Things In The Dark
By N030
[Chapter 1: Enter The Forest]
OoO
Fluttershy tucked in the last chicken and stood up,
"Goodnight my animal friends." she whispered in her delicate voice as she gradually retreated from the little hen house. The hay crunched and shuffled around as she sneaked down the slope to the sodden grass encompassing the animals shelter. She strolled to the chicken wire fence humming a tune she was teaching her singing birds. The gate closed with the dull sound of the lock clicking into place, she trotted to the dirt path leading to her cottage. She glanced back to the view behind her, the town of Ponyville gleamed in the distance, each of the houses looked like the pieces to a big beautiful puzzle. She smiled to herself and thought,
"I live in the best place ever!" she closed her eyes and took in the aroma, slowly exhaled and opened her eyes again, she started back towards her cottage.
As she crossed the bridge she heard scuffling feet behind her,
"EEP!!" she yelped as she spun around, only to find a empty winding path out to town.
"H-h-ello?" she said softly, slowly backing up to her cottage. As she backed up something fell to the ground behind her with a thud. Her body went ridged, she slowly turned to face what had fallen. When she did, all the color drained from her face, she started to shake as tears welled up in her eyes.
"no...no...what?...NO!!" she started to break down at what she saw in before her. The lifeless mangled body of one of her song birds lay just mere inches in front of her. The neck had clearly been broken and several chunks of outer skin were missing, leaving the blood and gore of the insides to be splattered out on the dirt road. Fluttershy, with tears streaming down her face, looked up into the tree where the once delicate animal usually slept. Instead of a bird house, another pony sat there on the branch, he was only a shadow but it was enough to send Fluttershy screaming into her cottage.
She slammed the door and flew to her room as fast as she could and slid under her bed, the only other time she hid here was Nightmare Night, but this seemed like a perfectly good reason to come back.
Her breathing was fast and rapid, her heart was pounding at her rib cage. Her eyes were red from the tears of fright and sadness that still haunted her, the image of her dead bird still engraved in her mind. She calmed herself down and listened, the cottage was silent.
"Maybe if I'm fast enough I can fly out the window to town and get help." She thought to herself still huddled under the bed. She was about to scramble out when the door to her room flew open. It slammed against the wall with a thud that could wake the dead. She covered her mouth with her hoof as she heard hoofsteps enter the room. She could see the hooves of a dark grey pony walk in, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. He paced around the room, looking in the closet, the dresser, and even out the window but never checked under the bed. He walked out of the room leaving scared Fluttershy cuddled under her bed.
She took her hoof off her mouth and exhaled, but didn't move. She waited a few minutes to make sure he was gone, then slowly slid out from under the bed, she looked to the door and out into the hallway and saw nopony, she quickly turned around and started to the window but quickly stopped as a look of horror came over her face. Sitting outside the window with his teeth glowing white in the moonlight was the grey pony that had been in her house. He slowly opened the window and crept inside to Fluttershy. She couldn't move, she was paralized with fear. The grey pony circled her, scanning her up and down like he was examining her. He then spoke in a low, dark voice,
"Oh, you'll do nicely." Fluttershy felt a sharp pain in her side, and suddenly started feeling very sleepy. Darkness crept into her vision as she fell to the ground. The last thing she saw before she went under was the sly grin from the grey pony,
"Prepare yourself pony! Tomorrow is game day!" As she went under all she could hear was the stallions dark laughter echo through her head.
OoO
The sun rose over the foggy mountians and shed its light over the small town of Ponyville. Ponies just starting to mill about the town, completing their daily morning routines, opening shops, grabbing mail, and eating breakfast. But, there was one pony who wasn't enjoying that leisure. Twilight awoke with the sound of hooves banging at her door.
"Celestia just raised the sun, who could want me this early?" she slowly arose from her gigantic bed, stretching her wings she got off the bed and walked to the hallway. The knocking continued to get louder as she got closer.
"I'm here! I'm here!" she threw open the huge door,
"What is it?" Rarity stood there, her mascara created lines of black down her white fur.
"Twilight! Come quick! Fluttershys gone and there's blood everywhere and I don't know what to do!" she managed to say between sobs,
"Rarity, calm down, wheres the blood?" Rarity dropped to her knees and started mumbling something,
"she's gone. she's gone. she's gone." Rarity repeated as she slowly started rocking herself. Twilight ran back inside to the Elements magic table and called all the elements to the castle. Only a few minutes later, the other three ponies walked up over the hill, but that walk turned into a sprint when the caught sight of Rarity on the ground. Rainbow Dash was the first to get there.
"What happened!?!" she screamed as she dropped down beside Rarity who was still mumbling.
"I don't know! She said something about how Fluttershy's gone and theres blood there." Twilight said. Without hesitation Rainbow Dash took off in the direction of Fluttershys cottage. Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack followed but at a much slower pace. On the way over twilight started to question Rarity, who seemed to be calming down.
"Alright, explain again what happened."
"Well, I was waiting for her at the spa like I always do, when she didn't show up on time I started to panic. Five minutes turned into ten. Then ten to twenty. I couldn't take it anymore so I ran out of the spa at to Fluttershys cottage. The first thing I noticed was a dead bird in front of her house with its guts spilled out all over the road. So I sprinted to the house and started franticly pounding on the door. But after A bit i noticed the door was unlocked so I ran inside and... and ..." she broke down again, unable to finish her sentence. They finally made it to Fluttershys cottage. They all saw the dead bird, cringing at the sight. They walked to the front of the house and walked in. The entry way into the cottage was covered in blood, the walls, the cieling, the floor, everything. Pinkie Pie almost vomited at the sight, but only gagged.
"Rainbow Dash!?!" Twilight called into the house but heard no reply.
"Where is she? Did she not make it here? Rainbow!?!?!" Still, silence.
"We need to go in there." said Applejack flatly as she stepped onto the blood ridden floor and continued inside. The rest of the ponies followed, all of them winching when there hoof touched the warm sticky floor. They made it to the main sitting room and the story was the same, covered in blood.
"Where did all this blood come from?" asked Applejack,
"I don't know." responded Twilight,
"Maybe she's upstairs." Twilight said as she started to climb. When she made it to the top she looked down the hallway to an open door, which revealed a rainbow colored pony laying on the floor.
"Rainbow!!!!" Twilight screamed as she sprinted to her friends side. She rolled Dash over, her eyes were open, but only a little.
"Dash? Dash? Can you hear me?" Rainbow Dash with the energy she had left wispered in Twilights ear,
"run." her eyes rolled back into her head as her body went limp in Twilights forehooves. Twilight started to shake her,
"Wait! Wake up! Dash? Wake up!" she started screaming to the limp, cold Rainbow Dash. Everypony was in the room now, all gathered around Twilight and Rainbow Dash. That was until Pinkie Pie screamed, then fell to the floor almost if she had fainted. When she fell another figure stood behind her clutching a red needle in his hoof with a big grin on his face,
"Who's next?" He asked in a dark scary voice and with unpony like movement lunged at Applejack and sunk the syringe into her neck. All Applejack could do was let out a weak yelp before she hit the floor. Twilight and Rarity backed up to the far wall horns glowing.
"Put the syringe down! The Princess commands it!" Twilight yelled,
"If you refuse I won't hesitate to use deadly force!" her horn glowed brighter. The grey pony stopped for a second then threw his head back in laughter.
"Deadly force, ha! Don't make me laugh. I am a Everfree, you can't touch me, and with that he vanished.
"Where did he go!?" yelled Rarity franticly looking around,
"I don't know. Maybe he left." The ponies sat and listened but heard nothing.
"What do we d- ERK!" Rarity squeaked as the grey pony suddenly appeared in front of her sending the syringe into her neck. And as quickly as he appeared he vanished. Twilight sat against the wall trying to decide on what to do, she jumped over Rarity and all of her other friends and ran out of the bedroom. She carefully made her way down the stairs and sprinted to the front door.
"Almost there Twilight, almost the-" she was close-lined by a hoof that sent her sprawling to the dirt in front of the house. She slowly got up, blood dripping from her mouth, she quickly wiped it away and faced the one who had hurt her. The grey pony leaned up against the cottage giving her a slow golf clap.
"Lets put it this way, no matter what you do, your just going to end up like your friends in there." The grey pony said,
"Thats not true, I'm going to kill you." her horn shot a lazar beam at him, but he just quickly sidestepped and the beam hit the cottage creating a small explosion that covered her vision. She coughed and gagged from the dust but then a voice came from the fog,
"HAHAHA! Your to predictable Twilight Sparkle, we've watched you ever since you've became princess and lets say you should pay more attention to the forest. Twilight felt a sharp pain in her neck as the smoke cleared,
"Let the games begin!" He shouted as she fell, the last thing she saw was his glowing red eyes burn into her soul.
[End Of Chapter 1]