Cold. Cold is what it was. Cold was what he felt; what Cameron felt. He felt cold. Though his heater was working, his 5th story apartment in Manehattan felt cold. Not that this was odd. He often felt cold. In fact, he always felt cold.
"This city...", he thought. "Why is it always cold?"
No pony else seemed to notice though. It was only September after all. And the magnetic-backed thermostat on his 20-something year old refrigerator read only 68°F...perfect room temperature.
Perfect. Perrrfect. Perfect! perfECT.
He tumbled the word around in his mind. It means something different to everyone. To some it meant family, and to others... what did it mean to others? Cameron didn't know, to his own dissatisfaction. He didn't like it when he didn't know what others were thinking. Of course, he never spent much time talking to other ponies at all. To Cameron, "perfect" meant alone. "Perfect" meant he was satisfied with his friends; with his life.
Cameron slinked across the cold musky apartment to his best friend, and pressed its button. The one that read: "Power". Its screen didn't do anything at first; accept change from black to a slightly brighter black. Then it came to life. It booted into a brief BIOS menu, asking him if he'd like to launch its startup repair or launch "ponOS" normally (he had left it on for a while and forgot to charge his friend). He was told that this screen only came in two colors: black and white. However he could never know this for certain. In fact, he could never know the color of anything for certain.
As a colt, Cameron's 'affectionate' nickname was "doggy"; obviously playing on the common myth dogs could only see in black and white. Cameron had long ago learned through his friend named "internet" that dogs could actually see a variety of colors. His friend was just knowledgeable like that. At learning this, he felt slightly dejected. He felt as if he was the only creature in Equestria with the misfortune of seeing only the bare bones of color. Cameron learned to live with it though. He accepted that it would never get any better than what it was now. He tried to view it as a sort of pleasant little defect of his eyes, but that never went far in his own mind.
"Let's face it," he said to himself as a colt of 10 years, "it's just a barrier baring my own success in life".
He found himself thinking his own mind conceded for believing this. It obviously wasn't a great barrier in life, if you could call it one at all. It just...was. It was however, another log on the greyish black fire that was Cameron’s depression.
That's what the doctor called in anyway. Dr. Broadhoof's diagnosis of Cameron's grey mind wasn't much of a surprise to the (at the time) adolescent colt. He knew what the word meant (thanks to ‘internet’). Cameron had always had a melancholy aura about him. He wasn't a happy colt. He wasn't a sad colt. He just was. The diagnosis of his son by the great and powerful Dr. Broadhoof only worried Cameron's father for a short time. He was, after all, always busy with work.
Cameron's father was a hardworking business pony. Ace Ink was a dusty brown unicorn with a black mane, and had a well-paying job with a cozy home in the suburbs just outside of Manehattan. They had a 2 story home all to themselves, as well as a nice carriage in the driveway that never had even half-a-tank of gas. Ace Ink and his son never wanted for anything. They had always had food in the table, and a working water heater. Not that it ever helped (at least in Cameron's always cold mind). Cameron’s mother was killed by a bus when he was three years old. By Cameron’s understanding, his mother was a light blueish-grey thestral, with a darker blue mane and wings.
Cameron sat on his couch staring at the face of his ‘friend’ briefly before standing and slinking down the hallway to his bedroom. He made his way across the space surrounded by 4 grey walls and the label in his mind that read: "bedroom", then opening the French doors to his closet. He then grabbed the only article of clothing in the large space. Hanging on a single wire hanger in the middle of the rack was a plain, black hoodie. This was one of the only aspects in his life that Cameron could say he thoroughly enjoyed. It was soft and comforting, yet sleek and appealing. He used his magic to pull the article off of the hanger and turned around, walking over to the bed while simultaneously closing the closet doors, and hopped up on the soft (but cold) memory foam bed.
This was another of the objects in Cameron’s possession that he thoroughly enjoyed. It was a king-size, grey sheeted bed with blackout drapes around the perimeter of the frame. The soft mattress was topped by only a heavy, darker grey comforter that shrouded the grey stallion in beautiful blackness as he slept.
Cameron levitated the black hoodie over his head and raised his hooves just beneath it. He lowered it until the inside shoulders of the hoodie met his own. Cameron reveled in the cool comfort of the soft fabric squirmed his body so as to stimulate more contact between the fabric and his fur. Using his magic to pull the hood over his shaggy black mane, he was careful not to dislodge the gages in the lobes of his tall ears. Well, tall for a regular pony’s ears anyway. Thestrals had taller ears than ponies did.
Satisfied, Cameron strode across the room, while only briefly glancing at the head-to-hoof mirror in the corner. He made his way back down the short hallway, back into his living room where his laptop glowed from the large ottoman that sat in the middle of his L-shaped couch. He pushed it so that it snugly fit into the corner of the couch and formed a sort of oversized lounge bed. He pulled himself up onto the couch and sat only a small way from the pinnacle of the corner.
He then levitated the TV remote over from the kitchen counter in the other room. Cameron had lived in this apartment so long, he could wander the space confidently in pitch black (and he had); let alone levitate a small object through the spacious doorways.
Cameron took note of this and thought, “No wonder my energy bill is so low…”
He used his magic to apply pressure to the power button on the remote turned on his other, more sizable ‘friend’ mounted on the wall. It was a sleek, black-rimmed flat-screen with the word “Pony” just under the center of the screen. The channel was on some national news station that Cameron didn’t even bother to learn the name of. He never actually watched the news. He knew it was all either lies or unimportant shit anyway. He instead used the noise of the droning news anchor as a sort of background static.
Cameron set the remote down on the ottoman, and then turned his attention over to the laptop sitting next to him. He levitated it in front of him and then, using his magic, opened a new tab in the browser.
“I’m so grateful for magically-enhanced computing”, he thought.
With this, Cameron turned off the part of his brain that cared about the real world, and dived into the only place where he felt at home…cyberspace.
Author's Note
So yeah this is my first attempt at writing a fanfic...ever. Constructive criticism is appreciated. I guess I can't really stop you from posting hate comments either...thanks for reading.
Cameron pushed his hips forward farther down the couch seat and onto the ottoman so that he could sink into the cool folds of his (fake) leather couch. His laptop sat on his stomach and was displaying a webpage describing, in detail, the inner workings of an analog clock.
He didn’t know why he had ended up on this part of the internet. He often never knew why ended up anywhere on the internet. Cameron just found satisfaction with learning new things. His interests mostly came in the form of web links or suggested sites.
He skimmed the page one more time, his eyes moving back and forth across the screen in a jerky-like fashion. Satisfied that he had gained a full understanding of the subject matter, Cameron closed out the window and closed the laptop, levitating it to the cushion adjacent to his. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back to face the ceiling; resting his head on the back of the couch.
Cameron felt the strong urge to go to sleep right where he was. He wanted to levitate the blanket from his bed onto himself as he curled up in the corner of the L-couch. To feel the warm embrace of sleep right this second, and slip away from his cold, stiff body into the world of his dreams.
But Cameron knew that, if he did give into his desire, he would regret it. He knew that if he did sleep on the couch, he would wake up yet more tired than when he had fallen asleep. Cameron would be tired the whole day, and it would ruin his mood of cool neutrality with impatience toward the most trivial things; pushing him over the edge into irritation with anything and everything he could perceive.
Besides, his bed was much more comfortable. He struggled to pull himself into a standing position on the couch, hopping down onto the freezing, creaky, wooden floor. He started to slowly make his way down the hall in the direction of the one room on Cameron’s mind. He paused for a minute to think. Then, without looking, he levitated his smart phone from the kitchen counter to himself.
Much to Cameron’s dismay, a seemingly earthshattering noise disrupted the perfect quiet of the apartment…It was the sound of breaking glass…
“Luna. Bucking. Dammit.”, Cameron hissed into the once again silent hallway.
He craned his head for a moment to stare longingly at the slightly ajar door that led to Nirvana. Sleep calling him from the bed almost audibly. But he knew that future Cameron would hate his guts if he left the mess to him.
Reluctantly, Cameron made his way to the kitchen, noticing the exact location of the shattered drinking glass. He must have knocked it off the counter when he levitated his phone to himself. A light blue aura illuminated his horn as he levitated all visible shards on the white tile floor up into the air, then floating them over the chrome trashcan in the corner and releasing them.
As he stood in the dark kitchen, the only light emanating from the cold city outside the window over the sink, Cameron reconsidered sleep. Being that he was now wide awake from the ear-splitting noise moments before, he wanted to take a walk.
Well I’m not getting any sleep for a while, Cameron thought. “Why the hay not…”
Cameron trotted from the kitchen, levitating his smart phone into his hoodie pocket as he went. He maneuvered around the sole piece of furniture in the living room (the couch) towards the front door next to the wide flat-screen hanging on the wall. Cameron opened the door with his magic, then focusing his attention the white panel on the wall; its blue screen displaying the word “Arm System?” in the top left corner. He used his magic to select yes on the security system and then checked his phone to make sure the ‘device syncing process’ was completed successfully (he could unlock the door with his phone thanks to a little thing called “BluHoof”).
Cameron’s apartment building was so old that it didn’t actually contain an elevator. This irked Cameron, being that he lived on the 5th floor. But he knew that it was probably best for his body. He didn’t exercise, and his diet was one of utter lack of concern for the body; almost bulimic in nature. The trips up and down the many flights of stairs were likely the only thing that kept Cameron from becoming either obese or anorexic. Cameron did however find he could think about other things as he did so, allowing him to forget the ache in his legs. The only problem is, Cameron didn’t have a lot of things going on in his life to think about. So, he instead went over the knowledge he had gained from his latest ‘link-surfing session’. Oh how he wished teleportation didn’t require a straight line of sight.
When Cameron had finally reached the bottom of the last flight, he peered around the corner to see into the reception area. No one inside…as usual. The only reason Cameron bothered with this ritual is that he wished to avoid his landlord.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t paid his rent (he almost always turned it in on time). It was that Cameron’s landlord was a truly detestable pony. He almost always had some sort of complaint that wasn’t necessarily Cameron’s problem, but he complained at Cameron none the less.
Luckily, his landlord wasn't around. He lived in the basement after all; he was growing stiff with age. The reason didn’t matter to Cameron, only that he didn’t have to see him. Instead of detouring around the lobby to the door, he instead weaving in and out of the spaces in between the furniture intended for waiting customers.
When he reached the steal-framed, glass double doors, Cameron used his magic to push open the cold, steely portal into the even colder realm that he only bothered to venture into after dusk. It wasn’t that Cameron couldn’t handle social situations with other ponies. He just preferred not to. Many of this end of the city’s inhabitants were of the less respectable rung of the social ladder. And many were potentially dangerous…given the chance of course.
Cameron wasn’t a big stallion, but he wasn’t a small one either. What did set Cameron apart however (other than the fact that he was a thestral unicorn), was Cameron’s demeanor. He wasn’t usually angry or upset, but his neutral expression, which was his usual one of course, was one of aggression. This often put other ponies off, allowing him to traverse the city undisturbed.
Cameron reminisced on this long past revelation. “Genetics I suppose.”
He turned, looking around briefly to check for shady characters before turning left and moving down the sidewalk. Cameron had a specific place in mind to travel, and it would take him a good few minutes to arrive there. He set a mental course for the old downtown square that nowadays sat almost empty…well except for the junkies of course.
Almost a decade ago, the downtown area’s economic standing was well, then it began to decline. The outsourcing of most of its core businesses, mainly fishing and train exports/imports, meant that the downtown area had little else to provide for itself. That’s when the Club began to take root. The Manehattan Southside Club was a large (hearsay international) organized crime group, and a force to be reckoned with. It started small, like all things do. The Club began recruiting young colts and stallions to peddle a wide variety of narcotics: juices and potions from the Zebra nation to the south, various powders from the Griffin kingdom to the west, and rumor has it even new magical drugs from the unicorns in this very city. From there, it only got worse. The Club had originally promised a large portion of the proceeds from their business to go towards the local businesses, so as to stimulate circulation and keep the area running…surprise, surprise, that didn’t happen.
Crime started to get worse and worse, until the Club started losing money. This would not be tolerated by the now massive drug funnel. They started enforcing their own form of justice on the south side around 4 years ago. Beatings, private executions, and even kidnappings of those foolish enough to stand against the Club became an almost daily routine. Cameron, being the loner he always was, had never really been affected.
As Cameron arrived at the square, he glanced briefly around the open space. Only a few street lights actually worked anymore, but being a thestral had its perks. He readjusted his course and made his way towards the old 3 story clock tower at the far end of the plaza. Upon reaching the horribly neglected structure, he made his way around back to the back door that was hidden at the end of an alley by a large dumpster. Opening the door (making an irritatingly loud creaking noise), he looked down the alley before moving through the threshold of the building and closed the door behind him.
The condition of the interior was better, but not by much. He made his way to the center of the open 1st floor, then peered up to the end of the staircase climbing the walls in a spiral fashion. He focused on the last landing at the very top floor and then lit his horn so as to warm up his 5th appendage for a significantly larger magical surge. He then increased the magical flow of his horn 10 fold and pictured the landing, willing his mind to travel there. Moments later, Cameron refocused his eyes on his surroundings and noted with satisfaction that he had indeed reached his final destination.
He then began to run his vision over the various cogs and mechanisms that made up the tower’s sole purpose. The clock had sat broken for years (the city lacking funds to hire a repairpony), untouched and undisturbed by all accept for Cameron of course. He often visited this area at night, and just as often wondered if he could fix it.
Luckily, Cameron believed he had gained the knowledge needed to fix the ancient contraption. As he started to once more recall the information from the website, he inspected the inner workings of the clock; looking for abnormalities in the cold, previously synchronized metal. Soon, he noticed a small detail that anyone, except for those who could see in the dark, would miss. The axil of one of the smaller gears had come loose, and now sat crookedly amiss the gear-work of the clock. Cameron leaned into the machine, looking for any, yet smaller detail he may have missed. Confirming that he didn’t, Cameron used his magic to put in place the small gear, and replacing the screw that had come loose and fallen to the floor. He then pulled his head and fore hooves out of the machine and walked over to the almost frozen metal box attached to the old brick wall. It had a large red sticker on it that read “Danger: High Voltage”.
Cameron ignored this and proceeded to open the rusty metal door on the box’s front. Inside, there was a single, large lever that had the labels “On” and “Off”. The lever was in the “Off” position, probably put there by some city employee who was too lazy to try and fix massive time-keeping device. Cameron smirked and flipped the lever to the “On” position, noticing with satisfaction that power had once again began to flow to the machine’s power reservoir. The oversized cogs, gears, and belts began to work in tandem to bring the old clock back to life. Nothing made a sound aside from the working machinery for almost half of a minute. Then…just like that…the tower seemed to pause for the briefest of moments, and then let out deafening scream. Just like that the large bells overhead were lifted to the extreme of their swinging motion and released, eliciting a truly massive sound wave that sent Cameron to the floor, clutching his ears in his hooves.
After laying there for what seemed like an eternity, Cameron stood with his ears ringing painfully and dusted his shoulders off with his magic. He then whispered through clenched teeth: “Well that was a stupid idea…”
Author's Note
Well people, I wasn't going to continue this story unless it started receiving positive feedback, but a certain youtuber wanted me to continue it for content on his channel...So...here ya go I guess...
YouTube channel in question: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2J2rLlQRo6HIPoLX7SBzhA
