Arrow Shaft had had an absolutely amazing night. It had been the classical Manehattan party. He got to drink more cider than could possibly be good for his liver, he got to have his way with an incredibly inebriated little pegasus mare and he got to pick on that weirdo zebra from math class. Ice Pick apparently had the brilliant idea to invite to zebra just for this purpose.
The zebra had done a terrific job of disappearing into the background, but as he tried to leave the party, Ice Pick had seen him and stepped in front of him.
“And just where do you think you're going?” the large earth pony slurred.
“Home,” Venti replied evenly.
“Nuh-uh, I don't think so!” Arrow Shaft said as he slammed into the small zebra, sending him crashing to the floor. As Venti collected himself and tried to get back up a cup full of cider, surrounded by Arrow's yellow aura, levitated above his head and emptied its contents. Everypony around them broke out in hysterical laugher; this was apparently the funniest moment of their lives
“Coming here was a mistake,” Venti said quietly as he got back up. “You're a bad pony, Arrow Shaft." The zebra looked deep into Arrow Shaft's eyes and began chanting quietly.
“Toatã rãutatea pe care ai rãspîndito, toatã darerea pe care ai dãruito, toatã auferirea pe care ai nascuto, total te vor cauta la noapte. Lagã toatã rãutatea ta nã te înfiere deoarece la nopate va fi sfîrșital tau!”
For a moment, everypony was dead silent. Then they once again broke out in laughter; somehow this had been even funnier. While the ponies were occupied with their hysterics, the zebra slipped out into the night.
Finally regaining their breaths, the unicorn and the earth pony brohoofed. Things like these are what made Ice Pick Arrow's best buddy. That pony always knew how to have a good time.
Unfortunately, all good things comes to an end. They ran out of cider, all the mares had been used and the zebra had left. So the party broke up and everypony headed home. Arrow Shaft lived in the opposite direction of everypony else, so after brohoofing his mates goodbye he started to stagger home.
The path he was walking along was completely silent save for the noise his hooves made on the cobblestones. The twisting trees lining the road seemed to stretch their bony finger towards him. The first mile his mood had been kept up by the alcohol coursing through his veins and post coital bliss, but as he got closer to his home unease started to set in. It was in the dead hours of the night and no matter how much magic he pumped in to light spell he used to see where he was setting his hooves the darkness seemed to creep closer. It was almost as if it wanted to smother him.
After the the seed of doubt had been sown, the sea blue unicorn quickened his pace. Then the words the zebra had muttered came back to him. Back at the party Arrow had just laughed at the stupid rant.
“Like seriously,” he thought to himself, “was he trying to lay a curse on me? Curses-schmurses. Zebras don't even have any magic. There's no way it could work.” Despite his attempts to brush off the zebra's words, they seemed all the more ominous the more he thought about them. It was something about how the striped equine had phrased his words, and a certain cruel glint in the zebra's eyes.
Arrow's trot to broke out into a stumbling gallop. The more he thought about the incident the more sure he became that the stupid little zebra really had cursed him somehow.
*snap*
The sharp sound tore the drunk unicorn from his thoughts and sent him crashing face first into the road. His head smacked hard against the ground the orb of light hovering above him was dispelled.
As Arrow came to a halt, complete silence fell on the area. He dared not move an inch. The ragged sound of his breathing was like a hurricane in his ears; it was almost painfully loud. A couple of minutes passed, but the world around him remained quiet.
Finally the blue unicorn gathered the courage to once again cast his light spell. A yellow aura surrounded his horn as small orb of light materialized above him. Cautiously, he glanced at his surroundings. A few feet behind him lay a twig broken in half.
A goofy grin began to spread across Arrow's face, but as another twig snapped in the bushes right next to him he decided that now was not the time to laugh. It really dark out and he was tired from panicking, so he hurried home.
After a nearly half a mile, Arrow Shaft crashed into his front door. Drunk and tired, fitting the key into the lock proved quite a challenge. Finally getting it right, the unicorn threw himself inside and slammed the door shut with complete disregarded for his sleeping family.
Running up the stairs he threw himself in his bed; somehow asleep before he even hit the pillow.
***
As was the usual case after a night of heavy drinking, Arrow Shaft was dead to the world. His little sister had tried almost everything, but not even a bucket of cold water did the job. The loud whirring noise building outside of his window however, was something completely different. It cut through the unicorn's sleep like a hot knife through butter. He opened his eyes; no signs of his earlier insobriety left.
Grumbling he walked over to his window and pulled the blinds aside. The sound disappeared the moment he did so, and nothing but the pitch black night stared back at him. Still grumbling, the unicorn turned around and walked back to his bed and lay down. As he closed his eyes and started to drift off he was once again torn back to reality by dog barking.
The bark rang out sharply six times in a row.
“What the...” Arrow mumbled, listening for the sound to appear again. He held his breath and perked his ears, but the night remained dead. “Hrmpf...” he grunted and relaxed. Then, just as he closed his eyes the dog barked again, the same six sharp barks.
Muttering under his breath Arrow levitated his clock from his nightstand: 2:35. Before he could curse the dog and its owner, the same six barks rang out again.
“Aw come on!” Arrow called out as he trotted over to the window and flung it open with his magic. The darkness was impenetrable and as soon as the window was open complete silence fell. He stood there for a few minutes, waiting for the blasted dog to bark again, but the night kept taunting him and remained quite.
“Buck this...” the unicorn muttered, growing uneasy. Throwing one last glance out his window he turned back to his bed flopped back down. “It's probably just those shots I-Pack mixed up,” he said out loud in an attempt to calm himself down. But then he he threw another glance at his clock, this time the hands showed 3:39. Arrow's eyes grew wide and his pupils shrank to pinpricks as he starred in horror at the clock.
“I-i-impossible...” he whispered. “I only stood there for a few minutes.” Now the unicorn was growing afraid for real. Either that stupid little zebra, Venti, really had cursed him, or the mudhead I-Pack had mixed up something seriously wicked.
Deciding that Venti was a stupid name and that Ice was the king of parties calmed Arrow down a little, and he rolled over on his side to try and fall back asleep. But something was wrong. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him. He did his best to ignore the feeling, but eventually fear got the upper hand and he turned around, observing his surrounding.
Unable to see anything, the unicorn summoned another light spell. But as his orb flared to life above his head, the room refused to light up. Where the door used to be was now a dark shadow. However, it wasn't just dark, it was an unnatural black unlike anything Arrow had ever seen. It seemed to absorb all the light in the room, no matter how much magic he pumped into the orb.
The darkness seemed to spread, slowly consuming the entire room and turning everything blacker than Luna's darkest night. Without warning, a clawed arm shot out of the shadows and straight into Arrow's chest. The claws sunk straight through his flesh and grabbed a hold of his heart. Then, it ripped his heart right out of the unicorn's chest.
A searing pain shot through Arrow's body and he tried to scream out loud, but all he managed was a choked gargling noise. He instinctively clutched his chest, but his hooves were greeted by an intact chest with blue fur.
Arrow looked down at his unscathed chest, the pain gone. He began frantically patting himself down, looking for the wound inflicted by the shadowy arm. Finding himself unharmed, his eyes once again turned towards his room, now frantically looking for the darkness that just assaulted him. This time however, his spell lit up the room perfectly. No signs of whatever just happened were left.
Arrow sat curled up in the corner of his bed, his ragged breathing the only audible sound. He slowly turned his head around and looked at his clock: 2:37
“What in Equestria is going on?” he whimpered. Way too scared to think about his pride, he tried calling out for his mother. “Mom!” No answer. “MOM!” he bellowed. Still no answer. That was the final straw. Arrow Shaft hopped off his bed galloped of towards his parent's room. His yellow aura surrounded the doorknob as he flung the door open and ran straight into himself.
The two Arrow Shafts got tangled up in each other as they crashed to the ground. After a few seconds of panicked attempts to disentangle they were successful. Arrow Shaft stared into Arrow Shaft's face, and they both crawled backwards, screaming in terror. Finally getting back on his hooves but way too terrified to think rationally, Arrow galloped towards his window and threw himself through it. The glass window exploded, cutting his face and chest deeply as he crashed straight into his own bed, completely unharmed.
Now, Arrow didn't dare move at all. He was absolutely terrified and didn't understand what was happening. Therefore, he did the only thing he could think of at the moment and began sobbing uncontrollably. He hugged his pillow tight, willed the world away and cried.
After a minute of crying, a metallic smell began to fill the unicorn's nostrils. Slowly, he lifted his head of the pillow and wiped the tears from his face. His hoof came off damp, which was normal when wiping off tears, but it also came off a decidedly darker color. Arrow tried to cast his light spell to see what was wrong, but his horned refused to work.
“No. Please no. No no no...” the unicorn whimpered pitifully as the the very defining character of his essence was taken from him. “Please let me keep my magic,” he pleaded as he closed his eyes and tried to focus his magic to his horn. Nothing.
As fresh tears began rolling down his face he was once again made aware of the metallic smell. Again Arrow wiped his face, but this time with the other hoof. It too came off darker than it should. Slowly, he trotted over the light switch and flicked it on; fluorescent lamps lighting up the room.
Arrow looked down at his hooves. The dark red blood stood in stark contrast to his sea blue coat. With his breath caught in his throat he looked over at his bed, the sheets covered in blood.
Shaking, the unicorn slowly made his way to the mirror that hung above his desk. What stared back at him was the most terrifying thing so far. What scared him wasn't the fact that he was virtually covered in his own blood. What scared Arrow Shaft the most was the fact that where his eyes were supposed to be were simply two gaping holes.
Screaming in terror the unicorn again bolted for the door, this time successfully leaving his room. He took a sharp left turn and ran for his parent's room. Using his magic, he flung the door open, only to be greeted by something he really didn't want to see. The absurdity of staring at your own conception, combined with the euphoric glee that overtook him when he realized that his horn was working again caused the unicorn the to begin laughing hysterically.
He laughed so hard that he fell over and once again crashed into his own bed. Arrow kept giggling, but it soon died down as he noticed the mare dressed in white floating in the corner of his room.
She was jerking and twisting erratically, but she kept her pitch black eyes focused on him. Once again, pure terror overtook the unicorn and he was frozen still. Unable to either move or cast magic, all he could was stare in horror as mare jerked and twisted.
All of a sudden she opened her mouth a lot wider than a pony should be able to and began to scream. It was a high pitched scream unlike anything any mortal creature was able to make. It was so brutally loud that it snapped Arrow out of his paralysis and he flung a book towards her.
The book thumped dully against the wall; the mare was gone. Shaking violently, Arrow turned around to look at the time. As his head turned, his face ended up inches from the white dressed mare. She once again threw her mouth open impossibly wide and screamed out, shattering Arrow's entire world like a bullet striking a window.
***
Arrow Shaft shot up screaming. He was screaming so violently that he didn't notice his little sister hugging him, frantically trying to get him to calm down.
“Arrow, please calm down!” she shouted as she slapped him across the face.
“Wai-what? What's going on!?” he asked, still terrified.
“You've been sleeping the entire day. Mom and dad left for that thingie they were going to and told me to just let you sleep. You've been sleeping like a dragon since you stumbled home, until just now when you started screaming like a madmare!” the little filly said, still hugging her big brother.
Realizing it had all just been a bad dream, Arrow began laughing and hugged his little sister back, giving her a kiss on forehead.. “Oh yeah. Ha ha. Your big brother just had a really, really bad dream. Did I scare you?” he asked.
“Yeah,” his little sister replied. "But it's OK, because it kinda turned me on."
“Wait, what!?” Arrow froze.
“You heard me, big bro. It think you're sexy,” the little filly said with a sultry tone as she put a hoof to her brother's chest and began to slowly trace it downwards. “Also, you're still asleep. Because you're a bad pony, Arrow Shaft.”
Arrow Shaft jerked violently as the world melted away and he was once again all alone in his pitch black room. He looked over at his clock: 3:12.
