The Sweet-Apples-Acres massacre

It was a burning hot summer day like any other when it happened. I was filling up a bucket of apples for the eight time that day and my back felt like it was going to give in at any moment when I saw a gang of five ponies coming over the horizon.

“Hey, Applejack.” Apple Bloom pocked her sisters side.

Applejack fanned herself with her hat. “What is it, Apple Bloom?”

“There´s a gang of ponies going to the farm.” She marked with her hoof.

She squinted her eyes and scanned the horizon. And then her face grew pale. “Apple Bloom?”

“Yeah?”

“Head back to the house and tell Ma and Pa that there are bad ponies coming.”

“Who are they?”

“Just do what I say.” Applejack´s voice hardened and Apple Bloom decided to do has she was told.

Applejack galloped to meet her brother, who was collecting apples for the grinder at the far side of the farm. He didn´t know how to throw proper a punch but he was big and strong and may be able to help. She ran through the thick forest of green apple trees to where she thought Big Mac was working.

“Big Mac!” She shouted when she didn´t immediately found him.

There was answer.

“Big Mac!!!” She almost screamed this time and started rushing around the area.

“Applejack?” Big Mac appeared next to a filled bucket of apples.

Applejack drew a brief sigh of relief. “Head back to the farm while I find Granny.”

“Alright.” Big Mac decided not to ask why. By the look of his sisters face he knew that there was something serious going on.

Granny Smith was collecting apples from another district of the farm. It wasn´t too far off from where Applejack was now and she galloped to her.

Meanwhile, I was galloping has fast has my small legs would carry me through the apple forest, to the house were ma and pa were working. If I only knew how little it would have mattered.

Apple Bloom reached the end of the apple forest and galloped over to the house. Ma, a broad shouldered red mare with a golden yellow hair, was feeding the chickens and Pa, a crimson red stallion with yellow brown hair was fixing a part of the barns wall.

“Ma! Pa!” Apple Bloom shouted when she saw them.

“What is it?” Pa turned to her and ma trotted towards her.

“Applejack said that there are some bad ponies coming.” Apple Bloom said when she came up to them.

Both their eye´s widened.

“Apple Bloom,” Pa said. “Get inside the house and don´t come out until we say it´s okay. If you hear anything hide under the bed and don´t come out until one of us comes to get you. Okay?”

Apple Bloom nodded.

“Go.”

And I hid quite well, I managed to find a place on the attic were I could oversee everything that would happened through a narrow window. I really should have hidden under the bed or just jump out of the window but it was too late to go anywhere now and the window was too narrow for me to fit through.

Applejack shook down to her hooves at the sight before her. Granny Smith´s body hung lifeless from one of the apples trees limbs, a noose made of thick rope was wrapped around her neck.

“Damn, she took a while to stop twitching.” Said a raspy voice behind her. Applejack turned. He was grey with a short black mane, had a pair of small golden yellow eyes and had a red scar around his neck.

“Lasted a lot shorter than you.” A pony came out from behind an apple tree. This time it was a unicorn mare with a flowing crimson mane and cold blue eyes. A pink scar ran through her rust brown coat, over her lips, giving her a disfigured smile.

“I never twitched.” The stallion replied.

The mare didn´t reply. She drew a knife from her belt and licked the side. She stared at Applejack with playful eyes. “How many cuts will you take? One? Two? Maybe even three…” She pointed at Applejack with the point of the knife. “It all depends on where you are cut.” Her broken lips formed a grotesque smirk.

Her hooves trembled underneath her. Every bit of Applejack´s mind wanted to run but her body stood frozen is place and simple refused to lift even one of her hooves of the ground.

The mare chuckled, her eyes narrowed and she turned the knife around. “Maybe I´ll just finish this one of with one strike and let her bleed out.” She galloped forward, the knife raised high.

Applejack jumped to the side.

The edge of the knife gave her a cold, steely kiss and she could feel blood dripping of the side of her head. Applejack didn´t know where and how she was cut, all she knew was the she was still alive and that meant that he had to get back to the house alive. She galloped into the part of the forest that she knew would be the thickest in an effort to lose them, if they even followed her to begin with. She just kept on running.

Fortunately, the path through some of the thicker parts of the apple tree forest was no detour and she would be at the house within a minute or less.

When she was halfway there was a pillar of grey, rising smoke coming from where the house should be.

Applejack picked up the pace and started to hear screams. The smell of burning wood filled her nose. Burning wood and burning flesh. She reached the end of the wood and froze.

Ma was tied to a stake with a pyre of burning wood beneath her. She screamed in pain as the flames licked her body and burned her coat. Her golden hair folded into coal black strings. A pony wrapped in white cloth with brown burned skin surrounding his blue eyes stared at Ma burning at the stake with smile.

Pa laid still on the ground. His throat cut open from ear to ear and growing pool of blood formed from the gash. A skinny blue mare with a pink scar over her throat marked by vertical lines stood behind him. She held a sword over shoulder. The edge was marked by crimson blood dripping of it.

Big Mac´s skull was crushed under the hooves of an enormous, brown stallion. At first he looked like an earth pony but the remnants of a horn pocked out from his forehead. It was smashed with a black iron bullet pointing out of it.

Something grabbed Applejack by the back of her head and slammed her into the ground. She felt her nose breaking with the force of the impact. She felt the cold point of a knife being pushed into the back of her neck.

“Is there anyone left?” The voice of the scared mare asked behind her.

“Fuck you.” She said, somewhat muffled by the ground pressing against her mouth.

The mare behind her grabbed her by the hair, pulled violently and pressed the point deep into Applejack´s neck. “I´ll ask you again;” She twisted the knife and broke the skin, warm blood ran from the wound. “Is there anyone left?” She whispered the words with a toxic tone into Applejack´s ears.

“No.”

“Well that wasn´t so hard now was it?” The tone of her voice shifted to a warm and kind one. Then she pressed the knife into Applejack´s back. The steel cut through her skin and broke the ribs before the point cut into Applejack´s heart.

“Hammerhead.” The mare called and the unicorn with a broken horn walked up to her. “Check the rest of the farm.” She wiped the blood of on Applejack´s back.

“She lie?” He asked with deep voice and a slow tone.

“She told me to fuck off the first time I asked.”

Hammerhead stared with confused, wide open eyes.

“Yes, she lied.” She pushed the knife back into its sheath.

Hammerhead nodded. “I check house.”

When Apple Bloom saw the unicorn approaching the house she felt her heart jumping to her throat. The beating pressed against her pipes, making every breath a gasp for air.

She needed to hide, or should she run. If Hammerhead found her she would get killed to, but if she risked running the other ponies might catch her.

A cold wave spread from the back of her head and drops of sweat formed on her forehead. She looked down and saw her hooves visibly shacking. “I need to run.” She told herself. “I need to run.” The hooves wouldn´t stop shaking and she could hear the giant unicorn walking on the floor beneath. The planks creaked with every steep he took.

It was right beneath her now, only a few steps away from the hatch. Would he see it? It was only visible if you looked directly at and Apple Bloom had taken the hook that was needed to open up with her but one could still open it by pulling the hatch.

Apple Bloom pressed herself against the wall trying desperately to think of a plan. Run or hide?

Suddenly she heard herself breathing and immediately pressed her hoof against her mouth. Was it too late? Had the unicorn already heard her? The questions raced through her mind, and then she decided. “I´m going to run.” She whispered to herself and forced her breath to slow down. She pressed her hear against the floor and listened for the unicorn´s hooves.

The creaking came from just a bit farther away from her this time, almost beneath the hatch. She made a hasty plan in her mind. She was going to wait for him to open the hatch or open it when he was right beneath it so it would hit him the head. Apple Bloom just needed to reach the hatch without him noticing.

She pressed her stomach against the floor and began to slowly crawl towards the hatch, all while keeping her hear pressed against the floor. Listening carefully for the unicorn beneath.

There was no sound.

Apple Bloom was at first stunned by the silence but forced her hooves to drag her forward. The planks beneath her remained silent as she crawled. Eventually she made it to the hatch and now came to most dangerous part. The unicorn beneath had made no sounds, either he had left or he was listening for her.

She bit her lips and lifted the handle of the hatch, slowly, to make sure that it wouldn´t make any noise. Apple Bloom took a slow breath and lifted the hatch up.

The hinges creaked.

Apple Bloom froze.

The sound of hooves galloping on the floor below her came rushing towards her.

It all happened in an instant, Apple Bloom threw the hatch down and heard it hitting something. She couldn´t see what or who, but she heard someone grunting. She assumed that it was the unicorn and jumped down. The force of the fall made her stumble at the first steps but she quickly recovered and galloped down the stairs.

Apple Bloom had to assume that the rest of the gang where still in front of the house, so running out the front door would be suicide. She turned and ran for the back door. When she made her exit an open field spanned out before her. She galloped forward without a thought, without looking back. Even her vision forwards were blurred by tears streaming uncontrollably from her eyes.

“See you in another life!” A gargling voice shouted behind her as she made it into the forest.

I saw the entire thing from my little hiding spot. I saw Ma get burned alive, I saw Big Mac getting his head smashed in, I saw Pa getting his throat cut and I saw Applejack being stabbed. I wanted to look away but part of me hoped that they would stop, or that Applejack would fight them of. In retro respect, a small part of me is glad that I watched it. Because now I know exactly who I am after and what kind of deaths they deserve.