The Raving
Bass beats reverberated through Vinyl’s body, rattling her guts into mush as she pushed up the fader on her mixer. The whole ski lodge pulsed as ponies danced before a huge Hearth’s Warming tree festooned with decorations that fluoresced in the blacklights. The great hall had two levels with railing and beams made of rough hewn wood. It had a floor like a basketball court and a monumental floor to ceiling window which would have showcased the snowy mountains had it been day. Out here was the best place to be three days before Hearth’s Warming. Incredible energy, glowing drinks and no noise ordinance. Vinyl’s music for the venue was her brand new breakbeat mixes with samples from old Hearth’s Warming carols.
In the unicorn DJ’s flashing peripheral vision she suddenly became aware of her roommate, Octavia, writhing in the mob, a purple glow stick swaying from her neck in front of her bowtie. Vinyl knew this wasn’t really Octavia’s scene, but intoxicated as she was, she seemed to be enjoying herself just fine. She wasn’t dancing, more like stumbling through the crowd, laughing hysterically. She wobbled out of the ponies and skirted the edge of the floor, making her way to the front where Vinyl Scratch stood at her mixer.
Octavia, jolly and still giggling uncontrollably, leaned in at Vinyl’s side. “Com’ere, you!” she shouted. She held up a sprig of mistletoe and planted a kiss on her cheek. Her lips were so unbelievably warm. Vinyl blushed, trying not to lose her focus during the track transition.
By the time she had a spare moment to give her, Octavia had already flitted away back to the dance floor with a loud "Woooooo!" She stood in front of the DJ booth and screamed, waving her hooves, "Turn it up! I can't hear it!"
Vinyl smiled. Octavia was so much fun when she was like this. She should be drunk more often. Vinyl rolled the knobs and the speakers boomed deafeningly over the floor. She pushed her headphones to her ear. Everypony went into a frenzy with Octavia leading the charge. The dancing reached a fever pitch as Vinyl built up the music for the drop. There came a splintering crack with a blast of glass, an incredible roar and then cold, dark silence.
Vinyl pierced the surface of the snow with stinging forelegs and began to drag herself from the hole, shivering violently all the way. She exited, staying on her knees, unable to get her muscles to cooperate through their rapid seizing. She shook the loose snow from her coat as best she could and finally stood up.
The whole room was dark save for a few glow sticks glowing very faintly beneath the surface of the snow which had cascaded in through the window. It was an avalanche. It must have been triggered from the vibrations of the music. Vinyl’s DJ booth had saved her. It created a cavity in the snow around her, allowing her enough movement to dig her way out of the icy tomb. She’d lost her glasses and headphones but she was alive. But where was everypony else? She gasped. Octavia.
Vinyl sparked the magical light of her horn and whirled around frantically. She couldn’t see anypony at all. Suddenly she spotted another unicorn’s light as it blinked on and heard the sound of hooves scraping in the snow.
Rarity looked up from her digging with a start. “Vinyl Scratch?” she gasped. “Oh, thank Celestia that somepony else survived!" She began to sob. "I've been searching for a while now and I can't find anypony alive. I think it might be too late now.”
A fresh wave of adrenaline washed over Vinyl and she began to panic. She looked back at the hole she’d escaped from. If that was about where she was after the avalanche hit then Octavia was maybe… about… Vinyl began frantically flinging globs of snow with her magic from a spot that was her best guess. Rarity’s words gave her little hope, but she had to try and find her.
She methodically widened the hole, wanting to increase the search field. Her desperation effectively masked the stinging in her limbs for the time.
Rarity galloped over, her hooffalls crunching softly in the loose snow. “Are you looking for Octavia?” she panted.
Vinyl paused momentarily to give her a pleading nod.
Rarity quickly jumped in to help dig. “I found a couple of ponies digging down where I could see glowing,” she began. “But they were already… well…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
Both of them knew the chances of finding anypony alive under the snow at this point was slim to none. Lack of oxygen would probably seal anyone’s fate in a matter of minutes. That combined with exposure to the cold couldn’t improve their prospects. However, Vinyl could recall stories of ponies who’d fallen through the ice on a pond and miraculously were able to be resuscitated almost an hour later because the cold water kept them preserved. She wasn’t sure if the same rules applied here or if it even mattered. It wasn’t as though either of them were survivalists or nurses.
It took longer than they wanted. They’d scooped away to make a deep and wide crater but hadn’t found anything yet.
“Turn off your light, darling,” ordered Rarity.
Vinyl doused her horn and looked about. Behind Rarity was a faint but clear, eerie purple glow in the snow. Vinyl gasped. Octavia’s glow stick, she thought as she pounced on the spot.
With a refined direction, the two unicorns turned on their lights again and resumed digging by hoof this time. Soon the purple became bright enough that they could see it through their own lights and then their hooves began to tousle a dark brown mane.
Rarity bit her lip in fear as Vinyl’s sense of urgency only continued to build. Indeed, it was Octavia. The two worked feverishly to uncover the top of her head and then her face. Octavia’s eyes and mouth were open but she was pale blue and not breathing or responsive to anything happening.
A defeated “Oh,” escaped Rarity’s mouth. “Let’s pull her out,” she proposed, fighting back sobs.
They enveloped Octavia in a magical aura and dislodged her from the snow. Her body flopped limply on the surface as they gently set her down. Looking into her unfocused eyes, It was clear she was gone.
Vinyl collapsed to her knees beside her, tears pouring down her face, stinging her cheeks as they quickly chilled in the inhospitable environment of the breached ski lodge. Even while crying, she made no vocalizations. It was almost uncanny.
Rarity wrapped one hoof around her. "I'm so sorry, Vinyl. We lost a great many friends today," she choked out.
Vinyl turned and the two embraced desperately as Rarity began to sob loudly. It all happened so fast. Not even a warning. The amazing, vivacious energy of the night was snuffed out in a second by absolute horror.
Rarity wiped her eyes. "We should try to find blankets or something," she sniffed. "It's so cold in here now."
Vinyl shook her head and pointed at the enormous snow mound that had poured in through the big shattered window.
"You want to just try to dig out right now?" sighed Rarity.
Vinyl nodded.
"Very well, but who knows how long that will take."
Vinyl closed Octavia's eyes and floated her body out of the pit. She placed her over near the wall, laying her out nicely as if she were sleeping. Then she had to pause again to gather herself emotionally.
The main hall of the lodge had been stuffed with a huge wave of snow, thoroughly smothering everypony inside. They could only guess the depth measuring by the wall. The second story landing, which had been vacant during the disaster, now looked more like a backyard deck as the snow brought the two ponies up to eye level with it. The grand Hearth's Warming tree had shrunk and tilted. It looked only about a third as tall now with the base hidden.
There was structural damage to the walls and the roof on the side of the lodge where the avalanche struck. The unicorns passed warily beneath the smashed roof where globs of snow dripped down and the wood beams groaned lightly, still settling from the violent assault.
There seemed to be no glass left in the window, nor was there any spot that appeared unobstructed by snow. The whole room was just an enormous wall to wall snow ramp that went up into the ceiling.
"Be very careful," whispered Rarity, looking up at the mangled wood. "Who knows how well this will hold once we start digging."
The two slowly scooped snow away from the spot where the snow ramp met the ceiling. The beams creaked above them but appeared to hold firm.
Progress was slow. Once they created what felt like a stable entrance, they began to dig upward at a slant toward the surface. As the length of their tunnel grew, problems began to arise quickly. The roof of their tunnel kept crumbling and collapsing in huge piles that they had to stop and clear in a two steps forward, one step back process. At just five pony lengths in, the hole collapsed shut for the third time with the biggest pile yet.
"Ugh," grunted Rarity in annoyance.
Vinyl, though also vexed, just continued to shovel like a machine from the mouth of the tunnel.
"Wait, Vinyl," called Rarity. "It's no use. It's just going to keep caving in and at some point we're going to have to go in there to dig, and then it will be falling on us." Having explored many a gem mine, she'd acquired at least a working knowledge of subterranean engineering. Hopefully a snow tunnel had similar dynamics. "We need to either buttress the sides of the tunnel, perhaps with the railing from the landing, or we need to dig a shaft straight up."
Vinyl stared at her as she weighed their options. Finally she pointed straight up, indicating her approval of digging a vertical shaft. It sounded direct and quick to her. No wasting time with lateral movement or construction.
"Straight up then?" nodded Rarity in agreement. "That sounds like the safer choice. Though climbing up it could prove difficult," she countered, furrowing her brow. "Oh, but I'm sure it won't be too high. I mean we're already so high off the ground to start with, how much higher could the surface be from here?"
The two dug out a modest sized alcove, big enough for them to stand in. So far, it was solid. They began snatching away snow from the ceiling of the cove with their magic and tossing it out through the entrance. As they worked, a continuous shower of ice crystals fell upon them, making them shiver and chatter their teeth.
Enduring the cold and the occasional small but chilly cave in for as long as she could, Rarity finally spoke up. "I'm s-s-so terribly c-cold. We should rest. I'm s-sure it's late."
Vinyl sighed a shaky puff of steam and nodded in agreement.
The two snow-colored unicorns wandered slowly back toward the landing. It was the most obvious place to stay as it was the only surface in the lodge not covered with ice.
It was hard to tell, but it looked as though their shaft towered almost one story up and there was no sign of an end to the snow.
Vinyl absently levitated some snow into her mouth as she walked. She chewed it up until it was all melted before swallowing. It was too cold and unsatisfying to her thirst, but it would keep them alive and it was everywhere.
"We need to get warm,” muttered Rarity. “But I’m afraid we don’t have many options aside from sleeping right next to one another. I can’t start a fire, can you?”
Vinyl shook her head and looked at the big bent over Hearth’s Warming tree. It was the number one candidate for a fuel source, but probably wouldn’t last too long, nor would it light very well, she suspected. It was still quite fresh. Suddenly she got an idea. She grasped one of the big lower branches with her magic and twisted it round and round until it snapped off. Then she floated it over to Rarity, setting it on her back.
Rarity stared back at her quizzically. “Uh... Oh, like a blanket made of fir boughs?” she offered.
Vinyl nodded.
“That’s an excellent idea,” agreed Rarity with a half smile.
They ripped off several of the largest boughs and tossed them one by one onto the landing. Once they’d gathered what they thought was enough, they climbed onto the rustic wooden platform and began to construct their nests. Rarity put down a bottom layer of short needled fir branches and then laid down on top of them, stacking the rest over herself.
Vinyl laid down directly on the naked wood floor, quickly realized it was too cold and hard against her body and decided to just copy Rarity’s method. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t warm but it was adequate considering the circumstances.
The two doused their lights and spent some time rolling around and settling into the least prickly position.
“Don’t despair, darling,” encouraged Rarity. “We’ll leave this dreadful place in the morning. I’m sure of it.”
Vinyl, of course, said nothing. She stared out into the pitch blackness where she could see a hoofful of very dim neon colors, glowing from beneath the snow and at that moment finally felt the cruel pang of reflection. She couldn’t believe it. There had to be close to two hundred ponies under there, all dead. Octavia too. Did I kill them, she wondered. Is this all my fault? We shouldn’t have been out here. I shouldn’t have turned it up. It should be me down there, not them. She wished she could articulate these feelings to Rarity in the dark. Instead she laid there, wiping her face, afraid her tears would freeze to it.
Vinyl awoke cold with a sore back. Everything was still black as a starless night. There was no way of discerning, even in the vaguest sense, what time of day it was. No sun. No moon. No life. The only indicator that time had passed at all was the glow sticks. They had all run out.
"Vinyl," called Rarity. "Are you awake?"
Vinyl shrugged off her fir bough cage and lit up her horn to see Rarity just sitting there in the dark.
"Well I don't suppose there's anything to do here but keep digging," sighed Rarity.
Vinyl nodded and stood up to stretch her sore muscles.
The two trudged over to the dig site and continued right where they left off. Progress was even slower now that the top of the shaft was getting so high above them. With every scoop, they had to bus the snow further and further to purge it from the hole. And there was almost a continuous dusting of ice from above, slowly cutting through them, down to the bone.
They dug diligently upward for quite some time with seemingly nothing to show for it. Every bit they scraped away came coupled with the hope of seeing the rays of the midday sun pierce through the dark and shine down upon them, but the light never came.
After clearing a particularly large cave-in, which broke their rhythm and sent needles down their backs, Rarity looked up, her horn flaring with a blinding light. She gazed up the shaft as far as she could but couldn’t even find the end of it. "This is utterly preposterous,' she spat, angrily. “We’ve been digging for hours… probably; I don’t know. The shaft must be as high as another ski lodge and then some. Surely we should have broken through the surface by now! Did the entire mountain fall on us? I don’t care if it’s an avalanche! Who ever heard of such deep snow?”
Vinyl just stood, beating her head slowly on the wall of the shaft. Then she turned to Rarity and gestured to her open mouth sadly.
"Yes, I'm hungry too," sighed Rarity.
Distraught and shivering once again, they returned to the landing. They both ate snow even though it made them colder, but they tried to bundle in their nests to warm up.
Rarity bit off a tuft of fir needles and chewed, gestation on the flavor. It was quite astringent. She stuck out her tongue in disgust. "Well, I'm afraid the Hearth's Warming tree makes for rather unpleasant meal fare, but it will keep us alive, I suppose… Although, it's also the only thing keeping us warm, so..."
Vinyl tried some needles herself and found that she was right. They were not good.
"I'm sure they're searching for us by now," continued Rarity. "This many ponies can't just go unaccounted for. And it is ski season, you know. If anything, skiers will show up and wonder where the lodge is. I know Sweetie Belle was expecting me to be there when she woke up this morning. Hopefully she'll send something more than the Cutie Mark Crusaders, though," she laughed weakly. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know, Vinyl. It doesn’t look like digging out is a viable option. Maybe we should just wait for help.”
Vinyl shot up and wagged her head in vehement objection.
“But, darling, even if we found the surface with the next scoop, how are we to get all the way up there? Carving steps in the side, I suppose…”
Vinyl nodded, then she walked over to the railing and knocked on the wood. She laid down and pretended to climb the baluster posts like a horizontal ladder, pulling herself across the floor.
“Oh, you wish to repurpose the railing as some sort of ladder?”
Vinyl nodded.
“Perhaps that would work,” she shrugged dubiously.
Vinyl went right ahead and began yanking the wooden balusters off with her magic, stacking them in the corner. Rarity continued eating the unappetizing fir needles until she couldn't stand it anymore.
Vinyl returned to the hole alone, already shaking from the cold. She floated the stack of balusters in, setting them down on the floor of the shaft. Using her magic, she shoved one post slowly into the wall. It came to a dead stop less than half way in. She was only able to tamp it in a little more with her hoof. When she stood up and put her weight on the makeshift rung, it sagged and fell from the crumbling hole. She suspected as much but maintained that it could still work. The post just needed to go in deeper. Maybe if the end was sharper. But how could she do that?
Vinyl exhaled a blast of visible breath and turned away, leaving for the landing. Her stomach hurt, and she wasn't sure anymore if she was shaking because she was cold or hungry.
It was hard to imagine a worse place to be than trapped in a frozen tomb of her own making, literally with dozens of her own deceased victims.
Rarity eyed her through the branches of her nest as she climbed back onto the landing. “Any luck with… whatever you were doing?”
Vinyl didn’t want to admit defeat and further dissuade Rarity from her escape plot, so she gave an ambiguous shrug.
“Don’t worry, they’ll be coming for us soon enough. Although, that is an awful lot of snow,” frowned Rarity.
Vinyl felt sleepy. Was it time for bed? Did it matter? She curled up in her nest and covered herself with boughs. Eventually the lack of energy from going a day, or whatever, without food overpowered the pain in her gut, and she fell asleep again.
Vinyl awoke to the sound of hoofsteps on creaking wood and Rarity muttering panickedly to herself. She turned on her light to see her companion pacing back and forth across the platform, pausing occasionally to pull at her mane.
“It’s too small in here! It’s too small in here! I just can’t!” Her eyes were wild as she shot puffs of ragged breath into the air.
Even with the lodge being half occupied with snow, it still had enough room to run laps. Physical space wasn’t the real cause of her panic attack. It was the psychological space. They were up so high, so close to the ceiling, it was abnormal and unnerving. Then beyond that, what was there? Snow extending infinitely in every direction, for all they knew. It was unnaturally silent. Perhaps worst of all, they were separated from the sun and moon, removed from the natural rhythm that governed every living thing. How was life even supposed to work now? There was no time or space. This cold, black pit, it was all that existed. It could be the last thing they ever see. They’d end up frozen bodies just like the ones they thoughtlessly walked over every time they crossed the lodge.
“Is there even air in here?” she exploded. “I can’t breathe! I can’t-” Her words were lost in a staccato of short gasps for breath. She clutched at her own throat.
Vinyl scrambled out of her bed and over to Rarity. She shook her, trying to snap her out of her episode. Then she modeled breathing slow and deep breaths, trying to get her to imitate and calm down. Rarity looked her in the eyes, still gibbering about the lack of space between desperate gasps for oxygen. Unable to communicate effectively, Vinyl wrapped her forelegs around her, clutching Rarity to her chest and continued breathing slow and rhythmically, hoping that she could feel it in her body and be inspired to change her pattern.
“Wide open spaces,” chanted Rarity. “Wide open spaces. I’m in wide- I’m at the beach… that’s where I am.” Her voice softened. “I’m where there’s lots of space and it’s warm and it’s day and I know that it’s day because I can see the sun.”
Gradually her breathing normalized until it was close to Vinyl’s, and eventually she hugged back. “Thank you,” she sighed. “I’m fine. I’m fine. This is just a lot to adjust to all at once.”
That’s why we need to get out of here as soon as possible, thought Vinyl. But how? She released Rarity and went back to her nest. She began biting off mouthfuls of fir needles, wishing to quell the growing ache in her stomach and the wooziness.
Rarity did the same. It was impossible to focus or accomplish anything with these hunger pains, not that there was anything to accomplish now but stay alive. “There was a little restaurant on the bottom floor,” Rarity suddenly remembered. “We should try to dig it out and find real food.”
Vinyl looked at her and listlessly stuck a tongue out covered with needles.
“It’s about here, I believe,” called Rarity, stamping a hoof in the snow near the wall. Vinyl simply responded by immediately commencing with the excavation. The two worked to clear the spot. It was a relief to be digging a conventional hole for a change. It was also a relief to see the restaurant door appear without bumping into a corpse.
The doorway was open, but unfortunately it looked like the restaurant was also packed with snow. As they cleared the opening and worked their way in, it became apparent that the restaurant had taken significantly more structural damage than the commons area. The roof had collapsed, effectively baring their entry to the dining area.
Rarity sighed frustratedly at the impenetrable wall of mangled wreckage. “Well, that’s fine. We really just need to get to the kitchen, right? So let’s go this way.” She pointed to another mound of snow in the opposite direction.
They quickly defeated the last snow barrier and finally trudged into the kitchen. The kitchen wasn’t filled to the brim with more snow, which was nice, but it was still crushed and inaccessible beyond the island and the gas range. Unfortunately, that was where the pantry and iceboxes were.
Rarity let out a groan at the sight, but Vinyl pointed excitedly to one of the big ovens.
“What is it?” asked Rarity curiously.
Vinyl walked over to the appliance and pretended to turn on the gas. Then she opened the oven door and stuck her head in, smiling back at her as she did.
Rarity laughed humorlessly. "Oh Vinyl, you card. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We should at least check the rest of the kitchen first."
The two split up and began rummaging through cupboards on opposite sides of the kitchen. Dishearteningly, what they found was mostly utilitarian cooking supplies. There were big stockpots, pans and dishes, a drawer with ladles and spatulas. Vinyl found a collection of knives in a knife block. That was a score. She could maybe sharpen her ladder rungs with them, she thought. She opened another low cabinet and her eyebrows shot up. There, amongst a bunch of branded disposable coffee cups was a big bag of potato chips. She immediately picked it up with her magic. Wait, she thought, If I tell Rarity about this, I'll have to share them. Then I'll get less chips and I don't want less chips. I want lots of chips. But... Rarity needs food too. Yeah, but it's not like we're going to be trapped in here for like a week or something. She'll be fine. Vinyl resolved to stop thinking on the matter before her conscience could offer another rebuttal. She put the bag back down and closed the cabinet.
The two regrouped after the search was completed. “Did you find any food?” asked Rarity flatly.
Vinyl shook her head but held up the loaded knife block and a whetstone.
“I didn’t either,” sighed Rarity. “I did find matches and a… small... tub of lard.” She punctuated her report with a disgusted expression. “Which I suppose is technically edible.”
They returned to the landing with their meager bounty. Vinyl could only think about the bag of chips and the pain in her stomach. She could be eating them with Rarity right now, but was choosing to forgo instant relief just for more chips.
Through no small effort and some ingenuity with a meat cleaver, the two unicorns managed to disassemble a pile of wooden planks from the landing. The problem was that there was no fire pit. If they made a fire on the snow, the snow would probably melt and douse the fire. If they put it on the landing, the landing might catch fire. Ultimately they decided that they were too cold to care. If the fire started creeping, they could contain it with snow.
Vinyl made a pile of wood shavings with a knife to serve as kindling. Rarity struck a match and at last they felt a modicum of comfort in their ice prison. The two happily gathered around close to the fire to bask in the warmth, and for a brief moment they forgot about all their other problems. The flickering flames evoked life and normalcy as they banished the darkness around them, even if it was for only an hour or two.
Using the knives, Vinyl began to whittle points on the ends of her baluster posts while Rarity slowly scooped blobs of lard into her mouth straight from the tub. Her expression was that of repulsion, but she pushed through.
Rarity ate about half of the lard then levitated the tub and spoon over to Vinyl. “Care to try? The rest is yours. You get used to it.”
Vinyl shook her head warily.
“Come now,” insisted Rarity. “You need to eat something to keep your strength up.” She scooped up a dollop of white sludge. Then she floated the spoon over to a snow pile and dipped it in. “If we put a little snow on it, we can pretend it’s ice cream.” She hovered the weird offering in front of Vinyl’s mouth.
Grudgingly, Vinyl opened for the spoon and let the snow-covered fat slide into her quivering maw. She swallowed the lump as quickly as she could, trying not to retch. This must have been what eating a frozen slug was like, she thought.
Rarity prepped the spoon for round two but Vinyl held up her hoof and shook her head even harder. She pushed the tub and spoon back to Rarity.
“Are you sure?” asked Rarity in concern. “I’ll save it for later if you change your mind… though I am still quite hungry.”
See, Vinyl thought to herself. She can have all the lard and I can have all the chips. That’s fair. It’s fine.
The two thought about sleep again. They knew it hadn’t been a full day, but it was difficult to get energized enough to last a full day when it was always cold and they had no food. The fire didn’t spread much on the landing, so they just lazily watched the flames die before smothering the coals with a sizzle.
Nagged by the cold and her uncomfortable bed, Vinyl woke again shortly after falling asleep. She shifted in her nest and was about to try to go back to sleep when she remembered the glorious chips. She shot up and illuminated her horn. Rarity was still huddled in her bed, apparently asleep.
Vinyl wiggled free from her blanket of boughs and slowly walked across the creaky floorboards of the landing. Although snow naturally dampened sound, it was always so deathly silent in the lodge that even the tiniest noises sounded loud especially while trying to sneak away. She squeezed under the rail, through the spot that used to have balusters, and hopped down on the snow. She returned to the kitchen and breathlessly opened the cabinet, beholding the coveted bag of chips.
Vinyl cringed at the loud squeaks emitted from the bag when she began to wrestle with it. She finally got the top open with a deafening rip. Quickly, she began floating a procession of potato chips into her mouth where she crunched them ravenously. Her eyes rolled in ecstasy. These completely unremarkable chips were the best thing she had ever tasted in her entire life. It occurred to her that she should save some for later, but she couldn’t stop. She just kept cramming them down her throat.
Suddenly the room grew brighter and she heard a voice behind her.
“Enjoying yourself? growled Rarity.
She turned with a start to see Rarity’s glaring visage right behind her.
“I can not believe you hid food from me!” she snarled in her face. “ME! The very avatar of generosity! ON HEARTH’S WARMING EVE, NO LESS!”
Vinyl shook her head in fearful denial. She floated the bag to Rarity who gazed lividly down at the contents. It appeared that only about a third of the chips were left. Her narrowed eyes flicked back up to Vinyl who smiled awkwardly, cheeks still full of masticated chips.
Rarity angrily scarfed down the remaining chips in three seconds flat. Then she tore open the bag and licked every inch of its interior before tossing it aside.
“What else is there?” she demanded.
Vinyl threw up her hooves and shook her head.
Rarity began rifling sloppily through many of the storage spaces that she knew Vinyl had searched earlier, but found nothing. She cast one last glare at the DJ, then turned and huffed off muttering something about lard under her breath.
That was scary, thought Vinyl. Her heart was pounding. She flashed back to a time when she was a filly and her mom caught her with pot in her room.
The chips were good, but they left Vinyl’s mouth so salty. She had to eat a bunch of snow to rehydrate before she went back to bed. She also decided to hide the knives in a snowbank under the landing.
Vinyl’s eyes opened again as the sound of Rarity humming whimsically met her ears. She sat up through the prickly needles and looked over to see the designer prancing about through a collection of what looked like furniture made from snow. She rubbed her eyes, not sure she was seeing this right.
“Like the new additions to the living space?” chimed Rarity. She floated a fir switch around, carving out fluted details on legs and leafy flourishes. “The snow lends itself to the organic forms of Rococo quite well.”
There was a clawfoot chair, a table and a fainting couch all made of solid snow now sitting on the landing. How long was I unconscious, Vinyl wondered as she approached the snow chair.
"I figured if we're going to be stuck here," continued Rarity, "we might as well spruce things up and make it a bit more like home."
Horrified at the prospect of coming to terms with the situation, Vinyl shook her head with an angry scowl. Then pointed away in the general direction of the shaft.
Rarity rolled her eyes in annoyance at the unappreciative buzzkill. "Ugh. Yes, yes, the hole to nowhere. We can't dig anymore, remember?"
Vinyl levitated one of the modified balusters into one hoof and tapped it with the other, maintaining an expression of dire seriousness.
Rarity sat on the couch despite it being cold. “Let’s be practical about this, Vinyl. Somepony has to have found the site by now and I’m confident they have a rescue team digging us out as we speak, or rather as I speak, since you don’t.
Vinyl glowered at her condescending tone.
“I just don’t think we should be wasting any more energy and resources catering to your flights of fancy. It’s much easier to sit and wait. And even if nopony digs us out, the snow has to just melt at some point.”
Vinyl’s eyes widened in disbelief. Staying here till the snow melts? How could they make it that long? What would they survive on? Half a tub of lard and a large Hearth’s Warming tree? If Rarity had wanted her proposal to come off as the more reasonable one, she should have left that part out.
Vinyl held up the baluster and shook her head slowly without breaking eye contact.
“Very well," scoffed Rarity angrily. "But I am not climbing that shaft unless I see daylight at the other end. You can climb up there and dig while I clear the snow you drop at the bottom."
Vinyl sighed and picked up the rest of the balusters. Maybe it was the confrontation over the food, the onset of cabin fever, or any number of basic necessities denied them, but patience was beginning to wear thin.
Vinyl fretted on her way to the shaft. They hadn’t seen or heard any sign of help, and yet Rarity just wanted to go all in on staying put while she made stupid freezing cold furniture that nopony would even use.
Inside the shaft, Vinyl drove a post into the wall and was relieved to find that adding a point at one end allowed her to put it in as far as she wanted, and more importantly, made a stable hoofhold she could put all of her weight on.
She began placing more balusters strategically spaced up the side of the shaft as if she were creating her own backyard climbing wall. Energized by her success, she quickly began to ascend the hoofholds, occasionally looking down to acquire another rung from the pile to extend her path upward. Once she reached the end of the footholds, she had to pause and think about what to do next. She’d need to recycle balusters from the bottom, yanking them out with her magic, but she didn’t like the idea of having to hang there while she slowly rearranged the hoofholds to allow her to advance just one at a time at a snail's pace. It would be nice to have a place to rest while she ‘raised the ladder.’
Vinyl began digging out a niche in the wall until she had a little place to stand in. Once off of the hoofholds, she looked down over the edge. She wasn't up that high, but it was high enough to make her stomach do a somersault. Trying not to think about it, she started to reclaim the balusters, sticking them in a loose cluster in the wall at her level like darts in a dartboard. Then she made a new path going up from where she was.
She continued to climb, smiling when she looked up with her light and saw the end of the shaft a little ways ahead. This is going to work, she thought. We’re going to get out of here and then Rarity is going to be kissing my ass for making her help me with this.
Vinyl climbed all the way to the end of her hoofholds again and carved out a second niche in the wall. This spot brought her into prime striking distance of the end of the shaft. Finally she was able to pick up the escape digging again. Vinyl knew she’d reached a height that was potentially fatal if she fell, so she made a point to not look all the way down this time. The darkness did obscure the bottom, but there was also the faint distant light of Rarity’s horn.
Vinyl pulled out several balusters from below and constructed a stable work space where she could stand in the middle of the shaft with hind and forelegs split, resting on double wide hoofholds on opposing sides. She dug in with her magic and shivered as the loose white powder sprinkled her.
Rarity stayed on the ground as she said, flinging Vinyl’s discarded snow from the hole to keep it accessible. She floated much of it over to cover up the nearby latrine corner. Might as well make some use of it if she was already digging.
This could be it, thought Vinyl. I could be breathing fresh air any minute now. There’s no way it could be very much further. As the shaft grew higher, suddenly a barrel’s worth of snow dislodged from above and pounded down upon her. She lost her foreleg grip and tumbled backwards, her head and neck slamming into the side of the shaft. When the snow receded, she was left precariously balanced between her hind hooves and her neck muscles. Shaking from fear and the brisk ice bath she’d just taken, she slowly pushed herself back into a standing position.
Panting deeply, Vinyl paused momentarily to gather her nerves. When she looked up, she saw the frozen face of a pony staring back at her. She gasped, almost losing her balance again. When she stabilized and looked up once more, she found that it wasn’t a corpse. It was just a large stone. She was lucky. If that had come down on her with the cave-in, that might have been it. She quickly picked out the boulder and carefully bussed it as close to the floor as she could get it so as not to pose a danger to Rarity.
Every instinct in Vinyl Scratch screamed at her to abandon the dig and return to the ground. Her limbs were becoming numb after too much contact with falling snow. She felt shaky and delirious. She could hear dance music in her head, no, not just in her head she could almost feel it. She kept digging, against better judgement. The shaft got longer and longer until once again the end was out of reach. She couldn’t believe it. She’d doubled the length of the tunnel and found nothing but a stone.
She couldn’t measure, but building off of the rough approximation from the time before, that meant what? There were at least six stories of snow counting from the ground up? That was impossible. There was no way there could be that much snow on anything.
It was decision time. Vinyl would either have to move the hoofholds up or down. If she quit now, she couldn’t imagine herself being able to muster the constitution to try this again in the face of icy terror and certain defeat. But her body, nerves and morale were shattered. She wasn’t even sure if she could manage a safe descent back to the lodge at this point. She moved back into the niche and began to disassemble her work scaffolding, moving the pieces downward.
The descent sucked. It was terrifying and took an eternity, but finally she hopped down, collapsing on the bottom of the shaft, shaking in the snow.
“You couldn’t find the surface, could you?” droned Rarity.
Vinyl couldn’t even make herself look up at her. She just stared at the ground, shaking her head somberly.
“Shall we finally dispense with this fruitless venture then?”
Vinyl only gave a defeated sigh in response as she stood upon her tingling legs to head back to the landing for a fire.
It was impossible to tell how long they’d been trapped in the lodge, but it felt like weeks. Rarity stopped trying to fix her mane or even pull out the needles and pieces of fir tree collecting in it. It was all too difficult without a mirror. Any time she spoke now, she would slip in and out of her accent, confirming what Vinyl and many other ponies in Ponyville had suspected for some time: it was fake.
They’d stripped and eaten all of the visible parts of the Hearth’s Warming tree and now had to dig out the lower branches from the snow if they wanted food. Once the tree was gone, they did have one other significant food source, but they hadn’t discussed it yet.
Feeling cold was constant. Hunger and stomach pains were constant. Helplessness was constant. The minute they had no direction or goal to work toward, the pit and all its cruelties began to unravel their mental acuity.
The landing was cluttered with strange projects meant to kill time and keep the brain occupied so that it wouldn’t do strange things. Some were made of snow. Some were composite constructions made with things they’d raided from the kitchen. A scale snow sculpture of Rarity’s little sister, Sweetie Belle, sat on the snow chair. The oblong stone that Vinyl had excavated from the shaft sat on the snow fainting couch. His name was Rocky Stonesworth, a rail baron from Manehatten. Rarity drew a face and a monocle on him with charcoal and made him a snow tophat.
Vinyl stood behind her snow DJ booth putting the finishing touches on her new snow mixer. It had four turntables and eight channels, no, a million channels! Gotta keep busy, she thought. Don’t wanna turn crazy like Rarity. She nudged the fader up as she tested the sound. (It was a fork in a crevice.) She could feel her sanity beginning to slide ever since she came back from the top of the shaft and it terrified her. She viewed Rarity as being much further gone than herself to the point of being blissfully unaware of her own mental affliction. She’d stopped fighting this place long ago and just let it take her.
Vinyl tapped a beat, knocking one hoof on a wooden plank and scratching the bottom of a frying pan with the other as she stared off into the dark, forgetting herself. No one was coming. They’d be here by now.
They could let the embers stay alive after the fires now. They had an upgraded fire pit made from a metal partition they’d found in one of the ovens. It protected the landing from catching but they rarely lit fires anyway. The only good fuel was the landing boards and they didn’t want to sacrifice any more of the precious snowless real estate. Unfortunately, the tree possessed the same duality. Being green, it wasn’t very good fuel, but they had to decide whether they wanted food or warmth from the needles. Food was winning that battle. Food always wins.
“Oh, is that a new chapeau?” laughed Rarity to herself in the dark. “Well isn’t it just darling,” she giggled. This proved to be extraordinarily hilarious to her because it sent her into a giggling fit that lasted several minutes.
Vinyl was angry, not from being kept awake by her laughter, but that she didn’t know what a chapeau was and thus didn’t get the amazing joke.
As she laid in her nest, wavering in and out of consciousness, she heard a voice. It wasn't Rarity's. Her eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright. Turning on her light, she saw that Rarity was asleep.
"Vinyl?" called the voice clearly.
Vinyl gasped as chills ran down her spine. It sounded like Octavia. She scrambled to her hooves and leapt from the landing down to the snow. She rushed over to where she had left Octavia's body to see the cello player sitting up and rubbing her face in worry.
It was Octavia, the only other Pony in Ponyville that could fully understand her. She was alive, but how? Hadn't she been laying there on the snow, catatonic for days, weeks? Tears of happiness trickled down Vinyl's face as she came in to hug her cold body.
"What happened? Where are we?" asked Octavia, bewildered.
We're still at the ski lodge. There was an avalanche and now we're trapped here.
"Oh," sighed Octavia. "Well at least we're together," she smiled weakly. Somehow she produced the same sprig of mistletoe and held it up over their heads again. "Come're, you."
Vinyl closed her eyes and leaned in. Their lips met, The passion was there, but Octavia’s lips were so unbelievably cold. When Vinyl opened her eyes, she saw Octavia's lifeless blue face hanging limply to one side. Vinyl recoiled in shock, letting her roommate’s body flop back down on the snow. She turned away, spitting and retching. She scooped snow in her mouth, trying to dispel the corpulent essence.
What the fuck, she thought. What the fuck was that?
Vinyl stared at the mound of snow in the doorway to the east wing of the lodge. The doorway to the hall adjoined with the edge of their landing. They hadn’t bothered with digging it out to check inside because honestly, it didn’t look that promising, but what the hell else was there to do? She began flinging snow out of the way. It didn't take long before she uncovered a jumbled mess not unlike what was left of the downstairs dining area.
She sighed. Well, that was an entertaining two minute diversion. Now what? There was still stuff in the kitchen.
Vinyl hopped over the railing and plodded over to the restaurant. She grabbed the remaining pots and pans from the kitchen cupboards and floated them with her magic out the door. She didn’t have any purpose in mind for them. They were just there and it was something else to collect. Though on the way back it didn’t take long for her to come up with something.
A drum set, she thought. That would be awesome. Rarity would hate it. As she exited the restaurant and climbed up to the top of the snow, she began to hear something. It was slight. She stopped to listen, wondering if it was just a ringing in her ears but gradually it became louder. It sounded like a big crowd. They were all shouting and wailing in torment. It was muffled but it continued to grow. Vinyl’s eyes grew huge as she dropped the pots and pans with a loud clatter. Suddenly she was able to hear individual ponies crying out for help. Vinyl put her hooves to the sides of her head in panic. It was everypony under the snow. They were trapped and dying.
She began racing around frantically, tossing snow this way and that, unable to hone in on any one voice. There were so many. She'd never be able to save them all. Could she save any?
Rarity, who'd been alerted by the crash of the kitchenware, called out from the landing as she watched the DJ’s light bobbing around erratically on the snow. "Vinyl, what in Equestria are you doing?"
Vinyl paused her digging frenzy to flail wild gestures back at Rarity who just shook her head in confusion.
"I don't understand. You're acting insane."
Panting hard, Vinyl began to dig straight down until suddenly she could not hear the voices any longer. She stopped abruptly and stood stock still, listening but all she could hear was her own breath. She shook her head as reason returned to her.
Everypony is already dead. They’ve been dead for many days. It doesn’t matter what you think you hear or see. Nothing is going to change that.
Hallucinations were one thing, but it was extremely alarming that she was starting to fall prey to these delusions, accepting them as reality. In her mind, she reasoned that she should just be able to anchor herself to a known absolute like Octavia being dead and realize that anything contradicting that wasn’t real, but that logic wasn’t working anymore. These experiences had the same deceptive allure as a nightmare.
Relieved that at least the episode was over, she picked up the pots and pans and delivered them to the landing.
Vinyl fiddled around on her snow mixer. She should add a keyboard next, she thought. But instead of doing that, she scratched the pan absently for hours while she reflected on every bad decision she’d ever made.
Vinyl awoke with a start as Rarity jostled her inside her nest. “Vinyl! Vinyl,” she shouted urgently. “They’re attacking the castle! Report to your post!”
Adrenaline shot through the DJ as she flung off her fir branches. Of course those bastards were attacking while they slept, she thought as she scrambled to her hooves.
Rarity pointed across the snow to the shaft. “Quickly, to the gate! To the gate!
The two leapt from the landing and galloped across the snow field to the hole.
“Fortify the door,” commanded Rarity. “We’ll defend the citadel to the last pony! For country and Princess Celestia!”
They began feverishly flinging snow into the open shaft as fast as they could. They filled it up in minutes and built up a sizable mound in front. It might not stop the siege, but it would slow the attackers. Once the door was secure, they began to build up snow walls as cover for when the enemy breached the castle.
The two of them nestled in behind their defenses on pins and needles, awaiting the coming storm until they both fell asleep.
Vinyl woke up in the snow behind her fortification, body aching and cold. She looked around confusedly, not remembering why she was at the other end of the lodge. Rarity was there too, sleeping, head slumped over a snow wall. Then she saw the hole, or rather where the hole had been. Her mouth dropped open. It was completely filled up and then some, with a big mound in front. She approached the obstruction and looked it over in disbelief. There were hoofprints scattered all over it where it had been intentionally packed down. Now livid, she returned to Rarity and kicked a load of snow in the sleeping mare's face.
Rarity shot up, sputtering and shaking her head. “What? Vinyl?” she spat angrily.
Vinyl got in her face, scowling intensely, and pointed to the hole.
Rarity turned to look. “What- Oh, the hole collapsed.” She rolled her eyes callously. “So sad. What are you angry with me about?”
Vinyl screwed up her face in rage and grabbed hold of Rarity with her magic, dragging her to the mound. Then she gestured to the hoofprints and pointed back at her accusingly.
“Oh, you think I did this, just because there are hoofprints?” she growled. “You know who else has hooves? You do! Clearly you’re framing me. You just want whatever excuse you can find to bash my head in with Rocky Stonesworth while I sleep!” She drove a hoof into Vinyl's chest. "Don't you dare finish that sentence!"
Vinyl turned around and began digging like an earth pony, flinging snow between her hind legs and very intentionally into Rarity’s face.
Rarity sputtered again and turned away. “You’re crazy and you have made a powerful enemy this day! Make no mistake!”
Once Rarity had retreated, Vinyl switched to digging with her magic. She didn’t even comprehend at the moment why she wanted the hole open. She only understood that Rarity had deeply disrespected her and she couldn’t allow it.
When the DJ finished opening up the shaft again, she returned to the landing where Rarity was having a tea party with her friends. She picked up a chunk of charcoal from the fire pit with her magic and ceremoniously dragged it across the floor of the landing, leaving a black line dividing the two ends of the structure. Then she pointed at Rarity and grunted angrily, making sure she saw this.
"Oh, well, that's just fine," screeched Rarity, exploding off of the fainting couch and flailing her forelegs. "You couldn't pay me to visit that disgusting hovel you call a domicile!"
Vinyl returned to her booth. I'm gonna make a snow synth, she thought. Then I'm gonna write a song called Rar1ty Sux Cuz She 8 all Da Tree and She's Crazy and Her Accent is F4k3!"
She didn’t want to live in her presence any longer. It would feel safer sleeping in the kitchen, but if she moved, she'd be ceding the whole landing to crazy Rarity and her mad tea party. Though for a change of pace it still might be nice to go to sleep once and not wake up… but not because of something Rarity did to her while she slept.
Time passed, and Vinyl was still angry about the hole incident, but Rarity seemed to have forgotten everything about their fighting. She was living minute to minute and unable to hang on to many past events, even if they’d happened just hours ago.
Rarity sat on the fainting couch next to Rocky Stonesworth, chuckling to herself. "Look Sweetie Belle. They're like ants. They tickle just like ants."
Vinyl looked up to see Rarity staring at her hooves, still giggling at whatever it was.
Vinyl examined her own hooves, wanting to see what tickled just like ants, but she saw nothing.
Look at her, having conversations with things that can't even hear her about stuff that isn’t happening. She's totally lost it. Vinyl turned to Octavia. We need to be ready if she turns on us.
“Don’t even look at me, you stupid twat," snapped Octavia coldly. "You killed everypony with your bloody awful electro whatsit music!”
Tears began to stream down Vinyl’s face, bringing a freezing sting to her cheeks. Octavia wouldn’t say that to me, she told herself. While it was true she was not well versed in EDM, she never would have said such a horrible thing to her.
Vinyl woke up to the smell of smoke. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, aggravated. That bitch made a fire without me, she thought. She's burning up pieces of the landing and I don't even get to enjoy the warmth. They'd better be from her side of the line.
She got up to investigate, primed for another fight. When she looked over at Rarity's living area, she saw that she had absconded with the fire pit, taking it from the center over to her end. Not only that but she had started a blaze in it of hedonistic proportions. Vinyl clenched her teeth in rage. What the hell did she think she was doing?
Suddenly she noticed the array of stockpots sitting around the fire with sharpened balusters sticking out their tops, things skewered on them, roasting in the flames. She was cooking? What did she have to cook?
Vinyl’s mouth dropped open. Laying to the left of the chair on the landing was Octavia’s horribly butchered carcass, looking like it had been picked apart by a pack of wolves.
Rarity was sitting on the fainting couch, biting meat off of one of Octavia’s hind legs.
"Try your burger, Sweetie Belle,” she encouraged. “It should be cool now. Don't be persnickety; you're a growing filly."
Something broke inside Vinyl as she began frothing through her teeth. She lost control and a primal fury took over. “NAAAAAAAHHH!" she screamed, unable to form the word correctly in her untrained throat. "NAAAOOOO!" She took a huge breath and tried again. "NOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!” she wailed to the ceiling.
Rarity turned to see Vinyl rocketing full throttle straight at her. The DJ spun around, bucking her right in the face, sending her sprawling to the floor with a chunk of the couch.
Vinyl turned her rabid hatred toward the venue itself, thrashing and bucking the furniture to powder. She slapped Octavia's steaming remains from Sweetie Belle's plate and then obliterated her.
"Sweetie Belle!" shrieked Rarity, who was just getting back on her legs. Face throbbing, she scowled daggers at Vinyl. "You fiend! I'LL KILL YOU!" She snatched up a baluster spike with her magic and drove it straight at Vinyl, but she hijacked it with her own magic before it could stick her. The wooden stake tumbled and lurched through the air as the two fought for control. It shot upward and froze above them. With gritted teeth, Vinyl glanced down to see that Rarity’s eyes were fixed up high on the baluster. It was an opening.
Vinyl relinquished the makeshift weapon. Then she dropped her horn and charged. Momentarily distracted by her sudden ability to fully manipulate the baluster again, Rarity looked down to reacquire her target just in time to see Vinyl’s horn flash in her vision before it plunged through the side of her throat.
The baluster clunked on the floor as the taste of copper came to Rarity’s mouth. Vinyl bowed her head, allowing her opponent to sluff off the end of her horn. Rarity collapsed on her side. She stared up at her with wide eyes. Her mouth was moving as if she were trying to speak, but the only sound that came out was wet gurgling. Without another thought, Vinyl levitated the wooden stake into the air and brought it down through Rarity’s side in a merciless killing blow.
Blood pooled around the body. In a sudden return of lucidity, Vinyl turned away, her guts heaving violently, but there was nothing in her stomach to expel. Whether the reaction was from seeing Octavia’s body parts cooked and strewn all over the deck or disgust at her own violent actions, she didn’t know. She collapsed on the floor in the middle of it all, panting and choking in delirium. The smell of charred pony flesh assaulted her nostrils. She watched the firelight play upon the wall until it dimmed and then vanished all together.
I’m getting the fuck out of here right now, was the first thing Vinyl’s brain told her when it came back online. I’m going back in that shaft and I’m not leaving it until I find the surface. I will escape or I will fucking die in there.
Vinyl staggered to her hooves, grunting in feral determination. She gathered up the balusters, in some cases shaking overcooked meat from them, and with no further preparations returned to the shaft.
Looking all the way up with the brightest light she could produce, the DJ took a deep breath. She jammed a path of hoofholds into the wall and began to climb. She was weak and shaky from malnourishment, but she made it up to the first niche easily. Then the second. Her journey was much quicker with the experience and without having to dig. She could feel her own heart beating in her head and it almost sounded like dance music.
Vinyl dug out a third niche as she entered uncharted territory. Then a fourth at the top of the shaft where she had to rest and prepare for the coming snow bath.
She dug upward, tossing the snow down to the bottom, fully realizing that she was now burying herself alive inside the shaft with nopony to clear it at the bottom and no way to clear it from within once it got too high. She had fully embraced death over trying to survive another day in the lodge. It was do or die.
Chilling snow showered down upon her, but she refused to falter. She had nearly lost feeling in her extremities and almost cried when she made it to the edge of her reach again and still hadn’t found the end. It was unfathomable. Sitting down in the niche, she rubbed her legs, trying to get the blood flowing again. And all too soon, she was back at it, wobbly and unsure.
While digging out niche number five, her hoof slipped from the peg and she fell, but caught herself roughly on the next hoofhold down. With tremors in her body, she struggled back into position and finished the niche. It took a long time before Vinyl had it in her to do the next leg. Inside she was beginning to believe that she was nearing her limit. If she became too weak to climb any longer, what would she do? Keep climbing until she fell to her death, or curl up in a niche and expire slowly? She was betting on the former.
Nose running, Vinyl lethargically arranged the hoofholds all the way to the top of the shaft. Against her body’s protests, she got back on the pegs. Noticeably struggling now, she worked her way up slowly, almost having to stop and rest on the hoofholds. It all of a sudden occurred to her just how high she was, and the thought alone was enough to give her vertigo.
As she began to carve out niche number six, the ceiling came down upon her. It was a pretty small cave-in as cave-ins went, so she just shook it off quickly. Then she looked up and her eyes grew wide. Up above her was black. The end. She gave a gutteral gasp as if she had just come up for air from the bottom of a lake.
Vinyl pierced the surface of the snow with stinging forelegs and began to pull herself from the shaft, shivering violently all the way. She exited, crawling on her knees before shaking to her hooves.
It was night outside and the air was still. Vinyl rubbed her eyes when she thought she saw colored blotches glowing faintly in the snow. Her brain and whole body must have been going haywire by now. She increased the light of her horn and began to look around. Suddenly she spotted another unicorn’s light blink on and heard the sound of hooves scraping in the snow.
Rarity looked up from her digging with a start. “Vinyl Scratch?” she gasped. “Oh, thank Celestia that somepony else survived!" She began to sob. "I've been searching for a while now and I can't find anypony alive. I think it might be too late now.”
Vinyl looked up at the sky only to find that there was no sky, just rustic wooden beams.