“Wake up, Sebastian. Wake up, damn you!”
A hard hoof met my face, startling me out of my disoriented haze. I was alert, at least… Still, I couldn’t see… I tried to move, but found it impossible. My arms were bound at the wrists to… Something… The rattling of wrought iron chains registered to me then. Why on earth could I not see!?

“Oh, you’re awake, Bunny Boy? Well then, we can start the show.” Rarity said.
Rarity…?

“Rarity? Rarity, is that you?” I drawled out.
The blindfold came off at that point, but the mare I saw standing before me was far from the Rarity I’d come to know… Her coat was still a magnificent white and her mane perfectly quaffed, but that’s where my Rarity ended… She wore a dress of crimson silk encrusted with diamonds, the most striking of which appeared to be stitched into her skin between her cleavage. Not unlike myself, she wore an eye patch. It seemed to be made of steel with a diamond inlay where her pupil and iris should be. From beneath it flowed a steady stream of fresh blood… A twisted smile plastered itself over her features when she turned her side to me and flipped her mane as though modeling for a judge.

“Do you like it? Vinyl put up a real fight to keep it. Never knew that pony had such fire in her…” the mare asked, then mumbled to herself.
It didn’t take long to realize what she was talking about. Interwoven with her own lavender locks were shocks of electric blue hair. The sharp points at the tips were unmistakable. That was Vinyl’s mane…
Vinyl Scratch… Known to many as DJ PON-3... Her tracks were hot, her beats unmatched… She was a beloved and well-known member of Ponyville’s community…

“What have you done…?” I muttered, my eye fixed on the floor. “WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE!!!?”
I was furious, terrified, and sorrowful all at once. It was happening again… A beloved friend had lost herself to the dark, groping hands of madness, and I, apparently, was to be her next victim. She had already claimed others as well… I was too blind… Too naive… Too… Too stupid to see what was happening!! Damn it! Damn it all!!!

“Stop thrashing.” “Rarity” ordered.
I wouldn’t listen. I kept thrashing… I had to get out… I had to stop her! SHE HAD TO DIE!!!!
My train of thought was interrupted by the sudden rush of pain that shot through my right cheek. She had a knife. I hadn’t noticed it before for some reason… It was a delicately designed twelve-inch long Stiletto. A fine piece of cutlery in the right hands… The hilt was made of bronze encrusted velvet of a hue matching my assailant’s dress.

“Now let’s see what little boys are made of…” she cooed as a chain chord was pulled.
Said chord was attached to a studded collar about my neck. The spikes digging into my neck starched upward, bringing me up with them. Already, I felt the blood sliding down my bare upper body… It hurt… And it showed…

Just keep yourself together, Cooper… Don’t you dare cry…
My chest was bare to her. The angle the collar had yanked me had made it puff out a bit. Rarity smiled at me and looked over my physique for a moment.

“You’re so handsome…” she said, giving a nod of sadistic approval. “But looks aren’t everything… I wonder what’s inside of you…”
With that, the mare sank a few inches of her knife into my chest, just near my sternum, beginning to carve away at an arc. She repeated this same motion on the other side. The pain was too much…
Far too much… The burning sensation that shot through me brought forth a gritted shriek that I couldn’t control. Worse yet, my tears got the best of me… They were flowing down my face, stinging when they seeped into the cut in my cheek. Once satisfied, Rarity removed the knife and licked it’s tip, slicing into her own tongue with it. A stupid look crossed her face… She… She liked it…? A masochist… Sick…

“Mm… Tasty…” she cooed, slathering the residual blood over her lips.
Rarity turned from me, sheathing her knife and began rifling through a drawer for something… She was whistling a tune I didn’t recognize, stopping once in a while to giggle. She drew forth a measuring tape, a pair of fabric scissors, and a few sewing needles which she proceeded to insert into her arm. I guessed she didn’t want to hold them…

“I’ve always found you outrageously attractive… You know that, don’t you, Sebastian?”

“Let me go…”

“And now… I’m going to mark you as what you are. Mine. I’m going to make you mine, Sebby… Mine forever…”
She drew the measuring tape over the new scar in my chest and gave a few nods as she measured, then scurried off to what appeared to be a furnace over in the corner, producing a red-hot branding iron from within its flames.

Oh God, please help me…
The young mare trotted back to me with delight gleaming in her eye. She waved the iron this way and that as she skipped… Once reaching me, she smiled.

“Are you ready?” she asked, the iron already close to my scar.
I didn’t want to speak… Only escape… Defy her… My only response was to gather as much blood and saliva as I could from my bleeding mouth and spit in her face. She took this with a smile.

“Snips and snails and puppy dogs’ tails… That is what little boys are made of…” she finished the rhyme from earlier and forced the iron into the wound.
The sizzling of flesh, blood, and sweat cauterizing filled the air… My jaw gaped, but my breath caught in my throat… I wanted to scream. To sob. To speak. To curse… But nothing came out… The tears streaming down my face intensified at this… My whole body was a taut as a drawn bowstring. I couldn’t move… My vision had gone white too… Had I died already? A heart attack, perhaps? Or maybe I was just in shock… The sudden rush of oxygen and orchestra of pain that rushed back to me very rudely informed me that I was alive…

And now… To finish you off… You’ll make such a nice coat…” Rarity declared.
Huffing like a whipped dog, I did my best to stand, being as my legs had helplessly folded beneath me, but another quick slash to my cheek wound startled me into dangling again. I had already given up… What else could I do…? My mind began to fill with despair as I began sobbing like a baby… Damn it all.. Only a month ago, I had been in a situation direly similar to this one… Being carved up and worse yet, branded like cattle by a mare that -given time- I might have been able to fall in love with… True love… I was going to miss it… My life had only begun, but here I was, about to have it all stolen away… I lifted my head slowly and watched helplessly as Rarity took her Stiletto between both hooves and raised it high above her head to deal her death stroke…
A pair of golden eyes shimmered momentarily behind my killer.

Wait a minute… I know those eyes…. I think…
I could feel the blood loss getting to me…
As the sewing machine met Rarity’s temple, rendering her incapacitated, a sight I hadn’t seen in a long time appeared. Into the light stepped a black cat… An American Bombay to be exact. She stood about four feet, eleven inches tall, weighed about ninety-five pounds and had the brightest eyes of anyone I’d ever met… Mesajinx Wilcox… My best friend…. She threw the machine down on the unconscious mare’s face just for good measure and crossed her arms over her chest, giving me a once over.

“Well… This is easily the strangest birthday sex I’ve ever seen. I gotta hand it to you, Cotton Tail, I didn’t know you actually enjoyed this kind of treatment.” she said. Whether she was joking or not, I couldn’t tell. Nor did I much care… I was slipping from consciousness fast.

“Shut up and get me down…” I ordered.
Just as my wrists were freed, I let the abyss take me.