//------------------------------// // 12 // Story: Choice // by AnOrdinaryWriter //------------------------------// “Excellent choice!” Pinkie exclaimed. “And trust me, that was the smart decision. We’re going to have so much fun together.” *** The wheels of the cart squeal as you push it down the near pitch black hallway, breaking the silence aside from your slow and measured hoofsteps and the faint, high-pitched whimpers of a young mare ahead of you. Occasionally, the wheels roll against a crack in the floor, causing the contents of the cart to clang against the surface they lie on. You know fully well what’s under there. You chose the items of your collection yourself. Across the tray on top of the cart you push are materials. Materials for your first project so generously lent to you by Pinkie Pie after you agreed to join her team. And now, you’re wheeling it toward your first test subject.  You got her all on your own. She was easy to capture as well. After all, she was a loner, and spent most of her time by herself. So it was easy to catch her in a secluded area and drug her before she even had a chance to fight back. Pinkie was impressed when she had heard about the feat, claiming that you had proven her point of you being a useful asset to the team. The faint cries of the confused mare reverberate across the basement, but then you hear her pause for a moment, before saying, “Who’s there?!” You don’t reply to that. Instead, you drift off to the left in search of the light switch. Its pitch black, but you know the general direction of it, so you’re eventually able to wade through the darkness and find the switch. Flipping it on does not do much to ward away the darkness, but it’s just bright enough that you can see the details of the mare you’ve captured all on your own. Hung up on the wall at the far end of the room is a lime green mare with a lemon yellow mane, whose eyes shrink upon seeing the full details of the room she’s in, and starts thrashing against her bindings in a desperate attempt to escape. You don’t pay her any heed as you go back to the cart and roll it the rest of the way toward the mare, not even sparing a glance in her direction when she demands to know who you are. After parking the cart right next to the restrained mare, you pull off the large sheet over it, revealing your hoof-picked arsenal of weapons ranging from sharp knifes to circular saws to thin needles. Your eyes hover over each individual weapon for a moment as the mare screams. Never before have you seen such beauty in little objects like these. Each one was unique in its own little way—one was sharper than the other, and another was shinier than the rest. But each one offered their own portion of potential. Similar to a river, each weapon branched off into individual paths of creativity. A needle, for example. So small, and yet the extent of how inventive you could get with an item as simple as that was limitless. It’s a curious thought. And yet with this newfound interest, a passion had been born. A passion unlike any you had ever felt before: a newfound appreciation for art. An art unacknowledged by so many, in fact, that you have a hard time believing nopony had come to appreciate the beauty of it earlier. As you stare at the different sharp weapons on the cart, creativity strikes, and you pick up the machete at the center. Then, you face your captive, who pleads constantly for you to let her go. You can practically feel the fear radiating off of the mare. And you enjoy it. It puts a smile on your face. The old you is officially dead, and the new you has completely raised to sovereignty over your mind. Your focus is on the desperate mare begging for her life, tears streaming down her face. Everything else in the room goes dark, until darkness has swallowed everything expect for you and her. It’s funny to think that not long ago you were in this exact position fighting for your life. And now, in this position, you feel a sense of pleasure, and you finally understand the truth that you’ve held from yourself for so long. This is not recreation. This is art. As you hold the machete closer to the mare’s body, she starts screaming for help. But you don’t flinch. You shut your eyes meditatively and bathe in the leisure of her terrified shouts before opening your eyes again. She is like a blank canvas, ready to be turned into the best painting the world has ever seen. Everything else is black, and all that’s visible is her face, contracted pupils staring into your own. It’s time to make a masterpiece. WELCOME TO THE TEAM | ENDING 6 OF 17 BAD ENDING Start Over?