Mental Break
Mental Break
"I don't know..."
"What do you mean, you don't know? What part are you having trouble understanding?"
Zell rubbed his hoof against his head, doing his best to comprehend the words on the piece of paper infront of him.
Sin adjusted his newly purchased black goggles, happy to have bought them for the high intensity light of the day. The two, plus two little brothers, were walking home from school, neither particularly concerned with the school work their teachers had given them. Zell still had trouble wrapping his head around the conscept of labor value theory vs subjective value theory.
"It's easy." Malich said, cooly. "One is the idea that there is no intrinsic value in anything, while one believes that it's the labor and time spent on something that makes its worth. C'mon Zell, it's not that hard."
"Says the pony who gets C's in history." The other colt mumbled.
"What was that?" Sin asked, turning to look at the two younger ponies.
"Nothing!" Malich barked a little too quickly. Sin's glare lingered on his brother, who turned his own eyes to the earth pony besides him, condemning him for being a tattle tale.
Zell's brother, Zen, was nothing like him, the bright aqua marine earth pony stallion was far more serious an intellectually driven than the maroon unicorn, though he was also far more cocky and insufferably smug. Sin liked the former, but he detested the latter. Malich seemed to take it in stride, though. Often putting the earth pony in his place on matters pertaining to economics and politics.
"Sin, be nice. It's Friday, and you know what that means..."
"COOKIE DAY!" Malich and Zell cheered in unison.
Sin sat beside Malich while Zell and Zen sat on the opposite side of the table. Zell's family home was a cozy little apatment barely within the Northwood City limits. Malich had made it a point to visit every Friday when Zell had introduced the two to his little brother and the two became fast friends.
It always bewildered Sin just how the family functioned in comparison to his own. The Fridays he'd go over, dinner was always had around the table with everyone present. Zells father was a mine worker for a company that would eventually be bought out by Triple M. while his mother was a stay at home care taker.
Sin had seen mothers and fathers before, but these two were something else. They were always smiling, always welcoming, always happy to see their sons and greeted both with a warm hug every day that made Malich and he more than just a little jealous. Happily enough, though, Friday was the one day of the week where Malich got to pretend he was part of an actual family.
Sin had seen how forlorn his brother was, and it warmed his heart to see the colt enjoying himself with decent parents... Even if Sin personally didn't feel comfortable when Ms. Gypse would try to scoop him up and squeeze him like a ten bill plushy.
To call the unicorn mare affectionate was an understatement.
"So, how was school?" Gypse asked.
Everyone said their piece about what had happened to them, with Malich and Zell being the main talkers as always. Zen tried a little too hard to be cool and brush everything off as unimportant or uninteresting, but a mother always had a tendency to know if something important happened or not.
Mainly because Gypse had personally asked Sin to keep an eye on both of her sons, seeing as how both had a tendency to get into some kind of trouble or another. Especially since the younger colts were entering the time of schooling where there was no more recess to work out their excess energy.
"Nothing much happened, had a whole bunch of math worksheets to do. I hate math class, I'd rather be writing." Zell stated.
"You'd rather be flirting with that mare in history." Sin teased, earning a glare.
Gypes set down a tray of cookies in her magic. "What was that? My son has a girlfriend?"
"NO!" Zell barked, his ears twitching from fluster.
"I think he diiid~" Malich sang. "COOKIE!"
The four colts helped themselves, Sin making no effort to hide his own liking for the baked goods. Fridays were good days, even to him.
"So that's why you're sucking so hard at history class." Zen chewed on his treat.
"SHUF UF!"
Gypse quirked a brow and asked what her son meant by his words, Zen informed the mare that Zell had been... struggling to pay attention, and that hid grades had slipped due to a filly's transfer into the class. Gypse turned her attention to her elder son and scowled, her magic covered the cookie he was eating and snatched it from his hooves.
Zell looked up horrified, desperately jumping up to try and snatch the cookie that had been so cruelly taken away from him. "Moooom!"
The unicorn mare shook her head. "Nope, no cookies for bad colts."
Sin frowned as he watched Zell chase after both his mother and the cookie she kept away. That didn't seem right, not in morality, but... in something else.
"HA HA! You don't get a cookie~" Malich sang, farther pushing the boundaries of Sin's tolerance. That wasn't right either.
Sin rappidly shook his head, having left the memory and returned to the white void of his mind.
"That's not what happened." He whispered. The stallion remembered Ms. Gypes, she was kind, much too kind, she didn't have a malicious bone in her body. Zell's father, Mr. Gypes, was the disciplinarian of the house hold.
Sin looked up and scowled. "Quit fucking with my memories!"
"My memories"
"My memories"
"My memories"
His words echoed into the white room until they finally trailed off into silence. There was no reply.
Why wasn't there are reply? There was always a reply! There should have been a reply!
"Where are you?" Sin barked, turning about and looking around, feeling his stress levels raise. "Show yourself! I know you're here! You're always here!"
"Always here"
"Always here"
"Never here"
"Ever here?"
The stallion was taken aback by the echo's distortion to his words. Or... were they distortions?
"I know you're there!"
"Know your there"
"Know your there"
"No one there."
His breathing growing heavy, Sin began to panic. He looked all around, left, right, up, down, circled around and did it all over again. She was here, she had to be here, she was always here. He wasn't losing it yet. He couldn't be loosing it yet, there was something he needed to do, something important he needed to do!
What was it?
WHAT WAS THAT?!
He looked to where the noise came from with wide, fretful eyes, his legs standing so stiff that his entire body quaked with anticipation stress. His ear twitched, nothing. Nothing but the ever present silence of the void.
Sin felt himself on the verge of tears now, his emotions were regaining their hold on him again, even in the waking world, irritation was starting to become an ever present friend he just couldn't get rid of. The Critic was his only sense of sanity anymore, it was the only thing that made him know feel like he wasn't drifting into what ever the Alicorn wanted of him.
It was terrifying how quiet and hard to hear the critic was becoming lately. His voice, a voice Sin almost always saw as a kind of annoying detraction, had become his sole source of comfort. The only point of reference that let the stallion know that he hadn't lost his mind just yet. How much longer would that last, though? Neither knew why, but Critic sounded... tired and wilted.
Critic didn't want Sin worrying though, worry was emotional, and emotional would only farther break down what little defense the pony had left to himself.
He wanted to hear the critic right now, he needed to hear him or someone, anyone! The silence he used to love so much was oppressive now, it was a terrifying cacophony of quiet that bore down into the stallion's very soul and tore at his will.
"Why? Why is this happening?" Sin asked, curling around himself. He'd never noticed how cold he felt here, his reverberated body heat felt nice.
"Why is this"
"Why is"
"Why"
"Why"
"Die."
Hearing the echo, the stallion lifted his head in rage. "I DIDN'T SAY DIE!"
"DIDN'T SAY DIE"
"I DIDN'T SAY DIE"
"I SAY DIE"
"I WANNA DIE!"
The words kept ringing in in his ears, the echos growing louder instead of softer like they were supposed to. Sin covered his head and closed his eyes. He didn't want to die, not yet, not right now. He' die later, when he was allowed to. He wasn't allowed to die yet, not yet. There was something he needed to do first. Something important?
No, dammit it it wasn't a damned question! It was important! And it needed to be done. But what was it again? Was it here?
"I WANNA DIE"
"I WANNA DIE"
"I WANNA DIE"
"I WANNA DIE!"
No matter how hard Sin tried to remember it, the booming sound of his voice kept him from concentrating clearly. He needed to get out of the white room, he needed to find the Critic. The critic would help, right? Of course he could, the critic always helped, but where was he? How could he find him now?
The black room! That's it!
And just like that, the oppressive booming voice was gone, as was the piercing bright light of the white room.
Sin lifted his head and observed the black space around him, thankful to finally be free of the loud noises and have a chance at clear thought once again. All of his mental facilities came back to him, and the stallion felt in control of himself once more.
'Sin, you're not supposed to be here!' His critic declared tiredly, limping out from the shadows.
Sin recoiled, the Critic had aged since last he saw him, and he didn't age well. His face was a mess of wrinkles and crowsfeet, his once dark brown mane was now completely grey and sullied, peppered with bits of black like his brother's pelt. If it hadn't been for the icey blue eyes, Sin would have thought the pony someone else entirely. It wasn't that the Critic was tired that his voice had changed, it was that he'd aged.
"Critic?"
'You need to wake up, when you're here, she's in control of your body!'
That was bad, but Sin knew he was far enough in the Everfree that he had at least some time before she could do anything, not to mention she didn't know her way out like he did.
"Sorry, but I couldn't stand the dreams any more. I don't know how much longer I can take this..."
The Critic looked at him sadly. 'I know, I thought repressing your emotions would stop this, but it seems we've only delayed the inevitable. She's already in, now, and I can't see a way to. he paused to cough. 'Stop her.'
"Nothing at all?"
Critic shook his head sadly.
Sin's mind raced, trying to find something, anything he could do, but he'd tried everything that was within his power. Meditation, manual labor to clear his mind, some calming root teas he'd made up, but nothing was working. He'd endured the dreams, the memories being rewritten in hopes that those would be the extent of it. However, Critic's condition troubled him greatly. Why was he aging? What was the point of that? It had to be the Alicorn of Insanity's work, but why?
The situation was frustrating enough that even here, he could feel his irritation growing unprecedentedly. Sin looked around, wondering where the child was.
Critic shook his head, an action that farther roused Sin's own irritations.
"Where. Is. the child?" Again, no reply. "Look, the kid's a ponyfied manifestation of my emotions, right? The Alicorn is heavily tied to my emotions as well, right? So if we-"
'If we what, Sin?' Critic asked, slumping and looking at the younger stallion with all the tired challenge he could muster. 'What do you plan to do to him? To yourself?'
Smacking him around to vent some pent up aggression would be a good starting place.
"I don't know, but he's connected to her, maybe he knows something, something neither of us do."
"You keep talking about me like we're different ponies."
The Critic sighed and stepped to the left, revealing the little colt Sin had been looking for.
"But we're not. We're the same pony, I'm a part of you."
Sin felt his temper flare but didn't act. The kid, he wasn't the sniveling pathetic wretch Sin despised so much. He was standing tall, proud and his eyes full of anger and resentment now.
"Yea, I know, I think I've admitted that-"
"NO! NO YOU HAVEN'T!" The colt yelled, marching up to Sin and looking him in the eye. "You say you have, you believe you have, but deep down you deny me! That's why I'm here, that's why I and this place exist in your mind! You hate me, you've spent your entire life denying me!"
Sin was taken aback by the response, he'd felt fear before, but the fear he felt now was different, different enough to keep him silent.
"You say you don't want to be a psychopath, but you fight a mental war at two fronts. One to deny the nature of the psychopath, and one to deny the nature of emotions! That's why you're so miserable all the time, that's why you can't let yourself be happy! You're so fixated on fighting, fighting even if it means failing or hurting the ones you love! And yes, you do love them. Spike, Mac, Shade, Uppity. You love them, but you wont allow yourself to really feel it. You'd rather fight it and remain broken because that's what you know, that's what you do. You like to be broken, secretly feeling a resentfulness for yourself to fight too. Fighting, fighting, fighting, that's all you ever do!"
"Shut up, kid. You don't kn-"
"No, YOU SHUT UP!" Sin took another step back, seeing the kids eyes flash a terrifying teal. "I'm sick and tired of the way you treat yourself, how you treat me! You think it's your denial of emotions that stopped her? Are you that fucking retarded? She was kept in check because I fucking willed it! Because I saw you making progress with your friends and Uppity. You were accepting me, for once in your life, you allowed me to be free, to feel and be felt."
The kid's eyes were misty with threatening tears now. His body was trembling and his lip quivered with emotion. The kid's breathing was the only sound for a while, his gasping, borderline sobbing breaths filled Sin with an uncomfortable dread. "I messed up... I messed up when you were in the dungeons. I thought we were going to prison."
The colts eyes widened in fear. "I thought we were never going to see our friends again. No more Uppity, no more Macintosh or Spike, no more of the guys at the mill, no more anything! You made it sound so terrible in prison, like there was no hope at all! I'm sorry that I slipped up there, but I didn't know how to handle it. She... she just got the better of me."
To call the revelation shocking was an understatement. Him? The kid, what Sin considered the weakest part of himself was the one who really kept him sane? The part of him that protected his mind from the greatest threat his mind had ever faced?
Sin turned his attention to the Critic. "Did you know about this?"
Critic shook his head, turning his stunned face back to the colt.
"I didn't tell him, just like I didn't tell you."
Sin stepped forward, a mistake he'd only realized when the colt looked up at him with teal serpentine eyes. "Stay back!"
Stopping, the stallion sat down in an attempt to reduce how threatening he was. "Kid, listen to me. If what you're telling me is true, then you need to get her back under control."
"Why?" The colt asked defiantly. "Why should I help you now? So you can go on denying me like you used to? This is the first time we've ever talked with out you kicking the crap out of me!"
Sin felt a sting at the colts words, but didn't have time to indulge it. They needed to work together here if they were going to subdue the nightmare,
"And then what? You go through life alone again like you used to? Constantly running away from the law and me? No! At least with her, I can be free! Even if it's under her control and not yours!"
'Kid, listen to him.' Critic said, finally finding his voice. 'The Alicorn of Insanity will turn on you, you know this.'
The child glared at Critic. "After years and years of being kicked around by him-" He pointed an accusatory hoof "Stuffed away, left to suffer in silence and neglect, you think I care? I tasted freedom because of her, I want to be free! I want to be accepted and cared about!"
"Look, kid. I'm sorry, alright? Can we please talk about this after you've done something to stop her? I promise, I'll do what you ask if you just get her under control."
"LIAR!" The colt snarled.
Sin felt himself lifted up by an unknown force and slammed down onto the floor on his side. There was no pain to accompany the ear ringing force that accompanied his fall, but there was more than a little mental duress.
He lifted his head and found the colt smiling cruelly down at him. "How does it feel, huh?"
The force grabbed him again, lifting him up and slamming the stallion down on the floor with a crash. Again, no physical pain, but still alot of mental discomfort.
"You like that? Huh?! How does it feel to be powerless in your own mind? To have yourself psychologically abused and tossed about?! How do you like it?!"
Another slam, and then another, and another. Critic was yelling now, trying to reason with the emotional personification to get him to stop, but the colt was drunk on the power to finally take revenge on Sin for all the abuse and neglect the stallion had given him. With every slam, the colt's face slowly began to turn, his initial expression cruel mania shifted to anger, and then from anger to frustration and finally finished in a desperate expression of tears.
The shock value had worn off after the first few times Sin kissed the ground. With every slam, Sin thought more and more on the young colt's words. Did he really like being broken? Yes, yes he did. He didn't know how not to be broken, he was comfortable in that kind of suffering. Spike once compared him to Twilight in emotional reclusiveness, but the major difference between the two was that Sin's problem was one he clung to as part of himself, while Twilight was still open to the concept.
Sin didn't know how to be whole, he was afraid of what would happen when he was taken from his comfort zone. Emotions were denied most of his life, but that left him feeling empty, an emptiness he tried to fill with moral, economic and political knowledge. Though, he knew now that such things would never fill that emptiness. Only one thing ever had, and that was when he'd interacted with his friends, especially Uppity. And that sense of fulfillment terrified him.
He fell to the ground once more and wasn't lifted back up. He heard the kid crying now, sobbing and wailing away.
Laying on the ground, Sin's mind continued to connect the dots. The kid had a right to be angry with him, after everything he'd done. But what was he supposed to do? Being an adult without a cutie mark was a pretty dead give away to who he was to anyone looking for him, even if he sought company elsewhere. Macintosh and Spike would likely hold his secret, but what would happen if they were discovered? Could he live with knowing they were imprisoned because of him?
"What do you want me to do?" Sin asked.
"What do you think I want?! I want Uppity and Spike and Macintosh! I want friends! I want love! I want acceptance!"
The stallion sighed. "You know I cannot do that." Sin lifted his head and looked at the colt. "You know that Ponyville is the first place the guard will look for me. If they find me, I'll be going right back to the dungeons. No friends and no freedom."
Glowering, the colt huffed. "Fine, but I want friends! I want real friends, friends that you can be real around, not fake like you've always been."
Again, an impossible task, but at least it was a condition. A condition meant a deal could be made.
"I'll need time." He stood up, the assault doing absolutely nothing to impair his movements. "I'll need time, and a clear head. If you can get the Alicorn to leave me to a good night's sleep and stop rewriting my memories, I promise, as soon as Macintosh's wedding is over, I'll go to a new town and find... friends."
Glaring, the pegasus colt pressed his lips and eyed Sin skeptically. His face contorting in thought as to the viability of the stallion's claim. "You promise?"
"I promise."
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6867749 Exactly!
What's going on at the moment.
Oh good. More Zell.
Tough subject.
ooo. I'm so disappointed in you Malich. You got a "C" on my favorite school subject. Not cool.
Oh great, another Sheldon from Big Bang Theory?
Standard 1950's family. Nice.
.....Don't know what to say.
O.O......That is every kid's worst nightmare.
On a side note. This cookie fiasco with Zell and Malich made me giggle. I haven't seen this adorable whining in a while.
Ditto.
Maybe she is trying to catch you off guard?
Now she is screwing with him.
This is not looking good.
This battle for the mind is progressively becoming harder to win. C'mon Sin!
What the fuck?!
Sin better finish his business fast and leave ASAP then.
Well that's just honkidory.
To kill him, if my guess is correct.
This is going to be irritating for Sin.
okaaaay.
.........I'm speechless.
To call this ironic is a big understatement.
OOO *GIBERISH NONESENSE* fuuuuuuuuuck.
Ah crap.
hmm.
When you try to deny emotions in order to avoid pain sadness, you also deny yourself joy, laughter, happiness, etc.
I guess Slamming Sin around was the emotional kid's cathartic moment.
Understandable hesitation.
Why do I have a feeling that it is not going to be that simple?
............Well.......this emotional personification.........I actually like it and......the whole logical and emotional manifestations that you have written seems to make a whole lot of sense when applied to real life.....after reading this chapter, consider my mind having a.....reflective time.