Caved in
Everypony would tell you I was Rainbow Dash’s friend back then, so long ago. They are all wrong: I loathed her. Everypony did and we all had thousands of good reasons to. Still, it felt like I was the only one honest enough to recognize that something had to be done, so I planned her demise.
It wasn’t an easy feat, I can tell you that. For years I waited for the perfect way to get rid of her. I couldn’t just walk to her and let my back hooves do the job. What is the point of solving a problem if it just creates another one even bigger. I had no intention to finish my life locked in a deep dungeon, far away from my family and the farm.
I had to find a better plan, one that would have me walk away free and unsuspected. So all this time, I just stood in the background, letting her get all the spotlight, until I finally saw an opportunity.
It was in the middle of fall. The others had gone away to the crystal empire, but I had decided to stay because the cider festival was around the corner and the farm could use the business. But Rainbow Dash had suddenly decided to stay in Ponyville too, which shouldn’t have surprised me too much given her huge thirst for that liquid. I then slowly realized I would probably never get such a wonderful occasion to reach my goal.
Rainbow Dash would be drunk because of the cider and the others would be far away, incapable to interfere. And then I got the idea to use Rainbow Dash’s love for cider against her in the most perfect way I could imagine at the moment.
The idea pleased me.
I prepared everything and, when the day came, I waited a long time before showing up at the cider festival, to make sure Dash would have drank a lot already and made herself more of an easy prey.
Here she was. Laughing and bragging like always. Just looking at her was revolting me on the inside, but I found the strength to smile and came to her.
“Hey there partner!” I told her. “How are you doing?”
“AJ!” she replied with a suffocating alcoholic breath. “Am I glad to finally see you. I was afraid you wouldn’t show. Come join us!”
Her hypocrisy was insulting. I knew way too well she didn’t care one bit about anypony but herself. I looked around, but nopony was giving any attention to the both of us, way too preoccupied to satisfy their own needs and too drunk too. It was perfect.
“I can’t: I just found out my family kept a barrel of a very special zap apple cider down in my cellar.”
Her face lit up.
“A very special zap apple cider?”
“One of a kind. Would you want to come with me to taste it?”
“You want me to come with you? Of course! Let’s go!”
She tripped on one of her wing while trying to take off. I helped her get up again and we both began to slowly walk away from the festival, completely unnoticed by the crowd.
Once at the farm, I opened the doors of the cellar and lit a torch. A cold gust of wind engulfed us and a shiver went through my spine as the light of the flame lay on the grey and lifeless stones of the cellar.
I looked at Rainbow Dash and knew I had to reassure her.
“You know, there is no need to go down there right this instant. It’s night, it’s getting cold and you will miss most the end of the festival.”
“I don’t care!” she replied. “If there is zap apple cider on the line, I can’t really let it wait any longer, now can I?”
She sent me a weird look, probably trying to show how obvious her drunken reasoning was. She was smiling, no doubt because she was already imagining the taste of the cider I had promised her.
I grinned: she wouldn’t be disappointed.
We disappeared through the entrance of the cellar and began going down the long stairs.
“It’s bigger than I thought it would be.” Rainbow Dash noticed. “You’re always full of surprise. I like that.”
I understood she would soon find our long walk suspicious. I had to bring her to the furthest room and it felt so far away. I began to panic: my perfect plan was revealing its flaws. But Rainbow Dash herself came up with the solution for me when she let her hooves go over a series of cider bottles stocked there.
“I wonder what those taste like, don’t you?” she asked.
Surprised at first, I jumped on the occasion to keep her completely wasted and opened a bottle that I handed to her.
“I can’t let you just wonder when you could be tasting it.” I told her.
“Only if you drink with me.” she said.
I agreed and took a sip out of the bottle. She then emptied it from its content and let it roll on the floor.
“Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about. Isn’t it great?”
I nodded to keep her distracted. She smiled with that stupid smile of hers and we kept on walking, or, in her case, hobbling.
“Hey, AJ…” she suddenly said after a moment of silence I was enjoying.
“Yes Dash?”
“We are having another adventure together right now, aren’t we? Just like in the old castle that other time. That was fun too, right?”
“Yes, a barrel of fun.”
I could still remember that day, when she had shown to what length she was ready to go to humiliate and insult me.
“We should go into adventure together more often. Just the two of us. It would be great.”
I couldn’t stand to hear her mock me like that anymore. I saw a bottle of cheap cider and gave it to Dash so that she would just shut up. She drank it all in down in one sip and threw the bottle away, clearly proud of her accomplishment.
Of course, the alcohol made its effect and she began to stumble around and suddenly fell against me, which made me fall too as I didn’t expect her to be incapable to even keep her balance.
“Sorry.” she said.
But she was still smiling, and still looking at me with that stupid look of happiness. Exhausted, wasted, she snuggled her head against my shoulder and almost passed out. At that moment, she was looking like the little filly she really was. Stupid, incompetent, immature, childish, nerving, fragile, vulnerable, sensitive, innocent, trustful…
I began to doubt myself. What if my plan didn’t work? What if anypony had seen us leave the festival? What if anypony had seen us enter the cellar? And what if Dash was able to escape? What would she think then? What would she do then?
I shook away all those thoughts. I knew what I had to do and wouldn’t get another opportunity to reach my goal. Still, I had to take every precaution possible.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked Dash.
“Better than ever.” She replied.
“We should go back. You’re obviously not in a state to stay in a cold cave. You could catch a cold.”
“I don’t care if I catch a cold. It’s way worth it.”
“Don’t say things like that! Can you imagine if anything were to happen to you? Your health is precious. You’re respected, admired, beloved, you are happy and you shouldn’t risk it all for some lousy cider. A mare like you has still so much to accomplish, contrarily to me. You’ll meet a great stallion, you’ll have the job of your dreams, you can get anything you want from life. There is no way I’ll allow you to waste your life in my cellar: we are going back.”
I had already stood up and was ready to head back.
“I don’t care about all that!” Dash said laughing. “I couldn’t care less in fact. I won’t leave your company now that I’m here. After all, you promised me some great cider, didn’t you?”
I had every difficulty to hide how disgusted I was by her nonchalance. The disdain she was displaying, the way she was spitting on life was overwhelming me with fury.
“I’m not even sure the zap apple cider is really here. Come back to your senses! It’s just cider, basically just some apple juice that produces intoxication. Outside there are friends, hopes, the whole world and your whole life. Inside here there is nothing but cold stone, dust and darkness.”
“I choose the cider.” Dash told me, looking at me right into my eyes with that stupid drunken smile of hers.
“You really want to go to the end with this plan?” I asked her.
“There is nothing I want more at the moment.”
I just couldn’t believe my ears. I knew she was foolish, but it was better than anything I could have imagined. She was deliberately walking into my trap. Walking? What am I saying… She was demanding the right to jump right into it. I couldn’t hide my smile at the thought she was asking me to get rid of her and even the sight of my mad evil smile seemed to be pleasing her.
I laughed, she laughed too for whatever reason and we walked the last meters together, laughing like two best friends who just told each other the best joke in the world.
And what a joke it was.
I stopped and Dash crashed into the wall in front of her that the alcohol had hidden to her. She stood there stupidly, trying to figure out what she should do and I took the opportunity to fetter her to the stone with heavy chains. She was too astounded to resist and contented herself with smiling.
I threw the key away into the darkness where even I wouldn’t find it.
“Where is the cider?” Dash asked.
“I guess there is no cider.” I answered.
“Oh…”
She was thinking about the meaning of that revelation, but her mind was obviously incapable to process the information correctly.
“Well, so what do we do know?” she asked.
“We should just go back to the festival to join with the others I guess. Don’t you want to go back outside?”
“Not really.” she replied. “Maybe we can stay a bit longer. There is no rush.”
“As you wish…” I whispered, my heart racing like never before out of excitement.
I went to a corner and uncovered the bricks and mortar I had prepared. Then, I began to wall up the entrance of the room while Dash kept on speaking to herself.
“I’m having such a great time with you tonight. I hope you’re having as much fun as I am right now.”
I was focused on my work and couldn’t really understand all that she was saying. I think she even became delirious, because she spoke of very personal aspects of her life, things about her hopes, her fears, things I had no interest to hear the first word of.
I double my effort laying the bricks and mortar and with every brick I was laying, I felt a little lighter, as if whole parts of me were being freed, parts of me I had forgotten even existed, and that I’ve never seen again since.
I was only half way through with my work when Dash’s intoxication seemed to wear off at a very fast rate. She suddenly realized where she was and what was happening. Her first reaction was to pull on the chains to try and break them, which she had no chance whatsoever to do without my help. And I certainly wasn’t going to help her.
She then addressed me:
“What are you doing AJ? Is it some sort of game? I was worried for a moment, but I guess I can trust you, right?”
I deeply enjoyed the silence that followed. It created feelings in me that nothing else could have created. Feelings of power, feelings of freedom. The feeling to have become a goddess.
“I don’t want to play AJ.” she suddenly told me while I kept on working. “You’re scaring me. I don’t understand what you are doing. Please just let me go.”
“You said you wanted to come here. I didn’t force you.” I replied.
“AJ, please, what has gotten into you? Why have you fettered me to the wall? Why are you building a wall between us? I don’t understand. I just wanted to be with you.”
Lies, all lies! She knew very well what she had done to deserve her fate. I couldn’t be fooled by her pathetic attempt to appeal to my natural empathy.
I was almost finished with the wall and Dash had stopped begging. I had only five brick to lay. The fifth one brought me a deep feeling of achievement, as I knew I had gotten rid of a thorn in my hoof and life would be way better in the future. the fourth brick brought me joy, as I was envisioning a world without Rainbow Dash, that world I had wished for so many times. The third brick brought me a sudden deep feeling of pure rage. I had only two bricks to go and Dash’s reaction wasn’t satisfying me. It felt like my revenge was emptied of the satisfaction that I was expected from having crushed my prey. At that moment, I could have destroyed the wall and freed Dash just to have the possibility to exert my vengeance once more. She was stealing my victory and I almost couldn’t lay the last but one brick as my hooves were shaking violently under the feeling of utter defeat.
“I’ll be going now.” I told Dash through the last opening left.
Rainbow Dash finally decided to react and began to burst out screaming and struggling with the chains in a desperate attempt to free herself.
“Don’t go!” she shouted on top of her lungs. “Don’t leave me here all alone!”
I raised the torche one last time to see her through the little opening and the expression of despair on her face got imprinted in my memory.
I began to place the very last brick to finish the wall, but the brick escaped my hooves and fell on the ground.
“Applejack, please! I don’t know what I did to you, but I’m sorry. Please!”
I recovered the brick and raised it once again, but my hooves were shaking so much that it fell down a second time.
“Applejack! Help me! I need you, please! I’m going to die. I need you!”
I ignored her and took a deep breath. It was almost finished. For the third time, I raised the last brick and, this time, achieved to put it into place, completing the wall.
I went back a few steps and contemplated my work, absolutely horrified.
“Applejack!” shouted the voice of Rainbow Dash from the other side of the wall. “You can’t leave me! You have to stay!”
I went another few steps back. I was lost, I had no idea what I was doing in that part of the cellar and why I was hearing Rainbow Dash’s voice.
And then she said it.
“Applejack!” she shouted. “Applejack I…”
The two last words I won’t tell you, but I can’t forget them. They echoed in my head for a time that felt like an eternity and when I finally came back to reality, I only heard the constant and violent crying of Rainbow Dash, all alone on the other side of the wall, locked in the dark, chained to the wall.
“I hate you.” I shouted, but my voice died before it even came into my mouth.
“I hate you!” I repeated, but the sound of my voice was nothing more than a whisper.
“I HATE YOU!” I finally shouted and the sound of my voice reverberated onto the walls around me, as if they were shouting themselves “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you…”
I ran away, went up the stairs of the cellar as fast as I could and never opened those doors ever again.
My perfect plan worked. I never got caught for Rainbow Dash’s disappearance. I was entrusted to look for her around the farm. I was never even suspected and unless you tell the others about it, I’ll probably never have to pay for what I did. I’ve grown old and well educated. I look back and I’m nothing like the young innocent fool I was back then.
One day, I’ll go back into the cave, and I’ll break down the wall and free Dash from the chains. She is still there, she is still alive. I know it because I can hear her cry during the night when everything else is silent. She cries and sometimes implores me to unchain her, to tear down the wall. And she repeats her last words, over and over and over so I never forget.
I hated her, I know that now. I truly hated her. I hated her so much.
I swear I did.
[THE END]