Home Is Where The Heart Is

Oh, fuck. What have I done?

I was just driving, that’s it. Driving down the same road through the woods, like I do every day. I wasn’t drunk, never. I was just driving, and maybe the headlights of my car was a bit weaker that night? Maybe there was some fog, I don’t know!

I was just driving, minding my own business, listening to some late night radio show. I didn’t know what would happen, honest! And if I did, I wouldn’t even have gotten in the car in the first place.

But it happened anyway. Fuck. Just out of nowhere. She came out of nowhere. I mean, why would there be a person in the middle of the road in the middle of a pitch-fucking-black forest at night? It’s not something you’d expect.

Like a deer in the headlights. I don’t know what she was doing or why she was there, and maybe it doesn’t even matter now. It happened to fast; I didn’t even have time to push the brakes.

The car just slammed right into her. I’ll never forget that, I could feel the entire crash in my spine.

I did brake, but too late, and once I stopped she was already down and I just rushed out of the car towards her hoping that she would be alright. And when I got to her, I just… I lost it.

Oh, fuck. Shit, fucking fuck! Holy hell, her face! It wasn’t a face at all, it was just a red mess, I-!

Right, nobody panic. Stay calm. Still, I think I have the right to panic, wouldn’t you agree? Do you have any fucking idea how disgustingly terrible it feels to look down at a dead body and know that you caused that shit? Do you?

So yeah, I panicked. I completely lost it, went ape-shit. And instead of thinking like a rational human being and calling the cops, you know what I did? I grabbed her and pulled her into the goddamned woods, dumped her there and covered her up with leaves! I mean, who the hell does that? Serial killers, that’s who!

Then I got back into my car and hurried back home as fast as I could, and then I made myself at home inside a bottle of rum. Hey, I said I wasn’t drunk when I hit her, not afterwards! I killed someone, I needed that drink and nobody could stop me. I had to get pissed as hell, end of story.

But all that damned booze did was make me feel more guilty and paranoid and more like a psychotic fucking shithead who didn’t deserve to breathe, I-!

I went back for her. Yeah, that time I was drunk, but at least I didn’t cause any accidents or deaths that time. I brought an old rug from my garage and several trash bags. You know those big, black ones that murderers always stuff their victims in? Yeah, those bags. Doesn’t really help my case, but whatever.

I managed to find her again, but it was difficult and it took me a long while, that’s for sure. I dug her out of the leaves, and picked her up but dropped her again, almost threw up in the process. Like… when I was a kid I had this dog, a Retriever, yeah. And when he died I buried him myself, and there was this thing with his stomach, this… lump.

Yeah, all of his inner organs and shit clumped together. It was fucking disgusting, and… and she was like that too, man. It was horrible feeling that fucking lump. Yes, I did throw up later when I picked her up again. I held it back the first try, but then I just thought ‘fuck it’, and that’s what I did.

Wrapped her in the plastic bags, then rolled her up in the rug, carried her to my car. I think I had a fucking stroke when I was stuffing her into the trunk; I was shaking so badly I couldn’t even get a good grip on her.

So I got in my car and drove back home, shaking like… I don’t know, a popcorn machine? A popcorn machine inside a fucking tornado? Yeah, that sounds about right. How the hell I managed to stay on the road, I don’t know, but I did.

I hoisted her out of the trunk and carried her through my house into the backyard. Now she’s gone, and a fresh pile of dirt is in my yard.

Well, what was I supposed to do? I was drunk and terrified, at the time I thought it was the best thing to do! I just kept pacing back and forth all night, looking through the windows and just waiting for the cops to bash down my door and shove a baton up my ass or something. Like I said, I was drunk as all hell, not thinking rationally.

So you know what I did? I sat down and tried to focus on something else, something to take my mind of the hole in my yard. So, I, uh... this is a bit embarrassing, to be honest, but what the hell? I mean, I’ve just confessed to having a body in my backyard, for crying out loud!

I started watching My Little Pony.

You heard of it? You have, right. Yes, I’m one of those people.

A new episode had just come out, so I thought I could watch it to relax, you know? But something was odd the moment the damn thing started. Even the name was odd. The Missing Mare. Mare. You know, a female horse? Or pony, in this case.

And the episode felt weird too, like I wasn’t even watching the same show. The colours somehow felt... off? I don’t know, something was wrong anyway. One of the Mane Six had apparently gone missing, and the other five tried to find her, but they just couldn’t. It was like she had been erased from existence or some shit like that. Voodoo or whatever.

That’s when I started thinking. That lady I hit, she’d been very… light. Too light, and her body felt odd, and she was wearing very colourful clothing. At first I thought that the panic and alcohol had fucked my sense of… everything, but something still didn’t feel right.

So I paused the episode midway and crawled back into the yard and started to dig again. It was not pleasant, no. Just the thought of digging up a grave was disgusting, and then there was the fact that I myself had dug that grave to conceal someone that I had killed!

Enough to drive a man crazy, I tell you.

And when I finally reached her, tore my way through the plastic bags… I understood. And I threw up again. Not on her, of course, the scene was disgusting enough already. But by then I was somewhat sober, and I could see. No alcohol, no adrenaline and panic clouding my judgement. I saw why she felt so light and soft, why her body felt strange and I saw that she in fact had no colourful clothes at all.

I filled the hole back up again and ran into the house, my head feeling like a dozen people was working my brain with cheese graters. Fucking Gordon Ramsay peeling my skull with a sushi knife or something. Fuck.

So then I returned to the episode and tried to sit through to the end, even though I had an idea of how it would end. And what do you know, I was right. The ponies never found her, and the episode didn’t say that ‘to be continued’ crap. She was gone, removed from the show.

All the ponies kept looking for her like crazy, but she was nowhere to be found. I know they will never find her. I know the show will never be the same again. I know I will never be the same again either.

Because Twilight Sparkle is buried in my back yard.