//------------------------------// // Prelude // Story: Living Nightmare // by Autum Breeze //------------------------------// Living Nightmare Prelude ___________________________________________________________ “Okay. Are you ready?” “Uh-huh.” “Turn on the gas.” “*sniff, sniff* Ew!” “What’s wrong?” “It stinks!” “Don’t worry. Just try to ignore it, count to ten, and it will all be over.” ___________________________________________________________ Ow. My head really hurts. The doctor never said I’d still have a headache when the operation was over. My name is Michael Wilson. I’m seven-years-old and recently went into hospital for surgery. My parents told me I have something in my head that’s making all the fluids in it not move properly. They said if I didn’t have the operation, my head would explode. I personally thought that’d be cool. I wonder how it would have exploded. Would it be like a bomb or like a wart when you squeeze it? However, something was confusing me. Why did it feel like my head was against cold stone? I open my eyes and look around. I’m not in the hospital room I was in before the operation. It looks like I’m in one of those old ruined castles from Disney movies. I frown as I look around. This doesn’t make sense. I couldn’t be in a castle. I was in hospital. And this place looked old, real old. My dad wouldn’t have left me in such a place right after my operation. It’s a bit dark, maybe very early morning? I can see some light through the holes in the ceiling, so the sun must be a little bit risen. I move to get up, to have a look around, when I fall forward. I can’t get up properly. I look down at my hands, to wonder why they won’t help me push off the ground... only to become more confused. My hands aren’t there anymore. Where my hands used to be, I can now see something round and flat. My fingers are gone. I lift one up, looking it over. The only thing I can think of is that it looks kind of like a horse’s hoof. It’s really weird, not having fingers. Where did they go, anyway? Why don’t I have fingers anymore? I shake my head, not understanding what’s going on, only to feel something move on my head. I lift the hoof I already have off the ground and move it to my where my hair... or, maybe mane(?) should be, only to feel my hoof go through something cool. I blink, confused. I just wanted to see my hair. Suddenly, a small field of what look like stars in a bluish-black sky move in front of me. I blink again, my confusion growing, before I notice the feeling at the top of my head is also near my bum. I glance behind me and see the same as what fell in front of my face a few seconds ago. It was clearly meant to be a tail, but it looked like it was made of the night sky, just like the hair that had moved when I wanted to see it. I glance down at the rest of me. I kind of look like a horse, only smaller. My fur looks black, though it might be a different colour and I need more light to see it. There’s some kind of marking on my hip. It looks like a blotch of dark-purple behind a blue crescent moon. I blink, then smile. Of course. This is a dream. I’m still asleep. As if I’d wake up some small horse in real life. I get up and, at the same time as hearing a fluttering sound, feel something moving on my back, connected to my body. I glance back again, to my back this time and see what look like wings. Cool! I’ve got wings in this dream? That means I can fly! I try to make them move, focusing on the wings and getting them to move. It takes a while, but they finally start flapping. I put as much effort into my wings as I can, but don’t seem to be flying. I sighed, shaking my head. Guess even in my dreams I can’t do the impossible. ___________________________________________________________ “Jeez, this place is really boring,” I mumble as I walk down yet another hallway. My voice is a lot higher now. At first I’d been surprised I could even talk, horses don’t normally do that, but then I remembered I’m in a dream. A dream that doesn’t let me do absolutely anything I want, but a dream all the same. Another thing I’d notice is I wasn’t a boy anymore. My penis was gone and in its place was... You know, I’m not sure what it’s called, what girls have, but I’ve got one now. It’s weird, I’d always wondered what it was like to be a girl, icky as they are, but I never thought I’d actually find out. I’ve also gotten a chance to see exactly what I look like. I passed a mirror a few minutes ago, I think it was a few minutes ago, the sky looks brighter than when it happened, so some time has passed. I’ve never understood how time works, though. I just go with how things go, not thinking about it. Anyway, when I passed the mirror, it had a few cracks, but I could see what I look like. I’m a small horse-whatever, but my head looks more human than horse. Guess that’s where the whatever comes in. With better light, I could confirm I did have black fur; it feels weird, having hair all over my body. My mane and tail literally seem to be made of the night sky, blue and stars. If I focus hard enough, I can even make them move as if they were arms, which is handy, since I don’t have arms or fingers anymore. I had a horn too, which made me think I'm a unicorn. It's really confusing. I've seen unicorns with wings and Pegasus... what do you call a group of Pegasus? Anyway, I'd seen them before in fairy tales and TV shows, but for some reason unicorn or Pegasus didn't seem right. It felt like what I was had a different name, but I had no idea why I was thinking that. However, something that caught my attention were my eyes. My mum always told me I had blue eyes, but now they’re really blue. Sort of a very light-blue, not sure and there isn’t any white in my eyes now. What used to be white is now all this strange light-blue. But what’s cool are the black parts of my eyes. They look like dragon eyes. No boy doesn’t like dragons and now I had eyes like a dragon... even if I am a girl. Still, this is a dream, so it’s still cool. When I wake up, I’ll just not say I was a girl and that I was still a boy. Everyone at school will think it was really cool. I have to admit, for an abandoned castle, it’s not as cool as TV shows make it out to be. In fact, it’s a little scary. I came across some really weird pieces of armour a few halls back. They didn’t look like they were made for humans, though. It almost looked like they were made for horses, but that's not possible. Horses don't wear armour. Something else is nagging at the back of my mind. I don’t know what it is, but it has something to do with this place. Almost... like I’ve been here before. Of course, that’s just stupid. This is a dream, I haven’t been here before. I enter in one of the old towers. Something about it seems familiar to me, as if I should know about it. In one of the corners is a strange statue, with five long poles sticking out at the sides. I glance around, see nothing left in this room to look at and turn to leave. As I do, I miss the door and almost hit the wall; it’s still hard to move in this horse body. My eyes fall straight on what’s sitting on the wall, so close to my nose it was almost touching it. It was a black spider with a white five-pointed star on it. I do the only natural thing I can: scream. ___________________________________________________________ “Twilight,” Spike moaned, rubbing his eyes. He was riding on her back as the two walked down the path in the Everfree Forest, the path leading to the Castle of the Two Pony Sisters. “It’s so early. Do we have to go the castle now?” “Yes, we do, Spike,” Twilight nodded, glancing back for a second before returning her gaze to the path ahead. “There are still some books in the castle’s library and I have every intention to retrieve them like all the others have been.” “But, Twilight,” he groaned, shaking his head. “Couldn’t you have gotten some other ponies to do that for you? You are a princess, after all.” The purple mare shook her head. “No, Spike. I want to get these ones myself. Several of the books that were brought to me were damaged and they hadn’t been when I saw them in the castle library the last time we visited.” The little drake rolled his eyes. Once Twilight got an idea in her head it was almost impossible to get it out and when it involved books, it was completely impossible. Suddenly, the forest’s quiet morning what shattered by an ear-piercing, high-pitched scream, followed at once by an explosion. Twilight’s head whirled to see a column of smoke coming from the distance, in the direction of the castle. “That sounded like a filly!” Spike gasped, his eyes wide. “But, why would a filly but out in the forest— HEY!” He clung to the mare’s neck as she galloped down the path, her horn flaring, reading a teleport spell. “I don’t know, Spike, but that explosion couldn’t have been a good thing!” There was a flash of purple and the two disappeared, the creatures of the forest who’d been watching wondering just what had happened.