//------------------------------// // The horror manifest itself // Story: The bells from beyond reality // by Kuroneko //------------------------------// We quickly regrouped, and saw that Golden Vellum was missing, we rushed to where he had been seen last and found him at the foot of one of these strange stone cylinder, curled up on the ground shaking, with mad eyes and abrasions all over his body, like if he had struggled with something that tried to grab him. When we asked him what happened he told us with a broken voice that he went inside the tower by going through one of it’s angles, that there was nothing inside and that he was attacked by nothing It was the last coherents words he ever said, now limiting himself to a maniacal laugher. It’s not uncommon for soldiers to break under the pressure, so at the time we thought the stress finally got to him and that he wounded himself by crawling on the ground. My first reaction was to immediately go back to our camp so he could receive medical assistance but then I realised that doing so would require getting past that dark pit in the ground again and none of us would have accepted, not even for all the bits in the world, to walk again along the edge of the abyss with this rambling madman, so I remained silent. We were thinking about what to do with our poor friend when we realised that we weren't the only one to hear his scream. It’s Amber Bolt, thanks to her pegasus eyes, who first noticed that the shadows surrounding us behaved strangely, almost like if they were moving, then we saw it, the materialised horror of this otherworldly city, advancing in the light. It wasn't like any creature we saw until now, even the fearsome beasts of the Everfree forest weren't comparable to this creature. It had no form or shape, it was only a cloud of black smoke which contracted and stretched itself like a giant ebony worm crawling in the sky. In what looked like its head, we could see shining a fiery red orb, only distinguishable feature on it’s pitch black body. Just looking at it was already frightening but it was only the beginning, it stopped at some distance and seemed to look at us, maybe, it was hard to say as it had no face ; then it started to go through an horrible mutation: it’s body became denser and it slowly grew four hooved legs, a tail that looked like a black cloud, and a strong neck topped by a head with a long muzzle, two ears and an ebony mane. The creature’s red eye, which was moving freely in its body, traveled to its newly formed head and settled on its forehead where it took the form of a horn. The thing was now the perfect replica of a pony, or at least it, tried to be. As if it was unable to maintain a complex form, it’s face and other body features were constantly melting, fading into nonexistence before reforming again. This shuffling nightmare reminded me of the tales of the faceless beast that some ponies from the north swore they saw thousands of years ago. We were terrified but still confident in our chances of defeating the creature we outnumbered six to one. This hope was soon crushed when from the nearby streets came more of these living shadows, first one, then two, three, five, ten, twenty! Each one of them going through the same transformation as the first one. We were completely outnumbered and, in the horror of the moment, I thought I recognised in this multitude of shifting faces, the likeness of the tyrant of the crystal empire that I saw on a painting when I was sent to work with the crystal guard years ago. Our morale was low, we were preparing ourselves to escape with the hope we could lose our opponents in the maze of streets when we heard something coming behind us, fearing a back attack, we turned around to face the newcomer and our souls nearly left us when we saw what stood in front of us. This time it was no faded painting or ghostly doppelganger, it was him, the scourge of the frozen north, like summoned her by my thought, king Sombra was standing here looking at us menacingly. We thought we were done for but to our great surprise he ignored us and walked straight to the shadow monsters. What he did then, I shudder just to think about it, those crystal ponies that say Sombra was a monster in a pony disguise may be closer from the truth than one should be allowed to be, OH BY THE SUN AND MOON HE SPOKE TO THEM! He talked to these nightmarish creatures. Although «talked» may not the right word as the sounds that came out of his mouth were not part of any known language and should have never been heard in a pony’s mouth or the one of any creature from a world where everything is good and normal. Whatever he said to them, they didn't like it as they immediately attacked him. The fight that followed, if we can even call it a fight, was very short. The way Sombra fought was strange and terrible, he was ruthlessly strong, unleashing his dark powers in a fit of rage and mercilessly crushing all the creatures who stood against him, despite the armor he was wearing, his movements were swift and nimble as if his body had no weight and sometime it seemed to bend in impossible ways, but the worst was the fear he exuded that reduced us to a bunch of foals cowering from the monster under their bed at night, we couldn't move, not to run away, not even to avoid an attack, we were completely paralyzed and could only watch as he crushed these living shadows one by one. Once the last shadow monsters had been defeated or had ran away deeper in the city the silence fell once again, only to be troubled by Golden Velum mad mumbles. King Sombra, still not paying attention to us was standing motionless, staring into the void seemingly thinking about something and we didn't dare to make a move, still in shock from what just happened. It’s Mountain Leaf who eventually decided to act . Oh you poor fool, going to talk to that monster like it was one of your friend, we thought he was going to die when the king lifted him from the ground, strangling him with his magic. Finally acknowledging our presence, his burning gaze brushed across our little group, piercing our souls as it passed upon us. His words to us were cold and without any compassion, he said that he may have made a deal with Celestia, but he had no obligations toward lowly creatures like us, and that we should not forget where is our place. He then released the half dead Mountain Leaf, throwing him on the floor without care, we rushed to his side and were relieved to see he was still alive, to which the king replied mockingly that it would have been better for him if he died instead of what was awaiting us. Sombra was then about to leave when Amethyst Grape asked him with a feeble voice, if we could go with him, nearly fainting as the words escaped her mouth. Sombra looked at us with a face distorted by anger and disgust, I honestly thought that our last hour had come and that he was going to execute us, but nothing worked normally in this distorted place. Indeed, slowly he calmed down and without a word, without a look he turned around and started to walk. Dumbfounded, we stared at each others for a few second then went after him. You might wonder what were we thinking to do such a thing, afterall, we all knew how cruel king Sombra was, even though the crystal war happened a thousand years ago everyone have heard about the slaves forced to work night and day in the mines, the brainwashed soldiers forced to battle against their will, and the magical abominations that were once normal ponies that even the bravest warriors are afraid to talk about, so what madness could’ve made us follow such monster? The reason is that in this mad world where things don't obey logic and is inhabited by being beyond our comprehension he was the only thing that tied us to our world, to our beloved Equestria, and despite how horrible he may have been, we followed him as closely as if he was Celestia herself, fearing that if we had lost sight of him, we would have been swallowed by the darkness of this phantomatic city. As for his reasons for letting us accompany him despite stating how worthless we were to him, I can only guess, maybe he was impressed by our courage to ask him that just after he threatened us, I highly doubt it was the deal with Celestia he stated that held him back, if he killed us there, nobody would have ever found our bodies, maybe he too feared this city and what it contained and unconsciously wanted companions, or maybe deep down he knew what was going to happen to him and wanted to do one good act before meeting his end. King Sombra had no trouble to move among the streets of the labyrinthic city, as if he had lived here all his life, he walked fast, and for us who already had trouble moving by ourselves it became a real challenge to keep up with him, but despite our tiredness we did our best to keep him in sight. Along the way we could feel the eyes of shadowy figures watching us, they didn't dare to approach and followed us from the edge of our area of sight until the very end, as if they were waiting for something. We walked for hours without seeing nothing but the same tight ranks of strangely shaped houses and we started to think this city had no end when suddenly we saw something that left us in shock. It was something we didn’t saw for what seemed to be eons, nothing out of the ordinary compared to the horrors we saw until now but it had so many implications that we felt a mixture of relief and apprehension. What we all saw at that moment was simply the rays of the sun, shining among the darkness of the sky. King Sombra immediately identified what was the source of the light and instantly rushed in its direction leaving us behind, in our turn we followed the light and went in the same direction as him. What we saw upon arriving was beyond everything we could've imagined, it was indescriptible, beautiful beyond words yet terrifying at the same time. I think I heard Buried Star whispers something about the spirit of order and chaos standing among the stars yet to be born, bringing our universe to existence through their fights. Truly, a fitting description, as it was something of cosmic magnitude, something that had never been witnessed by any mortal eyes.