Six Shooter

by Equimorto

The Feathered Ends of Sanity

"There once lived a young pegasus in a city up on a mountain. He was a great flier, the best of his age and likely the best the town had ever seen if the elders were to be believed. But he was careless. He would often stay out too late, flying even when the visibility was too low. Wind, rain, even hail, if he decided that he wanted to fly there was no weather that could make him change idea. To his credit, he'd never gotten hurt, despite flying inside more than one thunderstorm, but many thought he'd simply been lucky. He knew it was because he was that good.

But there was one thing his parents had strictly forbidden him from doing, and that was flying when The Mist came. Not the normal mist, not that hazy vapour that came up from the ground, not the occasional cloud floating too low, but The Mist. They spoke of it like some kind of monster, like a ghost that snatched away ponies that weren't careful enough. They said that it came when the wind blew from north-north-west, and that it lasted for a day at most, but every time he asked more about it they all went silent. He'd never seen it, but he'd been told he would recognize it if it ever came during his lifetime.

He did. It wasn't like anything he'd ever seen. It was like a wall, a smooth white surface that blocked all light, an avalanche slowly approaching the city. He saw it while flying over the outskirts of the town, and immediately went back to warn the others.

Back in the town, those who had noticed The Mist were quickly setting aside their daily activities and warning the others before closing themselves in their homes. Some were shaking in fear, and some looked at The Mist with hate. He found his parents, who were both frantically searching for him, and as soon as they met up they all locked themselves in their house. Then, his father made sure the window was locked and locked him in his room, to make sure that he wouldn't try to run away.

The young pegasus saw The Mist descend on the town from his window. It was almost like staring into a glass of milk, there was nothing to see but that nebulous white substance that hid all other shapes and forms and colours. He got closer, losing himself in that sea of nothing. He felt it call to him. And why should he not have followed that call? He was the best flyer in the whole town, and that was just mist. At worst, he would have had to wait a day for it to clear, something he knew he could do if he saved his energies while flying, and even if he accidentally ended up carried away with it by some particularly strong current he could just land, since the forests were safe in that area. And besides, wasn't an occasion like this the reason he kept a copy of his window's key hidden in his room?

Disobeying his parents' commands and ignoring everything he'd been told, he opened the window and began to fly in The Mist.

It was weird at first, more like swimming than flying, the air strangely dense beneath his wings and his mane and feathers almost drenched in the white substance he was immersed in. He found moving through it somewhat harder than usual, though nothing too hard for an expert flyer like him. His visibility was practically non-existent, he couldn't even see his own hooves and he could almost feel The Mist pressing itself on his eyes. Curious, he decided to fly higher and see how tall the thing was.

Too tall. He'd couldn't be sure of how much he'd gone up or of how much time he'd spent flying, the complete lack of reference points and natural light making it impossible to tell anything in that white sea he'd thrown himself into. The temperature wasn't helping either. He felt colder, but it wasn't the type of cold one felt when going higher in the air. It was more like The Mist had been cold from the start, and it had slowly drained heat away from him. He decided to go back down.

He closed his eyes and his wings and let himself fall, but moments later he stopped. He didn't know where he was. He might have been closer to the ground than he thought, maybe he'd been moved by the wind to be over a mountain or maybe he'd been kept down by a current. He began to descend in circles, and to keep track of time he started to count.

One, two, three, four, five...

...ninety two, ninety three...

...three hundred and five, three hundred and six...

...six hundred and fifty... seven? Eight? No, he couldn't have counted that much. He had to have lost count. Maybe he should have counted the circles-No, he had no way to tell where one ended and the next began. Everything looked the same there. Hadn't he passed in that place already? Had he even moved at all?

He was tired. Too tired. He couldn't have been too far from the ground. He closed his wings and eyes and let himself fall. Moments ticked by, then what felt like minutes. Nothing. He opened his eyes to his cold white prison. Was he even falling? He began to flap his wings, trying to go up. Or was it down? Was there a direction in there? Was he even flying? He couldn't tell. He was cold, tired, his limbs didn't feel anything any more. He was floating there, without a direction, lost in The Mist, his wings slowly beating out of instinct as he desperately looked for a place to land.

And to this day, he's still there, trying to escape from The Mist."

Applejack looked at Rainbow with a frown. She growled a bit and gritted her teeth, then finally threw her hooves up in the air. "Okay, fine, that was good!" she loudly said, halfway annoyed.

Rainbow Dash smirked.

"So what do you girls want to do next?" Twilight asked.

"Well, actually," Starlight spoke, "I wanted to tell one too."

"Oh, of course. Are you girls alright with that?" Twilight looked at the others, and they all nodded.

"Perfect." Starlight sat closer to the fire, where everyone could see her. "Not too long ago, in a small village near a forest..."

Comments

[Antiquarian]

Again, very Twilight Zone. Much better than some gore-fest for playing with the mind.

[Princess Estrella]

That would be scary too. As much as I love karate, if I was stuck doing it forever non-stop, I don't think I'd like it very much anymore.

[omegasnowfall]

also very nice!

[Allsmiles]

(Hmmm, good. However it ends a bit too quickly. A bit more mounting desperation, a bit more focus on how it broke his mind, and maybe a mention of time passing but not growing hungry, being tired but not being able to stop flying, etcetera. But it is a disturbing concept, and while close to her heart, Rainbow Dash does end it with something that would be scary to anyone, being eternally trapped. So good.)

[AisheyruFox]

Thank you Rainbow! Much scarier! Not quite as terrifying as Fluttershy's, but pretty dang close.

....
It just needs to be 20 percent scarier.