I woke to the sound of hoofsteps crunching through the snow. My eyes shot open and I darted them around me. To my left, I saw that Dew Drops was slumped against the wall, fast asleep. My horn glowed and I levitated my carbine to my hooves.

I hugged it in my forelegs, listening as the hooves crunched closer. Closer. My heart pounded in my chest.

I slowly inched my way up the wall, trembling with every second that passed. I was afraid of what I might see. Outside the window, a dark mass with a flashlight was moving across the backyard.

I shouldered my carbine and flicked its flashlight to life.

“Star Glint?” I whispered, relieved.

The stallion turned, wrinkling his brows at me.

“Don’t shoot,” he chuckled quietly, “I’m just gonna take a leak.”

“Goddesses, you scared the shit out of me.” I sighed, “Just don’t stay too long out there.”

“Yeah, I might freeze my bits off,” Star Glint snorted, before trotting off once more.

I slid back down the wall and curled up next to Dew Drops. My eyes closed once more and I went back to sleep.

“Where is he?!” I heard Lightning Twirl scream.

I leaped to my hooves and ripped myself from Dew Drop’s embrace. I looked outside the doorway. “What the hell is going on?”

The pegasus stormed out into the hall wide-eyed and with her battle saddle bit clenched between her teeth.

“Star Glint? Where the hell is he?” she demanded.

“He’s missing?” Box Cutter asked, rubbing his eyes as he trotted out of his room.

“Well no shit, he’s standing right here isn’t he?” Lightning Twirl snapped.

I raised a forehoof. “Twirl, slow down.”

“Slow down?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Star Glint is missing, and … and you want me to slow down?”

Dew Drops followed me outside into the hall.

“Where’d you last see him?” she asked.

Lightning Twirl glanced over her shoulder. “We were sleeping in our room and I heard him leave – said he needed to take a piss,” she breathed, pacing across the hall.

I blinked. “I saw him last night …” I began, slowly, “Saw him walking out into the backyard …”

Her eyes widened at me. “You … you let him go out by himself?!”

“I-I thought he’d be fine –”

“We just lost Amber in a blizzard, and you think that Star Glint would have been fine walking out there by himself too? Have you lost your fucking mind, Red?”

Horror flashed across my face. I stumbled backwards, stammering, “I-I told him to not stay out there too long –“

“Goddesses, Red!” I winced as she jabbed a hoof into my chest. “You got Amber killed and then you let Star trot out there on his own!”

Dew Drops slapped Lightning Twirl across the face. “How dare you say that!”

Lightning Twirl touched her reddening cheek, glaring at Dew Drops in furious silence as tears welled up in her eyes.

“It wasn’t Red’s fault … none of it was!”

My ears wilted. My heart leaped inside my chest. I blinked, struggling to clear the blurriness in my eyes as the world spun around me. I found my balance when I fixed my wide-eyed gaze upon my hooves. But I could still feel the crushing weight of everybody’s eyes upon me.

‘What have I done …’

I looked up – and Lightning Twirl shot me a hateful stare. I met her eyes … her burning, teary eyes, and I knew just what I did.

‘I got another one of my friends killed.’

“I … I-I …”

I felt Dew Drops’ hoof rest upon my shoulder.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Fighting each other won’t solve any of this,” she said, softly, “Let’s go. Let’s find him. He couldn’t have gotten far.”

I gulped and peered outside. It was still dark. I wondered how long it’d been since I last seen him.

We hefted our gear and loaded our guns. I shivered beneath my barding as I zipped my bulletproof armor closed, and slipped my balaclava and mask over my muzzle.

I watched Dew Drops pack her saddlebags. Dew Drops paused for a moment to meet my stare. She pursed her lips, reaching over to touch my foreleg. I looked down at my hooves once more as she pulled on her balaclava, then her mask, and trotted out the door.

We followed Lightning Twirl into the backyard. It was an open field of snow. I beamed my carbine’s flashlight across the drifts and saw a faint trail of hoofprints snaking through the fresh powder.

“Everybody stay close,” Lightning Twirl said, loading rounds into her battle saddle.

I hoped to the Goddesses it’d never come to that. I was shaking uncontrollably and my mane was itching. I gulped with apprehension and trailed after the ponies into the charred, withering forest.

We followed the trail up to a tree not far from the cottage, and saw that the hoof prints ended there. We studied the yellow snow that puddled around the tree with weary eyes.

Box Cutter snorted, weakly.

“Guess he wasn’t kidding when he said he had to piss.”

Lightning Twirl and Dew Drops glared at him through their goggles. “Fuck. Sorry …”

I looked around, beaming my carbine’s flashlight across the gnarled, gangly trunks that slithered out of the snow. It passed over a pony-shaped silhouette.

“W-What was that?!” I gasped – gripped my carbine tight – and galloped after it.

My friends’ voices shouted after me.

“Red! What are you doing? Get back here!” Lightning Twirl screamed.

I didn’t stop.

“Star!” My voice echoed through the hollow, black forest. “Star! Star - where are you!?”

My flashlight dashed across a tree – and a dark mass ducked into the shadows.

“You – STOP!”

I raced after it, hurling one hoof after the other. The forest blurred past me. Branches broke against my chest. I trampled the brush underhoof.

I flashed my light into the trees and wrenched apart the darkness.

But there was nothing there. Nothing but the trees’ charred husks.

I stood there, shaking as the dead trees loomed over me, my heart thrashing inside my chest. My friends were a long ways behind me, their flashlights nothing but strobe lights in the distance. But I wasn’t slowing down. ‘I did this.’

‘I did this.’

I needed to find Star Glint. I lifted a trembling hoof and –

My EFS blinked. I slashed my flashlight across the contorted branches.

Two teal orbs stared back. The same eyes that I saw stalking the cottage from behind the trees.

“You son of a bitch!” I roared, galloping after it. “Who the fuck are you?” The eyes narrowed at me, and disappeared behind a tree.

I pounded through the snow, tearing apart the tracks that thing was leaving behind. Its silhouette darted through the trees - tree after tree - and each time I shined my light, I grazed its blurry outline.

Closer. And closer.

Flash.

Its barded flank escaped me.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY FRIEND!?”

“RED!” A distant voice screamed. But I didn’t listen.

I pressed onward, chasing it into the darkness.

My flashlight flickered. I froze in my tracks. All became still. The wind. The snow. The trees.

My ears perked. All I could hear was the pounding in my temples.

An eerie silence descended upon the forest as I stood there, looking all around me, staring into the quiet, motionless trees. I swept my light across the trail of hoofprints and into the distance.

A twig snapped.

My beam caught Star Glint’s coat as he trotted through the woods – away from a massive, frozen boulder. “St-Star?” I asked, shaking. No response. I gulped a lump of apprehension down my throat and started forward. I flicked my safety off.

I followed him in a daze. I stumbled after him until he disappeared behind a tree. When I reached its blackened trunk, I found that he was … gone.

I swung my beam across the brush. Nothing. Not even tracks. It was a dead end. The tracks simply … ended.

I rubbed at my eyes with my forehooves, trying to catch my breath.

I couldn’t.

My wheezing breaths hissed out of my lips as I turned and backtracked, flashing my light warily across the snow. I followed the strange hoofprints back to my friends, and returned to that massive boulder.

I gulped, and looked down. My eyes widened at what I saw.

At that boulder, the tracks diverged. One set trailed off into the darkness behind me. To that dead end.

The other …

My magical aura glowed a deep crimson as I gripped my carbine tight.

I followed the tracks past the boulder.

My heart nearly stopped.

‘Dear Celestia.’

Lightning Twirl, Dew Drops, and Box Cutter huddled behind me. Nobody said a word as we looked across the snow drifts.

Blood.

There was so much blood. It trailed over rocks, stumps, and beyond the reach of our flashlights.

“Guys …” Box Cutter whispered. He didn’t have to finish his sentence as he tongued his battle saddle bit and craned his neck, chambering a round. The others did the same.

I levitated my carbine and pulled the bolt back, loading a round into its chamber. I felt like my shaking would drill me into the snow and through the earth.

Lightning Twirl stumbled through the drifts, following the blood. The blood. We saw deep canyons gouged into the snow and patches of bloody hair littering the trail. But there was still no sign of Star Glint. My filters wheezed with vapor as I panted through shallow breaths. I had never seen so much blood in my entire life. Blood.

It was … everywhere.

We followed the trail at a pace that made it seem like we’d been out there for centuries. It dragged on and on, deeper and deeper into the forest. I couldn’t even see the cottage from there. The forest thickened around us … closing in. Their dead branches clawed at my barding as we trotted further and further into the darkness.

The blood led through and … and over … and around a ruined stump. It was as if someone had tried clinging to it only to be dragged away. Lightning Twirl unfurled one of her wings in our path, and stopped in silence.

She exhaled a cloud of vapor and glanced back at us, hesitating. With a shivering exhale, Lightning Twirl pushed through the brittle foliage. The branches broke against her barding and we crushed them beneath our hooves, following her into a clearing.

There he was.

Box Cutter tore off his mask and vomited into the snow. I blinked. And blinked. And blinked again. It had to be a dream. I kept telling myself that it was a nightmare and that I was going to wake up from it.

I closed my eyes, clenching them shut.

But when I opened them, the skinless, mutilated mass was still lying in the ashen snow at my hooves.

Lightning Twirl screamed, falling to her haunches and cradling the flayed corpse’s head in her hooves. She wrenched off her mask, reared her head to the clouds and wailed into the night, her tears melting the layer of frost that had formed over the carcass’ grayish, frostbitten flesh.

She hugged Star Glint close and let out a banshee shriek that shattered the dead, unnerving silence that hung over the frozen wasteland.

“Who the fuck did this!?” Box Cutter demanded. “Who. The. FUCK!? You sick … sick fuckers! You killed my friend!”

Dew Drops just stared … frozen … tears running down her blood-drained face.

Box Cutter clamped down on his battle saddle’s bit. “Where are you!? Show yourselves!”

A twig snapped behind us.

I whirled upon my hooves and beamed my light into the foliage. An amber-coated pony approached. She staggered towards us on precarious legs. Then I saw her limp.

“Amber Fields?” I shined the light up her body and my eyes widened at what I saw. The mare was blindfolded and gagged. Her flank was red with blood and her coat was adorned with random gashes that had long stopped bleeding. Her saddle bags were bloated with round objects that poked out of the black fabric.

Amber Fields’ mouth moved but all that came out was a muffled cry.

“Amber!” Box Cutter trotted towards her.

Amber Fields shook her head, screaming at him through her gag. Streaming down her cheeks and through her blindfold were streaks of dried blood.

“Amber … thank the Goddesses you’re … what … what the fuck?” I asked, taking a few hoof steps towards her.

“Nnnph … nnnph! SNNNFF BRRRK!” she cried, sobbing through her gag as Box Cutter pulled it off. He reached for her blindfold, his hoof grazing her cheek. But she swung away from him, shaking her head furiously.

“NO!” she cried out, her chin quivering as fresh blood began to trickle through the black fabric that hid her eyes. “Get away from me!”

We didn’t.

“A-Amber …” I barely heard Lightning Twirl say over the pounding of my heart. The pegasus approached, but froze midstep as Amber Fields’ voice silenced every sound but the hearts that pounded inside our chests.

“It’s too late now … I tried to die … I’m so sorry …” the mare whispered.

Lightning Twirl opened her mouth to speak, but the blood drained from her face. She looked up from her PipBuck and screamed.

“CONTACTS ON MY EFS –”

The night lit up in a yellow flash.

A scream bearing Amber Fields’ name was wrenched from my lips as the overpressure punched the air out of my lungs. I stumbled backwards - my ears ringing - and fell into the ashen drifts as a pillar of gore blew out of the cratered soil before me. It hurled Box Cutter off his hooves like a rag-doll. He screamed – until a face-full of snow silenced his cries with a jarring crunch.

He held up both his forehooves. They were gone. Only bleeding, ruined stumps remained as he roared in agony.

Laughter erupted from the darkness.

Black forms burst out of the snow around us.

I shouldered my carbine, pointing my flashlight beyond the crater that was once been my childhood friend. The crater that was once Amber Fields.

A pony.

It … she was garbed in thick barding that would have been white had it not been stained a disgusting mixture of brown and red. My light flashed over the frostbitten flesh of her muzzle and staring back at me, behind a pair of cracked goggles, were glazed, black-veined eyes.

I watched her, frozen in place. I remembered the night at the shooting range.

It was just a target. Just a target.

It was a pony.

Dew Drops screamed … but her voice was muffled in my ears.

“Here they come! RED!”

They were ponies.

A gnarled grin stretched across her lips.

The blood drained from my face.

“WE’LL CUT YOU UP GOOD!” the pony howled madly. She galloped towards me, flailing a machete over her head.

I toggled SATS and fired. My carbine burped a burst of 10mm rounds that ripped open her chest. She let out a hysterical, giggling cry before crashing headfirst into the snow. I watched as she tried to stand to her hooves –

And hooves pulped her into the snow.

They paid her no mind as half a dozen ponies stampeded after us with rusty, warped blades clenched between their yellowed teeth.

Box Cutter dragged himself out of the snow drift with an agonized moan and bit down on his saddle bit.

The night lit up with gunfire and ecstatic squeals of delight.

A stallion hurled himself towards us, screaming - and Box Cutter’s submachine guns flashed in my eyes.

Splashes of gore erupted across his body. He reared up on his hinds, cackling with anguished glee - until a stray bullet blew his brains out the back of his head.

I gagged, the taste of vomit lingering upon my tongue.

“DO YOU WANNA SEE WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE ON THE INSIDE!?”

A psycho stallion lunged at me with a butcher’s knife.

I leaped into SATS. In between two heartbeats, I tagged everything between the stallion’s barded neck and his frothing muzzle.

I executed my firing solution.

He caught the first bullet through the throat and stumbled, blood erupting from his neck in a splash of crimson. The bullets made their way up his face and the burst tore the damn thing off in a fountain of fractured bone and gore.

My heart nearly skipped a beat. I watched the pony’s cratered skull squelch into the pale drifts.

I just stared … my mind going blank.

‘I killed two ponies.’

“YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS!” Lightning Twirl cried, wrenching me from my trancelike state. Her wings unfurled and she launched herself into the air, lancing tracers through the charging psycho ponies.

Dew Drops screamed behind me.

A pony sunk a dull knife through her barding. The psycho tore the blade out of her and reared his head back for another stab. I cried out, and jammed my carbine into his chest.

I sunk the trigger back. Half a magazine’s worth of bullets erupted into his chest, muffin my gunfire with his squelching flesh.

His blood splattered across my mask. I gasped a shallow breath.

He gurgled out a frenzied laugh through a mouthful of blood, and slumped into the snow. I watched his legs twitch as his lifeblood pooled around him.

‘I killed him … I -’

Hooves slammed into me into the snow. I screamed - and a giggling mare leaped onto my chest.

“I bet you’re a pretty one,” she hissed, licking at my wheezing filters. She tore off my mask and balaclava with her hooves. “YOU’D LOOK BETTER WITHOUT A FACE!”

She reared upon her legs to stomp in my skull.

But a feathered blur crashed into her. Lightning Twirl and the psycho pony tumbled through the snow in a flurry of hooves and blood.

“Twirl!” I shouted after her as Dew Drops pulled me to my hooves.

Lightning Twirl shrieked and stomped her gory hooves as hard as she could into the mare’s chest. Her hooves blew snow skyward with a sickening crunch, launching herself into the air once more.

“You fuckers! Get away from me!” he screamed. The psycho ponies saw the gory stumps where his forehooves used to be, and erupted with laughter.

One mare leaped after him – only to be blown back and apart by a burst of submachine gun fire. Another knocked past the falling corpse, screaming for blood through his mask until a bullet tore it off in a shower of pink giblets.

He slumped into the snow. But they just kept coming.

Dew Drops and I shouldered our carbines. We emptied our magazines into psycho ponies left and right as they charged through the brush, trying to tear our hoofless friend apart in bloody melee.

Box Cutter cursed when his battle saddle ran dry.

We covered him, firing wildly into the night – pinning them down - holding the psychos at bay as he struggled to replace his spent magazine. They laughed and screamed - frothing at the mouth, our bullets doing nothing but driving their thirst for our blood to even greater heights.

There was a lull in the firefight. The psychos hurled themselves into the snow and ducked.

I lowered my carbine. At the other end of the clearing, silhouettes rose up from the brush.

Then something white hot punched through my shoulder and out the other side. I stumbled back. My blood trickling down my chest.

Muzzle flashes erupted from behind the trees.

“Get to cover!” Lightning Twirl shrieked as she dove into the canopy.

I dropped to my chest. Bullets screamed over my head.

That was what they wanted. They cheered, rising from the snow, and advanced, machetes held high.

Dew Drops ducked behind a tree trunk, firing her carbine at anything that moved. My blood leaked into the snow where I lay, but I clenched my jaw through the pain and screamed, squeezing the trigger until my magazine ran dry. I took a brief moment to slam a fresh magazine home and load a round into the chamber.

But that was all the time they needed. They threw themselves at Box Cutter as Dew Drop’s carbine clicked empty.

Lightning Twirl swooped down from the trees, legs outstretched to pull our friend to safety. But the psychos stitched her with bullet holes. She let out an anguished wail before hurling herself into the canopy once more.

“Box! No … no!” I cried, rising to my hooves only to get clipped by a burst of rifle fire. I hurled myself back down to the snow and watched helplessly as those psychos fell upon him like snarling, hungry animals.

I shouldered my carbine – but I couldn’t get a clear shot.

It was then that I realized.

They weren’t ponies.

They were monsters.

Box Cutter howled in defiance until his defiance sank into despair. He dug his gory stumps into the snow as they dragged him away into the brush. They laughed as he kicked and flailed and screamed - uselessly - leaving behind him a glistening trail of blood until he disappeared behind that curtain of cackling darkness.

His horrifying screams echoed through the trees. His gurgling, dying screams. He begged. He pleaded for us to help him. He pleaded for mercy. But there was nothing we could do … nothing I could do to save him. Only listen.

I listened to my best friend die.

Box Cutter shrieked into the night. Then nothing.

I watched with glassy eyes as the psychos cheered, firing their guns wildly into the air. I lay there in silence, my eyes glazed over, bullets blasting holes through the snow around me.

“No …” I whimpered, tears rolling down my cheeks. “BOX! NO! GODDESSES – BOX, NO!” I heaved myself to my hooves, and slammed my carbine.

I slipped into SATS and tagged three ponies for death. Glowing markers flashed before my eyes.

Head. Chest. Legs.

The closest pony lost her head. The next spilled his innards. The last pony’s legs blew apart and she laughed, tumbling across the snow.

“Red, look out!” I heard Dew Drops scream as a pony shoved the barrel of her rifle into my face. I swatted it away with a hoof and it discharged a three round burst a breath’s length away from my left ear.

I roared through the ringing in my ears, and side stepped into another pony’s machete, slicing myself across my barrel. I cried out, tears welling in my eyes as I fired my carbine wildly in a wide arc that launched the machete pony off his hooves and only mildly frustrated the other.

She snarled through her frothing lips before her jaw tore off in a flash of yellow tracers. Hooves planted the mare into the snow as Lightning Twirl barely stuck the landing. She turned to face me, and my heart sunk at the sight of her bloody, bullet-ridden barding.

A sliver of blood trickled down her lower lip as she met my eyes.

“Go!” she told me. I opened my mouth to protest, but Lightning Twirl cut me off, “I’m sorry Red, I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier … now go! I’ll hold them back!”

“Twirl –”

“JUST FUCKING GO!”

I stood there frozen upon my hooves as she launched herself back into the air. I watched as the psycho ponies arced their gunfire to the skies.

Dew Drops and I turned and ran.

I glanced over my shoulder to see tracers spear through both her wings. She shrieked in a burst of feathers and blood.

I watched helplessly as she plummeted out of the sky and into the center of a snarling, hungry mob. My eyes widened. I couldn’t stop watching. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t even hear her screams over their frenzied cheers as she disappeared beneath their falling blades.

I watched as they butchered Lightning Twirl alive.

“Twirl!” Dew Drops wailed, pounding her hooves through the snow.

“They killed her – they FUCKING KILLED HER!” I cried.

“Don’t stop for anything!” she screamed as we galloped into the woods with no direction in mind.

‘Anywhere but here!’ I screamed in my thoughts. ‘Please, Goddesses … anywhere but here …’

The snow erupted in front of us. They were waiting for us the whole time.

Dew Drops shrieked as three psycho ponies leaped toward her. She charged through the center, knocking one of the ponies to the snow and trampling him underhoof. But someone wrenched her tail back. Another wrapped her blood-slicked forelegs around Dew Drops’ throat.

My eyes widened as they wrestled her to the ground.

“DD!” I screamed, leveling my carbine and - hooves bucked it out of my magical grip. I roared and reached out to her with my hooves, only to have them swatted away. A psycho pony cackled at me through his bloody, mocking grin.

I spun around. My hind hooves careened into his ribcage. I felt his bones shatter against me. He wheezed – and I shoved him to the snow.

“R-Red!” Dew Drops choked. I swung my head to the sound of her voice.

My eyes widened as a psycho squeezed her hooves around Dew Drops’ throat.

I galloped straight into her and plunged my horn into the psycho’s chest. I ripped out of her and felt warm blood and gore splattered onto my face. The psycho loosened up to scream – and I yanked the pony off of her. I threw my hooves around Dew Drops' shoulders and pulled. She didn’t budge. Dew Drops howl clenched her jaw and screamed as the psycho behind her wrenched her back by her tail.

“LET HER GO! You mother … MOTHER FUCKERS!” I screamed, tears pouring down my cheeks.

I tore a rock from the snow and hurled it at the pony’s skull.

Crack!

He let go with a splash of blood and brains as Dew Drops dove towards me, her hooves outstretched.

I met her teary gray eyes for a single fleeting moment as our hooves touched.

Then someone bucked me in the chest.

… ‘no –’

I slipped away from her.

“NO!”

My horn flickered to life as I tumbled away, trying to catch her in my magical field and –

A hoof swiped over my horn and my aura shattered like glass. I wailed, flailing after her helplessly as my magic failed me when I needed it the most -

- as I failed her when she needed me the most.

I tore the scarf from her neck instead and smashed into the snow, watching – powerless to stop them.

Another pony forced her to her haunches.

“Run, Red – RUN!” she shrieked as someone sunk a knife into her chest, and twisted it. “DON’T LOOK BACK!” she cried out to me as the sounds of her tearing flesh and her horrifying screams washed away my resolve.

They broke me. They tore me apart.

They tore her apart.

Her bloody barding. Her bloody coat. Her bloody insides.

They laughed over her dying screams, and her screams echoed through my thoughts. They stained my memories red with her gore. Her blood.

Her blood … a stain that would never wash away.

“Hahaha – HAHAHA!”

I did all I could have done.

I ran.

Hoofsteps plodded behind me. A psycho pony raced after me, laughing hysterically.

“I’LL FUCKING SKIN YOU ALIVE!”

My forehoof caught a gnarled root and I crashed head over hooves into the snow. I felt hooves plow into me, pinning me to the ground.

I didn’t have enough fight left in me.

So I whimpered. I cried. I looked up and saw Star Glint grinning back down at me.

The pony was wearing his skin.

My eyes widened as the unicorn pony drove a blade down to my stomach. I threw my hooves out in front of me and caught it an inch above my chest as the psycho stallion pushed, and pushed, and pushed.

“BLOOD! AHAHA! BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD!”

I screamed, lifting a rock from the snow. I smashed it against the pony’s skull and his magic wavered. I forced myself up, gripped the knife in my teeth and slashed it across the stallion’s throat. Flaps of Star Glint’s skin gave way to his carotid artery.

The psycho pony giggled through a mouthful of blood, arterial red spilling from the gash in his neck and onto my face. I tucked my hind legs in and bucked him off me, crying as his warm lifeblood dribbled down my cheeks and mingled with my tears.

I stumbled away, sobbed, and ran.

Bloody tears ran down my face as I wailed into the night.

I galloped into the howling darkness, gnarled, black shapes blurring past me.

I galloped until their delighted, triumphant laughter faded into the distance.

I ran, and ran, and ran.

I ran as the winds of the balefire winter crashed against me. I powered through it, not caring where I went as the snow thickened and the blizzard closed in.

I galloped wherever my legs could take me. I galloped to somewhere that wasn’t there.

I plowed through the snow that buried my hooves. I forced my way through the white out without so much of a single shit given.

And I collapsed in the storm.

Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Burning the Midnight Oil-- You've learned how to fight the hard way - and you learned fast. +10% XP whenever XP is earned