Dream World
A Davidism Fiction
~* * * * *~
I woke up this morning, and knew that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t the sort of wrong that anypony could put their hoof on, but even before I lifted my head from the pillow, I could tell that something was off.
I gazed from my bed down toward the floor, and saw that Spike was still fast asleep in his small bed; his gentle snoring which was normally cute was this morning, less than comical.
The sun had barely started to shine, and I could already see its beams rushing in from my spot next to the window. Another day, and another bout of studies. It seemed that all I did with my life was study. Eventually I’d graduate… I hoped.
All through the morning, as I brushed my main, cleaned my teeth, and combed my tail, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was awakened with: that feeling of disorientation at the thought that something was different.
When I at last sat down at my small wooden desk and began culling together my tasks for the day, I kept a close eye on Spike. He was doing his chores, and showed no sign that anything was wrong; though I knew that I needed to remain vigilant.
I have never admitted it to anyone, not even the Princess, but I know that somehow I possess a small amount of what Pinkie Pie would call, “A case of the twitchy tail.” The ability to see into the future; or at the very least, know that danger is not far ahead. It comes and goes with no apparent source, cause, or warning. Today, it was washing over me like a flood.
“Hey, Twi, I’m going to go grab a few things from the grocer’s today. Is there anything particular that you want me to get for you that isn’t on the list?”
I shook my head. There wasn’t anything that I wanted. I didn’t know how to explain that I wasn’t in the mood to think about food, or groceries. “I’ll be meeting up with Fluttershy today,” I said to him as he grabbed his shopping bags, and some bits from the communal money jar. “I have to write a report about the behavior of nocturnal animals in the daytime.”
He stood there for a minute, and then squinted. “You’re going to watch a bunch of animals sleeping?”
I shrugged. “Exciting stuff, huh?”
“I guess.” He then made a fake salute, and clicked the heels of his feet together. “I shall return swiftly, madam.”
As I watched him go, I recalled the time that he and I first met. I was just a young filly then, and he was just a small dragon egg. I never questioned Princess Celestia’s reason for entrusting him to me; it was always such an honor. Now, that I’m older, it’s a question that I muse on more and more.
Life has become a series of motivations and actions. I see the lives of my friends that I’ve come to know here in Ponyville, and I wonder after their daily motives. The actions that they take are mundane, common, ordinary. Even the drastic things that seem to often interrupt this tranquility are structured.
A foe appears, and is defeated; a lesson is usually learned. Why? Why does this pattern exist? How long am I to learn? Villains appear, and then are made allies; a change of heart, a touch of friendship.
The world cannot function on friendship alone. It’s a novel approach to life, but I see too much disharmony to believe anymore that it is the binding adhesive of all ponies everywhere.
What lesson is there in that, I wonder?
* * * * *
I arrive at Fluttershy’s house a little after noon. Spike had not yet returned from his shopping, and I highly suspected that it had something to do with an impromptu visit to Rarity’s boutique.
The poor guy. Unrequited love was the hardest.
I was in love once. Ages ago it seemed. Or was it lives ago? I can sometimes see a face in my memory, but I cannot make it out. Maybe it was from my youth. Who can say anymore.
Fluttershy is busy making tea when I rap my hoof on the door lightly, and wait for her to answer. She opens the door—all smiles, and motions me inside. Her home is always warm and inviting; smelling of fresh herbs from her garden, and always crawling from top to bottom with a new herd of little animals.
I’m disappointed to learn that the animals I am supposed to observe had changed locations the night before deeper into the forest. My options were to either trek into the woods to find them while they were sleeping—which could be anywhere—or wait until nightfall when they appeared for their feeding.
I rustled the saddle bag on my flank; I wanted to get the paper written sooner rather than later, but with the melancholy that I was feeling, I wasn’t in the mood to go on an adventure in the deep woods to find them either.
“I guess I don’t have much choice,” I told Fluttershy. “We can wait until they show up to be fed, and then follow them back to their sleeping spots in the morning.” It would of course mean that I would have to stay awake all night, and observe the birds in the morning as they slept.
I could feel a yawn creeping up on me already from the thought of all that sleep I was going to lose.
Fluttershy, while sorry for the inconvenience could barely hide her joy at the decision to not wander out after the night birds in the forest. Her experiences with the deep woods were not pleasant, and she had a knack for losing her nerve just yards from the start of the woods and turning into a big coward.
Settling on a serving of tea, I sat in Fluttershy’s living room, and sipped slowly from the delicate porcelain cup. It was trimmed in blue with little pink butterflies on it; dainty, delicate, and just like my friend that sat across from me with a look of worry on her muzzle.
“Don’t worry about it, Fluttershy. I’m just a little disappointed that I couldn’t write my paper today. It’s not your fault those silly birds decided to up and move where they were nesting for no reason.”
She looked a little better, but still remained regretful. I thought maybe a change of topic was in order, and—stupid me—I said the first thing that came to mind.
“Do you ever have dreams, Fluttershy?”
Locking her gaze onto mine, Fluttershy stopped mid sip and regarded me for a moment. “Dreams?”
“Yeah. Not the sort that we normally have, but different.”
“I don’t think so,” she said looking on the edge of panic. “Are you talking about nightmares?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said, waving my hoof into the air. “I mean the sort of dreams that seem odd, like maybe they belong to someone else. Ever have those kind?”
Setting her cup down, Fluttershy rested her hoof against the side of her head, and frowned. Then in a gesture of defeat slouched slightly in the couch. “No, I can’t remember any dreams like that.”
Picking up her cup delicately, she sipped from it, and then looked to her left, as if she were watching something out the window. “Do you have those sorts of dreams often?” She held her gaze away from mine. Was she being discreet? I couldn’t tell.
“No,” I admitted. “And I don’t ever really remember what my dreams are about; I just know that I have them, and that when I wake up, things feel wrong.”
“Oh,” she said, then slowly turned her eyes to meet mine. “However you feel, Twilight, this is our home. Every pony here has a purpose, and we wouldn’t change it. As scared as I am sometimes; I know where I belong, and I know that I chose this life.”
I was frowning as I held the porcelain cup a few inches from my mouth. “What are you saying, Fluttershy?”
“I’m saying it’s just a dream.”
It was late into the night and the birds still hadn’t appeared. It was possible that they had somehow migrated to a new spot further away than we thought. Maybe they no longer needed Fluttershy’s food, or they had taken up with someone else.
It was a huge disappointment, and mingled with my earlier conversation with Fluttershy, it was a mixture of uncertainty and confusion.
There were always times when my friends could surprise me. I suspected that if I lived long enough to know Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie for a thousand years, I would still a thousand years from now manage to be surprised.
As I laid there on Fluttershy’s sofa, I could hear the soft noises from her pets, and the animals that she took in every night. It was mildly distracting, but not enough to keep me from sleeping.
Maybe, if I could dream again, I’d feel better.
Maybe…
* * * * *
When I opened my eyes, I could hear the sounds of the respirator inside the horizontal sensory chamber. They were hissing and humming in my ears. My arms and legs were stiff from being in one position so long, and I felt a dryness in my mouth from the oxygen mixture.
Looking through the curved glass at the top of the tube, I saw the face of Dylan Strassberg as he flipped a few switches on a console near the chamber. A sudden hissing, and the top opened up.
“It’s official; you’ve set a new record for dive time.”
Swallowing hard a few times, I coughed into my open hand as arms from various lab assistants reached in toward me and removed sensor cords and monitor cables.
“How long was I in?”
“Seventy-six hours.”
“Jesus, Dylan! I thought you were going to end the dive after seventy-two?”
“Bulldog wanted to go longer.”
Glancing up over Dylan’s shoulder I saw the viewing room over the lab; behind the glass, Bob “Bulldog” Murphy was watching. I resisted the urge to give him the middle finger.
“There wasn’t any indication that you’d be affected in a dive that long,” Strassberg continued as he helped me out of the chamber. “And the telemetry we got was amazing.”
“Did you find it?”
“Not yet,” he said. “But with all that data, it won’t be long.”
“Can someone get me a glass of water,” I said.
A technician from my left produced a plastic bottle of water, and I winced at the effort to unscrew the cap.
“I had a dream while I was there,” I said, then guzzled from the bottle.
“Another one?”
I nodded as I brought the bottle down. “Uh-huh. She’s got a mind like you wouldn’t believe; analytical, calculative, and rational.”
“What about the others?”
“They are either unaware, or are expert at denying the reality. I tried to get some information from her friend, Fluttershy. I think the topic is either taboo, or enforced.”
Dylan frowned as he rubbed at his stubble. “If it’s enforced then, no one can leave?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Pacing slightly, Dylan took his hand from his chin to his hair; running his fingers through it a few times. “So it’s either a place that people, or aliens are put to live out a new life of their own free will, or it’s against their will, and they can never leave.”
“We still haven’t explored the possibility that it could be a place for the physically challenged; I haven’t given up that it could be an alternate life for the comatose or impaired.”
Dylan chuckled. “An alternate bio-reality for the vegetative aliens of the galaxy… hardly.”
Standing up and stretching my legs, I took the bottle of water and turned it up; drinking the last of the cold liquid. “Either way,” I said, after a loud gulp. “It’s clear that the place is fabricated. It’s clear that the indigenous are not from there; and they don’t want to talk about it.”
“Doctor Morales.”
Turning to greet the voice of my assistant, Lisa, I watched as the twenty something blonde pointed up at the glass observation room. “Mister Murphy wants to know when you’ll be ready for another dive.”
“I just finished a dive!” I couldn’t help but feel irritated, I was still a little groggy after sleeping for more than three days. “Tell him tomorrow, after I’ve completed my analysis of the data I’ve recovered.”
Lisa reminded me of Twilight’s friend, Fluttershy. Meek and shy to a fault. I watched as she sprinted away to go relay my reply to the Bulldog; the money behind our operation.
I watched him watching me from the glass. He was an asshole. I’d told him as much on too many occasions to the point that, now he wouldn’t even speak to me directly anymore. It was just as well. The discovery of the dream world was too big for a fat money wielding bastard like him. It was bigger than us all.
In there, anything was possible.
“Hey, Elena… do you think that Twilight knows you’re there?”
“I think, she’s starting to suspect,” I said.
“Is that going to be a problem?”
Strassberg was giving me that uncomfortable look. The one that always reminded me that he had final say over certain aspects of my job.
“No, it won’t be a problem,” I said. “I’ll just have to be more cautious.”
“Alright,” he said.
* * * * *
It was another beautiful day in Ponyville when I woke up. I could hear the birds outside chirping, and as usual, Spike was still snoring softly in his bed next to me.
I stretched my legs under the blanket, and relished in the warm fabric wrapped around me. I slept like a log the night before. No strange dreams, and nothing out of the ordinary.
Maybe I was just going through some sort of phase. Oh well. Time to start my day.
~ * * * ~
