Absence Of Life

by AnnEldest

Part One: The Same Song

“Cozy?” Luna sighed. Cozy only stared at the ground as she whimpered in fear. “You know we saw you?”

"Ummm what? What do you mean?" Cozy tried playing dumb.

"Cozy, I was hoping you wouldn't have lied to me. Now I wouldn't say Discord is the most trustworthy but I don't think he has any reason to lie when it comes to saying that there is a child following us into perhaps what is known to be the most dangerous place in Ponyville," Luna said flatly without even a flinch.

"Maybe he saw wrong?" Cozy chuckled guiltily.

Luna only stood up from the bed and trotted past Cozy. "Very well. Knowing that you are not allowed to leave the school, I should bring my concerns to Twilight. We wouldn't want any of her students getting hurt now would we?"

Cozy zoomed in front of Luna, blocking the door. "Okay, okay! I was following you guys. But I had good intentions."

"And what were those intentions?”

“I just wanted to know what attacked my friend and it seemed like you two knew.”

“Well we don’t,” Luna sighed. “That’s what I was trying to find out.”

“But you asked if it was supernatural and you seemed scared. Then I heard your friend mention something called "The Fallen" at the hospital. Then Discord talking about all that weird ghost stuff.”

Luna raised a brow.

Cozy cleared her throat. "Okay, I also might have listened in on you as well."

“Well,” Luna chuckled. “That’s just Discord being Discord, don’t mind him.” Luna watched as she saw the scared concerned look of the little pony.

"Then why are you here? This has to be something important if you're involved with it." This was probably the thing that confused her the most and Luna could tell by the stare that she gave her.

"Listen, not that this is any of your business but if you must know, I was investigating a disappearance that happened a few months ago and it was very similar to what happened to your friend. I was just figuring out if they were connected," Luna explained herself very calmly.

"So it's nothing Supernatural?"

"Of course not. Now, who else is with you? "She asked firmly.

Cozy almost considered just telling it was her but she had a feeling that Luna already knew the truth." Look, it was my idea. They only follow to see what was going on I guess. We all just wanted answers."

"You may have had good intentions but that doesn't excuse you either. You literally told me this morning that breaking the rules was what got your friend hurt."

"I know...I'm sorry."

“Look,” She sighed. “I won’t tell Twilight that you left the school if you stop following us, alright.” Cozy nodded in response. “If I figure out what attacked Sandbar, I'll let you know.”

"Promise?"

"Of course, young one." Her eyes shifted away from Cozy for a quick moment.

Cozy stepped away from the door. "Wait, just out of curiosity, what is the Fallen?"

Luna signed heavily as she took a moment on how to carefully answer it. "Well it's kind of complicated but to sum it up they were basically a monster army that was made from the demon master of Hell himself. Some consider them demons but they weren't exactly demons, just monsters made from the Netherworld. It's just really complicated stuff." She stood her head.

Cozy tilted her head to the side. "I never heard of them before."

"That's probably because it's not really Equestrian. The Fallen came from old tales from other countries. I would be very surprised if even someone as much as a bookworm as Twilight would know of it." Luna pointed out so casually. Her eyes then widened open as a thought came to her mind. "Of course. It's not Equestrian."

Cozy watched as Luna stormed out of the room without saying another word.

“Umm okay then…”

She slowly trotted back to her bed. A frown covered her face as she groaned. She tried to get something out of the princess but it was in vain. She knew that something odd happened in that house, and she had a feeling it wasn’t over.

There was a knock on the door. Moments later the door opened and Smolder, Yona, and Ocellus walked in as they saw an overwhelmed Cozy Glow.

"I can't believe you guys did that. Are you crazy? You could have gotten us all in trouble! "Ocellus yelled at them.

"But we didn't," Smolder snapped.

"Because I covered for you guys," Ocellus defended.

"Yeah and...you didn't have to."

The changeling only stared at the ground and said nothing.

"Now." She looked over to Cozy. "What did Princess Luna say?" Smolder asked.

Cozy flopped herself onto her bed. "You were right, Ocellus. It was nothing. It was just her investigating the disappearance of somepony else and she thought maybe it was connected to Sandbar's attack."

Smolder looked disappointed. "Really? That's it?"

"Well, Ocellus did warn us," Yona asked.

"Exactly. It was nothing and you should stay out of it."

Smolder crossed her arms. "You believe her?"

"She has no reason to lie," Cozy said. Her face turned dark. "You left me behind."

"You're the one who blew our cover. Everything was fine until you reacted and shouted like that for no reason," Smolder yelled. "What did you expect? Did you really think we're going to sit around and wait for the Lord of chaos to do something to us?"

"Well, it was still kind of a jerk thing to do."

Smolder shrugged. "Okay. Whatever."

"Is that really all you have to say?" Cozy was surprised at her response.

"I don't know what else you want me to say."

"How about sorry?"

"Sorry?! It was your idea. And you're the one who blew our cover," Smolder defended herself."I don't see you calling out Yona. She ran off with me."

"Yona doesn't wish to be dragged into this," Yona whimpered.

"Don't you get it? This was just as much your fault as it was mine. When can you just accept that? You need to stop getting mad at everyone that called you out for it," Cozy Glow tried to reason with her but it was clear that the dragon was too stubborn for that.

"It was no one's fault. It was all of our ideas and we all took the risk. You just said it yourself. What happened was an accident. Nothing more nothing less." Smolder looked as if she was on the verge of setting the room ablaze

"I don't get you." Cozy voice's raised.

"What?"

"You just don't care. I can't tell if you ever cared about anything that didn't involve you."

"I care about what happened to Sandbar, of course. Sorry, I don't cry and whine and show it off as you pony do. Us dragons don't go all soft like that."

"It's not about being 'soft'. It's about caring."

"Look, we shouldn't be fighting," Ocellus tried stepping in.

"Well, maybe I just don't care!" Smolder got up to Cozy's face.

"Then why are you here?!" Cozy yelled and pushed Smolder back. "If you don't care then just go back to your land where none of you guys give a damn."

Every creature went silent.

"But that's just it. The reason why you're here is that whatever your home life is, it's just as shitty as mine." Tears were forming in Cozy eyes.

"And you rather be stuck here than anywhere else cuz you know that you're never going to get the love and filling in that fucking void inside of you that you so desperately crave."

The room was stunned at her outburst; none of them were able to muster a word. Smolder was the most taken back as she got away from Cozy Glow. None of them have ever seen her yell like this before.

"You don't know me…" Smolder whispered and left the room, slamming the door.

Ocellus and Yona watched Cozy Glow as she hugged her knees and took a deep breath to calm herself down.

"Umm you okay, Cozy?" Ocellus asked.

"Fine, I guess," Cozy said sharply.

It was obvious that she wasn't. What stood out to them was how she was acting. Something was eating her. Something she wanted to stay but was afraid to.

"Has anything weird been happening to you guys?"

Ocellus sat next to Cozy and signed. " I mean nothing deliberately happened to me but there are times where I feel like... I hear singing. I can't tell if it's me or some pony out in the hall."

"What are they singing?" Cozy grew concerned.

"I don't know. It's always too quiet for me to hear the words. I'm just scaring myself. I think we all are."

"Yona don't like her friends fighting," the yak added in.

"Me too but someone has to take the blame right?" Cozy agreed.

"It shouldn't matter. Why are we fighting over this? It's like Sandbar being hurt is not even a problem for us anymore," Ocellus said, annoyed. "Why do we care?"

"Yona only cares about Sandbar getting better."

"I don't want to care," Cozy stated. "I guess Smolder...it is our fault…"

The door reopened and Smolder stormed in. "Something's wrong with Gallus."

"What?" Cozy and Ocellus said in unison.

"Just follow me," Smolder eagerly said as she walked right out of the room.

The others got up from their spots and joined her. They followed her to a hallway where their bedrooms were at. Silver Stream stood in front of a door; Gallus's bedroom.

"What's wrong with Gallus?" Yona panicked.

Silver Stream didn't even look at them. Her eyes remained on the door.

"Silver Stream!" Cozy shouted at her. "What's wrong?"

She still said nothing. She put her claw on the doorknob and opened the door.

Gallus sat on his head curled up into a ball. His friends encircled him with concerned eyes. Silver Stream sat in the adjacent corner as she stared at the floor. Gallus sat in silence as his mind stuttered in shock as it tried to process any form of information.

“What happened to him?”Smolder turned to Silver Stream.

“I don’t know,” she gasped. “I heard him scream and found him like this.”

“Did you get help?”

“No,” Silver Stream admitted. “You all showed up shortly after and I was trying to get him to say something.”

"Gallus, you okay?" Cozy asked.

He stayed silent.

"What happened to you?" Ocellus then asked him.

Nothing.

"Please say something," Yona begged.

Not even a whimper.

"We shouldn't pressure him," Silver Stream advised them. Her voice sounded as if she was in a daze.

They all try to get their friends to talk but clearly something has frightened him where he simply was too scared to. His whole body trembling as he whispered something silently to himself. Nothing that any of his friends could say could get him to speak. The group continued to share their concerns and their theories of the events that had taken place.

"I thought you said nothing was going on," Smolder confronted Cozy.

"Nothing is going on. I mean that's what happened…" Cozy struggled to come up with a response. "It didn't seem like nothing was going on."

"Yeah, that certainly looks like nothing." Smolder sarcastically remarked as she pointed over at their shaking friend.

"I don't know what to tell you."

“What do we do?” Ocellus whimpered.

“What can we do?”

The group paused, interrupting all of the conversations. They all slowly turned to look at their enchanted friend. He slowly looked up at them with a frozen staying of concern on his face.

“I saw her,” Gallus whispered.

“Saw who?” Ocellus whispered back. Cozy knew what he was most likely going to stay and there was praying, it wasn't going to be who she thought.

“The pony from the house. I saw her in the Darkness right before she attacked Sandbar.”

“Hold on a second,” Smolder gasped. “You saw someone attack Sandbar, and you didn't think to mention it?!”

“I barely realized anything that happened. And I wasn't even sure what exactly happened. It all happened so fast and I hardly ever believed it.”

“But you said you saw her in here,” Smolder questioned. “So why didn't you go get help as any normal creature would?”

“I didn't think anybody would believe me; would believe what I saw anyways. I didn't even believe it...at least not at first.”

“Why wouldn't they believe you?” Ocellus asked as she got in Gallus's face.

“Because I saw that same pony somehow mysteriously teleported into my room who was on fire.”

They all stared at him in disbelief. There was no way they heard that right.

"I heard singing...saw her standing there," he pointed at where he saw her. "Then she attacked me…"

"Are you certain it was her?" Smolder asked with doubt.

"I know what I saw," he snapped.

"You heard singing," Silver Stream then asked. Without even waiting for an answer, she said:

"What scares you is never knowing what‘s meant to happen next.
I feel that the beauty is not knowing what to expect.
I wait for the time when the sun will truly rise.
See now spirit from the depth of the night,
come forth now into the absence of light."

Gallus was shocked and stared wide eyed at her. He tried saying something but nothing came out.

"That's the song…" Silver Stream wasn't even trying to ask. “I keep hearing it. Over and over again. I can’t stop hearing it.”

“Oh golly,” Cozy said.

Silver Stream lifted her head. “You heard it too?”

She told the group what she had felt in the library and a feeling she had ever since they left the house. Her suspicions were only confirmed when the other explained feeling similar symptoms of somebody watching them from the darkness. Every creature except one.

“Okay, this is crazy.” Smolder shook her head.

“What? I’m not making this up,” Silver Stream said quietly.

“I’m not saying you are,” Smolder corrected herself. “I’m saying it’s crazy...I don't...you really think we’re being haunted by some dead pony?”

“I didn’t,” Gullas started. “Until something attacked me.”

"Yona don't know what to think anymore."

“What are we going to do?” Ocellus asked.

“What can we do?” was the only thing Cozy Glow could say.

The group disbanded with ominous hanging from a fear factor; the incident was over yet nothing was resolved all the same. Suddenly myths seemed plausible and they started to question what was really going on.

---

"We kept our distance or at least I did. It was...we didn't know what to do. We were all afraid to tell Twilight and after talking to you, I didn't think you could help us. I guess you are a good lair."

I felt my stomach flip at that. I wanted to say how sorry I was for all they went through. They were all so young, too young to have to deal with this.

I cleared my throat. "Did anything weird happened during this?"

"No. There were times I thought I heard something but I couldn't tell if it was her or if I was scaring myself."

I smirked at that as I could very well relate to it. "Tell me about what happened with Silver Stream. That's what I'm most curious about at the moment."

She buried her face in her hooves. "Yeah...I knew she took it hard. I didn't know how bad though. Savannah had gotten ahold of her in ways I wasn't prepared for."

"But was it really Silver Stream?" I asked.

"At this point, I don't know."

"And you didn't go to Twilight because..." I started to asked.

"I wanted to but we were both scared of getting in trouble. And we didn't want Silver Stream to get in trouble too.

If only I knew then what she was planning on doing to herself..."

Author's Note:

Trying to write as often but I'm a little busy with other projects and work but I have been writing a lot. Though I did want this chapter to be a little longer, it was getting to be a little too long so I just decided to post what I had that was ready to be posted. So I hope you enjoy

Till Next Time!!!