Chapter two of us in here now, it seems
Author’s notes: there are multiple “layers” of speech in the following chapter, and in the story as a whole. For clarity, lines in quotation marks are actual spoken words, heard by any character within earshot. Lines in italics are thoughts, only audible to the main character and his host. Those starting with “ - “ are the main character’s “spoken” words. Lines starting with “ -- “ are the host’s own inner thoughts. Any other, standard text is a mesh of the MC’s inner thoughts and the narration itself, which no character can hear. Hope this helps.
Chapter 2
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”
-AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
“AAAAUUUGHHHH! WHO ARE YOU? What are you doing in my head? What do you want with me?!?”
-I don’t know! Who are you? What did you do to my body? What are you?
“What are you trying to do with my body? Get out of my head!”
--Oh my sweet alicorn I’m being possessed by the nightmare! Or is it a changeling? Wait is that how changelings even work? Oh no what if I’m just going insane? I don’t want to be insane! Ohnononononononononono...
-AAAAARGH WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP!?
“Stop shouting in my head! I don’t have to take orders from a voice in my head! GET OUT get out get out getout getout getoutgetoutgetoutgetout!”
The pony was now banging his head against the wall, apparently hoping I would just fall out.
-Stop that it’s only giving you a headache and I can feel it too!
“You can’t tell me what to do! It’s my body I do what I want!”
--Maybe if I knock myself out he’ll go away! OUCH! That really does hurt!
-I really don’t see how this is going to make me go away.
“Why are you doing this to meeee?”
The pony let himself slip to the floor, clutching his head between his hooves and starting to weep from both the panic and the pain in his temples.
-I’m not doing anything to you! I haven’t been able to do anything at all since I woke up in here! Just calm down and then maybe we can...
“Nope! Not listening anymore! La la la la la la la la la la la la la la lalalalalalala la la la la la la la! ”
-Okay, look, this is getting…
--LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LALALALALALALALALA LA LA LA LA LA LALA LA! LA! LA! LA!
-SHUT ! UUUUUUUUUUP!!!
He somehow actually stopped, coughing lightly and rubbing his itchy mouth. I spoke, or rather tought, very slowly and deliberately:
-Okay, I hope we both are mature and responsible enough to realise that we have a serious problem, and that rolling on the floor while screaming like a madman is unlikely to be “the best” or even “a good” solution to it. Are you with me on this ?
“Y-yes.”
-Good. Now we’ve already tried screaming and panicking, and it only gave us, or you, or whatever, a splitting headache and a sore throat.
He just coughed in response, but his mind was still running on pure terror.
--Oh no he’s going to try to brainwash me with mind games and lies and creepy roundabout “logic” and then I’ll turn into some kind of blank-faced zompony and I’ll wander around town biting things and spreading the infection and we’ll form an army of shambling puppets bowing down and obeying our hive-mind psychic overlord’s every word and every time he says something we’ll all just go “yes master” and do whatever he says and we’ll take over Equestria until all that’s left is one last rugged town of refugees where there will be one traitor just one but it will be enough and when the final bastion finally falls to the horde Princess Celestia will shed a single tear of pain and sorrow at all that was lost in the folly of ponykind and then she will pull the sun closer to the world to burn everything in purifying flames and then when everything is cleansed by fire she will have to start life again but it will take millenia and the loneliness will drive her insane and when a new civilization arises it will be under the all-seeing eye and the cruel iron hoof of the mad Queen Photonia Von Flareburst but there will come a day when a rebel faction led by her long-lost sister will rise and...
-I don’t know who or what all those names are supposed to represent, but that sounds like a really awesome story. Someone should write it down, it’d be a hit. Hmm... on the other hand, “everyone dies, twice” is kind of a downer.
“Please don’t make me destroy Equestria!”
-And how would I do that? I have absolutely no control at all in here! I woke up like five minutes before you and I couldn’t even open your stupid eyes! How would I MAKE you do anything when I can’t even get you to calm down and STOP ROLLING ON THE FLOOR IT’S MAKING ME DIZZY!
At that point his knee collided with a bedpost, sending a jolt of pain up his nerves. We both yelled a few choice expletives, his unusually tame ones drowning out mine with the simple fact that they were even audible at all.
“Ah! Stupid rotten piece of shoddy manure!”
-...cking crap that hurt!
We both enjoyed a moment of mental silence brought by all the brain’s focus being fixated on the pain, while I tried to come up with ways to simply talk to this nervous wreck. Maybe I could just keep quiet and let him wind down on his own. You can’t really force someone to calm down, after all. Especially not, surprisingly, by screaming in their head.
--Oh what a terrible day what am I going to do what will happen to me how am I going to fix this I don’t want to be crazy I just wanted to live my boring old little life and this hurts and what is even happening to me and why why why why oh why...
This went on for a while. I let him ramble to himself while I did my best to tune him out. I needed to think things through carefully and rationally. There were just so many questions to answer, so much confusion to clear, and yelling at each other wouldn’t lead to any answers. This pony guy... thing obviously knew exactly as much as me about this situation: nothing. Accusing him was pointless. But if there were answers to be found, he was my only way to get them. I’d need him to trust, or at least tolerate me in his head for a while.
So first order of business: stop being so aggressive and demanding. I’d already seen how positively he reacted to that. I’d need to play it cool, find a way to make him fear me less.
Next, and very important: find out just how screwed I was exactly.
The ever-present panic I felt was slowly subsiding while my host cowered on the floor. He was a little less shaky, and I could feel his heartbeat and breathing slowing down. He was finally relaxing, or at least getting a hold of himself.
-- ...this is just a bad dream this is just a bad dream please oh please let this be just a bad dream this can’t be real I mean come on! What did I do to deserve this? Wait why can’t I hear him anymore? Is he gone?
He raised his head from under his arms, looking around the room anxiously as if I could come popping out from under his furniture at any moment. The autonomous shifting of my field of view was a bit less disorienting now that I was somewhat braced for it.
“ H-hay bodysnatcher, are you still here?”
I realised then that to make him trust me, it’d be best to let him go through this at his own pace. Let him understand that he was in control, and that I could not make him do anything he didn’t want to do. Start all over again, not as an angry unstable invader but as a helpful and honest person involuntarily stuck in his head. I answered as neutrally as I could:
-Yes.
“Aaaaooooowhy don’t you go away?”
His fear faded, being gradually replaced by a growing despair. I kept playing the robot: as neutral and truthful as possible. I needed for him to stop thinking of me as an enemy, and he would certainly react poorly if I tried to convince him to immediately consider me his friend instead. He needed to make his own opinion, and for that he’d need a blank slate.
-Because I can’t.
“But why? Why did you come here and what do you want with me?”
-I can’t because I don’t know how in the world I got here, and I have no clue about how to get back. Please believe me; if I knew how to leave I would’ve done so.
“But who are you? What are you?”
He got up from the floor and went to stand in front of the mirror again, looking closely at his face, as if trying to spot me in the reflection of his eyes. He was a lot calmer now, apparently more willing to actually listen instead of just hearing. I listened to his thoughts for a few moments, pondering whether or not it was time to start asking my own questions.
-- ...is that it? No, that’s just the light from the window. Are my eyes supposed to be so bloodshot? Oh wait I cried a little. Or maybe it’s a visible sign of his influence? Why is this happening to me? Hay why isn’t he answering?
“Hello? Are you going to answer?”
Since he seemed a bit more rational, I decided to try my luck:
-Okay, first of all, I want, no, I need you to understand that I’m just as scared and confused about this whole mess as you are. I just woke up not only missing my own body, but also trapped in the head of a stranger, in a strange place I don’t know anything about. So now, just like you, I have about a million questions running in my mind, and you are the only one who can even get me close to answering them. For the first time in my life, I literally can’t do anything else so I’m begging you: please hear me out. If I am to answer your questions, let me just ask mine too.
--Ugh this is insane, this is insane, I can’t believe this! I...
“I... guess you sound sincere... I suppose I could... listen... to...”
--NO!
“...NO! Aaargh! “
He slapped the mirror sideways with his hoof, sending it flying across the room to smash against the wall. A burning anger surged through his mind as he clenched his jaw, pushing his hooves on either side of his head as if trying to squeeze me out of his brain.
“NO! No way! I won’t tell you anything! You’re lying! You just want to manipulate me! I WON’T FALL FOR IT!”
-No! Please! Just listen for a second! I just want...
“You’re not even REAL! You don’t exist! You’re just a sick part of my mind trying to twist and corrupt the rest! I won’t let you win!”
-FUCK YOU! I am real!
“And what makes you so sure? How can you even prove that you exist?”
-I know I’m real! I have all these memories of my life, I remember the things I did, I have a name and a perso...
“And how do you know all of it is true? You can’t know for sure! You just popped in my head with those memories that are just as fake as you, and you think you exist but there’s no way you can prove it! Is it so hard to believe that maybe you are just an imaginary voice in my head?”
I could feel his anger seeping through me, clouding my judgement, but I didn’t care anymore. Maybe I wanted to be angry, to just give in and start listening to my own frustration. Considering the circumstances, I’d already been way more patient than I would have reasonably expected of myself.
-Fuck you, and fuck your bullshit! I wake up in the mind of a fucking talking ANIMAL, and you dare have the balls to say that I am imaginary? What if you’re the one who’s imaginary? What if I’m still home having some kind of seizure, and all this shit that’s happening is nothing more than a bunch of fucking random wild sparks in my brain? How can you prove that you exist?
His rage was becoming increasingly spiked with indignation and outrage, fueling my outburst ever further. He was shaking, clutching his hooves around the dresser. But I kept going:
-Oh maybe it’s the fact that you have all these vivid memories of your life, the places you’ve been and the things you did and the people you’ve spoken to? Or is it that you have a name and a personality and whatever? You know, all those things you just dismissed as inconclusive? How do you know you’re any more real than me? What the fuck makes you an expert on what’s real or not? Enlighten me, o master of all existence! I need your guidance!
He suddenly toppled the dresser to the side with a scream, sending the piece of furniture sliding a few feet away and crushing the shards of the mirror into a slightly finer mess. Still somehow standing on his hind legs, breathing heavily through clenched teeth, his mind was filled with increasingly incoherent rage. Bursts of color flashed all over his vision, sometimes vivid enough to block out the view from his eyes. Meaningless half-words echoed around me, random syllables flung everywhere in chaos. I had pushed him beyond reason. I found myself unable to continue my rant, incapacitated by his rage-addled mind.
After what seemed like a minute he dropped back on all fours, still panting, then sat on his haunches while staring straight ahead. Blood pounded in his temples, rhythmically darkening his vision with the sheer pressure flowing up to his head. The sore spot where he had banged his skull on the wall was burning, feeling even hotter than the rest of his face. He let himself limp to the floor, eyes still unmoving in their sockets as his head came to rest on the smooth wood. He was almost catatonic.
Well, that was it. Despite my earlier decision to stop aggravating him, I had lashed out at him like an idiot. I had probably just blown any chance I had at gaining his trust. Great job, dumbass. The anger was slowly fading, but I directed what was left at myself. Not only had I let myself lose my temper like an imbecile, but in doing so I had almost certainly pushed myself even further from figuring out what was going on. A real good waste of time right there.
--This...
“This is getting us nowhere” He spoke quietly, his voice hoarse, staring blankly at a hoof he was flexing in front of his face. “I broke my mirror, made a mess of my room, got scared, got angry, hurt myself, and absolutely nothing changed.” I could feel a muscle hurting in his leg, some kind of minor sprain. He must’ve pulled a muscle flipping the dresser like that. “You’re right, this isn’t helping.”
-so...
“So, fine, we can talk. I don’t even care anymore. Talking is better than screaming.”
He picked himself up, slowly testing both of his injured legs to see if a limp was avoidable. The bruised knee was fine but the foreleg was too sore to put his full weight on it.
-Thank you. Uhhh...
Now that I had his attention, I found I had no idea what to ask him. Well, what to ask first in any case. Interpreting my hesitation like a question, he offered:
“My name is Silver Spring.”
-Silver Spring? Ha, wow, that’s stupid! What, your parents were stumped so they just threw darts in a dictionary or something?
His eyes narrowed while I felt his irritation rising once more. He snorted angrily.
-Oh, uh, ahem. Sorry, I was just surprised.
“I’ll have you know it’s an outstandingly normal name around here, Bodysnatcher. Maybe you could tell me yours so I can know what smart names are?
- Uhh, Dave Smith.
“Ha ha ho ha,” he said in an overly mocking tone. “ That doesn’t even mean anything! Do you have a brother named Stoohde and a sister called Flettle, by any chance?”
-That’s not even close to being funny.
“Well now you know how it feels, mean-face. If you must be an uninvited guest in here, you could at least try to be polite. There were a lot of very awful words in what you said back then.”
-Yeah... sorry about calling you an animal. And the “f” word. I was just so angry.
--What’s an effword?
“Hm, yes, well I was very angry too, “
--Angrier than I ever thought possible,
“Let’s just drop it.” He tried a few limping steps around the room, careful to avoid the broken glass scattered around. “So... if you aren’t normally a disembodied voice, what are you exactly? Judging by your... words, I’m guessing you’re not a pony, and that you’re clearly not from anywhere near here. What’s up with that?”
-Well, have you ever heard of humans?
He rolled his eyes.
--There goes my mind again, making up words.
“I really can’t say I have.”
-I’m not mak...
I trailed off, realising he had only been humoring me. He didn’t really want to try to believe me at all. Well, fine. No sense in picking another fight. I’d have to just play along for now.
“So what are humans?” He tested the word, pronouncing it carefully like someone learning a new language, trying to avoid a possibly offensive mistake.
-Well, physically or as a society?
--Oh I can’t believe this. I’m on the verge of getting lectured on a made-up civilization of aliens by a voice in my head. How did my life get to this? I think I may need to start drinking soon.
“Oh, I don’t know, just... in general, maybe? Let’s just start with what you’d look like.” He leaned on the bed to rub his forehead.
-Okay, so,uh... basically we’re tall, mostly hairless bipedal apes.
The mental image I saw in his mind was almost insulting. If I still had fingers I’d have massaged the bridge of my nose. Or facepalmed.
-Oh boy, this could take a lot of work...
--Work?
“Hmm, yes, well maybe we could do that later? I don’t really have all day and...”
--WORK?
As his mind clicked at some sudden realisation, he gasped loudly, jolting upright. “I have to go to work! What time is it? ” He bolted to the door and opened it, immediately fixating his eyes on a clock to answer his question. The clock, which was likely the one I’d heard ticking upon waking up, was hanging on the wall in a staircase going down, level with the floor to apparently be visible from both upstairs and downstairs at once. It was about a quarter past eight. “Oh no I’m late!” With his heart pounding and his mind almost blank, he took a running start and literally jumped down the stairs at an angle, connecting with the wall in mid-air before wall-jumping over the handrail to land loudly in the middle of a rather cluttered room.
-AAAhhh! What are you doing you crazy idiot?!
--I’m late I’m late I’m late I’m late I’m not supposed to be late I’m late I’m late I’m lateI’mlateI’mlateI’mlateI’mlate!
He dashed towards the door, stopping midway to shove his nose between what looked like two backpacks linked together and flip the whole thing over his head to land on his back. The bags were filled with various unidentified and clunky angular objects. Still repeating his newfound mantra even faster and now physically muttering it, and despite my protests, he proceeded to push the door open and step outside.
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AAaarrrghhhhgjdsdPosting stuff makes me so nervous I could just throw up all over the keyboardwjfgyudsukvsduy.
On an unrelated note: I thought about making Dave say something like "what if we're both the products of the imagination of some twit who thought this would make a good story?" in his angry existential rant, but I decided it would have been a little too meta.
HA! Good story! I really enjoyed it much like the first one. The series, in my opinion, most definitly has a chance. Its good, creative, and funny all at the same time! I hope to see more of your work.
Don't be so nervous, it's a creative plot with some good writing to back it up. (Albeit a little rough round the edges, but overall is good.)
You deserve that feature. Thank you. Thank you for the awesome-tastic story.
I adore how you're writing this. The emotion is captured brilliantly. And it's captivating and believable at the same time. Gwahhh. Thankies!!!
I think it would be more interesting if the voice didn't say his species until later or something....
Just saying what I had in mind
Even with the stories I find funny I rarely laugh out loud, but that panicked construction of Silver Spring's of him being in a much darker story was one of the most hilarious things I've ever read & the rest of the story is no slouch either. I particularly like the banter between him & Dave.
Fantastic work & I look forward to more.
To be honest, that little Zompony thing sounded pretty cool, though I am not sure how it matters to them if Celestia crys a single tear...
Also, glad you are keeping things in perspective. Work first, then aliens/possible insanity.
>>>it will be under the all-seeing eye and the cruel iron hoof of the mad Queen Photonia Von Flareburst>>>
That is the BEST Tyrantlestia name EVER!!!
You could almost say he was in a strange land...
1324335
If you had done that, I wouldn't have complained.
Favorite line:
a little late & some probably already commented on this (not to mention that our voice in head probably doesn't know it,) but our names are rather similar in that we usually have meaning to our names. we just usually choose what sounds good without regards for the meaning. So if the pony wanted to know how his new buddy's name would sound as a pony it would probably by 'Beloved/Darling Blacksmith'
& that was your random fact of that day brought to you by google search!...