//------------------------------//
// The Haunting Past 
// Story: Clubhouse of Horror III 
// by Grenazers 
//------------------------------//


THE HAUNTING PAST


Somewhere near the edge of Equestria, lies a little village called Trotsville. Now the reason why this place stands out is because it is a total contrast to the rest of the Equestria. Instead of beautifully crafted and colorful buildings, Trotsville's buildings are poorly made and only have a two kinds of colors, brown and grey. While the inner parts of Equestria have plentiful of vegetation growing about, Trotsville barely had any. Sure there were some grass and trees, but they're not exactly the most vibrant looking things ever. Most looks like they're dying.

Now the question is why would any pony want to live in a place like this? Why would any pony want to live in a dump like this, instead of living in the more better parts of Equestria? The answer to that question is this: freedom.

This land where Trotsville lies has been long forgotten by the rest of Equestria. Even their rulers have long forgot about this land. In fact many ponies here has never even seen their princesses.

Since this plot of land is not under the princess's authorities, it has become a breeding ground for criminals. Unlike the other parts of Equestria where crime was a rarity, crimes here was a common thing. Everyday there was act of crime happening. Everyday there was somepony being being assaulted or killed. Everyday there is something being stolen or destroyed. With no proper authorities, it was everypony for themselves.

Our story focuses on one particular inhabitant of this land, a brown earth stallion named Cutter. 

This stallion was regular patron at the Salty's Bar. Every single day after work, Cutter would trot in, sit in the same seat and order a drink. The stallion wasn't very talkative, always silently sitting down on his stool and drank from his bottle. However, Cutter doesn't come to this bar just to relax, rather he come here to forget something. 

As he took another sip, a vague memory appear in his head. Instead of digging into it, Cutter shook the memory out of his mind and resume his drinking. When he finally had enough, he drunkenly trots back to his home. He has done this so many times, he practically perfected it. He can now get back to his house with no problem at all.

Later that night,  as Cutter lay on his bed, the stallion was having a dream. It start of pretty normal, just him seeing a road on a sunny day. Then the dream shifted and started becoming a nightmare. In his dream, he was moving along a dirt road with a family of three traveling on it. There was two adults and one child. The family was trotting peacefully on the road, when suddenly the father turn his head around and saw something. Whatever it was it terrified the father and he shouted at his wife and child to gallop for their lives. Cutter then caught sight of a black silhouette shape pony chasing after them. The mysterious pony got to the father first and when he did, he stab him with his sword. 

The father fell down on the ground, blood leaking from his wound, creating a small bloody pool around him. The killer then pulled the blade out and finish the stallion by cutting his head off. After dealing with the father, he went after the other two.

The killer was fast, he was able to catch up them. When he reach the mother and child, she tried to shield her child from the killer. Unfortunately, the sword pierce right through her and hit the child. Luckily it was nothing fatal, but the foal now have a large cut down on his left side. The foal panic and crawl out of the mother's embrace and quickly turn around, just in time to see the killer slice the mare's head off. This cause the child to scream, getting the killer's attention. Now that he is closer to the foal, he can now tell that it was colt, a brown earth colt.

The little colt crawl away from the pony, scare for his life. However, the killer had no interest in the him, instead he rummage through their saddlebags and took out a few things. The stallion then gave one last glance at the terrified colt, before turning away and leaving.

When the stallion was gone, the colt slowly trot to where his mother was and drop to his knees. The colt lay his head on his mother's body and started crying. The scene then begin fading away, but the sound of the crying colt can still be heard clearly.

Cutter woke up from his dream, panting heavily. He got up from his sweat soak bedsheets and rush to the bathroom. He turn on the valve for the cold water, grab a hooful of them and splash the cold water on his face. Once he cools off, he turn off the valve and sat on his toilet, taking a breather.

It was that same nightmare again, he said to himself. The same nightmare that been plaguing his mind for last couple of months. No matter how hard he tries to forget it, the nightmare will never leave him. To make the situation even more frustrating, the dream was something long ago in his past, but for whatever reason he can't remember it.

Instead of trying to dig deeper into this, the stallion just shrugs if off and left the bathroom. The rest of his day went as any other day. Eat breakfast, go to work, and spend the rest of the evening at Salty's bar. After a long day at work, Cutter was trotting to bar, when he though he saw somepony following him. It happened when he walk by a mirror and saw a reflection of a dark cloak pony behind. He turn around and found nopony there.

He continue his trot Salty's Bar and enter the building. He then spends the next hour drowning himself with beer. While drinking he spotted the same cloak pony watching him from a window. With his rationality suppressed by his drunkenness, Cutter decided to deal with the stalker.

He step outside the bar and look around. He called out for the stranger, but go no response. His eyes then caught sigh of the cloak figure trotting pass a corner. Cutter follow after the pony, while yelling out drunken slurs about the stranger to stop galloping away, unaware by the fact that he is being lead somewhere.

The brown stallion trace the stranger to a dead end. When he was about to give up the search, something hard, struck him in the back of his head. From there everything went dark.

Cutter woke to the sound of rain hitting the ground and on his face. He mutters and opened his eyes to see the dark grey cloud above. Suddenly something tighten around his neck and was drag along the ground. The rope around his neck pulled him up and stallion soon found himself struggling to breath. He was being hanged and was losing air.

However, the rope lowered, allowing Cutter rear legs to touch the ground. Cutter spun around to see who was pulling the rope. To his shock it was the mysterious cloak pony. The stranger pulled onto his rope, causing him rise up, strangling him.

The stranger lowers the rope again, making Cutter fall down and gasping for air. He angrily glare at the cloak pony and demanded to know who he was and why he was doing this.
The cloak pony respond by taking his cloak off, revealing a brown teenage earth pony. 

Cutter though he recognizes him from somewhere, but when his eyes drifted to the scar on his left side, his eyes widen. It was the colt! The same colt from his dream, but all grown up now. Suddenly the stallion now knows where that dream came from. It happened long ago when he was a still young. He was once bandit that kills travelers for their belongings. His parents were just among the many victims he claimed on those roads.

Knowing who he was, the teenage colt pulled on the rope again, harder this time. Cutter rose up from the ground once again as the rope tighten around his neck more. His front hooves were attempting to pull the rope away, but his action proves futile as the rope was wrap firmly around his neck.

The teenage colt watches as the brown stallion violently struggle around. Every second draws him closer to his death. Soon his movement staggers and slowly halted. Just as he was about to depart from this world the last thing Cutter saw before he died was the face of the young teenage colt glaring at him.

The colt continue to stare at the older stallion's lifeless body for a bit before tying the the rope around the tree. He trots over to his dropped black cloak and put it on, shielding him from the rain. He gave one last glance at the hanging corpse before trotting away, disappearing in the distance.

Cutter's body was never let down, it still remain hung up there, serving as a symbol of the violence in this terrible land.





“And that concludes my story.” Scootaloo said as she put her papers away. She then look down to see the audience's reaction. It was a mix, some found the story terrifying, others seem unimpressed. 

“Ahem, well then let's not waste any time.” She then turn towards Sweetie Belle. “Hey Sweetie, you're up.”

The white unicorn filly nodded and took her friend's spot. Stacking her papers in a neat order, Sweetie begin to read her story. “My tale is about three friends partying late in the night. While leaving, the three are caught in a terrible rainstorm. This force the three to seek shelter in a old, abandon farm. As they rested, they were unaware of the mysterious stalker living there, unaware of the killer watching them. The three will soon encounter........

THE SILENT KILLER