The Fall Of The House Of Gingerbread
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF GINGERBREAD
1
Gregory Bread barely stepped a single awkward hoof inside his home before his wife cornered him in the entryway. Although her face held that same thin smile since the first day they’d met (which was about five days ago), he could still tell something was troubling her. Or perhaps it was someone else that was telling him such vital information.
“Gregory… I…” she began, her voice high-pitched and squeaky-like, even if it seemed to be of a more somber moment. “Something’s happened.”
“Ginger, what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice also of a higher-pitch, although lowered just a tad. “Is everything all right?”
His thin, two-dimensional gingerbread body leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek. Not a single one of his limbs budged a muscle, as his back legs lifted from the floor.
Ginger shuffled into the living room, motioning to a blank, light-brown wall. “Gregory, someone’s stolen our couch.”
With widening shock, Gregory approached the oddly bare space, making mental note of the series of crumbs that began near the wall before leading to—
“There’s a giant hole in the wall!” he trumpeted loudly, all while his mouth was held rigid in place.
“I was about to get to that,” Ginger added sheepishly.
Taking a few cautionary steps back, Gregory glimpsed the mammoth gap in their living room wall, the edges cracked all the way to the ceiling and floor. Although he could barely believe it, it was almost as if… almost as if some giant pony had smashed their way in. But these were solid gingerbread walls—what kind of a creature could amass the strength to do such a thing?
He turned to his startled wife, that same faint smile on her face. In just that short instant did he remember what first made him fall in love with her (besides the fact that she was the only other adult in their single-house world). Was it her light-brown mane that first caught his attention? Or her light-brown coat? Or perhaps it was her light-brown hooves or the way she’d sometimes turn around and nearly disappear until she eventually finished turning.
“Did they take anything else?” he asked, slowly surveying the room.
“I… I don’t think so. I was doing the dishes in the kitchen when I heard this loud crash, and then when I went to look, I found the couch gone and the hole. And then…” She lowered her head, tilting her body to do so.
“Then what?”
“Then I heard some enormous crunching sound from outside. Following by an ‘Mmmm’ noise.”
Gregory could barely understand what he was hearing. “What do you mean an ‘Mmmm’ noise?”
“I don’t expect you to believe me, but…” A single icing tear edged from one of her unblinking eyes. “It sounded as though someone stole our couch and then ate it. Ate it up! And enjoyed it too!”
Gregory shook his head (which meant his whole body as well). “You’re being silly, dear. You’ve had a fright and now you’re thinking absurd. We’ve had a break-in, is all. For some ‘thing’ to come take our couch and then eat it… firstly, it would have to have been huge. Secondly, who enjoys the taste of gingerbread? Our whole world is made of it. That would be like cannibalism!”
“Perhaps you’re right, Gregory,” she said. “Maybe I was only—”
Suddenly both parents were pulled from their discussion as their small son stiffly trotted in between them.
He said in an oddly high-pitched voice, “Have either of you seen Munchy or Crunchy lately?”
Even though Gregory had no stomach to speak of, he was suddenly filled with a wave of unease.
2
Gregory bent and picked up what remained of Munchy and Crunchy’s licorice leashes, noting how easily they’d been snapped through. Both ends were still tied tight around the gumdrop stake in the ground. Just like his couch, a small hill of crumbs was all that was left of his gingerbread dogs.
“Do you think they’re all right?” his son asked him.
“I’m sure they’re fine, Yummy,” he said slowly, scanning the horizon of his small plot of land. “I’m sure they just got loose, is all.”
His son seemed to accept the news. “Oh. Okay.”
Gregory almost wished he could believe in his own lies. Only now had what his wife made mention to hold more weight. But what kind of creature could break through solid walls and bite through gummy leashes? And maybe most horrifying of all. What kind of creature would eata couch, and then relish in the fact?
“What should we do, dad?” his son asked.
“First: let’s not panic. Second: let’s—”
“Ahhhh!”
Gregory’s next word dried in his throat as he heard a bloodcurdling scream from somewhere inside his lavishly decorated home. With rising urgency he tried his best to gallop back as fast as he could—baked together front hooves hitting the hard granite tabletop followed by his stuck together back ones.
He only hoped he wasn’t too late.
3
“Ginger! Ginger, what is it!” he yelled once inside, his son following behind.
“It’s back! It’s back, Gregory!”
Gregory entered the family’s light-brown kitchen and found his wife huddled in a corner. Her static eyes were fixed on the candy window above the sink, where some large and oddly wet pink snake ran itself up and down its length, almost as though tasting the material.
“What is that?” he chirped, both wanting to approach it while at the same time retreat. “And what is it doing to our windows?”
“It’s licking them, Gregory!” his wife screamed from somewhere out of sight. “It’s back! It’s come back! The couch wasn’t enough and now it wants more!”
Although the contents of Gregory’s head were of tasty gingerbread and nothing more, he momentarily mourned the loss of his dogs. Tied to a stake and left out in the open, Crunchy and Munchy never stood much of a chance. But if that was just a tongue licking their windows… where was the rest of it?
“Oh Syrup-lestia no…” he whispered, as he gazed out the side of the window.
Somehow, attached to the aforementioned tongue attacking their windows was a colossal pony of bright pinks and curls. Her whole head was nearly the size of their home—her cruel eyes shut in absolute joy as she slowly gobbled away at the sugary façade. Never before had Gregory seen the two things he was now being presented with. First was the sheer size of the monster; the second was that he had never seen a pony that had no coat or mane of wholly light-brown. Truly, nothing in his five days on his four-by-four foot kitchen table world could have prepared him for such a sight.
The jubilant licking pony finally pulled away from the windows and emitted a thunderous roar that resembled something close to, “Mmm mmm!” Next came the smacking of its horrifically large lips.
“Gregory!” his wife yelled to him, pulling at his attention. “What do we do?”
Frozen in place, the gingerbread stallion could only watch with jittery nerves as the pink behemoth came closer to them again, a single wide eye filling up most of the outside view.
“Your windows taste delicious, Mr. and Mrs. Bread!” the being screamed at them happily, nearly shaking the thin walls of their home. “But I’m sure everything tastes good in your house!”
Somehow without moving her legs from her body, Ginger pulled on his shoulder. “It’s going to eat us, Gregory! We need to do something! Now!”
Frantically he thought of what to do. “All right! Everyone near the stairs, right this minute! We need to stay away from the windows!”
It took little prompting to get them all moving; Yummy now cradled against his unyielding side. By the base of the stairs they stood, anxiously scanning the open gap in the wall close to where their couch used to be.
His son turned to him. “Daddy, where’s Snacky?”
All three members of the Bread family spun around (colliding the entire time) to glare up the tall stairs. At the head of the next landing was their other son, an immovable gingerbread blanket held in one hoof. Behind him was a bare window.
“Who’s that yelling outside?” he asked them, also in that wonderfully infectious tone.
“Come downstairs, Snacky, and we’ll explain,” Gregory told him quickly, before the window behind his son swam over in a sea of sharp pink. “Snacky! No!” he screamed, far too late.
“Oh! More gingerbread!” the creature squealed, before its stretchy wet tongue broke through the candied glass to roughly scoop up Snacky in its clutches. Less than a second later was he gone out the window, a series of satisfied crunches to follow. “Yummy!” the pink thing said, after it was satisfied devouring its pray.
“His name was Snacky, you evil creature!” Gregory yelled.
If Gregory had bendable limbs he would have crumpled to the floor in misery. Instead he merely leaned from side to side, before resting his head against the cookie banister.
“What can we do?” he mumbled. “How can we get away from such a thing?”
Brrrng! Brrrng!
“What is that, Gregory?” his wife said, spinning around.
Brrrng! Brrrng!
“I don’t know, Ginger. But it sounds almost like a phone.”
Finally he found her horrorstruck expression (or what he believed it to be). She said slowly, “But we don’t own a phone, Gregory.”
A small gingerbread rotary phone sat ominously at the center of their living room. Although no candy cord connected it to the walls, it was obviously ringing. Even if the rings themselves sounded more like a voice than an actual machine.
Placing his completely flat hoof against the receiver, Gregory somehow brought it up to his ear. “Hello?” he greeted meekly.
“Hello, Mr. Bread,” said the pink devourer of world’s right outside their home. “You sure sound scrumptious today!”
“Leave us alone! We’ve done nothing wrong! You can’t just go around eating gingerbread! It’s immoral!”
“Oh, but I disagree, my flavorsome little friend!” it replied happily. “And I just can’t help myself! You will be found. And you will be eaten. You’re only too delectable to let get away!”
“You’re a monster,” he told it thickly.
“I’m only peckish!” it blurted back, before it slammed down the phone.
Out from his grip the cookie receiver fell to the floor, snapping neatly in two. Standing before him he found Ginger and Yummy staring at him.
“What do we do, Gregory?” Ginger pleaded. “It’s bigger than our whole house and now it wants inside!”
He thought for a moment. “Then we try and not be here when it gets in. First, we go to the basement, and then out the back. Perhaps if we’re careful, it’ll be too busy searching the house for us to notice as we sneak away.”
“The basement?” Ginger said. “You mean ‘The Pinkie Bunker’?”
Already Gregory was loosing his patience. “It doesn’t matter what we call it, dear. I don’t know why the original owners of this house decided to call it ‘The Pinkie Bunker’, but if that thing outside truly is a ‘Pinkie’ then I guess that makes our basement a bunker against it. So before we waste anymore time—”
Snap! Crack! Munch!
Powdery crumbs gave way from the ceiling. Whatever monstrosity had eaten their son was now pulling apart their roof to devour.
“Let’s move,” he told his family.
4
The sounds from up above were indeed horrific and ghastly. Every few moments another piece of their home was smashed and pulled away, crushed to tiny bits in the inescapable maw of the pink behemoth above. The worst part however, might have been the intense pleasure it was expelling as it feasted on their sugar-coated roof and walls.
“This is delicious!” it screamed, in that oh-so-familiar tone. “Even the rain-gutters are made of chocolate wafers!”
How could something so evil sound so jubilant? Gregory thought, as he uncovered the well-hidden back entrance to their yard. With an unwavering hoof on the door, he turned to his wife and said, “Whatever happens, Ginger, I want you to know how much I love you. And even if we were together for a hundred years or more, I would never have considered you stale.”
A single frosting tear edged from his wife’s unblinking eye. He then ruffled his son’s light-brown mane, clipping off a few dry edges of gingerbread.
Crack!
Now it sounded as though the whole roof had been pried off.
“Now where might you be hiding, my sweet little treats?” the beast called from on high.
Gregory tried his best to ignore the hungry pink titan’s taunts.
“After I open this door,” he said. “We run and don’t look back. Understand?”
Now came the hardest part of all.
5
On two pairs of baked together hooves, the Bread family scrambled from their hiding place and trotted as fast as their awkward legs could carry them. Not once did Gregory turn to watch the delicious destruction occurring behind him. The same could not be said for his wife.
“Our home, Gregory!” Ginger sobbed. “Look at what it’s doing to our home!”
He turned and nudged his wife along, his son still several steps ahead in the distance. Even though he did not want to see the sickening sight behind him, he couldn’t help but stare. The giant pink mare was systematically breaking off bits of their roof and walls, grabbing at the multi-colored gumdrops that dotted the icing shingles, before sucking back the toffee filling that coated the interior of their chimney. Gregory had always meant to clean it out when he’d had the chance… only now it seemed far too late.
Anxiously, he pulled his wife along. “We can rebuild, Ginger. We can find more candy and start anew. Someplace far away—with an even bigger Pinkie bunker. But now we need to…”
“I don’t remember asking for travel snacks!”
Finished with the empty chimney, the pink abnormality regarded the Bread family with a scary amount of interest. While her pupils dilated (something Gregory had no idea could actually happen), her mouth curved upwards into a grin. Then she took a thunderous step towards them, as all three ran as fast as they could.
The pink colossus sang happily, “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell more delicious gingerbread!”
Gregory didn’t bother to watch how much it might have been gaining. He only focused on the task at hoof—which was currently trying to run without falling over. “Run! Run!” he yelled.
“Gregory!”
He turned to watch his helpless, stock-still wife lift into the sky; a giant pink hoof somehow carrying her up. On brittle joints he leapt into the air, catching her extended hoof with his own.
“I won’t let go, Ginger!” he told her, rising what felt like meters into the air (but was actually only about six inches). “It’ll have to take us both!”
Ginger’s presumably shocked expression found his eyes. “Gregory,” she said softly.
“Yes?”
“How are we holding onto each other?”
Just as he regarded the completely flat pair of hooves pressed against the other did he slip out of reach and tumble to the ground, one of his gingerbread legs snapping at the ankle as he cried out in pain.
“Oh! You must be Mrs. Bread!” the pink demon exclaimed. “Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Tastebud!”
Crunch! Chew-chew-chew!
Lying completely flat against the ground, Gregory viewed his son turn and start to come back. He yelled to him, “No, Yummy! Keep running! Go to that cottage in the distance and hide! Save yourself!”
Yummy did as he was told as Gregory glimpsed his son for the last time. As the ground quaked behind him, he was effortlessly plucked from his spot and brought face to face with the bright pink hellion—a cheerful grin enveloping most of its features.
With an odd amount of calm, he casually waited for the end. This fiend had taken both his wife and young son already—he only hoped that maybe while he was munched upon, his last son could make good on his escape. If only…
“Hmm…” the ravenous mare thought loudly. “You look a little dry for my tastes. Let’s fix that!”
From the edge of the table, the pink brute brought forth a large clear cylinder filled near the brim with a thin white liquid. Holding onto the tips of his gingerbread tail, Gregory was now face to face with the cold liquid below. It plans to drown me first, he thought indifferently. Is that a more peaceful way to go? Or would her vicious teeth have been more merciful?
Slowly it lowered him down, until the tip of his light brown mane hit the—
6
“Stop it! Stop it! Oh please, stop it!”
Pinkie Pie pulled her gingerbread pony away from her glass of milk to stare curiously at her friend, who at that moment appeared close to hyperventilating. “What’s the big deal, Fluttershy? My cookie’s gone dry so I want to dunk it for a bit!”
Fluttershy brought both hooves to the sides of her head, her eyes as large as dinner plates. “You’re eating them! You’re eating them all!”
Pinkie waved a hoof at her. “Well of course I am, silly! They’re gingerbread! And gingerbread’s delicious!”
Her hesitant friend approached the table to view over the tasty wrath and field of crumbs. “But why do you make such horrible stories while you’re eating them? You couldn’t have just made them… I don’t know, in the shape of hay?”
Pinkie stuck her tongue out at her. “Please, Fluttershy! That’s no fun. And I don’t plan on eating them all today. Remember that cottage Yummy was running to? Well, he makes it!” She menacingly rubbed her hooves together. “Until I find out, that is…”
Fluttershy anxiously found the candy decorated gingerbread house near the outer edge of the table. Already her mouth was quivering. “Is that… my cottage!”
The pink mare set her head down on the table, a few inches from her delectable creation. “It sure is! And doesn’t it just look scrumpt-licious!”
Fluttershy didn’t seem to agree. “Does that mean there’s a gingerbread me in there?”
“But of course!”
“Bwahhhhhhh!”
Without warning Fluttershy hastily scooped up the gingerbread cottage along with the small Yummy cookie lying close by. Still screaming in that high-pitched note she almost made it out the shop door before turning around and swiping what remained of Gregory Bread from Pinkie’s outstretched hooves. Then, as the bell above the door jingled merrily away, she rushed outside.
Pinkie Pie furrowed her brow. “What’s got into her?” she honestly asked. “Now she’s taken my dessert with her!”
A tad peeved, she took another tentative bite of the Bread house—glum that the chase had come to an end. But wasn’t there something she was forgetting about?
“That’s right! Now I remember!”
With renewed energy, she bounced into the backroom and eagerly eyed the large object covered in white cloth. Carefully she unveiled her masterful work, eyes literally bulging from their sockets as she took in every last tasty nook and cranny.
Underneath the cloth and almost taking up the entire table was an exact replica of the Crystal Empire—only made from an array of gingerbread and sweets.
“You think your walls can keep me out?” she yelled, as she licked her lips.
