Chapters Sweetie Belle scrambled up the clubhouse ramp, through the door, and dove under the table inside. It was an old wooden table with flaking blue paint that the three had bought from Applejack last year. She was going to get rid of it anyway, so she parted with it for a couple of bits and a peppermint.
The flaking paint peeled off in spirals. Flashes of the dry, dead skin from the creature’s bloated legs danced across her eyes.
“Sweetie! Sweetie open the door, quick!”
It was Scootaloo’s voice. Clear and filled with adrenaline.
Sweetie Bell stuck her head through the window and saw the little Pegasus galloping towards the clubhouse. Apple Bloom wasn’t in sight. “Yeah, come on! Where’s Apple Bloom?”
“She… I think she’s right behind me, isn’t she?” Scootaloo slowed down to a trot and looked over her shoulder. There was nopony in sight.
“I can’t see her from here,” Sweetie called, scanning the horizon.
The light from the downstairs windows of the Apple family’s Barnhouse bathed the field in a soft orange glow set against October’s blue night. Crickets and bullfrogs argued, and branches of the orchard sighed as the wind caught upon their leaves.
“I think Applejack is inside, Sweetie! I’m going to go get help!” Scootaloo called.
Sweetie Belle took a worried glance at the horizon again. This was the best view of the orchard. If anything came from the forest, she would be the first to know. The idea of running home and hoping the thing didn’t wander up to her bedroom window was a hot coal that burned her skull from the inside out. Sweetie would rather stand lookout until the morning, or until someone gets rid of the thing.
“Ok, but please be quick. I don’t want to be alone!”
Scootaloo ran off towards the house. She grew smaller in view and became a speck as she brought her hoof up to the door. Once Scootaloo went inside, Sweetie Belle turned back towards the forest. Just as Sweetie’s heartbeat began to slow, a knock of a hoof at the clubhouse door made her jump.
“Scootaloo? That was quick. Is Applejack getting the others?”
The door stood silent.
“It’s me. Let. Me in.” Apple Bloom spoke from the other side.
“Apple Bloom?” Sweetie Belle walked to the door and cracked it open. Apple Bloom was just outside the door frame, standing so close it was like her nose was pressed to the door. Her face was hidden in the darkness, but the moonlight caused the sapphires of her eyes to sparkle.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sweetie Belle squeaked, glancing behind herself as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo ventured further into the Everfree.
“Of course I am! Timber wolves have been droppin’ left and right ever since the blight passed through last month. All we need to do is find a few of their heads and then we’ll have the most perfectest nightmare night masks ever!” Apple Bloom said with confidence, leading the group over warped roots and between thick bushes.
“I can picture it already,” Scootaloo added. “I’ll have a ghost—no, a jack o’lantern cutiemark! That’ll be so sick, huh Apple Bloom?”
“Sicker than a wet dog on a winter wednesday!”
Sweetie Belle defied her gut and followed her friends close behind. “What if we run into a pack of live ones? They’ll rip us to bits!” she wimpered.
“Don’t be such a scaredy cat,” Scootaloo chided. “The last of the wolves went to the east side of the Everfree to avoid the blight. Look,” the filly bent the stem of a fern with her hoof. The broad fan leaf was speckled with glistening, oily dots of butter. “Where there’s blight, there’s safety.”
“If you say so,” Sweetie relented. That made sense… kind of.
The three ventured further; over mossy rocks, under the bent elbows of willow trees, until they found themselves in a clearing next to a meandering creek. Across the knee-high water lay the remains of a pack of timber wolves, eight in number. The bodies were morsels upon a rock tongue that spilled out of the mouth of a cave before submitting to grass and dirt.
The cave was no stranger to the fillies. They found it two years ago and its high ceiling, smooth walls, and short length made it an ideal place for a forest clubhouse. However, right when they set up camp, Fluttershy showed up and chewed them out—a shocking moment for them given her otherwise tepid demeanor.
“If you think that this will make a good house, you can bet your flanks that a bugbear would believe the same thing!”
Her scolding burned fresh in their memory. So fresh that the cave was the first place they thought to check when looking for timber wolves.
“Oh my gosh! Ain’t we lucky, girls?” Apple Bloom exclaimed, running up to one of the piles of wood. The wood was cypress, twisted into the form of a canine with natural precision. The wooden fangs set flush against a hardened palate, peeking out below an embossment that represented its lips.
“Twilight told me that timber wolves are a type of mimic,” Sweetie said, fear now absent from her voice. “Like, what good are wooden lips, anyway?”
“Why would they want to mimic wolves? The Everfree doesn’t even have normal wolves,” Scootaloo grunted as she popped a hollow head from its torso.
“Maybe to scare ponies away? Granny says that they’re the mindless protectors of the forest and they don’t take too kindly to ‘enter-loopers,’ or something like that.”
“Yeah…” Sweetie trailed off, looking down at the body of a timber cub. She caught a pang of sadness from the autumn air. Even if they were magical constructs, why would they bother mimicking something as defenseless as a little cub? Sweetie bent down and placed the frog of her hoof on its torso, briefly closing her eyes. The world ceased for a moment, and the forest smiled.
Sweetie opened her eyes and took her hoof off. The cub lay dead in a bed of ferns. The ferns were mottled yellow, but the cub didn’t have so much as a splotch of blight.
“Girls,” Sweetie Belle called, her voice shaking again. “Do you see any blight on the wolves?”
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other while wearing their wolf skulls—they made for great masks. Too great, though. The skulls were in pristine condition.
Scootaloo looked back down at the body she had removed the skull from. On closer inspection, she saw a hoof-sized divot in its sternum. Something had impacted the chest of the wolf with a surprising amount of force.
Scootaloo opened her mouth to speak. “Maybe we should—”
Stagnant air trickled from the mouth of the cave.
“Hello? I’m lo-st. Where is the f-orest r-anger?”
The fillies froze, slowly turning their heads towards the noise. They strained their eyes to try and see what made the broken collection of words.
Pure darkness lay beyond the lip of the cave. Luna’s light failed to penetrate more than a few feet inward. A distant echo of wet slaps of flesh against rock puddled out of the cave onto the grass.
“It-‘s cold. Can I use y-our phone? I ne-ed a r-ide to town.”
The voice was guttural. It gurgled as air struggled to vibrate its pustule-ridden vocal cords. If the fillies were being generous, they would say it belonged to a woman, but they knew better.
Sweetie and Scootaloo took hesitant steps backward to the creek. Apple Bloom stood still, her body stuck in a paradoxical rut between fight and flight.
“I c-an p-ay you. I have m-on-ey.”
A pale pink form stepped into the curtain of moonlight at the mouth of the cave. The figure stood on two valgum legs. Its feet were purple, and its toes bore split, yellowed nails. Thick, worming varicosities stitched up the shins and calves. Its knees appeared like deformed faces, and its thighs were lined with clawing stretch marks. At its crotch was nothing but a collection of wiry hair.
Its top half remained obscured in the dark.
“Is a-ny one th-there?”
Sweetie Belle ran.
There was no thought process, no weighing of moral or ethical quandaries at the sin of leaving her friends behind. Just pure, electric terror as her brain demanded self-preservation. She would get help, is what she told herself as she fled over the creek. She would get Twilight and the others to come and kill the monster and save her friends. What good could she do, staying there? She couldn’t fight a dog, let alone a timber wolf. And this? No.
Sweetie Belle ran.
The creature’s swollen feet took another haphazard step forward, slapping loudly with a wobbled gait. The curtain of moonlight revealed more of its hideous form. Above its crotch were the humps of its pelvic bones. It had one on the left and three on the right. Its hypogastrium sunk down into a valley while its stomach bloated out just above. It lacked a belly button, and striking blue medusae veins radiated out from the center like pulsating snakes just under the skin. The creature had lopsided breasts, the left heavier than the right, and neither had teats. Its left elbow was bent outward as if the forearm was attached backward, and both of its hands tapered into spindly spiders of flesh.
Over its clavicle flowed smooth jet black hair.
That was enough for Scootaloo.
She didn’t need to wait for the creature to step out from the shadow and reveal its face. She didn’t know if her heart could take it. She paused as she turned to run, knowing that leaving a friend behind would be the last thing her hero would want of her, but… Scootaloo let out a high-pitched whinny. If Apple Bloom could hear that, then she would get the message to run. What else could the Scootaloo do? Nothing.
That was enough for Scootaloo.
Apple Bloom stood still, unmoving.
She desperately willed her legs to carry her away, but they refused. Fear was tangible, and it wrapped its long fingers around her neck.
The thing stepped forward once more. Apple Bloom trailed her eyes up its hair towards a stark widow’s peak. The creature’s forehead was smooth as porcelain. Its eyebrows were finely kempt and its irises a soft blue. Its eyes resembled the shape of almonds, wearing the soft expression of a mother coddling her child. Its nose was an ivory chess piece and its lips were supple rose petals. The creature’s chin angled to a soft, rounded point.
It stared at Apple Bloom and Apple Bloom stared at it. Her body relaxed and she felt peace.
Apple Bloom stood still, unmoving.
Author's Note
yes, time to procrastinate from my main fic with more niche stuff.
Apple Bloom sat on a smooth stone surface just before the cave as the grass reached its farthest boundary before surrendering to rock. Her gaze was funneled by an unseen force towards the creature’s face—the thought of resisting and breaking away didn’t even posit. The creature swallowed Apple Bloom with its beautiful eyes, and the filly floated in mental bliss for eternity.
The creature’s sparkling eyes analyzed the filly, jittering around in a nystagmic dance. Just as soon as the thing laid its eyes upon her, it tore them away. Apple Bloom felt an immediate, soul-crushing withdrawal as the forest returned to her periphery. The side of the thing’s neck was gnarled, connecting to its malformed body in a jagged zag.
“Far-mer? I f-oun-d you-r horse-ie,” it muttered, staring off at the tree line behind Apple Bloom. It took a few more wobbly steps past the pony, paying her no mind.
Apple Bloom’s wits returned to her and she began to backpedal towards the creek. There was a twisted expression of concern on the creature. Was it actually evil? Her sister was always spending her time working on friendship problems. Maybe it was like Zecora and it was just misunderstood.
“Uhm,” Apple Bloom said as she increased her distance from the thing. “Are you ok Ms? Are you lost? I can take you to Fluttershy… she knows a lot about helping the creatures of the Everfree.”
The thing came to a stop. Its head began to turn back to the filly while it shifted its feet.
“Y-ou c-an speak?”
From its side, Apple Bloom saw the white of its left eye expand as it boggled out. Its head was top-heavy on its neck and it lagged behind as it turned. Apple Bloom’s fur stood on end as she realized that if she made eye contact with it again, then it would be the last thing she would ever do. The warm peace she felt moments before had been entirely replaced by a crushing malice that choked the air from her lungs. Apple Bloom reared up on her hind legs and dashed across the creek. She didn’t dare look back, but she heard a flurry of wet slaps from the creature’s sodden feet as it scrambled through the water behind her. Apple Bloom weaved between tree trunks, low branches whipping and scratching her as she ran. Her vision was obscured by a layer of panicked tears. For the first stretch of her run, she felt the beast’s wheezing breath on her tail—amid gasps it alternated between manic laughter and sobs.
Apple Bloom broke into another clearing, one that she had never been to before. She wasn’t sure if she fled further into the forest or closer to town. In the center of the clearing was an outcropping of a massive boulder. The humid air had eaten barrel-sized holes into the face of the rock at varying heights over the course of eternity. They were just the right size for the pony to fit in and they reached a depth that appeared beyond the length of the creature’s deformed arms.
Apple Bloom frantically climbed up into a hole and retreated as far as she could before reaching an atretic end. She curled up towards the rear, holding her tail between her arms and legs as she stared at the full moon against the night sky. It was all she could see from the hole’s entrance.
Apple Bloom begged that the creature had lost track of her and even allowed herself a second of delusion in believing that it would all be ok, but her dread returned in force when she heard branches crack as something tumbled out of the trees into the clearing.
“Li-ttle tal-king po-ny,” it almost sang.
Apple Bloom lowered her eyes away from the entrance of the hole, looking at the silver moonlight against the stone surface. Her vision shook as her body shivered.
“Wh-at do you-re me-mor-ies t-t-taste li-k-e?”
The moonlight went dark as something obscured the hole. Apple Bloom squeezed her eyes shut. She heard a hideous scratching as fingernails scraped against stone. She could feel the air being disturbed just inches from her nose.
For several minutes, the creature grasped in vain before silence returned. Apple Bloom felt the moonlight bathing her eyelids once more. She knew, though, that it must be waiting outside, hoping that she would be stupid enough to open her eyes. Apple Bloom kept her eyes shut. She resolved to wait there until morning.
“Apple Bloom?”
“Apple Bloom!”
Applejack, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle navigated the forest floor while Rainbow Dash flew above, directing them to the clearing that Scootaloo told them about. From above, Rainbow could see the cave surrounded by a ring of dead, blight-stricken trees.
Scootaloo ran into the kitchen and spouted a thousand things over the course of a second. Applejack and her friends were over for a Friday round of cider. Being interrupted by one of the fillies was not a rare occurrence, but never had they seen one of them so shaken. Rarity and Pinkie Pie decided to stay back to watch the two fillies at their clubhouse while the rest went to find Apple Bloom.
“Spare me, oh I hope she’s ok,” Applejack said to herself. She repeated, “Spare me,” in a whisper as she ran. The foliage and trees gradually thinned out as decay overtook them and the ponies slowed when the cave came into view. Miasma drooled from its mouth in a steady outpour.
“Oh gross, this place reeks!” Rainbow gagged as she landed next to her friends. A trail of mucus glistened on the stone leading out of the mouth of the cave. It smelled like a day-old stinkhorn.
“The goo on the ground is organic,” Fluttershy said, bending down and sniffing it. “It looks like serous fluid.”
Rainbow Dash and Applejack looked at each other in confusion. Twilight nodded.
“Seriously what?” Rainbow cocked an eyebrow.
“Uh, it’s like the stuff in a blister,” Fluttershy clarified.
“How is that supposed to help us find Apple Bloom?” Applejack asked impatience and fear bubbling up in her throat.
“I, uh—” Fluttershy’s ears fell flat.
“The trail should lead us to the source. If we find the creature and capture it, then Apple Bloom, wherever she is, will be a lot safer,” Twilight stated, walking forward into the cave. “You don’t have to come with me, girls. It might be dangerous.”
The three remaining ponies exchanged glances. Fluttershy had already sat herself down, but she reluctantly stood back up when Rainbow Dash and Applejack followed Twilight without further hesitation.
“It’s sure dark in here… ah, Ah!” Fluttershy muffled a sneeze with her wing. The odor of wet fungus grew stronger and stronger as they continued. The way was illuminated by a faint lavender light from Twilight’s horn, but it was barely enough to see either side of the cave tunnel. When Fluttershy finished rubbing her snout, she opened her eyes and noticed a small set of wet hoofprints leading out of the cave.
“L-look girls! Filly prints! Do you think Apple Bloom got away?” Flutershy asked.
Applejack stopped in her tracks and trotted over to Fluttershy. “Oh thank Celestia, she got away!” Her voice had the relief of ten years of hard work. Fluttershy could see Applejack’s fur settle as hope returned the sparkle to her eyes.
“Let’s keep moving forward, girls,” Twilight called from ahead. “Whatever this thing was, it lost a lot of fluid. It must be dehydrated… by… now,” Twilight’s words slowed as she stared dumbfounded at the sight before her. A large circular puddle of liquid stained the stone floor of the cave. The cave ended in a natural decline into a small pit-shaped room with young stalactites dotting the ceiling. The pool of liquid produced a terrible, concentrated odor, and on the edges of the pool were scattered sheets of skin curled up into spirals. Wet bones littered the room, and the silvery membranes of viscera glistened against Twilight’s magical light. The organ chunks still twitched, and they had large, yellow bullae that rippled with each errant contraction of smooth muscle.
The trail of hoofprints led right out from the pool.
“Apple Bloom?” Sweetie Belle’s voice hitched as her friend stuck a hoof in the door. Sweetie took a step back, bowing her head low as her ears fell against her head. The silhouette of her friend slowly passed through the doorway, stopping short of the square of moonlight entering the room from the clubhouse’s window.
“A-re y-ou ok M-s. Flu-tter-shy? I h-h-ha-ve a crea-ture f-for yo-u. To.” It stepped forward. “Lo-ok at.”
It was Apple Bloom.
Her eyes were beautiful.
Sweetie Belle backed herself under the wooden table. “Who are you? What do you want from me?!”
Apple Bloom took another step. Her front knees were set in backward, and her legs bent inwards beneath her body as she moved. When she got closer, Sweetie Belle realized that the skin separating Apple Bloom’s nostrils was cleft. A slick, yellow oil coated the exposed flesh.
“I wan-t t-o kno-w yo-u,” Apple Bloom continued, stepping forward out of the moonlight. She bent down to see Sweetie under the table.
Sweetie stared back, linking eyes with her friend. They sparkled the most magnificent blue.
“Don’t you remember? I’m Sweetie Belle, your best friend,” Sweetie stood from her crouch, not remembering a moment of her fear. She stood up too quickly and bumped her horn on the wooden table, jostling a pot of long cold tea and a set of eating utensils from the day earlier. “Ouch,” she closed her eyes in a flinch. The second her eyes closed, terror rushed back through her brain, lighting her mind on fire.
“No. No. No-t li-ke that.” Words tumbled out of Apple Bloom’s mouth with a tone of calm curiosity. The filly approached Sweetie Belle without pause.
“G-get away from me!” Sweetie screamed, turning to run from the other side of the table. Apple Bloom gurgled and rushed forward, diving under the table behind Sweetie. Sweetie just barely avoided a grasp from its front hooves. She gave a panicked, two-hind-hoof response, sending the monster recoiling.
It was a square hit on the thing’s right eye. The skin around it swelled, but her left eye darted back with an angry sheen. Sweetie Belle’s head was turning with her momentum, ripping her eyes away from what would otherwise be her last glance.
Apple Bloom’s face leaked the nauseating substance and Sweetie heard the frogs of the creature’s hooves slip as they planted. Sweetie ran around the table, making her way for the door, but the creature tackled her from the side. She felt a cold pain as it bit down on her leg. It had notched hutchinson teeth that dug down with two-pronged stabs. It clamped on her flesh and Apple Bloom shook, attempting to tear away a piece of the filly. Sweetie met the attack with a blind and desperate stab to its side with her horn. Though the filly’s horn wasn’t fully grown, it still had a point.
Apple Bloom let go of the bite and screamed a scream of several different voices joined together in agony. The creature stumbled backward towards the wooden table, its face tied up in pain. Sweetie had the opportunity to run, but her vision seemed to click on subtle clues of the scene before her.
Sweetie Belle focused her telekinesis and brought the table down, tilting over its legs and catching Apple Bloom by the neck, pinning it to the ground. The creature opened its eyes but just as it did the teapot from atop the table shattered over its head, soaking its face and causing it to shut them again. Sweetie pressed her advantage and picked up a fork and a spoon that had clattered off of the table. She ran up to the monster and thrust the utensils forward, piercing both of its eyes through their lids.
Apple Bloom shrieked so loud that the room was bathed in the shadow of a spider’s web as the window cracked from its center. Sweetie Belle stumbled backward, holding her hooves over her ears while grinding her teeth together. A mounting pressure built from within her head and her vision blurred together—she prayed that her head wouldn’t pop.
Through her blurred vision, Sweetie Belle saw Apple Bloom’s body boil. Bubbles rose and popped underneath her fur, painting the walls with splurts of yellow grease. Its hooves and legs spiraled as they lost turgidity. Within seconds, the screaming petered off into a trickle of wheezing air as the body dehydrated.
The screaming finally stopped, and Sweetie took her hooves from her ears. She saw the body of the monster. It looked like Apple Bloom had been drained of blood before being set afire. However, its mane was still just as full and red as ever.
“Sweetie Belle, is everything alright? Scootaloo just gave us some dreadful news!” Rarity called out from below.
A rapid knocking came from the clubhouse door. “Sweetie Belle, I’m back, let me in!”
Sweetie Belle carefully approached the door. She brought her trembling eyes to the keyhole. Through it, she saw Scootaloo pacing around while Rarity and Pinkie Pie stood at the base of the ramp leading up to the entrance. Sweetie opened the door.
“Sweetie, the others are goi—holy crap! Is tha—Is that Apple Bloom?!” Scootaloo’s mouth hung in shock as she took in the ruined room.
“No way, that was a monster, I swear. It tried to kill me.” Sweetie turned back towards the creature’s body. “It looked like Apple Bloom, but it sure as heck wasn’t a pony.”
“I wonder where Apple Bloom is,” Scootaloo frowned and walked over to the window, looking through the cracked glass out to the forest line. Just as she did, distant pastel dots appeared out of the trees. “Sweetie Belle, look, our sisters are back! And… Oh my gosh! They have Apple Bloom!”
“Really?!” Sweetie rushed over and scooted Scootaloo out of the way. Sure enough, the sisters were galloping forward to the treehouse with Apple Bloom on Applejack’s back. The filly was fine, though she stared unfocused at the passing trees as she gripped her sister’s back. She buried her face in Applejack’s withers.
Applejack approached the entrance of the clubhouse. She greeted Pinkie and Rarity who kept watch at the ramp and let Apple Bloom off as she got to the door.
“Your friends are inside, Apple Bloom. We’re gonna have a nice sleepover tonight, alright? I’ll keep you safe the whole time while Twilight goes and gets that monster.”
“I don’t think I can sleep until you catch it,” Apple Bloom muttered as she climbed down from her sister. Applejack opened the door to the clubhouse and they both saw the body of the doppelganger.
“Ohmygosh!” Apple Bloom’s eyes widened.
“Y’all killed it?!” Applejack guffawed.
“You bet!” Scootaloo clapped her hooves together. “Nopony messes with the CMC! Well, it was mostly Sweetie Belle, but we did it, girls!”
“Hopefully we don’t have to do something like that again,” Sweetie Belle sighed. Her eyes were glassy, fogged over from the stress of a thousand nightmares. The dark clutches of the night had—
Bing!
“Sweet Celestia…” Scootaloo’s mouth formed an O while she elbowed Apple Bloom.
“No way,” Apple Bloom whispered.
“Monster Hunter cutiemark!” they shouted.
A small figure of a ghoul in crosshairs sat squarely on Sweetie Belle’s flank.
“Oh ponyfeathers.”
