Grim

[Ziggy + Angel + Rain 11,298]

A friend gave me the idea of trapping a certain kind of fanfic author in a story of their own, and this is what I ended up writing (it never exceeds a "teen" rating, I assure you):

 

Grim
by Siegfried Danzinger

-Part One-

Perry was an MLP fanfic author.  He liked nothing more than plucking beloved characters from his favorite series and depositing them in absurdly violent and incongruously horrific situations.  Authoring a fundamentally original work was simply out of the question; he wouldn't derive anywhere near the emotional satisfaction from mutilating characters of his own creation.

Perry was working on a new piece.  Perhaps something involving the CMC; he wasn't yet decided on the victims.  "The filly wandered into the forest," he typed.  He stopped to consider.  "The filly wandered into the dark forest."  Hideous things seldom happened in broad daylight.

The filly wandered into the dark forest.

The twenty-something pony enthusiast coaxed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one pale finger and leaned back in his chair with an audible squeak.  "What happens now?"  He said aloud.  "Atmosphere.  Have to establish atmosphere."

The filly wandered into the dark forest.  The branches of the trees seemed to have a life of their own as they swayed in the foul breeze.

A branch scraped noisily against the window of the writer's room, and a draft swept over the man as his right ring finger completed the sentence.  Perry abandoned his comfortable chair with a muttered curse word and headed towards the window.  Closed.  "Great.  Something's wrong with the heat again," he told himself.

Shakily, she held up a lantern against the gloom; casting feeble light-

The lights dimmed; flickered.  Perry spun around in his chair and swore at no one in particular.  "There isn't even a storm," observed the author.  As if responding to his complaint, the lights were suddenly restored.  "Fine."  Perry returned his attention to the computer screen; it had apparently turned off.  His forefinger searched for the power button.

"Ow!"  The exploring finger went quickly into his mouth.  "The hell?"  Perry withdrew the plump digit and examined it.  Blood.  Not much.  But any blood was more than he would have expected.  "Why am I-"

The computer screen blinked on:

The man wandered into the dark forest.  The branches of the trees seemed to have a life of their own as they swayed in the foul breeze.

Shakily, he held up a lantern against the gloom; casting feeble light onto a patch of peeling, rotted bark.  From nearby there came a sound.  Afraid but curious, he leaned in closer.

It was then that the lantern's light died.

The lights went out in Perry's room; though the computer screen remained lit.

A scratching.  A terrible scratching; it sounded as though it were in his skull.  A wooden, tortured groan that emanated from just in front of him.

"What...  I don't understand."

Perry was confused.

"I'm not typing this!"

He'd lost control.

In his eagerness to move away from the screen, Perry leaned back too far and toppled over in his chair.  He floundered on the floor for a few moments; his fingers dragging against the cold-

"Dirt?  Ground?"  Perry got to his knees and closed his fingers over a handful of damp earth.

Scratching, scratching.  Moaning.  Creaking.

"Let me wake up now," the man pleaded as he absent-mindedly smeared dirt onto his lens with trembling fingers.  "I'm asleep."

Another sound.  A louder and all the more disconcerting sound.  Like thick roots being torn out of the ground with a shrieking, wordless rage.

He struggled to his feet, "I'm dreaming."

He wasn't dreaming.

"I'll wake up any moment now."

Perry wouldn't wake from this nightmare.

Something vaguely resembling a tentacle lashed out at him from the dark; wrapping tight around his leg with a whip-like snap.  His limb was pulled out from under him, and the back of his head was slammed to the ground with such force that the once-black world was suddenly swimming with blinking white spots.

A heavy branch crashed down right beside him; its fetid bark scraping against the sweaty, exposed flesh of his face.  Perry yelped and clapped a dirty hand over the wound.  Something like a gnarled hand - but much larger and covered in hard, leafy barbs - closed around Perry's skull.  Scratching, scratching.  Perry screamed.  Tried to scream.  Moaning, shrieking.  Who was shrieking?  Who was-

Perry awoke on the floor of his room.  He was dazed.  Trembling.  Cold sweat clung to his skin.  He had apparently lost control of his bladder.  "Why am I..."  He slowly picked himself up and turned towards the computer screen.  It was on.  The author stumbled over his chair in the dark; landing hard on his forearms against the unforgiving surface of his computer desk.

Maybe, it read, we can do this again sometime.

Perry.

Perry.

PerryPerry.

PerryperryPerryPERRYperry.

[Ziggy + Angel + Rain 11,298]

- Part Two -

 

A few anxiety-filled weeks had passed following the incident, and Perry hadn't suffered anything like it since.  "Maybe we can do it again sometime," he remembered with a shudder.  "Again."

After he'd read those ominous words, Perry had screamed incoherently and grabbed the cord of the multi-outlet strip that powered his computer; tugging it violently out of the wall.  The man had stood there panting in the dark and questioning his own sanity.

But it had been weeks.  Not good weeks.  Not soothing weeks during which to convalesce.  But time had gone by, and Perry was starting to wonder if he'd simply imagined it.

He only shook a little when he plugged the strip back into the wall outlet.

"Okay.  I'm okay."  Perry started to feel a little silly.  "What was I even afraid of?"  There was a logical explanation; there's always a logical explanation.  His mouse glided over the mousepad as the cursor flirted with a few desktop icons.

And stopped.

Perry rapidly slid the mouse back and forth; his palm soon becoming sweaty.  What would ordinarily be the source of only mild frustration was, instead, causing the man to hyperventilate.

"Wait," Perry said to himself as he removed his glasses and introduced their lenses to the fabric of his overstretched t-shirt.  "This is," he fought for breath and calm, "a simple fix."  He steadied his trembling off hand and reached behind his computer; capturing the cord between two uncertain fingers.  Out and in.  He tried the mouse again: It was functioning normally.

"I knew it," they were less words than they were a mere exhalation of breath.  Perry allowed himself a brief chuckle.

It was all he had time for.

The mouse cursor shot across the screen of its own volition; delving into "My Fanfics" and opening a dozen documents in the space of a few seconds.  Most of the pieces were too quickly obscured for him to identify, but the last - the one that stared him in the face - was a fic he'd written featuring Mane-iac.  He had been especially proud of this story; a story wherein the cackling villainess had managed to find her way into Equestria proper.  Perry had unreservedly enjoyed having her indiscriminately terrorize any pony unlucky enough to set hoof in her path.

The little vertical cursor blinked just beneath "The End" in the final document.  The words appeared: Perry pErry pERRY.  You aren't having fun.  Why aren't you?

I'll show you.

peRRy.

pErrY.  Why aRen't YOu?

I'll show you how.

Laughter echoed from his computer speakers; resolving in something like nails dragged mercilessly across the surface of a chalkboard.  No: More like the crunching of metal.  An automobile being flattened in a compactor.

Perry, to his credit, managed to stand on two worthless legs that were shaking quicker than his teeth were chattering.  Another metallic screeching; a green, triangular object pierced through the wall behind his computer desk and swam through the wallpaper like an approaching shark fin.

Another, identical object.

And another.

Ten of them; possibly more.  Perry was in no condition to count.  Breathing, in and of itself, had become a chore.  "Run," he said to his legs in between the desperate, dry gasps.  "Turn.  Run.  Please."

"Please!" screamed a mocking voice; as though it had no understanding of the word.  "PLEASE!"

The impossible wall-swimmers shot violently outward in unison; revealing themselves to be but mere tips of much longer, mold-green tendrils.  Exposed, the seeming-appendages began to move independently.  Some writhed in place or wound about one another.  Others behaved like blind, quiet snakes; occasionally striking out at the air with the speed of precise whips.

"I remember 'please.'  I remember the cries for mercy."  The voice continued.  "But I gave them none.  It wasn't my fault!  I swear!  I had no choice in the matter.  Did I..."

The world blinked out like a dying light in a storm and was replaced by a darkness both impenetrable and complete.  An eternity later, an immense purple face with green and pink eyes loomed over the shivering man below; its dark green locks danced and quivered about it unpredictably as the head slowly lowered towards the panicked and feeble human figure.

"Did I, Perry?"  Her mouth was a terrible mass of razor sharp, dripping teeth; steam-hot breath flowed over Perry's face and instantly fogged his glasses.  A small mercy, perhaps: The man couldn't see what came next.

The convulsing green tentacles surrounded the terrified author and slid around him like intelligent lengths of rope.  They squeezed him hard; his lungs forfeited the last bit of breath in a strangled whimper.

"Please."

You dare say "please."

[4HFan 476]

I like where this is going! Keep up the good work!