//------------------------------// // Ch.3 Pain // Story: Life's Annoying Paradox: Perception is Reality // by CDR //------------------------------// Entry #3 -Date of entry; December 12th, 2011 -Date of event(s); 1,500-ish years before Nightmare Moon's banishment Fin bolted upright in his bed, gasping for air; once again, his dreams had become a nightmare. The stallion sighed. It was the same one he had been having regularly for the past month. He wished he knew why he was having them. After his breathing returned to normal he crawled out of bed. Stretching for a moment before turning around, he set his magic to work making his bed. That finished, he walked over to his desk and sat in the nearby chair. Why am I plagued by this nightmare? he thought to himself. There was pain. So much pain. He shivered as the lingering feelings of the nightmare finally passed from his mind. Using his magic, he pulled out his journal to mark the occurrence. After flipping through the pages, he came to the one where he had recorded, as best he could remember, the details of the nightmare, along with how many times it had occurred. Hal, Tom, and myself stand in place as the world changes around us rapidly. First the throne room, then top of the mountain the castle was built into, an endless savanna, a mysterious forest, the streets of Manehatten, on top of a huge storm, sometimes deep underground even. But the feeling was always the same. Deep, unending, life draining pain. As I looked around, I could see that my friends felt it too. We could barely stand it. One by one we would fall. First Hal, then Tom, and finally myself. Sometimes Tom would fall first. Sometimes I would be first. It always ended with me awakening as soon as I could bear the pain no longer. Fin shuddered and looked down at the tally he had been keeping. This time made seven total. What disturbed him most of all about the nightmare was that he never knew what happened to Harmonous. If he and his friends each felt that, he dared not comprehend what it could feel like for Mono. Fin stood and walked over to the corner of the room in which he left his projects. Before him, a bagful of enchanted items floated. Recently he had been working on a cube made up of twenty-seven smaller cubes. Each of the nine sides of the larger cube were coated in a different colored gem, with the normally unseen sides of each of the smaller ones made of some indistinguishable black material. Fin sighed; he didn't feel like playing with his toys at the moment. I think I'll go talk to Tom -- see if he's had the same dream. I hope the he won't mind the intrusion, were his thoughts as he left his room. Tom raised his head and blinked his eyes a few times. "Aaaaaahhhhhhh, must ta' dozed off for a moment there." He yawned a few more times and looked around his makeshift workshop. "Now where was I?" he asked as he looked at what he was working on. Before him were several plates of metal, each of a varying thicknesses. Tom still was not sure exactly what it was that he was trying to craft; all he knew was that he wanted to make it and that it was going to be huge. "I'm gonna' have ta' move this thing outside at some point, it's gettin so darned big!" he yelled over the top of his hammering. So far he had built what could only be described as a boat with wheels. It had multiple axles with a single wheel on each end. Those in the middle had a groove running the entirety of their circumference. The wheels on then ends had teeth sticking out of them, evenly spaced all the way around. Tom assumed that there was a purpose to having more than two axles & two different kinds of wheels. Before he could think on it much more, he thought he heard a noise. Stopping his hammering for a moment, he listened intently. He could hear knocking coming from the door. "It’s open!" he hollered, watching as the door opened. In stepped Fin, looking a little paler than normal. "I do hope that I'm not interrupting anything important Tom," said the grey unicorn as he looked around a bit. "Not at all ma friend. So what can I do for ya?" the rust-colored stallion asked. "I was hoping to ask you something kinda important." "Well, let's hear it then," Tom urged. He looked up at Fin to show him that that he was paying attention. However, as his gaze fell upon his friend, Tom found that Fin was shuddering slightly. "Hey, are you okay?" Tom asked. "Have... have you been having any weird dreams lately?” stammered Fin. “And no,” he added, “I'm not okay." "You had it too?" Tom asked. Fin blinked; he hadn't expected that. The two stallions looked at each other for a moment. They shared an expression of disbelief, followed by one of common pain. Both sets of eyes widened before they yelped, "Did you feel that too?" they asked each other. Fin shivered while Tom shook his head; the same draining pain they felt in their dreams, there had been a quick moment of it. "Go get Hal, I'll meet ya both in Mono's room," Tom said as he put away his tools. "Umm, sure thing," Fin said sheepishly. Suddenly a cloud burst in the sky. In its place was what most would describe as a swirling ball of lightning. "Celestia buck it all! I hate that dream!” Hal cursed as he hovered in the middle of the ball. The nightmare from which he had just awoken always managed to make him seethe with anger. His room still had a few scorch marks from the first time he had dreamt it. Hal bolted from where he was and started smashing through every cloud he could find, hoping to blow off some steam, and calm himself down. As he did so the electrical storm that had manifested around him slowly shrank until it was little more than a few stray arcs of static. "Ha! Stupid dream, you can't hurt me.” He suddenly found himself encased in a sphere of magic. “Da buck?" he exclaimed. His anger flared and with it the energy he had been suppressing surged forth. Fire spewed out in every direction as he prepared to pulverize whoever dared stop him. He broke through the barrier easily. "WHAT BUCKING MORON DARES TO TRY AND CONTAIN HAILFIRE SHOCK?!" thundered the enraged zegasus as he looked around. As soon as he saw who had done so his anger abated, the lightning and fire evaporating as he calmed himself down. "By Celestia, Fin, you need to find a better way to get my attention. I almost tried to fry you right there ya know," he said looking down at his friend hovering nearby. "I... I'm sorry Hal, you know I don't always think things through when I'm using my magical wings." Fin turned to the side, favoring the pure magic appendages extending from his back. "Tom told me to come get you. There's something we want to talk about." "What did I do this time Fin?" Hal asked in a flat tone. "Nothing! It's just something that has to do with all three of us." "And what would that be?" sneered the zegasus. "Well umm..." Fin trailed off. He was scared of the answer he might get. "Out with it!” shouted Hal. At Fin’s expression, the zegasus caught himself. “Urg... Sorry... I'm still just a little upset after... stupid nightmare." Hal spat as he looked away. "Not you too?" Fin confirmed worriedly. He was really scared now. "What? Wait, don't tell me..." Hal asked back while fixing his friend with a piercing stare. Fin cringed, he did not like it when Hal stared at -- well anything for that matter. It reminded him too much of the griffin diplomats he had seen when they were eating dinner with Celestia. He quickly nodded his head. "Just great! Bucking peachy! Where are we having this conversation at?" He would never admit it, but he was scared now too. "Mono's room," was all Fin could say before Hal bolted towards the castle. Fin yelped while tumbling for a few moments until he was able to right himself. Hal had a bad habit of becoming lightning when he was in a hurry. Fin sighed and aimed for the castle as well. Maybe I should grab my journal first, he thought as he glided down. Inside Harmonous' room, two ponies sat, waiting for the third. "Come-on, come-on, Come-On!" blurted the impatient zegasus, "He should have been right behind me!" "Calm down already. I doubt Mono would appreciate scorch marks on his floor. And I'm sure Fin will be here in a moment., spoke Tom. "Err... sorry. It's just that this is annoying enough as is without having to wait to talk about it." "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," Fin squeaked out as he finally entered the room, "I, tho-- thought it would be a good idea to bring my journal with me." "What for?" Hal huffed. "Because I wrote down as much of the nightmare as I could remember in it, and how many times I've had it." "Oh... well... I guess that makes sense." "Now if you would be so kind, Fin, please show us the page in question." "Umm, sure thing," Fin said as he moved next to Tom and opened his journal. They all paled slightly as they read the description they each knew all too well. Hal unconsciously emitted cold as he read the tally at the bottom of the page. Tom merely paled even more. "You're bucking me, right Fin? This is just a joke, right?" "I'm afraid that's not the case, Hal." said Tom gravely. "This--" Fin stopped speaking as they all started experiencing intense pain. "Harm--" Hal managed before he dropped to the floor. "--onous," Tom finished as he too fell to the ground. As soon as he saw Hal start to tilt, Fin ripped out a fresh page from his journal and conjured up a quill, imbuing it with his last thoughts as he to crashed to the ground. The quill continued to write even after Fin had fallen unconscious. It’s task finished, the utensil vanished, leaving the room absent of motion. After several minutes, an eerie mist began to coalesce in the middle of the room. The bodies of the three friends had become like smoke. The smoke solidified into the form of an alicorn. "Aaaaahhhhh... what a nice nap," Harmonous spoke as he looked around. He made his way across his room towards his desk. But, before he got there, he heard a crinkle underhoof. "Huh?" he said as he looked down. A note? I wonder why they didn't just put it on my desk? he thought as he levitated the note up to eye level. Dear Celestia it hurts! Harmonous I pray you read this quickly. Tom, Hal, and I were about to discuss a nightmare we had all had, when it actually started to come true. My journal should be on the floor close by. Read page one-hundred and forty-nine. Harmonous paled as he read the hastily written note. The pain Fin had been feeling had somehow managed to affect the spell he had cast on the quill; the writing looked as if the writer had been dying. Harmonous searched the floor for the journal. Finding it, he quickly turned to the mentioned page, a heavy feeling in his gut. "No. Please Celestia, NO!" Harmonous froze. Something was not right. He too had started to feel the sourceless pain and could tell that it was slowly intensifying. His thoughts rushing, he grabbed the note and the journal and teleported from the room.