I walked down the middle of the street, not in my usual outfit: a button-up shirt and jeans, but in something more durable: a t-shirt and cargo pants, a jacket tied around my waist. I hadn’t been to this particular ghost town before, and I was hoping to find something good. It helped that this ghost town was not frequented by tourists; it was a little too out of the way for that. As I walked, I watched the ground, looking for glints of blue and green to add to my collection. There wasn’t any particular reason for my obsession with glass. I just thought it looked nice. I had bottles hanging in my room, oil lamps in the china cabinet, and jars holding pens, pencils, and erasers on my desk. But my collection required diligence in actively finding new pieces, since I sold most of what I found and was constantly rearranging my room, so I was grateful that I had gotten up at five instead of six. The fall sun was not yet glaring down, burning my skin and causing me to use the (rather copious) amount of Aloe Vera Gel I had brought with me. I had slathered on sunscreen, to be sure, but the sun tended to penetrate even SPF 100 to fry my delicate complexion.
As I looked to the left, a little ahead, I saw something glitter. I crossed the ground over to it, not expecting much yet, but hoping for a whole something. I knelt down and brushed the object off, being careful to watch for the corners of broken glass. However, none were to be found, as a beautiful blue oil lamp flank emerged, with only a chip or two. It had a floral pattern formed into the glass, what looked to be daisies and cherry blossoms. Custom-made, then. My eyes shone at a find of this size this early in my search. I sighed. If onlyponies were this transparent, I thought. I rummaged around in the dirt by the road, to see if the top had survived. It hadn’t. My hooves found three large broken pieces of what appeared to be the top, along with a few smaller pieces. I sighed, but smiled again. It was still an amazing find, probably the best I would manage all day. I was stashing it in my cargo pants pocket when I heard a sound.
I turned around quickly, and, thinking it might be a coyote or other dangerous wild animal, was already reaching for my can of mace, when I saw her. Or, at least, I thought I did. She was already running, so I couldn’t be sure. I got up and ran after her. If she was really who I thought, I had some questions. If she wasn’t, I could ask her questions about the ghost town: where to find things, if there were any sinkholes or dangerous areas, et cetera. I reached the corner where she was and swung around, almost falling when I ran into something. I looked up, and there she was. It was indeed Nikki, leaning on a storefront, leisurely. She was wearing a short black skirt with boots and a skull t-shirt. A dark purple hobo bag with skulls handstitched on it lay slumped on the ground.
“What are you doing here?” I said. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What was NIKKI doing here? I couldn’t imagine that she was here to collect glass like me. After all, glass-collection seemed too soft of a hobby for her, the badass goth filly in our school. What, was this her gang’s hideout or something?
“What do you mean what am I doing here, nerd? What are YOU doing in MY town?” Nikki sneered back. Unlike the other foals, I wasn’t afraid of Nikki, despite my less-than-average physique. I knew she couldn’t bully me without getting into some serious trouble. Not because I’m important, but because I can stand up for myself. Plus, Nikki was mostly bark with little bite, but that might be because not many foals stood their ground in front of her.
“I’m collecting glass, and I don’t think it’s YOUR town, unless you look, act, and pretend to be much younger than you are,” I said. She rolled her eyes.
“I’m not in the mood for your smart-alecky remarks today,” she said. “Just stay out of my way, got it? Otherwise I’ll kick your puny ass.” I rolled my eyes.
“So, are you here collecting too?” I asked her.
“None of your business. Remind my why you’re still here…?” she said, looking at me pointedly. I sighed. She hadn’t always been this way. She had moved to our town when she was in second grade, from Japan. Even though she had to scale the language barrier, she was the most popular filly in our grade up until freshman year of high school. She had a coltfriend, groupies, and was friends with everypony. After all, who wouldn’t want to be friends with the petite, cute Asian filly who was alternately brilliant and klutzy? But when her brother went missing, she broke up with her coltfriend and turned into what she was now. I had always wanted to be good friends with her, on account of her eyes. They looked just like the glass I had been collecting in ghost towns since I was eight. I had quite the collection, now, but no piece was as beautiful a color as her eyes. I had a chipped bottle that came close, but… it wasn’t quite right. I looked into those eyes, then turned away. Even though I wasn’t worried, I also wasn’t stupid. I wouldn’t tempt fate by incurring her wrath in a deserted location like this.
I spent the rest of the day fruitfully, finding two bottles in relatively good shape: one had a crack in the flank, and the other had about a centimeter of glass at the top broken off in a large chip. I saw Nikki several more times throughout the day, but I hadn’t seen her for quite a while near the end of the day. I had packed up the glass, gotten in the car, and had just turned the car on when I heard the scream. My head whipped around and I jumped out of the car, only pausing long enough to turn it off and slam the door. I sprinted. I didn’t know where she was, exactly, but her quiet sobs led me. I prepared myself. Something that made NIKKI scream, that made NIKKI cry, had to be devastating. Maybe she had found apony skull for the first time. I had found three in all my years. The first time, I had been with my dad, and he had been able to drag me away from where I was, staring unmoving at the remnant of a pony, a silent scream in my throat. I had been nine. Then again, a skull might not scare Nikki. Maybe she found a foal’s skeleton.
I looked in two rooms before I found her. She was in what looked to be a long-forgotten kitchen, staring at something across the room. I saw nothing immediately disturbing, just old furniture, dust, and an opaque black jar.
“Nikki?” I said, panting. “I heard a scream. Are you alright?” I looked at her. Her mouth was moving, and her face was as white as paper. She was terrified. I looked over the room again. Nothing that I could see, from this angle at least, should have disturbed her—or anypony—like that. I walked over to her. Whatever it was, she needed to stop looking at it. I grabbed her jaw and forced her to look at me. “Nikki, what’s wrong?” Her glass-eyes overflowed with tears, the molten, new glass slipping down her cheeks and ruining her eye makeup. She mouthed words, then managed a whisper.
“Onii-chan,” she said, her voice raspy.
“Who’s O’neechahn?” I asked, confused.
“Peter,” she breathed. Her brother? I looked at the jar again. “I HATE these glasses,” I thought, cleaning them. Then I saw. The jar wasn’t opaque black-it was dark red. And it had something inside-a hoof, with a class ring and a note sewn onto the back of the hoof. “Nikki’s next,” the note declared. I could only surmise that the decaying hoof was Peter’s. Before my thoughts could process all of that, I stood and ran out, dragging Nikki with me. She needed to get out of there. We stood on the street in front of the building, and Nikki had never seemed more lifeless.
“He didn’t want to,” Nikki said in a monotone. “He was going to be a pilot. He didn’t even do anything to deserve—and he even helped them. But I can’t—because they—” she trailed off. The self-editing was too much, and she couldn’t articulate herself properly. I hooked my finger under her jaw and looked her in the eyes.
“You can tell me,” I told her. Her eyes softened, and in the following hours, the transparency in her glass eyes spread to the rest of her. She opened up to me, and in those moments, she was glass.
~LS
