This is a story about you.
You live in a small house on the outskirts of the Crystal City, across from a library. You found a book, and you opened it, and on the pages these words are being scribed before your eyes, flowing out in ink. An invisible quill scratches as the letters appear on the page.
As you hold the book, awed by the impossibility, you look at the crate it came out of. The box came from a cart that you were paid to unload. Every day, for as long as you could remember, you walked down to the gravel path under the bridge across the railroad. Waiting for you, every day, there was a full cart, an empty cart, and a pony in a black suit. The pony had a different face each time.
The pony watched you as you moved the crates from the full cart to the empty cart. When you were finished, the pony would pass you a quantity of bits, different each time, and you and the pony would walk away. Today, a second pony in a black suit approached. Nothing like it had ever happened before. They walked away together a distance and discussed something in hushed tones. They weren’t watching you. You took one of the crates, hiding it out of sight in some bushes beside the gravel path, and finished your job.
You remember having a different job, a different life: you remember books, you remember a special somepony that smiled when you came home, but it is gone. You don’t know how long your special somepony has been missing. A month could have passed, or a year, or even ten years. All you know is that this is your job, and every day, you wake up to do it. You remember why. You have to do your job if you ever want to see your special somepony again.
But today was different. When the pony in the black suit walked away, you went back to where you’d hidden your crate, and you took it home with you. You set it down in the kitchen by the door, and you let it sit for a while. You tried to ignore it. You aren’t supposed to look inside the crates. You noticed that all you would have to do is remove a few nails. You managed to hold out until nightfall before the urge overpowered you and you opened it with a hammer. Now, you’re standing there, reading the words as they’re being written on the page.
You snap the book shut, but the words are being written on your window now, scrawled out in white paint. Maybe you can give the book back, you think. Maybe you can forget this ever happened. You snatch your coat off the rack by the door and exit into the street. Running, the book tucked underneath your foreleg, you rush to the bridge. You can still see the words, written in chalk on the path or on the flier for some filly’s lost kitten. You can’t escape them.
The moon hovers above, its light glistening on your crystal skin. One face is bright, but you can feel something on the other side. Something filled with deep, black canyons, and forests of dark trees, and empty valleys filled with soundless cries. It looms over you, beyond sight, but just within reach.
You arrive at the gravel path under the railroad bridge. There are no carts waiting for you. There are no ponies in suits. You close your eyes tight, but the words are still there, scraped into your very consciousness, telling a story about you.
“Did you bring it?” a pony says, somewhere behind you.
You turn. It’s the two ponies in suits, talking to each other. You know it’s them. They’re here to kill you. You still have the hammer in your mouth. Running away won’t solve the problem. You run at them.
They raise their hooves in defense, but it’s no use. You swing, and you swing, and you swing, until they’re nothing but shattered crystal beneath you. Your neck burns with the exertion. There are no consequences. You walk away from the fragments, like you walked out the front door of your house.
You find another pony in a black suit around the corner. Today is different. You kill them, brutally, smashing until there is nothing left to smash. You think you might have heard somepony scream. You look up, and there is another pony beneath a dimly lit street corner, wearing a black suit. You race after her. You break her hind knee with your hammer first, then her skull. It’s over. You’re getting better. You have a feeling your special somepony will be there when you’re all finished.
When all the ponies in black suits are gone, you walk back home. When you step inside, your special somepony is lying there dead, her face shattered. There is no crate. You check under your foreleg. The book is still there. You wonder if you killed the one you love. You remember when she disappeared. It was today. There were no carts, no job, no mysterious ponies in black suits that watch you work. There was only a black book that you found in the library. That book is telling a story about you.
The black expanse on the far side of the moon yawns open on the other side of the roof over your head. You can feel it there, closer than it ever was before. You feel it, full of deep, dark canyons, and forests of dark trees, and empty valleys filled with soundless cries. You can almost touch it.
Someone bangs on your door. “Crystal Guard, open the door,” a pony on the far side calls.
You grip your hammer tightly in your teeth and you go to the door. You open it. On the far side are two guards with spears. “We heard reports of an assailant with a hammer in the area and we were wondering if you’d seen anything out of the ordinary,” the guard in front of your door says. He isn’t looking at you. He’s staring down at a notepad in his hoof and talking around a pencil in his mouth.
The second guard is looking at you. His eyes are wide – wider than you thought a pony’s eyes could be. The whites yawn like a grand moon, only marred by the black pupil. Inside his pupils you can see deep, black canyons, and forests of dark trees, and empty valleys filled with soundless cries. You raise your hammer.
You think that you might have killed the one you love. You wonder why you’re attacking the guard. You wonder who is in control: you, or your story?
You bring the hammer down. It clangs off the guard’s steel helmet, jarring your teeth and jaw. A spearpoint flashes. You fall. The yawning, gaping expanse is there, pulsing, right above you, full of deep, black canyons, and forests of dark trees, and empty valleys filled with soundless cries. You can touch it now.
You want to touch it.
Gasping, you reach up, and—
Author's Note
Inspired by Welcome to Nightvale
