Brave Storm's Dream Journal: Spider

A half-zebra cries under a large leaf as the rain pours around her. She had no idea how she ended up here or why her body ached so badly. Occasionally she wails out into the dark forest for her mother, for her father, or for anypony who will listen. But only the pattering of rain and distant thunder would ever answer her back.

The pony didn’t recall falling asleep, but when she awoke, it was day and the rain had stopped. She heard birds calling in the distance, but they were not calls that were familiar to her. Limping, she pulls herself out from under the leaf she took shelter in and hobbled toward a puddle. She was thirsty and she didn’t care if the water was muddy. 

Along the way, her hoof caught on a raised root and she landed jaw-first into the dirt below. She felt her head spin into darkness and she wouldn’t rouse again until she felt somepony shoving her. Slowly, the zebra raises her head out of the mud and turns to the pony. They were blurry and shadowed, but she noticed them rear their head back in shock. They run away, shouting something into the forest that she couldn’t understand. 

“Mon ster! Mon ster!” these odd words spun through her head until they were the only things she could understand. 

She pulled herself back onto three legs and made her way back to the puddle. Her body fought against her and would drag her back down to the dirt. Her knees would be scrapped and bloody by the time she finally made it to her destination. A journey she didn’t sure take the years it felt like, or maybe her pain warped what was only five minutes. 

She fell one last time, just in front of the puddle, her front legs sprawled to either side of it. She was so close, she told herself. Weak as she was, she managed to pull herself forward and rested her mouth in the water. She was lucky the small pool was shallow enough to allow her nostrils to rest above, or else she may have drowned herself. 

Hydrated, she began to feel the world starting to stabilize. She regained her sense of self, but still struggled to remember how she even ended up here. She caught a glimpse of herself in the water’s reflection and felt her heart drop. Something was off. Panicked, she inspects herself to find her face had changed. On her right side, one eye had split into four spider-like eyes! She screams and throws herself away from her reflection, twisting an already bad ankle in the process. The pain flares and becomes unbearable until her world spins into darkness again.

The zebra awakes to a yell and the sound of heavy rustling metal. She pulls her head out of the muddy water, keeping her right side hidden from the sound. It was another pony. She watched as he called over his shoulder and three or so more armored ponies came rushing into view from behind trees. One of them slowly approaches her, speaking softly and comfortingly. There were only a few words that they repeated to her as they hoisted her over their back- “We got you. We got you.”

 

Brave Storm awakes in the middle of the night to her own crying.