He heard the sound of his hooves hitting the ground echoing in the forest as he ran through it. The cracking of branches behind him was telling him that his pursuer wasn’t far behind him. The stallion ignored the branches and twigs that were hitting him in the face. His heart was pounding as he dashed as fast as he could through the forest, in the hope to reach open field soon. He had no idea where he was, it was too dark to see more than a few steps ahead and the pale moonlight, which shone occasionally through the leaves of the trees, didn’t help much. He could feel the fabric of his saddle bags chafing on his skin. He was ordered to bring the content of those bags to Canterlot, and he will not fail on his mission. He stumbled over a root on the ground and fell down. He ignored the pain the fall caused to him and stood up again to run again. He could hear his pursuer growling behind him, in hunger for his prey. But the prey wouldn’t be that easy to catch.
He did his best to escape his pursuer, but he couldn’t shake him off. But now he could see the borderline of the trees already and just a moment later, he left the trees behind him, now galloping with full speed over the fields. Throwing a short look over his shoulder revealed to him that the distance between him and his pursuer didn’t become longer – the opposite was the fact: He came closer to him. The stallion felt exhausted from the hunt, but he forced himself to keep on galloping. Nothing would stand between him and his duty. He would fulfill the duty he was obliged with. He would reach Canterlot, no matter what would happen. With those saddlebags, even if he didn’t know what was stored in them. His bosses forbid him to take a look inside and sealed the bags then with magic. But their orders were clear: Reach Canterlot – with the bags. Deliver what is inside and return.
And this is what he would do. He just had to reach the next town on his way – a town called Ponyville. He could hear his pursuer growling close behind him and threw a look over his shoulder again. The pale moonlight revealed not much but hands with long claws and a pair of red glowing eyes in the darkness – and that, whatever this creature was, was closer than he hoped it would be. Alone this look let him even run faster than he thought he could. He felt the pain in his muscles and the cool air of the night rushing through his mane, blowing away the sweat on his forehead. His only hope was that he was still on the right way to the town and that he didn’t get lost in the wilderness.
There, far in the distance, he could finally see some lights, hopefully of the town he was heading to before this creature started to hunt him down. He could hear that the creature was breathing as hard as he had to. The pale moonlight illuminated a path in front of him and he was directly heading onto it, changing his direction one more time and now he was heading directly towards the town. He felt hope rising up within him. The creature wouldn’t follow him into the town. In the next second he could feel how a clawed hand grabbed him by the hind legs. He fell over and landed head first on the ground. He was dizzy for a moment, but he could feel how he was dragged over the ground by one hind leg, away from the path and the town. He tried to kick the creature where he thought would be the head with his free hind leg, which just ended with the creature growling and also holding his other leg, so he couldn’t do much more than let it drag him between a group of trees.
The creature then let him fall down on his side all of a sudden, but not for long. He could feel how it tried to remove the saddle bags from him, but since he was lying on one half of them, it couldn’t figure out how to remove them – he guessed it was very simple minded – it just tore the fabric and the flesh underneath it with its claws, leaving a heavily bleeding flesh wound on him. He screamed in pain as the claw went through his skin, muscles and flesh and he tried to wind out of the grip of the creature, but it just pressed him down even harder. He could feel blood running down his flank, as the creature checked the inside of the saddle bag and let out an unsatisfied growl.
It then turned him to the other side and just did the same again, inflicting almost unbearable pain to him. It didn’t even try to just lift the other half of the saddlebag, since it cut it already in half. He could hear how it was growled, satisfied with his findings within the bag. He could feel the hungry look of the creature on him for a second, but it then just turned away and left him alone out in the dark with his open wounds. He tried to stand up, and he managed to get on his hooves again, thought it hurt like hell, let alone the walking. But he knew that he had to reach this town to get help. The people there could probably also help him to get the content of the bags back. He was still convinced that he would fulfill his duty and that he would get the object back – whatever it was. He closed his eyes as he could feel how his warm blood was running down his flanks and legs. He just needed to reach the town as fast as possible.
He left the trees behind and could see that the dawn was already breaking and that the silhouettes in the distance were indeed a town. He just hoped that someone there could help him and that they would have an excellent doctor there who could patch him up again. As he reached the first houses he couldn’t bear it anymore, his vision blurred. He lost too much blood on the way here. His last thoughts were that he weren’t allowed to fail, the last thing he saw was a pony running to him, a shocked look on her face. Then he blacked out as he fell down on the street.