Spared or Struck?
I ran down the hallway, the door at the end holding my focus. I could barely see it through the tears. The memory of what I had seen still burned in my head. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. There was only one way to know.
I burst through the door, running across the medium sized, round room. There was a desk at the far end. On the desk sat a letter, freshly unrolled, still curling back in on itself. I ran to the desk and snatched it up. Even though I was frantic, I started reading slowly. I couldn’t afford to misunderstand here. The more I read though, the harder it was to read. The tears kept coming, faster now, coming back almost faster than I could wipe them away. I finally reached the end of the letter and dropped it, backing away from the desk.
“No,” I said. “It can’t be. No, NO!” I dropped to my knees.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”
I sat bolt upright, chest heaving. I grabbed my phone off of the table to the side of my bed. It was 6:28. I let out a laugh and put the phone back down. At least the nightmare had served a purpose. I was awake. I sat back in my bed, thinking about the dream. The nightmare was no surprise, seeing as it was Today. I avoided thinking of the actual name. Honestly, I should have expected this last night. I always had a nightmare the night before Today. It was a joke among my family that I never got a good night’s sleep. A joke that was completely true. I smiled as I thought of what their reactions would be. I would have to call and tell them about it later.
I would have been with them for Today, but my college classes were hitting me pretty hard right about now, plus the drive from Oregon back down to Utah was a lot of time to take just for one day. Besides, there was a reason I’d moved out here in the first place. My family was a bit excessive and one could only take so much of them. Besides, the Fourth of July was coming up and I could see them then.
As I sat thinking about my family, I heard my roommate’s alarm clock go off on the other side of the wall. “My Little Pony, My Little Pony...” I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. Seriously, he was way too into that show. I had nothing against My Little Pony. In fact, I’d seen the show, watched every episode. I wouldn’t call myself a brony, though. The show was good, but I wasn’t rabid about it. I wasn’t about to go start writing fanfiction for it or anything. My roommate though, was another story. The show had ended five years ago, yet he still had it as his alarm, ringtone, computer background. He even still posted on theory sites. How does a show dead for five years still have theory sites!? I’d never understand this fandom.
I heard the alarm cut off mid-song. Huh. That was weird. My roommate usually let the entire song play out, whether he was awake or not. Maybe he was finally getting tired of it. I doubted it. He was seriously obsessed. I couldn’t judge him though. Not when I was just as deep in Doctor Who as he was in MLP. I tried getting him interested in the show to console him after MLP ended, but it never really caught on. He liked the show, but it never held the same fascination for him that MLP did.
I heard him get up and move around his room. He didn’t normally get up this early, but today was a special day. I groaned. I forgot that we shared Today. I figured I may as well get up. If I didn’t, David was going to come in here and drag me out of bed himself. “Allons-y,” I said and got up and got ready to face the day. My birthday.
I left my room and entered the living room it was connected to. I walked towards the kitchen, passing the doors of my two roommates on the way. I could hear movement behind David’s door, but nothing from Shane’s room. I went to the kitchen and got myself some cereal. David’s door opened and my roommate entered the kitchen. He was about a half a foot shorter than me, reaching about 5 foot 6, while still being five years my senior. Today was his 25th birthday. He and our third roommate, Shane, were the same age. David had bright red hair that he kept above his eyes, but that was all he ever really did with it. I commented on this fact.
“Looks like you win the Crazy Hair Contest today, David.”
He grinned at me. “Have I ever lost?”
I chuckled. “Nope. I suppose one day I’ll have to get you a medal to celebrate.”
“I’d settle for a girlfriend,” he says looking at me hopefully.
I laugh. “Sorry, can’t help you there.” My luck with the ladies was legendary, I usually had a date lined up every week, if not twice a week. I was never able to pass it on to others though. “Although, you might do better if you actually combed your hair.”
David rolled his eyes. “Don’t you remember? The last comb that touched my hair stayed there for about a week before I could get it out. Besides...” He struck a pose that I think was meant to look suave. “...Good looks like these need no improvement.”
“Says the guy who can’t get a girl.” I shot at him.
“Says the guy who can’t seem to keep one.” He shot back. It was true. I did have luck when it came to picking up girls, but I never managed to keep a steady relationship for more than a week or so. I’d never met a girl I’d really ever fallen for anyway.
We sat there for a bit longer, both of us eating cereal. “Oh, Happy Birthday, by the way.” David said.
“Meh,” I replied, through a mouthful of cereal. “Happy Birthday to you too, I suppose.”
David grinned. “That’s right, I’d forgotten that you were anti-birthday,” he said as a third door opened and our roommate Shane entered the room.
“Peter’s anti-birthday?” He asked. Shane was a pretty cool guy. He had plans to join the police force someday, but his parents had made him agree to take a few years of college first. He was working as a security guard in the meantime to earn money. “Why are you anti-birthday?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I’ve just never had a good birthday. I’ve never gotten any awesome presents. Usually a pair of socks and a book or two from my family. They’ve never been good when it comes to buying gifts. Plus, when you think about it, it really is just a celebration of an arbitrary number, which is just a random measurement mankind created in order to keep track of the flow of progress. Time is like speed. If there was nothing to measure it against, it would cease to exist. All its measuring is the time when I first started to exist outside another person. It’s just a random countdown someone started at that moment just because. Why should this new random number be any more important than the old random number?”
David clutched his head in mock pain. “Too many concepts to keep track of! Make it stop!”
“Things getting too wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey for your simple little brain?” I said to him. We looked at each other and burst out laughing.
Shane just rolled his eyes at us. He never got our admiration for our shows. He’d seen both Doctor Who and MLP, but he wasn’t obsessed with them like we were. He always spent his free time either exercising, or being with his girlfriend Kate. Things were getting pretty serious between the two of them. I couldn’t blame him. I’d be getting serious too if I had a girlfriend as good as his.
“Well, it’s probably time we got going,” he said to David.
“Hold on just a second. I’ve got to grab something.” David jumped off his chair and walked to his room. Shane usually served as David’s main ride to the college whenever Shane went to his job at the bank. David knew how to drive and had his own car, but he was notoriously bad at driving. He’d owned and totaled three cars in the five years he’d had his license, and he was now driving a navy blue Nissan Cube he’d gotten cheap because the owner had thought that the engine was bad. David had tried to tell him what was wrong with it, but the guy had wanted to get rid of the car pretty badly. David bought it, fixed up the engine, and now let it gather dust in the parking lot while mooching off Shane and me for rides. We were fine with it though. David was that bad at driving.
I looked at the clock. “Ugh. 7 o’ clock. What in the world were you guys thinking getting classes this early?” I said.
Shane shrugged. “Classes have to happen sometime. Why not now?”
“I couldn’t do it. I’m not meant to wake up early.” I said. “I’m still half asleep, and I woke up a half-hour ago.”
David came back from his room. “Hey, tonight, is our birthday celebration” he said, pointing at me, Shane and himself. “So that means we’re having a gaming night! I’ll bring the pizzas,” he said and he and Shane left to their respective engineering and criminology classes. This left me with about an hour and a half to do little more than ponder David’s ideas of what constituted a good time. I shrugged. I had nothing better to do today, so I decided to go along with it. Pizza and video games wasn’t that bad. I pondered what David had said. Was it really Shane’s birthday today too? Huh. I supposed May 2nd must have been a busy day at the hospitals. I couldn’t believe I’d known the guy for 6 months and hadn’t asked him what his birthday was. At about 8:30, I got out of bed again, got ready and heading off to my Geology class.
Geology wasn’t really my passion, but it was as good a field as any. I didn’t have any specific interests, but there was something about dusty, shiny jewels that I found interesting. What could I say? Geology rocks. I went about my day in the usual humdrum manner. Classes lasted until about 4. After, I headed back to my apartment. I always needed a nap after classes. Especially if I was going to be up all night partying. I got back to my apartment to find Shane and David already there.
“Perfect,” David said. “We were just about to go get the pizza. You can come with us.”
“Actually, I was just about to go take a nap,” I said. “You two get them without me.”
Shane shook his head. “Sleeping until 8? A nap every day? Honestly Peter, you have the energy level of a ten year-old.”
“What can I say?” I said, yawning. “I tire easily. Is that a crime now?” The two left. Once they were gone, I plopped down on the couch, grabbed a pillow and settled down into unconsciousness.
I didn’t know how long I had been sleeping for, but the regular ethereal flow of my dreams was disturbed by another dream, this one more vivid than anything I’d seen. There was darkness. I heard a swishing noise, as if some heavy was flying through the darkness, circling.
A voice cut through the darkness, echoing in the space. “The invisibility won’t hold us for long. He’ll find us very soon.” A monitor flickered to life a few feet in front of me. By its light I could see a face. A face that wasn’t a face. Its’ features were way too skewed to be a human face. The face’s eyes looked into mine. “This is very important. Pay attention. The psychelock won’t last forever, but my body wouldn’t survive this mind. I know what his plan is, and it would kill me.” The thunderous crash that slammed against the door of the room seemed to answer the unspoken Who? that had formed in my mind.
The face looked at the door. “He’s here. We’re out of time.” I started to panic. The face looked at me. “Don’t panic. Stay calm. And remember, find the Jo---” My mind seemed to fill with static, as if something was hiding the name from me. Yet, my head nodded, as if some part of me had understood what the face had said. Another boom rocked the door. The face bent down and placed a helmet on its head. “Alright,” it said. “Begin.” The lights in the room blazed into life. A scream filled the air as the door burst open-
“BOOYAH!” screamed David. I sat upright, pillows and a blanket flying. I looked around wildly. I was in my apartment, on the couch. On the couch next to me, facing the T.V, were Shane, David and Kate. David was busy doing a victory dance in front of the screen, which had Epoch Wars, the latest FPS playing across it. I checked the clock. It was 8:24.
David noticed I was awake. “Hey Peter, guess what? I beat Shane at Epoch Wars, can you believe it?”
I was still trying to come to terms with my abrupt return to reality. Kate looked over at me and smiled. “Looks like someone slept like a filly, huh?” I grinned back. Kate knew about MLP and often made references to it to humor me and David. I always suspected she knew more about it than she pretended, but I was never quite sure.
David got our attention again. “Um, Hello? Are we all just going to forget about the fact that I just beat Shane in a first-person shooter?” It was a rather impressive feat. Shane almost never played video games, yet he still played brilliantly when it came to first-person-shooters.
Kate, always ready to defend her boyfriend, responded. “Oh, please. You only won because Shane zoned out at the beginning and you used that against him.”
“Zoned out?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said David. “There were a few minutes when the match first started where Shane was off in La-La-land. Speaking of which, what was that about?” he asked, looking over at Shane.
Shane shrugged. “No idea. One minute, the round was started, next second I was down 15 - 2.”
“I started playing,” Kate chimed in. “It was embarrassing to see him getting his butt kicked.” She and Shane shared a quick kiss.
“Anyway, now that you’re awake, let’s start the presents shall we?” said Kate, getting up off the couch. I looked over at the table. There was a small mound of presents.
“Wow,” I said. “Who are all these for?”
“They’re for all of us,” Shane said, looking at Kate.
I glanced over at David, who glanced at me too. “Is it your birthday too, Kate?” I asked. Neither of us had bought her a gift.
“No,” she said. I relaxed. “My birthday’s tomorrow, but the party’s here today, so we’re celebrating it today.” Well, that was short-lived.
I winced, looking at Kate. “Sorry,” I said. “Neither of us got you a gift.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry. I asked Shining not to tell you guys it was my birthday. I knew you guys didn’t know me that well, and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of exchanging well-meant, but useless, gifts.”
With that thorny social issue resolved, we got down to opening our presents. David got a Lyra plushie from Kate, which sent him into self-replicating cycles of sheer ecstasy. It was one of the few his collection was missing. I got the 13th Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver, which I squeed over in a proper fanboy manner. Shane had given us each a black T-shirt with red lettering and a picture of an angry pony wearing a T-shirt on the front. The lettering said: “I Watched MLP For Five Years And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt.” We thanked him and then made him open our gifts.
David had gotten him a new state-of-the-art gaming controller with gel grips and a six-month warranty. I got him a new barbell. It had been a gift from my family a while back. A gift I’d never used. Shane nodded at me. “Thanks,” he said. “My old barbell broke last week. I’d been about to replace it.”
“No problem,” I said. I didn’t bother to tell him that I’d been the one who’d accidentally broken it in the first place. I still wasn’t sure how I’d managed to do it.
David gave Kate a sly look. “So, what’d you uh, get Shane for his birthday?” he said.
Kate smiled. “I got him a new car radio. Wireless compatible too,” she said. “He’d been complaining about the old one for over a month.” David and I nodded, suitably impressed.
Shane presented his gift to Kate, a long thin box. She opened it and her eyes widened. “Oh wow,” she said. “Where did you get it?”
She held up a thin silver necklace. On the very end of it was a blue, faceted heart, with golden curls coming off the sides in a handle-like manner.
Shane was leaning back in his chair, arms behind his head. He knew that he’d rocked it when it came to gifts this year. “I saw it in a store window one day and it made me think of you. Do you like it?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I love love love it.” She threw her arms around him in a grateful hug. “Well,” she said, releasing him. “I’d better get going. I only came here to stay for a few hours or so. Shane’s got to drop me off back home.”
Me and David exchanged a sly look. “Uh huh, sure. He’s going to ‘drop you off back home’ is he?”
Kate gave us a look. “Actually, my parents are in town and staying at my place for my birthday, so he really is just going to drop me off back home.” As she turned away though, it might have just been my imagination, but I thought I saw a look of disappointment cross her face. I definitely saw one cross Shane’s face. “Hold up,” David said. “Peter still hasn’t gotten my gift yet.” I opened the flat gift still under all the wrapping paper to reveal: Portal 3. My eyes went wide.
“No way!” I yelled. “This game only came out last month! How did you get it?!”
“I have my ways,” David replied. He turned to the table and opened the package I got for him. Inside was a black fedora, with a limited edition Twilight Sparkle (his favorite pony) keychain inside it. Immediately he put on the fedora, leaned back in his chair against the wall and started swinging his keychain around his finger, like something out of a film noir movie. We all laughed.
David got up out of his chair and moved as if to say something, but then froze and stood stock still in the center of the room, as if he had been hit by a brick or something. His eyes had gone very wide. We all looked at him. Shane walked up to him and waved his hand at him “Hello? Anyone home? What’s up, Doc?” Then he rolled his eyes. “Oh, I get it. He’s doing an impression of me when I zoned out. Very funny David.” David didn’t reply. “Whatever,” Shane said. Something about his question struck me. I let it go for now.
Kate snapped her fingers. “Oh, wait, didn’t you guys want to do something special with your birthdays today? Something like like noticing the exact time when your ages changed?”
Shane smacked his forehead. “That’s right, we did. We missed mine though, it was around 8 o'clock. David’s was...” He looked at the clock. “Huh. Right now,” he said. “Well’ if he wants to be so busy poking fun at me, then he can miss his birth moment.” Shane said with a grin.
“When was yours?” Kate asked, looking at me.
“Hmm, mine was at about 8:23, if I remember correctly.” I said
“Rats. If only you’d woken up just a little bit sooner.” she said. “We could have celebrated it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Shane. “It was just an idea.” he turned back to me. “See you guys in a little bit.” And with that, the two departed.
As the door snapped shut, David blinked hard, shaking his head a couple of times. I laughed. “Okay, that was funny. Was that really what he looked like?” David looked confused.
“Was what what who looked like?” he asked.
“You know, was that really what Shane looked like during the game. You were doing an impression of him, weren’t you?” I said looking at David.
“Oh... Oh yeah. That. Yeah, I was.” He said, looking away. He looked bothered though.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said hurriedly. “Let’s just try out that game now. I can’t wait to see it.” I readily agreed and we sat down and put the disc in. “Just a sec,” David said. “I’ve gotta use the bathroom.” He ran off to the room at the end of the hallway. I sat on the couch waiting for the disc to load. After a few seconds, a message flashed on the screen: DISC ERROR 603. PLEASE CONSULT THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR DETAILS. Hmm, Error 603. I’d never heard of that one. I opened the disc case and pulled out the manual. As I did so, I heard a muffled yell, several scuffling sounds and a thud come from the bathroom. The sound of running water joined them. I heard muffled expletives next. I sat back, bemused. What was going on in there?
The sound of water stopped. About ten seconds later, the door opened to reveal a soggy headed David standing in the doorway, glaring daggers at me. “What happened?” I ask, keeping the laughter out of my voice.
David continued to glare. “I tripped and fell on the water controls in the shower after I saw your little prank.” I looked at him.
“Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I said.
He scowled. “Yeah right, you know perfectly well that I’m talking about this.” He turned his side to face me and pulled down the waistband of his pants.
Whatever I was prepared for, it wasn’t that. Plain as day, plastered across his thigh, was a clearly defined, hourglass cutie mark. I burst out laughing. “Oh, seriously!? You got a cutie mark?! And out of all the hundreds of canon and non-canon ones you choose Doctor Whooves’s!? You don’t even like him! You think he’s ridiculous! You won’t even discuss him on the theory forums.” I stopped laughing and looked at him. “Seriously though, I hope you don’t expect to start some kind of brony revival movement, because it’s not going to happen. It’s just not.” David was looking at me with a mixture of confusion, frustration and desperation. I didn’t know why he’d wanted me to think I’d put the mark on there, but I hadn’t. “Kind of a lame joke, trying to convince me of thinking I did something like that,” I said, trying to change the subject. “That had about, what, a .1% chance of working?”
“Actually it was about .000235%” he muttered absently, still looking bewildered.
“Whatever,” I said. “You engineers and your statistics.” I didn’t understand why he was confused. He hadn’t actually expected that prank to work had he? What confused me more was the decision to get the mark in the first place. David was a die-hard brony, sure, but he didn’t seem like the kind to do this. Especially not Doctor Whooves’s mark. Twilight’s was a maybe, but only just. We sat there in silence for about five minutes, me pretending to try and read my owner’s manual, him still trying to stare answers out of me.
Our silence was broken by Shane returning through the front door. “Hey,” he said, walking into the living room. “Anything new?”
“Why don’t you ask the newest contestant for world’s biggest brony.” I said, gesturing at David, while still reading my owner’s manual.”
Shane looked at David. “What’s he talking about?”
David stood up slowly. “Now before you ask, I didn’t do this to myself. I don’t know how it got here, it wasn’t there this morning and I swear I didn’t do it.” With that, he lowered his hands to his waistband and showed Shane his cutie mark.
Much to my surprise, Shane didn’t start groaning and rolling his eyes. He shrugged. “Huh. That’s a really well done tattoo,” he said. “Much clearer than any I’ve ever seen,” he looked at me. “But how does this make him the world’s biggest brony?” he asked.
Oh yeah. Shane wouldn’t know a lot about the background ponies. “That’s the cutie mark of Doctor Whooves, from MLP.” I said.
Now Shane rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You got a cutie mark?”
David glared at him. “I told you I didn’t do it!”
Shane gave him a deprecating look. “Are you telling me that someone else gave you a tattoo?”
David threw up his hands. “I don’t know! All I know was that it wasn’t here this morning.”
“How did you find it then?” Shane asked.
David recounted the experience. “Well, I was sitting on the couch, when I noticed that my legs were really itchy. So I went into the bathroom to see what had bitten them. And when I looked down, there they were.”
Shane froze suddenly, his eyes going wide and his face going pale. “Wait,” he said. “Did you say, itchy legs?” He slowly looked down at his own legs. I did too. It was only then that I noticed that he’d been absentmindedly scratching his own leg the entire time he’d been home. Slowly, he lowered his hands to his own waist and pulled down the waistband. There, sitting on his thigh, was a dark blue shield with a bright purple star on it, with three blue stars raised above that.
I sat stunned. I had a hard time believing that David would go and get a cutie mark, but now Shane? Shane had barely seen the episodes.
David looked as stunned as I did. “That’s Shining Armor’s cutie mark,” he said blankly. “Why do you have Shining Armor’s cutie mark?”
They both looked at me.
“Oh, so I’m a suspect now!?” I said, clenching the manual in my hand in anger.
“I don’t know.” said Shane. “But there’s one way to find out. If you didn’t do this, then someone else must have, and why would they go through all the trouble to get us and leave you alone? So, let’s see. Show us if you have a cutie mark or not.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “It won’t prove anything.” They just looked at me intently. I sighed and lowered my waistband. I was a little curious myself. I looked down. My thigh was completely blank. Shane and David stared at me.
I tried to pass it off as nothing. I went back to reading my manual. “See guys? I told you that it proved nothing. Look, I promise you that I- I- I...”
A fierce itch rose in my nose. My eyes closed peremptorily. “ah.. Ah.. AH... ACHOOO!” I let out a huge sneeze. I wrenched my eyes open, just in time to see my manual get engulfed in bright, emerald flames. I looked down to see a long, thin reptilian tongue retreat back into my mouth.
Oh. Well. That was... different.
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"GIVE ME YOUR VIRGINS LEST I BURN THINE VILLAGE!"
I call lies on Portal 3 coming out in 2025.... Maybe 2100?
2545630 It'll probably come out before Half-Life 3, that's for sure.
2546110 God, I hope not.. I mean, I want Portal 2 and Half Life 3 as much as any Valve fanboy/girl does. Heck, maybe even a new Counter Strike would be cool. but.. honestly, I want to see what happens to Gordon more then someone who was released from Aperture for pete's sake.
But, about the story..
Eh, it was all right. I'll read it until it's finished or whatever, I guess. I still enjoyed what this is based off of more, though..
FINALLY, ONE ABOUT SPIKE!!!
It certainly was.
...
Aw, man. But now I feel unoriginal.
I was going to submit my own 'inspired by Five Score, Divided by Four' story as soon as I had finished it, but now it seems like several people have already jumped on this bandwagon. Dang.
...
Unleash the dragon!
Well, that explains the shield mark.
Spike, Cadence, Shinning Armor, and the Doctor.
s2.favim.com/orig/36/10th-doctor-3d-david-tennant-doctor-doctor-who-Favim.com-297699.gif
I will return with feed back.
MOAR
)
(please?
It's good so far but my head hurts. There a character in my Four Score story named David as well. I keeping getting this David mixed up with the David I created. It hurts my brain.
Edit: I like how you mixed it up. Having their birthdays be the next day. You get a thumbs for the awesome cliff hanger.
Wait...I thought it was their 25 birthday? Description says it was their 20th. Five score is 100 and divided by 4 equals 25.
Lies!
Everybody knows that Valve can't count to 3
Too bad this spin off can't be in universe with the main 5sd4 story, since Shining in the main story as Twilghts ehh sister.
2546110 *FACEPALM* Half-Life 3 IS PORTAL 3 Gaben said so :U
Portal references?
Doctor Who references?
Dragons and MLP?
Explodes from sheer fangirling.
CANON VIOLATION! CANON VIOLATION!
Seriously though, shining armor is already taken by the main fic.
Also, why the crossover tag? for dr. whooves?
I guess Celestia is getting a Portal 3 manual...
Really gotta solidify the alternate universe aspect don't you?