Good evening, officer. My name is Silver Spoon. While my guilt is easy to be wrongly deduced from my simple presence here, I'd like you to refrain from coming to any conclusion regarding my circumstances until I have fully explained myself. Please, allow me to regale you with my account of this unspeakable evening.
The event in question took place on Hearth's Warming Eve. The holiday established out of family and love, it was a celebration in which Pegasus, Unicorn, and Earth ponies alike come together in harmony.
I know what you might be thinking. If this is the day in which we are supposed to be generous, forgiving, and doting, then why are we here, right now, discussing this in a closed interrogation room at the station? To be quite frank, I can't believe that it has come to this, myself, but perhaps disclosing the accounts of my day might shed some light into the matter.
The sun's gaze was bright and warm, making my walk to my friend's house rather quaint on an otherwise chilly day. As I trotted along at my leisurely pace, I couldn't help but notice the joviality of the friendly denizens of Ponyville. From their cheerful disposition and from the beautiful sunny day alone, you couldn't have known that the worst storm Ponyville had seen in over forty years had just occurred the previous night. At least, that is what my parents have told me.
I, for one, find that rather hard to believe. Despite the tumultuous gale of sleet and hail that pelleted every exposed surface of Ponyville, including my bedroom window, it didn't actually seem terrible at all. My first inclination is to believe that they were simply exaggerating out of some sort of whimsical fascination for the storm.
There was one peculiarity that stuck out to me that night, however. Something that I've been unable to shake from mind. It's quite silly, now that I think about it after the fact. Against the commotion of the tempest out my window, the sound I had heard was nearly imperceptible.
Tap. Tap. Tap. The noise came from the window. This alone wasn't what had me unnerved. This was not the irregularity rapping of sleet on glass. It was regular, and with purpose. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I wanted to dismiss the tapping as the wind knocking against the glass, but I just couldn't. My mind simply couldn't fathom why the interval between taps were just so perfect. If I looked closely enough, I could make out a shadowy hoof press against the glass. It could have easily been dismissed as the shadow of a nearby tree. That is what I thought, after all, until I heard whispering. I couldn't make out what was being said, but I wasn't about to leave the safety of my bed to find out.
When its hoof drug itself down across the glass, grating against it and emanating a noise akin to filing hooves against chalkboard, chills ran down my withers. If this had been nothing more than the wind, my imagination was doing a good job of making it seem otherwise. Deeply disturbed by the sound, I clenched my eyes shut and draped my covers over my head, trying to will whatever was at my window to go away. I don't know how long I was laying in my bed, but at some point I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is waking up to see my brightly lit room the next morning.
I seem to have deviated for a moment. I don't mean to sound as if I'm avoiding the subject, but after the horrid event that I'd just experienced, can you blame me?
Anyways, while I was on my way over to Diamond Tiara's house that day, I remember being really excited to see the look on her face as she opened the present I had given her. I'm not sure what it was anymore, to be honest. Strange. Actually, its container kind of looks like the one on the table before us.
Before long, I could see her mansion off in the distance, growing ever bigger as I approached it. At its entrance, I rang the doorbell. Almost immediately, I was granted access into her abode.
When I got to her room, she was already prepared to entertain me with something unusual for our encounters. Instead of the normal accompaniment of trinkets and finery that I had come to expect from our meetings, she had situated before her this fake-looking fire, which I could only presume to be run off of electricity on the account that it didn't burn anything or even remotely feel warm to the touch. Beside her was a flashlight and a book called 'Scary Tales'.
Evidently, she was prepared for us to exchange scary stories with one another. I was not entirely put off by this, yet the details of last night's experience was still fresh in my mind. I wondered idly if somehow my mind had warped what really happened into something much more creepy and sinister in nature. I heard sometimes that the mind had a funny way of doing that as a Fight-or-flight response.
I accepted the exchange, and for the next few hours or so we told each other various scary stories. As nighttime loomed around the corner, I finally got up the nerve to reveal my own narrative.
I remember her being really freaked out about it for some reason. By no means should it have been the scariest one we had told that night. Perhaps my own personal attachment to the event gave it more significance over the others.
Before we wrapped up our session and called it an evening, she said she had one more story to tell me. She explicitly expressed that it would knock the figurative socks off of me.
It was about a mare named Snowy Pearl, who was a pony of big aspirations. To grow up from a poor household and one day become the wife of a pony of wealth or noble lineage was her dream. She had her eyes set on the wealthiest prince of any land Equestria and beyond, Prince Archie.
In countless ways she tried to seduce him, and each attempt failed more miserably than the last. Having become obsessed with the prince, her depression was mounting with each failed attempt.
Finally, the prince had grown weary enough by Snowy's advances that he snapped at her. He would never be hers in heart, he had said before stomping off towards who knows where.
That night, Snowy lain on her bed, frustrated and angry. How dare he refuse her love. She deserved all that and more. She needed his love. she hungered for it.
Angry as she was over the rejection, she snapped and went on a rampage in her residing village. Its survivors described her appearance as something straight out of a horror film.
Her forehooves were warped, flailing in impossible directions. Her mane, frizzled and charred, stood straight up into the sky. Her coat of fur was as black as the night. But the worst part of it all was her face. Where her eyes should have been were gaping eye sockets holding a darkness you could get lost in if you stared at it for too long.
Almost as soon as she finished telling her story, I could hear rustling somewhere in the room. Evidently, I was not the only one to perceive the sound, as Diamond Tiara got up to investigate the noise. "What is that?" she asked.
She trotted over to her bed and peeked underneath. Suddenly, she yelped as she was whisked away under the bed. Alarmed, I raced towards her, all the while freaking out.
I followed Di's lead in checking the underside of the bed. Almost immediately, I endured the same petrifying result. I vaguely remember hearing Di's laughter, but I was so caught up in the moment that I barreled straight into her and sent us careening out the other side.
In the interim, we had knocked over my gift, revealing it to be a toy of some sort. I picked it up. I sensed Di clambering up. I turned over to look at her, to try to figure out what the problem was. I could see for but a moment the frightened look on her face as she stared at me.
Not understanding why she was behaving this way, I walked over to her, fully intending to comfort her and to let her know everything was okay. Every step I took, she mimicked me with a tentative step away. "Stay away", I could hear her murmur.
"What's wrong?" I had asked.
It was once again dark and stormy outside, and it was at the precise moment of a thundering strike that I took notice. I glanced upward at her bedroom window. That shadowy hoof had returned, dragging its way across the glass.
There was more substance to the form this time, however. The hoof belonged to the outline of a pony, and it was looking right at me. Even as dark as it was, I could see its eyeless gaze.
"Get away!" I screamed.
It smiled. It was a creepy smile that held none of the warmth that it should. Then, it waved as it pressed itself into the glass and seemingly phased through it.
Having only the toy in hand, I swung my hoof at the intruding figure. "Leave us alone!" I shouted. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Diamond Tiara grow even more terrified as I wildly waved my hoof.
At this point she shrieked, trying to get away. However, I was blocking her path. Too focused on the creature was I that I did not move aside to permit her escape. The creature touched a hoof to Diamond Tiara's mane, petting it as melded with her.
"No, stay away from her!" I screeched, trying fruitlessly to make it stop. When it was done, Diamond Tiara had stopped moving.
The next thing I know I am at the station, wondering why I am here. I must admit that everything beyond that point is all fuzzy. Can you please tell me what happened? Why am I here?
I watched as you begin to fiddle with my gift to Di. The box around was torn and broken, but it still held its form; the toy was still safely intact.
You opened the box to reveal what was inside. Instead of the toy that I had been expecting, in its place was a bloody knife. I stared at it, baffled by the instrument. Why was it bloody, and why was it inside the box?
As I stared at the item, I shook my head in disbelief. I may not remember what I have put in there, but it was definitely not the knife. I would never give her that. That just isn't possible.
"This was what was in the box when we found it in Diamond Tiara's room." You said as you laid out the knife on the table and stared at me.
For the first time since you had entered the interrogation room, I looked at you. What I had seen in your face was unexpected, and I knocked over my seat as I backed away from you. It was your eyes. They were hollow and dark, and you stared right into the depths of my soul.
No, get back. Get away from me. You mimicked my backward steps with your advances, all the while staring at me with those eyes.
"Hungry..." Was all I heard you say.
I felt something at my back. I turned to see that it was a wall. You had me cornered. In desperation, I looked around for protection. My eyes fell to the knife on the table. If only I could reach it then I'd be able to fend this, whatever it was, off again just as I had in Diamond Tiara's room. I'd be safe for another day.
I could hear ringing in my ear as I heard a voice. "...Calm down... deep breaths..." I wasn't sure where the voices were coming from, but you kept on advancing towards me.
Stay away! Don't come any closer! I say this, and yet you disobey me, invading upon my personal space. In frustration and anxiousness, I flung myself onto you, knocking you down and making my way towards the knife. I picked it up and turned back to you.
You were already on top of me, bearing down with all of your strength. I didn't let that faze me as I drove the knife straight through. For a moment you shuddered and then you stopped moving. When I looked down at your lifeless form, I saw that your eyes were that of a normal police officer, not of a monster.
No, that can't be! I imagined it? Did that mean that I imagined it the other time too? I looked down at my knife, what should have been a toy meant for Diamond Tiara, and I stared at the reflection in the knife. It was those same hollowed eyes staring back up at me, and it smiled.