Elijah Goldberg's Tales of Horror (And Also Ponies)
With a shrill cry, the little lilac unicorn filly named Twilight Sparkle awoke from her slumber. Tears clung to the corners of her eyes as she fled from her room, little hooves clopping against the hard floor of the hallway. She flung the door to her brother’s room open as hard as she could, which isn’t to say much, and jumped up onto the covers.
Shining Armour awoke to being smashed in the stomach by a small purple object. Upon further inspection, this “object” turned out to be his sister.
“Twily?” Shining asked groggily, blinking his eyes a few times. “What are you doing? It’s the middle of the night!”
His little filly of a sister looked up at him, tears now flowing freely from her large eyes. “I had a bad dream...”
Shining groaned. “Why didn’t you head to mom and dad’s room?”
“Your’s is closer...” Twilight snuggled into the blankets beside her brother. “Besides, you’re my BBBFF!”
Shining smiled sleepily at this. “Well, I guess you’re right...” Lightning flashed, illuminating the room for a moment, then was followed by the deafening boom of thunder. Twilight squeaked, and buried herself in the covers.
Shining couldn’t help but chuckle at this. His sister wasn’t often scared of things, but lightning always seemed to do the trick. He felt bad for laughing, but her reaction was so damn adorable!
“Alright, you silly filly, you can stay in here for the night." Shining ruffled his sister's hair. "Don’t tell mom though, remember last time?”
Twilight’s mother had an odd habit of wanting everything in its right place. The habit itself wasn’t very odd, but to the extent of which she went to keep everything perfect was a bit overboard. This included lecturing Shining Armour and Twilight Sparkle for nearly an hour after she had found Twilight sleeping at the foot of her brother’s bed.
Twilight snuggled into her brother’s chest. She felt safe as the metronomic rhythm of his heart resonated in her ears. His breathing lulled her into a sleepy state, and soon was on the cusp of unconsciousness.
Then everything was quiet.
Twilight’s eyes opened. Why had everything gone quiet? Had she fallen asleep already? No, that couldn’t be the case, she was awake right now!
“Shiny?” Twilight prodded her little hoof against her brother’s neck. The stallion didn’t move. Twilight began to feel scared again. The rain continued to pound the world outside.
“Shiny? Are you ok?” Twilight’s voice seemed to be swallowed by the darkness when she spoke. Again, she lifted her hoof to tentatively poke her sleeping sibling.
Shining’s fore-legs wrapped tightly around Twilight, who squealed in surprise. His grip was tighter than it usually was, but Twilight had no reason to fear him.
“Shining! That wasn't funny,” Twilight moaned indignantly. Shining’s grip grew tighter and tighter on the poor little filly. “Shiny! Stop that!”
Twilight pushed against her brother’s chest with her little legs, then stopped. There was no heartbeat. No rhythmic breathing. No body warmth. Just cold fur. While Shining’s heart may have not been beating, Twilight’s was pounding right in her throat.
Slowly tearing her gaze from the bigger of the two unicorn’s chests, she directed her gaze to her brother’s head. All she saw was a swath of blue-striped hair.
That’s right, he was facing the other way when he fell asleep. Twilight slowly raised her left fore-leg to move her brother’s head over to face her. her breathing grew laborious as Shining’s grip grew ever tighter. Sweat was pouring down the little filly’s face by the time her hoof graced her brother’s face. With a quick jerk, she turned her brother’s head to face her.
Shining, aside being still as a statue, was no different from normal. Twilight was still confused, and still being constricted by her brother’s ever tightening, lifeless grasp. “Shining? Are you ok? Let go of me, please!”
Twilight felt that urge that everyone feels at one point, and quite often at that. It was the urge to blink. Not thinking twice, she blinked quickly. It was then that everything changed.
For years to come, Twilight had no idea how everything had changed so quickly. It had been just a fleeting moment. Nevertheless, when she opened her eyes again after blinking, something was different.
Shining’s eyes were open as well. His pupils glowed a dark reddish hue, and his stare bore holes in Twilight’s face. “Shiny?” she whispered, hoping to Celestia he wouldn’t answer.
In a way, Twilight got her wish. Shining didn’t answer. Instead, he opened his mouth impossibly wide, it’s inside a black void. Twilight screamed with absolute terror as the horror that befell her brother swept down onto her. An instant before the void threatened to take her from the world of the living, some of her basic instincts took over, and she fired a spell right into her brother’s alien mouth.
Twilight Sparkle was a talented filly, to say the least. She was soon to be accepted into Celestia’s School for Magic after Celestia had witnessed Twilight’s abilities firsthoof. Needless to say, her spells were not weak in any respect.
The spell blast was powerful, and dissolved the stallions head. He released his grip on Twilight, and sank down deeper into the covers. Twilight stared in horror at her headless brother.
“S-shiny?” The lilac filly’s eyes began to brim with tears. What had she done? “Shiny!”
The headless body of her brother shot up and tackled the poor unicorn, shoving her down into the bed. Twilight screeched, and tried to struggled against the constricting grasp of her once brother. Nightmarish tentacles, each adorned with razor sharp spikes, sprouted from his stump of a head, and loomed over at her, threatening to slice her up. Again, she summed up another bolt of magic and this time fired it at the monster’s chest.
This had both an upside and a downside. The upside being that the monster was no longer holding onto Twilight. The downside being that the monster’s chest seemed to be more durable, thus the filly’s spell didn’t do much more then shove the horror off of her.
Twilight scrambled for the door to Shining’s room, which had been blown shut due to the wind. The monster had recovered, and bounded after the little lilac filly. Twilight’s hoof shot to the doorknob, and turned it with all her might, shoving outwards to open the door.
What’s happening? Twilight thought as the hideous monster that used to be her brother swooped down on her.
Elijah Goldberg's Tales of Horror (And Also Ponies)
Twilight swung the door open, and fell into the hallway. The monster growled disgustingly, and lumbered out, looking around with unseen eyes, buried in tentacles. Twilight’s first instinct was to head to her parent’s room for help. The horror behind her made sickening noises, that almost sounded like Shining Armor screaming for help. Twilight began to cry from the sheer terror of it all. This was horrible, her worst nightmares coming to life... why? What was going on?
The little filly swung the door to her parent’s room open, and found the room to be mostly unharmed. Slamming the door shut, she took a look around. There was something blue stuck to the wall, but everytime Twilight focused on it, her vision became blurry. It made her uneasy, but she had more pressing matters to attend to. She could worry about blue fuzz once she had properly barricade the door.
Using her magic to try and levitate the bureau in front of the door, she managed to get it to move about three feet before exhausting herself. The poor filly tried to push the bureau the rest of the way, but it was simply too heavy.
A dull thud alerted Twilight to the fact that the abomination of Celestia’s Will had found its way to the door. The little filly squeaked in horror, and jumped into her parents’ bed. They would protect her from the monster, they always had saved her from things in the past...
The sheets were lumpy and odd. Both of Twilight’s parents seemed to be fine. Only their heads were above the sheets, but their eyes were closed peacefully. Twilight went up to her father, and whispered in his ear.
“Daddy... something horrible happened, and Shiny turned into a monster, and then... oh, you’ve got to help!”
Orion said nothing, still silent and unmoving. Twilight froze. This is exactly what happened right before Shining Armor had turned into that... thing.
Backing away slowly, Twilight hopped off the bed. She was now faced with two terrible dilemmas. She could either stay in here, and wait for her parents to become horrible creatures from the pits of Tartarus, or risk going back outside with that tentacled monstrosity that used to be her brother.
The door shuddered slightly as the monster shamed its hooves against it. Twilight had all but given up. Either way, she was going to meet a grisly fate at the hooves of some sort of monster.
“Don’t tell me you’ve given up already?”
Twilight spun around. The blue fuzz on the wall was no longer there. Standing in front of the previous space of wall where the fuzz had once been sitting was a creature Twilight had only read about.
“Discord?” The creature bore a striking resemblance to the drawings of the draconequus lord of chaos. However, he wore a deranged smile, one that hinted to the fact that maybe this individual was not quite... all there. Not that Discord would be sane from what Twilight had read about him, but this gave off more of an aura of pure insanity, not of chaos. Also, Discord was sitting in a statue in Canterlot Gardens. Princess Celestia had taken her there on an afternoon not too long ago.
“Ah, yes, my older pomegranate. Shame he’s gotten himself stoned. I was looking forward to eternal chaos. Won, s’tel klat tuoba ruoy tneserp noitautis.”
Twilight stared in abject horror and confusion at this. Whoever this was, they knew Discord, and seemed to be entirely crazy.
The draconequus looked down at the pony before smiling again. Twilight wanted to cry, but her eyes had gone dry. She didn’t even feel scared anymore, just... numb. Uncomfortably numb.
“How rude, I seem to have forgotten my jacket. No matter, the key is Insanity, my dear purple piglet.” The figure before the filly sat down on the bed. “You may be asking ‘Why isn’t the sky blue instead of orange?’ Well, I shouldn’t talk about Derpy that way, she’s a very able mailmare. What I shall address, however, is the monsters in the closet. Or rather, the room.”
Insanity flung the sheets off of the bed. Both of Twilight Sparkle’s parents were skeletons below their necks. Twilight wanted to scream, but in all honesty expected something like this. That didn’t stop this from being any less horrific.
The skeletons hopped out of bed, their eyes still closed, and the flesh on their heads sullen. Twilight felt bile rise in her throat as they approached, flies clinging to the skin.
“Have oodles of fun with your new playmates, my succulent kumquat!” The draconequus slowly dissolved into several multicolored slugs, which began a painfully slow crawl towards the little foal.
This was simply too much for Twilight to handle. The door broke down, and the tentacle-headed Shining wandered in disgustingly. Twilight’s fragile foal mind snapped. She instinctively shot out a shield, which shoved back the slugs and her parents. The little filly smiled a deranged smile, tears streaming down her face. She fell to the floor, sobbing while grinning the largest grin of her life.
Just before she blacked out, she heard insane laughter echoing in her head. She couldn’t be sure if it was Insanity, or herself.
