Escape
“S-star?!” Nova called out with a heavily shaky voice. The teal unicorn mare had been wandering aimlessly through the ship for roughly half an hour she had been completely alone since Star blazer had run off. Nova had tried to follow; the thought of been left alone on this ship terrified her but upon entering the superstructure again everything had changed.
The door leading into the ships innards had lead her to a completely different area. She had passed through that door twice already but this time the entire interior of the ship had completely changed. No longer was there a long hallway before her and a steep set of stairs leading up to the bridge. Now she was in what appeared to be some form of galley and dining area.
After pushing the initial shock of the sudden change of the Everfrees’ geography to the back of her mind the second thing the sailor pony noticed was that this part of the ship was Much darker than the rest.
None of the lights were on leaving Nova to fumble around in the blackness. At one point she tripped on a warped section of the deck dropping her flashlight and cracking the bulb with ease. The fragile Light flickered twice before failing completely, plunging Nova into extreme darkness.
Now, unable to see her hoof in front of her own face she began to hyperventilate. The Navigator dropped to her flanks and shook uncontrollably.
She wasn’t just scared. She was terrified.
With the encroaching darkness surrounded her in all directions her paranoia began to flare. Nova’s head whipped around in all directions, scanning the shadows. She was almost certain that every time her vision shifted a figure seemed to move just out of her peripherals.
The terrified pony quickly turned herself around to leave when she realized something. Even though she couldn’t see more that a few inches in front of her she hadn’t moved that far from the door. When she had dropped her flashlight she had been standing right infront of it.
It wasn’t there. The door was gone only a cheap wooden table sat where it should have been. Nova had witnessed some powerful magic in her time but nothing that could remotely come close to bending space time.
This ship was just Wrong.
Nova was interrupted from her thoughts as she sensed a light behind her. Turning around once again she looked down to see her Flashlight had somehow repaired and turned itself back on. The beam of light flickered in and out of existence and the Light itself seemed to be rocking back and forth erratically as if two colts were rolling it between one another.
The erratic beam shone rather dimly onto the far wall, Nova follow the light with her eyes and began to stare at the rusty wall. The light still flickered, for a moment the wall would be lit then the flashlight would flicker out and the room would be dark once more.
After roughly half a minute the flashes began to slow, Novas’ brow knitted and she moved closer. her muzzle was just a few inches from the wall, it was then a particularly long pause plunged the room into the black again.
When it came back on Nova could help but scream.
The entire wall had become a writing black mass of spiders. thousands of them all of different sizes and grotesqueness. The small unicorn immediately turned tail and ran, a sheer stroke of luck allowed her to find an open door as she quickly barreled through it.
Once on the other side she slammed the heavy iron door shut before slumping against it shuddering violently and breathing shaky breaths.
The distraught unicron raised her hooves to her face and began to weep. She couldn’t even begin to fathom what was happening her friends were either missing or dead, she was completely alone and just on the other side of the door her worst fear crawled over the walls.
* * *
She didn’t know how long she sat there, in the cold darkness crying her fears out. In that time she had come up with a plan.
The Everfree may have been old but it wasn’t ancient, there had to be some kind of lifeboat or raft. Though right now Nova would have settled for a piece of driftwood she just wanted off the demonic vessel.
Slowly she began to trudge through the ship. Now she appeared to be in the hallway between the crews bunk-rooms. The interior had changed its decor once again.
No longer were the walls red with rust or falling to pieces now it was more as if a terrible inferno had raged through. The walls, floors, roof and doors were blackened and charred. a long thick black line of soot marked the roof and the plastic insulation on the electrical wires had bubbled and melted.
Even though Nova could feel the steady heartbeats of the dual engines somewhere far in the distance the lights refused to turn on even after several fiddles with the switches.
The small unicorn hung her head and sighed. Her face and eyes burned slightly from crying she closed her eyes but continued walking.
It was only after a gentle sound met her ears that she stopped and looked up. The seemingly never ending hallway still stretched for what looked like miles ahead of her but that wasn't what made her entire body run cold and chills shoot through her.
Emanating from a doorway on her left just ahead of her a very familiar jangling could be heard. The jangle of a mechanics tool belt.
“I didn't have to,” Rose replied with a little smirk. “I can feel them.”
The odd melody of spanners, hammers and screwdrivers banging against one another grew slightly in volume until it emerged from the door.
A familiar figure exited the bunkroom the frizzy hair and unmistakable utility belt making it a dead giveaway as to who it was.
Rose stem.
That however was where the similarities ended. Her coat was white but it seemed dulled as if it hadn’t been washed ever. the gaping hole that the cargo hook had made was easily visible in both her back and stomach and she seemed slightly... transparent. like she wasn’t entirely there.
But the most striking difference was her face. her eyes were wide and completely black the skin around then still scratched and bloodied. And her mouth was twisted into a horrifying crooked smile showing some very un pony-like teeth.
Nova froze staring at the apparition that appeared as her friend. yet the specter didn’t stare back, it didn’t even acknowledge her as it simply walked from one door across the hall to the one adjacent.
It didn’t make any noise, it didn’t look at her, it didn’t even seem to notice her. Tentatively Nova approached the door to the room that the phantom entered and quickly looked inside. As with all the other rooms this one was no different, furniture was upturned, bunks remained devoid of their mattresses and blankets which had most likely incinerated.
As with all the other rooms its was deathly quiet with no trace of the figure. however something did catch Novas’ eyes.
A slip of paper lay in the center of the room. Normally Nova would have found this odd as everything else around it had been burnt to a crisp yet the easily flammable piece of parchment remained unharmed, but from everything she had witness prior this almost seemed normal.
It took awhile for Novas eyes to focus onto the words scrawled onto the paper but after they did the small mare got a very clear message
GET OUT.
Nova needed no further prompt as she quickly stood and turned tail. The two hastily written words providing a very clear request.
Nova ran. faster than she had ever before she didn’t even notice the burning of her lungs she just kept running.
She ran not only because the paper had asked but because more than once she swore that she could hear the rapid hoof steps of another behind her.
She dared not turn around she couldn’t waste time she had to get out. All other ambitions and life goals didn’t matter to her now she had but only one aspiration
Escape.
Finally after what seemed like eons Nova burst through a door out onto an open deck. Rain continued to pour but it had died down in its intensity. She would have collapsed in relief then and there but she kept going.
After taking a moment to collect herself Nova found that she was at the rear-most part on the ship. behind the superstructure below her propellers churned away. A small part of her was relived when she noticed that for now they weren't a danger to other vessels but a larger part also reminded her that she was very much still in danger.
So it was with great relief when she looked over and saw a single solitary row boat perched above the railing. She wasted no time in boarding before swinging it and herself over the ocean and quickly began hoisting herself sea-ward.
Once the small wooden boat hit the water and the ropes were untied a great wave of fatigue washed over the small mare.
She collapsed into the bottom of the small life raft and began to cry again. She cried for many different reasons. Sadness over the death of her close friend Rose stem. Guilt over leaving Star blazer behind if he was still even alive. Fear over the horrific things she had been unfortunate enough live through.
And over all, Happiness that it was all finally over.
It was with such intensity that she cried she didn't even notice that the Everfrees' propellers had stopped and were now spinning in reverse.
Pulling the evil vessel backwards toward the small, fragile, wooden boat And the small, fragile, weeping mare.
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Your writing got better as the story progressed. You're getting practiced, and if you write a second story you'll have even more practice. One thing that kept jumping out at me was inconsistant capitalization. For instance, you sometimes didn't capitalize both letters of a pony's name, like Rose Stem. Other times you would capitalize a random word in the middle of the sentence.
I don't suppose there's anything wrong with an everybody-dies scenario, but the reader might find it more satisfying if some solution had been found. Stories are about conflict, but more importantly, conflict resolution.
You're correct, though; there aren't enough scary stories on the site.
Write another story? Look me up-maybe I can help.
2445344 im about to start work on one and its going to be far more..shall we say epic? all im gonna say though is have you ever heard of Space battleship Yamato?
and i'd love for you to help out!
2486400 or the mary celest but its always nice to see another Bermuda triangle inthusuast
*cough* death ship 1982
That was a scary story in parts.
Although sometimes when you were mentioning rust inside the ship I was expecting one of the ponies to discover it wasn't rust but blood.
So how did Rose Stem die? I mean one moment she's running from the engine room covered in blood and guts and the next time she's mentioned her lifeless body is impaled on that loading cranes hook...........
Something else that seemed odd is that you have two unicorns in the story but it appears that neither of them used their magic, granted when their manipulating objects its okay not to describe that as the reader would just assume they were using their magic for that, but whenever they got to a dark area of the ship only for their flashlights to fail neither of them use their magic to conjure a source of light......just seems off to me. Though you could explain it away as them being too scared to concentrate on the right spell or even the sinister force acting to disrupt the spell with its own power or perhaps even draining their magic.
And the story just doesn't feel complete. Totallynotabrony made a good point about conflict resolution, here you have a story that appears to end with the last member of the salvage crew moments away from being sliced and diced by the cargo ship backing up, even if she dies (as opposed to....say....being saved by a pegasus that was sent out to check on them) there's still the matter of this large cargo vessel that may or may not still be drifting into the shipping channels and the matter of a missing salvage crew that never reported in. Even if the ship changes course its already known to the port authorities so somepony is going to find it or check it out again. Though with the matter of the missing salvage team (would any of their ships debris be found?) the follow up team is likely to be larger with more then a few guard escorts.
Who knows what they'll find.......or if they'll make it out alive.
Now granted you could just bring in one of the heavy hitters such as a Princess or the Elements of Harmony but that would rather detract from the horror aspect, unless the Princess or EoH uncovered the story behind the ship..........not sure if that would work though.
Another possibility is to bring in Chrysalis who for X reason has to act like X pony (Princess Cadence? Royal Guard? Investigator? ???) and in doing so gets roped into investigating the ship.
Hmm, I just remembered a sci-fi ghost ship story called "Ship of Fools" by Richard Paul Russo, though the Wikipedia article on it mentions the deserted ship being crewed/infested by aliens but the way the story read to me made it sound like they were monsters or even lesser parts of the ship....
2488449 I realize that i neglected to add any kind of resolution to this story but there's a very good reason for that. Horror is all about scaring the reader. and nothing is scarier than the Unknown. as soon as you explain something it loses all its mystery and thus becomes far less scary.
letting the readers imagination come up with all the scary ways Rose could have died is far more effective than anything i could ever write.
Who knows perhaps i might write a sequal. perhaps i might explain just what the Everfree is but in the mean time i'm content with leaving this as is.
Very disturbing in the vein of a straight-to-video movie from the late 80s- early 90s called "Ghost Ship" (Not to be confused with the one from a few years ago that actually played in theaters) That one was a German ship the SS operated for "interrogations" and got lost during WW2. Whatever evil that took the ship has presumeably been killing anyone who found it for 50 years. I reccomend seeing that version for inspiration if you want to do a sequel or a prequel...
2779073 eh the date isn't really important although i don't think Equestria is too far off of those things, after all they have cinemas, arcades and giant hairdryers.
2779227 I would agree they're not too far off, but still probably 50 years off. Being that their innovators are split between magic and tech it slows overall development down.
As to the story, your grammar needs some attending to, mainly capitalisation, but otherwise it was fairly good. Although I wish I could just hop into my computer and save Rose.
Although being that the character tags only say "OC" I assume this isn't the Rose from the show, correct? Her coat and mane seem like it's her, but "Rose Stem" isn't "Roseluck".
2780074 correct Rose Stem is a different pony from Roseluck. I didn't notice the similarities till now but yes they are different ponies
So this ship is a mobile version of Silent Hill eh?
3353735 i was seriously considering calling Rose Stem, Mary.
As in Mary Celeste
3354729 Were you inspired by the old movie Ghost Ship about the Nazi prison ship? Also, I just got back to reading this story. Very good. I'm adding this to my group "Equestrian Merchant Marine"
You know how you were going to do some SPC-type stories? This could be one of them! Definitely Keter-class
4048444
i have seen the movie ghost ship but I wasn't too fond of it, I wanted to write a horror where there was literally no escape. and SCP? Yeah I could see this as Keter
4048444
4048674
I haven't read it yet, but now you've incensed me into asking: why exactly are you classifying this as Keter?
4454598 intent to murder/goes out of it way to murder is the criteria for a Keter classification.
4454700 You got that wrong. What really classifies something as Safe, Euclid or Keter is the difficulty of containment.
• If you can toss it in a box and forget about it, it's Safe.
• If you can't lock it up as easily, and has to check up often on it, it's Euclid.
• Now, if the containment procedures have to be revised and checked on frequently to prevent break-ins or break-outs, it's Keter.
For example, SCP-122: the manifested shadows trying to break into the containment site make it extremely difficult to contain. It's firmly rooted into Keter grounds, yet it doesn't murder or go out of its way to murder (the deaths in the incident were combat-related, not deliberate attempts to take life).
4454724
didn't realize I was talking to an SCP aficionado. Regardless it doesn't really matter. SCP has nothing to do with this fic, that I personally dislike the most.
4454598 It's a ship with a mind of it's own. It can go to any port. Ships need a pilot to bring them into a harbor, so it can kill them, and the custom's inspector, and simply sail away. Plus, any ship that wander's into it's path will probably put a prize crew aboard. According to international maritime law, if you find a ship that has been abandoned AKA drifting or beached, you are able to claim salvage rights, which is usually a portion of the profits of the cargo and the insurance money for the cargo. That is, if I remember it correctly.