//------------------------------// // Ch. II: Conversations with a Monster/Conversations with a Therapist // Story: Devil in Me // by Phoenix Heart 27 //------------------------------// II: Conversations With a Monster/Conversations With a Therapist Days later...in the business sector of a small farming village… As the sun reached its apex in the noon sky, Halo walked through a small cart parking lot into a building with withered boards and fading bricks on the exterior. She yawned as she approached the front desk to check in. The mare at the reception desk looked exhausted from all the work she had to sort through from the past few days and therefore didn't properly acknowledge Halo as she signed in and took a seat. Waiting. Something Halo was rather good at, yet Santana was not. “Why do we have to do this again?”, Santana asked in an annoyed tone. “Because this is helpful. Plus it gives me a few days peace from you.”, Halo snarled back in her head. “I hate coming in here! It always smells of pills and desperation. The stupidly pathetic kind of desperation. I want to go home and play videogames. NOW!!”, Santana bemoaned as she mentally banged her head against an unseen wall repeatedly. At that moment, the mare at the front desk decided that seeing this weird mare talking to herself was not about to happen in her near empty wait area. Clearing her throat, she motioned for Halo to go back and start her session. Nodding, Halo got up and headed to the back where the actual offices were. Stepping into the office where she needed to be, Halo nodded to herself as she took a seat and waited for Dr. Ink Blot to come in. Soon enough, the aforementioned therapist came into the room and sat at a swivel chair next to a computer. Greeting the mare only after he sat down and powered up his ancient machine of a computer. “So, Ms. Rays...what brings you here today? Our normally scheduled appointment isn't for another month.”, Dr. Ink Blot asked in a calm voice. “Let's just say...it was an emergency...an incident occurred when I was on vacation. While Equestrian law won't have jurisdiction in Haywaii, I still feel guilty.”, Halo confessed. “I see. By any chance, would this incident have included…you-know-who?”, Dr. Ink Blot asked with a tinge of worry in his voice. “Indeed Dr. Ink Blot. I have no memory of what happened, yet she does. If you’d like to here what happened, you have to talk with her.”, Halo sighed as her eye twitched. “O-Okay. I'm sure we can have a s-small chat to see what the issue i-is.”, Dr. Ink Blot said in an unsure tone. Suddenly a quick flash of light blinded him briefly. When he looked back up, where Halo Rays once sat, now the seats’ occupant was a mare with a red mane and a bad attitude. “Hello Santana Steel Strings. It's been a while.”, Dr. Ink Blot said as he instinctively moved closer to his desk. “Heya doc! Long time no see. How's the wife and daughter?”, Santana asked in a casual tone. “They're fine. My daughter just started her sophomore year in school so...that was a day. Anyways, the reason I’ve asked you here, was to discuss an incident that occurred last week when you and your wife were on vacation.”, Dr. Ink Blot explained. “Oh that? That was just a bit of stress relief. See our tour guides were just SO ANNOYING! So naturally, that made me stressed out. So what do I do when I'm stressed? Why relieve it of course! Just like you said to...well maybe not exactly as you said to, but I digress. Anyway I managed to talk then into eating out on a pier. Once that was done, I took them out to a far, dark part of the pier. Grabbed a nearby sledgehammer and went to town on those two bumbling idiots! Hahaha! Oh just remembering it makes me giggle like a filly.”, Santana boasted to the disturbed psychologist. “I...uhh...I see! Yes we'll with that in mind, I’m sure it made you feel alright in the short term of it, yet what about Halo? Hmm? How do you think she felt afterwards? When you likely showed her what you did, how did she react?”, Dr. Ink Blot asked in a shaky voice. “Oh her? Oh yeah, she puked not long after I handed over control and again when I showed her what I did in the bathroom of the hotel room we were staying at. Oh she’ll get over it! It's not like this is the first time.”, Santana said with an almost bored tone as she waved it off as nothing. Dr. Ink Blot just sighed and shook his head. Inching a hoof off the secret panic button under his desk, he kindly asked to speak with Halo again. When she agreed, he closed his eyes as Santana melted back into Halo Rays. When he opened them again, there sat a rather confused looking Halo. “Hiya doc. What did I miss?”, Halo smiled as she asked. “Oh...just your alternative confess to murder that this country has 0 jurisdiction over. Seriously though, Halo if you want to gain more control over your body, you're going to have to follow through on those exercises I gave you to do. You're never going to see the brighter side of things if you don't stand up to Santana.”, Dr. Ink Blot explained. Halo was silent for a few moments. Looking as if she were truly thinking things over in her consciousness. After a few more minutes, she sighed. “I know doctor Ink Blot. Sometimes….sometimes it can be so difficult to even handle her! Much less share a body with her! It's been 36 years and she's still being the annoyingly mean ‘big sister’ stuck in my head. Newsflash: I already have a sweet, caring older sister! I don't need a demonic one! Yet, here we are. Having to have an emergency therapy session because she went crazy and she killed two ponies in Haywaii! Key word: SHE!!....*sigh*...sorry for the rant doctor. Yet it felt good to get that off my chest.”, Halo concluded her rant with a large sigh of relief. “Well...of all the things we’ve been speaking on since you’ve been my patient these past 16 years, this--” he paused to take a sip of water, then continues “--has got to be the most you’ve spoken in one session. While I'm sorry it was in a rant mode, I feel like from here we can make progress! Yes my dear, however it seems that our time is up for today. Shall we schedule for another month’s appointment?”, The doctor finished as they both stood from their spots and headed out of the office. “As it is, yes. How about...October 30, 26 at 11 am? That's the only available time I have on that day.”, Halo asked as she went to the front desk. “That is workable. I’ll see you then Ms. Rays.”, Dr. Ink Blot said as he returned to his office and Halo exited the building.