Prolouge: The First Round and Second Chances
Chronos rolled over in his bed, the covers rather warm and the bed feeling particularly comfortable. He could hear the low howl of the wind beyond the window, brief taps breaking the silence as flakes of ice smacked against the glass pane in the ever changing wind currents. He could hear the clinking of a spoon against a pot as his mother finished making breakfast. He could always go downstairs and start eating, but he really felt like sleeping a bit longer.
As he began to drift off, the first images of a dream coming together the sharp ringing of his alarm clock brought him back to the world of the living. Chronos slammed his hoof on the old alarm clock, the piece not reacting in the slightest from the young, temperamental stallion’s attempts of turning it off, especially since he seemed to have completely missed it. He peeked out from under his covers with drowsy eyes, and found the clock absent from his nightstand, though his mother’s orange coat was nearby, telling him he had once again fallen for her usual ploy to get him out of bed.
“Chronos, breakfast is ready.” Sundial stated in a loving tone. Chronos replied with a grunt, not willing to get up as his clock continued assaulting his ears. “Your job interview is today, remember?” She continued, gaining the same response from Chronos. “Lily Blossom probably won’t appreciate the newest pony to join her crew being late for his first appointment that was scheduled two weeks in advance.” Chronos groaned in irritation. “Fine, I let you throw away another perfectly good opportunity to get back on your hooves, Celestia knows how many times you’ve done it before.” Sundial muttered as she left the room, stopping at the door for a second. “Your waffles and hot chocolate are getting cold.” Chronos peeked out from under his covers at his mother. “Not to mention the blueberry muffins will be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be down in a few.” Chronos grumbled, to his mother’s pleasure as she turned back and went down the short hall to the stairs. Chronos got up, the promise of his mother’s waffles and cocoa edging him on as thoughts of how tasty they were entered his memory. Suddenly a tumble was heard from the stair, jolting Chronos into full alertness as a blast of adrenaline coursed through his body. He bolted out of his bed and to the stairs where his mother held onto the railing for dear life.
“I-I’m alright, dear, just went down in a bit of a hurry and tripped.” Sundial called back to Chronos as she straightened and got back onto her hooves and started back down the stairs, taking a few steps with ease, only to tumble again, falling down the rest of the flight of stairs. Chronos charged down the stairs, jumping over the railing before reaching his mother. He turned and knelt down beside her and the bottom of the stairs.
“Mom, are you alright?” Chronos asked, truly concerned for his mother, who was quite obviously very dazed. “Mom, say something!” He exclaimed, shaking her lightly.
“My… my back… it hurts so much.” She struggled, tears forming in her eyes. Chronos wrapped his hooves around her and slowly slung her over his back as he charged out the house. He entered the street with his mother groaning on his back, and several ponies already giving him curious looks as he frantically looked around. The red cross set on the hospital’s high rising structure glimmered in the distance, a pony sitting on it wiping off the red painted metal carefully.
Chronos darted through the streets as fast as he could while making sure his mother stayed safe, not wanting her to fall off his back and hurt herself even more. Several ponies asked him what was going on, but he didn’t reply in his hurry to get to the hospital. He eventually reached the tall, glistening building, the stairs cleared of snow, yet still quite slippery as he fought with all his strength to stay upright and keep moving. Chronos slid to a stop inside the hospital main room, bit of snow spaying off of him and onto a group of slightly annoyed ponies.
“Somepony, help me!” He cried, several nurses and doctors that had been milling about on their routines as well as other ponies who sat waiting looking over at Chronos. “My mother is hurt, I need help!” A doctor and a few nurses dashed over, one unicorn nurse taking his mother in a telekinetic grasp. Chronos galloped alongside the ponies as they hurried her to a room, but a doctor stopped Chronos.
“Hold on, son, I need you to tell me what happened.” The older stallion stated. Chronos attempted to shove past the pony as the door closed behind the doctors and his mother. “Hey, just settle down and tell me what happened to your mother.”
“She fell down the stairs, she hurt her back! I need to get in there!” Chronos replied, continuing to struggle against the pony as he attempted to get to his mother. “Let me go, I need to be there for her!” He shouted once more.
“Look, the doctors need their space. They’re doing x-rays of her right now, and you’ll just get in their way.” The doctor stated. “Now just take a seat somewhere and hold on while they try and… h-hey!” Chronos quickly pushed by the doctor, knocking her into the wall in the process. Chronos burst through the door, the collection of doctors and nurses moving equipment into position.
“Doctor, the x-rays show a rather sizable in her third lumbar vertebra!” One of the nurses shouted from the side room where the monitors showed the result of the x-ray.
“Alright, let’s get to it, everypony!” The doctor shouted. “Fifty cc’s of Ibuprofen, stat!” The doctor shouted a nurse passing him a syringe, which the doctor injected promptly into Sundial. “Rev up the anesthetic machine, we need in running as soon as possible.” Another nurse nodded and began pouring magic into the system of the machine, which shortly began pumping as it activated. “Scalpel,” The doctor said, a nurse passing the piece of equipment to the doctor, “Clamps,” The doctor ordered again, a small tray swiftly moving to the doctor’s side, “Sweat.” A nurse quickly responded by dabbing a towel on the doctor’s brow as he continued working.
“Come on, let’s go.” The other doctor said, dragging Chronos away from the door rather forcefully before placing him in a seat. “We’ll tell you when you can see her, but for right now you need to give doctors some space to work.” Chronos sat down, attempting to calm himself enough to remain seated, fighting back the feeling of uselessness that was slowly building up inside.
The minutes ticked by slowly, slowly drifting into hours that seemed to be an eternity as ponies rushed in and out of his mother’s room with trays filled with IV bags and blood transfusions as well as pieces of equipment that went both in and out, clean ones replacing used, bloodied ones. Finally, after what had been the longest four hours of Chronos’ life, the doctor came out, using his magic to wipe the last beads of sweat from his forehead while lowering his white mask. The doctor pony looked up at Chronos, but immediately looked away, walking down the hall away from him. Chronos jumped up to his hooves and broke into a dash to catch up to the doctor.
“Doc, how’s my mother? She’s going to be alright, isn’t she?” Chronos asked, lowering to a trot as he came up beside the doctor. The pony looked over at him with a sad, defeated look before returning his gaze to the floor and continuing on, leaving Chronos stupefied, his hooves cemented to the floor. The world seemed to move in a blur around him as he stayed standing there, looking at the doctor as he walked on, head hung in shame. A nurse walked up beside Chronos, putting a hoof on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry…” She said in a hushed tone. Chronos stayed frozen, his mind reeling from what had just happened.
“W-what… why…?” Chronos muttered; his thought process still locked up. The nurse sighed and, with a gentle hoof, guided Chronos’ head to look at her.
“I don’t know what happened exactly. By what we can tell her fractured bone shattered in such a way a bit of the bone ruptured a blood vessel, and she started bleeding internally.” She replied, tears rolling down her cheeks. “We did all we could, but the damage was so severe that in the end we were powerless.” She continued, lowering her hoof to the ground. “It seemed that whenever we fixed one problem another, more serious, problem took its place.” Chronos simply stood there, shell shocked from all of it happening so quickly. “She did say a few things before she passed on though.”
“What did she say?” Chronos’ thought cleared up enough for him to say. The nurse took out a piece of paper that had a few words scratched on it.
“S-she said that… that she looked you and your father so much, and she wished the best for you.” The nurse said, the simple words reducing Chronos’ to tears as he fell to his knees on the hospital floor. The nurse knelt down beside the grieving stallion, stroking his mane as his tear continued to spill out on the floor.
Chronos turned down the street where his home was, feeling numb, the world a blur of tears as he moved on, the snowflakes that fell bringing no joy or comfort as they had in years past. He had spent almost an hour on the hospital floor, but after crying all the tears he had in him he decided it would be best to go home and tell Tolling Bells, his father, what had happened. As he approached his house, he suddenly was tackled by somepony. He looked up and saw a horrid sight; his house was consumed in flames. A score of firefighter fought back the inferno as it threatened to spread. Chronos felt adrenaline start to pump through him once again as he struggled to get free of the firefighter who had tackled him.
“Settle down, you can’t go any closer!” The pony shouted to Chronos as he continued struggling against him with all his might.
“My father! Did you get my father out?” Chronos asked as he continued to watch the house he had grown up in burn down, along with the rest of his world.
“Your father? He’s in there?” The fire pony asked, astonishment dripping from his voice. “Ponies! There’s a pony still in the house! Get him out NOW!” Six of the firefighter immediately strapped on their gear and began chopping down the door. As the door broke open, a horrendous groan shook the street as the roof of the house fell in, followed by the rest of the house collapsing as the fire ate away the supports, leaving it a burning heap. The ponies jumped back, quickly retreating back to the carriages as the fire burned on, several streams of water pouring down on the burning wreckage. Chronos slowly became limp as his thoughts once again locked up, the sensation of the fire pony dragging him far away vaguely registering as his mind was enveloped in a fog, unable to handle what was happening.
“Not to mention the blueberry muffins will be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.” Sundial’s voice echoed in his mind as he watched the fire beginning to fizzle out as water continued to fall over it. Chronos, by some miracle, found more tears to cry as his world crumbled to bits, nothing seeming to make sense anymore as the cold air gnawed at his hide.
Chronos looked up at the sign that hung above the flower shop, whose flowers, despite the cold of winter, seemed happily growing as if it were summer. It had been two days since the worst day of his life, and not too many things were looking brighter than they had, and yet, here he stood before ‘Lilly’s Emporium: All your floral needs taken care of in one convenient location’ a vague notion of hope in his mind as he entered, the charming little bell dinging as he pushed the door open.
“Welcome to Lily’s Emporium, please tell me if you need anything.” The clerk said, sitting behind the counter reading the well known Daily Equestrian, with headlines about famed hippogriff daredevil surviving yet another ‘failed’ stunt that resulted in an explosion and a rather severe fire, which the performer caught a bit of, almost cooking himself alive if he hadn’t been performing in the world’s first underwater stadium, which allowed him to jump out the front door and extinguish himself, though fifteen suites had been filed by ponies that had been there who claim to almost have been drowned by the hippogriff opening said front door without closing the airlock first. Chronos would’ve smiled, but he hadn’t had the will to ever since that day. Chronos walked up to the counter and gulped as he prepared himself.
“I was looking for Lily, actually.” He stated, the pony lowering her paper to look at him for a second before lifting the paper back up and turning the page.
“She’s in the back, tending to the tulips. That’s aisle three, if you’re wondering.” She stated dully as she turned to the next page. Chronos nodded and walked off towards the door with the sign ‘greenhouse’ above it. He pushed the door open, and stepped inside the sealed chamber, and after the door closed behind him, he was quickly assaulted by a spray of chemicals that caused every bug on him to fall off in a state of shock, and gave Chronos a coughing fit as a set of small vacuums sucked up the bugs and the gas in an instant.
The other door finally opened, letting him enter, completely bug free from bugs that couldn’t stand the chemicals. Chronos looked around at the flower and quickly noticed the pink mare with the white mane that had a red stripe in it watering a bed of tulips rather close by.
“Lily,” Chronos began, attracting the attention of the mare who quickly looked back, her tensing muscle showing her disgust, “I-I’m sorry I was late for the meeting. T-there were circumstances that were beyond my control that just… well, made it impossible for me to make it.”
“What, did somepony glue you to your bed? Or did you contract a deadly disease, but had a miraculous recovery?” Lily asked sarcastically, her disgust oozing from her words. Chronos sighed and took a few steps towards her.
“Look, I sorry, I didn’t mean to not be able to come on time.” Chronos said, placing a hoof on Lily, who drew back, smacking it away with her own hoof, her brow furrow in anger. “Lily, please…”
“Look, Chronos, I trusted you’d try and make it. When you didn’t show up directly on time I held out hope that there might have been some decent excuse.” Lily stated angrily. “But after an hour passed I just gave up any hope you’d come, and now you come in here two days late, TWO DAYS, Chronos, and expect me to be alright with that. No, I’m done with all of this. You can find another job, and another mare friend for that matter!” Lily shouted, slamming the plastic water pitcher against the ground before storming away.
“Lily…,” Chronos whispered as his vision blurred a bit as tears began forming, “I-I…” Chronos began, but the words didn’t come to him, but more than enough word came to Lily as she turned around, snorting wildly.
“What?! What is your problem? If you really needed a job, if you really get back on your hooves, than you could’ve been punctual enough to be here, if not for the job than for you fiancé, Chronos; face it, it’s over, we’re done!” Lily roared. “And if you come back here, even to buy flowers, I will personally throw you out on your ear!” Suddenly, something in Chronos snapped, something deep inside of him broke, and instead of sadness, he felt overpowering furry, both at the mare who betrayed him, and the even more so at the world that had seen fit to destroy him.
“Fine! I won’t come back!” Chronos blasted, barring his teeth. “I’ll never come back, and you’ll never see me again! I’ll buy the flowers for my parents’ funeral somewhere else, and you can find somewhere else to get that clock you wanted so much!” Lily was taken aback, Chronos’ sudden furry catching her off guard, especially coming from a pony that had always been so docile, and quite level headed. “For all I care your flower shop can burn down and your parents can die so you can come remotely close to what I feel right now!” He stormed away, opening the first door so violently that it broke off its hinges.
Lily sat there watching dumbfounded as Chronos left in a fit of rage. Chronos flung the second door open and marched out of the shop. Behind him, he could hear Lily calling as she scurried to reach him, but he wouldn’t listen as he continued out of the shop. He entered the street, still fuming, hearing a distant shout and the sound of wood banging against stone. He looked up the path and saw a cart barreling towards him. Lily exited the shop and watched as the cart containing heavy construction equipment plowed over Chronos, the stallion completely motionless after the cart passed, several workers chasing after it as it sped on. Lil fell to her knees, looking at Chronos’ broken form; her words of anger to him still fresh in her mind.
Chronos opened his eyes, his entire world a black expanse, his body floating through the nothingness. He could remember the instant of pain when the cart hit him, but beyond that he couldn’t figure anything.
“That’s because you, Chronos, are dead.” A voice stated simply, echoing all around him. Chronos turned to see if he could find whatever it was, but he saw nothing. “That is because you’re kind of dead, Chronos. Being dead so instantly is sort of like entering darkness after being in the light, it takes a few seconds for your senses to adjust to your new surroundings.” Chronos looked around, trying to see past the darkness.
“What happened?” Chronos asked whoever or whatever had been talking. The voiced sighed as Chronos began to get adjusted to his surroundings.
“As I said you died, but… let’s just say that doesn’t have to stop you.” The voice continued as Chronos fully understood his surroundings. He was actually sitting on a plush cushion in an office, where a hooded figure sat typing on a type writer. “So, Chronos, quite the tortured soul I see.” The figure said. “Your record says you lost your parents, your childhood home, your only job opportunity, and your fiancé all in the course of three days, not to mention what you suffered earlier in life, with being laid off your job after an accident on the factory floor, which ended with you losing your apartment.” Chronos nodded slowly, the pain of those events on feeling quite so pungent anymore, most likely because he was dead, but it was still weird.
“So what are you getting at, exactly?” Chronos asked, trying to find something distinctive about the figure before him, besides the unrealistic, ominous shadow and dark cloak.
“Well, I’ll just make this simple for you. I’ve been going through things that have made me start to have a change of heart.” The figure stated plainly. “I’m willing to give you a chance to shape your destiny. You see, I’ve gotten in a rut recently, and certain close acquaintances are doubtful of me, so the best way to clear it all up is to help somepony end up a bit better.” The figure explained, Chronos nodding in reply. “Well, I’m not sure if they were aiming at making a bad pony into somepony better, but then again, I think making your story end a bit better should count for something.” Chronos simply looked at the figure with a raised eyebrow.
“What are you trying to say? You want to help me? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but unless you’re one to pay for funeral bills I think you’ll have a difficult time helping me, you know, because I’m kind of dead.” Chronos dead panned.
“Well I could do that, but I think you’ll like my suggestion quite a bit more appealing.” The figure stated, sliding the type writer he had been typing on before to the side, leaning forward towards Chronos. “I’m willing to set you back to the morning your world came crashing down and allow you to change how things work out for you in the end.”
“Wait, really? You can do that?” Chronos asked incredulously. The figure seemed to nod under his hood.
“We’ll start right away. It’s time for you to wake up and choose your future. And just so you know, you’ll live out the course of events until you die, so if you die by tumbling down a set of stairs after becoming a billionaire, that’ll be it, and you can choose if you want your future to be cemented, or if you want to take another shot at it.” The figure explained. Chronos nodded, his vision already fading to black as his worst day began again.
