//------------------------------// // A poisoned Mind // Story: Millennium // by A-hardie //------------------------------// Motion picture cameras, despite their relative infancy, had proven popular. What had initially started out merely as one pony’s gimmick at a sideshow had managed to cement itself firmly in the entertainment industry. That wasn’t to say that motion picture had exploded, far from it. In fact, cinema was still limited to a very few, niche venues. And up until recently, it had been just that, entertainment. It was only when magic proved useless that the marvel of technology proved its value to science. Foot Note stared at the flickering film projection in front of him. A single, near clockwork precise film camera had been acquired by the bureau some ten years before, for a singular purpose, to monitor the eponymous subject ‘Millenium’. In large part due to its pure technological nature, the device lasted far longer against the ‘decay’ of the creature than anything magical, only needing repairs once every two weeks. The creature had been monitored for years, and so Foot was working himself backwards through the archives, a good 1000 years, all documents before being largely illegible with time. The current reel he had chosen was labelled with its time stamp, some 5 years ago, and the scrawled writing of ‘psychological trauma’. It had begun simply enough. A young grey stallion maybe three years his senior entered the room, the door being sealed up behind him. Five hours passed uneventfully. It was in fact only when the tape momentarily flickered that Foot himself noticed that the door was now in fact gone entirely, with not so much as a seam remaining. When the stallion himself noticed, he began to panic, cantering about the chamber before pawing at kicking at the walls. After twenty minutes, he simply collapsed into a corner, either shaking or sobbing. Foot was unable to tell which, the film reel had no sound strips. An hour passed before the door appeared again, the stallion having to be carried out. The attached documents said despite the second observer coming to relieve his colleague at the usual time, the grey coated stallion appeared as if malnourished for days. A small anecdote at the bottom held a query, ‘spatial manipulation?’ Foot pondered this question as he would the tape back into its reel and can. The creature could evidently decay natural auras, but to decay time? That was a rather disturbing concept in and of itself. With some difficulty, the unicorn loaded the next film reel into the projector. This one looked old, and was labelled ‘claws’. It was also short, barely two hours long. Foot Note sighed as he watched. So THAT was how it happened. The stallion was young, a teenager. He just HAD to be an intern, he was far too young to be a researcher. And he was grinding the creature’s digits on the rock of its throne. Foot could now see on the opposite appendage that each digit ended in long, overgrown nails. The colt left the now ‘finished’ appendage behind, each nail sharpened into the now familiar claws that Foot was familiar with. All because of some prank? It was the skipping of the tape that made him look up. The colt could see something he didn’t, and he looked terrified. Between each flicker, he was backing up, forced into a corner by some invisible aggressor. Foot leaned closer, there was something in the background, on the walls. Was that….ichor? Like black treacle dripping down from the ceiling. That was the last thing he saw before the tape burned out. Foot blinked. Was that it? Why would there be another half hour to the tape? And so, he waited. It was a full ten minutes before the tape began showing an actual image again. The colt was stood facing a wall. Slowly, he reared his head back, then lashed it forwards, hitting the concrete with a crunch. Blood ran in rivulets down the wall, staining deep into the pores of the rock. With slow, mechanical movements, the colts pulled his head back, and hit forwards again…and again, and again. With a final, terrific thud, the colt’s skull snapped under the tremor. His neck bent awkwardly, the teenager stepped backwards in rigid steps, before standing like a statue. With a final tremor, he fell back. The sight made Foot retch dryly in his throat. The colts eyes had been plucked out, the sockets hollowed out with brutality. Foot was quick to stop the projector in its track, freezing the images. The crimson openings stared outwards at him, like some ghoul intent upon scaring a foal. Quick to remedy his gruesome mistake, the studious unicorn turned the device off altogether. The professor was left feeling cold, his coat doing nothing to prevent it. He had of course been warned by Withered that the creature affected the minds of those who spent too long near it, but that it somehow affected reality? Of course he had seen ponies affect the world at their choosing, the princesses did it every day. Manifesting objects into reality, teleportation, that sort of thing was so common it was paid no mind. But this was on a whole other level. The creature wasn’t even awake, and it had killed a pony without ever moving. Foot shivered again. Maybe, just maybe some of the written reports would settle his mind. Yes, a report, an old one. A quick spell and a thick binder was levitated before him, the familiar Star Swirl emblem upon the cover. Foot smiled softly, surely something written by Star Swirl the Bearded would set his mind at rest in a state of deep learning. With a heavy thud, the cover fell open, and Foot began to read. Summer sun celebration I’ve been in this room for a total of eight hours now, my assistant allowing me out of the chamber each hour for five minute intervals. This creature, this….beautiful design of evolution, it whispers things to me without ever moving its lips, without ever ushering breath. Names, places, even instructions for things I cannot comprehend! And sometimes random words I can find no source to. The Thames, Atlantic, R’lyeh, nuclear energy, all phrases that elude me. It feels as if this creature has some great intelligence hidden away. I wish to lift its eyelids and gaze into whatever secrets the orbs hold. However…something in my heart tells me otherwise. There is something inherently wrong about this creature. I keep telling myself, telling Celestia that we should simply turn away and bury the abomination back under the crystal fields of the Empire. But to waste such a chance…. My assistant is calling me. The diarchs wish for me to be present. I shall continue my research later in the day. The sudden change on the next page startled Foot. The page was had been stained with moisture, damaged with liquids. But the writing across the page, it was the ramblings of a madstallion. Itneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverendsitneverends ~~~ I returned this afternoon to find my assistant huddled in the corner. He had been flayed of his skin, with the resultant hide being nowhere to be found. Despite the obvious atrocity committed upon him, there is no real damage. No blood vessels have been broken, nor have any lacerations been found upon his raw flesh. But he has been driven into madness. He himself wrote the previous entry. He goes on and on about some ‘endless city’ consumed with fire. I wish dearly that I could gaze into his thoughts and see whatever he was shown, but I confess that I am fearful of whatever could be hidden now inside his mind. The princess has asked me what I believe has happened to my faithful assistants skin. Whilst I hope I am not right, I believe the creature may have somehow consumed it. Little other option exists as a conclusion. I still wish I knew what it is about the creatures dreams that drives ponies into madness. Does it meddle in the magic in their minds somehow? I shall have to look into this later. Foot turned over the page he was currently on. That entry, it had shaken him deeply. His withers were now tight, bunched up as the hairs on his nape stood to attention. To think that Star Swirl of all people, the fine Mage of Magic, had been utterly stumped as to the reasoning behind the entity. He cast his gaze across the small table top beside him. On it were a variety of objects that had been ‘tested’ so to speak, against the creature’s area of effect. Pencils, sand, coins, on one occasion even a scalpel blade. All had followed the same path, reduced to an unsightly ash-like substance. Had that been the only result, maybe the scientists would have been less disturbed. But somehow, it was worse than simple incineration. By all studies worth merit, by every available test, the piles of ash simply did not seem to exist. They gave off no radiation, no heat, even mass didn’t register except to the ponies themselves. How painful would that be, the cessation of existence? The thought was jarred as a loud clang resounded from behind the many stacks of film cans that rested up against the walls. Had one of them fallen? Now, Foot couldn’t call himself a neat freak, far from it. His own desk was strewn with sketches, books, grant details and even some of the archives requested from Celestia. But a film can… In its own way it stank to him. With a brief pulse of magic the shelves parted. It was small in circumference, a short tape was a generous way of describing it. But something was strapped to the can. Grasping them in a fetlock, the researcher was quick to recognise the faded paper as research documents, well over a century old. Why were they hidden back here? Everyone on staff was of the responsible type, so none of them would haphazardly shove the documents back there. No, someone wanted these particular files to be found with discretion. Discreet, indeed Foot could be that. However, he was also curious. It was a simple matter for him to telekinetically begin attaching the celluloid to the projector as he simultaneously read the documents. They weren’t precisely informative. In fact, they rather seemed obsessive, and the only clue to who had written them was the simple identification of ‘Heartstrings’. Foot quickly flicked through them. The usual stuff was all across the first few pages, before it smoothly changed into details that a pony would say about a FRIEND of all things. “The dead god dreams, he has the voice of an angel” he read to himself quietly, the last line written upon the documents, before the tape clicked into place, garnering his full attention. The earth pony on the tape was immediately recognised. Withered Scroll. Perhaps he had a few years off his current age, but the stallion was undeniably him. The youthful and strong Withered Scroll stepped into the chamber, his breath fogging in the icy cold of the stone. This did not look like it was a planned incursion. Looking around, the burly earth pony sealed the door behind himself. He looked so very different in his actions to the stallion that Foot was accustomed to. Cautiously, he stepped closer to the creature. It was then that Foot took note of the flickering of the film, black spots appearing in it. Snorting, he leant closer, trying to ignore them. Withered leant his muzzle closer to the sleeping creature, till the point that they nearly touched. And then, with slow and deliberate movements, he reached up to the closed eyelids, and opened them. The tape immediately went black. “What on Equis?” Foot quickly paused the film reel, and wound it back. The tape was burned for a good four minutes worth of frames, like the film had been flash scorched. Except, wait. Half of a frame still existed before the blackness returned. Foot was quick to move the film frame by frame, intent upon observing the brief moment of life caught in the celluloid. And there, hidden in the single frame, was the source of even more questions for Foot. Withered’s hooves had lifted the creature’s eyelids up. And from them shone a burning light. Foot quickly resumed the reel again, the four minutes of darkness passed without incident. The moment the film came alive again, the young researcher watched as his mentor tore his cheek open along the stone blocks of the beasts throne. “Now that one hurt like a demon” Foot spun around awkwardly at the sound of the voice, falling off his chair in the process. Withered Scroll was stood in the doorway in all his mangy glory. Trotting forward, he brushed the discarded film can aside with his hoof. “Really I should have hidden this better” he grumbled, switching off the power to the projector “of course someone like you was going to find these” “Is it, bad, that I did?” Foot asked cautiously. Withered stared at him for a moment, the expression on his face reminding Foot of the look his father would have given him before he delivered a spanking. But the elder colt just sighed. “No, it’s just rather embarrassing” he explained, gesturing to the projector. “Back then, I was so much like you, and the moment I got transferred down here, to work on that thing, I was so eager. But there was so little to learn. I just kept thinking about what colour eyes it could have, surely I could learn something that simple. And so I tried, and I saw it” “Saw what?” Foot asked. His superior looked over at him sadly. “I couldn’t explain it to you. It’s like seeing nothing and everything all at once, you’d have to experience it. I think the only reason I survived is because gouged my cheek open before I could think about it long enough to mess up my brain” he explained, gesturing to the heavy scar. Well, for Foot that at least explained one mystery, relieving some of the tightness upon his chest. “And what about him, Heartstrings?” he asked, gesturing towards the paper documents. Withered chuckled at the question. “HER actually. She was a musician hired to entertain the workers. Then she gets a look at that thing, and she claims it’s whispering to her. And quite frankly, I believe she was right. She got fired two months later though” “Why?” “They claim she stole something, some sort of necklace I think. Apparently she made it into some sort of family heirloom, along with the story. No one ever bothers the family about the story though, they think they’re daft” he explained softly, gathering the film back into its canister before once again hiding it. “So why hide the film then?” Foot asked matter of factly. Surely it was rather counter intuitive to hide a set of documents that no one cared about, let alone the fact their author was dead. “Because all it takes is one egg head like you and the family gets an inquisition. After my ‘episode’ I had ponies hounding me into a psychiatric ward for six months, analysing my brain, asking me if I could tell them what that thing really is. I didn’t see my family for close to a year. No one deserves to go through that” Foot paused uncomfortably at the revelation, scuffing his hoof. “…I’m sorry” he answered quietly. Withered scroll sprang into a roaring fit of laughter, apparently amused, making Foot jump. “Don’t be, you didn’t cast spells on my head” he said in a kind tone as he began to walk out. Foot didn’t hear him, his brain already musing again. A psychiatric ward… “Hey, Withered...” he called. “Yeah?” The reply had changed its tone back to the usual grouchiness, its owner apparently feeling its soul baring was done for the day. “Everyone near it goes mad right?” “If they don’t die outright, yes. What’s your point?” he asked as he clicked his tongue to quicken the younger of the pair. “Can you bring me a book on equestrian cerebral anatomy and more of Star Swirls notes? I think there’s a pattern” Withered grinned in response. “A development? Well this IS exciting. I’ll get them right down to you” he answered in what was most likely his equivalent to a happy tone. Foot was silent once more. “Got something else on your mind? Or are you just being rude?” he growled. “Sorry, it’s just….it’s dreaming right? So why didn’t they just ask Princess Luna to look at the dreams” Foot asked. The point was a valid one in his own mind, even foals knew Princess Luna governed and observed dreams. Withered chuckled darkly. “Oh she did, she took a good hard look” he answered as he stepped out of the room. Foot perked his head up. “She did? Really? What happened?” he asked anxiously. “She turned into Nightmare Moon”