Act III: Collision of Wills
Chapter 40: At the Depths of Despair
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Every time Corey found himself in these frosted halls, the nightmare seemed to get worse. This iteration had reached a new level. It wasn’t even the icy air that had his ears pinned back against his head anymore. It was the intense, numerous shouts of how he was a failure as a person and as a pony. He could hardly pick any one statement out of the rancor that was echoing unmercifully around him, but he couldn’t mistake the various voices that shouted at him, reminded him of the monster he couldn’t escape.
“There are some people who really can’t change--”
“Once a hateful person, always a hateful person--”
“He cannot live in society, the way he acts…”
All the while, as these and more screamed at him unmercifully, he could hear something slowly starting to fade into his earshot, and he wished he didn’t have to hear that over top of it. Though he’d never heard him laugh--or so he thought, anyway--he could make out a chilling, maddening laugh echoing above it all: Slayer’s mocking laughter. Between this and the shouts of everyone he ever knew and loved in his life berating him endlessly for his recklessness, his self-righteousness, it was all Corey could do to plod forward, his feet feeling like twin slabs of lead as he moved them. He could no longer muster the energy to deny that his true colors had shown for those moments.
All he could do was keep shuffling forward, slowly, as the shouts continued. However, after what felt like hours, the scornful screaming slowly began to be silenced, one voice at a time. Corey’s ears twitched, and he looked around, confused. The halls seemed to be getting darker and darker as the voices disappeared. Finally, all was silent. Even Slayer’s laughter had stopped now. Corey continued forward, wondering what all this was about. Was it finally over?
As he pondered this possibility, the halls seemed to light up again. Though it was certainly a color he’d remembered seeing up north, the walls still appeared frosty, and they glowed eerily, offering only a dim glow to light his way. As he continued forward, he could see a very familiar room, where more than a few of the cycles in this nightmare had ended. As soon as Corey stepped into the room, he could hear a low chuckle, echoing through the room. Corey paused for a moment, but ultimately pressed forward, walking straight towards the crystal in the center of the chamber. It wasn’t long before he could see Slayer’s image walking back at him, a satisfied smirk on his face. The halls still remained silent. Even Slayer seemed intent on preserving the silence, at least, until Corey was face-to-face.
“So, you made it back here…” said Slayer, resting one hand on the crystal’s insides.
“What happened to all the screams…” Corey said, “Why’d it all stop?”
Slayer gave another low chuckle, and moved slightly to his right. Now that he did, Corey could see it. There was a pile behind him, a pile of unmoving objects of roughly the same shapes. They were shrouded in darkness, and hard to make out, but Corey had a pretty good idea of what was right behind him.
“Come now, you should know me quite well,” Slayer said, “But if you really don’t know, why don’t I go ahead and write it down…? Oh wait, I need my book back for that.”
Corey blinked, feeling a cold chill blast through the already frigid air, like a gust of wind.
“What did you do?” asked Corey, barely able to force the words out, terrified of hearing the answer. The answer eventually came, but it was worse than he expected. Far worse.
“I took a page from your works of torture,” said Slayer, closing his eyes, “You know the one very well, I’m sure! And I have to say… it was riveting being on the other side this time.”
Corey gasped, and at that moment, Slayer’s eyes snapped open. A red glow escaped them, and as soon as the light entered Corey’s eyes, his head began to hurt. He could hear nothing but white noise for several moments, and even his vision seemed to be filling with static. Closing his eyes did nothing to correct this. Corey knew this wasn’t normal, but at that point, he’d been traveling through this nightmare for so long that anything seemed possible.
Eventually, the white noise abated. He tried to move his body to check his bearings, but he found he couldn’t. It seemed to be locked into place. Corey opened his eyes, wondering just what situation he’d wound up in. His eyes opened no more than halfway before they snapped open, realizing what was going on.
He was back in the Crystal Empire again, sure, but everything was damaged… just as it had been at that time. He focused his gaze ahead, and saw Slayer. It didn’t take him long to realize his mind had been brought back to the fight where he’d truly thought he’d lost everything that made him who he was. However, as the memory began to play out, something went wrong.
As the fight began, Slayer’s form distorted, becoming enveloped in static for a short burst. However, when the static let up, Corey could see he wasn’t fighting Slayer at all. It was John. Corey’s mind froze, unable to process what was happening at first. The fight continued to play out, just as it had before, but he had no input in this. Eventually, Corey began to feel something for the first time in a long while.
“S-stop…!” Corey urged himself. He tried to stop himself from blindly attacking his friend, “He’s not who you think he is!”
His body didn’t listen. As the brutal beatdown ended, and John was tossed into the wall, another burst of static flowed through his vision. The memory restarted. Yet again, Slayer wasn’t the one he was fighting.
“No!” Corey shouted, trying desperately to retain control of his body, as tears started to stream down his face.
It was hopeless. The corrupted memory played out over and over, but Slayer wasn’t in the crosshairs. One after another, everyone he ever knew, anyone he’d ever had any form of attachment to, wound up being in his place. Much like the scolding yells from before, his victims weren’t just limited to those he met in Equestria, but also back where he came from.
On the very last victim, his vision filled with static, as white noise filled his ears once again. Corey’s eyes had long since closed again, unable to stop the tears streaming down his face. No sooner did the noise clear did he hear that voice again.
“So?” Slayer’s voice asked, “How did you like it? Was it just like when you did the same to me?”
Corey opened his eyes once again. He was in the room with the large crystal again, on his knees, his face still wet from tears. Slayer was staring back at him, and behind him, he could see the victims he’d just seen. None of them deserved that. The only one who did was now looking at him, proud of himself for inflicting all that pain…
No. He already knew it wasn’t just Slayer that did it.
“No…” Corey said, “No, it wasn’t…”
“Then why do it at all?” Slayer asked, “Why is acting in cold blood only alright if it’s your side that gets to do it?”
Corey closed his eyes. There wasn’t any way around it now. He knew full well what this all was.
“I’m guilty of a lot of things, really,” Corey said, “I’m full of nothing but wrath. I’m unable to enjoy much of anything. I’ve pushed away anyone who’s ever cared for me through my actions. And it’s finally all caught up to me. I’m finally getting what I deserve.”
“Oh?” Slayer asked, “Is that so?”
“But I’m going to face it head-on,” Corey stood up, opening his eyes to look into the crystal one last time, “Say what you want, but I won’t make the same choice you did. I’m going to accept what’s come to me now, and I can do it knowing one thing.”
“If it all ends right here, right now, I’ll know for sure that I’ll never become you.”
Slayer didn’t look like he had a response to that. For a few moments, the world around Corey had gone totally quiet. Then, there was a sound, as though glass were cracking. Corey looked around, and as soon as his gaze returned to the crystal, everything around Corey shattered, leaving him in a black void once again.
There was no sense of anything. Corey still felt cold, but by now, he was used to it. Corey looked around, unable to see anything. For several suspended moments, Corey simply stood in the center of the darkness, unable to determine what he needed to do. Then, Corey looked up, squinting. A fair distance away, a bright light had materialized, piercing through the darkness. At first, Corey wasn’t sure what it was. However, as he looked at it, he realized what it was.
“It’s time, isn’t it…” he sighed, “I guess I can at least do something right.”
With that, Corey slowly began to walk towards the light, before eventually breaking out into a run. The light got closer and closer, but Corey still felt cold, even with the jacket and fur that covered him.
Even over here, I couldn’t do anything. I was a failure as a human and as a unicorn. I couldn’t be a hero either; I’m too bitter for that. At least, I can do...the right thing… Corey thought, feeling a small sense of peace finally come over him. He couldn’t tell how much further he had to go, but he knew he was getting closer. However, suddenly, a recent memory returned to him. It was one that struck close to him, despite all that had happened since then.
“No, that isn’t you. I’m sure of it…”
After so long of wandering through the nightmare, hearing her speaking normally was a refreshing sound. Corey slowly came to a halt in place, feeling the memory pass over him.
“T-Twilight?” Corey asked, looking around, finally feeling a sense of warmth slowly pass over him now.
“You don’t have to take on the burden by yourself. That’s why you have the others… and that’s why you have me. And after what I’ve learned, I definitely can’t let you just sit all alone and punish yourself over it.”
Corey silently listened. The light still remained, beckoning him. Was going to it not the right choice, either? As the familiar sound of her humming resumed, something crashed down over his shoulders. He could just make out a pair of hands tightly clasping them. He couldn’t tell what this was, but the hands looked sort of...human, in a way.
“No. This isn’t the answer,” A calm, assertive voice, masculine in tone, said to him, as though speaking directly into his ears.
A blue light filled Corey’s vision, and Corey felt himself being yanked backwards. The bright light became more distant, and a moment later the blue light filled his vision completely.
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Corey opened his eyes yet again, fully expecting himself to be back in some frostbitten halls. Perhaps he could finally wake up in his bed and realize none of what had happened to him was real. Yet, when his vision focused and cleared, he found himself in a room that looked…ancient, for lack of a better term. The building he was in appeared to be made of what he guessed was bamboo. Looking around the floor, he could see what looked like mats of dried leaves, laid out in rows. In fact, looking down at his own feet, Corey could see that he himself was standing on one.
“Where… where is…?” Corey questioned, not even caring if anyone heard him talking to himself.
“How long has it been since I’ve seen these walls?”
At the sound of the same voice from a few moments before, Corey turned. At the head of the room, sitting on top of another mat all by itself, was a pegasus pony who looked quite aged. Maybe it was the white fur color or maybe it was the streaks of silver through his otherwise golden-yellow mane. His tan-colored hands rested on his knees. He gazed around the room, looking around as though relieved to see it.
“Has it been days? Weeks? Years? Centuries, perhaps?” he asked, “It all seems like a continuous blur now…”
“You…?” Corey asked, sighing as everything finally caught up with him, “Who are you?”
“Who am I?” asked the old pony, refocusing his attention onto Corey with a neutral expression, “I am the one who wrote the book you found. I am Esper Wisdom…”
Corey blinked in surprise, as several questions came to mind. If he was the original author, how was he still alive? What happened to the users of runic magic so long ago? All this and more, sadly, wasn’t on Esper’s mind. Or at least, it didn’t seem to be.
“I know, no doubt, you, of all ponies, have questions. Why did things go this way? How were you sent here? How can you be sure any of this is real?” Esper asked, “Unfortunately, given the current circumstances, I don’t have nearly enough time to go into all of that.”
Corey let out a suppressed scoff. “Well, I’d already given up finding an answer to why I even came here…”
“And you’ve already given up on helping those you care about?” Esper asked.
Corey glared at him, feeling a heat rise from inside, but it soon died out. It was true, deep down. He had given up, abandoned that urge from so long ago to not simply exist on the sidelines while everyone else went up against the breakouts.
“I can’t help people—ponies—like them,” Corey said, “At the core of it all, I don’t have a good heart like the rest of them…”
“You threw your own safety to the side to help someone who you cared for,” Esper countered, “You just about threw away your own sanity as well. Didn’t you just find out that runic magic, by nature, is more volatile than normal magic? That, in part, was responsible for your corruption. And even after giving in to it, you managed to stop yourself. Does any of that sound like someone who doesn’t have a good heart? Misguided? Perhaps, but--”
Corey sighed. “Yes, but that’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?” Esper asked, “What could keep you from doing all the good things you’ve done all over again once you awake in the real world?”
“It’s who I am,” Corey said, “I’ve never been able to let things go. I thought I could live normally here… well, as normally as I could, and start a new life here, with a clean slate. I thought my days of flying off the handle were done. But then, just like that, my rage came roaring back, with even worse consequences than normal. And if I reenter the fray, what’s to stop me from getting even worse? If there’s one thing that the nightmares showed me, it was this: I’m never going to--”
“This is about the darkness within you, isn’t it?” Esper asked, interrupting Corey’s monologue. Corey halted completely, unsure of what Esper was about to say.
“You fear the darkness within, but know that the fear of it is in all of us. No one is exempt from it,” Esper said, “But you mustn’t allow that fear to control you, control who you become. No matter how deep your fear of it runs, you have the power within you to become something great, something not seen for many years.”
Corey closed his eyes, trying to picture it. He couldn’t see anything. All he could think about was the mistake he made, which was so, so fresh in his head after seeing it played over and over in front of him. The short-sighted decisions he’d made just made everyone else around him hurt. It wasn’t any different from what he’d done so many times back home, at least, at the core.
“But how…” Corey said, his voice trembling, “How do you know that I can be something like that when all I cause is pain!?”
“Because if it wasn’t the case, you would have never seen our message.”
Corey paused, trying to understand the implications of that statement. The first one leapt out at him, and he let out a gasp.
“You… ‘our message’?” Corey asked.
“It required pretty much all the magic we can spare, where we are now,” Esper said. As he explained, Corey could make out a bit of strain in his posture, but he hadn’t moved from his spot the whole time, “We needed help, and I didn’t want to repeat my mistake again. I can’t say much more…”
“If you had been that kind of creature at heart,” Esper said, “You wouldn’t have been able to see the message for sure. And I can tell you never enjoy the pain you cause. Each time you do, deep down you regret it. And when it piles up, you start to kick yourself over it. In the end, the only one you’re hurting is yourself. But there’s a way to break it. I’m sure you already know how…”
“Everyone…” Corey mumbled, memories of everything that had happened coming back to him now. No matter how many times he strayed and fell off the path, they were there to right him again. Even after his last mistake they were still there for him, trying to help him put the pieces back together.
“I’m sure, now that I’ve seen you face-to-face,” Esper continued, “That you would never willingly associate with those that do enjoy causing pain. You cannot lie to your magic, after all.”
There was a slight silence. To Corey, everything seemed to be clear now. The fog that the nightmares and guilt had caused for him was lifted.
“I…I have to get back…” Corey said, turning his head behind him, “I still have important things to say and do.”
“That’s the spirit,” Esper said.
“And…” Corey said, “Thanks for pulling me out of that…”
“Rest assured, it was the least I could—“
A harsh, static sound permeated the room, and red cracks of energy began to fill it. Immediately, Esper stood up, his hands glowing with blue runes.
“It seems our time is cut short,” Esper said, raising his voice so he could be heard clearly over the noise, “You must find the will within you to push forward!”
Ironically, as he said this, Esper blasted Corey backwards, sending him out of the collapsing room into a black void. Surprisingly, even though the force behind it was enough to knock Corey off his feet, Corey didn’t really feel an impact.
“Seek out the light!” Esper shouted now, “Let it guide you to who you really are inside!”
The light…? Corey thought, feeling like…something, was returning to him. He couldn’t place what it meant or what the feeling even was, but it felt nice after so long of wandering through cold, barren halls…