Chapter 1: What You Are in the Dark

In Canterlot, anything is possible, they say. The city is a beautiful jewel, a shining beacon, a glistening fruit just waiting for someone to take a bite.

But nothing is perfect. Every jewel has a flaw. Every beacon can go out. And in the end, every fruit will either be swallowed up...or begin to rot.

The apartment was dark, barely lit up by a computer monitor, and that was how Cloud Cover liked it. He didn’t need someone across the street peeking in on him and calling somebody, and he enjoyed his privacy anyway. Most of his work didn’t lend itself to public approval, after all.

Nor did most of his leisure activities, when he thought about it.

Cloud Cover gasped into the darkness as his callused hands wrapped around his girth, gently gripping his shaft and slowly running his fingers up and down along the length. His breath caught in his throat as he inhaled, gasping in the reek of cum, chemicals and liquor that he had come to associate with home.

The hum of the computer was soon the only sound in the room as he regained his composure and bit down on his lip with some frustration. He would prefer to listen to some music during one of these sessions, but he had dropped his headphones earlier in the week and the landlord had made it very clear what would happen if he kept playing deathcore after midnight. Fucking philistines, he had shouted, before begrudgingly agreeing to the new terms.

Cloud was almost as still as the grave as he roughly massaged the tip of his cock, in the hopes of increasing the...well, he wouldn't call it pleasure. It had been years since masturbation had given him any pleasure, not after everything he had seen and done. He preferred to think of it like scratching an itch, tending to an irritation before it got the better of him and caused him to...act out, in inconvenient ways. He'd already lost two apartments, lashing out at people in his frustration.

And that satisfaction would need to last him a while. He would need to be master of his domain for a good length of time, two weeks at least, time enough to get a good case of blue balls going. He'd learned from experience that two weeks was about as long as he could last without venting any frustration, sexual or otherwise, and when he finally did get relief after such a long time...

Her face flashed in his head as he considered the thought and a shudder of real pleasure jolted up his spine. Cloud Cover grinned, a twisted smile with every emotion save actual happiness behind it. An idea came to him in the fog of this rare sensation, something to provide him with some...inspiration, for the weeks to come. With his free hand Cloud reached across the bed he laid on and began to rummage through his...special drawer.

During moments of intense anger, frustration, or sadness, the drawer was always the first thing Cloud Cover turned to. Back in the early days, when he had been eking out a living on the streets after his expulsion, it had started off as a simple newspaper clipping of her picture from the Fall Formal. Thinking about that smug, laughing bitch...what he would do if he could get her alone...it had been all that had kept him going. He still had the picture, stained with cum and barely legible anymore, a keepsake to remind him of why he was doing this.

Rummaging around he felt a number of the objects he had acquired - panties, used tampons, photographs taken in the still of night - before he found what he wanted. The clump of hair - acquired when he'd "accidentally" followed her into her hairdresser 's- had been something he had been looking for for a long time. The opportunity had only recently come up, and he had snatched it in a heartbeat. He had been looking forward to it.

Even in the dim light it was beautiful. Crimson red, with golden highlights...he could just imagine it draping down her body as she walked. Like the sparkling of the sun. Fitting, really.

Cloud Cover buried his face into the locks of hair, breathing deeply enough to almost suffocate. It smelled exactly like he thought it would. The heavy musk of cinnamon and wildflowers overtook his senses, blocking out the iodine and lye he used in his profession. His cock hardened in his hands as precum seeped from the tip.

If he closed his eyes he could pretend she was there, her smoky, sexy voice gasping in pain as he wrapped her hands through her hair and slammed her against the locker. He imagined burying his face into her hair as he slowly strangled her in his headspace, muffling the laughter he heard from her in all his nightmares.

His eyes rolled up to his bureau as he began to grow light-headed, passing over the collections of Nietzsche and Rand he had accumulated, past the Suicide Silence LPs, to the last shred of what he used to be... pictures from the life he had before. The first photo he had ever taken with the junior varsity football team...his first Fall Formal, where he had tried and failed to ask her on a date...the school newspaper crew which had abandoned him when she told them all what he was doing...his family who had thrown him out when the news had reached them...and his yearbook photo, of a fresh-faced young man of bright blue skin and neatly trimmed dark gray hair, the quintessential go-getter before his hair had grown long and greasy, and his skin an ashen pale. Before his chemistry hobby became his only means of survival. Before...all of this.

Cloud Cover's grip on the locks of hair tightened to the point of pain as he began to quietly sob, tears streaming down his face that soon turned into muffled, angry screams. Blood trickled from between his fingers and polluted the cinnamon aroma.

Cloud imagined what it would be like to see her blood on his hands instead. He lurched forward as he climaxed, spraying his ejaculate all over his hands and across his stomach.

Cloud Cover couldn't say how long he stayed curled up on his bed. Minutes, hours, it was hard to tell sometimes. He hadn't kept track of time at all in the years since he has been expelled. And why bother? No college would take him in with half an education and a criminal record; every decent college knew about his activities thanks to her. He'd never be able to get an honest job; she had seen to that. And he could forget about finding the girl of his dreams; she had been the one he wanted, and she had done nothing but ruin his life in every way imaginable.

He didn't have anything good to live for, not anymore. The only thing he had to live for now was his own pleasure...and her pain.

Cloud Cover stumbled in the dark over to the kitchen and washed his hands until all the blood had been wiped away before splashing some water onto his face. A part of him wanted to work on some of the "special goodies" he would be using within the next two weeks, but there would be time enough for that in the morning.

With a sigh, Cloud planted himself in front of the computer screen, staring at the face on the Spacebook profile he had spent the past few hours scouring over. He had learned her habits by heart. He knew where she would be based on what her friends were doing. He knew everything about her, about her past. And that was what drove him mad.

He spent a minute or so tracing the profile picture, wandering over the curves he knew she had, smiling for a moment before his eyes glanced over to her other pictures. Laughing, playing, singing with her friends...living the life he should have lived.

He was miserable, alone, a criminal, in spite of everything he had been promised. But this wretched, miserable cunt...all she had to do was cry a bit, and suddenly everyone loved her. She was happy.

Sunset Shimmer didn't deserve to be happy.

Cloud sighed again and closed the laptop before turning to his side,
lying in a pool of his own essence as he drifted off into sleep. Two weeks, he whispered to himself as the tears dried. Two more weeks, and everything would be set right.

He would make certain that Sunset Shimmer would pay for her crimes with her life...even if it cost him his soul.

Author's Note

And so see the story unfold, of the monstrous Cloud Cover and his wicked plans. I wish I could say he would see the light, and let Sunset go...but we live not in a fairy tale world.

Why yes, Cloud Cover is supposed to be a total creep, why do you ask?