The Visiting Hour
"INVOLUNTARY CASES."
The phrase was stenciled in thick black letters upon the double doors that led to the east wing. Bon Bon squinted in the fluorescent light and wrinkled her snout at the pervasive smell of disinfectant. The hallways and few rooms she had seen in passing were nearly featureless, their only colors shades of beige. Windows were few and small.
How do they expect anypony to get well here? she thought.
The orderly who the lead doctor had sent with her locked the doors behind them and led Bon Bon to the far end of the hall. The journey only took a moment, but felt far too long. She knew what she would find there. The doctor's words again ran through her mind: "...Total psychotic break..."
They stopped just once, when a bout of raucous, barking laughter echoed out from a door on the right as they passed by. The orderly hammered on the door, and the laughter halted as abruptly as it had begun.
Room 101 was divided across the middle by an inch-thick wall of plexiglass, through which eight small holes, in two vertical lines of four, had been drilled. The only furnishing was a single plastic chair on the near side. The far side's walls and floor were thoroughly padded with mattress foam whose colour made Bon Bon think of jaundice.
Behind the glass, Lyra paced back and forth. Her tail hung listlessly, and instead of trotting with the usual spring in her step, she stumped around one leg at a time, as though having trouble coordinating them. She was clothed in a white hospital gown and, more disturbingly, in a magic nullification collar.
The orderly led Bon Bon in and indicated the chair. Though his manner remained calm, he kept one steady eye on Lyra. "Knock on the door when you're ready to go," he said. He walked back out the door and closed it.
Taking care not to make sudden movements, Bon Bon perched on the chair, hooves curled up beneath her. Lyra stood still and followed her visitor with her eyes.
For a moment, nopony spoke. In the hours since receiving the news, Bon Bon had tried to plan what she would say when they finally let her see Lyra. If she had come up with anything, none of it came to mind now.
"Hello, Lyra," she said tenderly.
''Are you a friend of Lyra's?" The tone was businesslike, with none of its usual warmth and laughter.
Bon Bon's heart sank. The doctor had hoped allowing visits would restore some memory—some fragments of Lyra's true identity. Bon Bon took a deep breath to fortify herself against the tears now threatening to well up. "Lyra, you're not well."
"Nopony is well," Lyra said. "That is, they are, but only for the time being. It will not last, I'm afraid."
"What do you mean, Lyra?" Bon Bon said this for lack of a better response. She knew it wouldn't mean anything—not really.
"I'm sure that my being put in here means I've already failed," Lyra said. "But listen: Do you have any connections to anypony in the aristocracy? Or perhaps the military?"
"Lyra... it's just me. Bon Bon."
Lyra snorted and stared at the ground, a sour expression on her face. "I suppose you will not listen, in any case. Neither will the warden. It was careless of me to have gone to the nearest authorities and more so to have let them capture me."
"You don't remember me at all?" Bon Bon said.
"I am not your friend," Lyra said bluntly. "Before anything else, it is crucial you realize that. Rest assured, I have no intention of harming your friend's body. But I am not her."
Bon Bon resisted an impulse to run away. Despite physical appearances, she almost did not recognize the pony before her.
Lyra took Bon Bon's silence as permission to continue. "There is not much time left. The only hope depends on whether you choose to listen. For the sake of all you hold dear, I must take this chance." Lyra took a deep breath and looked Bon Bon directly in the eye. "You are receiving this message from two hundred and fifty-six years in the future. We have developed a spell that allows me to project mental impulses backward through time and into your friend's brain."
But for the unbreakable glass between them, Bon Bon might have taken Lyra by the shoulders, shaken her, and screamed at her to come to her senses. But all she could manage was a single word, spoken falteringly: "Why?"
"I am... we are attempting to alter the events that make this visitation necessary," Lyra said.
Something occurred to Bon Bon. "Is Lyra in there? Can I talk to her?"
"When I leave, your friend's mind will return to normal."
Bon Bon gasped under her breath as a faint hope flashed in her heart. "And... will you go away and never come back?"
"If this attempt fails utterly, I will have to make another," Lyra said. "Farther back, and with a different host body. That is, if I am able to make another at all. I say again: Listen carefully."
Given the choice, Bon Bon would not have listened to one more word from this thing that looked like Lyra. But she knew Lyra better than anypony, and if she could get to the bottom of what had brought this insanity on, then maybe, just maybe...
"In a short period of time," Lyra said, "Equestrian civilization as you know it will be destroyed by a tremendous cataclysm. It will manifest at first as a harmless natural phenomenon, and the truth will not be apparent until it is too late. The alicorns will perish, and the scattered pockets of mortal survivors will be insufficient to restore the land's carrying capacity. Their populations will dwindle rapidly.
"When extinction appears inevitable, the Strangers will come from the stars. They will tell us that they wish to preserve our species. And we will indeed be preserved..." Lyra's expression grew darker. "... as livestock."
Madness. Bon Bon had not wanted to leap to conclusions, but she was sure she knew the source of Lyra's delusion. She opened her mouth to protest, but Lyra cut her off.
"There is now little doubt that the Strangers were responsible for the initial cataclysm. They are beings of pure energy—invisible to the naked eye—and can only be detected and fought with magic. Our surviving literature suggests we had always expected visitors from the stars to arrive in flying machines, but the Strangers have no need for them."
A faint hope occurred to Bon Bon. If she could reason with Lyra and find some contradiction in this impossible story, a crack might appear in the delusion. "But... if they're so powerful, why bother ponies?"
Lyra glanced away, her brow furrowing in anger. "They find our mitochondria useful. It took us many years to discover even this and longer still to create the spell I used to get here. You see, we are not allowed to live past thirty."
"Who are you?" The words were halfway out of Bon Bon's mouth before she realized that giving the answer might make Lyra regress further into insanity.
"My name is unimportant," Lyra said. "But listen—while my mind is here, my body is helpless. I have a few friends guarding it, but if the Strangers discover them—discover us—I do not think they could move my body to safety fast enough. And if I die in this state, the shock may be too much for your friend's body."
This was too much for Bon Bon. She decided to try the direct approach, come what may. "Lyra... sweetie... we both read the same pulps. This is just like a story from one of them."
"No!" Lyra reared up a bit, her expression horrified and a note of panic entering her voice. "It's the truth, I tell you!"
Bon Bon took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and met Lyra's gaze through the glass. "You're even talking like a character from one. The aliens and the soul thing could be out of H.P. Lovecolt, or..."
Bon Bon's words caught in her throat as Lyra's body twitched, then froze. In a moment, Lyra's eyes rolled back, her jaw hung open, and a sickly rasping-gagging noise issued forth as she struggled to breathe. Bon Bon leaped forward reflexively and planted her hooves against the glass, but could only watch in horror as Lyra's legs gave way and she crumpled to the mat.
Almost as one, the doors behind and before Bon Bon flew open, and burly figures in white coats rushed in to seize Lyra and pin her to the floor. The orderly from before appeared at Bon Bon's side, glaring down at her. Bon Bon vaguely heard him ask what had happened.
She ignored his question. "What are they doing?" she said, a note of panic in her voice.
"Your friend appears to be having a seizure. They're moving her into a position where she can breathe."
It felt as if the bottom had dropped out of Bon Bon's stomach. Had she done that—pushed Lyra's mind too far back against itself?
The orderly said, "I think it would be best if you..."
Bon Bon was already halfway out the door. Her own uselessness in the face of the horror before her and the idea that she might be responsible together sent a shock of primitive flight instinct down her spine. Her heart wanted to stay, but her body had to escape. At nearly a full gallop, she bolted back the way she had come, bursting out the hospital's main double doors just as it seemed the walls would close in around her.
She slowed to a trot. The cool twilight air brought immediate relief from the stifling confines she had just left, but Bon Bon felt an immediate twinge of guilt for even this minor comfort. I shouldn't be here, she thought. I ought to be back there, at her side.
But she resisted the urge to go back through those doors, resolving instead to visit again as soon as she could. She knew they would not let her in right after what had happened.
It occurred to her that this evening looked no different from any other. The sun had just been put down and the moon brought out, and the stars twinkled sharply in the clear sky. Nearby, yellow light glowed warmly from the town's windows. The wind carried a hint of somepony's distant laughter.
Bon Bon turned her eyes to the ground, disgusted.
The things she wanted to do were impossible, but out of all the possible things, standing near that hospital was the least appealing. She started walking into town. Night was falling quickly, and though she now resented the town's normalcy, Bon Bon made for it, if only so she could see to walk.
Out of habit, she headed for the high street, though she had missed market day. If she had cared to look around, she would have seen far more ponies than one usually found outdoors in the evening. They didn't bother her, or even move much; their attention was elsewhere. It was not until Bon Bon stopped short of bumping into Daisy that anypony spoke to her.
"Hey Bon Bon, you're missing it," Daisy said.
"What?"
Daisy pointed upward with her snout. "The meteor shower, of course."
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Dammit! So freaking close!
This is ridiculously excellent.
i.imgur.com/rl6ESew.jpg
Nobody is insane, just different, or enlightened...
Excellent as always.
Leave it to Horse Voice to make a scrunchy face seem more ominous than adorable.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/2/6/234754__safe_screencap_bon+bon_sweetie+drops_scrunchy+face_cider_cherry+berry_the+super+speedy+cider+squeezy+6000_comet+tail_disgusted.png
Do I spy a Prince of Darkness reference? I've never actually seen it, but I'm reminded of the samples from it used on DJ Shadow's Endtroducing.
As for the actual plot... you'd think ponies would be used to this sort of thing and have contingency plans. Guess not. Maybe Twilight's legacy in Equestrian governance will be successfully bureaucratizing the handling of these sorts of ironic catastrophes*.
*As if this is a spoiler on a Horse Voice story.
Ah, HorseVoice bringing his lovely brilliance to the table, I see. How did you know I needed a nice dose of dark-fic today?
5623047
Oh yeah--one of the less appreciated, but terrifying, speeches in film. I wondered who would catch it first.
I can see, perhaps, GhostofHeraclitus writing a story like that.
5623135
Why, Skeleton Power, of course.
Glad to have been helpful.
Grab blankets and make sure to have the light on. Trust me, this is required when reading Horse Voice's stories.
I was screaming at my computer the whole time.
Why won't she listen to Lyra!
"First there was darkness. Then came the strangers...They were a race as old as time itself. They had mastered the ultimate technology. The ability to alter physical reality by will alone. They called this ability "Tuning". But they were dying. Their civilization was in decline, and so they abandoned their world seeking a cure for their own mortality. Their endless journey brought them to a small, blue world in the farthest corner of the galaxy. Our world. Here they thought they had finally found what they had been searching for."
Intriguing story Horse, reminded me of a few things, Yithian mind projection, Dark City, a few other cursory tales...
Short but delicious, I raise a glass to it.
5623277
Cheers!
Ah yes--the other movie reference here. I always agreed with Ebert's appraisal of it as the best film of 1998. It seems my readers have good taste in films.
5623314
Well you know me Horse, I'm a hopeless horrormantic.
A friend of mine linked it too me a year or so ago, fell in love with it and bought a copy, one of the rare films I'd watch repeatedly really. Appealed to me as a I squatted in my primordial gloom, amidst basaltic ruins of ancient pre-human cultures, scratching my gibberings into the walls with old jagged teeth, Ah! Happy times.
I have written a review of this story; it can be found here.
This is good, really good.
It's always enjoyable to read something from you, HV, and this is no exception.
I wonder why the future ponies didn't abort this mission once Lyra was stuck in a mental hospital and tried again sometime else.
Or, hell. Try somepony else at the same time. Make it so that a lot of ponies suddenly start rambling about something happening in the future, surely the Princesses, or someone else will pay attention to that.
Anyway... This was still a nice read.
Oh no. They're the meteors aren't they?
5623277
5623314
So I caught the reference to the movie I hadn't seen but missed the one to the movie I had seen. Oops.
5623158
And I think, perhaps, that he'd be stunned to find such a close parallel between your style and his. But that's a surprisingly plausible reason why his Equestria is a little nicer place to live in than yours -- the powers that be in the Civil Serviceverse have gotten around to realizing that they're in an untamed magical hellworld and learned to govern accordingly. Clearly the doctors (and Bon-Bon) here lack Dotty's sense of genre savvy.
5623527
This is how we know Twilight still hasn't gotten her shit together w.r.t. efficient disaster management in the future.
Gaaahhh...
5623676
The comparison is surprising, given that Bad Horse has specifically warned Ghost not to read my work, on account of the latter's sensitivity to grimdark stuff.
Heeeeeey... I could be Ghost's evil twin!
I guess I'm in the crowd that's not too fond of this one. It's competent, sure enough, but it's not scary. It doesn't work well playing off of tension because the grand reveal at the end isn't enough to be a worthy moneyshot. It doesn't appeal to horror or terror because too much is quantified in comparison to what is left to be suspense or horror. I suppose that's what is making me so ambivalent about it; I can't tell if it's supposed to be suspense of thriller. It's not exactly scary, yet there isn't enough time for suspense either. It's kinda stuck in that middle ground. There is potential to be had, and Lyra's descriptions of the future do contain facets worth exploring. It's still not enough for me. Well written, but rather uninteresting.
5624029
I was thinking along the same lines, wondering why horror fans waxed lyrical in the comments when it seemed like a fairly blatant stinger... Like, was I missing something more subtle?
Then I realized why Lyra had a seizure and was like oh shit.
Short but ominous, very nicely done.
But this could also be a prompt for someone to write some big sweeping epic, which I'd be ok with, too :p
5624932
Hell, I'd read it!
Hmm, Schrodinger's Armageddon: Equestria may or may not be doomed...
5624932 That sounds... marvelous.
I'll be thinking on this one for a while. Still have chills. Have my faves, you wonderful bastard.
5625802
Suddenly, it's not clear which thing the title means.
Anyway, nicely done; upvote.
It wasn't until the book being mentioned that I could fully believe the premise of this story. What I mean is that, why would her story be so unbelievable in Equestria? In our world, it would be a given that someone being sent back like this would not be believed... unless they entered a mental vegetable or baby. One of those things suddenly talking like that would garner some attention. In Equestria however, they have magic, time-travel, immortals, a spirit of chaos, an empire being displaced a thousand years into the future, and generally a lot of insane stuff, so the-pony-in-Lyra's tale wasn't too far out there in comparison.
The book saved it though, because someone spouting off the premise of a fictional work as fact would either be crazy or highly unlucky. I'm sure the-pony-in-Lyra spent his/her last moments cursing H.P. Lovecolt.
5630403
Oh yeah. In stories like these, you have to spot all the potential holes in advance, or the whole thing falls like a house of cards.
Thx for reading.
Mental hospital? Interesting, there don't seem to be enough stories set in them. (Most are actually about humans realizing that all pony stuff was just hallucination)
5632204 Read Asylum, absolutely fantastic.
5625124
Hey, do not blame me for this okay?
They should have listened to the green horsey. Or not.
holy shit, that was scarier than I thought it would be... I wonder who-
*checks who the author is*
ohh that explains it.
5653789
Haha, glad I haven't lost my touch!
5641298 Oh, I already do. For almost year, in fact. That story was a great emotional support for me in hard times back then.
(Undiagnosed celiac disease can be really depressing since it'll usually be a long time before anyone figures out what's wrong with you)
Since then, I have become interested in them, actually.
5670215 I assumed you had seeing it's popularity, but what if you hadn't?
5670805 Of course, I understand.
I was very much expecting Lyra's insanity to be human-related. Thank for you breaking that (somewhat tired) trope.
Pretty creepy. Also, H. P. Lovecolt
BonBon: "It's time to make my job"
derpicdn.net/img/2015/6/17/918708/large.png
6602807
While looking for that, I realized how much I used that word in this story. Hrm.
A good horror sends chills up your spine with a traumating event.
A great horror makes you shake in fear with a mere line of dialogue.
We meet again lovecraftian horrors.
If only the visitor had done some mild reconnaissance.
wow, just wow
How the hell had I not read this?
7148624
Heck, I thought you had. When I saw the notification, I thought you were going to say you had reread it.
Well... that was depressing...
Creepy. I'm sure I've read this story before because I've left a like but I don't know if I left a comment. So I shall.
It was very disturbing. The implications of those meteors are disturbing.