The Creature
Zipp slowly flipped through each of the pages as she tried to make sense of who the hay wrote it and why. It was clearly the journal of somepony who fell down here. Somepony who would have been starving. Somepony who would have been desperate.
But who?
She looked at the wooden cross that sat at the very base of the cliff face. It was very crude, being only two snapped boards nailed to a third board. On the forwardmost board was a name drawn in white.
ALOE
Judging from the journal, this 'Aloe' had clearly died. Most likely from falling down the hole. But who was this sister of hers?
Zipp pondered this as she stepped over to the makeshift grave. She then took a few steps back as she saw what was very clearly a body. At least, what was left of the body. There was nothing but bone. A rotting, crumbling skeleton the size of herself.
"Shhhheeeebus..."
From this evidence, she deduced that 'Aloe' and her sister had both fallen into this mine. Aloe had died in the fall while her big sister had survived.
She opened the journal again and flipped to the last page. The entire page was crisscrossed with dark black lines, with the faint view of the words "HUNGER HUNGER HUNGER" and "LOTUS".
Lotus. That must have been the name of the other sister.
She smiled. "Aloe and Lotus. Sisters. How fitting."
Aloe and Lotus must have fallen into this mine via unknown means. Aloe died in the fall while Lotus survived. Lotus, after burying Aloe, began to starve. She would have been desperate for something. Anything to eat.
So Lotus had supposedly undug her sister's body and ate either just a part of it or the whole thing. There was no telling due to the skeleton's advanced age.
She couldn't help but wonder what Lotus meant by getting stronger. Sure, eating after weeks of not doing so would make you at least a bit stronger, but the way Lotus had worded it made it seem she became exponentially stronger. As an aside, Cold and Pain don't just "Go away".
She sighed as she strapped the journal to her barrel with an old string of rope. This was a mystery she'd have to solve later. Maybe she'd find something on the computer.
The Pegasus looked out around the cavern, looking at each of the tunnels that Lotus could have gone down. There were seven. Seven tunnels, each with potentially hundreds of different paths.
"Lucky Number Seven, huh..." she slowly said. She then took in a breath. "ECHO!"
"ECHO!"
"ECHO!"
"ECHO!"
"ECHO!"
"ECHO!"
"ECHO!"
Her voice seemed to carry on forever, bouncing off untold numbers of walls and traveling untold miles deeper.
"Lotus was right..." she shivered. "Even someone with ample supplies would've been driven insane trying to find a way out through that system..."
She turned around and looked up at the hole. "And no Earth Pony or Unicorn could have made it up that wall..."
rrrrreeEEEEEe!
Something screeched, causing Zipp to quickly turn around and scan the recesses of the mine.
"What was that? Who's there?" she called out, shivering as her voice echoed deeper and deeper into the caves. "Wow... It's gotta be a whole system..." she whispered.
Suddenly, on the opposite end of the lake, something flashed into view, landing on a rotting wooden platform. Zipp shot onto her hooves and unfurled her wings, feeling her heart rate quicken as she took in the form of the creature. This creature that had an uncanny look of equinity to it.
It stood two heads taller than her, standing on stretched legs and an emaciated body with bones visible under its pallid blue skin. Its eyes were pushed back deep in their sockets and had many layers of crooked, sharp teeth. It had matted fur and chunks of skin and flesh missing. Its barrel was shrunk to the point where she could see its own digestive system. Every tiny movement that occurred within the creature, she could see.
It even had the tiniest traces of once-beautiful light pink hair.
For a second, Zipp stared into the creature's muted blue eyes, momentarily consumed by dread. She took a step back, uttering a word.
"Wendigo..."
Suddenly, the creature-... the Wendigo... started to almost smile. Its-... her mouth broadened as a low growl emanated from what was left of her vocal cords. It continued for a few seconds until it wore this horrible uncanny smile that made a lump form in Zipp's throat.
Suddenly, it screamed. It was a garbled high-pitched scream similar to that of a banshee that threatened to make her ears ring. Before Zipp could fully process it, the thing began diving across the mine at inequine speeds, snapping apart beams of wood as it raced towards her.
"Woah. WOAH WOAHWOAHWOAH!" the Prismatic Pegasus screamed as she flapped her wings, shooting upwards. She looked down to spot the creature scaling the rock wall, screeching and wailing as it bared up at her.
She shot out of the hole and flew as high as she could, staring as the creature made a futile jump at her. She watched as it arced and fell back down into the hole, landing perfectly on all fours before it looked back up at her. The creature stared into her eyes before snarling one last time and diving back into the hole, rapidly descending deeper and deeper into the mines.
"What have you become, Lotus?"
Stats
Page generated in 0.028 seconds
Total duration
1,047 users online
1,958,061 hits today, 2,156,967 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
A tight little bit of darker lore. I only wish it took longer to get there, with more lengthy journal entries at first and getting shorter as the situation becomes more dire.
11267548
Hmmm... Yeah. A longer buildup would have been beneficial. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.
Stupid fucking wendigoes.
Weird and spooky—as a proper horror story should be. Good plot for such a tiny story.
Only real complaint I have is that the following lines were unnecessary and, in fact, somewhat undermined the rest of the chapter and reveal of the monster by telling, not showing:
"How was Lotus getting stronger? How could she no longer feel pain after eating Aloe's body?"
These questions asked of the reader were unnecessary because the reveal of the monster immediately after answers them.
I liked this story. Good job!
Until Dawn. Fucking LOVED that game.
11267575
SAME! Have fun giving it a rewatch!
Dang, this is a good read. Managed to pack a good amount of horror into such a small setup. It’s good!!
11267602
YES! I did good! Thanks!
The pacing is way too fast in my opinion. I love the idea though, horror set underground is always a treat
As others have said very good short story though wished it would have been longer other wise very good horror fic especially for gen 5
Also so that what happens to pony’s if they ate another pony
Is it based on the legend of the wendigo?
I could tell it was a wendigo story from the
beginningtitle👍11267772
Mayyyybe.
11267758
Someone should feed her a Snickers.
..... that hole better be taller than the thing that used to be Lotus can at least reasonably climb.
11268318
...The thing jumped out of the hole as a last futile effort to catch Zipp? Even if the hole was as tall as a skyscraper it could still climb. The thing Lotus is based on can climb practically anything. Especially a rocky surface.
11268355
Point taken...
until dawn, 2015, colorized