Chapter 1
The storm ravaged the night, hiding the moon's virginal glow from it peers of the stars. Ponies below could not care less at the moment. The moon was never more than a thing of beauty. In times of need, ponies found more important things to care about. Things like family. To look in the windows right now you might see older siblings hugging their foals, maybe rocking back and forth in attempt to make the child drift back to sleep. And then a crack would happen and the family would be highlighted in a spotlight of lightning. Of course the foals couldn't sleep and it would be an endless cycle until the storm lay off. Familial concerns weren't the sole thought. Elsewhere in storm's path ponies were scurrying to secure their livelihood.
Perhaps now was the time that introductions were to be made. The storm shook its hand with a personal greeting.
"Ponyville, Equestria. Pop. 500."
In the torrential fight that followed, the wooden five found itself separated from its frame.
"Ponyville, Equestria. Pop. 00."
But that that goes up must come down.
A light flickered as a match struck against the porcelain foot of a bedside lamp. The glow cast a shadow on a revealed pale yellow hoof. And lightning revealed the rest, the form of a half asleep pegasus. Something had woken her up, it sounded as if something had crashed into her roof. She was worried some bird found itself dazed in the storm. So often she found birds injured after a storm, wings broken.
And then the light was gone as a breeze asserted its dominance over a pony’s sole comfort when found alone in a dark corner.
Crackkk.
The lightning from the raging storm struck again with anger, reveling in the sight of the peaceful form whose wish was to sleep in its bed and-
“A ghost!”
Fluttershy tumbled from her bed as she saw the other form at the window. Her hooves shot free from her tangled nest while her body became more cocooned. Thunder cracked and with it Fluttershy got a chance to once more see…
Nothing.
Everything was fine.
Fluttershy doozed off.
Nervous clip clopping filled an air of grunting. The mincing sound was out of place in the busy environment as much as an orange among apples.
"Um...Applejack...?" The voice uttered wasn't much louder than the hooves, as expected when they both belonged to the same pony.
"Not now, Fluttershy. That storm last night did a real number on the farm."
"Oh, I know...just...um..." Fluttershy's words trailed off as her eyes danced across various broken branches and apples, apples that would never get a chance to mature, that littered the ground.
“Spit it out girl, what’s got your wings in a knot,” Applejack looked briefly up from her work as another basket of empty husks was filled, her eyes softer now as she gazed at her friend, “Sorry ‘bout that, guess the storm did a real number on me too.”
“Oh, please don’t apologize, I mean...I’m sorry. I’ll just leave. I can see that you’re very busy,” Fluttershy gulped, “Very, very busy...”
Applejack shifted into a glower, more of her family’s famous stubbornness than anger, for a second before hollering over her shoulder, “Big Mac?”
“Eyup?”
“Ah’ll be right back.”
“Eyuuup.”
“Cover for me?”
“Eyup.”
“Oh, Applejack, you don’t have to-”
“Shot, sugarcube, don’t you go telling me what I can and can’t do. Just ‘cause there’s a lil’ extra work to be had don’t mean I can’t spare a minute for a friend. Ain’t that right, Big Mac?”
“Eyup.”
Applejack lead the timid and clearly shaken mare off to one of the few trees in the orchard that was for all extensive appearances was unharmed. It’s large barrel of a trunk seemed out of place among the more average sized apple trees
“This here was my pappy’s favorite tree. Granny Smith tells us, Big Mac and Ah that is, that he planted it while he was still a blank flank. Planted a good ol’ apple seed. Well, that night one of the cousins on a visit went right on out there and changed that seed,” Applejack let out a hearty laugh, “City folk… the cousin thought he switched it out with a rock. Came back next summer to find my pa with a big ol’ oak tree.”
“Um…Applejack?”
“Not everything,ya see, that ya think happens in the dark of night is what you think, sugarcube,” Applejack shook her head to clear it of lingering thoughts, “I know how those thunderstorms can spook you is what I guess Ah’m trying to say.”
“Oh, Appplejack, I know that...I think. I learned that last time…”
Another chuckle broke through the air.
“How could I forget about that! Your mysterious stalker, the insomniac woodpecker! Did he come a knockin’ last night?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t know…”
Applejack’s face twisted with confusion as she mulled over the words of her friend.
“How are your lil’ critters, Flutttershy? That storm was a real doozy, Ah hope they didn’t get scared too badly.”
“They were.. are… real scared. I couldn’t get any of them to come out this morning. But-”
“But nothing, Flutters. They’re like kids, they’ll be scared and then they’ll forget. Just you see, when you get home, you’re going to be up to your knees in little friends just looking for a snack.”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened with a suddeness and shrunk just as quickly.
“Breakfast!”
“Oh no. No, no, no...How could I be so forgetful,” She stumbled for a second as her hoof shot to her stomach as it burned with a spontaneous burst of searing pain, “Urgggh.” Must be nerves.
Fluttershy found herself slowing to a halt as her stomach grasped for ever growing attention. Grunts of pain devolved into panting and with a start it was all gone. Fluttershy opened her eyes with an uncertain caution, when had she closed them, she wondered though? Her hooves teetered on the edge of the roadside ditch. The sickness, if thats what it was, seemed to be gone now. If anything she only felt the slight pangs of hunger from skipping breakfast. She back pedaled. luck had been on her side it seemed, if she had gone any longer like that she could have ended up…
“I need to be more careful.”
The thought of the pain got whispered away as she remembered her original reason and need for the hurry.
Her hooves struggled over each other, their message confused to the point of just a single word. Hurry. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Her eyes grew even wider as she started to trip. Her throat burned in terror.
No, not just terror. That was just the problem. That tickling feeling of acid crawling, fighting, it's way back to the surface. She could feel a blade of grass stabbing the soft inside flesh. A strand of mucous, yellow drool slipped past Fluttershy's lips as she got her hooves working once more. Even if it was only with the frailty of a newborn, it was enough to get her to the bathroom door.
Thump, thump.
A ringing sound filled her ears. It was threatening to deafen her, neverending, neverending, neverending. Make it stop!
A whimper escaped her lips and the fight within was lost.
It gushed out. Spinach and flowers decorated the porcelain surface of the rounded basin like an artist’s first attempt at notoriety in the modern world. Fluttershy winced as she realized had not been able to lift the lid of the porcelain throne in time and had instead gone straight to her shower. But then another heave threatened its eminent appearance and such concerns were flushed down into the bowels of her mind. Bile surged. Green, yellow, even a smudge of pink, like the twisted colors of herself. Something loosened then, whether it was in her mind, stomach or even somewhere else, she couldn’t tell.
How long was it before her sight once again focused on what she was seeing… Five minutes, ten, fifteen? As she raised a hoof she noticed her fetlocks were spiked every which way and she looked away with an ashamed cringe.
Thump, thump.
Inadvertently her shoulders drew back and her wings tightened, fearful of repeating the whole ordeal again.
Thump, knock.
Knock, knock.
Knock, knock, knock!
But it wasn’t the thumping in her head this time, she realized that as it continued. It was nothing of the sort. The thumping, or more accurately, the knocking came from the door.
The thumping of a very hungry, and very cranky, rabbit.
Fluttershy sighed, relief washing her clean.
“Fluttershy, darling,you look an absolute mess! Whatever happened to you,” Rarity clucked, tongue hitting her pearly whites with a perfectly resonating sound, “You need this spa day more than ever.”
“Rarity…? What are you doing-,” Fluttershy trailed off as the sour taste, a ghost of itself, came rising back, “Here?”
Eyes wider than they normally appeared, she looked around as if seeing Ponyville for the first time.
“Rarity…?” Frailty of china.
“Hmmm…? What is it, dear?”
“Oh, I’m sorry...I just don’t remember how I got here. What were you saying?”
The unicorn whirled around, eyes narrowed, “Are you quite sure you are alright?”
Fluttershy trembled. She was almost certain that she had cleaned up nicely before coming out, “I’m fine…” She didn’t want to worry her friends. She couldn’t disappoint Applejack, her animals never did show back up. She couldn’t disappoint Rarity, she still felt a claw stroking the back of her throat when she spoke.
She couldn’t let them worry, not over her. Everything was fine.
Nothing was outside, after all. She checked when she closed the window.
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” That was believable, “ The storm woke me-”
“Oh, Fluttershy, you don’t have to tell me twice! I know exactly what you mean. I swear, if it weren’t for a heavy dose of-” She paused, “Warmed milk, I wouldn’t have slept at all.”
“You’re right, Rarity. I think, maybe, I mean if that’s alright, I may head back home. I have a lot of mouths to feed,” She lowered her gaze to the ground, mud that was well trodden upon from horse shoes of all sizes and shapes, “I’m sorry if the storm scared you.”
“I’m really sorry…” Fluttershy murmured as she looked into the reflective surface of her mirror.
Once more at home and even more alone, the fear could not be any more palatable on her tongue.
The moon was their hunger, their lust, their very drive in this, the midst of night. But, as any pony educated beyond the third grade will tell you, the moon is far out of reach.
It was misfortune that stated that Fluttershy, surely, was in reach.
Even if it was not the moon, their hunger drove them forth. They can in droves, in hordes but most important they came together as a single herd. An entity that could think together but operate separately. In simpler words you might say this was a danger, perhaps even a deadly danger. But words that simple
hardly cover a shadow's thought. The only words on the subject from Fluttershy were silenced by the most of gags known to ponykind.
Fear.
Fluttershy died first. She died the night of the storm, and while she was a beacon of fear to the denizens of the forest she was only the appetizer that led to the entree, the calamari to the bleu cheese encrusted tofu steak.
It is when you eat for the first time in a long while that you realize just how hungry you can be.