FoE: Out with the Old: Those Who Stayed Behind

Thud.

Thud.

Cheerilie woke again, with a gasp, from the splitting headache. She could barely sleep as it were with the itch in her eyes, but it seemed that her headache got worse every day now. She rose from where she was sleeping, surrounded by other mares who had either managed to fall asleep peacefully, or simply passed out from exhaustion on the floor. She thought hard to remember where she was.

School.

That was it, school. Ponies learned here. Learned to think.

Think, think.

She suddenly had a violent coughing fit, cupping her hands around her mouth. When the cough subsided, she looked to her dirty palms, finding fresh blood sprayed onto caked dirt. She looked around her. Others.

Other mares began to rise, in the same sour mood she had gained. They coughed as they woke, in deep, scratching tones that wouldn't come from a healthy mare. Sometimes, one of the mares would vomit on the floor, even on one of the other sleeping ponies, but they were simply too sick to care, apologize, or even speak about the matter. The smell of blood and vomit had embedded itself into the room, and one could smell it from far behind a closed door.

Thud.

Cheerilie growled, pawing at her temples with her fingers, as if trying to dig through and pull the pain out. Every now and then, the pain in her head would spike, like all of the blood kept within was suddenly trying to force its way out of her skull. She heard the small jingle of the red collar upon her neck. She tugged at it for a moment, but lost focus after another coughing fit. She looked around again. In her dulled mind, she remembered schools differently than this. They were much cleaner, and the chairs with four legs were straight, they were kept clean and there were lights and-

Thud.

She growled in a much angrier tone. She used to remember a remedy for this, but was too tired to do so right now. She walked slowly around the crowded building, occasionally bumping into a wall or closed door until she made her way outside, into the blinding sunlight.

The sky was clear, the sunlight was strong, and Cheerilie covered her irritated eyes as they began to leak fresh blood. A few mares around her did the same as they roamed around the ruined place, some stumbling over and falling in pain. She looked around when her eyes could bare it.

She saw places that made memories materialize in her mind. Laughter. Smaller ponies. Happiness.

Thud. Thud.

She walked toward what her mind told her was a playground. She sat upon a swing that was still strongly chained, unlike others that had rotted away or were too rusted to use. She remembered more vivid things.

Applebloom. What a sweet young filly. She would play here with friends... friends would walk and play...

Thud.

Caribou. Caribou took them.

Thud. Thud.

They RAPED them. They raped her.

Thud. Thud.

They took everything. They made her an object. They made her think it was okay to be used.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

She smacked her forehead against a wall of the school, and the bigger thoughts dissipated. after she fell to the mulch, she looked up at the sky, as dazed as she was. She remembered to stand up...

Thud.

Hungry.

The mares within the building who hadn't died from their illness in the night had gotten up and began moving in a group. A few of the less delirious, Cheerilie not being among them, had picked up weapons strewn across the ground. Sharp rocks, lengths of broken wood, even the occasional knife or shiv armed the more intelligent group members. Cheerilie simply walked at a brisk pace where other mares seemed to go. The group seemed less like a pack and more like a mob. They were too sick to hunt for their food, like the other mares, but something within them was driving them into Ponyville, possibly a smell or some noises, nothing she could remember. Cheerilie looked around, seeing piles of rotting, dead corpses.

Among them, mares, some like her, some not. Some had horns, or wings, clipped or cut as they were. Some had bloody eyes, others seemed mostly normal.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Stallion.

She began sniffing rapidly, peering deep into the piles of corpses. She saw the body of a stallion. Fresh, young. Couldn't have been an adult for long. Couldn't have been dead for long. She broke off from the group, a few mares following her. As they neared the stallion, the smell of meat filled Cheerilie's nostrils, and she suddenly moved as quickly as her tired legs would carry her, much less a sprint and more of a hurried gait.

She and the mares who moved with her pulled the body off of the top of the pile, onto a dirt path. Without waiting, they immediately began tearing into the body, their more well-armed peers moving further into the ruined town.

After a moment, the thudding in her head ceased. Cheerilie's eyes managed to focus. The stallion was wearing something shiny. She looked at herself in it.

Her eyes were bloody, the sclera being more velvet than white. Droplets of blood had caked below her eyelids, giving the appearance that she was constantly crying. Fresh blood dripped off of her chin, from the stallion she had just been eating. The headache began to lessen as meat and blood slid down her throat, settling in the empty pit of her stomach.

She tore into the body more.

No more thudding.

Not long after, Cheerilie and those who fed with her had caught up with the other mares, who had also found fresh corpses, as evidenced by their once sour expressions turning into toothy, sickening grins. That was it! That was the remedy. Cheerilie was finally able to remember. If you were sick, you ate meat. Deer and rabbit didn't cut it, though. Had to be a pony. Had to be fresh.

She looked around more. She remembered what was lost. Happiness. Laughter. Love. All had been taken. There was love, the Caribou turned it to lust, and now she mostly felt hatred. It was exciting to kill, no doubt. The chase, the hunt, getting first bite, it's all an exhilarating experience for her, now. Far more than sex, anyway. In the end, however, when it was all said and done, she hunted and killed who she did because she hated them. The caribou, the stallions who raped her, it had become her goal to find them and eat them all. That seemed to be the goal of the mares around her, too.

A mare at the front of the group came to a halt, putting her hand in the air, waiting for the others to stop.

"Stop... Walk. Need... sit." She spoke, sounding as if she was choking on something.

The group moved into a small bakery, with torn decorations and little crumbs of pastries strewn around the floor. Rats scurried away in a panic as some of the hungrier mares leaped at them, though to no avail. Cheerilie sat in a corner as the mares around her began to sit, some even able to speak with one another, albeit in broken sentences.

"No more food." Cheerilie thought aloud.

"What?" The mare from before stood again, hunching over from another coughing fit.

"Need... move." Cheerilie rubbed her head, trying to maintain her focus.

"Find...living." She snapped her fingers, trying to remember the word, growling in frustration.

"Living... stallion?" The leading mare spoke.

"Yes... Dead ones.. not... good." Cheerilie stood, relieved that her words made sense.

The leading mare was quiet for a moment.

"Hmph." Was her only response. She turned, slowly walking over to a chair and sitting down again.

Cheerilie sat back down, look at the group around her again.

She remembered horrible things as she sat, swaying lightly. She remembered being strapped to a wooden device and forced to watch as mares had their horns sawed off, their screams of agony making her grab at her head, as if the screams were real again. She remembered an orange filly... Scootah... Aloo... Something like that. She remembered watching as a caribou grabbed the tiny filly and took her wings away with nothing but a pair of dirty scissors.

In that brief moment, she remembered why all she felt was hate.

Footsteps.

In a moment, she looked out of a window in her daydreaming, and she noticed a shape in the distance. Somepony wearing a white cup on their face, a mask? She peered closer.

Stallion. Pegasus stallion.

He walked away, apparently not noticing her. She saw that one of his wings was bandaged with a piece of soiled cloth.

Easy.

She quickly let out a shriek, and the group snapped to attention. She pointed at the stallion, who had turned rapidly to see the source of the scream.

Mares grabbed weapons and came barreling out of the building, causing the stallion to break into a sprint. Cheerilie was near the front of the group, all running at full speed with teeth bared. Cheerilie could make out the sound of dozens of hooves thudding along the dirt path, the sound of shrieking laughter and teeth snapping at the terrified stallion. The running pegasus produced a small pistol from his pocket and fired into the crowd behind him, some bullets whizzing past Cheerilie's head while others cause some mares to tumble back. The mare Cheerilie spoke to earlier had been shot right in front of her, spattering her face with blood. She managed to get around her body before tripping over it, now at the front of the pack.

Eventually, the stallion slowed, breathing heavily as he forced himself to run.

Cheerilie jumped at her first chance, tackling the stallion to the mud.

The other mares began to crowd around him, but Cheerilie shrieked in response.

"STOP!"

Her voice echoed through the empty town, and the mares around her began to back off. The stallion underneath her shivered violently, his hands around his face.

"Knife." Cheerilie spoke to the crowd. A mare threw her a machete, which she picked up off the ground. It was just recently sharpened.

She looked at the cowering stallion on the ground, quickly grabbing his broken wing, pulling it out sideways. The stallion yelled out in pain, his other wing extending in response.

She brought the blade down on the bandaged part of his wing, lodging it in the bone. The stallion screamed out again, trying to pull away, but another mare took his hand that was trying to drag him away and grabbed it, hitting it with a rock until it stopped making cracking sounds.

Cheerilie kept ripping the machete out and chopping at his wing, taking sick pleasure in his torment as he screamed and writhed underneath her. Surrounded by other mares, all he could do was scream and cry out as Cheerilie hacked off both of his wings.

When she finished, she looked at the group.

"Carry it." She pointed to the stallion with her blade.

The stallion in question was looking at the ground, his face smeared with mud. His eyes were open in sheer horror, too stricken by shock to do much but shudder. The mares in the group lifted the stallion into the air as Cheerilie stood up, following her as she began walking.

"Why..." The stallion got out between shuddering breaths.

Cheerilie turned around, rage in her bleeding eyes. She remembered a very particular word. One that was often used against her in the past, but one she found all-too-fitting for this moment. She screamed directly in his face, loud enough for him and any other being in Ponyville to hear.

"PUNISH!!!"

Thud.