“Did you hear that?”

The scrawny Earth Pony known as Bucket amongst his friends looked over his shoulder anxiously. He couldn’t see anything due to the heavy snowfall, but he couldn’t help but get the feeling of being watched. Something was out there, he was sure of it. A chill ran down his back, not only because of the cold air.

“Stop it.” Rough Stomp said back to the shivering stallion. “There’s nothing there.”

“But, I’m sure I heard… Something…” Bucket insisted meekly, a tingle of shame starting to grow in his heart.

“We didn’t hear anything at all, right guys?” He looked at the other Stalkers resting around their small campfire, awaiting a response. Most of them shook their heads. “See? Nothing. Just like last time you asked. And the three times before that.”

Bucket sighed. Rough Stomp was probably right; he was just being a paranoid little fool. Maybe it was just the wind playing a trick on his mind, or the sounds of some animal, distorted through the breath of the air. But still, he couldn’t shake the feeling of unease as the prior conversation between the Stalkers once again kicked back into gear.

“So, can I finish my story, or are you gonna interrupt me again?”

It took Bucket a moment to realize somepony spoke to him. He’d been trying to avoid the other’s faces and just looked down on the ground instead. Even before he looked up he knew who the voice belonged to; Red. He’d been telling some incoherent story about the undead just a few moments earlier.

Bucket shook his head in shame as a response to Red’s question.

“Thanks, you little shit. Now, where was I…?”

“You were saying something about pale ponies.” Rough Stomp quickly muttered. It wasn’t hard for Bucket to detect a small amount of boredom in his voice, but the others probably didn’t sense it. They didn’t understand feelings like he did. At least, that’s what Bucket told himself.

“Oh yes, the Banshees. Horrible beings, those things. So anyway, I was in Ponyville about a year ago when I ran into this guy who said he’d seen them. And no, Specter, he wasn’t drunk when he told me. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pony more sober than that poor sod. “

“Still think he was pissed off his balls…”

“No, he wasn’t. You know, for a pony by the name of Specter, you never shut up, do you? I thought ghosts were supposed to be quiet.”

“Unlike the Banshees…” Specter countered back.

They always went on like this, Red and Specter, and Bucket had learned to just ignore them. Why they bickered back and forth like a married couple was anypony’s guess. Maybe they were too much alike, or not enough. Either way, they never shut up as both of them refused to give in and let the other win.

It was probably a good thing that Red, true to his name, was a completely red stallion from mane to tail, or he would probably become red like a tomato during their arguments. A few of the other Stalkers often made fun of him behind his back, calling him “The Bull” on the account that one of them swore he saw smoke rising from his nostrils.

Bucket did his best to turn a deaf ear to their arguing. No matter how Red’s story about those Banshees or whatever the hay he called them, but Bucket could care less. In fact, what little he’d said made him feel even more uneasy, and the warm light of the campfire felt weaker, as if something sucked the warmth right out of it.

And then he heard it again.

A strange sound on the wind, like a distant moan. A low, deep sound, reminding him of somepony exhaling harshly. He perked his ears in the direction he believed the sound came from and strained himself to hear it again over the howling wind. But despite his attempts, the sound didn’t come back.

By now, Red and Specter had gone from arguing about the possibility of the before mentioned stallion’s levels of alcohol, into arguing about who believed in who. But they still went at each other with the same tenacity as before.

“At least Crescent believes in it!” Red suddenly exclaimed, his raised voice taking Bucket by surprise as he finally looked back up at them. “He believes in me, and the Banshees.”

“… And we all know why that is…” Somepony whispered nearby, Bucket couldn’t make out who it was.

He looked around at the other stallions, trying to figure out who said it, but they all remained silent. Red seemed like he hadn’t heard the whisper, and kept on defending his story.

“Anyway, we can’t say for sure that they aren’t real, right? I mean, have any of you seen what happens to a pony after they get sucked into a Wraith?”

“No, and neither have you.” Rough Stomp was the one to answer this time. “Because they’re dead by then and not really in the best condition to talk…”

The moan reached Bucket’s ears one again. Closer this time. Much closer. A brief moment before he jumped forward in fear, he was sure he felt someone breathing down his neck. He stumbled forward clumsily, turning around mid-air and tripping over the campfire, causing him to crash backwards into Red in the process.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?” He asked angrily as he pushed the frightened stallion off of him. “You look like you’ve seen a bloody ghost. Not you, Specter.”

Specter frowned in annoyance at Red’s words.

Bucket was unable to speak. During the quarter of a second before he slammed into Red, he’d been able to see clearly into the snow behind him. And he saw a shadow in it. A clear, tall shadow, much higher than any other pony he’d ever seen, and with shapes that didn’t look natural to him.

“I… I saw…” He stumbled, tripping over his own words, unable to form a coherent sentence.

“Alright, this does it!” Red yelled as he finally got free from Bucket. “I’m gonna go over there, and then come back. Hopefully that’ll be enough to convince you there’s nothing there.”

Red got up from the ground and looked first at Bucket, then at the others. All of them looked back at him with partially encouraging eyes. Clearly they too wanted Bucket to stop his scared wailing. He turned his head towards where Bucket apparently saw something, but the blizzard was too strong for him to make out anything.

He started walking hesitantly.

“Don’t worry, we won’t lose track of your red ass in the snow.” Specter said gleefully, hoping to still win their argument by getting the last insult.

Red didn’t answer. He kept on walking, passing the place where Bucket had been sitting, and further still into the white mist. Just before he disappeared, they heard him utter one last word, without any doubt directed at Specter.

“Douchebag.”

Then he was gone without a trace.

The Stalkers awaited his return in silence, looking patiently at the spot where he’d disappeared. Bucket half expected to hear Red’s bloodcurdling scream any second. But nothing happened. No screaming, no movement, no Red.

A minute passed. Two minutes. Some of the stallions around the fire began to show signs of worry, shifting around in their seats and exchanging puzzled looks. They began to glimpse slightly at Bucket, some of them whispering words about him. He knew they would blame him if anything happened to Red.

Five minutes had passed, and Bucket finally couldn’t take it anymore. The looks the other Stalkers gave him, and the increasing murmuring around him urged him on to make his decision to stand up once again. The others looked at him but didn’t say anything as he slowly set off, following Red into the mist surrounding them.

The moment he stepped out of the comforting light of the fire, it was as if the blizzard slapped him in the face with an icy glove, instantly chilling him to the bones. He began to shake as he walked through the snow, and he couldn’t do anything to stop his rattling teeth.

“Red?!”

No answer except the howling of the wind.

Should he turn back? Maybe he and Red had passed each other in the thick mist, and he was back at the fire, worrying about where he could have gone off to… No, he couldn’t go back. Didn’t want to seem weaker than he already gave the impression of being. He’d show them.

He looked around him, squinting his eyes to try and see anything, but it was useless, the snow was too thick. And then he felt it again. Breathing down his neck, followed by that horrible low moan. Bucket quickly spun around, determined to not chicken-out this time around. For a split second, he caught sight of a tall shadow moving through the white around him.

It seemed to be moving away from him, thankfully. Whatever it was, he hoped dearly it wasn’t dangerous.

“Scared, are we?”

Bucket almost jumped out of his skin. The voice that spoke to him was wheezing and raspy, unnatural. Like the wind was speaking, creating words through air. It terrified him, rendering him speechless. The black shadow appeared in front of him again, standing still just a few feet before him. He couldn’t move, the fear in him crippling him.

“Who… Who are you…?” He finally whispered between teeth clamped so hard together it hurt his jaws. The shadow moved around him.

“Oh, nobody in particular.” The voice responded. “Just a messenger.”

Then the black figure disappeared completely. Bucket was sure the blood in his veins had turned to ice. After a few moments, he was able to move again. It was as if the shadow had paralyzed him, and now that it was gone, his limbs worked again. He spun around, trying to orient himself so that he could find his way back to the fire.

Before he could decide which way to head, terrified yells reached him through the wind. His heart stopped as he recognized the voices of Red, Specter and Rough Stomp. Quickly, he rushed towards the direction of their screams. He’d never heard anypony scream in such a way before.

It made him fear what he would find once he got to them, but he couldn’t just ignore his friends. The screams became louder, and he caught a glimpse of a bleak, orange light in the distance. The fireplace. He turned around and galloped as fast as he could towards it.

Coming closer, he could see three additional spots of light, red in color and much stronger than that of the fire. For some reason, these new lights looked to be hovering a few meters over the ground.

As he stepped into the light, the screaming stopped instantly, almost as if he’d stepped into a bubble that isolated every single sound around him. Bucket stopped in his tracks and looked around the campfire, feeling his skin crawl.

He couldn’t stop himself from falling to the ground once he saw what was in front of him.

It was Red. And Specter and Rough Stomp. All around him, crimson blood stained the snow, looking like giant gashes on the surface of the earth. Scattered about in the blood was the remains of his friends. The eyes of Rough Stomp’s severed head looked straight at him, staring into his soul.

He wanted to cry, but couldn’t. He wanted to run away, but his legs had turned into a tingly mess, and he wouldn’t be able to move them even if he wanted to. All he could move was his eyes, but no matter how badly he tried to shut his eyelids, they refused to move.

The fire was almost out, due to the mangled body of Specter smothering it slowly. The smell of searing flesh reached him. Unlike Rough Stomp, he was mostly intact, but his head hung in an unnatural way, his neck twisted beyond breaking point.

The remains of Red were almost impossible to make out due to the red color of both his coat and hair, mixed together with the blood surrounding him. It looked like he’d been reduced to nothing but a red mess.

Amidst the sanguine stains and his dead friends was the shadow.

It looked at him, towering far above him. Bucket wasn’t able to feel fear for this being, seeing his friends mutilated bodies had caused his mind to shut down for the moment. The shadow clearly wasn’t a pony, and whatever it was it was standing upright on its hind legs rather than on all fours.

It was completely coated in black.

Bucket blinked slowly, confused as a red veil seemed to appear before his eyes. His body didn’t register anything as he was lifted up into the air, floating up above the strange shadow before him. It looked up at him, and he could see part of its face. It wasn’t of this world, and its eyes burned as they tore into his mind.

“This one is still young.” The shadow spoke slowly, and for the brief time it did, its hissing voice felt almost soothing to Bucket’s ears. “Still innocent. Untouched, unspoiled.”

The red color coating Bucket’s eyes withdrew slowly.

“No sin within this one.”

A second later, he sailed through the air. He saw the ground approach him fast, but he couldn’t react or shield himself from the impact. He crashed into the snow hard, burying himself into it. As he hit ground, something inside him uncoiled, and he suddenly became all too aware of his limbs, and the growing pain in his body. And the fear.

He turned his head around, and the shadow was still standing where it had been before he crashed into the ground, observing him from afar. He wasn’t sure what to do or even how to react to such a thing, now that he had the ability to do so.

“Get out of here.”

Bucket felt his body move on its own, raising him up from the ground. While he did, the shadow slowly turned its back against him, as if it was about to leave.

“Run back to your Elders. Let them know of what you have seen here.”

The shadow moved, raising two of its limbs upwards into the sky. A second later, the wind around Bucket turned direction, caught in a massive whirlwind. The young stallion understood what he saw, but his mind was unable to process it.

All he could think of now was to run and not look back. So that’s what he did. He stepped backwards, almost tripping on his own legs before he turned around and set off running through the heavy blizzard, finally able to let out his fears and emotions through tears.

He ran as fast as he could, back to the rest of the Stalkers. Back to Ashcraft.

All that remained of the shadow was a rather big, black feather, sailing in the wind.