Chapter Twenty-One
Nerves in Tatters
They pushed away from me, fleeing out the doors and into the lobby. They were packed tight in the halls like the scared, wide-eyed animals they were, pushing against each other in their flight. Hooves, bodies were trod on, yelps and screams worming through the air.
They were nothing more than frightened, wild beasts, when it came down to it.
I calmly followed behind the frightened, taking in that distinct smell of fear. There was some lone, green pegasus lying on the cold ground, trampled on by its fellows. It looked up at me, a small whimper escaping its mouth, before I kicked it in the head, knocking it unconscious, and stepped over its body.
I burst through the double doors that led to the lobby and skidded to a halt. They were all swarming about, trying to get out the doors and into the night with little regard for any other. Some of the event staff were trying in vain to stop the tide, or at least prevent any injury or damage, but it was pandemonium.
Near me, some of those that were leaving noticed my presence and quickened their pace, throwing glances behind them. Some small foals and teens were being herded by their parents, away from what had happened, from me. Several fans, dressed to the hilt in memorabilia and shirts with my stage name emblazoned on them, sat crying on the sidelines, their posters ripped in half and their dreams shattered.
I smiled.
A few stadium security guards entered the room, beginning to shepherd the crowd outside in a timelier manner, and, I could only assume, looking for me as well. I slunk away from them and out one of the doors, shoving past whoever was in my way.
Outside, the panic that had been present before had now mostly settled into general agitation, annoyance, and gloom. The crowd outside milled about, unsure where to go or what to do now that their entertainment had been lost. Many of them were angry that their night had been ruined, distraught, even.
I stopped and spun in place as something caught my eyes. A standing sign was positioned in the middle of the courtyard. ‘Pink Floyd’s Summer Sun Celebration Tour!’ was adorned on it in large letters. The stallion on it, all pink and gray-eyed, wasn’t me.
Next to it was a large cardboard cutout of the not-me, posing, smiling at some unseen distance. His pink coat seemed vibrant, blinding, in the moonlight.
I scowled. It made me sick. With a snort, I reared back and trampled the offending objects, feeling the satisfaction of their destruction by my hooves. It felt almost euphoric, to destroy something. A rush in my veins.
Then, I felt some violent urge rise up within me. There was an uncontrollable hate and anger that made me just want to hurt, to destroy something.
My muscles were tense, my head was light, and I could very much feel the rush of my blood throughout my body.
There were some murmurings behind me. I twirled to see some ponies staring at me, watching on in interest, prying into matters that weren’t theirs. Their natural curiosity. I smiled wide at them, and they backed away, ears flattening, uncertain, surely remembering what had happened moments ago on stage.
I took a step toward the horseflies, aiming to beat them senseless for their mere presence. I needed to hit something. Anything. There was an insatiable itch. Only, before I got near them, they took to the skies, flying away.
I snorted and slowed to a trot. The aimless herd, having just realized I was in their midst, had now split away from me, watching from the corners of their eyes as they cleared the area, unwilling to get involved, to provoke me any further. Animals.
“Hey!” One of them, a mare, shouted from across the courtyard. I looked at her as she strode through the crowd, eyes brimming with tears. “Who the h-hell,” she hiccuped, “the hell do ya t-think ya are, huh?” She grew closer. “I-I’ve been wa-w-waiting for this ni-night f-for months, an’ ya just had ta go cr-c-crazy, didn’t ya?!”
The mare wiped her eyes. “F-fuck you! You’re h-h-horrible! You s-should b-be ashamed!” She choked back another sob and ground a hoof into the floor, her whole body trembling.
She took another step closer, hesitated for a moment, and then sluggishly lunged at me, crying all the while. I sidestepped her pitiful excuse for an attack and pushed her to the ground, sending her sprawling, and eliciting a few whispers from the gathered crowd, who were all looking on like vultures to a carcass.
I stood over the mare’s body, staring down at her, and then gripped her head and slammed it into the ground. Before I knew, my hooves were around her neck, pressing down on her throat harder and harder and harder.
I felt my skin crawl and my vision grow blurry as the mare gasped for breath and tried to push me off of her. The crowd around me was shouting something, braying and whinnying, but I was only focused on the female in front of me and her slowly dwindling life.
I was yelling something, screaming, ranting, but what, I couldn’t tell. There was nothing but this feeling of absolute rage filling me to my brim. The rush of blood in my ears blocked out everything else.
My grip on her neck grew even tighter, and her terrified face was the only thing I could see, and—
I blinked.
There was an alarm blaring somewhere.
Blood was dripping from the broken glass in front of me.
I backed away, but winced as I put pressure on my right hoof.
Looking down, I saw fresh blood covering it. My own.
The alarm grew steadily louder and I looked back up. There was an advertisement in the intact part of the window promoting twenty percent off all items in the store.
My gaze focused on the mannequins standing in the now broken display case of the department store, specks of blood standing out in contrast on their light-colored clothes.
I glanced around. No one on the street.
The store’s alarm cut through the night.
I looked back at the window and something in my body burned. I reared back and knocked out more of the glass, just enough to crawl through without getting injured. Ignoring my injured hoof, I leapt into the display case.
Laughing, I knocked over the mannequins and tore apart their perfect clothing. Red smeared on the fabric and floor and walls, painting a grotesque picture. I stomped all over their precious niceties, destroying the entire display and throwing it out onto the street, before clambering further into the store.
I ran through the building, yanking expensive, frilly clothing off the shelves and off the racks and tearing them to shreds. I shoved displays to the ground, spilling merchandise all over the floor. Bloody hoofprints trailed everywhere I stepped.
I cackled again and knocked over a display case onto a row of shelves, toppling them all over, damaging everything on them. Items scattered across the floor, spilling out from whatever boxes or wrappings they were in. Among many other things, a few lighters came to a stop near me when everything had settled down, catching my attention.
My hoof picked one up, experimentally flicking the flame on and off a few times. The fire danced in the darkness, enticing me forward, matching some deep heat inside my own body.
I smiled, and bent down, and set fire to the ruined shelf before me.
Before long, and some coaxing, the blaze had grown strong and had engulfed a significant portion of the store in its cleansing flames.
I watched as it burned, shouting obscenities into the night, drunk with anger and power. Everything—
And then I found myself slumped against some wall on a dark, abandoned road.
I grunted, and unsteadily got back to my hooves.
On the ground beneath me were the remains of some poster, ripped right off the wall I was standing next to.
I took a look at the fragments of the poster, an advertisement for the concert I had just come from.
I snorted in disgust, some force overtaking me, and continued in the direction I was heading.
Almost immediately ahead was a lone carriage parked at the side of the road.
It was an unfortunate decision on the owner’s part to leave it sitting out this night.
I moved forward to try and smash its wheels, or break the windows, or whatever else I could, when a loud, passionate moan escaped from the inside. I stopped and observed the carriage, watching as it shook slightly and another, very feminine wail cut through the night.
I approached the coach and peered in the window. Inside were a stallion and a mare, very much having sex on the seat with little regard for their surroundings.
With a shout, I wrenched the door open and, after a bit of a struggle, dragged the two out into the street, where they landed in a tangle of limbs and confusion.
I immediately grabbed the male and pulled him to his hooves, before throwing him against the side of the carriage and punched him clean across the jaw. He was sent sprawling, but I kept on him and kicked him a few times while he was on the ground.
He coughed, blood coming out, and struggled to get up, but I put an end to that notion with a few more blows. The male fell back down and didn’t try to move again.
At this point, the female had shaken off her initial confusion and was beginning to realize what was happening, so I stalked over to her and began to beat her as well.
She cried out with each hit I landed and tried several times to push me off of her body, but couldn’t. It was then that her horn flared to life and managed to deflect my next blow and hit me in turn.
I jerked back at the unexpected strike and felt the spot on my face where she had hit me, some pain coming away.
I scowled and leapt back at the female, redoubling my efforts, going for her horn straightaway. I was furious that she had even managed to get a hit off on me. Each strike was harder than the last, until she was barely conscious.
I reared back to deliver another punch, and…
I stopped.
Blinked.
The rush in my veins, in my mind, seemed to clear for a moment as I stared down at the mare’s damaged body. I had to choke back the urge to throw up.
I backed away from her and glanced over at the stallion, by the wheels of the carriage. Though he was not in good shape either, I could see the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
And then I looked back at the mare and I felt my heart harden again. Death was too good for these two beasts. There was no need to kill them. The mare groaned and looked up at me briefly before slumping back down, unable to stay conscious any longer.
I left them both there, lying on the pavement. They would probably bleed out soon enough. Whatever happened to them was—
I coughed violently and stumbled a little bit, nearly falling over.
I slowed to a halt, still coughing, and shook my head, clearing away some murkiness that was clouding my thoughts.
The sidewalk below me wavered slightly, but then came into focus.
I stood back up and continued forward.
Identical townhouses passed me by as I went down the street. Each façade painted a picture of normalcy, of happiness. One door was painted a bright blue, flowers hung in a planter on another one’s windows, shrubs and trees were cut nice and neat in a third’s yard.
Inside each, behind their closed doors, families slept peacefully without a care in the world. Stallions and mares who never strived for anything more than what they needed to get by, foals who would spend their afternoons outside playing with their friends in the street and would ultimately take after their parents.
I kicked a nearby mailbox, shattering the post in two.
There was a ball ahead, lying on the sidewalk next to a white-picket fence. I picked it up and let it settle in my hoof, before I flung it as hard as I could into the distance.
The ball flew through the night, illuminated only by wrought-iron streetlamps, hit the ground, bounced off toward a house and smashed through a window with a satisfying crash.
I smiled and spied a hefty rock ahead, spilling out from someone’s garden. I picked it up as well, and this time, threw it directly into the closest window.
One of the lights inside the house came on almost immediately, but I paid it no mind. I grabbed a different rock and hurled it at a streetlight, shattering the bulb inside.
A light came on in a different room of the house whose window I had first broken. I could hear murmurs from inside, but I had already moved on down the road.
I kicked someone’s trashcan over and then leapt over their fence, into their cultivated yard. I stared at all their flowers, their bushes, the few trees they had, and then trampled on them, destroying all the plant life in that yard, and then moved on to the next.
I went through several yards, razing everything in sight, hollering at the top of my lungs. Most of the houses had lights on at this point, all alert for the strange stallion outside, but most too fearful to do anything about it. They were safe inside their caves.
Something caught my eye.
My reflection stared at me from a near window, my eyes emotionless, cold.
I froze for a moment, feeling some unexplainable dread well up inside me. The vandalized homes surrounding me seem to leer at me, judging.
A porch light flickered to life on the house whose yard I was in, illuminating the dark.
I scowled, turning away from my reflection, ground the plants into the dirt one final time and hopped back over the fence.
There was a shout from one of the houses.
I continued down the street, yelling back some response. There was a pause, and then the voice spoke again, angrier, accusatory, judging from its tone. I didn’t understand it.
Looking back, there was some pony standing on the porch, illuminated by the light. It was staring right at me, still screaming something. It tried to walk out to the street, to confront me, but I only laughed at its pitiful attempts and sent another rock flying at the creature, eliciting a yelp of pain from it.
It didn’t speak up again, and I quickly moved away.
Further down, I jumped over a different fence, into a different yard, and fished out that lighter from earlier.
Very deliberately, I flicked on the flame and held it out—
My eyes locked on the scene in front of me. A restaurant, awash with light and high-society pigs. Sounds, laughter, music, ponies, debauchery all trickled out into the night.
Stallion and mare, getting out from a carriage parked out front. Male was helping the female down. Their backs were turned towards me, a perfect opportunity.
I ran at them, screaming, laughing, and shoved them both to the ground.
Without pause, I leapt on the male first, hitting him before he had a chance to retaliate. I slammed a hoof down into his chest and heard something crack. The male cried out in pain, whimpering, but I didn’t let up until I saw the female struggling to her hooves.
Abandoning the male, I turned my attention to his partner. She saw me coming and tried to scream, but I stopped any notion of that very quickly with a firm grip of her throat.
I ripped the tight, lavish dress she was wearing right off her body. She tried to fight against me, her hooves flailing, but I took one of her legs and snapped it right out of place. The mare certainly screamed this time, and I let her.
Behind me, I could hear the stallion trying to do something, mewling in pain, helpless while his mate was being attacked. I ignored him and continued thrashing the mare, my bloodlust much too strong.
But, something grabbed me from behind, pulling me off her prone form. Not the first stallion. Someone new, from the restaurant.
It was making noise, saying something, obviously upset I had hurt the two. I could see it had brought others from his herd, they watched on from behind, unsure what to do.
While my attacker waited for some sort of verbal response from me, I took action and wormed out from the new pony’s grip and grabbed ahold of him myself. I could see the terror in its eyes. It had enough intelligence to connect what I had done to the other two to what I would do to him.
The other members of the pack that followed the second male out didn’t move as I pummeled him, beating his face in. I threw him up against the small stone fence that surrounded the building and laid into him.
Blood dripped down his face and my hooves as I hit him again and again and again and—
The hunt was on.
I spied some pink, weakling of a colt peeking around the edge of a building and then disappear back behind it, probably hoping that I didn’t see him. Probably wanting to pounce on me when I turned my back.
But I had noticed him. I rolled my tongue around in my mouth and slunk forward. I could hear its heavy breathing as I neared the corner.
I leapt out and grabbed for the colt, but it ducked and tried to run away, wailing, back to whatever adults it had foolishly run astray from. It made it about eleven steps before I managed to catch up with it and tackle it to the ground, pinning it there.
It struggled, but I was simply too large for any hope of escape, and it figured that out soon enough. I looked down into its gray eyes, wet with frightened tears, and snarled in its face, baring my teeth. It tried once again to push away, and yelled for help that would come too late.
I grabbed ahold of one of its pink hooves and slammed it down onto the hard concrete, and it shrieked in pain as flesh connected with unyielding concrete. I cackled.
The colt looked up at me, pleading for me to stop, but I didn’t, couldn’t. I broke another one of its legs in the same manner, smiling as I heard the satisfying sound of bone crunching and rolling beneath the skin.
It shuddered in pain again, now too hurt to even cry any more. Its body was limp beneath my hooves, but its eyes were filled with emotion. Terror. Confusion. Betrayal. Loss. Sadness. Anger. Hurt. Emptiness. Each time it blinked, it took longer to open his eyes again.
I stared at the colt, at its pink coat, at its brown mane, at his gray eyes, at his pain.
My eyes blinked.
And my grip lessened, but the colt didn’t have the energy to escape. He didn’t move.
In the reflection of his stricken eyes was my own face, my own gray eyes, my own pink coat. My…
I straightened up and looked around, and saw. I saw destroyed storefronts. I saw injured, horrified ponies. I saw so much pain. So much fear. All because of me.
Flashes of different faces, different emotions, sputtered in and out. Colors bled out and shapes bent and warped. An insufferable buzzing filled my ears. My body felt like ice, so unlike the heat I felt before.
And then, just like that, I was back, my blood surging with some unknown vigor. I looked back at the colt, whose breaths were labored now, and felt a familiar flash of anger buzz through my system. I had to finish the plan. They all needed to die.
I reared up, ready to smash the last remnants of life from the little bastard’s body with my own two hooves. His pained expression brought joy, but I would only be satisfied when his face was destroyed under my hoofprints. I stomped down.
Something pink inside me flinched away.
“NO!” I shouted, yanking my hooves to the side, so that they slammed down onto the ground beside the poor colt instead. I backed away, trembling at what I had almost done.
I stood there, my breath caught in my chest, just staring at the colt as he was gasping for his own air. My eyes were as wide as his were not. His motionless, beaten body wavered, spinning, bleeding out one minute and then smiling cruelly at me the next.
“Fuck!” I gripped my head as it pounded ever harder. It felt as if my brain was unraveling itself inside my skull, squirming around like worms.
He deserved to die, like everything else. Purged.
But why?
Because.
He’s a harmless little child.
All the more reason.
I grit my teeth in burning frustration. I reached down and grasped the neck of the colt and pressed down relentlessly, remorselessly and it only coughed, sputtering up blood. It was in shock.
Only, I let go and closed my eyes, unable to even see, to look. I took a deep breath, and hoped that when I opened my eyes again, everything would be different.
There was blackness.
But when I did look again, I was standing over the colt’s body, my hooves gripping one of his still unharmed legs. I felt the skin and bone give. I couldn’t stop it. I blinked away tears as they formed in my eyes.
I wavered between emotions, between an uncontrollable urge to hurt and a desire to not.
The colt coughed, and I flinched. My hooves rose again, ready to trample the last breath from his lungs, but my legs were trembling. I tried to stop myself, but inch by inch, my forelegs grew closer to the colt.
He had to die. They were animals.
“NO!” I shouted again, throwing myself to the side. “Stop! Stop it!” I clutched at my head, hoping to tear the skin off and stop those worms inside to stop writhing.
I collapsed onto the pavement, next to the colt, our pink coats nigh indistinguishable. Tears were flowing freely now. “S-stop it… I don’t… Please just stop… Please…” I curled into a ball. “No. No, no, no… Please… Stop…”
The ground was cold.
As was the air.
Me too.
I clawed at my eyes, trying to pry them out and throw them away, to some dark corner, so they’d be lost forever. I clutched at my pounding, agonizing head, feeling something gray drop out from under me and something pink rekindle.
I opened my eyes. The colt’s own green eyes were staring back at me. A soft groan passed his mouth, and his yellow chest was shuddering as he breathed, but he didn’t move otherwise.
I sat up, looking down in horror at what I had done, what had almost happened. Leaning in close, I inspected his injuries, his three broken legs, his bruising body, his ravaged throat. I didn’t know what to do. My breathing became shallower. I didn’t know how to help. I could only look down in frozen horror and hope, but I had no hope left. I had no energy left.
What did I do?
Oh, what did I do?
I briefly thought back to the past few hours, struggling to remember what exactly had occurred, but I couldn’t. There were flashes of moments, some terrible acts of violence that shone through, but everything else, all the time in between, was blank.
Most everything was unaccounted for.
And I couldn’t even be sure those few moments I did remember were even true, and not some twisted hallucination. Did I really start a fire? Did I brutally attack some innocent passersby?
I didn’t know.
There was a voice. I could hear it this time, understand it. “Hey! Get away from him!” I hardly found the time to jerk my head up and see the mare before she yanked me away from the colt and shoved me into the wall. “What are you doing to my boy, huh?!” Her blue eyes shone in streetlamps.
I didn’t have the life in me to fight back, not anymore, not now. I shook my head lamely, unable to answer, and diverted my gaze from her seething face. “I… I don’t…” I swallowed something in my throat, and couldn’t say any more.
The green pegasus mare snorted and let me go, rushing over to the colt. She held him, stroking him gently, assuring him everything would be alright, before whirling back around to face me, tears forming in her eyes, her voice so very angry. “Do you th-think it’s fun to h-hurt other p-p-ponies? Is this h-how you get your kicks? Do you hurt foals f-for fun?!”
“N-no! I…”
Her fiery mane seemed all the more scorching as she dug deeper into me. She continued, her sadness evident in the water that ran down her cheeks. “I h-heard about your little rampage through town tonight. W-who the fuck do you think you are, huh!? I don’t know what’s going on with you, but whatever it is, you need help. You’re crazy!” She sniveled, getting up to confront me again. “E-everything is your fault!” She shoved me backwards in frustration, but I just stared at her blankly, her words ringing in my ears.
Something clicked.
Everything is my fault?
I pressed my eyes together, shutting out everything. In a flash, some memories came back to me, thoughts of my life and how I had suffered through every little thing it had thrown at me. The unfair hoof of fate, the unrelenting paranoia. Everything was out to get me. Everybody. I was the sole victim, completely blameless.
There was so much pain, so much sadness I felt. So much anger, for no reason at all.
But everything being my fault? I never did anything wrong, did I?
Did I?
I certainly did tonight, didn’t I?
I lost control of that anger I had buried so deep.
That old, familiar squirming returned and I whimpered in agony. “Stop…” I whispered, “Stop.”
I opened my eyes and the mare was tending to the colt again, her attention off of me.
I suddenly found my hooves again and I ran. I ran away, from everything that had just happened, down the streets, past buildings, through alleys, until I couldn’t anymore. Things were swirling in my head that I had never thought before. Long held beliefs that I was innocent were being demolished by something that was new to me.
Guilt.
I had never entertained the notion, but I surely did some things to feel guilty about just now, if my memory could even be trusted.
Now, my aimless wanderings were suddenly cut short. Blocking my way was something that seemed vaguely familiar, like a hazy dream. In front of me, there was a section of sidewalk cordoned off by caution tape. In the middle was a smashed television, glass and metal scattered everywhere.
I looked up at the hotel and spied a lone curtain fluttering out of a broken window at the very top. I had done that as well.
I stared at the remains of the television that I had thrown from the window what seemed like a lifetime ago. There was nothing playing on the screen now. Everything was broken. My fault.
Me.
I was wrong.
A stone felt like it had been placed on my back, pulling me down into some unknown vagueness I never had visited nor wanted to. I suddenly found it hard to take another step, unwilling to go any further, but I managed to drag myself and that burden of remorse around the corner and into an alleyway.
On the wall, there was a pay telephone with the phone dangling off the hook. I listlessly pawed at it as I passed and then collapsed on the floor next to it, my back to the rough brick wall. It was fitting I found myself back in the same place this day began.
I couldn’t hold back the tears.