Bricks in the Wall

by _NAME_

Chapter Sixteen: Where the Hell Are You? (Part Three)

Chapter Sixteen

Where the Hell Are You? (Part Three)

The building down the street was awash in light that spilled out from every window. It looked completely out of place amidst the black night that surrounded it, almost as if some higher power had placed it down in the middle of nowhere, as a safe haven for wandering travelers in the moonless night. The dark seemed almost afraid of the light. I drew my coat closer around my shoulders and started off towards the building.

I blinked.

“So, Pinkerton, how are you feeling today?” drawled the ever monotone voice of Doctor Jekyll.

I glanced up at the doctor and shuffled my hooves uncomfortably. It had been two weeks since my episode in Doctor’s office with my parents. The rest of that day was a blur to me. Doctor later told me how he had called in two orderlies to restrain me, but I, in my panicked state of mind, had fought back. It took several minutes for them to subdue me but I thankfully caused no damage.

As I rested in the medical ward for a few days after the incident, I kept trying to think what had happened after my dad had stepped into the room and why I had snapped like I did, but every time I tried to remember, the memories were foggy and distant. Doctor said that slight memory loss was a normal side-effect of a psychotic break like the one I had had. Either that, or it was a side-effect of all the pills they were forcing down my throat to keep my sanity under wraps.

I never even thought to ask him what happened to my parents. They must have been traumatized to see their only foal like that.

But the fact still remained that my schizophrenia flared up the moment I set eyes on my dad.

Doctor said that, as I became a teenager, I always reacted violently toward my dad. That was why they had to cut off most contact from me, so that I wouldn’t have another episode like the one I had had.

They were hopeful that the amnesia might have solved that problem, but it didn’t. If anything, Doctor said that it was worse.

I can never see my dad again, at least, not for a long time. I can never see my parents.

I think they knew that when they abandoned me here, so many years ago. I think they knew that coming in to see me two weeks ago. I think they knew that walking out after my episode.

I sighed and looked at the clock on the wall. The hands never seemed to move when I wanted them to. “I—I guess I’m feeling alright. I’m still a little shaken up about what happened. I… I don’t understand what came over me…” I kept my gaze glued to the floor.

“Well, would you like to talk about it? Getting your feelings out in the open will help you, I promise.” Doctor Jekyll gave a grin that looked as if it pained him.

I didn’t want to look at him. “No.” I said simply. “No, I don’t want to.”

Doctor Jekyll let out a drawn-out sigh. “Alright Pinkerton. I’ll let you have another week’s reprieve, but after that, you will share your feelings in this group again, or I’ll have to schedule a one-on-one session with me and Doctor. We’re here to help you boy. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.” He glanced over at Gerald, who was shackled to his chair.

The claw marks that marred Doctor Jekyll’s snout were still painfully obvious.

I stood on the edge of the dock, watching the fishing boats return for the night. The rain poured from the sky with no remorse for the ponies below. To my left was a young mare, clutching the guardrails so hard that her hooves were white. She stared out over the water, her eyes seeing distant memories. She dabbed her face with a handkerchief, though I wasn’t sure if she was wiping away the rain or her tears.

“So Broom,” continued Doctor Jekyll, “are you planning on saying anything today, or are you going to continue to refuse to talk, something that, and I cannot stress it enough, is an essential part of these little group therapy sessions?”

Broom nodded.

“Is that a yes, “you aren’t going to share anything”, or a yes, “I’m going to actually participate for once and maybe start allowing the doctors here to begin doing their jobs”?”

Broom nodded.

Doctor Jekyll sighed and scribbled something down in his clipboard. “Alright Broom. Alright. Continue your little vendetta and don’t let me help you. We’ll move on to Starshine, who hopefully will be more compliant than you.” He gestured at Starshine. “You may begin sir.”

Starshine coughed and began to speak. “Weh-well, I… uhh… I-I dun-don’t r-r-real-really h-have any-a-a-a-anything to ssss-ss-ss-say…” He gave a small, apologetic smile.

Doctor Jekyll rubbed the bridge of his snout in irritation. “Of course. Of course you don’t.” I could tell he was trying very hard to curb his frustration. He looked at Marmalade. “Well, I don’t suppose you have anything to say, do you Marmalade?”
The mare merely shook her head.

The doctor turned to Gerald. ‘What about you? Do you have anything that you would like to contribute?”

“Fuck off.” growled the griffon, pulling against his restraints his restraint a bit.

Doctor Jekyll nodded in calm understanding. “I thought as much.” He looked at Dreams, on the other side of him. “You?”

Dreams looked at him. “Well…” She paused. “I had a nice conversation with that new stallion, Smile, the other day. He seems to be settling in well.”

“Oh?” Doctor Jekyll seemed interested.

“Yeah. He said he really liked the music program we have here, though he did express a want for the administration to install a sandbox in the music room, so that he could “feel the beach while he composed.”” Dreams chuckled. “I told him to let me know when that happened, so that I could check the newspapers to see if pigs had sprouted wings.”

Everypony—and griffon—in the room laughed, with the exception of Doctor Jekyll, who simply leveled his disapproving eyes at her. I could feel the displeasure radiating from him halfway across the room, and I could only imagine what his gaze must feel like to Dreams.

When Doctor Jekyll spoke, it was in a quiet and calm tone, but I could hear the barely restrained frustration underneath. “Miss Dreams,” he said, “you know that you shouldn’t make fun of the patients like that, not to their face and certainly not behind their backs. You’re better than that. Poor Smile is allowed to have hopes and, well, dreams, and you shouldn’t crush them like that, no matter how unlikely they may be. You know better.”

Dreams wilted, her eyes downcast. “…I’m sorry sir…”

“What was that?”

“I said that I’m sorry sir!”

He nodded and his horn sparked to life as he wrote something down in his notes. After a moment of silence, he coughed and looked at all of us as he had just remembered that we were here. He cleared his throat. “Well, now… since nopony else seems willing to talk today, I don’t see much point in continuing this meeting. I will see you all later.”

As Doctor Jekyll stood up and left, he nodded to an orderly in the corner of the room, and left. The orderly silently moved over to the circle and unlocked Gerald from his chair, escorting him back to his room. We all followed the pair out the door, none of us saying a word to the others as we all went our separate ways.

As the others left, I fell into step next to Dreams, who was still visibly shaken by the doctor’s reprimand. I nudged her. “Are you okay?”

She turned her head to look at me so fast that I could hear the bones in her neck crackle. “Of course I am!” she said almost too enthusiastically, as if she was trying to convince herself too. “Why wouldn’t I be?” She tittered silently and she fiddled with one of the pockets on her nurse’s uniform.

After making sure nopony was watching, I kissed her on the cheek, eliciting a slight blush from the green unicorn. I ran a hoof through her fiery mane, something that always calmed her down. “If it makes you feel any better, I think that what you said to Smile was funny. It’s been a few months since he got here, and I like to think I know him fairly well, and I think he would’ve taken it pretty well. He’s strong.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Thank you. It—it means a lot.”

“You shouldn’t think too much about what he said. Doctor Jekyll is always grumpy. You know how he is. You work with him.”

Dreams slowed to a halt and looked at me critically. “You shouldn’t say things like that. Doctor Jekyll is a highly-respected stallion in his field of work. He has every right to be grumpy!”

I scoffed. “Yeah, well, maybe he needs to install a sandbox in his office so he can feel the beach when he works.” I gave her a wink.

She laughed. I loved to see her smile. “Maybe. But still, he takes his job very seriously. I shouldn’t have said that. I know I wouldn’t have found it funny if I was in his position.” We continued walking.

“Do you think you’ll ever be in his position? An actual doctor, I mean?”

“I…” She hesitated, her eyes not quite focusing on any one thing. “I don’t know… I would love to, but I really don’t know…”

I wrapped my tail around hers. “That’s alright. I’ll love you no matter what.”

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

It was an hour past midnight and Starshine and I were still awake. It had been a week ago that Starshine had managed to convince the doctors to allow him and a few others to stay up late one night and stargaze, something that he missed dearly.

Being a pony with astronomical interests, he had devoted his life prior to his institutionalization to the study of the heavens and the night sky. He was halfway through his degree before having to join the rest of the patients at Fletcher’s for reasons he was never comfortable enough with to explain to me.

After getting permission for his little stargazing session, he had invited the rest of our group, but they had all respectfully turned him down for one reason or another, leaving just me and him to watch the starry heavens pass by
.
He pointed to a portion of the sky indistinguishable from the others. “A-and if-f yo-y-y-you l-l-look ov-over th-t-there, y-you can ss-s-s-see the con-c-con-constell-con-c-constellation l-Lupus, t-the w-wolf.”

I gazed out the window, straining to see some discernible pattern in the stars. I couldn’t. “I don’t see anything.” I told him.

Starshine looked disappointed and pointed harder, his wings fluttering in impatience. “It-it-i-it’s r-r-right th-t-there. R-right be-b-between cen-c-centara-c-c-Centarus a-and s-sc-Scorpius!”

I sighed, looking at my friend apologetically. “That didn’t help at all…”

“Al-alri-a-alright, l-l-look a-at the mo-moon.”

“Can’t see the moon either. It’s all dark.”

T-tha-that’s be-b-b-because-cause it-it’s a n-new m-moon. It-i-it’s in fr-fuh-front of t-the s-sss-sun, so n-no l-light h-hits-s it.”

“But it’s nighttime. The sun’s not even out right now.” I was confused.

Starshine smirked. “T-the s-sun i-is sti-s-still th-t-there, and l-light al-always h-hits t-the m-moon, ill-illumin-i-illuminating it-its s-s-sur-surface, e-even a-at n-night.”

I nodded in understanding. “And the light shines on only one side of the moon, right? That’s why we’re seeing the dark side of it right now! Because it’s in front of the sun.” I ended, proud of myself.

“W-well, th-t-th-there is nuh-n-no d-d-dark-k s-side of t-the m-m-moon, really. Muh-m-matter of fact, it’s—it’s all d-dark. T-tuh-the only th-th-thing t-that makes i-it look li-light is the s-sun.” Starshine laughed.

I stared blankly at him.

His cheeks reddened. “It-i-it’s a-an a-ah-astro-as-astronomer-er j-joke…” He cleared his throat and went back to looking at the sky.

We lapsed into silence, both of our attentions on the heavens above, though I quickly grew bored of the stars. Sure, it was beautiful and all, but it was just so much of the same little pinpricks of light against a black backdrop.

Soon enough, I found my attention to be slipping and my eyes began to drift around the room, searching for something to distract me while Starshine pondered the mysteries of the universe or whatever it was astronomers did.

I watched as the stallion spun the merry-go-round for the other foals. I looked behind me for signs of my mother, but didn’t see her. Shyly, I tugged on the stallion’s coat and asked him if I he could give me a spin too. Smiling, he scooped be up and put me on the merry-go-round. It was a lot of fun, but the stallion had to leave with his son after a few minutes. I watched them leave, and saw all the other foals on the playground with their fathers.

As I sat there, trying not to ruin the night for my friend with my boredom, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.

The bright moonlight shining through the window highlighted the ragged scars that crisscrossed all four of Starshine’s legs and neck. I found myself staring at them for a few more moments than I felt comfortable. Ordinarily, the light was never strong enough to bring attention to them through his coat, but now that it was, they stood out like a giraffe in a sheep pen.

“It-it’s f-fuh-fine.” Starshine said, snapping me out of my reverie.

My head snapped up, to find Starshine watching me. “Oh, I-I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean too! I…” I managed to hastily stammer out.

“It’s fi-f—It’s f-fine.” he repeated “I-I don-don’t mi-m-mind. It-i-it w-w-wuh-was a-a l-long t-time ago.”

“When was the last time you…?” I found the question slip out without meaning to and immediately regretted it.

Starshine grimaced and glanced out the window. I stayed silent, afraid that I dredged up some particularly painful memories for him, but he turned back towards me. “I-i-it-i-i-i-it—I w-was in fle-f-f-fl-f-Fletcher’s wh-when i-it hap-ha-ha-h-h-happened-happ-happened. I-I-I g-got a-a-ahold of-f a sha-shard of gl-glass f-from a broke-br-broken l-light-li-l-l-light bulb i-in the ha-h-h-hallw-hallway. I trie-tried to-t-to e-end it right th-there a-and th-t-t-then… B-b-but as I-I-I start-s-s-s-st-s-started t-to d-d-ig in-into my-m-my n-neck, a-a-a ph-phone ra-r-rang in-i-in a n-n-near-ne-nearby off-office, a-an-an-and I-I ne-n-never had t-the nerve t-to mhm-m-make the f-f-f-final c-c-cut…”

A tear slid down his cheek as he spoke.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I’m sorry Star. I really am. I…” I tried to console him, but I knew touching him would cause him to freak out, so I struggled with what to do with my hooves for a moment before deciding to clasp them together.

Starshine stared at me for a second, his face mostly shrouded in shadows. Moonlight twinkled off of his glistening eyes, but they were as unreadable as his expression.

Then, with jerky, undecided movements, he reached out and took my hoof in his. My head shot up in alarm. Starshine never let anypony touch him! Not ever!

We stared at each other for a second and he smiled at me. Slow as he could be, he brought my hoof to his head, letting me feel the features of his face.

He let my hoof drop and looked at me, his eyes wavering with apprehension and hope.

I wasn’t sure what to say. “Starshine, I… I…” I breathed in. “I’m… You let me touch you…?” The question was left hanging in the air. “I don’t…”

Starshine suppressed a sob. “I-I k-kn-know…” He chuckled. “I know…”

Tentatively, I embraced my best friend for the first time and he cried into my shoulder.

It was a surreal experience, being so near to Starshine after never being able to have any sort of physical contact with him. As long as I knew him, and probably before that, Starshine never let anypony touch him. It was one of the few things life at Fletcher’s had never cured for him, because he never let it. It was his obstacle, as my amnesia was mine.

But now…

If Starshine could push past his mental block, maybe I could too…

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Hey, is there anypony in there?

“I can’t believe him!” Papyrus grumbled as we sat in the corner of the music room, separated from the rest of the ponies by the piano.

“I know. “I murmured. “Dew Drop was completely out of line. He shouldn’t have.”

Papyrus folded her forelegs in front of her, glowering at the floor as if it insulted her. “I-I just can’t believe it…”

Broom sat down on the other side of her, glancing back at the door that three orderlies had just dragged Dew Drop out of. He placed a comforting hoof around Papyrus’ neck and pulled her closer to him. “Don’t worry. He’s gone.”

Papyrus nodded quietly, her lip trembling as she tried to hold back her tears. She always was a proud pony.

But, her dam broke and a loud wail escaped her lips. She pushed herself into Broom’s shoulder, crying into him. He patted her back reassuringly.

Seeing that the situation was well in hoof, I gave a brief nod to Broom and walked off to the other side of the room where the rest of my fellow musicians were standing, unsure what to do. “Hi.” I said in a small voice.

“How’s she doing?” asked Maestro, concern evident on his face.

I looked back at Broom and Papyrus. “I think she’s doing as well as can be expected. She’s shaken, obviously, but I think that Broom has it covered.”

“I just can’t believe it. Dew Drop was always so mild-mannered. He would never hurt a fly, and now…” Smile shuddered.

Coalcatcher grimaced. “I know. We all just turned our backs for a sec, and all of a sudden, Dew is trying to rape her right in the middle of the floor…”

Mauve’s face was grim. “Does anypony actu’ly know why Dew’s ‘ere at Fletcha’s?” His gaze was vacant and empty.

Coalcatcher spoke up first. “I heard he was in here after he bashed his marefriend’s head in with a frying pan because he thought she was a zebra sent to spy on him.”

I shook my head. “I thought that he was admitted because he thought he was being stalked by invisible clowns.”

“No. No.” interrupted Maestro. “It was because he couldn’t walk out of his own home because he was convinced the sky had disappeared and he was going to float out into space.”

“No,” continued Maestro, “you’re wrong. It was because he was found passed out in his home, fully convinced that there had been a raven in the room that was talking to him about his recently dead wife.”

Smile shrugged.

“So nopony’s got any clue as ta why Dew was actin’ the way ‘e was?” said Mauve, with a glance between all of us.

Papyrus’ sobs echoed from the other side of the room, filling the silence.

“I can’t imagine how Papyrus feels right now.” Smile’s voice was quiet, but we all heard him.

“I know. Thankfully, Dew didn’t get too far before we stopped him.” Maestro eyed the spot of the floor where Papyrus and Dew Drop were.

As I stepped out of the restaurant, mares and stallions alike were lined up down the street, all eager for a chance for my autograph. One mare in particular, leapt at me as I exited the door, practically flinging herself at my hooves, begging for me to marry her.

Gingerly, I pried her loose and very bluntly told her I wasn’t going to marry her. As I quickly hurried away, intent on escaping the mob of fans, I never gave another thought for the mare.

Coalcatcher smirked. “’Course, it would’ve been kinda hot if she wasn’t freaking out about it so much and Dew wasn’t being so violent.”

Mauve smacked the back of his head. “Coal! Don’ even think ‘bout sayin’ that again unless you want me ta stab you. ‘Kay?”

Coalcatcher nodded vigorously, rubbing his neck. “I was only kidding. Honest!”

“You better be.” growled Smile.

Maestro straightened his glasses. “Indeed!”

After a slight pause, I continued our previous conversation. “Obviously, Dew had some sort of psychotic break. He wouldn’t just do this on his own.”

Mauve chuckled. “Yeah, ain’t tha’ jus’ the point? We’re all in ‘ere for things we didn’ do on our own. We’re all sick, Gray, it ain’t none of our faults tha’ we did the things we did.”

Smile tapped his hoof on the ground. “Yeah. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. We’ve all hurt and been hurt. But a lot of it wasn’t our fault. We’re all crazy here!” He laughed and then continued.

“Of course, the good thing about things not being our fault is that ponies have to forgive us for whatever we did, because we’re all sick.”

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

I couldn’t sleep.

Moonlight shone through the window one night while I was trying to fall asleep. I had been tossing and turning for at least four hours, or at least what felt like that long.

No matter what I tried, the moon’s light kept me awake with its incessant brightness. If I didn’t know any better, I would figure that the moon was perched on my windowsill, beaming all of its radiance into my eyes.

It was probably bright enough to read a book without even remotely straining my eyes, if I was so inclined.

I sighed and turned over again, trying to find some comfort in the piece of cardboard that they called a mattress. My eyes drifted over the left side of my room while my mind drifted from thought to thought, unable to stop thinking about anything and everything.

In the midst of my various mental wanderings, my eyes fell upon the writing desk in the corner and the little black book that was sitting on top of it.

Maybe a bit of reading would put my mind at ease. It was certainly bright enough to do so.

I retrieved the journal from the desk and clambered back into bed with it. Learning from the previous time I read the diary, I flipped open to one of the later pages and began to read what appeared to be a little poem:

‘Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, briar, limber lock.
Three geese in a flock.
One flew east,
One flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.’

I chuckled lightly and, feeling emboldened by the relative normalness of the entry, I turned to the next page and read that one as well:

‘Gray eyes, pink body.
Pink eyes, gray body.
Mirrors don’t, can’t, won’t, help me. I feel
I feel another in me.
I don’t like him.
I only see me in mirrors, but I can see him in the gray of my eyes.
I feel pink and gray.
Gray and pink. .
I’m Pink, aren’t I?’

I threw the book down onto the floor and clutched at the bed sheets, pulling them closer. A chill worked its way down my spine as the words in that last entry lingered in my mind.

I didn't that think I would be getting any sleep that night.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

One night, after saying goodnight to our friends, Marmalade and I were walking back to our respective rooms together, since we both lived in the same ward. Marm was talking to me about something, but my mind was elsewhere.

It was almost involuntary by now, my days in the asylum. There were times that I was on autopilot for half the day before I realized that I was awake. There was one incident a few days ago when I was in the middle of lunch, a forkful of salad halfway to my mouth, when I realized that half the day had slipped by me and I had no clue what I had done.

It was almost like I unconsciously drifted from day to day sometimes, only fully becoming aware of events around me when some higher power allowed it. It was scaring me. I didn’t need any more memory loss than what I already had.

Even now, as I was walking down the halls of Fletcher’s, I did it without thinking about it. Over the course of the year, I had learned every twist and turn of the jumbled hallways, and what had previously seemed to be a long distance now seemed to take less than a minute to travel.

If I was a little more insane, I would almost believe that the entire institution was beginning to get smaller. The hallways grew shorter, sometimes disappearing entirely as I began to realize that the asylum was not that large of a place.

Even the ponies, which I used to believe numbered in the thousands, now seemed to be a little over four hundred. I suppose that that would only be expected as I grew familiar to the various patients’, nurses’ and doctors’ faces.

A year ago, when I first woke up, I was overwhelmed by the hospital and all the ponies in it, but now it seemed as if things were smaller.

The hallway Marm and I were walking down seemed almost devoid of any life, save for one or two stallions chatting by the bathroom, a nurse pushing a trolley and another stallion leaning against the wall just in front of us.

I stared at the light-blue stallion as we approached him. Marm stopped talking for a moment as the stallion caught our attention and beckoned us closer. With a smile, he smoothed back his mane and licked his lips.

I looked at Marm, feeling reserved about going over to see what the stallion wanted. It was always good to be wary of strange stallions, especially ones in mental institutions—I knew that much—but Marm was already trotting over to him.

I sighed and followed her over.

The stallion’s eyes traveled up and down Marm’s body as we drew closer. He licked his lips again and smiled at us, though I’m sure he only had thoughts for Marm. After a moment, he spoke. “I can smell,” he hissed.

I opened my mouth to say something, but he took a step forward, wedging himself between Marm and me, practically shoving me across the hall. Before I could do anything, he grabbed ahold of her hooves and licked her neck. Marm bristled at the touch, her face contorting into anger. She struggled against his grip, but he shoved her flat up against the wall.

He giggled and Marm squealed in terror. Shaking my head clear, I leapt forward, intending to pull the two apart.

The stallion bent his head down closer to hers and took a deep breath. He ran his tongue along the rim of her ear and ran his hooves along the curves of her body. Marm whimpered and shrunk down, her eyes shut tight, as if ignoring him would make him go away.

The stallion started to speak, his snout still near her ear. He licked his lips again. “I can smell your cun—”

And then my hoof connected with the side of his head, sending him spiraling off of her. He fell to the ground, hoof clutching his jaw. He giggled again, a smile spreading across his snout. “Now now, don’t be like that.” He stood up, rolling his jaw in its socket and wiped a bit of blood away.

I stood protectively in front of Marm, who peeked out from under my legs.

The stallion took a step forward, brushing a hoof through his light-blue mane. “Hiding behind your gray stallion won’t help you, you know. I can still smell you, you know, and you smell oh-so tasty.”

The tablecloth was torn away abruptly, revealing a grinning, very feminine face. “There you are sunshine,” he cooed. “What’re you doing under there?”

“Leave her alone,” I said with a slight tremble in my voice. “What did she ever do to you?”

The stallion chuckled and took another step forward. “She didn’t do nothing to me, me. I just so like to like mares like her. I’ve had my eyes on her for a long time, yes I have…”

Marm and I backed away. “What do you mean “mares like her”?”

The stallion’s smile stretched even further and he giggled into his hoof. “Oh, don’t you know? Your friend there is a murderer.” He eyed her hungrily and looked at me. “And I oh-so adore crazy, strong-willed mares like, like, that, like that.”

My ears went flat against my head and I felt Marmalade shake violently against my hooves. “A-a murderer? Marm isn’t a murderer.”

He giggled again and violently slapped the side of his neck. “Oh, oh but she is. The bitch killed her own sons, didn’t she?” His eyes were on me. “Or did she never tell you that?”

I felt my heart beating in my chest and I shook my head. Marm was crying by now, her tears soaking the back of my hooves.

He took another step forward and tilted his head suddenly. “Oh, it was all over the news before I got in here.” Another giggle. “Marmalade, a poor, unremarkable, stay-at-home wife had two, two, sons. Their names escape me, but I’m sure you can ask her all about it. You see, see, Marmalade’s sons were sick. They were sick for a long time, and Marmalade and her husband were at a loss. They were getting worse by the day and nopony knew, knew, what was wrong with them. But Marmalade’s husband was, was, suspicious. He had a feeling that something was off, so one day, when he left for work, he snuck back in the house and watched his wife, wife, tend to their sick children.”

The stallion took a deep breath and smacked his lips. “And Marmalade’s husband watched as his loving, innocent, little wife mixed in, in, furniture polish with his children’s food and fed it to them, all the while telling them that everything would be alright.” The stallion smiled. “The bitch had been poisoning her own, own, children, keeping them sick, just to get attention from all the doctors and ponies wishing her sons to get better.”

“No,” whispered Marmalade, “No, I-I was helping them…”

“Furniture polish doesn’t help ponies, especially foals.” He giggled and twirled a lock of his mane. “Anywho, who, the father rushed in, in, in, and confronted her and rushed his sons to the hospital as fast as he could. But he was already too late, and the doctors couldn’t flush the cleaner out of their system fast, fast, enough and they finally died as their father, father, watched on in horror. The police found Marmalade still in her house, clutching one of her, her, son’s blankets to her chest and she’s been here since, right?”

The stallion’s hooves echoed around the mostly empty hall as he moved closer. “I’ll admit that a, a, bitch like that turns me on and, and, and, when I landed here not so long ago, I wanted nothing more than to rut her, her, senseless...” He licked his lips again, took a deep breath and moaned.

Suddenly, Marm was in front of me, snout-to-snout with the stallion, her eyes full of pure hatred. “DON’T YOU FUCKING TALK TO ME LIKE THAT, YOU HEAR, YOU BASTARD?! I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU IF YOU EVER GET ANYWEHRE NEAR ME AGAIN! YOU. DON’T. KNOW. ANYTHING! ABOUT. ANYTHING! I—I—-I… I…” She took a step backwards and shoved him into the wall. “I don’t want to see you again! I don’t want to hear you again! And I don’t want to see you! Fuck you!”

In a flash, I lunged forward and pulled the two apart, lest the stallion or Marmalade tried anything, but Marmalade was already backing away, tears streaming down her face. “Oh, oh n-no! I-I’m… I’m s-so ssuh-suh-sorry.” She took a shuddering breath and wiped her eyes. “Oh Celestia! W-what… Oh! Ooohhoho! I’m sorry! I-I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry! I’m sorry… I…”

She stumbled away with me in tow. I shot a venomous glance at the stallion, but he was slumped against the wall, doubled over in pain.

Quickly taking hold of Marmalade, I steered her down the hall and around the corner, ignoring the stares of the other patients that had been drawn out of their rooms by the commotion.

Finally out of sight, Marmalade stomped her hooves in anger and sunk to the floor, tears streaming down her face all the while. I positioned myself next to her and silently clutched her hoof, letting her know that I was there.

After a few moments, there was a soft gurgle from Marm. I bent down and ran a hoof through her mane. “What did you say?” I murmured.

Marm looked up at me and shook her head. “W-what am I Gray?”

I smiled. “You’re a nice, young mare Marm.”

She shook her head again. “No… no I-I k-killed my-my own foals… I…”

“No…” I assured, “No, you were just sick. But you’re better now. You’re better now…”

She clenched her jaw and turned away, leaving me with the pink fur of her back. “No… I’m not better, Gray, I’m n-not better…” She turned back to face me and leaned her head against mine. “W-why do you think they wouldn’t let me get a p-pet last Hearth’s Warming?” she chuckled.

I didn’t say anything.

The door to her room loomed in front of me. It was so dark, but it was so inviting. I was terrified; I couldn’t sleep if my life depended on it. I pushed the door open and crept and looked at the pink mare sleeping on the bed. She looked so peaceful and I knew that she would comfort me if I told her that I was afraid.

She loved me.

I slid the covers off and crawled into bed with my mommy and I felt safe.

Marmalade sighed and closed her eyes. “They don’t trust me to take care of anything, but I try so hard all of the time to show them that I can. I try so hard to help everypony and I worry so, so much, but I can still feel it inside of me… I look at everypony here and I see my children, and I want to take care of them, but I can’t, I won’t let myself, because I’m so afraid that I’ll hurt them again and I just hurt so much and I just don’t know what to do…”

I nodded and gently stroked her mane again and she nuzzled closer to me and I wrapped a leg around her. “I’m sorry for what happened, Marm. I really am.”

Her hot breath tickled my nose. She stared into my eyes. “I know, Gray, I know… I just wish you would’ve found out differently…”

“It’s okay. Really…” I chuckled.

We looked at each other in silence and then Marm’s eyes went wide and she shoved me off of her and scrambled away. “Oh Celestia Gray! I’m sorry! Shouldn’t be that close to you! Sorry…” She trailed off, her gaze glued to the floor in embarrassment.

“What? What’re you talking about?” I stood up.

“Well… well you and Dreams are together, and, and we were c-cuddling and I… well, I wasn’t thinking. I forgot, and, well, oh, I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to get between you two or, or anything…”

I blinked.

“You know?”

Marm snickered. “Of course I know, silly. I think everypony knows. It’s obvious to anypony who spends more than five minutes with you two that you’re in love. It’s so sweet, actually.” She smiled.

“B-but-but… You never said anything! You think it’s okay for us to be in love?”

A look of slight confusion crossed her face. “Yeah. I think it’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?”

I laughed and wasn’t sure if Marm understood what was going on. “Why? Well, why don’t we start with the fact that she works here and that I’m a patient! There’s got to be some sort of rule that say we couldn’t legally be together!”

Marmalade’s face was suddenly serious. “You…” She swallowed rather loudly. “You do know that Dreams is not a nurse, right? …Right…?”

“W-what?”

Marmalade gasped and stared at me. “You didn’t know? S-she-she never told you?” She walked closer and drew me in for a hug. “Gray, Dreams isn’t a nurse here at Fletcher’s Memorial. Not anymore. Not for six, seven years now. She’s a patient, just like us…”

I felt my stomach lurch and pushed her way from me. “O-of course she’s a nurse. She works here…”

Marm’s face was grim. She shook her head, just slightly. “No. No, she doesn’t.”

I reached out for her one night, hoping to feel her embrace. To see her face. To talk. To love, as we had before. To hear her laugh. To see her smile.

I loved her.

My pink hoof brushed against her green shoulders, but my wife turned away at my touch, drawing the covers up over her shoulders and continued sleeping, unaware of my presence.

I sighed and slipped out of the bed comforter. I swung my backlimbs over the edge of the bed and cradled my head in my forehooves.

So empty…

My knees gave out and I fell to the floor. Dreams was a patient? She lied to me? Why would she ever do something like that?

Emotions flooded my mind and I couldn’t keep track.

I felt like crying, but I couldn’t, or maybe I could.

I didn’t know.

“Why?” I croaked. “Why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t any of you?”

“I just assumed that you already knew. Everypony else does. I’m so, so, so sorry Gray. I…”

I rubbed at my eyes. “Why did she lie?”

“She’s sick, just like all of us. You just reminded me of that fact a few minutes ago, remember? I don’t think she saw it as lying. She just wanted to pretend. It isn’t her fault for being sick. Don’t blame her.” Marmalade’s voice was soft and motherly.

I whimpered. “B-but…”

Marm shushed me. “I think it would be for the best if you heard it all from her.” A look of anger suddenly contorted her face. “I am going to kill her when I see her again! I can’t believe that she never told you! The bitch! I can’t fucking believe it!” She snorted in frustration and pawed at the ground.

I flinched at her sudden rage. “Marm, be rational about this…”

“No!” she growled. “No! I thought she told you! I thought you knew! I can’t believe…” She looked at me, a mad gleam in her eye. “Get up and head on back to your room! I’m going to go have a chat with your marefriend!”

She yanked me off of the floor and marched off down the hall. I hurried after her and grabbed her shoulder. “Marm, please!” I tried to stop her, but she shoved me away and continued walking. I galloped in front of her and shook her. “Marm! Stop! Don’t hurt her!”

Marmalade froze and stared at me. She blinked and took a deep, trembling breath. “Of course. You-you’re right….” She rubbed her head. “I-I just got a little carried away there. Sorry…”

Marm continued to walk down the hallway, but stopped and looked at me, anxiety evident on her face. “I’m just going to have a little chat with her. Don’t worry. Tomorrow morning, I’ll have her talk to you and explain everything. Until then, just sit tight in your room and wait. Alright?” She tried to give a reassuring smile, but failed.

Numb and still in shock, I nodded and Marmalade left me.

I trudged back to my room, my head a mess of thoughts that I wasn’t quite sure what to make of.

I stared up at my ceiling, specifically at the joyful, little pegasi foals painted on it, for a long time and wondered what it was like to be that carefree, that innocent. Innocence was lost on me. Living in an asylum weighed heavy on the conscious, sure as the sun rose and sunk every day, sure as the schedules that dominated our lives.

Dreams, the mare that, dare I say, I loved, was a patient and not the nurse as she had so claimed. She had lied to me for a little over a year, and I never even noticed.

It was heart wrenching, and I wasn’t sure if I should have been insanely mad at her or worried about her mental wellbeing.

The lights shut off for the night, but I couldn’t sleep. Too much had happened. First, I find out Marmalade poisoned and eventually killed both her sons, and then I find out Dreams didn’t work at Fletcher Memorial Psychiatric Home.

I wasn’t sure which I should be more concerned about.

We were all sick here. We all had our secrets. We all had our problems.

The stallion that lived in the room next to me hadn’t left his bed in three months because he was terrified of the nonexistent squirrels that were crawling all over his room.

The griffon at the end of the hall couldn’t look outside because she was convinced that the stars were watching her and wanted to tickle her to death.

A mare in Ward B stabbed her fiancée to death on the night before their wedding because the voices from the refrigerator told her to.

A stallion in the high-security wing screamed for five hours every day right at seven past noon and would attack anypony who tried to quiet him down.

Another mare convinced herself that she was a spider and spent her days running around the halls making “web-slinging” noises and trying to climb up the walls.

Most of the patients disliked to talk about their past, as it was often a sore point for them and the cause of their mental problems.

More often than not, sitting down to eat breakfast in the cafeteria would find you sharing a table with at least four murderers, three of which were in restraints and had constant supervision.

Marmalade fed her sons furniture polish to get attention. She was here to get better.

Gerald watched as his family was murdered and was too afraid to stop it, something he compensated for the rest of his life. He was here to get better.

Starshine blamed himself for his brother’s death. He was here to get better.

Dreams betrayed me, but I didn’t know why. She was here to get better too,

I hesitated at the threshold to the living room.

She was in there, sprawled in her favorite chair, crying.

Though about what, I had no idea.

After a moment, I turned and walked away from the room.

From her.

I had a show to get ready for.

What happened…?

A sliver of moonlight shone down from the slit of a window I had. It framed the bed perfectly, illuminating the entire room with its glow and keeping me even more awake than I would be without it.

My room looked even more desolate in the night than it did in the day. There was something so despairing about the soulless, white cinderblock walls, about the utilitarian metal bed, desk and nightstand, about the cold, imposing door that was my only escape.

But then there were the foals up above my head, laughing and frolicking in the clouds without so much as a second glance at the less fortunate down below. There were four of them; three mares and one colt. All smiling, all the time.

It almost made me sick, that innocence, that happy-go-lucky attitude they sported. Why did they get to be so free-spirited and happy, while those of us trapped in this hospital were subject to so much change and difficulties?

How I wished to wipe those smug grins of theirs right off their over-entitled faces, but I couldn’t. They were beyond my reach, forever.

I stared at the colt’s light-blue face and his light-blue wings and his light-blue body and his perfect smile and his pompous attitude and I ground my teeth in anger.

It wasn’t fair.

It was not fair.

Everything was so messed up and it wasn’t fair.

Everypony was so messed up and it wasn’t fair.

We patients had so much wrong with us and there was nothing we could do to help. We had to rely on the doctors and their medicine and hope that, after a while, maybe, just maybe, we could be cured.

It wasn’t fair.

My amnesia felt like a wall across my mind, blocking out so much, no matter how hard I tried to push past it. It was always there, taunting me to try and break it down, but I never could. It filled my mind, hiding all but the last year from me.

However much I wanted to, I could not find a way through that wall separating me from my memories. For whatever reason, I pictured it built with white bricks, like the walls of my room and the rest of Fletcher’s—cold, emotionless, white bricks that kept everything separated, orderly and protected, under lock and key.

The moon’s light had moved up to the wall behind me by now, making the bricks look ever whiter than bleached bones.

Tomorrow, Dreams and I would talk and she would tell me why she had lied to me, provided Marmalade hadn’t scared her too much.

Maybe things would turn out alright. Maybe things would be fair.

I groaned and shut my eyes, eager for sleep to come.

Maybe all I needed was to sleep. Everything would be sorted out by the morning.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

I stumbled into the cafeteria the next morning, slightly later than most other ponies would have arrived. My later-than-usual night had made me slower to wake in the morning and I regretted staying up so late as I picked through the leftover remains of the breakfast after the rest of the patients and staff had already attacked it.

Sullenly, I glopped a bit of cold scrambled eggs, three soggy sugar cubes and some mushy strawberries and blueberries onto my plate and got a glass of water and wandered over to the table where my group usually sat.

As I approached, I noticed Starshine, Marmalade and Broom deep in a hushed conversation. That is to say, Broom was listening intently to Starshine and Marmalade whispering about something.

They stopped talking as I sat down and glanced at me. I looked at them suspiciously. “What were you guys talking about?” I asked.

Starshine spoke first. “N-noth-nothing. J-just stuff…” His eyes danced around in their sockets.

Broom, surprisingly, spoke next. “We were talking about you and Dreams.” he admitted.

“Broom!” admonished Marm. “I can’t believe that you would say that!”

“Y-ye-y-yeah!” added Starshine.

Broom merely shrugged and looked at me for a reaction.

“Where is she?” I asked as I began to eat my subpar breakfast.

Marm pursed her lips and squeezed my hooves reassuringly. “Well… we don’t really know. Probably still in her room. I went and talked to her last night and she seemed fine when I left, but she’s prone to anxiety attacks and I’m afraid that she may have stayed up all night worrying about things again.” She grimaced. “Sorry…”

Starshine coughed. “We we-were go-going tuh-to see h-her lat-later, bu-but…” He exchanged a look with Marm. “Buh-but, w-we—we fig-figu-f-fi-figure that may-m-maybe y-you sh-shou-s-should b-be the o-o-one t-to-o s-see her…”

I nodded and grimaced as I tried to force down the scrambled eggs.

Marm chuckled. “She should have a chance to explain herself to you.” Her eyes were pleading. “And please, give her a chance. Forgive her. I know that it was a shock and I know that you’re upset, but it wasn’t her fault. She never did it on purpose.”

I nodded. “I know… I know…” I looked at my friends. “I… I love her, and… and I don’t want for this to drive us apart.” I paused and shot a knowing glance at Marm. “Besides, it’s not like she was the only one keeping secrets…”

Marm’s nodded silently, a slight blush tinting her cheeks. “I—I’m sorry. I always forget that you don’t remember anything. I should’ve remembered to tell you about my past…”

“It’s alright…”

The noise from the crowd was nearly deafening as I walked on stage. Spotlights flashed on making me thankful I was wearing my sunglasses. Smoke rolled in from the sides of the stage as I approached my microphone. I reared back, flailing my forehooves in the air. The crowd went wild.

“Who’s ready to party!?” I screamed into the mic, but I could hardly hear it over the crowd’s own screams.

“Y-you sho-should g-go s-s-s-see h-her g-Gray.”

Marm nodded. “Yeah. You should go see her.”

“You should.” added Broom.

I glanced between the three of them and my tray of food.

I stood up. “You’re right. Delaying the inevitable won’t help.” I stuffed the last two sugar cubes into my mouth and went to leave, but froze as a thought occurred to me. “Err… Where is Dreams’ room by the way? I’ve… I’ve never been there…” I sounded quite pathetic, worry evident in my voice.

Marmalade beamed. “I can—“

“I’ll show you.” Broom said, already standing next to me. He put a hoof on my shoulder, guiding me away. “Come.”

As Broom dragged me away, I gave a wave goodbye to the rest of my friends before they were swallowed up by the hustle and bustle of the cafeteria.

Broom steered me out and down the hallway before I managed to loosen his grip on me. I heaved him off of me with some effort; for such a small stallion, he felt like a mountain. “Where are we going?” I asked.

Broom pointed down the hall.

“Oh, thanks. That helped.” I muttered under my breath.

If Broom heard me, he gave no indication of it as he gestured for me to follow him.

After walking side-by-side for a few minutes, I spoke up. “Hey, why don’t you ever talk?”

The red unicorn in question looked at me for a moment, studying my face. And then he shrugged. “I just don’t.”

I blinked. “Simple as that?”

“Yup.”

“Hmm…”

We stopped outside a room designated as 427, indistinguishable from any of the other doors in the hall. Broom looked at me expectantly.

“Is this her room? I asked.

Broom shook his head. “No. Mine.”

My brow furrowed in confusion. “Why are we at your room?”

“We’re not.”

“What?”

“We’re not.”

“Then why—” I stopped when I noticed Broom’s barely concealed grin. I laughed. “You… you were making a joke, weren’t you?”

He nodded, finally smiling.

“Mhm-hmm. Don’t try that again.” I playfully nudged him. “Now get going. I can take it from here.”

He poked me in the chest with his hoof, his face suddenly serious. “Don’t worry. She loves you.” He turned and walked off without me.

I looked at the gray door that was the only thing separating me and Dreams.

I knocked.

There was a startled yell from inside. “Who—who is it?!”

“It’s me…”

There was a loud clang, and the door inched open ever so slightly, revealing a single blue eye staring at me. I started to say something, but the door slammed shut, cutting me off.

“Dreams?” I called out. “Dreams, are you okay?” I pushed on the door and was surprised when it clicked open. Curious, I stepped into the room and shut the door behind me.

There was silence.

“Dreams?” The mare was nowhere to be found. I looked around her room, noting that it was eerily identical to my own, save for the ceiling, which was painted with smiling flowers in place of my pegasi foals.

Her nurse’s outfit was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor.

“Dreams?” I asked again. “Where are you?”

The covers on the bed rustled and I noticed a rather large lump curled up underneath the sheets. I sat down on the edge of the bed and peeled back the covers, revealing Dreams’ beautiful face.

Exposed to the outside, she squeaked in surprise and buried her face in the crook of her leg. I touched her shoulder. “Dreams…”

She shuddered and tried to pull the covers back over her, but I didn’t let her. With a whimper, she pressed her face into the pillow, and began to weep profusely. Seeing her cry so violently almost made me want to as well.

As Dreams’ sobs filled her room, I rubbed her neck and waited until she was ready to talk. I was ready to wait all day if I had too.

We sat there for a few minutes, the only sound being Dreams’ muffled cries and the tick-tock of the clock in the corner.

I stared at Dream’s green form and smiled.

Accroches-toi à ton rêves.

Rêves…

Rêves.

“…Rêves…?” The word came without meaning to.

Dreams froze and one of her ears swiveled in my direction, attentive to what I was saying.

“Dreams…?” I reached out a hoof and gripped her shoulder. “T-talk to me…”

Dreams hiccupped and looked up at me, her face streaked with tears. She brushed a flyaway strand of orange hair out of her eyes and the corners of her mouth turned upwards slightly. “I’ve been a bad pony Pink. A-a bad pony…” She sniffled. “I’ve lied to you since the moment you woke up with amnesia...” She looked away, intently studying the bed sheets. “I-I don’t deserve to be called your friend. I don’t deserve your love. I’m a bad pony. Bad pony… Bad… Bad… I…”

“Hey.” I gently rubbed her back. “It’s okay. You’re not a bad pony. I love you…”

Her arm twitched and she chuckled darkly, still not meeting my gaze. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew the truth. You’d probably hate me.” She flipped over on to her back and sat up.

“Then why don’t you tell me the truth?”

She bit her lip. “It’s-It’s a long story. I-I don’t think—”

“Hey.” I kissed her forehead and she finally looked up. “It’s alright. You can tell me.” I paused. “I can keep a secret…”

She smiled, just barely and wiped some lingering tears from her eyes.

“I-I lied to you, Pink. I took advantage of you, jus-just so I could pretend a little lo-longer…” She swallowed nervously. “I’m stuck in the past, Gray. I don’t know where to even begin… I…” She was shaking again.

I caressed her cheek and steadied her trembling body. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

She nodded and bit her lip again, searching for a way to begin. She took a deep, strong breath. “Well, she began, “I suppose it all started when I was a filly. I had a normal foalhood for a few years. I had a younger sister, my mom stayed at home, and dad was a lumberjack. We were happy, I think, I can’t remember… I don’t know…

“But then, when I was fifteen, there was an accident at dad’s work. I never found out what happened, but I remember that night as clear as crystal. We were in the middle of dinner when there was a knock on the door and we were told he was in the hospital. We rushed straight there, and got there just after he got out of surgery. He was lying on a bed, unconscious, covered in blankets. He looked so… so normal. We only found out later that both of his back legs had been severed…

“That was when everything changed, I think. Something in him snapped when he lost his hindlegs. When he was discharged, he hardly said a word to any of us, and he disappeared for hours at a time, spending the nights at bars, trying to forget everything that had happened. He was a broken stallion.

“Mom had to work two jobs just to pay the bills. There was a lot of tension between the two of them in those days. The nights he actually spent at home involved a lot of shouting and arguing. Objects were thrown, insults were slung and accusations were made about dad’s loyalty to mom.

“Three years went by like that, dad’s anger slowly growing worse and worse. Despite being a cripple, he could still pack a punch. I don’t know how mom could stand it. After a while, he started to beat on us too, so my sister and I spent as little time at home as we could.

“One night, it finally came to a head. Dad came home with a hammer he had found and—and, right in front of me and my sister, he shattered mom’s legs, telling her “Now she would know how it felt.” After that was done, and mom was bleeding out on the floor, barely conscious, dad turned to us and... and he smiled. He calmly told us that everything was our fault and turned the cl-claw end of the hammer on his head.

“…We looked a-away, but that didn’t stop us f-from hearing his sk-sk-skull c-cracking and his b-blood s-s-spl-splatter all o-over us…”

Dreams stopped here, loud, gasping sobs preventing her from continuing. She cried into my shoulder for what felt like hours and I could only hold her. There was nothing I could say to make that pain go away. There was nothing therapy could do to fix that sort of trauma.

After a long while, she removed herself from my now soaking wet shoulder and rubbed her eyes. She looked at me and tried to smile, but couldn’t find the energy. “Sorry…” she whispered. “S-sorry. I guess I wasn’t as over that as I thought…” She chuckled dryly. “…And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…”

She continued, her voice much more ragged than before. “One of our neighbors heard our screams and came over. He contacted the authorities and they rushed mom to the hospital and did their best to comfort my sister and I. They asked us a few questions, specifically about dad’s mental health, but we didn’t know anything. We both had blocked out our parent’s problems long ago.

“Apparently, dad had been going to a psychiatrist for a few months before that night, complaining about the voices in his head and how he just wanted them to leave him alone… He never took the pills they prescribed him.

“Mom was never the same after that night. What my dad did broke her, both mentally and physically. She regressed into her mind, hardly reacting to any outside stimuli and when she did, she didn’t know anything was wrong, often asking w-when her hus-husband was coming home and w-won-wondering when her foals were coming home from school…

“One night, they found her wandering around on top a bridge, completely lost and arguing with streetlamp about the weather. She had to live in a nursing home for the rest of her life because she couldn’t even she had children…

“But… But my sister and I lived on. I had to begin take care of both us both, and I had to worry about so much. I was only eighteen, and I had nopony to help me. It was horrible, but we survived.

“It was later that, when my sister could take care of herself, I became engrossed with the workings of the mind. My parents were both mentally infirm, and, I suppose, that it just seemed like the right thing to study.

“I spent all of my parents’ leftover money to get into Canterlot University to study to become a doctor. It was during my time there that I first began to realize that something was wrong with my mind as well. I began to have anxiety attacks, nervous breakdowns, panic attacks, whatever you want to call them. Silly little things where I would get all worked up over something insignificant like tests or parties. They were never anything too serious, though, and I always managed to hide them and work through them. I could never tell anypony about them, or I could never get a job in the medical field.

“After graduating with honors eight years later, I managed to find a job here, at Fletcher Memorial. It was a small job, just an assistant day nurse, but I leapt at the chance and I was devoted to it. You could not find a more diligent worker, and I quickly moved up through the ranks, reveling in every minute of my job. It was so great…

“By this time, my anxiety attacks had mostly subsided and I was at the top of my game. It was during those years that you joined us Gray. You were a quiet thing in the beginning, I remember. You were unresponsive for quite a long time and refused any sort of treatments. They assigned me to you to take care of you, since you were hardly able to eat on your own and it was fun. I would talk to you about anything I could think of, and you would just listen to me. I didn’t know if you actually heard me or not, but I tried to break through to you anyways.

“But you were listening, and, after a year, you spoke some of your first words to me. I won’t forget it Gray. You looked at me one morning and just introduced yourself to me as if we were just meeting for the first time, even though we both knew otherwise. It was after that, you began to talk with Marmalade, Broom and Starshine in your group therapy sessions and you hit it off with them immediately.”

She trailed off and glanced at her side table. “Can I have some of that water, Gray?” she asked, motioning towards the glass beside her.

I nodded and held the glass to her lips and she drained the entire thing. She thanked me with a small kiss and returned to her story.

“I was promoted to Head Nurse soon after, when the old one retired. I was so happy Gray. It was my dream come true, even if it turned out to be much more stressful than I imagined.

“All of the stress began to get to me, and, over the course of the next year, my panic attacks started cropping up again. I was so worried that somepony would notice, so I began stealing medicine to alleviate my increasingly worsening condition. The responsibilities of my position were starting to get to me. Everything was getting to me.

“It was horrible. There were times that I couldn’t stop shaking or I couldn’t find the strength to talk. I was weak and I passed out at least one time a day. I was a mess. It was a wonder that nopony noticed.

“I began to worry about everything. Did I count out those pills correctly? What would I do if the hospital burned down one night? How should I react if a family member of a patient approached me? What if somepony hurt another patient? What if? What if? What if!? I couldn’t stop. My mind was in overload and my body was out of control.

“Then, there was a big massacre near where I lived. Several ponies were found beaten to death with a hammer and strung up in increasingly gruesome ways. The police suspected that a serial killer was on the loose.

“I spent that night here, in the asylum, too afraid, too terrified, to go home. What if I was killed next? What if the killer was one of my neighbors? I couldn’t take that chance. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

“The next day, I kept working as if everything was fine. I went outside that day, but not for long. I couldn’t be sure that I could stay safe, I wasn’t sure that I could plan for every contingency. What if this? What if that? I was so worried. But, in the hospital, I could keep track of everything. Everything is neat and ordered in here, and I was safe. Everything was in control. I was in control.

“I spent the next night sleeping in a cupboard with a chair wedged under the handle. I couldn’t take the chance of something happening while I wasn’t paying attention. And then the next night. And the next. I slept like that for almost a week before somepony noticed I wasn’t going home every night.

“They tried to make me go home, but I begged them to let me stay, telling them that I had too much work to spend time going home every night. But they wouldn’t hear a word of it and told me that they would help out with some of my duties. Nurse Ratchet dragged me back to my house against my will, locked the door and kept watch over me, determined to make sure I stayed in my house and slept.

“But, I thought, what if they needed me here, at the asylum? I couldn’t just let somepony else run things. Everything would fall apart. Nopony could do my job the way I could. I couldn’t let anything happen. There was too much out of control.

“I broke out later that night, jumping through my window, twisting three of my hooves as I landed two stories down on the cobblestone road, and limped the twenty miles back to Fletcher’s. I barely even felt the pain. I just needed to work. I just needed to keep my mind occupied. Everything was out of my control and I couldn’t take it.

“They found me the next morning, fervently trying to keep awake, too afraid to even fall asleep. They tried to take me back home, but I fought back and hurt them. I didn’t want to go outside again. I couldn’t go outside again. Too much chance. What if something happened? I couldn’t plan for every contingency… What if…?

“I ran away from them and hid in a closet, away from everything and anything. I hadn’t taken any medication for two days. My mind was in overdrive. I couldn’t think straight. Shadows were twisting into terrifying monsters straight from my deepest nightmares. I could hear every little sound there was. I could feel the blood rushing through my veins.

“My co-workers eventually found me and subdued me, but we all knew that I could never go outside these walls ever again. I checked myself in a little bit later, as if I had much say in the matter, and the Head Nurse of Fletcher Memorial was reduced to a patient, condemned to live my days within these walls…”

Dreams hiccupped and hugged me tight, her voice shaky.

“Wow,” I said breathlessly, “That—that was some story… I don’t know what to say, Dreams… I’m so sorry for you…”

She smiled and shook her head, placing a hoof over my mouth. “Don’t be sorry. None of it is your fault… Besides, I’m the one who should feel sorry for putting this off for so long. But I’m still not done with the story.” She shuddered and glanced at the wall across from her, a faraway look in her eyes, and continued.

“Everypony was shocked of course. It took a long time for the doctors to get used to the fact that one of their own went insane, and it took even longer for the patients to adjust. Weeks went by, and I began to feel empty and alone, like something was gnawing away at my insides…

“It took me awhile to realize what it was. I was missing taking care of the patients. I couldn’t do the one thing I so longed to do in my life and it was tearing me apart. I couldn’t think straight. It was worse than anything I’d experienced before, even my panic attacks.

“I spoke to Doctor Doctor and the new Head Nurse, Ratchet, about my problem, about the incessant, nagging thoughts that plagued my mind. I asked them if, maybe, I could continue to help out around the institute or take care of some of the more stable patients. Anything to fill my empty time and the growing anxiety I felt.

“And, against all odds, and a few laws, they decided to let me watch over you, Marmalade, Starshine, Broom, and eventually, Gerald, since I was already so close to you all. They figured it would be therapeutic for me, like your music therapy or the arts-and-crafts room, and they were right. It’s all that’s kept me going for all these years… There were even some days when I still feel as if I still worked here. Some days, I just liked to pretend that things were normal again, even if I knew that they weren’t. Nopony trusted me. Not the doctors, not the nurses, not the patients. I only had you and the others…

“And-and then six years passed and you woke up with amnesia and didn’t know who I was. In that split second, I took advantage of you Gray. I told you that I worked here, just so I could pretend that I did, just so I could relive those days. And I lied to you for over a year. I… I took it all too far. I don’t know how you never found out…

“I always think of that first day, when Gerald approached us in the cafeteria and told you to ask me why I couldn’t leave the building. W-when he had to be taken away, I almost told you right there and then, but I couldn’t. It felt so good, having somepony think I was still a nurse. There was a brief moment, those two first days that I began to believe that I was normal again…”

She looked up at me, tears beginning to trickle from her eyes. “I-I’m stuck between b-being a patient and a nurse, Pink, and it just tears me apart. I can see my mental condition steadily deteriorating over time. I-I-I know what’s wrong with me, and I can’t do anything to stop it… That’s… That’s what the worst part is, I think. I know that I’m insane—I can see it more and more each day—but I ignore it and continue to delude myself. I can’t stop it, no matter h-how much I try. I can’t stop it… I can’t stop… I can’t…”

Dreams took a deep breath and cradled her head in her hooves. “I betrayed you Gray. I led you on and betrayed your trust and love, just for my own benefit. I’m a bad pony.” She turned away from me. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Hey, don’t say that.” I pulled her back towards me. “I lo—” I gripped her head and looked into her eyes. I smiled. “I love you, Dreams. The fact that you’re not a nurse does nothing to change that. If anything, it makes you all the more accessible. I understand now why you weren’t worried about the two of us being together, back on Hearth’s Warming.”

She bit her lip and smiled, sliding my hooves off of her head and gripping them with her own. “You-you aren’t angry with m-me?”

“No… No, I’m not angry with you.” I rested my forehead on hers, taking care to avoid her horn. I brushed some hair out of her face. “I don’t think anypony could be angry with you after that story. Nothing was your fault. It’s not your fault what happened. It’s not.”

“I know. It’s just…” Her ears folded flat against her head. “If I had been truthful from the beginning, nothing would’ve—mmpf!”

I cut her off with a kiss. “Stop.” I smiled and kissed her again. “Stop worrying.”

With a yell, I stamped a hoof into a coffee table, sending shards of glass flying out in all directions. Blood dripped down my hoof as I tossed the now empty table frame on its end.

I kicked out behind me, bucking the chair I previously occupied, sending it tumbling over. I ran over to another table and snatched the lamp sitting on it. I smashed the lamp down into the table, shattering the glass and threw it into a mirror hanging on the wall just behind it.

A green pegasus mare shrieked and I spun around to face her, grinning madly. She glanced at me and stumbled backwards in terror, her eyes wide. I took a step towards her. The mare whimpered and backed away from my approach. I picked up one of the numerous guitars lying around, dragging it along the ground as I plodded forward. My face was split in a wide smile.

I stared at Dreams’ face, noticing the dark circles around her eyes and how disheveled her coat was. Her normally vibrant mane hung flat and loose around her head, a few wayward strands sticking erratically into the air.

I smiled again and kissed the tip of her horn, provoking a blush from her. ”I love you.” I whispered.

Dreams’ hooves wandered down my body. She smiled back at me. “I know…”

We spent the rest of the day in her room, alone.

We slept very well that night.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

I awoke one morning to silence.

It was not the normal sort of silence.

The normally harsh light in my room flickered on, bathing the room in a sickly yellow glow.

The first thing I noticed was that the pegasi on my ceiling were gone, revealing the white ceiling beneath the painting.

Puzzled, I sat up, but there was nothing in my room to greet me. My side table was gone, my desk and my journal were gone, even the potted plant was gone.

My room was bare, save for me and the bed.

Cautiously, I got up and approached the door, wondering if one of the other patients had decided to pull a prank on me and remove all my furniture or something.

I was lying in bed as a dark blue pegasus stallion read me a bedtime story. Sometimes, mommy would read me stories, but he always did the voices better. I squealed in delight as the stallion finished the story and kissed me goodnight. He looked down at me through his glasses with sad eyes. He left the room and switched off the light, turning back to look at me one more time before closing the door.

That was the last time I saw the stallion.

I nudged open my door and wasn’t greeted by the familiar, bright, white hallway I had seen every day. There was no medical equipment cluttering the floor, no chairs, no patients roaming about, and not even any doors.

Instead, there was a dimly lit hallway, barely big enough for a full-grown stallion to crawl through, and a small door at the very end that seemed to pulsate. The white walls and floor were covered with dark stains and were crumbling before my eyes. One of the lights flickered and went out.

I shut my door.

The rest of the hospital had disappeared, vanished, without a trace. Everything, all the patients, all the doctors, all the nurses, all the orderlies, everypony was gone.

All that seemed to be left was me, my room, that decrepit hallway and wherever the other door led to.
It was so quiet.

As I turned to face my room and saw that the bed had vanished as well, leaving the room even more plain and austere than before. The light overhead wavered for a moment, but didn’t go out.

What had happened? Where did everything go? How did something like this ever happen?

My friends… Dreams… they were all gone.

I covered my mouth with my hoof and sank to the floor, unable to process anything. Tears began to flow freely down my face as it all hit me.

I was alone.

Everything was gone.

Tick-tock.

Tick-tock.

Tick-to—

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there. I wasn’t even sure if time even moved at all anymore.

I stared at the blank, white wall in front of me for… hours? Days? Years? I didn’t know.

I blinked.

I blinked again.

I blinked again.

I blinked again.

I blinked again.

I blinked again.

I blinked again.

I blinked again
.
I blinked a third time.

I blinked a fourth time.

I blinked again.

I blinked.

With a sigh, I cast my gaze at the imposing door.

There were two options available to me.

I could continue lying on the floor in a daze.

Or I could brave the hallway.

I took a deep breath and stood up and faced the door. It seemed to loom over me, daring me to open it. I steadied my shaky hooves and reopened the door, only to find the hallway even shorter and even more cramped.

With no other option, I bent down and squeezed into the hallway, if it could even be called that. I crawled forward, inching my way to the opposite end, feeling the walls and ceiling press down on my sides more with each step I made.

As I crawled forward, the hallway tapered down, growing skinnier as I went. After a moment, I found myself stuck by the crawlspace. I tried to lunge out of the space, but I didn’t budge. The door was just within the tips of my outstretched hooves, but I couldn’t move. I was wedged between the walls.

I strained and pushed with all of my might, but I couldn’t find any purchase on the slick tile. I scrambled for some sort of grip, but there was none to be found. It didn’t appear that anything in the hall had a texture. My muscles went limp and I sighed, utterly defeated.

I felt my body slip forward a bit.

Eyes widening, I breathed out again, forcing all the air from my lungs that I could and pushed with all my might towards the door.

I felt something snap and a shot of pain jolted through my legs.

I shot forward and flew face-first into the door, slamming into it hard enough to crack a large portion of it.

A voice called out from the other side of the door. “Come in.” it said.

I sat outside the door for a second, regaining my breath. The space just outside the door seemed to be much larger. With a groan, I managed to stand up, my legs a little weak, but usable. I glanced behind em and saw that the space I had just crawled through was even smaller now.

I took a deep breath and pushed the door open and found myself in Doctor’s office. He was sitting at his desk and gestured for me to come over. “Come in!”

As I crossed the room on unsteady hooves, there was a loud crackle of static as the record player in the corner burst into life.

“…So, won’t you please say “Hello,”
To the folks that I know,
Tell ‘em it won’t be long.
‘Cause they’d be happy to know that as you saw me go,
I was singing this song…

We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where, don’t know when,
But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day…”

When I got to Doctor’s desk, I noticed that he wasn’t alone. Standing just to the left of him was the pink stallion that I had seen twice before. He gave me a big dopey grin and waved. “Hello!” he said.

Unsure what was happening, I waved back. “Hey…”

Doctor cleared his throat, leaning back in his chair. “Take a seat Gray, Pink.” In a flash of magic, he dragged a chair up behind me and forced me down, doing a similar thing to the pink stallion.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Where’s everypony? Where’s the rest of the building?”

Doctor smiled and ignored my question, instead motioning to the stallion beside me. “Gray, have you ever been formally introduced to Pink here? I understand you’ve seen each other once or twice in the past year.”

I stared at the pink stallion. “Pink? As in the Pink everypony kept insisting on calling me for a while?”

Doctor continued to smile and toyed with the lapels of his tweed coat. “Well yes… and no…” He folded his forehooves on the desk. “You see, Gray, you’re sick. Your mind is fractured, split right down the middle and you don’t even know it.” He paused and glanced between me and Pink.

“Though,” he continued, “I suppose I should say both of your minds. You and Pink are two sides of the same coin. Different, yet, for all intents and purposes, the same object, the same body, the same pony.

“You see, something terrible happened, and your mind shattered and you lost all consciousness and faded away, yet, some deep part of your mind realized that something was wrong and tried to fix it.”

I stared at the pale-blue doctor, unsure what exactly he was saying. I looked over at Pink, but he was silent and seemingly disinterested. He rocked back and forth in his chair, humming to himself.

I looked back at Doctor as he began to speak again. “Psychological institutions are, in the eyes of the general populace, places of mental healing and wellbeing. You are only here to get better Gray. You are here to sort out your problems and save yourself.” He tapped a hoof on the desk. “There’s some small part of you that is still fighting to get out, to be remembered, to find a way out from behind the wall, and that is what you are trying to do here. Think of it as… a trial, only one without judges or prosecutors.”

Doctor noticed my blank expression and sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand me Gray. I really don’t. But, what you do need to do is come to terms with your problems and face your fears. Your mind is deteriorating, even as we speak and almost the entire asylum has vanished back into the emptiness because your mind cannot support it anymore. Soon, even this room will be gone and you will be in someplace else entirely. And in that place, you’ll be presented with the same evidence, faced with the same problems, as here, and, until you are whole again, your mind will keep trying to force you to fix yourself and come to terms with the issues in your life.”

I shook my head. “I… I don’t understand. You’re telling me all of this, and it’s just all going over my head. Where are my friends Doc? Where is everypony? What happened?”

Doctor pursed his lips and his eyes flicked to the clock on the wall. “I need you to do something for me Gray. I need you to tell me what I—what you—need to hear, and maybe we can avoid anything else from happening. Can you do that?” He flashed his million-bit smile at me.

I crossed my forelegs. “I want to know what’s going on first, before I do anything. You said the asylum is vanishing. Why? What’s going on?”

Doctor tugged at his bowtie, loosening it slightly. “I can’t explain it again. There’s not much time left. You need to do what I say, or—”

“No.”

“Gray, I—”

I snorted angrily and glared at him defiantly. “No!”

For a moment, Doctor seemed at a loss. He stared down at his desk, muttering under his breath.

Then, he looked up and smiled. He leaned across the desk, motioned for Pink to do the same and whispered something in the pink stallion’s ear. Pink bit his lip and sighed, nodding to whatever Doctor had told him.

“That’s a nice cutie mark.” Pink’s voice was gruff.

It took a moment for his statement to register, but when it did, I felt my mind go blank. I looked at him. “Y-you can see my cutie mark?”

Pink smiled and one of his eyes twitched. “Of course I can. It’s right on your flank.”

“Well…” I started. I shook my head. “Never mind. Wh-w-hat i-is it? Can you tell me…?”

Pink gulped noisily. “It’s a gray-and-pink record disk, but it’s split right down the middle, separating the two colors.” He chuckled. “You must really hate music to have a cutie mark like that, huh?”

“Yeah…” I nodded numbly. “Yeah. That’s it…” Doctor’s face was smug. “Okay.” I said, relenting. “Okay. You win. W-what do you want?”

“Do you forgive them?” asked Doctor.

“Forgive who?”

“Your friends. Do you forgive them for what they did?”

Next to me, Pink grabbed a pencil off of Doctor’s desk and began to chew on it. I looked back at Doctor. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Doctor sighed and shuffled through a few papers on his desk. “Do you forgive poor, loving Marmalade for caring too much and killing her own children? She was only trying to help, after all, and she spends the rest of her days trying to rectify her mistakes.”

He flipped to another page. “Do you forgive the ever skittish Starshine for being so distant for so long? He blamed his brother’s death on himself, and could never get over it, no matter what.”

A third piece of paper. “Do you forgive Gerald for being so angry and violent all of the time, even though he saw his parents brutally murdered by ponies he thought were his friends and spends his whole life trying to make sure nopony gets close to him again?”

He looked at the final page. “Do you forgive Dreams, the love of your life, for betraying you and lying to you for over a year? She took your trust and never told you the truth, even if she didn’t mean to. Betraying you hurt more than anything else, I think.”

He reached over the desk and placed a comforting hoof over mine. He looked at me in the eyes. “And, do you forgive your parents for abandoning you? Do you forgive your fathe—”

I jerked out of his grasp, springing to my hooves. “What is this?!”

Doctor stood up as well, his voice calm and level. “Gray, calm down. Just answer the question. Do you forg—”

“No!” I spat. “No! What’s going on here? What’s with all these questions? I come in here, and you’re sprouting nonsense and interrogating me!” I slammed my hoof down on the desk. “Well, I’ve had enough! I woke up today, and everything and everypony but us are gone! You explained it to me, but I didn’t understand a word you said! I want to know what’s going on!”

“You’re sick Gray. You need to realize that.” Doctor’s voice was little more than a whisper.

Pink spoke up before I could get a response out. “Doctor, I, uhh… I don’t feel so good.” Suddenly, he doubled over, clutching at his head. “AAHHHHH! MY HEAD! I CAN—I CAN’T SEE! WHAT—WHAT’S G-GOING ON! I—”

Pink shrieked, falling to the floor, writhing in pain. When he spoke again, his voice was shaky and sounded much younger. “Mommy, I’m scared… Mommy… I… I’m… Where… where am I?”

And then he was gone.

Just vanished from existence. No warning, no puff of smoke, no sound. Just… gone…

I looked back up at Doctor, my eyes wide with terror and anger. “What was that!? Was that what happened to everypony else?!”

Doctor was staring at the spot Pink had once occupied. He hadn’t heard me. “Doctor!” I yelled at him. “Doctor, answer me!”

Doctor jerked and met my gaze. “Pink!” he shouted. “Gray! Quickly! Your friends and parents—do you forgive them?!” He galloped over to me and shook me forcefully. “Do. You. Forgive. Them?”

I shoved him off of me. “I want some answers first! What is going on?!”

Doctor clutched at his chest, hissing in pain. He looked at me, his face filled with concern. He took a step closer to me, knees shaking, and fell to the floor.

Doctor’s breathing was labored as he craned his head to look at me. “Tear… T-tear down the w-w-wall… T-tear it d-down…” He coughed, blood spraying from his mouth. “It’s so... s-so dark… Where… Where are y-you…?”

He reached towards me with one of hooves and then vanished, leaving alone in the room.

Terrified for my life, I backed up against the wall, eying everything in the room, watching for what might happen next. The picture of Fletcher hung on the wall, staring down at me. It was just me and the dark-blue pegasus stallion in the painting.

I blinked.

And the once-smiling face of Fletcher was covered in blood, slumped over on the floor of his painting. Blood poured from a large, gaping wound in the center of his forehead, coating his once blue coat with red.

I gagged and looked away, only there was nothing left to look at. The contents of Doctor’s office, his desk, his lamp, his bookshelves, even the door, were all gone, vanished just like their owner.

I looked back at the painting of Fletcher, hoping to find that at least he had remained, but the wall was bare.

Horrified, I pressed myself closer against the wall, as if that was going to help. My eyes latched on to the one thing left in the room that hadn’t disappeared

The curtains.

On the wall next to me were the red velvet curtains that covered not only the windows but most of the wall.

All that was left were the curtains, me and the room itself.

Cautiously, I approached the curtains, treading softly, just in case the floor decided to disappear if I stepped too hard.

I placed a hoof on the red curtains, feeling the soft, velvet material.

I took a deep breath.

Do you forgive them?

With a yell, I yanked back the curtains, praying that the outside world was still there.

It wasn’t.

I stared out into a vast stretch of white nothingness. No color, no movement, no anything.

The world went quiet and I couldn’t hear. There was silence. The curtains vanished.

Do you forgive them?

Do you?

I put a hoof to the window pane and I could feel the nothingness press back on me.

Everything was still and peaceful for just a moment.

Everything was silent.

I stared at my reflection in the window and a pink stallion with gray eyes stared back at me.

Do I forgive them?

Do I?

I pulled my hoof away, and there was a bloody hoofprint left on the glass.

I felt the carpet fall out from under my hooves and the room and window blinked out of existence.

No, I don’t.

There was nothing. Nothing but me.

And I fell.

Author's Note:

Based on “Vera”

Comments

[FloydienSlip]

The rest of that day was a blue to me.

Should be "blur."

I don’t think I would be getting any sleep that night.

Shift in tense here.

“Of course, the good thing about things not being our fault is that ponies have to forgive us for whatever we did, because we’re all sick.”

This gave me chills. Seriously, well done.

I know I've said this countless times, but this story is really underappreciated. I look forward to less confusion in coming chapters!

[_NAME_]

3016892

Countless times?
I count three times. Well, four now.

And thanks for finding those mistakes, I read so fast that I barely notice typos.
Although, if I took away that "a," then that sentence could work. Lord knows there's enough things in this chapter that are blue, that having a day be blue wouldn't be all that strange.

[Avenging-Hobbits]

I have a feeling we're going to get really militaristic in the upcoming chapters....

get ready to run like hell...

[Rostok]

Wow, dem Cuckoo's nest and Hannibal references.

You've done a brilliant job here, definitely lives up to the film of the wall, you've hit on the derangement of pink perfectly, with your own twist.

A big +1 from a Floyd fan here.