//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Con Dolore // by Dark of the Moon //------------------------------// The room wasn't white. That might have been the thing that bothered her the most; the place not looking like it was supposed to. The room itself was large and open. There was a sectional couch arranged in a curved line at the front of the room near the entrance, and in the back there were several bookshelves and a few large, squishy armchairs, one of which she was perched on. There were even windows, large square ones that overlooked a small garden in full bloom. The carpet (not white tile, carpet) was deep blue, with specks and streaks of brown scattered throughout. The walls were a pastel green and were sprinkled with a liberal application of motivational posters. She didn't particularly care for any of the cheesy and quite frankly, ridiculous, depictions of rainbows and sunshine; but the one that bothered her the most was the one that sat on the wall directly in front of her. It depicted a cat hanging from a tree branch with the words "HANG IN THERE" typed in large capital letters. Just looking at it made her neck itch. She tore her gaze from the offending poster and turned it back to the carpet. She stared intently at the brown bits and tried to sort them in to some kind of pattern; she was almost certain there was one, but she had yet to find it. "And how are we today, Miss Octavia?" Her light purple eyes jerked up from the carpet they had been absorbed in to regard the unicorn that had posed the question. Her name, Octavia knew, was Pink Plasters. Her coat was a pale pink, with a cutie mark depicting two plasters crossed over each other to form an X. The white mane and tail complemented her coat perfectly, in Octavia's opinion. "Fine," she muttered lightly, "perfectly fine." Octavia was always fine. Pink Plasters gave a slight nod as if she had expected the answer and pulled a clipboard wrapped in pink magic closer to her face. "Good, good, I'm glad," she moved the clipboard back away from her snout so that it hovered near her side. "Your group is scheduled to be in music therapy, why aren't you with them?" She looked at Octavia disapprovingly, and Octavia knew she'd lost points for being "uncooperative". Octavia firmly suspected that her "points" were in the negatives by now, but she just couldn't bring herself to care very much. The place she was admitted to, the Healing Hooves Psychiatric Center, used a point system to reward good behavior and punish bad. The more points you had, the higher level you were. There were 5 levels, the first was level 0, which was either ponies who were just admitted or ponies who were an immediate danger to themselves or others. Ponies were often temporarily labeled a level 0 after an "incident", which was what everypony called mental breakdowns around here. Level 0s were on one-to-one, meaning a nurse had to be with them at all times. Level 1s were ponies who had been here for at least two days and ponies who didn't have many points, but hadn't done anything so drastic as to merit demotion to level 0. They were allowed to wander the common room and their rooms unsupervised, but couldn't leave the ward without the group or a nurse. Octavia was a level one. Level 2s could go out into the garden that the common room windows overlooked and the small library. Level 3s could go pretty much everywhere the patients were allowed, unless they were eating disorder patients. Level 3 eating disorder patients still weren't allowed in the cafeteria or the gym unsupervised. Level 4s could be checked out by family members and actually leave the hospital, and depending on the amount of points you had you could get a half day pass or a full day pass. The higher your level, the closer you were to discharge. Octavia was behind the curve. She had already been here a week; usually at a week you were at least level two, and some ponies reached level three in a week. "Well?" Pink Plasters prodded gently. Octavia considered telling her why she didn't go to music therapy. She considered telling the other pony that it was hard for her to even look at a musical instrument because they all reminded her of that night. She thought she might share about how one night and one stupid pink pony had ruined her life and her career. She might tell her everything... But she didn't. She held the same indifferent expression she had been taught since birth carefully on her face. Her eyes didn't betray a trace of emotion as she delivered her perfectly calculated reply. "I've got a bit of a headache today, so I thought I might relax in the common room while it was quiet." Her voice remained light and dainty, as a lady's should be, and her face didn't so much as twitch as the lie rolled off her tongue with practiced ease. Pink Plasters look skeptical, but nodded anyway. "Be that as it may, Octavia, you know the rules," she used the pen tied to the clipboard to scribble something on the paper it held. "I'll have to dock you 10 points for skipping a scheduled therapy." Octavia resisted the urge to roll her eyes, instead she gave a small nod. She didn't think she had any points to take away. So far, in the week she'd been at the hospital, she'd skipped three scheduled therapies. One group therapy on Monday, the day she arrived, the Tuesday music therapy session, and today's Thursday musical therapy session. She was fairly certain that those -30 points overwhelmed her 3 points a day for good behavior. Good behavior really just meant taking your medicine. Pink Plasters rolled her eyes at Octavia's indifference and without another word turn and trotted from the room. Once she was gone Octavia, not seeing anyone around to witness the act, stuck her tongue out at Plasters as she walked out the door. The room went silent again, and she knew that there wouldn't be anypony in the common room until a few hours later, when everyone came in for group therapy. Sensing a few precious hours of alone time, Octavia rested her head on the back of the chair she sat in and drifted off to sleep. ********* The crowd was absolutely silent as the solo cellist stepped out of the wings. The high-class ponies in all their fine regalia watched with the scrutiny of a microscope as Octavia took the stage. The walk from the right wing to center stage seemed to stretch for an eternity, like a tunnel that just kept getting longer and longer. Octavia could see her cello waiting for her, it's carefully polished wood shining under the stage lights. Her bow was propped up against it, all it needed was her to pull it across the strings. After what seemed like hours she reached her instrument. With practiced ease she pulled the cello free of its stand and propped it up on its peg. She carefully raised herself on to her back legs, taking just a moment to find the perfect balance between her cello and herself, exactly as she had done many times before. Raising her bow to the nylon strings of her cello, she spared one small glance to her audience, then she began to play. The name of the piece was "The Four Seasons", by Antailio Vivaldi, adapted for solo cello. The notes came easily to her as she played her way across the first three movements. The piece was long, about 45 minutes long depending on the speed of the musician, but Octavia never tired. The piece was complicated, but her bow never faltered. She played all the notes perfectly. Until she got to the fourth movement, 'Winter'. As she placed her bow on the strings she lost control of her hooves. They moved against her will and instead of the low building notes of Vivaldi's 'Winter', the first notes of "The Pony Pokey" screeched themselves out of her cello. Octavia, horrified by the discordant shrieks, tried to throw the instrument away from her, but she couldn't. She had lost control of every part of her as her traitorous hooves continued to jerk the bow across her cello to create the most inharmonious and harsh version of "The Pony Pokey" she had ever heard. The crowd began to boo at her, and she could only watch with tears gathering in the corners of her usually indifferent eyes as one by one everypony left the huge symphony hall. As the last pony left the hall, her cello wrenched itself out of her grasp, making her crumple to a heap on the floor of the stage. The cello, still playing that song despite having lost contact with the bow, moved to hover a few feet above her head. She couldn't move or even scream as the nylon strings snapped themselves free of the neck of the instrument and began to descend towards her. She could only watch as the strings formed themselves into a noose, and she trembled with fear as the noose slipped itself over her head. The strings began to pull her up, slowly and painfully. Having regain some control over her body she tried to struggle, tried to pull the possessed strings away from her neck, but it was no use, the strings were too strong and she couldn't get a good enough grip on them.. The strings continued to pull her up higher, higher, until her back hooves could no longer reach the floor. She could feel the small strings digging in to her neck: for a moment she thought she might end up decapitated. The noose began to crush her windpipe, taking away her last bit of air. She began to see black spots dancing in her vision, like pretty party ponies dancing at the gala. She cast her eyes upward to the instrument of her demise, and the last thing she saw was a pink pony standing on her cello, grinning down at her. And "The Pony Pokey" still played....