Chapter 1
An orange unicorn named Mellow Bloom walked down a dimly-lit street in the dead of night. Mellow had never been out this late at night, but she had forgotten some important mail back at her plant store. The mare sighed, looking around. Every light in every building she passed was off, and their inhabitants most likely sleeping comfortably in their beds; she couldn't wait to return to her own home and rest up. As Mellow walked along the empty cobblestone street, she looked for constellations in the starry night sky to keep her mind occupied and awake. She didn't know very many, and she couldn't find the two or three that she did know, so Mellow turned her attention back to the few blocks between her and her home. Mellow reached an intersection and looked both ways out of habit. She took one step forward and suddenly she felt a force pull on her horn and left ear. She fell backwards, startled, but before she could scream, some sort of cloth was shoved into her mouth. She still tried screaming as she was dragged into the shadows, unable to see her attacker.
A few minutes later, Mellow found herself bound and gagged in the back of an alley where no one would be able to see what happened to her. She could see the silhouettes of two ponies— a bulky unicorn and a scrawny pegasus— looking at the saddlebag they had taken from Mellow. "What's she got on her?" said a gruff voice that came from the unicorn. "Hm, doesn't look like a lot," said the pegasus. His speech was a bit slurred, but still intimidating. "Just a ring of keys and some financial shit."
The unicorn walked over and examined the key ring. "'Mellow Bloom's Plant Emporium'," he read. "Keep looking; maybe she's one of those ponies who takes cash register money with them when they close up shop." The pegasus nodded and continued opening pockets. The unicorn cantered over to Mellow, who began to grunt and struggle in her bindings. "Hey, calm down, toots," the unicorn said in a tone that was not reassuring, "we ain't gonna hurt you. We're just looking through your stuff..." he kneeled down so Mellow could see his piercing blue eyes, "...then we'll get to the real fun."
Mellow's eyes widened at the implication and she began to struggle more, but the rope was tied too well for her to break free. The unicorn laughed and stood up again. "Well, aren't you excited? Well, until then just sit there and do nothing. Won't be long, I promise!" He winked at the mare as his partner called out claiming he'd found some money. 'Great,' Mellow thought, 'bound and gagged, robbed and soon-to-be raped. What a night out.' She started thinking of some way to get free and away from those thugs. She remembered she had a can of mace and a handgun in her bags. If they didn't find them yet--
"Hey!" said the pegasus. "Looks like she had some pepper spray. Oh, and check out this gun!"
'Crap.'
The unicorn walked over and grabbed them both with his magic, but paying more attention to the handgun. "Hm... not a bad looking gun. And it looks... generally well-maintained. I don't think you'd mind if I-- AAAUUUUGH!!"
The unicorn dropped the mace and gun as he keeled over in pain. As he was examining her gun, Mellow used her own magic to carefully turn the nozzle on the mace towards the unicorn's face, then pressed the trigger. The pegasus flew towards Mellow. Acting quickly, she used her magic to bring her weapons closer to her, then shot the mace at the pegasus when he got close enough. The pegasus tried to dodge the spray, but he crashed into a nearby trash can, spilling its contents which included a broken glass bottle. Mellow pistol-whipped the pegasus to knock him out and give herself some time. She grabbed the bottle with her magic and started cutting the rope with the broken end.
The unicorn had recovered and began charging towards Mellow. She threw the mace can at him, but it missed. The unicorn lunged at her. Panicking she pulled the trigger on the gun.
A thunderous sound came, and the unicorn’s hulking mass landed on Mellow’s body. However, it didn’t move. Mellow felt something wet spill onto her neck. She moved the body off of herself and she saw she had shot the unicorn stallion in the neck. She only used the gun in self-defense; she didn’t mean to, or want to, actually kill him, even if he was going to do terrible things to her…
The Pegasus was still unconscious but there was no way of knowing when he’d come to. Mellow pushed the thought of killing someone aside and returned her attention to freeing herself from the ropes with the shard of glass she had obtained. A rat happened upon the unicorn’s corpse and began to feast on its face. Unable to move, Mellow was forced to watch. Those lifeless yet still piercing blue eyes watched her every move even though its flesh was being eaten. Never blinking, never moving. Just watching. It haunted her--she wished she could look away, to break free from its gaze, but that would not happen until she freed herself.
After an uncertain amount of time passed, Mellow was nearly free-- just a couple more chops before the rope on her rear hooves would break-- when she noticed a stirring nearby. At first, she thought it was the unicorn, but it couldn't have been, since he was dead... The pegasus pony she had knocked out groaned and began to stand up. Mellow quickly finished slicing the ropes, gathered as much of her things as she could, and tried to dash out of the alley, only to have the pegasus catch her tail and drag her back.
The pegasus began beating on the mare, but Mellow fought back, delivering a couple blows to his face to throw him off-balance, then a hard buck to his chest to toss him off. Stumbling backwards, the pegasus landed onto his partner's body. He stumbled onto his hooves, clearly disoriented. “I..I’mma get you… you stupid bitch,” he slurred. Mellow readied herself for his next move when he saw something peculiar about his shadow… it appeared to be rising out of the ground itself. No, it wasn't his shadow. It moved differently than he did. Was there somepony behind the pegasus? There couldn't have been. But the "shadow" also seemed to have a larger build than the pegasus. It stepped forward, and Mellow could see the pale blue eyes behind its half-eaten face staring blankly at her. Protruding its forehead… was a unicorn horn.
The Pegasus noticed Mellow’s distraction and looked behind him to see what the matter was. “Boss?” he gasped. “What happened to your face!?”
The pony responded with naught but a soulless moan, and realizing the opportunity before it, it roared and pinned the Pegasus to the floor. “Wha—hey!” he yelped. “What’s gotten into you!?” He caught the creature’s gaze, and the Pegasus could see it was hungry.
He wasn’t able to react before the pony dug its teeth into his neck, ripping the flesh from the throat. Mellow looked away as the pony’s blood-curdling scream penetrated the thick night air. The screaming died down. She opened one eye to look—she didn’t know why, but she did—and the Pegasus was looking right at her while the creature continued his meal. He was still alive, but he was in no condition to even scream in pain; only to cringe. He reached out a hoof towards her in desperation and mouthed the words: “Help me.”
Mellow started to hyperventilate. She darted her head back and forth, spotting her gun and grabbing it with her magic. She checked to see if it was loaded… it was. She aimed it at the creature’s neck and slowly cocked it. Her aim became shaky… She couldn’t pull the trigger. Fear had overtaken her. Mellow tried to shake the feeling away. This pony was being eaten! She couldn’t just stand by and do nothing! She had to do something…
The Pegasus dropped his hoof as he breathed his last.
The pony creature stopped, finding that his prey was finally dead… and he slowly looked up at Mellow.
She took aim again as the creature stumbled towards her. It was now or never; she had to cast fear away and do what had to be done! She stiffened herself to steady her aim, looking straight at the face of her target. Straight into those hungry, pale blue eyes and the half-eaten flesh…
Mellow Bloom was already a block away from the creature. She had never run so fast in her life. She briefly looked back; the monster seemed to want to go after her, but it looked like it couldn’t run. Thinking she was safe, she stopped to catch her breath under a street light and watched the pony lumber forward. She knew it wouldn't be able to reach her, but she wanted to get home and away from that thing as soon as possible; she had dropped the gun just before she ran, and she wasn't about to run back and get it.
When she regained her strength, she turned away and started a brisk walk. She could hear the pony moan, but she was glad the problem was behind her... But wait... she heard something else... she heard another moaning alongside the other pony. She stopped for a moment to make sure she wasn't hearing things, and she was very hesitant to turn her head around to check. She wanted to be sure it wasn't just her imagination, but if she found it wasn't...
'N-No,' she thought to herself, resisting the urge to turn and still walking forward. 'This didn't happen... this didn't happen...'
Yet the moaning continued. Mellow started panting and sweating again, but then, she heard something else from the other end of the street that struck more fear in her than anything else:
"Hey! What's going on over here!?"
Was another pony over there near those thi-- 'No... that thing... there's only one, there's only one, there's only one...'
Mellow's walking turned into a light run. "No! It's nothing! This didn't happen!" she said to herself.
The moaning turned to growling, and soon after she heard yet another shattering scream. Hyperventilating at the thoughts of what might be happening, she started running faster and faster. "No!!" she yelled, tears welling in her eyes. "THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!!"
Not paying attention to where she was going, Mellow felt her hoof slam against a stone curb. She saw the world fly by and the pavement met her face with a loud thud as a greeting. Her ears rang and her head throbbed from the collision. She was so dizzy, she could not get up, and her vision blurred, but she could see some lights turn on in the house she was lying in front of. Another shape of pale yellow light opened nearby and a figure stepped out, calling out to her. Mellow felt her eyes drooping as her consciousness slipped away. The night's events played back in her mind. The last thing she saw before finally falling into a deep sleep was the sharp glare of the unicorn robber slowly decaying into the blank, hungry gaze of the demon she'd just encountered.
Mellow Bloom jolted awake, gasping for breath as a cold breeze lightly brushed her face. She pulled up the zipper on her sleeping bag and turned towards the campfire. She looked around at the other ponies sleeping around the pit, counting to make sure they were all still there and breathing. Zig Zag was awake since it was his turn on the watch, but he was facing away from her and he was working diligently on a device of his, so he didn't notice Mellow's startled gasp. She let out a sigh, turned over, and tried to go back to sleep.