Pipes
Twilight awoke in the middle of the night. It wasn't a sudden awakening, like jolting upright from a nightmare in a cold sweat and gasping for air. Nor was it a calm alertness, as if she had been resting her eyes rather than deep in the warmth of pleasant dreams. Instead, she awoke slowly and groggily, her mind clinging to the dreams it was raised out of.
She had no desire to leave her bed, still wrapped snugly up in her covers. As such, she yawned, kept her eyes closed, and tried to drift off to sleep. It would not come easily.
Far off in the castle, faint but clear enough to draw her attention, was a sound: a steady knocking, like pipes in the walls. Eyes still shut, she wondered if Spike had awoken and gone to fetch a glass of water. Then some portion of her sleep-addled mind remembered that he was away on a trip for at least the next two days.
Sighing, she made a mental note to call a plumber the next day and then thought better of it and made an actual note. Even with her eyes closed, it was easy to grab her bedside quill and scribble the word "plumber" down on a piece of parchment.
Eventually, sleep came to her again, but the knocking continued. Twilight mused that it had a rhythm, almost like a gentle walk.
When Twilight awoke in the morning, there was no knocking of pipes in the castle. She wondered if her mind had simply imagined it in a haze of half-alertness, but still called the plumber. It was a few hours later, enough time to finish some paperwork and plan out the next two weeks’ schedules, when he arrived.
“You sure you heard knockin’?” Pipe Wrench asked, head buried into a section of crystal wall that Twilight had dislodged for him. He reached his hoof up towards the closest section of water pipes, feeling for any moisture on the walls.
“It was certainly like that,” Twilight said, shuffling a hoof against the floor. “I know it might be nothing, but… it was like thunk, thunk.” She imitated the noise as best she could.
After a few more moments of reaching and scanning his headlamp over the pipes, Pipe Wrench leaned out of the wall and rubbed his chin. “Well, I didn’t see any leakage, here or in the last four spots. Could be the town source had a pressure problem, but I haven’t gotten any news about it.” He offered a smile, and started walking down the hallway towards the stairwell that led to the basement of the castle. Twilight replaced the crystal wall segment, sealed it, and followed after him.
“Not to worry though, Princess. I know you might worry about wastin’ my time or something, but it’s best to be safe about these things. Longer you take to address the problem, the worse it can get.” Pipe Wrench trotted down the basement stairwell, Twilight staying close behind. Only his headlamp and Twilight’s hornlight lit the dark stairwell past the first few feet. “We’ll just shut off the main line into the castle and run everything for a bit. That should get whatever caused it cleared out. Easy enough for you to do if it happens again, too.”
Once they were at the bottom of the stairwell, Twilight flicked the light switch, illuminating the wide open area. There were a number of storage boxes littered about the room, though none were stacked in front of the more important electrical panels and pipes. Pipe Wrench shut the main supply valve off with a simple twist and then helped Twilight run the faucets throughout the castle until they were dry. Once that was done, he turned the main line back on slowly.
By the time they were finished it was late in the afternoon. Twilight handed Pipe Wrench a light bundle of bits—his fee plus a little extra for coming on short notice—and he accepted it kindly. A lingering thought finally surfaced in Twilight’s mind as he went to leave. “The knocking… does it usually happen when the water isn’t running?”
Pipe Wrench turned around. “Oh, sure, sometimes. I mean, water is always circulatin’ in the system. Can’t just have the pressure be low, or you’d have to wait minutes for a faucet to start runnin’. It was probably just some air buildin’ up. Could be a leak somewhere I couldn’t check, so do keep an eye out for any water damage.”
Twilight felt at ease and smiled. “I will. Thank you again.”
Just like in the morning, Twilight didn’t hear any knocking from the pipes the rest of the day and went to sleep soundly.
That night, Twilight awoke slowly again. There was no faint sound of knocking pipes to keep her awake, but she still had trouble sleeping. Tossing and turning, readjusting her covers and pillows, and even counting sheep didn't seem to help. Eventually, between sighs and grunts of frustration, she felt her mouth grow dry. “If I just get out of bed,” she mumbled to herself, eyes still shut, “I know it’ll be harder to sleep, but… Maybe some water will help. I can even grab a book on the way.”
With another deep sigh and her mind made up, Twilight threw the warm covers off of herself and slid out of bed. Her vision was blurry, eyes still half-lidded from sleep, but she walked towards the door. Then, she bumped head first into something. She took a step back, one of her forehooves rubbing at her head before drifting down to rub the sleep out of her eyes.
When she opened them, she was in the middle of her dark, shadowed room. There was nothing in front of her. She looked to her left and right, and then down at the floor to see if she’d knocked something over, but there wasn’t anything within a few feet of her. The dull pain in her forehead continued to throb. “Did I… maybe I was still more asleep than I thought,” she muttered to herself.
Twilight looked to the door on her right, still securely shut. “Just get some water and get back to sleep, Twilight,” she said as she trotted towards it. As she did, a cloud blocking the moon moved out of its way, and gentle silver moonlight began to fill her room through the balcony window.
Twilight slowed and then stopped. She tilted her head slightly to the side, eyes drifting to the right towards the shadow that mimicked her movements and then back to the still, dim shadow cast on the door.
She blinked once, twice, and the shadow didn’t move or change. She felt her legs tense, her wings fidget, and she slowly turned around. Taking slow breaths, she fought not to shut her eyes as one lingered on the dim shadow drifting towards the edge of her vision. Just as it was about to leave her sight, she jolted the rest of the way around and turned to put her back to the door.
The room was empty. On the floor, all she could see was the dim outlines cast by her curtains, swaying ever slightly in the still air of the room. There was no figure to cast the shadow between her and the window. She was alone. She repeated the facts to herself in her mind, but she still felt her heart hammering in her chest.
Breathing slowly in and out of her nostrils, she backed up towards the door. “There’s nothing there. Calm down, Twilight. Just relax.” She turned towards the door quickly and found only her own shadow projected against it. Her hooves shaking slightly, she opened the door and went out into the hallway.
The hall was much darker than her room, but a sliver of moonlight shone into it through the open doorway. She left it open and lit her horn, stepping out into the hallway. Soft, purple light shone on her path to the closest bathroom, but only reached far enough to barely illuminate the walls and doors on either side of her. Each were shut tightly, and only her own hoof steps echoed through the empty halls. Still, Twilight looked to her left and right over and over again, until she finally reached the bathroom.
She zipped inside and shut the door behind her. Not wanting to strain her eyes, she kept her horn lit, poured herself a glass of water, drank it, poured another, drank it, and then took the third back with her. As she shut the faucet off, she paused, the faint sound of knocking pipes coming up from a lower floor.
“It’s just a leak. You can find it tomorrow, Twilight,” she told herself, taking a deep breath and then trotting back to her room. She didn’t stop to get a book on the way, settling instead for the journal she kept in her bedroom. The knocking continued through the night, and Twilight fell asleep slowly, trying not to focus on it.
As her eyes grew heavier and her grip on the journal slipped away, she thought of how the rhythm was different this time. It was like quick trotting.
The next morning, the knocking was gone. Twilight checked every inch of every pipe in the castle, twice. She found not a drop of water leaking or any sign of water damage. After a shower, she shut off the main valve and drained the water by running the faucets, saving a bit of it to drink. With the water off all night, it would hopefully be fixed by the morning, and it certainly wouldn’t keep her up.
Twilight kept a few glasses of water at her bedside, along with two books to read. She fell asleep calmly with a book in her lap, just as the moon began to rise.
Twilight awoke in the middle of the night once more. This time, however, it was with a jolt. Her wings spread out as she bolted upright, knocking one glass of water onto the floor with a splash and shatter. She screamed from the noise, but kept still, one hoof on her chest above her pounding heart. Looking over the edge of the bed, she saw the glint of broken glass in the faint moonlight. “Shoot.”
She pushed her covers away and hovered out of bed, flying a few feet towards the door before setting herself down. “I need to clean this up before I forget. I just know I will, too.” As her heart calmed and her breath grew steadier, she placed her hoof on her eyes and rubbed the last fragments of sleep away from them. Her horn began to light, picking up the shattered bits of glass into a pile.
Out of the corner of her eye, in the center of the room, she saw a figure. Her horn dimmed, the glass dropping in a neat pile with a calm series of clinks, and Twilight turned her head towards it. There was nothing. The curtains swayed gently in the still air of the room, and wispy clouds began to clear from in front of the moon.
“Who’s there?” Twilight called out, walking towards the center of the room, where she was certain that whatever she saw, then and yesterday, had to be. Her mind, despite her alert eyes and pounding heart, must still have been clogged by the fog of imagined nightmares and phantoms. Twilight lit her horn, her eyes starting to shut as she reached for the light switch with her magic. In the moment it took to flip it up, her vision blurry, she was terrifyingly certain in what she saw.
There was a face inches away from her own. What features it may have had were impossible to say, but she knew that it was there.
As the lights came on, and Twilight’s magic faded, she kept her eyes shut. There was no noise except her own sharp, ragged breaths. When she opened her eyes to the glaring light, the last dark mires of sleep burned from her mind, she was alone again.
Then, she heard the knocking. It was faint, but not coming from one of the lower floors. Instead, she heard it from down the hallway. Twilight turned towards the door, reaching for the doorknob with her hoof, but stopped. The knocking was moving, growing louder and closer, and Twilight was certain it wasn’t in the walls. It was against the floor, and the rhythm was steady, a four-beat pattern that she couldn’t mistake for anything but a slow walk. Both of her hooves hit the door as she leaned her weight into it, her breath caught in her throat as she listened.
With every second, the knocking came closer and closer and, however impossible, Twilight felt it pounding louder and louder against her ears, to the point that she flattened her ears in a futile attempt to deafen it. The knocking, the steps, reached her door and then passed it. Their volume faded, and Twilight raised her ears again. Eventually, the knocking stopped entirely.
Finally, Twilight took the chance to breathe again, a shaky gasp of air that filled her lungs. Her hoof reached for the doorknob and slowly turned it. Its creak cut through the silence as she pulled it away and peered into the dark hallway. It looked no different, aside from the shadows that seemed to encroach on the light shining through the cracked doorway. Twilight saw her own shadow amidst the light. And then another, larger one blocked it out.
Twilight bolted into the hallway. She ran in the opposite direction that the knocking had gone, and flicked every light switch on the way not with her magic, but with her hoof. With every switch, she looked behind her at the empty, bright hallway, and saw that there was nothing there. Still, she continued to run. She darted into the bathroom at the end of the hall, and shut and locked the door behind her.
Only her rapid, shallow breaths broke the silence, until she called out through the door, “Look, Pinkie, Dash… it has to be one of you! You got a good laugh, yeah? I’m totally scared. Just… come out and I won’t be more mad than I already am.” No reply came and Twilight was left alone with her racing heart and raving mind.
She doubted what she had seen on some level, and even what she had heard, but another part of her mind didn’t doubt her senses. It couldn’t have been hallucinations or waking nightmares. It had to be real, but if it was, how could she have not seen it?
The knocking began again, but this time it was everywhere. Down the hall, within the walls, on the door, rattling it against the frame. Its rhythm was completely abandoned, nothing more than a cacophonous din of noise. Twilight flattened her ears and covered them with her hooves as she sank down to the floor against the door.
“Just go away! Just go away! Just go away!” she repeated against the onslaught, trying desperately to drown it out. It wasn’t going away. It would never go away unless she confronted it, and she knew exactly how to. The only time she’d really seen it, when she was certain it was not some imagined phantom. The one thing she avoided doing when confronted by it, afraid of what it would reveal. She steeled herself, stood up, and lit her horn to unlock the door and throw it open. A blast of magic flew from her horn and sailed into the hallway.
“Whoa! What was that about, Twilight?!” Spike called out, ducking to the floor. The bolt of magic hit the ceiling, dislodging a chunk of crystal in a burst of energy. There was nothing shown in the burst of magic light, aside from the shaking dragonling before Twilight.
Twilight’s chest heaved as she panted, her body shaking. She wouldn’t let her eyes close, and only pulled them away from the empty hallway behind Spike when he nudged her leg. Swallowing a lump in her throat, Twilight sighed and looked down at him. “Just… you scared me, Spike. Were you… Did you just get back?”
Spike slowly stood up, looking over his shoulder at the shattered crystal in the hallway. “Scared you? I thought someone had broken in with all the lights turned on in the middle of the night. Yeah, I had a late train in. There were some crazy delays or I would have been back before sundown.” He looked Twilight up and down, noticing her shaking limbs despite the smile she tried to keep. “Did you have a nightmare or something?”
Twilight took a few deep breaths, the rattling of her bones fading with each. “Yes, something like that. Glad to have you back, Spike.” Twilight pulled him into a gentle hug, her pounding heart finally calming. “Would you… mind sleeping in my room tonight? It might help me get some rest.”
Spike rolled his eyes as he hugged Twilight back. “If you need a brave, strong dragon watching over you, I guess.”
The two laughed and walked back to Twilight’s room. With a bit of effort, Twilight got back to sleep. The next morning, she had to sheepishly explain why the water was off when Spike attempted to take a bath.
The knocking of pipes didn’t come back the next night, or the night after that, or the week after that, or the month after that. Eventually, Twilight stopped laying awake in bed at night waiting for it. However, she never used her magic at night in the castle, to light her way or even just to flip a switch.
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A very worthy contest winner indeed, I should have known the spook-master would reign supreme ;)
The way you do this is very subtle, yet everything works seamlessly in conjunction to ramp up the fear. It's amazing how genuinely scary you can write Flash, because to unsettle a reader this much is not easy.
Smashed it mate
I did enjoy it. But in my mind, I don't think Twilight being Twilight would have just let it go. I think she would have constantly searched for the answer. Maybe try to communicate with whatever was there.
It's good, but I feel like even short stories need a real conflict. This is 90% lead up 10% anticlimax. Very atmospheric and realistic, but at the same time, it's very frustrating to read.
10074339
I don't feel like the best horror has conflicts. A conflict is something understood, it has an easily-defined flowchart. Primal horror, terror, is about not wanting to face whatever it might be, even if you have the idea it's just your imagination, there's also the chance that your imagination is just making light of the situation in an attempt to comfort you.
Conflict, it could be a thing, or someone, or some sort of accidental magic whatsit. These are things Twilight is good at dealing with. But what scares the smartest person around? Not the unknown, but what can't be known. What they don't want to know.
Interesting approach. I like the slow escalation.
You know that feeling?
When you KNOW you are alone at home?
But you swear you are closing more doors than you opened?
Have fun with that.
10074520
Heh, live with cats and dogs, and you will never know this feeling. Even if you lock the doors, they will find a way to open them.
10074473
A conflict doesn't have to be so clearly defined, but it does need to have a climax. As is, it feels like the story just ends- almost like there was some kind of word limit holding it back 🤔
I'm hoping this will be about Azathoth, but I'm guessing it won't be. Either way, looks like an interesting horror--I'll get to it once I've actually got free time, not five minutes I managed to sneak away.
A wonderful little story. There's a horrifying shade of insanity that hangs over every narrative beat. I was reminded of Edgar Allen Poe at several points: the knocking of pipes, like the thumping of the tell-tale heart underneath the floorboards, or the raven's relentless cries of "Nevermore!" Too often, we look to the horror genre and expect to see the knife-wielding killer in the mask, but the demons of the mind can be just every bit as frightening.
10074339
This is one of those horror stories that don't need a flashy end to be climactic. While it doesn't scare everyone, the horror comes from not knowing what was moving in the castle at night or why, and even more strangely, what would have the gall to haunt a powerful alicorn. Imagine being in your own home, knowing something moved through it, despite your best efforts to keep things out, and never know what it wanted or what it would have done had you confronted it.
Someone in the kitchen of my house dropped something during this scene, and I jumped three feet in the air.
It's........shone. Not shined. Sorry to point this out, but when people use this it drives me crazy. XD
This was so good! I can still feel my heart pounding.....I am so glad I don't sleep alone.
10075018
I didn't say anything about a flashy end, that's you. I said it had was anticlimactic, because nothing is resolved and there's never a real conflict, and just when it seems we're going to get it, it cuts off. What, exactly, constitutes confronting it? She turned on a light and it disappeared, she saw it and it vanished, she it it with her face and it didn't do anything, it behaves like a bad horror movie monster, looking to jump scare the viewer rather than actual harm anyone.
this reminds me of a Red Dwarf episode
Haven't read this yet but I am reminded of a wizard's advice from ICR where
"Sometimes, unexplained noises are best left unexplained"
10075084
Ah, so you want closure, not a climax. Those are different things. That's another aspect of horror I don't think you're able to appreciate here, not that that's a bad thing, we're all different. What's scary here is that there is no closure, no physical conflict resolved, just Twilight's (and by extension, our) uncertainty of what was really going on. Is she crazy or did something creep into her home, unobstructed, able to do whatever it wanted? And what did it want? Is the enemy real, or is it in her head? Does that mean it'll come back? When, if ever? This story plays on the fear of the unknown and a bit of helplessness, not necessarily the fear of being chased or cornered as the average, mediocre creepypasta will offer. I get that this sounds like a pretentious explanation and maybe a little offensive if you want to take it personally, but you don't have to have a horrifying description of something awful or a fight scene to showcase horror. Sometimes, all it can take to scare a thoughtful audience is something as seemingly inconsequential as a handful of dust.
10075175
Climax isn't by definition a moment of excitement? I really think you've misunderstood what a climax is, it's the moment of highest tension. Twilight never earns her feeling of relief at the end, so the threat is undercut. There is no decline, just a flat drop followed by some afterthought lines about how it didn't happen again.
The average, mediocre creepypasta also plays on "oooh what if something was in your room when you slept" and "footsteps approaching your door over successive nights" is literally a kid's horror story cliche. I think it might be wise not to talk down "mediocre creepypasta" for having chases when defending this story. It is pretentious, because you're talking down elements in a story you personally don't like because I criticised a flaw in the structure of the narrative. You spend half your post straw manning "this lacks a climax" into "this needs big scary monster or bad" then proceed to be smug about the fact that's not necessary. Maybe learn how to read other people's comments before you criticise them for "incorrectly critiquing" something.
Oh, and the story explicitly doesn't ask "will it come back" it says it won't at the end.
10075356
I'd agree in that this story is missing falling action. There's actual closure to it, too. Perhaps too much closure, since it leaves the reader a little bewildered instead of curious. Personally, it kind of felt like there wasn't much point in reading it, since everything was resolved without explanation or hints or anything. It's just "twilight got spooked in the night, but then spike came home, didn't say anything of note and from then on nothing bad like that ever happened again." It doesn't make me wonder what it was, it just makes me shrug and move on, as it feels like Twilight did.
The build-up was nice, it just felt like it was cut too short, like the writer themself got spooked and decided to give it a less creepy ending.
Have to agree with some of the opinions here. I do want to emphasize though how good I think the build-up was, my heart was actually racing with the tension created! But yeah it just sorta feels like something was about to happen, didn’t, and then everyone lived happily ever after. I was left feeling a really anxious “that’s it”? Why am I so tense for no real...pay off I guess? I don’t need full closure or explanation but it definitely feels like something that was meant to happen just didnt
10075764
Or, not to put too fine a point on it, like it was made for a flash fiction contest and the author had a limit on number of words. It sure is brushing 3000...
10075961
Actually, looking at the club, it may have been a time limit thing, so literally rushed...?
10074775
Thank you, now I'm imagining the hellish liping of Azathoth's attendants as terrible plumbing.
And you cannot CONCEIVE of the plumber's crack.
I used to live in a late 18th century mansion that was divided up into apartments and in its basement was an old cast iron steam furnace. The entire mansion was heated by the steam pipes that went to radiators throughout the mansion. I lived on the ground floor and on some nights you could hear the old pipes making "banging noises" as the hot steam traveled up through them. This story kind of reminds me of that.
I love me a good horror story. This was a good one. Kept you guessing, preys on your fear of the unknown, and keeps you wondering. Well done.
A good simple spooky story.
I shouldn’t have read this just as I’m about to head to bed. Great job.
this is a horror story but the thumbnail gives me "im really tired of this shit" vibes
The worst part is that my pipes actually did knock in the middle of the night... as I was reading this.
Well written but I’ve lived/visited/slept in too many centuries old houses/buildings/farmhouses/converted farm silos for it to really click.
10075961
10075998
I looked up the group and this was in their General Info Thread:
So yeah, this was most likely written in under an hour.
I was going to complain a little about it feeling like there was not enough near the end... but for a story written on a very short time limit, it's amazingly good.
10091821
To clear up some confusion:
The writing time we had for this contest was 48 hours.
We had a word limit of 3k with some breathing room.
However, if I had infinite time and words, the ending would have probably been the same.
Sooo freaking chilling, the scariest things are those not clearly defined and left to the imagination.
This was an excellent spooky story.
10101108
Well after all...
Nothing is scarier.
Finally got the review here for ya!
Ah, the classic unseen thing story. Was it real, or was it nothing? Paranoia, paranormal, or just beyond our our capibility to understand?
Really, I love stories like this, no matter how they end. From the classic lumberjack tales of the Hidebehind, to that Peter Capaldi Doctor Who episode, "Listen". Anything with this premise I love, it makes for good cozy reading and a barrelful of fun.
This tale was immensely enjoyable. Yes, it was short, but many good stories are. Although, may I put forth a theory? I know your prompt was "Sweating Bullets", so what if the apparition was Dave Mustaine? Nothing scarier than an angry political metalhead.
This story got unsettling in a few places here and there, especially the shadow and figure. *Phew* Nice constructed story.
This one gave me CHILLS. I need a blanket...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Pretty spooky