Twilight again, submitting once more to the writers of Creepyponies: Chilling Tales Submitted by You. Don't let that get you thinking this isn't true though. Now, I don't want to burst anypony's bubble here. So, if you believe in those lost tape urban legends and enjoy living in that world, maybe this isn't for you. Don't get me wrong, I hate it when ponies complain about the "Lack of realism" in youth entertainment. I also believe that foals should believe in things like Hearth Warmer for as long as the world permits, but this, this is different.

Now back in my teen years, when my apprenticeship with Celestia had just started to feel like a more advanced version of a standard school, I met a stallion. His name was Cutboard. He used to cut and edit old VHS tapes. It was his passion. His parents were very rich, richer than mine in fact. He sat around his house cutting tapes, almost never getting any sleep. I'm pretty sure he was autistic, now that I think about it.

It all started when he saw the movie "Tulips and Blackberries" as a colt. If you haven't heard of it, it's a sad and ever-so-slightly psychologically mind-bending movie. To summarize, A filly finds an enchanted rose petal that makes her see the world as though it is out to get her. Basically, I have no idea how his parents let him watch that. I'm about to spoil the ending but it's important. In the end the filly dies of starvation cowering in her basement as she thinks her mother is trying to poison her. So what does this have to do with anything?

Well, Cutboard didn't like the ending. His dad was a wedding photographer and recorder so he showed his son how to operate some of his machines. So Cutboard cut out the ending, replacing it with a happier scene from early in the movie. He watch this tape obsessively, and even into his early teens. He made me watch it. I could picture him as a colt cheering as he made it the way he wanted. I'll admit I was kind of being a bad influence, but I asked if he could do it with other movies. He told me that yes, he could do it with any film. I guess in the time of black and white this seemed a lot more special than nowadays.

Over time, I encouraged him to edit more films, just with different purpose. Instead of whitewashing the scary stuff, I got him to see the full potential of his talent. This went on for a while before I lost interest. It seemed less interesting to me as I was taking my training up a few notches to things that were pretty advanced for someone as young as I was. Meanwhile, he just got more and more involved with the cutting of these tapes. I think his favorites were shows for foals and when Household Times came around, he went crazy. Now it wasn't so much about fixing tapes as it was breaking them in interesting ways. One that sticks out is when he merged an episode of Around The Campfire with a gory old war movie. The camp gets bombed, soldiers invade and everypony dies. He had completely revised his interest and embraced what terrified him. He seemed to be in love with drawn-out sequences with chilling silence. He'd even make me be quiet if one of those scenes was playing.

Now you may have heard of Modern Art. He's a well-known hit-and-run graffiti artist. He sometimes also slips fake tapes into the aisles of music stores. Modern Art had nothing on Cutboard. He would always tell me about how he would swap tapes with his at rental stores, he would then start from scratch with the ones he stole. I tried to get him to stop, but he persisted.

At one point, I hadn't seen him in a while, so I stopped by his parent's house. He was in the storage room. He had set up his own little movie studio, complete with a drawing board. He was actually animating entirely new content. I was blown away by this art skill of his that I hadn't seen until now. I was very concerned. When was he gonna come out of this dark place and start acting normally. Although I might not be the best to comment on that, at least not at the time. So I asked what any foal in their late teens would ask.

"Hey, what's going on with you?"

"Huh?" was his response.

"Some of this is... terrifying."

"It's work, Twilight. I'm working uh... just like anypony else would"

"Are you even selling these anymore, or do you just sneak them into shops? What's this costing your father?"

"Hm... Don't care" I took a glance at what he was drawing.

"Is that a headless body dancing?"

"Yep."

"That's... pretty dark."

"Yeah, I know. That's the point."

"I don't get it."

"Those tapes?" He said, seemingly answering a different question. "Yeah I thought they were wrong but, now that I've had time to think about it, I figured out the truth"

"Uh... Which is?"

"That scary stuff, it's right. Happy endings are the true lie!" I just stood there as he kept drawing, and I could smell sweat coming off of him. Ugh! It wasn't just sweat, but the stench of a moldy, foul jacket. I gave up after that. You know when you look at somepony and realize that they've changed completely and all you can think is "I never thought they were this far gone."

It wasn't until I had lived in Ponyville for 6 years that Cutboard crossed my mind again. I was reading the lost episode collection release of Creepyponies: Chilling Tales Submitted by You. The thing is that I recognized a few of them. I had watched them with Cutboard, and even seen him make a couple. Every unbelievable word, and I believed it because I had seen it for myself. Things like Friendship is Magic: A Documentary (Which I had been in) hadn't come around until long after I made my break with Cutboard, but the style was all to familiar. Even the ones that didn't sound like his work could've been attempts at mimicking his work. He was still doing it!

I called Cutboard's old number. Same as television, telephones had only started to become household in our late teens. It had been a long time, and I was not entirely sure he'd still be living there. It rang for minutes on end and I knew that the search had been worthless. I made it a point to check out his old place, to see if he was still in the storage room, cutting tapes.

I boarded the train for Canterlot the next morning. When I arrived at his house, it was a shell of what it had once been. It was a complete husk with it's peeling paint, crawling vines and shutters just barely hanging on. I wondered why it hadn't been demolished yet. All signs pointed to the fact that nopony had lived there in a long time. I saw a note on the door, but I couldn't read it from the road. I wondered if I could use it to locate Cutboard or see if he had gotten help that I now realize I should've given him. As I expected, the note was about how some bank had acquired the property. It noted that trespassing was highly discouraged. Things made a little more sense. Some company had bought the property but didn't have the heart to tear it down. As I walked back something was still nagging at me. I knew Cutboard's parents kept a spare key under a false rock.

When I grabbed the key, a gnawing, swirling dread filled my stomach. Who had moved out and left everything in place? Not only the spare key but flowerpots and pictures were still there. Hay, Cutboard's rusted out, huffy bike was still laying there. I don't know what I expected to find but using the key I entered the house. The smell was overwhelming. It didn't smell like decay but, and I don't know if this will make any sense to you, but it smelled like electricity. That was the least of my concerns, however. Everything was there just as I had last seen it. The television, that bulky, oversized television set we would all sit around and watch Cutboard's tapes, stood there slightly displaying the bombardment of static. I just grew more uneasy. Every fiber of my body was shouting "Run! Run you moron!" Still I pressed on into cutboard's room.

His room was also abandoned. There were stacks of videotapes, hundreds of videotapes, stale and water-damaged. I wanted to shout for Cutboard and wait for him to appear as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I looked into his parent's bedroom.

There, lying on the bed, were two motionless bodies, gone grey and half turned to dust. I could scarcely believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. Not only were the two bodies dissipating within the confines of their own household, but nopony had even checked on them! I was the first to discover this! My mind raced. My heart raced. The only thing that wouldn't move were my hooves, which remained glued to the spot.

I thought Cutboard must've done this. There was no way the two of them would just lie down at night and then simultaneously die of natural causes. Cutboard had said that he didn't care about his parents. Once I left the room, I tried to magically contact the police. But once I started, a piercing shriek of interference filled my ears. I stopped and tried the phone in their kitchen. Even louder static spewed from it. It wasn't until I put the receiver back down that I heard it.

Music. Faint, barely audible music. I hadn't noticed before but it seemed to be repeating a melody, happy and light. I followed the peppy tune to the door to the storage room, pressing my ear against the door's surface. I'm sure the music was coming from just behind the door.

"Cutboard?" I managed to get out and formed the name with my cold, bloodless lips.

"Cutboard? Are you there? Are you alright?" It reached nopony. Not that it really mattered as one weak buck knocked the rotting wood off it's rusty hinges. Through the localized dust storm I had created, I could only barely see a TV emanating the bright colors of green, blue and yellow. I could make out a cartoon on the screen and silver wires running from the set itself to a dark mass. And then, the dark mass took shape as my eyes adjusted to the strange lighting. It was Cutboard, or rather his body. He was not dead nearly as long as his parents. He sat in an old office chair, the silver wires from the television running into his body through a small hole in his stomach. I walked towards Cutboard. His face was twisted into a hideous wide grin.

"Hi there!" I heard in a jarring voice. The voice sounded happy and optimistic. It sounded almost like Cutboard but more cartoonish. I turned to the screen. The green grass, blue sky and yellow flowers. Cutboard, a perfect animated copy of him, frolicked among them on an infinite loop of a Ponyville background. It waved to me! Cutboard! Oh Celestia, Cutboard! He turned away from me and continued to stroll along the unending cycle of the backdrop. He passed a shrub then passed it again and again and again. The same bird chirping happily as it flew through the sky in a figure eight motion.

"Cutboard, oh Celestia. I should have never let you leave reality." I thought about what Cutboard had done to his mom and dad and how it had begun. Then I unplugged the TV set.