Chrysalis woke up. That act itself surprised her; through the entire year-long journey, she had been incapable of sleep, relying on the love she pulled in from the space around her to remain properly conscious and alive. And sane.
The area around her was… dark. A different kind of dark than normal. Where have I ended up NOW?! She was furious at finding herself out of one uncontrollable situation and immediately in another. Some manipulator I am…
She was about to continue her ‘woe is me’ routine, until the dark around her began to lighten. As she finally got an understanding of her newest surroundings, she was hit by a feeling of dread. “I… wasn’t prepared for this…”
How best to start your day; A Daniel’s Guide. Step one; yawn excessively until your lungs are empty. Step 2; quickly recover your ability to breathe. Step 3; walk out of bed to the… Actually, I’d rather not get into much more detail.
I ran the tap water over my hands as the toilet flushed – oh, that was probably too much detail. Whoops.
Anyway, I washed my hands and looked up to the mirror to check my face as norma-
…
What.
…
“Wh… What.”
Now, I could be wrong, but I do seem to remember my left eye being a normal, brown one like my right eye. So why was it currently green – very green – and reptile-slitted?
I blinked. Several times. My hands in front of my face didn’t solve the problem either. I then used them to close my hanging jaw before I drooled on something. I mean, need to get my priorities straight, right?
I laughed, somewhat forcedly, and walked back to my bedroom. I lay down on my bed, and pulled the sheets up again.
Naturally, I then slapped myself. Hard.
“Ffffff… Ow.” I sighed. “…dammit.”
I went back to the bathroom, hoping I was imagining what I had seen. “…Nope. Well, this is new. ” I tried continuing my morning routine – making breakfast, getting dressed… not much else – and thankfully my new eye didn’t actually seem to affect my vision. It was a holiday for me, so I basically had the day to relax, like yesterday. I was sitting down at my computer, about to log in to the Bronies Australia forum when I seized up, my headache having returned with a vengeance. I felt insane pressure in my skull, nothing I'd ever experienced before.
I think I blacked out at that point or something. I’m not sure, because at that point my mind was… elsewhere.
“…hello?” I looked around, suddenly very confused. I was fairly certain my living room wasn’t a big white space last I checked. I looked around, and saw nothing but myself. So, already two strange things had happened this morning. This was getting out of hand, and it was only 8:47 AM!
“Ah ha! So you are my oppressor!” someone shouted from directly behind me, and I jumped in fright.
“Fff- don’t DO that!” I stopped briefly and considered something as I turned around, “Actually, who are-” I froze. Of all the things I expected, a fictional horse-like character was not one of them.
I opened my mouth and closed it several times, like a- “Will you stop acting like a fish, and instead explain yourself to me!” the character in front of me shouted, cutting off my train of thought. I slammed my jaw shut, and proceeded to slap myself again. I hissed a bit this time, since I’d put a bit more force in the slap than when I was lying in bed.
“…I don’t know why I keep thinking that will help me.”
“I will say it again; cease your foolishness and explain your reason for keeping me here! I am a Queen, not a lowly drone or pony!”
And with that, my suspicions were confirmed. So, for some reason I found Queen Chrysalis in front of me. As an intelligent person, I asked the only logical question.
“Okay, Queen Chryssy. Since I’m clearly not asleep anymore, did I get high at some point? I’ve never done so before, and I figure that since you're a figment of my imagination you’d know.”
She was positively fuming now. “Augh! That is it! If you won’t act sensibly, I’ll just have to remove you myself!” She charged at me, curved horn lowered to my midsection. I instinctively sidestepped to my left, before grinning as I realised that as an imaginary being she wouldn’t be able to hurt-
Her sharp horn cut into my right arm and left a large and painful, if superficial slice. I was too shocked at her making real contact to think about the pain, strong as it was. To add insult to injury, she kicked me with her hind leg as she passed, knocking me over. Apparently the white space did have a full floor, since I landed on what felt like hard ground.
Understandably, I was confused as to how what I thought was a hallucination was attacking me, and why I was feeling pain from this whole experience. I hoped I wasn’t simply irrationalising something else, but that felt unlikely. I opened my eyes, though I didn’t remember closing them, and looked up to see the changeling queen looming above me. I swallowed nervously.
“Now, I will ask one more time,” she said, her tone strained but filled with clear anger. “Why are you keeping me trapped in here?”
“…Okay, I promise you that I have no idea!” I blurted out, and scrunched my eyes shut. “I seriously have no idea where we are or what’s happening or why! This probably makes less sense to me than you!” I waited a few seconds and wasn’t met with further exclamations or stabs to the arm, so I opened my left eye to have a look at what she was doing. Thankfully, she was simply thinking. I hoped for my sake about nothing bad-
“Well, I suppose I should just kill you then.”
“WAIT, WHA-“
She drove her horn right through my heart and I seized up, clutching at the air and trying to breathe. I felt my life flashing before me, my breaths slowing and my life draining away…
…
…why did I still feel the same as before?
“Wait, I’m pretty sure I’ve just been stabbed in the heart. Why am I still okay?” Chrysalis, her horn now out of my chest and dripping with what I assumed was my blood, was staring at me in shock. I looked around my chest and saw a very clear hole. I unfortunately looked inside and nearly lost my breakfast. Or rather, I instinctively dry-heaved, then realised I didn’t actually feel sick in my stomach as I would normally be. I looked up at the Queen again, as she was slowly backing away from me. “I get the feeling you understand why I’m not dead.”
She cursed under her breath and sat down, shaking her horn free of my blood. “I believe I might, unfortunate as it might be. We are in some sort of non-real dimension created by your psyche.” I was confused, and she could tell, since she sighed. “I believe we are in your mind. You annoyingly dense creature.”
“Oh.” I gave the idea some thought and attempted to ignore the insult. “So… I can make stuff happen here, right? By thinking it?”
She again looked at me like I was stupid, “Why are you asking me? It’s not my mind. If I am right about my assumption, that is.”
“Hmmmm…” I closed my eyes, and tried to think hard about my chest closing and being healed. I felt something there shift and opened my eyes to see my chest back to normal. I grinned and looked at Chrysalis. “Heh, I guess you were right!”
“And you doubted me?” Her tone was imperious and mildly insulted at the thought. “So, will you now release me?”
My smile dropped as I realised something. I looked up to her, “Yeah, I have no idea how.” She put her forehoof to her face in response. “Oh, yeah, I’ll try the same thing again,” I said, and this time even I sighed at my stupidity. I shut my eyes again, and thought hard about the idea of leaving the space, and sending her out with me. I focused harder and harder, and unfortunately started grunting in a constipated manner, when the white space blacked out entirely
I opened my eyes and immediately felt relief; I was back in my normal body, sitting at the table in front of the computer just like before. Well, I had splayed out a bit more, but I was still back. I checked the time on my computer; apparently not even a full minute had passed since I was forced into my psyche by the crazy queen.
I then gave what had happened some thought, and decided I was probably wrong; none of it had been real, and I had just fallen asleep! I grinned and stood up, heading to the bathroom to check the mirror again just in case I had imagined my new eye too.
My grin fell a little when I saw that my left eye was still different. Now that I thought about it, it looked a lot like Chrysalis’ eyes…
Well that was a downer thought… I let my smile drop completely. Maybe just having her in my head stuffed me up temporarily? I hope this goes away before school starts again.
I was turning around to leave when, oddly enough, I felt and saw my mouth move. In the split second in which I saw this, I realised that a) I wasn’t doing that and b) that should not be happening.
“Ugh, that idiot didn’t make the journey easy… where am- Oh please no.”
My third thought; that was not my voice coming from my mouth.
“What is-“
“Why am I-“
“Are you-“
“When did-“
In an attempt to stop further incomplete sentences, I clamped my hands over my mouth and took a deep breath through my nose. I slowly removed my hands, and calmly said, “alright, let’s try talking one-“
“WHAT IN TARTARUS DID YOU DO TO ME?!”
I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. This day was going to be a long one.