“Come on, Nicker,” Violet Fluff called, racing down the worn dirt path. Her friend raced after her, trying to keep up with the daring filly. Dense woods surrounded the two, the trees looming over them, forming a canopy that allowed close to no light in. The shadowy ground was covered in overgrown grass and weeds, some up to the foal’s neck. The usual foul smell of the swamp premiated the air, giving the place a haunting feeling. Well, more haunted feeling.
Clip Nicker shivered as he struggled to catch his friend. They shouldn’t be in the swamp this late, especially not this deep into it. He glanced around the forest warily as he galloped. He shivered again as he remembered the old mare’s tales of this place. He had grown up on stories of the supernaturals, as had most of the little ponies in this part of Bullarus. It wasn’t that anypony had ever seen one of the monsters, or at least, lived to tell the tale. Moreso, it was the fact that this part of the Equus plain was the perfect place for such creatures.
The two younglings raced around a bend, delving deeper into the swamp than either of them had been. This was dumb, and stupid, and not smart at all, and Violet was laughing her head off as they went along. In the brief flashes of moonlight that got through the canopy, her silvery hair glimmered, making the foal smile. His best friend was beautiful, there was no doubt about it. Her long, flowing mane, sleek violet body, and charming laugh. There was no denying that Clip was in love. Unfortunately, she didn’t feel the same way.
The caramel foal was steadily catching up with Violet, when he suddenly tripped on a mud covered root. He didn’t even have time to cry out as he flipped forward, muzzle burying itself in a pile of soft mud. He rolled a couple more hoofspans before coming to a stop at the base of another tree. He groaned as he got up, shaky from his roll.
He hadn’t realized it yet, but they were now in the swampier part of the swamp, bogs now surrounding either side of the path. There was another bend, now to the right. Clip shook himself wildly to try to get as much mud off him as he could. Tipping his head to get the bit of mud that always snuck its way into his ears, he saw that Violet had disappeared around the bend. He sighed, not really sure why he kept indulging her little trips into the most dangerous place in Bullarus. Well, he actually did know. He just didn’t want to say.
He began to trudge the path towards the bend, when suddenly, a shriek pierced the still night air. He would’ve recognized the owner of the noise if he had been three miles away. This scream wasn’t the usual kind he got from her when she fell in the murky water or tripped like he had. This scream was authentic, ringing in the trees. It was full of fear, no, terror. Full of distinction, full of pain.
Pain.
Clip raced around the bend as quickly as he could, calling out her name, when a second pained shriek pierced the otherwise tranquil night, making him gallop faster than he had ever galloped before. Turning the bend, he found a hulking form above what could only be Violet.
Instead of being a singular pony form, she was a trembling figure on the ground with an open ribcage and a hoof thrown to the side. Her bones jutted out at angles that couldn’t be natural, and while he could see that she was breathing, no help she could receive would save her. Clip gasped at the sight of his best friends scattered soon-to-be remains, nearly hurling at the gruesome display. This, in turn, caught the attention of the monster currently consuming the filly.
The creature looked up at him, eyes shining silver as it stared down the foal that was interrupting its meal. It growled darkly at Clip, but Clip, blinded by sudden emotion for the spontaneous slaughter of his friend, charged. He yelled, head down as he rushed towards the creature that was feasting on Violet, glaring at the ground as tears streamed out of his eyes. How could this creature do such a thing, to somepony so young? It was monstrous.
He screamed as he was suddenly lifted off the ground by something cutting into his neck. He realized that the thing around his neck was a jaw, with teeth tightly crushing his windpipe. He felt himself get tossed to the side, the sharp fangs cutting his flesh as they left. He was flung into a low-hanging tree branch, hearing both it and his side snap upon connecting. He didn’t have time to yelp as he fell into the bog below, landing harshly on his side.
Barely having the strength to breath, he lay halfway in the water, muzzle open to breath. It was all he could do besides whimper, as he was sure that his spine had been snapped at some point. He lay there, completely numb from all emotion as he waited for the terrible creature to come finish him off. He hadn’t been able to identify the beast, he’d been too preoccupied with the fact that it had been consuming his friend.
Blood trickled down his neck and muzzled from the wounds in his neck, and tears soon joined them. Apparently he still had enough strength to cry softly as he listened to the sounds of crunching and slurping that emitted from behind him. After several painful minutes, he heard shuffling coming closer to him. Finally, it would all be over; he would be free from the pain of his recent failure and physical wounds. He tried to make a sound to help the beast locate him easier, but no sound came out.
He heard the beast step into the swamp water, the ripples of the movement lapping against his bloody back. The creature began to sniff loudly as it tried to pick his scent. The creature continued to search for Clip, as the little foal, desperate for death, tried to yell with all of his strength. Unfortunately, all that came out was a croak that could have easily been mistaken for a branch creaking in the rising wind. With a final growl, he heard the creature begin to leave.
“No,” he croaked out, but it was to no avail as the creature was now too far from him to hear. He could no longer see or hear the beast. Left alone, he began to cry again. Oh how quickly his life was now turning. Violet was dead now, he was a crippled heap halfway in the swamp, and the myths were now proven true.
As the night slowly crept on, he began to regain enough strength to start calling out for help. Every half hour, he would have enough strength to cry out, although the movement would cause pain. Slowly, he began to regain his senses. The cotton that seemed to be muffling his hearing dissipated, and his eyes even began to adjust to the darkness. The downside of regaining his senses was that he could now feel the pain.
Every breath made his side scream in pain, and he knew that his previous guess about cracked ribs was correct. He began to drink the little bits of water that kept coming into his mouth to stay hydrated. He knew it wasn’t sanitary, but he had nothing else, and he couldn’t consciously decide to stop. The pain in his neck was probably the worst thing about his situation.
It burned like it was on fire, and every swallow made that burn amplify ten times worse. He whimpered from the pain, and after a while, became too used to no response to his pleas for help to care to continue. He simply laid on his side, waiting for the end to come in one way or another. The sun had begun rising in the distance, though he couldn’t see the actual sun in its ascent. He began to cry again as he realized that at about this time, his father would be waking up, and find his son missing. The same with Violet’s parents.
After what seemed like an eternity, he felt strong enough to try and turn face up. As he rolled, he cried out at the pain in his side, stopping halfway through his venture as the pain became near unbearable. Then, he remembered Violet. Poor Violet. He clenched his eyebrows in anger, and rolled all the way around. Biting down, he continued with the movement, standing up on shaky legs. His body screamed at him to stop, but he refused, continuing to take a step forward. His knee buckled on his left side, bringing him down. Letting out a guttural growl, he got back up stepping across the path to the mangled remains of his best friend.
Her bones had been picked clean, with even the sinew stripped from her frame. Many of the bones were cracked or broken, the stark white shining dully in the dawn light. He began to cry anew for his deceased friend, standing strong in front of her body parts in spite of the burning pain. He would avenge her, somehow, for the loss of her life at so young. That’s what was really getting at the foal. She had been seven, had just barely gotten her cutie mark, but now she had no life for her purpose to be fulfilled with. Now, she was just a loose, bloody pile of fur and bones, stripped so clean that calling it bloody would be strong.
Clip stood there for a long time before he dared move. He wanted to stay there forever, let his despair and anger overtake him, consume him, but his stomach growled to remind him that he was still alive. He turned and looked around the swamp, his neck aching dully from his wounds. The grass in these areas was too sharp for his soft pony mouth, and the leaves of the trees weren’t nutritious. He didn’t feel like he could walk home, not yet. He was barely standing as it was.
Suddenly, a strange idea came to him. Slowly, he turned to the murky waters of the swamp, limping over to where he had hidden from the beast. He practically collapsed at the bank of the water, exhaustion and pain overtaking the last remnants of the strength he had. He inched his muzzle into the water, keeping his nose above it so he could breath as he slowly opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out into the bitter water.
He began to slowly wriggle it around, trying to mimic the movement of an actual worm to attract fish. His movements made tiny swirls in the water that began to attract larger swirls that he took as fish. No less than five minutes into the procedure, a fish, unseen by him, nibbled at his tongue. It tickled, so he darted his tongue back into his mouth involuntarily. This only intrigued the fish, which he felt enter its head into his mouth. Taking the opportunity, Clip bit down and tossed his head back towards land, sending the fish flying.
The maneuver made his neck start bleeding as his scabs cracked roughly. The fish flopped desperately on the path, trying to make its way back to water. Clip rushed over, his strength having returned after even that short of a break, pressing a hoof down on the fishes core. Raising another, he slammed it down, crushing its skull in. It jerked as its nervous system went off, before finally stilling beneath his hooves. Bending down reverently, he began tearing away the flesh and consuming its bloody white meat. It tasted different from what he had expected. He had expected it to taste disgusting, to make him want to throw up. Instead, it tasted slightly like mud, with almost no other flavor to it except its salty blood. He found it to taste much better than any oat or hay he’d ever eaten, and was soon hungrily consuming the whole thing.
Before he knew it, he was done with the majority of it. Raising his head, he stared in awe at the remains of the fish. It wasn’t particularly big, but it had been rather filling. The stark white bones stuck out, bent back to allow Clip easier access to more meat. There was almost no blood on the remains. Clip hadn’t realized how much he had liked the salty taste of blood, and looking closely at the corpse, he found that all of the blood had been sucked dry. It looked completely picked clean, save for a loose portion of scales on the ground, almost like…
Violet.
Clip gasped as he stumbled back, numb to the strain he was putting on himself. He had just mercilessly devoured another living creature, just like that monster that had killed Violet. He had done it for food though, he argued with himself. Who said the beast he had seen hadn’t done it for food also. He hadn’t attacked any other creatures. Neither had the beast. Clip had charged. He hadn’t killed one so young. Maybe he had, seeing how the fish he had eaten was so small when he had seen much larger variants of the same type of fish.
The more he argued with himself, the more he found himself as guilty as the beast that had taken Violet. He was disgusted with himself, turning away from the fish’s remains, which only brought him to Violet’s. He began to cry bitterly from self hate and regret, stumbling away from both dead bodies. He turned back to the swamp water, unable to continue looking at dead things. Staring at the murky water, he found that there was enough daylight to allow him to see his reflection.
He stumbled away once again, falling to his bruised side in shock at the monster he had just seen. Its coat had turned dirty gray, blood covering its neck with large gashes in it. Its fur was now at least two inches longer than a regular ponies should be, ears tipped sharply with fur. Its mouth had been agape in shock revealing sharp teeth that no herbivore would ever have, ready to tear into any victim. The most terrible thing though, had been its eyes. They were misty gray, with the irises sharp silver. They seemed to cut whatever they looked at, a dangerous tool for a monster.
Clip began panting, unable to understand what was going on. He couldn’t be changing. He was still a foal. A foal who, thanks to some old mare’s tales, was very knowledgeable in the ways of supernaturals. A foal, who thanks to this knowledge, was able to identify the creature that had attacked his friend, seeing how he was now one. A foal, who was no longer a foal, but a lycan.