One night as Apple Bloom is trying to sleep, she thinks she hears... something in the distance. A light is on in the CMC Clubhouse. She goes to investigate, and what she finds shivering in the snow will change her life forever.
Runner-up for the Halloween in April horror contest.
Edited wonderfully by Professor Hyde White, Horse Voice, Cyanhyde, Titanium Dragon, Georg, Babroniedad, Ponibius, and Comma-Kazie
... wow, I had a lot of editors. Lots of great people on this site.
Featured on EQD 06/11/2020
Now with an amazing reading by FaolanCortez!
Chapters (1)
I couldn't call this one Frozen for obvious reasons.
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What? Which one did you think I was talking about? Kinda think that's the better one, actually...
I got chills man! literally!
10193369
Pun intended?
10193371
Yes pun intended
Definitely frightening (kudos in that regard), but I'm kinda confused by this monster you've created. It's in a dream, but it's also in real life (maybe)? It also somehow knows who Apple Bloom's loved ones are, and it's playing these weirdly-convoluted mind games with her for some reason? I'm afraid I don't really understand it, at least not right now.
Loved everything else, but that one thing still kinda irks me.
Predicable but not bad.
10193447
I kinda wanted to leave it up to the reader's imagination of exactly what this thing is. It's obviously playing twisted mind games with her, and has some knowledge about her and her friends (not hard since she spends a ton of time with them, so anything spying on her would figure that out pretty quickly) and has some supernatural powers. Many reasons it could be doing this. Just for fun? Maybe it's like Pennywise and fear makes children tastier before the kill? Perhaps it's not real at all? Plenty of reasons it could be doing this.
Puns aside, this was genuinely very chilling. Trippy, but chilling. A bit on the predictable side though.
Hey, thanks for the entry! I look forward to reading it.
That was riveting! I loved it, great work! Excellent suspense, I kind of did see the plot twist with Scootaloo coming but it's really cool to think the monster truly exists.
I just wish Applebloom would wake her sibs up already
. Foals am I right?
10193575
Well, they weren't there at the end. Whatever choice Apple Bloom made at the end, her siblings weren't at the farm, so there was no getting outside help.
10193587
Yeah that's true, I meant retroactively as well XD.
Woah, nice story!
Very good dark twists in this story, you did a really good job on this!
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"First of Ten..."
Well done. Its nice to see a good MLP Horror. Sadly the Horror Genre is very poorly represented here, so when a great little short story turns up, it a refreshing change.
The Monk
“Because we killed all of the monsters we ever ran into, save for ourselves and Death. What better way to respect death than to give it the form of the only monster we could never kill?" - WhatMustIDo
10193587
i choose to think it was a dream at the end. with sweetie. 'they weren't back yet' seems to be strange in and of itself. likely fell asleep while they were gone. but i didn't write it so who knows
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Maybe it was, maybe not. If it's some dream demon, then probably not real, no. If it is real, maybe it's not that late. It is winter, so the sun would set earlier. Maybe Applejack left half an hour before sunset. Also, a filly froze to death on their porch. That would take a while to sort out.
I have to admit, editing on a horror story gives you strange conversations.
"In terms of the end, is it better with Sweetie Belle or Scootaloo?"
"Hm, good question. You can kill Scoots first, then the plaintive voice at the end can come with a flickering hornlight out in the darkness, giving the reader an even more sledgehammer to the "Is it just the monster, or really Sweetie?" Always good to add a little."
Yes, I do have a heart. I keep it in a jar on my desk.
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true. most creatures like this have an MO, so it likely is a dream, but only cause it wants her to know it put sweetie in the clubhouse like it did scoots.
:\
Tbh it's obvious the monster was a physical entity. A foal with a broken leg who's been out in the cold for who knows how long is not gonna be able to keep up with a fully fresh one who's only been out a few minutes. It's clear to me that it the monster was chasing her, but then dumped Scootaloo's real corpse on the porch when Apple Bloom got away.
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it's a dream demon like the Tantabus and Apple Bloom is trapped in a nightmare it all will end when she wakes up unless the demon gets her the reason why she sees her friend scoots dead and why she can't trust her friend sweetie bell at the is because she has a deeprooted fear in real life like her friends dying or her friends changing who they are and she cannot recognize them the demon manifests these fears into life in the dream they're not dead but she will be if the demon gets her it's a Master of Disguise this again could be connected with an unknown fear of changelings
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it's a dream demon like the Tantabus and Apple Bloom is trapped in a nightmare it all will end when she wakes up unless the demon gets her the reason why she sees her friend scoots dead and why she can't trust her friend sweetie bell at the is because she has a deeprooted fear in real life like her friends dying or her friends changing who they are and she cannot recognize them the demon manifests these fears into life in the dream they're not dead but she will be if the demon gets her it's a Master of Disguise this again could be connected with an unknown fear of changelings
10194278
very true. sweeties magic color doesn't help matters...
10194278
By the description is most likely a Physical demon, I think it's the new Fiddlesticks from League of Legends by the description, but it could be any other, the ending must be paranoia
Ahh, I think I've read it 3 times now! A nice good dark story with spooky horror thrown in! I kinda like how a bit of it is kinda up to the reader to fill in. Some stories make it too loose and confusing, but this just makes so many interesting ideas of what could have happened! What was dream, what was not, how much was the monster really tormenting AB.. if there was even one at all! dun dun duuun. Good work dude!
Ah, yes, leaving the reader to decide whatever happens next, I love it. Bravo, good sir
The creature has aspects of Freddy Kreuger to him.
You got me to press bruh button on the Desk. Good job
This turned out very well! Glad to have been a part of it.
Damn brony; this is legit. You actually allowed us to us our imagination which feeds our feelings and thoughts rather than telling us everything which makes for good horror story; which 99% of writers doesn't have grasp of nowadays.
I applaud you, sir.
Curses... the imagery was so good I feel physically cold from reading this story...
This might give me nightmares... good job
Glad to see you getting back into things after such a long hiatus.
loved it!
I loved the story.
This piece captures the readers' imagination. At first, the reader is inclined to think that it was a series of bad dreams with different endings. But nope. It somehow managed to perfectly imitate Scootaloo's voice and image in Apple Bloom's dreams, luring her in for the kill. And then, in reality, the same situation unfolds in front of a paranoid Apple Bloom, causing her to run away and abandon her best friend out there, leaving her to freeze to death.
And now it shows up in front of a crushed Apple Bloom, flies away, and now she hears Sweetie Belle's cries.
What is this monster? What are its intentions? How far do its abilities extend? The possibilities are countless, and that's what truly scares the reader. Is any of this even real? Can we be sure that this is not some twisted dream with Apple Bloom trapped in it, doomed to watch her friends die one by one with no capability to do anything about it? Or does this monster exist both in the real world and the dream realm, able to freely navigate both dimensions? Is there more than one of these monsters? Could it be that everypony Apple Bloom knew were in fact monsters in disguise?
The notions themselves are terrifying, and that's what makes this story so great. It reveals enough to stimulate the readers' imagination, but not enough to tell them what this monster is. And thus, a masterpiece that is comparable to the legendary Alien(1979) is here.
I wanted to like this story, but I honestly ended up more confused than anything else. It felt to me like it didn't have an internal logic, like it was just twists for the sake of twists. It seemed like there was a mystery being set up, but then there was no payoff for it. The actual writing quality of the story was good, but I just couldn't get invested.
10204830
Well, it was kind of an up to your interpretation of exactly what the monster was and/or why it was doing what it was doing. I wouldn't call it twists for the sake of twists. They're intended for two horrors: 1. Apple Bloom let her friend freeze to death and she'll have to live with that. 2. Now she's faced with the choice of either letting Sweetie Belle freeze to death, or going out to try to rescue her and getting attacked by the monster. AJ and Big Mac aren't there to help her, so she's on her own. Thanks to the dream and now real life, she knows the outcome of both options. She knows what it's like to be attacked by this thing, and she knows what it's like to have her inaction cause the death of one of her best friends. She's under attack more or less by this demon thing of unknown origins and motivations, beyond psychologically torturing her. The story is largely about the horror of Apple Bloom's unwinnable choices. Very damned if you do, damned if you don't, kind of thing.
Dang! I actually had nightmares the night that I read this... Thanks for that!
In all seriousness, this is top class horror in my opinion. I personally love how much is left up to interpretation regarding the evil in this story. The atmosphere as well is beautifully vivid, to the point where I could feel chills crawling up my spine. You've created something special here, my friend, and it would be my winner if I was a judge.
Amazing work!
That was a fun bit of horror to read late at night before bed.
As for the creature I'm inclined to believe that it is a creature of dreams that causes the first of its victims into sleep walking into deadly situations
and visits its second victim giving them a vision of their death scaring them into not saving the ponies they care for most.
Now the question really is is this creature really only in their nightmares or does it have a physical form as well waiting for the pony to believe that it's simply in their nightmares and act to save the pony they care for only for the vision to fullfill itself... and it feasts.
One of the creepier stories I've read on this site in some time.
Took me back to being a little kid and being scared of random shit knocking on the windows and hearing voices on the wind.
Very sinister atmosphere.
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You can has review!
I now have a fear of dark, snowy nights.
Thank you for that!
Anyways, this story was fantastic!
I grew up watching horror movies, and this reminds me of one I can't remember the name of.
I like that you give the reader a very vague description of the creature, so they can imagine what it looks like themselves.
I also like that you took such a simple concept, and made something worth rereading.
10/10, would recommend!
This story is very well done. Poor Applebloom, getting hit with the one-two combo no-win scenario.
Dang! That was so sad and scary, yet so good! I feel so bad for Apple Bloom, but even more sad for Scoots! An excellent story, really loved it.
This story is truly something, the ending especially so.
Genuinely this scared me so bad I had to keep checking behind me to make sure I was safe, and I read horror novels for fun! I applaud your incredible story!