Memories to Keep
Flim unsuccessfully tried to stifle a yawn as he glanced back in the cabin to check on Flam. His brother was sleeping fitfully, but he was finally asleep. Flam was in a bad way; his fever was much too high for Flim’s liking.
And that’s why he was speeding over a dirt road in between Nowheresville and Nothington in the middle of a stormy night, trying to get to the nearest hospital—which was, unfortunately, in Ponyville. He didn’t anticipate a warm welcome. Not after the second (why had they ever decided to go back?) debacle there.
But his brother would get the care he needed, and that was all that mattered.
Suddenly, he realized he’d been staring at Flam for far too long—he hadn’t checked the road for nearly a minute! Jerking back around, he saw nothing. Nothing except rain flecks on the windshield of the 9000 and the muddy road beneath it.
And a pothole he ran over, jerking the automated carriage/improved cider maker roughly.
Nothing, as was par for the course.
How long had he been driving? Since Flam started hallucinating—how long ago was that? Eight hours? Ten?
No, it was closer to fourteen. Maybe sixteen.
It had been stupid to go so far out into the frontier. Appleloosa barely had a first-aid kit handy, let alone a fully-equipped hospital. There was nothing of the like for hundreds of miles.
He blinked and saw the scenery had changed—finally, the desert had begun to recede, replaced by scrubland. They were only a few more hours out.
Another blink, and he was on the next hill over.
A third—Flim jerked the wheel over as the 9000 nearly went over the side of the road. How’d it get so close without him noticing?
A yawn. And where had that hill come from? Perhaps—perhaps he should pull over, get some rest himself. He was starting to fall asleep at the wheel.
Flam woke with another pothole, this time one Flim hadn’t seen coming. “What?” he mumbled incoherently.
“It’s nothing, brother,” Flim soothed. “Go back to sleep.”
Flam burbled something that might have been acknowledgement as he groaned in pain. “Hot...” he said weakly.
“I know, brother. We’ll be at the hospital soon—they’ll be able to help you.”
He couldn’t stop. Not when Flam was in such a bad way.
Onwards it was.
There was a flash of white, and Flim closed his eyes reflexively.
-----
He woke in the dark. As he stood, Flim noticed the unusual scenery. The ground was black, the exact same shade as the sky; it made it impossible to tell where one began and the other ended, giving the unsettling impression that he was standing on nothing in a vast and featureless void, the only defining feature a small moon hanging directly above him.
“Hello?” he called, looking for anything to break the black monotony. “Is anypony there?”
There was only silence.
He took a few tentative steps forward, making sure that he didn’t fall into some pit that was impossible to discern. The moon still floated high above, and nothing below it changed in the slightest.
Later, he would never be sure how long he wandered in the featureless wasteland. Hours, at the least. He wasn’t hungry, the temperature was cool enough he wasn’t thirsty and drowsiness was but a memory of days long past, and so he walked. Whether it was a straight line, a meandering path, or endless circles, he could not tell.
There was nothing but the moon and himself.
Then, there was. A whisper of wind and a scuff of a hoof behind him alerted Flim, and he turned towards the source of the sound.
A young mare, barely out of foalhood, stood before him, smiling gently. She was mildly attractive, and though Flim had never seen her before in his life, she seemed familiar to the stallion. It was nothing he could put his hoof on, but he felt he’d seen her before.
Somewhere, he’d met this filly, his mind told him, even as it came up with blanks for where he might have. Something in her smile, her eyes, told him he knew her. But for the life of him, he didn’t know why.
“Hello there!” he said, smiling broadly. “It’s nice to see somepony else out here. What’s your name, young filly?”
She said nothing, simply watching him with that enigmatic smile.
He waved a hoof in her face, but her eyes never wavered from his, never blinked. “Hello? Are you even listening?”
Nothing.
But, as he turned in disgust and threw his hooves up, moving away, there was a whisper, so soft it was unintelligible but tantalizingly familiar.
He spun. “What?”
The mare hadn’t moved—no, wait, that wasn’t quite true. One hoof had moved forwards, as if she had frozen in the middle of a step. But that was just his imagination—
“Did you say something?”
No response. He was being foolish—she wasn’t moving, wasn’t doing anything. She was like a statue. In fact, she wasn’t even breathing.
Just where was he? It hadn’t seemed important before, somehow, even after spending so much time wandering around here.
The same whisper, this time marginally louder, though her mouth hadn’t moved. “Wake up...”
The mare took a step as he looked around for the source of the voice, and this time, her hoof landed on dirt.
There was a strip of the stuff, a road of dusty brown, cutting in a straight line through the black.
She continued her walk, and with each hoof, the scene began to fill in.
Next was a handful of buildings, scattered just beyond Flim and the filly. Then, a lighted window in the house just behind her. Another whisper. “Wake up...”
Then, though the sky remained black and the moon overhead, it began to rain. Great sheets of precipitation fell from above, washing out the colors, turning the road to mud and making the small town fade out of sight.
A noise made its way above the hammering of water and the splashing mud as she slowly picked her way over the road—an engine, dangerously close.
A pair of headlights loomed out of the murk, dangerously fast and showing no slowing.
Her head turned, in surprise, and as her eyes opened wide and her mouth began to move, she tripped.
“Wake up...”
She struggled, mouth open wide in a soundless cry, but the mud was thick and clingy, and it held her helpless before the oncoming wave of light.
“Wake up, before it’s too late...”
The headlights were upon her, struggling futilely against her inevitable fate, having enough time to see her doom but not enough to change it.
Her image blew away as the light hit like a cloud of dust in a sudden wind, and as it did so, a thin, wailing cry hovered in the background, inexplicably lingering over the rain, the engine, and the thunder in the distance.
Her scream, he knew instinctually.
Despite her disappearance, there was a grisly thunk as the headlight’s source, indistinct and sharp, rolled over her position, and Flim cringed at the meaty sound which had never been reproduced quite right on the news. The scream cut off with abrupt finality, and Flim knew, deep within, that she was dead. He’d never been more certain of anything in his entire life.
“Wake up!” The voice was a scream, this time, and the sickened stallion flinched as it buffeted his ears, repeating over and over.
“Wake up!”
“Wake up!”
“Wake up!”
Then, a flash of lightning as the headlights passed his position, illuminating the automated carriage.
The very familiar carriage and the sleeping stallion at the wheel.
“WAKE UP, FLIM FLIM FLAM!”
-----
Flim’s eyes flew open just in time to see an indistinct shape in front of him. He stomped on the brakes, twisting the wheel, but the slick mud kept his momentum, and despite all his efforts, the skidding carriage clipped the shape, sending it flyng into the air, uttering a keening wail that made his blood run cold.
He knew that scream.
Not even waiting to stop, he threw himself out of the carriage, splashing and bouncing roughly in the mud, and scrambled to his victim’s side, sprawled grotesquely with limbs that bent in the wrong ways.
He knew that face.
Her eyes stared sightlessly up at his.
He knew those eyes.
“Dear Celestia, what have I done?” he choked, lifting her mud-spattered head and cradling it gently. That dream... had been a warning of what was to come. A pleading call.
A warning he hadn’t realized, and a call he’d answered too late. Far too late.
Silent tears ran down his face as he lifted the broken filly in his arms and removed her out of the morass, setting her on the sidewalk beside it.
The light in the window of the house he knew was there didn’t even flicker, and nopony stirred within, as a sobbing stallion knelt over the lifeless body of a mare he’d never known.
The clouds parted—just a smidge, barely a crack—and the light of a small moon shone down sadly upon the tragic pair.
Or perhaps it was not sadness, but rather, enlightenment; for the mud over the mare’s mouth poofed outwards.
A small bubble popped, and then another formed as the mixture was drawn slightly inwards.
With the moonlight, the stallion could see what wasn’t visible in the pouring rain. There was still hope; the mare was alive!
He collapsed, sobbing even harder, but this time in relief instead of anguish.
Perhaps, it wasn’t enlightenment either; rather, it was joy.
The stallion looked up, and he knew. There would never be proof, and he would never speak of it to another living soul, but he knew with absolute confidence. He would take that surety with him for the rest of his days.
“Thank you,” he breathed as he once again cradled the mare in his hooves and stumbled to the door, falling against it with a thud.
As the door opened, he whispered, so lowly even he couldn’t hear himself, “Thank you.”