• Published 30th Mar 2020
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Marshmallow Dreams - Halira



Rebecca Riddle seems to be your typical human-turned-pegasus in a world of both humans and ponies, but she has a secret double life, and there is nothing typical about her other life.

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Chapter 64: Asprin, Comfort Food, and Poltergeists

I woke up and winced at my headache. It was too early, and it was still dark outside.

"Need some aspirin?"

I turned to see Nightscape, illuminated by the soft evening light coming in through the balcony doors, working with her legos.

I sat up, groaning. "How'd you know I need aspirin?"

Nightscape gestured towards the bathroom with a wing. I could hear the shower running. "Sunflower and Ashley are already up. Sunflower was crying and complaining about a headache. Ashley had to give her a shoulder to cry on. Julie and Meadow are still asleep, so keep your voice down."

I didn't like being right about how that ordeal would hit Sunflower.

"Any chance we could all take a walk down to Walgreens?" I asked. "I want to buy some snacks, and I want to be able to talk to Sunflower about why our heads hurt."

She frowned at me. "I don't know. You need to lay off the sweets."

I glared at her. "I need my comfort food right now, Nighty. That was a bad dream, a horrible dream."

She sighed. "Go ask Sunflower and Ashley if they are up to it. I'll come with you if they are, but I don't know if they will want to. You guys are up extremely early for day ponies, and Sunflower is in rough shape. What did they do to you two? She was crying about how she didn't get the study guide."

"A test we probably got an F on," I answered before walking into the bathroom. "Sunflower? Ashley? How are you guys doing?"

"I want to die!" Sunflower cried from the shower.

"She's doing great," Ashley said. "So much better than she was five minutes ago."

I forced a smile. "Sounds… wonderful. Hey, I was going to go down to Walgreens and get snacks. I need happy food, and I think you could use some happy food too if your dream went about the same as mine."

"Mine probably went worse! I made a complete fool of myself!" Sunflower lamented.

Meadow stepped into the bathroom, rubbing her eyes. "What's with all the yelling?"

I had to think fast. "Sunflower had a nightmare. She had one of those where she shows up to class naked."

Meadow yawned and gave me a confused look. "But we're all almost always naked when we go to class. We're ponies; we rarely wear clothes."

I rubbed the back of my head. "Yeah, isn't it weird we get those nightmares just like humans do? What's up with that?"

Meadow tilted her head. "Really? I've never had a dream like that."

"Oh, you are so lucky!" I gushed. "They are terrible!"

"Very traumatic," Ashley agreed through the shower curtain.

"I didn't even know where whatever-istan was! I had to ask them to show me a map!" Sunflower cried. "Everypony must think I'm an idiot!"

I waved a wing in front of myself. "See, it's a result of college stress. She needs to cool off, relax, and everything will be okay."

"And all the night ponies and crystal ponies are going to die because of me!" Sunflower wept.

Nightscape stuck her head into the bathroom. "What was that about I'm going to die?"

"Nothing to worry about," I assured her.

"Um… I typically worry when someone announces my impending death—this might be the only time it has happened, but I think it is worth running one for one on the worry about it meter," Nightscape replied.

"No one is dying!" Ashley yelled. "Sunflower isn't dying; Nightscape isn't dying. It was just a bad dream."

"Rebecca and I are Dreamwarden candidates, and we just flunked the Dreamwarden test!" Sunflower announced. It still sounded like she was crying.

My eyes went wide for a second as I stared at Meadow. Meadow just gaped at the shower curtain for a few seconds before shaking her head.

"I see what's happening here," Meadow said.

I gave a nervous smile. "You do?"

Meadow nodded. "Yep, she is having one of those waking nightmares, and she is a little delusional."

Oh, thank you! I nodded quickly. "Yes, that's exactly it. You don't need to worry about it. Ashley and I have it covered. Go back to bed and get some rest."

"We're going to take her out for some air; we'll drag Nighty along with us to keep us all safe," Ashley added in. "Sun, we can go get you some nice flowers to snack on, and then a nice big breakfast with extra pancakes. I can then take you out to the Monument like you've been wanting to go, and we'll get there before all the crowds. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"I guess," Sunflower said miserably.

Meadow stretched and turned to head back into her room. "Okay, I do need to get some more sleep. I still have a sinus headache from the bar. Pick her up some melatonin; that should help her."

"Good idea," I agreed. I then waved goodbye to her. "See ya later. Sleep tight."

I waited until I heard Meadow getting back into bed before turning my attention back to the occupied shower. "Let me get my saddlebag, and we can head out. I just got paid, so I can cover purchases. We can talk about the dream on our way to Walgreens. I don't know how Julie didn't wake up too."

"She wanted to sleep in today, so she put earphones on," Nightscape replied. "All she can hear is soothing rain sounds, twelve hours worth. She mentioned it before we went to bed, don't you remember?"

I shook my head. "I was completely out of it last night when we got back. I don't even remember going to bed."

Nightscape chuckled. "Can't take the hookah smoke, huh?"

My head still hurt, and not all of it was from the dream. "Guess not. Do you still have that aspirin?"

"I'll take some aspirin too," Sunflower said as she opened the shower curtain. Her eyes were bloodshot from all the crying.

We took a minute or so to get medicated and for me to grab my appropriate saddlebags—I had one set for school and one set for going out. It didn't take long, and the four of us were soon on the elevator going down to the ground floor. We kept silent as we went. We would talk once we were away from everything.

After getting off the elevator, we started heading towards the exit when I spotted something unusual out of the corner of my eye.

I came to a stop and pointed a wing. "Hold up! Is that what I think it is?"

Everyone stopped to look where I was pointing. Sitting on the far side of the room, next to the elevators for the human side of the building, was a raggedy brown doll.

Nightscape shivered. "I'd recognize that thing anywhere. That's Phobia Remedy's creepy little doll she keeps in that case."

Ashley shook her head in denial. "I'm not going anywhere near that thing. If it really is just getting up and taking off out of her house on its own, then that thing is haunted or something. That's all kinds of bad ju-ju."

I gave a nervous look back and forth between them and the doll. "We can't just leave it. Phobia Remedy will want it back. She'll be upset if we saw it and left it."

Ashley took a few steps back and gestured at her scars. "You can get it if you want. I'm not touching that thing. I have lived through a psycho, and I don't want to live through a poltergeist."

I turned my head to the security guard on duty, a middle-aged human woman sitting behind a desk. "Hey, ma'am! How long has that doll been sitting there?"

She looked up and looked over at the doll. "It wasn't there ten minutes ago, and you four have been the only ones down here in that time. You trying to play a prank? Teleport a creepy doll in and act surprised? Get that thing out of here."

It showed up just in time for us. That made it all the more creepy. It might technically belong to Phobia Remedy, but that thing came from Sha'am Maut, and I didn't want to pick up anything she had owned, even if I knew it was the right thing to do.

Nightscape groaned and pushed ahead of me. "I guess this is technically a job for Ashley and me, and Ashley is a chicken. Out of the way, Marshmallow. Let Auntie Nighty save you all from the widdle scary doll."

"I'll sing eulogies at your funeral!" Ashley shouted after her. Nightscape waved her quiet with a wing as she marched towards the doll.

Nightscape confidently walked over to the doll and started reaching out to pick it up with a wing. At that very moment, the elevator door opened, and she jumped into the air and did a dive bomb towards the nearest couch.

"The brave night pony shows her stripes!" Ashley roared with laughter.

I wasn't concerned with that. I was concerned with who was on the elevator—Maggie.

Maggie stepped off the elevator and looked at Nightscape. "Something wrong?"

Nightscape peaked out from the couch. "You just startled me. Hey! Aren't you that girl that Phobia picked up? Did you put the doll out? Are you in league with the ghost of Sha'am Maut?"

Maggie gave her a dirty look. "What doll? No, I'm not in league with a ghost; definitely not in league with Sha'am Maut. Are you on drugs or something?"

Nightscape emerged from behind the couch. "That doll right… where the hell did it go?"

"I told you, the damn thing is haunted," Ashley said with smug satisfaction. "Next thing we know, it will be climbing out from under our beds and holding knives to our throats. You watch. It will happen."

Maggie focused her eyes on me. "Bec? What are your crazy friends going on about? And what are you doing up so early?"

I looked around. "It's a long story. Um… you wouldn't happen to see an old ugly doll anywhere, would you? It was just in front of the elevator doors before you came down?"

"It got up and ran away!" Ashley insisted. "I told you, the thing is haunted!"

"I didn't see it move," Sunflower whispered. "It just isn't there anymore."

Ashley gave her a scowl. "That's just a testament to how quickly it moves. Haven't you ever seen a horror movie? Haunted objects quietly sit there, and the second you blink or turn away, they have taken off and moved across the room."

"Should we look for it?" I asked, still looking left and right.

"I don't think we'll find it if we do," Ashley asserted. "It goes where it wants to go."

Sunflower shivered. "I don't feel safe walking to Walgreens right now. I had a bad enough experience at the Dreamwarden's house when it took off the first time."

Ashley glanced at Maggie. "Maybe you shouldn't talk about that right now."

The distraught and now scared pegasus gave an angry flap of her wings. "I don't care who knows I was a candidate to be a Dreamwarden. I failed so hard last night on that test I can't be in the running anymore."

Nightscape, Ashley, and I hurriedly looked at Maggie and the security guard to see if they were listening. Maggie had obviously been listening and was now frowning at Sunflower, but luckily the security guard had gotten up and was entering the restroom at that very minute. I was pretty sure she hadn't heard that, and if she did, then she might have just blown it off as part of our supposed prank.

"You're all going to Walgreens?" Maggie asked. "I'll give you a ride."

"I don't think—" Ashley started to say.

"We accept!" I blurted out. Ashley glared at me, and I gave her a weak smile. "Maggie already knew about me, and there's no way you are going to blow off what Sunflower said to her. The car ride will give us extra privacy."

Ashley looked away. "Fine. I suppose that will help keep Sunflower from blurting things out along the way until we can get her settled down."

"Why is she so much more upset about this doll than the rest of you?" Maggie asked.

"She isn't," I replied. "Sunflower and I had a kind of test last night when we were dreaming, one I don't think any of the people getting interviewed were prepared for, and she's upset she might have looked like an idiot. I'm not upset that I might have looked like an idiot because I'm sure I probably said a bunch of dumb stuff. I don't think the point was for us to know the answers."

Sunflower looked up at me. "It wasn't? Then… why did they ask us those questions?"

"I'll explain in the car," I assured her. Then looked at Maggie. "Thanks for doing this. Does this mean we are talking again?"

"Maybe," she answered. "Mainly wanted to know about the doll thing, but now I want to know about your test. The reason I'm up so early is one of the girls I share a bathroom with woke me up by making a commotion in the bathroom about how she just failed a test. That was kinda weird, considering she had been asleep, and we haven't even had two days of any single class yet."

Nightscape looked at Ashley. "You don't think it is seriously possible, do you? Three, in one school?"

Ashley looked at Maggie. "Is she a freshman?"

Maggie nodded. "Everyone in my hall is a freshman. She has a weird accent—something European I can't place. I tried checking on her to see if I could help calm her down, but her roommate came in the bathroom and slammed the door in my face."

"Protective person hovering around her," Nightscape said quietly. "It might not mean anything, but that could scream bodyguard. Still, three in one school? There are only five of them. What are the odds of that happening?"

"Not so low as you might think if Dreamwardens are pulling strings," Ashley replied. "I'm guessing the candidates all fit a profile—similar interests, age, and disposition. They aren't exactly the same, obviously, but they need to check off certain points on a list. Also, you know Phobia Remedy doesn't like to travel, but she likes to meet people in person. Having them all together also gives the Dreamwardens the ability to watch them under similar conditions and pressures. I wouldn't be shocked if the other two were in town as well—if this is what is going on."

"Maybe you should all continue this conversation in my car before you get yourselves in trouble," Maggie suggested.

We all nodded in agreement and followed her. I was hoping things could thaw a little more between us. However, I couldn't help thinking that the doll had meant for us to run into Maggie this morning.

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