Готовый перевод Кусочек неба / A Piece of Sky: Chapter 2

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My heart was pounding hard, ringing in my ears. I stared into the empty eye sockets for a few seconds until I realized [i]what[/i] I was holding. A wave of disgust ran through my body and I, with a shudder, let the skull fall. It plopped into the water and went down. No. No way. While I was walking here, I must have crushed twenty or something of these... these...

It dawned on me that I was still standing in the water. That water! Maybe on somepony's bones. I squealed and rushed up the stairs, away from the loathsome warm water, my dropped flashlight hanging on the leather strap. As I stepped on the top of the staircase and shone in front of me, I saw a pony skeleton lying curled up on the edge of the stairs. A step away from him was another one. More and more. I screamed and dashed forward, trying to jump over those creepy things. The beam of light revealed not only bones, but also some rusted tin cans, barrels, a campfire built of bricks, decaying suitcases, mattresses, cartwheels and many other things.

I did not care if I would have stepped on the bones. The flashlight down, I just fled forward and away from this horror. Dead ponies? Here? How? If any old pony died, he was solemnly buried by our whole town. And there were dozens of ponies who had just died. Nopony buried them. Nopony even moved their dead bodies!

I was wrong. Some bodies were moved. But not so as to to bury them. When I was running past another fire pit, I noticed a rusty piece of iron—a woodcutter's axe without a handle—and, a tad further, a large mountain (a neatly folded mountain!) of charred pony bones. No. Thinking about it was too scary. Still, I got distracted for a second and rammed into an iron bar sticking out of the floor, a sheet of tin tied to it with a wire. My sore leg touched the ground.

A wild pain pierced my body from hooves to ears and back. I stumbled and plunged nose down into someone's bed, the bones of its owner still on it. The mattress crumbled to dust. I started to crawl forward with sobs, trying not to look where I put my hooves until I reached a dead end. The tunnel ended here. I huddled in a corner, drew my limbs to the body and closed my eyes. Oh Luna, what was this place? Maybe I died when I had fallen and now I was crawling into... Where did all bad ponies go? Wish I could remember…

Okay, Fly. No panic. There was no danger, these ponies had been dead for a very, very long time, and they certainly were not murdered by anything. They had just sat here and died. But what made them gather in this hole? Think, Fly. No panic. I took a deep breath to calm down, and then I found out something was wrong. The stone I leaned against was not warm. It was not stone at all—but a wall of metal.

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[center][i]LET US IN YOU BASTARDS!!

WE'RE DYING HERE!![/i][/center]

[i]Welcome to Stable Nineteen!

Stable-Tec. Terminal #1. Operator #1. Project 19. System #3.[/i]

Celestia be safe under my bed...

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Sweet Celestia, what was so wrong with me?! At least two dozen dead ponies lay there! Dead! They would not get up and say hello anymore. They would not throw a party with friends and would not read a bedtime story to their kids! I had no idea why they had died here. Who knew if they were suffering? If they were hungry and thirsty? Did they think they would never see sunlight and stars and sky again? Had they ever seen it at all...?

And there was no light either.

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[i]Bang! Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.[/i]

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[i]Run, you dumb filly![/i]

But where? Outside?

But how? The piano was so heavy!

No time!

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I closed my eyes to focus my mind on the pain, and then I heard:

"yya... yarghhh... yaaarghhh..."

This creature was looking at me and wheezing.

"ghh... yaaargh... ghhhhuurht...?"

Sweet Celestia's hooves...

"yaah... ghurht...?"

"Wh-What?"

"yah... ya hurht?"

"Y-Yes."

"ghh... ahhh ghelp... hhh..."

Sweeeet Celestia's louse...

"Powwder... yer sorgh... Dust it... on yer sore... It'll ghelp..."

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"Whw... ghh..."

"What's yer name?"

Introducing to each other? Okay.

"I'm Firefly. I... uh... I just happened to be there."

"Ah'm Doctor Fagh... Fa... Oh, but ah forgot... forgot mah name. Call me Doc. Doctor Fa... Fagh..."

"Ya need t'go... The sick can 'ready... can smell yer."

"I need to go? But where?"

"But what about you? Won't you go too?"

"Meee? No no... Ah can't. The sick'll escape. Must hold 'em."

"Died? Yessh. Died. The 'ealthy died. The sick didn't. Thhhey... not alive. Can't die. But they wanna... wanna die."

"Where are they?"

"Ov'r there..." He pointed his hoof at the next room, which was noticeably larger than ours, but the door to it was closed. "They're there. Ah drove 'em inside. They live very long. Like me. They wanna die. Like me. But they can't. Neither can I."

"Fly."

"Fly, does the sun shine on the surface? Is there sunlight?" His voice boomed strangely across the room as he pointed his hoof at the ceiling.

"Yes, Doc. A lot of sunlight. Yeah, it rains sometimes if somepony needs to pour crops or pegasi have nothing to do, but there is the sun. It's summer, Doc. It's warm."

"Pegasi. How many? And unicorns?"

"What's the name of yer town?"

"Riverhooves."

"It's just a photo, Doc, it—"

"Just take that Celestia-forgotten photo, filly! Now go upstairs. I've business with the sick 'ere. I'll catch up. And don't you dare open the door to the observation room. The Overstallion. He's still there."

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
Его статус: идёт перевод

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/73925/411199

Переводчики: psychoshy