In the region of Ontario, Canada, there exists an urban legend that always manages to find its way into the heads of many whenever they think about it. A legend of a monster storyteller who would recount gruesome, horrible stories to anyone who would be brave enough to listen. She hides out in the forests around Ontario, only in the darkest hours of the night, she would appear from the shadows, her hoofsteps barely echoing among the trees and fading moonlight. Most people didn’t know what to make of her considering she didn’t look human in the slightest, she resembled that of a My Little Pony character, Rainbow Dash, but a more twisted version of Dash.
Her coat was a dullish dark blue color with pitch black stitches around her legs, ears, waist, neck and wings as if she had gone into a horrific surgery with almost disastrous results. Her long rainbow colored mane and tail was exactly like her coat, dull darker colors of the rainbow that was styled in a similar fashion to the brash, cocky pegasus herself but disheveled to the point of being unrecognizable. If one looked more upwards to the top of her head, they would see a set of antlers that appeared to be a brown color or something like that.
Beneath her disheveled mane were blood red irises with slitted pupils like that of a cat or snake surrounded by pitch black sclera, so cold and hateful that even the bravest of souls would freeze in place. But her eyes weren’t the only scary aspect of her, a set of razor fangs lined the inside of her mouth, some of them were coated in dried blood as if she had just recently killed an animal or even a person. Her wings were large and daunting whether she unfolded them, feathers as her sclera rested at the end of her wings.
Normally her darker blue hooves carried her through the lonely forest, but if one noticed her raising on her hind legs, her front hooves would transform into two clawed hands and her face would change till it resembled that of a cross between Rainbow Dash and a deer/Wendigo. Out of all the gruesome features of her body, there were two things that stood out the most. Her thin, almost skeletal type body underneath her coat and her cutie mark, it was in the shape of an open book with a pencil writing on the paper’s surface.
There was barely a thing connecting her physical, bony appearance to her cutie mark, but those who had been lucky or unlucky enough to have seen her knows that she is, in fact, an author. Yes, this was true, but she wasn’t the type of author some would expect minus the ones who had seen her. Using her special talent of hers and her antlers, she would create stories for her visitors: stories filled with horror and terror, madness and insanity, darkness and cannibalism. These stories gripped her listeners till the end of their telling.
When she was finished with her stories, she would give the one who listened to her story a wicked and crazed smile before disappearing back into the forest from which she had come from. It is said that those who hear the tales of the beast now referred to as ‘Wendigo Studios’, would become twisted and disturbed much like the broken creature that lived under the mask of insanity.
And I know what you’re thinking, it’s just an urban legend, a stupid middle or high school rumor students make up to try to scare or warn each other whenever they go out at night or a telltale that parents tell their children to keep away from the woods especially at night. Those children would later grow into young men and women and they would pass those stories onto their children, that is, until they actually grow to adulthood. But every urban legend stemmed from some kind of truth, so let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
Well for starters, Wendigo Studios was a real person who lived in Canada, though she wasn’t always known for the title that had been forced upon her and there’s more to this story than just a simple entity frightening people for her amusement. Once upon a time, the girl’s real name wasn’t Wendigo Studios nor did she have the twisted appearance of Rainbow Dash like she does now, she was just a normal brunette, forest green eyed girl named Amanda Studios who lived in a small town or a city.
Anyone who knew her before her transformation knows her as an energetic, happy and somewhat geeky girl as some boys refer to her, like those geeky girls one would find in anime or something like that. But that hardly mattered as they liked her all the same, for Amanda was such a pleasant person to be around. Anyone who would have the pleasure of being in Amanda’s presence would have their spirits lifted, even the coldest of hearts would melt with joy at the sight of the young girl running down the streets.
Amanda lived in a little house or sometimes the studio on the other side of the town with her mother figure. The brunette loved her mother so much, many children desired to have their relationship, to have a natural understanding of love like they had. Amanda’s mother knew her daughter better than herself and vice versa and she knew her mother’s heart was pure or at least, that’s what Amanda had thought. However, no relationship was without flaw after all, they would have disagreements like any parent and child would but those wouldn’t keep their love down, not even her mother’s job at a movie studio could do much to break down their relationship.
The town movie studio was the tallest and biggest building in the entire town and was once famous for producing movies to the movie theaters across the town. Tales of superheroes, romance and other subjects that suited anyone’s interests. Of course, with a job like this, the pay was as high as were the demands for more movies. So Amanda’s mother with her director skills, her daughter Amanda with her writing skills taught at the age of three or later and her other coworkers were hard at work, writing and producing scripts for new movies. It was hard work for sure, but it was worth it to have a comfortable life and a happy daughter, so she didn’t mind much.
However nothing lasts forever and given the legends nowadays, Amanda wasn’t anything considered normal, but what she was considered before was unknown. No one was entirely sure how her downward spiral started exactly, but it was possibly because of the movie studio losing viewers and money probably because of movies becoming too cliched or maybe Amanda’s mother cashing out money for more movie supplies or gifts for her elder daughter, Amanda Studios such as paper, pencils, fabric and her Rainbow Dash costume after the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic show came out.
There was something else that Amanda loved more than anything else in this world and that was writing stories and sharing them to whoever would listen. Along with her other personality traits, Amanda was a very creative girl with a big imagination like most kids her age would. For hours, Amanda would spend time within the studios/home in her Rainbow Dash costume, writing stories about good winning over evil, old Disney tales and maybe a little horror since the brunette enjoyed the heck out of the Goosebumps series when she discovered them.
Her stories were rather successful with the people of the town, many people enjoyed them and some even gave her money even when Amanda tried to refuse. But being a sweet little girl, she took the payment and used it for herself and sometimes the studio to help out her mother. Maybe that was how the town movie studio was able to become successful. Regardless, the movie studio was slowly getting in debt but was at least, at a comfortable profit to keep them afloat. However Amanda’s mother knew that she needed to do something about her crippling debt, otherwise she would lose her business.
Unfortunately, the solution had far worse consequences than one would imagine.
It was just another normal day, Amanda was simply on the floor in her room wearing her Rainbow Dash that had been fixed over the months since sometimes it would fall apart, writing her stories when she was suddenly called into the back room by her mother. Despite herself, Amanda couldn’t help but find this odd as never once did her mother call her into the back rooms before, for all she knew, they were merely storage rooms and not suitable for children unless the older woman had prepared a special room for her child.
Even with her childish innocence, a deep feeling of dread began to creep its way into Amanda’s guts, instincts that she never thought existed began to creep up, telling her something was wrong. However, even with the warning signals yelling at her to go elsewhere, Amanda got up from her spot on the floor and went to the back rooms, shutting the door behind her as she went to her mother to ask what she needed.
It is unknown what had truly gone down in the room, but the key details that never change is a stab in the back when the girl wasn’t looking as well as being told that her services were no longer required.
Regardless of the reason, the result was the same as the next time anyone saw Amanda, she was a completely different person. Instead of the cheerful, geeky girl they had grown to love, Amanda was cold, distant and antisocial. Her green eyes looked rather dull, nearly lifeless as she didn’t get a good night’s sleep and her usual smile was nothing more than a deep, angry frown. Her body looked skinnier than usual, but under her suit or clothes, it was hard to tell. There were probably more red flags about her, but those were noticeable about the brunette as she usually stayed in her room or avoided people altogether and acted aggressive to anyone who would approach her.
Amanda’s mother, on the other hand, was cheeky and happy. No one really knew why, but a good look at the ratings on her films, told everyone almost everything they needed to know about the situation. In less then a few months, the studio began to improve, money came rolling in and people started to line back up for the new movies. With the success came people lining up outside the studio, wanting the scoop of how her rags turned to riches when all hope seemed lost. According to the press, the woman hadn’t said much besides how she had managed to get a spark of creativity for her next movies.
However, when one of the interviewers asked about Amanda, the older woman fell silent and didn’t answer any more questions. Of course, this caused a lot of confusion and suspicion from the town folk, but most of them simply chalked it up to a simple family matter and none ever went to help stop Amanda’s further descent into madness and fury. On a certain lever, it was but not one anyone would expect or rather, what they wouldn’t expect.
Mandy further distanced herself from the rest of the studio members since no one would help her because she was certain they all believed that bitch running the show or they were just money hungry bastards, choosing to hide more in her room and focus on her stories, however they weren't’ the type of stories everyone had expected from her, they were tragic, filled with betrayal and pain. It seems like after Amanda was betrayed, she began to pour out her pain into her writings. Whatever these stories really were, they were stories that no one would listen or watch in the movie theater which caused a blow to the movie’s success. Not even her former mother who couldn’t understand why her riches were turning to rags.
This type of behavior, these walls she built around herself were far from healthy especially when those nightmares came and sent her spiraling into paranoia, causing her broken mind to shatter even more to the point she was psychologically damned for life. She began to push everyone away, throwing herself more into her stories and madness, loneliness which would reflect in her stories if anyone were to get their hands on them. Furiously snarling at anyone who would approach her, lashing out like a wounded animal whenever anyone would try to console her or plead with her to get help.
Too headstrong some would say, too proud others still. But none of them could comprehend the gravity of the situation until that fateful day, the day Amanda finally snapped. It was once again a normal day beside the obvious change in the young girl, everyone was doing their separate duties while the girl in question was self isolating herself, hiding in her room, dwindling more and more into anger and betrayal. Meanwhile her mother was off and on with her duties of writing scripts and ordering her employees around to produce the new movies like a freaking Karen.
More often than not, her eyes went to her daughter’s room, checking to see if she would come out. Nope, so she knocked on the door of her daughter’s bedroom door. Like she had expected, Amanda didn’t come out of her room. Her mother wasn’t one for backing down so she knocked harder on the door and called out to her daughter. A furious snarl from the other side of the door was the only response she received before the room went silent once again.
This was getting annoying especially considering how many times this has happened when she just wanted to talk to Amanda, so she foolishly decided to hold an intervention type thing or something, hoping she could finally put an end to this behavior or at least, that’s what she said to everyone. According to one person who worked at the studio, it was stated that he witnessed Amanda’s mother pull out a knife from somewhere in the studio, one whose blade was coated in some kind of dark brown rust. However, unknown to him, that ‘rust’ wasn’t rust at all.
The studio was dark and quiet as it was nighttime and everyone had gone home for the day, summer break was soon to be upon them just one day away. This was good for Amanda’s mother as this ‘intervention’ required the darkness and protection of the night to be on her side, she couldn’t have anyone knowing what she was doing and interfere with her plans. She shut the front door to the studio and locked it tight before heading to Amanda’s room. Not surprising, Amanda was fast asleep in her bed, the outline of her form barely noticeable underneath the thin blankets. Her body twitched and squirmed in the bed almost like the girl was having a really bad nightmare.
Her mother didn’t care much about that, carefully walked up to her daughter’s bed and pulled the girl free from her bed, not taking any notice that the girl was still wearing her Rainbow Dash costume even after all this time nor how dull in color the suit had become nor the black snitches covering the body. The only thing on her mind was getting the girl downstairs as quickly as possible. It wasn’t anything too different minus ensuring the girl remained asleep, but she managed to get Amanda into the downstairs backrooms, a place that no one else in the studio knew about despite them working for Amanda’s mother for years.
When the older woman arrived at the downstairs backrooms, she planted Amanda onto the cold hard ground next to the knife she had prepared for this occasion before leaving and going to lock the main door. However as she did this, Amanda had woken up on the floor a few seconds later, having somehow prepared herself for this moment. The girl stood herself on her feet as quickly and quietly as she could so her ‘mother’ couldn’t hear her. As she did this, she heard the telltale sound of the door to the back rooms being locked.
Panicking as the realization of being trapped with her possible murderer set in, Amanda’s mind went into overdrive as her widened green eyes scanned the inside of the back rooms, trying to find an easy way out, however there was nothing in sight. Everything seemed hopeless for poor Amanda at this point, but there was one thing her mother hadn’t counted on, despite her daughter still being young, Amanda was a clever and resourceful young girl who wouldn't just take this loss without a fight. Unfortunately, the solution to this problem would be far worse than the problem would be.
Frantically, the young girl whipped her head around in a full circle, trying to find another way to escape this horrible situation. A glint of ‘rusted’ metal caught Amanda’s eye when she whipped her head around, she only took one look at the knife on the ground and snatched it. When it was in her hands, she took a good look at the blade as if considering her life choices and everything that had ever happened in her life up to this moment. It only happened for a brief moment before the girl heard the sound of someone coming downstairs and her brain came to a decision that no sane person should have to come to.
Despite the panic that was now flowing through her veins, Amanda moved stealthily through the darkness of the back rooms like she was a ninja in a Japanese movie, clenching the knife close to her chest like a lifeline that would save her from this nightmare. Her wide, bloodshot green eyes searched the dark storage room, trying to find any trace of the woman who was supposedly her loving mother or keeping an ear out for footsteps heading her way or from anywhere within the unknown room she was trapped in.
A few seconds passed before Amanda finally heard the latter but didn’t get the former as it was pretty dark downstairs, this wasn’t good for her as there was no way she would be able to see where her attacker was coming but she could hear her footsteps coming in the same direction that she had left from. Not always did prey turned predator need the sense of sight to know where their predator/prey were, all they would need was their other useful senses. The footsteps seemed to echo within Amanda’s skull as they came closer to her hiding spot, till they finally stopped inches away from her and a gasp of what could be considered both horror and confusion.
Amanda couldn’t tell what it was but she couldn’t care about what it was, that was her signal to strike. Even with her morality begging her to reconsider, Amanda’s broken mind and sanity forced the girl to spring from her hiding place and with speed and anger that she never thought she had, she brought the knife down. Even in the darkness, she hit her target and the woman screamed in both pain and surprise as something stabbed her in the back. She struggled to get back on her feet but the shock of the sudden attack and her former daughter throwing her entire weight onto her caused her to stumble to the floor.
It didn’t take the woman long to realize what was going on and the adrenaline kicked in, much faster than any normal person would realize something. A hand rested on the ground and quickly shoved Amanda’s ‘mother’ on her back, fully intending to crush the young girl beneath her weight. But Amanda was too smart for that and scrambled off her ‘mother’ before she could even attempt to do any damage to her. Before the older woman could stop her reckless roll, she landed on her wounded back causing the knife to dig further into her spine much like she had done the same thing to Amanda.
She groaned out in pain and rolled onto her side, exposing the knife back to Amanda’s sight as she tried to catch her breath and get to her feet. However those few seconds of hesitation would soon be her downfall as they were all what Amanda needed for her survival. As if she was Rainbow Dash herself, Amanda grabbed hold of the knife and with strength the young girl never thought she had, ripped the knife free and held it out in front of her.
The growl coming from her throat was almost a high pitched snarl like that of an animal or a monster, something that actually startled the older woman for a few seconds as this was never a sound she had ever heard from her ‘daughter’ but she grinded her teeth in fury at the girl as she recovered, then she struggled to her feet so she could charge at the opposing girl. The knife shot forward and slashed through her ‘mother’s’ throat, nearly severing her head clean from her neck cuz’ the knife blade had been sharpened to the deadliest point.
The attack caused blood to slip free from the wound and splat against her face and body, coating her and her dull Rainbow Dash costume dark red. With this attack, her ‘mother’ started to weaken as shock and surprise printed itself onto her face before collapsing onto the ground. Amanda, however, didn’t quit one second. Truthfully, she should’ve stopped there as her ‘mother’ was now weak and the way to escape was several steps away. If she could get to the door then she could get the hell out of this hell that used to be her home.
However, something must’ve snapped within Amanda’s head or the weight of her betrayal was so strong that her mind and good judgment was completely clouded with rage, hatred and resentment cuz’ she didn’t stop with the stabbings. It was unknown how many stabs it took to finally kill the vile woman, but that hardly mattered, the result was still the same. Snapping out of her brief state of madness, Amanda blinked her red eyes back to their normal forest green and stared down at the body of her ‘mother’.
It only took a few seconds for reality to set in and Amanda collapsed to the ground, dropping the knife to the floor as she let out a choked sob/snarl of grief and anger at both her own actions and the actions of her ‘mother’. Even if her mother was truly a bad person who couldn’t be redeemed, she was still her mother and her death was very disturbing especially considering she was a ten year old. The little girl curled up into a ball beside the body of her former mother, rocking back and forth on the floor as she cried and laughed madly at the same time.
The last strings of her sanity ripping apart till the final thread snapped and insanity consumed her, soon Amanda Studios was no more.
Three Weeks Later
Time slowly passed with no sign of Amanda or her ‘mother’, in fact they never came out of the studio that day her ‘mother’ said she was going to hold an ‘intervention’ for her ‘daughter’. One would simply assume that the two had gone on an unannounced trip like various other times before. But everyone who knew them thought it was a bit unusual for Amanda and her ‘mother’ to be gone for three weeks without at least giving a word back to social media.
So a group of people went to the empty studio to attempt to find any trace of the two missing people, they were confused to find no one would answer the door, heck not even little Amanda would always be glad to answer the door for visitors. Figuring that there would be another entrance left unlocked around the studio, they walked around the perimeter of the building, trying to find an easy way in. They weren’t entirely wrong, but it was not what they expected and they were sort of starting to question doing this mission.
The group was shocked to find the large window at the top of the building was broken, pieces of broken glass resting around their feet and from the size of the hole, it looked like something large had broken out of it. The group were a bit scared but they didn’t let that concern them too much as there could be a logical explanation for what had happened to the window, so they continued their little trek till one of their group found a backdoor to the studio that was thankfully left open wide.
Entering the studio through the backdoor with careful steps to ensure they wouldn’t trip over their own feet or miss the stairs entirely, the group of urban explorers were greeted by the scent of iron and rotten death from deep within the unknown basement. This, of course, had the group pausing in their tracks and covering their noses with their hands. This was bad enough as it was, but like in a horror movie situation, things would only get worse then it already was as they caught the sight of what was causing the smell.
Terrified screams echoed throughout the building as they laid eyes on the ripped apart, half rotten body of the studio head, most of her skin, bones and hair was missing as if something vile and hungry had ripped her apart and devoured her without any remorse or sanity. It was difficult to identify the cause of death exactly, but the sight of bloody footprints leading from the body up to the staircase caught their eyes and directed their attention elsewhere. In seconds, the group slowly walked over to the staircase as quietly as they could like they were afraid to disturb something, something that was possibly still within the studio.
Their eyes widened as they watched the footprints slowly turn from normal feet to hooves as they walked from the body up to the middle of the studio before they were abruptly cut off. The gears in the group’s heads turned as they began to connect the dots, something horrible had been created from the depths of the studio and unleashed on the entire world. Of course, the police were called, the body was removed, examined and buried. Reports were made, warrants were sent out and soon, missing person posters were set up around the town with Amanda’s face on them as she wasn’t there at the studio at the time of the murder and the discovery of the possible murderer/monster.
Police worked themselves to the bone, trying to find any trace of the missing girl or the monster who had possibly taken her or more accurately but not at the time, the monster she had become according to the group who investigated the studio. However any search parties searching for the missing girl were unsuccessful even though the police had hired the best investigators the town had to offer, any searches all turned up as deadends as there were no tracks or any evidence of a departure besides the broken studio window and the bloody foot/hoofprints heading up the backroom staircase.
Months passed without any more accidents and the case was soon dropped, buried into the many cold cases that plagued the town but were buried because they couldn’t be solved due to lack of evidence. Another month passed till the entire town finally began to forget about the accident and the studio, the latter itself soon falling into the claws of entropy before it was finally torn down to rubble since no one wanted the land or studios. Soon no trace of Amanda and her ‘mother’ were left, only old memories and one terrible accident that some would love to forget as much as they possibly could.
An accident filled with stories, betrayal, hatred, murder and cannibalism. An accident that would create the monster that now travels the world, telling her horror stories all the while containing her true identity. A monster hellbent on punishing and tormenting all of humankind, a monster that would later be called: ‘Wendigo Studios’. A monster who became an urban legend, a campfire story teenagers would tell each other to scare them half to death. A monster that is me!
