My Final Confession: Relapse

A distorted image rolls and twists like a carnival ride. The beige mare and nutmeg stallion are still seated on the checkered blanket but hold thick slices of cherry cake to each other. A round, black cherry topples from the frosting fencing and lands abruptly onto the chest of the stallion. Both ponies laugh inaudibly.

The video suddenly cuts back to a still frame of Cozy smiling behind the table with an assortment of ingredients including a wicker bowl of lemons. Pinkamena stands languid with her head tilted to the floor. Teetering to the side of the table, the mare looks ghost-like, drained of color, and unstable. It is apparent that very little time has passed and the magenta mare is still showing signs of sickness.

“Welcome back to Cozy’s Cooking Corner! Today we are joined, once again, by our wonderful guest Pinkamena! You know, we here at the Corner believe that you should put a little bit of yourself into what you bake. So, since our guest is so sour today, we are making lemon bars! Now we usually like things to be very sweet, like your wonderful host, but I get the feeling that today’s treat is going to be REALLY sour. Right, Pinkamena?” Cozy’s language is bubbly and cute but files to a point as she glares up at the mare. Pinkamena meets the look with a mirror of annoyance. They share the moment and bask in the chill of each other’s vexation, neither shrinking.

“Anyway, first we need to make the crust. This confection uses a butter base so we have to use a lot of butter."

Cozy smiles sweetly at the camera and stands still. A few seconds pass by slowly and her face scrunches up like a dry-rotted rubber band. Her deep pink eyes flicker in her head and her smile returns but with grinding teeth. “Any moment now our GUEST is going to show us how to mix the butter and flour into a bowl.”

Pinkamena reluctantly reaches for the butter and begins scooting it into the bowl when she lurches with an audible stomach contraction. Setting the butter tray down hastily, Pinkamena turns her head aside and holds as still as stone, prompting an angry elbow from Cozy. "Just do it already! You're ruining this!" the filly whispers through gritted teeth.

Annoyed, Pinkamena takes the butter again. It's malleable and slick as it topples and oozes into the bowl of flour. Pinkamena's eyes jitter as the semi-liquid butter slops before her. She lurches and drops the tray with a loud clatter. Cozy leaps back in shock and horror as black fluid spouts from Pinkamena's mouth. Like a putrid orgasm, the bile, stomach acid, and dark wine regurgitate into the bowl from the rending throes of the spasm, filling it and pouring over the sides to contaminate other nearby ingredients. Cozy's expression turns gruesome and the filly begins yelling at the wobbling, gasping mare.

The video ends abruptly.

The video returns with Cozy bathed in the flickering edge of lamplight. The low angle makes the filly loom like a giant while she adjusts the camera. A toothy grin sprouts across her face, and her eyes are malignant and twinkling darkly in the dimness pressing in around her from barren, unfinished walls.

“Welcome back to Cozy’s Cooking Corner. We had to take a short break in order to clean up the mess our guest made. Not to worry, though. Our guest is upstairs sleeping off her hangover. She will be back to her fine and dandy ways before too long but that brings me to an important topic: depression.”

Cozy crosses her forelegs and adopts a tough, serious expression. “Depression is something that affects ponies everywhere and everyone deals with it differently. Even your cutie-pie host knows what it’s like to be depressed; it’s kind of like when everyone tells you that you just aren’t good enough no matter what you do to make them happy. Your darling host decided to try and take over Equestria with the help of some real idiots because she was so sad. We made a good run but you really shouldn’t employ fools to your scheme because being turned to stone for such a long time can really make you depressed.”

Cozy’s lips quiver around her smile and her gaze becomes distant and introverted. A shiver runs through her small body and she snaps back to the camera.

“Well, our friend Pinkamena is ALWAYS depressed and we here at the Corner thought we would make a nice surprise for her when she wakes up. Making a surprise not only will help Pinkamena be happier but makes you feel so much better too.” Cozy’s lips sprout a toothy grin.

“I was pretty upset and maybe even a little depressed when our lemon bars segment was ruined but that’s okay because doing a good deed for somepony we care about will solve that twinge of sadness deep down in our hearts … the one Miss Pinkamena fills with wine.” The smile falters and commits suicide as Cozy’s eyes seem to stare through the camera and into the shadows of her mind. Her fixed stare is penetrating with a depth of black abyss dulling the life normally seen in the eyes. “The one that makes you feel worthless and never goes away, Twilight Sparkle.”

Cozy moves towards the camera, her soulless eyes like black mirrors coated in the webs of long demised spiders. The camera is lifted and Cozy trots into an earthen-walled room. The floor is tiled with hardened cookies and grouted with petrified frosting.

The camera sweeps the room and a blurred image of what appears to be equine bones cuffed to a block of concrete pass unacknowledged by Cozy. The dim light from the lamp illuminates the floor only a few feet ahead, but glistening dots like will-o’-the wisps dance into frame. A wine rack standing taller than the filly and adorned with bottles of black liquid struggles to come into focus as the camera is placed on something even with Cozy’s height.

“Making wine is a tough job and it took months to make what you see here. We have three racks here lined up like shelves. There’s nearly one hundred bottles. So let’s talk about how to make wine.”

Cozy stands in the darkness by the wine rack and grins sweetly. “First you have to gather fruit, honey, or grain. Your host almost broke her wing after falling out of a tree helping Pinkamena gather bushels of wild apples, cherries, pears, oranges, and more berries than I could eat in a year.” The filly makes a sour face as she explains the trials endured getting the ingredients for the wine.

”I also got stung by bees while robbing them of honey, chased by a whole colony of rabbits, and I don’t want to remember the chimera-boars. The Everfree is a dangerous place but there are lots of tasty things growing inside if you are brave enough to harvest them.”

Cozy’s frustrations mount as she continues to explain. “Next, you have to mash them up and cover them in sugar inside a container. Don’t forget the yeast! You know what? Let’s just skip to the good part. Once you have all of your wine fermented and bottled you get to drink it and ruin things!”

Cozy’s features harden and she takes a bottle from the rack. She throws it towards the floor where the glass shatters, its blood-colored liquid bathing the filly in a rain of wine. She snarls and reaches for another. “You hurt your friends! Mess up their shows! Make them feel alone! And say mean things because you hate yourself most of all!”

With each sentence another bottle is launched into oblivion and another spray of crimson coats the filly. “But not anymore! You don’t get to hurt me and kill yourself because you hate your life! Not when there isn’t any wine left!”

Cozy turns and launches a double kick with her back legs. Despite her diminutive size, the rack shakes, teeters, and crashes to the floor. The other pair of racks fall like dominoes. Cozy begins laughing hysterically as the recording crackles from the decibel shattering volume. Liquid pools above Cozy’s hooves, and she cackles to herself. For a moment the sloshing liquid and laughter are the only sounds, but it’s broken by hooves on wood and a sudden, clenching gasp. Cozy turns to look just aside the camera.

“Surprise!” The filly cries in ecstasy and throws her forelegs above her head.

The filly’s grin hikes up her cheeks, the winking lamplight shining from her teeth and slitted eyes. She stands staring with emphatic glee, a parody of mirth, but, as the time wears painfully on, it begins to falter and sag like playdough. Her features take on questioning shapes as the sound of hooves on wood returns and becomes distant. A door slams heavily. The light recedes and Cozy turns back to the camera with concern etched into her brow and eyes.

“I-I thought she would be mad.” The pink filly’s eyes dart around the darkness as if she’s searching for something, but her body stays silently still like a statue. "I thought she'd yell or hit me....something."

A streak of pain crosses the filly, “Why … why didn’t she say anything? What was that look?”

The cellar is a wreck of jagged wood poking up like broken ribs from the blood-liquid sloshing around Cozy’s hooves. Cozy faces the detritus, rump to the camera. A small, dripping red hoof lifts to her mouth and she absently bites at it.

After a moment, Cozy sobs deeply and spins to the camera, making the few steps quickly. Flicking the power off with the sounds of panic and hyperventilation, Cozy's cheeks glisten with moisture.