Nightmare Life

~Through the Colt's Eyes~

From the beginning of his life he was small, Night Riser was. Counters and tables would seem so high to him, that he would stand there and gaze at the top that surely, he believed, was there. Every staircase seemed like a mountainous climb, taking him so long until he finally reached the top, and as usual, he would be out of breath and fall off his hooves and to the floor. No, the young colt was never able to be of any use, and with clumsiness added to his repertoire, the poor thing was more of an annoying scrap of life that just happened to be there. Only he wasn't happened, he was intended. But intentions can sometimes fail.

It were these miserable features of Night Riser that always gave him trouble as a young, because every night, Dr. Zoid would ask for his medicine, calling down the stairs for the feeble pony to fetch for him. But of course, Night was hardly successful at doing the task right, for the medicine was always in the cabinet above the tallest counter, and Dr. Zoid was up the stairs of the dark home. He could not come down himself because of his paralyzed back hooves, and so he expected Night Riser to be very punctual about performing to his bidding. However, the colt was always scolded for his lack of doing things right, which is why Night Riser always trembled towards the time he would need to get his master's medicine.

And this was the time.

"Night Riser!" bellowed the creaky voice from the upper hall. "Bring me the Dantrium!" The colt jerked his head up from the floor. He had neatly rolled himself up into a ball in the corner to sit, and was staring at an unseen crack through the stone wall at the moonlight that was gazing though. He swallowed hard and turned his gaze to the cabinet where the Dantrium vials were. It was time again.

Quickly, the colt did his work. He hopped off the floor and sped over to a dining table with wooded chairs surrounding it. He ran up to the leg of one and carefully arranged his mouth on it. He wanted to make sure the master didn't know he was biting his furniture, and due to the fact the colt had tiny fangs in his mouth, he had to be cautious when dragging the chair.

However, Night Riser had done this before. He pulled the chair up against the counter until the edges touched. Then, using all the strength he had, Night Riser stood on his hind legs and reached for the seat of the chair. He was able to get a small hold onto it, but enough to pull his small body up and onto the chair itself. From there it was easy to get up on the counter and to the cabinet, which inside contained many vials of clear-green liquid with the master's medicine.

Carefully, the colt stretched his neck back into the cabinet and grabbed the nearest vial. He pulled his head out, the glass container in his mouth, and shut the door with his head. Then agilely, Night Riser hopped to the floor, and using his head, pushed the chair back to the table. As fast as his legs could take him, the colt ran for the staircase and began to hop up each one, losing energy as he went and feeling the Dantrium slosh inside of the vial.

Soon, Night Riser made it to the top of the stairs. He set the vial down and opened his mouth to pant. He looked at the ground when a voice came from an open door down the dark hallway on that floor.

"I know you're up here, little worm, now get in here and bring me the Dantrium!" shouted the voice of Dr. Zoid. Frantically Night Riser grabbed the vial and sprinted into the lit room. At a desk filled with all sorts of papers and chemical beakers sat the master, Dr. Zoid himself. He was sitting in his rustic wheelchair with his back towards Night Riser. All the young colt could see was his cream-colored head peeping from the top of it, his wispy white hair sticking up. The old pony soon turned the chair around to reveal his slouchy figure in a stained white coat, a pair of old goggles over his wrinkly, always grouchy face.

"You stupid brat, do you know I have a schedule to keep?" he cracked at Night Riser. The colt brought the old pony the vial, which the doctor sucked into a syringe. "You have time for your worthless daydreams at night, you know. That's why they're called dreams." He stuck the syringe into his lower back and shot the medicine into his body.

"Now scram," said the doctor. "Do do whatever you do until I have another task." He turned back to his work. Night Riser hesitated to leave. He wanted to ask the question he asked every day. But he was afraid. Afraid the master would do The Torture to him. Night Riser was always afraid of The Torture, but had hope in his heart. Hope that the master would someday give him the answer he longed for.

"Master sir," squeaked the young pony, attempting to make his small voice bigger than it was. "I was wondering...can I go outside today?" Today Dr. Zoid did something different. He turned around and faced the colt with his goggles.

"And why, dear boy, would you want that?" Night Riser scratched the back of his hoof.

"Well, Master, sir, tonight is a special night," he replied.

"What makes it so special then?" asked the doctor.

"Tonight is Nightmare Night," said Night Riser enthusiastically. "It's very great, they celebrate it in Ponyville every year, sir. There's always candy and everyone is happy. I want to go this year, Master." Dr. Zoid gave the colt a smile.

"Follow me, boy, and I'll let you answer that question yourself," said the old doctor. He started wheeling his chair to the back of the room. Night Riser was worried, he knew what was in that direction. But the master was seeming nice today. Night Riser followed in curiosity.

"Come now," said the doctor. He opened a closet door and pointed a hoof to the inside. Night Riser stopped and cowered. That was the room of The Torture.

"But...but Master..." he stuttered.

"Get in the room!" Dr. Zoid commanded. Night Riser looked at the unfriendly face of his master and did as he was told, walking into the dark room with his tail between his legs.

Night Riser entered the pitch black closet, the doctor slamming the door behind him. Suddenly from above, a bright light flickered on and almost blinded the colt. He familiarized himself with the room once again, looking up at the light with squinted eyes and then around the hexagonal room. Each of the skinny walls had on it a dirty mirror, including the door.

The colt stared at the reflection in front of him, first catching the sight of his slit-pupiled, golden eyes. His black messy hair sat like a mop atop his head and around his round face and big, floppy ears. He zoned his focus out, then looking at his frail, thin body. His musty blue coat covered him from head to toe, but still he could see signs of his ribs, hips, and skinny flank, bare and dusty. He then stared at the one feature of his body that made him so different from the other ponies, and that was his wings.

His navy, translucent, skeleton-like, bat wings.

For a while, Night Riser stared, and it was only for a few moments. Then The Torture began.

"Take a good look, take a good, long, look, Night Riser!" came the doctor's grumpy voice from behind the door. "You're pathetic, useless, a wretched thing if I ever saw one. Think about how you would've turned out boy! If you deep down in your genes hadn't been so mistaken, you would've been out in the world as a full and worthy pegasus! But you're not! You're a bat, boy, a bat! A sick hybrid of the greatest species, only to be spoiled by your ratty bat self! Do you think you deserve to live?! NO! You are a waste! You can't fly your wings are so weak! You have no future, no past! You are lucky you didn't have any parents, your mother would've aborted you if she knew you would be a disgraceful child like this! There is no hope for you! Oh, you want to go outside? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO GO OUTSIDE?! YOU WOULD BE PERSECUTED OUT THERE! YOU ARE WASTE TO THE PONIES OUTSIDE! YOUR LIFE WOULD BE MORE MISERABLE THAN IT IS! NIGHT RISER, YOU ARE A DIRTY, NOTHING, WASTE OF MY PRECIOUS EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES, JUST PLAIN SCUM! LOOK IN THAT MIRROR! LOOK AT YOUR MEANINGLESS SELF AND TRY TO SAY YOU'RE BETTER THAN THE ROTTEN PONY YOU ARE!"

Night Riser felt the burning words hit his ears and travel down his throat like acid. He held his breath and tried. Tried not to cry. He had wanted to somehow show his master he was strong and was worth it in the world. But the doctor always won, and the colt, halfway through The Torture, would fall to the ground in tears, weeping and screaming for the doctor to stop. Dr. Zoid would always finish his bit, though, and then leave the door to finish his work. Today however he sat by the door, mercilessly listening to the colt inside the room cry.

Night Riser, as always, tried to hit the mirrors in the room. After such descriptions he didn't want to see himself, he wanted to be gone. Dead. He wanted that vision dead. But he was too weak to even crack the mirrors and always failed. Night Riser curled up on the floor and sobbed for a good half hour. Then, he sat in the choking silence, listening. He would always listen, always wait for the master to finish his studies and then use the lift to slowly lower himself to his personal quarters for the night. But the colt didn't hear the electronic buzzing through the walls, the hum of the lift. Maybe he had cried so long that the doctor had already gone down for the night. Little did he know that Zoid was waiting right outside the door, abnormal to the usual routine.

Night Riser reached high and slowly pulled at the handle to leave the room, as usual, to go to bed and finish his sad day there. However, he hobbled right into Dr. Zoid's wheelchair.

SPRACK! The doctor had reached forward, gripped the colt's wing and smacked him across the muzzle.

"Listen, boy, I'm growing tired of this every single day!" the doctor spat angrily into Night Riser's eyes. "You obviously haven't learned by now, idiot, that you get punished for asking that same stupid question every day! You want to go outside? The answer is NO! It has always been NO! And it will always be NO! You got it?!" Night Riser bit is tongue. He didn't see this extra bit coming. Already shaken, and physically beaten more, he fell to the ground.

"Never, Master, I'll never ask you the question again! I promise on my life!" the colt trembled.

"Good," said Dr. Zoid dryly. He began to wheel away to the lift. "Get shut eye, now, you have chores at dawn." With that, the hallway was silent. All for Night Riser's whimpers and his broken but madly beating heart.

When Night Riser felt a motive to get up, he trudged his way through the door of the study and towards the end of the dark hall, his eyes and nose wet in misery. The young colt then came to a door at the end of the hallway, opened it, and began a climb up a twisted staircase to the top of a tower, where he would push through a flimsy trap door to the one room where the master could never hurt him.

There, at the top of that tower, Night Riser felt the tears fall once again, like they did every night after The Torture. He would cry, lying on the ground, and then climb a rusty metal ladder to the ceiling of his room, where a bar hung in the middle. He would then grab hold of it, scoot his way to the center, and then flop his hind hooves over it, then commencing to hang upside-down. He would wrap his papery wings around his body and then sleep, exactly like a bat.

Night Riser did this, and was hanging there, staring out his window that faced the East. He always faced this window, one, because the sun would rise in that direction and he would know when to get up, but also because Ponyville was there. Every night he would gaze upon Ponyville, wishing he'd visit it one day. Or night. Nighttime was when he liked it the best, for it had pretty lights shining with the stars.

This night of the year was his favorite, however. Nightmare Night. It was this night when the town was the most lively at night. He could hear the laughter of so many ponies, hear music and singing in the distance, and smell sweet scents of candy, which by what he could see ponies gave at their doors.

Night Riser smiled for a moment, but that moment faded. He would never get the chance to see the great holiday, nor other ponies but the cruel Dr. Zoid. He didn't really even know what other ponies looked like. But he knew one thing.

All of them would be in dreams from now on.

"This place looks creepy awesome!" It was that sudden, high-pitched, squeaky voice that caught Night Riser's attention. He about fell off his bar. In fact...he did, and landed square on his nose where the doctor had hit him earlier. But he got up quickly and dashed over to his window to look out and be bewildered.

There, on the twisty and thorny path that led to the lab, his home, were two fillies about his age. He looked for the one who had spoken. It was the only one in clear view as he could see and it was a small pegasus. The filly was dressed in a makeshift blue suit from head to toe, yellow lightning bolts going down the sides. So this is how ponies dress... thought Night Riser. How weird. What really stuck out as strange to him was that the filly had the messiest mane and tail ever, and that the colors were that of the entire rainbow.

"I bet this will be the best place to get candy from tonight!" said the filly in her squeaky voice again. "Look! It's like a haunted mansion! Let's go ring the doorbell!" The filly started to walk forward, only to get annoyed and run back to some bushes where another filly was hiding. Night Riser saw the rainbow-haired filly reach in and pull out another pony her age.

And at this, Night Riser gasped.

It was another bat pony, just like him! He looked at her closely. Her wings were strangely thick, she didn't have floppy ears like him, and her fang-teeth were really big for her size. But Night Riser was for sure certain that she was another bat pony.

And how pretty she was! Night Riser had only known his whole life that bat ponies, which was only him, were ugly and disgusting. But in shook his head at this thought. She wasn't ugly and disgusting at all! Her coat was yellow, he thought, like sunshine, and she had hair that looked like the apple blossoms he would see out his window in spring. But what really made him thought she was pretty was her eyes. They were a blueish green. Night Riser had a box of crayons, and a crayon color that was blueish green. He never used the crayon because it was too pretty of a color to use on paper. And he thought her eyes looked just like that crayon.

"Oh, I don't think that's a good idea," the bat pony said softly. "This place is too scary for me." Yes it is, thought Night Riser. He wanted her to fly away, she didn't belong in a place like where he was. But he didn't dare yell out, for fear Dr. Zoid would run out and capture her. He visioned her being locked in The Torture. No, she didn't deserve that at all. She needed to run.

"Aw, come on, scardey pony, let's go!" said the other filly. Night Riser watched as she flew quickly to the door step. Her swallowed a breath.

"Please come back," pleaded the bat pony. But the rainbow filly knocked on the door.

"Trick or Treat!" she yelled. Suddenly a glass broke from the other side of the door. Night Riser knew it was the master, very cross. He knew Dr. Zoid hated visitors, and was very tense at this moment. How he wanted to scream for those fillies, especially the bat pony, to run, fly away!

"Get off my land, no trespassing!" screamed the old pony from the other side of the door. The rainbow filly jumped back.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" she yelped. "Let's get outta here!" But the bat pony had already started running, Night Riser saw, she was so scared.

"Run to Ponyville," he whispered. "Run, bat princess." Night Riser felt the words on his tongue. Bat Princess. But it was true, she was a bat pony like him, but so pretty to be a princess.

That memory, that one moment in the night, Night Riser had hope that there was something good in the world, and something that made his life all the better in the lab. It was that vision, that dream, of that filly he had seen. The Bat Princess.

And from then on he had been in love with her.