I stared down at what was left of the body while barely suppressing a grin. The camera hung around my neck was almost forgotten as all around me, other officers cordoned off the area and kept the curious, morbid onlookers at a distance. The rain was washing away most of the blood, but I could still see it, could still smell it, and its bitter tang was like the sweetest honey to my senses. I could feel...HIM...growing inside of me, growing...interested...so I closed my eyes and did the breathing exercise I'd been taught: two quick inhales followed by one long exhale through my nose...
My heart was just slowing until my Boss yelled my name. "Logan! Wake up! What am I paying you for?!"
"Y...yes, Sir! Sorry, Sir!" I stammered as I raised my camera and started snapping pictures. The victim's entrails gleamed exquisitely in the streetlights as they trailed from what was left of its midsection; whomever the killer was, he'd been wild...joyful...exuberant...if the blood splatters on the street and nearby walls were any indication.
I almost admired his work...if the victim hadn't been a child...
My sister was the one who first caught me. I was about eight years old, and she almost four years my senior...which explains why I was so...sloppy. I should have cut the rabbit's throat with my knife as soon as it started screaming, but I was so focused I didn't hear her walk up behind me. She wasn't even trying to be quiet...when I heard her gasp, I turned to see leaves and broken branches in her mane from all the trees and shrubs she must have pushed through to find me, probably by following the sounds.
With her eyes as big as saucers, all she could do was croak one word: "Why?"
As a child, I didn't have the words to explain my Dark Passenger to her...then. All I could say was I had to do what I did...I couldn't help myself. Then, she did something I will never forget: instead of screaming and running away from me, as I'd expected her to do, she began crying, then picked me up and...and...hugged me! I was so surprised that I nearly felt an...emotion. Over and over, she rocked me while gently whispering, "I'll keep you safe, I promise...I'll keep you safe, I promise..."
And for most of my life, she did.
It took a few days for her to talk to me about my "problem," but when she did, she took me back out to the woods where we wouldn't be overheard and wanted to hear everything. I stared at the ground, then closed my eyes and let the forest breeze wash over me. Off in the distance, I could hear the twitter of birds and the rustle of small animals in the brush...and I felt my hooves twitch. Then, I opened my eyes, looked up at her, and spoke.
When she'd finally stopped retching and was able to compose herself, she said, "We...we have to make sure this...Thing inside you is never discovered by anypony else." The emotion in her eyes was...sadness, I think, as she said, "You are too young to know how...how wrong all of this is! But...it's a part of you, for reasons I cannot fathom, so we have to control it."
"How?"
She stomped a hoof for each point: "Number one: talk to me when the "urge" gets too strong. Number two: no indiscriminate killing. Number three: never leave a trace of the body." For this last part, she leaned in close and whispered, "And for number four, never kill an intelligent creature."
I looked away, then met her eyes again. "What if...what if they deserve it?"
Her eyes grew wide. "That's not for you to decide! Promise me you won't ever kill a pony! Promise!" In my usual flat voice, I told her what she needed to hear.
But, inside, I felt Him...smile.
Some days after my twelfth birthday, word reached our village of a foal gone missing. Then, another. And the following month, yet another. Nopony was too concerned...at first...for there were any number of reasons a foal could get lost in the wilds, and few were inclined to believe darker thoughts.
Until the first body was found.
After that, our village did something unheard of in Equestria: we locked our doors at night. I remember our parents' frightened eyes as they explained the changes to us: how we both were to come straight home after school, no playing with our friends, no stops anywhere, for any reason, and never, EVER, to go off into the woods.
I also remember my sister had a different reaction.
That same night, after our parents were asleep, she came quietly to my room. I knew she'd come, and I knew the question she would ask me, but she asked it anyway: "Do you remember your promise?" I nodded.
This seemed to satisfy her, but as she turned to go, I said, "Somepony has to do something."
She froze midstride with her hoof on my doorknob. Then, quietly, she said, "I know," then walked out. I sat for a long time there on my bed, pondering her last words, but in the end, I knew I really had no choice.
The Dark One needed to feed...
I had to be patient. Adults are too protective of children, so I couldn't simply ask any for the information I needed. That, and I was on a curfew; I had a limited amount of time between school and getting home before I could do my digging. That...and my...NEED...was growing, and getting harder and harder to control.
So...my only option was to sneak out at night, after all were asleep.
I knew my sister would try to stop me, for, on the face of it, my actions were crazy. Even though I was quite fast and nimble for somepony my age, I was still not only pitting myself against an adult but one that was most likely cunning, devious, and above all, completely and utterly insane. My only advantage would be he wouldn't be expecting his..."victim" to be seeking him out. That and a unique "surprise" I kept hidden in sheaths beneath my wings. I needed only to get close enough to use one of them before he noticed, and then?
...it would be time to PLAY...
All I had was the location of the last body and vague rumors about the killer, none of which were of any use, as nopony had actually laid eyes on him. For that matter, nopony knew if the killer was male or female, though it was generally assumed a serial killer, especially one that preyed on children, would be a stallion. I was unable to discover if any of the victims had been molested (an odd word), which would have helped in identifying the killer as probably male.
Or so I thought.
Even though they'd tried to shield us, my parents couldn't keep my sister and I from hearing about "bad" stallions that liked to "do" things to little kids. I wish I could have asked them why, for I could not understand the purpose. So, I asked my sister. When she giggled and told me about "the birds and the bees," as she put it, I sat there empty, feeling no more enlightened than before she'd started. At my age, I had no interest in the opposite sex, nor did I foresee any interest developing in my future, for I didn't...feel the same things other ponies did. I didn't want bad things to happen to my sister or parents...but I didn't feel anything for them.
Emotions were...difficult.
I stopped and listened as I neared the village. Though all was quiet, I could sense something...evil...in the still air, as if the very night was holding its breath. I looked around at all the hovels with their darkened windows and doors, which I knew to be bolted and locked tight as I trotted past them, feeling that sense grow stronger. Looking back on these memories from so very long ago, I chided myself as I remembered how foolish I'd been not to keep checking behind me as I trotted down the middle of what I'd thought was an empty street.
The next thing I knew, I was bound and gagged somewhere out in the forest, laid out before a crude campfire. I tuned my ears to the "scrape," "scrape," "scrape," of metal on metal sounds, then twisted around until I saw the source of the noises. "Oh, good...you're finally awake..." I stared up into the eyes of the leering stallion sitting across the fire from me as he methodically sharpened a long knife. "I was beginning to think I'd hit you just a tad too hard, and I might have to start while you were still unconscious, but happy day! That's no longer a concern!" He grinned his mad smile at me while still sharpening his knife, then his smile faltered.
He frowned. "You...don't seem scared, kid." Indeed, I was simply staring impassively at him. I suppose if I could feel anything, I should have been afraid, but...
Then, he laughed again. "It doesn't matter! You all scream at the end! Every! Single! One of you!" He stood, walked around the fire, then leaned down and held the knife up to my face. "See this? I'm gonna make sure this hurts. A lot. But first..." as he removed my gag, "...can't have this in the way, now can we?" Placing a knee on my side, he cut the ropes holding my front hooves together, leaving my back hooves and my wings bound. As he slowly brought his knife to my stomach, I turned and smiled at him, which made him pause once more.
"What's so fucking funny?!"
"...this..." as I grabbed the blade from under my left wing and slashed his leg with it. He jumped back and held his leg up to the firelight, then turned to me and started laughing again.
"That was it?! That was your big play?! Kid, now you've done it! If you thought you were gonna be in pain before, yoweHdmterrgghhhh..." then he fell over. I smiled to myself. The poison on the blade had taken a little longer than I'd calculated, but in the end, it had worked out fine. I cut the ropes on my back legs and stood, then looked down at him. He stared up at me with bulging eyes but couldn't otherwise move, so I dropped my little knife and picked up his larger one.
"I had to be sure..." I carefully explained as I sank the knife into his side and began sawing downward. "There's a Darkness inside of me that needs to be fed, but, unlike you, I fight every day not to hurt anypony that doesn't deserve it." Once his entrails spilled out, I moved up to his face and took my time gouging out first his left eye, then his right. By then, he was starting to regain the use of his limbs as he started jerking, so I cut all the tendons on his legs. His face was starting to go pale from blood loss and, with it, the paralyzing poison, and that's when he began to scream. He actually tried to hobble away, but with his tendons severed, he wasn't having much success. I quickly grew tired of his screams, so I cut the masseter and temporalis muscles of his jaw so I could get to his tongue without getting bitten, then removed it.
As he finally settled down, I whispered, "You will never hurt another child..."
It took me hours to bury what was left of the body and clean up the campsite, as well as clean myself of all traces in a nearby stream. The Sun was rising by the time I climbed back through my bedroom window...only to stop dead once I made it inside.
My sister was sitting there, waiting for me.
We stared at each other for a few moments, then she said, "We had an agreement." I hung my head.
"I know," then I looked up,"...but I couldn't tell you what I was doing. You would have tried to stop me." She nodded.
"Yes. Yes, I would have." She sighed. "But, you would have gone anyway." She looked away again and kept silent. Finally, she asked, "Was it him?"
"Yes."
She turned her gaze at me. "Are you satisfied?"
"For now."
That was many, many years ago. My Sister and I had a big fight, which I'm sure you all heard about, but in the end, we reconciled thanks to the efforts of her student and her five friends. But after my first week back, She and I had a private meeting. It seemed there was a serial killer loose in Manehatten, something which had not happened for a very, very long time. My Sister's hooves were tied by the Law that proscribed capital punishment...but I...in my alter form as Logan...held no such restrictions.
So, after a thousand years of slumber, it was finally time to awaken the Dark Passenger.
Author's Note
I'll just...leave this here...
