//------------------------------// // The Wake // Story: The Last Something Sweet to Bite // by Knackerman //------------------------------// Sunset sat bolt upright in bed. The dream again. Though it had happened so long ago, that terrible night had stuck with her ever since. Sunset Shimmer rolled out of bed and put on a bathrobe over her nightgown. Sunlight streamed in through the blinds, morning already. She looked over to her husband and smiled as he rolled over into the warm spot she she had left behind when she vacated their shared bed. It was hard to believe that she had been married to Flash for close to five years now. That night had all been a blur, but she remembered finding him, one of only a few survivors in the ashes and rubble of Canterlot High. Half the town had been lost that night, but it was amazing how many students had managed to survive after the Candy Mare's influence had been removed. Most were still in coma's, but Flash had been one of the lucky ones. Sunset wondered sometimes just how much he remembered. He didn't like to talk about it and, honestly, neither did she... But one day they'd need to open up about everything that had happened. One day they'd need to revisit that terrible night. But not today. Not with the sun shining so brightly and the cool autumn air making dry leaves dance on the sidewalk outside. She'd need to get Flash to rake those soon. Maybe this weekend though, better to let him sleep for now. Sunset had eliminated one of her regrets after all, in apologizing to Flash for using him. Who would've thought that would be the start of a brand new relationship between the two? Who would've thought that it would lead to this? She smiled ruefully. It was nicer sharing his bed than sleeping in Celestia and Luna's attic, but every now and then she missed her old room, her old life. She didn't miss bumping her head on the rafters every time she woke up though. Small blessing. There was a thumping from downstairs. Sunset tied her bathrobe closed and went down to the landing to have a peek. A tiny monster with sharp teeth roared from the bottom of the stairs and smiled up at Sunset. "Was that good mommy?" asked the little red haired girl, removing her dragon mask. She loved pretending to be a dragon, or some other monster, rather than the beautiful princess or brave knight in her playtime. "That was a most excellent roar my little pumpkin, but try to keep it down," replied Sunset, walking barefoot down the stairs to meet her daughter. "Your father was out late performing, and he's still sleeping." "Okay mama," answered Pumpkin Shimmer Sentry. "Ooh, ooh, can we have pecan pancakes today!?" "With lots of maple syrup?" asked Sunset grinning. "Uh-huh!" exclaimed the excited little girl. "Only if you hurry and finish getting ready for pre-school," she replied, tousling her daughters curly hair. "Mama only has so much time to drop you off before she has to head to work too." "Okay, okay, okay," said the little girl gathering up her toys and toddling back up the stairs. If there was one way to get her daughter to behave it was to offer her a sweet treat. After she put coffee on for herself, she started to work on Pumpkin's pancakes. It was as simple as adding a few pecans to some batter she had prepared in bulk at the start of the week, but her daughter didn't need to know how easy they were to make until she was old enough to cook them on her own. With the batter sizzling away in the pan on the stove, Sunset sipped her morning cup of coffee and for a blissful moment all was right in the world. She flipped the pancakes once, letting them finish cooking before she slid them onto a plate with a tiny dollop of butter and just enough maple syrup that her daughter wouldn't complain too much. She didn't want Pumpkin to be too full of sugar or she'd be likely to get into trouble at pre-school. The table was set for breakfest and her coffee was drained to the last drop when Sunset realized Pumpkin should've been finished getting ready by now. Was she having trouble tying her shoes again? Had she gotten distracted playing with her toys? "Pumpkin, breakfast is getting cold!" she called, but there was no answer. A jolt of fear ran through her, "Pumpkin!?" What if something had happened to her and she hadn't heard it over the sounds of the sizzling breakfast? What if she was hurt? Setting down her empty mug, Sunset hurried up the stairs and to her daughters room. The door was only half closed, but she couldn't hear the usual sounds of busy activity that accompanied her daughter's frenzied rush to dress herself in the morning. A wave of dread made her hesitate, but she reached out and pushed open the door. Empty. Toys and cloths were strewn about the room. An old stuffed pony, one of the ears ragged from being chewed on when Pumpkin was just a baby, looked dolefully up from the unmade bed. Her book bag and shoes lay on the floor, but of Pumpkin there was no sign. A loud thump behind her made Sunset Shimmer whirl where she stood. It had come from her and Flash's bedroom. Had her daughter gone to wake up daddy after Sunset had told her he was sleeping in? She'd done as such before. In a lot of ways, Pumpkin was daddy's little girl. She loved him dearly and hated going to school without having a chance to say goodbye to him. A sense of relief washed over Sunset as she closed her daughter's bedroom door with a soft click and went back to her own bedroom. That little stinker. If she'd woken up her father she was going to make sure she got nothing but healthy vegetables and no snacks in her lunch kit today. Well, maybe some apple slices... Sunset stepped into the bedroom, ready to give her daughter a lecture. The scene that greeted her froze her where she stood. Pumpkin had indeed slipped into their room, but it wasn't to wake her father. She had thrown back the covers that Flash had been sleeping beneath, spilling them on the floor. They had been in the way, it seemed. How else could Pumpkin carve a hole into her fathers chest wide enough for her to sit in? Her tiny body to fit snugly within, almost as if it belonged there. For a moment, Sunset couldn't process what she was seeing. The blank lifeless stare on Flash's face, the blood that soaked their sheets, and the loud, urgent sounds of their daughter eating. Eating. Eating furiously, as if after a long famine. She was facing away from her mother, but Sunset could see that Pumpkin's pajamas were drenched in her fathers blood. It seemed it had splashed everywhere. In fact it still did as Pumpkin frenziedly pawed tiny fistfuls of flesh into her mouth. She barely even paused to chew before swallowing with every sign of sheer, guttural, delight. Sunset's mind refused to work. There was nothing she could think to do. She wanted to scream, to cry out, to vent her confusion and horror. In the end it was all she could do to mumble a hushed, "Why? Why baby?" Pumpkin looked over her shoulder at her mother, "I was just sooo hungry, I couldn't wait for breakfast," she smiled, Flash's blood dribbling down her chin. Her lollipop eyes were bright above her candy corn grin. The Candy Mare smile lovingly at Sunset as she bit into her fathers still beating heart, "Don't worry mommy. It's just a nightmare." ---------------------------- She woke up coughing, gasping for air. Everything hurt, from the tips of her fingers down to her toes. An unpleasant burning in her throat let her know that it had been some time since she'd had a drink of water, and the hollowness in her stomach told her that food was something she direly needed. Food... For some reason the thought of food was enough to turn her stomach and make her gag. It made her wish she would never hear that word again, let alone lay eyes on anything that remotely resembled 'food'. It was an odd reaction given how weak and hungry she clearly was. The dream she thought, the nightmare. It's starting again. That was probably why the thought of food made her stomach turn. She tried to look around, figure out where she was. The light hurt her eyes. It was so bright here that there were no shadows. Even as she got up on wobbly legs, her own shadow was nothing but a smudge beneath her body. She tried to reach out an arm to stead herself, but found that they were bound tightly in some kind of jacket, the sleeves of which were wrapped behind her back. Where exactly was she? Her thoughts were so sluggish and hazy, from sleep or dehydration she wasn't sure. Just the act of attempting to remember made her head ache in ways that forbade any recollection. There were fragments, of nightmares or memories she wasn't sure, of something in the dark calling her name... something laughing. All she truly knew was that she was alone, that the padded white walls and floor that surrounded her were devoid of any sign of an exit, and that she must have been here for some time. As she continued to look around, she could see that the walls were not entirely featureless. A dark glass panel set against one wall flicked open, letting in an even brighter light. She winced, but the light quickly faded as a face occupied the tiny rectangle that was set into the padded cell's door. "Ah, I see that you are awake already. Very good, that saves us the time and trouble it normally takes to rouse you for testing," said a well dressed man from behind a pair of spectacles. 'Nobel' was the word that came to mind as she looked at his handsome face, his golden eyes bright behind the glass. His hair was elegantly coiffed, a shock of brown against fair skin. For a moment she wondered why it was that he wasn't helping her. Why he wasn't trying to get her out of this room she was clearly trapped in. Then the memories rushed back with a lurch, along with a name. Lemon Drop. Dr. Lemon Drop. Her therapist. The memories flickered one after another across her mind. She had been falling through ashes and rubble. She had found the portal back to the human world. The fires had still been raging at Canterlot High. Worse, they had been burning the students alive from the inside out. She remembered that thing, the composite corpse hunting her down. Trying to kill her even as Sunset had been trying to save the lives of what students she could. What students that weren't already burning. They had fought. She could still feel the wounds that thing had inflicted on her, but in the end, Sunset had won. She'd saved Flash, and in fact saved the world... possibly countless worlds. Hadn't she? The firefighters that had been called in from the city to help with the out of control blaze had found her afterwards, laughing over the abominations charred corpse. She had won! Couldn't they see!? It was over now! It was all over now! But in many ways that had only been the beginning. They called her the Fall Formal Firebug, the Pyro Prom Princess, and all kinds of other horrible names in the news. They blamed everything on her, even though it was obvious that one person by herself could never have been responsible for that much carnage in a single night. There were talks of other arrests, other people who were brought in for questioning, but in the end only Sunset had been found alive and conscious at the scene. Those who hadn't succumb to their wounds that awful Halloween night had fallen into a deep, unnatural sleep. Flash had ended up in such coma shortly after the sun had risen into the hazy smoke choked sky. In the end, all Sunset had done was lived long enough for them to paint her as a villain. Her past was dug into, what was left of it, and they found out how she was a trouble maker at school. How there had been rumors she had tried to attack CHS before. Questions were asked, but most went unanswered. She never had a chance to defend herself. She never had her day in court. Sunset was ruled incompetent to take the stand without ever taking one step out of her cell. How could they find her anything but crazy, when all she had were wild stories about candy coming to life and some kind of monster killing everyone and wrecking the school? A thing that had went about killing all of her friends and eating their flesh in front of her eyes? Worse were her assertions that she wasn't even from this world. That she was some kind of magical creature herself, a unicorn in fact, trapped in human form. They never found the portal she had spoken of, the statue in front of CHS having been damaged in the fire had long since been demolished with the rest of what had remained of the school. With no evidence or witnesses to back up Sunset's side of the story, there wasn't much that could be done. Not that anyone expected there to be any evidence of her claims. They didn't want to believe that this was anything other than another sad example of how inadequate mental health care was in their country. It was inevitable, in the current climate of fear, that she would end up in an asylum. She continued babbling her incoherent stories to anyone that would listen, but they always just shook their heads and prescribed more drugs, more therapy, more treatments. It didn't help that they had found her laughing. Sunset had never really stopped laughing. The whole situation had just been so ludicrous. She'd saved the world, and they were calling for her blood! She had been giggling uncontrollably most days since they had shut her up in the asylum. She thought that must be thanks to Dr. Lemon Drop and the constant flow of drugs he was using to 'treat' her. She knew the state considered her a lost cause, and even if she were ever declared sane she'd simply find herself exchanging one cell for another, probably on death row. Even so, all she could do was chuckle, giggle, and guffaw. All she could do was smile at Lemon Drop as he droned on in that flat, emotionless voice of his as he wittered on about how he'd find the perfect cure. How given enough time, Sunset's suffering would lead to new treatments and discoveries that would benefit all of mankind. She didn't know if she believed that, but his illicit dealings would certainly line his own pockets with gold. There were so many experimental drugs in her system now, many that had never and would never be approved for human testing, that it was no surprise that the good doctor could afford to dress so sharply. It was just one more thing to laugh about. The needles just kept coming. The track marks on Sunset's arms and legs throbbed with each new injection. It felt like ants were crawling inside her veins and shards of glass were delicately scraping off her skin. She burned and froze by turns, the world twisting and warping around her, but every day she'd wake up in the same white room to the same cold unfeeling eyes. Everyday this waking nightmare would repeat itself. All she had for comfort were her dreams. Sweet though they were compared to what passed for 'reality', they always turned sour in the end. Turned to murder and mayhem. There was also the figure that stood by her side, waiting patiently. No one else could see her. No one else could even hear her. Sunset could, though she wished she couldn't. The sensation made her want to stop up her ears and gouge out her eyes, but her straight jacket made it so all she could do was laugh and weep by turns. Comforted and consoled one moment, panicked and crying the next. If she wasn't insane before, she feared she was now. Maybe... maybe in the end that was for the best. No amount of sanity could spare her after all. Maybe madness was the better choice. Because sobbing or giggling, Sunset Shimmer could see the candied version of herself watching over her. Like an amalgamation of every sweetie she'd ever eaten, with a sharp grin and knowing eyes. "I'm just a dream," the thing lied, "Just a dream of a life outside these padded walls. A dream of not feeling your veins burn or your heart pound. A dream of a better life... and of revenge." In spite of herself, Sunset Shimmer was comforted, even though she knew that this meant the nightmares would never end. That it would never, ever end. I wish I were dead, Sunset thought calmly, eyes cast down to the floor as if in prayer. I wish I had died instead of my friends. I wish everything would just end. Those thoughts seemed to make her companion smile, "Not yet, but soon. Nightmare Night will come again, a nightmare of their own making." The entity bent down and lifted Sunset's chin with one long clawed finger. Lifted her gaze so that she looked Lemon Drop right in his cold calculating eyes. Snot and tears streamed down Sunset's face, but she couldn't help laughing, sending flecks of foam flying from her mouth as she saw through him... Saw to the tomorrow that he thought a mere dream, a mad woman's fantasy, but that would become far more real than he could ever hope to be with his stupid cloths and his fake smile. Candy whispered languidly, "There will be so many sweets to bite!" In spite of herself, her stomach growled.