//------------------------------//
// The Reflection 
// Story: The Six of Us 
// by Online account 
//------------------------------//

“... And that, ladies and gentlemen, was B.Y.O.B. from Mezmerize, System of a Down’s latest. A fine piece of NU metal just for you, here on this beautiful autumn afternoon on Life Radio 88.”

Behind the wheel of a Chrysler New Yorker, 83 years old Stefanos Anastasis harrumphed. “A fine piece,” the radio announcer said. And what in the bloody hell even was “NU metal?” After more than eight decades on this rock, Stefanos had more and more trouble following today’s musical trends. Why he decided to power through the entire piece, he could only attribute to morbid curiosity. See how the youth of today treated their eardrums. He wasn’t left very impressed.

“Now this may come as a surprise to some, but this song was actually written as a protest against the Iraq War. When Mr. Tankian sings all those heartfelt thinkers, such as how our troops must march and carry orders without asking questions, well, it makes us wonder when this whole situation will get resolved, doesn’t it?”

The pretentious English radio station host was getting on the veteran’s nerves. On the field, it gets a little more complicated than this. He had firsthand experience, after all. Now, Stefanos had retired years ago, so he wasn’t one to get too worked up on such trivial aspects. Sure, he had his own pockets full of opinions – a long and fulfilling life will do this to any man. But to hear yet again another unsolicited take on Bush’s quest for oil, well, it takes the old man back. Geopolitics and all the baggage it carried.

“But that, my friends, that’s a topic a bit above this poor guy’s education, hehehahaha!”

He got that right.

“Aaanyhow. Today’s November 2nd, 2005, and we’re just a little past 5:30 in the afternoon. I dunno about you folks, but it’s getting rather chilly here in Kalamata. Remember to bring a nice coat if you’re going to go out, wherever you may find yourself.”

Definitely could use one, in the case of Stefanos. In fact, even though he was as far South of Europe as he could be, 13 degrees was nevertheless a bit too low for the senior. His health was not what it used to be, making him particularly susceptible to harsh temperature shifts.

Cruising on the Peloponnese peninsula, he was happily taking himself and the family car back from a poker game he gracefully lost against some of his lifelong friends, people he served with. They lived on the West coast, more precisely in the small municipality of Pylos, whereas he had been born and raised in the bustling city of Kalamata. Thankfully, both places were only an hour apart by car, and Stefanos was already halfway through his return trip. He could even see the impressive Taygetus mountain range by the horizon.

As per tradition, the missus voiced her concerns. She was always worried whenever Stefanos decided to drive. She had been for the past three years, after their 23 years old grandson donated the family car to him, what with him finally acquiring his own set of wheels. You are getting too old to handle two pedals, Stef, she religiously narked. However, her protests stemmed from love; that didn’t go over his head.

She has nothing to worry about, mused Stefanos. Today’s conditions were superb, and he knew it well. There was nothing but a gentle breeze, and the streets were scarce with traffic. The Mediterranean climate was benign and simply begged for joy rides. He could handle it.

Heck, he handled much worse in his life. A little trip down the country roads was nothing short of a footnote amongst the myriad of obstacles the aging Greek had to endure.

November 2nd, as the radio stipulated. Has it been that long already? Hardly believable.

One day short of 65 years ago, an 18 years old Stefanos found himself in the middle of a pincer maneuver against an Italian spearhead in the North of Greece. Indeed, he proudly served in the 1st Infantry Division of the Hellenic Army in the Battle of Pindus during the Greco-Italian War of the Balkans Campaign, successfully pushing the Axis back into Albanian territory. That day was regarded as one of the first major victories for the Allies. Underdog Greece managed to impress the whole world after ensuring the failure of Mussolini’s finest.

Nevertheless, as much as the thrill of victory upped the morale of his comrade in arms, the Second World War had this funny way of turning everything for the worst when you least expected it – or even when you did. It didn’t matter. It was an ugly business all around. Because when the Italian Spring Offensive of March 1941 came knocking at their door, the young soldier found himself present at the unforgiving Battle of Hill 731.

Simply put? It was a bloody massacre.

The battle bore that name, since it took place on Height 731. Today, that name was inaccurate, since the peak was truncated and now sported a real height of 729 meters. How did it end up losing a little bit off the top? Oh, only because it was relentlessly leveled via an unforgiving bombardment of many, many shells (around a hundred thousand). That was the true nature of the Battle of Hill 731. Explosions.

Explosions, and close-quarters combat. Infantrymen on both sides of the conflict found themselves getting real close and personal with their enemies. So much so, that Stefanos ended up being incapacitated when an Italian bayonet wounded him with a painful stab in the upper left pectoral muscle, briefly missing the lung. Thankfully, he prevailed, but the damage was all but superficial. He was deemed unfit to rejoin his battalion, although it would hardly matter since the 1st Division disbanded (temporarily) a month later after the capitulation of Greece at the hands of the flanking German forces.

In today’s times, Stefanos still bore sequels of that nasty wound. His military career ended as abruptly as it had begun. He still partook in the uprising of the rebellion by the end of the war, however. Although he regretted not serving longer than he had, holding a rifle being his true vocation, Stefanos was beyond proud to have defended his home country from the invasion. He had taken lives to protect his family and those he loved, and he’d do it again if Greece was endangered again.

Thankfully, years have been kinder after Fascist Italy surrendered, as Stefanos found himself enamored with the love of his life. Happily married with his better half for over fifty years, he built a wonderful family, and pursued a modest carpentry career. He was pretty much the poster child of a self-made man. His retirement years on the South coast of Greece couldn’t have been any comfier...

“Next up, Best of You by the Foo Fighters, another great hit of this year. Requested by miss uuuhh... Pa... Panagiotopoulos, of Filiatra. Excuse my Greek if I butchered that, ha. Alright, let’s hear it folks-”

... Save for that annoying man behind the speakers, of course. With his borderline sycophantic kiss-ass voice. The driver had enough of his little experiment, and decided to switch to a different local FM station instead, tuning in to one that played melancholic waltzes he loved oh so much. It reminded him of his better years, where his younger self was still peppy and active. Stefanos sure could dance! But with his artificial hip, he was more into singing nowadays.

Which is exactly what he started doing. Humming the soft yet powerful tones of the violin, Stefanos would’ve closed his eyes if he didn’t have to keep them peeled on the road. The deep green 95 car was softly turning the snaking road, lone and placid, surrounded by acres of fields chock-full of olives.

Stefanos’ Chrysler swerved slightly in the opposite line when he suddenly coughed heavily. He corrected course and resumed his singing, albeit hesitantly. His chest was pounding, and he was wondering if he should manage his voice from there onward.

Coughing violently again, he understood that today wasn’t his day for happy songs. He weakly turned the radio off, having to cancel his one-man concert. The coughs weren’t leaving however, and the chest pains doubled. He really wished he had his water thermos with him, but alas.

The coughs led the way to a throbbing migraine. Stefanos wasn’t unfamiliar with headaches; these became more and more common as he aged. This time however, it was accompanied with partial blindness, at first in one eye, then in both. The road became a misty blur, and he had more and more trouble concentrating. He tried to turn the handle to his left to open a window and cool down, but he couldn’t even grasp it properly. His coordination tanked to uncontrollable levels. Even holding the steering wheel became an adventure of its own.

He tried to blink the foggy vision away, but nothing yielded. In fact, his facial features became softer than pudding, with subtle drool escaping his lips.

It’s at this point that he understood. All symptoms pointed toward something his ever-increasing confusion clouded. It all clicked in a swift moment of lucidity.

He was having another stroke.

And this one was bad. He had powered through two others over the past few years. He’d been told that he was an especially resilient man, that he fought like he did in the war. But this time, it felt different. He knew a lost battle when there was one. He couldn’t fool himself into believing there was a happy ending at the end of the tunnel. The pain... This was as ferocious as the blade that impaled him years ago. He couldn’t delude himself into thinking there was a way out.

He had no mobile device to call for an ambulance and he was essentially on his own, between towns. There was no one else to aid him, and he was going to wither away alone. No one would be the wiser. Why did it have to happen now of all time? If... if he stayed home, he could’ve benefited from his soulmate’s support. It was so unfair.

With a last burst of efforts, he managed to park the vehicle by the side of the road, groggily turning his hazard lights on. With a little bit of luck, that would flag another compassionate driver to rescue him. The Chrysler came to a halt, haphazardly stationed on the gravel, next to a small brick wall. No longer at risk of colliding into something, the war hero clutched his chest, focusing solely on the pain at hand. His whole body, not unlike his face, felt numb. There was nothing he could do anymore.

He winced and cried in agony. It worsened and it worsened. It felt as though something was eating him from the inside. That a bomb detonated behind his ribcage. He was starting to lose grip with his consciousness, and soon, eternal darkness would claim him.

Moments before he couldn’t find the strength to keep his eyelids opened, images of his family blessed his sufferings. As if he was owed a denouement before he surrendered his life. His two successful sons... his beautiful grandchildren. His sister, still kicking and healthy. His ever-loving wife. She had been by his side from the beginning right until the end. She was beautiful. So, so beautiful. She was his reason to live. And... and he couldn’t...

She was going to be left all alone. That, he knew for sure. To think that they were together and happy just this morning. And now... He was abandoning her. Without even saying a proper goodbye.

For Stefanos Anastasis was living his last moments on Earth.











I coughed three times. My oesophagus was clamped shut in on itself, as if malignant phlegm acted as makeshift glue to clog my windpipe. Finally getting a decent mouthful of air into my lungs, I continued the exercise with another volley of dry coughs, my irritated trachea demanding more unsophisticated chimney sweep jobs.

Hurnnk...

As far as I could tell, I had never suffered from sleep apnea. But with a forehead that was burning like a stovetop, I could not help but wonder how long it had been since I last tried to reach for air. It was a good thing my body reflexes screamed “enough” and yanked me out of my peaceful slumber. It would have been a shameful waste of 22 years of life only to die because I failed to execute the most basal human reflex.

In and out, in and out. In with the dioxygen, out with the carbon dioxide. Respiration.

So, this is where I was. A killing fever, a breathing rhythm leagues above my regular one, a jackhammer pounding in my chest, and a body covered in sweat. And that there was a euphemism. My bed – or rather, my waterbed, was completely dank from my own secretions. I was well acquainted with my usual disdain for heated nights, but come on now, this was beyond ridiculous. I felt as though I had lost pounds, literal pounds, just in skin piss. I was in a sarcophagus of waterlogged sheets, bundled atop a mattress on which fungi had fertile ground to proliferate, given the ideal humid conditions.

In a few words like many: I was cooking. My body was a few degrees short of sizzling. A doctor would’ve been concerned with imminent hyperthermia. This was an odd and sharp contrast with the cool ambient air of my bedroom. My bank account has always been rather modest, but even I knew the perks of spending some extra monthly greens by cohabiting in an apartment with a functioning AC unit. So, in conclusion: Me, hot; air, cool. This wasn’t computing all too well in my nauseous noggins. Maybe I had gotten sick? I felt a little bit sick...

More coughs, by the way. Just to confirm the hypothesis. I was unable to get rid of this unpleasant throat itch. As if someone strangled my neck (forgive the pleonasm) like playdough, stretching it beyond reason. It did seem like it took longer for me to feel oxygenated whenever air passed through my nostrils. After many years on Earth, it wasn’t a daunting task to notice these kinds of subtleties.

Ark! Koff! KOFF, KOFF! Ungh...

Oof, this last set of coughs was violent, not going to lie. It was a proverbial punch right in my diaphragm. I could feel each and every singular alveolus burn. I began to think that I simply couldn’t shake the physical malaise off. And to remedy that, I will have to march to the bathroom to pop a honey lozenge or something. Otherwise, at this rate, I’ll end up waking up the entire neighborhood. Even a good old-fashioned glass of water would do the trick. Anything to subside this meltdown sensation I was feeling, please!

Nyark, how I loathed leaving my bed in the middle of the night on a workday. I always had trouble falling asleep thereafter. I wondered what time it was even. My room was still semi dark, but that was a moot observation. I slept with the double set of curtains drawn, after all. Did my brittle musical number circumvent my daily dose of Z’s before or after four in the morning? If it was the former, then it was annoying, because it cut my nap time in half. If it was the latter, then it was doubly annoying, because that’ll turn me into a corpse on autopilot in the morning. “Zombie mode,” Vince called it.

So, before I pried myself out of this lakebed, I tried to reach for my phone on the bedside table.

Clonk!

Aheh, excuse me, but did someone drop a dumbbell next to me? That there was a hard and heavy noise that reverberated at the end of my arm. All I did was bump it onto the wooden surface of the table. That was... peculiar, to say the least. I was already in a state of illness; last thing I wanted was for my limb to suffer the nighttime curse of the pins and needles. But my arm, well, it felt... stubby. For lack of a better word. Shorter, and heavier. Stout and numb.

So not only was I weak from a sudden sickness, not only was I tucked in rags wetter than shower curtains, but I also apparently fell asleep onto my arm. Great. Cool start for a Wednesday, my guy. Seriously, it was such a displeasing feeling, having your blood circulation cut from your fingers. Your fingers that you couldn’t feel anymore, like they became twisted subjects of phantom limb.

And to say that I had been top shape yesterday. I almost wept. Maybe Vince coughed some Covid leftovers in the curry he cooked the day before yesterday. The curry that I demolished with no afterthoughts on my last lunch break. Dammit Vince, if you passed some kind of freakish variant to me during crunch time...

Well, the four AM question remained unanswered. So, not giving up without a fight, I tried the right arm this time around. You know, us humans having two members linked to our torso and etcetera.

I started to feel apprehensively cautious when my second arm felt exactly the same as the first. Freakishly alien, barely controllable, not responding all too well to my brain synapses. How could it be? Did I toss and turn that much during the past few hours? Had I really been that restless? My ex told me countless times that I slept like an angel. “Fit to be rolled into a morgue drawer,” she teased. It was her word against... whatever was happening to me.

Man. You never know how much you feel your fingers’ presence until you don’t. I could have testified right there and then. But you know what? I had enough of this sham. If my arms didn’t allow me to execute the simple task of grasping my smartphone, then I’d smack them into submission myself. A man can only tolerate so much.

My morning grogginess fading away a bit, I lifted my two rebellious arms in front of my face to make a visual survey of the damage. If I was greeted by gangrene, I’ll call in sick today.

And if only.

The second my eyes registered the new information I was presented with, it took a lot of mental fortitude to hold my colon from bursting at the seams. I clenched my butt cheeks together as hard as I could, for I knew a catastrophe was forthcoming. My heart, which was oh so busy drumming to a Megadeth crescendo moments ago, ceased all operations, going “wait a minute…” I had a passing apologetic thought for my red cells, for their O2 supply was halted once again. But... who could’ve blamed me? Who in their right mind could’ve blamed me!?

How could I have had any semblance of rationality when...

I-I... f-fucking hell, I... I’ve been...

I’ve been AMPUTATED!

Oh God, my hands, I could see their lack of presence at the tip of my wrists in the faint shine of the rising sun passing through the curtains. Just two stumps where fingers should’ve wiggled. I had no hands! I had NO hands! They had been sliced off my arms – my purple arms, and-

My purple arms?

Colors of the room were darkened, so a thorough assessment was difficult to make, especially given my increasing panic, but that there to me sure looked like a shade of purple!

What the fuck was going on!

“Aaah... AaaaaAAAAAHHH!” I began to shout, with a concerning lack of energy. “ARRRHHHHHHGGGHHH! AAAHHH!” I shouted some more, this time, a lot surer of myself.

I had to scream. I had to let out powerful decibels. I had to exteriorise this growing anguish. I would not be silenced!

Maybe something shifted near me, but I couldn’t really tell. My attention was so not on the surrounding details. It was entirely dedicated to my loss of the greatest evolutionary trait that defined our species. I just laid there, sandwiched between soaked bed sheets and soaked mattress. My mouth quivered; my pupils turned to singular dots. The breathing and the heartbeat both resumed on cue – though what for, I didn’t have a single clue.

I had... but... what... someone ran away with my digits! And they didn’t even toss me into a bath full of ice too. Shit shit shit, did they also borrow a kidney or two? Jesus Christ, this couldn’t be possible, couldn’t it? How could I have slept through such a barbaric operation? How could one have simply unscrewed my palms without me realizing what the heck was going on? Did I get sedated or what? I didn’t pass out drunk out of my mind in a shady back alley yesterday evening, I remembered this much. My hands... my GUITAR PLAYING HANDS! Oh Christ almighty, this was not okay! This was NOT okay!

A million thoughts ran in my mind like a marathon of desperation. Who would do this to me? Did I have a beef with someone I accidentally flipped off? Could this be fixed? Could surgery reverse my hex? Would I ever be able to pluck the strings of my Stratocaster ever again? Would the band break up in the failing case? Could I even type on my computer anymore, let alone write the old-fashioned way? Why were my arms purple? Why that color? Was I missing blood in my arms? Was it why they felt so... bizarre? Should I have been in more pain, or was I merely in shock? Should someone call the cops? An ambulance? 911?

“V-Vince!” I shouted for my roommate. He was stationed in the adjacent room. “Vince! Help! C-call... call an amb-”

My arms might’ve been in a state of total mutilation, but I still had enough control to put them in front of my mouth, shushing myself.

What. Was. That. Voice.

My screams from earlier were higher pitched than I would’ve liked, sure. I figured I just didn’t have a manly soprano, what with me having collected a grand total of zero screams ever since I had hit puberty (the 21st century was relatively safe, after all). But this speaking voice of mine? It was most definitely NOT my usual sandpapery, deep-toned voice. It sounded squeaky, girly even. A couple of octaves higher for sure.

Oh no.

Maybe the intruders didn’t take my kidney(s) after all when they ran away with my hands. Maybe they took something much more precious. A body part that dictated whether you were going to sound like my little cousin, or its polar opposite, Morgan Freeman.

I swore, I SWORE, if they took my testosterone factory, I WOULD find the nearest cliff and call it quit.

With some clever shifts of my legs – which were as estranged to me as my handless arms had been – to get a good tactical feel of my in-betweens, and I realized... I realized...

...

This couldn’t be happening.

I would NOT suffer through a hardcore chemical castration in one lifetime! This was intolerable! Inacceptable! Dishonorable! Intrusive and malevolent! Torture straight out of the Dark Ages! The biggest insult to my family name the ruffians could’ve ever pulled! Not only had they snipped the family jewels, but they chopped the rod as well. No wonder my voice became effeminate! I wasn’t PACKING ANYMORE! MY Y CHROMOSOMES NO LONGER HAD ANY MEANING! MY SUPPLY OF MASCULINE HORMONES HAD BEEN CORKED!

SOMEONE. WAS. RUNNING. WITH. MY. COCK.

IN AN ICE PACK! MY DINGALING IN AN ICE PACK!

SOLD TO THE BLACKEST OF ALL ORGAN MARKETS!

DIS-GUS-TING!!!

I didn’t want to piss sitting, I didn’t want to piss sitting, I didn’t want to piss sitting...

“GWAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” That was me blasting my girly-girl voice once again, like a bullhorn on steroids.

Something shifted somewhere in my room once again. I wondered why I took notice of that. Why did I care given my current predicament? Priorities! My dick had effectively abracadabra’d out of existence, how could anyone focus on anything else but that?

I have had enough. I was done. Done with finding more and more pieces of my massacred body missing. The more astute I became, the more I found other parts of myself stolen. I was not a mere doll to be disassembled with so little empathy for my well being! I needed to beeline to the nearest hospital, right there and then. Pronto. Asap. To get my hands stitched back where they belonged; to get the external bit of my reproductive system welded back above my taint.

Out of the pool/bed, now!

Out, out, out!

I arched my torso up, and kicked my legs to the side. I tried hard to ignore a sting in my oddly bent spine, for the floor was all but calling my name. I could worry about lumbar support sometime in the future. Terror crept into the entirety of my body when I fully took notice of how my legs’ condition paralleled that of my arms. Knobs at the end, and damned be my toes. My non-existent toes. Did I have no right to have any nail-bearing supports anymore!? What the hell was this cruel and gory body damage of a joke that had been bestowed upon me? And look, my legs, my poor poor legs, they were entirely coated in that same purple hue as well. Go fucking figure!

In the midst of my panic, my brain laughed, probably on the verge of total self-destruction via hysteria, imagining Eric André saying: “What if it was purple?” Which, in turn, made me wonder if my cerebrum had been altered as well. The end of all four- five of my limbs had been hacked away; what were the odds of a lobotomy at this point? If I was to become physically invalid, bound to be pushed in a wheelchair for the rest of my pathetic life, might as well have crowned this masterpiece with some well-placed brain damage. Then I could be the bestest human eggplant in America.

I dropped my fatalism at the same time I dropped my toeless feet (in name only) on the floorboards. How I was supposed to keep any balance on what essentially amounted to cylindrical stilts was a riddle for the ages.

Clop clop!

“Two clops, ha ha ha!” the Count from Sesame Street said in my head.

Seriously, why did my feet reverberate like... I dunno, like oversized tumblers? As if I didn’t feel sufficiently alienated in my own flesh.

I digressed. I digressed so hard. The hospital was still waiting for my presence. Because soon – and I knew – soon the adrenaline would peter out, and the pain of missing a quarter of my body would stake me like hot iron. I needed to reach sweet lady morphine before it could be so.

“Vince! Call a goddam ambulance!” I tried again. “T-this... this is an emergency! Vince!” More unanswered shouts followed.

This all seemed futile. Beside the shuffling noises I was occasionally hearing, nothing seemed to take the bull by the horns on the subject of getting me onto a stretcher. Having only myself to rely on, I chose to power through what could have potentially brought me so much pain, and took the inconsiderate decision of standing out of my bed. They say never to move an accidented victim. Well, today, the accidented victim took a different approach.

Knees unbending to bring me to my five feet eleven of height, I trembled unsteadily. The pain I felt in my lower back was no longer ignorable, and with a total lack of stability, I-

“YaaaAAAHHH!”

-fell forward, straight onto the floor. Million upon million of years in evolution, only for me to have failed at the simple task of standing. The jaw was the impact point, and I felt my teeth clack together. My big, squared teeth (???). That was wild man, so wild! It’s as if my body – my OWN dismantled body – fought every instinct I had to take the bipedal stance we loved oh so much. All it wanted was to bend forward, as if such a position was comfier; more natural. But that was a preposterous thought, no? When a force in my torso tried to push me to my arms on all-four like a released spring that had been under tension, I didn’t have the reflex to cushion my fall – because why would I? I wasn’t a goddamn baby. Just a man, a purple man, with a brutal vasectomy, and a plethora of botched amputations.

Sigh...

Here I was, on the floor, unable to make heads or tails of anything ever since my coughing session took over my dreams. What did I ever do to deserve this kind of fate? Had I not been enough of a good lil’ Christian boy? Did I insult my coworkers perhaps a little too much? Was I too egotistical within the band? Did I burn one too many anthills? Whatever the case was, it sure made me start to hyperventilate. I was but a rag, deformed and afraid. I was on the floor and I couldn’t get up. Just like in the stupid meme ad. I had become as autonomous as that old lady. Whyyy!

“Twilight...?” tentatively asked a voice that sounded petite, although maybe not as much as mine.

“V-Vince?... Vince! Oh, oh thank God! Vince, you gotta help me! S-something happened to me, I...!” I desperately tried to reach for the only aid around.

“Are you okay?” the voice’s worries increased tenfold.

“Nooo!” I moaned. “Call 911!”

Click.

The lights turned on.

Light usually shed perspective on an impasse. Light was the source of enlightenment, of questions answered. With light, we could see. With light, we could understand. Not so much here. It just multiplicated my confusion by, like, a billion gazillion.

I WISH that was an overstatement.

But you take a look at my hyperbole and you try to explain to me why in front of me stood a bizarre creature, as purple as I was. Purple being the theme of the night, so it seemed. At the height of approximately two and a half feet, the interloper looked a bit lizard-like in design. Like us humans, it stood on two feet, and it had the luxury of bearing what I now lacked: Fingers. Albeit, clawed. That there was red flag number one. Its relatively small mouth was hung a bit agape, revealing sharp triangles. Red flag number two. On top of its head stood an array of big lime-green scales, shaped like domes, going down what I assumed to be its spine, kind of like a stegosaurus. Elongated and thus threatening. I filed this as yet another red flag. The pièce de resistance were its eyes. Huge freaking saucers, taking about half of its stout skull, ornated with green irises. Of course, the pupils had to be vertical lines, why wouldn’t they have been. That just highlighted how much more of a predator this intruder was, like a cat about to pounce. Though puny, it could still have kicked my ass ten times over.

I could’ve tried to pretend that this uncharted critter was naught but an animatronic, or an automated puppet that was sent to my room to deliver the punchline to the worst prank that’s even been pulled on me, but that would’ve been beyond dishonest. There was no denying that this monster was purely biological in nature. That there was the real deal. A quick look at its malleable facial features would’ve made you instantly agree with me; not to mention the shine on its skin that highlighted every singular scale, all of which crafted with masterful precision. It was too organic to have been engineered, and too realistic to have been bioengineered.

Given the nice portrait I’ve given you, it was only natural for me to shout some more, trying to push myself away as far as my destroyed body allowed me to. With shy kicks of tree-trunk legs, I backed into the side of the bed, something hairy squished under my buttocks making me wince. Pain in a region I’ve never felt before.

“Vince! H-holy shit! VINCE! Hurry the HELL up! T-there’s a monster in my bedroom!” I called out for my rent buddy. He talked to me two seconds ago; what the hell was taking so long?

“T-Twilight? Are... are you okay?” demanded the thing before me with anxious undertones.

I saw its mouth move. I saw it match the words uttered. One plus one equals two.

“AAAHHHH! AND IT T-T-TALKS TOO!” I cowered behind my lumpy forearms.

The purple lizard did the last thing I wanted it to do: It approached me. I wanted it to retreat, to disappear from the shattered fragments of sanity that I had left for myself. But no such luck was had tonight. It would keep on getting worse and worse, I just knew it. Being alarmist was the winning move all along.

“Hey hey hey…!” it said, with a tone that could’ve almost passed as soothing. “It’s okay Twilight, it’s okay!”

Houston, physical contact had been initiated.

Its skin had the toxic warning coloration, and it touched me. I already had a foot in the grave.

My throat managed to become drier than it was when I woke up. Cold sweat ran down my still too-hot forehead, as my hyperventilation worsened. I was going to die. That there was an empirical certainty. I was going to get nibbled by this carnivorous crooked comodo dragon. A slow and painful death. Being eaten alive: The number one primal fear. I was incapacitated, my body slaughtered to the point of making me unable to even stand up to plot an escape. I couldn’t punch it, I couldn’t kick it, I couldn’t fight it. My missing appendages rendered me as helpless as a car crash dummy. I shouted as a final act of defiance, a terrifying bloodcurdling noise my new shrill voice managed to produce, but it fell on deaf ears. Vince would be none the wiser later in the morning. He’d find skeletal remains of a human being he once called friend, and the coroner would simply wonder why the beast seemingly swallowed my hands and feet whole.

As I waited for the end, with many thoughts going to family and friends, it took me a moment to realize that no harm has been had so far. I attempted to open a frightened eye, only to find out that my attacker was holding me in an embrace. It nuzzled its head on my neck. I could feel the warmth of its skin rubbing on my trembling own, despite it being what I thought to be a cold-blooded lifeform. I was shaking profusely, simply unable to wane down the stress of everything I had to endure this morning. But that didn’t discourage the dinosaur mutant to try and mellow me out. The more I shuddered, the more it tried to calm it down with gentle pats.

“It’s okay Twi,” he repeated once more, sadness oozing from its little mouth. “You had a bad dream. You overworked yourself and you had a nightmare, that’s it...”

I gulped. “P-p-pretty sure I-I’m having a nightmare r-r-right now...” I whimpered with a tremolo.

He hugged me some more, his grip hardening, as if he was trying to squeeze the misery out of me. I settled on the “he” here, because his voice sounded masculine enough. Something my testicle-less body wished it still had. And he did seem to have a good grasp on the English language. Mashing syllables into words, packaged into cohesive sentences. Linguistic knowledge meant scholarship, and scholarship was fueled by cognition. So yes, a sapient being deserved to, at the very least, have less pejorative pronouns. No matter where he originated from.

He did a couple more shh shh shh’s to sooth me. We both let three to four minutes pass.

“W-what... what are you?” I huffed out with all the strength I could muster, barely having regained control of my breathing.

His little yet disproportionately large head lifted to meet my gaze. He suddenly became a little too close for comfort. A mere bite to my neck and it was game over, you know?

“Uhhh, why are you asking me this?” Sadness was substituted for confusion.

“Are you... are you an... alien?” I probed further.

“Twilight?” was his single worded answer. Was that his name? I needed to be more assertive. These were unprecedented times.

“I’m serious! What- who are you? Please answer, I’m not joking...”

“I’m... I’m Spike, your dragon assistant? Why are you asking me this?” he asked once again.

For the second time in a row, I did not give him an answer. I just stared at him, brow furrowed, but fear still omnipresent in my eyes. I think I even felt my left cheek push up, making my eyelid twitch.

A dragon? An assistant? What in the world of piss was even happening? This was way past my area of expertise. I wasn’t one to try and catch pictures of the Sasquatch and dabble in hoax communities. I was a disgruntled guitar picker, not one with an affinity for the unknown. The paranormal? Urban legends? Bleh. Hard pass. And now, this “Spike” fellow, he barged in, going all “oh yeah I’m a dragon wassup,” like I was supposed to gobble this insanity up. Plus, he didn’t have wings. So, checkmate, liar.

“Are you... feeling well? Twi, maybe, maybe we should- do you think you need to go to the hospital?” Spike, my ‘assistant dragon’ asked, as if he was running out of options.

My eyes widened like a psychopath. “Yes! Yes, I need to go to the hospital! I lost my fingers! And my...” I looked down at my nether region. The dragon backed away slightly, utterly discombobulated. “Call... call the police – or better yet, ask my narcoleptic roommate to call them!”

“We have a roommate?” Spike tried to catch some middle ground between him and my distressed self. “Err, since when?”

“Vince, he’s my roommate!” I nodded frantically, only answering his first question. “VINCE! VINCE! GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW, YOU BASTARD!” I shouted.

Spike, meanwhile, held two clawed indexes into something that had the morphology of ears, cringing at the noise. I sort of went full WWE announcer two inches away from his face, so, ah, that kind of response was not unwarranted.

“Twilight, it’s just the two of us in here, always has been! Maybe you just dreamt of this ‘Vince’ pony and this is why you’re confused?” I looked at him, borderline disgusted. “Chin up, you’ll find a stallion of your own one of these days, I’m sure of it!” he teased with a wink.

Okay, wow. Clever little quippy Mc. Gee, huh? We oughta learn to know each other before either of us started with the homoerotic teasing. Dragon or not, extra-terrestrial invader or not, self-proclaimed assistant or not, Spike should have kept his class act before he dissed my homie and I like this.

“I- Vince and I have been living here together for two years now! I-I-I don’t even know you!” I pointed my maimed arm toward his face. “And also, also, why are you in my apart- And WHY do you keep saying ‘Twilight?’ What does that even mean!?” I rapid fired a bunch of questions, my brain nearing an aneurism.

If he was confused before, now he was in total incomprehension. “Uh, I keep saying it because that’s your name? Duh!” He smacked his own cranium.

“No!”

“‘No?’” he repeated.

“That’s not my name, why would you assume that!? I’ve never seen you before!”

Was it customary for beings from outer space, or I guess, beings from tales and fables to give names to people they encountered? To me, that seemed like a very bold move, especially when he appointed me such a terrible one. Twilight. Ugh. I suppose they didn’t have Stephenie Meyer’s finest on Mars, or something.

“So you’re saying your name’s not Twilight Sparkle, huh?” he crossed his arms with his head tilted slightly, a smug yet incredulous expression painting his now punchable face.

Sparkle! Twilight fucking Sparkle! Get a load of this horseshit! That little fucker flung gay innuendos at my bud and I’s expense, and now he labelled me with the stupidest godawful nickname that would make the pinkest glitter cry in embarrassment. Well suffice to say, I was worried for my life in peril mere minutes ago, but this... unwanted guest actually managed to reshape that into anger. I grinded my teeth – my still WAY too big teeth – and I swore you would have seen a cloud thundering over my frustrated face if we were in a cartoon. The nerve! To kick me while I was already down. My body was bastardized, and that overgrown lizard was spending its jolly good time throwing childish insults at me.

Though, I did have to admit that he hugged me into submission moments ago. That helped me to calm down somewhat, so I guess he bore some good in him. My nerves kind of owed him one.

Ugh, what a damn rollercoaster of emotions. I wished I still had mini-me down there to help me control them better.

The tiny dragon etched a smile on the corner of his mouth, but I could tell he was conflicted about it given my unstable state of mind. In the end, he lost the internal war he tried so hard to fight.

“Hehe!” Spike snickered. “You’re the only pony I know who gets this red when she gets flustered,” he tried to suppress his amusement, but did not succeed.

Pause.

Rewind.

Play.



Pony?

SHE?



I would have loved to explain these as harmless Freudian slips. Or perhaps this creature did not exactly have 20/20 vision. But... I re-analyzed these lavender arms and legs. This lavender torso. This... mop of navy that seemed to follow my ass wherever I shifted it. The one that tickled my pain receptors when I wedged it awkwardly under my own weight. The one that- oh my GOD, it was a fucking tail, wasn’t it? No way, no goddamn way! We evolved out of this archaic shit millennia ago! I couldn’t possibly have an ancestral relapse! The more the day advanced, the more we scratched the realm of impossibility. What, did my assailants tax so much out of me that they kindly paid back their debt by transplanting a bundle of hair onto my coccis? Were they TRYING to make me feel any less human? Not enough that they escaped with my genitals, but they also had to humiliate me further?

This was now officially entering war crime territory. I knew for a fact the Geneva convention would’ve outlawed in a heartbeat the torment I had to endure if the officials caught ear of it.

My internal cogs were working at Mach five speed. I didn’t understand. I COULDN’T understand. This whole trip became more and more eldritch in nature. I’ll blow a brain vessel before I can even begin to figure this puzzle out. Even if I tried to-

“I-I’m sorry Twilight. I know I shouldn’t tease you when you’re having a bad time,” apologized Spike.

If by “bad time,” he meant “mental breakdown,” then yeah, we stood in agreement. Spike turned around swiftly back to the stairs he came from. Wait, since when did stairs led to my bedroom? Two years in my shared one-floor 900 sq. ft. apartment and you’d think I would know the layout by now.

“Lemme brew you some of your favorite tea. I’m positive that’ll help you relax,” he added. “I think you just woke up brusquely. IIIIII’m not sure you need to go to the hospital just because of a few nightmares,” he concluded, sure of himself.

Wrong! So wrong! DEAD wrong! And- and how could he pretend to know what my preferred brand of Lipton tea was? I didn’t even LIKE tea!

I. Didn’t. Know. This. GUY! And he was acting like we had been brothers since the dawn of time.

I buried my head in my hooves, grunting in exasperation.

Wait.

Did I just seriously fucking call them “hooves?” Oh no no no, Sir, I will NOT entertain the seed of an idea my mischievous new “friend” implanted in my mind. My misadventure had nothing to do with Inception! I lived in the real-ass world, worked on a real-ass computer, strummed a real-ass worn-out guitar, was part of a real-ass pretentious post-rock band, drank some real-ass porters, and vibed with my real-ass friends. So what if I was a teeny tiny bit deformed? So what if a creature from the cosmos rocked up and decided to play-pretend with me? These were big problems that needed to be dealt with, but they were still grounded in the grand scheme of reality. And I intended to prove it to this creature, this walking impossibility, whom I’ve never met in my entire damn life.

I looked at my flank- HIP! I looked at my hip and was greeted by yet more purple. Just… purple for days. And fur. God fucking shit fuck, I really was covered in a layer of velvety carpet, was I not? I dismissed it for the time being, much to the relief of my sanity. Then, hesitantly, I turned my attention back to the disappearing form of Spike as he was reaching down the floor below (that we had, apparently).

“Please can you... can you also bring a mirror?” I whined, my confidence flushing away faster than I would’ve hoped.

“Hum, you know there’s a mirror in the bathroom, right? Why not groom yourself there?” said his voice from afar.

“I can’t... I don’t want to get up,” I bitched back, being completely honest with myself. My legs were still dancing in epileptic shivers, and walking had once proved unsuccessful.

After a small moment passed, “Sure Twilight, I’ll bring a mirror, if that makes you feel better,” is the response I’ve been given.

Argghnn! Next time he’s going to call me by that degrading name, I’ll retaliate with a hoof to his face. I mean- FUCK! A Fist to his face! A stubby fist with a hand that’s been expropriated!

As I’ve been left alone to my crazy thoughts once again, I took this time to regain control of my neurotic self. Who wouldn’t panic in such a situation though, right? You live 22 years of normal life and then suddenly, purple, dick off, hands out, feet nullified, midget dragon. I was amazed I didn’t succumb to a more severe panic attack or didn’t straight up pass out... yet. That was still a prospect for future me, depending on what mirror, mirror on the wall would say about my looks. About my face. The articulations, the joints and the muscles felt wrong for sure, as did my weirdly tubular neck. If the rest of my oddly metamorphosed body was any indication, then these were bad omens.

I tentatively touched my visage to- Nope! Nope nope nope SO MUCH NOPE! I couldn’t even feel my ears on the side of my dang head. I solemnly swore not to test the field any further until I had my face in the reflective glass.

My mind wandered to the room instead. My room.

Not my room.

Not by a slim chance.

This was not my bed I was laying next to. This was not my floor my rump was caressed with. These were not the walls that housed me for six hundred something days. That ceiling had never been above my head before.

Wood. Wood for days. Wood for years. The floor was, well, floored by planks. Nice varnish too. Problem was, I vividly recalled my bedroom having an uncleaned white carpet turned beige that was so out of style even my boomer parents pitied it. The walls did not meet in those 90 degree angles any building worth their foundation had; rather, they were undulated, and textured almost as if they were made of stripped bark. It looked like a chaotic, organized mess of a structure. The architect must’ve snorted a fat line before he came up with that stuff.

I certainly didn’t own a cuckoo clock, or a telescope, or a large replica of a white knight chess piece on a chevet table, or bedsheets with some kind of constellation on it. My bookcase was slender and on wheels, not recessed into the very wall. And what about that giant bay window, the one displaying the rising sun? I told you before: Curtains drawn, that was my way of doing things. But here, the glassed wall cavity had no coverings. And I’ve mentioned the bedroom staircase too; that was a weird one, right?

Wherever I was finding myself at this point in time, it was most definitely not my apartment. I’ve been dumped into a completely unfamiliar environment, perhaps after the rogue surgeon who toyed around with my genetics was done with his violation of my privacy. This would have explained why Vince refused to heed my cries for help: He simply was not here. Lucky bastard was still probably fast asleep back in his cushiony cot. Why had I been the chosen victim and not him? Wait- That was a terrible thing to think! Why me and not no one? There, better.

Maybe this dwelling – if this counted as a dwelling of any kind – was truly the little dragon’s home (because dragons were totally a thing, don’t you know?) I could definitely sniff influences of fantasy from how this place was carved, so that would be befitting for a creature of folklore.

Speaking of the devil. I still hadn’t moved when Spike returned upstairs with the hot drink and a little stand-up mirror three quarters of his size.

“Here you go, that oughta put you right back on track!” he said optimistically.

The steaming cup was deposited by my flaaan- side, my side, by my erfin’ SIDE. My “favorite tea,” apparently. I stared at it, then at my voided hands, then at the tea bringer. I did it again. And again. This little exchange continued, but the dragon remained unperplexed as to what the problem was.

“Why are you doing this to me? Haven’t I suffered enough?” I accused.

He scratched the tip of his greenish scale in return. “What now, Twilight? I brought you what you wanted.”

I lifted my sawn-off arm to better demonstrate the little conundrum we just ran into.

“I don’t have hands, smartass! Not anymore! Somebody took them away!”

He flinched at the insult. I felt a minuscule tinge of regret at that.

“S-some-body?” He stressed the last part of the word, as if I said it wrong.

“That’s right, somebody! That’s why I needed to be rushed to the hospital, before the pain kicks in!”

“You’re... in pain? You didn’t tell me you were in pain!” His eyes swelled up perhaps twice their size.

“I mean... not really, no. I think?” Once again, t’was the truth. “I coughed a bunch when I woke up, and I think I drained three gallons of sweat, but...”

I shook my head, intending to return to the issue at hand.

“Spike, you’ve seen my hands, right? Look at yours,” which he did, “then look at mine. Do you see the problem? Unlike you, I can’t grasp the handle of the cup without fingers. You need to bring a straw, or something, if you want me to indulge.”

I couldn’t believe that I picked this moment to give a lesson on amputation. Even if this creature somehow didn’t originate from Earth – which I was 100% in-line with, by the way – he should have understood the issue, seeing as he too did have flexible digits. He brought the accursed thing with them, for crying out loud!

“Riiiiight. Your ‘hands’ and your ‘fingers,’” he raised a suspicious invisible eyebrow. He even added mocking air quotes to top it all off. “You’re being weird again, Twilight. Are you subtly boasting about how you can grab stuff with your horn? Kinda been there, done that,” he tapped his chin.

“My horn? What are you... I don’t have a...” I shook my head. “Please give me the mirror,” I somehow managed to say matter-of-factly.

“Heh, okie dokie. You really have quite the bed face this morning,” he chuckled, unaware of my regrowing distress.

The tea went ignored as I refocused onto my declining sense of identity. Spike dropped the bathroom accessory by his side. My deprecated hands still nowhere to be seen, I knew I couldn’t simply get a hold of the reflective object. Such a simple task rendered unachievable just because my greatest human trump card had been circumvented. So freaking pathetic. So freaking dependent.

I didn’t even try to stand again. The mirror was laid on the floor, so I had no reason to ascend. Instead, I tried my best to bend forward from my uncomfortable sitting position, until my atrophied limbs had to put kinesthetics at work to make me approach my target. I opted for the simplest solution: Crawling. Prone onto the parquetry, with even more loud CLOPS, I anchored my arms firmly to the floor like sturdy pylons, and with efforts through my still bendable elbows, I dragged myself forward. I wasn’t so heavy that my arms couldn’t locomote me.

Meanwhile, Spike was bewildered at my show of force. I thought then that he must’ve expected something out of me that I clearly didn’t have. Best I could tell with how little I knew at the time, was that he had me confused with someone else, perhaps due to the global plastic surgery my body went through without my consent.

“Hum, what are you doing?” he finally found the guts to ask.

“Hush.”

Another bit of propelling and I was about to get all of my answers. I just hoped I hadn’t been disfigured beyond recognition. Face/Off was just a movie after all, and I was neither Travolta nor Cage. I silently prayed that my face remained fit for use for our album covers. My charm could sell.

One final horizontal pull-up later, and I had met my mirrored self. Except, this mirror was taunting me, that’s what it was doing.

For my beautiful and handsome scraggly guitarist face was not the one portrayed there, but something completely bonkers, completely outlandish. Perhaps even more so than the dragon by my side. It didn’t have an unshaven stubble, it didn’t have eleven hour shifts baggy eyes, it didn’t have coffee-stained teeth, it didn’t have skin cratered by years of violent teen acne, it didn’t have my signature scruffy eyebrows.

By all accounts, it was a horse.

A purple horse, as purple as the hide that clung onto the entirety of my being like an invasive parasite. She looked devastated, as though her world crumbled into microscopic specs of shattered hope. Uh, ‘she?’ ‘Her?’ Well she looked female enough to me. I couldn’t put my finger as to why – probably because I didn’t have an effing finger anymore. See, she even took a cautious look at her hoof to confirm it. She was splayed on the floor like I was splayed on the floor, her long and slender neck craned upward so that her eyes could peer into mine. Eyes that screamed terror, intimidated by how I stared her to death.

Body shape aside, the resemblance to horses pretty much stopped there. She was equine-moulded alright. But that face she bore lodged somewhere between “uncanny” and “Matt Groening drunk at 3 AM.” All thanks to those damn aforementioned eyes. Gi-gan-tic, my friends. That, they were. Spike had to eat his carrots for his ocular diner plates to match her ocular frisbees. As far as I could gather, her irises were a darker shade of purple compared to the one that coated her pelt. And her pupils were itsy-bitsy. Minuscule, singular-dotted pinpricks. I wondered if it was a bug or a feature. Atop her panic-ridden expression was a mane, a bit scruffy around the edges, but overall well-tended (everybody’s a critic). It was mostly indigo in color, but it was decorated with two perpendicular stripes; one cardinal-red, and the other, magenta. Her ears were two equilateral triangles to the back and above her rounded head, twitching attentively like small antenna dishes.

The weirdest bit, la crème de la crème: In between two locks of hair, riiiiiiight above those flabbergasted eyes, centered on the forehead, stood a rather unfortunate malformation in her skull. A bone cancer growth that didn’t receive a proper MRI in years. A probed out nubby spire that would be naught but inconvenient. Spike would call it a horn; I’d call it a tumor shaped like a fat popsicle stick.

When I tried to get a better look at the ass tattoos, moving my bum sideways so she could move hers, the tail flailing in all sorts of directions all the while, I started to have quite enough of this mimicking minigame. Not that I was particularly upset or angry, no no no.

I was just a little too close to shitting myself for my taste, see.

But make no mistakes. I knew something. I knew something and I knew it well. There was a lingering axiom floating about that had no right to be ignored. I could not postpone my acknowledgement of its existence any further.

All of this?

It was really happening.

Sure, I had played Radiohead’s How to Disappear Completely in my head when I took a good look at what I’d become, and the advice sung by Thom Yorke stipulated the opposite of the thesis I just posited. Because deep down, I knew that this was more coping than accepting. The sick sad truth went beyond Kid A’s finest.

This was not a dream. This was not a euphoric hallucination. This was not the fabrication of a coma. This was not a simulation. The Metaverse didn’t take over. I had coughed, I had ached, I had suffered an inhuman amount of heat, I could feel it all with such lucid tangibility, and I most definitely was NOT having fun. It had been nothing but discomfort, pain, anguish, and confusion. This. Was. Not. Fake.

Reaffirming this washed yet another wave of craze all over this body I inhibited. My delirium reached its apex precisely then.

With a burst of strength, fueled by too many weeks without uncle Xanax, I jolted backward, to return to the sitting I abandoned earlier. I pushed myself away from the artifact of doom (i.e., the mirror) the same way I had pushed myself away from Spike the first time he rocked up. The difference, this time around, being my accusatory hoof/arm pointing – if one could’ve pointed without any fingers – at the face that greeted me six seconds ago.

“What the heck is THAT!?”

“Somepony who hasn’t brushed their mane?” comically shrugged my extraterrestrial acolyte.

“That couldn’t- That wasn’t me, right?”

Spike deadpanned. “Who else would it be?”

“Why am I a horse!?”

Spike groaned. “Isn’t it a bit early to have delusions of grandeur? I don’t think it’s even possible to go from pony to horse, Twi. You should know, right?”

“From pony to... I’m a pony!? That’s what this disgusting purple mongrel is?”

The hoof trembled at my contorted doppelganger. My self-appointed assistant drooped, saddened to deal with even more of my shenanigans. Self-deprecation was on the menu this time around.

“H-hey now, don’t say that...” I felt his sorrow penetrating the marrow of my bones like radiation.

“I-Is... is...” I sniffled, finding it particularly hard to continue. “Is this o-one of th-those... deforming mirrors from circus f-f-freak shows? Is it? Is it??”

There was a lump in my throat. A big lump jam-packed with mucus.

“Oh, Twilight...” he sympathized, the sorrow being doubly potent now. But I had my answer. That there was a genuine mirror with no tricks up its sleeve.

He wanted to approach me, to keep my growing sense of dread in check. But instead, I crawled back to the mirror. I had to see that face again. I had to see that ugly bitch’s mug, her mockery of humanity, just one more time. I had to see it with her own bare eyes. I had to imprint it in my gray matter. I had to make sure she and I were one and the same, that it was indeed me, the sucker who had been stripped away from everything he had once loved about himself.

Back in the oval, she stood true once more. The purple pony. That thrice be damned mare from hell. But something was a bit different from my first checkup. She now had enormous crocodile tears bawling out of her reddened puffy eyes, streaming on her fluffy cheeks like endless waterfalls, and dripping onto the oak planks. She hiccupped; I hiccupped. She wept even harder, the waterworks flooding every spot that wasn’t already wet on her face; and I did just the same.

I was tearing up so hard, moaning at the injustice, at the finality that had struck me. So, so hard, that I turned silent for several seconds before gasping a huge chunk of air into my depleted reserves, returning with loud pleading howls. I repeated the process for far longer than I could remember. I didn’t even register that Spike had returned a hug, rubbing his fingers on my hunched back. But I kept at it. If you thought my salted water tanks were close to being emptied, you were very very wrong.

I had not cried in what amounted to years. Last I did was when my grandpappy passed away approximately four years ago, when I was on my way out of high school. Ever since then, I went cold turkey on mushy emotions. Outside of songwriting, not much in my life prompted me to get in touch with my sensitive side. It’s not that I didn’t want to cry, it’s that I didn’t have a reason to.

Here though? This was four years of repression leaking out all at once. And I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t resilient, tough, and courageous like those heartbroken protagonists me and the guys wrote lyrics about. I was just so utterly crushed beyond redemption. I lost total control of myself. I allowed myself to lose that control without any resistance. I didn’t even try to fight back at the anvil that wedged itself in my guts. I cried so hard that I was blowing hot snot out of my nose – my snout. My snout. My fucking snout!

Just when I thought I had let it all out, I went at it again. I started to fear that the wood near my feet... hooves... would start to warp if I kept raining on it like this. My face even began to sting. My cheeks felt like they were made of lava, and I could barely see anything past the misty screen that blurred my vision.

“This isn’t... this isn’t me... I’m not...” I sobbed in between tears, barely managing to get the words in the right order.

“P-please don’t cry... Please,” tried to comfort the valiant little dragon, only for him to start having tear bubbles around the corner of his eyes. “I’m there for you, Twi. Always.”

“I-I... I don’t... d-don’t want to be this repulsive thing...”

I burrowed my head in a depression made from my two forelegs. Forelegs... Now resting on the floor in supplication, as though I was ready to be chastised by a vengeful God.

“Twilight, how could you say that!? You are one of the most beautiful ponies in town! It’s true! A-and I’m not just saying that b-because I’m your number one assistant, I...” He wiped a tear that was running down his face with the back of his scaly arm. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you!”

I turned the head that wasn’t mine, but that was mine regardless, to face the self-incriminating reptile. His head hung low, and he was fighting really hard to not completely break down as I had.

“Wuh- what? Spike, you- why would you have upset me? Y-you didn’t do anything!” I tried to deescalate the situation.

“N-no, I-I did! I made a distasteful joke about this Vince stallion you dreamt about, about how you’d- a-and... and then I got the giggles when you got irritated. I never wanted to shatter your self-confidence like this, I would never want that!”

“Spike, this isn’t...” I lowered my head, torn with shame. “This isn’t about you, I promise. You have nothing to do with any of this,” I reassured him, my hooves trying to clear my big eyeballs from the last of my tears. “This is about me. Trying to... figure stuff out. I’m not in- in a very good place right now. I don’t understand what’s going on, or anything, and it’s gotten me so afraid... I’m just all jumbled up.”

Spike came back to nuzzle my whimpering form once again. It’s been a lot of dragon to pony contacts in one morning. I never really was one to get physical like this. For instance, I only gave the occasional handshake to my old folks, perhaps three to four times a year, but that was the pinnacle of how close them and I wanted to approach one another. Not that we didn’t love each other – we really really did – but we just didn’t want to express it by being all touchy. My friends came from that same school of thoughts. Hugs were a once-per-decade deal for me. I don’t think I’ve even touched Vince once. With that in mind however, I couldn’t describe how nice it felt to just go with the flow together with Spike; him caressing me, me caressing him back.

I stressed once again that my detachment with myself had not been in any way, shape, or form prompted by him, and that seemed to have successfully put him at ease.

The two of us sighed in contentment, the moment of weakness having mostly passed. I almost felt a bit cathartic after this bumpy ride of a wake up.

After a few more minutes of pure blissful silence, Spike finally nudged me lightly.

“I think you should drink your tea before it gets cold. Trust me, it’ll make you feel super-duper back in no time,” he suggested.

“Ok...” I said, a bit resigned and fatigued at once. Crying took a lot out of me.

Drinking something smooth and calming didn’t seem like such a bad idea. My many coughs did leave me completely dehydrated after all.

I tried to push myself up, but my trembling legs could no longer support my decaying leftovers of strength. So I did the best next thing and I slumped to my side lazily, my hind legs crossed a bit to mask my nakedness. I had just gotten out of bed after all; I did not have time to sport some trousers or anything, really – and yes, I did make a habit of sleeping in my birth suit. Forever an enemy of the nightly heat, I was. Spike didn’t seem to mind my show of exhibitionism however, which was a microscopic plus if there was to be one. But once a prude, always a prude, and you couldn’t sue me for trying to conceal myself a little bit, no matter which form my body took.

With this out of the way, I took a timid look at the lukewarm tea, the one that my compassionate friend had delightfully poured just for me. I then sent a sheepish smile his way.

“Um, would it be alright if you brought it to me and helped me drink it?”

Christ, I felt like an invalid. I was still in the golden years of my life. In the prime of my 20’s, and this is what I’ve been reduced to? In one measly night too? I could see many more crying sessions queuing up already. I for sure would have to make a schedule down the line. Cry on Thursday, cry on Saturday, etc.

Spike, probably thinking I’ve worked myself to exhaustion emotionally, physically, and mentally, did not hesitate one second to tend to my request.

“Sure Twilight, I’d love to.”