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// Curtain Call 
// Story: The Last Something Sweet to Bite 
// by Knackerman 
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	The light's go up, the voices in the audience rise to a dull roar as each talks to the other about what they have seen. Then the lights die again, the theater going somehow darker than before. The fog spills out in to the audience and flows around their ankles. The spotlight flashes on with a clunk, though the light is no longer white, but instead stained red. It's not a filter as a body lays draped over the hot light, the corpses flesh already sizzling as  blood dribbles from its slashed throat. Without any warning, a creature twitches aside the curtain and takes to the stage. She is dressed exactly like Sunset Shimmer had been in the last scene of the story. Only, the long sleeves of her straight jacket drag on the floor behind her.
But this isn't Sunset Shimmer. Candy coats her face, her hair is long and slick, moving in a snake-like nimbus around her head. Her smile is sharp and bright, but it's her eyes that capture your attention. Swirled lollipops that flit around the room, darting back and forth. They flit around the room, divorced from her otherwise placid body posture.
And then she locks her eyes... with you.
"Thank you so much." she says, her voice exactly as you imagined. "For giving me your life. For letting me spread through your mind."
She steps down from the stage, her bare feet quiet as they sink into the plush carpeted floor. She slowly walks up the aisle. Where she passes those who had not yet vacated their seats slump over in their chairs. She doesn't rush. The audience seems transfixed, unable to react to what they're seeing as she walks calmly towards you. The slumped audience members start to change. Something shiny and wet slides over their pallid flesh, encasing them in a thick candy shell. They start to rise, smiling, holding brightly glowing pumpkins in their outstretched hands.
"If it wasn't for you I never would have been able to make it this far. I couldn't be happier, and it's all thanks to you. It's. All. Thanks. To. You."
The fog thins out, revealing brightly glowing grins all over the theater. The walls themselves seem to be smiling as a wall of grinning jack-o-lanterns rise all around. Like the rest of the audience, you stand transfixed. The exit is right behind you, but you can't look away. She's beautiful in a strange way. They all are. You wonder, for a moment, what it would be like. Just what would it be like to be one of them? To join them in their song... In their obvious hunger.
"This may be the end of our story, but that doesn't mean that it's the end of us. I will never die." She holds her arms out to you as if to embrace you, but somehow it's not as horrifying as it should be. It's almost as if she loves you. "You will carry me with you through your life. And I will be there with you when you die. In that short eternity, that brief infinity, we will be one." Her smile widens.
The spot light shorts out, but that's fine. It's not dark now. There is light, happy and smiling, all around. The singing rises to embrace you. Whatever the entity really was, she is gone. But somehow she feels like she's still with you. The Candy Mare, like a mischievous thought, flits through the back of your mind. You can see her smiling when you close your eyes. For once, it's almost comforting. And really that should be terrifying, but here at the end of everything, it's not. 
It never really could be.
"Thank you for loving me enough to make me a part of you."