Cantertale

by ReachForThePie

Falling Down

It's a pleasant summer afternoon, the clouds drifting lazily across the azure sky, vibrant green leaves dancing and rustling in the warm breeze.

Birds flutter and chase one another, some settling in the foliage, others resting on the roofs of dilapidated and overgrown houses. This valley cradles the remains of a town not lived in for many years, the once-bright and colourful walls of homes and stores now worn and dulled by mother nature's tough embrace, used only now by wildlife.

Long ago, this place had been called Ponyville. None of the humans knew its name, only that it had never been inhabited by their kind. Now, nobody, Equestrian or human, lived here. Only the birds and the mice, the rabbits and the deer. All was quiet, all was peaceful.

You sit surveying the expanse of what once was a town from a small hill, basking in the shade of a large oak tree and observing the activity of the animals amongst the ruins. The sun, large and bright and golden, hovered above, behind the sporadic clouds which carried on their merry way from West to East.

About a mile beyond the town, the foot of Mount Canter begins to rise upward, its gently sloping peak raising into the sky, the highest point for many miles. You'd heard so many rumours about it, about what lay inside and underneath it. But was any of it true? Well, there was only one way to find out. Today was the day.

Crossing the town to get to the mountain, it really did look as if life had frozen in this little town. Wagons, boxes, belongings, all strewn hither and thither, as if a mass exodus had taken place. It was quite unnerving, and you found yourself feeling uneasy, certainly not wanting to be caught here after sundown.

House after house, street after street was desolate and soundless. Even a large, grand building, the remains of the town hall most likely, seemed soulless and unwelcoming. What on Earth could have caused this? Bedtime stories led you to believe that the ponies of Equestria were always opposed to co-existing with the humans, and open conflict, from which humanity emerged victorious, led to the exile and imprisonment of the evil pony aggressors. You wondered how much of that was true, you always had. The remains of this seemingly pleasant, colourful town, the picture of innocence, was only reaffirming your belief that not all was as it seemed with the stories you'd been told when you were little. Your desire to continue forward and find out more increased with each step towards the mountain.

The rising slope loomed closer and closer as you left the town behind you and made your way across empty fields, sporadically dotted with foliage and the occasional shack or empty cart. You felt the ground gradually begin to slope upward beneath your feet. Fifty feet or so above was what appeared to be a small plateau on the mountainside, surrounded with trees and bushes. That looked as good a place as any to search for some kind of entrance, the rest of the face of the mountain was barren, only grass or small shrubs swaying in the wind across it.

The slope had become quite steep by the time you'd reached the plateau, the ground rolling back into a near-flat surface which you stepped up onto. The small plateau became dark quickly under the canopy of trees, the vegetation thick further in from the edge where you were standing, but something resembling a path seemed to subtly cut its way through the mess of green.

Following the faint trace of a path, you pushed through the bushes and tall grass, before noticing a large, yawning space behind a mass of hanging weeds and vines. An entrance to something? Turning around, the town looked small from up here, the quiet buildings still silently standing in the valley below you in the distance. The thought of turning back and going home flickered in your mind as you saw the pleasant sunlight drenching the countryside beneath, but you quenched that thought and turned once more, pushing forward towards the chasm between the mass of trees.

Pushing through the curtain of weeds and vines, a very dark space swam into your vision as you stepped over the invisible threshold - outside to inside. There was a faint light a few dozen feet ahead, there must be a hole in the ceiling. Stepping forward carefully, you approach the only point of reference in this light-starved cavern. Getting closer, the illumination of the floor and walls increases, and you can see that this open space in the grey rock around you is quite large, with some vegetation snaking across the floor. In the centre of the natural room is an opening, an almost-circular hole in the ground. You walk over to it, squat down, and dangle your feet over the edge. Looking between your legs down into the space, a patch of amber flowers rests upon a grassy knoll, illuminated by the sunlight flowing in from the opening directly above it. It's a good ten feet down, but the flowerbed should break your fall.

If you commit yourself to going down, you won't be able to come back this way. It's quite a risk. But the tidiness of the flowers, the clean, cut grass... someone must be down there.

After a few moments of deliberation, your mind is made up - your curiosity overtakes any sense of fear or hesitation.

You slide yourself forward, gently tipping over the threshold, falling down onto the flowers which quietly whump beneath you. Laying on your back, you slowly open your eyes, disturbed pollen floating around and above you. Overhead, you can see up out of the hole, the clear blue sky and the fluffy clouds still unchanged. You contemplate the fact that you might not see that sight again for some time.

It's pleasant, laying here against the yellow flowers. But you can't stay here forever. The natural light illuminates a corridor ahead of you, the only way out of this room. You stand and brush yourself down, turning to look at the flowerbed. It's obvious now that it's maintained by somebody, and you suspect that somebody isn't a person.

Comments

[Xenomorpher]

This intro is very good and well written! I also think that you managed to write a great description! I love Undertale, so it's always great to see a story based on it.