"Okay, Ms. Sparkle, are you comfortable?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"Great. Then I think we can begin."
"So, do you want me to just start talking, or-"
"Just launch into it whenever you're ready."
"Alright."
When I was a young filly, I was... terrified of the dark. I still am, but it was particularly bad when I was around six years old. It never mattered what room my parents would move me to, or how many times they reassured me that whatever was trying to hurt me after they turned off the lights didn't really exist, I would lie awake in my bed too terrified to go to sleep. It was impossible to convince my young mind that as soon as I closed my eyes, the bad things wouldn't get me.
Every single night, I would sit in bed, eyes wide open, scanning the room for whatever monster that was hiding in my closet, under my bed, or behind the curtains, until I would eventually fall asleep from exhaustion. Even when I left a light on, I would still see shadows moving around the dark corners or a face staring in at me from my window.
Sometimes, I would become so panicked that I would run screaming to my parents room, begging them to save me. Whenever that happened, there was no way anyone was getting a full night's sleep. After one particularly traumatizing night, my parents decided to try something new to fix the problem.
You see, my parents were smart, and had come to accept the futility of arguing with a filly and convincing myself to get rid of my own childish fears. They knew they had to be smart.
I'm pretty sure that it was my mother's idea to stitch together my little bedtime friend. Neither of my parents were very adept at sewing and we didn't posses any large quantities of fabric so she had to use whatever scraps she could find around the house.
She created what I would later refer to as Mr. Smarty Pants.
Smarty was a sock pony, as my mother called him. She said that he was made to keep me safe and that he would scare away whatever monster dared to try and hurt me. His body was composed of a brown fabric that was soft to the touch and his face was just of a pair of buttons, one blue and one red. He had a pair of blue pants that had been created from a patch of one of my mothers dresses, being blue with white polka-dots. His hair was a mess of a darker brown yarn and he had a small teal patch on one of his hooves that had been put there to cover a mistake. He lacked any sort of mouth to speak of, but I loved him as soon as I set eyes on him.
From that day forward, Smarty Pants never left my side. As long as it was after dark, of course. He never liked the sun and would often get angry if I tried to take him to school with me, but that was okay. I only needed him to keep away the things that lurked in the dark, which was what he was good at. It was what he was made for.
Every night, he would tell me where the monsters were hiding and I would set him down in the region of the room closest to the creepiness. If something was in the closet, Smarty blocked the door. If a claw scratched at my window, my little friend would be pressed up against the glass. If a beast was under my bed, then under the bed he went.
Sometimes the creatures weren't even in my room. Sometimes they were hiding in my dreams. It was then that Smarty Pants would follow me into my nightmares. It was fun having him in my mind as he and I would spend hours fighting off gouls and goblins. But the best part was that in my dreams, Smarty could talk to me for real.
"How much do you love me?" He would ask.
"More than anything." I would always reply.
One night in a dream, after I had lost one of my first baby teeth, my stuffed friend asked me for a favour.
"Can I have your tooth?"
I asked him why.
"To help me kill the bad things." He said.
At breakfast the next morning my mother asked me where my tooth went, saying that the tooth fairy hadn't been able to find it when she looked under my pillow. When I told her that I'd given it to Smarty, she just shrugged and went back to her daily routine. From then on, every time I lost a tooth, I would give it to my sock-monster friend. He would always thank me, of course, and tell me that he loved me.
Over time, though, I ran out of baby teeth and I was beginning to get a bit too old to still be playing with dolls. So my little friend just sat on my bookshelf, collecting dust and slowly fading from my thoughts. I got on with my life, focusing on my studies at school and my magical abilities.
As the years passed, however, my nightmares became worse than ever. So bad, in fact, that they began to follow me into my waking world. They terrorized every dark corner or rustle in the bushes. I felt like my life wasn't my own. I felt like no matter what I did I'd never have any control over the outcome of it if I was always being stalked by monsters. Then, after one especially bad night galloping back from my school, when I could have sworn a pack of rabid dogs were chasing me, I got home to find something strange waiting for me in my room.
There, standing fully upright in the soft glow of the moonlight from my window, was Mr. Smarty Pants. At first, I thought that my eyes were simply playing tricks on me again as they had been all evening. So I tried to turn on the lantern in my room. I tried again. Then again. But there was still absolutely no change to the dark that had invaded my room. I tried to cast a light spell with my magic to illuminate the area, but I couldn't make so much as a spark. It was then that I began to get nervous. I backed away slowly towards the door behind me, my eyes never once leaving the shape of the doll's silhouette as my hoof awkwardly groped for the doorknob.
I was just about to get the hell out of there when I heard the door slam itself shut, locking me in nearly total darkness with nothing but shadows and silence. I stood frozen in place. Not even breathing. I can't remember how long I stayed like that, but after a lifetime of cold fear I heard a shrill, familiar voice.
"You stopped feeding me, so why should I protect you?"
"...Protect me from what?"
"Let me show you."
I blinked once, and everything changed.
I wasn't in my bedroom anymore, I was somewhere... else. It wasn't hell, but the comparison wouldn't be far off.
It was some kind of forest. A horrible, nightmarish place where nearly faceless wiggling husks of what may or may not have been ponies were impaled all along the canopy, staring at me. They lacked any sort of facial features except for a mouth... but that was twisted into a disturbing cartoon of a grin that covered the whole front of their face composed of several different kinds of teeth. Some seemed too big, while others seemed far too small to be of any use. And they wouldn't stop... moving. Their bodies constantly twitched and spasmed, but their heads never stopped looking right at me.
The ground swarmed with carnivorous insects as a thick, red tinted fog wafted through the air, bringing with it the stench of rotting meat and making the air hot and damp. I hadn't been there ten second and I was already sweating buckets. In the distance, I could hear the agonizing screams of something that sounded like it was not from this world. My head throbbed like it was about to explode, the pain forcing out a river of tears. Everywhere I looked, torture and suffering plagued the residents this place. And I knew I would soon join them.
Then, In my head, I could hear his voice again.
"This is what your reality would become without me."
Suddenly, I could hear footsteps approaching fast, bringing with them the sound of scraping metal.
"I'm the only one who can stop it."
I was running now, and I knew that it was right behind me, it sounded like it's footsteps were uneven... like it's legs didn't match. I didn't have to see it to know that it was huge, and angry.
"Bring me what I need, and I will."
I woke up before I could scream or turn around.
The following day I raided my parent's closet for me older brother's baby teeth, giving every single one of them to Smarty. Almost immediately, the night terrors ceased, and I was more or less able to go about my life as normal. Every so often I would have to go to a classmate's house and sneak into their younger sibling's room, stealing what was meant for the tooth fairy or... strangle a stray cat and pry out it's sharp little incisors. Anything to ward off the visions.
I also began to notice that my doll had begun to move about my room whenever I left for any length of time, rearranging my belongings or hanging additional curtains. He was even beginning to look a little more lifelike, somehow. In the right light his newer teeth would glisten and he was slightly warm to the touch. As much as he creeped me out, I couldn't get the courage up to destroy him. I knew full well where that would leave me.
I continued feeding Smarty throughout all my time in Celestia's academy and after she took me under her wing. The older I got, the more things I would learn to fear, and the more teeth he would need to keep me safe.
I'm twenty-three years old now, with my own place to live, the greatest mentor a pony could ask for, and a set of dentures. It'd been nearly a month since Smarty's last meal and the horrors were starting to crowd me once more. Last night I took a detour though one of Canterlot's shadier areas and found a homeless stallion sleeping on the sidewalk. His teeth were stained yellow from a lifetime of coffee and tobacco use.
Even still, I had to use a hammer to get out the molars.
When I got back to my home, he was waiting for me, on the ceiling, in the corner. Two mismatched eyes and a mouth of razors.
"How much do you love me?" He asked.
"More than anything." I replied, shutting the door behind me. "More than anything in the world."
Author's Note
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