Zephyr's Job Interview

by Knackerman

Epilogue

"Hey Fluttershy! Why the long face?" asked Rainbow Dash as she hovered a few inches over her friend. Tank, Dash's pet tortoise, hovered a few inches away as well, a magic powered whirly-gig device allowing him to keep up with his master.

It was their weekly get together with all of the girls and their pets in the park. Applejack was playing fetch with Winona, while Rarity was busy brushing Opalescence's long fur. Pinkie Pie was teaching Gummy a new dance, though it was hard to tell whether her endeavor was meeting with any success. Whether he copied her moves or not, the pink party pony would glue a gold star on some part of the baby alligator's scaly body as a reward. Twilight Sparkle was actually taking a break with Owlowiscious perched on her back as she flipped through the pages of huge leather bound book.

Fluttershy didn't know how to answer Rainbow Dash. She'd been depressed for weeks. That wasn't unusual for her, necessarily, but this time at least she had a fairly good idea of why. The problem was, she couldn't tell anypony, not even her best friend. "It's... nothing," Fluttershy said, turning away from her friend and towards Angel Bunny who was glaring at her from not far away. The tiny rabbit was thumping his foot, a classic sign of his impatience.

Fluttershy had almost forgot.

It was feeding time.

As she set out six bowls, she retrieved a bag of 'Knacker Brand High Quality Pet Food' - 'Now With Added Flavor'. She looked at the adorable face of a smiling puppy on the side of the bag. As she started to pour the bite sized pieces of kibble, Fluttershy started to cry. All her friends gathered around, concerned for her, trying to ask what was wrong. But she just kept pouring out the pet food, overfilling each of the bowls, and emptying the bag on the ground.

She stood there, crying, empty bag clenched tight in her teeth. But she could never say what was wrong. All she could do was watch her friends pets happily eating as she wept.

Comments

[The Red Butcher]

Wonder if he tastes better as food then he did in the personality department?

[Knackerman]

7294423 Yeah, that was a bit of my own 'book geek' side showing through there. Nothing like the smell of a new book. One of the reasons I never went fully over to digital media, even though I have one of those little readers from a few Christmas's back.

[Knackerman]

7299934 I toyed with that idea... Kind of a scared straight scenario right?

The uncertainty of the situation was very much intentional. I wanted the reader to feel kind of like Zephyr, confused and mildly disbelieving, half expecting things to just work out on their own at any moment.

Everyone would have a good laugh about it and Zephyr would learn an important lesson. That's how these kinds of stories normally go. But no, while I enjoy fake out scares as much as the next person, if the conflict of the entire story were fake then the story would feel like a waste of time. I wouldn't want to do that to the reader after promising them horror and gore.

It would be impolite.

[The Red Butcher]

7300688 You better believe it. Don't keep your fellow horrormen dry of the blood carnage.

[GJ7200]

The Knacermans? Candy? Putting Zephyr through unimaginable pain and agony, as well as forcing him to realize how much of a douchebag he really is? U had a lot of fun writing this, didn't u (¬‿¬) In all seriousness tho, this story was freakin awesome!! It never ceases to amaze me how great u are at writing horror stories. I mean, u get everything right down to the very last detail--the atmosphere, the descriptions, the character and plot development, the mysteriousness that causes the reader to be left curious until the very end, and especially the narration. I mean, I was in the ZONE dude. I WAS Zephyr. U did that to me, with WORDS
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
...I am actually going to go crazy one day, and it is going to be because of u.
Btw I just have a quick question, u made a reference to Rainbow Factory (which was AWESOME) as well as something about useless unicorns being sent off to a "school" or something, what story was that a reference to? Thanks, u rock (^_^)

[Knackerman]

7378932 I actually referenced three stories that involve ponies either being disposed of or put to a 'better' use. Rainbow Factory you already got, the other two are Cheerilee's Garden in which bad children (all children) are disposed like weeds, and The Experiments of Twilight Sparkle. On that last one I'm more referring to AskReasearcherTwilight which was run by an acquiescence of mine. I had the idea that Twilight must have gotten the idea to experiment on ponies from *somewhere*... It would be interesting if there was a Skull and Bones style secret society in the higher echelons of the School For Gifted Unicorns That weren't above vivisecting less gifted ponies... purely for educational purposes, of course!

thank you for the kind words and praise. I really did have a lot of fun with this story. It was something of a guilty pleasure. If you do go crazy one day, and it's because of me, do let everyone know!

[GJ7200]

7379263 Thanks for the info! So much evil in one story...keep u the good work!! X)

[Crocoshark]

7379263

I thought the reference to it being a wonder his number never came up was a reference to Cupcakes, not Cheerilee's Garden

[Knackerman]

7504584 That was *another* reference as well, though obviously didn't go into detail on that one. I figured it was pretty obvious.

[Crocoshark]

This story is similar to Rainbow Factory in that there's an extra layer of existential horror at the revelation about the world the character lives in; a healthy serving of science fiction dystopia as an extra layer atop the typical horror, mirroring our own society through a grotesque and distorted lens that exaggerates common indifference.

Due to the setting and characters that become involved, My Little Pony horror fiction often has a little something extra going on; a sense of betrayal by those you thought you could trust most. Not to mention the extra blood lust and hopelessness that's popular with the genre, and the extra violation of innocence that comes with the territory.

It seems like MLP horror often treads through a dark forest between normal horror and H.P. Lovecraft, where normal horror is isolated incidents of supernatural mayhem and stranger danger in comparison. As scary as it might be, it's still so often just something scary that might come from "out there" or might happen on a camp ground or in an old house or the wrong part of Texas, or if you buy the wrong Good Guy doll.

MLP horror stories, instead, imply there's something deeply wrong with the world around you, with the innocence you believe exists in the everyday. It's not just one Good Guy doll in circulation with blood on it, it's all of them. It's not body snatchers or The Thing that can replace your loved ones, or a zombie virus that can change them, they could already have your number in a raffle somewhere for your turn in their torture dungeon.

MLP grimdark isn't just where innocence goes to die, it's where it goes to get knackered and turned into something else entirely.

[Knackerman]

7504651 Well said!

I think if I ever do any published works, I may use part of this as the foreword.

[Crocoshark]

7504846 Thank you!

I was actually thinking about this more today and wanted to add to my comment;

This theme of systemic horrors seems to fit with our time. We're in a time where we're more aware of what goes into our food and clothing (From health concerns to animal cruelty/environmental destruction to child labor), where we're aware that religious leaders from the catholic church to Mother Theresa as well as our government and justice system has systemic problems or dark secrets. We're increasingly aware of how corporate interests and social prejudice influence everything from which movies get awards to which medicines are given to the sick.

Like one of those undercover videos of a factory farm; popular grimdark go into the horrors of factories or food processing, but combined with historical horrors that have ingrained in our psyche like the holocaust (Rainbow Factory) or Ed Gein or torture (Cupcakes).

The past had a gallery of fears about the other, the new and the impending.

The information age has shocked us with what we already are.

[Pigeonsmall]

This story makes me feel bad. This guy is far from being my favorite pony but damn, son. At the same time I hope someone narrates this one day.

[homicidal doktor]

I kinda want to try and draw Pa's face from that description. But I feel I lack the talent for it. but that was a good story!