Wine
Fill the Glass
Berry Punch took another swig from her glass. The crackling fire burned through the silence and popped as Berry Punch sat in her chair, enjoying the night. The room seemed to dance as shadows waved with the flames, wiggling with joy and laughing insanely. Berry Punch watched these figures float about the room. Not minding the crimson splatters covering the walls.
----+----
Lyra opened her eyes slowly. They were crusted over with yellow crystals and struggled to adjust to the dimly lit room. As her eyes focused, she could only make out a few figures, which could only be large barrels in the center of the room. As she scanned the room she noticed more strange things. Chains, leather straps and gags were strewn about the floor; some still covered in saliva from a previous user.
As she tried to get up from her resting place, she was brought back down hard on the cool, metal slab she was laying on. Her hooves and her stomach were strapped down and fastened by iron clamps. Try as she might, she could not break her bonds, and she began to cry out.
“Help! Help! Bon Bon? Anypony?”
Her calls were soon answered by the eerie sound of hoovesteps contacting hardwood. As the owner of the sound came closer to Lyra, her eyes grew to the size of softballs at the mare that stood before her.
“ Oh good. I didn’t give you a concussion,” Berry Punch said with a proud smirk upon her face.
“Not that it would matter later on.” Lyra looked on in shock as her captor stared into her golden eyes and burrowed deep into her mind, singeing her image into her brain. Lyra closed her eyes and began to resist Berry’s gaze; their past friendship tarnished.
Lyra could see the look of Berry’s eyes. They were pure black and only reflected Lyra’s horrified face back at her. Her smile was very toothy and menacing. The only intention it showed was pain.
Before Lyra could ask the most obvious question, Berry Punch answered it with a sense of pride in what she was going to do.
“It’s simple. I’m going to make you into my finest recipe of wine in my whole cellar! Just sit back and relax. I’ll do all of the work.”
Lyra stared at her former friend. Her eyes darted back and forth and her mouth quivered as Berry just stared at her, head cocked and still grinning menacingly at her. Before Lyra could say anything else, Berry Punch walked over to a setup of monitors and controls and brought them to life. The screens lit up in a blinding flash and displayed a collage of different black and white images of the room around her. Lyra could see her trapped image and stared in horror at the contraptions that were spread about the room.
Lyra noticed the biggest object in the room. It looked like a giant vat that was filled with some kind of liquid. It flowed in a sloshy manner and lapped at the air above as the contents swayed back and forth. Berry Punch followed Lyra’s gaze and gave a wicked grin.
“I see you want to skip ahead. Well tough luck kid. You need to be prepped before you’re ready for the ride.” Berry walked over to the vat and dipped a hoof in. As she pulled her arm out, a thick, crimson liquid was withdrawn from the container it resided in. Berry then proceeded to walk over to Lyra. As she reached her, she stuck her hoof into Lyra’s mouth and made her swallow the rancid elixir.
Lyra gagged as the warm drink went down her throat. She recognized the taste of iron that only one liquid had the ability of replicating. She screamed in agony as this realization settled in her mind.
“You made me drink blood!?” Lyra was now in a panic. She tried to thrash her way out of her restraints but they did not show any sign of slacking or tiring.
“I must ask you. How does it feel to taste the life of your lover? I was contemplating on trying Colgate but I wasn’t sure if the taste would be as…satisfying.” As she said this, she grinned and slowly licked her lips.
Lyra almost fainted as her stomach lurched and her eyes began to tear up. Bon Bon had been missing for about a week and now that she knew what had become of her marefriend, she realized her fate would match that of her lover.
“You…you monster.” Lyra’s body was filled with anger and her muscles tensed up, rage fueling her determination.
“Stop! Don’t clench up or the drink will be ruined.” Berry Punch rushed over to Lyra and brought up a facemask. As she pushed the facemask to Lyra’s muzzle, Berry Punch turned the nozzle on the container it was connected to and let the gas flow through the tubes.
Slowly, Lyra began to relax and control of her own body was lost. She let her hooves fall off the side of the slab she was on and was no longer moving. As she saw Lyra relax, Berry started to explain the procedure.
“First I’m going to break your legs so you can’t run. Then…” she smirked as she paused to look at Lyra, “let’s just say you’ll be with BB soon enough.”
Berry left Lyra lying on the table for what seemed like years. When she returned, she was holding a wooden plank and a sledgehammer. Her placement of the board was due to practice. She placed the board just above her ankles on her hind legs. She then proceeded to adjust Lyra’s body so that the swing could be most effective.
Berry Punch swung the hammer back like a golf club. She then swung it full force into the top of Lyra’s hoof, making it curl around the wooden plank and shattering the bone inside. Lyra let out a bloodcurdling scream that could peel paint off of walls. Berry Punch cringed at the sound of the shrill scream but continued on, her grin still plastered on her face. She then continued to the other side of the slab and repeated what she had done to her first hoof. The only difference was that now the board shattered her second ankle while pushing hard into the previous hoof, leaving her with blinding pain.
Berry looked down at the mangled unicorn and let out a smile that went from ear to ear. Lyra had no other thought than to end her life now, but Berry Punch wasn’t done. She turned back to the monitors and took hold of two joysticks.
As she moved the joysticks around, the slab copied her movements. The slab lifted itself from its horizontal position and positioned Lyra vertically above the vat itself. As she looked down, she was mortified at what she could see. Underneath all the thick, red liquid she could see the corpses of familiar ponies. Cheerilee, Derpy…
“Bon Bon,” Lyra whispered.
Berry Punch stopped to look at the broken unicorn. She admired her work. Like an artist, she gazed upon her masterpiece with a sense of awe and accomplishment.
“Now comes the fun part,” said Berry with a smirk.
Berry Punch’s hoof came down hard on a red button, which released Lyra into the corpse-infested water. Lyra splashed and gasped for air as she breached the water. As the blood swayed back and forth, the current pushed on Lyra’s injured hooves, making her cry out in even more pain than before, making it hard to breathe.
Before Lyra could get her bearings, Berry Punch jumped into the vat her self, walking atop the corpses to where Lyra floated helplessly.
“Stay still. It will all be over quicker if you just stay still.”
Lyra was horrified at her current situation. Her life was over and it was generous enough to give her a choice. She accepted the fact that she was going to die, so she stopped flailing, closed her eyes and nodded to the deranged earth pony.
“Good girl.”
Berry punch then climbed up the side of the vat and stood on the rim. As soon as she turned around, she jumped on top of the unicorn, crushing her ribs and spine. Berry Punch alternated her hooves in an up and down motion, breaking the bones underneath the teal coat. Lyra was in an unimaginable fit of pain. She let out one last scream before Berry stomped on her head, making the skull crush itself under the pressure and turning her brains into mush. Soon, the sick, crimson fluid leaked out of Lyra as she lay still atop the mound of bodies. Berry stopped, smiled and got out of the vat, ready to enjoy her new batch of wine.
Berry went to her secret cupboard and grabbed her finest, crystal glasses imported from Equinland. She used the blood on her hoof to rub the rim of the glass, making it chime in the darkness. She walked around the tub and found the nozzle. She filled her glass with a generous helping of her own handiwork and sipped. As she swallowed, she smiled her wide grin; her teeth stained a sickly red. As she sat in her favorite chair in front of the fire she checked Lyra’s name from the list.
The End?