Life in the Mind of Uncle Discord

by I Thought I Was Toast

Chapter 4: Lost in the Darkness

Chapter 4 Lost in the Darkness

I woke up screaming. It wasn’t a normal scream either. It was as if fifty different reflections of me were scrabbling for release from inside me. Some were terrified, others bloodthirsty, and some were just mad. They didn’t have a reason to scream, they just wanted to.

I tried to shove them down and failed, screaming my own pain all the while. They were me and they weren’t, I didn’t know what they were.

“Good… Good… Your mind is beginning to break. Soon it will hopefully open and you will see all the worlds before you…”

I twisted from where I sat and saw Discord in his chair smoking his stupid pipe again. As I stared at him hatred as I’d never felt before rose up within me. My mind seared with agony as the thousand screams returned and for an instant my coat changed. It was the same as from that horrible corrupted memory. It was blackened from blood instead of its normal blue and that horrible stab wound returned spouting blood. It didn’t even have the decency to spout blood normally. Like before the crimson flowed across my body in various unsettling patterns. It slithered on my skin boiling it at its touch. I screamed as I felt the malice of that memory rise within me.

“What did you do to me?!?”

“I think it would be obvious… I showed you the inner depravity of your mind last night. You thought you were pure, clean, and incapable of the monstrosities I commit to you daily. I just showed you how wrong you were. And now… Your mind has been opened to so many new possibilities. You should be thanking me.”

I tried to will myself away from this horrible place. Instead of blurring though the world shattered. Pain seared through my mind as each and every voice willed myself to a different location. I felt myself being torn in hundreds of directions but I persevered. I threw myself into the void not caring where I went as long it was away from Him.

I fell for what felt like an eternity but finally I landed softly. Struggling to rise I opened my eyes and found myself staring into Discords face. I turned to run but found him in front of me again and again. There wasn’t just one of him. There were hundreds. All of them laughing and jeering at me.

“Oh my, oh my. This is unexpected. I hadn’t expected you to be this far gone for a while. Tell me, do you know where you are?” his voice echoed forth from each and every one of him as he laughed all the while. I just huddled there trying to will him away. “You aren’t in my mind anymore. In order to escape me you fled to your own mind. Now the real training can begin.”

I just lay there in a feeble position muttering to myself over and over. “Go away… Go away… Go away…” How could he be here? I knew he was right. This wasn’t the Dwair. The air was different, the soil clean. It felt perfect to me. But that’s because it was me. How could he have gotten inside my mind like this?

“Now that you’re here you can be put to the ultimate test. I was supposed to forge your willpower into an unstoppable fury that would make even gods quail before you. You’ve fought me well but it hasn’t been enough. It’s time you faced the horrors of your own mind without me messing with them. I can bring your inner demons into a mockery of life like last night but only you could truly bring them into being. Now that you are finally here I can just kick back and watch the show.”

With that little comment he was gone. I could still feel him watching but he had left me to myself. Struggling to my feet I looked around to see what I had gotten myself into. I was on a small floating island that held a quaint little forest. It was very peaceful, relaxing even, but then I saw beyond my little island.

There were thousands of islands out there, all belonging to a version of me that screamed for release. Some of the islands looked peaceful like mine. Some of them held dark clouds about them giving of an aura of dark mystique. Some were big, and others small. Some held entire fortresses on them, and some held the carnage of war.

These drew my attention particularly. Focusing my will I created a pathway to one of them. As I drew closer the sky shifted colors. What had been a serene azure blue shifted into a dark violet grey. Thunder crackled into existence amongst the clouds that started to hang over the sky. The feel of the air changed too. It had felt perfect to me before, slightly cool with a mild, if whimsical, breeze. Now it crackled with the same charge as the lightning. It made one’s skin stand on edge as if they were being stalked like prey and I had the very unsettling feeling I was.

I tried to spread my sense outward but only felt the same sense of dread. As I finally reached the island I met a blood bath. Two armies of me stood fighting in the middle of the island. One was composed of versions of me I only dreamed of being. Knights in shining armor, guardians of the weak. They leapt boldly into battle against my savage other selves. They were barbaric, my other selves, loping in the manner of wild animals, as they too charged into battle.

The darker versions of me were hard to stomach. They had no control of themselves. Their coats shifted colors sporadically and their horns became wings or shifted into other monstrous appendages ponies were not supposed to have. Some of them had crab claws, others tentacles, they all were hideously twisted though, and they continued to twist in their madness. The grin never changed though. It was that same hideous grin on each and every one of them.

They clawed and beat myself to death, tearing at my heroic counterparts like bloody cannibals. For their effort, the ones that were pure and clean fought just as well, but they were overwhelmed by the sheer savagery of my darker reflections. I turned away and went to look for another island. As odd as it was, all those versions felt like small potatoes, mere reflections of the battles I would be facing soon. It was time to go kill some inner demons.

...

I had entered one of the darker islands. One of the ones surrounded by dark clouds. As I walked through the clouds the malice within had become more and more apparent. On the outside the darkness had just felt sweet and oddly alluring. The deeper you went, however, the more maddening it became. I could feel tremors from the monstrous form of me within. His part of my mind brushed with mine on several occasions as he struggled to contain his will. It was sporadic, as chaotic as Discord’s and just waiting to snap fully

Suddenly it radiated power again, and the dark cloud collapsed. The world blurred, but not into the wondrous colors that it normally did. It blurred into a myriad of blacks and greys. The darkness dragged at my skin, as if trying to peel it off, and the maniacal laughter of one who has gone completely and utterly insane echoed forth as the world twisted. The strings were plucked and broke as the laughter continued and things snapped unevenly into place. When it was done I stood on a mountain housing an eerily empty looking castle.

Bits of the world fluttered and twitched as if not fully brought together. These patches were unnerving. Where they the result of a lack of willpower? Or were they a sign of how frayed my mind was at the moment?

As I walked up the path the world shifted around by itself. Barren trees flickered out of existence, only to reappear five feet to the left. Rocks rolled about settling in one place for a second before moving on to another. The stream ran red with blood then green with acid then black with starlight as if the night sky itself ran through it. The path remained roughly the same, although every so often it switched materials.

Finally I reached the castle. It was tall and frail, like a corpse that was stretched forth to its limits screaming in agony. The tallest tower weaved back and worth as it climbed into the heavens, as if writhing in pain, and held a shattered window at its top, shards gleaming like teeth to the mouth of its silent scream. The gate was a mass of barbed black steel stabbing forth into the sky.

As I approached it opened on its own and a voice said, “Enter.”

I stopped there, hesitating. Whoever that was, the voice didn’t sound like me. Could I be so twisted in certain parts of my mind that I wouldn’t even recognize them as me? “I don’t have all day…” whispered Discord in my ear, “If you don’t push on soon I’ll probably get bored… You wouldn’t want that now would you?” I certainly wouldn’t. Putting on a burst of speed I ran through the courtyard and stepped into the castle.

On the inside the stone was just as twisted as the outside. There was no uniform pattern to the architecture. The stone writhed and twisted, sending a silent message of agony. The castle had a strange gutted effect as if I were entering the stomach of a tortured beast.

There was little decorating the place. A few portraits hung on the wall and a chandelier but that was it. Each one depicted horrifying crimes being committed against innocent ponies. One portrayed me throwing foals into a fire. Their bones crackled and sizzled, bursting apart in the heat and their tears were sent into bursts of steam, hissing as they rose away. As I watched I could see it taking shape in my head. The mothers crying as I tore their children from their arms, the screams of the foals as the fire consumed them. This wasn’t just a portrait. It was a memory. A memory of someone I could have become. The other portraits were just as bad.

Ponies hung from chains, half-starved, as I dangled them before a veritable sea of food. Lowering them just enough so they could stretch their tongues and taste the food I left them there. Weeks later, I returned and found them dangling there dead. The rats that lived in the walls had eaten the food as they watched. Then, when it was all gone they had eaten the corpses too.

Unleashing the hounds I hunted ponies just like Discord had done to me the other night. The wolves tore into their flesh and they howled in agony but unlike Discord I didn’t end their misery. I willed their flesh back, gave them life so they would continue to scream. I whispered into their ear how if they only screamed louder I would give them the release they craved… I never did.

“Wow… And I thought I was bad.” said Discord into my ear, “You, my dear Baffle, are one messed up cookie. Maybe I shouldn’t be pushing you this hard? I have to admit even I find this all a bit unsettling.”

“Unsettling!” I shot back, “Do you know what you’ve done in your day monster?”

“I do… Do you know what you’ve done? Or at least what you could do?”

I took in the portraits again and sunk to the floor sobbing. “Uncle? What do I do? I can’t face this. Just look at this! I’m worse than you!”

“You’re looking at this in the wrong way. This isn’t you. It never was. It’s what you could have been. The mind is so much more than a mere impression of yourself. It is an impression of everything you can and could have become. You are not this monster nor were you ever meant to be,” his voice whispered softly into my ear. I couldn’t believe it. Discord was being caring? In the wheel of fortune that spun in his head deciding each and every action he took I was sure kindness was the sort of thing that came around once in a millennium. “Tell you what. If you kill this bastard in your head I will let you out. We will continue our normal schedule of training by night and giving you a break during the day. Just be prepared for some extra pranks.”

I felt a lion paw on my shoulder briefly before he vanished to watch me again. I sat there for a while getting control of myself. I had stood up to Discord before, what could be so hard about merely standing up to myself? It’s not like I was a near omnipotent being of chaos.

Walking through the castle I slowly climbed my way to the top of the tallest tower and made my way out to the window that was the entrance to the highest room. It stood before me, gaping like a giant mouth, its insides hidden from me in the darkness outside and within. Lightning flashed for just a second in the clouds above and I saw the outline of a throne.

Walking into the room the window closed behind me. The pieces of glass littering the floor flew up and past me slicing into my flanks as the window repaired itself. Turning to watch it complete itself I saw what it was really supposed to depict. A red moon hung in the sky of the stained glass window. It wasn’t the red of blood, but of rust and decay. I had the oddest sense it was dead. Below the moon I stood in all the glory of a tyrant come into power. In a pool of blood at my feet were three corpses. One was that of sweet Princess Luna. One was the corpse of a young Pegasus I didn’t know, but felt I would know someday. The final corpse was that of a man. I had only read of humans in old mythology books, but I knew enough of their basic physiology to place it. He looked serene and peaceful, as if he had accepted his death, but gave off an aura of extreme sadness of what his death would mean. I looked back at the moon and saw something that hadn’t been there before. It was a dark shadow that just looked on and laughed at what he’d wrought.

“Do you like the glory of our triumph?” came a voice from the shadows of the throne. It cracked in odd places as if unsure of what emotion to convey. The whispers of madness were there, the cackles of insanity, the howls of rage, and the tiniest whimper of guilt. The voice fluctuated through them all as I turned to find what I’d become.

I wasn’t going to make it easy for myself though. Upon the throne I twisted and turned. My body was serpentine, I could gather that much, but it willed the shadows around itself so that I couldn’t tell much more. I got a sense of chaos to the creature. That it was an abomination of life.

It slithered from the throne and the shadows followed it. I could hear the scuttle of legs scrapping on the floor. Sometimes I even heard the tap of a hoof. What the hay had I become in this offshoot of my life?

As the shadows cleared the throne I saw it was crafted of the same barbed steel as the gate. Upon the spikes my own head was impaled several times. “You’ve tried to kill me before you know. Amusing as I am you, but all in vain as you can see. They were all meant to never be, just like I’m not. You, however, I sense are the true me. You are the one who can become me if only I make it so. What do you say? Will you bring my glorious being into reality or must I force you down the path? You cannot kill me, of that I am sure. How could you possibly stop the might of a god?”

God? Did he just say god? Horseapples! What in Equestria would grant me such power and how the hay was I supposed to kill a version of me that apparently turned into a psychotic deity that put Discord to shame?

Suddenly I caught a glimpse of something through the shadows. It was something I wasn’t expecting to see. It was a breastplate. While the rest of the shadows hid myself from me I saw a breastplate among them.

“Uh-oh…” Discord’s voice said into my ear, “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“What is it?” I asked.

Discord didn’t respond to me. He just started mumbling to himself.

“Didn’t know that could happen… I was told he would not be the one to use it... What kind of twisted future is this?”

“Well boy? Don’t just mutter to yourself! Tell me! Will you willingly follow me? Or must I tear into your body until you submit?” the mass of shadows hissed.

I looked about the hollow castle and thought of the portraits and the window.

“I would rather die than become you.”

The twisted mass of shadows that was myself laughed at that. “Foolish boy, I can’t believe I was ever so naïve. I will crush your will with my own a thousand times if necessary.”

Suddenly the world blurred into those hideous shades of darkness again. The colors tore at my skin and it peeled off slowly but surely. Blood fell in rivulets down my body, puddling beneath me. Once my skin was gone the darkness retreated. The world still blurred but something had changed.

Suddenly I felt something scramble up my flank. Whatever it was I couldn’t see it. It was just another shade of black in the swirls of darkness. I felt the hard scrabbly bones of carapace legs dig into my muscle, setting my nerves on fire, as the thing climbed up my body. Settling comfortably on me it dug its pincers into me, tearing away bits of my flesh. Although I should have run out of blood by now, blood continued to ooze from my wounds, tickling me like fire as it sleeked down my body.

More of the things, whatever they were, came to the party. As their legs cut into me while they climbed I felt myself begin to suffocate beneath the mass of them. They were everywhere, biting everything. My screams of pain slowly became less and less audible as I lost the organs and flesh required to make sound. Soon, all that was left was my bones for them to gnaw on. As they cracked my bones open I felt them break, despite lacking the nerves to do so.

But that meant this wasn’t real, right? He wasn't doing any of this to me, not really. It was then I realized something. This thing that had once been me, that could be me in the future, couldn’t really do anything to me. He could have snapped me like a twig if he wanted to at first. Instead he had tried to bargain with me. Whatever happened to make me like this couldn’t be forced. I had to willingly commit whatever acts set me on that path to bring me to its conclusion, and the one thing I knew was that I would never willingly become that monstrosity.

I started laughing. It didn’t matter what he did to me. The only way I would ever become him was if I made the mistake of choosing that path. Those portraits in the hall, the window in the tower, they had told me all I needed to know. They’d shown me the events that would twist me into that monster. As my laugh burst from my bones the pain faded away. My bones knitted together, muscle reformed before my newly remade eyes. Blood flowed back over my body even as skin grew back into place.

I was me again. The thing that had been me shrieked and tried to tear its way into me again but I brushed it aside. It was no longer a part of me. By interfering with what was going to be it had sealed its own fate. I laughed at its pathetic attempts and batted it aside. As the blurring of the world stopped I found myself in the throne room again. The shadows were now a small insignificant pile. It tried to run from me but I wouldn’t let it. I tried a trick I’d been meaning to try for a while. I willed the blood in him to freeze.

He shrieked in pain as the shards of blood tore apart his circulatory system. I willed his blood to unfreeze and watched the result. As the vessels in his lungs were now torn they started filling with blood. As he choked on his own blood, the rest of his body spasmed from his nerves being overloaded by the pain of all the different wounds his blood freezing had opened. I don’t think he felt any of it other than the initial freeze though. His brain would have been torn to bits as all the blood flowing through it froze. If there was anything left of his mind while he died it was probably too small of a piece to even feel pain.

It was much more horrifying than I imagined in my head. I turned from the body, vomiting the contents of my stomach. This was why I tried to never listen to the darker side of my mind. I had thought that particular version of me had deserved that… I’d been wrong.

I continued vomiting as the world slowly faded into the clouds of darkness from before. Even after the clouds dissipated from the island I continued to gag and vomit as the horror of what I’d done continued to fill me. I hadn’t just killed somepony. I’d killed him in the worst way that had come to mind at the time. Somehow, I felt maybe I wasn’t as free of that monster as I had thought. Maybe it might have failed, but that didn’t mean another wouldn’t take its place.

I continued vomiting, gagging and spasming until Uncle Discord finally pulled me away from the place.

Thanks to John Perry for proofreading and curse the very existence of grammar and my lack of skill in it.