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Dirofilaria

By gastrocnemius
Created: 2025-10-21 21:37:32
Updated: 2025-11-05 12:25:58
Expiry: Never
filly

  1. 1.
    >Be you, Anon Y. Mous
  2. 2.
    >Slumped at your desk, staring blankly at the wall above your monitor, another swallow of dark, musky beer trickling down the back of your throat
  3. 3.
    >Not thinking of work, not thinking of sleep, not thinking of the glowing sliver of infinity dominating the desktop, the keyboard that hasn't been cleaned since the last election cycle, the hair spiders caught in between the seams of unpainted pine
  4. 4.
    >That omnipresent pressure holds you in place, as if paralyzed, wasting in this faux leather, ergonomic, sweat stained sarcophagus of a rolling chair
  5. 5.
    >You imagine some misfire in your brain, a clump of blood lodged in some wet crevice bursting, and a year later some inspector or neighbor finding a bone-filled black sludge taking over the chair, seeping into the carpet, stinking not much worse than it must already; the image is equally revolting and placid
  6. 6.
    >Your eyes drift over to the flashing alarm clock, silently shouting as if in protest the time it knows is wrong, a testament to your inaction as much as to the inevitability of your failures
  7. 7.
    >Small, innumerable failures, motes of dust congealing on the shelves, the walls, the windowsills, choking and oppressive, immobile under that same pressure
  8. 8.
    >At one point, you yet again knocked your toe against the outlet, or maybe the switch on the power strip, leaving it little more than an indignant night light shouting a known un-truth, not quite a lie, but a declaration of malfunction that had become a silent statement against your character
  9. 9.
    >At one point, you would have reset the device, but having predated the nation of South Sudan, the little nine ninety-nine beeper had fried a long time ago, and anyway you used your phone to wake up now, so aside from being a warm plastic paperweight to the side of your time-keeping computer monitor, it served as a monument to stagnation, to the immutable nature of your rot-soaked unlife
  10. 10.
    >At one point, the thought would have stirred you to action, but not now
  11. 11.
    >You're like a chimp masturbating in a concrete cell, going through the motions of life and once-pleasure not as a matter of survival or even comfort, but in a sedentary commitment to routine
  12. 12.
    >No, not a commitment, commitment is commendable, commitment assumes some level of discipline; rather, your habits were a thousand little neuroses in themselves, automation protocols firing off in the otherwise barren wasteland of your swirling head
  13. 13.
    >As is the common course, your teeth begin to grind in steadily building outrage at knowing that such a despicable cretin could be wasting the gift of life, that the sands of time slipping through your fingers are spent on what can no longer even be described as a creature comforts
  14. 14.
    >Slug man, system pig, sniveling worm, writhing little consumptive imp thing not even fit to host the mites on his flesh
  15. 15.
    >"Anything else?" you ask yourself, aloud, browline wrinkled into a righteous sneer
  16. 16.
    >You cast your eyes to the floor, and your face goes soft; dragging yourself to the bathroom serves just the sort of temporary relief from your own thoughts that you yet live for
  17. 17.
    >On the way back out, you stop by the mirror, locking eyes with the image, a glimmer of what might be comradery snaking down your spine as you share a moment with the only creature on earth that might understand the depths of your depravity
  18. 18.
    >The narcissism of your action is not lost on you, and after a wordless minute, your face contorts in disgust and you draw a sharp, nasal breath
  19. 19.
    >Not wanting to sit back down yet, you wander aimlessly into the living room of your inherited childhood home, your mistreated slice of a loving estate, the more dynamic assets divvied out to siblings with enough guts and spine to actually make use of them, all done totally amicably of course
  20. 20.
    >Wood-paneled floor warped with moisture and age, brass fixtures tarnished and greying, the same picture frames that have hung on the wall since you were a boy, a smell somewhere between stomach acid, wet dirt and skin oil
  21. 21.
    >For just a moment, the beer buzz overtakes you, having been on your seventh or eighth in the last two hours; you gasp out a shrill, mean laugh, not-quite-shouting the word "wasteoid"
  22. 22.
    >You feel a brief, icepick throb in your head, stare out a window into the inky night, and finally stomp back to your chair before absentmindedly clicking through computer folders
  23. 23.
    >After carefully dodging a hundred or so unfinished or unstarted projects, you take the long route to some image folder, click on a random icon, stare for a few moments with a straight face, and close out of everything before polishing off the last swig of beer and staring at the wall again
  24. 24.
    >You like to imagine the back of your head opening like the petals of one of those tropical flowers, the ones that smell like rotting shit, the ones they call corpse flowers, a cloud of thoughts and memories and dreams suspended in chunks of red and pink as the bullet shreds its way up your palate and through the brainstem, frozen in time at the point of eruption, a wispy little cloud of gore waiting to burst across the walls and ceiling and floor
  25. 25.
    >You cling to the image as if you were drowning and it was some life-saving flotsam, a chance piece of debris shaved off from the wreck of your life, your one lifeline in the abyss
  26. 26.
    >Your sense of shame is the last thing keeping you anchored to this world, and you know should it erode you will inexorably tumble over the edge
  27. 27.
    >In the best case scenario, you might become a semifunctional gooner, spending your non-working hours shaking the thoughts of despair and rage from your head through some combination of prolonged technique and perverse peripherals
  28. 28.
    >Alternatively, you could crawl into the streets and drink mouthwash, just another incoherent body warming the homeless shelter, stinking up gas stations and Burger Kings and leaving trails of plastic litter in your wake, gifted by well-meaning fools whose cruel generosity only prolongs the piss-soaked engines of suffering living outside, on the periphery, and without hope
  29. 29.
    >So you hold on to that shame, the final tether, and perhaps one day it will grow deep enough and hot enough and raw enough that you will give up waiting for death to claim you and sprout that flower, that last work of beauty you could ever produce, and go into that most restful sleep by your own hand
  30. 30.
    >It would be like laying down after a long day of work, one of those days that went on forever and ever and by the time you get home you feel like you haven't closed your eyes in years, and you don't even need a beer or two to chase away the thoughts, you don't even think about the thoughts, one of those nights where your head hits the pillow and you can just sleep, finally just fucking sleep
  31. 31.
    >Imagining such relief makes your eyes water, so you bury your face in your hands, you rake your stress-chewed nails over the pore-pocked flesh before resting the knuckles between your gnawing teeth, the tender scars itching as they well up with fresh blood
  32. 32.
    >Just as quickly you lose the energy to be upset, that inescapable pressure pushing you down, dragging your aching shoulders out of the unnatural arch you had unconsciously assumed, limp against the flaking chair
  33. 33.
    >"Boy, I sure have been working hard on ALL this NOTHING, I deserve another fucking beer."
  34. 34.
    >Jumping back up, you stomp to the fridge and grab a can this time, some fucking local craft you don't even know if you like yet, you don't know if you like any of them anymore, and spend another night staying up far too late repeating it all over and over and over again
  35. 35.
    .
  36. 36.
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  37. 37.
    .
  38. 38.
    >You're slinking through opaque muddy water filled with squishing greenish things that have formed a fluffy line around your waist, wobbling reflections of the twilight sky painting your skin corpse-blue
  39. 39.
    >Each barefoot step makes you wince as you imagine unseen hazards, venomous snails and catfish spines and parasitic amoebas and cottonmouths (do cottonmouths even dive, you wonder), and you trudge toward the edge of the pond, where a rotting old stump marks a break in the brushline
  40. 40.
    >Stupid, it was stupid to get in the water, I wish I had my phone, why am I even in here? you almost say aloud, but decide not to draw attention to yourself
  41. 41.
    >You stumble as your foot is sucked into the silt, falling into a precarious crouch as it is swallowed down to the thigh
  42. 42.
    >Water splashes onto your face, into your nose; you shudder to imagine what might crawl its way up into your brain, and snort violently to expel it
  43. 43.
    >After some effort you free yourself, and make it to dry land, only to slip again and bump against the stump
  44. 44.
    >Before you can react and to your great horror, a cloud of buzzing, angry wasp-things begins to pour by the hundreds from some hole in the decaying wood
  45. 45.
    >One lands on the back of your hand, the length of your thumb, and striped in bioluminescent pastel multicolor
  46. 46.
    >In stunned silence you watch as it sinks its stinger into your skin, sending jolts of searing pain up your arm as it welts into a glowing purple growth
  47. 47.
    >Finally, as if some horrible spell has broken, you begin to run as fast as you can, breaking through bushes and vines, stepping on spiny things, ripping holes in your arms and legs on thorns and branches and all manner of forest debris
  48. 48.
    >The wasps attack your arms, your shoulders, your neck, your head, leaving the same pulsing, breathing welts wherever they do
  49. 49.
    >Swatting and cursing and howling in pain, you don't know how many you kill, or even if they die when you hit them, you've lost your glasses somewhere, you can barely make out the trees as you sprint through the brush and you swear something is squirming inside the welts, the itching burning welts, stinging like a bed of hot pins
  50. 50.
    >Your foot catches another patch of loose mud, your leg slides at an unnatural angle, something smacks against your throat, your breath catches, you tumble headfirst into another pond and the last thing you see is the reflection of your face in the opaque, glass-calm water, ringed with the strange glowing wasps, contorted in pain, screaming for help, terror in your eyes
  51. 51.
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  52. 52.
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  53. 53.
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  54. 54.
    >When you open your eyes, you find your body at an odd angle, heaped in a mess of slightly overlong grass, staring into a cloudless and sunny sky, feeling that same pressure, that inescapable pressure covering you head to toe
  55. 55.
    >Images of angry, stinging bugs crawling their way through the soil and onto your skin and into your hair spur you to your feet, breath catching in your throat, heart pounding, shuddering all over
  56. 56.
    >Your body feels wrong, and you look down to begin swiping away the creepy crawlies, only to see hoofed limbs covered in bright green fur, a tangled mess of black, too-long hair framing your vision
  57. 57.
    >You lose your balance, and fall back onto the ground, unable to catch yourself as limbs disobey the angles you reflexively attempt to put them in
  58. 58.
    >The grass softens the impact, but still you pound the back of your head and knock the wind from your lungs, gasping and writhing on your back
  59. 59.
    >The deluge of confusion and discomfort and pain is too much, and you begin to scream, finding your voice uncharacteristically high pitched, almost childish
  60. 60.
    >No, not childish, girlish, maybe still childish, but anyway it doesn't matter, it feels like you're choking, breaths not quite heavy and not quite strained but not quite right, so maybe not quite choking, but distressing nonetheless, and settling into yourself you feel the rhythm of your heart, that's wrong too, well maybe not the rhythm but the intensity, and even the way your eyes roll around as you try to look for something, some building to enter or some person to help you, everything not quite painful but so far beyond the pale of your understanding, indescribable in its wrongness
  61. 61.
    >"Like a mutant!" you shout, over and over again, the first word that comes to mind, casting it like a ward against the wrongness, as though it might chase it all away and you will be able to catch your breath and perhaps even open your eyes and wake up in bed nursing the expected slight hangover
  62. 62.
    >"Help!" you scream, "HELP ME! ANYONE!" tears well in your eyes as you sound your way through the words, unfamiliar tongue lolling in your too-long mouth, then
  63. 63.
    >"I'm drowning! I'm going to drown!" you aren't sure why, that's just how you feel, and suddenly the helplessness of your situation breaks away, galloping into absurdity
  64. 64.
    >"I'm going under!" you break into a sort-of-laugh, "I'm a dead man! I'm a dead man!"
  65. 65.
    >A bitter, angry cackle, then another scream, a wordless scream, raising your not-hands to pull at your head, what feels like a finger grabbing at your hair, pinching it against the hoof, pulling it to your chest, that pressure welling up into some nonspecific dread, howling and crying and screaming and laughing
  66. 66.
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  67. 67.
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  68. 68.
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  69. 69.
    >The first thing I felt when I awoke was relief
  70. 70.
    >To be clear, the dream was stressful, but no more stressful than normal
  71. 71.
    >In fact, it bore great resemblance to one I had journalled a month prior
  72. 72.
    >Far more importantly, I knew immediately that I had been in one of my moods last night (as I was almost every night), but despite my indulgence, the expected splitting headache and turgid gut were both completely absent, and I figured I must have drank more water than I realized
  73. 73.
    >The air was refreshing and calm, and for just a moment I felt that crushing pressure abate, if only a little, like putting down a heavy bag, or taking off a bad pair of shoes
  74. 74.
    >The second thing I felt was confusion; I noticed immediately that the sun was bearing down, a gentle breeze carried something sweet and herbal, and my bed was replaced by dusty, tall grass
  75. 75.
    >The third thing I felt was concern, as the terrified scream of a little girl tore through my ears (Did I take something and black out? Am I naked somewhere? Did I wander to one of the subdivisions and pass out in a playground? The concern quickly evolved into abject terror)
  76. 76.
    >Heart pounding, adrenaline pumping, I reflexively cupped my junk and rolled onto my belly, eyes darting for observers
  77. 77.
    >The fourth thing I noticed was that I couldn't feel anything at my groin, and come to think of it I couldn't feel my fingers either, and what is this green shit on my arm, and oh god where is my hand?
  78. 78.
    >I scrabbled to my feet, steadily growing more cognizant of just how wrong everything felt
  79. 79.
    >I whirled around to the source of the noise and saw some grass colored horse-ish creature, curled into a writhing ball, alternating between fits of terrified cries and desperate-sounding laughter
  80. 80.
    >"Hey-" I stopped, then "What-" then "What?!"
  81. 81.
    >My voice was distinctly feminine, and cracked on the vowels, and the creature before me began to unravel, craning its neck to look at me, and I lost my balance as I realized that it was a mirror image of myself, or perhaps I of it, only drenched in sweat and snot and tears, and it looked at me with pleading eyes, terrified and helpless and confused and and slightly amused eyes
  82. 82.
    >"Je-sus..." I managed to choke out, and that sense of dread finally crashed back into my chest with full force
  83. 83.
    >"What's going on? Hey man, what is this?!"
  84. 84.
    >For moment, our eyes were locked, and I stared into oversized, puffy eyes, glistening emerald irises all but swallowing pin-sized pupils
  85. 85.
    >A lump formed in my throat, my next words were muffled nothings, then
  86. 86.
    >"WHO are YOU? WHERE AM I?"
  87. 87.
    >The creature's tears broke, and out flooded a tide of lilted, cruel-sounding laughter
  88. 88.
    >"You're in hell, you were a rotten evil no good person, we both must have been, and now we're in hell together, we have souls, souls are REAL, they're REAL and ours were wicked, evil wicked spiteful souls, and now they've gone where they belong, and we're dead! Dead, dead, dead!"
  89. 89.
    >It spoke in that screaming girl voice, and it wobbled up onto its legs, shambling towards me with a look between frustration and despair
  90. 90.
    >It was like listening to a panhandler, except I felt her words were real, born not from some mixture of strung out wetbrain-edness and a lifetime of victimhood, but something that struck so dearly a chord in my heart it was as if I had caught myself monologuing at no one in the bathroom at the end of a long day
  91. 91.
    >"Stay away, I can't help you, stay away, fuck you, stay away!"
  92. 92.
    >She tottered slowly, deliberately, unsteadily toward me as I scooted backward, pulling the tangled hairs at the end of my back (A tail! I have a tail!) on thistle and roots
  93. 93.
    >Then she caught up, and her hoof was on my tail, and she reached out with the other one, and was grabbing my shoulder and shaking me, and soon she was on top of me, straddling me, the soft part of the hoof (the frog, the frog, the frog- it repeated in my head as if it were a salve against the fear) pinching into my new skin, tugging the carpet of hairs on my arms and chest
  94. 94.
    >I let out a scream- a short, one syllable word, like the sound of a squeaking hinge
  95. 95.
    >The first swing hit her in the bicep, the second square in the mouth
  96. 96.
    >The following moments were a blur, and somehow she ended up on the ground, blood pouring out her lip, while I scrambled to my feet (Hooves! My hooves! I am behooved!) and ran in a gangly, unrhythmic way, on all fours and digging into the grass so hard I tore it from the soil
  97. 97.
    >But as I fled, the sheer loneliness of the field balked at me, like some invisible wall standing into the infinite sky, and I was sure in my head that it touched the stars, that invisible wall, and the thought of solitude was almost as terrifying as the predicament itself, then became even scarier, and I shouted something unintelligible as I raced back to the terrible, whimpering horse
  98. 98.
    >I closed in faster than I should have, caution abandoned, and a waterfall of blood poured from her mouth as she muttered to herself, revealing a fresh gap in her upper jaw
  99. 99.
    >"You're just like me, we died and went to hell, nothing will ever feel right again"
  100. 100.
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  101. 101.
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  102. 102.
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  103. 103.
    >Upon a more thorough, less urgent examination, there were a number of observations marking the both of us as being unlike any equid I had ever heard of, even as a washout former veterinary student
  104. 104.
    >Most obviously were the colors of our coats, a bright, almost yellowish green, like immature leaves, only broken by a black, stylized question-mark brand on either side of both our flanks
  105. 105.
    >Her eyes were unnaturally large, and presumably so were mine, though she was of little help as she sputtered on about death and damnation and whatever other nastiness she scraped from the depths of her mind in between periods of forlorn silence
  106. 106.
    >Our limbs were unusally stocky, and had a far wider range of motion than expected, though I still wasn't used to the sensation of walking on what was essentially a bloated middle finger
  107. 107.
    >I had more discretion than to examine her groin, but investigating my own revealed distinctly female equipment
  108. 108.
    >Of course, whatever was going on with the stunted (but still uncomfortably long) mouth and unviewable throat was entirely a mystery, as obviously no species even remotely adjacent to the horse should ever have the hardware to speak
  109. 109.
    >Strangest of all were the "extra" features; subtly poking from her mane was a swirling horn, the same color as her coat
  110. 110.
    >Though she was tolerant enough to let me fiddle with her hair to examine the base, it told me nothing except that it was contiguous with the skin, and anyway whatever pigment was in the coat was in the flesh as well, making for one solid color
  111. 111.
    >I felt my own forehead only to find it bare, and was struck by a tinge of relief in knowing that at least our bodies had some differences
  112. 112.
    >As if reading my mind, she reached out and touched my side, and I twitched in a way I couldn't describe, thinking briefly about that epidermal muscle non-primates have to displace flies
  113. 113.
    >However, my train of thought was broken before I could draw up the name, for when I looked to where she had poked I saw a feathery wingtip, tracing its origin to somewhere close to the middle of my back
  114. 114.
    >"I suppose it makes as much sense as anything else." I said, staring as they ruffled themselves in some subtle, reflexive motion, aware of an almost tingling but refreshingly not unpleasant sensation in my third pair of limbs
  115. 115.
    >We shared a moment of silence, her focusing in to lock eyes with me, though I refused to hold her gaze and stared at the mass of dried blood on her upper lip and trailing down the side of her face
  116. 116.
    >"I uh, I'm sorry for hitting you, I was... a little," I bit my lip, looking for the word, "Yeah, my bad dude."
  117. 117.
    >She shook her head dismissively, carrying herself with a sudden and startling burst of coherence
  118. 118.
    >"Don't worry about it. They came out far too easily, so either we're old enough that the roots are barely still holding on and we'll be falling apart soon anyway, or young enough that the missing (she whistled on the harsh 's') teeth were deciduous, and already not long for this world," She paused, looking thoughtful "This world..."
  119. 119.
    >She took on a distant look, fixed on some distant point
  120. 120.
    >"Well that's a relief. You know a lot about horses?"
  121. 121.
    >"I know fuck-all."
  122. 122.
    >She spat out her reply like a bad taste, and I rolled my eyes
  123. 123.
    >"Charming and philosophic. Do you have some kind of training, or life background?"
  124. 124.
    >Her brow softened, her eyes eyelids drooped
  125. 125.
    >"I'm a devil, a pissant little imp. That's why I'm here. Did you spend your days sucking cocks?"
  126. 126.
    >She smirked to herself, as if amused by some invisible joke; in turn, I felt a flash of anger and disgust, clenching my jaw
  127. 127.
    >"I don't know if we can afford the luxury of making asses of ourselves right now, you grimy little prick. Unless there's something you do know?"
  128. 128.
    >"I know this is it. Whatever it is, this is it."
  129. 129.
    .
  130. 130.
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  131. 131.
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  132. 132.
    >Your mouth still throbbed where the winged horse had struck it, the taste of copper refusing to leave as blood still oozed slowly from the bare roots
  133. 133.
    >Combined with the rest of your little episode earlier, you had worked up quite a thirst
  134. 134.
    >The sun was still high in the sky, so you weren't sure which direction was which, but you could see in the distance a cluster of tall, snow-capped mountains, at the foot of which sprawled a dense forest, and its woodline couldn't have been much further than a few miles away
  135. 135.
    >Another set of mountains, further looking, loomed in the opposite direction, but otherwise your surroundings seemed to be a vast sea of gently rolling green hills
  136. 136.
    >Despite the otherwise unblemished, vast and open horizon, you feel caught between the two monoliths, or clusters of monoliths, and the flowery, warm air had a distinct, paradoxically tomblike quality, or maybe it did in your head, and you thought about crawling into the dirt and waiting to see if time pulled the mountains down so you might wander unmolested by their foreboding figures
  137. 137.
    >You shook the thoughts from your head, made off toward the distant trees
  138. 138.
    >The winged horse, who until this point had been lost in thought, hurried after you, staring intensely from her sunken, tired eyes
  139. 139.
    >"What are you doing?"
  140. 140.
    >Her voice had an accusing edge, as though she thought you might break into a run, and she seemed almost desperate
  141. 141.
    >"I'm thirsty."
  142. 142.
    >You expected some further demand for explanation, but she seemed to understand, following the slight trail you pushed through the meadow
  143. 143.
    >"It's odd, isn't it?" You ask, allowing the question to hang unanswered above the gentle swishing of hairy little legs against grass, savoring the slight tension, that uncertainty radiating from the winged horse in waves
  144. 144.
    >Finally, "That hell should be so... picturesque. Like some little landscape painted out in the country, one made by an old bachelor who lives in a cabin." Then, "I was a bachelor, you know."
  145. 145.
    >A breath almost like a sigh of relief came behind you
  146. 146.
    >"So you're a man? Or were... So was I."
  147. 147.
    >"Was. Am. Will be? Maybe... Have you been here before?" The words escape your mouth as a stream of consciousness
  148. 148.
    >"Buddy, I've never been anywhere with purple mountains."
  149. 149.
    >You were going to say something, but then it suddenly strikes you that you haven't actually seen a single insect yet, despite your waking concerns, and despite the abundance of flowering groundcover
  150. 150.
    >As if on cue, from some outcrop of thistle, a large, pastel-pink butterfly flutters on the breeze, tracing a discordant, jumbled path across your own, where it lingers in the air as if to meet your gaze
  151. 151.
    >You stop in your tracks, marveling at the delicate color, watching its graceful, unpredictable dance, before it flutters away just as swiftly as it came
  152. 152.
    >Releasing a breath you hadn't known you were holding, you feel a lump in your throat, and something in your chest gives, and you almost spin around to grab onto the winged horse again, this time to pull her into a hug, before swallowing hard, shaking your head, and trudging on
  153. 153.
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  154. 154.
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  155. 155.
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  156. 156.
    >Though your new form introduces some measure of ambiguity, you feel confident you've walked for only about three, maybe three and a half miles, and the edge of the forest is close enough for you to make out individual trees
  157. 157.
    >Every so often, a small cloud or cluster of clouds races perpendicular to your own path, occasionally casting a brief but gentle shade over your party of two
  158. 158.
    >Judging by the slight movement of the sun, at least as far as you can tell, the clouds must be going north, or at least north-ish, and you must be going west (or west-ish)
  159. 159.
    >Of course, this assumes the sun traces the same path through the skies of hell as it does the world of the living
  160. 160.
    >Aside from the general discomfort of your body switch, and the general foreboding of the vast, rolling hills, so far hell isn't so bad
  161. 161.
    >Perhaps the true torment comes later?
  162. 162.
    >With the initial shock gone, the novelty of your situation offered, for a short while at least, some reprieve against the pressure, but as you muse over the nature of your entrapment, or at least the nature that you can surmise, it creeps over your back like a heavy woolen blanket
  163. 163.
    >Or perhaps it is simply the fatigue of travel through gently sloping, wild hills in an unfamiliar body; at least, that's what you tell yourself
  164. 164.
    >Your mind swivels inevitably toward reasoning why you might have landed yourself a place here
  165. 165.
    >While you never really ascribed to any religious leanings, and you had little patience for the entrapments of "spirituality" (at least in the sense so often carried by your fellow man or, more commonly, woman), you still held some internal beliefs about what made an upright moral character
  166. 166.
    >In fact, this whole experience picked at your long-held metaphysical convictions, namely that the world of the metaphysical was trifling, and questions of afterlife or at the very least some realm other than the physical were frivolous, fantastical things
  167. 167.
    >Your own faults were many, but you could distill them to three simple, rather convenient principles: your despicable laziness, your unshakable selfishness, and your violent temper
  168. 168.
    >Sloth and wrath, plus something you could call envy or lust, depending on the perspective
  169. 169.
    >Perhaps it was for this reason that you were so quick to accept the reality of your position; clearly, there was some sort of cosmic justice, and it had deemed you unworthy, much as you would expect, and that the great infinite silence you had hoped so dearly for at the end of the road was as unattainable as anything else you had reached for
  170. 170.
    >There had always been an undercurrent of longing for something greater, something sappy like the goodness of the human heart, or perhaps some great spiritual hand steering human fate to give you purpose, but in your infinite laziness, you shied from its pursuit, or maybe that's the excuse you gave now that you were here, a way to cope with the lack of faith that otherwise guided so many, drove them to feats of artistry and heroism
  171. 171.
    >It is, of course, possible that this could all be in your head, but then again so could hell; a trap of the mind, that same trap you lived in your whole life, ever lacking the willpower to break free, now seized upon whatever counted for your soul, and perhaps that was the purpose of goodness, to free oneself from the eternal torture of the mind's eye
  172. 172.
    >Or whatever the fuck, what does it fucking matter, you're here now, stuck in some foreign body where nothing feels right, and it will probably never feel right again, you'll just wander through some horrible endless wilderness with nothing but the souls of your fellow damned, ever thirsting, ever hungry, ever tired, with only their company to shield against privation and exposure, who knows if there's any water to drink, who knows if it will sate you, who knows if it won't make you bleed from the eyes and the ass and spit up bubbles of guts and wallow in misery until you wake up again, in some other distant field, without even the meager company you now keep, totally and truly alone, just as you ever were, this singular encounter the highlight of an incoming eternity
  173. 173.
    >Little lambs left shepherdless in a world of dust
  174. 174.
    >At least the scenery is kinda nice
  175. 175.
    .
  176. 176.
    .
  177. 177.
    >"Why are you stopping?"
  178. 178.
    >The unicorn had, without warning, planted her ass on the ground and slumped over, curling her tail around her thigh in some defensive or self-conscious gesture
  179. 179.
    >Truth be told, I was grateful of the pause, for despite all its faults my original body clearly had this one beat in endurance
  180. 180.
    >She mumbled something, or maybe just made a strange breath, and I warily circled around to look her in the face
  181. 181.
    >"What?"
  182. 182.
    >"I don't, I... mmph."
  183. 183.
    >Sensing an ominous shift, that everpresent dread welling up in my chest, I braced for another outburst, shuffling way a foot or so
  184. 184.
    >"You aren't about to freak out on me again, are you?"
  185. 185.
    >A sharp breath, almost like a slight chuckle, before she looked up at me through a drooping mess of long black hair
  186. 186.
    >"I'm tired. Just tired."
  187. 187.
    >"I see. Can't say I don't understand."
  188. 188.
    >Cautiously, I sat down facing her just as a breeze kicked up, carrying on it a something resh and grassy with just a hint of lavender
  189. 189.
    >For whatever reason, it made my mouth water
  190. 190.
    >"So..." I began, "What should I call you?"
  191. 191.
    >"Horny."
  192. 192.
    >Without missing a beat, as though she were waiting for the right moment, though her face remained stoic
  193. 193.
    >I couldn't help as my mouth peeled back into a slight, wry grin
  194. 194.
    >"Alright Horny, I can be..."
  195. 195.
    >I tapped my chin thoughtfully, before wrinkling my nose in frustration
  196. 196.
    >Not a lot of wing puns that would make sense here
  197. 197.
    >"I don't know... Birdbrain?"
  198. 198.
    >If nothing else, it was silly enough
  199. 199.
    >She shrugged and so did I, letting the topic drop
  200. 200.
    >I wondered about the water; surely with these kinds of summits, there should be some icemelt, and following the forest's edge would probably be the best way to serch for it without getting too terribly lost
  201. 201.
    >Any more lost than we already were, at least
  202. 202.
    >God help us if we stepped on a rattlesnake, or got some 24-hour tick virus that made our brains swell up, or maybe the ground could just fall out under our feet- our hooves, and the earth could swallow us up
  203. 203.
    >Just have to focus on finding the water first, then if there's a river we might be able to follow it to some kind of settlement, and from there maybe people who could help us
  204. 204.
    >Despite the strangeness of our situation, I wasn't ready to call us dead, but I wondered just where the hell we could possibly be, and how I got so far away from home in what seemed like just one night
  205. 205.
    >If we had been in someone's clutches, some nefarious n'er-do-well slicing us up with little steel instruments, shuffling our brains around into vat-grown monstrosities like some shitty horror film, why just dump us in the middle of nowhere?
  206. 206.
    >Perhaps we had clinically died, or at least appeared to do so, and were rolled off the back of a pickup truck rather than pumping up the energy bill by going into the incinerator...
  207. 207.
    >Could she know more?
  208. 208.
    >"What's the last thing you remember?"
  209. 209.
    >She turned her head against the breeze, tracking another lonely cloud as it raced toward the horizon
  210. 210.
    >"Drowning in myself."
  211. 211.
    >I rolled my eyes
  212. 212.
    >"Intoxicated by loathing? Suffocating on your own iniquities, yeah? Join the fucking club."
  213. 213.
    >It felt a little gay to say it out loud, like some mopey teenager moaning into the internet, some fucking faggot complainer so far up his own ass he could pick the corn out with black-pained fingernails
  214. 214.
    >The fact that it resonated so well with me made it all the more annoying
  215. 215.
    >I knew where I had gotten myself, and that it was nobody's fault but my own, and I had no right to fucking piss and cry about it, and probably neither did this screaming drama queen
  216. 216.
    >So why couldn't I get this lump out of my throat?
  217. 217.
    .
  218. 218.
    .
  219. 219.
    .
  220. 220.
    >By the time we reached the forest's edge, a patchwork of willows and chestnuts and fern-spackled live oaks, both of us were visibly exhausted
  221. 221.
    >Her- his? theory that we were either elderly or juveniles seemed to hold increasingly more water as this was a trot I couldn't imagine even winding a healthy adult horse, certainly not a man, and since my joints didn't creak and my back wasn't what ached I bet on the latter
  222. 222.
    >Still, there was still some light in the day, so after some terse discussion we decided to follow the woodline south, spending the rest of the day in half-mile stop-and-go drudgery
  223. 223.
    >By the time we called it quits, we were both audibly hungry, but figured we ought to solve the water problem before we made it any worse trying to eat something
  224. 224.
    >The falling sun marked a sharp drop in temperature, and the breezes of the day kicked into whirling gusts, driving us just inside the forest where at least the trees could break the wind
  225. 225.
    >We were both tired, and sleep came easily, pressing our backs together for warmth, covered in large fern fronds
  226. 226.
    .
  227. 227.
    .
  228. 228.
    .
  229. 229.
    >At some point the two of you had taken a wrong turn, or else crested the wrong hill to get a better view, and managed to lose sight of the forest's edge, wandering deep into some jagged fissure in the earth, a sudden and dramatic valley with walls so steep and so high that you lost sight of the mountains themselves
  230. 230.
    >The midday sun was brutal, bearing straight down on the valley floor and baking the dark, rocky soil so that the heat became unbearable
  231. 231.
    >The only shade was offered in the thin, wispy branches of creaking, ancient cypress, and you both resolved to turn back the way you came
  232. 232.
    >It was on this return trip that the winged horse kicked something loose, a tiny stone cairn of unnatural shape, and from it crawled an insect no bigger than a thumbnail, something like a cross between a bedbug and a flea, with firm spines on the edges and a rusty color
  233. 233.
    >It lept on the winged horse, onto the small of her back where she couldn't reach, and she swatted in vain with wings she was still not yet accustomed to as it pinched or stabbed or tore with a menacing pair of sharp forelimbs
  234. 234.
    >"Help me you useless bastard!"
  235. 235.
    >But you were already backing away, another one of the little monsters skittering from the pile and springing into your hair, crawling down your shoulder as you twisted and swatted and shrieked out a girly string of expletives into the dry, oppressive heat
  236. 236.
    >It made its way down your forelimb before biting at the base of your hoof and disappearing under the skin
  237. 237.
    >Frantically you began scraping at it with your other hoof, the nail's uncharacteristically sharp edge slicing it with ease, revealing the bare tendons and bones beneath
  238. 238.
    >You catch the resultant flap of skin in the frog of your hoof; as the bug began crawling its way back up your leg, so too did you pull off the flesh behind it, always just a bit too slow to catch up, but faster than you can think, the hollers of your companion drowned out in the blood-rush rumble in your ears
  239. 239.
    >It comes off in one contiguous piece, like unravelling a mummy, pinkish muscle and white flaps of fascia dribbling bright drops of fresh, warm blood, exposed tendons twitching and flexing, all while that horrible creature sliced and bit and crawled its way just out of reach
  240. 240.
    >In the blink of an eye, your flesh had returned, the pain was gone, you were back in the meadow under a pale blue moon illuminating whisps of water vapor dancing over the swaying grass, the air gentle, cool, and light
  241. 241.
    >Before you, a massive form, nearly five times your size, dark against the midnight sky, eyes aglow with silver light, descending from a moonbeam
  242. 242.
    >"BE NOT AFRAID!"
  243. 243.
    >The voice is deep, matronly, commanding, and echoes in your head; your stomach drops and you whimper uncontrollably
  244. 244.
    .
  245. 245.
    .
  246. 246.
    .
  247. 247.
    >"MY LITTLE PONIES! BE NOT AFRAID!"
  248. 248.
    >Princess Luna cast her gaze down at two cowering green fillies, a pair of twins (or else very close sisters), wings spread with regal splendor
  249. 249.
    >Squirming dream-grass crackled under her hooves as she landed, then took a series of graceful strides towards the pair, who were frozen in place and staring at her in stunned silence
  250. 250.
    >The one to her left was a pegasus, with dark ringed, sunken eyes that radiated anger and fear
  251. 251.
    >The one to her right, a unicorn with a prominent tooth gap, crouching like a wounded animal, eyes glassy with waiting tears
  252. 252.
    >The princess at this point knew better than to let the silence linger, and quickly gathered that an air of regal authority would do her no good here, so she lowered her wings, softened her brow, and let the light fade from her own eyes as she adopted a warm, friendly smile
  253. 253.
    >"My little ponies, you are so terribly troubled. Be not afraid, for your princess is here, and she will let no harm come to you."
  254. 254.
    >The unicorn broke into a run, gasping for breath in between desperate sobs, tearing her way through the grass
  255. 255.
    >The pegasus remained stationary, ears perked, not even breathing, just watching the princess with her dinner-plate eyes, accusing and pleading and defeated all at once
  256. 256.
    >"Please stay put." the princess said, before flying after the unicorn
  257. 257.
    .
  258. 258.
    .
  259. 259.
    .
  260. 260.
    >The meadow dreamscape turned quickly into a tangled mess of mangrove trees; though Princess Luna was easily able to catch up to the wayward filly in the open grass, she crawled through the network of exposed roots like a squirrel
  261. 261.
    >Overcome with concern and a little bit annoyed, the Princess flashed the tip of her horn and the trees sank into the ground, leaving the filly on a wide patch of mud with nowhere to hide
  262. 262.
    >She coiled like a spring, crying "Mercy! Mercy!" but before she could make another mad dash, the Princess was upon her, scooping her up with powerful, soft-feathered wings, cradling her like a foal while she thrashed in vain, squealing and leaking mucous and begging for death (a "real" death, she said between whimpers, the dreamless slumber, slipping away into oblivion)
  263. 263.
    >"We won't hurt you, little filly. We would never hurt you."
  264. 264.
    >And the princess began to sing
  265. 265.
    .
  266. 266.
    .
  267. 267.
    .
  268. 268.
    >It was something mournful and sweet, trickling through the pressure in your chest like snowmelt through a dry riverbed, pushing it away in clumps as it filled your heart with something warm and calm and tragic
  269. 269.
    >The fear morphed to sorrow as the angel sang, and you grabbed on to the fluff of her chest, burying your face in the soft, downy fur, your pathetic whimpering replaced by deep, low sobs
  270. 270.
    >The terror, the confusion, the acid worry that had possessed you for the last day or so drained; but it was more than that, it was the turmoil that had plagued your entire life, ever since you could remember, wells of tension spilling from muscles in your face and in your shoulders and in your back that had known no rest, not for years (no, more like decades), that pressure giving way to something... to nothing
  271. 271.
    >Not an overbearing nothing, that nothing that swallows you whole and traps you in the dark, that inescapable and stifling nothing that hisses from a dead heart, not even that empty nothing that calls you to sleep as a break from a world full of terrible, exhausting somethings, but a new nothing altogether
  272. 272.
    >As if you were totally weightless, anchored to the earth only by the soft touch of this angel, this singing, beautiful angel, and you shivered not from the cold or the fear, but from relief, that's what it was, relief, not nothingness but relief, saccharine relief that melted you into a formless mass of willowy bones, cradled in those soft, heavenly wings
  273. 273.
    >You summoned the strength to look up, into her kind and gentle face, a face carrying terrible pain, not searing pain like an open wound but an ache, a pervasive and exhausting ache, the ache of an old scar just before it rains, an ache that spilled out in her angel's voice, as though banished into that haunting, sorrowful song
  274. 274.
    >She closed her eyes, still carrying that song, and pressed her forehead to yours, and you could feel her feeling your pain, and she could feel you feeling hers, and you realized that her song wasn't a song at all, but tearless, melodic weeping, a weeping not from the eyes but from the heart, and the two of you wept together for a while
  275. 275.
    .
  276. 276.
    .
  277. 277.
    .
  278. 278.
    >"Come now, let us go to your sister."
  279. 279.
    >Nothing more needed to be said, not right now; whatever trouble the little green fillies were in, or at least thought they were in, was surely best discussed together
  280. 280.
    >The Princess moved the filly to her back gently, the way one would pick up a baby bird
  281. 281.
    >Her heart ached for the child; though not the most distressing dream she had ever seen, the scene she appeared on was uncommonly so, especially for one so young, a beacon of suffering and terror burning through the tapestry of dreams like a shooting star
  282. 282.
    >At least they had each other to rely on
  283. 283.
    >While sharing dreamscapes was an incredible rarity, all she had encountered who could were twins, and it spoke of an unshakable bond between them
  284. 284.
    >It was odd that she hadn't encountered them before however, with how prolific and diligent her night patrols were
  285. 285.
    >She leapt into effortless, swanlike flight, staying only a dozen feet above the ground so as not to alarm her hapless passenger, scattering swirls of water vapor glistening with crystal moonlight
  286. 286.
    .
  287. 287.
    .
  288. 288.
    .
  289. 289.
    >I dared not disobey the creature, however much it churned my stomach
  290. 290.
    >BE NOT AFRAID echoed in my head, turned over and dissected syllable by syllable as I awaited its return, hopefully along with news of my companion's fate
  291. 291.
    >Were it truly an angel, I worried more and more that the unicorn was right, that this was some sort of divine punishment, that the two of us really had died and were waiting in limbo to be sorted, or maybe even already in hell, a subtle and conniving hell, one that lapped at the back of the mind, fostering confusion and doubt, picking at the brain neuron by neuron, until every thought was so hopelessly disjointed that you forgot what peace was, and if you knew it anyway you still wouldn't be able to feel it, a tumbling doll of flesh lost in the endless wilderness
  292. 292.
    >Were it not an angel... some sort of ghost or demon, maybe some monster from an obscure greek myth...
  293. 293.
    >Regardless, it would be best not to take its words at face value
  294. 294.
    >I imagined it with a slithering tongue, dripping with caustic venom, and I could feel my face contort with hatred
  295. 295.
    >To be at the mercy of such a thing (truly a thing; what other word could fit? nothing made sense anymore) was a frustration I could not abide
  296. 296.
    >Even worse, that I could do nothing about it was all the more infuriating, every possible road in my head mapped to an inevitable meeting with the thing, that looming and powerful and graceful and maternal thing
  297. 297.
    >So I sulked, casting side-eye glances towards every errant shape in the grass, swallowing meekly against the lump in my throat, since besides my frustration I was also terrified, and not ashamed to be terrified because the situation was terrifying, and I thought about running but where could I go, if this is truly a dream I could run forever without moving an inch, if it wasn't a dream I didn't want to risk angering the thing, whatever it had planned could only be exponentially worse if I imposed upon it the inconvenience of a hunt, and I waited
  298. 298.
    .
  299. 299.
    .
  300. 300.
    .
  301. 301.
    >The Princess returned to the pegasus almost exactly as she had left her, except somehow even more grumpy
  302. 302.
    >Those little dark eyes stared at her expectantly, taking deep breaths that steamed in the dream-night chill
  303. 303.
    >She took a cautious step forward, carrying the effortless serenity of an immortal royal while inside she wanted nothing more than to pull her in an embrace, those angry little dark eyes barely concealing that same choking fear she had seen in her sister
  304. 304.
    >Horn glowing midnight blue, she lifted the unicorn from her back, to show that she was unharmed, see, nothing bad happened, you're safe here, I'm not going to hurt you, and placed her at the pegasus' side
  305. 305.
    >"Would you like to tell us your name?" she said, an open question directed at the both of them, waiting for whoever was comfortable with speaking first
  306. 306.
    >After a moment, with looks of consideration, both of them spoke at once
  307. 307.
    >"Anon Y. Mous."
  308. 308.
    >The pegasus' eyes narrowed, the unicorn's widened
  309. 309.
    >Both cast a suspicious side glance at the other
  310. 310.
    >The Princess clicked her tongue; while it was a little ominous that they refused to share their real names, it was not uncharacteristic of children to want to keep pointless little secrets, and hopefully this was one of those times
  311. 311.
    >"Well, Anon Y. Mous, my name is Princess Luna," she began, deciding it was time to eschew the formal royal vernacular, "And I am very glad to meet you."
  312. 312.
    >The unicorn watched her with rapt attention, hanging on her every word; the pegasus gave her the evil eye, and much to Luna's chagrin looked ready to flinch
  313. 313.
    >"I am the Princess of the Moon, and the guardian of dreams. I came to you because you were so troubled by your nightmare. It must have been very scary, having such a terrible thing happen to you. But the important thing to remember is that none of it was real, that you are safe, and nothing here can hurt you."
  314. 314.
    >The pegasus' already furrowed brow creased ever so slightly more, her glare cracking to reveal just a hair of curiosity
  315. 315.
    >"But I think there is something more to this than just dreams. You are deeply distressed, beyond simple nightmares," she let the declaration hang for a moment, an invitation for input that was decisively ignored, "Perhaps it might feel better to share what troubles you?"
  316. 316.
    .
  317. 317.
    .
  318. 318.
    .
  319. 319.
    >I took a moment to summon my thoughts, a thousand questions swirling through my head, and selected the most important
  320. 320.
    >"Are we dead?"
  321. 321.
    >Princess Luna shook her head
  322. 322.
    >"Of course not, my little ponies. You are very much alive, otherwise we wouldn't be speaking. Is there a reason why you would be dead?"
  323. 323.
    >Despite the apparent concern worn on her face like a skin-tight mask, I sensed a trap, a space for some implied riddle or probe for guilt; although perhaps this Princess was giving on opportunity, perhaps this was our chance to reflect, to earn some small mercy before judgement was passed
  324. 324.
    >I decided to stay neutral, to reveal only what objective truths I could physically observe, a simple factual retelling of events that might open the door for her elaboration, while technically avoiding any deception
  325. 325.
    >"We woke up together, and hiked the hills without meeting another soul," I pointed to the silhouette of the mountain, lit brightly against a curtain of gleaming stars and arcs of colorful nebulae, though the forest was now a half mile or so away
  326. 326.
    >"We were trying to find a water source before we did anything else."
  327. 327.
    >She pursed her lips
  328. 328.
    >"You are lost? This-" She gestured with her wing, sweeping at the rolling foothills that surrounded them "Is where you now sleep?"
  329. 329.
    >I shook my head, then pointed to the woodline
  330. 330.
    >"No, no, we stopped just inside the forest. To shelter from the wind, and in case there was a frost."
  331. 331.
    >Her expression turned troubled, and it was difficult to parse if it was faked
  332. 332.
    >"Are you running from somepony? Has anypony tried to hurt you?"
  333. 333.
    >I winced, glancing at the unicorn, but thankfully she had already scratched off much of the dried blood, complaining about the itch of clumped fur
  334. 334.
    >"That's what I'd like to know. Should we be? Are they going to?"
  335. 335.
    >"I certainly hope not," She swiveled her head, taking careful note of the mountains, the stars, the shape of the horizon illuminated in faded moonshine, "Can you tell me where you are?"
  336. 336.
    >"I have no idea."
  337. 337.
    >The unicorn was silent
  338. 338.
    >She tapped at her chin pensively, then shook her head just as her horn began to glow
  339. 339.
    >"Worry not, for I have ways to-"
  340. 340.
    >It suddenly felt like I was being dunked in ice; I twisted to raise my hooves and protect myself as the image of my surroundings began to fade, and heard the faint voice of the Princess shouting in the back of my mind
  341. 341.
    .
  342. 342.
    .
  343. 343.
    .
  344. 344.
    >I shot up, scrambling to my hooves at the same time as the unicorn, fur drenched and freezing, pounded by a chaotic and driving rain
  345. 345.
    >After a moment, I stopped my panic, ran out from under the canopy and opened my mouth as wide as it would go, gulping down as much water as I could, and when I looked I saw the unicorn following suit, and we both drank until our stomachs were swollen and I even burped some back up, spitting harshly on the muddy earth
  346. 346.
    >I looked around frantically, swearing I remembered there being a magnolia tree nearby, and it was revealed by a flash of lightning
  347. 347.
    >Then I went to go pluck off some leaves, but the branches were too high so I grabbed some off the ground, nice looking ones that were still waxy and intact, and rinsed them off in the rain since I couldn't see if they were dirty, then carefully curled them as best I could to form makeshift bowls
  348. 348.
    >They were completely ineffective, and I tore them to shreds, and anyway if the ground wasn't too dry there should still be puddles in the morning, and maybe I might find one that wasn't too filthy, one where I could use the leaves to scoop up the relatively clean surface water, so guided by a lone moonbeam poking through the clouds I spotted a particularly thick and low branch underneath one of the sprawling live oaks and squatted under it, and soon the unicorn was by my side and we hid together from the rain, shivering this time with cold, and I felt like something terrible was going to happen soon
  349. 349.
    .
  350. 350.
    .
  351. 351.
    .
  352. 352.
    >Princess Twilight Sparkle had already drafted an agenda by the time she arrived at the castle, despite the impossibly late hour, and with the approval of Princess Luna it was distributed among the palace aides
  353. 353.
    >"Based on the visuals I can imagine thirty places they might be."
  354. 354.
    >Luna rubbed at her chin with a stiff flight feather, carefully-scrawled parchment notes laid out over a council table while Twilight paced on the other side
  355. 355.
    >"And since it was a dream, the picture you saw might not even be accurate?"
  356. 356.
    >"Indeed. But right now it's all we have."
  357. 357.
    >Princess Celestia was busy discussing message logistics with the palace's resident Wonderbolt captain, leaving Twilight and Luna alone to share their thoughts while they awaited the arrival of assorted clerical officials, but mostly the clerk of the office of the Royal Cartographer
  358. 358.
    >Twilight stopped in front of a wall-mounted map, made a number of red circles, then turned to Luna
  359. 359.
    >"Who did you say was checking the missing ponies files?"
  360. 360.
    >Luna waved her hoof dismissively, "One of Tia's mares, Sunny Smiles. I think you've met her. She does good work, so we can probably leave her team to it," She shook her head and sighed, "I wish I wasn't so shorthoofed right now, but most of my court is attending the big NAABP convention down in Marelando."
  361. 361.
    >She stared despondently at the notes; what she wanted most right now was to return to the dream realm, wait for when next they fell asleep, to hold them tight and tell them it was all okay and cast the spell that would bring this terrible chapter to an end
  362. 362.
    >But she couldn't know when that next chance might appear, or what might happen in the meantime, so organizing the search plan was the single most important step right now, and as the only pony who had seen them, it was her duty to attend
  363. 363.
    >Twilight stopped again, staring intensely at the map, then turning to consult the notes, scrunching her mouth and harrumphing, before turning back to the map and tapping a region marked 'Fillydelphia'
  364. 364.
    >"I don't know why, but something tells me we should start by looking here."
  365. 365.
    .
  366. 366.
    .
  367. 367.
    .
  368. 368.
    >The storm stopped just as suddenly as it started, and it couldn't have gone on for much more than twenty minutes
  369. 369.
    >It was an awfully rough one, though
  370. 370.
    >Not only was the ground still soaked is midday approached, but a number of old-looking trees and heavy branches were pulled down, and small bundles of still-green leaves littered the forest floor in droves
  371. 371.
    >We had come across a bed of soaked dandelions, and after some negotiation managed an awkward game of rock-paper-scissors, after which came an hour of tense waiting to see if I keeled over or started shitting blood or my eyes turned milky
  372. 372.
    >The flavor was actually quite pleasant and mild, like cucumber and rosemary
  373. 373.
    >Even with this assertion and against the wills of our groaning stomachs, neither of us ate any more, instead opting to pluck them and wait to see if anything happened to me later
  374. 374.
    >However, with no pockets or bags or even hands, we had to thread them into the tangles of one another's manes for safekeeping, and repeated the maneuver (without eating one first) when we encountered a patch of tickseed and again with a few different varieties of daisy, so that by noon our manes were more flowers than hair
  375. 375.
    >We might have gathered fewer considering that flowers seemed not particularly scarce here, but frankly aside from the pangs of hunger the whole process was rather relaxing, joyful even, in a way beyond just occupying the hands to silence the mind as I had so often spent my time doing
  376. 376.
    >The unicorn seemed to agree, as she barely carried a trace of her previously characteristic hopelessness, even giggling at some point, seemingly at nothing other than her own good mood
  377. 377.
    >Though whether it was truly from the flower-picking, or the afterglow of a midnight liaison...
  378. 378.
    >I had yet to bring up the dream
  379. 379.
    >No doubt she would draw some apocalyptic vision from its interpretation, and the last thing I needed to do was feed into her delusions
  380. 380.
    >We came to rest at the top of a particularly tall hill, and I pulled one of the dandelions from my mane, deciding it had been long enough to confidently say they weren't poisonous
  381. 381.
    >I was on my third blossom, savoring the delicate celery-crunch of the stem when the unicorn spoke up, carrying a placid look and staring low into the forest, lips peeling back into an unsettling smile
  382. 382.
    .
  383. 383.
    .
  384. 384.
    .
  385. 385.
    >You had been invigorated by the dream, carried your shoulders high and floated with each step
  386. 386.
    >The air felt lighter, the sun a little more yellow, its gentle caress bathing your aching muscles in a restorative warmth
  387. 387.
    >Your doppelganger could feel it too, you were sure of it, and the newfound connection with your fellow Anon, however strange and disorienting, lifted your heart so high it actually made you giggle in delight at the sheer fraternal glow in your breast
  388. 388.
    >Though the change in equipment was difficult to adjust to, you knew other Anon must be feeling the same way, and that made everything seem so much more manageable
  389. 389.
    >You had no concept of what sorority might feel like, the female brain and its inspirations were a mystery even now, so despite the circumstances fraternity was the only word that felt right
  390. 390.
    >As such, you chose to frame it in a way that was almost impossible not to be excited about: you had a twin brother!
  391. 391.
    >You could carry each other out of here, onward against the odds, or perhaps this really was a second chance, an opportunity to do things right this time, a reclamation of wasted potential, this time with two of you to share the burden
  392. 392.
    >A new life, from the beginning
  393. 393.
    >At least, as close to the beginning as you wouldn't mind living out
  394. 394.
    >"She was an angel, you know."
  395. 395.
    >You spoke in a dreamy haze, feeling an echo of that wonderful relief, absentmindedly drawing shapes in the dirt
  396. 396.
    >When you looked up, however, the pegasus flashed with hot rage, nostrils flared, gaze like a viper, and you faltered
  397. 397.
    >"She'll save us," you blurt defensively, ears flattened unconsciously, "We can trust her."
  398. 398.
    >You had meant for it to be declarative, but it came out almost like a question
  399. 399.
    >Other Anon squinted at you, then shifted her eyes to the horizon, then seemed to scan all around at the gently swaying grass, aglow with menace
  400. 400.
    >"All your fucking talk about ghosts and the devil and damnation and shit. Then you go falling head over heels for the first smiling face you run into! In a fucking dream no less!"
  401. 401.
    >Her words seeped with venom, she waved her hooves animatedly and shook her head when she paused, too angry or maybe just annoyed to maintain eye contact
  402. 402.
    >"What the fuck, man?"
  403. 403.
    >"...She... she was an angel... she sang to me..."
  404. 404.
    >You felt the pressure building up in your chest again, became fidgety with unease, rubbing your hooves together in a fruitless pantomime of handwringing
  405. 405.
    >"Goddamn fool. You said it yourself. We're in hell, in hell there's demons, fucking succubuses wandering around! And you're getting all doe-eyed because you hear a pretty voice? Gonna go hug the siren out by the rocks? You'll get us both killed."
  406. 406.
    >The tension coiled its way back around your bones, clenched your jaw as something buzzed in your ears, visual snow making it difficult to focus on distinct shapes, jagged shudders of doubt dragging through your brain like barbed wire
  407. 407.
    >"Don't be stupid. We can't fucking give her anything. Don't even talk to her. If we see her again, we just gotta pinch ourselves awake."
  408. 408.
    >You wanted nothing more than to be back in that embrace, to hear her voice, to feel her heartbeat
  409. 409.
    >Other Anon grabbed your head by the sides, forcing you to look her in the eyes, eyes like a cat just about to pounce, awake with intense purpose, eyes that made you feel like prey
  410. 410.
    >"Pinch yourself. Hit yourself. Hit me. Wake. Up."
  411. 411.
    >A voice like an angry crow, harsh and crackling, and those hateful, accusing, predatory eyes
  412. 412.
    >"Do you understand?"
  413. 413.
    >You wanted to say no, to push her away and slink into the weeds, but you just couldn't do it, you couldn't summon the willpower and anyway deep down you felt she was right, everything she was saying made sense and you were in more danger than you realized, that this was a part of the game, glimmers of faint hope to keep you treading water in whatever direction they pleased, with only the frantic illusion of mobility
  414. 414.
    >You nodded your head, and she held you in place, swallowing your gaze like a black hole
  415. 415.
    >When she finally did let go she turned to brood on the edge of the hill, and as if snapping from a trance you suddenly knew that it couldn't be, no matter what she says, Princess Luna was an angel, your guardian angel, and you felt guilty for ever doubting her, but at the same time suspicion pulsed like a dull headache, and more than anything you felt a gutshot emptiness, a yearning like sand filling your lungs
  416. 416.
    .
  417. 417.
    .
  418. 418.
    .
  419. 419.
    >As the day dragged on and the heat grew stifling, we began to hug the shade of the treeline in an effort to save water
  420. 420.
    >The earth was thirsty, and the puddles I had hoped for were nowhere to be seen, but throughout the day I had seen a number of what looked like rogue storm clouds, racing across the sky just like any other, leaving trails of rainwater wherever they passed, so I decided that water likely wouldn't end up being a problem, though I was starting to get thirsty
  421. 421.
    >That lightning did worry me, striking far too often and far too reliably, but with no way to take shelter I left it in the hands of fate, and since it seemed leashed to the rogue clouds anyway it probably wouldn't be a problem unless we couldn't move out of the way
  422. 422.
    >The unicorn, having been thoroughly scolded, seemed to lose that bubbly energy that had animated her through the morning, taking on a mechanical, uncertain gait that reminded me of a wet beetle trying to climb out of a bucket
  423. 423.
    >She hadn't said anything else, responding to whatever minor course correction or pace adjustment I imposed with dejected nodding
  424. 424.
    >Guilt crawled up the back of my neck and picked at my mind, sure some things needed to be said but I had been so needlessly cruel
  425. 425.
    >She had been buoyed by hope, carried a childlike optimism that couldn't help but soak into me by osmosis, and I tore it away, trampled it, and threw it back into the endless sea of grass, leaving us both feeling tired and hollow
  426. 426.
    >I watched as grasshoppers and bees and little iridescent round bugs scattered at my approach, desperately avoiding my hoofstep, the crushing weight of an insurmountable giant crashing its way through their world, accidentally threatening their ephemeral and erratic and busy little lives
  427. 427.
    >I felt annoyed with myself, with my anger; it was one thing to hold that hate inside, gazing into it like a shining jewel, focusing on the scattered reflections of myself in its numerous, pitiless faces
  428. 428.
    >That kind of hate was productive, was warranted, for I knew what I was capable of and what I should be doing, what was reasonable and what was expected, could shape that hate and in turn be shaped by it, like a knife and a grindstone
  429. 429.
    >I knew myself, understood myself, so I could hate myself; another was an enigma, a bubbling cauldron of variables, limitless and unknowable, and to be angry with that enigma was practically the same as being angry at nature, being angry at the weather, being angry at the silent mountains judging from the heavens, being angry at the small flies that followed me in a loose cloud to drink the sheen of sweat off my back
  430. 430.
    >That kind of anger was pointless and vague and corrosive
  431. 431.
    >But of course, there was an undeniable familiarity with this particular enigma, one whose eyes bored into mine like the reflections in that secret jewel, the unicorn that shared my name, or at least my dreams, maybe the name was just a part of the dream, who knows what happened on her side of it, maybe the only thread that connected our dreams was that beckoning siren, and I had been infected by her hysteria only to conjure the same desperate delusions
  432. 432.
    >And despite all my protestations, my dogged contrarian stances to every thought offered, I could see the logic in them, found myself halfway convinced by her convictions and reasoning, even at times privately arriving at the same or similar conclusions only to dismiss them upon second review...
  433. 433.
    >So perhaps I was angry that she reminded me so much of myself, or I was angry at myself for acting so much like her, and in either case I had nowhere to retreat to so in my weakness I took it out on her, the idea of splitting off on my own even for a moment making my head spin with that menacing loneliness that still stretched up into the sky, threatened to pull it down on my head, to crush me with the empty weight of a vast and uncompromising nothing
  434. 434.
    >I felt a tap on my flank, and looked over to see the unicorn staring back into the hills, or rather a split between the hills like a little valley, and I followed her gaze to a clearing in the grass, a clearing with what looked to be brick or tile covering the ground, a clearing that I suddenly realized looked very much like a roadway
  435. 435.
    .
  436. 436.
    .
  437. 437.
    .
  438. 438.
    >Trixie Lulamoon had pulled her wagon across this stretch of road two dozen times or more, underneath the watchful gaze of the Unicorn Mountains through rain, snow and sunshine
  439. 439.
    >Mercifully, it seemed Cloudsdale must have drifted across the other side of the range, sparing her from the bulk of the chaotic weather factory byproducts that often menaced this particular patch of countryside
  440. 440.
    >As such, she was enjoying the mild weather without her trademark cloak, sunshine like a gentle massage on her back, the light and constant sweat of her labor sliding down her sides unmolested
  441. 441.
    >She was delighted when she saw the fillies, fixing her hair as they approached
  442. 442.
    >They bee-lined toward her from the side of the road, clearly superfans desperate for an autograph from their idol
  443. 443.
    >She produced a pair of photos and a small pen kept handy under her hat, wearing a look of smug satisfaction; this was her fourth favorite part of the job, after the cheer of the crowd, the free drinks, and the jealous looks from mares who just couldn't compete
  444. 444.
    >They looked unkempt, a little rough even, and from the flowers in her hair she guessed they must be some of those hippy-dippy treehugger types, the kind that sang and danced in the open fields, the kind she liked to share a campfire with
  445. 445.
    >"How exciting for you, to chance upon a meeting with the Great and Powerful Trrrixie without having to fight your way through teeming hordes of your fellow adoring fans!"
  446. 446.
    >Truth be told, the excitement was all hers, a moment like this was a succulent treat to break boring solitude of back-country travel
  447. 447.
    >She licked the tip of the pen and blinked, serene and majestic, totally in her element
  448. 448.
    >"Now, who is the Generous and Inspiring Trrrixie making these out to?"
  449. 449.
    >One of the fillies, a pegasus with a sour face and low brows, spoke up in a voice that sounded halfway between a kicked cat and a buzzing wasp
  450. 450.
    >"Do you have any water?"

Dirofilaria

by gastrocnemius