Equestria Delivery

by JLB

FINAL CHAPTER: Exodus. END OF WRONG ADDRESS.

May 29th, 1013 AN - 12:05 PM
New Canterlot, Equestria

The chair creaked, rocking back and forth. A shadow popped onto and off the coldbox as the unicorn rocked along with the chair. Her forehooves rubbed against her eyelids. She let out a long yawn, her jaw locking up at the end. The mare’s gauged ears flicked at the loud whistling of the wind coming through the open window behind her.

Lowering her hooves and opening up her eyes, Handsome whimpered and moaned, shutting them back again. After a few failed attempts, she pushed herself out of the chair, her mouth closing once her legs were on the floor. Squinting tight and stretching out a forehoof, the mare tangled with the curtains. The plastic pull switch broke off on the fourth try, dropping the entire length of the thick pink kitchen curtains down, some of the fabric piling up on the floor. Handsome opened her baggy eyes and exhaled, making her way back to the chair in smothered sunlight.

The mare looked at the pill bottles and drinks piled up on her end of the table. To their side was a plate with a cucumber sandwich, missing a single bite. She let out a drawn-out yawn before propping her cheeks on her forehooves. Her hooves slipped out from underneath her face and under the table, letting her snout droop down into the pile of medicines. Several of the numerous bandages lining her nose had wrinkled up, and the rashes covering the now-empty areas on the rest of her face grew a brighter red. She chewed idly on the corners of her lips, biting at the lipstick residue. Handsome breathed slowly, the skin and coat pushing up against her ribcage with each breath.

“This… suuucks…” the unicorn mumbled.

A strong gust of wind filled up the curtains and created enough force to get the chair to start rocking again. She jolted lightly, the cloth cap around her horn sliding up a little, when there were hoofsteps in the hallway. The door opened, forcing in another heavy gust of wind.

“Handsome? Handsome, have you—” Page cut herself short. “No, you haven’t… How long have you been sitting here for?”

“I dunno.”

“I do - You’ve been sitting here for two hours.” The grey unicorn trotted around the kitchen, her eyes shifting between the pile of medicine and the untouched food. The coldbox door clicked, causing the mare at the table to moan. “You haven’t even finished your sandwich… Ugh, this is not good.”

“Be… quiet. I didn’t sleep well…” Handsome mumbled, pressing her face into the table. “Gimme, gimme some time, just fuck off…”

“Handsome, I’m begging you, get up and do something,” the other mare raised her voice. “She’s coming to check on you, look at yourself, you’re a complete mess! You look half dead!”

“Well maybe I fucking am,” Handsome drawled, pushing against the table with shaky forehooves and managing to lean back against the chair. Her jaw hung off as she took in quick, shallow breaths. “Leave me alone. I don’t wanna do shit.”

“Maybe if you—”

“Quit pushing your luck, four-eyes.” She slowly, unsteadily got herself to stare at the other mare. She took a few steps back as soon as Handsome’s unfocused, half-closed eyes connected. “You know how I can get.”

Handsome sunk back into her chair, rocking it backwards, when a tall bovine figure emerged from the doorway, pushing the grey unicorn aside. The minotaur looked at her and pointed at the door, to which the mare quickly retreated, leaving Handsome alone in the room. She made incoherent noises, waving her hooves and shaking her head, while the minotaur walked past her and tapped the light switch. The crystal bulb erupted with a bright orange glow. The mare shifted in her chair, rubbing her eyes, while the minotaur set her briefcase down on the floor and used it as a seat.

“I can see we are not having much progress with you,” Lockvara said, crossing her arms on the table.

The mare shrugged in response. The minotaur stayed silent for a few seconds. She tilted her head, her blonde braid hanging off. The glasses on her snout glistened with reflected light. Handsome puffed her nostrils and looked away.

“Remember - this was your idea.”

“Yeah, I—” The mare stopped. She squinted and turned to look back at Lockvara. “No... Let’s skip to the point. What do you want from me?”

“A service that requires you to be in a state other than near death. My patience is running thin. If your failure at recovery continues, I am having you placed in a hospital. You cannot take care of yourself, and your history with my assistant makes her incapable of adequately providing you with sustenance and care.” Handsome opened her mouth and rolled her eyes. “You have not eaten. You have not taken medicine. You have not slept either. All in at least two days.”

“What the fuck are you on about?..” the mare said, mushing her eyes with her hooves.

“You have lost all touch with reality.”

“This isn’t right…” Handsome murmured, sliding down the back of the chair. It rocked several times before stopping. “I didn’t think it’d be like this.”

“Understandably so.” The minotaur leaned in and placed her hands palms down on the table. “We should talk.”

The unicorn bit on her lip, shivering as another strong gust of wind blew at the back of her chair. The pink and white strands growing on her scarred, burned scalp flung around in the air. Her ears folded.

“Aight, if you want… One thing, though.” She looked up momentarily before turning away again, talking out the side of her mouth. “I’m fucking dying here. I know what we planned, but like, I can’t go cold yet. You gotta fix me up.”

“I was assuming as much. You do not seem to under…” Lockvara paused. She rubbed her cheek before leaning even closer towards the mare. “What do you think are you going to do once you get euphorium? How are you going to react?”

“I don’t fucking… Like, is this important? I need it to…” Handsome’s eyes met with the glistening lights coming from the minotaur’s glasses. She hung her head. “Yeah, I’ll probably scream, shout, break stuff. Try to kill someone. That’s usually what I do after hitting it.”

“Specify for me, please. This is what you believe your reaction to joy is, is that correct?” The shadowed minotaur raised a finger. “It happens to sound identical to your daily routine up until the past month.”

“The fuck does that matter?”

“Euphorium alters your behavior. Unless you were constantly under the influence for the past five years of your life, there would be a difference between sobriety and intoxication.” Handsome coughed, her eyes staring into the table. “You have been sober at least once before, correct?”

“Yeah, I have. And it fucking sucks. I hate it. I hate being sober.” The mare threw her hooves up in the air. “Look at me! It’s killing me! You wanna know why I don’t eat, why I don’t sleep, why I don’t drink, why I don’t take your stupid meds? I don’t want to! I just sit here, stare at the wall, and tell that four-eyed nerd to fuck off of me!” Her pupils widened. “I left it all behind. Well, I don’t have shit all else to do!”

“You have been getting better.” The minotaur took a notebook out of an inner pocket and looke inside.

“Better? You call this better, you stupid cow?!” Handsome growled, her voice cracking and fading off. Lockvara removed her glasses, took a noisy breath, and massaged the ridges of her eyes. “Why, just because I tore out all the metal in me? Just because I boiled away my ink?”

“You are stretching your boundaries, Handsome.” The minotaur put her glasses back on, squinting at the unicorn. “We assisted you once you made it clear this was our mutual desire.”

“And you think that just because I did all that, I’m better?”

“I think you would be better if you also let us remove the tattoos on your flank.” Handsome lost her breath. She opened her mouth, coming out with nothing, while Lockvara continued. She took out a pen. “Since you've been relocated, being unable to register your cutiemark has been an ongoing issue in multiple regards. That is, among other problems.”

The mare pushed her hooves up against her jaw, closing it by force. She cracked her neck and reclined into the chair, her eyes darting all over the kitchen. Lockvara’s eyes stared her down, unblinking and unmoving.

“Well, you must think I’m a moron,” Handsome said. Her teeth ground together loudly. “Talking smart like this won’t fry my brain. I’m fucked in the head, but since you took away my joy and my booze, it’s made me learn to think.”

“Do you know what the exact function of joy is, when applied to ponies?” Lockvara asked.

The mare bit on her lower lip and shuffled in her seat. She took long breaths, one of her hooves tapping on the table.

“...I get where you’re going with this. You wanna know what my special talent is. You’re wondering if I was fucked like this from the start.”

“That is not incorrect.” The minotaur jotted down a line in the notebook.

“Well, I can’t help you. My brain is scrambled. I dunno what is going on with me.” Handsome stared off past the minotaur and into the corridor. “Long story short, if you want me to smash shit and kill dudes, just give me some joy and I’ll do it. That’s it.”

“That is not the limit to my interests.” The tall figure shifted, placing her head in the way.

“You wanna know more about me, huh?” The mare puffed her nostrils. “What, all those questions your little helper asked me aren’t enough?”

“I do not see how you mean,” Lockvara said, giving her notebook a glance.

“Heh. Makes sense you’re bullshitting me.” Handsome turned to the minotaur and grinned, her artificial teeth catching a glimmer of light over the shadow. “It’s complicated. I’ve been here before.” Lockvara put the notebook and pen away, crossed her arms and nodded. “But I’ve never been here before.”

There was no question to follow. After a short silence, the unicorn continued, rubbing her horn through the cloth.

“See, I say this, cause… Cause it’s all been the same up until now. Same shit over and over. Going in circles.” The mare frowned. “I’d feel this… whatever you call it. This thing, when you know what’s about to happen, even though you shouldn’t. All the time. It never stopped. That’s why I didn’t stop at joy. Fuck, I need a drink…”

“Maybe after this. You are telling me you have been having de ja vu.”

“Whatever it’s called. I’d wake up and know exactly what would happen. Where I’d go, who I’d talk to, what they’d tell me, who I’d kill.” Handsome smacked her hooves on the table and chuckled. “Like I’ve already been there before. Sometimes it got, like, bumpy. I’d see shit that never even happened.” She started into a laugh before leading it into a cough. “Sometimes I died... And then it just kept going on again.”

“Really.” The minotaur sat motionless, the wind turning over pages in her notebook. She blinked rapidly. “I see.”

“Maybe you do.” Handsome rubbed the back of her neck. The minotaur crossed her hands tighter around her chest. “I liked it at first. I liked being free like this. Doing what I want, because I know I always would have. I’d suck down joy bottles, sing, scream and shout until my throat went...” The mare smiled. “I’d drink gallons of booze, my mouth would burn, burn for hours, but it didn’t matter. Cut myself, scorched myself, shredded my tail off, it didn’t matter. I kinda stopped looking like a mare, or, like, a pony... but it's not like that mattered either. Nothing did.” Her hooves passed over the bandages on her face. “Nothing I did changed a thing.”

“Do you know when it started?”

“Hah. You want me to remember?” Her eyes opened wide. She put a hoof underneath her chin, covering a hole from a removed piercing. “Lemme tell you something fun. I remember a lot. A whole lot.” Lockvara tilted her head. “More than ever actually happened. I don’t know what the fuck’s gone on in the past. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on right now. I don’t think I know what year it is or where I am. You might tell me, but I don’t know if I’m just remembering you right this moment.”

“...were your memories always like this?’

“There was one thing there. It always stayed the same. I knew it, I always knew it,” Handsome continued. Lockvara shook her head. “The Vulture. I was the Vulture. No matter what. Didn’t care about my face, my voice, my body… I knew I was going to be something else.” She sighed. “That is why I joined. Things just started making sense once I saw it in the box. Like it was meant to be. It felt cool.” The mare pressed her hooves into the table and grimaced. “And then it went to shit. It all went to shit.”

“You left the cycle?”

“What? No, fuck no,” Handsome raised her voice and waved her hoof. “It got stronger than it ever did! Everything was like… like that dee-jay-view, whatever. And it made sense!” Her voice cracked. She sniffled. “It all started making sense! It never did before, and then…” The mare hyperventilated, holding her chest. “Why did it have to start making sense?! I didn't want any answers! I don't want to know who's doing what, for what reason, and why I gotta be important! I'm fucking not, I'm just me! Everywhere I went, everyone I talked to, everyone was in on it! I didn’t want to know anything! I didn’t want to know any of this!”

“...right.”

There was silence while the mare caught her breath.

“So that’s why I did it,” Handsome whispered, her voice pitching down abruptly. “I took that one thing I was sure in, and I burned it. In the end, I knew I would. The Vulture always ended. It was all gone and ruined. I left everything behind. Not for the first time. But this time…” She buried her face in her hooves. “...it didn’t come back.”

“You do not know what is going to happen any longer.”

“I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore,” Handsome said, lifting her head to stare at Lockvara. “I left everything else behind. You know why I want to gulp down roach puke? Cause I wanna know what the fuck I’ll do! You know why I want to drink? Cause I don’t wanna have to think about all this! You know why I’m sitting here like a potted fucking plant?!” Her hooves crashed down on the table. One of its legs cracked, and the tilt set off a landslide of medicine, rolling the pile over the edge. The minotaur showed no reaction. “Because I’m afraid. There, I fucking said it. What the fuck do you want from me?! Tell me so I know a single motherfucking thing!”

Lockvara stayed silent. Handsome began to growl, her voice going raspy and turning into bubbling coughs. While she punched her sunken in chest, the minotaur closed her eyes and got up, picking her briefcase up from the floor.

“Looking at you, it will be a bad idea to detail the things to come. Your current condition is just too volatile. Do nothing drastic, for your own sake.” She turned around and headed for the door. “Let us take care of you, and you will be able to stabilize your life again. Prove to us that you do not need professional medical help just yet.” Lockvara paused and looked back. “You're not the Vulture. You have something better to do.”

Handsome reached out a hoof toward the minotaur, ending up plastered over the table. Her mouth opened and closed, with no sound coming out. Tears welled in her widened, bloodshot eyes. She began to shake all over.

The sound of rummaging in an adjacent room became audible over her silent hysteria. The mare stopped moving. After a brief pause, she got up and headed out into the corridor on unsteady, shuddering legs. Her ears were perked up. Her mouth was open wide, tensed in a voiceless scream.

Handsome butted through the door to Page’s room. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, she stepped into the dimly lit kitchen.

???

The mare stumbled through the pitch blackness. Distant, dull thuds rang out in response to her hooves touching the floor tiles. There was a quiet, wet crack as she stepped on a cockroach. The crystal lamp hanging in front of the table flickered on and off, giving out a weak light, which took on a pink hue because of the dark red stains covering the bulb Handsome took heavy breaths, making no noise even as she cleared her throat.

“And look who we have here.” An overly muscled, tatooed mare with a shaved head, joy spots near her lips and tattoos all over her body grinned, exposing two rows of mostly artificial teeth. They reflected the dim pink light. She tugged on the ties of her torn hoodie, bringing it tight around her scarred neck.

“As of late, you have done some interesting things.” The same mare kicked back on her seat and stretched, making the glistening pink leather jacket on her squeak. The rings and bracelets covering her legs gleamed in the light. A large bike stood behind her, supporting the mare’s back.

“You do know that this is where it ends, right?” A tall female minotaur crossed her arms atop the briefcase that sat in her lap. The pink lights reflected off her glasses, keeping the face obscured.

“...”

The curtains moved silently with the wind, but none reached her. Vibrant orange light pierced through the cracks. The unicorn’s knees buckled.

“Oh fuck off, all of you. Fuck right off.”

She hacked and coughed, spitting out blood and dirt. It trickled down her skinny frame, staining her rare white coat. When her coughing fit was over, she stood between rail tracks. The sparks and bolts of electricity passed through her, making no noise. A droning hum was audible in the far distance.

“Is it just not fun for you anymore?” A massive brown minotaur in a chain-covered vest raised his fists into the air. His chest ripped itself inside out, while electric sparks jumped off the metal spines that topped his green mohawk. “Maybe you should have stayed underground?”

“Do you remember all the things you did?” An amber earth pony in a purple suit raised a hoof with a crystal revolver, pressing it to his chin. It went off, coating his short black and blonde mane in blood and brain matter. He continued glaring at her. “Do you think you can overpower fate?”

“A great unity of wonderful individuals to deliver this world from its sickness, but you?” A lemon unicorn with matching hair also motioned with her gun leg. It fired off a silent shot into the air, and the mare’s crow mask appeared on her head. Blood trickled down from her punctured neck. “You brought a dead end.”

“...”

Her hoof held tight onto her chest. She moaned, her heartbeat blending into the faraway hum. Within a moment, it became a roar, and a train sped through where she stood.

“You still think I give a shit?”

A stool underneath her creaked on unsteady legs. The bar stand gave out a quiet thud when her face smacked against it. Loud, sharp crackling came out of the videodrome mounted on the wall behind her, drowning out the continuous hum. The white, flickering screen was the only source of light in the bar. The whole interior was coated in dust and dried blood. Handsome pushed against the stand and raised her head.

“Ponies like you don’t know what they’re in for when they run off.” An ES/AS air trooper sat on a stool, rocking himself back and forth with a hind leg. The mare shuddered, hopping back on the stool. A long, thick mane dyed red and purple hung over one of her eyes. “Maybe you knew all along, though?”

“There was generosity in this world once.” A light grey unicorn wrote out lines in a ledger, looking at the mare from behind taped together glasses. Blood dribbled into Handsome’s wide open mouth, and all over her ripped hoodie. She touched her face with a hoof, spitting once it touched her freshly broken nose. Sparks shot out of her damaged horn. The other hoof grasped at the top of her shaved head, bleeding profusely, bone having been cracked through. “Did your friends ever mean it?”

“Now you’re here at the end, beginning to look back at all that’s happened.” A pink pegasus with messy green hair brandished his chopper. The unicorn’s recovering breaths sucked in the rubber of her mask. Her forelegs clung to the club and the gun, tearing through the postal outfit with the spikes, barbs, needles and blades. “Anyone would say you got the wrong address.”

“...”

The mare threw herself off the stool, falling down on the dusty floor. She cringed and whined, rolling around, her snout touching her knees. She let out a series of wet coughs.

“Quit playing games.”

Disco lights glowed pink, blue, green and orange in the darkness, illuminating nothing around them. A flat ceiling tile cast down dirty yellowish light, hanging over a corner couch in front of her. Chitinous growths, pulsating with green veins, covered the floor tiles and distant tables.

“Don’t you find yourself symbolic, filly?” A raven in a twirling a wine glass in his talons. The disco ball made a rapid spin, putting him in front of her with his rapier out. His mangled corpse was on the floor before Handsome stepped back. A dismembered arm, clinging to the rapier, floated in the darkness. “Symbols are important.”

“Who do you think comes next, girl?” A crane in a blue suit juggled her butterfly knife in one hand. There was another flash, with the griffon’s shadow towering over Handsome’s. The next moment, her body, neck snapped and beak broken in half, lay on the floor, contained within a deep imprint in the tiles. “There always has to be a plan.”

“This is not as confusing as it seems, young mare.” An old albatross griffon shook his head, putting hands on the shoulders of a leather-strapped hawk with racing goggles on her forehead on one side, and a large magpie in a vest and tie on the other. The other two griffons sat next to them, all five beaks turned to Handsome. “But then, you’ve made it clear you want no part of it.”

“...” Each raised a glass and drank. Rubber masks and packs of letters fell down on their seats. A tall purple alicorn walked out onto the balcony of a crystal palace. The mare closed her eyes and looked away.

“I’ve had it with this shit.”

There was a bright purple flare, the ground quaking and cracking.

Handsome stood in a vast chitinous landscape, surrounded by luminescent synaptic cocoons, glowing veins and growths. Drones skittered in the far distance. A large crystal palace stood with its foundation cracked, chitin filling in the gaps. The clean, white streets were stained with blood and synapse. Thunder cracked in the pitch black sky, followed by green lightning.

“This is how it all ends.” An enormous synaptic reared and tore open its maw. She stood on the carcass of a sleek, crystalline police carriage, synapse dribbling out of her maw. “Maybe you should have stuck to killing what didn’t bleed red.”

“You are everything that is wrong with your world.” A smaller synaptic looked down at her, his long mane flinging in the wind. The green energy coming from his maw, his eyes and the scar going over his eye left cracks in the chitin, pouring out in hazy tendrils. “You can’t be cured. Only replaced.”

“I wish we could have met under different circumstances.” A huge pair of eyes lit up above the palace. Tentacles shuffled in the distance.

“....”

With a stiff groan, the mare rammed her way forward, barreling through thin air. Her eyes were shut tight, tears streaking from beneath. She ran chest forward into a couch, slamming her face into the cushions and sliding down onto the floor. A thick trail of drool followed the mare as she turned around and sat with her back against the cushioning.

“This is just withdrawal…” Handsome muttered. “Just withdrawal…”

She opened her eyes again. There were three unicorns sitting around another table in a fully lit kitchen. They looked down at her, two mares and a stallion.

After a short pause, the mare lost her breath, choking and scampering back over the couch. This landed her onto another, different couch, her horn passing through the material while her snout mushed against it. Gasping and crying, Handsome turned over, placing her head against the front of one of the seats.

Beaked figures sat all around her in the room. The only sources of light were the orange fires in their eye sockets. They sat still on bean bags and cushions, their heads hanging off. In front of Handsome, a hookah bubbled over a lightless fire, puffing out thick green smoke. Bottles of joy pills lay scattered around the room, rolling back and forth a few inches now and again as the hum grew in volume.

“This is not the first new world, is it?” An earth pony raised her head, her flat-billed mask oozing blood from underneath. It trickled over a pair of dog tags.

“Did the old magic ever make you feel the same way?” A unicorn shrugged, slumping forward, the blood-caked beak of his mask touching the earth pony's knees.

“You survived so much to get here, and you threw it all away.” Another unicorn struggled for breath under an owl mask. The goggles placed in its eyeholes reflected the fire in his eyes. He supported himself by leaning onto another stallion, who sat completely still, the silhouette of his rooster mask hardly visible in the dark.

“You knew this would happen. You’ve done this before.” The Vulture motioned with a hoof. Its mouth moved as it spoke, exposing sharp teeth. The eyes of all the masked killers flickered in tune with its words. “This is not a new story.”

Handsome began to climb up the sofa. Her head sunk in. She stared at the fourth figure, unblinking, while the room went completely dark. Soon after the flames inside the masks went away, the mare was sitting on a chair at the head of a long, dirty table. A small crystal bulb hung right over her head, giving out a faint pink light.

Similar bulbs dangled over three other figures, who sat far away from her. On the left, under a green bulb sat a tall, lanky synaptic. Opposite the green bulb was a blue one - beneath it sat a white earth pony stallion. An orange bulb hung on the other end of the table, illuminating a grey pegasus mare.

“Hey, you motherfuckers,” Handsome said, her voice straining to be heard over the hum. “What is happening in here?”

“You think you can make sense of any of this?” the synaptic replied, shaking his head. “Give up, ugly face. We’re way past understanding.”

“You’re making me feel sick, bug.”

“Am I really just a bug to you?” Nexus laughed, his fangs glistening in the green light while his eyes disappeared under his unkempt green mane. “Don’t strain yourself, it’s too late for that. It’s all bullshit from here, sweetie, and we’ve stepped in it.”

The green bulb exploded, littering the empty seat beneath it with shards of glass. It was covered in fresh red blood.

“You, asshole. I don’t remember you,” Handsome said, pointing a hoof at the earth pony. The table was now short enough for his frown to be visible. “What’s your deal?”

“Things went wrong, in more ways than one. It’s not that simple, and you know it,” the stallion replied, turning to face her. “What matters is that it never went right.”

“You’re giving me a bad feeling, pig.”

“So you do remember. Sometimes it was you. Sometimes it was me. Sometimes it all went a whole different way - like now.” Thorn smiled, baring his teeth and raising the sides of his moustache. “And in the end, it was all pointless from the word go. You judge no one in here, sweetie.”

The blue bulb popped, raining glass on the chair. The shards landed on a police pony’s hat, a riot helmet and a beaked rubber mask.

“You don’t know any more than I do, do you?”

Handsome leaned in, squinting at the pegasus in front of her. They sat close together, the pink and orange lighting blending together in the middle.

“It feels good, yeah? ”

The grey mare’s bad eye slowly centered itself, both pupils staring at her. She shook her head, her thinning out yellow mane swinging at the impalpable wind. Her mouth was shut tight, deepening the wrinkles at the ridges of her nose. She did not react when Handsome stretched out a hoof and shoved it in her face. The hoof passed directly through it.

“This is not just a dream, is it?”

Ditzy closed her eyes, one after the other, and nodded, a loud breath leaving her nostrils. The orange bulb went out, and glass covered a pile of children’s toys on her chair.

The light from the pink bulb went away.

“You’ve been sitting here this whole time,” Handsome said, blinking. There was nothing around her. “Who are you?”

“That’s a very good question.” The lights came back on. The mare took a step back, losing her breath. She bumped into a drawer, toppling over action figures and comic books. “The only question that matters.”

Her eyes darted around the room. It was a small bedroom, plastered all over with posters depicting groups of leather clad ponies wearing corpse makeup, stylized band names, pictures of violence and black and white landscapes. Teenage filly clothes were scattered all over the room, a pair of striped knee high socks hanging over a lamp, underwear dangling on knobs, several spiked collars and anklets littering the table next to the bed. A tall mirror stood next to the door, bearing multiple cracks, smeared all over with black and pink lipstick.

Handsome’s eyes grew large, tears drying up on her cheeks. She breathed sharply, staring at the bed. It glowed with three pink lights coming from nowhere, which illuminated the rest of the room.

“Things went wrong so long ago. Fight or flight,” said a Vulture with the body of a teenage white unicorn in a sleeveless black shirt, spiked bracelets on all its legs. A heart locker painted violet and red hung off a spiked collar. Its tail was dyed pink and black. Above the collar, the Vulture’s head glared at the mare with glowing pink eyes. Its voice was raspy, a natural high pitch straining to sound lower. “Does it ring a bell?”

“This world is too far gone. Make your decision,” said another Vulture, a young adult, wearing a torn black hoodie, chains tightening the sleeves at the joints. It was significantly bigger, with unshorn fetlocks hanging off muscled, veiny limbs. It had no tail. The scarred neck went into the Vulture’s head, which spoke with Handsome’s own voice. “You are the end, isn’t that sweet?”

“This is bigger than you think. But you’re fed up with thinking, do you?” said the Vulture in a damaged, stitched-up, blood-covered postal outfit. The Vulture smiled, showing sharp teeth growing out of the beak. “Handsome, sweetie...”

“...” Handsome looked at all of herself that sat on the bed. They looked back at her, tilting their beaks. “Answer me.”

“It feels like disaster is coming. In truth, it already has. It’s time to tear into the corpse for all it has left,” the Vulture on the left said. It had the body of a lean yellow earth mare. A toolkit sat strapped to her waist, and mud shoes were belted to her hind hooves. “That’s what I am.”

“Who the…”

“Any ending is also a beginning. You just have to see the value in that which has gone,” the Vulture on the right said. It had the body of a tan athletic pegasus in a red hoodie, with tape around her joints and bandaged wings. “That’s what I am.”

“Why do you…”

“Equestria is in withdrawal,” the Vulture in the middle said. It was a tall purple alicorn wearing gold and silver regalia. The light flickered, and its beak appeared directly on the other side of the mirror. It stared at Handsome. “This is the apocalypse.”

“Oh, you bitch, you did this, didn’t you?” The mare glared at the alicorn. “What the fuck have you done this time? Why is this happening?”

The Vulture spread its purple wings and reared on its long, ornate hind hooves.

“Is this what you see? I’m not really who you think I am,” it said, sitting down on a throne. “I don’t think you’re remembering what’s important.”

The unicorn rolled around on the tiger striped carpet, clutching her head and grunting. She moaned, pushing against a nearby glass table with her bare back.

“You’ve been here before. Get up, sweetie.”

Handsome took a hissy breath and pulled herself up, clinging to the table. Her snout ended up dunked into a deep bowl of faintly steaming liquid, causing her to have a coughing fit, knocking herself on the chest.

Her pupils widened. She screamed at the top of her lungs and barreled outside of the room, trampling the unconscious bodies. Looking back, she took a new breath to continue screaming, while the Vulture observed her, laying on the sofa, its huffing beak touching the pink pegasus’ crossed hooves. The pink glow in its eyes reflected off the chopping blades clutched in the stallion’s hooves.

The mare galloped down the corridor, crossing its length multiple times before making progress towards the door. It shook from constant heavy knocks, which mixed in with the other noises surrounding the unicorn. The noises changed, and the knocks gained a new rhythm. Handsome laughed to herself in a hoarse, rabid tone, as they turned into music.

She rammed through the door and fell onto the streets of a city covered by a tide of black bodies and shapes. cyan smoke rose in the distance, over the roofs of short two-story buildings on the slanted street. Clean crystalline skyscrapers popped in and out each time she blinked.

Corpse paint ran down her pierced cheeks in thin streams. The long strands of her red and purple mane stuck to the mare’s sweaty coat. Spikes on her anklets ground against the pavement while she rose back up. Her tail brushed against a nearby steaming green puddle.

The mare staggered around, pushing herself along the roadside railing. The sign hanging over the building she left gradually shifted from hot pink to toxic green, dangling in thin air. The alleyway between that building and the next led nowhere, cutting into emptiness that changed between the same colors. The unicorn spat on the ground, a tooth flying out alongside color-shifting blood. She stared at it for a second before shaking her head and gulping. Staggering on along the pavement, the unicorn moaned, watching every reflective surface take on technicolor hues. A large bridge in the distance shook, closing in and fading out with each step the mare made.

Her mane dangled in the wind as she sped up. Clicking and chittering cut into the music that blasted over every other noise. Distorted faraway sirens mixed into deep bass strokes that accompanied the intermittent shaking of the ground. Black, green-eyed figures popped in and out of being, progressively appearing closer. She turned a corner and ran into a police barricade. A thick orange arrow floated parallel to the ground, pointing at an open carriage. Her voice came through in rhythm to the bass as she shouted, speeding away from the arrow.

Her snout slammed into thin air. The rest of the downturn danced in the air, a sharp line in the ground cutting it off from where she stood. Turning around, the mare faced a rearing changeling. She covered her face, losing balance and falling. Bubbling synapse covered her black shirt. She got up several meters away from where she fell, and stared at the changeling’s corpse with its head bashed in.

Others like it popped in and out along the way she came, stopping some distance away. Her mouth opened, pieces of a scream blending into music. The two-story buildings would overlap with sleek, clean crystal structures each time her voice broke through. The cyan smoke in the evening sky coexisted with a thick, black storm front, the whole sky shifting to the tune.

The mare darted off to the side, running for the sealed door of a tattoo shop, her body going straight through it.

Clinging to a nearby metal dumpster, she got back up on her hooves and rushed down the narrow alley, turning over a trash can fire. Back on the street, her mane got swept by the strong storm wind right in her face. The unicorn smashed her horn against a lamp post while she got the thick strands out of the way. Opening her eyes, she stared at the sun setting over the ocean, illuminating the beach and pier. She backpedaled, galloping past and through a thick group of black shapes, some of whom her body passed through weightlessly. Steaming liquid covered the walls of the narrow alleyway.

The barricade stood at the end of the alleyway. The orange cones at its sides clipped into the sides of the buildings whenever they changed into sleeker, crystal forms. Equine figures in uniform, with outstretched hooves pointing at her, stood on top of the barricade.The police carriage placed in the middle stood with its back facing her, its door rolled up. Its interior was completely black safe for a pony in ES/AS air trooper armor. The Vulture looked down at her from the top of his body.

“Are you deaf, punk?” it yelled. The alleyway and barricade became a blur, save for the carriage. “Go. To. Car.”

“Fuck you! I’m not doing this again!” she said, her mouth locked in a wide scream despite pronouncing the words.

Her head exploded into bloody mush, piercings and dyed strands of mane spreading all around. Handsome rolled on the floor, clutching her broken nose. She coughed up bloody spit while the floor shook with the bass. Opening her eyes, the mare sprung onto her hooves, beginning to back away. Next to where she got up lay a pair of bodies in blue and white shirts, and a number of dissipating black carcasses were thrown all over the bar. Handsome tripped, slipping on the blood and brain matter of a dead gangster.

The staff door behind the bar stand opened. Half-sitting on the floor, unicorn went silent, meeting eyes with a unicorn mare wearing glasses and a plain black suit. An arrow hovered over the stool.

“Gosh… you’re one handsome character.” The mare’s eyes tracked her own body flickering around the bar, killing each gangster one by one. She nodded to herself slowly. The Vulture squinted at her from the door crack. “Hey now, I’m friendly! Do you want something on the house?”

“Nooo, no, no, no,” Handsome mumbled, scuttling away back-first. “Screw this! I’ve had enough!”

She crawled for a few seconds more before getting back up and stumbling head-first into the door. The furniture jumped up and down with each beat of the music. Handsome’s forehead pushed the door open, and her horn sunk into a large brown minotaur in a vest. She screamed and launched herself off to the side, running down the pier.

Equine figures appeared in her way, standing perfectly still. Handsome galloped through them, each turning into beaten pulp moments before impact. Blood covered her entire body, from the rare strands of mane on her head to the outgrown fetlocks on her muscle-thick legs. Blinking rapidly, she cleared red droplets from her eyelids. Huffing and gurgling noises emerged from her throat, barging into the constant beat that tilted the sandy beach she had been running on. Raising her forehooves, clean of sand, Handsome stared at them, staggering around before walking directly through a palm tree.

Breathing heavily, the mare backed herself into the door of a house. She turned around and walked in. Her body moved faster than her hooves did, nearly sliding up the corridor. Her forehoof flung at a tall dreadlocked stallion, and his body instantly appeared on the floor with a cracked neck, pieces of his dark shades littering the hallway. Moving to the left, Handsome butted into a fat red stallion, which caused him to appear under the table on his back. Her body mounted his, the table going right through her chest. The mare repetitively bashed his head against the floor until the red puddle stopped growing. Handsome walked down the corridor, illuminated by wall lights that went through the same color patterns as the void outside the windows.

A pale blue stallion in a red jacket stood next to a clothing rack. His eyes began to glow dark pink and his head twitched, while his expression stayed blank. Handsome neared him when he began to move towards her. She swung a foreleg and knocked him down. Her hind hoof came down on his face and squashed it. Turning around, Handsome passed through a blue arrow that pointed at the rack. It disappeared.

Handsome walked to the living room. The door opened on its own as she approached. Inside was a pile of unconscious bodies, buried underneath a layer of letters, masks and steaming changeling limbs. Her own body was slumped up against a couch, its jaw hanging off and drooling. On the couch itself was a pink pegasus stallion, who sat up once she walked in.

“No more bullshit. No more lies. No more boredom,” the Vulture said, gesturing with Skate’s hooves. “Chapter clear.”

“Think you can taunt me?” Handsome made her way through the letters and masks. Her legs moved in slow motion, carrying her through the walls. In the dark beyond the room, four mangled, singed bodies lay underneath dim pink lights. She passed each, while the void began to swarm with grime and insects. Their masks,, an eagle, a honeybird, a cormorant, a seagull and a crow, were fused to their faces.

Vulture kept looking at her as she approached it, and once her forehooves touched its head, it came clean off. The unicorn jumped back and glared at the rubber mask before levitating it closer and stomping on it. Drawing quick, sharp breaths, she turned around and ran into the darkness that the living room’s walls disappeared off into. Galloping forward with her eyes tightly closed, Handsome ran directly into a small blue arrow.

She opened her eyes as a gust of wind struck her in the face. The roar of an engine pierced through the breaks in the music. Her forehooves clung to a pair of handles, pressing in deep. Her hind hooves and backside jumped on the plastic padding as the wheels rolled down the subway tracks.

Poorly defined figures in dirty clothing showed up on the tracks, each one being rammed right through. The motorcycle left behind bright green trails, which continued to glow even as the lights went out. Handsome kicked the pedal with her hind hoof, pressing deeper into the handles. The subway shook again and again, each mangled body causing it to tilt. The mare raised her head and growled, bubbles of foam spreading into the dark.

The bike started going through the maintenance areas, driving into narrow doorways, circling subway machinery, and leaving behind a near dozen bodies in each room. The wheels dug into featureless figures, spreading blurry chunks of flesh and chitin all over. Some of them moved, sliding away on motionless legs, but the bike continued to leave behind twisted bodies in each room. Handsome banged her hooves on the handles and closed her eyes, headbutting the rapidly spinning dial in the middle of the front panel.

When she opened her eyes, the bike was going down the corridor of a mansion. The wheels ripped through the carpets, shredding the fabric as well as the bodies of guards in pink and brown that lay on the floor. It burst through a large wooden door and made its way to the center of a decorated hall, stopping in front of a fountain with a knight’s statue on top of it. The engine revved up on its own and the vehicle began to spin in place. Handsome grit her teeth and half-roared half-laughed, clinging to the handles as the wheels kept circling on the floor. The bike changed the side it was leaning to, matching the music, which kept playing over the screeching of the tires tearing into the floor. After a short while it launched itself into the fountain. Handsome screamed when the statue of three young fillies shot towards her.

The mare continued to cry out as the wheels rolled down a flat surface. The vehicle still did a slight jump each time it turned blurry figures into meat and ooze, but the surroundings flickered with every note that played. It rode down office hallways, crashed through cubicles, burst open doors, broke past barricades and drove through apartments. Handsome raised her head. Her cheeks buffed up, and she barfed up a short stream of liquid that shifted between toxic hues. Banging a hoof on the handle, the mare laughed. She started opening her mouth and making noises in tune with the music.

Pinkish-orange sunlight blasted her eyes. The bike sped down paved streets, palm trees speeding past it. Neon signs and blocky buildings combined into a haze to each side of the streets. It turned corners, speeding across crossroads, passing through carriages. Her voice began to fit in with the frantic beat. The city lights got brighter as the sky gathered storm clouds. The waterfront appeared in the distance, with the setting sun shaking and changing colors. The mare’s hooves pushed at the handles when the bike went off the road and began to near the ocean, but the vehicle did not react. She shuffled in her seat, twisting and banging on the motorcycle, which continued to gain speed and drive straight ahead. It crashed into the water, throwing her into the air.

“This is not a new story. What is yours?”

A series of loud, booming noises rang out, silencing the tune. Handsome pressed down on her temples, her mouth open wide. She watched down from a high point of view, spinning in place for a moment. Her body stumbled around awkwardly on two legs. All that surrounded it had a grainy, poorly defined quality to it, appearing flat and lacking definition.

Her body barreled through a door into a hallway and tripped on one of the russet tiles, barging through another door. Falling flat down on a red and orange carpet, Handsome stayed short of hitting it with her masked face, landing on a large abdomen. Getting up, her body’s forelimbs bent far at the elbows and used their digits to support the massive weight. There was a long repeater gun in one of them.

Getting up and walking in with two legs, Handsome made it to the end of the room. The ringing passed. A door to her side burst open, and a tall, tan figure in white and blue entered, wielding a steel pipe. Her arm shifted towards it, one of the digits pressing down on a trigger. The figure fell down, bright red holes sieving its chest. Handsome’s body waddled towards where it came from, flinging the door as it entered, which knocked down more identical looking figures. Her lower limbs stepped on each of them, coloring the russet tiles a brighter shade of red. There was nothing in the room aside from tall boxes stacked in the middle, a big window and two potted plants at the far end, and a few green containers on the floor. Doors in the room lead to the left and right.

Stepping over the containers, her body went to the right. When it was nearly there, another white and blue shape entered through where she came from. Handsome spun around, pointing the repeater at it, which only let out a click. With a sharp motion, her limb threw the gun at the shape, which collapsed with a twisted neck.

“Lost, forgotten and confused. Left behind when everything changed. Close, but not quite.”

Another door opened, and a series of shots penetrated the massive body, sending it to the floor.

There was a sundown sky above her. Her eyes peered into the barrel of a crystal gun, carried by a white earth pony stallion. He breathed heavily, his moustache glistening with sweat. He turned around and bucked the massive minotaur that lay near Handsome's body. The world disappeared.

Handsome stood in front of a large building. Her slim bipedal body rushed in through the massive front gates. It ran forward through a clean white hall with writing on the floor. A large orange shape stood where the tiles turned black. Her body approached it and sliced its abdomen open with a chopping knife before entering a lift. Jagged blue numbers floated above its body before disappearing. Inside, one of her arms touched a button. Her body stood completely still while inside. The reflection showed a blurry figure that was clothed in pink from the waist up. A bright cyan racing helmet sat on its head.

When the doors opened, it ran on through a narrow corridor. It cut down every figure on its way, slicing off their limbs and leaving gashes in their stomachs, spreading intestines on the blue floor. Each of them had a higher number pop up after they fell. Having turned two corners, the body reached another large door and burst through it, leaving bloody prints on the carpet. Another figure stood near a desk at the end of the big office. It moved in place. Her body’s free arm jolted, and the figure fell down with a knife in its featureless head. Moving closer to the desk, it stood in front of a rectangular box with a screen.

“You think you know what you’re doing. You think you like causing others pain, but you’re afraid.”

The doors opened once again, and another shape entered in, looking identical to her body. Handsome’s body approached it. The new figure made its way to a black bag to the side of the desk and took out a golf club. There was garbled noise finding its way into the repetitive tune. They closed in with one another, and Handsome’s body fell down on the floor.

The ceiling was plain concrete, with a halted fan. The clearly defined synaptic standing over her body grunted, levitating her own spiked club in the air, and brought it down on her. She opened her mouth, singing. There was a multitude of ripping, squishing noises. The world disappeared.

Handsome stumbled forward. Everything around her shook and swiveled. The black and white floor tiles and the blood-splattered walls had a plain, hollow appearance. Dead bodies in white and blue suits were jaggy, composed of small, visible particles. Her own body was the same, also clothed in a white suit and a blue shirt. Her upper limbs carried a narrow, thin blunderbuss. Every step was faster than the movement of the leg suggested. The body stepped through dead bodies without impacting them.

Around a corner was a rectangular texture with two tan borders around a collection of interconnecting lines colored different shades of blue. It was completely flat. Near it, a white and blue body jittered back and forth on the floor.

“Something tied you to all this, but it’s long gone. You have all you wanted, but it’s all wrong."

Her body walked through a door and up a set of stairs. The blunderbuss disappeared, her limbs now carrying a red axe. The stairs ended with another door, beyond which were plain grey tiles. They were followed until reaching a darker patch, which had an encircled letter ‘H’ drawn inside of it. Blurry colors coalesced in the middle. A piercing screech rang out.

In front of her was a formless mesh of fire that changed shapes. Her body began to move back as it approached. It settled on the shape of a pegasus. The world disappeared, fading into rectangular grains, and flushed back in, returning to prior definition.

“Maybe it doesn’t need to be so complicated.”

She stood in front of a bathroom sink, leaning against it with her hooves, droplets of water from the cracked ceiling landing on her overgrown fetlocks. She stared into the cracked mirror, from which the Vulture stared back. The unicorn chewed on her lip, blood trickling from it. Spastic, raspy breaths emerged from her as she twitched, shaking her head slowly, slowing her breath down with every second. The weak crystalline bulb swung on its long cord, vibrated by the erratic screeching and humming that came from everywhere around her.

“You asked a good question,” the Vulture said. “Who are you, sweetie?”

“I’m… not feeling right,” Handsome replied. The Vulture opened its beak in sync with her words. “I gotta… Lemme see… Ooohhh.”

The Vulture replicated Handsome’s motions, grasping its head with its talons. The room shook. Handsome pressed her hooves deep into her face. She leaned over the sink. Her hooves went into her mouth, jerking it open.

“I’M LOOKING HANDSOME.”

The mare’s upper and lower jaws came loose. With the mouth torn open, her hooves pulled back at the skin, folding it back until it came off. From inside her mouth, a beak came out, wriggling upwards until the whole head was free. Handsome gasped and rubbed hooves over her bare pink head, the toothy beak hanging open for breath. She bashed her bare forehead into the mirror and rolled ahead. Her hooves landed on a yellow dusty path in broad sunlight.

A featureless jagged black shape stood in front of her. It began to back off towards a small town a short way down the road, but shortly after making a few steps, it twisted in place. With an abrupt wet splash, it became a blurry, disfigured corpse. Blood pooled around its indistinguishable features, staining the dead unicorn’s white coat. Handsome walked over to it and stared at the body before diving her beak into it.

For that time, the dust road became alleyway asphalt and the village houses were replaced with the sides of clean crystalline buildings. Lights flashed all around. Sirens sounded in the near distance. A booming hum underscored the music.

Once the environment reverted, Handsome touched her face. Claws passed down the short curved beak. Running on clawed arms and hooved legs, she passed by small village houses ornamented with hearts. Sunshine fell down on her blood-covered postal uniform.

More obscure dark figures came up along the way. Handsome swiped her talons, leaving deep, bleeding gashes in their bodies, which reverted into ponies upon hitting the ground. She slashed her way through a small plaza with a large oak in the middle, leaving behind over a dozen unrecognizable equine corpses. She stopped in front of one shape that hovered in place, twitching and jittering. Her talons grabbed its head and split it in half.

Before the small orange pegasus’ body hit the ground, Handsome tore into it. Her body shot up into the air, gusts of wind blowing hard against her face. The skies shifted, taking on toxic colors. The mare’s body burst through a thick layer of still green liquid, dribbling into her beak. Losing all momentum and landing on top of a grassy hill, she rolled down. Upon reaching bottom, Handsome got up on her hind hooves. Pumping her fist, she let out a silent screech, short parts of it remaining audible. Flexing her broad shoulders and smashing her long reptilian tail against the ground, Handsome got the blunderbuss into firing position. The blade on its end tore through the already ripped uniform that covered her muscular, upright upper body.

Numerous black shapes scrambled away, blending into one another. Some duplicated when out of field of vision. A hail of lead burst from the barrel, catching several within the spread of the burning pellets. The blade at the end sliced into Handsome’s side, with no blood coming out of the resulting gash.

More figures emerged around her, most standing completely still or distancing themselves from her. Handsome’s talon pulled the trigger with every step she made. Her hind hooves stomped through the dirt. Shreds and cast-off threads of uniform left a trail behind her while the mare followed a short wooden fence over to a large red house.

One shape emerged, busting open the gates. The blunderbuss clicked and fizzled when the trigger was pulled. Handsome stopped, digging in her hooves. When the figure swiped at her, she smashed it with the barrel, splitting open a dark red stallion’s head. Moving past its body, the griffon took another charging black figure on the blade of her gun, piercing through an orange earth mare. Standing behind the gates were two more shapes - one did not move, while the other performed incoherent, hazy jerking motions.

Handsome bashed bashing one’s head off, leaving behind the body of a light green earth mare. Grabbing the jittering shape with one of her hands, Handsome bit into it with her beak, tearing out a chunk out of a small yellow earth pony.

While she chewed, Handsome stood unsteadily on all fours, touching smooth pavement, green ooze dribbling out of her mouth. A transparent billboard floated by along the sidewalk. The smooth features of nearby potted plants and buildings cast off shadows from a bright green light. She burped and spat out a chunky green liquid. Her back arched, expanding and twisting.

Walking ahead on large, unsteady, mismatched hooves, the mare brushed past trees and knocked over fences. She groaned and drooled out of her beak, covering up her face with talons and claws. Her other claw held on to a spiked bat, which dug into the ground as she dragged it. The horns sprouting from Handsome’s bald pink head broke branches off trees. Her heavy breaths made no noise, but the black equines around her dropped down when she exhaled, remaining on the ground until her hooves squashed them, leaving chunks of pony corpses behind.

Handsome had a coughing fit, ending up with a stream of bile pouring down on the street. She stumbled around, flailing her arms. The club collapsed several small houses. The mare’s beak hung open as she squinted at the city below her. Shifting a hoof, she knocked down a tree. Her leonine tail swiped a market stall off the ground. Another coughing fit turned into laughter, some syllables becoming part of the continuous bassy tune in the back. The mountain-side city in the distance spun and tilted to the beat.

Handsome held the club with both arms, needles piercing through her claws, and pummeled the town. The nails, spikes, needles and other sharp extremities tore into houses and roads, and wide swipes of the club itself collapsed streets. She stomped her mismatched hooves, splashing in the drool coming from her beak. With a loud scream, Handsome raised the club again, and dropped it up raising her head. She stood in the middle of a road, surrounded by bright, smooth, colorful crystalline buildings. Broken changeling bodies lay scattered nearby. Ahead of her was an ornate tower-like building framed with a decorative carousel of porcelain ponies.

“What you’ve got to do is see and remember. That is all that is left.”

She staggered towards it, ooze bubbling in her mouth. Her ears folded back as the music became louder. Blue and red flashes illuminated the area on top of a persistent green light. Handsome manually put hind hoof after forehoof, grunting whenever her knees buckled at another quake of the bass. With her eyes open wide, the mare nudged the boutique’s doors open with her horn. Her head jerked back as a heavy object struck her square in the forehead.

Flying back, she landed behind the front door of a house. The music faded away. Handsome’s legs shook as she propped herself up.

Face to face with her was a teenage unicorn filly in foundation and eyeliner. It trailed lightly beneath her wide green eyes, which stared through where Handsome stood. The filly’s body was frozen mid-gallop. The rug underneath her hooves sat crumpled, the fabric having no reaction to when Handsome stepped on it. A half-shaved, dyed mane trailed behind her. A small backpack sat loosely buckled on her back.

The filly spun at a rapid pace when Handsome reached out to her. Her neck twisted in each direction. Her mouth opened and closed, widening each time, until becoming larger than the rest of her body. Handsome stepped away.

Her own coat was bare, lacking the thinning patches. She rubbed her face all over, pushing her tailless flank into a wall. The bandages on her face disappeared along with the recent wounds they hid. Her snout still appeared ridged and curved from repeated damage, and there were still scars and burns all over her body. Handsome was all white, safe for the layer of pink and silver growing on her head and the tattoos on her flanks.

Grinding her teeth and shaking, Handsome walked past the guest area, through a time-frozen falling vase, and toward a small kitchen.

Handsome stood in front of the table. Behind it sat two older unicorns. A large white stallion was halfway through jumping off his chair. His mouth was open wide. His pupils were shrunken, and his lips curved down beneath a thick, long moustache. His forehooves shifting from position to position, retracting into their sockets and popping back out, leaving behind after-images. The blue flower patterned shirt he wore extended itself alongside his twisting body.

Handsome stretched a hoof out to her father.

Her whole body contorted before she made contact. The mare gasped and whimpered, tears streaking down her cheeks before freezing in mid-air. The stallion sunk halfway into the floor, his mouth now opening and closing, repeating the same movement each time.

“ETAGRIP GETAGRI GETAGRIP TAGRIP GETAGRIP S W E E T I E” his voice rippled into the room, sounding fuzzy and distorted, parts of syllables missing. His neck twisted, making him stare directly at her while his blue eyes popped in and out of their sockets. “ LOSING you LOSING y o u”

To his side, Handsome's mother moved up and down with her chair.

Her body did not move at all, stuck looking upwards with its hind hooves straight at its sides. The chair floated into the air and lowered itself into the floor, parts of the mare’s hind hooves and apron passing directly through it as well. When it moved upwards, the large bun of hair on her head went through fly tape that hung from the ceiling. Only the greying strands poking out of the mane moved, reacting to Handsome’s breathing. Thick jets of solid tears hung still in the air, not connecting to her eyes. Chewing her lip, Handsome brought her snout to one of the tear sprays. She gasped and huffed, having been knocked back to the sink full of dishes.

“YOU LIKE HURTING US DON’T YOU” her voice came through, patched out of pieces of different tones and inflections. The mare’s head rotated, sinking snout-first into the neck and coming back out. It continued to spiral, leaving behind circling stairs of skin in the air. “ you used to be so sweet”

Finding balance again, the mare stood shorter, her head hanging down, all the thick muscle having disappeared. The wounds that covered most of her body were gone. Piercing holes in her nose, lips, cheeks and ears disappeared. Joy spots on the sides of her mouth went away. A series of stitches on the back of her mostly hairless head was replaced with undamaged skin.

The rhombus tattoo under her eye and the ink on her flanks remained.

Handsome leaned over the sink and lowered her head into the pile of dishes. When she raised it, she stood on a train platform.

The mare sat down on a bench and watched the still scene of a small, blank-flank white unicorn filly being dragged into a train cart by her parents. The filly was reaching for two other blank flanks, a yellow earth pony with a big bow tied into her red mane and an orange pegasus with a pair of stubby wings on her side.

Equestrian Transit

The Vulture walked in on the scene and brushed the pegasus’ purple mane with its regalia-adorned hoof. The sign reading “PONYVILLE-PACKSMULLE” which hung off the train station’s roof began to tilt and bounce. The early morning turned into a dimly lit dirty orange sunset. Trains and ponies began to fast forward by, glowing with toxic hues.

The tall purple alicorn sat down next to Handsome and looked at her. The mare got up and walked to the edge of the platform.

“The world changed. Too much, too soon,” it said. “This story has been happening for a while now. It just got the wrong address.”

“What are you, really? Why are you doing this?” Handsome asked quietly.

“Mistakes are made. One, after another, after another. And trying to fix things only creates more problems,” the Vulture replied, walking up to the unicorn. It pointed at the body beneath its head as it spoke. “Some stories don’t have to end like this. But this one does.”

“How many times has this happened?”

“Too many. Here and elsewhere.”

Vulture blinked. The train station began to change, gaining sleek features. The darkness and the colors suppressed neon crystalline lights. The trains sped by even faster, now smaller and tube-like. The meadows and hills beyond the tracks steadily disappeared, being replaced with tall buildings. The sun and the moon replacing one another in the sky looked bigger and brighter, although more plain.

“There are some who can do a lot, if given the right push. The right idea. The right agenda. What they do sends a ripple through the rest of the world. It changes things.” A wall adorned with a large graffiti depicting a pony in a vulture mask riding a motorcycle into a black mass of changelings appeared. Handsome looked at the Vulture, who pointed at its head. The mare nodded. “But some things you just can’t fix. You can only pack your things and wait.”

“Why does it have to be me?”

“It doesn't.”

A massive porous cavern covered in cocoons appeared, with the body of a large changeling creature laying dead on the ground, two more corpses not far from it - a charred pegasus mare and a magpie griffon in a black vest.

Then, a crystal-adorned throne room full of dead guards, where a tall, skeletal synaptic changeling held a sharp forehoof to a purple alicorn’s neck, while a female minotaur stood by the balcony.

A well-lit office, where a pink pegasus in police uniform lay in a puddle of blood, looking up at an unshaven white earth pony stallion in a blood-covered postal uniform. A rubber mask lay on the floor, off to the side.

“But usually, it is you.”

“Why?”

“It’s strange, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem real. Like the world came apart, put back together wrong.” The Vulture tilted its head and shrugged. “It only gets stranger each time it tries to fix itself.”

“But this is about me, isn’t it?”

“Something here is not as it should be. The world tries to fight. There are roles to fill. Parts to act. You put on a mask.” The Vulture put a hoof on Handsome’s shoulder. The mare shuddered. Once the golden slipper touched her, the ground they stood on began to tilt like everything else. “Don’t you, Handsome?”

Handsome began to laugh. She covered her face up. Once her hooves touched down again, it was gone, replaced by a vulture’s beak.

“If it makes you feel better, it was never meant to be like this,” the Vulture said while Handsome stepped into the train cart. “And in a way, it never was.”

The colors disappeared, as did the quaking. Handsome breathed deep through her beak and flexed her neck. The end of the cabin distanced itself with each step she took. Distant, distorted noises occurred outside, getting quieter with each passing moment.

She passed by closed cab doors. Each had someone inside. She paused next to one of them, looking at the shape of a thin synaptic, who sat next to a mare. The synaptic looked back at her, and Handsome kept walking.

The floor began to rumble and shake. The wheels underneath the train cart rattled against tracks. A bump in the road sent her sliding towards the door of another cabin. Her beak smacked against the door’s window. Handsome lingered for a few moments, watching the insides of the cabin, which had spacious bunks and a balcony that looked down at a body of water. The stallion who laid on a lower bunk jumped up, grabbed a police officer’s hat off the floor and flung it at the door. She backed away.

There was a loud horn. Curtains slid off the train cart’s windows. The speakers activated, and the conductor spoke. Handsome hung her beak and shrugged her shoulders as the sounds echoed through the cart, remaining illegible.

“See? It’s fine. Everyone’s around. It was all just a really bad dream,” a child’s voice came from another cabin with a half-open door. Inside were two fillies and a mare, who was slowly getting up from a bunk.

“It was scary, but it’s over now. Just don’t think about it. It’ll pass on its own,” another child said. Handsome closed the door and went on.

Another cabin contained a distanced view of an entire other cart, with open accommodations. Five mares and two fillies took up places within, some of them talking, others reading or looking at the window. A unicorn mare looked away from her book and shook her head at Handsome.

Looking down at her tattooed, masculine body, covered in cuts and burns, with its fading coat and bulging, sinewy muscles obscured by a formless, worn out black hoodie, she grinned. Behind the window, Ponyville was approaching. A vulture’s beak reflected over the view of the small town.

She walked past more cabins before hearing voices again. It was two mares talking.

“You’ll still be working for someone. Still hurting others. Sometimes not even changelings,” an older mare spoke with a faint accent.

“It’s different,” a younger mare replied.

“How do you mean?”

Handsome took in a deep breath and walked out in front of the mares. Inside the cabin, Handsome looked back at her. Smiling with her scarred lips, she nodded at the one in the door frame and raised a pair of tickets with her magic.

“Because once that mask was done burning, and I was done wailing, I knew I wasn’t supposed to be here,” the unicorn said, her voice twisting and cracking, taking on a higher, cleaner pitch with each syllable. “And so I left.”

“I’m so sorry all of this happened to you, Sweetie,” Rarity told her from across the cabin.

“I don’t really think it did,” Sweetie Belle replied and reclined back onto her bunk. “I just went for a walk. The sun was high… I thought of you.”

Sweetie sang, and the musical note on her flank glittered as the train carried on.

Comments

[mikebroniepony]

9025435
i just rread the last chapter what the fuck just happend she was sweetie bell