Pinkie Pie read over the crinkled paper again, taking in every detail until her neck ached and her back strained. She straightened up, rolling her neck as questions flew about in her sedated mind. Who was this Maud? How did she know her?
But something clicked in her mind. If Maud could send letters here... could it be possible if she can send letters back? She was talking straight to her... so maybe it wouldn't be totally uncalled for if it went through. But a shiver zapped down her spine. I would have to be near it again, she realized. Would it really be worth the risk? She didn't know what it would do if it found her, and at the demonstration of its destruction, she didn't think it would be good at all. But... this was all she had right now. By all means, she was scared to go out into the hall, and given that another meetup with it was inevitable, she would rather get over with it quickly than have the leeching fear being pulled from her slowly.
Resolving herself, she turned back into the small room, Or office, she figured. If there was a letter here, then there was bound to be a ink cartridge and a quill somewhere in here. She rummaged through the room, checking everywhere for something to write with; under the chair she'd thrown across the room that now had a broken leg, in the corners, until she finally found it. Under the desktop there was a glass ink cartridge, on one side, a crack tracing down the surface.
There was no sign of a quill, but she didn't need it at that moment. She grabbed the ink cartridge and placed in on the desk. She looked toward the piece of parchment and flipped it over, revealing a blank surface to write on. She then opened the ink cartridge and slowly trickled the ink on the tip of her hoof. There was a tad bit too much there, but it would do. On the parchment, she wrote down three words, simple, three-letter words that she managed to write down using her bare hoof, the writing sloppy, and looking ultimately like it was written with a calligraphy pen:
"Who are you?"
Wiping the ink off on the carpet, she rolled up the parchment an picked it up, turning to face the door. Now's the hard part, she thought, her heart starting to hammer once again. Taking a deep breath, she took slow steps out into the hall, trying to make the least noise she could. Too slow, she figured, upping her pace to a trot, her vision tunneling, and her heart thumping back into her throat. She skidded to a halt at the hall's intersection, the room that she'd woken up in to her right. Looking either way, she swiftly dropped the parchment at the exact center, jumping back a few feet before sprinting back to the office, nearly tripping up the two steps. She swung herself to the inside wall, back to the wall, heart hammering at lightning-fast speeds.
Gasping for breath, she waited for the noise to start again, the hollowed clumping on the seemingly elastic floorboards that she grew to dread. They only started a few minutes ago, making Pinkie catch her breath. The noise panned from the right to the left, finally stopping directly behind her. It sniffed, then the moving noise continued, and, knowing she'd probably regret the decision, Pinkie shot an eye out of the door frame into the hall.
For a split second she saw a tail, curved upwards like a cat's, though its barbed end folded over and touched the end, a little bit more like an amphibian's. Then it swiped around the corner, and she saw something like a puff of smoke emitting from the end of the tail before it disappeared entirely.
Then she switched her gaze down to the ground, where her piece of parchment had lain before the creature had come. Part of her expected it to be still there, either in whole or ripped to pieces. Another part of her expected the creature to jump back and try to attack her again. But, neither of those happened. Her eyes had fallen on a blank carpet, with no other color breaking its dark surface.
The creature had taken the letter.
It was another, long few moments when the sounds returned. Heart pumping in anticipation, as soon as the sounds had went back to whence they came, she peeked out of the door frame. Outside was a letter, folded elegantly unlike the other one, actually bound with a wax seal. She rushed out to get it, and galloped back, and unfolded the paper, a part of the letter ripping with the wax seal. On it read:
Pinkie, you haven't forgotten about me, have you? I'm Maud, your sister. Have been from the beginning. Something's happened to you, has it? Please don't tell me you attempted it again... trauma like that can ruin memories.
Since the paper hadn't been written on the whole surface, Pinkie ripped off a corner, rolled it up, and dipped that in the ink before she started writing again:
"What trauma? Look, I've got nothing on how I got here or who I am besides basic memories like my name. I don't know anything."
She placed the new writing on the same letter she'd received, and placed it out in the intersection again. The creature held true to the pattern, bringing back the letter every time she'd place one out there. In the end, there ended up being five pages in total, and Pinkie read over them all very carefully.
I really don't like talking about this, but okay...
You were not that emotionally stable before now. Since you were five, you struggled with ADHD and depression, and dad, being the pony he was at the time, wasn't too nice to you, neither was mom. So you did things you thought would alleviate the pain from their insults. I'd walked in on you a couple times while you were in the process, and I would bandage you up, and try to console you, say everything was all right when they weren't. You've attempted doing away with yourself multiple times, even living with your new friends in Ponyville, and you'd come to me with these problems on an occasional basis. Your friends, I assume, helped you along the way, as I haven't received any messages like that for months on end.
"Wow... I was like that? I'm surprised I had any friends back then."
Well, you introduced me to them a couple months back, and they've said that you're a dear friend to them. They said you were fun, exciting, and unique in the way you go about things. You always helped them out, and they helped you out in turn. So, when you look at it that way, it makes perfect sense why you'd have friends.
"I guess. But, you said something about losing another sister in the previous letter. What did that mean?"
Oh. It was twenty years ago, two years before you were born. We were expecting another addition to the family, a healthy pegasus, to be precise. We were surprised about the news, and we were so excited. None of us knew that we had pegasus blood in us, but I guess anything's possible, right?
But then, things took a turn for the worse. Mom ended up having a miscarriage with that baby, and the baby died shortly afterwards. That moment drove the family apart, and would be an explanation why mom and dad treated you so bad until you got your cutie mark. And the change was glorious. We learned to be a happy family after that instance. Mom and dad finally learned that you were the addition to the family they'd always wanted.
"I see."
But, whatever you are in or been through, please stay strong. I love you.
The messages ended after that, leaving Pinkie Pie unable to write again. She'd had a hard past... and now she was in this predicament. But all she wanted to do now was to get out of here, to meet her alleged sister, learn more about her.
"Love you too," she replied, and put it out in the center of the intersection again. But, this time, she didn't go back into the office. She hung near the platform, her heartbeat rising, trying to wrap herself in steel resolve. She wanted to know her sister more than anything now, questions digging at her mind. And strangely, throughout the process, she felt a pang of a feeling she didn't understand: sadness. The familiarity of the situation was also there, almost like nostalgia, but she didn't understand any bit of it.
A few moments later, the clumping sound continued. She braced herself, shaking in her hooves as the creature's sounds panned from left to right. As they got louder, she got restless to move, anywhere but here and beyond. But she held her ground, waiting until the creature finally came. She sunk into the darkness as its leg appeared. Then another. As its full body appeared, Pinkie Pie stared up in horror to what it really was.
The body was vast, bulky but somewhat long. It had thirteen spines, shaped like shark fins on its slightly arched back, leading to its long barbed tail. From here Pinkie could smell it, a musty smell like from a damp cave. Its head was a cross between amphibian and feline: the head was long, though triangle-shaped ears that had bits bitten out of them leaned forward to its small, somewhat pronounced muzzle. At the center of his forehead was a singular eye, emitting a maroon glow that Pinkie saw only some time ago seeping into the office. Its rays rested on the page, and it picked it up with its mouth, and flipped away from her to the left once again, walking to its supposed home.
Pinkie's legs wouldn't move. She couldn't do this. She was afraid about what could happen, and what the risks were, and after seeing the sheer size of the thing, she knew she couldn't outrun it if it did manage to discover her. But she didn't have a choice. Sitting here didn't change a thing.
Forcing herself to move, heart hammering in fear and anticipation, she galloped after the creature.