Chapters
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Several months later…Lonely Day extended a hoof, and Dr. Clark leaned down to shake it. The shackles made it difficult to lift the hoof to any meaningful angle, but she did her best. Human fingers felt warm and strange, like little squishy spiders. They had no analogue in her life anymore, even if she had possessed some of her own over a year ago. Before everything had fallen apart, and the dream of human society ended. He towered over her, a sturdy man with slowly graying hair. He wore a uniform, like…-
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Lonely Day did not wake again for some time. Though she had not seen it in any form more concrete than a few plates breaking, she had suffered badly during her time being mentally invaded.When next she woke, she was no longer in the basement of the library. Alex couldn’t feel her clothes anymore, or her saddlebags. Instead, she felt a flimsy hospital blanket, and a similarly flimsy pillow behind her. The bed seemed massive to her little equine form. The light coming in from the window was bright orange,…
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Oliver had never invested more of himself in a patient than he did in little Alex. In school, he’d been taught over and over about the necessity of detachment. Any personal investment in a patient would destroy his impartiality and create a conflict of interest. Fundamentally, he was to be a scientific technician, compassionate only to the degree it was required for his bedside manner.That detachment had not survived the end of the world. His friends were so rare now; too precious to let death claim.…
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Joseph reviewed the translations around him one at a time. He had read over each thousands of times, both the originals and the eventual descriptions. Even now that he knew the simple code the cult had used, he still shivered at the patterns the letters elicited when written in runes. There was something special about runes, something the books about it described as almost sacred. Runes gave the whole world new instructions. To use them to tear the tapestry apart instead of making it stronger disgusted…
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They were all there, the day they had the vote. Everyone but Alex, unconscious as she was in a hospital bed. There were no more attempted suicides; not now that the shock of having Odium gone for good was finally over. That left Alexandria with a problem, of course. What could they do with a dozen ponies that had tried to take over? Moriah participated in several of the proposals that were made, just as all of them did. Rather than keep all of them locked up in little cells during the week or so it took…
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Cloudy Skies did not return to Alexandria until near nightfall. Her mission, though important, felt hopelessly mundane. Without knowing when Lonely Day and the other ponies would return from Philadelphia, and with no way to call and tell them, it was her job to find a satellite phone, make it work, then report on what they had learned.It would’ve been far worse than boring to travel off on her own when Blacklight was putting herself into danger with all her other friends. Except Cloudy Skies had company,…
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Adrian was alone in a world of pain. The spirit called Odium pressed down upon his mind, trapping him in his worst moment, stretching into forever. Thousands and thousands of times Adrian watched that memory replay. The pain of the crash was bad, but it wasn’t even close to the worst part. He saw the mare on the roof of the hotel. He heard her over and over, a hopelessness crushed by the weight of an uncaring universe. Nothing he could say made a difference. Eventually, when she thought he wasn’t…
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Last night, little Riley had learned that the information Alex had shown her from the library hadn’t been wrong after all. Just as the Equestrian books said, she could will herself into new forms. The effort was exhausting, and she had very little idea of what she was doing. Yet the instinct was there. With the original pony helpless before her, she had all the time in the world to make sure she got every detail exactly right. The pony who called herself Carol, whose real name was apparently True Sight,…
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Form and meaning unraveled in the void, where symbols were as true as the things they represented. Time ceased to matter, just as space did. A battle raged; a battle she could not possibly win on her own.The other wished to frame it in terms of Equestria, of ponies and spirits and magic. Alex refused, and so gave the duel form in another way. A human way.Archive saw a roadside diner, right out of any number of 1950s era movies. It was late at night, and she pulled up to escape the wrath of a torrential…
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Behind her, Alex’s friends made their way into the library. First came Joseph. One of his legs looked broken, and he had burns up and down his side. Yet his face made no sign he registered the pain. His steps were rigid and mechanical. Moriah came behind him, moving forward with great resistance in every step, as though she were battling an army of invisible ghosts. She dragged Alex’s saddle bags behind her along the ground, though she looked very much like she didn’t want to. Behind them were…
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