QUICK WARNING: The beginning of this chapter is a bit graphic.
Some years ago...
A tall, grizzled man, standing in the dusk light cast by a warehouse window, looked at a photo. This photo was of a woman, short bobbed hair and scrawny physique. She wasn't looking at the camera in the photo but somewhere else. On the piece of photo paper letters spelled out "She's the one" in black pen.
The man looked up from the photo and to the other person in the room. It seemed like the same woman in the photo. Only the woman here was tied up to a chair, gagged and crying... a tad different than the smiling girl from the photo.
"Why, this sure looks like you." Droned the man to the woman. The woman did her best to shake her head and she did so erratically. The man continued, seeing her protest. "Oh yes, this definitely is you." And then he laughed short and hard, like a maniac.
He took the photo and flicked it into the girl's face. She flinched when it struck her in the nose.
"Ooh, I'm sorry, did that hurt?" The man said, mocking the tied up girl. He let out another crazy laugh as he danced around the chair, all giddy with excitement. "Oh this is going to be so much fun."
The man seemed to be quite out of his mind indeed. So it was to the woman's relief when he left her there by herself.
Sounds of her muffled voice didn't carry far through the fabric tied around her face. All that came out were mmpff sounds, even further drowned out by the dead space around her. With no one near to hear her muffled cries, she felt helpless. She began to writhe around in her binds. She rocked back and forth trying to knock the metal chair over. Maybe, just maybe, she would make her escape if somehow she broke free. Then she could run away and never look back. And even... well, turn her life around.
Or maybe she could have made her escape, had the man not returned. He stepped out of the shadows like a phantom. He held a small scalpel, sharp and menacing. It drew her eyes, and she started to shed more tears of fear.
"Oh this will be so fun." The man said approaching the woman. And then he said with a glint of anger, "Now I will be giving you a taste of your own medicine. Hmm, but where to start. I guess I could just dive right in to your stomach, but where's the fun in that? Maybe I could start with... Ah, an eye will do."
A moment later, the man kicked the chair over himself and carried out his sinister actions.
***
Carving and cutting. Splitting, slicing and removing.
A grizzly scene was left behind. The kind that draws bile to the mouth. It is the kind that makes it hard to eat for months and makes it impossible to sleep for weeks. But it was also a very methodical, and even surgical murderous scene. Most people wouldn't recognize the mess on the ground as a body, at least not until they squatted down by the pools of blood, and hunks of innards. Then they would see the little, white tags. There were labels, sticking out of the mess.
These labels, sticking out of each separated organ by a toothpick, marked and named each piece of meat. There was a tag for the heart, the stomach, the liver, the kidneys. There were parts that most people couldn't name, but there was care put into naming even those obscure pieces of human anatomy.
Now normally a scene like this was caused by a particular wanted criminal. This criminal went by the nickname of the Bone Cutter. A nasty little serial killer, this one was. But this wasn't done by the Bone Cutter.
Who had done this then? Why, none other than Leland Vanhorn, the man who was getting quite good at his new hobby. The hobby of killing evil men.
Or in this case, women. Leland thought as he looked down at the mess of a body.
There was nothing clear about who this was. The body was far too cut up to recognize anything, but underneath the splayed skin and carnage, there was the face of a woman, not a man.
The bitch deserved it he thought uneasily, feeling the rush of the kill and the intrigue of the set up fade away. He was soon left to contemplate his actions.
Ok, so I killed a woman, he thought, But she was the one. She was the killer...
There was that brief moment when the thought passed through him, This may be the wrong girl. And in that moment he began to panic.
Had it really been the Bone Cutter he killed? Maybe he was crazier than he thought. Maybe he had turned into the thing that he had always been afraid of: a psychopath.
I was so sure of it, this has to be her... he tried to himself. He wanted to push the notion of killing the wrong person to the back of his mind and lock it there.
Finally, he thought to himself, with resolve, Yes, this must be the Bone Cutter. It has to be. He had beaten the confession out of her, for what ever that was worth, though one could hardly trust the confession of someone who just wanted the pain to stop.
He needed to stop thinking about it.
What was next? Calling the police. He would leave an anonymous tip about a dead body. He would go through the charade with a smile and pretend like he had just stumbled across some poor soul, dead and mutilated... Just like how she did it.
And the best part was: she would remain nameless. None of the cops would know that this dead body belonged to the Bone Cutter. They didn't even know the offender was female, those fools.
So he made the call from the victim's phone. The police would be on their way soon. He looked again at his own handiwork.
Yes, he had quite admired his own work here. He imagined how faithful he had been to the woman's style of execution: Neatly dissecting the body and labeling the internal organs for the police to find. Shame he would never get the credit for it. But that wasn't important to him. He thought more about: retribution, and quelling the voice.
And there was silence in his head, save for his own thoughts. Leland sure did enjoy the blissful silence he experienced after a kill. So why the rotten feeling? This by no means was his first or even second kill (It was his fourth actually.)
He knew what the feeling was. It was the feeling that he had killed the wrong person. How sure had he been that he had the right person to begin with? Well, certainly not one-hundred percent.
Oh this would bother him for a long time. But finally he managed to store that feeling, at least long enough for him to realize that it was time for him to flee the scene.
***
Present
Leland desires to take a walk outside, to get some fresh air and clear his mind, but Fluttershy, suggests he stay inside.
"Oh, umm, the, princess wants me to keep you inside for now." She says to him as he makes his way towards the front door.
He had slept through the night with trouble. His dreams were filled with the voices, urging him to, what else, kill. Yes, it made for an unsatisfying rest. So now he is feeling pent up and ready for some fresh air. And here, this timid little pony is saying that he can't go outside. It makes him more than a little irritated.
He tries to ignore the yellow one and reaches his hand out to open the door. Fluttershy darts in front of the door, desperate to uphold Celestia's request. She hovers there, flapping her wings, hoping that Leland will be reasonable and turn away.
Leland is thinking on a different note however. How dare she get in my way? He thinks bitterly, and instinctively raises a hand to smack the pegasus. Fluttershy sees the risen hand and curls up and closes her eyes to protect herself.
"Please don't." she begs.
And then Leland stops. He had already forced his hand into motion by then, and is forced to guide it off course, hitting the door itself with a loud thud.
Something had changed Leland's mind. He couldn't bring himself to hit her. He couldn't hit this cute, innocent little thing. But he still felt the pain and irritation in his head caused by the repeating kill, kill, kill.
Fluttershy hadn't realized that he had stopped his assault, so she continues to beg for him to stop. "Oh, please, Mr. Vanhorn, don't go outside." She repeats, and than she opens her closed eyes after a second of silence and sees Leland just standing there with a hand slapped against the door. She then mutters out softly, "If that's ok with you..."
"I... uh, fine." Leland finally concludes. He sighs and then backs away from the door, leaving a very relieved Fluttershy.
He walks around the room, trying to expel some of his pent up aggression. He hates the feeling of being cooped up.
"Thank you mr. Vanhorn." squeaks Fluttershy.
He continues to pace around the living space of the mostly wooden house. He breathes heavily, feeling air whistle through the hole in his cheek.
I am going to have to cover that up with something. Leland thinks to himself. He hasn't seen a single mirror around the house yet, so he still doesn't know the full extent of the damage. Only recently has it occurred to him what had caused the gaping wound. Ethan Thomas He grumbles to himself. But he wasn't really that angry at Ethan. He knows that he can't blame him. He did this to himself more than anyone else.
Or did he... He is reminded of his devilish companion, whispering, kill, into his head. The damned voice that drives him crazy from moment to moment. Luckily, it is rather quiet as of now. But he knows had it not been for that, he wouldn't be stuck in some strange place with a fist sized hole in his face.
"If not on Earth, then elsewhere." It had said to him. I guess that explains why I am here... maybe. No, no it really doesn't.
Leland retires to a couch in the living area. He can tell by the size of the furniture that it has never been meant for someone of his size or shape. It sits much lower to the floor and is much wider from the front to the back. Even still, he is able to sit comfortably on it. Fluttershy lands on the floor and sits there, staring at Leland, waiting for him to do something.
Leland runs his hand over the hole in his face, feeling the damage, and sighs heavily.
"I told you, you shouldn't mess around with your wound." Comes a voice from behind him. The same articulate, honey-like voice from last night, the voice that comes from the one named Celestia. Leland jumps in his seat, startled, and quickly pulls his hand away from his face. Fluttershy doesn't seem at all bothered by the intrusion, she merely bows and walks over to the giant winged unicorn, almost as if she expected the horse to appear from nowhere.
"How has he been, Fluttershy?" Celestia asks Fluttershy.
Leland tries to answer, "I'm feeling alright, thanks."
Celestia shoots Leland a wary look and then continues seeking Fluttershy's answer to her question.
Fluttershy also gives Leland a strange look, and says to her superior, "He seems to be find. But I think he's getting antsy. He needs fresh air. After all he has been in that bed for a week.
A week? thinks Leland.
"Yes, well, I hope you understand the importance of keeping him here, at least for the time being." Celestia says.
"And why is that?" Interrupts Leland, "Why must you keep me in here?"
"Because we do not know what you are Mr. Vanhorn, we do not know anything about you. You could be dangerous."
There was a time in my life where that would flatter me. Leland thinks, and then says, "You don't know what I am? I don't know what you are." Leland can feel the irritation building. "So what if you do not know me... you can trust me."
Leland knows he is lying. He can barely predict his own actions most of the time. He usually works on impulse. But they don't know that, he considers.
"Yes well, it isn't as simple as that." Celestia explains, "Normally we are not afraid of new species, especially ones that we can communicate with. But we - that is, my sister and I - have reason to believe that you may be... aggressive."
"And what reason is that?" Leland says, trying his hardest to keep himself from shouting.
Celestia looks silently at Leland for a moment before making a proposition. "Leland... Come walk with me. Fluttershy is right, you need fresh air. And so long as I am here with you, we can go outside. How does that sound?"
Leland is a bit jarred by the proposition and hardly notices that Celestia had called him by his first name, something she shouldn't know yet.
Leland hastily accepts and stands up.
Celestia turns her attention back to Fluttershy. Fluttershy asks Celestia in a soft voice, "May I stay here? I need to feed my little animals."
Celestia nods and leads Leland out the front door.
***
The fresh air is helpful to Leland. It helps keep the annoying voice on the back-burner of his mind.
Something Leland finds interesting about this place: It seems so... clean. The air is so fresh, even compared to the country air he is used to back closer to home. The closest to anything like it he had experienced was Appleseed orchard. But even that was nothing compared to the crispness of this fresh air.
Celestia takes Leland around the outside of what seems to be a village of some kind. Leland remains silent for the most part, absorbing the outdoors as much as he can. Eventually, they reach an area that looks like a farmhouse. Celestia tells him about who lives there. According to her, it is the "Apple family's" farm and farmhouse.
Not that Leland cares much for the tour of this land. But he does show some interest. After all, he thinks to himself, I am apparently in a world ruled by horses.
Celestia and Leland finally get to a point around the small village opposite to where they started. The point they are at sits on a small, grassy hill that allows them to look over the town. They stop there and rest in the shade of and apple tree. Leland looks out over the town and sees the little horses walking around. It weirds him out, seeing a once unintelligent animal live much like his own species.
"So," Leland finally says after sighing and relaxing, "you horses live here huh? This is a lot like where I come from actually. Well... not exactly, but close enough." He is more thinking out loud than actually talking to Celestia.
Either way, Celestia answers, "Yes," and then she pauses. She continues a bit lower, "Just for future reference, most of us ponies find being called a horse offensive."
"Ah. Thanks for the heads up." Leland replies.
Eventually, Leland speaks up again, "You never answered my question."
"Oh?"
"What makes you think I will be aggressive?" Leland asks.
Leland is surprised to see an apple float down in front of his face. It hovers in front of him, surrounded in a translucent golden bubble. He doesn't know what to make of it.
"Go on," Celestia says to Leland, "take it and eat it."
Leland looks at Celestia and notices that her horn his glowing the same gold color. He looks back at the apple and grabs it out of the air, shattering the magic bubble.
Magic huh... Leland thinks warily, it sure looks like magic.
Leland takes a bite. The hole in his cheek doesn't make it any harder to eat, although he finds that he can't contain his saliva nor produce as much of it. As such, a trail of drool runs down his neck as he takes his first bite. It is only now that he realizes how hungry he is.
Between bites, Celestia asks, "How have your dreams been?"
A bit of an odd question to say the least.
"Fine," Leland says, and then takes another bite.
"Are you sure?" She continues, "it is important that you tell me everything you can."
"Yes I'm sure," returns Leland, "My dreams are just the same as they always are: short an meaningless." This brings Leland to think about his dream last night. The dream of himself being told by the voice to murder.
Technically, they are normal dreams. For me at least. Leland considers.
Celestia merely says, "If you say so."
"You still haven't answered my question." repeats Leland.
Celestia sighs, and finally says, "You need to trust that I have reasons to believe this." Then she tries to change the subject. "How would you like to meet the pony who saved your life?"
"You mean Fluttershy wasn't the one..." He begins to say before she cuts him off.
"Yes, Fluttershy found you, but the one who had kept you from bleeding out is somepony else." She explains.
"Oh, well sure, why not?" Leland shrugs, wiping the drool off his chin and neck.
"Alright then, grab my wing." Celestia says.
"What?" Leland wonders aloud.
"We are going to teleport there, now come on grab my wing."
Leland does so and then he sees Celestia gently close her eyes in focus. Her horn begins to glow and the world around them begins to shiver. Leland feels the tingling sensation of Celestia's magic and then all of a sudden, his vision explodes with white light.
Teleportation huh, he thinks, If this isn't magic, I don't know what is.