The following is a non-profit fan-based work of fiction. My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and all subsidiaries are owned by Hasbro studios, DMX media and Lauren Faust.
Cheating Death
Written by Wilizin
Edited by AuthorGenesis and Anonymous
Chapter 5 - Growth
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Burning. My eyes shot open in shock from the feeling of intense pain all around my body. My blood itself felt like it was boiling through my veins. I found myself, belly flat on the ground, my mouth felt dry and full of dirt. Lifting my head was arduous, as it felt like I was weighed down by a tree. I brought my arms close to my chest only to be greeted with another shot of agony scorching its way across my back. I succumbed to the pain and fell upon my forearms. Coughing soon followed and each expulsion was joined by a wave of searing aches. My face fell into the dirt again and I began to sob, my tears mixing with the dirt on my face and the ground.
I laid there for what felt like an eternity, miring in my own anguish and mud. The darkness was all that I felt, all that I smelled, tasted and heard. My head pulsed with the beat of my heart sending the burning sensation all throughout my skull. So I waited, waited for the pain to subside, and for my strength to return. I know not how long I lay there for; maybe it was a few minutes or a few hours. Time at that point was of little use or purpose to me, yet it continued to march on around me soaking in my own agony.
Slowly the world around me began to come back into my senses. I heard the rush of the wind in the trees, the warmth of the sun as it poked through the small patches in the canopy, and the taste of dirt in my mouth. I coughed again and tried to clear my tongue of the offending taste with as much saliva as my dry glands would produce. Pushing off with my right arm I shifted my weight and flopped onto my back.
I groaned as I hit the exact spot where I was stabbed… I was stabbed? Was it a robbery? No… The manticore, right, that’s what it was. The details of my continued encounters and fights with the manticore came back to me as I shifted my weight off of that shoulder. I tried breathing in as deeply as I could, my chest rising and falling with my hands on top of it. The burning in my lungs subsided with each breath, fresh air cooling the heat in my chest. I opened my eyes to the splendor of the forest, only to shut them as the world was spinning around me, and made my head hurt worse.
Groaning, I shifted my arms to my side and pushed myself up with my elbows into a sitting position. Even with my eyes closed I felt dizzy, my whole body slowly swaying to the slow rotation I felt the earth tug me towards. My hand pushed against the ground and I pushed myself back onto my legs and into a standing position only to have my nausea return with a vengeance. I stumbled backward, but thankfully I bumped into a tree which helped me steady myself. The headache that I was experiencing at that time was not unlike having a vice tightened across your lobes while someone takes a sledgehammer to your sense of balance.
The world tilted before me when I opened my eyes, trees and the ground slanted at such an angle it was a miracle they didn’t uproot themselves from the gravity. But as soon as it felt like the earth was leaning to one side, then it flelt like it slid to the other, nearly taking me down with it in its pursuit of gravitational disturbances. I seized a nearby branch to use as a makeshift cane and leaned on it hoping it would help me weather the shifting ground beneath me. The earth shifted a few more times before it settled and the only thing I could hear was the deathly silence of the forest itself.
Taking a large breath I stepped forth and slowly walked forward through the woods. The shuffling of my feet brushing up against the forest floor and the snapping of twigs were my musical accompaniment for my journey. I hadn’t moved far before something caught my eye, a piece of stone was wedged into a tree. I moved closer and examined that it was the same stone that I had used as a makeshift dagger, its tip stuck into the tree and blood from the manticore still covered most of it. I grabbed it with my free hand and gave it a tug, yet it refused to budge. Setting my stick on the ground I grabbed with both hands and tried to pull it out.
Pulling back with both hands slowly made the dagger leave from its cedar housing. Then suddenly it popped right out having me lose my balance and fall onto my back. The wind left my lungs and I began another coughing fit as my body ached from more abuse. The pain in my shoulder renewed itself and my coughing did nothing to alleviate the pain or even displace it. Each cough was like a bag of nails dancing around in my lungs. I hoped I didn’t have any internal bleeding, that would make things harder to… harder to… something. There was something I was supposed to be doing, yet I couldn’t remember what. Why didn’t I remember?
“Of course you wouldn’t remember. It was a stupid and selfish goal to begin with.”
I shifted my head around to see nothing. I was sure I had heard something; it was a voice, much like my sister’s, yet wrong... Was I hearing things now too? I shook my head slightly to clear my thoughts of such stupidity, only to be greeted with the second coming of my headache. I ignored it as I had to get moving; who knew how long I had been out and whether or not that manticore was still alive and coming after me. Slowly lifting myself to my feet I grabbed my stick and steadied myself. I looked to my side and saw the dislodged dagger now free from the confines of the tree. I reached down and took it, sliding it into my pocket again. Now that my only defense was with me again I felt safer, albeit not much, but better than nothing.
I looked around me taking in my surrounding one last time. I saw above the canopy only a faint tip of a mountain in the distance… a mountain, yes I was walking away from it and towards something. Something important, that I needed to get to. I decided that was as good a plan as anything at the moment and I set the mountain to my back and began to walk slowly away from it. My pace sounding like the walk of an old crippled man as I treaded through the wood.
Everything was unnaturally quiet. It was the kind of silence that you only heard on the darkest of nights in the desert. The only sound was the wind and my steps. Not the sound of a wolf nor a bird call could be heard. The forest felt dead, as if everything had left due to fear or need. No, the only thing I could hear was organ music… organ music? I knew it was impossible but yet... I could heard music from a pipe organ right then. The forest around me began to darken as an opening in the trees formed ahead of me. The trees parted and seemed to melt together into planks, and from those planks formed into wooden walls.
Stepping through the entrance I came to an entry hall, the organ music now much clearer than it was before. Before me stood a double door, it too made of solid wood and the music poured in from behind those doors. I stood there wondering how these doors were here, and then I wondered more importantly, why? Seeming to answer my curiosity, the doors themselves swung open inward revealing the inside of a large high ceiling room. There were many wooden benches all filled with people, each one of them sitting facing away from me and towards the back of the building. I moved into the room to get a closer look at what was going on.
Rows of benches lined both to the left and right of me were filled with people I think I knew. Every one of them wore black, the men, the women, and the children. There were so many children, easily being one for almost every adult. They seemed familiar to me, like long lost memories of someone you knew, their faces were smeared and unintelligible, and they all looked forward from where they sat. Not a single one turned its gaze to me as I moved slowly down the aisle… the aisle, yes, that’s what it was called, and this place must be… a church.
A church... I had not been in one for a very long time. I questioned why all these people were here, and why the organ was still playing that tune. That damn tune that seemed so familiar and caused my chest to tighten with its continuing existence. I looked to the far end of where everyone was looking and I saw the altar of this church. It was bare, except for a pair of candles which adorned its sides. It wasn’t till I was closer that I saw what everyone was looking at. There gathered amongst an entire gathering of flowers, flowers of every kind imaginable in full bloom, sat a coffin.
My heart quickened, my breathing grew short, and my hands gripped the stick in them tightly as they shook. No. Not here. Anywhere but here. I pleaded with myself. I don’t want to see this. I have to go, I have to-. And yet I moved closer to it, drawn in like a moth to a flame. My mind begged and pleaded with my body not to continue with its advances, but it refused to listen. The very need to see drove my vessel closer and closer until the open lid end was close enough to see inside. As it came into my vision I stopped right in front of it. There. There inside the coffin, was my Sophie.
I fell to my knees and grabbed the edge of the casket as tears fell from my eyes. Why, why was I seeing this again? Wasn’t once enough? I cried with my head against the wood of the casket. Sobs echoed through the church with the organ underscoring my cries. The cold, blurred faces of the other patrons stared forward, heedless to my sorrow being shown in front of them. I stayed there, weeping into the side of that coffin as the music stopped. The next sound I heard was different, the sound of someone walking up to the podium on the corner of the altar, but the steps sounded all wrong.
“Thank you everyone for being here today to pay tribute to Sophie Jackson, the loss of a daughter, a sister and a friend to many.” Spoke a female voice, a voice which too sounded so familiar to me. I looked up, wiped the water from my eyes to see not a priest but a white unicorn clad in priest vestments standing at the podium. “The love and support that friends and family have given her family in this difficult time.”
I didn’t know what to think. Standing before me was Rarity, giving my sister's eulogy. But that was impossible; My Dad did that at Sophie’s funeral. How was Rarity here? And furthermore, how was this even possible? I stood there on my knees, my mind completely aghast at what I was seeing.
“Sophie was a bright girl for her age.” Rarity continued. “She was dead set on her goals and had a quick wit from someone so young. Her smile was one so infectious that it always spread wherever she went. Nothing would ever dampen her spirits, except for the worthless excuse for a brother that she had.” My fists trembled first in shock, then fear, and then anger. “It was him that originally was asked to give this eulogy, but he refused out of reasoning that he couldn’t do it. That he was too weak to express how much his sister meant to him in front of a crowd of loved ones. In his own weakness, he decided to sit and stare from a distance rather than express his feelings. That he would rather hide himself from others lest he show weakness. How petty.”
I leapt from my knees and dove towards Rarity screaming in rage. “Shut up you son of a bitch!” But my cries echoed through the room as I passed through Rarity like a fog. I fell onto my gut and groaned in pain, followed by yet another horrible coughing fit. I turned around to see that she was still talking, facing the crowd, ignoring me as though I was not there. Stick still in hand from my fall I propped myself up. “Don’t you fucking ignore me!” I screamed as I swung the stick right through Rarity. I continued to yell as I swung back and forth hitting nothing each time.
I gasped for air and leaned on the stick so I wouldn’t fall. I was like a ghost to them, an invisible specter, witnessing my sister’s funeral all over again. I’d had enough of it, these memories were poison enough and I wanted out. As I hobbled down from the altar, a path opened up to the side of the church. From it I could see it leading back into the forest. I steeled myself and walked on through it as I heard only the last few sentences of Rarity’s speech.
“Even though his father insisted that HE should give it as Felix had lived with his sister more than his father had after the divorce, Felix refused… How SELFISH.”
The last word was different, as though spoken by two at the same time. I whipped my head around to find… nothing. Nothing but forest behind me. Not a doorway nor panels of wood forming walls. The whole thing must have been a hallucination, a vivid one, too vivid. Was the wild magic of the forest working against me? No, it was just my mind playing tricks on me, had to be.
The forest changed little in sound or design as I moved onward. Each step felt a little more labored than the last. I stopped every few minutes to catch my breath, and each time I swore I heard a twig snap or a bush rustle I stopped both in my steps and breathing, only to hear the silence of the forest instead. Nervousness gave way to paranoia, was I being followed? Was something waiting around the next tree ready to strike at me?
“Mr. Jackson we need to talk.”
A new voice sternly spoke to me, causing me to jump in shock and whirl around to greet… a blue pony in medical garb. As soon as I gazed upon them the whole forest melted away, trees giving way to walls of solid cream and of floor made of tile. The scent of alcohol and sterilization swept though my sinus overwhelming them. The form of a hospital hallway soon became clear, as if I had whipped my eyes free of dust it had materialized before me. Sounds of heart monitors beeping and of people shuffling back and forth through halls came to me soon after.
“Mr. Jackson, listen, I know things have been hard for you lately, but this is your mother’s health we are talking about here.” continued the blue Pegasus. No, it was Rainbow, Rainbow Dash. She was standing there dressed in a doctors garments staring at me with an expression of complete contempt. “She’s been in and out for the past few days, and we’ve done everything modern medicine can do at this point. You need to go in and talk to her.”
“Talk? About what? The weather?” The words left from my lips shocking myself. Those words, they were the exact words I had said to the doctor before. After the funeral, I came a few times to the hospital with the intention to visit my mom, yet each time I would stop short of her room.
“Mr. Jackson, be reasonable, you are her only remaining relative and right now she needs you.” Urged Rainbow to me.
“She needs me? What the hell can I do that you haven’t done already? She doesn’t need me.” The words spat from my mouth like venom. No, why was I saying such things? No, the question was why HAD I said such things? This was like the replaying of my memories from the exact moment I lived them. I didn’t want to relieve these either. I was hurting, and lashing out, no I had to stop it, had to stop these memories!
“When people are in this state of on and off lucidity, the best thing they need is an anchor to help them back to being conscious. Please Mr. Jackson, you’re the only one who can help.” Rainbow’s face had taken on a desperate tone, like she herself was pleading with me.
“I’m not the only one, where’s my dad? Why isn’t HE here?” I asked sarcastically. Of course my father wouldn’t show. After the funeral he took off immediately back to his home across the country. The words I said had stung me, I couldn’t be saying this. No it had to be fake, a false memory. I would never do such a thing! I screamed in my head that it was all wrong, but deep down, I knew, this was what happened, what I did.
“Then why did you even come here, Mr. Jackson?” Rainbow Dash questioned me with a twinge of anger in her voice. Then I felt myself being pulled back, away from Rainbow, and away from my mother’s room. I screamed at my body to run, to get to that room, to stand next to my mom and embrace her and tell her to wake up, to tell her that I miss her and want her to wake up. The room however grew more and more distant, and then I spoke.
“I don’t even know.” I said, with nothing but apathy.
“...Some devoted son you are.”
My mind snapped as I wailed against whatever forces were showing me this. Soon after my last visit to the hospital, mom had fallen into a deep coma; they had no idea whether she would ever come out of it. The doctors said there was nothing that could have been done but I knew better, it was me, my fault, I should have been there at her side, there to help her on, yet I did nothing. And now she was gone, lost to me forever, trapped within her own mind, and it was my fault.
Was it because I was still grieving over the loss of my sister? Did I blame her death on my mom? These questions I asked myself that I couldn’t even answer. I don’t recall why I’d done what I had done, yet it had transpired nonetheless. It was foolish, why did I not go to her? Wasn’t the loss of one person so dear to me enough? Was I so willing to avoid doing anything out of fear of being hurt that I would let a wound fester and become infected?
I opened my clenched eyes not to find forest again, but a room filled with cubicles. I knew this place well; it was my lone purpose of existence after everything that had happened. My job and my sole being was right here, within these cubicles. My life consisted of going to work, and going home to sleep. Monotony had become the norm for me, like a dull pain you feel poking at a scab.
“Jackson!” Shouted a voice close to me. I flinched, I knew who it was, only one person every yelled my last name like that, my boss, Peter Harkness.
“I’m sorry Mr. Harkness, it won-” were the words that came from my mouth just like before. I turned to see not my boss standing there… but Applejack dressed up in a suit coat and tie and had an absurd comb over, just like my boss. She stared at me, like a parent with a look of disappointment.
“Jackson…” Applejack sighed and ran a hoof through her hair, or mane, whichever it’s called in this case, “This is the fifth time this month. Now I know you’ve had some tough times, and I knew your mother as she was a good friend of mine, that’s why I gave you this job so you could get started on something in your life. But I can’t keep letting you slide like this, you gotta’ shape up and soon Jackson.” She looked at me like she didn’t quite know what to say. As if she was on the tip of both yelling me out, but also pulling me aside and having a heart to heart.
“I’m- I’m sorry, Mr. Harkness, It won’t happen again, I promise.” I said almost automatically. I remembered this scene well, mostly because of what happened next.
“Listen” Applejack sighs while rolling her shoulders “Why don’t you take the rest of the week off. Go clear your head alright, get your stuff sorted out? But I want you here Monday 9:00 AM sharp, and no more being late either or else that’s it, got it?” She looked at me like she just didn’t know what to do. It’s not like I was making this any easier on her. Mr. Harkness was a good friend of my mom. They were friends ever since high school and he was always like an uncle that I never had. He gave me more breaks than I deserved looking back on it now.
“I-… I will Mr. Harkness.” I replied somberly. Did I really mean it though? I couldn’t remember if I did or not. The words felt hollow, with no life behind them at all. I turned around and everything dissolved away to the sounds of the city. But before it all went away I heard one last thing from behind me.
“Still wallowing in pity after all this time? You gotta stop lying to yourself.”
Cars stopped and went down busy city streets, busses opened and closed their doors to the multitude of passengers as they boarded and departed. The smell of smog and dust was in the air and swirled around me. The city was a great place for someone like me, looking to get lost. It’s easier to get lost into a crowd here than anywhere else.
I stood on a cement platform waiting. I knew this part of my life; after all, it was technically the last part of it as well. There I was on a train platform reading something on my phone, the words blurred to my memory and lost forever. People around me held their own small conversations about their lives, they themselves also blurred to my eyes. Yet there was one that was not, it was her.
A girl, not more than 9, she was blonde with a matching pair of shirt and shorts. She had on these hot pink roller blades that she used to weave in and around people on the platforms. ‘Why the heck aren’t her parents watching her?’ my mind asked. My gaze shifted back to my phone, reading whatever was so important to me at the time.
“Look at you, oblivious to the world around you and absorbed in your own little thoughts.” Scoffed a voice that was eerily familiar as it was disturbing.
I looked up to see just who was talking to me, to find no one standing near me. The crowds were all engaging in their own activities, either blind or not noticing me at all. The crowd on the other side of the tracks seemed to part as a new figure began to emerge.
“A pathetic excuse for a man, one who would rather stew in his own waste than clean himself off and continue on.” The voice said with more venom dripping off its words.
On the other side a lone figure stood. It was another girl, only this one I knew. It was Sophie, but it wasn’t, as her hair was matted and bloodstained, her clothes were torn and she had a look of pure disdain on her face. How, how could she be here? This is impossible! She’s DEAD! My feet stumbled forward in disbelief, how and why were questions that flooded my head.
“Sophie? Is… is that you?” I asked, I myself not even believing the words leaving my mouth. She continued to glare at me from across the way, her gaze never swaying, never faulting. It burned into me, like a searing flame from a red hot iron.
“Look at you now, so caught up in your own memories that you willingly walk to your demise. You’re appalling to even look at.” She said back to me, her voice cutting like daggers into me. I stumbled at her words right onto the tracks; this can’t be Sophie, not my Sophie. She would never say such things. And then the sound came.
The sound of a roar rang out, like a beast of untold darkness running straight for me. I then saw it, what had caused my end, and my journey, that train. Its guise was warped and twisted into a creature of darkness, a mammoth being of metal and black that came for me like the devil himself. It screeched a cry that would cause the bravest man to falter. I looked back to Sophie, still staring down at me from the platform, her eyes unfeeling and uncaring.
“I don’t even pity you anymore, you are just that weak.” She sneered. And then the beast roared again, a roar so loud my very bones quaked and shook in fear. It came for me barreling down the tracks, coming for me, and me alone. Bloodlust is what it craved and only my suffering would give it what it wanted. It cried out again in that otherworldly wail and my world began to slow down.
This was it, this was… is how I died. My life, naught but a man who spent his remaining years in life doing nothing but wallowing in his own discontent. Instead of accepting and moving forward I stood still and let life pass me by, not caring and not feeling. For if I were to feel, I feared all it would be was pain. And that was the heart of the matter, fear. Fear had driven me to introvertedness, to shame and repeating my mistakes. Were I to even attempt to change, the fear would grab hold and tell me, ‘no, you’ll just end up worse than before.’ It was my own twisted sense of self preservation that lead me here to this point. It was a foolish and stupid mistake, one that I easily repeated many times before.
Was this how my life would end, taken away by some monster I couldn’t even fathom of existing? Apparently it was. And I was tired, tired of being afraid, tired of running, of doing nothing but hate myself for my own stupidity. I just wanted it to stop, to end. There was nothing left for me, neither here nor back home. I was exhausted with all of it; just let it all end and be over with. I was done, and I greeted it with open arms.
…
A flicker. A flame. A small feeling in the back of my head. Why? Why was I so determined to give up? True, I was tired, exhausted, beaten, and sore. I had done nothing recently but make the same selfish actions over and over, was that the reason I desired to punish myself? Was this the reason I stared into the approaching beast with eyes drained of their life? No, it was because I was giving up. Giving in. Letting my own pain dominate me and force me to submit. All I had done was replace my fear with my pain for directing my actions and I had enough of it.
Yes, I was a fool—a stupid, selfish fool. I refused to be there for my family when they needed me most. For Sophie’s funeral, for my mom, and for myself. I made these mistakes and instead of bettering myself from them, I let them fester in my heart and let them poison my feelings and thoughts. Had I really come to Equestria to fulfill a promise? Or did I come here to escape from my own past? That didn’t matter now, whatever the original reason was it was unimportant. Right now I needed to make a choice; would I accept what I had done and allow myself to learn from my past sins? Or would I damn myself for my transgressions and let myself succumb to pain and misery?
I took all of one second to have my answer, and in the mind, that felt like an eternity.
Time began to flow faster again and the abomination of darkness and steel tore at me like a flood of demons. I rose to my feet, fire burning in my chest, this time not of pain, but of hope. I may have made bad decisions up till this point, but that is where it would end. Starting now.
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAH!” I roared as I charged at the creature as it charged for me. My voice filled with all the pain, sorrow, regret, and hope that I had boiling inside me. The feelings and the thoughts that I wouldn’t let my actions and consciousness be dominated by this thing anymore. I was done, not with my life, but with running away.
The beast roared back at me and our cries joined together in a chorus of emotion swirling around and echoing through the very stretches of time and space itself. I swung my arm back, winding up and preparing for my best and possibly last struggle for peace in my mind. And when we came within an arm’s distance of each other, I threw my arm forward with all my soul into that punch.
CLANKSH! The sound of metal striking flesh resounded, and for a brief second the world stood still. Then my hand punctured through, steel gave way bending like butter, glass and darkness shattered and broke into fragments around me. The abomination screeched with a ear piercing wail, one that coursed through my hands and body.
“No! MORE!” I screamed as I pushed into the beast and tore right through it. Right down the middle, the beast split off to the left and right of me. Metal and blackness tearing apart like paper to my touch. Blood and oil spilled forth from its inside covering me and the ground with its innards. I howled with rage as I pressed on, the amount of debris and scrap flying blotting out the sky. Screaming one last time I threw my other arm forward and punched it right through the center. A shock wave followed and cleaved the rest of its body right into two, each piece falling to a side. The death rattling wailing of the beast slowly died down as the rumble in the ground ceased as well. I had done it. I had slain the beast. I would no longer let fear control me.
I looked to my side, still standing there on the platform, completely unharmed by the debris or remains of the beast, was Sophie. No, some facsimile of Sophie. I growled at her, I didn’t know who, or what she was, but I’d had enough of her trickery.
“So you killed it? Like that is supposed to make a difference, you are still the same man you’ve always been. You just made another decision to continue your existence and let yourself be shackled by your own inane decisions.” She said condescendingly to me.
“Shut up.” I growled.
“What?” her expression changed for once. Maybe she didn’t expect me to respond, or maybe she didn’t expect me to talk to someone looking like my sister like that. On either accounts she was horribly wrong.
“I don’t know who or what the hell you are, but I am SICK of your games.” I raved at her “Ever since you’ve been calling me selfish, unfaithful, and a liar. Well let me tell you…” I took a step toward her. “You were right.” She falters and her eyes widen, that must have been the last thing she expected me to say.
“W...what?” her voice wavering, she took a step back from me, afraid?
“I was being irrational. I thought only of how to avoid my pain and how I could avoid confronting it as well. The thought of doing so had me making worse decisions. I let myself get so caught up in fear, that I let myself down. But not anymore.” I walked toward her slowly with each step. And she backed away, fear beginning to form on her face. “I’m through with trying to hide from my mistakes, I accept my actions and all the consequences that come from them. I will no longer run from fear, nor will I run from you.” At the last word I towered over her staring down into her eyes. She shivered with dread, looking up at me. I squatted down to her level and stared right into those quaking eyes of hers.
“Now listen to ME.” I said forcefully grabbing the front of her shirt and pulling her eyes closer to mine. “I never want to see you ever again, and if you take the image of my sister, I don’t care how not real you are, I will kick your ass from here to the end of existence. Now LEAVE.” I let go of her and her eyes remained locked to mine, yet they started to change, they softened and seemed to shine brighter than before. Then stepping back she looked at me one last time and smiled.
“Nice of you to finally come to your senses.” She smiled, this time not a smirk but of a soft gentle smile you would give to a family member.
“Go.” I repeated sternly.
“I am, and you won’t be seeing me again, and for that… I’m proud of you. Goodbye, Felix.” She spoke, her body fading away upon the last word. As soon as she was gone, so was everything else; the station, the wreck, and all the smells were replaced with forest. Once again I found myself back with the trees and silence as my companion. Yet this time was different, I didn’t feel quite as in pain as before. I felt lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I scoffed a little at the cliché.
When I stood up I beheld a sight I did not expect, the tree in front of me a huge fallen thing had been split right down the middle, the halves falling to their respective sides. I looked to my hands and saw that there were small blisters and splinters in my knuckles. Did I just break a tree in half with my bare hands? I began to chuckle, then it increased to a laugh, until I was roaring with laughter. I didn’t even know what was so funny; I just kept laughing and laughing.
The laughter soon died down and I sighed deeply. The tree was probably rotten to begin with, and probably already split as well. Breaking a tree in two with my fists... how ridiculous. I took my stick in hand and propped myself up, taking the opportunity to stretch out my legs and work the kinks out, hearing them pop. Afterwards I trudged forward back through the wood, my purpose now different than before. I may have come here to escape from my problems and use only the thinnest of excuses to cover my own real reasons, but now I was past that. I had a promise to keep, and this time I MEANT it.
My pace was steadier and quicker than before, making me feel like I was gaining progress this time. The sounds of wildlife slowly came back to my surroundings, and if that was any sign, I must have been close to the edge of the forest. As if to answer my guesses the canopy started to get less dense, light began to shine through and the forest became that much more illuminated. Much like the surrounding area, my sprits began to brighten. I was so close I could feel it.
“Eeeeyyyaaaa!”
My head jerked to a sound. It sounded like a scream, but that was impossible, who could possibly be in the forest, rig-.
“EEEYAAAA!”
There it was again, and this time I definitely heard it. I changed directions and walked as quickly as I could shuffle along as possible. Whoever it was sounded like they were in deep trouble and-
“Felix! Help me!”
My eyes shot open. No. it can’t be. I dropped the walking stick and began to run.
“FELIX!”
I sprinted. My feet pounded against the ground, my mussels cried out for me to stop, but I ignored it all for the one voice I thought I would never hear again. The screaming continued ahead of me and increased in volume as I got closer.
“I’m coming! Don’t worry, I’m here!” I shouted dryly through my parched throat. Branches and leaves whizzed by me, scratching and giving me new cuts and scrapes on my exposed skin. Light shined ahead and I burst through an opening in the tree line to see a monster… a manticore, looming over a small creature, a girl…
“SOPHIE!?” I cried out. It was her, it couldn’t be possible, but it was her! She was there dressed in the same clothes as the day of the accident. The manticore itself was a haggard sight, it had a ratty mane full of dirt and branches, it seemed to be limping on one of its paws, and its face was covered in blood… wait, it was the SAME one that I had been hunting me across the forest! The bastard was now cornering Sophie up against a very large tree and it was closing in on her. “No… NO, NO, NOOOOO!” I screamed, the stone dagger leapt into my hands as I ran in to save her.
The beast turned in my direction and snarled, even though he couldn’t see me, I bet he knew who I was. I sprinted right at him head on as the manticore raised up one of his giant paws to swipe me, but he would find nothing as I dropped to my feet and slid right under his legs. Using my momentum I grabbed the ugly mug’s scorpion tail at the base. I lifted my arm in the air and slammed the dagger right into the tail. The manticore roared out in pain and bucked back with its back legs. I shot off the ground, my arm still wrapped around the tail I had gripped, and I was flailed around and slammed into the ground each time the Manticore bucked. Groaning, I grabbed the dagger and jammed it in again and again and again into the wound, blood and poison squirted out with each attack. The tail was thrashing about both in pain and in its inability to hit the assailant harming it.
The manticore slammed downward in hopes of throwing me off, causing me to land on the ground and I could feel a crack as one of my legs bent back in the wrong direction. I shrieked in agony as my whole leg cried with a pain I had never felt before. I lashed out with my free leg and struck the manticore right in its groin. The beast buckled forward onto its front paws and howled in pain. I grabbed the manticore’s tail with both of my arms in a tight grip and pulled away from it, pushing away with my one good leg for leverage. The beast roared with rage and tried to lash out at me, but all it did was help me. Its quick movement gave me the necessary force to rip its tail right off of its back, the large wound I had made starting the tear. There was a sickening sound of ripping flesh as the tail came apart from the beast, the tail still thrashed around after I had ripped it free from its owner. My victory was short lived as my face met with a large paw.
I sailed through the air from the strike and crashed into a tree. The beast didn’t let up as it pounced right onto me, tearing its claws into my chest. I screamed and cried in pain, the creature was mauling me and I was unable to stop it. Blood, my blood was all over its paws. It lifted up one of its massive arms to strike me down, and it left itself open when it did so. I shot my free arm up and smashed its nose right into its face with my palm. It stumbled back clutching its nose as blood began to pour out of it.
While the manticore was distracted with its bleeding nose I backed up against the tree and stood on my good leg. The beast still clutching its nose didn’t hear me as I hopped towards it slowly. As soon as I came within striking distance I planned to end it right then and there. I raised both my arms up with dagger in hand, preparing to bring it right down upon its head. Suddenly the beast side swiped me with its paw and I flew to the wayside with my dagger flying out of my hand and landing away from me.
I rolled to a stop with my whole body shaking in pain. The beast stumbled around, its sense of hearing now being its only remaining sense to find me. I looked to my left and saw my dagger, embedded in the ground not more than a few feet from me. I shifted my weight with great effort; it felt as if my whole body was weighed down with a ton of bricks. Slowly I worked my way over to my blade, each shimmy causing a new wave of pain to shoot through me. Behind me the manticore roared at me, it had heard me through my grunts of movement!
I scrambled towards my dagger quicker than before, the manticore charging at me from behind. Closer I came, 5 feet, 4 feet The beast roared again as its heavy paws bounded across the dirt. 3 feet, 2 feet. The manticore charged and bounded off of the ground in a wide arch to pounce on top of me! 1 foot! I GOT IT! I whirled around facing the manticore as its jaws opened up to bite me in two. I shot my arm up with the dagger at its face hoping to strike it dead on, but I missed. The manticore’s mouth enclosed on my arm and bit down on top of it. I wailed as blood squirted out of its teeth and into my eyes. My mind began to black out, begging for no more. But I wouldn’t, I couldn’t and I would not let this creature kill me!
“I’m Felix Jackson!” I screamed at the manticore, “And I hope you choke on it you son of a bitch!” The dagger, still in my hand which was inside the manticore's mouth, dove upwards with a jerk of my arm. The rock blade pierced through the roof of its mouth and straight into the brain. I smashed the dagger with my fist again and again, its mouth not letting me go. With one last hit I stuck the dagger all the way into its skull with a disgusting sound of blood and bone matter being crushed.
The manticore’s eyes glazed over and slowly its jaw loosened. And then with a mighty ‘whoomph’, the beast fell on the ground, finally dead. My arm plopped out of its mouth hanging limply at my side. My head swirled with adrenaline and pain, I had been to hell and back, and I had killed a legendary creature of mythology. I would have laughed if I had been lucid enough to. My thoughts were interrupted as I heard a female voice behind me quiver.
I turned my head to see her, Sophie staring at me like she couldn’t believe it was me. I pushed off with my good arm and crawled slowly toward her.
“Sophie… are you *Cough*… okay?” I asked, the cough bringing up some blood with it that I spat on the ground.
“Aaa….aaa….” Sophie said softly, her voice quivering in fear. Achingly I inched closer to her, my body becoming heavier and heavier with each movement.
“S- *Cough Cough*… Sophie… I’m…” I croaked out. Blackness seemed to encroach on my vision and the world seemed to blur. My arm gave out and I slumped to the ground. I strained my neck to see her. She looked down upon me, and she had her hand to her mouth, shocked.
“My God... Sophie, *Cough*” I said as more blood come up. I held out my hand to her, wanting to hold her hand, one last time. “I’m… so... so sorry… Sophie.” My arm collapsed, as did my head as darkness enveloped me and the last thing I saw of Sophie, was a blur. A blur of yellow and pink.
---
Black, all I could see was Black. Black above and below, to my left and right. And there I stood, at least I THINK I was standing, while my mind raked itself trying to figure out what I was doing here. Oh right, I was dead.
Or was I? This all felt oddly familiar, yet completely different from what I remembered from the first time I died. I tried shouting out for someone, but no words left my mouth. Then something changed, I saw in the distance a glow begin to form, it was bright, brighter than anything I had ever seen before. The glow from it radiated warmth and something else. It gave me a sense of peace. The light enveloped me and I felt my whole body tingle at its touch.
I was reminded of old days when I was sick in bed as my mother sat on my bed and stroked my hair. That feeling of tranquility, of safety, and of love, that is what it felt like. The light grew brighter and soon I heard sounds. The sounds of chirps, bird calls of all kinds chirping in the distance, and then I felt something new. Warmness on my cheek as if caressed by a hand of a loving parent. Then my eyes opened.
The world slowly came into focus, I was laying down on my back. It was soft, possibly a bed? And I saw a figure looming over me whose shape was hard to make out and it said something in a soft voice. It moved away to the edge of the bed to check on my leg. It was wrapped up in gauze and a makeshift splint as far as I could tell, the shapes formed slowly and colors began to become sharper. Which is when I saw her at the edge of my bed, there before me, was a blonde coated, pink maned Pegasus... Fluttershy.
There was nothing that I had seen before that could have done her justice to how she looked. Before, all I had seen of these characters were just pastel colors on a 2-D plane, but this wasn’t animation, this was real and by God was it astonishing. Her coat was light yellow mixed with shades of orange around her hooves and tan around her eyes. Her coat shimmered in the light much like a horse coat would, yet the hairs themselves looked soft like catfur. Her pink mane was the softest shade of pink you could see, like cream and red mixed together and layered with light dashes of white at the tips of her hair.
From the show I knew their eyes would be big, and that remained true. What I failed to even imagine was how deep and full of color they were. When you look up close at an eye, you can see the waves of color and shifting tones within the iris. For ponies that shift in color was overwhelming. Her eyes were a menagerie of teal and cyan swirling around in a whirlpool of color. It was like looking at the spiraling pictures of Van Goph coming to life in the eyes of another living being. Then there were her wings.
Good lord her wings, they were the most otherworldly, angelic things I had ever seen in my entire life. Her feathers, the same color as her coat, were colored near the tips as if each one was dipped into a soft coating of tan. Her feathers looked as soft as goose feathers, yet as strong as an eagle’s. Her primaries seemed to flick about as she moved, maybe as a subconscious reaction, or maybe it was similar to a person flexing their fingers.
She gently ran her hoof over the splint checking to be sure it was completely fashioned. That’s when she hit a sore spot and I groaned. She eeped in shock and moved over to my head, her large cerulean eyes staring right into mine. I don’t think she knew I was lucid as she continued to speak something I couldn’t quite understand. She must have been trying to calm me down or maybe comfort me... huh, being comforted by Fluttershy after all that, it kind of felt worth it. I then started to feel something, a faint pulling sensation, one that wanted to bring me to sleep.
No I didn’t want to sleep. Not after all this, I wanted to be awake, to say hi and thank her for helping me. I had traveled so far and been through so much I didn’t want to rest, not yet. And then the feeling continued, and it increased. I realized what it wanted, and my mind cried out no. No! I didn’t want to go! I worked so hard to get here! I changed! I promised to be better about myself, to live life with no regrets and face my consequences, but the urge insisted. I wailed in my mind, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair at all. I couldn’t leave, not now, not like this. The inevitability pressed itself upon me like a looming shadow across my soul, time was so very precious now, for I had little left to spend. As she talked, I knew what I had to do. I didn’t have much time, I knew that. I slowly moved up one of my arms, and Fluttershy froze still.
I moved my arm slowly around her neck, she began to quiver, but that stopped as I pulled her into my chest. I held her in my arm, she didn’t even struggle, all she did was squeak out something that sounded like ‘…light’. I squeeze her firmer and tears began to flow down my face. I could feel her heartbeat through my chest, her breath as it left her nostrils tickling my skin. Her soft coat bristled against my chest and her soft mane gracefully landed on my face. It was the softest thing I think I ever could have felt, soft and warm, like a pet cat but much larger and much gentler than a cat could ever be. I took one last deep breath.
“Th…ank…you.”
---
“Alright Fluttershy, I just sent the letter to the Princess, hopefully she’ll get ba-” Twilight interrupted herself as she came into the room to see that the creature had her friend around one of its appendages and pulled close to it. Fearing for her friend’s well being, Twilight jumped over to her friend’s side. “Fluttershy, are you alri-!”
“Shhh, Twilight I’m fine.” Fluttershy spoke to her friend without moving her head to face her. Twilight stopped close to her friend and examined closely what was happening; it looked almost like the creature was… hugging her. “He just wants somepony near him, I think he’s afraid.”
“Right… afraid.” Twilight said unsure of the idea of this creature even being afraid of anything. Of the little Fluttershy told her this creature had come to Fluttershy’s aid when she failed to calm a raging manticore. The creature was able to take down a monster many times its size. Such a feat was impressive enough, but that fact that it did it while apparently already injured was astonishing.
“T-Twilight!” Fluttershy gasped, breaking Twilight out of her musings. Fluttershy turned to Twilight and Twilight say that tears were forming in the corners of her eyes. “His heart stopped…”
---
So here I stood, once again facing down Death itself. He sighed and shook his head. Then he looked at me, and though his face was indescribable I could get the feeling he took no enjoyment as what was to happen.
“I am sorry Felix.” He said somberly “But you know, you can not go back home now.” I sighed at his statement, but I smiled back at him.
“It’s alright, I kind of expected that anyway.”
“Well, we better get going then.” Death stated as he turned and began to walk away into the abyss of white nothingness.
“Wait, Death.” I asked, in almost a pleading tone. He stopped and turned around to face me; he tilted his head slightly and folded his arms.
“Yes?” he asked me with a tone that made me feel like he knew what I was going to ask.
“I know I haven’t given you the easiest time, and that you have all the power at your disposal to say no…” I said to him as I got on my knees, “but please, before we go, there’s something I have to do, I have a promise I made, and I intend to keep it. So please… please help me.” At the last sentence my voice broke and it came out in a sob.
He stared at me. For the longest time he just looked at me, as if weighing his options, or maybe he was just drawing it out to see if I would say any more. he then set his arms at his side and motioned me over.
“Fine, but you are forbidden to tell anyone about it. And if you do tell, I will deny it.”
I merely smiled back at him with thanks.
---
Somewhere, in some graveyard under a tree on a hill sits two graves. Etched on one is ‘Felix Jackson, beloved Son and Brother, May your spirit always be free and happy.’ Next to it stands another stone, this one reading ‘Sophie Jackson, cherished Daughter and Sister, may angels hold you in their arm and their warmth bring you peace.’ New flowers adorn both of the graves and the dirt was recently disturbed around the former. Flowers of every kind were placed there, from tulips and daisies to roses and orchids. It was a regular garden place upon these stones. The one thing that stuck out the most was a toy doll of a yellow pony sitting in front of the latter; a note had been pinned to it.
‘Dear Sophie,
I did it. Sorry it took me so long, she says she can’t wait for you to come and play with her. See you soon, sis.
Love, F’
