Darkest Abyss

by Reizthefakebrony

Prologue part 2: Unexpected Discovery

The night that fell on the Equestria looked more grim and ill than the usual. A violet sky so grim that no pony couldn't even recognize anymore. The moon illuminated the landscape, but its light was more faint than the last time, as if its bright was drained by an invisible parasite. The clouds that were almost covering it were more pale than they should be.

In this cold hour, two pegasi Royal Guards traveled into Ponyville on Celestia's request to investigate the disappearance of Twilight and the other inhabitants. They didn't had any luck in their investigation, until they stumbled into a female earth pony, Boreal Voice, who gave them a weird yet plausible hunch about the disappeared ponies's whereabouts.

Such lead brought the two Royal Guards to a cave located at the base of Canterlot Mountain that, as far as they vowed, wasn't supposed to be there. Initially hesitant, the duo entered in the cave and delved into its darkness. The absence of visibility was mitigate by one of the two wielding the torch with his hooves while flying slightly above the ground.

The more they pressed on, the more the sense of desolation combined with the a sense of descent into unknown depth crawled on their coat. What depths or what lies beneath Canterlot Mountain, they didn't know and didn't cared in that moment. And yet they felt they should.

"Captain Marble Feather, I'm sorry but I have to ask this," One of the two Royal Guard said doubtful. "We are following the lead of an insomniac mare who saw the disappeared pony we are looking for enter this cave, as she was wandering nearby the mountain while damning her health looking for her vanished aunt, two nights ago."

"So what, Volt Ring?" Marble replied almost sternly.

"I am not insulting her," Volt assured.

"Just spit out the question without any pointless detail already." Marble pressed with a calm but stingy tone.

"How do we know that the disappeared ponies are still there?" Volt asked.

"It may be or may not be a conjecture," Marble explained. "But confirm that is also a reason why we are here" He paused, feeling a sense of unusual cold. "Although I don't understand who could even have the idea to dig a cave like this."

Volt paused, seemingly confused. "Are you just doubting the clearly worried mare?"

"Call me cold if you want, but the way she acted seemed a little odd," Marble answered, looking uncertain regarding a thing missing. "The preoccupation was visible in her face but the way she talked... was more calmed and composed."

*CRACK!*

The guards stopped on their tracks upon hearing that sound, with Volt realizing to have stepped on something. And it wasn't something light as a leaf. It felt too dense. And fragmented.

The two lowered their gaze on the ground beneath them, illuminated by the torch. Their blood suddenly froze, wishing to not having saw anything.

Beneath them equine, semi skeletal remains were revealed to them. Remaining bits of decaying, chewed up flesh were attached to the bones. Many pieces of the lower part were missing and a rib cage being pierced by one of their hooves.

"Are those... pony remains?" Marble said gravely.

Freaked out by that realization, Volt hastily pulled out his right hoof off the bones and shook it to get rid of any narrow fragments being attached to it.

Snapping out of his initial shock, Marble regained his composure and slapped Volt in his face. "Don't go full hysteria right now. We shouldn't waste time in that way. Besides, it's really improbable that those remains belong to some of the missing ones, given the circumstances."

Although he looked still disturbed, Volt calmed down a bit. Marble was about to say something, until his gaze fell on something weirdly wrong on the bones. Oddly enough, one of the hooves looked a little bit thorny to be a normal one. He even saw a grotesquely deformed skull of a pony. It looked like an hybrid between a horse and some demon from unspoken myth. Too close to normal pony standard to even talk of deformation.

"Marble, what's wrong?" Volt asked.

"..... Give me a second," Marble replied unconvinced.

Hesitantly, Marble leaned the rest of the remains and examined their strange composition when his attention was caught by a voice suddenly echoing from afar. A voice in the dark.

"Delicious... Del... wait... no..." The voice almost shouted, like protesting. "This is not... right.. Some... pony... please... help me..."

Without saying a word, the two armored pegasi rushed toward where the source came from. They delved even further in the pitch black grotto. The dread felt like waiting for the guards in any corner and they didn't cared in that moment. Getting to the source was their priority.

After what seemed an eternity, they arrived in slightly larger part of the cave, resembling some kind of hallway. The light of their torch was getting weaker, but was enough for the duo to see a pony silhouette laying on the ground. The voice was coming from it before dying off as they ascertained its existence. It was completely immobile. The duo approached the body but froze in the last moment upon getting a clear view of it.

Much to their chilling surprise, that pony was none other than Twilight Sparkle. Her body didn't presented any wound, but she looked like paralyzed and terrified. Her eyes were shut, her mane slightly messy, and her mouth stuck in a seemingly agonized raving.

"Twilight!?" Marble exclaimed. "What the...?"

"What happened to her?" Volt said, more confused than he was before. "Is she still alive?"

Without saying anything, Marble leaned his hoof toward Twilight's hoof, checking every possible pulse he can find. He does the same thing on her neck and then her chest.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Volt exclaimed, looking at him almost disturbed. "What are y-"

"Shut up and let me monitor her own heartbeat" Marble confirmed as he pulled back his hoof. "She is still conscious and breathing... Although her heartbeat was somehow slow. I know that I was checking her heartbeat in that way without any consent, but, do you have any other, similarly tempestive options?"

"...... Legit but the next time warn me before doing that," Volt answered with a bit fed up tone. "At least you didn't had committed any violation or something like that."

"You have to interrupt word stream since I have one more thing to check," Marble said as he leaned his hoof next to the head of the lavender unicorn, with Volt not even bothering to talk back.

Marble opened one of her eyelids, revealing an utterly shrunk pupil, to the point of utter fright. But more than fright there was a bit of strangeness, it was like she was dreaming but without actually sleeping. Narrowing his eyes, he closed the eyelid and turned his head toward Volt.

"You won't believe it but it seems like Twilight was victim of some kind of an hallucination." Marble state doubtlessly.

"But how... Was Twilight drugged?" Volt asked. "How can..."

In one frame of moment their conversation was cut short by a cacophony of wretched sounds. And the blood and mind of the two pegasi Royal Guards chilled nearby what seemed to be sub zero. Fear was grasping their hearts. And their torch finally died off and left the duo and the unconscious Twilight at the mercy of an incoming dread.

It didn't sound like that of woodland creatures, hydras, timberwolves, dragons, chimeras or any other creature met in Equestria.

It didn't belonged to anything that can be considered natural. Guttural roars, raging moans and frenzied screams of fanatical glee and death.

The two pegasi were paralyzed by pure fear, their nerves dreadfully tested, their minds screaming for mercy. Whatever was waiting for them in the path before them was getting more closer. Marble and Volt were already preparing to take Twilight and go the fuck out of the cave.

Twilight's eyelids and mouth suddenly opened, revealing a coil of pure darkness pouring out of her now blackened eyes, her throat and every fiber of her coat.

A coil so intense it became a stream, then became a whirlpool, and finally became an overwhelming filthy maelstrom that covered the entire cave and devoured anything in it's path.

The guards screamed in agony, but their screams then suffocated by the voracious waves of obscurity. Their bodies didn't feel any pain or uneasy feeling from the darkness consuming their bodies.

Yet they could feel they limbs, flesh and sanity being torn apart by that surreal onslaught. The world around them becoming more darker than the cave they were in.

Their mind being consumed by an oblivion, so overwhelming that they forgot about Twilight, what killed them or even who they are before they died.

The whole maelstrom traveled throughout the cave at a very alarming speed, until it came out of the base of Canterlot moutain and spread across the entire Equestria. It then went for the sea and the sky, and grew a sea of fangs and claws made of its wretched material.

In an ark of minutes, the whole world became a very dark parody of its former identity

And with that Equestria fell into a depraved descent into madness.

Comments

[Reizthefakebrony]

11408787
I get that maybe the chapters need some moderate fixing but...

Assistance or gameplan?

I don't know what are you talking.