FimFiction Link - Short ID: 506078/it-tolls-for-thee
Published: Oct '21
'It Tolls For Thee' is a two thousand and five hundred-word horror oneshot, in which Sunny, with the rest of her friends, rings Grogar's Bell in an attempt to hold a seance with her father. Of course, because this is a horror fic, things go awry and Sunny accidentally summons the zombified versions of both old-Equestria's alicorns, - whom fly off to destroy Maretime Bay, - and her own father, who assaults her and the two are knocked down a cliff, falling to their death.
As with many previous stories, I like the concept, the misuse of magical artifacts is a good premise. The way the sky turns black and the M5 find themselves disoriented is also described pretty well.
However, the story whizzes by so fast that the death of multiple members of the group and even the implied end of the world hardly registers in the reader as the fic suddenly just ends. I feel like the fic's horror elements would have been far more impactful if either the story had a slow-boiling climax or, at the very least, if the deaths didn't all happen "off-screen." The harshest injury we see in the fic is Sunny's leg dislocating, which is painful sure, but in terms of what can end up in a horror-fic, it is still very tame. Even if you don't want Cupcakes-levels of gore, you can still at least describe the characters seeing dead bodies. It's like the author was worried of portraying death and blood, even though they have no qualms with putting rotting, half-maimed zombies in the story.
Overall: 3/10 It's not the worst fic I've read, but it sadly isn't interesting enough to get a better score.