She's coming. Don't ask me how, but I can always tell. Sometimes it's a few minutes before she appears, sometimes a few hours, but I can always feel it. Feel her. It's a strange sensation, really. It's like an itch somewhere deep inside my mind. The first time I felt it, I had no idea what it meant. Nowadays, I know it all too well.
I should leave while I can. Throw the covers off and run from the house. Stay over with a friend, perhaps. Somepony who could watch over me and keep her away. I should flee from one who invades my home so.
But I don't want to.
I shift around, pulling myself into a sitting position on my bed. My head rests against the wall as I stare past my blanketed hind legs. I stare across the dim room, hoping to catch her coming in, even though I know that I can't. I've tried before, sitting and waiting for her to climb in through a window, or for my bedroom door to slowly creak open. I've never caught her entry before and I won't now, as is made clear by what always happens next.
A moment ago, I could clearly see my old desk, the door to my closet, and a painting of the white city of Canterlot hanging on the wall across the room. Now I can't see the painting anymore. Now my desk is gone, too. An impenetrable curtain of black has fallen between me and the opposite wall, just like it always does. Soon, I can barely see the outline of my own hoof in front of my face.
And then she's there.
My heart stops and my breath catches in my throat. Like every time before, she's just suddenly there, her acid green eyes staring at me from the abyss that my bedroom has become. Her eyes gently narrow, still locked on me. She's coming closer, now. I can hear her soft hoofsteps across my carpet, see her eyes gently bob up and down with her head as she moves.
I can only ever catch glimpses of her, in the darkened room. The weak light coming in through my curtains does little in the unnatural shadow. As she passes by the window, I can barely catch a hint of her dull blue mane above those vibrant eyes. There's a sheen on her coat, smooth and slick. Is it even a coat? I've never been sure, but it never feels like fur or hair. It feels more like warm glass, smooth and solid. I've never gotten a good look at it, though. Perhaps she likes it that way. Perhaps that's why she only comes at night.
All I can ever see clearly are those eyes. Those green, luminescent eyes with those slitted pupils that no pony should have. Despite how alien they are, I can't help but feel drawn to those eyes. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I stay when I should gallop from my bedroom in terror, leaping out the window and into the night. Even as they stare at me now, my heart pounding as though I'd just finished a dead sprint across town, I don't want to leave. Those eyes still scare me, though not like they did when they first appeared in my bedroom. When I look into them now, I don't want to look away, and I don't want them to ever leave.
The first time she came to me, I heard her before I saw her. I heard her ragged, labored breaths. I heard her hooves dragging and stumbling over the carpet. Then she was there beside me, glowing eyes of alluring horror boring into me from mere feet away. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I tried to run, but my hooves wouldn't move. Her face was up against mine, and I was too terrified to speak. The invader loomed over me and brought her lips to mine. I could taste blood in her mouth, but with a biting, bitter edge, almost like acid.
When she left my side an hour later, I felt drained. Hollow, as though somepony had reached their hooves into my body and pulled out everything that made me a pony. The sensation persisted even after I awoke, though to a lesser degree. It persisted even as she came again the next night. And the next. Every night for two weeks, she would climb into bed with me, and each night, I felt a little less afraid. By the time she left on the fourteenth night, I found myself wishing she would stay. Her visits became more sparse after that, sometimes only once in a given month. Each time that familiar itch sprang to life in my mind, I felt excitement rather than fear. I grew to miss her when she was gone.
One might ask how I know she's a she, but I'm sure that she is. She isn't always silent, and what vocalizations she's made always sounded feminine, despite being barely more than hums, sighs, and moans. That's the most she's ever said. Even when I've managed to fight my own terror and speak to her, she's never answered me. The only response she made was to softly press a hoof to my lips, once. After a while, I stopped trying. I just accepted it. Accepted her.
She climbs atop the mattress, the old springs letting out a few muffled squeaks. The thick pad shifts as her hooves press into it, carrying her across the bed and over my reclining body. Those mesmerizing eyes are inches away from my own, half lidded. I can't make out more than her equine outline, but I can see the smile she bears within those eyes. I imagine it's not the smile of a friend hoofing you an ice cream cone. It feels like the smile of a newly-wed bride on the first night of her honeymoon. Or maybe it's the smile of a wolf right before she pounces on a rabbit. Either way, those eyes send a shudder through me and bring about a smile of my own.
Her scent washes over me, and her lips meet mine. My hooves find their way up to her neck, like they always seem to. The contrast is always so striking to me; her hard skin against my hooves and her soft lips on my flesh. She's feels like such a mish-mash, a contradiction. A combination of things that don't belong together. She feels so rough against me, with her jagged, untrimmed hooves, yet every touch she makes is the most gentle caress. My tongue finds its way into her mouth, brushing past the sharp, pointy teeth that line her jaws. A taste like bitter almonds runs over my tongue as it tangles with hers. A flavor I'd scorn if it didn't come from her.
Is she even real? Could a creature such as her even exist? She's never left anything behind. All I have of her are my memories. Could she really just be a dream? No dream has ever felt so real, though. No dream has ever made me feel so high and so low at the same time. If her visits are all mere dreams, I hope they never end. Please, Luna, don't ever let them end.
I've tried to find her, to find where she is when she isn't visiting me. I didn't think it would be hard. She's a unicorn, and that's rare enough here in Appleloosa, so one with a horn that feels so gnarled and serrated to my wandering hooves? It should be a piece of cake, yet I've never been able to find her. Wherever in Equestria she hides when she's away, it's nowhere near our little town. I've never told anypony about her. They'd surely think I'm insane. Besides, if she is real, I don't want to share her.
I can feel it, now. She's taking a part of me for her own, like she always does. My heart slows and a chill runs through my core. I can feel her taking my essence, pulling it out from between my lips and past her teeth. A cold sensation fills my chest and spreads through my limbs. No, not cold, empty. Hollowed out like a rotted old tree. What she once stole from me, I now give her willingly. She can have it. She can have it all. I'd give her my very soul if I could, if only to spend another few moments with her. She is all I want. She is my dark mistress.
She is my queen.
Oh, how I long to see her, to see the face that belongs to those lips, that body, those eyes that have enraptured me so. I know how she so loves the shadow, how she hides from me. Maybe she finds it thrilling, keeping her form shrouded from my sight. For so long, I've refrained from illuminating her, but I can withstand the temptation no longer. All at once, I've had enough. I have to see. I have to know.
My hoof removes itself from its place around her neck, sliding across the covers and up my nightstand. After a second, I find the switch and flick on the lamp. Light floods the room and banishes the darkness. She whips her head back and away, pulling her lips from mine. My eyes snap open, and at last I can see her.
I wish I couldn't.
I try to scream, but the monster just puts one of her malformed, hole-ridden hooves in my mouth. She leans her black, shiny face back down to mine and gives me a wide smile with that mouth full of white, bony needles, her translucent green spittle dripping onto my chest. It's not the smile of the newlywed, after all. It's the smile of the wolf.
