Stories of Nightmare Night

by RulerOfIce

Wandering Wreck

It was the middle of Autumn. Cold winds were blowing all over Equestria. It didn't stop ponies from doing their jobs or enjoying their free time, however. In Vanhoover a light yellow coated earth pony mare with a black mane and tail was trotting at the docks heading to her sailing boat. The docks were quite busy this time of year as ships were coming and going from abroad. She waved at the sailors who in turn waved back. She saw her boat safely docked at the end of the pier and smiled. She liked sailing in the Luna Ocean for the air was always so fresh.

As she climbed into her sailing boat, a dark blue stallion wearing a sailor outfit approached her.

"Heading out to the ocean, huh?" he asked the mare.

The mare looked him, smiling. "Yes, it's a perfect say for it. Plenty of wind and no storm on sight."

"Even so, I would recommend caution." the stallion said. "The weather can be quite unpredictable out in the ocean."

"Oh I know that." the mare said. "It's not my first time there."

The stallion looked at her for a moment before nodding. "If you say so."

The mare wondered why the stallion had come to warn her. She was quite known in the docks as she often wanted to sail in the ocean. Thinking nothing more about it, she released her sailing boat and cast off.

Once she got the sail up, the boat began to go quite fast as the sails caught wind. The mare relaxed as she steered the boat, taking deep breaths. She wondered if she could sail all the way to Luna Bay in the north and back to Vanhoover. She was certainly going fast and the sail was holding very well.

She glanced back where she had come from and Vanhoover was actually very far away already. She wasn't worried, though. She had gone much further before and always been fine and managed to come back even in the dark. She could read the stars and use them to guide her back.

As she kept thinking about making a trip to Luna Bay, she suddenly noticed the wind dying down completely and just like that her boat stopped. The mare looked at the sails completely baffled. The wind had been so strong the whole day and now there was no wind at all. She looked back towards Vanhoover. She could go back, but the day was still young and she felt like not much time had passed since she set sail.

"So much for sailing to Luna Bay." the mare said a bit sadly. "Oh well. I came here to relax and that's what I'll do."

So she took out a book she had been reading for a few days now and lied down on a chair. At least the weather was still good and there were no black clouds anywhere. She took a deep breath as she began to read.

But she didn't even read a whole page when she noticed a fog suddenly rising up out of nowhere. And it rose way too quickly as she found out she couldn't see very far anymore. She had zero visibility.

"What is going on with the weather?" she wondered. "Did the pegasi make a mistake or something?"

As if things weren't weird enough she was starting to feel cold and she could swear it was way darker than it was supposed to be even with the dense fog.

"Okay... okay... this is nothing to be worried about. Just the weather acting up, nothing more."

DING!

It was then when she heard something quite close by. Her ears perked up at it and she looked around. It was actually a familiar sound to her.

DING!

There it was again. Where had she heard that sound before? Then she remembered. It was a bell sound.

DING!

She looked towards where the bell was ringing and she went wide eyed at what she saw. It was a ship. A very big ship. Bigger than what she has ever seen. And it was moving right towards her and her boat.

"By Celestia..."

DING!

There was no time to move away and she knew it. The ship was going to hit the bow of the boat. She quickly moved to the stern of the boat and prepared for impact, feeling very scared now. She watched as the ship kept coming towards her.

Then the ship hit the boat... and she couldn't believe what she was seeing. The ship was in great disrepair. Multiple planks were missing entirely and the sails were ripped to pieces. But her eyes were on the bow of her boat. She saw the ship moving right through her boat, clearly hitting it. And before she knew it, the ship had passed her, moving towards the dense fog.

DING!

And then the ship disappeared into the fog, but the bell ringing could still be heard. The mare fainted.

DING!

---

The sailors back at the docks were almost ready to cast off when the stallion that had talked to the mare noticed a boat slowly nearer to the docks. He recognized it as the boat the mare had taken and sailed off to the Luna Ocean. he decided to go and say hi to the mare one more time before they left.

But once the boat hit the pier, the stallion was horrified at what he saw. She was definitively the same mare he had seen, but her coat color was now as white as sheet and the color of her mane and tail was almost as white.

When the stallion called out to her, she didn't respond, and when others eventually tried to get her to respond and couldn't, she was taken to the hospital.

The doctors were absolutely baffled and couldn't determine what had happened to the poor mare.

What none of them knew was that the mare was still hearing something off in the distance. A familiar bell, ringing over and over in her ears.

Author's Note:

This chapter was inspired by a particular episode from Moomin.

Also this is the last chapter as I don't feel like writing more chapters to this. I hope you enjoyed the stories here. Happy Halloween!