Candy - Undead

Entry for Halloween Contest! [link]

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This is a revamp of my Tricorn [link] . A different character here... but the same species.

Here is a mini-story (per contest requirements) giving a potential future for this poor character. Kinda wrote it on the fly... Please no critiques on the story or the piece for personal reasons. Thank you!

I give permission to all my clubs to display this.
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Beauty was forgotten.
Love merely a word.
The only thing that she feels is hunger and pain.

Hollow.

Reduced to a perpetual undead form she has nothing to love, nothing to cling too, nothing but an endless existence in an eternal death. She keeps moving, pacing constantly in the swamps for fear her bones and skin will lock up. The only thing to occupy her being the hunt. Due to her nearly unresponsive digestive system the only thing she can consume is rotting flesh. It is simple enough existence, considering not even the alligators dare approach her. She has a strange taste for humans.

Once, she knew one, but that memory was as faded as her true self.

A beautiful strawberry roan with a mane and tail as soft as human hair. White horns gently striped with blood red.

Slowly she wades through the swamps, snakes fleeing before her wake. Occasionally, her cracked hooves slipping on a mangrove root or cypress knee. If she remains in one spot too long her hooves sink deep into the black, putrid mud.

“Candy,” he would whisper, his callused hands moving gently over her soft muzzle as she nudged him.

A grating putting is heard amongst the chorus of frogs, as a floodlight moves about the trees, searching for alligator nests. She freezes, waiting, occasionally lifting a hoof out of the mud, gas bubbles escaping from the earth about her legs. She stands slack jawed, congealed blood as thick as the peat begins to ooze from her jaws, an unsightly replacement for saliva.

She was laying on the ground, blood from a slice on her neck pooling underneath them. Her master tried his best to stuff the wound, to no avail.

Clouds of insects alight from her dried, shriveled flesh as she shivers, and a few worms fall from her overflowing wounds. She moves closer to a tree, the hanging moss raining about her head as the hunter comes closer. A solitary man, spotting for gators, waiting for their eyes to glow red, a crossbow in his other hand.

The transformation was astonishingly painful, like always, but it was the only way. Her body shuddered mercilessly as hair fell from her, skin drew up, spurs tore their way through the flesh covering her spine. She would scream, he would hold her head tight and whisper gently to her. “I’m here, Candy, I’m here.”

The light sweeps at her legs, her long tongue slides through her teeth. Her victim notices movement and lifts the light above the water level.

Red eyes find him.

Years passed, and still she was his. His callused hand would still move gently over her muzzle, now nothing more but pure bone. He would still whisper to her, she would still follow him, nudging his hand and back as he goes.

But he died…

I shrill scream escapes her throat as she leaps for the boat. The human has no time to fire the crossbow, no time to turn… no time to scream before he is caught. Her head moves as quick as a snake, teeth grabbing each side of his face. Both are now in the water as he flails pitifully, his screaming silencing the frogs.

…And his children eventually died...

She breaches from the water suddenly, jaws still locked about his head. Fresh blood running down his neck as his hands grab for her jaws. Still screaming, still writhing in fear more than pain, seeing nothing but her throat. She gets to her feet, the water reaching her knees, and plunges him back in.

… And their children died…

She stands as still as a statue, stark contrast to the human thrashing wildly as she holds him under. Her oozing eyes sit just above the surface of the water, rolling about in her head as she watches for any predators, but nothing offers a challenge. The boat continues to putter away.

Her true nature was forgotten, by both her, and the descendents of her master. There was no human who greeted her with warmth. No one to care for. No one… ever…

He gives a few more frantic thrashings, eventually stills. She lifts her head, looking at the face just below the water. For a moment waiting for him to speak. Her ears rotate about as she nudges the face. It is a strange sight as she stands over him for several minutes, still waiting, her unblinking eyes taking him in.

With an odd resignation, she grabs her prey about the neck, dragging him through the water, coming near the shore. She then shoves, kicks, and paws his body underneath the roots of the mangrove, and there he will sit for days. Until his flesh is bloated and rotted… until she can finally feast again.

Slowly she wanders off… pacing about her swamp. Nothing ran through her mind or her heart.

Her empty stomach adding to the pains in every joint.

The meaning of her existence faded with him.

Hollow... forever.