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// Chapter 3: A Familiar Face 
// Story: The Crystal's Shadow 
// by Shadow Beast 
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I was about to sit on the couch when I heard a knock at the door.  My eyes looked up towards the ceiling, wondering if Masquerade had heard it as well.  Finally, I made my way to the door and opened it.  It was the nurse.  I let her inside.

“How are you feeling?” she asked with a smile on her face.  

“My memories getting slightly better,” I admitted as we trotted to the table.  

“So the hay is working?”  The smile disappeared when she saw me wince from the headache.  

“Yeah, about that... I took a small sniff of it and... well... blood.”  I gestured to the nearby garbage bin.  She took a short peek inside, then turned to me with a frown.   

“There’s nothing in the bin; it’s a clean bag.”

“It’s taking out my garbage now?” I asked myself.  She heard it under my breath.

“What is?”

I looked up toward my bedroom through the ceiling.  “We should talk about it elsewhere...”

She nodded in understanding.  “I understand,” she whispered.  “The doctor says you need some exercise.  How about a walk around town?” she asked me at full volume.  

“That doesn’t sound too hard.”  I nodded back, and we trotted outside.  I would have locked the door behind me, but I forgot my keys inside.  

We trotted a winding path that would lead us in a circle.

“So what is ‘it?’” she asked as my house vanished from sight.  

“It’s a friend.”  I wasn’t sure why I was defending a creature I barely knew.  “It stays in my upstairs bedroom.”

“What color is it?”

“That’s a tough question.  It was mostly black, but there patches that looked like crystal pony skin.”  I left out the shape-shifting business to spare myself a headache.  

“Did it have holes in its legs?  And fangs?”  She seemed scared.

“You’ve seen one before?” I asked, hoping to get more information about the c-lings.

She nodded her head with a tense energy.  She looked around and, upon seeing other ponies, pulled me into an isolated alleyway.  “They’re called changelings.”  My head lowered as my headache returned.  Her hooves grabbed my head and lifted it up until we could make eye contact again.  “Listen to me!  That monster is the reason why you can’t feel happy!  They feed off of love!”  My head writhed in agony between her hooves.  “Are you okay?”

“I must’ve... known that before...” I explained, my eyes closed in the pain.  “My mind doesn’t seem to like the truth.”  

“It’ll be okay,” she assured me.  “We just need to contact some guards and--”  

A strange sound interrupted her and forced me to open my eyes.  She looked into my eyes in fear, then we both turned to find the source of the noise:  Masquerade was on a roof above us.  Its horn shone a bright green, and a chunk of crystal was torn from the roofing of the building.  It stared at her with purpose.  We both watched as the chunk was released from the creature’s magic... and hit the nurse in the head.  She fell to the ground.  Blood stained  the ground.  I galloped away as fast as I could back towards my house.  I didn’t have a plan... but I certainly knew what was really going on at that moment.  

I made it inside my house.  I looked around the kitchen for something sharp.  That monster wasn’t going to get away with this.  My headache was gone and my mind was clear.  I turned back toward the table.  The lantern’s light shone around the room, but I only saw the stand and the blunt object within it.  I took the handle in my mouth and made my way up the stairs to surprise Masquerade.  It would be a bad day to be a parasite.

At least it would have been... if Masquerade was not already in the bedroom.  I dropped the lantern.  It smiled at me with a crystal pony’s snout.  Its true form was concealed.  

Everything but the fangs.