Short Flights And Failed Takeoffs

by Snakeskin Ducttape

An Unannounced Visitor

Seen from the sky, the district would have looked almost completely square.

At the center of the city were the office-buildings and expensive restaurants. Moving northeast from there, you’d first pass through residential areas of varying status and quality, then to warehouses and businesses, hardware stores and car-dealers. After that, you’d reach the medium-and-light industry-sector of the city.

There, in the early hours of the day, the broad, heavy traffic-accommodating streets were overflowing with people going to work, leaving entire suburbs almost empty during work-hours. Then, nine hours later, the reverse happened. The streets of the small & medium-industry-sector were filled, and then emptied as the blue-collars and small business-owners went home to where society stored them between work-days.

It wasn’t an unusual sight to see stray cars and people after this, though. Most people who spent their days here knew what workaholics the owners of smaller business could be.

One of these not-unusual sights would be a woman stepping out of a car. What was unusual about this was her striking appearance in this bleak autumn afternoon.

Celestia’s gaze slowly travelled over the mostly-still surroundings, the somewhat sombre feel of the place being compounded by the grey sky, leaf-covered ground still wet from recent rain, and the dull sounds of car-tires on asphalt in the distance.

After consulting a note on her hand, Celestia walked up the asphalt-ramp between somewhat wild-grown bushes and birch trees, the effort of making an industrial-zone more aesthetically appealing not working as intended at this time of year.

It was a building of corrugated steel and reinforced windows. Heavy doors to accommodate the shipping of heavy equipment were placed next to a modest reception-entrance. The windows were caked with grime which seemingly obscured only darkness, the little of the interior which could be seen from the outside being dusty workbenches with worn tools and forgotten binders.

Celestia’s steps took her through a trail in the birch-leaves clearly made by a motorcycle. The leaves, she noted, seemed to have been accumulated for several years.

The door would held in place by a steel chain, twined several times around the large push-plate in black plastic, and one of the stout metal supports for the small roof sticking out from the building, which she was currently loitering beneath. It offered no hindrance to anyone anymore, though, one of the links having been severed and the chain hung beside the door.

She was entering uninvited, but not discreetly, as she did not come here to harm or steal. A few knickknacks and small pieces of junk, obviously from the factory-floor, were disturbed by the door as she pushed it open.

Inside, she was first met with a mess. The mat in the short hallway was absolutely filthy from use. Celestia had been certain she was in the right place before, but seeing the tire-tracks in the grime confirmed it. Sunset Shimmer lived in this place.

Beside the carpeting, the corridor Celestia found herself in only contained an umbrella-stand and a small, plastic palm-tree. As she took a few steps into the gloom, a sliver of trepidation crept into her chest at what she saw.

The umbrellas in the stand obscured a baseball-bat, and the pot hid a hammer. Celestia looked at them, hints of worry and contemplation playing across her face.

After noting that they were dry and somewhat clean, she pushed on.

A small, uninteresting, and almost empty office was to her left. She ignored it and walked on to where the left wall ended, opening up into the factory-floor, with some doors on her right.

The weak, grey light of a cloudy autumn afternoon was the only source of illumination, almost making the scene resemble a cave of monsters from some fantasy-story or other, but all was still and quiet

Celestia spotted a switch on the wall. Pressing it did nothing for a few seconds, until the fixtures hanging from the ceiling came to life, one by one. At least the survivors of seemingly long neglect did.

Celestia slumped slightly and let out a sigh. Sunset Shimmer had access to electricity, though that also have meant that one of her students might have had messed around with industrial-grade circuit-breakers.

Large parts of the factory floor were bare, though none of it was clean. Layers of dust covered everything from the fixtures hanging from the ceiling to the cold concrete floor, though some of the shelves seemed more like it was cocooned by it. A few areas were taken up by workbenches and tool-racks, mostly empty. A few worn hammers and pliers could be found here and there, but it was mostly junk and scrap, broken desk-lamps, pieces of plastic tags, and such, with a few scorch-marks around a rusty soldering-station.

Metal shavings littered the floor around an empty stand, hinting at what type of machine had once stood there, and the large shelves found alongside two of the walls were completely bare of anything but dust.

Celestia took it all in with with an almost impatient look, then walked back to the light.switch and the unexplored rooms. If there ever was anything of value here, it was long gone now. The few things that remained wouldn’t give enough scrap-money for a single meal. The only thing that stood out was a part of the wall beside the light switch, where an area the size of a textbook looked fresher and covered in newer dust.

Celestia eyed it with mild curiosity before dismissing it and turning off the light.

One of the doors led to a changing-room, with a toilet and a roomy shower area. Celestia was lucky that she was advancing as slowly and methodically as she did, or she might have tripped when her foot touched the large, thick plank nailed to the floor. She eyed the plank with curiosity before she noticed the longer plank leaning against the wall beside her, perfect in length to jam the door she had just entered through.

Switching on the light, she almost let out a small gasp at the sight, before she dismissed the fear with the help of reality.

A clothing rack and hat shelf-combo took up the long wall to the side of the door, where more than a dozen black garbage bags hung in a row, at first seeming like they could accommodate humans.

Celestia softly pulled at the edge of one of them, revealing only clothes in Sunset Shimmer’s size.

Opening the door into the shower-area, Celestia’s eyes narrowed slightly at another strange and somewhat uncanny sight.

On the tile-floor of the showers stood a faded, plastic patio-chair, together with a large numbers of PET bottles, a foot-bath tub, and a pair of kitchen-pots.

Shower-supplies stood underneath the same shower-head that the chair stood under, and the area directly around it was scrubbed relatively clean, standing out starkly against the surrounding tiles brown with chalk, soap-residues, and the occasional trace of mold.

The bathroom revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Only a single toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. Celestia set the tap to lukewarm and opened the flow of water. After twenty seconds, she felt certain that this place provided nothing but ice-cold, though thankfully clean, water.

Celestia walked out of the restroom-area and into what was apparently a break-room with a kitchenette. There, another collection of PET bottles and pots on the stove provided Celestia with a significant clue as to the purpose of the out-of-place objects in the shower.

A small amount of dishes were drying on a rack beside the sink, the cupboards revealing only a few more plates, bowls, and other kitchen-utensils, together with a few tin cans of fruit.

The table was empty, except for a few crumbs on the cloth beside a toaster.

A slight hum came from one of the fridges, that one containing some cartons of milk, some butter and little else. The silent one containing only cheap cereals and half a loaf of bread.

Celestia moved to the final and largest room, not counting the factory floor. This one was in the best shape, though it took a few moments to discern this, as the lights in the ceiling were missing, and the windows were covered up.

Moving forward to the desk, Celestia turned on the lamp sitting on top of it, and let out a small cry of shock when she processed what rested on the bookshelf behind the desk, the first sound she could not hold in for this little investigation.

Her short-lived confusion about the bare area on the wall in the factory-floor had been answered. In the bookshelf laid a pair of first aid-kits.

The supplies of one of them were half-depleted.

Celestia closed her eyes, and let out a long sigh before continuing.

The windows were covered mostly by old newspapers, duct tape, and pieces of curtains. The desk-drawers and bookshelves revealed a number of textbooks on her school’s curriculum, a number of book advanced beyond that, as well as a somewhat battered laptop.

At the far end of the room was an old couch with a floor-lamp next to it. The light from the desk didn’t reach that far, and the gloom hinted only of a shape lying prone on it.

Celestia walked softly towards the couch, but stopped when the light revealed a pair of empty tin cans hanging from the ceiling in a hook, connected by a fishing-line going out into the doorway. Celestia frowned, continued towards the couch, and turned on the lamp.

A makeshift bedding covered the couch. Stale newspapers lay on top of a pair of banners that had gone missing from a school sporting-event last year.

Celestia cautiously reached out a hand and peeled away the makeshift cover, revealing only more cloth. A torn off office chair-cushion in a pillowcase and one of the couch’s backrests made up the place to rest the head, while a duvet made up the base of the bedding, and an old trench-coat presumably provided some additional warmth.

In the stillness, Celestia had tuned out the faint, ambient sound of cars travelling in the distance. That all stopped when she heard a clear sound coming from the glass door she had first entered through, and she whipped up her head to better make out the almost-minute sound.

The sound suddenly stopped halfway, and Celestia hesitated. Unless Sunset had seen Celestia’s non-salient car, and only now registered it as hers, Celestia could not see what would give Sunset pause. No light spilled out from the windows, and she had disturbed nothing.

The sound of the door closing, and steps moving away from the door, told her that Sunset was more clever, and more paranoid, than Celestia gave her credit for.

As the steps suddenly became slower and heavier, and Celestia suddenly remembered the debris she had disturbed with the door on her way in. She peeled away some of the paper covering the window, it too being reinforced, to see Sunset Shimmer jumping on her motorcycle mid-run, and driving around the corner.

Celestia hurried out of Sunset’s ‘bedroom’, out of the building, through the tracks in the leaves, and onto the road, only to see a black-clad figure with a hint of fiery red hair beneath her helmet speeding away into the distance.

Author's Note:

Original title: A Dark & Dingy Dwelling.

A little writing-exercise as I'm psyching up for continuing MLAABQ. No dialogue, no inner monologue.

After reading a number of stories about what happened to Sunset Shimmer after Equestria Girls, I noticed that one of my favorite aspects of them were often about how she lives.

Extra credit to The Albinocorn and Eckaji for inspiring this. The idea of Sunset living in an abandoned factory is lifted from Long Road To Friendship, and after I read the second chapter of Eckaji's story, I wanted to try writing something similar about exploring a building. I haven't checked in with Eckaji about giving him credit here. Hope he doesn't mind

Comments

[Orbiting Kettle]

Nice, atmospheric piece. I thought I felt a certain affinity to Long Road to Friendship.

[Snakeskin Ducttape]

7573777 Oh, good. Makes sense, considering that's where I got the whole idea from. Atmospheric was what I was going for, which makes me consider it a success. Thank you

[DerpTape]

Very nice imagery. You really get the sense that Sunset has made this abandoned factory into her own, and you certainly convey her constant fear, making the reader wonder just what she has gone through already.

[Snakeskin Ducttape]

10003849
Ey, thank you. I haven't reread this in ages, but doing so just now made me a little sad. Good thing it was later confirmed that her living situation was a lot better than this