Beyond My Grave: Exhumed

by AnnEldest

The Moment Of Truth

The voices were unbearable. Their chatter, relentless. They knew she could see them. That she could hear their words. And they weren’t going to let up. They surrounded her. They hounded her. They would never let her have a moment’s rest until she gave in and joined them in the neverending misery.

“Go away,” she whispered.

They would not. Her answer to their calls was only a confirmation to them. They were only going to keep making themselves known. Nothing was going to stop them now.

“I don’t know what to do! Go!” she said aloud.

They knew it was a lie. She knew what to do. She knew all the angles and had been looking at them for centuries. All she had to do was figure things out. First, she had to want to. That was what they wanted. For her to want to. For them. For herself.

“I said LEAVE!!”

Luna jolted up with a shriek that echoed through wherever she was. She looked around herself, and saw only endless hallways between long columns, with only a sconce with a green flame flickering behind her. She was lost. Hopeless. Alone.

“Princess?”

Luna turned and saw Misty laying across from her. She looked no worse for wear, but had a look of bewildered terror on her face.

”Princess, what just happened?” Misty said.

The images of what she had just seen went spinning through her head. The last moments when she saw her father alive were the worst she ever had in her life, and had been kept forgotten. Nothing could have made her want to face it, and then there she had been living it all over again. She wanted to speak. To explain to Misty some plan of action to escape their predicament. Her voice died in her throat, escaping as only a choked sob which quickly turned into a cascade of tears.

“I was…five years old when I first saw…” Luna sobbed. “It was the last time I saw my father alive…I said such terrible things to him…I wanted to find him, but I didn’t know where to look…And then, there was a filly by a lake…I didn’t know then, but she was already dead…”

Misty watched in a mix of sorrow and sympathy. She had experienced completely the trauma of a first encounter, but Luna’s far surpassed her own. In silence, she allowed Luna to continue.

“She was a filly from my school…” Luna said. “I never knew her well…We only saw each other on the playground…I learned a year later that she had died,” Luna choked loudly and lowered her gaze. “That was when I found him…”

“Your father?” Misty asked.

Luna nodded.

“He had already taken his own life…I saw him hanging dead from a tree…I…I…Oh, Misty…What could I have done to make things right?”

Luna broke down completely in a sobbing mess. Nothing had gone right. Not since she was a filly. She had spent her whole life in denial, blocking out what she should have known to be true. She wasn’t even who she thought she was. Just a shadow that had been walking around, pretending to be whole.

She felt an arm embrace around her shoulder, and Luna quickly held onto Misty and pulled her close. Misty, who had been the first creature she ever told any of this to. Not even Celestia knew that she had been the one who found her father. Her mother would never allow her to know. Some part of her told her that Celestia may have already known for a long time, but they had never discussed it. And it was allowed to be pushed further and further back into her mind.

“Princess…I’m so sorry,” Misty said.

“Please, call me Luna,” Luna answered.

Behind them, the green flame started waving in one direction as if a breeze only it could feel was blowing through the halls of that barren place. With that wind came a low, barely audible whistle, like wind through a large gap. A tiny hope sparked into Luna’s mind.

“Misty? Do you see that?” Luna asked, looking at the flame.

“I do. What do you think’s going on?” Misty asked.

“I think that there may be a way out of here.”

“How can you know that? Do you see something I don’t?”

“No. But, the wind must be coming from somewhere,” Luna said, before walking toward the direction the phantom breeze was coming from.

Misty started to follow her, but the flame crackled with silver embers that popped loudly, stopping her from moving.

“Luna, wait,” Misty said.

Luna obliged and noticed the silver embers as well.

“Do you feel something?” she asked.

“Yeah. It’s faint, but I feel it,” Misty replied. “It feels like…I don’t know. It’s too small to understand.”

The flame flickered harshly in the same direction it had been, and showered more embers that made Luna and Misty have to step backward. After that, it flickered less and less, and started to burn out. The flame burnt down smaller and smaller, until it snuffed out with a plume of smoke. Once it had, the columns around them were lit up with a candle each, all with the same tiny, red flame. The candlelit columns stretched on and on into the distance, the tiny dots of light seeming to go on for miles.

There was no misinterpreting the feeling that time, even if Misty could barely receive it. She started down the direction the flame was flickering and looked over her shoulder at Luna. Luna swallowed hard and started walking beside her.

The way was just as long as it looked. For what felt like hours, the two of them walked without changing direction and came to no destination. No matter which side they looked, the endless abyss of darkness stretched onward. After so long, it seemed as if the way was growing longer on its own. Then, it seemed to expand outward in all directions, consuming the world that may have been beyond those endless columns.

A voice chanted in the darkness.

Luna gasped sharply and stopped.

“Luna!?” Misty harshly whispered.

Luna looked around herself, half expecting to see disembodied shadows drifting toward her, ready to take her back to Shredder’s treasure room to join them forever. The chant continued, but the shadows remained hidden. The only shadows seen were the ones at the very edge of the candlelight. Always with an eye to the shadows, Luna walked toward the sounds of the chant.

The flames of the candles started vibrating, making the darkness around them dance in a mad frenzy as the chanting grew nearer. Luna tried to understand what was being said, but her ears couldn’t register a single syllable. Instead, it sounded as if two voices were speaking at once, one right after the other. Ahead of them, another light flared up. One that wasn’t like a flame, but like a star that had lost its way from the sky. It shone with an eerie golden light that practically called them forward into it. Luna gazed deeply into the golden light, and watched as it started turning different shades of red and orange.

The chanting grew louder than ever. Her heart began to race, and she felt her hoof suddenly step off the world and into a deep pool of liquid.

“Luna!” Misty said, pulling Luna back from the edge. “Be careful.”

Luna wanted to thank Misty for saving her life yet again, but noticed her hoof first. It was dripping with blood. The light began to dim slowly, and the world before them turned to a vast basin of blood. There was a walkway of stone across the bloody lake, leading to where the light shone somewhere beyond. Luna led the way, always careful to keep her balance on that narrow path. She could hear the steps of Misty behind her and the chanting before her. The light ahead flared up brightly, and then dimmed into almost nothingness, revealing a round platform in the center of the basin. In the middle was an altar where the light set, before it blinked itself out. Standing before the altar, chanting in that low voice was a stallion. In another moment, his chant ended.

“Time is a funny thing,” the stallion said, “It has the power to ruin empires, build mountains, and cover up the brightest of memories in layers of cold, dark years. And yet, it can also push two old friends together from the furthest reaches of the world. Hello, Luna. It’s been far too long. My, how you’ve grown.”

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one who’s been doing all of this!” Luna said.

“Not all of this. You helped. I couldn’t possibly have amassed such a bounty, had you not been able to let go.”

Misty jerked her talon away from the edge of the walkway, and saw the blood ripple in the basin. The blood felt somehow angry to her. Like it wanted to do terrible things the moment it was touched. She watched it carefully, then turned her eyes forward once more.

Luna tensely watched the stallion, who swayed his neck left, then circled it around to the right two times.

“I remember you so well. When we first met, you were the only filly who entered my classroom without fear. It was to be expected. You didn’t have to live at the school, far away from mommy and daddy,” the stallion said.

He stepped to the left, his hooves dancing about in a slow, hypnotic motion.

“You were so beautiful back then, even when you were so young. Especially when you were young,” the stallion said, his voice a breathy hiss. “I couldn’t deny my feelings. They were nothing new. But what you gave me? It was passion. Fierce, fiery passion! I knew I wanted you. The same as Silver Blitz…”

It was a name that Luna hadn’t heard since Discord mentioned that filly. Only then did she realize how long it had truly been. She recalled that fateful night at the lake shore. As she led the lost filly from the woods, she had asked her name just before she found her dead father. The moment the name was spoken, she had found him and nothing else had mattered at the moment. She had tried to tell the adults about the filly who was with her, but she had already gone. Her whole life had unraveled in those moments, and the one responsible was before her.

As if a curtain was lifted from Luna’s mind, she remembered that face. The one instructor from her early days who made her uneasy every time he looked at her. How uncomfortable he made her feel when he was standing next to her during their class picture. That unsettling aura he exuded whenever he asked her about her personal life.

“Berry Tarts…” Luna whispered.

The stallion’s shoulders trembled, as though some uproarious fit of laughter were being kept down. With a sharp motion, he jumped unnaturally high into the air, spun once and landed on the west edge of the platform.

“Yes. It seems you’re finally coming around,” he said.

The stallion jumped again, landing on the south edge of the platform, just behind Misty who gasped and huddled closely to Luna, nearly hurting her injured wing.

“The day you said you found that filly, I never saw you or your family again. But, oh, I was met with much attention by the guard. Oh, yes. You ruined me, little filly! They all came after me! They cut me apart! The pain! The glorious pain! And your power could never be mine!”

“My power…?” Luna thought, thinking she knew precisely what he meant.

He jumped to the east edge of the platform and landed facing Luna and Misty both. Half of his face was warped grotesquely into a vicious grin.

“My revenge was not final! My revenge is eternal! My demise only sped along what would have taken years more to complete! They all died for me! I was their way! Their light! For my master!”

One last jump, and he was back to the north edge of the platform. The moment he landed, the rest of his body twisted itself into a tortured mess of limbs that didn’t seem to know where one ended and another began. From the look of him, it was hard to tell that he was ever a pony.

“I must thank you, Luna, my love. Though you had ruined me, you set in motion my master’s glorious return. Because you just couldn’t let any of it go. You couldn’t let him go.”

Luna stood upon shaking knees. Her mind flashed once more to that night she found her father hanging from that tree. That hook stuck through his neck like he was a side of beef. His dead eyes staring through her. But, there had been something else. Something she had forgotten, and hoped would be consigned to oblivion of the ages. But it was as Berry Tarts said. Time had a way of bringing things together. She had seen them. Two gigantic, orange eyes that glowered at her through the fog. That smell of sulfur. The clinking of chains. And the stallion who had stood beside it.

“It was always you…” Luna whispered, barely a breath on her voice.

Misty could feel it. The blood all around them was growing more agitated. It began to swell up and ripple like the ocean. And it was calling to her. It didn’t say anything, but it knew who she was. And it knew she could feel it. It wanted Luna. It wanted her. But, it was also frustrated. For whatever reason, it couldn’t have them. Not yet. It was only a matter of time.

“Luna…” Misty said.

She didn’t need to say anything. Luna could see it. The blood in the basin was roiling around, as if some giant fish was circling around the platform. Two orange lights appeared beneath the surface of the blood, and they were growing brighter. A pair of gigantic horns broke the surface, and a massive paw slammed onto the platform beside the altar.

“Run!” Luna yelled.

Luna and Misty both ran down the bloody walkway away from the altar. Misty nearly slipped, but was saved by Luna, who helped her along the rest of the way. Beside the stallion, the altar began to glow under his command once more.

Behind Luna and Misty there was a horrible howl. And the hunt was on.

Author's Note:

Just one more chapter to the end. We have reached the final showdown how will all of this end? Find out next time!!!

Till Next Time!!!