Dexter's Dark Tales

T H R E E

I stopped running to catch my breath. Perhaps it wasn't the best or most inconspicuous idea to run, but at least I had enough distance that she would not find me. I slowed to a walk through the desolate streets of Ponyville, trying to look as casual as possible while my normally calm and collected brain was twisted and confused trying to figure out these impossible turn of events.

‘How’ and ‘Why?’ were the two most prominent questions in my head. I came up with several reasons as to why she might return home while on her way to a party and plop herself on the couch, but none seemed plausible. Despite my lack of not being a real pony, I knew that was not how ponies were supposed to act. Even if the party had been miraculously called off for some reason, her destination for the evening was ten minutes from here house. To go there and back would be twenty. It was impossible. It didn’t make sense. I don’t like it when things don’t make sense.

It annoyed me. Even Tom’s too-cheery voice would have been a pleasant distraction at this point. I couldn’t harm Burster while she was still technically innocent until guilty in a court of Dexter's Code. I blew a heat of air through my nostrils. Sometimes I wished I didn’t need the code. Just Us, going about, doing as We pleased, doing whatever We want. All that red liquid… Then I realize how stupid that sounds.

All in all, a night well wasted. Damn. Who knows when I would get another chance? I could keep an eye on her from a distance and sneak in when she was out, but... when would that be? And who’s to say it would go smoothly, given how well tonight went? I blew out a deep breath and calmed down. I had lasted this long. Surely-

"Oh! Dexter!"

The sudden cry pierced the silence of night. If I were any other pony, I would have jumped, perhaps in fright. Instead, I turned my head in the direction of my calling. Who would want stupid old Dexter this time of night?

A pony came running up to me. As she got closer, I could see she was a white unicorn with a finely quaffed blue mane. No, it was purple. Oh god. It was her. She trotted up to me a look of sheer desperation and worry.

"Oh Dexter, thank heavens I found you," She spoke to me with an accent I couldn't truly define, but sounded rather high class. A rarity in Ponyville. "I need your help! Sweetie Belle has run away! I fear she has gone off where none return!”

Well now the night was two for two on confusing the hell out of darling little Dexter. A plethora of new questions flooded my poor overworked brain. How did she know my name? Why did she want me? Who was Sweetie Belle? Why on earth should I care?

"Dexter?” she asked, “Are you listening? Sweetie Belle is missing. Will you help me look for her?"

I stared blankly for a second. My gears revved, and my wheels spun, but I went nowhere. "Um, well I ah-" I was really caught off guard.

"Dexter?" she asked, "You do know who I am don't you?"

I had no response. Given all that I knew of her, there would be no polite way to say anything.

She sighed and shook her head. "I'm Rarity. I was at your house warming party last week.”

Who wasn’t?

“I also saw you at the…” She paused and looked down, “ahem… at the-the scene." She spoke with a strained voice. “I'm sorry, I'm not sure if we were ever properly introduced... but I recognized you. You’re with the police, right? I thought I could get your help." She began to sound desperate again.

I shook my head and formed my first coherent sentence: "Calm down. Tell me what happened." Why on earth did I say that?

Ms. Rarity breathed a bit to calm down. “Well, it all started at the… you know.”

I did know what she meant. The Murder. Felt so easy to say. Well, think anyway.

She fought back the tears and continued, “I knew her. Her name was Rainy Day. Oh, despite her name, she was the kindest and sweetest thing. She was a regular at my shop and a very good friend. Ah, she was like an aunt to Sweetie Belle. I can’t understand why anypony…” She went silent again. If she was going to be this touchy with the subject of death, this could take a while. During this pause, a new question rose up from the back: Why was I still listening to her?

“Anyway, when I broke the news to Sweetie Belle, she took it hard. She didn’t believe me at first, but she knew I wasn’t lying. She cried and ran off to the west o Ponyville. I tried to follow her, but, well, I’m not the spry young pony I once was. I lost her just before she ran off into the Everfree forest. I don’t think she even knew where she was going, the poor thing.”

While she explained the situation, I felt the darkness in the back seat grow bored. It growled with hunger. It was feeding time… No. Not yet. But something had to be done. I could not get sidetracked. I tried to decline in a most civil manner.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Rarity. I don't really think I can help. I’m not a cop, just a lab geek."

"Dexter!" she said with a tone of desperation, "Please! I don't know what else to do!"

Call the cops, look for her yourself, ask someone you actually knew... All viable options that apparently did not cross her mind. Why did I have to be the one to help? What was this, a poorly contrived plot point?

It wasn't difficult to appear calm, as none of this really worried me. "Calm down. I'm sure she’s fine. Ponyville's not that bad a place. She’ll be back eventually.”

“Oh, but she’s just a kid! A filly. I can’t imagine she would ever be safe in the Everfree, let alone at this time of night!”

A child. Of course she would have to be a child. Fillies. The only kind of pony I can actually bear. The only pony I would never dare to harm. Now one could be potentially in danger. ...in Ponyville. Those last two words cemented the situation and I made my choice.

“Look. I’m sorry Ms. Rarity, but I really don’t think I can help. I don’t know the Everfree at all. I’d probably get lost, too.” I gave a weak but concerned smile. “Why not ask one of your friends, like Fluttershy?”

Rarity stopped sobbing and went quiet. She slowly looked up at me in disbelief. I sensed her desperation become replaced with anger. “Fluttershy!?” she shouted, “I love her dearly, but she wouldn’t have the guts to go into the Everfee alone, even for this!”

I wondered how much of that would be true, given what I knew about her. Rarity went on, “Really! I don’t believe this. Leaving a damsel in distress and abandoning a poor innocent CHILD to the Everfree! I can’t believe this. Why I never… What kind of heartless pony are you?” She stared me straight in the eye.

The walk to the Everfree forest was a very odd one. It wasn’t odd in the sense that something odd happened. Nothing at all happened, no matter how hard I wished it would. The oddness of the walk was the walk itself. The fact that I was going to actually do this fascinated me.

I could have walked away. I really and very easily could have. This was not my problem and it was certainly no one I knew. It would have taken but a moment to decline again, tell her to get help elsewhere, go home and sleep. Recharge my tactical and logical brain to begin figuring out my own problems regarding Sky Burster. Instead I had chosen to go and help find this missing child. And it wasn’t as though she was kidnapped. There was no psychopathic monster that had taken her and left mysterious clues that only I could decipher, leading me on a grand adventure into his bloody and scary shed woods. She had run away.

But this is what good little ponies do, isn’t it? Help out one another. This was humble Dexter serving his community, becoming known with the locals and offering a hoof to help, instead of feeding the hungry animal within. Despite my sudden out of character moment in such a dire situation, the Dark Passenger was surprisingly silent. Its coldness almost felt real. Like it was mad with me. Was that even possible?

I came to a stop and stood a few feet from the entrance to the forest; the one Rarity had called ‘Everfree’. I drank in the eerie scenery. It looked spooky enough cause worry, but then again, all forests look the same at night. I began by calling out her name; by some miracle I had remembered it.

“Sweetie Belle!” I shouted, cupping my hooves around my mouth. Then I realized it didn’t help as hooves don’t bend that way. I listened; no reply. I shouted a couple more times but got the same response. I stood there, staring into the black forest. Then another thought popped into my head: I could turn back now. I could return to Rarity and tell her I just couldn’t find her friend. I would be right when I told her I couldn’t help, and then all would be right with the world. Save for my original problem. There was no disagreement in the back seat to this plan. I stood silent, pondering what to do. A minute passed. I was still there. Then, just as easily as it would take to leave, I went in.

Well, what the hell? I had already come out this far, might as well take a look around. Who knows, I might get lucky and find her. I went few steps into the forest.

That was all it took.

That was all that we needed before I felt it. I felt something for once. It was then We knew why Rarity had been so worried for her friend’s life, why she didn’t go into here, why nobody ever went into here: The Darkness. The never ending and evil Darkness. Even though We were only a few feet in, We felt endless and empty blackness stretching out all around Us. We drew it all in. Everything evil in this world, everything evil ever knew, was felt in this place. It was this place. Black wings flexed up and out, finally able to stretch. The Dark Passenger roared in pleasure, or what I assumed to be pleasure. I wasn’t sure. It all felt the same. It felt like cold and agony and pain. And it was good. An incredible feeling. However, it was something else entirely; it was nowhere akin to the release of a kill. Yes, a kill. The feeling I get when I murder someone. The blood. The breaking of muscle and tissue. And the screams. I could hear them. Cries of agony and screams like-

“AAAAAAAHHH!”

Like that. I was pulled from my luscious and beautiful trance of the mind. I looked around and found I had wandered deep into the Everfree. A repetition of trees ran in every direction, but only in one of them, I heard it. The unmistakable scream of a mare. I galloped. A few dozen meters of hard running brought me to the source of the sound: another white unicorn. Only this one was backed up against a tree, facing down a large snarling Timberwolf. I had heard of them, but didn’t think they actually existed. Right now, I didn’t think at all. It all was pure instinct. The regular strategizing and logical Dexter was in the passenger’s seat now. I ran full tilt at the Timberwolf. He did not see me, but he sure as hell felt me. My eyes closed as I slammed my full body force against it. When I opened them, the Timberwolf was gone. Where did it go? Looking around and I saw it, or rather half of it, as it was quickly sinking into a large bog I had not seen.

The Timberwolf howled and screeched, trying to escape the swamp. Its trashing about only made it sink in quicker. I saw less and less of it through the darkness, until it disappeared completely with a loud BLORP. Not how I expected my first kill in Ponyville to go.

But it was over. I had control of my body again. I turned back to where the unicorn was, expecting to hear a ‘Thank you, Mister’, or ‘Thank god you decided to save me; you’re my hero!’, or some other form of praise. But instead, she was silent. She was out cold, slumped against the trunk of the tree. I stood for a moment, waiting for my long and deep breaths to stop. I kept looking between her and the bog that had killed the Timberwolf. Had helped me kill the Timberwolf.

There was nothing to say. I looked around and noticed just how much physically darker it was in here than it seemed. We had to go. I nudged my head under her body. I thrust my head under and up, tossing her body onto my back. This kid was heavy. I looked around and realized that even though I had found the kid, I had no idea where I was.

No idea which way was out.

I was lost in the Everfree forest.