Silent Graves

"Four, three, two..."

A short jingle played, and the hostess spoke again. "And we're back again. We would like to once more thank our sponsors. Red's Rotary Repair, when you need a rotary tool repaired, call Red. We'd also like to thank Quills and Sofas. If you need a quill or a sofa, stop on by and we'll set you up right. Additional funding has been supplied by the Equestrian Board of Print and Press."

"We're still talking to our guest, Metal slab," the host informed the listeners. "If you're just now joining us, Metal Slab is a coroner with the royal guard, and before the break, he was telling us about a sudden outbreak of deaths that all have a very specific detail as to the state of the body. Metal?"

"Thank you, Mr. Facts. Before I go into any further detail regarding the past cases, I should let your listeners know that during the break, a messenger from my office came down with an update. We'd yesterday received all of the reports regarding that first case, and I was having two of my interns looking over the information, trying to find a correlation. We're not yet sure what they ingested, but judging by the autopsies, we are pretty sure how the victims would be effected by the poison.

"The first thing you would feel is a sort of burning in your stomach and esophagus. In our most recent victim, the contents of his stomach contained a lot of bismuth subsalicylate. That's a medicine used to treat heartburn, so we can safely assume that he was trying to counteract the feeling. The second thing you would feel is the stiffening of your joints. If you're very active during this time, you might not notice right away, but sitting still or lying down, you might notice right away that it's becoming harder to bring up your leg from a full stop. After that, you might start to feel tired, and after you fall asleep, unless you have a lot of help, you might just never wake up again.

"We've narrowed it down to about a dozen causes, but we're not yet completely sure how the toxins were given to the victims in the first place, or why it seems to, in the first two cases, skip right over somepony."

"Well, it's a good thing you came in," smiled Hard Facts. "If any of our listeners knows any hazardous materials that might match the description of events listed here today, we urge you to tell your local guardspony. If you tell us quickly, we might just be able to save the life of somepony you care about dearly."

"When we know for sure what killed these few, I'll personally come down here again to let you all know what to avoid in order to stay safe," agreed Metal. "Now, I promised your listeners I would delve into my findings on the other two cases, so let's hold me to that, shall we?

"The next case was seemingly unrelated to the first. We're still looking for commonality, but nothing so far. We do, however, know who did this one. An ex-marefriend of the victim broke into his home several times, including twice the day before the body was found. He'd gone out and found a new marefriend, and she'd killed him for it. What baffled the guards is how she broke into the new marefriend's house and killed the stallion, and missed the mare he was sleeping with. It's not that we think she should have been killed, merely that we're not sure what was going through her head.

"As for the most recent case, we have a very large number of ponies with motive. Hundreds, in fact. The victim was a restaurant critic who has caused several restaurants to go under from bad reviews. He's also helped out a lot of struggling restaurants with good reviews. Blue Fin was his name, and he used to be a fisherpony before delving into restaurant criticism."

"I remember him," nodded the hostess. "We have our own news affiliate, and several of our restaurant reviews agreed with his findings. It's not as though his opinion was a bad one."

"Even so," argued Hard Facts, "His opinion is his own. Was his own, excuse me. Neither we nor our listeners have to agree with him, and you can eat wherever you like."

"But I will say that he had good taste," argued the hostess. "I found my favourite place because of his reviews. He was a great critic."

"Whether or not you agreed with him is irrelevant," retorted Metal, returning them to the topic. "While we do think that this was done by one of the restaurants he's snubbed, we have not entirely ruled out the possibility of this being an accident. We're just not sure yet."

"So you're sure this poison was ingested, but you don't know how it was done?" asked Hard Facts. "What's your best guess?"

"Too soon to say," responded Metal. "Unfortunately, whatever caused it is very good at destroying the body around it, so we're left with very little evidence. We might even be wrong about how the poison is administered. Our best guess for the penultimate victim is that the ex-marefriend laced one of his drinks. For Blue Fin, we wonder if one of his meals was laced with some type of cleaning fluid. A restaurant kitchen is a busy place, and while most of the chemicals for cleaning will just make you really sick, a bad reaction to them can kill you. Sometimes, spray bottles leak."

"You say you don't know how it was administered; could it have been done via injection, rather than having them eat something?" suggested the hostess. "If the bodies exploded as you said, and there's just so much damage, is it possible that the injection sites were just disguised by other damages. Have you considered that option?"

"While it is entirely possible, the needle would need to be really thin and really strong so as to penetrate the stomach and not break. It would be very noticeable, and you would wake up immediately if you were asleep. We know that the damages begin in the stomach, so doing so would not only be difficult, I would dare to say it was almost impossible.

"We're about out of our allotted time for the day," urged Hard Facts. "Any closing remarks for our listeners, Metal?"

"Since much of this is still a mystery to us, we can't tell you exactly what to stay away from, so until further notice, make sure that you buy food from reputable restaurants, and if you eat at home, make sure you're taking all of the necessary precautions. Wash your produce, cook all food to the minimum safe temperature, all of that good stuff."

"Thanks for coming on, it was such a pleasure to have you."

"Thanks for having me. Stay safe out there."

"When we come back, sports and weather, but first, a word from our sponsors." As the jingle played again, the light above the door went out.

"And cut. Thanks again for coming in Metal. Let us know if you have a breakthrough, and we'll call you back in."