Another joyful day in Ponyville and all the fillies and colts were merrily skipping out from school on their way home, just wonderful isn’t it real idyllic some would say. The joyful and bright exterior was so compelling that none would ever think that something bad might be going on, at least nothing serious. Well as usual the naïve masses were very wrong, and there was something bad going on that no one quite could see, and those who looked hard enough would just quickly look away when they got a glance of it.
There was always something gloomy about Crimson Mane, not the comical kind of gloomy that was easily dispelled by a laugh or two, no it was more like the kind of gloomy that if you got to close to it you would start to feel cold chills crawl up your spine. The kind of gloom you hear about in horror stories, however this was real, very real indeed and thus little colt Crimson Mane was always ignored. That is sadly the cold truth about such a happy and idyllic community, when they find something that sticks out in a bad way that is unfixable they just ignore it, and let the happy exterior camouflage it out.
So poor Crimson was left to wander the playing ground and the little town all alone with everypony ignoring him, but he had grown accustomed to it, after all he had been doing it for two years now, ever since his parents died. Before that he had friends, not many but he had some and that was enough, but they all decided to forget him at the same time along with the rest of Ponyville.
He wasn’t ugly at all quite frankly he had the potential to be somewhat of a good looking stallion when he grew up, he was draped in a crimson red colour, with an even darker red mane that was almost black, and he had piercing deep red eyes. Though the eyes tended to scare some ponies away they mostly intrigued them, but after that one day fear was all they inspired.
That day two years ago Crimson was eight years old, this was his age in pony years though he was far older when it came to pain experience. You see there are those times when a family doesn’t quite work as well and stereotypical as others, Crimson’s family was one of these examples, so just allow me to paint up the general picture. Crimson Mane was the only child but not the first born, his brother that came before him had been a stillborn, and it had been quite a severe case since his mother almost died from giving birth to him. This of course took a big toll on both Crimson’s mother and father but mostly on his mother, she just kept obsessing about her dead child never truly getting over her loss whereas the father just let her be and dealt with it his own way. This ended with them getting a second child namely Crimson Mane.
Now you would think that the family would now finally be happy, but then you are both very wrong and very predictable, you see Crimson’s mother still hadn’t gotten over her first sons death, and as Crimson grew up she just kept comparing him to his brother who had never really done anything in the first place. The problem here wasn’t just comparing him to his dead brother which would have been doable, but the fact was that she was comparing him to his brother who never had lived in the first place, this caused his brother to be according to his mother the best pony who ever lived, because he had never committed any mistake, he had been completely pure. So what Crimson’s mother wanted was perfection because that was what she compared him to, that was of course an impossibility but an impossibility that his mother couldn’t see as the fact it was.
His mother made him realize every single mistake he did, and she punished him for every single one as well, it started out as just taking away his dessert and sending him early to bed, however it slowly began to turn into something far darker. It was when she began locking him in the cellar with nothing to eat but a single rotten apple for two days that things started to escalate. She would do this longer periods of time, sometimes without an apple, this was usually for getting home a few minutes late or forgetting to wash his plate, but eventually she began doing it for fun, and to school she would just say he was sick. Crimson’s father was apparently in on it to, or he just refused to see what was in front of him, it was just too horrible to bear.
But since no one told Crimson that this was wrong he thought it was regular behaviour, that all little colts got this kind of treatment from their parents, and his mother always said never to tell anyone about it, it would just make everypony hate him. This kept going for many years, it escalated into his mother leaving him in the woods for days, or making him pick up broken glass with his teeth, needless to say she was starting to torture him. Then on the day he turned eight everything completely went crazy, and little Crimson Mane finally understood that his mother was completely insane.
It started like any other punishment, this time because it was his birthday, she locked him up in the basement and said she would be back in a minute, this had never happened before so Crimson was bewildered, since he couldn’t even begin to think what would happen when she came back. He then heard screams, even though he didn’t hear them well it sounded like someone in pain, and then it just stopped. Then he started to hear something being dragged across the floor, and it kept getting closer to the cellar door, the door then sprung open and something large tumbled down the stairs. When the large something came to a stop right at Crimson’s feet he was able to see that it was his father that had been hogtied and gagged, Crimson just stared in shock at the scene and his father stared back at him.
Crimson eventually saw his mother at the top of the stairs holding a large kitchen knife, the one she used to cut vegetables with. She began walking down the stairs while uttering a speech that for the first time ever left Crimson Mane stunned with fear. This was what she said: “I have tried to make you into the colt you should be, to be like your brother would be, but you just keep disappointing me all the time. I try to make you understand with all of the punishments I give you, but you just can’t seem to get it through your thick skull, you just don’t get that you are supposed to be perfect just like your brother was. I have tried again and again but you just won’t listen, so now I’m forced to do this. If you can’t become perfect on your own accord, I will MAKE you perfect, and I will start by putting you in the very state that made your brother perfect, the way you should have been in first place had I known you would be such a no good son. I will kill you so you can finally follow your brother’s example, you really are a terrible child to make your mother do this, you should really be doing this yourself, but you just wouldn’t understand all the hints I gave you. All of these punishments, so now I’m forced to take matters into my own hands since you were to stupid do understand, but not just you, your good for nothing father will also reach perfection today. I just can’t take it anymore, all of his constant criticism and slander, even though he doesn’t say anything I know he thinks it. So now my dear Crimson you will join your brother, goodbye”.
As his mother lifted the knife Crimson finally understood it all, the cruel and terrible truth of it all, he understood now what his mother’s intentions where and what she had done to him. It made him sick, but foremost it made him furious, and the anger of a child is not to be trifled with, especially when it was as justly invoked as now.
He avoided the knife and rolled to the side, his mother screamed and pounced at him but he just stepped aside and into the wall she tumbled, smacking her head into the rock leaving her dazed and making her drop the knife. His fury now knew no bounds, so he picked up the knife and looked into his mother’s eyes, the thing he saw in them made him go mad. He saw pure fear, the kind of fear you feel when you know you’re about to die, he saw that and he loved it, so he lifted the knife and….
With but one single motion Crimson Mane transformed from an innocent eight year old colt into a cold blooded killer, the kind who loves the fear in their victims eyes, who lives for nothing else. Then suddenly a magical flash sealed the deal as he got his cutiemark, a black skull.
He then went over to his father with knife readied, and fresh blood dripping from it. He removed the gag, but his father still didn’t say a word, but he could see the fear in his eyes, the same fear he had seen in his mothers and he was completely sold. He wanted them so he cut them out, slowly to savour every moment of his father’s pain, every single bone chilling scream of agony, the only sound he had heard his father utter for as long as he could remember.
When he was done the two fear-filled orbs covered with blood were laying neatly a the ground next his father, who just kept losing blood through his bleeding eye sockets, it was so beautiful Crimson thought, so he kept watching until they stopped bleeding. Unfortunately he was still alive so he cut his heart out as well and with one last painful sigh Crimson’s father finally died.
Crimson went up from the cellar but before closing the door he said one thing: “I thank you mother, I now know what makes me special and it’s all thanks to you, that’s why I spared you a painful death even though you deserved it. My father instead had to suffer, he might not have done me any wrong directly, but sitting quiet and watching as someone suffers is just as bad of a crime as doing it yourself, in fact it is worse since it gives the one suffering false hope. I don’t hate you mother because I understand you, but I can’t understand father and therefore I truly hate him”. He then closed the door and thus a killer was born.
This happened two years ago and everypony knew what happened, and every subsequent time Crimson Mane satisfied his lusts everypony knew it was him who did it. But he has been going at it ever since that day and no one has stopped his killing spree, and no one in Ponyville ever will. This idyllic and happy community just can’t seem to cope with the fact that there is a killer in their midst even when their close ones die around them they will never admit to have seen it, not even when they stare death in the eye. The only way for such a place of sunshine and rainbows to ever deal with something so dark is to simply ignore it and keep living the charade they call a happy life. Even before Crimson Mane they kept doing the same thing when bad things happened, just hoping it would solve itself. But this time they helped create a monster by doing this, most of the residents of Ponyville knew of Crimson’s family problems but they chose to ignore it, and now they pay the price for their sickening ways. It is not Crimson who is the monster, it is those who created him that are, and they will all pay the same price his father did, by adding their fearful eyes to his ever growing collection.
There is no community that is perfect, and those that seem to be are the ones that you should be the most afraid of, for they are the most corrupt and vile of them all.
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