The Dream Catcher

by SilverOrion

The Colt Scouts Meet

"Miss Cheerilee, can you explain to me what Pipe Dream was doing at the time you were with him?"

Cheerilee paused for a moment, recollecting her thoughts.

"I was trotting along, to the schoolhouse, to grade some of the homework assignments which had been turned in to me the day before, when I saw Pipe Dream. He looked... uneasy, to say the least. He was just standing there, looking away from me, as if it was from some horror tale. I said "Hello," to him, but he didn't answer, he just kept looking off into the distance."

"Did anything else happen?"

"Well, yes, and that's what I was getting to. After speaking with him for a moment, I told him I'd walk him up to the schoolhouse. Something about him seemed different; disturbed, even, which is why I had even offered to walk him to the schoolhouse to begin with. Anyway, as I was trotting with him up to the schoolhouse, trying to engage him in a conversation, until he had this... expression, on his face. It was probably the most disturbing thing about him at the time. He... was looking at the schoolhouse with this look of terror and revulsion on his face. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't respond. He just kept looking higher and higher at the schoolhouse - which looked fine to me - with this increasingly intense expression of terror and revulsion, until he finally shook his head, eyes plastered to the schoolhouse, with horror all over his face."

"Was there anything else?"

"Yes, and it was worse. As I kept trying to get his attention, he simply jerked around - as if he was trying to get away from the schoolhouse - only to stop dead in his tracks in front of... something. At least, I didn't see anything, but apparently he did, because he was looking ahead of himself as if he was looking something in the eyes. Then he had this new expression - not an expression of revulsion, but instead of terror, despair. It was as if he was so terrified, he couldn't feel the fear anymore, just despair. Then he yelled, "No, no I'm not!". That's when I had enough, and I shouted his name to get his attention. Thankfully, it sounded like he heard me, and he turned around as if he was going to run towards me, but then he stopped and looked at me the same way he had looked at the schoolhouse. Then he shook his head, as if he had lost all hope, then he yelped, looking down at his hooves. I don't know if he realized it, but he was hyperventilating at the time, even sobbing, as he was looking down at his hooves - then he cried out in pain, and then... he passed out."

"Is that all?"

"That's all. Then I brought him into the schoolhouse and told a mare inside the schoolhouse to get help, and-"

"Then she came to me and brought me here to see if Pipe Dream was alright?"

"Yes."

There was a brief silence in the room as both Cheerilee and the psychiatrist gazed at the now sleeping Pipe Dream, who was snoring lightly while laying down on the floorboards.

- - -

"Pipe Dream..."

Pipe Dream groaned from fatigue.

"Pipe Dream..."

Pipe Dream slowly began to wake up, his eyes still closed; all he could see was black.

"Pipe Dream, are you alright?" came that voice again, "I think he's coming to."

That voice... Was it Miss Cheerilee? What if there was something still wrong with her? What if she became some kind of hellish looking zombie-pony? "I just want to go home," Pipe Dream thought wearily, panicking a little that Miss Cheerilee sounded so close.

"No, stay back... There's something wrong... With Miss Cheerilee..." Pipe Dream managed to mumble.

"Nothing is wrong with Miss Cheerilee," spoke another voice, from a stallion.

"...Make it go away... Is it gone?" Pipe Dream managed to say.

"Whatever you saw is gone. You can open your eyes now." spoke the same stallion.

Slowly, Pipe Dream opened his eyes into slits, seeing two blurred figures - a purple mare, and a brown stallion who appeared to be wearing a white coat. As Pipe's vision slowly came into focus, he realized that the purple mare was Miss Cheerilee - completely normal, and not scary. Looking to the side, Pipe could see that the brown stallion had an orange mane and tail, and was wearing a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck.

"How do you feel?" spoke the stallion in an optimistic tone - in a way which sounded a little far off to Pipe Dream.

After a couple moments, Pipe Dream answered, "...Fine, just... Tired."

"Good," the stallion responded. Turning to Miss Cheerilee, he continued, "For now, I would diagnose this as a case of hypnagogia. He should be fine."

"Hypnagogia?" Cheerilee responded, "only hypnogogia?"

The stallion looked back at Pipe Dream with a slightly puzzled look on his face before turning back to Cheerilee.

"From what I know, the best medical conclusion I can make from this is that Pipe Dream had been sleep deprived to the point of exhaustion, and had fallen into a state of hypnagogia before passing out... Besides that,I've never had a case like this one before." the stallion finally stated.

Miss Cheerilee seemed unsatisfied with the stallion's answer, looking back at Pipe Dream for a brief moment, before finally saying, "He was wide awake when I trotted up to him - if he was sleep deprived, I would have known - and trust me, I've seen sleep deprived colts and fillies in my classroom before."

"Hypna... what?" Pipe Dream finally asked, beginning to perk up a little.

Cheerilee and the stallion looked back at Pipe Dream after his remark, then the stallion sighed and looked back at Cheerilee.

"Like I had said before, I have never seen a case like this, never in my life at work." the stallion finally said.

Miss Cheerilee continued to look back at Pipe Dream with an agitated look on her face; as she did so, the stallion began to pack up his things before leaving the room with an optimistic goodbye to everyone.

"What's hypna... What he said?" asked Pipe Dream.

Uttering a sigh of frustration, Cheerilee responded, "It basically means you're fine."

Not feeling very comforted by the meaning of Cheerilee's reply, Pipe Dream looked off to the side of where he was lying down. Pipe Dream saw that he was lying down on the floor, close to the wall. on the other side of the room, desks were stacked on top of each other - probably to make space for the colt scout meet. Then Pipe Dream remembered.

"The colt scout meet!" said Pipe Dream. Then, more hesitantly, he added, "Did... Did I... Did I miss it?"

"No, you didn't miss it," replied Cheerilee, "you came a little early, actually. The other colts should be coming soon."

Miss Cheerilee almost turned away, but looked back at Pipe Dream instead.

"Will you be alright, Pipe Dream?"

"I... Should be f-fine..." replied Pipe Dream, still feeling a little nervous around Cheerilee.

Cheerilee gave Pipe Dream a little smile before trotting to her desk at the end of the room.

After watching Cheerilee trot away, Pipe Dream slowly got back onto his feet, knowing something was wrong. He couldn't help thinking about how he had fallen into a nightmare - while he was awake. How is that possible? How can that even happen? Nothing made sense. Finally, Pipe Dream decided to think that it must've been because he was away from his dream catcher, and since he was farther away from it, it was making him even more susceptible to nightmares. Yeah, that must've been it... It had to have been it... It had to...

After comforting himself with his own explanation for what happened, Pipe Dream glanced at the door. Was everything... normal... out there too? Pipe Dream nervously crept beside the door, unsure if he should look outside.

"I just gotta get over this - it's all normal, I know it is." Pipe Dream said to himself.

Pipe Dream tried to slowly move his head around the corner. It would be easy, right? Just real slow, no need to rush, just, just slowly move his head around the door, and everything would turn out to be fine.

No, that wasn't working. No matter how many times Pipe Dream began to try, he kept resisting from getting his head out the door. Pipe Dream changed his mind - if he was going to look around the corner, he was going to have to do it fast and get it over with. After swallowing hard, and breaths moving faster, Pipe Dream closed his eyes. He was ready to look outside.

After shoving his head out the door, Pipe Dream quickly forced his eyes open - only to be looking face to face with two large eyes, red in the middle.

"Aaaah! Help!"

Pipe Dream stumble backwards after his cry of terror, only to see that he just stuck his face into the face of another colt just like him. In response, the other colt flinched, then burst out laughing.

"Really? I hope I'm not that scary!" said the colt, who turned out to be a pegasus, with a light green coat and a blue mane and tail.

"Of course you are! You scare everyone!" said a black-coated filly with a flame-like mane and tail behind him.

The colt just ignored her, then said "Miss Cheerilee! Don't grade my homework yet!" before galloping inside the schoolhouse to attempt to plead Cheerilee about something concerning his homework. The filly then trotted in behind him, then looked down at Pipe Dream with a smile on her face. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm ok." responded Pipe Dream. Realizing that how he just reacted to the colt earlier, he suddenly felt self-conscious about himself. "Darnnit Pipe Dream, why are you so bad at first 'mpressions?" he thought to himself, before saying, "oh, and I'm sorry, I'm not... not usually like th-this, I-I'm just far from home and-"

"Trust me," replied the filly, "I know."

Pipe Dream felt a little comforted by the filly's remark, before responding "hey, what's y-yer name?"

The filly stopped, then looked thoughtful, before replying "I'll tell you later."

Pipe Dream thought nothing of it, before some more colts trotted in, one of them trotting up to Pipe Dream in a rush.

"You alright there? You just fell over."

"Ahm ok," Pipe Dream responded, feeling a little more confident now. Getting back up on his hooves, Pipe Dream continued, "thanks fer asking, th-though."

"Name's Clean Slate," continued the other colt, holding out one hoof.

Pipe Dream looked confusedly at Clean Slate's hoof.

"You hit your hoof on it," said Clean Slate, "didn't you know that?"

"Oh, oh yeah," said Pipe Dream, before hitting his hoof on Clean Slate's hoof. Pipe Dream saw Belfry and Bats hit their hooves together before, but Pipe Dream never really understood up until now.

"Alright colts, everypony sit in a half-circle by the wall." spoke the voice of a stallion who was just entering the room, who had both a brown coat and a forest green mane. Another stallion, probably an assistant, followed him into the schoolhouse.

"C'mon, come sit by me." said Clean Slate, motioning Pipe Dream to follow. Before turning to follow Clean Slate, Pipe Dream glanced back outside. Everything outside was normal, just the way he saw it the first time. Pipe Dream then proceeded to trot with Clean Slate with the other colts.

Sitting down in a half circle, Pipe Dream looked around him, seeing a turnout of about twenty colts in the room, if not a little more. Each colt was either a pegasus, unicorn, or an earth pony. Pipe Dream also took note that there were no fillies in the group. He decided that it only made sense, since it was a colt scout meet after all.

Standing in the center of the half circle, the stallion cleared his throat before speaking.

"Alright colts, you can call me Captain Green, since I will be your scout leader for the year. Today is our first colt scout meet of the year, and as with every beginning of the year, it's tradition to start with telling one of our stories about great stallions, stallions we all should see as role models."

Pipe Dream heard some whispering amongst the colts in the group as the stallion stopped speaking for a moment. Then, the assistant stallion came and whispered something into Captain Green's ear, before Captain Green spoke again.

"Unfortunately, our story teller is a little under the weather today, so he couldn't make it." continued Captain Green.

Captain Green looked over in Cheerilee's direction, before continuing, "However... Miss Cheerilee, would you mind telling the colts any stories you might know? They've already heard everything from me and Helping Hand, here.

Cheerilee looked up from her homework assignments, looking a little flustered. "Stories? For a colt scout meet?"

"Only if you'd like, of course." responded Captain Green.

"I don't know..." Cheerilee responded.

"Please?" pleaded some of the colts.

Cheerilee mulled over the idea of telling a story in a colt scout meet before answering.

"Well, I only know one story, but it's only a legend." continued Cheerilee

"Even a legend is fine." replied Captain Green.

"Alright, if you insist. I have plenty of time to finish grading these assignments anyway." chimed Cheerilee before setting her things aside and trotting up to Captain Green.

"Alright, I remember reading one story back at the university I had attended. It has been documented as a legend, although some archaeologists insist on its being a true story. It goes like this, and it is called, "the Legend of Olympus."