• Published 5th Mar 2016
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Earth Without Us - Starscribe



Human civilization ended on May 23, 2015, when everyone on earth became a pony. This is the story of how they lived, how they died, and what they achieved.

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Episode 2.1: Above it All

Jackie woke in agony. Every sense she had was overwhelmed, as though her brain had been plugged into a wall-socket but somehow she couldn't die. She saw in one timeless moment the vastness of creation, pouring in one end of her brain and out the other. She touched, heard, smelled, and experienced all things, or at least it seemed that way. As insane as it seemed, Jackie was more prepared for this than any of her companions. Once, she had touched Alex's memories and seen three centuries of life in a few seconds. A few days ago, Archive had shown her a vision of all the pain of refugees all over the planet. This was, in its way, not all that different.

The secret was not trying to hold on. Sensation was a vast current, and a single obstruction could sweep her away into madness. Jackie went as limp as she could, and waited for the alien sensations to pass. There was no thought, no time, or anything else familiar to her existence. She couldn't hope to retain any of what she experienced, yet she did fight to keep her individuality separate from the maelstrom. A single hoof into the current, and she would have been overwhelmed, perhaps forever.

It ended.

Jackie moaned, suddenly able to isolate her body from the rest of her surroundings and finding it not quite as she expected. Her forelegs lay comfortably at her sides, instead of in front of her. Her joints also seemed different, though it was hard to be sure. She still had wings, but... the part of her back they covered seemed wrong. It was as though she was longer than she expected, her wings smaller than they should be. It was very strange.

One fact alone seemed clear above all others: she wasn't on Earth. There was no air in her lungs here, and yet she did not feel the need for it. There was no ground beneath her, except as a symbol, a barrier between one place and the next. Again, Jackie was well prepared for what she found. Her whole career was designing dreams, after all. There were many symbols in dreams, and even things that appeared not to be were often mere facades. Nothing in a dream was real except as it mattered to the dreamer. Likewise, nothing was impossible except that the dreamer believed it so.

She opened her eyes. A sky stretched above her, somehow larger than any sky had a right to be. Billions and billions of spheres floated there, like miniature planets of every possible composition. The land around her appeared to be in the middle of a vast city, larger and grander than anything she had ever seen. Skyscrapers of rusty iron mixed with others of unidentifiable metals, or even stranger things like plastic or wood. Every empty space that wasn't a floor, be it a bench or the space between supports, was piled high with books, cramming every last nook. There were no covers close enough, with she herself in the middle of the street, yet the image was impossible to ignore. Jackie had no context to understand much of what she saw. Somehow, she could tell that every object, every formation, and even she herself, was really just a symbol. Unfortunately, that knowledge alone was not enough to decipher what they meant.

Under a thousand glittering suns, Jackie could see that she had changed. She wasn't human, but she wasn't quite a pony. Rather, she was somewhere in-between. She had hooves on her legs, but also arms with hands. She had fur, but also a mostly human face. Her hair was in the right place, but it still felt like it was made of the same stuff her mane had been. Her wings, placed as they were, made her out like more of a fantasy depiction of a demon than an animal really meant to fly.

The form did not strike her as one she wanted to keep. Decades ago, when she had returned to Earth, she would have given away anything to get her humanity back. Perhaps she would have settled for something in-between then, but not now. Now she had Ezri, a changeling drone who had become so much more to her than just Alex's daughter. They were as close as two ponies could be, save perhaps that they couldn't ever have foals of their own. Jackie would not have taken her humanity back now, not unless Ezri could be human too. It would be better to be stuck in a body that had been alien than not to have the pony she loved.

Speaking of which, how had she gotten here? Jackie tried to remember, but found to her horror that the onslaught of experience had blasted holes in her memory. In particular, she found recent thoughts elusive. The most recent thing she could remember for sure was a talk she had with Alex in her shop. Even so, that event felt... weeks away. Did that really mean it had taken that long? Where was this? Jackie's assumption was perhaps quite a natural one for a master of oneiromancy like herself: she assumed this was a dream. Alex had shown her strange things in dream before, perhaps this was just the next natural escalation.

Jackie gestured, calling upon her magic as she might've in a dream. She pictured Ezri standing beside her, helpful and eager as always. It was a fairly simple thing, made routine by decades of practice.

Nothing happened. Not the nothing of a dream too powerful to be altered easily, or the nothing she felt when she had used up all her magic. Rather, it was what she felt when she tried to use her powers in the real world. There was a little pressure, her will commanding reality to obey, it just wasn't nearly enough to make anything happen. It was a thimble to the ocean: theoretically enough to empty the whole thing, but in practice the water cycle would bring it all back no matter how long she stayed at it.

A single glance at the sky was all Jackie needed to see to know she wasn't on Earth. But if this wasn't Earth, where was she? Where was Ezri? She'd feel much better about wherever this was once she had her mate back.

She found Ezri after not much searching, only a handful of feet away from her. Jackie had to crawl over; she wasn't really sure how to move in this new body and learning was less important than making sure her mate was okay. Unfortunately, her haste alone did not ensure the changeling would be alright.

Ezri should not have been alive. A single glance filled her with horror, yet instead of revulsion she felt only compassion, pity for her lover. Changelings had holes in their legs that sometimes extended to their manes and tails, this much was to be expected. Ezri, however... she hadn't become halfway human upon arrival, as Jackie had. Instead, those ordinary holes had extended to pierce the rest of her body. They weren't natural either, but gaping, agonizing voids through which greenish fluids seeped and organs were visible. Yet she did not die. Instead she curled upon herself, writhing with constant agony.

"Ezri!" She reached out to comfort her mate, resting one hand on her shoulder. Agony came when she touched, filling her body and mind and making Jackie shiver and convulse with it. It was... well, though Jackie had never actually felt it before, it was a mental contact the likes of which Ezri had told her changelings used. She knew how to recognize it, even if... hadn't Ezri said some spell stopped her from using it too? Through that link, she could sense no sanity, only pain. The wounds visible in Ezri's body were not real, they were the evidence of something deeper. Jackie could no more heal them than she could stop the rivers in their course or bid the sun not to rise.

Yet even so, she held her, clutching at her friend in her agony and not caring how much of the pain spread to her, or how soiled her clothing got from the contact. Perhaps she could shelter her, somehow. Perhaps, with great effort, she could take some of the injuries instead, and so let Ezri survive.

She was conscious of something else, another shape beside them, but she did not move to investigate. She couldn't think straight when overwhelmed with Ezri's pain, could not consider anything at all except the reality before her. It was terrible agony, missing parts, void. The longer she felt it, the more nuanced her understanding became. Ezri hurt because she didn't belong. Just as Jackie's relationship with her let her find her dreams no matter where she slept, the changeling was bound to something, something that couldn't exist here. So those parts of her simply hadn't come, and she had gaping wounds instead.

Where were they? How had they come here?

Jackie didn't know how much time passed. She didn't feel tired, didn't feel the need to eat or sleep. She simply existed, sharing Ezri's pain and trying to will some of her strength in return. The changeling never seemed to reach consciousness, no matter how many times she tried talking to her. There was too much pain for that, no matter how strong her will.

Eventually though, she heard something else, a voice. It was so distinct that she could not help but sit up, searching for the speaker. There was no weather here, nothing besides the clear sky, so she couldn't mistake it for the wind. She had missed however the voice had started, yet as she forced herself away from the pain, she began to recognize what she heard.

"Not the one we expected."

"Could she have been separated?"

"Into these three? Impossible. None called for us. Look at the one; she's barely alive. The male should never have come here, not so soon. That only leaves the one with any coherence."

"She has no power."

Jackie opened her eyes, shaking away the pain and forcing herself to set Ezri back down where she had found her. Being with her in solidarity had been the right thing to do, maybe. But if there were others here, perhaps they could help. She saw, and was utterly stupefied at what she observed.

There were three of them, three radiant figures of different colors. Their bodies were perhaps eight feet tall, and each of entirely human yet entirely inhuman features. Each seemed to share features from both sexes, though it was hard to say for certain. Their skin glowed with an internal radiance, as though they were made of glass and merely gave a glimpse at the truth within. The three wore white robes of a similar caste, like something a vedic might've worn, though the specific designs upon them looked... almost out of an HPI tailor's shop.

One seemed too kind, condescendingly so. Another's expression seemed fierce and judgemental as it looked down upon her, as though it wanted to tear her apart. She settled on the center figure instead, the most tolerable mix of the three. Its body seemed cast of blue stormclouds, swollen with rain. In its four arms it carried four objects, though of the lot she recognized only a mace as anything familiar. There was some kind of flower, and... two other things even more unfamiliar. Symbols glowed on the being's forehead, and she recognized them at once for runes, even though she could not read them. Pity Alex wasn't around.

Though, she supposed if Alex had been here, she would've known where they were just by looking around, maybe even how to get them home. She surely wouldn't have just laid there with Ezri and tried to make her feel better. Whatever; Jackie might not be some divinely-invested Archive, might not have humans coming to her for advice like she was some kind of prophet, but that didn't matter. Just now, someone she cared about was in pain, and she wanted to help. If that wasn't divine, well... it would have to do as a substitute.

Jackie alone would probably have been too afraid of these imperious figures, multi-limbed and frightening, familiar yet alien. This place had a power to it, a power these beings seemed to share. It felt like many of the strong dreams she had sensed, back when she had worked primarily to stop nightmares. Strong dreams had strong figments, spirits of the dreamworld that played roles in many dreams from night to night. They had specific power within their dreams, and couldn't be easily ousted. These beings felt much the same, only... this wasn't a dream. What did it mean to have that kind of power over reality?

Was this what a human alicorn looked like?

The center figure suddenly met her eyes, and it smiled at her. "No, child. We are nothing like that. Though, for you to be here, you ought to already know what we are, yes? Didn't you create us to test you?"

The fierce, angry figure glowered at the first. "She did not. No seeker could hide power from us here."

The third figure shrugged, as if ambivalent. "It would be the first time we have ever seen a seeker."

Jackie didn't care about what they were talking about. She didn't care about who they were, or even where they were, so long as she could get Ezri back to normal. As she looked, forcing herself to see her friend again, she saw something else. Or rather, someone else, the sort of person she didn't see too often (at least not up close). The figure was human, that much was unmistakable. His hair was bright red, his eyes emerald, and his skin was covered with burns. He was in his mid-twenties, curled up into fitful sleep.

Yet she couldn't worry about the stranger, not now. Ezri was bleeding all over the ground, her insides were exposed and her soul was ripped apart. Jackie rose. It helped, though thanks to the massive height of these beings it only helped about as much as standing around humans usually did. She kept one hoof protectively close to Ezri, though not actually touching her. Despite how much her mate was leaking, there wasn't actually any blood pooling beneath her. Like everything else here, the blood was just a symbol. It was no more real than the humanoid form Jackie now stood in.

"Excuse me." Jackie cleared her throat. The figures all stopped talking, turning as one to face her. It was a frightening thing to see, as though they weren't three separate individuals at all, but one being occupying many bodies. Like a changeling queen, but also more than one. A queen only controlled more bodies. This being was more... three aspects of the same thing. How did Jackie know that? "My friend is hurt." She gestured down at Ezri. "You look... like you know things. Please tell me how to help her."

The figures regarded her impassively for some moments, and their glances at one another spoke more than any words could have. Jackie did her best to figure out what they meant, but... she couldn't get much. Eventually, the middle figure spoke up, its eyes lingering on Ezri at her feet. "Your friend does not belong here, Jacqueline Kessler. Neither do you. How did you get here?" Its tone was hard to judge; loving, yes, but also stern. It wasn't upset with her, but it also wasn't overly merciful.

Jackie frowned in response. Being interrogated wouldn't help Ezri. Yet, she got the feeling that resisting would help far less. She swallowed. "I don't remember."

"Do you know where you are?" That was the kinder of the three, its voice almost like a mother. No mother she had ever had, but... not as frightening, either. Patronizing, though. Jackie wasn't fond of that part.

"I don't. But I know my friend is hurt." She gestured again. "Please, help her. Or if not, help me so I can. It isn't fair that she should suffer like this."

"Suffering is never fair," said the tallest, sternest of the figures. Jackie wilted at its words, avoiding the strange flashes in its hands. The symbols there, though unfamiliar to her, were clear enough in their meaning. Destruction. If the patronizing figure was the kind mother, than this one was the avenging father, ready to break her into pieces. "Yet it is necessary, or stagnation is the result. Humans have always been afraid to destroy old things and replace them with new, yet still they do it."

"Not her." Jackie bent down, onto her knees. "Whatever else, take. I'll give you anything I have... It isn't much, I know. If I'd known I was coming to..." She trailed off. "Whatever. I'll do anything you ask if you help her."

"But not the other one?" This was the middle voice, the average of the other two. "Is his suffering inconsequential to you?"

Jackie swallowed, then shook her head. "Not that. I don't want him to hurt either, but I don't know him. He seems..." She almost had it, where she recognized him from. Then the image faded, and she was as confused as before. "I figured it had to be expensive. If I... If I can only help one, then it's going to be Ezri. My-my mate."

The blue figure nodded sagely. "Humans always imagine themselves undeserving of good things. Look at us; created to judge, condemn, and proclaim the worthiness of the one we waited for. Yet she need not suffer any judgement at all; merely reaching here was enough. As for you — this place would have destroyed you were it not for the intervention of others."

"You're saving us?" Jackie's eyes narrowed on the strangers, one hand clenching into a fist. Of course, she knew no possible violence could succeed against these creatures, whatever they were. Yet even so, she could not help but grow defensive. Any talk of hurting them sounded like some kind of threat.

"No, another. She's coming as quickly as she can."

The destroyer chuckled. "She will be as surprised as we were to find these wanderers here instead of the seeker we were waiting for. I would like to see her face."

Jackie shook her head. She felt as though she were getting lost, with the talk of creatures vastly beyond her experience. This was worse than hearing unicorns talk about their magic, in its way. At least what unicorns said had a kind of sense to it. These beings, and this place, well... Jackie had no clue what most of what they said meant, even though they used no special vocabulary to say it.

She gritted her teeth. "My friend needs help," she repeated, as loudly as she could, silencing their conversation again. "Please help her. I'll do anything."

They shared another look, and it seemed for a moment a silent argument was passing between them. Eventually the argument resolved, and the figure in their center stepped forward. "You need only decide, child." The figure gestured at her companions. "Decide for them and know the consequences last forever."

"Or do nothing and watch them die," said the destroyer, leering at her. "I could even do it for you. Make it swift and painless, not extend their agony as—"

"Yes." She advanced one step, past the weakly moaning Ezri. "They accept. Or... I accept for them."

The motherly figure turned her back on them, as did the destroyer. That left only the middle figure, considering her. It reached down, offering her what was to its scale only a teacup. To her, though, it was almost the size of a bucket, and she could only hold it with both hands. It was full to the brim with glowing white liquid, as bright as the figure who had given it to her. "Very well, Jacqueline Kessler. Be preserved." Did it sound pleased with her choice? "Your companions cannot drink it. Pour some into one of the openings on the parasite. Any will do, they all lead to the same place.

Jackie didn't hesitate, bending down a little and tilting the wooden cup. As the liquid fell, it began to shudder, boiling under an unseen flame. No heat emerged from the bubbles, though they did produce a smell like mildew. Jackie poured anyway, right into the hole in Ezri's chest.

It didn't take any experience with dreams to recognize magic when she saw it. It was healing on a scale Jackie had never seen, not under the hooves of any doctor or medical unicorn anywhere on the planet. Even the HPI, with their advanced robotic surgeries and regrowing organs, could offer only a pale imitation of what she saw. Ezri's dozen holes began to grow closed. Missing organs healed first, knitting themselves together even as her internal support structure (not a skeleton, since that was on the outside) began to repair itself. Eventually the holes themselves sealed shut. Ezri stopped moaning, and the tortured expression on her face became content. "What did you... do?"

"What did you do?" the towering creature corrected. "Mended what was not broken; given back what was never missing. You are not finished." The creature watched closely, his eyes falling on the tormented human. Jackie expected resentment as she looked at him, yet for some reason she could not explain she could feel only gratitude. Maybe he had been kind to her in a past life? Either way, she no longer questioned the need to help him. "His malady is different. The other was fighting to rise against a stone about her ankles; he cannot even swim. To save him, we must drown him."

"What?" Jackie glanced down at the bucket. "Drown..."

"Indeed." The strange figure tilted its head to one side. "He cannot move or speak here, for him the torture is too great. Yet submerge him, and he will wake."

Jackie set the bucket down beside his head, lowering herself to her knees. The fur helped a little with the discomfort, but not much. Being on her knees on concrete was every bit as uncomfortable as she remembered. Before she actually moved, though, she remembered something, and removed her hands from the boy's head. "Excuse me... uh... whoever you are."

"The name imagined for me was Hari. My role is guardian, yet neither are true today. The first will do."

"Hari." The name was vaguely familiar to Jackie. Just not familiar enough to actually connect it with anything. "This one is human, isn't he?"

"So far as becoming partly alien has not tempered your desire to have dominion over all things through names, yes."

"Isn't this place filled with magic?" Another nod. "And humans can't tolerate magic, can they?"

This time, the figure seemed troubled by the answer. It scratched its chin with one now-empty hand, then eventually shrugged one shoulder. "Humans exist, do they not?"

Jackie glowered, but she didn't dare question the answer. Instead, she just went on. "How is he still alive in a place filled with magic? Why wasn't he turned into a monster?"

This time, the figure seemed less troubled by the question. As it spoke, Jackie realized its companions had gone. She hadn't seen them walk away, or the flash of a teleport... they just weren't here anymore. Hari seemed not to notice either. "A grain of rice in the mouth of a starving man is not enough to sustain him. Yet a thousand bowls of rice will explode his belly. Is it not so?" It was her turn to nod, looking between the cup full of strange potion and the closed eyes of her new companion. "This..." he repeated the word uncomfortably, as though he didn't care for it but could find none better "'place,' untempered, is such to all but those who seek for it." The towering being narrowed its eyes. "You delay. Preserve the other."

Had Hari asked her to do this first, she would certainly have refused to take its help with Ezri, fearing what else it might intend. Yet after what she had seen, it was abundantly clear it did have the power to heal. Wherever this was... maybe she could ask that next. Jackie took the human's head in both hands, lowering him down into the water. His flesh was so weak from the burns that it sloughed off at her touch, revealing charred muscle and bone beneath. Yet even still, he struggled once his head was in the water, coughing and spluttering reflexively.

She made to let go, yet she heard an imperious voice in her ear as she did. "Stop! If he escapes, he'll be torn apart! Hold him down!"

She obeyed, pressing a knee to his back instead of the pavement. Had she actually been thinking about what was going on, she never could've done it. As it was, Jackie still couldn't help but see everything around her as a dream. A strange dream that never seemed to end, perhaps. But a dream nonetheless. She held the human's head under the liquid until he stopped struggling and went limp. The instant he stopped moving, Jackie withdrew in horror, retreating a pace from his limp form. "You just... made me—"

"I did not. Remove him and see."

She did, darting back down and drawing out the human by his shoulders, laying him on his back. She was astonished to see flesh on his face again, with no sign of the charred ruin that had been there before. No sooner did she release him than he started to cough and splutter, hacking out mouthfulls of glowing fluid that boiled away the instant they touched the ground. After a few seconds his movement stilled, and he too seemed to sleep peacefully.

"Your work is not done." He gestured at the cup, sitting on the ground. "Drink the rest."

Jackie did not obey reflexively. She did pick the cup back up in both arms... or tried. To her shock, its size seemed to shift as she went for it, and was only the size of a teacup by the time she picked it up. It was like a disorienting optical illusion, one of the best she had ever seen. It was still full to the brim, though that too might only be a trick of perspective. "Why? I'm not hurting like they are."

Hari shrugged one shoulder again. "You have changed them, Jackie, and taken away their ability to choose. If you return to the Phenomenal Origin, do you intend to do so without having also changed yourself? Will you be able to live with yourself when you realize the consequences of what you have done to her, if you do not suffer along with her?"

Jackie tilted back the glass and downed its contents in a single deep swig. Unlike Alex, she wouldn't subject someone she cared about to difficulty without being willing to share it. Alex had abandoned them in the face of greater priorities: Jackie would not abandon her mate.

The liquid had no taste, like swallowing mineral oil. Yet where its apparent boil had produced no heat outside, it burned where it touched her flesh. She dropped immediately to the ground, losing her grip on the glass and staggering as it shot through her body. It was like fire, burning at her insides, spreading from its point of origin and stealing away her strength. She shook under the pressure, nearly falling to one side.

Just as with Ezri and the human, the pain did not last long. Only, it didn't put her to sleep. She could feel the sleep trying to take her, yet she resisted. It was a futile fight. A few moments more, and she could maintain her concentration no longer. Jackie slipped into unconsciousness, and the strange otherworld faded.

Author's Note:

Here's the old cover from this section: