Blade

Dead silence. A quiet white noise ran on inside Pinkamena’s head as she simply sat in her basement and stared.

On the bolted down table laid Flim and Flam, deader than dodos. Pinkamena could hardly believe there was still blood gushing from Flim. Kanker hadn’t bled so much. She got covered in it when she had unzipped the bag to lay him out. It poured all over her like a morbid water balloon had popped. Her straight flat hair was crusty from what had dried, and it was starting to matte into her coat as well.

Staring, the only thing that she thought about was how much it must have hurt before they died. She knew that she would never know herself and only sat imagining the intensity of the white hot blade severing the nerves and tendons.

She looked down at the knife. It wasn’t Tag anymore. The voice stopped having fun with that character she supposed. The knife, despite being covered in brownish crimson streaks, still shimmered; even in the dim red light of her basement.

She thought back to when her father would strike her. The fear, the awful anticipation of the inbound pain; cowering and clenching her eyes as tight as she could before the hoof collided with wherever it was aimed. She guessed that was what the two bothers had felt while she was raising the knife. Maybe lesser, maybe several billion times worse, but any which way, she hoped they did feel it. She had hated them.

But Pinkamena didn’t know these ponies. She didn’t even know their names for certain. All she knew was that they deserved what she had dealt, and she didn’t think about it anymore than that.

The stench of the brother’s torn open carcasses would have been unbearable to anyone else in the dark red lighted chamber, but Pinkamena hardly noticed at all. Thoughts consumed her, and she wasn’t completely in the basement herself. She was lost in thought.

She had always been taught that murder was the worst possible thing any one soul could possibly ever commit. To take a life away, to end the path of existence before it ended. She had always expected that there would be a great remorse, something so dreadful it would never end. But, she was relieved. Killing these two felt wonderful.

She hadn’t ever killed before.

Kanker doesn’t count. He didn’t have a soul.

Maybe it was good that she didn’t feel anything. Maybe it was a gift.

Maybe she was chosen to do this; rid the world of these disgusting bastards.

The thought comforted her.

Pinkamena sat in her basement and looked at the bodies once more… and smiled.

It was still dim, but brighter than most days in Ponyville during that time of year. There was no snowfall, and only a thin blanket of the stuff covered the streets.

It was that day that Rarity Germane and her construction team were given a landscaping job in the Everwhite. She had punched in and hopped in the scouting cart, driving off with the rest of the team trailing behind with the much heavier equipment.

The team was supposed to level the bottom of a ravine so that it would be safe for the miners to start digging on a hunch they had about diamonds and coal being rich in those parts. Rarity chuckled to herself while she drove toward the site, thinking about how simple minded jewelry collectors must have been.

“It’s shiny, it’s pretty. I’ll give you a thousand bits for that rock!” She mocked jokingly to herself, cruising along the dirt trail.

Rarity could think of a million other things that she would spend a thousand bits on over a dumb rock. She chuckled again, thinking about how stupid ponies would look at the fancy parties in Canterlot, with their enormous hats and trains and buttons and laces.

When the team got to the site, they gathered around the scouter, waiting for instructions from the foreman.

The foreman, a stallion named Winky, had walked to the site himself, wanting to enjoy the trail as he made it to his destination. When he arrived, he rallied the workers and started to speak.

“Alright, listen up.” He began. “Rarity’s gonna start off by inspecting the area and marking any potential hazards.”

Rarity groaned. “Really, do I have to?” She pouted. “It’s always little Rarity doing the inspections. When am I going to get some time with the bulldozer?”

Winky pursed his lips and talked back in a baby voice “Oh, I’m sowwy, Wawity. I fowgot to put you ahead of evewebody ewse.”

The rest of the crew cackled in unison, while Rarity blushed.

“Sorry, your highness. The job you get is the job you fucking get. Didn’t you already learn that shit in preschool?” Winky added.

The crew laughed again. Rarity mumbled under her breath, trying to keep a grin from spreading across her own face.

“After Rarity gives the clear, we’ll be rolling in. It goes without saying that you guys are going to work as fast and efficiently as possible. Are we clear?”

“Crystal!” The crew replied together.

“Damn straight.” Winky said.

Winky turned to Rarity and looked at her with understanding.

“I know I’ve got you doin’ the same shtick every time, but you do it with more care than anybody else on the team.”

“You didn’t need to tell me that, sir.” Rarity quietly beamed back.

“Good to see you know where you stand above this pack of fucksticks.” Winky clowned.

Rarity giggled and started toward the lift.

The bottom of the ravine was rocky, but hardly too much to handle. The cliff sides were solid bedrock, so there were no direct avalanche threats. Everything checked out, except for one thing.

A stink.

It had been floating around the area the whole time she had been down there, and it was not pleasant in the least. It was so awful in fact, that it had distracted Rarity several times.

While it wasn’t a hazard, it was certainly annoying her. She had no idea where it was coming from. Looking around, she couldn’t see any holes in the cliff’s wall that allow a gas leak, so that was less likely than other theories. Rarity knew that if she didn’t know what it was, there was nothing she could do about it. She wouldn’t have that.

Her radio blipped, letting her know that Winky was growing impatient. She had been down in the canyon for nearly an hour and a half. More of that time than one would expect was spent trying to find the source of the stench.

Rarity grabbed her radio and spoke into it.

“Oh, do be patient! I’ll be up soon.”

“What is soon?” Winky asked on the other side.

“There’s this dreadful smell, Winky. A rotting, stinking, awful, awful smell.”

“It’s probably a dead rat or something.” He insisted. “Get your sweet ass back up here!”

“Really, I’ve almost found it. Just shut up and be patient.”

Rarity shut off her radio to avoid any further communication. The stench was growing closer.

Looking ahead, she squinted to see that there was something blackish red painted on some of the more jagged rocks. It looked pasty. Her suspicions were justified when she sniffed the air and found that the smell was much stronger. Rarity dry heaved the second it entered her nostrils.

It was horrible.

When she reached the rocks, she let out an ‘Ah!’; happy that she had discovered the source of the ghastly smell.

But looking a second time, she noticed something. The pasty blackish red substance seemed to be more concentrated on the other side of the rocks.

Rarity would regret deciding to see for herself what the source of the smell was instead of getting back on the lift. She wouldn’t ever forget what she saw when she climbed over the rocks.

When she looked down, for the first few moments, all she saw was a pile of mush. Then, she looked harder.

Her heart nearly stopped when she noticed that inside of the pile were tattered pieces of clothes. Her mouth began to tremble open as she started to notice more and more things about the pile. Every few centimeters, jutting out of the mess, were teeth. She looked up and saw that intestines were hung across the stalagmites like an organic clothes wire. She saw all this without saying  a word. She simply stared.

But what did it wasn’t any of those things. No. What did it was when Rarity looked down and saw Kanker’s surviving eyeball right under her hoof.

Her jaw dropped to the floor as she tried to scream, but all that sounded was a trembling gasp. Her stomach turned when the smell entered her nose again, only this time, Rarity vomited.

Some of the vomit splashed on the eyeball. Rarity must have thought about it too much, because it made her vomit again.

Tears of terror started to fall out of her eyes without consent. She again tried to scream, only able to manage the trembling gasp again.

By then, Winky had finished coming down the lift to bring her back up himself. Winky approached her from behind, shouting.

“Hey! Rarity! This isn’t playtime! Is the quarry safe or what?” He yelled.

No response.

“Rarity!?” He called at her. “Hey! R! You deaf or somethin’?”

When Winky got over the rock to where she was, he saw what she had seen.

Winky also stood silent for a second or two.

“Holy god.” He finally said in a low voice.

He turned to Rarity, now as pale as a bucket.

“Rarity?” He asked calmly. “Rarity?” He repeated.

She finally let it out; An ear-splitting bloodcurdling scream that echoed throughout the canyon. It went on for as long as Rarity’s lungs could allow. And when she couldn’t scream any more… She breathed in and started screaming again.