Buttons

It was lunchtime at Ponyville Elementary. Rhythmic chanting to the slap of a jump-rope could be heard outside. The traditional and obligatory game of tag had just started and already little Sunny Daze had her nicely combed mane tangled up in knots and caked in mud. It wasn’t the first time that she’d have to come home with such a messy mane, and it wouldn’t be the last. Her mother would no doubt scold her severely for playing tag with Toodles and Dainty again, as they always shoved her face in the mud when she lost, but at this point Sunny Daze was more than ready to accept the consequences. Just as long as her father wasn’t involved with his big hooves and his big voice, she could take it.

Filly, filly, jump a lot! Who’s your coltfriend? We forgot!

Is it A, B, C, D, E, F, G...

Miss Cheerilee lazily flicked through the pages of the latest Teachers Weekly, skimming the articles as she tried to keep herself amused. It was so much easier to keep oneself entertained when there were young foals about, always so eager to learn yet so repulsed by the methods with which to do so. The sunlight streamed in through the window behind her desk, warming her back and making her drowsy. Her eyelids drooped and a smile crept onto her face. It was just so nice to relax when the foals were outside playing, even if it was a bit boring to just sit at her desk and wait. It was such a nice day outside. Maybe she could go outside and play with them for awhile...

Cheerilee’s eyes shut and she began to drift off into sleep...

After what seemed like an eternity of blissful drifting, she cracked open an eye and looked over at the clock on the wall. It was time for the foals to come inside -- twelve fifteen on the dot. She yawned and stretched before getting out of her chair and skipping over to the doorway to call her students in.

Miss Cheerilee paused before she reached the doorway. Somepony was watching her. She looked back into the classroom. Hadn’t all of her students left to go play outside? It was then that she saw her.

“Buttons!” shouted Miss Cheerilee in surprise, laying her forehoof over her heart to calm herself down, “Aren’t you supposed to be outside with all of your friends?”

The young filly simply stared at her teacher with dull grey eyes. Cheerilee felt herself begin to shake a little under the weight of that stare.

“Buttons?” asked Miss Cheerilee, “Are you alright? Buttons?”

There was no answer. There was just that stare. For a moment, Cheerilee caught the reflection of herself in her student’s glassy eyes. She began to shake violently. The room felt ice cold. Cheerilee could have sworn that she could see her breath, in and out in shallow, rapid movements. She took a tentative step towards her student and--

The filly shook her head for a moment and smiled before saying, “I’m fine, Miss Cheerilee.”

The filly’s eyes were suddenly clearer, brighter. Cheerilee stopped shaking and retreated back a step. Buttons was a normal foal once more. The sunlight felt warm again. Everything was as it should be.

“It’s almost time for class, Buttons.” said Miss Cheerilee.

Buttons’ smile faded, replaced by a mask of disappointment, “Aw! Really? I can’t believed I missed lunchtime recess!”

Cheerilee smiled, relieved, “You’ll have tomorrow. I promise.”

That did nothing to help the young filly’s pout turn back into a smile, but Cheerilee didn’t expect it to. If there was one thing she knew about foals, they hated to miss recess.

Buttons had that look on her face again.

It was during the math lesson and the class was learning about Frannie Fraction and her Funky Friends. While she knew that the foals thought that “Frannie Fraction” and all of her “Funky Friends” should be flung into a fire, Miss Cheerilee knew that their hatred could be easily channeled into learning, if only so they wouldn’t have to suffer through Frannie and her friends again. Everything was going according to plan, or so she thought.

During her routine scan of the room to wake up any sleepy ponies or to curtail any funny business going on in the peanut gallery, Cheerilee saw that Buttons was a little more dull eyed and blank faced than the rest of her students.

“Buttons.” said Cheerilee, immediately snapping all of the other foals to attention, “Buttons?”

“Tomorrow.” Buttons said flatly.

Cheerilee inched a little closer to Buttons, not wanting to look afraid in front of her class. For their part, the other foals seemed to sense the immensity of the situation and stayed silent.

“‘Tomorrow’?” Cheerilee repeated, “‘Tomorrow’ what?”

The little filly blinked once, twice. Her pupils widened and a smile returned to her face.

“I hope I get to go to lunch recess tomorrow, Miss Cheerilee!”

A few of the foals chuckled nervously, but most of them stayed silent. Cheerilee herself let out a sigh of relief.

“Can I speak to you for a moment, Buttons?”

It was the end of class and all of the other fillies and colts had practically galloped away from the schoolhouse, ready to spend the rest of the day in play. Buttons was about to leave when Miss Cheerilee pulled her aside from the other students and trotted with her back into the classroom.

“Sure, Miss Cheerilee.--” Buttons walked back into the classroom and watched as her teacher locked the door, “-- Is this about my grades? I swear I’ll start doing homework. Just don’t tell my parents. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea--”

Cheerilee hushed her with the wave of a hoof.

“This isn’t about your grades.” said Cheerilee.

The young filly looked relieved, but a cloud of fear still hung over her.

“What’s wrong then, Miss Cheerilee?” asked Buttons.

Cheerilee sighed and walked over to her desk, motioning Buttons to follow with a flick of her tail. She settled into her chair and let her student sit on the stool in front. Cheerilee hoped that she looked professional, stern, but also kind and understanding. All of this was to hopefully mask her fear of the little filly, hopefully.

“Is there something going on at home I should know about, Buttons?”

The young filly looked shocked.

“N-No! There’s nothing going on at home!” blurted Buttons, her eyes meeting her teacher’s, “Why...Why?”

“You’ve been very distracted today, Buttons.” said Miss Cheerilee.

“I have?” asked Buttons, looking down at the ground.

“Yes, Buttons. Are you sure you’re alright?” asked Miss Cheerilee, true concern flowing out of her like a river.

“I have?”

‘That was odd,’ Cheerilee thought.

“Buttons?” asked Miss Cheerilee, “Are you alright?”

“I have?”

Cheerilee looked over her desk and saw that Buttons’ head was still bowed. She could not see the young filly’s face.

“Buttons?” asked Miss Cheerilee.

There was no answer this time. Cheerilee got up out of her seat and walked over to the other side of her desk.

“Buttons?” asked Miss Cheerilee, her voice more urgent this time as she slurred her syllables together.

She bent down to see the filly’s face. That was when she saw it.

There was a change on the filly’s face, not a sudden one. This one was subtle, like a time-lapsed film reel of a banana peel slowly rotting away. Cheerilee watched raptly as Buttons’ eyes slowly turned into slits, her face melting away -- bubbling underneath her skin -- to reveal high cheekbones that were sharper than knives, her muzzle and mouth creeping together to make one enormous cavity on her face, her mane turning into solid, hard razors on the top of her head.

Cheerilee felt the bile rising up in her throat. She wanted to vomit, run, do anything but watch the horrible transformation that was happening on Buttons’ face. And then the creature that was once Buttons spoke.

“There’s more of us.” said the creature simply, grey eyes turned up to look at Miss Cheerilee, “You’ve caught me, but there’s more of us.”

She summoned the strength to speak.

“Go...away...” said Miss Cheerilee in what was little more than a whimper.

“Away from what?” asked the creature, sparing no unnecessary words.

Cheerilee vomited a little in her mouth but swallowed it back down as quickly as it had come up. The creature laughed at her, if you could call a thick, deep, rasping sound a “laugh”.

“Get...away...from...Buttons...” said Miss Cheerilee.

“You’re such a good teacher, Miss Cheerilee.” said the creature that was once Buttons. “You’re always so kind to your students, even at the end.”

‘The end?’, thought Cheerilee.

She caught the creature’s gaze. There it was -- the last remaining scraps of the foal that had once been Buttons was screaming at her.

“She itches.” said the creature with a smile, “She itches so much. But she’s getting less itchy all the time. Soon, she won’t itch anymore.”

Cheerilee couldn’t reply. Her body refused to. Every fiber of her being refused to acknowledge that Buttons was gone and all that was in her place was this...thing.

There was only one action she could take.

Cheerilee ran to the corner of the room, remembering that she’d locked herself in with that...thing. She cowered under one of her student’s desks, shaking uncontrollably.

The creature laughed again.

“Run, Miss Cheerilee.” whispered the creature. “Run, run, run.”

She looked at the creature. It had not moved an inch, but she felt as though it was chasing her all the same -- hunting her.

That’s when Cheerilee remembered that glass was breakable.

Cheerilee took a deep breath as she entered the schoolhouse for the first time since the incident. Everything looked normal. The doctors had told her to look out for any more “delusional thoughts or visions”, but everything appeared to be in its place. She had only been gone for a week, but it had felt like a lifetime. She had constantly asked for status reports from her substitute about her class, but she was denied every request. The doctors called her work a “source of stress”. But it wasn’t for her own sake that she was asking to know about her students.

None of them had understood -- not the doctors, not her parents, not the other ponies of Ponyville. Cheerilee hadn’t expected them to, but it would’ve been nice for somepony to at least show some interest in the subject of her “delusions”.

She sighed and began to prepare for the day -- laying out all the assignments that she had missed on her desk. She tried to become absorbed in her work, but she had a sinking feeling in her stomach that once the bell rang she wouldn’t be able to hold it together. It was bad enough that Buttons’ parents were threatening to remove their child from her care, but a lot of the other parents in Ponyville were demanding that she take a longer leave of absence after the “incident”. This whole ordeal could set back her career for decades to come, but Cheerilee found it hard to care about anything else other than what the Buttons-creature had told her.

“There’s more of us.”

This repeated in her head over and over again. There were more monsters like the one that had taken over poor Buttons. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it. What she had seen in her classroom that day was a psychotic delusion, brought on by stress -- just like the doctors said. She had medicine now. That would protect her, right?

Cheerilee watched as the foals of her class filed into the schoolhouse. There were indeed more of them, just like Buttons had said. She could see it in their eyes and in the way they walked. Something was lurking under their skin that wasn’t them.

It was when Buttons herself entered the classroom that Cheerilee felt her blood run cold. The young filly looked so...normal, so innocent, so pure, so scared of her. Had she really dreamed it all up?

Buttons looked at her and that was when she saw the truth in those dead, grey eyes. No, she hadn’t made it all up. Something was not right with these young fillies and colts. It would be up to her to cleanse them.

Cheerilee stalked the rows of desks and listened to the foals’ chatter as they worked on their fractions problems.

“Buttons was--”

The fillies and colts giggled amongst themselves.

“She knows and--”

More giggles that dripped like melting candle wax.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cheerilee could have sworn that she saw a few of them...change, morph into sickly, elongated creatures that twisted and--

She walked to the front of the room and watched them all sternly. They stared back at her with smiles painted on their faces. Cheerilee wanted to vomit at the sight of it.

‘Monsters, all of them,’ thought Cheerilee feverishly as she returned to her desk, now ignoring the laughter from the foals as she sat down.

‘And there’s only one way to deal with monsters.’

The pegasi were too late to save Ponyville Elementary from the flames. By the time they had gotten the call, the main building had already been engulfed in fire. Rainwater could not put it out fast enough, and the special unicorn squad had to be brought in. With their powerful magic, they managed to subdue the flames enough so that ponies could be sent in to look for survivors.

They found nopony alive, only sickening charred corpses of the fillies and colts that had not escaped the suffocating smoke and fearsome flames.

The investigators later determined that the fire had been deliberate and an accelerant had been used. They were unable to determine anything more than that, as the damage caused by the fire had been too great.

Cheerilee died a hero, as her body had been found huddled near her students, and was attributed with trying to comfort the doomed and dying foals as they slowly asphyxiated.

Yes, Cheerilee had died a hero -- defending all of Ponyville from their twisted and terrible offspring.