//------------------------------// // Secrets and Semantics // Story: The Last Crusade // by CyborgSamurai //------------------------------// Chapter 3: Secrets and Semantics The trip back to Phil’s was uneventful. We exchanged information on what we’d been doing for the past week, but nothing stuck out. My daily activities made for boring conversation, Phil’s weren’t much better, and Dylan took up the rest of the time telling us how a guy in the meat department had cut off the tip of his finger. Entertaining, to be sure, but it didn’t help us much. We got out of the car and traipsed into Phil’s house single file. I slumped down on the living room couch, Dylan went into the bathroom to go hunt for some aspirin, and Phil gave us permission to raid the fridge before retreating to his room for some much needed rest. I looked up at the ceiling and felt my shoulder-length hair brush against the back of my neck. I held out a strand and judged it to be around six inches long. I’d never heard of anything that accelerated hair growth. I didn't even think it was scientifically possible! Shouldn’t something like that have been a major scientific breakthrough that made national news? We were talking about a cure for a baldness, here! And how did our unknown prankster get a hold of it? Was he or she using it on random people that they found on the streets, and... also putting My Little Pony tattoos on them... okay, that was just dumb. I sank deeper into the couch and looked around the living room. A dark gray recliner and loveseat sat next to the couch on opposite sides. A worn coffee table with countless cup rings on it was in the center of the room. The plain, white walls were filled with framed posters and pictures, each of them boasting some kind of significance in Phil’s life. No less than six of the pictures were of us. The springy carpet was a dull brown, and a large flat screen TV and Blu-Ray player were fastened to the wall. The room had a faint smell of cigarettes and was pleasantly warm, a welcoming contrast to the chilly outside. I let out my breath in a long, contented sigh. I found myself filled with a sense of ease that I never got back at my apartment in the city. Just another reason why I wished so badly that the guys had come with me to college. I doubted I’d ever fully get over it. My leaving had meant we were now missing out each other’s lives, and we were now slowly drifting apart. We’d probably wind up seeing each other less and less as time went on, until finally we wouldn’t see each other at all. I felt my eyes grow warm, but I wasn’t sure why. Was it because I mourned the impending death of our friendship? Was it because I realized just how lonely I was? Or was it because I knew something in my life was inherently wrong, but I had no idea what it was? Dylan came back to find me staring blankly off into space. He started to say something, but then stopped when he heard me let out a quiet sniffle. He immediately came over and sat down beside me. “Hey.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “You all right?” I closed my eyes and looked away. “I just... wish I knew what was going on.” "Dork." Dylan reached up and lightly flicked my ear. "Don't dodge the question. Tell me what’s wrong.” I pursed my lips. “It’s nothing.” Dylan lowered his chin. “Shall I go through Phil’s music collection and put on some emo music for you? Maybe later we can go shopping for spiked jewelry, dye our hair black and write depressing poetry at a hipster cafe! That sound like fun?” I grit my teeth and turned my back to him. “Does everything have to be a joke with you?” “Does everything have to be a soap opera with you?” Dylan returned. He leaned in and spoke in a clear, concise tone. “I don’t know what’s with this ‘lone wolf’ act you’re pulling all of a sudden, but seriously? Knock it the hell off. This isn’t the big city where you always have to look out for number one. We're the oldest friends you have, we actually give a shit about you, and you pushing us away is like saying the last fifteen years of friendship accounted for jack.” I ignored the heavy weight in my gut and stood my ground. “Did it ever occur to you I might have a reason for not wanting to talk about certain things with you or the others?” “Oh, this oughta be good.” Dylan put his arms behind the couch. “Tell me, Mage, what monumental, earth-breaking reason might you have for not confiding in me, the godfather of your future kids?” He may as well have slapped me. We all wanted to have children someday, and we couldn’t do the usual MMPD name thing because we'd agreed that Phil and Mike’s kids would be better suited if they stayed within their family. Dylan wasn’t the most serious at times, but he was great with kids, and I knew he'd pick up the slack if anything happened to me. “That’s... not fair,” I managed. “What isn’t fair is that you're withdrawing into your shell and not letting us help you,” Dylan said. ”Keeping secrets is something we’ve never done, and there's no reason why we should start now. Why don't you trust us?” I hung my head and twiddled my thumbs. “My concerns are just me being stupid. I don’t want you or the guys thinking I have doubts about things that I know really aren’t going to happen.” A lopsided smirk crept up on Dylan’s lips. “We're all stupid sometimes, my friend. It'd be a very different world if we were all perfect all the time. I'm not going to let this rest, so you may as well save yourself the trouble and just start talking.” I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I shook my head and tried again, but it was like there was a hand around my throat. I tried one more time, but it was no use. I couldn’t talk with the Dylan about my fears of our friendship falling apart. He’d dismiss it as pointless, or worse, point the finger at me for being the one who left. I needed something to throw him off, and fortunately, I knew just the thing. “I'm worried that these marks and our hair having some kind of connection with the show.” My eyes were drawn up to his long, completely mussed-up hair. I’d have thought he’d try and do something about it while he was in the bathroom, but apparently he was content to leave it as it was. “I mean, now that I think about it, the four of us do have a lot in common with the Cutie Mark Crusaders.” Dylan blew his bangs out of his face. “Cartoons are cartoons, Mage. It’s nothing to get upset about.” “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen the show,” I insisted. “Take you, for example. Scootaloo is a pegasus who has trouble learning how to fly due to having stunted wings, and you had troubles walking when you were young because you were born with deformed hips.” Dylan rolled his eyes. “Nowhere near the same. My issue stemmed from a birth defect that the orphanage couldn’t afford to fix. It would’ve been corrected right away if things had been… different.” You’d never know it unless he told you, but Dylan lived in an orphanage until he was four. His birth parents died in a car accident, and he didn't have any other family members that could take him in. Fortunately, his adopted father was an orthopedist, and had fixed Dylan up before school started. “That’s another thing,” I said. “Scootaloo was adopted, and she had this scooter she always rode around on, kinda like the one you used to have. She was always doing all these stunts and tricks—” “I’m not the only orphan in the world, nor am I the only one that’s expressed an interest in the superior means of transportation that is the scooter.” Dylan waggled his eyebrows. “And I still have mine, thank you very much.” “There’s more, though.” I got up and started thinking up as many things as I could keep him distracted. “You’re both brash with a devil-may-care attitude, you both have looked up to a local athlete that eventually went pro, you both have an image that you’re overly concerned with, you’re both stubborn and prone to argument, especially with a certain other individual, you both—” “Look.” Dylan held out a hand to stop me. “You can draw as many similarities between me and this Scootaloo pony all you want, but that doesn’t change that she’s a cartoon character in a show made for little girls, and I’m a real person. I can’t believe I’m the one being the voice of reason here, but there’s nothing going on here that can’t be rationally explained!” Of course I knew that, but I was having fun with this. Besides, I’d suddenly gotten an idea that would throw him off completely. It’d also kill some time. “I wish I could show you what I’m talking about. Maybe then you’d—wait!” I went over to my pile of presents by the table and pulled out the box set of MLP that Mike had given me. I went back over and happily brandished it in front of Dylan. “I can!” He gave me a flat look. “No.” I pushed the box a little closer. “Pleeeeease?” Dylan crossed his arms. “Nuh-uh.” “Come onnnnnnn,” I said in a sing-song voice. “I’m not watching ponies!” I put on my best puppy dog eyes, jutted out my lower lip, and said my most pathetic voice, “I thought you wanted to help me feel better.” A low blow, I know, but it was the only way this was gonna happen. I'd been trying for years to get the guys to watch the show. Dylan winced under the onslaught of begging. Finally, he groaned and swatted me away with a resigned look. “All right, all right, but only one! Not like there’s anything else better to do right now, anyways.” With a victorious fist pump, I quickly opened up the box set and spread out the discs on the coffee table. Dylan got up and went to go pick out some snacks while I debated with myself on what episode to start with. It obviously needed to be a CMC episode, but which one? I briefly considered Sisterhood Social, but then thought it best to start with the first one instead.  I put the Season One disc in, pulled up Call of the Cutie and waited for Dylan to come back from the kitchen. I heard various rustlings of plastic bags, followed by several beeps from the microwave. A few minutes later he returned with a couple of sodas and a plate stacked high with nachos. “Okay.” He sat down and promptly stuffed his mouth with cheesy goodness. “Let’sh get thish over with.” “It’s not that bad, I promise!” I pressed play. My Little Pony, My Little Pony, ah, ah, ah, ah! My Little Pony! I used to wonder what friendship could be! Dylan stopped mid-chew. He closed his eyes and slowly lowered his head into a facepalm. “I hate you so much, Mage.” *** Despite his negative reaction to the opening theme, Dylan became oddly quiet when the episode began in earnest. We watched the entire thing, and when the disc automatically went on to the next one, neither he nor I made any effort to stop it. We watched that one too, and the next one, and the next one, and before we knew it we’d watched all the way to the end of the first season. I’d seen all the episodes before, of course, but I found myself sucked in just as much as Dylan, maybe even more so. I figured it was because I hadn’t actually seen anything from Season One in a few years, and it was now all coming back to me. I came back to my senses as the final credits rolled. The nachos and sodas were long gone, and neither of us had moved or looked at each other in hours. “That... wasn’t what I was expected,” Dylan said from beside me. My heart soared. I knew he’d like if he just gave it a chance! Maybe now that I’d convinced him the others might come around, too! I looked over at him. “I’m gl—AAAAHHH!” He jerked his head. “W—HOLY SHIT!” We both jumped up and scrambled away from each other. Dylan’s hair had now grown down to his shoulder blades. More alarming than that, though, the tips had turned a deep, vivid fuchsia. After taking in this change, I met his eyes and almost yelled again, for they'd changed as well to bright purple. A look of utter shock was etched on his face as he stared at me open-mouthed. “Hair,” he whispered. “Eyes,” I breathed. The words clicked in our minds at the same time, and we ran to the bathroom together. I turned on the light to behold my reflection. Curls. Curls everywhere. My hair had been straight my entire life, and now I had flowing, wavy locks that ran all the way down my back. The last two inches of hair had changed color like Dylan’s had, except mine was pink on my left side and purple on my right. I stared dumbly for a few seconds, then reluctantly met my own eyes and gasped. “Impossible...” But apparently it wasn’t. My eyes, once hazel, had now shifted completely over to green. Not just any green, though, sea green. Pale and entrancing, they glowed with a soft, inner light that I found bizarrely alluring. I pulled down one of my eyelids and gingerly felt around for a pair of contacts, but there was nothing there. “How?” Dylan was examining his own changes next to me. “We weren’t like this when we sat down! It was just you and me alone in the living room! No one came in or out the entire time! HOW?!” The panic in Dylan’s voice gave rise to my own. Tattoos could be explained as a prank, hair changes could be rationalized as some kind of product, but eyes? Nothing outside of contacts could change that! Not only that, but from what little I remembered from my genetics class, the human eye could only generate certain colors due to only having a certain amount of possible dyes encoded in our genome. Sea green was possible, but purple was definitely not! Whatever had happened to Dylan’s eyes defied what I understood about human DNA, and that shook me down to the very core. “I don’t think this was a prank,” I murmured. My mind spun as I tried to come up with some sort of explanation, but before I could, Dylan grabbed me by the shirt and slammed me against the wall. “Hey!” I grabbed his arms and tried to pull him away by reflex. “Who’s Discord?” Dylan hissed. I froze. I looked into his changed eyes, wild with anger and fear.   “W-What?” I said. “I had a nightmare about him last night!” Dylan’s grip tightened on my shirt. “WHO IS HE?!” My mouth went dry. It was several seconds before I could find my voice, and when I did, it was nothing more than a squeak.  “Y-you had that nightmare, too?” A spasm flickered across Dylan’s face. He was silent for a long time, but then he spoke in a voice that was tight and controlled. “I was Scootaloo. The other Crusaders and I were running away from him after he tried to attack us in the schoolhouse. We got to the middle of Ponyville, then he cut us off and appeared in front of us. We tried to separate, but he cast a spell on me that trapped me up in the air. He then came up from behind, wrapped himself around me, chanted some weird poem and touched my forehead with a glowing claw. I screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore, then everything went dark.” I couldn’t believe it. What were the odds that we’d both had the same nightmare on the same night? Not only that, but it sounded like his had been from Scootaloo’s perspective! I was completely speechless, but thankfully, my shell-shocked expression gave voice to my thoughts. Dylan’s anger vanished. “No, that’s not possible.” His grip went slack and he backed into the hallway. “There’s no way you could’ve had the same dream!” I swallowed hard and tried to regain my composure. “M-mine was from Sweetie Belle’s perspective. It w-was the same as yours, except that D-Discord blinded me and made me listen as he picked off the other Crusaders one by one. He taunted me before doing the same magic t-thing you described. Rarity saw it and tried to save me, but she didn’t get there in time.” Dylan clutched his head and moaned. “Godammit! What’s happening to us?” He sank to the floor and hugged his knees. “I’d never even heard of Scootaloo before this! This doesn’t make any sense!” My annoyance over Dylan manhandling me dissipated upon seeing her in such a lost state. She always put up a strong front, and it was only when she was truly freaked did she lose it like this. “There has to be an explanation,” I said as I walked over and sat across from him. “Come on, this can’t all be just a coincidence.” Dylan rested his head between his knees. “I’m beginning to think you were right about this having a connection with the show. Scootaloo and I really do have a lot of things in common, and there are a lot of parallels between you and Sweetie Belle. Mike and Apple Bloom, too! Watching the three of them together reminded me of the kinds of things we used to do together.” I bit the inside of my cheek. I’d never considered there might be similarities between myself Sweetie. I’d only brought that up to get Dylan off my case! Out of curiosity, I decided to see if I could think of the things Dylan was referring to, and to my surprise, I came up with more than a few. “How do you change a person’s eye and hair color without them feeling it, anyway?” Dylan stood up and held out a hand to me. “You’d have to use some kind of eye drops or something, and I’ve never used anything like that in my life!” I took his hand. “It’d be easy for Discord to do. I’ve no idea how his magic works, but this definitely would be his style.” Dylan frowned upon hearing Discord’s name. “Let’s just say that this really is related to the show somehow. Who is he? I didn’t see him in any of the episodes we watched.” “He's spirit of chaos and disharmony.” I closed my eyes and delved into my knowledge of MLP lore. “Long ago, he ruled over Equestria and tormented all the ponies with his madness and mischief. Then Celestia and Luna rose up against him and and used the Elements of Harmony to turn him into stone. He remained that way for thousands of years, but his seal weakened and he broke free to wreak havoc again. The Mane Six were able to defeat him before he could do any permanent damage, but Celestia then decided that his powers could be useful if he could be convinced to use them for good. He was freed and then seemingly reformed by Fluttershy, but then in the series finale, he left Celestia to die, attacked the Mane Six and banished them somehow, then took the Equestrian throne for himself. That’s how the series ended.” “What?!” Dylan did a double-take. “Twilight and the others lose? The series ends with the bad guy winning?“ I put my hands in my pockets. “There was so much nerdrage. Most people don’t even accept it as canon. There were a few fan projects going to make a proper ending last I heard, although I don’t know if they were ever finished.” “Damn right they need to make a proper ending!” Dylan reached out and smoothed out the wrinkles in my shirt. “Were the writers on acid when they wrote the script or something?” I waved him away and leaned back against the wall. “I’ve no idea why the writers did what they did. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. It was kinda why I stopped paying attention to the fandom.” Dylan’s eyes were hollow as he stared into the bathroom. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders... Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and—there was a fourth, right? Babs, or something?” I nodded. “Apple Bloom’s cousin. She got introduced to the show in Season Three, then made cameos until her family moved to Ponyville in the beginning of Season Five.” “And Mike and Phil, cousins as well, have their respective cutie marks.” Dylan ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t like this, Mage. There are too many similarities for this to be a coincidence.” I scratched my chin. I admitted I didn’t like it either, but I wasn’t about to abandon rational thought and go off into the realm of insanity just yet. “Maybe this is some kind of publicity stunt?” I offered. “Like for one of those shows where they do things to people just to gauge their reactions?” Dylan pressed his lips into a flat line. “A My Little Pony-related publicity stunt involving a group of guys who live in the middle of nowhere, three of which aren't even fans of the show?” I couldn’t help but snicker. I started trying to think of something else, but I knew I was grasping at straws as it was. I decided to roll with the pony theory until something else presented itself. We’d need more data to support it, though, and fortunately, I knew just where to get it. “We need to talk to Apple Bloom and Babs,” I said. “Two people having the same dream on the same night is plausible. Exceedingly rare, but still plausible. Four people, on the other hand...” “Yeah, good idea.” Dylan rolled his shoulders. “Can we wait until Babs wakes up, though? She needs the sleep.” I looked over at the door to Phil’s room and let out my breath in a sigh. "I really wish he didn’t have to do this. It can’t be good for him.” Dylan grunted in agreement. “It shouldn’t be for much longer. He’s been trying to get on the day shift for a while now.” We went back out to the living room to watch some more episodes of MLP. I was originally going to show Dylan the episodes with Discord, but he flat out refused. We started with Lesson Zero instead, and we were about halfway through it when we heard the dull rumbling of a car coming into the driveway. We looked out the window and saw Mike walking up to the house, who was wearing a drawn hoodie with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder. “He looks pissed,” Dylan observed. I snorted. “I wonder why.” “Guys?” Mike called as he walked in the door. “I've got a problem!” Dylan and I poked our heads over the living room railing to reveal our changes. “Join the club,” Dylan said. Mike looked up and cringed. “Aw man, you guys too?” He removed his hood. His super-long hair had turned deep scarlet at the tips, and his eyes were bright orange, like a pair of pumpkins still on the vine. I probably should’ve been surprised by the changes, but half of me was expecting them. I motioned for him to come inside. “Come and get settled. There’s something we need to ask you.” “Huh? Oh, um.. okay.” Mike took off his shoes and coat. “When did your eyes change? I only saw mine when I got home a little while ago. I’m lucky I was in the back room most of today, otherwise I would've had problems.” “About twenty minutes ago,” I said. “Or at least, that’s when we noticed it. Made us both nearly crap our pants. Never mind that for the moment, though, did you have... any... weird...” I trailed off as Mike walked up the stairs. When he got to the top, he glanced warily between Dylan and I for a moment before cocking his head. “What?” “Uh, Apple Bloom?” Dylan said slowly. “Why’re you standing on your tiptoes?” Mike blinked. He looked down at his feet, and sure enough, his heels were totally lifted off the floor. He looked like he was about to prance around like a ballerina. “I... don't... know,” he admitted. “It feels like my heels are—hey, you guys are doing it, too!” I looked down and saw that he was right. I hadn't noticed it, but at some point my feet had decided that this was a comfortable position to be in. I tried to lower myself down to my heels, but it felt like something was being pinched in my ankles. “Well, that's just dandy!” Dylan threw himself into the recliner and pulled off one of his socks. “What's next, are we going to hear voices and start speaking in long-forgotten languages? Is the return of Cthulhu imminent?” I made a derisive noise. “More like we’ll start walking on all fours and eating hay for dinner.” Mike looked over at me with raised eyebrows. “Wait, hay?” Dylan was absorbed in examining his foot, so I cleared my throat and gestured for Mike down on the couch. “I know this is going to sound weird, but...” I couldn’t believe how ridiculous this was. I started to feel the hand start to close around my throat again, but I muscled through it. “Did you have any weird dreams last night? Like, really vivid ones? Possibly about a creature named Discord?” Mike went white as a sheet. His mouth twisted into a grimace and he quickly lowered his eyes. “How'd you know?” he murmured. My stomach plummeted, but morbid curiosity kept my questions coming. “Can you tell us about it? We’ve an idea about what’s going on, but we need more info to confirm it.” “Sweetie and I had a dream about Discord, too,” Dylan cut in. “The same dream, actually, just from different perspectives. We’re checking to see if it's the same as yours.” Mike fidgeted. He didn’t say anything for almost a full minute, and I almost thought he wasn’t going to talk. Finally, he clicked his teeth and spoke in a soft, quavering voice. “I was a little girl pony, the one you said I have the tattoo thing of. She and her friends were in a wagon running away, but… he got in front of us somehow. We tried to split up, but the ground turned into molasses and I started to sink. I thought I was gonna drown, but then he appeared again and poked me in the forehead. My world turned into pain, and I heard him chanting something before I went under. Then I woke up.” I felt cold. The implications of this were staggering, and the world spun around me as I tried to wrap my head around it. The three of us had had the same dream on the same night, and now we were taking on the physical traits of the ponies we’d been?! This couldn’t be happening! I had to be hallucinating! I reached down and pinched myself as hard as I could, but all I got was a sharp pain and a red mark on my skin. Dylan let out a soft whistle. “Well, that’s a thing.” Mike’s lips parted. “You’re telling me you guys had the same dream, too? Lemme guess, from the other girl ponies’ perspectives?” “¡Por el amor de Dios!”  I got off the couch and stamped my feet. “What is causing all this? I’m the only one who’s ever followed MLP, and none of you guys even knew who the Cutie Mark Crusaders were before I told you!” “Breathe, amiga.” Mike pulled out his laptop and began setting it up on the coffee table. “We can figure this out, we just need to use our heads. I’m gonna check the Internet right now to see if this is happening to anyone else. Why don’t you watch some TV or something in the meantime?” I clenched my fists. I felt a familiar tension building in my arms and legs, the pent-up energy screaming at me to screw being calm and start throwing things across the room. In my younger days I would give in to these urges, making a mighty scene and projecting my powerful voice for all to hear. However, age and experience had tempered my wisdom. A temper tantrum was cathartic, yes, but I’d still have cutie marks, long hair and oddly colored eyes afterwards. That didn’t change that I was now hyper from all the adrenaline, though. I needed to do something to wear it off, and it was then I realized that I hadn’t had a proper meal today. As if on cue, my stomach made its presence known with a hunger pang. “I’m gonna go make some food,” I said. I got up and headed towards the kitchen. “Let me know if you find anything.” Dylan and Mike both cast me a wary glance, but let me go without comment. I heard the sound of the TV flip on as I tiptoed into the small, homey kitchen and opened the fridge. Inside was a gallon of milk, an assortment of juices, a jar of pickles, lunch meats, eggs, condiments, a few covered plates of leftovers, and a six-pack of beer. Nothing looked appetizing, so I opened the crisper next. Bingo. A bag of lettuce, celery, tomatoes, baby carrots, shredded cheese, and best of all, a pair of ruby red apples. I snatched one of them, immediately began to munch on it, then pulled out the other apple along with the rest of the bounty. I spread the ingredients out on the counter, grabbed a cutting board and knife and set to work making a salad. My mind wandered as I worked. The rational part of me still wasn’t willing to accept that this was being caused by an extra-dimensional being that could control the fabric of time and space. Perhaps we’d been exposed to some kind of radiation? Maybe the government was storing toxic waste in a top-secret facility nearby, and somehow it'd leaked out and we were experiencing the side effects! We should probably go to the hospital if that was the case, but what would the doctors say when they saw our symptoms? They’d probably run a bunch of lab tests and keep us quarantined, and then we’d all have to take off work, and our families would panic and come running, and everything would turn into a huge mess! The noise of the TV faded out as I lost myself in my thoughts. I really didn’t want to get anyone else involved in this. Not doctors, not the government, and especially not our families. I hated causing mine undue stress, and I knew they worried about me enough as it was. Besides, I felt fine, aside from a faint feeling of weakness that always accompanied my hangovers and my heart rate being up from the shock. My feeling had always been to only go to hospitals for emergencies, and while everything that was happening to us was certainly strange and frightening, it wasn’t life-threatening. Ugh, I didn't even want to think about what the bill would be. Even with insurance it— “WAUGH!” Dylan’s yell almost made me cut my finger off. I abandoned my food and ran out to the living room to see what was wrong. “No, no, no, no, no!” Dylan had covered his head with his arms while pacing back and forth like a caged animal. “I don’t believe this. This can’t be real! THIS CAN'T BE REAL!” I was about to ask what was the matter, but then I saw Mike. He was holding a mirror in front of his face, curiously examining the pair of pale yellow equine ears poking out of his head. “Looks pretty real to me,” he said calmly. A shiver wracked my entire body. Goosebumps formed on my skin, and I reached up to feel my ears with a shaky hand. I felt nothing but skin and bone. I rubbed both sides of my skull, but it was quite evident that my human ears were gone. I reached up farther to the top of my head, and sure enough, nestled in my hair were a pair of brand-new pony ears. Thin and flexible, they twitched as I pulled back my hair and gently poked and prodded them. My hearing seemed to be improved now, to the point that I could hear Dylan’s quick, shallow breaths and the low hum of the furnace downstairs. I found I could move them to an extent, and I spent the next thirty seconds swiveling and flopping them around. Mike saw what I was doing and burst out laughing. He held out the mirror to me. “Want a look there, Sweetie?” I almost said no, but I knew I was going to see them eventually. I reluctantly took the mirror and examined my new anatomy. “Hoo boy...” As I feared, my nascent ears were covered in white hair. It thinned out right where it met my head, then joined the rest of my normal hair, which I noticed had continued changing color. The pink and purple was now up to my neck area. Speaking of my neck, my hairline had spread down the back of it. I now had hair growing out of my skin all the way down to my shoulder blades. I almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. This wasn’t human. It defied all reason and understanding, and it certainly threw my plans of going to the hospital out the window. The answer had been in front of me the whole time, but I hadn’t even wanted to consider it for fear of being labeled as a loon. Yet now it seemed I had no choice. I had to give voice to what I knew was happening, no matter how crazy it seemed. “Girls?” I said. “I think we’re turning into—” There had been a lot of screams today. All of them would make anyone in the vicinity come running, but their causes had been reflected in their pitch and tone, which had merely been surprise. The sound we heard from Phil’s room was completely different. It was a shriek of raw agony and mortal peril. The three of us didn’t even hesitate. We dashed to Phil’s room and threw open the door. The messy room was dark and quiet, save for the sounds of heavy breathing and gasping sobs. I snapped on the light and saw Phil sitting bolt upright in his bed with tears streaming down his face. His pony ears were brown, his long, disheveled hair was filled with red streaks, and his deep green eyes reminded me of my own. A trio of freckles adorned each of his cheeks, and he made a choked noise of relief as he saw the three of us. “You got away,” he croaked with unfocused eyes. “Thank Celestia, you all got away. I thought for sure Discord—” Phil stopped himself as he regained his senses. He looked around his room, then turned back to us and took in our changes. We all stood in silence for almost a full minute while we stared at each other in utter disbelief. It was Dylan who spoke first. “I sure hope hay tastes better as a pony.”