I liked the twist in this one. There's a subtle air of wrongness about the whole story, so even as AJ thought she'd uncovered the truth, I was waiting for the other shoe to fall. And the ending still surprised me, though upon rereading I can see where it was foreshadowed.

Pre-reading Credits:
Meta Four
Yami Vizzini

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Great. I was a bit worried that in my quest to be subtle, I hadn't put in enough foreshadowing.

Ooookay. Well, thoughts.

This is, just odd, not making a whole lot of sense, and a whole lot of things that, just didn't add up. It wasn't really a 'horror' story at all, maybe a mystery or suspense, but even then that was taken out by knowing the bad guy, knowing how obviously he wasn't just the bad guy, but something not a normal pony. But what he was trying to do made no sense, nor why everypony was letting him given how utterly vague everything was. Nothing seemed to really work or be logical. Just, not bad but, confusing and rather "What the hell is going on?"
....

At least right up until that last sentence, and then.... Holy shit! I actually had to go back and double check, but it all added up, and saw a few very very tiny little hints that were lost a midst all the other wrongness of the scenes. So much was just, not right, that a few tiny things simply slipped through. But, damn was that well done.

Few things that still kind of felt off, and not in the good way. If the whole plan was to get a chance to swap places with the rest of the apples, why go something this elaborate and attention grabbing? Why didn't the ponies do more to call him out on how this didn't make any sense? Some vague "You owe this much because reasons" with nothing to actually back it up? And, what was with the whole shadow thing? That, didn't seem like a changeling thing but, just, odd. Guessing the goo they found with the smashed apples was blood, and the changeling got hurt trying to take down Big Mac... or a bit of the goo they use to cacoon victims possibly. But, why sabotage the wheels?

The overall thing was really well done, kept me being jsut kind of "This is... alright, kind of curious what the deal is, but not really sucked into it" type of very positive 'meh' then that last line made the whole thing so damn awesome. But a lot of details still felt off about why things happened like they did, and especially the opening, was figuring the whole thing would end up being a dream sequence, but if it was meant to try and subvert that, why have her in Manehatten, and then ponyville the next scene it just, made no sense for that large a jump, with the opening being utterly meaningless to the story.

Ovaerall, really good, but felt to rushed to really build up the tension and suspense, and to many details, even in full hindsight, don't quite make a lot of sense. But still a really good story, with one hell of a great and extremely well done twist.

This was a very good and suspenseful story. Thanks for writing.

Very spooky