The Hungering Dark
The trio crossed the threshold and felt simultaneous bursts of dread sweep through their bodies and fill their minds.
Each of them felt the same thing: they each felt that they had stepped beyond the boundaries of Equestria and into a new place, a place of hungry shadows and terrors that had only been hinted at by Ahuizotl’s insane ramblings.
Before them lay a set of steep, stone stairs that led down at a sharp incline. Daring and her companions slowly made their dark descent, feeling the air grow colder with every step and letting the small pinprick of light that the door provided grow smaller and smaller.
Just before the light was swallowed completely, Daring stopped, opened her bag, and produced a large flashlight.
“I’m glad that I brought this.” she said , feeling a bit of comfort when she switched it on and let the thick beam of artificial light slice through the darkness.
“Oh, thank Celestia.” said Dr. Hoof, letting out a breath that he had been holding.
“The funny thing is I actually forgot that I had this.” she said, trying to force some humor into their situation, but her weak laugh failed utterly to dispel the shifting darkness that lay just beyond the boundaries of the flashlight’s glow.
Soon the air grew colder as they descended deeper, and soon the cold bit at their skin and filled their lungs with stinging, chilled pain as the stairs grew damp and mossy.
And all around them the darkness only seemed to grow and become something other than normal shadow, something thicker, like liquid.
Daring, Ahuizotl and Dr. Hoof found themselves drawing closer to each other to share what little warmth that each had left in their cold bodies.
“C-can’t you do a warming s-spell?” asked Daring as a forceful gust of icy air ruffled her short hair and stung her eyes.
“I-I can t-t-try.” stammered the blue unicorn, now looking significantly more blue than he had a few seconds before. He lit his horn and his aura wrapped around all three of them, pouring a significant amount of energy into the magical constructs.
Daring sighed in relief as a pleasant warmth spread through her body and cleared away the icy chill that had enveloped her.
“Thanks, doc.” she said, giving the good doctor a smile.
“You’re welcome.” he replied with a nod.
Daring turned back just as the ground suddenly and unexpectedly leveled out, sending her tumbling to the cold stone with a gasp.
She heard someone come to her side and raised her head to find Ahuizotl staring at her intently, his eyes were filled with worry.
“Are you alright, Daring?” he asked.
The adventurer was taken aback, she had realized that they had been slowly cutting their bonds as hero and villain over the course of this disturbing endeavor of theirs, but the serious concern in his voice made her wonder if a different type of bond had been formed.
At least, by him.
Daring shook her head to clear the unwanted thoughts from her mind before saying, “Yeah, I’m fine, Ahuizotl.”
The cryptid sighed relievedly and gently helped Daring to her hooves. Daring dusted herself off and then checked the flashlight, which had fallen with her, hoping that it wasn’t damaged.
There was a large crack that ran across the plastic lense, but the light was as bright as ever.
“Thank Celestia.” said Daring, pointing the beam ahead of her.
And so the trio continued on their way, each of them happy that there were no more stairs to traverse, but each also dreading what was to come.
Daring felt like she was being watched from the darkness.
This feeling wasn’t new to her, she had felt eyes on her many times before, it just came with the territory. But this feeling was different, more potent somehow.
It’s like this whole place amplifies every fear-related feeling. she thought, then she stopped and her eyes widened, That’s what this place is doing, isn’t it?
“Oh, I am such an idiot!” she said aloud.
“Excuse me?” asked Dr. Hoof.
Daring drew in a breath to start speaking, knowing that what she said would upset the good doctor, but she stopped when she saw- not far up ahead- a green, flickering light.
Evidently Dr. Hoof and Ahuizotl saw it too, because they stopped on either side of her.
“Is that… torch light?” asked Dr. Hoof.
“I think so.” said Daring.
“Should we…. should we got to the light?” asked Dr. Hoof.
Daring didn’t speak, she just looked at the flickering lights. She felt a certain relief at looking at them, a relief that felt… off somehow, almost like it didn’t belong in her mind. But, when she turned the beam of light to either side of her she saw only an endless stretch of shining black floor and empty air.
Wait… what?!
Daring drew a few feet closer to the odd anomaly and then gazed at the reflective tiling that made up the floor.
At first glance the entire floor seemed to be made of these tiles, arranged in a standard grid pattern, but, as she looked closer, she saw that wasn’t the case at all: the lines of the tile seemed to be far more complex than a simple grid, full of triangles and circles and hexagons and other shapes that held far too many sides to be physically impossible.
Parallel lines aren’t supposed to intersect! she thought, feeling like she was about to leave her body.
Suddenly she was wrenched back to reality by Ahuizotl, who wrapped his hands around her shoulders, turned her to face him, and shouted, “Do not look at the floor!”
Daring gasped and felt her consciousness slam back into her body with a sharp jolt.
“How did you-?”
“One of Cabellaron’s men looked at the floor” said Ahuizotl, “He fell through the cracks in the world and was taken.”
“Taken by what?” asked Daring, fearing that she already knew the answer.
“Taken by the Darkness.” said Ahuizotl matter-of-factly.
Daring shuddered.
“We should go back!” said Dr. Hoof, sounding near to a mental breakdown.
Ahuizotl shook his head, “We can’t.”
“And why the buck not!!” roared Dr. Hoof, turning on Ahuizotl and baring his teeth in a snarl.
“Because now the darkness knows that we’re here.” said the cryptid, a sick smile slithering across his face, “It’s alive, you see, and it will tear our bones from out flesh, flay our skin and devour our organs before we can make it to the staircase!”
He let out a giggle, “One of my cats-it was my panther, I think, ran off when things went wrong… and there wasn’t even a single unbroken bone left when I found her.”
He laughed, even as a few tears trickled down his cheeks.
Daring and Dr. Hoof exchanged worried looks, then turned to address their less-than-sane companion, only to find him looking as serious and in control as he had a few minutes previously.
Daring furrowed her brow and went up to him, “Listen, Ahuizotl, I need to know if you’re gonna be okay for all this.”
“Pardon?” asked Ahuizotl with a tilt of his head.
“Are you gonna go crazy on us in the near future?” clarified Daring.
Ahuizotl’s face fell, “I…. I’m not sure…. but I can’t go back now. Even if the darkness wasn’t so alive, I’d still want to face my fears.”
He bowed his head, Dr. Hoof approached him and laid a hoof on his hand, “You just want to be normal again, don’t you?”
Ahuizotl chuckled and shook his head, “I can never be ‘normal’ again. You can’t fix what’s been so broken.”
Daring joined Dr. Hoof and gently placed a hoof under his chin, tilting his head up to look him in the eyes.
“It’ll take time, but I think that you can recover.” she said, not even flinching when she looked into those white orbs of his.
“Now” said the adventurer after clearing her throat, “lets go and stop whatever’s happening.”
As they neared the lights the air grew warmer to the point where Dr. Hoof was able to remove the heating spell.
The green light was revealed to be coming from not one, but several sources, all of which were large, ornately -carved sconces which held massive torches that were roughly the size of a pony limb.
The harsh, sickly green light overpowered the beam from her flashlight, so she turned it off and stowed it in her bag.
The light also revealed most of their surroundings, and the company gazed in wonder at the massive stone pillars that shot up high into the darkness above them, as well as the walls that were connected to them, each wall was covered in gaudily-painted hieroglyphs whose color had not been diminished in the passage of time.
Daring felt her curiosity grip her again and she approached the nearest section of hieroglyphs to examine them.
The scene that was etched onto the wall depicted a colorful land of bright green grass and a shining, pink sun that sat in a rainbow sky. The next part showed a group of crudely-drawn ponies cavorting with a group of odd creatures the likes of which Daring had never seen, but their oddly proportioned limbs and the chimeric nature of their bodies made her uneasy.
The scene after that showed both groups bowing in reverence to a creature that sat atop a gilded throne, a creature that was both familiar in body and alien in expression.
It had the body of a ram or goat, with bright blue fur and curling horns and cloven hooves that held a spear and a scepter.
It looked like most other depictions of worship that she had seen in her travels with one glaring exception: in most of the depictions of great kings of old, the king wore an expression of pure benevolence, with a smile and rosy cheeks, but this king bore no such expression, instead he was sneering down at his subjects, showing off his sharpened teeth as he did.
Daring’s eyes were drawn to those of the painting and she found that they were pure red, like orbs of fresh blood set in hollowed sockets.
The sight was enough to make her shudder, but she looked to the next portrait regardless, feeling the need to sate her curiosity.
The following scene showed both groups clustered together in what appeared to be a large orgy, as the ram-like king watched them from an altar that looked like it was carved out of bones. Then Daring noticed the blood and the scars that had been painted on the revelers.
Next the ram-like king was standing over a massive pool of shimmering liquid, holding aloft a dripping dagger in one hoof and the head of a pony foal in the other as his subjects bowed around him and the pool.
Daring felt her gorge rise at the look of agony on the foal's mutilated face and the sadistic mirth that was etched in bas-relief onto the king's cruel face, she averted her eyes to the bottom of the scene, where the hieroglyphs lay.
To her immense surprise they were not in some indecipherable script from eons past, but in Saddle Arabian. She leaned closer and was able to pick out the first few lines:
And so the cruel king
Committed the ultimate act of evil
And plunged the world into eternal darkness
Thus King Grogar became a dark god amongst his people
And Tambelon fell to wickedness
And the land around became corrupt.
Daring’s ears perked up and she felt herself drawn to the next scene, and when she saw what was shown, she gasped audibly.
The scene showed two very familiar alicorns, one white and one dark blue, engaged in combat with the creature known as Grogar. The text underneath read:
The Lunar Princess and the Solar Princess
Rose against Grogar.
They drove seven silver spears through him
And cut off his head
Then they tore the cancerous world apart
And saved what goodness remained.
And out of that goodness was born Equestria.
But the shadow of Tambelon remains
And one day it shall stretch forth and claim the land again
For no shadow can be destroyed forever.
Daring fell to her rump, her head was spinning and her hooves were shaking as the realization washed over her and filled her guts and weighed her very bones down.
The princesses are connected to this place? she thought, And… and the hieroglyphs said that- they told the… they told the founding of Equestria itself! A question which has never been answered by the Princesses and has never even been focused on.
“Sweet Celestia..” she breathed, feeling a headache take rook in her skull.
“Daring?” asked a voice from behind her, causing her to jump a foot in the air with a shrill scream.
“Daring?! What’s wrong?” asked Dr. Hoof, coming around to face her as the tan pegasus placed a hoof to her heart to calm herself.
“Th-the paintings and the w-w-words” she stammered, “I-I think that I’ve just f-found out how Equestria was made!”
“What?!” shouted Dr. Hoof.
Daring smiled shakily, “I think… if we make it out of here… the princesses are gonna have a LOT of explaining to do!”
Dr. Hoof stammered incomprehensibly for a moment before Ahuizotl, who had been watching the exchange solemnly, slapped him hard, sending him onto his back.
“We don’t have time for this.” he said evenly.
“Oh yes we do.” said Daring, feeling a kind of giddy mania fill her.
“No, we don’t.” reaffirmed Ahuizotl sternly, “Look” he said, pointing behind them.
Daring turned and saw the green lights of the torches start to snuff out.
“If we don’t run now the darkness will catch us and we will die a million deaths.” he said.
Daring looked at the oncoming darkness, then at the most important find of her life, then back to the darkness.
Finally she got to her hooves, turned, and galloped down the corridor before her, with Ahuizotl and Dr. Hoof following a moment later.
Behind them the darkness, now filled with a furious hunger, devoured the light.
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Love it!!! Oh so loving the little darizotl bits ^_^ this story is so awesome that you made me want to do my own horror story. Can't wait for the next update.
And if you want you can read The amulet of Anubis that I just recently put on, I would really like your input.
4707193 That was you? I saw that story on the new story box, I'll check it out in a bit.
4709274 Ah... I see...soooooo.... did you read the story, or are just filling me in? I'm okay either way, just wanted to ask.
If they make it out alive, I will be so disappointed in you.
4709280 Look at the above comment
When I got to the part with Grogar, this started playing. It was only too fitting.
Here are some extra soundtrack options, btw:
Oh, and are you interested in doing a story for the 'Verse?
The origin o the shadow is revealed (insert creation of hyrule music here)! very nice buildup and the backstory for the EVIL entity is kinda cliché but cool at the same time cant wait for more.
4712938 Thanks
Oh shit they found the ruins of tambleon