The Vile Knife

The Vile Knife

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You stand on a small rise, looking down into the town of ponyville. Through the pouring rain, you can make out the silhouettes of the collection of thatched-roofed cottages that make up the town, interspersed by one or two slate roofs. Not much about the town has changed since you were last here, over a year ago. The lives of the inhabitants, however, have changed dramatically since your arrival.

After they overcame their initial fears and cautiousness, the townspeople, or rather, townsponies, were friendly enough towards you. A certain six of the townsfolk had been particularly friendly. You wish that you could remember their names, although names seem insignificant to you now.They had ensured that you had a place to stay, and that you were comfortable in your lodgings. They had given you gifts of food and clothes, books and other tokens of their friendship. Over time, had even offered you their love, both physically and spiritually. It had been almost been... Good. You could have gotten used to that life.

It couldn't last, of course. You hadn't meant for it to happen at all. There had been a... Misunderstanding. Tempers flared. The red mist descended. The situation escalated explosively, and suddenly you were standing over a corpse, with someone else's blood on your hands. Literally. The only viable course of action was to promptly flee the scene. By the time your heinous crime was discovered, you were deep within the aptly named Everfree forest. For the first time in your life, you had murdered someone. And you had gotten away with it.

They had come looking for you, of course. The famous Royal Guard, sent out on a manhunt, determined to find you. But expert hunters they were not. They were loud, clumsy and easy to fool in the clinging darkness of the forest. They slowly grew tired of their endless, fruitless searching. The patrols gradually dwindled in size and frequency, until, eventually, they just stopped looking. Their complacency would prove to be their downfall.

It was strange really. The longer you spent in the forest, the more your hatred for them and their kind grew. At first, it was little more than a slight, nagging dislike of ponykind. But the hate within your soul grew and grew, until you finally succumbed to the feeling. In that night of blinding, burning, hate-fuelled rage, you lashed out at the closest possible target. The hate had driven you beyond the point of madness, and into the bottomless pit of complete and utter insanity.

The shy, butter-yellow pegasus didn't stand a chance. It wasn't your fault anyway. The voices told you to do it. They made you do it. The voices that promised centuries of terrible, unspeakable punishments if you failed. If you didn't do what you were told. So you barred the door to the house. And you set it alight, with the unfortunate owner trapped inside.

It seems odd to you that you can't even remember her name, but you can remember her screams as she was burned alive in that thatched cottage at the edge of the forest. The memory is still extremely vivid in your mind's eye. You remember the way the bright yellow flames flickered as they took hold. The heady scent of burning timber and straw in your nostrils. The acrid tang of charred flesh. The house burned up fast, and within mere minutes, the entire building was a raging, roaring inferno. Buildings shouldn't be so flammable. Someone could get hurt. You smile, amused by your own little joke.

By the time help arrived, the building was little more than a black and smoking ruin. You were amazed at how they ever managed to find the body inside that burned and broken shell of a house, and drag it, blackened and charred, from the still smoking rubble. But what happened to her name? Where did it go? Did it somehow detach from her body? Did it float away on the wind? Did it burn away in the fire? Perhaps her name was lost, along with your mind, in the deep and the dark of the forest. The thought fills you with a sudden feeling of intense sadness.

No. There's nothing to be sad about. She is dead, and you are not. You suddenly begin to laugh, harder and harder, until you are on your knees, gasping for air, tears of laughter streaming down your pale, gaunt cheeks. Your maniacal laughter echoes through the night. To any and all creatures that hear it, the laughter is unnerving. It is the laugh of a creature that is totally, utterly and completely mad.

When you finally get your breath back, you stand up and begin to make your way into the town.

Luckily for you, the cobblestone streets of Ponyville are poorly lit. The only source of light comes from the sparsely placed lamps, and the occasional open window. Because of this, it is tremendously easy to stay in the shadows, and therefore remain unseen. Or so you thought. You suddenly hear the sound of horse hooves striking stone some way behind you, and slightly to your right. It sounds like someone trying, and failing, to move silently. You stop in your tracks, and the sound stops a fraction of a second later.

Shooting a glance over your shoulder, you see a sudden flash of gold as someone, or something, dives out of sight. You realise that you are being followed, although rather badly. Your heart begins to beat faster, as you anticipate the thrill of the chase, and the prospect of a kill.

You bolt suddenly, sprinting off down the street. You turn quickly into a dark alleyway. A dead end. Perfect. Fortunately, luck is apparently on your side tonight, for the against the side of the building that serves as the left hand wall of the alley, a ladder has been placed, allowing you to quickly climb up onto the slate roof of the building. With your pulse racing, you haul the ladder up after you, and drop it out of sight. Seconds later, a white stallion clad in golden armour skids to a halt in the entrance of the alleyway: a member of the famous "Royal guard". A Pegasus, to be exact. He does a double-take upon finding the alleyway completely empty. The look of surprise on his face is almost comedic. Slowly, carefully, he begins to move down the alleyway, looking from left to right. Searching. However, he makes a vital mistake that will prove to be his last: he doesn't look up.

You wait until he is directly below you, before you stand up and leap down from the roof. The hard, worn soles of your boots collide solidly with the back of his head. The force of the impact sends the unfortunate guard flying, knocking him to the ground.

The guard rises and struggles to stand, gasping for breath, only to collapse to the floor again as his legs buckle under him. Confident in your victory, you saunter over to where he lies. As you stand over him, he looks up at you, with fear in his eyes. He tries to speak, but in his stunned state, he can only manage a few garbled, incomprehensible words. You hear a satisfying crack, accompanied by a gasp of pain as you deliver a swift kick to his ribs.

You reach down and yank off his golden helmet, tossing it aside. It lands on the hard ground with a loud, metallic clang. You raise your right foot, and stomp viciously on his face. Once. Twice. Three times. He coughs, and spits out blood and broken teeth. His nose is bleeding heavily, his lip is split and bleeding in several places, and there is also a large, red welt above his left eye. To put it bluntly, he's a mess. Time to finish this.

Grabbing his jaw, you force his head back and upwards, exposing his neck. With your free hand, you reach into your belt, and draw out a long and wickedly sharp kitchen knife; stolen, of course. Taken from the charred and blackened ruins of the burnt cottage. The handle is blackened, and the blade is slightly mottled from the heat of the fire, but it is still razor-sharp: you had always made sure of that. This knife has already claimed several lives, and now it's about to take another.

Reaching down, you place the blade against his throat. The guard struggles weakly, but to no avail. With a quick jerk, you slash open his throat, severing the jugular. The sudden spray of arterial blood splatters the ground and the wall in front of you. His head flops limply, and you hear the thick, gargling sound of his last breath. You straighten up, the bright red gore dripping from your hand, and you walk quickly away, leaving his corpse in a rapidly widening pool of blood, and a look of horror frozen on his cold, dead face.

You find it odd that he was out on his own. The Royal Guard usually patrol in groups, or at least in pairs. Then again, they hadn't exactly been expecting you. On a whole, the Royal Guard was a bunch of amateurs playing at soldiers. They were predictable, complacent, and lazy. You doubted if they had even been trained in combat techniques, but then again, neither had you. However, your combat skill had grown out of raw experience, rather than professional training.

For example, you had quickly identified inherent weak spots in each of the particular species. For Pegasi, it was the wings; the flight bones within the wings were hollow, and therefore fragile. With enough force, the wing could be broken fairly easily, thus robbing the opponent of the advantage of flight. Unicorn horns, you had discovered, were particularly sensitive to touch. Smacking a Unicorn's horn, therefore, had about the same effect as a kick to the groin: Incapacitating, but not permanent. Snapping or severing a Unicorn's horn, however, was certainly permanent. The pain alone could actually kill a younger, weaker, less experienced Unicorn. Even the strongest were instantly rendered unconscious. The normal ponies, rather like pint-sized versions of the ones you used to know, were a different matter entirely. They had an inherently higher pain threshold than the other two races, and immense reserves of strength and stamina. They were best avoided. You hadn't yet discovered any exploitable weakness that could be used against them.

With a start, you realise you have reached your destination. The tall, wide tree that houses the library. It looks exactly as you remember it. Creeping up to the door, you try the handle, attempting to be as quiet as possible. The door is unlocked, but is prevented from opening fully by a length of chain. No matter: you simply reach inside and unhook the chain from the latch. The ponies in this town were far too trusting, almost to the point of idiocy. With the door now fully open, you step inside.

The interior of the library is lit by the pale glow of moonlight flooding through the windows. It looks exactly as you remember it. The walls are lined with books: not exactly a revelation, this is a library after all. A set of steps set into the far wall leads up onto an overlooking balcony, and, unsurprisingly, to more bookcases. A second set of spiralling stairs leads from the balcony up into the attic bedroom of Twilight Sparkle, the resident librarian.

Wait a second. Her name! You remembered her name!? How?! You whisper the name to yourself, over and over. Twilight Sparkle. Mustn't forget. Not again. Not now. The words seem strange on your tongue, almost as if you're speaking a different language. Twilight Sparkle. The two words don't seem to fit together at all, yet they match each other perfectly at the same time. You say it again. Twilight Sparkle. How odd. The name even tastes strange. But not bad. It doesn't taste bad. Anyway, mustn't get distracted. Not now. Got to concentrate on the situation at hand.

Cautiously, you ascend the stairs up to the upper balcony, taking care not to make much noise. As you reach the top of the staircase, the final step lets out an agonisingly loud creak. You freeze, and cringe at the sound. You hold your breath as you listen intently for any noise from the bedroom upstairs. Total silence. You relax slightly, and exhale in relief. Clearly, the sound wasn't enough to wake anyone.

You continue onwards, silently crossing the balcony and reaching the second set of stairs. Slowly, carefully, you begin the final ascent.This will be your crowning achievement. You will be remembered for this. What you are about to do could signal a turning point in the history of this world, marking the beginning of a downward spiral of destruction, chaos, hatred, violence and death. And you would be the cause of it all. The thought of that possibility fills your heart with a savage, sadistic glee. This will be fun.

You slowly advance up the winding staircase. There are exactly fifteen steps. You have reached the bedroom. A meter or so away, a small, lavender unicorn lies on her back, fore-hooves in the air. Her chest rises and falls slowly, in time to the rhythm of sleep. Her name is Twilight Sparkle. You can't forget that name now. It's stuck in your head, repeating itself over and over. And you know it's because she's about to die.

You are standing directly over her now. The pale moonlight illuminating the room creates strange shadows, twisted and malformed. As your shadow looms over the still-sleeping, you grasp the hilt of the knife with both hands, and raise it above your head. Your breathing slows. The moment you have waited for is at hand. What happens next happens in a split second, but to you, it seems to happen in slow-motion.

The knife begins it's descent, plunging down, towards it's unsuspecting victim. The blade strikes her directly in the chest, and you feel the increased resistance as the blade slices down through the thick chest muscles, punching clean through a lung. The blade continues onward, deeper and deeper, all the power you can muster put behind the blow. The blade punctures the thick, muscular wall of her heart. Only then does it stop, the knife embedded up to the hilt. Her legs fly upwards simultaneously, as the force of the attack slams her down into the bed. She gasps in pain and shock, her eyes snapping open, staring wildly in surprise. Her deep purple eyes find yours, and you find yourself gazing back at her. Maintaining eye contact, you viciously twist the knife. Warm blood sprays upwards, splattering your hands, your arms and your face. Her eyes widen even further, and she lets out a sudden, pained gasp.

You rip the blade upwards and outwards, causing even more blood to splatter in every direction, spraying the walls, the celling and the floor. Your work done, you spin on your heels and begin to leave. Just as you reach the top of the stairs, your unfortunate victim lets out a single, ragged, hacking cough. Looking over your shoulder, you see that she is reaching her hoof towards you. Strange. She almost looks like she's begging. Pleading. Her eyes say the words she no longer has the strength to speak.

You step towards her, and stretch out your hand, and hold her hoof, exactly like you did when you first met. It feels like that happened such a long time ago. Her blood is spreading in an ever-widening pool, staining the bedsheets crimson. A small, but steady stream of blood flows from between her lips. You stand there, frozen in time and space, holding her outstretched hoof as she falls into the endless void. The light goes out in her eyes, and you finally drop the hoof. The blood is still spreading, the pool widening rapidly. You walk slowly out onto the balcony. Part of you still doesn't quite believe what's just happened. Part of you feels sickened at your actions. Part of you feels glad.

In the distance, a brilliant white flash lights up the sky for a split second, like a lightning bolt, a pillar of light shooting up into the sky. It is coming from the direction of the capital. From Canterlot. She is coming. Everything is going according to plan. She is coming.

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Author's notes:

Well, I certainly had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope that you enjoyed reading it. This story was written purely from my rather twisted imagination: there was virtually no planning involved, the entire thing was fairly spontaneous. I came up with the idea for the story in the dead of night, and the story practically wrote its self from then on.

I played around with several different names for the protagonist, but none of them sounded right. Furthermore, I felt that the second-person perspective just made the whole story seem rather detached and uninteresting. So, I settled on a first-person perspective, which greatly improved the flow of the story (At least, it did in my opinion. You might disagree with this). It also created the main underlying theme of the story: Anyone can go mad. In all honesty, I believe that insanity is just one step away for all of us, and that all it takes is one little push, and then you'll suddenly find yourself nailing various animal carcasses to the walls of your shed, and attacking people with a rusty chainsaw.

That's part of the reason I wrote this story: I tend to use writing as a safe outlet for all the anger that I build up through the course of a normal week: I'm sure a lot of people feel like this. All the little annoyances can stack up into one big, angry mess. So, every fortnight or so, I sit down and write. The majority of my stories aren't really related to MLP FiM. Most of aren't that good anyway, so I usually delete them a day or so after. I have kept some of the better ones, but I don't think I'll ever get around to releasing them. I'm kind of lazy when it comes to the publishing side of things. However, I still think it's important to let your darker side out once in a while, and, for me, writing is the perfect way to do that: it can't physically hurt anyone. (Although I was once knocked unconscious by a particularly heavy dictionary that had suddenly fallen from a high bookshelf. It wasn't pushed, and I didn't even touch the bookcase it was on, which has lead me to conclude that the book was trying to kill me).

-Bloodpool.