I had no idea how much time had gone by. But every time I was awake, aware of my surroundings, I’d panic to the point they’d have to subdue and sedate me.
Now was one of those times.
“Let go of me! Please! I have to change back! I have to! This isn’t me!” I screamed, thrashing in the bound sheet they’d used as a straightjacket, as my build and size didn’t suit the ones intended for humans.
“Hold her steady!” I could hear a doctor saying amidst the blur of motion and faces around me.
“He did this to me! Discord! The God of Chaos is here! Why can’t any of you see him, he’s right there!!” I screamed, louder and more hysterically, feeling the hot tears falling down my cheeks as I saw that distorted creature sneering at me from the corner of my cell.
I felt a brief pinch, and the orderlies gently setting me down. I struggled to sit myself up as best I could, leaning against the cot as I tried to think clearly despite the drugs setting in.
What happened… so… fuzzy…
I called myself ‘Cadance’, I called myself ‘girl’, I felt my heart ache for losing a stallion and a marriage I only knew through episodes of a television show. It felt like more of me was slipping, and more of her was replacing me. Worse was when I had said things to myself, and referred to myself by that name, it seemed so natural… so right. Not just because I looked like her but because for that moment I felt like her. I snapped out of that delirium and tried to recall my old self’s name, the first thing I ever got when I was born.
“I’m not Cadance! I’m not Cadance! I’m NOT Cadance! I’m NOT CADANCE!” I said, squeezing my eyes shut as hard as they could as I continued to try to deny all evidence to the contrary. “Listen to yourself!” I ordered, hearing the alicorn’s beautiful, but now trembling and frightened voice taking my speech for me. “Who. Are. You?”
Mi Amore Cadenza. Cadance. Princess Cadance.
NO!
“Ca—adance….” I teared up again, lowering my head and feeling my long mane fall in front of my eyes. I had to get out of this body, and get as far away from myself. If I died would that do it? My eyes slowly opened as I looked down at myself. Pink fur coat… dainty, feminine hooves… curvaceous body with firm flanks and slender, graceful legs…. A full, silky tail and mane of three colors, the pressure of the wings on my back against the bindings. Nothing of the human I once was remained. Of all the people in the world, why was it me?
A humming sound was heard, a blue aura glowed above me and I knew my horn was active. I felt the bindings loosen and fall off me and I stepped out, only to fall to my side from fatigue caused by my outburst and the drugs.
Thunder crashed and my eyes then snapped open. I was no longer in the mental institute, rather instead I was laying on my bed at home. I tried to sit up, then noticed I was still in Cadance’s form. “Why won’t this stop…” I pleaded, bringing my hooves to my face and rubbing my large eyes. As I looked up, the walls were now covered in crude writings and drawings, all glowing blood red and all spelling ‘5s/4’ like the cell I’d been in now had all over the place. The room was dark, and as I looked around it felt as if the numbers spun around me.
I could hear soft crying, it sounded female, and more then familiar to me.
“Angela?” I asked, climbing from the bed and left the room, walking down the hall to find the source of the crying. Perhaps against my better judgment as I’d seen enough horror movies and games to know noises that didn’t seem to make sense being there often lead to something bad, but at the moment I wasn’t sure which would be worse… going in as prepared as I can be for whatever awaited me in the lit living room just at the turn of the hallway, or continue cowering in the bedroom and hoping whatever it was wouldn’t come looking for me…
I slowed my steps as I approached, the crying getting louder as I drew closer. This wasn’t normal at all… it was practically deafening when it was just around that foreboding corner! Chills went down my spine and I took a breath, focusing on my horn that I hoped could protect me, and entered the living room.
Empty. As I looked around the crying was suddenly all around me, it wouldn’t stop and I finally collapsed to my haunches and held my hooves over my sensitive ears, trying to drown it out but even then it didn’t stop, as though it were inside my head!
Suddenly it stopped, and a deathly silence followed. Then I heard Angela’s voice behind me.
“Why, Cale? Why would someone who supposedly is a very loving person ruin the happiness of the one he claimed to love?” She asked, her tone filled with grief.
“Angela, I’m so sorry! I know I did wrong, but… you… you can’t blame all of it on me… you know that.” I said softly. It may have been selfish or defensive, but it was truth, I had friends and family who had spent quite a while trying to make me see that. I still felt guilt unlike anything else, though, regardless of how much fault I had… I wasn’t even sure what was or wasn’t, only that some of it wasn’t.
"SHUT UP!" Angela shouted, her tone instantly having become completely livid, and eerily threatening, all enough to make me flinch as I turned and saw her enraged expression, which was all it took to make me back away from her. “Why do you think I’m here? Because soon…” She drew a knife out and looked at me, her eyes going from a look of anger to a terrifying hatred. “You won’t be. What you turned into is only more karmic for ruining any chance of a life again… not that you’ll have to worry about that.” She said as she advanced on me.
“GET AWAY!” I screamed, backing away and running down the hall instinctively, only for it to stretch indefinitely no matter how fast I galloped or flew. I could hear the enraged Angela behind me yet I couldn’t see her when I looked back. The hall now seemed to have a vast number of doors on either side, and I needed to hide! I pressed my hoof against one, and inside was a completely different place, one I knew all too well.
“How can you come to these conclusions? I’ve been doing my best to fix our problems while all you do is blame whatever you can think of on me!” Another me protested… my human self… who… Cale Amos! He was arguing with his wife. No, no, that’s not right. I am Cale dammit! Why did my mind sometimes feel like I… he was someone else? It felt like watching an old movie as my former self and my former wife argued, their words grew more heated, their gestures more aggressive.
“FUCK THAT! You should have picked up the slack the instant I started going back to college!” Angela shouted.
“You planned to move to part-time, and even then you didn’t want me to take two jobs because it meant you’d be alone longer!” The other me insisted, and I winced knowing what would come next. Angela, now more furious then ever, landed a hard, vicious slap across the other me's face that took about a day to heal, but that was nothing compared to the pain my heart had felt.
“Don’t put words in my mouth!” Angela hissed, getting up in the other me’s face as he nursed where she'd hit him. “Face it, it’s over. You wanna know what this feels like? Like I’m being held down, being forced to watch something I care about be brutally tortured to death, no matter how hard I tried to get free and save it! That’s what our marriage has been!”
“You think I don’t feel the same way? I feel like for the last few months all you wanted was to end it any way you could because things didn’t turn out how you planned! Not everything goes as planned, no matter what we do to try to make it so, it’s how the world is, Angie!”
She was in tears. “Don’t call me that! Don’t ever call me that again, you don’t get to! Not anymore!”
My heart sank, I couldn’t stand to watch this, not even from an external viewpoint. We both made mistakes, Angela lost her temper when things didn’t go smooth, and I didn’t always plan far ahead since I usually tried to go with things as they came and adapt as best I could.
“Angela… please, I love you, why do you think I married you? Why do you think I’ve kept my head up putting in extra hours at work? Why do you think I was willing to spend extra for stuff you really liked?” Other-me asked, approaching her and trying to put his hand on her shoulder, but instead she smacked it away and glared daggers at him.
“Doesn’t matter. You should have for once done the further planning for ways to handle bills, not me. I’m back in college I don’t have time to worry about anything else!” She snapped. “And you know what the crazy part is? I used to think I was the luckiest girl in the world to fall in love with the guy who makes love happen for others. Who knew he’d blow it completely when he found love?”
She grabbed her coat and brushed angrily past other-me and headed to the door. “I’m going to my parents. I’ll be back tomorrow for my stuff. Don’t make me have to bring the police over when I am.” She said in a cold tone as she opened the door and slammed it hard behind her once she left.
I tried to reach through. “Angie! Please! Come back!” I cried out, but nothing affected the memory as it faded into darkness. Watching this made me feel worse about myself, what could I have done to change this? I collapsed to my haunches and looked down at myself, tears forming. All of this… being abandoned, being stuck in this pony body, being tormented by images of a chaos god, it all felt like some kind of punishment.
Suddenly a figure appeared in the darkness through the door, approaching me. My eyes widened as I recognized it as my former self, but his skin was even paler then mine had once been, and he had his head down; I couldn’t see his face.
“You took away everything I had left.” Cale said, but his voice didn’t sound like I remembered it. It was deeper, almost inhuman in some way. I backed away nervously as he slowly tilted his head up, and screamed when I saw his face.
His eyes were missing, his nose missing, not bloody openings but just empty openings where they should have been, his mouth hung open and the inside was just as pitch black on the inside. He began to approach me again. “Give it back. Give me back my life, give me back my face! Every time I try to see it, it’s not there anymore!” It screamed as it suddenly ran at me. I fled as fast as I could down the hall, but the horrible apparition always seemed to be just behind me when I looked back. The halls grew darker, the closed doors framed only by the faint white light that came from whatever was behind them, and the path I ran down seemed endless as this thing that mocked my old form kept pursuing, its fingers now had grown longer almost like claws, its clothes looking more and more ragged whenever I had the nerve to look back. I didn’t want to, but my fear kept compelling me to do so, and every time it was more and more horrifying.
Up ahead, there was an open door, and far too desperate for a place to hide I ran right in and closed it as quickly as I could, using my magic to lock it. Scratching and pounding suddenly came from the other side as my pursuer attempted to get in and finish me off.
“GIVE IT BACK! GIVE IT BACK!” He… no IT screamed in a horrible, shrill voice as it pounded harder. I looked around the room, hoping there’d be something I could put in front of the door, and to my surprise it looked like my old bedroom, yet far emptier now with only my bed which was now just a mattress and frame. Whimpering as I felt despair overcome me, I slowly walked to my bed and crawled under it, curling up as I felt tears flow down my soft cheeks, and buried my face between my hooves.
“Please! S-somepony! An-nypony! H-help… m-me…” I cried, my voice trembling as the room grew darker, that terrible pounding and clawing growing louder till it seemed to be all around me and making me curl up tighter in fear. This was the end… I knew it was… the bed above me faded into blackness like everything else in the room, yet the pounding persisted. Discord’s laughter could be heard in the darkness, his distorted image undulating and twisting in my mind with that mocking sneer on its face.
“Can’t leave…” A voice sang to me.
Can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave can’t leave…
I could never leave here, even if I were to leave I would never leave this room… my hopes were shattered, trapped in this form, my life turned upside-down and taken from me, in a world that I now felt completely alien to.
Chaos is the only comfort… The phantasmic form of Discord whispered in my mind.
Yes… let madness be my solace…
No!
Suddenly, I heard a different sound and my eyes snapped open. The faint light outside the door, the only thing that now existed in this darkness, grew brighter, and whatever thing was there had ceased its attempt to break in, and the door itself became engulfed in the light, a light that became yellow and welcoming like the sun itself. Frightened, I backed away, eyes wide with fear and whimpering and shaking all over when a tall, graceful form appeared in the frame. I barely found the words to speak as recognition came over me, fearing this to be another trick of my tormented mind…
“Princess Celestia….?”