Memories of a Darker Time
The room was completely dark except for a lamp, dim and old, swinging from the concrete ceiling of the room. It illuminated perfectly the hazy room, full of smoke and some dust. A second light, orange and dim lit up in the corner of the room, illuminating the figures of two ponies dimly. The smoke hanging in the air was suddenly disturbed as even more was added to the cloud, making the room a slight bit hazier than it had been before.
Sitting under the lamp, staring at the two figures dimly lit by the burning cigarette was a griffon, his body brown, and his head a dirtied white, streaks of deep crimson splattered onto him wantonly. His eyes carried a fearful, or rather terrified, look as his eyes darted between the two ponies quickly. There was no sound in the room except the occasional breath being taken and the puff of smoke being spit out by the mare on the right. The two in the corner had hardly moved at all, and they seemed to be staring at the griffon sitting in the middle of the room. One of them gave a quick series of coughs, presumably the one with the cigarette hanging out of her mouth. After the coughing subsided, the cigarette was tossed to the floor, the ember flickering for a moment before it was stepped on by a boot covered hoof.
The griffon’s breathing was beginning to pick up, especially now that the sounds of hooves on concrete could be heard coming from the now impenetrable darkness. One step, then another, very slowly, as if to create more suspense for the griffon tied to the steel chair. It took a few minutes, or maybe it was a few seconds, but the first pony stepped into the dim light of the lamp. A mare, clothed in the navy blue long shirt and pants, black boots on her hind legs, and a black vest over her torso.
‘Why don’t they wear armor?’ The griffon thought to himself, looking over the mare in fear. She had blood smeared across her clothing, and her dark grey face. She had a rough cloth around her neck, a particular cloth that was common in the Saddle Arabian deserts. Her blue eyes seemed dark, like a bottomless ocean pit about to swallow his soul into their angry depths. She had a deep cut running beside her left eye, almost to her neck, where he could faintly make out another color than the dark grey of her coat. It looked… White-ish…
“What am I going to do with you?” She asked, her voice a tired and deep croak. She spoke slowly, her tone betraying her anger and fatigue. “I mean, I’m sure we can work something out, right?” She said, grinning almost… Evilly. “You can just forget this little… Incident, no?” She asked, coughing once into her sleeve.
The griffon’s eyes shrank at her tone, having been tied up here for Celestia only knew how long, not hearing a word. The tone she used as the first one to speak to her was very unsettling.
“Stop fucking with him Ink.” A masculine voice said from the shadows, though he didn’t reveal himself, and stayed in the dark.
“Shut up. I plan on having fun with this beaked bastard.” She said, lifting a hoof to a pocket on her chest. She pulled out a cigarette, and placed it gently at the corner of her mouth. She took her sweet time, leaving the griffon in silent suspense as she lit a match and then the cigarette. She took a deep breath as she stomped out the match, and the end of the cigarette glowed a bright orange. She blew the cloud out in the direction of the griffon, and she chuckled. “Just like a cliche movie scene…” She said quietly, grinning angrily and taking the cigarette into her hoof. “But I think I’ll add my own little twist.” She said, before she slowly moved it towards the griffon. He began to struggle and move his head away from the burning stick, but it was in vain as the burning end made contact with his right eye before he could close it.
The stallion in the dark actually cringed, and covered his ears as a shrill shriek of agony filled the room, though it would never reach a set of ears beyond. Blood began to pour from the now grotesquely injured eye, the crimson fluid trailing down his face and dripped off the end of his beak. The avian creature was panting hard now, whimpering in pain as his vision faded from the intense pain.
“Please… S-Stop… I wont tell… I promise…” He squeaked out between labored breaths. He felt like crying, which he was doing from his left eye, as blood ran down his face from the right. His head was looking down at his lap, not wanting to look up at the crazy mare who was doing this to him.
“But that isn’t good enough. See, there is something in that brain of yours we can’t have in there.” she said, flicking the cigarette away with a chuckle. “So, we have been given the… Delicate task of making sure that little part of your brain doesn’t ever get used.” She said, slowly walking around the sullen form of the wounded bird.
“I p-promise… I won’t use it… Ever…” He pleaded, his voice breaking at the end as he gave a choked up sob. He was shaking, both from the pain and his fear. He had never been so scared in his life. For good reason.
The mare chuckled and stopped walking, standing in front of him with a wicked grin on her face. “I know you won’t.” She said, reaching her right foreleg to the side of her left leg, where she pulled an odd looking device from a pouch strapped around the leg. It was an odd “L” shaped looking device, and it was colored black, with a small opening in the end that was facing the griffon. “Darling, I need you to look up at me so we can get this all straightened out, and you can go.” She said, her voice adopting a more caring and nice tone. The griffon was still shaking, but that shift in tone… It was so soothing to the fear… Maybe a quick look wouldn’t hurt…
Then, a bright flash and a deafening crack broke the dark and foreboding atmosphere of the room. The griffon’s head snapped back violently as some force faster than the eye could see punched through his forehead, making a neat little hole in the front of his skull. Unfortunately, the exit wasn’t so clean. A section of his head had been completely blown away, skull and all. The griffon’s head remained back, resting over the chair as silence reigned once more.
The light metallic tap of the casing of the bullet hitting the concrete echoed through the room as it came to a rest. The silence was then broken by the tapping of the griffon’s blood dripping onto the concrete floor to join his brains.
The stallion stepped out of the darkness for the first time, and he shook his head and sighed. “I know we had to kill him, but was that all necessary?” He asked, his voice deep and tired. The mare held the gun up for a moment longer, an infuriated expression on her face before she let three more shots loose into the chest of the corpse, splaying it open in a mist of blood. The shots made the stallion flinch, but nothing else.
“Does that answer your question?” She hissed angrily, before she holstered the weapon. “Get someone to come scrub this whelp’s brains out of the concrete. Then toss him in the hole with the rest of them.” She said, to which the stallion nodded. The mare stood and looked at the dead and bleeding body for a few minutes longer, not once acknowledging the stallion with her gaze as her hateful gaze drilled into the corpse.
