Chapter 9
>Day 2crazy4u in Appleloosa.
>You yawn deeply as you wearily open your eyelids, letting the silted eyes see the immediate surroundings as you start to unfurl your wing away from Anon with caution, he doesn’t seem to wake up from his slumber though.
>A small line of sunshine beams through the crack of the barn entrance like a ray of light – You want to start feeding on Anon right now, but he had forbidden you to bite him in his sleep.
>Something about bad ‘movies’ from his past, whatever that was.
>With a stretch of the wings, and a stretch of your body, you carefully trot your way to the exit of the barn - a light step in your hooves.
>You boop your snout at the gate, making it open up a bit further. You squint your eyes as the sudden change of light slowly envelops you.
>Outside of the barn is nothing short of beautiful – The golden crust of the desert mixing with the lush greens of every apple tree in the orchard, the grass wavering to the soft rhythm of the wind. The sun was barely creaking over the horizon, soaking the sky in a blend of orange and deep red.
>A few leaves blows past you as you exit the barn, the wind tugging ever so lightly at your sandy coat of fur. You inhale deeply, letting your sensitive sense of smell overpower you – losing yourself in the moment.
>With a single, fluid motion you unfurl your wings again, letting the leathery appendages broaden themselves to the fullest – And with a single, solitary sweep of your wings you fly up into the freedom of the sky.
>This was so different than the Everfree forest. It was rare for you to see the sky so open, yet alone the sun in all its glory back home. Yet now that you had seen such beauty in the eye of the beholder, you would much prefer to see this sight more often!
> You were a bat-pony, and you liked mornings.
>You let yourself close your eyes as you become one with the scenery, the sound of the whistling gust you leave behind – the crickets chirping away beneath you – the ever so lightly bustling trees beneath you.
>If your cave wasn’t your home, then the sky surely was.
”Groooooooooooooooooooooooooowl”
>You blink once as your stomach takes you out of your trance, noticing just how hungry you were after yesterday’s events - Maybe if you were all quiet-like and sneaky, Anon wouldn’t notice if you just took a teensy-weensy bit?
>He probably wouldn’t even mind!
>With a flick you twirl around mid-air and start to graze yourself over the landscape as you fly back towards your juice-dispenser.
>You lick your lips at the thought of all the delicious blood you were about to have – The apple from yesterday night had left a way too sweet taste in your mouth, and it really didn’t help that the entire place was littered in nothing but apples ‘n apples.
>You land neatly at the entrance of the still open barn, the dust flickering about in the beam of light. You just can’t help yourself from noticing all the small, beautiful things this place had to offer.
>Maybe the world outside of the forest was better than you had thought? Sure you had it best when you could hide away in the dark, but you were starting to see more and more of the enlightened world, and you couldn’t help but feel like you had lived your entire life in a small bubble.
>With a small snicker you creep over towards Anon like a predator lurking in the bushes – All the way up until you get to one of his arms, where you slowly prick two holes into his biceps.
>Hm, that’s weird – You don’t remember –PFTAH! This was so sour! Why was Anon’s blood sour all of the sudden? It used to be like, the best thing ever!
>You blink your eyes as the reality dawns on you. With a light shove you attempt to awaken Anon, the small alerts in your head going off.
“Anon, Anooooooon – Wakey wakey! I’m going to steal your blood, so you should totally wake up and tell me it’s wrong!”
>He wasn’t responding, nor was he pushing you away – two big red alerts! You start to shove harder, receiving a quiet groan ecliting from his zipped lips. You sigh with relief – For a second you thought you had smothered him to death with your wing overnight!
>You peek at Anon to find the source of his distress – Looking at his body reveals the almost obvious; His wounds that he never managed to wash clean had started to fester and had given him a fever most likely.
>What did you have to do? You had never helped anything before with getting better except yourself – And all you needed was some blood and all your problems would be completely gone. Yet Anon was a Hooman, and he didn’t drink blood – So what could you possibly do?
>You began to sniffle as panic overtakes you. Stuck in a barn with the only person that at least didn’t look at you with disdain anymore, you didn’t want to lose him to some sort of infection!
>No! You could do one thing that everyone would pay attention to, even if they didn’t like you.
>With a swift motion you set into a gallop and run out of the barn – Screaming loudly.
“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!”
>As you run down, screaming and hollering you accidentally tackle the caramel-mane stallion from yesterday, bustling down the hills for a good few seconds before you manage to stop yourself.
>”Hey there kiddo! Don’t eat me none!” He says sacredly as he scoots back from you the second he gains ample ground under his hooves. You don’t give him the chance to escape from your helpless wrath.
“There’ssomethingterriblywrongwithAnonhischestisallredandmarkedandIcan’tdoanythingohpleaseohpleasehelpme!”
>You point franticly towards the barn and start to trot closer to Braeburn – You don’t even give him time to get more scared or utter a counter before you start to push at him. He seems to resign himself to his fate as you shove him up towards the barn.
>With a nudging shove you manage to get Braeburn over towards Anon who seems to have fallen back into a drowsy sleep. His breath seems to be like a workout for him, and he is sweating profusely.
>”He sure as hay had a better time the day before” Braeburn states as he starts to inspect the sleeping beauty, turning him about in his sleep and keeping a close eye on the infected wounds.
>”I’ll get ‘im to the main house for a proper bed, but ah’ need you to go into town and find a doctor” he said curtly, heaving his glance up towards you. Your mind goes blank at the thought of going into town.
>Alone, without Anon – All the different ponies with their prejudice – The stares – the silent whispering behind your back.
“Why can’t I stay and watch over him while you go look for somep0ny?!”
>Braeburn exhales through his snout, seemingly starting to get impatient. “Look ‘ere kiddo’. I ain’t none happier with you goin’ down there on your own than yourself – But unless you know how to treat the sickly rather than runnin’ in circles endlessly, Ah suggest that you take the road down to the city.” He notes sharply at you, making you bite your lower lip in silent frustration.
>”For the sake of your friend. I trust you not to go all carnivorin’ on the town” he adds – You look down at Anon – Your friend, sighing as you can find no flaw in Braeburn’s ideology. With a slight, assured nod to the stallion you turn on your hooves and speed out and away from the orchard, leaping into the air and flying with all the power you could muster into your wings of leather.
>You wondered if Anon thought of you as a friend too.
-
>A white room closes in around you the second you open your eyes, the blinding lack of different colors making your eyes go blind for a few seconds as they adjust.
>You try to use your hands to get yourself up from the ground, but you find your arms incapable of movement, looking down your torso you realize that it’s bound completely by a stray-jacket.
>You grunt as you use your chest muscles to get yourself up from the ground, you look about in this new location – it seems like the walls have been padded for both protection and sound.
>Out of nothingness appears a door that swings itself open completely by its own. Behind it rests a corridor as white as the room you woke up in.
>This was some true horror shit.
>With nothing else to do you slowly wade through the door and into the corridor – the door behind you disappears instantaneously, only followed by the sound of a disappearing wind. With a heavy gulp you start to make your way down the corridor.
>The corridor looks like something taken directly out from a hospital, with the exception of the lack of doors or any source of light – You see no end in sight, and as you turn around again one last time, you find that it has no beginning either.
>It feels like an endless maw of void, gaping and consuming you whole – Leaving you in eternity and inexistence at the same time.
>You set into a sudden, awkward run as your upper body is still confined by the stray-jacket. Had you gone insane? Was this some asylum you were kept in? Where was the orchard? Equestria? The Technicolor? Talking ponies? Arid Star?
>Yep, sounds like you have gone insane.
>After what seems like an hour of straight running you collapse down on the white floor with a shortage of breath. This place had officially freaked the fuck straight out of you. You would’ve had rustled your jimmies too, if it wasn’t because you had lost them in Chapter 5.
>You slowly get up again, only to find yourself confined to the same room as you were in to begin with.
>Just where the fuck are you?
>A door opens, a white corridor staring into you once more. You didn’t know if something had put you all the way back to the beginning, or if some sort of membrane in your brain had snapped and made you into a vegetable. 
>If you had to rate this in the Cuil theory – this was way above 6 Cuil.
>I give you a hamburger.
>No, you can’t get off track in a situation like this! You grunt as you set into another spring with newfound energy. Whatever this was, you were hell-bent on outlasting it.
>No-fucking-way some sort of corridor that couldn’t even get itself together to get some nice colors would be the end of you – You had so much yet to do.
>Dropkicking Celestia comes to mind.
>Dropkicking her – In the face.
-
>You are Arid Star, and everyp0ny is looking at you.
>you had simply entered the town with as little ruckus you could muster, even gone to the length of landing a good few yards away from the entrance so that they wouldn’t be all surprised at your wings.
>Regardless, they were still staring at you as you walked down the town’s dirt road – It was just like you had feared.
>”Those aren’t Pegasus wings, my uncle’s a Pegasus and they’re all feathery.”
>”what’s wrong with her eyes? They look like a monsters.”
>”What in Celestia’s mane is up with her large teeth?”
>You try to drown the backtalk out by walking faster and  focusing even more for the task at hand – finding the doctor so he could rescue your juice dispel- no, your -friend- from all his pains and plagues!
>But you had no idea where he would be in this town! There was a lot of houses, and you couldn’t just walk into each and every one of them like some sort of parade.
>You swallow your saliva heavily as you realize you have to ask one of the inhabitants for directions. You start to look around slowly and cautiously, trying to find the most harmless looking pony you could see.
>But all you saw were scruffy, hard-working stallions and gossiping mares – You were too scared to approach one of the larger stallions, since they reminded you of the larger inhabitants of the forest you used to live in – And the mares would probably scoff at you and talk about you in a mean manner like all those behind you did!
>”Wha’ the hay are y’ doin’ there girl.” A voice casts out at you – In your attempt to find somep0ny that could help you to the Doctor, you had clumsily walked into an elderly looking stallion with a pastel-blue coat and a very fragile grey mane ontop – His tail was nothing but a small stump of its former self – He quickly closed in on you, being almost nose-to-nose.
>”Yer’ not one o’ them Cow-spies, are y’? Comin’ ta’ take me away because I know all the secrets eh! Well Y’ can go right back ta’ yer cow overlords and tell ‘em that Ah would rather die than letting this town go under to them!” he snaps at you, making you trot back slowly, spilling spaghetti everywhere.
“Uhm no no no! I just – I eeh, Y-You know, I needed to – You see!”
>”No back in mah day we ‘ad to climb all the way up a big, snowy mount’n – in the desert – inna’ blizzard – inna sandstorm – All at once! Juss’ to fight back ta’ evildoers of th’ cows!” he hollered at you – You didn’t know how to react to all of this.
>You were without Anon, in someplace foreign – Everyone was looking at you like you were some sort of freak, and now you had an elderly stallion telling you about his entire life story.
>You just couldn’t handle this.
>You started to cry – Loudly. Slumbering down on your stomach as you hide your face in between your hooves.
“I – I just want to save A-A-A-Anon!” 
>You mumble between your cries, a few screeches following every now and then – only furthering the amount of curious bystanders. Your crying didn’t help at all to your situation.
>You felt more defeating than you ever had felt in your life.
>Suddenly a small hoof poked your side, but you ignored it – They could just as well just tease you now if they wanted to, it wasn’t going to get any worse than it already was right now! The hoof tapped you cautiously again, and this time you peeked out from between your hooves to look at the evildoer.
>It was the small foal you had met on the way into the town at first. He had his head turned slightly to the side as he looked at you with an honest expression of curiosity – His eyes didn’t have a hint of prejudice, only a plethora of questions.
>”Miss – Why are you crying?” he asked with a squeaky voice, two big light-blue eyes staring right into yours.
“E-everyp0ny is looking at me. A-And A-Anon is sick at the or-or-orchard!”
>The little foal merely blinked as he scooted in closer to you, inspecting you with a furrowed brow before letting out a small “Whoaa”.
>”Your wings are really cool!” he said as he poked one of your wings, making it twitch involuntary at the touch. You flinched and scooted away from the foal – Was even the kids trying to make fun of you now!?
“L-Look, I just want a Doc-Doctor!”
>The foal looked at you, and then up towards the elderly stallion, then down to you again – You weren’t sure if his eyebrows could go any higher in confusion by now.
>”You mean Doctor Hay-Dust? But he is right there…?” He said, pointing towards the Elderly stallion, who was still talking about doomsday, cows and how much harder it was back in his days.  
>”Hey Grandpa, snap out of it! The miss needs your help!” he kept on, jumping up on the elderly stallions back, causing him to snap out of his endless drivel of needless talking.
>”An’ then we all joined th’ navy sea- Huh? Oh – Ahem. Ah’ do beg ma’ pardon, an old stallion can never be too careful aroun’ these days. Doctah Hay-Dust, and his nephew Top-Hat at yer’ service.” He said, bowing down deeply, the foal on top of him wobbling about trying to regain balance.
>You rubbed your watery eyes as you sat back up – The ridiculous display the two awkward ponies made together did cause it to be a bit easier to talk to them.
“My friend back at the apple orchard is sick and needs help. I was told the doctor in Appleloosa could help him!”
>The doctor rubbed his chin once; “Hrm, I’ve never liked ‘dem apples. They always go ‘round boastin’ an’ screamin’ bout their barns – They break out into song too, hurts me poor ears it does – Besides, pears tastes far better tha- Ow!” The foal above smacked him lightly over his head with an annoyed pip.
>”Uncle Hay always gets off-track if you talk to him too much.” He muttered casually on his throne. The whole scene just looked so weird that you couldn’t help but turn your sobbing fit into a small snicker and a wry smile.
“You two are weird!”
>The foal simply responded with a wide smile before tapping his grandpa lightly. “Grandpa Hay-Dust. You always told me I had to be nice to fillies and mares – Shouldn’t you be too?” He said, causing the old stallion to smack his gums about, mumbling something about “the youth of this generation” and how it didn’t pay any respect to its elders.
>”You’re right nephew. So, Misses – Can ye’ show us ta’ yer friend, then?” he said, adjusting the glasses that was pitched on top of his snout all of the sudden.
>You fidgeted with your hooves for a bit before coming to your senses.
“This way!”
-

>This fucking corridor is fucking endless god fucking damnit why is this fucking thing happening to you this doesn’t even make fucking sense oh god how you want to punch someone in the dick.
>This thing was literally endless. Every time you stood too still for too long, or fell, or blinked your eyes – You’d end up in that damned padded room once more.
>With a grunt you fall down in the corridor again, only to see your horizon tilt and find yourself in the cell once more. You sigh to yourself as you slumber back up to one of the corners of the room – you were so done playing this bloody game.
>Suddenly the floor started to give under in the middle of the room, making you jump up hurriedly and scoot out of the room.
>Seems like whatever this shit was about won’t let you stay in the room for too long – You didn’t feel like falling into an endless abyss just yet. With a resigned sigh you start to run once more through the snow white corridor.
>As you run through the endless corridor, a thought occurs to you that you hadn’t realized until this very moment.
>Throughout this entire escapade, you hadn’t turned around and walked the other way once you came out of the disappearing room – well, it’s not like you have anything else to try.
>So with a light jog you turn around and start to run the other way. For a while it seems to prove mostly unfruitful, it’s just nothing but more corridor and more white – but as you run for a small while, a door appears further down the corridor – You stop up next to it.
>The door has a single hatch that you can slide to the side and look through – And you’d do just that, if you weren’t in a strayjacket.
>exhaling through your nostrils, you bite at the hatch with your teeth and slowly slide the hatch to the side.
>Behind it is you – but younger.
>Nope, fuck that – You close the hatch immediately and start running again. Fuck dramatic flashbacks – everyone skips those anyways.
>The entire ground shakes at your defiance, and cracks around the corridor start to appear – Oh fuck.
>you go from a jog into a direct sprint as the scenery behind you start to collapse and splinter into a thousand pieces – nothing but the void right behind you.
>It’s catching up to you.
>Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
>Suddenly, the Corridor makes a turn – but you give next to no thought about it while running for your life.
>At the end of the corridor stands a simple, mid-waist silhouette – and after what you’ve been through you know well enough what that silhouette is.
>It’s a Pony.
>With a last ditch effort you endure your way towards the silhouette, if this was Celestia’s work, or some manipulative thing that Arid Star had hid for all this time, you would go all kung-fu on their flanks till they had no flank to call their own anymore.
>Yet there at the end of the corridor she stood – it was a she, but it was neither Celestia, nor was it Arid Star.
>”Come find me, stranger~” she spoke.
>And then the cracks of the surrealist world came cracking down around you, making you lose your footing and fall into pure nothingness.
>Suddenly, more voices.
>”…ohpleasewakeuppleasewakeuppleasewakeuppleasewakeup”
>”Miss, he ‘ave never been in danger of dyin’, I’ve told ya’ this thrice now. All ‘e need is ta’ awake on his own.”
“….ohpleasepleasepleasewakeupanonpleasewakeup”
>”damned kids never listen ta’ the older ones. No, back in my day..”
>…
>As you open your eyes, you find yourself in a bed – a window blowing a light breeze in from the side. You take a hand to your chest, but find it bandaged up with simple, wet cloth. You smell the aroma of alcohol coming from your torso. Huh, how about that.
>You peek down beside you to find a mess of a fur ball that you once knew as Arid Star – She has seen better days, it was like you had found her in the cave again.
>”You’re awake by now, eh?” a voice casts out to you, turning your glance towards the door you find Braeburn leaning up against the door’s frame with his usual coy eyes glaring at you.
“I take it something bad happened to me.”
>Braeburn nods cutly, trotting into the room and standing just a few yards from both you and the sleeping Arid.
>”Arid ran to the town and got you a doctor to look on your wounds. Ah’ don’t know much about your get-to-gethering, nor if you have anythin’ together ‘n such. But when the doctor was here, she refused to leave y’ side.”
>”I realize now that I was wrong in my judgement. I should not be scared of her.” He mutters, scratching the back of his mane with a slight hint of blush flushing in over his cheeks.
>”I should be scared of you.” He adds, making you cross your arms across your chest in bewilderment.
“What did I do now, shame you in my sleep?”
>Braeburn doesn’t comment any further, but fashions a letter from under his hat and gives it to you before speaking up once more.
>”This came from the mail-train, with express” he says before turning around, leaving you, Arid Star and the letter alone once more.
>You shrug lightly – Well, whatever the fuck Braeburn thinks about you doesn’t really make you give two shits about him anyway, so why care.
>Reading the front of the letter makes you widen your eyes slightly: [To: Anon of the Human Race, From: Princess Celestia] – You wonder how she knew exactly where you were, but you decided not to grasp on the reach of a deity’s power any more than you had to.
>Opening the letter revealed a short note, stating something that made you scratch your chin tiredly – How much bullshit was she up to this time.
>”Teach me a Lesson.” Was all that it said – Was this some sick joke from her? You grunt as you find that the letter also contained a blank page, a quill and a small container with some ink in it.
>If she wanted to sext with you, she could forget all about it – You didn’t find goddesses of the sun very attractive, nor sexy for that matter. You toss it to your side with a sigh, leaning back into your bed.
-
>You are Arid Star, and you have just woken up to see the biggest relief you’ve had of recent. Anon is awake!
>With a loud screech you jump up onto him and clutch yourself on him, making him cough and wheeze out in response.
>”Arid – My C-Chest.” He manages to whisper into your ears.
>You cough slightly in embarrassment and release your grip around him. You couldn’t help but smile widely and snicker constantly though; to you the world had been made proper again.
>You had come to the realization that Anon was a friend for you as well as a credible source of food! If you were friends, then you could claim his blood forever! Friends totally shared what they owned, right?
>”Arid, do you know what this means?” he mumbles out, showing you the note and paper that he had received prior to you waking up; ‘Teach me a lesson’? Oh! You had learned something! 
“I have something I can teach, I think!”
>Anon raises an eyebrow, but takes the Quill and dips it in the ink container, nodding to you once to begin talking.
-
>Well, you suppose you had done what Celestia wanted you to do in Appleloosa.
>Apparently, getting sick and having Arid Star cry publicly was what you came out here in the middle of fucking nowhere for.
>You grunt, you’ll never fully understand those damn ponies. After you had delivered the letter to the Mail system, you had given your farewells to the Orchard – Arid Star had went to the doctor’s place all on her own again to say goodbye to Hay-Dust and Top Hat, and now you were resting in a train coupe onroute to the next target on the list.
>Arid Star was sitting next to you, luckily you had the small coupe all for yourself – so there wasn’t any need for awkward tension between an alienate, a carnivore and two innocent ponies.
>”Anon? Are we friends?” she suddenly asks out of the blue.
>You take into consideration what had transpired since you came around here – and what kind of effect it would’ve had if she weren’t around.
>You grunt idly to yourself as you realize it would’ve probably been a lot easier – But going on an adventure, getting chased by a train, slammed into a jail and working on an orchard before sleeping in a barn together was kind of hard to do without ending up calling one another friends.
“I suppose we are.”
>she lets out one of the biggest smiles you’ve seen her fashion yet, before she jumps at you, fumbling you both on the floor as she starts sucking your blood out of your neck again.
>This tour to Manehatten better be a short one.

End chapter 9.