Wretched Hive 2: The Drooling Oasis

The woods that separated Appleloosa from the desert were as unnatural up close as Cloud and Junior expected. They trotted carefully between the trees, unsure what kind of monsters the creepy forest could support. The trail left by the wagon had been obscured by fallen leaves, and the overgrowth in general made it difficult to see, let alone devise a path. The colt clung to his father's side as the two crunched their way through the trail.

"Dad?" Junior said in a shaking voice. "How much longer til we get home?"

"I don't know, son," Cloud replied. "We won't know until we get to the other side."

"This place is so creepy." The rustling leaves scratched his sides as a cold wind blew by. "It's nothing like Whitetail Woods..."

Cloud patted him on the shoulder. "Son, when this over, we'll go hunting back there again." He looked around to check for predators. "Put some traps down and wait in the bushes, just like when you got your cutie mark."

Junior nodded. "That sounds nice."

"It will be."

As the father and son trotted into the deepest part of the forest, a pony eye watched them from the shade of the overgrowth. A bitten tongue wiped down a large fang in a pony snout, turning it from red to white. A bloodied hoof took a step toward the two ponies.

"What is that thing?!" Junior screamed as two bug-like eyes appeared in the distant shade ahead of them.

With a fluttering of wings, the eyes closed the distance more quickly than either of the ponies had expected. The creature looked like a large fly with giant eyes and small wings keeping its spherical body aloft.

Cloud chuckled. "Oh, calm down, Hunter! It's only a parasprite!"

The adorable bug landed on Junior's snout and chirped at the startled colt. He shook off the fear; the bug stayed in place unfazed.

Junior chuckled. "I think it likes me."

The parasprite looked between the two ponies.

"Sorry pal," Cloud said to the bug. "We don't have any food!"

It let out a cute sigh and flew toward the shade behind them. At the threshold of the darkness it suddenly turned back toward them.

Too late.

A ragged, light blue pony jaw slammed shut around the parasprite. The knife-like teeth severed the wings of the creature, and a quick swallow did away with the rest. A large fang not unlike the fangs of the changelings jutted out from the pony snout. The rest of the body was like that of a mangled pony corpse. Clear fluid leaked from its many lacerations, but never dripped to the ground. A familiar eye stared at them behind a filthy, unkempt mane. Its left eye was gone, replaced by a large, cyan slug that oozed down its cheek. The slug's typical eyestalks were replaced by a grotesque hole that leaked a clear fluid down her face. A hiss shook the slug while the pony's body smirked.

Cloud and Junior were frozen in fear.

The slug shrunk back into the monster's eye socket. The corpse's neck twitched and the head fell lopsided. "What's the matter?" it asked in a familiar, feminine pony voice deluded by an invisible tube filled with water. "Not happy to see mommy?"

Junior screamed.

"What the fuck are you?!" Cloud asked the monster wearing his wife's rotting flesh. He put a foreleg around his son, and they both started backing away.

The head realigned and the throat shook her body as a mangled chuckle sounded from behind the fangs. "I'm your wife, Cloud. Don't you recognize me?" She stumbled towards them, one crooked and unbalanced hoof at a time.

"You're dead!" he screamed at the zombie, shaking his head. "You can't be her! You can't!"

"I was so worried," the butchered voice said. "When you tried to leave without a word, in the middle of the night." A chuckle shook her body. Her head bobbed up and down. "That's something you should have done a long time ago!"

"Shut up!" Cloud demanded, holding back tears. "You shut up! I never regretted that night!" He held Junior closer.

"And you're trying to make up for that?" She shambled toward them as the slug poked out from her eye socket and hissed at them. "Of course... You had more cider in you back then."

The ponies backed away slightly faster.

"Fuck you!" Cloud screamed at his undead wife. "I didn't value that shit more than our family! I loved you, Gleam!" He panted as Junior kept backing away without him. "I still love..."

Gleam shambled toward him, then finally collapsed on top of her weak legs. She looked up at her husband and stretched one of her broken hooves out to him.

"Dad!" Junior yelled. "Mom is dead! I hate it as much as you do, but whatever that is can't replace her!"

"It is her, Hunter!" Cloud yelled at his son. "No monster could know about that night..." He trotted to his dead wife's side.

"Take my hoof," she said. "I've seen what lies beneath the water." The slug hissed at nopony in particular.

"We can get you better, I swear!" Cloud wrapped his foreleg around hers.

"No!" Gleam's uncorrupted voice rang out.

The ground shook beneath them as Cloud found his hoof stuck to hers by a strange, light blue ooze. A mist engulfed them.

"Dad!" Hunter screamed.

The mist turned to water. Dad and the zombie sank into the pool, both screaming. The bubbles stopped after a short moment. A feminine voice that wasn't Mom growled at Hunter. He turned and fled.

The green pegasus galloped through the rustling leaves towards the light between the trees. The growl resonated around him. A breeze lifted the hairs on his back. He looked behind him.

The wind blew calmly between the trees. The breeze tossed many of the dry leaves off the ground. Hunter caught his breath, turned, and galloped home.

Elsewhere, in the wasteland...

"I hope that colt dies," the unicorn said, once again leading the blind changeling deeper into the desert. "Does that make me a bad person?" He turned an eye to the eyeless.

Foresight nodded at the voice.

"Oh, what does a blind bug-monster know about Good or Bad?" the unicorn scoffed, waving the non-verbal comment off.

In the distance, the pony could see a spire towering over the rest of the wasteland. He turned back toward Foresight. The blind changeling kept trotting to the south, past the unicorn and toward the tower.

"So I take it that tower's where we're going?" the pony asked.

The bug shook its head.

"Then where?" The unicorn sighed and shook his head. "Is it beyond that tall thing?"

The bug nodded.

"Is it taller?"

Foresight stamped its hoof into the sand, as if digging a hole. It turned its snout toward the vague direction of the voice before shaking its head. The pony sighed, and hoofsteps led the way further south.

The pony kept moving forward, growing more anxious with each step. Movement drew his attention toward the tall spire. From a distance, a light gray earth pony galloped toward them.

"You!" the gray stallion screamed in a brash tone. "You're not like the others!" He breathed heavily in between sentences. "Maybe you'll listen!"

The unicorn took a step back. "Who the--?!"

"Shush!" the stallion interrupted. "No time! No place! Everything is falling apart! It's done!"

"What--?!"

"Shuuush! Don't interrupt! Or you'll be no different! You'll lose it like everyone else!"

The unicorn punched the stallion in the face. The force knocked the pony onto his side.

"Shut the fuck up already!" the unicorn screamed at him. "Nothing you're saying makes any sense!"

The stallion slowly got up from the dirt and shook it off. "Sorry..." His tone and breathing slowed to a more normal degree. "I just needed to tell someone about it. It has to be heard."

"What does?"

Foresight let out a loud sigh.

"Foresight?!" the stallion gasped. "What happened?!"

The gray pony galloped to the bug's side and inspected its scarred face. A hoof felt around the empty eye sockets. The changeling's snout snapped at the pony, snatching a mouthful of hair from his mane with its twisted fangs. It chewed as the stallion looked it over.

"Did the Oasis do this to you?!" he asked in a more excited tone.

Foresight nodded while chewing.

A large grin creased the pony's face. "I knew it! It's all coming together!"

The unicorn stepped in. "What exactly did you know?" he asked in a more threatening tone.

"Look around you!" the stallion said, excited as ever and with a smile. "You're in a vast wasteland! No food! No water!" He chuckled to himself. "An oasis here is just a mirage! And a desert mirage means death!" He took a step towards the pair. "But that's just it... The disappearances, the moving mirages, the mysterious songs in the wind... It's all connected! All of it!"

The unicorn crooked his head.

"She doesn't want you to know!" the white-maned earth pony yelled, pointing back toward the spire. "She wants to keep us all in line!" He stamped the hoof into the dirt. "But I figured it out!" He chuckled. "It's all there when you know where to look!" He sat up and rubbed his hooves together, then looked between the unicorn and the changeling. "It all started a thousand years ago..."

"Doesn't everything?" the unicorn asked with a smirk.

The pony ignored him. "Three... No. Two! Two changelings from outside the Hive came asking to join." He shook his head. "Impossible, but true! They were agents of a different hive entirely! She had them butchered for Her own amusement! Then She sent the Executioner out to find the rest of the little hive! With him, a small army! Total of fifteen soldiers! All armed to the teeth! Just one of them could turn you inside out in a second!" His breathing grew heavier. "Then only one returned... But he didn't! I asked Her over and over about it! She said he was exiled, but that doesn't make any sense! Then I realized... Not exiled. Escaped! It wasn't him! It was a changeling wearing another changeling's skin! Its body! Its soul!" He laughed. "It explains everything!"

The unicorn pulled his hoof back. "Don't be vague," he threatened.

The stallion flinched and nodded. "Right! The executions! So many! The crime sprees, the death of so many corrupt... But then I realized they weren't!" He flinched again. "Wretchers! All of them! Not honest changelings! Framed as criminals and murdered to hide the ugly truth!" He smiled. "Wretched corruption!" He shook his head. "We weren't declaring zero tolerance! We were declaring war!" He laughed. "A secret war!" He pointed to the eyeless changeling. "And you're one of our prisoners!"

It swallowed and nodded back at him.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" The unicorn raised a hoof in interjection. "You're a changeling?"

The bug-pony chuckled. "My name is Babylon, former Hive prince." He or it crooked his or its head. "What is your name?"

"Its name is Sin..." a feminine voice growled from all around before the unicorn could answer. "A fountain of wrath that would rival myself..."

The gray creature's blue eyes widened. "It's the Drooling Oasis!"

A haunting laugh echoed in their skulls as mist swirled around them, turning the sand behind them to water. And the water leaked out to welcome its prey.