Cheerilee was having a terrible morning so far.
And the migraine that was forming was threatening to make it ten times worse.
“Settle down, children!” Cheerilee stated, calmly. Her voice was full of a motherly kindness that she had learned how to master over years upon years of being an educator. However, her eyes foretold a different story--one that told tales consisting of years of stress and sleepless nights simply because of her job. Of course, she wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it occasionally had the tendency to cause her to become a complete wreck.
First off all, her alarm had failed to awaken her that morning. She didn’t wake up until seven. To her, that was unacceptable, because school started at eight, and she always got to work early so that way she could watch over some of the students who had conflicting schedules with their parents, and had to go to class early. Normally, if Cheerilee got there later than usual, the students would end up having to wait outside. Cheerilee just couldn’t let that happen.
After getting up, grabbing her things, and bolting out the door, the schoolteacher had just barely made it to work on time. In all of her years of teaching, she had never once woken up late before today. The professional side of her was telling her she was a gigantic screw up, but she tried to ignore it. She wasn’t going to let some silly broken alarm ruin her day. She was there now, surrounded by loving students who cared for her. Everything could only get better.
As time began to rear it’s ugly head near 11 AM, Cheerilee’s Elementary School class’ students were just coming in from their recess. It wasn’t the best day outside--with the massive overcast and a chilly September breeze rolling through every now and then--but even still the students managed to get the most out of their free time. Most of the students came back sweaty, winded, and laughing up a storm from what must have been a great game of hoofball or tag. Cheerilee had always appreciated that about her special group of students, and how they tended to make the best out of whatever situation they had.
When they grew up, they would realize. However, Cheerilee often thought that her students would be hers forever. She never really envisioned her students growing up, going to Middle School someday. Cheerilee always thought about the future, but not exactly her future with her students. She always lived in the moment around them. Though, she never realized it.
The students all sat down in their assigned seats. There were fifteen chairs for fifteen students. Three rows of five seats, all assigned methodically are carefully by Cheerilee. She started doing a head count, as usual after recess.
In the back right corner of the room, was Diamond Tiara. She was chatting with Silver Spoon, who was located directly in front of her. The two were certainly a nuisance at times, but Cheerilee had managed to get used to it. The two best friends were talking loudly about something that Cheerilee wasn’t able to hear from her position in the room, but Diamond Tiara had a mischievous grin on her face that Cheerilee wasn’t sure she liked. Silver Spoon giggled in response, the light at the top of the room reflecting off of her glasses.
The two other ponies in Diamond Tiara’s row, Snips and Snails, were also talking to each other. The room was filled with Snails’ guffaws and dimwitted chortles, as well as one of Snips’ wonderful jokes. Normally, Snips sat nervously in his seat. Since he was the closest colt to Diamond Tiara--as well as the door--he got picked on a lot. Perhaps it was why he confided in Snails so much. They had a nice friendship, one that Cheerilee herself could have used as a filly.
She continued her headcount. Rumble was lying back in his seat with a bored look on his face. He looked minutes away from falling asleep, and sometimes his eyes would even shut. Twist, who was sitting next to him in the fourth row, only stared at him, as if she was debating whether or not to prod the colt away, or risk getting in trouble. Button mash, seated in the exact middle of the room, was playing some of hoofheld game that he really wasn’t allowed to have in the first place. Video games were only allowed during recess, but Cheerilee just couldn’t bring herself to take it away from him. It wasn’t like he was harming anypony. Besides, he had enough sense to turn it off when Cheerilee began teaching. His game beeped and booped frequently.
Seated on both sides of Button Mash were Archer and Dinky. The former was a new student, a smaller blue filly who had just moved into town two weeks ago. She was minding her own, sitting patiently with a pencil and paper on her desk and waiting for Cheerilee to begin. Dinky was reading a book, quietly.
In the second row, was Truffles--a chubby colt who usually wasn’t as hyped up as today. He was usually a very well-behaved student. He was talking excitedly with the other schoolchildren in his row--Featherweight, a skinny colt with a camera wrapped around his neck, and Zipporwhill, a brown filly that were decent friends with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Though, she wasn’t as big of a distraction.
But then, something struck Cheerilee as weird. It was with the entirety of the first row.
There were no students. The first row was completely empty.
“Children? Where are Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle?” Cheerilee asked, loudly and hastily. Surely, she hadn’t lost her three of her students? The students were too busy talking amongst themselves to hear. Cheerilee was beginning to panic, and the rest of her students not listening to her right then was something she couldn’t accept. “Children!” She spoke louder than before. Even still, the class didn’t calm down. She let out a nervous moan, and was about to shout when Archer raised her hoof. “Yes, Archer?”
Archer, being new in town, was very shy and soft-spoken. So when she first began talking, Cheerilee was unable to hear, or even read her lips. “I cannot hear you, Archer, please speak up,” Cheerilee asked kindly, a small smile forming on her face.
Archer spoke a little louder, and Cheerilee had to pay very close attention to decipher what she was trying to say. “I think they went home…” Archer almost whispered. Her eyes were soft, and faced towards her lap. “I think they went home for a little while.”
Surprisingly, Diamond Tiara was also listening. The room was steadily beginning to calm down. The devilish filly turned to Silver Spoon, and giggled. It was as if they had some sort of inside joke that was so funny, they just couldn’t hold it in. “They had an accident with a puddle of mud. Whoops!” More laughter.
Cheerilee felt slightly stupid. She had been informed of this thirty minutes ago, right at the beginning of recess. The three of her students had walked up to her, covered in mud. According to them, they were “minding their own business when somepony pushed them in”. Cheerilee had a sneaking suspicion of who it was, but didn’t act upon it due to the fact that she wasn’t absolute. The three gathered their things, and went home for a bit to clean up. They’d be back soon. Cheerilee couldn’t believe that she’d forgot. She must’ve been out of it more so than she originally thought. She made a mental note to go home and rest for a while, after work.
The classroom was exceptionally dark that morning. Not a trace of sun was found. Therefore, Cheerilee’s magenta coat looked darker than ever. “Right…” Cheerilee said. They’d be back shortly. In the meantime, she still had twelve students to teach. “And would anypony happen to know who was responsible for pushing them into said puddle?”
Silver Spoon shut up. Diamond Tiara didn’t see why she needed to.
“Pffft!” she scoffed. “I’m sure those three losers got clumsy and fell in.” Button Mash rolled his eyes, his nose still pointed towards his video game. Perhaps Button Mash saw what actually happened, and chose to stay silent. He shut off his game and put it in his backpack for safekeeping.
“Come on, Diamond Tiara, we all know it was you,” groaned Rumble, who had given up trying to sleep. His voice was sluggish and soft, a sign of his drowsiness. Sitting diagonally from Diamond, he didn’t even turn around or even attempt to speak up when he said what he did.
“It was not!” Diamond Tiara squeaked, eyes wide with aggression. “Tell them, Silver Spoon,” Diamond Tiara said, turning towards her friend. Silver Spoon turned towards Cheerilee with pleading eyes, as if she was trying to say “I don’t want to get involved or in trouble more than I already am”. Cheerilee stepped in.
“Okay, that’s enough. We’ll discuss who did what after class,” Cheerilee muttered. Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. Silver Spoon sat back in her seat with a quiet, relieved sigh. It was almost 11:15, which meant it was coming close to their daily reading time. “For now, class is in session!” Cheerilee slapped an excited smile on her face. After all, reading was her favorite time of the day. It gave her time to sit back with a good book, as well as introduce the mighty power of literature to her students. Normally, they all read as one, and it made Cheerilee’s heart flutter in response--like they were all making some sort of connection through the written arts.
Behind Cheerilee’s large desk, were fifteen copies of the book she picked out for this week. “For When The Heart Falls” was a great chapter book for children to read, albeit it’s very long. While the students squirmed in their seats, Cheerilee could hear a few whisper amongst themselves. She was pretty sure it was Snips and Snails, who were probably already getting started trying to guess what the book was.
She opened the cabinet underneath her desk, and stopped. Huh? she thought, What’s this?
The cabinet was stocked full of copies of a book that Cheerilee had never seen before--a large white tome with black lettering that sent a chill through her spine. It was very difficult, even for the earth pony mare, to pick up more than a few copies at the one time. She read the title out loud. “The Saddest Story…?”
“What was that, Ms. Cheerilee?” called Featherweight with a high pitched voice. Cheerilee shook her head.
“Uhm, nothing,” the teacher said absently. Where had this book come from? Where were the other copies of the book she had picked out? She was positive that she had gotten the intended books from the library yesterday. She even came back to the schoolhouse to stash them away. Did somepony take them?
Cheerilee shook her head. No way. She knew her students well. None of them were thieves. Troublemakers? At times. But not thieves.
“T-Today students, we’re going to read a novel called…” Cheerilee had already forgotten the title. She picked up a book, and placed it upon the desk. While she was at it, she started grabbing as many as she could, until she hit twelve. “The… err, The Saddest Story. By…” Cheerilee paused for a moment to look at the author. “--By Poetic Pen,” she finished. She had never heard of that author.
Obviously, the students hadn’t either. They gave each other confused glances. Normally they read books that everypony else had read at some point in time. Best-sellers, award winners, and stories that they genuinely liked. Dinky was the first child to notice the size of the book.
“We have to read all that?” Dinky whined. A few others took notice of the massive size of the novel, and Cheerilee saw their precious hearts drop.
“No way!” shouted Diamond Tiara. “That’s huge! We’ll never finish it in a week!” She stuck out her bottom lip. The room erupted into a cacophony of disappointed groans and whines. Cheerilee, who didn’t even have a choice in the matter--seeing as her original books were gone--wouldn’t have any of it.
“Quiet, children,” she hushed. The students quieted down almost immediately. Cheerilee hated being loud. She let out an irritated sigh. Her head was destroying her. “It appears that somepony misplaced the copies of the book we were going to read. But, seeing as we have these…”
Truffles raised his hoof. He didn’t wait for Cheerilee to call on him before he started speaking. “What’s the book about, Ms. Cheerilee?” he asked. He appeared excited to start reading. In fact, half of the class were actually avid readers. The other half looked like they wanted to cry.
Cheerilee didn’t even know. Desperate to have something to tell her students, she turned the book over in order to obtain some kind of clue. She felt her heart drop when she realized that the back was absolutely blank. “I… uhm…” Cheerilee couldn’t skip reading time. However, she had no idea what could possibly lie inside of this book. She’d have to read it along with them. She grabbed one more book from the cabinet, and shut it. If parents found out that she lost books, skipped valuable parts of their educational curriculum, and sent students home early for the day, she’d definitely be having a stern talking to. She had to let them read something.
“You know what, children? It’s a surprise! Everypony come and grab a copy so we can get started.” Cheerilee sat down behind her desk and watched her students. A few wandered up sluggishly, some more excitedly, and two almost comically. The books proved difficult for the students to carry. They slammed their books on their desks, desperate to get the giant tome out of their hooves. Cheerilee frowned.
“This thing weighs a ton!” cried Rumble.
“There’s no way we’re going to be able to read all of this…” sighed Zippowhill.
“Can’t we just read something else instead?” asked Diamond Tiara.
“Please, students, relax,” Cheerilee pleaded. The remaining book on the table was hers. She flipped it open to the first chapter. “Let’s get started. If we begin early, we can complete it sooner. Keep that in mind.”
Some of the class muttered to themselves. Archer, Twist, and a few other students already had their pages flipped open. They were waiting for Cheerilee’s say before moving on.
Cheerilee flipped back her mane. It was just like any Monday. These students were the closest thing she was ever going to have to actual children. She wouldn’t trade it for the world. She loved reading to them, because of it. Cheerilee readied herself, and then opened her mouth.
“Alright students. Please open your books if you haven’t already. Let’s begin. Chapter one-”
“Can you believe her?” Sweetie Belle shrieked, shaking the remnants of lukewarm shower water out of her mane. She made sure not to get any her bookbag, which had been resting silently on her back. The water that had drenched her shining white coat had managed to turn it into a darker form of its usual self.
“Diamond Tiara? Yeah, what a jerk!” Scootaloo agreed. Her mane was currently flatted downwards, and sticking to the side of her face and in the opposite direction that it should have. For some reason, it made her look dramatically different than usual.
“Oooh..” Apple Bloom grunted in agitation. “When ah get my hooves on her…” The filly didn’t even need to finish the sentence. She didn’t even know what she was going to do. But she was sure that her revenge would be sweet and beautiful. That little princess was going to get her comeuppance soon or later.
The three fillies had finished their showers. They were given strict orders by Cheerilee to go home, shower, and come back. The fillies told assured her that that was their plan, and that they would return before sprinted away from the school to get cleaned up. However, the three had made a unanimous decision not to go home to fix themselves up. Rather than go home all muddy and pique the unwanted interest of their relatives, as well as receive a bombardment of questions relating to why they were currently not in school, they decided that a hose that the three had found would suffice. Unfortunately, the three didn’t think it through. Without towels, or any proper way to dry themselves without air drying, they had to wait a while before making their way back to school.
“It’s already almost 11 o'clock. We’re gonna get in so much trouble…” Sweetie Belle sighed. Rarity had warned her about school fairly recently. She had wandered too far during recess last Friday, giving Cheerilee a heart attack. She wasn’t looking forward to the future scoldings of both her teacher and her older sister. She wasn’t sure which she was more afraid of.
“Well, what were we supposed to do?” Scootaloo said. “Not like we could walk inside dripping wet.” Apple Bloom gave her a sideways glance.
“But we are dripping wet. The sun isn’t even out! Even if we stayed out here all day, we wouldn’t get dry,” the little country mare retorted with a slight roll of her eyes. Every breeze that passed by caused the three fillies to violently shiver. Overall, they should have just went home to clean themselves up. Oh well. It was certainly not one of their worst ideas.
“We’re missing reading time…” Sweetie Belle sulked. For some reason, Sweetie was insisting on trying to harsh Scootaloo’s mellow, and she was getting tired of it. “I was looking forward to the new book Cheerilee was introducing. What if it was a romance, or a dramatic comedy?”
“What if it had pictures?” Scootaloo chuckled. Sweetie Belle’s groaning intensified.
“We won’t get in trouble, girls,” Apple Bloom reassured. “We’re almost there, and then Cheerilee will give us the books. We’ll just have to read ‘em at home.” Scootaloo frowned at the the sound of that. But, then again, there was no way it could have been helped. She turned towards the ground. She despised homework.
The three fillies reached the schoolhouse five minutes later with a small trail of water following them. Apple Bloom was already trying to form a game plan. She’d walk in, say nothing, and just make her way to her seat and start reading. Easy enough. She conveyed her idea to the rest of the girls as they made their way up the schoolhouse steps. Neither Sweetie Belle nor Scootaloo had a better idea. The three knew exactly where Diamond Tiara sat, and they each made sure that nopony would give her any eye contact until they had an idea to get her back.
Obviously, each filly wanted to be the first one though the door. Instead of having an unneeded argument, Scootaloo offered another idea. “Let’s all just open the door at the same time.” Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom shrugged, but they ultimately agreed. They all grabbed the door handle.
They counted down from three.
Two.
One.
They opened the door, and took a single look inside. Nopony could hear anything. The sound of Sweetie Belle’s scream tore through the air like scissors. The sound ripped out of her throat, destroying her beautiful vocal chords with unmanned fury.
Everypony in Cheerilee’s classroom was dead.
The room smelt of iron, a stench that the three of them could never mistake. Almost everything in the room was destroyed. Many copies of white books were scattered around either students desks or the floor. Most of them were splattered with small drops of innocent crimson blood. In fact, there was enough blood in the room to fill a very large bathtub. Many windows were broken, and a few desks were overturned.
Bodies littered the room like cockroaches. Each and every one of them had a thick layer of blood under their eyes, and on their chest and laps.
The colt directly in front of them, the one who always sat closest to the door--Snips, was leaning back in his chair, his head and mane tilted back. Dead, lifeless eyes stared the three filles down--down to oblivion. He had a pair of bloody scissors in his hooves, and deep, precise, cuts in his stomach. A wind blew through the room, and the scissors fell from his hooves and clattered on the floor. His mouth was open, as if he was letting out loose a scream that would never end.
Everpony. Everypony was dead--dead and unable to bleed anymore.
Rumble’s desk and the floor surrounding it was covered in blood. The stallion had gore covering his hooves, and glass littered the area around him. There was a sharp gash in his neck, resembling a sliced fruit. A very large piece of glass was lying on his desk, drowning in a vast ocean of red.
Button Mash was slumped over in his seat, eyes wide. His hoofheld game was shattered into pieces on his desk. Four battery shaped lumps protruded from his throat. His hat was still on top of his head.
Archer, the new student, had a pencil lodged deep inside of her left eye. White goop slithered down her face, onto her desk. Her mouth was just slightly parted, as if her last words had just escaped her lips before she died.
Everypony was dead. Dead. Dead. No more.
Diamond Tiara was literally hanging out the window. Sharp pieces of savage glass protruded from her back, impaling her. Blood was sliding down the windowsill, down the wall, pooling on the floor like an overturned can of paint. Silver Spoon was located right next to her, leaning against the wall. Her face was a battered mess, only recognizable because of her grey, braided mane. There was a large dent in the wall a few inches to her left. Her glasses were nowhere to be found, however, Diamond Tiara’s tiara laid on the floor next to them.
Dinky was leaning back in her seat, an empty pill bottle in her lap. A few of her ADHD pills were scattered about. However, a substantial amount was missing.
Featherweight and Truffles were located far away from their seats. Their bodies were nearest the chalkboard, and they were lying in a very large puddle. It was impossible to see what killed them without turning them over. Snails was located just behind the door, his long neck contorted at an almost supernatural angle.
Zipporwhill had somehow broken the paper cutter. The sharp, razor blade was lying on the floor, next to her body, in front of her wide open eyes. There were deep cuts on her all four of her legs, all over. She looked like she had been lassoed by barbed wire. Twist was very similar, though the cuts were more accurate. Her teeth and gums were bloody, and her braces were gone, appearing to have been forcibly ripped and torn out her her mouth.
Then there was Cheerilee.
Their favorite teacher, he kindest mare in the world, was dead before their very eyes. The mare had a cord wrapped around her neck, one connected to the projector. The projector itself was nowhere to be seen, but the cord lead out another broken window. Her face was puffed up grotesquely, and she no longer resembled the beautiful mare that she once used to be. Their teacher had managed to hang herself. The mare was leaning up against the floor. With every wind that passed by from the open door, she would rock just slightly.
Sweetie Belle fainted almost immediately, snapping Scootaloo and Apple Bloom out of the stupor. They didn’t need to think. Their eyes were full of tears and trauma. Their instinct told them to run as fast as they could. Another part of them was urging them to stop, and help their friends--the ones they had known for a long time.
While tears poured out of their faces, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo grabbed their unconscious friend and bolted, running to whoever could help their friends and teacher--bring them back to life.
The three of them refused to believe that everypony was dead.