.marche de la vie.
.march of life.
Prologue:
Goodnight
Rarity breathed in deeply at her closed window, hooves shaking as they touched the glass which vibrated and shook with a ring of an unheard noise coming from outside. Her ears flicked, nose flaring, and her back hooves shifted from side to side as she just stared. Her sapphire blue eyes opened wide and dry, head aching with her pulse, she flicked her view over every inch of the outside. It was dark, a shadowy dark that was still and looked cold and dead and stopped short at the nearest pale street light -- everywhere buildings stood pure black in the shadow of the boutique, a silence creeping over everything in a sliver, and a sharp whine of quiet buzzed in Rarity’s ears.
The unicorn attempted to calm herself, to tell herself that she hadn’t really heard anything, and hadn’t seen anything move in the bushes, but she couldn’t stop her heartbeat from spiking as a thump sounded outside. She took a shaky breath, bringing her hooves back to the floor, and let out a small laugh after she waited a few minutes and nothing happened but the sound of a small mewl.
“Well, it sounds like Opal’s gotten out again somehow,” she breathed in a sigh. “The poor darling never did appreciate the new cat flap I gave her, did she?”
Still, Rarity didn’t turn her back to the window, pupils still darting back over the view -- and after a few moments another louder thump sounded out, followed by a squishing wet slap which sent Rarity wrapping her hooves around herself and slowly backing away. Nothing moved outside, but a sense of dread filled Rarity’s chest, and her eyes stung as she swear she saw the light by her bed flicker.
The scene before Rarity almost darkened as she looked at it, and her hooves shook and almost buckled from under her as the wind outside whistled shrilly and shook at the glass. A cloud uncovered itself from the thick fog that had rolled in hours ago, revealing dew sparkling in the grass and splattering her window -- so Rarity laughed again; surely it had just rained while she was asleep, and Opal or another stray cat was splashing at the mud?
Yes, that had to be it, otherwise--
A banging thud exploded outside, louder than Rarity had heard yet, and she drew in a gasp as she searched her yard for anything -- a white hoof reached upwards, making sure the window was locked, and then she gathered herself.
“I shall have you know that not only am I a Bearer of one of the Elements of Harmony, but I have also studied with Princess Twilight Sparkle herself! I will not allow you to just waltz around my yard as you please, and I won’t hesitate to make you leave.”
A silence followed her threat, one which built inside the unicorn, and she steadied herself against the nearest wall while her ears rang. It started quietly, pulsing in her ears as she tapped a hoof to the floor, and eventually it grew louder and louder against the stale, pure quiet that Rarity felt her heart might burst at any second.
Another wet slap outside. Rarity flared her horn and built courage, preparing one of the only restraint spells she knew -- she would not let herself or this boutique go without trying to protect them. She puffed up her chest, spell twisting and building upon itself, and the unicorn straightened her buckling knees.
In just a second, though, that courage was gone -- as a low, mumbling hiss rasped right outside her window, seemingly just inches away, a-and… and that b-bush moved, didn’t it? And.
And. And oh. Oh Celestia.
Rarity shook, and grabbed the nearest weapon she could scrounge from her bedroom; she took a chair to her vanity mirror with telepathy and scooped up shards of broken glass with the shimmering ethereal blue light. A chill filled her, her pulse echoed in her ears and pounded in her chest. Because.
It was getting even louder and. And there was a… a-a shadow poking out of that bush that pressed up against the boutique-- it was. It was moving up and down and gurgling and.
Rarity walked backwards as fast as she could, and felt wood scrape her haunches as she backed to a wall near the doorway. The shards of glass suspended in her magic wavered as she pointed them out in front of herself. The ringing in her ears grew louder, a scream within the silence as it filled her being and her heart rate elevated. She was cold and it was getting louder and.
Dear Celestia. That wasn’t her ears ringing.
It was sirens.
The gurgling thing outside, pulsating grossly, heaved in its place in the bush. The dark shadow moved forwards, rasping breath even heard through the thick glass, and slowly lifted a malformed stump to the window. It was wrinkled and cut, pouring thick blood which mixed with dew on the grass -- and as it stepped forward Rarity’s heart stopped. She shook, and her glass shards fell and shattered.
Celestia, Luna, please no. It couldn’t. Celestia.
The thing set another oozing stump to the window, flesh smearing across the glass as it slid upwards. It heaved up, still only barely illuminated by the light in her room as it picked itself onto two legs and took another large step, body grinding against the house.
Rarity sucked in breath, body turning to stone as she looked at it. The shadow. That was. Wriggling on her window. Bleeding. Oh please.
It swayed in the dark, hot breath steaming the window and obscuring view of the face. It shuddered under the mist all around it, jittering -- and it spasmed as another cloud dispersed. Moonlight flooded in. Over the window. Over it.
Rarity stopped breathing.
A pony, scarred and burnt, splayed itself against her home. In plain sight, clear under the night light.
It’s front legs were stumps of exposed flesh and meat oozing pus, skin ripped down its torso and cut nearly in half at its center. Organs and entrails, blackened and dead, hung from its stomach in a pool, cutie marks slashed with what looked like bite marks. It stared upwards to the moon for a minute, muzzle hanging open at a broken jaw and its swollen ball of a tongue bloating against its mouth dribbling with blood and bits of skin as teeth dug in. And it groaned. An inpony noise, guttural and disgusting as it gargled at its own flesh which clotted its throat.
Rarity gasped, bile rising in her throat and her stomach clenching, and her chest exploded with panic and fiery pain as the pony lifted stump of a foreleg and thumped it harshly to the glass. It howled and gurgled.
The sirens grew louder. Rarity stood frozen, vomit barreling in her stomach as everything grew fuzzy and and blurred around the edges of her vision, and as the creature lifted its meaty appendages and crashed to the glass again and again, entrails slopping to the ground and the not-pony revealing its face to the unicorn within the moonlight and--
An earth pony looked to her, nose broken and twisted off to one side and its gnarled teeth shattered, and stabbing sharply to its engorged tongue. Green eyes shot with blood, with one iris broken and bleeding the color into a sickly staled white. They stared ahead, unseeing. Pink and magenta air, wiry and sparse and caked with greased blood and urine, sat in tufts near it ear -- and the innocent happy smiles which once adorned her flanks were eviscerated beyond recognition.
Rarity shuddered. Grabbed her glass shards and raised them in a gleam of pure, burning hot white, just for them to fall apart in her grip. Backing up slowly and rearing her head back to avoid vomiting across her chest, she had no time to scream.
Rarity’s bedside light and all the street lights in Ponyville went off in a whir at about the same time Cheerilee’s mutilated corpse slammed meatily through her window pane.