Author's Note

There will some more graphic scenes in this chapter, so be prepared.

I truly hope you enjoy and possibly let me know what I could do to improve.

Sincerely.

Me.

The Dreamtime Warrior Hunts

Over the course of the last 5 days I had been getting a feel for what kind of situation I truly find myself in. In the course of my time here a dozen different ponies have turned up dead or missing. Peoples nerves have been on edge and slowly building to complete panic, every night I am wracked with nightmares, visions of death and the dying in torment, it was enough to send one mad. I only felt cold and calm.

It was a weird thing. Ever since I was dropped here I haven’t felt much of anything. There was moments of panic as I hear the sound of a distant scream that everyone else seemed to miss but besides that, I have more or less gotten used to the idea that I am stuck in a world not my own. This was one such night while laying in bed, listening to the sounds of running water above my head, the couple that lived here seemingly allowing me to stay here along with the teen filly I rescued shortly after arriving. She was an interesting one, never wishing to show weakness but when she smiles that smile will never reach her eyes, those dead eyes.

A soft noise reached my ear, static and the sound of burning firewood, the sound embers make when breaking away from its wooden prison on a fire. Looking that way I spot the pistol I came here with softly glowing, much as it did that first night, its done this every night since I got here where shortly a few minutes later the scream of a new victim that I can only hear hits my ears, but there was something different about this time. It was slowly growing brighter as though whatever was making it do such was coming closer.

*Thud*

*Thud*

*THUD*

Footsteps, growing closer, steps of something massive. Deadly. In a small panic I reach for that very pistol and as my hand wraps around that cursed weapon a wave of calm hits me and the unbreakable desire to investigate takes over.

Climbing to my feet with almost fluid grace my eyes become dead locked on the door of the house and move towards it where I hear the steps have become earth shaking, the ground shook slightly under my feet as I stepped outside feeling the bite of the cool night air, the supernatural stillness only broken by those resounding thuds of the great beast that stalked the night tonight.

“No time like the present I guess.” Stepping off onto the street itself, the thudding footsteps suddenly stop. It’s eerie.

Picking a direction at random I follow the direction I believed deep down was where this creature was. It wouldn’t be long before I am rewarded with the sounds of smashing glass and the muffled screams of tonight’s victims. Picking up the pace, I’d pull up on the corner of a multi-floor office block, back against the corner as my head peeks around the side and my eyes are filled with this new beast.

It had a large trunk like body, much like a tree. 5 meters across at the thickest part and ending at a pair of short legs, with feet half as long as it is fat, but that is not where it gets truly terrifying, for upon the top of this monstrous body sat a bed of writhing tentacles, much like an anemone, though given tentacles much longer and the centre filled with a massive jaw of gnashing teeth and what it was doing was neither something one could ever get over seeing.

As I took in its pure size, it was currently wriggling its tentacles in through the partially destroyed wall of someone’s home, the sounds of crashing furniture and screams of the occupants barely heard over the sucking and writhing mass of tentacles and slapping of whatever slime those tentacles secreting. But all of a sudden it stopped having likely caught what it was planning on grabbing.

The tentacles would retract with ferocious speed, a dark shape being pulled out and now dangling above the writhing beast and its enormous jaws, it was a stallion of some kind, difficult to see from where I watched, but it didn’t look like it made it from being dragged out like it did. Legs dangled in impossible directions, having been snapped and twisted at the joins, half its face was a bloody mess and yet it looked down upon its hunter with as much defiance as a creature in its position could be. He was being lowered now towards the now gaping maw of the beast, razor blade like teeth glinting in the night. He knew he was done for and closed his eyes, refusing to make a noise as he was quietly lowered into the mouth of the beast and subsequently devoured.

I could only hope it ended there but I was clearly mistaken as before long it sprung back to life, tentacles delving back into the destroyed home, and finding its next prey, faster this time, likely whomever was inside had given up hiding after seeing their loved one being eaten alive. I look down at the pistol in my hand, considering my options, whether I even had the ability to fight that thing and help whoever was left. I didn’t think I was prepared to take that chance just yet.

Looking back up I am met with the sight of a mare now being dangled above the beast, a Pegasus, its wings mangled and beyond repair, blood soaked her sides, but other than that she was unharmed that I could see. The beast didn’t just lower this female towards its waiting maw this time, instead tentacles moved up to her position as she dangled by her back legs, wrapping around her forelegs and pulling them tight so she dangled spread eagle above the beast, a half dozen more moving up as well and coving her from her barrel to groin. I didn’t wish to look.

I stepped free of the cover of the building, hoping that what stupid action I was about to pull would do enough to save at least her. Raising the pistol to my eye, centring the beasts trunk like body in the old fashioned crosshairs I’d lay a finger upon the trigger, and inside me, the gun seemed to pull upon something, but it was too slow, I couldn’t charge it in time to stop it from what it would do next.

Before my eyes, the tentacles wrapped around the mare began to writhe, the ends of two wriggling free and moving to a place that made it very apparent what it wanted to do next. In the next second, fist sized ropes of muscle coated in a viscous mucous plunged deep into the female in its grasp, a near ear shattering scream filling the street as she shook and writhed in her binds, her insides writhing with the invading mass and the sound of popping joints hit my ears, she was beyond saving now.

I could see the pleading look in her eyes, tears streaming from them as seconds later her throat bulged out and a sound like her jaw breaking, the end of that tentacle that invaded her insides burst forth, tip splitting apart and curling back on itself to then wrap around her face, her eyes rolled back up on themselves as thick blood dribbled from her destroyed mouth orifice, and back down the tentacles that invaded her other end. It was over for her now.

Looking on with tears leaking from my eyes but inside I was just ice, my emotions disconnected, I could finally feel the drawing of energy ebb away and the pistol was ready to fire as the hammer clicks back on it’s own, he had been too slow for this couple, something he’d do better to fix for next time. Blinking away his tears he’d take a step forward towards the beast, ice cold fury on his lips.

“Hey ugly! I hope you’re satisfied with yourself cause you aren’t going to be getting another chance at hurting anyone else again!” The last word a scream that left him winded, and punctuated it by pulling the trigger.

The hammer dropped and like a powder charge firing off a lead ball, flames ripped free from the barrel, flying true and slamming into the beast in its centre mass, cracks spiderwebbed across it’s frame, the mucous burning, sizzling, like oil on a hotplate, tentacles writhed and spasmed violently, involuntarily releasing the mare, but not without causing more irreparable damage, the tentacles splitting her down the middle opening a gaping opening from chest to groin, her foul and decimated insides spilling across the pavement and coating the beast and cobblestones red with her life blood. It was a horrendous sight.

All this happened in the span of seconds and when finally it was over all that was left was the roasted carcass of the tentacled beast.

It had taken me some time to free the brutalised remains from the clutches of the monster, laying her body on the floor of her home and using a sheet from their bed upstairs used it to cover her up. Allow her some peace after what became of her not long before. It was something I would never forget nor will I allow myself to forget.

I remembered back to what came of the beast, it looked like it had been thrown in a blast furnace, skin charred and bubbling, it’s short scream suddenly cut off as it finally succumbed to its death. I would leave the body for the people to clean up on their own, not wanting to do it myself. Not like it would be going anywhere after all.

Grisly job complete, I clean myself off from the blood and make a hasty retreat, not wishing to be around any longer than necessary. If only I had decided to stay longer though and truly make sure of the kill I wouldn’t have missed the chunk of the beast no larger than a chihuahua wriggle away into the darkness, it’s barely conscious mind screaming bloody murder and revenge as it escaped.