“No, Cluckensworth, come back!” Fluttershy whined breathlessly. Twigs and leaves were tangled in her usually neat and tidy feathers, and a smear of dirt ran up the side of her right forehoof.
One of her chickens, the last of the escapees, was fleeing through the underbrush in front of her, evading her every desperate swipe and grab, determined to meet an early demise at the claws of one of the denizens of the Everfree Forest.
“S-stop running away from me!” Fluttershy panted raggedly, her steps faltering as she tried to catch her breath.
It had been an extremely long afternoon, chasing chickens this way and that after the Cutie Mark Crusaders crashed a hang glider into her chicken coop, scattering the denizens to the four winds in terror.
Fluttershy had even found one in her attic, and now all that remained was this lone chicken heading for the ‘freedom’ of the depths of the Everfree.
“You’ll get eaten!” Fluttershy warned the chicken, leaning heavily against a tree, chest heaving as she tried to even out her breathing. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the chicken’s tailfeathers disappearing beneath a bush.
“I swear, if you keep running away from me, I won’t preen your feathers for an entire week! Do you even know how much they will itch!?” Fluttershy threatened, stalking through the brush after the chicken, pushing the bushes aside angrily.
Cluckensworth was standing at the edge of a cave entrance, strutting back and forth, head bobbing.
“Don’t you dare go in that cave!” Fluttershy hissed, wings flaring angrily.
Cluckensworth looked at her over his shoulder, clucked once, and then leaped forwards into the inky blackness of the cave.
“You get back here right this instant!” Fluttershy snarled, bounding forwards to the edge of the cave, staring into the darkness with narrowed eyes.
The smug cluck of a chicken echoed from somewhere inside.
“I won’t preen your feathers for a month!” Fluttershy growled, stalking into the cave fearlessly.
There was a rustle of movement somewhere above, and she paused, an ear-perking upwards.
“...Hello? Is something in here?” Fluttershy called timidly.
There was another rustle of movement, and then a loud series of shrieks and called. Fluttershy recoiled, wings lifting to cover her face as a horde of bats swirled through the air around her. Wings buffeted her on all sides as the trail of bats rushed past her and out of the cave, shrieking and calling out to the sky as they all dispersed into the treetops.
Fluttershy watched the bat's then slowly turned her attention to back to finding Cluckensworth but to her surprise saw him standing still looking into the cave. Fluttershy immediately stalked over towards him until she was standing next to him. “Bad chicken, very bad chicken!” Fluttershy scolded but stopped when she saw he was shaking with fear. "Cluckensworth?"
That was when Fluttershy heard a sound that sounded like chewing or something causing her to shake in fear. She slowly glanced up towards the direction of the sound. She could barely make out a figure hunched over something. She saw it. A large creature but what she saw caused her even more terror. It was holding a dead manticore with its hand and was biting into it tearing flesh off, making the ground be covered in blood. Fluttershy slowly picked up Cluckensworth and held him to her chest as she slowly walked backwards but stopped when she tripped a rock making a loud echo noise causing the creature to stop and slowly turned towards her. Fluttershy froze with fear as its glowing yellow eyes stared at her while it slowly began to stand with blood dripping down its maw.
The creature took a step towards her then suddenly reared its head up letting out a loud howl causing Fluttershy to scream and run out of the cave.
Fluttershy ran through the trees holding Cluckensworth, eyes wide, breath heaving, mane and tail snarled with twigs and leaves, desperate to find a way out. Somewhere above, she knew, the moon shone down on Equestria, but the trees hid its light away, leaving her only the slightest glow to see by. In the darkness, her mind, desperate to find the path to safety, conjured all manner of beasts and bogeymen, lurking, waiting to devour her.
She didn't hear it following her, but she knew inside that it was following her....no.....stalking her looking for its next meal. She ran until she ran through the trees and out of the forest. Once she was a hundred yards away she stopped running and was taking in large gulps of air while panting from fear.
"I.....think......it is gone." Fluttershy huffed out with a small smile before she felt as if something was watching her. She slowly turned and her eyes turned to pinpricks when she saw the thing staring at her. She let out a scream before deciding to run to Twilight's library. She was unaware that the beast simply watched her run.
Fluttershy sprinted even faster than she did in the woods. She sprinted as hard as she could. She knew that it was chasing her. She could feel it's breath on the back of her neck as it slowly inched it's maw open. she was cut off from her thought as she bumped into a pony. As she landed she let out a scream while covering her face with her hooves while crying.
"Fluttershy?"
Fluttershy moved her hooves to see her friends staring at her with worried look along with the rest of Ponyville who looked like they just work up.
“Oh, dear!” Rarity gasped and raced inside, sitting beside the shaky Pegasus and patting her gently on the head. “Oh, Fluttershy, darling, are you quite all right?”
Applejack approached next, her concern much more subtle than Rarity's. “How ya feelin', sugarcube?”
Fluttershy slowly picked up her head and struggled to reply "There's something out there."
There was another pause, this one more ominous than before. Twilight broke the silence by asking, “'Something?”
“It was . . . . . . . it was . . . so scary . . . it . . . I . . .”
“Calm down, Fluttershy,” Dash spoke as she stepped up, “just start from the beginning, and tell us what happened.”
Another disconcerting pause later, Fluttershy finally explained, "I.....went to find Clucksensworth." The chicken made a cluck. "I..... found him in a.....cave and.......and......"
“WHAT!?!” Pinkie Pie finally squealed, looking and sounding almost tortured by the suspense. “What did you see?! Was it a dragon? Was it a monster?! Was it a hundred-foot marshmallow man?! TELL US—” One quick, admonishing look from Applejack quieted her down.
It was too late. Pinkie's raving had upset Fluttershy more. “It was a monster!” she repeated, the tears coming back with a vengeance. "It was eating a dead manticore before it decided to come after me!"
The memory seemed to intensify Fluttershy's state, and she was no longer able to go on. Fluttershy promptly buried her face into her hooves and went back to sobbing and shaking.
Rainbow Dash processed what Fluttershy had said, but could not take such a fanciful explanation seriously. "A monster? Come on Shy everypony knows such a things don't exist."
“What Rainbow Dash is trying to say,” Twilight interrupted with a growl (more at Dash than anypony else), then directed the rest to Fluttershy, “is that it's very unlikely that it was some 'monster'. After all, monsters don't really exist—”
“I saw it!” Fluttershy shrieked again, still shaking and shedding rivers of tears. "It had blood coming out of it's mouth and had glowing yellow eyes!"
“Why, this vicious, inconsiderate brute!” Rarity huffed angrily. “And to make our Fluttershy cry like this! Shame on him!” She then turned to Fluttershy and continued to assuage her, “There, there, darling, you're safe now. That beastly cur won't dare come after you with us around! Why, if you ask me, that despicable creature owes you an apology!”
Twilight rubbed her chin with her hoove. "There was something that woke everypony up."
"Oh come on egghead!" Twilight gave her a glare. "I doubt there is such a monster! I'm sure it was just timberwolves!" Rainbow explained with a smug look. Everypony were glancing at one and another not sure.
Twilight opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by a loud howl that caused everypony to jump with fear as the howl was so loud that it echoed for what seemed like an eternity before finally disappearing.
"That....is not a timberwolf." Pinkie spoke with wide eyes.