Chapter 1: Sins of the Father
“Uh...I don’t think we need to sneak around...”

That night was the beginning of the worst times of my life. When he finally finished with me, the drunk left without a word, his legs wobbling from a combination of his inebriation, and the release stolen from my body still lingering with him. He left me, his daughter, alone and cold on the floor as he curled into a warm ball in his own room, likely sleeping better than he had since the day he was born. I was curled too, sobbing silently in the furthest corner from the mattress I could manage.

My body ached inside and out, from head to tail and soul to skin. Nothing he had ever done to me in the years of abuse hurt me as much as that one act did. He had hurt my body before with late night beatings to silence my screams and nightmares, he had hurt my spirit by crushing the flowers I had brought to him as a gift, but what he did to me that night destroyed whatever good I still felt toward the world. I had still been able to find happiness despite everything he did, whether it was through my art or talking with Felix about what he had learned, but after that…

I couldn’t tell you how long I was lying awake in that corner, the burning of my eyes hardly noticed in the pure misery that was my body and mind. I tried to think of why he would do such a thing to me, what I must have done wrong to have deserved such a punishment. But no matter how hard I tried, I could think of nothing to justify what he’d done to me. I wanted to wake up again, for it to just be a horrible nightmare that I would never have to experience again for as long as I lived, but that solace never came. I never opened my eyes to a greyly lit morning like I always had and found my body completely untouched and pure. I never received a beating for waking with a scream from the nightmare of what happened.

Instead when I opened my eyes, I still only saw a rustled and desecrated mattress at the center of a room which looked more like a prison than a place to live. I sealed my eyes again when they drifted over the mound of hay I had once slept on, never wanting to go near it again for fear that if I so much as touched it my father would burst into the room, pin me down, and have his way with me again. A new wave of tears followed that thought, carrying with them a vivid recount of what had just been forced upon me. Every burning second, every thrashing thrust…

I wanted to die, right there in the corner. I couldn’t shake the thought that those memories would haunt every living second of my day, never allowing me to escape from their torment until the moment my heart stopped beating. I had never considered what death may bring, that was a thought for older zebras than I, those who had long since left their childhood behind. What I did know is that right then, it could only provide me with relief and a way out of that living nightmare.

A second thought beat that idea from my mind; and Felix’s face came to the front of my thoughts. If I was gone, who would Father turn on next? Would he turn his aggression to Felix? Burn his books to warm the house and pull him out of the classes he loved so much to have another foal to do his cleaning? I couldn’t imagine him doing what he’d just done to me to my brother, I refused to even consider the thought. What I could see is little Felix being forced to clean the house, only to be beaten because he accidentally threw out a bottle still holding a drinkable amount of whiskey. I saw his books burning as Father smiled wickedly over the sobbing colt.

And suddenly, I refused to die. Even if the chance was provided to me right then, the stars themselves falling to my room with a quick ending, I would refuse. My misery may have been unbearable, but I would not leave my brother to take my place under Father’s hoof. I couldn’t.

When I finally stopped the tears, my body dried of all moisture, I rose shakily to my hooves. My legs throbbed with pain as I tried to make it to my door without a sound, my heart thundering in my ears. I prodded the door open with my nose and perked my ears, listening for galloping hooves as my mind presented a thought of Father sprinting down the hallway to tackle me. My legs almost gave out at that moment, begging me to return to the corner where I could at least feel somewhat safe from him. Instead, the sight of Felix’s door in the corner of my eye gave my legs enough strength to remain under me.

When I was sure the stallion had not risen from bed I slunk into the hall, making a quick turn to my brother’s door. My tail clamped between my legs during the few seconds I had my back to where my father slept, convinced it could protect me if he somehow snuck up on me in the darkness of our home. Only when I managed to close Felix’s door behind me did it relax, falling limply behind me to drag the tips of my hair across the floor.

The colt’s room was a complete mess, with books littered across the floor in no particular order, each open to one page or another and with corners folded randomly to mark his favorite parts of each story. My hooves barely missed many of the stacked books as I sorely weaved around them, careful not to turn any of the pages or push a book out of place. I may not have understood his organization, but I didn’t want to mess with his chaos.

My ears remained perked as I made my way to his mattress, listening for the lightest sound that might signal my father waking from his peaceful slumber. A rustling outside nearly sent me to my haunches again, my brain still torturing me with images of my father leaping onto me from the window ran to the front of my thoughts. The garbled screech of a carrion crow put my mind at ease, likely one of the birds searching through the pile of trash outside for anything to pick at. With a silent sigh of relief, I continued my quest across the littered room, picking my steps carefully and slowly until I finally reached the cleared area of Felix’s mattress.

I tried my best not to wake him, and gently curled my body close to his while his quiet snoring filled my ears. Once I was settled, my mind finally gave me some relief from the constant bombardment of violation, the feel of Felix’s body on my own calming my nerves enough to get more comfortable. I couldn’t call it a peaceful night of sleep, the thoughts of my father still ran through my mind and plagued my dreams with his presence, but at least I was able to sleep at all.

Imagine my horror when I woke the next morning to find that my glyph had imprinted itself on my flank in the night; a black swirl torn down the center in some twisted rendition of a heart. How kind of the Wasteland to provide me with a lifelong reminder of what had been done to me.

The years following that night did nothing to change my life. After figuring out how easy it apparently was for him to do what he wished to me, the stallion made it a point to do it whenever he felt the itch to be close to a mare. The only consolation I had was that he wouldn’t risk doing anything to me while Felix was home, which for the most part was every night before Father was home from work. While that kept me safe for a while, it didn’t work so well when the stallion decided to change the hours of the ramshackle shed he called a store to open an hour after Felix left for school. That change didn’t mean I was pinned and worked every morning, even the beast of a zebra I once called Dad couldn’t manage that kind of frequency, it just made it easier for him to do what he wished on the days he was in the mood. Luckily for me, that was at the most twice a week, and sometimes he had to leave town on business, providing me with a week or two of freedom before the stallion returned.

I never bothered to tell Felix what was happening, in fact I did everything I could to hide it from him, and the rest of the village for that matter. In my head I had somehow convinced myself that even if I did tell someone they would just ignore me because Father would say the opposite, and older zebras were more likely to believe him than his un-schooled, obsessed with her dreams daughter. I know Felix would have believed me, but but I couldn’t expose him to that, and I feared what Father would do if my brother confronted him about it.

So I guess you could say I accepted what happened, and was continuing to happen to me. As far as I was concerned there was nothing I could do to stop it. I tried asking him not to, telling him I was too tired or that I just wanted to sleep, but the brute didn’t care. He would tell me things like “listen to your father sweetie”, or “if you’re tired, I’ll do all the work”. So, instead I tried to adapt to what happened. I tried to make it seem more normal by convincing myself that every mare in the village had to go through it, but I still saw them happily trotting to class every morning with Felix chatting about one thing or another.

I considered joining them most days, all I had to do was walk out the door with Felix and go to class. It would be easy, and I might finally get to learn something new or meet some of the other zebras in the town again. I hadn’t seen any of the other fillies my age in years aside from watching them walk by our house, and I always wanted to join in the games they played in the street, but Father always had me doing chores while they played. I never did follow Felix to school, afraid of what Father would do if he found out I left. My life was already bad enough, and I didn’t want it to get worse.

The thing I regretted most was what I did to myself to make it seem better. After the first year, I tried to change how I thought of what he was doing to me, to paint it in a more positive, normal light. He would call me into his room, trying to sound as if it was a good thing for me. His voice would be calm, almost loving, the only time I could ever remember him speaking to me like I was actually someone he cared about since Mama was around. I tried to think of him as someone else, one of the other zebras I saw walking to class with Felix who might actually care for me if they ever got to meet me. I would close my eyes and picture one of them on top of me, caressing the body gently and trying to find some enjoyment in what was happening.

It never truly numbed the pain, and my body still felt just as hurt and filthy when I opened my eyes again, casting me back into sadness and hatred for the zebra I had just treated so well while he defiled me. I know now that doing those things only made my time with him worse, and that I had made him actually think I wanted it to happen. The only positive that came from it was that he seemed to treat me more gently when I cooperated. He came to me with more frequency after that, and it wasn’t until later that I realized why. I only tried to enjoy the moment for a few months before stopping, realizing how little it helped, and suddenly my life seemed even more hopeless with the thought that there was nothing I could do to end it.

But after four years of his torment, my eyes caught something that filled me with some hope for a way out; something to end what my life had become.

My brother was given a day off of school for the celebration of our village’s founding, a day when every zebra who lived there, with the exception of the guards, were given a chance to stay home with their families and enjoy the safety our town had provided us for generations. For me, the irony was almost painful.

I sat in my room, watching through the slightly opened door as my father carried a small metal lockbox from his room and set it down in front of my brother while he read in the front room.

“Hey buddy, I want to show you something,” the zebra told his son, a proud smile over his muzzle as he sat down.

Felix lifted his head from the book, looking up to the stallion with a questioning stare. The older zebra lifted a key from the top of the box, and used it to roughly undo the lock which held the lid closed. My eyes snapped to the object he lifted out, sparking along with an idea which popped into my mind. The old zebra held a rusty gun, much older than the ones I had seen Remnant guards and soldiers walking through the town with, but still appearing to be in working order. My brother’s eyes lit up more than even mine did, and he quickly sat up from his book to a lesson about shooting and repairing guns from Father.

As I watched, my brain began to process everything he did, placing it on a special page of my memory which was labeled with a picture of a bleeding zebra. I watched everything I could, not able to see where the ‘trigger’ he mentioned was, or the ‘safety’ as he called it, but I knew they were somewhere on the mouth grip. When he trotted to his whiskey cabinet, I expected the old zebra to pull out another bottle, but instead he pulled a carton of cigarettes out…nope, that’s full of bullets.

Another picture for my mental list was added; fake carton filled with bullets.

He showed Felix how to load the gun, how to aim it, and what happens to a wall when you shoot at it. I could picture the impressively sized hole in the chest of a zebra, blood coursing from the wound as his eyes dimmed and faded into emptiness.

All I had to do was get that gun.

Despite how quickly I figured out a plan after seeing the revolver and made my mental checklist, I was by no means a fast zebra when it came to actually putting my ideas to work. After seeing everything I needed, I still took another month to actually figure out where everything was. I knew where to find the bullets, that was the easy part. Unfortunately, bullets don’t do much without a gun to throw them at things. So I left those in the cabinet until I knew where the other supplies for my plan were at.

The next piece didn’t present itself until a few weeks later. My panting father lifted himself off of me, not wasting any time in quickly trotting to the bathroom just across the hall from his room. The water ran for a few seconds as the stallion cleaned himself up, not wishing to present a ragged appearance while running his small shop after a quickie with his daughter. He didn’t even bother going back into the room after washing, instead making a b-line to the front door and out to work for the day. Even if he had stopped in the doorway for a moment before leaving, I wouldn’t have noticed; I was busy curling myself into a ball on his mattress and trying to will the pain away.

I’m still not sure exactly why I chose to look into the corner of his room, or why I found the tan pile of leather interesting, but I did. I stared at it for a few minutes, trying to figure out what had drawn my eye to the pile. It was just a mass of old, torn apart leather that could loosely be called a set of armor. My father had worn it once or twice when rumors of nearby raiders put the town on alert, but other than that I had never seen him in it. I couldn’t even see how he felt safe in it with the number of holes and tears in the stitching that left half of his body unprotected, the vital parts nonetheless, and I certainly wasn’t about to try it on and see if it could help with what I had planned. Aside from the look of it, I discovered that it was the source of the stench which sometimes wafted into my room on especially hot evenings; the result of Father never bothering to wash the years of sweat and grime from it.

After a few minutes, I finally saw what had attracted me to it in the first place; a glint of light peeking through one of the holes at the bottom of the pile. Slowly, I lifted myself to my hooves, wincing at the pain between my legs reminding me of what I already knew. I didn’t worry too much about Father walking in on me as I made my way to the corner, he may have been a shitty zebra and an even worse parent, but running the shop meant money, and he loved money almost as much as booze and cigarettes because more money meant more booze and cigarettes.

Lifting the old armor in my mouth made me gag several times before I was finally able to set it down, threatening to bring up the stale bread I’d eaten for breakfast a few hours before. I thought it smelled bad, the taste was about a hundred times worse. Of course I was able to ignore the aftertaste when I saw what had caused the glimmer I saw behind the armor. The sight of that small black lockbox was one of the more beautiful things I’d seen in my life, and I couldn’t help but smile as I quickly lifted it into my hooves. I wanted to hug the gun waiting inside, give it many kisses, and then load it up and finally free myself.

Unfortunately, like the bullets in the cabinet were useless without this gun, the box holding the gun was useless to me without the key. I frowned as I realized this, staring at the box with a longing stare before placing it back in the corner where I found it. The good news was that I was able to check one more piece off of that mental checklist. The bad news was that I had to put the armor back.

His saddlebag. Why I didn’t think to look there before is a mystery to me, and I still can’t figure out why I didn’t think of it first. After all, it was a key for a gun, the only gun in our house, why wouldn’t he make sure it stayed with him everywhere he went?

The stallion had left his bag sitting in the front room one night before he went to bed, passing out drunk right in front of his door with his bag sitting next to the table. I had heard his body crash to the floor while I tried to get to sleep, and rose from my corner to see what had caused the noise. The house looked completely normal aside from the old zebra crumpled against his door, a thin stream of spittle draining from the corner of his mouth and onto the door his head had apparently decided looked comfortable. Felix was already asleep, probably not woken by the stallion falling.

My eyes passed over the bag sitting beside the table, barely visible in the darkness of night, but still sticking out just enough due to its light color. I thought nothing of it at first, but after a few seconds I decided that might be my only chance to check for the key in there. I was nervous about leaving my room, Father could have woken at any second with the awkward position he was lying in, and any noise I made could give his brain the kick-start it needed to get him the rest of the way to his bed.

I carefully pulled my door open and made my way to the table, watching my hooves constantly to make sure I didn’t trip over anything or crush an empty bottle. I made it without incident, and quickly began rifling through the zebra’s stuff. A few coins rested at the bottom, some scrap covered that, and a few little cloths that were stained with blood lined the sides. I didn’t want to know who’s blood it was, and I definitely didn’t want to know why it was there. As I dug my nose nicked something sharp, almost making me yelp in surprise as my head shot back out of the bag. A thin stream of blood ran down my muzzle, and I carefully checked again to see what had caused the cut.

Mixed in with the scrap was a short shiv, barely large enough to count as a weapon, but as I had learned, it was very sharp. I considered taking it, perhaps another option to the gun for what I planned, but if I planned to use it he would have to be asleep…like he was right then. A second later, the knife was gripped tightly in my mouth, and my eyes were glued to the passed out stallion down the hall. It would be easy; just sneak up behind him and jab the pointy end into his neck, take the bag of money, and leave. Even better; knives were silent, guns weren’t. Nobody would hear me kill him, nobody would even know he was gone until I was far away. I could be miles away in the Wasteland by that point, and I doubted anyone would come after me.

Except the Raiders…

The knife quickly slipped back into the bag. It would have made killing him easier, and I would have gotten the gratification of leaving that night rather than waiting, but I would still need that gun if I wanted to survive for any reasonable amount of time in the Wasteland. Even if the Raiders didn’t show, I was too familiar with the ravenous wildlife waiting beyond the gate; it seemed like every day I overheard someone talking outside about their run-ins with bloatsprites or radroaches, and those were the small ones. Rumors of larger monsters went through town on occasion, but it was still enough for my imagination to run with it.

With a frown I continued looking through the bag. It was a slow process in the dark, and I had to guess what each item I pulled out was based on how it felt in my mouth, but eventually I found it. A little metal thing at the bottom of the coins touched my tongue, pointed teeth on one side, flat on the other, and long like a stick. I quickly worked the key into my tail, messing up the hair as much as I could to ensure the metal was tangled into it until the time came to use it.

Now that I had the key, my thoughts drifted back to the knife. I could get the gun after killing him, grab the ammo from the cabinet, and leave. It was the best of both worlds; Father would be dead, I would have a gun and a bunch of ammo to protect myself until I got somewhere safe, and nobody would know what happened. It was too easy.

The knife found its way back into my mouth, the metal hilt cold on my tongue as I stared back to the sleeping stallion. My eyes were glued to his neck, perfectly positioned for me to thrust the metal into him without much effort. It would only take a second, and he would be gone forever, just one little thrust; a fair trade for the number of thrusts he’d thrown my way.

My hooves began to shake as I trotted down the hall. I didn’t bother to look down and watch my footing; my eyes were still glued to his neck, already picturing how to angle the knife and where to stick it. I stopped at the base of his hooves, only a few feet from his neck and my salvation, the knife beginning to shake slightly between my teeth. Just one thrust.

My teeth clenched down, my legs tensed, and in an instant I was on top of him. My neck flexed, and drove the metal deep into him. I didn’t expect the blood to seep over the metal and into my mouth, I didn’t expect the warm, metallic taste to flow over my tongue, and I didn’t expect it to feel so good. His body straightened out as the stallion leapt to his hooves, somehow completely free of any effects from his whiskey. I guess impending death will do that to a zebra.

I latched on as tight as I could to his neck, twisting the blade around in his flesh as he tried to scream, his words muffled by the blade cutting off his breath. Blood continued to flow, and my weight crumpled the stallion as his life slowly drained onto the floor. His bloodshot eyes stared up at me, filled with so much pain and regret. But the scariest part about them was the hint of pride…the first time I’d ever seen him look at me with pride, as I killed him.

I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on spinning the knife as much as I could. His pulse thudded against my chest; slower, weaker, and finally…it was gone. He was gone.

I stayed perfectly still on top of him for a long time, the knife held firmly in my jaw as I rested, taking in everything that had just happened. He was finally dead, my torment was over, and it was all because I finally stood up and fought back. I had been expecting to use the gun, to end his life quickly and without a fight. Instead, I’d drawn his misery out, and I think that was the greatest part of it for me. Father had put me through hell for my entire childhood, ever since Mama died he had done everything to keep me down. And for almost a minute, I had forced every ounce of that pain and misery back into him through the metal still lodged in his neck.

When I finally calmed myself, and the air of the moment passed, I pulled the knife from his neck and rose. Half of my head was coated in his blood, the red fluid streaming down my neck and slowly drying into my coat. What had once been warm began to cool with Father’s body, a final sign of his death. I returned to the kitchen first, placing the blade back into the bag before making my way to the bathroom. I tried my best to clean the blood from my coat, but only managed to remove most of the liquid itself, leaving behind a red stain on the left side of my face which ran into streaks down my neck.

After that, I quickly went into his bedroom, no longer worried about making loud noises which may wake him; dead zebras don’t wake up. The key took a few hairs from my tail with it as I pulled, wincing slightly at the pinch before grinning around the little piece of metal. It slipped into the lock without resistance, and popped open the lid with a click. The revolver looked exactly like it had the first time I saw it; rusty, old, and beautiful. I lifted it quickly, making sure the chamber still opened and that I knew where the trigger was.

Back in the kitchen, the gun fell into my father’s; no, my bag; beside the knife, clanging against the metal loudly as I turned to the cabinet. It took a few tries to get the right carton out, the one filled with ammo, and threw it into the bag as well. I would have loaded the revolver then, but I was in a rush. I had no idea how long it was before dawn, and I needed to get out of town before then; the guards might be suspicious if they could see the blood staining my coat. I checked over the bag, making sure I had everything I would need. As a last thought, I pulled down some Cram from the counter, leaving just enough for…

Felix…I had almost forgotten about my own brother! What kind of terrible zebra was I, that I almost left town after killing my father, and ditched my brother to be an orphan?

“Shayle?”

Speak of the Dark One…and after thinking of leaving him I call him the Dark One? I’m such a good sister. I looked up from the bag to see Felix standing in his door, rubbing one eye sleepily as he watched me ransack the kitchen for food and supplies. I froze, staring at the colt with wide eyes while I tried to think of something to tell him that wasn’t the truth. I’d already considered leaving without even thinking of him, and I wasn’t about to add telling him I’d murdered Father onto that.

“Hey Felix…” I said quietly. My brain worked in overdrive, thinking through everything I could say before finally thinking of what I hoped was the best option. “Hurry and get your stuff, we need to leave,” I finally said frantically.

“Why do-”

“I’ll explain later, just get your things, bud.” I cut him off, dragging the rest of the cans into the bag along with what remained of our stale bread. It seemed to work on his tired brain, because the colt quickly disappeared back into his room.

I pulled the loaded bag onto my back, grunting softly from the weight before stepping toward the door to wait for Felix. I quickly changed my mind and stepped between my brother’s room and the blood soaked body sitting in the hallway. It only took a few minutes for the colt to return, his bags seeming to be weighed down with books and not much else. He made his way straight to the door, luckily for me, still looking tired. I frowned to myself for doing this to him, but I couldn’t leave him behind, especially not with the new thought of him waking up to a newly dead body and his sister missing without a word. I couldn’t tell you what he would have assumed, but I knew it would be much different from what really happened.

I joined him at the door, pushing it open quietly and motioning for the sleepy zebra to follow me. The village was sleeping, as we should have been, and not a single zebra was out and about as we made our way quickly through the streets. I looked back to make sure Felix was still close to me a few times, and I could tell he really wanted to ask what was happening still. Apparently my urgency had spread to him, and the young zebra was still content with my promise to explain what had happened after we’d gotten out of town. I hated that I would have to lie to him again, but I didn’t think that telling my brother I had just killed our Father and stolen all of his stuff was the best thing to say. I sketched that task down further on my mental checklist, right below ‘think of what to tell him’ and ‘get out of town’.

Luckily, it wasn’t hard to avoid the guards who were supposed to be watching the Wasteland outside, their towers may have made it easy to see further outside, but they weren’t very good for watching directly beneath them. As we slunk around the base of the northern tower, I pleaded in my head for Felix not to ask me why we were sneaking past the guards instead of just walking out, and my luck that night continued to hold when the colt remained silent. Once I was technically outside the wall, I looked back and smiled at the yawning zebra who still followed.

My eyes darted around in the dark, looking for what to do next, and fell onto a gaping hole a few feet from the tower. It had been boarded up a few times, the older pieces of wood still clung to the sides loosely, but the center had been broken apart so many times it was no longer even bothered to cover it. I didn’t know where the hole lead, or what was in it, but I hoped it was somewhere along the lines of ‘away from town’ and, Caesar willing, empty.

I shot one last look to Felix before dashing to the hole and jumping in. I left the town behind, I left the corpse behind, and above all I left my old, crappy, hell of a life behind. And I even had my brother with me.

I couldn’t help but smile as I plunged into a shallow pool of chilled water.

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Footnote: Level Up!

New Perk: Black Widow - In combat, you do +10% damage to male opponents. Outside of combat, you might just think of especially creative things to say to members of the opposite sex.

Author’s Note: (A couple people I really need to thank for this: Of course I need to start with Kkat, for creating such an amazing universe for me and so many other writers to play with. Somber, for your work with Project Horizons providing me with a backdrop to start this story, thanks. And to the PH RP group, thanks for finally kicking me into writing this instead of letting my characters sit on a blank document on my computer!)