Crimson

"Thanks for the ride home, see you on the 5th." I said to my boss with a tired smile as I left the orange jeep.

He nodded back to me and drove off just as I shut the orange door and began my short walk to the house. Unfortunately, it was cold and uncomfortable outside. Making the short walk seem like it took forever. It didn't help either that I was wearing my favourite jacket, a Wonderbolts jacket, which was thinner than paper. Hey, how could I complain though when I looked so good?

When I finally reached the door through the thick layer of frost on the ground, complaining about Illinois' weather as usually, I opened the door and stepped into my warm house. As always, the first thing I did was yell out my overused question.

"I'm home! Who is all here?" I waited for an answer, expecting a rhetoric since the house was always filled with other people. To my luck, not a single voice echoed back to me. Me being my paranoid old self, however, I figured that they were just waiting to scare me when I walked downstairs. That was not going to happen though, so I took my dandy self and walked right upstairs to my room. It was dark though, so I would have to make a slight detour and attempt to find the lights. When I did finally find the lights near the top of the stairs, it took roughly a minute to find the outlet to plug them in. A bright array of colours suddenly appeared and illuminated most of the upstairs hallway. I smiled as I had always enjoyed Christmas lights but the smile quickly turned to a frown of fear and surprise as I looked forward, spotting a silent stalker.

Just in front of the array of lights was a black and white cat that was in a prone position for the proper lunge attack. I tried to throw myself backwards and avoid the fiend but he was too fast. He lunged and swatted my face with his soft kitty paws, bolting away just as fast as the attack had happened. Leaving me in the middle of the hallway with an array of confusion and slight anger built up from the cat. I screamed back at the cat in the direction he had gone in my rising fury.

"Professor Gunter Pippington! I swear I'll get you back, you ambushing commie!" of course, I didn't really care. I just didn't like finding my face getting violated with kitty paws every time I come upstairs. It gets annoying after awhile.

Soon enough, I was standing back up on my legs and headed for my room. Stopping by my brother's room just in case he had ignored my call and was just sitting in there, playing video games on Crystahl. I opened the door however and was surprised to see an empty gaming chair and a silent Xbox attached to our TV, Crystahl. The entertaining thought of just walking in here and playing games to my heart's content appeared but I decided to take a relaxer and just go to my room to nap. It was a tiring night after all; and I didn't really feel like playing the Xbox anyways. Played the games for far too much to get excitement from them.

So I walked to my room, pushed it open since it won't close all the way, and walked in. Expecting to just walk forward and fall face first into the floor after taking my glasses off, I instead was met with a feeling of falling. Luckily, due to my houses siblings wars, I had become used to this feeling. I shot out my hands and met the floor with my hands and arms instead of my face and what would most likely result in glass breaking from my glasses. Plus, I had a soft carpet to pad my fall so it didn't really hurt. I knew this wouldn't be the last of the attack though and spun around quickly with my fisticuffs ready to go. Guessing that my assailant was ready to jump on me and try to torture me with whatever they expected to be used upon me. Instead, the light clicked on and showed a pony standing by my door giggling.

Not just any pony but my pony. Well, at least one of many of my ponies from the multiple stories and ideas I had generated over the past two years. My expression quickly changed from one of fierce determination to one of total shock and confusion. Just how in the hay could one of my ponies had come into real life? It must have been a paper cut out or something like that, no way it was real! Though when I stole a second glance at it, sure enough it was breathing and... snickering?

"Haha... looks like you felled! Ha, get it? It's like a combination of failed and fell... ya' get it? Huh, get it? Get it? Get it?" the crimson coloured pony said in a oddly squeaky voice compared to the tall build of the buck. His shaggy charcoal mane and tail seemed to twitch every time he laughed. It was so real to me... it must have been a dream!

I tried to speak but only managed a choked gasp, this didn't stop the pony with a cutiemark of a silver hawk from asking the same question over and over however. Continuing his rant of "Get it? Get it? Get it?". I could almost strangle the pony if my head wasn't doing flips at the moment. Yet, finally I found out that I could manage to speak instead of utter that choked gasping sound.

"H-how are you... what?! T-this isn't possible, you can't be here!" I mumbled to nothing in particular as I tried to reassert my head over what was happening. Which I was, slowly... very slowly. Soon enough, I remembered the name of the pony.

"Of course I can, why wouldn't I be able to be here?" Crimson said in that high pitch voice of his that I had originally designed just to annoy and perplex other ponies... just like he was doing now. Except to a human, not a pony. Unless I had been dropped into the MLP:FiM reality and was now a pony! I looked down at where my hands and arms should be to confirm this fact and breathed a sigh of relief that I did indeed not have hooves. It also seemed like I was not in the colourful pastel world of MLP:FiM. Which is good... I think.

"You're a pony! A colourful, pastel pony!" I blurted out in my level of confusion that was beginning to slowly lower from the extraordinary level it was already at.

"And... your point is?" Crimson asked with a raised eyebrow.

"You're not real!" I shouted out as I tried to decide if I was going crazy or if I was going crazier than I already was.

"Yes I am, I'm as real as your hands are." He said this so easily, as if the situation was perfectly normal and not all twigged up like it was right now.

"How?! How are you even here?"

Crimson turned his head to me then stood up on his forehooves and rubbed his chin in thought. "Honestly, I don't know. I just sort of... appeared."

Well, it was becoming very clear to me that I was going bonkers and the one thing that will accompany me through this turmoil was this pony. The one pony that would drive me even further into lunacy. Wait... no, I could have had Bones. That psycho would have turned me into the worst lunatic imaginable... so, I guess Crimson is a better choice... hopefully. "So, you just... appeared?"

Crimson nodded his head at me as if it was just that simple to accept. Wait... it wasn't him nodding. It was my lunacy doing that, silly me. I almost fell for that little mind trick.
"Only you, though? Only you appeared and not like Rakz, O.B., or Bones?" Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.

Crimson shrugged his shoulders, making me smile slightly as I connected how he looked to the memes on the internet of ponies shrugging... oh, now I'm connecting my mind to the internet. I guess I can understand now why parents say the internet will ruin your mind. It certainly did that for me since I'm imagining ponies appearing!

"That's... goodish. So, could you possibly relate to me what was going on before you just appeared?" I was hoping that he'd answer it and just go away so that I wouldn't have to deal with this lunacy.

"Well, I was just sitting there and eating my normal meal when all of a sudden, poof! I went from my home to this place... which, by the way, is a mess." Crimson gestured to the whole room with a wide berth of his forehooves, somehow still managing to stand up.

I looked around my room and noticed that it indeed was a mess. There were clothes all over, making it difficult to determine what was clean and what was dirty. Scraps of paper also littered the floor here and there from bad drawings and stupid ideas. It also didn't help that when I started to read a book I just left it where I was. Allowing books to begin to accumulate into a sort of herd across the floor, my desk, my bed, my closet. All of the normal places I seem to sit down. Now that I thought about it, I did weird things. I guess there was a reason for me to go crazy, after all.

Crimson then walked over to my bed and jumped with a surprising agility to the top to where a book I had just recently received layed, waiting for me to pick it back up again. He walked over to it and pushed the cover open, flipping to a random page as I slowly stood up and walked over to the book. I looked down at it but my view was blocked by the red coat of Crimson as he read a page.

"Y'know, these books you read are sort of mature. I mean, this Bourbon fellow has quite the potty mouth and... hey!" Crimson jumped up as I quickly snatched the book away and closed it to its cover to examine it. Just as I had expected, it said Metro 2033 in it. I didn't think that a pony like Crimson needed to fuel his imagination any further with this book.

"You should not read this, it is not your style. So, just let me put this up and we'll get back to discussing why my mind has gone crazy." I quickly said this as I walked to my closet and put the book up where he shouldn't be able to reach it. Then I began to clean my room, if I was going to talk to myself than I was going to get something done while doing so.

"You're not going loco, fuzz brain. Why'd you think that?" Crimson said this so easily with a big smile. As if it wasn't my own mind playing a trick on me.

All I did was stare at him with a blank expression, trying to will him to disappear so I won't think I'm crazy anymore. Unfortunately, he remained where he was with his head cocked to the side. As if he was trying to figure out what I was thinking... he knew, he was my own mind after all.

"It's not polite to ignore a friend's question, take it from me. I'm great at making and keeping friends!" Crimson continued that smile of his as he stared at me. Somehow, it was difficult to not talk to this pony... err, I mean thought. I didn't even know what to call it, guess I'll just keep calling it a pony since that's simpler for me. Hopefully, my mind doesn't think it is some kind of consent to craziness and amp my mind up more with it.

"Sorry, just trying to think. It's been an exhausting day and I just want to catch some sleep before I have to wake up at seven in the morning for Christmas tomorrow." just look at me talking to this 'pony' and telling it about my day. My brain must really be rotting if this is happening. Crimson just looked at me though with an expression of confusion. Clearly, something I had said had perplexed the small pony's mind. "What's up with the look? Was it something I said?"

"What's... Christmas? I've never heard of it." he said this with a scrunched up face too. Clearly, he was utterly confused. Doesn't surprise me, ponies don't celebrate Christmas back in Equestria. They celebrated Hearth's Warming... wait, what?!

"Y-you don't know what Christmas is?" I asked with my heart beating slightly faster in my chest.

"Of course, not. In fact, I've never seen something like you in Equestria before, either. Definitely never heard about a race like you to add to it." Crimson seemed honest as he said this.

He never was a good liar after all, so it made sense. Wait, hold on. He is a figment of my imagination, though. He knows what Christmas is... he's just messing with me. "You have to know what Christmas is... you're a figment of my imagination!" My heart felt as if it was ready split out of my body as I pelted the pony with words. "You know what Christmas is, you know what I am, you know what is happening. You're just trying to get deeper in to mess with me."

Crimson backpedaled away from me before he could be crushed as I sat down on my bed. When he stopped backpedaling, he had an expression of confusion and pity on his face. I wasn't sure why there were any of those expressions but I felt like a puppet on strings right now. Being played solely by my mind for some laughs.

"I'm being serious. I don't know what Christmas is, I don't know what you are, and who you are is something else I'm clueless about. You can trust me, I'm a friend... even though I don't know anything about you. I'm sure we can still be friends..." Crimson began to speak quickly once again as I tried to seek out an answer for what was happening. I figured since I had no idea how to play my mind at this moment, I'd just go with it.

"Okay, well I know your name is Crimson. Am I right?" I asked with an innocent smile.

"Yep, Crimson's the name and I'm here to stay... I think." The pony seemed to explode with cheerfulness at this, thinking he had made a permanent friend no doubt. "So, what's your name? It's kind of hard to keep a friendship when you know nothing about someone. Trust me, I've tried."

I sought over whether or not to give the pony my real name. Hoping that I could lead my mind off, I decided to use my online alias instead. "LSCultist or LSC for short."

The enthusiasm that followed afterwards was a bit too much for me to handle. He jumped up in a massive display of energy and landed, not very softly, on my chest. forcing me down onto the bed as the pony's silvery eyes appeared in my vision. "Great, now we can be the bestest of friends forever! Let me tell you a little about myself before we go off and have the most fun you will ever have!" He took a deep gasp and was about to talk before I put my hand on his muzzle. Allowing him to only mumble his words incomprehensibly.

"Crimson, I already know everything about you. So I don't need your little ramble to continue, mmmkay?" honestly, it was hard enough to write him rambling. How could I handle him rambling in my ears?

The pony pulled away from my grasp and looked at me in total confusion. "How can you know everything about me if you've never met me? Unless... you've been following me and taking note of every move I make! You're a spy, a spy!" Crimson began to scream out, causing me to jolt up at the noise.

I quickly covered his muzzle again and looked him in his eyes. "I don't follow you around... well, technically I don't. But, I am not a spy... hell, I don't even know what you mean by that. It's not like you ever had a real issue with the... oh never mind. I'm just talking to my mind anyways."

This only reasserted an expression of confusion on the pony. Clearly the situation was becoming slightly too much for him to handle. "What do you mean your mind? You're talking to me, not yourself, fuzz brain."

Hearing this seemed to send me into a slight sadness as the realization that my lunacy was only developing. It didn't look like I was ever going to dig myself out of this. "Okay... how do I explain this without coming off as a grade-A nutball?" I pondered it over how to start and finding out the way I wanted to go, I took in a deep breath and began my long narration.

"You're nothing but a figment of my imagination created by my ingenious ideas for a character in one of my multiple stories. Following the path I had set you and acting exactly how I had designed you. Everything you do, is what I had designed you to do. Everything that has and will happen to you is what I had planned on making. So, if you feel like you had any bad experiences it is because I had caused it through typing out your life. But, that doesn't matter since you're nothing more than the crazy part of my brain talking to me. As cartoon ponies don't exist; and even if they did. They do not talk, stand up, or do any of the crazy shenanigans you do now. So, sorry or whatever but you're just my crazies. That's that and please leave so I don't have to deal with my lunacy or whatever... whew, nice to get that out of the way." I took in another deep breath and looked down, expecting there to be nothing but well... nothingness.

Instead, Crimson stared at me with an even more confused look. He did not seem to understand what was just said. Which meant that my mind didn't understand... or at least, the crazy part of my mind didn't. Oh well, I tried to explain. Guess I'll just have to try and wait out my crazies. When I heard nothing from behind me after a long moment, I figured that the 'pony' had finally disappeared. I turned around to it and of course, he was still there. Which is when he finally spoke up in that high pitch voice of his.

"You really are a fuzz brain, aren't you? I'm not a figment of your imagination, Mr. Loco. I'm a real pony. I tripped you, didn't I? I tackled you, didn't I? Since I could make physical contact I must be real. Right?" Crimson said with a small smile as he moved his face around with his hooves for some reason. "And just look at this face. It moves just like a real ponies face. So how could I be a fake?"

Honestly, there was a lot of evidence to back it up on how he was my imagination. For one, I had thought of him in the first place and he was a cartoon pony... a cartoon pony! Plus, I had been under quite a bit of stress as of late with finals just ending and getting all my presents ready. So I must have snapped and conjured up a pony to calm me down. It was the only possible answer I could come up with. There just was no way a cartoon pony could have just appeared out of nowhere! Could there?

"Okay, okay. So, you're real, whatever. I don't really have the energy to deal with the rest of this, Crimson. I've got Christmas tomorrow at seven in the morning and don't really want to wake up at that time. So if you don't mind, I'll be catching some z's." I closed my eyes momentarily but they popped open suddenly when I gasped for air from the pressure that had suddenly risen from my sternum. I looked down at my sternum and saw a red pony standing there with a look of adorable curiosity on his face. "C-Crimson, what are you doing?"

"Oh, well you were going to go to sleep. Which I would have been fine with if I could have gone to sleep myself. But with this 'Christmas' stuff going on, I couldn't get any sleep. I just need to know what it is. Will you tell me, please?" Crimson asked with his biggest smile and "puppy" eyes.

"No, I'm tired and want to go to sleep." I mumbled with my eyes closed again.

"Please tell me?"

I shook my head groggily and slowly accepted the feeling of the heavy weight falling from my eyes as sleep came to me.

"Please tell me? Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please?" Crimson continued this for another minute before a headache began to form in my head from his rambling.

"Fine, just stop talking for a minute! Ugh... try to get some sleep and a crazy pony buggers you." I mumbled the last few words as I arose to a sitting position and prepared to tell the shortest story possible about what Christmas was. First off, I grabbed my alarm clock and looked at it to see that it read 10:28. It'd take me two minutes tops to finish the story. Then it was off to sweet dream world.

I began my story of Christmas with who Jesus Christ was. My opinion on everything was kept away since I was trying to keep the story short so I just went with the most basic information. However, when I began, Crimson was already holding up his hoof for a question.

"What?" I asked with a slight anger rising up.

Crimson lowered his hoof like a student and gave me his question. "Who is Jesus Christ?"

The question stunned me for a few seconds before I realized that he was serious. Or rather my mind was serious... eh, never mind. I quickly told him and went back to the story. Soon enough though, I was captivated by it myself and ended up telling the pony everything I knew about Christmas. Answering every question he had as well as I could manage them. Never throwing in my views but just telling him what I knew. I ended up finishing the story with a yawn and the sound of the front door opening and shutting outside my room. When I listened closely, I could hear the sound of my family walking in with whatever they had to carry in. I took a quick glimpse to my alarm clock and gasped when I read that it displayed 12:42. It was 12:42 in the night! I had been talking to this... pony for over 2 in a half hours!

"Anyways, that's Christmas and whatnot. I'm not much into it myself since I'm not into the Christian and Catholic belief but eh. My family is and they like to spend time with me. Personally, I always enjoyed the idea of Hearth's Warming and whatnot but that is just me. Now, let's wrap this up. I really do need to get to sleep." the yawn that followed was actually large enough to cause me to slightly blackout. Clearly I was exhausted beyond any belief.

Crimson let out his own yawn and crawled up to my right arm, sort of nudging it with a tired smile. "That was an interesting story. Definitely something that I had never thought of in my life. I think I'll have to agree with you on the whole sleeping thing, though. I don't think I can manage much longer."

I lifted my arm up for him and let him crawl into the blanket I didn't remember grabbing. It had suddenly become difficult for me to tell whether or not that it was a real pony or not. In thinking of whether he was real or not, my mind had become a busy hive of workers. Keeping me awake deep into the morning as Crimson snored next to me. It didn't really matter though. It was nice to have whatever was under my arm right now. Whether it was a real pony or my mind, I didn't care. The thought of him sleeping gently next to me and safe now instead of facing the world I had created for him in an attempt to entertain myself and others was comforting. It was a happy thought that Crimson was safe. If I was going crazy, then I would accept it. As long as I was happy, I didn't care.

My problems were a meager dot compared to the happiness that I was experiencing right now.

(Author's Note: Hmm... never created anything like this before. Anyways, Crimson is my OC and is drawn from my story Equestrian Strife. I hope you enjoyed and... oh! This was supposed to be released on Christmas Eve but I was lazy and whatnot. If it seems like I just sort of stopped caring to write this, it is because I halved and halved it. I got sort of bored and tired. Just like in the story. Keep up on the story though, I'll improve it.