Chapter 1
Sometimes, I want to leave this world -- this terrible world of black pits and stinging burns all over body parts my primal mind cannot name.... The agonizing world of thorns without knowing roses and servant's work without knowing play.... The lifeless world of endless pain and suffering, never knowing the true innocence of foalhood...
...Then I remember that death must feel the same as life as I know it, falling into an endless black hole, being ripped apart into ashes piece by piece, ending with the heart.
Every night, I cradle the carefully preserved other half of my horn, feeling the ridged texture that lines up perfectly with my torn horn like a jigsaw puzzle. It taunts me, for it once was very much mine and mine alone. As soon as it grew big enough, it was stolen, snapped from my own body, a broken bone that takes years to mend. One of the many things that have been stripped away from me, one day to turn into ashes, forgotten forever.
I am just a mere blemish on this earth, meant to serve and only to serve. I am told to get this or do that, never to go do what I want to do. I am locked indoors day and night, forlornly tucked away in a corner with the dust as my ignorant parents yell at each other all the while. Without me, the universe would be the exact same -- perhaps a bit more innocent and less loud. Perhaps my parents would be better ponies, loving each other and listening to what the other has to say for once. It pains me and my aching skull, forever throbbing in the place of my snapped horn, to think that the ponies I know would be better off without me. But I have nothing to live for, nothing to die for, or nothing to fight for. So I listen to their shouts. I follow their orders. I do whatever they tell me, for I learned the hard way that when I don't, bad things happen that usually hurt too. For a while, whenever I disobeyed, they would place me near the window and force me to look at the sun, laughing cruelly the whole time as the disk burned into my eyes. Slowly and painfully, the world was sucked of first its color, a greedy sponge soaking up the beauty. It turned a few shades of gray, then faded to a foggy, cold black. I haven't been able to find my way out of the fog since.
What use am I with a blank flank with red, itchy skin showing through from countless spanks, a snapped horn that cannot create enough sparks to light a candle, and eyes that can't work properly? I don't see why my parents still use me if I'm as good as broken by now. The only thing they have left to hurt is my bruised but beating heart, and I'm starting to think of letting them. After all, what use am I in the world but to serve these merciless parents of mine?
I hear a grating cry.
"I need a sandwich!"
I see a crimson-red glow towering over me. Red. By now I know that means bad. Even though I cannot see the world around me, I can see what I call "auras". They come from living creatures. I have figured out that green means good, and red means bad. My parents are a deep crimson.
As I am thinking this, my father repeats in the same powerful voice, "Did you hear me? I said I needed a sandwich! Now get me one right now." The last two words are uttered in practically a growl, and I jump two feet in the air before scrambling into the general direction of the kitchen. Or is it the living room? I'm still getting used to this whole "not-seeing" thing.
I feel around for the refrigerator handle with my hoof, and I find that it is a few feet away. I tug and tug, and the door stays in its place stubbornly. I hear a voice in the distance yelling, "You better hurry up or you're going to get your cutiemark again!!"
I don't need to be able to see to know who's yelling. My flank stings at the mention of the word "cutiemark", my father's special term for spanking my blank flank. I feel so horrible for all the fillies my age getting their cutiemarks, hoof on bare flesh, sting after sting that's not from a bee. The pain lasts for weeks until, after getting a few cutiemarks, it just feels numb.
My flank screams at me to get going or get another cutiemark, and that probably explains the small surge of strength to open the fridge. After a few frustrating minutes of trying to tell the cheese slices from the turkey slices, I finally finish making a sandwich. I can tell that it is hardly staying together, but taking any more time to fix it would definitely earn me a cutiemark. I throw the sandwich in a baggie and rush into the adjacent room before I can receive any more cutiemark threats. I hand over the baggie carefully. "Here, fathe--master," I correct myself swiftly.
My father master takes a few painstaking minutes to carefully inspect the sandwich. I hear him opening the baggie, and I listen to the rustling of lettuce against hooves. "Um...is it alright?" I ask quietly. My father remains silent. The aura glows red.
"You call this a sandwich, you good-for-nothing blank flank?"
Oh no. Those words. I know what they mean...
Before I can squeal in pitiful protest, I feel my frail body being hoisted into the air before I can suck in a breath.
The hoof comes before I can brace myself. Breathless and defenseless, I weather the storm of flying hooves upon my red skin with a few whispered protests.
Spank!
"Ow, no..."
Spank!
"Please, stop..."
I feel my father's gaze boring into me as he bellows, "Stop complaining, you stupid filly!"
"We'll just have to spank her into silence." A voice slithers across my hearing. I see another crimson aura approach my peripheral vision, and I can feel a second set of eyes on me.
Mother.
My whispered protests are drowned out by a deafening slap that sounds like the crack of a whip against my thin hide. I scream in agony. A few seconds pass by. In those seconds the sounds echo across the room, bouncing off the walls like a pinball machine, until exiting an open window and travelling through the town of Ponyville.
The sounds swerves and curves and swoops and dips until it reaches a certain lemon-coated pony with a long brown mane. Her turquoise eyes widen as the sound enters her ears. Trouble, she senses immediately. Big trouble.
The moment the sound reaches the mysterious pony's ears, I feel something different inside of me. I feel it being poured into the basin of my very being until I am so brimming over with it that my body is quivering with energy. My parents notice the strange vibrating and look at me. "What are you trying to pull, you blank flank?"
Normally, I would just say nothing and let them spank me harder. But this quivering feeling comes with a horrible, tingly feeling of annoyance...anger...frustration. And whenever my parents insult or hurt me, that tingly feeling rises, growing more itchy and unbearable, until...until...
"That is IT!" I say with a brave snarl of defiance, only it is not tinted with red like my father's. It is green, glowing green, and wisps of green smoke float around me as I find my hoof suddenly striking out and embedding in my father's red belly. The aura floats back,and I hear a gasp of pain as he lets go of me. The trusty ground meets my hooves again, and I run across it, flustered. My mind is two seconds behind what is happening, so I let my flying hooves take over. I hear a second set of hooves right behind mine and recognize them as my mother's, but before she can hoist me back into the air, I feel my back hoof lunging out towards her jaw. I hear a satisfying crack, and my mother yelps. There are no longer any sets of hooves trailing mine.
I look behind me one last time, slowing down a bit. A crimson aura is slowly standing up. Father does not give up easily.
"Get back here, slave!" He yells at the top of his lungs. The noise is almost as deafening as the spank he delivered earlier. I wait for the echoes to quiet, then, as calmly but firmly as I can, I say,
"You do not own me anymore."
I hear the light pop of jaws dropping in disbelief as I gallop away from one life and into another...