The Cards That Bind Us

by Parakalo

Chapter 1 - Splinters

“So... why is there a pillow stuck to my face?”

Getting an explanation from your older sister when she can’t seem to make coherent sentences is difficult. Every time Peppermint Twist would stop, gasp for air, and sit back up in her seat, she would take one look at her little brother and flop down on the ground, laughing hysterically.

Caramel was far too tired to be angry this early in the morning, and he was going to be late to school if he didn’t find out what Pepper had lacquered his pillow in and how to detach it from his face.

“Okay... okay...” Caramel’s sister finally sat down in front of her muffin, ready to eat. “Ith juth---” She cleared her throat, “It’s just gum base and sugar water.” Caramel got up from his cereal and moved to the bathroom without a sound.

Gum base, often made of elastomers, resins, and waxes, is a non-soluble compound designed to carry artificial sweeteners. Because they do not dissolve in water, they should dissolve in other non-soluble compounds. Caramel reached for his sister’s mane conditioner in the shower as information rushed through his mind. He didn’t know (and at this point, frankly didn’t care) where it was coming from as long as it was useful. He was far too tired to care why he knew the properties of six hundred artificial sweeteners and the emulsifiers used to mix them with gum base. As he thought about the sticky goop that attached his pillow to his jaw and cheek, the information simply rushed in along with it. It would be gone as soon as he thought about something else, and as long as the conditioner was working, the headache that came was worth it.

Wiping the oily conditioner off of his face, Caramel made sure he had managed to clear all of the gum out of his red mane. Perhaps he should swap the salt and the sugar again... that was always good for a laugh when Pepper’s friends came over. As he looked at himself in the mirror, the large bags under his mahogany eyes sent a chill down his spine. They reminded him that he hadn’t really slept in two days.

Every time he nodded off, he could feel a pair of eyes boring into his skull. Bright yellow eyes that came in and tore him open, taking piece after piece from his mind until he was an empty shell. He washed the thought away with cold water. He needed to be alert for Magical Studies with Professor Cupid today.

When he returned to the table, Pepper was just taking a bite out of her muffin, and the look on her face suggested it didn’t please her.

“Waff in dis?” She speckled her plate with flecks of muffin from her mouth. Caramel turned to look at her, information already spewing from his mouth.

“1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup white sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 1 egg, 1/3 cup milk, 1 cup fresh blueberries, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup butter cubed, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, artificial sweeteners, blue 40...” The information was moving faster than he could breathe, and when it stopped Caramel collapsed to the table, coughing and gasping for air. His head pounded with enough information on muffins to fill a tome. It wasn’t until Pepper spoke again that it vanished.

“Caramel... are you... okay?” She didn’t know what to make of what she just saw. Caramel moved like a recording in fast-forward. His speech was so fast it was practically unintelligible, and Peppermint knew that he didn’t know half of that information yesterday.

“I’m fine...” Caramel fought back a yawn. “I need to go; I’m going to be late for school.”

“Are you sure?” After that performance, Pepper wasn’t sure that school was such a good idea. Caramel already had his things, and was moving out the door.

“Have a good day,” Peppermint Twist called through the open partition in the door.

The headaches worsened as Caramel walked down the sidewalk. Each and every thought branched into hundreds and tens of hundreds of other bits and pieces of information like a great, gnarled tree. It was the voice of a friend that pulled Caramel back to reality.

“Caramel! Caramel! Where are you, the moon?”

“Oh... good morning, Pip... Just... Just a headache.” Pipsqueak had been Caramel’s friend since they were very small. People always called Pipsqueak “the brawns” of their operations. He had an overwhelming sense of adventure that Caramel admired. He was in Canterlot with his family on athletic scholarship.

“‘Just’ a headache? You can’t even walk in a straight line,” Pip laughed from his second story window, “Did you have a wild party last night and not invite me?”

“Something like that, I guess...” Caramel winced at the thought of those eyes burrowing into the back of his head. It made his headache of swirling raging information hurt even more.

“Well, don’t be late for school! And invite me next time, ya mook!” Pipsqueak was quoting one of his favorite actors. A protagonist from a Manehattan action-drama of back in the Great Depression. Born in 1104 in Vanhoover---

Caramel had to smack himself to stop his train of thought before it became too much to handle. School... he just needed to get to school and then everything would be fine.

It wasn’t long before the migraine shook him to the point that he couldn’t walk anymore. He stood there in the street, cringing as throngs of information flooded his mind. The molecular structure of grass, the contemporary art that hung in a neighbor's living room, there was too much to take in. Caramel shut his eyes, trying to tune it all out, and that’s when he saw them. The great yellow eyes of his dreams, staring at him from within his eyelids. Pupiless slits that burned him like knives.

I have you now, Caramel Twist.

Caramel collapsed under the weight of those eyes and his very essence groaned and creaked under the strain.

How long I have fed... Your mind... it now belongs to me.

Caramel shattered like a piece of glass undertow. Thousands of tiny glittering pieces that whipped up in the wind and disappeared.

~

---

~

“So why have you come to see this One?”

Caramel blinked. “I’m sorry. What?”

“You have come to see this One, and It wants to know why you have come.”

“I... I’m not sure.” Caramel was in a study. Lit only by a great fireplace on one wall, the walls of books and tapestries held colors of deep reds and golds in the dim light. Caramel could hear the ticking of a clock, but he was not sure where it came from. Across the room, in front of the fireplace, stood a large armchair that faced away from him. The voice of whatever was speaking came from this location.

“If you are here with this One, then surely you must be in some sort of peril.” A grey limb moved into view and beckoned him over with long, pointed fingers, “Please, sit.”

On command, Caramel moved to a second chair. Somehow, he hadn’t noticed it until the figure in the chair had gestured to it. The creature, now sitting across from Caramel Twist, was at first disturbing, and then fascinating. Its face completely featureless, it sat tall and bipedal in the chair, with arms meeting in front of the chest, and long pointed fingers laced together. It was... overcast in color. That was the best way Caramel could describe it. Its color changed like a shade of stone coming in and out of the light of overcast on a day it could rain. Sometimes, the creature had horns on top of a slender head, but most of the time Caramel couldn’t tell.

“This One is the One That Draws The String. You are?”

“Caramel Twist, sir.” Caramel wasn’t sure if he was terrified or happy to see the creature. More than anything, he was just confused.

“This One is no sir, Caramel Twist;” It corrected him, completely motionless aside from the subtle changes in the color of its skin, “Your formalities have no meaning here.”

“Where is here, uh... One That Draws The String?” Its head moved to glance around the room at this question as if it was obvious.

“This One imagines this place is a shard of your subconscious.”

“I’m inside my mind?”

“‘Inside’ is a relative term in this place, Caramel Twist.” Caramel didn’t really understand.

“How did I get here?”

“You have always been here. You have only become aware of it now because you have nowhere else to go, Caramel Twist.”

“How did you get here?”

“This One has a space in every mind. You would not be corporeal without the assistance of this One.” Caramel waited for it to continue. “To answer your question, Caramel Twist, this One has always been here.”

“What happened to Equestria?” The creature made a sound that Caramel thought was a chuckle, but he wasn’t sure, given that the creature had no mouth to chuckle with, much less hold casual conversation.

“The place you refer to as home has not changed, Caramel Twist. You have changed.”

“Okay... so what happened to me?”

“You have been contacted, Caramel Twist.” Caramel had nothing to say, so he waited for the creature to continue.

“This One believes you have been Touched by another One such as this One.”

“There are more of you?”

“There are more such as this One than there are such as you, Caramel Twist.”

“Ah. So... I’ve been Touched? Is that why I have been having headaches and bad dreams?”

“This One confirms your suspicions. Your conscious mind was never meant to burden the weight of your entire psyche.” Caramel began to put two and two together.

“Is this my real body?”

“‘Real’, again, is a relative term, Caramel Twist.” A pause. “No, Caramel Twist. That is not your corporeal form.”

“Where is my real body, then?” It made that noise again. Its shrillness sent shivers up Caramel’s make-believe spine.

“This One imagines it is where you left it, Caramel Twist.”

“Can... Can my body function without me?”

“You have not been possessed, Caramel Twist. Your mind has been broken, so What Remains will act out your last wishes.”

“What Remains?”

“This One believes mortals refer to it differently. The mortal psyche is built upon What Remains, and What Remains is what is left when the psyche leaves.”

“Do you mean like primal instincts?” Caramel had to write a paper about psychology for school. “Id?”

“If that is what mortals call it, Caramel Twist,” It motioned similar to a nod, “This One shall refer to it as well.”

“So... what does my body do with only an Id?”

“Your body will do the last thing it was doing, Caramel Twist.” Caramel nodded, in thought.

So it will be going to school without me... Caramel jumped to find that his thoughts echoed throughout the chamber.

“Be calm, Caramel Twist. You and this One are in your mind, after all. Id will only act with Id’s primal instincts.”

“You mean like a fight or flight response?”

“Id is only capable of one, yes.” Caramel relaxed into the chair. At least nopony would be worried about him if he was going to school like normal.

“You should not relax, Caramel Twist.” The creature turned, its head now down at the fire instead of toward Caramel, “You are still in much peril.”

“What must I do?” Caramel got a bad taste in his mouth when he realized his diction was similar to the One Who Draws the String’s.

“When they come for you, you must be resilient. You must combat the One Who Preys.”

“How do I do that?”

“Your mind will be left with a single splinter. That splinter will be your greatest tool to learn our ways to combat the One Who Preys.”

“A splinter? I don’t understand.”

“You must find the Bell, Caramel Twist. The Bell will lead you to the second splinter.”

“You aren’t making any sense.”

“One has found us, and this One must take leave of you now, Caramel Twist.”

“I still don’t know what I’m doing!”

“This One left instructions. You may now be at ease, Caramel Twist.”