Chapter 1: Well, That’s Different.
Poke. “Morning, honey.”
I woke up with a “Bweh?”, sitting straight up. I heard Liz laugh as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “How often are you gonna wake me up like that?” I said sleepily.
“Until it stops being funny,” Liz replied simply, pecking me on the cheek. “Happy birthday.”
I smiled. “So, when I blow out my candles you want me to make a Sixteen Candles reference? Cause you’d be nine years off.”
Liz frowned. “A what?”
I sighed. “That’s another quarter for the ‘Obscure References’ jar,” I murmured. “To be honest, I haven’t even seen that movie…”
“You should cut down your time on the internet, Chris,” Liz laughed, tossing the covers off and climbing out of bed. “You’re twenty-five now, you should be focusing more on getting a house, a better job...”
“Or even a job,” I added; the job market here in Augusta was actually quite shit, at the moment.
“Whatever the case, what money you have won’t last forever...” Liz continued.
“Yes, mother...” I droned. Liz picked up a pillow that had dropped off the bed in our tossing and turning (not in THAT way...), and chucked it at my face. She entered the kitchen while I proceeded to slap the sides of my face a few times to fully wake myself up. Deciding a crap cup of coffee was in order, I clambered out of bed and left the bedroom.
Our house was ‘quaint’, a term you’d use if you were too polite to call it ‘shit.’ It was the best in our price range, though, and once we saved up enough to manage a better place we planned on ditching it as soon as possible. The floors creaked with every step, insects crawled through the occasional crack in the wall, the basement was considered a ‘forbidden zone’ that we never spoke of, and in the two months we’d lived here we still hadn’t found room to unpack the several remaining boxes from our move.
I entered the kitchen to see Liz pulling some Stonewall Kitchen out of the cupboard. “Oh, Jesus, Liz, you don’t need to...”
“Nope, none of that,” Liz said firmly, setting the can of mix aside and pulling a skillet out of a different cupboard. “It’s your birthday, I’m fixing something special for you.”
I sighed and sat at the table. Yep, seven months in, and I knew this was how things should be. Liz and I, like many other brony couples, had met at a meetup in Portland, and, as Liz would say, “it was all downhill from there.” We started dating, and five months later we decided to get a place for cheap in Augusta together. The pair of us started going to UMA, Liz practicing in Psychology, while I went for Liberal Studies (yep, I’m quite ambitious that way.)
“So, what do you want to do today?” Liz asked, pulling eggs and milk from the fridge. “See a movie? Go shopping?”
“The Council finds in favor of lazing around the house,” I said sagely.
Liz shrugged. “Yeah, I’m not up for changing out of my PJ’s.” She glanced at the TV. “Pony?”
“Sure, have a preferred episode?”
“You pick, birthday boy.” I stood from the chair and turned on the TV and my PS4. I started up Netflix and flipped through to the show.
“...If you told me ten years ago that ponies would have played such a huge part of my life, I’d have asked what you were smoking and if I could have some.” I murmured.
“So I’ve heard...” Liz said; somehow I knew she was rolling her eyes.
I browsed the episodes for a while. My eyes fell on the series finale, and I winced; it was still pretty crap, in my eyes. It just ended with Discord turning out to still be a real dick and dicking Equestria over. “Yeah, I don’t think so...” I muttered. I skimmed up a few seasons and found an appealing option. “Royal Wedding?” I called over my shoulder.
“Sure!” Liz called, a clicking sound indicating that she was lighting the stove. I started the episode and collapsed on the couch, hearing Liz quietly singing ‘BBBFF’. That was another thing I loved about Liz; her gorgeous singing. My singing dropped birds faster than disbelief would drop Tinker Bell, so it was nice to hear someone who could hold a tone.
The day went exactly as I envisioned; a day of laziness, pony and video games. Some would call this a lazy day, and while that is understandable, those days I considered it a ‘normal day’. I could practically feel my ass becoming one with the sofa by seven o’clock that night. Liz was lying on top of me, her head on my shoulder, as we watched season five. We were getting towards the infamous finale, but we couldn’t be arsed to change to a different episode, seeing as Liz had left the controller on the far side of the room. We spent many a night like this, just lazing around, but doing it together.
I absentmindedly stroked Liz’s auburn hair, enjoying having her so close. Liz was my first ‘special somepony’... Odds are, you'll always say your first girlfriend or boyfriend is your soulmate, only for the relationship to crash and burn due to some unforeseen complication, but this was real. This was what I wanted, every day, as long as I lived.
Liz was everything I wanted; she was kind, compassionate, funny, capable of putting up with some of the stupid shit I do... I honestly wondered if I even deserved her.
“Hey, babe?” Liz asked.
“Hmm?”
“Have you ever thought about what would happen if we just... moved on from ponies?”
“I have, it gives me a sick feeling in my gut every time. It’s hard to imagine leaving this fandom, even if the show takes a swan dive right back into Gen 3 territories of awful. It would just be too depressing.”
“I don’t think they’d change the show, though. It’s been too successful for them.”
“Yeah, the bronies have probably paid for three separate vacations for everyone at Hasbro--”
“Did you really think you could change things, dear Chrysie? Did you honestly think rising against me would bring your precious food back?”
“Shut up...”
“I suppose I should have seen this coming; in a world where there is only my beautiful chaos, love is swept under the rug as well as friendship and harmony and all that other tripe.”
“I... will... kill you...”
“And that will magically save your kind? Bring them back from extinction? Did you even think this through? Whatever the case, as much as I’d like to punish you for your hubris, I have other matters to attend to, so let’s just get this out of the way, hmm?
For Five Score, Divided by Four...”
“NO!!” I shrieked, sitting straight up and causing Liz to roll off of me, onto the floor.
“OW! Chris, what’s the matter with you?!”
I opened my mouth to respond, but whatever my brain had just shown me had apparently left with an air of ‘Sorry, wrong room.’ I only had the faintest grasp of what I’d just seen... It sounded like two familiar voices, one being a smug prick, the other dead-set on killing the first. I couldn’t remember what was being said, yet somehow it left a feeling of dread, fury, hate and despair stirring in my chest.
“Chris?” Liz asked, her expression softening.
“...I really don’t know...” I muttered, setting my feet on the floor. “Did I… doze off or something?”
“I don’t think so, you kinda drifted off, mid-sentence,” Liz picked herself off the floor and sat beside me. I simply sat there, trying to wrap my head around whatever that was. When I didn’t say anything, Liz gently rested an arm around my shoulders. “Chris?”
I slowly shook my head. “Let’s just… let’s just forget about it, okay?” Liz didn’t look particularly convinced, but she eventually nodded.
The rest of the night dragged on in awkward silence; we continued watching TV for another couple hours before we started feeling tired. Liz turned off the TV and clambered off of me. “Let’s head to bed, hon.”
“Sounds good…” I said with a yawn. The moment Liz disappeared down the hallway towards the bedroom, my stomach gurgled. “Right after a quick nibble.” I headed into the kitchen and pulled a cookie out of the fridge.
The moment the cookie entered my mouth, however, I suddenly gagged like I was attempting the cinnamon challenge. I bolted to the sink and spat the cookie into the drain. “Jesus fuck…” I said, wiping my mouth and scraping my tongue. I ran the tap and repeatedly rinsed out my mouth while trying to figure out why exactly I’d been bested by Chips Ahoy.
“Babe?” I heard Liz call from the bedroom.
“Be right there…” I called, rinsing my mouth out a couple more times for good measure. Leaving the barely-chewed cookie in the sink, I headed into the bedroom. Liz was propped up against her pillows, looking at me with concern.
“Are you okay? I heard you coughing in there…”
“Choked on a cookie,” I said; it wasn’t exactly a lie. “I’m on a streak of victories today, aren’t I?”
Liz rolled her eyes and flipped the blankets open for me. “Well, keep your streak to a minimum; we have classes tomorrow.” With a throaty yawn I climbed into bed and gave Liz a kiss.
“G’night, snuggly-bear.” Liz smacked me in the face with her pillow; she always hated that nickname. “Totally worth it!” I laughed, receiving another pillow bludgeon for my troubles.
Liz set her pillow on the floor and nestled up against me. “Good night…” I took her in my arms and laid into the pillow. I noticed that I was getting less hungry just before I fell asleep...
- - - - -
I sat there, in the dark, damp abyss I called my home. The place was always silent; that’s how I liked it. Not like this though… The silence now was one of a tomb.
They were dead… They were all dead… I’d failed in my duty… I held the starved corpses of a pair of children, only hatched mere days ago… My subjects, completely and utterly starved… Our best source of food had been taken away, wiped from the face of the planet by that smug…
I ground my teeth so hard I could feel some of them cracking in the pressure. Him. He wasn’t satisfied just sending the Elements of Harmony away… He had to send all of them… Every town was empty, devoid of life. We tried to find alternatives, but anyone- pony or no- who got wind of what was happening fled to anywhere else. The only reason we stayed was out of a stubborn hope that we could find enough ponies…
By the time we realized the futility of our search, it was too late. Too late to run, too late to fight, too late to--
“No.” I gently laid the corpses to the floor. What little energy I could manage suddenly flared as I stood up and extended my wings.
It wasn’t too late to fight. I could stop him, I could return our food, and my hive would flourish once again. It had to. I glanced up at the ceiling and fired a blast of energy, opening a hole big enough to fly out of. With a hiss, I flew through the hole and in the direction of Canterlot.
With a confused “Bwuh?” I woke up. I glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table; 4 am. Jesus, what’s with these nightmares? I wiped cold sweat from my brow and carefully removed the blankets, trying my best not to wake Liz up. I crept out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, flicking on the lights and running the tap. I cleaned my face, taking deep, steadying breaths, and looked at myself in the mirror. What I saw made my jaw drop.
My hair was roughly six inches longer, which didn’t disturb me nearly as much as the fact that the ends were changing into a sickly veridian shade. Several strands had longer streaks of discoloring than others, and my hair was hanging thickly around my head like it was wet. I felt my hair; it felt like thick, sticky webbing. On top of that, I could see a dark-red blister poking in the center of my forehead. I gave it a minor tap, and immediately felt a rather disturbing sensation of my skull being prodded.
Lastly were my eyes; once the most bland shade of brown you could imagine, now they were a poisonous green. My mouth trembled, and I stepped back from the mirror. I bumped into the toilet behind me and sat heavily on it. I never took my eyes off of my corrupted reflection.
“What the fuck…”