//------------------------------// // Dreams // Story: Anomalous // by benxlabs //------------------------------// Chapter 2: Dreams A dark red haze clouded his vision. The sanguine veil obscured his vision, hiding what might lurk beyond. Formless apparitions drifted about, seemingly randomly, and yet with some higher purpose. I must be dreaming... he realized. He would soon meet the enigma known as death. The voyage could prove to be a long one, but he would dream it away. Might as well enjoy the show while it lasts. Noticing subtle whispers slipping about, he closed his eyes and focused on what was being said. “Death...the inevitable fruit of life...” “And yet it comes before life has fully born its fruits.” “Fate tells no lies. It shall end here.” “Death before life unfinished is harbinger of life again.” “But to steal a morsel from the grasp of death, ruin shall be your companion.” “Ruin may follow if rebirthed in quarter past.” “If indeed ruin follows, what words speak of implausible action? Death comes.” “Rebirthed in quarter once birthed, such is implausible. Yet rebirth in quarter unbirthed yields fruit anew.” “You speak not of quarter which I think?” “I do speak of such quarter.” “Futile. An ill-advised course of action. A path preposterous is a path doomed to fail.” "Mayhap prespoterous it seems, yet none other path suggests itself to me.” “Mind over matter, consider, for words cannot change what will be carved in stone.” “Mind over matter, since time immemorable. Now, life unfulfilled will begin anew. Quarter of old will now become quarter of new. Form of quarter old shall become form of quarter new, but new will yet become old.” “Life of a million years began with a single breath.” “Life of a million years shall too end with one final death.” “What on Earth was that conversation about?” He wondered as the shadows departed. But as he wondered, he felt a shift. The omnipresent sentiment of death no longer loomed over the horizon. The sanguine veil which covered his vision dissolved like so much mist on a sunny day. Death, he realized, had forsaken its grasp on him. I suppose they were talking about me, then? I guess I'm getting a second chance, somewhere happier, somewhere...better? Of course, these might just be the hallucinations of my dream, but either way, I'll win. I either escape my life of torment through everlasting sleep, or escape my life of torment by escaping to another life. he realized, with some triumph. He decided to sit back and enjoy the ride to his new life, perhaps even with a caring family. His journey was not an empty one, for in death, he was not blinded by the necessities of life. In death, he could observe that which no eyes could hope to see in life. One moment he was soaring through the sky, another moment flying through the water. The world revealed its secrets to him, and in knowledge, he found pain. Ignorance is bliss, and in death, all ignorance was washed away. He saw lands of nothing but pain and suffering. He saw people who lived lives filled with nothing but hardship. Each one of them lived a life that put shame to the torments he thought he had felt. And yet, these people didn't waver. Each man, each woman, each child had a purpose, a meaning in life that they strived to fulfill. They did not lament the difficulties of life, they did not cry for what they did not have. His spirit stirred as he watched them. These people were the embodiment of bravery, they were the embodiment of the human spirit. What excuse did I have, what pathetic reason, that I could just selfishly end my life?. Yet as abruptly as his journey started, it ended. He realized he had stopped drifting along his earthly continuum. In a fade to black, the world around him had dissipated into nothingness. “I guess this is where I get off.” he mused to himself. But then, he realized he had no idea how to, well, “get off”. “Hello? Anybody there? Shakespearen shadows? Narrator? Help?” Soon, he got his answer. A strange sensation took hold of his legs. They tingled, and he soon found that he had lost control of them. The tingling spread through the rest of his body, arresting his panicked flailing. He felt as if ants were crawling over his body, and yet he could do nothing about it. If this is what taking drugs feels like, I'm glad I never touched that stuff. was his last thought before the tingling advanced to his head. As it took root in his brain, the tingling intensified into an intense electrical shock that jolted him into unconsciousness. “Ughrgdagh” He mumbled, trying to get his mouth to work again. “Doctor! He's awake!” A female voice resounded in his ears. “Wrrgh...What? How did I get here?” He tried to get a hold of his surroundings. He was lying on a soft bed, and he sensed a presence near him. Forcing his weary eyes open was not an easy task. The electric shock had completely fried him, and it was hard to move at all. But with a display of willpower that was extremely unimpressive to any who happened to be watching, he forced his eyes open. And what he saw did not amuse him. When the fog of sleep finally cleared from his eyes, and his senses finally seemed to resume normal function, the first thing that hit him was the smell. Everything had an overwhelming scent of fresh made fudge. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was slightly overpowering. A concerned looking face leaned over him. It wasn't a human face. He grit his teeth in frustration. He had clearly been reborn into some kind of crazy messed up alien planet. Oh well. At least he had gotten another chance. Maybe the aliens would have some kind of device that would be able to send him back to Earth. For now, he would play along. “Where am I?” He tried to ask. But it came out more like: “Whrgez arv Ahf?” His caretaker/captor (he didn’t know what it/she/he was) raised her head and turned around, saying: "Doctor, he's talking!” With a heavy heart, he slipped into unconsciousness once again. “Is he going to be alright?” He heard the same voice ask someone else. “I don’t know. That was quite a fall, and it looked like he had been hit with quite a shock. Maybe even stronger than a lightning bolt.” A masculine voice responded. He opened his eyes again, and tried to sit up. Immediately he regretted it. Waves of nausea hit him, and he almost threw up. “Slow down, big guy, that was quite a fall you had there.” said the feminine one. “Who are you? What are you? Where am I? And why does everything smell like fudge?” Questions poured out of him as he realized he had fully regained the ability to speak. “Well, first of all, My name is Twilight Sparkle. Second, I am a unicorn, obviously, since I clearly have a horn. Everyone in Ponyville is either a pony, a unicorn, or a pegasus, after all. I mean, come on, you're a Pegasus for crying out loud, you should know this stuff! Third, you are in the Ponyville hospital, and Fourth, what do you mean everything smells like fudge? Have your olfactory senses been discombobulated as well as your memory storage capacity?” Now he was really confused. He was a pony now? This self-proclaimed “Twilight Sparkle” was clearly not a unicorn, as unicorns were mythical creatures. But she did resemble one, as she looked like a horse and had the horn that made a unicorn a unicorn. But then, the true impact of what she had said hit him. “I am not a pony!” he yelled. “I am a human! A normal person!” “Twilight Sparkle” looked at him with some concern. “Of course you aren’t a pony! Silly you, you’re a pegasus! But I don't know about this 'human' thing. Is that the knew street term for pegasi?” That hit him even harder. “Wha-wha-what? I’m a what now?” He stuttered out. “Silly you, stop acting dumb!” Twilight Sparkle smiled. “You know that you have wings! Well, if you're still confused, I guess that fall might have really done something. Don't worry, we can help you remember!” The unicorn had started using a baby voice. He examined himself with horror, and realized that she was right. He had the body of a horse with wings, just like the mythical pegasus. “What have you done to me?!?” He screamed. Suddenly, he felt very, very, angry. He lashed out in a fit of rage and overturned his bedside table. Alarmed, the male doctor ran out of the room to get help. Twilight Sparkle was shouting something at him, but he didn't care. He wanted out. Out of this life, out of this new torment. Not really knowing what he was doing, he crashed through a window and landed on grass outside. His head hurt, not from injury, but because he couldn't accept the situation. He couldn't see. He couldn't think. He couldn't hear their calls. Why? Why? He had been given life, and he had thought it would prove to be a blessing, rather than a curse. Instead, he had been transformed into a monster from a Greek myth, stuck inside a world that smelled like fudge. Now, in his rage, he knew only to run. The rigorous aristocratic training he had undergone wasn't completely useless after all, and he was a relatively strong, despite only having gone outside in the sun a few times in his life. He would only run. And so he ran. He ran away from his new life, and his past. He could only run, so he ran from everything. The raging torrent of anger and disappointment slowly faded, and when he finally looked up, he realized with a sickening lurch that he was lost. Gone were the bright colors of the town that “Twilight Sparkle” called “Ponyville”. Instead, a dark palette of blacks, dark blues, and dark greens dominated the landscape. Worst of all, the sun was going down. He was cold, hungry, and utterly at a loss as what to do. He knew nothing about the wild. He had never even seen such large trees, being housebound for the majority of his life. “I should have stayed in the hospital.” He bitterly muttered to himself. Only now, when he was finally away from everyone, away from everything, was his head truly clear. But his brain couldn’t have picked a worse time. This new, hostile landscape ignited a primitive premonition of danger. But as his anger cleared, replaced by fear, he found he could no longer run. How he had been able to use this form while running in a raging fury was lost to him. As his legs folded and he fell to the ground, he tried to hug himself. His many fears started to overwhelm him. I'm just a coward. I'm just a stupid, sniveling, bratty, spoiled, coward. He almost incapacitated himself through sheer negativity, but doing so would only worsen his situation, so he relented the flow of self-deprecating remarks. Sure, he had finally cleared his mind, but it was when he was in the worst possible situation that the dream finally seemed to end.