Stories of Nightmare Night

by RulerOfIce

A Long Ride

It was raining hard as a young earth pony mare left her work as a restaurant chef. It had been a hectic day for her despite the rain as there had been a lot of customers, all of who had big orders. It was good for business no doubt, but filling those orders had been very exhausting for her. She barely had any strength left to put up an umbrella on her. She just wanted to get home as soon as possible.

"Stupid rain..." she said.

She noticed a public carriage across the street and smiled. That's exactly what she needed. She walked to it and looked at the pony who was attached to it.

"Excuse me, is this carriage free?" the mare asked.

The pony looked at her and the mare suddenly got goosebumps. The pony was a pale looking stallion who looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. His eyes looked... empty. He nodded.

The mare slowly went into the carriage, glancing at the stallion several times. She suddenly felt nervous. But the heavy rain reminded her why she was even there and all the doubt went up in smoke. Once she was inside she took out a newspaper from her saddlebags.

"Trotter Street, please. And hurry." the mare said.

She felt the carriage starting to move and looked outside, not seeing anything but blackness. So heavy was the rain. The mare looked at the magazine and began to read it. However it quickly became evident that there were no interesting news. Equestria had been quiet for quite some time. Nothing was happening.

The mare began to feel even more tired than before and her eyes began to close. The carriage continued to move without a hitch. It wasn't even shaking even though the wind was blowing hard. With nothing to do, the mare closed her eyes and somehow managed to fall asleep.

It felt like the mare didn't get much sleep at all as she felt the carriage stopping. Opening her eyes, she immediately took notice that the rain had stopped. Since the carriage had stopped, she assumed they were at the Trotter Street. She disembarked the carriage and thanked the driver without looking at him. She still felt very tired.

It was then when she noticed something odd. Her surroundings were very different. As she looked around, she realized she had no idea where she was. She looked back towards the carriage, only to notice it was gone, and on the wall she now saw had a sign. It said "Trotter Street". The mare shook her head in disbelief. This couldn't be the street she grew up in. All of the buildings and street lamps looked too different. As the mare walked forward, a newspaper flew onto her legs. She picked it up and went wide eyed and quickly looked at the magazine she already had.

The year on the newspaper she picked up was 50 years from the future.

The mare couldn't believe it. It had to have been a typo. She began to run home now. But then she suddenly stopped in shock. The house she looked at right now, her home, wasn't there anymore. It was just an empty plot of land full of grass. The mare also noticed a cross in the middle. She slowly went to it and finally fainted.

The cross had her name on it and the date of death was the same day she had gone home from work and taken that carriage.