Previous Chapters Next
Close
1 - Smoke and Mirrors1,041 words
2 - Silence and Strangeness1,119 words
3 - Phantoms and Nightmares1,020 words
4 - Preludes and Panderings1,078 words
5 - Secrets and Lies1,141 words
6 - Mares and Stares1,099 words
7 - Knights and Pawns1,120 words
8 - Heroes and Villains1,109 words
9 - Castles and Spires1,073 words
10 - Winners and Losers1,153 words
Epilogue1,095 words

2 - Silence and Strangeness

Fluttershy's eyes snapped open. A scroll was sticking to her cheek and a quill to her foreleg. She'd fallen asleep making 'Missing Dog' posters late into the night, and had absolutely no idea whatsoever that shenanigans were going down outside. She blinked several times, rubbing her eyes and looking outside to get an indication of the time. The sun was high in the sky, blazing its presence near the peak of its journey.

"I slept all day?!" Fluttershy exclaimed, and leaped out of her chair. She pulled all of the posters she'd completed into a neat pile and tucked them into a saddlebag. Time was wasting, she hadn't meant to sleep that long! Then again, she hadn't meant to stay up as late as she had either.

"Courage!" She called, making her way into the kitchen. She had an entire cupboard filled with clean and empty doggie dishes, which she placed on the floor and filled with dry kernels and bits. The pink pup appeared on cue, and sniffed at the bowl, not entirely enthused but grateful enough to eat what was offered. He had not seen the strange happenings the previous night either, but was a bit more in tune with the spectrum of unusual occurrences. While Fluttershy was packing up her things into the saddlebag, Courage devoured the dry contents of the bowl and moved to the front door. It was this door that he flung open to get a better look at his surroundings, and the surroundings themselves that made his jaw drop and a howl to escape his muzzle.

Running to Fluttershy, he immediately began tugging at her saddlebag. Using biology defying logic that Pinkie herself would have scoffed at, he desperately warped his body into several different shapes. A lighthouse, a tugboat, a telescope. Then whined loudly. Fluttershy only looked down at him. "Do you have to go outside?" She asked cautiously, and moved to the same door Courage had just left. There she saw what he had seen... a thick blanket of purple fog two feet high that covered absolutely everything. Every alley, every crevice, every square foot of land covered by the ominous mist. It didn't seem to be threatening, but certainly wasn't normal. Then again, this was Ponyville, and normal had a very loose definition.

Stepping cautiously out into the purple mist, Fluttershy instantly found herself up to her underside in purple haze. There was only thick mist below, she couldn't even see her legs. The world itself might have ended a few feet away and she never would have known it. Courage leaped off the front porch onto her back, tugging relentlessly at one of her wings, still whining.

"We can't fly, Courage, it's much too damp. The humidity will weigh down my wings... and I'm scared of heights," she admitted. "Come on, just because it looks scary doesn't mean it is scary... that's what Twilight says. I do wish she was here, though," Fluttershy sighed, and began heading out into town at a snails pace, each step carefully tested to make sure there was still ground beneath.

"I'm going to regret this, I just know it," Courage complained, but remained on the pony's back. By no means did he want to be out by himself in this fog.

Turning the corner into town square, Fluttershy gasped. Courage peered over her head, at first confused by what startled her so. He didn't see anything... then realized that was just it. He didn't see anything. The square was silent and abandoned, not a single soul in sight; despite being late afternoon. There were no birds chirping in the distance, no crickets sounding off in the bushes. Not a single sound from a single pony could be heard or seen anywhere. Nearly a thousand residents of a thriving town were simply gone.

"Hello?!" Fluttershy called, venturing deeper into the square. There was no reply. She didn't like this at all, and began tacking up her Missing Dog posters as quickly as possible. She did not want to be out here any longer than was necessary, but if her friends were missing, she owed it to them to find an explanation. The posters took only half an hour to put up, she only had a few dozen of them, but there were more important things to attend to. Looking back at the dog on her back, she whimpered bravely. "We look around for a few minutes, then get back home and plan our next move, alright?"

"Uh huh," Courage agreed, though hesitant.

Rarity's Boutique was near the center of town, and the door hung open, motionless. There was no wind, not the slightest breeze. It felt as if time itself was frozen. Fluttershy peeked her head in the door, taking trembling steps inside.

"Hello?" She called.

"Nobody here, let's go before something bad happens," Courage insisted. He had enough experience in similar matters to know that whenever something looked spooky such as it did now, bad things were typically not all that far away. But being as though Fluttershy was his only companion for the time being, he wasn't about to part ways with her.

Not hearing him, or ignoring him if she did, the pegasus went farther in. Scraps of cloth were abandoned on the counters, half finished dresses left behind on their eerie pony shaped models. There was no reply to her calls, and no evidence of habitation.

Fluttershy moved onward, checking house after house, but every result was the same. Dishes still in the sink, food still on the table. And not a single living soul to be found, animal or otherwise. By the time she made it to Sweet Apple Acres, a few hours had passed, and being the dead of winter the sun was already starting to go down, casting red and orange light on the horizon.

She had no more answers, only questions. Ponyville was abandoned. She and Courage were all alone.

Looking around as they left the abandoned apple ranch, Fluttershy stepped back into the darkening purple mist, intending to head for home. Unfortunately, the pair of eyes watching her had other plans, and Courage had no trouble picking out the silvery orbs in the fading light. He howled with fear, jumping up and down on Fluttershy's back and pointing in terror.

"Oooooooooooooooooo!" He howled, and Fluttershy saw the eyes a moment later, yelped, and made a run for it.

3,898 views

124

Previous Chapters Next