//------------------------------//
//  A Hearth's Warming Eve Special: Part Three 
// Story: Slave of Eternity 
// by Secrets and Lies 
//------------------------------//


The Blackest Winter



Part 3



“If the world that we are forced to accept is false and nothing is true, then everything is possible.”




        A strong gust sang through the nearby forest, sailing over low pastures and swaying grass in its wake. The purity of the blue sky was tainted by the tumbling, white giants above–mountains on high, soaring as if they had never heard of gravity. The lands were lit by the radiant, yellow glow of an afternoon sun; its warmth bathed the woodland regions in gentle light. In the line of trees which bordered the expanding forest was a break in the greenery. In this narrow separation emerged a gravel-dirt pathway, large enough for one-way automobile traffic. On the road’s sides were shoulder-high wooden fencing to keep the grazing bovine in their separate fields. At the end of this road waited a tall man, taking in the Summertime weather and rolling cumuli above.
He stood by his white mailbox at the end of his property, which was cut by the main paved road into town. He remained still, swaying slightly in the wind with his eyes closed in a meditative silence. He wore long, warmly tanned dress pants with a tucked-in, white, button-up collared shirt. His hair was loose and waved slightly in the cooling breeze; his hazel eyes opened gently to the sound of the coming noise from down the road.
An old school bus eased to a halt before his driveway. As the brakes squealed to a halt, the double doors swung open, emitting the multiple whoops and chatter of young children. A young girl–no more than six–skipped off the public coach. Her crystal blue eyes twinkled in excitement upon seeing her father who had waited for her to return from school. She hopped over to him and hugged him promptly as the bus hurried away onto the next stop.
The child was clothed in a long, green tartan dress that fell over her knees. She wore a white shirt underneath the dress straps and kicked around dusty, strap-on sneakers that lit-up with each step she took. A pink and blue book bag swayed underneath her long, auburn hair; her hair itself was a curly mess, bouncing around and behind her shoulders with each bound she made. Her gleeful, joyous expression was contagious and the father matched her enthusiasm as the little girl embraced his long legs.
The father beamed calmly, “Hello, Jellybean. How was your day at school?”
Her eyes shot up to greet his, “Good! I saw three caterpillars today!”
“You don’t say?” The father took his daughter by the hand as they walked together back down the dirt pathway, continuing their conversation about the most silliest of things.
The girl had raced ahead a ways, screaming joyously and vaulting over the overgrown thickets in the side ditch to pet some cows. The cattle were carefully poking their heads through the fence slits and chowing down on some greener grass. The bovine were very friendly and didn’t mind getting their messy heads rubbed by the little girl.
One of the cows looked up, sniffed the cheek of the daughter and lapped the side of her face as she giggled and responded, “Ewww... Ha-ha-ha!” The father stepped over the ditch and grabbed his daughter by the waist, moving her over his head and onto his shoulders.
“Come on,” he said, “I have a snack for you at the house. We can pet the cows later.”
She waved back towards the feeding cattle and parted, “Bye Mr. Cow!”
Through the shaded forest they traveled until it opened up again with the end in sight. A one-story, medium-sized log cabin could be seen situated at the end of the road. Around it was seen a few cars, a freshly cut yard and a few other interconnecting pastures. To the far left of the house was a small, rounded and tin hanger; behind that was a narrow airstrip that cut between the fenced-in fields. On the front deck of the house scurried a small, black and gray spotted dog that came racing up to greet them when it spotted the two. The man let his daughter off of his shoulders to let the child run towards the dog to pet it. The dog had rolled over on its side before the girl, having the desire to have its belly rubbed. She sat down in the grass next to it as she patted and scratched the underside of the relaxing animal.
“You’re such a fuzzy dog, Nox–and such a sweet boy!” She placed her small hands on the side of the dog’s face and pressed his cheeks together, saying in his face, “And so fat!” Nox gave a low moan as it looked up at the father. Jellybean shot up from the grass and asked the father, “Daddy, what type of dog is Nox?”
He answered promptly, “Nox is an Australian Cattle Dog.” The man walked on as his daughter accompanied him.
The little girl thought for a moment and quickly asked another question, “Where is 'Australian'?
“It’s just Australia. Things from Australia are called 'Australian'. Like things from America are called, 'American'.”
“Oh... Well where’s Australia then?” The father stopped and looked around him. With careful discernment, he pointed towards a logical direction to where Australia was to them.
“It’s about five-thousand miles that-a-way.” She looked off into the distance where her dad pointed, squinting to see if she could see it. She looked up at him again, bending her head almost all the way back to see her father fully.
“Can mommy see it from an airplane? What if she’s flying really high?”
The father laughed, “No, I don’t think mommy can see it from an airplane. It’s a really long ways away.” With that notion in her head, her delightful mood soon turned sour. She looked troubled and sad when watching Nox across the yard, who was rolling blissfully about in the grass.
“Do you think Nox is home sick,” she wondered aloud somberly and without energy in her tone. “Cause Australia is so far away...” 
“Nah, I don’t think so. I think he likes it here. From what I hear, it’s pretty hot in Australia–unlike in North Carolina.”
A whirring buzz from the distance came over the farmlands as both their attentions were captivated by an approaching noise. High over the forest’s horizon, soared a cyan blue and white prop plane. It shimmered brightly in the clear sky as it banked around, coming in to land on the nearby airstrip.
Jellybean pointed upward and shouted, “Look! Look! It’s mommy! Mommy’s back early! Yay!” She began running towards the grass-laden runway as her father trailed behind.
“What a wild child,” her dad thought, watching her stumble in the grass, but just as quickly recovering and continue running forward. “She definitely acts like Brandi when she was a child. So crazy and carefree. Always bouncing, always smiling, always looking for the good in everything.” As the plane landed and was turned off, Brandi stepped out from the cockpit doors. She hopped down and was greeted by the loving admiration of her daughter.
“Hi mommy,” the little one rejoiced.
Brandi smiled warmly and replied with the same affection, “Hey sweetie!” She hoisted her child into her arms and noticed her man finally approaching the two.
The father opened his arms wide and smirked, “Well surprise, surprise! You’re off early!” She produced an alluring smile as she removed her headset helmet, letting her natural ruby-red hair tumble out in a mess. Her younger days were sealed away in the past; no longer was she the dyed-hair, eccentric woman she once was, but now a mother and successful pilot.
She stepped slowly over to her husband and confessed, “I finished up early so that we can have dinner together.” The man put his arm around her waist and kissed her on her forehead as the little girl in her arms muffled a giggle. She looked up at him with an agitated expression and softly vexed, “You didn’t forget, did you, Zack?” Zachary did forget what day it was as he palmed his face with embarrassment.
“Oh, darn it. It’s our anniversary.”
Jellybean added, with the number of years on her fingers out in front of her, “Six years! Six years!”
Brandi smiled and commended her, “Good job, sweetie!” She looked over at Zack and denoted, “Even our daughter knows what day it is.”
Their child spoke out, “No mommy! Call me Jellybean!” Brandi looked over at her child, puzzled by her odd request.
The mother looked back over at Zack and questioned him, “Oh, you put her up to this, didn’t you?”
Zack laughed as he nervously shook his hands in denial, “Oh, no! If she wants to be called Jellybean, then she’s Jellybean.” He bent over and flicked his child’s nose gently, “Our little Jellybean.” She cheered and tapped Zachary’s nose back.
As the family headed back to the house, Zack couldn’t believe he had forgotten about this day. It had been six years since he had been married, and it was also the best six years of his young life.





        A faded, silver van sped gracefully and cautiously down a narrow roadway, braving a cold and wintery night. Contorting down the high woodlands, the lightless road twisted and turned to the slope of the steep mountain. Trees barren of foliage stood in the shadows of the mount on both sides of the road. The driver of the vehicle was keen and knew of this road and its curves, he had traveled it numerous times; but in the dark of night, the road felt like another. Something about it was strange tonight, but such ludicrous thoughts were pushed aside in the driver’s rational mind.
Even though it was a Friday night, the driver had passed no other cars from where he had came and he knew it was a fairly popular road to take into town. From where the driver and its occupants lived, it was the only quick way into the greater town. The mountain passage interconnected two other towns which relied heavily on each other. Where they were heading was the town where many of this region lived and back where their home was; and from the town they traveled from was where the supermarkets, schools, and other important infrastructures were.
Zack, Brandi, and 'Jellybean' were there in the car, they were heading home from a school play that their daughter had taken part in. Zack drove cautiously onward as Brandi and their child sang along to Christmas tunes. The radio–playing the holiday songs–began to fuzz-out as it always did in the middle of their journey to and from the county school. The valley was a border between two radio towers, each playing different stations; it was quite annoying to change the radio from one station to the next, but they all had gotten use to it and accepted it. Zack reached to turn the dial to find another station playing Christmas melodies.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured the ladies, “I’ll find us another Christmas station.”
Brandi reached her hand over towards the radio saying, “You don’t need to, you’re driving. I’ll do it.”
Zack insisted, “It’s fine, I got it.” Brandi didn’t complain as she retracted her arm and began humming a tune her child knew. As Zack scanned the radio, he too began humming along with them to the famous Bing Crosby Christmas song. Jellybean murmured along in her car seat, but barely staying awake. As she began nodding off, Brandi looked back and grinned at the sight of her sleeping girl.
“And... she’s out for the night,” Brandi lightly chuckled, reaching and rubbing her child’s curly hair.
Zack smiled and commented, “It always happens, it seems. She can’t ever keep her eyes open in a car for too long.” He glanced back to see her for a moment–it was an action he would soon regret.
Brandi shrieked out, “Zack!” He jolted his gaze back to see that he was a second away from hitting something. He braked, but it was too late.
The car slammed into a fairly large object, indenting itself into the hood and then flung wildly out before them. The headlights were taken out immediately upon impact as the car skidded sideways into the darkness, screaming to a drastic halt. Zack turned the wheel violently as he was terribly afraid to send the car off the mountain’s side. Smoke torrented out in billows from the engine and back wheels as they finally came to screeching halt in the middle of the road. Zack and Brandi’s heads whiplashed forward when the vehicle stopped. Items inside the car were tossed sideways around them and impacted their heads with slight force. Their child had woke up and was screaming in fear as Brandi aided her.
Zack gathered himself, turned toward his family and asked them hastily, “Is everyone okay?” Brandi nodded that she was fine, but was bleeding a bit from a few cuts along her face. Their child seemed perfectly safe, though terribly frightened. Zack turned back and looked over the shadowy road before them through a heavily cracked window wondering what he had hit. He promptly unbuckled his seatbelt and began to exit the car. The frame of the driver door was warped from the accident, but with a few firm kicks, Zack jostled it open.
Brandi looked over at him and stressed in a panicky voice, “What are you doing?”
“Going to see what I hit. If it’s an animal, I’m going to move it into a ditch before anyone else hits it too,” he answered back.
Before leaving, he switched on his emergency flashers, which blinked brightly through the dark forest around him. He stepped out into the frigid air, now feeling an aching throb painfully overcome his back and neck. He wobbled out before the dented and blood-stained hood car and took note of its damages. Zack assumed he had only damaged the radiator, seeing how the smoke was nothing more than hot steam. The van was still drivable from the looks of it, but only for a short distance, and luckily they weren’t too far from home.
He turned and proceeded to go into the blackness before him, following a light trail of murky blood from what he had hit. After a two dozen yards of walking and following, he saw something emerge from the shadow. A somewhat large animal of sorts, bathed in darkness and in the yellow shine of the distant emergency flashers, lay lifeless on the worn pavement. He couldn’t tell what it was exactly, so he slowly crept forward and approached it. He stopped for a moment when the creature cried out in a soft murmur. Zack was taken back a bit by its very human-like cry; it sobbed as if it were a human and Zack began to worry that maybe he did actually hit a human. Zachary finally walked over and stood above it, looking over the bizarre thing below him. To his relief, it wasn’t a human–but to his surprise, it wasn’t an animal either.
“What in the world...” he whispered under his warm breath, unable to determine what sort of deformed creature this was. It was a brightly colored, four-legged beast with a long mane and tail. At any other time, he would have looked over it more, but he knew he had to return to his traumatized family that waited patiently for him. He took the animal by the forelegs and began to heave its tattered, pink body into a nearby ditch. As he stepped off the road and released the poor, malformed creature, it began to cough up blood and motion its head upward. Zack jumped back in shock upon seeing its massive, unnatural eyes peer up at him. Blood trickled down its head as its breaths became more spastic; its life teetered along the edge of death. The animals eyes burned through the bdarkness and stabbed Zachary in a haunting, hypnotic manner.
It spoke to him softly, still gently crying and pressing through the pain in its form, “I c-came all this w-way to meet you....” Zack stood frozen, still afraid to even speak and not knowing if he should run or not.
She (judging by its higher pitched voice) went on after a few heavy breaths, “I’ve been s-searching for you in this world and finally I f-found you... b-but it’s too late it seems...” Her eyes gleamed with tears as she began pressing him with her questions, “Don’t y-you remember me, Zack? Don’t y-you know who I am?”
Zack built up enough courage and pushed out, “No, no I don’t.”
“B-but I came all this way to help you... you have to r-remember me... You have to r-remember where you actually belong. All of this... t-this isn’t real, Zackie. It isn’t! Please–” she suddenly coughed up blood from internal injuries and was rapidly losing strength.
She murmured out as her eyes began to close and her head began to fall into the dead leaves, “Please... remember... This isn’t... your life...” As the strange, sentient animal died before him in a final breath, Zack stood paralyzed in fear. What had just occurred to him he couldn’t quite comprehend. He didn’t know what the animal was talking about, or even how the animal was talking to him. He stumbled back out of the forest edge and speedily made his way back to the van. He entered it and tried to start the car, entirely focused on his previous situation and not about his wife or daughter’s conditions.
Brandi looked over at him and asked, “What was it?”
Zack looked over towards her, eyes glazed with intense horror–disturbed with thoughts and a sight he could not stop thinking about. He turned slightly to see his equally frightened daughter staring back at him. He looked back towards the ignition of the car and after four unsuccessful attempts, the fifth brought the broken van back to life. He steadied the car into drive and slowly made his way down the road once more, emergency flashers still blaring through the dark.





        “Insurance will cover most of the costs,” Brandi imparted to Zachary while looking out their bedroom window. She was the one in charge of the family insurance policies and whenever an event like what had occurred occurs, she was tell her husband the finer details. Zack lay in his bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling, partly paying attention and partly not to his wife’s talk on insurance.
“...and we’ll call our agent first thing in the morning–” she stopped and turned around. Worry struck her again as she asked him, “Zack, what’s wrong?”
He looked over at her with heavy eyelids, still shaken not by the accident, but by the creature’s words. He didn’t want to tell Brandi what he had seen or heard, knowing that if he told her, she wouldn’t believe him. She wasn’t the superstitious type and he knew she would get quite irritated thinking that he was lying to her. He remained quiet as his attention was driven back to the ceiling. She stepped over and sat down at the edge of the bed next to Zack. She placed his hand into her smaller hands, feeling his quaking and trembling body.
“Are you feeling okay, dear?”
His slowly looked up into her hazel iris’ as he responded honestly, “No, I’m not.” She bent over and kissed his forehead, he didn’t respond verbally or physically.
She leaned back, smiled and inspirited sweetly, “We should get some sleep then. You’ll feel better in the morning–I promise.” Brandi sat up and began walking around to her side of the king-sized bed.
As she was lying down, Zack finally replied after a delay, “You’re right, as usually. I’ll feel better in the morning.” He wanted to think that, but he was sure that he wasn’t. He didn’t want to worry Brandi, so he kept his thoughts to himself. She hummed with satisfaction upon hearing her husband’s lies and reached over towards the bedside lamp.
“Goodnight, hubby.” The orange glow from the light dissipated into darkness with a click.
He took a long breath in and spoke faintly, “Goodnight.”
Zack didn’t know how long he had been lying awake, sleep eluded him into the darker hours of the night. Brandi was out like a light in a matter of minutes–she could fall asleep in any situation and in no time at all, such as falling asleep after birthing their child. It was a trait of hers she didn’t talk too fondly about, often finding embarrassment in such a strange talent. Zack finally turned his head over to read the time on the alarm clock across the bedroom. It read, “Two fifty-eight AM.”
As soon as he turned back to stare at the ceiling, something caught his attention in the corner of his eye. He looked down at the foot of his bed to another large-eyed creature staring back at him. He drew in a sharp breath and solidified in fear–though being ever so quiet to try and not wake his wife. The animal was the same as the one he had hit, but in different colors and with eyes gleaming in a magenta hue. It stood for a long while looking at him in silence as Zack took in more of its features. This one was quite different–he realized after some time–than the four-legged thing he had struck. Its mane and tail were more jagged and were in five different colored stripes.
Suddenly it turned and began walking around his bed towards his open, bedroom door. Its hooves clopped along the wood floor and when it exited, he lastly noticed a pair of wings on its side, something the other creature didn’t have. He spun his feet out of bed and placed them on the ground, feeling the cold floor underneath him. He eased himself up and crept out of the room, silently closing the door behind him. He didn’t quite know what came over him, but he was madly curious as to figure out what was plaguing his mind and what these creatures were.
He saw a brief glimpse of its bright tail swishing around the far turn of the dimly lit hall. He walked calmly to its end and pivoted around, seeing it enter into his daughter’s bedroom. Unafraid, Zack eased open the cracked door as the pale-yellow nightlight from the hall washed over the pink bedroom. His eyes widened upon seeing not only one creature, but four others in different shades, hues and bodies, hurdled around his daughter's bed. They turned and simultaneously looked over at him in eerie, expressionless silence. He noticed his child was asleep still, for she too carried her mother’s genetic trait of heavy sleeping–which he was very thankful for at the moment. One after another they spoke to Zack in differing voices; all seemingly feminine, but grave in their tones. The purple one began and each after was as emotionless and as cold as the next.
“Have you given up so easily? Have you conformed to such comforts so willingly?”
A yellow one spoke next, “Blindfolded, you walk down an infinite hall with infinite doorways, though you keep going forward. You believe you make choices, you believe you can see, but not knowing you’ve been sightless this entire time.”
A white one then said, “Reality is what you make it, yes, but what is this reality you made? Did you make it yourself, or are you a dream figure inside another’s dream?”
The orange one came in, “When you truly know what is to know, is that self awareness or the delusions and failsafes of a higher being? This is all a test, to see if you can rise above all else.”
The blue one finally expressed as Zack began to lose track of who talked next after her, “Eyesight is here to test if you can see beyond it.”
“Matter is here to test your curiosity.”
“Doubt is here to test your vitality.”
“And she,” they all looked towards his daughter, “she is here to test your vulnerability.” They looked back up at Zachary and continued as each did before.
“You never truly believed this was all that was, that this was it and nothing more. You could never fool yourself, not many can after accepting so blindly for so long.”
“Once you have grown accustom to it, once you have believed it for a great deal of time, it is hard to accept other 'truer' meanings. As if growing up believing that your faith has always been true, knowing that blind faith is only a world destroyer.”
“If you refuse to believe, then you must refuse the world around you. You must deny the heavens and the hells, the believers and the nonbelievers, the truths and the lies.”
“By limiting yourself, you are limiting your potential. For you–and everyone else in this beautiful disaster called life–are living dead lives by limiting your knowledge to what others have taught you to believe. Accepting what has been offered and nothing else.”
Zack questioned the group of colorful creatures, “What do you want?” They stood silently, still staring back at him, thinking in unison as if they were one entity.
“We are here,” one began, “as a warning. That this all, isn’t.”
“That your mind is a bastard of the original. It is being tampered and twisted by higher beings.”
“For a greater purpose or for entertainment, we do not know. Though we and another are trying to break you free.”
“To bring you back, to make you remember. We can elude his presence for only a short time, and only in this form may we avoid the eyes of the ever watchful.”
Zack asked another question, “Who? Who is watching me?”
“A deceiver. A tester. A dreamer. A tyrant.”
“And he is here.” In a blink of an eye, the creatures vanished from sight and the room was empty of their foreign presence. Zack stood around, watching his daughter sleep, dreaming the most happiest and ignorant of dreams he hoped.
He returned to his bedroom to lie down and as he did, sleep finally began to wash over him. Before he could drift off, in his closing eyelids he saw a momentary image that disturbed him, bending over and looking down by Zachary’s side. He couldn’t keep his eyes open though as they fell shut, throwing himself into alienated dreams of his own. The image he saw, the being that watched him sleep, still was burned into his mind’s eye. It was a cloaked figure, wearing a somber mask with thinly cut slits for vision, breathing and listening. Zack dreamed, but only of nightmares.





        A scarlet sun rose from the pale horizon that morning. Its rays divided the mist that hugged the frosty ground and dead forests. Beams and pillars of orange light flickered from between the trees, warming the frigid earth and its occupants. The morning arias rang out through the forest; kin of a feather speaking with lilting pleasantry. A small herd of deer crept closely along the wood’s edge, grazing and alert for nearby predators. The wintery dawn was always this mystifying and still, a somber reminder of the death this season brings.
Zachary sat alone at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the coffee cup in front of him. The steam wavered upward like a deathly apparition into the everlasting and faded from his waking sight. He had been awake for an hour, yet he did not preform his morning rituals–his worried mind would not allow it. He was suppose to be opening shop today at this exact hour, but he found no motivation to leave his sanctum. He hunched over, transfixed into the dark liquid while its awakening aroma sweetly graced his nostrils.
“Zachary,” a voice called out to him from the corner of his eye. He looked over to see his wife, clothed in a bed robe and charcoal sweatpants. Upon seeing his dismal appearance, she questioned with caution, “Aren’t you suppose to be at work, dear?”
“I own the place,” he muttered with a voice as cold as the air outside, “I can take a day off whenever I want.” He finally grabbed his (now cooled) coffee and sipped on it. Brandi stepped over to the coffee pot and began arranging herself a cup.
She asked, “You open up everyday though. Don’t you have the key to the place?”
“Duncan has one. I texted him this morning–the shop will be opened in a few minutes.” He looked over at the microwave clock, reading that it was four minutes till seven. Brandi sat down and blew over her cup before taking a small sip, being careful not to burn herself. When she removed the cup from her mouth, she examined Zachary more closely.
“Honey,” she asked sympathetically, “are you ill? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” His eyes grew with slight concern for a moment; if anything, she was right, he might as well have seen a ghost. The image of the demon ebbed in his mind and the more he thought on it–which he didn’t wish to, but did anyways–the greater detailed the figure became.
Zack sighed and rather fabricated, “I didn’t sleep well last night. I think I might be getting sick.”
“Are you taking anything at the moment?”
“No.”
“Well you should. What’s bothering you exactly?” Zachary thought for a moment before replying.
“My head.”
Brandi exited her seat and stated while leaving the room, “I’ll get you some aspirin, babe.” As she left, Zachary slouched back in his wooden, kitchen chair. He deeply and continually thought about what had occurred last night. He couldn’t shake it from his mind, no matter how hard he tried.
The morning crept on as the sun worked its way higher into the brightening sky. Zachary had moved himself to the living room, watching his daughter play with her dolls while the television played in the background. Zack was sparsely paying attention to the film that was on, which he recognized to be the Christmas classic, 'The Greatest Gift'. Brandi, now dressed in proper attire, was bundled up and ready to take on the thirty-degree temperatures outside. She approached Zachary, bent down and gave him a light peck on his forehead.
She rose back up and pacified, “Don’t worry about lunch or dinner, I’ll bring something home for the both of you. I’ll be out for most of the day, running errands here and there, and doing a little Christmas shopping on the side.” She went on with a skip in her step about her plans for the day as she walked about the rooms, getting her essentials before leaving. Zachary sat unmoved, eyes affixed to the black-and-white sob story while their child took her dolls on a quest through imagination and across the shag rug.
Brandi turned back before leaving his presence and reminded him, “And please don’t forget to watch your daughter. I don’t want to come home knowing my child has been running through the pastures naked again. You know how she likes to undress herself and run around.” He looked up at her for the first time in a long while and forced a smile on his face.
“I will, don’t worry about it. Go do your thing.”
“Thanks, honey. See you around twelve.”
“Stay safe! Drive carefully,” he finished loudly as she left.
Jellybean hopped up from the floor and yelled her farewell, “Bye mommy!” Brandi beamed and waved back as the door closed behind her. She hopped back down and began again where she left off.
Zack’s attention was turned towards his daughter as he watched her quietly. She didn’t pay attention to him, she was spaced out in her own fantasy; taking her toys through the wildest adventures she could conceive. Zack tried listening in on her soft chatter as she narrated each character in different tones and voices, though she was too quiet for his old ears. Something however struck a chord with him, something he didn’t quite realize upon further examination of the toys.
He called out to her softly, “Hey, Jellybean?” Her sky blue eyes darted towards her father’s hazel eyes.
“Yes, daddy?”
Zack motioned his hand forward, pointing out, “Can I see one of your dolls?” She lifted herself up and quickly tramped over where Zack was with one of her six dolls in hand. She opened her father’s rather large and callused hand and placed in his palm a small figurine.
She told him with keen accuracy, “She’s my favorite. Her name is Rainbow Dash and she’s a pegasus pony.” He knew he had bought her these toys in the past, but payed no attention to them whatsoever; she pointed and he payed for it. Upon Zack’s closer inspection of the toy, his heart sank in his chest. His daughter didn’t notice his overwrought expression of dread, for she had already lost focus and was back to playing with her tiny, plastic ponies.
"It’s her," he mentally expressed, turning the cyan toy in his nimble hands, "Oh my God, it’s her." The creature he had seen from the other night, all of them were his daughter’s toys. He even recognized the one he had hit the night before, the pink and fluffy animal his daughter was now animating with her hand. It didn’t make sense to him as he gripped the edges of his seat.
"How could this have happened? Why is this happening to me? I don’t understand!" His eyes turned drastically upon seeing the cyan creature from the night before standing next to him. He leaped back in his chair from fright; his daughter payed no attention to the quiet intruder behind her. The equine looked over and watched his daughter play with a smile on her face. Zack began to wonder if he was the only person who could see these creatures, that only he could only interact with them. Then he figured that that question couldn’t be true, that the same type of creature hit and destroyed the front of his car. They were real, but the answer to how they existed in this world eluded his slipping, sane mind.
The pegasus pony expressed herself with concern and worry, “You’re not crazy, Zack. You’ve just been dealt a bad hand, that’s all.” It had been the first time Zack had heard her speak with any emotion at all.
Her eyes strayed back towards his daughter as she went on with the same pity, “She can’t hear me, nor see me at this moment, I chose so by my own will not to be known to her. She would love to see her toy to be real, they are her favorites.” She returned her gaze towards him once more, “You want answers, I know, but first you must realize that this place you’re in right now is nonexistent; a fantasy construct of another. He’s been watching you, but you haven’t realized it. Ever since you returned, ever since you tried to end your life, he’s had his eyes on you. You may not have realized that he was there, nearly breathing down your neck, but he has. You’ve never been taught to see him, so you’ve always looked past him. It’s funny how we don’t notice certain things until we’ve invested interest in them. Oh, how oblivious we all are.”
Zack noticed his daughter began softly singing to herself. What started off as an almost silent hum grew into sweet music. The song she sang was all too familiar to Zachary, but why she sung it now than any other time concerned him.


“Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream."


She continued singing over and over again, repeating the simple, yet haunting nursery rhyme. Just from hearing the lyrics aloud, the song’s words had greater meaning to him now than ever before.
The pony trotted in front of him slowly, regaining his attention, “Every fictional world ever created has its fallacies. Every story has its plot holes–you must find them on your own. You must discover what is real and what isn’t.”
Zack wondered if she could read his mind, and questioned through his thoughts, "But how? What’s real and what isn’t real?"
She understood and replied, “Once you began to see one falsehood, you will strive to find more. The lies will begin to connect and form the greater truth, the one that was so easily taken from you several years ago. Begin to remember, place the image of the cloaked one in your mind and try and find him in your past.” In an instant, the equine disappeared as soon as Zachary briefly shut his eyes. Him and his unaware daughter were alone once more. He shot up from his feet and stood for a moment thinking of what to do next.
He asked his child, “Jellybean, daddy’s going to be right back. Could you stay here and play quietly with your toys?” His daughter didn’t respond, she was far too invested in her make-believe adventures. Zack stepped backwards and out of the room, trusting his daughter to obey his words.
He wandered out onto his front porch and placed his hands on the wooden railing, outlooking over his pasture. He fastened his eyes tightly and tried to preform what the cyan mare insisted. He thought back as far as he could from when he failed to commit suicide. With new insight, he began visualizing his past life as much as he could and what he discovered was quite unpleasant to his liking. The figure, the one he saw from the night before, was indeed following him–and he had been for the last six years.
In the corners of his memories he saw him, the dreamer himself. Faces in crowds, distant reflections in mirrors, down ends of hallways and on sides of darkened roads; he was always grave, still, silent and always watching. He was in Club 7o4, he was in Zachary’s workplace, he was in the park when Zack proposed to Brandi. He was on the wedding day, the anniversary, at the birth of his daughter, he was everywhere. He couldn’t fathom it as hot tears trickled down his cheeks–it was too much to take in. He desperately wondered how he could have missed such a strange phenomena and asked himself why it was haunting him, why did it desire to stalk and follow him. Then something new occurred to him, Brandi Woahs, his wife, she felt interconnected to the being he had talked to a while ago. It hammered against his mind as he tried to force the pieces into the puzzle.
He angrily said aloud to himself, “Brandi, Brandi, Brandi! And that horse thing–, pegasus pony. Rainbow D–.” He stopped when he knew what the connection was. Once he had thought only slightly about it, he knew exactly what the two had in common.
“No...” he whispered into the air, “she is... she can’t... Rainbow Dash... Brandi Woahs...” If the anagram wasn’t enough, he should have still noticed the similarities immediately. The same voice, the same streaks in her hair, the same vividness in her eyes. He began to remember days of old, he began to remember the place that was hid away deep in his mind long ago by his own self. Equestria had resurfaced, along with everything that dwelled in it.
He turned swiftly when he heard a noise from behind him. It was his daughter looking up strangely at her father, wondering what in the world he was doing. Zack was unbelievably frightened; not because of the drastic resemblance of his daughter to the pony Pinkie Pie, but because of the cloaked figure standing only inches behind her. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of him as his daughter approached closer to her father.
She softly asked him, “What’s wrong, daddy? What’s the matter?” He couldn’t bare to tell her, he couldn’t bare to look at her. Instead of seeing his daughter, he only saw the creature she was based on and nothing more. Jellybean was not his daughter, but only a human duplicate of the pink pony he so cherished and loved once long ago.
He had lost track of time as he turned back and noticed Brandi driving down the road in her smaller car. He had no idea he had been outside for so long. White clouds of dust flared up from behind the moving vehicle as she came to a halt at the front of the garage. She stepped out and was baffled when Zachary quickly stepped down the porch and towards her.
Zack passed by her as she said aloud, “What’s the matter?” He stopped in his progress and turned towards her, connecting the similarities between her and Rainbow Dash. He slowly bobbed his head left to right, unable to come to terms with his wife being nothing more than an allusion of another. They both were, Brandi and Jellybean, they were nothing more than simple incarnations of ponies. He gradually stepped back through pressing fear, keeping his eyes fixed on Brandi and not wanting to look past her to see the hooded one.
“I... I...” he couldn’t find the words at first–his thoughts were scattered, unsure what to believe. He finally pushed out in one breath, “I need to borrow your car.”
“Where are you going?”
He opened the car door and put one leg inside while turning back towards her, “I need to go.” He finally sat himself inside the automobile and closed the door promptly. He speedily made his way down the dirt driveway and onto the paved roads into town. He didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t know what exactly to do as he continued to think of a way out of this nightmare. His hands trembled at the wheel as cold sweat began to drip from his cranium to chin.
He said to himself in a rasp tone, “What do I believe in anymore... How do I end this? How?” He turned down a random roadway and noticed the cloaked figure standing at the junction, its head following the passing car. New tears began to form in his eyes, blurring his vision. He couldn’t drive safely anymore as he pulled over and sobbed loudly into the driving wheel.
`“Please don’t cry,” the familiar voice from the cyan pony said in the seat next to him. Zack looked up and was no longer terrified of the spastic appearances from the pony. Instead of fright, hostility overtook him.
Zack’s anger burst through the sadness as he emitted with intensity, “It’s all your fault! You did this! Damn you!” His grief soon overpowered his rage as he started to plead with the strange animal, “Make it stop! Please! I want to be ignorant again! I don’t care if this hooded figure follows me everywhere! I just don’t want to see him anymore! I don’t want to see any ponies or demons, I just want to live my life normally!”
“But Zachary,” she averred sharply, “This isn’t life, it’s just a dream.”
Zack took in a breath to try and calm himself down, “No, I can’t believe that. Because I don’t know what to believe anymore.” He sat up from the wheel and looked over at her, “I’m not sure what is real and what isn’t. This life makes a lot more sense then me being teleported to Equestria. But then again... this life seems too real. Do you see what I’m dealing with? Two worlds are colliding in front of me and I don’t know which is the real world.” The pony tilted her head downward, keeping her eyes on Zachary still.
“Does it really matter,” slowly asked the pegasus pony, “what’s real and what isn’t? Is this place and Equestria real? Are both a dream inside of something no one can comprehend?”
Zack stated through his weariness, “Whatever it is, I need to wake up from this lucid dream...”
The pony leaned forward, “And how does one wake up from a lucid dream? What is one sure-fire way to go back into the real world?” Zack froze still; he knew the answer, but he dared not to say it. He simply turned back towards the road and placed his hands correctly on the wheel at ten-and-two. He pulled his car around and began to drive elsewhere. He didn’t want to go home, nor to any friend’s houses; he had a destination and a plan.





        Night had fallen over the glittering city of Charlotte as he walked skittishly through the crowds along the sidewalks. The city glowed with Christmas lights and festive decor, yet this could not sway his grim outlook on it all. His eyes scanned his environment to and fro with the mindset that none of this was or has ever been real. The faces and people, all living separate lives with different beliefs and different outlooks; all of them were fictitious and they were all so oblivious that it made him sick.
He kept questioning himself as he went along the red and green lit sidewalks, "How could this have happened? Why am I frightened still? I know this is fake, I must believe that this isn’t reality I’m present in."
No matter how many times he told himself, he couldn’t grasp the concept of the falsehood. Even after the pony’s words of wisdom and after all he had seen in only twenty-four hour’s time, he still wasn’t convinced; but he knew if he didn’t do something then he would continue to live out this life as a lie. He was so very close now to cutting his strings from the grand puppeteer, but was so very afraid that maybe still he had already done so back in Equestria. He pivoted around the corner and up into a randomly chosen apartment complex. At the top of the stairs, he opened a heavy door to the vacant roof. Steam billowed from the heating unites as he walked across the top of the building towards its edge. The much higher skyscrapers sprawled out before the night, great beacons of light lit like pillars of fire through the blackness. As he crept towards the edge, he dragged his feet forward and looked down over the building. He stepped back immediately, his body shook with dread. He pulled on his hair as he tried convincing himself to do what needed to be done.
“I’m scared, I’m scared,” he taunted, then questioned himself, “Why am I so scared?” Zack proceeded to get on all fours and crawl towards the edge. He was beginning to realize what place he stood in and where exactly he was. He wasn’t on a distant rooftop looking over a happy city, he wasn’t in Charlotte or North Carolina, or the United States of America, or even on a planet in a vast, incomprehensible universe. He knew at that moment that he has always been in hell, even when he was in Equestria. His life was only a game to the gods, a fading thought of the divine. Everything that he had ever worked up toward and put meaning in was ultimately meaningless. The questions he sought would never be answered; and those questions only drove his madness further towards the edge of the building and his own sanity.
He muttered aloud frightfully, almost clawing his way forward, “I don’t know what I think, I don’t think what I know. There’s no such thing as paradise if the questions outweigh the answers. Is true happiness ignorance? I wish it so! I wish it so! I wish it back!” Upon the edge, he crept upward onto his feet, letting his toes hang freely off of the edge. The bitter wind convinced him to jump and he would if he still didn’t care.
"But why do I care still? Why can’t I just do it!" He continued to ask himself this as he stood like a statue on the boundary of life itself. He wished for someone to reach out and pull him away, though he wished more so for answers instead of the riddles he was given. The longer he stood on the edge, looking down at the happy-go-lucky ants that were shopping away, the more so he wished not to fall forward. He was at war within himself, unable to sway his opinion on what was real and what wasn’t; if to jump or not to, to continue to live a lie or escape into an unknown truth.
He looked up into the night sky, glowing faintly with orange, city lights and softly chuckled through his insanity, “Six hundred and sixty-six foot tall building on seventh street. My god damn luck I suppose. Why do I even care anymore?”
A voice called out from behind Zachary, “You care because you’re frightened.” Zachary turned slowly, eyes and face red with powerful emotions. A figure in the dark of the night stood out as a silhouette, with a voice that sounded eerily familiar.
He went on, “By ending this life with a simple choice, you only end that choice. Life does not end nor begin when one is conceived or dead, life is more than that. Life does not begin, nor does it end. For you, you choose to end one life for another, one memory for another. And whatever memory you choose, whatever alternate history you decide on will ultimately be the true reality.”
Zack declined with a gloomy sigh, “You can’t possibly know that. No one can.”
“Your life will never end until the world forgets you, until everyone who knows you fails to remember you. Though through being apart of time itself, we are all immortal. We’re framed within an eternal existence where time shall never end, but this existence may not be this one–unless you choose it. Unless you choose this false reality over the other.”
Zack stamped his foot and screamed, “Is this real? Tell me! Tell me already!” He had become so tired of the puzzles and conundrums, he only wanted solid answers.
“Zachary,” he whispered into the frigid wind around them. In that tone, Zack knew exactly who this person was and his anger and sadness was blown away with the wind. His expression contorted from rage and depression to child-like wonder and bewilderment, unable to cope with who this person was.
The familiar figure went on in the same, thoughtful tone, “Oh Zachary, your time here is nothing but a stream, and that stream will soon flow into an ocean with unending horizons and limitless edges. The sea refuses no river. And life is but a dream, but life shall not end when the dream is over. When you are awake, you will know what is real and what isn’t.”
The figure stepped out from the darkness and smiled, “Goodbye, my son.” A strong gust came over the rooftop and loosened Zachary’s stance. He reached out his hand towards his father–as if he could save himself from his own fate–but it was too late. His feet slipped as he fell backwards off of the edge of the building and towards the ground.
As the world sped around him, the denizens of the earth looked up to watch him fall. Each held an equally disappointed expression across their faces as one by one they transfigured into the cloaked figure. Their heads followed Zack’s descent as each stood still to watch the climax of their story. As Zack hit the cold ground with a thud, his vision went black as he felt no pain. The world grew silent as his body was untethered from its physical form.





        In an instant–as if he had simply blinked–he found himself standing alone in the opening of the Everfree Forest. Snow gently flittered about him as he looked around to take in his surroundings. He was still skeptical that this was the true reality, unable to believe anything after what he had just been through. A voice as soft as snowfall rang out through the forest towards him, the voice of the dreamer himself.
“You did well. You escaped the dream, you escaped my prison. But now, you are in a new dream. A prison that you cannot break free from. Remember that you will always be a slave to us, the spirits and divine.” His voice faded like the passing wind through the woodlands, “You will be a slave of eternity, for eternity.”
Zack was unsure if he had made the right choice or not as he fell to his knees into the thick slush. He had a perfect life, but it was all a lie. He questioned himself that maybe he had made the wrong choice. Another six years in his mind had passed, and if he would carry this memory with him or not, he wouldn’t know. He wondered if it would have been better to live in a false paradise then to live in real hell. He placed his head in his hands and cried alone in the dreary woods.

        For on that day and ever on, he always questioned if he had made the right choice, and if perhaps he had ended his own life and was now in another’s dream. Some of the memories from the six years on Earth were forgotten over time, but he still remembered its horrors. And in all of the adventures he had until the end, he would remember this day as The Blackest Winter.