“I’ll save her.” Everstone muttered to himself. His magic swiftly flipped through the pages of The Tome that laid before him. A distant but distinct and urgent tip-tap, tip-tapping began to echo deep in the hallways above like the sound of a distant train racing through a tunnel. Hoof steps, he thought to himself causing his heart to race faster at this realization. He quickly brought his hoof to his forehead; pulling up his stringy, poorly kept mane out of his face. His window was closing fast and if he didn't act now he'd never be able to save her. His mind fell back to images of the alabaster coat and silky white mane. Her wintery blue iris consumed his mind as he recalled her features. The memory subsided his growing anxiety of the present for just a moment. Soon the grief that ate away at his heart like a starving mongrel would be slain and she would return. Soon she'd be back at his side, and this nightmare would be over. A wry smile crept across his muzzle at the thought.

Tip-Tap, Tip- tap! The sounds crescendo into a deafening roar in Everstone’s mind; snapping him out of his blissful daze. The fowl noise was seemingly all encompassing like a raging river. Its very existence threatened to drown out the very memory of the pony that meant all of the Equestria to Everstone. Enraged at this invasion, this purging of his mind, he doubled his efforts. He refused to come so far, only to be stopped so close by shortsighted traitors.

“I lost you once, I wont lose you again!” He cried out as he desperately started The Spell. Tears of frustration intermixed with ones of joy as the pages began swiftly flipping themselves. Information and magic began to transfer from book to mind; unknowable knowledge made known, lost magic rediscovered by a sole unicorn.

TIP-TAP TIP-TAP! The sound crashed into the room like a raging tsunami as three creatures raced down the stairs into The School’s basement. Two changelings and a pegasus stopped as they witnessed the events that they were too late to stop from unraveling.

Everstone’s breathing spiked as the spell finished. As his last tear hit the stone below pain briefly shot through his body like an electric jolt. Stopping in the core of his sanctuary, his mind. The pain festered there and grew like a sickly cancer. Soon his whole mind burned with that same cancer. The rest of his body began to fall to a wicked numbness as the magic from his body was driven out and replaced with something ancient and malevolent. Leaving the only sensation in his body, that of the dark magic now coursing through his mind.

That magic was a force of incompressible power, thrust into the vessel of the young unicorn. Everstone tried desperately to stumble back from The Tome that was causing his suffering. But it was a fool's errand, as no power in all of Equestria could save him from what he inflicted upon himself. What he had unleashed. When he realized he could no longer move, he instead tried to cry out in pain to relieve some of his agony. But all that escaped his muzzle was a faint, pitifully, whimper. The weight of his transgressions began to weigh him down; forcing him to kneel to The Tome as if it were some altar of sacrifice. But no matter what he might give it, the Tome would be unsatisfied with anything less than Everstone's very being.

The air around Everstone’s horn blazed with a purple-reddish infernal gleam causing the air to flare up and circle around him like a raging tornado. For a brief moment the wicked magic went still, like the gentle calm before the storm. Then with all the force and pain of a hurricane the magic began to violently thrash about; wavering like a wildfire sprouting magical, eldritch, tendrils. Then as quickly as the tendrils formed they lashed out at the space around it like agitated snakes. Attempting to grasp at the air around it like a newborn infant; grasping and kicking the air.

Nothing seemed to be safe from their wrath. The few rats rummaging through the basement were the first to be struck dead. Followed soon after by the small lingering insects of the room. Both were swiftly executed without hesitation, and slaughtered indiscriminately. The most horrifying fact was neither of those things however; instead the most horrifying thing was that the tendrils seemingly drained the life force of the creatures. Like starving leeches they hungrily drained the creatures dry of life and magic, leaving only withered husk in their wake. The Rats' corpses looked as if they were aged 100s of years past what they should have been; while the insects’ were reduced to mere ash.

During those same split seconds, Everstone’s vision flicked in and out as the world caused his mind to spin with a static motionlessness and the still ground shook his hooves like an earthquake. Soon after, his pain began to spread from his mind and horn and into the rest of his body. The numbness being replaced by throbbing agony. His teeth were the first to be afflicted by the magic causing them to rot, fallout, or in most cases both. Next was his once elegant navy blue coat and silvery mane and tail deteriorated into an unhealthy and decrypted hues of grey. However like his teeth, most of it simply just outright fell off in an attempt to escape the poison now coursing through his veins. After only but a few seconds, he was largely left with only exposed and decaying flesh. Which had become ghoulish and wrinkled in appearance which only highlighted his muscles degenerating into nothingness; leaving him frail and malnourished in appearance. His argent eyes that were once overflowing with life slowly faded away to little more than two ghastly white orbs of sorrow. As the change progressed, any remaining identifiable features were lost. Leaving a hollow undead corpse that only shared Everstone's former figure. As the changes finished the air permeated with the smell of decay and blight that radiated from the corpse. He let out an ungodlily cry of pain as he tried to look at the monster he was becoming; the movement causing the flesh to grotesquely squelch in protests.

Soon thereafter, Everstone, the corpse, the monster began to stagger forward like a grey muzzled stallion on the brink of death. Yet unlike such a stallion, this thing knew not the bitter taste of death nor did it truly know the sweet sensation of life anymore. Instead, it was something new, something between the great chasm that divides the dead from the living. A chasm that was never meant to be walked by any creature. A chasm so great and vast not even the most powerful creatures of the time could even dream of closing it. Yet, this creature did, as it had ascended past the point of understanding, of reality even. What this creature was defied explanation. For the first time in the history of Equestria a being not of the living stumbled amongst the waking world. While it shared the appearance of a unicorn no creature in their right mind would call it of pony kind. What hobbled forward would have been thought impossible if not for the fact it stood here in defiance of such limited, mortal notions.

Its defiance was not limited to the ponies’ limited understanding of the world either. As the world around the corpse seemed to groan in protest, struggling to erase it from reality. But it remained unfazed by the shackles of nature. It was free now, free from its prison. This would not go unnoticed however; as to play such a dangerous game with nature has grave consequences on the fragile fabric of reality itself. Time around the creature sped towards stillness. Seconds lost meaning as years became irrelevant. Light embraced darkness. The shadows of the room exploded with celestial light. Space shrunk to proportions larger than infinity. Time useless, space indistinguishable, light and dark interchangeable. Reality had lost all significance in the presence of the beast. If not for the beast’s inherently fowl nature, some might have considered the effects of the beast godly.

As Everstone gained his bearings once more he slumped forward. The body then began bloating before swiftly deflating like a balloon. The motion was some crude parody of breath. Yet like everything else about it, this too was little more than a façade, a habit. As this creature had no need for such Equestrian characteristics. It was simply carried over from when it was still truly Everstone. But this unnerving mimicry of breath revealed what lay below the surface. With every depression of the body, a line of long bony ribs could be made out underneath the thin grey flesh; weakly constricted by the flesh that pushed down on them. Strains of rogue blood vessels, now without a purpose, convulsed haphazardly with no rhyme or reason. There was also the matter of the noise made by each of its breaths. The noise was just as unpleasant to the ears as its appearance was to the eyes. Each wheeze sounded was that of a smoker well past their prime; gasping for every breath like it were their last. Every wheeze also carried with it the consequence of a suffocating smell of death. Leaving any creature unfortunate enough to breathe it nauseated.

Amidst the horror, the trio of creatures helplessly watched in terror at Everstone's change. To them it was like a train crash in slow motion; their eyes fixated on Everstone’s degradation into an unrecognizable creature. Unable to be torn away no matter how hard they may try. Fear piercing their very souls; keeping them frozen in place as they were forced to watch as Everstone was mangled into the fowl beast before them.
Everstone's undead corpse began to twitch and stagger once more in a demonic mimicry of life. No pony even dared to gasp for breath until a second cry escaped the beast’s throat; snapping two of the creatures out of their stupor.

Lilly, the youngest of the remaining trio, remained fixated on him however. Her body trembled in a mix of sorrow and fear. Her hooves wobbled weakly below her, indecisive if to flee or to stay and watch. Her sunset pink chiton began to raise on end and her azure blue eyes flooded with tears. At the same time her muzzle fumbled open trying, in vain, to let out a cry of distress or anything to try and cope with the abomination in front of her. Yet her muzzle simply hinged open in fearful aw, before closing once more. Her mind raced to try and process what she was witnessing. She couldn't believe it, she refused to believe it. And yet, reality insisted the truth in front of her. So reality went to war with logic itself; her mind the battlefield of the conflict. Her mind nearly shattered in a maelstrom of incomprehensible babble as the two raged on. Logic dictating this could not be real, while all of reality proved to her that it very much was. Yet as she began to sink into the quagmire of insanity, Oleander called out to her. The words were a life preserver in the infinite seas of insanity. They were real and tangible, unlike the awful visage that shambled in front of her.

"Lilly," Oleander called out again, “we need to go! It's not safe here!" The steel grey mare stood atop the staircase, leading back up to the School of Friendship's, with leo. The two's eyes frantically darted between Lilly and Everstone waiting for which would make the first move. Lilly hesitated for just the briefest moment to examine once more what became of Everstone, hoping that she was somehow mistaken. Hoping that maybe her senses were playing a twisted trick on her. She was not mistaken.

"Lilly! Now!" Oleander ordered as the room itself started to become ensnared by the same fowl magic that consumed Everstone. Lilly's heart raced as her eyes darted back to her fellow creatures. She ran faster than she ever had in her whole life driven by pure primal desire to survive and fueled by raw adrenaline. She desperately made her way to the escape to safety.

The corpse of Everstone's eyes drooped in anguish as it let out a torrmented wail of agony. Though it was not of pain, least not in the physical sense. Those pains vanished with the initial surge of magic and transformation. This pain was one of heartache and grief. A pain that could only be known by those who've both lost everything and everyone. But the grief would swiftly turn to rage as Lilly began to flee. This rage only made the tendrils' efforts double; becoming more erratic as the creature's enigmatic emotions flared.

But such monsters are not born into the world. They are created and this very creature was created so long ago. Only now rearing its face in Celestia’s light two years after its inception. But to understand what creates such a monster one must first understand its grief. Grief that originates three years ago.

Author's Note

Firstly, Id like to thank ~~Anon3mous1~~ Greenhorne, ~~AlexW~~ Boopy Doopy , Melodiac, Xzeron2000 and a couple dozen other friends who didn't wish to be listed (you know who you are) for helping me edit this train wreck of a post.
secondly expect this to be a biweekly upload interchanging with my other fic What you Need . Chapter 2 of this shall be posted on June twentieth of 2020.
Finally thank you dear reader.