A wisp of the rotten, stinking air wafted through his nostrils, waking the long-dead colt from his endless sleep. Tiny chunks of earth crumbled into nothingness beneath his aching hooves.
The death--the permanent sickness from which he suffered--was not physical, a death of the body. He could feel life pounding in his feeble heart, pulsing through his empty veins; life clung to him like a disease.
It was not either a death of the mind, as proven by the hated sparks fizzling in his brain, driving a thousand unwanted thoughts through his consciousness. Tiny pockets of information traversed the great roads of his nervous system, relaying to him all of the horrific details his senses could provide. Of sight, of sound, of touch...none of it could be blocked out; none of it could be ignored.
The death, the black vulture's claw which had seized control of every facet of his body and mind was a different kind of death.
A death of the spirit.
This death had been a horrible one, a quick and stinging realization that had proven too much for the poor colt, only a child whose eyes had seen too much, whose ears had heard a truth that could not be unheard.
What truth could cause such death?
What single realization could cause such an innocent child to lose their will to live?
The answer lies in a journey that none must take, an insatiable curiosity that could drive the sanest ponies down the crumbling road into madness.
A lone breeze whistled through the night sky, cool and refreshing as it flowed by the open windowsill of one simple abode. Shafts of moonlight cut through the air and exposed a child, just a young colt, immersed in another world as he read an ancient book under the tranquility of the night.
His eyes were stretched wide open; no wrinkles nor bags hung underneath them as this night was his first that refused to succumb to the lulling draw of sleep. As he stole a glance up from his book the clock on his wall let off a rhythmic series of ticks, never stopping even to announce the passing of midnight. Yet still his energy was boundless and his curiosity a ravenous hunger, so the innocent child pressed on into the dark night.
Moving his wide-eyed gaze back to the arcane book on his desk, he reached out his hoof and flipped over to the next page, completely absorbed in his studies. Wincing slightly at the obnoxious crinkling noise as the ancient page fought his attempt to turn it, the colt took a moment to blink once before continuing to read, noting the beginning of a new chapter.
The Root of Ponydom
Thousands of years ago, the pony race emerged from the depths of all other races, harkening a new era of harmony and of civilization to the untamed land. All of the other creatures fought and tried to suppress them, resisting the bringers of harmony, driving some of the ponies to give into their temptations and make war with the beasts of the wild lands, turning their back on the highest ideals of ponykind: peace and harmony. However almost all of the ponies refused to give in, protecting their lands from the monsters and beasts with their magic while not inflicting any damage in return.
All of that changed, however, when the barbarian rulers of the Old Land had enough of the fighting and banished the ponies from their home. Instead of despairing over this loss, though, the ponies took heart and discovered a new land, spreading out into the unclaimed wilderness and taming it, eventually uniting under one banner: Equestria.
As the ponies of Equestria grew in number and in strength, eventually the barbarian kings relented and allowed the ponies back into the Old Lands. Although nearly all of the ponies stayed in their new homes in Equestria, many returned to the Old Lands and still live there today...
"That's it?" asked the young colt, his brows furrowing in confusion. He flipped the page back and forth, noting the title on the next page with an expression of disappointment. "That's the end of the chapter? But...what happened to the ponies who moved back to the Old Lands? What are they like? Are they any different from everypony in Equestria? Do they get along with the monsters and the barbarian kings?"
Tick.
Tick.
The impatient rhythm of the clock mirrored his mood and frustration as he squeezed his eyes shut, taking a moment to think. After countless hours of scouring the library, this was the only book he had found on the history of ponykind. He could try and find another library...but in his tiny village out in the country, it would be far too long of a journey to the nearest town, and his parents would worry if he was not home by the next morning. Nopony alive that had ever ventured back to the Old Lands would dare to speak of it, only attesting to the apparent horrors that could be found there.
But this made no sense to the colt, whose mind had struggled with this dilemma ever since he had first heard of the Old Lands. How could they still be wild and untamed, how could they still be horrible if ponies were living there right now? Had the ponies who moved back not brought their civilization with them?
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Ready to scream with frustration, the colt almost slammed his book shut, only remembering at the last second not to make so much noise that his parents awoke. He opened the book up again, staring down in curiosity as he had opened it to the last page in his attempt to slam it closed.
A Map of the Old Lands
"What's this?"
His eyes devoured every detail of the withered page, scanning every barely visible name and symbol in the pale moonlight. From top to bottom he searched the map until one tiny detail jumped out at him, starkly apparent to his ever-widening eyes. Staring him in the face at the top-left corner of the map was the name of his town.
As his frustration simmered and faded into nothingness a new spark of hope rose within him, lighting a fire that grew and grew, becoming a rising inferno that consumed his every thought. The Old Lands were less than two miles away. Heck, they were even closer than the nearest Equestrian town! He could walk there and be back before sunrise!
The colt rose abruptly from his seat, the cheap wooden thing giving a pathetic creaking noise as its occupant left his spot. He trotted cautiously into his room, grabbing his saddlebags and stuffing in a couple of apples for the road, then clumsily flinging the bags over his shoulders and onto his back. He snuck towards the door on the tips of his hooves, his dark coat a noiseless shadow in the black night. He winced at every rustle and sound of the night, convinced that his parents would awake and discover him. Yet even as he pushed open the simple door, its rusty hinges did not complain.
Breathing a sigh of relief, the colt stepped out into the darkness.
Wisps of shadow flew across the face of the moon, dark grey like their counterpart carriers of storm and yet silent as an empty sky. Despite the fact that an army of these clouds had seized control of the sky, blocking the twinkling stars, the moon shone as bright as ever. Her soft rays of light swathed the land in a blanket of pale white, not harsh like that of the fiery sun.
It was under this soothing aura of moonlight that the colt trotted onward, his hoofsteps echoing into the night, shattering the deafening silence that hung over the land like a low-laying fog. After what felt like an hour of walking in silence, the colt paused, squinting his eyes and staring into the distance.
Glancing back at his saddlebags, the colt mentally rebuked himself for forgetting to bring the book and consequently lacking a map. "Oh well," he thought to himself. "It shouldn't be that hard to find somepony around here. The book said that the ponies who returned to the Old Lands mostly settled in this area."
He turned back to the road, intending to take a closer look at the hills, but then found himself staring at the road itself. It was shockingly different from the roads in his village, having deteriorated since he first noticed it rotting a mile back. Consumed by moss and weathered by time, at this point the road was nearly unrecognizable.
A soft growling noise caught his attention, making the colt jerk his head up and whip his eyes from side to side, searching for its source. His heart pounded faster and faster against his ribcage, its deafening noise throbbing against the inside of his skull like a hollow drum. Suddenly as his eyes jumped from point to point in the blackness--the shadow of the wild trees that had drowned out the moonlight--he found it.
It was a creature of some sort, its silhouette shifting ever so slightly in the darkness. Two glowing slits of eyes watched him from the center of its hidden face, and its invisible hackles tensed and rose as the two creatures stared at each other, the everlasting second in which a predator assesses its prey.
In a rush of wind the beast leapt from the shadows, slamming into its target before he could even catch a glimpse of what it was. The helpless colt heard snarling and growling in his ear as the creature's teeth tore at his flesh; he could not help but cry out to the merciless night as he felt warm blood drip over his legs. He lay limp on the ground, playing dead and praying that his basic ploy would work. The stabbing pain in his leg faded to a dull, pulsing throb as he heard the creature ran off, back into the shadows from whence it came.
Quietly moaning, the colt slowly and painfully awoke, leaning on his front hooves as his gaze slid over his back legs to assess the damage. The cuts were bleeding, but they were shallow. They would heal.
Then he looked back at the road and took in a sight that would scar him for life--the incomprehensible view before his unbelieving eyes crushed his will and destroyed his spirit forever. The scars in his body would heal, but this scar would rot in his mind forever.
In the muddy dirt, leading away from the dilapidated road...was a trail of hoofprints, right where his attacker had run through.
Rays of sunlight flew from the horizon, lighting up the world, driving back the shadows which had tainted the night. The beautiful sun rose over the hills; its light was woven from golden orange and crimson red. A new dawn was coming to Equestria.
But its glorious rays of new hope would never reach the dead colt on a forgotten road, an innocent, pure, fatally naïve soul who had left his home behind.
Now this corpse of a child lay forever asleep, his feeble heart pounding against his will, his strength draining out of the shallow cuts on his leg. Countless thoughts chased themselves in circles inside his mind, coursing like a deadly venom through his veins, poisoning his soul.
How did those ponies survive in the company of such monsters?
They were the monsters.
Author's Note
If you have read this story to its end, I want to sincerely apologize to you. What began as a very specific social commentary that I don't have the audacity nor the cruelty to directly say evolved into a cautionary tale teaching a lesson that I of all people hate with a fiery passion. The one and only reason I published this was because I consider this one of my best-written works of prose yet. If you DO figure out what the extended metaphor behind this story is, please forgive me.
