The Polka Phonograph

Underneath the glow of Luna's brilliant moon, a couple walks along a gravel path with a slow gait, and as they do so the rigid slushing sound of small pebbles is audible. The mare leans close to the stallion, so their proximity might keep them warm on the walk home.

The mare looks over towards the stallion before sheepishly asking, "I know it seems a little soon, but maybe you could stay the night?"

He simply nodded to her as the two of them approached her house. The building was very quaint and warm, contrasting with the cold night. They came up to her door, and a small light illuminated from the stallion's horn, opening the door for her.

The bashful mare looked away from the stallion while entering her house before saying, "Why thank you."

Upon entering her abode, the silent stallion levitates a crimson scarf off of the mare and puts it onto the coat rack. The room was eerily silent after the couple had entered, the only audible noise being the ticking of an old grandfather clock. The walls of the living room were decorated with a pink floral wallpaper that, while charming in its own right, was showing its age.

Breaking the silence, the mare looks to the stoic stallion, "I think I'm going to go freshen up, I'll just be a minute."

She gave a weak and awkward smile before slowly moving into the bathroom. Upon entering, she sighed heavily, and in doing so, a bit of tension was released from her back. The mare raised both of her hooves onto the rim of a plain sink before staring at her reflection in the mirror. She had a notably dark black mane; her coat was a pure white. In contrast to her companion, the mare was an earth pony, and while she saw nothing wrong with this, the culmination of her appearance made her feel plain.

After a while of staring at her reflection and preparing herself for an evening with the stallion, the light above the mirror began to shake and flicker mildly. In conjunction with this strange disturbance, a dull noise began to grow from the main room. A scratchy static noise filled the mare's ears as she turned towards the door, and her eyes began to narrow in confusion. The static noise suddenly came to a halt for a brief moment before being replaced with what sounded like an accordion. The puzzled mare shook her head and blinked her eyes a few times before slowly opening the bathroom door.

The door slowly creeped open to reveal the main room, and everything was normal with the exception of a phonograph playing at the other end of the room.

The mare examined her surroundings before calling out, "Honey, are you there? Where did this thing come from?"

As her call echoed throughout the house it was clear that she would receive no reply. The volume of the phonograph slowly increased, as the sounds of drums and trumpets were slowly introduced. The mare slowly creeped out into the main room. Her hooves made damp tapping noises on the hardwood floor as she began to make her way across the room.

With every step closer to the phonograph, the room seemed to stretch before he as the distance between the two only appeared to widen. The pace and volume of the music continued to increase, and the mare's heartrate went up in tandem with the beat. Sweat beat down her brow, wetting her coat, as she continued trying to approach to phonograph unsuccessfully. Her eyes nervously dart around the room before refocusing on the phonograph.

By this point, the phonograph was blaring polka music at its maximum volume, drowning out all other noises in the house. The disturbed mare began to feel a dull pain welling in her ears from the violent cacophony of sound. She began to pant heavily, feeling a slight pressure on her chest. Her haunches trembled as she was struggling to keep herself upright.

As the mare was nearly about to faint, the song came to a climactic conclusion, and the seemingly stretched room jarringly compressed in a manner similar to an accordion. She huffed out a pained breath as she was now standing before the phonograph. After taking a second to compose herself, the weary mare removed the pin from the record, and the room was left only with silence.

She supports herself by leaning on the edge of the phonograph, and while she does this, her heartbeat begins to stabilize. Once again, the ticking of the grandfather clock can be heard, and the room appears to be in a normal state. Despite the disturbance having seemingly ended, the mare's eyes droop from being exhausted and light-headed. She looks down once again to the phonograph, noticing a light enveloping the pin and moving it back onto the record.

Her eyes shoot open with shock as she turns back towards the center of the room. The polka begins to once again blare throughout the room, and she locks eyes with the stoic stallion before her. His presence weighs down on the mare in an insidious manner, as his demeanor slowly begins to change. The careful façade of his stoic expression crumbles and fades as he glares at the mare.

The stallion's facial muscles contracted and contorted into a grotesquely warped smile, almost as if the corners of his mouth were being pried open. His eyes beamed open wide before glaring intensely into the mare's; he stared at her in a manner that could only be described as psychotic lust. He began to slowly approach the mare, and as he got closer, his head slowly twitched and began to tilt.

The mare stood still and desperately tried to scream, but in her attempts to cry for help, nothing came out. Tears slowly began to well and dribble from her eyes. Her head darts towards the door before she begins galloping away from the deranged stallion; however, her already weak haunches tremble and give out before she can reach the door. The mare trips and rolls across the hardwood floor before crashing into the wall with a sudden thud.

As she lies helplessly against the wall, her assailant slowly makes his approach. The stallion eyed the mare up and down with a disgusting and twisted look of pleasure before pawing at the ground with his right hoof. After striking the ground several times, he charged at the mare, and he leaned his head down so that his horn was sticking straight out. All that could be heard under the obnoxiously blaring music was a disturbed menagerie of shrieking cries and squelching noises.

From the outside, the house seemed to shake and sway with the noise of violent and muffled polka music, and the phonograph continued to blare until the moon and sun exchanged their places in the sky.