Jeff the Killer

“Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh!” Rainbow Dash mumbles relentlessly,  her wings flapping fast enough to emit a faint buzzing sound, not so unlike a changeling’s. In her front hooves was Twilight’s still twitching body, two hooves wrapped around her waist. Dash was barely able to hold in her tears, mixed in with fear and disbelief.

She never did find Twilight’s missing horn piece. Dash spent a sparse minute to check around for the obvious sight, without success. With a kick like that, she couldn’t be sure just how far the piece could have flown off. Maybe it flew off to space.

Okay, no it didn’t. Think rationally here, Dash. First get help, then we can find everything. But, but still! Maybe if she gets it now they could reattach it or something?

Then where did it go? Maybe she should scout the nearby grounds some more. She could ask around ponyville to see if they found a cracked horn piece nearby. Oh, who am I kidding?! It probably flew into the Everfree Forest, if anywhere.

Dash passed over the Ponyville Library, making a right. The white walls of the Ponyville Hospital make themselves known, and she quickly slams back down to the ground. Her wings flutter rapidly, her hind legs making two dents on the dirt.

“Move!” Dash shouts excitedly, blasting through the air with Twilight still in her hooves. “Get out of the way!”

Passerby turn their heads, while a rainbow blurs past them in the direction of the hospital doors. Dash crashes through the large twin doors, causing them to boom outward, damaging the adjacent walls. Dash collides into the front desk, cracking the wood, and causing further damage to the lobby. Twilight’s body tumbles in cartwheels, at a much slower pace, colliding next to Dash.

“Hey! What happened?”

“Whats going on?”

Hospital staff rush in and crowd the two mares, one wearing a doctor’s coat and three with nurse’s outfits. Dash can hear ponies mumbling and talking with each other, some staring with  startled manes. She looks at the pony with the doctor’s coat before her vision starts to fade.

“H-Help... T-Twi...” Dash tries to yell, though barely audible before she falls to unconsciousness.

Dash wakes up in a white hospital bed with silver metal bearings. She looks around to see a yellow curtain on her right. White walls adorn the room, with a poster of a red cross and bold letters in her front. The hospital. Twilight. W-Where is she? She lowers a hoof into the floor, before she feels another hoof connect onto her shoulder. She is pushed back onto the bed, with a dazed look adding onto her messy complexion.

“You really shouldn’t get up just yet, Rainbow Dash.”

Dash turns her head to see a white pony in Nurse’s clothes, looking quizzically at her, while maintaining a neutral smirk.

“Nurse Redheart!” Dash yelps. She recovers quickly, sitting upright.  “I-I was just...”

“Are you worried about Twilight?” Nurse Redheart asked, staring at Dash with saddened eyes. “Rainbow Dash, what happened?”

The two ponies pause as the air stills and all is quiet except for the occasional beep or clopping coming from outside the door. Dash lets her eyes dart at the door before setting her eyes back at Redheart, unable to answer. “I... I dont want to talk about it.”

“Wha... whatever do you mean?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, alright!” Rainbow Dash turns her head away from the medic, trying to hold a look of unbreaking defiance.

“Dash, please!” Redheart strains her voice, starting to show signs of impatience. “We need to know how Twilight got hurt or -”

“Its not any of your business! It only needs to be between me and Twilight, alright? Where is she? Is she okay? Where are you keeping her!”

Dash practically jumps off the bed, causing the suspensions to whine. Dash cringes when her four hooves reach the white and grey tiled floor, but pushes through the white mare before Redheart could react.

“Wait!” Nurse Redheart exclaims, wide eyed. “Where do you think you’re going?!”

Ignoring the nurse on her tail, Dash gallops out of the room, to spot the stallion with the doctor’s coat in the corner, overlooking some papers next to two other nurses.

“Hey!” Dash yells, startling the nurses while only earning a bored glare from the stallion. “Twilight, purple unicorn, where?!”

“Eh...” The stallion doesn’t hesitate as he looks back at his clipboard, and turns a few papers, before returning his bored stare and pointing a hoof.  “Room two o’ three. Two doors to the right of the stair doors.”

Dash restrains from speaking out, choosing instead to zip down the hall, wings buzzing. Nurse Redheart follows suit, chasing after the skittles-colored mare. The other two nurses still haven’t recovered from their shock, only their eyes following the pair as Redheart tiredly tries to keep up with Dash. Sweat running down her mane, Nurse Redheart barely kept a trot as Rainbow Dash disappears through the aisles. The doctor’s stare follows both of them, with a look of disgust while positioning his papers back in place.

“D-Dash!”  Redheart yells, but with no indication of being heard, tiredly collapses on the floor. A couple of staff nearby look pitifully at the exhausted nurse, two of them walking up to help her up. Yet Nurse Redheart could only look on with worry, staring at the direction of Dash’s pitfall.

__________

Dash flies past all the staff and patients, expertly dodging and using aerial tactics to go past the alarmed ponies. An old wrinkled mare waives her hooves angrily as Dash passes above her, but was ignored because Dash simply had better things to do than to be stopped by an angry grandma.

“Two hundred and -   Ah ha!” Dash excitedly exclaims, stopping into a harsh grind.  She repositions herself, bringing a hoof over her mane as it bounces back to its original glory. Dash inhales, taking a second to calm herself before putting a hoof onto the door.

__________

There exists a place where one too many dangerous creatures reside; a forest feared and awed by its neighbors. It borders the bubbly town of Ponyville, a place that knows and fears the horrors of the bizarre and gaga wilderness. Anypony with a right mind would never feel safe deep in the “Darkness through the Trees”. All accept one, at least. Inside the forest, not too far from the edge, resides a modest home of sorts, housing a very wise and knowledgable zebra. Previously feared like the forest itself, the mare is a young prodigy, a master of her crafts.

In the hut the zebra calls home, a spiced and bitter smell generously emits. Slight bubbles of steam come out as Zecora prepares a brew in her centerpiece pot. It is close to nighttime, hinted by the lack of light in the room. Only the fire radiating from the woodwork sufficed to any light, crackling and creating all types of shadows, forming beings with long necks, others with menacing grins or sharp teeth. Zecora reaches into a bag in a shelf to reveal a candle, which she lights and places back on the shelf.

Yet, almost all this does is create more shadows. The shadows start to expand and narrow, less like equine beings and more like the monsters that one would hear about in a mare’s tale. Zecora simply chuckles a bit, though, not falling for the illusion that the mind loves falling prey to. What else is there to do, though? Living in the Everfree Forest is not as exciting or dangerous as many make it out to be. In fact, it is actually quite boring. Nothing to do except stay in a hut and hope something comes her way. In fact, recently these past few months have been the most exciting she have had for a long, long time.

Cutie Mark Crusaders. Those three have been a triple terror threat to most ponies, but the zebra found a unique innocence and playfulness in them. Apple Bloom especially, seemed to look up to her and spend time with her unlike any other. She often acts like an assistant to her at times, her presence always welcome. Zecora cannot deny she was a bit in the way at the beginning for her potion brewing, but Apple Bloom always tried to find something to do to help her at the end. If only the young filly was a zebra...

A shadow violently flickers for a moment, enough to catch the attention of the thinking zebra. The candle flickers and goes out, leaving a part of the hut in darkness.

“What has stolen my light?” Zecora questions tiredly, walking toward the candle. She eyes the spot on the floor strangely, and looks around for an open window.  “Surely this can’t be right.”

Zecora finds the candle toppled over, drops of spilled wax starting to dry on the wooden floor. Eyeing it quizzically, she sighs. She picks the candle up with her mouth, and approaches the fire, carefully tilting her head so only the tip of the candle would light. Satisfied, she turned around to place the candle back to its designated spot. This time, though, she decides to place the candle farther to the side of the room. This way, the entire room, which took up half the hut, would be illuminated. It would make it easier, Zecora decided, to move around and find her ingredients with ease later on.

Zecora decides just that, and takes a few steps ahead to place her new light source. Placing the candle onto the floor once more, she grins as it keeps a steady flame without all the previous flickering from before.

...Her grin fades as she sees a strange, tall shadow seeming to detach on top of her. The shadows resemble nothing she has ever imagined before, seeming to slowly inclose on her. As the shadow starts to overlap her, Zecora starts to feel claustrophobic, stepping back.

Her eyes dart up, to come in contact with the eyes of another.

Two unblinking eyes stare deep into her, Zecora unable to move. The tall being’s body was barely visible in the dark corner just steps away from her, but to Zecora it was all she needed to see. Through agonizing seconds of simply staring at the unmoving figure, she starts to think her mind is playing tricks on her again, until she sees the being’s lips smile to a large, demented smile. Yet, Zecora still could not urge herself to react, until the smile moved to form letters, pausing with each word.  “Go. To. Sleep.”

Zecora all of a sudden blinks repeatedly, and regains control of her body. Bending over, she holds her head between her front hooves, and scrunches her eyes closed. “I am so tired,  I must be imagining things. Maybe I should rest, until a Cutie Mark Crusader rings?”

“Yeah, maybe you should take a break, maybe take a nap right over in that comfy bed of yours!”

“Yes,” Zecora strains, her head still in her hooves. “Maybe I shall do ju-”

Zecora’s eyes shoot open.

“AAAAHHH!?!” Zecora shouts in terror. She manages to hold in her screams to utter a single sentence to the intruder. “What are thou beast, are you here to feast?”

“What?” The ‘visitor’ balks, confused. “You bastards are edible?”

Zecora blanks out for a moment, before uttering mournful shriek and retrying to the closest room, which happens to be her bedroom. She locks the door, and starts to look for things to use as a barricade. As she starts pushing a dresser towards the door, she hears a faint knocking.

Terrified but skeptical, she abandons her post and returns to the door. She puts an ear toward the door before speaking loudly. “What do you desire? If it is items of value, then they are no longer just yours to admire.”

“Nooo...” The voice from the other side of the door replies with mild playfulness. “I have a question.”

Confused and no longer as stiff as before, she starts to find the words in her throat sprout out.

“If you promise of no harm to come to -”

“SHUT UP!” The voice spouts violently, causing Zecora to fall backwards. The voice returns to its mild playfulness. “Shut up and answer the question!”

Zecora, now shaking, stays on the ground for a couple of seconds before managing to hold herself up. The floor underneath her was now wet with moisture, as the sudden fright caused a release that the zebra could not control. Terror-stricken to the level of horror simply being written in her body language, she could not think clearly anymore. She could not seem to come up with a rhyme in her state, and was only able to process a single word that came to mind. “Y-Yes.....?”

“ How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

A kick slams the door open, and the zebra is knocked back. She could see the full features of the being in front of her, on top of the rubble that used to be her door.

“I’ll let you sleep on that,” The tall monster spoke, before raising his right appendage.