Author's Note

Link to previous version of this fic.

PASSWORD: 123

Mistakes

The battalion crept over the craggy hill as the sun beat heavily down their heads. Bred for war, the soldiers did not falter. Scores of battles-hardened soldiers marched under the hot morning sun with past victories weighing heavily on their march.

"How could they do any less," John thought as he readied his weapon.

He turned his focus on the enemy, feverishly grasping for their weakness, thinking of a dozen contingencies, and weighing the probable results of his plan.

"So, their forces were all funneled to here, not surprising. They clearly don't know how many we number. We will crush them here. War doesn't forgive mistakes."

He stopped on a rocky hill, hiding among the greenery. Behind him was the growling and spitting of his followers; they were itching for a fight.

Distantly he felt his heart piston away, mixing with a present hungry need to rush the green bridges, to seize the enemy. Tear them apart. Piece by piece. He resisted the urge, and with a flash of will forced his comrades to do the same.

The foreign army surged in frenzy on the other side of a vast stream between them. Some would slip, falling into the current to be washed away. There they remained, just as hungry for their attack, a tremendous roving mass of black armor.

"Good. Just as planned."

He gave the signal.

The red army tore from the bush, slamming into the back of the black army's mass.

He waited for the black army to turn and be fully committed before sending his red ant forces pouring over the bridges, falling onto them.

And he joined in as well, grabbing, snapping, piercing.

Heads were served, legs crushed, and countless fell. Elation washed over him as the enemy mass was broken up and encircled in smaller pockets.

His heart swelled with euphoria, and he charged at the nearest enemy with abandon, sinking his jaws into their hide. He shook, trying to rip a chunk from them.

Suddenly, he felt a pincer on his leg. He scrambled as a far larger soldier dragged him through the line, tossing him to be surrounded by enemies. He struggled, but they gripped his flesh, tearing and rending as they wrenched his joints. There was nothing he could do, nothing-

John exhaled slowly, then followed with two quick breaths to focus his mind before splitting his focus into two. One focused on his heart, still beating fast; willing it to slow. While the second forced away discrations. Soon his mentalscape settled into a calm pool, letting him open his eyes and returning him to where he belonged.

The area was the backyard. The grass was green and long, the bushes overgrown. In one corner a small shed could be seen. Its doors were held shut by that grass. John sat on a cheap lawn chair as the warm morning sun fell on his face.

It was a small backyard meant for a growing family back when this suburb had been built. Now it belonged to him. The three back walls seemed taller at the moment, their stained wood giving almost a sense of privacy as he sat on his small mat.

Standing, he took a few steps across the backyard and looked down at the small stream from a hose and the two armies of ants, red and black.

And among the crowd of black, a single red ant was being ripped to shreds.

He stared at the ant, silent and unmoving. His eyes were unfocused and distant.

"John!"

John's head snapped to the fence where Mike stood. The old man with a white beard leaned over, coughing into his fist before looking back to grin at him.

"Mike, how have you been?" John smiled, stepping up to the fence.

"Fine! Fine. I've been worried about you, boy. How are you holding up?"

"I'm- I'm okay," John replied flatly.

"I see, 'okay' is better than 'fine,' I suppose." He coughed, which broke out into a hacking fit.

"You okay?" John asked, his brow furrowing slightly.

"Yeah, but we ain't talking about me," he replied.

John stood silent for a few moments looking away from him.

"I know."

"How about you and I have a game in the park? For your grandfather's sake."

John tensed up.

"That old coot wouldn't want you to hole up in his house."

John glared at Mike, who met his gaze steadily.

"I have an old chessboard. Analog and hand-carved." Mike grinned.

John frowned some more before smirking.

"A chess game. Really?"

"Hey, classics are the best." He laughed.

John sighed and shook his head.

"Yeah, you're right. I guess it's for the best. I'll see you there."

Mike nodded, his wrinkles creasing a little further as he turned away, waving.

”Why won’t you just leave me alone?” John thought.

"Good! See you at two then."

"Yeah, two it is."

John stomped back into his house, closing the door behind him. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he noted he had three hours before they agreed to meet.

"I got some time then," he thought aloud.

He went to a small back room in his house. Walking in he saw a small room lined with tables and just enough space for an office chair. All around, hanging on walls, were tools and small drawers filled with tiny gears, springs, and glassware.

Sitting at his desk, he swept over a short flat box and began carefully removing the parts of a watch.

The client was unsure why this 1875 watch had stopped working, and the original manufacturer no longer existed.

He began going over the parts, noting any issues he saw.

The glass face cracked as he turned the screw one too many times.
John slowly lowered the watch, a vein pulsing with his head as he clenched his fist.

"I will have to order a custom glass front for this one. The client will be furious."

Stepping from the room, he kicked a table leg.

Which promptly snapped off.

John stopped and looked at the now three-legged table, which was somehow still standing.

He sighed and walked to the door. Glancing at the clock, he noted that an hour had passed.

"I need a distraction or something," he mumbled, heading down the corridor to the kitchen before suddenly stopping.

Looking up, he stared at the drop stairs to the attic as his brow twisted into a frown.

"No. Not yet. Later." He looked away and continued to the kitchen but stopped again after realizing there was nothing he wanted.

For a moment, he considered ordering a pizza.

"If I order any more the delivery man is likely to think I'm into him." He snorted at the thought before sighing and looking at the front door. His hand shook slightly, and eyes watered. "I guess I could go out for lunch."

He took a moment to breathe and calm his mind through focus.

“Breath in, breath out. Focus on nothing

Then he stepped out of the door.

"If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -The Gulag Archipelago

The air smelled of tulips, tar, and floor cleaner.

Sitting in the restaurant, John closed his book, marking his place. He stared out the window at nothing, lost in his thoughts for a moment before shaking his head. As he left, he nodded to the restaurant owner, tossing his payment onto the counter.

"Good to see you, John."

"Likewise."

The sun was high and warm. A slight chilly wind carried the smell of newly cut grass, oil, and concrete. A strange mix was only found in these places that were a mix of town and city.

Not that John cared. The smells and warmth were only registered as a temperature deviation and an abnormal smell.

He felt the shift of clothes on his body. The pulse of his heart. His slight fever as his body temperature raised ever so slightly to combat the mildly chilly air.

People passed him, some absentmindedly, others furiously swiping at screens only they could see. Still, others looked trapped at the moment as the world roiled around them. Understandings slipped into his mind, windows into the people he passed. That one had a family member die, that one is a crook, that one is insecure. Mentally he pushed away from the knowledge, the constant stream of information that seemed to cut into every moment he was around others. They were like open books to him. One he would glance at only to see the words and have their vile ideas worm into his head.

John passed an alley, a man took note of him, and John of the man.

Maybe it was the way he turned away or the tension in his neck muscle, but John immediately knew what was on the man's mind.

And he couldn't afford to rest his mind anymore. Ignoring the flood of information that would bombard him every second. In a few seconds, he assessed a hundred factors. He noted the poor timing of people he had passed a moment before being too distant. The lack of cars meant no easy way to separate himself from the man. He assessed what he had in terms of weapons. Taking a fraction of a second to note that he regretted not bringing his firearm.

All this flashed through his mind in three steps before he made a decision.

John stopped walking and turned fully to look at the man, leaving his hand reached to his back waistband.

The man froze, startled at the sudden change of behavior. John watched as he took a moment to reformulate and reassess this target. Already seeing the conclusion that would be reached.

"Hey, uh, you got a few bucks, rider? I need some smokes."

John's eyes darkened. Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed his spare change and offered it to the man, who accepted, glancing down at John's waist and then back to his eyes.

John stared him down, his frown twisting into a scowl as the man mumbled something heading off.

"Damn man's fault for coming up on me like that," he thought. For a moment he wanted to just throw something at the back of his head, but John pushed that away. Turning, he took a moment to take a deep breath. In the nearby park were well-kept flowers and clean paths. Painted perspective warping backdrops and large knotted trees.

Exhaling slowly, he crossed the street into the park heading to his destination.

He found Mike waiting for him. A board was laid out for them to play made from granite. Bare wood pieces just screaming for some lacquer. Time wore them smooth.

John grabbed a white pawn and moved it two forward.

"So, how is that train I got you?"

"Boiler is a little cracked. I left the printer running last night to make a new one."

"Ah, of course. Are you going to use it on the main model line?"

"No, probably a countryside one. It's a very old model."

"True. True."

White pawn to C4. Black to C5

"So, how are the kids," John asked, his eyes playing over the board and quickly moving. D4 to D5. To which Mike Responded pawn to E6.

"Good. Thank you for asking. Makes me wonder if you plan to ever have any tikes running around."

"Probably not," John replied, moving the knight to C3.

Mike moved E6 to capture D5, to which John replied with his pawn sitting on C4.

Pawn to D6, pawn to E4, pawn to G6, pawn to F4.

Mike rubbed his eyebrow before looking up at John.

"John, life is hard. Even harder when you go it alone. The world is changing. Even faster now. Soon everyone will feel like old men. It's your kids that can keep you grounded."

"The world really is changing," John agreed. "So many places returned to the forest. It's just too expensive to live out there anymore. I looked into it. Not unless you can make your own power and water. It reminds me of something Thomas Edison said: 'We will make electric light so cheap that only the rich will be able to burn candles.'" John laughed. "Walkable cities, space habitats. It feels like the world has left us behind."

He looked over to a nearby table. Several boys huddled around a holographic rendition of Magic The Gathering being played. The newest models allowed for custom attack animations. So the games had become more about spectacle than anything. More artistic, the supporters said. Others said the core of the game was ruined by larpers. Cards became vaguer as kids layered on their own 'flavor' for any attack. Making their own themes and 'roleplay.' Local forums held long AI assisted dramatizations of their battles, alliances and backstories. Whole little virtual nations and kingdoms of little wizards playing out. John ruffled his nose at it. Card games lacked the fidelity of reality, even with cutting edge simulation.

"The world is at peace," Mike continued. "Well, no hot wars, at least. Everyone is too busy after the Great Collapse"

John's mouth thinned into a line as his eyes grew distant. Remembering the years of the second depression as a child and the pain of growing up before he shook the thoughts out of his head, forcing on a grin at his friend, "Why do you sound so melancholic, old man? You saw interesting times!"

"Hahaha, yes, they were. But that's all gone now, and you saw much of it too." He sat back, rubbing his left arm with a wince. "How old are you anyway?"

"I turned thirty this year," John replied.

"Thirty? Huh. Your grandfather was a marvel, wasn't he? That would mean you were born…twenty ten hmm?"

"Old coot was still running around at a hundred and twenty..." John said softly. "Said he'd never die."

The two sat quietly. The old man across soberly licked his lips. Looking at the board, "Despite all the advancements in healthcare we’ve made. Well, all men die." He moved a piece. John failed to take note before looking back up. “John, It ain't your fault what happened."

John was not listening. His eyes were staring off at one of the entrances of the park.

Following his gaze, John noted a young man grilling with his family. He seemed hunched over the grill, barely interacting with his wife who brought him a drink.

"… you'll have to talk to him eventually. Neither of you are going to leave town." The old man moved a piece again. "He’s still lookin' to talk to you about it."

"Not today," John mumbled, his hand shaking. "I got to go."

"Come on, John," Mike said. "You can't avoid him forever."

"I don't have to avoid him forever. I just have to avoid him till I die."

John slipped out and headed to another park exit, leaving Mike shaking his head behind him.

The door closing behind him felt like the sound of a thousand-pound weight clinking to the ground behind him. Rubbing his head, he went to the fridge and grabbed a lemonade. He briefly considered streaming a movie or diving into VR.

Slowly though his eyes raised down before shaking his head.

*Ring* *Ring*

John tensed at the sound.

Slowly sliding his phone out of his pocket, hoping against hope that it was a spam call. Only to audibly groan at who it was.

"Hello, Mom."

"Johny? Johny! How are you doing, dear? I haven't heard from you."

"Mom, it's John, please. I'm doing fine," he replied flatly, wanting to get this conversation over with as soon as possible.

"Have you been eating right?"

"Yes."

"You’ve been getting out of the house more, yes? The doctor said it would help."

"Yes," he lied, unsure of when he had last gone out before today. "I even just got back from the park."

"Oh, it's lovely there, isn't it? You should come after church on Sunday. The young adult group is having a get-together there."

"Mom, I haven't been to church in a year. Don't you think that would be a little awkward?"

"You'd meet wonderful people there and maybe even a girl?"

"Mom," John rumbled dangerously. "I told you not to mention women."

"Oh, dear, I know you lost her… lost them both. But it's been a year."

"I warned you," John cut in. "I'm hanging up now."

"Oh... well, okay, dear. Give what I said some thought. I don't want to be grandchildless forever."

"… I will," he relented reluctantly.

"Okay, bye-bye!"

"Goodbye Mom, love you."

John ended the call and inhaled deeply. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, mumbling under his breath. "She seems hyper today. Wonder if she's on the pills again."

He stomped down the hallway, kicking the broken table down the steps at the end, where he followed down.

Once there, he picked up the wood and tossed it into a scrap pile before surveying the room.

The large open basement had been converted into a train set platform. A few hundred hours of elbow grease and a few holoprojectors made for a detailed set.

Little people went about their lives on a weekly loop in real time. Little stories were woven into the whole place. Some peaceful days. Others of struggle and violent ends.

All of it was a backdrop for a set of physical trains. Models that he’d repaired and restored himself. The new ones were all plastic, clean and electric in the store. He preferred the ones with actual little steam engines.

Gas and coal trains were on the way out when he was born, but they still ran here. Refueling their small gas and coal engines on schedule from a centralized feeder, which would order more if running low.

He turned to a desk in the corner, where he saw the latest model. One a friend gave him.

But he didn't feel like working on it now.

Instead, he went to the central walkway and slipped on his wireless control band.

He found a character on a simple loop very quickly. There were thousands in the simulation, after all.

Slowly he began to adjust the character's schedule. Giving him an actual house. Fleshing out his work schedule.

Pulling up a chair, he started numbly at the previously empty house. The man materialized on the front lawn. A little family standing by him, but with a mental flick, the family was gone. John slowly worked on the guy's life.

He added a family for him at the beginning of the week. He would be bright and cheery, but on Wednesday, tragedy, his wife would drive their kids to a function, and something would happen. Something he still needed to work out.

All but one would be dead instantly, the man forced to resort to cremation to watch over the one hanging on rather than having a full burial ceremony. Friday, the last child would pass on. Leaving a broken man who would go home a mess and then and then.

John didn't want to think about them.

He ripped off the band. Hating his awful mood. With a tiss he cleared his changes. Leaving the small world he turned red-eyed to the stairs.

He left the basement trains running. He needed that drink.

A beer from the fridge and a book on new ocean steading occupied him for the next hour before that too proved to not settle his restlessness.

Until finally, he placed it down and stepped back to the hallway. A shiver ran up his spine as he stepped under the attic drop ladder.

Looking up, he considered again for the second time that day. And this time, he relented.

Trains, watches, and drinks would not cut it this time. He needed something more visceral. Something raw and real.

Pulling on the string, he locked down the ladder before climbing into space.

Boxes, old clothes, and collections from four lifetimes cluttered the area

John pushed past, heading to the building's edge. He grabbed a stack of boxes and pulled them away to reveal a cleared-out space.

A small cushion, books, shelves, and candles.

Around the space was a faraday cage with a door he climbed into and closed behind him.

He swallowed, looking around at the collection. Once again trembling but this time with excitement. An old vice feeding his kick once again.

It started when he was young. A palm reader had given his fortune. His mom had insisted, saying it would be fun. She and his dad argued about it for hours afterward. But the idea had fascinated him. That next birthday he went heavy into magic. He wanted it all.

At first, it was simple enough, a way to deal with anxiety and his home life, but soon it became more.

It became forums, then books, then practice. Then he learned to meditate, focus and clear his mind. The diligent practice allowed him to soon reach beyond the conscious and into the unconscious.

But soon, he hit a wall.

He could slow his heartbeat, raise his body temperature, and heal quicker. But there was a limit.

These things were commonly considered impossible. His family began to discourage his 'obsession' as they put it. He only moved it underground where it grew. Soon only one word was on his mind.

Magic.

He found contacts. Spoke to mystics. Purchased books. Dove into the deepest parts of the net. He worked summer jobs to travel to forgotten holes.

Around him was the culmination of years of work and hundreds of hours of practice. All in the pursuit of magic.

Only for it all to amount to nothing.

Every psychic he met was the same: a fake. Every book of ancient magic could be disregarded or was clearly devil worship. Even the ones that said they were copies from older texts amounted to nothing.

Soon he had grown disillusioned.

Sure, he could have looked into demon worship, but even being on bad terms with God, that seemed beyond foolish. Nothing he would accept. It was just slavery.

That was until he made a hit.

An old book collection, purchased by a New York busybody in the eighteen hundreds, had gone up for sale. He had apparently been very interested in ancient European occult. So, of course, each book sold like hotcakes.

Most of it he had read before, but one book, labeled 'mental phantasm, a practical application' intrigued him. The auction curators listed it as fantasy, but he could not find such a fantasy book on record. Nor a copy of the said book anywhere.

It had cost him twelve grand, but it was a price he was all too willing to pay. It was small, next to the hours and hours it took him to translate, ultimately stretching out to a year, but the rewards were immeasurable.

The book claims to be a summation of several disciplines and their blending. It took from European alchemy, Chinese cultivation, Irish folklore, and Buddhist meditation. It spoke of the mind being like an anvil for the spirit. The hammer that could forge itself.

What it spoke of followed what he already knew but then went beyond. It required drinking concoctions most foul and tittering on madness, but he eventually broke through to something incredible.

John opened the book. Hand trembling as he did.

He had sworn off this book. Its contents had brought him what he craved, but it was dangerous.

A week before, he had lost feeling in his arm for days as his soul had been wrenched unnaturally. He had vivid dreams now. Ones far too real. More real than anything else in his life.

Still, it was like nothing else.

Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply and reached out.

His mind expanded to the edge of his skin, then beyond.

He focused, rereading the line.

This section promised him that he would be able to astraly project. To spiritually leave his body and not die.

The concept thrilled him as much as it filled him with dread.

He focused, and then.

He could feel it. His soul detached, his mind opened, and he could see himself… and nothing else.

Frowning, he realized he needed to calm down. Quickly he left the small corner, went back downstairs, and then to his backyard.

Sitting, he meditated there, letting himself mellow out. Expanding his mind as he sat cross-legged in the grass.

The worries and troubles of his life were pushed away, and after a minute, he reached out.

And saw himself.

And the grass, the ants. John soared above, marveling at the sights around him.

The world was filled with life, and he could feel it all. A sense of awe sunk into him.

He saw the small thin line leading from himself back to his body which seemed to be sweating suddenly.

This filled him with concern, but something caught his attention before he could.

Across the fence, he saw Mike tending to his garden, but Mike was not bright and vibrant like most of the world.

As John watched, Mike's light began to fade.

It was over before he really could process it.

Mike had fallen over. He was hacking and coughing crazily. Harder than anyone John had seen. Anyone should. Then he wasn't doing anything at all.

John watched as Mike's soul left his body.

Shocked, he instinctively followed the clump of soul stuff as it went 'up.' There, a small aperture opened, and the soul passed through.

Seeing this, something in him cried out against it, so he rushed after grasping for the soul, only for it to slip between his ethereal fingers.

It was then that things went from bad to worse.

The hole began to suck him in.

John struggled. Trying to pull himself away and back to his body, he grabbed the little string connecting them. He watched as his body began to convulse and as he struggled for more strength.

He watched as his body fell over and died. His heart ripped itself to pieces in a matter of moments.

And John fell into the hole.

Time had little meaning here.

John needed to find out how long he had moved or when he had stopped panicking.

But years of practice helped him stay in the moment. He could feel his mind trying to unravel to slip into a state of dreams. He forced himself to focus, instinctually grabbing for some reality you would find before waking.

But there was no reality to find. Only the swirling dreams threaten to seal him into a moment or cause him to grasp some stimuli of his memories in the nothing.

The sense of sight, taste, sounds, of his tongue and spit, the hot blood running through his veins. All of it was gone leaving only his frothing emotions to anchor what was him.

Stretching out, he could perceive hundreds or millions of souls around him. A few struggled, but the vast majority seemed to be drifting listlessly down their own streams. Like jellyfish or a plastic bag on a soft wind.

And down his stream, he saw the light, so bright he could not guess if it was the gates of Heaven or the pit of Hell.

As his desire to sleep was beaten back, his mind began to rebel. His emotions and dread of facing what he deserved led to open revolts.

Panic threatened to overwhelm him. It screamed to blot out everything but itself. But John was not untrained. With a twist of thought, he cut that part off and sealed it away. Letting it scream in a small corner all its own.

Curiosity reared next. Pulling him to look into the enamoring light. Somehow he knew that desire was a one-way path to an end he didn't know if he wanted, no matter which gate he would end up facing. So that, too, was put away.

Then, what was left was dread. Creeping into his every crevice, it was the strongest of all. This, though, was his oldest foe. One he could keep at bay.

His mind flicked down to the string. He knew now what it was, not only the connection to his body but to the very anchors of his soul. And in his desperation, he had yanked his not-so-well-anchored soul and the large chunk of his strength out with it.

So unlike all the other spirits. He had some fight left.

He wrapped that string around him like a spring. Unwilling to go to the light, he pounced.

And left the stream behind.

He floated for beyond time. Beyond understanding.

He was moving in the way he had come from, but nothing seemed the same. Everything was shifting at every moment, and with no reference. He quickly became disoriented.

Around him, he sensed the feeling of waking but not to reality.

Here the current wasn't smooth. It buffeted him. Pulling at him. He was forced to hold himself together, eating into the little life he had left.

Soon John feared he would become nothing.

Desperate, he looked for anything in the void and found only the places of waking. Dreams that were like reality or, perhaps, all reality that had ever been was a dream. He was unsure.

Still, he knew he wouldn't survive.

One dream stood out to him. It pulsed with ominous energy, but like many others, he could feel something of what he knew there.

He made his choice.

And suddenly, he was awake and tumbling.

The air was freezing colder than anything he had ever known. But there was a place of warmth. In a matter of moments he had traveled there.

And nearly cried in joy.

Life.

This place had life.

But it was also a terrible place.

If the place before was a buffeting stream, this one was like a grinding wheel.

Something foreign flew through the air. Something he knew nothing about. Earth was full of motes of light, but the same space here seemed to burn with power.

He didn't have long. The energy of the place was pulling him apart, clawing into his mind.

But then suddenly, something changed. He felt himself be carried to a nearby place, and there, a body.

Everything in this world was like a miasmic fog, but somehow he had been led to this place. Something was trying to pull his mind away back to the light, to death. To rip out his very soul. But he wouldn't allow it. With a last burst of strength, he thrust down into the body. Twisting his soul into the strange anchors he found there. Forcing himself to fit this square peg into a round hole.

The lines of energy all around twisted and snapped. The energy flowed down into him. Feeling him up and wrapping around him. He felt the body shiver.

He felt flesh again, which caused a rush of euphoria through his new cortex. Only to clench as he felt no heartbeat.

This body was beyond weak. At first, he thought it was on the brink of death, but the feeling was wrong. Around this space was what he could only call the ghost of life. Not a soul. But the possibility of it. His entrance into it was like a sponge into water. It flowed and mixed with his soul, almost immediately becoming part of himself.

Soon it would be dead, and John knew he would be with it. He had no energy left to resist. His mind was too much for the flesh containing it.

Hoping he wasn't lost forever, he slowly unclenched his will feeling his mind unspool, pain slowly beginning to obliterate his thinking.

Fire roared deep in his new brain. Every nerve in the skull felt like it was being wrenched in a different direction. He felt the energy that had wrapped around him had flooded in. Then it flowed down his spine.

And there was pain.

Warmth, pressure. A swirl of unfamiliar energy swept around him. What had burned now felt like a gentle lapping.

John reveled in the sensations of life. His tiny limbs brushed over what he thought of as a horn.

He kicked, making the whole world shake.

Some understanding formed on the edge of his mind. Some obvious truth screamed at him. Something about this place.

But he wasn't concerned. He just breathed the comforting liquid as he had for an unmeasured amount of time.

Pain, though, had brought him to the present.

He focused. Barely able to pull thoughts together, he resorted to slowing down. Carefully building them one at a time. Weaving the disparate parts of himself into the vessel. He didn’t know how he was doing it or even what he was doing.

After what was perhaps hours, he realized the problem.

"I'm dying. This body cannot support me…"

The thought felt strange, but he ignored that. Deciding instead of focusing on the vessel.

He felt the parts he had absorbed in his soul. Some parts were simply now a part of him, and others were like growths in strange shapes.

This thought led to a problem. He felt his now existent little heart flutter with the effort to think of anything.

For a moment, he considered just cutting off parts of himself and sending them away, but began rebelling against the idea.

So he decided the only option was to make the vessel bigger.

He didn't know what that strange energy was that filled his being, but he would need it to have even a chance. So he reached out and pulled it in.

The burning returned.

He was colder now, but still warm.

He did his best, but something seemed to take over for him. His crude attempts had become augmented, by some pattern greater than he could possibly understand.

His back began to hurt. Like two hot brands laid down its length.

And he was spent; darkness claimed him.

"Oh God, I'm sorry, Maria.."

Slowly his thoughts unwound, leaving him only in the moment, calm and warm.

"I'm in a womb," the thought came as a rush.

Groggy, his mind came out of the fog again, his whole body sore. He choked on fluid. His situation suddenly shifted to torture.

After calming down and crying for some time, John collected himself.

He knew he had a body now. A much better situation than before, and his soul was FIRMLY attached. Extracting it now would kill him. Permanently. With no energy but to drift down the stream to the light.

"Why can't I feel my fingers? Why is my arm so thick?" he thought in this moment of clarity.

Feeling along his arm, he came to a startling realization. He wasn't human. And that something he had was hooves.

"Oh no."

He took his hoof and moved it to his face. It was jutting out, reminding him of a horse snout. Then his hoof bumped something on his forehead. It was smooth and long. A cone-shaped horn.

"What the? I have a horn on my head, four legs, and a large snout. So I am some kind of unicorn. Well, that is interesting."

Instantly his mind was filled with images of a land filled with dancing flowers and chocolate waterfalls, where everything smiled obliviously at everything that happened.

"Oh. Fuck. No. This is hell. I've died, and God has sent me to a personal Hell."

He shivered and kicked a little.

The isolation in the dark was getting to him already. He could barely fit in the pouch. Still, whatever he seemed to be, it was something far along in its gestation cycle.

He took a moment to assess what he could remember. He realized it was basically nothing. He had no short term memory. Even the last moments were slipping into a black void. He fought to remember. His head hurt.

The walls around him began to convulse and massage his whole body, pushing him to one side.

He panicked before realizing what was happening and surrendered to the coming struggle.

"Okay honey, push!" Stone gripped Sunnyfields hoof, only looking up occasionally as he checked to ensure the child was oriented correctly. His fear turned to elation as he confirmed a living foal was coming.

Sunny was pregnant for thirteen months, two more than usual. She had grown larger and needed to eat more.

He had almost packed her into the cart and taken her to the nearest city of Vanhoover.

They lived in a tiny town north of the city. One gripped by cold and isolation.

Perhaps a hundred families called the entire region home. Their small grouping of about five farms huddled a spring that was too shallow for navigation.

It was an Earth pony town and, therefore, full of tradition.

Yet, doing this was a more ancient tradition than these ponies respected, even though the Stronghoofs were new to the town.

Stone Stronghoof had taken his wife's name on their marriage, as was her family's tradition.

Most of the year, the town couldn't get to the city. Her insistence meant he had been forced to wait until after winter cleared. Timing had once again been against him, so his wife must endure.

"AH! *Gasp* Oh, I am, dearie. This only gets a little easier each time."

He knew that this would probably be their last pregnancy. His son was one of the two pegasi who lived in the town. His two daughters, one Earth pony and the other a pegasi, spent their days weaving clothes to trade with other families in this cold north. They were getting old.

Now he was only a few seconds away from seeing what his youngest would be. He smiled and reached down to pull his child out of the womb. His eyes widened, and there was a horn on its head. Something he had begun to wonder if it would ever occur.

"You're doing great, honey. I can see the head. It's a unicorn!" he exclaimed as the child finally emerged.

"OH! DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT! I JUST PUSHED IT OUT!" She laughed roughly, sweat pouring off of her.

Her husband laughed in return but stopped suddenly.

Stone was staring at their son. His hooves cut the umbilical cord almost as an afterthought. Turning him over to confirm what he saw, the father did not breathe, even as his hoof smacked the colt's bottom and made it cry.

On the young colt's back was a pair of wings. The stallion turned him back over and pulled off the protective coating over his horn before he picked up the foal, turned around, and placed him on the nearby table.

Using the cotton cloth there, he began to clean the child and taking a knife cut away his covers.

"I was wrong, it seems… he's a pegacorn."

"A pegacorn?" the wife asked as she slid up to clean herself. "Is the horn his primary?"

Stone could hear the excitement in his wife's voice. None of their children had been a unicorn; he knew she had wished for that.

He ran his hoof down the horn, feeling the static charge on his Earth pony hooves.

Stone smiled, knowing that magic ran through the horn. His wife would have someone to teach a little.

Next, though, he moved to carefully examine the wings.

Depending on their atrophy, they could be debilitating. He may even have to pay in Vancouver to remove them to save the foals' life.

The colt continued to cry as Stone stretched out his wings, only to frown.

He felt a slight breeze as he spread the primaries.

Lifting them up, he held one still about a foot from a nearby candle.

His eyes widened as the flame slipped into the horizontal line.

"…Amazing. He has dominant wings AND horn."

"Really?" Sunny replied incredulously. Trotting up to his side.

She picked up the foal. Performing the same test with the wing before brushing back her own hair.

There was a brown flat of a horn, calloused over from long ago.

Leaning down, she touched her horn to his.

"You're right!" she exclaimed before suddenly frowning. "But that's impossible, unless."

She looked at her husband. A small glimmer of fear entered her eye.

"Check his hooves."

"Sunny," Stone whispered, hugging his wife. A growing horror in her eyes.

"Please, Stone. You would know better."

Stone stood still for a moment before reaching to pull over a small empty pot of dirt. He took the little hoof and placed it in, his eyes staring intently. After a few moments, a tiny green stalk broke the ground's surface.

"An alicorn," Stone whispered.

The baby alicorn wailed as the two ponies wiped his bone-white mane and tail. His pitch-black hooves were kicking into the air.

Once clean, she cooed, watching him until his deep emerald blue eyes opened.

"He's beautiful… Stone, what are we going to do? If Celestia finds out." She sniffed, eyes watering

"I don't know, buttercup, but I do know this, we have to keep this in the family. The queen would not want the competition. She would take him away, or worse."

"After coming so far. We, we–" The mare broke out into tears.

"There there, dear. We are safe. Far away from her. We can raise him with peace and love."

"You're-you're right. I just-” She swallowed back, her sob controlling herself. “I'm afraid."

He frowned a moment before leaning in close to kiss her.

"We've been through worse. If we do it together. Herridon is far away. Now, come on, he needs to suckle."

The newborn was not happy. He was freezing, his backside had been savagely beaten, and now this lady was pushing him against a teat. Hunger overrode any other need.

"What about a name?" asked Sunny Fields.

Stone seemed to consider for a time before

"It's too grand for a normal pony, but he is ment for grand things." Stone placed his hoof on the young child's head. "I name you Mordane Stronghoof."

"Yes," she whispered, looking at the little suckling alicorn. "A good name. A strong name."

Nuzzling close, the two sat quietly as they contemplated the future.