There was, of course, an inherent oddness, some might say creepiness, in a message urging him to wake up being the thing to provide evidence that he wasn’t dreaming. Still, Twilight had told him, and she would know; she was dating Luna, after all. So it was that Shining knew three things.
He knew that reading ─actually reading as opposed to looking at gibberish and somehow knowing what it meant─ was a sign one was awake; he knew that attempting to read the same thing repeatedly and getting the same result was a way to distinguish real reading from fake reading; he knew that he had retrograde amnesia, for he had no idea how the fuck he had gotten into this mess; and he knew that the words, “Please Wake Up,” were scratched into the wall in front of him.
There were other things ─a great many other things, in fact─ he merely suspected. Chief among them was that he was having trouble counting. It wasn’t, for the most part, that he wasn’t entirely sure the number of things he knew was actually three, now that he had listed them in his head. It was more about his broken horn. How many times had he forgotten, and then remembered, that his horn was broken? Three? Six? Twenty-eight? It was impossible to say, because the attempt to count them made his cognition become . . . squishy.
He shook his head in hopes of clearing it. It worked about as well as one would expect. He resolved to go over some of the myriad things he suspected, on the off chance that might put his thoughts in order.
He also resolved to stop staring at the words, “Please Wake Up,” scratched on the wall in front of him. While closing his eyes or looking away might, possibly, have gotten the job done, he decided instead to stop looking by making it so that part of that wall wasn’t directly in front of him.
Shining turned and limped down the hall leading left ─taking care, of course, to watch for any additional bear traps─ and started to list off some of the things he suspected. He did this in the privacy of his own mind, because this was, probably, not a time to draw attention to one’s self.
He suspected Sunburst and Stygian were dating; that he was having trouble counting, as he had noted earlier; that his broken horn and the disused hospital were real, instead of some illusion spell; that the wheelchair he was passing was not designed with ponies in mind; that Cady knew more about Sunset Shimmer than she let on; that he shouldn’t have said that thing, which he said, to Cady; that the sound at the edge of his hearing, which he had only just noticed, was the screaming of a thousand tortured souls; that ‘Endocrinology’ was misspelled on the sign hanging obliquely on the wall; and that the red ‘Deconstructive’ and strikethrough were written in blood.
Having had enough thinking, and instead wanting some action (or, at least, the merciful release of death), Shining decided to visit the Department of Reproductive Deconstructive Health and Endocrimology.
The creek of the door reminded him of the sound Flash Sentry had made when he got his head stuck in a wagon wheel. The way the door collapsed on the floor reminded him of how Sentry had reacted when he’d realized, or rather when Cady had patiently explained, that Flash Magnus was romantically interested in Sentry.
At first, Shining was disappointed by the lack of demons, non-demon adversaries, and answers. Then, the shadows in a particularly poorly lit corner started moving of their own accord, and - for the umpteenth time - he remembered that his horn was broken.
It occurred to Shining that, when one is wandering through a derelict hospital while suffering from both amnesia and a broken horn, it is possible, and indeed even likely, that being the victim of shadow creature might not mean the sweet release of death, but could instead lead to torment, like unto that which made the thousand souls, which he suspected he heard, scream. That he had not considered this before made him consider moving “I am suffering from impaired cognition” from the list of things he suspected to the list of things he knew.
As the shadows coalesced into an eldritch horror in that way that animate shadows are wont to do, Shining tried to form a plan. The malevolence he could feel emanating from the thing in oppressive waves meant that asking it to play Ogres & Oubliettes with him would probably not be met with copacetic response.
Wait, was that what “copacetic” meant? Shining decided that moving “I’m suffering from impaired cognition” to the “Things I know” list was a definite maybe.
Twily would probably be disappointed that he didn’t even attempt friendship, but desperate times called for . . . ok, that was fundamentally dishonest. This wasn’t some consequence of universal truth; this was him being scared. Terrified even.
So it was decided that he would attack the shadow creature monster thing, the question was: how? How did one attack a thing made of something so abstract as a dearth of light, when graded on the curve that was the general brightness of the area, when one didn’t have a horn?
Through a series of tenuous mental connections that he was ninety three percent sure somehow involved an avocado, Shining’s thinking came upon the Tempest Shadow solution. Ignoring the searing pain, he forced magic through his broken horn at positively irresponsible levels.
As the light of the firework overpowered his ability to see, and the creature did a so-so impression of the Wilhoof scream (which Shining had always hated, for the record), Shining repeated his pseudo-mantra, and listed the things he thought he could remember:
A picnic basket. A maple tree, with leaves the color of . . . he’d forgotten. Royal Glen Park, Canterlot. The words, “How could you?” in response to something he’d done in desperation.