//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Nightmare in a Dream World 
// by Wheller 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 2


‘The one thing I don’t understand is what exactly is this place?’ Shortfuse asked as she trailed idly behind Starry Night. ‘I mean, this is Panzer Lehr Memorial Drive, in Downtown Central but—’

Starry Night raised a hoof to cut her off. They stopped walking, and she reached out and kicked a passing stallion clad in a business suit who happened to be walking by. Her leg passed through his body, and he didn’t react in the slightest way. She turned her head to look at Shortfuse. ‘Understand?’ she asked.

Shortfuse shook her head.

‘We are a lingering remnant of consciousness, we can see the world, but we can’t interact with it,’ she said simply. ‘If we try, no one will notice. Believe me, oh how I have tried,’ she said and attempted to punch a passing mare in the face. Likewise, the punch went right through, and the mare didn’t respond.

‘It seems a poor way to—continue on,’ Shortfuse said, catching herself before she accidentally used the word “live”.

Starry Night shrugged. ‘Anything to stave off the boredom,’ she said.

Shortfuse opened her mouth to ask just how long it had been since Starry Night’s death when a city bus jumped the kerb and ran right through her. She gasped and jumped in surprise. It took her a moment to remember that she was already dead, it was not like the bus could have killed her again.

She turned her head to watch as the bus collided with a brick wall. The crowded street was full of ponies who gasped or screamed with terror.

Starry Night looked more amused than anything. ‘Oh dear,’ she said ironically. ‘Seems the city bus virtual intelligence pilot had a system failure and crashed. How dreadful.’

‘Do you think anyone is hurt?’ Shortfuse asked, looking around. The bus had not hit any pedestrians, save her, and she did not really count. The passengers might have been rattled around and need medical attention.

‘Who cares?’ Starry Night said, dismissively. ‘It’s not as if we’re in any position to do anything. We can’t interact with the physical world in any way.’

Shortfuse bit her lip, chewing on it for a moment before speaking her thought. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask about that actually. When I woke up this morning, I reached out and put on my MIP and—’

‘You imagined that,’ Starry Night interrupted.

Shortfuse blinked. ‘I turned on the telly in my living room too—’

‘You imagined that as well,’ Starry Night said, a bored look appearing on her face. ‘You are dead. You cannot interact with the physical world, but you can fool yourself into seeing what you want to. Pull up your MIP and think really hard that it is Hearth’s Warming Day,’ she commanded and leaned up against the wall to wait.

Shortfuse thought that was silly, but she did as she was told. When she opened up the clock, the date read as 6th of December, 100 YOR, Hearth’s Warming Day, and Shortfuse could not help but look surprised.

‘See?’ Starry Night asked. ‘You can trick yourself into anything in this state. You can even change the way you look if you try hard enough. Helps keep things from getting dull,’ she said and turned and walked down the street. Shortfuse was about to follow when something odd caught her eye. A motorbike pulled up, sunlight glittered off the bike’s holographic canopy and slowed to a stop. The canopy withdrew, and the bike’s rider slipped off. Shortfuse knew her. It was Anastasia Hopely.

Detective Constable Hopely had been one of the ponies that had gone into space with her. Shortfuse, her best friend Sparky Starlight, Sparky’s Grandmother Vinyl Scratch, the Nephite missionary Dizzy Doo, Hopely, plus the enigmatic Señora Amarilla de la Manzana and her hulking gryphon manservant Juan Carlos, had all been kidnapped by Spetsnaz Troopers of the Unified Praesidium of Socialist Republics and forced to serve as the expendable crew of the Cosmonaut Anatoliy Leninov, which Shortfuse promptly crashed after their return home, resulting in her death.

Shortfuse frowned, she’d always had a nagging feeling that Hopely had some connection to Yuri Tasarov, the mad bastard who had forced them to go on the mission. Shortfuse had been under the impression that he had chosen them to go because of their association with Hopely. It was either that or Yuri Tasarov was just insane for wanting ponies who had skills that only tangentially related at best to operating the ship.

‘What weren’t you telling us Hopely?’ Shortfuse asked, and jumped in alarm when Hopely looked right at her. She cocked her head to the side and frowned. Shortfuse realised that Hopely was just looking through her at the bus behind her.

Hopely flicked her head and pulled up her police computer visor. ‘This is Hopely, I’ve got a bus crash on PLM drive at—Hmm, the intersection of Viscount avenue. Need an ambulance, and a full medic detail. I’m boarding the bus to check on casualties.’ She said and trotted over to the bus and stepped on to it. 

Shortfuse followed her, it was pandemonium on the inside of the bus. Many ponies were lying on the floor, clutching themselves. Moans of pain filled the air.

Hopely knelt down next to a filly who was trying to shake her mother awake.

‘Hey, are you alright?’ Hopely asked.

The filly looked up, tears were streaming down her cheeks. ‘She won’t wake up,’ she sobbed.

Hopely frowned and reached over and felt with her fetlock at the mare’s neck to check for a pulse. Her head flopped unnaturally. The mare was a unicorn with a crème coat and orange mane, and her neck was broken. She was dead.

Shortfuse felt like she was going to be sick and dashed off the bus.

The dead mare was standing on the street corner, her eyes wide with terror as she looked around.

Shortfuse walked up to her and bit her lip. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said.

‘What happened? The last thing I remember was—’ she cut herself off. She Screwed up her face, trying to concentrate. It was if she had to struggle to remember what happened.

Shortfuse remembered what Surprise had said. It was not uncommon for the pony mind to block out the memory of its death, especially a traumatic and sudden death as this had been.

‘What’s your name? Do you have any family?’ Shortfuse asked, hoping that maybe she could soften the blow, and hoping that the poor little filly wasn’t now an orphan.

‘Melanie Sherbert,’ she said automatically. ‘I have a husband and a daughter—I was with my daughter, Melantha—’

Hopely stepped off the bus with little Melantha in tow, she was a unicorn too, crème of coat, but jet black in her mane, with bright blue eyes that had turned red from crying.

Melanie cried out and ran over to her, practically diving through her daughter. She let out a cry of terror and looked wildly around.

Shortfuse trotted over to Melanie and put a hoof on her shoulder. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said again.

Melanie hopped to her hooves. She walked backwards in front of Hopely and Melantha, trying to get her daughter’s attention, but the filly looked on without seeing.

‘I don’t understand,’ Melanie said, stopping in her tracks and letting Melantha and Hopely walk through her.

‘You died in the crash,’ Shortfuse said, feeling now that if she tried to sugar coat what had happened, it would only make it worse.

Melanie’s head whipped around, and she looked Shortfuse square in the face. ‘What? But, but if that’s the case—’

‘I’m dead too, I know how this feels, but it’ll be okay,’ she said, trying to be comforting, but this proved to be the wrong thing to say. Melanie’s eyes went wide, a look of abject horror formed on her face, and she slowly backed away from Shortfuse, before turning tail and bolting off after Melantha.

‘They always try to run,’ Shortfuse whispered to herself. ‘Of course, it won’t be okay, the poor mare’s dead, and that filly will be scarred for life—stupid of me—’

Starry Night appeared from around the corner. ‘What are you doing? That freak of nature is sure to show up any moment now! Let’s get going!’ she said, waving for Shortfuse to follow.

Sure that she meant Surprise, Shortfuse began to trot after her. She wanted to be as far away from here as possible when the Angel of Death came calling.