It always begins with a Book

by Suke

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Original Character
Length: 5741

A madness has spread across Equestria and the rest of the world beyond. What was the cause? Who was the first? Where did it all begin? The Multiverse is an endless thing, and one should not try to know it all.

A mare brought up with tales of Myth and Wonder. A dream none believed acclomplishable. Repercussions beyond fathomable.

Cliff Jumper goes in search of an object thought not to exist, and unknowingly unleashes an unimaginable contagion.

It always begins with a Book...

(Contagious Existence)

Published 2013-11-13 10:40:03 UTC
Last updated 2013-11-13 10:40:03 UTC

The Opening Chapter

The Multiverse Theory

For every imaginable and unimaginable variation of the past, present and future, there exists an alternate reality, another universe where such a variation is fact. Up could be down, yes could be no, green could be red, and Pluto could still be a planet.

Somewhere out there in the wide open nothingness of endless possibilities, your life is but a piece of fiction, be it a world renowned novel turned film, performed by an all star cast, or a long forgotten mythos, buried under centuries of war and strife.

In one reality: an aspiring adventurer, keen to prove the existence of an artifact many disregarded as a fairy tale of ridiculous proportions.

Like a mediocre, wannabe philosopher once said as he wrote these words, “Somewhere, somewhen, it always begins with a book.”

Deep under the Equestrian Isle of Britannia, a lone Earth Pony mare struggled over the rubble of a derelict structure. Her green coat was caked with sweat, blood and dirt. She didn’t care. Her brown and blue mane was mottled and grubby. She really didn’t care. Her hooves were swollen and blistered. She couldn’t have cared less. Her cutie mark, a cliff face, represented her ability in climbing. Cliff Jumper was eternally thankful for it.

The structure the courageous mare was exploring used to have great importance. It sealed a mythical relic. One that held a great power over life, the universe and everything. It was known by many names, but only one stuck in the mind of our intrepid adventurer: The Mycrosia Multonian

The Mycrosia Multonian is a tome discovered by a long dead Alicorn called Mycrosia. It was believed that he found the book after it fell from the blackness of space. Upon studying its content, he deduced it was a catalogue of the Multiverse. He then forbade anypony from touching it, stowing it away in his palace.

Everyone wanted to know what the great Alicorn knew, and countless attempts were made with that aim in mind. In a final attempt to protect the secrets of the Multonian, Mycrosia cast a spell that wiped his existence from all minds and writings. An impossible spell, all that remained of him was a myth, heavily disregarded as nothing more than a traveller’s tale.

Burying his home with the tome and himself still inside, Mycrosia had succeeded in his life’s mission, until now. Cliff had reached the peak of the palace, where it had been said the Mycrosia Multonian had last been seen, Mycrosia’s magic casting a light across the world.

“Finally, now I can prove I was right!”

As she dug through the stone and muck, Cliff began to reminisce, recalling the stories her parents had told, and all the stories she made up for playing make believe with her friends. Having been brought up on the folklore of Mycrosia, the mare had dedicated her life to researching and consequentially proving their actuality.

One last kick and a hole appeared. With a little more effort, the hole was big enough to slip through. Doing so, Cliff Jumper found herself in a dusty, cracked and broken space, remains of pillars circling it. A pile of rusty decorative armour sat to one side, its host having deteriorated beyond even bone remains. Most importantly though, in the centre, was a tattered but most certainly intact tome.

In the blink of an eye, the Multonian’s rediscoverer was beside the thing, reaching out to touch it, open it, read it, own it. But before contact was made, a magical image flashed into being, hovering above. A tall, majestic and winged pony stood proud over head. So tall, it was, that the head was out of view, inside the collapsed ceiling. It did not matter, for the audio message it came with reverberated clearly into Cliff’s ears.

“This is my final message to those fools that would try to learn what must never be known. Stop this madness, or a greater insanity shall be what follows. Nobody can ever truly fathom the contents of the Multonian, nor should they try. Retrieve your hand from the tome’s vicinity, leave this place, and never return. You have been warned!”

For a moment, Cliff considered following headless Mycrosia’s instructions, but curiosity got the better of her, and she flipped open the cover. The pages lit up with such brightness that Cliff was nearly blinded. Eventually, the light dimmed enough to allow for reading, but no words could be seen on the paper. Instead, an endless stream of writing flowed upwards from the open book, disappear a couple of feet later.

Line upon line of information scrolled by while Cliff tried to gain some sense of legibility from it all. At first, it seemed like gobbledy goop. Soon though, the words and sentences began to make sense. The only problem was, there was just so much to take in. After perhaps an hour, a hoof managed to break free from the hypnosis that had befallen Cliff and closed the book.

“This… This is… This is AMAZING!”

Seconds after her exclamation, Cliff regretted her lack of control, as everything began to shake. As quick as she could, Cliff shoved the Multonian into the large rucksack she had brought along and made for the the hole she’d originally made. About to climb out, the mare realised Mycrosia’s personal attire was right there for the looting.

Again, time being of the essence, Cliff moved quickly. The armour was too big to take, but surely it wasn’t all he had on him- A pendant! Swiping it, Cliff returned to the task at hoof: escape.

Escape had been successful, and that night, as Cliff Jumper rode on the midnight train, she dreamed.

She was seeing through the eyes of another. She was in a large room, like a converted warehouse. All around, there were strange bipedal beings, fully clothed, climbing wooden looking walls set at different angles. Different coloured pieces of plastic littered these walls. It was clear one had to keep to a single colour. When these beings, these… the word humans appeared amongst Cliff’s thoughts. When these humans reached the last of their chosen colour, they would jump back down. Thick safety mats made up the majority of the floor, softening the landings.

To Cliff, this was all so weird. Why were they climbing these things just to jump down again? Then again, it felt so familiar. Somepony...Someone nearby finished their climb, returned to the ground and said something. She didn’t quite hear it, but the impression was it was her turn. She looked down at her hooves, but found a blunt pair of claw like appendages. They were covered in chalk.

Returning her attention to the walls, the one closest had varying routes. A brief analysis revealed the different levels of difficulty, and so Cliff Jumper chose the hardest. Compared to the real life climbs she’d done over the years, this one wasn’t too difficult. At the top she looked over the peak to find nothing of worth or reward, so she imitated the humans and hopped off, landing awkwardly on two legs.

Behind where she had first stood, a group of humans were looking at her with such expressions of awe and astonishment. Clearly they knew her in this odd dream world, and they didn’t expect her to do so well. Cliff just smiled back. She was beginning to see what the point of it all was. Rather than reach a new location, or find some reward of sorts, the purpose was the sense of achievement at the end. She wanted to do more.

And so she did.

“Last stop! Fetlock Station! All ponies please disembark and do not forget your luggage!”

Cliff Jumper startled awake. She must have slept for the entire journey. Drowsily she gathered her things and stepped off the train. The Sun was peeking over the valley’s horizon, and the air was a little frigid from the night prior. Fetlock spread out before the mare, built in and up the sides of the valley.

The town was a quiet one, mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. It was also nearly slap bang in the middle of Britannia, which made it an ideal location for Cliff to operate from in her search for the Mycrosia Multonian. Until she came to the Isle, Cliff knew nothing more about where the book was except for its being under Britannia somewhere.

Taking a deep breath and slapping herself in the face, Cliff Jumper set off into town. Smaller than most, Fetlock had more of a village feel to it. In the town centre, shops circled a monument with two crowns on top. It was built in honour of Luna’s return a couple years ago. One of the shops, a florist, had a door built in its side. The exhausted mare unlocked the door and went inside, instantly having to climb stairs to the apartment above.

This apartment was a tip. Cliff was renting it temporarily, and would have to clear it all up when she eventually left. The mess consisted entirely of books. All had some kind of connection to Mycrosian Myth and Legend. Miss Jumper would have little use for them now though, as she emptied her bag onto the central space of her desk. She then sweeped all the other books around it off the desk, reserving the whole thing for the Multonian.

Hurriedly grabbing sustenance from the kitchen, the overly curious mare reopened the book and watched the words pass by, reading whatever she could while munching on a lettuce leaf. It was all so fascinating. If only she knew what she had done to herself.

At some point, Cliff Jumper had decided she needed sleep, put the book under some floorboards in her bedroom and slumbered. After all the travelling she’d done lately, finding the last clues to the puzzle that now sat under the floor, completed, The Earth Pony slept until the next morning.

When she awoke, she had the vague memory of having a second dream in that human world. It was quite an alternate experience to her other dreams. Until now, she hadn’t even heard of a human let alone seen them. She put it down to the Multonian and her subconscious. More than likely, she’d seen mention of humans, and dreams are just the subconscious gluing random thoughts together.

A short trip to the bathroom later, Cliff was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Both the kitchen and the bathroom were cleaner than she remembered. A note came to her attention, stuck to her forehead. Only her landmare would do such a thing. The note read:

‘Dear Cliff Jumper,

‘I am happy to see you made it back in one piece. Was your trip successful? Don’t hesitate to visit me downstairs when you finally wake up. I only ask that you clean yourself up. You smell horribly and you look like you were dragged backwards through a muddy cactus nursery. Also, you’ll have to remake your bed, open all the windows and use some air freshener EVERYWHERE. After that, I’ll be happy to hear of your latest adventures.

‘Sweet Cornucopia’

Mrs Sweet Cornucopia, otherwise known as Sweet Corn, was the florist who ran the shop below the apartment, as well as mare who Cliff paid rent to stay in the apartment. Mr Cornucopia was around somewhere, but Cliff had never been introduced due to the stallion’s hay fever allergies. It seemed like a peculiar marriage considering flowers were Sweet Corn’s life and joy, but love works in peculiar ways.

A slight sniff of the air told Cliff she did in fact reek, and after breakfast she rushed into the shower, scrubbing herself down thoroughly. Following that, the bed was remade, air was let in and the scent of air freshener filled the nostrils.

It wasn’t long before Cliff was entering the florist, bright and beautiful flowers wherever she looked. Sweet Corn popped her head out from behind the counter.

“Morning sleepy head,” she said, placing a small plant on the counter.

Cliff responded, “Morning Miss Corning.”

‘Miss Corning’ giggled at Cliff’s little personal greeting. It never got old.

“I see you saw my note. I have to ask… was some of that blood?”

“Oh, yes, sorry. My last excursion wasn’t the most… comfortable. It got a little ‘Daring Do’ at the end.”

Sweet Corn gasped, holding a hoof over her mouth, “Goodness! I do hope you got something out of it.”

Cliff gave a little excited laugh, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I could try.”

“That you can. I… found… the genuine… real deal thing…”

“Which is?”

Cliff threw her hooves in the air, shouting to the world, “The Mycrosia Multonian!”

Corn raised an eyebrow, asking skeptically, “You mean that fairy tale book about that supposed Multiverse?”

“But that’s just it! It’s not a fairy tail! I found Mycrosia’s palace buried under Stonehenge! I found his armour, this pendant,” she held out the article in question. “And the Multonian! I’ve read some of it! It’s unbelievable!”

Sweet Corn was silent for a moment, staring at the pendant, but finally spoke up, “Well, considering all the stuff my cousin Carrot Top tells me in her letters about the goings on around Ponyville and the like, it’s not that hard to go one step further and assume Mycrosia is just another forgotten truth.”

Cliff nodded and tucked the pendant away, enquiring, “How is she by the way? What’s it like having been friends with a Princess in the making?”

The landlady shrugged, explaining, “Oh, you know how it is: ‘I was friends with royalty before she was royalty’. It’s a tad bit irritating, but soon I’ll be able to say my tenant proved the existence of Mycrosia and his Multonian! What wonders have you learned so far?”

“Erm, well… I can’t seem to retain anything I learn from it… but I have started having these dreams about creatures called humans.”

“Humans, you say?” Sweet seemed to be thinking about it, until, “Carrot Top mentioned them once! A unicorn mare in Ponyville studies something called… let’s see if I can say it right... An-throw-pology? Apparently it’s the study of humans. Barely anypony knows about the things, but this mare is obsessed. Does that help at all?”

“Well, I’m more focused on the Multonian right now, but I might look into that another time. Thank you Sweet Corn. Anyway, speaking of the thing, I should get back to it. Maybe I’ll manage to write down some findings.”

Cliff Jumper waved goodbye to her landmare and returned to her lounge converted study upstairs.

Sweet Corn sighed as she went back to work, “I do hope she remembers to keep herself fed.”

A week went by uneventfully. Sweet Corn would check up on her tenant, and Cliff Jumper even came down once or twice while fetching food from the market. The florist may have let slip to customers that the local adventurer had come across a big discovery lately. Rumours began to spread around town.

In an attempt to allow Cliff do reveal things in her own time, Sweet denied every single theory surrounding the discovery, saying she didn’t know what it was exactly, only that Cliff Jumper would tell everypony in good time. The mare in question was in the dark about all this, ignorantly getting on with her heavy reading.

One day, however, a loud thud came through the shop ceiling. Quick as a flash, the landmare let herself into the apartment, fumbling slightly with the keys. Sweet Corn found Cliff sleeping soundly in the middle of the study. Her position would imply she literally just fell asleep while crossing the room, rear legs still standing, fore legs tucked under and face pressed into the carpet, snoring softly.

“Cliff? Cliff!? Wake up honey!”

No response. Sweet slapped her tenant’s face. Apart from falling onto her side, Cliff still didn’t respond. A moment later and Sweet had a glass of water in hoof, splashing over Cliff’s face. That woke her up.

“Ack! What the- Where am I? Who did that?!” Cliff Jumper looked up at Sweet, confused as hell. “What happened?”

“I think you fainted or something. I found you as if you fell asleep mid-stride.” Sweet watched as Cliff hauled herself up from the floor. “Are you okay? Dear? Do you want me to call a doctor?” Sweet continued, her hoof on Cliff’s shoulder and a look of concern in her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m okay, I think,” Cliff replied, shaking her head to clear the thoughts of bipedal beings climbing walls. “Aghh, I think I’m gonna need a lie down, my head is reeling.” Cliff stated looking up at Sweet, smiling apologetically. “See ya’ in a bit.” She finished, turning to leave the room.

“Just call if you need anything, dear,” Sweet called after her, smiling sweetly.

The sound of Sweet leaving faded, and Cliff jumped onto her bed, staring at the ceiling.

“... I’m starting to think I’m not ‘dreaming’...”

The days progressed steadily. The dreams kept happening, and the blackouts became more frequent, each lasting longer than the one before. They were clearly unnatural and in some way connected to the Multonian. Cliff Jumper eventually told Sweet about them after the third or fourth time the poor mare found her tennant sleeping in an awkward position.

It was helpful to have the second opinion in the end, as they both agreed Cliff must be seeing an alternate reality. One in which these humans are the dominant race. That being said, Cliff began to take note of what she saw in that world, in case they had something ponies would have use for, including the indoor climbing centre from the first dream.

There was one thing she withheld though. Some humans, including her own, referred to themselves as bronies. Cliff herself wasn’t too unsettled by the discovery, as she had a strong understanding of the Multiverse Theory and the pertaining possibilities. Others, however, may not react so calmly, believing that these humans were in fact watching their every move, causing widespread panic.

After two weeks since opening the Mycrosia Multonian, the blackouts stopped. Instead, something much worse began to happen.

It was a quiet night like any other, and Cliff Jumper was continuing her perusing of the Multonian. To one side, she was writing into a journal, noting her findings and thoughts. For the umpteenth time, she turned away from the scrolling magic text to double check her notes. As soon as she did this she screamed and jumped away from the desk.

Sweet Corn was out with her husband, so Cliff just sat there alone, a couple of metres away from the Multonian. Her forehooves were held out, her eyes staring horror struck at them. To Cliff’s eyes, her hooves had become hands. One of the hands came up and slapped her face, and she was still there. Not a dream. A glance at the area showed the same study as always, so it couldn’t be a vision of the human world.

Looking back at her new hands, Cliff found her original hooves.

“That… That couldn’t have been my imagination, could it?” The mare shook her head. “Ugh, I think I need to rest. Getting late anyway.”

Cliff Jumper stood up and returned to the desk to close the book. After tidying up her notes, she moved into her bedroom, where something in her peripheral caught her attention. Something in the mirror. Moving back to see what it had been, Cliff almost repeated her actions in the study. Her reflection was showing the human male whom she had been seeing the human world through.

“Christ, Sweet Corn’s gonna freak out when she hears about this!”

It took Cliff a couple of seconds to realise what she had said. Christ was a human religious icon. Nopony ever said ‘Christ’ in Equestria. The reflection was back to normal, a tired and confused Earth Pony mare staring back at herself.

“... Curiosity killed the cat, and I’m just getting curiouser and curiouser… This can’t hope to end well…”

With those words, Cliff crawled into bed and slumbered, revisiting the human world.

Cliff Jumper decided not to tell Sweet Corn about the hallucinations, which may have ended up being a bad choice. The third week was hell for Cliff, as the world she lived in began to crossover with all the others. Every single reality she lived in, be it pony, human, or anything else, she could see. It had been gradual, but now, as she looked over Fetlock from the roof of her apartment, Cliff struggled to tell her reality apart from the others.

Enough was enough, and Cliff was going to end it. She had left a note for Sweet Corn to find atop the closed Multonian. Sweet not knowing about Cliff’s faltering perception, she was going to be in for a shock upon seeing her tennant hit the ground in the near future.

“To quote a human: I have made but one mistake.”

Cliff took a step over the edge and let gravity take control, falling head first towards the dirt below. Time seemed to slow, allowing her to relive her life from start to finish, memories reminding her of all she was giving up. After too long, she felt the ground make contact and such a horrible flash of pain, and then she blinked, still on the roof, leg hovering in the air, about to make the step she was sure she’d already taken.

Wind blew by as the mare who had/hadn’t died tried to understand what had happened. The wind grew stronger. Stronger still. The strength reached a point where Cliff was knocked off balance and she tripped over the ledge, plummeting towards soil. It felt like deja vu. The trip had caused Cliff to fall with her back to the ground, and so the endless abyss of blue sky was the last thing she saw before blinking once again, the wind about to pick up.

This time, Cliff stepped back a safe distance, the wind not catching her off guard.

“What on Earth is happening?”

Cliff shook her head, an action that had become a habit of hers from frequent use that past week. She had decided to do this, and now wasn’t the time to start trying to understand things. There was no need to understand. It would be all over soon.

Cliff ran up to the ledge and leapt through the sky. Realising she hadn’t considered that she might hit another pony, Cliff looked down. Ponies were looking up at her with varied expressions. Some were surprised, others confused. A small few were horror struck, somehow knowing what she was doing. The worst of them all was Sweet Corn, a flower pot falling from her hooves.

The guilt at seeing her landmare’s face didn’t last long, however, as something, or rather, two somethings were spotted amongst the witnesses of Cliff’s suicide. Two exact replicas of Cliff Jumper lay dead on the ground, close to Sweet and the flower shop. It all clicked into place in her mind, along with a solid doubt that the third time would be any different.

Sure enough, as soon as Cliff felt her neck break, she found herself about to make the running jump. Without a second to lose, Cliff carefully climbed back down the side of the building and popped her head around the corner, surveying the street. The first two dead Cliffs were where she’d seen them ‘earlier’, and a third could be seen on the other side, broken neck and all.

The weirdest part of it all was that nopony else could see them. In fact, they couldn’t even touch the corpses, walking right through them. This was all the still alive Cliff Jumper needed to see to come to a sound conclusion. She was experiencing the alternate realities where she died. The only explanation behind it was the Mycrosia Multonian’s curse. A fail-safe to stop the victim from ending their life before they had suffered enough for their trespassing.

“Luna have mercy on my soul… I need to find the limitations…”

Thus the night of Cliff Jumper’s experimental suicides began, and went on into the early hours of the morning.

Cliff roared in exasperation. Several piles of the Multonian’s pages littered the study, but the tome itself looked perfectly intact, not a single page missing.

After getting fed up of experiencing death after death with no sign of a loophole, the mare had decided that nopony else had to live through such an ordeal, and made an attempt to destroy the book. As it turned out, the thing had infinite pages. The fact they were all blank to start off with hadn’t deterred Cliff, as she’d just assumed the book form was so the pony mind could at least comprehend the book’s existence.

Sadly, her theory was also an explanation as to the current predicament. The pages were unimportant, and could be reproduced instantly without any detection. The whole situation, from day one, was slowly breaking Cliff Jumper, her mind unravelling beneath the pressure of separating her reality apart from the rest. Sanity was a fickle thing.

It occurred to Cliff that Mycrosia had likely tried to destroy the book too. Magic was still the most destructive force in Equestria, and back in the day of Mycrosia, it was more so. What hope did an Earth Pony have in the task? None at all. All that was left to do was return the book to where she found it, or, failing that, take it with her to the most secluded location on the planet and live out the rest of her days. Maybe she could starve to death.

It was decided. Cliff packed quickly and minimally, keeping her load light for the start of her travels. Even if she somehow got the book back to Mycrosia’s remains, with her mind succumbing to madness, she wasn’t safe around anyone. After that, she left the apartment to go into Sweet’s store, intending to announce her permanent departure.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, spotting a customer at the counter. “But do you mind if we have a little talk in the backroom, Sweet?”

“I,er… I’m kind of busy here Cliff, honey.”

“Then I can wait.”

Cliff Jumper stood there and waited, watching the two ponies talk. Only, they weren’t talking. Sweet Corn had her hooves held over her head. The customer, a rough looking Unicorn stallion, had his horn glowing, pointed at the shop owner.

“Wait a second…”

This was a robbery.

“You, mare! Your name’s Cliff Jumper is it!?” shouted the stallion, not taking his eyes off Sweet.

“Yes?”

“And you found the Multonian?!”

Sweet Corn cut in, “I swear I never mentioned the bo-”

“Quiet!”

“Yes, I did, but I don’t think you know what’s really-”

“YOU TOO!”

“No, you shut up! That book’s nothing but bad news! Believe me when I tell you to leave it be. It’s not wor-”

“I SAID QUIET DAMMIT!”

The stallion turned his head and fired a near point blank magical blast into Cliff’s face, leaving a headless body steaming at the neck lying at Cliff’s hooves. She stayed quiet.

“Now, I want that book. It’s mine.”

Cliff held up a hoof, making slight sounds of urgency.

A quick glance told the stallion that Cliff wanted to ask something.

“What?”

“How is it yours?”

“Because I’ve spent my whole life looking for it!”

“So did I…”

“IT’S MINE NOW! GO GET IT!”

“Ok ok. Lemme guess; Sweet Corn’s hostage until then?”

“Somepony’s learning fast.”

Cliff sent an apologetic look towards Sweet Corn, but not before several suicidal attempts to quell the situation. She had to resist the need to step over the Cliff Jumper corpses. A short moment later, she returned with the Mycrosia Multonian, carrying it in the same bag she had used back at the palace three weeks ago.

Slowly and non threateningly, Cliff walked to Sweet’s side, dropping the bag on the counter so the stallion could see the tome inside.

With an evil smirk, the stallion thanked her, “Good job, Miss Jumper. Sorry to say I have to kill the two of you now.”

Seeing the genuine intent in the Unicorn’s eyes, Cliff yelled, “Sweet! Look out!”

The courageous mare pushed her close friend out of the way and took the stallion’s blast.

Seeing the genuine intent in the Unicorn’s eyes, Cliff yelled, “Sweet! Look out!”

The courageous mare pushed her close friend out of the way and took the stallion’s blast.

Seeing the genuine intent in the Unicorn’s eyes, Cliff yelled, “Look out!”

The courageous mare pushed her close friend out of the way and took the stallion’s blast.

Seeing the genuine intent in the Unicorn’s eyes, Cliff yelled, “Sweet!”

The courageous mare pushed her close friend out of the way and took the stallion’s blast.

Cliff kept up this cycle of death, the few seconds of each loop accumulating into minutes, hours, days and more. She didn’t even try any other ways of saving her landmare that might have avoided her own death. The fact was, there was no time for anything else, and Cliff just couldn’t accept it.

There came a point, however, when Cliff snapped. Enough was enough. As Sweet was hit by the blast, killed instantly, Cliff picked up her bag as a shield. The bag disintegrated and the Multonian caught fire. Flaming book in hoof, Cliff leapt over the counter and thrust her makeshift weapon into the murderer’s face. Stallion and tome went together into Sweet’s flowers, and the fire spread, engulfing the Unicorn.

Ignoring the screams, Cliff galloped out of the florist’s and spun around as the whole building was swallowed up. Cliff was smiling manically. She caught one last look at the Mycrosia Multonian, and it had been burning up, succumbing to the fire.

“I can’t believe it… It’s… It’s really over!”

The mare did a dance in the middle of the street. Ponies watched the maddened pony, not knowing what to think of it all. The magical blaze made short work of the entire building. All of Cliff’s belongings, gone. Except for the pendant. Cliff didn’t even know when she’d started wearing it, but there it was, around her neck.

With the townsfolk giving her suspicious looks, Cliff decided it was best to skip town, lest the royal guard in the area think she was behind the deaths of two ponies. The moment she began to run, half the town was after her.

After many miles of fleeing, most of which unpursued, Cliff was lost in the Britannian wilderness. Her fitness something to be applauded, the mare had finally reached her limit. She spent the next day sleeping it off.

A month later, Cliff sat in a tavern in Trottingham, taking advantage of the free water before continuing her search for the most ideal secluded spot on Equis. All of a sudden a Pegasus stallion charged in with a knife while performing a death scream. The knife was plunged deep into Cliff’s side, then repeatedly pulled back and re-inserted elsewhere until Cliff eventually succumbed to blood loss, and the death screaming stopped, the knife kinking on the ground.

The potential killer stared dumbstruck at Cliff, and she stared back plain faced.

“H-How did you do that?” The stallion asked, voice quivering.

Cliff raised an enquiring eyebrow, “Do what?”

“I thought I just killed you… a-and then I was about to do it…”

“What!?” Cliff grabbed the Pegasus’ shoulders and shook him, “You saw that?!”

“Y-Y-Yes…” The poor stallion’s eyes were filled with terror.

“... Tell me why you randomly decided to kill me…” She indicated for the stallion to take a seat.

Sitting down, he explained, “I-I’ve been seeing th-things… other l-l-lives…”

“Have you encountered any strange books!? Does the Mycrosia Multonian mean anything to you!?”

“... Now that y-you mention it, I did come across a singed piece of old leather binding a short while before the dreams…”

“Tell me everything!”

And so he did. He pulled out the piece in question, most definitely from the Multonian, and proceeded to detail his descent into madness. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a long time. The symptoms were almost identical, if not a little weaker than what Cliff experienced. Less realities mixing with one another, and the alternates were more separated, differing drastically.

Through his entire ordeal, the Pegasus stallion known as Ford hadn’t once attempted suicide, or had any other reason to have died.

“Hmmm… It seems like contact causes a weaker form of the curse… but it burned to ashes… nothing was left… it was all over the news… unless… it’s reconstructing itself… ashes carried on the wind… could be anywhere... argh, I was stupid to believe I had succeeded where Mycrosia had not… but there’s one last thing I need to know…”

Ford was at loss as to what Cliff was muttering about, and sadly, he would never know, as Cliff, quick as whip, grabbed the knife off of the floor and stabbed him in the head. There was no flashing back to an earlier time. Ford had seen her do it, so it was safe to assume she would see him do the same if he could.

Satisfied with her findings, Cliff checked to see if Ford had anything valuable on him, found nothing, and trotted out of the tavern, all the previously ignored patrons to stunned to act. The mare pulled up her hood and wandered out of Trottingham. She had a longer quest on her hooves than she had originally planned. Who knows how far this madness will spread?

Author's Note

Contagious Existence is a group set up for anyone who would like to write something set in the universe of the madness brought upon Equis by Cliff Jumper and the Mycrosia Multonian. This whole idea was simply to create an open world and see what happened. The possibilities are touched upon in the primary thread titled The Premise. Please, don't hesitate on making this idea a reality. I joined to late to see the emergence of other popular collabs and ponyverses, so maybe I can instigate one.

The Paradox (Formerly Suke)