Fitful Dreams
I stretched and closed my eyes for a moment, giving them a rest from the screen in front of me. It was nearly noon and I could get some lunch, maybe walk around for a bit. ARCO’s finances were a complicated mess at times, and I lothed the days I had a “working lunch”.
“Hey there Sarah.”
My eyes popped open and I had to smile. There was Frank, my darling Frank. He worked in our sister department, and was slightly higher up the corporate ladder than I was. Our romance had to be kept on the down low, it wasn’t against policy but it was frowned upon.
“Hi Frank. Headed out for lunch?”
“I was, but I wanted to see if you wanted to come with me.”
He was always so sweet. “Sure. I need to go to the bathroom real quick, I’ll be right back.” I dashed off to the facilities. I checked my makeup in the mirror, test my breath, run my fingers through my hair. I came back to my desk to find Frank watching something on YouTube.
“Frank!”
“Wha! Oh, hey Sarah.” He sat up, startled.
“You know you shouldn’t use other people’s computers.”
“I know, but I just wanted to check out this clip Dave in HR sent me.”
I reached over him and closed the window, then locked the computer. “Well, you’ll have to watch it later. We need to get to lunch.” I helped him out of the chair and followed him towards the cafeteria.
Strange, I could swear I locked my machine before I went to the restroom.
I groaned and opened my eyes slowly. I hadn’t dreamed that vividly in a long, long time. I rolled over and felt something pull at my wrists. My eyes opened and closed a few times before I was finally able to processes what I saw.
It was a cell.
Actually, it was more like a dungeon. The room was about fifteen feet wide and long, and about ten feet tall. The corner I lay in had a pair of mattresses, a dozen pillows, and a pair of blankets. The corner right across from me had a small faucet and a tiny hole. From the odor I would guess it worked as a drain and a restroom. There was a thin flat slit of a window, right up near the ceiling, that let in a fair amount of sunlight. The door was solid iron, with a slide in the middle to looking and a door at the bottom for food.
The only other really interesting thing about the room were the markings. Not your normal graffiti, the floor, walls and ceiling were marked with spell circles and seals. They glowed slightly, blues and greens and even an occasional purple sigil gave the room a soft ambiance.
“D, what do they do?”
Silence. I looked down at my arm and remembered D fading away. Now my arm only bore a few scars where the crystals once were. Machina was missing too, I could tell from the lightness of my right arm and the lack of any HUD in my eye.
I also saw what had pulled at my arm. I was handcuffed, and those cuffs tied to a pair of ankle cuffs. The restraints stopped me from running or even stretching my arms over my head.
I sat quiet for a few minutes.
“Nightmare?” I was afraid to ask, but I had to know. The silence was both a comfort and a disappointment. I was truly all alone in this world.
There was a scrape of sound, and the food gate opened. A tray with a small cup of water and a sandwich slid in and the gate quickly shut.
I got up and picked up the sandwich. “Well, at least I won’t starve.” I took a bite. “Bleh.” I pulled the sandwich apart to find it stuffed with daisies and mustard.
“This is going to be a long stay.”
A few hours later a pair of heavily armored guards came and guided me to what looked like an interrogation room. My handcuffs were shackled to a table in the middle, and I was given a chair to sit on. The guards left and a pair of ponies, one earth pony and one pegasus, walked in and started to talk to me. I imagined that they must have been trying to question me, but of course there was a small problem.
“Won, fi uoy nac trats ta eht gninigeb-"”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Haow, tahw dnik fo noom egaugnal saw taht?” The pegasus exclaimed.
“I don’t understand you.”
It basically devolved from there.
“Kool, tsuj kaeps Nairtseuqe!”
“I don’t understand what you are saying.”
“KAEPS NAIRTSEUQE!”
“Yelling doesn’t make it any better!”
Three hours of this, then they dragged me back to my cell and gave me another flower sandwich. The sun was setting, and I watched the light fade until only the soft glow of the restraining wards gave any light. I slept, fitfully.
“Sarah.”
I looked up from my book and smiled. “Frank! I’m so glad you called me out for coffee. We should go see a movie afterwards.”
Frank sat down across from me, looking nervous and troubled. “Sarah, I need to tell you something.” That was never a good start to any conversation.
“Frank, what is it? Is it us? What is wrong? Did I-”
“Calm down Sarah, it doesn’t have to do with us. It has to do with you, and with work.” Frank straightened up. “I heard that an audit is coming through your department soon. Apparently there has been some shady finances and the higher ups are thinking embezzlement.”
“I don’t need to worry about that, I’m completely clean.”
“Yeah, but sometimes these things can taint a department. You know all those rumors about infidelity with our eastern sales teams, right? There have even been a few break ups just because of rumor and suspicion. I don’t want you to have to suffer the same thing.”
“Well, what should I do?”
“Look, transfer to R&D’s finance division. They could use your talents and you would be out from under any shadow of suspicion this inquiry might cast.”
“Didn’t you apply for the R&D finance division manager position? We can’t date if you are my direct supervisor.”
“I did, but the position fell through. They promoted internally.” He shrugged. “Anyway, you want to put in that transfer request by tomorrow. Any later and you might get stuck.”
I nodded, smiling sweetly at him. “Thanks Frank. You always do look out for me.”
He smiled back. “Of course, what are friends for?” He leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
Three days of "interrogations" later and my captors had given up talking to me. The cast of characters had shifted slightly from day to day, but there were two constants.
The first was a guard pony, a female unicorn with a shield cutie mark. She was often gruff with her questions, even though I couldn't understand them. She had brought in and introduced a number of other ponies, showed me photos of things I had broken or stolen, sometimes even photos of ponies I'd hurt. I was sad or apologetic, but I never really understood what she was saying.
Her partner was smooth talking and friendly, and seemed to have a bit of a crush on the guard. His mark was a quill pen and a rook chess piece. He didn't strike me as a guard, but he definately got excited at odd times. It exasperated his partner to no end.
Today I was brought, not to an interrogation room, but into a doctors office. The ponies had uncuffed me for the examination, and had stationed almost a dozen heavily armed and armored guards outside the clinic. The pony doctor took my height, weight and temperature, guiding me around with a soothing voice and a gesture. Whenever he got a little too pokey I would bark a sharp "Hey!" at him.
He tried once or twice to disconnect my arm, and I actually snerked when he hooked a blood pressure cuff to it. When he motioned for me to disrobe I growled at him.
"hoo skool ekil ew tog a ssadab ereh." He said in a snarky tone, holding his fore-hooves up. He walked outside for a moment and returned with three spear wielding guards and the two interogators. He motioned for me to undress again, a victorious smile on his face.
I glowered at him and turned my back, pulling my shirt up. There was a comotion behind me, one of shock and worry. I had come to expect such reactions. Though D could heal me, it wasn't without scars. Aside from the claws, arrows, magical blasts and lightning bolts this world had hurled at me, I had nearly two years of dimension jumping to mar my body. I glanced back at the shocked ponies and gave them a wicked grin.
"Eramthgin, sti eht eramthgin!" One of the guards was obviously overreacting, waving his spear at me and shouting. The others were trying to calm him down.
Not wanting to get stabbed, I reached out with my metal right hand and caught the spear tip, pushing it away. The guard only became more alarmed at that, and swung the spear back with a panicked expression.
"Knock it off, kid."
I must have sounded more vicious than I thought, because the other guard had rounded on me and smacked me in the back of the head with the butt of his spear. The world blurred and spun, and darkness creeped in on the edge of my vision. As I passed out, the male interrogator was bouncing excitedly about something, and I thought I saw someone pull out a camera.
I was in my conversion pod, watching through the small window as the strange lights of the inter-dimensional void faded away to reveal a starry sky. There was a slight feeling of weightlessness, one I recognized as local gravity taking hold of the pod. I braced for the light bump as the pod came to rest on solid ground.
The bump didn't come. The sensation of weightlessness increased, and a sensation of gathering speed was added as a low whine began to build outside the pod. I looked at the altimeter and gasped. I was up. Way, WAY up. Over thirty six thousand feet, though that number was dropping rapidly.
I grasped at the controls but they were different, unusual. Instead of the normal buttons and switches I had foot pedals and a.....steering wheel?
It was my car. I was in a conversion pod that was now my car, miles above the planet and plummeting down with no control. My arms were bare of Machina and D. I slammed my foot on the brakes with no response. Outside friction flames began to lick around the window. Beyond the flames dark forms twisted past me.
Trees. I was burning, falling to the dark world below surrounded by falling, burning trees. The ember glowing branches battered and beat at my car, shoving me sideways and making me spin as I fell. Below the ground was getting closer and closer, jagged mountains reaching up for me.
I had nothing, I couldn't stop, couldn't flee. I could only watch in terror as the flaming branches of the burning forest around me smashed my windshield and pierced my arm, my leg, my heart. I could only scream in pain and terror as the ground rushed in with a final darkness.
I was still screaming when I sat up. My nightmare had managed to mix my accident and two of the most terrifying experiences dimension jumping together. I sat up and held my knees, sobbing in the dim light of the wards. Dawn was still hours away, but the adrenaline rushing in my veins would not let me sleep again tonight. I heard the guards moving outside, whispering to each other, fearful of me even in this state.
I had never felt so completely helpless and alone. I put my head on my knees and closed my eyes, not even trying to hold back the tears. I was still sobbing quietly to myself when the dawn came, and the guards opened my cell to take me away.
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are Sarah friend's dead the one in her arm?
wow these ponies need to look in a mirror sometime and ask themselves who the real monster now?
A grate chapter. I wood like to know what happen to Luna after the elements where use on Sarah. I am surprised Princess Celestia and Luna are not the one who are questioning Sarah. Can they not put a translation spell on Sarah to facilitate communication? Why has the elements of harmony not shown up? Sarah was giving grate lesson on misunderstanding people that they don't know. Twilight was having misgivings about whit has happen as the same as all the girls. Luna was there to see Sarah shielding the girls from real harm. Is it out of there hands? Is the fear of Sarah so bad that know one will step in to stop the insanity?
Keep up the grate work, and I can't wait for the next chapter.
Can anyone suggest a good artist? I want to add some art to the story and I need a few references.
Thanks everyone!
3024771
Thanks for the read.
What kept you away?
And what inspired you to read?
What did you like and dislike?
3024973 The reason why I never read it was because it was on my list of things I thought I would check out later. Though every time I was looking through the list of stories I was planning on reading I always thought I found something better. I was wrong. I also finally read it because I thought about it and thought it was really interesting. As for what I liked and disliked, lets make a list!
Likes:
-Great Idea! (I love the whole multidimensional thing, I have a story that focuses on multidimensional stuff too.)
-I like the spacing and how you wrote it. It wasn't rushed but it didn't linger on something for too long like some other stories.
-I like the idea of "D" and "Machina". Not many stories can pull that off in my opinion.
Sadly, Dislike time.
Dislikes:
-While I get she's shy, you don't need to do the whole really small font for Fluttershy. We can imagine how it would have been said. (I say this mainly because I can't see it too well sometimes.
-Personally, I never liked the whole "Type out AJ's accent" thing.
Though its not my story so it is entirely up to you as to how you keep writing it. I just think that, much like earlier, we can imagine the accent.
-----------
I didn't see any spelling errors but I wasn't really looking for them so that's my fault. (So none were really too noticeable.)
That's it for me. Sorry for the extremely long post. Keep up the good work.
(PS, I see what you did with the language mix up thingy. I got it after a while of trying things out.)
Love the language thing, love the everything omgwihjaobm;rs abkngfxnvcx,. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TOO MUCH LOVE!
heard
...
you asked for criticism.
6578387
Fixed. Thanks.