Sorry, but mom is having a relapse right now. Could you come back later?

by Blue Blaze {COMET}

Meanwhile...

“H-Hello? Anypony home?”

Applejack trotted over the tiny yellow bridge over the stream to Fluttershy’s cottage. The building sat quiet, its roof bright green with the moss and grass that covered its top, the trees nearby still despite the breeze in the background. She adjusted her hat and took a nervous gulp.

The area was eerily quiet. Applejack audibly counted her hoofsteps up the path to the front door of the cottage, her eyes scanning the yard for any animals. There were none, and the grass stood perfectly still, pointing to the sky undisturbed and growing outward from the energy provided by the sun, which even then seemed dimmed in the area, even though there was not a cloud in the sky. Not even the steady flow of water beneath the bridge made much noise, the trickle of liquid dancing around rocks not detectable by normal Pony ears unless you were very close.

Everything seemed muted, and Applejack traced her eyes across the top of the land, reaching the front door without realizing. She figured that it couldn’t be possible. Fluttershy’s cottage was never this quiet, and even then the presence of animals would at least make the home outside of Ponyville not seem so desolate, and instead filled with life and activity, however silent it may be. Fear crept up the back of Applejack’s neck, and she got the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

“Fluttershy, honey? You in there?” Applejack called aloud, knocking on the door. There was no response, and the Earth Pony stood in front of the door awkwardly, her coat leaning on point, the mane on her head sitting in the normal knot along the back of her neck. She knocked on it again, more firmly.

Applejack could barely take it. She leaned over and checked through the round window to the right, her green eyes peering into the darkness inside. She could barely make out anything inside. The outside seemed so bright compared to the cottage, and she had trouble even making out the green sofa along the wall in the back of the living room. She spotted the shadow she was making over the light coming through the glass, and counted the motes of dust floating in the air, standing out underneath the warm afternoon sun. Then, her eyes caressed the coffee table and went wide.

There was a giant scratch in the table surface. Looking around, she also noticed that the cushions of the sofa were scattered all over the room, with the sofa itself slightly moved out of place, tilted away from the wall. The door of the tall linen cabinet at the far reaches of the room was ajar, with a number of its blankets lying across various surfaces of the place, some cascading down the shelves in the cabinet itself. Applejack barely made out the kitchen sink at the back of the cottage and was shocked to see the sink tap bent out of shape.

“F-Fluttershy?” Applejack called again, banging on the door. “Are you in there? W-What’s going on? Are you ok?”

Matted sweat was rolling down Applejack coat. She could feel her heartbeat quicken, and she checked her side to see if she was still alone. It was still too quiet, and she knew those dang critters could sneak up behind her at any time and pounce. She hit the door a few more times. She tested the doorknob to make sure it was locked and that she wasn’t making a fool of herself beating up the wood of the door like she was. “Fluttershy if you don’ open th’ dang door in the next couple seconds, Ah’m getting’ in th’ hard way!”

Applejack started counting in her head. She checked through the window again. The room was still dark, and there was no movement inside. She kept knocking.

“Fluttershy?” she asked. Taking a few steps back, she craned her head up and tried to see if there was any movement on the upper floor. It was a poor angle, but it didn’t seem like she was inside the house. Applejack considered checking around the cottage just to make sure that Fluttershy wasn’t outside, but if Fluttershy was outside she must have heard Applejack by then after the racket she caused. The other fact of the matter was that there were no animals in sight outside. Applejack reasoned if Fluttershy was outside the animals would be there too, right?

“Fluttershy, ah’m sorry about th’ door, but ah have no choice!” Applejack finished, having gotten fed-up with waiting, the panic in her chest growing steadily. She turned around, braced her weight against her front legs, reared up her back weight and threw her hind legs in a powerful buck.

Applejack almost expected the door to either give resistance before letting go or breaking before she got the chance to open it, but the old lock broke easily as the wood of the door swung open, slamming against the wall, the front having two distinct hoof-marks against the boards. Applejack turned back around, her gaze lingering on the broken metal pieces of the lock for a few seconds. The hole of the lock was completely ripped out of the door and took a chunk out of the otherwise sturdy cottage.

She winced. “Aw, hay. Ah think ah over did it.”

Taking a few tentative steps inside, the minute sounds of the open air outside shut off in an instant, and Applejack was suddenly aware that the silence that she surrounded herself with previously was nothing compared to this. There was simply nothing going on inside the cottage. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Dust was moving about everywhere, settling down on various surfaces in different places in the room. The normally bustling household was, for a lack of a better term, dead, and Applejack felt a shiver down her spine.

She wiped her hooves on the entrance mat when her front hooves nudged something on the floor. Looking down, she found Choir’s green saddlebags sitting right beside the door, filled with his books from his school still. Her eyes scanned the living room. More unease settled into her throat. There was a giant scratch in the coffee table. The cabinet was partially open, with blankets and towels unceremoniously dumped out onto the wooden floorboards. The birdhouses hanging from the ceiling were completely empty.

She quietly trotted across the room into the kitchen. It looked like a battle had occurred right in the middle of the floor. The tiles were cracked, the door on the fridge crooked, and there was a large garbage bag filled with broken objects in the corner of the room along with broken planks of wood. There was a faint waft of rotting food in the air, but something else caught Applejack's nose. It was a very familiar smell. She turned to the right, took two steps towards the garbage bag and untied the knot keeping it together. She winced when the bag opened with ease from the forces inside threatening to burst in any way possible. Her eyes squinted, but she held her sensitive nostrils over the compacted trash. A few whiffs were taken, and her eyes widened.

Apples. Old, rotting apples.

She stuck her hoof into the bag without hesitating, shuffling around, searching. Her tongue stuck out in concentration as her hoof poked some sharp pieces of broken plates and cups, ignoring the pricks of disturbance it had along her coat. She found something squishy, shaped concave. Pulling it out overflowed the garbage slightly on to the floor. She held up the object up to the light coming into the window.

It was a red apple, drained of life, its skin intact with the colour dulled. It appeared to have been rotting for a few days.

She spotted two distinct holes in the side of the fruit.

She ran out of the room, dropping the apple and releasing the bag, not bothering to close it and letting it spew its contents all over the floor. Her hard galloping could be heard from the edges of the forest as she sprinted out of the building, across the yellow bridge over the creek and through the path to Ponyville, underneath the tight canopy of leaves hanging over her. When sunlight burst from the end of the passage, she skidded to a stop, tilting her Stetson as she peered off at a sleepy Ponyville in the distance below, frowning.

"Darn kids. Why didn't ah see it earlier?"

Applejack made a beeline to the town's outskirts.

Comments

[Zilverfoss]

So, this still lives? Neat.

[Flare]

7745187

Very neat-orino

[RowanSkie]

Wow, I mean, wow.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Always good to see an unexpected update. The chapter itself does a good job of ramping up tension.

[ErikPhantom]

Huzzah life!