“Nice one!” I patted Pumpkin Spice on the back as we watched the rock zoom through the air, easily flying past the thirty hoof mark. Even when it landed, it skidded some ten more feet, almost hitting the poor work-pony who had to mark all the distances in the widely ridiculed, yet fiercely competitive Central Equestrian Junior Rock-Bucking Division Open Round. I shook my head behind Pumpkin’s back: today was MY day, and I wasn’t about to let anyone take it from me.
“That was incredible! I think you might’ve just set a junior rock-bucking league record!” Coach Dash exclaimed. She started jumping up and down excitedly, a look of joy on her face. “20 bits says no one’s gonna beat that today!” She turned to the side, and started mumbling, “Think how much I could make with a kid like that, I’m betting that’s at least an extra six-fifty per month…”
“I’ll take that bet,” I said loudly as I stepped out from the crowd, “and I bet 100 bits that I’ll double the distance!”
Almost instantly the crowd began relentlessly chatting among themselves, trying to figure out just who this little filly thought she was. Meanwhile, the coach came trotting over to me. “Listen, uh…
“Violet Blossom,” I replied, not even surprised that Coach didn’t remember my name. While I wasn't fat or anything, I wasn’t exactly on the top tier of athletic ability.
“Yeah, whatever kid, I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t really think that— ”
I cut her off before she can even finish the obvious thought. “Rock me.” Coach sighed, but still went over to get a rock from the pile, and brought it over to the pedestal.
“Okay folks, you can leave now, there’s nothing to see here. It’s just Violet Blossom.” As the crowd began to dissipate, I heard a couple snickers, a couple laughs, someone saying, “Oh. It’s her.” But today, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was me, and the rock. As I lined up in bucking position, I smiled: their minds were about to be blown.
“On your marks…..get set…..” said our rainbow-colored coach. I would say Dash was showing complete and udder boredom, but that would be too much of an understatement. “Buck away,” she finally said, with a sigh.
And buck I did. Ever since the first day I could trot I’ve been bucking.. Bucking when I go out to visit my aunt Applejack. Bucking when Cometstrike and his Pegasus friends make fun of me after school. Bucking when my devil of a teacher sent me to the principal. Again. Bucking the wall when I failed ANOTHER math test. It’s consumed my entire life, and I drove all of that energy into one single, powerful, stupendous buck, with every ounce of my very being.
“Told you so,” I muttered under my breath, one buck later. “Now let’s see someone beat THAT.” With a smirk of satisfaction, I turned and looked at the exiting crowd, and had a twinge of sadness; they had already left. Then I took a closer look, and realized that the reason I didn’t notice them was that they were all standing perfectly still, every last one of them, mouths agape, watching as the stone passed the 150, 160, 170 hoof mark. I didn’t even watch as I prepared to earn myself 140 bits. I just stood there with a smirk on my face, and pride in my heart.
“Listen, Violet, kid, that was incredible. As you know, I’m also a talent manager as well as a coach,” Coach Dash started saying, “and I think we could both be good for each other in the long run, you hear? I’m thinking, full scholarship, Wonderbolt Academy, Earth Pony Division. But hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. After all, the first thing you need to do is -WAKE - UP - RIGHT - NOW.”
“Um, sorry, what was that last part again?” I must have heard her wrong.
“I said, you just need to -GET -READY -FOR -SCHOOL -OR -YOU’RE -GOING -TO -BE -LATE.”
“What the hay is going on? What’s wrong with the coach?” I was as perplexed as I could get. Not a moment later, a portal opened beneath me, and I fell through into darkness.
“Gah!” I gasp, clutching my chest and sitting straight up in bed. “What time is it?!” The clock reads 8:25, meaning I only had five minutes to eat and get dressed in my school uniform, but if accounting for time taken to get to school, if I galloped at a pace of 20 miles per hour, and school being a half mile away, meant that I could get there in 1.5 minutes, meaning I ACTUALLY had around 3.5 minutes, with the exception being a small bridge with an incline of 25 degrees………it’s funny how the only place I CAN’T do math is school.
“Violet, do you want me to make you some breakfast before school? You don’t have much time,” calls up my mom.
“Yes please!” I shout back, as I run to my closet to throw on my school uniform. Scarf – check. Vest – check. Hat – check. And looking in my backpack: homework, quills, paper, books. Whew.
Throwing on my uniform (just a simple yellow scarf with our insignia on it), I gallop down the stairs two at a time, snatch my mom’s delicious homemade oatcakes off the oven, and prepare to head out.
As I’m leaving, my mom comes rushing into the room. “Wait!” she pants, out of breath, “you forgot your lunch! You have a fois grois vegetarien of lightly seasoned daisies on sun-blanched tomato bread, a healthy mixed salad of candied radishes and cucumbers, and some orchid crème brule for-”
“I got it Mom, thanks.” I grumble, though I had to admit, having a professional chef make your lunches every WAS pretty sweet. The only problems are the weeks when she’s on Royal Meal Duty. I pretty much end up eating twenty-one meals of Hot Pockets, with the occasionally pizza in there. Ever since Dad died, Mom’s been working twice as hard, so I’ve certainly had my fair share of Hot Pockets.
“Bye Mom!” I shout back as I leave for school. I glance back, and I notice my mom is STILL reciting my lunch. I sigh. Parents.
As the door slams behind me, I catch a glimpse of Pumpkin Spice running late as well, and I start heading towards the tangerine-coated filly. As I run up alongside her, I notice a familiar expression of confusion upon my friend’s face.
“Aw, Pumpkin, what happened this time?” Throughout the years, the injuries had been many, and Pumpkin Spice isn’t exactly the most….ahem….coordinated pegasus in Canterlot. Or the funniest. Or the coolest. Or the smartest. But what she lacks in actual skills, she makes up for in kindness.
“Did you hurt yourself again?”
She shakes her head. “Someone broke into our house last night. He only took cash, and all we had had was a little over a hundred bits, but still. It’s scary when people can just break into houses whenever they want.” She shudders. “It’s just creepy, y’know?”
“Yeah, I hear you. Let’s just get off to school, okay?”
With a nod, we both turn and head towards another day of learning.
Three pencils, two quizzes, and a test later, we are released from the icy prison that is Ms. Bloom’s class. At first, you think she’s nice. Y’know, first day of school, new teacher, no homework, the usual. But once the first day was over, Ms. Bloom made it very clear that fun was NOT part of her curriculum. She boarded up the windows to block out any sun (“Who needs that silly old thing?”), and replaced all the normal lightbulbs with those white fluorescent bulbs, used by only two places I know of: the interrogation room at the police station, and prisons. Somehow, Ms. Bloom managed to make it feel like both at once.
She may be the devil in ponified forme, but at least I’m her favorite. Correction: I was her favorite. How was I supposed to know that some stupid looking vase was her grandmothers? She shouldn’t keep buckin’ artifacts in the classroom! And anyway, it’s not even my fault! If anyone should have gotten into trouble, it should have been Pumpkin Spice! She was the one who can’t even walk straight enough to NOT push her best friend into a vase. Sometimes, I seriously worry about that filly.
I sigh; it’s no use remembering the past, especially when you can’t change it.
After I have packed up my things, I look up, and see an all-too-familiar pair of white wings looking down at me. With a snort and single kick, my entire bookbag goes flying, paper scattering everywhere before settling on the tile floor.
I keep looking up, and I see a pale white face; the face that has haunted my nightmares for years. The face that is a symbol of all things wrong in the world. The face that scares the living daylights out of every last member of our class, teacher included.
Cometstrike’s face.
“Well fellahs, look who’s here,” says Cometstrike in his usual degrading way. He glares down at me and laughs to himself.
“P-Please…go away…l-leave me alone!” I cry, already tearing up at the thought of what I knew they were going to do to me. It looks like he’s gotten even taller since last time, almost double my height. Oh, this isn’t good. This isn’t good at ALL. Now, this time is sure to be worse than last time, even though last time was worse than the time before. And the time before that….it pains me to even recall the horrors.
Cometstrike looks at his posse with a look of sarcastic amazement. “Did you hear that? It can speak.” He leans down, until his face was only inches away from mine. “But I didn’t know that DIRT ponies could talk!”
I whimper as I smelled bloodlust on his breath. No matter what was going to happen next, it wasn’t going to be pretty. I back away, only to be met with the cold, hard feeling of the back wall. There was no way out of this one. I curl up to protect my vitals, and prepare for the worst.
To my surprise, Cometstrike hesitates for a moment. I don’t know whether it was my defenseless position, my lack of a fight, or if the fight just left him. Whatever the case, he turns away with a sigh. “Let’s go, guys,” he says nonchalantly, “there are plenty of runts outside to pick on.”
“Uh, but boss,” says one of the Pegasus goons, “why are we leaving?”
“I’ll tell you later,” replies Cometstrike, rubbing his forehead with his hoof. “I think I need to lie down or something.”
“Uh, whatever you say, boss,” grumbles the lackey. And with a thundering of hooves, I am alone in the room.
…
Silence.
…
Still silence.
I lay there for a long time, shivering on the floor. What on earth was wrong with Cometstrike, that would cause him to…dare I even say it…let me go? I scramble to my hooves, and look around the room one more time. It’s weird to think that maybe, just maybe, it might be over. That I could finally get on with my life, stop the tormenting that has-
THUM. THUM. THUM.
I fall to the floor, my hooves pressed on my head. My head…the noise…..the pain. Everywhere that hasn’t suddenly been obscured with brightly coloured lights, little black spots begin dancing in circles, timing themselves with the rhythmic throbbing of my head. The headache....it is relentless. I begin trying to stumble out of the room, to call for help, to get a doctor. But halfway across the classroom, my legs stop working. The last thing I remember seeing were two familiar faces amidst the colors and sounds. I closed my eyes, and all was quiet.
“Gah!” I gasp, clutching my chest and sitting straight up in bed. “What time is it?!” I try to look around, but all I can see is bright, white light. After a few tense minutes of waiting, my vision finally clears up. I glance to my left and right, but my familiar alarm clock is nowhere to be found. As I look around further, I realize this isn’t my bed, I’m not in my room, and I certainly do not own these frilly pink pajamas. I move to get up, but abruptly lay back down, as the memories of last night all come flooding back. The headache was what caused it all. The pain only gave me brief moment of consciousness which, while unconnected, provide some glimpse into what occurred.
After the headache, I remember waking up, at some point, in a chariot far above the ground. I remember looking over the side, before becoming woozy again and fainting.
Later, I regained consciousness on a moving car or train, but I’m not sure where I was or what was happening, only that I was being watched by two vague figures.
Finally, I remember awaking as I was on a sled, being pulled across somewhere frozen with snow and ice. There was a team pulling, and I saw the same two figures riding on sleds beside me. This time, I remember being conscious enough to begin trying to move, but I found myself tied down, like a wild animal. I submitted to the cold and entered the void again.
Shaking my head, still full of memories, I really look around my surroundings for the first time. The room is roughly the size of my room at home, which isn’t exactly huge. The pale green walls contrast terribly with the white tiled floors, and all around me I can smell medicine..
A hospital. I must be in a hospital.
Why on earth would I be in a hospital? As far as I know, I didn’t get seriously injured last night, so what in Equestria is going on? The lack of windows make is annoyingly difficult to deduce the time of day, and I am completely alone in here. The only thing of mild interest would be the door. Somepony out there should know what’s going on.
Going up to the door, I notice a pretty important detail right off the get-go: there is no doorknob. I rub my hooves all over the door to see if maybe there was some button or switch that I couldn’t see. But no. There was nothing. No doorknob, no lock, no sort of device for opening in any way. The firm chrome door stands unmoving, staring me down as if daring to me run at it.
I consider the consequences: on the plus side, I could get out of here, and found out what’s going on. On the minus side, I could end up seriously hurting myself. I weigh the options for a bit, and then decide that whatever was happening, I needed to know about it.
I back up to the opposite side of the room, and stamp my hoof, getting myself into the athletic mood. I yell, and begin charging towards the door. The blood pounding is my ears is deafening; there is nothing, except for me, and the door. With a loud crack, I fall back onto my haunches. It turns out that steel is a lot harder than people make it out to be.
Holding my throbbing head, I sigh and turned back to my bed, and prepare to go back to sleep. Whatever was happening, someone was going to have to come and get me sometime. Until then, it was time to wait.
Author's Note
This is my first writing project EVER, so don't be taken aback. Yes, I know it's short, but I'll work to make it longer and better in the future. Thanks :)
I crack open my eyes. Light.
With my dry tongue panting and hanging out of my mouth, I look around my surroundings, and all that I can see is light, everywhere, filling every crack. At first I’m panicked, not sure what’s going on. Then I remember: I’m in that bucking room still. I think back to how long I’ve been in this cucumber state. So if I’ve been waiting this many hours….then I’ve been in here for two straight days. I wasn’t going to last much longer in this state.
I feebly get out of bed, but the air feels so cold; I’m tempted to climb back into bed and just wait. But I have a feeling that if I get back into bed, I won’t come out again until long after rigor mortis has set in. I shudder at the thought.
I look around the room again. My dozens of searches so far hadn’t yielded any results, so there was no reason for me to expect there to be anything different. I meander my way over to the door. Still tall. Still thick. Still cutting off any hope I had of escape. I sigh, and turn to walk back to my bed, when I notice a new glint on the floor: something shiny.
I trot over excitedly, but try not to let my hopes get too high. After all, it could just be a random scratch on the floor, or a piece of (shiny) dust, or a drop of water…WATER! Sweet Celestia! This could be it!
As I get closer, I see that it isn’t a drop of water at all; it’s a dot of what appears to be silvery metallic liquid. As I puzzle over it, I notice a fraction of movement from the dot.
“AAAAAHHHHH!!!” I scream, as I jump back in shock. There’s no way it could possibly be alive, and no way it could move, and is it moving again…!?
Oh, it is definitely moving this time, beginning to inch along the floor at a slow but steady pace towards me. Wherever it goes, it leaves behind an incredibly small trail of silver goo, almost like a silvery mud. I climb onto my bed to escape the slow-moving terror, but curiosity got the better of me, and I peer down to investigate.
Upon a closer look, I realize that it isn’t a dot of liquid at all, but a small blob of a silvery carapace. The shiny metallic coat is nothing but an outer layer, and I assume that there are some sorts of legs underneath, similar to a horseshoe crab. I begin to chuckle at my own terror; how in Equestria could I be afraid of a little crabby…uh…thingee-ma-bobber?
As I step down from the bed, it seems to notice me and get excited, hopping up and down and running in little circles. What a bizarre creature, I think to myself. As I approach, however, it scurries off to wherever it came from. I don’t watch it go. I have much more important things to think about than a strange little animal. I have to focus on escape.
Having been distracted earlier, I now examine the door with a newfound interest. Maybe the reason I wasn’t able to open the door because I wasn’t thinking along the right lines. Maybe this sort of door required a switch or button for opening, unlike most doors, which use brute force.
I ponder on this for a moment. A switch…what do I know about switches….I know they can be pressed, but that’s just about it. With a sigh, I turn away from the door. If I’m doomed to die in this room, so be it.
I saunter on over to the bed, ready to finally give up. As I pull up the sheets and get cozy for the last time, I close my eyes, and wait for the light to come.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, I get what sound like a cannon shot right outside my room, followed by an earsplitting loudspeaker repeating, “INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT. PLEASE STAY CALM. IF THE INTRUDER TRIES TO APPROACH YOU—” The speaker goes dead as I hear another explosion.
I jump out of bed and rush towards the door. The sounds of explosions are deafening; I hear a volley of gunshots, followed by a round of screams as the bullets find their mark. I don’t know what to do, so I hide under the bed, hoping the intruders don’t venture into my room.
No such luck. From my under-the-bed vantage point, I see it all. I hear the intruders placing some sort of object on the door, and giving a countdown to the explosion. I am not even fazed; there is no way that a mere bomb could harm my ever-strong chrome door. Despite my assumptions, I am sorely mistaken when the door flies inward, smoking and smoldering.
More importantly, however, I now had my room occupied by three very burly unicorn stallions, each with a rifle hovering in the air above them. More interesting than their guns, however, are their faces.
Each one of them seems to have some sort of mechanism attached to their body. The closest one to me, a white stallion with a military manecut, seems to have a mechanical foreleg. It simply can’t be possible, and yet somehow…it must be.
I stopped admiring the metallic leg when I heard one of the stallions cursing under his breath. “What the…she’s not here! They must have already given her the procedure!” he says, clearly annoyed. Whoever this guy was, he certainly seemed to be in charge. “We have to rescue her before it’s too late! To the operating room!”
With a simple nod from the two others, the trio begins to leave. As they are exiting, I see the leader look back into the room one last time, before saying, quietly, “I just hope it hasn’t happened to her yet,” before joining the others in the charge down the hallway. I lay under my bed for many more minutes, afraid to move an inch, still staring where the mechanical leg had been, and all the while thinking about what the stallions had said.
Procedure? Operating room? What?!?
I shake my head, and resolve to never ask what “the procedure” was. Looking around the room one last time, I feel no remorse as a head out the door and leave my prison behind.
Now in the corridor, I am amazed by the level of sophistication around me. The walls shined with the bright chrome of my door, yet there is no apparent source of light. The walkway beams with gleaming silver, and the ceiling looks as though it has never seen a blemish in all its days. In wonder, I continue trotting down the hallway.
As I turn the corner to find an exit from my prison, I notice a dark stallion with his back to me. Judging from his body language and cocked shotgun, I’d say he was not one of my rescuers. As I watch, another pony, this one brown, comes out of a doorway with a presumably loaded assault rifle. “Have you found her yet?” asks the black one.
“Not yet, but I have some orders from the queen. We’re to shoot to kill; the queen is really in a fret over this one filly,” replies the brown soldier.
“Eh, I always have more fun when we get to cripple ‘em. But whatever, if it’s what the queen says. We’ll find her.”
I quickly turn back around the corner.
Get a grip, Violet. Think logically, like you learned in school.
Step 1: Analyze the Problem. Well, that’s easy. There are two stallions around the corner that were ordered to kill me. No biggie.
Step 2: List your Options. Option one could be walking up and trying to reason with them. I’m sure they’re perfectly nice people.
Yeah, right.
Option two would be attacking them. I have seen enough spypony movies to know what to do, but I doubt I would actually succeed. So that one’s out.
That leaves only option three left: run. I turn and gallop (quietly) in the opposite direction, and decide to find a way out of this futuristic maze. I cautiously approach the corner this time, only to find myself greeted by an empty hallway. As I go down the hallway, I notice door on the walls. Probably leading to rooms similar to mine. Where there ponies in there? Were they dying of thirst, as I had been? Or were the rooms abandoned, empty for years?
At the end of the hallway, I reach a fork, with one option going left and the other going right. There are no sort of signs or arrows to help me, so I basically end up choosing whichever one I feel like, which happens to be left at the moment. So I turn left, and peek around this corner.
Once again, I am rewarded with a hallway devoid of all ponies. As I trot down this corridor, I once again marvel at the doors. There seem to be a great deal of high security vaults here (wherever “here” is) for some reason. Once I reach the end of this hallway, another split decides to block my path. Concluding that left is still the correct path, I turn to the left.
All these hallways look the same, and suddenly I realize that I could get lost among these passageways very, very easily. Which is worse, to die alone in a solitary room, or to die alone endlessly wandering corridors?
I mentally scold myself; I shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts. After all, I will escape from this maze, and I will figure out what is going on here. And once the others hear stories of my bravery, well then maybe they’ll finally respect me, just a little.
Another split. Whoever designed this place sure wasn’t very creative.
Another split.
And another.
And another.
Eventually, I give up on logic, and just decide to go down whichever side I feel like. After wandering for what seems like hours, I finally begin to make some progress. I can smell smoke, and I can use my nose to find out where it’s coming from. After a good hour or so of searching, I have found the source of the smoke: it’s one of the rooms where the door has been blown in, presumably by explosives.
The door is on the inside of the room, which would mean that someone broke into the room, and not the other way around. Now what would you break into one of these rooms for? Finally, it dawns on me. There is only one thing that anyone in this dungeon of a building is looking for.
Me.
Once again in my former cell, I sit down. There really is no way out of this prison. Every turn just makes you end up where you just were. With a heavy heart, I decide to let fate run its course. If somepony comes and finds me, great. If not....well...let’s just say I wouldn’t have to worry about any old procedure anymore.
I lie down on my bed and close my eyes.
I imagine myself in a field, on a sunlit day. I savor the joy around me. Pumpkin Spice is having a picnic with me, all my schoolmates are running around, playing, and I enjoy the warm spring day. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and there is the perfect feeling of bliss that encompasses me.
Just as I am getting used to this wonderful scene, it takes a turn for the worse. The sun is covered by clouds which seem to appear out of nowhere; the warming sunlight is dampened by freezing rain. Lightning strikes, and a nearby tree bursts into flames. I struggle to escape from the nightmare, but I can’t. I’m trapped within my own mind.
I begin to panic, as everyone around devolves into chaos. Everypony is running around, screaming their heads off about “The Day of Turmoil”. I am confused, but I head towards the school building for shelter from the rain. On the way there, however, a random streak of lightning strikes the old structure, and its wooden walls are instantly burning with a mighty blaze.
Instead I try to take shelter within the summer school building, a small outpost separate from the normal school building. Fate seems to be against me, for as I approach, lightning once again cuts me off, in a fiery sign of a lightning strike, burning the building to ashes. I look to the sky, and for a brief moment, a see a flash of light, before my body is jolted with three thousands volts of electricity.
I sit up in the bed. The dream....it seemed so real. And yet, there was something special about the dream, something that I had never experienced before. There seemed to be a feeling in the background during the dream, but I can’t quite put my hoof on it. Maybe it was that--
I just notice my surroundings. Gone are the metallic chrome walls. Gone are the polished metallic floors. Gone is my prison cell, with bed and door. Instead, I awake to find myself in a completely new location.
I am instantly confused. I appear to be in some sort of doctor’s office, complete with syringes, bandages, and even the lollipops. The only features in the room are my cot and a lone chair, on the other side of the room. There is no one else in here, but there really isn’t much interesting about the room. While surprising at first, I eventually get used to the fact that I am now in a standard doctor’s office, similar to the one I went to back in Canterlot.
This time around, I decide not to brave it outside, and wait for somepony to come and get me. The door is thankfully normal here, and there isn’t even a lock on it. Taking a closer look around the room, I look for any indicator of where I am. Unfortunately, all the supplies seem to be a generic brand. I sigh. I guess my questions will have to wait.
A couple of minutes later, I hear somepony trotting up to the door. I try to suppress my excitement; however, it has been days since I’ve had contact with another sane pony.
As I stare expectantly at the door, expecting a nurse or doctor, instead I get a young colt. But I’d recognize him anywhere. The wings. The mane. The usual sneer as he says, “What’s up, dipwad?”
It’s Cometstrike.
Author's Note
Chapter two! :)
