Disclaimer: My Little Pony FiM belongs to Hasbro, Lauren Faust and all the creative team that developed the characters and places involved.

I - The Evil in Their Mouths

"It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil. It's what comes out of their mouths that is." - Paulo Coelho

Thunders sound ominous in the distance; the storm they foretell seems to be of epic proportions. I haven't slept since yesterday, I took care of her and of her injuries and spent all night in vigil to see she was alright. Right now the sun is up, but the stormy clouds dominate the sky above us.

I walk to the window to assess the situation. The clouds have a very dark tonality, and it's coming our way. We will have to stay in the cottage another day or two. It's not safe to travel under this conditions: you can get lost, you can get seriously ill... or you may find things worse.

Because the land once known as Equestria has filled with worse things lately. I have no idea how everything started, I just know it began in more places at once, and almost in the same fashion (I saw some reports on the tv before the national broadcast failed, since then everyone was for himself). It's been not so long since it happened, while she sleeps I can revisit the past days in my mind...

A loud bang was heard over our heads at Canterlot, just like one of those famous Sonic Rainbooms... but there was no Rainbow to be seen.

Instead, a sudden mist materialized all around the city center and began to expand to the surrounding areas. Once it was clear the mist was not going away we decided to leave the city. No word had been heard of the princesses, but we didn't worry too much since the mist was only a nuisance. We got to the streets to follow our way out of the zone... and then we found the problem wasn't the mist but what came within the mist.

The train station was working still, trains moved slowly but they could reach the open field. Hundreds were queing to be evacuated and more arrived by the minute. I have no idea who spotted them first, but I can imagine the scene (since then, it happens always the same).

Surrounded by this thick veil, you hear the trots getting close. You feel comforted you are not alone... and then you notice those trots are odd. They are out of sync, if a pony was walking to that rythm it would mean he has no idea how to walk in four hooves or that he is disabled somehow.

The trots get closer and closer. Then you see the shadow of someone. Then another shadow, and another, here and there (they always come in "packs").

You might want to speak to them, but they never reply; they just walk towards you. Only when they are very close you notice they are not ponies... not anymore.

I mean, they keep their pony form, but that's just it, the form. Their hair has gone white, their eyes look clouded, filled by an opaque liquid that reminds you of the very mist surrounding you.

Their skin has lost its colour (or has gone completely gray... I've noticed those in that state loose slowly their colour until there is this uniform shade of gray).

Once you notice all of this you might want to run, but where? I mean, you can't see a step far from you with the mist. And you might be surrounded without noticing.

That's what happened at the train station: we didn't notice we had been surrounded. We had no idea they were out there until they showed themselves.

Then they attacked.

It was a massacre, we were all piled up in the stations waiting for the trains to move, animals in the slaughter house. There was nowhere to run in that mass.

I was in one of the sides of the station expecting a turn to advance. I saw this gray figures charging from the stations entrance, and jumping over anyone they had close.

Then from the walls of the nighboring buildings and the roofs of the very same place they came upon us like a swarm. I could see then how they had been transformed: somehow those dead eyes were capable of seeing through the mist, they sniff the air (I have no idea if they have sense of smell, but their noses move and seem to be very good picking up scents) and once they locate you they trot and jump (or fly, if they had that ability) to tackle you.

Once you are under them they open their mouth. I read from time to time about the strangest animals of the world, but nothing had prepared me to see that: I saw a teen mare jump over a full grown stallion and then dislodge her jaw to open it as wide as his face.

Inside her mouth, instead of a tongue, there was a kind of crab... it was eliptical, pinkish, with six articulated legs folded into his body. But once the mouth is open the legs spread and it was projected from the mare's mouth, still attached to the remnants of her tongue, into the stallions' (who had it open in surprise).

There was blood coming from the stallion mouth and a muffled scream. He tried to fight back, but just seconds later his eyes "melted" into that rotting gray state.

The mare retracted her extended tongue and the crab pulled the stallions one out of his mouth... there I could see what was happening.

The crab had captured the stallions tongue with his legs and with some kind of neddle extending from the rear of his body it was injecting a small replica of himself into the tongue.

All this lasted less than a minute, but it seemed to extend forever back at the station. The crab let go the tongue and retracted again into the mare's mouth. The stallion fell still to the ground, his tongue still out of his mouth.

I saw how it throbbed and then bursted splatting blood and some juice when the baby crab extended his legs through the muscle. I had no doubt of what I was looking at, but I didn't stay there to see the work of the animal finished.

When I saw the mare sniffing the air I jumped from the plataform into the space behind the train. I fell over the tracks and I ran. I have no idea if they lost track of me with so many victims to chose at the station and in the train. I ran until I found the rocks that signaled I had left Canterlot and I was now in the lands of the mountain.

I have no idea how I did it (and how much time it took me), but by the end of the day I was out in the open again. Full with adrenaline I, somehow, made my way to the valley and the first populated spot I could find.

I just walked into the town, expecting to find another apocalyptic scene. But the town was fine, ponies were still ponies, and they seemed afraid of me.

I don't know what happened next, I gave a couple of steps more and fainted on the spot...

Storms have fascinated mankind since the dawn of time, and I'm not immune to their effects. A scientific article, a personal fetish and the "stormy mood" I'm in gave birth to this piece (I know I am borrowing resources from many different places, but I still felt like telling this story as it came to me).

Hope you have a good time with it.

PS.- For those AJ fans who stumble upon this (and can't live without references of her), she comes up later in the next chapter.