☽︎ [ How to Kill Your Friends ] ☾︎

Chapter Twelve | Massacre

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Warnings: Animal death, severe animal abuse, major injuries, vomiting, human mutilation, human death 

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Early in the morning, it was time to go. We all made our way to the front door, which was already wide open, and out to the lawn where we'd released the horses. We got to the gate and we saw the horses, but not exactly in the state we'd hoped they'd be in.

"Oh my God!" Larkia shrieked.

"Jesus Christ," Elijah muttered.

Quinn and I both stayed speechless. There were no words we could think of for what we saw on the lawn.

Both Odin and Idun lay on the ground in a bloody mess with their saddlebags nowhere to be seen. How did we not hear this last night?

Odin lay motionless in a large patch of bloody grass. He had deep slashes and stab wounds all across his body and his throat had been slit. His stomach was cut open like the deer back in the forest and his innards were now outside his body.

Idun seemed to have gotten a worse attack than Odin had (which didn't seem possible based on how brutally he had been disfigured). She too was covered in slashes and stab wounds but she was left alive. She had a rope tied around her legs as well as one around her muzzle and her head behind her ears and under her cheeks, almost like a halter. The rope around her head was attached to the one around her legs so that she could not move throughout her torture. The worst part of it all was she was still alive. Barely surviving, but surviving nonetheless and breathing heavily. It was an unfortunate miracle.

I tried my best to imagine that Odin died before the worst parts of his attack but with Idun, I could not do the same as she had not yet passed away.

Quinn's weak stomach caused him to gag for a moment and then threw up in front of him. I felt sick to my stomach and retched but there wasn't anything to come out.

"I-I'm gonna get the shotgun," Lark announced. "It's the fastest way to kill her."

Larkia let go of me without warning and my knees buckled, sending me to the floor. She marched back into the house but soon returned empty-handed.

"The bathroom window is smashed and the shotgun is gone," She said.

"What?!" Exclaimed Elijah in a cracked voice. "How can it be gone?!"

"Oh no," Lark said. "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no."

"He took it didn't he?" Said Elijah. "Jesus Christ. This is not good, not good at all," he began to hyperventilate

"He's dangerous enough with only a close combat weapon," said Quinn. "It's so much worse with him having a gun."

"P-Perhaps he can't shoot a g-g-gun," stammered Elijah, starting to sound like me.

"He used t-to hunt," I said.

I hoped that Lark would help me up since I couldn't get off the ground alone but instead, she leapt the fence and sat beside Idun's head. She put her hand on Idun's bloody forehead and gently stroked her face. The ropes were too tight for Larkia to untie them so Idun still could not move. All that Larkia could do to help the mare was show her some gentle affection until she passed. She was far beyond saving but at least she wasn't alone.

I painfully clambered towards the fence and used it to stand myself up. Elijah and Quinn also moved towards the fence and watched Larkia as she sat so close to the once very aggressive mare. I could hear Idun's pained snorts and groans from where I stood. A cool breeze floated through the air, breaking the summer heat and making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I looked at Idun's belly and watched as she began to slow her breathing, her side rose and fell then soon became still.