//------------------------------// // The Third // Story: Dreamflow // by KitsuneRisu //------------------------------// The Third The room spun, the colours ripped, and everything fell back within the lines. It was over in a second, but in that second the universe collapsed and rebuilt itself. Applejack lowered her hoof from her cheek, blinking. She was back. And she was awake. There was no time to lose. A mantra, she chanted to herself in her head, five little words. This is just a dream. The phrase repeated itself over and over, Applejack observing her surroundings with an awareness that grew with each word that flew through her wisp-filled mind. An implanted mental command suddenly twitched to life, and the dream commanded her to move forward. She found herself standing before a wall of twigs that rose up in front of her, built up haphazardly like an impromptu barricade. The cascading wall stretched up above her head, surrounding her in an uneven loop of wood and fiber. She was a star, caught within a halo of branches. A bug, caught within the ligneous rim of a whittled cup. She kept thinking of the words. More and more. Viciously, fervently. With conviction. Each word she conjured ebbed in her brain like a pulsing shockwave exploding outward, and each time she completed a phrase, the haze cleared, receding back into the cracks between the walls of the dream. But still she clambered. Still she climbed. Still she pulled herself up, scrabbling over wood and debris, until she was on the very edge of the edifice, and she was looking over the edge. There was no end to it. There was her, the world, and the infinity of up and down. Faster and faster did the chants pour out, like a jungle rhythm, like a tattoo of beats that flew silently through the air. More and more. Stronger and Stronger. She did not want to do what she had to. Applejack stepped to the end of the platform, a rush of depth swarming her senses as she peered into the void beneath. She did not want to do this. She leaned forward. She did not! The anger and concentration criss-crossed her forehead. She was in her dream, and she controlled it. It was a consideration made by the virtue of understanding alone. It was just a dream. The ground shuddered. It was just a dream. Something broke. It was just a dream. Applejack stood still. ...And stood. ...And stood. Applejack gasped, the last few strings were cut from her head and thoughts, and for the first time she opened her eyes and looked around with a clarity of vision. White shapes pressed against white blobs. She knew they were there now, but she knew not what they were. She also knew she wouldn’t know until she was ready to be told. Everything remained out of focus until seen. Over shuddering breath and dry tongue, Applejack peeled her leg back from the edge, moving it slowly, afraid that she might upset her balance and tumble off anyway. But something deep down told her that she wouldn't fall, that she couldn't fall anywhere even if she leaned over, not unless she wanted to. And with that – a sudden calm, a settling of the heart, the lowering of emotions. There was a sense of security in that power of knowledge. And it seemed that the more one knew, the more strength one had in this strange realm where everything was of the mind, from the mind and for the mind. The mind reigned. The twigs below, she noted, snapped. Cracked. They made all the noises appropriate if one were to step on a bunch of twigs, but they remained unbroken and unmoving. Applejack reached into the swirling depths of her mind and retrieved a memory. Dream logic. Different to regular logic, and certainly different to Pinkie logic, as they had discussed yesterday. Dream logic worked this way. Things were separate. Elements were individual. It was all slightly less than Gestalt. The whole was remarkably nothing more than a shadowy simile of the sum of its parts, stuck together with shoddy, unreliable glue. Applejack turned around. She was standing on the edge of a giant nest. It was a huge piece of work. It must have been made out of millions of twigs. But that thought was interrupted by another one coming in the other direction. No. It was made out of a regular amount of twigs. And the twigs were humongous. She was the one who was small. Oh yes. Yes indeed it was, and Applejack found that she had no choice but to nod along, for both interpretations of the facts were very much true, and both realities forced themselves upon the same concept. It was dream logic. But in this strange new world, she finally found her freedom. She closed her eyes and listened to the dream. She thought about what it had to say and what it was telling her. Like a painter carried away by his brush, the dream formed shape in its entirety, finally revealing its form to the one who willed it so, the blobs of white taking form. Reaching up to the skies in the way a magnificent curtain of beads hangs down, a hundred and one thin, white, spindly trees clawed their way up the walls and into the cracks above. It was a forest standing alone. The ground was somewhere below, but it wasn’t to be seen. It was inconsequential. The dream had no meaning for it, no reason for it, and the dream had not bothered to make one. The nest she stood in lay neatly in the crook of a branch that belonged to one of these many trees. It wasn’t the only one. Upon dozens of pearly, wretched crooks hung a dozen other nests, all of which dotted the landscape like ornaments of a fiery brown. And, as the dream had insisted, Applejack was rather small indeed. The image had just finished painting itself in her head, and when she opened her eyes once more, the sight as it was described to her panned out clearly like a vista, cold scratching bark against a pallid blue backdrop. The warm bursts of tan was the only comfort this world had, and the nests seemed like the only safe place to be amongst the deadwood. Applejack finished her tour, and moved. Moving was strange, here. Moving was considerably more difficult. It is very rare that one moves just by telling themselves that they wish to be there while they slid slowly in place. But that was how it worked. Walking was just a courtesy to normality. It was just something she did to make sure there was something right. She moved to the center of the nest, testing her freedom. There was no breeze; there was no smell. The colours of the world faded when she wasn’t looking directly at something, and so around the edges of her sight did it feel like a miasma of grey trying to sneak in and swallow everything up, but never moving past the fringe. The sound of twigs breaking underhoof became monotone until the point where she reached the middle of the nest, and the sounds changed. She lifted her leg, and dropped it. Her hoof knocked on the ground. Stranger and stranger was it, that she stepped aside and knelt down. With a wave of a hoof, the twigs cast themselves away, and visual image finally caught up with audio input. On the floor of the nest lay a door. It was a large wooden one of carved oak and gnarly face, but no other adornments did it bear. A worn, troubled frame completed it, and there was a strange sense of odd familiarity about the entryway. Applejack knew – no, she felt – she had to open it. That was strange. It was strange that she was feeling strange. It was strange that she could feel. It must have come with her newfound freedom. But like a toad in a pit, she didn’t know what she was in until she got out. Applejack found herself suddenly experiencing things that were both new and comfortably familiar at the same time, and she finally could look behind her and find that the hole that she was in was actually a well. And she drew upon the waters of emotion, thoughtfulness and spirit, and for the first time while she was here, she had something else influencing her decisions other than pure thought alone. Confusion came and went in a second, giving way to a comfortable surprise. She could feel herself smiling, something she didn’t remember doing before, and she felt happy within that smile. The smile felt happy within her. A freshness washed over, as she drew in a breath – a pointless act that only served to pamper her newly born soul. She looked down at the door again. There was something very familiar about this door. There was something odd about it. It was there, but it wasn’t meant to be. In the world that was built around her, she had no memory of a door. She had no imprint of it. But there it was. There it existed, in the dream, a fragment apart. Her mind itched. The dream wanted to move on. The dream asked nicely. It wouldn’t ask nicely again. But Applejack’s eyes trailed down to the door. Quickly, frantically now, she ran a hoof over its humble frame. She knew she didn’t have much time left until the dream called, and she had to take advantage of this opportunity. The door did not have a handle, a knob, or any means by which to open it. It remained, a platform in an ocean of twigs, stuck and underwhelming. Applejack blinked. She was there, on the edge of the nest once again. Standing at its lip, looking down into the abyss. The solitary pony shook her head, bringing a hoof up to her face. Being conscious of all the strangeness of this new world came with a side effect – it hummed with a upsetting timbre. Jumping around like that... being forced from scene to scene was slightly jarring if nothing else, and she wasted precious seconds catching up. But the dream pushed on. It would anyway. Applejack found herself unable to resist. It had begun. And as she stood, from behind her, there rose a magnificent flurry of feathers and down, an explosion of soft, gentle tuftlings that rained upon the world, a giant, yellow sun of wings that unfurled all around. She turned. The beast bobbed. The bird unwrapped from within itself, a humongous beast, bright citrine hues extending every which way as it rose like a hungry beast clawing desperately toward the skies, blackened, charred beak crying a wordless call to the heavens. The other nests that patronized the landscape too found themselves bursting with yellow as each gained a bird of their own, causing a storm of feathers to rain down from above. It rained with discarded garb, and Applejack found herself marvelling at the sight that bloomed, a chill touching her spine and causing her to shiver. It moved back and forth, shuddering, its pinprick eyes glowing red behind tiny tufts of white. It exhaled a breath of heavy air as it lowered its wings – all its brothers doing the same – and ended up as a statue, a cone with a head, a malformed beak and a visage that suddenly made Applejack’s heart jump. It was unlike any bird that she had ever seen. Above Applejack, it towered, monolithically still, looking off into the distance at a wisp of a memory. A red string, or a collar, or something of the sort, trailed from its neck to the ground in front of Applejack. It ended, curled up like a snake at her hooves, waiting to strike. Applejack reached down, the string shimmering against the wood. She reached out and gently picked it up with tightly clenched teeth. There was a flash, and everything changed. Applejack gasped, dropping the string almost instantly, and all at once, the bird began to return to its normal form. Bulging eyes the size of grapefruits started to reduce in swelling. Its open beak, screeching at the skies, began to close. And its horrendous black tongue, spotty and bulbous, started to retract within itself. It was like a jack-in-the-box being wound back up. The change occurred in the instant Applejack had touched that string, but she was only privy to the creature reverting back to normal. The bird accused her, swivelling its pulsating eyes down to stare at Applejack in a silent fury. But again, again, she reached down and drew the string back up into her mouth. It was what she was supposed to do. But this time, she kept her eyes shut. She knew the changes were made. She knew what had happened would happen again and she did not want to see it. The string held tightly in her teeth was the only thing left connecting her to this silent, maniacal world. Clamping down ever tighter, she prised her eye open. Slowly – a crack – and through a slit of light she saw it. Even though she knew it was happening, even though she knew what she had seen, the terrible visage of that horrible beast crying out in pain was still something that made her feel like her stomach was crushing in on itself. There the bird was again, silent and oppressive. Curling its neck back at an unfathomable angle, it shrieked noiselessly in pain. A tendril tongue flapped around like a flag in a gale storm, and its eyes, which now looked and rippled like two water-balloons filled with ichor, looked on in accusation as a thousand bursting veins centered their focus onto Applejack. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to let go. The bird turned its head once again, its beak looming over her like a thick black spike. With the last of its gasping breaths it shuddered a final shudder, both eyes swivelling forward to give Applejack its final condemnation. And once again, darkness reigned. “Applejack, you look...” “Pinkie, they’re gettin’ worse.” “What happened to you?” “They’re gettin’ worse.” “Applejack! What happened?” The farmpony shook, like a dog left out in the rain. “You’re shivering, Applejack. You’re... you’re cold.” “I couldn’t... I couldn’t sleep last night. Big Mac had t’ come get me again. He said I was sittin’ upright in my bed, eyes dried out... wasn’t breathin’ too good. Said I was just repeatin’ their names over an’ over, like I was in some kinda trance or somethin’. Bloom was woken up, too. They both sat by me for a half hour while I just... I don’t even know, Pinkie. I was sittin’ there and just breathin’ funny.” “Applejack, this... this isn’t funny anymore.” “Funny thing, comin’ from you...” “I’m serious, here!” “Heh.” “Applejack!” “No... no I’m sorry. I just find it real ironic, that’s all.” “You asked me to be serious, didn’t you? Well now I’m serious, and I’m really scared, Applejack!” “I... I am too, sugar.” “Listen...” “Maybe we should get some help... this seems... outta my hooves now. I don’t know if doin’ all this is actually helpin’ or just makin’ the situation worse. And I really ain’t sure I can go on like this night after night. Maybe we should call Twilight, an-” “No.” “N-no?” “No!” “Pinkie?” “Listen, Applejack. You could tell a hundred ponies. But then what? Drink this.” A mug of hot chocolate spun into place in front of Applejack. “Well, thank... thank you, Pinkie, but what do you mean by-” “What I mean is, in the end the problems lie in your dreams, right? What you said last time? It’s pretty true! What are Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash gonna do? What about Rarity? Twilight’d probably push you to go see Princess Celestia about it or hook you up to a weird machine or something, but in the end you’re still gonna have to face your dreams! I mean, what, are you just not gonna sleep?” “Well, that sounds like a go-” “No!” “Whoa there... okay, Pinkie. I was just kiddin’! I ain’t never seen you so... focused before. You’re scarin’ me a little.” “Well, that’s what happens when my friends are unhappy.” “Well yeah, but don’t you always say all you have to do is cheer them up and...” “That doesn’t always work, Applejack.” “This hot chocolate’s sure doin’ some good, though.” “Family recipe.” “Well... thank ye very kindly, then.” “No problem.” “Pinkie.” “All... all I’m saying is that you have to fight it yourself. You’ve already done this much, and... well... I think you can do more.” “I just...” “I’ll help you, Applejack! I’m here for you!” Eyes met. A smile appeared. Applejack nodded slightly. “Alright, Pinkie. Thank you. It’s just.... It’s just gettin’ difficult, that’s all. I want ‘em to stop, of course, but... I feel like there’s a great big tiger in my head, and I’m walking closer to it, not further away, y’know?” “I can’t say that I understand, but... I’ll be here. Always here. And if you really need to, we’ll go talk to Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia and everypony else, but at least we can try to stop the crying.” “Stop it how?” “Well... we figure out what you’re scared of!” “Alright... but how?” “What did you dream last night? Did it work?” “It did, actually. And it worked out better’n I’d’ve expected.” “Oooh! So you were able to take control? Awareness! Awareness!” “Yes, I suddenly felt like I was back to my regular self again!” “Awareness!” “Pinkie, stop saying ‘awareness’.” “Awww.” “It felt a bit weird, though, y’know? I sort of was... able to see things different. I felt like I do in real life. Like I do right now, even. But yet, things were still kinda all over th’ place. I’m sorry, I guess I ain’t doin’ a good job explainin’ it.” “No, it’s fine! I can understand. Go on!” “Well, it was like... oh! Yeah, that’s right! I felt emotions again. I had feelings again. And that was really, really weird.” “Oh yeah! I remember when I had that when I was doing my dream thingie as well! It is really weird! But that’s part of awareness! Awareness! Awareness!” “Yeah... Did you get that thing where you felt something but you didn’t really... do the things that are sorta like... the stuff you do when you feel somethin’?” “What do you mean?” “I mean like... well, I was scared in the dream. I remember that much. I had this fear of somethin’ I saw. And... I ain’t never had feelings in my dreams before...” “When you can think, you can feel!” “Yeah. I guess that’s it, huh? With my new... Oh, go on. You wanna say it.” “Awareness!” “... Comes all these emotions too, huh?” “Yep!” “And I was scared, but I didn’t do anythin’ about it. Like, if you were scared in real life, what would y’ do?” “Well, I used to get scared all the time when I was just a little bitty filly! I’d hide under my bed and hug my pet rocks, and everything would be better! Also my sister would come in and tell me that it was silly to be afraid of earthworms, but Applejack!” “What?” “Earthworms are really scary.” “Yeah... But the point is, you did somethin’ about it. Right? You hid under a bed. You maybe cried about it.” “Oh yeah, I cried. I cried at all the earthworms.” “And you... well, reacted, I guess. But I didn’t. I just stood there, looking at the horrible... thing... and...” “Are you okay?” “Yeah... thanks. I am. It’s just... even thinking about it now... it’s terrifyin’. But I just stood there. Being scared. Not actin’ on it.” “Yeah, that happens. See, actions in a dream? They’re unnecessary. Your body isn’t real. Only what you think and what you feel are real. So... even though you feel and think things, you can only act as the dream says you can.” “I don’t think I really understand the rules, Pinkie.” “That’s alright. No one else really does either. It’s just something that happens. It’s a different world in there, Applejack!” “But... I smiled. I remember smiling.” “And what happened?” “And I felt... good. I felt happy when I smiled.” “That’s odd. That shouldn’t have happened. At least, I don’t think so, but I’m no expert! If you had any cupcake related questions, though, I am an expert on those, so...” “Maybe later, Pinkie. So... that happened.” “So do you think that this thing you saw was what made you wake up crying?” “No. Because it’s... different.” Applejack’s eyes wandered. Suddenly, she slapped her dream journal and spun it around. “Look. Look here. It’s all different. I started to remember the first dream too, although only just th’ small bits and stuff.” Pinkie’s eyes scanned the latest entry. “A bird?” “Yes. I saw a bird. Only it weren’t no bird I ever did see before. It was like a huge... monster thing. A pillar covered with rottin’ feathers. It was horrible. It was like... someone had gone and torn up a bunch of other birds and stuck parts together. It had the shape of a bird, but it weren’t no bird. Closest I could say it looked like a... mangled-up owl.” “That sounds... awful.” “And the thing was, I did feel fear lookin’ at it. Almost as if I was supposed to hate it. Supposed to be scared of it. But I weren’t sad. When I wake up, it’s sadness. I feel like somethin’s been ripped away from my chest. Like a big part of me is missin’. But the bird... only made me feel angry and scared. Not sad. I weren’t cryin’ out of fear.” “And what about the other dreams?” “Well, I didn’t feel nothin’ in the other dreams, so I can’t tell you, but a storm’s pretty scary. And in th’ first dream... from what I can remember now, there’s some... there was some kind’a critter. And I don’t know if I was supposed to be afraid of it or not. But I still woke up scared.” “Look... there’s animals in all three dreams.” “Well... yeah. Critters. But I am a farmer. Wouldn’t I be dreamin’ of things like that?” “No more or less than any other pony who knows what animals are! But... what happened in the first dream, right at the end?” “I don’t know. Everythin’ went white. I think... somethin’ happened to me.” “The second dream?” “I drowned.” “And last night?” “... I got eaten, I think.” “What?” “Well... it was funny. The bird... monster thing. It had a collar, right? And there was this... this line I could pick up. And I knew I had to. It was the dream sayin’ it. So I picked it up and it just looks... oh, Celestia, it looked like it was gettin’ choked. But I knew I had t’ choke it.” “And you...” “I did. I kept holdin’ onto that string and chokin’ it. And suddenly it looks at me and... it just comes for me and it goes dark.” “That’s terribly grim, Applejack.” “It’s only a dream, right?” “Thankfully.” “Yeah... so... could that be what’s makin’ me sad?” “It might be... but it seems like there’s not enough, you know what I mean?” “Not really.” “Well... let’s say it this way. It doesn’t seem like there’s enough just in getting hurt or... you know... in a dream to make you wake up that sad. It’s like if you ordered a super-duper special sundae here at Sugar Cube Corner, and you started cheering and whooping around. It’s nice, but it isn’t that nice.” “That’s true. I wouldn’t really dance around. I’d be happy, but that’s about it, right?” “Right! And if somepony were to be whooping and cheering, maybe there’s something else. All we can see is that she’s been served a sundae, but maybe there was an engagement band hidden in the ice cream!” “So, you’re sayin’ that all I can see so far is the sundae, but not the reason behind the sundae.” “Yep! What’s the reason that you’re getting hurt? What’s the reason for all these animals? I think that’s what you gotta try to figure out next.” “Huh. Well. There was somethin’ else that was odd.” “Shoot.” “Are... things... Do things not belong in dreams?” “What do you mean?” “Well, in the dream last night, as I was exploring it and trying to understand it, I saw something that... felt like it weren’t supposed to be there.” “But... I don’t think that happens. I mean, dreams are all made up by your mind, right? So whatever’s in your mind... you dream. How could there be something that’s not meant to be there if you dream it up?” “I... I don’t know.” “What was it?” “A door.” “A... door?” “Yes. It was at the bottom of this big nest that I was in. Um... it was the floor, basically.” “Did you try to open it?” “Yeah, ‘course I tried. Didn’t work. Didn’t have nothin’ to open it with. But I felt weird about it. As if it was not supposed to be there. And... when I thought about opening it, the dream started to push back in th’ other direction. Sayin’, ‘hey, let’s do somethin’ else, alright?’” “Huh... that’s weird.” “Is it?” “Yeah! That isn’t in any of the texts! Maybe I missed something, but...” “No, I don’t think you would’ve, Pinkie. You’re very... thorough.” “Aww, thanks!” “So it’s not normal, then?” “No, but it sounds suspicious. I’d... I’d be on the lookout for the door again!” “Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.” “So, what are we doing tonight?” “I guess I’m gonna see where the emotions lead... gonna try t’ uncover things a bit. Poke around. Look for things that feel weird.” “Alright. We’ll talk a bit more about that in a while. But until then?” “Yeah?” “I think you could use one of those super-duper special sundaes!”