Chapters An Extraterrestrial Night
It was a tremendously exciting evening.
On either side of the road, vegetation tore past in a green blur. Wind battered Mary Palmer's grinning face, blotting out the sounds of her younger sister's iPad; specifically, the game on her iPad: My Little Pony: Puzzle Party. Mary found the noises intrusive. She was, to a far greater extent, more fascinated in spotting a UFO. In further elaboration, the famous, mysterious lights seen creeping and flaring in the skies above Brown Mountain that were thought to be UFOs. John scoffed at the idea, whereas their parents contended that it was possible, but highly unlikely. And every single time the topic bubbled into conversations, Stacey would smile and say they were Pegasi.
"Mary Michelle Palmer!" her mom called out from the front passenger seat. "Please, get your head from out the window!"
"Relax, Alondra," said her father, adjusting his gold-framed glasses. "She's not going to get decapitated. Oh, hell , fuel's running low."
"What's decapitated? " inquired Stacey.
Ignoring her sibling, Mary pulled her head back in the minivan, still grinning stupidly. "Oh, I'm so pumped! I can't wait 'till we get to the camping spot! You think we'll actually get to see the lights?"
"You mean the Pegasi?"
"They're not Pegasi, Stacey. They're aliens."
Mary's elder brother, John, yawned and scratched his neck. "You guys, they're both ridiculous as... Dang, look up ahead!"
"What?"
"Look at that tunnel! It looks like it goes completely straight, but I can't see the end!"
Paying no heed to her mother's protests, Mary stuck her head out the window again. Sure enough, they were approaching an insanely deep tunnel. It was lit by lamps on the inside, but ran on so far that the end was nowhere to be seen. Around the mouth of the tunnel was an assortment of large wooden signs that displayed frightful warnings, like ""Beware, turn around!" and "No one has returned!" and Keep your youngest's mind BLANK!!!
"Dad, can we like... not go in there?" John asked jokingly. Mary's wide eyes asked the same question, though they betrayed her nervousness.
"Relax, people," Richard Palmer said nonchalantly, fixing his glasses again as he drove their Sienna fast into the tunnel. "Most likely, those were made by a handful of idiot pranksters."
His wife knitted her brows. "Really? The GPS isn't showing us this. It says we're on the right road, but there's nothing about the tunnel."
John sighed and shrugged, but Mary's shoulders were tense for the next few minutes. Stacey, wholly engrossed in her pony game, had no idea what was going on. After ten more minutes, though, they still had not excited the tunnel.
"Richard," Alondra said meekly. "The GPS says that we we're supposed to turn in a few minutes.
"Okay, thanks."
Four more minutes slipped past.
"Richard, the GPS says we need to... Oh, dear."
"What?"
"The GPS says that we just went off the road! We were supposed to turn!"
"Well, this cursed tunnel just keeps going. See, this is exactly why GPS is a retar—Holy heck!"
With a loud bang , all the tunnel's lights went dark. Richard slammed on the brakes, and their minivan squealed from sixty to zero. Mary felt herself squeezed hard against her seatbelt. For a frightening moment, everyone was enveloped in blackness until Alondra reached up and turned an interior light on.
"Damn," John breathed.
Stacey put down her iPad and started crying. While Mary comforted her, there was a distant howling and John muttered something about aliens.
"Okay, okay, people. Relax. It's just a blackout, and I just heard wolves. I think we're close to the end," Richard said calmly, checking the fuel meter. "We're running on fumes, though. There was supposed to be a gas station up ahead, but Mr. GPS here thinks that we've run off the lane." Through the darkness, he started the car forward again, and was preparing to switch on the headlights when three things happened at once.
The air pressure plummeted dramatically. Mary's ears popped and it hurt; she felt as if she had jumped from the bottom of the ocean straight to the surface. Her parents groaned, John scrunched up his face, and Stacey cried harder. With another bang , every light in the tunnel flared back to life, making the entire family jump. Finally, appearing with the light were two growling, nightmarish wolves. They were almost the size of rhinos, with bright, glowing green eyes that sent chills up Mary's spine, though they bore an even scarier aspect: their ragged bodies were entirely composed of interconnected tree branches , some with leaves still attached.
The wolves charged and Alondra screamed.
"Dad! " John squawked. "Back up! Back up! Back up!"
Mary heard the tires screech as her father sent the Sienna speeding backwards, but they ran into another wooden wolf that had circled behind them. The back window shattered, and a bit of luggage spilled out. By now, the entire Palmer family was in hysterics, except for Richard; he scowled, shifted gears, and nearly crushed the gas pedal underneath his foot. Their minivan shrieked forth, and the two wolves charging towards them tried to stop in their mad run, but were hit anyway. There was a sickening crunch.
"Oh my God! " shouted Mary, sweating like a pig. "Did you just kill them?!"
Richard didn't answer. He kept driving, and Mary sensed a change in terrain; the road turned from smooth asphalt to dirt as they exited the tunnel and entered a dark forest.
"We're out," John breathed. "That was hell."
"What happened with the air pressure?" Mary asked, her question directed at no one in particular. She didn't get an answer.
"Daddy, can we go back?" Stacey asked, her voice timid.
"We can't. We don't have enough gas. I've got no idea where the next gas station is, and according to the GPS, we've gone right off a cliff. On the bright side... we've got cell phone service. "
"Actually... " John said apologetically, holding up his iPhone, "We don't."
"But what if more Timberwolves come back?" Stacey asked again.
Richard turned to look at Stacey, raising an eyebrow. "Timberwolves?"
"Yeah, they're from My Little Pony. When Starlight Glimmer tried to mess everything up..."
While her father and brother were busy puzzling over Stacey's words, Mary was observing their surroundings. Though she could have sworn that sunset would have held back for another hour, it was nighttime already. Then, as they drove on, the dark canopy above parted, and Mary gasped. The moon, which was supposed to a first-quarter moon that night, was now a huge, intense orb in the dark blue sky. Amid clouds that spiraled with dramatic perfection, the moon was also covered in three separate, pale colors: magenta, violet, and green. Etched from craters onto its surface, clearly visible from the ground, was the image of a unicorn's regal head.
"Daddy," Stacey said softly as their car rolled to a gentle stop, having exhausted its fuel supply. Through her window, she pointed to the moon. "This is The Cutie Re-Mark. "
Richard and his wife were staring at the moon now, baffled and transfixed.
"The what? "
An Extraterrestrial Night
Richard and John trekked tirelessly through the gloomy, twisted forest. Save for Mary, the Palmers had ignored Stacey's ridiculous claims and intended to wait until morning to send the two males of the family out to search for help, preferably in the form of a gas station. They had all slept in the car that night, but when the family awoke to find the huge, polychromatic moon still high in the night sky at 9:00, they sent the father-son duo out anyway. Now, John was shivering, and his breath was visible as he and his father made their way through the trail.
"Hey," he began grimly. "Do you think we're still in Brown Mountain?"
Richard scrunched up his eyebrows and pondered the question for a few seconds, then smiled halfheartedly. "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
"Too cheesy, Dad, too cheesy. Also... that stuff Stacey was talking about... you don't believe it, right?"
"I don't, but honestly, we'll never know for sure. So far, she's got the most reasonable explanation. She's got the only explanation."
"She's got the dumbest explanation."
"Keep your eyes peeled for castle, just in case," Richard said quietly, his eyes blank beneath the lenses of his bifocals. "Just in case."
They both froze as a faraway howl sounded. A few seconds later, two more followed.
"Funny to think," Richard mumbled, "that those wooden wolves howl at that. " He thrust his index finger to the strange moon above. Right on cue, there were more distant howls.
"Dad," John whispered. "What if that tunnel was a spaceship? You know all that crap about Brown Mountain and aliens. What if that tunnel was just a disguised spaceship or... something? This could all just be some alien setup, and the aliens got some stuff wrong, like the moon, and the time of day and night, you know? I... I... Well, don't look at me like that! It's way less ridiculous than Stacey's theory!"
"Don't snap yet, son."
A soft whimper began to sound. Coming from a particularly gnarled oak, it was enough to make Richard pause, adjust his glasses for the umpteenth time, and check behind the tree's trunk. He gasped at what he saw, and John scampered over to see his discovery.
"Oh, Jesus," John breathed. "Oh, Jesus Christ, God, Noah, Moses, Josiah, Mary—"
"Shh!" Richard whispered sharply. Before them was a tiny Timberwolf pup; comprised of twigs and green stems, it lay on its belly, covering its muzzle with wooden paws. Its eyes were large, pink orbs, aglow with a strange, animalistic sort of innocence.
John jabbed a finger in the air. "Don't you just love how weird life is sometimes?"
Reaching out to touch the small wolf, but then stopping himself, Richard changed his expression from one of arrant awe to one of worry. "This is amazing... but shouldn't it be in a pack?" he asked, turning towards his son. John was silent for a moment before mumbling something that sounded like an, "I guess". The wolf pup's whimpering turned to growling, and it attempted to bite its discoverer, but Richard yanked his hand back.
"Can we keep it?" John asked, smiling and raising his eyebrows jokingly.
"I don't know whether you're serious or not, but if you are, then no ," Richard said. "Absolutely not. We have priorities."
As if to defend John's want, the pup cocked its head, stood up, then began chasing its tail. It was then that the curly-haired teen decided to turn his question from ingenuine to genuine, asking, "Really—can we keep it?"
"So you're actually serious."
"I'd take care of it. I mean, you just said it's been abandoned by its pack."
"You're serious, you're serious, okay," Richard repeated quietly to himself, his palm at war with his forehead. Louder, he said, "And how do you know how to care for a wolf pup? An alien wolf pup that's literally made from twigs and leaves? What would you do when it gets bigger, stronger? What would you name it?! "
"How 'bout Blaire?"
"Blaire? And how do you know whether it's male or female?"
"That's why I'm naming it Blaire. Unisex name."
Richard sighed. "In that case, that's why you're naming ze Blaire, John. Ze. Or hir , or hirs , or hirself. "
"Grammar Nazi."
"You aren't taking the pup anyway," Richard said sharply. "Besides, it could have fleas."
"It's made of wood! Actual, literal wood!"
"John, leave it alone. We're going. It's cold out here, and we need to find a gas station as soon as we can."
His eyes were suddenly wild as John stared straight at his father, shivering in the frigid night weather. "A gas station? I'm... I'm sick of this! Where the hell are we going to find a gas station, Dad?! We just drove straight into a world where the nighttime never ends and killer alien wolves try to eat you! We've got no gas, no cell service! Where the hell are we going to find a freaking gas station?! "
Richard, his face pale, suddenly wasn't listening. The Timberwolf pup released another shrill whimper and dove behind a bush.
"Dad? Are you even listening to me?!"
"John, look behind you."
Slightly unnerved, John whirled around to see what was so apparently frightening. Sure enough, a cartoonishly-silhouetted figure stood about five meters away from him. It looked like a tall, potbellied woman with an otherwise thin torso, absolutely no arms or neck, and what appeared to be a huge pair of angelic wings sprouting from her lower back; her tapering legs were abnormally thick, and her head was enormously large, bearing a single horn, two catlike ears, and a gigantic mass of hair that rippled ceaselessly, even though there was no wind to speak of. But what had gotten to John most were her eyes—they were the only parts of the figure that weren't haunting black silhouettes. They were extremely, disproportionately large, with bright, glowing blue where the whites should have been, irises of a darker blue shade, and pupils that were thin, reptilian slits.
John gasped, and the figure dashed out of sight.
"You did just see what I saw, right?" John asked weakly.
"A winged unicorn?"
"I thought it was a mutant, armless, neckless pregnant woman."
Richard was too shocked to find John's statement humorous. "Stacey was right," he said, removing his glasses and wiping the lenses. "I think... we were just in the presence of Nightmare Moon."
John was preparing to counter this with the fact that neither of them had seen the figure clearly, what with the woods being evermore dark, and that it could have been a freaky extraterrestrial, when he heard leaves ruffle nearby.
"Dad?"
The ruffling drew nearer, and at a terrifyingly rapid rate.
Richard scrunched his eyebrows. "What in God's name—"
John heard all sound vanish as he was suddenly enveloped in cold. Everything became tinted in his vision, as if he were looking through a pale, fluorescent blue haze. He saw a bubble of sparkling blue energy materialize around Richard, and tried to shout, but everything was happening too fast; heavy metal chains were sharply wrapped around him and his father, pulled painfully tight. He could faintly discern barking, then wood being ripped apart. There was dark, sadistic laughter; it sounded like that of a demented woman, and was the last thing he heard before the world turned black.
* * *
Mary found herself on the brink of sleep when she was interrupted by a quiet comment from Stacey.
"Is Daddy back yet?" the young girl mumbled, having just woken up from a nap of her own.
"No, he's not," Mary replied grimly. "He and John'll find a gas station soon, though."
"But there is no gas station."
"We don't know that. Right, Mom?"
Alondra ran her hands through her dark hair, her feet up atop the dashboard. She gave a stressed sigh and said, "You're right, we don't. A station out here is unlikely, though, because then it wouldn't make sense that no one's heard about those... wolves." She turned around and stuck her head between the two front passenger seats, staring at her daughters. "You guys both know that I wish we didn't have to send them, right?"
"Why did we have to send them again?" Stacey asked softly.
"We need supplies, Stacey. Food and water. And help."
"But we have food and water," Stacey said. She wiped away the ghosts of tears from her eyes.
"I know that, but it's not enough to last us. I'm sorry, but I don't know when or how we'll get back." Alondra was beginning to wipe at her own dark eyes. "I just want to make sure that you guys know I hated sending your father and brother out there. You know that, right?"
"We get it, Mom," Mary murmured. "It was a life-and-death situation. Either thirst or starve to death, or send John and Dad to get help."
There was a short, melancholy silence between the three. It was a silence interrupted by a loud knock at window by the driver's seat. Mary's expression turned from one of sadness to one of ecstasy, and, thinking her father and brother had returned, leaned forwards, unlocked the driver's door, and threw it open.
What she saw was neither her father nor her brother.
Author's Note
"Ingenuine." I have no idea if this is a real, official word or not, but it exists, so I used it. Couldn't find a better word, anyway.
And, God, pacing is so hard.
An Extraterrestrial Night
Author's Note
Patently, Sas Trihoof was made on a PONY GENERATOR! He is technically the product of "generalzoi" on Deviantart. So I can't really take any credit for the art. But I had the idea for a Side-Angle-Side congruence postulate pony for a long time—randomness at its finest.
Sas Trihoof
Good... God..." was all that Alondra could presently say. An impossible creature stood right outside the car; Mary herself, who had actually considered the possibility of Stacey's story holding a bit of truth to it, could still not believe the exaggerated proportions, freakishly large eyes, green hair, and glowing horn of the stallion—if one could truthfully call it a stallion—standing in the open door. It grinned stupidly.
"Who are you?" Stacey inquired quietly.
The grin grew wider. "I had been preparing to ask the same question! Who are you , and what,"—the newcomer tapped on the cool metal of the minivan with his front hoof—"is this thing?"
There was no answer; Alondra had fainted. Mary felt like her world had gone from bizarre to utterly surreal. Stacey eventually piped up.
"Thisiz our Toyota..." the six-year-old explained. "It takes us all sorts of places."
"Did it take you here?"
"Yeah! But I don't like this place. It's scary. My Daddy and my brother went away to find a gas station, but they're not back yet. And I'm super sure that Equestria doesn't havva gas station."
Mary, ever-so-slightly trembling, leaned forward and looked their inconceivable visitor square in his bright, carrot-colored eyes. "Really," she murmured. She wore a lost expression. "Who are you?"
"Trihoof," he stated, almost proudly. "Sas Trihoof."
"Sass Tryhuff?" Stacey repeated.
"Well... Yes. Sas, as in the S.A.S congruence postulate; it states that if two planes and an angle of one triangle correspond with the two planes and angle of another triangle, then those two figures are congruent. That's what S.A.S is: Side-Angle-Side. It's a clever mathematical law, really. Oh, Celestia... I just love triangles!"
Mary had never felt more adrift. "Okay...? Please, Sas—er, Mr. Trihoof—Can you explain to us where we are? Why isn't the sun rising?"
"Well, you're in Equestria. Your younger companion seemed to know that," Sas said, his brows high. "Oh, and please—no Mr., no Trihoof. Simply Sas will suffice. Oh, and"—his horn suddenly flashed bright orange, as did his eyes— "I think it would be best to conceal ourselves."
A fiery bubble exploded from the stallion's glistering horn. It surrounded them all, crackling with hot energy. "Don't touch surface of this field," he added. "It'll burn you, but that's a fair price; it hides us from the view unwanted visitors."
"An invisibility spell?" Mary asked, trying her best not to focus too much on Sas's glowing eyes.
"More so one for camouflage. And if anyone runs into it by accident, well... They're getting burned, too. Badly, in fact."
"That's horrible!"
"As aforementioned—fair price! I'm amazed you all haven't been gobbled up by timberwolves. You also inquired about this cursed, never-ending gloom; that can be attributed to the Moon's damned "everlasting night" tomfoolery. Come out your... your Toyota . I'll elaborate."
Trying to ignore their unconscious mother, whose reaction Sas found to be rather amusing, Mary and her youthful sister exited their minivan; when faced with the front of the vehicle, Mary registered the damage. The grille was cracked and messy. The hood of the car had been pushed back at a slight, unnatural angle. Everything else boasted several small dents and bits of scratched paint; the car reminded Mary of a cocksure teenager, flaunting his black eye after winning a fight. The sturdy Sienna had acquired such damage by squashing a pair of vicious timberwolves, after all.
"Alright," Sas said, seating himself on the dirt. He sat like a dog would, which perturbed Mary; standing up and lying down were the only two positions she had ever associated with horses.
Then again, regular horses don't grow small green beards or obsess over triangles, either, she thought to herself.
Sas's wide grin faded as he began to recall past events before Mary and Stacey, who now sat atop the hood of the minivan. "It happened quite some time ago," he began. "Nightmare Moon returned from her thousand-year banishment. After quite a bit of work, she managed to blast Celestia straight to the moon. I could've sworn there was an obscure prophecy around Equestria somewhere, speaking of six friends who could have stopped it all, but alas..."
Mary did not need to ask why Nightmare Moon was banished; Stacey had explained it all to the family last... night? The young girl had explained the whole affair of eternal night as well, but Mary had found herself in dire need of confirmation.
"Without Celestia to ensure the arrival of daytime, things got bad. Very, very bad. The sun never rose again, obviously; timberwolves started to spread and attack, panic and crime ravaged Equestria, the Moon killed and imprisoned innocent ponies with impunity... all that fun stuff. After Celestia's defeat, one of the first things the Moon did was go after all the great wizards, alchemists, and mathematicians—like myself—for we were the only ones who could truly challenge her. She threw most of us in dungeons and sought to exploit our talents, with the intention of growing even more powerful. Those of us that remain free—also like myself—must always be on guard. That was part of the reason why I set up this camouflage spell. It's actually quite a complicated bit of magic; in learning it, I had utilize several complex mathematical operations, the majority of which required a deep and sophisticated understanding of... Triangles! Triangles and their related functions! Can you believe it?" Sas stared at his two listeners with wide, expectant eyes, whose radiant orange glow never dimmed.
"I... I don't..." Mary stammered. "I... I can... Okay?"
"My humble apologies!" Sas exclaimed. "I digress. Though the Moon hunts for the rest of my compeers and I, I must confess that I don't consider the entire point of her rule, per se, to be a bad thing. Eternal night isn't so dreadful. It's what comes with said night—panic, crime, death. And, of course, the Moon's iron fist." The white stallion's perpetual grin finally faded, if but for a moment. "Equestria's population has become an oppressed people. And even while I feel that something is wrong, that time was never supposed to take this course... I know that this is actuality. This is reality. I can't do anything about it, much like I can't do anything about the fact that a pair of triangles having all congruent corresponding angles fails to prove that the two triangles are congruent themselves. They might be similar, but never congruent. One might be tall, but the other will be shorter. One might be wide, but the other will be thinner. One might rule the world, but the other will be banished for a thousand years."
The three creatures sat in silence for a while, until Mary made a connection. It was a weak one, one that she could barely wrap her head around, but it existed, and she thought it was worth mentioning.
"One triangle might be tall," she said slowly, "but the other, whose angles are the same, could also be taller. One triangle might be wide, but the other... could be wider. One might rule—"
"Child," Sas interrupted quietly. "Celestia may be stronger than her dark counterpart, but Princess Luna was aided by the Elements. There's nothing anyone can do."
