Lost in a Good Book

The young purple and green dragon stared up at the sign of his once favorite book store, Larger Than Life Books. The old wooden building stood out on the edge of Ponyville. Spike had frequented the place a lot with Twilight when they had first moved to Ponyville. After he had bought the Power Ponies comic book from there that transported him into the book, he had taken a very long break from the store. Every time Twilight had asked him to come, he had always made up some random excuse.

He wasn't scared, exactly. He was more excited. He wanted more. And that's what bothered him. He wanted to escape his life of mediocrity and little worth to be someone important. Do things worth telling his potential children some day. He didn't want to have his only story be “I was the number one assistant to Princess Twilight Sparkle! I sometimes helped but mostly stayed at home sleeping or taking care of animals.”

Yeah, not exciting at all.

Spike squinted through the glare of the sun on the windows to peek into the darkened interior. He had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself down before he carefully opened the wooden front door, the small bell hanging above it instantly telling anyone inside of a potential customer.

Spike held his breath and waited until the shopkeeper noticed him and waved him inside with a hearty wave.

“Why hello there, Spike! Haven't seen you around here for a while. How goes it?” The shopkeeper asked. His sea green fur and purple mane shone brightly amongst the drab grey, browns, and blacks of the books surrounding him.

“Oh nothing much. Just busy helping the Princess. Twilight is always busy, so I gotta keep the library clean and stuff. Say, you got anymore magical books laying around somewhere?” Spike acted as nonchalantly as possible as he skimmed through the comic section. It included Batmare, The Green Horseshoe, and his favorite, Power Ponies. At that row of titles he stopped his claw and gently stroked down the page, remembering vividly his time inside of the comic world. He looked back at the shopkeeper and smiled.

The pegasus had a strange look on his face, as if he were extremely pent up, and his mane was plastered to his head by drops of sudden sweat. “I-I uh don't know what you are talking about. What magic books? I have nothing of the sort. Just...oh dear. You did buy one didn't you? I'm so, so very sorry. I should have checked the cover for the inscriptions. And then…”

He was stopped by Spike holding up his finger in the air. “I only want to know if there are more. Perhaps from one of my favorite book series?”

“And that would be?” The shopkeeper said after gulping down some air and hoping that he wouldn't get sued. “I'm sure I can find something.”

“It's a choose-your-own-adventure book. I don't quite remember the name but I remember it having action, adventure, Pirates, monsters, the works.” Spike leaned on the counter and stared eagerly up at the shopkeeper, whose face was now beaded with sweat.

“I-uh don't think I have anything like that. They went out of style years ago. But I do have one thing that could work I suppose. It has no title or really anything at all. But it is magical. It creates a different story based on whoever reads it. Would that work?”

Spike smiled and nodded like a child in a candy store, if the candy store happened to be books instead. The pegasus rushed out back to grab a dusty old tome, blowing it off and setting it gently upon the counter. “No charge. This book is special. It uses your imagination, and imagination is free.”

“That's great! Best price ever. I suppose this makes up for that comic fiasco.” The dragon grabbed the book and bolted out the door, yelling back to the pegasus “I'll be back!”

The shopkeep went over to the door and slowly closed it, bracing the door with a wooden bar and sliding down in front of it. “I really hope he doesn't come back. That dragon’s more trouble than he is worth.”

…

Spike slammed the door to the library shut and made sure nopony was there before he rushed up to his small room and more gently closed and locked that door. He knew Twilight would be at her castle, busy with her new royal duties. He was sure no one would show up at the library.

The young dragon sat back on his bed and opened to the first page of his new book. What he saw, or rather didn't see, surprised him. “Hey, what gives?! There's nothing here!”

He flipped between pages, and yet no words or even a single line appeared on any page he went to. He was about to give up and throw the book away when he stopped on the first page again. This time he noticed a period in the very middle of the page. “Well, that's odd. Who would take the time to type out all those spaces just to line up a stupid dot perfectly in the middle of the page?”

At his question, a single line of text appeared in front of the period. It read “Think of what you desire most.”

“Uh, ok? Sure, why not.” So Spike closed his eyes and thought of something cool. Rocket ships, aliens, knights, anything he could think of. When he opened his eyes, he saw detailed descriptions of everything he imagined. His eyes widened and his heart quickened at this discovery. He flipped to the next page, and the next, each page filled with various bits of information that flashed through his brain. And on the very last page was simply another dot.

This time there were words in a very tiny print, dwarfed by the period mark. He got closer to the page and squinted to get a better look. Finally, he was barely able to make out the words when his eyes were almost touching the page; they read: “Got you, sucker.”

Suddenly Spike felt his body being pulled headfirst into the book, passing through a rainbow vortex of swirling lights and colors. Sounds of rushing wind deadened his screams. He blacked out after ten seconds, just before the sound of the book slamming shut could reach his ears.