Stark Grey

Stark Grey

  The Conqueror Worm

I lay on the cold floor inside my now lonely house just staring at the dust collecting on the hardwood. I haven’t moved at all, I don’t want to. I’m starting to accept the idea of death, it sounds welcoming. The thought that I would see them again twists my arm, but I never believed in that type of thing. Non-existence is a bittersweet concept like seeing a glass of polluted water while dehydrated in a desert. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I don’t care. All the people that mattered to me has left me alone in this torturous world that keeps hitting till you give up or until it kills you.

The door opens and slams but I remain self-catatonic. Boots stomp of the floor boards around me until I see them. Dark brown steel toe worker boots with untied shoelaces hanging loosely.

“Grey?“ Dunney says. “Grey, you need to get up!” He chokes up a bit. I stay quiet and motionless. “Look, I don’t know what to say here!”

“There’s nothing to say. He’s gone.” I reply.

“I know.”  Dunney tell me them puts his back to a wall looking down.

The subway trains bullets by the house feeling the strong tremors pressing against me. After it passes everything reverts back to silence.

“I could throw several things at you, but knowing you, you’ll shot them down faster than I could say them.” Dunney comments while sniffling through his words. He pushes off the wall and stands next to me.  “I know you’re sad. I also know that you are pissed! Pissed at the guy who shot him, pissed at me  for annoying you, pissed at the world! Most of all: you are pissed at him!” I couldn’t help it after that. My tears overpowered my will as they drip to the floor sinking in too the fibers of the hard wood.

He was right. I was pissed at Miles. My mouth quivers as I try to speak only feeling choked.

“HE-he left me alone!” I force out through the sobs.

“It’s normal being mad. That only shows that you cared. And  you are not alone. You got me! I know that’s not much. ” He responds patting my back. I see the tears streaming down his face and into his thick beard.

“Child services are going to take me away and I’ll go back in the system.” I tell him.

He takes his hand back and shakes his head. He looks me straight in the eye intensely.

“I’m going to make sure that that doesn’t happen. I’m going to need your help later gathering your paper work from the CPS, okay” He reassures me and I nod back. He picks up one of my arms and pulls it over his neck lifting me up.  He grunts and I dangle like drunk off the floor. He drags me to the couch in the little space between the walls and lays me down. “I’m going to make you some waffles!” Dunney says as he enters the kitchen. I pretend that I’m useless matter on the tattered cushions.

I close my eye for what I hoped to be the last time and see the man in the alley crying as he dribbles blood from his mouth pleading for his life while he kneels on the wet asphalt underneath the clouded night sky. I feel the top heavy wooden bat blistering my palm as I gripped it tighter.

“Please! NO!”

*****

“Grey, we need to leave!” She shouts at me as I stare at the black figure taking form from the dark mist. “You can’t beat him!”

“I can try!” I reply to her feeling overwhelmed with hatred as it builds multiplying the blinding rage. He turned me into this, this monster, this stranger.

“Grey! I can’t lose you!” She places her hooves on my thigh crying in fear. “Not you!”

The creature turns to the village with his arm spread out as if he is basking in it. He flicks a wrist and a house explodes in to fire with a plume of smoke blowing into the night sky. The sound of ponies screaming as they flee away from the fire sends me to vicious instinct.

I push aside Stark aside charging at him with his back turned to me. He quickly bats an arm hitting me square in the face with unbelievable force. I’m thrown back like a cannon ball through a façade of a house and out the back rolling on the ground.

The pain on my face is excruciating as I hold my hand over it. I poke at my cheek feeling shards of bone shift causing more agony. Suddenly a electrifying chill runs up my spine knowing what’s standing over me. My ankle is yanked and I’m dragged on the ground in a circle until I’m being swung in the air. The grip is loosened and I shoot straight into the air seeing the village through a bird’s eye view then gravity brings me down.

A other explosion cracks through the air short arms looped under mine and my fall slows. The ground still comes at me faster than I could react as hit it flat.

I lie dazed and in a larger amount of pain that earlier today wondering when am I going to catch a break. A soft muzzle nudges me in the face shifting the broken bone.

“Grey! You have to get up!” Stark tells me.

I weakly start to push myself off the ground and Stark slides under me supporting my effort to get back on my feet. Everything seems like a lucid nightmare, but nightmares goes away and become forgotten. This is real.

“What the hell is that!?” I ask Stark as I lean on a house’s wall trying to catch my breath.

“I don’t know what it is, I just know that we have to say away from it!” She replies.

“Have you seen it before?”

“Only when I sleep!” She starts to tremble becoming completely distraught.

“For how long?”

“For weeks! I only heard his voice whispering till…” She looks down at her hooves unable to finish the sentence.

“The contract?” I say and she nods. Those weren’t my nightmares I was having. They were hers.

“HEY! YOU STAY AWAY FROM HER!” A voice shouts. I turn and see a purple unicorn with her eyes focused and angry, her horn glows a bright violet aimed at me.

Stark stand in front of me at the ready with her horn illuminating a blinding gold as electricity cracks around it. She aims it at the other pony.

“You are going to want to back off!” She warns as her wings spread. Stark is smaller than the unicorn, but that has never been an issue before.

The unicorn’s horn flickers out and she cocks her head back in shock. “You’re an alicorn!” She says to Stark baffled.

The grass below turns black and shrivels to flakes. The wall I’m leaning on being to crumble into dust as a jet black hand reaches out from the wall next to my head. I push myself off the wall and stand in front of Stark with my sore knuckles cracking trying to find courage instead of stupid fearful instinct. They are both the same at this point.

“What’s your name unicorn?” I ask the unknown pony starring at the figure push through the wall as the sand washes over him.

“Twi-Twilight!” She stutters before the monster.

“You should run Twilight! Same goes for you Stark.”

“I’m not leaving you!” Stark says with a strong quiver.

The monster stands before us three with its head twitching and shifting spastically.

“Consume!” The creature chokes out then raises its hands and claws its face cutting and pulling on the obscure dark flesh over the mouth until I see a set if sharp teeth spanning from ear to ear giving a wide grin. The black figure roars a hollow echoed cry with spit being flung from its mouth.

I’m paralyzed by fear, not knowing what to do and only thinking of the worst.

A large violet beam of light shoots out from behind blasting the creature a few yards back. I look at the purple unicorn her horn glowing bright and her eyes closed as she holds a grimace over her face.

“Did I hit him?” She asks still with closed eyes.

“Yes, you did!” Stark replies. The monster raise from the ground and roars again. “And he is back up and pissed.”

Twilight opens one eye then both become big orbs of fear. Her ears bend back and she starts to look around in a panic biting her lower lip.

“I-I don’t know what to do! I never read about anything like this!” She says quickly.

“You run!” I tell her. “Stark, same to you!” I turn to her and she is shaking her head aggressively.

“NO!” She shouts.

“Don’t argue with me and get out of here!” I respond.

The creature now looks more devilish as its large mouth stretches wide revealing a long slithery tongue It releases a loud high pitch wail that stings the ears. He’s no longer in a talking mood and I’m too choked up to speak.

I charge at the creature feeling my body holding back from fear. The monster opens his arms eagerly waiting my attack. I cock my fist back ready to strike then a familiar explosion roars behind me. I’m pushed aside from shockwave as something shoots past and tackles the monster carrying it off the ground then into the dark sky disappearing in the black clouds with a thunderous boom cracking and lightening flashing. I look back to see Twilight looking up while Stark is missing. I turn back to the clouds rumbling and building.

“STARK!” I shout at the nightly heavens in vain; on the ground helpless to aid her.

I hear a roaring zoom thinking that it’s Stark as I scan the skies for her. It’s growing louder and closer…and from a different direction.

I don’t know what hit me, but it sent me into a house with an explosion knocking around furniture in the dark. I’m more surprise that ponies were able to build furniture than the attack.

“Uhh, monster? Are you in here?” I hear Twilight call as she shines a beam of light from her horn.

Before I could answer her someone else dose.

“Nope, just me here Twi.” Twilight lighten a blue Pegasus with multi-color hair stepping out of the wreckage. “ I kick that monster’s butt probably too scared move. No need to thank me, just come with being…” Twilight then shines the light on me and the Pegasus is speechless as she fearfully stares.

“Please don’t kill her?” Twilight pleads while I push myself off from the broken furniture.

A loud zoom fills the sky and then a plume of dirt burst with a roaring explosion the shake the ground. I forget about the pegasus tackling me as I run out the house and through the plume blinded by a fog of dirt.

“Stark?” I call.

“Grey!” I here Stark say weakly. I find her crawling to me with the monster’s mark on half of her body, Small branches of ink black move slowing, stretching over the rest of her body. It warped her feathered wing into a bat-like one; half of her face is blackened and smooth with red markings on her eye and cheek, a fang jutting out of one side of her mouth. I fall to my knees stupefied as I bring her closer to me. “I’m sorry, he’s too strong!” She says as I ignore the other explosion not too far from us. I brush her blond mane with my bandaged black hand being careful with my claws. What he did to me, he did to her.

A couple of gasps is heard besides me.

“What- what happened to her?” The blue pegasus asks trembling.

“Step back! I’ll see what I can do!” Twilight moves aside Stark helping her up.

“Can you help her?” I ask.

“This is all new to me, but I’ll give it my all.” She says and turns to Stark and points her glowing horn at her. Stark shuts her eyes as the monster half recedes sluggishly.

The monster roars far behind me and my anger builds till I feel it crawling under my skin burning my blood.

“Stay right here.” I tell them as I stand up.

“Rainbow Dash, find our friends, he might need help!” Twilight says.

“That’s why I came looking for you! Spike is with Applejack. He sent a message, but I don’t know anything after that.” The blue pegasus replies.

I turn away from them feeling the rage come over me like a falling building. The monster shrieks with its large gaping mouth far from me. I don’t know what happens, but my face shifts and I shriek back then dart directly towards him feeling the increased speed and the force against my body as I leave cloud of behind me.

The monster lunges in the air over me, I jump tackling it sending us high in the air way above the village. The monster claws at my back as we ascend ripping my worn out sweater and cutting into my skin. The wind whooshes by as we enter the zero gravity moment, then the decent. The monster is pulls away from me as we fall. It reaches and grips my sweater by the shoulder. I grab its arm and pull myself closer to it and start punching his face with everything I got. With every hit the sound of immense crack strikes the sky. We fall faster as the monster beings to look dazed. I grab its throat and place him between me and the ground.

We land creating an huge explosion of dirt blinding me from, but I know where his is while I continuously pound the monsters face pushing it deeper into the ground. I can’t stop, nor I don’t want to. Releasing everything that vexes me, every horrid emotion, every haunting memory, fuels my anger like a spark to a butane spill. I get lost in my hate and the sudden power.

The monster’s grabs my throat with a powerful grip. It rises from the ground holding me over him. I struggle to breathe as I flail my legs kicking him, but my strength has left me. I’m tossed up in the air and the monster cocks a fist back. I cross my arms to block the incoming hit, but I might as well be blocking a running train from hitting me as I’m sent far in the air seeing the village become incredibly distant and then disappears as I enter a tree line. I go through thick branches hearing thunderous cracks as the wood splinters. I collide with a gigantic tree hard and fall while being pummeled by its branches then the ground meets my body and black settles in.

I can’t feel anything.

“Get up!”

I’m disconnected from my body.

“You need to fight.”

Okay, I found my body…and it hurts.

“You can’t let him win.”

God, I miss feeling disconnected.

I lay on soft grass as the wind lowly howls. I grab a hand full and push myself up with aches and pains laid over my body. Every simple motion burns as the strain builds and builds. My body is still weak, everything I’m bestowed, all of my strength, all my skill, all of my power is not enough. It’ll never be enough. I’m just lucky. All the time where death came near, it was pathetic luck that saved me. Streaks run out sooner or later. It’s a ticket that’s already punched, a grave with you name carved in a slab of stone with pretty letters showing that you live and now you don’t matter to the universe, just worm food.

Don’t think like that! You’re not going to die here! Luck may have saved you, but luck isn’t all you have. Everything has been against you and her. You are not going to let her down! You are not going to make that girl cry for your petty insecurities!

Branches rustle above with a loud stop. I look up and see monster roars from up high with its hands dug in the bark. Again I yearn to make him suffer.

The sound of a jet echoes in the sky and I’m unable to pin point its direction. The monster looks up and he is hit by a line of smok with electricity sparking around. The ground bursts as it shook from the impact. A pegasus wearing some blue and yellow getup with firry orange red spiky hair quickly flies out of the plume with grace and joins other two more wearing the same thing. I guess I do have luck? They turn to me and one points a hoof at me.

“There’s another one!” One of them shouts then they start to fly at me with their speed cutting the air. I stand my ground ready and annoyed with ponies seeing me and automatically thinking that I’m a threat. Fuck my luck.

Suddenly a pair of blue wings blocking my vision of the oncoming three pagasi.

“Whoa!  This is the one that’s cool!” The blue pegasus from before turns her head back to me. “You’re the cool one, right?” She asks as I peer around and see the ones in the color crashing uniforms hovering listening to her.

“Not if you tackle me again!” I reply.

“It’s him.” She tells the others.

“So the one in the terrible getup is friendly?”  The spiky haired costumed pegasus asks.

“Terrible?” I shout walking towards them. “This coming from the Power Ranger Ponies!” Then I realize some context is missing. “Never mind! You’d probably wouldn’t understand that reference.”

“Spitfire.” The blue pegasus flies next to me and places a hoof on my head. “ This guy got knock in the head little too hard by yours truly, so he might ramble on with nonsense.” She explains with a grin to the group of pegasi tilting their heads.

“I am currently withholding the overwhelming urge to massacre your entire race out of pure blind rage and frustration.” I mutter to the blue pegasus.

“Dude, cool it! You’re not helping your case.” She whispers while holding her nervous grin.

The sound of a large tree trunk crumbling as the rest of it coming down behind the team of pegasi. They slowly turn their heads around and the freeze with their mouths ajar.

“Move!” One of costumed pegasus orders. I couldn’t see, I was leaping out of the way from the giant falling tree. It hits the ground with a quake as I belly flop looking back seeing the monster jump on the fallen tree. Two costumed pegasus struggles as they try to pry themselves from the thick branches from the tree pining them down. The monster grabs the one with orange hair by the neck. The pegasus thrashes about as she chokes and grunts.

“Spitfire!” The blue pegasus shouts flying straight towards the monster. It grabs the blue pegasus with the other arm by her multi colored hair yanking her upward.

My heart skips a beat and all I can hear is my heavy breathing. I push myself off and charge to them. Everything seems to move faster than I. The creature’s arms sprouts small black tentacles reaching over the two helpless pegasi. They struggle against the creature as the black tentacles speared over the costume one’s chest and the blue pegasus’s head.

I jump on the tree in front of the monster taking advantage on its hands being full. I give him all my anger as his hands are busy. He loses his grip on the two pegasi after the first hit and just takes the rest not fighting back. I grab the monster’s head and bring it to my knee feeling something break and it goes limp slipping off the tree. This doesn’t seem right.

I hear the two pegasi scream their lungs out fight the monster’s touch. I race to the blue one thrashing on the ground as the creature’s mark covers her muzzle. She yells through clawing it with her hooves. I kneel next to her not knowing what to do.

“Get it off! Get it off!” She cries as tears flow down her cheeks.

“Hold still!” I tell her. She stops moving as she breathes franticly.

I grab the black moving oil feeling squirm between my fingers. I pull on it, but it clings to the pegasus’s  face.  The other pony screams her lungs out fighting this thing.

Finally the blob gives way releasing the pegasus. The force knocks me on my ass and the black blob covers my hand as is morphs, twists and spread blending into my hand.

“I didn’t expect that!” I said.

“Behind you!” The blue pegasus screams point a hoof over me.

I feel the monster’s sharp teeth digging into my right shoulder as he bites down till it scrapes against bone. I cry out frozen by pain and the creature clinches down harder. I dragged back feeling the teeth tenderize my flesh. The other costumed pegasus burst out of the thicket of leaves fully infected and transformed into devilish parodies of their former selves heckling like vicious hyenas with batwings, sharp fangs and illuminist red eyes. They close in on the blue pegasus as if she’s their prey.

The monster releases his teeth from my shoulder and grabs me by the throat turning me around to face him as his cuts off the air with his claws pressing hard. I’m lifted high off my feet as the blood streams down and drips on the tree from my right arm.  I’m unable to see the blue pegasus hoping that she would fly fast out of here.

“Fighting for petty creatures, soaking in their paradise as you wallow in the gutter. You abuse and misuse my gift.” The monster says to me lighting up his grip.

“You and I have two very different definitions on gifts. Next time, cash in a greeting card will do just fine!” I joke and his grip tightens. I grab at his wrists weakly and exhausted. I feel my body wanting to give way, to collapse and die where I fall.

I see the blue pegasus take to the sky incredibly fast with the infection ones chasing her. They enter the blackened clouds and everything after that is just pessimistic hope.

“You see! All alone. Everyone has abandoned you to die. Stark, your parents, and those caretakers pretending to be a family.” His evil grin grows. “ All that pain and hate. I can make it go away where you’ll finally know absolute peace. No more pain, anger, fear. All of those unnecessary overrated human emotions. All you have to do is give in!” I’m losing will and strength as my body goes limp “There!”

“GREY!” A familiar voice calls and thunder cracks. A bolt of lightning strikes the monster in his chest burning the black flesh sending him back as his is pushed into the ground far from my falling body.

I roll off the tree and land face down onto broken branches poking at my tender flesh unable to  move.

I feel a breeze of wind come over me.

No, Leave!

My face is nudged with a black muzzle. “Grey?” Stark says. I don’t know how many timesI have to tell you to get up!”

“I will as soon as everything stops hurting!”  I reply looking up at her. She’s no longer infected by the monster. Her dark wings contracted at her sides, her golden mane brushing against me. I have my Stark back to her normal self.

“No you have to get up now! The others are coming and we need to leave!” Stark tells me as she digs her head under my chest and pushes me up on my knees. I gaze into the darkened sky hearing the roars of objects hitting high speed and explosive clashes that lighten the obscure clouds briefly.

“The blue pegasus, she’s up there fighting three infect ponies. “ Stark looks up into the sky as well.

Lightning flashes as an loud boom send ripples through the cloud spreading them making way for a falling blue dot.

“Stark!” I shout.

“I got it! Go back to the village!” She replies and blasts into the air making a deafening boom just watching Stark growing more closely to the blue dot. They go out of sight behind the towering tree tops.

I step off the branches and limp to the direction that they were. I quickly look around not seeing the monster anywhere as I limp faster away only to be knocked on my ass as soon as I look away. I quickly summersault backwards and fumble on a tree leaning against it as I breathe heavily.

The monster stumbles on the ground disoriented and weak. He stands with a wobble in his knees and turns to me. Parts of his body burnt exposing a decaying human still animate. One of his eyes are dull and lifeless, the patches of skin seems dry, cracking like hard hot dirt as pieces chip away.

Alone again filled with panic and anxiety as death creeps in the dark presenting himself to me with all his horrid humor. The monster growls and the exposed human area are covered by the black tissue. For the first time in a long time: I afraid to die.

“You’re not up for a chat are you?” I ask and the monster growls. “I thought so.”

Whisper circle around me voicing my thoughts.

I’m goanna die, I’m goanna die, Stark is goanna die. Everyone will die.

I’m not done! I can do this! I can fix it! Think! Think! There is a way out!

It’s all my fault. I’m not strong. I’m pathetic.

I going to fucking kill everything!

My head feels fuzzy as something moves under my skull; moving over the grey matter. I hunch over holding my head as I lose my vision.

You are going to die here and now. You deserve this.