• Published 12th Feb 2013
  • 2,146 Views, 56 Comments

AfterLife - Chaotic Dreams



Fluttershy's adventures as a lost soul after her untimely demise.

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Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

“Um... Excuse me...” Fluttershy mumbled, trying furtively to get the shopkeeper’s attention. Her hoof scuffed at the ground, kicking up a small amount of dust as she peeked up at him from behind her pink mane. This prolonged greeting was nothing new, as her naturally quiet voice, combined with the fact that the slightly elderly stallion was more than a little hard of hearing, made such a visit to his market stall an experience that lasted far longer than one would expect it needed to. “...Sir...?”

The stall owner continued to rummage for something in one of the large earthenware pots he used for hauling his goods into town, his wheezy mumbling accompanying the clanks. It was like she wasn’t even there; his ears hadn’t so much as perked up at her voice.

“Excuse me?” Fluttershy ventured again, a little more loudly this time. It wasn’t much, but it was a milestone for her. Unfortunately, she made just as little headway as her first attempt.

She frowned in mild consternation. She never wanted to be a bother, but though she would never admit it, being ignored had never been an easy burden to bear. When you were as sensitive as she was, you felt as bad when you were ignored as you did when you felt like you were interrupting something.

“Sir?” she called a final time, raising her voice just a smidgeon louder than the general murmur of the marketplace crowd milling about Ponyville Plaza behind her. “I would like to buy some berries, if that’s not too much trouble?”

“What kind...” the stall owner mumbled. Fluttershy’s eyes lit up. “...What kind of swindler sells you a clay jar that cracks a week after you bought it? Darn con artist Filthy Rich thinks he can get away with anything, thinks he owns this whole darn town!”

Fluttershy’s long pink mane pooled on the ground as her head drooped. She knew he couldn’t hear her anyway, but relented with a soft “That’s no problem, then. I can buy some berries later.”

As the creamy pegasus trotted off towards Ponyville’s library, she wondered what she would tell her friends when she turned up to the book signing without anything to contribute to the snack food table. Twilight had specifically asked her to buy berries that morning, so they would be fresh when ponies began to make their way to the event.

Fluttershy hoped her lavender friend wouldn’t be mad at her, or worse... Disappointed. She tried her best to not think about it—after all, when had her friends ever really been mad at her? Of course, that would just make it all the more horrible if they started today...

Having finally reached the library, she raised her hoof to knock—gently—on the door, but it abruptly swung open before she had the chance. Fluttershy leapt out of the way, landing lightly to the side as Rarity came trotting out into the square.

“Oh, good morning, Rarity!” Fluttershy greeted cheerily, glad to see a friendly face. “Um... You don’t think Twilight would be too upset if I turned up without any berries for her customers, do you?”

The dressmaker stared in her direction for a moment, confusion etched on her face. Her neck twisted as her head moved left and right. “Wherever could she be?” she questioned, quietly, as if to herself. “It’s not like her to be late...” She stared off to the side.

“Not like who to be late?” Fluttershy wondered aloud, cocking her head slightly. She ignored the fact that her greeting had itself been ignored, almost on instinct. She was too happy to see her friend to care. “Are we expecting any important ponies today? Ooh, maybe Twilight’s caught the attention of one of those book critics she mentioned?”

Rarity said nothing. She didn’t so much as turn her head in Fluttershy’s direction, instead simply scanning the crowd for the apparently late pony.

“Don’t worry, Rare!” called a scratchy voice from inside. “I’m sure she’ll turn up—Fluttershy wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

“I sure wouldn’t!” Fluttershy agreed, following Rarity back inside the library to see her oldest friend hanging a banner on the far wall. ‘Thaumaturgical Experiments Validating or Disproving Various Arcane Laws,’ it read in bright pink colors against a dark purple background. ‘By Twilight Sparkle.’

“I’m sure she’ll be here any minute!” Rainbow Dash added as she swooped down from the banner and back to Pinkie Pie. There was the light skreet of a marker when the party pony checked off another item on the checklist she was holding.

“Yeah, Fluttershy would never miss out on Twilight’s first book signing!” the pink party pony agreed. “Though I wish Twilight wouldn’t make me use a checklist. Parties are no fun when you have to organize everything!”

She spat out the offensive ‘O’ word like it was some kind of rotting vegetable.

“I sure wouldn’t!” Fluttershy repeated, feeling more than a little awkward at having to repeat herself. Not that she was unaccustomed to doing so, mind you, but she rarely had to repeat herself around her friends. “In fact, I’m not missing it right now.” It took her a moment, but after noticing the tension in her voice and the slight burning in her temples, she wilted slightly.

“As long as she gets here in time, everything will be fine,” the new author herself assured everypony from behind her podium, where she was still going over the notecards for the lecture Fluttershy knew she was planning on giving along with the signing. Twilight was expecting various intellectual elites from Canterlot to attend in addition to her friends in Ponyville, and she wanted to be ready to meet their undoubtedly sky-high expectations.

“Aren’t I here on time already?” Fluttershy queried, a tremor rising slightly in her voice. She glanced at the clock on Twilight’s wall, which confirmed that she had, indeed, arrived right when she had been asked to be there. None of the other ponies in the room replied. “...Girls?”

Why were her friends acting as if she wasn’t there? Not hearing her quiet little voice Fluttershy could almost—almost—understand. But how could they not see her when she was standing in the middle of the room?

Suddenly a terrible thought struck her. Were they... were they angry about her not bringing any berries? Were they planning on not acknowledging her presence unless she brought something for the snack table? She didn’t think they would do that, but was it really that important? But... If that was so... How did they even know she hadn’t brought any berries? Nopony had looked at her long enough to see if she was carrying a sack of any, much less asked her where they were.

“Hello?” she called out as loudly as she could. “Can anypony hear me?”

“Now, Ah ain’t one to blame Fluttershy if sumthin’ prevents her from attendin’,” Applejack spoke up from where she was organizing Sweet Apple Acres’ contribution to the snack table. “But what do we do if she doesn’t get here in time?”

“I am here!” Fluttershy pleaded, the tremor in her voice growing to a shake. She trotted right up to the cowpony and, in an act of bravery she never thought she would ever perform, even on her friends, looked directly into the farmer’s green eyes. “Can’t you see me?!”

Applejack’s ears perked up, twitching ever so slightly. She scrunched her face up, and then blinked. “...Did ya’ll hear sumthin’?” the orange earth pony inquired, looking around her uncertainly. “I coulda’ sworn...”

“Yes,” Rarity responded. Fluttershy turned to face the stylish unicorn, her face split with a smile, her eyes almost watering. The water welled up into tears when she saw that Rarity wasn’t even looking at her, but was instead peering out the still-open door. “Here come the first customers! Oh, I wonder what could be keeping Fluttershy? I do hope she makes it before the lecture starts!”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t anypony to miss that,” Rainbow Dash droned with thinly veiled sarcasm. Applejack shot her an icy look, but fortunately Twilight was focused too intently on her notecards to have noticed.

“Well, I suppose we’ll just have to start without her,” Twilight announced with a slight frown, tearing her eyes away from her notecards at last. “I hope she’s okay... It’s not like her to break a commitment...”

“Want me to go check out her cottage?” Rainbow questioned, sounding worried herself. “Maybe something happened...”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Pinkie Pie piped up, cheery as always. “If it was anything really, really, REALLY bad, my Pinkie Sense would have picked up on it! She’s probably just taking care of a sick animal.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Twilight agreed, though she didn’t sound all that convinced. “Well, whatever the case, we can all see her as soon as the book signing is over.”

The rest agreed, and went back to their work.

All except Fluttershy. She wordlessly fell to her haunches in the center of the room, a single tear sliding down her cheek.

She was surrounded by all her friends...

...So why had she had never felt more alone in all her life?

“Maybe... Maybe they’re pretending I’m not here...” Fluttershy postulated to herself, her spirits falling just as she had so many times at Flight Camp. Unlike then, though, it didn’t seem there would be a friend to help her pick herself up again. “...Because they don’t want me here.”

It was a paranoid, far-fetched, and utterly ridiculous notion. However, try as she might, she could think of nothing to counter it. Nothing else made sense. How could they not notice her unless they were consciously ignoring her?

Another tear slid down her cheek. Then another. And another...

Fluttershy finally broke down in tears, galloping out the front door. She narrowly avoided the first ponies to enter the library for the book signing, but they too didn’t seem to notice her or how she’d almost smacked into them. Was all of Ponyville in on this? How? Why?

If it was all really happening, did it really matter anyway?

Fluttershy didn’t know. She couldn’t understand, and wasn’t sure if she could understand anything if her friends had suddenly decided to up and abandon her without the slightest explanation why. Had she done something wrong? Had she hurt their feelings? If so, then why wouldn’t they even present her with the courtesy of telling her why?

She met nopony on the path back to her cottage, nestled comfortably away from the hustle and bustle (such as it was in the small town) of Ponyville. When she was all alone, it was easy to believe that she had made the whole thing up—that nopony was ignoring her at all. But if she went back... If they pretended like she didn’t exist again... No, she couldn’t bear that.

How odd was it that she felt less alone when she was physically so than when she was surrounded by ponies?

Fluttershy slowed to a trot as she approached her secluded home. At least... At least her animal friends would be there for her. Or... Would they? Would they just ignore her like everypony else was?

No. She couldn’t bear to think about that. Besides, they would never do something like that to her.

The yellow pegasus had left the door open so the animals that made their homes indoors could come and go as they pleased, since it was such a nice day out. She trotted through it and into the sunlit living room.

“I’m home,” she called out half-heartedly in a voice hoarse with sobbing. She had never needed to raise her voice with the critters. If push came to shove, and it rarely ever did, all she had to do to keep them from getting too pushy was a quick Stare. But no chirping, no scuttling, no purring, no barking, no sound of any kind made its way to her ears.

What was this? Where was everyone?

She scanned the room, but the birdhouses, the openings in the floor to the rabbits’ warrens, the mouse holes—all the habitats—were vacant.

“No...” Fluttershy whispered to herself. “No, this can’t be...”

This was worse than her animal friends simply ignoring her. If they had abandoned her...

No. No. NO. She refused to believe it. They couldn’t have left—they had to simply be hiding somewhere!

For the first time in a long time, the creamy pegasus took wing, flitting as fast as she could around her cottage. They were in none of their usual haunts. No kittens lounged in the sun’s rays on the kitchen floor, no bunnies chased each other through the garden out the back window, no birds sang in the indoor trees.

Her entire house was completely devoid of any life, silent as a grave.

Cheep.

What was that?

Meow...

They were almost painful to hear with how mournful they sounded, but the seasoned animal lover was no stranger to such sounds. There were animals here, and the sounds seemed to be coming from...

Scratch... Scratch...

Fluttershy looked up.

They were upstairs!

Flying faster than she ever had, the pegasus that had been so ridiculed at Flight Camp in her youth zoomed up the stairs and into her room and—

There they were!

All of them, each rabbit, dog, cat, bird, turtle, ferret, fox, otter, beaver, each critter from every side of the wilderness was there. Just through the doorway into her room, each animal surrounded Fluttershy’s bed.

One animal in particular was angrily—or was it desperately?—hopping up and down on the bed itself, or more specifically, on something in the bed...

No, not something...

Somepony.

Somepony was lying in her bed! That’s why all the animals were here—they must have cornered the intruder in her room!

Fluttershy sighed with utter relief, wiping the tears from her eyes as her face split with a smile of pure joy.

Intruders, as frightening as they might be, she could handle. Abandonment by the very beings who had given her the cutie mark she proudly bore, however, was not.

Of course, that didn’t get rid of the fact that there was somepony in Fluttershy’s bed.

“Who’s there...?” she called out meekly, fear slowly replacing, or at least muting, her joy like a cold chill. “Who have you all captured?”

But the animals didn’t turn to look at her, so enthralled were they by the figure in the bed.

“Angel?” Fluttershy inquired, coming closer. The white bunny was still hopping on the figure’s head, who for some reason wasn’t making the slightest bit of effort to stop him. It certainly couldn’t be very comfortable to have even something so light as the rabbit hopping up and down on their cranium, but the figure showed no sign that they even noticed it.

The room was dark, the blinds drawn to keep the morning sun from waking her up in the morning before she allowed the animals to do so, as they so enjoyed. Thus, she couldn’t get a good look at the figure, who was turned away from her.

“Excuse me, sir? Ma’am?” Fluttershy ventured, working up her courage. The sorrow she had felt from her recent experiences was starting to become consternation. This was her cottage, after all, and even if she didn’t mind sharing it with her animal friends she really wasn’t ready for an equine roommate. As much as she hated confrontation, it seemed that she would have to tell the intruder just that, along with a polite request that they return anything they had probably stolen, before kindly asking them to vacate the premises.

But the figure, the animals, even Angel... None of them responded.

Her irritation petering just on the verge of anger, an emotion Fluttershy was so afraid of that she rarely ever experienced it, she trotted around to the other side of the bed. It was hard to make out in the dark, but if she squinted, now she could get an actual look at this intruder.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened, or rather, they remained closed. Her heartbeat quickened to the breaking point, or rather, it didn’t beat at all. A cold sweat broke out on her coat, or rather, her coat remained dry and cold. She backed up hastily, or rather, she remained where she was, completely immobile.

Fluttershy screamed even as she remained utterly silent.

The figure, the face of the mare lying in her bed, who Angel Bunny was jumping on furtively with what she now saw was fear rather than anger, was her own.

“No...” Fluttershy whispered. Then she shouted, “NO! This can’t be happening! This is—this is all a bad dream! That’s it! None of this could ever really happen!”

The Fluttershy in the bed seemed to disagree. She was certainly not dreaming, nor would she ever again.

Her face was pale. Her veins were swollen with a sickly dark color. Her chest didn’t make so much as a quiver. No air escaped from her lips, nor did any find its way back into them.

“Is... Is this because I did something wrong?!” she wondered aloud to anypony who might be listening. “Am I being punished for being bad?”

Only silence answered.

It all made sense now. Nopony had noticed her... because she hadn’t actually been there. At least, her body hadn’t. All day, it had slept in a deep slumber from which it would never wake.

And she, a lost soul, hadn’t even realized she was walking around Ponyville without her flesh.

“NO!!” she screamed, tears streaming down her face. Or were they? If that was her body in the bed, then what was she even made of anymore? She looked down at herself, seeing the floorboards straight through her transparent limbs. “N-no...”

She broke down, sobbing, crying for all she had lost. Her tears rolled down her forelegs, but they did not pool on the floorboards. Not even her animal friends could see her now. She was truly all alone.

“But I’m not through yet!” she sobbed, her cries muffled by her forelegs. “I’m n-not ready to die!”

“Is anypony ever really ready when their time comes?” asked a soft, quiet voice as a cold hoof fell on Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Does death really care whether or not we want to accept his calling?”