Deleted Darkness

Deleted Darkness

Chapter 1

Rainbow runs. She needs to reach her friends before it’s too late.

“NO! WAIT! PLEASE!”

She tries to hold her tears back, but it doesn’t work. Rarity and Applejack try to give her an angry glare, but the glare doesn’t reach their eyes. It all makes her break. She can’t hold her tears back. AJ and Rarity turn around and walk away from her, disappearing. She stops running.

“It’s too late.” Pinkie’s hair is straight. She looks at Rainbow like she hates her, but she doesn’t walk away.

Rainbow keeps whispering. "Please don’t leave me. I’ll do anything."

It keeps getting worse. Pinkie starts to disappear. She wants to look away, but she can’t. Pinkie deserves better.

Pinkie has almost disappeared when her face breaks out into tears and she says desperately "I’m so sorry Rainbow, but it’s for your own good!”

Poof. Her pink best friend has always made her happy in her hardest times, but she can’t this time, because this time she doesn’t exist anymore. Rainbow can’t take the pressure. She can’t feel her legs. She falls. Ponyville disappears in front of her eyes; all the things she is familiar with are gone. Why does this happen to her? She shakes; she can feel her head start to hurt.

"We can’t just leave our friends like that!" No. Not Twilight.

"Please… isn’t this enough?" Rainbow asks herself.

Twilight looks just as panicked as herself. "No, Twilight. You know you’re doing the right thing."

Fluttershy has a dark expression on her face. Her voice sounds nothing like it did before… but how did it sound before?

"Please, just give me one minute with her! To explain!" Twilight begs desperately to Fluttershy. As it hurts through every single moment, she sees Rainbow’s face.

"Fine. One minute, but hurry. The more she’s with you, the more it’s going to hurt."

Twilight runs as fast as she can over to her and gives her a weak hug. She looks desperately at Twilight as she starts to see through her.

"Rainbow, it’s okay. It’s okay." Twilight tries to calm her down. She gives her the calmest smile she can, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

"No it isn’t! Twilight, I can see through you!" Rainbow almost screams in pain. Her head hurts like crazy. She can’t focus on Twilight. It feels like the world is spinning around.

"We’re losing her, Twilight!"

"Rainbow, please! Please! Never forget me! Never forget us! I will always be in here." Twilight points at her heart.

"Twilight, now."

Fluttershy puts her hoof on Twilight’s back. "Come on, Twilight. If you don’t give up, you’re going to kill her."

Twilight looks down.

"No. No! Twilight, don’t!" Twilight starts walking away slowly, disappearing. "No! NO!" She keeps screaming. Then…

Twilight is gone. Rainbow can’t even control her emotions anymore. Nothing makes sense. What’s going to happen with that purple pony? Purple pony… she starts freaking out. She tries to keep thinking of Twilight’s face, but she knows that soon Twilight won’t exist anymore, not even in her memory. Nopony can describe Rainbow’s pain, her emotional breakdown. She is nothing now. She’s not the Bearer of the Element of Loyalty anymore. She feels a hoof on her shoulder, almost screaming in shock. She slowly turns around. Fluttershy’s looking at her with a dark, tough expression. She never thought she’d see Fluttershy have that dark face.

"You’ll have to forget us."

Fluttershy looks directly into her eyes. Her expression makes Rainbow want to hide.

"No... no, you guys are the best thing that EVER happened to me!" She tries protesting as much as she can, but her eyes are starting to close.

"You have to forget us Rainbow. It’s for your own good." She’s so close to falling asleep in her own sobs that she can’t even respond.

"Now, Rainbow..." She doesn’t even care where she is. She’s lost everything.

"Wake up."

<---------->

The patient screams. Her eyes open. Where is she? She looks around, confused. She’s in a little room with boring, light sea-green walls. She touches the bed she’s laying in. It isn’t comfortable at all. On the other side of the room there’s another bed, but nopony is laying in it. There are no windows in the room. She feels trapped. Windows have always given her a feeling of freedom.

On the right side of the bed, there’s a white plastic table. On the table, there’s a red button. Her curiosity drags her over to the table. She looks at it. On the button, ‘nurse help’ is written. She presses the button without giving it a second thought. She just wants to know what’s going on. She doesn’t even get to look around before two nurses smack the door sideways and run in.

"She’s awake."

A white earth pony with a rose-coloured mane looks at her with a colt-like glare. Who are these mares?

"Find Doctor Jackie so she can come and check her." The white earth pony storms out of the room. The nurse slowly walks over to her. She looks curiously at the mare, but the eyes scare her, making her want to hide. They remind her of something she’s seen before, but she just can’t remember it. She slowly starts backing away from the mare.

"No need to worry, I won’t hurt you." The nurse smiles, but she knows that the smile is fake. The nurse is a blue pegasus with green hair and yellow eyes. She looks, scared, at the mare. She tries to say ‘don’t come near me’ with her eyes, but the mare just ignores her look.

“This doesn’t solve anything.” The smile disappears and is replaced by the colt-stare, and just like that, she knows this is a pony you’re not supposed to fool around with. Even though this mare says she won't hurt her, she doesn’t believe her. She was too risky.

"It isn’t funny anymore." The nurse starts walking faster, still giving her an angry stare. Without noticing, she walks into a corner and falls over. The mare takes that as a chance to catch her, and runs fast over to her. She holds her tight, so she can’t run away. The mare from before and another pony both enter the room.

"Quick! Find something that can calm her down!"

The white mare from before looks, stressed, around the room. She runs across the room and over to a grey box. There’s a number lock on it. She presses some numbers as calmly as she can. She finds a bottle with a weird pink liquid; she opens the bottle and puts the liquid down in a glass. She gives the other pony she came in with a questioning look.

"Only give her a little bit. We don’t want to hurt her, do we Redheart?" the pony says. This pony is a unicorn; she's got brown hair with a light brown coat and emerald green eyes... she’s beautiful. The one known as Redheart nods. The patient doesn't know what’s going on, or what will happen to her now. She kicks, confused, in self-defense. She hears the deep-blue mare scream and stop holding her. The cyan pegasus doesn’t waste this chance; she starts flying up in the air and hides on the bookshelf. The light-brown unicorn can’t hide her surprise from the patient's flying.

"Interesting. Interesting." She’s lost in her own curious thoughts.

"OK, I don’t want to play anymore!" the deep-blue pegasus says, but as soon as she says that, she gets an angry stare from the light brown mare.

"No, Nurse Ratnat, let me handle this." The light brown mare lays a hoof on Ratnat's shoulder. Ratnat is clearly enraged.

"You aren’t serious, are you?!" She shakes the hoof off her shoulder; she turns around to stare into the brown mare's eyes. The mare looks surprised, but her face contorts into an entertained smile, as if it’s a game.

"You don’t go against my orders, do you, Ratnat?" She stares right into Ratnat's yellow eyes. The patient would run away as fast as she could if she had to look right into Ratnat's eyes; to be honest, she's scary. The patient's only met her today and she already knows that she's a pony you’re supposed to be careful around. She looks, fascinated, at the brown mare. Is that Doctor Jackie? She looks at the mare's badge... yes, it is Doctor Jackie. She's so busy looking at Doctor Jackie that she doesn't notice that the bookshelf is falling and, just like that, the lion pounces.

"Got ya!" Great, the lion wants to play a little bit with her prey before killing her. Ratnat gives her a victory smile. "Now, Ratnat, do you want to leave my patient and I alone for a minute? We will call if we need you." Doctor Jackie raises her voice in a cold tone. The patient lets out a sigh of relief; she has a big smile on her face when Ratnat leave the room. Before Ratnat leaves, she mumbles to herself "just wait, Jackie!"

"Anything to say loud, Ratnat?" Doctor Jackie asks sarcastically, with a little smile on her face, but when Ratnat is gone and Doctor Jackie closes the door, the smile is gone, replaced with a professional expression.

"Hello. My name is Doctor Jackie and I’m your doctor. You are probably wondering what you are doing here, aren’t you?" The patient nods. Doctor Jackie gave her the impression that she was considered to be a little child somehow. "Well, I’m sure you've got many questions?" She wears the most welcoming smile she can. The patient feels welcomed around Doctor Jackie and for one moment, it feels like the smile is real. She nods again.

"How about we go to my office? Then I can answer your questions, and then we can get you an official name." Doctor Jackie gives the patient a smile and opens the door. The patient looks scared at the door. There’s more than this room? How much more? Well, if she follows Doctor Jackie, she’ll explain it to her. The patient walks out of the door and Doctor Jackie does the same. She tries to look as confident as she can, but her face is like an open book. Doctor Jackie starts laughing.

The patient follows Doctor Jackie down the hall. The hall’s color scheme is the same as the room she woke up in, i.e. the same boring light sea-green, but there aren’t that many doors in this hall. There are no signs or decorations. They don't meet many ponies, but when they do she gets nervous. She doesn’t like being around other ponies, for some reason. Doctor Jackie doesn’t really pay much attention to the patient, or any other ponies for that fact. All she does is simply wink to the ponies and then look away again. She knows exactly where she is going. Rainbow can’t do anything other than follow her.

It rather confuses the patient that Doctor Jackie isn’t scared of her running away. She stops walking and looks at the walls, wondering how long it's been since they painted them. It looks like the whole building could collapse at any minute. She realises that Doctor Jackie is gone too late, and she doesn't know where she is or where to go. She becomes nervous and can feel the tears in her eyes. Is Doctor Jackie going to be mad at her, like that other mare Ratnat? The patient sits down on the floor and starts sobbing. She sobs small sobs, as if she doesn't like crying.

You don’t like crying, remember? a voice says in her head. She might as well write down what she likes and what she doesn’t. What she remembers and doesn’t remember. Soon Doctor Jackie finds the patient. She looks up at Doctor Jackie, scared, waiting for her punishment, but it never comes. Doctor Jackie gives her a kind smile, and helps her get up, off the floor.

"I… I was scared", she says, trying to stop crying.

Coward. There’s the voice again. She looks, worried, from side to side.

"What’s wrong?" Doctor Jackie asks, with a little worry painted on her face.

"U- uh... can it wait until we get to the office?" she asks with an innocent face.

"Yes of course, as long as it doesn’t bother you too much."

Doctor Jackie lays a hoof on the patient's shoulder, hoping that it'll make her feel safe. They start walking again. The patient starts thinking of all the questions she wants to ask Doctor Jackie. What is the most important question?

"Doctor Jackie?" she asks. She imagines her face looking like a question mark.

"Yes? What’s bothering you, my dear?" Doctor Jackie stops, but when she sees on the patient's face that it’s not a big deal she starts walking again, waiting for her answer.

"How many questions can I ask?" she asks, with a worried look on her face. What if she can’t get enough of her questions answered?

"We have 20 minutes, so until the 20 minutes are over, you can ask as many questions as you like," Doctor Jackie answers, but then she asks something too. "So what do you say I answer your questions and you answer some of my questions?" she asks, still looking forward, down the hall.

"Me? I don’t really know anything." The patient starts giggling, her face barely containing a massive smile. She's proud that Doctor Jackie wants to ask her something; such an intelligent mare wants to learn something from her!

Doctor Jackie smiles at her. "Don’t worry, I’m sure you can answer my questions."

"OK, I'll do my best!" She still has a proud look on her face, and she starts walking faster. The hall splits into two - a left and a right side. The patient walks to the left and Doctor Jackie looks at her, fascinated. She stops. The patient, looking back at her, stops too. Her smile still hasn’t vanished. "Are you coming?"

"How did you know my office is this way?"

The patient's smile vanishes. How did she know the way to the office? She looks down at the floor, not knowing how to answer or if she should answer at all. She feels uncomfortable, as if she shouldn’t tell anypony.

"Do you know what? You can just tell me in the office." Doctor Jackie points at the door at the end of the little hall. She starts walking again, but the patient keeps standing there. When Jackie reaches the door to her office, she asks with a grin on her face "are you coming, dear?" The patient shakes her head to say no.

Jackie, looking confused, walks over to her and puts one of her hooves on her shoulder, trying to work out what she's looking at. After failing to deduce what her patient is so focused on, Doctor Jackie asks for a little bit of help. "What are you looking at, my dear?"

The patient looks at her with a little shy smile. "Outside the windows." She stares at the windows again. There’s a beautiful garden outside, there’s some swings and other things the patients can play on, but the thing that fascinates her is the nature, and now the patient can’t stop herself asking "why does this hall have windows, when the other hall and the other room doesn't?"

A dark expression pops up on Doctor Jackie’s face, but before the patient even realizes, the darkness is gone, replaced by a forced smile. The smile says everything: 'don’t even question it!’
She looks, embarrassed, at the floor. "I’m sorry", she says.

"No, you’re not the one that's supposed to be sorry! You haven’t done anything wrong, sweetheart." Doctor Jackie lays a caring hoof on the patient's shoulder. They sit there a while, until Jackie tells the patient there’s tea in the office. "Do you want to have some?"
The patient nods. She doesn’t know what tea is, but she doesn’t want to ask either. They leave the beautiful glass hall and step into Doctor Jackie’s office.

<---------->

The cyan pegasus looks, fascinated, around the room while Doctor Jackie makes tea. There are lots of bookshelves with lots of books and notes. Her curiosity almost drags her over to the bookshelves, but she thinks better of it. To distract herself, she looks at the other things in the room. There’s a lot of stuff in the office. The thing that makes her most curious, though, is the picture of Doctor Jackie and her family on the desk. She goes over to the wooden desk and looks at it closer; she quickly notes that it’s really beautiful, especially with the golden patterns. The patient touches it, and much to her surprise, the desk is smooth.

She then looks at the picture. There’s a picture of a pink pony, who looked a similar age to the patient, or at least the patient's prediction of her own age. The pink pony's hugging Doctor Jackie and a white colt, who has black hair and brown eyes. She feels like she should know that pink pony. With that straight pink hair and the light pink coat, the only thing that doesn’t seem right is that this pony is a pegasus, rather than the earth pony that the patient envisaged. She starts feeling down, so she walks away from the desk and, more importantly, the picture. She decides to look at the bookshelves again; taking a random book out, she observes the title written on the book cover.

Success in Erasing Memories

by Jackie Shimlight

The patient can’t breathe. She starts shaking. Has she lost her memory? She can’t think of anything else. What have they done to her since they erased her memory? She can feel the whole world start to disappear. No! You have to keep it together! she shouts at herself. She starts focusing on the walls. There are so many pictures on the walls. Has Doctor Jackie drawn them herself? They aren’t as beautiful as the patient expected her pictures to be. The walls are a calming dark red color; there are no patterns on the walls, but she doesn’t care. She decides to go back to her chair. It's a simple wooden chair, but it’s still nice to sit on. As she looks away from the door, Doctor Jackie steps in.

"So have I missed anything, my dear?" she asks.

The patient, scared, flies up into the air, looking down at Doctor Jackie. Jackie can’t hold her laugh back. She starts laughing a little, laughing a beautiful laugh. The patient flies down and stands on her hooves again.

"I’m sorry", she says in a quiet tone, looking at the floor. It's covered with calm, dark pink and red blankets. Jackie holds two cups of strawberry tea with her magic; the green aura gently places the two old white teacups down on the desk.

"Just take one, it'll help you relax", she says, giving the patient a little smile. "Take a seat, my dear." They both walk over to the chairs and find a comfortable sitting position.

"So… you said I could get all of my questions answered?" the patient asks, not even sipping a little bit of tea; she can’t wait to get her questions answered.

"Yes of course dear, but first take some of your tea. As I said before, it will help you... relax." The dark expression from before finds its way back onto Doctor Jackie’s face, the face that means nopony is to question what she says. The patient, unnerved, takes a sip of her tea. Her eyes almost pop out of her face immediately - the tea is scalding-hot. Doctor Jackie lets the nice, warm face return, and she take a sip of her tea too. "So, what do you want to know?" she asks. Jackie's trying to look confident, but she still seems nervous.

"Well…" Now that the patient can finally get answers, she doesn’t really know what answers she wants from Doctor Jackie. However, suddenly a question pops up in her otherwise clueless mind.

"Who am I?"

Doctor Jackie looks surprised. It isn’t normal for their test subjects to ask a question like that. "Well, my dear..." She puts on a fake smile and tries to wave away her irritation. "You are just about to find out." Jackie reaches down and grabs a little notebook underneath her desk. The patient quickly notes that on the cover, "2468’s file" is written.

She quickly flips to a clean piece of paper in the notebook and explains to the test subject what it is. "Yes, my dear, this is your file. In this book, almost all of your life is written." Now it’s Doctor Jackie’s turn to ask a question. "What is your name?"

The patient imagines her face looking like a big question mark again. "My name?" she asks, confused.

Doctor Jackie pulls a smile of victory. The face makes the patient feel a bit uncomfortable, as if bad memories are coming back, but she can’t remember most of the story. What she can remember is that was Doctor Jackie's face before everything went dark. Was that right before she lost her memory? Well, it seems she will never know, and that makes her both sad and scared at the same time.

"What do you want people to call you?"

The patient looks around in the room. Nothing comes to her mind. She looks at the desk. On the desk, "Phoebe" was written somewhere. The name was almost covered by a mountain of papers, but she can see the name clearly.

"Phoebe." She responds without a doubt. The victory smile is wiped from Doctor Jackie’s face, replaced with a blank frown.

"I don’t think you should pick that name", Jackie says, with a cold voice. It sounds like she’s in pain. For a few seconds, she can't even look at the patient.

"No, it’s OK! I like the name!" the patient replies cheerfully, with a big smile on her face. Hopefully the smile would keep her out of argument and trouble.

Doctor Jackie gives her an angry stare. It says everything. You don’t want to be a troublemaker, do you? She sits still for a moment, staring at one of the pictures in the room. Did Phoebe make the picture? Phoebe must mean something close to Jackie, considering she reacts so horribly when she hears the name. Doctor Jackie starts shaking; without a word, she walks over to the door, steps out of the room and slams the door after her. Did the patient do something wrong? No, of course she didn’t; she just wanted a nice name, and that’s the first name that came to her mind.

While she waits, she looks at herself in the mirror, over at the bookshelves. Rainbow mane, pink eyes and a blue coat - nothing special. She doesn’t even look that beautiful when she looks at herself in the mirror. Hmm, maybe her name should be Rainbow instead... no, she really likes the name Phoebe. Rainbow can just be a plan-B name. The patient is lost in her own confused thoughts when Doctor Jackie calmly walks in, closing the door after her. She sits down on her chair and looks calmly at patient, who can still see a bit of suffering in her eyes.

"Are you sure you want Phoebe as your name? You can never change it again, sweetheart."

The patient knows just how to answer; she practiced it when she was alone in the office. A dangerous smile grows on her face.
"Yes, I’m entirely sure!"

Doctor Jackie looks annoyed at the patient. She doesn’t write the name down - she wants to get what she wants, but the patient feels exactly the same way. She keeps staring at her with an annoyed look, which annoys the patient in turn.

The patient coldly states "it's Phoebe or Rainbow Dash."

Jackie looks, shocked, at the patient, who returns the same face. Where did Dash came from? She knows now that there's something, deep down in her memory, that's fighting to come out, but she hides it away. She’s too scared to find out what it is and she doesn't even know how.

"Fine, you get your wish." Doctor Jackie snaps. However, she just puts on a happy victory smile. Jackie doesn’t even look at her; she just writes her name down in the notebook. "Congrats, sweetheart, you finally got a name." She looks at the patient with an evil smile. Her eyes says everything. Oh, you thought I was going to call you by your name.

The newly-named Phoebe looks annoyed, and that just makes her smile much bigger. That evil smile doesn’t belong on that beautiful face, Phoebe thinks to herself. Suddenly an idea pops up. "Thank you, but I think you should call me by my name." Phoebe gives Doctor Jackie a weak smile.

She stares back, angered. "I don’t think so, sweetie." Now its Doctor Jackie’s turn to smile and Phoebe's turn to be angry.

"Well, you should. I want you to call me by my name, Phoebe!" Phoebe regrets saying it the moment it comes out of her mouth. Why did she want to get into an argument with Doctor Jackie? The doctor's enraged eyes are stuck in her head, and she keeps hearing her voice. You don’t want to be a troublemaker, do you?

No, I don't, Phoebe keeps thinking to herself, but again she gets the feeling that something deep inside her mind wants something else. Doctor Jackie can see Phoebe arguing with herself, and sees her chance to say something that will make that blue mare shut her mouth.

"You listen here, dear! I don’t want to argue with a little patient! You don’t want to be any trouble, do you?!"

Phoebe looks away from Doctor Jackie, frightened. What should she say? Jackie holds a cold stare that looks deep into her soul, and she's just about ready to do anything to make the stare stop. It’s like Phoebe is two different ponies. The first pony wants her to fight - it's saying nopony should control her or tell her what to do. The other pony says that she shouldn’t be a troublemaker and should trust the doctors - they are there to help her, and she shouldn’t be mean to them.

"No... of course not", Phoebe mumbles.

There’s no victory smile on Doctor Jackie’s face, as if she knows that the patient actually means it when she says she don’t want to make any trouble. She holds a hoof up to the patient's cheek. "Then you'd better shut your mouth and be careful, Phoebe. I’m serious, I personally don’t want you to get in any trouble." She lets her hoof fall down. She looks serious.

Phoebe looks deep into Doctor Jackie’s eyes. She tries to find something fake in her face, but she has no such luck. She starts thinking that Doctor Jackie might actually mean it, but she still has her doubts. Unable to find a solution between her two personalities, she decides to just simply nod.

"Is that enough talk for today?" Doctor Jackie asks, with worry on her face.

Phoebe doesn’t even need to think to answer that question. "No! I've still got a lot of questions!" She doesn’t even know where to start, but Doctor Jackie blocks her mouth with one hoof anyway.

"Fine. I’ll answer three questions, and that'll be enough for today." She pulls her hoof from Phoebe’s mouth and waits for her to protest.

"Why?" Phoebe sounds like a little filly when she protests, but still hasn't processed the fact that Jackie actually called her Phoebe earlier.

"My dear, you are going to have to be very careful with getting information. You might worry too much, and end up damaging your brain." Doctor Jackie writes something down in the notebook.

"Wh-"

"Shh!" Doctor Jackie interrupts her. "Be careful with what you ask, sweetie. After all, you only have three questions." Doctor Jackie suddenly laughs, and Phoebe joins in. When Jackie looks at the patient, she wears a true smile; it almost looks like the smile can’t fit her face, which only makes Doctor Jackie laugh even harder. Phoebe can't hold her laughter back.

"We should really do this more often", Phoebe bursts out, out of nowhere.

They both calm down and stop laughing. The scared look returns to the patient's face, as the curious look does to Jackie's.

"Anyway..." Phoebe tries to break the silence and find something that can grab her attention, but it’s too late.

You’re so stupid! That’s the voice from before! The one that made her argue with Doctor Jackie! Phoebe can feel the anger inside her rising, wanting to be heard. Why is it picking on her? The doctors only want her to be safe and happy, right? Phoebe gets no response. She lets out a sigh of relief, thinking the voice won’t contact her again, but she’s wrong.

Who said that? Who’s that pony and what does it want? Is it her other self? Phoebe is just about to ask Doctor Jackie when something deep inside her stops her.

Just shut up. This might be her other self and it might warn her of danger, but Phoebe doesn’t care. She wants to be her own master. Besides, no matter what, she can’t get back to her past life. She’s another pony now. Her memory is gone and she has to start her whole life over. As Phoebe makes that clear to herself, one last desperate thought comes to her mind.

Don’t you dare! She know she can’t decide. It's a command, but Phoebe just ignores it. It’s her life. The other pony can’t protect her anymore. She waits for the answer. She knows there’s an answer coming.

Fine, but don’t say I didn't warn you. I know these ponies a lot more than you do. Phoebe ignores the voice and turns serious, staring right into Doctor Jackie’s curious eyes.

"Before I answer your questions… did you erase my memories? Why? Am I a deleted?"

Doctor Jackie’s reaction isn's pleasant. She stares at Phoebe in surprise, irritation hidden behind her face. Patients weren't supposed to know that! It's already obvious that Jackie doesn't want to answer her question. She tries to make the words sound more complicated than the meaning, in an attempt to confuse the patient and stop her asking any more dangerous questions.

"I don’t want to tell you something like that, my dear." Her efforts are in vain. The patient is a stubborn one; when she wants something, she gets it. Phoebe is enraged. It’s her life, and she deserves to know what happened to her. She tries asking herself a question: who am I? Maybe if she concentrates hard enough she will know.

Do you really want to know that? There! That's the voice she knows! Phoebe lets out a sigh of relief - maybe the voice in her head can give her some answers.

Phoebe asks a question back: who are you? She gets nervous. She can see Doctor Jackie staring at her, curious. Jackie can tell her patient is talking to someone, but who that is she doesn’t know. "Who are you talking to, scoot?"

Phoebe's eyes grow wide. Something from the back of her mind tickles her brain. She sees a mare - an orange coat with purple hair - but she can’t see the face.

Enough! Phoebe looks around the room, worried.

W- w- what? Who are y- you? Phoebe can feel anger in her body, but it isn’t hers. W-what are you going to d-do? Hello? She gets the feeling it isn’t her body anymore, that she can’t control it. Stop it! Phoebe wants to scream for help, but she can’t. No words come out.

It’s none of your business, pony! The only thing Phoebe can do now is give in, and watch in horror as the unknown pony takes over.

<---------->

"You’re such a demon! What did you do to her?!" Rainbow holds Doctor Jackie in a tight grab.

"Well, well... there you are, Phoebe." Doctor Jackie pulls a fake smile.

"You know that’s not my name anymore." After all the things that mare has done to her, she's furious. How can Rainbow let her escape so easily?

"Well, Phoebe, if you let me go I’ll show you something." Rainbow slowly loosens her grasp. She stares at Doctor Jackie, being sure not to let her attention falter. She’s waiting for Jackie to do something, anything, that'll give her a reason to lash out. Doctor Jackie hoofs over Rainbow's file to her, pointing at the paper. "See? Your name is officially Phoebe now." Rainbow stares into Doctor Jackie’s eyes, her own filled with fire.

Out of nowhere, she throws a right hook at the light-brown unicorn's face, sending her flying.

The doctor's body hits the wall and slumps to the ground. Rainbow starts screaming and kicking it. All the pain inside her is hitting her at once. She can't handle it. Her best friends are gone... and now Scootaloo is too? She can't make sense of any of it. She looks down at Doctor Jackie, eyes growing wide. Doctor Jackie has fainted, her body covered in blood. Rainbow can’t breathe. She slowly backs away from the body, but bumps into the desk and falls, stumbling, to the floor. Her hooves are red, sticky, and stingingly painful. Her sight starts becoming blurry as she gasps for breath, only for her throat to catch. She can only watch as two guards run into the room, one taking care of Jackie and the other dragging her out of the room.

Just like in the movies, everything turns black.

<---------->

Rainbow runs. She can see the pink pony down the hallway. Is she crying?

"Pinkie?!" she shouts, but Pinkie doesn’t answer. She can only hear her loud sobs.

"Pinkie! I’m coming!" She starts running as fast as she can. Pinkie's crying gets worse. Rainbow tries to run faster than her legs will allow her to. She trips over her own hooves and falls.

"Pinkie, help!" Pinkie doesn’t even turn around. Is she ignoring her? No, Pinkie would never ignore Rainbow. She just can't hear her, right? Rainbow can feel immense pain coursing through her legs. She tries to get up, but falls, succumbing to the burning sensation. She screams. She can see Pinkie start to disappear.

"NO!" Rainbow pulls herself up and starts running again. The pain in her legs is unbearable, but never being able to see her best friend again is worse. Through endless torture, Rainbow finally reaches her friend. She falls to the ground, almost unable to talk. The pain stings unbelievably. She reaches up, laying a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder.

"Pinkie?" she asks. 'Pinkie' turns around. Rainbow gasps in shock.

With a huge grin on her face, the elated pink pegasus asks "who’s Pinkie?"

<---------->

Phoebe’s eyes open wide. She screams herself awake. Shutting herself up, she sits up and looks around the room, worried. It takes her a while to realise where she is and that she is safe.

But are you safe? Phoebe lets out a long groan - she doesn’t want the voice to start picking on her now. She can discuss the problem with her alter-ego later. Her mind starts looking back through the nightmare. She doesn't really want to think about it, but now that she's started, she doesn't really have a choice. Pinkie Pie? Was that the pony’s name? It sounded right... but there was something weird, something not quite right about the mare. She tries to remember what was wrong, but nothing in her head pops up. Why can’t she remember anything when she tries to? She lets out another groan. It just isn’t her day today. Has it always been like this? She didn’t even get any of her questions answered.

"Would you just shut up for a sec?!" Phoebe jumps, looking at the other bed in the room. A light-pink mare with a dark-blue mane is lying in the other bed, looking annoyed with a pillow on her head.

"Do you always scream like that when you sleep?" the mare snaps at Phoebe, waiting impatiently for an answer. "Come on, it can’t take that long to answer a simple question!"

"I- I don’t know", Phoebe says quietly, looking at the floor.

"Well, you should know because if you do, I want another roomie." The mare laughs, looking confident. Unlike her roommate, Phoebe is shaking and looking around everywhere.

The mare laughs again. "By the look on your face, I can tell you're new." Phoebe nods. "Well… you look familiar." Phoebe can see that the other mare is trying to remember her. That means she must have been in the hospital before... wait! Phoebe’s eyes widen - if the mare knows who she is and Doctor Jackie finds out, something bad will happen for sure. "Oh, I remember you now! You’re Rai-"

Just in time, Phoebe blocks the mare's mouth with her hoof. "Shh!" Phoebe says. "We don’t know who can hear us!"

The mare looks at a camera in the top corner of the room. "Oh, yeah. Wait a sec." The other mare walks over to the camera. Phoebe quickly takes note of the mare’s bandaged wings... no, that question can wait for later! She realises what the light-pink mare is about to do. Just as she predicted, the mare kicks the camera, breaking it instantly.

She looks shocked. The mare starts laughing. "You should see the look on your face!" The mare falls down onto Phoebe’s bed. "So, now we can talk." Phoebe didn’t really see that coming, but she really like this mare. "We don’t have much time, Rainbow." The mare's eyes look serious and worried. Phoebe guesses what's going to happen; the mare isn't going to get off lightly for that last stunt. "What happened to you?"

"They won’t tell me, but I think I know..." Phoebe doesn’t know how to break the news to the mare. She don’t even know who she is anymore. How can she trust the other mare?

As if reading her mind, the mare takes Phoebe’s hoof, her eyes glowing. "You can tell me."

Her expression is clearly saddened as she looks into the mare's beautiful eyes. "They erased my memory."

The mare gasps and stares at Phoebe, shocked. "Are you serious?"

"Yes." They both look at the door, hearing ponies running.

"What ponies don’t do these days..." The mare sighs. Now it Phoebe's turn to ask a question.

"What's your name?" she asks.

The mare looks at Phoebe, surprised, but then she pulls a wide smile. "Try and guess."

Phoebe is instantly puzzled, "I don’t know."

"Guess." The mare looked almost as if she was daring her to guess.

Phoebe raises her voice. "I don’t know!"

The other mare does the same. "Guess!"

"Firefly, we don’t have time for this!" Phoebe yells, before freezing and letting her jaw drop.

Unlike Phoebe's, Firefly's face turns into a massive grin. She pulls Phoebe into a hug. "SIS! I knew you could do it!"

Phoebe becomes even more confused and surprised. "Sis?" she asks. Firefly wears a big smile on her face, not letting Phoebe out of the hug. The smile can only just fit her face. Suddenly, the door slams open, and four guards Phoebe hasn't seen before step in and give Firefly a cold glare. Nopony says anything. Phoebe knows what’s going to happen.

Remember? You’ve seen this so many times. Phoebe can’t focus on the voice. One of the only ponies that can tell her about her past is about to disappear, like Pinkie Pie in her dream... no, Rainbow's dream...

"Don’t worry, Rainbow. It'll be fine." Firefly lays a caring hoof on Rainbow- no, Phoebe's shoulder. She grabs the hoof hard, neither of them able to hold their tears back. Two of the guards take Firefly's front legs and start dragging her out of the room.

"NO!" Phoebe screams. She holds on, refusing to be pushed away by the two remaining guards, but it's a losing battle. She starts crying loudly. After a while, Phoebe has to give into exhaustion and let the guards drag Firefly out of the room, screaming all the while. They slam the door and lock it.

Now she's alone, Phoebe can only sit at the floor, questioning all the thoughts rushing through her mind. What will happen to her own sister? Will she have her memory erased... or worse? The more questions she asks herself, the harder it gets to stop crying. She doesn't know for how long she cries, but her vision starts to blur, and soon everything is dark, but all hope is not lost. She puts together what she knows so far, and like somepony has just pushed a button in her head, suddenly she remembers everything that happened. It's her only saving grace - the one rope she has to grab onto and climb out of the endless hole of insanity she's falling down.

Firefly, my sister… don’t worry. I’m going to find you.

End of chapter 1

Author's Note:

first i want to thank epicn00b not only for editing this, but also giving me a great start (and feel welcome) on fimfiction! I decided to leave this story open because i dont think it will handle all the press here on fimfiction, but you all are welcome to continue the story (which would be TOTALLY AWESOME! ) as long as you credit me of course! xD thanks for reading this.