A Lifetime of Dreams: Eden’s Nest

The continuous throbbing on the back part of his head was working as today's waking call much to his displeasure and taking him away from a beautiful dream. Well, not really, he was sure that the only thing he had dreamed about was complete darkness and nothing like the lucid dreams of other people... or ponies, besides, as long as he didn’t dream anything everything will be fine, sometimes the hell that was life got beaten to the curb by the hell that was his dreamscape, and that came from the mouth of the princess of the night, although he was paraphrasing a little bit on that.

Trying to open his eyes and return to the real world, as much as he was sure it was the real world, I mean, come on, as far as he was sure there were no ponies in the real world, he tried to shake his head to clear some cobwebs that were making the gears on his head fall behind in production, but that only made his head feel even worst, it felt like the side of his neck had been nicked and the sting was worrying but it was probably a surface injury, now, the question is where did the injury came from? Not an easy answer considering the last couple of months and misadventures that was occurring to him and the other ponies… ponies.

Ponies... something to do with it, what was important about ponies? There was something purple alongside it.

Something purple, its color was supposed to be purple.

T... was starting with T... Tri... Tu... Twi.

Oh right, Twilight, the one pony that was always  in the middle of disaster and practically pushed him into socializing with others, stupid horse, she was truly playing with fire on that one considering how he usually got along with other creatures.

Wait… what did Twilight had to do with this?

Oh Celestia… TWILIGHT!

WHERE WAS TWILIGHT!?

The two of them were traveling, last thing he could remember they were on... a train.

Opening his eyes and trying to focus his eyes after being blinded by the effects of light being reflected on snow he quickly began to fully wake up.

Once the spots had passed the first thing he saw coming directly at him was a freaking barrel closing on!

“FUCK!” at the last second he was capable to move his upper body to the side and barely dodge the metal corner of the barrel, he could swear up and down that he had felt how cold and sharp that was and made his adrenaline finally start kicking out. The quick movement had made him take a mental list of every single sore spot on his body. Besides the nick on his neck and a probable hit to his head he was also sporting dozens of bruises on his body, a couple of injured ribs and his left arm seemed to have received the brunt of the impact considering how much it hurt to lift it.

He heard behind him the sound of metal impacting against wood so without turning around he knew the barrel had finally hit the back wall of the train cart, but how did that happen? Did somebody simply took the barrel and threw it Donkey Kong style? But then he got the answer and it made most of his blood turn into ice. Looking through the right window he saw a tree, what kind of tree he had no idea, for that there was Twilight and Fluttershy, but the important part was that the tree was growing on the side of a cliff, and unless gravity was playing backgammon and it gave two shits about the rest of the world then the tree was growing vertical to the left side, which only meant one thing.

“No, no, shit, nonononononononono!” he was scrambling out of his bench when it started to creak and move in a way that wasn’t very conductive to his health, and like a domino effect one of the nails that joined the bench to the floor of the train popped out. With a huge groan of ear screeching metal destruction the bench finally lost the fight against physics and started its plummet to the back, or should we say, down side of the train?

Stretching his arms trying to reach the bench in front of him his fingers could barely touch the fabric before succumbing to gravity’s pull screaming all the way down, hitting the back wall that had been severely weakened by the barrel, the wood obviously not being to the task and crumbling into pieces while barrel, bench and human all alike felt through it.

The impact on his back made him lose his senses for a moment and like a man that had been thrown into the sea without knowing how to swim he blindly reached with his arms for anything to stop his sinking, miraculously catching on his hands the small metal railing at the end of the cart, his arm and shoulder complained due to the sudden stress that they were put on but thankfully he didn’t lose his grip on it, looking down from where he was hanging down he was very thankful for adrenaline.

“Holy… shit, you must be fucking kidding me… how big is this chasm? Oh god, first I’m master Chief now I’m Nathan fucking Drake, thanks god, maybe next time you can do me a favor and make me Duke Nukem?  At least I’ll be able to get some ass that way, but noooooooo, let the fucking human suffer some more, why not? Is not like if he needs some peace” he started to rant while trying to climb the small railing, the cold bit of the mountain chasm was making him lose body heat quickly, if he spend enough time he knew his muscles would start losing strength, he had to get out of immediate danger, of course he still was in a lot of danger no matter what but baby steps first.

Just as he thought he was capable of reaching the safe zone something made him turn up and his pupils became small due to the surprise. He had wondered where Twilight was, apparently she had been knocked out  as well because she was falling right into him alongside her seat!

Practically praying for what he was planning to do go according to plan he quickly reached for her the moment her body passed at his side. For half a second he had a heart attack when her mane practically slipped through his hands and she kept falling down but one recovery later he took a hold of one of her hind legs, the sudden addition of her weight made him scream in pain due to the strain of his right shoulder and how close it came to get out of his socket, the painful wail bounced back and forth on the chasm echoing it in the empty landscape.

“Oh… god dammit! I swear, once we return to Ponyville you are getting on a diet, stupid unicorn! Wake up! Twilight! If you don’t wake up in the next five seconds I swear I’m going to throw your fat ass and climb up myself! You hear me! WAKE THE FUCK UP!” continuing to scream in hopes of her waking up and saving both of their asses, he was already planning revenge on whatever deity had decided to made the two of them cross paths, it felt as if it was so long ago, the moment a hypothetical monkey wrench had been had been thrown into both Equestria and Earth.

**A Lifetime of Dreams: Eden’s Nest

00: Armageddon**

Four Months Ago:

Twilight would love to say that today have been a normal day in Ponyville, but you know what? She would be completely lying. You know what a normal day in Ponyville is? Is when Cerberus and every single monster on Equestria decide to visit the quaint and simple life village that the young unicorn has come to know as home.

No, in fact it has been such an abnormal day that it was normal, if that could be even possible. It was so peaceful and quiet that it was starting to unnerve the usually collected and calm unicorn… just don’t say that in front of Spike or any of Twilight’s friends except Fluttershy or they will start laughing at those words.

Twilight had woke up with the sunrise as she was used to since she started her life as Princess Celestia’s student, it was something that was ingrained in her that to do it in another way was simply unthinkable. This way she could read so much more and have so much time for her research. But either way, she had risen out of her bed and prepared a simple breakfast for both herself and her young assistant. She was pretty sure he had fallen asleep pretty late last night after reading his new comic and she was also sure that it was because he was waiting for her. As much as he wanted to say that he was already big enough he still wanted her to tuck him in. She made a mental note to go up earlier tonight to tuck Spike in, he was still a baby and needed all the sleep he could.

Twilight smiled a little at the memory of the baby dragon, maybe they could do something together today, maybe go out to the park, after all, since the disaster of the Grand Galloping Gala a couple of days ago she still owned Spike some fun time together considering how the six of them ditched the baby dragon the second they got inside the castle.

Sighing lightly as If savoring the calm that was reigning on her small kingdom known as Golden Oak Library Twilight started to dig in on her breakfast, giggling at her slight joke she started to munch on her perfectly toasted piece of bread with butter before she felt it.

A strange vibration that made her short fur on her legs stand on an end, the kind of vibration that meant a huge amount of energy that usually accompanied high level spells. Her brow furrowed in confusion at this, very few unicorns in Ponyville could even use those kinds of spells.

Lyra was definitely a genius when it came to harmonics of any kind but this didn’t have the ‘sunshine and grins’ feeling her magic practically oozed out whenever she casted something. Vinyl was also very good but Twilight was sure that most of her knowledge was in mechanics and electronics, not in how to correctly focus energy to create this effect. Rarity? No, she was better at multi-tasking dozens of objects with meticulous precision but she didn’t have the magic pool to use advanced spells , so… whom? Before she could even go with her list of Ponyville unicorns the library started to get out of focus, accompanied by a very disturbing sound.

Before she could even scream or say anything the only thing remaining in the kitchen before this was vanished like everything else in the world... was a buttered toast cooling down.

Somewhere else, in another reality:

“Thank you for coming today” the salt-and-pepper short haired man said to him with a welcoming smile, it was probably that reason in specific why he was so calm and relaxed as soon as he went inside the room, no wonder his sister had so much confidence that this time things would be different.

“What can I say? Sis gets annoying when I’m late for this” the young man shrugged before sitting down at the comfortable chair across the other man. That was also a huge plus, nice chairs.

“Well, it is still nice to see you here… and without cuffs this time around” the man pointed out with a soft smile obviously joking about a past event.

“… it was a nice police station… really good coffee… they never told me the brand, sad, I think sis would have really liked that one before going to work, shame… how can a police station have such nice coffee? I didn’t know that they had budget for those things… you would have liked that coffee too doc” the aforementioned doctor already knew that the young man didn’t even try to remember or if he even remembered why he was in that police station in the first place and probably put much more attention to the coffee than the reason he had been handcuffed and jailed.

Scanning once again the pages inside the folder checking once again the case and the main reason of why the young man was on his office. Idiotic youngster, named Daniel Williams, son of a supposedly rich man, tried to prove how much of a playboy he was by going after a pretty girl in the streets alongside his friends. Later on they found traces of cocaine in the body, trying to give himself the life that daddy said they had, horrible results.

Probably the effects of the drug and high levels of adrenaline and testosterone made him bite more than he could chew, because ‘Danny’ crossed paths with the young man in front of him, because that girl he was starting to pull into his car was the sister of a very dangerous man.

What happened next was in all news stations thanks to several amateur videos recovered from witnesses. Daniel was clearly trying to push the girl inside the car, god knows what he planned to do but was stopped by a hand pulling on his hair by the younger brother of the girl, the young man sitting on the chair in his office, he was like always walking to meet her, seems this time his presence was definitely required.

One high boy and his friends against one young man... they never stood a chance, not because he was a military trained soldier or physically gifted specimen of the Homo sapiens species, no, it was because of the pure unaltered brutality that he could exhibit at times.

In the end, the wannabe playboy met his end, ironically at the unwilling hands of one of his friends. The knife one of them had taken out to make himself braver against one man outnumbered 4 to 1 found a target inside Daniel's body after this one had been kicked by the young man. Once the police arrived alongside the paramedics they found one of the four guys rocking back and forth in the ground, the other was knocked out with a broken nose thanks to a head-butt, the owner of the knife long since gone after turning around and running for his life… and Daniel dead while the young man was keeping sigil on his corpse, not moving, not flinching, just watching life go out of those eyes as one reporter had poetically said.

The family of Danny had tried to go and send the young man to trial for murder but once evidence had been found and collected and blood tests had been done they were quick to retreat, obviously caring more for the meager money they realistically had than their now ‘lost cause’ of a son. But not everything went back to normal, a judge quickly found out the long list of doctor’s names that the young man had visited through his life and a quick interview later the doctor saw that same young man flanked by a police officer walking inside his office.

It was obvious why, he didn’t even remember the man that had died, it wasn’t even important for him, once someone specifically pointed Daniel as the man that had slapped his sister and was pulling her into the car was the point when a spark of recognition appeared… alongside a frightening smile.

Coming back to the present and finding his patient already showing signs of becoming bored he quickly followed with his list of routine questions.

“So, how has the week been treating you?”

“Meh, same old, sis has been having problem in her office, crisis hitting hard apparently or they just want a reason to save a penny, got a new game, Far Cry 3, I can do next Halloween… got some new hate mail, I think it was Daniel’s girlfriend, I mean, for fuck’s sake, he is dead already, what does she want?” The doctor knew very well what was going on, since CNN and other major news channels had found the story it had been non-stop the attention he received, not all of it good.

“People usually do irrational things when they lose something or someone they hold dear”

“Please, doc, come on, the fucker is dead, not even his parents gave a shit about him, the guy apparently hit his girlfriend and she still goes on with this? I don’t get it, what does she win? For me to say that I’m sorry his so called friend killed him when he tried to rape my sister? Tough luck for the bitch, he is dead, she is alive, point”

“Humans are not known for thinking clearly at all moments, we sometimes make decisions that later on we are repentant on, sometimes we go along with those decisions because we don’t want to own or acknowledge them, but that is what those same bonds we make are capable of, just in the same way that the bonds we create with people makes us better and allow us to grow and understand new things in our lives” the young man sighed after hearing his doctor rant.

“Look… doc… I see what you are trying to do and… I suppose I’m grateful, I mean,  I like you more than I ever liked the other doctors, you are the only one that is not saying instantly that they will try to ‘cure me’” here he said making air quotations “we both know I am never going to be cured, I was born this way and I will die this way, rather soon according to my mom, but look, I know how to keep it under control, yes, the fucker made me go angry, but it was something that anyone will do, this is just a lost cause” he said quickly letting his head fall backwards against the chair assessing the ceiling’s color.

“I am grateful that you think of me in that way, and yes, you are not here to get cured, but to understand and find your center if you want, I have never intended to make you feel pressured or…” the doctor was soon interrupted when the young man raised a finger while making a shush noise with the index finger of his other hand in front of his mouth.

“Wait… wait… do you hear that?”

“Hear what? Are you sure you are not trying to cut this session short?” the doctor said trying to inject some fun into the conversation.

“Come on doc, I would have done that in another way… no… listen… is like… a vibration? No… is like… a machine” he closed his eyes trying to focus on the particular sound “is like… vwoom… vwoom… vwoom… oh you gotta be fucking kidding me! Doc, tell me it is your phone!”

“You know I always turn off my phone in sessions, why? What is the problem?” But the young man jumped out of his chair and ran into the window trying to see if it was someone else listening something or the TV.

“Don’t you see? This can’t be real, the sound is not real, I didn´t go crazier, this is not happening”

“Wait, I hear it now, is getting louder!”

“Doc, you are supposed to tell me that the sound is only in my head!” Just before he could step closer to the doc he felt a force, almost like an invisible wall in front of him “the fuck? Great, I’m hallucinating, right doc? Doc?” turning to his doctor he saw the face of usually calm and collected man become a rictus of fear and terror, turning around to the window he understood why… everything outside was being swallowed by… nothing… white emptiness and before he could utter a word he disappeared while the rest of reality was gone and something else rewritten.

He disappeared alongside a blue police phone box.