NightMare

‘Hello?’

The only greeting she was given was silence. Pinkie Pie looked around the room anxiously. Everyone was gone. Maud, Limestone, Marble, Mom, Dad. They all had vanished. There hadn’t been any warning, nor had she witnessed it herself, the house just suddenly emptied of all living creatures; other than Pinkie. Her high-pitched voice seemed to echo, although she was in a rather small room. Her bedroom. The bedroom that Maud normally slept in as well as her. Pinkie Pie’s heart shattered to see that her sister was not sitting on the bed next to her. As she thought, she felt a frigid wing sweep past her body. It was only a small breeze, however, her flesh felt as if it was freezing at the sensation. She shuddered. The room was cold, and dark. The pink pony felt it hard to believe she was actually inside her house. Was she inside her house? It felt as if she was outside, the inside of a house was normally supposed to be warm and inviting, not this awful mood of isolation that was infecting the air. Pinkie contemplated leaving her room to explore the empty house; however, she didn’t know if she could muster up the courage to leave the little safety of her bedroom. Something could have been lurking. She could be severely injured. She could die.

Pinkie remembered the song that her Granny Pie sung to her when she was scared. She tried to give a small laugh but it came out as a small, sharp squeak. Timidly, she sat down and thought for a bit. She assumed that there would be no major harm in going downstairs. Even if someone was downstairs, she would be able to find an exit. Or maybe she could fight back. Or maybe not, she was a lover, not a fighter. Collecting all of her strength, she took back up, chest puffed out confidently.

Slowly, she began to tip-toe out of her room. She slowly pushed open her door. The hallway oozed with despair, as a small amount of fog slid through the windows which were slightly ajar. She entered her parent’s rooms in hopes they’d be there. They weren’t. Pinkie sighed and gently closed the door behind her. She did the same with Limestone and Marble’s rooms, yet again, to no avail. Pinkie’s ears drooped, her hair deflating slightly. The disappearance of her family was taking a toll on her happy demeanour, despite not being gone long. They weren’t even gone for a full day. Pinkie’s heart started to ache. It hurt. Shaking off her sadness, she began inching towards the stairs. The steps down now looked like the longest walk anyone could have ever taken. Her eyes made her see the wooden stairs stretch to an amazing length. The pink pony’s pupils eyes contracted as she stumbled back, dazed with shock. Falling against the wall, she clutched her stomach, thinking she was going to throw up. It took a minute or two to regain her balance, and when she did, her stomach was still churning. She brushed her emotions beside and prepared to dash down the stairs.

‘C’mon Party Pony’ she whispered to herself, ‘they’re just stairs. You can do it’. With one large breath, she tore down the stairs, like a pink arrow that was shot by the best archer in the world. She was only a blur as she bolted down the stairs, her hooves making loud stomps that thundered through the building. She would’ve crashed through the wall, if she hadn’t quickly skidded, her hooves squealing as they rubbed against the stone floor. Pinkie stomped briefly and shrieked, ‘IF ANYPONY IS IN MY HOUSE, YOU NEED TO LEAVE!’ She paused, and waited for a sound. Nothing. No trotting of hooves, no shuffles, not even a whisper of a crook. Pinkie squinted her royal blue eyes. The living room door was swung right open. It was nerve-chilling, because she couldn’t see into the room. The candles were blown out. She looked around, and snatched a pack of matches from a table. She peered into the darkness, looking for a candle to light. She found one next to the door and picked it up. Whipping it across the wall, the match lit, and Pinkie lit the candle. It wasn’t too bright, but it managed to illuminate Pinkie’s path. She took one uneasy step. The silence was delicate. She slowly walked through the room, looking around apprehensively, as if someone was going to leap out at her.

She stopped moving.

She looked down at her hoof. She didn’t recall her fur being red. In fact, she could see that her fur was not red, and that only a small blotch was died a dark crimson. Her hoof was encased with this thick liquid. Wait a minute… was this…?

Pinkie Pie shrieked, and dropped the candle. The tiny flame extinguished as quickly as it fell to the floor.

It was blood. As she gazed even further into the dark abyss of her home, she could make out multiple pools of thick, oozing crimson blood. They lay on the floor, as cold as ice. Then, Pinkie Pie counted all of the puddles. There were 5 puddles. Pinkie wondered if she should dare peer further into the bleak black that encased her home and her mind. She blindly hunted for the matches and lighted her candle again. And as the yellow glow smothered the darkness, Pinkie’s pupils widened. Too horrified to speak, she observed the catastrophic calamity that took place in the living room.

There laid 5 bodies. There laid 5 unmoving bodies. There laid the bodies of Igneous Rock, Cloudy Quartz, Marble Pie, Limestone Pie and Maud Pie. Pinkie shrieked. Her blood ran cold. She didn’t drop the candle, however, she ran around the room, lighting more and more candles, exposing even more of the corpses of her loved ones. Soon, the entire room was littered with lambent candles, flickering in the biting wind. Eyes that once contained shining pupils and colours were now listless and derivative. Fur stained with scarlet and air stained with the musty smell of old blood. Pinkie felt words of dismay slowly inch up her throat like a spider, but the words got lodged. She was choking on her own voice. Tears welled up in her eyes as she began to sob. Sobbing and crying and sobbing. She wailed like a baby and shrieked as loud as she could.  Her face lived up to her name, as her face slowly began to turn more and more flushed. Hot tears ran down her face as she continued to wail. It took her a few minutes to stop crying, the skin under her eyes shriveling a little due to her crying. She sniffled and sighed sadly. Her hair was messy and her nose was runny and her eyes were red and wet and everything was going wrong. Pinkie stood, clenching her teeth. She stared at the corpses again, all laid on the floor, fur tinted with vermilion blood that oozed from the wounds…

Wait, wounds? Pinkie closely expected the bodies. She didn’t find any holes, scars or even bruises. Not a scratch. Pinkie sat again and thought.

‘How are they bleeding?’ she muttered, ‘They have no wounds. They couldn’t have been bleeding’

Pinkie froze. Were there more bodies? Was she going mad? Where did the blood come from? All of these questions spun and whirled into a tornado of confusion inside the party pony’s head. She had been completely dumbfounded. Pinkie used her muzzle to shove one of the bodies. Strange. There was almost no blood underneath the carcass. The red substance only resided next to the body, not underneath it.

Pinkie heard a creak behind her. The creak of old, fragile floorboards. Someone else was here, and they had not been invited. Pinkie quickly spun around to face whatever monster had caused this animosity. What was in front of her was simply a shadow. A dull, insipid black shadow. As Pinkie stared longer in horror, she noticed something very, very frightening. It resembled her pink poofy hair and normally jovial grin. Nonetheless, this shape didn’t possess a jolly smile. This…thing’s grin was full of malice. It was malevolent and corrupt and heinous AND-

Pinkie suddenly noticed the spectre was holding something. Her eyes widened as she realized what it was. A sharp bladed knife that gleamed in the rosy candlelight. Pinkie almost stayed conscious enough to see the holes and the red liquid oozing from her flesh.