Prolog: Dying
“All Units the First National Bank has been robbed the suspect has fled in a blue dodge charger. License Plate Unknown. The suspect is 6‘2“ Unknown hair suspect had on a black face mask. Outfit blue jeans black combat style boots green shirt. The suspect is armed and dangerous. Two casualties at the site. Last seen heading east on I-90.” I heard the call on the radio as I drove my patrol car along that very Interstate.
Just my luck the very blue Dodge Charger came speeding down the stretch of Highway I was on. “Dispatch I got the bank robbery suspect car in sight. Blue Charger speeding giving chase. We are about two miles from the Dalton Road turnoff.”
I hit the sirens and lights and started after the charger just in time to see it get sideswiped by a black SUV and swerved. The car went into a light pole with an audible crash. “Shit, dispatch the suspect just crashed into a light pole mile marker 167.”
Pulling up I got out of the car using the door as a shield I drew my gun looking at the crash. “Damn it” I had no choice either the guy was knocked out, dead, or playing possum, either way, I had to move to get a better look.
Leaving the relative safety of the car I moved closer to the charger. A few people had stopped mainly the guy in the SUV I waved him back. “Stay in the SUV sir.” Moving to look at the driver's side of the car I saw the suspect. our eyes met and he was indeed playing possum. Both of us fired both took a hit. The world went white then a flood of pain, finally, everything went black.
The next thing I was aware of is being loaded into an ambulance everything was a fog and my head was killing me. I wish I could ask what was happening but everything slipped into darkness again. Voices brought me back to reality.
“The bullet between the frontal and temporal lobes on the left. Dangerously near a major artery.” Things faded again. Seems I’m on borrowed time.
Perhaps I was already dead I was now standing on well nothing. A field of blackness then a figure approached. Or more to the point two figures a pale bony horse and a rider in black rags. He looked like a ring wrath from the Lord of the Rings movies. But I seem to know who he was or more to the point what he was.
“I thought death was a tunnel and a white light at the end,” I said looking at the figure.
“That’s the express method. You, on the other hand, get a personal touch. Something interfering.” The horse charged and I had a choice stay or run. I chose to run.
What does it mean? Someone stopping me from dying? I couldn’t take the time to figure it out as I ran into the darkness the pale horse chasing after me. Only by zig-zagging did I miss the bony grip of Death.
Then I saw it a figure appearing from the darkness. My eyes widen I seen her before. Or a cartoonish version of her. What I saw was a black horse with wings and a horn or should I say Pony. Her hoofs were black as was her coat I could see the fine hairs. Her body was lean and muscular like a racing horse. The wings large and I could see blue on the tips of each feather. Her horn spiraled from the top of her head the same color and texture as her hoof. The armor she had on had a few dents and the slit eyes I could see the fine detail of the iris as she looked at me with shock I was running right for Nightmare Moon “What is the meaning of this! You aren’t a Pony.”
“You will not do for a host creature.” She turned and her form shifted to that of the cloud of stars. I look at Death just inches behind me then at the stars. I was dying and Nightmare was fleeing. If she was leaving then...
Something had stopped me from dying it was Nightmare Moon. To escape death... I rushed the cloud of stars and gripped it with all my might.
“RELEASE ME YOU FOOL!”
“Hell no! If you have a means of escaping death then I’m coming too!” I have been in fighting I served my time in the US Army. I served the people as a police officer. Dying wasn’t something I feared, in truth I respected death. But respecting death isn’t the same of accepting death. If there was a way to live even if it was something as far fetched as a creature from a kids cartoon so be it.
“Have it your way then.” I felt her grip me and pulled as the bony hand of death grabbed me from behind. For a moment I was a rope between two forces of nature. Death and the might of the Moon. Something ripped I felt as if my flesh was being torn from my body. I screamed as I went head first into the starts.
Then the stars closed around me all I could see was the night “Have it your way foal.” Her voice spoke then there was blackness of the void. Death is he real or a dream faded into nothing.
In the hospital, the head surgeon looked up "Time of death 2:43 am." The body of officer James Tanner laid there lifeless.
