> The Pony Dead
>  by Duhad8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Cabin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Bonbon sighed as she carefully stepped over a large tree root and frowned at the jade unicorn who had insisted on dragging her out into the middle of nowhere. “Lyra, how much further till we get to this place?”
“We should be almost there now, just hold out a little bit longer, OK?” To Bonbon's annoyance, Lyra had not even broken a sweat over the last four hours of hiking. If she had been in a better mood she might have been proud of how thoroughly Lyra had followed the exercise regimen she had pestered her to take up. But, here and now, in the woods, she felt it rather hard to feel much more than a mild contempt for her fit friend.
Looking back, the earth pony took solace in knowing that, at the very least, she was not alone in her suffering. While Carrot Top was holding up alright, Derpy had given up on flying and Colgate seemed about ready to collapse.
Bonbon had just decided to call for a break, under the pretense of being concerned for Colgate when Lyra pointed ahead excitedly. “There it is! We’re here!” And with that she rushed ahead toward an opening in the thick woods.
Bonbon ran after her, but as she came into sight of their destination she felt her jaw slacken and her gait slow to a walk. When Lyra had told her friends that she had gotten permission from an old university professor to use his summer home for a vacation spot, she had imagined a pleasant house in the woods. While the long trip had lowered her expectations of their destination, she had never thought that the “summer home” would be a tiny, rundown looking cabin.
“Oh my...” Carrot Top murmured as she trotted up to join Bonbon. “This is, um, well...”
“Fantastic!” Lyra said, turning to face the other mares, beaming from ear to ear. “Can you believe Professor Orange would just let us stay here for free?”
Derpy looked up, frowning. “Yes?”
“NO!” The others all turned to see Colgate, who had just staggered into the clearing, looking equal parts exhausted and horrified. “No, we did not just come all the way out here for this!”
Bonbon gritted her teeth and glared at the blue unicorn. She did not know Colgate very well, except that she and Lyra had been friends at school and had recently reconnected in Canterlot for the Royal Wedding. Lyra had insisted on bringing her along, saying that Bonbon would “absolutely love her!” It had taken less than a day with the mare for Bonbon to begin to wonder if that had been a secret insult to her or her taste in friends.
“Oh come on Colgate, we have this whole place to ourselves for a week!” Lyra spun and raced towards the cabin. “Come on, you slow pokes! I want to check this place out before it gets too dark!”
Colgate flopped to the ground with a whimper as Bonbon snorted. “Come on girls, let’s drop off our packs inside,” she said, leading Carrot Top and Derpy after the mint green unicorn.
Lyra's horn shimmered as she ran a telekinetic field across the top of the door frame. After a moment of concentration she grinned and pulled a set of slightly rusted keys down from their hiding place. “There we go!” Lyra said, deftly flipping the correct key from the set and using it to unlock the door. “Second oldest hiding spot in the book.” Derpy giggled, but Bonbon just rolled her eyes.
Lyra pushed the door open and immediately Bonbon's heart sank. While the outside of the cabin was decrepit, the inside was decrepit with an extra helping of creepy. Dust lay in a thin blanket across the wine-red furniture. Beams of dim light revealed a kitchen space next to the main room, where a neat stack of decorative plates sat, as if abandoned midway on the journey to or from the cabinet. Across the main room was a door hanging ajar. Shelves of books leaned against the walls with a reading bench sitting before a fireplace with a blackened hearth.
“Oh,” Carrot Top managed as she peered past Bonbon.
Bonbon turned to Lyra, a scathing comment already forming on her lips when she realized that her friend was standing stock still in the doorway, trembling. Bonbon felt her irritation drain away as she remembered that Lyra had been honestly excited about this trip. Any disappointment she felt about the state of the cabin must have been much worse for her friend. She laid a hoof on the unicorn’s back. “Lyra?”
“I didn't think... he didn't tell me...” Lyra quavered.
“It's alright dear,” Bonbon said, rubbing Lyra's back. Carrot Top and Derpy both moved back to give them room. “I know you didn't know.”
Lyra looked back at Bonbon, tears brimming and face beaming. “It’s not just alright!” she choked out. “He never told me he kept a private library out here!” Lyra suddenly lunged forward, laughing as she hugged Bonbon tightly before making a beeline for the books.
Carrot Top and Derpy quickly slipped past Bonbon, ignoring the sound of grinding teeth.  They knew her well enough to know when to give her some space. Unfortunately, the same was not true for Colgate, who had just decided to rejoin them.
“Wow, Lyra! This place is a dump!” The blue unicorn whistled.
“NO ONE ASKED FOR YOUR OPINION ON IT!” Bonbon bellowed. Colgate, startled, scrambled tumbling backward down the porch steps.
There was a long moment of silence as everypony stared at Bonbon, broken only by the whimpering of Colgate who had not moved from where she had fallen. Bonbon spun and stormed across the main room, pushing through the cabin’s only other door. Beyond, there was a short hallway, flanked on either side by a second pair of doors, with a third, much more sturdy looking one at the end, which Bonbon suspected lead outside.
Bonbon pushed through the right side door and found herself in a small bedroom. The room was no more inviting than the rest of the cabin, but it did have the advantage of not having a crowd of shocked ponies staring at her. With a practiced flick, she shook out the blanket, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Before it had even begun to settle, the earth pony dove beneath the blanket.
“Bonbon?”
“Go away, Lyra.” Bonbon grumbled from beneath the blanket. To her annoyance the sound of the door closing was followed by the sound of approaching hoofsteps. “Go away, Lyra!” she repeated, louder, while remaining firmly under the blanket. She felt the bed sag slightly as a familiar weight settled down beside her. A hoof rested on her back and began to massage in slow circles as she let out an exasperated sigh and moved in closer.
“What’s the matter Bon?” Lyra's voice was soothing, but Bonbon could hear the tenseness in the question.
“It’s nothing,” Bonbon lied, before thinking better of it. “No, it’s not nothing! It’s this whole trip!” She stuck her head out of the blankets and glared at Lyra. “You invite me on this wonderful trip out to the woods, and then you went and invited her along!”
Lyra recoiled. “You invited Carrot Top and Derpy, so why is it suddenly a problem when I want to spend some time with one of my friends?”
“Because Carrot Top and Derpy are not my friends, they’re OUR friends! And I didn't invite them to come along until after I found out that you had decided to bring along some unicorn who I barely knew! Heck, you only just started seeing her again when you were off, alone, at Canterlot for that wedding.” 
Lyra's face blanched at the implication. “You’re kidding.” Lyra stopped rubbing Bonbon’s back and fixed the mare with a glare of her own. “Is THAT what this is about? You think I like her? That I invited both of you out to the middle of the woods because I wanted to cheat on you with a school friend who I've barely had a chance to see in years?” Lyra's voice rose in volume. “Bonbon, the invitation was for just me and Colgate to come up here! I didn't invite Colgate to join us because I didn't want to spend time alone with you, I invited you because I didn't want to take a vacation without you!” Tears began to run down Lyra's face as she took a steadying breath.
Bonbon sighed and pulled the unicorn down onto the bed with a hug. “It’s alright, Lyra. I know.”
Lyra embraced her back, burying her tear-streaked face in Bonbon's shoulder, avoiding jabbing her marefriend with her horn. “I just wanted you to like her, because I never get to see my old friends. When I do, I usually have to go all the way to Canterlot without you. I really wanted this to go well so we could do things like this more often, but now you just think that I... that I...” Lyra's voice was choked off by sobs.
Bonbon rolled her eyes as she held Lyra. She hadn’t seriously believed that Lyra had it in her to actually go through with cheating on anypony, but she had wanted to sting her marefriend at least a little for bringing along the annoying unicorn and dragging them all off to this Celestia forsaken cabin.  Still, she hadn’t expected that Lyra would be quite so on edge. She was generally emotional and more than a little excitable, but it was obvious that Lyra had been far more invested in this trip's success then she had let on.
After awhile Lyra stopped crying, but the two stayed together in silence on the bed. Finally, Bonbon nuzzled the top of Lyra's head and whispered, “We should go and talk to the others. I guess… I need to apologize to Colgate.”
Lyra murmured something that sounded like 'thank you' into Bonbon's shoulder. The two untangled themselves and took a moment to straighten their appearances before leaving the room together.
The sun had almost set by the time they had returned, but as the world outside had dimmed, the cabin had come to life. A merrily burning fire illuminated the room and the smell of tea and vegetables masked the smells of dust and age that had permeated the cabin. Carrot Top was preparing meals as Derpy tidied the room, lighting a few candles to help brighten the room further. Colgate was sitting on the bench reading in front of the fireplace. Bonbon winced as she noticed that the unicorn’s leg was slightly swollen and that she had a few bandages on her back.
“Hey girls,” Lyra said, somewhat lamely. “What’s for dinner?”
Derpy jumped a little, upsetting a candle. Carrot Top masked her own surprise with a smile as she said, “Oh good! Dinner is almost ready!” Colgate looked up from her book, but quickly looked back to it as she caught Bonbon’s eye.
Bonbon felt her heart sink a little at the look of fear on the unicorn's face. Lyra was going to be disappointed.

> The Recording
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Derpy carefully placed her fork on top of her empty plate. She had never been one to rush meals, especially when Carrot Top prepared them, but tonight she had made an exception to that rule.
To say the meal had been merely tense would be like saying that muffins were only tasty. Lyra and Carrot Top had tried their best to start conversations, but to no avail. Bonbon had tried early on to break the ice with Colgate, but the latter had simply ignored her, preoccupied with her food. Bonbon had apparently taken that badly and refused to try again.
And so the dinner had continued until Derpy could not stand it any longer. She had bowed her head and concentrated on finishing her meal as quickly as possible. She had worried that Carrot Top would give her one of her infamous ‘you’re doing something wrong, Derpy’ looks, but for once her friend seemed far too preoccupied with the drama between Bonbon and Lyra's friend than in monitoring Derpy's behavior.
Making her way over to the sink, she lowered the plates into the bottom of the basin.
Help us.
Derpy froze, head still in the sink. She slowly raised her head and peered back at the table, almost certain that she would see Carrot Top staring at her, with a disappointed expression. Nopony was looking at her, nor did any of them look like they were overly concerned with Derpy joining them back at the table, so why had...?
Help us.
Derpy snapped her head sharply as she heard the creak of wood. On the far side of the main room, a square patch of floor had risen slightly. The trap door. She had noticed it before, during her cleaning, but had ignored it, reasoning that it was nothing worth worrying about.
She could also have sworn that it had been locked and she was definitely sure that it had been closed.
Creeping around the table, she made her way over to the strange trap door. As she got closer to it, she felt an unexplainable chill run through the air, as if the trap door was some sort of open freezer. She had just about reached it when she heard a cry from the table.
“Derpy, what in Equestria are you doing?” Carrot Top had ‘the look’.
“I saw something,” Derpy explained, embarrassed. “Or, I thought I saw the trap door open… so I wanted to see if I was right, I guess.”
“Dear, you don't need to investigate why something is open if you opened it.” Carrot Top's voice was not unkind, but she still had ‘the look’.
Derpy looked back at the trap door and felt a shiver run down her spine as she realized that it was wide open, revealing a rickety wooden stair case leading down into the darkness.
“But I didn’t...” Derpy mumbled, too low for Carrot Top to hear.
“Can you please close that door now, Derpy?” The look had changed. If Derpy had not known better she would have almost thought that her friend looked afraid. Derpy tried to push that thought away; Carrot Top was the bravest, or second bravest, she guessed, pony she knew. She reached out to close the trap door when she paused.
Help us.
She thought she saw something down at the bottom of the stairs. She knew she should just do as Carrot Top had asked, but curiosity nagged at her. What exactly did a university teacher keep in his root cellar anyway?
Help us.
“Derpy?”
It was not like it would really hurt to check after all. Ignoring Carrot Top, she trotted down the steps into the darkness of the cellar.
As she came to the bottom of the stairs, Derpy paused in the musty air. Soon she could make out the dim outlines of her surroundings. Large shelves, lined with jars, leaned against the walls, which ended far more abruptly than the mare had expected. She had thought that the cellar would be one large room. What she had not expected was to find herself confronted with another door.
Curiosity spurring her on, Derpy pushed though the cellar's door, only to be disappointed when she was confronted with nothing but a pitch black room.
She was just about to give up on her exploration and return upstairs, at least until she could grab a candle, when a creak on the steps behind her made Derpy start. She spun around, suddenly terrified of what she would see between her and the only way back up to the light and her friends.
Lyra lifted a candle with her magic as she offered Derpy an apologetic smile. “Sorry, didn't mean to startle you.”
Derpy smiled back, though her heart was still pounding in her throat.
As Derpy pointed Lyra toward the cellar door, unwilling to trust her own voice at the moment, she wondered why she was suddenly so on edge. She was not a very brave pony, she knew that, but somehow having her friend there had made it far worse.
Help us.
And yet, even as she thought this she felt her heart slow to its regular pace. She had been startled by Lyra, but that was all. In fact, she reasoned as the unicorn moved past her, lifting the candle higher to illuminate the open door way, she really should have far less to be nervous about now that her friend was down here with her. Satisfied with her own reasoning, Derpy turned and followed Lyra into the second room of the cellar.
The second room was also lined with shelves, however, where the first had been clearly a food storage, this new room seemed to be more of a junk room. Rows of assorted miscellaneous stuff, from old scrolls, to colts’ toys, to things that Derpy could not for the life of her recognize, were piled high across the shelves. In the center of the room there was a large and solid looking table.
Sitting on top of that was a projector and a record player, needle resting in its cradle, its tray empty.
Lyra ignored the table and moved straight to bustling about the room, pulling down scrolls and checking their contents before quickly re-rolling them and placing them back on the shelves. Derpy shook her head. Other ponies sometimes did things she could not understand, but while her friends would explain what they were doing and why, Lyra would not. Lyra never would. Derpy had long ago learned from Bonbon and Carrot Top that Lyra often did things that nopony understood, and that it was best to just try not to worry about it.
As she began to search the shelves on the other side of the room, the mare wondered how she had met such a strange pony as Lyra.
Oh right! She remembered! She had known Carrot Top for as long as she had lived in Ponyville, back when she was just getting out of flight school and looking for a place to start her own life, away from her well-meaning, but smothering parents. Carrot Top had also been her first non-pegasus friend, a fact that she was very thankful for, since she doubted a pony like Bonbon would have stayed friendly with her for very long, back when she had first been struggling to understand the differences between pegasus and earth pony culture.
She had met Bonbon and, subsequently, Lyra through Carrot Top. Bonbon and Carrot Top had been close friends since they were fillies and it had been Carrot Top, back when she and Lyra had been roommates, who had introduced the inseparable pair in the first place.
Derpy liked Bonbon well enough, the earth pony mare could be prickly, but her heart was always in the right place. Even so, Derpy had always liked Lyra just a little bit more. While she would never say so out loud, she had always felt a certain empathy for the other pony and the way that others tended to dismiss her for her odd ideas or grow annoyed with her eccentricities. That was something Derpy knew all about.
Help us.
Lost in thought, she was hardly aware she had picked up the record before she was trotting across the room with it. She tapped Lyra on the flank, distracting her from her current scroll.
“What is it Derpy?” The unicorn asked, peeved. When she saw the record in the other mare’s mouth, though, Lyra's eyes widened. “Derpy, where did you find that?” she asked, an incredulous smile spreading across her face.
Derpy shrugged, releasing the record as she felt it being tugged by Lyra's magic. “I just found it over there.” She pointed back toward the shelf where she had taken it from. “I just thought you would like to see it… I guess?”
“Were there any other records like this, Derpy?” Lyra asked, but before Derpy could answer she rushed across the room to look for herself.
“I don't think so,” Derpy offered as Lyra scanned along the shelf rows where the record had been.
“No... I guess not,” Lyra said, sighing. “Still!” She pepped up and gave Derpy a huge grin. “We have this! I could kiss you right now, Derpy!” The mare looked shocked and Lyra laughed. “Figuratively speaking, silly! Now come on, I need you to carry this record upstairs for me. I’ve got the record player!” And with that, she gave the record back to Derpy and magically lifted up the record player from its place on the table.
As Derpy stepped back out into the first room, she felt terror grip her. Something in the contrast between the warm, steady light that beamed down through the still open trap door and the flickering shadows thrown off by the candle which Lyra held clenched in her teeth seemed far more terrifying than the darkness of before.
Without warning, a thousand nighttime terrors suddenly sprang to life in her head. All around her, just beyond her view and lurking just behind her, ready to spring, were all the ghouls and monsters she had ever imagined living under her bed as a filly. The urge to turn around and face the nothingness that her rational mind knew she would find, and the animalistic need to flee and not look back, lest the things take that opportunity to grab her, battled for control over her frozen legs.
Then, the instant ended and Derpy took off like a shot, wings furiously beating to speed her legs in their effort to close the distance between herself and the light as quickly as possible. She hurtled up the steps, barely touching them and nearly colliding with Bonbon, who had been peering into the cellar. She turned her head to look after Bonbon, as the earth pony threw herself backwards, a reflexive apology already on her lips, when she suddenly collided with something solid. Derpy yelped as her field of view exploded into stars. The record that she had been holding fell to the floor, as Derpy and whatever she had hit slammed to a stop.
As the sudden flood of adrenaline that had propelled her on her wild flight drained out of her body, Derpy realized that whatever she had hit was moaning. She opened her eyes to see the familiar blue coat of Lyra's friend Colgate. To the pegasus’s chagrin, Colgate had been smashed into the back wall. If the unicorn hadn’t been there, she would have hit the wall herself. Headfirst. At top speed.
“Derpy!” The mare felt a pair of hooves grab her and pull her off of the dazed Colgate. Carrot Top's face loomed over her friend. The look was back, and angrier than ever. Derpy suddenly wished she was back in the basement, as no childhood monstrosity was a match for Carrot Top when she was in a foul mood. “What in Celestia's name do you think you’re doing?”
“Um...” Derpy tried to smile winningly, but could not quite manage it. “I was just coming up from the basement.” She felt her face redden as she added. “And I… accidentally ran over Colgate.”
“Derpy Hooves! Do you have ANY idea how reckless that was?” Carrot Top scolded, eyes blazing with the intensity of a disapproving mother. “You could have seriously hurt Colgate or yourself with that little stunt, not to mention that, if you had hit her head on with that record in your mouth you might have broken it and cut yourself quite badly! And what then? If somepony gets seriously hurt out here there’s no way to get help quickly, ESPECIALLY if you are in no shape to fly!”
Derpy looked away from Carrot Top’s angry stare, tears welling up in her eyes. She wanted to explain that she knew that it was dangerous to do what she had done and that she would not have done it if she had not been so scared, but that she also knew exactly how silly what she had been scared of was and how it was not an excuse for her actions. Instead, she mumbled something that even she could not understand and began to sniffle.
Carrot Top did not seem placated by Derpy's tears, but before she could say anything more she was distracted by the voice of Bonbon as the other earth pony asked. “And where did you get this?”
Lyra had just finished climbing the stairs, and with a little help from Bonbon, had successfully brought up the record player with her. “This, my dear Bonbon,” Lyra said with a theatrical wave of a hoof. “Is Professor Orange’s old record player! He used to bring it into class with him and would play recordings from other historians and researchers instead of just having us read the text books.” She patted the old device fondly. “He replaced the one he had at the college back when Colgate and I were still taking his course, but he said he brought this one back home. I guess he must have brought it out here sometime between then and now.”
Bonbon shook her head. “Your low standards in professors never ceases to amaze me.”
Derpy took advantage of Carrot Top's distraction to get back to all fours and check on the still dazed unicorn. Between her fall down the stairs and her collision with the wall, Colgate was hardly in the best shape, but she seemed to have avoided anything worse than a few bruises and scrapes.
“Derpy found a record and I wanted to give it a spin on this old beast, you know? See if it’s a lecture recording or something,” Lyra continued, ignoring Bonbon’s remark as Derpy waved a hoof in front of Colgate's face.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“No, not really,” Colgate replied, rubbing the back of her head. “I haven’t exactly been having a great day.”
Carrot Top picked up the record and read its hoof written label aloud. “Translation of Necronomicon Ex-Mortis: Human Book of the Dead. Lyra, this just sounds vile!”
“I know how much you love this kind of thing, but this does sound pretty morbid,” Bonbon added, giving the record a disapproving look.
Lyra waved a hoof. “OK, it sounds a bit grim, but it’s a scholarly translation of an ancient text, it’s hardly going to be that graphic. Dashing Orange is the head of the history department at Celestia's own school, so if this is his personal work then it’s got to be something really good!”
Derpy ignored the conversation as she wrapped Colgate in a hug. “I am so sorry for all of this. I didn't mean to smack you into a wall!”
The unicorn laughed weakly. “Apology accepted. I guess I’m just getting all my bad luck for this trip out of the way up front.”
Derpy heard a sigh from behind her as a hoof pulled her away from Colgate. Carrot Top’s exasperation hadn’t gone away much and Derpy knew that she was still in for an earful later, but for the time being her attention had shifted from lecturing her roommate to seeing to the injured mare. She stepped aside and allowed Carrot Top to move in and tend to the unicorn as Derpy's own attention was drawn back to the other group of ponies by the record player.
“So why would the history head of Celestia's own school leave this translation all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, in a lightless cellar? Why not leave it back in Canterlot?” Bonbon asked as Lyra set up the machine.
“Well,” Lyra began levitating the record. “First of all, this is not just any old cabin. Every year Professor Orange comes out here for two months to just get away from the world and devote himself fully to his studies, so it’s not all that strange that if he was working on a personal project that he would be doing it out here.” She placed the record on its tray and watched with anticipation as the black disk began to spin. “Secondly, anthropology is something of a... controversial subject. Dashing Orange naturally sees it as a field of study just as worthy as any other, even if the board won’t fund it as a proper program, but it’s still not exactly the most respectable field. Apparently, the last head of the history department thought that the whole thing was just a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories and threatened to fire anypony who tried to teach it as part of a serious curriculum! Can you imagine that?”
Bonbon rolled her eyes. “Oh no, that’s far too crazy of an idea for me to imagine.”
Derpy didn’t say anything. She knew that Lyra’s 'Anthropology' hobby was a large part of her perceived weirdness. She knew that most ponies thought that humans were about as real as zombies and that included Bonbon and Carrot Top. Carrot Top especially had always seen Lyra's “little obsession” as something of an embarrassment when it was brought up in public or with company and had asked Bonbon on more than one occasion to talk to her marefriend about giving it up.
When she did, Bonbon would nod her head gravely and promise to have a word with Lyra about it. When asked about it later she would simply give Carrot Top a look and roll her eyes as if to say, “you know.” Still, Derpy had always suspected that if she really wanted to, Bonbon was perfectly capable of forcing Lyra to give up on her hobby. And that she never actually would.
Now though, looking at the way Bonbon peered with genuine interest at the record, Derpy wondered why Bonbon had suddenly grown so curious about the recording. She did not know why, but the rapt attention the mare was giving to the record unnerved her.
Derpy's wandering train of thought was interrupted by a faint crackle as Lyra used her magic to place the needle on the record. The room quieted as everypony’s attention was drawn to the slightly muffled voice of an older stallion with a slight, upper-Canterlot accent.
“I believe,” the voice of the stallion began, “I have made a significant find in the Midnight Castle archeological dig site, a largely intact volume of ancient Human burial practices and funerary incantations.” A shiver ran down Derpy's spine and she looked behind herself at the trap door. The voice, obviously feeling no such nervousness, continued. “It is entitled "Necronomicon Ex-Mortis" or, roughly translated, Book of the Dead.” Here the stallion did pause as if trying to find the right words to use next. When he resumed the description, his voice had a noticeable quaver in it. “The book is bound in some form of..." another pause and then, “If later passages are to be believed then the book is bound in human leather and inked with a compound containing human blood.”
Derpy gasped, staring in horror at Lyra, whose whole face had blanched. The rest of the ponies around them looked just as distraught by the revelation. Derpy suddenly felt very glad that if humans had existed that they had died out ages ago.
Meanwhile, the record kept playing, “The book deals with creatures that these humans referred to as demons, methods of resurrecting these creatures, and of the supernatural forces which they believed roamed the forests and dark bowers of their world.” The voice took on a slightly drier tone. “The first few pages are mostly taken up by warnings about the dangers inherent with these mythical creatures and how they may lie dormant but are never truly dead. It posits that they may be recalled to active life through the incantations presented throughout this book. It is through the recitation of these passages that the writers of this book believed that the creatures could be given license to possess the living.”
Derpy thought she saw a flicker of movement. She jerked her head to the side, but saw nothing but the darkness beyond the window. Her heart began to beat faster and fear clawed at her belly.
“The following passage I could not find an appropriate Equestrian translation for, so I have decided to instead recite here in its entirety for future examination.” The voice on the recording continued. “It is from the third page of the book, and to the best of my knowledge, appears to have been some form of funeral prayer or dedication.”
Derpy felt the fear turn in her gut as she stared at her friends, who were all watching the record player intently. “We should turn this off,” she said, trying to stay calm as her mind screamed at her to demand why they were all so calm about this.
“Res ipsa loquitur, resurgam.” The stallion’s voice dropped into a rhythmic chant and Derpy felt her mane stand on end.
“Please shut it off?” Derpy implored, but the others where utterly transfixed.
“Respice finem, resurgam!” The voice grew in volume as the speaker gained confidence.
“Shut it off!” Derpy's own voice rose as she felt the fear give way to panic.
“Kaannda! RESURGAM!” The stallion’s voice filled the room as he spoke the words of the ancient incantation. “KAANNDA! KAANNDA, RESUMGAM!”
“SHUT IT OFF!” Derpy screamed, screwing her eyes shut and lashing out at the record player. Her hoof connected with the side of the box and the needle was sent skittering across the record’s surface with a harsh scratching sound.
At the same moment there was a terrible crash! Broken glass rained down on the terrified pegasus as she raced for the door, all thoughts driven from her mind except the need to escape.
Her friends were shouting something as she burst through the front door, but she barely registered them as she beat her wings, fragments of glass flying off of her in a shower of crystal fragments and droplets of blood as she took to the air. Ahead of her, between herself and the open sky, the tangled branches of the thick trees seemed to reach out for her, blocking her path, but she paid them no heed. She had only one thing on her mind: escape from that terrible cabin and that terrible voice! If she had to fly straight through a thicket of trees and scrape and bruise herself raw to do it, then so be it. It could not be any worse than being trapped down there.
> The Trees
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“DERPY!” Carrot Top screamed as she galloped out into the cold night air. She desperately looked to either side before calling out again “DERPY!?”
There was no response.
Bonbon hurried past Carrot Top, eyes turned upward as if hoping to see the gray pegasus high above them. Following behind were the two unicorns, Lyra looking concerned and Colgate terrified.
“What the hay just happened?” Lyra asked as Bonbon began to shout for their missing friend.
Carrot Top shook her head, feeling a panicky energy start to course though her body. She danced on the tips of her hoofs as she answered, “I have no idea!” She turned up to look up into the night sky. The thick branches of the gnarled trees seemed almost to have grown denser, all but blocking the moon from sight. “She has always been a little jumpy, but I have never seen her run off like that!” She bit her lower lip and frantically scanned the tree line, “Never! Never ever...”
Lyra gave her a sharp look before turning her back to face her. “Carrot Top, she is OK. Nothing is going to happen to Derpy. If she is not here, it’s only because she probably she’s flying back home right now. Alright?”
Carrot Top's eyes darted from Lyra's to the woods. Her friend’s words made sense, but she could not shake the feeling that Lyra was somehow terribly wrong.
“What if she does go back home?” Carrot Top asked sharply, quickly trying to rationalize her misgivings. “What if she goes home and I am not there to look after her and Dinky? What if she has an accident?”
Lyra did not take her eyes off of Carrot Top’s, but the earthpony’s own continued to shift back and forth. Catching sight of Colgate she suddenly realized that the other unicorn was giving her an alarmed look.
Colgate thought she was acting crazy!
They all probably thought that she was having a panic attack right now! Carrot Top opened her mouth, ready to snap at Colgate when Lyra spoke again.
“Carrot Top, Derpy is a grown mare. She's a bit clumsy, but she can survive without you for a few days, OK?” Lyra glared at Carrot Top as if daring her to argue.
“No!” The earth pony to felt tears well in her eyes as she glared back at Lyra. “I need to be there for her! Don't you get it? I need to look after her!”
Lyra took a step forward and pulled Carrot Top into a tight embrace. The Carrot Top resisted for a moment, but soon slumped into the hug. With a small sob she wrapped her forelegs around Lyra as tears began to flow freely down her cheeks. Clutching her tighter still, Lyra murmured reassuringly. “There, there, Derpy will be just fine. She’s going to come right back or she’ll fly back to Ponyville. If she is not back by morning then Colgate will take you back home. And I am sure that Time Turner won't let anything happen to Derpy if she does fly all the way home tonight.”
Carrot Top nodded, unable to speak as her sobs quickly tapered off into whimpers. The surge of adrenaline that had kicked in when Derpy had fled the cabin had faded, leaving Carrot Top drained.
Eventually she felt Lyra disentangling herself from their embrace as another pony lay a hoof over her shoulder. “I'll take over here.” Bonbon's familiar voice soothed. “We could use another light spell.”
Lyra nodded and with a last comforting smile, she turned and trotted off into the woods, horn flaring with light. At the same time Carrot Top felt a gentle push as Bonbon guided her back towered the light of the cabin.
As she was guided toward the fire place, a gnawing guilt started to form in the pit of Carrot Top's stomach. While Derpy was possibly lost in the dark woods, all alone, she was panicking and being coddled by ponies when she should be searching!
If Bonbon suspected her friend’s newfound source of worry she did an admissible job of hiding it, feeding the fire till it began to blaze merrily.
“I'm fine.” Carrot Top said, voice frail and unconvincing. “You shouldn't worry about me, just go and help look for Derpy.”
Bonbon shook her head firmly. “I'll decide who I should and should not worry about, if it’s all the same to you. Lyra and her friend have things well in hoof right now.”
Carrot Top groaned as she recognized the stubborn look on Bonbon's face. The mare had made up her mind and there was little anypony could do to change it now. “OK, I'm not fine,” Carrot Top sighed. “But I have a fire and a roof, which is a lot more then Derpy can say! Can you please, just go and look for her now?” 
“She's not a helpless filly, Carrot Top,” Bonbon said flatly, frowning at Carrot Top, “Why are you so frantic about this?”
Carrot Top looked away from Bonbon. If it were any other mare she would have just lied; said that it was just that she had always been concerned for Derpy ever since she had stood up for her when they were fillies. That, or point out that Derpy's occasional slowness might put her at risk if she attempted the long flight back home at night. These excuses would not be untrue, but they would not be the real reason for her fear.
The fact was that the way Derpy had run out on them had frightened her badly. As badly as the worst fright her friend had ever given her.
It scared her as much as the time Derpy had first brought home Time Turner.
The thought of losing Derpy terrified her. For years the two of them had lived together, Carrot Top tending and selling her crops and Derpy working a series of odd jobs. It was far from the kind of life she had dreamed about growing up, and every now and then, when things went badly, she would vent about it to Bonbon.  But even at her most upset, she had never really wanted her simple, comfortable life to change.
Then one cool fall evening, just a few weeks before, Derpy had come home with a stallion. He was brown, with a darker brown mane and an hour glass cutie mark, a combination which Carrot Top had compulsively decided was a terrible look for any stallion, particularly this one. When Carrot Top had asked who the pony was, Derpy had told her that he was some sort of doctor, though not a medical one as he was quick to elaborate when asked.
Over the next few days she had seen him come by the house several times and learned a bit more about him. His name was Time Turner, and he worked as a timepiece repair specialist, fixing clocks, hour glasses and other timepieces. It was a field he was so specialized in that he had actually managed to get a doctorate in it, of all the silly things! Carrot Top found that, with each new thing she learned about him, her opinion of the stallion soured.
By the time that Bonbon had mentioned the trip, Carrot Top had been at her wits end and had seen it as a fantastic opportunity to spend some quality time alone with her best friends. Colgate had been an unwelcome complication to that simple plan, and one that had only been made worse by her and Bonbon’s fight.
The evening had been a stressful nightmare for Carrot Top. Between Colgate insisting on sitting off by herself after she had been bandaged up and the unpleasant dinner, Carrot Top had felt like she’d spent the night walking on egg shells.
She knew now that if she had been paying less attention to her other friends she could have noticed Derpy's own distress.
It was the fight between Colgate and Bonbon. That, she decided, was where it had all gone wrong.
She sighed. “I just-” She took a deep breath and looked at Bonbon. “I just feel like I should have noticed something sooner.”
Carrot Top was surprised when Bonbon pulled her into a hug, something she rarely did, unlike her friendlier partner. “This was NOT your fault, dear!” Bonbon stated fiercely. “If Derpy had shown any signs about running away then we all missed them.”
Carrot Top began to cry again as she hugged back, whispering, “I don't want to lose her! I’m so afraid that she was going to leave me and... and…” She trailed off miserably, unable to finish the thought out loud. Bonbon sighed sympathetically.
“She did not run out on you, Carrot Top, and she never will.” The cream-colored mare held her orange-maned friend out so that she could look her square in the eye. “Whatever frightened Derpy, she did not flee the cabin because she felt neglected. You have taken care of that mare better than anypony could have! And nopony appreciates that that more than Derpy.” She gave Carrot Top another stern look, “I know that you are worried about her running off with that stallion, but even if she did, do you really think she would move away?”
Carrot Top felt her cheeks glow as she tried to look away. “If she wants to move out, then I won’t stop her,” she muttered.
Bonbon tilted Carrot Top’s head back to face her with a scowl. “Don't give me that, Carrot! You know as well as I do that the only stallion she has eyes for lives right in Ponyville! Even if she did move out to live with him, you would hardly be a quarter mile from her.”
Carrot Top sighed and hung her head. “I know,” she admitted dejectedly. “I guess I just got used to her living with me, is all. I didn’t want to give that up and I didn't think I would ever have too.”
Bonbon sighed. “And what about White Script? The two of you have been seeing each other for months and at some point you might just want to move in together. And what would happen then, hmm?” Bonbon shook her head. “Derpy can't just be your roommate forever, Carrot.”
“I know, but it’s just that-” Carrot top was cut off by a cry from outside. In a flash both ponies had bolted to the door as Lyra and Colgate galloped back toward  the cabin, a dark mass carried between them.
Carrot Top's breath caught in her throat as she froze in the doorway. Then in an instant she had cleared the porch and was running full tilt to meet the oncoming ponies.
As she drew closer, her heart rate jumped as she saw a familiar blond mane protruding from the mass. Derpy's fur was matted with blood and dirt, and her left wing was bent at a sickeningly odd angle. Reaching the small group Carrot Top turned and began to follow them back toward the cabin, terrified to slow them down for even a moment.
“What happened?” she asked, mind racing.
“Colgate found her like this out there,” Lyra explained, her face pale and voice quavering. “She's cut up pretty bad so we didn’t want to leave her out there.”
“Is she safe to move?” 
“She was breathing,” Lyra replied, uneasily.
Before Carrot Top could ask anything else they had reached the front steps of the cabin. She stepped aside as Lyra and Colgate rushed inside through the door. Following behind them she found that Bonbon had pulled out a few blankets along with the couch to serve as a makeshift bed for the injured mare. The unicorns gently lay Derpy on the couch as Carrot Top moved around to her side.
As Carrot Top got a better look at Derpy she felt her heart sink. Her body was covered in cuts, most small and shallow, but some long and deep.  The lacerations were ragged and seemed to be covered in dirt, bark, and tree sap. Worse still, Carrot Top could tell from the way her friends skin had bulged in places that a few of her bones had been broken, including her left wing.
“Where did you find her?” Carrot Top asked, not looking up from her examination of the injured pony.
“She was next to a big tree,” Colgate explained, voice betraying her fear. “She was just lying there, not moving! I might have missed her, but her wing was sticking up weirdly from where she had…” She swallowed, “…I guess where she had crashed.”
Carrot Top gave Colgate a look that made the unicorn flinch. “So you are saying that she did not land on her broken wing?”
Colgate shook her head. “I mean, it was sticking up, so I don’t think so. Why?”
Carrot Top looked back to Derpy. While it was true that Derpy could have just rolled after falling on her wing, it seemed more likely that something had broken her friend’s wing before she had fallen. It would explain the other broken bones, which seemed to be more frequent on Derpy’s right side, if she had landed like that.
“But then what broke her wing? And what cut her up so badly?” Carrot Top wondered out loud.
“Could it have been the trees?” Bonbon suggested, worried. “You said she had a nasty accident with one a month ago.”
Carrot Top shook her head. “Can't be.” Carrot Top’s voice was thoughtful. “She could have broken her wing if she flew into a tree, but not this badly. And I have never seen a tree branch cut a pony like this before.” Carrot Top shivered as she looked at the bark and sap in the wounds. “I didn't think they could, anyway…” she whispered.
“Can we get her to a hospital?” Colgate asked, sounding on the verge of panic. Carrot Top wondered why she was not panicking herself. Looking at Derpy's motionless form on the couch, everything seemed so unreal. While she was no doctor she had seen the results of serious injury many times and could tell that Derpy was hurt far worse then she had ever been before. Yet, she could not seem to feel any strong emotion.
“We can't risk moving her anymore right now.” Her voice was as strangely calm as she felt. “She might be bleeding internally or have broken bones in places we can't see and if we don't keep her still that could...” She tried to recall the first aid classes she had taken, but the lessons were faded and jumbled in her mind. “Well it would be bad,” she finished.
Lyra blanched at the thought that she might have inadvertently hurt Derpy by moving her as Colgate began to hyperventilate.
Bonbon looked from her still friend to Carrot Top. “Isn't there anything we can do?” she asked, eyes pleading.
Carrot Top tried to think, but her mind had gone blank.
“Carrot Top?” Bonbon asked.
Carrot Top could not respond. She felt overwhelmed by the enormity of what was happening.
“There has to be something we can do.” Lyra's voice sounded firm and authoritative, but the look she gave Carrot Top was almost desperate in its need for something- anything- to do. “Maybe we can go and get help?”
Carrot Top opened her mouth, but could not speak. In her head Lyra's last words echoed over and over again. Go get help... Go get help…
Colgate, in the meantime had succumbed to a full blown panic as she curled into a ball, still hyperventilating loudly.
Oddly it was the latter that broke Carrot Top out of her shock. Life threatening injuries were outside of her wheelhouse, but the problem of a panicked pony was not. She spun to face her friends and pointed a hoof at Colgate. “Lyra, you can start by taking your friend to another room. She and Derpy aren't helping one another one bit!” Her voice had taken on the authoritative tone she sometimes used with Derpy when troubles cropped up in there house. Lyra seemed taken aback, but quickly moved to the blue unicorn’s side, seemingly grateful to be doing something.
“What about Derpy?” Bonbon asked, still concerned though visibly bolstered by Carrot Top's confidence.
“We can't move her and we can't leave her alone,” Carrot Top said, considering their options. After a moment she added, “And I don't want anypony else going out into those woods alone for any reason. Not till we know what happened!”
Bonbon nodded. Her eyes flicked to one of the cabin’s windows and she shuddered. “I think that's a good idea.” She gave her unconscious friend a sympathetic look. “None of us can fly and, in the dark, we might just end up getting lost. Lyra is the only one who really knows this root and even she got turned around on the way up.” She did not add that they had not worried too much about it at the time, because Derpy could always fly up to get them back on course or to get help if that failed.
“Bonbon, why don't you make us some tea?” Carrot Top asked, giving her friend her a confident smile. “I think it might help sooth everypony’s nerves.” 
Bonbon returned her smile, but a hint of brittleness had crept into it. “I suppose some of us certainly need it,” she said.
As Bonbon stoked the fire and prepared the kettle, Carrot Top frowned. She loved Bonbon to death, but her friend was acting awfully petty. She wondered what in Equestria Colgate had done to upset Bonbon so badly.
“She suspects Colgate’s secret,” a voice rasped behind her.
Carrot Top felt her heart leap into her throat as she spun round.  Derpy had not moved, save for her mouth, which now hung open.
“What’s the matter?” Bonbon called from the fireplace.
Carrot Top ignored her. “Derpy?”
Carrot Top strained her ears, but heard nothing save for the faint sound of crying from the bedrooms. Then Bonbon asked again, “Carrot Top? What's going on over there?”
Carrot Top turned her head to Bonbon and made a shushing motion. Bonbon shot back an indignant look before suddenly crying out in terror.
Carrot Top whipped back around to see Derpy's eyes open and staring directly into hers. But what had startled Bonbon was not that Derpy’s eyes had opened, but the eyes themselves. They were pale and bloodshot, the pupils blind and un-dilated, yet Carrot Top knew without a doubt that Derpy could see her.
“Derpy?” Carrot Top asked, reflexively taking a step back as the pegasus’s wings slowly opened, the damaged left bending at a corked angle.
With a lopsided flap, Derpy rose into the air, legs dangling limply as her head lowered in jerks to maintain eye contact with Carrot Top. For a long moment the mare hung in the air, wings beating far too slowly and erratically to maintain the steady height she sat at. Then Derpy’s mouth fell open, and a voice unlike anything Carrot Top had ever heard before rasped out her throat, “Why have you awoken us from our slumber?”
“Derpy, what's going on?” Carrot Top gasped.
Derpy's dead eyes seemed to bore into Carrot Top’s as she roared, “Your friend is dead! You are all dead!” One of Derpy's hooves suddenly jerked up to point at her. “Just like the ones that came before, we will take you one by one!”
Suddenly the flying mare fell to the floor in a lifeless heap, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“What in Celestia's name is going on out here?” Carrot Top heard Lyra shout as a door burst open with a bang.
Bonbon looked from the motionless Derpy to Carrot Top, eyes silently asking a question that Carrot Top could not answer. Instead, the yellow earthpony slowly approached the still body of her best friend. Reaching Derpy, Carrot Top knelt down and checked for a pulse that she knew was not there.
“Carrot Top?” Colgate's voice was small and frail as Carrot Top's vision of the body grew blurry. She screwed her eyes shut as hot tear tracks burned down her cheeks.
“I'm so sorry,” she whispered as she wiped her eyes with a hoof. “I promised I would be there for you...”
“Is she...?” Lyra trailed off, unable to say the word.
Carrot Top looked away from the body and nodded, a lump forming in her throat.
Carrot Top heard a choked-off sob as somepony, Lyra from the sounds of it, began to break down. She dimly registered the soothing sound of Bonbon's voice as she comforted the crying pony.
Carrot Top felt her own body tremble, but she managed to hold it together till a hoof came to rest on her shoulder. For a moment she wanted to throw the hoof off and scream at Colgate. Scream that it was her fault that all of this had happened! But then the moment passed and she sank to the floor as grief overtook her.
“It’s OK,” a familiar voice soothed. “It's not your fault.”
Carrot Top blinked as she looked up. Through the tears in her eyes, she thought she saw a familiar face staring back at her; an achingly familiar, goofy smile beaming out from those oh-so-familiar features.
“Derpy?” she asked, feeling her heart suddenly lighten at the hope, the need to believe that it had all been some horrible misunderstanding; that she was now waking from this horrible nightmare that she had mistaken for reality.
For the fourth time that night Carrot Top was startled by a sudden scream, this time from the very pony that she had at first mistaken for her comforter. She blinked again and her eyes suddenly widened as she saw the pale, staring eyes and the broken-toothed grin of the thing that had been her friend.
In that moment she knew, beyond any doubt, that the thing in front of her was not her friend; that nothing of Derpy was left behind those horrible eyes.
As the thing lunged forward with a mad cackle, biting down onto her shoulder with bone-crushing force, the only thought left in her head was a desired hope that, where every Derpy was now, she had no idea what her body was doing.

> The Evil
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Colgate screamed as the deformed pegasus drove Carrot Top into the floor. The earthpony’s eyes were wide and full of terror as she weakly tried to push away from the thing on top of her. Suddenly the unspeakable thing’s head snapped up with a jerk and it stared straight at Colgate, mouth split into a bloody grin.
Colgate felt her heart skip a beat as it advanced on her, leaving Carrot Top gasping on the floor. Colgate’s horn charged with magic as she desperately racked her brain for the self-defense spells she had been learning. Before she could focus on one, however, the Derpy-thing lunged at her with an insane scream.
At the same moment, a poker swung hard into the face of the oncoming monster. The creature crashed to the floor with a thud before spinning to face its assailant. “I’ll swallow your soul!” It screeched.
Lyra swung the poker again, hitting the thing in the side of its head with a crack that made Colgate wince. “Good luck with that,” Lyra growled, raising the poker menacingly.
Bonbon, meanwhile, had rushed to Carrot Top’s side. “Carrot Top, honey, talk to me!” Bonbon turned her friend’s head to face her. Carrot Top’s eyes rolled and her mouth opened and half closed, but made no sound.
Lyra glared at the monster. “What are you and what did you do to our friend?”
The Derpy creature just leered.
Carrot Top twitched then sagged. Bonbon frantically shook her. “Carrot Top!” Her voice grew shrill as she struck her friend’s face. “Carrot Top you have to stay with me!” Colgate felt a creeping chill run down her spine as a sickening feeling of déjà vu washed over her.
“Bonbon, you need to get away from her.” Colgate’s voice quavered as she slowly got to all fours. Bonbon ignored her as she began to sob into her second dead friend’s chest. “Bonbon…” Colgate’s horn began to glow as she refocused her magic, finally recalling her self-defense classes.
“WHAT ARE YOU?” Lyra’s voice cracked as she raised the poker for another blow.
The Derpy-thing laughed.
“None of you will live to see the light of day!”
Bonbon screamed wordlessly into Carrot Top’s chest. Colgate watched as the dead mare’s eyes slowly opened, revealing pale white pupils.
There was a tremendous bang as Colgate discharged her spell directly into Carrot Top’s head, blasting the mare’s body out of Bonbon’s hooves and knocking both ponies to the floor.
“What the hay was that?” Lyra asked, droplets of blood splattered across her face.
Colgate shook her head, feeling slightly woozy. “Self-defense spell. After the wedding…” she trailed off self-consciously as she noticed that Lyra wasn’t looking at Carrot Top. Bonbon had curled into a ball as she had continued to cry on the floor.
Colgate looked away as Lyra nuzzled Bonbon, comforting her with words too quiet for Colgate to hear.
Colgate looked toward the Derpy creature, but seeing the spreading pool of blood and the poker protruding from the corpse’s head made her look away again, feeling ill. Instead she turned her attention to Carrot Top, whose body had begun to twitch. With a groan she trotted over to the body, giving the Lyra and Bonbon a wide berth.
Carrot Top’s pale eyes followed Colgate as she grabbed the other mare’s tail in her magic and began to drag her. Bonbon’s sobs filled Colgate’s ears as she pulled Carrot Top’s body to the lip of the still-open trap door. She turned back to look at the couple and caught Lyra returning her stare. Her friend nodded slightly before looking back at her marefreind. Colgate lay a hoof on Carrot Top’s back and pushed her into the root cellar.
The mare’s body dropped to the steps with a crash, before loudly rolling down the remaining stairs with a cacophony of bangs and thumps. Colgate slammed the trap door, wincing as Bonbon’s sobs rose to a wail of despair.
She gave Lyra a nervously apologetic smile, but received a murderous glare in return.
As Lyra helped Bonbon to her feet and guided her to their bedroom, Colgate retrieved a metal bar propped against the near wall and used it to secure the trap door. Having accomplished that, Colgate sat down, feeling oddly restless.
The thin walls of the cabin did little to muffle the continuing cries of despair and Colgate felt her skin crawl at the sound. She chanced a glance at the remains of the thing that had been Derpy and was struck by inspiration. Hurrying over to the corpse, she grabbed its tail in her magic and gave it a tug, only to find that the corpse refused to move. With a second, experimental tug she discovered that the poker had dug into the wood under the mare’s head.
Colgate hesitated, looking at the poker, but a fresh round of crying overruled her squeamishness as she telekinetically grabbed the handle. With a yank, Colgate pulled the poker free from the floor with a squelch. Trying to ignore that sound, Colgate once more grabbed the body by the tail and dragged it across the cabin to the door.
With a couple of bumps she hauled the corpse down the stairs and across the path that lead away from the cabin. She had just reached the first trees at the edge of the cabin’s clearing when she discovered one slight hiccup in her plan to bury the dead pegasus.
“Where in Equestria did Professor Orange keep his shovels?” Colgate looked back at the cabin. “Oh please don’t tell me he kept them in the cellar!”
Colgate trotted around the side of the cabin and grinned as she saw what she was looking for, a wooden shed set next to the main house. Hurrying over to it, she took notice of a small pile of wood stacked alongside the shed and made a mental note to grab a few extra logs before going back inside.
With a simple spell Colgate illuminated the inside of the shed, revealing a small, cramped space full of tools. Most of these seemed to have been left to rust, but leaning against the wall nearest the door was a wood ax and shovel, both of which looked polished and new.
Grabbing the shovel, Colgate hurried back out of the shed, feeling nervousness creep back into her mind. The crying from the cabin had quieted somewhat and in its place the sounds of the forest seemed to have grown louder. The benefits of being out of the cabin and giving her new friend a proper burial started to seem less tempting then the alternative of not being out in the creepy woods, alone, with the corpse of the thing that had murdered Carrot Top.
Still, the idea of leaving Derpy’s body lying out in the woods to be scavenged by the animals was just too horrible to consider. So Colgate ignored her misgivings and began to dig.
Minutes dragged by like hours as the shovel blade tore at the cold earth. The work was arduous and the only sound to help Colgate pass the time was the fading sobs of Bonbon and the creak of the tree branches above. Colgate tried to hum a song, but gave up after failing to think of one which had a tune fit for grave digging.
Finally, as the sound of crying faded, Colgate set the shovel aside. The grave was shallow, and she was not happy with the fact that Derpy’s final resting place had a large root running through it, but it would serve. Solemnly, she pulled the poker the rest of the way free from her friend’s head, and rolled Derpy into the hole. She heard the front door of the cabin open and looked back to see Lyra standing in the doorway.
Picking the shovel back up, she poured the loose dirt back into the grave, before planting the tool behind the spot as a marker.
Feeling that something else was needed, Colgate knelt before the fresh grave and cleared her thoughts. “Derpy,” she started. “You seemed like a really nice mare and I wish that I had known you before all this. I don’t know what happened to you, but I am sure that you wouldn’t have eaten Carrot Top if you hadn’t turned into a crazy monster… I guess I just hope that, wherever you are now, you’re at peace.” Colgate felt a hoof rest on her back and she looked up to see Lyra smiling sadly at her.
“Thank you.”
Colgate swallowed, feeling a familiar tightness in her chest at Lyra’s smile. “I’m sorry about blasting Bonbon.”
Lyra’s face reddened. “Oh yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to get mad at you over that. It wasn’t your fault.”
Colgate felt her own cheeks brighten as her heart rate sped up. “Don’t worry about it. We’re all just on edge right now.” Colgate looked back to the grave and felt the blush drain from her face. “I am so sorry about your friends.”
Lyra nodded and pulled Colgate into a tight hug. “I know,” Lyra sniffed. “I am trying to keep it together for Bonbon’s sake, but I don’t know how long I can hold up for!” She rested her head on Colgate’s shoulder. “Thank Celestia I still have you here Colgate. I can’t even imagine what I would do without you here!”
Colgate’s face began to burn as she patted Lyra on the back. “Well… Well I am not going anywhere, Lyra!” She put a hoof down to steady herself as Lyra hugged her tighter. “Actually I just found some logs, so when we go back inside we can light a nice big fire and wait out this horrible night till morning. Once the sun is out we can probably-” Colgate was cut off as a sudden searing pain in her foreleg drove everything else from her mind. Her scream of pain was soon joined by Lyra’s as she saw Derpy’s maimed head sink its teeth deeper into Colgate’s leg.
Colgate battered at the undead mare’s head as it started to drag itself from its grave, using Colgate as leverage. Lyra snatched up the shovel and drove it down onto the Derpy ghoul’s head with all her magical strength. Unfortunately, Colgate’s bloodcurdling scream of agony made it clear that the force of the blow had only added pressure the creature’s bite.
“GET THE AX!” Colgate sobbed as blood began to pour down her leg.
“What ax?” Lyra shouted back, frantically, dancing in place.
“Shed! Side!” Colgate cried, frantically kicking at the creatures face.
“Right!” Lyra dashed off as the thing got one of its hooves free and started kicking back at Colgate. Another crack sent fresh waves of agony up the mare’s leg as she felt herself begin to lose consciousness.
Colgate fought the urge to pass out with all her will as she thrashed in the creature’s grip. Feeling its hold loosening, the monster stopped its attack to focus on maintaining its hold. As Colgate tried to jerk away, the creature was pulled free, inch by inch.
Finally, with a last yank the monster was wrenched free from its grave!
With a grin, it dropped Colgate’s mangled limb and stalked forward. Colgate’s blood dripped from abomination’s mouth like saliva, splattering on the mare’s body as it drew level with her face.
Tears welled in Colgate’s eyes as the monstrous Derpy creature leered over her.  “I’LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!” It screamed, spraying Colgate’s face with blood and spittle. Colgate closed her eyes and screamed.
“Hey, Derpy!” Lyra shouted, followed by a wet impact. Colgate peeked up to see the creature’s headless body slowly tumble off of her. She turned her head to see Lyra levitating the now bloodstained ax.
“Heads up,” she growled, and brought the ax down again. The sounds of heavy blows continued as Colgate’s vision faded, mind drifting away into oblivion.

> The Dead
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Lyra burst into the cabin, Colgate’s limp body draped over her back and the ax held firmly in her magic. Bonbon sat up straight on the bench and gasped as Lyra dropped the other unicorn to the floor. “Is she alive?”
“Yes.” Lyra dropped the ax and held out Colgate’s injured leg for inspection.
“Are you sure she’s alive?” Bonbon shivered as she eyed Colgate suspiciously.
“Yes,” Lyra repeated, looking worried. “But I don’t like the look of her leg.”
“What happened?” Bonbon did not move from the bench, but craned her neck to get a better look.
“Derpy bit her, really hard.” Lyra picked up the ax. “And I think the bite’s infected.”
Bonbon squinted. “Why do you think that?”
Lyra tapped the ax blade just below the joint of Colgate’s right foreleg. “Because the bite mark is turning black.”
Bonbon blanched. “What are you going to do?”
“Amputate it,” Lyra said, bracing herself as she raised the ax.
“Lyra!” Bonbon gasped, but it was too late. Lyra brought the ax down with a sickening crunch. Bonbon turned away, looking pale. “Oh sweet Celestia.”
Lyra wrenched the ax free from Colgate’s leg, feeling bile rise in her throat. She wanted nothing more than to squeeze her eyes shut and block out the sight of what she was doing, but she needed to hit her mark precisely if she wanted to avoid mutilating her friend’s leg any worse than it had been already. She swung the ax down again and heard the hard thump of the head sinking into the floor.
“OK… let’s never do that again.” Lyra released her hold on the ax and quickly snatched the table cloth. Tearing it into lengths, she bound her bleeding friend’s stump into a makeshift tourniquet. “There,” she said, sitting back. “That will keep her from bleeding out.” She bit her lower lip and added, “I hope… I have never actually done this before.”
Bonbon pulled the blanket she had brought from the bedroom tighter around herself. “What is going on?” she asked, more to herself than to Lyra.
“I don’t know,” Lyra answered quietly. She looked over at the record player, which lay where Derpy had kicked it. “But, I know who does.”
“Lyra, what are you thinking?” Bonbon had turned back around and looked scared. “Don’t you even think about touching that… that thing again!”
Lyra grimaced. “I don’t like the idea all that much either.”
“Then don’t do it!” Bonbon’s voice had grown shrill as she pleaded. “Whatever that horrible thing was, you finished it! Colgate is hurt, but if we just wait till morning then we can leave this horrible cabin and get help.”
Lyra shook her head. “Whatever that thing was, it got into Derpy while she was out in the woods. If there is still something out there, then we would be trotting right into it with an injured mare.”
“Then let’s leave her!” Bonbon cried. Lyra’s eyes widened as Bonbon quickly added, “Not like that! We could leave her here to go get help. If there is something out there then, with Derpy…” She swallowed. “Well, the cabin seems to be the safest place around right now, so it’s not like she will be in any worse danger then she is now.”
Lyra chewed her lip for a moment before shaking her head again. “No.” Her voice took on a tone of finality. “We can’t risk it. Not if there is a chance that there is something we’re missing.”
“But what if it happens again?” Bonbon shivered and edged closer to the fireplace. “What if you just make it worse?”
Lyra thought for a moment then smiled. “Well,” she said, sounding almost cheerful. “If it starts playing crazy, human demon summoning rituals again, I’ll just skip ahead!” She winked. “Should be easy now that I know what that sounds like.”
Bonbon stared aghast at the smiling unicorn as she seemed to wrestle with some deeply held emotions. “Can you at least do it in another room?” She asked weakly.
“No problem.” Lyra nodded as she levitated up the record player.
Lyra made her way into their bedroom and firmly closed the door. While the walls of the cabin were paper thin, she had no intention of letting out anymore sound then was absolutely necessary. Finally she started the old machine.
“KAANNDA!”
“LYRA!”
“Sorry!” Lyra hastily lifted the needle off the record and held it there for several seconds, waiting for the sound of shattering glass or inequine screams. When no such sounds occurred, Lyra let out a breath and shoved a pillow case into the mouth of the megaphone.
“OK, round two,” she muttered, gently moving the needle up the track.
The voice of Professor Orange, now muffled, returned. The old unicorn’s voice sounded old and tired as he recounted, “I know now that my assistant, Cobalt, has become host to a Kandarian demon. I fear that the only way to stop those possessed is through…” The stallion’s voice faltered for a moment, then continued more firmly. “…Is through the act of bodily dismemberment.”
Lyra felt a cold knot form in her stomach. The record continued. “I hope to find some way of sending the demons back through further research into the Necronomicon, which I have locked safely in the cellar. I at least take some small solace in knowing that, should I fail, no pony will find this place. Not till the Princess’ come to look for me, and they will be better able to deal with this better then any…” The stallion trailed off again as a thought seemed to strike him. “Did I remember to tell Lyra that I would be using this place, this year, after all?” There was a longer pause in which Lyra ground her face into her hooves. “Yes, I am fairly certain I did. Thank Celestia for small favors, I suppose.”
“You could have recorded over the stupid translation!” Lyra cried, giving the record player a kick.
Lyra’s ears perked up as she faintly heard the sound of a door open and close. Rushing back to the main room, she frantically looked too the now-empty bench where Bonbon had been sitting. “Bonbon!”
She dashed through the main door and looked out into the empty darkness of the woods. “BONBON!”
Back inside the house Colgate stirred, muttering something that Lyra could not make out. Lyra danced on the spot, torn between her friends.
Help us
Lyra spun toward the woods. “Bonbon?” She telekinetically grabbed her ax and charged after her marefriend.
Help us
The dark shapes of trees flashed by as Lyra galloped down the overgrown trail, eyes darting left and right, searching for any sign of danger or the lost mare. A glimpse of white caught her eye, and she veered off the path toward it.
Through the trees she saw Bonbon, her back turned to Lyra and galloping hell for leather through the trees. “BONBON!” Lyra screamed as she charged after the fleeing pony, heedless of the branches and brambles that seemed to reach out to block her way. Her attention was so focused on her friend, in fact, that she did not notice the large tree root jutting from the ground till her hoof caught on it. Lyra shouted in alarm as she fell to the ground in a heap.
Dazed, Lyra pushed herself back to her hooves unsteadily. Looking back toward where Bonbon had been, she saw nothing but darkness. “Bonbon!?” Lyra gasped, looking around. “Bonbon, come back!” Lyra tried to resume the chase, but almost fell again when she tried to put more weight on the hoof that had caught the root.
Lyra cursed as she examined her leg. It was not bleeding, nor did it look obviously broken, but her ankle appeared badly bruised where she had been tripped. “Oh, you had better not be a torn ligament!” Lyra moaned, prodding the sore area.
Help us
Lyra’s ears perked up as she peered around. “Bonbon?”
“Lyra!” Bonbon’s voice was shrill and desperate.
“Hold on, I’m coming!” Lyra called back, hobbling at top speed toward the sound of her friend.
As Lyra hurried toward the call, the trees seemed to push in all around her, as if attempting to block her path. Then, the trees opened up and Lyra found herself at the edge of a clearing, in the middle of which sat a familiar cream-colored pony. Bonbon’s chest rose and fell with deep sobs that wracked her body, and as Lyra approached she saw that Bonbon’s coat was matted with dirt and blood.
“Bonbon, it’s ok. I’m here.” Lyra limped to her crying friend and reached out to her with her injured hoof.
“It’s not ok!” Bonbon curled tighter into a ball as Lyra touched her. “Derpy and Carrot Top…”
Lyra stroked Bonbon’s back as she knelt down beside her. “I know.” She gave the clearing another searching look before laying down the ax beside Bonbon. “We’re all scared right now, but we can still make it through this.” Lyra wrapped her good hoof around Bonbon and tried to ease the other mare out of the fetal position. “We have made it this far together and if we can just make it till morning, then we can walk out of here together!”
Bonbon shook her head. “We can’t leave together! Derpy is dead!”
Lyra held Bonbon tighter. “I know!”
“Carrot Top is dead!” Bonbon wailed.
“We can still escape!” Lyra almost screamed, clutching Bonbon fiercely.
“Colgate’s dead,” Bonbon said.
Lyra froze as she felt her blood run cold. “What?” She asked, voice wavering.
“You left Colgate alone with Carrot Top and now she’s dead.” Bonbon said, voice suddenly cold and amused.
Lyra stared at Bonbon in dawning horror as she felt her hold loosen. “Bon, what did you just say?”
Bonbon’s body shook as she began to laugh. “You brought Colgate out here, making her think that you were finally catching on to her feelings. Then you brought your marefriend and all her friends along to blame and mock her. And then, when she needed you most, you left her to die, all alone.” Bonbon’s laughter rose to a giggle as Lyra recoiled in shock.
“You’re lying!” Lyra shoved herself away from Bonbon as the earth pony continued to laugh. “You’re not Bonbon!”
“Oh I’m not the one who’s been lying, Lyra.” Bonbon looked at Lyra, pale eyes gleaming. “She died knowing you had betrayed her!”
“I didn’t! I wouldn’t!” Lyra grabbed for the handle of the ax, but the possessed Bonbon picked it up before Lyra could get a grip.
The monster cackled as it dragged the ax toward Lyra. “You cannot deny it. We know her mind better then you ever did.”
Lyra scrambled to her hooves, backing away from the creature. “I know what you are and I know how to stop you!” Lyra wished she knew whatever spell Colgate had used before.
“Stop us!?” The demon threw back its head and laughed. “You cannot stop us! Even now we have your darling Bonbon’s soul! She suffers in torment!”
“NO!” Lyra screamed as she turned and fled, leg pain ignored as she galloped away from the laughing demon. Branches scratched her coat and tangled in her mane, but she tore free, all thought banished from her mind except the need to escape. Her friends were dead and she had nothing left to keep her from running till she was as far from these terrible woods as her legs could carry her.
Suddenly a tree branch lashed out and knocked her from her hooves. As she tried to get back to all fours she felt something grab one of her legs. Without thinking, she wrenched herself free from its grasp and turned and bolted down an opening in the trees.
Behind her Lyra heard the mad laughter of the possessed Bonbon and felt a rush of adrenaline propel her forward. Ahead, she saw the trees begin to thin and she thought she saw the faint light of civilization. With a triumphant cry she bolted out of the forest and into the warm light of a familiar cabin.
Lyra sat heavily as she stared at the cabin in stunned disbelief. From behind her she heard Bonbon chuckle. She looked back to see the blood-splattered mare slowly strolling down the pathway, ax dragging along the dirt path behind her, chuckling and staring at her.
Looking back at the cabin Lyra felt her mouth twitch up into a strained smile. “Heh…” She laughed nervously as she turned back to the approaching monster.
Bonbon smiled sweetly at her as she hoisted the ax up to her shoulder. The earth pony’s lovely blue eyes seemed to shine in the light of the cabin as she giggled. Lyra could not help herself as she started to guffaw. Bonbon joined in as Lyra sank to the ground, eyes watering as she laughed even harder.
From the cabin Lyra heard a loud bang, followed by a peal of high-pitched laughter. She turned back to see the shutters and door swing wide open and closed in time to a cacophony of laughing voices. Lyra howled with mirth as she rolled onto her back, looking up as the trees started to sway and bend, adding their own voices to the deafening sea of laughter.
Lyra’s voice cracked and tears rolled down the sides of her face freely as she looked up into the smiling, pale-eyed face of Bonbon. The laughter filled her ears and mind as Bonbon raised the ax high above her head, in a perfect mirror of her own stance before finishing Derpy.
There was a bang and Bonbon was flung backwards. The ax she had been holding fell blade-first into the ground next to Lyra’s head with a thud that silenced the world.
“Who’s laughing now, huh?” Colgate asked weakly. Lyra turned back to see the other unicorn leaning against the doorway, face pale and haggard.
“Colgate?” Lyra rubbed her eyes and stared at her friend in astonishment.
“Sorry,” Colgate apologized, awkwardly hobbling down the front steps on her three remaining legs. “Had trouble thinking of something clever to say.” She stumbled slightly on her way to Lyra, but managed to stay upright. “Do you know where my leg is?”
Lyra threw herself on Colgate with cry. “YOU’RE ALIVE!” 
This time Colgate didn’t manage to stay upright and the two ponies were pulled to the ground. “Ow!” Colgate yelped as her stump smacked into the dirt.
Lyra was too relieved to notice and just held Colgate closer. “I can’t believe you’re alive!”
Colgate shifted nervously and blushed. “Um, well, I am?” her horn glowed to life and Lyra heard the ax drag itself away from where it had fallen. “I mean, I feel pretty woozy and my leg’s missing, but I guess I’m not dead… probably.” She looked around as Lyra nuzzled into her chest. “I hope I’m not dead. This would be a pretty mediocre afterlife if I was,” she concluded looking at Lyra and blushing. “No offence.”
Lyra just gave Colgate another squeeze. “Colgate, please stop talking.”
Colgate flushed harder as she hugged Lyra back. “Sorry.”
From behind them a cold voice began to laugh.
Lyra felt a chill run down her spin as she let go of Colgate. She looked up into the unicorn’s bright-red face and felt a sick knot form in her stomach. “I’m sorry.” She backed up from Colgate. “We need to deal with… it.”
Colgate nodded, offering Lyra the ax.
“You cannot kill us, Lyra,” Bonbon giggled.
Lyra raised her ax and advanced on the posed pony.
“You can only delay the inevitable.”
Lyra took a deep breath and swung the ax back, hesitating as she looked into the frightened face of Bonbon, her blue eyes filled with tears. “Lyra, please help us!”
“I’m sorry Bon.” Lyra closed her eyes as she brought the ax down. Bonbon’s scream turned to a bellow of rage as Lyra stuck again.
And again…
And again…
Finally she set down the ax as she turned away from the mutilated remains of her closest friend. Colgate offered a supportive hug, but Lyra just trotted past her into the house.
“What now?” Colgate asked, hobbling after Lyra, ax levitating behind her.
Lyra pointed to the trap door with her injured leg. “We are going to finish this.”


> The Portal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Lyra lifted the needle from the record as Professor Orange’s final recording ended, and sighed. “See? We need the book to stop this thing.”
“Says the unicorn who let the stupid things out in the first place and who could not keep track of his own mail,” Colgate grumbled, tightening the knot on her fresh bandages. Experimentally she got to her hooves, putting weight on the poker she had tied to her stump.
“Colgate I don’t want to go down there anymore then you, but unless you have a better plan we don’t have any options! Waiting and hoping that daylight will make us any safer has only made thing worse!” Lyra stamped a hoof as she glared at Colgate.
Colgate slowly walked around the main room, practicing walking on the improvised prosthetic. “Well if the spell he mentioned does work, then why didn’t he use it? Besides, the only pony that is still a threat to us is locked in the cellar, so we could just trot out of the woods now.”
Lyra tapped a hoof in frustration. “Whatever took our friends while they were still alive did it in the woods! And you barely made the hike up here with all four legs and most of your blood still in your body.” Lyra shivered. “Besides, Professor Orange was alone when he recorded the last message, but he’s still gone.”
Colgate hesitated as she mulled over that last remark. “Good point,” she conceded.  She made her way to the trap door as Lyra removed the metal bar from its secure place. Colgate braced for Carrot Top’s attack as Lyra proceeded to lift the door open, but only darkness and silence greeted them from the opening.
Lyra’s horn lit up and cast a golden glow into the shadows, but revealed nothing but an empty room. “I guess we’re safe on the stairs at least,” Lyra offered, sounding as if she wanted to be optimistic, but was not quite feeling it. She looked at Colgate, “How’s your magic?”
Colgate looked up at her horn, “Well those defense spells are pretty taxing. You’re only meant to use one and then run away, so I am feeling pretty worn out after two.”
Lyra nodded. “OK then I’ll lead the way with the ax and you just cover me with as much light as you can manage.” She took a deep breath and dropped the light spell to pick up the ax, Colgate moving behind to light the way.
The wooden stairs creaked ominously as the two ponies crept into the root cellar. Colgate felt herself sweat as she fought the urge to look around, instead keeping the light steady on Lyra’s path. Finally, Lyra stepped off the last step and onto the hard packed earth of the cellar floor. Colgate, relieved to get off the stairs herself hopped the last few steps. Unfortunately, she had not quite taken into account her poker leg and bungled her landing, flopping awkwardly to the ground and sending the light spinning out of control.
Lyra yelped in fright as she was suddenly plunged into partial darkness and fired up her own horn on reflex, dropping the ax.
“Colgate?” Lyra asked, voice high and panicky. “Are you ok?”
Colgate was suddenly blinded as a golden light was fixed onto face. She covered her eyes with a leg and grimaced. “Sorry, just fell down. Nothing grabbed me.” She got back up unsteadily and resumed her own light spell. “Sorry Lyra.”
Lyra just shook her head and retired the ax. “You’re just lucky that Carrot Top wasn’t-” She suddenly spun round, raising the ax. “-HERE!” She cried at the doorway, which was currently not occupied by murderous demons. “Oh.”
“What was that about?” Colgate asked, perplexed.
“I just kind of thought she would be standing behind me,” Lyra admitted peering into the second room.
“Why?” Colgate asked, feeling like she was missing something important.
“Nothing, never mind!” Lyra snapped, turning slightly red as she slowly entered the next room. Colgate decided not to push the question and followed Lyra into what appeared to be some sort of storeroom. The room was lined with shelves of artifacts, both equestrian and foreign, and along with them were scrolls - undoubtedly notes and documentation on the treasure trove of historical relics that the Professor had collected. Colgate’s eyes drifted along the rows of shelves in awe as she wondered just what incredible find her old teacher had been working on at his secluded cabin.
“Colgate!” Lyra barked and Colgate snapped her head back round to illuminate Lyra, who was giving her a dirty look. “Can you please focus?”
“Sorry,” Colgate mumbled, feeling her cheeks brighten.
Lyra shook her head and turned back to a table that sat in the middle of the room. The center of the table was cleared, as if something large had been moved from it, but around the cleared area was an untidy assortment of papers, ink pots and books. These Lyra rifled through before uncovering a small, wrinkly brown book. Lyra grimaced as she picked up the small book and turned it to show Colgate. Colgate recoiled slightly at the twisted and monstrous face that peered out at her from the cover. “Well, I don’t really know what I should have expected it to look like,” Lyra remarked.
Lyra trotted back to Colgate, eyes darting back and forth across the cellar. “Let’s get out of here,” she muttered.
Wasting no time, the two mares hurried back to the stairway, Colgate leading the way at a swift limp. As they had reached the halfway point there was a sudden crash behind them from the direction of the store room. Lyra turned and hefted the ax, peering into the darkness.
“Lyra, come on!” Colgate whined looking from the open trap door to her friend. “Let’s get out of here before she gets us!”
Lyra shook her head slowly. “No. Something isn’t right here.” She stepped off the stairs and held the ax in a guard position. “Why hasn’t she come after us yet?”
“Because she doesn’t want to get chopped up by that ax! Now come on!” Colgate took a few more steps up the staircase, but stopped when Lyra didn’t follow her.
“What if it’s some sort of trap?” Lyra suddenly turned back to the stair, a look of horror on her face. “Colgate, get off the stairs!”
Colgate screamed in terror as she hurled herself up the last few steps and back into the main room of the cabin, diving across the floor and directly into the wall Derpy had smashed her into earlier.
Dazed, Colgate heard Lyra call after her, “Wait, no, false alarm! I thought it might have been lying in ambush under the stairs to grab us when we climbed up.”
“Lyra, will you stop scaring me like that!?” Colgate hissed, shaking her head to clear the stars from her eyes. “You’re going to give me a heart at-AHHH!” Colgate’s words choked off into a bloodcurdling scream as she saw the horribly decomposed body of Carrot Top stalking toward her.
“Colgate!?” Lyra shouted, concern clear in her voice as she began to climb the stairs.
“Lyra, help! It’s here!” Colgate screeched before Carrot Top slammed into her like a train, driving her into the back wall.
Lyra leapt from the cellar, ax already prepared for the swing, but Carrot Top whipped around, hurling Colgate with a snarl.
Colgate saw Lyra’s surprise clear on her face in the split second before she collided with her, sending both mares tumbling. The ax, released from Lyra’s magic, hurtled off into the wall with enough force to be driven most of the way through it.
Colgate felt a sharp pain in her leg as the poker was finally wrenched free by the force of the impact. She rolled onto her belly, clutching her stump, as Lyra rose to face the monster. She lifted the metal bar that had held the door in place as she circled the creature, trying to keep its attention on her. “Colgate!” She yelled, drawing her attention. “The book!”
Colgate nodded and looked around, spotting the horrible little thing lying near the lip of the cellar. Unfortunately, the monster had spotted it too. “You cannot stop us!” It hissed. It made a break for the book, but Lyra was prepared. With a quick step forward she lashed out at the creature, striking it with the metal bar and putting herself between it and Colgate.
“There are translation notes between the pages, Colgate! End it!” Lyra yelled.
“Right!” Colgate telekinetically seized the book and pulled it to herself. She leafed through the pages like a madmare before landing on a lose page of hastily scrawled notes, sandwiched between pages. “Recitation of these passages shall give the evil flesh,” Colgate read aloud.
“What!? Don’t read that!” Lyra bellowed, now pinned to the ground by Carrot Top.
“Hold on!” Colgate snapped. “By doing so, recitation of the next passage shall send the evil back from which it came!” Colgate grinned. “We can stop it!”
Lyra’s eyes bulged as she pushed the metal bar under the monster’s neck, holding its gnashing maw mere inches from her face. Colgate felt her heart skip a beat. “Lyra!”
“Read!” Lyra sobbed as she slowly lost ground.
“On it!” Colgate skimmed down to the section marked by the translation and started to read. “Carnem sumere, et vixerunt.”
Carrot Top’s head jerked back as if stuck, allowing Lyra to gain a little ground against the demon.
“Per hoc corpus terrenum teneantur!” Colgate felt her throat burn as if the words were fire boiling up through her throat. Carrot Top thrashed on top of Lyra, apparently unable to choose between killing her current victim or attacking Colgate.
“Si ergo in speciem mortalis, et renasci!” Colgate finished, feeling tears well in her eyes as the pain of the words scorched her.
With a howl Carrot Top’s body went rigid, face contorted in a mask of rage. Lyra tensed for moment then relaxed, sighing.
Then, without warning, Carrot Top’s head tilted forwarded and toppled onto Lyra. The unicorn screamed as the head smashed against her, rotted blood splattering across her chest. Lyra began to desperately rub the rotten mass of blood and brain off herself, and so did not see it when the rest of the body rapidly rotted away. She did notice, however, when that mass of rotten meat collapsed on top of her in a horrible downpour of gore.
Colgate hurried over to the now hysterical Lyra and quickly pushed as much of the rancid meat off of her as she could. As she scooped off a particularly ugly mush of partially liquefied bone, Colgate suddenly found herself swept up into an uncomfortably squelchy embrace. Lyra was still hysterically sobbing, but in-between her sobs were peals of equally hysterical laughter as she pulled Colgate to the floor.
“You did it!” Lyra choked out as soon as she was able to form words again. “You really did it!”
“I did!” Colgate croaked, feeling her heart race as she gave Lyra a one-legged hug back. “I beat them!”
Lyra pulled back to look Colgate directly in the gore-smeared face. The flush of victory and the relief of surviving her near brush with death left Lyra looking almost intoxicated on the mere fact of being alive. Her face was flushed as she smiled at Colgate. “You saved my life, Colgate! That was pretty amazing!”
Colgate felt her own face flush bright red as she felt Lyra embrace her gently, while also firmly pulling her closer. “Oh, well, yeah. I guess I did save you, didn’t I?”
Lyra nodded and pulled herself up toward Colgate.
Colgate felt her heart hammering in her ears as she bent down to meet Lyra, a thousand nighttime fantasies suddenly flying though her head.
And at that exact moment the roof of the cabin collapsed in with a deafening crash.
“OH COME ON!” Colgate bellowed as she and Lyra spun to face the noise.
From the new hole where a sizable portion of the cabin had been, the two mares could see a huge monstrosity, roughly the size and shape of a small grove of trees peering in at them. From the tree’s gnarled trunk, the faces of ponies, twisted and deformed, silently screamed. Colgate saw their friends amongst the faces and felt her heart sink.
“BONBON!” Lyra screamed upon seeing the faces for herself. Before Colgate could do anything to stop her, Lyra grabbed the ax and rushed toward the wooden abomination. The thing howled and swept at the mare, who dodged- just barely- as she charged. Reaching the trunk and the faces within, Lyra swung back her ax and began to hack at the thing’s body, blood spurting from where her blows fell.
In a panic Colgate scooped up the book and turned back to the page she had been on. “I only read half of the spell!” She moaned, finding the page. Carrot Top wasn’t the physical form at all!”
Colgate was distracted as Lyra screamed in pain. She looked up in time to see the monster raise Lyra to its face, body held in one colossal hand. Lyra brought the ax down into the creature’s face and pulled in as much air as she could manage as the hand slowly squeezed her. “Colgate!” Lyra screamed as her bones began to audibly crack under the pressure.
“Lyra, hold on, I can still do this!” Colgate shouted back, unable to look away from her friend.
“You have to stop it!” Lyra wheezed, blood gurgling up from her throat as her magic faded, letting the ax clatter to the floor. “I believe in-“ Lyra’s last words were cut off by a sickening crunch.
Colgate felt her whole body go numb as the book fell by her hooves. She looked down at it dully as the sound of a body hitting the floor seemed to boom around the cabin. As the creature approached, Colgate read the words that could have ended it all.
“Klaatu.”
Saved her friend.
“Verata.”
Put a stop to this living nightmare
“Nicto!”
Colgate looked up as the creature loomed above her, blood still dripping from its outstretched hand. Colgate barely felt the creature pick her up, nor did she quite notice that she had pulled the wood ax to her. She hardly felt the pressure building around her body as she halfheartedly chopped at the monsters ax-bitten face.
But she did feel it when the creature dropped her.
Colgate’s surprise was mirrored on the face of the demon tree as it slowly began to slide backward, tearing deep fissures in the floor as it tried to anchor itself by shoving its legs straight through to the basement. Regardless of how hard it struggled, it was inexorably pulled back out of the cabin as tendrils of pale blue light began to swirl behind it, rapidly turning into a whirlpool in the woods. The tree monster bellowed in rage as it grasped at anything that it could to keep itself from being pulled into the magical vortex, but to no avail.
At the same time, loose rocks and bits of debris where also lifted up and pulled into the magical event. Colgate, who was still in a slight daze, took a little too long to recognize these warning signs as she felt herself quickly sliding down the same path that the tree monster had taken before her.
“Woah!” Colgate rolled onto her back and tried to brace herself against the floor without luck. “Come on now, let’s hold up!” Colgate dragged the ax along the floor with her remaining front hoof as the force of the vortex picked up. “For Celestia’s sake how do you stop it!?” Colgate begged as she was hurled violently into the air and into the gaping maw of the vortex.
Colgate screamed as she was spun round and around into an endless void of darkness. For what felt like an eternity she was flung through the void, with only her ax to hold onto.
Then with an explosion of sound and color the world returned and Colgate felt herself falling through the air. This only lasted for a few seconds before Colgate felt the far more familiar sensations of being on the ground and being in pain as she landed on the shaft of the ax.
Groaning, Colgate rolled off the ax and looked up into the sky. The sun was high and bright and Colgate felt a smile creep across her face. Then a pony in heavy armor and bearing a wicked looking spear leaned over her.
“Milady! We have another one!” the armored pony called as Colgate flinched away from the pointy tip of the spear.
“Hold!” Another voice called back. “Milady, I believe she may be the one spoken of in the Necronomicon! She who shall fall from the sky to deliver us from the terror of the deadites!”
Colgate looked up to see a regally dressed, royal-looking white unicorn staring down at her. At the unicorn’s side was another pony, though she was purple and wearing a plain brown robe. The white mare snorted. “This crippled simpleton? I doubt it.” She glared at Colgate and in an imperious tone declared. “More likely she is a spy of Commander Hurricane! Carry her to the others and drag her to the pit!”
A cheer went up from a small crowd of armored ponies who were gathered around the two mares. Colgate opened her mouth to protest, but got as far as, “Who are-” When a heavy spear butt collided with her head and the world went dark again.


The End



OK no, seriously…



To Be Continued in:



Colgate vs. The Army of Darkness