Flitter woke up this day and saw how dark and gloomy it was outside. The rain distracted her from the fact she may have had to call in to tell Rumble's mother she would not be able to make it today. She knew that it was Cloudchaser's turn for weather duty, and she was appointed to make it rain at 12:00p.m., Flitter was supposed to be at Rumble's on the dot of 11 o' clock. Oh well, she thought, I didn't really feel like foalsitting today anyways... She rubbed her eyes and stretched outwards, yawning quite loudly as she fell out of bed. She caught herself and then proceeded to stretch her wings. "I guess today is a rainy day... thanks to Cloudchaser... I ought to find something to do."
She had some plain oatmeal to eat for breakfast, and that was pretty much it besides some chocolate chip cookies she had been saving up for a girl's night out that Rainbow Dash promised her... five months ago... She wondered if the cookies were still any good, and upon biting into one, the pain the cookie left on her tired muscles said otherwise. It was as hard as a rock, and Flitter did not want to give them up. She poured a bowl of milk, as her glasses and cups were all dirty, and dipped the cookie into the milk, then biting into the cookie. The milk was rancid and spoiled. She coughed and gagged and blamed herself for not paying attention to the expiration date on the carton. She sighed as she used the oatmeal to get the taste of nasty, spoiled milk out of her mouth, but the oatmeal tasted no better, as it was stale and unmercifully assaulting her taste buds with its painfully normal after taste. She began to cry softly as she started to regret her choice of sleeping in. Her alarm failed to go off, and she feared what reaction Rumble's mother would have due to Flitter not being able to make it to her job today. The sound of the pouring rain and sounding thunder masked her sobbing, and she jumped upon seeing the flash of lightning arch across the sky through her window as it was followed by a sharp crack of thunder to whip at her ears. She looked on to her sorry breakfast on her table; her stale oatmeal, the rock cookies, and the horrid milk of last month's visit of timely death. The spoon with which she ate the oatmeal was one that Rumble had made her in school when the class was assigned to work on making something out of clay. She smiled at the memory, remembering the wide smile delivered to her by the young colt. He was so proud of himself, and he had the right to, as the spoon was so finely glazed in an iridescent coat that Flitter mistook his work for a professional's. Engraved on it's handle was "Thank you, Flitter! I wish you were really my sister!" Though, he had to write really small and it took up both sides. Now that she thought about it, it kind of rhymed. Flitter...sister... If said right, then surely. She began to miss him. His cheerful nature and pleasure to see Flitter at the door once again. How so would he react if his favorite foalsitter was gloomy as the day was with these bags under her eyes? He would definitely try to cheer her up though, as even a rainy day could not put a halt to his energy, and Flitter knew that from experience. It was just that would be how he would react if she were there... but she was not.
Flitter screamed and flipped her table over, spilling her terrible breakfast all over her tiled kitchen floor. The oatmeal in the milk, and the cookies scattered, rolling around the floor still, as some were crushed under the table. She lay down on the floor and stayed there for a half an hour, pulling at her mane and asking herself over and over how could she be so stupid? Rumble's mother barely wanted to be around him, and that's why she always had Flitter be his foalsitter. And she enjoyed it! She loved the joy and playfulness of Rumble, seeing his face light up when she occasionally brought him a gift, and how much he talked about his experiences at school. The colt was only happy when she was there, and he never got to see his brother much anyway. Heck, he did not even understand why he did not live with him and his mother. He told Flitter that Thunderlane probably moved out before he was born, and that because of this he and his mother did not get along well. He told Flitter that whenever he asked about his brother, his mother would hit him or just leave the room crying and cursing. A falling out had to have happened between the two. Flitter knew that Rumble was too young to know, and she herself was too scared to question Rumble's mother on the topic. She always seemed to tense and angry, so approaching her was hard, if not impossible. She remembered when Rumble had asked his mother for some money at a fair so he could get Flitter a sparkly bow. His mother not only rejected him, but began yelling at him, how he did not know how hard it was to get money, how much she struggled just to keep food on the table just so he could stay alive. She threw the money in her saddle bag at him, telling him that if he took the money he would have to live on the streets like his brother and end up dead like his father. Flitter only wanted to say "hi", but walked upon this instead. In pure disbelief, she turned away as quickly as possible and flew off before Rumble and his mother could see her.
Flitter was always reminded of that day whenever she saw Rumble, and concluded the only way to make him happy was to always be there for him... but she had been working herself for so long that it became so hard to keep up with the demands for her service. She immediately felt Rumble's pain and confusion... the cruel fate which came upon him today... it rained, and surely the rain represented the weeping of a pegasus. She walked over to her kitchen drawers and open one, picking up a long knife. She looked on to her life as it was falling apart. She only worked for Rumble's mother and occasionally did the weather. She never really asked for help when it came to things. She was always giving as much attention as she could to Rumble, taking him out to eat, to Pinkie's parties, to the beach, and even once blew her entire week's revenue to take him on a trip to Cloudsdale. She only knew now how her kindness was affecting her. She had no money, she could barely pay her bills, and food was a miracle here. Her only enjoyable times were the one's she had with Rumble. Maybe she should have not forgotten how much she needed him. She did as much as he needed her. She was a fool... She took the knife and cut her right foreleg. Watching the blood roll down, she remembered how she helped Rumble when he sprained his wing. They still managed to make fun out of that, and Rumble managed to laugh at his own pain. Feeling her very own pain, she slit her right foreleg again, and laughed at her pain.
Flitter gazed at the puddle of blood that was growing upon the floor of her kitchen. How it began to mix with the breakfast which she had earlier painted the floor with. Her blood gave her a sick arousal, and she found herself becoming drunk in this feeling. Guilt, loneliness, sorrow, anger, and regret all circled in her mind, and she stomped on the ceramic spoon which Rumble had given her. She did not deserve it. She felt as though he were too nice to her, her imperfections would forever plague their relationship. She knew only his existence, along with her sister's, were the only ones that would have kept her sane. But, something had snapped... it was Cloudchaser who was supposed to make sure Flitter got up if her alarm did not go off. The fault was on Cloudchaser now, but still the pegasus had to blame herself, that was why she felt so guilty. She could have, should have, would have done something had Cloudchaser made sure her sister woke up in time. Now Rumble was going to suffer; that cute, grey coated colt was going to endure hell in the company of his mother, and Flitter failed to be his Virgil... No, she had failed to be his Beatrice. She was his beauty, which blessed him all the days of his life. She hid him from the truth so he would not end up like his mother, brother, or father... She knew she kept him from all of that. She was his protector from all harms and dangers to ensure his foal like innocence. Now he had no shield to protect him from his mother, and it was all Flitter's fault. She still cried as she grinned at the slit in her foreleg. The rush of adrenaline from receiving the cut flowed with the pain so easily that bleeding became like music. The sky crying, and Flitter bleeding. The constant dropping of water droplets became drowned within her mind. It began to drive her insane, and she cut herself again.
Her eyes widened and she twitched violently, dropping the knife and stomping down her cut foreleg over and over to try and ease the pain. It did not work, as the pain was now eating away at her hoof. She screamed and began to kick her walls. "My life... it's just a lie..." she sobbed, falling back down as the pain began to become familiar within her. It went from a red hot flame to an icy blue coolness. She inhaled deeply and exhaled, taking in the rancid air of oatmeal, spoiled milk, and the little blood scent which emanated from the puddle of her red substance before her. This was getting to comfortable for her, and the little sliver of sanity warned her to not do it again. Not even once. Her bloodthirst and sense of dark justice craved for more blood, but Flitter herself wanted this to stop. She wanted to call for help. But she could not... she did not feel as though she could be saved. She did not want to be saved, for one. She lay down on her stomach and cut her right foreleg again, this time even deeper, and the blood squirted onto her face, under one of her eyes. The blood trickled down, giving her the appearance that she was crying blood. She licked the knife and began to see darkness in her vision, she felt a painfully drilling spike of a headache, and the she coughed as her throat felt as if it were burning. She stood back up and wiped the blood and tears from her face, looking at her foreleg again to examine the damage which she had inflicted upon herself. She was done punishing herself, and now it was surely Cloudchaser's turn. She giggled as she cried solemnly thinking of what she would do to her sister. She felt it was the best. She had to do this for Rumble, so he could know how sorry she was. "Rumble!" she nearly moaned in pleasure, taking the knife to her tongue and coating it in her saliva. "I can only imagine how happy you will be when that menace Cloudchaser is out of the way... When she suffers for allowing me to miss our yet again fated meeting! I'll never show up late again, Rumble! Rumble?! Do you hear me, Rumble?!"
The door opened, and the sound of wind trying to blow it open as Cloudchaser tried to shut it sounded through the house. "Whew! What a storm! I think I went a bit overboard..." she sighed, throwing her rain jacket into a white basket beside the door and happily strutting through the dark living room to the dimly lit kitchen which Flitter was inhabiting at the moment. "Hey Flitter! You oughta've seen what your sis Cloud did today! I was hanging with the guys when..." She saw Flitter crouched over in a corner, rocking back and forth while crying softly. She also spotted the fallen food and splatters of fresh blood, and the knife in the middle of the widest pile of blood. "Flitter! Flitter? You okay? Sis?" She nervously and cautiously walked over to her sister, who did not return a reply to her sibling. "Flitter? Can you hear me? I asked are you okay. Are you hurt? Did you have an accident while cooking? What's goin' on?" Cloudchaser put a hoof onto her sister's back, stroking her mane. "Don't cry... it's okay... I'm here, you can tell me what happened..."
Flitter's cries turned into light giggles, and she slowly turned to Cloudchaser while tilting her head. "What ever makes you think something is wrong? My dear sister?!" she screamed, pushing her down and punching her in the stomach twice. Cloudchaser threw up her lunch which she had just recently eaten, and she coughed violently, staring at Flitter with sorrowful eyes as she did not know what had happened or why. She struggled to get back up, but Flitter kicked her back down and sat on her chest with great force, cracking her ribcage slightly. "I believe you just have me a bit heartbroken is all! Teehee!!"
Cloudchaser's wings flapped to try and wriggle her out of Flitter's unorthodox hold. Cloudchaser's head and eyes darted in all directions, looking to grab onto anything that could help her, but Flitter had already picked up the knife and held it high in one hoof as the other was on Cloudchaser's neck, since Flitter scooted down to now be sitting on her sister's waist. "Wait...Wait! Flitter, can't we talk about this?! Why are you doing this? Did... did I upset you in any way? Did I do something wrong?! Did I do something to hurt you? Just please, tell me, why are you doing this?!" Cloudchaser began to wriggle more prominently, and Flitter grew tired of this, so she put a wing over Cloudchaser's mouth, forcing her to bite down on it. Flitter then stabbed Cloudchaser once in the lower abdomen. The pegasus' blood flooded over the wound and seeped to the floor, mixing with Flitter's blood. Cloudchaser let go of Flitter's wing and gave out a weak cry of hurt and confusion. Tears forced themselves from her eyes and her mouth remained open as she gasped for air and her trembling body still was tensing up while Flitter wringed the knife deeper into the wound.
"Oh Rumble would love me more, now that you're out of the way, Cloudie!" Flitter shouted, ripping the knife from Cloudchaser's stomach and slashing her sister's right cheek deeply. "We both foalsit him... but I can tell he loves me more... He needs me, and I need him! But you obviously want to hog him all up for yourself! You failed to wake me up today so I could go see him... you went out and did your stupid weather thing, while Rumble is left with his ass of a mother as the only one looking after him!"
Cloudchaser said weakly, with a quaking tone of pain in her soft voice, "What are you talking about Flitter? What does Rumble have to do with any of this? This... this isn't making any sense at all... Why?"
Flitter scoffed, "You will never understand... Cloudchaser... I can't believe I would trust somepony like you... I can't believe Rumble would trust you... He probably doesn't anyway... He's waiting on me, his beauty to come to his rescue to save him from that which of a mother he has! She's next... the causer of the most of his pain! She's..."
Cloudchaser choked back tears, and Flitter watched this. "Flitter... I don't know what I've done, and I really, really don't care what it is... Just please, Flitter... put down the knife and let me go. Please... I'm begging you... I,... I don't want to die by my own sister, Flitter. I love you, even through all of this... Just, put the knife down..." Cloudchaser reached for the knife, and noticed Flitter wavering in her resolve. She was about ready to drop the knife, but she gave it a tighter grip and rose it once again. "No!" Cloudchaser cried, closing her eyes and trying to push Flitter off of her. "No more! I can't take anymore of..."
Flitter dug the knife into the bone of Cloudchaser's left wing, beginning to tear it off slowly. "You value flying more than you do Rumble... Do you think he's worthless?" she questioned her sister. "I will not allow even my own sister to degrade Rumble in such a way!" Cloudchaser could not say anything, and her shrills cries sounded as wrong answers in Flitter's ears, so she stabbed her in the same spot again and again until the knife bent and broke the bone of the pegasus' wing. Beginning to faint as her sister manually ripped the rest of her wing off, Cloudchaser still had no words... there was nothing she could say to her sister. She could not even call Flitter her sister anymore, and she was sure that Flitter was no longer who she was. She always felt Flitter was never right, but she had never done anything to make her suspect she was this demented. Sure, Flitter was so attached to Rumble that he was almost like her little brother, but Cloudchaser would have never thought of her as obsessed with him. She could see the lust and insanity in Flitter's eyes. It greatly unsettled her that this may well be the last thing she ever saw. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, enduring more pain as Flitter continued to stab her in the other wing with a different knife until that wing was off as well.
"Yes... Now, feel it as now something precious to you has been taken away!" Flitter yelled at her sister, who had fainted from the pain. She gave a deep sigh of disappointment, and had no way to wake her back up. It had gotten boring with her anyway. She took the knife and drove it down the middle of Cloudchaser's chest, up to her neck, then ripping it out with a great chunk of her skin and inner body tissues. "Sister? I don't need a sister... All I need is Rumble..."
Flitter looked on to the ceiling, then at the pictures she had taken with Cloudchaser. She stopped her thoughts to process what she had just done, but could not do so as the ticking of the clock annoyed her. Time was annoying her. She did not have enough of it, it outran her and it stopped for nopony. Not even her. She began to cry as she looked upon the mangled body of her sister, taking her scattered organs and caressing them, then laying on top of her and hugging her tightly. The blood squirted on her, all over her face, and curiously she gave it a taste. It tasted like bits, and surely Cloudchaser would look down upon this, but as her eyes were rolled to the back of her head, she could not see anything. Flitter sat up once again and began thinking of Rumble, she got off of Cloudchaser and vomited once she caught sight of a line of her intestines stuck to her body. The smell was revolting, and she even urinated, slipping on her own piss and falling face down on the now defiled floor. She, as she was still crying, began to curse herself, calling herself weak. What had she just done? She had killed her own sister! If the authorities found out, then she would never be able to see Rumble again! Rumble would not even want to see her anymore. But she knew he loved her... was it the same way as she loved him? She knew she would do anything for him, including take away anypony that may keep her from him. Family included. That meant his mother was next. Flitter gulped in nervousness and shook, trembling like a newborn deer as she tried to stand up.
She crawled into the living room, onto the carpet, and found the door still open. She could see nopony outside, and concluded taking a shower would not be in her best interest right now. There was no time, and the rain would wash her off anyway. She spread her wings and tried to run out of the door, but her outstretched wings prevented that. Cloudchaser was most likely calling her a dumbass and laughing at her from the afterlife. Flitter did not care, she ran out successfully and took flight into the air. Afraid of being spotted, she took up to higher altitudes, not minding the occasional friendly shock from the clouds. It actually kind of turned her on, especially the hum that the electricity gave off as it charged. Her mind shifted, and she began to play a game with the clouds. A game she and Cloudchaser used to play, and she and Rumble pretended to play on land one day in the past.
"Okay clouds! You gotta see if you can shock me! If you can, then good for you, if not, you lose!" the pegasus cried, as the rain pelted her and forced her to land, as the wind held her back. Surely above these clouds was a sun, and she was going to reach it. No matter how cold it got, no matter how much she got shocked. "On your marks... get set..."
The cloud she stood upon shocked her, and she jumped onto another, it seemed she was a pole which the lightning was attracted to, and there was no escaping. The lightning was far to fast for her. She took on hit, trying to dodge another, but a completely different lightning bolt struck her. Taking that Cloudchaser had made this storm could suggest in a way, Flitter was still playing with her sister, but this was now torture. Maybe her sister's angry spirit was seeking revenge, and Flitter was merely getting the karma which she had coming to her. Flitter tried to get down from the high altitude which she currently was in, but her attempts of escape were futile. She dropped onto the surface of a cloud after being struck down from the sky trying to fly away. The cloud continued to strike her, and she began to sink from the cloud until finally falling from the sky. She slowly closed her eyes, not able to remain conscious from the shock therapy prescribed to her by the gods and goddesses of vengeance who now wanted her bloody head on a platter. She cared not about them.
The sight of the forest under her was welcoming to her sight, and she felt the branches of trees snapping under her while she ultimately lost her conscious fully once she landed in a phoenix's nest and felt the warm yolks covering her as the phoenix screeched at her unwelcomed intrusion.
She awoke, seeing the world upside down. Her body burned and ached all over, and she could not feel any of her body parts really. There was this burning feeling and a numbness. Possibly from the shock and the damage she had taken from the fall. She heard mumbling and laughing, trying to move her neck or her body proved fruitless as she was in too much pain to do so. Trying to speak, she only made a squeak, as she found her mouth to be taped shut. She began to cry once again, looking to the land behind her as she found herself to be moving. Her hair bow then fell onto the ground. Covered in blood and yolk, singed and falling apart. Her mane was then shifting to block her sight, so she did not see the clawed paw now put a blindfold over her eyes. She tried to scream, but a quick punch to the throat shut her up and let her trying to cough through the tape. She could not do anything but squirm, as the feeling in her body now began to return. This left her with even more pain than that which she was experiencing before.
It seemed as if hours had passed before she felt her captors or whomever had carried her from the phoenix's nest had slammed her heartlessly onto a cold ground. The cold feeling sent chills running through her nerves, and it burned her body even more. She cried helplessly as she trembled violently and pissed herself once again. She heard even more laughing, and struggled to move her legs to tear off the blindfold and tape, but her legs were still too much in pain and bound by ropes of some sort.
Her vision was flooded by the sight of many cloaked quadropedal beings with wings, the room which she was in was a circling madness of symbols plastered upon the walls. Many ponies, dead and alive, were being crucified on the walls, each impaled by a pole which was bent to pierce the ground as well. She heard their cries, seeing how young they were, how small the fillies were. Still clinging onto life, but so close to giving up. Flitter could not manage to even cough up vomit, and any would be blocked by the tape anyways. Candles dimly lit the ground, and the ceiling was completely blackened out by the lack of light. One of the cloaked figures approached her and tore the tape from her mouth, leaving her to scream, and as if it were a chain reaction, many of the tortured fillies stuck crucified on the walls also began to scream with her. A couple of the cloaked figures quickly acted to shut them all up, but Flitter remained alive, flinching at the sudden bursts of crying which bulleted from the dying fillies as they were finished off, she could not even bear to look. She shook uncontrollably, closing her eyes, opening them only after the crying had completely ceased. She was greeted by a head which one of the cloaked figures threw at her from the dead body of a filly. She recognized it. It was the head of Cotton Cloudy, a filly whom she had foalsat along with Rumble some day the current year. She heard that the filly had gone back to Cloudsdale with her family, but the hasted leave was too shady to be a move... they were foalnapped.
Flitter looked away, still sobbing, and found the ones to be before her a council of Gryphons. They looked intrigued with her, and the one to approach her was Gilda.
"You're surely the one," Gilda said, as a sick smile arched across her face. She stroked Flitter's wings and laughed as Flitter was too scared to retract it from her. "Welcome to the Hood."
