I turned back to see that thing gaining ground. It was shrouded in black oily shadows that enveloped everything. I galloped as hard as my hooves would allow.

I wasn’t the only one running, but I was somehow ahead of the pack of terrified sinners. The hill ahead seemed to rise towards the sky, and no matter how much ground I covered, it wasn’t enough to outrun the darkness.

There was a sharp scream. I looked back.

To my horror, the murk had closed in the distance. Black tendrils from its murky depths scooped up any helpless pony in its path. Some managed to wriggle their way out, but it left them with horrible gashes that seemed to fester with something dark and vile. They soon stumbled over, bodies being consumed by something that rotted them from the inside out, turning their flesh into vicious red vile that dripped off their sides. This was soon followed by the sickening stench of festering pus as something sickly off-white flowed from their every orifice. Every nerve in their body screamed for the sweet embrace of oblivion. They prayed for death, but death never came. Instead, it seemed to be the first step into something far worse: a mix of living and dying mass that twisted their once natural features into something beyond words.

The smell; dear Luna, the smell...

One of the tendrils lashed out at me. Instinctively, I managed to duck. I picked up my pace. Fire shot up my thighs as my legs wobbled from the exertion. Still, I couldn’t stop. Stopping meant a fate worse than death.

The screaming suddenly intensified, becoming like screeches from Tartarus itself. They tore at my very being, driving me to the edge of sanity. If Tartarus was indeed a place, it would be here and now.

I gasped with fatigue, my lungs searing and my muscles aching. I looked back to see that thing quickly gaining ground. I tried to hasten the pace, but it only served to turn my already wobbly muscles into jelly.

Suddenly, I felt something grab hold of my right leg. I let out a scream as I felt liquid fire burn deep into the parts of my limb that weren’t protected by the markings.

I looked back at the culprit, my eyes widening at the sight of the creature’s vile tendril as it brought me new kinds of agony, raking at every nerve in my body. But that was only the beginning. The thing quickly yanked me back, dragging me right towards the unfathomable murk.

Several trees and small bushes passed me by, some close enough for me to try and grab a hold of.

I quickly snapped at the first branch I could get my jaw around, halting my movements almost instantly. The thing pulled on my limb harder, causing the branch to stretch beyond anything it was capable of. Still, I bit down as tight as I could.

Then the screams returned, only this time, something else made them. I dared to look down to see the black haze parting ways, revealing a mass of what I can only describe as as a maw of pure debaucherous antipathy and raw rancor, which quickly made its way towards me.

It wasn’t long before the whispering started, chanting words with no meaning. It made my blood run cold as ice and every hair on my head stand on end.

It drew closer and closer, the smell utterly unbearable and the chanting, that horrid god-forsaken chanting caused my mind to writhe in agony. The more I attempted to block it, the more powerful it became.

Then, just when I thought things could not get worse, that... that thing appeared...

It wobbled, twisted, writhed, strode, crawled, and flew forward all the same time. Its body was... the closest thing that comes to mind was a “hypercube,” as it seemed to grow and shrink with every one of its movement, never losing mass, fading in and out of existence. Whatever its “limbs” were supposed to be numbered in the thousands. No, hundreds of thousands. Its maws, of which I counted at least several hundred, dripped with the same oily bile that now tried to crawl up my leg, but was being held back by the intricate symbols I had burned into my skin earlier. Its eyes... thousands upon thousands of them, all staring at me with a mind that was beyond good and evil, right and wrong, sanity and insanity.

Truly, the thing before me was a being not of this world, not of this very reality. Its very existence was an utter affront to every known natural and magical law.

I wanted desperately to scream at the sight of it, but every fiber in my being told me to endure, to keep strong.

Once its eye was on me, The thing suddenly spoke in its foul guttural tongue. In that instant, I lost all rational thought and whimpered pathetically, letting go of the branch, as if some sick part of my being had opted to perish rather than stand against the thing.

I was dragged away in surprising silence, the part of my mind that still responded to instinctual stimuli desperately clawing at the soil with my hooves. It didn’t take long before I was dragged into that unnatural darkness and was consumed whole into some shapeless void.

The thing, with its thousands of eyes and mouths spoke to me in its language. As it did, I could feel my eyes start to become like fire.

Then, it showed me its true face, its true visage.

It was the last thing I ever—

Author's Notes:

First of all, I need to apologize. This has been a long time in the works (due to various reasons that are too long to put here).

At any rate, this is the new first chapter of the story. Enjoy the changes.