In the beginning, there was Chaos. Swirling, formless Chaos, all but inhospitable. Over the years, tempered to a more manageable form, a force of creation. Given form. Long, like what might one day become a snake, mismatched limbs, lopsided eyes, in a word: Discord.
This was worse.
Chaos could be managed. Bound to stone, organized. It wasn't strictly evil, nor could it be confined to good. You don't appreciate just how easy Chaos is to deal with until it's long since packed it's bags and swam out of existence.
In the gloom, a shape stirred. You could be forgiven for mistaking the odd-shaped lump as just a rock, or, if you were feeling whimsical, perhaps a distorted image of the village that once have stood here, then proud and colorful. The shape shifted and disentangled from itself, until it stood a distance from the ground, supported by several columns of wavering material. It shivered, solidifying its grasp of its own proportions, almost certain of it's equine status. A low, piping, swirling sound emitted from it's head, echoing noiselessly off the folds of space around it.
Pony. Of course that's what it was! What he was? He made a check to be sure, it was hard enough to keep flimsy things like shapes and time coherent. Did he always have three legs? Ah, there's four, and a fifth one. No, one of those was wrong, hard- like bone, and much shorter, and with a spiraling texture. Did stallions have this many appendages? Or mares for that matter?
The creature decided, for simplicity, it would refer to itself as a mare for the time being. Yes, she thought, that should make one simple thing. She was beginning to remember, perhaps she had decided that before as well. There was a rumble in her midsection. Her heartbeat? No, some other sensation. Like a series of bubbles swishing through squishy tunnels inside her. Hunger, perhaps, yes that should be it. She paused in her routine of self-reflection to take in her surroundings.
She was standing on the floor, it seemed, though she wasn't actually sure that the walls or ceiling had quite stopped also being the floor. There didn't seem to be a door to this room, though that clearly hadn't stopped her from getting inside, likely owing to not having formed yet. The floor and the also floor seemed to be pulsing, slowly. Or was it oozing? It was hard to tell, perhaps it was just space roiling through.
She gave one last glance around, and gingerly picked up her meager belongings- an illegible notebook, a threadbare wool blanket, a tattered jacket and her saddlebags. She gave the notebook a look before she put it into her bag, confirming that it still couldn't be read, unrecognizable symbols actively shifting, almost warring on the pages. The pony heaved her chest deeply. It seemed to help her feel better about letting the empty room-of-floors despite giving up on the journal. Again. Finally, the pony picked a direction and took a couple steps. She moved across the floor, she could see that, but the walls did not come any closer, almost rolling to continue being the floor. Heaving another sigh, she took a few more steps and saw a gap form where the wall met the ceiling, gradually widening as she approached, until it took nearly the full verticality of the wall. She knew better than to watch it touch the floor, she'd seen it before and she had nearly expelled several internal organs in illness.
She stifled a shudder as she continued her approach. She could still remember the sickening feeling of watching space fold and unpack itself, it was not simply a matter of the opening touching down and becoming a point of reference, all notions of reality, twisted though they had been, still seemed to shatter as third-dimensional objects distorted and flattened and unpacked all at once. A few more steps and the pony opened her eyes, nearly sick as the opening sat there, impossibly flat and extruded, standing alone, unsupported, but obviously leading outside of this eternally twisting room of floor. She heaved briefly, nothing coming out but air and a taste of bile. Oh good, she thought, I've still got some of my organs then.
Finally stepping out of the impossible place, eyes shut once more, she was greeted by a sickly breeze to let her know she had fully exited the "room". It was now safe to open her eyes. She did so, a pang in her heart that neither the sun nor the moon filled the sky, as it had been since the Coming. No stars, no sun or moon, just a swirling void, just past the mists. The pony glanced around at the twisting scape of what once was a beautiful country road, long ago, saw it twisting slowly around, rising into the tormented sky and plunging impossibly into the rippling earth below.
The mare collected herself and mentally checked her priorities: Find some water, find some food, find shelter (preferably sound in all dimensions), find other survivors. She'd satisfied the first two pretty reliably since the Coming, and was pretty hit-or-miss on the third, though the last was one she'd only checked off twice before, and neither for very long.
Satisfied, she started down the road and forced herself to look away from the space she had come from, only the barest shimmer and ripple where what may have been a field once was now just missing, the ground having just folded up neatly with only the barest seam where it should have and would still be.
You'd never know it was there until you stepped into it, a harrowing sensation if you were unlucky to do so, and less fortunate still to survive the experience, she knew, remembering the tormented gurglings of the pony whom she had seen do just that. She found his mutilated and disfigured body a few days later, after that space unraveled enough to navigate safely. Half rotted already, but it was still obvious that several of his insides had become outsides. Bones were twisted, flesh was torn, joints bent far beyond their limits. Even if she hadn't heard the ponies twisted wails, it would have been obvious they had died painfully and slowly.
The pony trotted on through the glowing mists, careful to make sure she kept to the road. Perhaps she could still find a pond or possibly even a few wild fruits or veggies off the road, but even traveling right next to the road was treacherous, at least the road was still mostly connected to itself and usually wound around near its previous destination. You couldn't be sure of distances or time though, evident by the sky, seen to her direct left, and her rear to her right, dark mane swishing as she walked away from herself, a light streak of color seen occasionally. She stopped and turned, trying to get a better look at herself, but the image she saw continued walking.
Of course, The mare mentally berated herself, of course it wouldn't behave, the very sight was nearly impossible. She turned to continue walking straight off the cliff, almost heaving her guts out at the feeling of her body as what once behaved enough to be considered "gravity" asserted itself in new and exciting ways, her brain sending conflicting impressions to her state of affairs as she was refracted around a corner that simply wasn't. Her hind legs were planted firmly on the other side of the cliff, definitely 90 degrees different than her front legs, which were also definitely planted firmly on this side of the cliff. She gave herself a minute to collect herself, spit the bile from her mouth, and continued on gingerly.
Some time later the mare came upon a faded building, almost entirely intact in this warped waste. A moments deliberation later and she braved the thousand-foot step from the road to walk on toward the derelict barn. Try as she might she could not stifle the small pinprick of hope welling up inside her chest. The mare got to the door and after a couple of breaths, knocked. She waited a few seconds, and knocked again, voice catching and cracking a few times before she got out a solid, if wavering, "Hello". Seconds ticked by, minutes, they could have been hours for all she knew. There was no answer, but a soft, muted, almost mocking echo of her own hail resonating in the structure.
She took a breath and pushed the door open, the awful grinding of rusted metal joined piercing the newfound silence, and the mare wished she had never stepped off the road. There was an orange shape in the middle of the barn, pulsing rhythmically, like a heart. She could see a mangled skeletal structure protruding from the tumorous flesh in several places. Here, a few twisted ribs, there some elongated and broken leg bones. She was nearly sick from the sight before she realized she could hear something on the other side of one of these sad, twisted shapes. The mare walked around, keeping her distance as much as she could. As she came around she saw eyes. Dozens of them, some on noodly tendrils but most just set at odd intervals along what had evidently once been a face, and all of them were looking at her. Into her. Through her. She stopped dead as it opened a series of openings, mouths of all shapes and sizes, and in a cacophonous mishmash tried to speak. There was recognition in the creature's eyes, pleading in it's voice, and a certain horrific helplessness in it's whole demeanor.
Finally the twisted form got enough coordination to get two words out, two words the mare had been dreading, two words spoken with such pained effort that the barn seemed to resonate, and the mare's breathing shallowed.
"K͟i҉̶̧ļ͘l̷̶̨͜͜.͡.̕͝҉̸̛.̢̕͜͡͠ ̷̨̀͡m̵̡̕͞͠e̢͢͢.҉̴͏̢.̸̀̕͠.͘͢͏"
There was an expectant look from the pained, now almost writhing form as the mare just stared, trying not to hyperventilate, trying to keep herself together. She gave a slow, somber nod, unable to trust her voice as her vision began to grow blurry. There was evident relief in the tormented creature as she gathered herself, trying to figure out the best way to make this as painless as possible.
A few minutes of searching and the mare found a broken beam with a rather pronounced point at one end, and after some time rekindling the mares magic she had charred the tip to harden it, burning away some of the splinters to make a smoother entrance while she was at it, choking back sobs intermittently. Finally, she was as ready as she was likely ever going to be. She levitated the now-blackened beam over where she hoped the poor twisted remains of what once was a pony's brain was still located. Through the tears she looked again at her old friends face, and through the sobs she spoke: "I- I'm so so- sorry. I wish- I wish I could help, fix this!"
The amalgamated creature just watched, understanding in its many eyes. It opened its mouths again and said something the pony couldn't understand, though it might have been reassuring, made a motion that may have been a nod, and closed its eyes.
"Goo̷dbye, my frie͏n̶ḑ..."
A couple hours later, the mare was on the road, a plume of acrid, black smoke rising behind her as the raging inferno which once was a happy barn greedily consumed all it could. With one final tear, the pony made one final check mark on her mental list, and crossed that item out as something finally broke inside her.
Author's Note
Well, this was fun to write. It's probably going to be a standalone chapter unless I think of more terrible things to put our Ponytagonist through!