Choice

by AnOrdinaryWriter

45

“Hmm…” Twilight falls silent as she ponders over your response. “Well even if that is the case I still want to test my hypothesis. I have no clue what the extent of this phenomenon’s power is so we need to act quickly.”

Twilight walks up to the metal table and gestures to it with a hoof. “I need you to lie on top of this machine. Then I’ll strap you in and hopefully we’ll get a promising response.”

You look at the machine with reluctance. She wants to strap you into that and test you? From the sound of things, she hasn’t tested this thing yet, which leads you to question the safety of this process. But you chose to help her earlier, and if it leads to solving Twilight’s time loop issue, then it’s worth it in the end.

Lifting yourself onto the table, you lie down flat on your back, the cool touch of metal on your back making you shiver. Eventually your body heat warms it up, and while it’s not particularly comfortable, it’s a little more bearable.

Twilight lights her horn, and you feel the straps on the corners of the table wrap themselves around your hooves, restraining you to the table. Lifting your head as far as you can, you can see Twilight walking toward the terminal and keyboard, typing what you assume to be some sort of code judging by the numbers and unfamiliar assortment of words and brackets on the terminal screen.

Suddenly, the whole table shakes briefly, and then begins to rotate slowly. You hear the soft whir of the gears below the table as it tilts toward a vertical position. The straps keep you from falling, but the tugging against your forelegs is slightly irritating. The machine then lurches and goes still, leaving you hung on the table watching as Twilight continues to type away at the keyboard.

“This machine is infused with a spell of mine that will be able to bypass the fabric of space and time. My current theory is that you’re being used as a sort of… host for whatever anomaly is causing this time loop, so with you strapped to the machine, I should be able to detect the anomaly and vanquish it.”

You watch as Twilight punches away at the keys, unsure about this whole thing, but as a positive, it seems like she knows, or at least somewhat knows what she’s doing.

She finally stops typing and looks at you. “First I’m going to run a quick ten second scan on you before we begin the actual test. If you feel a tiny sting, don’t worry about it.”

She presses a single key on the keyboard, and the sting she talked about bites your hooves where the straps are attached. When you look over at the terminal, you see lines of zeros and ones appearing on the screen. You don’t understand a thing on the screen, but strangely enough, neither does Twilight as her brow furrows at the result on the terminal.

“That can’t be right...” Twilight says, watcYOUR MACHINE IS NOT GOING TO WORK, TWILIGHT. YOU’RE MAKING THINGS WORSE.hing the numbers continue on and on past the bottom of the screen. “I didn’t program this machine to do that...”

After ten seconds pass, the appearance of zeros and ones stop abruptly, as does the sting in your hooves. Twilight stares at the terminal, trying to make out what it could possibly mean. But as she examines it, she freezes, seeming to notice something unusual, before typing something else. The binary on the terminal disappears and text takes its place.

“Binary code? What the hay…?” Twilight mutters puzzledly before reading out what’s on the terminal. “and the sting she talked about bites your hooves where the straps are attached. When you look over at the terminal, you see lines of zeroes and ones appearing on the screen… what in the world?”

‘What in the world’ is exactly what you’re thinking. From the sound of what she reads, the text is describing the events that occured after starting the scan. In fact, it’s like it’s describing you in particular…

As Twilight reads, her eyes slowly rise, expression going from pure confusion to fear. “Your machine is not going to work, Twilight. You’re making things… worse...” She stops there, glancing at you for a moment, giving you a good view of the panic in her face. Then her hooves rush back to the keyboard. The paragraphs on the screen disappear and the dark image that replaces it fills with the code Twilight types out.

“We can’t waste anymore time,” Twilight says with determination in her voice. “I know it’s there now, I just need to activate the machine.”

You don’t know what it is, but a huge part of you suddenly screams that what she’s doing is a bad idea. You immediately try to free yourself from the straps, but they hold unusually tightly. Your continuous struggle is fruitless as Twilight finishes typing whatever she’s typing, and then steps toward the lever next to the keyboard.

“This might hurt, but trust me, it’s for the greater good.” Twilight grips the lever as you do everything you can to get out of your restraints and stop Twilight from pulling the lever. “I’m going to pull on three. One… Two...”

All of a sudden, the room darkens substantially, and a black ink-like fog gushes down the staircase at the entrance of the lab. Twilight doesn’t notice any of it as she takes in a nervous breath and steels her nerves.

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ñÿ þ}þ™ ¹ÿ%ÿaÿÂÿÙþtþen noÿRÿY&ou open your eyes. Your mind is fuzzy, and you feel lightheaded, but you have the energy to push yourself off the floor. As you get up, you hear the sound of clinking against the ground, and look down to see glass and metal shards scattered along the tiled floor. Confusion hits you like a sack of bricks. All you remember is pulling the lever and now you’re suddenly on the ground... had you passed out?

The stench of smoke fills your nostrils as you stand. It takes another moment for your surroundings to focus. When you do, your heart drops, eyes contracting to pinpoints.

The machine is destroyed, a plume of smoke rising from the top and progressively spreading throughout the basement. The shape of it is malformed and looked as though it had literally imploded, now an unrecognizable version of what it once was. The wire that leads to the vertical metal table is in flames, and hanging from the table is the Ù$h%#& colored pony, hanging limp in the straps, not moving, nor breathing.

Your eyes simply glide between the destroyed machine and the pony who hangs there dead as though crucified. The experiment had failed miserably. What have you done…?

It’s okay, you tell yourself. No worries, in a few hours, the day will just reset and then none of this will have ever happened. Yes, that’s what you’ll do. All there is to do now is wait.

You decide that the best course of action in the meantime is to discover what went wrong with the machine. The appearance of words on the terminal gives you confidence that you’re getting somewhere. It may take a few more loops but you are sure now that you’ll be able to restore everything to the way they once were.

You’re about to head toward the stairs leading up to the main floor of the castle when you stop. Everything suddenly feels colder, and unnatural. The air doesn’t feel right. It feels thicker. Different.

Wrong.

You talk to yourself to reassure yourself that everything is fine—that it’s just the shock of the pony’s death and the unexpected blackout. Your blood goes cold. No words come out of your mouth. You try to speak again. No sounds are produced. You can’t speak… why can’t you speak?!

The room is colder now. Your breath is cold too. The room is getting dimmer. You think it's the smoke blocking out the light from the lamps above, until you discover that the smoke hasn’t spread enough. It’s getting darker. Darker. Colder.

You turn around, tripping over your own hooves as you stagger toward the staiÐì×Øâ¥You fall backward, a spike of pain stabbing through your head as you tumble to the ground. Cursing yourself for being clumsy, you place your hooves on the ground to get back up.

You can’t see your hooves…

You feel your hooves in front of you but you can’t see them. They’re invisible. You look further down. You can’t see your body. You can’t see any of your features--your Œò$ñË colored fur and… and…

You can’t remember what you looked like.

You dig through your memories, but you can’t remember any of your physical traits. Your color, your race, your gender, size, weight, voice.

You can’t remember your name.

You know you have a name. Your friends and family have said it so many times. You remember your friend’s names. Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie. You remember what they look like. So why can’t you remember who you are?!

The room is freezing. The darkness has shadowed every corner of the room.

You drag yourself over to the glass shards, hoping to see at least some detail of what you look like in the reflection. Your whole body trembles from the cold. The room gets darker. The computers in the room have faded in the black mist.

You pick up one of the glass shards and look into it. You stare. You keep staring at your reflection. Your reflection. YOÆ%ÎUs&R reflection. You drop the shard. Your breathing gets heavier. You call for help, but you can’t hear your voice. You try to move. You’re frozen in place. The rope holding your sanity together snaps.

FRËAK ØUT___________________________________________________________________________________________FŔE@K OÙT