A fairly short thriller featuring the blind filly Snowdrop, and her strange new friend.
Fever Hallucinations can make any situation seem reasonable. Even knife juggling, or jumping off the top of second story house in hopes there is a soft spot at the bottom. When Snowdrop is diagnosed with scarlet fever a strange pony with the well-earned name "Mr.Widemouth" appears, "entertaining" her as she recovers. But soon it is found her new-found aquantince is more than a simple dream, much less a friend...
Not a single colt, filly, mare, or stallion knew what had happened. She just seemed to be born that way. For as soon as that small, ice-coloured Pegasus emerged into the world, her eyes had been drained of their life. The bright green filly's irises had turned a sad pale, stealing her sight the moment she opened them. Snowdrop, as she was eventually called, had been entitled to a dark, blank world.
Her parents were driven to tears from guilt, unable to provide a normal life for their beloved daughter. As compensation, they showered her with material happiness. Toys, pets, and playthings alike were served upon a silver saucer. From this, Snowdrop's 'friends' materialized, fabricated from greed and pity. They robbed her of her possessions, and taking their 'friendship' with them.
"Don't be sad little one." Her mother would say. "We love you more than anything in the world." Snuggling her mother, Snowdrop would say the same.
Before this begins, I guess this requires a bit of context. 1: Snowdrop (the main character) I assumed everyone knew, hence the lack of description when it comes to her character and physical attributes. If you haven't already, read the prologue. 2: The story is still in MAJOR editing, so don't be convinced this is the final copy.
I only faintly remember what happened when I went on holiday to Ponyville all those years ago. What was supposed to be a short, week-long visit with my grandmother was interrupted when I came down with an awful illness. She thought it was only a small fever, and that I would get better in a few days. I didn't. My parents forced Grandmother to ring the local physician, even though she protested and said “It will clear up! Give it a few more days.” I sat, submerged in thought, waiting until at long last, the expected knock echoed throughout the house. Small murmurs bounced through the hallway until the sound of heavy hoof beats drew steadily closer to my room.
“Why hello!” a deep sounding stallion’s voice said as the door creaked open. “You must be Snowdrop. I’m Doctor Williams.” The doctor’s attitude practically lit up the room with optimism, and a very comforting feeling washed over me.
We spent the next hour with each other, him poking and prodding at my throat and torso. But with each instrument he used on me he became quieter and seemingly more desperate to find a positive sign of health. Eventually he packed up his things, exchanged a few thoughts with Grandmother, and left. Not a single word of farewell was spoken to me. Grandmother and I then sat in silence for hours. I occasionally asked what the doctor had said, but each question was met with a sharp hush from my elder.
That evening, when the door was knocked on a second time, the doctor -as well as my parents- walked in the door. My mother was in tears and my father was utterly silent, making me feel petrified of what was wrong. As the four of them spoke (me still lost in thought) I caught the words … fever, articular rheuma-something, and …terminal… I didn’t understand half of the strange phrases, but they still seemed to pierce my ears with bitterness and strain.
Yet another several hours passed by until I heard the door gently groan open, permitting the adults. They solemnly explained that I couldn’t go outside. At all.
Of course I was insurgent. “Can’t I at least play in the backyard?” I begged. My father said “No”, and I didn’t protest. I lawfully did as I was told and stayed in bed till everyone left.
The following days weren’t too bad. I listened to the radio, and Grandmother would read to me at night as I fell asleep. My parents frequently visited, bringing gifts and new toys and trinkets to entertain me, but I sensed something was wrong. My illness still plagued my mind and body, making me very weak, and my thoughts blurred. But aside from all of this, I felt a presence whenever I went to sleep. Almost as if somepony -or something- was watching. It wasn’t until I had been trapped inside for about two weeks that my suspicions were confirmed; On that night the strange presence made itself known to me.
“Call me Mr.Widemouth.” He would say. I would never know what he looked like, but he described himself to me as
“A pony whose hooves had been split into five segments, and stood on its hind legs.” I imagined the thing in my head as a monster, but he was very friendly and kind to me. He played games with me, and read to me whenever Grandmother couldn’t; But I had also noticed that he would always become silent, and slither underneath the bed whenever someone else came into my room. When I had asked him why, he would always say
“I’m scared that if someone sees me, they won’t let us play together anymore.” Seemingly, that was reasonable enough, I thought. It was unpredictable how someone would react to such a strange looking pony, and they could very well be frightened by him. One night I awoke with Mr.Widemouth leaning over me, his odorless breath blowing on my fur.
“Hey!” He rasped quietly. “I wanna play a game with you!”
“But it’s so late!” I replied drowsily. “Why can’t we wait till tomorrow?”
He thought for a moment. “Well… I wanna play a new game! But we have to do it now, or it won’t work.” he said. “C’mon!”
Mr.Widemouth leaped off the bed and began dragging me along with his soft, leathery hoof. “Just a little more now…” he whispered. I heard something slide open, and he lifted me up upon a hard, rubbery surface. The cold night air breezed gently through my thin coat.
“Mr.Widemouth… Where are we?” I asked, perplexed.
“We’re on the roof!” he replied excitedly. I gasped and took my hoof out of his.
“The roof? But I’m not allowed to go outside!”
“Oh, you’ll be fine! But here’s the game. Sometimes, I like to come up here and play ‘pretend’.” He explained. “I pretend that there’s a trampouline at the bottom of the house! If I pretend hard enough, when I hit the ground I bounce back up here without a scratch!”
“Oh…” I said sheepishly “That’s interesting. But I can’t really watch you…"
“No no no!” Mr.Widemouth clarified. “I want you to try it!”
“Me?? But I can’t really fly that well, and it’s probably a very long drop…”
“No, it’ll be ok! I know you can do it! You’ll have so much fun!”
After contemplating the situation for a few moments, I reached a decision “I’m sorry but… I won’t; no, I can’t do it.” I said sternly.
He grunted in anger and stamped on the shingles of the roof in a rage, but soon stopped and sighed calmly.
“Okay, ” he said, disappointed. We went back to my room and he crept under the bed again, grunting and groaning irregularly as he did so. I soon fell asleep, but had strange dreams and thoughts of Mr.Widemouth. When he had gotten angry, I felt truly terrified. Afraid that he would do… something. We didn’t play together for the next few days, and things got awfully drab without my new friend.
I occasionally looked under the bed for him, but would find nothing beside the empty space. I spent many nights and days alone, waiting for Mr.Widemouth. Eventually, I was awoken yet again by my friend. He knelt above me, breathing his warm breath on my fur again.
“Oh, you’re up!” he cried, jovial. “Did I ever tell you about that time I worked at a circus?”
I thought it was quite a strange question for this hour, but I replied in a polite manner anyways.
“No I don’t believe you did.” He stood, and I heard him shuffle over to the far corner of the room.
“Well, I did! I juggled… on a tightrope!” An eerie click echoed throughout the emptiness of the room, followed by a bit of rustling.
“I want you to learn how!” he rasped as he placed something very smooth and sharp into my hoof.
I gasped, and quickly withdrew.
"Knives??" I exclaimed.
“Yes knives. It’s easy! You just throw one up in the air and catch it when it falls down!” He again pressed the blade against my hoof, more aggressively now. Timidly, I grabbed the hilt and held it loosely. A…a knife… I thought to myself; my parents would kill me if they knew I had this.
“M-Mr.Widemouth…” I whispered. I felt his attitude intensify as he spoke.
“Yes, Snowdrop my good friend?”
“I-I…” I stuttered.
“Yes, what is it?” My hoof held the knife tighter.
“I-…I can’t.”
Mr.Widemouth went silent for a while.
“What do you mean, no? Remember, you don’t need to see the knives for this!” he said firmly. I continued, not willing to subject myself to this game anymore. It was clearly seeming like he wasn't my friend at all. By his actions, Mr.Widemouth was a sociopath, and most likely incapable of being a friend… just more of a friendly psychopath. “But, Mr.Widemouth… I. Won’t. Do it.”
"But... but you HAVE to! We're friends! And friends stick by eachother! Right, Snowy?" Mr.Widemouth whimpered.
I scrunched my nose in disgust at the nickname he had created for me. "I am not obligated to do anything for you! The things you're showing me could very possible get me killed!"
"...thats the point..." I heard him mutter almost inaudibly.
"Wha-..." I stammered. "What did you say?" Mr.Widemouth gave an audible jolt, and answered curtly,
"Hm? Oh, Nothing! Just humming!" I tried to question further, but in a few brief moments, he had packed up his knives and scampered silently out our front door, not offering a word of apology or departure. I sat in bed, holding the single silver blade that the strange "pony" had left behind. After our little disagreement, I began to have trouble sleeping. I desperately wished that the sickness would go away, so I could leave Mr.Widemouth and never come back. But it didn't. One night he had said that he had put a big trampouline below the roof. A soft one, and one you couldn't see in the dark. I declined, as always, but he persisted. Sometimes he would stand by my bedside till early morning, his breathing emanating about the house. I pretended I would sleep, seeing if he would assault me in any way. He didn't. After an excruciatingly long endure of the dark home, my mother rang, saying:
"Doctor Williams said you can go outside... But only for a little bit!" She urged. "The fresh air will be good for you!" My heart skipped a beat as I grabbed my coat and stuffed my medicine into a saddlebag. I excitedly slung it over my back, and rushed outside. I didn't tell grandmother where I was going, but she wouldn't mind. She had been denying I was even ill, so she would quite probably approve of my actions. As the gravel crunched beneath my hooves, I continuously heard rustling in the bushes and trees. Passing it off as Fluttershy's little pets, I continued on my way.
My rationalization was soon disproven, as a tall figure appeared in front of me.
"I thought you weren't allowed outside Snowy!" Mr.Widemouth's squelching voice said. "You'll get sick! Or... or... something could EAT you!"
I drew back, startled. He... he had... followed me?? I thought to myself. "Oh... yeah." I said, nervous "I mean. Yes. The Doctor said I could go outside for a bit, as long as I come back soon."
"Oh, yay! Thats fantastic! Now we can play so much more!" Mr.Widemouth said, elated. He stepped (almost) mechanically towards me, his movements jerky and stiff, as if he were freezing. Despite the thick moisture in the air, suggesting fog, it felt like a middling temperature. He paused briefly at my side, before placing his hoof on my shoulderblades. A shiver ran down my spine.
"Now, Snowy..." He began. God, I wish he would stop calling me that. "I don't wish to upset you, but we both know you are... 'impaired', if you will, of sight." I froze. Although I didn't usually take offense to these sorts of comments, this struck me like a blade when he mentioned my eyesight. "I... I gue-"
"I mean just that, friend!" Mr. Widemouth exclaimed. "Here..." He then placed two of the five segments of his hooves on my left eyelid. Gently, he slowly closed it.
"Now wait for a bit." He said. I did as I was told, standing unnaturally still, anticipation coursing under my skin. I felt his hoof steadily glide down my cheek, pausing. We held our stance for what seemed like ages, before he whispered directly into my ear, saying "Now, open."
-<0>-
My heart stopped. I could feel the heat in my body stand still, and my head began pounding. As I opened my eyelids, the world I had never known flooded my entire being.
"Is..." I stammered. Mr. Widemouth stood behind me, shielding himself from my view. He was silent. It seemed as if the entire forest was holding it's breath.
"Is this it?" I asked, disappointed.
The fog was thick. Grey. Cold. The trees that loomed out of the shroud were the same. Looking down, I saw my hoof. Grey. The hope of my entire life, since my birth, was to see the world... just to be disappointed by what lay before me. A single tear trickled out of my left eye, saturating the fur under it.
"Mr. Widemouth. Is this really it?" I repeated, my voice cracking.
He responded without hesitation, "No, Snowy. Not in the slightest." At that moment, I saw a grey slab of skin and fur with five long fleshy pieces of skin slide into my view. I was taken aback. I knew Mr. Widemouth would be strange looking, but nothing like this. Clutched in Mr. Widemouth's "hoof" was a triangle of what had been described to me as a silver mirror. Inside of the mirror, a single grey pony was displayed.
"What is tha-...?" I stopped. As I spoke, the pony's mouth moved in sync with mine. The mirror was portraying me. A million thoughts shot through my head. How?? How does that work?! Witchcraft! But I held my tongue, and as I gazed into the mirror longer, I noticed a single defining feature.
The eye of which Mr. Widemouth had been so obsessed with a minute ago. It shone with a shade of what was clearly not grey. It seemed like what my mother had described as the colour of plants. Green. The perfect circumference of the brilliant green was pierced by shiny, metallic sun-coloured flecks. A deep black circle floated in the center of the beautiful chaos, growing and shrinking in size each time I shut my eyelids. Then, as swiftly as it had appeared, the fantastic sight was wrenched from me, and drained of colour. Mr. Widemouth quickly withdrew the mirror, and my eyes began welling up with tears.
"No!!" I screamed, "Bring it back! Please!!" The more I screamed, the more my vision began to fade. Until eventually I was reduced to a crying mess of the blind, hopeless filly I used to be.
"Oh, don't be such a babby!" Mr. Widemouth hissed. I stopped my vocal outbursts, but tears continued to come. "Now, listen. If you do exactly as I ask, I can restore your eyesight. Permanently." I stopped crying, intrigued by his proposition. I sniffled and wiped the salty tears from my fur. He continued, "If you do exactly as I ask, you will be able to see the world in it's entirety. All of it's colour, light, and 'beauty'." He spat the last word as if it were venom.
"What- What do you want me to do?" I asked in a hoarse voice.
"It's quite simple," He began, "When you go home, fill a saddlebag with some toys. Not too many, not too little. About five should do. I also need you to bring a clay jar. Don't ask why, it'll be a surprise!" I silently raised my eyebrow in contempt.
"Oh don't have such a scorn, Snowy! You can trust me!" He reassured. Continuing, he said "Meet me back here tomorrow evening. If you do as you are told..." He paused "...you will get you eyesight back. I swear it."
We sat in silence for several minutes. Then, abruptly, Mr. Widemouth turned on his heel and walked away, the gravel crunching beneath him.
