Pumpkin's Struggle (Part 4): The Darkest Hour

Starts off pretty dark; prepare yourselves!

A dream… could this be a dream? For one young pony it sure felt like it. However… at the same time, something about it seemed like it could possibly be… reality; like a sight into the future.

“What the… what’s going on? Where am I?!”

But if it was, it’s a reality the young pony does not wish to come true.

Young unicorn filly, Pumpkin Cake, found herself walking through nothing but pure darkness; almost like she was walking blind. She wondered if she was even anywhere. But just then… in an instant she suddenly saw herself surrounded… by a terrorizing sight.

“No… no, no, no; this can’t be real!”

It was her hometown, Ponyville, but it wasn’t the same. In was in a completely ruined state; damaged buildings, destroyed roads, and fire flares everywhere she looked. But the most frightening thing she could see had her frozen in fear. Everywhere she looked, she saw many of the residents on the ground… motionless.

Pumpkin was shaking in her hooves vigorously with terrorized eyes; it was obvious that they were all dead seeing that they were all covered in bruises and surrounded by puddles of blood, but Pumpkin didn’t want this to real; she refused it to be.

“P-P-Puuum… pkin…”

Pumpkin suddenly gasped as she heard a nearby weak voice speak to her from behind. She turned around to see a random mare resident dragging herself across the ground with a bunch of scrapes and bruises… and a bit of blood was staining her fur.

She was reaching out to Pumpkin, “I ask you… pl-please… sp-pare me. I beg of your mer…”

But the mare couldn’t finish her words as she was suddenly dragged backwards by magic, “No… no, please!”  And then she was fatally impaled onto a spear-like object.

Pumpkin watched in horror as she saw the speared object pierce right through the mare with blood rapidly pouring out of her front; and her body then ceased to move anymore as her body fell on the ground motionless with the rest.

Pumpkin could suddenly see a sinister shadow from where the mare was impaled; but it wasn’t a spear, it was a horn of a unicorn. The shadow was grinning and was slowly approaching Pumpkin… and the frightened filly was cowardly backing away. But she soon started to realize who this creature was; and she was proven right as the sinister creature got closer and nudged her hoof against its fresh kill. It looked just like her… but it was more deranged and twisted looking; and its menacing appearance proved to be familiar as Pumpkin wore an expression of both anger and fear; she knew who it was.

“Lovely atmosphere, don’t you think?” said the creature with a grim smile.

“Y-you; you’re the soulless monster that’s killed everypony!”

“Correction, you’re the one that’s killed them all.”

Pumpkin was appalled by what the creature said to her; like she would cause all of this, “You’re… you’re lying; I-I-I just saw you kill that pony right there!”

The creature flashed a smirk and chuckled menacingly, “Oh, did I…”

Suddenly, Pumpkin was thrown in a state of confusion as the same pony was in front of her suddenly, and she gasped when she saw blood staining onto her hooves and her horn; supposedly where the pony was killed with. Her eyes went wide and her whole body was having a huge shaking fit and her voice was trembling.

“No… n-n-no, that’s impossible. I didn’t do this! This isn’t my fault!”

She hurried up to trot past that area and get away from the very thing that caused her so many burdens. With tears trailing behind her and gaining good distance, she could still hear the creature calling out to her.

“You can’t run from the inevitable, Pumpkin; it’s impossible to escape.”

Pumpkin felt like she was running for miles, but she soon ended up into another familiar place… Sugar Cube Corner, her home; although it all looked worn down; completely damaged from the outside. As she cautiously walked in, the whole place was completely dark and foreboding; she couldn’t see anything inside… yet.

“H-h-hello; is anypony in here?! Oh man… its t-t-too dark.”

Luckily, she was able to spark a light from her horn to illuminate her surroundings. However, what she did see horrified her and was what she feared most. She was trembling again as she looked inside the destroyed family room and witnessed both of her parents and her brother, Pound, all down on the ground; motionless just like everyone else lying in their own warm blood.

“Oh God! Mom, Dad, Pound; no!”

They were all dead; never to live in this life again. The tears in Pumpkin’s eyes seemed endless as she tried her best to get them all up, but she knew that there was nothing she could do. But just then, she heard some light moans nearby. Lying up against the wall, she saw her special coltfriend, Acer, heavily wheezing and holding his hoof over a deep wound on his chest, and his blood was slowly running down his body.

“Acer, not you too!”

She quickly rushed over to him sobbing her heart out and she held him up against her hooves and trying to comfort him. She tried her best to do a healing spell on him, but for some weird reason, it proved to be useless.

Acer slowly open his eyes and looked up at Pumpkin with tears in his eyes feeling his life slipping away, “Why… d-did you do it, P-Pumpkin? We did…*cough* all we could… t-t-to keep you happy; t-to keep you at p-peace… *cough* Heh, but I guess th-this was the i-inevitable anyway…”

Pumpkin was holding him tighter trying to encourage him to stay with her, “Acer, please… don’t go; you… you can’t die!”

But then, she suddenly felt Acer’s body go limp on her arms; he stopped moving and Pumpkin could no longer feel him breathing. Acer had died in her arms.

She held onto him again releasing more tears of sorrow for her coltfriend; as well as for her family. They were all dead, but this wasn’t her fault… was it? Suddenly, her body became tense again as she heard the same bone-chilling voice as before nearby.

“My, my, what a mess you made in here; such a wonderful, glorious mess indeed.”

Pumpkin slowly laid Acer’s body on the floor still sobbing tears, and she turned around wearing an angered glare as she saw the evil creature that took her form grinning and chuckling at her like all of this was some sort of joke.

“How could you… you… you killed them!”

“We* killed them, you mean,”* the creature said with a grin.

Pumpkin stomped her hoof towards the evil creature giving it fearful glare; but it remained unfazed.

“SHUT UP!!! There’s no way I would ever have done all of this; I’m… I’m innocent! It’s not me doing this, it’s you!”

She fired an aura beam at the taunting creature, and it exploded on contact. But when the smoke cleared, it was not there; but then she suddenly heard from behind her.

“Say all you want, sweetie, but it doesn’t matter in the end. You’re the monster Pumpkin; my curse has taken over you… and there’s no escape.”

Pumpkin quickly turned around to see the creature chuckled; she was literally mocking her and was trying to bring her down… or so she thought.

“No, y-you’re lying… you’re lying!”

Just then…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

Pumpkin heard a horrifying scream nearby that made her turn away from the creature… and the voice to her sounded… familiar; too familiar.

“P-P-P-P… Pinkie Pie?!”

She quickly rushed into the main room where she something that was completely déjà-vu. Her eyes widen and then sprouted more tears as she saw the horrifying sight of Pinkie being hung onto the wall by knives that were impaled into all four of her hooves. Blood was running all down her body and her head was hung down and so was her mane that was covering her face.

Pumpkin also noticed a huge gash in her chest that was constantly leaking out blood and she wasn’t moving.

“No way…” she said in a terrified tone.

Below on the ground slowly pulling a knife out of the lifeless body, Pumpkin saw… herself… as a toddler giggling and admiring the bloody blade. She couldn’t believe it; this was exactly what happened with her that very day when she tried to kill Pinkie; only here… she had succeeded. Pumpkin was too stiff to move at all upon seeing this sight, and she slowly started to break down emotionally.

Suddenly, her toddler self noticed her and showed a menacing smile as she slowly started to crawl towards the frighten pony. Pumpkin was shaking constantly as she was backing away from her toddler self feeling a great sense of fear and she felt like her world was burning down… except it was. Suddenly, she backed into a wall and found herself not being able to move anymore and her toddler self was creeping closer and closer towards her.

“Just face it; dear;” the evil creature said while being behind the toddler Pumpkin, “you can’t escape. You’re stuck with this curse; stuck with me… forever…”

Pumpkin was terrified for her life as she saw her toddler self caught up to her and held up the knife suspended in the air with magic over her giggling in a dark, creepy tone.”

‘Hee, hee, hee, hee…’

“… until the day you die!”

Pumpkin saw and felt the knife suddenly plunge into her, and her eyes saw nothing but black and crimson red.

Pumpkin gasped and soon found herself waking up in her bed; and from where she was everything seemed to be intact and back to normal. It seems that everything that she saw and experienced was all just a nightmare; but was it really a nightmare… or was it simply a terrorizing vision of what’s to come?

It didn’t seem to matter to Pumpkin though; she has been having some slight little nightmares before, but none as bad as the one she just woke up from. She just sat there in her bed with her hooves over her sobbing eyes and was letting her sorrows out from the horrifying images in her head.

Just then, she heard the door to her room creak open, and her head perked up to see who it was.

“Pumpkin, everything okay? I sensed something was wrong *yawn* and I came over here to see if you were alright.”

It was her brother, Pound Cake, and it seems that he was checking on his sister to see if things were going well. For Pumpkin, her brother walking through that door was the greatest sight to her at that time; seeing him alive and well and not lying in his blood dead. She quickly jumped out of her bed and ran over to Pound held him ever so tightly while now shedding tears of joyful sadness.

“Oh thank goodness; you’re not dead, you’re still alive.”

“Well of course I’m alive;” Pound responded, “the last time I checked I was at least. Wait… did you… have another one of those nightmares; what in Equestria happened in it?”

Pumpkin took her time and told her brother everything that she had witnessed in her dream; every single aspect of it. Pound was suddenly speechless and couldn’t believe what he heard from his sister; she must’ve been scarred for life or something.

“I don’t believe it,” said Pound while holding the top of his head with his hoof, “You seem to be having all of these nightmares for a few weeks lately, and they’re getting worse every time; this is very serious.”

“I’m scared, Pound,” said Pumpkin while trembling and hanging onto her bother again, “I still remember what Ruby’s mother said about the curse inside me. What if my dream becomes reality… and I end up murdering everypony?”

“Wh-what, don’t even say that, Sis!” Pound exclaimed, “You’re going to get through this; I promise.”

“I just don’t know if I can,” said Pumpkin feeling bitterly angst, “You, Mom, Dad and Pinkie all know about the hallucinations I’ve been having lately in my head; they keep causing me emotion pain and they won’t stop haunting me. If we don’t do something about this soon, I’m… I-I’m g-gonna lose it.”

Pound could sense the trembling in his sister’s voice and how it didn’t sound very normal; this curse must’ve been trying so hard to break her now that its presence was fully known.

“No, you’re not going to lose it,” said Pound solemnly as he continued to comfort her, “not if I have anything to say about it. There is a way to beat this curse; I’m sure of it.”

Pumpkin really wanted to believe her brother, her parents, and anyone else who thought the same thing, but she just couldn’t see it; that outcome seemed to be way out of reach to her. The burden she bares makes her feel like there was no hope for anypony; that all of Equestria could indeed fall from her curse.

“What am I going to do,” she asked while she was looking at her brother with troublesome eyes, “I feel that being this close to you now I’m putting you in danger… like I’ll lash out at you at any moment.”

“Well… are you?” Pound responded.

Pumpkin did feel that the curse was taking a backseat at the present moment, but she didn’t know when it might try to attack her again, and that’s what frightens her the most.

“Look,” said Pound as he placed his hoof on Pumpkin’s shoulder, “Mom, Dad and Pinkie are still surprisingly asleep, and I know that we both don’t want to wake them since they had a very busy day today. So, do you want to sleep with me?”

“W-w-won’t that seem… a bit… awkward to you?” Pumpkin asked.

Pound just chuckled and smiled while ruffling her sister’s mane, “Only if it you think it that way.”

Pumpkin knew that she need some comfort at the moment, and going back to bed that night might lead back to that horrible nightmare. She wiped away some of her tears and a slight smile came onto her face.

“Okay, I’ll come; thank you brother.”

“Hey, anything for my curse ridden sis.”

Pound guided his sister towards his room where she could rest easily knowing that someone was there to comfort her. But after knowing of the nightmare that Pumpkin had, something told Pound that Pumpkin might be right; they would need to find out how to deal with this curse of hers… and they would need to find out soon.

‘Poor little Pumpkin, suffering so; her life filled with grief and so much woe.

In deep fear feeling that she’s about to burst; now that she knows that she houses a curse.

Her family and friends thinks that there is a way; but I’m afraid that I am here to stay.

Her mind is slipping, I can almost feel it; soon it’ll be gone and she’ll begin to lose it.

Then… she’ll make a mistake that she’ll soon regret; her world will become ruined… covered in death.

She’ll be all alone with no hope of escaping; all hail me… the magnificent being.’