He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there before he felt a soft hoof on his shoulder. A familiarly happy voice came from behind him.
"Foud 'ya!" said the pony for which he had all the adoration in the world.
Knox said nothing. He couldn't even bring himself to move. Pinkie Pie moved slowly into his line of sight, seemingly trying to invoke some kind of response from him.
"You know," she said only slightly enthusiastically, "I have to hand it to you, Knox. This was a really good hiding spot!"
The stallion didn't respond. He wasn't even looking at her. He wanted to, but he couldn't seem to pull his gaze away from the towering object that loomed behind her. The object that had so quickly and so completely grabbed the attention of the whole of his mind. Tears were streaming down his face. How long had that been happening? Pinkie was still talking, trying different ways to free him from this sorrowful prison, but she eventually realized that she probably wasn't what he needed right now.
"Well, it looks like you need to be alone right now," she said dejectedly, "but you can come and find me... when you're ready to talk."
She slowly turned and walked back through the hedge maze the way she had come. That's when he noticed it. Through the unimaginably heavy haze that this object had placed over his mind, he noticed it. He'd only seen it through his peripheral vision, but he was 100% certain of it. Pinkie Pie, for the first time since he'd met her, had stopped smiling.
That single thought had enough weight in his mind that it drew back the curtain this thing in front of him had tried smothering his mind with. He was able to focus long enough to close his eyes and sprint out of the cursed clearing that held that detestable object.
He was almost out of the labyrinth now, but he still couldn't think clearly. He wanted more than anything to go find Pinkie Pie and cheer her up, but there was something still pulling on the back of his mind. He needed to know why they had made it. Why would somepony take the immense amount of time and supplies needed to craft something of that caliber... only to create that. He needed to ask somepony. But who should he ask?
'The princess,' his thoughts replied, 'She'll know.'
Knox quickly changed his course as he exited the hedge maze, which now seemed eerie and grotesque behind him. He was going to see the princess. Now.