Years before the liberation of the Crystal Empire, King Sombra invites six citizens to feast in his castle on the last night of each month. Seldom few are ever seen again. Now a young pegasus who will become known as Guest Number Five has been invited to dine with the King, although his own plans for the night might just lead to everyone's salvation.
Five courses. Three chapters. Served up over three nights.
5074853 Neither, I'm afraid.
Well... Here's a new favorite. :)
5075149 Only the author's imagination.
No ponies will be eaten in this story. Only ponies eating.
it would be nice if you try to present sombra as an entity of fear on a possible sequel, try to read H.P Lovecraft books to achieve this achievement
I thought Guest No. 5 didn't say anything?
Ahh, The Cookie of Despair seems to have become a full bakers dozen! Oh the feeling of fear, Foolish hope, and now full on Despair. Truly an amazing taste.
5084969 Not anymore...
that was a good story
Mhmm. The taste of true fear with a side of bitter malice, all washed down with a cup of wrath. Eeyup, sounds like my lunch at Highschool, that or my aunt's cooking.
I could live off of this however,
That aside, this story was very well written, almost reminded me of my older cousin.
Good story mate, you really captured a lot of the raw emotion without it starting to come off as preachy. No easy task I applaud you good sir.
5546578 Thank you for saying so! It's definitely the darkest story I've ever written. And damn sad.
This was amazing! Really good job here. Super dark and emotional but not in your face about it. Sombra didn't do much in the show but now I feel there's a lot of potential in this character i stories like this. Excellent work!
5818100 Thank you very much for saying so! It's tricky writing an interesting story that basically takes place around a dinner table, but I had a good time writing it. Sombra's lack of character has so far been the best thing possible for me. You can write him however you want, pretty much! Thanks for reading.
Very well written. You've captured the essence of Sombra here perfectly. This earns my upvote and a favourite.
Now, in the spirit of this story; 'You must excuse me; I'm having an old friend for dinner.'
6201169 Thank you for saying so! If you look at around half my stories, you could tell I like writing Sombra a lot. Both for horror and comedy purposes. Thanks for reading!
I assume that this was based on the film Would you Rather.
6521672 Never heard of, but I looked it up. There's probably a lot of stories close to this one. Being completely original's pretty hard these days.
Hmm...not your best work, if you don't mind me saying so. It wasn't a bad story...only it felt aimless. There was little in the way of backstory for either the setting or the characters and each of the ponies just felt like an archetype instead of a real being. Sombra was just being evil for evil's sake, which made him less scary IMHO.
Now don't take this the wrong way. You're one of the best writers here and I'm trying to catch up on a lot of your stories. This feels like a low point. The cover art was great and I really, really wanted to like it. In the end, it fell short of expectations.
6852687 Honest opinion is honest opinion. I would agree with the characters feeling like archetypes, but I still like the rest of it. Sombra wasn't about to start monologuing a backstory for himself during dinner -- it was just what our main character saw and thought. It's basically a horror story that asks the question, "Why does only one pony out of six return after meeting Sombra?" And then it answers that question.
Still, if a reader didn't like it then something still must've been missing. It's always good to know what works and what doesn't. Glad you're digging my other work, though.
Oh sweet Celestia, the end was a turn on for me!
Well, it was very dark, and very horrifying without being a gore-fest. Good job Natural, this gave me the willies!
A story with all the negative tags? This I must read...
After reading: Hmmmm... I've read worse, but this was something...
Gosh this was really something
Great atmosphere and sense of foreboding here, along with the mystery of what actually happens at the dinner.
dining
peeled? (as in “move away”)
one’s
surely
―
So much suspense happening from the very start. I’m surprised that this isn’t more well-known than it is. (785 views for a story posted in 2014?)
5077369 That still leaves a lot of ways for the guests to die…
Well, I’ll read on and find out.
Edit: Oh. You weren’t kidding with all those tags.
7174752 Yep. I actually used to be all dark and depressing before I sold out.
Now I'm forced to write comedies that end up too dark for their own good so people will read my dark stuff.
Damn. Sombra really wants them fed. He's like a sadistic grandma.
Very well executed, pun unintended, lol. It appears very well thought-out and it was a great read. I rarely read Sombra fics, I think this is actually my second? and it was a more subtle kind of horror imo. I tend for the shock and grisly, so this is a bit of a refreshing change.
This is a wonderfully written story and I accurately foresaw the twist coming that he wouldn't leave any of their fates up to pure chance, but the bit at the end where the pegasus tells anyway was a delightful surprise. I really hope you write the sequel eventually one day, but the story's still very good by itself.
7941415
7939343 Thank you both for the comments! Glad you enjoyed this old, dark, depressing story.
I saw this come up again as I was wandering through the Dark tag and rereading some old favorites. A year later it's still great!
Uhm you are a unicorn Sombra
That story was really creepy. Dark Sombra is the best kind.
No matter how many time I reread this, this story always is a delight to read and gives me the shivers of disgust and fear, even if I know what's going to happen. Well done!
Gravity of the situation! HA, I get it!
You know, on some level I know that this is completely fucked in every conceivable sense of the word, but on all the others I'm just fascinated with how your mind works.
Aww, I thought they were going to have to eat each other. :(
When Sombra got stabbed, I had to suppress a laugh, that is how much of a twisted mind I have.
10046467
I was hoping Sombra would eat the unicorn