A Love For Madness

by ShadeJak

Changes

The next day, I’d gotten up late, around noon or so. Blame having been up from that rather unnerving discovery the previous night…

I’d decided to head to Alice’s early, Craig had been called out of town by his parents so he wouldn’t be making it and would not be back for a few days, leaving me and her and I guess plenty to talk about. At the time, I tried to ignore the cutie mark images that now decorated my thighs; figuring I’d get to the bottom of it later. For now, I chose to just enjoy the day and hang out with Alice, let her vent about her own life, I could vent about mine. When the divorce happened, she and Angela had a falling-out pretty quickly after. Alice felt Angela had been too hard on me, Angela felt Alice had not been hard enough. I was blamed for so many more things that ended our marriage then either Craig or Alice felt I should feel responsible for, but I still felt guilty for all of them, and no amount of support or words from them had ever made me feel otherwise.

But that was in the past… yes, the past… it made those cutie mark tattoos or whatever they were that belonged to a character symbolizing love feel some kind of joke appearing on me in light of what had at the time been the conclusion of the worst period of time in my life. If I’d have known they were in fact only the start of far worse changes I’d have probably never left the house that day.

Having finished lunch, I went to the bathroom before I left… and I swear at the time my hair seemed a little longer and… fuller. My hair was always short enough to spike the front without any drooping but now it seemed far less willing to obey any hairspray. Washing it out, I just blow-dried it and left for Alice’s, getting to her apartment in about a halfhour and it was around 2:30.

“Cale, hey! Good to have you over!” Alice greeted as she opened the door and allowed me in. “Still way early, even if dinner is, too. I’m glad you were at least able to make it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to let you down. How’ve things been?” I asked, wondering if maybe Alice had experienced anything odd since I’d last seen her as well.

“All been fine, you’ve only seen me, like last night, Cale.” Alice replied.

“Okay, so nothing weird? No blackouts or anything?” I asked, causing her to raise an eyebrow at me.

“Uh, no. You wondering if I had a moment like you did last night?” She asked, curious now.

“Honestly, yeah.” I answered. “Just wanting to… know you’re alright, I guess.” I answered, a little relieved but also a little let down that it was apparent I was alone with this weird phenomena.

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Alice said. “So, time to kill, how’s your night been? Feel better, no more blackouts on your end either, I hope?”

“None.” I answered. “Dunno what brought it on, though. Only other event, or lack of, is Angela never called or texted or anything. No happy birthday, nothing.” I said. The last time, she’d surprised me with a breakfast… another thing I missed about her, she was a great cook that more then compensated for my inability to even boil water right.

Alice looked down, frowning a little. “I’m sorry, Cale. I really am… it’s awful how it all was on you. Maybe, I dunno, she’s just trying to help you move on?” She asked. Alice did have lingering hard feelings, but for my sake she tried to lessen them.

“…Maybe.” I muttered, pushing my bangs back when I realized they seemed even longer. Unfortunately, Alice seemed to notice now as well.

“Hey, what’s up with your hair? You get a wig or something? I mean, I know it’s my birthday but that doesn’t make much sense.” She asked, eyeing my hair. “And when did you get highlights?” She asked.

Without answering her, I got up and went to her bathroom, turning on the light I was greeted with a rather unnerving discovery; my hair was now noticeably longer then it was earlier, like I hadn’t had a haircut in maybe a month or so. But that was not the most unusual part. Somewhere along the line, thin highlights had started forming; purple, pink, and an almost cream-color or bleach-blonde. “What the hell…?” I muttered. That color scheme was vaguely familiar…

Grabbing some scissors out of her drawer I hurriedly started trying to trim it down, throwing the cuttings into the toilet and flushing it away. Back to its original shortness, I gave my reflection a nod, and watched as it suddenly grew again, only even longer this time. Staring agape, the next thing I noticed was my eyes seemed a little less blue. Darker, actually. There had to be something in here I—wait, she had to still have it! I looked in her drawer and there was a hat I had accidentally left here once but until now had kept forgetting to pick up, and apparently she’d never moved it... thank god for small favors, I guess. I tucked all the hair underneath and put it on, stepping out feeling a little relieved.

“Whoa, that’s where that thing went?” Alice asked, surprised. “Wait, why are you wearing it?”

“My hair’s a wreck. I dunno what got in it but I tried to trim it down, and realized a little too late I’m no stylist. Didn’t come out that well.” I said, hoping my lie would work.

“I could try to even it out if you—“ She began to offer.

“No! No, I’m fine, I’ll go get it taken care of tomorrow.” I said. What was happening to me?! I wondered.

“If you insist. And hey, look, they’re rerunning some My Little Pony episodes.” Alice said, pointing to the tv she’d turned on in my absence. With nothing better to do until dinner, I decided to sit down and join her; it’d been her favorite show minus its finale for years even after it’d ended and it being her birthday she deserved that courtesy from me. Many episodes later, we reached the season 2 premier when Discord was introduced. Thanks to the hindsight the series finale so gracefully provided us, though, he seemed far more menacing then I remembered him. As we watched, I felt an odd tingling around my ears, and as I put my hand to them, I noticed they felt… longer somehow?! Without thinking, I got up to my feet, only to feel an odd soreness in them that nearly made me stumble.

“You alright? Seriously, Cale, you’ve been acting pretty weird since you got here.” Alice said.

“Y-yeah, just need to use the bathroom.” Fighting the soreness I made it to the bathroom and noticed, to my horror, the changes had progressed beyond just hair now. My ears had elongated and seemed to be shifting upward. This was gonna be a lot harder to hide… I took off the hat to widen it so I could tuck them under, but the moment I did, my hair, which now reached past my chin, tumbled down. The tricolor highlights had now managed to take over much more of my hair color that its original brown was barely there anymore! “Oh god… oh god… seriously…” I began to panic. I had to get out of here, Alice would never understand, or more likely she’d freak out. An odd pressure at the base of my back started to build as well, and I didn’t need to be a zoologist to figure out based on what had already started happening what the most likely thing to surface down there was going to be. The soreness seemed to worsen a little that I had to lean a little on the counter as well.

“Cale? Is everything okay?” Alice asked, lightly knocking and when I looked at the clock I realized I’d been in here for nearly ten minutes. When I looked back at my hair I realized it had in that time continued to lengthen, and now, the brown was all but completely gone. I really had to get out of here.

“Alice, I need to go, I’m so sorry…” I said, hastily tucking all I could under the hat and opening the door, wobbling slightly in my steps. “I’m really, really sorry. We can do this another time, okay, I’m really really not feeling well.”

“You don’t look it either.” She said, noticing the odd shake as I walked. “Want me to get you to the doctor’s?”

“No! I mean I’ll see how I am tomorrow, after I get my hair fixed up. I don’t like spending money on the doctors and finding out it was nothing.” I said, moving past her to the door. It was evident she was still really concerned, and likely upset I had to ditch her for her birthday. “I’m really, really sorry about this…” I said, moving to the door, and she noticed something, approaching.

“Your hair, in the back…” She said, tugging off the hat and for the next ten, maybe fifteen seconds she stood there like a deer in headlights. “Y-y-y-you’re… wh-what….” She muttered, unable to respond.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me!” I protested, "...but it started with these appearing on me!” I tugged the side of my jeans down, revealing Cadance’s trademark images. Alice was silent, that stupefied look still on her face.

“Are… you… how… that’s… I don’t…” She could barely form a sentence, and honestly I couldn’t form a good answer.

“I have to go! I have to go!” I said, not giving her the chance to react as I bolted out the door to my car, and drove home as fast as I could. I really needed to be alone but somewhere in my mind I had a feeling once any form of rational thought returned to my best friend’s mind she’d show up.

~

As soon as I got home, I closed and locked the door behind me, my feet aching and for some reason constantly positioned on the balls of my feet from my mad dash. For all I knew, the changes could have advanced even further in the time I’d gotten home, and instinctively and fearfully, I walked towards my bathroom, and any horror I’d experienced before had only escalated now.

My hair had now lost all its former appearance, growing faster and faster now I could actually see it lengthening! And the pressure began to build at the base of my back that I had to remove my jeans, and sure enough a tail with colors matching the hair had grown out. It seemed as time passed the changes were happening quicker. My ears had now moved and lengthened to the appearance of a horse’s… or pony’s and my eyes had now become a lavendar purple color. Also… was I… thinner? I took my shirt off and noticed that I had lost the light tone I had before and my body seemed to have gained a more slender, almost feminine build to it. I couldn’t even form words; it wasn’t cute or funny at all, rather it was like the beginnings of something out of a David Cronenberg flick.

My frozen fear was harshly interrupted by a sinister laugh that seemed to be in the room with me, causing me to look around frantically as I tried to find its source, but found nothing. With most of the lights otherwise out at my apartment and it already night, it sent chills down my changing body.

“What do you want…?” I asked, but got no response. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw the shadows in the darkened halls seem to shift slightly, like movement. Immediately I tried to give chase, turning on every light I came across and toppling over as the strength of my walking gait gave out on me. From my place on the floor I saw nothing, and heard nothing. If something had come through here it would have surely made some kind of noise while attempting to elude me as it led to the kitchen which had no carpeting to muffle footsteps. Trying to stand, I pushed back the long hair, which now seemed more like a mane, out of my face when my hand brushed against a tender area in the middle of my forehead. Did I hit my head on the way down to the floor? Sitting up, I crawled my way towards the kitchen, my stomach growling on arrival as if the location of my food had sent a reminder that I’d not eaten since lunch. Finding the strength, I got up and fixed myself a ramen cup and made my way back to my bedroom, figuring I’d spend the rest of the night there as the experience earlier had made me want to explore my apartment as little as possible now. Dinner in hand, I made it to my bed, and ate, opening my laptop after. I had to see if there was anyone else who may have been experiencing anything like this. With things more extreme then yesterday, I honestly couldn’t be alone in this, right?

The three hours that followed convinced me the answer was either a flat ‘yes’ or it just wasn’t the sort of thing anyone felt comfortable enough to talk about. I’d think I was living the stranger fans’ dream right now; apparently on the way to turning into a pony, there would have surely been some people whose devotion reached those levels… every fandom has them, right? Apparently not in this day and age. I grit my teeth... this is no fantasy or bizarre dream come true, not one I ever had and least of all now when I was right in the process of a self-induced rehabilitation from all the drama I’d gone through the past couple months. If this kept up, my life as I knew it would be over before it re-started! How did I expect to go out to work or just in public like this? Or worse, if it continued until there was no possible way I could hide it? Did people who fantasized about it even think about that? I was nothing less then frightened of how I’d be able to live if I woke up one day looking like a pink alicorn from a tv show.

That awful laughter returned, startling me again and causing me to look around. Again, it was evident I was imagining things in the darkness of my apartment… yet still felt like I was being watched somehow, by some gloating thing in the shadows just out of sight, no doubt taking pleasure in my misery. Taking a breath, I ran my hand through my hair, seeing it’d reached its full length by now and looked identical to the mane Cadance sported, then pushed it away from my eyes, but now instead of a tender area was a small spike about the size of my thumb that caught my attention.

Is that a horn?! I thought to myself, my eyes instinctively darting around as I anticipated another laugh with an unseen owner would arise. “Why… why is this happening to me…?” I asked out loud, but got no answer. I felt a slight numbness and as I moved my hand to my head, I felt the horn had grown just slightly. As I looked at the end of the covers I realized I’d had my feet in the position of balancing on the ball the entire time, like they were locked there and pulled the cover, and saw that my toes had changed somewhat, the middle toe larger, the curvature changing and the nails growing thicker, almost as if in the process of shaping like…

I was growing more and more frightened and was once again startled out of my mind when my phone rang on my nightstand. Looking over I saw Alice’s name on the ID. No, I couldn’t answer, could I? No, not like this. I let it ring, and once it had stopped, I set it to vibrate. She’d no doubt try one or two more times, especially with all she’d seen but it was getting late so hopefully she’d assume I was asleep. Hopefully. As if asserting its own opinion my new tail flicked to the side as the anxiety went through me. But as I looked at the time, midnight had drawn ever-closer, and I could feel a wave of sleepiness hit again, my laptop still on… why did the random Discord icon someone had chosen for their profile image in the comments section of the site I was on seem like its eyes followed me as I moved the scroll bar downward... right before sleep again won out against me?

Author's Note:

And there we have another chapter complete! For now I'll leave out the interludes till later, and before anyone asks, no, Alice is not gonna experience ponyfication :P

If I have time, I'll see if I can get another update Friday night!

Comments

[Buckshot2825]

This chapter screams
*ehem* uno moment while i prepare my throat
DUN! DUN! DUUUUNNNNNNNN!!!!!

[ShadeJak]

2679698

Oh-hohohoho, trust me, Discord's cruelty and mental torment has only just begun

[FanOfMostEverything]

Interesting. Discord seems to be taking a much more personal interest in this one. There are some obvious reasons why, but when has his thought process ever been that straightforward?

[Pinklestia]

Alice not experiencing ponyfication is actually kind of fresh.

[Dragonlover553]

David who now?

[ShadeJak]

3690471

David Cronenberg, director of "The Fly" and other "body horror"-type films