Two tiny bare feet padded down an empty hallway. The jagged windows on both sides revealing a flickering sky. The sun outside spun around the horizon, growing first yellow, then red and then white.
The child kept to the thin shade of the hall, afraid of the light. Toys littered along the floor. Some his. The toy trucks, the action figures and his favorite coloring book. Some not. The wooden ponies, the bag of crystals and those books with the really big words.
His head hurt. It always did. The candies the doctors gave him weren't working.
The little boy paused, his knuckles red and nails caked with dirt. “Mommy?” He said, his voice hoarse and tired. “Mommy, I'm sorry. I promise to be a good boy now so come out. Please! Mommy!” Tears spilled from his sunken eyes. His dirty face grew dark and his hands became fists.
The boy dropped to his knees and raised his hands. Then with a great strength, slammed his trembling fists down. The ground beneath him buckled, spiderweb cracks spilling out across the glinting tiles. He hit and he hit and cried until the walls themselves began to splinter, dust filling the ugly place. The wrong place. He wanted it all to crumble. He wanted it all to fall. His mother couldn't hide from him anymore.
“Mommy!” He said again, sobbing. Snot dripping down his face. “I want her back! You took her from me! Mommy!” A tile of the ceiling fell, smashing into shards. Then another. Then another. The debris cut into his skin, his blood a swirling black.
The hallway quaked, the end was near. It would all fall. It would all fall on him.
The child went silent, slumping onto the ground. His ears filled with the sounds of a heartbeat slowing and slowing. He didn't know why he knew. He only knew that it made him sad.
This is how it ends. Every night.
He closed his eyes and woke up warm. Soft fur. Gentle feathers. The boy curled around the source of warmth, rubbing his head into the fluffiness as he tried to fight the urge to go back to sleep. Someone chuckled. It sounded almost like his mom. The child opened his eyes and only saw white and faint glimpses of the blue ceiling. This almost looked like his room. Was this his...
“You sounded like you had a nightmare. I know you're having trouble adjusting but I want you know that it's okay.” A loving voice. A familiar voice. “Do you want to tell me over breakfast? We're having your favorite.”
“Who are you?” He stuttered. “This isn't right. My dream doesn't end like-”
“You know who I am, sweetheart. I'm your-”
“Mother?” His psychiatrist bleated back at him as if he was deaf. “Is that what the creature in your dream said? To you. Don't you think that says something significant about your mental heath?”
The warm late July sun pelted down on the psychiatrist's office. The cheap-looking fans sitting on the edges of Dr. Ward's cheaper-looking desk provided no relief from the heat wave that swept the city. It served him right that the central air would be broken on his visit. Mark shifted in his leather chair, his black slacks clinging to the seat by sweat and his unloosened tie on the arm rest. His pale scarred hands tapped impatiently, wondering and waiting to see if he had enough time to swing by the pharmacy for a refill before his shift at work began.
“That's not what I came to you for. I'm here to let you know,” Mark said, “I need more pills.”
“Mr. Fareland.” Dr. Ward rebuked, an aging forty-three year old man with a nasty smoker's cough. Mark wasn't sure if the old pot-bellied man liked him or not. He always made things difficult. “Not all mental problems require medication. We've talked about it, haven't we? Adding more to the already impressive amount you're taking won't help you in the future. Drug dependency is a nasty way to go, I believe.”
When Mark had been strongly suggested to seek his care, the strict doctor seemed like a man who knew the score. Mark didn't need to be asked about his feelings or any of the feel-good bullshit. He only needed his drugs and yearly signatures proving that he was of a stable mind. Or he could find a nice and cushy bed in a mental health institution.
“I'm crazy. Crazy people like me need more than conversations and weekly meetings.” The man stated, sighing as he leaned forward. He pulled over his knapsack and took out his medical records and notes on the pills he's been taking over the last fourteen years. Besides, he knew his body better than anyone else. These new dreams weren't going to go away without some prescribed help.
“The new prescription you gave me allows me to sleep through the day but it's ruining what Sardoeion does for me. I think we should try something new. That new pharmaceutical company, Maxwell Global, is doing this trial with an experimental drug that can pinpoint parts of the brain's wiring and-”
“Crazy people don't know that they're crazy.” Dr. Ward said, rudely coughing over his pitch for better health. “Why do you think you're crazy?”
“I don't think. I know.”
“Why?”
Mark dropped his bag. “Do we really need to go through this?” He tilted his head, sneering. “I was the 'Gone With The Fairies' kid. You got my records, you ass. I got kidnapped. I got brainwashed. And when they were done, they buried me alive. Left me to suffocate inside of a cave. I was a fucking eight-year old. I didn't know any better. I can't even remember shit properly. Even now, I see weird shit and have weird shit dreams. And when I do, I get drugs.”
“You've gotten rather agitated all the sudden. Why are you mad? ”
“I'm not mad.” The man breathed, his words sliding through his teeth like paper through a shredder. “I'm just repeating the same lines that every one of you quacks like to hear from me. I'm medic-ca-ted now so you won't get to see me snap and rage and take a shit on your desk. Though I am very interested in taking a shit on it right now. Give me my pills or I'm leaving.”
“Her name was Celeste, wasn't it? The name of your princess friend. You stopped talking about her when you were ten. Why?”
“Fuck this.” Mark stood up and slung his knapsack to his back. “I don't need to take this shit. You can take your bullshit and stuff it up your ass.” He walked over to the door and threw it open. Relishing in the crack of the door hitting the wall and the plaques hanging shaking. His hand grasped the door knob and he considered trashing the entire place. Fuck his job. Fuck his life. Fuck it all.
“Her name was Princess Celestia? You didn't like it when someone said her name wrong. You attacked a male nurse over it when you were nine. Am I saying it right? Princess Celestia. Does it ring any bells in you?”
The man froze, one foot ready to step over the threshold. “I- I-” His mouth moved. “What about her?”
“Just answer this one question and I will write out whatever drug you wanted to try.” Dr. Ward said, standing up from his place behind the desk. “Who was she to you?”
Mark blinked, his head aching. “I can't really remember.”
“You're lying. Stop lying to yourself and face it. Medicine can only do so much. Who was she?”
“I don't have time for this.” The man shook his head, fighting the phantom pain that made his legs weak.
It's been years he heard that name. The doctors back then thought she was an imaginary friend. Some sort of coping method to handle the kidnapping and brainwashing. In any sense, she couldn't have been real and if she was, the truth would be much darker. Either she was a trusted older child, implicit in their crimes or one of the head kidnappers.
God, he didn't want to know.
He didn't care to know.
“I'm working the graveyard shift. I'll see you, Thursday. Fuck off.”
Mark yawned. Temp work sucked and he couldn't have guessed that today's late night shift would mean working a literal graveyard. They gave him a flashlight, a policeman's baton and told him to watch out for punks. He was getting more of a fight from keeping his eyes open than from anything that crept in the dark.
His last three pills rattled in his pocket, swaying in tune with his rocking of the chair.
Muddy boots sat on the desk and he yawned some more, thinking about the other guy that was supposed to working this job with him. Stan something? Whatever. It's been twenty minutes. Almost Mark's turn to start patrolling his side of the massive park. The skinny shack held strong against the summer downpour, rain cascading down the shingled roof.
Mark closed his eyes and he began to dream.
“Why do you like the rain so much?”
The little boy stood on his tiptoes and on the stack of books he stole from the bookshelves, looking out the window and down to the wet gardens below. The rain went rat-tat-tat, falling like shooting stars to splatter on the grass and green. The boy thought of smashing his face against the glass, getting closer to the water. To be come a rat-tat-tat. Swift and right. Not slow and wrong. But it would've been rude and he didn't want to get on her nerves. The room wasn't his. None of this place was his.
And the only thing that was wouldn't stop staring back at him.
He tried to ignore his reflection. The scrawny, sun-deprived boy with the jagged scar on his nose stretching from cheek to cheek. It was easier to do when it rained. When the water poured and blocked out the sounds of his own thoughts. The boy wasn't ugly but the child remembered a time where he wouldn't even thought about being not ugly. Only dummies thought about it.
He didn't want to answer Celestia.
The rain poured and poured and he bunched his shoulders together.
Why did she have to ask anyway?
He wiggled his nose and proclaimed, “Dunno.”
“Really?”
The boy pulled on his T-shirt, glancing down at the stone floor. She never rushed him to answer. She was nice like that. “You ask weird questions.” He said after a while. It was a question, a statement and a warning. He meant a lot of things but sometimes, he wished he didn't mean anything at all.
“I'm not upset anymore so you can go away- Hey! Put me down!” Teeth on the back of his shirt lifted him up and sat him on her fluffy bed that was bigger than the one at his house. The one his parents had all to themselves. The boy crossed his hands and pouted. “I was watching that.”
“It's okay to be upset, you know.” The lady said. She looked like a horse and did stuff like a horse but she talked like the people on tv. The really smart people. The boy liked her despite her being a pretty princess but all the things he liked always got taken away. His hands weren't strong enough... “My ponies tell me that you won't take any food when it rains. Aren't you hungry?”
The boy flopped over, turning from Celestia. “They should mind their business.” His eyes went to his hands and the old scars there. Sometimes, his hands still felt sticky. Bloody. An image of the long dark flickered into his mind before he blinked it away. It was still raining and today, he wouldn't think so hard. “I wasn't hungry when you found me.” He sniffed, wiping with his wrist his nose. If he rubbed it too hard, it starts to bleed.
She settled in next to him, pulling him close with her wing. The boy turned over and patted her, stubby fingers moving through the fur and tufts of feathers that grew along her side. She was weird. Just like him. He hugged her, feeling her heart through her body. It went ba-dump, ba-dump. His heart went baa-dump,baa-dump. Peaceful like the rain, faster than the darkness in the ground.
“I'm not hungry.”
His belly growled.
“It's okay if you're not.” She said softly. “But promise you will eat for me. If you stop eating, I'll stop eating too. Then all of the chefs in the castle will get mad at us. They'll say if we won't eat, they'll make us eat. Then they will make sorts of cakes and creams and puddings and force us to eat every sweet bite until we're sick to our stomachs.”
“That sounds awesome. Let's do that!”
“But if we eat too much then the sweets will start to taste the same and bland. They'll take the joy of desserts from us. Soon, only mildew and spinach and brussels spouts will taste yummy.”
“Yuck. I don't want that.”
Celestia nuzzled his red hair, brushing the uneven strands aside. The boy closed his eyes, basking in her presence.
“I'm still not upset.” He said to the blanket, Celestia still in his hair. She was so weird. “But I'm a little hungry. Can I get some cake if I eat all my vegetables?”
“Of course.”
Celestia kissed his forehead.
“Eww, cooties.”
Mark opened his eyes, the night sky turning blue as the long rain ended in a half-hearted drizzle. Morning was approaching and Stan hadn't woke him up. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, yawning. Then he patted his pants and pulled out his bottle. It was empty.
The man stared at the bottle, opened it and stared inside. It was still empty.
“What the fuck?” He said, stepping outside. “Stan?”
A dark forest spread out before him, a half hidden trail of stone and glass leading to the gaping maw of the cave. Children walked around him in pairs of two. Parents and teachers following each group of twenty. Something bumped into his leg. A shrimp of a kid with bright red hair.
“You did it.” The little boy said. “You killed her.”
“I didn't do anything! I'm not taking this shit from nobody and that includes you. Stay fuck out of my head and my dreams.” Mark snapped, snatching the little punk by his collar. “None of this is real.”
“Then go in.” The boy faded from his hand, slipping away as dark mist. “Kill me.”
Mark glanced at the cave and the people wandering in, the old wounds on his hands ached. He turned away and walked, ignoring the sounds of the cave entrance's falling in. The shouts and screams of everyone else. He patted his slacks for the bottle again, shaking for pills.
He didn't hear anything but he didn't remember taking them so he brought it to his lips and took all three. Something went down his throat. It might have been guilt. It might have been shame.
The doctors couldn't explain how he came back after the cave had been evacuated. The bodies counted. The survivors saved. He came back twenty years to the same day as an eight year old, only two years older.
The man sat on ground, waiting for the drugs to work. Stan found him later with a search party, sleeping soundly on a grave.
On swaying feet, Mark made his way through his apartment building and to his door 383. In his hands, he carried his groceries to keep his fridge full. In his pockets, his regular meds and a few downers for the next night. Thursday was so far, it being a week away, he'd probably piss out any extra chemicals out of his body by then. And if Dr. Ward wasn't such an ass, Mark wouldn't have to wander around streets to pay out of pocket for the same shit he could have gotten legally.
Placing the bags on the floor, Mark jams in the key and braced his shoulder against the door. With a click and a strong shove, his door opens ajar. Barely enough room to force his boot through but he does, forcing the door the rest of the way. The water damage from the folks from upstairs swelled up the door frame and made it a battle to get in and out. Mark liked the door. Kept him from making any impulsive decisions. He could only go where he pleased when he made up his mind to it and this place suited him just fine.
Mark picked up his goods and strolled in, sitting his bags of insta-dinners and canned soups on the counter. Hardly missing a beat, he walked around to the kitchen, passing the white winged unicorn making herself comfortable on his garage sale found sofa. Mark placed the frozen meals into the fridge. Counted the cans he left on the table six times. Then bowed his head, closing his eyes.
“You're not real.” He said, his hands becoming entangled in the plastic bags still on the counter. “You're not real.” He said again, opening his eyes. “I need to call Dr. Ward. This isn't something I can-” Mark glanced up, something cold and hard sinking in the bottom of his stomach as he realized she vanished.
“Boo.” The creature purred against his ear, her colorless eyes glinting in the dawn light.
“Ahh!” Mark flew back against the kitchen cabinets, his head colliding with the hard wood and resulting in a groan.
“Shit. What are yo-”
He refused to consider what she looked like. Her radiant hair blew in nonexistent wind, passing through the solid objects and walls. Bathed in black and white, the sparkling specter was statuesque as she reigned over the kitchen appliances. Making all that was close to her blurry and distorted.
“Language, young colt.” The winged unicorn lifted her head, her sharp horn grazing against the low ceiling as she towered over all in the tiny apartment. The only thing taller might have been the wall lamp he left by the front entrance, a gift from his step-mom. “In all our memories, I do not remember teaching you such swears and I will not be encouraging that habit. Discipline is something you've sorely lacked but do not worry, I shall provide.”
Mark touched the back of his head, patting his messy hair for a growing bump. There wasn't one to be found but his head pounded like he decided to play basketball with his skull. His right hand moved to his left arm, lifting up the sleeve and pinching the skin there. He felt the slight pain and saw the reddening of his skin. He wasn't dreaming. He wasn't asleep!
“Who are you?” He demanded, quickly throwing his hands into his pockets and taking out every drug he had. “Why am I even seeing you? I took three in the last two hours. Well, I think I took three.” He threw his face into his hands, dragging his short nails down over the skin as if the pain could make the sight before his eyes any less real. “I don't want to risk overdosing myself.” He frowned. “I think I'll call 911. Then overdose.”
“I am Celestia.” The thing stated, a haughty smile on her lips. “Fate has divided us these long fourteen years but today, I have finally made it through the barrier of medical aids and your own denial of me. I am here to release you from yourself. You shall be remade as you were, my dear colt.”
“Keep talking. Too busy overdosing to care.” Mark muttered, walking over to his home phone and lifting the receiver to his ear. He dialed a few numbers and got a deadpan tone welcome to his call. “Hi, I would like to report a possible emergency. You see, I'm a diagnosed-” The line went dead. Mark lifted the phone and stared at the cut line. Floating scissors rotated in the air, mocking him, before they dropped suddenly to the floor.
He clung to the phone, refusing to fall for the illusion. “Hello? Are you still there?” Only silence answered. “You guys record calls, right? I can't hear you but- My name is Patrick Santera and I'm suffering an audio-hallucination right now. This is my first time experiencing one so vividly but my address is-”
"I have spent far too much time watching you as you stumbled from your one true path. Indulging in your idle mind-altering items. Denying Equestria. Denying me. Do you believe I would allow you another chance to deny me once more!” The mockery of Celestia shouted, her wings rising as she reared onto her back legs. “I have always been with you! I shall always be with you! I beg for forgiveness for not reaching you sooner. The magic here is thinner than it is in Equestria. And your foul toxins increased your resistance to my presence.”
Mark lowered the phone, letting it fall from his hands.
“Nevertheless, there is magic and I have reached you.” She returned to her original stance, her wings resting on her back. “This unhappy fate, I will change it for my beloved bo-”
“Do you-” Mark whispered, “think I'm stupid?”
The thing flickered, her body becoming truly transparent for a second. Her colorless eyes narrowed at his words. “Is this not what you've hoped for? I, returning for you. I, taking you home. How cruel of you to lie to your own heart? I've been with you. Always. I've listened keenly to what you have uttered in the dark.”
“So has my psychiatrist! All of my psychiatrists! You think that knowing this makes you special? I'm a fucked up cookie, I know this.” The man babbled. “Who do you think you are, showing up like I'm supposed to be running into your arms? Using her voice to play with my head. You're just like the rest of them!” He shook his head, his hands clasping together as his eyes took to the floor. “Maybe you are the real her? I wouldn't be able to tell but she wouldn't do this. Not like this.”
“Not she. I.” The thing snapped. “I am Celestia! Why must you fight me, boy?”
“Why are you saying her name wrong? I can hear it in your worm of a tongue. The hate. The disbelief. I can hear every bit of it.” Mark said, his hands clinching as his nails dug into skin. Drops of blood slid through the gaps of his palms, trickling to the floor. “I hate it when people say it wrong. It took me weeks for say it right. Weeks.” A silence and then- “It took me so long that of course I'd call her what was easier. I called her-”
Mark broke, his heart boiling in his chest.
“Mommy.” He gripped his shirt, crumbling against the sink. "You don't understand how much I-" His voice rose. "Fuck! I hate this. I won't take this! Leave me alone! Go away! Leave!"
“Hmm, I can feel your emotions oh so sweetly. Divine is one's torment to a god such as myself. I'm even a little jealous. Perhaps, I've always underestimated you. I thought you would be begging for the chance to be proven right. To perhaps go on a little rampage on my behalf in the name of the dark queen Celestia.” The creature cackled, stalking closer and closer to him. Mark went to move but her horn beat him to it first, the point pressing against his neck.
It felt very, very real.
“Mortals are such contradictory things. Nevertheless, the magic is still here and you'll do fine as a host. Who knew humans were such magical sponges? Your very essence is still soaked with her potent magic.” She noted, her voice drunk and low in her reverie. “I've been nibbling at your mind for years but I have yet to reach the great ocean that dwells within you. Not until now. I shall enslave this colony of peasants in this apart building to make an army before I depart. Yes, they'll do finely.”
Her horn moved to his forehead, cutting a thin line across the skin. Mark sucked in a breath.
“You need not worry. I have fondness for you as well. Before I throw her into the sun, I will let you have a few words. Maybe.”
I was once apart of something much greater. Not that I was not magnificent all on my own but I was, for a time, greater than I was alone. Together with a sniveling equestrian princess, we became something that sought control of Equestria, her worthless ponies and most importantly, the night. She was the moon and I was the darkness that swept over every star. Our union was beautiful and so we plotted together for sake of our deepest desires. We threw away our names in the pursuit of power.
Our enemies knew us as Nightmare Moon.
Our sister, her greatest regret.
It was a shame that even with our combined powers and united will, we lost to that white sow and her cheap tricks. Then again, to her student and companions less than a thousand years later. In that moment we were split, my other fled from my embrace and left me to fracture under their disgusting magic of hope and friendship.
I became bitter.
I desperately wanted her back.
Loneliness ate at my mind and so I sought magic to rebuild my body and a plan to regain my moon. I thought it wouldn't take long. I only needed a festering mind with a well-spring of magic. Plenty to be found in Equestria. I snuck and crept and slithered into every dream and mind-scape, draining my victims of their extra energy.
But the magic I stole was tainted. Altered by the proximity of the Elements of Harmony. The nectar I took from the citizens of Ponyville useless to me. I was chained to where I was defeated in the depths of the Everfree, free to wander to the borders of such an accursed town and no more.
I could not understand why I was being punished. That cruel princess took my freedom, took my greatness and now she locks me here in all the fake love and cruel friendship to starve me?
Was there not a single ounce of mercy?
Should she had freed me, I would have tore her neck open with my bare teeth but now, she deserved worse.
Eternal was my torment until I came across an odd looking gate deep within a buried tunnel. Death and dark magic oozed from the many stones and cracks of its entrance. Fresher-looking runes were carved into the side. An altar of foals' toys sat below, dusty and rotting. I inhaled the sin-laden stench, a cold grin stretching across my face. I knew of Celestia's hoof-work. I knew that she used her supposedly pure and righteous magic to do something unforgivable.
There was far too much ambient magic and death to prove anything otherwise.
I knew not what I was chasing but I pursued the traces of the magic, feeling faint throbs of motion and activity from the other side of the tunnel. There was no plot within my hooves. No grand ploy to be played on the creatures I would later discover on that side. I only wished to find the receiver of Celestia's blessing should it be some sword, great tome or hated relic of the past, and stomp it into dust.
It was to my great surprise for it to be a little boy. I thought I would take my time in breaking him.
The boy was protected by her magic but it certainly didn't stop me from encouraging him to handle his emotions in a constructive way. He flew into a blinding rage at the drop of coin, beating people and breaking all that was around him. It was by his fists he pushed the curious and the calculating out of his life.
Unmanageable.
Savage.
Insane.
All words were like praise to my fine craftsmanship. Acknowledgement of his potential. He learned so much under my care. How to stab, how to strangle, how to subjugate the lessor minds. They all feared him, shipping him off to one place to another. His parents washed their hands of him. Called their little boy dead and left him to fend for himself but he was not alone. I was always with him. Watching. Protecting. Guarding. Perhaps, I shouldn't have? For if I had spent more time hacking at his mind then I wouldn't have been so thwarted in the years to come.
But I manifested myself around him from time to time, looking upon him in the natural. He was my little monster and I felt a strange fondness for my colt. On the tiny cot they allowed him, I would sleep close to him. My wings would extend to protect him from sight and I was alert for any mischief that would come to his room. In his deepest of sleep, he felt my presence. Reaching out a hand to stroke my fur, seeking warmth and comfort. As the dim darkness was over us, I adored him. Embracing him like I did the mare I once loved.
I told myself the boy was only a substitute. Possibly a means to an end. But I slowed in my ambitions. I slowed my spite as well. In the nights, I held him. Listening to his breath and watching his dreams as the hours blurred. In the mornings, I redirected my energy into tormenting others. Inflicting their minds with madness and letting my boy be known as a curse-bringer.
I would find the magic I needed another way and my little boy would grow into my champion.
It would be he that would bring me Celestia's head!
Ah, but I was a fool.
I hadn't notice with every pill he took, the less of me he felt. His mind became unrecognizable. Fought me at every turn as if I was a foe, a fiend to vanquished. He was slipping through my hooves. He was leaving me to suffer. I tore through his mind as fiercely as I could but it was too late. His habit only increased in time and he sought out others to help him. To ruin the great investment I had made.
And so I did what was necessary.
I waited and wormed my way through every hole, crack and unbolted lock in his mind. Patiently wearing down his mental walls. His drugs would one day fail and I would have his body and Celestia's magic. His consciousness would not survive the transfer.
But it was better this way.
I would repair him when I was done. I would give him an ounce of love for every drop of his blood I spilled.
