Taken

The next morning, I wake up and look around me. I’m halfway sure that last night was just a really bad dream, that I’m going to get up and everything will be back to the way it was before. Sadly, I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, because everything is the same as it was last night. The house is the same, Twilight curled up on my chest is the same…

Everything is the same.

I smile again as I thought about how surprised I was to find Twilight sleeping on me. I’m not exactly the most comfortable body in the world, but it seemed like she had no problem whatsoever with sleeping on top of me. I didn’t mind, either; her fur was soft, so it wasn’t bothering me in the least.

My smile fades as I remember just what kind of predicament I’m in. I have no idea where I am, the fauna of wherever I’m at is most likely trying to kill me, and no matter how much I try to avoid thinking about it, we have no food. Which sucks, believe me.

I pick Twilight up gently and place her on the far end of the couch. She doesn’t stir at all; dead to the world, I guess. I stand and stretch, then walk slowly over to the window. The blinds are shut, which is odd; I don’t remember doing that last night. Then again, I was pretty tired, so it’s always possible that I just did it without thinking. It’s habit for me at my house; there’s a street light just outside my window and if I don’t close my blinds at night, the light streams right into my room and I can’t sleep at all. So maybe this was just me acting like I was still at my house.

At least I didn’t have a sleepwalking bout last night. Who knows what condition I’d have been in come morning?

I open the blinds so I can see outside. It looks lighter than it did last night, which at least tells me that there’s some sort of sun wherever we are. That’s about all the good news, though; dark clouds cover the sky in its entirety. It’s all very foreboding, like some giant storm is about to come and sweep us all away.

I sure as hell hope not.

I’m about to turn away, when motion catches my attention. I turn slightly to see what it is, but whatever it was is gone now. Suddenly, I get a feeling of dread, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Quickly I shut the blinds and walk back over to the couch, sitting down. Twilight still hasn’t woken up yet.

I sit for a moment, pondering what my next options are. I’m pretty sure I can’t stay here; what if the people who live here come back? Plus, we have no food, though we do have running water so at least we won’t die of thirst. Plus, as I am very quickly starting to realize, I know nothing at all about Twilight. What is she, where is she from, is she some kind of spy sent here to watch over me while I go through some sick and sadistic game like Jigsaw put his captors through in the Saw movies?

So many questions, not enough answers.

I know that Twilight already made a cursory exploration of the house last night, but I feel like I need to do it myself. Not because I don’t trust her, necessarily, but just because of my own curiosity. I’ve never been one to let other people tell me what something is like; if I want to know what it’s like, I’ll go out and experience it for myself.

The first room I check out is what appears to be the master bedroom. It’s got one king-sized bed in the center, with a few chests-of-drawers along the wall. Each of these is straddled by pairs of bookcases, all of which are filled to overflowing. Well, at least I know I won’t be getting bored for a little while.

There’s a door on the far side of the room, which upon further inspection leads into a walk-in closet. This in particular I think is cool; I’ve always loved walk-in closets. They’re so roomy and spacious; you never have to scrunch things up to make room for other things. My closet in my room is so tiny, I can’t even fit my clothes in there most times, and I own the bare minimum when it comes to my clothing. Something like this… it seems like a dream, almost.

There aren’t any clothes in the closet, just like Twilight said. There is another chest-of-drawers in there, though, and I open everything up to check them out. All that’s inside is one single letter, sealed in an envelope. I don’t want to open it for fear it’s someone’s personal mail, but then I see the back of the envelope has already been opened, so I don’t feel too bad about taking it out.

I start reading:

To my dearest Mateo,

I am truly sorry that you have to find out like this, but by the time you read this note I will be long gone. There is no reason why I should keep living, especially with how I treated you and Anamaria.

Please forgive me,

Your darling mother

Is this… a suicide note? Holy shit. I’ve read about these things all the time, but never have I ever actually held one in my hands and read it. Why would the mother want to kill herself? Did she not know how devastating it would be to Mateo and Anamaria, whoever they are?

I put it back in the envelope and place it back in the dresser. The last thing I need to do is worry about some woman who’s obviously dead and gone, and her kids who probably are six feet under themselves. Shaking my head to try to clear it, I search the rest of the closet and find nothing.

Going back into the main bedroom, I look in the other two chests-of-drawers. The first one has nothing in it at all, but the second one contains a book. It’s a weird-looking thing, with a blood-red front and back cover. It’s written in some language that I’ve never seen before, so I’m not even going to try to read it. Maybe Twilight has some idea of what the language is. She seems pretty intelligent.

Speaking of her, I should probably go check on her. I go into the living room to find her laying on the couch, awake; she’s laying like a cat lays when it curls up on someone’s lap.

“Good morning,” I say. “Did you sleep well?” Twilight nods. “Well enough. How about you?”

“Not bad,” I reply. “Hey, random question: how good are you with languages?” She looks at me oddly, but replies, “Depends on the language. Why?”

I tell her about the book I found in the chest of drawers, and how I can’t read it for the life of me, because I don’t think there’s even a language similar to it in my world. She looks at me oddly again, and I ask her what’s up.

“I just looked in that chest-of-drawers last night,” she responds, “and that book, whatever it is you’re talking about, was not in there when I looked in there.”

That is kind of weird. How can something that wasn’t there before, suddenly be there now? I’m pretty sure that no one snuck in last night to put it in there; either Twilight or I would have heard them come in. Though now that I think about it, Twilight did that make that rat-thing just disappear with… whatever she did, so wouldn’t it be possible to do the opposite- make something appear?

It almost makes my head hurt, thinking about it. I try to be rational in what I think about and how I approach situations. Problem is, nothing about this situation is rational at all. I ask her if she wants to see it, and she says she does. She hops down off the couch and walks in the room, me leading her. I take the book out of the drawer and lay it on the bed.

She takes one look at it and recoils. “What-? What are you doing with that thing?!”

I’m thoroughly confused right now. “Um… I take it you recognize the language?”

She nods. “That’s… that’s the language of the Changelings.” This means absolutely nothing to me, and I tell her as much.

She motions for me to come into the living room with her; she’s visibly shaking, so I can tell that whatever this is, it’s pretty serious. “I’ll tell you everything…” she says, barely above a whisper. This can’t be good.

I go into the living room and sit down on the couch; Twilight sits beside me and rests her chin on my knee. She’s still shaking, so I rest my hand gently on the small of her neck to try and calm her down a bit. Amazingly enough, it starts to work after a few minutes. Soon, she looks up at me and begins to explain things to me.

She starts with who the Changelings are: servants of an evil queen who calls herself Chrysalis. She tells me how these Changelings can change their physical appearance to look like another person in an individual’s group, thus making it so that no one can tell who is who at first glance. She explains that even though Changelings have no spoken language, aside from very basic grunts and growls, they have developed a simple written language, which is what the book is written in, according to her.

My first question, naturally, is why I have never heard of any of this stuff. She explains that as far as she knows, Chrysalis and the Changelings have never left her dimension, so she’s not surprised that I have no knowledge of any of this. Makes sense, so I move on and ask her if she can read it. She says she can, but it gives her chills every time she tries to do so. She says that she can translate the front cover without any issues, and that the title of it is, “A Dissertation on the Evils of Ponykind and How to Eradicate Their Presence from Equestria.”

That’s a really fucking long title, especially one that’s translated from something that’s only eight characters written. I don’t say this, though. What I do ask, is how something like this could have been brought from her world to this one. She looks at me, scared, and says that she knows that she didn’t bring it with her. To her kind, she explains, books of the Changelings are a corruptive influence, and rumors have it that if one pony reads the entirety of a book that is written by the Changelings, they turn into one themselves.

Holy shit.

I get up and start pacing. “What do these Changelings look like?” I ask. In response, she grabs a piece of paper and a pencil; putting the pencil in her mouth, she starts to erratically sketch, occasionally pausing to erase an errant line. In a minute, she flicks her head towards me, indicating she’s done and she wants me to see it.

As I get there, I look down at the paper. I can immediately tell two things: one, that Twilight is actually a pretty talented artist; and two, that these Changelings are some seriously ugly motherfuckers. They look very much demonic. Something catches my eye, and I look puzzled at Twilight. “You drew a whole bunch of them.”

She nods. “Changelings are never found going solo. They always travel in packs. That’s how they have the greatest advantage when they hunt.”

Her words strike me like a ton of bricks. “So these Changelings… what do they eat?”

“Meat,” was all she replied with.

Oh great. So not only can these things change their appearance to look like anyone they want to, basically, but now I find out too that these things are freaking carnivores? I ask Twilight if that thing that attacked us last night was a Changeling.

“No,” she replies. “I don’t know what that thing was. It wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen before, nor have I ever read about it in any of my studies.”

“You’re pretty well-read, though, aren’t you?” I ask.

She nods. “I was in the royal academy in Canterlot at one point, before Princess Celestia decided my studies would be better  applied if they took place in Ponyville.”

This makes no sense whatsoever to me, and I am about to brush it off, when the reality of what she said sinks in. “Wait… you’re not actually telling me that there are more of you… are you?”

Twilight looks at me oddly. “Of course, there are. More than anypony has bothered to count.”

This blows my mind. What kind of weird world did she come from? I know this is going to be a stupid question, but I ask it anyways: “Do they all look like you?”

I’m amazed when she laughs. It’s not a derisive laugh, but a genuine, I-find-this-funny kind of laugh. “No… thank the Powers. We come in an astounding variation of sizes and colors.”

I remember now that I was supposed to have been pacing; I’d forgotten completely about that. I walk over to the window. “So how do you defeat the Changelings?”

“Any way you can,” Twilight responds. “Just as long as they aren’t allowed to feed off you. They drain emotions primarily, but I have seen a rare few who consume flesh as well as soul. Those are the ones you need to watch out for the most.”

So she was serious when she was talking about the Changelings being carnivores. Great.

I stare out the window for a good two or three minutes before I notice something odd. “How long have we been awake?”

“Well I assume you got up before me,” Twilight answers, “but according to my biological clock, I’ve been awake for about two or three hours. Why?”

I point outside. “Because it’s already dark out.” Twilight has no idea what I’m talking about, so she walks up to the window and sees that yes indeed, it is dark outside already. “How…?” she asks in abject confusion.

“There has to be a logical explanation for this… Maybe we were just talking for the whole day, and we just didn’t notice the time fly.”

She smiles at me, as though remembering something. Was it her sleeping on me last night? Was it her resting her head on my arm? Something completely different? I can’t tell; I don’t read minds. In a moment, she snaps out of it. “I’m going to go to sleep, ok? If I need you during the night… I’ll come out again.” She walks away, leaving me by myself.

I sigh and go back to the couch, sitting down again. My stomach rumbles a little bit. I then realize that it couldn’t have been all day already; otherwise, my stomach would be making more noise than a Mack truck. I know this for a fact because it’s happened before; I’m not just talking out of my ass here.

I open up the icebox and take out a few ice cubes, putting them in a cup that I find in the cupboard. I go to sit back down, when I notice that the house has a back porch. Funny, I didn’t notice this at first, either. I get up to go look at it. It’s pretty spacious, with two padded benches for reclining. It looks very much inviting, and I reach out my hand to open the door and-

Wait. I pull my hand back at the last second. What the hell am I thinking? It’s freezing out there; if I go out there, what if I get sick and Twilight can’t come out to get me in time? It’s a long shot, I know, but it’s something I have to think about.

Suddenly, I hear a still small voice in the back of my mind: “Open the door… Come outside…”

Fuck. Now I’m hearing things. I shake my head to clear my mind. The voice only continues, though: “You can’t get me out of your head now… Your new friend opened you up to me…”

Now I know the voice is lying. Twilight wouldn’t use her... whatever she has, on me to open me up to evil influences… would she? The voice in my head was still now, but the desire to go outside was greater than ever. I figured what could it hurt, and reached out to open the door.

When I did so, I was surprised to be greeted by a pleasantly warm breeze. So apparently, it’s only deathly cold during the deep night-time; when it’s early on in the night, I guess it’s actually bearable to be outside. Good to know. I step outside and shut the door. Suddenly, I get a craving for a cigarette, which isn’t good at all. I quit smoking two years ago because neither me nor my mom could afford to keep buying them, and I thought I’d kicked the cravings for good. Now they’re back? Fuck.

I look around in what I think is a futile gesture, but it’s not! On the left bench, there sits an unopened pack of cigarettes- Marlboro Red 100s, aka Cowboy Killers. My favorite kind! But wait, what the hell are they doing here? Ah well…

I open the pack and fish one out. I fire it up with the lighter that’s conveniently placed next to the pack, and inhale deeply. God damn, that tastes good. I take a few more puffs before calming down a bit, then turning around and-

Oh. Oh, fuck. What the hell is this thing? This creature that I’m staring at is even uglier than the thing from last night. This one seems to be some kind of… chimera. Except not. It seems like each of its body parts was taken from a different creature. It definitely has wings; it wouldn’t be able to fly if it didn’t. This thing is scary as fuck.

It smiles at me. “Do you like my gift to you, my new friend?”

I’m almost speechless, but I manage to get one whispered word out. It’s more of a comment on the randomness of its body than anything else, but I’m soon to find out that I am more right than I could ever have imagined.

All I can say is… “Discord.”