Miseryby ImpendingDoomxXxChaptersChapter 1: Why?Chapter 2: Going "Home"Chapter 3: NightmaresChapter 4: Morning ComesChapter 6: RevelationsChapter 7: Moments ReprieveChapter 8: New FeelingsChapter 5: PerfectChapter 1: Why?Misery Chapter 1 NO! NO! PLEASE! STOP THIS! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS, PLEASE! Those were the words my mother was screaming as her attacker approached. I woke with a start, my math teacher had caught me sleeping in class again. "For the third time today, wake up and pay attention!" she said, clearly annoyed with this situation "Yes maam" i said half sluring my words while I sat up in my seat. "I want to talk to you after class," "Yes maam," I said, once again sluring my words I don't really know why I sleep in class. I get enough sleep at home, or what they tell me to call "home". Ever since I was just a colt I have been in foster care. Every time I would be taken in, the "parents" would find some fault with me or develope a typical hate for my sluggishness and bad attitude. But really, how would they have expected a colt to act after having his mother and father killed right in front of him when he was nothing but a six year old colt? *Ding* Here we go again with "the speech" "Why do you relentlessly choose to sleep in class every day?" she said in her normal voice "I don't know" I said shying away from her gaze "You are a very bright colt, why do you waste your brilliance? You could easily have a perfect grade in this class, yet you sleep and wind up failing." "I know. I'm ashamed of myself for it too." "Then why don't you fix the problem?" "The "problem" of which you speak can't easily be fixed." I say with a slightly angry tone. "Why can't it be? No problem in too difficult to fix." Just then, when she said that, I felt every bit of impatience and anger well up inside me and explode in a blistering fury that I couldn't hold back. "Ok then, if you seem to be able to fix all of your problems so easily and think that i'm just a little brat that would rather complain than fix his own problems, then how is this for a "problem". Can you turn back time? Huh? Can you go back in time and stop my parents from being murdered right in front of me? Huh? Can you take back all of the years that I spent going from one foster home to the next? I don't think you can, I don't even think you understand my point of view. I have nothing to look forward to. Most kids want to do good in school so that they can take home their good grades and get praised for it and maybe get their paper hung on the refrigerator for a while. But not me. I have no family to be proud of me, I have noone who cares about me. I HAVE NOTHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO!" By the time i got finished ranting I had an audience of both students from the next class and teachers from other classrooms on the hall lined up in the back of the room listening to me. "I...never...." she said tearing up about to break her composure. "Thats right, you never. You never even thought ahead far enough to see if you were going to bring up a bad memory or two." "I'm so sorry, i can't believe that I hurt you so bad." she said now just about to break. "Don't worry, teach, you didn't hurt me. I've had eleven years to come to grips with the fact that nobody cares about me." On that note I stormed out of the room. *** The next day my math teacher asked me to stay after school. Oh boy. i wonder what this can be about. Reluctantly I agreed to stay after school on the realization that going "home" would only cause more grief than necessary. After my last class I reported back to her classroom to find her siting at her desk waiting for me. The lights were off, but there was a bright lamp in the corner lighting up the area around her desk in a faint warming glow. I slowly walked up to her desk where she sat just staring at me. "You wanted to see me?" "I did. Please have a seat." she said indicating the chair next to her. "Ok, what do you want of me?" I asked as I sat down. "I want to provide you with a set of ears to vent upon." she said with so little emotion that it could have never been misconceived as a prank. "Vent?" I asked not entirely sure of what she was getting at. "Yes, yesterday you showed me that you have a very tragic past and a lot of pent up anger and rage," "What of my anger and rage?" I ask protectively, as if I felt like she wanted to rob me. "I want to give you a chance to tell someone your story, somebody who truly does care about you." "I mean no disrespect, but how am i supposed to believe that your not just doing your job?" "It's not in my job description to personally help students with personal or family problems, i'm supposed to report to the councillors and let them handle it." "So you are going to listen to my mangled past just to try and help me?" "Yes." "Ok, I would like that." It seemed like a typical Wednesday night, I came home from school, I did my homework, I went outside and played with my friends, then I came inside and had dinner with my mother and father. It seemed just like any weekday, and it definitely didn't feel like anything bad could happen. But then it did. There was a knock at the door, I though it was the pizza delivery pony, even though we hadn't ordered pizza and already had dinner, but it wasn't. I opened the door to find a tall stallion who was completely shrouded in a large black overcoat and had a big flat rimmed hat on. Almost completely resembling the stereotypical look of a serial killer or child abductor. But he was neither, he was just a random stallion who had come to have a little "fun". He pushed me to the floor and rushed straight past me and into the living room. He fought with my dad first and wound up knocking him out with a quick smash over the head with the flower vase in the corner. Then he tied up both my mother and my father, and waited. He waited until' my dad came back to consciousness. Then he started talking to them as if he had known them for a long time. "You have screwed me over for the last time Melony, you and Craig will never be together again. You have taken advantage of my leniency for too long, its time to pay for your actions." While my mother just kept trying to tell him the they didn't even know anypony by those names. For their names were Kell and Brigett. But regardless of how much she pleaded with him, he wouldn't stop. Then the worst happened. He looked at my mother and gave her a wide, sinister smile. He started walking closer to her while my dad fought against his bonds, fearing what was about to happen. He raped my mother in front of both me and my father. That night I heard words from my father that I had never even heard before. My father started screaming meaningless threats and curses at him while he continued with his task-at-hoof. He just kept raping her and then he started beating her. He just kept beating her, she had been screaming so loud that her voice was beginning to crack. After he was finished he quickly produced a medium sized knife of about five to six inches from inside his coat and started slashing at my mother, over and over he slashed, cutting her more than fifty times, the screams that she emitted were borderline blood curdling, I still don't know how nopony else on the block heard it. Then, after he insured that she was dead, he moved on to my father. He walked up to my father, still dripping with my mothers blood, he got right in his face. He looked straight in my fathers eyes for a few seconds with blank expression. then he got back up and stood over him. He reared his head back and slung it, putting one deep gash in his throat that produced a thick gurgling sound as my father bled out and drowned in his own blood. The look of pure horror in his eyes will haunt me forever. Then when he was done with my parents he looked at me, crying and rocking on my hind hooves in the corner of the room. He started walking toward me, and with one of his large blood soaked hooves, he ruffled my mane and said something that will haunt me for life: "That was fun, huh kiddo?" The next morning a concerned neighbor came over to check on why the front door had been open since she had woken up, five hours prior. I still remember the screams of terror that she produced when she came into the living room. Only fifteen minutes later the police arrived to find a blood soaked colt crying in the corner of a room with two brutally murdered ponies in it. "You have been through a lot." she said with a sniffle. "Don't try to make me feel better by pretending that you know my pains and sorrows, and definitely don't try and assume that you know the nature of my being." I said this in more of an angry tone than I wanted it to come through on "I'm not trying to assume anything." I don't know why, but a question that I have never adequately answered popped into my head. "You know what I could never understand? The police found the stallion, and found that he had no connections to my parents in any form, he knew nopony by the names of Melony or Craig, or that he had any real reason to do what he did besides that he wanted to do it. But for eleven years I still haven't understood...Why? What pushed him to doing this to a completely random couple? What could ever push anypony to do that to anypony at all?" "I don't know how to answer the question." she said, cocking her head at the sudden change in tone of the conversation. "The answer is simple. Some ponies are just completely bad." There was a long silence after that. My teacher broke the silence by saying, "Is there anything else that you would like to share with me today?" I thought very hard on that question. But I had already been throught enough emotional turmoil in the past two hours so i declined. "No. I think that I have shared enough for now, i'm going to go home." Chapter 2: Going "Home"Misery Chapter 2 I walked out of my math teacher's dark classroom and into the blinding light of the hallway. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the transition, but upon adjustment, I noticed that there were no other ponies in the hall, not students or other teachers, or even custodians. It was so quiet. The school just felt weird without a bunch of bustling ponies trying to get here and there. I walked through the brightly lit corridor that led to the exit doors to the school building. Even though the hallway was blindingly bright, the sunlight coming through the windows was brighter. From the other side of the hall, the doors seemed to becon to me as if there was something outside that I needed to see. As a matter of fact, there was a very important sight for me to behold: all of the school carriages had already left, and the sun was halfway through the evening sky, giving me the realization that my story had taken a lot longer to tell than I had previously thought or even imagined. But with the carriages already being gone, I would have to walk nine miles to get to my foster parent's house. I was in no hurry to get back, so I set out at a light pace and started thinking to myself about all of the things life has dished out to me. My parents are gone, leaving me to wander from home to home of ponies who don't care about me. Everyone says that i'm very smart, which I do and don't agree with, but I do agree with the fact that I have no will to use what I have. I have many skills but no motivation to enhance them so that they can take me places. My grades are somewhat faltering for no apparent reason, besides that I never do my homework nowadays. I've let myself fall way out of shape Sadly, a few of my classmates have told me that they too live in foster homes, but their tales tell me that they are the few lucky ones who land in loving homes, or at least non-abusive homes. I wasn't so lucky this time. "It's almost sunset, they will surely beat me again for coming back this late," I said with a deep sigh of impatience. I wasn't impatient to get back, I was more impatient to never have to go back. The others say that usually their foster parents would call after them or come up to the school looking for them, just in case it might be a bad accident that made them late or something else. Not mine. Even if i were in the hospital, they wouldn't even come to check out the damage. They would just say something on the lines of 'Find a way to pay for your bills, and your in trouble when you get back to the house'. It disgusts me how they can have such a blatant look on other ponies lives. "Halfway there," I said, "maybe they won't beat for being late this time,"...as soon as I noticed what I had said, I felt immensely foalish and stupid, "right, and pigs will fly and the moon is made of cheese," I said. "I wonder what they are going to do," I said quietly to myself, "probably the usual, grab the nearest thing that they can swing and beat me until' they get tired," I gave an involuntary sigh. Most other ponies would shy away from being struck because of obvious reasons. Not me. I've found that in my four years of living with this family, the more I react to the beating, the more I scream, the more I cringe, the more I avoid the swings, then the more they beat me. The longer the sessions last, the more I hurt. So now I just give a blank face and stare off at something, or just limp by body to try to let the limp muscle absorb more of the power, or more prominently, both. Sometimes these actions help, other times it doesn't. Sometimes not showing signs of affliction makes them stop sooner and just send me to my room without dinner or make me clean the house or something else. Other times, not showing any emotion makes them much more angry than what ever I had done, and they up the scale on the beating with harder hits, or a harder object. I can't help but believe that some ponies would call me weak or a wimp, but those feelings go away when I envision that kind of typical pony going through what I go through. I always envision this big "tough" pony sniveling in the corner and shrieking whenever the next swing comes through on it's trajectory. I don't understand why, but whenever I think of these things, I feel...good, like unhealthy good, like I enjoy imagining other ponies feel pain. Sometimes I scare myself back into reality, like just now. There is a joke or, more appropriately, a saying that goes around amongst abused foals that goes, 'the harder the object, the less amount of hits you take before it stops". With my fosters, thats seldomly true. There is no telling who will do the beating, or how long they will beat me for, but one thing is sure: it won't stop until' they think that I got the message. *** I am walking down an unpaved road that runs through a very shallow mountain range. I used to come here and sit on the cliff edges whenever my foster parents were looking for something to get me into trouble about, or after a beating. I would stare off into the horizon or the setting sun and imagine a world where I was in a loving home, or where my parents were still alive. Sometimes, I would think about jumping off, I always wondered how much it hurt, and how long it would hurt for. But as is obvious, I never acted on those feelings. The sun is just about to set, so I take a few minutes to walk to the edge of the cliffs and watch the beautiful light transition. The sky is a dazzling hue of cherry red, then it changes to a brighter shade of dark pink, then on into a deep orange glow. I stared in awe of this amazing sight, 'it's times like these that i wish i was a pegasus' I thought to myself, 'then i could fly up to the top of one of these clouds and watch from on high'. Just then something ripped me out of my thoughts, it was a single tear running down my cheek. I wipe it off with a hoof and look at it. In this single, small, insignificant, little speck of fluid contains the essence of an emotion that i've not felt in many years. It symbolizes happiness, something that nothing has caused me to feel in nearly eleven years. Due to of this realization, I decide to sit back on a rock and watch the sun set completely. I watch as the sun lowers further down past the horizon. I watch as the colors change from hues of red to hues of blue, starting with a deep blue sky going to a light blue aura around the sun and then to a yellow sun. Then I see a quick flash of green that explodes and rushes through the sky in a single rippled wave that started at the sun and ran the distance of the sky to the other horizon. "What was that?" I ask out loud. After a few seconds another green flash speeds across the entirety of the sky. And now I start thinking of what it could be, but I soon give up for none of my assumptions made any real sense. And I finish watching the sunset. My favorite color scheme comes through now, a black sky that drops down to a deep purple sky closer to the sun, then goes through multiple different shades of lighter purple as it get closer, and the the most beautiful, most radiant color that I have ever seen the sun take on: it had taken a bright magenta core that bled into a fuchsia outer shell. I sat on that rock face for a few minutes after the sun a had completely crossed the horizon to leave this half of the planet shrouded in night. I kept thinking of the sun and how perfectly breathtaking nature can be sometimes. I almost wanted to go back in time by five minutes to watch the whole thing over again. "I guess I should finish getting back, it's only another quarter of a mile." I said to myself. So I started walking through the dark, down this tree lined, rock infested road. Shortly after I started, a nice cool breeze started blowing. I liked the sound of nature at it's most serene, it really was beautiful, and it was really relaxing to hear the swaying of the trees and the rustling of the leaves as the wind raced through the branches. I lost track of time while listening to the trees in the wind and after what seemed like just a few seconds I arrived at the house. I cross the yard and as quietly as possible make my way up the front porch steps. I cross the porch and open the front door, nopony was in the front hallway, 'thank goodness' I thought. I come in and close the door behind me as quietly as I possibly could. I make my way down the hall past the kitchen, empty. 'good, its empty'. Then just as I put one leg into the view of the den's doorway my foster father piped up, "Where have you been?" he said in a completely emotionless tone. "I decided to walk home so I could get some fresh air and some much needed exercise." I lied through my teeth. "Really? For once you did something for a good cause without being forced to? I think ill let you slide on this one." When those words glided into my ears I felt as if I had been hit by a freight train and there was nothing left of me, it took me a few seconds to realize that I was just given leniency. "You missed dinner, there is a plate in the refrigerator for you." He told me. "Thank you, sir." As i walk to my room to put away my saddlebags I can't help but wonder why I wasn't confronted and questioned like I was hiding a secret from him or something. I kept feeling as if I had walked into the wrong house. I kept feeling like for some reason, he didn't hate me as much anymore. I went back down to the kitchen to get the food that was left for me. As i walked through the hall I was confronted my my foster mother, who commenced screaming at me. "Where have you been? Why were you not home on time? You missed all of your chores and I had to do them for your lazy, worthless ass!" but just then, my foster father came into view and stopped her. "Thats enough, i've already spoken to him, and he's already received his punishment, leave him be." as I was hearing this I couldn't help but stare with a dumb look on my face. 'had my foster father just stood up for me?' I thought while re-heating my food. I felt so weird that I ended up eating very little of the food that was left for me. I went upstairs and got a shower to wash the perspiration off of me from my walk. After my shower I laid down in bed, my head was swimming with complete confusion. I had no idea what was going on, why had my foster father had stood up for me, to his wife no less. I was so worked up with my thoughts that I felt like I might be sick. I spent a few minutes clearing my head and fell asleep. I had a deep sleep, and I wondered what would happen tomorrow. Chapter 3: NightmaresMisery Chapter 3 I sit here on these rocks. There is no sun, but there is a beautiful bright blue sky with few clouds. There are many trees around me, and I recognize this place. This is a clearing in the woods behind my parents house. I had found this when I was very young. There is a smell of peach cobbler in the air. It smells so sweet, simply divine. I can hear the birds chirping, and the squirrels chattering and playing in the trees. There is a nice cool breeze flowing through the trees. It seems...peaceful. Then something happened that made my heart jump and sink in the same motion. My mother called me. " come to dinner sweetie!" she said in her smooth voice that reminded me of apple juice being poured over ice cubes. 'Why couldn't I hear her call my name?' 'Is this a dream?' 'Oh, who cares, I get to see my mom again!' I ran as fast as my little hooves could carry me. I ran out of the woods and across the back yard. I ran across the back porch and jumped through the open door. "MOM!" I called into the house, which was oddly shrouded in black past the door to the kitchen. "In the kitchen dear, i'm waiting for you..." she said in a very eerie tone. I walk slowly down the hallway. Just as I pass the swing radius of the door, it slammed shut behind me with a loud *THUD*. I jump from the sudden loud noise. "M-M-Mom?" I ask now scared. "I'm in the kitchen dear, come give mommy a hug." Now it was just creepy. I cross the doorway to the kitchen. There is a figure of a grown pony standing at the counter, staring at where the window would have been, if it weren't a black wall. "Mom?" I ask now about to cry. The figure turns to me, and i see the black-clad stallion from that dreaded night. I start to hyperventilate. My thoughts go racing. I step forward, and call for one last time, hoping the shade would disintegrate, leaving my mother behind. "Mom?" "I KILLED YOUR MOTHER! HA HA HA HA! AND IT WAS FUN TOO!" the figure screamed at me. I couldn't help it now, I started to cry. I started surveying the room. There was a blade sitting on the table. I rush for the blade, the figure makes no move to stop me. I grab the bade in my mouth and turn back to the figure. He was right there. All I had to do was jump, and stab. Sure, I wouldn't really be killing him, but it would make me feel much better to have killed even an apparition of him. I blink once to clear my eyes. I map out how I will attack him first, then I make my move. Just as i'm bout to jump at him and cleave him in his ribs. The room goes black and the floor falters. I fall through into black space, staring back up at the shade that I had not gotten to slice from end to end. I feel unfulfilled. I'm falling through nothingness, inky black nothingness. It almost feels peaceful. I close my eyes and imagine that there is wind rushing past me, over my body and through my mane. Then I open my eyes and i'm back in that same clearing. There is an extraordinarily large moon out casting a purple haze over the sky. I hear a scream. I rush through the woods, through the back yard and to the back door. I shove it open and there is nothing beyond it, leaving me to fall through the pitch-black doorway and fall through the inky black nothingness once again. Another scream, and another. They seem almost too vivid to not be real. I blink, and i find myself in the living room, in my parents house. I am myself now. My parents and young me are sitting on the couch, watching a t.v. show. The doorbell rings. I jerk my head toward the noise, dreading the certainty that I know what is about to go down. Little me jumped up off the couch screaming, "Pizza pony is here!" Even though I knew what was happening. I tried to run after him to stop him, thinking that if he didn't open the door, then I wouldn't have to re-live that night again. But just as I lunge for him, I fall through the floor again. Another scream, this one seemed as if it were real. Like I had really heard it, like on the outside. 'Why can't I wake up? I don't want to be in this nightmare anymore!" I think starting to tear up. I land in the Living room. There is no furniture, no ponies, just empty. The air starts to vibrate and all of the furniture appears with my parents sitting on the couch together. There is no sign of me, maybe I already went for the door. Then that mystery stallion bursts into the room, the walls catch on fire as he starts fighting with my father. I try to intervene and help fight, but my limbs won't move. I can't move anything, i'm stuck here in this flaming room, watching that pony fight with my dad, and I can't do anything about it. Another hit, an uppercut from my father, sends the stallion tumbling over himself to the wall. He hits the wall and slides to the floor. He looks around himself, he sees a vase, he goes for it. 'Now it happens again,' I thought now crying. He jumps up and reaches for it, he grabs it between his teeth, and swings his head violently, in the direction of my father. He wasn't looking at him, the vase hits him and shatters with a clink-clink-crackle, into a million shards of glass and water. Then he reaches into his coat and pulls out a piece of rope. He ties my fathers front and back legs together. Then he pulls out some duct-tape, and tapes his mouth shut. Then repeats the steps on my mother. I can't stand this, why won't I wake up? Why can't I escape this living hell? Why must my mind torment me like this? Why this dream? Why not any other dream? Anything else would be better than this atrocious night. If I had been dreaming about anything nice, my mind wouldn't hesitate to take me from that. Why not now? Please, rip me from this horror! He sits down on the couch and starts watching the show. He actually laughed at a joke on the show, I couldn't believe it. A pony so twisted that he can laugh at a time like this. It wasn't long before my father came back into consciousness. When he did, though, the stallion went back to business. He turned off the t.v. and started talking to them. He was yelling garbled sentences, of what I couldn't tell. Then he slapped a family portrait, it flew across the room and shattered against the wall. Small pieces of glass rained down on little me. He turned toward my mother. He started smiling, he was missing four teeth. But just as he started to get close to her... I woke up. I rose up quickly in bed, I was sitting in a pool of sweat, and I was crying. It took me a second to realize it, but I was also screaming. When I noticed, I stopped. My foster father came rushing into the room. "What's wrong? What happened?" he said rushing to my bed. I couldn't help myself. I threw my arms around his neck and embraced him, then started crying. "There, there. It's gonna' be ok. What happened?" he said trying to comfort me. I couldn't control my emotions, I kept crying on his shoulder for at least another five minutes. And he let the embrace hold for the entire duration. I was the one to pull away. After I completely got my emotions back in check, I started to explain what happened. "I had a really bad nightmare." I said trying not to break again, my voice and body were trembling. "Would you like to talk about it?" he asked clearly showing that he had no idea how to handle this kind of situation. "That's the last thing that I want to do." I said a bit harshly. "Well, if you feel like you will be ok, then i'll leave you to get back to sleep. Make sure you take another shower before school though, you reek of sweaty teenager." he said jokingly. I rolled over and faced the wall. Had my foster father just tried to help me cope? What is going on today? Everything I know is falling apart around me. I tried to clear my head of all thought of what had just happened. I tried to think of nice thoughts, like small animals, beautiful landscapes, the sunset. Before long I was asleep again. This time, I was determined to have a good dream, or no dream at all. I would like to thank bandgeekjim for editing for me. You were a big help, and this story wouldn't be going as well as it is without you. Chapter 4: Morning ComesMisery Chapter 4 My alarm. I hit snooze and roll over. Five minutes later, my alarm again. I hit snooze and sit up. I look around the room. My head is heavy, and all I can think about is laying back down. My alarm makes me notice that I fell asleep sitting up. I turn it off this time and get out of bed. My head is so heavy, I can barely hold it up. I stumble to the bathroom and turn on the shower. Hot water first. Then the cold. Now to get the mix just right. I lean against the shower wall. 'I wonder how long I can sleep in here for' I think to myself. My foster dad wakes me up by knocking on the bathroom door and saying that I've been in here for thirty minutes, and that I need to get out. I finish up with my shower and turn it off. I step out of the shower and get a towel. I dry off. I walk back to my bed and look at it. I long to just lay back down and sleep for a week. Then My foster dad brings me back to reality one more time with, "If you don't eat now, you're going to miss breakfast," 'Yum'...Breakfast seems good right now. I walk downstairs and into the kitchen. Only my foster dad is there. 'Where is my foster mom? Who cares, I need food. Maybe then I'll wake up more'. I look in the cabinet. Only some dry oats and oatmeal mix. I look in the refrigerator. Some assorted vegetables, a daffodil sandwich, and an apple. But isn't an apple a vegetable? Then why didn't I count it as one? Hmm...I wonder. Maybe it's a fruit? It has its seeds on the inside right? That makes it a fruit, right? I don't even care, I'm going to eat a salad. I slice the vegies and put them in a bowl. I put my favorite salad dressing over it and I sit down at the table. "Where is Cindy at?" I ask. Not that I care, I don't, I just needed prompt. "She left for an emergency business trip last night after you went to bed. She won't be back for another two weeks." He said. "So it's just you and me?" I ask. "Yep, for fourteen days." He said. 'good' I thought to myself. I don't know why having just my foster father there made me feel better. "Why did she have to go so...randomly?" I ask diving into a topic that I didn't even care about. "Some sort of merger is taking place with her company, and it seems as though things aren't going in favor." He said in a low tone. "Isn't two whole weeks a bit long for just a merger?" I ask truly wanting to know this answer. "I don't know, corporate dealings were never my strong point. Though two weeks sounds a bit ridiculous to me." I know how he feels, but there is a difference between us at the same time. He misses her, and I can already tell it. I don't miss her. I don't know why, but I don't feel as if she really cares about me, not just for my happiness, but for my well being in general; and this wasn't just the four years of abuse talking. "So did you get back to sleep ok?" He asked. "Not really, I didn't sleep that well afterwards." I said. "If you don't mind me asking, what was it about?" He asked. That was it, for some reason, I felt like crying again. But I held my composure and stated, "It was the night that my parents were killed." I felt a tear come through, but I blinked it away. "I'm sorry, I know I can't do anything about it, but I really am sorry." He was actually calming me down now. "Don't worry about it." I said, dismissing the conversation. I didn't feel like eating anymore, I didn't feel like going to school anymore for that fact either. I just felt like laying down. Just laying down and doing nothing. Just watching life go by for a while, just idly lying there, doing nothing. "Well you had better get outside to the carriage stop. It should be coming through anytime now." He said. "Alright, I'll see you tonight, after school." I said, not really wanting to leave. *** It wasn't uncommon for me to have a nice sit down with my foster father, but it was highly uncommon for him to share his feelings, or show that he cared deeply about me. It was usually only him that showed that he cared at all. Sometimes I wonder why they agreed to take me in. With only one kid they weren't eligible for financial aid, so it definitely wasn't that; plus they didn't need it, they were quite well off. Could it be that they were looking for someone to mistreat? No. It couldn't be that. My time would have been much worse if that had been the case. They didn't just beat me to do it. It was just that the punishments got really out of hand, most of the time. Look at me. I'm trying to convince away from something I've believed for four years. And for why? Because my foster mom wasn't home and my foster dad hadn't beaten me for directly disobeying him? Those are hardly grounds for a statement change. I'm standing here at the carriage stop, thinking about my life. I want to smile, but I don't know why. "I guess I'll see what today has to offer." I say to myself. The carriage stops in front of me, and I board it and sit down. I look off the side, into the sunrise. There is a beautiful cherry red with hints of orange and pink splashed across the sky. I can't help but smile now. 'I guess today won't be too bad.' Again, I would like to thank bandgeekjim for editing this story for me. You have been a big help in making this as good as it is. Chapter 6: RevelationsMisery Chapter 6 *DING* sounded the bell. Friday is over, not a moment too soon too. I thought to myself. It's been two days since I had to talk to the principal about my sleeping problems. I have indeed succeeded in staying awake in all of my classes and in turn, my math teacher has been nice to me. I haven't spoken very much to her these past two days either. No life stories at least. Walking down the hall through this massive congregation of screaming foals going every direction at once, I caught sight sight of my math teacher. I wonder what she wants. She wasn't trying to get my attention in any way, but I could tell that she was staring directly at me. I didn't exactly feel like talking to anypony right now, but I wasn't going to ignore her. "Hey, how are you?" I asked as we reached each other. "I'm good, I just wanted to know if you had any other stories to share." Now I just wanted to be anywhere but here. "No, sorry, I don't have any other stories that won't break me right now. Maybe next week." I said dryly, just trying to end this. "Ok, I was starting to think that you were mad at me for writing you up." Now where would she get that idea? "No, I've just been a bit too busy lately to share things." I lied. "Ok, then if you don't want to share anything, I guess you can go home, or something." The way she said that made me feel as if she wanted to her another horrid memory that I would rather forget. I just knew that I wanted out of there and fast. "Ok, I'll see you on Monday, bye." I walked outside and into the autumn sunlight. I paused a second to enjoy the feeling of the sun-rays illuminating and warming my back, to feel the slight breeze ruffle my mane and coat, to listen to the leaves of the surrounding trees rustle in the breeze. It was all so soothing. I walked through the field and down to where the carriages were parked. I found the one that runs through my area and boarded. There was an open seat relatively close to the front of the carriage, so I went ahead and sat there. The ride was just as uneventful as always. I got off at my stop. It was just before the rock cliffs that I watched the sunset from on Tuesday. Though it was nowhere near dusk, I decided to go there anyways. It was more beautiful during the afternoon, being mid-afternoon I could see everything much better. I wonder what it will look like in the sun-rise and early-morning of a beautiful Saturday... I thought. "I guess I need to find out, now don't I?" I asked myself. I made it a plan for tomorrow. I resumed my walk back to the house, through this amazing green-filled, canopy-topped, and dirt-road trailed wood. I find it amazing, how with no hindrance from pony-kind, that nature, by itself, can be so breath taking. Here, nature is at it's most serene and couldn't be more awe-inspiring. I took in a deep breath, marveling at how the scents of countless different trees and plants can blend to make such an alluring mix. I exhale, just so that I can take a new breath. I reached the house and noticed that my foster father was already back from work. As I approached I could distinctly hear sobbing coming from inside. "Mike?!" I called into the house when I came in the door. There was no answer, but instead a muffled sob. Oh no, what happened?I thought to myself hoping that it wasn't anything bad. I walked to the kitchen doorway and looked in. There he was, sprawled out on the kitchen floor, crying. He had a bottle of dark liquor laying next to him, spilling on the floor. He doesn't usually just drink a whole bottle for no reason...I thought noticing difference in his drinking behavior. There wasn't much on the floor, so he was probably drunk as all hell by now. I bet I'll be worse at this than he is.I thought to myself. I laid down next to him and wrapped a hoof around his shoulder and asked, "Whats wrong Mike?" He wasn't quick to answer, he was chocking on every breath he took. "It's all my fault." He said. "What do you mean? What's all your fault?" I asked him thinking that something had gone horribly wrong. "You, you're my fault." He said between sobs. That felt like the biggest insult I had ever taken. "What is that supposed to mean?" I asked nervously and a bit angrily, not knowing if I would like the answer. "The reason that you're here, being put through hell and being abused as you go through it alone. It's all because of my stupidity and selfishness." He said. He refused to look at me. I felt a wave of relief wash over me, but I still felt bad for him. "It can't all be your fault. Bad things happen all of the time. I've come to notice that many bad things happen to me, that's all." I'm not sure why I was trying to comfort him, but it felt like I needed to do it anyways. "Sit up, and tell me what you mean." I told him. He got up and grabbed another bottle of liquor off the counter. He stumbled back over to where I sat and flopped down against the wall next to me. He un-stoppered the cork and took a quick swig and passed me the bottle before starting. I took a quick swig of my own to calm my nerves so that I could listen to the tale that was about to befall my ears. "It all started before we adopted you. Cindy and I had reached that point in our lives and our relationship where we were ready to have a foal. We tried many times to get pregnant, but we couldn't. After about ten failed attempts, we decided that we needed to consult a doctor to find out if our problem was medical or if we were just doing it wrong. We waited two long days to get the news that Cindy was sterile and that we could never have foals together. She took the news really hard, she barely looked at me, hell, she stopped speaking to me for almost three weeks. " He took the bottle back and took another two sips. He had stopped crying by now, and was just staring down at the crease where the wall met the floor on the other side of the room. He gave me the bottle back and burped before continuing. "I decided that I could at least propose adoption, at the very least to give her prompt to speak to me again. She didn't like that idea at first, but she warmed up to it and after another four days, she agreed. We searched many different orphanages, but she couldn't find a foal young enough that looked enough like us that she could just lie to her friends and say that she didn't show during her pregnancy. On our ninth trip to a new orphanage I decided that I would get a say in this choice as well. That orphanage was the one we got you from. I noticed you as soon as I walked through the door. I pointed you out to Cindy, but she didn't like how your dark blue coat wouldn't match well with her white and my beige coat. She gave the excuse of 'Ponies will think that I either cheated on you or that we adopted, I don't want to let others know that we adopted, I want to make it look as if this is our foal.' I wasn't going to take that. I didn't mind letting others know that we adopted a foal. To me it showed that we had enough heart to take in a foal that wasn't ours and raise him or her as if they were." He was starting to lower the tone of his voice, showing that he was starting to get to the part of the story that meant the most to him. All I could do is watch in silent awe as a pony, that until' three days ago I revered as an abusive and highly over-critical stallion, opened his heart and spilled his emotions to me. "I let it seem as if I had given up on trying to convince her that we should take you, and that we would keep looking. The whole time I couldn't get my mind off of you. The way you were just sitting in the corner, looking at the other foals, you were essentially an outcast. I asked the orphanage director about you and he told me your story. He didn't give many details, but it touched me nevertheless. At that moment, I knew that I had to take you home with us, so that we could try to right a terrible wrong. Cindy thought otherwise. A little pure-white filly had caught her eye and she immediately loved her. She had deep green eyes and a pure black mane. She was a beautiful little filly, and I thought for a moment that we should get her, but then you walked back into my view. You looked so sad, so...ghostlike, like no matter where you went, nobody noticed, like nobody cared. Seeing you like that made my heart break. Just then it hit me like a freight train, and I knew, right then and there, that you had to come home with us. I couldn’t let this little filly who had friends and who was loved by her peers come home with us and leave you to stay there, perpetually forgotten by the world." His speech was reaching an almost tender tone, as if he were feeling the exact sme things that he was feeling at that moment in time. "I said I needed to go to the bathroom and went to talk to the director. We chatted a bit and then I asked him for the adoption papers. He tried to protest that I needed both me and Cindy to sign in order to legally adopt you. I told him that if she had come in the room, that I would have never have gotten to adopt you, that we would argue and fight and wind up taking that little filly home. It wasn't easy, but he cut me a deal, and I was able to legally adopt you. Cindy had a fit when she found out what I had done. She almost divorced me that very day. She hated that I had gone behind her back and gotten you out of my selfishness, and not let her express her own selfishness. She took her anger at me out on you in order to try and ruin my entire plan for adopting you in the first place. I know I have given you my fair share of beatings in the past as well, but those were only about as justified as hers, in short they weren't. Most of the time though, I know it probably seems as though I was helping her, but I was actually trying to pull her off of you. She would go crazy when punishing you, it would get way out of hand, very fast. She would just unleash everything on you. It was so scary, sometimes I held back, thinking that if I tried to save you, then she might turn on me, but I never hesitated for long. I never wanted your life to turn out like this." He sighed deeply before continuing. "Sometimes I think that your life would be better if she had divorced me to raise you on my own. Sometimes I wonder how your life would have been if I hadn't gone behind her back and adopted you without her permission, but then you would have been at the mercy of whatever other couple decided to get you, be them abusive or loving. But all I have to do is look at what you have become in these past four years, and I notice that you don't always look depressed, you don't sit by yourself in the corners of the room anymore. You have grown up into an impressively smart and very strong young stallion, one that I am proud to be the father of. I just wish that I was your actual father. I try to tell myself that I've done a good job at turning your life around. But there is only one true way to find out..." He looked up at me with the biggest and teariest eyes that I have ever laid eyes on. Just then every single once of bitterness toward him disintegrated; leaving me staring at a stallion that I no longer hated, but instead, had a soft spot for, like he was my new best friend or something. Then he asked a question that caught be off-guard. "Can you forgive me?" I had no idea how to react to the collaboration of things that I had just heard. I was almost on the verge of tears myself. "Yes." I said while embracing him in a big hug. "Thank you, for everything." I said letting the tears flow. We sat there, crying on each others shoulders for a span of time that let me figure out what I would say back to him. We both pulled out of the hug and leaned back against the kitchen wall. We sat there for a good long time, just thinking of how we were going to continue. I took another drink from the bottle, which by now was half emptied by our drinking, and wrapped a hoof around his shoulder again. We looked at each other and I smiled, I don't know why, but I felt immensely happy right then. I felt like I needed to show him that he did do the right thing by bringing me back. It wasn't easy but I figured out where to start and just kept going. "I can remember those days. Back then I thought of life as a large congregation of unfortunate mishaps, that nobody wins in the end; that no matter what, your most precious dreams will be crushed and life will laugh at you while you stop to mourn your losses. I always thought that no matter what happened, I would never have a happy life, that I would never actually be happy. I always thought that I would stay in that home until' I turned eighteen and was emancipated and kicked out on my own. I always had the grim thought of suicide in the back of my mind as well. I sulked around everywhere. I truthfully didn't want to get out of my bed in the mornings. I never saw anything or anypony as pretty or beautiful. I had no will to live or drive to live with, I was lost. Then I heard that somepony wanted to adopt me. My heart began racing as I was lead out to the lobby and saw you two standing there. You had the biggest, stupidest smile I had ever seen, but it seemed as if you were happy about adopting me. But Cindy had the most annoyed look about her, she just looked purely and thoroughly aggravated. I must admit, that I thought she would be abusive to me, just on account of how she spoke to me. I know that you think that I must hate you for bringing me into this situation, but truthfully, I have to thank you. If not for you, then I would probably have killed myself by now if I had stayed in that home. I can't say about anything else really, but I feel as if I'm cared about here, I feel as if I'm loved here. I can't hate you for bringing me here. All I can do is thank you." This was edited by bandgeekjim. Chapter 7: Moments ReprieveMisery Chapter 7 "Ok, get up. You need to get in bed." I think I said as I stood up. Mike and I were still sitting in the kitchen, it was about 2:00 A.M. We had sat there leaning against the wall drinking whiskey and telling each other jokes and random stories since yesterday afternoon. I decided that it was time to go to bed when we had five empty bottles spread out on the kitchen floor and Mike was slurring his words, but that could have just been my own intoxication garbling the words. We stumbled up stairs, using each other for balance on the swaying staircase. We finally got to the top, and we took our separate ways. I woke up, immediately releasing an involuntary groan. So this is what a bad hangover feels like. I thought as I got up and stumbled to my bathroom. I got in the shower and took a long and cold shower to clear my head of this damned aching throb. My head feels like my brain has rotted inside and caught fire. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I woke up with a clear head, but also laying down in the shower, a light orange glow coming through the bathroom window. I turned off the water and jumped out of the shower, dried off and rushed downstairs. It was after 5:00 P.M. I had slept through the entire day. But then I wondered How long was I sleeping in the shower? "Have a nice night's sleep?" Mike asked with a chuckle as I walked into the kitchen. "My head doesn't hurt anymore." I said. "I wouldn't expect it to, you were sleeping in the shower for over four hours." He said still laughing. Four hours? Could I really have been asleep in the shower for four hours? "Wait, how did you know I was asleep?" I asked after thinking about what he said. "Because that's what I did after my first time being drunk." He said laughing even harder now. Mike was cooking dinner and humming a nice throaty tune; I didn't recognize it, but it sounded nice. He was cooking pan-steamed cabbage and apples with fruit. The scents of pan-fried pineapple filled the entire house. There was a nice hunk of pineapple left on the counter from where Mike had carved the fresh fruit. Being my favorite fruit - I grabbed it and started eating it. It was just at the peak of ripeness and extremely juicy. The citrus twang mixed well with the super sweet pineapple juice, and the meat was nice and crisp without being mushy or hard. It was a perfect pineapple. Dinner was finished just as I took the last bite of my pineapple hunk. Mike served two plates of this delicious smelling and looking dish. A base of cabbage with fresh granny-smith apples had been cooked under tin-foil in the pan, then the pineapple, starfruit, and lime were sautéed in a separate pot and the juices were added to the cabbage and apples while the fruit meat was set aside. After the cabbage and apples were finished cooking he set up two plates and drizzled the fruit juice over it and put the fruit meat on the top of that. Then he made a plum tart for desert. Dinner was fantastic, all of the flavors blended perfectly, and the cooked fruits were tender and juicy. The plum tart desert was sweet and tangy. Best dinner ever. It makes me wonder why Cindy cooks instead of Mike. How did Mike learn to cook like this? Why doesn't he cook more often? I thought to myself as I ate. Mike broke the silence by asking, "What do you think?" The question caught me completely off-guard since I had been lost in a succulent chunk of star-fruit. I waffled for a second and replied, "It's delicious; where did you learn to cook like this?" He looked up t me and smiled, "When you live on your own through college eating nothing but sandwiches everyday, you will find yourself watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks just to get a good home-made meal." I expected a more fulfilling answer like, "I attended a culinary college for one term when I was a young colt." or something. Then he caught me by surprise by saying, "It's almost sunset, you want to go down to the cliffs and watch the sun set? I used to love doing that before I met Cindy." What made him ask that? I don't know why he wanted to spend so much quality time with me all of a sudden. Cindy had left many times in the past on business trips and we never did this before. Why now? Whatever the reason, I wasn't about to pass up a chance at watching the sunset again with someone who will appreciate it as much as I do. "Sure, I'd like that." We did the dishes together and put away the leftovers, then headed out the door. We didn't really say much until' we got to the trail leading through the woods. "Beautiful isn't it? Nature." Mike asked. "Yeah, it really is." "It's amazing how the most beautiful parts of nature are always those that are untouched and pure." Isn't that the exact thing I thought on my walk home? I thought to myself. I didn't want to keep him waiting for an answer and I didn't want to have another deep self-realization again. "Yeah, it is." "What's wrong? You don't seem to be enjoying yourself very much." He said in a genuinely concerned tone. I stopped where I was and thought about what to say. "It's not that I don't enjoy this." I said beginning to walk again. "It's just that...It's not easy to get used to everything you know being ripped apart and re-assembled in a different order. Yesterday I heard a story that destroyed over half of my beliefs. And now, we are spending 'quality time' together. Things are re-arranging too fast. I can't get a grip on everything that is happening." "Well, seeing as all of the things that are changing are non-influenced; why don't you sit back and enjoy it, and after a while everything will settle down into the rhythm of daily life. If you keep fighting it, things will only get harder." What he said made sense. Life would put itself back together again, and without being in the middle of it, I could just watch it fall back into place and get used to it without the stress. I felt as if that one sentence had solved every problem I had. I felt better, much better. My mind was clear and there wasn't a problem to have to deal with, it felt weird; not bad, just weird. "Wow, that actually worked." "You already did it?" He asked cocking his head to give me an over-inquisitive look. "Well, yeah. Did you expect me to wait until' I couldn't stand it anymore to try and fix my problems?" I asked him. "Well, no. But how were you able to simply forget that fast?" "I didn't forget. I simply, stopped focusing on what was troubling me." "That fast? Wow, kiddo. Thats some pretty good control you have." "I was taught that in order to deal with my problems, I must first be able to control my thoughts." "Who taught you that?" "One of my therapists, she helped me to regain total control over my mind. After she taught me to accept and forget, she taught me how I could stop the hallucinations, not completely, but for the most part. I spent over two years in therapy groups, and had many visits to therapists afterward for relapses and other occurrences such as that, with dozens or more ponies trying to help me get 'cured' of my symptoms. Truthfully I still have the hallucinations and the nightmares, but those are symptoms that will never go away, they come with the diagnosis." "You were just a little colt then, how were they able to re-wire a foal's mind after such a traumatic incident?" That question made me think. Did they actually know what they were doing when they did it? Or did they just use the same techniques as used on adult ponies, just hopping that it would work? "You know, I'm not even sure that they knew the treatments would even work. But I guess they knew what they were doing, because they were able to get me to where I am now." "But, is where you are where you feel comfortable?" "I feel mentally competent enough to get through a normal day without having any episodes, but of course, I don't control that. Even the most simplest of things can set me off, and I won't even know why. But I have come to find that clearing my mind of everything, and allowing myself to drift through nothingness will calm me down and I will be able to function and figure out what happened and why I went off." We didn't say much after that. We simply finished our walk, found a comfortable spot, and sat down. I sat on a large boulder about fifteen feet from the edge. It had another rock projecting up the back of it that acted as a support for me to lean against. Mike laid down on a fairly large, flat boulder and rested his head on his hooves. The sun hadn't started to set yet, there was at least another twenty minutes left until' it started. "Mike, tell me a story." He rose up to look at me, "What do you mean?" "You already know about my past, and I just told you a little bit about my rehabilitation. Now it's your turn, tell me a story about your past." Mike took second to re-adjust himself on his rock before speaking, "Well, my life hasn't really had many exciting things to happen in it. My parents put me through private school until' High School. Since there weren't any private High Schools in my area and my parents didn't want to send me to a boarding school, I went to a public High School. After graduation, I joined the military and did my time with them, and in turn, they payed for me to go to college and study to be an architect. I landed my current career here in Hoofington as an architect for large buildings and bridges shortly after that. Then after about a year of working there, I was sent to Las Pegasus to plan out the structure of an addition to an office building. That was where I met Cindy. She was the consultant that was going to show me the build site, the requested layout of the building, and other stuff. From the moment I saw her, I knew that I had strong feelings for her, I just needed to shape them into good feelings and then replicate them in her. It took four days of sweet talking, but I finally got her to go out on a date with me. We had a nice time. After another two dates we decided to go steady and form a relationship together. We had a good time, and after another two months, we had to make a choice. The construction job was finished. So we had only three choices: me quit my job, move to Las Pegasus and find a new job; her quit her job, move here to Hoofington and find a new job; or break up. She decided to quit her job and move here, obviously. I was ecstatic to know that she would quit her job and move, just for me. And then, after about six more months, I decided to ask her to marry me. The happiest moment of my entire life was when she said 'yes'. We had a traditional wedding, and had a one week honeymoon in Canterlot. And after about five more years, you came into the picture. You were quite possibly the most difficult decision of my entire life; but I think I made the right choice." He said looking over to me. "The rest you know from experience." "Sounds nice, maybe you could go a little more in-depth next time." I said. "We'll see. For now lets watch the sunset." Mike said. We watched as the sun grew closer to the horizon and started passing it, changing through all of its different color schemes. We simply sat there, on those rocks, watching in awe at the beauty of nature. Watching the colors go from red to orange to blue to purple and finally to the black of night. We laid out for a few more minutes after the sun was gone, before heading home. Home. Did I just use the word 'Home' without even noticing? Maybe it is where I belong. Hmm...Home Chapter 8: New FeelingsMisery Chapter 8 "Bye Mike, see you after school." I said walking out the front door. I heard a faint, "See ya' later, kiddo." come from upstairs. "The last week of school before summer break." I said quietly to myself, "I finally get to graduate and go to college." Yesterday was a great day. Mike decided that we should spend the day out in the woods. We had a great time. We went for a run first, no real destination, we just ran. After a while we grew tired and spent almost the entire afternoon on the cliffs, just lounging around on the rocks and telling each other jokes and stories. Before we even knew it, the sun was setting. So we watched in silent awe as out favorite sight dazzled us, and we went back home. It doesn’t really seem like it would be fun, just thinking about it, but I guess it was the company that made it enjoyable. I walk down the narrow road that leads to my carriage stop. I look up at the trees lining the road, once again in awe of how beautiful they are. The sunrise creating a bright cherry glow in the sky and surrounding clouds, the colors bleeding through the flora surrounding me makes this narrow road feel so welcoming, so warming. The perfect thing to wake up to. I love living atop a mountain ridge. The rising sun has now risen enough to start reflecting and refracting through the dew droplets on the grass and leaves, casting this narrow wooded road into a million small beads of sparkling cherry red with hints of pink and orange. A mild breeze blew through this tunneled road shaking the leaves and grass, and with them the dew droplets. A million tiny lights started flying all over the inside of this green haven creating a sort of living feel to it. Almost as if all of the dots of light blend so perfectly with each other that it gives a sort of whole feeling, and this whole is alive. The wind subsided and a large patch of clouds moved in front of the sun and put the landscape in an overcast. This bright, glowing, almost alive scenery has been reduced to a color-bled swath of grey-greens and white. In just a handful of seconds this amazing scene has been reduced to a depressing lump of items that seem to suck the happiness out of you. The rest of the walk was just as depressing and un-eventful as before. *** First class of the day was pretty entertaining. The teacher gave us a lesson on Van Allen belts, and what they do to stars. Afterwards he taught us about the chemical change in a star when it goes Supernova, I found that part of the lesson to be quite entertaining. Second, Math. The lesson wasn't too difficult, it was only a refresher course on working exponentials. After that we moved on to working out the the surface area and volumes of theoretical spheres. And to top it off, the last thing the teacher had us do was to calculate the approximate volume of the sun with given accurate measurements. Why she decided to use the sun is a mystery, but either way, I enjoyed it. Lunch was a bit different than usual. I ate lunch as usual, and then moved out to a tree in the field next to the school. After about ten minutes of lounging out under the tree, I heard somepony walking up. I looked up to see my math teacher trotting up, bright golden mane flowing with the wind. I sat up to greet her. "Hi" I said when she got within earshot. "Hey, there. How are you doing?" She asked. "I'm good, just laying out here." I replied. "That's good to hear. Listen, I've been wondering; would you like to stay this afternoon and tell me some more about your past?" She asked quite awkwardly. "Today? No, not today. I can stay tomorrow, though. I just don't want my foster dad wondering where I am. He wasn't too happy with my unannounced lateness last time." I said. "Oh, ok. Tomorrow it is then. Hey, why do lay out here by yourself instead of making friends and hanging out with other ponies?" She asked. "I've never really thought about it. I just know that I feel relaxed just laying out here under this tree, and I see those other ponies running around and roughhousing. It's just not what I would call fun. I like to relax, not run around all day." "Ah, that's good reasoning. OK, I don't want to impose, so I'll just get out of your mane." She said while standing up. "You're not imposing, really. You can stay if you'd like. I don't mind." I told her. "I thought you liked being alone though." "I said that I don't like running around all day, not that I dislike having company." I said with a smile. "OK, then. I will stay here with you." She said. I though I caught a blush as she sat down. I’m not very good with hiding my nervousness, so instead of delving into a topic that I have no experience in, I let it be and readjusted myself. I never realized it before, but my math teacher is actually quite a beautiful young mare. Her deep ruby-red coat caught the sunlight and bent it into an aura that almost made it seem as if she was glowing. Her peach colored mane shone with enough brilliance to match the noon-day sun. Her mane also gave an accent to her green eyes that is rarely found elsewhere, she is simply beautiful. ”Wow, just look at yourself. Getting the hots for your teacher. You know that you can never be with her. Not only is it illegal, I think, but I’m sure society would have a big problem with it too.” I thought to myself. ”Maybe after graduation I could have a chance, and neither of us would get into trouble. Yes, after graduation.” I thought with a smile. “What are you smiling about?” She asked me. I was so lost in thought that I barely even noticed that she was still sitting next to me. “What? Oh, nothing important.” I croaked out with a blush. “Really? Then why are you blushing?” She teased. “Blushing? Me? No, I’m not blushing am I? Can you see it through my coat?” I stammered. I couldn’t hold in my embarrassment. But she was giggling like a little school filly. DING The bell’s thundering call echoing throughout the meadow caught our attention and made her stop giggling long enough for me to regain control of myself. She looked back at me and nodded her head in the direction of the school, beckoning me to walk with her. I stood up and gave her a small grin then joined her. We didn’t say anything to one another, which made it a little bit weird, but still just being together had her smiling ear to ear. It made me think. ”Is she falling for me, or the other way around? How am I supposed to know? More importantly, how am I supposed to react to this whole situation?” I gave her a glance out of the corner of my eye. She was quite literally gleaming with either happiness or pride, I couldn’t tell which. ”Maybe I’ll just take what is happening and run with it, just let what happens, happen.” I gave her another look and found that she had been looking at me as well and as soon as my eyes met hers she yanked her head away and slightly blushed. I couldn’t help but to smile. It was too cute. We got back to the school and I walked with her to her classroom and tried to make it seem as if I were going with her to make up a test or something, to keep other ponies from straying into business that doesn’t concern them. We got to her room and we said our goodbyes and parted. I couldn’t help but feel a little giddy as I walked away. *** The rest of the day was quite uneventful, same old boring stuff. Though I couldn’t get my mind off of her. How her mane radiated with a bright yellow-golden glow. How her smile created small dimples in the sides of her mouth. How her eyes seemed to have an endless gaze. I was so lost in the though of her that I didn’t even notice when the dismissal bell rang. I jumped up and ran out to my carriage, I was so late that I almost missed it, but I got on and sat down in an empty seat. I got off at my stop and started walking down the dirt road that led home. “I wonder what Mike is doing.” I asked to no one in particular. I kept walking home, not in a hurry or anything, just walking. As I walked I noticed something about this road. The contrast between the early morning and afternoon view on the road is quite a remarkable difference. The morning has sharp qualities that give everything a distinct presence; while the afternoon has warm colors that give everything an inviting feel, as if everything is one in the same and that there is nothing to worry about. Even as subtle a feeling as it may have been, it still brought a smile to my face and lifted my mood. I ran the rest of the way home so that I could spend the last few hours of the day with Mike. I ran down the road, through the flora-tunnel, up the hill, across the yard, and into the house. “Mike, I’m home!” I yelled as I walked through the door and closed it behind me. “Hey, kiddo! How was your day?” He asked with a cheery tone. “Well, I may have met a filly.” I said with a smile. Chapter 5: PerfectMisery Chapter 5 So far, today wasn't a very good day. In fact, today was horrible. It started with my first class. I wasn't paying attention, due to my being so tired, and I missed an entire lesson on Stars and the chemical reactions that form and sustain them. I had a nice chat with my Astronomy teacher because of it. Then, I actually fell asleep; in math class no less. The teacher made me stand up in front of the class and work through the lesson for the day with her, just to make a point. It didn't go very well. I almost passed out while standing up; that wouldn't have been a pretty sight. Due to those two mishaps, I have an appointment with the principal after lunch today. Which brings me to now. Lunch time. Today's lunch wasn't so bad, compared with the usual complaining about school food, I enjoyed it. They had hay, daisy and daffodil sandwiches, apples, and a number of deserts. Today has been quite cool, with a smooth westerly breeze, and a clear sky with a bright sun. So I decided to eat my lunch out on a hill, under a tall oak tree. Isolating myself from the other ponies felt calming. After I finished eating, I leaned against the trunk of the tree and stared up into the tree branches. I felt so warm and alive, it was very comforting to be out there by myself. Then out of nowhere my thoughts started haunting me with what happened last night. My nightmare was bad enough just being what it was, but something caught my attention more than anything else. " come to dinner sweaty!"I had dreamed of my mother yelling that to me last night. I wonder why I couldn't hear my name. I heard the rest of her words. Why not my name? Why can't I remember what she looks like? I've tried really hard ever since last night, but to my dismay, I can't remember her face. Her good face that is. The face she died with is burned into my memory, I wish I could forget that face. But her good face, the face she had before she died, I can't remember it. My own mother's face, and I can't remember it. I can't remember her ever calling my name anyways. Could that be it? I can't remember how she would say it, so my mind can't imagine her saying it? Does it even work that way? If it did, then why could I imagine her saying all of the other things? Couldn't my mind have just put her voice behind my name? I've been lost in thought here under this tree for quite some time now. I can't stand the thought of forgetting how my mother would say my name. I can't stand the thought of forgetting my own mother's face. I disgust myself. Just as I got that last thought in, the bell rang for lunch to end. Also it told me that I had to go to the principal's office. "I really don't need this right now." I say to myself. *** *Knock, knock, knock* I rap on the door. A very muffled, "Come in." comes from the other side. I open the door and take a step inside, "I was told to come see you after lunch." I say quite plainly. "Yes, come in. Take a seat." He said indicating to a chair in front of his desk. "Ok, I hear that you have trouble staying awake in class." He said, getting right to the chase. "Yeah, but it's no big deal." I said trying to cut this as short as I could. "How is life at home going for you?" He asked. "Not too bad, why do you ask?" I know why, I just want to get through this and leave. "Well, your grades aren't faltering too bad, your on the verge of a D in math, but that's not too bad." He said. "Your teachers report that you are having increasingly more difficulty paying attention and staying wake in class. Why is that?" He asked, making it sound as if he cared. "I'm not the best with scheduling. I don't always get to bed at a descent hour, and it's completely my fault." "What do your parents have to say about this?" He asked. I felt like saying that my parents were dead, just to make this feel awkward, but I decided against it. "Nothing, I choose to stay up and do my own thing; they have nothing to do with this." Of course, that was a lie. I almost never stayed up and did anything, I just had a hard time staying asleep due to the things that haunt my mind. But I wasn't going to let him know that. "Well, I don't know what to do then. I can't tell you to change the way you live your life, nor do I wish to. But we need to do something about this." Then I got a bit scared of what he might mean. "You mean like a punishment?" I asked, hiding the fear in my voice. "I'd rather not, but if you can stay awake for the rest of this month in every class, then I'll let you off with nothing. But if you fall sleep again, then I will have to give you at least detention." 'Not detention. I can't even imagine what would happen if I got in trouble.'I thought to myself. "So what are you going to do?" I asked. "I'm going to let you go back to class, and if I get another report that you fell asleep, then I will take disciplinary action. But if I don't her back from you until' this month is over, then I will give you some type of bonus." Bonus? I wonder what that could mean.I thought to myself. "So I can leave now?" I ask, ready to be out of there. "Yes, I'm done with you." That was awkward.I think to myself. I wonder why he didn't ask more questions. I was only in his office for about fifteen minutes, and I didn't even get in trouble, at least not yet. This makes no sense. I was expecting him to do something about this, not just give me a break. I'm walking to my third class of the day, wishing that I could just go home for the rest of the day. I don't know if I'll ever understand why I just got away with a "direct violation of the rules", but I won't question it. Thats the last thing I want to do when I get away with something. But I won't ignore it either, I want to know why good things are happening to me all of a sudden. I would like thank bandgeekjim for editing and proofreading this story.
Chapter 1: Why?Misery Chapter 1 NO! NO! PLEASE! STOP THIS! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS, PLEASE! Those were the words my mother was screaming as her attacker approached. I woke with a start, my math teacher had caught me sleeping in class again. "For the third time today, wake up and pay attention!" she said, clearly annoyed with this situation "Yes maam" i said half sluring my words while I sat up in my seat. "I want to talk to you after class," "Yes maam," I said, once again sluring my words I don't really know why I sleep in class. I get enough sleep at home, or what they tell me to call "home". Ever since I was just a colt I have been in foster care. Every time I would be taken in, the "parents" would find some fault with me or develope a typical hate for my sluggishness and bad attitude. But really, how would they have expected a colt to act after having his mother and father killed right in front of him when he was nothing but a six year old colt? *Ding* Here we go again with "the speech" "Why do you relentlessly choose to sleep in class every day?" she said in her normal voice "I don't know" I said shying away from her gaze "You are a very bright colt, why do you waste your brilliance? You could easily have a perfect grade in this class, yet you sleep and wind up failing." "I know. I'm ashamed of myself for it too." "Then why don't you fix the problem?" "The "problem" of which you speak can't easily be fixed." I say with a slightly angry tone. "Why can't it be? No problem in too difficult to fix." Just then, when she said that, I felt every bit of impatience and anger well up inside me and explode in a blistering fury that I couldn't hold back. "Ok then, if you seem to be able to fix all of your problems so easily and think that i'm just a little brat that would rather complain than fix his own problems, then how is this for a "problem". Can you turn back time? Huh? Can you go back in time and stop my parents from being murdered right in front of me? Huh? Can you take back all of the years that I spent going from one foster home to the next? I don't think you can, I don't even think you understand my point of view. I have nothing to look forward to. Most kids want to do good in school so that they can take home their good grades and get praised for it and maybe get their paper hung on the refrigerator for a while. But not me. I have no family to be proud of me, I have noone who cares about me. I HAVE NOTHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO!" By the time i got finished ranting I had an audience of both students from the next class and teachers from other classrooms on the hall lined up in the back of the room listening to me. "I...never...." she said tearing up about to break her composure. "Thats right, you never. You never even thought ahead far enough to see if you were going to bring up a bad memory or two." "I'm so sorry, i can't believe that I hurt you so bad." she said now just about to break. "Don't worry, teach, you didn't hurt me. I've had eleven years to come to grips with the fact that nobody cares about me." On that note I stormed out of the room. *** The next day my math teacher asked me to stay after school. Oh boy. i wonder what this can be about. Reluctantly I agreed to stay after school on the realization that going "home" would only cause more grief than necessary. After my last class I reported back to her classroom to find her siting at her desk waiting for me. The lights were off, but there was a bright lamp in the corner lighting up the area around her desk in a faint warming glow. I slowly walked up to her desk where she sat just staring at me. "You wanted to see me?" "I did. Please have a seat." she said indicating the chair next to her. "Ok, what do you want of me?" I asked as I sat down. "I want to provide you with a set of ears to vent upon." she said with so little emotion that it could have never been misconceived as a prank. "Vent?" I asked not entirely sure of what she was getting at. "Yes, yesterday you showed me that you have a very tragic past and a lot of pent up anger and rage," "What of my anger and rage?" I ask protectively, as if I felt like she wanted to rob me. "I want to give you a chance to tell someone your story, somebody who truly does care about you." "I mean no disrespect, but how am i supposed to believe that your not just doing your job?" "It's not in my job description to personally help students with personal or family problems, i'm supposed to report to the councillors and let them handle it." "So you are going to listen to my mangled past just to try and help me?" "Yes." "Ok, I would like that." It seemed like a typical Wednesday night, I came home from school, I did my homework, I went outside and played with my friends, then I came inside and had dinner with my mother and father. It seemed just like any weekday, and it definitely didn't feel like anything bad could happen. But then it did. There was a knock at the door, I though it was the pizza delivery pony, even though we hadn't ordered pizza and already had dinner, but it wasn't. I opened the door to find a tall stallion who was completely shrouded in a large black overcoat and had a big flat rimmed hat on. Almost completely resembling the stereotypical look of a serial killer or child abductor. But he was neither, he was just a random stallion who had come to have a little "fun". He pushed me to the floor and rushed straight past me and into the living room. He fought with my dad first and wound up knocking him out with a quick smash over the head with the flower vase in the corner. Then he tied up both my mother and my father, and waited. He waited until' my dad came back to consciousness. Then he started talking to them as if he had known them for a long time. "You have screwed me over for the last time Melony, you and Craig will never be together again. You have taken advantage of my leniency for too long, its time to pay for your actions." While my mother just kept trying to tell him the they didn't even know anypony by those names. For their names were Kell and Brigett. But regardless of how much she pleaded with him, he wouldn't stop. Then the worst happened. He looked at my mother and gave her a wide, sinister smile. He started walking closer to her while my dad fought against his bonds, fearing what was about to happen. He raped my mother in front of both me and my father. That night I heard words from my father that I had never even heard before. My father started screaming meaningless threats and curses at him while he continued with his task-at-hoof. He just kept raping her and then he started beating her. He just kept beating her, she had been screaming so loud that her voice was beginning to crack. After he was finished he quickly produced a medium sized knife of about five to six inches from inside his coat and started slashing at my mother, over and over he slashed, cutting her more than fifty times, the screams that she emitted were borderline blood curdling, I still don't know how nopony else on the block heard it. Then, after he insured that she was dead, he moved on to my father. He walked up to my father, still dripping with my mothers blood, he got right in his face. He looked straight in my fathers eyes for a few seconds with blank expression. then he got back up and stood over him. He reared his head back and slung it, putting one deep gash in his throat that produced a thick gurgling sound as my father bled out and drowned in his own blood. The look of pure horror in his eyes will haunt me forever. Then when he was done with my parents he looked at me, crying and rocking on my hind hooves in the corner of the room. He started walking toward me, and with one of his large blood soaked hooves, he ruffled my mane and said something that will haunt me for life: "That was fun, huh kiddo?" The next morning a concerned neighbor came over to check on why the front door had been open since she had woken up, five hours prior. I still remember the screams of terror that she produced when she came into the living room. Only fifteen minutes later the police arrived to find a blood soaked colt crying in the corner of a room with two brutally murdered ponies in it. "You have been through a lot." she said with a sniffle. "Don't try to make me feel better by pretending that you know my pains and sorrows, and definitely don't try and assume that you know the nature of my being." I said this in more of an angry tone than I wanted it to come through on "I'm not trying to assume anything." I don't know why, but a question that I have never adequately answered popped into my head. "You know what I could never understand? The police found the stallion, and found that he had no connections to my parents in any form, he knew nopony by the names of Melony or Craig, or that he had any real reason to do what he did besides that he wanted to do it. But for eleven years I still haven't understood...Why? What pushed him to doing this to a completely random couple? What could ever push anypony to do that to anypony at all?" "I don't know how to answer the question." she said, cocking her head at the sudden change in tone of the conversation. "The answer is simple. Some ponies are just completely bad." There was a long silence after that. My teacher broke the silence by saying, "Is there anything else that you would like to share with me today?" I thought very hard on that question. But I had already been throught enough emotional turmoil in the past two hours so i declined. "No. I think that I have shared enough for now, i'm going to go home."
Chapter 2: Going "Home"Misery Chapter 2 I walked out of my math teacher's dark classroom and into the blinding light of the hallway. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the transition, but upon adjustment, I noticed that there were no other ponies in the hall, not students or other teachers, or even custodians. It was so quiet. The school just felt weird without a bunch of bustling ponies trying to get here and there. I walked through the brightly lit corridor that led to the exit doors to the school building. Even though the hallway was blindingly bright, the sunlight coming through the windows was brighter. From the other side of the hall, the doors seemed to becon to me as if there was something outside that I needed to see. As a matter of fact, there was a very important sight for me to behold: all of the school carriages had already left, and the sun was halfway through the evening sky, giving me the realization that my story had taken a lot longer to tell than I had previously thought or even imagined. But with the carriages already being gone, I would have to walk nine miles to get to my foster parent's house. I was in no hurry to get back, so I set out at a light pace and started thinking to myself about all of the things life has dished out to me. My parents are gone, leaving me to wander from home to home of ponies who don't care about me. Everyone says that i'm very smart, which I do and don't agree with, but I do agree with the fact that I have no will to use what I have. I have many skills but no motivation to enhance them so that they can take me places. My grades are somewhat faltering for no apparent reason, besides that I never do my homework nowadays. I've let myself fall way out of shape Sadly, a few of my classmates have told me that they too live in foster homes, but their tales tell me that they are the few lucky ones who land in loving homes, or at least non-abusive homes. I wasn't so lucky this time. "It's almost sunset, they will surely beat me again for coming back this late," I said with a deep sigh of impatience. I wasn't impatient to get back, I was more impatient to never have to go back. The others say that usually their foster parents would call after them or come up to the school looking for them, just in case it might be a bad accident that made them late or something else. Not mine. Even if i were in the hospital, they wouldn't even come to check out the damage. They would just say something on the lines of 'Find a way to pay for your bills, and your in trouble when you get back to the house'. It disgusts me how they can have such a blatant look on other ponies lives. "Halfway there," I said, "maybe they won't beat for being late this time,"...as soon as I noticed what I had said, I felt immensely foalish and stupid, "right, and pigs will fly and the moon is made of cheese," I said. "I wonder what they are going to do," I said quietly to myself, "probably the usual, grab the nearest thing that they can swing and beat me until' they get tired," I gave an involuntary sigh. Most other ponies would shy away from being struck because of obvious reasons. Not me. I've found that in my four years of living with this family, the more I react to the beating, the more I scream, the more I cringe, the more I avoid the swings, then the more they beat me. The longer the sessions last, the more I hurt. So now I just give a blank face and stare off at something, or just limp by body to try to let the limp muscle absorb more of the power, or more prominently, both. Sometimes these actions help, other times it doesn't. Sometimes not showing signs of affliction makes them stop sooner and just send me to my room without dinner or make me clean the house or something else. Other times, not showing any emotion makes them much more angry than what ever I had done, and they up the scale on the beating with harder hits, or a harder object. I can't help but believe that some ponies would call me weak or a wimp, but those feelings go away when I envision that kind of typical pony going through what I go through. I always envision this big "tough" pony sniveling in the corner and shrieking whenever the next swing comes through on it's trajectory. I don't understand why, but whenever I think of these things, I feel...good, like unhealthy good, like I enjoy imagining other ponies feel pain. Sometimes I scare myself back into reality, like just now. There is a joke or, more appropriately, a saying that goes around amongst abused foals that goes, 'the harder the object, the less amount of hits you take before it stops". With my fosters, thats seldomly true. There is no telling who will do the beating, or how long they will beat me for, but one thing is sure: it won't stop until' they think that I got the message. *** I am walking down an unpaved road that runs through a very shallow mountain range. I used to come here and sit on the cliff edges whenever my foster parents were looking for something to get me into trouble about, or after a beating. I would stare off into the horizon or the setting sun and imagine a world where I was in a loving home, or where my parents were still alive. Sometimes, I would think about jumping off, I always wondered how much it hurt, and how long it would hurt for. But as is obvious, I never acted on those feelings. The sun is just about to set, so I take a few minutes to walk to the edge of the cliffs and watch the beautiful light transition. The sky is a dazzling hue of cherry red, then it changes to a brighter shade of dark pink, then on into a deep orange glow. I stared in awe of this amazing sight, 'it's times like these that i wish i was a pegasus' I thought to myself, 'then i could fly up to the top of one of these clouds and watch from on high'. Just then something ripped me out of my thoughts, it was a single tear running down my cheek. I wipe it off with a hoof and look at it. In this single, small, insignificant, little speck of fluid contains the essence of an emotion that i've not felt in many years. It symbolizes happiness, something that nothing has caused me to feel in nearly eleven years. Due to of this realization, I decide to sit back on a rock and watch the sun set completely. I watch as the sun lowers further down past the horizon. I watch as the colors change from hues of red to hues of blue, starting with a deep blue sky going to a light blue aura around the sun and then to a yellow sun. Then I see a quick flash of green that explodes and rushes through the sky in a single rippled wave that started at the sun and ran the distance of the sky to the other horizon. "What was that?" I ask out loud. After a few seconds another green flash speeds across the entirety of the sky. And now I start thinking of what it could be, but I soon give up for none of my assumptions made any real sense. And I finish watching the sunset. My favorite color scheme comes through now, a black sky that drops down to a deep purple sky closer to the sun, then goes through multiple different shades of lighter purple as it get closer, and the the most beautiful, most radiant color that I have ever seen the sun take on: it had taken a bright magenta core that bled into a fuchsia outer shell. I sat on that rock face for a few minutes after the sun a had completely crossed the horizon to leave this half of the planet shrouded in night. I kept thinking of the sun and how perfectly breathtaking nature can be sometimes. I almost wanted to go back in time by five minutes to watch the whole thing over again. "I guess I should finish getting back, it's only another quarter of a mile." I said to myself. So I started walking through the dark, down this tree lined, rock infested road. Shortly after I started, a nice cool breeze started blowing. I liked the sound of nature at it's most serene, it really was beautiful, and it was really relaxing to hear the swaying of the trees and the rustling of the leaves as the wind raced through the branches. I lost track of time while listening to the trees in the wind and after what seemed like just a few seconds I arrived at the house. I cross the yard and as quietly as possible make my way up the front porch steps. I cross the porch and open the front door, nopony was in the front hallway, 'thank goodness' I thought. I come in and close the door behind me as quietly as I possibly could. I make my way down the hall past the kitchen, empty. 'good, its empty'. Then just as I put one leg into the view of the den's doorway my foster father piped up, "Where have you been?" he said in a completely emotionless tone. "I decided to walk home so I could get some fresh air and some much needed exercise." I lied through my teeth. "Really? For once you did something for a good cause without being forced to? I think ill let you slide on this one." When those words glided into my ears I felt as if I had been hit by a freight train and there was nothing left of me, it took me a few seconds to realize that I was just given leniency. "You missed dinner, there is a plate in the refrigerator for you." He told me. "Thank you, sir." As i walk to my room to put away my saddlebags I can't help but wonder why I wasn't confronted and questioned like I was hiding a secret from him or something. I kept feeling as if I had walked into the wrong house. I kept feeling like for some reason, he didn't hate me as much anymore. I went back down to the kitchen to get the food that was left for me. As i walked through the hall I was confronted my my foster mother, who commenced screaming at me. "Where have you been? Why were you not home on time? You missed all of your chores and I had to do them for your lazy, worthless ass!" but just then, my foster father came into view and stopped her. "Thats enough, i've already spoken to him, and he's already received his punishment, leave him be." as I was hearing this I couldn't help but stare with a dumb look on my face. 'had my foster father just stood up for me?' I thought while re-heating my food. I felt so weird that I ended up eating very little of the food that was left for me. I went upstairs and got a shower to wash the perspiration off of me from my walk. After my shower I laid down in bed, my head was swimming with complete confusion. I had no idea what was going on, why had my foster father had stood up for me, to his wife no less. I was so worked up with my thoughts that I felt like I might be sick. I spent a few minutes clearing my head and fell asleep. I had a deep sleep, and I wondered what would happen tomorrow.
Chapter 3: NightmaresMisery Chapter 3 I sit here on these rocks. There is no sun, but there is a beautiful bright blue sky with few clouds. There are many trees around me, and I recognize this place. This is a clearing in the woods behind my parents house. I had found this when I was very young. There is a smell of peach cobbler in the air. It smells so sweet, simply divine. I can hear the birds chirping, and the squirrels chattering and playing in the trees. There is a nice cool breeze flowing through the trees. It seems...peaceful. Then something happened that made my heart jump and sink in the same motion. My mother called me. " come to dinner sweetie!" she said in her smooth voice that reminded me of apple juice being poured over ice cubes. 'Why couldn't I hear her call my name?' 'Is this a dream?' 'Oh, who cares, I get to see my mom again!' I ran as fast as my little hooves could carry me. I ran out of the woods and across the back yard. I ran across the back porch and jumped through the open door. "MOM!" I called into the house, which was oddly shrouded in black past the door to the kitchen. "In the kitchen dear, i'm waiting for you..." she said in a very eerie tone. I walk slowly down the hallway. Just as I pass the swing radius of the door, it slammed shut behind me with a loud *THUD*. I jump from the sudden loud noise. "M-M-Mom?" I ask now scared. "I'm in the kitchen dear, come give mommy a hug." Now it was just creepy. I cross the doorway to the kitchen. There is a figure of a grown pony standing at the counter, staring at where the window would have been, if it weren't a black wall. "Mom?" I ask now about to cry. The figure turns to me, and i see the black-clad stallion from that dreaded night. I start to hyperventilate. My thoughts go racing. I step forward, and call for one last time, hoping the shade would disintegrate, leaving my mother behind. "Mom?" "I KILLED YOUR MOTHER! HA HA HA HA! AND IT WAS FUN TOO!" the figure screamed at me. I couldn't help it now, I started to cry. I started surveying the room. There was a blade sitting on the table. I rush for the blade, the figure makes no move to stop me. I grab the bade in my mouth and turn back to the figure. He was right there. All I had to do was jump, and stab. Sure, I wouldn't really be killing him, but it would make me feel much better to have killed even an apparition of him. I blink once to clear my eyes. I map out how I will attack him first, then I make my move. Just as i'm bout to jump at him and cleave him in his ribs. The room goes black and the floor falters. I fall through into black space, staring back up at the shade that I had not gotten to slice from end to end. I feel unfulfilled. I'm falling through nothingness, inky black nothingness. It almost feels peaceful. I close my eyes and imagine that there is wind rushing past me, over my body and through my mane. Then I open my eyes and i'm back in that same clearing. There is an extraordinarily large moon out casting a purple haze over the sky. I hear a scream. I rush through the woods, through the back yard and to the back door. I shove it open and there is nothing beyond it, leaving me to fall through the pitch-black doorway and fall through the inky black nothingness once again. Another scream, and another. They seem almost too vivid to not be real. I blink, and i find myself in the living room, in my parents house. I am myself now. My parents and young me are sitting on the couch, watching a t.v. show. The doorbell rings. I jerk my head toward the noise, dreading the certainty that I know what is about to go down. Little me jumped up off the couch screaming, "Pizza pony is here!" Even though I knew what was happening. I tried to run after him to stop him, thinking that if he didn't open the door, then I wouldn't have to re-live that night again. But just as I lunge for him, I fall through the floor again. Another scream, this one seemed as if it were real. Like I had really heard it, like on the outside. 'Why can't I wake up? I don't want to be in this nightmare anymore!" I think starting to tear up. I land in the Living room. There is no furniture, no ponies, just empty. The air starts to vibrate and all of the furniture appears with my parents sitting on the couch together. There is no sign of me, maybe I already went for the door. Then that mystery stallion bursts into the room, the walls catch on fire as he starts fighting with my father. I try to intervene and help fight, but my limbs won't move. I can't move anything, i'm stuck here in this flaming room, watching that pony fight with my dad, and I can't do anything about it. Another hit, an uppercut from my father, sends the stallion tumbling over himself to the wall. He hits the wall and slides to the floor. He looks around himself, he sees a vase, he goes for it. 'Now it happens again,' I thought now crying. He jumps up and reaches for it, he grabs it between his teeth, and swings his head violently, in the direction of my father. He wasn't looking at him, the vase hits him and shatters with a clink-clink-crackle, into a million shards of glass and water. Then he reaches into his coat and pulls out a piece of rope. He ties my fathers front and back legs together. Then he pulls out some duct-tape, and tapes his mouth shut. Then repeats the steps on my mother. I can't stand this, why won't I wake up? Why can't I escape this living hell? Why must my mind torment me like this? Why this dream? Why not any other dream? Anything else would be better than this atrocious night. If I had been dreaming about anything nice, my mind wouldn't hesitate to take me from that. Why not now? Please, rip me from this horror! He sits down on the couch and starts watching the show. He actually laughed at a joke on the show, I couldn't believe it. A pony so twisted that he can laugh at a time like this. It wasn't long before my father came back into consciousness. When he did, though, the stallion went back to business. He turned off the t.v. and started talking to them. He was yelling garbled sentences, of what I couldn't tell. Then he slapped a family portrait, it flew across the room and shattered against the wall. Small pieces of glass rained down on little me. He turned toward my mother. He started smiling, he was missing four teeth. But just as he started to get close to her... I woke up. I rose up quickly in bed, I was sitting in a pool of sweat, and I was crying. It took me a second to realize it, but I was also screaming. When I noticed, I stopped. My foster father came rushing into the room. "What's wrong? What happened?" he said rushing to my bed. I couldn't help myself. I threw my arms around his neck and embraced him, then started crying. "There, there. It's gonna' be ok. What happened?" he said trying to comfort me. I couldn't control my emotions, I kept crying on his shoulder for at least another five minutes. And he let the embrace hold for the entire duration. I was the one to pull away. After I completely got my emotions back in check, I started to explain what happened. "I had a really bad nightmare." I said trying not to break again, my voice and body were trembling. "Would you like to talk about it?" he asked clearly showing that he had no idea how to handle this kind of situation. "That's the last thing that I want to do." I said a bit harshly. "Well, if you feel like you will be ok, then i'll leave you to get back to sleep. Make sure you take another shower before school though, you reek of sweaty teenager." he said jokingly. I rolled over and faced the wall. Had my foster father just tried to help me cope? What is going on today? Everything I know is falling apart around me. I tried to clear my head of all thought of what had just happened. I tried to think of nice thoughts, like small animals, beautiful landscapes, the sunset. Before long I was asleep again. This time, I was determined to have a good dream, or no dream at all. I would like to thank bandgeekjim for editing for me. You were a big help, and this story wouldn't be going as well as it is without you.
Chapter 4: Morning ComesMisery Chapter 4 My alarm. I hit snooze and roll over. Five minutes later, my alarm again. I hit snooze and sit up. I look around the room. My head is heavy, and all I can think about is laying back down. My alarm makes me notice that I fell asleep sitting up. I turn it off this time and get out of bed. My head is so heavy, I can barely hold it up. I stumble to the bathroom and turn on the shower. Hot water first. Then the cold. Now to get the mix just right. I lean against the shower wall. 'I wonder how long I can sleep in here for' I think to myself. My foster dad wakes me up by knocking on the bathroom door and saying that I've been in here for thirty minutes, and that I need to get out. I finish up with my shower and turn it off. I step out of the shower and get a towel. I dry off. I walk back to my bed and look at it. I long to just lay back down and sleep for a week. Then My foster dad brings me back to reality one more time with, "If you don't eat now, you're going to miss breakfast," 'Yum'...Breakfast seems good right now. I walk downstairs and into the kitchen. Only my foster dad is there. 'Where is my foster mom? Who cares, I need food. Maybe then I'll wake up more'. I look in the cabinet. Only some dry oats and oatmeal mix. I look in the refrigerator. Some assorted vegetables, a daffodil sandwich, and an apple. But isn't an apple a vegetable? Then why didn't I count it as one? Hmm...I wonder. Maybe it's a fruit? It has its seeds on the inside right? That makes it a fruit, right? I don't even care, I'm going to eat a salad. I slice the vegies and put them in a bowl. I put my favorite salad dressing over it and I sit down at the table. "Where is Cindy at?" I ask. Not that I care, I don't, I just needed prompt. "She left for an emergency business trip last night after you went to bed. She won't be back for another two weeks." He said. "So it's just you and me?" I ask. "Yep, for fourteen days." He said. 'good' I thought to myself. I don't know why having just my foster father there made me feel better. "Why did she have to go so...randomly?" I ask diving into a topic that I didn't even care about. "Some sort of merger is taking place with her company, and it seems as though things aren't going in favor." He said in a low tone. "Isn't two whole weeks a bit long for just a merger?" I ask truly wanting to know this answer. "I don't know, corporate dealings were never my strong point. Though two weeks sounds a bit ridiculous to me." I know how he feels, but there is a difference between us at the same time. He misses her, and I can already tell it. I don't miss her. I don't know why, but I don't feel as if she really cares about me, not just for my happiness, but for my well being in general; and this wasn't just the four years of abuse talking. "So did you get back to sleep ok?" He asked. "Not really, I didn't sleep that well afterwards." I said. "If you don't mind me asking, what was it about?" He asked. That was it, for some reason, I felt like crying again. But I held my composure and stated, "It was the night that my parents were killed." I felt a tear come through, but I blinked it away. "I'm sorry, I know I can't do anything about it, but I really am sorry." He was actually calming me down now. "Don't worry about it." I said, dismissing the conversation. I didn't feel like eating anymore, I didn't feel like going to school anymore for that fact either. I just felt like laying down. Just laying down and doing nothing. Just watching life go by for a while, just idly lying there, doing nothing. "Well you had better get outside to the carriage stop. It should be coming through anytime now." He said. "Alright, I'll see you tonight, after school." I said, not really wanting to leave. *** It wasn't uncommon for me to have a nice sit down with my foster father, but it was highly uncommon for him to share his feelings, or show that he cared deeply about me. It was usually only him that showed that he cared at all. Sometimes I wonder why they agreed to take me in. With only one kid they weren't eligible for financial aid, so it definitely wasn't that; plus they didn't need it, they were quite well off. Could it be that they were looking for someone to mistreat? No. It couldn't be that. My time would have been much worse if that had been the case. They didn't just beat me to do it. It was just that the punishments got really out of hand, most of the time. Look at me. I'm trying to convince away from something I've believed for four years. And for why? Because my foster mom wasn't home and my foster dad hadn't beaten me for directly disobeying him? Those are hardly grounds for a statement change. I'm standing here at the carriage stop, thinking about my life. I want to smile, but I don't know why. "I guess I'll see what today has to offer." I say to myself. The carriage stops in front of me, and I board it and sit down. I look off the side, into the sunrise. There is a beautiful cherry red with hints of orange and pink splashed across the sky. I can't help but smile now. 'I guess today won't be too bad.' Again, I would like to thank bandgeekjim for editing this story for me. You have been a big help in making this as good as it is.
Chapter 6: RevelationsMisery Chapter 6 *DING* sounded the bell. Friday is over, not a moment too soon too. I thought to myself. It's been two days since I had to talk to the principal about my sleeping problems. I have indeed succeeded in staying awake in all of my classes and in turn, my math teacher has been nice to me. I haven't spoken very much to her these past two days either. No life stories at least. Walking down the hall through this massive congregation of screaming foals going every direction at once, I caught sight sight of my math teacher. I wonder what she wants. She wasn't trying to get my attention in any way, but I could tell that she was staring directly at me. I didn't exactly feel like talking to anypony right now, but I wasn't going to ignore her. "Hey, how are you?" I asked as we reached each other. "I'm good, I just wanted to know if you had any other stories to share." Now I just wanted to be anywhere but here. "No, sorry, I don't have any other stories that won't break me right now. Maybe next week." I said dryly, just trying to end this. "Ok, I was starting to think that you were mad at me for writing you up." Now where would she get that idea? "No, I've just been a bit too busy lately to share things." I lied. "Ok, then if you don't want to share anything, I guess you can go home, or something." The way she said that made me feel as if she wanted to her another horrid memory that I would rather forget. I just knew that I wanted out of there and fast. "Ok, I'll see you on Monday, bye." I walked outside and into the autumn sunlight. I paused a second to enjoy the feeling of the sun-rays illuminating and warming my back, to feel the slight breeze ruffle my mane and coat, to listen to the leaves of the surrounding trees rustle in the breeze. It was all so soothing. I walked through the field and down to where the carriages were parked. I found the one that runs through my area and boarded. There was an open seat relatively close to the front of the carriage, so I went ahead and sat there. The ride was just as uneventful as always. I got off at my stop. It was just before the rock cliffs that I watched the sunset from on Tuesday. Though it was nowhere near dusk, I decided to go there anyways. It was more beautiful during the afternoon, being mid-afternoon I could see everything much better. I wonder what it will look like in the sun-rise and early-morning of a beautiful Saturday... I thought. "I guess I need to find out, now don't I?" I asked myself. I made it a plan for tomorrow. I resumed my walk back to the house, through this amazing green-filled, canopy-topped, and dirt-road trailed wood. I find it amazing, how with no hindrance from pony-kind, that nature, by itself, can be so breath taking. Here, nature is at it's most serene and couldn't be more awe-inspiring. I took in a deep breath, marveling at how the scents of countless different trees and plants can blend to make such an alluring mix. I exhale, just so that I can take a new breath. I reached the house and noticed that my foster father was already back from work. As I approached I could distinctly hear sobbing coming from inside. "Mike?!" I called into the house when I came in the door. There was no answer, but instead a muffled sob. Oh no, what happened?I thought to myself hoping that it wasn't anything bad. I walked to the kitchen doorway and looked in. There he was, sprawled out on the kitchen floor, crying. He had a bottle of dark liquor laying next to him, spilling on the floor. He doesn't usually just drink a whole bottle for no reason...I thought noticing difference in his drinking behavior. There wasn't much on the floor, so he was probably drunk as all hell by now. I bet I'll be worse at this than he is.I thought to myself. I laid down next to him and wrapped a hoof around his shoulder and asked, "Whats wrong Mike?" He wasn't quick to answer, he was chocking on every breath he took. "It's all my fault." He said. "What do you mean? What's all your fault?" I asked him thinking that something had gone horribly wrong. "You, you're my fault." He said between sobs. That felt like the biggest insult I had ever taken. "What is that supposed to mean?" I asked nervously and a bit angrily, not knowing if I would like the answer. "The reason that you're here, being put through hell and being abused as you go through it alone. It's all because of my stupidity and selfishness." He said. He refused to look at me. I felt a wave of relief wash over me, but I still felt bad for him. "It can't all be your fault. Bad things happen all of the time. I've come to notice that many bad things happen to me, that's all." I'm not sure why I was trying to comfort him, but it felt like I needed to do it anyways. "Sit up, and tell me what you mean." I told him. He got up and grabbed another bottle of liquor off the counter. He stumbled back over to where I sat and flopped down against the wall next to me. He un-stoppered the cork and took a quick swig and passed me the bottle before starting. I took a quick swig of my own to calm my nerves so that I could listen to the tale that was about to befall my ears. "It all started before we adopted you. Cindy and I had reached that point in our lives and our relationship where we were ready to have a foal. We tried many times to get pregnant, but we couldn't. After about ten failed attempts, we decided that we needed to consult a doctor to find out if our problem was medical or if we were just doing it wrong. We waited two long days to get the news that Cindy was sterile and that we could never have foals together. She took the news really hard, she barely looked at me, hell, she stopped speaking to me for almost three weeks. " He took the bottle back and took another two sips. He had stopped crying by now, and was just staring down at the crease where the wall met the floor on the other side of the room. He gave me the bottle back and burped before continuing. "I decided that I could at least propose adoption, at the very least to give her prompt to speak to me again. She didn't like that idea at first, but she warmed up to it and after another four days, she agreed. We searched many different orphanages, but she couldn't find a foal young enough that looked enough like us that she could just lie to her friends and say that she didn't show during her pregnancy. On our ninth trip to a new orphanage I decided that I would get a say in this choice as well. That orphanage was the one we got you from. I noticed you as soon as I walked through the door. I pointed you out to Cindy, but she didn't like how your dark blue coat wouldn't match well with her white and my beige coat. She gave the excuse of 'Ponies will think that I either cheated on you or that we adopted, I don't want to let others know that we adopted, I want to make it look as if this is our foal.' I wasn't going to take that. I didn't mind letting others know that we adopted a foal. To me it showed that we had enough heart to take in a foal that wasn't ours and raise him or her as if they were." He was starting to lower the tone of his voice, showing that he was starting to get to the part of the story that meant the most to him. All I could do is watch in silent awe as a pony, that until' three days ago I revered as an abusive and highly over-critical stallion, opened his heart and spilled his emotions to me. "I let it seem as if I had given up on trying to convince her that we should take you, and that we would keep looking. The whole time I couldn't get my mind off of you. The way you were just sitting in the corner, looking at the other foals, you were essentially an outcast. I asked the orphanage director about you and he told me your story. He didn't give many details, but it touched me nevertheless. At that moment, I knew that I had to take you home with us, so that we could try to right a terrible wrong. Cindy thought otherwise. A little pure-white filly had caught her eye and she immediately loved her. She had deep green eyes and a pure black mane. She was a beautiful little filly, and I thought for a moment that we should get her, but then you walked back into my view. You looked so sad, so...ghostlike, like no matter where you went, nobody noticed, like nobody cared. Seeing you like that made my heart break. Just then it hit me like a freight train, and I knew, right then and there, that you had to come home with us. I couldn’t let this little filly who had friends and who was loved by her peers come home with us and leave you to stay there, perpetually forgotten by the world." His speech was reaching an almost tender tone, as if he were feeling the exact sme things that he was feeling at that moment in time. "I said I needed to go to the bathroom and went to talk to the director. We chatted a bit and then I asked him for the adoption papers. He tried to protest that I needed both me and Cindy to sign in order to legally adopt you. I told him that if she had come in the room, that I would have never have gotten to adopt you, that we would argue and fight and wind up taking that little filly home. It wasn't easy, but he cut me a deal, and I was able to legally adopt you. Cindy had a fit when she found out what I had done. She almost divorced me that very day. She hated that I had gone behind her back and gotten you out of my selfishness, and not let her express her own selfishness. She took her anger at me out on you in order to try and ruin my entire plan for adopting you in the first place. I know I have given you my fair share of beatings in the past as well, but those were only about as justified as hers, in short they weren't. Most of the time though, I know it probably seems as though I was helping her, but I was actually trying to pull her off of you. She would go crazy when punishing you, it would get way out of hand, very fast. She would just unleash everything on you. It was so scary, sometimes I held back, thinking that if I tried to save you, then she might turn on me, but I never hesitated for long. I never wanted your life to turn out like this." He sighed deeply before continuing. "Sometimes I think that your life would be better if she had divorced me to raise you on my own. Sometimes I wonder how your life would have been if I hadn't gone behind her back and adopted you without her permission, but then you would have been at the mercy of whatever other couple decided to get you, be them abusive or loving. But all I have to do is look at what you have become in these past four years, and I notice that you don't always look depressed, you don't sit by yourself in the corners of the room anymore. You have grown up into an impressively smart and very strong young stallion, one that I am proud to be the father of. I just wish that I was your actual father. I try to tell myself that I've done a good job at turning your life around. But there is only one true way to find out..." He looked up at me with the biggest and teariest eyes that I have ever laid eyes on. Just then every single once of bitterness toward him disintegrated; leaving me staring at a stallion that I no longer hated, but instead, had a soft spot for, like he was my new best friend or something. Then he asked a question that caught be off-guard. "Can you forgive me?" I had no idea how to react to the collaboration of things that I had just heard. I was almost on the verge of tears myself. "Yes." I said while embracing him in a big hug. "Thank you, for everything." I said letting the tears flow. We sat there, crying on each others shoulders for a span of time that let me figure out what I would say back to him. We both pulled out of the hug and leaned back against the kitchen wall. We sat there for a good long time, just thinking of how we were going to continue. I took another drink from the bottle, which by now was half emptied by our drinking, and wrapped a hoof around his shoulder again. We looked at each other and I smiled, I don't know why, but I felt immensely happy right then. I felt like I needed to show him that he did do the right thing by bringing me back. It wasn't easy but I figured out where to start and just kept going. "I can remember those days. Back then I thought of life as a large congregation of unfortunate mishaps, that nobody wins in the end; that no matter what, your most precious dreams will be crushed and life will laugh at you while you stop to mourn your losses. I always thought that no matter what happened, I would never have a happy life, that I would never actually be happy. I always thought that I would stay in that home until' I turned eighteen and was emancipated and kicked out on my own. I always had the grim thought of suicide in the back of my mind as well. I sulked around everywhere. I truthfully didn't want to get out of my bed in the mornings. I never saw anything or anypony as pretty or beautiful. I had no will to live or drive to live with, I was lost. Then I heard that somepony wanted to adopt me. My heart began racing as I was lead out to the lobby and saw you two standing there. You had the biggest, stupidest smile I had ever seen, but it seemed as if you were happy about adopting me. But Cindy had the most annoyed look about her, she just looked purely and thoroughly aggravated. I must admit, that I thought she would be abusive to me, just on account of how she spoke to me. I know that you think that I must hate you for bringing me into this situation, but truthfully, I have to thank you. If not for you, then I would probably have killed myself by now if I had stayed in that home. I can't say about anything else really, but I feel as if I'm cared about here, I feel as if I'm loved here. I can't hate you for bringing me here. All I can do is thank you." This was edited by bandgeekjim.
Chapter 7: Moments ReprieveMisery Chapter 7 "Ok, get up. You need to get in bed." I think I said as I stood up. Mike and I were still sitting in the kitchen, it was about 2:00 A.M. We had sat there leaning against the wall drinking whiskey and telling each other jokes and random stories since yesterday afternoon. I decided that it was time to go to bed when we had five empty bottles spread out on the kitchen floor and Mike was slurring his words, but that could have just been my own intoxication garbling the words. We stumbled up stairs, using each other for balance on the swaying staircase. We finally got to the top, and we took our separate ways. I woke up, immediately releasing an involuntary groan. So this is what a bad hangover feels like. I thought as I got up and stumbled to my bathroom. I got in the shower and took a long and cold shower to clear my head of this damned aching throb. My head feels like my brain has rotted inside and caught fire. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I woke up with a clear head, but also laying down in the shower, a light orange glow coming through the bathroom window. I turned off the water and jumped out of the shower, dried off and rushed downstairs. It was after 5:00 P.M. I had slept through the entire day. But then I wondered How long was I sleeping in the shower? "Have a nice night's sleep?" Mike asked with a chuckle as I walked into the kitchen. "My head doesn't hurt anymore." I said. "I wouldn't expect it to, you were sleeping in the shower for over four hours." He said still laughing. Four hours? Could I really have been asleep in the shower for four hours? "Wait, how did you know I was asleep?" I asked after thinking about what he said. "Because that's what I did after my first time being drunk." He said laughing even harder now. Mike was cooking dinner and humming a nice throaty tune; I didn't recognize it, but it sounded nice. He was cooking pan-steamed cabbage and apples with fruit. The scents of pan-fried pineapple filled the entire house. There was a nice hunk of pineapple left on the counter from where Mike had carved the fresh fruit. Being my favorite fruit - I grabbed it and started eating it. It was just at the peak of ripeness and extremely juicy. The citrus twang mixed well with the super sweet pineapple juice, and the meat was nice and crisp without being mushy or hard. It was a perfect pineapple. Dinner was finished just as I took the last bite of my pineapple hunk. Mike served two plates of this delicious smelling and looking dish. A base of cabbage with fresh granny-smith apples had been cooked under tin-foil in the pan, then the pineapple, starfruit, and lime were sautéed in a separate pot and the juices were added to the cabbage and apples while the fruit meat was set aside. After the cabbage and apples were finished cooking he set up two plates and drizzled the fruit juice over it and put the fruit meat on the top of that. Then he made a plum tart for desert. Dinner was fantastic, all of the flavors blended perfectly, and the cooked fruits were tender and juicy. The plum tart desert was sweet and tangy. Best dinner ever. It makes me wonder why Cindy cooks instead of Mike. How did Mike learn to cook like this? Why doesn't he cook more often? I thought to myself as I ate. Mike broke the silence by asking, "What do you think?" The question caught me completely off-guard since I had been lost in a succulent chunk of star-fruit. I waffled for a second and replied, "It's delicious; where did you learn to cook like this?" He looked up t me and smiled, "When you live on your own through college eating nothing but sandwiches everyday, you will find yourself watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks just to get a good home-made meal." I expected a more fulfilling answer like, "I attended a culinary college for one term when I was a young colt." or something. Then he caught me by surprise by saying, "It's almost sunset, you want to go down to the cliffs and watch the sun set? I used to love doing that before I met Cindy." What made him ask that? I don't know why he wanted to spend so much quality time with me all of a sudden. Cindy had left many times in the past on business trips and we never did this before. Why now? Whatever the reason, I wasn't about to pass up a chance at watching the sunset again with someone who will appreciate it as much as I do. "Sure, I'd like that." We did the dishes together and put away the leftovers, then headed out the door. We didn't really say much until' we got to the trail leading through the woods. "Beautiful isn't it? Nature." Mike asked. "Yeah, it really is." "It's amazing how the most beautiful parts of nature are always those that are untouched and pure." Isn't that the exact thing I thought on my walk home? I thought to myself. I didn't want to keep him waiting for an answer and I didn't want to have another deep self-realization again. "Yeah, it is." "What's wrong? You don't seem to be enjoying yourself very much." He said in a genuinely concerned tone. I stopped where I was and thought about what to say. "It's not that I don't enjoy this." I said beginning to walk again. "It's just that...It's not easy to get used to everything you know being ripped apart and re-assembled in a different order. Yesterday I heard a story that destroyed over half of my beliefs. And now, we are spending 'quality time' together. Things are re-arranging too fast. I can't get a grip on everything that is happening." "Well, seeing as all of the things that are changing are non-influenced; why don't you sit back and enjoy it, and after a while everything will settle down into the rhythm of daily life. If you keep fighting it, things will only get harder." What he said made sense. Life would put itself back together again, and without being in the middle of it, I could just watch it fall back into place and get used to it without the stress. I felt as if that one sentence had solved every problem I had. I felt better, much better. My mind was clear and there wasn't a problem to have to deal with, it felt weird; not bad, just weird. "Wow, that actually worked." "You already did it?" He asked cocking his head to give me an over-inquisitive look. "Well, yeah. Did you expect me to wait until' I couldn't stand it anymore to try and fix my problems?" I asked him. "Well, no. But how were you able to simply forget that fast?" "I didn't forget. I simply, stopped focusing on what was troubling me." "That fast? Wow, kiddo. Thats some pretty good control you have." "I was taught that in order to deal with my problems, I must first be able to control my thoughts." "Who taught you that?" "One of my therapists, she helped me to regain total control over my mind. After she taught me to accept and forget, she taught me how I could stop the hallucinations, not completely, but for the most part. I spent over two years in therapy groups, and had many visits to therapists afterward for relapses and other occurrences such as that, with dozens or more ponies trying to help me get 'cured' of my symptoms. Truthfully I still have the hallucinations and the nightmares, but those are symptoms that will never go away, they come with the diagnosis." "You were just a little colt then, how were they able to re-wire a foal's mind after such a traumatic incident?" That question made me think. Did they actually know what they were doing when they did it? Or did they just use the same techniques as used on adult ponies, just hopping that it would work? "You know, I'm not even sure that they knew the treatments would even work. But I guess they knew what they were doing, because they were able to get me to where I am now." "But, is where you are where you feel comfortable?" "I feel mentally competent enough to get through a normal day without having any episodes, but of course, I don't control that. Even the most simplest of things can set me off, and I won't even know why. But I have come to find that clearing my mind of everything, and allowing myself to drift through nothingness will calm me down and I will be able to function and figure out what happened and why I went off." We didn't say much after that. We simply finished our walk, found a comfortable spot, and sat down. I sat on a large boulder about fifteen feet from the edge. It had another rock projecting up the back of it that acted as a support for me to lean against. Mike laid down on a fairly large, flat boulder and rested his head on his hooves. The sun hadn't started to set yet, there was at least another twenty minutes left until' it started. "Mike, tell me a story." He rose up to look at me, "What do you mean?" "You already know about my past, and I just told you a little bit about my rehabilitation. Now it's your turn, tell me a story about your past." Mike took second to re-adjust himself on his rock before speaking, "Well, my life hasn't really had many exciting things to happen in it. My parents put me through private school until' High School. Since there weren't any private High Schools in my area and my parents didn't want to send me to a boarding school, I went to a public High School. After graduation, I joined the military and did my time with them, and in turn, they payed for me to go to college and study to be an architect. I landed my current career here in Hoofington as an architect for large buildings and bridges shortly after that. Then after about a year of working there, I was sent to Las Pegasus to plan out the structure of an addition to an office building. That was where I met Cindy. She was the consultant that was going to show me the build site, the requested layout of the building, and other stuff. From the moment I saw her, I knew that I had strong feelings for her, I just needed to shape them into good feelings and then replicate them in her. It took four days of sweet talking, but I finally got her to go out on a date with me. We had a nice time. After another two dates we decided to go steady and form a relationship together. We had a good time, and after another two months, we had to make a choice. The construction job was finished. So we had only three choices: me quit my job, move to Las Pegasus and find a new job; her quit her job, move here to Hoofington and find a new job; or break up. She decided to quit her job and move here, obviously. I was ecstatic to know that she would quit her job and move, just for me. And then, after about six more months, I decided to ask her to marry me. The happiest moment of my entire life was when she said 'yes'. We had a traditional wedding, and had a one week honeymoon in Canterlot. And after about five more years, you came into the picture. You were quite possibly the most difficult decision of my entire life; but I think I made the right choice." He said looking over to me. "The rest you know from experience." "Sounds nice, maybe you could go a little more in-depth next time." I said. "We'll see. For now lets watch the sunset." Mike said. We watched as the sun grew closer to the horizon and started passing it, changing through all of its different color schemes. We simply sat there, on those rocks, watching in awe at the beauty of nature. Watching the colors go from red to orange to blue to purple and finally to the black of night. We laid out for a few more minutes after the sun was gone, before heading home. Home. Did I just use the word 'Home' without even noticing? Maybe it is where I belong. Hmm...Home
Chapter 8: New FeelingsMisery Chapter 8 "Bye Mike, see you after school." I said walking out the front door. I heard a faint, "See ya' later, kiddo." come from upstairs. "The last week of school before summer break." I said quietly to myself, "I finally get to graduate and go to college." Yesterday was a great day. Mike decided that we should spend the day out in the woods. We had a great time. We went for a run first, no real destination, we just ran. After a while we grew tired and spent almost the entire afternoon on the cliffs, just lounging around on the rocks and telling each other jokes and stories. Before we even knew it, the sun was setting. So we watched in silent awe as out favorite sight dazzled us, and we went back home. It doesn’t really seem like it would be fun, just thinking about it, but I guess it was the company that made it enjoyable. I walk down the narrow road that leads to my carriage stop. I look up at the trees lining the road, once again in awe of how beautiful they are. The sunrise creating a bright cherry glow in the sky and surrounding clouds, the colors bleeding through the flora surrounding me makes this narrow road feel so welcoming, so warming. The perfect thing to wake up to. I love living atop a mountain ridge. The rising sun has now risen enough to start reflecting and refracting through the dew droplets on the grass and leaves, casting this narrow wooded road into a million small beads of sparkling cherry red with hints of pink and orange. A mild breeze blew through this tunneled road shaking the leaves and grass, and with them the dew droplets. A million tiny lights started flying all over the inside of this green haven creating a sort of living feel to it. Almost as if all of the dots of light blend so perfectly with each other that it gives a sort of whole feeling, and this whole is alive. The wind subsided and a large patch of clouds moved in front of the sun and put the landscape in an overcast. This bright, glowing, almost alive scenery has been reduced to a color-bled swath of grey-greens and white. In just a handful of seconds this amazing scene has been reduced to a depressing lump of items that seem to suck the happiness out of you. The rest of the walk was just as depressing and un-eventful as before. *** First class of the day was pretty entertaining. The teacher gave us a lesson on Van Allen belts, and what they do to stars. Afterwards he taught us about the chemical change in a star when it goes Supernova, I found that part of the lesson to be quite entertaining. Second, Math. The lesson wasn't too difficult, it was only a refresher course on working exponentials. After that we moved on to working out the the surface area and volumes of theoretical spheres. And to top it off, the last thing the teacher had us do was to calculate the approximate volume of the sun with given accurate measurements. Why she decided to use the sun is a mystery, but either way, I enjoyed it. Lunch was a bit different than usual. I ate lunch as usual, and then moved out to a tree in the field next to the school. After about ten minutes of lounging out under the tree, I heard somepony walking up. I looked up to see my math teacher trotting up, bright golden mane flowing with the wind. I sat up to greet her. "Hi" I said when she got within earshot. "Hey, there. How are you doing?" She asked. "I'm good, just laying out here." I replied. "That's good to hear. Listen, I've been wondering; would you like to stay this afternoon and tell me some more about your past?" She asked quite awkwardly. "Today? No, not today. I can stay tomorrow, though. I just don't want my foster dad wondering where I am. He wasn't too happy with my unannounced lateness last time." I said. "Oh, ok. Tomorrow it is then. Hey, why do lay out here by yourself instead of making friends and hanging out with other ponies?" She asked. "I've never really thought about it. I just know that I feel relaxed just laying out here under this tree, and I see those other ponies running around and roughhousing. It's just not what I would call fun. I like to relax, not run around all day." "Ah, that's good reasoning. OK, I don't want to impose, so I'll just get out of your mane." She said while standing up. "You're not imposing, really. You can stay if you'd like. I don't mind." I told her. "I thought you liked being alone though." "I said that I don't like running around all day, not that I dislike having company." I said with a smile. "OK, then. I will stay here with you." She said. I though I caught a blush as she sat down. I’m not very good with hiding my nervousness, so instead of delving into a topic that I have no experience in, I let it be and readjusted myself. I never realized it before, but my math teacher is actually quite a beautiful young mare. Her deep ruby-red coat caught the sunlight and bent it into an aura that almost made it seem as if she was glowing. Her peach colored mane shone with enough brilliance to match the noon-day sun. Her mane also gave an accent to her green eyes that is rarely found elsewhere, she is simply beautiful. ”Wow, just look at yourself. Getting the hots for your teacher. You know that you can never be with her. Not only is it illegal, I think, but I’m sure society would have a big problem with it too.” I thought to myself. ”Maybe after graduation I could have a chance, and neither of us would get into trouble. Yes, after graduation.” I thought with a smile. “What are you smiling about?” She asked me. I was so lost in thought that I barely even noticed that she was still sitting next to me. “What? Oh, nothing important.” I croaked out with a blush. “Really? Then why are you blushing?” She teased. “Blushing? Me? No, I’m not blushing am I? Can you see it through my coat?” I stammered. I couldn’t hold in my embarrassment. But she was giggling like a little school filly. DING The bell’s thundering call echoing throughout the meadow caught our attention and made her stop giggling long enough for me to regain control of myself. She looked back at me and nodded her head in the direction of the school, beckoning me to walk with her. I stood up and gave her a small grin then joined her. We didn’t say anything to one another, which made it a little bit weird, but still just being together had her smiling ear to ear. It made me think. ”Is she falling for me, or the other way around? How am I supposed to know? More importantly, how am I supposed to react to this whole situation?” I gave her a glance out of the corner of my eye. She was quite literally gleaming with either happiness or pride, I couldn’t tell which. ”Maybe I’ll just take what is happening and run with it, just let what happens, happen.” I gave her another look and found that she had been looking at me as well and as soon as my eyes met hers she yanked her head away and slightly blushed. I couldn’t help but to smile. It was too cute. We got back to the school and I walked with her to her classroom and tried to make it seem as if I were going with her to make up a test or something, to keep other ponies from straying into business that doesn’t concern them. We got to her room and we said our goodbyes and parted. I couldn’t help but feel a little giddy as I walked away. *** The rest of the day was quite uneventful, same old boring stuff. Though I couldn’t get my mind off of her. How her mane radiated with a bright yellow-golden glow. How her smile created small dimples in the sides of her mouth. How her eyes seemed to have an endless gaze. I was so lost in the though of her that I didn’t even notice when the dismissal bell rang. I jumped up and ran out to my carriage, I was so late that I almost missed it, but I got on and sat down in an empty seat. I got off at my stop and started walking down the dirt road that led home. “I wonder what Mike is doing.” I asked to no one in particular. I kept walking home, not in a hurry or anything, just walking. As I walked I noticed something about this road. The contrast between the early morning and afternoon view on the road is quite a remarkable difference. The morning has sharp qualities that give everything a distinct presence; while the afternoon has warm colors that give everything an inviting feel, as if everything is one in the same and that there is nothing to worry about. Even as subtle a feeling as it may have been, it still brought a smile to my face and lifted my mood. I ran the rest of the way home so that I could spend the last few hours of the day with Mike. I ran down the road, through the flora-tunnel, up the hill, across the yard, and into the house. “Mike, I’m home!” I yelled as I walked through the door and closed it behind me. “Hey, kiddo! How was your day?” He asked with a cheery tone. “Well, I may have met a filly.” I said with a smile.
Chapter 5: PerfectMisery Chapter 5 So far, today wasn't a very good day. In fact, today was horrible. It started with my first class. I wasn't paying attention, due to my being so tired, and I missed an entire lesson on Stars and the chemical reactions that form and sustain them. I had a nice chat with my Astronomy teacher because of it. Then, I actually fell asleep; in math class no less. The teacher made me stand up in front of the class and work through the lesson for the day with her, just to make a point. It didn't go very well. I almost passed out while standing up; that wouldn't have been a pretty sight. Due to those two mishaps, I have an appointment with the principal after lunch today. Which brings me to now. Lunch time. Today's lunch wasn't so bad, compared with the usual complaining about school food, I enjoyed it. They had hay, daisy and daffodil sandwiches, apples, and a number of deserts. Today has been quite cool, with a smooth westerly breeze, and a clear sky with a bright sun. So I decided to eat my lunch out on a hill, under a tall oak tree. Isolating myself from the other ponies felt calming. After I finished eating, I leaned against the trunk of the tree and stared up into the tree branches. I felt so warm and alive, it was very comforting to be out there by myself. Then out of nowhere my thoughts started haunting me with what happened last night. My nightmare was bad enough just being what it was, but something caught my attention more than anything else. " come to dinner sweaty!"I had dreamed of my mother yelling that to me last night. I wonder why I couldn't hear my name. I heard the rest of her words. Why not my name? Why can't I remember what she looks like? I've tried really hard ever since last night, but to my dismay, I can't remember her face. Her good face that is. The face she died with is burned into my memory, I wish I could forget that face. But her good face, the face she had before she died, I can't remember it. My own mother's face, and I can't remember it. I can't remember her ever calling my name anyways. Could that be it? I can't remember how she would say it, so my mind can't imagine her saying it? Does it even work that way? If it did, then why could I imagine her saying all of the other things? Couldn't my mind have just put her voice behind my name? I've been lost in thought here under this tree for quite some time now. I can't stand the thought of forgetting how my mother would say my name. I can't stand the thought of forgetting my own mother's face. I disgust myself. Just as I got that last thought in, the bell rang for lunch to end. Also it told me that I had to go to the principal's office. "I really don't need this right now." I say to myself. *** *Knock, knock, knock* I rap on the door. A very muffled, "Come in." comes from the other side. I open the door and take a step inside, "I was told to come see you after lunch." I say quite plainly. "Yes, come in. Take a seat." He said indicating to a chair in front of his desk. "Ok, I hear that you have trouble staying awake in class." He said, getting right to the chase. "Yeah, but it's no big deal." I said trying to cut this as short as I could. "How is life at home going for you?" He asked. "Not too bad, why do you ask?" I know why, I just want to get through this and leave. "Well, your grades aren't faltering too bad, your on the verge of a D in math, but that's not too bad." He said. "Your teachers report that you are having increasingly more difficulty paying attention and staying wake in class. Why is that?" He asked, making it sound as if he cared. "I'm not the best with scheduling. I don't always get to bed at a descent hour, and it's completely my fault." "What do your parents have to say about this?" He asked. I felt like saying that my parents were dead, just to make this feel awkward, but I decided against it. "Nothing, I choose to stay up and do my own thing; they have nothing to do with this." Of course, that was a lie. I almost never stayed up and did anything, I just had a hard time staying asleep due to the things that haunt my mind. But I wasn't going to let him know that. "Well, I don't know what to do then. I can't tell you to change the way you live your life, nor do I wish to. But we need to do something about this." Then I got a bit scared of what he might mean. "You mean like a punishment?" I asked, hiding the fear in my voice. "I'd rather not, but if you can stay awake for the rest of this month in every class, then I'll let you off with nothing. But if you fall sleep again, then I will have to give you at least detention." 'Not detention. I can't even imagine what would happen if I got in trouble.'I thought to myself. "So what are you going to do?" I asked. "I'm going to let you go back to class, and if I get another report that you fell asleep, then I will take disciplinary action. But if I don't her back from you until' this month is over, then I will give you some type of bonus." Bonus? I wonder what that could mean.I thought to myself. "So I can leave now?" I ask, ready to be out of there. "Yes, I'm done with you." That was awkward.I think to myself. I wonder why he didn't ask more questions. I was only in his office for about fifteen minutes, and I didn't even get in trouble, at least not yet. This makes no sense. I was expecting him to do something about this, not just give me a break. I'm walking to my third class of the day, wishing that I could just go home for the rest of the day. I don't know if I'll ever understand why I just got away with a "direct violation of the rules", but I won't question it. Thats the last thing I want to do when I get away with something. But I won't ignore it either, I want to know why good things are happening to me all of a sudden. I would like thank bandgeekjim for editing and proofreading this story.
