The Dark Mirror Saga: Book 1: The Tale of the Last Caribou

Twilight didn’t stop flapping her wings as she flew toward Ponyville. She still couldn’t believe what her home, or rather a version of it, had been reduced to. It was all too terrible and horrible to comprehend without any further context or information. Then again, what more information did she require when the statues, the vandalism, and their terrible messages were proof of what had happened to this Equestria?

As she landed on what used to be Golden Oaks Library, the place she’d come to call home, she nearly fell to her knees. The pain of having lost it reared its ugly head once more, but she managed to contain it. But try as she might, when she looked around she couldn’t find her castle. “This is… strange. Where is it?” She questioned out loud, but no answer ever came. Pushing back against her sadness, she reminded herself that this was not her home. Not truly, anyway. “But it still hurts. To think that this could happen in my Equestria? No… Twilight. Do not dwell on such thoughts. Focus on finding out what happened here. Maybe that will help me prevent whatever horrible thing happened here.”

Feeling more at ease, she began to explore the village and found only devastation. Sweet Apple Acres was nothing but a collection of dead trees and lifeless soil. The Town Hall was crumbling ruins along with Sugarcube Corner, Fluttershy’s cottage, Carousel Boutique, and pretty much every other building still standing. One building, though, stood the test of time and was mostly intact. Frowning, she recognized it as a brothel. Upon entering, she found several collars scattered around the floor, whips, sex toys, and a plethora of those same sexualized, misogynistic messages etched on the walls.

With a nervous huff, she stepped out, gave Ponyville one final glance, and then spread her wings, taking off as fast as she could manage towards Cloudsdale, only to find nothing remaining of it. Without weather control, the once proud city of the Pegasi had simply crumbled and faded into nothing. “Then that means that Las Pegasus is also gone… Manehattan. I should go to Manehattan.”

The trip to the most prosperous city in Equestria took no more than twenty minutes of flight at near sound-breaking speeds, but the first thing she saw was not the statue of Mare Liberty, but rather an empty crater where the base should’ve been. Behind it? Crumbling buildings. As she came to a halt and descended on a random street, she felt something tugging at her heart when she saw the same vandalization and sexualization plastered all over the place. She didn’t read the messages, she couldn’t stomach any more of that. But the posters, those that were still hanging on walls anyways, showcased mares being submissive, raped, or punished for some perceived transgression.

And for the first time, she finally saw the responsible for such horror. “What are they? Deer? Not quite… I think I’ve read about them somewhere… they’re not deer, they’re too bulky and look a lot bigger,” squinting her eyes, she approached the statue of one such creature while a mare licked his hooves. “Hmmm… dew-claws. So they are some kind of deer. Cousin species like the hippogriffs and griffons?” Then, she inspected herself and her new form. “It seems this dimension is similar in body to that of a human but with heavily detailed aspects of my original dimension. I think Sunset showed me something akin to it. What did she call it? Anthropomorphic? Yes, that was it. What a strange, gloomy world.” She hummed deeply, racking her brain for an answer that never came. “What sort of horrible creature are you?”

She inspected the statue for any more clues she could find and found one at the base of it, a message inscribed in it. “Be not afraid, males of the world. We, the Caribou, are your Liberators from female oppression.” Twilight recoiled in disgust and stepped back, away from the ghastly statue. “Caribou… now I know what you are, beast. It is the first time I’ve heard of your kind. Perhaps you don’t exist in my world… I’ll triple-check all records once I return, just to make sure.”

She continued to walk around the streets of manehattan for several minutes in search of clues, but all she found was the same as before. But the sights were no less saddening. Carts were rotted away, abandoned on the streets, countless collars, those horrid wing sheaths, and pieces of armor and weapons were scattered everywhere. An abandoned dead park; not a single piece of life remained there.

Finally having had enough of Manehattan, she opened her wings and left. In short order, she arrived at Baltimare, the vibrant and ever-busy port city. “Why did I expect it to be different?” She murmured as she landed in front of a huge storage house that was half-collapsed. Inside it, she found a few posters with those same misogynistic messages but what caught her attention this time were the rows upon rows of kennels and pens that could only contain a mare at a time. There were huge storage tanks, broken and shattered, every dozen or so meters behind the pens, also lined up alongside them, and several tubes and other contraptions that ended in a pair of suckers.

Twilight felt her stomach churn as she connected the dots in her mind. “This is a milking farm,” her mouth moved on its own accord, most likely because she was tired of the crippling silence around her. Walking out of the storage house, she toured the city for a few minutes from the sky. She had no desire to see more posters or statues up close, but she could easily detect the latter from her point of view. There were dozens upon dozens of them, all of them either boasting the manhood of the stags or putting a mare in a humiliating, submissive role.

As she was about to leave, a perturbing thought entered her mind. Where is everyone? The thought and realization made her heart skip a beat or two. It was obvious that whatever happened had been apocalyptic, but she had not seen a single survivor, nor a single animal, bird, or insect. I haven’t even seen any bodily remains… what in the name of Celestia is going on!?

Driven by a new onset of panic, she traveled to Stalliongrad, Prance, Fillydelphia, Germane, Neighpan, Mexicolt… And finally Appleloosa. Everywhere was the same, everywhere told the same tragic story, and everywhere was utterly devoid of life. “Everyone’s gone… ponies, donkeys, cows, even the buffalo are gone…,” Twilight whispered to herself as she stared at the only remaining building in Appleloosa, the Salon. Half standing and dilapidated, but there it was, the only mark that proved that place had been a thriving town. With a long, emotionless sigh and a heavy heart, she spread her wings once more. “There’s no use searching across the rest of Equestria… I think… I think it’s time for me to return. Vice-Principal Luna and my friends must be worried sick.”

Her flight back to Canterlot was a silent one. She didn’t think about anything, she didn’t want to think about anything. All she wanted to do now was leave this horrible dark reflection of her home once and for all and never return. When she arrived at Canterlot, she was about to descend near the basement’s entrance when something caught her eye. She hadn’t seen them before either due to the angle or because she was too focused on other things at the time, but there were a series of signs planted in front of the castle’s gates.

“...I’m already late as it is… Maybe… I should explore the castle before I leave. I mean, what could be worse than everything I saw?” Nodding to herself, she flew towards the castle and landed in front of the gates and the many signs scattered about. “Go away. Leave. Not Welcome. Stay Out,” she read out, but her tone never grew excited. The signs were old, not quite rotting away, but it was clear they had been there for a long time already. She stared up at the castle and shook her head. “Let’s get this over with.”

From the shadows, the figure watched her with fixed, rapt attention.