Hypnotic Trance

PROLOGUE

Praedicta saw All.

Her bright, silver eyes saw across the cosmos. Every star, every rock, every planet.

Every evil. Every dot in the pattern.

She saw the world. Both worlds, yet the same. Mirrors of each other. One she viewed with pride and fulfillment. The other with shame and indignity. The former, a world populated by creatures of her own image, that walked upon the ground with four legs, or flew with wings, and existed in harmony with each other. The latter, a world home to beings that strode upright on two legs, or in machines of their own make; a world rife with evil and chaos. But yet, even on this world she caught glimpses of harmony, and it gave her hope for the humans of the world. Small acts of love and compassion.

“Aren’t these humans marvelous?” A... rather different voice answered. A voice made of chocolate and sand paper, of broken glass and smoothest honey. Here was something different, thought he. A land ruled by creativity, and cruelty, forged together like a metal, alloyed to build the land itself up. Through chaos, they lived, building order and promoting more chaos, more entropy. More everything he ever cared for. A world rife with purity and chaos. Good and Chaotic, these humans were...

That was to say nothing of what he thought about the world that the ponies ruled.

This, of course, was a matter of conflict. “Aren’t these humans so... purely marvelous? So much better than those ponies... Though I must say, my chosen people, the griffons, are doing quite well.”

The alicorn sighed softly as the harsh voice reached her ears. Griffons were a race not of her own make. A chaotic and animalistic culture, the feline avians had plunged their whole race into the depths of war, though only a border away lie the ponies, with their order and peace. Praedicta thought even less of the griffons than she did of the humans.

Tumult let out a low laugh. Here, among the stars, he would have his proof. “Chaos... is so delightful. It’s so... forgiving. It’s unrestrained, unrefined. It’s freedom, my dear alicorn, and I see that you have forgotten exactly what freedom means.”

“Freedom is a catalyst for destruction,” she argued to the draconequus beside her. “Too much freedom in choice leads to too many wrong choices. Too many mistakes. Order prevents those choices from being made. From ever being possible. Begone with you, grotesque demon.”

“We’ve argued this many a time.” The draconequus sighed. “Now, let’s have a game. I let you clear up a bit of this so called ‘wretched’ chaos you so hate, and all you have to do is let me do the same. Clearing chaos.” He had a lazy smirk to his face.

Praedicta pondered the suggestion put down by Tumult. Perhaps he was correct. A game of chaos and order would best determine the better. “I accept your challenge, chaotic one,” she voiced. “However, I wish not for the world of ponies and griffons to be our playing field. I propose this instead: Equestria is the goal, not the field. Let us use the humans as pieces. Earth as our chessboard. Victorious humans shall be granted a new life on another world. A just reward for their service, wouldn’t you say?”

He didn’t really think that was a justified reward, but regardless, he would accept.

“Alright.” He began, the stars shimmering around her as he laid out his plan.

Pony

My eyes opened.

I looked around the room. Warm sunlight filtered through the window. A bedroom, simple queen-sized bed, a few colorful posters of pastel ponies, a vanity, and a desk, at which I was sitting. On the desk was my laptop, with an internet page open. A SoundCloud page for a song that was blaring through my HD headset. Smile Smile Smile - Alex S Remix was the title. One of my favorite My Little Pony fan songs.

But the sound playing through the headphone speakers was definitely not the original song. I had listened to it enough time where I had memorized the tune and every layer in it. This was... changed, somehow, but I couldn’t tell what. It sounded like the same song, with all the correct layers, but there was something different about it, like another layer had been added beneath it. But as hard as I listened, I couldn’t make it out. It felt as if my mind didn’t comprehend, or didn’t allow me to distinguish it. I strain harder, trying to concentrate solely on the
alien sound...

“Aah!” I cried out suddenly as my wrist began to burn. It was more in surprise than in pain; an intense yet numb prickling sensation, not unlike the feeling I get in my legs when I sit the wrong way too long. I grasped at the site, the music still playing into my ears.

Then I heard it. The difference in the song. It was a crisp, soothing bell melody, or a harp. My heartbeat slowed as it’s calming tune dulled my thoughts. The feeling on my wrist was forgotten, the song blotted out by the ensnaring sound. It was beautiful, like nothing I’ve ever heard; nothing I’ve ever experienced. I heard it whispering to me, in the language of melodious chimes, but I cared not for what it said. All I needed was that sweet, fulfilling sound. No amount of telling or describing could recreate it. No amount of words could possibly define it.

No, wait... there was one word. One very beautiful word. One perfect, entrancing, beautiful word...

I muttered it. As softly,as I could, so I did not disrupt the sound. ”...HARMONY...”

Reality hit. My trance snapped.

I could tell something was wrong from the moment I came to. Or rather, not wrong, but different. Not the way it was before. All around me, I felt an... energy. It was a flowing, radiant, invisible force, omnipresent and almost tangible. I looked around, feeling it ebb through and around everything, leaving it pure and locatable in space. It ran through my veins, through my heart and mind, giving me a heightened feeling of spirit and clarity of thought.

It was thrilling. Mindblowing. Intoxicating. Like a second nature to me; as if it had always been there, and only now was my being truly open and aware of its majesty. So wonderful was this energy, it couldn’t possibly be anything except magic. I wanted to reach out and stroke the river of nonexistence, use it to bend and control the world around me to my will. In wishful thought, I reached out my arms.

I had completely forgotten the spot on my arm that had burned with the harmony-sound. Blinking my eyes, I stared at the spot, a point on the inside of my wrist, just below my hand.

On that exact spot was the image of a blue spiral galaxy, with a violet heart at its core, branded to my skin like a tattoo that was too real to be one.

Somehow, in my mind, I knew what it was, without thought nor ponder.

It was my cutie mark.

Griffon

My eyes shut.

I took a long breath, holding back the frustration that just seemed to beg for me to release. Practiced self restraint tickled like a school of fish trying to swarm through.

My eyes opened and they nervously flicked through my room. There were a few posters of bands I had never listened to, a few indents in the wall from past experiences with punching... On my desk was a laptop with a pair of battered and probably beaten speakers that just barely hummed with a bit of Beethoven.

Therein lay my frustration. The speakers, no matter what I did, weren’t sounding right. They were wrong, muffled, distorted. They were just... there was something wrong with them, and I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me. “Grrrr...” I growled under my breath. Yeah, I growled under my breath, you got something against that? Better not.

I let it rumble in the back of my throat and shut my eyes again to try and pretend that it was all working and that I didn’t have better things to do besides just messing around with a sound system that was more than five years old and had more shorts in the cable than I had shorts in my clothes drawers.

The worse thing, besides the fact I still had to do my homework that was due the next day and I hadn’t paid attention to the instructions in class, was that the sound was off just enough that it set my teeth on edge and I had to make a clear forced effort to not grind it to the beat.

“Grah...” Eh... Despite the... offness of the music... I could do homework to it well enough.

So that’s how I found myself doing calculus homework to the sound of classical music while my head exploded out with the pain of a full blown migraine.

It was... the music was distorted, dang it. It was... like there was a layer beneath a layer, like the song was just a medium for a message... Like a message within a message... Like there was something more to the song than normally and it was driving me near mad.

“Grrr...” I growled again. My eyes were watering. Tears trickled down my face. Gah! What was it now? I was three bloody problems into the homework.

“Stupid computer. Stupid speakers. Stupid homework.” Then I stopped for a long second. The music... It had an under tone... Like a violin. Like a violin hitting an eerie melody that I didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, what was IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND... just yet. I had... things to do if I wanted to understand.... I had...

No.. Shut up! “SHUT UP!”

My headache cleared up, evaporating away instantly. Instead, it was replaced with a sudden, blinding pain coming from my eyes, like light was pouring forth from it in it’s purest form. I lashed out, trying to stop the noise that just had to be linked to it. My fist met my right speaker with a resounding thwack and I smelled a bit of blood in the air while the speaker his the wall with a loud thud. I went still, the room dark. I panicked for a few moments, unable to see a damn thing before I started to blink frantically. Everything smelled like blood, and my heart felt like it was trying to break free from its restraints...

My eyes opened.

The world changed.

A single word described it for a brief moment that just flicked through the air like the sun dappling a tree leaf.

Like a dying breath, I managed to whisper it. “...chaos...”

“CHAOS!”

Reality struck.

I could feel that something was right... Horribly, perfectly, DREADFULLY right.

Oh... It felt great...

I knocked my glasses that I had left on my face off and let them hit the ground with a soft, carpeted thud.

I could see without my glasses.

The world was clear, crisp. It was not the same as it was. And I loved it.

I could hear my heart beating. It was a good noise. It was clear, crisp.

My footing was unsteady. It was hard to walk for a long time, but I managed it. I lumbered over to the mirror that was hung on the back of my bedroom door and stared at my tear stained face.

My eyes were yellow. Alien. Foreign. They were... not the chocolate brown I remembered them as. They were slitted, they were...

They were better.