Thing is, you don’t really ever notice when something is wrong. Until its too late, that is. I think I might be going mad. And for somebody who cares a lot about their own appearance, I’ve noticed that most people don’t really, well, notice when something doesn’t look right.
And I don’t mean a run in your stockings or a bad haircut or smudged lipstick. People at Crystal Prep care about that. They’ll drive you to drink over that. But real things? Serious things? Nobody notices that sort of mistake and I don’t blame them. You don’t want to know if somebody’s teeth are too sharp or if their shadow moves on their own or if their eyes flash red when they think you’re not looking. You really, really don’t want to know that kind of thing. Because, once you do, you can’t forget it.
It started a few weeks ago, just after the last Friendship Games. I can’t really remember that night or if we won or lost or whatever but I’m not sure if I really want to remember that either. The only thing I remember that night is Twilight Sparkle of all people. Except, that it wasn’t Twilight Sparkle, not exactly. The girl standing outside the school that night had something wrong with her. Horribly wrong. It was like something else was wearing her. And that person or that thing didn’t quite fit. That part’s like movie footage in HD.
She walked across a patch of grass in front of Canterlot High School. No, walk is the wrong word for what she did. It was like she was a puppet on a string. She jerked her way from one step to another and the flesh under her skin shifted and it moved as if it was alive and had a mind of its own. Her eyes were glowing with this blue smoke and her skin was a few shades darker than usual. Her nails were too long, claws basically. She was smiling the entire time like she was drunk at a party. That wasn’t like her at all. Twilight never smiled. And I don’t think I ever saw her get drunk either. Her teeth were wrong. They didn’t match her face. Too big and too sharp. Like the teeth of some kind of a carnivore. She started to speak and I don’t know what she was speaking in. I don’t think it was in a human language at all. I blacked out after that.
I’m not sure what happened to her after the Friendship Games. I’ve seen her around Canterlot a few times, here and there, but always with people I’ve never met. Strange people. One’s too quiet and she never blinks. Another’s too loud and she always wears a leather jacket. The leather looks to smooth to come from a cow. There are lumps under it that kick against the clothing. A third is constantly hyperactive, almost like Lemon on Jaeger Bombs. Only worse somehow, because that one, she isn’t ever where you’d expect her to be. I once saw her jump down three stories and land unharmed. Worst of all though is this girl, Rarity. We used to be best friends.
She and I met a few years ago at some party my father had thrown. We got on well after that and we were practically inseparable. There was a shared love of fashion and beauty and art and culture. I programmed a website for her to sell her dresses from. She gave me one for the middle school prom. We grew apart after I was given a scholarship to Crystal Prep and I moved downtown. She stopped texting after that and I think I had just assumed that she’d made new friends, and that she had just moved on.
Now I see that I was mistaken. I saw Rarity again while out with Sugarcoat. She was sitting at the table right next to ours, with some boy who had a stupid lovestruck grin on his face the entire time. She didn’t recognize me. I talked to her and she told me quite rudely to find somebody else to talk to. Sugarcoat asked her what was wrong too and she pointed out how pale my former friend looked, how red her lips were and how she’d barely touched her food. Rarity didn’t even look up. She just clutched her date’s hand. Hard enough to draw blood. He didn’t react. We left the Tasty Treat without dessert and headed right home. We weren’t planning anything. We didn’t do anything. At the time, I just felt sick, sick to my stomach, and I had this awful feeling of wrongness and I wanted more than anything else to get away. I spent the rest of the night in my girlfriend’s arms, trying not to cry when the shadows in my bedroom made by the trees outside looked a bit too lifelike.
I really started paying attention after that night. Not that I wanted to but I couldn’t help it. My grades fell two letters. I dropped out of all the sports teams I could quit and started skipping the rest. Nothing looked right anymore. And I didn’t want to be there, around people. People like Fleur des Lis. She and I were never friends but we managed to respect each-other. She’s from Prance, by the way, and that’s important. She often used to call her boyfriend during lunch breaks, and they’d talk the entire time and discuss each-other’s days and lives and tell the other about how much they loved them. All in Prench, which I could speak. I thought it was quite romantic.
I never actually met the guy. I doubt I ever will. I saw Fleur talking one day and she was right where she always used to call up Fancy Pants and that was on an old stone bench under the weeping willow tree by the stream. The tree was dead. It was just a blackened skeleton of torched wood. The grass around it was a dying yellow too and the creek was running black with some dark liquid. The sun was beating down that day but Fleur ignored it even though she was sun-burnt bright pink. She was speaking, but the words weren’t correct. It was gibberish. Just random words without any thought to composition or meaning strung together and screamed at the phone. Her boyfriend was pleading in Ponish back at her and it didn’t help one bit. Fleur kept yelling and nobody else cared. Sour Sweet and Upper Crust walked right past her and they nodded hello and apparently, they thought Fleur nodded back because they then starting having this conversation.
I would have run away if I could but my feet were rooted to the ground. Fancy sounded like he was hurt, badly. He was begging and sobbing and moaning in pain. Sour and Upper kept making polite conversation at the screaming girl. Fleur wasn’t even breathing by the end of it and her stream of nonsense stopped even having words. It was just sounds by the time the other girls had grown tired of talking and had started walking away. Then she threw the phone at the ground and it shattered. Fancy screamed like he’d been stabbed, and kept screaming even though the phone was in a hundred different pieces. He only stopped once Fleur had sat back down again and had picked up a book.
I blinked and the tree was alive again and it was as it usually was. This beautiful cloud of soft green leaves hanging over a stream of sparkling water. Fleur greeted me in that accent of hers and then remarked about how clumsy she was, that she’d dropped her phone. I ran away after that and hid in the library for the rest of the day with my face buried in a textbook I can’t remember, thinking of my family and of Sugarcoat and of safe places and of soft fuzzy animals.
Another day I saw Neon Lights and Indigo Zap get into a fight. They used to be friends. Now they were going all out, with knives and everything. A crowd had formed around them. I can’t remember a single person that was in it. Nobody stepped in to stop the fight, even though that’s Crystal Prep policy. I know teachers were there, and they were cheering along with the rest of the school and they were chanting for the two students to kill each-other.
And believe me, they tried. I stopped looking after a while. It was too disgusting to watch. Indigo’s one eye was dangling out of its socket and the flesh on her cheeks had been carved away so she was permanently smiling. Her dress was drenched with blood. Neon Lights’ sunglasses had been shattered and he didn’t have eyes at all. They weren’t gouged out. They were just gone and in their place was this flat patch of skin. He had four knives sticking out of him, two in each hand, and he was using them like claws to attack Indigo. Both were bleeding profusely. There was more blood on the ground than there should be in a person. By the time the bell rang, they were still going strong and screaming insults and kicking and scratching and biting. The crowd had filled the bleachers by that point and spotlights were shining on them while they fought.
The next class, both Indigo and Neon walked in completely fine without a single scratch on them. They sat down next each-other and spent the maths lesson shooting spitballs at people and carving curses on their desks. Everything was back to normal and I even saw Neon’s eyes under his sunglasses when he bent down to pick up a chunk of eraser Indigo had flicked at him.
Last week I saw somebody who wasn’t even in the school. Three of them, in fact. Three girls, barely older than ten, wearing scaled-down school uniforms, going to classes as if nothing was out of place. Lemon greeted them like they were old friends and they talked about how music could be used to control peoples’ minds. I didn’t want to listen to how much pleasure the trio took in describing how the right song could make a man do anything. Believe me, I mean anything. They talked about sex and cannibalism and murder. I nearly threw up in a trashcan when they mention what a good ballad could do if you tickled him with a feather while playing it.
I was just about to go get lunch, and sit down next to Sugarcoat and we were going to lip-read people’s conversations and make up really stupid things for them to say but then Lemon called me over. I wanted nothing more than to walk away and ignore her and her horrid friends but my legs wouldn’t listen. I walked over like I was a puppet on a string. She gave me her headphones. I dropped them, claimed it was by accident, and apologised and ran. There wasn’t anything playing out of them that day. Usually there was and you could hear it even if you just sat next to Lemon on the bus it was so loud. Not that day. Even touching that thing made the whole room sound quieter, drowning out the sounds of lunch with this awful wave of silence.
By the time I had fetched myself a tray and was sitting down, the little girls had gone away and Lemon had her headphones again and they were completely intact. Sugarcoat and I talked as usual, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk. Looking at people made all the mistakes stand out. Looking at their them reminded me how tongues weren’t forked and how hands should only have five fingers and the fingernails on those fingers should be there and not missing and leaving red sores in their place.
Yesterday was the worst day yet. I went to school as usual and everything was going well until Sour called me over to talk. She said that it was an intervention.
“Sunny, you’ve been acting strangely the last few days and I’m – we’re – getting worried about you.” Sugarcoat said once me, her, and the other four Shadowbolts were sitting outside and safely away from any prying eyes.
“I’m fine.” I said.
“That’s really nice of you to try not to worry us, but you look like shit!” Sour said.
“Yeah, Sunny. You’ve been really tired all the time and I kinda miss hanging out with you. We haven’t gone music shopping in, like, two months.” Lemon agreed.
“I know. I’ve just been really busy lately. You see, I’m studying for a college and that’s taking up a lot of my time.” I blurted out.
“Come on, studying? You built entire OS for fuck’s sake. You’re Sunny Flare, you don’t study!” Indigo shouted.
“I do now. Getting into Everton is really important to me and I really want to do well in the exam. It’s the only college I know of that offers both Programming, Fashion Design and Molecular Biology.”
“That’s not an excuse to quit the soccer team, you selfish moron. You were our goalkeeper!” Indigo said.
“She’s right. That was selfish. Furthermore, exercise has been proven to stimulate mental activity.” Sugarcoat said, “You’d get higher marks if you played sports.”
“I know but there’s so much stuff to learn, girls. I don’t think I can cover it all if I take all time off.” I said.
“Trust me, you can. I know this seems really tough and all but we’re your friends. We’re here for you.” Said Lemon. The conversation was serious enough for her to remove her headphones, hanging the pink appliance around her neck. I could vaguely hear the thrash guitar emanating from its speakers.
“Thanks. That means a lot.”
“Yeah, don’t forget we care about you, Sunny. If you do, I’ll kick your ass!” Sour said.
“She means well. We all do. Just take a day off, alright? See how enjoy doing the things you used to do.” Sugarcoat said.
I nodded and stood up. We hugged and then walked off. School was over by that point, so we went to the mall. Once we had walked out the gate, I blinked. I was back at the table between the two sports fields, where we had talked just minutes before. My bracelet beeped with the chime of a new alert. Shivering, my hand moved to check it.
It was MyStable update. From my own page.
“At the Mall and having a great time!” It read, and a few seconds later my bracelet beeped again. This time the update was a picture. It was of me and my friends, smiling at the camera. I was standing in the middle, with a smug grin on my face.
Another update. They kept coming the whole night long, text and photos of me and my friends’ night on the town.
“Nothing like a spa day, amirite?”
“Which pair? Red heels or black pumps? Both.”
“The nights you’ll never remember, the friends you’ll never forget.”
“Me and my girl, hopelessly in love.”
The torture went on until midnight. I just sat there, too stunned to move and just watching my life go on without me. I realised that I didn’t remember saying anything that whole afternoon. I heard my voice speak, but I didn’t say anything. I just sat and watched as my friends tried to help and somebody else played the part of Sunny Flare. I cried myself to sleep, still fixed to the table, my bracelet muted and its batteries torn out.
I awoke today back in my own room. My jewellery was sitting beside my bed and that was where it usually was whenever I woke up. I didn’t know what to do, really, because getting up would mean dealing with the outside world and that would mean noticing anything.
So, I stayed in bed, just lying there and trying to rationalize what happened yesterday? Was there another me? Had I been replaced by some kind of monster or had I just imagined the whole thing. Thinking about it made my head ache and my throat burn. Looking over again to my nightstand, I saw a note pinned down beneath one of my bracelets. I looked at it and saw that it was in my own hand writing.
Deer Me
Sorry. I was drinking again and I think I had toooo much cognac. I blame Indygo. It was her idea to mix deliciously good and very special VS with Red Bull. Sugarcoat says we didn’t do anything super dumb so I believe her. If you’re reading this, you probably dont remember anything and you definitely are super hungover, like blackout drunk hungover. I leave you a bottle of water. Again, I’m very sorry. I had a great night btw.
Yours, sincerely (and literally, lol),
Sunny Flare.
Ps. I have no idea where your socks are.
Well, that certainly explained something. Namely why my head felt like a monkey was trapped inside it and was playing grindcore at volumes even Lemon would object to. That and why my feet are cold. But, if I really wrote that letter, and did get drunk enough to forget what happened last afternoon, did I really even post anything on MyStable at all?
I turned my bracelet on. I checked the page. All of the posts were there, in the order I’d seen them yesterday. Looking at that was a shock. But, looking at them again actually brought memories back. Hazy memories, yes, but real memories. Indigo fighting a bouncer. Sour and I trying on shoes. Lemon flirting with the DJ. Sugarcoat being, well, herself and trying to convince a random stranger that he’d ordered drinks for our table. I recall enjoying every minute of it.
Maybe I am just going insane from stress. I had been studying a lot lately, diving into a book whenever the world got to weird to deal with. Come to think of it, the exam wasn’t that hard. I had taken literally hundreds of practice tests and I had scored fairly well. Maybe if I just keep this up, hanging out with my friends, everything will go back to normal. That’d be nice.
My bracelet started to ring.
Sugarcoat was calling.
“Good morning, Sunny. I’m outside. It’s cold. You should probably let me in before I catch hypothermia and die because then you’d be single again.”
“Hello?”
“Hello. Yes. Are you feeling alright?”
“No.” I eventually said.
“Then please let me in. Remember our conversation yesterday?”
“Not really.”
“The one about the Friendship Games.”
“You said something about Sunrise Stammer, right? The girl who nearly beat Twilight in a geometry test?”
“Her name was Sunset Shimmer.”
“Is she outside too?” I said, peering out my window, spotting a pair of girls bundled in coats.
“Yes, and her positivity is starting to grate. Please let me in so she can talk to you instead of me. I’ve heard enough about cords to last a lifetime and I still don’t know if she means maths or music.”
“Will do. Just give me a minute.”
“I’m counting. Sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.”
I closed the call and climbed out of bed and nearly tripped over a bottle of sparkling water. That I drank and it made my throat feel marginally better. I put on a dressing gown and went downstairs. So far so good, the house was exactly as it should be. Pointlessly large and filled with my mother’s awful taste in modern art.
The front door opened to reveal Sugarcoat, who gave me a bone-crushing hug, and a red-and-gold-haired girl who was presumably Sunset Shimmer and who asked before hugging me. I let them in and led them to my favourite living room. Sugarcoat and I sat on the couch while Sunset made herself comfortable on an armchair and started laying out the contents of her bag on the coffee table.
“So, I’ve heard you’ve been having, well, trouble.” Sunset said after placing a large prism, a sheathed dagger, a flask of tea and a tin of biscuits on the table.
I nodded, “You could say that.”
“Hallucinations, to be specific.” Sugarcoat added.
“Yeah. Really creepy stuff. Like, out of a horror movie.”
Sunset nodded, and held up the prism and angled the light through it. “I see. That’s been happening a lot, recently.”
“You certainly didn’t say that at the club.” Sugarcoat said, “You just said you wanted to meet Sunny for yourself. You’d called a taxi by the point, by the way.” She said, first to Sunset, and then to me.
“No, I didn’t think it was important. I actually…” Sunset stopped and blushed.
“Wanted to proposition us for a threesome?”
“Well, yeah. Sorry. But, the more I thought about what you’d said, the more I thought that Sunny might actually have a serious problem.” Sunset finished.
“So, you said this was common?” I asked, taking a ginger biscuit. They were slightly burnt.
“Yeah. How much do you know about magic?”
“I know that it’s not real.”
“Wrong. It’s real.”
“Well, you are trying to help. So, let’s say I believe you. Then what? Are you saying I’m possessed or something?”
“Not exactly. More like infected.”
“Well, that inspires confidence. Do you have a cure?” Sugarcoat asked.
“Infected with what? I’ve never heard of a disease that causes hallucinations before.”
“Long story short, it’s sort of like radiation poisoning but with black magic instead. Don’t worry, it’s curable. I just need to take a few tests first.”
“Alright? What kind of tests?” I asked, eying the dagger.
“A blood test, I’m afraid. And don’t worry about the knife. I use that because most people in this Canterlot have a phobia of needles. It shouldn’t hurt much.” Sunset said, unsheathing the knife.
“Wait. Before you stab me, you said this was common, right?” I asked, edging away from the weapon. I didn’t know about anyone else but I didn’t consider being scared of a foot-long sharpened piece of steel a phobia. I considered it being sensible.
Sunset nodded, “Yeah. Anyone close to a source of black magic would be at risk.”
Something clicked. This all started at the Friendship Games, with Twilight. Twilight, who I sat next to in Advanced Computing, Biology and Prench. Twilight, who, if that tabloid spam Lemon sent me a month ago was to be believed, built a device that turned her into some kind of monster.
“Like Twilight Sparkle.” I said.
“Exactly. Since you’ve been exposed longer than most, your symptoms would be far more serious.”
“What happens after that?” Sugarcoat asked.
“Well, on the off chance you’re just mentally ill, I recommend you a psychologist. But if this is Nightmare Corruption, I call over my friends at we shoot magic at you until it goes away.”
“You fight fire with fire?”
“More like fighting evil with evil.” Sugarcoat said.
“Don’t worry. The Rainbooms use harmonic magic. There are absolutely no negative side effects there, unless you count have a great life as one.”
“Well, it’s not like I have anything to lose.” I said, pulling back my sleeve and offering Sunset my wrist.
She was surprisingly gentle, and her skin was as soft as silk. I know this isn’t exactly the time for it, but I might have to reconsider that idea of a threesome some or other time. When I’m healthy again. She had amazing legs and that miniskirt did not hurt a bit.
“All done.” Sunset said, flicking the few drops of dark blood off the blade and onto the prism. They soaked into it like ink poured over paper.
“What now?” I asked.
Sunset held the prism up to the light again and the three of us watched as the rainbow it projected slowly shifted to black. Azure smoke began to drift out from the red glass. Sugarcoat sat there, frantically writing down what was happening in her journal. I couldn’t move and just sat there, eyes bulging out of my skull, watching the literal magic.
“Yeah, this is black magic. A really toxic strain too, Sunset said, pointing to the smoke with the knife before putting the prism back down. I finally blinked when the glass hit the table.
“That was incredible. How did you do that?” Sugarcoat asked.
“I didn’t. Harmony did. But you can totally interview me later.” Sunset winked.
“Wow. I’m shocked. Magic is real and that’s why I’ve been going insane the last couple of weeks?”
“Yeah. This is the worst case I’ve ever seen.” Sunset said, “I don’t even know if Harmony can fix this” She added, a tinge of pleasure creeping into her voice.
“What do you mean?” I said, grabbing Sugarcoat’s hand.
“I mean that you’re literally creating the stuff.”
“You can cure her, right?” Sugarcoat asked.
“I can cure everyone.”
“How? Explain. You just said Harmony wouldn’t be able to help here.”
“I’m not talking about Harmony, Sugarcoat. I’m talking about cold hard steel.” Sunset said, picking the knife back up, running a finger over the razor-sharp edge until it was coated in blood again.
“Don’t. You. Fucking. Touch. My. Girlfriend.” Sugarcoat said, standing up.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Sunset said, licking the knife. As she slipped her forked tongue over the blade, her skin darkened, reddening and growing leathery. Her eyes followed suit, becoming black pits. Her teeth sharpened into fangs and her jacket ripped and tore into a pair of ragged wings.
“But nightmares can accommodate.” She said in a voice far too smooth and calm and soft for the awful monster she had become.
Sugarcoat took a step back. I followed her, ducking back behind the couch. The girl-turned-demon approached, almost lazily, her dagger shifting and warping into a wicked scimitar.
“Run.” Sugarcoat said, grabbing my hand.
I couldn’t move. I stood and stared at the thing coming toward me. For the first time in weeks, I knew that I was perfectly sane. I hated it.
“Run! I’ll hold it off!” Sugarcoat yelled, stepping in front of me.
I ran. Or at least, I tried to. My legs went to jelly as I heard her scream. Trying my hardest to ignore the disgusting sound of steel against flesh and bone and blinking away tears, I had staggered to the staircase and began to climb up.
“Stop running. Come back home.” It commanded.
My legs obeyed her. I was dragged back to it like a dog on a leash.
“Kneel. It’s been so long since I’ve fed.” It moaned, licking its fangs and raising its sword.
I collapsed to the floor, and caught a glimpsed a sight of Sugarcoat. She was dead. In bloody pieces, scattered around the living room. I couldn’t hold back tears any longer and I wept.
“Be quiet. Fear ruins the meat.” It said and its words sewed my mouth shut. They then wrenched my head back up to face her.
The demon grinned, its black eyes glowing with a cyan malevolence. Then it brought its sword down on.
I blinked.
“Oh, fuck oh fuck oh fuck! I… I… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she would do that! I’m so sorry. I should’ve just gotten over that damn phobia and used a needle! Please, I’m sorry!” Sunset sobbed.
I looked up at her. Sugarcoat was alive. And she was furious. Sleeves rolled and fists balled, she advanced on the now-human Sunset, who backed away and continued to stutter apologies.
“Wait!” I shouted. “I’m…”
I looked down at myself. I saw the dagger sticking out of my chest, blood pooling around the rug I lay on.
“I’m dying?” I said, barely feeling a thing.
Sugarcoat hit Sunset. The girl fell hit the ground with a crunch, her neck bent at an awful angle. Even though her back was turned, her head was twisted so far around that I could see her face.
With black eyes and jagged fangs, it winked.
I closed my eyes as the pain hit me. I don’t think I opened them either.
