The tenth of September.

It was early in the morning - as in, two o’clock. For some reason, I found myself unable to sleep. I wasn’t particularly restless or excited; I just wasn’t tired. This was a common occurrence when I was a human, but after becoming a Windigo, it seemed to go away. Apparently it wasn’t gone completely.

I sighed, trying to force myself to keep my eyes closed as I snuggled into Asylum, who had nodded off a few hours earlier. For the first time in a while, even being in her embrace didn’t comfort and calm me enough to fall asleep. Instead, I continued to lie there, wide awa-

click

My ears flicked.

No other sound was made. Part of my brain wanted to ignore it, but the rest of my brain smacked it in the face and reminded it of all the movies where characters ignore strange sounds and five minutes later are hurt, dead, or have friends who end up one of the two.

I carefully slid out of bed, leaving Asylum behind. Moving as quietly as I could, I made my way out into the hallway.

Nothing.

bmp

I turned quickly at the sound of furniture being bumped. I realized that it was coming from below me as well, and made for the stairs. I trotted down to the first floor, looking around quickly before my eyes rested on the source of the sounds.

Standing in the middle of the room, with the traditional hand-in-the-cookie-jar look on his face, was Nimble.

“...what are you doing?” I asked, keeping my voice quiet so as not to wake up anypony else.

He looked back and forth, then shrugged. I slowly looked down at the floor, where a light trail of dirt led up to him. He followed my gaze, and his ears drooped.

“...what were you doing outside?” I asked. He shrugged again. I was rapidly losing my patience. “Nimble, if you don’t tell me...”

“Arrell? Nimble? What’s going on?”

We both turned to see False come down the stairs, mane messy and slight bags under her eyes. Nimble waved sheepishly.

“Funny you should ask, False,” I replied. “Nimble was just about to tell me what’s going on.”

She caught the tone in my voice, and looked at the colt with suspicion. “Nimble?”

Nimble gulped.

His parents were never dead.

They had been kidnapped and enslaved by diamond dogs, not killed by them. He only said they were killed because the dogs warned him that if anypony came after them, they’d kill all their slaves - his parents included.

Since then, everywhere he went, the dogs sent scouts after him to collect gems, metals, and other things they forced him to continue supplying them with. He had been stealing and carrying off these things right under our noses, and we never noticed.

He had just come back from another ‘delivery’. He thought we were all asleep. He didn’t count on my sleeplessness.

For once, I was glad I used to be an insomniac.

But what could we do? As soon as the dogs knew we were coming, they’d kill all their slaves. But we couldn’t just leave them, either…

knock knock knock

And the troubles just continued to pile up.

I went to answer the door while False, along with the recently awakened Asylum and Risk, kept an eye on Nimble so he didn’t go running off again. I opened the door to find a panicking light brown unicorn stallion, trotting in place nervously.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, more than a little irked.

“Sorry to bug you this late at night, sir, but-”

“Don’t call me ‘sir’.”

“Oh, um...sorry. Uh...A-Arrell...we have a problem.”

I sighed. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“The doctors and other staff at Ponyville Hospital.”

That got my attention. “What’s going on?”

He beckoned with his head. “Follow me. I’ll show you.”

As he turned to go, I turned back to face the others. “All of you, stay here. I need to take care of something.” After that order, I followed the stallion.

“...what. The bloody hell. Happened?”

My reaction was tranquil compared to what any regular pony would have said or done when they saw the scene I was presented with. The entrance to the hospital looked normal, if crowded - ponies were currently being refused treatment while the staff tried to handle whatever predicament I had been called in for, unless their injuries or illnesses were very serious, in which case they were being taken outside and into some small tents to be helped. The rest of the hospital was off limits.

The reason for that became obvious as soon as I walked down the hall.

The floor was covered in blood, and about half a dozen bodies of ponies were slumped against the wall. All of them had their stomachs, chests, or even heads cut open, and everything inside was ripped out. One of them was unlucky enough to have a watch stuck between their broken ribs.

I looked around at the bodies as we walked. One unicorn pony had their horn ripped off, used as an improvised knife, and now stuck in their lung, which was clearly visible to all thanks to the entire front of their torso being removed and turned into a mat for the pony to sit on. A pegasus pony had one wing completely missing, blood from the wound still actively pouring out. One particularly cringe-worthy victim had their heart taken out and replaced with a new one, but every single one of their internal organs other than that had been spread around the floor.

Obviously this wasn’t the most bloodshed I had seen, but it was definitely in my top ten list. Every operating room I peeked into, I wished I hadn’t; all of them were even worse.

And everywhere I went, I kept hearing some weird music.

“We don’t know where it’s coming from,” the doctor admitted when he noticed my ears flicking, taking a guess at what I was wondering. “It’s been playing ever since Dr. Cut picked up that scalpel.”

I sighed. “Never trust someone whose name can possibly be connected to violence.”

“He’s a bit of a rookie...he just got a job here last week. As soon as he picked the scalpel up...I have no idea what happened.”

“When did he pick the scalpel up?” I asked.

“About...half an hour ago?”

“...you have to be kidding me.” I gestured to all the blood and bodies. “He caused all this in half an hour?!”

The doctor nodded slowly. “Whenever anypony gets near him, he grabs them and starts ‘operating’ on them. He seems to know what he’s doing, but his work is so sloppy - not to mention he keeps doing things the patients don’t need - they end up dying pretty much instantly.”

“Where is he now?”

The sound of a loud banging on a door we were approaching answered the question for me.

“We locked him in this room while he was operating on somepony,” the doctor informed me. “The patient was dead of blood loss within seconds, but he didn’t seem to notice. We decided to just get out of there.”

I nodded. “Wise decision.” I knocked on the door. “Dr. Cut?”

“Oh God, what have I done?!”

We both looked at each other. The doctor had a look on his face that seemed to say ‘I told you’, but I probably looked more like my face was saying ‘Holy shit’.

“What’s wrong?” the doctor finally asked.

“Hang on.” I perked my ears up to listen. Finally, Dr. Cut spoke again.

“...looks fine to me. I’m sure he’ll live.”

I sighed. “Yep. That confirms it.”

“Confirms what?” The doctor seemed curious and worried now.

“We need to get that scalpel from him,” I replied. “He’s gone Surgeon Simulator 2013 on us.”

Author's Notes:

Two! Two new plots! Ah ah ah!

...yeah, I cut my break short.