One by One

by DreamWings

Two.

Cheerilee couldn’t believe the events from a few days ago. Mac? Dead? It seemed almost too unreal to be true, but it was and there was nothing she could have done to prevent it. The police ponies had called at most ponies houses by this time, including hers, but were still no closer to finding the culprit. A chance victim they reckoned, picked by an insane lunatic who’d escaped from the local hospital. As of which pony they thought it was it was hard to tell, all patients in the wards had been accounted for the morning after the crime, so all of them had been in the hospital. The police Chief still stuck to his theory though, it was just a hunch but so far all of his hunches had been found to be correct.

Cheerilee was still distraught over all of the happenings. She couldn’t show that she was upset though, her students came first and she could not alarm them in any way whilst teaching them their lessons. But afterwards, in the lonely nights at home, she would think of the gentle stallion and weep into her sofa cushions. He had been so kind to her, so sweet whenever something was wrong, that now he had gone it seemed that nightmares followed her wherever she went. In the brief moments she’d slept she would witness flashing images of his face brandishing a big toothy smile just before...’Crash’ his face was beaten into oblivion. His old smile gone now to be left by a black hole of soil and dirt clogging up his throat.

She had not seen his corpse at all, but she had sat with Applejack and comforted her through the ordeal, so she felt she knew every gory little detail now. She wished she didn’t. The image was so terrifying that even when she was awake she felt a constant fear of all the ponies around her. She was satisfied with the police’s ideas, they knew what was best, but the niggling feeling that it could be somepony she knew gnawed at the back of her mind. She grew superstitious of the oddest of ponies. Rose, Daisy, Rarity, even some of the young foals she taught; it was all so ridiculous but all so nerve racking for the purple mare.

Her house was her safe haven at the moment. Nopony could make her worry or feel nervous within the confounds of her own house. She knew every inch of the place and the only entrance to get in was through the front door that always remained locked whether she was in or out. There were no dangers here, and she was glad about that. She needed to relax, that was what she needed to do. She couldn’t afford to feel this frightened when she was alone, she was alone far too often for that.
She thought, for the third time that week, how nice it would be to have a special somepony that she could rely on in times of distress like this. She had been alone for a long time now and she had always felt that she wanted somepony near her. She had just never had the nerve to be with somepony…not again.

As a filly she had been in love, a ‘schoolyard crush’ as most ponies would class it. But to her it had been deadly serious, she’d thought they would be together forever, and had even begun to plan everything for the wedding. A foalish move that had been; the colt had left her within the matter of a couple of months. He had gone away with his family and never came back again. The last she heard he was married to another mare with three foals of his own. She had never dated anypony after that; the closest she had got was Mac, and even they had really stayed friends. They could never get the chance of being together now even if they wanted to. The upset came back into Cheerilee’s mind again and a tear dropped down her cheek.

She needed to relax, that’s what she needed to do and then she’d forget the whole business. Yes, she was going to relax, and she knew just how. She trotted upstairs to the bathroom and laid her hoof nimbly on the taps. With a slight push she managed to set the water going, and stood waiting with anticipation on when the tub would be full. She chewed on the end of her hoof. She needed to relax; she had to stop thinking about poor Mac. She had to take some time for herself. It’s true that she needed to finish marking some papers for the next day but they could wait until she felt like she was fully rested.

The water seemed high enough now so she turned the taps off slowly and placed one hoof after the other into the soothing liquid. ‘Ah, calming’ she thought as her whole body slipped under the water. This was perfect; this was exactly what she’d needed. After a whole day of listening to Applejack cry it was good that finally she could take some time for just her.
She rested her head on the back of the bathtub, closing her eyes in bliss. ‘Perfect, absolutely perfect’. The lights flickered above her, sending sparks across the room.

“Strange” she uttered, opening her eyes to look upwards “The fireflies are never usually that active.” A large flash shook the glass casing of the light, the rope it hung by swung ferociously up above her. She stared at the lantern, confused as to what was going on inside it. The rope snapped and the light shot down into the water where she lay. Large volts of energy shot through her body, her brain burst through her skull and her heart imploded within its cage.

The lightning stopped attacking the water and the room fell silent and dark, the empty-headed corpse floating on the top of the free-flowing water.

Two.