> Made Of Glass
>  by MemoryLane
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Ch. 1: Of Words and Worries
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Made Of Glass


A Fanfiction Written By Cyneryk


        

        The moment Lyra Heartstrings laid eyes upon Bon Bon’s suitcase, she knew that she was in for something bad.

“Bon Bon, do you have to go?” 

“I’ve already said, Lyra, I have no choice. You know this.”

“What do you mean ‘no choice’? It’s a candy convention!”

“Well, it’s not like I could say no. Besides I even asked you to come along with me twice already.”

“My stomach can’t handle chocolate. It just makes my tummy upset, Bonnie. I already told you.”

The frown on Lyra Heartstrings face was enough to make a small child cry. The soft clicking noise that came from Bon Bon’s bright pink travel suitcase unfortunately made her heart drop just a little bit lower. She stared at her best friend with almost pleading eyes, and her chest was welling up with an incoming sense of dread and loneliness.

Bon Bon tossed her friend a similar glance, but it was a slightly sheltered by her apparent lack of eye contact. She wandered over to her closet, and snatched a straw hat off of a hook on the door. “Lyra, I need to go! This can be my one chance to finally kick start my business. I can’t afford to miss this. Also, I already put money down on a booth, and it’s nonrefundable.”

Lyra turned her gaze to the floor, and let out a soft, defeated sigh. The silent urge to just go with her friend was staggering. As impulsive as she was, she knew deep in her heart that that was a terrible idea. She’d tell herself she wasn’t going to eat a single morsel. Until, that is, she got hungry. She could see herself curiously eating a few pieces of candy, and suffering at the resulting stomach ache. She had learned the hard way all those years ago of her sugar intolerance.

“Well… what am I supposed to do while you’re gone? I don’t have any performances or… something to even do for that matter.” Lyra could already feel the boredom beginning to set in.

Bon Bon wiped a bit of dust off the top of the hat, before popping it on her head. Lyra quickly knew that she had phrased her question stupidly upon noticing her roommates silly, cocked eyebrow. “I have no idea. Go out, meet somepony new.” A small, playful grin spread across her face, but she turned around to throw her suitcase on her back just before Lyra could take notice. “I heard there’s a new stallion at the cafe down the street. I was told that he may be single, Lyrie?” Bon Bon wiggled her eyebrows.

Lyra’s rolled her eyes. “Oh please,” she groaned, while waving a dismissive hoof. While she didn’t wish to admit that she had no desire to talk to said stallion, she fought for a way to re-ask her initial question. “It’s just gonna be so boring. Most of the time when you’re not here, I just read or practice my lyre, but I’ve already done both to a point where it’s just tiring.”

Lyra had tried to meet new ponies before, but that never really ended very well. She kept that little fact to herself. Truthfully, Bon Bon was her one and only friend that had actually managed to stick with her through the years. Now, with her going to be gone for who-knew-how-long, Lyra couldn’t help but shiver.

“Don’t worry,” Bon Bon said, adjusting her summery hat. A kind smile adorned her pretty face. “You’ve managed before, I’m sure you’ll manage again.”

Lyra bit the inside of her cheek. “I guess,” she muttered with a shrug. “I promise the next convention I’ll just suck it up for you.”

This time, both of Bon Bon’s eyebrows were raised up high for just a split moment. The movement made Lyra’s chest drop just a little bit more. “Don’t worry, it’s alright. Besides, what’s the point in coming when you’ll just get sick? I eat some of the candy there too, everyone does. It’s practically what the entire convention is for.” She smiled, and inched a little closer to her best friend. She rested a hoof on Lyra’s shoulder, comfortingly. “You’re still my good friend, whether you come or not.”

Lyra looked away—a brief, guilty sensation rose up inside of her. Who was she to keep her best friend from chasing her dreams? To Lyra, Bon Bon made the best candies in all of Ponyville. Actually, Bon Bon’s candies were the only ones that she had really eaten in a long time. Lyra only did it because, well, it was her best friend. She would put up with a night of sickness so her friend would be happy. “I… I know, Bonnie.”

Bon Bon’s face beamed, and she took a small step back. “Good! Because my train leaves in forty five minutes, and it’s a long ride to Manehatten. I need to get going.” She raised up her foreleg and turned her head, like she was ready to take off, but Lyra spoke up quickly.

“Er, when will you be back again?” she asked. Bon Bon swiveled her head back around. After a small moment of contemplation, Bon Bon gave Lyra another gleaming smile.

“I’ll be back on the 17th. That’s when the last day of the convention is. Hopefully, I’ll come back with some money, or maybe with a business deal,” she squealed. She did a small, excited jog in place. 

Lyra turned to look at the calendar that was posted a few feet from Bon Bon’s bed.

It was July 3rd. She let out a mental sigh, before whirling around to look back at Bon Bon.

“I sure hope so. Good luck, Bonnie!” Lyra forced herself to smile, and wave a meager hoof goodbye to her friend, and welcome to her future isolation.

Bon Bon waved back, while she scampered out of the room. The suitcase on her back balanced precariously. “Bye!” she nearly shouted. With every hoofstep of hers that Lyra heard, the louder that annoying voice in the back of her head was shouting. She held back the urge to call back to her friend, for fear of making the situation a bit more awkward that it already was.

Still, she really didn’t want to be alone.

The slamming of the front door was like a mental slap to her face. She wasn’t sure if her mind was playing tricks on her, but she was nearly certain that she could feel the wind from the door lightly nip at her face from the other room. The melancholic din of the now empty home was sickening, making Lyra more ill than she’d care to admit.

Lyra simply stared at the vacant spot where Bon Bon was just standing moments before, and loudly exhaled. She didn’t even need to look when she fell over, and plopped her light green body on the bed. She bounced just a little bit, before her body finally came to rest. Lying on her side, she had a perfect view of the boring, white walls.

The silence that Bon Bon had intentionally brought forth was already a force to be reckoned with, until she eventually just filled it with the soothing sound of her own buttery voice. “This… is going to suck.”

Lyra didn’t know exactly what it was about her, or her personality in general. However, she just didn’t have the capability to make friends like normal ponies. The connections that one would feel upon a first initial communication were never there. The only time she had felt any sort of link was with Bon Bon. Weirdly enough, Lyra still didn’t know why, even after those four long years.

Either way, Lyra was doomed to a life of social awkwardness, small and meaningless friendships, and pitifully short relationships. She learned to get over the disappointment fairly quickly, or so she believed. Eventually, she also got over the need to have other ponies in her life anyways.

The soft bedspread that Lyra had pressed herself against felt heavenly against her fur. Golden eyes sparkled back at the sunlight that poured into the room like maple syrup. Lyra didn’t even blink as the beams slid over her eyes. She embraced the burning sensation that the sun gave her before she ultimately closed them.

She let out another sigh, as she let her muscles begin to relax and unwind. “This is going to be the worst two weeks of my life.”

Lyra was only partially correct.





        She woke up only two hours later.

        The residual grogginess that clouded her brain was unbearable. Her mind was fogged, completely unclear and diverse, and she could barely register the rest of her body. “Ughhh...” she groaned. The sigh had unintentionally drifted from her lips, and it took her a moment to realize that the strange sound had actually come from her.

        She peeked open her eyes as a vital thought finally crossed through her mind: she had fallen asleep.

        The sun was no longer flowing through the window right in front of her. Now, it was pouring in out of the only other window in the room, to the right of Lyra’s bed. While the room was still bright, Lyra almost immediately figured that she had been asleep for at least a few hours. 

        Her limbs were still slack, but she mustered all of her strength to flip over and glance at the alarm clock placed conveniently on the nightstand only a few feet away.

        It was only four in the evening.

        If she had the energy to give an indifferent shrug, she most certainly would have. Instead, she meagerly flopped her head back onto the bed. Two hours in, and I’m already dying, she thought. She knew she couldn’t just sleep forever, as alluring as the thought was. There was no possible way that she was going to coerce herself to nap again. Besides, she’d only be up all night anyways, should she succeed.

        She heaved a large groan, and forced herself to her hooves. Bad idea. Her head spun the moment that she stood upright, and threatened to send her sprawling on the floor. She allowed a quiet, guttural moan to pass out of her dry throat

        But, as quickly as the dizziness had came, it went—leaving Lyra standing lamely in the boring bedroom.

        She looked around for a moment, before she slogged out of Bon Bon’s room. Her eyes were aimed towards the floor. She had been living in the residence long enough now—almost a year—to keep herself from absently crashing and bumping into things. She had made this journey, all whilst looking downward, plenty of times.

        Lyra wandered into her room, the second door on the right. She practically barged inside. She was quickly overcome with the innate urge to just… do something. 

        Perhaps Bon Bon was right, Lyra thought, as she snatched her teal colored purse from its place on the side of her bed. It… couldn’t hurt to just get out of the house or something. Find something to do, or try to meet someone new, I guess.

        Whether it be a small moment of revelation, another one of her horrid impulses, or another reminder of her very, very miniscule case of thaasophobia, she knew that she wanted to get out. She could hear the songbirds and the chattering of ponies in the square below out of her open window—with it being the undeniable truth-teller that it was.

        She turned towards the floor, and let out another captivating sigh. Deep in her heart, she pleaded for others. She wished for friends, a lover, a group to call her own. She prayed for that one significant moment where she would feel the tingly sensation that acceptance brought on.

        But she could never bring herself to try. It was her one fault, her one flaw that she’d trade any other trait just to get rid of.

        She could feel the rush already beginning to leave her body. Without taking another moment to think about it, she hardened her gaze on the window on the other side of the room. 

        As if it was her greatest enemy, Lyra let out a “humph!” and trotted out of the room.





        The air that struck Lyra’s face was like being hit with a oceanic wave of palpable purity. The second that the rush of wind touched her cheeks, a surge of energy tore through her veins, like some kind of lackluster adrenaline. It tasted sweet, almost like cotton candy. It was such a gorgeous day, indeed. Being inside and looking out had the capability of warping the serenity of what really stood before her.

        Puffy clouds littered the sky, stamped on top of a bright blue backdrop almost randomly. The wonderful sky brought forth a chorus of tweets from the birds that flew through the sky. Various food stands littered the town square placed conveniently in front of Lyra and Bon Bon’s house. A few food vendors advertised their treats, while a couple of ponies answered their call. 

The only bad thing about living so close to the town square was the fact that it was almost always busy. Lucky for Lyra, it was a Monday afternoon. Lyra made a quick look around, and presumed the area to be only half as busy as what it would be normally. Then again, Lyra didn’t really pay much attention to things like that.

The countless voices that resonated from the area was enough to keep a normal pony from being able to hear himself think. Lyra had long ago got used to the loud noises, and naturally she slowly began to tune it all out.

Although Lyra couldn’t hear her hoofsteps as she made her way through the square, she honestly wish she could have. The singular sound of her own steps, for some reason, calmed her. Minute by minute, step by step, she made her way. She gave small passing glances towards the ponies she passed. Some of them smiled, some of them didn’t. Some of them bore bags of treats provided by the vendors, some just didn’t even have anything.

        Not one of them stuck out to Lyra. Not one of these ponies looked like a good candidate as a friend. As shallow as it was to judge based on looks, Lyra didn’t see it that way. It was merely… scoping out who she could see herself with. This, as well as the fact that her urge to try and talk to someone had completely come and gone. Yes. That must be it.

        Lyra was nervous again. She felt like melting. Should somepony just, out of the blue, come and talk to her, she felt like she would simply freeze up or have a heart attack. Her intermingling fears, desires, and personality traits were at a war inside of her head. It was like one giant match of Rock, Paper, Scissors. All three parts of Lyra contradicted the other two in some way, leaving her in a very bad position socially.

        She kept her head down for the rest of her walk, keeping her gaze towards the ground. Even when she passed the cafe Bon Bon mentioned, she just didn’t have it in her to go and talk to the cute stallion in the window. Unfortunately, she looked over at the wrong time. The stallion, who was only about twenty feet away, took a noticing to her as well. As soon as his orbs traveled towards her general direction, Lyra’s eyes widened, and she scampered off before she could even ask herself what she was doing.

        Eventually, Lyra made it out of the square. A bit relieved, she also had an idea of where she was going. There was only one place in town, save for the square itself, that she would frequent. Considering she had nothing else to do, she headed there. She took a left down Mayberry Street.

        It was all slowly becoming more and more quiet. The voices that were coming from the square were long gone, and replaced with a silence that Lyra wasn’t entirely sure that she liked. Everypony was either at work, holed up inside their house, or shopping in the square on Monday’s at around this time. The fact that the streets were this quiet wasn’t necessary uncommon, considering that Ponyville wasn’t the most popular town in the first place.

        It had taken a total of five minutes to reach her destination, but when Lyra finally arrived, a tiny smile plastered itself on her face. The words “Pawn’s Pawn Shop” adorned a sign in front of the little building. The words were already beginning to fade, but that didn’t exactly put Lyra off. Not wasting at time, she trotted inside, taking slight delight in the soft chiming of the bell on the door.

        The inside was nothing to be proud off. The entire shop was nearly the size of Lyra’s livingroom. Dusty, wooden shelves covered every able spot on the walls. Rusty nails poked through every now and then, piercing through the weakened wood with dangerous pointed edges. In the middle of the shop were tables arranged in a meticulous pattern, so one could walk up and down poorly constructed aisles like in a grocery store. One of the tables was missing a leg entirely. The owner must not have had the creativity to properly fix it, so he resorted to using a small golf club. Different things rested on top of the shelves and tables, junk that only a moron would actually spend bits on.

        All in all, Pawn’s Pawn Shop was a complete dump.

        “Ah!” called a voice from the other side of the store. Lyra almost jumped, and turned her head like a dear facing rushing headlights. “Back again, I see! You plan on buyin’ somethin’ this time?”

        Lyra quickly calmed down when the blue body of Pawn, the owner, began taking a few steps closer to her. His disheveled white mane matched the dirtiness of the store. She let out a shaky breath, and shrugged. Her voice was strained, forcing her to keep her mouth shut. 

Lyra frequented the store at least once a week for reasons she didn’t entirely know herself. It got very boring wandering aimlessly around town, sometimes. At least in Pawn’s shop, she would occasionally come across neat looking junk. Unfortunately, her relationship with the owner was nonexistent. She didn’t feel comfortable in the slightest talking to him, like most ponies. This kept her from actually speaking to the—probably—very lonely Pawn. After all, it’s not like he got a lot of customers throughout the day.

Lyra turned her head to the nearest shelf, and tried her best to focus on the scattered items in front of her. She felt incredibly rude, but she hoped the Pawn would go ahead and find something else to do.

She could feel his frown. “Well, alright then. You’re an awfully quiet one. Jus’ lemme know if ya need anything. You know where I’ll be.” Pawn had, actually, long ago given up on starting casual conversation with Lyra. However, that didn’t stop him from being nice.

But, no matter how much Lyra wanted to, she just couldn’t bring herself to open her mouth.

Pawn cleared his throat, and slogged away to the other side of the store, leaving Lyra to do her looking. Lyra couldn’t help but take a large gasp for air the moment she realized he was gone. She hadn’t noticed that she had been holding her breath.

When she finally felt alright, she returned to her browsing. Only rarely, would Pawn receive some new merchandise that ponies would trade in for spare bits. Though, they were usually no better than what Pawn had already on his shelves. Mainly trash, or things that somepony didn’t have the heart to throw out.

There was a small radio playing from somewhere inside the room, sending a jazzy tune throughout the entire shop. Every now and then, while Lyra browsed almost aimlessly through the shelves, she’d catch herself nodding along—like a complete idiot.

Seconds turned into minutes, and they quickly began to add up. As Lyra made her way through the shop, she could feel Pawn giving her small occasional glances from behind the counter. It made her horrendously uncomfortable. She glued her eyes to the shelves, and noted all the the knick-knacks before her.

She saw a teddy bear, propped up against the wall. The words “Hug Me!” were stitched onto its belly. It held its arms out, like it was ready to hold her in a loving embrace. It’s eyes were pitch black though, for some reason. 

There was a telephone. Although, a few of its buttons were missing.

        There was arcade machine, on the floor underneath the shelves. Lyra had actually thought that it was pretty cool, until she noticed a piece of paper on it that said, “Does not work, for display only”. 

        There were a few books. Unfortunately, most of them were horribly old. She opened two of them. One of them had pages that were so sticky that she couldn’t even read half of it if she wanted to. The other was missing most of its pages entirely.

        All in all, Pawn’s Pawn Shop consisted of nothing but junk.
        
        Until her eyes laid upon something completely out of place.

        Located next to the book was a large, glass sphere. It was the size of a standard playground dodgeball. It was beautifully shiny, catching off the light in a matter than shined a neat looking pattern on the wall despite the lack of indents in it. It looked very delicate, as if a mere naughty glance was enough to shatter it to pieces. The ball was entirely see through. It was a nearly perfect decorative orb, one that completely piqued Lyra’s curiosity. 

 Lyra couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow at it. It was strange, seeing something so clean and, well, beautiful in a place like this. She was positive that the ball had not been there a week ago upon her previous visit. The ball looked like a great match for her bedroom. If she put it next to the window, it might even create some pretty rainbow patterns on the wall. Upon looking at the price tag, she noticed that it was well within her price range: fifteen bits. 

Lyra turned from the ball, to Pawn, and back again. He was still looking at her expectantly, but he tried to be subtle about it. He’d swap his glances between her and something else on one of the tables a few feet away. She almost felt bad for him. He never made very much money, which explained the constant mess of his store. She could also sympathize with his loneliness, even though she had no urge to do anything about that.

She didn’t think twice. She quickly grabbed the ball off of the shelf—her impulsive moment come and gone.

Pawn’s eyes actually widened when she gently placed the glass ball on the counter. “O-Oh!” he said. Lyra looked down, and dug her nose through her purse while Pawn looked for the words to say. “You’re actually buying something?” he said incredulously, his face contorted into a kind smile. “Haha, great! I haven’t sold a darn thing in a while. Gotta say.”

Lyra, obviously, did not reply. She slapped a total of 28 coins on the table—all the bits she had on her—before grabbing the ball and towards the exit, away from Pawn.

“W-Wait! You overpaid!” Pawn quickly called after her. But by then, he was too late. The door chimed, and Lyra was already out of the his shop. 

Lyra was certain that she heard Pawn yelling a grateful “Thank you!” as she bolted down the street, towards home.





        After wading through the ever-increasing crowd that littered the town square, making extra sure to keep a careful grip on her new decoration, she eventually reached her house. While setting her new gift on the clean stone just outside her home, she fished through her purse for her keys, picked back up the ball, and wandered inside. She practically slammed the door behind her. 

She was much too eager to get home to the security of her home, but she didn’t care. It was all she wanted.

        She peered down at the orb in her hooves. It was extraordinarily light. In fact, Lyra could have easily held it in one hoof had it not looked so delicate. It had to weigh less than five pounds.

        Lyra smiled. Truthfully, she was a bit proud of herself for finding it. Save for groceries, she never really bought much for herself with the money she received from her concerts. She felt a strange pang of excitement every time she found a way to spend a little bit of hard earned bits on something that she actually wanted. 

        It made her feel a bit warm inside, a sensation that she’d only ever feel once in a blue moon.
        
        Upon entering her house, she was hit with a comforting sense of familiarity, like she was walking into a safe zone. She could finally exhale, and let the air escape her panicked body. The tingling in her bones were finally beginning to wane, being subdued by the oncoming feeling of relief that was starting to cloud her like a warm blanket.

        Lyra set her bag in the livingroom, on her way to her bedroom. She carefully cradled the ball in her hoof, like a small child. The last thing she wanted to do was drop and break it, especially after just purchasing it. Besides, she wanted Bon Bon to see it. She was sure her best friend would be a little jealous over her new find.

        Walking into her bedroom, she looked around. Everything was exactly the same as it was before she left. Her bed was propped against the wall in the middle of the room, facing her closet. Lyra contemplated if the ball would look prettier on her nightstand, by her bed, or on top of the dresser, directly in front of the windowsill. 

        After a bit of thinking, she put the ball on the dresser. Putting it on the nightstand was just stupid. She moved around a bit in her sleep, and she tended to keep things on that night stand while she slept, like water. Last thing she wanted was to accidentally nudge it or something.

        She set the glass ball on the little spot in front of the window, next to a few pictures of her and Bon Bon.

        She hadn’t looked at them in a while, honestly.

        If she was thinking correctly, then she presumed that the light should shine through the window in the mornings. She was terribly excited to see the neat rainbow designs the ball would create on her walls once the light hit it. Even though it was four o’clock right then, the sun was shining on the complete other side of the house.

        She stopped, stared at the motionless ball, and then sighed. She was still bored.

        “Ugh,” she groaned. “There has to be… something I can do?” The words echoed throughout the entire house. It felt like someone was knocking on her head whenever she heard her own voice.

        She missed Bon Bon already. However, her friend’s absence was not going to drive Lyra into a small fit of insanity. She had to defeat this, somehow. 

        Lyra dejectedly made her way for the kitchen, and flipped the on switch for the small radio that sat on the counter. She changed the station to the one of her preference, and went to grab a few pieces of paper—as well as some pretty crayons—to occupy herself with.

        Her misery was at an all time high, driven by the boredom and loneliness that contradicted her innermost wishes and desires. Lyra was positively certain that there was absolutely nothing that could depress her more than what she was doing right now: spending her time coloring, while listening to music she really didn’t favor, until she could go to bed.

        Father Time was her enemy now. Unfortunately, it was only a mere mafioso. Somewhere, inside of Lyra’s house, the godfather lurked.

        And it was sitting right there, next to Lyra’s window.





        The night only brought more pain—a troubling sorrow that threatened to perturb Lyra’s state of mind.

        She fell asleep terribly early that night. The last time she looked at the clock on her nightstand before she turned was at seven o’clock. Then again, she was never particularly an owl, preferring to spend the night time with the cold grasp of sleep tugging at her subconscious. 

        Soft breaths rested easily on her pillowcase, surrounding her face and cheeks with a tender, steaming sensation. To anyone who would have been watching her this late at night, it would appear like she was just barely blushing in her sleep.

        She rested on her side, facing the doorway with her back against the dresser. She was out like a light. Sleep was her best friend, now. Seeing as Bon Bon would be gone for the next thirteen days, sleeping her time away was most certainly a great way to kill time, as well as suffocate those emotions that promised to bury her alive.

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. 

Soft snores filled the quiet din of the bedroom. Like an orchestra doing a last minute 
rehearsal, the music soared through the air methodically and desperately. 

        Lyra could hear the notes inside of her head while she slept. The palpable songs plucked out from her lovely lyre floated in and out of her consciousness. She was dreaming in melody. She could envision her instrument, playing away a myriad of splendid sounds. Though, back in reality, she was laying motionless, she could feel herself sway inside of her head.

        She was on top of the clouds, merrily undulating in her dreamlike world. She was dancing with the angels, high above the land where her problems and fears roamed free like wild animals.

        She could feel her heart flare, like it was poked with a rod touching the surface of the sun. Chills ironically brought forth made Lyra smile in her sleep, overcome with the godly emotions that ran through her distant mind. Only rarely did she ever dream, and when she did, it was never a nightmare. No. It was only promises of good things; a showcase of what her life was really meant for, what it really entitled and wished upon her. Unfortunately, it couldn’t last forever.

        “H-Hello?”

        Lyra’s eyes shot open before her brain could even register what it was doing. She sat up in bed, using her left foreleg to prop herself in the air. Her orbs were small, tiny pinpricks that were suffocated in a sea of white.

        What was that? Did she just hear something? Something had woken her up, but was it just a voice, or an anomaly from her dream? With her back to the window, she looked down at the alarm clock on the nightstand right next to her, a few inches from the corner of the room. It read 12:01 AM.

        She could hear breathing behind her. Quick, almost panicked, bursts of air coming from somewhere beyond her gaze. She stared at the wall as her heart felt like doing jumping jacks inside of her chest.

        Looking at the wall, she was terribly frightened. Somepony had broken into her house? Did she leave her window open last night?

        Who’s there? Here. With me, she thought, unable to ask the questions out loud.

        Her teeth were bared fearfully as she stared forward. There was a bright light that casted her shadow on the wall, like a petrified silhouette. The light that came from behind her almost urged her to jump back down in her covers, and wrap herself in her sheets while she prayed for the intruder to leave. She didn’t know what to do, except to sit there until something happened. Until the trespasser attacked her, killed her, maimed her, raped her, kidnapped her, Lyra was left with an almost nightmarish feeling of anxiety and trepidation.

        Slowly. Very slowly, Lyra turned her head—shifting her body just a little bit should she have to do something drastic. Shivers coursed their way through her veins, making her feel like her blood was replaced with maple syrup.

        She was alone.

        As comforting as that fact was, she was still on edge. Her eyes darted around the room, until she noticed something very strange. The light that shone through the room, basking it in  a bright blue hue, came from the glass ball. She could see the light occasionally shift, as if somepony was holding it in front of a flashlight, and then spinning it around in their hooves in a slow manner.

        “Holy Hell…”

        She stopped, her breath caught inside of her throat. She felt like she had just swallowed a boulder. Her gullet strained, her muscles tensing to the point that it hurt. 

        Somepony was most certainly in her home. She had heard it, loud and clear. While, she didn’t quite understand what was said, it didn’t help the fact that she was ready to bolt the moment she heard the floor creak, or the sound of something shifting in her room. Lyra, in her nervous state, was much more scared about the noise, rather than the suspicious light that came from the ball. 

        Lyra wanted to call out, but she couldn’t. It was always the case, her voice betrayed by her own mind once more. She wished to yell, to make her presence known—but she knew that she’d never have the courage to do something like that. Her inner fear and social deformities refused to let her do anything at the moment except for tremble with nervousness. 

        The more Lyra stared at the glass ball, the more her eyes began to adjust to the horribly bright light. After a bit of squinting, she could make out movement that came from the surface of the glass ball. It seemed to sway, or turn, every few seconds. Whatever was plastered on its side, like she was watching a movie through it, was a creamy color. Lyra couldn’t entirely make out anything else until a few moments later, when she slowly began to get out of bed.

        It was a head.

        Some kind of alien head was projecting itself on the side of her glass ball.

        Unfortunately, Lyra noticed this a bit too late. She stopped in her tracks, frozen. Her brain was going through sporadic twitches that threatened to cause her to faint. Her head began to hurt, but she couldn’t help but stare wide eyed as her heart almost jolted to a stop.

        “You… can’t be real, right?” Whatever the being was, Lyra could see its face entirely. Its face was hairless, save for a short brown mane that barely touched—what Lyra assumed— were ears. Behind a pair of what appeared to be glasses were eyes the color of the ocean, though they were hard to see with the darkness that the ball brought forth. Though he was completely front-lit, a few areas of its face were covered in mysterious shadows. It cocked an fearful eyebrow, as it mumbled to itself. “This has to be some kind of joke. Some kind of television or something? A projection?” With those words, the being turned his head. Whatever projection was going on, it panned out, showing that it as some kind of hairless monkey with very long appendages that Lyra didn’t end up seeing very well.

        Lyra was on the verge of passing out. She was violently shaking, as the beast began to speak. She couldn’t talk, as her tongue locked in its place in her mouth. She could only watch, petrified and helpless.

        Suddenly, the beast turned its features towards her, focusing in on Lyra like he was about to reach out and grab her. Take her. Eat her. It bore teeth that shined in the darkness, like a lighthouse beacon. He didn’t appear to have a muzzle, just a mouth. There were two holes in the middle of its head, while Lyra automatically assumed to be a nose. Then again, she was only taking guesses.

        It raised up its appendage, the one Lyra noted earlier, and pointed some kind of stubby attachment at her. “You. What’s the meaning of this?”

        Lyra didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She didn’t even breathe. It knew she was there. There was no way she was going to be able to coax any words out now. She wanted to run, bolt out of her room and out of her house. She wanted to be away, outside, somewhere where this monster wasn’t.

        After a few moments, the being let out a soft sigh, and adjusted its glasses. It seemed… annoyed? She couldn’t tell. He looked at something on the floor, and then back to her. Its eyes were steely, and Lyra felt like she wanted to melt into the floor.

        “Can you hear me?” it said. “I have a feeling you can. What’s going on? What are you? This can’t be some kind of prank. There’s no way. The inside of this thing in completely empty, and even when I move it around...” It brought it’s face a little closer, making Lyra’s eyes twitch. She heard a loud ping, like it was tapping on something. Lyra had a feeling, based on its voice, that the being was male. “You moved a second ago. I saw it.”

        Even though whatever the being was knew about her existence, this only made Lyra panic just a little bit more. 

        He stared at her, as if he was inspecting her, before breaking his hard gaze. Lyra could see the look on his face that, through some kind of realization, there was no explanation. She was in the same boat. Lyra had no clue what this being even was, or what was going on. It clouded her judgement, and her ability to think. Her inner fear of death and the unknown kept her from trying to figure it out.

        “I’ll humor this,” he said. He looked up a bit, revealing shimmering blue eyes. Actually, they looked fairly similar to Bon Bon’s. The reminder of her absence made Lyra’s heart drop a little bit further. “Hello? Can you say something?”

Only if she were here, Lyra thought to herself, but only barely. Her inner mind was shouting all sorts of things at her. She’d know what to do. She’d protect me.

There was a long silence. Lyra still felt like her throat was being strangled, keeping her from talking. Her eyes would occasionally flicker, turning away before she even could realize what she was doing, before raising them when she remembered not to take her eyes off what could possibly be her killer. Even though she stood a good five feet away from the glass ball, it was an obvious motion. The monster took notice of this immediately.

“Why aren’t you talking? Can you not understand me? Yeah, that’s probably it,” he sighed, before rubbing an appendage through his mane. “What even are you?”

No response.

The beast looked like it was getting a bit irritated. Lyra didn’t exactly like the look of it. He squinted at her, intimidatingly. It made her extremely uncomfortable. 

Lyra finally worked up the courage to do one of two things: flee, or open her mouth.

She chose the former—she bolted.

One step, two steps. She was close to the door already, which honestly should have allowed her to escape in the amount of time she was given. Unfortunately, she immediately stopped when the creature behind her shouted, “Wait, stop!” at the top of his lungs.

Lyra didn’t know why she had listened. She felt horrified that her fear of this being was enough to make her feel like some kind of pet, like if she didn’t obey that he’d come out of the glass and attack her. She hadn’t given him a reason to eat her, but she really didn’t want to.

She ended up frozen in place, staring at the closed door only a few inches in front of her. If Lyra had the vocabulary, she would have cursed herself a hundred times over. “Don’t run away, I’m not a threat.”

Lyra didn’t believe that in the slightest.

“Y… You can hear me. So you can understand me. This thing is real?” Lyra couldn’t see his face, as her back was completely turned, but he sounded completely flabbergasted. “Jesus… well, can you please say something? What’s your name?”

Lyra said nothing. She couldn’t stop herself from shaking. She closed her eyes, and prayed and begged for the being to go away—the monster inside the glass.

After another small pause, the being spoke desperately. “What if I told you my name?” he asked.

Lyra opened her eyes again, and she felt something rise deep inside of her chest.

“My name is Stanley,” he said. His voice dripped with sincerity, a kind of tone that made Lyra feel guilty to simply ignore. “Could you please tell me your name, now? It’s only fair.”

As much as Lyra didn’t believe in the word “fair”, she felt like her heart was being weighed down by a mountain. There was a silent part of her, a hidden piece of Lyra that she only rarely heard before. It was begging and pleading for release, to let it have just five seconds to come out and shine. Like a mere slave caught in a war, and wishing to risk its life on the front line for the greater good.

“Please…?”

Lyra let it go free, against her very inner will. Another strong urge, and impulse, coursed through her veins. It gave her an minuscule adrenaline rush as she let out a shaky breath. Her heart beat at a million miles an hour, before she slowly turned her head.

“My n-name is L-Lyra,” she said, in a tiny voice. She could only bring herself to look in “Stanley’s” general direction, not at him himself. Though, out of her peripheral vision, she could clearly see a small smile adorn his face. “Lyra H-Heartstrings.”

“Lyra, that’s a lovely name,” he cooed. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Lyra didn’t respond. Even though her head was still turned in his direction, she still couldn’t help but look at the ground. She simply maneuvered her head up and down, as if to say “you too”.

“Can you tell me anything about what’s happening, here? Why I can see you, and vice versa?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

It was unsure of what caused Lyra’s ears to spaz out on her. Whether it was her panic, or her reluctance to hear what scary things would probably pop out of his mouth, Lyra just didn’t understand what he said. She turned around, facing the glass ball as her legs shooks with the intensity of a magnitude five earthquake. Her golden eyes that pierced through the darkness like sewing needles were brimming with tears. “Please… p-please don’t kill me,” she choked, each word catching fire inside of her poor, aching throat.

Stanley went wide eyed, as if he was realizing some kind of mistake. He lifted his forelegs into the air, as if to show he was defenseless. “Whoa, whoa, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said. “I’m just as confused about this as you are. Don’t cry! Awh, man, don’t cry!”

Lyra obeyed, and wiped a few tears away from her eyes and cheeks. Although he clearly said that he would not attack or injure her, she still couldn’t stop herself from shaking. She wasn’t sure if he was lying or not. A part of her took one look at the monster, and she could feel the sincerely chipping off of him.

        “Just, help me. I just want to know what’s going on, and why we’re talking. Where are you from, first of all?”

        Lyra gulped. She couldn’t believe that she was, technically, having a conversation with somepony who wasn’t Bon Bon. She couldn’t remember the last time she opened her mouth at anypony, much less some kind of monster. She honestly hoped that telling the being where she lived wasn’t a bad idea, but just to be safe, she chose to be vague. “I-I live in Ponyville.” Her voice was exceptionally tiny, and Stanley had to lean in a little bit just to hear her properly.

        “Say what now?”

        “P-P-Ponyville.”

        “Where’s that?”

        “Near C-C-Canterlot, a-and the Everfree F-Forest.”

        He cocked an eyebrow, as if she was speaking another language entirely. “I have no idea where those places are,” he said. He shook his head, quickly. He made an alien noise with his mouth. “Do you live in some kind of country?”

        “E-Equestria.” Lyra had already come to the realization of what he was getting at.

        He suddenly stopped—frozen in space as Lyra watched as gears turned in his head. Suddenly, very suddenly, he let out a large groan. “Yeah… I have no idea. Never heard of any of those places.” He looked up, back at Lyra. “Ever heard of somewhere called ‘America’?”

        Lyra had never heard of that place either, so she just shook her head. Stanley looked like he was becoming a bit more agitated. Lyra’s vision of him shifted just a little, like he was lifting up a camera that was focused on him. “This is fricken’ weird. First, I find this stupid ball, then I get my bike stolen, and now I’m talking to some kind of two-dimensional creature that’s probably from some kind of different world,” he said, before letting out a soft sigh. Every so often, the light that radiated from some point in his room would reflect off his glasses, making it impossible to see quite a bit of his face. “This can’t be happening.”

        At the mentioning of the glass ball, Lyra’s heart froze. She felt the blood rush from her face. She following words poured out of her mouth before she had a chance to realize what was happening. “G-Glass b-ball?”

        Stanley glanced back at Lyra, and gave a small nod. “Yep. Found it in the bushes in Central Park. Why?” he said, bringing his face just a little closer to the glass. Lyra was tempted to move a bit closer, but quickly decided against it. She was still unsure about the possibility of him simply reaching through the ball and grabbing her, or something. As crazy as it sounded, Lyra believed it was a very rational thought at the time.

        “I-I found one t-t-today, at a p-pawn s-store.”

        Stanley sat up, prompting Lyra to jump. She almost backed up and tripped over the bed, but luckily she ended up keeping her balance. She did let out a pathetic whine though. “Wait, so… what are these glass balls some kind of communicator things? God damn, so it’s kind of like a some weird version of Skype…?”

        Lyra didn’t have the nerve to ask what in the world he was talking about, however, his hypothesis clicked in her mind. While Equestria did have some minor technology, like cameras and a very low quality types of arcade games, she had never heard of anything quite like this. “This is… somewhat incredible…” said Stanley.

        Lyra didn’t respond. She still had her eyes fixed upon the being on the other side of the glass ball. Though, she still didn’t have an idea of what in the world was going on, she still couldn’t help but shiver whenever the being looked at her. It was like he’d just eye her up at times. 

        Lyra could note that Stanley was sitting on some kind of large, black chair. She could see the back of it, even with the horrid lighting. He rested his upper body against it, and crossed her forearms once again. “Just… just what are you? Some kind of horse?”

        Lyra’s lips flattened together, and she casted her gaze towards the floor to her right. Worried thoughts passed through her brain. The suddenness of having a conversation with somepony was still taking its toll on her, keeping her from talking without getting flustered and heart-wrenchingly nervous. She had hoped that, one day, she would find somepony who would let her ease herself into a quaint conversation, until she got used to them—kind of like she did Bon Bon. She wasn’t prepared for this. She didn’t have time to go over in her head just what she was going to say, or do.

        It was like having a fear of clowns, and then being forced to star in an infested circus.

        Lyra closed her eyes, look a large calming breath, and then opened them again. Perhaps this was good practice for her, even though she didn’t ask or want it. “I-I-I’m a u-unicorn,” she stuttered, looking back at the glass ball.

        Stanley didn’t move an inch. The small silence that rode out between them was almost unbearable, which made Lyra regret everything she had just thought. Eventually, the tiniest of grins adorned his face. He exasperatingly, yet briefly, shook his head as he spoke. It was almost as if he believed that he hadn’t heard her correctly. “That’s impossible. Unicorns don’t exist.”

        Lyra trembled. Obviously, she knew now, that this monster’s hypothesis was correct. There was no way something like him could live in Equestria—or even Equus—that doesn’t “believe” in unicorns. Lyra gulped. Instead of talking she shakily brought a hoof to her forehead, and removed her mane as to show her protruding horn. Considering that she had just woken up from a rather deep sleep, as well as the conspiring events, she completely forgot about the fact that she had bed-mane—and that her horn had been accidentally covered.

        Stanley’s eyes flickered behind his glasses. It was a delayed reaction, but after a few seconds he let out a long winded groan, and buried his head in… Lyra didn’t know what to call them—some kind of claws, maybe? “No way,” he muttered, before quickly lifting his head up. “Here on Earth, unicorns are only mythical folklore… not real.”

        Lyra kept herself from cocking her head. She had never heard of “Earth” as a place before. He comes from a place that’s named after the terrain? That’s a bit redundant. While Lyra would never say this out loud, especially to Stanley, she felt like she could easily convey it to Bon Bon.
        
        A small chill floated in and out of Lyra’s room, passing through like a malevolent ghost. She could almost feel it resting on her shoulder. The hot breath of air that Stanley exhaled was full of disbelief and some kind of disturbance that Lyra couldn’t exactly pick up on. “Lemme repeat this for clarification,” he said. He wasn’t even looking at Lyra, but somewhere off in the distance to his left. “You’re a teal-ish colored unicorn, from some place called Equestria, in a completely different world from mine. And, most of all, you’re in my glass ball.”

Lyra glanced left, then right, and then uttered a small nod. She wasn’t sure if Stanley liked her answer, but regardless he let out some kind of exasperated chuckle. “That’s amazing,” he laughed. “Us humans’ll go crazy when we realize. Every six year old girl ever will lose their minds.”

        Humans, Lyra repeated. He’s… a human. She had never heard of them before. In fact, she’s never heard that word in her entire life. During school, around town, in books—she had never learned of creatures like Stanley before, never truly knew of their existence. It put her off a bit. While she did have a few questions of her own to ask, she obviously didn’t have the courage. She still hadn’t stopped shivering involuntarily.

        Stanley looked up from whatever it was he was staring at, and gave her a kind smile. “Well, er,” he stammered. For some reason, Lyra blushed. She kicked at a small sock on her floor. “And here I thought I got lucky for finding this damn thing,” he admitted. He must have flicked the ball again, because Lyra could hear more soft “pinging” noises. “I was going to take this somewhere in the morning and see if I could get any cash from it.”

        Lyra’s mouth was horrendously dry and scratchy. Every time she tried to swallow, it felt like the inside of her throat was lined with sandpaper.  

        Stanley let out another sigh, and looked behind him at what looked like his bedroom. “Yeah, God knows I could use some cash right now,” he mulled. 

        The unicorn shrugged. Lyra couldn’t get over how… friendly, the human was. Lyra hadn’t said much ever since the “conversation” started, and he was still chatting away. Whether it was just his personality, or if he was just being overly kind due to the fact that Lyra found him scary, she’d never know.

        “On Earth, everyone’s having it rough,” Stanley admitted. He turned back to Lyra with soft eyes filled with some kind of veteran sadness. “Money’s hard to come by over here. You have to work hard, and long hours just to be able to afford housing. Gotta go to school for years for a job that you’d be lucky to get. I mean, any sort of higher learning outside of high school just drains you of any money you’d hope to have. I still have three more years to go, and I have to skip meals sometimes simply because I don’t have enough money for groceries.” He offered forth a small smile, one that hid the distress underneath. He took a hand, and waved it behind him towards the emptiness of his room, as if to verify his point. “Rough world, over here. Hopefully, the nation of weird colorful unicorns has a better government.”

        Lyra had no idea what he was talking about. Equestria was the total opposite. While they didn’t exactly have anything there called “college”, most ponies found it quite easy to support themselves. Jobs were actually very easy to come by. If somepony had a talent in something that they merely couldn’t send in an application for, they’d just start a business themselves. Ponies with certain talents are hard to come by, when you’re looking. The possibility of being hired is terribly high, even if you have little experience. They’d just teach you on the job if you didn’t know something.

        Lyra felt a small tinge of guilt course through her veins.

        Stanley took one look at Lyra, and held up his forearms again as if to plead to her. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to be like that,” he said. For some reason, he plastered that same smile on his face from before. “Gotta work with what’ya got, am I right?”

        She nodded, and bit the bottom of her lip. Lyra wasn’t sure if she liked where the conversation was headed. It was taking an awkward turn that didn’t think she would be able to handle. It made her chest beat a little faster, and she had to take large, subtle breathes through her nose in order to keep from freaking out.

        Stanley didn’t appear to notice. “I must be talking your ears off, sorry about that,”
        
        “Sorry,” Lyra said automatically. She blushed when she realized her mistake, and Stanley’s odd look. “I-I-I m-mean…”

        Stanley smiled at her, a notion that didn’t make Lyra feel any better in the slightest. “You’re not much of a talker are you?”

        Lyra was horrified to find that her cheeks reddened further—tenfold. She looked down at the floor, and visibly trembled. Stanley reached back, and scratched the back of his neck with a silly grin on his face. “Eheh, perhaps that was a bad question to ask,” he laughed.

        Silence. Nothing but the quietness of their rooms filled their ears. The melancholic moment where the tranquility was one of the most eloquent forces between the two aliens. Lyra, from her position, could still see outside the window. It was cracked a bit, but it was still pitch black outside of her homestead. A small wind would protrude through it, and float through her messy mane. Lyra wondered if, by chance, somepony could see the light from down below. Perhaps it some like some kind of beacon that projected its light across the entire world.

        “Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Not being a talker must mean that you’re a good listener, right? That’s always a good quality to have,” Stanley explained, running that weird appendage on the end of his foreleg through his hair. That claw type thing.

        Lyra maneuvered her head up and down. Stanley’s eyes fell towards the ground, like the gears inside of his head were turning. 

“Well, you still seem like a pretty nice unicorn thing,” he said, turning his gaze back towards her. The light of his glass ball bounced off of his teeth. Lyra didn’t know what made her eye nervously twitch—the compliment, how awkwardly he phrased the sentence, or how odd it was to hear him say the assortment of words the way he did. Either way, Lyra didn’t say a word. She hated blushing. It revealed too much, made her feel more self-conscious than she already was. Lyra listened as the words poured out of his mouth like sand. “Even though this whole thing is still weird as shit, at least we each made a new friend out of it, right?”

Lyra felt her joints, her muscles, her brain, lock up once again. Her eyes suddenly felt dry, and it scratched her lids every time she blinked. Her felt her entire heart drop with the same power of a mountain being dropped off the edge of space. Something tickled her inside of her chest, like there was a feather stuck in her ribcage. Lyra completely forgot about her nervousness for a brief moment, as her mouth parted just slightly. Her tongue was gooey, and soft.

“Y-You…we’re f-friends?” Lyra repeated in astonishment. Her eyes were the size of pinpricks, and she bent her foreleg and leaned forward a few millimeters. She wasn’t entirely sure if she had heard him correctly. 

A playful grin adorned Stanley’s calmed features. “Of course,” he announced. “After all, you can’t talk to someone you find interesting and then not end up becoming friends. It’d just be cruel!” Wide, kind eyes stared back at Lyra from behind his square glasses. Lyra was almost sure she could see her reflection in them.

Lyra’s mouth was still open. As soon as she realized her tightly wound muscles and joints, they almost immediately went slack. 

“I...I…” Lyra stuttered. This time, the words were lodged in her throat for a different reason, afraid to leave due to another kind of fear that Lyra was completely foreign to. The feeling was similar to an icepick being jabbed through her gut, but it was in a new way that Lyra wanted to laugh at. 

Stanley sniggered. “Hey, what’s wrong? Am I not good eno-- ”

Then that was it.

The glass ball just… shut off. It was like a light switch had just been flipped, her room was once again covered in the darkness that the night painstakingly returned to her. Another bout of silence came forth, teasing Lyra’s eardrums with cursed promises and wondrous lies. Lyra could still see the faint image of Stanley slowly disappear from behind her eyes. In front of them, she was staring incredulously at the glass ball only a few feet in front of her. It had returned back to its pretty, transparent self. 

It was nothing had ever happened.

“I…” Lyra couldn’t keep herself from repeating it. She was so close to speaking up, and saying something concerning their new friendship. But alas, she was too late. No longer afraid—seeing as the ball had miraculously went silent—she hesitantly took a few steps closer. One leg after another, through the blackening din of her room, she made her way over to the ball.

As she stood in front of it, she frowned. She brought up one of her hooves, and gently tapped it on the tippy-top of the glass ball. It made a small “ping!” noise, and nothing else. 

For some reason, the glass ball had simply turned off.

Lyra let out a small whimper at the mere idea. She was so close. She had no idea that she would have found an acquaintance  inside a monster tonight. She had no idea what to say, or do, now that Stanley was gone. She had no idea why she felt just a little more happy than she would have preferred.

But, none of it mattered now.

Stanley was gone.

The only light that filtered itself through the darkness was that of the alarm clock next to her bed.

It read 12:20 AM. But Lyra didn’t care. It wasn’t sure if she’d be getting any sleep anyways.



        
        




        

        

        

        



        
        


	
	
	

> Ch. 2: Of Steel and Stars
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Lyra didn’t awake until nearly noon that next morning.

        She regretted every single thing about it. The loud thumping of the blood inside of her ears was enough of a wake up call. She felt like the noise itself could rouse an elephant in the other room. Her legs felt tingly and warm underneath the blankets. No matter how she moved them, they refused to calm down. It was an almost insane notion, when a body didn’t listen to its brain’s demands.

        She didn’t want to get up. Not after last night. Not after realizing that there was actually no reason to leave the confinements of her room. She just wished to sit and lie there for the rest of her days, waste away the time like it was leftovers on a plate. 

        At first, her mind was horribly fuzzy, but eventually as the hours progressed she felt herself wide awake. When the warmth that came from underneath the blankets became too much, she finally rose, albeit a bit grumpy.

        Upon waking up, Lyra was horribly hungry. She could feel her stomach twisting and contorting inside of her, like someone was crushing her insides in a mighty grasp. She didn’t even let out a yawn as she sat up in her bed, coddling the blankets close to her body like a small child. Her mane was most certainly a mess, but she didn’t bother to fiddle with it. Not like it mattered. She gently tossed the blankets off of her body.

        She rubbed her eyes, cleaning the dried flakes that adorned the corner of her orbs. She slid off of her bed. Her hind legs were not as cooperative as she would have liked, prompting her to make this transition just a little slower than normal. 

        The moment she hit the floor, she looked towards the other side of the room. A thick beam was gifted to her from the sun, shining through her window like a welcomed houseguest, or a friend in disguise. The glass ball was in its same position since last night, untouched and unbothered. The sun’s light was reflecting gorgeously off the ball, and projecting a pretty rainbow-esque pattern on the wall next to Lyra’s bed.

        The ball was back to its normal self. It was so pretty and inconspicuous that Lyra couldn’t help but cock her head. She stared at it with wide eyes, and a downturned mouth. The ball was like a gravitational force, tempting and seducing her to close the mighty gap between the two of them. Lyra could feel some kind of attraction when she looked at it, but it simply couldn’t be explained.

        She took a few nervous steps forward, each hoof lingering in the air for almost a quarter of a second before each step was initiated. She never took her eyes off her target, for fear that something else may happen should she. She reached the ball, and took the liberty to simply stare at it, in its transparent glory.

        She moved her head around, getting a few different views of the object. But nothing about it seemed strange. It was an ordinary glass ball. “Maybe…” Lyra murmured, her gaze transforming into a depressed, half-lidded stare. “Maybe it was just a dream,” she told herself with a tiny whisper. She couldn’t help but sigh when that single thought crossed her mind. It was like a raft floating aimlessly down a raging river.

        The thought drifted through Lyra’s mind, fluttering around and bumping absently around in different parts of her skull. She had never had a dream so vivid, which was a statement in itself. Her mind was never as clear as it was last night. The light that came from the glass ball, being awoken in the wee hours of the morning.

        Stanley.

        Stanley. That name rang through her brain like an ancient gong being struck for the first time. It made Lyra’s heart beat just a little bit faster, and her appendages wish to lock up involuntarily. She remembered him. He called himself a human, she believed. The idea of his face projected on the side of the glass ball was nothing but a memoir of what she thought was true.

        Lyra turned to the floor, and let out a heavy sigh. It must have been a dream. It was just too insane to be real, everything that occurred last night. A small smile adorned her face, and she giggled lightly to herself. Her loneliness was causing her to lose her mind. That mere dream was a representation of what she didn’t have, and she knew it. She was silly, to think that she’d ever make a friend. She was wrong, to actually think that her new purchase was some kind of… magical communicator. She was stupid to believe that she’d ever have somepony to talk to during these next thirteen days.

        She was stupid.

        Lyra couldn’t get Stanley’s image out of her mind. That kind face that smiled up at her inside the ball like some kind of small child. She couldn’t ignore the words that she said to him, and the meaning of his misplaced grin. 

        No.

        There was a sliver of doubt inside of her, and she wasn’t going to let it go to waste. She needed to use her emotions as a drive, like she knew she should have. Lyra, like she was flipping a switch, suddenly refused to accept that it was a dream. It was too real, too vivid, for it to be a falsification. Whether it was a dream or not, she actually felt scared. From the moment the ball started glowing, to when it shut off, Lyra had been terrified to the point of passing out. But after contemplation Lyra wanted to go back. She wanted to go back to being scared, as long as she could finally have a new friend just like she had always wanted. 

        Stanley was a kind monster. Someone who Lyra could call a friend, talk to, even.

        She stared at the ball in front of her, poking and prodding it softly with her hoof. She did this once every so often, until she eventually tapped it so hard that it almost fell to the floor. How do I make this thing work…? she thought. She knew it wasn’t a dream. She wanted to see her friend again, but right now, this stupid ball was keeping her from doing that. The ball was cruelly tormenting her, like it was offering candy. “Come on… please…?”

        The ball didn’t so much as flicker, or give Lyra even a hint that it would turn on any time soon. Maybe the balls connection to Stanley was some kind of fluke? She shook her head, as her dome was already beginning to take a turn for the worse. She very suddenly felt overcome by a splitting headache pitted inside the back of her head.

        The whole situation was killing her thoughts. She could feel certain areas of her body throbbing with annoyance, resisting Lyra’s futile wishes and desires once more. 

        Lyra gave the glass ball one final stare, before walking into the kitchen to soothe her growling belly.





        Boredom almost immediately caught up with the mare, as depressing as it actually was.

        The realization of what was to come hit her like a freight train, or even like a fall from the edge of the skies. The trepidation of her evident ennui was a curse in disguise, like an unavoidable nightmare. She could feel the tremors rising inside of her chest, and she hated every second of it. 

        No matter what she tried to do, she got bored just seconds afterwards. Drawing lead to nowhere, as she had the artistic ability of a small child. She practiced her singing, but eventually her voice started to hurt. It wasn’t as if she ever used it very often. However, playing her lyre actually provided her a bit of joy, until she broke one of her strings.

        Lyra was absolutely devastated. With that similar sinking feeling in her belly growing, she knew that she was in trouble. The sound was like Lyra had murdered her own instrument, as it begged for mercy and release in her very hooves. Considering her lyre only bore a few strings in itself, it was physically impossible to play it without that one single missing piece.

        Completely disheartened, Lyra felt like crying. The sheer stress and loneliness and isolation weighing down on her shoulders was enough to sink a ship. But, she held it at bay. She bottled up her emotions, like usual, and sighed. She didn’t have any extra strings, having the one she broke be the last one. While Lyra was glad that she was going to have something to do to bide her time, she was none too happy about having to leave her home, as much as she wanted to. It was a conflicted feeling. However, unless she didn’t want to play her lyre anymore, which was almost never the case, she was going to have to go out and purchase some more strings from the shop.

        “It… it figures…” Lyra muttered underneath her breath, even though there was absolutely no one around. Lyra had a feeling that she was going to pick up the terrible habit of talking to herself, or make it worse really, so she tried her best to keep it a minimum. As the time dawdled on, and every hour seemed like a total of two days, it was getting much more difficult.

        Nonetheless, it took Lyra approximately thirty minutes to run to the store. The journey should have been much longer, but Lyra couldn’t keep herself from rushing and running. Just the thought of other ponies looking and observing her made her horribly nervous, to the point of petrification. When she performed with the Ponyville Symphonic, she had to refuse sitting in the front, like most lyre players. She just couldn’t do it. She was forced to sit in the back, behind the big drums, where no one could see her, and she couldn’t see the crowd.

        In short, Lyra ran to the store, bought the correct strings as fast as she could, and bolted back before she had any time to think twice about it. It was something that she just couldn’t help doing. Like a strange urge or tick that she just couldn’t ignore or get over.

        But, it was her life. The way she acted way a part of her, like the very fur than adorned her coat. There was nothing that could be done about the things she did or the way she behaved. While most around her would merely tell her to be brave, and to put herself out there more in order to make friends, she just couldn’t. Her parents told her many years ago, and even tried to enroll her in various clubs and groups in order to get her out of the house more, but they all resulted in the same thing: Lyra sobbing, having something similar to a mental breakdown, and begging to be picked up.

        As much as Lyra wanted it all the change, she knew it never would. She was cursed with a destiny of seclusion and isolation, her mind and body refusing its inner desires like a child not wanting to eat veggies at the dinner table. It was the exact same thing, and Lyra was absolutely certain. While it sometimes killed her inside, she had no wish to fix it. Whenever Lyra tried to contemplate it, she would only end up shaking her head.

        In short, Lyra ended up doing practically nothing all day. She idled away her time by playing her lyre, practicing, and taking a small trip to the store. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. Lyra thought nothing of it as she squandered away another day of her one and only life. She only felt loneliness, happiness, and a slight bit of depression as well, but she tried her best to ignore it.

        Lyra plucked away at her strings like they were a gateway to the afterlife, delicately tracing and playing her instrument with the finesse and love that it deserved. Lyra had always believed that the lyre’s sounds were the music of the angels. She always had, ever since she had first heard one all those years ago. Now, whenever she played or heard its beautiful tones, she’d let the notes course through her veins like some kind of ethereal adrenaline.

        But it couldn’t last forever. Much to Lyra’s delight, the sun seemed to come and go. She had successfully frittered away her entire day. While it was spent doing something she loved, and the unicorn felt slightly guilty, she felt a pang of  triumph as she reveled in the fact that there was only twelve days left until her best friend returned.

        And then, and only then, she would be alright.

        The sun was gone, dipped below the trees beyond, by roughly 7:30 pm. Surely, Lyra thought to herself, I could go to bed now without interrupting my sleep schedule. As tempted as she was to stay awake just to see if she was, in fact, dreaming last night, she decided against it. Lyra firmly believed that what happened the previous night—the glass ball her meeting with that kind human, Stanley—was not a fallacy. It was oh so real, so much that she could remember his voice ring inside of her head, and his enlightened face inside of the glass.

        

“Even though this whole thing is still weird as shit, at least we each made a new friend out of it, right?” 



        Lyra couldn’t believe it, that those words were a lie. Did she really, truly, make a new friend? She had dismissed the possibility so long ago. The idea of somepony actually calling her that word was nearly a miracle.

        One more time, she wished. Call me your friend, one more time.

        Lyra was forced to go to bed, though. There was nothing else she could do besides that. As fun as it seemed to stay up all night and stare at that ball until something happened, she was never positive that it would. “Perhaps it was a one time thing…” Lyra wondered, as she slipped underneath the covers of her blanket, ready to endure night two of her fourteen day long suffering. “Stanley woke me up last night,” Lyra muttered, as she rested her head on the pillow. Saying his name out loud felt so foreign to her tongue. “Maybe… maybe he’ll do it again tonight.” After all, she was a fairly light sleeper. 

        Lyra closed her eyes, and clutched the blankets. The silent chill of the oncoming night was cooing, and doing it’s very best to lull her asleep. However, she was just so hesitant. Restlessness had her by her foreleg, while her inner wish for sleep had her by the other. They were both tugging mercilessly, threatening to rip her clean in half unless she gave in to one of the two sides.

        She wanted to see her new friend, so badly that it almost hurt. It was the only thought inside of her mind. Her friend. Friend, friend, friend.

        That one, minuscule word passed through her mind what must have been over a million times before she gradually fell nodded off. Her snores were simply a replacement for her insanity. Unfortunately, she just wasn’t aware.



 

        Lyra was awoken, yet again. The night was like any other, peeking its way through her room like a friendly intruder. Her sleep was gently shattered by reasons that she really didn’t understand. The covers that adorned her body were actually sliding off, forcing the top half of her to shiver at the occasional chills that her room was kind enough to give her. She pulled the blankets up closer to her body, before flipping herself over. She turned her nose towards the ceiling, and opened her eyes. 

It hurt, at first. It was like her orbs were being pierced by a red-hot metal rod. She had to compel herself to get used to the odd mixture of light and darkness that made its way through her room. It was like the two of them were doing some sort of perpetual dance for control of the walls that covered and isolated Lyra from the outside world.

When her eyes finally stopped hurting so much, she let out a small sigh. She almost would have paid the odd light no mind, the sleepiness that she was enduring shrouding the incident that had happened twenty-four hours ago like a horrid blanket. It wasn’t until she heard something that her eyes snapped open, and started to remember.

“Are… are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Don’t ask questions, just come on.”

Lyra was given another chill, but for different reasons. Her eyes grew the size of pinpricks at the sound of another voice. It took a minute before she pieced it together. She slowly turned her head, and took notice of the glass ball. It was shining once again, illuminating the room in a much brighter glow that it was the previous night. Unfortunately, Lyra couldn’t see it all that well from her position. With a quick turn of her head, she looked at the clock. It was midnight, on the dot.

Stanley.

Was it true? Was she really going to talk to her new friend tonight? Was it honestly not a dream? Was just losing her mind, and hallucinating as she descended upon another helpless bout of insanity? She had to know. 

Lyra, slowly, began to exit her bed, feeling the sharp chill of the house hit her with the force of ten suns. She was so desperate, wanting and willing for some kind of communication. She wanted so badly to talk to somepony, or something, Stanley specifically. She had him, and it made her happier than she’d truly been in a while.

Lyra walked up to the glass ball, a bit closer than she did last night. She was a little more confident, sure that Stanley would never hurt her now. However, it wasn’t until she looked inside the glass ball when she realized something was terribly wrong—something that made Lyra’s mind wish to go completely numb.

The voices… neither of them sounded like Stanley at all.

“Walker… come on. Can’t we do something else?” This time, it was another voice. Three voices in all, Lyra heard. Neither of them were Stanley’s. Lyra could hardly handle talking to one monster, one human. She still couldn’t even handle talking to ponies from her own world. There was no way she could handle three at once. What if these monsters were nothing like Stanley? What if they attacked her, and killed her? Lyra felt her body lock up, turning back into her usual stupor. That lame, frightful, lonely version of herself that she despised so much.

She was looking at some kind of room. There was a large oak table in the middle, much larger than Lyra had ever seen inside somepony’s couch. Just how big are these monsters? Lyra couldn’t help but think. There was a brown couch located directly in front of the table. They shared the same color. The walls were a stark white, and covered in various different pictures and memorabilia that Lyra wasn’t able to directly see. The room was dark, however, the moonlight allowed her to see practically every inch at least a little bit. If it was indeed a human’s house, then their livingrooms really didn’t differ all that much from that of Equus residents.

Something else Lyra noted as odd was the fact that the view of the room was clear, and unmoving. When she talked to Stanley, the picture of him would frequently jump and jerk. Perhaps Stanley was holding his ball, while the one she was looking through now was stationary? Well, that’s assuming if Stanley’s original idea was correct. 

Oh, how she missed her new friend.

“Fuckin’ pansies. Just come on!” said one of the voices. Lyra winced at the sound. It was a bit younger than Stanley’s, but a bit more meaner sounding. Although he was talking in a hushed manner in a place that Lyra couldn’t see, she could feel the venom dripping from his voice.

There was a small whimper, like that of a young child, before three figures made their way into the room. Two of them were… young. About half the size of Stanley, if Lyra had to take a guess. The other one, the mean sounding one, must have been older, as he was significantly taller. Piecing this together, and using the sounds of their voices as evidence, Lyra deduced that they were all male.

“I don’t like this! We could get in trouble!” said one of the monsters. He was only a foot or so taller than the couch, and bore a fluffy red mane on the top of his head. Lyra was immediately reminded of Golden Harvest, who she would sometimes see and buy carrots from in the market. However, she tossed that reminder out of her mind very quickly. His body was much skinnier than the other two, and he bore small red spots on his face and cheeks. He was shaking a good amount, like a leaf in the wind. “Let’s just go do something else!”

“Hush, Eric!” said the older monster to the small red-maned child-human. His skin was much darker than the other two, making it hard for Lyra to see him in the darkness. She had no idea that these monsters differentiated in color like ponies did. He didn’t even seem to have a mane. In fact, he was almost bald. “Shut your damn mouth and start grabbin’ shit,” he said. 

The red-maned monster, Eric, turned his gaze to the floor, and let out another pathetic whimper. The other small child, glared hard at the much more intimidating human. 

“You have to know how bad of an idea this is,” he said, in a hushed whisper. “We could go to jail! Can’t we just… do something else?” This monster was only an inch or two shorter than Eric, and he was a bit more portly. Every step he took almost caused the hardwood floor underneath him to creak and groan. Unlike Eric and the mean human, his mane was a bit longer, uncut and styled upwards a bit. Oddly enough, it was similar to a pretty common Equestrian haircut. For being smaller, he certainly seemed a bit braver than the other child. Since Lyra had absolutely no idea how human’s aged, she had no idea just how old all three of them were. The mean one had to have been reaching adulthood sometime soon, though. He just sounded so older.

The older one glared at the tubby child, and threw a small sack at him. A pillowcase, maybe? “Don’t pussy out now,” he said, obviously growing more agitated by the second. “You wanted to be cool, right? You wanted to hang with the older kids, right? Then prove you two aren’t just little bitches. Start puttin’ stuff in the bag.”

“But Walker, this wasn’t what we--” started the portly one, but the older monster quickly dragged his claw across his neck, shutting the poor monster up.

“I don’t wanna hear it! Just do it, or else! I’m not fuckin’ around. Sooner we grab it all, sooner we can leave.”

Lyra was pretty sure she was witnessing a robbery. These monsters were… were terrible! They’re stealing from somepony! The mare stayed absolutely silent, fearing the worst. If these monsters knew that she was witnessing their crime, surely they’d come after her as well. She didn’t wanna get hurt. Lyra didn’t want to die. All she could do was stay silent, and pray for her safety—hope that they wouldn’t notice her.

These humans were nothing like Stanley. Nothing like him at all.

Truly monsters.

The three humans started loading things into the sack in the portly ones grasp. How they hadn’t noticed the light that was surely given off the glass ball was a mystery, and Lyra didn’t question it. She stared absolutely silent, watching with wide eyes and a trembling heart as these three stole from another human. Another being of the same species. Lyra was beginning to grow sick to her stomach.

“Levi, make sure to grab the DVD player. I could use that,” said the older monster, who Lyra was pretty sure one of the younger thieves called Walker. That meant the last one, the chubby human, was Levi. “We gotta hurry the fuck up. We’ve already been in here for too long,”

Walker was avidly tossing things inside of the sack, moving at a brisk pace. He talked very oddly, with some kind of accent that was hard to understand. He occasionally missed his G’s and H’s. However, Levi and Eric were being very slow. They were practically dragging themselves from the shelves, to the sack, and back again, all with large frowns on their faces. Are they ashamed of themselves? Lyra wondered. Is the big human forcing them?

By the time the sack was halfway full, majority of the items inside of the bag were thrown in by Walker. Eric and Levi only threw in two or three things, if Lyra was paying attention enough. There was no doubt that the big human was manipulating the other two smaller ones. Lyra felt just a little worse. The terrible wish to intervene was apparent, however so was her fear. Her courage was absolutely nowhere to be found.

Lyra’s heart practically stopped when a light flipped on, and she heard a fourth voice thrown into the mix. 

“W-Who… what are y-you three doing in my house…?” it said. From an entrance far in the background, Lyra could make out the hunched silhouette of another monster. It sounded oddly feminine, but a bit distorted. Lyra could certainly make out the fact that it was a female, but just barely. She had strange wrinkles all over her face, and was shaking horrendously. Her fragile body looked like she was about to keel over at any minute. Soft, blue eyes stared at the three thieves, but they were quickly contorted with worry in a matter of seconds. 

“Oh fuck!” screamed Walker. Eric and Levi reacted in different ways. The former was trembling, and Lyra could see water assembling in the corners of his eyes. The latter had actually ducked down behind the couch, in a desperate attempt as to not be seen. It didn’t work. “I… I… Fuck!” Walker added.

“G-Get out!” screamed the old monster, clutching her bathrobe. Her long grey mane hung down like algae. “Please, get out of my house, n-now!”

“Walker, let’s go!” Levi shouted, standing up from his crouched position. He started pulling at Eric’s shirt, trying to coerce him roughly. Lyra was pretty sure that the portly boy would start dragging the meek monster had enough time passed. 

        “Look, old lady,” Walker said, holding out his appendages. His entire demeanor changed, and his face softened to the point where Lyra could hardly recognize him anymore. “W-We’re sorry, we’ll put the shit back and leave, just chill out, alright?” Lyra furrowed her brow as she watched the scene take place. Her heart was beating faster than she ever thought it could, struck by so much fear that she was quickly finding it hard to breath. It was like she was entangled it a murderous bear hug. Lyra could feel the tension in the air, and she prayed for it to end. 

        She was completely helpless as she watched.

        It was a shame that, deep in her mind, she knew she was never meant to be of help anyways.

        Walker was much closer to the elderly monster than the other two males, but that didn’t stop him from taking steps towards her. 

        “What are you doing?” Levi shouted. His eyes were shifting between Walker, and something just out of Lyra’s view. She presumed it to be the door. “Come on, let’s get out!”

        “Go on!” shouted the old human. “You’d better listen to your little friend there, and git!” she spat. Walker didn’t appear to be listening.

        “Just take it easy!” yelled Walker. The female’s eyes grew larger, as if she had just then realized that the mean human was taking steps closer. “Come on, just come out here with us. Talk a bit?” As suspicious as it sounded to Lyra, the female caught on as well. She roughly shook her head.

        “I-I’ve seen your faces! All of them! I’m calling the police!”

        It was then, at the point, that Lyra felt so afraid, so frightened of the safety of monsters she never even knew. Walker’s face contorted into a mask of sheer rage—a swirling behemoth of evil and maliciousness. It was as if something inside of him switched, shifted. Like a demon in angel’s clothing, Walker exploded.

        “God fucking damnit!” Walker cried out. He threw out his appendages and stomped on the floor, exasperated. He let out an aggravated howl, like that of an animal. The dark bodied monster had appeared to just lose his mind upon the hearing of a single sentence. It was as if the sheer mentioning of punishment was too much for the monster to bear. “Old ass bitch! Now it’s all fucked! God dammit all!”

        Before Lyra could even wonder what was going to happen next, she heard a small click.The next moment, Walker was holding some kind of… thing, in his hand. It looked like some kind of metallic… thing. From Lyra’s position, it looked like the tip of a metal hammer, and bore a small cylindrical tube that pointed towards the old human’s head. His finger was shaking near some kind of trigger near the bottom. Lyra had no idea what it was, but Eric, Levi, and the female did. All three of their eyes widened fearfully at the sight of it.

        “W-Walker, don’t!” cried Eric, who was blubbering horrendously. Levi’s mouth was parted, and Lyra could see the gears turning inside of his head.

        “Yeah!” The noise that came out of Walker’s mouth was terribly loud, so much that it made the female hold up her appendages, and jump. Lyra couldn’t help but flinch. She quickly brought a hoof up to her mouth, to keep herself from crying out. Lyra had a bad feeling about the weapon in Walker’s claw. “Yeah, yeah! Now what? Now whatcha gonna do? Stupid motherfucker!” Walker actually tilted the weapon horizontally, shoving it closer and closer to the old monster’s face.

        “P-Please, wait…” The female said, choking back a few tears. “I w-won’t call the police… just… please leave!” Her fragile arms were shaking like branches, being forced to endure the pain of holding them in the air unsupported.

        “Don’t do it! We’re already in enough trouble!” Levi shook, clutching Eric’s shirt for dear life. “Come on, this isn’t a joke! Put the gun down!”

        “Hell nah, it ain’t no joke!” Walker shouted. “This bitch’s gonna send us to fuckin’ jail! Callin’ the police and shit. Do you wanna go to jail? Do you wanna? I didn’t fucking think so!” Walker didn’t take his crazed eyes off the female. “Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna go and grab anything worth hard money and give it here!”

        “I don’t have anything, h-honest… please…” the female begged, tugging at Lyra’s aching heart. The words that fell from her lips were nothing but sincere, as far as Lyra could tell. They were sweet. The female reminded Lyra of her very own grandmother, but she felt worse upon making the connection.

        “Bullshit!” Walker cried, thrusting the weapon a little closer to the female’s face. She let out a soft cry as her only rebuttal. “You don’t keep all your shit in your living room. Now go get it!”

        “Let her go!” Levi shouted, taking a few steps forward. Lyra’s eye twitched, and she felt like she was going to undergo a full-fledged panic attack at any moment. “Don’t hurt her! Seriously!”

        “Please…” pleaded the female, giving the tubby child a small flicker of her eyes.

        “Shut up!”

        “Walker—” 

        “Fuck you!”

        “Walker!” 

        What happened next, Lyra would never be able to cleanse from her mind, body and soul. It would haunt her for the rest of her life, and fill her dreams full of nothing but remorse and suffering upon each and every remembrance.

        Walker turned around, but kept the “gun” pointed towards the female. He opened his mouth, as if he was going to holler at the portly human some more, but stopped when he realized his mistake. By the time he turned around, the elderly female human had already tried to bolt. Using the walls as support, she rushed deeper into the kitchen. Lyra could just barely see her, but she wouldn’t have to much longer. Walker cursed, and suddenly, the entire house was filled with a sound that rivaled a firecracker. It hurt Lyra’s ears, forcing her to cover them to prevent them from enduring any further harm. She gritted her teeth, and closed her eyes, tears streaming down like the mouth of an angry river.

        “No!” she heard Eric shout. There was a loud crash, and Lyra forced herself to open her eyes again. “Oh God…!”

        The female was almost out of sight. The only part of her that Lyra could see was part of her hindlegs, strewn about the kitchen floor. All she noted were the pink slippers and the panicked crying that came from Eric. 

        The older female was surely dead.

        “Fuck! I… I…” Walker stuttered, holding the gun up in the air. Levi pushed the murderer aside, and knelt down to the floor. “She made me do it! She was gonna call the police on us! It was her fucking fault! God dammit, you both saw that shit!”

        “You killed her! Why!? Oh no, no, no!” Levi cried. The body of the female was moving, as if Levi had started shaking her, doing his best to rouse her from a sleep in which she would never awaken. Tears fell down his face, and Lyra could see some kind of red substance meandering across the kitchen floor. There was no doubt as to what it was. Lyra felt the bile rising in her throat, a false sense of warmth climbing from her stomach, making a daring escape for the surface.

        “She tried to run!” Walker argued. He quickly hid the gun away in the back of his pants. “So I shot the bitch! She made me do it! Y’all saw! Come on, grab the shit and let’s go!” With this, Walker grabbed the sack, and tossed it over his shoulder. To his dismay, Eric and Levi were huddled around the body of the elderly female, shouting.

        “We can’t just leave her! We’re gonna go to jail for murder!” Eric cried, falling down to his knees. The front of his shirt was soaked, using it as a way to clean the tears off his face. Walker let out another angry cry, and Lyra could hear his seething. His eyes were soulless, dead inside as he stared at the much smaller children before him.

        “Is that how its gon’ be? Y’all just gonna pussy out once some old bitch gets shot? The fuck? Y’all just gonna wait for the fuckin’ cops to get here? Stupid!” he yelled. Levi nodded. He was heavily trembling, but not as much as Eric. The poor child appeared to be having some kind of breakdown, staring at the body before him and grasping the sides of his mane, like he was about to tear it out.

        “We didn’t sign up for this!”

        “‘Ey! You wanted to roll with the real niggas, right? Well, here we are!” The murderer threw his unoccupied foreleg up into the air, causing Levi to flinch.

        Please leave. Lyra told herself. Please… leave the children alone…

        “She didn’t do anything! We didn’t…” Levi couldn’t even finish his sentence, as he turned back down at the lifeless corpse next to him. A few of Eric’s whimpers filled the house.

        Click!

        Eric and Levi both looked up.

        Lyra’s heart stopped, and she lost the ability to breathe.

        A smile adorned Walker’s face.

        The two children jumped up at the sound. Walker now had the gun back in his grasp, and was pointing it at both of the young humans. Eric started to cry harder, while Levi raised his forelegs high in the air. His eyes harbored nothing but deep regret.

        “Y’all can stay ‘ere then! But y’all ain’t gon’ snitch on me!” Walker roared, staring at the two with eyes colder than the body that lay before them.

Then he fired. 

The shot was aimed a little too high, creating a hole in a cabinet just a few inches above Eric. Since Lyra hadn’t technically seen what a gun did, and lacked the basic knowledge of just what firing one of those guns would bring forth, she couldn’t help but imagine that size of a hole inside of the poor female’s body. Lyra had no idea that guns shot out really fast pieces of metal. Inside, she pleaded for the children to run.

        Levi and Eric bolted out of Lyra’s view, to the right. Walker cursed, and dropped the sack onto the floor, with a mighty crash. He ran into the kitchen, and lifted up the gun again. Lyra heard the opening of another door. But, near milliseconds afterwards…

Bang! Bang! Bang! Followed by another angry curse from Walker.

And then, just like that, the glass ball shut off, leaving Lyra wondering about the fates of the two children.

Just like the previous night, the room was completely shrouded in a complete darkness. A seemingly hopeless pit of sorrows and emptiness that Lyra had gotten used to so long ago. The sounds of terror and sobbing whisked away any sort of hope for the future that the young mare had. She could feel the swirling descension into madness in her heart, lungs, and mind. It was like a war cry in a peaceful evergreen.

        That loud noise. The loud blam! was still audible inside her ears, labelled in the filing cabinets of her brain as the sound of somepony she didn’t know being murdered. After pleading for her life, begging for the trio to leave her house and let her be, she would still be on the floor of her kitchen, bleeding, and reaching an end to her already long life. And then, the gun being turned on innocent children, leaving Lyra unsure of their fates.

        Levi and Eric tried to stop him, Walker, the monster. Walker the monster. Walker was nothing like Stanley. He was mean. He was a murderer, and ender of innocent lives that deserved to thrive and prosper for however long they had left. Stanley was a good friend, nothing like that.

        Humans are monsters, Lyra thought, with wide eyes. A human is my friend.

        Lyra couldn’t take it anymore. What she had just seen would never, ever leave her mind. Before it was too late, Lyra’s cheeks puffed, and she up and ran herself to the restroom. Having barely made it, Lyra successfully vomited into her toilet in the knick of time. She retched, and puked until there was absolutely nothing left inside of her aching belly. By the time she was done, her throat was on fire, and the only thing that was exiting her body was nothing more than disgusting stomach bile.

        When she was sure she was done, she sat on the floor of her bathroom, her mane strewn about and contorted into nothing more than a mess that she had no desire to fix. Lyra’s eyes were bloodshot and panicked. Lyra’s spheres were as wild and transparent as the glass ball.

        Lyra brought her hooves to her head, and sobbed into the bathroom floor. She let out gigantic wails of agony that bombarded her already spoiled eardrums. The torment that was brought forth to her traumatized mind cracked her brain, breaking her down until the stress tried to eat her alive. It was all too much to bear, and if Lyra had the opportunity, and another one of her rash impulses, she would have possibly jumped from the nearest highest cliff just to ease away the pain of it all.

        The loneliness.

        The emptiness.

        The sights that befell her that night.

        The fear.

        The death.

        The silence.

        Oh Celestia, the silence.

        That ball. It was getting to her. Whether or not it showed nothing but illusions or fallacies, Lyra certainly hoped so. She wished that she was simply dreaming, a rare nightmare that would occasionally plague her mind with hardships and woe. The glass ball that she had bought for fifteen bits was threatening her psyche, should she not be in some kind of odd dream.

        Dream.

        Lyra’s fractured mind almost forced her to believe it. What she had saw, never happened. She urged herself to throw out any thoughts of what she had just visioned, any recollection of the murder that had just taken place in front of her very eyes. Lyra tossed away the thought of the terrified screams of possibly murdered young children.

        But she just couldn’t. There was no way. Lyra lifted her head, and looked out towards the hallway. Her face and eyes were redder than a tomato.

        The glass ball. How she despised that horrid thing. She hated it more than anything in the world. The temptation to go and throw the glass ball into the trash can was staggering. So much that she actually rose to her hooves…

        ...and let out a sigh.

        No. She was not going to throw out that ball. It was the only link to Stanley. Her new friend.

        Her new friend.

        Stanley would never do what Walker did. Ever. He’s a kind soul, who likes Lyra for who she was. He was nice. He would never hurt anypony.

        But he is a human.

        And humans are monsters.

        ...Right?

        

        

        





        
        

> Ch. 3: Of Love and Linears
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Lyra didn’t sleep at all that night.

        It was to be expected. After all, there was no reason for her to sleep peacefully. Her mind was contorted and warped by the sheer madness of the previous night. The things she saw were permanently etched into her memories, like somepony had just took a sharpie to her brain. Lyra had physically felt her consciousness break inside of her skull, the unholy cracking sound that was almost as horrid as the sounds that the gun had made the night previous.

She felt sick to her stomach, but she couldn’t vomit anymore. There was nothing else she could do. That hopeless, sinking feeling was drowning her in a pit of her own emotions. Everything about her just reeked of sadness, and she wanted so desperately to take an eraser to her brain.

Lyra spent the rest of the night on the bathroom floor, with the scene that came from the demonic glass ball replaying through her mind like a spinning record set for repeat. Not five seconds would pass by before the sight of the dead human would make its way through her mind, or maybe the sound of the gun, and sometimes even the thought of the fates of the two children who had tried to run away from that murderer. It was a neverending cycle that only added on to her loneliness and depression that filled her heart like a dark void.

She didn’t want to do anything, say anything, or more anymore. Her bathroom floor was her domain that night, where her mind crossed into places that made her physically sick, and mentally ill. Her normally golden eyes were now pits full of scorpions and ants. Instead of piercing through the room with its usual charismatic glow, it was nothing more than a dying flashlight now. The bags underneath her orbs were glowing more apparent, but she hadn’t stood up in a while. She couldn’t bear the idea of looking at herself in the mirror.

The chill of the bathroom floor was her blanket, covering her in a false sense of security and understanding that Lyra was simply too bothered to ignore. Everything hurt. Her face, her stomach, her chest, her head, nothing was safe from those horrible feelings that were plaguing her like a fatal disease. 

She wanted nothing to do with that glass ball anymore. But at the same time, she knew deep inside that she would never do such a thing as get rid of it. On the first night, it gave her hope. It gave her a tiny shred of promise that gave her confidence, and sealed over the cracks in Lyra’s inner wishes that she was unable to fix herself. The second night brought nothing but torment and haunting images that paled her face at the mere thought. That glass ball did nothing but fiddle with her mind, and whatever sanity she harbored left in various different clever ways. 

Lyra didn’t know what to do. She wished and prayed for somepony to tell her what to do, even though that idea was long gone, albeit for another twelve or so days. She begged for guidance and a somepony to hold her while she cried. Her outermost body pleaded for nothing but consolation, or some kind of motherly touch to caress her and coo into her ears words of love and direction.

She wanted Bon Bon, and the idea that Lyra was still going to be alone through it all was enough to make the mare want to wail just one more time. Her throat hurt so bad though, having spent the entire night crying and sobbing her eyes out. By the time 8 AM had rolled around, there was nothing left. Her tears ducts were dry, and there was a small puddle on the floor next to her face. She just couldn’t cry anymore, and she hadn’t moved a single muscle in her aching body. Her mind was completely lost inside itself, or it might have been better to say that she was looking for a way out of the maze that was her brain, looking for a way back to sanity.

She snapped out of it eventually. It was a terrifying moment, when her eyes finally focused on the area around her. It was like her entire being had just been transported, and she was just shaking off the initial shock. Her eyes were on fire. It was unfortunate how she had failed to blink for a while, and the first time she did she felt like somepony was scraping sandpaper over her eyes.

Lyra let out an aggravated cry, and lifted a hoof up to her throbbing eyeballs. Surely, they were red anyways. She tried to raise herself from her position on the floor, but almost immediately she found herself back on the ground, chest against the tiles below. Her legs, were horribly weakened, and felt like they were reconstructed with tissue paper. She hadn’t moved in so long that her legs had completely quit on her.

Unfortunately, she had lost all of her will to lie there on the bathroom floor. She refused. She’d wallowed in despair long enough, and she was going to try her best to be strong. Lyra would simply not let the events of what had occurred irk or shift her feels and emotions anymore. She wasn’t going crazy. She wasn’t going to let herself go crazy. She had grieved all night, leaving her in that of a mess.

But she just had to get up. Nopony was around to coerce her. Lyra had to do it herself. She was being weak again, and shouldn’t be.

She would never wipe the memory of what she saw last night out of her mind. The female, Eric, Levi, Walker, would all be manifesting inside inside of her brain for the rest of her life. However, she couldn’t let it hinder her. She couldn’t lie there forever. She shook her head, pathetically, and waited a minute for her legs to regain their strength and feeling.

She had to be okay. It was just her, now. 

Again.

It was as if, somehow, she was given purpose. Like somepony had just gifted wrapped her strength and vigor. It was like the weight was slowly being lifted from her shoulders, like she could finally breathe. While it might have been some kind of adrenaline, or maybe she just realized that she knew, at some point, she was going to have to pick herself off the bathroom floor and continue living in ways that those three humans did not. The mere thought of lying there any longer was simply unimaginable.

It took Lyra a while to, actually, work up the ability to move around. It started with a small flick of her tail and ears. It was like somepony was consistently releasing its grip on her, letting her go free. Her mind quickly started to clear itself, and soon all the mare could do was let out a depressed sigh. Completely unaware that she was recovering from some kind of massive mental breakdown, she soon found it in her ability to actually stand up. It was a foreign feeling, like she hadn’t done it in a matter of a hundred years—frozen in ice that was destined to never melt.

However, when she did finally rise to her hooves, she shook her head. The dizziness that threatened her proved more annoying than anything. The frown of her face proved the previous sentence false. 

Lyra wiped the tears from her pretty face. She was still afraid to look towards the mirror, and had to compel herself to just let it be. After all, she was all alone. She wasn’t going to see or talk to anypony today anyways. Why should she care how terrible she looked? 

The loneliness, the dreaded emptiness that withered away her drying bones was stripping and tearing away at every inch of her head. But, as Lyra took a few steps out of the bathroom, head towards the floor, the tired mare could only let out a sigh. She was glad she had cried, and… well, freaked out the way she had. She got it out of her system. She was able to successfully let go of the emotions that she had bottled up for so long. At least, from then on, she could start to feel better. With enough time, everypony will forget. It just depended on the pony itself.

Lyra found herself standing in her hallway, hardly able to recognize the world around her anymore. Even though it was currently early in the morning, everything felt and looked horrendously dark. There was hardly any light coursing through her home, the dominating darkness doing a victory dance around her body. She could feel it settle, resulting in her letting out a lame sigh.

As hungry as she was, there was absolutely no way that she was going to be able to force herself to eat. The thought of breakfast food sliding down her gullet was purely disgusting, almost causing her to retch entirely. She was going to have to, somehow, coerce herself. The rumbling inside of her emptied belly was too painful and apparent to ignore. Lyra worked up the courage, as well as the strength, to make her way down the hall—towards the kitchen.

Everything was the exact same way she left it. It was all exceptionally shiny and well kept, her boredom leading her to spend a bit of her time yesterday cleaning. Well, only about an hour. She could still faintly smell the of the lemon-scented cleaner in the air. She barely paid attention though, choosing to slog through with her head held low once again. Her hooves underneath the soft carpet felt like nails.

Upon arriving in the kitchen, Lyra found it harder than she ever imagined to keep basic foods down. While she was successful in eating a banana, an apple, and a glass of orange juice, she was fairly certain that she felt worse off because of it. For a little while, she believed that she was going to have to make a second trip to the bathroom, and empty her stomach once again. But, after a few minutes, her belly felt just a little bit better, and she felt a small tinge of pride course its way through her aching chest.

She felt stronger, but she was just having trouble realizing. The only thing she could note, however, was that she was much more tired than she had originally thought. The weights that adorned her eyelids weren’t there just a moment ago, urging the mare to let out a heavy yawn that popped her jaw. 

Her body was calling for sleep. It was a subtle notion, like a puppy nipping at her mother’s heels. The living room couch was in sight, and Lyra decided to make that her destination. With a small exhale, she dragged herself out of the kitchen, and practically flopped herself onto the couch with a bit more weight than she intended. While the couch itself was sturdy and strong, the force brought forth by Lyra’s flop caused it to lightly creak underneath her body. Though, she couldn’t be bothered with that right now.

Lyra closed her eyes almost immediately, the sweet embrace of it all tickling her fractured brain. For a moment, the notion was highly pleasurable, until she made the mistake of letting her mind wander as she tried to sleep.

Inside her mind, the scene replayed itself again. For the umpteeth time in the last few hours. And, just like that, her bloodshot eyes fluttered open again. The thought of the poor female, who had done nothing wrong, dead on the floor. The mere idea of the two children, dead, lying on the other side of the room as they tried their best to escape. While Lyra didn’t actually see if they had successfully left the house, and while they very well could have, her mind was entirely pessimistic towards it. The scene was all she saw, over and over again.

Eventually, though. Soon enough the mare found her body and mind relaxing, as she mentally pushed the visions out of her brain. It was a slow progress, but she felt that, sometime in the near future, she just might be able to go through her daily life without that constant thought poking holes into her consciousness.

It wasn’t like she could have done anything back there, anyways. She would have ended up dead as well.

Their deaths weren’t her fault or doing. 

As she pondered that thought, contemplating if what she had just told herself was true, Lyra began to drift off into a much needed sleep—hopefully void of any murder or humans.





        By the time that Lyra had awoken, she was so confused that for a brief moment her brain had ceased to function.

        When her residual grogginess had finally began to leave her body an undetermined amount of time later, Lyra felt better. Her heart wasn’t as heavy as before, and her body felt like it was back to its normal self. Her stomach and throat weren’t killing her, and she could actually note the amount of strength she had. It was like nothing had even happened. She hadn’t broken down, cried, and witnessed what she did. Actually, for a while, she completely forgot about it. It didn’t last long, but at least it didn’t stick in her mind like usual, and threaten to drive her crazy.

        The living room was pitch black, as expected and usual. Normally, the light that filtered in from the slide door would be plenty enough to keep the entirety of the room lit. Lyra raised her head, and looked outside. It was nighttime. How long have I slept? she wondered, as she scanned through the darkness surrounding her. There was a clock ticking away somewhere in front of her, but Lyra was unable to see it. With the blackness making her increasingly nervous, Lyra slid off the couch, and meandered over to the wall where the light switch was located. After groping and feeling up the wall for what felt like ages, she felt her hoof scratch something. Not even two seconds later, the living room was engulfed in a sea of light.

        Lyra squinted as she waited for her eyes to adjust. The room was still the same, but it still felt a bit different to her. She turned to look at the clock, and practically dropped her jaw.

        It was 7:21 pm.

        She had slept for roughly eleven hours.

        Lyra had to watch the clock for a few minutes as her mind processed just what exactly that meant. Never, ever, had she slept for that long before. She was never the one to sleep in, always rising after no more than nine hours of sleep. But… eleven? For her, that was unheard of.

        “I must’ve been....” Lyra started, slowly, “...more tired than I thought.” While Lyra mused, she felt a bit proud of herself at the same time. She was already almost done with the third day. After tomorrow, she’d only have ten days left until Bon Bon’s return, when things would finally be okay again. The only problem now, was the fact that she was awake.

        Yes. She was going to be up all night, since she slept all day. Lyra didn’t like the idea of that. She turned, and looked down the hallway. She could feel the glass ball calling her, but she was still skeptical. She hated it. She despised that glass ball for showing her what it did. However, she couldn’t ignore the fact that it connected her to Stanley, her new friend. She still wanted to talk to him, tell him what she saw and knew. 

        Lyra heaved another sigh, and made her way for her bedroom, towards the ball. She was going to have to be strong, and persistent if she wanted to talk to Stanley again. What if she didn’t wait for the ball to connect, and missed him? Lyra just couldn’t take that risk. She would wait by that ball for as long as she needed to, as long as she got the chance to see him again.

        While there was a thought that it may never connect with him again, Lyra refused to believe that was true.

        Lyra scampered into her room, definately more quickly than usual, and opened the door. She turned on the light, and rested her eyes on the glass ball on the dresser. It almost seemed to stare back at her, like it had a mind of its own. She didn’t like it, and felt a small shiver run through her body.

        So, with that, she walked over to it. Making her way rather slowly, she sat her rump down on the floor right in front of the small dresser where it called home. She raised a hoof, and gently poked the ball with the tip of her hoof.

        “H-How do you work again…?” she asked. Lyra still had no idea just what caused the ball to start working. On the first night, Lyra distinctly remembered that she was woken up at exactly 12:01 am. She hadn’t looked last night, unfortunately. “M-Maybe you only t-turn on late at night?” Even though Lyra was talking to an inanimate object, the notion of talking to something was still so foreign that she couldn’t help but stutter.

        Either way, Lyra knew that she was going to have to wait. At this point in time, she guessed that the ball’s workings were time related. She’d test out the theory tonight. Lyra frantically snapped her head around her room, as she pondered for something to do to occupy her time for a few hours.

        Something.

        Anything.

        All she wanted was to see her new friend. Lyra was praying inside of her mind that, tonight, that would be the case.





        After a few hours, Lyra could honestly say her drawing skills have drastically increased ever since Bon Bon’s departure.

        After literally hours of practicing, she was having horrible trouble coming up with ideas for things to draw. Having drawn portraits of herself using the hoofmirror located in her dresser—and random things that came to mind, such as Stanley, her house, Bon Bon, and interesting trees and woodland areas, she was starting to take a little bit of pride in her work. After all, before she started she had the artistic ability of a small foal. Now it was actually possible to decipher just what she was trying to draw in the first place. She had never really taken drawing very seriously, but that was because she knew she was terrible at it. Hey… it’s a start, right?
 
        She was actually a bit shocked, when she discovered that the clock was quickly rearing 11:30 pm. Lyra looked up, at the glass ball in front of her. So far, it still hadn’t given any sign of it turning on any time soon. Though, she was growing more and more excited. She knew it would turn on soon. Just a matter of time, and she’d be talking to her friend again. That, or… well… she’d get connected to somepony else. Lyra didn’t want to think about that. Surely the ball wasn’t cruel enough to show her something similar as to what happened last night, right? She was simply… connected, to the wrong ball. Pure happenstance, she believed. As long as Stanley’s prediction—as well as a mix of her own—was correct, after all.

        Lyra set aside her crayons and pieces of paper for the time being. She was going to start being patient, now. She locked her eyes on the glass ball in front of her, and simply waited. Her rump was beginning to get sore, so she opted to occasionally shifting her weight so she wouldn’t lose most of the feeling in it.

        It was at this point that time seemed to drag on. Every time that Lyra turned back to look at the clock, only a few minutes had passed. During the time, she had gotten up, and turned off her bedroom light. She turned on a small lamp, however it barely did its job of lighting up the room.
 
Sooner or later, Lyra’s patience began to pay off. She turned around at the clock, one last time, some odd minutes later. It was exactly midnight. Her heart skipped a beat, but she wasn’t sure if it was in a good way or not. Perhaps it was some kind of trepidation, as the small thought of what she was actually doing floated through her mind like a sailboat caught in a horrible storm.

        She was unable to change her mind now. Where did her confidence go? She had it right with her, just a few minutes ago. Why was she breathing all hard again? Why was she slowly beginning another one of her shaking fits? Why did her eye begin to twitch?

        Lyra made a very, very bad mistake.

        Her eyes widened. Her golden orbs were tiny, like the size of an ant, as the glass ball slowly began to illuminate. 

        At first, it was hardly noticeable. It was as if something inside the ball was slowly starting to come to life. The light at first was very dim, and frankly Lyra couldn’t see anything. Just a small source of light that started to come from the strange glass ball before her. But, eventually, it started to grow. The more the light grew, the more Lyra’s eyes followed. For some reason, it was growing much brighter than what it had the last two nights, making Lyra fear the worst. 

        What am I doing…? Lyra thought. Why? Why did I do this? I… I…

        She was already tempted to bolt. 

        Too late.

        The light was steadily growing in front of her. Lyra’s pulse was rising, and her chest was pounding at dangerous speeds. It didn’t take very long for something inside the ball to take shape, and for it to inevitably connect with another.

        The first thing she heard was light sobbing. It was hardly noticeable, but Lyra was absolutely sure. She could hear the crying, as it seemed to echo throughout her entire room as if it was being played through a large speaker. It was undeniable, and for some reason, very infectious. The sound made Lyra want to shake even harder than she actually was.

        After another twenty seconds, Lyra could finally see. Inside the glass ball, she saw a room. The walls were decorated a bright pink, like that of hearts and strawberry ice cream. It was a pretty shade that Lyra actually adored. She didn’t dwell on it. She must have been in some kind of bedroom. In the corner of the room, was a vanity that adorned make-up products—whose brand's she didn’t know very well—a large mirror, and some other things that she couldn’t exactly see. She was far away. While Lyra only ever wore make-up when she was onstage performing—and even then no one saw her—she was oddly unfamiliar with it. It wasn’t as if she went outside all that often, or had a reason to look good. Lyra wanted to sigh, but her nervousness was still keeping her at bay.

        The room seemed standard. There was a white closet door, and a small desk that harbored some kind of large contraption with a huge screen—perhaps some kind of arcade machine? There appeared to be something located near it that had a lot of small buttons. Lastly, the was a white and rosy colored rug on the floor. The room was very feminine, indeed.  It looked like it would belong to a little filly. Since the glass ball didn’t appear to be moving at all, Lyra presumed that the ball was placed on some kind of shelf, stationary, like last night.

        There was a bed, on the other corner of the room adjacent from the vanity. It, too, was a bright pink. However, there was something on the bed. Lyra couldn’t exactly tell how big it was, as the glass had the tendency to distort her depth perception. It didn’t take her long to realize what it was.

        It was another human. Lyra couldn’t see it’s face. It was sitting cross legged on the bed, facing away from the glass ball. It was hunched over. Its cries were getting louder, as time seemed to go on. It had a long brown mane that slid down its back. No doubt, it was a female. Judging by the way it was doubled over, it must’ve been crying into her claws-like appendages.

Lyra felt insanely awkward, and this time with good reason. She was watching another being cry her eyes out in front of her. She was getting that feeling again, the one that was telling her to run away. Lyra could feel her inner dread growing, and her nervousness rising steadily along with it. She couldn’t handle interaction, and that included some of her own feelings and emotions. Seeing the female express hers, while Lyra only watched, was absolutely terrifying and unpleasant.

Lyra couldn’t move. She was stuck to that one place, her rump still plastered on the floor like she was a mere toy that was thrown aside. Her throat was beginning to tighten once again.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed exactly, but it had certainly been at least a few minutes. Lyra, in her state of fear, hadn’t blinked the entire time. She was afraid to take her eyes off the human. Her spheres hurt as a result, but she didn’t want to risk it. What if she was a monster? What if she was just like Walker? 

But… do monsters cry?

As if on cue, after finishing that thought, the female let out a small sigh. It was a noise what startled the wits out of Lyra. She let out a small whine, one that she immediately regretted afterwards. Why a small sigh caused her to squeal, and not the sound of gunshots the last night, was a complete mystery. The female most definitely heard, poking her head up and out of her claws.

Lyra’s eyes were practically bulging. Please don’t notice me, please t-tell me she didn’t hear…

Her hopes were in vain, as the female snapped her head back, towards the ball. Her hair whisked around, softly, like it was dancing on air. Even though Lyra was clenching her jaw, tempted to run out of her room entirely, she just couldn’t. The area’s underneath the female’s rather beautiful green eyes were black. Normally, this would have scared Lyra to death, if she hadn’t noticed all the make-up on the vanity earlier. The female had a lovely face, one that quickly started to calm Lyra’s quaking heart. Though, she didn’t get that good of a look. The female turned her head back, and grabbed a small tissue from a nightstand near her bed. She wiped her face and eyes, methodically and swiftly.

She forced a smile on her face, turning towards Lyra after she was finished. The smeared make-up was now gone, and her eyes almost shone in the light of the room. She stood up, and started to make her way for the glass ball.

Lyra staggered back. It was a pure instinct. Though it hadn’t happened yet, the sight of a would-be monster making her way towards her didn’t help her fear of the beast reaching through the ball, and killing her. Or worse, dragging her through. In the end, Lyra was now a few feet from the glass ball.

The female pulled out a chair, and sat herself down. She wore a shirt the color of honey, and it bore some kind of logo that Lyra wasn’t able to read. Then again, she wasn’t really trying to. The female’s smile was still plastered on her face. Her gorgeous eyes were a little red, but the being was still smiling at her, like she hadn’t been caught crying just a moment ago.

For some reason, the female’s looks helped calm Lyra down just a little bit more. That smile was relaxing, and soon Lyra’s shivering body came to a stop. Lyra was still ready to bolt at any given time, though. She was very aware that the female could just be lulling her into a false sense of security. She hadn’t seen just what the female humans were like.

        Please, tell me she’s nice, Lyra prayed. Don’t let her be a monster…

        “So…” The female’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat and wiped something out of the corner of her eye. “Uh, how long have you been sitting there…?”

        Lyra didn’t say anything. She just gawked at the female with large, pleading eyes. The human simply stared at her, waiting for a reply that she would never get. After a few awkward seconds, it was apparent that nothing would happen unless Lyra opened her mouth, and spoke. She couldn't bear the silence anymore.

        “J-J-Just a few m-minutes…” She forced herself to say. She was finding it more and more difficult to keep from childishly rocking herself as she sat.

        “Oh,” she said. Lyra couldn’t tell if her cheeks grew pink because of her embarrassment, or because she had been crying. She didn’t want to know. “Er, sorry you had to see that. Why didn’t you speak up?”

        This time, Lyra kept her mouth closed for a different reason. Her brain just couldn’t come up with an answer. The female didn’t seem to want to wait very long for a reply. “Well, maybe that’s why,” the female said, giving forth an obviously fake laugh. “Trust me, I was shocked when I started doing this thing to. Lemme guess, you found a ball, right?”

        Lyra’s heart stopped at the mentioning of the accursed orb. The female seemed to have noticed, her smile growing just slightly in size. 

“I’ll take that as a yes. Found this bad boy just three-ish days ago. Had to wipe all the dirt off of it.” Three days? Lyra recalled. Did… everyone find this ball at the same exact time, or was it just a coincidence? “Yeah, anyways, sorry you had to see me bawl like a baby back there," she said. "You’re new, the first unicorn I’ve seen. A few other creatures mentioned you existed. Never talked to one, though.”

Lyra stayed absolutely silent. She was being bombarded with new information that she just couldn’t process fast enough. The female talked like she’d given the speech before. Lyra was going to ask out loud, but she didn’t have the courage. Did that mean that the humans were connecting to different ponies every night? Did that mean that she wasn’t the only one that had one of these glass balls?

Her head was starting to hurt. She was unable to comprehend what the female was telling her. The being herself cocked an eyebrow. “You okay? You look like you’re gonna have a panic attack.”

Lyra lied, and gave the female a small nod. The female sure was talkative, and the mare wasn’t quite sure if she particularly liked that quality.

“Sorry. That’s probably my fault. I’ll just, uh, not bring it up anymore,” said the female, who sniffled just a little bit. Lyra wanted to know more, but at the same time, she was unsure if she could handle it.

So, it’s not just me. It’s like… speed dating, but with humans and ponies from all over…

Lyra’s eye twitched with fright, and misunderstanding. Previous to this, she had no idea how it worked. She never thought about the possibility that other ponies might be talking to these humans too, and vice versa. She assumed it was just her. Lyra couldn’t help but wonder who, but that didn’t exactly matter, because the female started talking again.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” the female coughed suddenly. She looked at something to her right, and let out a small sigh, as if whatever she saw bothered her, and made her want to tear up again. Lyra knew she was being lied to, but she didn’t care. “I’m Caroline. I figured that this whole glass ball thing would be a great opportunity, you know? Meet some new creatures, take my mind off'a things. Won’t be long until I’ll have this taken away anyways. What’s your name?” The female’s eyes were wet once again.

Lyra broke the gaze, unable to witness the torment inside the girls eyes. She shifted herself, so that she could look at the ground instead. Lyra shared her name with the female, albeit just barely. She still couldn’t hold back her stutter. Lyra's stuttering was the least of Caroline's concerns.

“Hey, that’s neat. I have a friend with that name,” she said. Lyra simply gave the female a curt nod. It was very difficult to determine just how old she was, but she was certainly a little older than Stanley. Suddenly, Caroline frowned. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to talk to me?”

Lyra was so startled by the question, that all that came out was a pathetic squealing noise. While, yes, she did want to make friends, she wasn’t sure about this female yet. She was still lying to her, holding back emotions that were plain as day. It bothered Lyra, and made her feel just a little bit worse. Instead, she forced herself to open her mouth, and let the words pour through. “W-w-why were y-you c-c-crying?”

Slowly, very slowly, the smile from Caroline’s face began to disappear. This conversation was progressing too fast, far too quickly, and Lyra wasn’t sure if she could handle anymore. It was if Lyra’s words were the final nails in a coffin. Nothing but pure hurt resided on the female’s pretty face. Lyra gulped. “No reason. It’s fine. I don’t want to talk about it,” said Caroline. Had her tone not been so downtrodden, Lyra just might have believed her.

Lyra returned Caroline’s frown, and turned back towards the ground. She was actually surprised when the female kept speaking, after another moment's pause. “Just, things I have going on,” she said, with a smile. She used her claw to remove some of her mane out of her face. She tucked it behind her ear, showing a bit more of her rosy cheeks. “You gotta lover, Lyra?”

The blush that painted the poor mare’s was enough to make a ruby jealous. The blood practically made a bee-line for her cheeks, heating her up in a fashion that she, still, didn’t like. Lyra stammered, making a few weird noises as she tried to find a way to respond to the rather direct question. 

“U-Uhm… n-n-no…” Lyra barely managed to utter. Caroline let out a small huff of air, as if the answer amused her in some way. She looked away from a brief moment, back to something to her right, but she quickly fixed her eyes back on Lyra. That same smile riddled her face.

“Pro tip. Don’t,” she said, in a sweetly aggressive manner. Lyra couldn’t help but furrow her own brow. “Does bad things to a girl. You seem kind. It'd be a shame if you were to get your heart broken.”

Lyra stayed silent. She didn’t quite know what to say. Obviously, Lyra had never been in a relationship in her life. It only added to her loneliness. Sometimes, she’d have dreams where she fell in love, but even they didn’t last very long. It was a depressing thought, but that didn’t mean she didn’t think about it every now and then. She did hope to settle down with a nice stallion at some point in her life. Though, as the years come and go, Lyra started to lose her grip on that goal.

Caroline still insisted on talking, but Lyra didn’t mind. Perhaps Stanley was correct in saying that she was just a good listener. Even though Caroline’s eyes were still brimming with tears, she still forced that same attractive smile on her face. “It hurts. It takes you, and twists you apart. I just… well, lost my boyfriend. After two years, he just up and left,” she said.

Lyra frowned, but still didn’t quite know how to respond. Consolation was most certainly not one of her strong suits. She couldn’t even rest a hoof on the female’s shoulder or anything. Once again, she felt completely useless. “I-I-I’m sorry t-to hear t-that…” Lyra stammered. Though the words came out odd, she was being sincere.

Caroline’s smile didn’t falter. Lyra wasn’t sure if she would rather the female stop lying to herself and stop crying, or not. “Thanks. I don’t even know what I did wrong. He lied, but… well, you do get good things out of it. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, you’ll never know ‘til the end. But, whatever,” Caroline said.

“I-I-I’m sorry h-he… hurt y-you?” Lyra said. Honestly, she was still surprised that she was talking so much. Caroline merely stared at her for a minute, her smile fading for a second, before its joyful return just a second later.

“Thank you,” Caroline looked to her right, once again, alternating glances between Lyra and whatever it was she was gazing at. During that moment, her smile actually felt genuine. “Would… you like to see what I gained of it, though?”

Lyra didn’t understand. She quickly became confused. She cocked her head just a bit, as she tried to decide if she wanted to say yes or no. Caroline, almost as eager as ever, decided for the mare. She leaned way over to her right, and proceeded to pick something up. Unfortunately, Lyra couldn’t see from her view, but she was being very careful with it, treating whatever she went to grab delicately, like it was a mere butterfly. She could hear soft whispers coming from Caroline, almost soft coos.

It was a wonder how Lyra didn’t catch on before she actually saw it.

In Caroline’s forelegs, she held a baby.

The female cradled it, affectionately. She supported its head, as stared down at it lovingly, tenderly, amazingly. The little tyke was smiling, just as brightly as its mother, and holding its little stubby forelegs out as if he was trying to reach out and touch Caroline’s face. The baby even had beautiful green eyes, just like the female.

Lyra was simply awestruck. She had never contemplated a human baby before. Her past experience with the humans haven’t allowed her to think about such a thing. But now, one was right in front of her, giggling and babbling away like a gift from above. It was absolutely adorable, and Lyra couldn’t help but smile. The baby didn’t seem to notice Lyra, though. The mare herself always wanted kids, and for some reason, she wished that she was on the other side of the glass ball, so maybe she could even hold it.

In Caroline’s forelegs, she held a new beginning.

Caroline must have noticed the smile that adorned Lyra’s face, because she let out a deep chuckle. “His name is Tyler,” she said. Lyra’s heart wanted to melt, as her heart seemed to engulf itself in flames. “He’s my pride and joy, you know.”

“H-He’s…” Lyra started, struggling to think of the word without being offensive in some way. “S-So small…”

“Yep,” Caroline replied, looking up from the small child in her hands. He was so small, Lyra speculated that he was roughly the size of the ball that she was looking through. Though, she couldn’t be certain. “He has his father’s nose,” she added. Lyra’s smile quickly left her face as she remembered. 

The father left them—left a young female and a baby by themselves. Lyra simply watched the little bundle of happiness, as he struggled to reach and play with his mother’s mane. Lyra struggled to imagine why a father would ever leave his lover and newborn child by themselves. “At least I have him. I’m not all alone. He’ll be with me for a long time, and that’s a certainty. I’ll love him with the intensity of two parents,” she said, staring into Lyra’s eyes. The mare didn’t like it, but she pretended to ignore it by keeping her eyes on Tyler. “This little fella filled every single hole his father created. So, while I’m still sad, I believe that I now have a better reason to stay strong. You know what I mean?”

Lyra nodded, slowly, as if she was in a trance. Lyra’s heart was melting over Tyler. She had no idea that her smile was the largest one that she had given in a while. Tyler, tilted his small head over, and finally took notice of the mare. Lyra froze, while the baby did the exact same. She didn’t quite know what to do, now that she’d been seen. While she didn’t feel quite that nervous anymore, she gave a bashful wave of her hoof.

There was another small pause, before Tyler erupted into a fit of amused giggles. Caroline couldn’t help but chuckle. “He also has my sense of humor, if you haven’t already noticed.”

“H-He’s cute,” Lyra admitted. Caroline simply nodded, as she began to bounce the bubbling baby in her arms, gently. Tyler seemed to be having a ball with it, laughing like, well, a baby. 

He was…

...Beautiful.

Caroline turned to her left, and pushed out her bottom lip, like she was pouting. She turned back to Lyra with a small shrug. “It’s time to go. These connections only seem to last for about twenty minutes,” she said. Lyra did a double take. Before she knew what she was doing, she turned around to look at the clock, which read 12:19 am. Lyra turned back, with a horrendous frown.

She didn’t want the call to end. She wanted to listen to the joyful babblings on the very small child. She wanted to hear more from Caroline. It’s all she wanted.

“B-Before y-y-you go…” Lyra started, not believing that she was the one actually speaking. “D-Do you t-think w-we c-c-could be f-friends...?” she asked. Caroline brushed away some of her mane, as Tyler had accomplished his goal of trying to grab his mother’s hair. Instead of letting him tug at it, she just moved it aside, just out of the baby's reach. The female smiled, brightly.

“Of course, Lyra. I thought that was a given,” she said. Lyra’s heart rose a little bit in her chest, filling her with butterflies that pleaded to break free from her irritable stomach. Caroline turned back to what must have been a clock to her left, and spoke quickly. “It was nice to meet you. Have a good rest of your life,” she said, caringly.

Lyra gave the mother a nod, while deep inside she was begging the duo not to go—not to leave her. She didn’t want to be left alone again, not when she had just made another friend. Her dream was being fulfilled, but the cruel twist was so agonizing that it actually hurt her. “Y-You too…” 

Caroline gave one last smile.

Tyler gave one last giggle, what must’ve been his version of a goodbye.

Lyra gave one small wave goodbye.

And then the glass ball turned off, ending Lyra’s only source of social interaction and insanity for the night. She was beginning to grow sick again, but she was hardly paying attention. She was starting to get used to the feeling.