From Out The Pink Dawn

Another Part Of A Grimdark Tale by MisterGunpowder

The broken body of my victim sits in front of me, laborious breaths taken in every couple of seconds. The chest is a bumpy, sticky mess, and the face is now almost jawless, the jaw barely hanging on because of the tape that I'd put on her mouth to prevent her from making too much noise. But now, there are no more screams or yelps, just breathing. Her eyes are closed, as though she were focusing on dealing with the pain.

The hammer is bloody, I hear the dripping of blood from both ends, rhythmic and satisfying. Blood makes a different kind of dripping sound than water, y'know. You just have to listen, and when you're like me, you come to think of it as musical. Water is still annoying, though. The upstairs faucet does that for hours before it stops with no way to make it do so before its good and ready. I'll have to remember to kill whoever designed it. You'd think that wouldn't be enough to be considered "evil." You'd be wrong, considering my room is right next to it.

I take the hammer and tap a bump very lightly. She lets out a weak moan. I smile and giggle. "Good, you're still paying attention. Figured you'd be able to deal with the pain, considering you'd have to know it to inflict it." I giggle again, but it sounds a lot more forced than I'd like it to.

Then, in a mad rush on my part, I leap and grab both sides of her head. She doesn't moan, all sound being lost to her in her utter terror. I know this feeling, this sudden, unbridled and unfettered madness that overwhelms me when I'm having too much fun. I stare into those eyes now so full of fright, wondering if she'll ever see the light again, (not a chance of that, by the way,) and in that one moment, my act crumbles as my eyes focus in on hers. I bring my face so close. I grin a wide, toothy smile, and I whisper to her, my glee still overwhelming in my voice even with the hushed sound. "But that was just the first part. The party isn't over yet." I slip off, the act returning almost as fast it left. Forgot its keys, and then decided that it liked it better back home and canceled its appointment. I leave again, and return with a small book to a wide-eyed mare staring at me, terrified and unable to scream anymore.

I sit the book down next to her, who keeps her eyes on the book expecting it to hide another tool of torture and pain. "Oh, don't worry too much about this one. This one actually has stuff written in it about me." I see a flash of hope in her eye. Oh, we can't have that! Hope wasn't invited! He's stupid and annoying!

"But I'm not too worried about keeping it around." I hold it up, the eyes of the abuser trying to find sense in the mad scrawls that, to her eyes, would constantly shift and change. "I'm the only one who can read it. Keep it around for reference." Her eyes lose that shine, and it looks like she's almost about to cry. It is such an amazing, wondrous feeling to know that I just crushed that little bit of hope she had left. I turn the book back to me. The shifting lines suddenly stop, and move into a set position and form into words, readable and stable.

"So let's begin, shall we?"

After I killed my father, things...changed. My mother started looking at me weird. I don't think she was upset that I killed my father, he beat her too. I think she was just sad that I'd been the one to do it. Maud's emotions started to withdraw after the incident, and she became not exactly quiet but less excitable and a lot more boring. Still operating the rock farm, and she lets me drop problematic bodies there And then drop rocks on them. Good for the growing. Limestone became dedicated to ensuring nopony ever had to go through what we did, so she joined the Canterlot guards. Oh, look at that face! No, no, you silly. Whenever I flub a kill, she makes sure I'm never connected. She's even killed for me. But that's another story.

Eventually I left that rock farm, right around the time Limestone was being sworn in as a guard. Mom had passed away and the rock farm fell into Maud's hooves. She always liked the rock farm. I never understood why. But I left, a smile on my face and an axe in my hoof. Well, not my hoof, that'd be silly, I wouldn't be able to walk very well! But you get the point. I never forgot, in all those years I grew up, the sheer joy I felt when I killed my father. I wanted to feel it again.

Eventually, I found this town of Ponyville. I like it here, though that's now. When I first walked in here after getting off the train, this town was dreary and boring and dark and nopony smiled ever. Fights broke out often, the bars had bouncers having to deal with violent drunks every day, it was a mess. So I figured, well, if I was gonna start anywhere, it was gonna be here. And I started at the top for kill number two, best remembered as Flash Sentry.

Now, Flash Sentry was here long before I got here. He was a Canterlot guard before he got here, and he ran the local constabulary like a gang. Some kind of power fantasy, I like to think. Makes what I did to him all the more fun to remember.

My first run in with Sentry was when I was checking in at this motel called...let me see...oh, right, Violet Shades, pretty nice place though decidedly not violet. I felt misled, now that I remember. After I got checked in and got my room, Sentry came walking in. I was in the lobby, just trying to cook something in the microwave because that cheapskate who ran it didn't put one in my room, and started talking to the guy. I remember the conversation pretty well. His deputy stood in the background, looking angry but unwilling or unable to do anything at the time, and I learned why later. I'll tell you in a minute.

"So, Gray,"–That was the attendant's name–"What do you have for me today?"

So this Gray guy started sweating. Looked really worried. "I, uh, don't really have anything. I haven't had many, um, customers lately."

So Sentry just stopped and looked at him. I couldn't really see his face, and then, out of nowhere, he slams Gray's face on the counter. Gray comes up, snout bleeding and screaming. Sentry grabbed him by his collar, yelled in his face. "You think you can stiff me? I see that bitch"–This was the moment where I decided to kill him–"over there! You have money! Give me my bucking money Gray!"

Gray was sobbing. "I-I need that for food and bills! I can't afford to pay you!"

So Sentry, obviously one who would take that so well, slammed his head into the wall. "I don't bucking care about you or your stupid bills! You give me that money now!"

Now, Gray, despite having some backbone, relented. He gave the money to Sentry, and Sentry left. Now, I'd probably have killed him then and there, but I had left my crowbar up in my room. So I decided to do it that night.

I broke into his house beforehand, which wasn't hard. The door took only one push before the lock broke. Well, one push with a crowbar. He had a servant, guess the amount of money he extorted allow it, so I bound and gagged her and threw her into the closet to make sure she didn't get in the way. Servant are like that, y'know, get in the way and stuff. Paychecks and stuff like that. Always stupidly annoying.

So I just kind of sat there in his boring living room, waiting for him to return. It got boring really quick. So I just started doing things. I baked cupcakes because he had everything for it. I always liked cupcakes. But I've always felt something was missing from them. Just a little something that would complete them.

I was frosting them when he came back. I was almost done with the last one. But, reluctantly, I laid down the tube, put them on the floor, and grabbed my crowbar. He'd been calling for his servant, and was heading straight for the kitchen. Right as he passed the threshold of the door, and whacked him with the crowbar. Out like a light.

So I dragged him up on to the counter, and use some of his belts to tie him to it. This was, unfortunately, when I was still perfecting my art, and I put the belts on his hooves rather than farther up on his knees. Oh, after that one escape that happened so much later I learned my lesson, but at the time it seemed okay to just put them on the hooves.

So I just kind of waited for him to wake up, it isn't any fun if they're not screaming. Oh, don't look at me like that, there just isn't enough joy to be had beating on an unconscious form. Just dull, squishy thuds or shlicks or cracks. Uck. So, instead of hurting him I took his cutlery, he had a nice selection, and arrange it in order of most painful to least painful, or at least as best as I could judge at the time. I eventually found good uses for those less painful knives. I'll show you later it'll be fun.

He did wake up, and that's when the fun began. I remember everything. Oh, what a great night that was.

He tried to look around, but I grabbed his head and stopped him. "Good morning, sleepy head. I was worried you wouldn't wake up, and that'd be no fun for me!" I told him. I remember the mixed looked of anger and fear on his face.

He tried to shout for help immediately, but I gagged him with a potholder before he could and held a knife to his throat. "Tsk tsk, That won't do! You're inside! Use your inside voice, silly!" I whispered in his ear. That just made him angrier.

"Oo cuhssy bih! Ow kih oo!" He mumbled at me in his anger. Yes, I had a potholder on hand for this. What good's a story like this if you don't have props?

"Oh, talking with your mouth full, too! You're just full of rudeness! Tsk, tsk, tsk. I'll have to fix that, won't I?" I poked him in the side with the knife like this. He stiffened just like that, yeah!

"Oh, weak spot, was that?" I giggled. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's try something more your speed, something with a language you'd understand." So I picked up my crowbar. "Let's begin, shall we?"

So I hit him in the side like this, but he was a bit louder than that, then I hit him in the chest like this, oh, that was closer, and then I whacked him in the eye like this, that was spot on, awesome!

And he screamed, be not in a way that could be heard very well. His home wasn't really near any of the others. He was wheezing a bit like you are now, except it was a little bit more labored, let me try that first one again. There! That's better.

"That's better! So nice and quiet. It seems you've learned, but let's just make sure." So I was sitting there with this wheezing Sentry, and I was trying to figure out what to do next. And then I thought of something wonderful! I remembered how I always thought cupcakes were missing something, and then I took a butcher's cleaver and cut off his leg just.

Like.

THIS!

Oh, wow. That was hilarious, how you managed to scream after what I've been doing to you. And look at that blood! I thought I beat that out of you a while ago. Okay, so he was screaming his head off like you, and I was laughing. So I took his leg, and set it aside for later. He wasn't gonna need it.

Then I was in a predicament, as now I had pulled the next big thing on him. But then I thought, well, I didn't want him to bleed out too fast. So I went and grabbed some ice from his icebox while he was still freaking out about his leg. I covered the ice in salt just because I thought that if I was gonna do something like that, I might as well make it hurt a lot. Don't know, just seemed to make sense. Speaking of which, have some ice. You're going to want to hear the end of the story, right? Don't mind the salt, just makes it hurt more.

And with that, the ideas came. I started cutting him, like this! Drawing pretty patterns on his skin, no logic, no reason, just stuff that looked pretty. Even as he twisted and turned like you are, it just made them even prettier to me. All these sharp edges. It's so nice.

But then, the hour ended. I was having so much fun, just decorating his body. So then came the time for the kill, and don't worry, I'm not going to kill you quite so soon. Oh, you actually look a little sad. Let's change that.

So, as I was raising the knife, in walks his deputy. And here you are, in your deepest despair, imagining a story in which I get caught. Where I'm hanged or electrocuted or shot up at the end. But I can't have that. No, what happened will break that little story of yours.

Sentry smiled and laughed for a minute, as best he could. He thought he was saved. He looked between me and Sentry for a minute, and then he smiled. Oh, that smile. And he told me this: "Are you going to bring that knife down, or will I take the pleasure?"

And I laughed as Sentry's face changed from that view of hope to utter, total despair. So, I raised the knife again, and brought it down. The Deputy, his name is Marshal, laughed with me. And he said "Take that, you blackmailing sonuvabitch." Later I asked him what he meant. Sentry had been threatening him and his family with the proof that he'd killed a murderer without arresting him. It was how Sentry had become Sheriff, as Marshal was the sheriff before.

So, yes. Let the hope fade, because Marshal became and still is the Sheriff of this town. He helps me. In fact, let's get this out of the way. We didn't even need to discreetly dispose of the body. Every single pony in this town knows what I am and who I am.

We dragged his corpse through the street, and everypony saw us. They were okay with it. In fact, several of them came out and gave him a good kick or two. Two helped carry him. And we all tossed him on a pyre.

And that hasn't changed. I still occasionally have to drag bodies through the street. Some of them help from time to time. I even ask them for tips on prospective targets, notes they've taken. And I'll never run out of targets, Ponyville is a rather popular town to visit and move to since it's so close to Canterlot. Isn't that why you moved here?

And while Marshal may have become the sheriff again, but he's still the deputy in action. I'm the real sheriff of Ponyville. If you break our laws, you will not be put into some silly prison. Those places are dull, I've seen 'em. No, I'm what's waiting for you. But you won't learn from this.

No, since you've been such a good listener, you get a prize!

AH! IT'S AN AXE! Axes are so fun!

Let's try it out!

I hope you've had fun at the party, Ms. Shimmer! It's time for it to end, like all parties do!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Shlick. Shlick. Shlunk. Thunk. Thunk.