Author's Note
Honhonhon, love me a horror story. Love me some Frank West, too. Figured why not both?
If there's any grammatical errors, please lemme know, and tell me how you think I did! Thank ya, thank ya very much.
This is all training for the real thing. I mean, Equine: Isolation, that. I wanna write horror, but I'm a noob, so bear with me.
A Break in the Quiet
She had worked with a number of large so-called mythical creatures, but one as dainty, and yet wild for suvival as this, had scrutinizingly, impossibly evaded her care and attention. She'd seen no preexisting sign of this creature before, as if it had almost never existed. A complete unknown, as if it had no right for existance in the first place.
Yet she held onto him firmly.
. . . . .
It was just a break in the quiet or at least that's what Fluttershy had hoped. It was only a short rapping from behind her house. The entryway, shut and locked for the night, resounded almost inaudibly.
Until it had turned into a thrashing, and pounded on her back door. This disruption was not accidental, as whatever hounded against her door wanted in. It blatantly ignored her pleas for it to stop, it wanted to survive, and it wanted in. For reasons unbeknownst to her, this was not a question of possibility, but rather when. At the rate it had assaulted her door, really but a moments notice, and survival had proved its mettle once more. A baser instinct everycreature has, but this... thing that brought itself before her was not everycreature.
It was nothing she had seen before.
It stood over her, a fact she took to heart as she took a step back to gain its full visage. It was tall, with a dainty tuft of black fur or mane splayed halfway from the back of its skull to its scalp. A pair of dark spectacles sat on its nose, with a sole lens missing revealing to her an almost sorry cloud-grey pool. From the distant look in its sight, it had clearly covered wars or had experienced plenty of loss in its lifetime. Veins pulsed in the corners of its reddened sclera and she'd winced for it. Despite the pain in its gaze, she'd seen a hint of hopefulness in it as well.
She mumbled her own apology as she'd torn her eyes away from its one, and she'd come to notice several other oddities about it as well. To her further intrigue, a black box-like device hung strapped from his neck, not only that, but it was also clothed. In shredded rags of maybe-once dashing roguework businesswear, but clothed nonetheless. Now, for warmth or cosmetic, Fluttershy would never know
The top of its uniform, if one would call it such, was a black, maybe-once formal jacket—as dirt and muck ruined it beyond compare—with matching black, yet impossibly dirtied red pants. One pantleg was bare, exposing the being's somewhat fuzzy shin; thredded to dismay and spattered in a rusty crimson.
It was wounded.
In ragged breaths, it spoke in a wild tongue, foreign to her ears. A fact she splayed with them willingly as she was apologetic she couldn't understand its inane murmurings. Despite this, Never once did she suspect it had meant any harm. Never once did she assume he'd meant any harm, from his tone.
It was hurt, badly, and needed her help.
Even with the obvious language barrier, the bipedal creature had let her inspect the pussing gnash in one of its legs. She'd pointed at it with a single hoof and he'd nodded. She could understand that. Being at the doorway, she'd grabbed him by one of his... talons or fleshy pincers, and sat him at one of her kitchen chairs. He'd grunted and groaned all the while, over.
To her, this did nothing to assuage her worries. To Fluttershy, these very well could be his dying breaths, and she'd assumed he was aware of the possibility. Yet all through this, the creature smiled, as if bewildered by something at all times.
She couldn't tell if he was delirious, or hallucinating. This was a bad case, either or.
After he'd sat himself down, resting a sleeved forelimb on the kitchen table's surface, she'd lowered her muzzle to get a better look at his leg, only to have immediately recoiled. A chunk of meaty flesh was bitten from, or maybe torn out of one of his calves–and it was steadily growing infected. Where taught, red muscle should have been, was a blackening leather-like film growing over it.
A substance she'd only seen produced from dead blood.
At this, she didn't want him to be panicking, to know this isn't treatable. That amputation may be the only thing that prevents him from passing on. The first of his kind she'd ever seen, and he was dying in front of her.
The black device, not too dissimilar from the modern cameras of she'd seen, was cautiously removed from the creature's neck. She'd assumed it was a camera anyway, after he'd limply turned around to face the lens towards himself with an unsteady hand. He had positioned himself on his chair in front of her, and with a gasp of surprise she was unaware she'd let out, and a grimace-ridden grin from the hornless minotaur, the being'd snapped a shaky photo of itself and the mare. Two of the digits on his claws extended as he smiled a hollow smile, all the while she'd stared blankly, only to blink away the blots that appeared in her eyes.
Without any further indications of his actions, he'd promptly fell forward onto the wooden floorboard as he'd passed out from his wounds before she could say a thing. The device he'd surely intended to keep on his body haphazardly bounced once on the paneling, and formerly being clasped in his hand, had then found purchase by his head. His glasses having shared a similar, albeit shattered fate several feet further.
Her eyes widened as she'd rushed to his side. For the mare, her buttery hoof pressed into his neck checked his state, and at a raspy, gargled few breaths of air from him, she'd found that she'd needed to work fast. Even with him unconscious, there was no telling how long she'd had. Only, she didn't want to have to be the one to do it. She'd never performed an emergency amputation in her life, let alone on a creature as new and as foreign as this.
His damaged leg jerked at her side and kicked into the chair he'd sat upon. She'd nearly yelped in shock. Its surface-level seemed to be worse for wear; his shin pulsed with something beneath the skin–something visibly wriggled in his decayed, or in the process of decaying flesh.
Fluttershy had made mental note of that last bit, as she'd noticed more of his leg was, for lack of a better word: molting. From her standpoint, the blood within derived itself of precious oxygen at the initial opening, and after official contact, had clasped onto something far worse. Whatever had sunk its teeth into his calf had started a mild, mayhaps severe body infection.
It's just horrifying to see one so vehemently aggressive in its workings. In her mind, she was at war. Either she was to separate this helpless creature's leg from its body or she was about to help it pass on. She could only guess how much pain it had felt, and she didn't know if it would be fine on its own or needed professional aid.
A pitter-patter of rabbit's foot startled her from her internal ruminating. In truth, Fluttershy had panicked, and shrieked as her little rabbit companion, Angel, had made himself known at her hooves. Without warning, he'd hopped up to the prone creature and was about to bite it to wake it up. The biped was, after all, peaceably unaware he'd fallen unconsciousness over the rabbit's food bowl.
Fluttershy was not able to stop him in time. The rabbit pricked the slumbering beast's side before Angel pulled himself away in disgust. Grotesque confusion plainly evident in the rabbit's eyes, Fluttershy's concern had grown tenfold for the being and at that moment, she'd made her choice.
Despite it showing up in need of dire help, she knew she was to help it pass. Fluttershy knew she had no knowledge of this creature; its origins or its culture, let alone how to care for it. Whatever pains it was in, was surely not worth him fighting through. Yes, the best course of action was to help him sleep.
As with all ill-fated creatures in her cottage, she had hummed a lullaby in its ear. A soothing melody in a needless hope to ease his passage. She'd turned his form onto his back, his chest shivered and quivered its hardiest breaths, and she knew she'd made the right choice. She held his head in her forehooves, a wing traced the contours of a wrinkle across his forehead and a salty droplet fell to his cheek.
This was the right choice. She knew so, but she didn't believe it for a second.
Fluttershy's grip had tightened over his mouth and nostrils. His eyes, unopened, he'd convulsed once as he released a breath he was unaware to be his last. She could feel his head as it had begun to sweat beneath her fur. He'd struggled in his sleep, and she'd quietly cried throughout the whole ordeal.
Whatever warmth this creature held onto, had soon given way, and his body stilled. A single gasp was the only remnant and she choked back a sob. She held his body into her neck as tightly as ever, regret filling the entirety of her form. She didn't know what else to do, but this was what she needed to do.
Until his leg jerked beneath her and she blanched, her eyes having ripped down to the assaulting appendage. In all actuality, she wasn't sure if she'd felt or heard that right. Color leaving her, pale-faced and frightened, her eyes strained on the limb, yet it did not dare move again. For some inexplicable reason, she almost wanted it to.
She had worked with a number of large so-called mythical creatures, but one as dainty, and yet wild for suvival as this, had scrutinizingly, impossibly evaded her care and attention. She'd seen no preexisting sign of this creature before, as if it had almost never existed. A complete unknown, as if he had no right for existance in the first place.
Yet she held onto him firmly.
However, when the creature's foot clearly did not prove his reanimation, she could only release a discontented sigh, allowing herself a respite as she'd held onto the creature. One of relief, as it was just a break in the quiet. Until red, bloodshot eyes tore open, and it screamed in her embrace.
