Author's Note

Picture a mare, a mare with a rare condition where she can only ever see objects as gore. She tries to live her best life, with the help of her husband.

Warning tags: gore

Bouquet of Flowers

A mare wakes up from a terrible nightmare and right into a terrible reality. She stretches her wings and looks around her room. This pegasus mare, Memento Mori, has a very rare condition. It was called Caedes and it affected her everyday life. It was terrible, to the point where she no longer wanted to go outside. If she went outside all the other creatures would find out about her illness. She felt that they might lock her up, or worse, kill her. Her husband was always so kind to her when she started descending into this madness. He kept her safe, made sure no creature would ever find out.

She wasn’t excited to start her day until she heard his hoof-steps. She bounced out of bed and trotted right up to him. “Hello my love,” she said with a smile.

A unicorn stallion looked up at her, “I brought you roses.” He said holding out a hoof-full of flowers.

Mori’s heart leapt into her throat, she hoped she would see the roses this time. She looked down and all she felt was disappointment. “These….roses are um...beautiful,” she said with a frown. Her Caedes made her see otherwise. There in his arms were severed hooves.

They all looked like they had been poorly hacked off of whatever pony used to sport them. She watched as blood dripped down the cut, down the bone left behind and onto the ground. She swore she could hear it splash onto the wooden floors below her hooves. That was just her Caedes though, it kept getting worse by the day. She stared at the pooling blood on the hardwood floor and sighed.

“You don’t see it...do you?” Her husband asked with a frown, he had hoped maybe this time she wouldn’t see gore. He was doing his best to try and make her happy by bringing her hoof made things made by her lover.

“I’m sorry my love, I want to see it. I do, I really do. You have been so helpful, boarding up the windows so I don't see outside. Doing kind things for me, you even brought me flowers.” She smiled at him and picked them up. She could feel the wetness of the blood on her, she tried to remind herself that it was just water. She turned to the vase, a severed head. She stuck the flowers into the neck carefully. No matter how many times she did that, it was gross every time.

“We’ll if I could-” he started to say.

“No. it’s fine, I’m fine. I’ll meet you downstairs.” She said as she watched him leave dejectedly. She looked at her room once more. Her bed covers and carpet were a blue hide. Her bed and pillow were stuffed with pegasus feathers. Her bureau was an unholy a combination of wood and bone. Her walls were smeared with blood.

She left her room and entered the hallway. The windows had all been boarded up. She had no desire to see the outside world like this. She flew over a bright blue hide carpet and down the stairs. The banister by her side was made of pony bones. She wiped a few tears from her eyes, would she ever get better? Or keep getting worse? Day by day the house became less furniture and more gore. Almost like it was being replaced by night without her knowledge, she entered the kitchen.

There was her husband, sitting there at the kitchen table. He had just replaced the wilting roses on the table. She smiled at him, at least she had her husband during all this. She had to wonder if she would have made it this far without him.

Occid Endum just had his wife close the door on him, he was so sad for her. He wished he could do more. Occid just had to try his best and hope that his wife would get better. He trotted downstairs and into the kitchen. He noticed the wilting roses on the counter, maybe it would make her happy if he replaced them.

He went to the basement to tend to his garden bed, an indoor garden was very convenient. He looked down at the roses and there lay five dead stallions, one missing all four of his legs. The one next to him was picked up and put onto a wooden table.

Occid grabbed his hacksaw, for some odd reason he had a harder time cutting through roses nowadays. Maybe it was his old age getting to him. He picked up the hack saw and started cutting into the beautiful rose. He had to separate it from the roots.

Loud squishy sounds could be heard as a hacksaw didn’t cut through a rose stem but a hoof. Squish, Squish, Squish, GRIND. Here came the hard part cutting through the bone. It made an awful sound, like nails on a chalkboard. Occid kept going, these roses were so hard to cut threw but it made his wife happy. After he was done cutting the roses he gathered them up in his magic and went upstairs.

He took out the rotting hooves from their vase, another rotting head. Occid curled his nose. Why did the flowers always smell like that when they got too old? He could feel the squish slightly under his magic, he shivered. The stems of the roses always got so moldy too, so gross he thought to himself as he put the new roses in. He tossed the old roses into the trash and went back over to the vase. He saw his wife just flapping there in the kitchen doorway. He smiled at her and stepped aside so she could see the roses. “I replaced the old ones, do you like them?”

Mori smiled faintly at her husband, all she saw was hooves but he was trying his hardest to do what he could. “I’m sorry, the gesture was a lovely thought.” Mori flew towards her husband and wrapped her hooves around him.

Occid brought his head down and kissed his wife on her mouth lightly, “I love you, you are a very brave pony. No matter what, I am proud of you.”

With this Mori beamed, she felt happy. Gosh, when was the last time she felt that. “I love you too.”

Somewhere in Ponyville, a crying mare put up a picture of another stallion, the fifth one to go missing this week alone. She thought to herself, I hope they catch the bastard taking them. She slowly trotted away from the picture of her son. Maybe there was still some chance he was alive, she sure hoped so.