The Writer
Quietly sitting in your dark room, the only light being from your trusty old candle, you type away at the story you created, slowly developing the world according to the vision that started it all. You've been at it for who knows how long, you lost count of the days that passed, rewriting paragraphs countless times, always wanting it to turn out as best as it could, not wishing to disappoint anyone, and most importantly, yourself. As you get closer to the end a yawn escapes your lips and you slowly glance at the clock, and realize that it's almost time for the lovely moon to finally go to rest and let the warm sun take its place. Since you started writing, you started spending more time awake while the moon was up, its soothing and calm presence healing your fatigue and letting you keep on writing. The sun started being like a poison, seeming to burn the skin under your fur and blind your eyes. Perhaps it was your messed up schedule that made you spend so much time in the presence of the moon.
You know that you have to sleep, the pain in your head which gets worse as seconds pass, your eyelids are growing heavier as well, the hoof cramps are making writing harder and harder, and the feeling of slowly going stiff from sitting in the same position hours on end. You smack yourself when you realize that you've been starting to nod off, action which instantly makes you wide awake, and go back to writing.
The flame of your candle giving barely enough light for you to make out what you are writing. Now if only people actually read your stories... A small chuckle escapes your lips as you think of it. But that doesn't matter. What matters the most for you is that you will keep on writing, and nothing will stop you from it! Not even the fact that you didn't have a decent meal in years... Or the fact that you will soon run out of money... You shrug at the thought, not letting it get to you. After all, you can always go back to that job at the lighthouse. Since it's always in need of someone to look after it. After all, who would want to work such a lonely and paranoia filled job. You've heard all kinds of creepy stories about what ponies have seen over there and what happened to such and such. But that never bothered you, you never felt any fear while hearing the so called scary stories, quite the opposite actually. You always had an interest in stories that others considered horrifying and scary. The job itself was quite enjoyable for you, not as enjoyable as writing of course, but you always felt some kind of messed up peace in the loneliness and quietness of that place, the moving shadows and figures keeping you enough company. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to go work there again, but you have to admit, it will really slow down your writing. At least it'll bring some food on the table so you won't have to eat scraps that can barely even be called food every day. You shake your head to get rid of unnecessary thoughts and get back to writing your story.
A second yawn escapes your lips and reminds you of the need for sleep. You continue anyway, fully knowing what it does to your already degrading health. After all, you don't need much anyway, just some finishing touches to flesh out the story. Almost done... And after just a few minutes you finally finish. With a groan you get up from the chair and start stretching. You continue until all the stiffness disappears, you take out the paper and put it in order with the rest. A feeling of accomplishment brings a smile to your face as you wrap the papers together. Feeling that quickly vanishes as the fatigue from all your writing comes back and hits you like the light of the sun after a month of staying indoors writing without stopping like you got possessed.
You look towards your old rugged bed, which currently looks like a fluffy cloud to you, and jump without hesitation. The bed creaks in protest to the added weight but holds on without breaking, which it has done for so many years. You fall asleep instantly and fall into your loved dreams where you experience other worlds, with all kinds of strange creatures and lands. Oh how much you wish to experience them first hoof, to talk to those mysterious ones and touch their wonderful creations. And so, you continue your sleeping with a smile on your face.
You jolt awake from those dreams that you hold dear and look around. But the dark figures quickly run away from your vision, disappearing like they were never there. You let out a chuckle. After all, this has happened many times before, and many times will it happen in the future. You look towards your clock, which informs you that it's eight in the evening. You groan realizing that you overslept again... A sigh makes its way out your lips as you slowly crawl towards your desk. You get your bag and put this month's work in it. With your bag over your shoulder and your hat on your head, you walk slowly towards the door, creak it open and walk outside your small apartment and go to your mailbox. A smile from the hope that maybe... Just maybe... You will finally receive a letter informing you that a book of yours has been purchased. But it seems like fate has nothing of the sort for you as your smile disappears at the sight of the empty mailbox. You sigh as your eyes go back to their usual lifeless appearance as you start walking towards the library that accepted to publish your books, if only because of you begging them for days to do so. When you arrive you hand it you work along with a few bits and go back on your way towards your home.
The moon has risen a long while ago, and you decide to make a stop at the park, in a special place, in hope that you would see it. The park was as quiet and lonely as ever, the trees completely stopping the moon's shine. But that does close to nothing in stopping you, as you have long before memorized the path from your many visits to this place. You soon found yourself entering the clearing that has the familiar hill in the middle of it. A feeling of peace settles in your mind as you start walking uphill. As you get close to the top, you spot a figure. Said figure turning out to be a small white mare with a long silky black mane looking at the moon. At first you felt annoyed, thinking it was just another random pony, but as soon as you saw her eyes you knew who it was. Those black eyes surrounded by black circles so pronounced that you could swear they were drawn upon her face. They could only belong to one pony, the one with a similar fate to yours, stuck in a cycle of barely getting by, and being too stubborn to change their ways.
You shake your head and sit next to her. You look up at the moon and soon enough, you hear her speak with her usual creepy tone. "Let me guess. You came here after another shitty day, in hopes that you could see it again?" You nod. "Heh... Same here." After that short exchange silence settles in once more. You both sit there staring at the moon in an eerie atmosphere as a quiet, almost silent sound passes over your heads. Both of your turn towards its direction as fast as possible.
But sadly, just like all the other times, you only managed to see a glimpse of the silver shine that disappeared too fast for your liking. Even so, you were still happy with managing to at least see something this time. You turn to look at your companion as she turns and looks you in the eye. Then she starts speaking.
"We're both thinking of the same thing aren't we?" You nod with a little confusion showing on your face. Seeing your expression, which was an impressive feat of itself considering how dark it was, she sighs with a shake of her head. "Let me say it then. How about we go follow that thing this time. Who knows, we might end up seeing what it actually is." You ponder it for a second before shrugging and nodding. "Wonderful. Let's go." She spoke a little louder than her usual tone, making her voice seem a little less eerie.
You both stand up and start walking towards the direction the thing went. The walk was quiet as you ended up at the edge of the park and the entrance to the forest. You look at the pony next to you as she motions for you to go. You shake your head and jump over the fence separating the park and the forest, the mare follows you quickly after as both of you start walking inside the forest, which seemed to have gained a deathly silence. Only the clopping of you and your partner's hooves could be heard. It almost seemed like a dream... Now that you notice, this place bears striking resemblance to some of the dreams you are usually having. The silence, the weird looking trees, the pairs of eyes and weird shadows from the dark- You quickly turn around to look towards where you spotted the eyes, but to your surprise you find nothing. Nervously, you look around, eventually locking eyes with your companion.
"They've been here for quite some time, following us the moment we entered the forest. I'm surprised you didn't notice them quicker." She spoke with a chuckle, finding some sort of amusement from your panic.
You shake your head, trying to clear it of those thoughts. Quickly stopping however as you started seeing more of those... Things... Instead, you try to ignore them while looking straight forwards; the action resulting in a chuckle from your partner.
Suddenly, she stops and freezes in place. You look back towards her, while ignoring the things, and tilt your head to show your confusion.
"C-Can you see it?" Her voice cracks slightly as she points her hoof towards something. You turn to look where she is pointing. Your eyes widen as you spot it, the same shine of silver was floating there, waiting. Perhaps it was waiting for you?
You take a step forward and notice the thing has moved backwards a little. A smile makes its way on your face as you rush towards it, the silver shine continuing to guide you. "Wait! Don't follow that thing!" You hear your partner's panicked scream, but you choose to ignore it. After all, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity! As you run towards it you notice that weird sounds started making themselves heard. You couldn't really describe them, as they felt out of this world, but all they did was increase your curiosity to find out the truth.
Time seems to speed up as you follow the shine, trying to find out what it truly is. There was also the sound of your companion's hooves behind you along with her begging you to stop following it and just go back now before it's too late. Again, you choose to ignore her words. After all, what does she know? Nothing. This is a chance you must take... No matter the costs...
After what felt like seconds you end up entering a clearing that seems to emanate some sort of silver glow. You slow down to a stop to analyze your surroundings. The clearing itself looked unnatural, the grass inside it having a light blue color. There were some kind of weird tentacle like formations everywhere, sitting on the ground and on the rocks, or clinging to the trees at the edge of the clearing. As your glance gets closer to the middle of the clearing, you notice that the tentacle formations are all coming together, and as you finally glance in the middle you see that they all combine to form some kind of weird flower like structure.
When your eyes reached the middle of the flower, everything seemed to stop as you stare in amazement. There it was... It... The thing that started it all, right in front of you. You slowly walk forward towards it, which seemed to call you. You heard your companion's begging for you to return before it's too late, but for you those words mean nothing now. It slowly starts to transform, finally taking form... It was.... It was... Beautiful...
Your partner screams as those tentacle formations try to grab her, but you don't care about that. The only thing you care about is to get to it. You continue walking towards it as it smiles and slowly starts floating down. You stare in amazement by it. It smiled, you knew it did. You smile back as it starts enveloping you. The last thing you remember before being enveloped in warmth and darkness is your partner's screams... Oh if only she could see what you did and come embrace it... Well, more for you...
The mare, seeing as her companion got enveloped in it, along with the tentacles who left her alone to join it in its embrace, gave up and ran away as fast as she could before it and the tentacles come after her.
The white mare, as she finally got out of the forest, finally got to her destination. An old apartment building stood before her. She looked around making sure nobody was there and entered. She walked up the long sets of stairs as she finally got at the top floor. Her eyes scanned her surroundings until she stopped at the sight of an old wooden door. Got close and tried to open it, but to no avail. She cursed under her breath as she took out a hairpin from her hair and proceeded to pick the lock. It took some while, but eventually she managed to open the door. Stepping inside, she looked around the paper filled room, eventually spotting the desk filled with notebooks filled to the brim with stories. She hurried to the desk and opened the notebook that looked to be the latest. After reading for a while she drops it to the ground with a look of disbelief on her face.
"No... This can't be... He predicted it... He predicted what was going to happen..." That's right, he predicted what was going to happen to him in one of his stories. Although a few details were off, everything in it was exactly what happened. She shook her head and grabbed the notebook from the ground and stuffed it and a all the other notebooks she could put her hands on in her bag.
On her way out, she stopped and looked under the bed. And, to her surprise and worry, there was a book there. She reached under the bed and barely managed to grab it. She took a look at it and a feeling of dread took hold of her. She gulped and put it in her bag. Perhaps it will be useful to have. She took another look around, to see if there was something else that could be of use. Finding nothing she went outside, leaving the apartment's door open, and headed towards her own apartment. Paranoia slowly, but surely, making its way into her head.
She was still safe after all... She was sure of that... But only for now...