BUCK

Her mane and eyes were both blonde, and her coat was purple-ish gray. That’s all Big Mac knew. Not enough to fully justify what he was doing, but it had to be done. He had to be firm and clear. And it didn’t get more firm than this.

Breaking into the post office was easy: as it turns out, the backdoor didn’t have a lock on it. The stallion wore sack-cloth bags on his hooves to minimize noise. He had practiced a lot on the grass at Sweet Apple Acres, but he was nervous as to how well it would hold up to the wood at the post office.

The door didn’t creak. The red bucking pony crept out through the hallway, and past the doors to Derpy’s room and the mail room, which was vacant because it was after hours. He began to almost trot up the stairs, making sure to be light on his hooves and keep his breathing down. One of the steps creaked, and he stood still for a while, listening intently. Thankfully, Derpy didn’t realize and Big Macintosh continued up the stairs to Dinky’s room.

He was lucky: Her door didn’t creak either. He reached into one of his sack cloth horse shoes and pulled out a small pill. It was some tranquilizer he got off of Pinkie Pie.

Taking a quick scan across the room, he quickly placed the sleeping filly, who lay face-up in her bed. He tip-hoofed across the floor, steps being muffled by the room’s carpet. He gazed upon the foal for a minute, waiting for her small mouth to open. Once it did, he dropped the pill, no smaller than a child’s candy, straight down her gullet.

Not a few moments later, the red stallion exited the backdoor of the Post Office, Dinky Hooves straddling his back. He snuck off into the woods, skulking back across town, confident in the darkness’ cloak.

* *

Dinky awoke, but was not awake. Yes, her body couldn’t sleep anymore, but she wasn’t quite aware of reality. Her vision played tricks on her, filling her view with static until a head rush subsided. Afterwards, her eyes slowly emptied, and focused back into a binocular position; a luxury she regularly tresured.

Everything was still black, though. Why was her room black. What’s that red streak.

“Took ya’ long enough.”

The filly turned her head. There was a grown, red stallion with a green apple cutie mark. “...Who... are yuh.. you?” Dinky wanted to ask twelve questions, but only this one left her now thick, spongy mind.

Big Mac took a moment to collect himself for his explanation. A deep breath was taken. “Look, kid. Ya’ probably don’t know me, but ya’ aughtta know a pony named Cheerilee, don’cha?”

Dinky registered Ms. Cheerilee’s image immediately, but couldn’t verbally or physically confirm it. Suddenly she remembered her limbs, and they were tied.

“...Eyyup. Figured. Thought ya’ll might be a bit slow, yer’ mother consider’d.”

The insult flew right over her head. “... muh...mmee..”

“‘Yup. Ya’ll juss’ keep on doin’ that there. Juss’ know that Big Mac ain’t doin’ this onna ‘count ‘a somethin’ ya’ did. This’s Ms. Cheerilee’s fault.”

“...But... what... uhhmmm... my hooves...” Everything grew just a little clearer.

“Cheerilee reckon’d she could play me. Well, ya’ can’t pull a fast one on ol’ Big Maintosh, can ya’? It always comes back ta’ me. Ah’m a versatile ol’ steed. ‘N you juss’ remember that in a few seconds, okay?”

The filly couldn’t move. “Oh... ka... uh-, umm...” Trees. She was in a forrest. Apple trees. Sweet Apple Acres.

Send help to Sweet Apple Acres.

Big Macintosh streaked across to Dinky’s other side, leaving behind astral projections that confused the filly’s vision. He grabbed a knife, then backed to a spot directly in front of his captive.

Dinky saw the gleaming metal in the mysterious stallion’s mouth. Staring for a few minutes, she eventually recognized the danger of it. She began to let out gasps and squeals, pulling against the ropes and scratching her back and flanks against the apple tree which suspended her.

Big Mac spat the knife out into his hoof. “Now calm down, ah ain’t even done nothin’ to ya yet. This won’t take long, Ah just need a few things.” He inched closer. “Now, Ah’d ‘a just killed ya in yer’ sleep, but... well, Ah don’t see no harm in pretendin’ yer’ Apple Bloom, if yer’ goin’ out anyways.”

“Buh.. I.. d-, don’t do any-..! I don’t wanna...!”

Big Mac held the knife up to Dinky Hoove’s stomach, and brought the edge down at her bottom rib. “Ah’ll need this,” he uttered.

The knife pressured into her coat until skin was broken and blood spewed forth.

Dinky Hooves immediately screamed, with all the force her lungs could bring forth in her child-like terror, “Ahhh! Wuh, wha! Wait! I don-, ahh ha haa!!!” She began to sob immensely.

With the sound of a chalkboard scratch., Big Mac’s blade glided across her midsection, then hovered back over to where the incision was first made to slide along again. It was like the world’s longest paper cut, repeating and repeating. This went on through Dinky’s sobs and cries, unending, for almost ten minutes.

A big rip was heard on the final stroke. The knife tore through the surface of Dinky’d skin, thus ending the shave and creating a long strip of purple-gray-coated flesh.

Dinky’s cries remained, but were eased by the thought of the pain finally ceasing. “Ahh, ughh...! Ughhh!” She quieted down to muffled moans, shivers, and deep breathing.

“Hmm. Now that’s a fine pity. Ah was expectin’ somethin’ a might longer an’ that,” puzzled Big Macintosh, inspecting the strip. He looked to Dinky and, without warning, laid the rough shape over her face; bloody side-down.

Dinky began to cry harder again. Where was this strange red pony now? Was he going to let her get down from this tree? Where is mommy?

As the unicorn pondered her fate, the weight of two hooves smashed into her midsection from the undefined space in front of her. The flesh covering her face shook from it, showing it to be blood-stained. Her lungs emptied of air, and she began to gag on her own blood.

Choking and trying to fall back into normal breathing rhythm, her eyes focused again on the red figure’s hind legs, already reared for another kick.

“Nyaah! No!” she managed to half-scream, amongst other sobs.

Buck.

Drops of blood and speckles of vomit shot forth from the little pony’s mouth. “*Gagck*! Ah haahhh!” The crying continued, but in the deep apple woods, it wasn’t heard by anypony. Dinky hooves emptied her bladder in a short, forced spit; then a steady, fear-driven pace.

Another buck came. This one more upwards-driven, the back of Big Mack’s hoof just scraping the bottom of Dinky’s jaw bone. Cracking ribs echoed throughout the mare’s body.

Big Mac bucked a few more times and turned to observe his shriveling, sobbing, choking handiwork.

Gagging a few times, Dinky Hooves breathed deeply to regain lost oxygen. “Ah ha haahh! *Gagck*! Please, n-, nuh-.. Ahh..! I duh-, don’t wannaahh...!” Dinky tried desperately to calm down while Big Mac took a lull in his carnage.

Big Macintosh’s bucking had left his Apple Bloom’s stomach covered in scrapes and dark, horseshoe-shaped bruises. At a glance, he estimated that he’d broken around five ribs. Her back legs were stained with embarrassing things that her fear brought forth, and her jaw was hanging a little more to the right than was normal. He looked on for a few moments until the filly fell into a nerve-racked quietness.

Dinky woke up her courage and rose above her confusion and pain. With heartbreak and hopelessness in her voice, she spoke, “Puh... Ahhh hah..! *Gagck*... P-, please, I juh-, j-just wah... *Gag, sputter*.. c-, can I... see my muhh-... mumm-, mee?”

Big Mac looked on her with sorry thrills in his eyes. “Sorry, sis. Ah need one more thing.”

He picked the knife up off the ground and rose it to Dinky Hooves’ face. Immediately, screams begin. The red pony tensed his face as he turned the knife down in her and began to point it toward the edge of her right eye.

Through her screams, Dinky manages to make out the words, “Mommy” and “Die”.

The sharp, cold metal pierced her flesh as it dug between her eye and the walls of her eye socket. Big Macintosh wiggled the knife a bit to help it cut through the mucus-lining. Dinky felt the knife pushing into her inner nostrils, and she felt a “crack” from the bridge of her nose. Once the knife was in far enough, Big Mac turned it leftward, digging her eye slightly out of its socket. Dinky Hooves tried desperately to close her eyelids with all the force she could, but the knife cut into them as she pulled them down. Closing her eyes would only draw this out.

Through her screams, Dinky manages to say, “Why?” and “Mommy”.

Big Mac pulled the knife back, drawing the eye out from his Apple Bloom’s skull. It was beautiful; Deep golden yellow, like her mo- no. Apple Bloom’s eyes aren’t yellow.

The red pony ended his notion of savoring the moment and pulled the knife back, ripping the eyeball out of Dinky. A quick swivel motion cut the ocular nerve that was still connected and stretching from her head to the eye. Big Mac tossed the eye away and looked down at the still squirming, sobbing, and screaming filly.

“Nyaaahhh! Muh-, Muhh!”

With a singular motion and a heart of ice, Big Macintosh drove the knife into Dinky’s empty eye socket and silenced her screaming. She immediately grew still, free of her misery. The red pony stood there for the next few moments, paying respects to Dinky’s lifeless form and silently thanking it.
He realized the gravity of his actions. He had killed Dinky Hooves. He couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t let himself kill Cheerilee.

Of course, he had always meant to kill Dinky, as he had no other choice, but in his final blow, he felt something inside himself. A driving passion; a frustration. This was something to be wary about.

Late in the night, the faint figure of Big Macintosh could be made out, dragging the lifeless Dinky Hooves to a shed behind the Apple family home, taking care with her dead stomach skin and eye.