//------------------------------// // Thunderlane // Story: My Crazy Ex // by 23 KM To Nerdiness //------------------------------// [DAY 750] I'm Viral Velocity, pegasus mare. Thunderlane and I met on a blind date, and then two years later, we're engaged. He was smart, ambitious, and we were planning our wedding while cooking outside. "I know that look," he chuckled to himself. "How much is us tying the knot gonna cost?" "I was just imagining music." I stated. "Listen, I think we need a string quartet. Just to set a romantic mood. What do ya think?" "A string duet, maybe?" "That is not real." "Alright, a quartet." "You are the best, babe!" Sure, planning a wedding was stressful, and everything cost more than we thought it would, but Thundy, he was being really great about it. Even if he did kind of push back every once in a while. "Come on, let's go inside." I said, staring out over the clouds horizon. "Sounds like it's gonna storm soon." "Nah, you go ahead," Thundy brushed off. "I'll be in too." "It's about to pour any second. We can throw carrots on the stove." "Eh, you can't get the charred flavor from the stove, ya know? It's just a little water. You go ahead, I'll be alright." "I am marrying a crazy stallion." "Heh, I love you too." I just knew we were meant to be together, and I didn't think anything could stand in our way. BOOM! In the kitchen, Thunderlane waved from outside for my attention. "Thundy?" I said. "What's up?" "The bedroom window's open." he stated, pointing up his spatula. "Can you close-" ZZZZZZZAP!!! "Thundy!" Yep, Thuderlane got hit by lightning. How ironic. And if you thought it couldn't get any worse, you'd be wrong. [DAY 753] The medics told me he stopped responding for almost a minute and that technically, he should've been dead. "You need anything?" the nurse asked. "No, thanks." I sighed. Thunderlane survived, but he was in a coma. And nopony knew if he was gonna come out of it. "You know, you can go home for a while," the nurse nodded. "I promise to call you if anything changes." "Okay." I'd been by his side for three days straight. I really wanted to be the first pony he saw when he came to, but eventually I HAD to go home. [DAY 754] The next morning, I got the call. I got to the hospital as fast as I could. "Thundy!" I squealed, trotting into his room. "Hey," he said softly. "They said I died. I was looking for you." "I'm so sorry. Look, I just went home for an hour. I'm so glad you're okay." I couldn't believe I had my fiancé back. A few days later, I stopped by after work and Thunderlane was on his laptop. I was glad to see he was getting better. But then I realized he was acting a little strange. It was like he was in a weird trance or something. "Is everything okay?" I asked. "I was just thinking," he stated. "About the white light." "About the what?" The doctors had prepared me for some possible memory loss and said that it might be a while for him to seem like himself again. But they did not prepare me for what I was about to hear. "When I was in that other place," Thundy continued. "There were these voices that said everything's gonna be okay. They helped me come back. They're still with me......here." "Still with you here?" I said in confusion. "I-It's all confusing, I think I just need to get some rest." "Um, well then, you get some rest, alright? I'm gonna get some coffee." He told me that he almost crossed over to the afterlife but was saved by angels that were still with him... All I could think was: I need coffee. "I know, but not yet." Thundy whispered to himself. "What was that?" I asked. "N-Nothing, I was just thinking out loud." "...okay?" I told myself this just had to be a temporary side effect. But what if it wasn't? [DAY 757] "Babe, you awake?" The next day, I was bringing Thunderlane some food. "You've gotta get outta here before she comes." I heard him utter. And he was at it again. "If she comes and sees me talking to you-" "Who are you talking to?" I asked, stepping into his room. Thundy just......pointed at the wall. "There's nopony there." I said. "Yeah, it seems that way. Ever since I came back, they know I can hear them." "Y-You mean..." "The departed. They come to me. Am I going crazy?" I wouldn't say "going crazy" I'd say he went completely nuts. [DAY 761] "He can talk to the other side, it's kinda awesome, Vi." There was only one pony I could go to with this. My friend Flitter, who read all those paranormal novels and everything. "Awesome?" I groaned. "Come on, seriously." "This kind of stuff happens all the time. I mean, look, the trauma has kind of opened up Thunderlane's mind to another dimension. I wonder if he could talk to my grandpa and see if I was really cut out of the will." "Flitter, seriously, okay. No, none of this is real." "Vi, it sounds like you're trying to convince yourself." Damn right, I was trying to convince myself. The stallion I was going to marry in, like, three months was hanging out with dead ponies! Who the hell wants to believe that's a real thing? [DAY 762] The next day, I went back to see if Thunderlane was still chillin' out with Beetle Cider or Capper the Friendly Ghost. "Baby, I know this is really weird for you." he sighed. Pffft, that's one way to put it... "It's weird for me too, believe me," he continued. "But I didn't choose this. They chose me. And it's not like I can just walk away from them." "Okay, look," I said. "I'm gonna go talk to your doctor, okay?" "Wait, Vi..." "What?" "I-It's in the kitchen. In the space next to the refrigerator." ".........what?" "That's all she said before she left." I asked him, "That's what WHO said before WHO left?" And he just said- "I don't know." At that point, I was convinced that he lost his marbles, and I didn't know whether he'd snap out of it. When I got home, I was just trying to block everything outta my mind: the accident, Thundy talking to the dead. But I started thinking about the last thing he said to me at the hospital. There was NO way there was going to be anything there, but I figured what the hay, can't hurt, right? I checked next to the refrigerator to find... A gold bracelet. It was the first present Thunderlane ever got me. It had been missing for a few days and I was worried that I lost it. But there it was, right where Thundy said it would be. I started wondering: How the hell could he have known that? Unless... [DAY 763] "Okay, just stop it!" First thing the next morning, I went to check on Thundy. "I'm not listening to you anymore, you don't know anything!" "Babe, what's the matter?" I asked, worried. "I-It's nothing, you should go home, Vi." "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what this is all about." "Your family. They don't like me. Cousin Philly, Grandma Nimbus..." Grandma Nimbus passed away ten years before I even met Thundy, and I never mentioned her. And Philly was my dad's cousin, who passed when I was a baby. "Y-You're talking to them too?" I stuttered. "They're mad at me because we're getting married and they can all go screw themselves!" That was definitely the moment where all this became way, WAY too messed up. [DAY 764] "So now he's fighting with the spirit world?" Flitter winced. "That can't be good." "Well, what do they know, Flit?" "So now you believe?" "M-Maybe it's like a miracle." "Eh, I wouldn't necessarily call it a miracle if your fiancé is fighting with your dead relatives. You know, that's alot of bad energy to bring into planning a wedding." Flitter was right. How could I go through with the wedding if Thunderlane was in a feud with my dead relatives? There's no wedding vow to cover that kind of crazy. When I got home that night, there was shattered glass everywhere. Someone, or something smashed our framed photos. But not all of them were broken... Just the pictures with Thundy in them. It was, hooves down, the freakiest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I knew I had to get back to the hospital. When I got there, I could hear Thunderlane talking from the hallway, and I figured he was just chatting with the dead again. But the second I opened the curtains... "Vi!" I decided HE was the dead one. "Y-You remember Nurse Redheart, right?" he stammered with said nurse laying on top of him. And just like that, it all made sense. Thunderlane wasn't a medium. He was a cheater having cold hooves. I got him to admit the whole thing. Before the accident, he was already having second thoughts. Then when he woke up, the nurse was the first pony he saw. Right then and there, he fell for her and decided he wasn't ready to marry me. The day that I found him on his laptop? He was researching my family history on an ancestry site, that's how he knew the name of all my relatives. And him speaking to the dead? Nurse Redheart would buzz him every time I checked in so he would know when to start talking. Thunderlane told her where to find a spare key at our house. She was the one who planted the bracelet. And the one who smashed the photos. All that because he didn't have the balls to tell me he was having second thoughts about getting married. Lightning is 20% cooler than thunder anyways. Thunderlane and Nurse Redheart took a trip to Hay-waii... Where Thunderlane got hit by lightning... Again. Nurse Redheart met a scuba instructor. Viral Velocity married a musician. He had no problem with the string quartet.