//------------------------------// // Dash! Spark! It's all in the mind... // Story: Appledashery // by Just Essay //------------------------------// Howling shrieks flew through the cave's mouth, morphing into parasprites that gobbled up very corner of Rainbow's home, bringing it crashing down around her. As Rainbow fell, she spun about, clutching her skull. She stumbled, limped, and tripped over a series of shattered pendants. "Ooomf!" Rainbow winced. At the sound of maddening laughter, she stared up, her eyes following the dark-dark fetlocks of an enormous alicorn with a rippling mane. Nightmare Moon smiled down at her, fanged teeth glinting. "You need to pull yourself together, Sparky," she said in Lancie's voice. She stalked closer, trotting over the bodies of dead friends. "At the risk of sounding sappy, you're a great deal better than this." "I can't... I-I can't...!" Rainbow clamped her hooves over her ears and curled up into a ball. "Grnnnghhh... so... so many..." At the sound of banshee shrieks, she looked across the Apple Family living room to see Zecora and Noir looming over a cot with a limp yellow body lying across it. They hung their grave faces and shook their heads. The farmhouse burned black like a lit photograph, blazing past Rainbow and forcing her eyes to roll back. "Grnnngh... so m-many mistakes..." She whimpered, rolling over in the clouds as the mist evaporated beneath her. "I'm a loser. I've lost." A sob formed in the back of her throat. "I-I can't st-stop losing..." Rainbow's world shook from several successive claw scratches. The cave echoed, growing rancid... raw. "Sparky, just... just forget what you see!" Lancie's voice took on a sharp turn. "Can you at least hear normally?" "What... what's...?" Rainbow opened her eyes, only to see Ponyville in flames. Bodies littered the fringes along Everfree Forest while manticores feasted on the dead. Seething, Rainbow covered her eyes and whimpered: "No. Don't want to see. Do not want to see...!" "Then let's work on the other half of your senses!" Skittering, stone talon-scrapes circled her, then took position several feet away. "Do you hear my voice? Yooohoooo! Handsome immortal extraordinaire, paging Sparky!" "I... I hear..." Rainbow shuddered, rolling over onto her belly. She slowly picked herself up on wobbling limbs. "I h-hear you..." The mare crawled forward, navigating the dizzying darkness. "Loud... and cl-clear..." "Good. Because in the other direction...?" Just as he said that, Rainbow could feel a cold breath blowing at her tail-hairs. "...there's something coming. And I promise you it's more real than anything you could be afraid of right now." "Lancie..." Rainbow clenched her teeth, shuffling forward. "This isn't going to work. I'm far too... too..." She briefly squinted her eyes open, catching glimpses of a blood-stained scooter at the bottom of a ravine. "Aaaugh!" "Keep them ruby peepers closed, ya stupid girl-horse!" Lancie growled. "It's hard enough trying to psycho-coach you and find a way out at the same time—" "Gotta... gotta move..." "Look, I know you're probably battling giant muderous gingerbread stallions in your head right now, but could find a drool-free moment to just touch the Wind Chalice stone? I'm finding it hard to see in all this—" "Darkness!" Rainbow Dash wheezed. "Lancie... f-find us a corner or a niche!" "Huh? Sparky, I dunno if you're aware, but Queen Sassy Legs is shambling up to finish the job—" "Just do it!" Rainbow hollered, opening her eyes with a frown. "And grab onto the stone once you've—" A savage hoof flew across Rainbow's face. WHAM! Rainbow yelped, rolling over into the corner of the Cloudsdale apartment. She curled up into a ball, whimpering. "Stop! J-Just stop...!" She whimpered in a foalish tone, shivering. "I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of everypony!" "Sparky! I found a spot!" "Listing..." Rainbow gulped. "Listing, just c-cool your jets..." "Yoohoo! Could you can the soap opera for one second?!" Rainbow clenched her teeth. Growling slightly, she shuffled over and threw herself into the corner. Lancie tumbled and fell over her flank. "Oof!" A loud shriek issued across the cavern. "Do you have the stone?!" Rainbow sputtered. Lancie's voice returned: "Yeah, but I—" "Hold it! Hold it tight!" Rainbow hugged Lancie close to her chest, careful not to come into physical contact with the stone in his grip. "And. Don't. Move." "But—" "Shhhh!" Rainbow Dash leaned back, muscles locked. She tried her best not to shiver. Meanwhile, the cavern all around her filled with scrapes and scratching noises. The air grew cold, and the smell of dead flesh filled her nostrils. Lancie squirmed suddenly against Rainbow's chest, and she silenced him with a heavy squeeze. She dared to peak one eye open—delighted to see nothing but pitch black darkness. Then she heard it. "SKREE-EE-EE-EE-EE..." The air shifted. Rocks were scraped... raked... Pebbles rolled across the floor, brushing against Rainbow's fetlock. The contact set off her sense of touch, and she felt for a brief moment as if maggots were bursting out of her chest. She could briefly imagine the griffons devouring her entrails. Gilda smiled, her beak dribbling with blood. "Mmmmm!" Rainbow clamped a hoof over her muzzle. As the nightmares faded, tears welled up in her eyes. Something else brushed past her—a long, hairy, spindly thing. The matriarch was within inches of the pegasus and the statue, pausing, lingering, searching. Lancie was as still as unnaturally possible. His stone talons and paws clamped over the stone, keeping it from glowing. "SKREE! SK-SKREE!" The matriarch called out in successive chirps... almost as if it was summoning something. Within a minute, Rainbow Dash realized just what. The cave echoed with a high-pitched echo, as if the mare was at the bottom end of a rain-stick. Thousands upon millions of tiny spider limbs entered from the mouth of the cave, rushing closer... closer. She had no choice. If she moved, she was food. Tilting her head aside, the mare stifled a whimper, at last whispering: "Lancie..." "Yes, Sparky?" She gulped. "Do spiders have ears?" The statue in her grasp shifted. "None that I've ever witnessed," he replied, his voice slightly jittery. "Over all the eons." Rainbow nodded. When she next gulped, she felt a wave of hallucinations rolling through her mind, stabbing at her optic nerves. So, with a mewling voice, she murmured a mantra to hold the delusions at bay. She repeated six words... the six words... over and over again, more and more ardently. The first spider in the arachnid wave made contact with her hoof. It brushed its pedipalps against her fetlock, searched, shuffled, found nothing, and continued crawling... as did the tarantula behind it... and the one behind that... and the next dozen... two dozen... hundred. Rainbow pressed herself against the wall of the cave as the floodwater of arachnia washed over her, following the Matriarch down the cavern. She leaned her head to the side so that her muzzle was the least bit exposed. She chiseled the nightmares into finite pinpricks of hellish light in the center of her mind—like freckles—and she nuzzled them desperately. Repeating six words. Legs all over her body. Six words. Clawed feet in her mane and tail hairs. Six words. Tiny fangs dragging over her muzzle and nostrils. Six words...