The Beyond
Most of the barn stood drying under the noonday sun. The thick crimson paint, stroked in even motions, gave a glistening, almost luminescent glow to the old structure, effectively rendering it to the eye as new as the day of its construction. Or at least, that which had been painted did. The east wall still remained, tapering and stripped of much of its luster, the wood was brownish-gray with age and stood warped and cracking like the skin of a corpse expanding and tearing from the gases of decay. The duality of appearances on the weathered old building expounded the difference a good coat of paint made. The barn seemed to stand transfixed between two worlds: the living and the dead.
Apple Bloom stood at the base of the east wall and gave a deep, resigned sigh. Her soft yellow coat was marred with splashes of the candy-apple paint that ran from the top of her young head to her back hooves. There were few things as time consuming as painting a barn and Apple Bloom had been painting all day long; she was not only tired, but bored.
“Almost done, Apple Bloom?” Applejack had been watching for the last few minutes and finally made her presence known, stepping down the hill behind her younger sister and causing the filly to jump from the unexpected voice. At this, Applejack chuckled lightly as the filly cleared her throat with embarrassment.
“Yeah. I reckon. Just this one wall to go and I’m done, right?” Apple Bloom turned her eyes to her older sister pleadingly.
“Well, I s’pose that all depends. Are you gonna go runnin’ off into the Everfree Forest again when I tell you not to?” Applejack could see the answer floating in the younger pony’s eyes. She maintained a stout, harsh appearance but was relieved that the punishment seemed to have worked. There had been a number of timber wolf sightings recently and she had warned Apple Bloom several times not to embark into the forest to play; alone or with her two friends, the forest was just not safe for her to go running around. Heck, it wasn’t exactly safe for adult ponies to go into the woods at the moment.
Apple Bloom nodded emphatically, having completely disliked the painting experience. She’d painted before, but without her family or friends helping it had been a terrible chore. She didn’t exactly feel as though the punishment fit the crime. She had explored the forest with her friends. She knew it had been deemed “dangerous” by her sister but sometimes a little danger was exciting. Something about being in a somewhat uncontrolled environment struck a chord within the filly.
Applejack grinned and roughed the younger pony’s mane playfully with her hoof. “Then, I guess this can be the only punishment. I’ve still got some chores to do up at the house, but I’ll check back in a while.”
The yellow filly watched Applejack as she left and breathed a sigh of relief. She was grateful this was the only extra chore she would have to do. It had taken a long time and she would be happy when it was over. It had just been so boring. The filly sighed and looked at the final wall of the barn. Just one more and she could quit.
Picking up her brush and dipping it into a freshly opened paint bucket, Apple Bloom began sweeping the bristles up and down in a rhythmic motion, slowly making her way down the side of the barn. She would have to move the ladder to get the higher portions of the barn but she wanted to get as much as she could before having to deal with that aggravating ladder again. She had dropped a full can of paint and wasted it, nearly fallen off, and had dropped her brush so many times that she had lost count; that ladder was a grievous hassle. About halfway down the side of the barn, Apple Bloom decided to liven the mood a little.
Dipping her paintbrush and making a circular motion, she painted a face. Giggling, she painted a stick body and legs onto the wall of the barn. She stepped back and grinned at it for a moment before painting a sun, a line that represented a hill, and a bunch of crude apple trees. Going back to the stick-pony, she painted a ribbon and a smiling face. She chuckled and dropped her brush into the paint before stepping up to the happy stick-pony.
“Hi! Y’all sure look happy today. I guess you’re all done with your chores,” Apple Bloom spoke friendlily to the painting. “Well, I don’t blame ya. I’d be smilin’ too if I was you. Hey! How about I paint you a house?”
Pretending the painting was talking to her, the filly rushed to her brush and began streaking paint across the barn again, making an outline of a giant house for her creation to live in. She used simple vertical lines to create walls, a horizontal strip that served as the base of the roof, and squares with plus signs in them for windows. She took a moment to regard the painting, deciding that she didn’t need to finish the roof because she didn’t want to drag the ladder over to do so. That only left a door.
Paint dripped from the brush the filly held in her mouth and stained yet another few drops worth of soft yellow fur. She was covered with such drops and slices from the dripping brush but didn’t seem to notice. She quickly approached the wall and brought the brush up from the ground, across, and back down again to draw a somewhat lopsided door. One end was elevated higher than the other and the sides weren’t quite parallel but it was the extent of her artistic talent and looked good enough for her. “There ya go.”
Apple Bloom smiled and regarded the whole painting. She was pleased with it and took a moment to enjoy it. However, the Apple filly’s eyes flickered back to the partially painted portion of the wall and sighed. If she kept playing around, she’d never get finished. Grimacing, the earth pony began to pick up her brush once more to resume the chore.
As she stepped toward the barn, a sudden flash of light caused her to recoil and cry out in surprise. For a moment bright dancing spots filled her vision and she rubbed her eyes with the joints above her hooves. The spots disappeared and her vision returned to normal, allowing her to see the strangest sight she had seen in her relatively few years of life: the painted door had opened and she could see into another world.
Shocked and amazed, Apple Bloom stood gazing into a strangely familiar world, but one terribly wrong as well. The crooked door revealed what appeared to be a wasted landscape. The ground was rolling hills of shriveled grass and thick, coarse dust which flaked away, carried by a sharp, howling wind. The skeletal trees that framed the view could barely be said to contain any leaves, and those that remained were husks that threatened to shatter against the wind.
The sky was the color of imminent storm, a churning mass of blacks and grays dotted with sudden, pulsing blisters of crimson light. A certain amount of danger filled the young filly as she looked into the bleak, sublime picture before her. She had to remind herself to breath and she swallowed a lump in her throat. There was something so familiar about the scene before her and she couldn’t help but feel a nudging of her adventurous spirit. She was frightened and yet curious about this other realm that had appeared in the wall of her family’s barn of all places. Slowly, she edged towards the glowing aperture.
The glowing portal rippled like water as Apple Bloom pressed her hoof and foreleg into it. It felt tingly but not unpleasant and, taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and leapt through. Her body seemed to vibrate for a moment as if her cells had all suddenly been rearranged. It didn’t hurt, it just felt strange.
The wind swept the grating dust against her and she heard the distant rumbling of the encarnadined lightning. From the look of the dry and nearly-barren earth, she did not think rain was a common occurrence in this world. The lack of rain may have been a good thing as the water of this world may not be what she would expect. Images of caustic, sizzling drops of acid came to mind and she grimaced uncomfortably at the thought.
Apple Bloom turned and surveyed the scene before her a little more closely. She could see more hills and blasted trees. There seemed to be a whole forest of leaning, colorless trees. She also recognized that the door she entered was in a building of some sort. It was warped beyond repair and many planks of wood were missing. Many other boards were twisted and jutting from the structure. The effect it had was much like a skull with broken and missing teeth. It took her a moment to recognize that the structure was a barn of similar design to her family’s own except fallen into disrepair. The roof was missing many tiles and rose and fell like the waves of the ocean. How it had not caved in was a mystery to the young mare. An eerie sensation plucked at the soft hair of her neck as if by some sort of extrasensory power she knew that something was reaching out to grasp her thin neck and she felt as if someone had walked over her grave.
“Howdy!”
Apple Bloom squealed and jumped out of her skin. She whirled around faster than a jackrabbit on a date and her mind struggled to process what her eyes transmitted.
Standing before her only a few feet away was a filly, or at least what was left of one. Her legs were thin and pale, mostly missing the flesh around them. The skeletal remnants looked rickety and somewhat porous as though time or parasites had eaten away much of the fibrous material. What flesh still remained was a sickly yellow-amber color that hung loosely and dangled where it wasn’t tightly stretched around the bones underneath. One whole leg was free of the thin material and stood completely skeleton.
The torso and upper body of the filly was thin but retained nearly all of the ratty flesh. There were numbers of tears, gouges, and holes but it adequately concealed what, if any, organs remained tucked away inside. Many of the bones were visible against the tightly stretched skin: ribs, hips, spine, they all showed as ridges under the phlegm-colored coat of the pony. Apple Bloom could see a very flat and ancient looking tail that was a faded red, looking very much like a corn-husk broom that had long needed repair.
Moving up to the pony’s head was terrifying. It seemed to be grinning but halfway up the throat, the flesh had been shredded and hung in strands that waved in the wind. The ligaments and bones were bare and bobbed up and down. The lower jaw of this creature was likewise naked and revealed many chipped and cracked teeth. The skin and coat only returned partially up the muzzle and wrapped backwards tightly, offering view to the many dips and curves of the skull below. The eyelids had dried to husks and tightened nearly away. What was left was black, smoking pits and small glowing dots where eyes should have been. On top of the head was a stringy mop of tangled used-to-be-red mane. It hung loosely around the the skull and only barely achieved a thickness sufficient to shield the pate of the monster. A torn, pink bow sat tortuously intertwined in the mane.
The creature’s eyes gazed unblinkingly, seemingly through Apple Bloom’s body and Apple Bloom could hardly breath. She had seen many monsters at the town theatre with her friends and had heard many ghost stories but this was beyond her comprehension. She wanted to scream but her body had frozen and seized her vocal chords. She could barely think as the aberration tilted its head, the bones rattling as it did.
“Well? Cat got yer tongue?” The creature giggled playfully and moves a little closer as if to inspect Apple Bloom. “Wow! You still got most of yer skin. Your awful lucky to be so whole. Except for all those bloody cuts and gashes all over your body, ya look almost alive.”
Apple Bloom began to thaw but she still did not have control over her body. She stuttered something meaningless and trembled at the walking, talking corpse. She couldn’t help but notice the bow, the colorings, and the voice.
“Well, My name’s Apple Bloom. I guess ya don’t talk much. I’m glad you’re here but where did ya come from? I was just standing right over there and when I turned around, here ya were.”
It had to be a dream. That was the only explanation. Apple Bloom had been tired and bored and she had fallen asleep. Magical doors, wasted worlds, and corpse versions of herself were all things of nightmares. Her mind was clouded, hazy like a thick fog and reeled in a dreamlike state. It had to be a dream. Because of this, she decided to play along while she waited to wake up. “Oh, I came … through this here door.”
Apple Bloom instructed her corpse twin’s attention to the glowing portal in the dilapidated barn. She noticed, however, that the opening seemed somehow thinner, allowing her to see through it somewhat. She had little time to wonder about this development however as the dream Apple Bloom began to speak.
“What door?” The semi-skeletal pony marched to the location the other had indicated and twisted her head around to study the barren wall intently. Her bones popped and rattled and the flaps of skin flailed in the breeze as she studied.
“Y’all don’t see it?” Apple Bloom made an uncertain face and poked her foreleg through the glowing gateway, feeling it tickle and slide into her homeworld.
The dead Bloom’s face contorted oddly. It was impossible to tell what she may have been thinking but the incredulity of her voice was clear. “Nope. Ain’t a thing there. Your just wavin’ your hoof around.”
Apple Bloom shrugged and tried to remain positive. This expired copy of herself seemed friendly enough despite her haggard appearance. Her eyes were chilling though. Those smoking pits of the abyss centered with blazing coals were difficult to look at for very long. She turned her head slightly and looked at the rotting legs; it didn’t help much.
Deceased Apple Bloom chuckled and hopped up to her new friend. “So what’s your name?” Those vibrant eyes flickered as they searched the intact pony. It had been a while since she had company and she yearned for some playtime. Compared to her friends, this new pony was in very good condition and Scootaloo was still trying to find her ribcage since the last time they had played together. It had been increasingly problematic to engage with her regular companions and she had felt the pangs of loneliness for a while.
Apple Bloom, allowing herself to believe in the dream, began to feel warm inside and the apparent lack of mortal coil with this new pony who shared her name was quickly deteriorating. A small smile split her features and her fears melted. “Well, my name is Apple Bloom, too! That sounds funny, but it’s true!”
Unphased by the oddity, demised Apple Bloom could only chuckle, the sound obviously of some sort of magical development as her vocal chords, long since rotted like a rubber band left in the sun, had snapped and hung vestigially in the open chasm of her throat. “Isn’t that neat? So how did you open that portal?” She believed it was a game and that her new friend had come from Ponyville. She cast a quick glance over to the dry-rotted building to make sure that a gateway wasn’t there, but found herself seeing the same old twisted planks of degrading wood.
“Oh, I was painting the barn and I painted a pony and a house. When I painted the door on the house, it opened up and I could see this world. It looked scary but it seemed like it might be fun too, so I jumped through and here I am.”
“Well, that’s fun, I guess. It’s kind of weird, but strange things happen sometimes, I s’pose.” She liked her new friend’s imagination. “Hey, do you want to play a game?”
Apple Bloom, still working under the assumption that she was dreaming, nodded cheerfully.
“How about hide and seek?” perished Apple Bloom attempted to grin but only a few muscles in her face still worked, raising what little flesh remained in a warped impression of mirth.
“Sure!” Apple Bloom silently wondered where would be a good place to hide in this dried-up, nearly barren world. She saw scrub bushes here and there and the forest was similarly dotted with sparse husks of weeds. “Maybe you should hide first, though.”
Decrepit Apple Bloom leaped into the air and kicked joyously. “Great! Okay, close your eyes and count to twenty.” Her atrophied muscles clenched as a dozen hiding spots ran through her mind. Her coat and mane were so washed of color that much of the dead, gray environment camouflaged her. She watched as Apple Bloom leaned against the barn and began to count before dashing off for a place to hide.
There was a twinge of fear in Apple Bloom as she covered her eyes and began to count. Dreams could turn quickly, provided that this one hadn’t done so already, and she half expected to feel the sharp hooves or teeth of her post-mortem friend digging into her neck before she could reach the previously agreed upon number. The count ranged into the teens however, and that worry reconciled itself.
At the count of twenty Apple Bloom uncovered her eyes and swiveled her head back and forth for any sign of her new friend. She was somewhat amazed that she didn’t see her immediately but was ultimately glad of it as it made the game more enjoyable. She gently walked around the barn, poking her head inside the hanging door, and then continued around the building. She hoped she hadn’t overlooked anything in the barn; it had been barren and empty except for boards and tiles that had fallen from the roof. She didn’t exactly feel comfortable walking inside the building in fear of its structural integrity finally reaching the breaking point.
The filly continued to wander the blighted landscape in search of her decaying chum. She wondered if this Apple Bloom had achieved her cutie mark yet but remembered that much of her legs were skinless and decided that it may be rude to ask. The wind swept the hoary sand against her and she clenched her eyes as she passed an outcropping of earth dotted with trembling weeds. She opened her eyes and realized there were several gardens in the distance. Much of them were blocked from view but she could see stalks of weary corn wilting, putrefying heads of cabbage, and many other rotting vegetables. It was also at this moment that her corpse friend made a break for home-base, the barn.
The uninterred corpse had been lying in wait behind the outcropping of dirt. She had pulled sand over her head and left her short, skeletal legs sticking out confident in the similarity of color palate of bone and sand. As Apple Bloom passed, she saw her chance and tore from the loose dirt into a full gallop towards the barn. She giggled wildly as the distance decreased and whipped her head around at the pursuing pony. “You can’t catch meaaagh!” She squealed as the knobs of her legs clicked loose of their joints and she slid down onto her tummy a few feet shy of the barn. Her legs continued to kick despite being scattered about behind her, making little circles in the colorless sand.
Apple Bloom found this hilarious and nearly doubled over from laughing, barely able to control herself enough to tag the torso that was similarly laughing. She sat down next to it and shared the moment.
“Dumb old legs. They always come off at the worst time,” the undead Apple Bloom said as the giggling finally began to subside. “I guess you don’t have to worry about that too much. You still have most of your body. Why, if it wasn’t for all those bloody gashes,I would’ve thought you were still alive.”
Apple Bloom looked down at herself suddenly worried. She had forgotten that her skeletal friend had made such an assessment when she had first entered this world. Her body was slashed and dotted with paint from painting the barn in her world and she realized that they were what her friend took for wounds. “Oh, yeah. Well, I guess the livin’ aren’t really allowed here are they?”
“Nope. I bet you hear that a lot, huh? Bein’ so together.” The dead pony rolled to her side and began trying to reach her legs, each of which still spasmed and kicked.
“Uh … yeah. A whole lot. Let me help you get those.” Apple Bloom stood and captured one of the squirming appendages. This was the weirdest dream she had ever had. Even weirder than that night she had eaten too many cupcakes with Pinkie Pie and spent the night dreaming of attacking confections.
“I guess it’s worth it, though. I mean, y’all don’t exactly have to go chasin’ after the body parts that come loose.” The corpse rolled to her side as Apple Bloom stuck one of her rear legs back into the socket. She made a little moan as the ball popped back into place and the leg came under her control again. It was the closest thing to feeling she had and she imagined that it probably felt good. “Thanks, Apple Bloom.”
Apple Bloom used her forelegs to gather the crawling limbs because she didn’t quite believe they would be very healthy to hold in her mouth. After a moment or two, she had successfully arranged and then rearranged her friend’s body. “I saw your gardens over there. They sure are big.”
“Oh! Yeah. We work on them a lot. It’s a fine turnout this year and we’re proud of them.” The ghoul was proud of the gardens and she hopped up on her reattached legs.She had put a lot of effort into them this year. “Do you want to go see them?”
Apple Bloom knew the value of hard work and felt pride in her own gardening at home. She had planted, weeded, and kept away meddling insects and animals for months and she respected the diligence it took to grow a presentable garden. “Yeah, I wanna go see!”
The pair scampered from the barn and to the main garden of Sweet Apple Acres. The entire time, Apple Bloom took in the stark differences in her world and this one. She was confounded how a dream that she was so certain would be bad, what with a dead version of her, a thundering, looming frightful sky, and a near-wasteland, could be so good. She really felt as if she had found a friend and it was all so lucid. As they neared the garden, she looked in the direction where her house would be and could just see the roof. It was full of holes and many pieces of lumber pierced through the tiled roof like harpoons hanging from the carcass of a whale.
“Here we are. We got squash, corn, cabbage, onions, beets, carrots, turnips, pumpkins, cucumbers, potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes. It was a whole lot of work but it was a whole lot of fun too.” Zombie Apple Bloom stood proudly and her lower jaw aligned in what had to have been a smile.
The living pony looked over it all. On each of her sides stood rows of wilted vegetables. They were all seen the last stages of ripening and had begun to rot. She didn’t expect the dead to eat, but if they did, she supposed it made sense that they would eat rotten things. “They all look … so … good?” She asked, a little uncertain of her own hypothesis.
“They need another week or so. They are still too alive. Not to worry though, we have a whole passel of them ready to eat up at the house.”
Apple Bloom nodded, absently wondering if they canned vegetables in this world or if they just let them putrefy until there was nothing left but black liquid. This world was interesting to her and it wasn’t often that she had the opportunity to explore her dreams so thoroughly, so the pony smiled at her undead counterpart and asked, “can you show me around the farm?”
The corpse happily hopped as if she were just waiting for the question to come about and she agreed quickly. If she still had a heart, it would be thrumming happily in her chest. She had been so long without company and her new friend was filling that void so well. It was like they had known each other all of their lives. “I’d love too! Let’s go look at the orchards!” she motioned and trotted off towards a grove of trees that just came into view from the obstructing sandy winds in the distance. Apple Bloom followed eagerly.
The pair played in the obviously diseased Apple orchard, swinging around each with each other and laughing at the long, pale worms that slid away from their tromping hooves. Then they explored the animal pins where half-rotten pigs, cows, and featherless, skin-sack chickens roosted. The duo tossed many of the fetid apples into the pins and watched as the creatures dragged themselves towards the degraded food and forced mushy mouthfuls down their eviscerated gullets to drip to the ground and be ingested anew. Then they traveled the boundary of Sweet Apple Acres, following a fence that lay in ruins at the perimeter. The entire time, the living Apple Bloom and the dead Apple Bloom found silly games to play and the ghoul told many stories and anecdotes.
Deceased Apple Bloom felt alive, figuratively, and she wished that she could smile as well as her new friend. It wasn’t that she was jealous, but she knew that her emotions were harder to read and she desperately wanted her friend to comprehend how much fun she was having. She wondered about her new friend, if her name really was Apple Bloom, or if this were some sort of playful joke, but she didn’t care. She was having too much fun for such trivialities. It seemed like years since she had experienced so much fun and she began to dread when Apple Bloom would decide to go back to Ponyville.
Apple Bloom’s stomach grumbled, announcing her need to eat and the ghoul twisted her neck around so quickly at the unfamiliar sound that her neck joints threatened to pull apart. She stared for a moment and then chuckled. “I forget that you are so together. I can’t remember when I still had organs. I forgot that they fill with gas and make noise.”
Apple Bloom smiled weakly and gave a half-hearted giggle, “Yeah, sorry about that.” She realized suddenly that she was hungry, having not eaten since breakfast and she didn’t know how long she had been dreaming. She knew that sometimes real life affected dreams and she just knew that when she woke up she would be starving. She wondered if she could eat the nasty looking vegetables of this world. She presumed she could but everything just seemed so real.
As if on cue, a familiar voice called from the direction of the house. “Apple Bloom! Come and eat! Dinner is ready!”
The expired pony cheered and turned to her new friend. “Are you hungry, Apple Bloom? You can come eat dinner with us if you want. My family’d love it.” She knew what hunger was supposed to be, but had never experienced it. Nobody had, as far as she knew. Eating was simply a facade for spending time with loved ones. It propagated togetherness and had become a custom despite the lack of need of nutrition or digestion.
Apple Bloom decided that she wasn’t ready to wake up just yet and began walking towards the house before she answered. “I’d love to meet your family and eat dinner with you. Thank you for invitin’ me.” The pair marched towards the house together, playfully bumping one another as they went.
The farmhouse was in disrepair, but Apple Bloom wasn’t surprised by the structural damage anymore of anything in this world. She carefully climbed the rickety steps of the porch and felt the planks bow under her weight, their screeching much like an injured animal. She was surprised when she entered the house without falling through the boards.
The inside of the house was far more sound although much of the wallpaper was faded and hanging in great strips. She had been inside of a house once before that had not been tenanted in many years with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. The farmhouse was in very much the same state; thick layers of dust lay upon much of the furniture, cobwebs hung from every conceivable corner and tapered down from the ceiling like a mummy’s wrapping. Here and there were holes puncturing the walls, floors, and ceiling. In many places Apple Bloom could see through to the next room.
The house was dimly lit with candles or electric fixtures whose light was diminished from the grime and dirt smeared around the globes. This dim light added to the atmosphere and made Apple Bloom think of the abandoned house again and the monsters that the Crusaders had imagined resided within at night. This was different however because the young filly had accepted the monsters that dwelled in this world and that small reformulation of perceptive allowed her to witness this world in a different light. Sure, the denizens were morbid, but they were existing within the parameters of their own alternative view of normal. Still, some things were difficult to accept such as the smell that seemed to fill the dusty air of the home.
The smell permeated what seemed every inch of the home and it reeked of putrefaction like the black sludge from the bed of a swamp. It almost seemed to congeal in Apple Bloom’s nostrils and she couldn’t help but sneeze. She tried breathing through her mouth but it coated her tongue and she, out of respect for her mortified self, suppressed the gag that violently threatened her. She no longer felt hungry but didn’t know how to excuse herself from this situation. It wouldn’t be polite and she had a keen interest in this world’s representations of her family. She tried to hold her breath between intakes of air and hoped she would soon habituate to the aroma.
Apple Bloom followed her unliving self towards the kitchen and could hear muffled voices. She couldn’t make out what they were saying but she could easily tell it was her big sister, Applejack, her big brother, Big Macintosh, and her grandmother, Granny Smith. Their voices were identical to her world’s version, just like this version of herself, but she prepared to see their decrepit bodies.
Dead Apple Bloom opened the door to the kitchen and saw the bubbling pot on the stove. She could identify the refuse of slimy carrot and beet stalks and was glad they would be having soup. It had been her custom to visually recognize what was being served at dinner since as long as she could remember because she had no olfactory system. Likewise, she had never tasted anything she had ever ingested. Eating for her was a habit, though one that was unnecessary. She had never been hungry but looked forward to the union of her family at mealtimes. Consumption was nothing more than a ruse to inspire familial bonding. She was glad to share this time with her new friend.
The kitchen was an exact duplicate of her kitchen at home, only dusty and falling apart. The windows were so thick with grease, grime, and dirt that they barely allowed light to pass through them. The kitchen table she had eaten at at home similarly was gray and dusty and the chairs were scratched and scarred with what seemed far too many years of disuse. Around this table sat the remains of the Apple family. Apple Bloom had braced herself for their appearance but it still caused her to pause aghast.
“Apple Bloom, who’s your friend? Y’all should have told us you were bringing company. We could’ve made something a little more fancy,” the undead Applejack spoke. Her coat was rough and stripped bare in many places, clinging tightly to the bones barely hidden beneath. She was still holding together for the most part but here and there were gaping holes that oozed a dark fluid which left brackish green stains across her body. Upon a closer inspection, there were several lines of stitching which seemed to be holding much of her body together. Her blonde mane was stringy and discolored to a stringent, sickly yellow like the discharge of an ear infection. She had similar smoking eyes with tiny red lights for pupils as her little sister except one of her no-longer-living eyes still sat, shriveled and opaque, in one socket through which the dancing red hue glowed behind. She was standing near the bubbling pot and used a ladle to slop the foul smelling soup into a bowl and had to tip her hat back. It was moldy and looked as if it had been chewed on by a family of rats. A thick cobweb hung from one end of it and tailed as the pony turned.
The undead Apple Bloom stopped and seemed a little ashamed. “Sorry, sis. I just met her today and thought she might want to eat with us.”
Applejack chuckled and spooned another bowl of soup. “Now there’s no need to apologize. I’m more than happy to meet a new friend of yours. I know Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle haven’t been able to come over in quite a while. I just would have liked to make a better first impression. So, what’s your name, young’n?”
“Apple Bloom,” the living pony answered, realizing it sounded strange. She was surveying the other members of her family and didn’t care how odd her having the same name sounded.
“Well, ain’t that a coincidence. Y’all have the same name? That’ll get mighty confusin’. Well, we’re as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine to have you here with us.” She saw the newcomer’s eyes shift to the other members of the family and she sat down the bowl of soup. “I’m sorry. My name is Applejack, this here is my brother Big Macintosh but you can call him Big Mac.”
Big Macintosh nodded emphatically and answered, “Eeyup.” He was larger than the others and most of his body was devoid of coat or skin. What was left hung in tatters and patches along the thick, dehydrated muscles of his body. It seemed that instead of rotting away, his musculature system had opted to mummify and was still attached to his bones. Much of them were marked with cracks and the quick nodding he made caused little strings of dust to fall from the lacerations. More troublesome, it seemed as if he had been victim to some sort of terrible accident that had rendered half of his head missing. The left side of his face was crushed and the neurocranium was missing completely. What remained of his face was skinless and husky.
Apple Bloom was looking at the wound and wondering what had happened for a few moments after the introduction and she caught herself being impolite. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s nice to meet you.” It was odd saying such things to someone she knew so well, but she didn’t want to cause a fuss and decided to pretend that she was new.
Applejack continued, “This is my grandmother, Granny Smith.”
Granny Smith was a pile of bones arranged in a rocking chair at the end of the table. She had been stacked there for some time evidently and rested upon a bed of dust that must have been what had once been flesh. Many of the bones were worn to nubs. At the top of the pile sat a crumbling skull where the hot coals that served as eyes floated. They were focusing directly at Apple Bloom from the corners of the skull. “She’s not dead. Look at all that healthy skin. I’m tellin’ y’all that she’s a livin’ pony. She ain’t got no business being here.” Her voice was ancient and tinged with bitterness.
Applejack made a sour expression. “Now that ain’t no way to talk about our guest, Granny. Now you know better’n anyone that there ain’t no livin’ ponies around here. How’d they ever get here?” She turned to Apple Bloom. “Don’t you mind her none, honey. Ever since she decomposed she could start an argument in an empty house.”
Apple Bloom got a sudden chill and she weakly chuckled. She feared this dream was about to take a bad turn. A prickling that started at the base of her tail and worked up her spine to the back of her neck sent chills through her. Everything just seemed too lucid, too real. She began to wish she’d wake up. “It’s … it’s alright. I’m glad to meet you all.”
Granny harumphed and scoured the filly with her eyes. “Can’t y’all hear her heart beatin’? It’s runnin’ a mile a minute. This ain’t right. Only the dead are supposed to dwell in this here world and …”
Applejack shushed the badgering pile of bones and began placing the bowls around the table. “You do look awfully alive, honey. I’d say you must be pretty new here to have such a color to your body. I can plainly see you ain’t alive from all those injuries, but you do look pretty healthy comparatively.”
“Thank you, sis … uh, I mean, Applejack.” Apple Bloom was feeling worse each minute and she was starting to become scared. Her undead counterpart nosed a seat out for her and took one adjacent at the table.
“Will y’all please stop tellin’ her how alive she looks,” deceased Apple Bloom said. “She’s awful lucky not to have to worry about her legs fallin’ off or her jawbone getting lost. Look at Scootaloo. Ain’t nobody found her ribs yet and can’t hardly move with just her spine holding her together. I heard she’s gonna have to have the carpenter nail her spine to a piece of wood to keep it from fallin’ to pieces when she walks.”
“It’s okay,” Apple Bloom said, trying to diffuse the slight altercation. “I get it a lot.”
“We’re sorry, hon.” Applejack must have realized she was being somewhat rude. “You’re a mighty pretty filly. Don’t take it personally. We just don’t see too many in such a good shape as yourself.”
Apple Bloom was feeling singled out and nervous. She didn’t know what it meant to be a living pony in a dead world but she was afraid to find out. She nodded gently and forced a smile and looked to her food. It was thin, black, and had soft chunks of unidentified, slimy globules floating in it. She didn’t care if it was a dream or not, she wasn’t sticking any of that in her mouth. There was also a loaf of green bread on the table, chunks of which were laying next to each bowl of filth. She could see insects crawling in the bread and feeding off of a bluish white mold that festered inside of it. Her stomach lurched and she nearly threw up. She looked around, the color in her face slowly being replaced with a greenish hue. She turned her head slightly and saw the burning eyes of Granny Smith’s bare skull watching her intently.
Apple Bloom looked away from the skull quickly and watched the others. Applejack and the dead Apple Bloom were busy spooning the silty soup into their gnashing jaws. The black fluid dripped out of the holes in Applejack’s punctured jaws and deceased Apple Bloom’s soup fell directly onto the table and down her neck and torso from the giant open chasm that was her throat. Chunks stuck to the table and Apple Bloom’s gut wrenched again, she had to fight to keep control of this heave.
“Not eatin’ very much, young’un.” Granny’s tone was more accusatory than concerned and Apple Bloom swished her dirty spoon around in the soup to try to assuage the suspicion of the ancient pile of bones.
Big Mac hefted his bowl of soup to his demolished face and tilted his head, pouring a plume of soup down into the horrendous wound and down his throat. Apple Bloom was thankful that it didn’t seem to be dripping from the cracks of his muscles but it was still horrendous to witness. She couldn’t help but dry heave this time, the sound a mixture of choking and drowning. it caught the attention of the corpses at the table.
“AHA! I told y’all she was alive!” the skull shrieked victoriously and rattled against what used to be its body.
“Hush, Granny!” Applejack chastised. “Are you okay, hon?” Her voice was sweet and melodic, a very real concern in it.
Deceased Apple Bloom patted her friend on the back. “Is your stomach swollen with gas again?” Her eyes flared around the table questioningly.
“Sake’s alive, I know how annoyin’ that is,” Applejack consoled. “Back when my stomach was still floatin’ around my body, it used to get so swollen that it would come clear up into my throat. I sure was happy when that thing finally fell out.” Black soup chunks slid down her leathery chin and she sighed softly. “Don’t you worry none. It’ll come out eventually and you won’t have to deal with it anymore. Here, let me get you some water. It always used to help me.” The ghoulish Applejack stood up and fetched a corroded glass that hadn’t been used in what must have been decades. She placed it under the sink and cranked the handle until the faucet sputtered a urine-colored water almost to the brim of the glass. She returned and sat it in front of the filly.
Apple Bloom thanked the corpse but looked at the dirty glass with the foul water and shivered. Whatever was in that water would surely cause an infection. She smiled meekly and tried not to meet any of the corpses burning eyes. She could feel the derision of Granny Smith glowering upon her and she grasped the glass with her hooves.
“Go ahead, hon. Drink up. It’ll make that stomach stop botherin’ you.” Applejack helped gently.
“Yes. Drink up, young’un. Ain’t nothin’ in that water that can hurt us dead folks.” Granny Smith knew; there was no fooling her. She may be just be a bundle of bones but she was keen.
The skull rolled from the bone pile across the table suddenly. “Let me help you!” The head collided forcefully with the glass and knocked it down, relinquishing the full draught of water across Apple Bloom’s body, soaking her and causing her to gasp.
“GRANNY! What has gotten into you?” Applejack shot to her hooves and reached across the table to smack at the decapitated elder.
“Look! Look at her wounds! They’re a washin’ off! It ain’t nothin’ but paint! I TOLE YOU! I TOLE YOU SHE WAS A’LIVIN’!”
Apple Bloom felt the first pangs of panic and looked to her sopping body. Sure enough, the spilled paint was running, showing her soft yellow coat underneath. It was plain that what they had been taking as injuries were nothing more than paint now. She looked up to four scowling faces bearing down upon her. She slowly began to slide from her chair. “I … I’m sorry. I didn’t ..”
Applejack hushed her, “Stowe it, hon. Y’all done said enough.” The corpses, except Granny, were moving from their chairs, bones playing a frightening song as they clacked together.
Apple Bloom felt chills ripple through her body and her breath became bated as fear took her in its grasp. She inched closer to the edge of her seat.
The deceased Apple Bloom glowered angrily at her new friend. “Why didn’t y’all just tell me? Why did you lie to me? I might have been able to help you if you’d just told me.” Her anger was evident but it dissolved into hurt. She had hoped to have made a new friend whom she would be able to make many wonderful memories. If she could have cried, she surely would have.
Applejack and Big Mac were out of their chairs and Applejack continued speaking, “We can’t let no livin’ be here. It ain’t right. It ain’t how things are. I don’t have no hard feelin’s toward you, hon, but I’m gonna have to …”
Apple Bloom had heard enough and she tumbled from her chair, adrenaline coursing through her body, she pumped her legs wildly and galloped from the kitchen, blasting the door open with her young body. The door splintered with age and she made straight for the door to outside. She could hear the corpses racing to catch up and the screaming skull of Granny Smith urging them to catch her.
She slammed into the door and twisted the knob, spilling out onto the ancient wooden porch. She made a few steps but the bowing planks finally gave way and she crashed halfway through. She grasped with her forelegs and pulled to free herself from the broken porch. She could hear undead hooves catching up with her as she freed one leg and then the other. Just as she got to her hooves, Applejack appeared in the doorway.
“No, sis! She’s my friend! Let her go! Please!”
With one quick look backward, Apple Bloom saw her undead counterpart locked around Applejack’s back legs, begging not to do whatever it was she had planned to her. The filly leapt from the disintegrating boards of the porch and ran as fast as she could. This wasn’t a dream! It was real and it was horrifying. Apple Bloom screamed as she ran, the terror of this world finally dawning upon her. She heard Applejack arguing with the dead Apple Bloom somewhere behind her but she also heard the thundering steps of Big Macintosh close behind her.
“JUMP!”
The voice of her ghoulish friend rang in Apple Bloom’s ears and she pounced into the air just as a pair of dry, mummified forelegs swept the ground beneath her. Another squeal broke from her lips and she almost lost control as she landed on her hooves, still running as fast as she could. She needed to get back to the portal. The dead Apple Bloom hadn’t been able to see or interact with it. If she could just get back to her own world, she would be safe.
Big Mac was on his hooves and giving chase again but he had a lot of ground to make up after his lunging attempt. Apple Bloom broke the crest of the hill and the broken barn appeared in the distance. The gray sand broke around her hooves and she pounded with her tiny legs towards the barn but as she drew closer, she noticed the portal was barely visible. She had noted the transparency before but now it was almost invisible. Something inside of her told her that if it disappeared altogether, she would not ever be able to return.
Once more, the heavy sound of Big Mac’s hooves were close. He sounded right behind the filly. She was so close to the gateway, it’s visibility waning before her. She prepared herself to make one final leap but one of her back legs suddenly jerked straight behind her and she fell hard to the gray sandy ground.
For a moment, her world spun and bright lights danced before her eyes. She smiled to herself, thinking she was waking up from the nightmare. She was so happy that it was over. She heard her sister’s voice from somewhere and she struggled to answer, groggy and waking up.
“Did you get her, Mac?”
“Eeyup!”
Apple Bloom’s eyes popped open and she screamed loudly as she turned her head to see the demolished face of Big Macintosh peering through her, his big legs wrapped around one of her back hooves. She yanked at her leg but the ghoul’s grip was tight around her. She turned to the barn and saw the portal flickering a few feet away. It went invisible and then petered back into faint visibility. It wasn’t going to last much longer.
Turning her free back leg, she brought it down against the mostly-whole side of Big Mac’s head. He growled and gripped her tighter, obdurate in his task. She kicked again and turned his head with the viciousness of the blow. She felt his grip weaken and she kicked again.
From behind the monstrous corpse of Big Macintosh jumped the deceased Apple Bloom. She landed just behind Big Mac’s head and wrapped her skeletal legs around his face. “Let go of her! Let go of her, Mac!”
Big Mac shook the smaller corpse but she stayed wrapped around him and began shaking back and forth to pry him from her living friend. The undead filly’s legs began to unhinge once more and fall apart, flinging this way and that. The filly felt her hold slipping and she bit down into the neck of her older brother for further support.
Suddenly, Big Mac let loose of his captive and swatted at the smaller corpse that hassled him. Apple Bloom didn’t have time to thank her friend, climbing to her hooves and jumping into the fading portal in the barn wall.
*********************************************************************************************************
“What are you doin’ layin’ out here in the rain?You’re gonna catch your death of cold!”
Applejack’s words brought the filly to her hooves in an instant and she screamed in terror. Her heart felt as though it were on fire and her eyes were the size of saucers. She looked up into the soft green eyes of her sister and nearly broke into a gallop to escape but, at the last second, realized that the face staring down at her was bright, gentle, and, most importantly, living.
The young filly swallowed the older pony in a monstrous hug and buried her face in her chest where warm, wet tears moistened the soft coat of vibrant orange. Apple Bloom sobbed, she was so happy to be home and with her family.
“What in the wild world …” Applejack started but put one leg around her younger kin and sighed, stroking the rain-moistened filly. “It’s alright. Calm down. It was just a nightmare, Apple Bloom. It’ll be okay. Shhh…” She smiled softly and leaned down to kiss her drizzled head. “Come on, let’s go inside and you can tell me about it.”
The rain continued to fall from the sky as the pair walked towards home, revitalizing the earth and nourishing crops in the nearby gardens. Much of the barn’s new paint had dried and only one side would have to be repainted the following day. On that side, a picture of a small filly standing beside a painted outline of a house barely clung to the wall as the rain washed it away.