Axil Heartstrings

by Everypony

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Sad, Lyra, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Bon-Bon
Length: 17393

Lyra Heartstrings' cousin, Axil Heartstrings, is having reocurring nightmares.

Axil Heartstrings. Cousin of Lyra Heartstrings. He is the best radio talk-show pony there ever was. But when his old, reoccurring nightmares slowly begin to get worse, he may loose everything he's tried so hard to achieve. He may even have to relive the horrible event that almost ruined and cost him his life.

I believe the cover art was made by: http://edictarts.deviantart.com/

Published 2012-02-02 14:42:50 UTC
Last updated 2012-02-10 01:24:06 UTC

Part 1: A New Nightmare

Axil Heartstrings
Part 1: A New Nightmare

Running. I woke up running. Running for my life. The first thing I realized was that I was in the Everfree Forest. My hooves were burning and my lungs doing their best to take in the sweet oxygen. I looked behind me even though I already knew what I would see. As fast as I was sprinting, I saw three figures gaining ground towards me fast. I knew immediately what they were. Diamond Dogs. The Diamond Dogs were a group of K-9s who lived underground collecting diamonds and other precious minerals. But, instead of their usual, small, doleful, and non-frightening forms, they were literally monsters. Their once skinny, and thin arms now bulged out like tree trunks stuffed with muscle. Their formally small, weak legs, were now stronger than the fastest race horse’s. And their faces, their horrible, horrible faces. If they were considered ugly before, now they were monstrosities.

It looked like somepony had literally broken every bone in their face, and tried to put it back together with scotch tape. Even their once furred skin now lay partially bare in various parts of their bodies. It looked like their skin was going to rip from all of the pure muscle that lay beneath it. And their eyes. Their eyes were the worst. They looked like every shred of reason and comprehension was utterly destroyed from their brain, leaving only two black holes of nothingness that were their eyes. And they were looking at me with blood lust.

I turned my focus back to ahead of me, fear and panic threatening to cripple me into shock. I tried to just focus on making it out of this forest alive. It was a long, wide, clear pathway that I was sprinting on, and up ahead I noticed an impossibly tall, solid, brick wall was blocking my path. The trees cleared in both right, and left directions. I knew that if I slowed down at all, that I would be killed by the fiends behind me. Hoping that I was making the right choice, I turned left.

With the brick wall now to my right and solid foliage to my left, I had no choice but to keep running ahead. I felt as if my heart would give way at any second, when I spotted a figure in the distance ahead. I recognized the form as a pony and hoped that they would somehow help me get out of this situation. I tried to sprint faster, and harder to the figure, but the faster, and harder I ran, the farther the figure moved away. I looked behind me and saw the exact opposite of what I wanted. The faster, and harder I ran, the closer the Diamond Dogs got. They were so close swear I could hear their powerful hearts pumping gallons and gallons of blood through their veins, all for the purpose to kill me.

I ran and ran and ran. For what seemed like hours even though I knew it was probably seconds. As I ran I eventually felt a horrid breath on the tip of my tail. It felt like something was spraying acid on me. I prayed that my hooves would somehow carry me farther and faster, but to no avail. In horror, I felt the iron, bear trap of a mouth of one of the Diamond Dogs snap shut half way up the length of my tail. I screamed in agony as I felt blood spurt out of my tail. I was almost thrown off balance, but I somehow managed to stay upright. I turned my head and saw the Dog in the middle, the shortest, and fattest one, raise his giant club of a paw and quickly slash done onto my back through my spinal cord.

At first the pain was nearly unbearable, but then I felt my hind legs go slack and drag uselessly on the forest floor leaving a sickly trail of blood behind them. That was it. I was forced to the ground by gravity and pain. I did my best to crawl, but I heard the horrid laughter of the Diamond Dogs, and refused to give them the sick pleasure of watching me crawl.

I look up and standing right in front of me is the Dog that broke my spine. It looked like as if he was drooling blood. It gripped my throat and hoisted me into the air as if I was nothing. I think that’s what he thought I was compared to them. Nothing. The blood thirsty look in his eyes would have made me scream if I could have. But with no supply of oxygen going to my lungs, I couldn’t even yelp.

He looked at me as if he was looking into my very soul. With a voice that sounded like he had been gargling marbles while drinking vodka with throat cancer, he began to speak. “Time to die.” He shrieked. He pulled his hand tighter around my neck. ‘Time to die!” He repeated bringing his head closer to mine. “TIME TO DIE!” It screeched at the top of it’s voice. It lifted my up into the air with extreme ease. He held me there for a second before opening his mouth one last time. “TIME TO-”

“WAKE UP!” A shrill, but sweet voice came from behind.

I woke up looking at the wall as usual, expecting the annoying sound of my alarm clock to be blaring at me. I did hear the typical Manehatten city noises through my window as usual, but no alarm. I then remembered what woke me, and what I woke from. I quickly sat upright rubbing my eyes with my hooves. I heard a voice scoff to my left.

“Finally,” The voice said. “I thought you were dead to the world.” I knew who it was without opening my eyes. I opened them anyway and saw my cousin, Lyra Heartstrings, standing in the doorway of my room. She took one look at my eyes and her look of happiness and tomfoolery suddenly, and drastically, changed to a look of worry and concern.

“Dreaming again?” She asked slowly making her way to the empty side of my bed. I nodded solemnly. “Are you completely sure you don’t want to see a doctor?” She asked reaching the edge of my bed. “Those dreams aren’t getting any better.”

“But they’re also not getting any worse.” I added with a sore throat. “Besides, the shrink said that nightmares would be normal after what happened.” I said while rubbing my temples to try to get rid of an agonizing headache.

“But she didn’t say that they would last for years.” She countered. Her light blue horn lite up as she used her magic to fluff the pillow behind me. I then felt an invisible, but gentle, hand slowly push me onto my back. “Are you sure you can’t just take today off?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” I said sitting up again. “My radio station is barely leading on ratings. If I take a day off we won’t be in the lead anymore.” While saying this, I had been slowly rising out of my bed and walking over to my dresser that held a mirror on top. I looked and saw my usually messy mane was even more tangled, and that my eyes were completely bloodshot.

“Oh come on Axil,” She protested. “One day off isn’t going to make you loose your job.” She said with a knowing smile. She was right, after all. But these bucking dreams have been haunting me for years now, I couldn’t let them stop me from working now. “You’re the only colt that can do a radio talk show the right way.” She said trying to encourage me.

My alarm clock started it’s typical screech meant to urge anypony within hearing distance to wake up. Frustrated and startled, I trotted over to the clock and shut it off. I looked at the time and saw it was 6:00. I looked up at Lyra who was also startled by the barrage of sound. “You couldn’t wait for three minutes for my alarm to go off?” I asked her chuckling. She kind of just shrugged and began walking out of my room. “What are you doing up so early anyway?”

“Bon Bon accidentally woke me up early when she was leaving and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Breakfast is ready when you want it.” She said as she left and closed the door behind her with her magic.

I walked into the bathroom, quickly started the shower, and jumped in without waiting for the water to get warm. (I know, I’m such a badass, right?) I quickly washed down my short mane and let the water cleanse my body. I watched the steady stream of water slow to a trickle, and eventually stop. I hopped out of the shower and dried myself off.. As I exited the bathroom I saw that it was 6:05. Perfectly on schedule so far. I thought to myself.

I left my room and walked down the small hallway of the apartment that was shared by me, Lyra, and Lyra’s “just a mare friend” Bon Bon. I knew that Lyra and Bon Bon were more than just friends. Not many other ponies did, so I just let them be the way they wanted it. I took a few more steps and then turned into the kitchen.

I smelled the hay bacon and scrambled eggs before I saw them. Lyra was standing by the stove mixing the eggs with a wooden spoon. She saw me and smiled. “Glad you made it out of your room.” She poured half of the contents of the pan she was holding with her magic onto a plate that I assumed was for me. She levitated the plate towards me and we swapped the magical possession of the plate.

“Where’s you friend?” I asked, stressing the emphasis on the word friend. She gave me a snotty look and the replied.

“She had to open the candy shop today.” I could tell I pushed a button with my previous statement, so I didn’t press my luck.

“Do you have anything going on today? I heard the conductor of your orchestra broke his conducting hoof.” I said while sipping some coffee I had just poured myself with my own magical horn.

“Yeah, I’m not sure how it happened though,” She said munching on some hay bacon. “But we’re on break for at least another week. I just hope we can make the rent.” She added her last sentence under her breath just barely loud enough for me to hear.

I quickly ate my food and stood up with my dirty dishes floating in the air. I trotted over towards her. I placed the dishes in the sink and gave the light blue pony a quick hug. “We will.” I told her reassuringly. I looked at the clock just above the stove and saw that it was 6:17. Three minutes, then I have to go. I thought to myself.

I heard Lyra start washing off the dishes as I walk to the bathroom in the hall. Our apartment was relatively big compared to most others. It only had two rooms but each had it’s own bathroom and shower. It’s living room was between the front door and the kitchen, which had it’s own door leading to our balcony that hung two stories in the air. The apartment’s one hallway had three doors, two leading to the bedrooms and one leading to the third bathroom. The two girls share a room together “just so it’s not weird” and “because they’re good friends.” They’re not very good a making excuses.

The hall bathroom was considerably smaller than the bathrooms in the bedrooms, but it was were we held all of our medications and medicine. I opened the cabinet that doubled as a mirror and pulled out a bottle of Extra Strength Flankspirin for my headache. I dropped two tablets into my mouth and swallowed them dry. Closed the door and looked at my reflection. I did look a lot like my cousin. Extremely alike actually. Same mane color, same coat color, even same horn color. The only difference was that I was obviously male, was slightly bigger, and had a radio microphone as a cutie mark. We were even about the same age. We’ve been mistaken as brother and sister multiple times. Back when we were foals, we would always play together. Even though her parents lived in Ponyville, while I lived in Bel-Mare, we were always best friends when one of us would visit.

I walked back into the kitchen to say goodbye to Lyra. She had just finished washing my dishes and began working on the pots and pans she used for cooking. I quickly finished the coffee I had poured earlier and headed towards the door.

“Well, I’m off to work.” I yelled at her reaching the door. I placed my saddle bag over my back which contained multiple miscellaneous items. I had put my bottle of Flankspirin in the bag earlier. “If you need anything, I’m only a few blocks away.” I added opening the door.

“Alright.” She replied shutting off the sink faucet and turning to me. “I’m going to get groceries today, so I might not be home when you get back.”

“Okay, bye Lyra.”

“Bye Axil.”

After walking down the two flights of stairs, I finally emerged into the bright Manehatten light. I always take just a second to look around and watch all of the other ponies either in a hurry to get someplace, or just in a hurry for no reason. Everypony was in a hurry in Manehatten. The radio station was only two blocks away from our apartment, so I could make it there in 5-10 minutes. My horn lit up and I took out a pack of King Colt’s Premium Choice Cigarettes. One of them magical got pulled out of the box and into my mouth. I used a simple spell to light it.

The streets were busy as usual with cab wagons all over the place. The sidewalks were equally as busy with too many ponies to count. I only had to cross one street to get to work, but I always joked with myself on how it was the most dangerous part of my day. Manehatten is notorious for bad drivers. Exhaling a puff of smoke and breathing in a breathe of the fresh spring air, I began walking. I threw the nub of the cigarette to the ground. Not even after five minutes of lazily walking, I came to the one intersection.

There were some traffic-ponies doing their best to direct the wagons, but they never did a good job. Mostly because, like I stated before, everypony was in a hurry. I looked to my left, and then to my right, and decided that it was as best as time as ever and sprinted towards the other side of the street. I made it just as I felt the rush of a wagon whistle right behind me.

I eventually came to a small, two story building with a large broadcasting tower on the top. I walked in. I saw the pink pegasus receptionist sitting at her desk collecting, and sorting files as usual. She always looked unkempt and tired as hell. That said, she was also always eager to talk. I never had the time to actually learn her name, even though I saw her everyday.

“Hi Axil!” She said with an exaggerated smile. “Beautiful day isn’t it?”

“You bet!” I said trying to hide the fact that I didn’t know her name. Before the awkward silence crept in, I asked her an obvious question. “Is Mist in?” Mist was always the first pony in the building in the morning, and the last to leave at night.

“Sure, he’s upstairs doing sound checks.”

“Okay, thanks.” I said and quickly walked to the stairs that led directly to the broadcasting room on the second floor. The stairs curved in a spiral to the second level.

Sure enough, when I reached the broadcasting room, I saw Mister Bigshot the 5th sitting on his typical chair doing his magic with the soundboards and broadcasting software. And yes, you read it write. His first name is Mister, his last name is Bigshot, and he is the fifth pony to be bestowed with the “great” name. He resents being called Mister, so most ponies called him Mist. His father, as you may expect, was a big shot business pony with tons of money. Fortunately, he didn’t like his father handing over money for him. He liked making his own living.

I met Mist in kindergarten. He was a bright yellow earth pony with a very bright red mane. He told me all of the colts in his family had the same coat and mane colors. His mane was cut very short and his tail was also short. He was the very first pony in our class to get his cutie mark, which was simply a smiley face. The sole reason for that being that he loved to make ponies laugh. And smile. And giggle. And chuckle. And anything else that would classify in that category. We were always best friends.

After high-school, we both managed to get into Bale University, even though I had to get a scholarship, and his father paid for his full ride. His father paid a bit extra to get us to be roommates. By then I found my special talent was talking. As lame as it sounds, it was true. I could talk on and on about a topic, and was very good at public speaking. I even could make my own speeches. I majored in Media Arts, while he majored in Business and Consulting. Even though his special talent was being funny, he couldn’t make a living off of it. And being a member of the Bigshot family, he had a knack for business. We both graduated about a year and a half ago.

Being good friends, we tried to find a business that we could start together. Coincidentally, this was the same year somepony invented the telephone. Mist’s father sponsored the pony who invented the telephone, so he got fifty percent of the revenue and made even more money. But now almost every home in Equestria had a telephone. This led us to the idea of a radio show, were listeners can actually call in to the studio and talk live on the radio. The radio had been out for around five years, but it never really had much popularity until DJ Pon3 made the first radio station solely for music purposes. After that, the whole radio industry took off. Mist was very reluctant, but I eventually convinced him on borrowing some money from his father to get our radio station up and running. And with that, Equestria Talks radio station was born.

Mist was wearing his typical, over-sized headphones and was completely oblivious to the fact that I was in the room. I walked up behind him and gently tapped him on the shoulder. You might as well thought I stabbed him. He jumped up in surprise and ended up falling backwards in his chair. He looked at me from the floor.

“Meant to do that.” He said quickly getting to his four hooves.

“Of course.” I said using my magic to lift his chair upright. “I’ve heard that the floor is very nice this time of year.” I smirked.

“Very bucking funny.” He said retrieving his headphones from the ground. “Remember the topic for today?” He put the headphones on with one of the sides off his ear so he could still hear me.

“Of course. ‘Should Princess Luna be granted her former powers over the moon.’” I said repeating what a listener had suggested yesterday. Every so often, when we were either too lazy, or too dumb to think of more topics, we’d ask the audience to call in and suggest topics.

“What do you think?” He said pushing a few buttons and sliding a few sliders. (I’m terrible with all of the technical stuff.) “Should she?”

“Well you’ll have to wait until 7:00 to find out.” I said heading towards the actual sound booth. I looked at the large clock that hung above the door. It was 6:45. “Where is everypony else?” I asked noticing that the other three ponies that worked in the broadcasting area were no where to be found.

“Notch called in two minutes before you showed up,” he said referring to Notch, our unofficial technical specialist. “His alarm clock didn’t go off so he might be a little bit late. And Bell went out to get coffee.” Bell Tone was our musical consultant. She decided the music for the day and did pretty much everything else that had to do with music at the station.

“And what about Swivel?” I asked referring to our telephone pony. Swivel answered, connected, and did everything with out telephones. With us five, and the receptionist downstairs, Equestria Talks had a grand total of six employees.

“Swivel said that he was going to be a little bit late last night.” Mist said never taking his eyes off the board in front of him. “He didn’t say why.” I put my saddle bag down on the right side of the couch and took out the Flankspirin bottle. I choked down two more pills and set the bottle down on the side table.

I heard the front door from downstairs open and close. I also heard muffled greetings, but I couldn’t make out specifics. Then, I heard somepony walk up the stairs and saw a pure white unicorn with a lime green mane and a sideways tilting bell cutie mark emerge from the staircase. Using her magic, Bell was carrying a tray that held six cups of coffee with one spot vacant.

“Oh, hey Axil.” She said smiling at me. “Coffee?”
I reached out with my invisible hand and grabbed one of the cups. “Thanks.” I said taking a long drink before setting it down.

“And one coffee for Mr. Mister Bigshot.” She said as she magically lifted a cup towards Mist. He didn’t really find the joke funny.

“You know,” Mist started while taking the cup. “I could fire you and send you back to being underpaid at the one night club we found you at.” We all knew he wouldn’t fire her. Mist was too nice to fire anypony.

“Pfff, like any of you boys know anything about music.” She set down the tray of coffee cups on a side table that stood next to a couch and lifted up her own cup.

“And, it’s not like Mist would fire anypony.” A gruff voice said from the staircase. The three of us turned and saw Swivel.

“Well it’s a darn shame you showed up.” Bell said smirking. “I was hoping you got hit by a wagon or something.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.” He said walking over to the side table and grabbing a coffee.

“And who said those were for you?” Bell said still trying to give Swivel a hard time.

“Celestia.” He replied sarcastically. Swivel was a dark blue pegasus with tornado cutie mark and a purplish mane.

“Well at least you’re here.” I said trying to stop the fake argument. My headache wasn’t doing to well with all of the raised voices. I looked at the clock and saw it was 6:54. “You sure Notch will be here one time?” I asked nopony in particular.

“Well it’s not like he really need him unless anything breaks.” Swivel said.

“Oh gee, thanks guys. I knew you guys would always care about me.” Came the unmistakable accent of a true Manehattener. Notch was just walking into the second level of the radio station. He was the only pony that was born in Manehatten and had a thick Manehattener accent. Notch was a pale orange colored earth pony with a yellow colored mane. His cutie mark was a short cable cord with a small cut in the middle which was emitting small sparks.

“Notch, why you so ninja?” Mist said using the overused meme.

“Well, I’m sure it’s because of my natural good looks.” He said grabbing the final coffee from the nearly empty tray. The clock now stated that it was 6:58.

“Alright, let’s get in our positions before we all loose our jobs.” I announced while walking into the sound booth. Nopony said a word as they all silently walked to their positions. Mist, Notch, and Bell all sat together in front of to the table with all of the switches and buttons that I couldn't even try to learn how to operate. Swivel sat at his own desk which was indented into the wall. He had a whole bunch of phone lines and other things that helped him do his job.

I walked into the sound booth and sat down in my cozy chair. I adjusted my microphone to hover right in front of my muzzle. I then put on my comfy headphones and did a quick sound check. The clock above the large window, which showed the three ponies, said it was 6:59. I saw the three ponies raise one of their hooves in unison. Notch to my left lowered his first, indicating that it was two seconds until show time. Bell, who was to my right, lowered hers. The clock and Mist moved simultaneously. Just as Mist’s hand went down to his side, the clock changed to show 7:00.

“Good morning Equestria!” I half yelled into the microphone. “This is Axil Heartstrings, with Equestria Talks! The only radio station where you, the listeners, can call on in and sprout your own two bits onto all of the other listeners in Equestria.” I said finishing my same introduction I said every morning.

“As some of you may remember, last afternoon we had Emerald Shine call in as lucky caller number 27 and submit her submission for today’s topic. ‘Should Princess Luna be granted her former powers over the moon?’” I repeated into the microphone. “As my loyal listener’s know, I always start off by stating my personal opinion before taking in calls so let’s get started.”

“Princess Luna.” I started. “She was locked into the moon for one thousands years as her punishment for attempting to usurp the power over Equestria, and thrust it into internal night. She was quickly defeated by her older sister Princess Celestia with the Elements of Harmony and locked away in the moon. Approximately two years ago, she managed to escape her imprisonment, and attempted the exact same thing.” I went on giving background to more uninformed ponies.

“Princess Celestia’s personal pupil, Twilight Sparkle, was able to use the Elements of Harmony along with five other ponies to take away Luna’s dark and evil powers.” As I said those words, I recalled actually meeting those six ponies one time when I was visiting Lyra in Ponyville. “Luna was not granted back her powers for a few reasons. Firstly, she was still under suspicion of having malicious thoughts towards her sister, and had to be monitored carefully. Secondly, it has been a thousand years since Luna had seen ponykind’s advancements, so she may not have been able to handle all of the changes and still take the responsibility of the moon.”

“Now, onto my opinion.” I said pausing to take a quick sip of my coffee. “Princess Luna has been doing very well in adapting to modern society. She has kept up attendance at all formal gatherings, and has been occasionally traveling all of Equestria learning new things. She has come very far since the Summer Sun Celebration two years ago. Granted that about a year and a half ago, she had another fiasco at Ponyville during Nightmare Night. But for a alicorn that is far older than anypony alive today, I’d say she’s done a very good job maturing from her rebellious Night Mare Moon, back into the Princess Luna that ponies used to love all those many years ago.”

“I would personally agree with giving Luna her former control over the moon, but the decision ultimately lies in the hooves of Celestia.” I said pausing briefly to let my words sink in. “Now, onto the fun part of the day. Pick up your phones and dial 123-555-1234 to call into our studio and share your own personal thoughts of the matter.” A small red light on the small control panel in front of me lit up stating that I had a call waiting. I pushed the button. “Hello, thank you for calling in on Equestria Talks, you’re live on the air, can I get your name and location please?” I repeated the words I always asked when I got a caller.

“Hi Axil,” A friendly female voice said. “I’m Pretzel from Cloudsdale.”

“Well hello there Pretzel. What is your opinion about Luna and her position of power in Equestria?”

“Well, I mean Princess Celestia had been controlling the sun and the moon for years, so I just don’t see why we need any changes here. I mean, we’re all doing fine right now, and I’m just afraid that Luna could change things for the worse. I mean if it’s not broken, why fix it?”

“I agree with the fact that everything is alright the way it is, but I just don’t see the trouble in letting Luna get her former job back.” I rebutted. “Well thank you Pretzel, for giving us your opinion.”

“Thanks for having me Axil!” She said as the line went dead.

“Alright, next caller please.” I said more for effect than for Swivel. In fact, he already had another call waiting for me. “Hello, thank you for calling in. Could I have your name and location if that would be alright?”

“Hi, I’m, uhhh, Jersey, from uhhhh, Fillydelphia.” A young sounding colt said nervously stammering.

“Well thanks for calling in Jersey, what do you think about this whole situation?”

“Well, uhh, I’m just a little, you know, worried that all of the uhh, you know, power, could get to her head, I mean, get to Luna’s head again. I mean, isn’t that, like, the whole reason why she went, ummm, all Night Mare Moon on us?”

“Well there’s multiple suspicions of why Luna turned into Night Mare Moon, one of them being, she was overwhelmed by the power. But like I said before, she as done a lot of maturing in these past two years, and think that she may be able to handle the responsibility more.”

“Yeah, but, uhh, I mean, it’s like what the pony before me said. If it’s broken, why fix it. Oh, I mean if it’s not, uhh, broken, why fix it you know?”

“Hmhmm.” I hummed in response. “Well thank you for taking the time to call in Jersey. So far we’ve got two against Luna being granted her powers, and only me for giving back her former powers.” I said recapping the past few minutes. “Let’s see if we can get some different points of views here.” The small red light bunk on again. “Thank you for calling in here, do you think you could honor me with your name and location?”

“Yeah,” I deep voice said. “My name is Sawdust. I’m from a town called Hoofburg.”

“Thank you very much Sawdust, are you going to be agreeing with our former two callers, or go in a different direction?”

“Well, I think that Luna, much like you said, has matured a great amount since then, and could see her back to work very easily.” He said with enthusiasm. I liked when ponies called in for things they actually cared about, not just to be on the radio. “I also think Celestia would be happy to let Luna take a little weight off her shoulders. I mean, Celestia right now is the ruler of all of Equestria. Having a sister to help out would help in many ways I think.” He continued on.

This went on for another three callers before we had a brief commercial break. I left the booth and grabbed the bottle of Flankspirin from the counter and shoved two pills into my mouth while entering back into the sound booth.

“I agree with the fact that Luna is still younger than her sister, and still may be a little immature compared Celestia, but I guarantee, that she is far more matured than a lot of ponies out in Equestria.” I said finishing a conversation I was having with a very stubborn mare who disagreed completely with the very thought of Luna having more power. I looked at the clock and saw that it was already 10:00. “Wow,” I said speaking into the microphone again. “Time sure flies when you’re arguing.” I said jokingly. “It looks like my three hours are up. Make sure you tune back in at 4:00 pm for our afternoon news segment by me. Up next, we have some comical relive by my friend Mist, and some wonderful music by my other friend Bell. Until 4 o’clock, this is Axil Heartstrings, signing off.”

I set my headphones down on the small table in front of me, and began to exit the room. I could faintly hear a commercial staring up from my headphones. I walked out of the sound booth and nodded at Mist who took off his headphones and quickly trotted into the sound booth. After a three hour long conversation, the radio station needed some comic relive, and Mist was just the pony to get the job done. He usually just did random jokes about recent topics.

I actually wasn’t really needed again until four, because all I did was the morning talk show and the afternoon news. We always had the same schedule. My talk show, a brief joke session with Mist that lasted about half an hour, a solid 3 hours of rock music, and then a solid 2 and half hours of requested music. Bell would sometimes go on air and briefly introduce a song or something. Then the half an hour long afternoon news came on by me, and then another hour of requested songs, and then we all went home for the day at 5:30ish.

Between my morning talk show, and my afternoon news, I didn’t really do much all day. I would listen in on some music, and I would usually go out and get lunch for everypony, but besides that, I didn’t do anything. It was a pretty easy job for what it paid. We had TONS of companies offer to advertise on our station. We were the most popular radio show after all.
I laid down on the sofa for a couple of moments waiting for Mist to start talking. He always got me to laugh. I closed my eyes, just for moment, and then my whole world went to blackness.

This time it was different. This time I didn’t wake up running. I woke up falling. And I always woke up running. Always. Even though I knew it was a dream, I somehow didn’t know it was a dream at the same time. As I was falling, panic and confusing quickly erased the very thought of the real world outside, and I was sucked into the void of the pit I was falling into. I saw the small light above me get smaller and smaller. Way faster than it should have. I slowly turned my head to look at where I was heading. I hadn’t turned my head halfway around before smacking into hard rock.

The pain was instant, and intense. It felt like somepony had put my hind legs through a meat grinder. I yelled out in agony as the rest of my body hit the floor. I was dazed and everyplace on my body hurt. But my hind legs were the worst. I said that it felt like they were put through a meat grinder, well now they looked like they were put through a meat grinder. Red, sticky blood was everywhere. It seemed to somehow illuminate my surroundings, making everything brighter. I saw shrouds of bone sticking out of my legs like a medieval mace. It hurt just to look at them.

I was able to roll myself onto my belly to try to see where I was. I immediately regretted it. All around me were littered bones. Bones of sheep, birds, pigs, and worse of all, ponies. And they all had teeth marks on them. I heard an intense and loud sound come from my left. I squinted into the darkness, but couldn't see anything. But I knew for sure, that I didn’t want to be here.

I tired to begin to crawl, but it seemed like I was on a treadmill, and I couldn’t get anywhere no matter how fast, or hard I tried. The sound came again, this time even closer. I tried to crawl some more but to no avail. I knew who was coming. I knew what was coming. I started to sob hysterically, knowing what terrible fate awaited me. I was lying there, in a pool of my own blood mixed with tears, when I heard a soft voice call out for me.

“Axil,” The sweet and soft voice said. “Axil I don’t want to play anymore.” It sounded like a terrified fillies’ voice. “Axil,” It came again. “I want to go home.”

“You can’t go home when you’re dead.” The same gargled voice from my other dreams chuckled. “You can’t go anywhere when you’re in hell.” Suddenly I heard the horrible screech of claws on rock. I saw sparks fly out of the wall while the giant beast of a Diamond Dog slowly walked into view, it's paw dragging against the rock wall. “In fact, you can’t do anything when you’re dead.” It said as it reached to where my blood had flowed. “You can’t do anything but feel pain.” The beast bellowed. It dipped it’s head down to the floor and took a long, slow lick of my blood, lingering the taste.

“Hmm.” It pondered. “Tastes like a mare’s blood if you ask me.” It said now looking right at me with it’s black eyes. “A pathetic, little, mare’s blood.” It staggered closer. “And you know what?” It asked me. I was too terrified to even respond. “I like little mare’s blood best.” It grasped an impossibly large boulder with one large paw and and lifted it over it's head. “I’ll drink every last drop.” It said it’s final words to me as it crashed down the boulder on my hoof.

The pain was almost too much to bare. The blood spurted onto my face and the floor as it lifted the boulder from my now pulverized hoof. “Oops,” It said laughing. “My bad.” He lifted the boulder again and sent it crashing down straight for my head. I closed my eyes and hoped it would be painless. When I opened them, I was looking into four pairs of worried eyes.

“Jeez, Axil.” Swivel was the first to say. “Are you alright?” I sat up on the couch and felt an immediate rush of pain and blood to my head. I my eyes hurt and I knew they were bloodshot.

“Yeah,” I said trying, and failing, to sound convincing. “It was just... a bad dream.”

“You’re telling me.” I heard Mist say. I was too busy rubbing my temples to look up. “You started thrashing in your sleep about half an hour after you dozed off.” He said with concern in his voice. “We tired to wake you up, but nothing would work.” I finally opened my eyes and saw that it was already 3:46.

“How long was I trashing?” I asked in disbelief.

“Hours.” Bell said. “I was kinda hard to pick songs with you thrashing so much.” Her voice seemed like it was half filled with concern and half filled with sarcasm.

“Well I gotta get ready for the afternoon news.” I said standing up way too quickly. The world swam and I was forced back onto the couch.

“Oh no.” Notch chimed in. “You’re in no condition to do anything but eat, and get some rest.” He trotted quickly over to a side table and returned with a fast food bag in his mouth. He let it drop beside me on the couch. “You eat that Big Mac Apple Sandwich, then you go home.” He said with surprising dominance in his voice.

“Well I’m not going back to sleep.” I replied lazily. Even though I was extremely tired, the very thought of dreaming gave me the shudders.

“That’s fine, just eat, go home, and rest.” Notch repeated. “We called Lyra and she said that she had already scheduled an appointment for you with Dr. Cranium tomorrow at 12:30. One of us will cover the news today. And I only want you coming in tomorrow morning if you feel 110% better.” He said finishing his monologue. “Understand?” The surprising tone in his voice made me think better than to question him.

“Yes sir.” Was all I could muster as a reply. I actually ate the sandwich with gusto, and even wolfed down the hay fries as well. My headache from the previous morning paled in comparison to the migraine I had now. The food helped settle my stomach, but no amount of Flankspirin would settle my throbbing head. I finished off the cold coffee from this morning when Notch trotted into the sound booth to begin the afternoon news.

“Hello everypony of Equestria, this is Notch here subbing in for Axil, who has had an unfortunate... accident recently,” It took Notch a second to come up with a solid excuse. “So I will be replacing him for the afternoon news. Not many of you probably know who I am, but I’m pretty much the pony who fixes everything around the station. Anyway, let’s get into the news...” I stopped listening. The only reason I heard him in the first place was because of the radio that we kept in the corner so we could know what was playing over our channel.

I was just sitting there lazily when Notch caught my eye. Even though he was talking, he gave me a look that told me to go home. I struggled to my feet, getting a little help from Bell’s magic. I was so weak that I barely was able to lift my saddle bag over my side. I slowly began walking to the door. There was no talking on the second floor while anypony was on the air talking. But all of the four ponies in the room were looking at me with worry. I just mouthed “Goodbye” and started walking downstairs.

The receptionist caught me as soon as I as in view. “Hi Axil!” She said with her typical, unnecessary enthusiasm. She looked at me for one second before realizing I was not in the mood for talking. I didn’t even glance at her as I walked out the door. The door was half way shut when I heard her say a mediocre goodbye.

The fresh air felt good, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I knew that smoking would help me either, but I lit up one anyway. I slowly trotted down the sidewalk feeling miserable. I reached the intersection in almost twice the time as usual. I watched as wagons zoomed past, the cabbie ponies not caring for anypony’s safety. I wasn’t sure if I could even make it across the street. I sighed and sat down on the cement spitting out the last half the the cigarette. When I looked up, I was amazed to see that there were no wagons coming either way. Quickly taking my chance, I ran as fast as I could across the street. When I reached the other side, my head throbbed even more.

I walked home with my head bowed, so I accidentally bumped into other ponies a few times. I always just uttered a feeble apology. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of my apartment complex. I opened the door and stepped in. I groaned in the realization of the fact that I had to walk up more stairs to get to my apartment. The landlord’s room as right next to the stairs. There were two hallways to my left and right which indented inward further into the building, and then the staircase was right in front of the door. Slowly and unsure, I began the climb.

It seemed to take a lifetime to get up the stairs, but I somehow managed. The first staircase ended with a door that led to the hallway which led to more rooms, and another set of stairs going to the top level. I opened the door to the third level and began walking down the hallway. The hallway had about 20 doors on each side, each evenly spaced apart. The door that was at the end of the hallway was the door to my apartment. It was the biggest on the floor. Not wanting to open the door myself, I knocked hard three times. The three knocks seemed to reverberate in my head loudly. The door opened to reveal a pale cream colored pony with a navy blue mane and a pink stripe going through it.

“Hi Bon Bon.” I said meekly while walking in.

“Axil, why are you home so early?” She asked in a surprised tone.

“Oh yeah,” Lyra said rising from the couch. “Swivel called me today and told me Axil was thrashing in his sleep.” She said talking mainly to Bon Bon. “I called Dr. Cranium and she said-”

“Yeah,” I interrupted her. “She said she’d see me tomorrow at 12:30.” I realized that I said those words in a rude sort of way, but I was in too much pain to apologize. Lyra, being too smart, seemed to know and shrugged off the hurt.

“So,” Bon Bon said chiming in. “Same dream as usual?” I did like Bon Bon and I considered ourselves good friends, but I was much closer to Lyra than her and didn’t feel like talking about anything to anypony right now. But not wanting to lie, I shook my head no. Now Lyra looked surprised.

“Different?” Lyra asked, but went on without waiting for an answer. “What happened?” I shuttered even thinking about the impossibly black hole littered with bones and blood. There was no way I was talking about it right now.

“I’ll tell you later.” I said flatly walking to my room. I heard Bon Bon talk quietly to Lyra.

“I guess I shouldn’t ask him if he wants to go out with us tonight.” She said with the sarcasm almost overflowing in her voice. It made me smile briefly, but the pain wouldn’t let me have any longer than a moment of happiness, and it set in again.

I opened my door to my shabby bedroom. I looked at my bed which was in the corner right underneath my window. It was a queen sized bed and was actually quite comfortable. Right next to my bed, on the left side, was a small side table with a small clock and a small lamp. The only thing of importance to me in this room were a few pictures of my parents, friends, and of Lyra that sat on my dresser which held the mirror. However, I did care considerably for the brand new radio that sat on an unused chair in the corner next the the bathroom. I walked over to it and turned it on. It was almost always on my radio station.
“Should mare on mare and colt on colt marriage be allowed in Equestria?” I instantly realized that I tuned into a lucky mare getting her to choice of tomorrow’s topic.

“Alright lucky caller number 32, thank you for choosing tomorrow’s topic for us. Could you please honor us with your name?” I recognized Notch’s voice.

“Oh yeah,” A young mare’s voice said. “I’m Salt.”

“Well thank you Salt for giving us a sure to be interesting topic for tomorrow.” Notch replied. “Speaking of tomorrow, we are currently unsure if Axil will be able to do his usual showcase tomorrow. If he is unable to do so, yours truly will be subbing in again. We do all hope Axil is feeling better tomorrow and we hope to see him back. This was Notch with you afternoon news section here on Equestria Talks, signing out.”

Notch’s voice disappeared and was replaced by a commercial for a new brand of tooth paste for kids named Filly Fresh. Even though they paid the bills, I hated commercials. They were necessary, but annoying. I turned the volume nob down so I could just barely hear it. I walked through the door leading to my bathroom. I splashed cold water on my face hopping that it would keep me awake. I was extremely tired, but did not dare to try to sleep. I heard a feint knock at my door.

“Come in.” I called out as loud as I could.

“Axil,” I heard Lyra’s voice call out. “Are you going to be okay if Bon Bon and I go out for a couple of drinks?” I left the bathroom and found her standing in the middle of my bedroom.

“Of course.” I told her being sincere. “It’s not like you can do anything to help me.” I stated the truth.

“I could do something.” She said tentatively.

“Such as....” I said leading her on. She sighed in response. “Really, Lyra. I’m as good as I can be. You can’t do anything right now, and you might as well have fun for me.” I said not trying to sound like a downer.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. 100%. Go out and have fun with your friends. I’ll find something to do.” Lyra looked unconvinced, but sighed again.

“Okay. If you need anything-”

“I won’t.” I cut her off.

“Axil,” She started. “I’m really worried about you. I don’t want you to just shrug this off. These dreams are starting to get worse.”

“And I’m going to the doctor’s tomorrow. I’ll be fine.” I reassured her. “I promise.” She gave me a long hug.

“Thanks Axil, for everything.” She turned and walked out of my room. I followed behind her into the living room.

“I promise to have her back before 2 am Mr. Heartstrings.” Bon Bon joked. I would have usually laughed, but I couldn’t
so much as muster up a chuckle.

“Just be safe.” Was all I could reply.

“We will.” The both ponies said in unison. They both turned and Bon Bon led the way out the door. Lyra paused halfway through the door. She turned back and looked at me.

“Goodbye Axil.”

“Have a good time Lyra.” She left and closed the door behind her. Now I was left alone in our apartment, with the threat of sleep, slipping into my mind, and shoving my mind into a world filled with monsters and death. I did my best to stay awake. I even grabbed a book and slid onto the couch for a good reading session. But the demons of dreams, wished to torment me again, and grasped my mind into their realm of dreams.

End Part 1

Part 2: Cereal and Coffee

Editors Note: Hey guys, this took a while to write because I've been having multiple writing blocks lately. I'm doing my best to get my stories out there. This story in particular is my favorite and will get much more serious as the story progresses. You'll probably know what "the incident" is by next chapter if you haven't already guessed it. Feedback would be very appreciated. Thanks guys.

Axil Heartstrings

Part 2: Cereal and Coffee

This time it was different as well. This time, it was the worst. I woke up already in immense pain. I opened my eyes and I saw blood everywhere. It was in puddles on the floor, and splattered on the wall. The blood seemed to glow and illuminate the surroundings. The second thing I notice is that I’m in chamber that is made entirely of rock. It seemed to be dome shaped and have no way of entering or exiting. I tried to move but I felt sharp jabs in my wrists. I looked over at my hooves and saw that I was strapped down with sharp, circular rocks around my wrists. I looked down at my hind legs and saw that they were strapped down in the same way. I was stuck on a flat piece of rock tilted upwards at an angle.

I felt the feeling of despair begin to creep in over me. Threatening to make me lose my mind. I felt my stomach begin to knot up. My head felt like it’d been smashed against rocks for hours. I didn’t have any thought of what to do. Then I heard a laugh from behind me. A horrible laugh that seemed to reverberate in my mind long after the laugh had actually stopped. I thrashed in my restraints trying to see behind me. This only accomplished releasing another burst of laughter from whoever, whatever, was behind me.

I heard the horrid thing behind me slowly begin to walk forward. It seemed as if the thing was crushing the ground wherever it stepped. I watched the horrible monstrosity of what formally was a Diamond Dog hobble into view. It took it’s sweet time, because it seemed to absorb the fear that I was so obviously emitting. It finally was right in front of me, about 5 feet away. The monster looked at me with it’s soul devouring eyes. The two black ovals seemed to absorb all light around the beast. It seemed like it stood there for hours, just savouring the moments as it did nothing. Finally, it began to move.

It moved slowly. So slowly, that it looked like it was put in slow motion. Time itself seemed to slow down. It’s ghastly face reached withing inches of mine. It was extremely hard to tell through all of the warped bones, but it seemed as if the Dog was smiling at me. It lifted it’s wretched paw to my face. It gently caressed my face. At first, I was beyond confused. But then, the Dog roughly dug it’s claws into my face causing me to shout out. I felt blood begin to flow down my face like tears. The Dog then quickly and painfully ripped downward with it’s paw, leaving longs trails of red behind them. It’s claws took some skin, fur, and blood with it, splashing my blood on the wall, and shooting fur into the air. Blood was pouring down my face.

My vision was clouded by red, but I could still see the Dog looking at me gleefully, happy with his action. Now, it picked up a shroud of jagged rock and hobbled towards me once again. It’s smile was back, as distorted as always. The rock in it’s hand stared at me maliciously as well. In one quick motion, it grabbed my right hind-leg and pulled it with all of it’s strength. The rock that held my hind-leg down disintegrated into small bits and pieces as if it was made of chalk. My leg broke and twisted at the fiend’s whim. I felt shards of bone begin to jab out of my skin painfully. I almost feinted when he pulled it out of it’s socket.

Now he took his blade of rock and placed it on the connection of skin between my leg and my torso. The rock was so sharp it cut me with almost no effort at all. The Dog pulled my leg again, erupting more pain, and begin to slowly cut the skin that was now the only thing keeping my leg connected to the rest of my body. Blood began to spray out like a fire hose, painting the walls red with my own blood. The red liquid even flew into my face, eyes, and mouth. The pain of having my leg cut off was torture enough, but tasting my own blood while it was happening, was some kind of living hell.

After what seemed like a decade of pain, the monster took a brief step back and held my hind leg out in front of my face. It continued to smile as it dangled my severed leg in front of me. Blood was still pouring out where my leg had formally been. Without missing a beat, the Dog seemed to read my mind and walk out of my view behind me. Not even 10 seconds after it left, it came back with a large, flat piece of metal that was red hot. The metal connected to a small wooden handle, which the Dog was using to hold it. The smiling devil pushed the hot end of the metal to my stump of a right leg. I heard the sizzling of burning flesh and felt a level of pain I thought was unreachable. I screamed with all of my might. I screamed so hard I felt like I ripped my vocal chords.

Because the Dog had cauterized the wound, blood ceased to flow. However I still felt the pain of the hot metal as if it was permanently glued there. I forced myself to look up at evil Dog, to see what he planned to do to me next. As my gaze finally meet it’s eyes, I realized that it’s not even looking at me. Well, it was kinda is looking at me. It was marveling at my severed leg in it’s paw. It literally licked it’s lips at my leg. In my horror, I saw it slowly lift my leg to it’s mouth, and chomp down hard on the fleshy part of it. I know that all signs of logic says that I shouldn’t feel my leg after it has been cut off, but I somehow felt every single one of it’s teeth bite down into my leg. I let out another scream, which seemed only to encourage the Dog. It quickly ripped off a huge chuck of flesh from severed leg. I felt that pain too.

With every slow and large bite it took, my pain escalated. By the time it threw the dismembered leg away, it was almost all bone. Blood was still dripping from it’s chomps as it picked the blade up again. It advanced towards me lazily, it’s giant tail dragging behind it. This time, it took my tail and simple cut it off at the base. It didn’t even look at it as it threw it away. I was too exhausted to scream. The blood was flowing again, causing a sickening pool of red liquid to form below me. I saw my reflection in the puddle. My eyes looked sunken in, my ears were flat against my head, and mane was a rat’s nest.

My head was forced up painfully by the Dog’s paw. It seemed to look at me in disgust. It seemed frustrated that I wasn’t doing anymore screaming. It had to change that. It released it’s grip on my chin, and painfully grasped my horn. I really started to scream when I realized what it was trying to do. The Dog’s gargantuan paw was so large that my horn didn’t even go half-way up the length of it. I tried with all my might to move away but to no avail. The Dog begin to pull back against my horn. The pain was the worst yet.

Unknown to most non-unicorns, a unicorn’s horn is.... well.... it’s quite hard to put to words. But a unicorn’s horn is... let’s just say it’s more important to us than all of the other parts of our body. Our horns define us. Our horns connect us with each other. Our horns sometimes seem to be a direct link to our soul. And now the Diamond Dog was trying to rip it off. I struggled, tears falling like a waterfall, trying to do anything to get away. Even my magic wouldn’t work no matter how hard I tried. With a pain that I felt throughout my whole body, a small crack developed in my horn. My scream was so loud I think I might have broken my own ear drums. The pain was impossible to describe.

Even though my eyes were clamped shut with pain, I could tell the Dog was grinning. The bucking Dog was enjoying ever single moment of this. With one last lurch, the Dog thrust all of it’s body weight on my horn and it popped free from my head. My screaming stopped even thought the pain was the worst yet. I couldn’t even move. My mouth hung open in shock. I felt a warm liquid flow down my face. The pain got 20% worse every second. I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t sure what I could do. I wasn’t even sure if I could scream if I wanted to. The beast backed away, it’s grin bigger than ever. It lifted it’s paw and opened it towards me. My horn was in the center, covered in blood. The mother bucking Dog just snapped off my horn. My horn. My very essence of being, was being held in the paw of a monster. Now I started to scream. I screamed so loud that it hurt my ears, my throat, my lungs. The Dog only seemed to enjoy it. I screamed for what seemed like an eternity. And even when I woke up, I was screaming.

(***)

The sight of Lyra’s tears streaming down her face was what made me stop screaming. I tried desperately to catch me breath, breathing in heavily and uncontrollably. Lyra wasn’t really sobbing, but her tears were flowing down her face. Through her sniffling she simply muttered my name. She looked to the ground and the tears begin to hit the floor. Bon Bon was beside her, resting a hoof gently on Lyra’s shoulder. I somehow found the courage to speak.

“I’m sorry.” Was all I could muster. I turned my head away from the teary scene for the fear that my own tears would start again soon.

“Your scream...” Bon Bon began tentatively. “It didn’t sound like you...” I could tell by her voice that she was horrified.

“How long was I screaming for?” I mustered up. My head throbbed so much it was hard to speak. This time Lyra replied.

“As soon as we started down the hallway.” She said still looking at the floor. “We thought you were being murdered or something.” She wasn’t that far from the truth.

“What time is it?” I still couldn’t look at either of them, so it looked like I was asking the couch.

“2:30 am.” Lyra said still sniffling. I somehow managed to turn to them.

“I am truly sorry you had to see that.” I said glancing from one pony to the next. “Or hear that, that is.” My headache was pillaging my brain again, and it was incredibly hard to focus. I ran my hooves through my mane trying to think of what to say next. “You guys should probably get some sleep.” was all I could think of. Thank Celestia that Lyra had stopped crying.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday stupid.” She said meeting my eyes. I knew that she was trying to be funny, trying to be her regular self, but her voice was still drenched in pain and worry. I have no idea how, but I manged to giggle. It hurt like a mother bucker, but it lightened the mood. At least a bit.

“Well, there’s no way I can go to work tomorrow.” I said slowly and tiredly. Lyra looked at me with a small fire in her eyes.

“There is no way in hell that you are not going to Dr. Cranium tomorrow.” She said with a tone I’ve never heard come from her before. She sounded almost angry. And Lyra is one of the happiest ponies I’ve ever met. The tone surprised me so much I almost forgot to reply.

“Lyra, you don’t need to convince me after what I just went through.” I tried so speak as calmly as I could. “Now you two should really get some sleep. You look exhausted.”

“If we’re exhausted, what would that would make you...” Bon Bon led on. I again somehow manged to giggle.

“It makes me half dead.” I said with a barely audible voice. I didn’t know how, but it seemed like every time I slept, I got more tired. I wasn’t sure how I was going to stay awake. Lyra’s eyes were red from the tears, but she managed to lift her head.

“Are you going to be okay until morning? I really don’t think you should sleep again, but you do look half dead.” Lyra pointed out.

“I’ll be fine.” I said rubbing my eyes trying to release some energy from my brain.

“That’s what you said a few hours ago,” Lyra said again looking worried. “And we came home to you screaming Bloody Mare-y.”

“There is no way I’m going to sleep. I don’t care if I have to burn myself, I’m staying awake until I see the doctor.” I did my best to reassure her. She looked completely unconvinced. I know that if she wasn’t as tired as she had been, she would have protested more. But I could tell she desperately wanted to sleep.

“If you need anything just come and get me.” Lyra said suppressing a yawn. Bon Bon was now leaning on Lyra barely able to stay awake. I painfully got to my hooves and helped Lyra half drag half carry Bon Bon with our magic to the girls’ room. She was able to get herself onto the bed and was asleep before her head hit the pillow. Lyra was now sitting on the bed in her weird position. I had to giggle. “What?”

“I’ve always thought you’d grow out of sitting like that.” I said smiling at the recalled memory. “When we were little I’d always try to sit like that, and I’d-”

“You’d always complain on how you said I was cheating at life.” Lyra said happily recalling the memory as well. “I never understood how you thought I could cheat like that.”

“I still can’t understand how you can sit like that.” For a while there, the pain seemed to evaporate away, and left me with my cousin happily recalling childhood memories. But only for a second. Pain is always worse when it interrupts happiness. Lyra now lay on her back, eyes fluttering to keep open. I walked to the door and shut the light off. Halfway through the gateway to the hallway, Lyra began to speak.

“Axil, thank you. I know I say those words too much, but thank you. I don’t even know if I would be here, happy as I am without you. I’m not sure if I’d be happy at all without you here. And now that you need the help for once, I feel like a complete flankhole for not being able to do anything. You’ve helped out through my worst times, better than any of my other friends or my parents. You were there when...” I knew where she was heading. I knew what she was trying to say. She began to get misty eyed. “You were there when-”

“Lyra,” I cut her off. “I know what you’re trying to say. I know that you are really and truly grateful for what I’ve done, but please don’t make me go back there. Not tonight. I know I probably will tomorrow when I talk to the doctor, but please don’t make me go back tonight. I want to have a few more hours away from the horrible place before I go back. If you could do that for my Lyra, I would be grateful to you.” Lyra’s tears were flowing again.

“I’m sorr-”

“Stop it.” I cut her off again. “You have nothing to feel sorry about. You owe me nothing. All you can do for me right now, is to sleep. Do the one thing I can’t right now. Please.” She choked back tears.

“Okay.”

“Goodnight Lyra.” With that, I closed the door, and walked down the hall.

(***)

I sit on the balcony watching the rest of the stars slowly begin to disappear. The Colt’s Choice in my hand had almost been burned down to the nub. I lifted the cigarette to my mouth and inhaled deeply, sucking in all of the poison. After it I had my lungs filled with smoke, I threw the Colt’s Choice away. I watched as the small red tip of it fell down to the ground below, along with the rest of it’s brothers. I had probably smoked two packs so far. It wasn’t even 6 am yet. I knew it would be killer on my lungs, but I didn’t care. I got hooked by Swivel, and couldn’t stop.

I picked up the Applejack Daniel’s from the ground near my hooves and took a long swig. I hadn’t drunk enough yet to get intoxicated, but I could get there soon if I wanted to. The last 3 hours had passed slowly, but peacefully. My headache had gone down considerably, but it was still there threatening to take over. I knew that I shouldn’t have, but I took out another Colt’s Choice and lit it up with magic. I loved that fact that I could light a smoke without a clumsy lighter.

I was so involved with my smoke, that I didn’t hear the balcony door slowly slide open. The cream colored pony strode into my peripheral vision, slightly startling me. “Surprised how quite it is.” Bon Bon said thoughtfully looking out over the Manehatten skyline. I sighed a slow breath.

“It’s peaceful at this time.” I began taking another long drag of smoke. “Before my nightmares got worse, I would sometimes get up early and just sit out here. It always got me thinking.” I went on.

“About what?” Bon Bon said picking up the bottle of Applejack Daniel’s. She took a long swig and set it back down.

“About whatever.” I said lazily. “Usually about what’s going on that day, or what has happened recently.”

“So what are you thinking about now?” The pony said asking more questions. I thought for a moment.

“Nothing.” I replied flatly. “I’m just sitting here, killing myself with some cigarettes, and drinking some good whiskey. And I like it.” I said giving a genuine smile. Bon Bon laughed and sat down on the chair opposite to me. “Why are you up anyway?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I just woke up and walked out here.” She said still looking at the beautiful city. She turned to me with seriousness in her eyes. Oh here we go. I thought. “Axil, Lyra cares about you.” She started stating the obvious. “And I know you care about her too. I’m pretty sure you know that Lyra and I are more than just friends. I care for Lyra immensely like you do. But I can’t do this for her. Only you can. Lyra is really worried about you. She doesn’t talk to me about it, but I can see it in her eyes whenever she looks at you. And I know you think you already know, but you don’t.” Bon Bon went on.

“You don’t know how much she does care for you. I hope by now we can call ourselves friends, you and I, but I’m being completely honest when I say she cares about you more than she does me.” I was shocked, not by what she said, but the very fact that she said it herself.

“Bon Bon, Lyra doesn-”

“Axil, she’s known you her whole life. Even though we’re pretty much dating, she’s known me for half the time.” Bon Bon said with no sign of hurt in her voice. “I love Lyra, and I know you do too. And if you do consider me your friend, then I hope you can do it for me and Lyra. Get through this. Get better. I’m not sure if Lyra can stand much more of this. When you offered to move Lyra and me out to Manehatten, Lyra said yes before you even told her you got jobs for us both. She loves you Axil. More than you know. So I’m asking you... No, I’m telling you, as your friend and as your cousin’s friend, don’t let Lyra down.”

I’ve known Bon Bon for around 5 years now. I saw her now and again in my visits to Ponyville, but I never got to knew her until around 5 years ago. In in all those years, I’ve never heard her so serious. She’s always seemed ready with a joke and slightly immature. But just now, I seemed to gain a tremendous amount of respect for her.

“I promise, to both you and Lyra, I won’t let you down.” I tried to look as stern and convincing as possible. I’m not sure if it worked, but Bon Bon seemed satisfied. She picked up the bottle of Applejack Daniel’s and held it out towards me.

“Cheers.” I wasn’t really sure what I could cheers with, so I took out an unlit cigarette and tapped it against the bottle.

“Cheers.” I replied and we both brought the items to our mouths. She took a long drink, and I lit up and took an extra long drag. It felt like the best smoke all night.

(***)

Bon Bon and I sat there watching the sun slowly rise for a few hours. I finally turned my head towards the clock in the kitchen and saw that it was 9 am. We’ve been sitting out there, not talking, for about 4 hours. It was the most peaceful time I’ve had in a while. It was a Saturday, so the talk show didn’t start until 9. I had remembered to move to the phone a few hours ago to call Notch and tell him I couldn’t come in. I thought about turning the radio on to listen to Notch, but I decided against it. I really didn’t want to think about work right now.

“You know how to cook?” Bon Bon asked suddenly snapping me out of my trance. I blinked at her for a few seconds before remembering to reply.

“Oh... No. I don’t.” I said sighing.

“Me either.” Bon Bon said crossing her hooves over her chest. “I wanted to make some breakfast for Lyra, but then I released that she’s the only one who knows how to cook.” She said looking slightly frustrated.

“I know how to make cereal.” I said trying to be helpful but always trying to be a smartflank.

“Better than nothing.” Bon Bon shrugged. “I can make coffee.” She said in the same tone I had said my words.

“Cereal and coffee for breakfast?” I asked myself aimlessly. “Sounds like a four star meal. Why not?” After that being said, we both got off our lazy flanks and went into the kitchen. It literally took five minutes to make our “breakfast.”

“Cheerilee’os and coffee for breakfast.” Bon Bon said looking over the tray the we had set our creations on. “We should go into professional cooking.” She said with a smile. I laughed for the first time in what seemed like years, even though it was probably only a couple of days.

I grasped the tray magically and began to walk to Lyra’s room with Bon Bon in the lead. She opened the door and flipped on the light switch. “Good morning Lyra.” Bon Bon cooed softly. Lyra was usually a light sleeper, so she slowly opened her eyes at us. She looked surprised for a moment and then smiled.

“Breakfast in bed?” She replied, sleep still heavy in her mind. “Is it my birthday?”

“Can your two roommates not serve a four star breakfast of Cheerilee’os and coffee to you on a random Saturday morning?” Bon Bon asked hugging the mint green unicorn.

“It’d be the first time in forever.” Lyra replied finally sitting up. I gently lowered the tray of food onto the bed next to her.

“There’s a first time for everything.” I said as smoothly as I could. She picked up the spoon in the bowl and took a bite of cereal.

“Divine?” She said sarcastically and shrugging.

“Oh stop, I’m sure my masterpiece can’t be THAT good.” I said slyly.

Lyra took a look at the bags under my eyes. “Have you been awake since last night?” She asked taking a sip of coffee. I shrugged.

“I’m fine.” I said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I’m not even tired.” Lyra gave me a questioning look but took another bite of cereal. She took a look at Bon Bon and then me.

“Thank you.” She said politely with her same smile. “Cereal and coffee might as well be a four star meal if it came from you guys.”

(***)

The rest of the morning, we just sat around, talking aimlessly about nothing. We did eventually turn on the radio in the living room and listened to the last part of Notch’s monologue. It was his first time doing the talk show, but he seemed to have the hang of it. I wasn’t really listening to the conversations, I was just enjoying the peacefulness. Lyra and Bon Bon chatted idly about Bon Bon’s work and Lyra’s orchestra. I just sat in silent bliss. I heard music begin to play through the radio. It was a stupid song by Dr. Hay. I hatted rap, but for some reason Bell always seemed to play it. I realized that the fact that music was playing on a Saturday meant that it was 11 o’clock. My appointment was at 12:30.

“How long do you think it will take to get to Dr. Cranium’s office?” I asked speaking for the first time in an hour. Lyra looked briefly at the clock and looked upwards, calculating in her head.

“Well,” She began. “Traffic usually isn’t that bad on Saturday’s, but her office is on the other side of town...” She said mostly to herself. “I’d guess about 30 minutes.” She said finishing her math.

“Well I’m going to take a long shower before I go.” I said rising from the kitchen chair I was sitting on.

“You mean ‘Before we go.’” Bon Bon said. Lyra was a little surprised that it was Bon Bon and not her who said those words. She brushed away her suspicion.

“Well regardless, I need a real shower before I go into the real world.” I said starting for my room. I heard Lyra and Bon Bon start about if they should do anything with their manes before they went out. I was glad I wasn’t there to listen.

I finally made it to my bathroom and turned my shower on. This time, I let the water get nice and warm. I usually didn’t have time to take real showers whenever I worked, so this was going to be a nice change. I put my hoof under the stream and was relaxed by the warm sensation. I let a sigh of relaxation slip out. I hopped in under the warm current and just stood there for a moment.

I even used shampoo and soap this time too. I scrubbed happily at my coat and mane, the soap seeming to clean my body and mind. I put my hoof down over the drain, making the water pill up at my hooves. I don’t know why, but I always used to do this when I was a kid. Doing it now seemed to somehow bring part of my innocence from that time back to me, if only for a second. After the pool had risen half-way up the length of the tub, I released my control over the drain and watched the water swirl down it. For another moment, I felt like a kid again. All because of taking a shower.

Reluctantly, I stopped the peaceful, warm, waterfall from flowing and stepped out of the shower. I magically made a towel rise from the rack the hung adjacent to my shower. I dried off quickly, letting my coat and mane stay slightly damp. I always liked letting the wind swish through my wet mane making it cooler. I walked out of the bathroom and saw that it was five to 12. I walked into the living room and saw Lyra and Bon Bon sitting idle in the kitchen.

“You really meant a long shower, huh?” Lyra said acknowledging me.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had a nice shower.” I said dreamily recalling ten minutes ago. “It was really rejuvenating.”

“Shall we get our flanks moving?” Bon Bon said standing up form the kitchen table. Lyra followed suit, and we all moved through the front door silently. We walked down the familiar flight of steps and eventually made it to the outsider world. The sun’s ray’s were illuminating everything in it’s path brightly. The wind silently swished passed us, cooling my coat and mane like I wanted it to. My lungs were relieved by the fresh air. I quickly hailed a wagon that would be big enough for us. Most wagons were pulled by only one cabbie, and had room for one or two ponies. A few, like the one I had hailed, were accommodated for larger groups and was pulled by two cabbies.

“Where to?” The two stallions asked in unison. They were both dark tan in color and looked like twins.

“Two-fifty-two South Wing Street.” Lyra said climbing in last. The colt on the left hit a small button his collar with his nose. I knew it was the timer that was used to gage how much we owed them at our stop.

The three of us in the cab just looked around at the city around us. The temperature was average as usual, so it wasn’t too hot or too cold. The wagon swerved wildly for a second, both of the cabbies cursing angrily at a pedestrian. None of us were phased by this. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we all crashed and died to be honest.

A few minutes later, the two colts slowed down and eventually stopped at a curb. “Two-fifty-two South Wing Street.” The colt on our left said.

“That’ll be 20 bits please.” The one on the right chimed in. After I stepped out of the cab, I grabbed a small sack of coins out of nowhere, (somehow, everypony had the ability to grab small things out of nowhere) and dropped 20 coins into the pouch on the right colt’s collar. The two sped off without another word.

I looked up at the building in front of me. It was a small enough building, a little larger than our radio studio. It didn’t have a name on it because it was several offices, one of which belonged to Dr. Cranium, a psychologist that I had only briefly met a few times before. After the incident I had when I was a young child, I had to have frequent visits to my old psychologist, Dr. Wit. He was a good pony and doctor. He had connected with me when I was in my worst situation. Unfortunately, he had retired 10 years ago. I had stopped going to my weekly visits 15 years ago, but I still had to have a psychologist just in case something flared up. He had recommended Dr. Cranium, whom he had personally mentored.

Even though I lived in Bel-Mare and Dr. Cranium was in Manehatten, Dr. Wit was fairly confident that I wouldn’t need emergency care, so he said it was fine. I had met with her previously just doing regular check-ups and evaluations. She seemed like a nice enough mare, but I was going to miss Dr. Wit. After college, Mist and I needed to think of a place to go to start out radio station, and it was actually Dr. Cranium who suggested Manehatten. Mist and I found a nice enough building that could supply us with the essential needs of a radio station.

Mist could stay with his uncle who lived in Manehatten, which he still does, but I couldn’t afford an apartment by myself. So I wrote to Lyra and asked if she would like to come live with me in Manehatten. We wrote to each other often, so I knew she was just out of college and needed a place to stay and work. I even found a orchestra that need a lyre player. Lyra wrote back asking if a friend of hers could come too. At that point in time, I had suspicions that Lyra like mares, but I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t know that she was essentially dating the friend who she wanted to come up with. I said what they hay, and they both moved to Manehatten. I had already found an apartment that Lyra and I could share, and told them we could find a three bedroom apartment pretty easily. But the two girls insisted that they would be fine sharing a room. Bon Bon even found a job easily. She worked at a candy store down on Cloud’s Street.

We walked briskly into the small office building’s lobby. The lobby was very small and had one receptionist sitting at his desk against the wall. We was reading the Equestrian Inquirer magazine and didn’t even look up at us as we walked in. I was fairly familiar with the building, and I knew that Dr. Cranium was on the third floor of the five story building. We walked silently to the elevators to the right of the receptionist’s desk. We rode up in silence, the tension raising every second. The elevator chimed and opened revealing a short, but wide, hallway.

We walked to the last door on the left. Dr. Cranium PhD. The printed words on the glass door read. I wasn’t really sure why, but I was beginning to feel nervous and I felt a knot begin to form in my stomach. I felt a reassuring hoof on my left shoulder. I turned my head slightly, seeing Lyra smiling reassuringly. I let out a sigh to calm myself, and knocked on the door twice.

The door opened quickly to reveal a light cyan earth pony with a cinnamon colored mane and a brain cutie mark. Dr. Cranium’s mane was it’s usual self, curly and fancy. Her tail was equally as curly and fancy. “Well hello there Axil.” Cranium started in a friendly enough voice. “Please, come on in.” She said gesturing into her office.

The office was actually quit spacious. The doctor’s desk sat in front of the window, with a long, leather sofa placed close to the wall. One of the walls was littered with awards and pictures. The adjacent wall was a huge bookshelf, stocked full of fiction and non-fiction works. There was also three small chairs near the door.

“Sorry if I must ask,” Cranium began. “But what are you two’s names?” She said looking at Lyra and Bon Bon.

“Oh, I’m Lyra Heartstrings.” Lyra said placing her hoof on her chest. “I’m Axil’s cousin from Ponyville. Moved out here with him about a year ago.”

“And I’m Bon Bon. Their roommate.”

“Okay,” The doctor said not seeming to take much interest. “Well please, have a seat.” She said gesturing to the chairs by the door. “Axil, you can lay down on the couch.” she nodded at me. With the four ponies in the room all in their seat, Cranium was sitting at her desk, the doctor began to ask some preliminary questions.

“Full name please.” Cranium said taking a clipboard out from her desk.

“Axil Snap Heartstrings.”

“Age.”

“Twenty-four.”

“Height.”

“Four foot five inches.”

“Approximate weight.”

These questions went on for sometime, most of them boring and simple answers. After her clipboard had been satisfied with the words she had written, it was already 12:53. Both Lyra and Bon Bon had bored looks on their faces. I couldn’t blame them.

“Alright,” Cranium said finishing some scribbles. “So Lyra, I believe it was, called me yesterday and told me you were having some bad dreams. Is this correct?”

“Yes.” I replied lazily. Why else would I be here? I thought.

“And it is my understanding that these recent dreams have been getting worse.” She led on. She finally looked up from her clipboard. “So these dreams aren’t the same reoccurring ones?”

“No.” I said flatly. “Well... my old dreams have stayed the same. And recently, I’ve been having new dreams. Which are a lot worse.” The doctor continued writing.

“And your old dreams are you running from the Diamond Dogs, right?”

“Yes.” I hissed out. I had to admit that I was a little bitter towards Dr. Cranium. I wasn’t sure exactly why, but she just seemed terrible compared to Dr. Wit.

“And you’ve been having those dreams since the incident happened when you were six, isn’t that correct?”

“Yup.” I was starting to get a little bored myself.

“And what have your new dreams been about?” She asked. I shuttered thinking about it. It was always hard to go over my dreams with Dr. Wit, but Dr. Cranium seemed more distant.

“The Dogs still.” I said sourly. “First I fell and broke my legs while a Dog beat me to death with a rock. then I was strapped down while a Dog cut off my leg and ate it. Oh, and then the bucking Dog broke off my horn.” I said spitting every word out. She didn’t even look up as she kept writing.

“Anything else that is particularly bothering you?” Cranium said just barely glancing up at me. I shook my head in response. “Well if that’s the case, I don’t really see anything wrong.” She concluded setting down her clipboard. “I’m going to prescribe you some simple medication that essentially puts you into a deep, but light, sleep which prevents you from dreaming.” She went on beginning to write on a small booklet of paper. “It’s called Prevex.” She said now ripping out the prescription with her teeth. “It’s simple enough. Just take two pills before going to bed, and one pill before a nap. I’m not really concerned because you haven’t exhibited any signs of further mental breakdown. Dreams are common after such a traumatic experience such as yours. I know that 18 years seems like a long time, but with only gradual worsening of your dreams, I’d say your fine. I also think your headaches should go away with good sleep.” She finally concluded.

I was a little surprised that it was as simple as that. I mean, these dreams were beginning to torment me ever time I threatened to go to sleep, and the doctor is pretty much telling me to stop dreaming. It was almost laughable. Almost.

“Anyway,” Dr. Cranium spoke up again. “If that’s all I don’t really see any other reason you need to be here. That’s good for three weeks worth of pills, after that, come back to me and we’ll talk about what happens next.” She stood up from her chair. The other three ponies in the room, including myself, stood up as well. The four of us walked to the door. “If you have any other concerns, feel free to call me.”

(***)

We decided to stop by for a late lunch before we went to get my medicine. We chose eat at Hoof Hot, a Mongolian grill. It was nice enough I suppose. You had to pick up a bowl and chose out of three different noodles. After that you could add a bunch of fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc. Then you choose some sauce to cover it in and they put it on a large hot table and you watched them cook your food. It was pretty cool, I thought. I chose some regular noodles and had every veggie and fruit they had. I chose some daisies as well and some Rattlesnake Venom Hot Sauce. I don’t know what the girls got. I watched my food cook, the daisies shriveling up and turning crisp. My mouth was watering by the time they handed me my bowl.

I sat down and took a mouthful of noodles, veggies, fruit, and daisies. The Rattlesnake Venom was like acid in my mouth, but it was a good kind of hot. I heard the girls plop down next to me in our booth that we choose. I looked over at Lyra and Bon Bon and saw them pick up their forks with one of their hooves. Wanting to start a conversation, I began to speak.

“You know that Mongolians were the first ponies to invent forks?” I asked taking a drink of water to cool down my mouth. Both the other ponies in the booth looked at me.

“Really?” Bon Bon asked through a mouthful of noodles. “You’d think it’d be a more civilized group than the Mongolians.”

“Well actually, the reason they invented the fork was actually because of their violence. You see before forks, ponies just dug their faces into the bowls or plates. With their heads lowered, it was the best time for somepony else to attack them. So they made simple forks so they could keep their heads up while eating.” I said. I was always kind of a show off when it came to trivia. I knew a bunch of random, useless information.

“I still think my theory makes more sense.” Lyra said taking another fork full of noodles to the mouth.

“Oh boy, here we go again.” I rolled my eyes.

“No really.” Lyra continued. “My theory makes a lot more sense than the fact that ponies made them so they could head with their heads up.”

“Lyra,” Bon Bon started in. “Your ‘theory’ almost go you kicked out of college and sent to the loony bin.”

Lyra’s so called “theory” was that their was another dimension somewhere full of hairless, ape type creatures, who were just as intelligent as ponies. She based this off the fact that certain objects in the world seemed to be shaped more for fingers than hooves. Almost everypony thought she was crazy. She attempted to submit her thesis on the possibility of said dimension, but was quickly turned down. She never gave up her theory though. Ever.

“I’m telling you.” Lyra began again. “I mean, just look at your fork.” Bon Bon and I both did just to humor her. “Now what is holding the fork in place?”

“My hoof?” I said slyly.

“But what is keeping it from falling out of your hoof?” She pressed on. I did look at the fork in my hoof. The fork was resting perfectly in my hoof. “Turn your fork so it’s closest to the table.” Bon Bon and I did as we were told. “Now look at your hooves. What’s stopping the fork from falling like gravity says it should? Noq let go of the fork.” Again, Bon Bon and I did as we were told, and the forks clanged to the table below. “Now what changed in your hoof? Nothing. Your hoof stayed exactly the same from before to after you let go of the fork. You can’t explain that.”

“Lyra,” I said shacking my head. “I know that it’s always has been a mystery to pony-kind on how we hold stuff, but how does that have anything to do with those creatures you talk about?”

“Well apes have fingers. They can actually close their fingers around objects to stop them from falling.” She countered.

“And what about how we can store away small bags in thin air too.” To prove a point, I reach behind my back and pulled out a small sack of bits from nowhere. “Where did this come from?” I asked sarcastically.

“Well my research hasn't proved anything along those lines yet.” Lyra said looking at her plate.

“Research?” Bon Bon started in. “If reading too many fiction books as a filly counts as research, I’m sure I’ve done about as much as you with completely different results.”

“Whatever.” Lyra said now just playing with her food.

(***)

Our late lunch actually turned into dinner too. I’m sure the owner’s of Hoof Hot weren’t too happy with us when we stayed and talked for about an hour until we had an early dinner. But besides some not so friendly glares from some employees, we didn’t get in trouble. I’m glad that we got to watch our food the whole time. Manehatten was also infamous for having restaurants where cooks would spit in the food of ponies they don’t like.

After we hurriedly left the restaurant, we stopped by a pub and got a few drinks each. We talked aimlessly and drunkenly for a couple of hours. It’s been a while since I could handle more than a few drinks of Applejack Daniels, but I guess because I knew I could sleep tonight, I was more confident. At around 10 pm I realized that I still needed to get my prescription.

“Oh buck!” I shouted to myself, spilling the drink that was halfway to my mouth. I turned to Lyra and Bon Bon who were surrounded by three colts who would easily take advantage of two drunk mares. I was sober enough to use my magic, so I pushed the two colts closest to me apart and dragged Bon Bon and Lyra out of the circle. “We still need to get that freaking prescription!” I yelled at them slightly slurring my words. “When does the pharmacy close?”

Bon Bon was too drunk understand me with all of the other noises in the pub. Lyra barely understood and took more than a few seconds to reply. “Ummm...” She started blinking her eyes. “I think 10:30 or something.” She said raising the pitch of her voice at the end making it sound like a question. For fear that I would have to go through another night of nightmares, I was sobering up quickly.

“Come on!” I yelled at them pulling them along as best I could. We seemed to collapse outside in a jumbled heap. The two drunk mares were laughing hysterically. I hailed a taxi wagon and pretty much threw the two girls in with my magic. I realized only after jumping in the cab that it was a two seated wagon. I didn’t care.

“I’ll pay you double to get us to the nearest pharmacy in the next 10 minutes.” I yelled at the cabbie. He looked at the three of us, all mushed together in the back seat and laughed.

“I’ll see what I can do. I’m not used to so much weight.” The cabbie said beginning to move forward. We moved at about three quarters of the usual speed and got a lot of negative comments from other drivers on the street. I could tell that the cabbie wasn’t too worried about the timing. He was even whistling a happy tone as he rode on.

We finally made it to Mare-y’s Pharmacy 15 minutes after we left the pub. I threw an unknown number of coins in the cabbie’s pouch, and pushed the other two passengers out. They fell on the sidewalk on top of each other. I ran to the pharmacy door just as an employee was about to lock it. I banged into the door and prevented it from closing just in time.

“Please!” I screamed at him. “Please! I just need to pick up my prescription.” I pleaded with the old looking colt. He sighed and let me through the door. “Thank you thank you!” I yelled at him, even going in for hug. He put up a hoof in protest.

“No need for that now sonny.” the old, gray earth pony said with an old and hoarse voice. He stepped behind the counter and put on a pair of over-sized glasses. “What do you need?” I pulled out the prescription note out of nowhere and handed it to him. For a second I was worried that the small pharmacy wouldn’t have what I needed. I knew that the back would be a lot bigger than this small waiting lobby. “I’ll be back in a jiffy with what you need.” He said to me.

I looked at my surroundings, resting on the counter. The room was small and white. Chairs lined both sides of the room, each wall having about five chairs each. The wall with the door was all glass, with a neon open sign flashing. I quickly looked outside and saw two mares struggling to help each other up. It was obvious that they were drunk. I just hopped that we weren’t in a ghetto or anything. I wasn’t even sure where we were in the first place. I just told the cabbie to get me to the nearest pharmacy.

I heard a grunt and a sigh from behind. The old colt was settling back into his wooden stool and pressed a few buttons on the cash register. There was a small bag on the counter that hadn’t been there before. I payed for the medicine, and even gave the old colt a few bits for keeping open late. I walked out of the pharmacy, the old colt locking the door behind me. With my medicine floating in the air, I found my two roommates both bent over a garbage can throwing up whatever poison they had ingested a few minutes ago. I tapped them on their shoulders.

“Are you going to be okay until we make it home?” I asked them both. The kinda just looked at me with googly eyes and spinning heads. I took that as a yes and began walking, tugging them into following me. By now I saw that we were on 2nd avenue, and only a few blocks away from our apartment complex. Bon Bon and Lyra supported themselves as we walked down the street. It was only 10:45ish so the streets were still packed, and the sidewalks weren’t quite empty yet.

We finally made it into our apartment, both girls crashing immediately on the couch sleeping. To be honest, I think somepony put something in their drinks. I walked into the hallway bathroom and flicked on the light. I withdrew two pills from the perspiration bottle I had just bought, and swallowed them using the faucet to help me wash them down. I deposited the bottle into the cabinet. The effects of the pills were immediate.

I walked into my bedroom, feeling heavy and sluggish. I collapsed onto the bed sideways. It felt a little weird to feel like I wasn’t going to have dreams when I went to sleep. In all of the years that I’ve been on this green earth, the majority of them had been spent either awake, or tormented in my dreams. If these pills didn’t work, I thought that I would literally die. It’s been such a long time since I could sleep in peace. I felt my world go fuzzy around me, like a soft, warm blanket was being wrapped around me. I felt my eyelids droop, and eventually fall. Laying their in my bed, for the first time in 18 years, I was going to have a peaceful night sleep. With that thought in my head, I fell into unconsciousness.

End Part 2