Chapter 3: Unexpected

Write your sad times in sand, write your good times in stone.

• George Bernard Shaw

For a split second, like last time I was transferring from dream to dream, my world is dark. Then, when the second is over, I'm not inside Giant Pinkie anymore. I guess I'd passed the "test." Easy peasy, right? No. But I did it. In the new light, I'm fully expecting to see a black hole or something, but I'm in a meadow - a beautiful yellow meadow.

Then it changes so that I'm surrounded by red brick wall.

I gape. How can it change? That doesn't make sense. I didn't do anything. And besides, I kind of liked the meadow - at least more than I'll probably enjoy the next miniature nightmare.

And it changes again. I'm now in a prison-like building, staring out behind bars. I'm frustrated now. I want to shout that I want my money back, but I remember I never paid for this. I never asked, but I'm seemingly paying anyway, with my precious time, which is slowly wasting away. I realize my sunglasses are crooked, so I just take them off. The scene around me changes to the Everfree Forest. I sigh. It's probably going to change again.

But it doesn't change this time. The owls are out preying, and the night air is crisp and strong. I think I'm supposed to be here this time. Here I am, at the entrance to the forest... What am I supposed to do?

Well: I first obeyed Little Strongheart when I was told to do something ridiculous, then leaped willingly into the mouth of a Candy Monster. My task now must be to... Enter straight into the Everfree. The inch of smile I'd been trying to hold onto fades. Here I go. I hold my breath, shut my eyes and march in...

One. Two. Three. Four. It should have ended at two - something's wrong. I open my eyes. I'm in the Everfree Forest, but I haven't gone black and woken up yet. My eyes threaten to tear up. I'm supposed to be awake by now. Who am I kidding? I start crying, right there in the middle of the forest. Then I hear something, and my sobbing softens to a whimper, which fades to silence except for the voice of another pony, a stallion. It's familiar; why can't I place a name to this voice?

"Cry, cry, Vinyl Scratch," the stallion teases, very rudely if you ask me. I open my eyes, leaving some of my electric blue mane hanging in front of my face, in case my eyes are blotched from the tears. "Go home to your mother, little filly!"

I almost gasp, but I hold myself back. Timeturner. It's Dr. Whooves teasing me. Now I know my brain is frazzled. "What do you want?" I mumble, wanting to get this entire episode over with.

"I want you to know that you're nothing," this fake Timeturner howls in my face. Now his voice isn't his. It's raspy and scratchy, and I know it's not him. I hold desperately to the fact that this isn't the real him. Timeturner is my friend, and he wouldn't say this to anyone, much less somepony he's known since he and I were little foals, still in the elementary schoolhouse with Miss Cheerilee. This is practically impossible for a nice pony like him.

And then it hits me. I know how to get past him. I take in a breath and sigh, stand up in front of him. Love and tolerate. I wrap my hooves around the body of my friend, knowing that the spirit of another is inside him, and the world goes black for the third time.