Insanity

Kathy moaned and picked herself off the floor, wondering how she had ended up in the position to being with when the last thing she remembered was her working on another of her pictures. As she opened her eyes she noticed that it was morning, which told her that she had worked on both her homework and her drawings so much that she must have collapsed in exhaustion. She placed her hand on the table and pulled herself up, making sure that she didn't fall over and hurt herself, until she was sure that she could walk. As she started towards the kitchen she looked down at herself and realized that she was still wearing the same clothes from the previous day, just like the day before.

She shook her head and moved on, noticing that there was one kitchen knife missing from the holder, only to spot it sitting on a towel nearby, drying off she assumed. Once the knife was accounted for she continued on her way upstairs, where she knew she needed to take a shower and get cleaned up, just in case one of her friends showed up. It felt strange to think of Joey, Jared, and Alice as her friends, but somehow thinking of them as such kept her mind at ease and gave her a sense of calm.

About thirty minutes later she came back down the stairs, dressed up in different clothing, where she stretched and fixed herself some breakfast, ignoring the knife completely. She pulled some cereal out of the cabinets and poured it into a bowl, which she then preceded to fill with milk before taking a seat at the table, making sure to avoid her drawings. She noticed that she drew a smaller picture of Pandora hosting  a party, though her company was an old earth pony mare, not as old as Granny Smith but maybe as old as Pinkie's mother. As she stared at the new mare she wondered why it reminded her so much of her first period teacher, Ms. Rocksworth.

As she finished her meal she walked to the sink and started to wash the bowl out, only to be stopped by someone knocking on the door, where she set the bowl down and moved towards the front door. There she found Joey, though this time he seemed terrified or even scared about something.

"Joey..." Kathy said, not exactly sure what to say to her new friend, "what's wrong?"

"Its Ms. Rocksworth," Joey replied, pointing down the street at the cop cars that Kathy was just now noticing, "Someone broke into her house last night and killed her..."

"Oh my god..." Kathy said, terror filling her as she realized that there could very well be a killer in their town, "but I only saw her yesterday on my way home..."

"Whoever did it made a mess of her," Joey commented, referring to the fact that his father worked in the Police and told him a bit every now and then, "According to my father she was cut in three to seven different places, but whoever did the dirty deed didn't even steal anything from the house."

"Who else knows about this?" Kathy asked, knowing that the question sounded stupid even as it left her mouth.

"Half of the town already knows," Joey exclaimed, sighing as he calmed himself, "there's to be a curfew starting at nine o'clock, so the cops can find and arrest whoever did this. They know that the weapon had to be a knife, but the culprit took his or her weapon with them and left little clues for the cops to follow up on."

Kathy was filled with horror that something could have happened in her own neighborhood, much less to one of her teachers, so she excused herself and let Joey continue down the street, no doubt to tell the others about the murder. She closed her front door and started to make her way to the back of the house, but before she got too far she circled back and locked the front door. Once that was taken care of she went to the back of the house and locked it tight, making sure that there was no way for someone to break in and get to her.

As the day slowly moved along Kathy made sure she was busy with the remaining pieces of her homework, of which there was little of, and drawing Pandora. She couldn't shake the feeling every time she stared at the mare that looked like her first period teacher, it was as if she was staring at her still. As she worked she was compelled to add the new pony, which she was calling Ms. Opal for the moment, to her drawings, so when she drew another group picture the pony appeared in it as well.

As she worked the hours seemed to slip by, but with as many works she made she couldn't shake the feeling of terror that she felt when she learned of Ms. Rocksworth's fate. Her parents were supposed to be back that night, but as the hours ticked by and the day turned to evening she knew that she wouldn't be seeing them until the following day. She kept the television off, so she didn't have to listen to news about the murder, and ate a light dinner when the time came to do so. Though while she worked she was sure that she could hear something, or someone, whispering words to her, though she couldn't make them out.

When it finally came time to go to sleep she headed upstairs and immediately dropped into her bed, just wanting the day to end so she could forget what happened earlier that day. Not a minute later she moaned and turned over, her eyes snapping open and revealing the red color once more. Pandora smiled and climbed out of bed, stretching her arms before heading down the stairs, where she found her knife waiting where she had placed it. She gripped the handle and picked it up, making sure that it was perfectly balanced before moving to the kitchen table and the drawings that rested on it.

There she spotted a picture with the person she had killed the previous day, only turned into a pony and added to Kathy's collection of ponies that she considered to be Pandora's 'friends'. There were many more for her to add to the collection, but first she needed to head outside and collect them, though she had the perfect place in mind.

Night came easily to the Jackson Steel Company warehouse, where one of the guards walked around the perimeter and sighed as there seemed to be nothing interesting happening that night. He had heard the news of a murder in the town, a Highschool teacher by the sounds of it, but the Police had no leads at the moment that they were willing to share with the public. He felt for the students that liked that teacher, but it had nothing to do with his security job, other than the fact that they had the possibility to be visited by the murderer.

"Alexander," a voice said over the radio, causing the guard to inch towards the reply button, "I'm getting reports from the other guards that some of the lights broke on the other side of the lot and I sent a someone over to repair whatever lights he could. But that was ten minutes ago and now none of them seem to be responding to me now. Do me a favor and check on them."

"Will do boss," the guard replied, turning around so he could head back the way he came, "I'll see what's preventing them from calling in."

It was ironic in a way, as he had just thought that it was getting boring in the warehouse and then something happened, though he was expecting more than some broken lights and annoying coworkers. The walk over to the area his boss had mentioned was indeed lacking lights, though from what he could see there wasn't any sign of whoever had been sent to repair the lights or the workers that had called it in. As he walked forward he began to see pools of red liquid everywhere, liquid that he was sure was blood and made him think that the murderer was somewhere near him.

"Boss, we've got a problem," Alexander said, speaking into the radio while looking for some clues, "the guards that were posted over here are missing and there's blood everywhere. There's also no sign of the guard you sent to repair the lights either. Boss, you there?"

He waited for a moment, listening to the channel in the hopes that his boss would respond to him, but just when he was about to give up hope and return to the clock in station he heard the radio click on. What he heard was random words that were whispered to him, but he couldn't make any of them out as he turned around to leave the area he was in. That was when he found a knife sticking out of his gut with the handle visible, though he wondered how he could have missed the person who wielded it.

"Hehehe, I thought I got them all," a young feminine voice said, though it sounded like it came from five different directions, "but when you fall I shall have finished off all the people who call this building home. Thirteen guards needed to protect whatever is in this building, thirteen souls to be claimed by the madness I command."

Pandora stepped partway out of the shadows to watch the last guard fall, his life force fading away as she claimed his soul for herself and grinned in the process. Her smile faltered for a moment as she felt a pain in her forehead, but it quickly passed as a pair of horns sprouted out, horns that she knew would be just like Discord's. Once the deed was done she claimed her knife and wiped it clean on the guard's uniform, her grin remaining as she laughed and made her way out of the area.

There was more for her to do before dawn was upon her, though she couldn't wait to see the look on Kathy's face when she heard the news in the morning of her work here.