Dreams pt 1

Vinyl walked through the snow, the horribly familiar air making her nauseous. The air was thick with smoke; a bright fire blazing just out of vision. The snow crunched softly underfoot as Vinyl moved forward, desperately holding back her lunch. She knew exactly where she was, and what this was. Sure, it was a dream.

That didn’t make things any better. Far from it.

She lowered her thick-rimmed glasses as she approached the house, the dark lenses shielding her eyes from the raging inferno that towered above her. She watched in horror as the house before her burned; a single tear trailing from underneath her glasses.

She watched the fire burn for what felt like hours, completely content to stare into the flames that consumed her dreams yet again. This was a dream that she frequently had; one that had haunted her since that fateful day. Many a night she found herself, tossing and turning; sleep eluding her.

She stared into the flames; a pathetic look sitting on her visage. A small noise came from somewhere to her left, alerting her that the dream was beginning to progress. She turned her gaze two the two dark forms that sat at the end of the drive; wincing slightly as they came closer to where she was standing. Another tear spilled from her eyes as the pair approached, dripping onto the snow below.

Vinyl stared at the mare in front of her; a spitting image of herself. In fact, it was herself, in a sense. Vinyl noted the crazy blue mane that hung down to her forehooves; the trademark hairstyle absent in this younger version of herself. She watched sadly as the younger Vinyl screamed; throwing open the door, completely against the loud warnings coming from behind her.

This was always the part that she wanted to wake up. This was always the part she wanted to forget. She watched as the younger Ink’s eyes grew wide; the light from the fire shining against his dark irises. A loud crash could be heard just out of view, causing the younger form of Ink to scream.

She didn’t need to turn and look. She knew exactly what had happened.

She did however, turn to follow her friend; once more wincing as he stopped in front of the collapsed door. She sighed slightly as she watched him try and raise the charring wood, only to gash himself on a part of the door frame. He tried to use magic, failing miserably in his attempts to clear a path. Vinyl found herself crying once more as she watched Ink turn to the window; her eyes growing wide as he stepped back.

The glass of the window shattered around Ink as he dove through, biting into him deeply as he found himself within the confines of the burning wreckage of his younger friend’s home. He ground his teeth; his magic enveloping the long shard of glass as it slowly slid from Ink’s side. Blood poured from the wound as he ran, his coat quickly growing stained. The young artist searched the ground floor of the house, a desperate attempt to find his friend.

The older Vinyl walked through the collapsed door frame; the laws of the natural world uneffective in this deepest of dreams. She stepped over a burning beam, quickly trying to follow Ink as he stormed up the stairs to the second story of the house. She felt the stairwell collapse behind her as she stepped onto the second floor; the carpet melting underhoof as she began to trot towards Ink.

She winced once more (something she found herself doing frequently in this dream), as she watched Ink throw his bloody side into a door, desperately trying to open it. He gritted his teeth; exhaustion via exsanguination. A sickening tone had dyed his pelt, blood and soot simultaneously marring his snow-white coat.

When at last Ink got the door open, he was horrified at the scene before him. A teenaged Vinyl sat atop the bed, nestled tightly between her slightly-charred parents. A peaceful look overtook her as she gazed down at Ink; wordlessly communicating her acceptance to her friend. She heard him scream as he tried to charge forward, never quite reaching the bed.

A crash.

A scream.

When Vinyl hopped down through the hole in her parent’s bedroom, she was met with the single most mortifying scene that had ever befallen her. There sat Ink, a large slat of twisted metal protruding from his torso. Vinyl watched the room go blurry as she wept; only slightly masking the macabre performance that was unfolding.

Vinyl heard him cough; a sticky, wet, sound following as blood started to slowly seep from the sides of his mouth. She saw his head turn slightly, slowly finding the place that the unconscious younger Vinyl had fallen. He choked down a scream of agony; his hooves barely finding grip on the blood-slickened steel. She watched in horror as he slowly tore the piece from his side, tossing it to the side with a clang.

Ink slowly stumbled over; head light and vision blurred from blood loss. He choked back the bile that had slowly built up in his throat, it easily washed down the river of blood he was now swallowing. Vinyl watched as he tried his damnedest not to throw up, frowning slightly as he heaved a crimson spray. He wiped his mouth, further staining his ashen coat.

When at last he made his way to Vinyl, Ink found himself unable to levitate her. He slowly slid underneath her; blood and soot transferring between the two coats. It was almost too much for him to bear as he slowly lifted Vinyl; his legs almost giving out numerous times. Ink’s head had long since gone dark, making him sure of only two things:

He needed to get Vinyl out....

And if he took too long, He’d bleed out, and they’d both die...

Ink gritted his teeth, slowly taking a few steps forward. They had landed just out of the entryway that Ink has busted in through, giving him a pretty good idea on how he was going to get the two of them out. He staggered once more towards the shattered window, ignoring the (almost literally) Blinding pain that was stemming from his side.

As fast as his semi-bloodless body could, he got the two of them perched on the window sill. Vinyl watched as Ink slowly slumped out of the window; her younger self in tow. She looked about the room, taking what she hoped would be her last look at the burning home. She slowly trotted to where the ceiling had collapsed, rummaging through the wreckage until she had found what she wanted: Her parents.

Vinyl choked back sobs as she stared down at the two badly-burnt bodies that were at her hooves. She could faintly make out details of her parents, making this grisly experience all the worse. She slowly lowered her head, finally ready to bring closure to the situation. When at last she found the nerve, she slowly began to speak...

“M-Mom...? D-Dad..? I... I’m sorry... I wasn’t there... And... You’re...”

Vinyl was weeping heavily as she spoke; her voice wavering and cracking as she said what she needed too. She took her glasses off, squinting slightly as her eyes adjusted to the intense light that was coming from the flames around her. She looked down at her parents; tears starting to drip on the charred ponies as she resumed her speech.

“I’m just so sorry... But I want you to know... I never gave up... My dream of becoming a world famous Dj? I’m... Still working on it... Here I am, almost six years later... And Mom..? I told him... I finally told Ink... Just... Like you said I should... And...”

Vinyl heard the building start to finally collapse around her, signaling to her that it was almost time to leave this wretched nightmare. She turned back to two of them, wiping her eyes as she recollected herself. For some reason, she didn’t think that they’d have wanted her to break down. For some reason... She just couldn’t bring herself to fall apart.

“I guess this means I have to go now... But... I just hope that I would’ve made you proud... And... You know I love you two, right..? I mean, wherever you are... I just want you to know... That... I’m alright... And that... I’m so grateful for what the two of you did...”

With that, Vinyl felt the upper floor start to collapse, giving her the proverbial “Last call!” to escape this wretched place. She turned around, looking back only once as she dove haphazardly through the broken window. Like something out of a bad action movie, she soared through the open space; the house literally crumbling mere centimeters behind her. What she saw in the snow shocked her; this being the one part of the dream she never made it too.

Ink sat in the snow next to the younger rendition of herself, softly stroking his bloody hoof through her disheveled mane. A sang a soft song, just too quiet for Vinyl to make out the words. He was holding his side; a slight wince on his face every few seconds as he applied pressure to the gaping wound. She slowly made her way around him, horrified by the scene before her.

A very gory Ink sat, looking out onto the street, still singing softly to himself. A small smile was etched onto his visage; his eyes pale and lifeless. She saw him cough up more blood, simply spitting it onto the ground beside him. She watched him look up; a slight chuckle escaping his lips.

Snow had begun to fall, small white flakes dancing around in the frigid air. Ink seemed mesmerised by the phenomena, looking quite like a filly who had just witnessed their first snowfall. He held out a bloody hoof, catching a few flakes, only to watch them melt and dissolve into the crimson liquid. He looked down at his side, sighing as the bleeding continued. He turned to look down at Vinyl, leaning close to her as he began to speak. It was little more than a whisper, but what Vinyl heard would change her for the rest of her life:

“Looks like... I don’t have much time left. But hey, at least it was fun, right? I mean, we had a lot of good times... Do you remember the one where you first brought that turntable home..? Goddesses, your pa was so pissed... And, do you recall...”

Ink found himself running out of air; a slow creeping of liquid slowly filling it’s place. His smile weakened as he lay atop her; blood slowly dripping down onto her mane. He slowly stopped his stroking; content that he had done enough. He slowly let out his final words, falling atop her in a lifeless fashion as she heard a faint whisper escape his lips.

“Hey Vinyl..? Did you know... That I love you..?”

Vinyl’s eyes snapped open; tears spilling down onto the stallion below. For a while, it was all she could do to not wake Ink with he sobbing. Eventually though, she started to calm down; something that was soon reversed.

As her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark room, she could faintly make out a thick line that ran just under Ink’s fur. ”That was where he was impaled..”, she thought to herself; tears running down her cheeks as she slowly ran her hoof over the mark. Thankfully, Ink’s thicker coat covered up the scar quite well, leaving it near-invisible to the eye. Vinyl traced it back and forth; tears spilling all the while from her crimson eyes.

When at last she was confident that the tears had subsided, Vinyl found herself much in need of a glass of water. Her sandpaper-lined throat burned horribly as she choked back sobs, leaving a raw feeling behind. She slowly pulled herself out of Ink’s grip, making sure not to wake the sleeping artist as she rose.

She looked down at him once before leaving, a worried frown on her face. An equally worried look sat upon his visage, half hidden behind his thick black hair. He squirmed a bit at the sudden lack of weight atop him, quickly finding another position. Vinyl simply shook her head, leaving Ink to his dreams. Her hooves echoed quietly along the floors of the hallway; deadening once she had reached the kitchen.

It took some time, but Ink finally came to. Hoof steps echoed off of tile floors; the sickly scent of sterilization hanging in the air. He couldn’t recall the events that succeeded the escape from Vinyl’s foalhood home, as the memories were lost in a hazy cloud in the back of his mind. He tried to focus, his eyes coming in and out of dilation as his body slowly shifted back into working order.

A soft knocking came from the door to the right side of his generic hospital room; the door opening shortly after. A mare stepped into the room, looking about slightly before settling on Ink. Her coat was a muted pink, almost white in the dim light of the late afternoon. Her mane, a two-tone lavender and white, was pulled into a neat bun; the nurse’s hat completing the “look” of a generic Manehatten nurse.

“Ah, so I see you’re awake! Good, good!”, she practically sang in an accent as thick as honey. It was a sweet and melodious voice; a fact completely lost on Ink. He tried to put a hoof to his head, instead finding it tied down and filled with all kinds of tubes.

The mare moved over to his Left side, a fresh IV drip bobbing up and down next to her as she trotted closer. She hummed a familiar tune; a haunting melody that Ink couldn’t quite hear, but knew he had heard before. He watched the mare (that he assumed was a nurse) fiddle with the drip, taking the old back down and replacing it with a fresh one.

Once she was satisfied that the IV was securely in place, she slowly trotted to the end of the bed. A small clipboard was pulled from the edge of the bed, and she began flipping through the four or five pages that were clipped to it. More than a few times, Ink found himself the subject of puzzling glances, leaving him unsure of how to react.

The Nurse replaced the clipboard, shaking her head slightly as she turned; tending to the machines and needles that Ink felt holding his life. The nurse muttered something that Ink couldn’t hear, rolling her eyes and flipping a few switches on a machine just out of view.

“You know, you’ve had quite a few visitors since you first got dropped here. You’re some kinda hero, ‘ya know?”. The nurse winked at him, shaking her head before returning to the end of his bed. “That makes ‘ya mighty popular with mares, I’ve noticed. ‘Sides the one stallion that showed up your second day, s’been nothin’ but mares.”

It was clear that she was going to continue talking, until she was interrupted by a loud knock at the door. Without hesitation, or waiting for an answer, the door was thrusted open. A large earth pony strutted through the open space; humming that same quiet melody. He wore a thick white lab coat, covering the majority of his chocolate brown fur.

“Goooooood morning sunshine!” the doctor sang out in a pleasing baritone. He turned to look at Ink; a grin that seemed almost too large for his face plastered across his visage. “Glad to see you’re on this side of the dirt, son! You were in a pretty bad way when they dragged your sorry flank in here, but thanks to the marvels of modern medical magic, we managed to patch you up as best we could... Still the matter of that giant hole that you walked in here with. We couldn’t right do much about that, so we just sewed it up. Gunna leave a nasty scar, yea... But hey, at least you’re alive, eh?”

The mile-a-minute pace that the doctor was rambling on in proved too much for the still disoriented Ink, who quickly tuned him out. Absentmindedly, Ink lifted the sheets to his hospital bed. He stared down, silently observing the long pink line that marred his right side. The stitchwork seemed fresh; the puffy pink skin seemingly stressed by the small blue sutures. Surprisingly, the wound didn’t hurt as much as he would’ve expected. In fact, he noticed that absolutely nothing hurt, a fact that he was mildly perplexed by.

The doctor seemed satisfied, eventually quieting down and giving Ink a second to “let things sink in”. Not that Ink was really paying attention anyways. He looked up at the doc, doing his best to act like he had been listening the entire time. He nodded in “agreement”, much to the apparent satisfaction of the doctor. Ink winced as the doctor laughed again, this time on his way out. The nurse slowly followed suit; giving Ink a once-over and a wink before trotting out and closing the door behind her.

Ink slouched back down into the hospital bed, pulling the thin covers higher. He wanted to sleep; wanted all of this to go away. He didn’t even remember what he had done to get stuck into this wretched hospital in the first place, let alone what in tartarus he had done to his side. His eyes grew heavy, only egged on further by the quiet beeping of the heart monitor, and the faint in-out sound of the machines to help him breathe.

Ink awoke with a start, a loud yelling somewhere outside of his hospital room shattering his medicated sleep. “Is it true?! Is he really awake?!” he could make out, in a voice that sounded a lot like Vinyl...

“Come onnnnn! Let me see Ink! Don’t be such a damn stooge, I have a lot to say to him!”

Yep. Definitely Vinyl.

The door was violently thrust open, making a loud crashing noise as it was practically kicked open. The sounds of multiple ponies yelling could be heard behind her, each one shouting something along the lines of “You shouldn’t go in there”. Vinyl laughed, kicking the door closed with her back hoof and using magic to lock the heavy deadbolt behind her.

Vinyl’s usual air of cockiness was absent, replaced instead by a heavy aura of sadness. Her foreleg length hair was likewise missing, a choppy bob taking it’s place instead. She peered at him from under her bangs; red eyes cutting deeply into his still-recovering psyche. As much as he wanted to, he found himself unable to look away.

Slowly, she trotted over to him; tears already welling along the sides of her crimson eyes. She silently stopped at his bedside, seemingly trying to find a way to lower the side rail. A minute or two later, Ink found a small grin on her face; something that was met with the quiet sound of the guard rail sliding to the side of the bed.

The bed complained softly as Vinyl slowly hefted her weight up next to Ink, whom had already moved over slightly. She curled around him, shuddering out a sigh into his collar. Choked out sobs could be heard from the mare below him, leaving Ink even more confused than before. Hesitantly, Ink pulled a hoof around the crying Vinyl; completely unsure of what to do next. He contemplated asking her what was wrong, but she spoke before he had the chance to take action.

“They’re... They’re gone, Ink... Ma and Pa... They’re...” Vinyl quietly cried, slightly muffled by Ink’s coat. “And... When they brought you in... They said that... You probably weren’t gunna make it... And... I just... I can’t lose you, Ink. Please don’t go anywhere... I’ve already lost so much... Please don’t let me lose you!”.

Ink sighed; trying his best to figure out what in the world the grieving mare was talking about. He slowly ran his hoof through Vinyl’s considerably shorter mane, trying his best to silently comfort his friend. She stiffened at his touch, shuddering softly for a considerable amount of time before she started to relax into him.

It was at that moment that they heard the door open, and a very familiar voice flowed through.

“Well gee, isn’t that cute?”