After a small walk I found myself standing outside a familiar, drab, three storey building. It was a skin joint, there was no name or indication of what this place was, everyone inside was a regular patron, hearing about it from word of mouth only. I stepped inside, locking eyes with a bulky, black coated stallion.
"I thought I told ya, your type ain't allowed in here no more!"
He walked towards me, reaching for some kind of holster. I quickly disarmed him by breaking a heavy, glass bottle of whiskey over his head. With no one in my path I continued to the main floor.
It was a pink haze of smoke and sweat, the stench of stale alcohol permeated the room. The minute the bar tender saw me his demeaor shifted, he quickly broke under the pressure of seeing me. He slipped into the backroom, thinking I wouldn't notice, he thought wrong. I held my head low as I passed through the crowd of mares carrying drinks and horndog, middle aged stallions, gawking at them like they were pieces of meat. No one noticed as I picked the back room lock, and then opened it with an unnecessary amount of force.
As the door slammed against the wall I heard gasps of fear, this was a changing room, I quickly informed the mares that I wasn't here to hurt them.
"relax, I'm a cop" I lied through my teeth "I just need to ask the bar tender a few questions."
It was at this point I realised that their gasps of fear weren't aimed at me, but at the bullet riddled bar tender that lay dead on the ground.
"Oh no."
I was taken back, this wasn't supposed to happen, at least not this early on. Before even chasing my first lead he was gunned down. They were on to me, whoever took out that mares husband, they were on to me. I told the mares to get help, as futile as it was, he was already dead, the barrage of bullets severing every major artery. I ran further into the back room, against the half dressed mares escaping the crime scene.
As I turned a corner I saw a potential shooter, a white coated unicorn with a paper package. I chased him, he hopped onto the fire escape and I did the same, I was his shadow, mimicing every move he made, evey step he took, over roof tops, from fire escape to fire escape. I felt youg again, in the midst of a hunt, chasing down bad guys, it was a grim dream, the best kind of dream, but it had its way of turning into a nightmare. my age caught up with me, my lungs froze and my heart gave out, but I refused to give up, trying to follow the suspect as he jumped across to another rooftop, I missed.
The fall was a moment of realisation, of reflection. Why was I risking everything for this strange mare? Was it her eyes? Her voice? Her coat? No, it was none of those reasons. Before I could finish my thought reality caught up wih me again, slamming me down on the cold snowwy concrete below. As I began to drift in and out of conciousnes I heard sirens, A violent lullaby, putting me to sleep.