The sun was at its peak and the light shone upon Equestria with it's warmth. Ponies crowded the streets of Ponyville as the day progressed and many fillies and colts could be seen running around and playing games. A certain trio of these were the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They were so into their game of tag that they paid no attention to the world around them. Although they were snapped back to reality when Scootaloo ran straight into something or better said someone. She rubbed her head as she looked up to see a mare standing in front her. Just seeing this mare sent a shiver down her spine, but she could also feel the temperature drop for some unexplained reason.
The mare had a grey coat, a white and light grey mane, her eyes' sclera were black with a white outline of the eye and pupil, crack like lines going from the iris and all the way down her cheeks, she had wings folded against her sides, as well as a long, black and sharp horn producing from her forehead. She was wearing a white hoodie, her front hooves had bandages hanging loosely on and a friendship bracelet was visible on her right front hoof. She was also lacking a cutie mark.
"I...I'm s-sorry." the mare said quietly as she walked past Scootaloo and into the town.
"Scoots! You okay?" Sweetie Belle said as she and Apple Bloom came up to the orange Pegasus filly.
"Y-yeah. I'm fine." Scootaloo answered as she stood up, though she couldn't get the mare's eyes out of her head. Never in her life had she seen such a sorrowful look before.
The next few hours went by in relative silence as the CMCs couldn't help but search for that mysterious mare. Everypony they met declined having seen the mare. They had possibly searched half the town when their search was cut short when an all too familiar duo came up behind them.
"Hello, blank flanks!"
The encounter with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon was like any other. Name calling, teasing, mild harassment, the whole shebang. Although, the bullying came to a stop when the sound of sobbing filled the air. They looked to see a grey mare facing them while sobbing into her hooves. The crusaders recognized the mare as the one they had bumped into earlier and attempted to find.
"Such horribleness." the mare said between sobs as she lowered her hooves to look at the five fillies.
The crusaders were too busy examining her look and Silver Spoon looked between the crusaders and the mare, but Diamond Tiara looked at the mare's black and red eyes. Not long after she began to feel lightheaded and tired before she fell unconscious.
Diamond Tiara grunted slightly as she opened her eyes and stood up on her hooves. She looked around to see a thick fog surrounding the town, making it hard to see anything that was 36 feet away. The unnatural silence around her made her shiver. An even larger surprise was that it was snowing, even though it was in the middle of summer. A snowflake landed on her muzzle, but something was off. It didn't melt, neither did it feel cold. She wiped it with a hoof and looked at said hoof.
"Ash?" she asked out loud, seeing the black spot on her hoof.
After a few minutes of thought she shook it off and proceeded through the town, finding it completely deserted. It looked like it had been abandoned for years, decades even. She was nor expert, but if she was to guess it looked like the town had been empty for two to three decades.
Soon she came up to the school, which had been boarded up. The paint was falling off and the building itself looked dilapidated.
She walked up to the entrance and put a hoof on the plank blocking the door. The plank in question had rotted to the point where a filly like her could tear it off without much struggle. She looked around the entrance and spotted something lying partially under a few floor planks. She grabbed it and gave it a firm tug. The sound of boards breaking was heard as she pulled out what turned out to be a flashlight. She pushed the off/on button and light soon erupted from it.
The sound of a siren coming from Ponyville's town hall filled her ears. Before she could even question it the sky began to grow dark. The light of the flashlight kept her vision from being completely blackened, but might as well have been better as the world she knew withered away in front of her very eyes. Rotting surfaces covered in a red slimy goo replaced the walls of the school and the ground was riddled with holes that had metal structure underneath.
Just as she began to recover from this shock the sound of something heavy and sharp being dragged across the ground filled her ears. She looked in the direction the sound came from and immediate regret filled her as she saw a monstrosity of a stallion. He had a pale coat, which had blood on it. He wore a butcher apron, a pyramid-like helmet and carried a massive blade with malicious intent.
Panic gripped Diamond Tiara's heart as she turned to the school door and grabbed the rotten plank covering the door. It snapped and crumbled to pieces without much effort and she bolted into the building, shutting the door behind her. When she was inside she locked the door, due to the key hanging in the keyhole and wasted no time trying to find a hiding spot. She ended up hiding under Cheerilee's desk just as a banging sound came from the front door. Soon a giant blade came crashing through it. This happened a few times before the pyramid headed stallion's hoof came through the door and took a firm grip at the door before he ripped it right off its hinges.
As the monster approached Diamond Tiara began to hear a voice saying an incomprehensible sentence over and over, but it wasn't coming from pyramid head. It sounded more like it came from her head.
"Libera te tutemet ex inferis." it said.
As the voice's volume grew louder images began to fill her head, but these weren't her own memories. They showed what suffering her bullying caused and how this manifested as the very monster that was hunting her down now.
"Please, make it stop. I'll be good. I promise." she whispered quietly into the empty air as tears began to fill her eyes.
As she was about to break down in tears the desk she hid under was lifted up and thrown against the wall by the pyramid head stallion who lifted up his giant knife and thrusted it towards Diamond Tiara who managed to roll out of the way. She soon found herself backed up into a corner with no way of escaping from the monster looming over her.
"Please! I won't bully anyone again! I PROMISE!!" she screamed in fear as tears spilled freely from her eyes.
The stallion didn't seem to hear her as he lifted the giant knife once again and thrusted it towards her. She closed her eyes and awaited the worst to come to her, but it never came. She opened her eyes to see that the knife had hit the wall right beside her and the pyramid head stallion looked to have frozen in place. For a few moments nothing happened as the stallion stood completely frozen in place and Diamond Tiara was too scared to move, but suddenly the big stallion began to dissolve into ash as the world around began to revert back to normal.
"Did you really mean what you said?" a voice said beside her.
Her head snapped in the direction of the voice to see a soft yellow coated Pegasus mare with a strong green and vivid yellow mane and tail, and with a stern look standing over her.
"Y-yes..." she said as her tears began to flow once again.
The mare's expression changed to a warm smile as she bowed down to the filly.
"There is always forgiveness." she said and put a wing around Diamond Tiara.
The second after this action was made the world turned white.
