Chapter 1
I'm not great at telling stories so I’ll just start with a little introduction. My friends and I have been into urban exploration for about three years now. I'm from Manehattan and as you might know, there are a lot of abandoned buildings on the outskirts of the city. I have two best friends, Flaming Valour and Dusk Oasis. Flame was a red pegasus whose special talent was in cooking. Dusk was a grey unicorn whose special talent was mapping out the stars. We met when we were all seven and have been friends since then and always looked out for each other.
We were all about seventeen when we started out going to old, boarded up houses and from then we just became fascinated with the whole run down, derelict scenery of it all, so we started exploring and camping out in old warehouses, factories and houses on the outskirts of the city. We always bring a few rolls of buckweed, get high, look around, take pictures and generally space out and have a blast. But what I'm going to share with you now is the most bucked up experience I've ever had in my life.
Two months ago Flame’s uncle, whom we all knew, passed away. The guy was a bucking legend who also smoked buckweed and let us chill at his house all the time. He was forty-five years old with no wife and no kids. Needless to say he had a lot of money saved up, which meant that Flame ended up getting ten-thousand bits as his share of the inheritance! He had always wanted to go camping somewhere, so the first thing he did was get himself a full professional camping kit at a cost of seven-thousand bits. With the three-thousand bits he had left, he decided to treat us. We had always talked about going out to the country to visit one of those old abandoned mental asylums that you’d hear in those ghost stories and now it was finally going to happen!
We had heard that the best one to check out was one located roughly ten miles outside the city of Buckingham. It had been abandoned for fifteen years after it was closed down due to a lack of funding. Because the building was so far away from anywhere, nopony wanted it, so it was just left to rot. Flame also decided to bring along his marefriend, Violet Wave.
Now Violet wasn't some mare who you’d look at once and forget about in ten minutes. She had a long pink wavy mane and her coat was a deep shade of purple. She worked at a swimming pool near where we lived, which made sense as her special talent was in swimming. So there we were in the swimming pool one day while she’s on duty and Flame, being the pony he is, said he was going to ask her out. None of us thought he could do it so Dusk and I made a bet with him. If he got her we would both give him twenty bits. If he didn't then he would pay us both twenty. Suffice to say, Dusk and I were both twenty bits poorer by the end of the day.
Anyway, back to the story. We had packed two tents, one for Dusk and I and the other for Flame and Violet. We also had sleeping bags, matches, a few candles (because we felt using them would make the place a whole lot creepier), a mini stove, a flashlight and plenty of buckweed and food to last us for the whole weekend.
The plan was simple: get high as fuck and explore the shit out of the place. Then we would camp out and have the most epic weekend of our lives. The place was supposed to be haunted and while we didn't believe in ghosts, we liked the whole idea of exploring a ‘haunted’ building just for the thrill of it.
On the Friday we got a train to Buckingham and then hiked ten miles from the train station to the hospital. As we were approaching the place we could tell that the years hadn't been kind to it. A lot of the windows were smashed and vines were growing all over the walls. By the time we got there it was getting dark, so we decided to pitch our tents inside. The main hall was fairly spacious so we had no problem putting them up, leaving us with enough room in the centre to sit around a lit candle we were pretending was a camp-fire.
As we were sitting around the candle we all smoked some of the buckweed. Sometime later, Flame and Violet went into their tent while Dusk and I stayed out for a while longer. This is when things got weird. As we were sitting there a fog started to drift in from all around us. Being high, we didn't notice all the fog until it got really bad. And when I say 'bad', I mean 'really bad'. I have lived in Manehattan my whole life and have never have I seen a fog so thick, even when I walked through the industrial part of the city.
When we noticed it we didn't think much of it so we rolled up more of the buckweed and waited for those two in the tent to come out so we could do a bit of exploring before hitting the sack. About a half hour later they come out. We grab the torches and matches and move down one of the hallways to our left and up a set of stairs. With the fog we could only see about ten hooves in front of us. In front was me and Dusk while Flame and Violet took up the back. As we were walking we looked in some of the doors what were closed. Most of them creaked as we opened them and one fell to the floor as we moved to open it, eliciting a screech from Violet. Most of the rooms were common hospital rooms, albeit worn from age.
As we went deeper into the building the fog got thicker and thicker. Roughly half an hour into our exploring we heard a loud banging coming from beneath us. We didn’t think much of it as this place was already falling apart in places and it could have been a light or something finally falling after so long. As we opened one door we all froze in place as we saw these shadowy figures staring at us. We all started freaking out until we realized that it was a bathroom and the shadowy figures were us staring at a mirror.
So far we were having a pretty epic and scary night, and we were here for the whole weekend. Dusk and I both needed to use the toilet so we decided to just use the ones here seeing as nobody will likely be here in the next few months. As we were going I could overhear Flame telling Violet that he wouldn’t mind just heading back to the tents, eating a bag of crisps and going off to sleep. With both of us finished we continued on down the corridor.
The fog was still surrounding us and there was wood all over the floor. We were moving pretty slowly due to the fact we had to watch our step to prevent us from tripping. Eventually we got to a room at the end of the hall. The fog seemed to clear up a bit to the point where we could see the whole room and not just our feet. There wasn’t much in the room except for a table thats leg had given out and a broken window at the other side. I went over to look outside but the fog was pretty think and I could just make out the trees surrounding the place.
As I was looking outside Flame found something that put us all in a state of paranoia. He shouted out and I could tell that something was wrong just by the way he sounded. When I got to him he was looking at the wall in front of him. I looked where he was and I almost lost it. There was what looked like fresh blood in patches on the wall. I tried telling myself that it was just paint but even then both of those theories were scary to think about. Why? Because it meant that we weren’t the only ponies in this hospital, miles from anywhere and with a thick fog surrounding us. The night basically went downhill from here.
Violet started crying at that point and Flame tried to comfort her. Dusk just stared at the wall and looked calm but I knew he was scared. We all were. All of a sudden we heard some very fast and very loud footsteps, seemingly coming from directly underneath us like someone was running flat footed.
We decided that whether we liked it or not we would have to go downstairs, but not before looking for something which we could use as a weapon. I grabbed a curtain pole and snapped it in half, giving one of the halves to Flame while Dusk picked up a heavy slab of wood from the floor. We then slowly made our way back to the tents with Flame and I at the front while Dusk took the back. Violet was in the centre, and on the verge of tears.
We got back to the stairs and started walking down when suddenly we heard more loud banging sounds, like something was being smashed. We were all on the verge of actually shitting ourselves at this point but we knew we had no choice other than to keep making our way downstairs. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, that was when we really started getting scared. Not because we’d heard anything else since the smashing, but because we knew that whatever had been making the noise was down here with us.
With the main hall about twenty hooves away, we started walking faster. When we got there we realised without a shadow of a doubt that we were not alone. All of our stuff had been smashed to pieces and the tents had been torn to shreds. We were all left speechless. We decided to run as fast as we could back to Buckingham. Anything to get out of this place.
Suddenly there was an ear-piercing scream, a scream so loud that it caused our ears to ring. We were shaken up so much we dropped the candles and torches, causing the candles to go out and the torches to smash. It was pitch black. I started to panic and shouted for someone to light a candle. Dusk managed to find and relight one and we made sure everypony was there before we looked around. That's when we saw it.
Those eyes, looking at no one in particular but always watching our every move. His body was almost furless except for a few small blood covered patches of hair. We could see wounds all over his body, slowly seeping blood onto the ground. And his smile... oh Celestia his smile. It was the kind of smile you’d imagine somepony having after being put in a crazy house, locked away in solitude and generally forgotten about for years before finally getting to satisfy his urge to kill.
When his murder-filled eyes connected with mine I knew that we wouldn't be getting away. And even if we did he would shadow us until he got his chance. He would always remain out of sight until we forgot about him and eventually let our guard down. Even if he had to wait years, he would kill us. He had waited this long, so he knew that he could wait a few years more if he had to.
He used his magic to freeze us in place. I hadn't even noticed he had a horn until he used it. It was cracked in places and looked as if the tip had been broken off. I just stood there and listened to every scream, every crack of bone and every cry of pain as he slowly killed my friends.
Now I bet you're wondering how I can sound so calm while I say this. Well, I’d have to guess that when he looked into my eyes... he had already killed me.
The next morning, after getting reports of screaming being heard from the old hospital from a pony who had been walking through the forest at the time, two guards were dispatched to find the source. When they arrived they found the remains of two tents and four ponies. These ponies had remained unidentified until they found a journal in what was left of their tents. When the journal was picked up a loose page fell out.
Free at last.
I have had my fill for today so I will spare you two... this time. Return again and you will not be so lucky. Don’t be a hero and try and find me.
I already know that ye are here as it’s very hard to miss the golden armour. I suggest you turn around now and leave. I’ll be watching ye as ye go.
Ta-ta.
Both guards reported the feeling of being watched as they left. When they turned around to check they saw nothing different except that one of the windows, which had been fine when they arrived, was smashed. Neither guard heard any glass being broken. As this case is being closed I hereby deem Buckingham Asylum closed permanently to the public and all guards. The killer remains at large.
May Celestia have mercy on whoever is stupid enough to wander to that place again.