When They Come: Pt. 5

“You’re right, it is beautiful up here this time of night.”
>Marigold playfully shoves your shoulder. You’re laughing, though you’re not sure what about. She’s smiling too. Somewhere behind her you see Wisteria and Wave. They’re swapping a large green bottle back and forth with a series of brightly colored balloons on the label.
>As you watch, Wisteria leans quickly forward while Wave is drinking and plants an awkward kiss on her chin. She rears back, giggling, and topples over onto the grass. Wave spits out her mouthful of cider and shrieks before toppling forward onto Wisteria, letting loose a barrage of half-hearted punches.
>You snicker and point out the awkward mare-fight to Marigold. She laughs too, covering her nose to try to stifle the giggles.
“Wasn’t aware there were lesbian ponies here,” you chuckle.
“What’s a lesbian?”
“Never mind,” you say, shaking your head.
>Things are so different here, for all you know ponies don’t have definitions for sexuality, or they’re like the Greeks and just don’t give a shit what you do as long as it’s behind closed doors.
>Marigold leans over and rests her head on your shoulder. Normally you’d find that weird, but the cider has really gotten to you. Marigold looks up at your face and cracks a huge grin.
“I,” she announces. “Am drunk.”
You grin back.
“I think we all are.”
“Yeah we are!” calls Wisteria from where Azure is fake-punching her.
>This releases another wave of laughter from you and Marigold.
>You can’t help but notice how wonderful she smells. A flowery perfume that you’d never known from any ponies back in your world wafts to your nostrils with each passing breeze. You haven’t been this close, this affectionate, with any ponies in Equestria. Although you know she’s far too young and that you’ve just met her today, you feel a swell of affection for her. To be honest, she’s the first pony to show you any real physical attention besides Pinkie Pie’s spontaneous hugs.
>It feels nice. Of course, that could just be the alcohol talking.
>You feel her sigh as she looks up into the sky.
“You know,” she says wistfully. “I’m glad you did this. This is exactly the kind of thing we needed now that school’s over.”
“Hey, glad to help.”
“I’m just feeling so peaceful,” she goes on. “Everything is so right in my life. I could die right now and be happy when I did.”
>A cold shock goes all the way from your tailbone to the base of your skull.
“What?”
“I mean, that’s what you want to hear, right?” she says.
>What is she saying? This doesn’t feel right.
>She sits up straighter and turns to look at you. She has a strange smile poised on her lips and she suddenly seems more vivid to you, her lines more defined.
“That’s what you need in order to feel like it’s ok that you let me die.”
>This didn’t happen, this isn’t how it was. Something is wrong here.
“Marigold,” you stammer.
“Oh, you remember my name now?” she says, standing up now and taking a step towards you. “You didn’t for a while. Let me get killed, bring me up here to die, and you couldn’t even remember my name, hm?”
>This didn’t happen.
>Behind her you can hear the other two ponies still laughing away, but now their laughter sounds sinister somehow, detached from what’s happening here. Marigold is still approaching you and you stumble backwards, crawling and unable to look away from her.
“I didn’t-“
“You didn’t what? Let me die? It’s not your fault? Aw, poor thing, is that what they told you?”
>She tilts her head awkwardly to one side, her expression and tone a mocking one. She laughs, and suddenly that smile of hers looks all too human.
>This didn’t happen. This isn’t real.
“Well, I’m not going to give you your closure,” she says in a hiss. “I’m not going to give you forgiveness. You’re going to have to be punished for letting me die.”
>Your back hits a mound of earth, stopping you in your awkward crawl across the grass. You stare, wide eyed, at her as she stops only a step away from you.
>Her shadow where it stretches under the moonlight keeps moving though, catching up with her. Then, all at once, her shadow lurches forward past her, rushing at you and reaching out tendrils of black like dark vines to ensnare you. You try to cry out, but they squeeze your chest so tightly that you can’t make a sound.
>Darkness begins to surround you, blacking out the sky, the hill, the cackling ponies a ways off. All that’s left, shining and leering like a Cheshire cat, is Marigold’s face and her smile. Her eyes have gone dark, lifeless, like they seemed when you saw her dead, but that damned smile keeps gleaming away in the darkness.
>The shadows draw tighter around your body, squeezing the air and life out of you. You try to move, but you can’t even squirm with how tight they are. You are suffocating, almost drowning in this darkness.
“Don’t worry,” you hear Marigold say, even as everything is beginning to fade. “You’ll be able to start to repay me for this soon.”
>The dark vines crawl up your chest, forcing their way into your mouth and throat. You gag, unable to do anything to stop them. You are dying. You hear marigold giggle.
“Just as soon as you wake up.”

----

>You awake with a start, gasping for air and thrashing. The darkness is gone, you tell yourself, you’re not being squeezed anymore. You’re ok. Still, somewhere in the negative of your vision you see the phantom shape of her smile still lingering.
>And you’re wrong. You’re still being squeezed after all.
>You look down, your vision still clearing, to find that there is a rope wound securely from just below your shoulders to right above your hips. It's almost painfully tight, and you can't expand your chest all the way when you try to breathe. You can’t even see your hands, and when you wiggle your fingers they feel somewhat numb from how tight the ropes are over them.
>Your head stings and itches somewhere right above your cheek. When you lick the inside of that cheek you taste blood and feel a cut from where you’ve bit yourself at some point. Dull pain throbs through the entire left side of your face as you become more and more conscious.
>You remember abruptly the hillside, Twilight flying lifelessly through the air, the man with the crowbar. Your heart sinks as you remember the way she was lying there, still and crumpled, as you blacked out. You swore you'd protect her. You lied to her. You’d caused another one to die, just by being here.
>For now, just concentrate on figuring out where the hell you are.
>Your surroundings are fairly dark, but you can make out some shapes from the dull light of a single candle burning on a rock towards the center of the room.
>You’re in a cave, as best as you can tell. There are boxes nearby, wooden crates, and several long thin sticks laying up against the wall. It’s small, maybe only ten feet tall and twenty feet across, and by the feel of it you’re bound to stone. You look up and see a stone pillar at your back jutting from the ceiling all the way down to the floor, only a little wider than your body. As you stare up a drop of water falls down into your eye. It clouds your vision red, seeping blood from your head wound into your eye. You blink hard, trying to get it out. Damn disconcerting feeling blood in your eye.
>You hear a sound at what you can only assume is the mouth of the cave. Could be a howl of wind, could be a shriek. Impossible to say for sure. But then you hear a male voice, a little closer, and there’s no mistaking that for wind.
“God fucking DAMN it that hurts!” you hear his voice echoing to you. “Little bitch!”
>You make another quick attempt to free yourself, to no avail.
>You see a movement in the shadows and know he’s approaching. You can even hear his footsteps echoing and his breathing, labored. You hope it’s from Twilight’s attack. Maybe she even managed to puncture a lung.
>The figure stops walking.
“Oh, you did wake up,” he says happily. “That’s just fantastic. I thought I’d done you in this time, but I wanted to keep you around in case you’re particularly hard to kill.” He chuckles. “Seems you are. Good, because I think you'll prove quite useful to me.”
“Fuck you,” you spit towards him. The comeback sounded better in your head, but now it just falls flat.
>The figure laughs and approaches you.
“Oh come on now, consider yourself lucky. I could have just broken your skull in with Emily here.”
>You hear the sound of him tossing something in his hand and assume it’s the crowbar.
“Instead I decided to take you into my lovely home here. Don’t you like it?”
“It’s a fucking dump.”
“You’ll have to blame the bear that lived here before me,” he says with a sigh. “He fed me for a while but he was a serious bitch to bring down.”
>A bear? Poor Fluttershy will be missing a friend. She might come up here looking for you. At first you feel a swell of hope, that you might be found. But then you realize that if she comes up here, he’ll just catch her too, probably kill her. You can’t let anyone else die because of you. You have to figure a way out of this.
"Are you the only other human around here?" he asks.
"That I know of, not that it fucking matters."
>The man comes a few steps closer but you can still only make out his basic form in the candle light.
“You going to kill me?” you ask.
>He’s silent a moment.
“Yeah, probably. Eventually.”
“Then let me see you, don’t hide like a coward in the shadows,” you demand, surprised with the confidence in your voice.
>He’s silent again, but then steps forward towards the candle until you can make out his features.
>He’s shorter than you initially thought, but still at least six feet tall.  He’s been growing a beard for a few weeks now at least, brown with light streaks of red running through. There’s dirt caked on some of the hair. His eyes are a deep brown, dark in this cave so that you can’t make out any pupils amidst the irises. He’s white, gaunt, maybe starving. He still has his hood up, so you can’t see the hair on his head, but you can guess it’s brown by the color of his beard. The candle casts cark shadows over his face which makes guessing his age difficult, but he doesn’t look like he’s out of his 20’s.
>He spreads his arms wide, palms facing you. It’s an invitation to view him, you realize. He turns slowly, giving you a look at him from all angles. As he comes back to facing you, he’s smiling that terrible smile again.
“See anything you like?”
>You don’t say anything. Best not even to dignify that with a response.
“Oh, not feeling talkative now, are you? That’s good.” He throws a rag down next to the candle. “I didn’t want to have to use this on you. Not fun trying to gag someone when they’re awake.”
“Don’t like being bit?”
“Now that you mention it, no,” he says with a sigh.
>He walks around the candle to get closer to you, then sits down on a rock facing you. He rests his elbows on his knees and leans towards you.
“By the way, ponies bite pretty hard,” he says. “Did they do that to you when you first got here?”
“What?”
“Did they bite you,” he says slowly, sounding out each syllable like he’s talking to an idiot. “Did they panic, try to kill you?”
>You hesitate before answering. He sees your pause and grins wider.
“Nah, they’re nice here, right? Like a god damn little utopia, right? Bet they’re all crying their eyes out about that little pink one’s death, right?”
>You look away, gritting your teeth hard to keep from saying anything that you’ll regret. He doesn’t need any more information on Ponyville, especially not from you if you can help it.
“Oh the poor little things,” he says with a sigh, shaking his head. “No idea what hit them when I arrived. Fuck, I didn’t even know they were ponies at first, they don’t look like anything from where we’re from.”
“They’re not like anything from our world, no,” you say. “And you shouldn’t fucking be here.”
“Oh, and you should?” he says with a chuckle.
>He stands and begins pacing back and forth in front of you. He waves the crowbar in front of him like a golf club with each stride.
“See, I know how I got here, but I don’t know how you got here. And frankly, I don’t want to be here. So you’re going to help me get the fuck out of here, ok?”
“Why the fuck would I help you?”
>Never mind that you want him out of Equestria, probably even more than he wants to be out of here. It's the principle of the thing, you don't help a murderer. Especially if he's planning on killing you once you've served your purpose.
“You mean, all this amazing hospitality isn’t enough?” he gestures to the cave walls. He laughs at his own joke.
“No.”
“Oh, well then.” He sits back down. “I guess I’ll have to make some threats then.”
>He leans forward very close to your face. You an smell sweat, BO, earth wafting off his skin. His smile is gone, but his eyes flicker with the light of the candle.
“If you don’t tell me exactly how you got here and how to get back, I’m going to start killing every living thing I come across.”
“Why?”
“Because I fucking want to and I know that YOU don’t want me to.” He half growls, half yells this. Then he seems to calm down some and he leans back away from you. “But that’s besides the point, it’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to kill everything in this fucking world and from the looks of it they’re not going to fight back much."
>You crack a smile and you’re suddenly aware of how chapped your lips are, how thirsty you are. How long have you been unconscious?
“Right, I’m sure that hole in your side speaks worlds about how they wont defend themselves.”
>He bolts forward off the rock and grabs your shirt front. He jerks you forward hard against your rope bindings, knocking the wind out of you. You gasp, but your lungs aren’t ready for air yet. His face is hard now, angry even.
“If you don’t help me, she’s the first one I’m starting with,” he hisses. “If you don’t help me I’ll kill that purple pony bitch I’ve got outside. Right. Fucking. Now.”
>Your eyes widen. Purple pony? That means...
>Twilight is alive.

----
End Pt. 5