Indeed, it seems we screwed up.
"Ready Spike?" Twilight confirmed with her assistant. Today's the day. I'm sure it'll work this time.
Spike dove behind a pile of books, a pillow tied to his waist and a kettle on his head. He nodded. "Yep. Just, no explosions this time, please?" I don't want to have to scrub it up again. Not after last time's mess.
"I'll try." Twilight affirmed. He probably's just a bit nervous. Heh. So am I, I guess.
Twilight focused on the slightly scorched crystal floor before her. Her horn began to glow, a little at first, then with greater intensity until it had become nearly blinding. When the harsh light stopped increasing it's glow, the magic drifted off her horn and above the spot she had been intently gazing at. Without warning, the light expanded to fill the whole room instantaneously, and vanished just as quickly. A moment passed while the room's two occupants regained their vision.
Thump.
Something landed on the floor hard, and Spike peeked out from his fortifications. A pungent stench of blood, burnt flesh and rubber, and fungal rotting emanated from what appeared to be a near-hairless body on the floor. It wore clothes, or had worn them, but the color was completely impossible to say, as what little cloth had not rotted to pulp had been scorched beyond recognition. Some kind of metal contraption was melted to it's wrist, it's purpose or previous appearance unknowable. The corpse itself was a still-burning mess of mold, flesh, shattered bones and blood staining the floor with the red taint. Heat was exuded not only from the flames that still enveloped it, but the body itself. Any of the little white hair it had left was being consumed by the hungry flames, while the blood hardened and crusted quickly from it's heat. Bones were poking through the skin at odd angles. The skull seemed to be shattered, as well as the left arm and leg, though doubtlessly the rest of the body was in similar, less obvious conditions. The smell of rotting flesh was quickly overridden by that of the same burning.
Needless to say, Twilight screamed. Spike vomited into his kettle. Twilight cast a quick spell to teleport it far into the Everfree, where nopony would ever have to see or smell that horrific mess again. She then used her wings to blow as much of the aroma from the room out the window facing away from town.
"That was..." She gagged back bile. "horrifying."
"What happened?" Spike asked, cringing at the now vomit-filled mess in the kettle.
"I didn't factor in that the sun was now facing the planet it's from. It must have caught fire when it's atoms passed by it."
"But it was rotting!" Spike groaned at the lingering smell.
"I selected that subject for a few years now. It's possible it may have, maybe," She gave a nervous laugh. "Died during that time."
"And how about those bones?" Spike said, eyes narrowed. "I suppose they broke before?"
"Maybe?" Twilight said sheepishly. "He was old, they could have broken easily when it landed."
The dragon sighed, rubbing the space between his eyes. "Really? You know what?" Spike said, setting the bile-bucket on a table. "We're not doing that again. Ever."
"But Spike, think of the-"
"No. It was gross, and disgraceful to the body. Imagine what the people who knew that guy would think if they knew?" Spike reasoned. "If they did it to a pony's corpse?"
"We could learn so much from their culture though!" pleaded the alicorn. "Think about what could be achieved!"
"Or end up killing them all when we try to bring them here!" Spike retorted. "Face it Twi, this isn't working."
"Well..." Twilight sighed. "I guess you're right. I'll at least spend a few more years perfecting the spell and selecting a new subject."
"Yeah, next time wait until the sun's not in the way. Or the moon. Or a meteor," Spike listed. "They're not dead, not underwater, handling sharp objects, have anything in their mouth, parachuting-"
"Alright, Alright, I get it. Scry before I teleport them. Not that it worked last time anyway."
"A minute's time delay is a bad excuse, Twilight." Spike reasoned. "You could've guessed that that girl was about to eat when she pulled out the food."
"I didn't know it was food!"
"It looked like a banana! You could have guessed that! Anypony could have!"
Twilight huffed and walked out of the room without looking at Spike. The dragon sighed again. That was the eighth attempt in as many weeks. Most of them died somehow no matter what they did. Already dead, sunfire, hit the ground too hard, scrambled against space debris, drowned, stabbed, choked, or, most disgustingly, turned into a pile of boneless flesh, screaming in agony- he shuddered. If they were to continue, the animals of the Everfree wouldn't need to hunt anymore. On the bright side, at least this one hadn't fused to a banana in the process. How terrible it had been to see a half-human-half-banana creature on the loose. The power of potassium was truly a force to be reckoned with in such a form.
He looked down at the mess of blood and burned fungus on the floor. This would take hours to clean up. Human blood was a horrible stain to remove, and the burned fungus would not be fun either. Again, not as bad as the Ba-man-a, but still, he had his work cut out for him.
Author's Note
Check here. I have something to ask pertaining to this story.
Or did we...? (The Ba-man-a)
Author's Note
WARNING: Suicide trigger warning. Be warned. Slightly less gore than the previous chapter.
(Wrote it on a dare from my psycho-buddy. I'll actually keep it going if people want to see more. I may even collaborate! Or not.)
(Thank goodness someone actually replied to the blog about posting this. You rock, ShadowKirby!)
(Still could go either way.)
Or did we...? (The Ba-man-a)
Tyson was tired and scared.
He'd been in this horrible place for several weeks now. And seen the horrible things the terrible creatures did. They brought people like him to this... what appeared to be some kind of enormous library. And they died.
They always died.
Why not me? he wondered. Why am I different?
All he'd been doing was talking to his sister. They were eating lunch, just visiting their mother. He'd set down his sandwich, she took a bite from the banana, and- he shuddered - they were here. But she was different. Her hair had become a tangled mess of greenish-yellow bananas, and her skin was mottled similarly to desert camouflage, with skin like bark. It was as if she were an Ent representing the tropical variation. Oh, not to mention she was roughly thirty feet tall. And screaming bloody murder.
He had run, hidden behind a shelf as she yelled, the voice unrecognizable as that of his sweet sister. He heard other voices, talking and yelling in a foreign, unknown language. Then a bright yellow flash, a final, ear piercing wail was heard, followed shortly after by a woody thump. Tyson dared a peek. The behemoth lay still on the floor, burning, filling the air with smoke. He saw creatures of purple, one of which shot some kind of flash at what was once his sister, which vanished the corpse, leaving splattered fruit and burning wood chips behind. It sighed, and the both walked out, locking the door, never noticing Tyson as he began mourning his loss.
Over the next few weeks, more corpses would appear when the purple ones came. One appeared to be a bloody, smashed pulp of a child. Another had come with a fork jammed up through it's left eye. Most scarring, was a woman who fell from the high up ceiling in a parachute suit, who didn't react in time. The sound of many bones crunching cracked the air.
Distressingly, he never grew hungry. At first, he believed it was grief, but as days became weeks, he grew scared. Was this somehow hell? Watching people die agonizingly horrible deaths for eternity? The fear and sadness had consumed him over the past few weeks. He couldn't take this. He'd do it. He was going to jump.
Tyson stood on the windowsill, perhaps four stories up. Below was nothing but empty land, stretching for miles until it was overcome by a dense wood. So beautiful. But it wouldn't take away the memories of their screaming. Their bones. The gurgling of blood. His sister's final moments. He took a deep breath.
And jumped.
