Authors note: I'm just going to get this out of the way now: Pyretread is a character I made for this guy for this story(shameless advertising, I know) to fully understand why he's a monster, you'll at least need to read Ch. 6. Or don't, and let it be creepier!
The Hunger
Pyretread woke in a soft white room. He gave a soft groan, this being the second time this week he'd woken up in an infirmary of some sort. Giving his limbs an experimental stretch, he only really felt a twinge of pain coming from his tail. It could have been worse, especially with all those traps. How had Tick Tock managed to fit all those traps in there? Looking around, he saw that he was in what appeared to be in a basic medical room, not unlike what he would have seen in a doctors office. Much less white and clean than the last room he woke up in.
Shivering at the thought of the last doctor he woke up to, he looked to see who had taken care of him this time. Turning over on the little bed he was on, he jerked back as he saw the purple mare who had been chasing him down. fortunately, whoever had moved him here had cleaned the gunk out of his mouth, and he quickly said, "I'm not a monster please don't kill me!"
The purple mare gave him a smile and said, "I know, don't worry. I was there when we found you out on the battlefield. Sorry about all the confusion back there, but you look rather.... different now. The name's dagger, by the way." She held out a hoof as she finished this, and Pyretread took it in his talons and gave it a light shake.
"Don't worry about it, I'm still getting used to the new me." he said with a small smile, revealing his fangs. "Er, what happened to the other pony who was with you... Snowball? She didn't get caught in any of the traps, did she?"
Dagger shook her head as she replied, "No, she went off to go make us something to eat. She should be back soon enough, though."
No sooner had she said that when a pure white unicorn entered the room. She didn't have any food though, and looked somewhat worried as she said, "We've got company coming. We need to move, they'll be at the house soon. I saw our carriage off in the distance, so we should have some help soon." Looking at Pyretread she said, "But you're in no condition to fight. after we're set, you need to get into the forest and wait."
Pyretread nodded in agreement. He was still getting used to his new body, and was exhausted from the events of the past few days. Moving to the back door,he sat down and got ready to move.
XxXxXxX
After the girls were prepared, they met him at the back door, where Snowball said, "Alright, We're all set, lets get-" she was cut off as something smashed through one of the front windows. Moving quickly to see what had happened, they saw that a brick with straw that had been set on fire had been thrown through the window. The fire had quickly spread, now augmented by another brick.
With a look of exasperation, Snowball said, "Oh really now, they're burning down the house? Dagger, we need to see if we can fend them off before they can do much more damage. Try and see if you can lure a few off from the main group and I'll support with my bow. Pyretread, same plan with you. Get to that forest, and keep as safe as possible."
Even though he was worried for his new friends, he gave a quick nod and moved back to the back door and went through it. Unfortunately, a few ponies had moved to the back in case anypony tried to escape from there. "Crap" he thought to himself as he looked to the forest. Run NOW, you don't have much time! this was augmented by the fact that one of the ponies had drawn a bow and was already nocking an arrow into place.
Breaking into a run, he turned his head to see that the pony was already aiming for him. He braced himself for the impact of the arrow, when the pony dropped dead, struck in the head by another arrow from the side. "Keep running!" he heard from the side of the house. Needing no further encouragement, he entered the forest, with five of the assaulting ponies hard on his tail.
XxXxXxX
Pyretread didn't know how long he'd been running, but he could feel that exhaustion from earlier catching up to him, and the other five ponies were still chasing him. "Keep moving, you can make it!" The kind voice in his head said. It gave him a bit of energy, but he was struggling, and he knew it. "We could fix it, you know." He Dreaded what would happen if he let the Dark Thing in his mind take over, but he was rapidly running out of options, and energy. "No. You don't have to resort to that. Just keep moving!"
At this, he heard a a deep chuckle from the Dark Thing as it replied, "Hah, that would be the cowards option. You KNOW we could get you out of this. All you have to do is let us take over. Just for a bit, until we can get you safe again." Pyretread felt himself agreeing, even though everything in him was telling him not to. "No, please... don't listen..."
But desperation and sheer exhaustion had driven him to the point of no return as he said, "Fine, go ahead and do it" As soon as he had finished the though, he felt his consciousness drift into a sea of darkness as he heard laughter and, "YES, now those foals will know true terror!" The last thing he remembered was a bright light pulling him in as he said, "I'm sorry... I had too..."
"We know"
XxXxXxX
Heft was content with his lot as a sellsword. A lot of guard ponies and several adventurers looked down on him because of his services, but the pay was good and he usually got a lot of freedom. When he was approached with the offer of assisting an assault on a manor that would have very minor resistance, he almost turned it down. Until he saw the sheer amount of bit being offered for the venture. There was no way he was going to turn such an offer down.
Now, because of that greed, he was chasing some monstrosity through some godforsaken forest at the climax of the night cycle. It wasn't the worst thing he'd had to do, his group had taken down a hydra once, but it wasn't something he wanted to be doing at this moment. At least it didn't look like... whatever it was they were chasing was going to give much of a fight.
It wasn't long before they came across their quarry standing in the middle of a small clearing, his back to them. Heft smiled as the rest of the group caught up with him. It deepened as he heard, "You foals have just once chance to leave. Do not test me. You have been warned."
To Heft, it was just the same cocky bull crap he'd heard from every cornered pony he'd ever faced. Tanking a few steps forward he said, "And I don't believe a word from your mouth, you monster. So why don't you just lay down, and we'll make your death swift, eh?"
This was responded to with laughter as the monster slowly began flaring its wings. "I gave you foals a fair warning, and you tossed it aside like it was nothing. You have made a very grave mistake, for today, I have tasted flesh. I rather liked it, and it's rather... unfortunate I was unable to get more. More unfortunate for you... It trailed off as it turned to face the group, who recoiled mildly at the sight as it continued, I'm still hungry.
This was definitely not the monster Heft had been chasing moments ago. All the fear had gone from its eyes. In fact, it appeared that everything was gone from its eyes. It looked as though the sockets were completely empty. But the worst part, to him, was the haunting grin, with a constant stream of droll coming out of the corner as it eyed them. Shifting slightly, he turned to the pony on his left, Cleave and said, "Shut him up, eh? Let's be done with this."
Cleave gave a little shake as he said, "Sure boss. I'll smash that freaking face in so we won't have to look at those eyes when we bring him back." Cleave lifted up his claymore and began charging at the monster before them. When he was nearly there, he lifted the great sword over his head...
And that was when the monster acted. Leaping faster than they would have thought, he drove himself into Cleave, and drove him behind some bushes. Heft heard the clatter as the sword hit the ground, followed shortly after by a soft grunt and a tearing sound. Heft motioned for the others to follow as he approached the bushes, to see the results of Cleaves charge.
He looked beyond the bush and immediately stepped back in revulsion at what he saw: Cleave was laying there on the ground with the monster sitting next to him. He was clearly dead, as his throat was torn out, but what made it worse was that chunks of flesh were missing and bone was clearly visible and the creature tore off pieces of the pony and stuffed then greedily into his mouth.
The other three approached and he heard "Oh great Celestia" from one of the ponies. This drew the creatures attention, its stare was quickly back on them. Before they could react, the monster thew the corps of their dead comrade at them. It missed Heft and the pony on his right, but the other two were hit and temporarily pinned by the body. Heft took advantage of this to break into a run, turning once to see that that the monster had leaped onto the two pinned ponies, one of which had a thick manticore tail imbedded in her skull. The other had the lower portion of his jaw torn off, and he could already hear the tearing of flesh as the monster began to feed.
Heft hated to leave those two behind like that, but this had gone too far. It was time to cut and run. The last remaining pony of his group was running just behind him, with a panicked look on his face. They just had to make it out of the forest, and then they would be home free, they would be-
His train of thought was cut off by a scream from behind. He turned once a gain to see that two mismatched sets of claws had grabbed onto the pony behind him, and were slowly slowing him down. Just as it seemed he might get free out of sheer desperate bucking, that hope was lost as the tail shot down into the ponies back. Heft picked up speed at this sight.
He wouldn't be free that easily, though, as he soon heard, "NO, NO PLEASE! NO! NOOOOOOOOO-"
XxXxXxX
Tick Tock and his friends started to walk towards the forest. They all had minor wounds from the fight, but it was nothing serious. "Tick Tock, let's hope our friend wasn't hurt during his flight."
Snowball nodded in agreement. "Hopefully he was able to hide in time, I believe I saw a few of them chase him into there... I hope he's ok, especially after all the trouble he's been through." Dagger murmured her agreement as they kept moving.
After a short trek, they soon say a pony running towards them through the trees. It sounded like he was shouting something, but they couldn't quite make it out "Tick Tock, It seems as though we have at least one survivor from tonight, maybe we could find out why-"
He stopped as he heard what the pony was shouting, "OH PLEASE HELP! IT'S COMING FOR ME!" he was galloping as fast as he could towards the small group, and continued shouting, "OH PLEASE HELP! PLEA-" The screaming was cut off as a blur of a shadow struck him from the side and out of sight. the shouts quickly changed to, "NONOPLEASENONONOAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH"
The group headed to where the pony had gotten knocked out of sight. The sight on the other side was enough to make Dagger sick. She back away from the group before vomiting. Pyretread had been on top of the pony, digging through it's ruined chest. A ruined lung lay to the side, as well as a fairly stripped clean foreleg. "Pyretread." Tick Tock said, trying to get his attention. Pyretread quickly stuffed the heart he had just pulled out into his mouth as Tick Tock called his name again, "Pyretread, you need to stop."
Pyretread woke up within his mind at this, and began forcing the Dark Thing back down. The group watched as he began what seemed like a multisided conversation with himself: "We had to do it! I... I had to do it" "I... I had to. I'm sorry...." "We know.. we know.
Shade watched the pony before him intently, as he head his own voices start up: "He... He thinks he's a monster?" "Monster or not, I like him." Oh yesssss, what a delectable way to make them ssssssuffer... Shade shook his head slightly at this, apprehensive about the eagerness coming from Red and The Watcher. Then, Gray spoke up, "I trust him, Shade. So can you." Shade closed his eyes at this letting the memories of his past and the emotions that came with them drift through his thoughts. "He's.. he's no more a monster than I am. The world made him this way.... Just like me..."
Pyretread took his head in his talons and took a deep breath. He looked back up to the ponies gathered around him, the color restored to his eyes. "I'm... I'm sorry. I... I can't believe what I did back there. I was just... so tired..."
Tick Tock lowered a hoof to help him up. "It's ok. You did what you had to, even if in a rather... unconventional way. Come now, let's get you cleaned up." Pyretread took the hoof and pulled himself up. Still shaking from exhaustion, he sighed deeply.
"Never again...." he thought to himself "You know you enjoyed it. The feeling of power over their weak lives. You liked it. And you know she would have like it, too." The Dark Thing said. The calm voice responded You know full well she wouldn't have liked.... that. We came out of this alive, though. We can be grateful for that.
And as Pyretread left the forest with his friends, he heard, "Alive because of meeee....."
END
