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// Winter Breeze and The Creature 
// Story: The Last Day of His Silence 
// by Daddy Joe 
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Winter Breeze managed to wrap and tie thick-layered cloth shoes around his front and back hooves before steadily heading up the flight of stairs. Although the shoes deafened the clopping of his hooves, he had to maintain his weight distribution with each step just to keep the floorboards from creaking until he reached the front door. 

With a gentle push, the door opened to the outside and Winter stepped onto the ground. As he noticed before, it was a beautiful sunny day outside, but it truly was really just smoke and mirrors. The sound of birds singing and insects chirping was no more, and no background noises in the distance. The only real sounds that he could take in while outside would be the wind blowing, or the constant vocalization and footsteps of the creature that wouldn't be far from where he was, if he made too loud of a sound.

Winter Breeze remained silent as he looked both direction before heading off to where he wanted to go. Winter felt so empty as he walked onwards through the vacant Ponyville. It was such a quiet place now. He never would've thought that his home would fall so quickly to such feral creatures, but the ponies were outmatched by variety and instinctual behaviors. 

A lot of the homes that lined the streets were either both standing strong or damaged from break-ins. For such a large amount of territorial kill counts, there weren't many decaying corpses lying around. At most, they were now just beginning their decomposition. Not exactly a very pleasant smell for a warm day like this. 

Despite Winter's desire to end his stress and pain forever, he managed to push it aside temporarily and decided he would want to take the scenic route one last time. Winter passed through and by many locations that he found to be familiar and memorable. Wether it be Sugarcube Corner, the town square, the Golden Oak Library, everything came back to him, and, frankly, it was nice to think about them again when times were simpler. However, the voices started coming back, telling him that he was only delaying the inevitable and must take his own life to be free of everything that weighs down on him. With that, he walked southwards to his destination.

The wide-spread meadow was coated with growing grass and abundant in various flowers, mostly being dandelions. While in the middle of the meadow, he walked up to a small patch of the yellow flowers under a shady tree, removed his cloths, and brushed them with his right hoof while sitting down. 

"Maybe just a little bit longer." Winter Breeze said to himself.

He remained at that spot a very, very long time. The way the dandelions swayed in the wind was very soothing to watch as he decided when the time was right, which would be very soon. But, the only eyesore he couldn't look at was the ruins of Canterlot, now decimated and half dangling off the mountain by a thread.

Winter Breeze then started to become tired and weary as he continued to rest. He now just wanted to leave and be done with it. Taking a deep breath as his heart rate started to rise, he walked over to a nearby stone and stood before it. Taking his front hoof, he started to diligently hit it. The sound of his hoof clopping filled the air, and Winter knew how much of a contrast it was to the silence. Winter repeated this action for a short amount of time before stopping and waited.The creature did not come. It seemed so, but Winter had no doubt in his mind that the creature was definitely still out there. It just took some time. 

Over the horizon of the meadow, a figure appeared out of the brush of the Everfree Forest at lightning speed and sprinted across the meadow and towards Winter Breeze. Clopping his hooves a few more time, he shakily closed his eyes as the creature closed in on him. 

Winter started to slightly hyperventilate as the creature was no more than a few hundred feet from him and opened his eyes to the creature leaping right at him, but missing Winter Breeze by mere inches. With a burst of adrenaline and reconsideration, he dodged the creature. The quadrupedal creature planted its bladed appendages into the ground to stop itself and turn around, creating a long gash in the ground and kicking up soil. It was too late now. The creature knew that its prey was here, but Winter wanted to now go down fighting.

"Come on! Come get me!" Winter Breeze shouted at the creature.

Though it was skinny, the creature's tough, armored skin was now exposed around its facial area, revealing hundreds of razor sharp teeth and a fleshy interior. Its eardrums pulsed as Winter Breeze circled around the creature, trilling and clicking as it followed his movements while getting closer, towering over the stallion a few extra feet. Quickly, Winter Breeze bucked the creature right in the face, but it had closed its facial plates by then. Barely flinching, the creature retaliated by swiping Winter with its blade, slashing him on the side and sent him flying sideways, but Winter didn't feel a thing with the adrenaline coursing through him. Now bleeding profusely, Winter got up and tackled the creature and made it stumble back a bit as he pushed and punched it at the same time. The creature cared little for his attacks and brought its blade up into the air before bringing it back down.

Winter felt the blade go through his back and clenched his eyes in defeat. The creature raised him into the air and violently shook him until he flung off and landed onto the hard ground like a rag-doll. Winter Breeze was now unable to move, his bottom torso was paralyzed. Everything below was numb and he crawled with his front hooves for a few feet before giving up. To end the fight, Winter felt a painless stab on the back of his neck and everything went dark. Winter Breeze was truly in a much better place now. Now that Winter Breeze was dead, the creature backed away from the stallions body and simply walked away, only to return to the Everfree Forest and to its preferred territory.