OFF/pony

by Cynewulf

Zone 1.0 (The Nothingness)

OFF 1.0

They were adrift.

To be more precise, they were adrift in two entirely different ways. The Player, Cheerful Skies, was incorporeal and the edges of her form blurred in the Nothingness. She drifted serenely, without a care, not quite native to the black but not at war with it. She was simply above it,set apart.

The Batter tumbled end over end, flailing in the dark like a frustrated, flightless bird. Cheerful thought that the mare was cursing but she couldn’t tell. Sound was swallowed up in the featureless blackness that surrounded them.

There was no light. There was no up. No down. Nothing anywhere to touch or hold on to. This was the Nothingness and it was complete and it was whole. From above, the Player watched her assigned “puppet,” her charge, flounder in the dark.

Her sight was unusual. It was sight without eyes, with no light for them to see, and yet she saw her Batter and she could see her own spectral legs and her own ghostly wings as she turned her head. It was curious. She couldn’t really feel anything.

“Batter? I don’t like it here.”

The Batter said something but it was swallowed up in the warped strangeness of the space between them.

Rising up all around them—or was it falling? All that had been left behind. There was no up, and there was no down. Those things had been left behind. The Nothingness hadn’t moved on, it had simply never had them, it had no need. Somehow she grasped this all. It came to her in a heartbeat) were voices. Voices out of the solid wall of night, whispering voices like a chorus of school children, high pitched and unruly. It was everywhere and it was centered and it bothered Cheerful Skies that she could not tell the difference between those two words.

“Batter?” she called again.

The mare in question struggled to right herself.

“Batter, there’s a floor if you wish it.”

If the message was received, she couldn’t tell. The fool tumbled and tumbled. Cheerful sighed, and said her piece again. This time, the Batter caught her eye and something shifted.

The mare in the dirty uniform that had once been black and white stood in the void.

From out of Nothing, the stalk of straw was back in her mouth and she chewed at it. Cheerful smiled. Normalcy. Well, normal for her reference, she supposed. All of life had been thirty minutes, after all. Yet, watching, didn’t she feel it had been longer? That she had been alive and well and had known many things? Most things? She had no idea. When she spoke, her voice was not her own, and yet it sounded the same.

She floated right above her Batter and hummed a little tune against the dark.

“Come then,” she said, and felt warm. It was the only feeling. “Come then. Which way is the Zone, do you know? If not, we will walk on.”

The Batter said nothing, but only pointed.

She wondered what it would be like, when they landed in Zone 1. She knew it would be Zone 1, and not some other number. It made sense. It was the way the world had to work—0, 1, 2, 3—marching orders from some nameless code written down and arranged so that things might move and speak and do.

With a smile—if it could be called a smile, now that her body existed only in a certain sense of the word—Cheerful Skies thought that it was strange, how she could think in a way that was alien and know it was alien. She was torn and yet it was pleasant. The Nothingness was strange.

The Zone was an island, and yet it appeared as a node of light in the dark. The Batter approached it and Cheerful waited for the flash to come that she knew would come, and the sense of falling.

They entered.

Comments

[SIGAWESOME]

This certainly is odd...
I feel like I am reading a story transcript of a ponified version of one of those interminable flash room escape game thingies.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Judge.

'Judge' is an awesome name for a cat.

Looking forward to seeing how this story develops.

[Cynewulf]

2795897 OFF is a weird, weird game.

:3

[AntiquatedAnnomaly]

First I fav it, then I read it. Eventually I read it...

[Daes]

2795904 Crossing it with FiM seems like a neat idea. That being said, the story is missing the Crossover tag!

[Cynewulf]

2795923 DERP. Ugh, thank you. I'm dumb.

2795916 read me

[Daes]

2795931
Looks like you I caught you OFF guard... (dat pun )
It's alright, though. You're not dumb, mistakes happen!

[Skeeter The Lurker]

Is this based on a game of some sort?

I'm really confused, but compelled to read on...

~Skeeter The Lurker

[Cynewulf]

2795995 It's based off of OFF by Mortis Ghost.

You should be a little confused.

[Dunsparce]

666 words. CONSPIRACIES FOR DAYS.

Anyhoo, good fic! I enjoyed.

[Skeeter The Lurker]

2796014

...Alright, then...

Please continue...

~Skeeter The Lurker

[Cynewulf]

2796024 I SAW THAT AND WAS LIKE
o_o
Oh.

[Philosophical Tree]

This is most curious. I look forward to more.

[hypervelocity]

Hmmm...a most interesting concept.

And a weird ass game.

Can't wait to see more!

[Subatomic Seal]

Because you should have music to go with this.

[Dalek IX]

Now all we need is a Yume Nikki/Yume 2kki/.flow cross...

Ponitsuki.

[Wroth]

Yes! Best Crossover Ever!

[Cynewulf]

2799964 Glad you enjoy it!

[Kane Magus]

This is kind of surreal. Despite the game being almost 10 years old now, I only first heard about it and played through it myself around a month or two ago. And now, not long after that, here it is being crossed over with pony. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one. Especially interesting, since the "Player" seems to be taking a somewhat more active role in the story than was possible in the game itself. If it ends up being anything at all like the game, I expect it to reach full on Silent Hill levels of creepy by the end (and that's saying something since it kind of starts already in creepytown).

And now, if you will excuse me, I must go off and rock out (or, perhaps, "swing out" would be more appropriate) to Pepper Steak.

[Kane Magus]

2802974 Er... wait, no. It was released in 2008 (and translated to English in 2011). The "RPGmaker 2003-created" bit on the starmen.net site threw me off. Meant "made in RPGmaker 2003", not "made in RPGmaker, in 2003." So, yeah, I've been wrong as to how old this game actually is all this time.

[Emberspeak]

Well, I'm intrigued, but thoroughly confused. I guess I should go check out OFF, then?

[q97randomguy]

Something about this story just seems off to me. Hmmmm. *ponders deeply*

[Cynewulf]

2828475 And it is fixed.

Though to be frank you could have done it with a bit more tact.

[Snowybee]

My legs... sting me... when I think about them, and why they are there.

But I'll keep reading.

[Skeeter The Lurker]

4044023

Yes. I've played the game.

The comment you replied to was an old one. I hadn't played it before that.

~Skeeter The Lurker

[The Gardenhead]

4044033 Oh sorry. Didn't know.

[Dubstep Tree]

I am a huge fan of the game OFF!! :D I must read this!

[MalO]

good shit right here, hope the story isn't dead.

[Time Reaper]

Just found this story, me like.

[Ice Star]

I have no clue what this is but it's so surreal and holy cow is it interesting.

i wish there was more :0