That damn empty surfaceby Alpha Scorpii
Chapters
Chapter 1
I
The dream ended, but Ryan was reluctant to open his eyes. Not because he was still tired, he wasn’t, but because he felt that there was no point in getting up. He had been feeling the same for three weeks already. For him, the idea of staying in bed the whole day, doing nothing except rolling slowly, was much more pleasant. But he had to wake up, hadn’t he?
So, Ryan opened his eyes. He wasn’t wearing pajamas, just an an old white t-shirt and even older black trousers. He remembered that, the last night, he had returned from the university exhausted and feeling in the dumps, after four and a half unbearably boring hours in the lab, listening to the teacher’s monologue instead of, you know, doing lab things. Ryan had returned home with almost no energy left. He had changed his clothes, he had dined a bit, and then, after zapping through the TV channels for almost twenty minutes, he had dropped in his bed, falling asleep almost instantly.
The young man stood up, slowly .He couldn’t remember the dream he had had. Meh, it didn’t matter. For the last three weeks, since it had started, his dreams hadn’t been anything memorable.
Then, Ryan realized that he was not in his bedroom, but in a weird white place, kinda similar to the room of a psychiatric hospital. Also, he hadn’t waken up from his bed, but from an ugly, nude mattress with no blankets. He looked around, the room was practically empty, with no furniture, save from the mattress and a small table. It had no windows, and all the light came from a single bulb in the ceiling.
Am I still dreaming?, thought Ryan.
The room had a wooden door as the only exit. The boy wondered if it would be opened, or if he had to find the key.
“Hello?” he aked, to the air. “Is there anybody out there?”
No response. Putting his faith in the clichés, Ryan pinched his own arm. No pain. Yes, apparently he was still dreaming, but he was aware of that, so that meant he was in a lucid dream, right?
Ryan extended his other arm and tested it. He tried to materialize a sword, and to change the color of his skin, and to turn the door into a pile of dust with just his thoughts; but it didn’t worked. He was dreaming and aware of that, but somehow, that was not a lucid dream. What a pity.
The boy approached the table. There was something over it, something small, wrapped in white paper. Ryan unfolded it. It was a little doll of Pinkie Pie. Well, that was a nice surprise. He had been a fan of the show for six months, and finally his mind had given him a dream about ponies. It was just a doll, he would have preferred to dream about the real ones, but it was ok. Pinkie was his favourite one. He didn’t know exactly why, but she was.
Ryan looked at the paper. It had a message, which had been written with a red pen:
There’s almost no time left, Ryan. You should’ve stopped this before, but you still can run away from him, you still can ruin his plans. He has grown powerful, but he’s not invincible.
Get out of here, Ryan, escape from this place as fast as you can. If he captures you, it’ll be game over for all of us.
Beware of the Taunt, it works for him. Take the doll with you, she’ll keep that thing away.
Don’t let him capture you.
Ryan read the note several times, trying to make any sense of it. Then, he remembered that he was in a dream, one of the last places where one should expect things to make sense. He left the paper in the table and picked the doll. His inner brony was giggling like a little kid. Actually, Ryan had thought about buying a doll or a plushie of Pinkie Pie, but he wasn’t brave enough to enter in a toy store and purchase one of them, not even with the excuse of It’s for my little sister.
With the doll in his hand, the boy sighed and went to the door. He had decided to play the game, to follow the instructions the dream was giving him, to see where was it going. He grabbed the door handle, he turned it, and the door opened.
It happened really fast: as soon as the wooden structure moved, the survival instinct of Ryan, active even in his dreams, forced him to jump back, just in time to avoid a black claw, which would’ve surely ripped off his face. The young man fell on his butt, and dropped the little doll. He didn’t care, however. He was too busy staring at the abomination which was entering in the room:
Tall, slim, with a body made of something that could only be described as, maybe, solid living darkness. Instead of legs, it had tentacles. Its arms were long, and each one had an eye, crowned with three fingers which were sharp and curved like hooks. In its chest, moving slowly, four appendixes, each one ending in a fang. Its head was covered, hid under a cloak made of several pieces of what looked like skin, all sewn together. And eyes, the mask was filled with more eyes. Ryan, or the part of his brain which wasn’t too busy being scared, assumed that it was the Taunt mentioned in the note. The creature approached, rising his claws. Ryan thought of fighting that thing, but with what? Maybe the table, if he was able to reach it...
Then, the little doll of Pinkie Pie started to glow. The Taunt turned its faceless head, momentarily forgetting about its prey. The light, pink, became brighter, until, with a final flash and the sound of party blowers, the small doll was replaced by a much bigger cartoon pony.
“Oooooooh... What is this place?” said Pinkie, while bouncing around, completely oblivious of both the terrified human and the shadowy abomination. “Oh, look, a table! And what’s this paper?”
The Taunt decided that the newcomer was not of its interest, and it approached Ryan even more. The boy, unable to get back on his feet due to fear and confusion, could only crawl back a few centimeters, while praying for that dream to end as soon as possible.
“Hey, what are you?” asked Pinkie, suddenly jumping on Ryan’s lap. “I’ve never seen anything like you before!”
“P... P...” the boy tried to warn her about the Taunt, but the words got stucked on his throat.
“What a short mane you have!” continued the pony, happily, without realizing about the monster which was right behind her. “And where’s your tail? Oh, I guess you’re not a pony... Are you a dragon? No, wait, dragons have tails, too... And you don’t have scales. One of my friends is a dragon, you know? His name is Spike, and... Oh, silly me, I haven’t introduced myself yet!”
“Pi... Pin...”
“My name is Pinkie Pie, nice to meet you! Normally I would throw a welcome party for you, but I guess I’m not in Ponyville anymore. Is this where you live? Then you should throw a welcome party for me!”
“Pinkie, run!”
Too late. The Taunt wrapped one of his tentacles around Pinkie Pie and lifted her in the air. Ryan hold his breath, fearing that the monster was going to kill her. Actually, the creature was just going to toss her away, since it wasn’t interested in the pony. However, as soon as the dark essence touched the pink coat, the air was filled with the sound of something burning.
The Taunt uttered a spine-chilling scream of pain and released Pinkie Pie. Then, while trying to smother the pink flames which had suddenly appeared in his tentacle, it retreated. At that moment, Ryan reacted: he got up and closed the door, quickly.
“What was that thing?” asked Pinkie Pie.
“I don’t know!” answered Ryan, panting. “But it’s out there, so we’re not going to leave this room!”
“Oh, well!” the pink pony smiled again. “Like I was saying: Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie! Nice to meet you!”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. That dream was getting weirder. However, if it wasn’t by the abomination who was waiting for him at the other side of the door, it would have been the best dream of his life.
***
Ryan introduced himself to Pinkie, and pretended to not know who she was, as well as being totally oblivious about Ponyville and the others. He didn’t want to cause her an existential crisis, even if that happy pink pony was just a product of her subconscious. Of course, he didn’t mentioned that they were in his dream, either.
“You should come to visit Ponyville!” she said, enthusiastically bouncing around Ryan. “I’m sure my friends would love to meet you!”
“So, you don’t remember how did you get here?” asked he.
“Nu-uh. I was playing with Gummy in my room, and then I got teleported! At first I thought that Twilight had something to do with it.”
“Then, we’re in the same boat. I have no idea of why or how I ended up in this room.”
“We can search for the exit together!”
Ryan raised the other eyebrow. Pinkie Pie had only known him for six minutes or so, and she was already treating him like an old friend. But, of course, that was what Pinkie Pie used to do, and he liked her for that.
“We could,” said the boy. “But the Taunt may be still out there, and we don’t have a way to defend ourselves.”
Inmediatly, Ryan realized that yes, they had. Pinkie Pie seemed to be toxic for the abomination, it couldn’t touch her without bursting in pink flames. But the Taunt had probably learned the lesson, and the next time it could just slash the pony with its claws instead of picking her with a tentacle, and Ryan didn’t want that dream to be turned into a nightmare. He also realized another thing: he was dreaming. If the monster killed him, he would just wake up. Why was he worrying so much? He didn’t know.
“Oh, but we can defend ourselves!” said Pinkie. “We just have to giggle at the ghosties!”
And music started to sound.
“When I was a little filly, and the sun was going dooooooooown...”
Ryan smiled without realizing. The singing voice of that pony somehow made his lips move by their own. He couldn’t prevent the corners of his mouth for going up, and he loved it.
“Ok, Pinkie,” he said. “Let’s go find that exit.”
“Giggle at the ghostie, guffaw at the grossly...”
“By the way, how do you make music pop out of nowhere?”
“I have no idea!”
Ryan opened the door and abandoned the room, very carefully. Pinkie just bounced near him, making squeaky sounds with her hooves. There were no signs of the Taunt, but still, the boy urged the pony to be as quiet as she could. As soon as they went out of the white room, the door closed by itself, and then disappeared like a mirage, leaving both Ryan and Pinkie trapped outside, with no safe spot they could return to.
They looked around. All they could see were shelves filled with books, forming long corridors. They were in a library.
Chapter 2
II
“Wow...” said Pinkie. “I haven’t seen so many books in all my life! There’s even more than in Twilight’s house!”
“And no one of them as a title,” noticed Ryan, looking at the spines. “Weird. Anyway, we’d better start searching for the exit, before the Taunt comes back. Pinkie, jump on my shoulders.”
“Okey dokey lokey!”
Ryan almost fell to the ground. Pinkie was heavier than she looked.
“Weeeee! This is fun! What do we do now?”
“Could you take your hooves out of my eyes, please?”
“Ups, sorry...”
“That’s better. Now, can you see above the shelves? Look for any door or exit sign.”
“I see a big door over there!”
“Good, that must be the entrance.”
Still carrying Pinkie on his shoulders (because, honestly, who wouldn’t want to?), Ryan followed the directions of the pink pony and walked through the shelves, right towards the entrance. He advanced carefully, thinking twice before turning a corner, fearing that the Taunt could be waiting for them.
But the monster didn’t jump from behind the books, as Ryan was expecting, and they managed to get to the entrance safely. Both the door and the counter were inside the limits of a green line painted on the floor, with the shape of a square. The boy sighed in relief when he saw a signal inside that same square, with the words Taunt-Free Area. The creature would not attack them while they were there, apparently.
Pinkie jumped off the shoulders of Ryan, and the young man tried to open the big wooden door, but it was useless.
“I guess we’ll have to find a key...” he said.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”
Both Ryan and Pinkie were startled by that female voice, which came out of nowhere. They looked, and saw a woman at the other side of the counter, one that, Ryan would’ve sworn, wasn’t there a few seconds ago.
“Do you wish to leave?” she asked, with a smile.
“She looks a lot like you!” said Pinkie, talking to Ryan.
It was true. That woman was, basically, what he would be if he was of the opposite gender, and maybe a few years older. But Ryan didn’t care about that, they had found the exit to that place, and he wanted to get out as soon as possible.
“Yes, we wish,” he said. “What do we have to do?”
“You,” corrected the woman. “You have to do. You have to write.”
She took a bunch of white sheets of paper from behind the counter, as well as a pen, and left them on the wooden surface.
“Create a story,” she explained. “Then, you can go.”
“Do you write?” asked Pinkie. “I didn’t know that!”
“Yes...” mumbled Ryan. Unlike the pony, he was not very happy about that idea. “I... I kinda like writing...”
“Oh, then you have to meet my friend Twilight, cause she loves reading! And Rainbow Dash, too! Well, she’s kinda a newbie, you know? She didn’t like to read, until that day when she had that accident and went to the hospital, and then Twilight...”
“Pinkie, I don’t want to be rude, but I can’t concentrate if there’s too much noise.”
The pony smiled, apologizing with a look, and put a hoof on her lips, silently promising to be quiet.
But that wouldn’t be enough, Ryan knew. If they had asked him to write anything one or two months ago, he would’ve come up with something. However, his inspiration had been on strike for the past three weeks, both his mind and fingers were reluctant to create. Fate couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to put him in such situation.
The boy gulped and took the pen with his left hand. He realized, then, that he could just rip-off something. He knew books and short stories which were famous only inside the small circles of their fans, he could take things from them and do a mix-and-match. Who would care? The librarian woudn’t realize, she probably didn’t know about those stories.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” she said, still smiling.
Ryan was left paralyzed, feeling cold sweats. Could she read his mind, or what?
“You have a to create a story of your own,” she explained. “If you cheat, that green line in the ground will stop protecting us from the Taunt.”
“Ok...” he said, gulping again.
Ryan stared at the blank sheets of paper, with the pen trembling in his fingers, and begging to his brain to give birth to something, anything, no matter how small it could be. He approached the pen to the paper, afraid of releasing the first dot of ink, afraid to begin something that he would not be able to continue, afraid of having to crease the paper and start all over again.
Afraid that the smile of the librarian could turn into a grimace once she read the story.
Ryan left the pen in the counter. Once again, for the God-knows what time in three weeks, he had been defeated by the first page.
“I can’t”, he mumbled.
“Why not?” asked Pinkie. “Is there something wrong?”
Everything, thought Ryan, but he didn’t said that: “Nothing, it’s just... I have a lack of inspiration right now.”
“No problem,” smiled the librarian. “I’ll left the papers and the pen here. Try again when you feel capable of.”
“I have an idea!” said Pinkie. “Why don’t you read some of the books here? Maybe that way you could get some inspiration!”
Without getting too away from the safe zone, Ryan and Pinkie picked some books from the closer shelves and read them. They discovered, however, that all of them were totally empty. Not a single character was written in the white pages.
"What the heck is this place?” wondered the boy.
He complained at the librarian, but the woman just shrugged and smiled again.
“I’m getting tired of this,” he said. “We only want to leave! Can’t you just open the door?”
“That is not how it works,” explained she.
“Ok... Is there any other way out of here?”
“I don’t know.”
“What?!”
“For those kind of questions, you’ll have to ask the Master Librarian.”
She pointed at the other edge of the room, beyond the shelves, at some stairs which ascended to the second floor of the library, where there was nothing but an office, with windows made of black glass.
“That wasn’t there before!” exclaimed Pinkie.
“I know,” said Ryan. “Apparently, everything in this place has the nasty habit of popping in and out of existence when they feel like to. But if he can help us find other way out, we’ll ask him.”
“Are you sure? What if we just wait here for a while, until your inspiration comes back?”
Ryan took a deep breath of air.
“It won’t come back, Pinkie. Never,” he said.
And so, with Ryan holding a huge book of several hundreds of pages in his hands, to use it as a weapon in case they were attacked by the Taunt in their way to the stairs; the two of them abandoned the safe place around the entrance and dived in the sea of shelves.
Fortunately, once again, nothing happened. They reached the stairs safely, to the point that Pinkie was bouncing and talking loudly again, and Ryan didn’t say anything. He was starting to think that maybe the Taunt hadn’t been able to suffocate the pink flames, and that it had burned to death. That would make things a lot easier.
“Why would anypony use these ugly black windows?” asked Pinkie, putting her face in the glass. “I can’t see what’s inside! Oh, but I can see my reflection, he, he...”
And she started to make funny faces in the dark mirrors.
Ryan looked them, too, but he jumped back when he saw his reflection. The Ryan at the other side of the mirror had no eyes, just black empty holes, staring at him with an expression of terrible pain.
“Are you ok?”, asked the pony.
“Do... do you see that?”
“What? It’s only your reflection.”
“Really? Don’t you see anything wrong with it?”
Pinkie shook her head. Ryan approached the black windows, face to face with his nightmarish double. Only he could see it, apparently. The young man discovered that the mouth of his reflection was hollow, too, with no teeth, nor tongue.
Hollow, just how he felt down there, with the pen on his hand...
“Let’s get over with this,” he mumbled.
The door of the office wasn’t closed, but Ryan waited a bit before opening it, since it had a small note taped. He picked it, and recognized the same red writing he had seen in the white room:
You’ve given up too quickly, Ryan, now there’s no turning back.
Running away is an option no more. You’ll have to fight him, you’ll have to stop him.
Be always with Pinkie. She’ll protect you.
“What’s that?” asked the mare, bounding around Ryan, trying to read the note. “What’s that? What’s that?”
“Nothing,” was the only answer of the boy, as he introduced the paper in his pocket.
He was fed up with that dream, with the nonsense, and with the anonymous notes. He wanted to end it all and return to the real world, although he would miss Pinkie.
Ryan opened the door, and they entered in the office. The room was in complete darkness, with the exception of a table in the center, right under a weak column of light. The boy approached it, while Pinkie bounced in the shadows, searching for a switch, or a lantern, or something.
In the table, there was a gray folder, with documents inside. Ryan took them, and started to read. It wasn’t easy, most of them had been ruined, burned, and only a few words were still readable:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The door can be found inside the minds of the humans, inside any mind. With the adequate conditions and ............................... the door will open. ..................................
...................................................... I, the Master Librarian ............................... have found the door ..................................... the Taunt is its guardian ........................
.............................................................................................
Once a god dies, a devil enters ...............................................
...........................................................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................................................
God = creator
Creator = god, in the universe of his mind ................................................
...............................................................................................
Desánimo, Lord of Despair, Killer of Hope, He For Whom All Empty Tears Will Be Shed .................................................. he will come through the doo................ the Taunt is his servant, so am I ................................
...................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................
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“The walls are covered with papers!” said Pinkie, from the shadows, while still searching. “Come on, there has to be a candle around here...”
Ryan kept reading the burned documents, although all of them were nearly identical, filled with nonsenses about some door, and someone or something named Desánimo. No useful information about how to abandon that library.
The last sheet of the folder was different, though. In perfect state, made with a different type of paper, and written by hand, with a blue pen:
Hello, Ryan.
If you’re reading this, that means that you weren’t able to get out from here. Good. I worked really hard preparing the grand finale, and I wouldn’t like you to ruin it by fleeing like a cockroach.
If you’ve already met the Taunt, I apologize for its rude behaviour. I told it that I needed you alive, but I didn’t specified that I needed you intact. Well, it doesn’t matter, the result will be the same.
Everything will be over soon, Ryan. The end of the path you started walking three weeks ago is near. Don’t think about running away, don’t think about changing direction, don’t think about fighting back, it’s all useless.
There is no hope left for you, Ryan. You’ve dived too deep in this black sea, and now you can’t go up.
But don’t worry, you can still be useful for something. I need two sacrifices, after all. I will be the first, the one which will allow Desánimo to enter here, in this little limbo. You, the second sacrifice, will allow him to enter in our world, which will become one with the Despair Dimension. The sun will never shine again, the birds will stop singing, there will be no more happiness... it’s going to be beautiful.
We’ll see each other soon.
Your friend, the Master Librarian.
And, under the last blue paragraph, a small note written in red:
He has gone crazy. For the love of God, Ryan, you have to STOP HIM!
“I can’t find anything to turn on the lights,” said Pinkie, approaching the table.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ryan, putting the documents back in the folder. “I don’t think we’re going to get any help here. We should go back to the entrance. I guess I can try to write something, maybe...”
Then, the lights came on in the whole office, revealing that, just like Pinkie Pie had commented, the walls and windows were completely covered by papers, notes of different size, but all of them perfectly readable from any distance, since their messagges were written in capital letters, big and black.
“Let’s go, then!” said Pinkie, ignoring what had just happenned.
However, Ryan was paralyzed, suddenly looking smaller, weaker. His eyes were staring at all the messagges in the walls.
“What happens?” asked the pony. “Come on!”
Ryan just crouched, hugging his own legs, with the head down. Pinkie Pie looked at all the papers, and the words written in them:
YOU’VE FAILED RYAN, YOU ALWAYS FAIL. YOU’RE A LOSER.
YOU SUCK. RYAN, YOU ARE WORTHLESS FAILURE
I HATE YOU YOUR WORK IS GARBAGE, RYAN USELESS
YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING RIGH ALWAYS A FAILURE, RYAN
YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING GOOD NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU
YOU SHOULD GIVE UP GIVE UP, RYAN
And many more, all through the walls of the officce.
Ryan had been reduced to a shadow of his former self, curled near the table, trembling, with his face hidden behind his knees.
“Who would write such nasty things?” asked Pinkie. “Come on, Ryan, let’s get out of here. I don’t like this place.”
But the young man didn’t move an inch.
“Hey, stand up!” insisted Pinkie, grabbing him for an arm. “What are you doing? Didn’t you wanted to return to the entrance? Why are you so pale so suddenly?”, then, she realized: “Is it because of those notes? Ignore them!”
Ryan didn’t answer. The pink mare started to rip off the papers from the walls, stomping on them. After that, she approached the boy and put a friendly hoof on his shoulder.
“Hey, cheer up!” she smiled. “Remember what you said! We’ll go back to the entrance, and you’ll write something to get us out of here!”
“I can’t...” mumbled he.
“Yes, you can!”
“No!” Ryan grabbed his head. “I can’t! I haven’t been able to write anything in three weeks, and I won’t be able to do it ever again!”
“Why not?”
“Because I will fail, I know! Nobody will like it, it will be garbage! I’m not a real writer, I’ve been lying to myself all my life! I can’t... I just can’t... I will fail, and it will hurt me...”
He stopped talking, and started to sob.
“Come on, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” said Pinkie, trying to cheer him up.
Ryan didn’t answer.
“You have to be more positive! I understand being worried that some people may not like your work, but you can’t stop writing just for that, if you love it so much. Look at me! Not everypony likes my parties, but I don’t think about it. And that doesn’t mean that my parties are bad. After all, many other ponies do like them! You can’t please absolutely everypony, but that’s ok, it’s normal. And, if somepony doesn’t like my parties, I’ll try again and again, always improving, until I throw the best party ever!”
Pinkie ended her monologue with a huge smile, hoping for Ryan give her another one, but the boy just raised his head, slowly, and looked at the pony with rage in his wet eyes.
“What do you know about it?” he asked, with a bitter voice. “You’re not even real, just a product of my subconscious.”
The smile of the pink pony faded away.
“Hey, come on...” she said. “That’s not a nice thing to say...”
“I’m tired of all this!” Ryan started to hit his head with the fists. “I want to wake up, I want to wake up! I want this dream to end! I don’t care anymore about the notes, and about this stupid library! I don’t even care about ponies! Just let me wake up!”
“Calm down, you’re scaring me...”
“Go away! Leave me alone! You and everything else this dream has spawned! The Taunt, the Master Librarian, the grim reflections, whoever leaves those red notes, and you; I don’t care! Go away!”
Ryan ended his outburst of rage, and through his tears and all his fury, he saw the heartbreaking image of Pinkie Pie crying. Not with fountains of tears, like she had done several times in the show, but in a more realistic way, with small salty rivers running down her cheeks, coming from two watery eyes. That made it even more heartbreaking.
Before Ryan could say anything more, the pony ran away, leaving him alone in the office. Second passed slowly in silence, and the boy stood up, realizing what had just happened. He had made Pinkie Pie cry. Maybe she was just a product of his dream, but she was still Pinkie Pie, and he had made her cry. He hated himself.
“Pinkie...” he said, coming out of the office. “Pinkie, I’m sorry. Please, come ba... oh...”
Outside of the room, the whole library had suffered a transformation. The shelves had become taller and darker, twisting themselves and fusing with each other, creating long corridors which intersected with other corridors, in a geometrical chaos.
The library had turned into a labyrinth.
Chapter 3
III
Ryan went down the stairs and entered in the labyrinth, calling for Pinkie in whispers, and still armed with the book of hundreds of pages. Carefully and slowly, but not so much as before, since he was in a hurry for finding the pink mare, he started to wander through the sinister shelves, which were so tall that almost reached the ceiling.
'Good job, moron', he thought, as he walked. 'The first dream with My Little Pony you have in your life, and you made your favourite character cry.'
“Pinkie?” he whispered, about to turn a corner.
No answer came from the other side, but no sound of danger, either. So, Ryan stepped forward.
Then, a black hand disarmed him, throwing the book away. The Taunt stood before him, as menacing as the first time. The creature raised one of its claws and attacked with an incredible speed, but Ryan, in a reflex, managed to turn around his body and receive the hit in the right arm. It was the instinc to protect his writing hand, even though he was sure that he would not be able to create ever again.
This time, it hurt. Ryan hadn’t felt anything when he pinched himself back in the white room, but now he screamed as the hooked fingers slashed his skin and flesh. He screamed, and he cursed, but he didn’t wake up.
Ryan fell to the ground, pressing his bleeding right arm, to stop the hemorrhage. With one tentacle, the Taunt grabbed him for a leg and started to drag him through the corridors of the labyrinth. The boy tried to free himself, he kicked the slender body of the abomination with his other leg, but the monster ignored him completely. With new tears on his eyes, this time caused by to the pain of the wound, Ryan understood that he had lost.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahlethimgo!”
With what we’ll guess was a warscream, Pinkie Pie appeared out of nowhere, running like a battlehorse, and jumped. She landed in the head of the Taunt, holding to the sewn cloak with hooves and teeth. Immediatly, the upper half of the abomination’s body bursted in pink flames. The Taunt screamed, but Pinkie was fine, the flames didn’t do anything to her.
All happened very fast: Ryan saw how the monster raised both of its claws, undoubtedly wanting to kill the pony with its hooked fingers. Ignoring his wound and the pain, the young man stood up and grabbed the black arms, immobilizing them so the creature couldn’t hurt Pinkie.
Screeching like a banshee, the Taunt was soon completely engulfed by the flames, and got reduced to a pile of ashes.
***
Sitting on the ground, Ryan laid his back on one of the shelves. Pinkie approached, and gasped when she saw the wound in his arm.
“We have to treat that!” she said.
Pinkie pulled bandages and disinfectant from her puffy tail. Ryan didn’t question it, and allowed her to heal his wound.
“Do you know how to...?” he asked.
“Yes, I learned from Fluttershy,” said Pinkie, interrupting him. “She is one of my friends, an animal caretaker, and she’s very good at healing wounds.”
Pinkie told Ryan everything about Fluttershy while treating the wound, and the boy didn’t interrupt her, although he already knew everything about the yellow pegasus, of course.
“Done,” smiled the mare, once finished.
Ryan looked at his now bandaged arm. It was a pretty good job, his wound wasn’t even itching anymore.
“Hey, Pinkie... About what I said before, I’m really sorry.”
She sat on the ground, staring at Ryan with her big, round blue eyes for a while, and then she said:
“Ok, I forgive you.”
“Really?”
“The things you said to me were very nasty,” she scolded him. “But I know that you’re not a bad pony... er, whatever you are, and I know that you only said those things because you are scared and you want to return to your home, and you couldn’t take it anymore. I understand that giggle at the ghosties doesn’t always work for everypony, specially if they’re lost in a strange place, like we are, and sometimes they get angry and say nasty words to their friends; but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to be your friends anymore, it’s just that they’re tired and scared.” She put a hoof in Ryan’s chest. “I want to get out of here too, Ryan, I want to return to Ponyville and see all my friends again. So, if your apology is really sincere, and you really regret those nasty words, I’ll forgive you.”
Without warning, the young man embraced Pinkie in a friendly hug. The mare got a bit startled at first, but then she smiled and gently tapped Ryan on the back.
“Thank you,” said he. “Thank you, Pinkie Pie. I promise that we’ll get out of here.”
“But first, you have to give me a big smile!”
“Yes, I guess that I owe you that, at least,” Ryan turned the corners of his mouth up. “How about this?”
“Oh, come on, you can do it better! I want to see your teeth!” Pinkie put her hooves in Ryan’s cheeks and pushed up.
“Pinkie, that hurts a bit...”
***
Finally free of the menace of the Taunt, the young man and the hyperactive mare continued their way through the labyrinth. Now, their only obstacle between them and the exit were the twisted and confusing corridors, but Ryan was hopeful that they would find the correct way sooner or later.
Well, there was also the Master Librarian, but probably he would be not a monster, just a regular man that could be easily tackled down by the combined efforts of a human and a cartoon pony.
Pinkie was bouncing around. Ryan told her to not go too far away from him, just in case, but he let her laugh, and talk, and sing as much as she wanted. Seeing her happy again was the most wonderful thing that dream had provided him since it had started, save for Pinkie herself.
The mare turned a corner, disappearing for a second.
“Wait, Pinkie,” repeated Ryan, kindly. “Don’t go too fa...”
His words were interrupted by a scream of pure terror. Pinkie reappeared, running, and jumped into Ryan’s arms. The young man embraced her, and noticed that she was shivering.
"What happens?” he asked, worried.
“T... there’s a kid... there...”
Pinkie was almost unable to speak. Her whole body was trembling. Ryan put a hand on the pink head, gently, trying to confort her, and then he turned the same corner.
There, in the middle of the corridor, on the ground, there was a dead kid. Maybe ten or eleven years old. He was immobile and silent, in a pool of red blood. Ryan became pale, but he continued to hug Pinkie.
“Who is...?” she asked.
The young man approached the body, but he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“It’s me!” he exclaimed, astonished.
“What?”
Ryan had no doubt about it: that dead boy was him, when he had ten or eleven years. He recognized the same face he had seen in the old family photo albums. Ryan stood there, staring at that grim dopplegänger, wondering what was happening in that place, why the dream was slowly becoming a nightmare.
In his right hand, the dead boy was holding a red pen and a small paper. Ryan picked them, and read the note:
I’ve failed.
You’ve failed.
There is no hope left.
All is los
Then, he understood, or at least he thought he was finally understanding, what was happening in that dreadful place. He had been connecting clues since they had left the white room, mentally trying to solve that puzzle, and finally, after all he had seen, the young man had found an answer.
“Don’t worry, Pinkie,” he said. “He’s not real, just an illusion, a metaphor. Like everything else here.”
“Even me?” asked Pinkie.
“No,” answered Ryan, almost instantly. “You are real, Pinkie. Forget what I said up there, you are real, I assure you.”
Lies. Although Ryan had no idea of what Pinkie could represent, he was sure that she, just like all the other things inside that weird dream, was just a product of his mind. But even if she was just the embodiment of a lost synapse in his brain, he was not going to make her cry again. So he lied.
“And...” asked she. “And what does this kid represents?”
“I guess... my dreams.”
The corpse disappeared, even the blood. Only the pen remained, in the hand of Ryan.
“What do you mean?” asked Pinkie.
“When I was younger, when I started writing, I had many hopes,” explained he. “I had the dream that, somehow, my books would change the world, and inspire people to do great things, or something. But that dream died, as well as many others.”
“Why?”
Ryan took a few seconds to answer:
“I don’t know. I guess I abandoned them because I realized, as I grew up and became aware of my limitations and weaknesses, that I couldn’t practice what I preached. How can I write about things I don’t even believe in anymore? I don’t want to be a hypocrite. Or maybe I gave up because I saw that my dreams were hard to achieve, and I’m just a lazy coward. Perhaps I started thinking that the world doesn’t want to change after all, so why bother? Perhaps... I don’t know.”
He looked the red pen in his hand.
“Anyway, I abandoned them, and they started to die. I kept writing, because I thought that I could still change the world, even if I had to write about other things, those which wouldn’t make me an hypocrite. However, I started to be very exigent with myself, and very critical. No matter what I created, it wasn’t good enough for me. I began thinking of myself as a worthless writer wannabe, and that my work will never be any good, to the point that I started to fear writing, because I was afraid that it turned out to be true, if I showed my creations to somebody. Remember those nasty words in the office? It was I who wrote them. I have been saying those things to myself for a long time, while my dreams kept dying more and more, until three weeks ago, I guess, they completely disappeared, taking the few inspiration I had left with them. It’s over. It’s all over.”
Ryan left Pinkie on the ground.
“It’s over,” he repeated. “But I’ll do it one more time. I’ll create something, so we can leave this place, and then I’ll never write ever again.”
“What?” gasped Pinkie. “No!"
But Ryan just replied, with tired voice and a sad smile:
“There’s nothing I can do, Pinkie. It’s over...”
***
They kept walking through the corridors. Everytime they took a bifurcation in the labyrinth, Ryan draw a mark on the shelves/walls with the red pen, that way they wouldn’t go completely blind. However, although the boy didn’t want to recognize it, maybe to not lose his hope of getting out of there; it seemed that the labyrinth was changing, becoming more complex and confusing at every second.
Eventually, they reached a big, circular dead end, like a Coliseum. As soon as they stepped in, the corridor on their backs was closed when a new shelving suddenly grew from the ground. They couldn’t go back.
Someone was waiting for them, in the center of that arena. A young man, dressed with bizarre blue habits, like the high priest of some ancient religion. He was smiling, but a smile that gave Pinkie shivers. He was standing up there, patiently.
He was Ryan.
Pinkie gasped, but Ryan, the real one, wasn’t surprised. Not now that he knew what was really going on.
“You’re the Master Librarian, aren’t you?” he asked.
His clone simply nodded. Ryan wondered what would he represent. His depression, the one which had been haunting him for three weeks? His writer’s block? His inspiration, now dead? His love for writing, now corrupted?
“Let’s skip any meaningless chat, shall we?” said the Master Librarian. “It’s time. Everything is going to end, here and now.”, he raised his arms, and spoke to the ceiling: “Desánimo, the two sacrifices are here. Take me, the first, and do what you desire with the second.”
Instantly, the ground under the Master Librarian opened like a mouth, and swallowed him in the blink of an eye. For a few seconds, everything was silent, except for the disgusting sound of bones and muscles being chewed. Then, the entire labyrinth trembled violently, and several books fell down from the wall-like shelves. A shadow covered the floor and started to adquire height, slowly becoming a giant entity which stood in front of the human and the pony. It started to define itself, to adquire a shape and a different color.
Ryan was expecting Desánimo to look like some lovecraftian abomination, with numerous tentacles and drooling mouths, and eyes in places where they should not be, maybe with an indescribable appendage at the top of a gelatinous body. He was expecting a shadowy faceless monster, he was expecting skulls, or bats, or spiders... he was expecting an avatar made of the different fears which tormented the human mind. But no.
Desánimo was a gigantic, moving, blank sheet of paper.
But of course, what could be more dreadful for a writer in his state than that, the pale flag of having failed before having started? That, the symbol of an sterile imagination? Ryan had suffered it several times through the last three weeks, in both his desk and in the screen of the computer. He had been tortured by it, that damn empty surface, silently laughing at him, at his lack of inspiration, at the death of his dreams.
Like a white monolith of doom, Desánimo started to advance forward, and the shelves seemed to disrupt before his presence, slowly dissappearing. He was the Destroyer, he was going to devour every creativity, every idea, until the only thing left was a space as empty as his body.
Ryan fell on his knees, because he realized that the last note was right. There was no hope left, nothing could be done. Ryan had been defeated several times by mere sheets of papers, what could he do against that abomination?
Nothing could be done. Oblivion was right before him, about to swallow him, and he was defenseless. He didn’t cry, he didn’t moan, he didn’t do anything. He just looked down, surrounded by the sound of the shelves dissappearing, and the sound of Desánimo advancing slowly, and the sound of party blowers...
... Party blowers?
The young man looked at his left. Pinkie Pie had pulled his famous party cannon from somewhere, and was shooting streamers, baloons, and colourful decorations at the giant sheet of paper.
“Come on, Ryan!” she said, pushing the fuse over and over. “We have to beat him if we want to return to our homes!”
However, the party ammunition was mostly useless. Although it slowed down Desánimo a bit, it didn’t caused a single scratch to that giant sheet of paper. When Pinkie ran out of ammo, she just roared and tackled the abomination as hard as she could. No result, either, she just bounced back, repelled by the monster. Her pink mane had lost a bit of color, but Pinkie didn’t care, she didn’t give up. The pony attacked again, and again, and again, turning whiter each time.
Ryan observed it. That little mare could do nothing against Desánimo, but she was trying, with all her courage and passion. Pinkie didn’t care that her attacks had no effect, she was fighting with all of her spirit, for him and for herself. Against an ungodly, reality-eating abomination, Pinkie Pie was not going to surrender, she was not going to fall into despair, she would fight until the very end.
And he had allowed mere sheets of papers to defeat him, for three consecutive weeks.
No. No more. Ryan was tired of running away, he was tired of blank surfaces, he was tired of that place; but this time he wasn’t going to curl and wait for everything to end, he was going to make his way through. He knew what he had to do. Ryan took the red pen and grabbed one of the books which had fallen from the shelves. He opened it, choosing a random white page, and raised the pen.
He was the writer. The blank pages weren’t his enemies, they weren’t his fears, and they weren’t stronger than him. They were his tools.
Ryan pressed the pen against the paper, making a small, red dot.
Desánimo stopped, suddenly. A diminute red dot appeared at the top of his paper-like body, and the crimsom ink started to run down, like blood.
Ryan slipped the pen tip down the sheet, and then he slipped it up with a curved movement, creating a capital D.
In the body of Desánimo, the red ink did the same. The abomination growled, uncomfortable, as the capital D was bleeding ink.
Ryan kept writing, faster than ever, experimenting an explosion of inspiration that he had never felt before. Ryan was experiencing that sensation again, that special communion between an author and his book, which only happens when the inspiration is at his finest, when the fingers move in the keyboard so smoothly that it looks that they’re acting on their own, or when the pen dances through the paper like a professional ballerina. It was the sensation of forgetting about everything else in the world for a moment and being absorbed by the same story he was writing, the ecstasy of creating.
Desánimo screeched, in an monstruous, inhuman voice, as the bleeding red words kept appearing in his body. He had realized, too late, that the avatar he had chosen was now a lethal disadvantage. He roared and stirred, trying to change his shape. He sprouted tentacles, and claws, and screaming heads; but he had already been defeated.
With a last convulsion, the gigantic sheet of paper, now red due to the ink, exploded with a disgusting sound.
The labyrinth trembled again, this time more violently than before. Pinkie covered her head, fearing that more books (or something worse) could fall over them. There was the sound of steel twisting and stones cracking, and then, silence.
Pinkie looked around. The library had returned. The shelves were back to normal, and she had recovered her pink colour.
They had won.
“Woo-hoo!” she shouted. “This is just fantastic! I knew we could do it!”
She started to bounce happily around Ryan, who was still writing.
“Oh, we should throw a Victory Party!” said Pinkie. “Right here! Oh, wait, I can’t use my party cannon... Do you think I could get some streamers in this place? Maybe the lady of the entrance...”
Ryan looked at the pony with a warm smile.
“Pinkie,” he said, pointing at the book.
“Ups,” she apologized. “Sorry, I’ll be quiet.”
The mare sat down in the ground, waiting patiently, and Ryan kept writing for a short while. Then, he put the words ‘The End’, and sighed.
He had done it. After three weeks, he had done it. He was back.
“Do you want to read it?” he asked, to Pinkie.
“Sure I want!”
Pinkie bowed her head over the book. Ryan waited, a bit nervous. The silence became almost unbearable.
"Well?” he asked, once the pony had finished. “Be sincere, please.”
With her ears down, Pinkie gave Ryan a sad look.
“I’m not saying it’s bad...” she said. “But...”
The young man closed his eyes and took a deep breath of air.
“You don’t like it,” he whispered.
Pinkie worried, thinking that she may had hurt the feelings of his new friend... but he had asked her to be sincere.
“No, I don’t like it,” she admitted. “I’m sorry, Ryan. But please, please, don’t get sad again...”
Ryan approached, picked up the book, and then, smiling, he gently patted the mare in the head.
“It’s ok,” he said. “Thank you for your honesty, Pinkie.”
“Are you sure it’s ok?”
“Yes. This is what I had to learn, right? I can’t write good things all the time, and not everybody will like what I write... but that’s not a reason for giving up. I should keep trying and improving myself. You said it, Pinkie.”
Ryan looked different from before, something had changed inside of him. He had a sincere and lively smile on his face. We could say that he had been reborn in that place.
“Come on, Pinkie,” he said. “We have to go.”
***
The library was back to normal, like if the transformation had never happened. The second floor and the office of the Master Librarian had disappeared.
From between the shelves, the sound of laughters could be heard.
“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” said Pinkie.
“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” said Ryan.
The human was happily running all around the place, carrying the pink pony on his shoulders. Ryan seemed like a totally different person, acting all cheerful and carefreely.
“Hello again,” said the lady on the counter. “Have you come to write something?”
“I already did it!” smiled Ryan, leaving the book and the red pen on the hands of the woman. “Sorry I had to use one of your books.”
“It’s ok.”
The woman put the book under the counter.
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“There’s no need of it,” she smiled. “Well, you can go now, if you want.”
And the door opened, slowly, revealing a white light on the other side. Pinkie jumped off the shoulders of his friend and stared into the glow.
“I can see my home!” she exclaimed. “It’s Ponyville! Look, there are Twilight, and Dashie, and Applejack... Hey, girls, I’m here!” She waved a hoof. “Mmh, it seems that they can’t hear me. Can you see them, Ryan?”
“No, Pinkie,” said the boy. “I see my own home. I guess we have to part ways here.”
“Aaaw... Will we see each other again?”
Ryan wondered what to say. He could answer yes, even though it would have been a lie. Once the dream was over, that Pinkie Pie will vanish, and he will never see the young pony again. He could dream with her another day, maybe, but she wouldn’t be the exact same Pinkie. But he didn’t want to make her sad by saying no.
“I don’t know,” was his answer. “Maybe. It’s possible. I would like to.”
“Me too!”
Ryan looked back, at the oniric library. The lady in the counter had disappeared. The whole place felt different, much less scary and confusing than at the beginning.
He saw, half-hided behind a shelving, a little boy of ten or eleven years, with his same face, smiling and waving his hand to say goodbye, and maybe, thanks.
No, it wasn’t a goodbye. It was a see ya.
“Thank you again, Pinkie,” said Ryan. “You’ve helped me a lot, you’ve saved me. And you made me smile again.”
“Of course! It’s what I do best! I love to make my friends smile!”
“Never change that, Pinkie. Well, shall we walk into the light?”
"Why walking, when we can jump?”
“Yeah, you’re right...”
The two of them stepped back, and then, shouting victoriously, they jumped in the mysterious white light.
***
The dream ended, and Ryan opened his eyes. He was back in his bed, in his room, wearing the same home clothes than the last night.
This time, he could feel that he was back in the real world. The young man remained laying on his bed for a while, breathing slowly, but not because he felt that there was no point in getting up, but because his brain was busy trying to recap everything that had happened in that weird dream.
Actually, Ryan felt... good. Very good, in fact. He felt relieved, full of energy and passion, just like when he had started writing, years ago, and he had so many illusions and hopes. He had let them die, but now they were back, and stronger.
“What a dream...” he mumbled, smiling.
He stared at the ceiling, wondering. Had it been, really, just a dream?
Slowly, Ryan looked at his right arm, hoping to see the bandages, but they weren’t there. Not even a scar. The young writer sighed and closed his eyes. Yes, it had been just a dream.
Then, something fell on his belly.
Ryan opened his eyes and contemplated the small figure which had landed in his stomach: a doll of Pinkie Pie, accompanied by a note. Ryan took the paper and read it. His eyes opened wide, and his lips bent in a huge smile. Finally, the young man bursted in laughter. It was a lively laugh of pure happiness and joy, a laugh filled of enthusiasm and hope. He laughed as he had never laughed before, and he laughed again, as he read the note one more time:
I can’t go to where you are, but I hope this little present will help you to not be so sad ever again.
Keep writing, and don’t forget to smile! ;)
THE END