Chapter III: The Calm Before
The following is a further excerpt from MANUSCRIPT E:
“When I arrived at the library, there was no light coming from inside. I guess that was to be expected, considering the late hour at which I'd landed in front of the hollowed tree. I scurried to the door and paused, so as to catch my breath. Once I was thoroughly calm, and had assured myself such, I raised my hoof and rapped it against the door. There was no answer, and rightfully so. Why would there be? It was very late at night, or unnaturally early in the morning. I was unsure at this point. But, I knocked again. There was the sound of stirring inside. I knocked one more time, and waited for a good thirty seconds or so.
There was no answer.
I turned away from the door, and towards the sky. I admired the night sky. It was truly beautiful. I threw the saddlebag to the side, lay on my back, and looked up at the moon. The scene was quiet, sereine. The purple sky littered with thousands of glittering stars shone above me, framing the moon with a beautifully artistic design. The sound of a door opening echoed throughout the empty streets, but I paid it no mind. Still I marveled at the stars, the sky, the beauty of the night. It’s an incredibly calming thing, looking up at the stars. The cloak of the cosmos. My mind wandered, and I didn't hear the door shut, nor the sound of approaching hooves. But I did notice when a certain unicorn’s head interrupted my field of vision, blocking the sky.
“Redd? Why are you out here so late? Did you need something?” she asked, speaking softly in an attempt not to disturb the peaceful atmosphere of the empty streets.
“Well, I finished the invitations;” I responded, playfully.
Twilight sighed, and sat down next to me. “That’s not why you're here at 2:47 in the morning.”
I sighed. “You know me too well, Twi. It’s not.”
I heard her shuffle around, and her voice came from closer to my head. I assumed she had laid on her back next to me, looking up at the stars as well. “Then why did you visit the library at such a late hour?”
I sat in silence for a while, attempting to collect my thoughts, and gazing at the stars. I didn't really know how to talk to her about it: Zecora’s hut, the zebra’s absence, of the stranger in the woods. It was all so… difficult. “Well,” I began, figuring I had to start somewhere. “I went to Zecora’s place last. I wanted to talk to you about something I saw there. I thought maybe you'd have an opinion as to what it all meant.”
She sighed. “Oh. That’s it?” If I didn't know any better, I'd say she sounded disappointed. But what would she be disappointed about? I dismissed it.
“Zecora’s missing, and her hut is a disaster. There’s cryptic writing everywhere. On the walls, the floor, the ceiling.”
“Mm.”
“I just, I don't know, I thought maybe you'd know what to make of it.”
“I guess I could think about it. It’s pretty late at night to be thinking though, Redd.”
I turned my head towards the unicorn, and met her eyes, instead of seeing her looking at the sky, as I expected. “You don't care right now, do you.”
She gave another sigh. “I have other, more pressing matters on my mind right now.”
“Like?” I asked, looking her straight in the eyes.
“It’s nothing.” She said, her voice even quieter. She rolled onto her back, facing the sky, and as a result, breaking eye contact. I turned back to the sky as well. “So, what all happened while you were passing out invitations?” She asked.
I smiled, knowing she couldn't see my face. “Well, I didn't run into Pinkie.”
“That’s a plus.”
“Zecora’s absence really bothers me, though.”
“I was just over there three days ago, and nothing seemed to be wrong.” I didn’t respond. We sat there for a while, looking at the sky, not talking or anything. Just silent. She eventually spoke again. “Hey Redd?”
“Yeah?” I answered.
“How would you like to go check the hut out in the morning?”
“I was just there, Twilight.”
“Maybe you could take me with you?”
“Tomorrow’s a Thursday. I have work.”
“Oh.” She was back to her disappointed tone. Things were quiet for another little while.
“How about I come by after work?”
“That would be great!” She said, rather loudly.
I giggled. “Knowing you, you already have something planned.”
“You know me, planning stuff and all.” She was quiet again, but the playful edge was back in her voice. It still makes me smile to think about.
“Yeah.” I sighed. We were quiet again.
“The sky sure is pretty tonight.”
“Yeah, it is, isn't it.”
She hummed, and pointed up at a star. “That’s Polaris. It’s a star navigators used to use to find which way was north. It’s shifted now, though, so it actually points more to the west.”
“Do you think ponies get lost because of it?” I asked.
“Maybe.” She giggled.
“Why would Princess Luna let it move?”
“I don't know.”
“If she has the power to provide a sure and true method of navigation, why would she not do so?”
“Our princesses are wise beyond our imagining. If she let it happen, she must have a reason.”
I was silent. Maybe she wasn't as wise after spending a thousand years on the moon? Mentioning such things was insolent, so I kept quiet.
“Redd?” Twilight asked, breaking the silence yet again.
“Yes?” I replied softly.
“I… It’s nothing. I should probably head back inside.”
I gave a sigh, and rolled onto my stomach. “I should probably get home, as well. I wouldn't want to miss our little expedition tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Twilight got to her hooves, and looked back up at the sky, craning her neck. ‘It really is a beautiful night. I’m glad you stopped by, Redd.”
I pushed myself into a sitting position. “Thank you for being up, Twi.”
She turned away. “Y… Yeah.”
“Goodnight, Twilight.”
She nodded. “Night.”
I opened my wings, pushing downwards. Pushing the air. “See you tomorrow!”
“Yeah.”
She slowly went inside, not turning back to look at me once. I watched without thinking much of it, though. Once the door was closed, I took to the air. Flying through the sky, the ground rushing below me, the clouds rushing past, and the stars above seeming to sit stagnant. I love the night, I do even today. When I get out of here, the first thing I’m going to do is go night flying. It’s my favorite thing to do.”
---
“When you get out?” I ask.
“Yeah. I’m being held here against my will. Royal guard arrested me at the end of the Ponyville incident.”
Note: Because of patient confidentiality, I didn't even know he was under facility arrest. This is noteworthy. Not only because he was arrested around the Ponyville incident, but because it was the Royal Guard. This means Royal hooves could be dabbling in such matters. Could our princesses really be involved in such a seemingly unplanned happening? This brings up questions that I feel I need to go elsewhere to find answers to.
I ask the question on my mind. “So, do you think the royal sisters were involved in the incident?”
He grins. “Oh, your real interests show. Oh, the colors of a journalist. It’s fine, I am one. But because I am, and I know why you ask, I will say… I'll get there. Be patient, and please don't interrupt my story. It’s my story, afterall.”
Jumpy, pushy, assertive. Yes, Redd is a natural-born journalist. I keep my mouth shut.
“Shall I continue? No response? Oh, well, I'll move on.”
---
“I will not bore you by further accounting the details of my flight home, instead I'll move on to the more interesting part of my story. My dream. That night, when I drifted off into sleep, I found myself at Zecora's hut yet again. Like before, It was dark. Unlike before, I did not have a light. The darkness was frustratingly unsettling. The hut was exactly as it had been previously, including the absence of zebra. This will sound strange and cliche, as most of what I say does, but I could feel eyes watching me from the dark foliage outside the clearing. I attempted to ignore it, and did exactly what I knew I shouldn't do in such a dream. I approached the hut.
This didn’t lead to a problem. When I got to the door, it opened for me. I timidly stepped inside. It was dark, but I could see a single candle lit in the center of the cleared floor. It barely lit the floor around it, creating an eerie sphere of light in the middle of the drowning shadows of the hut. Like I said before, I had decided that I would throw caution out the window. This was a dream, after all, and therefore nothing could hurt me.
I approached the candle.
Several things happened at once. The door slammed shut behind me, the candle fell on it’s side, and I covered my head, expecting something bad to happen, such is the standard in dreams. when nothing did, however, I opened my eyes and looked around. The candle had not gone out, but flickered dangerously as it slowly rolled across the floor, leaving a trail of warm wax in it’s wake. I followed it with my eyes, deciding that however irrational it might be, I was not going to move, even if this was a dream. My previous confidence had been shaken by a simple slamming door.
The candle hit a wall and stopped rolling. There was something etched into the wall that I hadn't seen when was at the hut earlier: coherent writing. Coherent writing that mentioned my name. I just stared. Maybe it was a dream, but it was still pretty unnerving. The candlelight candle flickered as wax melted and flowed over the wick, threatening to douse the flame.
I rushed to the candle and flipped it upright, not wanting to be in the hut with no light whatsoever, even if it was a dream. Now that I was close to the wall, though, I could could plainly make out my name in the writings on the wall, scattered amongst the other indecipherable writings. It was bold, large, and hard not to notice. I like to think the first time I saw it, I just refused to believe it was there. But there it was, so I must have missed it. I followed the line of writing, making out a message. It read “The forest is not safe, nor the town, nor your house. You can find refuge nowhere. You are the key to the end, Redd. The turmoil will taunt you until the end of your days.”
I didn't have a good response, deciding my mind was playing some sick joke on me. I dismissed it. Well, I kind of dismissed it. Words like turmoil taunt and damnation tend to rattle around in one’s head, especially when paired with that particular pony’s name.
Like I said, I didn't have a good response. I read the message over and over, cycling my eyes over the words. “Damnation, turmoil, taunt, end of days. What does it even mean?!” I turned away from the wall, pacing through the shadows. When I turned back, the message was definitely still there. It hadn't changed.
“It’s a dream! A dream! A dream a dream a dream! It’s all in my head, it’s a dream, it’s in my head, in my mind, projections of my subconsciousness. It's a dream, all a dream!” I rambled on, reverting back to my pattern of pacing. I willed the message to change. It bothered me, the words searing into my mind. Damnation. No. I couldn't let it. Again, I turned back to the wall. It was still there. Unmoving. Unchanging. The only movement it the room was me and the dancing candle-light. I turned away from the wall a third time.
“It’s a dream, in my head, internal. It’s not really. It doesn't matter because it isn't real. Calm down , you're going to be fine. It isn't real. It’s not real. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Real. It’s wrong. Lies! Wrong! Fake, my mind, my dream!” I lashed out, kicking the candle.
The light moved, the candle spinning and rolling of into the darkness. It calmed me down and jarred my senses enough to interrupt my frenzied tirade. My only light source flashed and flickered as it hurdled across the floor. I sat, fixated, as it hit the wall to the left of me. Again, it didn't go out. I let out the breath that I didn't even realize I'd been holding.
My luck ended there, however. Something fabric was near the burning wick, and I watched in horror as the sideways candle’s flame licked across the fabric, gridily eating at it’s fibers. In a flash, that wall was in flames.
I was no longer sitting.
The flames quickly spread, devouring the dry wood along the floor of the hut, spreading itself along the pile of possessions that the candle had halted against. They illuminated the rest of the hut in an eerie light, a light I could see by. I located the door to my right, and was there in a flash. I attempted to open it. As one would expect if they thought that my dream would follow the standard set by such cliche dreams, the door didn't move at all.
I pounded against the door with reckless abandon. The confidence I had felt just minutes ago had been chipped away at, and I had finally cracked under the pressure. I completely forgot it was a dream.
“I’m going to die! I can’t die! No! No! No! I can’t! I don't want to burn! No!” My thoughts were jumbled, disjointed, frantic, and to be expected. I could already feel the heat eating at my back.
I began to cough as the smoke creeped into my lungs, and I turned back to the inferno behind me. It was bright, like looking into the sun. As I coughed, I scanned the room for another way out. There was none. Piles of personal possessions burned, the floor, walls, and ceiling all flared to life under the heated display of power. I heard glass shatter under the searing temperature, and I could see blue and green flickering in with the blinding orange and white. Chemical flames. The scribbled writing covering the walls, ceiling and floor seemed dance in the flames, catching and throwing the light around.
Damnation.
The fire was getting closer, and I was still there. Sitting, coughing, pathetic. Even in an inferno, I felt a chill run down my spine. The word damnation shone from the wall to my right, glowering at me through the flames.
I turned back to the door, attacking it with newfound fervor. I threw my weight against it, ramming my shoulder against it with as much force as I could, coughing and sputtering as I was. I threw myself against the solid wood, and it gave.
The door tore from the frame, and I rolled out into the clearing, flames nipping at my hooves. As I pushed myself up off the ground, coughing up soot, I turned to see flames licking out of the doorway, curling around to the roof.
I could still feel the heat of the blaze.
I pushed across the ground, dragging myself, coughing, scrambling across the ground. I pulled against the dirt until I couldn't feel the heat anymore, and I curled into a ball, shaking. I coughed and cried. Burning, involuntary tears ran down my muzzle.
The crackling fire echoed in my ears, still drowning out the din of the forest. I turned my head to look behind me, finally able to move without shaking under the strength of my retching coughs. I gazed at the hut, and watched with macabre fascination as it collapsed inward, sending a shower of sparks and cinders traveling upwards with the billowing smoke. everything in the clearing had caught fire, creating an almost perfect circle of flames. The inferno caught everything within this circle in it’s fiery jaws. But it stopped at the edge of the circle, as if there was an invisible boundary. It was surreal to watch, as I coughed up soot and blood. A few overhanging branches from the canopy blazed to life, shearing clean off at the edge of the circle. The fire formed a pillar of inwardly folding fire, eating all within its circle of influence.
As I watched the flames slowly die, and my coughing stopped, a shadow caught my eye across the clearing. It was tall, slender, and had a smooth, featureless maw. It seemed to watch me, even with it’s lack of eyes. It’s gaze seemed to bore into my soul. It was the stranger. I knew it, I could feel it. It was the stranger I had given an invitation to.
I turned and fled. Dream or not, I decided, I was getting out of there. It was getting way too freaky for my liking.
Key to damnation. The words rang through my head again, and I sped up, lifting myself off the ground, spreading my wings and weaving through the trees. I tipped upwards, and burst through the canopy, shaking leaves from between my feathers. The crackling of the flames I had left behind still echoed through the forest, reaching my ears. I turned back to the noise, seeing the smoke rising into the air, the flickering light at it’s base almost hypnotising.
I oriented myself towards the town, deciding that I was done with this cursed dream, and done with my subconscious. This dream sucked. I flew towards the buildings.
When I touched down on the empty street in front of my house, the sound ricocheted off the buildings around me, echoing through the streets. In my paranoid state, I saw moving shadows, pursuing me, lurking in the alleyways. I hurried inside and bolted the door, leaning against it to catch my breath.
The scent of burning wood, paint, and assorted chemicals still lingered on my fur, I noticed as I sat, braced against the door. I breathed heavily, and slid to the floor, wondering what in the world I had just witnessed. Damnation. I hurried up the steps, running from my own mind, futile as it was.
When I got up the stairs and to my room, I noted the door was shut, yet, when I opened my bedroom door, the window was not. My bedsheets were thrown to the side. I never opened my window. With a sigh, I closed it, and got in my bed. I figured going to sleep in the dream would wake me up. I dosed off.
When I awoke, the first thing I noticed was the alarm clock. As usual, it was incredibly annoying, a shrill, repetitive pattern. I was clearly not dreaming. The aggravating tone of the clock was too real to be my brain’s replication. I hit the snooze button, and rolled over. As I studied the wall, a scent reached my nose. Smoke. I quickly sat up. I could smell smoke, right there in my house. The smells of burnt wood, paint, and something vaguely chemical permeated my room. I shook my head as I remembered my dream.
“No, Redd, it’s a dream. Just a dream.” I reassured myself. It didn't work very well. I pushed myself out of bed, and crunched my spine, stretching my wings. I yawned as my entire body defaulted into another stretch. I heard my spine crack, my wings following suite.
I showered, brushed my teeth, and got ready for the day. But as the shower washed away the mysterious smells, and the dirt of the night before, the memoried of the dream I'd had became more defined, more clear. The vivid memories and the smoky scent argued perhaps I hadn't dreamt it at all. I preened and went to grab my saddle bag. It wasn't there.
When I thought about the overwhelming amount of things I'd done the previous day, retracing my steps, I realized I'd left it by the couch in the library. I swore under my breath, and left, once again, for the library.”
Thus ends this excerpt from MANUSCRIPT E.