Life
Metamorphosis
Death
It Curdles
‘Sweetie Belle, what did I tell you about staying up past your bedtime? This is the second time this week, and the fifth this month!’
Silence.
Rarity cocked her head to the side and released an exasperated, if somewhat exaggerated sigh. She stood at the cusp of Sweetie Belle’s bedroom, the door opened to no more than a crack. Light from the hallway illuminated her sister’s stationary form sat upon her bed, facing towards the shadows.
‘Don’t do this to me. We’ve spoken about “the silent treatment” before. We agreed that it wasn’t helpful or nice for either one of us,’ Rarity called out from her sister’s door frame.
Rarity shifted uncomfortably.
‘Isn’t this awkward for you too?’ she pleaded.
Nothing.
‘Fine then, have it your way! Stay up the whole night for all I care.’ Rarity screeched, opening the door wide with a teal shimmer and promptly slamming it shut as loudly as possible.
Tears fought their way to the surface of Rarity’s eyes as she unceremoniously stomped her way downstairs and into her dress-making parlor. Rarity plomped herself onto a cushioned chair and began to openly sob.
She half expected Sweetie Belle to trot downstairs and apologetically nudge her hoof.
She never came.
‘Oh the woes of living with an adolescent. What am I ever to do with myself?’ Rarity cried between the ebbs and flows of her sobbing, making very sure that Sweetie Belle would hear her.
Still nothing.
Rarity sighed and leaned back in her chair, pitying herself. She felt cursed, doomed even. Doors to opportunities and adventures she’d never experience systematically slammed shut in her head.
She’d lost a battle of willpower against a filly.
This is the end of all things.
Rarity shut her eyes and accepted her fate, fighting the urge to release another cascade of sobs.
‘Or I could just go back up stairs and apologize for throwing such a hissy fit.’ she thought.
‘I suppose that works too.’ Rarity cooed to herself, swiping at her mascara stained eyes for extra emotional discourse for the upcoming confrontation.
Rarity turned to face the stairs, only to find them drenched in darkness.
A mangled sense of dread filled her bowels.
‘I could’ve sworn that the lights were on just a few moments ago. Maybe Sweetie Belle turned them off?’
Rarity approached the stairs at a gingerly pace, illuminating her horn to act as a wayward light source for her ascent. Every step in the climb felt agonizingly tense and elongated in anticipation of what awaited her; somehow, Rarity hoped that she’d never reach the top.
The staircase winded and twisted, barring Rarity’s view of the summit.
‘You’re overreacting Rarity. Since when are you so afraid of the dark?’ she chided herself.
Midway through the trek, Rarity heard a click behind her.
Her heart dive bombed into her bowels and trampolined back into place. A curt glance over her shoulder confirmed her fear.
‘The lights downstairs are off.’
A quiver ran down Rarity’s spine and into her legs, forcing them to quake underneath her. Rarity chomped on her lip in a facade of bravery, and forced herself to continue up the stairs.
‘Maybe it’s just a power outage?’
Eventually, the staircase ended, making way for the dark abyss of Carousel Boutique’s second floor. Rarity took a deep breath, and stepped out from the stairway and into the pitch black maw ahead of her.
Sweetie Belle’s door stood but a few meters down the hallway, still closed shut.
‘That just about rules out Sweetie Belle turning the lights off.’ Rarity thought to herself nervously.
She approached the door cautiously, landing every hoofstep with practiced care. Rarity took a deep, if muffled breath, and stopped directly in front of her younger sister’s door. It seemed to mock her, as if daring her to enter.
Rarity fluttered her eyes and inhaled, illuminating the door handle with teal magicka.
She exhaled.
The door opened but a crack.
Just enough to reveal to Rarity’s horror, that Sweetie Belle hadn’t moved from her seated position.
‘Sweetie Belle?’ Rarity called out to her unmoving sibling.
Against all better judgement, she took a step into Sweetie Belle’s room. The shadows seemed to warp and dance around her, as one pained movement followed another.
Rarity stopped no more than a meter away from her younger sister’s bed, horn still frizzling with teal light. From this distance, she identified a startling detail about her sister.
‘She isn’t breathing.’ Rarity thought.
Her heart began to dance and gyrate once again.
Teal light illuminated Sweetie Belle’s unusually pale and lifeless form. Rarity couldn’t help but close her eyes as she reeled to the front of her sister.
‘Sweetie Belle?’ Rarity whispered in between hyperventilated breaths, panic flaring in her voice.
The silence radiated off her eardrums, threatening to concave inwards.
‘It curdles. But change is good after all.’ Sweetie Belle whispered, piercing the forlorn quiet.
Rarity’s legs turned into tissue paper, and collapsed from underneath her. She plummeted to the floor rump first, landing with a resounding thud. Scrambling away from her sister, she planted her back firmly against the bedroom wall.
Rarity opened her eyes, and willed her horn to shine bright.
Something sat in front her.
Something that certainly wasn’t Sweetie Belle.
At least not entirely.
Some aspects of it looked like her sweet sister. The thing’s horn seemed to match her sister’s, as did its multicolored candy-esque mane. That’s where the similarities ended.
Pus leaked like sewage from a drain down its malformed snout, which seemed to contort and writhe as though alive in of itself. One emerald green eye seemed almost right, whilst the other had shrunk and twisted at some unnatural angle.
‘Her muzzle, oh Celestia her muzzle.’
A gaping, endless maw hung in a sick parody of where Sweetie Belle’s once petite, curt mouth had rested. The maw’s lines of wicked sharp razors seemed to twitch and convulse, as though gnawing on some invisible morsel.
Tumor-like curds all over the thing’s body throbbed and pressed tightly against its alabaster coat, threatening to pop if so much as breathed on.
‘Where is my sister? YOU ARE NOT HER!’ Rarity screamed through sobs equal part panic and terror.
‘Don’t worry Rarity,’ The thing’s maw howled in sporadic movements. ‘I’m brand new.’
The world began to spin and jump around Rarity’s peripheral vision as she watched the maw’s sick parody of an attempt at pony speech.
Rarity willed her magic to envelope the creature, but the very attempt sent echoes of dull, thudding pain down her horn which effectively extinguished her light source. She gritted her teeth in agony. All the while, the thing remained unmoving from its seated position, watching Rarity’s plight through distorted eyes.
‘Run. Get help.’ Rarity thought to herself in a moment of clarity in between the ebbs and flows of the hornache.
She fought to her hooves, and stammered towards the now twisting doorway. Her insides seemed just about ready to purge themselves, twisting and turning at every step she took. Even through the piercing darkness, Rarity could tell that the door remained open.
‘Only a few more steps.’ Rarity urged on.
She flung herself into the hallway, and made a beeline for the stairway, stopping just short of the all consuming darkness below. Rarity closed her eyes, and through the pain in her horn, mustered a miniscule shimmer.
She carefully began her descent.
The darkness twisted and swirled around Rarity, enveloping all but a short radius around her horn. Something nudged and tugged at her cheek in a not entirely unpleasant manner.
‘Change is good.’ Rarity thought to herself.
After what felt like an eternity of navigating the winding staircase, Rarity reached the ground floor, desperately searching for the exit. Somewhere in the darkness, a feline purred in content at the sight of her owner.
‘Opalescence!’ Rarity whispered excitedly, before shining light on her cat.
Opal too had changed.
Rarity didn’t scream.
‘Change is good.’ Rarity cooed, as she allowed the horribly disfigured creature to crawl onto her back.
Something itched and gnawed at her forelegs. Rarity glanced downwards, and to her surprise, found her body twisting and changing. Tumorous curds grew exponentially all over her once pristine marble form.
‘Change is good.’ Rarity repeated, before trotting to a standstill.
‘What am I doing again? Oh yes, help. Help for Sweetie Belle.’ Rarity recalled, as the tug at her cheek grew progressively into a writhing vortex.
She made for the exit once more, before casting a curt glance over one of her many mirrors.
The tumors continued to spread all around her body, and to her surprise, she had sprouted a second, razor filled mouth.
‘I’m brand new.’ Rarity remarked, before bursting out the front door and onto the streets of Ponyville with Opal rested comfortably on her back.
The streets were alive with a contrast between chaotic violence and sublime bliss. Some ponies screamed and fled in all directions, whilst others walked peacefully.
They too had changed.
Everything changed.
‘Change is good. I’m brand new.’ Rarity remarked with a twin set of smiles, the flames of Ponyville dancing in her eyes as towering monstrosities wormed in the smoke.
Change is good.
It Curdles.
