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Organised by
RogerDodger
Word limit
400–750
I Regret...
My name: Seal Breaker. I never knew what it meant, and neither did my parents. That's just not how naming ponies works.
My cutie mark: a broken wax seal with a royal insignia on it. I got it when one of the students was passing out chewflower on the playground. I tattled on her, and it appeared.
A royal cutie mark was a big deal. I got to meet the Princess herself. After running some tests on me, she said something bizarre. She asked me to wait as long as possible before getting my Deathcast. Like the Princess "asks" you to do something? I had no choice. I could never get mine.
Stars above, I hated Princess Twilight Sparkle.
Basic history lesson: the Deathcast was invented around a century ago. Once it's cast, you get a whisper in your ear that tells you how you'll die, sometimes with a sense of humor. Like, if it says "drowning", so you move to the desert, maybe you'll fall out of the window while having a nightmare about drowning. There's no way out, you see? At first it was a novelty, but most ponies avoided it because it's pretty damn grim.
A few years later, a foal named First Eye had her Deathcast, and she and her family just disappeared overnight. Princess Twilight (she'd recently assumed the throne of the Three Kingdoms, way back then) immediately made a law that anypony who even thinks about revealing their Deathcast to anypony else, even a spouse, becomes a noncitizen. Sometimes everypony who knows them can disappear, too. From that point on, only adults got the Deathcast.
Ironically, the law made Deathcasting more popular. Ponies quickly split into two groups, the deathers and the undeathers. The deathers were common ponies who wanted to show they were braver than everypony else: most ponies, in other words. The undeathers were nobility, professors, and anyone involved in politics or radio or news. It wasn't legal to discuss the Deathcast if you'd had it, so you had to be an undeather to be a talking head. It became a status symbol in two different directions.
A hundred years later, and little has changed, except radio conspiracy theories are becoming rather dramatic. Supposedly, common folk have stopped breeding almost entirely. My parents were deathers and could never talk to me about that sort of thing, but when they died in a house fire together—I guess they knew it was coming—I no longer had anyone to talk to about anything. I spent all of my time with nobles because of my job, and I hated nobles, so I never had adult friends.
I was taking a midnight walk on a fine Spring evening. A new moon hung in the sky: a big dark circle blotting out stars. I passed my old school, and noticed it was in disrepair. Schools around Equestria were crumbling, and Princess Twilight did nothing. "The Education Princess", yeah right. Just another lousy, lying noble.
I reached Founders' Park, and there were some ponies relaxing. I felt a large spring in my step. I was almost hyperventilating. I stopped at the automated kiosk in the park. Screw the Princess! I was getting my Deathcast, and I was telling everypony.
Inside, it connected me to a mage I couldn't see. I lied about my name, and for a moment I thought they might be reporting me to the authorities. But then, I felt something creeping slowly up my spine, a tickle at my ear like a cupped hoof, and finally, the words:
I emerged from the kiosk and screamed the prediction, but ponies around me were already gasping and looking upwards. Before I could look up, somepony punched me square in the jaw. I lay flat on my back, but it felt like I was floating. The whole sky was pure black, and there were things in the sky that shouldn't be there, like enormous walls of water. A gentle breeze went directly up.
"Why'd you have to end the world, asshole? Don't you regret what you've..." gasped the pony who'd hit me. As the air tore itself from her lungs, the realization hit me harder than she had.
The only way for all the "black hole" predictions to come true, once anypony found out they weren't the only one with that forecast, would be for it to finally arrive.
I opened my mouth to respond. Nothing came out but my final breath.
My cutie mark: a broken wax seal with a royal insignia on it. I got it when one of the students was passing out chewflower on the playground. I tattled on her, and it appeared.
A royal cutie mark was a big deal. I got to meet the Princess herself. After running some tests on me, she said something bizarre. She asked me to wait as long as possible before getting my Deathcast. Like the Princess "asks" you to do something? I had no choice. I could never get mine.
Stars above, I hated Princess Twilight Sparkle.
Basic history lesson: the Deathcast was invented around a century ago. Once it's cast, you get a whisper in your ear that tells you how you'll die, sometimes with a sense of humor. Like, if it says "drowning", so you move to the desert, maybe you'll fall out of the window while having a nightmare about drowning. There's no way out, you see? At first it was a novelty, but most ponies avoided it because it's pretty damn grim.
A few years later, a foal named First Eye had her Deathcast, and she and her family just disappeared overnight. Princess Twilight (she'd recently assumed the throne of the Three Kingdoms, way back then) immediately made a law that anypony who even thinks about revealing their Deathcast to anypony else, even a spouse, becomes a noncitizen. Sometimes everypony who knows them can disappear, too. From that point on, only adults got the Deathcast.
Ironically, the law made Deathcasting more popular. Ponies quickly split into two groups, the deathers and the undeathers. The deathers were common ponies who wanted to show they were braver than everypony else: most ponies, in other words. The undeathers were nobility, professors, and anyone involved in politics or radio or news. It wasn't legal to discuss the Deathcast if you'd had it, so you had to be an undeather to be a talking head. It became a status symbol in two different directions.
A hundred years later, and little has changed, except radio conspiracy theories are becoming rather dramatic. Supposedly, common folk have stopped breeding almost entirely. My parents were deathers and could never talk to me about that sort of thing, but when they died in a house fire together—I guess they knew it was coming—I no longer had anyone to talk to about anything. I spent all of my time with nobles because of my job, and I hated nobles, so I never had adult friends.
I was taking a midnight walk on a fine Spring evening. A new moon hung in the sky: a big dark circle blotting out stars. I passed my old school, and noticed it was in disrepair. Schools around Equestria were crumbling, and Princess Twilight did nothing. "The Education Princess", yeah right. Just another lousy, lying noble.
I reached Founders' Park, and there were some ponies relaxing. I felt a large spring in my step. I was almost hyperventilating. I stopped at the automated kiosk in the park. Screw the Princess! I was getting my Deathcast, and I was telling everypony.
Inside, it connected me to a mage I couldn't see. I lied about my name, and for a moment I thought they might be reporting me to the authorities. But then, I felt something creeping slowly up my spine, a tickle at my ear like a cupped hoof, and finally, the words:
torn asunder by a black hole
I emerged from the kiosk and screamed the prediction, but ponies around me were already gasping and looking upwards. Before I could look up, somepony punched me square in the jaw. I lay flat on my back, but it felt like I was floating. The whole sky was pure black, and there were things in the sky that shouldn't be there, like enormous walls of water. A gentle breeze went directly up.
"Why'd you have to end the world, asshole? Don't you regret what you've..." gasped the pony who'd hit me. As the air tore itself from her lungs, the realization hit me harder than she had.
The only way for all the "black hole" predictions to come true, once anypony found out they weren't the only one with that forecast, would be for it to finally arrive.
I opened my mouth to respond. Nothing came out but my final breath.