Author's Note

Hey this is up top for this chapter! I hope you enjoy this chapter! ~ Child of Stars

Chapter 2: Split

Rarity vomited. She was shaking, her whole body wracked by grief. She wailed in anguish. She didn’t know what to do, so she just continued to sob. She had pressed herself into the corner of the kitchen closest to the door and farthest from her. She was curled tightly into a ball and had no intentions of looking up any time soon. She just couldn’t believe what she saw was real, how could anypony even do that? Even conceive of doing that?

‘Why?’ was all Rarity could think. Why would somepony do something so wretched and horrid, she just didn’t get it. ‘Why would they throw Rain…’ She couldn’t even bear to think of her friend’s name, the more she did the more real it became. The more it sunk in that this happened, this was real. And Rarity just couldn’t accept that, she couldn’t let it be true. Even if it was, she wasn’t ready to accept it.

Against her better judgement Rarity dared to look up, if only to confirm with one hundred percent certainty that she was really real or not. She regretted it almost instantly. As her eyes peaked above her curled up body she saw her. She saw her friend’s, Rainbow Dash’s, severed head staring right at her. As lifeless as it was before, or so Rarity had wished. Except it wasn’t, for Dash's head...

...began to move.

Rarity couldn’t believe her eyes; Rainbow Dash’s head was moving all on its own. However, upon closer inspection Rarity noticed that it looked more like something was moving inside of Dash’s head, rather than Dash’s head moving autonomously. In Rarity’s state of shock she just continued to stare blankly at Dash. And then the wiggling in Dash’s head began to concentrate around her eyes, ears, muzzle, and neck stem. Rarity was absolutely baffled as to what was going on, so in morbid curiosity she continued to stare.

She really wished that she hadn't.

Because not a second later after the wiggling concentrated on specific spots in Dash’s head did blood begin to squirt from those locations. The flesh around those areas began to bubble and expand, being pushed out to an unnatural length. Then the flesh sacks popped, and thousands of maggots began to pour out of Dash’s head. Her eyes popped as the maggots ate and wriggled their way through.

Rarity screamed and tried to vomit again, but having already emptied her stomach earlier she wretched and nothing came out. She did it so violently that it made her gag and cough. Rarity pressed her ears against her head and her eyes shut tight, fresh tears began to stream down her face. ‘What is happening,’ Rarity sorrowfully thought, ‘Why is this happening, why?’ Everything was so quiet, the only noise being Rarity’s own sobs and the wet slaps of the maggots feeding on and dropping out of Rainbow’s head. But soon even the maggots stopped, leaving Rarity with only her sobs to break the silence.

‘Wait, why did the maggots stop?’ Rarity fearfully thought. Her question was answered almost immediately when the maggots began to make a quiet slithering noise. A noise that kept getting louder. Rarity decided to look up to see what the maggots were doing, only to see them coming towards her. She quickly stood up just in time to see more maggots than what was physically possible explode out of Rainbow’s mangled remains of what once was a head. She stared in horror as she watched more and more maggots pour from the ceiling and draws of the kitchen. As well as emerge from the kitchen’s floor and through the broken window into the kitchen.

She began to back pedal out of her kitchen corner and to the kitchen’s only door. All the maggots were coming for her, they were hungry and she looked like a good meal to them. Rarity turned and went to leave the kitchen, but an unbearable pain began to flare up in her cut that Opal had given her earlier. This caused her to stumble and double over in pain. She started to scream as she felt her cut begin to bubble up and bleed. She felt something big squirm right under the cut’s surface.

Rarity shrieked as the pain became too much for her to bear, her mind becoming numb as agony became all she knew. She began to feel something wriggle its head out of her cut, she screeched in terror. Only one thought pervaded in her mind...

‘GET IT OUT!’

With the use of her magic Rarity grabbed whatever was in her face and ripped it out. As she did her agony only doubled in intensity. What she had pulled out of her face had nearly made her faint. For she had pulled out a large, fat maggot. She threw it against the kitchen wall and it splatted. Instantly some maggots around it began to cannibalize the thing. As she stared at the engorged thing her cut felt as if a fire had been lit inside of it. Momentarily distracting her from the thoughts of that maggot consuming her innards.

The burning became too much for Rarity, she promptly ripped off the bandage she had put on the cut not too long ago. And then maggots began to seep out of the cut in a quick fashion. Rarity instantly tried to throw up again, only for a few maggots to slide out of her throat instead of anything normal. Rarity gagged and began to desperately claw at her face with her hooves and magic in an attempt to rip out the maggots. Her wound only became angrier, discharging pus and more blood. The maggots coming out more intensely. Rarity could somehow see and feel more maggots moving behind her eyes, dining on her flesh.

Rarity in her haste to remove the maggots from within her forgot about those chasing her. The maggots chasing her took this opportunity to close the gap between them and Rarity and burrow into her. Rarity’s attention instantly snapped from her face to her limbs as new maggots began to dig into them.

“NO!” She screamed in a mix of terror and furry. Enraged she grabbed some in her magic and ripped them out. She incinerated them in her magic and then stood up. She used a magical repulsion spell to force all the maggots away from her and then she leapt for the kitchen’s door. She made it through the doorway and slammed the door shut behind her, magically sealing the door so as to make sure no maggots could escape that room. She heard the maggots pile up and pound against the door, but the door held strong. She backed away from said door and collected her breath. She then used a magical scan on herself to find all the maggots stored within her and then try to destroy them, only to find none. Confused, she rescanned but got the same result.

‘But I’m sure there are maggots in me,’ She pondered. Just then she noticed that the kitchen had grown extremely quiet, unnaturally so. And as she unconsciously touched her face she became more confused, the gashes on her face were gone, Not entirely gone, but they were a lot smaller. ‘What?’ She questioned, ‘Am I hallucinating? No, I couldn’t have been. It all felt so real how could it have just been fake-’ And then, out of nowhere it struck her, Sweetie.

‘I have to get to Sweetie,’ She worriedly thought, ‘If those things were real she could be in serious danger.’ Rarity knew what she had to do now. No matter what she was not going to let anything hurt Sweetie. She was going to get Sweetie, they were going to get out of here, and then she’d get the girls’ help and figure out whatever was going on in the Carousel Boutique. Rarity, now confident in her goals and repressing the memories of what happened in the kitchen for another time, started to walk away from the kitchen to go and complete her hopefully simple tasks.

Rarity strode into the main foyer of the boutique while checking her newly enlarged facial wound. Despite what the pus had suggested earlier it didn't seem to be infected. Though she wasn’t quite sure if the pus that had spewed out earlier was even real, it could have all been delirium if the possibly fake maggots were anything to go off of. Just the thought of those things caused her heave, only for once more nothing to come out of her increasingly sore throat. Constantly throwing up and screaming was not faring well on her throat. No matter if those things were real or not, Rarity swore she would never attempt to enter her kitchen again until it had been thoroughly, properly, and magically swept and cleaned. Because if those things were real, and the only things fake were the ones in her body, then she would not take the chance to actually let them into her body.

Her wound was still freshly bleeding and bubbling. She needed to get it cleaned and rebandaged up quickly. In her mind she could still feel the sense of wiggling behind her wound, but another magical scan only proved to her that there were no foreign entities in her body. ‘It’s just my mind playing tricks on me,’ she reasoned. Deciding to permanently forget her experience in the kitchen, as to stop the upcoming attempt at once more vomiting, she continued through the main foyer of her boutique.

As Rarity made her way towards the boutique’s stairs she stopped. The thought striking her that maybe those gems she had written off earlier really were causing these unnatural events to occur. ‘Maybe it wasn’t just paranoia and fatigue earlier that caused me to get those weird sensations.’ she thought to herself. In her newfound revelation, she felt compelled to check out the aforementioned gems she had left in the room she was currently in. She changed course from the stairs and over to the gems. As soon as she approached the box they were housed in she gasped.

“The g-gems are g-gone.” She fearfully said aloud. All the gems that she had left there were gone. And to top that off there was a hoof sized hole burnt into the box where she had last laid the black gem. By what Rarity could see, said hole seemed to have burned through not only the box, but the table it was laid upon as well as the floor underneath that. ‘M-maybe that strange black g-gem wasn’t a gift after all,’ she fearfully thought, ‘Is it causing all this? M-maybe…’ Rarity began to shudder and slowly back away from the now empty gem box.

“I’m not insane am I-I?” Rarity whispered, continuing to back away from the gem box.

‘You’re not?’ Asked a small voice in Rarity’s head.

“I’m sure of it! Why would I be insane?”

‘Why wouldn’t you be?’

“Because normal ponies don’t just become insane!”

‘Normal ponies don’t have hallucinations.’

“What are you getting at…?”

‘Maybe this has been a long time coming, Darling. Slowly building up over time perhaps?’

“I’m not insane! I know that.”

'Sane ponies don’t have conversations with voices in their head.’

And with that the voice was gone, disappearing back into the recesses of Rarity’s psyche. Rarity was left in a state of disbelief. ‘D-did I just have a conversation with m-myself…?’ She confusedly and fearfully thought to herself, ‘Maybe I really am i-insane? No, I can’t think like that. I know I’m not insane. I’m completely sane, I’m sure of it.’ In her stupor Rarity had failed to notice that she had continued to back away from the gem box during her little chat, and was now pressed against the front door to her boutique. The noise of something hitting a window next to her broke her out of her daze and made her aware of her current situation.

“Hmm?” She hummed as she approached a window to her left, right of the door. She carefully made her way there, now in fear that anything could happen at any time and for any reason. And with great effort she managed to force herself to look out the window, only to see nothing. Absolutely nothing, there was nothing but a swirling, shadowy void outside the window. Ponyville, everything, was gone. The only thing Rarity could make out outside were vaguely pony shaped shadows moving irregularly through the endless darkness.

“What?” She questioned as she got closer to the window to take a closer look, “This can’t be, where is Ponyville? Where is everypony else? What is going on-” Just then the window Rarity was staring through cracked as something large impacted against it. She yelped and stumbled back, landing on her rump. A large crack had now formed in the window, nearly splitting it in two. She quickly got back up and began to back away from the window. As she stepped back she heard a crunch coming from under her right hindleg. She lifted it up and looked down only to see the shattered remains of her missing gems. Confused, she looked back to the window in front of her only to see the crack in it begin to seep blood. Weird symbols began to carve themselves on the walls of her boutique.

Rarity was terrified. She kept backing up until she heard a splat sound. She looked down and saw maggots squirming around on a few bones beneath her. The maggots began to writhe as more began to emerge from the floor and leak from the ceiling. The floor and ceiling of the boutique began to tear and bleed, as if the boutique itself was alive and breathing. The walls of the boutique began to shudder violently as more maggots and blood rushed from them too.

Rarity became soaked in maggots and blood as they poured down on her. She wailed in horror and began to run at full speed towards the boutique’s stairs. Using her magic, she rid herself of all the maggots landing on her and tried to shield herself from the blood that was raining down. Her eyes were pinpricks as she began to discharge mouthfuls of bloody maggots from her throat. She felt her flesh begin to rot and be eaten away by the stray maggots that managed to burrow into her.

She made it to the stairs and began to ascend them at a fast pace. Tattered pieces of the garments she had made for Fancy Pants started to rain down around her. Chunks of rotting flesh began to peel off the boutique’s walls, hitting Rarity in the face as her home began to sag. Rarity felt as though she was being hollowed out and gored on the inside, skinned on the out. A mix of blood and pus started to stream out of all her orifices. She felt as though her entrails dragged across the stairs, getting tangled in her tail. She felt maggots squirm and burst out of her eyes. She felt horrible.

She felt her bones break.

She felt pain.

She felt her horn being ripped out of her head.

She felt numb.

She felt a syrupy liquid come from the ceiling above the stairs and try to choke her as it forced itself into her mouth and down her throat.

She felt like she was going to die.

But as she crossed the threshold from the stairs to the upstairs hallway of the boutique, it all stopped. Everything just stopped, becoming normal once more. Rarity slammed into the back wall away from the stairs, nearly knocking off a vase she kept on top of a table at the top of the stairs. It had always been there. She breathed desperately, trying to catch her breath. She was shuddering aggressively as she looked down at herself, checking magically if anything was different. When she found nothing, she looked around and saw everything was relatively normal. She squeezed her eyes shut and flattened her ears against her head, collapsing onto the ground in a terrified mess. She began to cry in relief and terror at what had just happened.

“Am I going m-mad?” Rarity said with a stutter, “No, no! I already went over this, I'm fine. It must be that black gem causing these hallucinations! These very, very real feeling hallucinations…” Rarity could feel something in the back of her head begin to move, as if she could just tell that the small voice from earlier was trying to rear its ugly head. Wanting to argue with Rarity. ‘The black gem must be behind this voice,’ she reasoned, ‘It was never here before, that I can remember.’

And before that voice could attempt to speak, Rarity got up and put her recent horrors behind her, deciding to bottle them up and tackle them at another time. She wiped away her tears with a foreleg, causing it to be stained by the deep and bloody gash on Rarity’s face. Reminding Rarity that she should focus on getting that gash cleaned up, hoping that these hallucinations were only happening to her and that Sweetie was fine.

As Rarity began to walk down the upstairs hallway towards the bathroom she began to try and come up with a rational solution to her situation. ‘Maybe I haven't woken up yet and this is all just a nightmare? No, a nightmare this bad would have drawn Luna’s attention immediately and she would have stopped it way before it got this far. I couldn’t have been poisoned by anything, I haven’t left the house in three days.’ Rarity looked around the upstairs hall as she was thinking, noting some cracks on the walls that had previously not been there. Rarity quickened her pace, not wanting to go through another situation like the one she just experienced. ‘So then the only logical explanation is that the black gem has magic. But what is it? And where did it come from-’

“Oof!” Rarity said as she walked into the bathroom door. Having been so caught in her thoughts that she hadn't even realized that she had made it to the bathroom. She worryingly looked behind her, only to see a dark, empty, and normal looking hall. ‘Dark?’ She thought, ‘Oh right my luminescence spell went out when I first saw R-Rain… Her h-head. I can see well enough, but the extra visibility wouldn’t hurt.’ So, with that thought Rarity attempted to reignite a luminescence spell on her horn. Only for the magic to fizzle out and die on her horn. She tried again but had the same result. Rarity felt fine magically, the only explanation she could come up with was that something was blocking her luminescence spell. As when she went to grab the bathroom’s door handle in her magic, she succeeded in opening it instantly. ‘Perhaps that black gem is blocking my luminescence spells?’ She reasoned, stepping into the dark bathroom.

As she entered the bathroom she stopped dead in her tracks. She was just able to make out the silhouette of a pony standing behind her tub’s shower curtain. Quickly breathing in and out she worked up the courage, grabbed the shower curtain in her magic, and ripped it back. It revealed that nothing was behind the curtain after all. Rarity decided to peer into the tub to see if she saw anything. She gagged at the sight, the only thing in the tub was a bit of blood and a few small lumps of flesh near the tub’s drain. While relatively tame to what Rarity had seen and experienced so far, it still disturbed her nonetheless. Looking away from the gruesome tub and peering into the bathroom’s mirror, Rarity assessed the damage and got to work. Quickly cleaning up her, thankfully not infected, wound and bandaging it back up.

After that was done she wasted no time in exiting the bathroom, then closing its door behind her. Now back out in the hall she looked around, noting that the cracks in the walls had grown much larger and were now seeping some kind of liquid. Feeling as though she was running out of time Rarity approached Sweetie's door in a hurry. It was closed, which was not the way Rarity remembered it last. But perhaps that was just another illusion.

She tentatively gripped the door’s handle in her magic, turning the knob and pushing the door open. And what she saw caused her to momentarily step back. Sweetie’s room had been infected by some sort of black vine, it ran all up and down her room’s walls, ceiling, and floor. It coated mostly everything in a slimy substance. But that wasn’t all, for in the room surrounding Sweetie’s bed were twisted and deformed mannequins. These mannequins seemed to be pointing directly at Sweetie’s bed, however the mannequins themselves seemed to be inanimate. The mannequins seemed also to be covered in crudely made clothes, though the materials that these articles were made of eluded Rarity at the moment. She couldn’t get a clear view of the garments in this light. She was drawn from her thoughts when she noticed a shaking coming from under the sheets of Sweetie’s bed.

“Sweetie…” Rarity murmured as she made her way through the bedroom towards Sweetie’s shivering form, weaving in and out between the mannequins. She reached the bed’s right side and grabbed the sheets in her magic. Slowly she peeled them back to reveal a shivering Sweetie Belle, curled up tightly into a ball. Crying and whimpering, she had her ears pressed tightly against her head and her eyes shut while tears slowly streamed down her face. Sweetie Belle, feeling that something had removed her sheets began to cry harder and scoot away from the edge of her bed towards the middle of it. Before Rarity could speak, she felt a gust of wind blow into the back of her mane. She turned around and saw that Sweetie’s bedroom window had been broken in, curtains torn to shreds. Rarity turned back to Sweetie and tried her best to comfort her.

“Sweetie?” Rarity said cautiously, “It’s me, your big sister.”

“Rarity…?” Sweetie Belle whispered, looking up. Rarity and Sweetie locked eyes and just stared at each other. For a second neither dared to move, scared that any movement may reveal the other to be a mirage. But as they kept staring at each other, it became clear that both of them were very real. Rarity hesitantly reached out to Sweetie with her right hoof, but before she could make contact Sweetie rushed her. Wrapping her forelegs around Rarity in a tight hug, startling Rarity, but comforting her all the same.

“Oh Rarity!” Sweetie said with tears of relief running down her face. Rarity was momentarily stunned by Sweetie’s display, but soon enough she leaned into the hug.

“Sweetie, I’m so glad you’re alright,” Rarity responded, “So, I take it you’ve been experiencing u-unnatural things too?”

“Mmhmm,” Sweetie murmured, her head buried in Rarity’s chest soaking it with tears. They sat there together in a tight embrace for a few moments before Sweetie began to panic. Rarity, confused by this, pulled out of the hug and looked at Sweetie worryingly.

“Sweetie? What’s wrong? Why are-” Rarity was interrupted when Sweetie put a hoof to her mouth in a shushing motion. Sweetie looked completely terrified; the way she was before Rarity had shown up. She slowly lit up her horn, with great effort, and cast a luminescence spell. This cast the room in a light green light, the same color as Sweetie’s magic.

“You can cast a luminescence spell? But I can’t-” Rarity was once again interrupted by Sweetie, who emphasized her shushing motion before pointing her right hoof over Rarity’s left shoulder, directing Rarity’s attention to the far-right corner of Sweetie’s room. Sweetie began to shiver and cry fresh tears as her light bathed the corner in her light green magical light. Rarity gasped as she saw what Sweetie had pointed to. Because in the corner of Sweetie’s room was a pile of flayed ponies, writhing in agony, almost unrecognizable due to their severe mutilation.

The vine covered walls in Sweetie’s room began to crack and seep a strange dark substance. The whole room was shaking as a horrifying wail ripped through the air, coming from everywhere and from Rarity’s head all at once.

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle screamed, pointing with her hoof and light at the mannequins. Rarity looked to the mannequins around her and Sweetie, and nearly vomited. The mannequins were twitching violently, clawing at their faces, almost as if there was something trapped inside the deformed things trying to get out. However, the worst thing about the mannequins was what they were wearing. With Sweetie’s light now revealing the mannequins in a clear light Rarity could see every grotesque detail of their macabre garments. The mannequins were all wearing clothes made from pony skin, torn and tattered near the ends, and crudely stitched together by some crazed seamstress in the middle. As the mannequins continued to twitch, filling the room with the sound of plastic rubbing together, they slowly turned back towards Sweetie and Rarity and reached out.

Sweetie became more frantic and panicky at this, her luminescence spell going out and screaming in terror. Rarity in a daze grabbed Sweetie in her magic, put her on her back, and jumped over Sweetie’s bed. She made a break for Sweetie’s bedroom door, determined to get Sweetie out of there. The mannequins gave chase, sprinting after the fleeing duo. Some mannequins bipedal, some quadrupedal, all were fast and gaining on the two. Rarity burst out of Sweetie’s room at full speed, slamming the door behind her. The mannequins however didn't care. They just broke through the door, shattering it completely. Rarity continued down the upstairs hall towards the stairs. The walls around her began to crack more as more dark liquids streamed from their respective breaks.

Rarity was almost at the stairs. She was just in front of her room when a mannequin lunged at her and grabbed Sweetie. Sweetie screamed and Rarity panicked, grabbing Sweetie in her magical grasp. She pulled Sweetie back to her before blasting the mannequin with energy from her horn. Seeing the other mannequins gaining on them and the blasted one getting back up, Rarity decided to dive into her room. She slammed the door closed behind her and locked it with her magic, and then huddled on the ground with Sweetie in a tight embrace.

The mannequins pounded on the door to Rarity's room, but by some miracle did not manage to break it down. As the noises of the mannequins slowly faded Rarity and Sweetie sat together on the floor, crying and hugging each other in relief. A slight breeze on the back of rarity’s neck caused her to panic slightly. She turned around and saw her window open, the swirling void beyond. She grabbed the window in her magic and closed it, swiftly covering it up with its curtains. She then turned back to Sweetie, and they began to talk.

“Sweetie darling, are you okay?” Rarity asked hesitantly.

“They came in the window…” Sweetie responded, looking slightly stunned.

“Sweetie, what?”

“The mannequins,” Sweetie looked up to Rarity and explained, “I was laying in my bed and woke up when I heard a scream.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be sis, I’m glad it woke me up. Because when I did, I saw those mannequins outside my window. They broke it and crawled in. They weren't wearing anything at the time. They just crawled in and surrounded me. I was scared and didn’t know what to do. I thought If I moved they might attack me.”

“So, you hid under the bed and waited for me to arrive?”

“Mmhmm,” Sweetie finished looking worryingly at Rarity, “What are we going to do now?” Rarity looked at Sweetie and saw no injuries and she didn't hear any mannequins outside.

“I guess it’s time we get out of here,” Rarity said looking over to her bedroom’s window. Sweetie noticed Rarity's bandage and inquired about it, but Rarity just told her Opal scratched her and that was all that happened. This reminded Sweetie of something, so as Rarity went to her bedroom’s window to see if it was a safe way to leave the boutique Sweetie interrupted her.

“Hey Rarity, where’s Opal?” Sweetie asked. In Rarity’s terror she had completely forgotten about her cat, who she had gone searching for just earlier that night. Who she had never found.

“I don’t know Sweetie,” Rarity said back, “But right now we have to work on getting out of this mad house. We can look for Opal later after we’re safe and have other ponies to help us.”

“Rarity! We can’t leave without Opal!”

“Sweetie I know, but what other choice do we have?”

“No! I won't leave until we’ve looked for her.”

“Sweetie dear,” Rarity started to say as she looked from the window and back at Sweetie. Once she saw Sweetie’s face however, and the puppy dog eyes watering on them, she caved. She couldn’t say no to that, so hesitantly she agreed to look for Opal. Sweetie cheered in delight and a warm smile graced Rarity’s muzzle. It was the first time she had smiled all night, but deep inside she was worried about the horrors that awaited the two outside of her room.

“Sweetie, stay close to me,” Rarity demanded, “I don’t think leaving you alone in a room is a good idea. So, you'll stick with me and I can keep a good eye on you. You got that?”

“Y-yes Rarity,” Sweetie said hesitantly. It clearly had dawned on her how awful things may get out in the boutique. With some reassurance from Rarity that she would be right there and that she’d protect them, the two slowly opened Rarity’s bedroom door.

Looking around, Rarity saw no sign of the aggressive mannequins. The only thing left to signify that they had once been there was an article of pony flesh clothing laying to the right of Rarity’s bedroom door. Rarity directed Sweetie’s attention away from the grim garment as the two walked together down the upstairs hall towards the stairs. They proceed to make it to the stairs and descend them without incident.

They stood in the main foyer of the boutique as everything was calm. Sweetie cast her luminescence spell and they began to search for Opal, softly calling out her name. Rarity had no idea why her attempts at casting a luminescence spell were blocked but Sweetie’s weren't. ‘That’s a question for later perhaps,’ Rarity thought.

As Sweetie and Rarity checked the boutique, nothing abnormal happened. They also saw no sign of Opal. Sweetie asked if perhaps Opal was upstairs, but Rarity told her that she had already checked earlier and hadn’t seen any sign of their feline friend. They had checked almost all the boutique now, the only place yet to be checked was the kitchen. And as they made their way there Rarity began to shake, remembering her previous experience in said kitchen.

As they approached the kitchen Rarity asked Sweetie to stay back a bit from the door, not wanting her to see anything that was potentially in the kitchen. Sweetie obliged as Rarity went to open the kitchen’s door with her magic. Very slowly she opened it and peered inside, only to see everything was normal. There were no maggots, no head, the table was upright, and the window wasn’t broken. Rarity breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the kitchen’s door and turned around. In her haste to leave the kitchen however, she failed to notice a bloody crack on her kitchen’s window. She confirmed to Sweetie that she’d seen no sign of Opal, to which Sweetie sighed disappointedly and began to make her way back to the boutique’s main foyer with Rarity.

“I’m sorry Sweetie that we couldn’t find Opal,” Rarity began, “Maybe she already left, perhaps she jumped out a window down here or something?”

“It’s alright Rarity,” Sweetie responded dejectedly, “Hopefully we’ll be able to find her later.”

“Indeed.” Rarity responded as she went to open the front door. She teleported her keys from her room into her magical grip and unlocked the door. Just as she was about to open it something dawned on her. Why hadn’t she just tried teleporting around and out of the boutique.

“Hold on Sweetie, we're going to teleport to Twilight’s library,” Rarity said. Sweetie gave a little nod as Rarity readied the spell. She cast it, but nothing happened. She tried again and again, but to no avail. Even Sweetie tried, but predictably wasn’t able to. Rarity tried teleporting her keys once more back and forth, between her room and her magical grip. It worked without fail, but when she tried to teleport Sweetie nothing happened. ‘Maybe I can only teleport certain things?’ Rarity wondered, ‘I could teleport Opal before, but I don’t know if the black gem was doing anything to me yet at that time. I don’t know how its magic works! If Twilight was here she’d know, I should have just gone and got her earlier before I went to sleep. Oh well, I’m at the front door anyway. Might as well just go out there and navigate that void. Anything is better than being in here another second.’

Rarity turned back to the front door of the boutique and grabbed its handle in her magic. But as she pulled the door didn’t budge, it was stuck. Rarity told Sweetie to get back as she charged her horn with more light azure magic in an attempt to force the stuck door open. She started to feel it give way. However, out of nowhere the door suddenly burst open, shoving Rarity backwards and to the ground. Sweetie started to scream and Rarity looked up to see why. And to find out what had blasted open the stuck door. What she saw made her wish she had never looked up.

In front of her was a massive hulking monstrosity. The creature looked at Sweetie and then fixed its eyes on Rarity. Then it spoke in a scratchy, deep, and distorted voice. All it said was one simple word, a name. A name that shook Rarity to her very core. For this monster she had never seen before uttered the name...

“Rarity…”