Viral

by AnchorsAway

Chapter 12: Dark Dreams

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It started like it had every night, with the tossing and turning before slipping into the deep abyss of sleep.

But this time was different. Somepony else was watching.

Romulus couldn’t see her, but he could hear her. And feel her too, an overbearing presence weighing down upon him. She was an itch living inside him that he just couldn't scratch.

I don’t like this. It feels like you’re poking me in the head with an icepick.

Try to relax, the soothing voice said. You won’t even notice I’m here before long. Why don’t we start from the beginning?

The beginning?

From wherever it usually starts. I'm just along for the ride.

There was no backing out of this now. It always starts that night in the bar.

The darkness was shifting changing. Things were beginning to materialize out the nothingness. A radio blaring some loud rendition of what sounded like cats fighting on a tin roof, bled through the fog, growing in volume.

Romulus could smell the rank stench of cigarette smoke, which he had loathed about the place, but it was the only place to get a drink this far out in the sticks. His forelegs were resting on the stained bartop, a half-empty bottle of cider clenched tight in one hoof. He was in his usual spot at the end, by the busted jukebox.

It was like he was there again, both living the memory and experiencing it from afar.

This is him, the scrawny stallion in the suit with the patchy beard.

The new arrival was turning some of the regular’s heads. He was definitely out of place in this neck of White Tail Woods. No, everything about this pony screamed government worker, down to the khaki-colored tie.

He was young, much younger than he expected, hardly a hind of stubble beneath the pony's soft features. This was who they sent?

“Romulus,” the stallion said, spotting the bat pony at the end of the bar. He threaded his way through the wary stares, extending a hoof. “Great to finally meet you.”

“Remind me again?” Romulus asked, his lips moving on there own as if controlled by somepony else. It was strange to hear himself talk without having any control. But he could feel the slur in his words, the cider washing over him and making his nerves buzz with a faint numbness - an everpresent sensation during that particular period of his past.

“Fourbit,” the stallion cleared his throat, looking apprehensively about the bar. “From the Equestrian Defense Coalition. I must admit," he grumbled, "this isn’t what I had in mind when you agreed to meet me.”

Romulus shrugged his shouldered, hammering back another swig from his bottle. “You said pick a place I felt comfortable.” He waved his hooves about the room. “So here I am.”

“Right,” Fourbit winced, sliding beside him on a scratched barstool. “Well your file looks good,” Fourbit said after clearing his throat, the young buck retrieving a folder from his saddlebags. He leafed through several pages, the expensive watch on his hoof swaying heavily as he did. “Graduate of Baltimare Military Academy. Served as one of the head Lieutenants of Princess Luna’s Night Watch for seven years with a possible promotion to Captain in the works. You applied for three months off which was granted, but then you resigned the Watch shortly before you were to start again.” Fourbit was looking at him over the top of the file, his styled mane flipping from side to side of his skinny neck. “That's really the only clarification I need at the moment. No official reason was documented with the Guard for your sudden departure. Care to explain?” he wondered.

“Personal reasons,” Romulus hiccupped. “Which actually means none of your business.”

“Fair enough,” Fourbit conceded without argument. Romulus hadn't been expecting that. Not that he really cared; he was only entertaining the pony's strange offer.

“It doesn’t show a dishonorable discharge, which is good enough in my bosses books.” Fourbit continued through the stack of papers. “You then worked two years as a hired gun for Black Raven before turning to freelance.”

Fourbit set the file down, pressing his hooves together and studying the bat pony at the bar table in the dim fluorescent lighting. “Look, do just want to get straight to the point here, or do want the normal schpeel I give everypony else?"

"I'd prefer the short version if you don't mind," Romulus grunted. "It's a long walk back home, and my sloshed ass is bound to end up blacked out in a ditch between here and there. So you might as well get to it."

Fourbit was unfazed by his crass indignation, the stallion pulling his barstool closer to detach himself from the overlapping conversations bouncing around the smoky bar. "Here's where I'm at right now, Romulus. You meet all the qualifications for the planned operation. Experienced in the field with a high potential security clearance. I think," he flexed his hooves, "at the price you are asking for your services that you would make a great addition to the team. So what do you say Romulus? Can we count you in.”

“You haven’t even told me what the job is,” Romulus scoffed, swirling the remaining cider in the bottom of his bottle before polishing it off and motioning to the mare behind the counter. "Can't do my job if I don't have the foggiest what it is you want me to do."

“Tell me, Romulus, have you ever heard the ancient Zebran legend of the Koballa?” he wondered, eyeing him like a fox observing an unattended hen house.

“No,” he told Fourbit, the bar mare setting a fresh bottle of cider in front of each stallion. “But I guess you're going to tell me. I thought you said this was the short schpeel?”

Fourbit pushed his own cider to the side, leaning closer. "Trust me, it is," he assured. "Just hear me out."

"You have until I finish this cider," he quipped, taking along draw from the bottle. "So...Koballa?"

"The ultimate warrior," Fourbit translated. "Zebran culture tells of how these demons from the underworld entered the body, turning the host into an unstoppable warrior. Those possessed could kill even the fiercest champion, and that those the Koballa controlled attacked friend and foe alike. The legend went that Ziballa, the Zebra Chieftan's most trusted shaman warned that left unchecked, the Koballa would overrun the Overworld, closing an end to days. It was only Ziballa called on their sun god, ruler of light, that the demons were wiped from the overworld.

“An interesting story,” Romulus remarked, more interested in his cider. “But history and culture really aren’t my forte. What use is folklore to me?”

“History tells us this was tribal mythology tied to their shamanistic religions,” Fourbit admitted, “But it’s an interesting story.”

Fourbit then tapped a hooftip to his lips. “But then something funny happened," he pondered. "This mare from the Royal Canterlot University with a degree I can’t even pronounce, something to do with like, really old viruses, wondered if there was more than just mythology. A Dr. Harvest Night, bright mare, but did she have some ideas that were out there,” he chuckled, brushing his mane to the other side. “She starts to see connections with other old and forgotten tales. The skinwalkers of Maretonia, the red death of gryphon high culture, vampires of old ponish, the Temple of the Ghost Tribe of the Tenochtitlan in modern-day Caballo."

He pulled another folder from his saddlebag.

“That's where we hit paydirt, at least in the Tenochtitlan Basin. Dr. Harvest cross-referenced the descriptions of the Caballan temple location with DC satellite scans, and as Celestia herself as my witness, I couldn’t believe it when we received the photographs."

Fourbit slid the photo across the pitted and scarred bartop. The picture was blurry at best, a smudge of brown and tan enshrined in patterns of green.

"There it was, poking through the treetops," Fourbit pointed. "An ancient temple untouched for thousands of years.”

“I bet there's a story behind this one too,” Romulus groaned. The bottle was nearly empty, and he was eyeing the door, already fishing out some bits.

“Supposedly, it was the tomb to their king, a pony who was blessed by the gods with power and strength, longevity rivaling an alicorn's. That is what this whole operation is all about Romulus.” He was obviously getting excited by his own story.

Fourbit looked into his eyes, the skinny stallion transfixed on him. “Each old legend from completely disconnected ethnic regions correlated the same thing. Speed, incredible strength, increased healing, decreased aging all buried within folklore and legend. And then this mare, this stupidly brilliant mare, come to us with the insane notion that what if there were truths behind these tales. Can you imagine it, Romulus, if the average Equestrian soldier had that? Do you know what that would do?”

He shook his head drunkenly, setting the bottle of cider down and pushing it away. Honestly, the pony's feverish rambling was beginning to make him uncomfortable.

“It means,” Fourbit explained, “we have the key to making sure Maretonia never stands a fighting chance against us, or anypony for that matter. The key to keeping Equestria the sole superpower and leader of the free world. Can’t you imagine it? No more dead soldiers, No more field hospitals or veteran halls full of damaged and broken ponies. An end to the pain of not just war, but disease, affliction, and every other ravage of the body. Haven’t you ever wanted to live forever, Romulus?”

Suddenly the memory was fading, the scene dematerializing around him like paper in a fire.

It was night, and it was enveloping him. Surrounding him. And Romulus was scared.

I don’t like this, Princess.

Just try to keep calm, the voice in his head said. Remember its only a dream. Nothing can hurt you here.

Fires surrounded the expedition camp, wood piled high atop bonfires creating a ring of light. The sun was setting, the towering trees casting strings of shadow across the jungle basin. They would be coming soon.

"The jungle. I was here."

He was gripping his rifle tight in his hooves. Romulus checked the clip of machined steel bolts for the fifth time, adjusting the gas propellent cartridge to its highest setting. They had been caught off guard the last night. Not tonight.

“Where’s Bitter Root?” he heard one of the other mercenaries ask from across the camp.

“What do you mean?” another asked, running up.

“I mean he’s gone. His cot is empty.”

“How? He was running a fever of a hundred and six. How could he have walked off?”

“Hey!” shouted another voice, a mare. “Give me a hoof. Persimmon is seizing! Where’s the medkit!”

Romulus would only catch a glance of the afflicted mare flailing on her bedroll, white foam frothing from her blistered lips, somepony trying to hold her down, when the yell rang across the encampment.

“Sweet Celestia. There here! Open fire!”

Romulus looked up to see the swarm descend over the camp.

They came by the hundreds, bats, black as the night sky itself. He raised his rifle up and pulled the trigger, unleashing a torrent of gas propelled bolts.

Thwap! Thwap! Thwap! his auto-cross spat, but there were too many. Everything flew to black as they dove down, as if they had swallowed the camp whole.

And to the black void, he was thrust.

I-...I don't feel so well.

You're ok, it's just your emotions of that night running free, unhindered. What happened next, the voice in his head asked him, reaching out across the endless black void.

I’m not sure. I usually wake up right about now,Romulus answered the call.

But this time was different, he realized. Something was pulling him down further. He was falling, descending further and further into the bottomless pit. There was something here. Something he thought he had forgotten.

Wait. Something is here.

The hot jungle air pressed down on Romulus, causing sweat to pour from his body in thick rivulets, soaking his gear and stinging in his eyes. He was out of breath and gasping for air, the humid sludge of atmosphere, causing him to gasp with every breath. But they couldn’t stop. They would be dead if they stopped, especially after last night.

Nightfall was an hour away, and those surviving of the expedition were still a mile from the evac site.

They were passing the ruins now, their target bypassed, the stone temples and monuments peeking through the jungle trees in the fading light, covered in growth and vine.

The previous night had been a slaughter. The fires had helped, but there had just been too many. Now they were only a small hooful left. They had searched in the morning, but they had never found Bitter Root. Most of the others figured he had stumbled into the jungle, delirious from the fever cooking his brain to death. Now they were missing half a dozen more.

“Where is the bloody airship,” one of the other mercenaries cursed, slinging his auto-cross and quickening his trot through the overgrowth.

“Casing,” Romulus thought he remembered the stallion’s name. He was dead for sure, but Romulus still remember the merc. It had been a while since he had seen Casing’s sweaty and scared face.

“Just keep moving,” one of the Defence Coalition mares whose name slipped his mind barked. “The ship will be there if you can hightail your behinds to the evac point. Get moving!” She unclipped a radio from her saddlebag. “Recovery team, give me an update.”

The radio crackled with static, a voice struggling to be heard. “We breached the sarcophagus. We’re preparing to retrieve the sample specimen now.”

“How much longer should it take?” the DC mare pressed. She had taken over the expedition after Fourbit got his flank killed, and she was much more vocal than the late leader.

“Another fifteen. Dr. Harvest is hurrying as fast as she can, but she says we need to stabilize the samples for transport.”

“You have five to make it to the evac point,” the mare with the radio warned.

“But Dr. Harvest say–”

“I don’t care what in Tartarus she says!” the mare swore into the radio. “Get those samples to the evac point now, or I’ll have the hired guns pry them out your hooves and leave you behind.”

Romulus watched from several ponies back as the mare flicked through the radio channels, raising the communicator to her mouth again.

“Where are you, Transport One. We’re literally running out of daylight here!”

“Coming up on station now,” another voice answered. “Standby for shells.”

The DC mare slung the radio and waved a hoof across the ragged expedition. “Get you flanks down! Now!”

Several low thumps echoed over the jungle basin, a high pitched screech following a second later.

Boom!

The treeline ahead of them exploded in a shower of fire and smoke, a wave of hot air nearly knocking Romulus off his hooves. He held a leathery wing in front of his face as leaves and branches peppered the expedition survivors, the bat pony ducking as a limb as big as his torso shot over his head.

He felt it graze his mane, the experience still as vivid in his mind as the day it had happened.

Stars!

When the debris stopped raining from the sky, and the ringing in his ears was little more than a faint buzz, they stepped out into the newly formed clearing. All that was left of a once vibrant patch of jungle was nothing more than a few smoldering stumps and scarred earth.

An airship hovered into place over the clearing, descending like a great silver bird over the survivors. “Landing zone secure, team leader.”

“Everypony on the airship. Let’s go!” the DC mare prodded, sliding open the bay door and yelling over the prop wash.

One by one they wearily filed inside, gripping the hoof rails tight, some even closing their eyes in prayer.

He and Casing were at the back of the line when they heard it. He could never forget it.

Auto-cross fire. Then the screams. A sudden, incomprehensible burst of shouts and jumbled curses of terror from the radio followed by the sound of something wet tearing.

They were coming from the ruins.

Everypony was beginning to push now, an air of uncertain tension, causing them to scramble into the airship. The sun had just sunk behind the distant mountains, plunging the jungle basin into muted twilight. More shots could be heard now, but the screams were quickly fading. It was madness.

“On the airship!” the DC mare yelled. “Everypony get on NOW! Recovery, where are you?”

As if to answer, sompony burst through the treeline, two insulated black saddlebags slung across his back. The poor pony's rifle was hanging by its strap, jostling across his chest as the stallion sprinted toward them.

It was the other merc, Sureshot. He had been with Harvest and the recovery team.

“Wait!” he cried, blood seeping from a bite in his neck. “Don’t leave me!”

Blood. Romulus could see the signs now. They had all seen the signs with Persimmon and Bitter Root: fever, nausea, vomiting, seizures. There was something in the blood.

Casing unholstered his pistol from his chest rig, charging the gas cylinder and aiming a steel bolt at the stallion. “Stop! Don’t come any closer!”

But Sureshot didn’t stop. He kept running, his neck spurting crimson red ribbons.

“I mean it, Shot! I’ll shoot! Get back!”

Bang!

Everypony instinctively ducked their heads, screaming more as they forced their way onto the airship.

Sureshot was hit in the right foreleg, the bolt protruding from the skin. But still, he didn't stop.

He was still limping toward them when the first figure launched itself from the treeline.

It was big, and fast too. It flew through the air, propelled by its leap, sailing across the clearing like a something out of Tartarus.

It landed on Sureshot, pulling the stallion down with it. The creature, which was the only way Romulus could now remember it, because that's what it was (a creature) tore into Sureshot in a violent eruption of red. So much red.

Everything was a blur now. Casing was shooting, emptying the clip in the pistol levitated before him. The DC mare had scooped up the insulated saddlebags Sureshot had dropped and was shutting the hatch to the airship.

Sureshot was basically gone, nothing remaining but a bloody puddle that mixed with the torn earth. The creature had turned its attention to him, the unholy black monster with wild blue eyes and a mouthful of horrifying teeth looking at him with a bottomless hunger, it's appetite unsated. Dog tags hung around its neck, suspended on a short chain and what remained of the wholly torn remnants of camouflage fatigues.

It was Bitter Root, there was no doubt about it.

The monster was Bitter, or what had once been. Romulus could still his face, his boney cheeks, and crooked nose, now twisted into some demon out the night.

Casing had reloaded, firing a bolt at Bitter Root, the sharpened steel bouncing off his hardened black skin like a useless pebble.

Bitter fell on Casing in an instant before Romulus had even closed the hatch to the airship, the aircraft clawing its way higher over the jungle. Everypony was freaking out, the DC mare was shouting to “launch the bird” into her radio stuffing the insulated saddlebags into a cooler, and his head was spinning faster than the propellers.

The “bird” came rocketing over the mountain tops of the jungle basin a minute later, a cone of fire. The missile erupted over the ruins in a blinding ball of light, the shock wave flattening trees and brush for miles around.

“Hold on!” somepony screamed as the shockwave lifted the tail end of the airship, throwing Romulus off his hooves. His head struck metal, and everything exploded into thousands of tiny, whispering lights.

He was on the porch of the homestead, the steel of the airship cabin and the smell of sweat and terror and the copper-infused scent of blood replaced with the rich aroma of earth and soil.

Romulus was back on the porch with the pitcher of iced tea and the stalks of corn billowing in the wind and the flower beds he had planted with his own two hooves.

No.

The soft, gentle humming from the mare inside the wood-paneled house had already stopped, like it always had. It always played out the same way.

First, the humming would stop, then the water would come. Such was the inner clockworks of this place.

Luna, wake me up. I’m ready to wake up.

But nopony answered.

He was trapped, forced to relive everything yet another time. The trickle of water had just started to flow out of the house and across the porch. He was already standing up from his rocking chair, setting his dirt-stained gloves and sun hat on the hook by the door.

He wanted to stop, to walk off the porch and lose himself in the endless rows of corn. But he was not in control here. Romulus was merely along for the ride.

The screen door shut behind him with a clatter, his hooves squelching in the water covering the floorboards. Motes of dust danced across the sun rays streaming in through the curtains, swirling around his body as he advanced step by agonizing step.

Wake me up, Luna. I don’t want to be here. Please, wake me up. Don’t make me see her.

He passed through the kitchen, a pile of fresh carrots and cucumbers picked just that morning piled on the countertop. Then through the living room, two overstuffed chairs situated side by side in the reading nook beneath the big lamp they had picked at the garage sale in Ponyville last spring.

The water was seeping from out the closed door at the end of the hallway, bubbling up like a spring underhoof. His hoof was already clutching the tarnished brass knob, the mechanism clicking with a sharp twist.

Wake me up. Wake me up! Wake me up! His mind was screaming, but nopony could hear.

The bathtub was overflowing, the tips of the curtains billowing in the breeze skimming the flat surface of the water.

She was there beneath the water, like she always was each time, mane wavering like waves on a beach. She had always looked peaceful each time he saw this, eyes closed as if she were merely sleeping. And her belly too, big and round, shimmering beneath the surface.

I just want to wake up.

“Romulus. Romulus!”

“Nooo!” he screamed, launching himself from the plush couch he was laying on.

The bat pony tripped, rolling across the fire lit foyer before landing in a heap on the rug. The polished hardwood floor boomed loudly as he fell, echoing through the castle like a clap of thunder. It was late in the night, and the castle was asleep, but nopony roused from their chambers nor peeked a curious head out of their door.

“Hey, hey. Take it easy,” Princess Luna soothed him, pulling him up. "You're here," she assured him, looking dead into his wild eyes. "It was my fault; I t'was separated beneath the memories."

He was sweating hard, and his chest rose and fell with each heavy breath. His hooves were shaky, Romulus wrapping a leathery wing over the alicorns shoulder as she walked him back to the couch and sat him down gently.

“Here. Drink,” she told him, thrusting a tall glass of water in his hooves. He tipped his head back, drinking greedily until water was dribbling down his chin and down his underside.

“I’m sorry,” Luna said, standing over him, the glow from the fireplace casting an orange halo around the Princess.

“For what?” he asked, leaning back on the couch, squeezing his eyes tight until he saw flashes of light.

“For the other night.” She sat down in her high backed chair she had started the night in across from the stallion. She rubbed her foreleg uncomfortably, shame radiating from her face. “For eavesdropping on your dreams before. It wasn’t right.”

He didn’t reply, just drank until the glass was empty and dry. He had watched the same scene, that same memory, play out night after night: the porch, the water, the mare with the round belly in the bath. But this had been the only time anypony else had seen her too.

“Radiant,” he heaved, as if releasing the name from some prison he held within himself - a secret, treasured place. “Her name was Radiant.” It had been so long since he had heard the name spoken that it felt strange on his ears, like it was some long-forgotten foreign language he did not understand.

“She was the reason you requested three months leave those years ago,” Luna said softly, her voice flowing like a tranquil breeze. “Wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” he gulped, his chest tight. “Yes, she was. It was an aneurysm the doctors said. By the time I found her and pulled her out the water–” The stinging tears rolled down his face, Romulus holding a hoof over them so she could not see. There were too many to hide, the tears falling in fat drops. And a cry, a puttering breath, slipped between his fangs.

“We-... we were going to call him Thoromide.”

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Comments

[Vinx]

"schpeel" Who the hell threw "spiel" into the grinder to form this abomination of letters? D=