//------------------------------// // Reborn Again // Story: Fallout Equestria: A Raiders Mark // by Vocal Sonder //------------------------------// "Huummmmmmmmmm." "Hummmmmm." Two tired eyes cracked open only to only see a dark grey malaise. Feet below a small worm worked its way back and forth along the ragged surface in a lazy crawl. An endless loop that immedietly struck his groggy brain as odd. "Wha..-*hrk*" A frog in his throat. Lodged so firmly that it nearly choked the air from his lungs. The worm kept up its lazy circle. Faster and faster it went until in a blinding ray of light dissipated it altogether. "So, it speaks," came a rough voice from below. Head dipping, he looked with bleary eyes at the voice, shimmering in and out of the ether he could not tell its source. "Wh- *huk*, who?" croaked a voice he didn't recognize. It took him a second to fully realize it was his own. "You are meat, that is what you are. Hmmmm, but as for WHO you are I cannot tell. Your end is as blank as the walls. Hummm, so I think it is fair to say you are no-one." "My- My name is..." His froggy chords were silent for a moment. All that came was a blur of white and red, a stinging pain like a bee stuck in between a moldy set of barding. Nothing came to him. "I don't think you know, yes? A pity. I'll have to name you myself if that is the case." A hearty chuckle. " And I do love to name" The voice from the edge of his vision was silent for a moment before speaking again. "Hummmmmmmmmmm, tear." Groggily his brain failed to make sense of the word. "Tear? Tearing what?" "Hmmm, yes, Tear." Suddenly, and without warning an incalculable pain lanced up his right leg. Red, hot, throbbing gouts of agony. The slow torturous burn of flesh in marriage with the searing heat of blood. He screamed. It lasted for what seemed to be hours. Amidst the horrific onslaught of bursting color behind his eyes he could see as clear as daylight an Instamash lid being peeled from its tin. Finally, the pain stopped. Leaving behind a throbbing slick mass of raw hurt. He sobbed into the air with great heaving breaths as his lungs struggled to keep up with his agony. He limply hung from the restraints and trembled. His mind raced to drive itself into the hole it had receded from. The voice from below softly wafted across the valley that had formed between him and world. Its tone now more of a sultry growl. Like that of a cat stretching its body in a beam of sunlight. "Tear, yes, NOW you are tear." A chuckle rolled from the voice, as if there was a joke being shared between them. "Tear will do." His mind latched onto a new voice. A honeyed wine like thing that slithered around his brain in a hugging embrace that choked as much as it drove away the pain. It did not stay however, hoofsteps were soon receding from his ears. He strained them back and forth in vain to catch all of the words she might say as she left but none came. A soft click signaled her departure. "Hmmmmm," said the graveled voice again, sweeping the warm embrace of the precious words aside. "Let me give back your eyes." A wafting sensation tickled his fur as the strip of cloth was removed from his face. A thing he almost immediately regretted as the bright white glow of a construction light blinded him momentarily. Blinking a few times he squinted into the surrounding gloom and quickly spotted the door leading out. An orange aura seeped in around the rickety frame just barely illuminating the dirt ceiling above. He craned his neck back to see the steel shackles that clung to his arms and legs. Small ringlets of taught chain run through a ripped and stained mattress. Firmly securing him to the layered sick that coated its surface. His eyes moved to the throbbing pain in his leg. It was almost to bright to see in the work light but he managed to sickly gaze at the ragged strip of flesh than hung down from his limb. A steady trickle of blood ran lazily off the wound and pattered onto the floor where it had already started to pool slightly in the dust. His eyes gazed at the bright crimson as it sparkled and refracted the light on its fall towards the floor. "Mmmmmm, yes, it does look pretty doesn't it." The purring voice was right next to his ear. With a jerk, the colts muzzle was soon mere inches away from a sea of rotted fur. He recoiled, and as he did he could finally see his tormentor. Mottled fuzz rippled across sinew and bone. A dreadlocked mane so matted it might have been actually been solid ran down across the misshapen head, ending at the tips of the floppy ears of a... mule? He had never seen one outside of a children's book he had once seen but whatever this thing was, it was hard to tell through the mushy skin that seemed to layer it from head to toe. Two burgundy lips parted as the creature took in a sucking breath. "The crimson in the light, it makes you feel warm inside yes? Warm in. Warm out." Its hazel eyes flicked over to the still bleeding wound and then flicked back to his. A mixture of want and desire played across its... "features" as he motioned a hoof at the strip of dangling flesh. "Warm?", it offered again. The colt could only minorly nod his head as the being leaned in closer. He could have sworn he saw a maggot worm in and out of its mane as it moved. "Hmmmmm, warm still means alive, yes, and that's a good thing too. Wouldn't want it to go cold. Cold meat spoils." The thing cackled a dry, heaving laugh and grinned at the colt. It took him a moment to realize it was patiently waiting for him to laugh as well. He let out a tiny pained, tittering, laugh that sounded too much like a wounded animal for his liking. The thing nodded, seemingly satisfied with that. It turned and started to roll a dolly cart past the colts vision towards a nearby dilapidated desk. A single set of gleaming pliers sat neatly in the center of the cart. A trickle of blood dotted the otherwise impeccable surface. "Boss ma'am needed new blood, and I gave it a good test, yes. You are good to go." With a sudden jolt the colt was set free of the restraints and plummeted to land heavily on the floor. Wheezing, he curled into a ball and cradled the torn flesh on his leg. Dirt and grime from the floor had already mushed itself into the still bleeding wound from the fall. Tears welled up again in the corners of his eyes he looked about for the mush-like mule. It was slumped in a chair behind a nearby desk, quietly humming. With deft care it worked to polish clean the pair of pliers till they shone brighter than anything else in the room. With a pained expression he burbled some half formed words past numb lips as tears began to run down his cheeks. "Hummmmmmmm, warm, yes." The thing looked up from its work and ceased its throated hum. "Now out." The colt looked from it, to the ramshackle door, to his leg, and then back at the thing. His amazement was staggering to the point of forgetting the pain in his leg. "Now... out?" "Yes," it pointed with a mangled hoof, "out." Confusion crossed the colts features. A grimace started to form along his muzzle as he realized. "You're not going to fix me." The thing nodded its head unceremoniously without looking up from its work. The colt was dumbstruck on the floor. "You. You cant leave me like this!?" he sputtered the words out through mounting panic. "I- It'll grow infected!" "The warm will not get cold yet. Patience." Growling, the tears now gone and replaced by the terror rising in his throat, the colt cursed under is breath and started frantically peering into the surrounding gloom for something, anything to stop the bleeding. His head whipped back and forth as he numbly tried to drag himself along the floor. It was only when he was looking underneath a canvas bag, merely finding a worn out tire, that something brazen came into his mind. Gaining his hooves, he sucked in a shuddering breath, and tried to remember what his mother had always told him when he had done something bad. Putting on the best grin he could muster, more out of desperation than hope, he slowly turned his head towards the lump of mule at the desk. He swallowed the gall in this throat and attempted to mimic the same tone as he had heard her use. "You're not cleaning up your toys, you mangy sack." The cleaning rag slowed and the mule looked him dead in the eyes, wide and surprised. The colt leaned in further and insisted. "The warm meat spoils because of you," he took a breath, "you are the reason the butcher rots." 'Wait. The butcher rots? What the heck was that supposed to mean?' He cursed to himself was just about to try again when a blur of motion caught him unawares. The movement was so quick the colt almost didn't catch the thing leap to its feet. The chair it was perched on clattered nosily to the floor in a cloud of dust. The colts back stiffened in fright but relaxed when it was apparent he was not being lunged upon. The look on its face was imperceptible through the folds of skin but the apparent restraint gave the colt courage to go on. "The butcher is rotten, and so it spoils the meat, you are the spoiled butcher. Ho-" "That's enough kid." The colts little frame leapt in surprise as a previously unheard voice coolly spoke right next to his ear. He whipped his head around and stared back into a set of blue iris'. The tastefully tattooed muzzle of a young mare smiled coyly at him from where she stood. Stooping low enough to get to his level on the floor. "I know you think your clever and all, but if you piss him off he's just going to just eat you." She looked up from the colt and yelled to the still standing lump of mange. "Isn't that right Harlem?" A grunt, and a mumble was all she got in return as it picked up the chair and perched once again with the medical instrument. She turned to look back at the colt. "Not sure if you were trying to get him to feel..." she paused and looked him over, "sorry for you? But I doubt whatever you were going to say to him could never truly manipulate that idiot into doing anything other than making 'meat'," she poked at his chest, "out of you." She smiled. He gulped. The monstrosity in the chair burped. "Now then. What's your name." He wasn't sure why, but he felt a sudden need, a burning desire to let something, anything, of his life out to this beautiful mare. It took him a second try but he managed to bring the words to his lips. "I- I don't remember my name. I was barely not a foal when I last heard it." *SMACK* "No, you little pile of shit; what is your NAME?" He had fallen partly sideways and his head was still turned sideways from the blow as she lowered her hoof back to the floor. It had caught him right behind the chin and he could feel a welt already forming beneath the fuzz. The thing in the chair gingerly set down his pliers, catching her attention. "Tear. Meats name is Tear." "Tear huh?" She turned to look at him, this time with a more appraising look, "Tear will do." The mare leaned forwards and bit into the nape of his neck. Shock ran through his body as little tingles coalesced at the tips of his hooves, banishing any lingering numbness from his bones. It was a gentile but firm hold, one that made him feel a little bit hot. It did not last long enough for him to parse the feeling however as he was hauled to an unsteady standing position and let go. He looked downwards to reorient the world as it tried to spin and noticed that the still throbbing wound on his hind leg had mostly stopped bleeding, mainly thanks to the grime and dust that been caked into it. He looked down and away from her knowing smirk. "My, my leg." "Yeah?" she looked at it, "what of it?" He summed up the courage to turn to glare at her. "I'm going to get sick if you DON'T FIX IT." He managed a snarl on the end for emphasis even though it left him scared once they left his lips. Her eyes carried a cold, faraway look for a second before reasserting themselves. "Yeah?" She intoned again with scorn before switching to a snarl herself. "It doesn't really matter now does it? All good meat dies in the end anyways now don't it?" With those words she turned and walked to the nearby door and pushed on it to enter the pale orange glow beyond. Shuddering, he followed.