Entropy

by PseudoBob Delightus

1 - Doctor

Chapter 1:
Doctor

It was Saturday, January 5th. As I arrived home at around 6 in the evening, after my appointment, I tried to distract myself from the anticipation of the results, said to come the next day. I shouldn't have been antsy for the cancer tests. I knew they'd turn out just like the battery of tests that came years before. And, the ones that came years before that. I would recover almost instantly, if it was positive. Hell, I thought, last time they didn't even treat me. They just tried to figure out why the results changed from a conclusive positive to a conclusive negative in less than a week. It was boring, and more than a little frustrating when I found that out. Good thing it wouldn't happen again, I thought. Back to normal.

I got out of my car - an old Model 5 from '94 - and stepped heavily across the asphalt to the cobblestone path leading from my driveway to my door. My house was a one-story rancher, with beige stucco siding and a faded, brownish tiled roof. Most of the windows along the front and sides were completely dark, with the exception of the front door setup, which lit up when an interior light turned on as I approached the first stone step, and flickered in brightness afterwards; I remembered I needed to replace it. At least the sensor still worked, I thought.

Before I entered the house, I emptied the mailbox beside the door of it's week's worth of newspaper, and a few magazines – Discover, Lee Valley, Hammacher Schlemmer – which had probably come late, as they were the Christmas editions. I unlocked the door with the code, which might as well have been forgotten as I had typed it in without thinking, and walked inside in my hiking shoes, dumping the magazines in a pile on the table near the door.

I took my shoes off and walked down my hallway, and at the switches at the end I turned the sensor light off and the TV room light on. It wasn't really a TV room, since it was connected to the kitchen and hallway, but I had separate lighting for each. The other sets didn't come on yet, though, since I usually watched the news before making dinner. I turned the TV on, but it was starting off at Cash Cab – it was actually 5:49 – so I made my rounds to clean the house from the mess made in my absence.

I mostly had to get rid of a fine layer of dust that started forming on the furniture and objects nearest the walls of the L-shaped connected room. I wasn't sure why there was even dust on it, since I was the only occupant and I had been gone for a while, but at least it kept me from yelling the answers at the candid contestants in Adam Growe's epileptic question van. I cleaned off my computer, monitor, and leather castor chair; my collections of movies, games, and models; and my glass coffee table.

At that point I had stopped to bring the magazines into the room, but a commercial break signified the news starting, so I just put them on a shelf and switched the channel to 7.

"...ven o' clock this morning, the patient received his latest treatments from Dr. Jones from here in Ottawa, who we have on here with us. Dr. Jones, what did..."

I turned the TV off quickly, once I heard my doctor's name. I didn't like Dr. Jones. He was the one that exaggerated the effects of my cancer; the one that made me stay in a hospital for two weeks to run tests instead of 'treatments', costing me my job and, almost, my life. The worst part about it was that I had no ground for when I wanted to press damage charges; I was officially a patient, and the doctor officially 'cured' me. When I went in, I was 'sick', and I was fine when I left.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any lawyer that could argue against that logic.

After thinking about the situation, I found myself moving towards my weights. I had learned, perhaps years prior to that moment, that controlling and focusing my anger into constructive means was the best option when I was in my own house. I still remembered the source of my anger from so many years ago.

In September 2006, I was notified of my parent's death. My mother had lung cancer while my father had some sort of stomach problem - I never got clarification on what it was - and the local practitioners wanted me to come in for an examination, since to them I had practically disappeared after going into the army in 1994. So I went.

I was given six months to live. I had developed a rapidly growing brain tumour that put me in the hospital for four weeks. After that, I got out with a clean bill of health. There was no sign of cancer.

Four years later, in April 2010, I had a scheduled appointment. Apparently being a cancer survivor gave me a non-optional checkup routine. I went to that one, and met Dr. Jones, much as he is today. He told me I had more cancer and forced me to stay at the hospital for two and a half weeks. After that, I was given a clean bill of health and set free again, though until after I got home I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes.

I arrived home, but I was too tired to go anywhere, so I just fell on my bed and slept for over a day. When I woke up, I had a lot of mail. Some of it was bills, which I kept because I try to pay them soon enough, and the rest was quite possibly the oddest and most frustrating combination of notices I had ever received.

I was fired from my job as a frame technician for a contractor in charge of building houses. That job used to be important to me financially, but the inheritance from my parents covered me well enough, so that was only a minor setback. I didn't like relying on the inheritance, but I got over it.

I was demoted a rank in the Army Reserves, as well. The absence went unreported, so I was essentially AWOL for the time spent in the hospital. That was more of a sentimental issue, since I had been part of the Reserves for almost 16 years and had only gotten promotions. My teeth only slightly ground, I opened the last letter.

Dr. Jones sent me the official report, and the second bill of clean health. It told me that any sign of cancer had been thoroughly eradicated since September. But, it was April. I never went into a hospital the year before that, or the year before that. I went into a hospital four years before, September 2006. And, yet, the 2010 report listed a battery of tests I had never heard of, starting at the beginning of my time in April and ending when I left. In April.

I knew that when I remembered it at the time I was lacking details and certain consistencies, but the emotions remained the same. In 2010, I broke all my windows, and almost tore down a wall, looking for something to impale myself on. It was a fit of rage, back when I didn't know what that could do.

Dr. Jones was on a wild goose chase inside my body and it had cost me the only two things that gave my life achievement and consistency. I looked for a gun.

Then I looked for a lawyer. I knew I couldn't blame him on the damage to my house, but I could sue for intangible damages - my job, and my ranking. Thus the frustration when that didn't help at all.

When I went home to repair the holes in the wall, I found myself straining myself whenever I thought about the then-recent events. After that, I had to buy a weight machine to keep up with my anger, and soon it became a very healthy habit for controlling my anger.

So, on January 5th, 2014, I lifted weights. I did leg curls. I pulled up, sat up, pushed down, pressed, and curled an assortment of things for a bit less than an hour before I was feeling better. There was another reason for going at it that hard, on that day; I was feeling a little slow. I was getting old, no doubt about that, but I had to keep up with the Army or I might have gotten another demotion, and that was no good.

I had guns in my house at that point, so I had good reason to fear for a potentially fragile stability that kept me from using them in all but the most drastic of circumstances. I never fired a single one of them.

After the inner monologue, a long workout, and mechanically making and eating my dinner of leftover salad - the process of which escapes me - I went to my bed on the other end of my house in the memorized path through darkness and prepared to go to sleep. It would have been routine the next day, with the only major difference being a hope that I would give Jones a piece of my mind, when I walked into the office and got my negative test results back.

It might have been the workout; it might have been the blood tests of the day; it might have just been the tired memories of days past; whatever it was, I slid my body onto the bed, and my head hit the pillows, and by the time I had noticed the absence of the covers and reached out to grab them - I fell asleep. Someone flipped a switch. I was out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was all a mess of imagery and memories from some indefinable point after I fell asleep, and onwards. I heard a faint voice, somewhat nasal and obviously amused, laughing and speaking, but it faded out over time such that I could not remember the words or the meanings entwined with them. Thus began a crazy dream.

Throughout the dream, I saw assorted stars dot pure blackness, some completely static, some moving away from me at astonishing speeds. A white flash filled my vision, and revealed a different location.

A table stood in the infinite room of a grey tile floor, with the horizon simply fading out into the pure white sky and dipping below sight. A lone figure sat at the table, with a sort of otherness about it that set my nerves on end. I moved, against my wishes and through my fear, towards the presence and sat across the table. It started speaking with the same voice as before, and I still could not understand the words. I was scared of the presence that surrounded it, like it was watching me from all angles, and yet I only had a simple two dimensional view to keep it in sight. It was just so much more than what I could see, hidden behind a veil of shadow, and I could not move from where I sat. After an incomprehensible monologue, it spoke a few words that I understood.

"...I just can't wait to get back."

With that statement it extended what I could perceive as an arm through sheer instinct, yet could not decipher it's true shape, and I felt a thump on my chest. Then my head, then my chest again. It beat on me with consistent repetition, then my head started hurting from the inside and the grey floor dissolved, leaving me to fall. I fell for hours, my stomach twisting and cringing, all the while seeing more stars fly away from me. In the last throes of the figure's existence, looking down from a hole above me, it thought something to me, and my mind echoed with the concept: I wanted to be back as well. Just like the presence. It turned away and the hole sealed up, leaving me in the abyss of nothing.

After that scene, it was just like the type of dream where I was falling and couldn't hit the bottom. Even when clouds passed overhead and wind whipped at my clothes and short hair, I accepted it as a dream and every ounce of rational fear drained away, replaced with the knotted stomach of a falling dream about to end. The sky changed again, this time from black to blue. I was no longer in some kind of empty space; I was landing.

I cut through the air, and eventually slowed down and neared the ground beneath a sky that held a rapidly moving sun and moon. I could smell - or, imagined that I could smell - dew and grass, but the scent came and went as many mornings, evenings and nights passed by. Trees sprang out and grew from below me in the accelerated days, and my fall was almost coming to an end. Grass prickled my back and lay flat as I gradually closed the distance between me and the ground.

Just then, when the grass lay fully flat and my clothed back pressed against the ground, deceleration hit me like a train travelling straight up and I jolted awake, blinking; falling dreams always ended like that. I was awake, briefly, in the darkness, but the utter absence of any visual stimuli sent me back to sleep in a few minutes. I was so lost in the stasis of unconsciousness that I barely noticed anything about how my arms were placed, where I was or even how I was sleeping before and after the short moments of being awake.

Any sort of perspective besides my own would have confirmed what I remembered: I was having a strange dream, stirred in waking time for a few seconds, then fell back to sleep. I remembered it exactly like that. It was a crazy dream, indeed, but nothing more happened that night.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After a long time in a slumber - it felt like years, but passed by like a second - I awoke with a jump when a high pitched wail broke the silence. I instinctively rolled over to reach for the snooze button of my alarm, but I tripped and hit my head on a wall before I realized I was already standing. My arms were crossed so that my hands were on my shoulders, and even though it was absolute darkness I could sense walls around me, like the one that reminded me of stinging pain on the back of my head.

Or more accurately, I thought, one wall; one circular wall. I was in some sort of small, round room with no exit; discovered when I felt around looking for the button to turn the constant alarm off. I tried to push against the walls with my hands and elbows, but apart from a small deformation of the coarse, wet material the wall was made of, no progress was made. Only after I pushed apart with both arms was some light shed on the situation.

At first, I couldn't see anything in the darkness; when I pushed on the wall, however, a light appeared overhead and I heard a faint cracking. I pushed harder, and the surrounding wall split open to reveal green and blue all around me. One hard kick to the portion of the wall in front of me was all it took to reveal what was happening.

I was inside a tree. More specifically, an empty, rotten tree. I was really confused as to how I wound up in one, and even more confused about why I was then in a forest. I would have slapped myself in the face if I was able to see the flaw in that train of thought; most trees are in forests. The connection between being in a tree and being in a forest is fairly obvious.

The logic behind it notwithstanding, I still didn't know how I got there. I was asleep, and then I was in a tree. It wasn't something that usually happens to a guy; not anyone I knew, anyway. There was the underlying question of why, behind all of that, but I left that quandary hanging for the more immediate mystery: where?

Where was I, I asked myself. There were forests all over the world. My first guess was that I was at least somewhere remotely near my house, but that was more wishful thinking than any kind of estimation. I looked around at the morning-lit canopies, dark trunks and thick brush lining the small clearing in front of me, which covered a small hill and only held with it a sparse thicket of trees; one of which I had just emerged from. I had the feeling that something was really and truly wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I thought back to my experience with forests.

In the Army Reserves, six years prior, I was tasked with training recruits with most of my company. Unfortunately, I was with a relatively small group of officers, a large group of trainees, and woods between us and the LZ. While most of the week we spent in the camp involved conditioning and exercises, the final goal was to make our way through the forest of northern Quebec with vital intel and meet up - somewhere. My company hadn't fared very well, but we survived for a few extra days until we had to catch our own food, at which point a tracking device was activated and we were airlifted out of there within the day.

Even though we learned a lot, a few of the new guys quit after they got back. It was too much for them, evidently, but ones who left were the ones that wanted to join the Army; not just the reserves. They just weren't prepared for what happened there. But, then again, I wasn't either; I might have led them into it blind.

It could have been my fault, I still thought after all those years, but that wasn't the issue. What was the issue was the fact that I had learned almost everything I knew about forests in the few days where almost a hundred men were lost in one. I knew how to start fires, find food, and search out shelter in the coniferous, temperate forests of eastern Canada, and the knowledge stuck with me through all those years.

I never learned anything about tropical rain forests, unfortunately. Yet, as I looked at the deciduous behemoths before me, I knew that I must have been close to one. I knew there were some temperate rain forests, however, and some were in Canada, but, even if I was in one of those instead of a tropical one, I still had the problem of surviving long enough to get anywhere else. Red berries that were edible in Quebec might look like red berries that were poisonous in - well, wherever I was.

That brought me back to the problem of where in the hell I was. A breeze blew past me and rustled the leaves, and at that point I noticed how warm it was. I was close to sweating in the long-sleeve shirt and jeans that I had apparently brought with me, despite air currents to cool me off. Without the sun, even, it must have been nearly 20 degrees.

During January.

OK, I thought, I'm not in Canada.

I was about to consider where else I might have been, but I was interrupted by the alarm wailing again, resounding through the clearing - only it wasn't an alarm. Something else woke me, and was repeating again. It was a shrill, high pitched noise, but extremely faint, as if it was far away. It sounded like a girl, shrieking. Then, a massive roar shook the ground and made the grass waver slightly. It echoed off to the right a moment later.

I locked up, and my heart tightened. All my attention was focused on the question of what to do about the events, even though I had no idea what those events were. I frantically thought out what happened.

There was a scream and a roar, coming from generally the same direction. The scream was possibly out of panic, fear, or, worst of all, pain; it was definably female as well. The roar sounded like something out of Jurassic park, though I had never heard anything like it before. The echo was surely a solid structure behind me. I knew I had three options.

I could run towards the source of the noise, and find out whatever was happening there - and, possibly, do something about it.

I could call for help or run to my right, either of which would ideally result in finding another person to help me or go back to help the girl.

And, lastly, I could just remain frozen in place and hope to whatever god the locals believed in, wherever I was, that everything would turn out A-OK.

At that point, a full five seconds after the noise, I narrowed it down to two options for obvious reasons; but, before I could come to a decision, I felt my right leg come forward. Then my left leg followed suit. Before I knew it, I was running a full sprint forwards and slightly to the left, towards the noise. In the furthest reaches of my mind, I always knew there was only one option to take.

I ran across the grassy clearing in a handful of strides, then dived straight into the surrounding forest with a crash through a large bush of bristly seeds. Some of them attached to my clothes, but I made no attempt to remove them as I bounded over rocky outcroppings and a single, thin river. Of what little forestry was not blurred during the mad dash, I remembered a small construct on a tree, followed by a patch of some sort of bright blue flower and, much later on, the wavering bronze field that I found myself in.

Stalks of browned grass blew in the wind and brushed against my legs, and I tried to find the source of the sound again. I might have lost my way in the forest, so I stood still and listened for any sign of whoever I was trying to find, and whatever was happening to her. I called out, but my throat was too dry after the run to register more than a croak.

I tried harder, panicking in the struggle to call back to the screaming girl, and let out some kind of distorted retching noise that I was sure was not supposed to come out of a human mouth. After a long breath, feeling my voice box relax slightly, I tried to yell 'hello' into the forest, feeling more resolute. Whatever results came forth were drowned out by a thunder clap that seemed to come from everywhere at once. My ears rang from the noise, and I knelt to cup them for a minute until I could hear again.

In my renewed senses, I heard a slight whimper coming from across the field, within the further extents of the forest, far right from my path if I had continued running straight ahead. It was followed by another blood curdling roar, this time much louder and much closer - but still in the same direction. Whatever had caused it was still near the girl.

I checked the pockets of my jeans and found a combat knife. It would have to do, I thought; before I found myself running towards the noise again.

I tried to call out in reassurance once more, but in a similar fashion as the first time I was drowned out by the sound of the air around me exploding. It wasn't pleasant, but I was running too fast and had too much ground to cover to waste my time falling to my knees again. I cut a ragged line through the strands of tall grass and made my way to the hard tree line. It was not so much a subtle transition between grass and forest as it was a solid, improbable wall of foliage sticking out of the ground and blocking my way.

It didn't do a very good job. Thin saplings and thick shrubbery broke apart as I dived again, through the barrier, and landed in a heap just behind me. I, however, fell into a roll at the last second, after which I planted my hands on another tree to stop myself from breaking my jaw on the trunk. I shook my head and refocused on the task at hand, trying to quell the frustration and anger I was accumulating. I was sure I had twisted an ankle at some point in the roll, and I had lost track of my goal for the second time in less than a minute. That was besides the aching I felt all around - possibly a side effect of sleeping in a tree - and the ringing in my ears that never seemed to run out of steam.

The whimper sounded again. Heavy breathing and digging noises registered in similar volume. I looked around at the young trees and low brush in the bright light of the approaching morning, unable to determine the source. It was almost as if the digging noise came from all directions, not unlike the thunder blasts that kept me from speaking my mind. The thin trickles of light passing through the sparse canopy of the younger forest made the part I had wound up in seem warm and inviting. Birds chirped, bees buzzed, the mushy ground smelled like incorruptible nature, and the digging noises that migrated to definably behind me was starting to get annoying, actually. I stood up fully and turned around, ready to ask for directions to the nearest screaming girl. I lost my anger in the peaceful imagery, and it reflected when I let my guard down and turned to face a yellow and red structure.

I made out a rough, surprised syllable. It was the one that made old ladies scowl and wag their fingers, and got me pulled out of line for disrespect.

If anyone had told me that it was an inappropriate use of language, I would have told them to pardon my french while the air explodes around me and a monster rears up in surprise.

That's right, I would tell them, a monster. A beast of a lion, mane and all, stood briefly on it's hind legs, throwing it's paws up to reach nearly ten feet above my head. It's reddish bat-wings flared as it growled in the air, and it's red scorpion stinger swished and slashed the trees behind it. I could only imagine what the five inch claws could slice apart without stopping, and perhaps the monstrous chimera thought about it as well; it landed the front of it's body with a thump and just stared back at me.

I tried to match it's gaze in the hopes that it would just blink and walk away, but it was futile against what might have been a cat at some point and thus was a master of the staring contest. I may have also been too scared to move, but that mystery was resolved when I tried to look around it to see what it was doing before I crashed the party. I hoped that the sounds of the girl screaming were simply misconstrued from some sort of meow, but judging by the fact that the growl coming out of it's throat was deep enough to shake the very blood in my fear-stricken heart I quickly abandoned the reasoning. It attacked a girl, I thought, and I might not want to find out what happened to her.

The huge cat thing caught me looking away, and I noticed it prepare to pounce out of the corner of my eye. I jumped back just in time to dodge the first swipe, but it caught the edge of my shirt. I somehow approached a new level of fear when I thought it was going to pull me forward, but the claws passed effortlessly through the tough fabric and just kept going, digging eagerly into the ground.

I fumbled with my knife, trying to grab and find purchase, before finding the handle and swiping towards another incoming trunk-like arm, dodging to the right all the way. I felt resistance, but had to break into another side roll before I could be sure of the damage done.

I came out of the spin and hit my side on a tree, almost getting winded, before turning back to see the monster. It was lightly limping away from a long gash on the outside of it's right arm, but as soon as it looked up and saw where I was it seemed to forget the wound entirely. My arms were wrapped around my compressed abdomen and could not raise to my face in time to block the next wave of impossibly sharp, clawed swipes. The monster growled deeply and reeled back for its attack.

I could see plainly that it was the end of me, right there. I felt the concept of fear in its most primal form, and had the infinitely sobering experience of a fight-or-flight response ready to be decided. I didn't know what I was thinking, but I somehow believed that I could fight; and win, at that. Yet, despite my sudden resolve, all I could do in the frozen last moments was let out a cry. It was a simple exclamation of, “no,” but given the patterns I had seen in the last couple of minutes I should have seen the results sooner.

Not a second after I spoke against the monster, everything turned into a silent ringing and I blinked hard. I was facing where the monster was standing – last time I saw it – and saw a flash of leaves and dirt in front of me, obscuring the scene. I took the chance to quickly run around the tree behind me, and after a few seconds of nothing happening I risked a peek around the trunk. The leaves and dirt had settled down but I still couldn't make sense of what stood before me. Or, I thought, sprawled before me.

Five feet ahead, the remnants of a dead tree scattered outward from a stump that was seemingly torn from it's roots. A series of broken, shattered and ripped trunks and branches lay in a mess several feet ahead of the original decimated tree. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, unable to accept what grunted and moved in a tangle of leaves and fur and fangs and rocks.

The patch-worked creature emerged from it's pile, shaking and staggering in the destruction. It whimpered for a short while, looking round with ears flaring, but it spotted me and began to charge. I reacted by crouching behind my tree again, hoping that it could just be over with. Until the ringing faded, I didn't know that it was running away from me. I could barely hear anything - the noise was masking any incoming sound.

All I could feel was my breathing becoming shallow and strained, and my face heating up. For a while, I still thought I was about to die.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After enough time had passed, I no longer heard the staggered stomps through the forest. I slowly moved against my aching, tired joints, and stood up, still leaning against the tree. I noticed that I never actually saw it, so I looked up. It was, perhaps, the only pine tree I had seen in the forest, with prickly boughs and dark cyan needles. Something odd about it was that most of the needles on one side had been torn off and sprinkled onto the ground.

And me, I thought as I shook tiny green fragments out of my hair and shirt. I also found and removed most of the burrs from my jeans. Then, I sat down and leaned against the pine tree. I knew I had forgotten something, so I tried to reach into the depths of my mind and figure out what was missing. What I really wanted to do was crawl into a hole, get into a fetal position and cry and mumble like a lobotomy patient, but I didn't see any holes that were deep enough. I knew that would be the incorrect move, anyway, but given the fact that I had just seen – and fought against – a huge chimera-monster, it certainly would have been justified.

Alas, I did not have the liberty to go into shock. I was compelled to find that thing that I forgot. I knew it was important, since I had run into a freaking monster and it was still topping my priorities. Of course, I couldn't control my mind very well so I soon lost all hint of what it was. Whatever empty spot was left in it's wake quickly filled up with questions of where I had ended up. My priorities were back in check, I thought.

I simply looked around to figure that question out. It was a forest, all right, but something seemed odd about it. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly, but the forest I was facing gave off an aura of wrong. Not all right, I corrected. It could have been the greenish tinge of the sunlight, or the seven-pointed, bright-red leaves that poked up from the ground, or even the indigo flowers that emanated a subtle blue glow. As one strange aspect was observed, two more took its place, each more confusing than the last.

I didn't like it at all; I much preferred the look of the forest before I was attacked. It seemed much brighter, less likely to destroy me. I could do my best to suppress whatever emotions came to me while the chimera assaulted me, but the forest was always going to be there. I could do nothing to stop the feeling of strangeness surrounding me. Great, I thought, I was back on the subject of strange things - I might as well wonder what caused the tumble with the chimera to end.

That was a big question, though not what I was thinking when I ran over there; I wished I could have remembered it. So, I thought, whatever happened at the tree, between the huge creature mauling me and the huge creature running away. There was some noise that nearly deafened me, just like the time I tried to speak in the field. Again, it happened, when I was running through the field, and tried to call back. It was the same ringing, same sort of noise. All three instances happened when I tried to say something.

OK, I thought, slow down. I couldn't get ahead of myself. It might have been a thunderstorm - if only it was raining - if only there was any evidence of a thunderstorm. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, so whatever caused it must have been big and loud. If it was some sort of cannon, that would explain the chimera being shot back; but not the complete lack of giant cannons.

I was about to consider whether or not someone could have camouflaged a large tank in the forest when the noise, the strange wet-leaves noise, returned my attention to what was around me. I quickly looked in the direction of the sound, but was disappointed when all I saw was some kind of animal with a big tail - like a squirrel or fox - jump out of sight and under a tree. I turned back and shook my head, but did another take back to the tree when I processed several things about the turn of events.

For example, the 'fox' or 'squirrel' was the size of a large dog. It showed an odd colour palette of yellow and pink. The tree it went under was slashed up, bent and almost uprooted, and I recognized it as the tree the chimera was standing near when I first saw it. A few yellow feathers, like a canary's, had been left behind after the movement. Lastly, there was a squeak and a quite whimper that reminded me of something that happened earlier.

I had finally remembered what I ran across the forest to do; there was someone in trouble - probably something to do with the chimera, I thought. I shook away the cloudiness in my mind and focused on finding out who it was. As I approached the hole that the animal probably jumped inside, the whimpering or crying sound got louder. I had no explanation and could not make any connections to the person crying and whatever the smaller creature was, so I slowly leaned into the hole to find out who - or what - was down there.

I laid flat and entered the space between the roots of the tree and the ground, and I had to crawl in until my shoulders stopped before I could see anything. I shifted to the left, and some more light filled the space. I quickly noticed some pink hair and yellow wings, along with yellow limbs of some sort. They were surely arms and legs, but they were too flat and had no hands or fingers at the ends. It was extremely creepy until the arms/forelegs moved and I saw a face.

I stopped. It was - definably - a face, but not human. It had huge cyan eyes, - not huge per se, but I couldn't think of another adjective that wasn't an understatement - a lowered nose that connected to the mouth in a strange kind of muzzle, and cat-like ears. Most of that was a flat shade of light yellow, partially concealed by hooves of the same colour, and long pink hair.

I didn't know what to think, even at the first instance of seeing it. Within a second or two of that I was even more dumbfounded when it spoke in a stressed, human, female voice.

“Ah! No, please, don’t hurt me! Help!” It cried.

The animal talked. It was an animal, and it just talked – or, at least, it sounded like it talked. It couldn’t have been the original target of the chimera - that was a girl - I thought, but as it shrieked and cried with the same voice that brought me here, that scepticism dissipated. I grimaced at the mental discomfort that came from not having any damned idea how to react.

"Ah! T-t-those teeth! S-somepony help me!” It cried again. Tears were welling in its eyes. I suppose, given the stress and relatable imagery, my brain thought that right there was a good time to swap from cold and calculative to emotional and reactive. It wasn't always the best mode to be in, but I quickly took advantage of the sudden ability to form a reply.

This thing was scared, I thought, and it was crying and calling for help. I reassured it, starting off with, "No, no, I'm not here to hurt you!" At least, that was what I planned to say.

Before the second word sounded, I was defeaned and thrown back by the force of sound that exploded in the tiny, dark space. It was only after I tried to speak when I remembered that the local company commander was firing artillery at my eardrums every time I spoke. I had fleeting thoughts that it was some sort of migraine that I never had nor heard of before, ever, but when I opened my tightly closed eyes I saw the animal using both of its forelegs to cover its ears.

With that, I was convinced that talking was no longer an option if it caused big problems like that again. I didn't want to lose my hearing permanently, let alone deafen the whateveritwas in front of me me, so I silently reached towards the animal to pull it out from under the trunk. It screamed again, begging for somepony to help it, and I decided to just back out and let it find it's own way out. Then I paused, listening.

There was some sort of yelling from behind me, outside the tree, and a scuffle of leaves and dirt. I hoped the voices were from actual humans instead of whatever the thing under the tree was, so I tried to back out again - faster this time. Before I could move my shoulders out of the mess of roots and dirt, a burning sensation covered my feet and I was pulled back. Before I could grab at the thicker roots and pull my legs in, I was pulled back again and my face was pressed against the ground, the back of my head burning as well and my spine going through spasms.

I had to get up, I knew it. I tried doing everything I could to arch my back, move my arms and push my torso upwards, but the shooting, tingling pain going from the base of my head to my ankles was too powerful to overcome, and I could feel myself losing feeling in my limbs. I was probably going to be killed by that chimera again, I thought, though I didn't know why I heard another voice before I was attacked again.

It was revealed to me when the pain and pressure let up from the two original points of my legs and neck, and the voice started again. It was incomprehendable, since I was still mostly deaf, though I could tell there were actually two voices after a few seconds - and the owners were probably the cause of the pain. The fire in my body retreated back to it's starting points and vanished completely, though the numbness was stil there and I had a hard time moving to see the people talking. I could barely raise my head, but my deafness cleared in less than a minute and I finally heard what the two were saying. They both sounded female.

"...well what do you think it is?"

"I told ya, I still don't know. I reckon Fluttershy might, though."

"Hey, where is she, anyway?"

"Uhh... under that tree, I think... Wait, what was this thing doing to her, anyway?"

"Nothing bad, I ho- hey, it's getting back up!"

By that time I had managed to force my partly limp arms to turn the rest of my body over, and I started to regain enough feeling in my abdomen to sit up. What I saw possibly rivaled the chimera in terms of strangeness, though it wasn't just the imagery; the things were speaking to each other in full sentences. One of them even had a southern accent.

One of them did actually remind me of the chimera, but I could tell the two were closer to the thing under the tree in terms of anatomy. They both stood about four feet high, and had bodies that resembled small horses, as well as 'hooves' like the one under the tree. The one on the left was orange, had lighter yellow hair that was tied off on the mane and tail, and had some kind of worn out hat and a pair of bags on its side. I had no idea how it would put them on. The one to the right was bright cyan with rainbow hair, and wings.

I didn't like the idea of constantly being confused at every turn. With resolve, I got past my instincts to lock up in fear and stood up, forcing the numbness out of my legs and head, and I got strength back in them.

I made the mistake of asking what the hell they were, after again forgetting why I tried not to do that, and had to take a step forward to properly bend over and prevent my ears from bleeding. The two mysterious things in front of me moved back as well, and I heard some weird clanking noises coming from the orange one. Then I met their reaction.

I realized, a little too late, that firing invisible cannons and crawling towards someone, covering my ears, would raise mixed reactions. What I realized just as someone yelled something about a monster attacking them was that the prevaling reaction would be fear and, apparently, kicking me in the side of the head. Stars flew to match the sparks that shot down my neck and radiated into my body, and I was out cold - though I still felt burning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I was suddenly falling into a grey tiled room. I landed softly and stood there, counting the tiles. Three dozen of the tiny things were covered by my shoes. I looked at my watch. It said 1:30 PM. Surely there was a bus coming, I thought; maybe even a helicopter? I was probably late for work.

I could see mind shapes. It would be hard to name them in concrete terms, like describing the elements of a smell using touch or hearing, but they were there. Soon, they took forms and changed to different things that I could see plainly. Something like a kraken, with puppet strings.

I blinked and the kraken turned into a piano with several keys missing. A man jumped out of the back cavity, holding the pieces, and told me I have to put them back. I knew I didn't play piano, so I just tossed the keys away and blinked again.

That time, an old butler holding a tea set on a silver platter was there to replace the image. I tried to reach for a cup, but he slapped my cheek with a leather glove and challenged me to a duel. Before I answered, he jumped on me, tea set crashing to the ground. and started strangling me. I forced my eyes closed, and stopped dreaming about all that stuff.

I felt around my neck to make sure the butler was done killing me. There was an itch, but it was gone.

I was unconscious. Strange things happen, down there. I still haven't forgotten. They got worse later on.

Everything got worse later on.

Comments

[Vash_ts]

it is a bit confusing to read at first, but looks good

The guy got a royal canterlock voice unleashed!!

[Malesur Darkhoof]

Heh, Canterlock voice alright. Or maybe Skyrim Fus Ro Dah?