At first I was delighted. This was the greatest thing to have pony apps and such, but to throw in a Rainbow Dash that follows your mouse around the screen? That was just the icing atop the awesome cake that bronies can cook up. Shame it was bitter.
When I first had Dash on my screen, I played with her for hours. Moving my mouse around in different places and movements to see what she would do. She could do a slow trot, gallop across the screen, and fly everywhere else; stopping atop of icons and browser tool bars and such. But after a while, I just sat here there in one place and started to talk to the pixelated figure.
Maybe it was my boredom, my loneliness, or the fact that the ponies had gone to my head, but I started to watch as she responded to my rambling. It was just a quick glance that I caught here and there, and then moved to full on looking at me. This might of just been some of her movements she was programed to do, but to me it was like she was reaching out, and I reached back.
Soon it grew late in the hours of time so I placed my laptop back on my bedside table and almost switched it off. But I looked at Dash, and she gazed right back, holding my stare.
“Maybe you’ll be just fine there,” I said and left my laptop running. I swear I saw her smile.
The next morning was a normal one. Getting up, well up from my dreams, and check for any new updates on my most visited websites. I looked through new story posts, blogs, favourites, videos, stuff like that. I was scrolling down my history when I found that website I got that app from the night before, and I was reminded of Rainbow. Quickly scrolling up and down and waving my mouse around, I found she was strangely absent.
Putting it aside as a glitch, I went about my other routine checks. Facebook, My Little Brony, YouTube, FimFiction; I checked them all only to find that nothing new was happening. With boredom returning, I went back to my desktop to figure out what to do next. This was the beginning of the strange events.
The colour scheme of the background had changed to streaks of rainbows everywhere, the picture of a close up Rainbow Dash replacing the usual picture of a Phoenix that sat above the tool bar. Sitting on the tool bar was Rainbow, doing what she should be doing and staring off to the side of the screen.
I once again put it as a glitch and put everything back to normal, only for it to change back again when I clicked back to the desktop. I made a mental note to try and talk to makers of the app after that. After my morning check-ups it was time to put away my laptop and finally discover what that big bright thing in the sky was. So I headed out to hunt down my friends and things to do, mistakenly leaving my laptop still running.
I returned that night feeling a bit depressed. It turned out all my friends were gone visiting family or were busy working to make up for the money lost because of Christmas. That left me wandering the city pissing around at museums and other local events. I retired to my laptop and found Dash waiting for me, politely still staring off to the side. My depressed mood was slightly lifted to see her still there, and considering that nothing was still happening on the internet, I decided to spend my time talking to Dash and telling her about my friends.
This lasted three straight hours as the subjects changed from friends to family, then to work and the hard times, and finally to some of my own secrets; I even made her promise not to tell anyone. I talked about things that have reached no others ears, some things that expressed my very soul. All these things I told that blue and rainbow mare on my laptop screen.
After those long hours it was time to sleep. I once again reached to power down my laptop, but once again I caught Rainbows stare. I could only chuckle as I left it running yet another night. Lying back in bed I thought about how strange that little bunch of pixels acted. Sure she followed my mouse everywhere like a cat would, but those expressions she gave me and the longing behind those stares. Being me, I began hoping that maybe, just maybe, she was real. Well, real in the sense that she could understand what I was saying and could really think for herself. If Rainbow could really do these things, then I would have quite the tale to tell my friends and fellow bronies in a short time.
How right I was.
The next day I had to pack some of my clothes and important items into a bag. I was going out to my mum’s farm way out in the country side for a week. After I finished packing I glanced over at my laptop, which was one thing that was staying here. I piled everything into the car and drove off, once again leaving the laptop running.
The week in the country side was uneventful and boring, and seemed to last for an eternity. Driving around on the quad and my art book seemed to be the only things keeping me sane. At last the week came to end and I returned home, tired for someone who just sat around for a week. The most thing I had missed the most was my access to dear old Internet and all the wonder bronies and their awesomeness.
Upon entering my browser, I noticed something was wrong from the very beginning. My notifications were in the hundreds, meaning something huge had to have happened. I also noticed that the rainbow background was gone. Clicking on the notification’s tab, I found that nearly all of them were people commenting on my blogs. But these blogs, I didn’t recognise any of them. I clicked on one that said ‘______ has commented on your user page’ and found the comment to be made in outrage.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you? How the fucking hell did you even get hold of this disgusting crap anyway? I don’t even want to know but I’m going to report you to bloody admin myself if I have to shut you down.’
Below this comment was even more that said just about all the same thing. Sitting at the bottom of the comments page was the one and only Rainbow pony, her eyes somehow lighting up as she looked straight at me. She was different though. She looked almost grey in appearance and that smile was a few pixels to wide.
Rainbow fluttered up the screen without me even moving my mouse, and stopped at the latest blog post. Her face finally stopped watching me and turned to the title, before looking back up at me.
The title read: ‘Why don’t you ever come home?’ and below this was what looked like the start of an image, but was too big to be viewed from there. With my curiosity leading me I clicked on the blog to bring me to its own page. Then I saw the images.
They were numerous and spread far down the page. Blood being the first thing to reach my eyes.
The first image was of the group of the mane 6 all in position for the intro. Instead of their bright and carefree smiles there were silent screams of pain and horror. Parts of the bodies were missing showing the entrails falling from their once enclosed bodies followed by the unbelievable amount of blood. The only one not screaming in agony was Rainbow Dash.
The second image was a split one, each part focusing on a different pony from the mane 6. Twilight had her horn remove and forced up her nostril to the point that it must have reached her brain as chunks of strange matter I had never seen before was caked around the edge of it. Rarity had string stitched across her ears and pierced her nose along the way, the string covered in spikes that gripped onto nearly all of the rest of her face. Pinkie looked like a cyborg of some sort. In place of her eyes were what seemed to be cannons, her shaved mane only added to the effect. Her mouth had been stitched to a cupcake that had pieces of meat baked within. Applejack had a second yellow skin pulled across and attached to her. Her hair also dyed red. Then there was Fluttershy. Lines had been cut across her cheeks in what I could only guess as whiskers. Her wings had been removed from her back, bend and folded, and stuffed into her mouth; hardly able to hold that much in there the lips were beginning to burst.
The last was of Rainbow, which looked perfectly fine. It had one thing more different to it than the others and when looking back over them, I found they all had a shadow cast over the ponies, all except Rainbow Dash.
I scrolled down, hoping to get away from these things that were once ponies, only to be met with more and more gore. The more I scrolled down the more human the ponies became, going from anthro to full on human versions of them, all with gory details.
Eventually the pictures changed from the mane 6, to others. Not ponies but people, normal people who lived in this very world, all torn and destroyed. The pictures seemed endless and every way someone could be tortured was put on display. Nearing the bottom the pictures started to show people I knew, all of my friends, far relatives, close relatives, parents, and siblings. Finally I reached the final picture.
It was of me. But there was not a single scratch anyway on me. Rainbow Dash fluttered down from above and landed next to it, giving a loving look towards the picture, even giving a smooth touch. I threw up right then, the shock of all the gore and hell finally catching up with me.
Once I recovered, I looked up to see Rainbow glaring at me with disgust. I moved the mouse towards the start button to click ‘Shut down’. Rainbow saw this and leapt across the screen and somehow caught the mouse. I could feel real resistance from my hand as it refused to move any closer.
Rainbow Dash held the mouse close, looking at me as she began to smile. I watched as it grew from as wide as her face could allow to beyond. The sides of her mouth starting to bleed and burst from the strain of the smile.
Then… the screen went black. I removed my finger from the manual power button and sat on my bed, unable to even understand what had happened. I threw my laptop out the next day and brought a new one, even deleting all of my old accounts and making new ones to erase all those images. I never turned Rainbow back on after that. I never did much of anything. Looking back on it all, and how Rainbow Dash weirdly became obsessed and made all those picture,
It brought a smile to my face.
