//------------------------------// // Chapter 9:Confrontation // Story: Heart Beats // by Colt Bolt //------------------------------// To love at all is to be vulnerable -C.S Lewis About two weeks had passed since I got my job. My daily schedule then was, wake up, shape shift, get into uniform, drink a survivable amount of love from my bottle, wonder if I’d need to bring the revolver I had to work in case my true identity was found, shake my head seeing that it would probably make me look more suspicious, walk to work, get jump scared by Joy falling from the roof, help Joy out with jobs here and there, walk out of the store, only for Joy to almost decapitate me with her hugs and finally sleep. Sometimes, in my free time, I would go for a stroll around Manehattan, blowing a cigarette now and then but most of the time I would spend my time at the Manehattan library. After I had gotten a library card, I started to read books at an unbelievable speed, almost to a point where I would stay inside for hours on end. Through it, I learnt common knowledge of Equestria, a small amount of how economics worked, although I stopped reading after the first 10 pages as it didn't peak any interest, and a few amateur spells, even if it gave me a glare or two from others, looking like a pegasus and all. I also started to read a trilogy made by a stallion named M.A Neighson. His story was about a world where all equestrian beings were alicorns and, as strange as it might seem, it was quite interesting to read. His philosophies and moral were perfect to the T. But the thing that struck me the strangest however was his choice of paper size. It was a thick A6 book, or more like notepad, that I was able to save rotting away from the back of a bookshelf. Even the librarian was shocked that I found this book. From there on, it stayed in my uniform’s pocket, just the perfect size, ready to read whenever I wanted to. One day, I ask the librarian at the front desk who was reading the daily news if there were any books about changelings. She pointed to the bugs section in the flora and fauna aisle. “E…Excuse me?” I asked taking offence. She lowered her papers and gave me both of her eyes. “Yes, is there a problem?” I was about to go on a bombastic outburst but I quickly realised my mistake. I moved to the aisle, giving a huff through my nose. A hundred pages later I found my species in a paragraph at the bottom of the last page. Changelings are bugs that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a two-segmented body with four legs, two wings, two eyes, teeth (including two fangs), and a fin like crest on their heads. Their only known diet is love from other beings. The more attracted their prey is to them the higher levels of output of love there is. Another way they can harvest love from their prey is by killing them, giving them the highest output of love. Their metabolism is well known to be very high, living at most a week off nothing but air. It is unknown what kind of eyes the drones have and how they see, but their queen/s have mammalian like eyes. It is also unknown why they have unique holes in their hooves but many theories have been made, from creating a deathly howl like a woodwind instrument when they fly at great speeds, to a curse being placed on them. From here, the best fit for changelings taxonomically speaking is they are animals within the phylum arthropoda and are a part of the subphylum chelicerata. This places them within the same category as spiders, mites, ticks, horseshoe crabs, and scorpions. But we are not finished finding out what they are as we only have their subphylum. Given these observations along with their fangs, and the fact they produce a sticky substance used to capture prey, changelings are most closely related to Arachnids, specifically spiders. But taxonomy does not work that way. Changelings are clearly a unique branch of life and therefore would have their own class, order, family, genus, and species within the chelicerata subphylum. Kingdom: Animal Phylum: Anthropoda Subphylum: Chelicerata Class: cogitativam Order: falusequui Family: affecetai Genius: Mutata Species: M. alveium This would make the scientific name of Changelings, Mutata alveium. To be honest, it wasn’t the statements that offended me, as most of them were quite correct with decent evidence backing them up, but it was the length of the passage. While the cottontail rabbit had two pages dedicated to it, changelings only had barely half a page and no pictures. Changelings were going to be nothing but a forgotten memory. However, as much as I would have like to make a fuss about it, I had a bigger problem than my species being a footnote in an animal book. The last drop of love exited my bottle. The amount of love I would get from Joy daily wasn’t enough to keep me alive as she only saw me as a ‘co-worker friend’. So other alternatives had to be made. I had tried to find a decent host to feed off but with my lack of skills of wooing mares and stallions, it was a waste of time. Most ponies in the city didn’t have enough time on their hooves, only talking to those who benefited them. I had even gone to explicit places but the love there was non-existent. Days past and the hunger pains came in. It was a discomfort I had felt so many times but now, since I could compare it to the feeling of being well fed, it was almost at an unbearable level that even Joy asked me to take the day off. I declined but with her friendly stubbornness, I was forced to go home. Midnight rolled along and my stomach felt like as if it was imploding on itself. On the floor with my blanket and pillow, I twist and turned, uselessly numbing the pain. A fever came over my head and sweat droplets began to appear. The only reason I think I was able to go to sleep that night was because the amount of pain that faded me into unconsciousness. *** The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault. My young hooves clipped and clopped on the tile floor as I sprinted around a corner and toward the entrance doors to a school building on the southwest edge of Manehattan. The flames had become so abrupt that I had to keep my head down to breath when I got inside. Distant streetlights and the pulsing red flames provided the only light through the windows in a dusty and smoke-filled hall. “Ani!?” I screamed at the top of my lungs for my older brother. “Where are you?!” “Over here.” A faint voice called out. It came from the other side of the hallway where the smoke forbade light to pass. “Come here!” I called back. “I can’t, I’m stuck.” I ran towards his voice. My shadow only became less and less visible till it blended in with my soundings. “I can’t see you.” I squinted my eyes hopelessly finding him. A light suddenly shined out of a heap of school desks. “I’m in here.” I started to pull desk after desk out feeling as if no progress was being made no matter how fast I went. Then Ani’s hoof came out and gave a firm grip to my hoof. Except it wasn’t his hoof that grabbed me. It was more of a glistening tar like texture. I slipped out of its grip, moving back from the unexpected cold touch. A dark figure, without warning, burst out of the pile, throwing desks everywhere. One of them came right for me, throwing me to the side and ricocheting my head off the plastered wall. “Did you miss me?” An all too familiar voice said. My cracked eardrum only heard a blurred sound. I could feel the floors and walls rumble sharply as if they were about to give out soon. The figure transmuted itself into a shape of a pony, its horn giving off the only light. “What’s wrong?” It said dishearteningly, placing a hoof under my chin. “Didn’t you miss the fun times we had?” My senses pulsed back and gathering my strength, I threw a punch. It landed straight on its cheek but my hoof etched as if it punched a brick wall. I threw myself to the side giving a few meters between us. “I thought you rotted in Tartarus!” I said. “Oh, Smoulder,” It started to walk circles around me like a lion ready to pounce, “it seems like it is you who is rotting in Tartarus. No plan to avenge Chrysalis, no food for days, and you can’t even get a decent meal to feed off.” I looked at the end of the hallway where I came from but a solid plaster wall took its place. “Don’t bother, there are four walls, a floor, and a roof. There’s no escape.” It mockingly ginned and shook its head. Adrenaline picked up through my blood and if I couldn’t flee, there was only one choice. My legs tensed for what was about to happen. It stopped walking, its body faced me. “I didn’t come here to fight, but if it’s fight you want then it’s a fight you’ll get!” The light on its horn fizzed and turned off. I was swallowed in darkness. Sight became useless and hearing was my only friend. If it wasn’t for gravity, I wouldn’t have known which direction I was facing. A rustle and a giggle came from my right. I swag a hoof but to no avail. “You should try better next time.” The voice came from everywhere. “Ani and Chrysalis would be ashamed. You shouldn’t be fighting me, you should be fighting the ponies.” It stood silence for a few horrifying seconds. “After all,” It directly spoke in my left ear as I gasped and turned my head. It came around to my right ear. “I am you.” I took countless of steps back. My rump hit the wall. It was so silent that I could hear the sound waves of my breathing bounce off the other side of the wall. Two hooves ripped out of the plaster behind, and grabbed my arms, pinning me up like a poster. I was too shocked to move. It came up to my ear again. “You know what? Since I’m so nice, I’ll give you three days to find a decent meal to feed off. If you don’t,” It giggled, “lets just say this body won’t be yours anymore.” A fire relit in my eyes. “Dam you, take your evil deeds and rot in Tartarus!” I broke from its grip and threw a punch, aiming to break the plaster. The light and setting suddenly changed. I closed my eyes from the sudden brightness. My hoof went through something soft, then hard and then soft again. The next thing I knew was that my hoof was covered in a liquid. It was too thick to be water and smelt like alkaline. Moreover, my tongue had a taste of something sweet. My pupils adjusted to the new light and I opened my eyes. I screamed in horror. A body of a mare laid on the floor. Her mane and tail were drenched in her own pool of blood. It was almost impossible to tell if she had blue and black fur or if they were bruises as they blanketed her body. A hole through her chest cavity, where my hoof was, showed her internal organs the light of an alleyway lamppost. I whimpered as her blood dripped from my raised hood and into my holes. Sirens blared and a mix of blue and red light flashed from one side of the ally. I hesitated to move at first but I knew I couldn’t go down like this. While shape shifting, I ran the opposite direction, out onto a street. The sun hadn’t risen yet. I remembered this place as I’d been to many of the businesses and shops look for a job. The roads and pathways were empty except for the random cars and night owls. I ran back to my apartment with an empty mind, too shell-shocked to recall what happened. When I arrived at the hotel, the stallion at the registration was flipping through a magazine. The distance from the entrance to the stairs was only a hop skip and a jump away. I was such in a mad rush to get back into my room that I forgot about him. I carelessly bumped an object with my rump. “Hey, you knocked down the bin!” He exclaimed pointing at the trash now scattered on the wooden floor. I ignored what he said. *** Blood is thicker than water. I turned the bath’s handle and barely took notice of the sudden spray of cold water, as my hooves shook like a leaf. It was almost impossible to wash blood off fur. Some of it had already dried up into scabs, flaking off in chunks while the ones deeper resisted. I scrubbed so many times and so hard that the skin on my arms, rump and chest became red and irritated. The water that poured down the drain wasn’t tainted with red, it was as if only blood came out of the shower head. “Am I a good man? Am I a mad man? It's such a fine line, between a good man and a mad man.” I asked myself this question all the way through, bit by bit eating my soul away. But, eventually, the suffering and pain would end. After using all the hot water in the hotel, 2 bars of soap and a bottle of shampoo, I dried myself off with a towel. I stepped out of the bathroom and it felt like I had spent my whole life inside there. My hooves still softly shook as I made my way up to the bed. I looked at the digital alarm clock. 1:12 AM. With the last few ounce of strength, I shape shifted into my changeling form and fell onto the comfort my blankets and pillows. This would be the first time when I was able to sleep on a bed. *** I awoke from a knocking from my door. “Smoulder, are you there?” I heard Joy’s voice through the door. I shuffled in my blankets and called back in a tired but audible voice, “Yeah,” I yawned, “I’m here.” “Well get up sleepy head.” “Just gimmie another ten minutes.” I poked my arm out of the blanket, into the cold world, beckoning Joy away, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “Do you know what time it is?” “I don’t know, muffin time?” I lifted the blankets over my head to see the clock. 11AM. Buck.