...or something like that
Rain fell down like sheets of water wrung out from a dirty rag.
You just thought of that metaphor yourself. You think it's pretty clever, although it could be refined. Refined to what? Who knows. You're not a writer. You're a hunter, not bred but made. A predator who's only purpose is to skewer down those that disagree with you... or something like that. It sounds intimidating in your head. You're just mentally preparing yourself.
Anyhow, you’re out here in the rain and dark. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for an important reason. Killing that yellow horse is as important as any. Forget why you need to kill her. Forget that she has never done anything wrong to you. Forget that she doesn’t know you exist, or has any fault of her own. She needs to die because…
You’ve been stalking her for the past week. It’s very important that you do this. You didn’t think the little thing got up to much, other than running off with her friends every once in a while. But she does a lot with her animals, and she goes out more than you thought. She has a lot of friends, you’ve noticed. All around the little village nearby she is known. You see her, she doesn’t always talk to them, but they all know her and they all treat her kindly and they look at her with such affection in their eyes it makes you feel sick to your very insides.
You’re out in the rain and in the mud. You’re covered in it, laying in it, and you peak your head out from the muck to see the soft light shining from the window above. She’s going to sleep, you can feel it, and when the glow snuffs out you stand up and stare at the rickety frame.
You wonder how you will do it. At first you thought you could set fire to the cottage. It’s all grass and sod and wood. One match and whoosh! But then the rain came, and you don’t want to wait any longer. Any longer, and you might talk yourself out of this. Besides, you don’t have a match. Or gasoline. And besides, it might bring too much attention. No. You must find another way. Something with a knife? But you don’t want to go rummaging through her kitchen. Rope? You doubt she has that. Well, you could use the sheet…
The more you think about it the more you realize there’s no use planning it out here. You need to move in. In her house, cottage, whatever, and improvise from there.
You stand up from the muck. It slops off you, and though the sheets of rain falling from above wash away much of the mud, it stays deep in your ratty shirt and jeans. They stick to your skin, dirtying you, and you are intensely aware of their feeling as you trudge through the sodden ground. You’re wearing shoes too, but they’re caked in and wet and filthy and it’s only sentimentality that keeps them on.
You make your way to the side of the cottage and you find yourself just below her window. You begin to climb. It’s not hard, there’s plenty of places to hold on to. Step by step, heave by heave, you get closer, and your heart begins to pump and race at the thought of what will happen next. When you reach her window, it takes all of your strength to open it with care. You swing yourself over the sill and as quietly as you can land on the wooden floor besides. Your shoes squelch, and you swear you can hear the mud and water dripping. But what’s louder more than any of these things is the slow, steady breaths of her. You close the window.
When you look over her it’s in the background of a muted world. She’s tucked in. She has a relaxed expression on her face and each time she takes a breath in or out she lets a little snore. The sheets rise and fall. She’s dry. She’s not dirty. Your fists clench.
Bile and hate rises up from the back of your throat and it wants to spill out. You want to wring your hands against its neck. This errant thought cements what you will do to her.
You hate her. You hate it. You hate how much every one likes her. How the others will visit her. How they care for her. They look at her like she’s worth something. All the while she doesn’t even try for it. Instantly loved. Instantly adored. All the things anyone could ever hope to want, received at a careless whim. She doesn’t know what she has. You’re sure. She sleeps dreaming her insipid dreams while others labor for her love.
Every step feels like an eternity. Every squelch, every thump, even the way you outstretch your arms and flex your hands feels so terribly loud. But you don’t care. Your fingers begin to graze the soft fuzz of her coat, distorting the clean daisy surface with your filth, you’re just about to squeeze and squeeze hard and-
But then you hear an even louder crash from down below. Up the stairs. You snap out of your haze. Without a second thought you hurl yourself to the closed window. Your body crashes through the weak wooden frame, and next thing you know you’re on the muddy ground. But you’re still not thinking. You scramble up on the uneven ground and run. Run. Faster than you’ve ever ran before, you’ve never been so scared before. If something is calling for you, you don’t know, because you’re already far in to the forest and you know that’s where you’re safe.
You’re on your knees gasping for breath. Your sides hurt and your legs burn hot with exertion and finally you fall to your knees. You can’t stand up. You should be more worried about that. But all you can feel is relief- relief that you didn’t get caught. Relief that you didn’t do it.
Why is that? You wonder to yourself. You wanted to kill her. You still want to. But you’re glad you didn’t. You let out a laugh. Still, you don’t regret trying to do it at all. Not that you won’t try again, either. You laugh again, and try to stand up though you know you can’t. You note that you’ve lost a shoe.
You look around, and it’s only now that through the rain and the blood rushing through your ears that you notice that it’s deathly quiet. Your heart stills, and you whip your head from every angle trying to find what you hope isn’t there. But it’s too late. In the darkness, you can see two yellow dots looking straight at you.
“That’s not good,” you think, before the manticore pounces on to you. Its fangs sink deep into your neck. In the blink of an eye, you’re dead.
You don’t feel yourself being torn apart. But you are aware. Aware enough. You got lucky that the manticore popped off your head first. It rolled a ways away, forgotten by it, but not by the rest of the forest.
Days passed. Then weeks. Years. Skin and flesh and muscle fell away in a manic feast for armies of hungry worms and flies. Bone sunk deeper on to the ground. Wild flowers grew around it, protected by the undergrowth. You don’t know how much time has passed, but you know it’s been a very, very long time. The forest around you has changed too. You don’t care much. You’re still dead. But still…
You hear hoofsteps for the first time in who knows how long. You can’t turn to look, but coming into view you see a set of yellow fetlocks. They stop, theres voices- voices you almost recognize.
“Fluttershy? What are you looking at?” says one. Which is a first- you couldn’t understand these horses before.
“There’s something under here.” you know this voice. You finally know what its saying. If you had blood left to boil, it’d be roiling. You see her hooves walk towards you, and she leans down to look at you head on. But now… now you’re scared. Scared that she sees you know. Knows you, however decayed you might be. It’s terrifying. You need to get out. You need to run. But you can’t. Not anymore.
The expression she gives you is so sickeningly sweet it hurts. How does it hurt?
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she says in soft wonder. You notice that she looks older than she did before. There’s grey in her hair, and lines that mark her face. Gently, she dislodges you. Dirt flakes away, roots tear from the ground. You see the day sky behind her. You want to cry.
A purple head pops up behind her, something that looks like a horse much taller than… ‘Fluttershy’. “How fascinating! I knew there must have been completely new species in the Everfree, but not of this size! It’s a shame its dead, though.”
“The poor thing…” Fluttershy says, looking like she hadn’t heard the purple horse at all. You see her right herself back up, “The bones aren’t so old… maybe I could have taken care of it before it got hurt.” Her head turns back, “Let’s bury it, Twilight. It doesn’t feel right to leave it out here.”
You don’t hear the rest of the conversation. The want to cry grows stronger. You want to explode and break out, and yell at this stupid animal to not pity you. You don’t need her help. She wouldn’t have helped you anyway. But now there’s a part of your soul that knows that’s not right. It’s all but confirmed.
She buries you. Dirt falls into the cavity of your skull. As the darkness closed in and your self finally drifts off, the last thing you think is that it’s such a shame, that you only realized how wrong you were after you were good and dead.
Author's Note
For BWG's prompt, "Killing Fluttershy"
debrief/afterword/extended author's note can be found here!
