It was only supposed to be a few apples.
That was what I promised myself. That was where I drew the line. I said to myself, “It’ll just be a few. I’ll just keep a few on hoof and everything will be fine.” But it wasn’t.
For the first few days I could hold myself to just two or three, but it got worse. Soon it was one every hour, then every half, and before I knew it I was buying a bushel every day at the market. But I couldn’t carry on like that, somepony was bound to notice. So I started visiting Sweet Apple Acres at night. I tried to stick to the farthest corners of the orchard so Applejack wouldn’t notice, but she was bound to find out sooner or later.
Angel Bunny wasn’t happy about any of it. He acted like he was just mad that I wasn’t leaving him any apples at home, but I knew that he was worried about me. He really is a sweet bunny. He kept stomping his foot and pointing at a purple little stick pony he’d drawn. I knew what he wanted, but I just couldn’t tell her. Twilight would be heartbroken if she knew that her spell hadn’t worked like she wanted it too. And what if she tried a new spell and that didn’t work either? What if she couldn’t fix it? What would my friends think of me? And besides, I’m sure Twilight had plenty of more important things to deal with. She’s a princess, after all.
So things kept going like that for a few weeks and I thought I could get used to it. Flying to Sweet Apple Acres every night became routine and I learned how to talk to the bats. They agreed to share the sanctuary with me, so I stopped worrying about Applejack finding out. I started feeling at home there. I’d hang upside down for hours just chatting with my little friends and enjoying apples. And, oh, those apples. AJ made sure that the sanctuary had plenty of different trees inside, so there were so many different apples to choose from, all so deliciously wonderfully juicy. We even had a few zap apples. Those were the best, and all that variety made up for not being able to eat anything else. Besides apples everything just tasted like burnt hay and I couldn’t swallow a bite. That was the hardest part of keeping the secret. You try telling Pinkie Pie that you don’t want any of her cake. It made her cry, but I didn’t have a choice.
Besides that things seemed pretty good. I embraced my new life and, despite the strangeness of it all, I was happy. My friends would never know and as far as they were concerned things would carry on just as they had before. Angel Bunny was the only one who still seemed upset. I tried everything to make him understand, but he just kept stamping. Eventually, I gave up.
It was right around that time that things started to change again. I had just woken up and I was reaching for an apple I’d brought home the night before when I realized that I didn’t really want it. It still looked juicy and sweet and I was sure that it would taste delicious, but I just didn’t really want to eat it. I thought maybe I’d had too many the night before, so I just got up and went into town. Pinkie was throwing another party. I don’t remember what for. There were apples there and I had one or two, but they didn’t taste like they used to. They were bland and dry. I asked Pinkie where they’d come from. She giggled and said, “Sweet Apple Acres, silly filly!”
I told Pinkie that I wasn’t feeling well and needed to go home. Dash offered to fly back with me, but I wouldn’t let her. I needed to be alone. This was starting to worry me. If I couldn’t have apples from Sweet Apple Acres, what would I have?
I fretted all day. When the sun set I flew to the sanctuary. I tried every kind of apple there, but I couldn’t keep down any of them. I talked to my bat friends, but they didn’t have any ideas, so I flew home.
For the next three days I didn’t eat a thing. I wondered if I was going to starve, but the strange thing was that I didn’t feel hungry. I was thirsty.
I drank anything and everything I could get my hooves on. Water, tea, punch, anything. None of them stayed down. Angel kept on stamping at me. I kept ignoring him.
On the fourth day my doorbell rang. I would have let Angel get it, but he was in town trying to find something I hadn’t drank yet, so I got up and opened the door. It was the old mailpony. He shuffled some papers and tried to hand one to me, but as he lifted it up, he scraped his neck. A little trickle of blood appeared.
The next thing I knew I was on the ground with Angel stamping madly next to me. Something was running down my chin. I wiped it off with my hoof and looked at it. It was blood.
I screamed and almost fainted. Angel had to hold me up. When I was steady enough to look around I saw that the mailpony was lying next to me. His eyes were closed and there was a gash on the right side of his neck.
I remember putting a hoof on his throat and feeling a pulse. I remember cleaning his neck. I remember splashing his face with water to wake him up and telling him he’d fainted on my doorstep. I remember not being thirsty anymore.
The rest of that day is a blur.
The next morning I woke up, yawned, and stretched. I rolled out of bed, put on my slippers, and headed down the stairs. At the bottom I saw the door. I remembered. I screamed.
I sat on the bottom step and rocked back and forth and cried my eyes out. I didn’t understand how it could go from apples to this. I didn’t understand how I could have become this monster. I had hurt somepony.
That made up my mind. I was going to tell Twilight everything and if she couldn’t fix it we’d go to Princess Celestia or even Discord. Somepony had to be able to undo this. Somepony had to help me.
So I got up and I walked out of my cottage and flew into town. It must have been strange for all those ponies on the ground to see a pegasus in a robe and slippers flying by, but I didn’t care. I headed straight for the library and knocked on Twilight’s window.
She opened it with a puzzled expression. “Fluttershy? What’s going on?”
“Oh, Twilight!” I cried, fluttering inside. “I’ve done something awful!”
Twilight laughed. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“It’s true! I’ve hurt somepony! You have to help me before it happens again!”
“Fluttershy.” She put a hoof on my shoulder and looked me straight in the eyes. “I refuse to believe that you would ever do anything that would hurt anypony. Ever.”
She was telling the truth. I opened my mouth to protest, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let her think that I was a monster. I couldn’t bear the look on her face, on all my friends' faces. I just couldn’t.
So I lied to her. I told her that I’d stepped on a moth’s wing and sprained it. I cried and she told me that it would be all right and soon my secret and I went home.
That was a few months ago. Since then I’ve gotten used to the way things are. I only get thirsty every few nights and it’s pretty easy to find somepony to feed on. They have to be asleep, of course, but most of Ponyville is during the night. It’s just a matter of finding an unlocked door or window, and in this town that’s really not hard to do.
I still can’t eat or drink anything when I’m with other ponies, but it’s not hard to come up with excuses. Angel Bunny knows the truth, but I don’t think he’ll ever tell. He knows how much it would hurt me.
Besides all that things are pretty normal here in Ponyville. I still go out with my friends and we still have adventures. They don’t scare me anymore, though. I enjoy them. Rainbow says she’s finally starting to rub off on me. I let everypony think that.
The truth is that I’m just not frightened anymore. I know that there’s only one thing around worth being scared of.
Me.
Author's Note
Entry for Equestria Daily's Writer's Training Grounds #001. The word limit's 1500, hence the brevity.