Something Wicked This Way Moves

by Mr. Grimm

The Sideshow

Twilight walked through the crowds with the Cutie Mark Crusaders in tow, craning her neck to find their destination. At last she saw what she was looking for. A large sign was propped up near an enormous threadbare tent. The warped billboard bore large fanciful letters that had once been vibrantly colored, but the paint had long ago faded and chipped. Still, its message was clear: Dark’s Sideshow Display of Discovery. Twilight spotted a strange-looking earth pony near the entrance, manning a wooden booth that looked just as rundown as the rest of the tent. The unicorn trotted over to the creature, who grinned out at the world with a set of crooked teeth. It was only now that she saw why he had looked odd from a distance; he was a dwarf. The little creature gazed at Twilight from atop a rickety crate.

“Excuse me, sir, I have four tickets to see the sideshow.” The dwarf gave a muffled giggle as he reached out for the tickets. His clammy hoof brushed against Twilight’s own as he snatched them up.

“Goin’ to see the show, eh? Hope you enjoy it.” He suddenly leapt down from the box. When he failed to return, Twilight looked at the opening to the tent. She took a deep breath and entered.

The world became dark as Twilight walked beneath the fringed opening of the tent. The smell of the sawdust floor and mildewed canvas created an unpleasant odor that entered her nose, but it was weak enough for her to bare. The dim lighting of the tent allowed her to see a crowded line of ponies that were gathered around the attraction within. The beam of a spotlight shone down from the center pole at the lone pony that stood on the small wooden platform. Twilight heard the three fillies before her gasp in fright. She followed their wide eyes to the thing on the stage, and forced herself not to scream.

In all of her life, Twilight had never seen a pony so utterly hideous as the one before her. Her blue skin was horribly shriveled and blotched, and was stretched tight across a mess of crooked bones. Each wheezing breath made the nag’s whole body shudder. The ragged remains of a cape were tied around her neck, and a ruined hat sat atop her skull, its brim drooping like the petals of a long-dead flower. It was a wonder how she managed to stand on her cracked, overgrown hooves. A crop of stringy gray hair grew from her dry, flaking scalp, and hung down in her horrific face. Her lips were missing, and her yellowed teeth were forcefully exposed in a macabre grin. Twilight was shocked and appalled by the miserable creature as a whole, but what really terrified her was the eyes.

Beneath two cloudy films, the creature had magenta eyes. But they were not blind. Twilight could see that they were the eyes of an alert, thinking being, that looked out at the horrified crowd. Twilight could see something in those eyes that frightened her. They seemed to convey all the emotion that the creature’s decrepit face couldn’t. They looked from person to person in an almost frantic motion, as though searching for something. Twilight moved behind the crowd, fearing that they were looking for her. She had no rational reason to believe this, but there was something in the nag’s gaze that frightened her to no end. But her efforts to hide were in vain.

Twilight felt the piercing eyes of the creature before she saw it looking at her. She turned around to face it. The mare’s body became as cold as ice as their eyes met. Gazing into them was like looking into two never-ending pits of misery, in which Twilight could see into the very soul of the creature itself. The clouded orbs were filled with anguish and pain, not only of body, but of mind as well. The nag was a prisoner in her own body.

Yet through all of this, what chilled Twilight the most was that the creature seemed familiar. She felt she had seen it before somewhere, somehow. What it was that made it familiar? Twilight forced herself to give it a closer look. But as hard as she tried, she could find nothing. But it became apparent the case was not the same for the nag. Twilight could see the frantic eyes light up with recognition as they looked upon her. The unicorn withheld her horror as the nag began to move in her direction, her ancient joints creaking and groaning. Slowly her jaws opened to reveal the dry, discolored mouth within. Her body heaved as it took in a slow breath.

The noise that came next was a horrid sound that repulsed all who heard it. The only thing it could be compared to was a cat trying to vomit, but the vomit wouldn’t come. It sounded off over and over again, and with each painful rasp a small shower of saliva would land on the stage before the creature. The audience sneered in disgust, and somewhere Twilight heard a filly crying. But her eyes were still focused on the nag as the wretched thing continued its pitiful hissing. Twilight wanted to turn and flee right there, but she looked back to see the narrow opening was now crowded with fresh visitors. She had no choice to continue on, the Cutie Mark Crusaders huddled behind her.

They managed to leave the Nag Witch behind, now moving towards another small stage in the tent. The spectators surrounding it were much quieter than those who had been observing the witch, but they held the same unbelievable look. Twilight soon saw why. When she saw what they were gawking at, she gasped aloud. She didn’t know whether to call the thing a him or a they, and so decided on ‘it’.

It was tall, and while not nearly as emaciated as the Nag Witch, was thin to the point of sickliness. Indeed, the immediate impression Twilight drew from its appearance was that it was sick. Its translucent skin was the pale cream color of apple flesh, and a spider web of varicose could be seen beneath it. It had oily, red-and-white streaked hair. The eyes were a palled green, but unlike the Nag Witch they were frozen and blank. The glassy orbs stared dead ahead, half closed, not focused on anything other than breathing. Its breath came in ragged, uneven spasms. It wore a blue and white stripped vest on its torso, and two straw hats, one for each head.

It was a two-headed unicorn, at which Twilight could only stare in awe. She kept trying to find some evidence of fraud. She found none. The thing on the stage was genuine, not a stitched-together fake, not an illusion done with mirrors, not a pair of conjoined twins made up to look like a single being. It was real. This quickly became evident the longer Twilight stared at it. Both mouths remained half open at all time, sucking in huge gulps of stagnant air. Its distended chest pumped like a great bellows, in and out, in and out, trying to keep both the creature’s brains supplied with oxygen.

Again, Twilight took horror in the fact that this creature seemed familiar to her. But how could that be? Surely she would have remembered seeing something so bizarre. There was something recognizable about its double-faces, one of which bore a mustache. Yet the harder she looked at it, the more blurred and muddled her mind became, as though it were lost in fog. The unicorn shuddered as she pulled her gaze away from the two-headed creature. She wanted to get away, but was afraid to continue, worried for what would await her further into the tent.

As they made their way through the crowded darkness Twilight noticed a peculiar smell; a scent she recalled from Applejack’s barnyard. The air around them grew heavy with the harsh, foul vapor, emanating from the next cluster of ponies. Twilight and the fillies had to wait a moment before a family decided to move on to the next exhibit before they could see what everyone else could. When they saw it, they could hardly believe their eyes.

Unlike the previous stages, this one was bordered by chicken wire. Through the thin spider web of metal Twilight could see something covered in thick, matted plumage bent over and pecking at the stage. The feathers were a sickly mottled gray, pasted against one another by filth and grime into layers so thick and unwieldy that they seemed to hamper the creature’s movement as it slowly strutted around its enclosure. The back half was leonine, though it seemed sickly and shrunken compared to the rest of the body. The avian front half was supported by a pair of gaunt legs. It seemed there were only bones beneath the filmy, peeling scales. Each of its clawed toes scraped against the wooden stage as the creature walked, and occasionally it would pause and scratch in a single place for as many as five times with its long, curved talons.

The creature’s head suddenly rose up, revealing a dagger-like beak. Behind it sat two bulging golden eyes, wild and untamed. Adorning the top of its head was a fleshy, blood-red comb, which was lifelessly flopped over on its side. Twilight watched as the thing turned its head in sharp, mechanical motions, looking around with slit pupils. They never focused on anything. To Twilight they just appeared as the eyes of any other bird she’d seen. The creature suddenly darted forward with surprising speed, letting out a quiet warble. Twilight grew nervous as it came over to the corner from which she was watching it. Though it seemed to be no more than a large bird, she just couldn’t look at it without feeling uncomfortable.

The thing suddenly squawked as somebody threw a peanut onto the stage. Twilight’s heart skipped a beat as something exploded from the mass of feathers covering the creature, sending out a shower of dead feathers, moldering grain, particles of dirt, and tiny, writhing mites. The crowd gasped and took a step back to avoid being hit by the erupting filth. Twilight looked up to see the avian beast frantically flapping a pair of useless, stunted wings that protruded from its back. The creature shuddered, looking around with its wild eyes, and for the for the briefest moment they shed their animalistic quality to reveal to Twilight that there was a thinking, rational being inside, a being who was terrified.

But in a another moment it was gone, and the thing was just a panicking animal. It was only now that the unicorn truly understood what she had been feeling since she’d walked into the tent. There was some dark force underlying this place, beneath the whimsical exterior of the carnival, something that nobody else was aware of. She looked over at the other onlookers. None of them looked as she felt. Ponies of all ages gawked at the menagerie of wretches with no more than wrinkled noses or astounded eyes. There was nothing horrific about any the sideshow to them. They didn’t see the suffering as she did.

Twilight left the strange avian, now determined to get through the tent as quickly as possible. She navigated through the crowded tent, glancing back every second to make sure the Cutie Mark Crusaders were following her. They too looked every bit as eager to escape the bizarre horrors that were confined to the fabric enclosure. As they fled they passed by many other strange sights; each one as twisted, deformed, and miserable as the next. Twilight could feel them looking at her as she fled with an almost accusing gaze. She only looked once when she heard a peculiar tune being played, emanating from a cello being played by a bizarre gray mare with long black hair, her body propped up and moved by strings that disappeared up in the dark shadows above her head.

Twilight saw light pouring in from an opening ahead, and she felt her tense muscles relax slightly. Freedom. Freedom from all this madness. They were almost out. She looked back and smiled at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They too saw the light ahead, behind the crowds of entranced ponies. Within a few minutes they would reach the outside world. The unicorn looked back toward the opening, now only a few steps away. Twilight let out a relieved sigh as she felt sunlight touch her face with its warm rays. The foul stench of the tent no longer clogged her nose. Twilight turned to speak with the fillies. Her blood froze when she saw they were absent, not because they were gone, but because she knew where they still had to be. She looked back at the tent of horrors and let out a small whimper. The thought of Sweetie Belle, Applebloom, and Scootaloo lost in that…place…was overbearing.

Though her own fear was strong, Twilight dove back into the tent, immersing herself in its strange, ominous atmosphere. Somehow the crowds seemed thicker than they had been only seconds ago. The air felt heavier, and the shadows cast by the spotlights seemed larger and distorted. The voices that had once been background noise had become an unbearable cacophony to the ears of Twilight. The unicorn tried moving forward, but with every step the crowd shifted, and someone would innocently block her path. The mare’s heart raced as she tried to crane her neck above the mob, but to no avail. Twilight must have looked over the crowd a hundred times, but she could not find the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Already she could hear Rarity weeping for her lost sister; feel the intense, resentful glare of Applejack.

The unicorn’s eyes began to water from the despairing thoughts. Her stomach tied itself in knots, and she suddenly stumbled as her knees almost gave out. This was her fault. If she had just stayed home and finished her work, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. But she had lied, and now three innocent fillies were paying the price for her, lost in a dark, crowded cavern of canvas. In desperation Twilight threw herself into the mass of ponies, forcing her way in-between them. The mare plowed forward, still searching the musty tent for the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

The crowd had grown impossibly thick, and Twilight could no longer tell which direction she was going. The exit was gone, and all she could hear was the constant drone of hundreds of ponies whispering to each other. The unicorn felt sick as she spun around and around, searching for the three fillies that had been with her only minutes ago. Suddenly a flash of orange showed itself from the crowd. Twilight stumbled on her hooves to lock on to it, fearful that it would disappear the moment she looked away. Twilight blocked out the crowd and focused on that single orange color that was nestled deep within. She started forward with renewed strength. The orange color grew closer, taking on the form of a small Pegasus. Beside it stood two other fillies, a unicorn and an earth pony. Twilight actually managed to smile in the dank confines of the tent as she grew closer. But it faded away when she saw what they were looking at.

Up on a stage was an old earth pony. Not as horrifically aged as the Nag Witch, but still old. Twilight’s attention was immediately drawn to the creature’s hip. It was bare, devoid of any marking whatsoever. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were gazing up at it with silent dread, their eyes wide and filled with fear. Twilight’s heart almost crumbled then and there. What stood before the them was every filly’s nightmare; something that Twilight had up until this very moment thought to be impossible.

“Girls…” somehow the Cutie Mark Crusaders heard their caretaker above the noise. They looked over at the mare with their frightened eyes, giving her a look that told Twilight everything.

“Twilight…”

“Yes Applebloom?”

“Can…can we get out of here?”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

Comments

[InarJollyhound]

!?! Dat title. First thing that came to mind was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. i will take a look and see if i am right!

[Zweihander]

Holy crap, that is so disturbing. Sorry that I'm late to the party!

[Stuff]

Do I even want to THINK about poor Gilda, Trixie, and the Flim-Flam Bros. wished for?

[Stuff]

Holy... OCTAVIA'S THERE, TOO?!? Dear sweet mercy...