//------------------------------// // Chased by Nightmares // Story: Alone and Trapped // by Creatures4Life //------------------------------// Worthlessness, despair, anguish. These are just a few of the adjectives that I would use to describe myself on the best of days. I wish I could simply ignore it, or make it vanquish, but things are not always as we wish it to be. I know I must seem annoying or brutish to many of my subjects and the few acquaintance's that I have made since my return. True, even to myself I think of me as somebody I would blatantly ignore, or be wary of. Too hyperactive, too needy, too eager to prove myself worthy of standing by my sisters side again. I try numerous ways to garner her attention even when it is of the unwelcome and berating kind. Maybe one day I can rise above these feelings of unworthiness,; perhaps it will come about and I will no longer remember these days but as a simple fleeting memory... I doubt it though, I have done things I should not have and I am far from the innocent I wish I were. If I could but turn back the hands of time, I would probably end myself in the womb or as the idea implanted in my parent's heads. I love my sister and the Elements of Harmony. I am glad to have their help to try and get me reacquainted with modern society. I too have managed to play some parts in helping them defeat foes who wish harm upon our world and I am grateful to have made myself useful again even if it means combat. Too myself though I still deserve the punishment so rightfully needed. Even if I add all the good I have done in recent days, I do not think I am worthy of being alive when so many others lie dead at my hooves. Darkness creeps in and reminds me of the harm that I have done to my subjects and my country. Whispers beckon and claw at the back of my mind and drag me into an unending stream of nightmares. It makes sleep difficult; tossing and turning, thrashing and flailing in the night as I try to escape the chains that threaten to drag me into eternal hellfire. I wake in the comforting embrace of twilight more exhausted then the day before. Sleep claws at my eyelids, weariness settles and seeps into my bones and sinew. Exhaustion is a cloak I wear wrapped in its familiar embrace to the point it is an odd feeling when I manage to get a dreamless sleep. I torture myself with the help of the Tantabus. It is a just and deeming punishment that I relive my crimes over and over so that I may never again forget what I have done. Sometimes when I wish for a night away from the curse I placed upon my own mind it is just a bottle and me; perhaps another and another until they lay strewn about my hooves and the ghostly vapors make forms that wrap around me and drag me away to the realms of Morpheus. Oh how the god of dreams makes a mockery of me! Cavorting about chasing me and making me the chaser, back and forth down endless corridors and pathways that form the labyrinth of of nightmares that plague my dreams. Sometimes the walls have faces of the Stallions and Mares my former self has slain in her goal to become Queen of Everlasting Night. The near death scares that jolt my body awake just before I become a splatter on the ground from a running leap off a burning building. Those are the easier ones to wave along. The true ones that terrify me are the half remembered feeling of being locked in a darkened room being watched by thousands of eyes, the feeling of millions of legs running up my body and the chittering sound filling my ears. The unquenchable terror of insects crawling all around me from the swarming sea of dead bodies are the ones I awake from, clawing at my own skin and puking my guts up, just to turn on all the lights to banish the darkness for hours as I distract my mind until the feeling goes away and it is just another vague half remembered dream. I dread the nights. How odd for the Ruler to be afraid of her own realm. I may share it with thousands of others. Other beings that also have the terrible burden of being the denizen of the night in some strange shape or form of the other cultures. I wish I could go back to the days where dreams embraced me, and Morpheus was not the cackling old mad stallion of a Zebra that he is now. Each night becomes something to dread, something to fear inside my own head. I have taken to staying up until my body can no longer handle the hours and simply blackouts. Even then, I cannot escape the hellish nightmares. Beings of my own minds creation that chase after me as if they are the hounds of hell that smell fresh blood upon the battlefield. Looking into the mirror, I find myself beginning to waste away. A once glorious midnight coat, now paler than that of the lightest greys. An ethereal mane full of stars and constellations themselves, now lies limp and dull, scraggly with no sign of a phantom wind to lift it. "Death Horse" is now whispered amongst the halls I tread. I cannot even find the anger or fire to bite back at the absolute disrespect that fills and lines the castle servants. I know that they speak the truth even if this generation no longer remembers those dark time. When 'Death Horse' was a true fitting name but in an entirely different context. I laugh, the sound devoid of life and harmony. I almost wish I were the Death Horse they speak of; to show them truly where to apply such a term. NO! I cannot allow myself to continue along this path. I once traveled it and it separated me from the one being in this universe who dared called me blood and Sister. With the final vestiges of strength, I gather myself and cast a small glamor to shroud my appearance. If I wish to keep myself from going back to that wretched time then I suppose it is time to finally seek help from the ones who rescued me. It is time to once again throw myself to the Elements of Harmony and drive out the Tantabus.