//------------------------------// // Highway Star // Story: Not\e/worthy // by YarnWeaver //------------------------------// Not\e/worthy Part of the PonyEarthVerse By: YarnWeaver Chapter 6: Highway Star Someday - Sometime Somewhere High - Somepony Low This is easily the worst situation I've ever been in. I'm stranded in a skyscraper in the middle of New York City. -grroooaannn- Make that a slightly unstable skyscraper in the middle of New York City. I lose track of how long I sit here, clinging to the remains of this wall... ...trembling. Eventually, I feel the shifting building beneath me start to settle. Shortly afterward, I don't feel it shifting at all. Huh... Must've been the buck to the door. Equal and opposite reaction and all that. "Well, I'm not gonna find my way out of here while cowering in the closet." I walk cautiously over to the only other point of interest I can see: the blown out window. Craning out my neck as far as I dare, I take a moment to just drink in the scenery. I don't know what the majority of these buildings are called, but they're everywhere! Cutting into the sky and reflecting back different sections of clouds. I also notice that I can't see the sun from where I'm standing, not in the sky before me, nor in the images I see reflected off of the other buildings. That probably means its right above me, like it's noon or close to it. However, I decide against looking up to confirm that. Too risky, I've already got my head out the window, I don't need to potentially blind myself. Instead, I decide to tempt fate in a different way. I look down. Ambulances. Fire trucks. Police cars. News vans. Oh no...the door! I hit something! I might've just hurt somebody...or worse!! Wait. What's that sound? -wopwopwopwopwop- Helicopter!! I...I...I... I can't stay here. I can't let them find me. I run. Why am I running? I'm a small, blue pony who was just standing in front of a blown out window from which a door, with frame still attached, just fell and caused a lot of property damage and possibly hurt or killed somebody... ...and I can't explain how I got here! That'll color everything else I say in the wrong light. There's no doubt about that. So down the hall to the right of the broken window I run, and through God's Providence or simply fortunate happenstance, I don't care which, I quickly spot an elevator at the end of the hall. I waste no time in making my way up to it, only to discover another unfortunate fact while I was still several feet away. The call buttons on the wall adjacent to the elevator doors were just out of my reach. They were even higher up the wall than the handle was on the late closet door. I wasn't about to let that stop me, though. Using the momentum from my run through the hall, I coil up the muscles in my forelegs and hind legs in sequence and spring across the last few feet and up to meet my target: the button with the downward-pointing arrow. -KA-CRUNCH!- My right forehoof does the job of pressing the button a little too well. Thankfully, the hoofprint in the wall doesn't interfere with the call button's job, as I hear the telltale -ding- of the call system responding to its prompting. I wait. Of course, for me, that's nothing new. I've always tried to be a polite and patient person, pleasant even. It comes with the job. Customer's always right, after all. Even if some of them are determined to remain unsatisfied. Please, just stop yelling at me! Sometimes there's just nothing I can do. They mistake the silence of my focus for rudeness. Please! I'm just trying to do my job! Even worse are the times when my only relief is markedly absent. It won't end. The line won't end! They just keep coming! I can't leave my register with customers still in my line, and the only way to call for a break shuts down my ability to continue scanning until they respond. Can't keep them waiting. Have to keep going. Customer complaints can be hazardous to my employment. -Ding!- The doors open, and I dash inside. They close behind me. I can see my reflection in the polished brass walls, and the carpet, while less plush than that old closet, is still quite soft beneath my hooves. I'm alone. It's a fact that I seem to keep restating for some reason. Thankfully, the button for the ground floor command is more within my reach. I don't even have to rear up to press it. Soon enough, I'm listening to an instrumental arrangement of an old Blues song. Wait a minute. Wasn't that what the fandom was calling this pony? 'Blues?' "Oh, please! What kind of a name is that?" I freeze. That wasn't me. Slowly, I turn around. I'm still in the same elevator room with the same brassy walls, and the same velvety carpet. There isn't anyone else here. Weird. My quizzical expression eyes me back. "Not as weird as you." My reflection just spoke without me. What's going on?! "I'm talking to you. Are you really that dense?" This can't be happening! I can't be losing it now! I've still got to get out of here and find someplace to hide! My reflection face-hoofs. "Ugh, the things I do to try to motivate this guy..." Wait...is the me I'm talking to...talking to himself? "Whoa. Whoa. Dude, I am NOT you." Huh? "Wha-? Seriously?! How can you not be getting this?!" What's there to not get? How can you not be me? You look just like me! "Argh...Hold on." I suddenly recall an old quote from one of my favorite movies as a kid. "Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you." What? Where did that come from? What are you doing? "I'm TRYING to make this easier for you. Apparently, it's not working, so I'll be blunt. YOU'RE the one who looks like ME!" I can't believe this. No...this has to be some sort of trick! A distraction! You're some apparition sent here to trip me up! And you were sent here by whomever it was that did this to me in the first place! "What?" Yes, that must be it. The door must've brought me to New York ahead of schedule and- "YOU'RE NOT IN NEW YORK!" What? But I saw- "-the Statue of Liberty? I pulled that up from your memories just like I did that quote just now. Just like everything else you've been seeing." H-How is that even possible?! "Oh, you made it very easy. You don't guard your memories at all. Plus, the fact that we're in a dream right now sure didn't hurt." You could serve cake on my eyes with how big they got from that slap to the face, while my reflection just donned a victorious grin. He continued. "I wanted to know how you would handle being locked up like that, seeing as that's our reality right now." I was stunned. His grin disappeared. "I don't like the results. At all. You never for a moment took it seriously! Any concern you showed for your own safety was an afterthought! You were treating the whole scenario like it was a game you could win! LIFE ISN'T A GAME!" I was barely listening to him by this point. There was only one thing on my mind. The door...that was you, too?! Why?! Why would you put me through that anguish!?! "By that time, I was so disappointed with your performance that I decided you needed a wake-up call. You know, something to get you to think about what you're doing. You passed that one fine, and for a moment I actually thought you could handle what's going on outside." The proud smile that had been growing on my reflection was then firmly replaced by a scowl. "Then you go and do the most RECKLESS thing in the world! Seriously?! Just bucking the door off its hinges is gonna have some MAJOR consequences, you know!" I can't keep eye contact with him. He's right, and I was wrong. I'm not ready for this sort of thing. So, what happens now? "Now? Now we work together to try and make it out of this thing alive. We start on that by getting to know one another while we have this chance." Oh, okay. Introductions, then: My name is Daniel Elijah Michaels. "It's nice to meet you, Danny. I'm Noteworthy."