The Darkest Day In Changeling History: The Beast Of Salem

by Harbinger Of Mist

Chapter 4: Broken

They wake up, stretch, chat their apathy away, eat proper food (albeit in small portions) because the queen is especially fond of them, explode in each other's faces, feed the guard, and finally fall back to sleep. A simple cycle that repeated every ten hours for nearly six days. They had no perception of time in their prison, they haven't seen the sun since; it may as well have been a full two weeks to them. Each passing day, each time the cycle refreshed, they lost more of their sanity. Fear replaced with anxiety; despair replaced with impatience. The queen enjoyed watching them squirm and talk to themselves in the corners. Their mangled manes and tails, their forced lack of hygiene, the look of psychosis in their eyes... She never had prisoners like them. She knew they were special from the start. However, one of them in particular stood out...

Sam rolled on his back and stared up at Chrysalis with an unsettling smile. "Hast the gracious warden come for thy meal?"

Chrysalis chuckled. "Oh, Sam... You become more and more entertaining each time I visit." Unfortunately I cannot say quite the same for your parents. She holds them in a binding spell as she instructs the guard to let Sam out of the cell.

Sam's parents turn their heads and see their son crawling out. The sight of the open gate excited them; whilst the sight of their son approaching the queen caused their loose screws to re-fasten. Trotman snaps back to reality and shouts back to him, "Sam! Don't! I'm sorry! Please listen! You can't go with her! Stay with us! We need you! We'll listen to you! And each other! Sam!"

Amelia started to tear up as her son hugged the Changeling queen's front hooves. "Sam? Samuyl? Are you... leaving us?"

"Trust the warden and all is well... Trust the warden and all is well... Trust the warden and all is well..." Sam chanted to himself as he shunned the worried words of his parents. He felt oddly comfortable around her. After all, she was the one who provided the least bad part of their imprisonment. His parents only caused him to slowly lose faith.

The queen sighs and levels her head down near Sam. "How wonderful of you, Samuyl. I knew you'd know what to do." She lifts her hoof and caresses his chin. "I'm settled: You are my favourite prisoner. I can actually trust you back. Enough to bring you up to my quarters for a special reward."

"Yes mine illustrious warden..." Sam deadpanned as he stood haphazardly to his hooves. He seemed to be in a self-induced trance. But for good measure, Chrysalis decided to reinforce it with a spell of her own. Glowing green eyes and a disturbing smile were the last Trotman and Amelia saw of their son as he followed the queen to the end of the corridor and up the stairs.

Two drones guarded the top of the flight at an open archway. Sam stumbled ahead as Chrysalis whispered into the guards' ears. They make their way down the same stairs as Chrysalis guides Sam to her sleeping quarters.

---

In the middle of the second floor of the castle, Sam leaned out the window to take in the scenery. The valley truly was closed off from the rest of the world. There was no sunlight, only glistening crystals sticking from the rocks overhead provided barely adequate illumination. Drones were flying and buzzing all around; there had to have been at least a couple thousand of them. He saw some of them leaving and entering through the same flat opening near the roof of this cave-like area.

"Sam... Come hither..." The queen beckoned. She was resting neatly upright on her bed as she materialized a red and gold tray.

Sam waddled his way to his queen as he observed the tray in slight confusion. He was surprised to see multiple sparks of green magic in different sizes form on top. In several flashes, he was greeted with bowls of salad, fruits, biscuits, nuts, cheeses, and many other foods ponies loved to eat. "For my favourite prisoner... my new pet. You are certainly one in a million, Sam. I'm going to keep you... in comfort. You can stay here with me, your queen, and receive whatever you may desire." Within reason, of course.

Sam was awestruck at the display in front of him. His starvation will no longer be eating away at him like his emotions. He wasted no more time in practically diving into the smorgasboard of much-needed sustenance. Stuffing his face full of whatever food caught his eye, he surprisingly made sure not to spill anything on his master's bed by positioning his mouth over the middle of the tray.

At the end of his binge, he nearly ate himself sick. Full to the point of collapsing, he was caught by a green aura and placed at the head of Chrysalis' bed.

"Now rest." Chrysalis says in an oddly motherly tone. "Tomorrow marks the beginning of the rest of your life." She takes the tray and the remnants of the food and vapourizes it. With a soft stroke of her hoof, she encourages Sam to have a nice long nap in a comfortable setting. Only the best for her new pet.

Sam closed his eyes and quickly drifted off into a deep slumber. Given his past condition, it was no surprise to either of them he was able to succumb so readily to his new accommodations.

---

Chrysalis briefly looked into a magical window she conjured. It allowed her to see and hear all that happened in any cell of her choosing. It was how she was able to relish in the "entertainment" Sam and his parents provided. But this time, there was nothing to enjoy; the cell was empty.

Sam moaned sleepily and started to fidget himself awake. He was unfamiliar with the soft surface that he had forgotten was gifted to him. Then he remembered the queen showing hospitality; the food she gave him the evening before, the kind words and expressions.

He stepped out of her bed and still seemed to be in a trance-like state. He allowed himself to be broken and convinced that Chrysalis was his care-giver, that she... loved him. He smiled and stretched as Chrysalis ceased her spell. He looked alluringly into her eyes and said, "I love you too, my sweet queen."

"Oh, now aren't you just precious?" Chrysalis walked toward him and stroked his mane. "Come now, if you're going to live here from now on, it would only make sense to start with a little tour." She leashes him with a spell around his neck and leads him downstairs to the foyer.

Sam didn't mind how he was being treated like a pet; he was nourished and well-rested, he was shown kindness, he was comfortable. He had a feeling he was going to enjoy spending his life as a privileged slave. So long as he was given everything he needed in adequacy, he saw no reason to complain.

They had made it down to the main hall. They were surrounded by tall thin stone pillars and the same eerie blue torches. "Before we start properly, I feel it's only best that you let go of what you had in your previous life."

Sam was confused. "What... did I have... my queen?"

"Nothing important." Chrysalis projected a similar magic window in front of the two of them. This window showed an unsettling pile of bones and rotting pony carcasses. Sam was unnerved by this display, but he was not prepared for what the window was about to show when the visual panned to a certain couple of fresh bodies. "Why don't you give a proper farewell?" The queen proposed.

Sam stared at the bodies for a few seconds, until suddenly... everything came back: His childhood memories all flushed back, images of his parents showing love and care zoomed through his mind like a bullet, and his more recent memories of being imprisoned all came to a slow down and amounted him to a sudden realization. Wide-eyed, slack-jawed and trembling, he stared at the two dead bodies that he could not possibly mistake. "Mother?... Father?... Th-they... are gone?"

"You don't need them anymore, they were already dead-weights."

A troubling memory of him crawling out of the cell and being mesmerized by Chrysalis' mere presence clouded his entire mind. "I-I... never said... goodbye... That I loved them..." He starting to run short of breath. "Now... they're gone! No! NOOOOOO!!" He immediately pounced on Chrysalis and tried to choke her. She, however, was able to physically hold him away. "YOU MONSTER! I'm not letting you control me anymore! I know this was your doing!"

He was quickly caught in a stasis spell by several nearby guards and lifted off of the queen. Held down to the ground, he bowed his head and allowed himself to sob over the deaths of his parents. Losing parents in such a manner would be hard for anypony, but the fact that he wasn't around to say a proper sendoff tore him up even more.

"You poor fool!" Chrysalis did a short drain of Sam's emotions to calm him down. She wouldn't absorb it all at once, what Sam was feeling would be too much for even her to handle. Sam hyperventilated and was still drowning himself on sorrow, but no longer screaming. "I will give you one last chance. But if you give it up, you will soon join them."

The guards turned down the intensity of their spell and let Sam lay down to wallow in his tears. He quickly stopped making noises and movements and cried himself to sleep right in the middle of the colossal room.

---

"Sam... Sam... Wake up, son! Please, you're stronger than this! Open your eyes!"

The familiar voice stirred him awake, or at least he hoped he was awake. What stood before him was his mother with a very worried look in her eyes. "M-mom?!"

"Shh! Don't ask how I managed to get here. What's important is that we make it out of here alive. I have a plan, but you need to trust me."

Sam was still felling a bit drowsy. "Yes... I trust you..."

She smiled. "Do you still love me? Even after what we've put each other through?"

"I... I can't stay mad at you, mom." He was starting to tear up again. "I love you!"

Amelia started to show true affection for her son. She leaned in and nuzzled her face beside Sam's to console him. "I love you too, Sam... My pet." Her voice unexpectedly changed into a distorted hiss at the last two words. This caused Sam to gasp and shoot his eyes wide open.

Amelia was surrounded by a green aura. She stood back away from Sam and transformed into the Changeling queen. She chuckled. "Oh, poor Sam. You had a perfect chance to let them go, but you still decided to hold on. No matter, I just need to change my agenda. There are going to be things you just won't be suited for anymore."

Sam was breathing heavily and unevenly. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and onto the floor below below. He didn't blink, he just stared at Chrysalis in rage with his blood-shot eyes.

She had the nerve to kill his parents without a final reprieve with their son, and now she tried to play with his emotions by posing as his deceased mother. This caused him to go berserk. "H-how... dare you?!... You animal!!" He stood slowly to his hooves and showed no hesitation in preparing to strike. "I won't! Let you! Get away! With this!!!"

He screamed like a maniac and was quickly caught in the same stasis spell, only this time by the queen herself. He was powerless to move by his own will, he could only manage to squirm, bearing his front hooves in a hostile manner. "Such a waste! You could've been something truly unique in this colony... But you threw it away."

Sam was not so much screaming, but yelping in short rapid bursts like a deranged mental patient. He felt no sadness, only a lust for blood. After all he went through, there was nothing he wanted more than to kill the queen with his bare hooves.

"You need to calm yourself." The guards hidden behind Sam took that as a cue to cast the draining spell on him. They walked up to the queen's side and shot two separate beams at his face. The guards seemed to be struggling. Sam was getting quieter, but they didn't seem to be draining much out of him.

As Sam stopped his incessant shouts and stared blankly at the ceiling, he let his front hooves dangle at his sides. He left the guards confused, they still felt nothing significant was gathered from that "harvest". They backed away as the queen still held Sam loosely in her field. "What do you two think you're doing?! Keep draining him! I want him laying on the floor when I personally suck him dry!"

Sam continued to look up at the ceiling with his eyes and mouth nearly closed. He then let out all his rage in a long, sustained scream which oddly had a deepened tone of his usual voice. His scream was so intense that it caused sonic waves to resonate from him. The force of his shout caused the queen to falter her spell and retreat back to a wall. The entire valley was filled with his haunting howl. Every Changeling, including the queen, was holding their ears in vain to stop the noise. The whole castle was shaking and debris was falling as the ceiling lost integrity. Even stalactites from the roof of the cave fell.

When the piercing pain in their ears was done and replaced with uncomfortable ringing, Chrysalis could still make out the deep bellowing breaths of the figure that was in front of her. When she looked back at Sam, he was simply monstrous. It was to the point where she actually felt afraid of him. The muscles in Sam's torso and front legs, and even his hooves, have beefed up to amazing proportions. He even became noticeably taller from his transformation. He also earned a cutie mark that was the silhouette of a saber-toothed pony letting out a fearsome roar.

As Samuyl let himself back down onto all fours, he slams his front hooves into the ground and stares back at Chrysalis and the guards with a sinister smile and pupil-less, blank white eyes. He spoke in a low gravelly voice, "you! Your majesty..." He points at her. "Having fed off of so much fear... Do you yourself know how to experience it?!" He laughs evilly and the guards abandon the queen's side, leaving her alone with the Beast. She could feel herself losing hope already...

Author's Note:

Those last three paragraphs...
Most of you probably know what inspired me.