CMC Watch Bedtime Stories

by Lord Blundergosh

The Baby Aleshenka

Tuesday Night

Standing in front of the stove, Rarity carefully looked at every assignment hoofed over to her by the girls, who all stood there staring up at her with anticipation. After numerous, long minutes of sifting through their papers, Rarity made an affirmative noise and lowered them down to the girl’s level. As they took the assignments back in their hooves, Rarity gave them a smile before she spoke.

“Excellent work here, girls. I say you’ve earned your much deserved free time.”, she said, earning an ecstatic “yes!”, a relieved “phew!” and a victorious fist pump from Sweetie, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo respectively.

“I think we all know what you’ve been looking forward to.”, the mare said as she levitated the crystal ball off the counter and held it out to her sister, who eagerly took it in her own magic.

“Thanks, Rarity!”, Sweetie Belle exclaimed from behind her as she and her friends sprinted out of the room and up the stairs, the sounds of their hooves resonating through the boutique until Rarity heard her sister’s door close.

The mare then finally turned around and turned on the stove, boiling the pot of water on top. Sticking the pasta in the pot, she thought about the work she had done today and yet to do tomorrow. While she had mostly completed her sketch for the costume, over the course of the day she realized that some changes were going to be made to that mask’s design. There was no way the performer playing the Phantom was going to be able to sing through that breathing apparatus. She did have a few possible ideas for design changes that would keep the overall appearance of the original mask intact. Though, it was definitely going to be tough to pitch this design to Stage Craft with the type of stipulations it will come with. Then again, he has been known to experiment with new techniques…

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While she scrolled through the list of stories waiting for Apple Bloom to give her the command to stop, Sweetie Belle stole a glance out the corner of her eye to see Scootaloo slowly trotting to the window. When Sweetie heard Apple Bloom give the okay to stop, she once again looked behind her. Just barely did she manage to see tail end of Scootaloo’s scanning of the outside world before suddenly closing the curtains. The unicorn had no clue why or when her friend started getting uneasy around windows, but there was no denying that she was. Just yesterday she saw Scootaloo stealing several nervous glances at the window while they were doing their homework; she even had her rest disturbed last night by the pegasus filly getting up to close her curtains, claiming for whatever reason she couldn’t sleep with them open.

“The Baby Al-le-shan-ka…”

Scootaloo’s ears turned in Apple Bloom’s direction as she heard the title read aloud, her head following almost immediately.

“Did ah just hear ‘baby’?”, she asked Apple Bloom.

“Yup.”

Sweetie felt a smile curl onto her face, “Do you think human babies might be cute?”

While she was as eager as her friend was to see what a human baby looks like, something bigger was on Apple Bloom’s mind.

“Ah’m just wonderin’ what’ll be so special about this baby? Think they’ll grow into someone important?”, she pondered aloud.

“Let’s just hope this isn’t about a ghost baby.”, Scootaloo said with a shiver as she sat down between her friends. “Or anything like that.”

“I personally think this is going to be more like that story about the Virgin Mary than anything else.”, Sweetie suggested.

Clicking on the video, the girls were greeted by the image of an elderly, hooded lady who was walking during a moonlit night through the woods on the outskirts of her town, according to the narrator. Walking stick in hand, she looked down at a small, defenseless thing wrapped in a bundle and abandoned on the side of the road, a baby. The whole trio naturally felt a tad sorry for the poor little tot and admired the old woman who took it home with her to raise it herself. However, an unfortunate series of events would supposedly leave the woman’s community in disbelief, questioning whether Aleshenka was even human.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”, Scootaloo questioned.

Raising an eyebrow, Sweetie asked, “Are they saying that this baby was… deformed or something?”

“Ah doubt there’d be much of a story if it was just one little deformity.”, Apple Bloom pointed out.

The unicorn gave an uncertain frown, “I’d usually agree with you, but we probably don’t really know how most humans actually behave. Sure, Princess Twilight said the humans she met were nice but there could be different parts of the human world that treat people with birth defects really, really badly.”

“You two are so worried about what it looks like, but why haven’t you even thought about what it may have actually did?”, Scootaloo stated, questioning her fellow Crusaders.

“What do ya mean ‘did’? It’s just a baby.”, Apple Bloom asserted.

Scootaloo countered by saying, “Yeah, a baby who’s story is being told here.”

After pointing a hoof at the screen for emphasis, she added, “And I’m pretty sure Pinkie Pie would take issue with what you said there.”

Before their conversation could continue on like that, it was suddenly interrupted by the unmistakable, shrill wails of an infant emitted from the crystal ball.

Like her friends, Scootaloo covered her ears as she spoke, “Ugh. I guess we now know human babies cry like regular ones too.”

The crying thankfully faded into the background as the sight of a modest, snow-coated village materialized on screen. Located in the rural parts of Russia’s vast Siberian wilderness, places like this seemed like a harsh existence to outsiders who inhabit a more conventional world, with its elaborate technologies and innovations.

“Ah swear, this perfectly describes how our family up in Manehattan think Ponyville is like.”, said Apple Bloom.

“Wait, so you’re saying Babs thinks we still live in the dark ages down here?”, Scootaloo asked with a perplexing raised eyebrow.

“Ah actually meant the Oranges.”, the farm filly clarified. “Though, now that ya mention it, the first time Babs ever visited us she was shocked that we actually own a radio and that we don’t churn our own butter.”

Despite how cold, remote and bare-bones their environments were, these people of the Ural Mountains still woke up to a day of eating, working and sleeping just like anywhere else. The people were perfectly comfortable with this way of life. One could also tell that this village didn’t receive much contact with the outside world, despite having access to certain modern luxuries that would give them such exposure. Yet, a moment would occur that would not only break up the monotony of their lives, but draw the unwanted attention of the entire world and the unwelcome stir of controversy upon this community, such as one case in 1996.

Scootaloo’s mouth hung open at the heavily-weighted descriptions for this event.

“Seriously, what’s this baby’s deal?”

This wasn’t even that long of a build up, all things considered. Yet, she couldn’t help but feel anxious for some sort of answer. The incident in question took place in the territorial district of Kyshtym, a town located on the fringe of Chelyabinsk Oblast, at the southern toe of the Ural Mountains. Scootaloo groaned internally while the narrator decided to dump the territory’s entire history on them. While they had no idea what “Tsars” were supposed to be, there was also something else mentioned that they’d become all too familiar with.

“Golly! Is there any place these nazis haven’t invaded?”, Apple Bloom exclaimed in a tone that switched from impressed to distaste in the same breath.

“Ohhh. So these are the same ‘Soviets’ we heard about in that ‘Third Reich’ three parter. I knew I heard the word ‘Russia’ somewhere before!”, Sweetie Belle chimed in.

Despite the site’s significant growth to house key production facilities and almost a million people, its biggest source of notoriety comes from its proximity to the nuclear research facilities that the Soviets erected during the Cold War.

“Who were the Soviets fighting in the Cold War, again?”, Scootaloo pondered. “Cause I think I remember them saying it was the Americans.”

“We never were told what this ‘Cold War’ was about, were we?”, Sweetie observed.

Suddenly, it was as if a light bulb went up above Scootaloo’s head as she began to speak again, “Actually, you think we could start calling our snowball fights, ‘cold wars’ from now on?”

“Why would we call them that?”, asked her unicorn friend.

“For street cred! Anypony can handle a regular snowball fight, but we’re too cool for that!”, Scootaloo explained. “In fact, our Cold Wars are so intense that we come out of them with black eyes!”

In the span of a single blink of the eyes, Sweetie’s expression only grew more quizzical.

“That happened once, to you and it sucked! You had to be sent home crying, Apple Bloom got grounded and we couldn’t have another snowball fight for two weeks.”

“Do you have to suck the cool out of everything?”, the pegasus indignantly asked with a flushed pout.

Apple Bloom, for her part, was more focused on the illustration of the Mayak nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. She almost gawked at the site’s insanely tall chimney as well massive dome structure behind it, the purpose of which she could not figure out; the other buildings only managed to catch her attention when she noticed the flames that were consuming them. The narrator that this was the immediate aftermath of an explosion in 1957 which unleashed a cloud of radioactive dust that traveled as far as twenty thousand kilometers, contaminating the nearby Techa River.

“Twenty thousand in kilometers is far, right?”, Scootaloo asked.

While Sweetie answered with a nod, the narrator further explained how the town of Chelyabinsk was far enough away to avoid this disaster. However, the dumping of radioactive residue into the river in following years led to a whole new environmental catastrophe. This lead some ecologists to claim that pollution in the region was the cause of numerous birth defects in the years after the disaster. It wasn’t enough that this fact made all three fillies cringe, it also raised more questions on what nuclear power even was or where it came from.

“Remind me in the future ta stay as far away from anythin’ nuclear as possible.”, Apple Bloom said as if she was somehow certain that Equestria would discover nuclear energy within her lifetime.

Perhaps it was this incident that indirectly put the town of Kyshtym back on the map by indirectly leading to another scandal, which would turn the collective scientific community on its head. The story then cut back to the image of the hooded granny from the beginning, the narrator identifying her as Tamara Vasilievna Prosvirina.

“Sheesh, did we have to learn her whole name? Why don’t you tell us her birthday and address while you’re at it?”, Scootaloo murmered.

According to legend, she was trekking through the darkly-lit woods outside her town when, on this eerie night, she heard an odd sound in the near distance. Thinking it could be a trapped animal, she approached it. The closer she got though, more she and the girls watching recognized the sound as the wails of a distressed child. While all the fillies flattened their ears against their skulls once more to block out the crying, the old lady looked down to confirm her suspicion; lying in the debris of the town’s garbage heap was a little baby.

While Sweetie Belle covered her mouth with one hoof, the other two’s jaws slacked open slightly as all of their eyes projected their disbelief back at the screen.

“That’s just… cold.”, Scootaloo remarked with an audible weight in her voice.

Sweetie suddenly uncovered her mouth to speak, “Did this baby’s family really hate it so much that they couldn’t just drop them on someone’s doorstep?”

Apple Bloom felt her throat tighten in reaction to that prospect her friend raised, as if it were a gross, oversized pill that she couldn’t handle swallowing. Thankfully, she got some relief upon hearing that the old lady decided to take the baby home and raise it herself. Though it probably would take her a good minute or two to fully move past that.

“That baby got a lucky break there when that nice lady found him. I’d hate to imagine what it’s like to be an orphan.”, Scootaloo confessed.

Fortunately for her, she didn’t notice her two friends averting their eyes in directions opposite hers; it took a lot of strength to keep themselves from awkwardly whistling or rubbing their own shoulders. Neither of them were quite ready to admit to Scootaloo that, for a while, pretty much every pony in town thought she was an orphan. Even they weren’t sure whether or not she was living in an orphanage for the first year and a half they knew her since she, oddly, never once invited them over during that time. The skeptical reactions their families gave when they told them Scootaloo’s account of her parents as globetrotting explorers didn’t help either.

Two days later, Tamara would be visited by her daughter-in-law of the same name. As the latter was about to leave, the elderly woman suggested that they feed the baby together. This came as a bit of a shock to the younger woman, as Tamara Senior had never mentioned anything about a child up to that point. Little did she know that what was waiting in the bedroom would not only immediately trump that surprise, but would change her life forever.

The faces on both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom visibly wrinkled and cringed into expressions reflecting their repulsion, which they were about to vocalize until…

“*Gasp! It’s sooo cute!”

The two immediately snapped their heads to look at their friend. The quirked eyebrows and befuddled gapes they gave went unnoticed by her as she stared at the illustrations with starry eyes. There were a lot of ways the farm filly and her pegasus friend could describe the thing on screen staring up at the viewer from its spot in the crib while swaddled in a blanket. Cute was not the first word that would come to mind. Just like Tamara Jr., the two fillies were unnerved by this “baby” and its abnormally large head combined with its unusually small body, its skull’s hard and elongated features, and its large, cat-like eyes that was apparently not accompanied by any eyelids. For Apple Bloom though, the detail caught her attention the most was that it had “no visible signs of genitalia”; somehow, she knew that if her brother were watching this with them, he would slowly and solemnly shake his head at that detail as if to say, “That poor thing”.

Even though she’d obviously been given “the talk”, she hadn’t quite figured out why some guys seemed to value their ding-a-ling’s so much that they’d rather lose practically anything else before losing their precious “sword”.

The most shocking feature was the small hole it had in place of a mouth, through which it slurped the food in at surprising speeds. After it finished eating, the infant wagged a long, scarlet tongue out at the women. While a couple of the fillies watching shivered at that detail, the narrator told how Tamara Jr. would later go on to claim that the baby was not of this planet.

“Well, duh! What else could it be?”, Scootaloo rhetorically asked.

Sweetie Belle retorted by suggesting, “It could be from a far away place that still exists in their world.”

“Ehhh. Ah think ya both have a point.”, interjected Apple Bloom, getting her friends’ attention. “These humans probably know every inch of their planet like it’s the back of their hoof, so it probably is from outer space in that case. But the answer coulda been the opposite if this was happenin’ here in our world.”

“What do you mean?”, Scootaloo questioned.

“Ya know how they say there’s so many parts of Equus that ain’t been explored or mapped yet. If that’s the case, who’s ta say there ain’t somethin’ just as weird as that livin’ across the sea from Equestria?”, Apple Bloom said.

When her daughter-in-law asked her what the baby’s name was, Tamara Sr. said that she named it Aleshenka or “Little Alexei”. Sweetie Belle would have continued internally squee-ing at the name given until it was explained that apparently the name comes from one of her deceased grandsons. Every pony watching looked as if they wanted to say something, perhaps wishing they could somehow console the granny on the screen over her loss. That line of thought though was quickly put aside by the mention of how the neighbors in the old lady’s apartment complex took notice of her “strange behavior” and doubted all her cheery claims about a new baby in her care.

“Why didn’t they believe her?”, Apple Bloom wondered aloud.

“I mean, this lady apparently hasn’t realized that the baby she found isn’t a human like her. Is it a stretch to think she’s off her rocker?”, Scootaloo answered. “Still gotta feel bad for her though.”

Sweetie was too busy trying to figure out why the lady chose that name for her new baby to participate in her friends’ conversation. She couldn’t pinpoint an exact reason, but she could guess that it had something to do with guilt. Maybe she could ask Rarity about this?

The neighbors described Tamara’s behavior as erratic and evasive, especially when asked to give details about the child. One night, a neighbor supposedly heard the older woman banging on her door, claiming she was frightened because her baby was ill and she had no medicine to give him. This lead to local police coming to her apartment and taking her into protective custody. The Crusaders were stunned at the sight of two men carrying her by the arms across the halls of the local hospital where she was to get a medical evaluation.

“They’re locking her up in a mental hospital!? What for!? She didn’t do anything!”, Sweetie spoke up.

Apple Bloom shook her head at this, “Ah knew the neighbors thought she was a bit nutty, but she don’t seem dangerous.”

“At worst, you could accuse her of being senile. But that should only get her a stay in a retirement home with other cooky windbags like her.”, Scootaloo added.

Just when they were beginning to wonder what kind of dystopia this world was, the narrator clarified how there were other accounts of these events which insisted that Tamara’s neighbors discovered she was seriously ill and that she was then taken to the hospital accordingly. Even though that made them worry for the old lady’s health, this version was somewhat more justifiable in the eyes of the trio. Still, in either case, Tamara was taken away against her will, stressing the entire way about how she had a baby that she couldn’t leave at home. Unfortunately, nobody took her seriously.

“So, they didn’t even check if there was a baby!?”, the unicorn once again exclaimed. “Not to just be sure!?”

The reason why they apparently did not believe her was because they were given the impression that she was in the early stages of some sort of mental illness. Neighbors cited examples of her odd behavior such as decorating her house with flowers that she stole from the local cemetery. Even with this fact in mind, the other two fillies had to concur with Sweetie. They saw no reason why the orderlies couldn’t check her place to see if anything was out of sorts. In that scenario, the baby’s safety wouldn’t have been so up in the air. Speaking of which, with Tamara Sr. away at the hospital, that meant little Aleshenka was now alone in the apartment.

“So, what’s gonna happen ta him, now?”, Apple Bloom asked in a shaky tone.

Before they even had a chance to get an answer, the narrator would plant even more uncertainty in their heads when he advised how all the events he’d describe from this point on are all unconfirmed and there is wide speculation about how much of what’s been reported is actually true. The story then began focusing on a police officer named Vladimir Bendlin, who was at the local police station in the nearby town of Novogorny to question a man named Vladimir Nurdinov. The latter was a petty thief who had been arrested in connection to an incident involving stolen power cables. The Crusaders would be in for another shock when it turned out that Nurdinov had something he had no use for and wanted Bendlin to take off his hands: a dead baby.

Everypony in the room was speechless, stuck in a state of inaction wearing expressions of pity. Sweetie Belle in particular looked like she wanted to let loose a tear even though she wouldn’t. Although, Apple Bloom was able to relate the most as somepony who lost a loved one not too long ago. Scootaloo personally hated how this moment was reminding her of the endless number of ways life can be unexpectedly cut short. Despite never knowing little Alexei, they still couldn’t help but ask themselves one question.

Why did he have to die like that?

Bendlin would agree to head to Vladimir Nurdinov’s apartment and when he searched the place he found what he could only describe as the mummified remains of a small child.

While Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle audibly gagged at that mental image, Scootaloo thought to herself, “I thought this baby was an alien, now it’s a mummy?”

While she took another moment to figure what the narrator actually meant, the other two kept talking.

“Ugh!”, Apple Bloom wretched. “How’d that happen ta the baby’s corpse so quickly?”

“You don’t think Vladimir mummified the baby himself, right?”, Sweetie asked.

“Why would the cop wanna do that?”, Apple Bloom asked in confusion.

“Not that Vladimir, the other Vladimir.”

“Okay, but what for? Ta sell it? Who in the hay would want that?”

When Sweetie visibly struggled to give an answer, Scootaloo chimed in, “Maybe he was planning on scamming rich people into buying it…”

After getting a puzzled look from Apple Bloom, she clarified, “You know, by telling them he got it from ancient mummy’s tomb or whatever.”

According to Bendlin, the strangest thing about this body was how much its malformed and emaciated appearance resembled an unborn fetus. Its grayish, hairless body barely measured ten inches in height and its head was covered in little dark spots. When he asked Nurdinov how he came into possession of this body, he supposedly claimed that he spent some time in Tamara Senior’s apartment and was even present whenever she fed Aleshenka. Yet, he coincidentally was out of town at the time Tamara had been detained for medical evaluation. After coming back to the place and finding the baby had died from lack of nourishment, he decided to take the remains back to his home.

“Uhh… as ya do?”, Apple Bloom remarked. “Seriously, his first thought when seein’ this dead baby was ta collect it like a buckball card?”

Just as Sweetie Belle was about to ask what Nurdinov was even doing there, it was explained that some sources claim that Tamara Junior would actually him to come and check on the baby with her; she didn’t want to be alone with it because of how much it frightened her. Struck with grief upon finding the baby dead, she tasked Nurdinov with giving the baby a proper burial which he apparently never got around to doing. Bendlin then took the body to have its DNA analyzed in the hopes of finding any relatives. Or on the other hand, to ascertain whether this was actually a hoax.

“So, is DNA what humans like to call hoof prints… or hand prints, I guess?”, Scootaloo suggested.

“But hoof prints are never used for that. No pony has the same hoof print marks as anypony else, not even their families.”, Sweetie Belle pointed out.

Fading away from the image of Bendlin’s questioning of Nurdinov, the story then transitioned to a new sight that was enough to pause the girls’ conversation. Set in what was clearly a laboratory, a woman in scientific garb carefully studied a beaker full of fluid she held in one hand which was illuminated by a bright lamp mounted just above. Seeing Aleshenka’s shriveled and deformed body on the table right next to her made the trio of fillies want to look away from the screen. After conducting several tests on the infant’s body and skin, the woman, a forensic analyst and clinical expert named Dr. Lyubov Romanowa, concluded that it was not of a regular human child. She would cite numerous features that seemed impossible for a child to have, even in cases of extreme deformity or birth defects.

That caught the full attention of every Crusader; even Sweetie Belle, who had been averting her eyes from the screen, still had her ears standing straight in attention so that she may not miss any details.

Romanowa noted how the skull was composed of only four bones and its shape indicated an “unnatural elongation”.

“Narrator, you know there’s simpler ways to say it had a weird skull shape, right?”, Scootaloo said.

“Oh come on.”, Sweetie responded with a roll of the eye. “Those weren’t even really big words.”

Aleshenka’s fingers were also long and pointed. His body was far too short to naturally support the head. Lastly, there was one deformity that she had never once seen on any malformed child in her entire career; a head cavity that was unusually sharp and pointed. For Romanowa, this could only mean one thing: Aleshenka was never human to begin with, but something entirely alien. Once word got around that Tamara had supposedly been raising an alien baby, it wasn’t long before it got the attention of the local press. After catching wind of the story, a local television broadcaster immediately got to contacting Bendlin for any info on the creature. To which he responded by sending footage of him inspecting the body.

Before they could even think about readying themselves for what they were about to see, the footage came onto screen. The fillies all reeled back in horror and disgust immediately, one of them even letting out a sharp gasp. The illustration from before of of Alexei’s corpse casually laid out on a table was a bit off putting. But this actual footage they were seeing of his grotesque, mummified body being poked, turned and handled like a dissection subject from their science class was genuinely uncomfortable. One would expect them to be tempted to turn the orb off, feeling a level of nausea they hadn’t felt since the Wendigo story. However, rather than disgust, it was a morbid fascination that seemed to take hold of them as they couldn’t bring themselves to look away from the projection. They honestly weren’t used to seeing a scene like this playing out in real life before their eyes rather than within the confines of a comic book illustration.

So focused were they on the mummified alien baby that they missed much of what the narrator initially said. Though they managed to tune back in just in time to hear how journalists were flocking to the town of Kaolinovvy to interview anyone in the know about the so-called “Kyshtym Alien”. There were reports of locals who would happily sell any information they had to the right buyer and reporters from all over the place lapped it up. Many locals accused Tamara Junior and Nurdinov of hoaxing the entire thing as part of a get-rich-quick scheme. But as it turns out, neither of them would come forward to sell any information regarding the baby, appearing to rule out that accusation.

Unsurprisingly, the attention this incident gained from the press internationally meant it was only a matter of time before of self-proclaimed UFO experts started coming in the hope of getting a look at Aleshenka’s body. Unfortunately for them, by the time they’d have gotten there the baby was no longer in Kyshtym. Bendlin handed it to a UFO research academy headed by Boris Zolotov, one of the most respected ufologists in the world.

“Ya gotta feel a little bad for those other UFO fellas who didn’t get ta look at it.”, Apple Bloom said before she began rubbing her chin. “Actually, ah wonder if ufologists hold grudges about stuff like that.”

A spark seemed to light behind Scootaloo’s eyes as she spoke, “Imagine how cool it’d be if these ufologists actually dealt with their rivals the same way archaeologists do. Dueling in the wreckage of a spaceship to see who gets to take the good stuff with them!”

“Ya do remember that archaeologists ain’t treasure hunters like Daring Do, right?”

“Tch.”

Scootaloo scoffed at the way Apple Bloom regurgitated their history teacher’s words back at her. Funnily enough, she probably would’ve just accepted that too if it weren’t for a little secret that Rainbow Dash decided to share with her. If only she could share it with Mr. Yesteryear too so she that she could rub it in his face.

“That’ll show him.”, she thought, most pleased with herself.

Zolotov claimed he wanted to conduct further testing on the body, so Bendlin had obliged him in the hopes of getting definitive answers on the nature of this infant. Though, after the passing of several months with no word on the results, those hopes were dashed. It would be a while before Zolotov was located. When he was finally given the opportunity to be interviewed regarding the whereabouts of little Alexei’s body, he had one bizarre story to tell.

The Crusaders all halted whatever conversation they might’ve been having; not only to make sure they didn’t miss Zolotov’s story, but because of the eye catching illustration that accompanied it. One of Zolotov’s assistants, tasked with transporting the body to a lab in a nearby town, suddenly had their journey stopped halfway by something they couldn’t have possibly seen coming. All three fillies’ eyes were drawn to the saucer-shaped craft that had landed in the middle of the road, and even more so to the strange figure making its way towards the assistant’s car. Despite how much dark silhouette engulfed the image, the few obvious details they could make out was enough to tell them this was not a human. An abnormally slim body, strange eyes and an extremely large, melon-shaped head.

All of them realized that they very well might be looking at little Alexei’s mom or dad, and that made them very nervous as they looked at the alien who appeared to be making slow, considered strides towards the vehicle. Once it got to the window, the creature “wordlessly” asked the driver to hand the baby over, to which she complied. While Scootaloo wondered what the narrator meant by “wordlessly”, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle fixated more on the alien approaching. Sweetie was simply glad to see that their parents might get closure, but Apple Bloom worried what this alien might do to the assistant upon seeing the baby was dead. But thankfully, she got to release a sigh of relief as it simply took the body back with it, got into its craft and took off into the sky to never be seen again.

“Did he mean it used telepathy or whatever? I could’ve sworn we saw something like that before, but where?”, Scootaloo puzzled.

“How did they know exactly where to find the body?”, Sweetie began wondering.

Speaking of which, when asked to identify where the encounter took place, Zolotov said he could not trace the location and promptly refused to discuss the matter further.

“That’s ain’t suspicious at all.”, Apple Bloom sarcastically stated.

“Oh… yeah, I guess that checks out.”, Sweetie responded with no irony detectable in her voice. “A lot of ponies would probably want to put something like that behind them.”

Not everyone believed this version of the story however, some theorizing that Zolotov was actually intercepted by government agents who made him give the baby to them.

It was upon hearing this that the unicorn finally realized what her friend was actually getting at; she dare not turn to see the deadpan look she knew Apple Bloom was giving her right now.

A purported witness even claimed to have been visited by a mysterious and unnamed group of people who made him sign a bunch of papers to ensure that they’d never speak of the body again.

“You think that might’ve been-“

“Please, don’t say it.”, Apple Bloom interrupted. “Ah am so tired of talkin’ about… them.”

“I’m just saying, it’s possible.”, concluded Scootaloo.

An even stranger theory was that an eccentric collector bought the body from Zolotov for a hefty price.

“Ain’t this Zolotov fella supposed ta be someone who dedicated his life ta studyin’ aliens and UFOs. How could someone like him give up that body so easily?”

Regardless of Apple Bloom’s objections, these theories were all just that, theories and pure speculation. If there’s one thing that is confirmed, it’s that Aleshenka’s body was never seen again. That might’ve been the end for this mystery if it weren’t for the fact that someone else had approached Bendlin in 1997. This person claimed that she possessed the very same shawl that Tamara Sr. used to wrap the baby in, which she had decided to keep hidden during this whole media frenzy.

“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I forgot about Tamara already!”, Sweetie Belle said.

Scootaloo had a similar realization, “They’ve had to have let her go by then, right? I mean, hasn’t all of this proven she wasn’t crazy?”

They hated to think that, despite all of that, she was kept in a mental institution until her dying days.

The woman said she would lend the shawl to Bendlin on the condition that he do a serious investigation and DNA analysis on it, which he was all to eager to do. After showing the shawl to Tamara Jr. and confirming that this was indeed Aleshenka’s, he then took it to the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics in Moscow. Even after years of research and testing, the results would ultimately prove to be inconclusive. No residue indicating extra-terrestrial origin was found; however, particles of organic material mixed in with human DNA and flecks of female blood matter suggested a miscarriage or abortion. The trio of fillies weren’t sure whether to focus on their pity at the suggestion of a miscarriage or their confusion over what an abortion was.

Trace amounts of alcohol were also found, hinting that the baby had been doused with the substance just prior to being handed over to Bendlin.

Sweetie Belle couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Why would someone do that? Were his mom and dad… actually feeding their baby booze!?”

“How were they so much cooler than mah sister when it comes ta this?”, Apple Bloom wondered, recalling how vehemently her big sister refused to let her have her first sip of cider.

Which is even funnier considering that Applejack had just gotten done explaining that she had her first taste of cider at Apple Bloom’s age.

“But nooo, ‘ah seen alcohol destroy too many homes ta risk mah sister gettin’ on it this soon’, she says.”

Although the body was no longer present, the circumstantial evidence available was enough for researchers to conclude that it was likely nothing more than an underdeveloped fetus.

“I’ve never seen a fetus in person before, let alone a human one. But something about that just doesn’t seem right to me.”, Scootaloo asserted.

In April 2004, one of the original researchers who got to see the body first-hand, Dr. Irina Yermolaeva, recanted her original 1997 statement and declared that there was nothing alien about the body.

“Sweet Celestia, this as confusing as the story about The Bell! I’ve never heard someone pose so many questions and answer as few as this narrator does.”, Sweetie griped.

Though she did clarify that she believed it was once a living being and not a hoax. She found that the state of the body was consistent with many different cases of miscarried fetuses often found within twenty to twenty five weeks of development. She claimed that she had counted a complete rib cage, an ample shoulder girth and wrist bones, and whilst indeed the head was the strangest aspect of the body, she explained that it could’ve been incompletely formed during development.

Scootaloo rubbed her head, her hoof running softly through her mane.

“What a complete 180.”

“Ah remember Twilight sayin’ science changes its mind like this a lot, though.”, Apple Bloom was quick to point out.

In this doctor’s opinion, the body was deformed as a result of radioactive exposure, all thanks to the fallout the Kyshtym area experienced following the nuclear disaster of 1957. She believed Aleshenka had either been born prematurely or was miscarried and that the mother, now distraught, abandoned it in the very same woods where Tamara Sr. found him.

“So, radiation can turn ya into a monster too!?”

Sweetie Belle turned to face Apple Bloom, surprised by her friend’s insensitivity.

“He was not a monster!”, she chastised, making the farm filly fold her ears back as she winced.

There was one person who didn’t agree with Yermolaeva’s findings however, Bendlin’s clinical assistant Lyubov Romanowa. According to her, numerous children with premature birth defects were nothing compared to what she had seen in the infant’s body; she could point to at least twenty different features supposedly not commonly found in deformed children and which she cited as evidence that he was “not of human origin”. On top of the unprecedented physical characteristics, she also was quick to point out that human fetuses should not be able to live more than a few once exposed. This completely conflicted with testimony that Aleshenka lived for a few weeks before dying and during that time consumed food, which should’ve been impossible for a child born so prematurely. Despite this, the “Kyshtym Alien” was still making headlines as far as 1999.

Every Crusader frowned as the narrator that Tamara Sr. Had tried break free from the mental hospital that was holding during that same year.

“Being that old and having to spend your last years in an mental asylum? No thanks.”, declared Scootaloo.

One night in September she was seen on a wooded road outside the facility. Attempts to get her attention and convince her to come back got no response from her. Suddenly speeding out of the darkness, a car ran over and killed the old lady. Everypony’s jaws dropped for what wasn’t the first time that night, all of them becoming even more taken aback when the narrator described how it appeared to have been done deliberately.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo turned to see their friend’s reaction after hearing her stammer out the beginnings of a whole bunch of sentences that never got past the first word.

“But-. Wha-. It-. That-…. Why?”

Becoming acutely aware of how desolated their friend felt, both fillies reached over and gave her comforting pats on the back.

According to some conspiracy theorists suggest that there was the result of a wider plot by the Russian government, citing how Tamara was scheduled for a hypnosis session so that she could recount the entire experience.

“But… she didn’t even know that little Alexei was an alien. All she did was find on the side of the road, what could she possibly have revealed?”, the unicorn finally spoke.

“Are they gonna seriously say that even that story of how she found him in the first place might not even be true?”, her pegasus friend joined in.

Even the narrator acknowledged how this whole scenario gives rise to so many questions like the ones Sweetie and Scootaloo just raised, while unable to provide few answers in return. Was Aleshenka an underdeveloped fetus, a tragic result of radioactive disaster, or an alien found by a woman on the brink of a mental disorder? Did the Russian government intimidate people into silence and assassinate this elderly woman as part of a grand coverup? If so, why did they want it covered up in the first place; to cover up the existence of extra-terrestrials or hide the consequences of their past mistakes? Alternatively, has everyone been reading too much into what was probably a premature or aborted birth?

While these were all valuable questions, Sweetie Belle had a much grander question occupying her psyche.

“How can life be so unfair?”, she quietly asked herself.

A similar sentiment could be found amongst the rest of the trio.

Despite the sheer amount of media coverage and continued interest, the baby’s origin still cannot be determined to this day. One thing is for certain, something was indeed found in the woods outside Kyshtym by an old woman who selflessly accepted it into her life as if it were her child. Even though there was no happy ending to be found in this story, he provided some solace to the audience by gesturing to the act of genuine kindness at the center of this whole event. Whereas most would have rejected Aleshenka as soon as they saw him, Tamara took him in and provided with the warmth and care that every child should have.

Apple Bloom grew a bittersweet smile as she realized how that felt like something her dear departed granny would’ve done. For her part, Scootaloo was looking at this differently. If someone as sweet as this old lady has her kindness repaid with losing her newly adopted son, being thrown in a loony bin and suffering an untimely death, then is anyone actually safe from the absolute worst that life can cook up?

The narrator then concluded with this final message, “If indeed [Aleshenka] was of extra-terrestrial origin and was taken back by his own people, then it is our heartfelt hope that he found peace amongst the stars.”

Upon seeing the video come to an end, Apple Bloom took a deep breath; after exhaling she said, “Whew… that story there was uh…”

“Depressing? Yeah, you can say that again.”, Scootaloo interjected, getting up to stretch before trotting to the door. “I’m gonna check and see if dinner’s almost ready.”

It was as she saw her friend walk out the room that Apple Bloom noticed that it was actually raining for the first time since school ended that afternoon. With a grunt she got up and turned to say something to Sweetie Belle only to halt before her sentence could begin as she noticed her friend forlornly staring off into space. She then reached one hoof over to tap Sweetie’s shoulder.

“Um.. hey, Sweetie?”

The unicorn snapped out of her trance upon feeling the hoof on her shoulder, then her eyes followed the arm up to its source; looking up at Apple Bloom, she replied, “Uh yeah, what is it?”

“Ah was just gonna say, it looks like that story left a bad taste in yer mouth.”

When Sweetie Belle nodded her head at that, Apple Bloom continued, “Well ah just wanted ta let ya know that if it’ll help ya forget about, you can pick any story next that ya think will cheer you up. Won’t need ta do the whole blindfold thing.”

“Oh. Uh… thanks a lot. But to be honest, I don’t feel like watching another one tonight.”, the unicorn replied as she looked down at the ground.

“Oh.”, the farm filly blankly uttered.

“It’s no problem really. I just wish more things could’ve gone better for Tamara and Alexei. Just an ending where one of them came out okay.”

Something in that sentence seemed to light a bulb in Apple Bloom’s head as she realized what to say next.

With a comforting smile, she looked down at her friend and said, “Maybe, it did.”

Looking up with a confused look in her eye, Sweetie immediately came back with, “What?”

“Well, they said that his body was taken back ta his people, right?”, Apple Bloom to clarify. “If that’s true and they really are so advanced as a people, who’s ta say they don’t some high-level magic or technology that can actually bring Alexei back ta life?”

The longer she took in her friend’s words, the more Sweetie Belle’s expression softened; a slight smile even began to form in replacement of her glum frown.

“Yeah, you might be right.”

Before she could thank her friend though, Scootaloo called from downstairs.

“Rarity said the food is almost done! Better come down!”

With one last exchange of looks, they both agreed that a good meal was the best pick-me-up for the occasion. And so, they both went down the stairs, looking forward to the warm meal awaiting them. A nice reminder of the warm homes and loving caretakers that they were oh-so lucky to have.

Author's Note:

I know this isn’t the story you guys were waiting for. And don’t worry, Devil in the Doll is still coming. I made that poll before finishing this chapter because I thought I would get done much sooner, maybe get back to the regular weekly posting schedule that I had last year. But a few setbacks and my trouble focusing made sure that wouldn’t be the case.
I kinda realized over the course of writing that this story was accidentally topical in a couple ways that I’m sure you can figure out. Though, rest assured I’m not going out of my way to bum you out; however, I must confess that these things have been getting to me lately.
But the show goes on nonetheless! Stay tuned for Devil in the Doll, everyone!

Comments

[Joe Toon]

Funny, I was just watching this not too long ago.

[littleman001]

Great to have another chapter! Though I'm a bit bummed you picked this of all Bedtime Stories. Not one of my favorites to say the least. Though I'm delighted you finally did an alien one!

Still, there were some good moments. I loved how you took a shot at the whole "Scootaloo is an orphan" thing that was pretty much a genre unto itself on this site before Scootaloo's parents were finally introduced.

Also...

“Remind me in the future ta stay as far away from anythin’ nuclear as possible.”, Apple Bloom said as if she was somehow certain that Equestria would discover nuclear energy within her lifetime.

Very wise of you, AB. Sometimes I feel like chemistry was invented just to screw this planet up for everyone and everything. Equestria is better off without it.

Looking forward to the "Devil in the Doll"! Until then...

[Kichi]

See you in August/September

P.S: Did you think a "The CMC watch SCP-Foundation"?

Edit 09/09: Well, I was off, See you in december

[maximilian 412]

cant wait this story to get to the disappearance videos