symbol labeling it, and its twin painted on the wall deep underground. Applejack felt her frustration boiling over. So many unanswered questions, and this damned island just kept throwing them at her. She stomped a hoof in frustration, rattling the wall of her little lean-to. Applejack took a few deep, calming breaths. There was no sense getting worked up about it. Turning around briskly, Applejack stepped back out into the clearing. The sun hadn't slowed down at all while she had idly inspected her camp, and it was already reaching midday. Wait, noon already? Applejack really was tired. Time was passing faster than she could keep up with. Her rambling train of thought was interrupted by a low growl from her stomach, and the realization that she hadn't eaten since yesterday. Applejack cracked open a coconut with her knife and devoured the entire thing. It wasn't quite enough that she was full, but it was enough for now. Next, she focused on getting a fire started. The little task helped her forget the endless mystery of the island, if only for a moment. By the time she had a little blaze crackling away, her frustrations were all but gone. They would never be completely gone, not until she figured out exactly what secrets the strange island held, what was contained in the pages of that book, who was the pony in the locket, what significance did the gems hold, what did the symbol— Applejack took a deep breath. She held it in for a moment, then released it. No, she wouldn't waste her focus on those things. Not just then. She had to remember what was important: getting home to her family. Whether it was the island itself, or her lack of sleep, or if Applejack really was going a bit crazy, she was starting to forget what really mattered. Starting to get mired down in questions and answers and mysteries when her only worry should be seeing family again. Yes, that was what mattered. Her family, her friends, Ponyville, Sweet Apple Acres. She would get back there. She'd do it herself. Her friends probably thought she was dead, so she'd find her own way home. Somehow. Applejack blinked as a loud pop from the fire snapped her out of a daze. She glanced upwards. The sun had jumped ahead a few hours again. She'd been staring into the fire for a good part of the afternoon, apparently. Tomorrow, then. She would get started on getting home tomorrow, the island's mysteries be damned. Applejack tossed another bit of wood onto the fire. She would certainly be going to bed early that night. She could only hope that she didn't dream.