*knock, knock, knock*
*creak*
"H-hello?"
"HEEEEYOW! Who's the guy who's tons of fun? Who's bouncier than bubble gum? Who's mattress always makes him itch? Me! Cheese Sandwich! Who's got a mane that's really dark? Makes music like a meadow lark! Who's about to have a party? You! Octavia Melody!"
Suddenly, confetti starts raining from the sky as the mare in the doorway tilts her head and squints her eye, staring me down to my core. "That last line didn't rhyme," she says in disarray, sweeping confetti off of her doorstep. "And I'm sorry to inform you that it's not my birthday, so there won't be any party for me today."
"Who said anything about a birthday? I just got a squeeze in my cheese that told me that somepony here needed a party, and taking two looks at you, I can tell that you definitely need to lighten up and let loose. Take my friend Boneless here!" I quickly reach into my bag before there's a lull big enough for her to make an excuse to shut the door and pull out my lucky rubber chicken. Octavia stares at it with dull eyes in the same way she looked at me after my song, but she's about to be in for a treat!
"See?" I say, waggling the chicken in her face. "You need to be more like my friend here. Now, does he look uptight like he's got a stick up his butt?"
"Thank you for that imagery."
"No! He decided that he wanted to cut loose and shake it off! Now, have you ever seen a rubber chicken this happy before? How about you? You look like you haven't had a laugh since you found out the moon wasn't made of cheese or sandwiches!"
"Listen, Mr. Sandwich," Octavia says regretfully, reaching for her door. "I really do appreciate the gesture, but I just don't think now is a good time for--"
"Are you kidding? Now is the best time! My cheesy sense doesn't send me just anywhere! So if it's not your birthday, what are you celebrating? A new baby? A cousin's wedding? A bat mitzfah?"
The gray mare groans and turns her eyes to her doorstep, frozen in place. "I've recently been awarded a spot in the Manehattan Chamber Orchestra."
"You see?! You can't just pretend nothing happened forever! I mean, think of it! What would your mother think?"
Octavia winces, takes in a deep breath and sighs. "I really can't pretend like nothing happened forever, can I?" Then comes a long, awkward silence, and I can't tell if all the trouble that I went through to lighten up the mood went to waste or not. Finally, though, she makes eye contact and forces a small grin. "Very well, Mr. Sandwich. I guess I could at least let you in."
Not really sure what just happened, but I'll take it as a small victory for now. Octavia leads me into her home, which smells just like old caviar and some kind of mahogany, the exact kind of smell I'd expect from somepony as stingy as this mare. The place is kept neat and orderly down to the creases in her couch pillows, which are as monochrome as the rest of the room. Everything has an aura of a serious, focus-driven pony who treats even her free time like an important financial investment.
"Please, sit down," she says, gesturing to her sofa. "May I offer you something to drink? Perhaps s--"
"If you say earl gray tea, I'm gonna lose my marbles!"
"--ome earl gray t..."
Octavia pauses, and at that very moment, dozens of marbles fall out of my shirt and scatter in every direction across the floor. "Oh, no!" I shout, falling to the ground and trying to grab the spheres from under the couch. "Not my spumoni! Anything but my lucky spumoni marble!"
"Perhaps... maybe just some water for the time being?" I don't want to be rude, but I've only collected about half of my marbles, and I need all my attention to figure out where the other ones rolled off to. Taking the pause to mean there are no objections, she leaves for her kitchen and comes back with a plate carrying two empty glasses and a pitcher filled with water. "Any luck gathering all of them?" As I continue searching for the remainders, Octavia sets down the silver tray onto the table and fills one of the glasses with water.
"Just... about... GOT IT!" I finally find the last marble from my collection and swiftly put it back in my shirt. "Phew-wee! I'm sure glad I keep them all in alphabetical order! Helps me remember which ones I lose. Hey! Is that for me? I know what would work great with that!"
I quickly pull out a packet from the other side of my shirt, tear it open and pour a purple powder into the liquid, mixing it up like a bartender with my novelty fez hat. Putting the hat back on my head, I chug the whole drink down in one gulp, taking hardly any time to enjoy the sweet eggplant taste in a haste to get that savory sugar rush. As soon as I feel the liquid hit the bottom of my stomach, my body starts to twitch and tremble and shake, and before I know it, I'm doing circles and back-flips in the air, singing as I go.
"The purple pulpy eggplant drink is my own recipe! It's got all the ingredients that give me energy! So taste it! Try it! Freeze it! Fry it! Mix it with your celery! Then maybe you can be a party pony just like meeeee!!!"
I finish my song landing on my knees in front of her, forehooves raised to the sky like I'm praising the sun, but Octavia flinches, pausing for a number of moments that begin to make this whole thing really awkward. "Erm..." she says, finally breaking the silence, "I think I'll pass. Thank you for the suggestion, however." The mare then pours herself a glass of water and takes a seat on the couch, sipping it in the most snooty way you could possible sip water. "Now, I really don't mean to be rude, but I personally didn't really have a party in my itinerary for the evening."
"Then I guess we'll just have to make it a surprise party! Whaddya say?"
Octavia sighs and places her cup back onto the silver platter. "Attaining a seat in the Manehattan Chamber Orchestra is hardly worth celebrating. It was just one goal in a line of many, and I can't memorialize the event like it's anything greater than the beginning of an entirely new line of work to complete. I did what I had to do to get here, and I have plenty of more work to do that I'm not particularly excited about! I... Oh, I'm sorry for unloading like that on you, Mr. Sandwich."
At this point I'm kind of scared, but that to me is just a funny way of saying curious anyway. "Come ooooonnnnnn! You gotta celebrate the little things in life too, ya know!"
"Mr. Sandwich--"
"Please, call me Cheese!"
"Erm, right. Cheese Sandwich, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I... I don't deserve it. I don't deserve anything anymore. There were so many ponies who deserved this spot more than I did, but I'm the one who will be taking the stage. You have no idea what the rigors of the music business are like."
"You know somethin'?" I pop a squat next to the depressed gray mare and reach back into my shirt for something else. "I think you've been so busy comparing yourself to everypony else that you've forgotten why you wanted to be a musician in the first place, and I know just the solution! Let's see... where did I put it? Nope, that's not it. Maybe this? How did that even get in there? Hang on! I'm getting warmer! Aaaaaand... GOT IT!" I then pull out an accordion shaped like my cutie mark and play a few notes to hear its beautiful tone.
"That's quite the erm... interesting instrument you have."
"Why don't you join along with me? I'd love to have a duet with one of the best cellists in Manehattan!"
"Well... I suppose..."
For the first time of the evening, I see a hint of a smile begin to cross her face before she turns around and walks out of the living room. Seconds later, she returns with an instrument case attached to her back that's practically twice the size of her torso, and upon laying it on the ground, she begins to undo the latches and pulls out a large oak instrument. She then pulls out the bow and gently slides them against the strings of the cello, producing a beautiful melodic tone in perfect pitch. Without me even telling her which key I'm playing in, she quickly joins in on the music, improvising as if she knew ahead of time what I was going to play.
"Wow!" I shout over our instruments. "You really are talented!"
"You're quite the musician yourself!" she shouts back in a volume that's obviously past her comfort zone. "I can tell you've been playing the accordion for quite some time, haven't you?"
"You ready to sing along?"
"Did you say... sing?"
"OOOOHHHHHH!!! You don't have to be so bleak and dreary everyday! You just look at life in a whole new other way! Just splash some shining colors as you may, and make the darkness fade away!"
"I'm not sure I know this song."
"Then sing along without the lyrics!"
"W-what?"
"OOOOHHHHHH!!! If you feel your past come up then smile really bright! And soon you'll start to see life in a whole new other light! Now give yourself a chance with all your might! You can do it if you try! HEEEYOW!"
"I... I think I'm starting to get it now!"
"Then why don't you join me on this next one?"
"Already?"
"You can do it, Tavi!"
"O... OK!"
Then, with a smile as wide as the ocean, the two of us begin to sing together as loud as we can. "OOOOOOHHHHH!!! If you're feeling gloomy and the tears start to run, you put away the storm clouds and you bring out the sun! 'Cause happiness is something really fun, like a really funny pun, or a hotdog in a bun, and it's made for everyone!"
With a 64th note run from me and a trill from Octavia that just about snaps the strings off of her cello, the two of us finish our song with gusto. Looking over at Octavia, I can see her chest rising and falling in heated breath with a huge smile plastered across her face.
"I..." she pants. "You... That..."
"He? She? We? You're missing the point! That was so much fun!"
"It... It really was, wasn't it? I have to say, it was definitely the best accordion-cello duet that I've ever heard."
"See? You can have fun! All you needed was a little push in the right direction!"
"Most definitely. I guess you were right after all. I really did need this night to have some fun. I've just been so stressed about practicing and making plans on where to go next."
"Why do you need to have a plan? Why not just go with the flow and see where your cheesy sense takes you? That's what I always do!"
Octavia giggles. "I'm sure that's the case, but our flow is in two different directions. Your direction in life is one of carefree fun. Mine, however, takes patience, perseverance and brutal competition. I can't let anypony be a better cellist than I am. Otherwise I'd have no career. Otherwise I'd have nothing to celebrate, and you probably wouldn't be here."
"Because you wouldn't need me here! You'd already know how to have fun!"
Octavia's eyes drop contact with mine and dart to the floor. "Mr. Sand--I mean... Cheese?"
"Yeeeeees?"
"The music business is very gruesome when you really get into it. The ponies that I've stabbed in the back to get here... it still haunts me, but in order to continuing moving up the musical pecking order, as it were, I sometimes have to do more than just practice. I have to truly set myself apart from the competition, and when I know for a fact that there are ponies who are sure to get a seat instead of me, I need to do whatever I can to make sure they don't get that spot."
Oh, boy. She's being difficult, but there's never been a frown that I haven't been able to handle at one point or another!
"You know something, Octavia? Believe it or not, there have been times when I've had to compete against other party ponies just to make a living for myself. I've even lost a goof off or two, to tell you the truth. Do you think I let that stop me, though? Of course not! I just picked myself up and went right back to it!"
"But you don't understand! Being a party pony isn't the same as being a classical cellist! I wish I could tell you something to make you understand what I have to go through, but... I just can't..."
Octavia buries her face into her hooves as tears begin streaming down her face. She went from singing and laughing to sobbing in just a matter of seconds, and even though I've been trying to make her smile this entire time, I get the feeling that this whole thing's my fault. I then place a hoof around her shoulder, silencing her tears long enough for her to look back into my eyes again.
"Hey," I say in a soft voice. "You know somethin'? I bet what you really need is for somepony just to listen to what's goin' on. Have you ever told anypony about this before?" Octavia shakes her head. "See? So why don't you start with what's buggin' you the most?"
Breaking eye contact again, she sniffles and takes in a deep breath to calm herself down. "Well... I think to start... I'm really scared about my future."
"But you're such a great cellist? What have you got to worry about?"
"Trust me. There are others who are far better than me. I just need to keep practicing and hope that they don't audition for the same orchestras as me. You see, my anxiety is what drives me to do better. I practice for several hours everyday, and the fear of losing to somepony else is what gets me up and going every morning. I can't let anypony outperform against me."
"And that makes you happy?"
"I... Well..."
"Octaviaaaaaa?"
"Fine! It makes me miserable! I hate every minute of it, but I'm so addicted to it that I could never allow myself to be any less than my greatest potential! You see, when I'm on stage performing for crowds of thousands, I get this feeling like I'm worth something. When I hear the applause from the audience, I get a sick thrill, like I deserve their admiration, like I'm better than everypony else."
"Now, you just said a second ago that there are lots of other ponies better than you, riiiiight?"
The gray mare flinches and darts her eyes around the room, searching for the right words to come to her. "I... I suppose I might have said that..."
"Just a minute ago, you were smiling wider than I'd seen all night. Now tell me, did you have to be better than anypony else to have fun like that?"
"I guess I didn't, did I?"
For a brief moment, I can see a hint of a smile reaching across her cheeks. "Now you get it!" I say, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her back and forth. "What you really love isn't to be better than anypony else! What you really want is to play your cello and have fun! Isn't that right?"
"I... Yes! You're right, Cheese Sandwich! That's exactly what I want! I don't want to be addicted to the spotlight anymore! I want to play for the joy of playing without any thought as to what anypony else thinks!"
"Now that's what I like to hear! I'll tell you what! Why don't we pick out another song and--"
"Actually..." As I reach for my accordion, Octavia puts a hoof on my foreleg, halting me in my tracks. "There is... one other thing on my mind."
"Well, go ahead!"
Octavia's lips start to tremble, and as much as I know how much she wants to just come out and say it, the words just don't come out. I put a hoof on her foreleg, and with a deep breath, she lets it all out.
"I have completely ruined other ponies' lives to get to where I am now."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't put it into words. Do you... promise you can keep a secret?"
"Of course!"
"Wonderful. Then could you, erm... come with me... i-into my bedroom?"
My heart starts racing. I have no idea what she's talking about, but the last thing I expected was for a very vulnerable pony to lead me into her bedroom in her time of need. At this point, I search my mind for all the possible excuses that I could come up with, but as I look into her eyes, all I can think about is whatever would make her happy.
"Yeah," I say softly. "Whatever you'd like."
Smiling tenderly, she grabs me by the hoof and leads me away past her kitchen, into her hall and up to the doorway of her bedroom. "Well," she starts, placing her hoof onto the doorknob. "We're here." Then, with a twist of her hoof, she opens the door and leads me into the dark bedroom. The next thing I know, the door is shut behind me, and I'm left standing there in complete darkness with no idea what's going on.
"Hey, Tavi? Could we get a light on in here?"
"Are... Are you sure? Promise you won't panic!"
"I'll promise after you tell me what's going on."
"PROMISE!"
"OK! OK! I promise! Now can we turn the light on? I can't tell whose butt I'm touching."
The lights then turn back on, and as soon as I get the focus back in my eyes from the sudden brightness, I stop breathing. Thoughts don't come to mind, but I can feel adrenaline shooting into my body, making my entire body freeze and shake at the same time. My heart starts beating so violently against my rib-cage that I feel like I'm seconds away from experiencing a literal heart-attack.
There, in the middle of the room, is a pony tied up to a chair, motionless. Its mane is gone, along with all of its skin. I can't even tell what gender it is anymore due to there being nothing left of it other than raw muscle tissue and whatever lies underneath. Even its eyes are gone, gauged out from its skull and leaving in its place two dark and empty sockets. I think I'll be sick to my stomach, not from the sight of the corpse, but from the rancid scent of a pony who had probably been sitting there for days now.
I look back at Octavia, who smiles uneasily, but the second I feel my hooves begin to work again, I turn on my horseshoes and start turning the doorknob as fast as I can. Of course, though, she planned for this and locked it ahead of time. However, I keep trying, twisting the knob as hard as I can with one hoof while banging on the door for dear life, hoping that either somepony will hear me or I'll be able to break my way out.
"Cheese! Please, hear me out!"
"NO! GET ME OUT OF HERE! HEEEELP!! SOMEPONY HEEEEELP!!"
"There's no use, Mr. Sandwich. The sooner you stop this madness the sooner we can get this all squared away."
"NO! Don't come near me! I--I--I'll break down the door! Somepony will hear me eventually!"
"Mr. Sandwich, the doors are made of three inch thick oak wood with a 12 hinge lock. The house is also soundproof so that I don't wake up the neighbors when I'm up playing the cello all hours of the night. Do you think I haven't had enough time to plan this all out?"
"Ha! Y-you admit it! You planned for me to come over so you could do to me the same thing you did to that other pony!"
Octavia takes a deep breath, never losing her composure. "Honestly, how on earth would I ever be able to predict that your 'cheesy sense' would bring you all the way here? Now, if you wouldn't mind, the sooner you calm down, the sooner we can discuss things like a full-grown mare and stallion." I want to argue. I want to twist her words around and expose her real motives here, but as much as I want to ignore it, I can't deny the fact that not cooperating would only make her angry. Finally, I loosen my grip on the doorknob and fall back onto my haunches, feeling frightened, helpless and humiliated. "Good. Now, before I begin, I want you to know that you are safe here."
I scoff. "That pony sure wasn't."
"Well, that pony got on my bad side, and I recommend you not do the same." I bite my lip, keeping myself from saying or doing anything that would jeopardize the safety she promised me. "Now, let me explain why I brought you here. As I have mentioned, I have done some very terrible things to get to where I am now. Some of these have ruined other ponies' lives, and yes, some of them I had to kill myself."
"Some of them..."
"I'm sorry?"
"You said some of them! You're telling me there's more?!"
Octavia cocks her head to the side, almost intrigued by what I said. "Mr. Sandwich, this house is a graveyard. There are literally dozens of ponies scattered throughout different areas of the house."
"Where else?! In the walls? In the other rooms in your house?"
Octavia chuckles. "Heavens no. I would never be that obvious or grotesque. In fact, I was in the midst of cleaning up the mess I made here when you came knocking on the door."
"But you said--!"
"We're only soundproofed from the inside, love. I can hear everything that goes on outside of this room. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to continue, please." Begrudgingly, I nod my head and silence my mouth. "Wonderful. Now, if you remember, I said I've killed my fair share of ponies. Others did me the favor themselves and killed themselves after I had arranged for them a life of misery."
"How did you do that?"
"Hmm..." Octavia puts a hoof to her chin. "Broken bones, burned houses, ending marriages, I think you don't quite understand how much competition I face in this industry, love."
"So you've killed ponies just to pretend you're a better cellist than they are?!"
"Oh, no. I'm not pretending. Hard for a rotting corpse to play better than me, isn't that right? And to be fair, those ponies mentioned had killed themselves of their own accord, but I would have gladly done it myself had they continued to fight me, as you can see by exhibit A." Octavia then walks over to the lifeless corpse, which even without skin or eyes looks terrified out of its mind. "You see, this young fellow's name was Tenor Medley. Even after a rough divorce and a sudden foreclosure, he persisted to give me trouble. I then sent him a letter telling him that his kids were with me, and if I felt even the slightest inkling of a doubt that he would call the police, I would slit his foals' throats before he could get here. Can you believe he actually fell for it?"
Octavia laughs loudly, and I have to grind my teeth to stop myself from saying anything I'd regret.
"So," I begin, "what did you do to him?"
"The moment he arrived, I led him into this room and tied him up, telling him to smash his cello and never return to the music world again."
"And how did he take that?"
The gray mare sighs, rubbing Tenor Medley's cheek as if he were trying to console him. "He told me that he'd rather die than give up playing the cello."
The words pierce me in the heart. This pony loved his craft so much that he would look death right in the face rather than give up doing what he loved. As much as I want to believe that much to be true, something in the back of my mind reminds me that he probably had no idea the extent that this mare would go to.
"So... you gauged his eyes out, then?"
"Hm? Oh, no, he did that himself." As my heart stops and a lump grows in my throat, Octavia walks over to an empty bottle lying on the floor across from him. "This serum is called toxicum cuti, and is meant to dissolve through the skin and into the bloodstream, where it is taken to the heart and poisoned at his core. Of course, as you might expect, the treatment is very painful, as it burns the entire skin tissue off of the pony's body as it spreads through the circulatory system. I told him to stay still, but as he flailed in his seat, some of the serum got in his eyes, and rather than deal with the pain, he decided it would be better just to tear them out."
"That's enough." I feel like if she tells me anymore, I might vomit, and I sure as heck don't want to do anything to make a mare like this mad. "So why did you bring me here?"
"Like I told you, Mr. Sandwich, I want to move past that part of my life. You've shown me how wonderful it can be to forget about competition and to just play for the joy it brings me, but I can't move on past this point of my life alone."
"So what you're saying is..." I take a minute to find the strength I need to ask my next question. "I can't leave..."
"I need you to be there with me, Cheese. We need to visit every last body until I'm absolutely satisfied that this issue is, for lack of a better phrase, dead and buried."
"...How many?"
"I'm sorry?"
"HOW MANY BODIES ARE THERE?!"
"Like I said... dozens. I made it to where nopony would ever find them, no matter how hard they tried. The real questions is where we should start."
"How about from the beginning?"
Octavia smirks, approaches the dead stallion and pulls the chair he's sitting on across the floor to the other side of the room. She then pulls away the rug that the chair had been sitting on to a wadded up pile next to him. There doesn't seem to be anything apparently different about this section of the floor in particular, but judging by her smirk, I can tell that she has something up her sleeve.
The gray earth pony then returns to the section of floor and feels around until she finds one slab of wood that creaks more than the others. "This is it," she says, pulling the floorboard out from the ground. Once the first piece is out, she maneuvers her way underneath and pops out the remaining pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. As I approach closer, I begin to see exactly what she was talking about, as dozens of razor-sharp knives and daggers fill my field of vision.
"I'm guessing each one of these have been used to kill a pony at some point?" I ask.
"You really do take me out to be a fool, don't you? No. I've never used a single one of these before, nor do I plan on it."
"Then why did you go through so much trouble to hide them?"
"Bait, Mr. Sandwich."
I try to wrap my head around what she's saying, but the words don't seem to make sense. "What do you mean?"
"I'm saying that at some point or another, there is the possibility that somepony could come snooping around my house looking for evidence to use against me."
"And you don't think this is perfectly good evidence?"
"As I said, these have never been used. If these were ever used as evidence against me, one lab test later and the most they would be able to charge me for would be possession of weapons. At that point, the chances are more likely than not that any suspicion against me would be dropped."
"But don't you think it would be easier if you just didn't have any weapons at all?"
Octavia smirks again, and just like that, I can feel my heart doing the disco down to my stomach.
"No, love. You see, when law enforcement goes looking for evidence, they won't stop until they think they've picked the house apart, gathering anything they can to use against me. If I give them exactly what they're looking for, however, they'll assume they've done their job and go on their merry way to the first jury that will hear them. They'd never guess that the real treasure is hidden just a few steps further down the rabbit hole."
Then, as things finally start to make sense, she pulls the knives and daggers out of the secret compartment and again begins searching for loose wood. As she finds the piece she's looking for, she yanks it out quickly, but unlike the first time, as far as I can tell, the only thing there is solid ground with no way of popping out the remaining pieces. However, after stomping on the ground with what looks like as much force as she can muster, the base of the floor swings open downward, revealing a staircase leading into a dark basement.
"This, Mr. Sandwich, is where the journey really begins. Come with me, please."
I take a hard gulp, still not sure where this will really take me, but giving the dark-maned mare a quick glance, I can tell that she wouldn't appreciate any more stalling. I timidly follow behind her down into the basement, which, like I expected, is pitch black. I put one hoof in front of the other, still not sure how far I should go before my hooves land at the next step. The real issue that makes me physically shudder, though, is that I can't tell if I hear somepony screaming in pain or if it's just my mind playing tricks on me.
Suddenly, the lights flash on, leaving me half-blinded for a second before I can refocus on the dark-colored mare standing in front of me. "Well, here we are," she says nonchalantly.
"So... where is here, again?"
"This is where my first victim died." She pauses and looks away, and in that moment, the gravity of just how many ponies she must have killed finally dawns on me. "Her name was Clef, and she was the greatest cellist I'd ever heard in my life. She always won Equestrian-wide honors for how remarkably she played, but for some reason, she always auditioned for the same orchestras as me." Octavia's stare hardens and her teeth begin to grind together. "Twelve straight auditions, and I lost every single time. Don't worry. I always managed to still get accepted as an understudy in case one of the performers was out sick the day of the performance, but guess how many times that ever happened."
I loosen my shirt, unsure of how I should answer. "Uhh... three and a half?"
"Once. It happened the twelfth time when Clef was unable to attend the event, or, rather, she just never showed up. In fact, I don't think I recall anypony ever seeing her again."
"Leave the jokes to me, Octavia. Where is she?"
Octavia smirks again.
"You're standing on top of her."
I quickly jump to the side and examine the surroundings of the floor, not noticing anything different than the rest of the layout of the floor. Whatever she did, she managed to do a good job of covering up her tracks so that nopony would ever be able to make the connection.
"What did you do to her?" I ask, still not sure whether or not I really want to hear the answer.
"Well, I invited her over to my house, telling her that I was in dire need of somepony to practice with on the off chance that I would be able to perform the next night. She was always so nice to me. I knew she wouldn't refuse. After she arrived, we practiced until I was certain that I was at her level and ready to properly take the role I'd be filling in for. Then I asked her if she would look over some music that I had composed myself that I kept in my room. That's when I had her exactly where I wanted her.
"From there, I locked the door behind her, drug her down here, and finally, I let her know exactly what kind of nightmare she had put me through. I let her know that now, she would never get in the way of my goals ever again. Of course, she begged and pleaded for me not to do anything, that she'd give up playing the cello forever if I would just let her go, but I couldn't risk her tattling on me. Then I led her into a ditch that I had dug beforehoof... and I buried her alive."
I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. Right where I was standing, an innocent pony who was just trying trying to live the best life she could was murdered in cold blood. I have to do everything in my power to keep myself from letting my emotions get the better of me, and even though I know she said she wouldn't hurt me, I still feel like I'm treading too deep to feel comfortable just yet.
"So," I say, "you decided that the thrill was just too good to pass over?"
"Of course not, Mr. Sandwich! Just what kind of pony do you think I am? I never really truly enjoyed killing. It's more along the lines of... an addiction than anything else." Octavia's calm demeanor then shifts into an uncharacteristic smile as she begins laughing. "I can't help it! I want to stop! Really, I do! But I literally cannot go a week without killing anymore!"
Shoot! I think to myself. This is definitely not going in the direction I was hoping for!
I quickly grab the maniacally laughing mare by the shoulders and shake her back and forth. "Calm down, Octavia! You took me here so that you could get better, didn't you?"
Octavia's laughing stops in an instant, and as I finish shaking her, she quickly brings a hoof to her mouth and clears her throat. "Yes. Indeed that is the case, isn't it? Please, come with me. The next body isn't too far off."
The gray earth pony then leads me away, and as much as I wish that we could make our trip in silence, there are a few questions that I can't push out of my mind.
"Are all of the ponies you killed somewhere in your house?"
"Yes. Particularly in this basement. I thought that after the incident with Clef that I'd be done killing forever. However, I quickly came to realize that that was not going to be the case. After killing the second pony, I sealed the entrance to the basement shut and covered it with a throw rug, for no other reason than to keep myself from ever going back downstairs. After a few weeks, however, I relapsed. The princess herself needed performers for an event called the Grand Galloping Gala, and I could not let that opportunity slip from my hooves. When I heard that a pony from Manehattan with over twenty years of cello experience was going to be auditioning, I knew I didn't stand a chance."
"Have all of your victims been cello players?"
"No... I'm afraid not. Seeing as how with three cellists dead and myself being the only pony connected to all three incidents, I needed to sever the ties. I decided with this third pony that if I was going to do this right, I was going to have to spy on him and get anything I could possibly use to my advantage. After a few nights of waiting for him in the bushes of his home, I found that he was having troubles with his wife, so I brought them both here, burned them to death, and placed a note in their kitchen that implied that he killed his wife and immediately committed suicide. The police never even thought of checking here. Speaking of here..."
As soon as her monologue is finished, we find ourselves near a wall, where a pony's skeleton is lying down with the words, "HELP ME!" written in his own blood.
"Almost amusing, isn't it?" Octavia says with a sneer. "He knew I wouldn't leave him until I was sure he was dead, so what on earth made him think that writing such a futile message would be the difference to his survival?"
"Don't talk like that!" Octavia's eyes break from the rotting skeleton and shift to me, staring at me in perplexity rather than in anger, but it still makes me feel on edge. "I mean, you said you wanted to get better, right? You gotta look at it another way before that happens."
My body shakes and trembles, praying silently that my word choice was right, and to my pleasant surprise, she sighs heavily and says, "You're right, love. I'm sorry, Bowstrings. May you forever rest in peace. Now then, shall we visit the next location?"
Death by acid, burning, burying alive, and something else that I didn't even want to know about. Even though I'd technically only seen two bodies, the thought of having to continue doing this for literally dozens of ponies makes my mind melt. I don't know how long else I can keep going, but if for no other reason than to help her get better, I have to keep going, no matter how much it hurts.
The more locations she takes me to, the more I start to wonder if she can ever truly get better. She decides time and time again that she wants to give up murder, just to find herself not only relapsing, but getting more skilled at it. She had already done renovations to her basement, making it at least four times as large as it originally was, and every murder after the next became more brutal and less easy to track.
Hanging, poison, electrocution, starvation, drowning, suffocation, even a hammer to the head. As she later told me, it didn't even kill her instantly.
"Just three left," Octavia says, giving an apology to a decapitated corpse. "We're almost finished! I can already feel how much I've been rehabilitated."
"Yeah... sure..."
"Hmm? Mr. Sandwich, are you alright? You seem to be more down than your regular self."
"Huh? Oh, just feeling kind of tired. I was only planning on staying a little while for a party, but this is way longer than I normally stay!"
"Oh, don't worry. I'll be sure to compensate you in full for your services."
"Th-that's really alright! I mean, this isn't exactly what I'd call a party!"
"But it is still time that you have dedicated to me out of your busy schedule."
"Please... can we just move onto the next one?"
"Oh! Yes, certainly. It's just down this way."
I don't want any money. What I really want is for this mare to never touch a pony for as long as she lives, maybe never even go near another one again, but how could that ever happen?
"Here we are," Octavia says with a smile that grew more genuine after every body. "You may have heard about this one in the Equestria Daily papers. This is the body of Senator Quill."
My body freezes. Senator Quill had just recently been elected to office in the Western Equestria senate and was in the papers just recently about going missing out of nowhere. "So," I say, trying to hide my anger, "him too, huh?"
"Yes, quite the good job I've done with this one, if I do say so myself. You see, the reason behind this one is that he was the only candidate who was supportive of allowing currently illegal chemical checks to be performed in houses. The reason those checks are currently illegal is because it poses an immediate health hazard to residents of the house, but if it can stop a criminal, the townsponies don't care what rights are infringed upon. Senator Quill was seeking to create a bill that would allow just that, and if it passed, it would mean the end for me."
"How?"
"How did I do it? Oh, that's an easy one. I simply tricked a foolish pony into baiting his personal security away, then I moved in, slit his throat and brought him back here. Security was so baffled as to what happened that they could never go about broadcasting it to the public. Instead, they just told reporters that he went out for a walk and never came back."
"That's not what I mean..."
"I'm sorry?"
"I don't mean how did you do it... I mean HOW COULD YOU DO IT?!"
"I've told you already, love. I had to do what was necessary to continue my career."
"Let's just move onto the next body. I want us to be done already."
I don't even bother hiding my frustration anymore, and if I'm being honest with myself, I'm not even scared anymore. All I want is to be done here so I can go to the police and let them know everything that this mare has done. She's not about to get away with this so easily.
"Yes. As you wish, Mr. Sandwich."
We walk to the next body without talking. Even though it's only a few steps away, the blood surging through my brain makes it feel like it's a whole mile away. There's no one thing in particular that's on my mind; in fact, my brain is completely empty, but the anger that washes over me keeps me from thinking about anything else. I don't want to see any more bodies. I want justice.
Finally, we get to another area of the room, and Octavia says, "Here we are." Looking around, though, I see nothing out of the ordinary, even for Octavia. I don't say anything, for fear that I might lose my temper again, but seeing my confusion, Octavia points to a bronze statue of a pony shielding itself like it's in fear.
"What... what is this?"
"Her name was Citrus Squeeze. She owned a lemonade stand in downtown Ponyville, but she was also very close to the police department. She told me that she had an idea of who the culprit might be and if it was OK if she could come to my house sometime. Needless to say, if I said no, not only would that cast suspicion on me, but the next pony I could expect knocking on my door would be a police officer. So, as you can tell, I allowed her into my house, brought her down here, and when I had her right where I wanted her, I pulled the rope and knocked down a bushel of liquid bronze. The second it touched her fur, it hardened and froze her in place."
"How did you even manage to get something like that?"
"The same place where I get everything else: the black market. I make sure to use a different method every time, just so that there's less and less of a trace back to me every time. Honestly, if it weren't for me, half the ponies on the streets would go out of business." Octavia giggles to herself, almost proud of the way she handles her own personal business. "But I digress. There's only one body left, and I'm sure you're as ready to be done as I am."
I bite my tongue just long enough for us to get to the last body, and as soon as I see the image, I fall to my hooves and throw up. In the corner of the room was a pony being hung from the arms by a hook and a knife piercing him in between the eyes. This is the first pony I've seen that's actually in one piece, just like I was minutes too late.
"This stallion's name was Serenade Springs."
"And what did he do to deserve this?"
"Nothing..."
I wait to hear more, but nothing comes out of her mouth.
"What do you mean, nothing?!"
"I mean I killed him just so I could feel good again." My breathing stops. I can't believe what I just heard. My eyes communicate what I'm thinking, pleading with Octavia to tell me there's more. "To be honest, love, after you've killed as many ponies I have, you start to go through withdrawals after a while. I had gone two whole weeks without seeing another pony's blood, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I then went to a bar, found the drunkest pony I could and led him down here. I was horrible... I was so horrible... But now..." Octavia grabs ahold of my arm. "Now I think I can feel better without killing. I can go back to a normal life as a normal pony! It's more exciting than anything I've ever felt."
Tears start to form in her eyes as she squeezes me tighter, now bawling into my chest. She tries smiling as she does so, but the tears flow out of her like a storm of emotion, her voice shattering under her sobs. I then move my hoof through her mane as she wipes her tears on my shirt before gently pulling her away.
"Octavia..."
"Yes?"
"...You won't get away with this."
Octavia's tears stop in a flash as she stares at me in confusion. "I'm sorry, Cheese. I don't understand...?"
"Then let me make things clear." I then walk over to the suspended corpse, pull the knife out with my teeth and look Octavia dead in the eyes. "You don't deserve to live."
"But... but I've changed so much! I'm a better pony now! Please! LISTEN TO ME!"
I only walk closer to her with every word she says. The fact that she's pleading out only makes me feel better about wanting to kill her, just like all those ponies before. She finally knows what it's like to beg for forgiveness and do everything you can, just to look death in the face and know there's nothing you can do.
"Cheese, you're not listening! I'm imploring you! You don't have to do this!"
"Oh, yeah? Well neither did you."
Just as soon as those words escape my lips, I fall to the floor. No! I think to myself. Not now!
My body then shivers from head to horseshoe, sending me into the air in a way that makes even my cutie mark squeeze back and forth. That's when a little message goes through my head that there's a pony down in Trottington that's looking to throw an amazing party. The moment the cheesy sensation finally stops, my head goes through a spin, and when I finally regain my focus, I see Octavia holding the knife in her own mouth.
"Were... were you going to kill me?" she asks in a quiet, almost scared tone.
"Octavia..." I say, backing up. "You don't have to--"
"Do this? That's what I was trying to say... But you kept moving..."
Her voice is timid and shaky, and I don't have any idea if she has any grip on her own mind anymore.
"Well, Octavia? You said you wanted to get better! Now is the perfect time to prove it!"
"But... you wanted to kill me."
"Please, Octavia! You're the only one who can choose now! I know you can do this! Choose to be good again!"
"My life is over... If I let you go, you'll go straight to the police, but if I don't, they'll come looking for you. I don't know if I can cover up two deaths in one night."
With each passing word, Octavia takes a step closer until I'm finally backed into a wall.
"I promise, Octavia! I won't let a word slip out of my mouth! You win!"
"Only one of us can make it out alive today." Finally, she's muzzle to muzzle with me. If she wants to kill me at any moment, she can do it in an instant. "Do you really want me to die?"
"I... I..." Now's the time. I might die here, but I need to at least die an honest stallion. "Yes, I do! I don't think you can ever get better, Octavia!"
"In that case..." Octavia then closes her eyes and throws the knife straight up into the air. "We'll let chance decide."
Suddenly realizing what's going on, I reach out and hug Octavia, clinging onto her like she's a teddy bear as I shake to my hooves. My teeth rattle in my mouth, but Octavia remains calm, knowing fair well that even though she could die at any instant, at least she had tonight to finally get everything off of her chest.
Splat.
Octavia's eyes shoot open as the two of us look at each other for one last time.
"Why...?"
She then collapses to the ground... and so do I...
