Phantoms

"The forest was, well, it was more like a swamp," Kerfuffle muttered, in between sips of coffee. "It was wet, it smelt awful, and there was mud up to my fetlocks. I almost lost my prosthetic a couple times."

"Sounds awful," Sunny said. "Your cup is looking pretty low, need a refill?"

"I've had three cups already. More than enough, thanks though."

"When did you--"

"The waitress here is unbelievably good. She'll refill your cup before you even know it's empty. Anyway..."

We had a 'path' in the same way a pony with three slices of bread has a sandwich. The unfettered moss covering the forest floor was so dense that it felt like a shag carpet, and I'm not complaining about the natural decor or anything, but it wears down on you after a while. At first I liked how soft it was, but my hooves would sink so far into it that I wound up tripping over myself more often than not.

There were four of us--Ramooh, his father Daiya, a family friend, and me. They insisted on carrying the bricks and I wasn’t in the mood to argue.

It took nearly twenty minutes of hiking for us to get to the spot--an unnatural clearing in the middle of the jungle, large enough for over a dozen ponies to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. The family friend and Ramooh started laying bricks out, and pretty soon they had a makeshift altar--his father took out a piece of chalk and started marking patterns on it. It had swirls, concentric circles, interwoven spirals--I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but it looked almost perfectly symmetrical despite having so many little details and no references to go off of.

I slid up next to Ramooh, leaned in, and whispered "What happens next?"

"Well, first we set a fire, then burn some offerings. There are some prayers as well. It is all a fairly simple process--"

Ramooh stopped mid sentence when a raindrop dripped onto his nose. It wouldn’t have been all that weird--in fact, I had just opened my mouth to ask if another monsoon might be coming, when another raindrop fell onto my nose. I couldn’t get a good look at it, but it stained my fur. When it trickled down my snout and into my mouth, I nearly gagged at the taste.

It wasn't water that was raining down on us. It was blood.

"Father--"

The sky opened up, turning a sickly, meaty pink as clouds of blood rolled in.

"Everyone, stay close!" the old cow bellowed, loud enough to be heard over the rising sound of the rain. I heard a massive thud as a slab of muscle fell right in the middle of the stone altar, blood spattering across the delicate patterns. I backed toward Ramooh, who backed toward his dad.

That friend of the family, though? He panicked. He bolted--well, he tried to. I didn't even hear him scream--he took two steps, and then...

"Ma'am? Your baked potato."

The waitress slid a plate across the table. A freshly-baked spud was on it, with chives and sour cream and bits of cheese melted in the middle. Sunny nodded as the waitress dropped off his order--a stack of pancakes, with syrup and butter.

"Thank you," Kerfuffle said softly. Sunny hadn't seen her look so pale since--well, since the rainbow-maker had broken.

"I wish I could say he was just gone. I wish I could tell you I hadn't seen this, Sunny."

The breakfast rush had already passed them by. Sunny had finally gotten to his second cup of coffee; Kerfuffle had long since asked for refill after refill of milk, instead. They had finally ordered food out of pity for the poor waitress, who had been checking their table so reliably that Sunny had set his pocketwatch by it.

"If this was a nice little campfire story where you're supposed to get freaked out and then go to sleep after, I'd tell you that all I saw was a blur. But you know she wouldn't do it like that, right, Sunny?"

She leaned over the table, the usual sparkle of her eyes hardened by terrible truth.

"A-are you okay, Kerfuffle--"

"She skinned him, Sunny. Skinned him alive. Right there, in front of us."

Sunny gagged at the thought. Kerfuffle, eyes locked straight ahead, picked up her knife and fork.

"She stripped layer after layer off him," Kerfuffle continued, as she pressed the blade of the knife to the skin of her meal. "Oh, it was all perfectly clean cuts. She shaved it off, bit by bit--thin strips of muscle, spirals of fat, splinters of bone." With each word, she carefully sliced off a bit of the potato, delicately placing each piece along the edge of the plate.

"Kerfuffle--"

"She dragged it out," she whispered, lowering her fork into the body of the potato. She lifted it, tearing a chunk of flesh out, strings of cheese and sour cream dangling off. "She showed off, Sunny. She tortured that bull for, what, a minute? Two?"

"Kerfuffle, please--"

"She wanted us to watch her," she said, her voice rising as her hooves trembled. The fork clattered to the plate. Cream spattered on the table. "I think she was wondering if any of us would enjoy it. Do you understand me, Sunny? She thought I would enjoy it--"

"Kerfuffle!"

She stopped talking. The waitress, shaking slightly, muttered something about coming back later.

Sunny sighed. "Are you...okay, Kerfuffle?"

"No," she said, with the same steady grin she had carried for months--no, for years.