Euclid

Vinyl Scratch's phone was buzzing, filling her ears with the brain-splitting chirps of a county-wide alarm. With a swipe of her finger, she closed the app and turned Aphex Twin back on. As masterpiece electronica once again reconquered her brain...

...she stepped in through the front entrance of Canterlot High School. It wasn't long before she encountered the first corpse. Lyra Heartstrings—or what was left of her—lay slumped against the wall at a forty-five degree angle, dead and dormant between the trophy case and the teacher faculty lunchroom. Her blouse had burst open. In fact—her whole torso had, exposing a chest cavity full of dripping, settling viscera. Her face was stuck in a goofy grimace, as if she was too busy cringeing upon the moment of death to bother screaming in terror.

Vinyl Scratched walked on. The music player switched tracks. She rounded a corner and had to take an extra step or two to navigate the entrails. She passed by the corpses of Flash Sentry, Coco Pommel, and Sweetie Belle.

At long last, she found her locker. Clicking her teeth to the beat, she reached up and spun the combination lock. To her left, Fluttershy appeared. The young woman was reaching for her own locker—when a sudden convulsion jolted through her figure. She gripped her chest, hyperventilating and sweating. Within seconds, the teenager fell to the ground, writhing from head to toe. A tiny red spot formed in the center of her bosom—then spread with scarlet intensity. Finally—after half a minute of breathless torment—a small figure burst out from her torso, covered in crimson juices.

A tiny pony—cat sized and just as adorable—emerged from Fluttershy's corpse. It tossed its pink mane, flapped blood loose from yellow wings, and rolled across the tile floor a few times. After it felt sufficiently disentangled form Fluttershy's internal organs, it crept past the girl's body—pausing to lean down towards the dead woman's head.

“You are a product of rape,” it whispered.

Then, after a brief sprint, it took off and flew down the hallway. The winged pony did a barrel roll to avoid a sparse few students walking to and from their lockers.

At around this time, Vinyl Scratch had finished gathering her things. She closed her locker shut, turned around, stepped over Fluttershy's corpse, and made her way towards the opposite end of the school.

She passed Octavia—who was backing away from her locker. The woman twisted and jerked with full-standing spasms. At last, the musician backed up against a bulletin board and clutched her skull. At that precise moment, her cranium cracked open like an egg from the inside out. An earth pony clawed its way to freedom, digging through brain matter and fragments of bone. At last, a fuzzy gray mare with a smoky mane hopped to the floor, shaking the blood-pulps off its body like a dog coming in from the rain.

“This country was built on genocide and slavery,” said the equine doppelganger of the deceased woman. Octavia remain frozen like a tree, backed into a wall and clutching her exploded head. Meanwhile, the tiny pony version of herself galloped off with a beaming smile. It met up with a pegasus Flash Sentry and a unicorn Lyra. The three nuzzled each other, giggled, and herded off for the far end of the school.

Meanwhile, Vinyl Scratch was taking a shortcut through the school cafeteria. She paused for Rarity to collapse in front of her, spasming in throes. A pool of blood formed between the fashionista's legs as a snow-white unicorn swam out of her crotch, dribbling with viscera. “Suicide makes the most objective sense.” The dainty creature activated a nearby water fountain and telekinetically redirected the water to bathe the blood off.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom huddled atop a lunch table, hugging each other and trembling. As Vinyl passed, their heads tilted back and their necks split open down the center. Two extremely tiny fillies poured out of them and hugged each other on the red-stained floor.

“The meaning of life is that it ends!”

“'Money' is a word!”

Both giggled while a contorting Pinkie Pie jolted and thrashed in violent circles. The woman's eyes filled with blood as she jumped once, lurched a second time, then exploded across the room. A bouncy pink pony finished the leap for her, emerging from the teenager's shell of a body like an olympic diver.

“Entropy! Entropy! Entropy!”

One corpse after another, the cafeteria—and the school campus by extension—filled with the echoes of adorable, cutesy voices. All was blood and horselets, cuddling each other and filling the sterile concrete hallways with pastel color.

At long last, Vinyl Scratch made it to her classroom. She had to duck under the outstretched body of Sunset Shimmer—who was braced against the doorway while a fiery-maned unicorn unpeeled herself from her backside.

“Love...” The unicorn gurgled, slowly grinning through the blood as it wriggled free of the meat. “...is only what can be afforded.”

There was a banging noise. Rhythmic and repeating.

Vinyl glanced to the left and spotted Cheerilee seated at the teacher's desk, repeatedly slamming her skull into the wooden surface. With each successive collision, her skull split apart more, revealing a fuchsia mare with flower print on her posterior.

“You will be forgotten long after the death of your friends.”

Vinyl sat down. The corpse of Rainbow Dash lingered on her left. To her right, Twilight Sparkle twiddled her thumbs. Sweating. Twitching. The bookworm's fingers spun and spun and spun until they fell off completely. A pony was bursting out of Twilight's upper torso, splitting her collar and arms off the shoulder-joints. A lavender pony landed on the desk, turned around, and plucked Twilight's glasses off her human face before putting them on her muzzle.

“We all end up alone and afraid.”

As the smell of blood grew more and more pungent, Vinyl glanced past the fuzzy pony bodies. She looked out the window—at the blood raining from a crimson morning sky with nebulously giant horse hooves dragging down like tentacles from the meat clouds.

A soft breath escaped her lips, just as a tickling case of heartburn rose up in her chest.

She touched her phone, swiping it a few times.

She switched the track to OK Go's “This Too Shall Pass.”

As the room burst with giggles and clopping sounds, Vinyl turned the volume up and leaned back in her seat. The heartburn increased. A numbness spread throughout her body. Meanwhile, the music persisted, blissful and uplifting. The teenager's fingers gripped the edge of the desk.

And she waited.

And she waited.

And she waited.

And she waited.