“Stan?...Stan...Can ya hear me?”
Stan could only hear the clopping of hooves. He tried to open his eyes, but he was finding them hard to open with a green light shining in his face, and his whole body was finding it hard to move as well.
“Stan? Come on buddy, don't die on me.”
Stan eyes finally adjusted, he was now starting to see who was talking and why he couldn’t move. “C-Carl…” Stan’s mouth felt dry as he spoke. He looked down from the weight of his neck and saw that he was tied up in chains, and that he was sitting upright in a cold steel chair.
Carl breathed a hefty sigh. “Oh thank Chrysie. Alright, come on Stan, get up.” Stan assumed it was Carl who grabbed him and started pulling him up. He stood up in a bipedal position, wobbling a bit before he got his stance. “Steady now, steady."
“W-where am I?” Stan asked.
Carl turned to look at the darkness around them before dimming the light of his horn and looking at Stan in worry. “Look, Stan, I know you’re a little bit woozy and confused right now, but I’m gonna get you out of this okay.” Stan could only look at him and nod in acknowledgement. Carl smiled and looked behind him again.
“What...What is it?” Stan tried to look past him, but Carl’s body blocked everything.
Carl looked back at him, his smile was replaced with a face of seriousness. “I’ll explain everything on the way, alright, we just need to get you out of these chains and find a way out of here, okay? You hear me? Stan?” Stan was starting to drift off again, his head was starting to pound and his legs were starting to shake. “Stan!” Carl yelled and shook him a bit, making Stan look up at him again.
“Stan...If we don’t get a move on, we’re gonna be in a lot of trouble, so you need to listen to me, you’re in terrible terrible dang-GYAH!”
Stan’s mind finally jolted in attention as he saw the tip of a horn inches away from his face, he looked past it to see that his friend was impaled by the same white horn through his chest. As the horn slid out he saw, out of the corner of his vision, a pair of all too familiar looking glowing red eyes.
“Oh, I don’t think you’re in any danger, little bug.” The alicorn placed her hooves on Carl’s shoulders and leaned in on the side of his face. “As for your friend here…” She started to smile and show her teeth.
Stan’s breathing and heart rate started rising as he saw his friend cough up blood and his eyes start to close. “S-stan….r-ru-” Carl was interrupted by the fangs of Celestia biting him. He cried in agony as he felt the teeth dig deep into his neck.
Stan lost his footing and fell to the floor. He slid to the side of a wall and looked up to see that the princess had already killed his friend, she had bitten his head clean off and was now getting to the limbs. Stan couldn’t take anymore, he had to do what his friend said and make a run for it.
He pushed his body up against a wall and started getting on his back hooves, he wasn’t sure how he was gonna run on two legs instead of four, but he could worry about that later. He slid across the wall and ran into the darkness.
The princess noticed this and dropped Carl’s body and limbs. “Playing hard to get, are we?” She smiled and started walking after him.
Meanwhile, Stan was now realizing why he wasn’t bipedal, he couldn’t stop sliding off of the wall and landing on the floor. The adrenalin in his body kept kicking in every time he looked behind him, because every time he did, his phobia was right there, walking towards him with no worry whatsoever. She knew Stan was doomed, and he was starting to get the same idea, but that didn’t stop his legs from moving.
“S-Stay back!” Stan yelled as he fell again, this time he slumped on a wall in front of him, he looked around to now realize he had just ran into a dead end, and now he was cornered. He looked up to see the princess standing right above him. Her mouth dripping with the blood of his lost brother and her smile was only making him hyperventilate even more.
“Looks like a two course meal for me.” She snarled and lunged her teeth toward Stan's face. “Goodbye, little bug.”
Stan screamed as the last thing he saw was the mouth of his worst fear coming toward his face. All he could think of was how something like this could ha-
*SPLASH.*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stan coughed and spit out the water that had gone in his mouth. He rose and tried to get a picture as to where he was, but the water in his eyes were making it difficult.
“Man, I thought he was never gonna shut up, changelings.” Stan’s ear stems recognized that voice. It was one of the guards.
Stan started wiping the water out of his eyes. “Wh-where am I?” He opened his blue eyes and started to understand.
“You’re in jail, you shape shifting rat!” One of the two guards on the other side of the bars yelled. Stan saw one had a bucket with him. He could only guess what it was filled with.
“Was soaking me in water necessary?” Stan said as he shook the liquid off of him.
“You wouldn’t shut up in your sleep, and there was no way we were gonna get in that cell with ya, so we did the next best thing.” The guard smiled and lifted the bucket in the air. “You were gettin’ pretty annoying to.”
The other guard nodded. “Yeah, all that screaming and yelling was starting to bug us, no pun intended. We were surprised you didn’t wake yourself.”
Stan sat down and checked his body, he wasn’t tied up and it felt like his face was intact, but there was something else he was worried about. “Where’s Carl?”
“Your friend?” The guard’s smiled. “He’s currently being interrogated by the princess.” Stan assumed that ‘interrogated’ was just some sick term for having his limbs torn off. The guards turned around and started walking. “And you’re gonna be next in a little bit, changeling.” With that they walked out of the room and locked the door behind them, leaving Stan to sit there in his cell and think about the situation.
“Okay Stan,” He said to himself “just...just stay calm, your friend might be dead, and the treaty is most likely ruined, and your body might be a meal in some time, but...maybe you can think of a way out of this…yeah…” Stan sat down on the floor and shook his head in misery. “Oh who am I kidding, I’m a dead bug.” He knew his life was gonna be over soon, and that his death was going to be a painful one, but at least it wasn’t in vain. He laid on his back and looked at the ceiling...waiting for the inevitable.
“NO!”
He yelled, standing up and giving a look of determination. “I am not just gonna sit here and wait to become a meal, I’m gonna find a way out of this.” He rose to his hooves and shouted, “I swear it!”
He then puked into a bucket in the corner of his cell.
Got a tingly feeling, got out of bed and TADA, update.
NEED MOAR!!! *roars like a gorilla*
Long pause and... DETERMINATION OVERDRIVE!!! And the puking, we can't forget the puking. All in all, keep it up!
I sense a bit of Dead Space 2 in this...
LOVE IT!
MOAR!
Wow, fastest update ever
Aha,I caught that Scout reference...
The guards are actually much nicer to the changelings in this story than in most other changeling stories.
You mean "dang-GYAH!"?
4487358 Meh. I've seen updates in 10 seconds flat.
kinda mean to give us such a short chapter with no story progress at all isn't it? I get the feeling this would have fit better as the opener of the next chapter rather than it's own.
4488034 i.imgur.com/3shxEFg.jpg
Ooo... Getting really good... Keep it up!
4488205
Story progression?
I wasn't aiming for that target, I was aiming for the 'more nightmares to ruin his chances of ever facing this phobia' target.
plus, I did the same thing like....four chapters ago. He had a nightmare, and he woke up in a fright, and he puked. Aren't I just original.
I only have one question for all of you though...
2.bp.blogspot.com/-FrdZIsBJZJg/UBaSJ6ixp-I/AAAAAAAAB9Y/XXLfxGvQTPk/s1600/are-you-not-entertained.gif
...probably not. I can almost hear the roll of your eyes.
It is okay, you only have to go through two chapters of this and then you can be done with this story...
4488350 I don't want to be done with the story........
And giving him nightmares to grow the backstory of his fear is reasonable, but to dedicate a very short chapter to it? If you feel you need to make entire chapters out of nightmares, i'm not saying stop. But it is a little disappointing and I think they would fit better when mixed with a longer and more story driven chapter.
4488350 I'm actually very entertained!
I'm just waiting for him to babble in a quivering ball of phobic fear at Celestia's feet while she tries to figure out what he's doing.
On one hoof, I'd like for Princess Luna to get in on the action. Try and guess his intentions by watching his dreams, and help him get over at least a little bit of his phobia. On the other hoof, stretching it out and watching him scream uncontrollably as soon as Princess Celestia enters the room could be quite entertaining, if played right.
Dead Space 2 anyone?
4488350
Crowe is my shtick!
Here's a quick Critique:
- Double linebreak between paragraphs and when changing speakers. You already follow standard paragraph handling procedure for that, but the extra care to formatting will clean your work up.
Anywho, the 'run' in the previous chapter made me think of one thing.
[Smokebreath]"Run..."[/Smokebreath]
4489817 o0 i had forgotten about BLT
The cover art alone got this on my read later list.
Don't worry, I feel the same way. I am currently failing all my tests, procrastinating on studying for the finals, and I just made 5 decks in the span of about a week.
Is the title for this chapter a reference to Dead Space 2 by any chance?
Some general repair and tightening:
"hooves". "legs".
Nothing technically wrong, bit it's a little clunky. Maybe:
4519336 could be... with all this "make us whole" Shtick.
Loving the dead space opening reference!
Real brave there at the end, Stan.