Beady little drop
It was that dream again.
The little beady drop at the end of the syringe, bright lights, and alien figures inside her home.
It hurt.
She could tell every little thing about that dark beady little drop, how the little things in it swirled around, little black unidentifiable flecks. The way it waved around while whoever was holding it talked to somebody in unrecognizable yet familiarly fuzzy words.
She could never remember what they had said, it was fuzzy, it was clouded, drowned out by anesthetics and dull terror. And even with the perfect recollection of the coal black specs in the beady little drop she had enough time to remember other things about the scene.
Everything about it was strange, unexpected, the lamp was clearly wooden, not from her house, and painted hospital non-confrontational pastels, she recalled that the glass or plastic covering the bulb had an unnaturally natural look about them around the edges like it had grown in from the tree itself closed around the blindingly bright light.
The gloved hand was likewise strange, it was elongated like a gibbons and it looked vacuum sealed shut, like it was just a film the hand was dipped in and it flattened out the hair on the back of the black hand.
The body was impossible to tell through the loose doctor’s scrubs it was wearing, but the head was strange. There was a muzzle there, fur gave an impression of a beard, with floppy ears and the glint of nervous eyes just registering that she was awake.
She hurt.
Muscles burned, she could feel the hurt right down to her bones, her sinuses, the tips of her hooves, she hurt.
Unable to even panic she started to thrash about from the pain that lanced through her. She could feel them, whoever they were trying to restrain her and more shouting she could neither remember or hear through the needle sharp pain.
And then the strangest part about the whole experience, dream or no, she could feel a hand wrap around her hoof and squeeze it comfortingly. She looked up into the eyes of that alien as she felt another jab in her foreleg.
She wanted to see sorry in those barely visible glints of eyes, she wanted to believe as she fell again the voice apologized, but she was falling again. Waking up from the dream that had haunted her for over a year.
----------------
The sheets were soaked with sweat, cold.
Twilight stared at the ceiling phantom pains and fear gripped her. Whatever that was, dream, memory, vision, it had happened in this very room. Twilight found herself curled up on the bed alone, highly unusual, shivering she looked to the edges of the bed and could not find Naudia anywhere. She cast her gaze farther from the bed and caught the gaze of a shadow sitting on a chair at the end of the bed.
The shadow had an aura about it, hatred, unmitigated contempt, the aura miasmically sublimated into the air like a gangrenous wound.
The shadow was so deep that she could not even make out any detail, Naudia liked to sleep in the dark. The outline told her it matched that thing Naudia had described to her, wide brimmed hat, bipedal, and felt like the living embodiment of getting slapped in the face with a cactus.
They stared at one another unmoving.
“So.” It said with a voice that made Twilight want to punch it in the face. “You’re still having that nightmare.
“While I regret that, rest assured your physical safety is not currently at risk.”
THAT was a loaded statement if Twilight had ever heard one, as soon as she thought that she could almost hear the thing smirk.
“The infection is finally complete, you believe. I will be in touch, with as satisfactory an explanation as modern science can give.”
With that the thing got up, picked up it’s chair, turned around and blipped out of existence too fast to see.
That was the problem, what could you do to something like that, that you didn’t know what it was, where it came from, what it’s powers were, or how it came and went. Naudia had apparently been seeing the thing for months now and nothing had happened, in the end Twilight decided that it would have to wait til it wasn’t 3 AM.
That was when Naudia entered the room, looking a bit green and sick.
“So. Much. Hate.” Naudia groaned, leaning on the door frame.
Twilight was still processing waking up alone to that… thing, and couldn’t immediately process what Naudia said.
Naudia shuffled over to the bed and flopped down next to Twilight, it was pretty clear she was out of it, about as much as Twilight. Naudia scooted back on the bed until her back bumped into Twilight, grumbling just loud enough for Twilight to hear it.
“Let’s call in sick today, whatever happens I don’t feel like getting up out of bed.”
Twilight snuggled in close to Naudia as the big spoon and mumbled.
“We can’t, that new changeling sundae joint is opening up next to the cakes today.”
Naudia let out a whine.
“We can’t let Anit down can we?” Twilight countered.
“We can focus on not letting Anit down this afternoon, but lets stay here all morning.”
“Ten AM.” Twilight said smiling.
“Noooo, too early, at least noon.” Naudia pleaded.
“Ten Thirty.”
“Eleven, gotta be at least eleven, it’s not sleeping in if it’s not at least that late.”
“Ten Forty Five.” Twilight countered.
“Fine. But we’re starting tonight’s reading session half an hour early.”
“Fine.” Twilight said in mock indignation holding onto Naudia’s barrel like a plush toy.
They lay like that listening to each other’s breathing in the quiet darkness of the very early morning recovering. There was no need to tell Naudia about the nightmare, not again, or again again, or… Twilight had lost track of how many times she had had that nightmare, unsure if it was a memory, some sort of vision, or just a vivid nightmare.
She did have to tell Naudia about that… thing, it’s just she wasn’t sure how to broach the subject.
“Naudia… I saw...” Twilight faltered, “I saw that thing in this bedroom tonight.”
“I know, it’s been here a lot.” Naudia replied. “It’s hard to spot but I’ve seen it out of the corner of my eyes. I’m pretty sure it’s why I’ve been having so much trouble with hatred lately.”
Why couldn’t I see him then? Twilight thought.
“It said something about an infection being complete, and that it’s going to be ‘in touch’ with a ‘satisfying answer’.”
“You sure about that?” Naudia turned her head to face Twilight. “That thing doesn’t look like it could give a straight answer if you asked it how to fold a napkin.”
Twilight covered her mouth with a hoof and put on her best evil voice:
“You must surrender to me your everlasting soul if you want to understand the secrets of napkin folding.”
They chuckled at that, because there wasn’t anything else to do.
“Even still I have a bad feeling here, like that thing is connected to those alternate timelines you and Starlight visited in some way, seeing the way it-” Naudia stopped before she could say something more.
“Seeing the way it what?” Twilight asked.
“Seeing the way it acts, I could just see that thing being responsible.” And Naudia did not add the tidbit of information kept from Twilight all this time, what she felt in that thing’s all encompassing hatred.
Seeing the way it acted puppeting you, I could see it setting entire worlds to a flame with a cold, hollow laugh. Naudia shuddered. And a smile, mad, intense, like it was the most enjoyable thing to watch it burn.