Staying for the Night

by All of the Above

1

The sounds of the morning were absent. There were no creaks of others moving around the house, there were no yawns and moans of the other family members. It was completely silent. Not a single noise made itself known. Either they were all saving their talents for another show, or they weren't ready to draw back the curtains just yet.

There was something off about her bed. She felt like she was sleeping on a stone slab with a blanket and a pillow. Her bed was softer. It made her feel safer. What she lied on felt cold and distant.

There was something off about the whole room. Instead of that strong scent of breakfast in the morning, there was an odd stench of rot. Not the smell of a decomposing animal rotting inside the walls, but... The smell of water in a murky swamp.

Morning noises were quiet. Though they were noticeably lacking, the sounds were definitely there. Small scratching noises, the ringing in her ears, the occasional creaking of the house. Whispers of the calmness radiating through the air.

Though her mind played the horror card, she refused the temptation to jump to conclusions.

As clear as day, she listened as the quiet noises morphed into voices. Quiet whispers that tempted her to open her eyes. They said things to one another. Though they were too quiet to pick up what they were saying, the last thing one of them scared her out of her wits.

Awake.

Though she was extremely hesitant, she opened her eyes as slowly as she could, wanting a chance to close them if something was staring right back at her. Her eyes were opened wide enough to know that there wasn't anything lying in her bed with her and her eyes were adjusted to the point to know that she wasn't staring at the same wall in her room.

The bed creaked as she tried to adjust herself. It was a heavy metallic sound, like two metal bars banging against each other, scraping against each other as slowly and intimately as possible. If there was anything in the room with her, it had more than enough time to hide in the closet.

Like owning up to her own lies, turning over seemed inevitable. If she didn't, the nagging feeling inside of her wouldn't leave her alone. As she began to roll over and her blanket slowly began tucking itself underneath her body, the bed creaked even more. It creaked so much that she wore it was going to break in half. So she slowed her movements. The bed still, but it felt like it was settling. She made her eyes close to a point where they looked closed, but she could still see out of them. The white ceiling above her passed by her like a train beginning to make its journey to a faraway destination.

To her chagrin, there was something else in the room with her. It stood in front of a mirror. The creature was small, almost squirrel-like. But its colors were all wrong. It lacked the fuzz and certainly didn't look as inviting as a squirrel did. The entirety of the creature's body was colored black. Strips of white silently crossed its body like an artist erasing its work off of the creature.

The strange animal didn't stay long. Sensing that the mare was beginning to get up, it immediately left the room like it was afraid of her.

She put one hoof on the ground. She left it standing there. If there was anything under her bed, it would have been tempted to go after a little snack at the first sight of pony flesh. However, this was not the case.

A monster would have shown itself by now. She made the assumption that there wasn't anything else in the room with her. And she felt no need to prove it.

She set out on a quiet, slow endeavor to the door. She couldn't hear anything coming from the other side of the door. Either the house wasn’t inhabited by ponies or whoever lived here was out. Hoping and praying that the latter was true, she softly pushed open the door. It led to a small hallway. Besides that door, there were three other doors. They all were closed and decrepit. A small knock and those doors would be toppling over like a domino.

Looking to the right, she saw a living room. It wasn't too large, nor was it too small. The perfect size for a happy family of four. She could imagine the family sitting around a coffee table, throwing dice around and laughing all through the evening. Although the atmosphere of the room wove a nice story for the children, the furniture spun a much bleaker tale. But despite the look of it all, the bare living room could have been cozy enough for the poorest of families.

Before the living room, there was a door frame with no door in it. A small crackle and sizzle made itself more than apparent. She caught the lingering smell in the air. She expected the scent of anything in that house was going to smell the way it looks. But this smell was pleasant. The uncharacteristic stench was more than a welcomed gesture.

Hoof after quivering hoof was the moving pattern for the next little while. With each hoof that managed to land on the ground without setting off a nuclear explosion, a whole minute had to be reserved for waiting and listening. And so it went: Step, listen, step, listen, smell, step, listen.

She had made it to the open doorway after an excruciatingly long quest. The smell was overflowing her nose, and she was beyond curious to find out what was cooking in the kitchen.

Surprisingly, there was nopony there. There wasn’t even a sign that somepony had ever taken a step into the kitchen. There weren’t even signs that ponies had ever lived in this house. So far, the only things she’d seen that could prove that this house was halfway inhabitable was the bed she woke up on, and even the house itself. She’d heard of houses being deserted before they were completed, but this house seemed like it was built to be deserted.

Aside from the pancakes, that is.

The pancakes were perfectly cooked in a rusty skillet. The oven they were cooking on looked old. Not as old as the oven she had at home, but still old. There wasn’t a burn anywhere to be found on the two pancakes. Just staring at the basic breakfast food made her mouth tingle with hungry excitement like a fat pony at a buffet.

One little bite couldn’t hurt.

And no, it didn’t hurt. If anything, it made her feel a bit more alive. Suddenly, the house felt a bit more inviting. The lighting that managed to illuminate the place was a tad brighter. Perhaps it was the morning sun coming over the mountains outside.

As she thought of the outside world, the feeling of unease slowly crept in on her once again. Whoever resided in this house probably didn't like the fact that some mare just woke up the extra bedroom and ate their pancakes. She prayed to Celestia that whoever lived here wasn't the angry type. If somepony even lived here. There was plenty of evidence to support this theory. Except for the pancakes. Who made those?

She left the unfinished pancakes on the skillet. Hopefully, she wouldn't be there long enough to see the fireworks go off.

She left the kitchen the same way she arrived. The same living room area plus a stairway to freedom. Descending the stairs somehow felt like she wasn't really leaving this place. There was a distinct feeling inside of her that she would somehow still be trapped in the house

An abundance of light shone through the cracked window that the door sported around proudly like a local team jersey. Though the house was lighted fairly well, that light was brighter than ever. The mare pushed the door open as carefully as she could. The door squeaked, and she stopped moving it. She listened carefully. There wasn't a sound to be heard at all.

At her home, whenever there was a squeaky door, she shoved it open as fast as she could and the squeaking would only sound when the door was wide enough to be opened. At that point, you could walk through it and run as fast as you can to get out of there.

But since she didn't care to be seen-if this went her way she wouldn't have to be as careful-she swung the door wide open. The outside world was like a lovely feast prepared just for you. She dove right in and began cherishing the kind gesture.

But what she thought was a kind gesture wasn't well-prepared at all. The food was rotten, left in the rain to rot and decay. There was no other life. Overgrown trees and sickly skies were all the eye could see.

She hesitated. The promise of greatness was spat upon by her high expectations. An outside so vile and barren was likened to a long deceased, infertile mother. And it wasn't until a dead pony's smell struck her nostrils like a speeding bullet that the comparison might not have been entirely based off an exaggeration.

The front lawn was as dead as a door nail. The grass was lacking so much color that it seemed to have been devoid of color since its creation. It was like a blank piece of paper, crinkled up and dirty from the grime and filth of a foal's hooves, but never written upon. Rusty metal fence posts on the perimeter of the lawn prevented anypony from leaving or entering. The only exit/entrance was a small crack in between two posts that might have been wide enough for a mare in her late twenties to escape from.

The smell was getting to her. She began breathing from her mouth and stepped off of the front porch.

As soon as her hoof touched the soiled grass something seemed to awaken. The sound of buildings falling overplayed throughout the empty outside as something began stirring somewhere over the horizon.

She couldn't tell what it was. She knew it had to be huge, and she knew it had to be monstrous. Nothing else could have made a noise like that. Celestia forbid if she actually saw it up close.

She set all four hooves on the dead grass. Throwing what little caution she had to the wind, she ran off the lawn. The plan was to run. However, the ground beyond the lawn was icy hot. It hurt just to be near it. The pain seemed to dissipate the longer she stood in it, so she decided to endure the pain. This was preferable to whatever monster might have lived in that wasteland.

Her original assessment of the situation wasn’t what she expected. The ground hurt just as much. But nothing can get through life without a few rough patches. The pain wasn’t all that bad to her.

She managed to get through eight feet of the icy floor when something she didn’t want to hear came blaring for all the world to hear.

The front door of the house was forced open. It smacked against the side of the house’s wall. Hoofsteps began running to her.

The creature from the distance was approaching as well. From her peripheral vision, she saw it.

It wasn't as large as she thought. It was small, almost the size of a taxi cart that could hold four ponies at once. It was fast. One second it seemed a mile away from her, nearly out of her eyesight completely. The very next second it looked to be five-hundred feet away.

The creature slid to a stop. While trying to stop, it ripped out parts of the metal fence posts like they were crayons out of a box by a little anxious colt.

She got a good look at it.

It was bipedal. Two large feet and hands with claws that looked like they were stabbed in there. Its skin was supremely pallid gray like it had been dead for years. Its head was round, eyes lazily plopped into their sockets. White, blank eyes stared at her with blistering fury.

The monster screamed as it skidded to a screeching halt. Loose gravel rained from the sky as it acted as the monsters breaks. She shielded her eyes from the hard precipitation. As the dust settled, she lowered her hooves from her eyes to see the carnage staring directly into her eyes.

The monster began mashing its jaws at the mare with burning hatred flowing through its veins. The monster raised its hands. The mare couldn’t do anything but look up at the beast and stare.

For a second, and only a second, there was nothing. The mare had stared death right in the face, and death was more than willing to take her away at any moment.

And yet it gave her this moment. This one, tiny moment to recollect herself. Moments like this were a mystery. You never knew how long it would last, and it often would never let the moment go on. She thought about her family. She thought about the ones she loved.

The Apple family whizzed by in her thoughts. All the happy memories of playing with her older brother and little sister. The sad moments. Visiting her parent's graves as the sun mockingly shined like it was a glorious day.

The beast let the moment pass. In the blink of an eye, the beast lunged forward. She was frozen with fear.

She felt a hoof grab hold of her. With as much strength as it could muster up, it yanked Applejack back and the monster barely missed her. It gnashed its teeth angrily as its only meal retreated back to its safe haven like the coward it was.

She didn't even move. The beast made a poor attempt to go after her. The fence posts could have been easily broken down, she even saw it yank out several just trying to get to her. But the beast behaved like a coward itself.

As she was dragged away from the monster, her life seemed to come back to her. In the confusion and discord of the situation, the only thing that came to her mind was a lack thereof. Thoughts were chipped away from her psyche.

The monster pawed at the ground. Dejectedly, it left her behind the fence. Growling softly, it hung its head low and sauntered off. It entered like a roaring manticore but left like a dying sheep.

She found herself letting out all the air in her lungs. She felt a few sobs breaking through every now and again, but she managed to keep those down. Crying in front of another pony wasn't something she was comfortable doing.

Applejack sat in front of the metal fence, staring off into the nothingness. The pony that dragged her back into safety sat next to her. He was a stallion, more than likely in his very early thirties. He was a unicorn, but his horn was too small. It was like it was cut off and it grew back to that size. His mane, which desperately needed a haircut, was black and brown, which his tail managed to replicate. His skin was white, nearly to the point of blankness.

Applejack wouldn't say anything. She couldn't even let out a simple grunt. The only thing she did was breathe and blink.

"Hey... did you eat those pancakes that were in the kitchen?" the stallion asked.

Applejack nodded.

"Those were my pancakes."

Comments

[Tazmaniac]

Not bad. Looking forward to see if this continues

[Sea_Swirl]

Lol. Applejack almost gets eaten, saved, then cries her eyes out and all he could say was: "Those were my pancakes" Hahaha!! You should make this a romance story, looking forward to more!

[RavenFire2908]

umm... you still there?

[All of the Above]

6181811
Yes.

Give me a little bit.

[RavenFire2908]

6182503 ok, I just miss the story...

[All of the Above]

6182507
I'll try to hurry. Got life to take care of and all.

[RavenFire2908]

6182513 I understand