Fractured Paradigm
The clock on the wall read two thirty in the morning. The entire room smelled like sterility, it couldn’t help but remind one of a surgery room or a doctor’s office. The carpet was barely existent, and was more like a few layers of fabric between the chairs and hard cement floor beneath. It was hot in there, unbearably hot, it made one want to sweat bullets and drink them, so as to cure their dry throat with the salty liquid. The blue carpeting, the oaken furniture, the smell like the surgical tools of a mortician, all if it was enough to make one nauseous. The finishing touches were the bright lighting, and the inhumanely white walls that spat acid in the eyes of anyone who dared to look at them for too long. In a chair in front of the oaken desk was a colt, a young pegasus colt with bright green eyes, a moss-colored mane and a pencil on paper for a Cutie Mark. His lime coat was wet with the uncomfortable moisture owed to his perspiration, and how long he’d been forced to sit there until a unicorn mare, about forty years old, with brown eyes and a dull earthen coat, walked in and sat down on the chair across from him, regarding the foal with cold, intelligent eyes.
The pegasus colt wrinkled his nose as the wind carried her scent to him; she reeked of rust, like dried blood to him. It was hidden under numerous layers of sanitizer and soap, but one could still make out the notable stench of corroded metal. The colt knew what made that smell, and it wasn’t a very pleasant thing. He averted his eyes and stared at the floor shyly, not wanting to look into his hostess’ cruel gaze for even a moment. His posture in the chair was meek. His back was slightly hunched, like he’s spent many long days at a desk writing. It wasn’t noticeable to anypony not paying attention, but it did make him seem much smaller to anyone who would glance at him. His wings fluttered, showing to the mare that he didn’t want to be there, and that he wanted to be home, where he knew what was going on.
The clock on the wall read two forty in the morning when the mare leaned over her desk and said to him, in a way that made him cringe. “Do you know why you’re here?” She asked, her voice oozing contempt for him. “Because judging by your records I’d say that you’re here for delinquent reasons.”
The colt didn’t reply, just kept examining the room around him. Something about the mare spoke to him, told him that she wasn’t anypony he ever wanted to meet. She had a cruel voice, and she moved in a way that breathed arrogance and overwhelming vanity into the air around her. Her aura was that of pride, and a staggering belief that she was more worthy than all others.
“Well, since you don’t seem to want to talk.” She chirped, forcing him to wince again. “I’ll just tell you why you’re here. You were caught with these.”
She slid notebooks over the desk to him, ones that had, in large cursive font, the words ‘Inopurtanae’ written on the cover. The colt looked at the notebooks from his seat, reading the words in front of him. He bit his bottom lip, eyes washing with unspent tears. He knew what was in those notebooks. All of his thoughts were in there, everything that ever happened to him. They contained his fantasies, his world of imagination. They had everything that he wished would happen to him, and everything that he’d ever dreamed of doing. If they had those, that meant they’d read them, and thus his entire life was an open book to whomever had sent him here, and anypony who’d bothered to open the cover of one.
“The things I read in those are the most despicable things I’ve ever heard of.” The mare said, attempting sound sympathetic, but he could still hear the concealed sneer in the sentence. “Do you know where you are right now?”
He shook his head, struggling to rein in his emotions. A single tear slid down his cheek as he desperately attempted to contain the unimaginably intense wave of sickness that had just rolled over him. He felt violated, like everything he’d ever thought was sacred was being skinned in front of him and hung out to dry in the sun for all to see. His sense of pride fell to pieces, knowing that everything he’d ever done was right in front of her. If she wanted to know if he was lying she could just open to the page with the date and find out if he was telling her the truth. The worst part was the shame; it burned him with the fiery breath like a thousand hounds from hell. He could feel his skin blistering, turning red on his cheeks as he realized that every thought he’d ever had about himself was available and at her disposal. It felt like someone had pillaged his memories and picked out everything that was despicable, everything that made him the introverted, withdrawn colt that he was.
“Well, since you seem to be having a breakdown.” She said apathetically. “You’re in the Canterlot House for the mentally unwell, and you’ve been sent here due to a diagnosis a psychologist your family sent these to issued. He wrote you down as ‘terminally masochistic’. Do you know what the full report he gave to us said?”
The colt couldn’t look at her; he hid his face behind a wing, tears freely rushing down his face, almost unable to stop from sobbing miserably. He buried his head in his wing; the only comfort he could give himself.
“The full report is as follows.” The mare said, clearing her throat with a loud ‘ahem’. “Emerald Eraser is a socially and sexually disturbed young colt that idolizes any form of social interaction. He has been left alone for so much of his life that he feels the need to compulsively lie about anything if he is actually asked something by anypony that bothers to notice him. In these notebooks he describes how he freely leaves his home at night and writes poems about his experiences, and often sits on rooftops and listens to the sound of everything around him. That unto itself is not merit for my diagnosis. What is, though, is what one can find in one specific notepad bound in black leather. In this volume he details a colt that looks much like him, except he is the servant of royalty, and every night he wakes up as this character in this story. His hirer is a prince by the name of Solar Flare (*which to the best of my knowledge and the public archive, no such pony exists*), and the two have a great number of adventures together. In my reading there seems to be one continued theme, though. Emerald is both unable to distinguish this story from reality, and throughout the entirety of the story he is oftentimes abused, and ordered to be abused by other characters, by Solar Flare. He is also treated with a great number of body/mind-altering potions, all of which he takes willingly to please his prince.
This is the true reason for my diagnosis. He seems to idolize the attention of this fictional character, but if here, in reality, he ever were to find a pony he admired just as much, I fear that it wouldn’t take long for him to fall into the same disposition his imaginary self has. He would be unable to have a personal will, and the depictions in these novels are extremely graphic, and most of them involve him being in lucid fits of pain in order to please his fictional prince. No colt should know about most of the things that he writes about, and these potions, and the way one makes these potions and enchantments, are all explained in explicit detail, leading me to believe that he already had tried most of them, and is capable of doing so again. Thus, he is not only unable to distinguish his fictional reality from this one, he is able to put himself through the same events that are explained in this realm he’s created in his own mind. He should be put under constant watch, and in a room with nothing that can allow for his escape. He isn’t suicidal, but he is thoroughly convinced that he needs to go out and chronicle anything that this imaginary prince tells him to, including how to make these potions and perform these enchantments. He could easily hurt himself, and all he needs is a utensil for writing to do so. I assign him this diagnosis so that it will prevent him from coming to harm, and will one day allow him to return to society as a mentally stable young stallion. Until he is reformed, though, I can only diagnose him and hope your staff can make the proper arrangements. Signed, Dr. Whitewing.”
Emerald Eraser had his face buried in his hooves, curled into a ball of anguish in his seat. He didn’t want any of this; he’d just wanted to let his imagination make a world for him that was better than what it really was. He’d wanted to be appreciated, and have a real talent at something that wasn’t as trivial as writing. He sobbed into his arms, wishing that he could disappear, that he had his notebooks back. More than anything he wanted his notebooks. He wanted that special connection with somepony that he knew, somewhere inside of him, was real. Nothing he said would help him, and he was locked into the room that he sat in, so in his grief he had little choice but to cry tears of pain and loneliness as the mare rose from her desk and sighed, motioning for two larger ponies to come in.
The grief-stricken colt was picked up easily, with his hollow bones and small frame, and carried out of the room with magic. He hated the sensation of being levitated. He felt helpless enough that he had been put on display for all to see back in the office, but this didn’t help his feeling of purposelessness. He didn’t resist, he just kept whispering his prince’s name over and over again. This wasn’t fair. He’d known, somewhere, maybe in another universe, that there was a stallion named Solar Flare, one that loved him very much, and valued his assistance. That there was somepony that cared about him, somewhere. But nothing could prevent what was happening right now.
The mare that had picked him up opened a door set into a cement wall on the far side of a long corridor and set him inside the room. It was blank; there was nothing on the walls or ceiling, not a single thing for him to write with. He looked up at them as they closed the doors and saw their faces. They were smiling at him, nay, sneering their contempt for the little freak who’d had a dream of being known. Who had wanted nothing more than a pony who would love him for who he was, useless talent and all. The door slammed loudly in his face, leaving him alone on the floor of the cold, dark room. To the left of the door was the engraving in the wall, apparently scratched in by bare hooves, as a small amount of blood could be seen running downwards from every letter. It said, in dull monotype print. ‘Cell 42’.
He got up and sulked over to the far corner of the dim room, only lit by the slot in the door that he could open or close at his own discretion. The only choice he seemed to be given in this place. He cried, tears of pain hitting the floor. The sounds of them touching the cement were like cannonfire to his ears, the bare room amplifying the light ‘plip’ to the point where he felt like jamming sowing needles through his eardrums so to not hear them. His own sobs sounded like the cacophony of a thousand wailing orchestras, all playing the same discordant tune of misery. He set his head in the corner, tucking his wings as close to his body as possible, making himself into a tiny singularity of anguish and pain.
Then, like the final candle of hope being snuffed out, a guard walked by and closed the slot in the door, leaving him to sit forever in the darkness.