//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Time sure does fly by... 
// Story: The world that only i can see. 
// by NightBeat 
//------------------------------//


1 YEAR AFTER ARRIVAL 


"It took a while but I finally made almost enough bits to leave this annoying place, and tomorrow is pay day!" I thought to myself while I sat in my desk waiting for school to let out.

 Ring!!!!

I looked around the room before packing my things. I checked my saddle bags to be sure I had my ipony and my headphones, I chuckled to myself , "who knew that this place would actually have some form of mp3 player." I said with a smile on my face.

After putting my headphones on and walking outside the school building I was greeted by a few familiar faces. Rock hard, heavy weight, and solid steel. They were the school bullies, they picked on every one but they especially loved to pick on me seeing as I was the only male unicorn in New Equinox. Being from Earth and all I'd seen my fair share of bullies so I did what I normally did when I came across bullies, ignore them and my loud music was making that very easy.

I trotted along my normal path to my job. When I arrived I greeted the manager, "well hello Mr.Crescendo how are you today?" He looked up from polishing a trumpet and smiled, "oh hey Night I'm doing pretty good just trying to get this trumpet looking nice and shiny for a customer." I continued past him to clock in to start my shift but then was interrupted suddenly "ummm Night I got something I need to tell you," Crescendo said with a worried look on his face. I turned around to see what he wanted, "yes sir what did you want to tell me?"

He looked away for a bit almost like he was trying to gather his thoughts, "I'm sorry to have to tell ya this kid but.... I'm gonna have o let you go." I looked at him with confusion and anger, " WHAT!?!? Y are you firing me? What did I do wrong??" He got up from his seat and put his hoof on my shoulder and continued to speak, "you didn't do anything kid it's just that since you are a unicorn some ponies assume that you can't get the job done so they decide to take their business else where."

"But you've seen me get the job done sir shouldn't that be enough?" I said with my head hung low to the ground. "I know I know but sometimes I just got to let people go if they somehow start effecting business, it's nothing personal kid." Crescendo said as he walked back to the counter to continue polishing the trumpet. I sat there in silence for a few minutes thinking on what I just had been told. I looked back up at Crescendo, "do I at least get my final pay check?" Crescendo reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag, "of course kid, but sadly it's not enough to get you to where your trying to go..."

I took a step forward and grabbed the small bag of bits, "it's fine I'll find a way to make some bits some how." he looked at me with a sad expression then got an Idea, "hey kid I know how much you love your music so how about I let you pick any pair of headphones on the house! Cause the ones you have are starting to look a bit worn down and besides you are gonna want some form of entertainment on your journey." the thought of getting my hoofs on a pair of studio headphones that I've been eyeing for a few months now made me a bit happier so I nodded my head and began walking to where the headphones were.

When I brought the headphones that I wanted back to the counter Mr.Crescendo got out of his chair and patted me on the back, " good luck kid you're gonna need it." With that I put the headphones in my saddle bags and left to the park that I have been livening at for the past year. I found a bench to rest on and took note that the sun was going down. I plugged my new headphones into my ipony and instantly felt a bit happier with my soft rock playing. I fell over on the bench and began to feel myself fall asleep.

While I was sleeping I heard a voice in my head hissing at me but I was still able to make out what it was saying, "It's not fair the way people treat you." At that moment I woke up and noticed that it was morning, I gathered my things and headed to school. On my way to school I heard the voice again, "you can feel them starring at you with disgust can't you?" I looked around making sure that there wasn't actually some pony trying to talk to me. "The whispers can't you hear them," the voice continued to speak to me, "they all hate you and they question why they even bother putting up with you..." I stopped in the middle of town and grabbed my head, "SHUT UP!!!!" I screamed not realizing that I had said it out loud.

I looked around and noticed that everyone was looking at me with confused looks on their faces. "hey hey hey don't yell at me I'm your friend I'm only trying to help you see what you've been blind to all this time," the voice said. I smiled sheepishly and continued walking, "If you are my friend then please leave me alone I really don't need this kind of stress right now." the voice hissed, "fine but I'll be back when you need me and trust me you will need me..." the voice faded away and didn't come back.

When I finally got to the school I made my way to my first class, but half way to class I was met with five familiar faces. Rock hard, Heavy weight, Solid steel, Silver hide, and Iron lung. They were the school bullies and they pretty much picked on everyone, but they especially loved to pick on me seeing as I was the only male unicorn in New Equinox. Since I dealt with bullies back on Earth I was used to that kind of stuff I just ignored them and continued to head to class.

Class was the same as always long and boring, when lunch came around so did the bullies. They kept flinging their food at me trying to piss me off but I continued to ignore them and finished my lunch. The final class came around, I was a bit excited that I was gonna start my trip to Equestria today as soon as school let out, but I kept thinking about all the stuff that the voice in my head was telling me, "it's not like they were lies I mean I hear ponies gossip about me and I could feel their stares."

I rubbed my head trying to stop the pain that I was starting to feel. As soon as I thought I relieved the pain, the final bell rang causing my headache to return I gathered all my stuff and left the school. I put on my headphones and begin to play my music while I walked down the dirt path leading outside of town towards the ocean where I could hop aboard a ship to head to Equestria.

About 15 minutes down the path I came across the five bullies from earlier on that day, I did what I do best and ignored them. This only seemed to make them angry, they began picking up rocks and throwing them at me but most of them missed, until Heavy weight picked up a decent sized rock and threw It through the air it finally came down and smacked me on my head.

I fell to the ground and closed my eyes, I could feel them moving closer and laughing at me. "so It seems you might need my help?" the voice in my head said. "yes I do need your help but how can you help me?" I said with doubt, the voice let out a small chuckle, "oh Night all you have to do is follow me and I will show you." With that I began feeling myself slipping, when I finally opened my eyes I found myself in some sort of hospital.

I looked around and began to walk forward, after I walked a few yards a figure came out of one of the rooms, he looked like a normal human but he had giant spikes shooting out of the palms of hands and the skin on his face was peeled back reviling his muscle and his skull. " welcome Night I'm glad we could finally met face to face," the man said with a slight hiss at the end. I was shocked by his appearance but decided to ignore it, "who are you, and where am I?" The man stood there with a smug look on his face and said, "my name is Mantis and this place..." he let out a small chuckle then continued, "this place is where all your crazy and demented thoughts end up, it's an insane asylum really.

You just seem to lock all these crazy thoughts and ideas up never to be seen again." I looked at him with disbelief as we walked down the hall way, "that can't be true, I mean I don't really have any thoughts like that..." Mantis looked over at me then said, "there's no point in fighting it man I live in this crazy place and I see all your thoughts come right through here and hell some of them even decide to stay." He started laughing as he pointed to a door with a small window.

I looked at the door then walked over to it to look inside, what I saw surprised me. It was a bully back when I used to live on Earth, he was cut in half from the waist line and his arms were chained to the ceiling. His chest was cut right down the middle and his rib cage had been forced open showing off all his organs, but he was some how still alive screaming for the never ending pain to stop.

I backed away from the door and looked back at Mantis, "I remember thinking about this back on Earth... So is this all true, is this what my head is really like? Do I have any normal thoughts?" I held my hoofs to my face and started to cry, " yes you do but you see you rarely ever have any normal thoughts so there is no need for your mind to create someone like me to keep track of it all." I looked at Mantis, "so what now? I came to you for help and all you've done is give me a tour of my fucked up head."

Mantis laughed for a second, "if you want to see how I helped you then all you gotta do is wake up...." Mantis continued to laugh but it began to fade away when I put my hoofs over my eyes not wanting to see this place again. When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was a red substance on my hoofs.

It took me a second to realize what It was, "BLOOD!? B-but how did it get on me and who's is it?" I looked around for a few seconds but then I saw the source of the blood. There were five bodies lying on the ground all dead, the faces were all unrecognizable but I knew who they were. Each body had its own brutal style of death, I could hear Mantis laughing in the back of my head, "isn't this great kid they didn't even stand a chance."

I looked at the bodies and began to freak out, "shit shit shit I need to get out of here if the rest of the ponies find out these guys are missing I don't wanna be anywhere near their bodies." With that I grabbed my saddle bags and ran down the dirt path. About a half mile down the path I suddenly felt a sharp pain on my head, I reached my hoof up to rub my head but then stopped when I noticed a chunk of my left ear was missing.

I quickly pulled my hoof away from my ear cause of the pain that was shooting through my body. I sighed, "I wonder how long it's gonna take me to get to the coast..."

A few weeks passed and I still hadn't reached the coast, "hey Mantis you still there?" A few seconds passed before I got a response, "oh hey kid I thought you might have forgotten about me." I looked down at my hoofs while I walked, "after what you made me do to those five guys how could I forget about you..." Mantis chuckled, "I didn't make you do anything kid. That was all you, that's what happens when you bottle up all your stress like that. I was simply the catalyst that helped you snap faster well the rock that hit your head helped to." Mantis laughed the whole time.

I stopped walking and put my head down, " it's just I don't like the fact that I wasn't in control of my body." Mantis stopped laughing, "listen Night don't worry about it too much it was your first time being like that the way I see it you have two choices, you could either find a way to control it or find a way to keep yourself from getting so angry, but there will come a time when you might have to let your rage control you..." With that being said I continued down the path.