Lost in a Terrifying World

by Erisn

Part 5: End of The Game

Twilight snapped. It wasn’t the first time the Alicorn princess had done so. The last time not so long ago had been when Tirek had destroyed her library. The white-hot rage that had burned through Twilight’s mind had led her to battle Tirek one-on-one, nearly unleashing magical Armageddon in the ensuing battle. This time, all of Twilight’s enmity was directed at the strange man, the thin man before her.

Twilight’s ears flattened, her tail went down. Both wings raised, and launched her into the air as Twilight hurtled herself at her enemy. It couldn’t move as long so as Twilight was watching it. She was going to hit it with so many spells that—

A tendril as thick as Twilight’s hoof flashed before her eyes, and Alicorn barely managed to barrel-roll out of the way in time. A second tendril was already waiting for her however and a third and fourth extended to cut off Twilight’s escape routes. That was when Twilight saw a fifth tendril speeding towards her like a lance made out of midnight.

Twilight’s horn flared and she vanished. She popped out of existence just as the tendril was about to graze her wing, and appeared behind the thin creature and hit it with a burst of purple magic. She was pleased to see the thing’s shape flicker slightly. All six of the being’s tendrils darted at her again, but Twilight teleported out of the way again, sending three quick bolts of magic lashing out across the cavern.

The thin man-monster didn’t flinch or step back, but its shape flickered again as each bolt struck it. The darkness around its shape seemed to darken and intensify even as Twilight watched. Twilight would have bet every bit she owned that if the creature hadn’t been mad before, it was now seriously pissed off.

All six tendrils coiled around the humanoid shape, and then darted out at Twilight, causing her to swoop and duck wildly as they scythed through the air around her. She teleported twice, in small micro-jumps, but the tendrils homed in on her like a swarm of angry black bees. She retreated, firing blasts of magic at the shape of the thin man wildly, but the tendrils homed in. Twilight found herself backed into a corner of the cavern, unable to escape the crisscrossing web of tendrils as they slowly closed in, almost exultantly, for the coup de grace.

That was when the first stone flew across the cavern and struck the thin man-figure in the back of the head.

The tendrils surrounding Twilight jerked in surprise, giving her opportunity to teleport herself away to a safer part of the cavern. Breathing deeply in sudden relief, Twilight looked back across the cavern towards the Tree of Harmony where her rescuer stood.

“Take that you…you ruffian!” Rarity’s voice range out through the cave. Across the room, Twilight saw Rarity hunting for larger stones to magically hurl at the creature. Timidly, Fluttershy handed Rarity a pebble, which the unicorn scornfully discarded for a rock the size of Twilight’s head, which she telekinetically heaved at the figure standing in the center of the cavern.

One tendril caught the small boulder in midair and crushed it into pieces effortlessly. Three more tendrils darted at Rarity, but came up short as Twilight struck the monster in the back with another blast of magic. All six tendrils came at her this time, but halted again as a rock twice the size of Twilight’s head shattered against the thin man-monster’s body.

Twilight grinned as thing’s tendrils seemed to almost knot themselves in frustration. Logic and planning be damned. It was time to kick some serious tail.

----

Slender was about to snap. He would have already gone completely berserk were he human, but eldritch beings don’t have the same mechanisms as monkeys. Beings with organs, various bodily fluids, and actual matter could properly ‘lose it’. When a human or pony passed beyond the limits of rage, a red haze tended to drop in front of their eyes as they proceeded to go on a murderous rampage. This is generally considered to be a bad thing, but it was part of the body’s way of dealing with excess rage and anger.

The Slender Man didn’t have glands. He didn’t even have a real body, not real in the sense of mass and matter and whatnot. Thus, he didn’t have any way to blow off steam as it were. All he could do was get angrier and angrier as he failed to kill the three ponies. If anger was mass, Slender Man was right now a black hole of unrelenting fury.

The pony could teleport. It could teleport. No matter how many times he sent his tendrils weaving after the Purple One, it simply vanished before he could so much as graze it. And it sent spell after magical spell at the Slender Man, who was of course unable to move because of the game. They didn’t do much damage, but they hurt like the blazes. It was like being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach by a toothpick, and it made Slender mad. He couldn’t touch it or hurt it, but it could hurt him. It wasn’t fair.

Slender had no concept of irony, but if he had, he would have gladly scoured the multiverse and horribly killed the inventor of the word in every manifestation. Teleportation was his thing. Only he could do it. That was how the game worked, with no exceptions. It might not have been so bad even so; he could have caught the Purple One with time, but then there were the rocks.

The rocks. It was the White One’s fault. Every time he was about to catch the Purple One, a stone would crash against the back of Slender’s head. It didn’t hurt, or even harm the Slender Man, but it made him mad. Nothing threw rocks at the Slender Man. It wasn’t just pain; this was an insult to him, personally. The Purple One had already eclipsed the Pink One on Slender’s internal lists of hatred, but the White One was now the all-time, number one enemy for all of existence for the Slender Man.

He couldn’t hit her either. The white unicorn didn’t have wings and couldn’t teleport, but every time Slender tried to tag her, a magical burst of energy would throw off his aim for the tiniest millisecond, or the Yellow One would swoop in and drag the White One to safety.

By now, the Slender Man was distinguishing each one by name in his mind. The Purple One, the White One, the Yellow One, and the now presumably deceased Pink One. He had never given his prey names before, but he was making an exception in this case. He was going to remember each one of their names, just so he would be able to later reflect upon the horrible ways he had killed each one of them.

If only he could move. Materialize behind one of the ponies and grab it. As he was, standing in the center of the cavern, there were too many ways the ponies could evade him, even with six tentacles. But no. With three pairs of eyes watching his every movement, there wasn’t enough time for him to step into his shadowy other-world. The instant one pair of eyes left his form and he tried to leave, two more would pin him where he stood. And he couldn’t move. It was rules of the game. The stupid, cursed, pointless game.

The Slender Man didn’t want to play by the rules any longer. He wanted to kill the irritants and their entire reality for daring to injure him, insult him. They were just mindless creatures, incapable of communication, or even basic emotions. All they did was run away and die. If he could be free of their cursed gaze for just one second—

The Slender Man had it.

As quick as thought, all six of his tendrils stopped their pursuit of the Purple One and retreated for form a circle around him. The points of each tendril suddenly stabbed into the ground, deep into the cave’s strata of stone and dirt. No more. He’d start with the White One first.

----

Twilight stopped in midair as the tendrils abandoned their pursuit of her. She was covered in sweat and crime from her dodging during the fight, but she hadn’t been touched yet. Grimly, she began charging another spell while keeping her eye on the thin figure, but hesitated. The tendrils weren’t going after Rarity or Fluttershy, but were arrayed around the slender shape. What was it doing?

Each tentacle suddenly stabbed deep into the ground, hard enough to crack the rock and dig deeply into the earth. They seemed to flex, creating a spider web of cracks in the stone. The six tendrils formed a perfect hexagon around the unmoving shape of the mannequin man-figure. Twilight stared. What was the point of that?

The tendrils exploded upwards, bringing with them a rain of dirt and stone, drawn inexorably upwards with the force of the movement. Twilight flinched backwards, a purple shield of energy forming between her and the blast, shielding her from sharp bits of stone as they flew in every direction. She exhaled slowly, checking herself for injuries. Nothing. That had been startling, but at least—

Twilight’s head snapped back up. She scanned the now expanding cloud of dust, but couldn’t make anything out in the haze. Oh no. Oh no. Slowly, the cloud of dirt and debris began to clear, but the shape Twilight was hoping, praying to see was there any longer. It was gone.

Twilight had just a moment to stare in shocked horror when a crack and a scream rang out through the cavern.

Rarity.

----

Slender stepped into the other place as soon as he felt all three sets of eyes leave him. At last. He couldn’t remember ever having been trapped in one place for so long, but his trick with the dust cloud had worked. It had been a variant of the move he had used on the Pink One, in fact. Slender had not hitherto thought of using his tendrils in such a fashion, preferring instead to simply touch his victims, but necessity spurred innovation.

And now he was free. In his movement-yet-not-movement, Slender ‘walked’ over to where the White One and the Yellow One cowered from the blasts. Bits of stone had cut both ponies’ skin, yet they remained relatively intact. That was good. He wanted them fully conscious for what he was about to do.

The Slender Man rematerialized and used one of his tendrils to grab the White One and held her shrieking in midair. With carefully guided movements he let one tendril snake its way onto the base of the White One’s horn. Then he snapped it off.

Unicorn horns were not, in fact, solid bone. Slender discovered they were much line bones. Like any bone, there was marrow, and inevitably, blood. It was quite amazing, how much blood could emerge from a wound like that. Slender held the unicorn’s horn in one tendril and watched the White One convulse in the other. He was rather disappointed. After the initial sound wave had passed, the unicorn hadn’t made any other sounds. It was just flopping about randomly. Hardly satisfying at all.

Slender let the White One drop, and regarded the horn in his other tendril. To think this had been the cause of so much annoyance. He crushed it into fragments with one tendril, and turned his attention to the Yellow One which stood next to him.

It was simply staring at the White One, eyes wide. It didn’t move, or even breathe as far as Slender could tell. Another disappointment. Had it died of shock and fear? Rabbits and other small creatures did that, as Slender recalled. Maybe he could try waking it up later. But for now, there was the other source of his hatred to deal with.

Slender turned, and looked at the Purple One. It wasn’t staring at him, which was a definite tactical error. It too was watching the White One as it bled on the cave’s floor, but it jerked into wakefulness as it seemed to feel the Slender Man’s intent.

Good. He wanted some challenge before it died.

----

Fluttershy stared at Rarity’s unmoving body. She would never have admitted it to anypony, but she had always been slightly jealous of her glamorous friend. The ease with which Rarity could express herself and deal socially with other ponies had been a source of Fluttershy’s quiet envy. Fluttershy was jealous not only of Rarity’s confidence, but also her stunning appearance which was nothing short of perfection in most circumstances. Rarity’s constant state of pristine perfection often reminded Fluttershy of the dolls she used to play with when she was a filly.

Rarity looked like a doll now, but one that had been tossed on the trash heap. Her mane was a disordered mess, her eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. Her chest rose and fell in short, quick breaths, but that was all that moved. A thin rivulet of blood still flowed from where Rarity’s horn had been to form a small puddle around her face. The…stump was just a jagged bit of bone and flesh, now.

Fluttershy felt cold on the inside. The rest of her was a panic of emotion, fear, pain, and despair, which tried to burst out of her, but the center of her being was colder than the heart of a windigo. It was Fluttershy’s heart, and it was cracking to pieces.

The yellow and pink pegasus had not screamed when Applejack had broken both legs, nor even when Rainbow Dash had fallen from the sky. The harsh reality of the circumstances had demanded she hold in her tears and panic to help her friends. Instead, she had sacrificed her wings to save her falling friends, and had held in her emotions as Twilight had led her and Rarity to the Tree of Harmony.

Had she the time, she would have burst into tears and wept for years without pause at just one of her friend’s injuries. But action and the need to save her friend’s lives demanded more of Fluttershy now. She had held in the tears, held in the screams that threatened to tear from her through to let Twilight think. But each she had witnessed a friend being hurt a piece of Fluttershy’s heart had fallen away, lying cold and broken in the depths of her being.

And now it was Rarity. Fluttershy felt a strong connection with the Element of Generosity, and not just because Generosity and Kindness fell so closely together. She had a spa and gossip session with Rarity every week. She had helped Rarity sew when the Unicorn had been on her costuming deadline, and she had even modelled for her friend once. They had sung together as members of the Ponytones.

And now she was dead. Or dying. Fluttershy wasn’t a medical doctor, but she had treated her animal friends when they had gotten hurt. Rarity had lost too much blood. Too much. And even if she stopped the bleeding, that horrible…thing had crushed Rarity’s horn. Fluttershy knew her friend would never recover from the loss of her horn. Such a blow would destroy her pride just as thoroughly as it had her body.

Fluttershy barely looked up as an explosion and the crackle of magical energy heralded Twilight’s continuation of the battle against the creature. What was the point? It was going to kill them all. Four of her friends were already dead, or near enough. There was just Twilight and her, and Fluttershy knew she couldn’t do anything to help.

Maybe it would kill her quickly. Probably not. She’d most likely be left to die in some hideously painful fashion, counting down the seconds until she passed away. And it wouldn’t stop there. Ponyville was just a few minutes away. It would go there, and kill everypony there as well. Nothing could stop it. There was no Canterlot Guard for Ponyville, and it was hours away from Princess Celestia or the Crystal Kingdom. Fluttershy and her friends were Ponyville’s only real defense. That thing would cut through the helpless ponies like a scythe mows down wheat.

And then what? Maybe it would continue on to Manehattan, Appleloosa, and the other great cities of Equestria. It might even go to Canterlot itself. Could Princess Celestia stop it? Nothing seemed to harm it.

Part of Fluttershy’s heart, a part she thought had already broken, seemed to be squeezing the breath out of her. Would it stop at ponies? It might decide to wipe out all life in the entire world. Maybe it would kill her friends, probably still waiting for her return at her cottage.

Maybe it would kill Angel.

A small, strange sound emerged from Fluttershy’s lips. If a heart smashing to pieces could make a sound, it would sound like that. Fluttershy wanted to sink to her knees, to bury her head in her hooves and wait for it to be over. To wake up from this nightmare. How could Twilight keep fighting when all hope was lost?

Fluttershy stopped. In the tiniest corner of her mind, something stopped screaming long enough for a thought to emerge.

Her friend. She still had one friend who was alive. Twilight. Twilight was still battling that thing. She hadn’t given up. She hadn’t lain down, waiting to die, even though her heart had to be breaking as much as Fluttershy’s. Despite everything, her friend hadn’t given up trying, even though there wasn’t even hope left.

Fluttershy’s head rose slowly, and she looked away from Rarity for the first time. Across the cavern Fluttershy could see Twilight’s silhouette illuminated by the flashes of light from her spells, dancing and weaving through a dust cloud that engulfed two thirds of the cavern. Slowly, Fluttershy stood back up. She must have fallen at some point.

Well then. It was time to go. There was just one last thing Fluttershy knew she had to do.

Absently, the yellow pegasus pony brushed as some dirt that had gotten stuck in her mane. Then she walked slowly into the expanding dust cloud, to where she knew she would find Twilight and…it.

The haze of particles in the air obscured Fluttershy’s form for a moment, before she seemed to disappear into the air.

----

The Slender Man exulted. If he had lungs, he would have laughed. Over. It was over at last. Order had been restored. The pests had been disposed of, one by one. There were just two left now, and only one that truly mattered. The Purple One dove and spun, moving constantly avoid and attack. Each time she saw a flicker of movement in the dust, she would turn and launch a spell before diving away. It was futile.

The cloud of debris had been…genius. The Slender Man wasn’t one to pat himself on the back, but it had been truly inspired. Granted, it was the inspiration of pure desperation and rage that had fueled it, but it was magnificent. Game changing. No longer would he be subject to the rules of the game that bound him. Obscured from every eye, Slender could move back and forth with impunity, at ease to strike whenever, wherever he wanted.

This technique would make him a legend even among the strange-kind. With it, he could depopulate entire cities in minutes, ravage worlds in a fraction of the time it would normally take him. Entire dimensions would be dragged screaming into the grave as quickly as Slender Man could arrive. Cthulu would eat his brain-tentacles when he heard about this.

Slender wondered why he had never thought of this idea before. The concept…the brilliance of using something to blind his victims had never occurred to him. And yet, it was so simple. But he had played the game for countless millennia without even changing his method a single iota, always playing by the same boring rules.

Well. He had been woken from his slumber at last. Rules? There were no rules to the game. Restrictions such as being limited by other beings’ lines-of-sight? Bah. It was a new era dawning for the things-that-come-from-beyond. The game was about to change.

First though, a minor irritant. The pegasus-unicorn creature. Slender had indulged himself in a bit of fun, reappearing in the cloud behind the Purple One, allowing it to turn and fire before effortlessly disappearing and reappearing somewhere else. Its panic and confusion had been a balm for the Slender Man’s mind. A bit of revenge, tit-for-tat if you would. A small fraction of the annoyance and confusion the other ponies had dealt to him.

And now?

Slender Man reappeared behind the Purple One. It turned, eyes wide as it spotted him, but it was too late. Even as the pony’s horn flared with magic, one of the Slender Man’s tendrils wrapped around the pony’s right leg and wing and squeezed. The wing cracked like a series of firecrackers, but the leg simply bent and broke with a dull crunching, ripping sound.

The Purple One convulsed, eyes going wide and mouth opening in a wordless scream. Still, she had the presence of mind to complete her spell and teleport herself a few feet away where she collapsed on the ground. Slightly annoying that the pony still had some fight left in her. Still, she was one leg and a wing down. The Purple One wasn’t going to be able to escape this time.

Slender Man watched the pony try to stand up. Its horn glowed feebly, and it seemed unable to stand on its remaining three legs. He’d start with those. Tear off another leg, then perhaps both wings. How long could a pony survive with only two legs? It would be an interesting experiment.

Slender made to step back into his shadowy home and failed. Puzzled, the Slender Man tried again. No good. Try as he might, he couldn’t move. Odd. It was almost as if—

Eyes. On him.

Slender Man cast around with his senses, and located the source of the stare. It was the Yellow One. It was right next to him. In his euphoria over the Purple One’s downfall, Slender hadn’t noticed it creeping up on him.

The temerity. The audacity.

But the Yellow One wasn’t moving. It just stood there. Head raised to meet what would have been Slender’s eyes had they existed, front and back legs braced. Its ears were flat, but it made no move to attack him. It just stared and stared.

Slender Man paused for a second, and then reevaluated his to-do list slightly. Kill the Yellow One first. Slender amped up his unearthly presence until he could feel it distorting reality around him. The Yellow One was maybe six feet away. It would be about thirty seconds before its eyes exploded, Slender guessed. That would be interesting to see.

Slender waited.

----

Twilight had once stubbed her hoof on a chair. She had hopped about her library, screaming and hollering as the all pain in her body had seemed to concentrate itself in her single hoof. She had raced for the kitchen where she kept an emergency bag of painkillers, and had stubbed her hoof again on the on the doorframe. Then she had curled up into a ball and lain still, cradling her hoof until Spike had brought the morphine. Twilight would have gladly torn off her hoof and eaten it if it had meant an end to her pain now.

Twilight couldn’t feel her right leg. Her entire right flank seemed to be painless in a body in which every fiber screamed in agony. She wished she couldn’t feel her wings. Even without looking over her shoulder, Twilight could feel every bone that had been twisted the wrong way, ever break and tear where her wings had bent or broken. Something was dripping onto her flank.

The world was pain, without end or mercy. Twilight felt it tearing at her, gnawing away at her mind, dragging her down into the darkness. All she could do was pray for it to end, wait for her death to arrive.

It was out there, in the dust and darkness. Maybe it would torment her. Hurt her even more somehow. But Twilight could only hope that at the end, she would die. Unless pain followed you even when your soul left your body. That was what Twilight feared.

Drip, drip.

The world was silence. Dust slowly settled to the floor of the cave. Twilight peered through the shadows, searching for her nemesis.

Her enemy.

Twilight couldn’t even conjure a basic illumination spell. She couldn’t even stand up. Still, she wanted to see it one more time before she died. To spit on it, perhaps. She thought she could manage the distance, even if it was a few feet away. That would be an interesting experiment. How far a pony could spit. Maybe she could cross-reference it with her notes on tongue length. It would be interesting to see if there were any correlations…

Drip, drip.

Something was raining. No? Something was falling, then. Little plinks like droplets of water. Maybe it was water. It certainly wasn’t coming from Twilight. Her blood was soaking into her coat, thank-you-very-much. She had just gotten it cleaned and groomed at the spa yesterday, too. How distressing. Rarity would have a fit. If she were still alive.

Drip.

Twilight could barely make out the silhouette of the monster in the fading cloud. There it was. Dark. Tall. Not handsome. It hurt even more to look at it for some reason. The dripping sound seemed to be coming from it. Maybe it was crying? No. Slobbering, more like. Maybe it was about to eat her. That sounded painful. Still, given the among of blood loss upon losing a limb, Twilight calculated her death would eventuate at most ten minutes after consumption began. That was a bright spot, at least.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The dust was settling. Twilight craned her head to see in the darkness. Funny. The Tree of Harmony wasn’t nearly as bright as it had been. Twilight remembered when she had first seen it after returning the Elements of Harmony. It had lit up the cavern. Now it was a dim glow, barely enough to cast shadows.

Unimportant. Wasting time. Valuable moments. The dripping. What was it coming from?

Drip.

Twilight stared at the thin figure. No water. No saliva. It was standing, facing something. Just off to Twilight’s right. Twilight moved her neck. No good. Couldn’t see. The alicorn moaned in frustration. She had to see.

Slowly, Twilight used her left side, front and back legs pushing weakly to turn her for a better angle. Pain raced through her right leg, enough to overshadow even the pain in Twilight’s wings.

No. Ignore it. Must turn. Push. Twilight pushed, sending another flash of agony through her. This wasn’t for vengeance. This was for research. Twilight Sparkle’s last research project. The source of the drips. For research. There could be no higher calling.

Twilight pushed herself onto her side, ignoring the pain. She saw the thin figure, surrounded by a nebula of darkness, a locus of light’s absence. She saw a yellow pegasus, hooves firm against the stone floor, staring at the thin monster. It had a pink mane, and two bent, crumpled wings. It seemed to glow softly in the Tree of Harmony’s dim radiance. And from each eye, two specks of red fell, splashing softly against the hard ground.

Fluttershy’s eyes were red, but not from crying. Blood fell from each eye, running down her cheeks and pooling down her chin. Slowly, drops of crimson fell to the stone floor.

Drip.

Drip.

They were the only sound in the cavern apart from Twilight’s heartbeat. Fluttershy’s eyes never wavered, never blinked. And still the tears fell. Tears of blood, falling nonstop from Fluttershy’s eyes.

It was fitting in a way Twilight couldn’t describe. Her friend, her timid, shy friend stood there watching a monster. But she didn’t back down, she didn’t turn away. She just stared on, as if she meant to stare forever.

Twilight watched Fluttershy, and forgot her pain. There was only one thing left in Twilight’s mind that mattered. Watching her friend. Watch her stare down death. For Twilight, time stopped. There was only one thing.

The stare.

----

Slender stared too. The yellow pony didn’t move. It didn’t run, or hide. It didn’t die, either. Nothing should have been able to look at his true form revealed. Not gods, not demons. Even the eldest of the eldritch feared to gaze upon the true nature of their kin. But somehow this small pony took it in. His impossible nature. His endless being.

Slender had…never had anything look at him before. Nothing had even looked at him for a long time. Not even another of his kind. Whatever gaze fell upon him could never last. Even the strongest minds could only handle his image for…seconds. A minute perhaps, but no longer. But this small thing was staring at him, and wouldn’t stop. It felt so strange, that Slender had no emotions for the feeling. For once, he didn’t know what to do.

The pony’s legs trembled. She quivered with the effort of looking at him. Blood ran in rivulets down her face. But her eyes watched him. They seemed to look deep into his inner being, as if searching for something. They didn’t find it. But she kept searching anyways. Not judging. Not hating. Just searching for something lost.

Slender couldn’t stand the gaze. It hurt in a way he couldn’t describe. Worse than magic. Worse than pain. It hurt, and he couldn’t get rid of the pain. He stretched out his tendrils, and grasped the pony. She didn’t move, only seemed to sigh as his tendrils encircled her. They wrapped around her body, spreading his touch. But not on her eyes. For some reason, Slender couldn’t make himself cut off those eyes. And they still watched him.

They were blue. Slender hadn’t ever noticed colors before. Sight was such a lowly sense. But now he saw her eyes. They were like the sea, on a quiet day. When the sky was blue, and the sun shone gently down on a field of blue tinged with green. They pulled him in, and still searched for something. Slender didn’t know what, but he only wanted it to end. He felt the pony’s body grow weaker as his touch changed her flesh. Soon. She would die soon. And the stare would end.

----

The tendrils seemed to enclose Fluttershy’s body. Twilight saw the black corruption from the tendrils begin to engulf the pony’s skin, rippling outwards like a drop of ink in a pool of water. But even that spread slowly. It was The Stare.

Twilight had always thought Fluttershy’s stare was a made-up threat, used to keep unruly animals in line. A joke. But it held the presence of the thin man back. It slowed his corruption. For a few moments, The Stare held death itself back.

Not for long, however.

It would end soon Twilight knew. The darkness crept onwards, leaving Fluttershy’s skin dead and lifeless where it passed. But Fluttershy took no heed, and kept staring at the thin figure before her. Her lips moved, and Twilight wondered if she was imagining it. But Fluttershy was. She was speaking, in a low voice that carried faintly to Twilight’s ears.

“…maybe you are evil,” Fluttershy was saying quietly to the thin figure. “But I don’t think you really are. Not entirely. There’s nothing truly bad in this world. There are only things that choose to be bad. And I think that’s what you chose. Maybe you had a really bad day once, and chose to be evil. But that was your choice.” The darkness crept further up Fluttershy’s body, but Fluttershy didn’t move, only continued.

“You hurt my friends. You hurt them all, and you enjoyed it. You didn’t make it quick, and you didn’t need to hurt them. Animals kill each other, but they never do it to be mean. You’re not an animal, so you must be like us. You think. You don’t to do these things, but you do. So…” Fluttershy’s voice faltered, but picked up again. The darkness was spreading to her face, reaching up to consume her entirely.

“So I don’t know what you are. Maybe you really are a nightmare. Maybe you’re a punishment for something bad I did a long time ago. But I think you’re really just lost. A sad thing that never realized what you were doing was wrong. And you won’t ever stop, because nopony ever told you the difference between good and bad. But I will.” Fluttershy’s mouth was covered in darkness, and it spread slowly up her face, taking life with it. She could barely stand, trembling, but she spoke on nevertheless, in a whisper that filled the cave.

“I think you’re wrong. I think you’re misguided. I think you don’t care what other ponies think, and do what you want. And I think you never realized that this hurts others. So I’m going to tell you now. It’s a bad thing. It’s not right. So…”

Twilight watched Fluttershy falter, as the darkness reached her eyes. The pegasus’s legs faltered, and her breath slowed. Her eyes finally left that slender figure, the Slender Man. She sunk slowly to the ground, half supported by the tendrils gripping her body. Her skin was pale, drained of color, of life. Twilight closed her eyes, but Fluttershy’s voice rasped out in the darkness.

All that was left were her words.

“…so, don’t do these things anymore, okay? Don’t be bad. You can change. Don’t harm anypony else. Just…” There was a pause, and Fluttershy’s voice stopped.

The pony was on the ground, her chest halted midway between rising and falling. Her eyes closed, and she lay lifeless. There was no air left for her to speak. Fluttershy’s chest gently fell, and something like a sigh left her, carrying her final word and setting it free in the darkness.

“Just…stop.”

And then she was still. And the world was full of darkness, save for the form of the slender man standing surrounded by shadows. Fluttershy’s last words echoed through the cavern, and resonated softly to Twilight’s ears. The whispers seemed not to fade, letting Fluttershy’s voice carry throughout the cavern.

“…stop…”

And the whispers seemed to grow, until it was as if Fluttershy spoke in Twilight’s ears.

“Stop….”

Until the echoes grew, and Fluttershy’s voice spoke throughout the cavern a hundred times over, no longer a whisper, but a voice, a shout, a roar.

“Stop!”

And then the world went silent, and Twilight raised her head as the Tree of Harmony glowed in one instant, illuminating the cavern, each Element shining like a sun. And Fluttershy’s voice came back again, and with it, the world shook.

“Stop.”

And then there was light.

----

Light filled the cavern. At its source were the Elements of Harmony, radiating light bright enough to drive away every shadow. They weren’t just bright; they were incandescent, lit by magic and friendship. They burned through the darkness, and set the world ablaze with brilliance.

And at the center of the light bathed in its terrible, wonderful splendor were the Slender Man and Fluttershy. And the magic of Harmony, of Friendship, but most of all, the magic of Kindness enveloped the two in pure energy.

----

The Elements of Harmony are not inanimate objects. Contrary to whatever Twilight and her friends might have believed, the Elements did indeed possess a kind of sentience of their own. It wasn’t anything conscious, despite what someponies might think. The Elements could not actively manipulate the environment or the actions of other ponies. That would just be silly. But they could choose when to bestow their gifts, when to nudge their bearer’s minds at the right moment.

And so they had waited. Even when the corrupting influence of a being from the beyond had caused massive disturbances in the flow of harmony in the Everfree Forest, the Elements had lain dormant. Even as the being known as the Slender Man had attacked and maimed the bearers, the Elements had done nothing. They could have given the six their gifts of power at any time, but to what end?

Eldritch beings slaughtered worlds. Entire realities had been hollowed, all live stricken and every memory of hope quashed in an attempt to harm just one of the Ancient. Gods had perished, empires fallen, all at the will of something that was as ignorant of death as it was mercy. Had the six been granted power, they would have surely fought. As strong as their bonds of friendship were, they might even have hurt the Slender Man. But they would never have killed it.

So the Elements had waited, even as the bearers fell one by one, and the end drew near. Waiting for a single chance. And they had found it. A single chink in Slender Man’s being. A moment of doubt, born of an odd game where nothing had happened as planned. They had sensed his hesitation, just for a fraction of time impossible to measure by any normal standard. But that had been enough. The Elements had struck as one, using the bond between the dying Twilight and Fluttershy as their conduit to flow into the Slender Man.

But not to harm. The Elements were as dust compared to a being such as he. Not to harm, or even to alter him. Turning a being like Slender to stone was equally impossible. No. The Elements strove to complete one small task. To do just one thing, this had never been done in all of Slender’s existence.

To translate just one word into something he could understand.

One word, to bridge the gap between mortal and what lies beyond.

One word.

“Stop.”

----

The Light Hurt.

It Hurt More Than Anything.

Slender Man wished the light would stop. It seemed to drive into his being, seeking out his deepest parts of being and flooding them with light and pain. But the light didn’t stop there. It brought something with it.

A Voice.

A Voice Saying Words.

“Stop.”

The word echoed in Slender’s mind. It ring throughout his self, causing the Slender Man to forget everything else as it spoke to him.

“Stop. Just stop.”

It was words, but more than that. It was meaning, and understanding, not in the simple limited sense of vibrations and language that ponies and humans employed. It was information translated across a hundred thousand different modes of being, from thought to wave-form energy to the movement of celestial bodies. It was in the ether, in the thought-bridges, in the conceptual planes that Slender moved through. It was words spoken to him in his tongue, in a way he could understand and not ignore. And it had come from the pony in front of him.

She had spoken.

Realizing this was pain. She had talked to him. Knowledge made the Slender Man scream in agony. She could talk. It wasn’t just sound vibrations; it wasn’t just an involuntary reflex. It was communication, at the basest level of being, from creatures hardly more complex than dust. But he understood now. He understood it all.

The Slender Man stood in the center of the cavern. Dust and debris littered the floor. The radiance that had washed over him was gone, leaving only the light from the tree. It was bright, but it did not hurt the Slender Man as it had done before. And he was not alone.

The Purple One was on its feet. It was unsteady, shaking, but it stood on four legs. Both its wings stretched out, as if they had never been broken. And across from her, the others started to stir. The Blue One moaned, yet its head was whole and undamaged. The Orange One twitched and moved her legs slowly; both limbs whole and strong. The Pink One raised itself off the floor slowly, her coat whole and unblemished. The White One’s horn shone in the light as she stretched.

And the pony in front of him opened her eyes. The Yellow On—no, the yellow pony slowly got to her feet, staring at her hooves and at her wings, healthy and unblemished by Slender Man’s taint. And then, slowly, hesitantly, she lifted her gaze to meet his. Her eyes stared into where his should have been, and looked deep into the Slender Man’s soul.

The Slender Man waited, uncertain. For the first time in his entire existence, he had no idea what to do. He stared back into the yellow pony’s eyes, and saw only kindness there, pure and untouched. She stared back at him, no longer affected by his unnatural nature. Her eyes were a gentle blue of the sea, and peaceful days under the sky.

They were the most terrifying things Slender Man had ever seen in his life.

Comments

[Alef0]

Really tall guy

YOU GET AN UNDERSTATEMET AND YOU GET AN UNDERSTATEMET!

Everypony gets an understatement!

[light snow]

Stupid elements...

[NorrixtheRipper]

I am... surprised... not much else to say...

[Jonny Bench]

That feeling when the quiet one is the most terrifying thing in existence to an eldrich being of unknown power. That just goes to show, never underestimate the quiet ones in life. They take everything in and know more than most. All you have to do is ask, and they are likely to share with you

[Ammozilla]

The tendrils surrounding Twilight jerked in surprise, giving her opportunity to teleport herself away to a safer part of the cavern. Breathing deeply in sudden relief, Twilight looked back across the cavern towards the Tree of Harmony where her rescuer stood.

“Take that you…you ruffian!” Rarity’s voice range out through the cave. Across the room, Twilight saw Rarity hunting for larger stones to magically hurl at the creature. Timidly, Fluttershy handed Rarity a pebble, which the unicorn scornfully discarded for a rock the size of Twilight’s head, which she telekinetically heaved at the figure standing in the center of the cavern.

2static2.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/Lol+idiot+its+not+real+stupid+its+for+snl+if+_08f5f7ce8d06219c0a2024d2218eeeef.jpg