Hatebunny

Everypony thought the Ponyville Hills were pleasant and peaceful. Gentle green slopes rolling all the way to the horizon, with only the odd tree here and there. Angel thought they couldn't be more wrong. It was a featureless, barren savannah, infinite, triumphantly suffocating the land under its monotony, like a large and sadistic bully.

Everywhere Angel looked, it was green. He walked leadenly, not even crying, muttering to himself; now reassuring, now recriminating. He felt the weird mixture of bleak despair and electric anxiety which characterised the peak of self-loathing. His paws were shaking. Every blade of grass, every breath was hateful to him, a personal injury.

He tried to avoid this place, because of the memories. But it didn't matter anymore - his memories were constantly in front of him these days, regardless: eyes open or closed, day or night, everywhere he went. His changeling-aunt's torture. Murdering his changeling-mother. At first, he'd tried to talk about it, but they treated him like he was insane. Then he'd tried to adjust to it, but it was too horrible, too insistent. He couldn't forget, living in the same warren, reminders all around him. Inescapable. Finally, after long months of coldness, distance, and depression, Angel had found his father swinging from a cross-beam. Yet another part of himself had irreparably broken, then, a new depth of pain where he'd assumed there could only be numbness. Seeing his father's bloated face, his bulging eyes, the small pile of droppings on the floor beneath, Angel finally understood: there was no limit to the depth of pain. There was always another layer deeper, another way for the world to hurt you, no matter how much you thought you'd already suffered.

Insensibly, he'd stumbled out and away, going on and on and on, far from home, eventually wandering this forsaken green emptiness. Until Fluttershy had found him, taken him in. For a while, Angel had thought he had outrun the things that had happened to him.

But eventually they'd found him, of course.

Looking back, it should have been obvious. How could anybody have found him out here - a furry little needle in a vast green haystack - unless they were looking, unless they knew? The changelings must have pursued him, just like his memories. Whatever they had wanted, they weren't finished with him. Had Angel ever even known the real Fluttershy? When had the switch happened? Angel had no idea. He didn't care. Whenever the real Fluttershy had gone, the fact remained: she was gone. Whatever imposter was left - the cruel, impatient insectoid in pony's clothing - he could not allow himself to feel anything for it. It wanted his blood. He was almost inclined to allow it. At least everything would stop.

Unless it wanted more than one harvest. Angel's legs trembled as he imagined it and he dropped heavily to his knees on the grass, staring unseeing at the impassive meadows. A lifetime - if you could call it life - of being drained, deep underground in some hive. Darkness and pain, immobilised and gagged by dry, brittle chitin and resinous ichor, the walls pressing close. Angel clamped his paws to his head, but the vision only intensified. His eyes plucked out by razor-sharp mandibles. Eye-sockets and ears filled with earth. A sharp jabbing of a stinger into the soft fur of his exposed torso, again and again. Pungeant goo forced down his throat to keep him alive. Angel screamed in frustration and pain, but only the mild blue sky was there to hear. Why would his brain torture him with this vision? He would do anything to make it go away. Anything to revenge himself on the changelings. Anything to prevent it coming to pass.

Anything.

He straightened, stood up from his kneeling. All the images racing through his head, the pain - it focused, suddenly. They all converged on a single point, overlapping in front of his eyes, forming a single, emergent picture from the chaos, sharp as glass. He knew what he had to do. How to make it stop.

They wanted his blood? Fine. Let them lick it off the floor. But Angel would not bleed alone.

Fluttershy continued to rifle through Angel's room, looking for some clue as to his whereabouts. She was so worried. "It's so unlike him!" she said to herself, "to run away like this, for so long!" She had to find him, bring him home, make sure he was alright. He'd been getting worse recently, withdrawn, afraid, set off by the tiniest thing. She guessed that when he'd accidentally broken the parrot's blood-feather, it had been too much to him. At the time, Fluttershy had tried to reassure him, to calm him and make sure he didn't blame himself or feel too bad. It happened sometimes, even to her, and there had been no lasting harm. But Angel had just given her that look - a look of absolute terror - and run off. She'd looked in all his usual spots, but no Angel. Nopony had seen him. Maybe one of the birds she'd sent out would spot him and let her know. Poor dear. If only he'd stay with her a little longer, Fluttershy was sure that a loving home would make him feel a lot better.

Hoofing through a wooden crate where Angel kept some of the books he enjoyed reading, Fluttershy found something odd. A loose piece of paper, rather old and flimsy, almost falling apart from repeated folding and un-folding. She opened it up carefully and found a short paw-written note, the letters shaky and hasty. It was spattered here and there with droplet-shaped smudges where liquid had made the ink run a little. She read it with difficulty.

It was him, I know it. My little Angel. Nobunny believes me. I didn't, at first, either, when he'd tried to tell me - how could he? How could he have killed her, his own mother? But he did. I've been watching him. I don't know how, but I know. He's paranoid, a fantasist - Angel can't separate reality from the warped nightmares he sometimes tells me about. Ever since the cave-in, he's grown withdrawn, sullen, lashing out at the slightest provocation. Vindictive, bitter, vicious, even. Persecuted and paranoid, living in a weird other-world of things that never happened.

I tried to ignore it, to believe it isn't true. I failed. It's too obvious. My son is a killer. If only I'd listened earlier, my sweet Annabelle might still be alive, and Angel might not be so… deranged.

But I didn't. When he started to say those strange things, after the cave-in, we all just ignored it, laughed it off awkwardly, told him he was wrong. We didn't know how to react. Of course he became secretive after that, when we wouldn't listen. Instead of talking, we forced silence and isolation on him. On a suffering, confused, traumatised young bunny.

My family is gone. My wife… she died, although perhaps with her injuries it was a mercy. My son seems forever broken. And it's my fault. Angel bunny, if you read this, please forgive me. I'm sorry I failed you. Now I can't get through to you, no matter how I try. I think maybe I'm making things worse, a constant reminder that you're a danger to those who love you. Maybe you'll be better off without me around. Maybe somebunny else can give you the kind of love and support you need.

If somebunny else finds this: please, look after my son. But be careful.

Please, Angel bunny, try to find peace, if you can.

In my own way, so will I.

Fluttershy finished reading, tears blurring her vision. One dropped onto the page and she realised what those splotch-marks must be. Oh, what am I going to do? she thought.

Just then, the door to her little cottage creaked open, slowly. Fluttershy started. She heard the sound of light footfalls coming inside, a shuffling pat-pat-pat, like someone walking in a daze. They paused in the front room. Looking around. Thinking.

"A- Angel?" Fluttershy called softly, waveringly, "Angel bunny? Are you home?"

A silence. She watch the door to Angel's room, hyper-alert and stare-eyed with apprehension. The shuffling pat-pat-pat started again, coming closer. A white, furry head appeared around the door. The dead look in his eyes made Fluttershy want to scream.

Yes, Angel bunny was home.