Hyper Love Surprise: Minuit Sérénité

'Je reviens vite. J'taime, Coco.'

Those were sister's last words to Coco Pommel. A misshapen agony had clogged her heart. And she didn't know what was uglier, the dress on that mare outside the coffee shop window or her baggy, restless eyes. Her sister should've been there, sitting beside her.

Long-gone were her easy mornings chatting away and snacking on toast with jam. The simplest thing she missed, in retrospect, was all the cursing her sister did. Glace à la Vanille was never a timid pony, no. Sister was a boisterous and haughty one...

During their hay school days, they were inseparable. She squished her cheeks and leaned her head down. They were quite the pair, her and her. Lonely, she could only stare into the street; lost in her home metropolis, Manehatten.

Manehatten never slept, ponies often said, even the locals. But this time, their fair city was stricken with gloom. A rolling mist had blanketed the streets. It didn't stop businessponies and travlleing toursits from traversing the abandoned streets, but all the carriages were closed. Everypony nowadays, at least the ones she could see, were always sullen and lackidasical.

"I want to..." Coco Pommel murmured.

"I want to be somewhere else..."

Coco Pommel muffled her lips by pressing her hooves over them.

'Isn't that what you said, Vanille. Was it me...? Did I make you leave?'

A jagged tension stabbed her vitreous body. The very back of her eyes were pounding with hurt. Coco desparately rushed away to make it home. All the noise had drowned out beside her sobbing. And though she wanted to run, to gallop forever and escape the emptiness, it took root inside her, eviscerating her aorta and ventricles.

Coco Pommel skidded her hooves to a stop. Her back pressed against the nearest building and she hyperventilated to offset the anxiety. Despite separating herself from Café Vanille, the image of her sister branded within. Little gremlins and fairies stalked her at every corner, masquerading in happy memories of Her, the one and only childhood friend she ever had. The one and only mare she ever kissed.

The filly covered her ears in sheer distress as the barks of wardogs named Mother and Father bore holes into her temples. And she shrieked when they took her away to whip her with the electrical cord. The beast Father hogtied Coco. He tossed her into the basement just like always. The obscura swallowing her whole set her legs to motion. She ran and ran like she did all those years ago, dodging pots of scalding tea water, slipping phantoms in the alleyways.

"Go away...! Leave me alone! Don't touch me...!"

The monster that pretended to be her father was in the sky. He was high as a skyscraper and hammering the concrete with his hooves. He shook the earth just for her, just as her bed creaked every other night. Coco shut her eyes and jerked her head left to right. He was gaining on her. He'd cover her mouth like always. She swore it.

"No...! Stay away! Stay awaaaaay!"

Coco took to cowering. She curled within herself and squished her rump to the wall of an alley. She never forgot her lessons. Coco never took her rituals for granted. Her rear was pressed firmly where no one could have it. No one would hurt her inside...

For once in twenty three years, she finally felt peace again... surrounded by fog. Pommel did her best to muffle her lips and breathe, sheltered by alleyway umbra.

She wound up a block past her apartment. A thin shadow obscured her presence, an overcast from the apartment to her left. Red bricks and art murals dwarfed her unimposing figure.

There were two stallions trotting by, one in a suit of fine Corgi Amoney design and his companion, clothed in Eyerainian robes that were atypical of most Manehattens. They were harmonious, synchronized every step of the way.

They chattered casually between bites of Garlic and Salmon Chaaaaaps. Chaps was a brand of organic, low-grease and low chemical preservative potato chips. With one petite chirp, she slinked backwards till all the shadow enveloped her. Coco would only match half of their standing height. And that was standing. Crouched, her stature was a whopping two and a half feet tall.

"I tell you, Furnando... Why do people always assume I'm a bad guy? Do they not like my robes? Anyway... did you hear about that business back in Ponyville. They had a pandemic or some shit like that. I mean, of all the places to be quarantined, am I right?"

The saddle arabian gentlecolt earned a nod from his friend. And they shared words back and forth till the distance drowned them out. Coco could only relax and enjoy their togetherness, their comfy atmosphere.

"No idea. You know Happy, I have no idea. Ponyville never gets in trouble. I wonder why, too. Weren't the elements of harmony supposed to be there?"

"You see, Furnando this is what I'm talking about. Crazy shit happening everywhere. It gives me tingles. Where is Celestia? Where is Luna? Somepony says 'changelings', do you think so?"

"Nmm... No, not really. I thought changlings needed love to survive. Where would they get that..?"

No. That was... impossible. Not Rarity. Not her too. Coco shambled away without an ounce of fortitude. She was, for the lack of any articulate term, crushed by all she'd endured. The sky would either away into some drab compendium of patchwork wool scraps. And then it'd become a shroud of ominous abyss. Coco Pommel reached her apartment, having trotted the whole way there.

Her deflated and torn leg muscles hung precariously about her bones. Gravity was her worst assailant, her worst adversary. If she hadn't galloped and jerked her body around like a crazed Deth addict, she'd have come home unscathed. The sudden weight of all her punishment dragged her down and onto her couch... Coco Pommel had closed their eyes for mere seconds; then, her door knob clicked out of place and exposed her sanctuary.

Coco Pommel grappled with fatigue. Somepony was in her apartment room and her body was anchored down. A wash of nightmarish half-futures and sadistic horrors flooded her eyelids. She barely managed to tip herself toward the edge of her loveseat. Coco shut her eyes and tumbled down, sliding off and onto her side. She winced at the sharp rib pain, but bolted forward and into the kitchen.

A living... shadow person greeted her there. In their hand, which was so tenebrous and alien even glancing terrified her, was a long, cutting chef knife. Submerged in blood, the wicked steel urged her closer. Coco had backpeddled till her rump struck the wall. She crouched and wobbled. A sickness tore her gut apart. Anxiety clenched her chest and she couldn't take her eyes off of it but that thing would show its teeth, it's jagged, predatory teeth. The lanky, wide-hipped monster crept forward.

The room... was arid. The dead dryness gave way to bone-chilling cold that layered her home in frost. Even her own coat felt off. Frigid icicles clung to her fur as newborn children never wanted. They screamed in need as she swept them away, somehow able to maneuver her rigid forelegs.

"Wh-who... are you...? Why won't you let me go?"

It glided forward, fondling her cheeks. The monster closed her eyelids with its thumbs.

"Mais non, who I am is not important. But you can call me Juilenne, ma cherie... Soon, the ice will take your apartment. And then I can thaw you. For now... rest. I will hold you close. You are mine, after all."

"N-no..." Coco jittered, chattering her teeth away.

"I-I'm not y-yours... I-I'm G-Glac-ce's"

All she did was grin.

"We've met before, you and I; in a dream we lived together."

And that very same grin marked when Coco Pommel passed consciousness.