Beyond Her Garden
Chapter One
A Simple Mare

Carrot Top held the ice pack to her forehead and sighed. While it did somewhat alleviate the pain and make the swelling go down, her head still ached and throbbed. The moon was a mere sliver of light in the star spangled night sky. Crickets chirped outside her window and inside the fire crackled. Without hesitation, she collapsed into her recliner and slumped down into it.

"If one more pony throws another rock at me, I'll be brain damaged," she whispered to herself. This was absurd. Everyday she was assaulted in some way, shape, or form, and for no good reason! She was always kind and polite to the other mares and stallions, so as to why they loved bullying her so much, she was clueless. For the longest time, Carrot Top put up with the daily attacks. However, it was until just moments ago that it upset her.

The butter yellow mare got up out of the chair and glanced at herself in the mirror. She hadn't seen herself for quite some time, so when she first glanced at the mirror, she hardly recognized herself. Her face was barely yellow, but rather a dark, grotesque shade of purple. There was also a large red lump directly above her right eye. Her body was speckled with small scarlet blisters and welts and her left hind leg was swollen and curved at an uncomfortable angle, and was also a gruesome shade of magenta, due to a little trap Bon Bon and Lyra set up a week or so ago.

It infuriated Carrot Top. She was suffering pain, constant pain, for what? It certainly wasn't because she was mean to them. After contemplating what reason they could have for such absurdities and coming up with no significant answer, she looked at the deformed mare in the mirror once again and noticed a minuscule chip in the glass that happened to be right over her eye. The crack webbed out before her very eyes over her face, and all at once, the glass shattered. The mare turned away from the shards of glass and continued to dwell on the daily event.

Finally, after coming with a few coping mechanisms, she decided on one final option: death. The ponies would never leave her alone unless they were executed, and that was just what Carrot Top intended on doing.

She decided to sleep on her idea. And as she slept, all through the night, a darkness grew inside of her at an alarming rate. The darkness pushed every anomaly of light out of her body and filled its place. It infiltrated her bloodstream. It soaked into her brain. It derailed her train of thought. It crept into every corner of her being, overthrowing the pure soul she once had. That darkness had an ever-growing thirst for blood that once fed would not stop until it's quenched, and by the time that would happen, Carrot Top would be the most wanted murderer in Ponyville.

§
You try your best, but it's not quite there
You kick a hoof and say, "It's just not fair!"
§

Carrot Top decided when she woke up that today was going to be everypony's last chance. Their last chance to redeem themselves so Carrot Top would not have to do the necessary actions. The butter yellow mare opened the door of her cottage and stepped outside. She didn't walk cautiously like she usually did this time; she shouldn't have had to. But as she expected, as soon as she entered the downtown area, somepony approached her with a rock in her hoof.

"Oh, hello, Bon Bon," she pretended to say nervously.

"Hey guys! Carrot Flop here never seems to learn!"

The yellow pony turned to a gang of ponies, all with pebble in hoof.

"Brave enough to show your face here again?" Lyra said. "Ha. One day you'll learn."

At those words, they all simultaneously chucked their stones at Carrot Top.

She took it. She stood still through the whole time. Normally, she would have winced or maybe even cried. But she was too excited about her plans for later. She also somewhat enjoyed the feeling, knowing that it would be the last time the assaulted her.

When they finished their attack on Carrot Top, she pretended to sob like she would have any other time. They each turned around at their own paces and trotted away. One Pegasus spat on her before he left. When they were all heading home, Carrot Top looked for the one that had fallen the farthest behind, who, to her amusement, was Derpy. She pulled a pocket sized tranquilizer gun out of her pocket and aimed it at her. Within seconds, the dart was in the Pegasus' neck and she was out cold. When the coast was clear, she pulled Derpy's body into an alleyway. From there she dragged it behind the main street and back to her cottage. As she opened her door, she suddenly became very excited. She was finally going to be able to go into town without being ambushed!

She laid the Pegasus' body on a wooden chair in her kitchen so she could open the basement door. Before she brought down her victim, she scouted the large room for a table and something that would restrict movement. Then she had an idea.

Derpy was slowly regaining consciousness so Carrot Top had to act fast. She laid the body on the table that was about twice the size of an average pony. She took a second to debate on whether she would severe her limbs or use her intestines to strap her to the table, but she decided it would be more entertaining to pull out her innards while Derpy was awake.

Carrot Top could sense that the Pegasus was going to come to any moment so she frantically searched for something to do the job. She turned around and spotted a saw hanging on a nail on a wall. There other various hardware tools that Carrot Top thought would come in handy later. She removed the saw and quickly chopped off the Pegasus' two affront legs. Immediately, Derpy's body jerked in reaction to the removal, which caused a few droplets of blood to spray Carrot Top's face. She clumsily removed the flesh from the bones and skin and laid the muscles under the table. She then tied the two setups of Derpy's skin in a double knot over her midsection. She took the bones and jabbed them through skin and into the table; now she could not escape. Carrot Top decided to wait until the Pegasus awoke before doing any further damage.

After about two minutes she heard Derpy cough and then ask, "Where... Where am I?"

"Derpy! Glad you're awake!" Carrot Top said excitedly.

At first, Derpy wanted to laugh, not sure how else to react to the odd setting. But then she felt a deep, sharp pain in her arm sockets. She flailed around around for a moment, and then she noticed the colour of the straps. They matched the colour of her fur. Derpy's mouth opened in horror as she realised that it was her own skin that bound her to her death bed.

It was then pain that caused the mare to scream. She could feel the torn flesh and veins and the void where her humerus was supposed to be.

"SHUT UP, DITZY!" Carrot Top shouted, raising her saw. She was tempted to just slice her up the middle but refrained from it because she wanted to have more fun before the death itself.

At the mere sight of the weapon, Derpy's eyes went out of line.

Carrot Top laid the saw down next to the table and turned to her wall of tools. She quickly scanned the wall for an appropriate instrument and picked out a rusty old wrench. She was beginner at this so the death was not going to be as gruesome and painful as she would have desired.

Carrot Top took the wrench in her mouth and swung it at Derpy's neck. The excruciating pain caused her to let out an ear splitting shriek. The yellow pony smiled darkly. With a couple more more whacks of the wrench, each one earning a different noise of displeasure from her, her neck was deformed and broken. The Pegasus wept.

She hung the wrench back up on the wall in exchange for a hammer.

"Carrot Top, no!" Derpy cried out as loud as she could with her broken neck. But it was too late. Carrot Top had the hammer in her hoof and she was approaching the Pegasus.

"Ditzy Doo... I remember back when we were in school together. You were my bestest friend. We did everything together. And then one day my mane went curly and no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't straighten again. And then at recess..." Carrot Top paused to position the hammer next to her temple. "Some ponies started making fun of me. And you. But you didn't wanna be made fun of. So instead you joined them. You bullied your own best friend. You betrayed me." With those words, Derpy's life ended. Carrot Top smashed the hammer into her skull, shattering it. She screamed for a couple seconds, but the scream died as she did.

As fun as it had been, Carrot Top was mildly disappointed. It was a quick painless death in her eyes. It was boring. Carrot Top made a mental note of this and decided that the next death would last longer. And if not, she had many more swings at the ball.

She untied the mare and lifted her up. She dragged it to her garden outside behind her house and buried it under a bush of assorted flowers.

§
A simple mare living simple dreams
A romour that's not quite as it seems
§

A couple days later, Carrot Top snuck out again, this time to the schoolyard. It was about noon and all of the little fillies and colts were outside playing tag and eating their lunches. Miss Cheerilee was supervising them from inside as she finished up her own lunch.

Cheerilee took a chomp out of her apple at the moment Carrot Top opened the door behind her, so she did not hear the feint squeal of the old door that could have saved her life.

She facing away from the door so she could watch the foals while ate her apple. Her lunch was on the desk. While she was not looking, Carrot Top poured a 'daterape' drug into her water. It was amazing how silent she had been. The yellow mare then slipped into the gap under the desk, waiting for her prey.

The teacher rolled backwards in her swivel chair to take a sip of her drink. Another maniacal smile contorted on Carrot Top's face. In a matter of seconds, Cheerilee's body hit the floor in front of Carrot Top with a thud.

She wondered if Cheerilee had any supplies that would make the following hours more fun for her. She opened the desk drawers which contained many items that under most circumstances would be considered harmless. But to Carrot Top, they were dangerous items that were all she needed to kill a pony.

The first drawer contained pencil sharpeners, a dozen unsharpened pencils, plastic box of paper clips, and markers. Carrot Top did not see any use in them though, so she moved on to the next one.

The second drawer was full of - who would have guessed - rocks. Rocks of all different shapes and colours. They were in a burlap sack so, just in case, she took them.

In the third drawer down was glue, scissors, glitter, and other craft supplies. She pushed it aside and moved along to the larger center drawer. There was a calculator, some blank papers, and a turned-over photo. The back of it read:

"Cheerilee
Grandma Blossom
1998"

She turned the photo over. It was a picture of the teacher as a young filly with her grandmother. She was an elderly yellow mare with a light pink braided mane. The two both had a matching flower pin in their manes.

"How cute," Carrot Top said with a smirk.

She glanced at Cheerilee and remembered her objective for coming here. The foals would be coming inside any moment so she began her long haul back to her cottage.

§
Carrot Top
Go beyond us
§

And so, Miss Cheerilee was placed on the same table as Derpy had been. She was also tied down with Derpy's older arms. She had come to on the way down to the basement, but was too confused to ask questions, and by the time she had an idea of what was going on, she was already tied down.

Carrot Top walked slow circular laps around the frightened mare, eyeing her prey.

"Miss Cheerilee..." she said. "Class... is in session!"

Carrot Top picked up a screwdriver and drove it straight into her eye. Cheerilee's jaw dropped and let out a scream.

Blood drizzled from her eye sockets down her face. With a fast motion, Carrot Top picked up a butcher knife and held it right under Cheerilee's left ear. The fuschia mare shrieked as a sharp pain suddenly seared across her face. She could not see, and the screwdriver was still lodged in her right eye, so every move Carrot Top made was unpredictable.

With the knife, she peeled a strip of fuschia skin about six inches long right off of Cheerilee's cheek.

"Oh, dear Celestia!" the mare cried out. "Make it stop! Please! Make it--"

She gagged on her own blood that was gushing out of her face and into her mouth. Too much. It was too much for the teacher. The ceaseless pain caused her to black out.

"Oh, boo!" Carrot Top whined. "You're no fun!"

The yellow mare turned around and picked up a small brown sack and withdrew a rock.

Cheerilee took a deep breath. At first she felt nothing, but then she felt bumps all over her body, and they hurt like hell.

She glanced down at her body. Her jaw dropped in horror. The skin of her underside had been totally removed and her organs were slowly moving outwards. Surrounding the opening, along with the blood, were small lumps that stung, although paled in comparison to the pain on her underside. The lumps seemed to be appearing every other second.

Cheerilee then felt something hit her square in the forehead. Out of the darkness emerged the yellow mare with a burlap sack in hand. Cheerilee could only partially see her out of one eye, but she could see that Carrot Top had a malicious smile plastered on her face. She realised that the sack was full of pebbles and she was chucking them at her.

"Hey, Cheerilee," she said, approaching the mare. "Do you mind if I do a little taste testing? I haven't eaten all day."

Cheerilee gawked at the belligerent mare as she ducked down out of Cheerilee's eyesight. Suddenly, there a sharp pain in her lower region. Then she died.

When Carrot Top noticed this, she pulled away with Cheerilee's small intestine in her mouth. She had been eating it when she took Cheerilee's life.

She removed the rest of the organs with a knife, taking samples as she did so. She then untied the dead body and buried it in her garden.

Author's Note

Okay. That was chapter one. Please tell me what you think.

I intend on writing around seven chapters, two to three deaths per chapter. Thanks for reading!