Kathy woke to the sound of something, or someone, pounding on a rather large piece of wood. She moaned and pulled herself off the floor, rubbing the side of her face before the truth of her predicament dawned on her. She had no idea how she had ended up on the carpet, as the last thing she could recall was the fact that she had been working on her Pandora drawings. Speaking of her artwork she quickly returned to the table and found the four pictures that she remembered working on, but then she found a fifth one laying under the others. This last drawing, one that she could not remember drawing at all, was similar to her other drawings in the regard that Pandora was the main focus once again.

She was, however, shocked to find that the other creature in her drawing was none other than Discord, who was simply waving at Pandora with the caption 'I'll see you later, my sweet Pandora.'

Before Kathy could wonder what had compelled her to draw such a picture she heard the pounding on her front door again, causing her to put down the drawing and move towards the door. She had the feeling that she knew exactly who was at her door, but as she reached the door she hesitated to place her hand on the doorknob. If it was actually Joey in front of her house then the reason he had come was to ask her if she had decided on spending the day with him, Alice, and Jared or spend her time studying for school. Seeing how she had no idea what she had done after completing her drawings she figured that she could at least spend some time with them.

"For Celestia's sake Kathy," came Joey's voice from the other side, causing her to jump slightly, "I know your home. Open the door, I'm worried about you."

"If it...isn't my stalker," Kathy replied, pulling open the door and finding Joey standing there like she suspected.

"More like a concerned friend," Joey chuckled, before noticing something odd, "Did you sleep in your clothes or have you spent the whole night drawing?"

Kathy looked down at herself and found that she was, indeed, wearing the same clothes that she had been wearing the day before. She quickly pulled out her cellphone and checked the time, finding that it was six in the morning...Saturday morning. She was amazed that she had worked on her drawings for so long that it made her sleep in her old clothes and not wake until it was the following day, but she was terrified that she was missing parts of her memory. It wasn't natural, losing hours of memory like that.

"I...must have spent the night...in yesterday's clothes," Kathy said, more to herself than to Joey, "Just give me a couple of minutes and I'll be ready to...entertain guests."

Joey just nodded his head and let the door slowly close in his face, but he stopped her as a thought entered his mind.

"Do you mind if I come inside?" he asked, motioning behind him to an elderly couple walking up the street, "I honestly don't think people will leave me alone since I'm standing out here, staring at your front door as if I'm planning on breaking in and robbing you blind."

Kathy let out a sigh and let Joey come inside the house, but only after telling him that he was restricted to the first floor and making sure that he fulfilled the 'Pinkie Promise' to make sure he stayed on the lower floor. She had no idea how she would prove whether or not he came upstairs, but she was trusting his word that he would not follow her upstairs.

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Once Kathy went upstairs Joey sighed and looked around her living room, wondering if he should just sit on the couch and stare at the television until she came downstairs. Instead he moved to the kitchen, where he spotted a table that was partly covered by pieces of paper with some drawings on them. When he got closer he found that the drawings were all about Pandora, starting with the one he had seen Kathy drawing the previous morning. The second was of Pandora with his own OC, the unicorn called Stargaze, followed by a third what had her with the OC's of Alice and Jared, Cloud Strider and Ironside. The fourth drawing was of Pandora with all three of them, which warmed Joey's heart to see that Kathy actually cared about them.

The fifth drawing was stranger, as it contained both Pandora and the original Draconequus, Discord.

He knew that Kathy was obsessed with the Draconequus race, because whenever he or the others mentioned Discord her eyes seemed to light up and she paid more attention to the group. Drawing Pandora for the first time was like she had admitted that she was obsessed with the Draconequus, but it turned from a tiny little thing into an obsession. He knew that Kathy wouldn't admit to liking the show, but she was as much of a Pegasister as Joey was a Brony and he was okay with her not telling him. She'd come around one day and tell everyone that she had fallen into the fandom as well.

He heard the doors opening upstairs and figured that Kathy was finally done with whatever she was doing, so she put down the drawing of Pandora and Discord and moved back to the staircase. When Kathy came down the stairs he found that she was wearing a simple pair of blue jeans and a light blue shirt, which he thought was much better than the clothes she had worn to school.

"Well...this is as good as I'll get for now," Kathy said, moving to the kitchen to collect her keys and noticing that her drawings had been moved just a tiny bit.

"Couldn't help myself," Joey admitted, seeing how she was staring at the table, "I noticed that you had finished your drawing of Pandora and I wanted to see what else you had done last night. I must say, its nice that you drew all our OC's together with Pandora, as I'm sure that she would enjoy the company at long last."

"Joey..." Kathy started, hoping to cut him off before he said something stupid.

"What?" Joey asked, shrugging as he walked to the front door, "If Pandora exists then I'm assuming that she's pretty lonely, sitting in a blank space until you give her something or somepony to play with. Those drawings are telling me that your finally letting her have some friends, though I'd stretch those limits by including Discord as a friend. That Draconequus is bad news, even if he's in a cartoon world and we're out in the real world. Now come on, Alice and Jared are likely concerned that we're not at Alice's house yet."

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Kathy had been slightly irritated with Joey for coming to her house and pounding on her door, when a simple text message would have done the trick and saved him much more time. The first day they had met he had insisted on giving her his phone number, so that he could wait for her to reach out for a friend to hang with some day. The only reason she had texted him in the first place was so that Joey would have her number in case she really needed someone to call a friend one day.

What she was annoyed with, on the other hand, was his insistence that Pandora was real and that she was sitting in some empty world, waiting for Kathy to fill her void with life. She liked to think that her characters were, in some reality, alive and lived their lives as they saw fit, but she knew that it would be impossible for someone, or something, like Pandora to be real. She had the feeling that he was going to bring Pandora up more in the future and knew that he was going to pull Alice and Jared into the mix as well.

When they finally arrived at Alice's house they found her standing out front, twirling a stick in her hands before she spotted them coming and snapped it in half.

"Your late," Alice accused, staring hard into Joey's eyes as if searching for something.

"I am never early, nor am I late," Joey replied, returning her stare with ease, "I arrive precisely when I mean to. Plus I had to stop by Kathy's house and make sure that she was planning on coming to your get together."

"Well, we've got soda and a few shows we can watch," Alice said, opening the door and welcoming them into her house, "plus some games that we might take turns on in case we need something else to do."

Alice's entire main floor was open concept, as the moment that Kathy entered the living room she could see the kitchen and the stairway that lead to the second story. After taking a right turn before the kitchen she found herself in a large entertainment room with a widescreen television that put Kathy's television to shame. Alice seemed to have quite the collection of television shows on DVD and a fair number of games that she could play on the PS3 that rested below the screen. Jared was sitting on the couch across from the television, already involved in whatever game he had chosen before they had even arrived.

"Learn to shoot the enemy," Jared growled, talking to the people he was playing with online, though he was missing a gaming headset, "What, am I surrounded by fillies who don't know how to play a simple shooting game? We should be dominating the other team, not falling to our hooves in defeat and giving them our flag."

"Oh don't mind him, he's an idiot sometimes," Alice chuckled, taking a seat next to Jared and picking up the second controller, "Now, before we get into something together, Ironside and I have some insolent foals to deal with."

For the next ten minutes Kathy and Joey watched them turn the tide of the online battle, how she would never truly know, and somehow led their team to victory. Kathy knew that if the communication was turned on they would be hearing their friend's team cheering in victory and the enemy team cursing in defeat. She had no desire to hear anyone shouting curses over a simple video game, but before she could congratulate them on a job well done they shut down the game and threw in a four player game. Alice was quick to pick up the spare controllers, turn them on, and gave them to Kathy and Joey.

The four player game was one of those adventure games that Kathy had heard of, but she had never had the chance to play one of them before today. She had always been busy with school and her homework, so she had never put time aside to enjoy herself with something like a video game. Alice and Jared, being players one and two, were quick to make their characters, ironically named Cloud Strider and Ironside, before it was Joey's turn. Joey, seeing that they already had a warrior and an archer, picked out a wizard that was, also ironically, named after his own OC, Stargaze. Kathy quickly picked an elf warrior that could provide assistance to the main tank, in this case Jared's character, who, after a few seconds of debate, she named Pandora.

"Well then," Joey said, not surprised that Kathy had chosen that name, "the gangs all assembled and ready to do battle with the enemy. Now, let's teach these foals the meaning of teamwork and friendship."

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An hour passed before Kathy began to lose interest in the game, mostly because the enemies were beating the stuffing out of her more often than her friends. She knew it was going to be hard with her inexperience, but she never expected that she would be three levels behind her friends. They didn't seem to mind that she was falling behind, as long as she was having fun they didn't care if they all died and had to restart at their last save or survive by being the last man standing. She let them think she was having fun, because she had no idea what else to do if they decided to stop playing the game.

"YEAH!," Joey triumphantly said, after the group had felled the first boss of the game, "I'm all for taking a break and getting back to wiping the floor with our enemies in a little bit."

Kathy took the chance to excuse herself and headed to the bathroom, locking the door behind her before she grabbed a small towel and wiped off any sweat that might have been on her face. What she couldn't explain was why she felt angry at them, after all it was just a game and they were doing their best to teach her how to play the game.

"They're weak," she heard a voice say, causing her to look around in concern as if she hearing things now, "Your strong. Crush the life from their bodies and the wills of anyone else that would stand in our way."

Kathy looked at the mirror and froze in place when she realized that her image didn't have her light blue eye color, but rather a red tint she had seen somewhere else. They looked so much like the red eyes that she gave Pandora whenever she drew her, but Kathy knew that it was impossible for her reflection to have those eyes.

"Oh don't give me that look," her reflection continued, "Just head to the kitchen while they are all busy with the game, grab one of the bigger knives, and slice them to pieces."

"N...n...no," Kathy replied, shaking her head in horror at the thought of doing harm to her friends, "Y...y...you can't m...make me."

"Don't be a fool my dear," her reflection said, despite the fact that it was starting to fade, "The Madness will call again and every time you ignore me the call will only get stronger. One day you'll finally give in and Pandora will have her way."

Kathy continued to stare at the mirror long after her reflection faded from the glass, her mind trying to work out exactly what she had seen and what she had heard. Pandora wasn't real and couldn't have found a way to speak to her in the real world. It just wasn't possible for that to happen. The only thing that terrified her was that her mind was telling her to put an end to her friends, but she couldn't do that to any of them.

"Hey Kathy," Joey said from the other side of the door, "you all right in there?"

"Y...yeah," Kathy replied, wiping the rest of her sweat off before opening the door, "Just...cooling off before we continue."

She had no reason to tell him that she was starting to hear and see things that not even she could explain, so she kept the short conversation to herself and joined the others once more. She just had the eerie feeling that she may very well be at the beginning stages of becoming an insane and mad person eventually. Next Chapter: Chapter Three Estimated time remaining: 25 Minutes