I stabbed my short knife into her shoulder one more time. “Beg already! Plead for me to end it!”

What was left of Rest had stopped screaming ten minutes ago. She wouldn’t beg, wouldn’t even cry. I wasn’t sure she could still talk. But I’d gotten a few good gasps when I cut her and sliced her, so the night hadn’t been a total waste.

I waved the knife in front of her mouth. “Beg,” I told her, “or I cut out your tongue.”

“I understand,” she said weakly.

“Understand what?” I asked. “That you need to beg?”

“My mark . . . my magic . . . so much pain . . .”

“That pain can end now,” I told her. “Just a few words. They’re not so hard to say.”

“Your pain . . .” she said. Her horn began to glow, its bright white light burning my eyes. “I’ll end your pain . . .”

I stabbed my short knife into her eye, but her horn still glowed. I pushed my long knife into her back, over and over, but her horn still glowed. I chopped at the base of her horn with my cleaver, separating it from her skull, and finally, it stopped glowing.

“Unicorns,” I said to myself. “Never again.”

Snow and ice make ice magic more powerful. I guess death makes death magic more powerful. What the hay was she going to do, cast a spell to kill me?

Well, it didn’t matter now. All I had to do was chop her up and get rid of the pieces . . .

She stood up, rising from the table.

No, she didn’t. She was still on the table, solid, bloody, and real. But she was standing on the table, too, her wispy hooves going right through her body.

She stared at me with empty eye sockets. “My name is Peaceful Rest,” she said. “I guess I’ll never have a tombstone now. But I know I died for a reason--to put an end to you. I’m at peace.”

Beside her, a tiny figure rose up through the floor. “My name is Spring Rain,” she said. “I was eight years old when you killed me. I didn’t even have a cutie mark. I still wonder what it would have been like to grow up. But there’s a little tree growing over the place where you buried me, and someday, it’ll be a giant oak. I’m at peace.”

A burly unicorn in Royal Guard armor rose up on the other side of the table, blocking the way to the door. “My name is Golden Lance,” he said. “I could have--”

I swung at him with my long knife. It shattered into tiny pieces, but the specter dissipated. I dashed through the cloud of freezing cold air he left behind, my cleaver in my mouth and my short knife held in my tail, rushing for the door.

Something rammed into the side of the wagon, knocking me off balance. With a second hit, it began to tilt. A third knocked it on its side.

I narrowly avoided landing on my short knife, and rolled just in time to avoid getting squashed by a trunk full of pipe repair tools. Somehow, I managed to keep a hold on my cleaver.

With mounting realization, I looked behind me. The lamp had shattered against the wall. The wooden wall. And the fire hadn’t gone out.

A cloudy pegasus stood in the sideways doorway. “My name is--”

My cleaver slashed through her head. I dropped the remnants of the handle from my mouth, and rushed out into the moonless night.

Specters surrounded me, too many to count.

“My name is Derby Pie . . .”

“My name is Flowing Prose . . .”

“My name is Bass Beat . . .”

“Definitely never again,” I muttered.

I’d killed them all once. I could take them all again. But with two knives broken, it was time for a strategic retreat. I threw my short knife right through a big ghost’s eye, and I rushed through the break before it could close again.

My knives were gone, those things were still around, and my wagon was smoking like a chimney. No matter. I could dodge around all night if I had to, and I doubted this kind of magic would still work when the sun rose.

I could start all over again. New knives. New towns. New colts and mares--

“My name is Petite Mort.”

At first, I didn’t recognize the figure in front of me. She was barely more than a filly, her flank still bare, but the air around her felt older than time. It was like she was made of sorrow. Like she was made of memory.

“I lived in a little village by the side of a great big mountain. My mother was the most beautiful mare in the village, and I loved her more than anypony. Every day in spring and summer, I went out to pick a flower to put in her mane. Even when a storm over the Everfree got loose, and it rained for five days straight, I still went out and looked for flowers.”

This must have been a story, something I’d been told. That was the only reason it felt so familiar, the only explanation.

“It must have been fast, too fast to scream. The rain turned the clay from the mountain into mud, and it flowed down the slope, picking up speed. By the time I came back, the only thing left was the top of the clock tower. Everything--everypony--was buried under the mud.”

A story for fillies, and a filly to tell it. I could jump over her, she was so small. I could run away, if only I could stop trembling.

“The first time I killed, it was an accident. The mare had food, and I didn’t, and I hit her a little too hard when I stole it. I buried her in the forest, no gravestone, no marker. The second time . . . well, the second time, I got my cutie mark.”

I fell to the ground as I watched the mark appear, a knife on her flank, reddened with blood. I couldn’t stand up again, couldn’t make my limbs respond, because I couldn’t deny who she was.

“I strangled my own heart, and I lost everything that made me a pony. I’m just a hollow shell now, a dead body that somehow walks. All I can do is fear and hate and kill. But not for much longer.”

She lifted her tail, revealing the shadowy knife clutched in it. I couldn’t cover my eyes as she advanced towards me, my own self reborn, my savior and my executioner.

“I will be at peace.”

Author's Note

Based on an accidental suggestion by Rakni, who was appropriately horrified when he realized where I was going with it. Inadvertently written using "original" ideas that actually came from this music video, though I didn't realize it until after I was done. Edited by Daedelean and my local writing club. And as always for anything horror-based I write, a general thank-you goes to Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone.