Dear Diary,

I woke up groggy and drenched in sweat. Although the room was dim, the bright light coming from behind the shades was too much for my eyes to handle. A dense fog lay over my mind as I tried to make sense of my surroundings: where was I? Had everything before just been a dream? My brain was slow to activate, like an old computer, but even in my partially awake state I was beginning to make out my surroundings. Without my glasses, I could make out that I was in a bedroom of some sort, with yellowish wallpaper and a thin grey carpet. On the wall directly across from me there was a dresser, a flatscreen TV, a mirror, and a set of sliding double doors. To the left there was a set of drapes with a bright light emanating from behind them, separated from my bed by a good distance of two or three yards. To the right, the room abruptly ended with a wall, leaving only enough space between the bed and the wall for a pony to get to her feet and walk away. Aside from the wallpaper, the right wall was rather barren, containing only a blurry painting of a landscape and a white wooden door at the far end.

Was I in… a hotel room? Had everything before just been a dream?

Given the intensity of the light streaming in, I guessed it had to be late morning, or possibly early in the afternoon. I felt compelled to get up, but my body clearly wanted me to stay under the covers and go back to sleep. All I could do was let out an audible groan like a dying mammoth.

There was rustling and voices in the other room. Were we having relatives over again? They probably wanted to see me, but I didn’t want to leave my bed. They would have to drag me out if they wanted some ‘quality time.’

Then the door opened. A large blue stallion with a rapidly graying black mane entered the room cautiously and looked at me from the foot of the bed.

“What… time is it?” I asked the blue figure.

“It’s 10:15,” he said in a calm, deep voice.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Oh, good,” I muttered. “It’s not afternoon...”

“...yet,” he added. “How are you feeling?”

Two other ponies, both fillies about my age, quietly entered the room. One of them an energetic dark blue pegasus , the other a quiet, demure light pink colored earth pony.

“Not good,” I replied. “Do I still have to go to school today?”

The three laughed.

“It’s a sunday during summer break,” said the dark blue filly. “We don’t have to go anywhere!”

“I think we should just let her rest,” said the pink filly. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.”

“Well, we didn’t have anything fun to do, anyway,” replied the blue filly. “Damn, now I wanna go back to sleep.”

The blue filly trotted back out the door.

“And leave me all alone?” said the pink filly, galloping after her.

They started bickering, but my mind was too numb to make out what they were saying. The blue stallion followed at a casual pace and locked the door behind them. Then a faint flash of green light emanated from the other room accompanied by a soft whooshing sound, and Dmitry returned with a thermometer.

“Okay, I think you’re supposed to put these under your tongue? But I’m not really sure...”

He gave me the thermometer, which I lazily grabbed with my telekinesis and floated into my mouth. Even that most simple of tasks I found to be mentally taxing. I savored the sweet yet electricy taste of the bulb in my mouth for about thirty seconds until the device had made a firm judgement and emitted a few short but cacophonic beeps. I didn’t even bother using telekinesis to return it, I simply yanked it out with my hoof.

Dmitry took it and read it.

“One-o-three point seven,” he read. “Is--is that normal?”

“Normal is about 100,” I replied. “Anything above 101.5 is fever territory.”

“I see...” he said. “Normally I don’t do checkups.”

I wanted to make a snide comment about how his ‘medical training’ was just a crash course in the living room with a bunch of textbooks we borrowed from the library, but my brain just wasn’t working today.

“Huh,” he said. “I remember seeing a documentary on primates once that said their normal body temperature was around 98.6 and assumed it was the same for us.”

He began to leave the room, but stopped in the doorway.

“I’ll go get you something to eat. Do you want me to leave the lights on?”

“No,” I shouted, though in my state it was only a half-shout. “Turn it off.”

“Oh, right, so you can rest.”

He turned the lights off and closed the door. There was still plenty of light coming from the windows, even when filtered by the shades. By now I was conscious enough to realize I was inside the stable, as evidenced by the bold ‘76’ emblazoned on the jumpsuit which hung limply over the back of a chair.

I coughed a little, which prompted Dmitry to quickly return with a glass of water, but other than that I was left alone. Thanks to the faux-sunshine streaming from the ‘windows’ over to the left, it was light enough to see, but thanks to the shades it was still dark enough to go to sleep. Even if I wasn’t sick, I had little desire to open the shades because I knew what was behind them: just windows into a tiny alleyway that ran between the rooms featuring some perfectly trimmed hedges along the walls with only enough space for a thin stone walkway in between them, with a ceiling made entirely of bright blue panels. Upon closer inspection it was a poor imitation of what prewar housing would have been like, but as long as you just glanced at it, it was eerily calming.

Since I was already awake, I thought I would do something productive and read a book. It would either help me finish my summer reading assignment for school, or it would just help me fall back asleep (I was personally betting on the latter). I thrust my hoof out and grabbed the book from the nightstand and reeled it in, then opened to the page I had bookmarked:

The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and again two sharp and suspicious eyes stared at him out of the darkness. Then he lost his head and nearly made a great mistake.

Fearing the old mare would be frightened by their being alone, and not hoping that the sight of him would disarm her suspicions, he took hold of the door and drew it towards him to prevent the old mare from attempting to shut it again. Seeing this she did not pull the door back, but she did not let go the handle so that he almost dragged her out with it on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in the doorway not allowing him to pass, he advanced straight upon her. She stepped back in alarm, tried to say something, but seemed unable to speak and stared with open eyes at him.

Wow. Really not feeling it today. Just wanna go back to sleep. Oh, well. Maybe I can just skip some of the descriptions and get to the dialogue.

“Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna,” he began, trying to speak easily, but his voice would not obey him, it broke and shook. “I have come... I have brought something... but we’d better come in... to the light....”

And leaving her, he passed straight into the room uninvited. The old woman ran after him; her tongue was unloosed.

“Good--

The door flung open, startling me enough that I dropped the book.

“Good heavens! What do you want?!?” I exclaimed.

Dmitry had returned, this time with a tray containing soup, toast, and a glass of orange juice. He giggled a little.

“Sounds like you’re really into that book,” he said. “So much that you’re mimicking the dialogue.”

“Wha--- really?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ve never heard you say ‘Good heavens’ before.”

I realized he was right and blushed sheepishly.

“Well, maybe,” I said. “But I’m not that into it!”

Dmitry set the tray down on the nightstand on my side of the bed and then reached for the book, which lay on the sheet near my lap.

“What are you reading, anyway?” he asked, and turned the book to look at the cover. “Oh, that’s a good one! Have you got to the part where he kills--”

A jolt of energy thrust through my body, forcing me to sit up and shout, “No, don’t spoil it!”

Dmitry was confused.

“Okay, I won’t,” he said, giving the book back to me, “but I thought everypony knew about that. It happens in, like, third chapter in.”

“Well, I’m on chapter seven and it hasn’t happened yet,” I said.

“Well, it’ll happen soon,” he said. “But yeah, it’s one of the main parts of the book.”

“Just let me read it then!” I said.

“Okay, okay, I’ll leave you to it,” he said, backing towards the door. “When you’re done with your food or if you need anything else, just let me know.”

“Okay,” I replied.

Dmitry disappeared into the other room and closed the door behind him, leaving me with total peace and quiet to continue reading.

[quote “Why, Alyona Ivanovna, you know me... Raskolnikov... here, I brought you the pledge I promised the other day...” And he held out the pledge.

The old mare glanced for a moment at the pledge, but at once stared in the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked intently, maliciously and mistrustfully. A minute passed; he even fancied something like a-- Blah blah blah, boring descriptions, just get to the point.

“Why do you look at me as though you did not know me?” he said suddenly, also with malice. “Take it if you like, if not I’ll go elsewhere, I am in a hurry.”

He had not even thought of saying this, but it was suddenly said of itself. The old mare recovered herself, and her visitor’s resolute tone evidently restored her confidence.

“But why, my good sir, all of a minute.... What is it?” she asked, looking at the pledge.

“The silver cigarette case; I spoke of it last time, you know.”

She held out her hoof.

Heh, ‘Silver.’ I’m Silver, my parents are Silver, my brothers and cousins and sisters and aunts, they’re all Silver. We have a lot of ponies named after objects in our family, but I don’t know if we’ve got anypony named ‘Silver Cigarette Case.’ Probably. Maybe a distant ancestor or something.

Anyway,

“But how pale you are, to be sure... and your hands are trembling too? Have you been bathing, or what?”

“Fever,” he answered abruptly. “You can’t help getting pale... if you’ve nothing to eat,” he added, with difficulty articulating the words.

‘Fever,’ hmmm… how’s my temperature?

I placed my forehoof over my forehead just below my horn. It felt exceedingly warm, and so did my back. In fact, my whole body did, so I thrust the covers off to the side of the bed.

His strength was failing him again. But his answer sounded like the truth; the old mare took the pledge.

“What is it?” she asked once more, scanning Raskolnikov intently, and weighing the pledge in her hoof.

“A thing... cigarette case.... Silver.... Look at it.”

It still feels really weird, seeing my name like that. I mean, yes, it is both a color and a material, so it’s not much different from than if my name was Gold, or Stone, or White, Black, Brown, Green, or whatever. Still, seeing it capitalized like ‘Silver’ is a clear indication that it’s a name and that it’s talking directly to me. If it was all lowercase like ‘silver,’ then I would probably just assume it’s talking about, well, actual silver.

But when it actually says, ‘Silver… Look at it,” that seems more like an instruction directly to me. I looked around the room, but I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Unless it’s telling me to look at some actual silver, but I don’t have any with me. I do have something that looks like silver, even though it’s steel.

I reached over to the nightstand and opened the drawer. Inside it, sitting on top of one of those prayer books you find in every nightstand, was a small and compact pistol with a shiny steel casing. I began levitating it out of the drawer, but was instantly reminded me of something I’d rather forget, so I put it back and closed the drawer. Then I picked up the book and started reading again.

“It does not seem somehow like silver.... How he has wrapped it up!”

It truly does not… why am I sitting here in bed doing nothing? I should be outside doing stuff!
...At least, that’s what my dad would say… minus the ‘outside’ part. But then again, I can’t really go ‘outside,’ now can I? I kinda wish I could, though. I haven’t felt any rain in forever. Even if it’s as radioactive as the Overmare says, I sometimes wonder whether dying of radiation poisoning is worth getting five minutes of fresh air again, of being alone in the woods with a cool breeze and actually ‘living’ again. It certainly seems attractive when contrasted with sixty to seventy years of merely ‘existing’ (but not ‘living’) inside what essentially amounts to a climate controlled bank vault with a minibar.

Speaking of minibars, I’m kinda hungry. I’d better start eating some of this food that’s been generously provided for me before it gets cold. I set the book aside and moved the tray from the nightstand onto my lap and began eating, starting with the soup. I usually leave soup for a few minutes to cool, but this soup I had left too long and now it was kind of cold. But that wans’t the worst part: the soup itself tasted salty and watery and overall bland. The carrots were mushy and the noodles broke apart in my mouth like strips of dampened paper. It all tasted like paper too, so I could only eat little bits at a time to moderate the bitter taste in my mouth. Is this what soup is going to taste like for the rest of my life? Maybe this kind is just a super cheap variety that Stable-Tec bought in bulk to ensure each stable had a lifetime supply. It had to have been at least one year past its expiration date. If we have to stay in here even longer, will all future soups just taste even more like this? I suppose the stable’s farming modules might be able to grow ingredients to make new soup, but given the recent damage they’ve sustained, they say we might have to supplement our diets with preserved foods for at least a decade.

I busied myself with watching the bubbles drifting in the oily broth. I tried to pop them with my spoon, but they were highly resilient. They seemed to disappear when you stirred the broth around, but they would always come back when the broth settled down.

If only I could be that resilient.
When I couldn’t see any more noodles from the surface, I raised the bowl up to my mouth and tipped it, sucking in the broth like some kind of putrid yet still potable water. The water level in the bowl dropped and more noodles became visible.

Next came the toast. As I bit into the toast, I found it had a hard wooden texture and was extremely dry, but moistened into a sticky, doughy texture as it sat in my mouth. The floury taste was poor in comparison to pre-apocalyptic breads I’d tasted, and the butter on it was clearly an imitation made from corn syrup, but both were a welcome alternative to the noodles and broth of the weak soup.

With the food complete, I set the tray back onto the nightstand and returned to my book. I still had some orange juice left, but it was as bland and tasteless as the rest of the meal. It would be better to slowly sip it while my mind was focused on something else, like reading.

Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to the light (all her windows were shut, in spite of the stifling heat), she left him altogether for some seconds and stood with her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet…

Again, unnecessary description. Fuck, why does changeling literature have to be so damn long? It’ll skip to the dialogue and-- wait, what did that say again? Something about an axe and a noose?

He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet take it out altogether, simply holding it in his right forehoof under the coat.

Ooh, something’s actually happening for once! I’ll keep reading…

His hooves were fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he would let the axe slip and fall.... A sudden giddiness came over him.

“But what has he tied it up like this for?” the old mare cried with vexation and moved towards him.

He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe quite out, swung it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head. He seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once brought the axe down, his strength returned to him.

Wait, what?

The old mare was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited…

Blah, blah, blah, get to the point.

As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, raising her hooves to her head. In one hand she still held “the pledge.” Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her face;

And teabagged her?

...she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively.

He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt at once in her pocket (trying to avoid the streaming body)—the same right-hoof pocket from which she had taken the key on his last visit. He was in full possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his hooves were still trembling. He remembered afterwards that he had been particularly collected and careful, trying all the time not to get smeared with blood....

Holy shit. Is this what he was telling me about? This scene? Where he fucking hills a pony with an axe?

I kept reading, but he just killed the mare’s sister and then escaped. Barely.

Damn.

Then my mind flooded with flashbacks. Mostly of last night: a dark hallway. A scream. A gunshot. A body on the ground, a face covered in blood and guts. Blood pooling all around it. Another scream. My scream, both of them. Me looking up and looking around. The faint glow of a unicorn’s horn, disappearing behind a corner. Me swelling with rage. Galloping after her. A tackle, but hitting the ground instead. Getting up, saying “Aw, fuck it,” and shooting. One, two, three, five gunshots. Hearing voices down the hall. Fleeing. The fear. Sneaking back into the room. He’s not here, but he’ll be back later. Stashing the gun, the blood stained clothes, and and then waiting, in eerie silence. In darkness. Trying to get to sleep, but can’t. Lying awake. Will I get caught? I hope not. What will happen if anypony finds out?

They won’t.

They better not.

But even if they don’t, I’ll still have to live with the knowledge.

Perhaps it’s counterintuitive to write something down in a diary that you don’t want anypony to know about, but what else can I do? It’s the only form of therapy I have. Nopony’s ever found this diary yet, and as long as I’m alive, I’ll make sure they never will.

And, come to think of it, I haven’t flat out said “I did it,” have I? I don’t think stable security has the same forensics technology that the prewar police departments did, and I don’t think I left a trail, so maybe they won’t know. There are plenty of suitable scapegoats throughout the stable, like the numerous resident gang members, who are way more likely to do it than some mild mannered doctor’s daughter.

Besides, this isn’t the first murder that’s happened in our stable. If the last two months have taught me anything, it’s that within a few days, somepony will retaliate, and everypony will focus on that instead.

Flashbacks don’t receive experience points or level-ups.

Progress to Next Level: 325/2500

Stats:
Ponies Led: 0
Puzzle Pieces Collected: 0
Price of Silver: 2 bits per Troy Ounce

Author's Notes:

If you notice the date, it takes place two months before she left the stable.