You shudder as you lift the heavy, stained apron over your shoulders. How many times have you done this? How many more would need to be done? You couldn’t tell. It felt like they were getting more frequent, the fluids on your apron were rarely fully dried before you were putting it into use again. The thick reddish layer on the front was tacky under your touch.
You took a deep breath and pushed the shed door open. It was time.
“Hewwo mummah!” Sitting on the floor a green pegasus with an off-white mane greeted you. He smiled, so trusting, like they always were.
“Hello…” You trailed off, unsure what to call him. Names blurred together in your head, too many to keep track of.
“Mummah wan’ pway wif Weafy?” Leafy, yes, his name was Leafy.
“…Yeah. We’re gonna play a game.” Your voice was dead and emotionless as you shut the door behind you, locking it firmly.
“Weafy wub gamesies!” He hopped to his feet, doing a strange dance in excitement. “Wha am gamsie??”
“It’s called…” Mutilation. Sacrifice. Pain unending. “Pokies.”
“Pokies!” Leafy cheered as if he had always known what this was.
“Alright, you close your eyes and we’ll get started.” You reached for a tool hanging behind the door. An icepick, thin and sharp, its wooden handle stained with the same thick coating on your apron. Leafy closed his eyes, humming excitedly to himself.
You hated this part. As much as you hated the artificial creature sitting before you, in all its wrongness, you hated how much they trusted you. They came at your call, with simply the promise of shelter. They declared you their mother, and loved you as such. They would do what you asked to the best of their ability even if it meant their own harm. You could ask so much of them, take so much and they would never curse your name. They never feared you, no. Their brightly colored eyes gazed lovingly at you despite all your cruel intentions. You had heard that they were capable of cruelty, though not equal to your own, but those kinds were never sent to you. They were always soft creatures. Kind. Trusting. In need, of shelter, of food, of affection. In need of being cared for.
How unlucky of them. And of you.
You knelt down in front of him, lifting the icepick over your head in shaking hands. You hated what you must do. Leafy giggled to himself, feeling your presence. Gritting your teeth you swung the icepick down firmly just as one of his eyes cracked open, as they always did.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”
The icepick lodged itself firmly into the floor, glancing off the bone and pinning the creature’s hind leg down with it. A clean hit. You wasted no time, grabbing your small carving knife from the tools carefully laid out on your workbench with one hand and one of the creature’s wings with your other. With a practiced precision you sliced into the flesh, feeling it part cleanly at the slightest pressure of the blade, the skin parting, the sinew giving way. With a sharp tug the wing was free, a loose collection of feathers and bone in your hand. You dropped it in between you and the creature, reaching for the other.
“WHY HUWTIES? HEWP!” he cried, reaching its soft hooves out to you. His eyes brimmed with tears and sorrow, wailing in its distinctly child like-
No. Do not think about it. Do what must be done.
The second wing parted from the body as cleanly as the first, leaving you with a handful of fluff and feathers and a few small smears of blood on your hands. You sat back for a moment, catching your breath. Your ears rang from the pitch of the scream, your heart pounded in your throat.
“Mummah, Weafy hab huwties!” He sobbed. He tried to move towards you but cried out in pain as he jostled his pinned leg. “Why wingies faww off?”
They never blamed you. Not once. You took a deep breath. Your hand extended slowly, shaking in the air. Leafy leaned forward, hoping for an affectionate touch. Some sort of comfort to combat his pain. Your fingers dug into his thick fluff, finding the base of the ear. He closed his eyes, whimpering in pain but somewhat soothed by contact with you.
You pinched the tip of the ear, pulling it away from the skull.
“Weafy nu wike-”
With a slice, the ear is loose in your hand.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-”
Another slice, and both ears land in the growing pile of soft green appendages.
You shove your hand in the creature’s mouth, prying it open until the jaw pops. You were deafened to its screams now, whether that be from hearing damage or the pounding of blood in your ears. You grab the next tool, a set of pliers, and begin your work. One by one each artificial tooth gives way, a small rush of warm blood coating your fingers as you feel for the next. The creature’s mouth is so small, there’s little room to work. You could pry the jaw open further, or rip it off the face entirely but that would end this too soon. The parts are not nearly as important as the process. The ritual. The suffering. The creature’s eyes roll back in its head as you pull the last, threatening to give in to the darkness. You pop its jaw back into place, setting the last tooth carefully onto the pile.
You set the filthy pliers next to you, looking at the pink tinged spit that covers your hands. You wish you could wear gloves. You are grateful, so grateful, for the apron that covers your body, but this is all you are allowed. You must suffer too. You must feel the disgust, the revulsion, the bile rising in your throat for these things to be worth anything.
You pull the icepick from the creature’s leg and lift it over the bloody pile and onto your lap. The small ooze of blood from its hind leg lands on your apron, adding to the accumulated coating. You pet its mane gently, softly. It twitches under your touch.
“…Weaby… hab huwbies…” he finally babbles, his mouth unable to form even the normal broken speech his kind is known for.
As if you didn’t know. As if you were unaware of the pain you were causing him. He doesn’t blame you, he doesn’t even know this is cruelty. You continue petting his mane, feeling down his spine. He shutters sobs into your arm as you do, small trickles of blood run down his head from where his ears once were.
“One… two… three… four…” you count softly, feeling the small nub of a vertebrae under his fluff.
“…Mummah…?” He asks.
“Five… six… seven… eight… nine…”
“Wha am… numbahs?” the creature asks, lifting its head slightly. Ever curious. Ever naive.
“Ten… eleven… twelve… thirteen.” Such an unlucky number. You pinch the skin over the last vertebrae, and grab the next tool. A boning knife with a very thin blade.
“Nu wike!” it squeals.
You pin its neck down with your elbow as it begins to struggle. Carefully you insert the tip of the blade and feel the bone, ignoring the creature’s cries once again. The knife slips between the bones, severing the important connections that lie within. The hind legs go still, a splatter of fecal matter landing on the ground next to you to punctuate a mark correctly hit.
“Nu feew webbies” the creature whines as you pick it up by the scruff.
You set it on the workbench, where metal brackets wait for its tiny hooves like shackles on the pegboard. It takes little effort to secure it even now as it properly resists. You can see in its panicked eyes that it has put together that you may not be a friend to it. They stay locked on you as you start your work again, making a shallow cut across its midsection. It doesn’t scream this time, instead blabbering in dull-mouthed terror. A sign that you counted correctly. You do two more cuts on either side of the belly, the blood flowing freely across your hands now. It takes extra focus now that the knife is slick not to slip and take a chunk of it or yourself off in error. With the cuts made, you set the knife down and feel along the uppermost cut. The flesh parts easily with little pressure, your fingers feel the hurried breathing of the creature, its frantic heart beating erratically just inches from your grasp. With a firm pull, the skin peels back with a wet ripping noise revealing the muscles underneath.
“NU WIKE NU WIKE NU WIKE NU WIKE-” He- no, IT screams.
You dig your blood-slick fingers into the muscle, pulling them apart. They give as little resistance as the rest of the creature and its innards push out of the opening, twitching and writhing, now free of their captivity. You carefully move the intestines aside, reaching for the soft liver behind it. You sweep your fingers through the delicate connections, freeing the spongy organ. Softly, reverently, you tease it out, using your boning knife to sever the few remaining connections.
Setting it next to you, you look the creature in the eyes. It froths at the mouth, pink spittle dripping down onto its exposed innards. Its eyes do not contain hate, or panic, but betrayal. It still, in this moment, doesn’t hate you. You wish it would. It would make your work easier.
But then you would not get what you need.
You reach your fingers into its abdomen once more, feeling the delicate diaphragm at the bottom of the ribcage. It bulges under your touch, the pressure of the gut gone. With a firm press it pops, and a wheeze escapes the creature. You reach up, pressing the now useless lungs aside and feel for the pulsing heart. You look into its eyes as you do, waiting for a moment of hate, of resentment, of something other than its silent pleas for mercy but one never comes.
It can’t hate you as much as you do.
You wrap your fingers around the tiny organ, and with a sharp tug you yank it free. Long tendrils of artery snake out after it as you retrieve it from the soon to be corpse. You hold it, still twitching feebly in your palm, out to Leafy. He stares at it, not able to know what it is or its importance as he slips from consciousness.
You wait until the light leaves his eyes to set it on the table next to the liver. With your task done, you allow yourself the urges you suppressed for so long. You vomit into a bucket by the table, heaving small painful bursts of bile. Without thinking you wipe the last dribble from your lip and feel the blood cover your face.
You gather yourself, and start to collect your prizes. Wings, ears, teeth, liver, heart. All carefully wrapped in newspaper and set on the end of the table. The corpse unhooked from its restraints and set in a black trash bag. You avoided its dead gaze, its eyes forever searching for mercy that would never come. With the bag heaved over your shoulder and your parcels secure under your arm you could slink out into the cool night air. Keeping a close watch for neighbors prying eyes, you throw the black bag containing your sins into your trash and enter your home, feeling calm sweep over you as the backdoor firmly locks behind you.
Your home. A safe haven, free of the demons that torment you so. The removal of the stained and dripping apron is a burden lifted, hung by the door only to be put back when the whispers grew too loud to ignore.
Your parcels were sorted. The wings and ears taken out and pinned up by the radiator to dry, their uses to be revealed to you when the time came.
The teeth set by the sink to be washed, painted with the runes and turned into charms to keep the wandering spirits of sacrifices long past from haunting your dreams, as they so often did.
The liver placed in the fridge to be boiled and eaten later, to purify your body and heal the wounds you found on yourself every morning.
The heart you left on the table by the fireplace, you would have it pierced and trussed, ready for the fire as soon as you were clean. The drying blood on your hands and cheek itched, beginning to burn, and you needed to be free of it. Washing the blood of your victims off you was a process, harsh, scouring soap stripped all memory of your actions from your skin. You dried yourself on a kitchen towel, checking under your nails for any remaining filth.
A soft knocking caught your attention, and your heart sunk.
Pulling open your front door a crack, you saw a small blue form on your porch. It looked up at you with wide, hopeful eyes.
“Hewwo nice wady!” Another? So soon? “Sawwy nee’ wawm housie fo babbehs! Nice wady be nyu mummah?”
“Babies…” Your throat was dry, your voice barely passing your lips.
“Mhm-hm!” The fluffy turned and pulled a few small fuzzy form from her dirty red mane. “Sawwy am mummah! Daddeh say nu spechow huggies, an’ den meanie fwuffy gib bad huggies at pawk. Sawwy twy teww daddeh nu wan, bu’ daddeh nu wisten. He say Sawwy am whowe, an nee gu way. Sawwy nu wan gu, but-”
“There’s a shed. In the back.” you interrupted. “Go through the fence. I… cant have you in here.” Just this once, you prayed. Leave. Demand more than I can give, so I can refuse you.
“Dat am otay! Can mummah bwing nummies?”
“Yes, I’ll be right out there.” You shut the door as she waddled around to the side of the house, sinking to the floor. The horrible plans were forming in your mind, the awful process you must put this creature and her young through.