Hello?
Is there anyone in there?
Somepony spoke to me, I could not see who. All around me was blackness, not void but a thick veil of darkness that dripped and squirmed as I moved.
I tried to respond but no words came out. I could feel the air leaving my mouth but the sound did not register to me. Suspended in nothing, hanging in nowhere.
I could feel something, but see nothing. The veil grated at me, dug into my skin. It had itched at first, then it began to hurt. The pressure increased slowly as I realized it was not smooth, but rough. Sandpaper? Something stronger, it started to tear off hair and skin.
What was it? I couldn't see it, I didn't know where I was. A stabbing pain hit me in the eyes like shards of glass had been stuck into them. The gentle trickle of a warm liquid spread over my face. The desire to writhe was countered by a sudden paralysis, I held still. Something was holding me from every side, pressing in closer, not grating but squeezing now. Whatever it was had completely immobilized me. I felt it start to grate and cut again as I lost the sensations of my body. I couldn't feel my legs, or my face. I couldn't feel anything.
Yet, something told me not to give up. It was a voice, from deep within, shouting something. As I struggled to focus on it, it grew quieter and more distant. I could only make out two of the words it said:
Wake up!
My eyes opened in an instant, the fear I had felt melting away as they did. My face was planted firmly on the desk in front of me as everypony was gathering up their books and stationary to go home. It was last period, I had fallen asleep. A single drop of drool had escaped my mouth and made its way down onto the desk. I couldn't decide whether to wipe it off or try to suck it back up into my mouth.
"Cadence! Wake up!" Minty hissed at me. She was standing in front of my desk so as to better block the teacher's view of me, and trying desperately to wake me up. Squeaky, her twin sister, was standing near the front of the room and presumably attempting to run interference for me.
"You were sleeping in class again," she whispered, as I scrambled to put away my completely unused textbook before anypony noticed.
"No kidding. Did anypony see?"
Minty took a quick look around. I sat at the back of the class, and Minty had deliberately taken the spot in front of me when we had chosen seats at the start of the year. Squeaky had taken the seat to one side, and Gabby had taken the seat to the other. We had a little t-shape going on - certainly not to visit with one another more efficiently: It was entirely for my benefit.
"Don't think - " she said, stopping mid-sentence as her eyes reached the front of the room. Squeaky had broken off and was walking towards the doorway. Our teacher, Ms. Bunsen, was looking in my direction. Straight at me. A glare which could cut through ice cleared the distance between bad and worse, and put my situation somewhere on the far side of hopeless.
"Crud," I muttered.
"Miss Cadenza, may I speak with you?" Ms. Bunsen asked.
Minty summoned up the most sympathetic look she could generate, which looked like a mixture of drowsy and constipated: a dangerous combination. Beyond the door waited Gabby and Squeaky, peering in to see the proceedings. Ms. Bunsen escorted Minty to the door and shut it behind her. I was alone, and certainly not getting reinforcements any time soon.
I walked to the front of the room as a prisoner condemned, my head hung in shame. I reasoned this was probably going to be the final straw. I had failed almost every assignment in Physics class this year, despite Minty and Squeaky's attempts to help me. Those two were easily the best at the sciences, and I had always asked for help on everything, but I couldn't seem to get my grades up. Ms. Bunsen was likely going to fail me and hold me back a year. Sleeping in class would just give her the chance to feel righteous while she did it.
"Miss Cadenza," she said. There was an edge, a harshness, in her tone she did not take with the other students.
"Yes."
"Are you aware you are failing my class?"
"Yes."
"And are you aware that, even should you score a perfect one-hundred on the final exam, you will still be failing?"
That last part I hadn't been aware of.
"No."
I couldn't bring myself to meet her stare, I kept my eyes fixed on the ground in front of me. A solitary dust bunny peered out from beneath the desk, likewise doing its best to hide its shame.
"Listen, Miamore. I do not want to have to fail a student, particularly one who puts as much effort into her work as you. I know you have been working with the twins, I can see you are trying, yet you continue to have such a poor performance."
I said nothing. It was all true, I was a failure. I wasn't really good at anything, in my personal opinion. My family was from a long line of nearly-purebred Unicorns and I was so terrible at magic I could barely write my own name with a quill. I still used pencils all the time, and I winced whenever I saw another Unicorn student writing with their magic. I had a poor showing in the other science classes, I couldn't write fiction or interperet art any better than a school filly, and I was certainly no athlete. The only thing I was any good at was -
"Listen, I would like to make you an offer," Ms. Bunsen said. My ears perked up.
"Really? An offer on what?"
"I understand your best subject is history, correct? I have been talking with Mr. Prescott and he suggested a, shall we say, rephrasing of the subject of Physics."
This was already sounding like a really weird offer, but I wisely kept my big mouth shut and let her continue.
"I would be willing to give you a series of essay assignments on the history of Physics, to be completed over the summer, using materials of my discretion. If you can demonstrate a sufficient understanding through those essays, I will bump up your grade to a 'pass'."
"Write essays to pass Physics?"
I was bewildered, like the words had some otherworldly meaning. I knew what every single one of them meant, yet taken together, the sentence made no sense at all. Were we even speaking the same language here?
"I'll do it!" I said, my words surprising even me. It seemed my mouth had the good sense to take a good deal when it heard one, or at least my tongue did. The uvula, however, rarely contributed anything to my conversations.
"Excellent!" she said, her face sharply shifting from dour glare to beaming happiness. She rummaged in her desk before pulling out a long contract on fancy parchment. She pushed a quill towards me, and waited expectantly.
The contract was incredibly long and dense, the text so narrow I could hardly read it. I didn't have time to anyway, so I skimmed it over. I noted a lack of anything like 'the signatory agrees to relinquish possession of his/her soul,' and that was enough for me. I signed it.
"Very good, I'll give George the good news myself. You're dismissed, Miamore," she said.
My friends were waiting for me in the hallway. Gabby, a big white Earth Pony with a deep red mane, towered over the twins. When she caught sight of me she charged towards me and stopped an inch before a collision.
"What was that all about? Did I see you signing something there?" she asked.
"Were you spying on me?"
"Yes!"
By this time, Minty and Squeaky had walked over to join us. They had a much more amused look about them, their faces nearly identical to anyone except for Gabby and myself. Even their own parents sometimes got them mixed up, they were the exact same shade of sky blue in coat and the exact same shade of darker blue in mane. The only difference, to the uninitiated, was that Squeaky did not wear her mane with a band in it, while Minty did. If they switched the band, you'd never know the difference.
"I think I know what happened," Squeaky said.
"It's not a big deal. She said she'd pass me if I wrote a bunch of essays for her this summer. Nothing to it."
Gabby was not convinced. "But - " she started to say, before catching herself.
A look passed between Squeaky and Minty, and Gabby noticed it. A look of understanding came over her face, she reared her head back and looked down at me.
"Oh, oh. I get it, you're just a pawn. Yeah, okay," she said.
"A pawn? How?" I've never been very good at checkers.
"Nevermind."
"Hey, do you want some help writing the essays? We'd love to tag along!" Minty said.
I chuckled. This was going to get them good.
"They're History essays, Minty. Still want to help?"
She shut her mouth and looked like somepony had just bucked her in the stomach. While the twins were pros at science, they were terrible at History. We had something of a symbiotic relationship going on here.
"Well, now that that's settled, anypony up for a shake?" I asked.
All three of them voiced their affirmation, of course, they'd never, ever, let the chance pass them by. In our little circle, whoever suggested it had to pay for it. I was getting a little low on funds as of late, but I really needed to take the edge off. I'd bite the bullet – for now.
The diner was a few blocks from the school, everything was getting so bright and cheery these days as summer was creeping up on us. It was still bright out even though we had gotten out of the school late today due to my failing grades, and while I could tell the twins wanted to fly, they didn't. They were Pegasi but also considerate, which is more than I could say for most ponies. Gabby and I liked to talk as we walked, so they stayed on the ground with us to share in the conversation.
The milkshakes were absolutely worth it, despite the hit to my wallet. I had made sure to get cinnamon sprinkled on the whipped cream, since if you're buying, you may as well go all out. We chatted about our plans for the coming summer as the glasses drained with each word spoken. Gabby was getting serious with her task as a producer for some bands made up of our classmates, and was likely going to spend the summer hanging up posters or dropping flyers on unwilling ponies. The twins had a plan to make some money by delivering pizzas, though they neglected to tell me who they were working for. Perhaps nopony.
Me? I had no plans at all. Truth be told, my highest goal in life was to simply be. I loved nothing more than lounging someplace warm, my eyes closed, watching the insides of my eyelids. Not actually being asleep, just being.
Soon enough, the milkshakes emptied and it was time to go home. I bid farewell to my friends and set off alone as the sun had begun the long process of setting in front of me. I was likely going to have to tell my parents about what had happened at some point, so I rehearsed what I was going to say in my head. Several scenarios presented themselves, most of them bad. In one case, they would find out and then ground me. In another, they would find out and then ground me, except somehow moreso. In the best case, they wouldn't ask any questions and just let me go. Though admittedly that wasn't exactly likely. No, wait, the best scenario was the one where a time-travelling pony appeared from nowhere and whisked me off on an adventure across eons. Yeah, now that's how you tell your parents you suck at Physics.
By the time I had made it home, dinner was already ready. I, of course, wasn't hungry, but that was entirely the point of the milkshakes. My parents always took turns cooking for us, and my Dad had been on a big raw-food diet thing as of late. That meant that he would prepare us stuff that hadn't been cooked, as that was somehow better for you, so those ridiculous tabloids said. That meant I was probably getting a sandwich or a salad today, not for lunch, but for dinner, and if it tasted like something better than stamp-paste, it was a lucky break. Growing ponies need food, Dad!
"Hello Cadence, how was your day?" Mom asked me the moment I stepped through the door. She was in the living room. I took off my saddlebags and laid them in the entryway before I answered. If that time-traveller was going to show up, that was his cue. He didn't show up.
"Same old, same old," I lied.
"Oh really? Are you sure you didn't sign any contracts for one of your teachers?"
How could she possibly have known that? Did Ms. Bunsen send her a letter or something? Maybe she had tracked Mom down at work and accosted her, demanding to know what she was doing to me at home to make me fail my studies. Was she helping me do the work? Nagging at me hard enough? Was she beating me? Maybe – was she not beating me hard enough?
"Yeah, about that - "
"It's fine honey, she told me everything," Mom said, emerging from the living room and planting a kiss on my cheek before I could squirm away. "Why don't you go to the twins for help? Their father says they are simply the best."
"I've tried that."
Mom gave me a searching look, probing for dishonesty. She was a government prosecutor, her job was to grill witnesses and make them fess up. She found nothing, as this time I really was telling the truth, though she could still have made me cry if she really tried. At least, that's what she always bragged about doing in court.
"All right sweetie, I'm sure you can do it. Your father has finished with dinner," she said, rolling her eyes. I took note she had left out the word 'cooking'.
That night it was carrots with dill dip. Not even a salad. I was going to starve to death if I didn't figure out how to prepare food by myself.
I ate quietly while Mom and Dad talked about their days. Mom was talking about yet another big case she was building against some scumbag in a museum robbery. Dad was talking about a big deal to build a railroad to Ponyville, a town I had never even heard of. His job was something involving rail lines, and I was never sure exactly what he did. Evidently he was good at it though, because he always 'got results'. At no point during the conversation did a pony appear in a time machine.
"Cadence?" Mom asked. Whenever my name came up, nothing good would follow it. "You were looking for a job for this summer, weren't you?"
"I was?"
I hadn't been, of course, but this was one of those times where what I thought didn't matter.
"Well, I ran into Gloria the other day – do you remember her? - and she told me that Patrick got a promotion!" she said.
"How does -
"That means there's an opening at the EDHFS, so I could put in a good word for you if you'd like," she said.
It was as though I was sitting in a raft, minding my own business, when some upstart swordfish showed up and punctured the bottom. The damn thing gave me a cruel wink before zooming off under the waves as my raft started taking on water. I grabbed a bucket and started bailing.
"I - "
"Oh terrific, I'll see if I can get you an interview this week."
"But - "
"I think it'd be a lovely experience for you. Oh, my little girl is growing up!" she said, blinking as if to knock away a tear.
"Help me out here," I pleaded to my Dad.
"So, what does the EDHFS do, dear?" he asked. The boat sprung another leak, you're not helping, Dad!
"Oh, you know, that's the agency that organizes foal-sitters for employees who travel on government business. Patrick got promoted to the head of the industrial division, and that means there's a foal-sitter opening just perfect for you, Cadence."
Industrial division? Were they going to send me to foal-sit for big vats of liquid steel? Was I going to have to read girders a bed-time story?
"I'll see if I can't track down Gloria tomorrow morning," Mom said, relaxing her stance and basking in the joy of yet another little part of my life she had taken control of.
With no fanfare whatsoever, my dreams become unsavable, sliding beneath the waves and leaving me treading water, watching them sink further into the cerulean depths. That damn swordfish was going to pay if I ever found a way to manifest my daydreams into reality.
We didn't finish all the carrots that evening, and I hadn't even bothered with the dip, which tasted like carrots anyway – perhaps that's why they called it carrot dip? With a weekend coming up, I retired early and woke up likewise the next morning.
The next day was Friday, and that meant it was time for History class. Mr. Prescott tried to get everypony to pay attention, but it wasn't working at all. This was officially the last day of school before final exams, and it was the day before the weekend. His attempts to elaborate on the final exam would have been commendable had they not been so futile, I was the only pony interested in what he had to say. I won't say who did it, but a paper airplane found its way onto the floor next to my desk. Mr. Prescott has the patience of a saint.
The twins didn't have time to hang out that day, as their parents needed their help fixing the roof. Gabs and I just hung out in the park. Finals started on Tuesday next week, which to my teenage mind keen on procrastinating, was adequately far in the future that I could forget about it.
I had mulled over the scenarios some more, in my head, as we hung out. I even pitched the time-traveller one to Gabby, and while she told me it'd make a great movie, it lacked punch. She proposed space aliens showing up and vaporizing everypony. I countered with plant monsters that wrap your house in vines until you starve within them. We eventually settled on lightning-fast glaciers that can outrun ponies and crush them underneath. That, we had decided, was the ideal way to not have to go to school.
On Sunday evening I was preparing to go to bed, after having tried and not succeeded to study for my math final. I turned off the lights and lie down, staring up at the ceiling and trying to think of nothing at all. Sleep decided not to visit me quite yet, and I lie awake for a time, hearing the gentle tick-tock of my alarm clock.
All at once, an incredibly loud snapping sound shook the inside of my head. Louder than any explosion, it made my bones vibrate with a tremendous force as I shot upwards instinctively. The air, however, had not ruffled. Nopony in the house stirred. It had not been a sound, at least, not a sound I could hear. It was a sound I had felt.
This had happened to me once before, and I remembered the feeling extremely well. I had been at a loss to explain it then, I had chalked it up to something I would understand when I grew up and put it out of my mind, and yet, here it was again. The same, but so different.
This was a few years back, when I was still in grade school. I had come home to find my Mom sitting at the table, staring at the wall. At first I had thought nothing of it, but when I saw the look on her face, I felt something inside me shift. Her face was that of a pony who has had their heart torn to shreds, a fallen grimace that only a pony thinking of suicide ever wears. She hadn't responded to me when I talked to her, her eyes did not follow my movements in the room. She hadn't even responded to my touch.
Something within me, however, had known what to do. I've never been very good at magic myself, but every Unicorn has some. They say it matches your special talent, and this was mine. I'm not sure how I did it or even what I did, all I did was concentrate for a moment and close my eyes.
When I opened them, everything was gone. The floor, the walls, the table, my Mom, all gone. In their place was an empty void, like looking at the night sky with no stars. In front of me was a great glowing orb of light, radiating like the sun in this vacuum.
The light had, upon closer inspection, small bands going off away from it. As I moved closer, I felt these bands, similarly made of the glowing light, shift and react to my presence. I could see them traveling off into the distance, so far away they disappeared amongst the background. One of the bands held itself up in front of me, pleading for my attention.
It had been frayed, torn at by something. I could not venture what, all I could tell was that it was damaged and it could not repair itself. I am not sure how I did any of this, I am not even sure of what this spell I was using was called, if it was even called anything. I simply reached out and took a small piece of the band of light, pulled it off as gently as I could, and wrapped it around the frayed extension. It was a bandage I had put on, the band would have to repair itself in time. I had done all I could do, and I left that other sight and opened my real eyes to find my mom still sitting at the table, now crying.
I tried to comfort her, but she was not interested. These were tears of joy, as she pulled herself together long enough to point at my flank. A mirror, carved from crystal and in the shape of a heart, had manifested there, and we hugged each other.
I later learned that she had had a fight with my father. It had very nearly come to blows between them, and he had stormed out of the house. She was not certain if he would return at all, much less when, and that had been the state I found her in. She told me she had felt herself falling into some infinite abyss before I brought her back, somehow.
My Dad came home the next day, similarly overjoyed. They made up and promised never to have a fight like that again, leaving out whatever it was I had done. It was not something that words could describe, and since then, the sight had never come to me. Until now.
I instinctively knew how to bring it up again. I closed my eyes and concentrated and brought about that sight, seeing the black emptiness stretching out to infinity. A short distance away were two globes of light, in where I estimated would be my parent's room in the real world. Nothing else, however, moved here. It was dark, silent. Empty. But something had been here, very recently, and very close.
Though I strained to stay awake, sleep would eventually overtake me. My body could not spare time for my mind's wondering, tomorrow was going to be a big day without being tired and sporting a headache. I had bigger things to worry about.
I would find out just how much bigger very soon.