Author's Note
This is my first attempt at making a horror narrative within a time limit and word limit. Let me know how I can strengthen this practice into a skill!
Insomnia colt
The laughter of children can always be heard by Cheerlie’s schoolhouse on any busy day, morning or afternoon. It's the characteristic that defines Ponyville’s healthy and joyous young. However, there was one who would play the hardest and be the loudest amongst the Ponyville youth and its my darling son Fun Shine.
Fun Shine is like any of his classmates. He has the brightest smile and the strongest personality for having friends. Everywhere you ask in the neighborhood that involves my son, it normally has a positive ending. He would help his classmates with class assignments and feed the class pet.
I stand outside of his class ready to take him home. The bell ring screams out, signaling the end of class for the youngsters. One by one they come pouring out, but none of them are my Fun Shine. I peek inside to see my son snoring cutely on his desk as Cheerlie looks over to me and smiles. I smile back and make my way over to Fun Shine.
“Wakey Wakey mommy’s baby~” I said as I rub his scruffy purple mane. Fun shakes his head a bit and gets up looking at me groggy. He looks around as if he was still in class.
“Who wa??! Oh sorry mom.. I must have dozed off” He said remorsefully as he looked at me. I smiled a bit at his apprehension. He is one of the most diligent in classes so it is a bit uncharacteristic for him to be asleep. I just pat him on the head and nodding my head in it being alright. I looked at Cheerilee and said “I promise to give him some more sleep tonight.”
After that day, Fun Shine have been acting a bit strange. Stranger than I could have admitted. I thought it was just me or him having too much sugar, but lately I have noticed Fun Shine staying up later in the night time. His normal bedtime is around 10 pm, but I would catch him walking around the house at 1 or 3 in the morning. He would be pacing back and forth in the hallways of over home, he would be staring at his bed from outside of his room, and he would eat all of my homemade sugar cookies. When I sat him down and asked him what’s wrong and why he is up at such odd hours of the night, Fun Shine would say “A bad dream” or “I have trouble sleeping.” This carried on for a full week.
I am sitting with Fun Shine in the Doctor’s office to see if there’s anything serious involving my son. Fun Shine looks horrible sitting next to me: Hair matted and out of place, bags underneath his eyes, and lines crossing his face as if he has gained a few years on his body. I was worried for him. He didn’t look anything like he did a few weeks ago.
“Fun Shine and Sun Flicker!!” I hear the nurse call out to us.
“Come Fun Shine. The doctor is gonna see you now” I said as I grabbed his hoof with mine and led him. I never liked going to the doctor’s office, it always had the smell of death and gravely ill in it. Bad omens all around, but it also stands as the pinnacle of health. I walk to the office of Doctor Shanks and he gives us a wide smile.
“What could be the problem today?” Dr. Shanks asked
“My son Fun Shine is having trouble sleep sir, he has been getting lines across his face like he’s aging, he hasn’t been as active with his classmates as before, he is losing, coordination and he has been staying up all night” I said to the doctor as he nodded in agreement. He wipes out a popsicle stick and proceeds to walk towards my son.
“Alright Fun! Say ah!” The doctor directed my son. Fun Shine wasn’t responsive at first, but he slowly opened his mouth. By slowly, I mean slowly. Each second, his mouth opens by an inch. I looked at the sight in worry and anxiety. What could be the reason behind this behavior. Finally after a long torturous moment, Fun’s mouth is fully opened and the doctor proceeded with the examination.
“Hmm let’s see… there is some inflammation here but… that’s odd..” The doctor said as he kept looking inside my son’s mouth. I look at worry.
“How can this be? How-” A split second later the doctor screamed in an a cry of anguish. The grown stallion yelling as if he is a school filly. I looked at these hysterical antics with extreme worry and distaste. What is so wrong that he would react in such a childish way? The nurses came rushing in and tried to sooth the doctor from this scene. All the doctor said was “Uvula! Uvula!” in a mad rage. From then they prescribed my son on sleep pills but the effect was minimal.
Now after 2 months of no progress and his insomnia growing worse, Fun Shine is now in a coma due to this unknown ailment. Empty wishes and bills for his treatments is all I receive these days now in the mail. The sight is so tragic for me and these days I find myself drinking hard ale.
I check up on him everyday though. I make sure his hooves are warm and he is on the right liquid diet. This is a sight no parent should ever see on their child and now shifting into month 4 of his ailments, I see no viable medical option left for my boy. He’s just anchored to a self care machine in his room.
A strange curiosity captured me however when the doctor at the office looked inside my son’s mouth. What was wrong with his uvula? Curious and grasping for any answer to stop my son’s insomnia, I went over to his bedside. Bottle of Colt ‘45 in my hoof I gently opened my son’s mouth to look at what the doctor mentioned of what was so odd of my son’s uvula. When I looked at the unknown and mashed up madness of my son’s mouth I screamed myself into a frenzy. I ran out of the room and sobbed myself mad when the image of a structure foreign to the minds of ponies formed in my head. It was not natural.. It can’t be…. I feel my mind grow sleepy from the sight and before I fall asleep, I drank myself cold. Unable to forget the horror of my insomnia colt’s mouth.
