Psychosis
Sunday
I’m not sure why I’m writing this down on paper and not on my computer. I guess I’ve just noticed some odd things. It’s not that I don’t trust the computer… I just… need to organize my thoughts. I need to get down all the details somewhere objective, somewhere I know that what I write can’t be deleted or… changed… not that that’s happened. It’s just… everything blurs together here, and the fog of memory lends a strange cast to things…
I’m starting to feel cramped in this small apartment. Maybe that’s the problem. I just had to go and choose the cheapest apartment, the only one in the basement. The lack of windows down here makes day and night seem to slip by seamlessly. I haven’t been out in a few days because I’ve been working on this programming project so intensively. I almost wish Spike were here to help me calm down... Hours of sitting and staring at this screen would probably make anypony feel strange, I know, but I don’t think that’s it.
I’m not sure when I first started to feel like something was odd. I can’t even define what it is. Maybe I just haven’t talked to anypony in awhile. That’s the first thing that crept up on me. Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and even Rainbow Dash have been idle, or they’ve simply not logged on at all. My instant messages go unanswered. The last e-mail I got from anypony was Applejack saying she’d talk to me when she got back from the store, and that was yesterday. I’d call with my cell phone, but the magical force that keeps it running doesn't reach down here. Yeah, that’s it. I just need to call someone. I’m going to go outside.
Well, that didn’t work so well. As the tingle of fear fades, I’m feeling a little ridiculous for being scared at all. I looked in the mirror before I went out, but I didn’t comb out the snarls my coat has gathered over the past few days. I figured I was just going out for a quick call. I did quickly style my mane, though, because it was lunchtime, and I guessed that I’d run into at least one pony I knew. That didn’t end up happening. I wish it did.
When I went out, I opened the door to my small apartment slowly. A small feeling of apprehension had somehow already lodged itself in me, for some indefinable reason. I chalked it up to having not spoken to anypony but myself for a day or two. I peered down the dingy grey hallway, made dingier by the fact that it was a basement hallway. On one end, a large metal door led to the building’s furnace room. It was locked, of course. Two dreary cider machines stood by it; I bought a cider from one the first day I moved in, but it had a two year old expiration date. I’m fairly sure nopony knows those machines are even down here, or my cheap landmare just doesn't care to get them restocked. I would do anything to take a sip of Applejack's cider right now.
I closed my door softly, and walked the other direction, taking care not to make a sound. I have no idea why I chose to do that, but it was fun giving in to the strange impulse not to break the droning hum of the cider machines, at least for the moment. I got to the stairwell, and took the stairs up to the building’s front door. I looked through the heavy door’s small square window, and received quite the shock: it was definitely not lunchtime. City-gloom hung over the dark street outside, and the oil lamps that lined the street flickered in the cool night air. Dim clouds, purple and black from the glow of the city, hung overhead. Nothing moved, save the few trees that shifted in the wind. I never noticed how creepy Manehattan was at night. I remember shivering, though I wasn’t cold. Maybe it was the wind outside. I could vaguely hear it through the heavy metal door, and I knew it was that unique kind of late-night wind, the kind that was constant, cold, and quiet, save for the rhythmic music it made as it passed through countless unseen tree leaves.
I decided not to go outside.
Instead, I lifted my cell phone to the door’s little window, and checked the signal meter. The bars filled up the meter, and I smiled. 'Time to hear somepony else’s voice,' I remember thinking, relieved. It was such a strange thing, to be afraid of nothing. I shook my head, laughing at myself silently. I spoke the magic words 'Call: Rainbow Dash', and held the phone up to my ear. Maybe I could even ask her to fly over here and hang out for a little while.
It rang once… but then it stopped. Nothing happened. I listened to silence for a good twenty seconds, then hung up. I frowned, and looked at the signal meter again – still full. I went to dial her number again, but then my phone rang in my hand, startling me. I put it up to my ear.
“Hello?” I asked, immediately fighting down a small shock at hearing the first spoken voice in days, even if it was my own. I had gotten used to the droning hum of the building’s inner workings, my computer, and the cider machines in the hallway. There was no response to my greeting at first, but then, finally, a voice came.
“Hey,” said a clear male voice, “Who’s this?”
“Twilight Sparkle...,” I replied, confused.
“Oh, sorry, wrong number,” he replied, then hung up.
I lowered the phone slowly and leaned against the thick brick wall of the stairwell. That was strange. Before I could think on it further, the phone rang loudly, shocking me yet again. This time, I looked at the caller before I answered. It did not display a caller picture like it usually does. This time, I held the phone up to my ear, but said nothing. I heard nothing but the general background noise of a phone. Then, a familiar voice broke my tension.
“Twilight?” was the single word, in Rainbow Dash’s distinct voice.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hey, it’s you,” I replied.
“Who else would it be?” she responded. “I’m here in Manehattan right now! I'm at a party on Seventh Street, and my phone died just as you called me. This is somepony else’s phone, obviously.”
“Oh, ok,” I said.
“Where are you?” she asked.
My eyes glanced over the drab white-washed cylinder block walls and the heavy metal door with its small window.
“At my building,” I sighed. “Just feeling cooped up. I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“You should come here,” she said, laughing.
“Nah, I don’t feel like looking for some strange place by myself in the middle of the night,” I said, looking out the window at the silent windy street that secretly scared me just a tiny bit. “I think I’m just going to keep reading.”
“Nonsense!” she replied. “I can come get you! Your building is close to Seventh Street, right?”
“How drunk are you?” I asked lightheartedly. “You know where I live.”
“Oh, of course,” she said abruptly. “I guess I can’t get there by walking, huh?”
“You could if you wanted to waste half an hour... and I don't want you flying drunk,” I told her.
“Right,” she said. “Ok, have to go, good luck with your books!”
I lowered the phone once more, looking at the numbers flash as the call ended. Then, the droning silence suddenly reasserted itself in my ears. The two strange calls and the eerie street outside just drove home my aloneness in this empty stairwell. Perhaps originating from the scary stories Shining Armour used to tell me, I had the sudden inexplicable idea that something could look in the door’s window and see me, some sort of horrible entity that hovered at the edge of aloneness, just waiting to creep up on unsuspecting ponies that strayed too far from the herd. I knew the fear was irrational, but nopony else was around, so… I jumped down the stairs, galloped down the hallway into my room, and closed the door as swiftly as I could while still staying silent. Like I said, I feel a little ridiculous for being scared of nothing, and the fear has already faded. Writing this down helps a lot – it makes me realize that nothing is wrong. It filters out half-formed thoughts and fears and leaves only cold, hard facts. It’s late, I got a call from a wrong number, and Rainbow’s phone died, so she called me back from somepony else's phone. Nothing strange is happening.
Still, there was something a little off about that conversation. I know it could have just been the alcohol she’d had… or was it even her that seemed off to me? Or was it… yes, that was it! I didn’t realize it until this moment, writing these things down. I knew writing things down would help. She said she was at a party, but I only heard silence in the background! Of course, that doesn’t mean anything in particular, as she could have just gone outside to make the call. No… that couldn’t be it either. I didn’t hear the wind! I need to see if the wind is still blowing!
Monday
I forgot to finish writing last night. I’m not sure what I expected to see when I ran up the stairwell and looked out the heavy metal door’s window. I’m feeling ridiculous. Last night’s fear seems hazy and unreasonable to me now. I can’t wait to go out into the sunlight. I’m going to check my email, shower, comb my mane and finally get out of here! Wait… I think I heard something.
It was thunder. That whole sunlight and fresh air thing didn’t happen. I went out into the stairwell and up the stairs, only to find disappointment. The heavy metal door’s little window showed only flowing water, as torrential rain slammed against it. Only a very dim, gloomy light filtered in through the rain, but at least I knew it was daytime, even if it was a grey, sickly, wet day. I tried looking out the window and waiting for lightning to illuminate the gloom, but the rain was too heavy and I couldn’t make out anything more than vague weird shapes moving at odd angles in the waves washing down the window. Disappointed, I turned around, but I didn’t want to go back to my room. Instead, I wandered further up the stairs, past the first floor, and the second. The stairs ended at the third floor, the highest floor in the building. I looked through the glass that ran up the outer wall of the stairwell, but it was that warped, thick kind that scatters the light, not that there was much to see through the rain to begin with.
I opened the stairwell door and wandered down the hallway. The ten or so thick wooden doors, painted blue a long time ago, were all closed. I listened as I walked, but it was the middle of the day, so I wasn’t surprised that I heard nothing but the rain outside. As I stood there in the dim hallway, listening to the rain, I had the strange fleeting impression that the doors were standing like silent granite monoliths erected by some ancient forgotten civilization for some unfathomable guardian purpose. Lightning flashed, and I could have sworn that, for just a moment, the old grainy blue wood looked just like rough stone. I laughed at myself for letting something so foalish actually scare me, but then it occurred to me that the dim gloom and lightning must mean there was a window somewhere in the hallway. A vague memory surfaced, and I suddenly recalled that the third floor had an alcove and an inset window halfway down the floor’s hallway.
Excited to look out into the rain and possibly see another pony, I quickly walked over to the alcove, finding the large thin glass window. Rain washed down it, as with the front door’s window, but I could open this one. I reached a hand out to slide it open, but hesitated. I had the strangest feeling that if I opened that window, I would see something absolutely horrifying on the other side. Everything’s been so odd lately… so I came up with a plan, and I came back here to get what I needed. I don’t seriously think anything will come of it, but I’m bored, it’s raining, and I’m going stir crazy. I came back to get my webcam. The cord isn’t long enough to reach the third floor by any means, so instead I’m going to hide it between the two cider machines in the dark end of my basement hallway, run the wire along the wall and under my door, and put tape over the wire to blend it in with the black plastic strip that runs along the base of the hallway’s walls. I know this is silly, but I don’t have anything better to do…
Well, nothing happened. I propped open the hallway-to-stairwell door, steeled myself, then flung the heavy front door wide open and ran down the stairs to my room and slammed the door. I watched the webcam on my computer intently, seeing the hallway outside my door and most of the stairwell. I’m watching it right now, and I don’t see anything interesting. I just wish the camera’s position was different, so that I could see out the front door. Hey! Somepony’s online!
I got out an old replacement webcam that I had in my closet (One of my personal rules is to always be prepared with two of everything) to video chat with Rarity online. I couldn’t really explain to her why I wanted to video chat, but it felt good to see another pony’s face.
She couldn’t talk very long, and we didn’t talk about anything meaningful, but I feel much better. My strange fear has almost passed. I would feel completely better, but there was something… odd… about our conversation. I know that I’ve said that everything has seemed odd, but… still, she was very vague in her responses. I can’t recall one specific thing that she said… no particular name, or place, or event… but she did ask for my email address to keep in touch, which I found extremely odd because she already has it... Wait, I just got an email.
I’m about to go out. I just got an email from Rainbow Dash that asked me to meet her for dinner at ‘the place we went that one time.’ I do love pizza, and I’ve just been eating random food from my poorly stocked fridge for days, so I can’t wait. Again, I feel ridiculous about the odd couple of days I’ve been having. I should destroy this journal when I get back. Oh, another email.
My dear Celetia. I almost left the email and opened the door. I almost opened the door. I almost opened the door, but I read the email first! It was from Spike! He must have gotten on somepony else's computer. The email had been sent to a huge number of emails that must have been every pony he had ever met. It had no subject, and it said, simply:
seen with your own eyes don’t trust them they
What the hay is that supposed to mean? The words shock me, and I keep going over and over them. Is it a desperate email sent just as… something happened? The words are obviously cut off without finishing! On any other day I would have dismissed this as Spike just missing me and wanting me to come home, but the words… seen with your own eyes! I can’t help but read over this journal and think back on the last few days and realize that I have not seen another pony with my own eyes or talked to another face to face. The webcam conversation with Rarity was so strange, so vague, so… eerie, now that I think about it. Was it eerie? Or is the fear clouding my memory? My mind toys with the progression of events I’ve written here, pointing out that I have not been presented with one single fact that I did not specifically give out unsuspectingly. The random ‘wrong number’ that got my name and the subsequent strange return call from Rainbow Dash, Rarity who asked for my email address… I messaged her first when I saw her online! And then I got my first email a few minutes after that conversation! Oh Celestia! That phone call with Rainbow! I said over the phone – I said that I was within half an hour’s walk of Seventh Street! They know I’m near there! What if they’re trying to find me?! Where is everyone else? Why haven’t I seen or heard anypony else in days?
No, no, this is crazy. This is absolutely crazy. I need to calm down. This madness needs to end.
I don’t know what to think. I ran about my apartment furiously, using my magic to hold my cell phone up to every corner to see if it got a signal through the heavy walls. Finally, in the tiny bathroom, near one ceiling corner, I got a single bar. Holding my phone there, I sent a text message to every number in my list. Not wanting to betray anything about my unfounded fears, I simply sent:
"You seen anypony face to face lately?"
At that point, I just wanted any reply back. I didn’t care what the reply was, or if I embarrassed myself. I tried to call somepony a few times, but I couldn’t get my head up high enough, and if I brought my cell phone down even an inch, it lost signal. Then I remembered the computer, and rushed over to it, instant messaging everyone online. Most were idle or away from their computer. Nopony responded. My messages grew more frantic, and I started telling ponies where I was and to stop by peronally for a host of barely passable reasons. I didn’t care about anything by that point. I just needed to see another pony!
I also tore apart my apartment looking for something that I might have missed; some way to contact another being without opening the door. I know it’s crazy, I know it’s unfounded, but what if? WHAT IF? I just need to be sure! I taped the phone to the ceiling, just in case.
Tuesday
THE PHONE RANG! Exhausted from last night’s rampage, I must have fallen asleep. I woke up to the phone ringing, and ran into the bathroom, stood on the toilet, and yelled into the phone taped to the ceiling. It was Rainbow Dash, and I feel so much better. She was really worried about me, and apparently had been trying to contact me since the last time I talked to her. She’s coming over now, and, yes, she knows where I am without me telling her. I feel so embarrassed. I am definitely throwing this journal away before anypony sees it. I don’t even know why I’m writing in it now. Maybe it’s just because it’s the only communication I’ve had at all since… Celestia knows when. I look like hay, too. I looked in the mirror before I came back in here. My eyes are sunken, my mane is greasy, and I just look generally unhealthy.
My apartment is trashed, but I’m not going to clean it up. I think I need someone else to see what I’ve been through. These past few days have NOT been normal. I am not one to imagine things. I know I have been the victim of extreme probability. I probably missed seeing another pony a dozen times. I just happened to go out when it was late at night, or the middle of the day when everypony was gone. Everything’s perfectly fine, I know this now. Plus, I found something in the closet last night that has helped me tremendously: One of Pinkie's gift baskets! Knowing her, she probably stashed it here in case of 'gift basket emergency'. Thank Celestia for her antics! I've been eating the cakes almost constantly since I found it.
I’m glad Rainbow’s the only one that responded to me after last night’s frantic pestering of everyone I could contact. She’s been my best friend for years. She doesn’t know it, but I count the day that I met her among one of the few moments of true happiness in my life. Even though she crashed into me and sent us flying into the mud. Even though that wasn't very fun, it seems a different reality from this dark, rainy, lonely place. I would do anything to move back to Ponyville now... Just to see my friend's faces every day. I never knew how much I missed them until now. I think I am going to just move back at the end of this…Oh! Finally, a knock on the door!
I thought it was odd that I couldn’t see her through the camera I hid between the two cider machines. I figured that it was bad positioning, like when I couldn’t see out the front door. I should have known. I should have known! After the knock, I yelled through the door jokingly that I had a camera between the cider machines, because I was embarrassed myself that I had taken this paranoia so far. After I did that, I saw her image walk over to the camera and look down at it. She smiled and waved her left front hoof.
“Hey!” she said to the camera brightly, giving it a wry look.
“It’s weird, I know,” I said into the mic attached to my computer. “I’ve had a weird few days.”
“Must have,” she replied. “Open the door, Twilight.”
I hesitated. How could I be sure?
“Hey, humor me a second here,” I told her through the mic. “Tell me one thing about us. Just prove to me you’re you.”
She gave the camera a weird look.
“Um, alright,” she said slowly, thinking. “We met when I crashed into you and we fell into a puddle of mud?”
I sighed deeply as reality returned and fear faded. Oh princess, I’d been so ridiculous. Of course it was Rainbow! That day wasn’t anywhere in the world except in my memory. I’d never even mentioned it to anypony, not out of embarrassment, but out of a strange secret nostalgia and a longing for those days to return. If there was some unknown force at work trying to trick me, as I feared, there was no way they could know about that day.
“Haha, alright, I’ll explain everything,” I told her. “Be right there.”
I ran to my small bathroom and fixed my mane as best I could. I looked terrible, but she of all ponies would understand. Snickering at my own unbelievable behavior and the mess I’d made of the place, I walked to the door. Rarity would probably kill me if she knew I'd actually been living here. I put my hoof on the doorknob and gave the mess one last look. So ridiculous, I thought. My eyes traced over the half-eaten food lying on the ground, the overflowing trash bin, and the bed I’d tipped to the side looking for… Celestia knows what. I almost turned to the door and opened it, but my eyes fell on one last thing: the old webcam, the one I used for that eerily vacant chat with Rarity.
Its silent black sphere lay haphazardly tossed to the side, its lens pointed at the table where this journal lay. An overwhelming terror took me as I realized that if something could see through that camera, it would have seen what I just wrote about that day. I asked her for any one thing about us, and she chose the only thing in the world that I thought they or it did not know… but IT DID! IT DID KNOW! IT COULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING ME THE WHOLE TIME!
I didn’t open the door. I screamed. I screamed in uncontrollable terror. I stomped on the old webcam on the floor. The door shook, and the doorknob tried to turn, but I didn’t hear Rainbow’s voice through the door. Was the basement door, made to keep out drafts, too thick? Or was Dash not outside? What could have been trying to get in, if not her? What the hay is out there?! I saw her on my computer through the camera outside, I heard her on the speakers through the camera outside, but was it real?! How can I know?! She’s gone now – I screamed, and shouted for help! I piled up everything in my apartment against the front door –
Friday
At least I think that it’s Friday. I broke everything electronic. I smashed my computer to pieces. Every single thing on there could have been accessed by network access, or worse, altered. I've been studying this for months, I know. Every little piece of information I gave out since this started – my name, my email, my location – none of it came back from outside until I gave it out. I’ve been going over and over what I wrote. I’ve been pacing back and forth, alternating between stark terror and overpowering disbelief. Sometimes I’m absolutely certain some phantom entity is dead set on the simple goal of getting me to go outside. Back to the beginning, with the phone call from Rainbow Dash, she was effectively asking me to open the door and go outside.
I keep running through it in my head. One point of view says I’ve acted like a madmare, and all of this is the extreme convergence of probability – never going outside at the right times by pure luck, never seeing another pony by pure chance, getting a random nonsense email from Spike at just the right time. The other point of view says that extreme convergence of probability is the reason that whatever’s out there hasn’t gotten me already. I keep thinking: I never opened the window on the third floor. I never opened the front door, until that incredibly stupid stunt with the hidden camera after which I ran straight to my room and slammed the door. I haven’t opened my own solid door since I flung open the front door of the building. Whatever’s out there – if anything’s out there – never made an ‘appearance’ in the building before I opened the front door. Maybe the reason it wasn’t in the building already was that it was elsewhere getting everyone else… and then it waited, until I betrayed my existence by trying to call Rainbow… a call which didn’t work, until it called me and asked me my name…
Terror literally overwhelms me every time I try to fit the pieces of this nightmare together. That email – short, cut off – was Spike just trying to get word out? His friendly voice desperately trying to warn me before it came? Seen with my own eyes, don’t trust them – exactly what I’ve been so suspicious of. It could have masterful control of all things electronic, practicing its insidious deception to trick me into coming outside. Why can’t it get in? It knocked on the door – it must have some solid presence… the door… the image of those doors in the upper hallway as guardian monoliths flashes back in my mind every time I trace this path of thoughts. If there is some phantom entity trying to get me to go outside, maybe it can’t get through doors. I keep thinking back over all the books I’ve read, trying to generate some explanation for this. Doors have always been such intense foci of imagination, always seen as wards or portals of special importance. Or perhaps the door is just too thick? I know that I couldn’t bash through any of the doors in this building, let alone the heavy basement ones. Aside from that, the real question is, why does it even want me? If it just wanted to kill me, it could do it any number of ways, including just waiting until I starve to death. What if it doesn’t want to kill me? What if it has some far more horrific fate in store for me? Celestia, what can I do to escape this nightmare?!
A knock on the door…
I told the ponies on the other side of the door I need a minute to think and I’ll come out. I’m really just writing this down so I can figure out what to do. At least this time I heard their voices. My paranoia – and yes, I recognize I’m being paranoid – has me thinking of all sorts of ways that their voices could be faked electronically. There could be nothing but speakers outside, simulating voices. Did it really take them three days to come talk to me? Rainbow is supposedly out there, along with two Canterlot guards and a psychiatrist. Not to mention my other friends saying they are all worried sick about me. Maybe it took them three days to make the trip out here – the psychiatrist’s claim could be pretty convincing, if I decided to think this has all been a crazy misunderstanding, and not some entity trying to trick me into opening the door.
The psychiatrist had an older voice, authoritarian but still caring. I liked it. It reminded me of Princess Celestia. I’m desperate just to see somepony with my own eyes! She said I have something called cyber-psychosis, and I’m just one of a nationwide epidemic of thousands of ponys having breakdowns triggered by a suggestive email that ‘got through somehow.’ I swear he said ‘got through somehow.’ I think he means spread throughout the country inexplicably, but I’m incredibly suspicious that the entity slipped up and revealed something. He said I am part of a wave of ‘emergent behavior’, that a lot of other ponies are having the same problem with the same fears, even though we’ve never communicated. He said that 'ever since that damn metal thing crash landed...'
That neatly explains Spike's email about eyes that I got. I didn’t get the original triggering email. I got a descendant of it – My number one assistant... he could have broken down too, and tried to warn everypony he knew against these paranoid fears. That’s how the problem spreads, the psychiatrist claims. I could have spread it, too, with my texts and instant messages online to everypony I know. It makes sense, these machines were only just invented... One of those ponies might be melting down right now, after being triggered by something I sent them, something they might interpret any way that they want, something like a text saying 'seen anypony face to face lately?' The psychiatrist told me that he didn’t want to ‘lose another one’, that ponies like me are intelligent, and that’s our downfall. We draw connections so well that we draw them even when they shouldn’t be there. He said it’s easy to get caught up in paranoia in this new fast paced world, a constantly changing place where more and more of our interaction is simulated…
I have to give him one thing. It’s a great explanation. It neatly explains everything. It perfectly explains everything, in fact. I have every reason to shake off this nightmarish fear that some thing or consciousness or being out there wants me to open the door so it can capture me for some horrible fate worse than death. It would be foolish, after hearing that explanation, to stay in here until I starve to death just to spite the entity that might have got everyone else. It would be foolish to think that, after hearing that explanation, I might be one of the last ponies left alive on an empty world, hiding in my secure basement room, spiting some unthinkable deceptive entity just by refusing to be captured. It’s a perfect explanation for every single strange thing I’ve seen or heard, and I have every reason in the world to let all of my fears go, and open the door.
That’s exactly why I’m not going to.
How can I be sure?! How can I know what’s real and what’s deception? All of these damn things with their wires and their signals that originate from some unseen origin! They’re not real, I can’t be sure! Signals through a camera, faked video, deceptive phone calls, emails! It’s just signals, waves, light, magic… the door! It’s bashing on the door! It’s trying to get in! What insane mechanical contrivance could it be using to simulate the sound of guards attacking the heavy wood so well?! At least I’ll finally see it with my own eyes… there’s nothing left in here for it to deceive me with, I’ve ripped apart everything else! It can’t deceive my eyes, can it? Seen with your own eyes don’t trust them they… wait… was that desperate message telling me to trust my eyes, or warning me about my eyes too?! What’s the difference between a camera and my eyes? They both turn light into electrical signals – they’re the same! I can’t be deceived! I have to be sure! I have to be sure!