When the Circus Came to Town

It was mid-June when I heard it. The sound was faint, but I remember what it was like I heard it was yesterday. I smiled for the first time since Lily left.

I galloped to the path where I first set eyes on that colorful hazy blur almost a year ago. I stood and stared, much like I did back then. This time, though, my father wasn't going to beat me and drag me to my room, only to lock me away from it again. He stopped talking to me entirely. I hadn't heard a single word from his mouth since school started.

But this time was different in more ways than just that, the colors were muted and slightly grey. The music was different, it played a strange melody that messed with my head in a way that I couldn't quite describe. It felt strangely good, not in the way that normal music does, but in a physically appealing manner. It sounded woody, in short bursts of sound that all blended together to make a curious melody. The ponies were all wearing their costumes already, and some were quite unnerving. There were what looked like pegasi with colorful costumes on flying over the caravan, and the three massive carraiges weren't pulled by ponies, rather some strange creatures that looked tubular from the distance I was at. I wondered if Lily was in that group, or if I was just getting my hopes up. I stood there for two more minutes and the shapes became more distinct, as well as some other figures that I didn't notice before found their way into my view. There was a mare riding on a little cart that carried the organ that was making the music. The cart seemed to be pulled by... was that a pony? It looked like one, but it looked like it didn't have eyes or a back half, it was like it's back half was removed and then the front was fused with the cart.

I shuddered.

There were other ponies that were hooded and dragging... maces? Why would circus ponies be dragging maces and swords? I continued to look. There were other ponies in costumes that looked... dead. Some of them looked mangled, torn apart, others seemed intact, but they were covered with what looked like dried blood. Something just didn't feel right. Yet still I wondered, was Lily in there?

I lived for all this time on the hope that she would come back for me, so if she wasn't in that group, if they were actually the nightmares and horrors they looked to be and not just a spooky circus idea by a crazy carney, then I had no reason to live, simple as that. But deep down I felt that she was in there, it was that kind of feeling that you just trust without a doubt about its accuracy.

Warning the town about the strange group coming down the path ocurred to me, but I tossed the idea aside. What did anypony in this town ever do for me? So I sat, watching. The group drew gradually closer. When about two minutes passed I could distinctly see what the tubular objects were that pulled the carraige, but I had never seen anything like them, not even in horror books. They had a single razor-like claw on the end of each of their ten legs, they had a mask on their faces, or was that their face? The scariest thing about these things wasn't their shape, nor their claws. It was their smile. It was spread across their face and it contained pointed teeth that looked even sharper than a dragon's claw.

I almost ran, ran from the town never to return nor speak of what I saw, ran from my fears, the absolute horror that these things would end my life when they got here. But I realized that I was more scared of them not killing me.

The only thing that I lived for was the return of Lily, and I was tired. Tired of waiting, of my family, of this town, of living. I continued to stand there, motionless. I could feel the light rumble of them trotting in, I could hear the music getting louder. The townsponies started to crowd the streets now, looking at what was coming toward them. One of them must have seen one of the things pulling the carraiges, because she screamed a bloodcurdling cry of terror before she turned and galloped the other way down the path. Some of the pegasi broke from the group down the path and flew faster than I've ever seen a pegasus fly before around the town, cutting off the ponies trying to run.

We were trapped, but I still stood there, not worried about what was to come, because either way I didn't have to live here anymore. The pegasi blocking the path had steel blades on their wings and they were laughing maniacally at the ponies that tried to flee. One brave unicorn tried to move the pegasi with his magic. The pegasi that weren't affected by it (and the majority were unaffected) all charged at him, laughing in a manner that would make your blood run cold. He soon fell to the ground, blood pouring from major gashes in his sides. Now almost everypony in the town was running and screaming, trying to hide in their homes and duck into wherever they could fit, I even saw a particularly heavy stallion trying to squeeze into a barrel.

It wasn't a minute after the first pony died that almost every mare and stallion from the town lined the path with pickforks and shovels, ready to fight. One tried to give me a shovel, I refused it and stood there, in between the group of townsponies and the group down the path, which was almost in the town. "Coward!" he said before running back to the group. The maddening melody contiued.

A scream from in the group of townsponies echoed across the town. I turned to see what made it, and saw that one of the ponies in the group was crumpled up on the ground, a pitchfork buried in his side. I glanced back down the path. The eyes of the group down the path were distinctly visible now. They were close, but not close enough to bury a pitchfork in one of the townsponies. The stallion was killed by another townspony. Two layed dead in the path now, the victim and the killer.

I turned around again and saw a scaly mass no more than two meters ahead of me, towering over me. I had to turn my head up to see the whole thing, it was one of the tubular masses, and it was about to crush me.

"NO! WAIT!"

It was unexpected, it was lovely, it was Lily.