Chapter 1: New chance, new hope
I can feel cold sweat pouring down my head. I try to calm myself down, but it's not working.
My guardian angel said that I'm not going to like God's judgement in slightest and I was deadly afraid. I was sorry for all sins I've done, but I don't think it will change anything. I'll have to prepare my mind for the eternal torture in the deepest pits of Hell. Easier said than done!
"Next." I heard a voice. I stood up from my chair in the and proceeded to the Purgatory.
The Purgatory was a huge room. I could see God sitting in all His glory on a huge white throne while seraphim levitated around Him. I walked closer to Him and waited for the judgement.
”Review his life.” God ordered. I then saw my whole life presented before me like a movie. I saw all things I have done, all sins I regret. How I raped, tortured and killed my wife and my daughter in cold blood.
I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t notice how the review ended quickly.
”Does his name appear in the Book of Life?” God questioned his angel.
“No, Lord, it doesn’t.” the angel answered. These were the words I feared the most.
”Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire! Prepare for the Devil and his angels!” God’s voice boomed across the Purgatory.
I froze in fear as my guardian angel started pulling me towards the gates of Hell. I didn’t resist. Resistance is useless against the word of God.
The angel threw me down a hole. I was falling until I hit a ground. Of course, It hurt like, possibly worse considering where I am, hell.
I groaned and stood up, looking at the darkness surrounding me. I could feel pure and primordial evil radiating from everywhere around me. Strangely, there was no fire to be seen or heat to be felt. Just boundless evil.
”Well, well, look what we have here. New meat.”, I heard diabolic voice behind me. Snapping my whole body for 180°, I saw an eldery man dressed in elegant black suit and tie with a cane which had polished skull.
Devil.
“Why are you here, Devil?” I questioned him, maybe a bit too boldly. He just laughed darkly.
”Not even five minutes here and already cursing me. Please, call me Lucifer, but yes, you are right, I am indeed the Lord of Hell.”
“I thought you would have horns or hooves.”
”Now, now, I’m not a goat.” he replied with a sinister chuckle. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Why are you here? Shouldn’t all damned souls be immediately sent to torturing?” I asked.
”Yes, of course. However, you are a different case.” he answered as his irises became blood red for a few seconds.
”I’ve seen what sins you have committed and I must say, I’m impressed. Not many mortals go as far as you do. I want to strike a deal with you.”
“Deals with the Deceiver are never a good idea.” I noted.
”Oh, but wouldn’t you rather prefer to be in the world of the living than here, tortured for all eternity, day and night, non-stop?” he asked, like he knew what have I already chosen. And I have
“What is the deal?”, I asked after the moment of silence. He grinned.
”I will reincarnate you in another body and give you variety of powers a mortal could only dream of.” he explained.
“What’s the prize?” he chuckled darkly at my question.
Oh, you are a cautious one. The prize isn't really of a service as much it would become a necessity for you. When you reincarnate, your soul will stay here, on my personal shelf. Because of that, you won't have fuel to power your body in Materium, therefore you will have to take it from others.”
"What do you mean?"
"You will have to take souls of others.", his response froze me. I suddenly realized what the true prize is. In order to continue to thrive in the living world, I will have to kill others.
"Is there something considering that?", I had to make absolutely sure there was no other catches.
"Yes, as you may know, all the souls are not the same. Some are purer than others. It is from those purer you gain longer lifespan. Knights in shining armor, fair maidens, or if nothing else, children.", he whispered, most likely enjoying seeing me widen my eyes at his last word. I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists. Before I could say no, he teleportated right in front of me.
"Of course, if you refuse, there is a place for you within the Seventh circle.", he said and tapped the ground with his cane.
On look at the Lake of fire was enough for me to make my decision.
“Deal.”, Lucifer's expression remained unchanged.
"Very well, then." he said and tapped my shoulder. As soon as he did that, I blacked out.
World: Equus
Land: Equestria
Date: 31st October 6 ABP (After the Birth of the Princesses)
I opened my eyes and looked at the night sky above me and tall pines. Apparently, I was lying on the ground in some forest.
I straightened up in a sitting position and noticed I was wearing a strange tuxedo with black tie. I slowly glided my fingers along my sleeve, which somehow felt like skin, until I noticed that my hand was bleach white and my fingers looked longer and bonier. In fact, all my limbs looked longer than they were be. I stood up, although I had to lean on a tree because I was unused on this long limbs. My arms reaches my knees. I felt that my longer limbs made me abnormally taller. I touched the crown of my head and found out I was bald.
I then touched my face, but strangely, I couldn't feel any facial features. No nose, ears, mouth or even eyes. It was all smooth, leathery surface. I even tried poking the place where my eyes should be, but nothing.
I looked around for anything which could be used as a mirror and saw a small river nearby. I walked to it and looked at my reflection.
I truly had no face, not even a facial features like outline of my eye sockes, nothing. When you look at it like that, this visage is truly nightmarish. Simple in the design, just an abnormally tall, faceless humanoid in a sharp suit, but it is that simplicity which is bound to drive fear in everything I encounter.
I tried to see if I still have mouth, therefore I tried to open my jaw. The skin where my lips and cheeks were ripped apart, showing needle like teeth and long, slimy tongue with sharp tip.
If anyone saw me here, they would definitely scream bloody murder. I truly looked like a true nightmare.
My mouth looked inappropriate for a speech, but I tried nevertheless.
I was right, the only sounds I could make were growls and grunts, not a single word. I closed my mouth and the skin immediately repaired, leaving no evidence that it was ever ripped.
Now the only thing I had to know is where I was. Lucifer said I will be reincarnated, but didn’t say where.
I would have probably wandered the forest for a long time if I hadn't seen fireworks in the sky. It was coming from a place not to far from where I was.
"Ah, I died at 30th October, so today is most likely Halloween." I thought and proceeded to walk towards the place.
Something strange happened then.
It was as if I broke 3D barriers and entered a higher dimension of space. I felt as if all of the time and space was beneath me, allowing me to access any point anywhere and everywhere.
I suddenly found myself in front of a sign and the entrace to the place.
”Well, that’s handy.”
Welcome to Hollow Shades
Number of citizens: 600+
Home to bat-ponies
"Bat-ponies?" I thought in wonder as I walked passed sign and in the town.
The town was a filled with elegant houses made of dark wood. Actually, the whole town looked overall beautiful.
I then saw a couple of children running past, not noticing me. On the other look, I noticed they didn't look like normal children. No, they looked like fusion of a horse, a human and a bat. They were dressed in a various costumes and seemed very happy.
Then, one of them noticed me. He called his friends and pointed at me. The rest of the children saw me and had a look of amazement instead of fear as I thought they would have. They happily bounced to me as I was just standing there, watching them.
"Hi, mister! You have quite nice costume of Slendermane!" a boy dressed as a doctor said cheerfully.
"Yes, I would even think you were real Slendermane, if I didn't already know he's not real." a girl dressed as a princess confirmed. My mind started spinning around a certain word they said.
"Slendermane, slendermane. I have a feeling I heard that before, but I just can't put my finger on it." I thought.
"Um, mister, why is your face so flat and where are your ears?" a boy dressed as a knight in dark blue armor asked, noticing the lack of a muzzle on my head.
"Yeah and why are your arms and legs so long? Your fingers are long and bony and you don't have hooves." the girl dressed as princess said after looking at me up and down.
Suddenly, the "doctor" paled.
"G-guys... I-i think i-it's the r-real S-slendermane!" he whispered at his friends who looked at him in confusion.
"Don't be silly, Slendermane doesn't exist." the "princess" whispered back at him.
"I-i'm not s-so s-sure. I m-mean, h-he's got n-no any f-facial f-features, h-has l-long, b-bony f-fingers and n-no h-hooves, a-abnormally long l-limbs and l-looks like h-he's just g-got out of t-the f-forest." he whispered stammeringly. His friends paled and widen their eyes as they looked back at me.
I tilted my head to the right.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!" the children screamed and ran back to the town.
Great.
What should I do now? The children will surely alert the elders and I must not be seen until I convince them I wish them no harm. I must go back to the forest and learn more about my powers until I am ready to evade every possible attack if necessary.
Slenderman walked through the dark forest which would scare the shit out of any normal being, but he was by no means any normal being.
Only about 6 hours had passed since his reincarnation and he could see the sun rising, but he felt no need for sleep or rest, so he continued wandering through the said forest.
He was now wondering what he should do next. He knew he couldn’t simply walk in the public area, he would cause a massive panic and then the authorities of this world would try to hunt him down and he has yet to master his newly found powers.
So far, he started understanding how his “Slender Walking” worked. Slender is actually a higher dimensional being which exists in the 5th dimension, the one outside time and space. He can move through time and space just as humans can move on the ground, which to humans look like he's teleporting and even become omnipresent. However, he must not do that for too long or his physical form will slowly fade away and thus forever trap him in the state of omnipresence, erasing his ability to interact with any being.
Next is his mental power. With it, he had managed to trap a pack of wooden wolves under his control and make them do whatever he wanted.
He hasn’t tried it yet on any “pony”, but the effect ought to be the same, only with "ponies” probably trying to resist.
With his powerful mind, he even got the ability to utilize telekinesis. He lifted a creature which he recognised as a manticore in the air and threw it 70 feet away from him telekinetically.
If you didn’t notice it by now, he had been attacked few times and was forced to learn how to defend himself when he didn’t know to utilize his mental powers.
He has effortlessly killed a hydra using his teeth and tentacles, who were surprising strong despite them being boneless.
His final known power is combustion inducement. With his will, he can make objects and living beings burst into flames with a thought.
Like stated before, he has yet to master his powers.
When he mentally controlled the wooden wolves, he accidentally made their heads explode, a mistake he cannot afford to happen if he wants just to manipulate "ponies”.
When he used his telekinesis, he also blew away everything in an omnidirectional blast.
When he made a tree burst into flames, he had to immediately put it out since he couldn’t control it and didn’t want the entire forest catching ablaze.
The only power he has some sort of mastery is Slender Walking.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted when he felt a sudden wave of dread washing over him.
The dread wasn’t his, he felt it radiating from afar.
Quickly Slender Walking towards its radius, he was presented with a sight of a manticore growling at a "pony” girl who was pinned to a tree. The girl couldn’t be more than 6 years old. She had blue fur and light blue hair. She was dressed in a light blue dress which had grass and dirt stains on it and had a blue tiara.
She was looking at the manicore with pure dread in her eyes and the manticore was ready to pounce at her any second now.
Slender didn’t wait for it to happen, so he Slender Walked behind the manticore and grabbed its mane with his left hand.
The girl didn’t immediately notice him, since she was covering her eyes with her arms, still in fear of getting eaten.
Slender placed his other hand on manticore’s muzzle and with a quick and strong movement, he snapped the manticore's neck before it even realized what was happening.
He threw manticore aside and looked at the "pony” girl who was still shaking and cowering in fear. He didn’t know should he stay right in front of her and allow her to see him, or should he Slender Walk away and watch her from a distance.
He chose former, since stalking wasn’t something he liked to do.
Woona had noticed how she felt no pain and was not getting eaten, so she unsurely lowered her arms and decided to take a look.
Her eyes widen and the sense of dread washed over her yet again.
She was presented with a sight of abnormally tall and faceless creature with unproportional limbs dressed in a fancy black suit accompanied with a scarlet tie.
She stared at the creature for a few seconds, not knowing what should she do. The creature just stood and “stared” at her as well, only cocking its head occasionally from side to side.
“Uhm, hello?”, Woona spoke up. She concluded that the creature might be sentient, since it wore modern clothes which couldn’t be simply crafted from leaves from the forest.
The creature said nothing and continued to stare at her, making her a bit uncomfortable.
“Uhm, dost thou understand us?”, she asked unsurely. Creature nodded.
It nodded!
Woona couldn’t help but smile. The creature did have sentience!
“Dost thou have a name?”, she asked and the creature nodded yet again. It then leaned forward and started writing something in the dirt with its long bony fingers.
Woona was confused by this. Why couldn’t the creature simply tell her- Oh right, it has no mouth.
The creature straightened up and let Woona see the writing.
Slenderman
“Slenderman? Is that thy name?”, she asked and Slenderman nodded.
“Well, Slenderman, our name is… WOONA!”, she cutely yelled out and made equally cute pose.
Unknowingly to her, Slenderman grinned widely, but quickly stopped to hide his predatory teeth.
“Mr Slenderman, could thou maybe show us a way out of this forest if thou knowest it? We art a bit lost.” Woona asked while rubbing her neck sheepishly. Slender nodded and extended his left hand. Woona tried to take it, the key word being tried. She was just too short. Slender found it cute how she tried to jump to grab his hand, but ultimately failed at the end. Deciding to help her, Slender extended his tentacles towards her. Woona watched in awe as Slenderman’s tentacles made their way to her and wrapped around her body.
Woona squeaked as Slenderman lifted her and placed her on his shoulders.
“Wow, is this how thou seest things?”, she asked as she looked around with a big grin on her face. He nodded and started walking out of the forest.
His first thought was to leave her at Hollow Shades, but saw that she didn’t look like one of those “bat-ponies”, so he decided to lead her to a city he recently saw. If nothing else, at least she could ask there for directions.
After some walking, he finally reached the city. He again wrapped his tentacles around Woona and gently put her on the ground.
“Thank thou, mr Slenderman, for helping us to-”, but she was cut of by a scream.
”LUNAAAA!”, she looked in the direction of the scream to see her older sister, Celestia, running at her.
“Luna, what were thou thinking?! Our parents art worried sick ‘cause of thee!”, Celestia scolded her little sister. Luna uncomfortably rubbed her neck and muttered small “Sorry.”
Celestia sighed.
“Nevermind, let us go to our parents, before they die of worry.”
“Can we bring our new friend?”, she asked innocently. Celestia looked behind Luna, left and right and then back at Luna.
“What friend?”, she questioned.
“The one nex-”, but Luna stopped, seeing that Slenderman wasn’t anywhere to be seen. It looked like he just vanished.
“B-but, h-he was there. WE SWEAR!”, Luna exclaimed. Celestia sighed, placing her left hand on her hip and pitching the bridge of her nose.
“Luna, I have no time for thine imaginations. Come now!”, Celestia said in serious tone. Luna’s ears dropped and she sadly looked behind her back.
”Where art thou?”
“Princess Luna Solaria Nocturnus, dost thou know how much hast we worried about thee?”, Luna’s mother, Queen Galaxia, sternly question trembling Luna. Celestia had to literally bring Luna to the throne room since the latter was petrified of fear. While Galaxia is more favored one of Luna’s parents because Luna’s father, King Cosmos, was always a bit stern and Galaxia was usually forgiving, when she was angry, not even Cosmos dared openly argue against her (he slept on a couch for a month when he had done it).
That’s the reason Luna was trembling from head to hoof.
“W-we a-art s-sorry, m-mother.”, Luna managed to stammer out, not daring to look her mother in the eyes. She could feel her mother’s glare increasing.
“And where, pray tell, hast thou been?”, she questioned.
“W-we w-were in the f-forest m-mother. W-we w-wanted to go a bit o-outside.”
“The why art thou so dirty?”, her father questioned.
“W-we have been attacked by a manticore.”, Luna admitted.
“WHAT?! Art thou injured?!”, Galaxia shouted, immediately switching on her motherly mode, completely forgetting about her anger because Luna sneaked out without a permission and immediately jumped from her throne to check on her youngest daughter.
“We art fine, mother. A bit bruised, but fine. We were saved.”, Luna said, feeling a bit uncomfortable as her mother checked her from head to toe.
“Who saved thou? We wish to whole-heartedly thank the pony who saved thou from certain death.”
“Erm, it wasn’t a pony, mother.”
“Who was it then?”
“We do not know. He wasn’t like anything we have seen or read about.”
“Could thou describe him or draw a picture of him?”, Cosmos asked. Luna was known for her memory and drawing. She could literally draw a picture of a garden she had seen for a 5 seconds in extremely accurate details.
Luna nodded and went to fetch a piece of paper, pencil and color pencils.
“Here, mother.”, Luna proudly presented her drawing to her parents after a short period of time.
Galaxia and Cosmos exchanged a look.
“Luna, art thou absolutely sure thou did not just imagine him?”, Cosmos asked. Luna huffed and crossed her arms.
“Of course not! He lead us out of the forest and even let us sit on his shoulders!”, Luna strongly objected.
“Where is he now?”, he asked and Luna looked at her hooves.
“We do not know. He just… vanished.”
“Fine then. Go to thy rooms, girls, and get some rest. Thy lessons shalt start in 3 hours.”, Galaxia dismissed them. After they left, she turned to her husband.
“Dost thou believe in Luna’s telling?”, she questioned him.
“The details she gave us about her “friend” art too accurate to be simply made up. Thou knowest that Luna isn’t that creative.”, he said and received a nod from Galaxia.
“If that creature surely exist within forests, we should send a group of soldiers to investigate and find it. Surely, it hast saved Luna, but we do not know if it had done it to get closer to us. If the soldiers find it and it dost not prove hostile, we should lead it here and at least properly thank it.”, he finished and Galaxia nodded in agreement.
