The Corner of (Our) Eyes

by Daemon McRae


Chapter 10

Chapter 10

“Don’t. Go. Home.” Zecora’s words resonated in my head like an air raid siren, as the familiar landscape of my own home splayed out before me. I couldn’t honestly say, however, that it was comforting.

It was like all the personal detail had been stripped bare. The furniture was dull and lifeless, the light that shone through the windows was gray and coldly efficient. The layout was just like my living room, my kitchen. Everything was where it was supposed to be. Yet it all looked like the most generic, uninspired version of itself possible. Not even the pictures in the frames had any personal touch. Just pictures of me and my roommate, Daisy, standing, staring at the camera. No expressions, no poise. Not even a background.

“You’re not all going to move around on me, are you?” I asked the empty room, as if the furniture might be hiding some sinister intent. Which wouldn’t surprise me at all right now. I wandered cautiously past a few pieces: my couch, the end tables, the chair. Nothing jumped out at me, nothing tried to eat me or say mean things about my mother. I’d even made it to the doorway of the stairwell just fine. I turned quietly but quickly to see if any of the furniture had moved on its own again.

It hadn’t, but something else was amiss. I couldn’t place my hoof on it. Something was… wrong. Something was missing. All the furniture was there. The chair. End table. Couch. Even the pictures were still… wait. I stopped as I looked at the pictures, and moved closer to inspect them. It was like someone had smudged our faces slightly. The lines between us and the background, the space between our eyes and the rest of our faces, it was all blurred together. And more than a little creepy.

I turned once again, more than a little bothered by the photo, to try and figure out the rest of the room. It wasn’t difficult this time, as the unnerving quality that had perplexed me seconds before was now distinctly apparent. It was like the photographs; the entire layout was becoming less distinct. The furniture was blurred so fluidly that I couldn’t tell if it even still had contours, or a place to sit. Not that I was in the mood to, now.

I crept over to an end table, and gave it a gentle prod with my hoof. At this point it looked like a simple block of wood, with indeterminate edges. And it felt… oily? Even as I pulled my hoof away, it looked like some of the table had somehow rubbed off on me. Almost like… “Paint,” I concluded out loud. The entire room was like a painting slowly melting away.

And Celestia knows what would happen when there wasn’t any room left.

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Octavia and Vinyl gave each other a knowing glance. Daisy asked, “Ok, if she’s in there, how the buck do we get her out?”

Ditzy shook her head, still staring at the gap. “I don’t think we can. I mean, not like you’re thinking. I think. We can’t follow her in there, if that’s what you mean.”

Vinyl rolled her eyes. “Oh good. For a second I thought we were gonna go all Harry Trotter on this thing.” Octavia stifled a laugh behind her hoof.

Then Ditzy rounded on them both. An eye locked on each of them, she said, “Do you even know what’s wrong with your friend? It’s the same thing that just put an alicorn princess in the hospital, and is killing her. Twilight’s got her friends on some fantastic mission trying to save her life, dredging through an alternate reality of absolute hell. So who does Roseluck have to save her, huh? Because it sounds like she sure as buck can’t count on you.”

The musicians dipped their heads in shame, having to be told off by Ditzy of all ponies. Daisy stepped forward in their silence. “So what can we do?”

The gray pegasus looked quietly at Daisy, then spoke up, a bit of her usual bubbliness showing through a Daisy’s initiative to help her friend. “Why, we show her the way home, of course!” explained Ditzy.

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I thought a bit about how to get out of the Rorschach Test from Tartarus, careful not to turn around or take my eyes off the surroundings. It didn’t seem like they deteriorated as long as I kept my eyes on them.

Well, at first. Then I realized it was like watching paint dry. Literally. I noticed a small crack developing in the corner of one of the couches as I stared blankly at the setting, mainly because it was so distinct, so detailed compared to the washed-away mess of everything else. It started small, like a pencil being dragged lazily over canvas. It branched out, spreading throughout the space where the bottom ruffle would be as if it were a tree spreading roots at an unnatural pace. Of course, nothing was natural here.

I looked away, trying to find something else to focus on, when I realized all of the rest of the settings were doing the same thing. The end table looked like a crumbling boulder, the now-empty picture frames like ancient papyrus finally falling apart. Yet none of it crumbled, or broke apart. Like the cracks and spider-webbing on the surface was just that, a surface thing.

Yet again, a morbid sense of curiosity overcame me. I noticed in that moment, that for some reason I hadn’t run off screaming, or tried to climb the walls, when I was obviously either losing my mind or in some very deep extradimensional shit. I couldn’t explain it. The panic was there, obviously, but it was like it was being muted. All of my other emotions and senses seemed to work fine, but for some reason, possibly the fact that nothing had actually physically happened to me, just my surroundings, I didn’t feel the need to tear down the street screaming like I had earlier.

Which just worried me more.

I was pulled out of my reverie by something I hadn’t realized had been almost completely absent until now. A sound. Up until this slight crackling noise presented itself, there hadn’t been a peep. Like a silent horror movie had been playing out in slow motion in front of me. But there it was, a small, crickly-crackly sound, making its way around the room. It occurred to me that it must be the sound of the cracks in the furniture, and now, the walls, when my curiosity finally got the better of me. I reached up to paw gently at the couch, to see if maybe it would crumble away, or if I would merely take a layer of… whatever I was seeing off.

I felt a slight sticky feeling on my hoof as I lifted it, and glanced at it to see some white flakes had stuck to it, presumably from the floor. I looked down, and confirmed my suspicions, as I saw, where there once was a blurry, washed gray, was now a small hole in the empty facade, through which I could see dilapidated hardwood. It seemed almost vibrant in contrast to its surroundings, so much so that I rather preferred it. I dug at the hole some more, revealing with relative ease more of the same flooring, with its own cracks, and holes, and spaces between the floorboards. In fact, the “paint” came up so easily I felt as if I could blow it off.

I took a deep breath, and blew softly on the floor, watching with mild triumph as more of the surface gray gave way to the more firm reality underneath.

My sense of accomplishment was overshadowed, however, as I noticed that the slight breath I had given was somehow still going. Even growing. It broiled and tumbled around the room, gaining pace and force like I’d opened a floodgate, until the gale itself had torn away the rest of the dull edifice.

And suddenly I wanted the blurry paint back.

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Ditzy and Daisy were busy chatting about possible things they could to to help Roseluck find her way back. So far they’d come up with rolling a ball of string into the crack, shining a light in, or playing some music for her to follow.

Octavia, not keen on being second string to helping somepony in need, considered these options. “Well, even if she did see or hear any of these things, what’s to say she’d know to follow them? She could be seeing anything in… there.” She gestured to the space they had been contemplating to punctuate her statement.

Vinyl pitched in, if only to have something to say. “Yeah, I mean, music would work for me and Tavi, cause we’d follow a good tune anywhere. And, I mean, maybe string might work for you, Der-Ditzy, but she might be like, in a world of string right now.”

Daisy looked at her like she’d lost brain cells just listening to that. “A world. Of string.”

The DJ shrugged.

Ditzy, somehow seeing the logic in that statement, nodded. “Yeah, we’d need something she would definitely follow. Like, something she couldn’t ignore.”

Perking up, Daisy jumped up and down. “Ooh, ooh, we could leave her flowers!”

Vinyl winced. “Dude, she’s not dead yet. I think.”

“I should smack you for that,” grumbled Octavia. Instead, she turned her attention to the florist. “I see what you mean, Daisy. I don’t think Roseluck would be able to ignore a trail of flowers, or better yet, rose petals. So why don’t we go get some?”

Before anyone could nod their agreement, a loud roar of wind tore out of the gap, bringing with it a flurry of white flakes, and a despairing wave of cold.

“We might want to hurry,” mused Daisy, as the group took off for the flower stands.