Something Sweet To Bite: Candy Mare Goes to Hell

Something howled in the distance.

Branches and thorns clawed at the pony as she ran. Roots jutted up from the earth to trip her, sending her tumbling through the under brush, but she managed to keep her hooves beneath her and scramble back onto the path. There was no telling how far she had gone or how long she had been running. Time had lost its meaning. All she knew was that there was something out there that she had to get away from, at all costs. Something that was hunting her, even now.

The earth pony's muscles burned as she desperately tried to suck in lungful after lungful of air through a throat that felt like it had constricted to the diameter of the thinnest of straws.

Gasping, she had to slow for a moment to catch her breath.

Truthfully there was no way for her to tell if there was anything chasing her or not, but the mare's every instinct told her to keep moving. The forest was so tangled and she was so turned around, it was hard to say if she was running away from or toward anything at this point, but the farm pony just had to... Keep. Moving.

Where exactly was that thought coming from?

Are these my thoughts, or someone else's?

What if she was being guided in some way toward, exactly, what she was trying to avoid?

Can I really trust my own senses, my own thoughts anymore, after everything I've seen? After what... After what I've done?

The young mare's gallop slowed to a canter. Her canter subsided to a trot. Then she simply stopped altogether. What was the point in running if horror found you wherever you went? In the end, it would just mean she would die tired.

Everything seemed to close in around her. The woods here were old growth, thick and dense and wild, nothing like the forests she had sometimes explored just beyond the farm. Without quite realizing what she was doing, she hid herself beneath a thorn bush as she strained her ears, listening for the sound of pursuit crashing through the underbrush.

All was quiet.

No birds, no bugs. Not even a sigh of a breeze. The air was stagnant here, stale and undisturbed. Dead trees loomed overhead, their skeletal branches so densely grown together that they blocked out the night sky and plunged the forest floor beneath their canopy into an even deeper darkness. It was almost like she was at the bottom of some Stygian abyss, lost in a bottomless cave, drowning in a lightless ocean trench. The very air seemed to weigh down on her, oppressive and ponderous.

What was that?

At last, she heard something!

A dull roar, like a distant ocean. As she peeked out of her hiding place, the earth pony could just make out a ruddy glow moving swiftly towards her. The faint tang of smoke stole into the lifeless air with all the subtlety of a thief in the night, teasing the young mare's nose. A wildfire was sweeping through these tinder dry woods.

Was this what I've been running from? The fire?

It made a degree of sense. A fire would make short work of these dead trees and dry brush. So long as she was within these woods, she too was in danger, as the indiscriminate flames would devour her just as greedily as the dry twigs and fallen leaves. But was running full tilt in the dark really such a good idea? It just seemed like a fast way to split your skull open, tripping over roots or running headlong into gnarled old trees. It didn't seem like something she would normally do, and besides, she couldn't remember how she had gotten to this forest in the first place.

The earth pony tried to recall everything that had happened up to this point, trying to make some sense from the series of events. There had been the fire at the farm, she had gone to town to find help but found none, the fire had spread to the town but she was able to take shelter in a nearby cottage. In the end, that too had succumbed to the flames, and she had been left running through these woods trying to escape a similar fate. There were other memories, but the details were so strange and horrific, they did not seem like the product of a sane mind. They felt like a nightmare that had happened to someone else rather than real events that had transpired.

Has the blaze grown that far beyond control?

The gaps in her memory were troubling. Whenever the farm pony tried to focus on them she felt a wave of dizziness threaten to overtake her.

No, it's not dizziness...

It was more like... Hunger. A deep and abiding hunger that made her feel nauseous and weak at the same time.

Maybe it's not the fire I'm trying to avoid...

It seemed like every time she was on the verge of doing something about her hunger something would interrupt her. She had a feeling for a long time now that there was something wrong with this place. Nothing felt quite real. Everything had a dream like quality... Or to be more precise, it felt like she was trapped in someone else's nightmare.

It went beyond that, though, didn't it?

It wasn't just this place, it was her. There was something clearly, obviously, and desperately wrong with her. She could feel something writhing around in her guts, famished and foul, just waiting for the chance to get out. The more she tried to escape it, the closer it seemed to come. It terrified her, not just the knowing that there was something wrong, but also realizing that there was some part of her that... actually... liked it. There was something about all this that flooded her with an almost painful joy that just made her want to laugh and smile and dance.

A girlish giggle drifted from her own lips.

Where did that come from?

As if in answer, there was a sudden rustle of fallen leaves and the crunch of dead pine needles drawing closer! The young mare crouched low, trying to make herself as small as possible. Whatever was coming, she could tell that it was quite large from the noise it made as it passed through the underbrush. It wasn't long before she could hear the thunder of hooves and the gasps of labored breath.

Had she been chased after all? Or was this another pony trying to escape the oncoming wildfire? The earth pony dared not risk revealing herself unless she knew which it was. Should she throw caution to the wind and simply flee herself?

She hesitated, and lost her chance to act. Whatever was out in the forest, it was practically on top of her!

A stallion burst into the clearing, snorting dust and dripping sweat. Like her, he had clearly been running for some time. In the light given off by the encroaching inferno, his pelt was a fiery red and his mane a shock of orange that was pleasing to her eye. Though it was dark, his silhouetted frame against the burning horizon revealed him to be both tall and muscularly built. Around his neck he wore a horse collar, the kind of gear an Earth Pony often used to aid in pulling a plow or a wagon as needed.

An Earth Pony! He's an Earth Pony just like me!

At long last, had she found the help she had been so desperately searching for? Her curiosity got the better of her, and she moved from her hiding spot. As the young mare did, her hoof came down on a dry twig that loudly snapped, sounding like a gunshot going off in the comparatively silent woods. The stallion turned, wild eyed and panicked, rearing up on his hind legs and pawing at the air in front of him.

He's afraid!

She could smell fear rolling off him in waves.

Fear is what the filly should have been feeling too. After all, this was a stranger, clearly more than twice her size, and here she was all alone with him in the middle of nowhere. There was no one around to hear her scream if he were to trample her. Yet she was not afraid. Instead, she felt almost excited! There was something intoxicating about inspiring such obvious terror in another's heart, especially one that should have held clear advantage over her. The young mare couldn't help but smile and unconsciously let slip another tiny, childish giggle.

This is so funny! Why hadn't I noticed just how funny it all was before?

The farm pony's smile spread into a wide predatory grin as she crawled out of the gloom, her hair hanging damply from her head. The stallion shied away, as if she were a snake or some terrible beast about to strike.

Though the mare enjoyed inspiring rather than experiencing fear, she wasn't so far gone that she didn't realize that she had made a mistake. This was the only other pony she had seen in a long, long time, yet here she was scaring him off! He was clearly about to bolt. She could see the thick muscles cording beneath his hide, just moments away from launching him back into the forest like a frightened fawn. She couldn't let that happen! She wouldn't! She had to stop him!

Acting on pure instinct, she lunged at the colt, her mouth opening wide as she sunk her teeth into the soft flesh beneath his throat. He neighed in shocked pain and tried to kick her loose, but she quickly drug the larger pony down to the ground with a sudden burst of unnatural strength. Once he was on the ground beneath her, she worried at his windpipe, ripping and tearing his skin to shreds. Thick foam and bloody spittle spilled from his mouth as she tore into his thick meaty throat, turning the stallion's cries of pain into a gurgle of terror.

Barely thinking at this point, she tore a gobbet of meat free from the other pony and swallowed it down with gusto before hungrily going back for more! The stallion thrashed about in the dead leaves, trying to get away, but she was relentless as she continued gouging out his throat until she was gnawing on his neck bones!

It wasn't long before the stallion gave one last rattling moan and, shivering from blood loss, sank into stillness.

The only noise that followed were the sounds of a wild animal devouring its kill. Steaming viscera slid over serrated teeth and down a seemingly bottomless gullet accompanied by grunts and moans of pleasure. The more the pony ate, the hungrier she seemed to grow, causing her to eat in an ever more frenzied manner. If this fact occurred to the mare at all, she didn't show it, lost as she was in the moment. It was only after the stallion was reduced to a tangled mess of bloody bone and tattered sinews that the creature which had been a farm pony displayed anything like self-awareness.

As she had consumed the strangers body, so too had the flames consumed the forest around her.

The heat was blistering, and the stagnant air was dispelled as scorching winds howled through the dead trees. The wildfire grew so intense that fire whirls began to develop, sweeping through the forest like the claws of an angry giant. Thick bolts of lightning struck down from the smoke choked sky as pyrocumulus clouds billowed into life. Burning embers and sparks fell like rain, as the wind grew more violent, causing firenados to break out. The blazing whirlwinds wrapped in black smoke mercilessly uprooted trees and scattered burning leaves to the four corners of the sky. It was as if the entire forest had been swept aside in one mighty sweep of a titanic hand, leaving the mare and the remains of the stallion exposed to the roiling heavens above.

The former earth pony looked up in shock and realization. As the world burned around her, her blood slicked chin began to tremble. For the first time she seemed to see and fully appreciate what she had done as she sat back on her haunches. Tears spilled from her eyes as her hungry moans turned to sobs brought on not from the searing heat but a deeper anguish beyond mere physical torment. As she looked down at the remains in front of her she covered her face with bloodstained hooves, as she wept openly and loudly, not just at what she had done but at what it had cost her.

The ragged body before her was much too small to have belonged to some muscle-bound stallion. No, what was left of that tiny body had clearly belonged to a filly. From beneath a tiny blue bonnet there spilled curly red hair that framed a face flecked with freckles. It was the eyes that truly arrested her attention. Though they were blank and lifeless, they still shone a familiar brilliant green as they looked up at her accusingly.

Of course those eyes were familiar. They were her own.

I remembered everything...

Where she was. Why she was so hungry and, heart-breakingly, who exactly it was she had just devoured. She could hear the distant laughter and screams again. Now she knew exactly who those voices belonged to. She also knew exactly where they were coming from. In her heart of hearts, of course, she had always known. The sick rules of the game, her tormentors were playing with her, had allowed her to forget for a time.

She did not bother to wipe the tears from her eyes or the blood from her mouth as she rose from the burning forest floor and turned toward where she knew she needed to go.

As she walked, the firestorm washed over her, burning away the fake identity that hid who she truly was. She could feel the flames of the infernal crucible change her as it slowly stripped away all artifice. A piece of peppermint here, a chunk of chocolate bar there. Bit by bit her true self was being exposed. As the embers washed through her hair, each strand became a gummy rope of liqourice, black and red strands twisted about one another. As the blistering heat kissed her cheek each little tooth popped out of her gums to clatter down into the ashes, leaving a trail of teeth in her wake, each swiftly replaced by a gleaming candy corn fang. With the roar of hellfire around her, with the screams of the damned as accompaniment, she marched on towards her fate.

She was becoming what she hated and feared the most... Herself.