//------------------------------// // Chapter 13: The Conversion of Hidden Trek // Story: The Horror of Happiness // by CrackedInkWell //------------------------------// “Are you sure this will work?” Starlight asked with a raised eyebrow. Dr. Lovejoy nodded, with the drugged piece of bread in his aura, “I’ve done this sort of thing before. To completely change one’s mind is a delegate procedure of psychology. The drug itself works on giving the participant a verbal and optical illusion in which would be so convincing, that he would have no choice but to believe in it.” He paused before the door, turning to Double Diamond, “Make sure you give this to him. Wait for about a couple of minutes, then let me enter, and I will take care of the rest.” Nodding, the pale pony took the bread, unlocked the door to the Equality House and went in for a moment before returning to lock the door. Starlight looked at the old doctor, “What do you need me for?” “To teach you how this is done, and you’ll play a very important part at the very end where you’ll… lead him to the light, shall we say. If such a metamorphosis is to happen, I must first lead him into the darkness, but before the drug will wear off, I’ll need you to show him a way out.” Lovejoy looked down the empty street, “I trust that you’ve informed everypony to stay inside while we conduct this experiment?” She told him that she did. Taking out his pocket watch, the stallion waited for several minutes before he made Diamond hoof over the key to the prison. Lovejoy carefully fitted the key into the lock and as quietly as possible turned it to open. Gently pushing the door open, he found Hidden Trek staring out the barred window; his “lunch” was already reduced to crumbs. The doctor cleared his throat, getting the younger unicorn’s attention, “D… Doc? Doc! You’ve come back!” he rushed over to hug the stallion. “Good morning Mr. Trek,” Lovejoy pushed away, “I must apologize for leaving you in here, I could only imagine that you must have been quite lonely.” “You have no idea,” he grabbed a lock of his mane, “Nopony has been willing to talk to me. Not even the guy who was here on the first night. Even that pale guy who comes here to bring in food and water – and to take out my waste, never says a word. That stupid voice keeps me up at night, and everything in here has an equal sign. Even all the pages in the books have equal signs. I swear I’m on the edge of snapping here.” “Oh, I can imagine.” The doctor tilted his head, “But I don’t suppose that this isn’t the first time this has happened.” Trek snapped his head up at him, “What?” “You said that you grew up in… Baltamare, wasn’t it?” he nodded, “You said yourself that you already knew your way around the city to the point you could walk blindfolded without a problem. But I wonder why? Is it because that you knew the layout of the city better than you knew ponies, or perhaps, more than they knew you?” Trek stared at him, “I uh… I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Ah, I see.” Lovejoy nodded, “You must be one of those, alone in a crowded city kind of ponies. Where you’ve always felt lonely and lost to the point that it manifested itself as a cutie mark?” “Doc, what are you saying? I really don’t like where you’re going with this.” “Let’s face it, Mr. Trek, this isn’t the first time that you felt like the invisible stallion. Maybe that’s why you go into the unknown so that you would find something to give you the attention you rarely got.” “B-But doctor, t-that’s not true! I have friends. I have a life.” “Yet, do any of those friends, or rather, your family... are they even interested in what you have to say? Do they always have something that’s so important that hearing whatever thoughts and opinions you have is merely insignificant compared to what they have? Why I wouldn’t be surprised that with the kind of life you have now, why would they want to listen.” “Shut up,” the stallion covered his ears, “Doc please, just… just shut up!” Lovejoy smirked, “Why? I’m telling you the truth. Do you wish to not want to hear it? My, my... it’s no wonder why you go off into the unknown, for you have more in common with it than with other ponies. Perhaps it’s little wonder why you got yourself a job that tells you to get lost.” The doctor trotted out the door with, “Then, I guess you don’t need my help to find the path to happiness then.” “Doctor Lovejoy!” Trek rushed after him, “You take that…” but as soon as he exited from the door, he slowed to a stop. From the side of the house, Double Diamond, Starlight, and the doctor peeked around the corner while still keeping out of sight. “What’s he doing?” the light Earth pony whispered. “Just watch,” Lovejoy said. And they did, Hidden Trek looked up and down the empty street. “What?” he craned his neck upward, circling around, “Baltamare? How did I get back here?” He looked around, “Hello? Anypony?” He waited for a response, “Hello! Is somepony out there?” He started to walk away from the town and towards the desert, calling out for someone. Unbeknownst to him, the three other ponies followed behind him. “Hello!” Hidden Trek shouted. But everywhere he looked, he found streets, parks, skyscrapers, even apartments, empty. He turned another corner but stopped, “Wait, didn’t I come to this street already?” He looked up at the green and white sign, “This can’t be Gallop Street, I’ve already passed it. What’s going on?” His ears stood up as he heard something. Although he couldn’t make out what it was saying, he heard a voice. That means that there is someone here! Trek quickly scanned the boulevard in which his eye caught something moving. One of the doors from the houses had closed so he galloped up to it. Finding that the door was unlocked, pushing it open, he found that it wasn’t somepony’s home, but an open photo gallery. But again, the place was empty. Raising an eyebrow, he walked up to one of the photos, and his eyes widen, “Wait, mom and dad? No that… that can’t be right,” Hidden Trek examined the picture carefully. He remembered it well. It was from the vacation to Manehattan when he was a colt. It was a picture of the crowded Times Square, his father on the left, his mother on the right and him in the middle. Only, the picture he was looking at, his younger self wasn’t in it. There was nothing but space between his smiling parents. He moved on to the next photo of his tenth birthday. There was the banner, the lit cake that illuminated the darkened room. There was the table with all of his presence in the corner. But there was no him sitting at the cake, waiting to blow them out. The next photo was his graduation picture of the students jumping and throwing their caps, but once again, he was absent in it. Picture after picture, of familiar photographs that he had seen in his family’s photo albums, he wasn’t there. It was as if he was erased from the past completely. “This has to be some sick joke,” he told himself. “There’s no way any of this can be real.” From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a moving shadow. Hidden Trek went after it, only to find that the gallery had dissolved into a mountain pass. He quickly turned around, and the gallery he came out of, was no longer there. “I’m dreaming! That’s what this is, just a dream!” Trek tried to bite his hoof hard enough until he could no longer take it, but the forest was still there, “Come on,” he bangs his head against a rock, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” But feeling his head start to hurt, he plopped down on the ground, “What’s happening, and more importantly, where am I exactly?” His ears picked up on more whispering, “I know you’re there! Come on, show yourself! Why do you have to keep running away from me?” He looked at both sides of the pass, catching some pony’s tail disappearing behind one of the stone walls. Trek took chase as he rounded the corner. He knew somepony who was there, someone who was just barely one step away. The unicorn tried to keep up with this elusive pony until he found that the pass opened up to a familiar plateau that overlooked a bustling village surrounded by pine. “Is that…?” he walked closer over the cliff side. “Hoofinberg? But, that’s in Germaneigh. How did I get here?” Before he could answer this question, he saw from the corner of his eye the mysterious pony galloping down the path towards the tiny town. Following the trail, he came, to his relief, the tiny town filled with ponies. He went up to what was the first pony he’s seen all morning, a filly with a braided mane. “Oh thank Celestia, I’ve found someone.” But she didn’t look up at him; she had her focus on picking flowers. “Oh, right,” Trek cleared his throat, “Guten Morgen mein Lieber. Ich hatte gehofft, Sie mich für einen Moment helfen könnte?” But still, the little filly didn’t acknowledge the stallion’s presence. Giving a raised eyebrow, Hidden Trek tried waving his hoof in front of her face, but she didn’t even flinch. As if he wasn’t even there. Growing concerned, he went up to the other villagers who went about their lives, but not one of them noticed the new stallion. “Entschuldigen Sie?” He said to one pegasus with a thick mustache. No reaction. Trek went up to a mare, “Hallo? Kannst du mich sehen?” she didn’t even look at him. Then he went up to a colt constructing a castle of blocks. “Du da drüben! Können Sie mich hören!” Nothing, no matter who he went up to, he got no reaction from them. “Why is nopony listening!” Trek shouted before a piece of paper flung to his face. Taking it off to examine it, he found that it was an incomplete map, something that resembled his original cutie mark. He glanced upward to find that the green village had suddenly been replaced with an endless desert before looking back at it. “I don’t get it,” he said, plopping down on the sand. “Why is everypony ignoring me? I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want everyone not knowing I’m there!” Growing angry, his eyes sharpen on the unfinished map. “Why couldn’t this thing ever be useful? Why doesn’t this give me an idea where to go!” he shouted as he tore the map to pieces with his hooves. As he tore it, a wind let those pieces fly into the oblivion of the wilderness. When he found that he could tear no more, Trek only stared at the horizon as those pieces flew away. Overcome with a sense of hopelessness, he covered his eyes with his hooves and cried. He heard whispers, but he didn’t care anymore. All he now asks for is to have this nightmare to end. “Hidden Trek?” the stallion snapped his attention behind him, finding the purple mare that had imprisoned him. “G-Go away!” he yelled at her. “Wait, just hear me out,” Starlight said, “I know exactly how you feel right now. That you feel confused, lost, and unwanted. You were gifted with a cutie mark that’s given you nothing but grief. Forced to wander to places where nopony in their right minds would go to, and for what? What sort of praise do you get to earn from ponies that are not thankful for the work you’ve put into? Mr. Trek, I know what it’s like to have a cutie mark come between you and being happy. I know what it feels like to be isolated because of a special talent that only proves to be a curse.” The unicorn mare went up to him, putting a hoof on his shoulder, “Realize that you don’t have to live like this. That you don’t have to be ignored for simply existing, for you need real friends that will listen to you, and love you – ponies that will care because they too have experienced the very thing you’ve suffered. Let me ask you, Hidden Trek, has that cutie mark ever done you any real good to bring you the friends you needed the most?” Trek only closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. “What do you think your life would have been like if you never had that mark?” He sobbed, “I-I-I w-wished th-that I n-n-never had it!” Starlight smiled warmly as she sat in front of him, “Hidden, look at me,” he did, “You don’t have to live like this. I’m more than willing to offer you a newer, better life. One in which your cutie mark would never come between you and your friends. A life where your task is just as valued as the next one, where you’ll never have an argument, a fight, or being told that you’re less than what you’re actually worth. For in that life, you will never, as long as you live, be alone again. I can give you that! I’d be more than happy to give you that life only ponies as you could only dream about! “And if you help me, you’ll be the key in spreading the good news to all of Equestria. Where true happiness is possible! Where cutie marks won’t get anypony in the way of having a good life! And, in a society where your efforts will never, ever be forgotten, so tell me Hidden Trek, is this the kind of life you’ve always wanted?” Whipping the tears from his eyes, he nodded. “Please, I’ll do anything so I won’t be alone again.” “Then come with me Mr. Trek,” Starlight stood up, “We have work for you.”