Judge, Jury, and Executioner
Hello, my name is... well, that's not important right now. Allow me to inform you a bit about myself. I'm a unicorn, my horn is quite long, longer than most's at least. I'm a stallion, my coat is jet black and my mane and tail are bleach white, both long and unkempt for the longest time. My cutie mark is a tombstone, signifying my ability to connect with the dead.
That probably doesn't make much sense, allow me to elaborate.
You see, when I was a colt, my grand father died, and after the funeral I just couldn't accept it. After he was buried, I sat by his grave for hours, I even went so far as to sneak out of the house at night so I could stay close to what was left of Grandpa...
Standing next to his grave, I saw something I couldn't believe. My grandfather was right there, standing over his grave seemingly alive, that was not the case. When I reached out to hug him, my body went right through his. My grandfather's spirit, had come to tell me not to cry over him anymore, that he was fine and I would be too. Before he left for good he said one last thing to me. "Heads up kiddo." He pointed to my flank, and there it was. My cutie mark: a single tombstone. I grew up being able to speak with the dead, often ponies who had a unfinished business. When I could I'd talk to them, try to calm their souls anyway I could. There wasn't always a happy ending, sometimes those souls would remain angry or sad and they would remain, it's very possible that they still do to this day.
As one might imagine, having such a cutie mark made me an outcast among other ponies, especially when I showed them my talent. Sometimes if I saw somepony with a deceased family member I interacted with, I thought it might be a good idea to confront them and tell them that there family was at peace, thinking it might console them.
It didn't.
Ponies would often get angry at me for mentioning there dead loved ones so soon and even angrier when I claimed to know about them. This led to ponies going as far as to contact authorities, I always left before they arrived. In my teenage years, I dropped out of school, deciding that I didn't need it for my purpose in life and I ran away from home. I eventually got a job at a morgue, I don't remember where my first job was, I've had a lot of them, anyways. In the morgue I'd always get a chance to communicate to the dead before there funeral. Some just needed ponies to talk to and I obliged, others... needed more.
Some ponies, as I said before, simply couldn't accept death. They all had many reasons for this, whether it was because they were too young, had unfinished business, some even believed they weren't dead. But there was one reason I always loathed to here about.
Murder, the very word disgusts me.
Some ponies I spoke to claimed to be murdered, killed by another and they wouldn't rest until there murder was solved. I always hated hearing this, one pony took the life of another, and for what!? *Sigh* Forgive me, I always get a little passionate about this subject. Anyways, this brings me to another milestone in my life. One day, in the morgue, I was speaking to a pony who had claimed to be murdered. She was crying, going on about how the murderer wouldn't stop until everypony she knew was dead. Then her spirit hid, it didn't pass on, it just hid itself, but I didn't know from what. At this time, a pony had walked into the room in which I was speaking to her. It was an earth pony stallion, as I recall. He threatened me, telling me to get away from her body or he'd kill me.
I didn't know what to say, I was stunned. Here I was face-to-face with a murderer, a pony who had taken a life and was about to do so again, so I just stood there. When I made no move, he charged me and slammed me against a wall. He slammed my head against a table until my skull was open, and it was leaking. Once he was finished with me he went over to the girl's body and started screaming at, swinging from insults to apologies and even confessions. While he raved at her corpse, without his notice, my horn started to glow. As it did, the broken bone and torn flesh on my head began to repair itself and I was alive again, when I got back up, I was angry. I stood up and glared at the murderer, horn still glowing, when he noticed me, he asked a question which I will always remember so long as there isn't an answer. "Damn you, WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?"
At that moment, several wisps of light came from my horn, they all traveled to body somewhere inside the morgue. When a wisp reached a corpse, it reanimated, the corpse would sit up and often shamble to the floor and then throw itself at the murderer. Every corpse except the girls rose and attacked, tearing the murderer to shreds with teeth, hooves, and even horns if they had them. Once it was over, each corpse shambled back to there respective spots in the morgue and the wisps left them, returning to my horn. I caught a glimpse of the murderer's soul, but a glimpse, before a bright, ethereal fire surrounded and enveloped him, his soul never to be seen again.
After a while, I sat in front of his corpse, silent, and the girl's spirit returned. She saw his corpse as well as me, I asked her if this was what she wanted, she told me no, but it would do. I'm not sure how anyone could find peace after that, but she did, and her soul passed on. After the ordeal, I left that morgue and town and didn't return for a long time. I'm glad I don't remember exactly which one, otherwise I don't think I would have ever come back, maybe I haven't.
Years after the incident, I found that my resistance to death expanded to age, and at one point in my life, I stopped aging. If one were to look at me now, I'd have the visage of a man just past his prime, even though I was much older. Centuries passed and I moved from town to town, morgue to morgue, whenever someone got suspicious of my age or whenever the place became too familiar. I don't know exactly how long I stay in each one but it must be a significant amount of time as no morgue I traveled back to ever looked familiar.
Only once have I ever met somepony else who shared the curse of immortality. This, I remember, her name was Luna, governor of the night. Whenever I moved to a new town, I traveled to the cemetery first, to see if any souls were in need of counsel, she approached me after she saw what she believed was me talking to myself. She asked what I was doing, I figured there was no point in lying to her, so I told her. "Helping those who have passed on to pass on." She looked confused at first, then her horn glowed and she casted a spell. When she did, she became aware of the troubled souls around her, as well as my interaction with them.
I decided to ask her what she had asked me and requested her purpose here. She told me she came to see a few friends who had passed away. There weren't any funerals lately, so I asked her how long they had been gone. She told me one thousand years. I was surprised, to say the least, not many creatures who could would keep to obligations that lasted that long. I offered to come with her, to see of their souls were at rest and she agreed. I know there were some souls that I have never seen meet peace, but a thousand years? I could only imagine. As fate would have it, there were in fact some souls who knew her, souls that had remained wary since the banishment of nightmare moon one thousand years ago.
Centuries has passed since I began my cycle and still, I always look forward to returning to Canterlot and meeting with Luna again.
Now, in my years of working at morgues had allowed me to pick up a pattern. I could always distinguish the normal death rate by the amount of bodies that came in, some towns had a higher one due to more hazardous surroundings, and others were lower. So I was able to tell when there was an accident, or a disaster, or... a murder. But lower body rates meant something too. The most common reason was a war related incident, in which dead soldiers were sent to lie with their comrades. But in one town, bodies just stopped coming in altogether.
This is an incident I remember clearly, as it was recent. At this point in my cycle, I had taken a job in a place called 'Ponyville' the death rate there was slow due to the small population and mostly stable environment. Most deaths were because of illness or old age, anything other than that was usually out of the ordinary. Except, one day, the death rate was at a stand still. For the longest time, no bodies entered the morgue, not even the sick or elderly. I simply couldn't believe that nopony had died after all this time, so I went to the local cemetery to see if the rate matched the tombstones.
To my surprise, there a number of new graves, as if the death rate just shot up overnight one day. Normally with this amount of graves, there would be souls accompanying them, but there wasn't which means that their bodies weren't there. Inspecting each grave, I see that they all had the same thing written on them, 'Declared dead after missing'. With all of these signs, I came to one conclusion.
Murder.
There was a murderer, who not only denied their victims life, but peace, by keeping their bodies for Celestia-knows what, maybe not even her!
For the first time in centuries, I had to take initiative, I had to stop this murderer so that no more souls were denied the rest they deserved! I wandered around the town, and I searched for anything hinting to murder. But as I walked through the town, I saw that it was completely idle. It looked like a ghost town, stalls were unattended, houses were blocked off, and there was an overwhelming sense of fear in the air. This wasn't the town I remember walking into not too long ago, there should be ponies bustling about talking and laughing with each other, that was one of the things I always liked about this town, and now suddenly. It was gone.
As I walked through the vacant streets, I saw one building that seemed open, I recognized it as Sugar cube Corner, the local bakery. I walked in, hoping to find some answers, at the counter was a bright pink earth pony. Both her mane and coat were pink, her mane a slightly darker shade, she had an image of three balloons on her flank. When she saw me her face lit up. "Ooh! I've never seen you around here, and I know everypony in Ponyville, that means you must be new!"
Something was... off about her. The feeling of fear was thick in the air, anypony should be able to feel it, so either she somehow managed to be completely ignorant of it, or she ignored it...
Nevertheless, I smiled back. "No, actually I had moved into town awhile ago, I moved in quietly and I don't go out often, so it makes sense that you don't know me."
She looked back at me, still smiling. "Oh, well normally I'd throw you a party, but nopony has been going to them recently, so how about a free cupcake instead!" She held out to me a cupcake in her hoof. It's been a while since I've accepted simple pleasures such as confectionery treats, so I accepted. As soon as I grabbed it I felt a foreboding feeling, but I wasn't sure from what. As I took a bite of the baked good, trying to seem natural, I found that it tasted odd, and that's when I discovered the source. It was the cupcake. "Nighty night!" That was the last thing I heard before I fell horizontal, and the world faded away.
When I awoke, my eyes were met with darkness. Both my fore and hind legs were bound by leather straps, pinning me to something cold and hard. I struggled a bit with my bindings, but I was trapped. I attempted to move my head around to see my environment better but my head was bound in place as well. Once I was awake, the pink pony I had met earlier came into view, except she was very different. Her entire body seemed darker in tone, and her mane and tail were deflated, straight, limp versions of themselves. She had a look of utter madness in her shrunken pupils, and a grin just as mad.
"Well hello there mister sleepy-pants!" She retained the same cheerful tone.
"...What is this?" I asked, I showed no fear, as death wasn't something I ever worried about.
"This? Well this is a little party!" As she said that, the lights turned on revealing the rest of the room. The room was piled with grim decor, the skulls of ponies, donkeys, cows, even griffins piled upon each other. Entrails were strewn about the room like streamers. And from my view point, there was a banner with the words, "LIFE IS A PARTY." Written in blood. But the gore, the insane art, wasn't what vexed me, what caused my horror was the grief of hundreds of souls, seeing their own as well as their friends bodies, torn up, defiled, and spread around after death. Painful death.
"Hey!" Upon sensing the souls, I'd become distracted and forgotten about the mad pony in front of me.
"W-WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" I was enraged, enraged that she had the gall to take away life and play with it such an uncaring manner.
"Me? Well I threw all of my friends a party! Normally I only throw them this kind of party when I pull their number, but since you were a new friend, and didn't have a number, I decided to throw you one right away!" She spoke on as if it were nothing. It was clear she normally pulled some sort of lottery to decide who she murders, and since I wasn't in it,, she decided she'd save herself the trouble of adding a new number. At this point I stopped talking, it was obvious she thrived on the suffering of her victim.
"Now, since you're new. Let's see what kind of sound you make!" She pulled out a kitchen knife, I never was sure from where, and she drove it into my hind leg, near my groin. My flesh was long dead and so I only felt the tugging of the knife as it entered and exited my leg. The grin she had on her face slowly faded when she saw I made no sounds of suffering, it quickly re-ignited when she raised the knife again, and drove it through my leg near the same spot. Again, I made no sound.
This time her grin faded completely as she pulled out and drove it through me again, this time through my gut, she then twisted and hoped to get a response, with no luck. "Oh come on! This isn't very fun..." She pouted.
I spoke to her, if only out of spite. "You'll not get a cry out of me, not a whimper, not a scream, nothing!"
She scowled at me, clearly upset that she couldn't get what she wanted. "Then what good are you!?" She pulled the knife from my gut and shoved it in my throat, silencing me, my body went limp,
She glared on at my body, unsatisfied. "Damn it!" she cursed, as if she just broke a toy. "Scootaloo!" A small orange pegasus filly with an orange coat and purple mane answered her call. She didn't have a cutie mark.
"Yes Mistress Pinkamena?" She asked eagerly. She had the same disregard for life as the one she called Pinkamena had. This murderer went as far as to corrupt a filly.
"Drop this one in with the others." There was a pause.
"But Mistress, he's barely-"
"Don't remind me." She replied with venom in her voice, upset she couldn't play with her toy.
A few minutes pass and my body is dragged somewhere. The little filly spoke as she dragged me.
"Wow, you made Miss Pinkamena really mad, she didn't even let me play with you. That makes me mad too, and now you're boring. You don't make any more sounds." I felt magic course through me and my horn began to glow, my body was animate again. "and she barely cut you up! Now it's going to take even longer to gut you, drain the blood, and-" I yanked my hind hoof from her grasp by which she was dragging me by. I stood above her.
"W-What the hay!? But you were-" I didn't let her finish. I tapped my horn against her head. Casting an eye-for-an-eye spell. All of the knife wounds Pinkamena inflicted on me were transferred to the filly called Scootaloo.
She died instantly, the knife wounds were much larger on her and the wound in her gut disemboweled her, leaving a pool of blood, as well as a few organs under her body. I caught a glimpse of her soul when I appeared, it seemed... regretful. A ring of fire surrounded her soul and enveloped her, damning a child for eternity.
I sighed, and turned away from her corpse. I walked back to where 'Mistress' Pinkamena was. As I walked wisps came from my horn, and sought out a body that wasn't totally mutilated, as they did it shambled up and began to follow me in the shadows. I noticed one wisp was faster than the others and rainbow colored, it zipped pass the others in search of a far off body. I spotted her in the same exact spot as before, slitting her forelegs with the same knife she used on me. It seems she thrived off everyone's pain, even her own.
As she spotted me her eyes flared with anger, she jumped up and she yelled. "WHAT!? HOW DARE YOU APPROACH ME! AFTER YOU DECIDE TO RUIN MY PARTY! HOW ARE YOU EVEN ALIVE!?" The age-old question.
Before I could answer, she was tackled by something. Something I would have though to be too fast for a corpse. Pinkamena struggled until she saw what hit her. "D-Dashie!?" Upon seeing her attacker tears began to well up in her eyes. What had pinned her appeared to be a living pony, except with stitches holding her skin together and her eyes rolled up in her head. The soul in that body was strong, it must have been the rainbow wisp I saw. A voice echoed from the stuffed pony. "Pinkie! Why!? You betrayed me!"
Pinkie, as she was being called now began to cry freely. "No! I'm sorry Dashie! I didn't mean it! It's just I-"
"SHUT UP!" By this time other corpses have shambled over. Souls hungry for revenge. I knew revenge wasn't supposed to bring them peace, but I didn't care anymore. I turned around and left her to her fate.
"No! I'm sorry everypony, just please don't- no- NOOOO-" That was all I heard. I had exited the basement and left Sugarcube Corner. I kept walking and I left Ponyville.
And this time, I din't come back.
