Incompertus Ego

I closed my binder and put my hand on my forehead. I was studying for the big test I was going to have, but I feel like that time spent was useless. I walk to my book bag and put my binder into it. Not even caring about the jeans and black tank top I was wearing, I turned off my light and jumped right into bed. The crescent moon on my necklace was irradiated by the moonlight coming from the window. My father found it at work and set it on his bureau in his room. I, for loving the celestial moon, took it and now I wear it, and never take it off. I grab it and hold it tightly. I turn over in my bed and close my eyes and wait for the sleep to come.

Suddenly I wake up when a flash of light illuminated a small circle around me. My body felt haggard like I was beaten. I realize that I was laying on a wooden floor that seemed to be ancient. I slowly get up and look about the room. Beyond the border of the small circle of light was darkness, nothing could be seen. I looked up and saw that the light above me was just a light bulb hanging off a cable.

I hear footsteps come toward me, but not the sound of human feet. The sound stopped at the edge of the light. A chill goes up my spine and when I try to run the other way the floor fell around the edge of light. A small walkway was left where the unknown person across the border could come over.

A dark purple unicorn mare with a curly dark mulberry mane and tail, unusual lime green eyes with snake-like pupils came into the light. Her horn looked distorted like crumbled aluminum foil. Her cutiemark was one of a glass filled with a red juice and three berries at the right side.

"I have been sent to take you somewhere else. Somewhere you belong. You're going to like where I am going to take you, Nox Eques," said the green eyed mare with a divine voice. I do not know why, but when she told me this I felt sudden trust being forced into me. When I looked into her green eyes they felt demonic, yet pleasing. She walked into the darkness and the sound of her hooves fade away. Then a line of lights turn on with a brown, rusty door at the end. The green eyed mare looks back at me and opens the door with her hoof. A sudden feeling of tainted trust covers me like a blanket. I slowly walk to the door with two walls of darkness on each side of me. The green eyed mare patiently waits. "Follow me. There's a small test for you," she says as she opens the door and walks into the hallway.

We walk through a long, squalid hall with bare, gray sheetrock walls and a wooden floor. The sound of hooves and footsteps tread the floor. We get to a white door with black crystals around it with a round, golden doorknob. She nudges my hand to the knob with her muzzle and I look down at her. I slowly touch the doorknob and I open the door. A bright wall of light comes from the door. I look down at the mare. "Go on," she says. I then breathe in cold, dusty air and walk into the bright light.

The next moment I am laying down on a hard wood floor again. I lay down for a few minutes thinking about what just happened. I wonder about the reality of this. If this is a realistic dream or a nightmare come to life. I get up with a ache in my head. I look around and see that I am in a hallway with bare white walls and a red door at the end of the hallway barricaded with wooden furniture and a white door on the right middle side of the hallway. I walk up to the white door and notice a note on it. I take the note off the door. "A key is required?" I say aloud to himself. I drop the note and I put my hand on the handle and jiggle it. The door was locked.

I then walk to the edge of the barricade. I notice pieces of nailed wood to the wall to the right of me. A small sliver of light was coming from beyond the boards. I look around the barricade for something to break the boards with. I pick up a small table and I put it off to the side. A dead human with his stomach torn open was under the table. I quickly look away in disgust. I pace in the hallway for a few minutes and look at the dead body again. I notice a rusty hammer in the dead man's hand. I try to hold in my puke as I grab the hammer off of the man's hand.

I put down the hammer beside me and I put the table over the body again. I then take the hammer and smash the boards on the wall and I put the hammer in my left pocket. The boards were blocking a hole that lead to a room. I climb into the hole and into the room. The light source was from a faint TV screen. A body was sitting in a yellow chair in front of the TV. I walk up to it and saw that the body had it's skin partly burned. I groan when I see a key connected to a necklace on the dead body. I slowly make my hand go toward the key. When I grab the key and a hand quickly grabs my wrist. I yell in horror and try to get free. The burned zombie slowly turns his head toward me. "My key," it said with it's deep voice. I look at my fist and sigh at what I was about to do. I punch the dead zombie in the face and the zombie lets go of my wrist. I still had the key in my hand and I rip the string off of the zombie's neck and run to the hole and climb into it.

I run to the white door and I stick the key into the slot and I turn my hand to the right. I look over to my left and I see that the zombie climbing out of the hole. I quickly open the door, get into the other side, and shut it. I look at the knob to see if I can lock it from the inside. The door had a double cylinder lock on the door so I turn the lock on the door and I finally feel relief. I sit down in front of the door trying to catch my breath.

Suddenly the middle of the door breaks off with the hand of the dead man trying to grab me. I dash into the hallway ahead of me. I take the hammer out of my pocket and smash the hand with it. The zombie groans and slips away. I put the hammer back in my left pocket and I look around for a bigger weapon.

The hallway was deep and dark with blue wallpapered walls and a creaky wooden floor. The only light that came into the hallway was from the two rooms on the side of hallway and the room at the end. I quickly get into the room on the left side of the hallway. The room was an old storage room filled with boxes. I search around the room for some sort of weapon. I pick up a few long boxes and I smile at what I see. Out of pure luck, I find a SVT-40 with two clips next to the gun and one clip already inside the gun. I take the clip out of the gun and I count the bullets as I take them out. Ten bullets in all. I put the bullets back in the clip and the clip back inside the gun. I put the two other clips in my right pocket and I cock the gun.

I walk out of the room and I see that the door is on the floor with the zombie standing up looking straight at me. The zombie starts to run towards me. I aim for the most important part to shoot, the head. My finger pulls the trigger and loud gunshot pierces my ears. It falls over with a bullet hole in it's head. I sigh in relief when I see it lay on the ground with no movement – dead. Sweat has already begun to drench my forehead.

I walk into the room across the storage room. A room with bare white walls and blue carpet had four of those partly burnt zombies sitting on a long, red leather couch and two brown leather chairs at the sides of the couch was before me. All of them sitting and watching the fire burn in the fireplace in front of them. They all turn their head and stare at me. "The key," they all said in their distorted voices. I aim the gun at one and I shoot, and I shoot another. Then I shoot the head of another. The last one sits there with a turned head with his mouth wide open. I aim directly at his head and I shoot him. They all lay motionless on the chairs.

I walk out of the room and I look at the end of the hallway. A rusty door, looking exactly like the one in the first hallway, was wide open to a voluminous dark room. The room looked like it went on for miles. I held tightly to my gun when I walked toward the door. When I entered the room the door slammed shut. I quickly looked back at the door and then back in front of me.  There was suddenly an army of burnt dead men, about ten feet away from me, wearing medieval knight armor.

They all started to march toward me. I start to shoot the army of zombies, but it was no use. None of them fell or even got injured. "Five, four, three, two, one," I counted as I shot at the army. I take out the clip, dropped it, and I reach into my right pocket and put a full clip in. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one," I counted again. I take out the empty clip and reached into my right pocket. I counted ten to two. The last bullet was going to be my last. The zombies were a arm's reach away to getting me. I aimed the cold, rusty barrel at my chin. I knew that once I pull the trigger, it is all over. I close my eyes and my finger slowly pulls the trigger.

Time felt slow. I thought of those good times I had when I was home. My mother, father, and sister. I felt sorry. Sorry for myself and the way it was to end. I realize that there was no gunshot and I still feel the cold barrel upon my chin. I open my eyes and see no zombies, and all I see is just the little light above me and the darkness ahead. I put the gun away from my chin and put the strap of the gun over my shoulder. The room was still voluminous as before. The light above me blinked a few times. I look back and saw that the door was gone. I then hear hoofsteps in front of me. The green eyed mare trotted out from the darkness and into the dull light.

"You have done well, Nox Eques. Now you must go to where you are needed," she said.

"What do you mean? Where the hell are you going to take me?"

"Those questions will be answered soon."

A light heliotrope aura covered her horn. A few feet behind her a white doorway with gray crystals around it came out of the ground. We stared at each other. Those eyes. They were so beautiful as no one ever had. They gleamed as the light gracefully touched them. They were so innocent, yet they were so evil. I take my gun off my shoulder and hold it with both arms. I walk to the door, and stop in front of the doorway. I turn around to face the mare. "Enter, a long awaited adventure awaits you," she said looking up to me. I suddenly point the rifle at her.

"What will this accomplish?" she asked.

"Tell me what the hell is beyond that door and what this 'adventure' is before I blow your head!"

"You won't do that. You know that if you do, you'll be stuck here forever."

"This is just a weird dream. I'll wake up sooner or later."

My finger pulls the trigger and the bullet comes zooming out of the rusty barrel. After the shot I holster my gun. I was dumbfounded. The bullet was floating in mid air right in front of her head. "I'm more than you think," said the mare. The aura faded and the bullet fell onto the wooden floor. I stood there in astonished. "You won't be needing that in where you are going," said the mare. The gun flew out of my hands. I then feel no choice, but to enter the door. I turn around to face the doorway and thought hard about this decision. If I went in only death could save me, but if I don't I'll die of wonder.

"This is your only chance to have something you deeply wanted. That one place of... peace," she said from behind. Flashbacks of my sadness was forced into my mind, yet when I was home I was happy. I felt confused. I knew I was happy, but these images of minor history of sadness seemed to enter my mind. I then come to a conclusion. I look at her and nod my head. I walk into the doorway, and no body came out the other side. She smirked as the doorway sunk into the ground. "Just as planned," she said.

My body felt deformed and cold. My eyes opened and I saw a forest of evergreen trees all around me with snow slowly falling to the ground. I roll over onto my back and put my hands on my head. I felt no hands, but two cold hard surfaces on both sides. I put my hands in front of my face and gasped when I saw what my hands truly were, they were hooves of a horse. I sat up like I would as a human and I look around to see myself and saw that my body was a body of a scrawny dark phthalo blue pony with a midnight blue tail and a royal blue highlight.

I got up standing like a human and fell flat on my stomach onto the cold snow. I looked straight ahead and noticed that my eyesight has gotten better then when I was a human. I blinked a few times and saw far ahead a frozen puddle next to a neatly folded green military jacket with a note on top. I crawl to the puddle and I see a reflection of my face. I have a head of a pony with dark green eyes and a mane with the same colors as my tail. I just lay there staring at myself playing around with my face to see if it was actually real. I then put my forehoof on the green jacket and drag it next to me. The sticky note had written words on it:

Your dream is fulfilled, as many more will come. I brought your favorite jacket from Earth and put a few coins inside the side pocket. This expedition will help you find your true self. If you loose faith, press the button on your neck

I look at my neck and saw what she was talking about. A necklace with a shiny chain and a metal cube with a dark red button on the side hanging off the chain was on my neck. I then saw the necklace my father found under it. I look up at the sky and I feel sorrow for the decision I had made. I push myself up and try to figure a way to sit as a pony. Once I figure it out I pick up my jacket with my hoof. I put one foreleg in one sleeve and put the other foreleg in the other sleeve. It was a little big on me, but it wasn't going to bother me much. I jiggle the pocket on the top middle left of the jacket with my hoof and I hear a jingle of coins. I look at the note and stare at it. This so called “dream” is not so much of a dream. It wasn't a nightmare either. I am stuck in the desert of the real.

"Hello?! Who's there?!" yelled a male's voice that seemed to have a Russian accent. When I heard that yell I heard a strange language that I never heard spoken. The words spoken had a English translation of them echoing in my mind. It was strange. I was confused, yet I understood what he was saying.

I looked in the direction of the yelling and I saw saddlebrown earth pony stallion with a sap green mane and tail. "You there, stay where you are!" he yelled as he

walked to me, "What are you doing out here, kid? It's a quarter to eight, shouldn't you be at home already?" asked the stallion.

"I don't know," said I. My eyes widened and I put my hoofs to my mouth like I just said something vulgar. I just spoke in the unfamiliar language like I actually knew what I was. He gave me a weird look and then rolled his eyes, "Follow me, kid. There's gotta be someone at the tavern who knows you."

"Alright..."

"By the way, kid, what's your name?"

"My name?,” I tried to remember what the green eyed mare said,”My name is Nox Eques."