//------------------------------//
// Chapter Twenty-Two: Stop! 
// Story: Bricks in the Wall 
// by _NAME_ 
//------------------------------//


Chapter Twenty-Two



Stop!






I let my head rest on the wall, unable to even bother keeping it up any longer.

Voices and sounds and echoes floated to me through the thin brick, from inside the hotel. I could hear talking, muttering, whispering, yelling, though what about, I had no idea. My own thoughts were being much too loud to allow any other sort of conversation.

There was a dumpster in front of me, overflowing with trash from the hotel. Next to me was the payphone, still untouched from when I had used it earlier.

I looked at it and thought of Rêves, of the discovery that she was cheating on me. Was adultery just in her nature or was it something I drove her to? Did I abandon her?

Did I wrong her or she me?

What about mother?

And what about…?

I rocked back and forth, unable to keep still for once. Could I have done some things differently? Had I overreacted to some things?  Had I alienated everyone in my life? Was it true that maybe, some of the blame for my unhappiness fell on me? Did all of it fall on me?

The more I sat there, the heavier this newly-realized guilt began to weigh down on me. My entire grasp on reality, what I had thought had been real, true, seemed utterly alien now. And, as I thought about it, the more it seemed that I hadn’t born any responsibility for any of my actions.

Had I unjustly blamed everyone around me for what had happened to me?

Was everything I had justified in the past few hours false? What I had done at my concert? My rampage through the streets?

I stroked my scalp absentmindedly, feeling the shaven roughness. My hoof wandered its way down my face after a moment and rubbed the space where an eyebrow should have been. My other hoof clutched at my jacket and tore half of it off my shoulders before falling listlessly by my side.

I just wanted everything to stop, for all these new feelings to just fall away and leave me be. I needed to go back home, to see some familiar place, to have some measure of normalcy. I wanted to just take off this damned uniform and leave this place. 

But I sat in the alleyway, curled in a ball, my hooves grasping at my face for lack of anything else to do, because I had to know if I had been guilty the entire time.

So I lay there, unable to do anything but listen to my thoughts, confined in my own head, like an inmate.

I was in my cell, this alley my prison. I could only sit there and try to wrap myself around what went wrong. What happened to me? What did I do? When did my troubles begin?

I blinked.

There would have to be a trial to determine my guilt, my responsibility to others and to myself.

Presently, some figure appeared at the mouth of the prison. He stood there, unmoving and then took a step in. “Hello?” He called in. “Is there anypony in there?” His voice sounded frightfully familiar.

My head lolled forward and I lost sight of him, but I could hear his hoofsteps grow ever closer to my cell. More than likely, he was some prison guard coming in to check on the inmates, on me. I could hear his baton banging on the bars of every cell he passed, clacking.

“Pink? Is that you?” His voice was closer. He was searching for where I languished in my cage so he could take me and haul me off to my trial, so I could finally learn of what I had done.

Had I been guilty all this time?

I had to know.

He banged three times on my cell door and peered at me with hard, unfeeling eyes. “Pinkerton, get up. It’s time to go.”

My door unlocked in a jangle of keys and squeaked loudly as it opened, but I suddenly couldn’t find the energy to move and look at who was in front of me. 

The guard seized me anyways and dragged me from where I sat, hauling me down some corridor and through two gargantuan doors. The room inside seemed something out of a dream, comprised of white bricks that lined the walls, stretching up and out for infinity.

Shadowy figures watched on from balconies high above the floor. They fell silent as the doors had creaked open, and stared at me with a sharp, reproaching gaze as I was marched past.

The guard steered me against the wall and let me go. Without any support, I collapsed onto the floor and looked outward without blinking, without movement. I couldn’t do anything. No voice to speak, no tears to cry, no thoughts to think.

In front of me was an imposing judge podium, shrouded in darkness, lacking any sort of actual judge for the moment. That was the only thing in the room, save for me and the countless balconies above that housed the jury and audience.

My own personal trial was about to be in session, and I was at the mercy of others once again.

My guilt would be found soon enough.

Time to know.