Chapter 4: I Accidentally the Whole Thing
A loud clanging noise woke me up. Confused, I opened my eyes, only to close them in pain due to how strong the light was. After a few seconds, I could open my eyes just a little bit so I could see without being blinded. Everything was blurry, and I could barely make the shape of the cage I was trapped inside of. Clumsily, I managed to bring my water limb to my face and wash myself with it. The feeling of cold water against my skin and my sensitive feline whiskers took away most of the grogginess. I took a deep breath and turned to face the source of the clanging noise. A cynogriffin was hitting the bars of the cage with a pan, and stopped when I looked at him.
“Good morning, sleepy-head,” he said. “We are having breakfast. Here, have some.”
He pushed into the cage some roasted meat and a cup with some sort of hot liquid in it.
“How long have I been sleeping? I just fell asleep while eating for some reason.”
“You slept the whole night, it’s early in the morning and we all woke up, so we decided to wake you up, too.”
Shrugging, I tried to use my magic to levitate the breakfast towards me. Nothing happened. I frowned and attempted to reach towards my magic, but it was as if a wall separated my mind from the source of my power.
“This is weird, I can’t use my magic. Why?”
“I have no idea,” the cyno replied, too eagerly.
His words made me realize something. I had fallen asleep while eating the food they had provided, and they had made some remarks about how “it had worked”. Now I couldn’t reach my magic, and the cynogriffin seemed to be hiding something from me.
They had done something to me, or to the food they gave me, which made me sleep and cancelled my magic.
“Cynogriffin. What have you done to my magic?”
“Your magic? What could we do to your magic? We know nothing about magic, you must have done something to yourself.”
“No, that can’t be… OH! You are lying! Now it makes sense! I’m going to lie, too!”
When I was done lying, I felt very tired again. Only then did I realize that I had been so focused on the lies that I had eaten what the cyno had brought, forgetting that I shouldn’t in case it was the cause of my lack of magic.
“Oh come on…” I complained as I fell into a forced slumber.
A loud clanging noise woke me up. Confused, I opened my eyes, only to close them in pain due to how strong the light was. After a few seconds, I could open my eyes just a little bit without being blinded. Everything was blurry, and I could barely make the shape of the cage I was trapped inside of. Clumsily, I managed to bring my water limb to my face and wash myself with it. The feeling of cold water against my skin and my sensitive feline whiskers took away most of the grogginess. I noticed that my water was a bit murky, but I paid it no mind. I took a deep breath and turned to face the source of the clanging noise. This time the leader of the cynogriffins was hitting the bars of the cage with a pan, and stopped when I looked at him.
“What did you put in the food?” I asked, rather annoyed. My wounds itched more than ever, and I had a very unpleasant headache.
“Oh, nothing important. Just a bit of bellanoche to make sure you will behave.”
“Oh, that explains it! … Wait, what is bellanoche?”
For some reason the cynogriffin groaned and shook his head. “It’s a flower that makes anyone who eats it fall asleep and be unable to use magic.”
“Alright. I no longer feel like humoring you. It was fun, being trapped here and all of that, but now I want out.”
“I think you don’t understand what’s happening. You aren’t getting out of there in a long time, draconequus. Now, eat this.”
This time the wolf just threw a withered purple flower, which I supposed was bellanoche.
“I don’t think so, I would rather recover my powers as soon as possible instead of falling asleep again.”
“If you don’t eat it on your own, we’ll force you to eat it.”
I laughed at that. The idea of such a pathetic mortal forcing me to do something was so ridiculous I couldn’t contain the laughter. The cynogriffin growled and the other four approached the cage. One of them opened it and two came inside as I got up on my two legs. I tried to punch one of them, but he dodged my attack and held my chitinous limb with its teeth, almost crushing the exoskeleton. I tried to break free, but the grip was too strong and I had to deal with the other cynogriffin. This one lunged towards my legs, making me lose balance and fall facing the floor. Then he dug its teeth on my human leg, making me gasp in pain. I tried to use my tentacle tail against that one, but a third cynogriffin came into the cage and grabbed it with his teeth, which sank deeper if I struggled.
“If you try anything else, they will crush the bones on your leg and your arm,” the leader warned as I was about to use my water arm, which couldn’t be bitten.
Finally, I realized how dire my situation was. I was trapped inside a cage, powerless and unable to defeat my captors. The rage I felt for being defeated was replaced by fear. Desperately, I tried to use magic as hard as I could, but the effects of the bellanoche were too powerful for me.
“Now eat the flower,” the leader ordered, and I had no choice but to obey.
“You have made a terrible mistake,” I said before I fell asleep for the third time.
No loud clanging noise woke me up this time. There was no blinding light, as the Moon had replaced the Sun on the sky, but my feline eyes allowed me to see everything as if it was midday. I didn’t feel confused or dizzy anymore, so I quickly scanned the area. The cynogriffins were all sleeping around a bonfire, so I wouldn’t be annoyed by them. The cage was too sturdy that even my mechanical leg would take a long time to break enough bars for me to slip through. The only way I could escape was with magic. The logical thing to do was to try to wait until the effects of eating bellanoche wore off, but waiting isn’t my forte. I attempted to reach my magic over and over again, like a blind fly trying to find an opening on a wall by hitting it with its head. Maybe alicorns could be completely neutralized by a silly flower, but me? Guffaw? A draconequus? An immortal spirit of chaos? No way, I refused to accept that.
Trying to overcome the effects of bellanoche soon became similar to headbutting a wall as hard as you could, and just as painful. After a couple of minutes, a sudden noise just below my head startled me. I looked down and found a single drop of blood, which was soon joined by another that fell from my nose. From what I have gathered from other universes, that meant that I was pushing my mind’s limits, and continuing to do so could get me killed.
I didn’t keep count of the time, but eventually I found an opening on the metaphorical wall. As soon as I did, I tried to force my way through it by force. I only managed to channel a pathetic amount of magic, but my power acted like a corrosive substance on the opening, making it grow bigger and bigger as I channeled. Soon, I was able to use a remarkable amount of magic without hurting myself. With a touch of my index finger, the cage turned into soap bubbles and I walked out of it. With a snap of my fingers, the wolves fell into such a deep slumber that not even a rock concert would wake them up without my permission.
They deserved a punishment for being so rude, something that would ensure they would never dare to annoy me. I decided to start with the underlings and finish with the leader, who was the biggest jerk. I created magical chains to chain the first one to a tree and woke him up.
“What is this?! How did you escape?! WAKE UP! THE DRACONEQUUS IS FREE!”
“They can’t hear you, silly doggy. My magic won’t let them wake up until I want them to. Now, how should I punish you? Oh, I know! You were the one who bit my leg! Now I will bite you back.”
I didn’t have the chance to bite him as much as I could. Apparently, having limbs removed makes a cynogriffin lose lots and lots of blood and die rather quickly. I decided to make sure the next one would take longer to die, since simply dying after a bit of pain was not a proper warning.
By the time I was done with the fourth one, I was tired of blood, pain and death. Due to this, a new idea sparked in my mind: the four dead cynogriffins were very similar to fluffy toys. Delighted, I began to play house with them. It was so amusing, having two of them be a same-gender couple who had raised the other two into productive members of society. Having them go through the daily moments of a family kept me entertained until the sunrise. The only drawback of my choice of toys is that the severe injuries they had sustained broke the suspension of disbelief.
Oh, and the leader woke up because I forgot about him so my spell stopped working.
“Son, I didn’t raise you to waste your life in the ghetto with a street gang,” I said, faking a gruff male voice as dad number one scolded his older son after catching him wearing the neighborhood gang’s colors. “You are an intelligent cynogriffin, you must-”
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” the leader yelled, rudely interrupting me.
I turned and found that he seemed to be very upset. I guessed he was dismayed because I had escaped the cage and he was likely to be punished like the others.
“Abomination,” he called me, his face contorted by rage. Or stomach cramps. I have always had trouble reading canine faces. “I’ll take you down, even if it’s the last thing I do.”
With that said, he flew away as fast as he could. He soon broke the sound barrier, creating a magic rainbow-colored sonic boom as he circled back towards me. A few seconds later he broke yet another barrier of speed, causing some sort of ball of electrical energy to appear between his front limbs. I knew enough about the laws of physics that apply to most dimensions to realize that being hit by that would kill my body, so I accumulated as much of my magic as I could in front of me. Five billion, two thousand and twenty two nanoseconds before he collided with me, my magic turned into a solid cube of stone, each side around thirty decimetres long, and each face painted with a different motif. The impact was so powerful that the stone cube exploded, a large portion of it hitting my chest and stealing my breath.
I ignored the pain and approached the center of the explosion, wondering if the cynogriffin was dead or the magic of speed had somehow protected him. The bloody remains that I found hinted that the cyno was pretty dead. For a moment, I considered resuming playing house, but my toys had begun to smell, so I flew away.
About five minutes later I decided that my wounds were annoying me too much, and that it was about time they stopped itching and hurting. I took away the bandages and yelped when I found that, not only hadn’t they healed yet, but they looked even worse than before. They were covered in dried blood and a strange yellowish substance that stank. The skin around them was red and swollen, and it was painful to touch it.
“Eeeeew, this is so gross.”
Luckily, I found a river in which I dove to get rid of all the nasty stuff. I didn’t want to use my own water arm to clean myself, as it would become even murkier. Now that the dried blood and stuff was gone, I could see that the wounds themselves had turned greenish. I assumed that was normal, so I made new bandages appear and covered the wounds again, wondering how long it would take for me to fully heal. Around that time the effects of eating bellanoche disappeared, only for Discord’s voice to replace them.
I can’t believe those cynogriffins fooled you like that.
Shut up. I don’t want to hear it. My head hurts from breaking through the magic barrier, my wounds are worse than ever and the last thing I want is to listen to you.
Oh come on, don’t be such a party pooper. You have to recognise that those mortals tricked you.
I tuned his voice out and left the river, resolved to continue traveling until I found something amusing.
“S-s-s-s-so c-c-c-cold,” I said to myself yet again, my teeth chattering on their own as I hugged myself.
I had flown without stopping until the night fell. As soon as the Sun disappeared, the temperature had dropped sharply, surprising me. I had already spent at least a thousand seconds looking for a suitable place to pass the night. The fact that I could no longer feel my wings made me change my mind. Instead of finding a place, I made a chainsaw appear and cut down a tree, which turned into logs with a popping sound. Said logs arranged themselves into a campfire which lit itself, its warmth feeling better than anything in the world.
I felt a bit sick at the stomach, probably from eating so much bellanoche, so I curled up into a ball next to the fire and immediately fell asleep.
You ask for a hamburger, I give you a hamburger. You raise it to your lips and take a bite. Your eye twitches involuntarily. Across the street a father of three falls down the stairs. You swallow and look down at the hamburger in your hands. I give you a hamburger. You swallow and look down at the hamburger in your hands. You cannot swallow. There are children at the top of the stairs. A pickle shifts uneasily under the sun. I give you a hamburger. You look at my face, and I am pleading with you. The children are crying now. You raise the hamburger to your lips, tears stream down your face as you take a bite. I give you a hamburger. You are on your knees. You plead with me to go across the street. I hear only children's laughter. I give you a hamburger. You are screaming as you fall down the stairs. I am your child. You cannot see anything. You take a bite of the hamburger. The concrete rushes up to meet you. You awake with a start in your own bed. Your eye twitches involuntarily. I give you a hamburger. As you kill me, I do not make a sound. I give you a hamburger.
I woke up, feeling unsettled by the dream I had had. It was so chaotic and random that I should have greatly enjoyed it, but for some reason it made me feel worried. I continued travelling north, hoping I would find a city or another champion to fight as soon as possible. Unfortunately, all I found were trees, trees, more trees and a few creatures. The main highlight of the day was when I hunted a bunny. The moment it darted in front of me I killed it with twin laser beams coming from my eyes, and only after that did I realize that it wasn’t like normal bunnies at all. The creature I had hunted had small antlers and wings, and was slightly bigger than average. The taste was rather good, too. Remembering how cold last night was, I landed with the sunset, made a big bonfire and created a sleeping-bag out of thin air, resolved not to feel cold this time.
You ask me for a hamburger. My attempt to reciprocate is cut brutally short as my body experiences a sudden lack of electrons. Across a variety of hidden dimensions you are dismayed. John Lennon hands me an apple, but it slips through my fingers. I am reborn as an ocelot. You disapprove. A crack echoes through the universe in defiance of conventional physics as cosmological background noise shifts from randomness to a perfect A Flat. Children everywhere stop what they are doing and hum along in perfect pitch with the background radiation. Birds fall from the sky as the sun engulfs the earth. You hesitate momentarily before allowing yourself to assume the locus of all knowledge. Entropy crumbles as you peruse the information contained within the universe. A small library in Phoenix ceases to exist. You stumble under the weight of everythingness, Your mouth opens up to cry out, and collapses around your body before blinking you out of the spatial plane. You exist only within the fourth dimension. The fountainhead of all knowledge rolls along the ground and collides with a small dog. My head tastes sideways as spacetime is reestablished, you blink back into the corporeal world disoriented, only for me to hand you a hamburger as my body collapses under the strain of reconstitution. The universe has reasserted itself. A particular small dog is fed steak for the rest of its natural life. You die in a freak accident moments later, and you soul works at the returns desk for the Phoenix library. You disapprove. Your disapproval sends ripples through the inter-dimensional void between life and death. A small child begins to cry as he walks toward the stairway where his father stands.
I woke up covered in sweat and breathing heavily. “What the heck was that?”
That whole day I felt weak and tired. Sometimes I felt like I was going to freeze and sometimes I couldn’t stop sweating and panting. I travelled all day, too sick to even feel hungry, so when I went to sleep that night my stomach was grumbling and I felt even worse.
I give you a hamburger. The universe is engulfed within itself. A bus advertising hotdogs drives by a papillon. It disapproves. An unnatural force reverses Earth's gravity. You ask for a hamburger. I reciprocate with a mildly convulsing potato. You disapprove. Your disapproval releases a cosmic shift in the void between birth and life. You ask for a hamburger. A certain small dog feasts on hamburger patties for the rest of its unnatural, eternal endurance. Your constant disapproval sends silence through everything. A contrived beast becomes omnipotent. You ask for a hamburger. I give you a hamburger your body becomes an unsettled blob of nothingness, then divides by three. The papillon barks. The universe realigns itself. You, the papillon, and the hamburger disapprove. This condemnation stops the realignment. Hades freezes over. A pig is launched is launched into the unoccupied existence between space and time with a specific hamburger. You ask for a hamburger. I give you a hamburger. It screams as you lift it to your face. You laugh maniacally as I plead with you. You devour the hamburger as it pleads for mercy. I disapprove and condemn you to an eternity in a certain void where a certain pig and its specific hamburger are located. The Universal Space-time Continuum Committee disapproves of my irrational decision. You are locked away and are fed hamburgers for the rest of your natural existence. A pickle refuses to break down during the process of digestion. You die in a freak accident. A certain pickle lives the rest of its life in a comatose state. Your soul disapproves. Down the street a child cries as a hamburger gets stuck in, and climbs back up, her esophagus. You ask again for a hamburger. I refuse to reciprocate. You demand a lawyer. I remind you harshly that this is the new world order. Lawyers no longer exist. Only papillons. Your name is written on a list of sins. Bla̶̡͡s͢p͘͟h͠é͟m͠͝y͘. You ask for a hamburger. The comatose pickle vanquishes your soul from this universe. Realignment occurs. You beg for a hamburger. A certain papillon's name is written on an obelisk in Egypt. Mumble. Peasants worship the obelisk. Your soulless corpse partakes in the festivity. Hamburgers are banned universally. The sun implodes. All planets cease to have ever existed. Mercury. Venus. Earth. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune. Pluto is the only mass in existence. Conveniently, you are on vacation here. Your need for hamburgers re-establishes space-time. Earth is recreated under your intergalactic rule. Hamburgers are your army. You wake up. Clowns. Clowns everywhere. Your dream rushes to meet you. You are kidnapped. You ask for a hamburger. They hand you a deer with bellanoche poison.
I woke up screaming. The dream had been as chaotic as the Nexus itself. Somehow, I knew that having such dreams meant something was wrong with my body. I ripped my bandages off and found that my wounds looked even worse, some of the skin having turned black and with the veins around them looking darker than they should, too. The water of my left arm was a filthy brown, the kind of color sewage water has. I couldn’t think straight. There were… Things I could see that weren’t there. Am I awake, or is this just a dream? Did I leave the Nexus? Why can’t I stop looking into this dimension? I only feel pain… Where am I?
I don’t know how many days I spent like that, growing weaker and weaker as I became unable to tell where I was, who I was and what was real and not just a product of my feverish imagination. I kept going on and on, a part of me certain that refusing to surrender would make things right somehow, would make the pain stop.
HahahahahHAHAHAHHahahahaHAhahahHA I’m going to die. Diediediediedie pain end of bodily functions soul leaving corpse. Defeated by dumb animals. Death by silly wounds. I give myself an hamburger made with my brains as I force myself upon reality, raping it violently. I need to find help.
Guffaw! You have to listen to me! You are going to DIE!
There’s a voice in my head that won’t stop calling me. My name is G̡͢u̶̢f͏͞҉͞f̨̢̡̛͟a҉͝ẃand I like to guffaw. Hahahaha M̶ak̴͠e͏i̷̸t͝s̸̕҉tò̡͜p̀m̕a̕̕k̛eįts͠t̨͡ơ̡͠p̴̨͢n̴o͡Ì̡͘w̶a͞n͞t͏̧mó̶r͟e̴͟҉Iw̵a͟͞nt̡̀͞m̢̀͝o͞r͏̷̸ę̸m͘o̧rę̶͘m͜o̧͡r͞e͠mo̡r̷e̶͜m̴̕o̧̕͟ŗ̀͘ȩ͘͞m̵̵o̕r̛e͏̷ I want to listen to it until never no I don’t why do I have legs why is the ground below and the sky above. Matter isn’t solid it’s minuscule dots separated by millions of times their own size why can my feet stand on ground makesnosense it’s a couple of dots separated by miles being supported by more dots that are also millions of centimeters apart. It makes me sick the way it works forcing order and laws upon me but I don’t want to die I don’t want to lose I want to win and return to the Nexus victorious and make everything kneel before chaos and show Discord how I’m as strong as he is and… Why is the floor coming closer is it alive?
Eventually, I fell, too weakened to get up again. The last thing I saw was a tree moving towards me and surrounding me with its branches as I passed out.