One rainy Sunday afternoon in Ponyville, a timid yellow pegasus tended to her small animal friends.
"Who's the cutesiest wootsiest little bunny in the whole wide world?" Fluttershy crooned to Angel Bunny, a small white rabbit for whom she cared dearly.
Angel simply sat and stared at the pony, impatiently tapping his foot. He then proceeded to hop over and start gnawing on the large sofa of the room.
"Oh! Uh... Angel, I know you're hungry," Fluttershy began, "but that's a sofa, not food. Please don't eat it... I mean if you wouldn't mind... I mean... Angel stop! I'll go get you some berries in the forest," she implored.
To this Angel conceded and stopped trying to eat the yellow mare's furniture. He then threw her saddlebag over her back and hurried her out the door into the torrential downpour. The yellow pegasus, instantly soaked, adjusted the askew saddlebag and plodded down the road to the edge of the Everfree Forest where, hopefully, the trees would at least offer some shelter.
Fluttershy trotted into the forest, in search of snacks for the small white rabbit with a predisposition toward the finer sorts of foods. The pegasus promptly came across a bush of raspberries. She efficiently bit off a branch and put it in her saddlebag to carry it back. "I won't bother picking them all now," she muttered to herself.
As she continued into the forest in search of something with more substance she heard a weak mewling over the sound of the driving rain. She tracked the sound to a large knothole in a log she had passed. Fluttershy squealed in surprise as she squinted into the darkness of the fallen tree. As she peered into the small shelter, she saw a small kitten with fur the color of storm clouds with a leg, twisted to an unnatural angle.
"Oh!" she squealed, "How long have you been in there? Are you ok?"
Fluttershy reached into the log to stroke it gently with her hoof. The tiny animal flinched away from her touch.
She lay herself down in the mud and squinted compassionately at the poor creature in the log, "Would you let me help you?" she asked to which the kitten mewled pathetically.
Fluttershy picked up the kitten by the scruff of it neck and placed it in her saddle bag opposite the thorny branch of raspberries that kept stabbing at her through the canvas of the bag.
The pegasus then quickly trotted home to her house and out of the rain. Upon her arrival home she was greeted by an impatient Angel Bunny. Still hungry. Fluttershy carefully but quickly shook her bag off. She removed the kitten from the bag and wrapped a blanket around it, setting it on the sofa.
She then turned to retrieve Angel's raspberries and discovered that they had been smashed to a bloody red pulp of branches in transportation. She looked to Angel as he sat there watching her actions intently, curious as to the whereabouts of his meal.
Fluttershy let loose a guilty, anguished cry and fell to the floor weeping. Angel approached the weeping pony cautiously. He patted her on the neck to show that it was all okay and then gestured to the wounded creature on the couch surveying the scene with a panicky, rapt sort of interest.
Fluttershy sniffled and looked up, surprised by Angels understanding. She stood up and trotted to the kittens side. "Oh you poor thing!" Fluttershy crooned, "All alone in the rain in so much pain? How did you manage?" The kitten mewled a weak response and closed it's eyes. The cateful pegasus began to tend to the animals injuries.
In the next weeks the kittens injuries slowly faded and the pathetic dull kitten was replaced by an energetic, playful animal with devious tendencies. Fluttershy began to dread what would happen when she inevitably had to leave the animal at her home without her guidance.
Three mostly peaceful days later, Fluttershy was finally called upon to leave her house and help some woodland critters settle an argument over nuts.
After the dust settled and the nuts were shared fairly, Fluttershy returned home.
The white fur just inside the doorway should have warned her.
The silence should have made her realize something was off.
The pale yellow mare didn't notice the nightmare because she didn't want to see the carnage. She couldn't acknowledge it's existence or it would have to be true.
It first occurred to the meek pegasus that she would need to clean up the carcass soon. "The carcass," she muttered, "Oh Celestia that really is his carcass."
Angel was no longer. He was simply a mess of gore in a stained and torn pelt. Disfigured by misplaced bones, he lay there. One eye staring pleadingly toward the door. The other somewhere else entirely.
The mare lay herself down next to the butchered form in the red ocean that had spread across the floor from the site of the slaughter. So much blood. Such a tiny animal. How was it even possible? Had it really happened?
Yes. It had happened. And there was no going back. This was Fluttershy's fault. She had gone into the woods that day and instead of a meal, she had come back with a murderer.
No. This wasn't Fluttershy's fault. This was the kittens fault. Fluttershy had never harmed angel. This was that melancholy, mewling, mess of a monster. Disguised. Hiding under the guise of an injured cat.
Yes. It was the cat. But what could Fluttershy do about it? She was a simple pony. She had too big of a heart to throw it into the wild to starve.
She could kill it.
No! No! She could never do that. She wasn't like that. It was just being a cat.
It killed Angel Bunny.
She should kill it.
But it was only in its nature. Cats hunt rabbits. They kill as many rabbits as they--
She would kill it.
The pegasus walked to the kitchen, a grimmaced flashed across her face. "I really should pay Iron Will a visit." she mused.
She placed a saucer of cream on the floor.
The giggles hit her as she slid her hoof into the special shoe for holding tools.
"I guess I am satisfied now," Fluttershy laughed with a tinge of hysteria.
Fluttershy slid her most wicked carving knife into the hole in the shoe. She tapped it against the counter and the knife clicked into its place in the shoe with a final, resounding snap.
"Here kitty kitty!" Crooned the yellow mare.
"I'm waiting for you," she spoke sweetly.
From the kitchen Fluttershy could see the kitten poke it's little head out from under the sofa. The blood matting it's fur had crusted. It looked drenched, much like on the day in which she had brought this adorable little bastard into her home. Invited it to murder her friends because it was hurt.
Now it was really going to hurt. Now it would not what hurt meant. It couldn't hurt her anymore.
There it was. A cunning creature. Adorable appearance. Nasty nature. It was drinking the cream. "Now Fluttershy," she commanded herself, "Be merciful. You are not a monster."
She kicked it in the rear. Shattering one of it's hind legs. It lay there mewling in the puddle next to the overturned saucer. It turned it's face up towards it's saviour. It seemed to ask, "Why?"
The pegasus growled a terse, "You know exactly why you little fur ball," as the grin spread across her face. She watched the kitten struggle to climb to it's feet before stomping on it's newly healed foreleg. The animal yowled an awful scream. The mare laughed. She placed her hoof on the kittens tail end and and slowly applied her weight until the bones snapped. She watched the kittens ears flatten against it's head as it's haunches broke through it's pelt. That mangy pelt. The kittens blood mixed with the blood of an innocent white rabbit, already matted in the storm grey fur.
The mare kicked the kitten over to lay on it's shattered spine. A tiny voice in the back of her mind screeched, "Never move a spinal injury!" to which the fevered mare replied, "No. It's ok. I don't think this one will be needing it too much."
She brought her hoof down heavy on its ribcage. Crushing the air from it's lungs. She watched the kittens eyes bulge hysterically from it's skull and glaze over.
Death. What a concept.
The end.
The end of misery. The end of pain. The absolute absolute. No more fingers pointed no more blame thrown around. No more conflict. Just black sweet nothingness.
Fluttershy looked down on the crumpled form in front of her as a sense of guilt built up deep within her heart. She saw what she had done in that moment. She realized what she was. She was the kitten. The monster. The murderer. The one that had to die.
But how?
Who was there to do the deed? That it must be done was unquestionable. But nopony was there to judge her. Nopony could see her crimes. She had killed Angel with her outrageous, overboard kindness and then slaughtered a creature in shame. She had pinned the blame on something else and it took the punishment.
She would have to do it.
She would have to kill again.
But this would be much more difficult. It would be painful. It had to be painful. She had to pay. The pegasus would bleed for her crimes.
Forlornly she looked at the carving knife in the shoe. Still on her hoof. Clean of gore. She had forgotten it entirely in the ecstasy of the murder.
It would go to good use yet.
The bloody yellow mare removed the shoe and held it in her mouth as she trotted up the stairs.
She stepped on a mouse as she climbed. She felt it die under he hoof. Her whisper of "Goodbye," echoed through the silence of the house.
Fluttershy skipped the last two steps and turned right. Headed towards the bathroom. "You don't need to make any more mess for anypony else now Fluttershy," she scolded herself, "let's keep this clean. You'll climb in the bathtub and then you'll get to work."
The timid yellow mare did as she was told. Mostly. As she was climbing into the bathtub she straightened her hind left leg and brought it down hard on the edge of the tub. The bones shattered.
"Ya-yay," Fluttershy choked out. Tears welling in her eyes. The pain severe. She tumbled hard into the porcelain bowl. She lay there gasping for a moment or two before sitting up, sparing herself no agony in the motion.
"Now," she muttered, turning the tool of her demise so it caught the light with a demonic glint, "where do I begin?"
She plunged the wicked blade into her shattered limb, testing the reaction it would force out of her.
She heard screaming. Involuntary screeches of pain. Again and again she ripped through skin and muscle. She felt blade hit bone and she recoiled. What was she doing? She watched her blood pour out of her leg and roll down the drain.
She was being punished.
She was a monster.
One last time she forced the blade into the soft flesh of her leg before dragging the blade down her leg. Screaming she opened her leg and looked at the glistening white of the shattered bone. It was a beautiful sight. Even in a mangled bloody mess, there was that shining beacon of goodness. Like Fluttershy.
"like I used to be." grunted the mare as she ripped a bone fragment from her leg with her teeth. Spitting it violently into the gathering blood beneath her. She grimaced against the pain and went back for another piece.
Ater disengaging nearly half of her femur from her leg looked down to see that she had only mangled one limb. She was going to have to operate faster if she wanted to survive to the bitter end.
The pastel pegasus drove the cruelly curved blade into the bottom of her abdominal cavity next. Gasping in shock and pain, her eyes rolled back. Blackness crept in on her consciousness. Savagely, she tore the blade upwards, using the maddening pain to bring her back to the bathroom. Gore gushed from the wound. Next she cut two parallel lines into her abdomen at the top and bottom of the previous incision. She whimpered, "Let's see what the insides of a monster look like. Am I really any different from everypony else?"
Fluttershy ripped the flaps of flesh away, revealing the glistening organs beneath. Ichor poured from the gaping hole. In pain, the stained yellow mare screeched, then clamped her teeth down on her lip. She bit clean through it.
The warm, iron taste of blood flooded Fluttershy's mouth. It poured down the back of her throat like the rest that was pouring down the drain. Life down the drain. The world spun around her. He world was now the bathtub, her guilt, her knife, and her. And blood. So much blood. her hooves stained red from her crimes and her punishment.
"Blood loss. That's what this is. I'm going delirious. Quickly now Fluttershy," she giggled to herself She contorted herself out of shape, forcing more blood to flood flood from her guts, reaching down with her mouth to grab hold of the loose flaps of flesh. Tears rolled from her eyes as she tore away at her skin with her teeth.
"I'M DONE," screamed the bloodstained corpse of a pony, "I'M DONE NOW. THAT'S PAYMENT ENOUGH."
She lifted the knife to catch the light again. It was a gory scene. The light reflected onto the wall was a deep red.
She turned the knife and put it through her right eye.
Pain.
"Oh let it stop!"
"I mean... If that's okay with you of course."
"END IT."
"Say please."
"I don't want to do this anymore."
Tears of blood poured down the right side of her face. She dragged the blade down her cheek, letting loose another wave of ichor.
Somepony was screaming.
Somepony was bleeding.
Somepony was dying.
Fluttershy's remaining eye saw no more.
The timid yellow pegasus was gone.
