How long has he been out?

Never longer than ten minutes. After that, the girl always broke up with him.

Quade, now’s not the time. This is serious, I need to know how long Mark’s been unconscious.

Quade sighed and looked at his watch. I dunno. Somewhere around an hour and a half.

You see what I mean? You guys always leave me out! You forget about me! Quinn broke into tears, sobbing into her hands. Prime patted Quinn on the back.

Don’t worry, Quinn. I was in your position once. It all got resolved.

You were fifth in line for subconsciouses?

Never fifth. I started off as fourth. But, well, Doug kinda… Well, we don’t like to talk about the Jenga Incident.

Terrance looked up at Prime. I heard something about Jenga! I wanna play!

Aren’t you playing Go Fish, like, right now?

Terrance’s eyes widened in realization. After a moment, he came to. Shut up.

In response, Quade simply rolled his eyes. Prime, what, per say, was the Jenga Incident?

That’s not important.

Ditto. Do you have any threes?

Go fish.

Doug looked up from his hand. He peered quizzically at Terrance. You’re bluffing.

No I’m not! Go fish, dang it! Terrance reached over to his cup, taking a sip of his apple juice, which he had earlier put red food dye in. Terrance made a thing of always putting a different color of food dye into his drinks. Terrance loved that kind of fun thing.

I just wanna feel loved! Quinn was crying heavier into her hands now, trying to get Prime’s and Quade’s attention.

Wow, lying to me, too! You know what I do to bluffers? And, less often, liars?

Doug, did you even think about any of what you just said? Lying and bluffing are the exact same thing!

Deceit!

I mean, honestly, I’m trying my hardest to fit in, but you guys just push me away? What does a girl have to do to have friends around here?!

Quinn, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to strangle you. I can’t focus on this game with you blabbering on pointlessly!

You guys make me feel awful! You prefer a game of Go Fish rather than actually listen to me!

Quinn, you don’t want a repeat of the duct tape incident, do you? Trust me, Quinn. Don’t get on Doug’s nerves. He won’t hesitate to-

Anyway, Doug interrupted, do you know what I do to those people?

Terrance eyeballed Doug skeptically, raising his right eyebrow. Take them ice skating?

I KI-

THAT’S ENOUGH, DOUG! You don’t want a repeat of the admittance incident!

These incidents are a little suspicious. Does anyone care to explain any of this to me?

Don’t ask that question, Quade!

Is “Quade” even a name? Wait, why shouldn’t I ask that?

It is. I looked it up.

I can’t stand to see the Incident Occurrence happen again. Wait, how could you have looked it up? You’re the tertiary subconscious.

I have to ask the same question. How?

You and Doug weren’t paying attention one night when Mark was sleeping, so I decided to go see what I could do on the computer…

So you decided the best way to spend your time was to look up names?!

I wanted to see if there were any names even remotely related to the number 4…

See?! Not even number 5! You guys NEVER do ANYTHING for me!

4 is more fun of a number than 5.

Aww, come on, 4 isn’t even prime!

Wait, what? No, I’m 1.

Wait, 1 isn’t a prime number. If it was, there would be an infinite amount of combinations of factors you could multiply to get a composite number, which goes completely against the definition of a prime number.

The other four simply stared at Quade. Finally, they all let out a simultaneous “Huh?”

Save for Quinn, of course, who immediately starting crying about how Quade always had to prove that he was smarter than her, and how Terrance had to prove he was more fun than her, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of names, what does my name have to do with anything? I mean, your names all have to do with your number, but mine is just ‘Doug.’ What gives?

Doug, you’re a jerk and a murderer- don’t ask, Quade. You don’t deserve any thought to be put into your name.

You see why I wanna kill him, Terrance?

Doug, you wanna kill everyone. That doesn’t make it fun for us. Terrance drew a card from the mound of cards in the middle of the table. The corners of his lips turned upwards. He slammed down his last card, immediately pumping his fists in the air, celebrating his victory. I WIN! SUCK IT, DOUG, I WIN! FINALLY! WOOHOO! I win, you lose, nanananaboobo- BANG! Terrance fell to the ground, and there was the sound of glass shattering. Everyone froze and turned to face Doug.

Doug, you’re such a sore loser.

Oh no! Now I’m traumatized! How can I ever go on with my life after this horrible experience?!

Calm down, Quinn. He missed me. Too bad I spilled my apple juice, though. What a waste…

I have more ammo.

Doug, that’s a water squirter.

What? No it’s no-WHA…?! Upon looking down, he found that his toy gun that made a “BANG!” noise had been replaced with a water pistol. How does that even happen?

It suddenly occurred to the narrator that this story had definitely earned its ‘Teen’ rating on FIMFiction.net by now, what with Doug’s violent character and strange obsession with ~~killing~~ ridding the world of Mark’s other subconsciouses. Though the narrator had gone back and cleaned up the first chapter, he had just gone and thrown that away in this ninth chapter.

Of course, any logical plot had been thrown out the window in the eighth chapter, putting this story beyond redemption. Still, why not keep it going? After all, the narrator had to get his fourth wall breaks out somewhere, so why not here?

I opened my eyes slowly, groggily coming to. Above me were white tiles, speckled with black markings. I’d say they were black dots, but they were placed really randomly on the ceiling. “Huh,” I said, rubbing my head. I stopped when I saw what was on my arm – it was a cast. Wait, didn’t I hit my face? I looked up to see Rarity had been watching me worriedly, making sure I was okay.

“Mark! You’re up!” Rarity shouted. She wrapped her hooves around me, glad to see I was awake. It was nice to be hugged by Rarity, as you would expect. Normally, the warmth of her heart is just so infectious. Once it touches you, it fills your whole body with warmth. It’s indescribable.

This time was different. It was like she was still Rarity, but the warmth wasn’t right. It felt like all true emotion had been sucked out of her through a tube or something. Normally, seeing her smile would warm your heart, but right then, it was just so… empty. I don’t know why it was, but it was just not there. She was faking it, all of it. I suppose I had felt the same way when she visited my earlier, but I hadn’t exactly determined what it was I felt then.

But the weirdest part was that the warmth was still there. It was still there, as if it was artificially made, compacted into one of those sprayable cheese cans, and subsequently had a label that read “Love Spray” on it. (And, yes, I heard it as soon as I said it. Let’s move on.)

I knew it wasn’t her, but I decided it might be fore the best if I played along.

“I just had the weirdest dream, Rarity. There were five of me – Prime, Doug, Terrance, Quade – is that even a name? – and Quinn. Doug and Terrance were paying an intense game of Go Fish, and Quinn was crying to Prime and Quade about how everyone ignores her, and they were ignoring her! Then, Terrance beat Doug and was all like ‘Nanananabooboo!’ but then Doug shot him with a toy gun, and Terrance fell to the floor, spilling his red apple juice. But then, Terrance wasn’t even dead and said he missed, and Doug was like ‘I still have plenty of ammo!’ Terrance was like ‘That’s a water pistol,’ and when Doug looked back at his toy gun, it was replaced with another toy gun, which was a water pistol…”

“Oh, really? How weird.”

“Oh, but it gets weirder. The whole thing was in the third-person! I wasn’t even there, I was sort of just watching these events going down!”

“Oh, good, good!” Rarity exclaimed.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just glad that…” Rarity bit her lip, starting to sweat. “I’m just glad that… that… you’re… exercising your imagination! Yes, that!”

“Uh, thanks?” I’m not stupid. I heard what she said. Assuming she’s actually female. Still, I wasn’t going to take any chances with this pony. You never know when somepony you know and love has been replaced.

“You’re very welcome, Marty!”

“I’m sorry?” Okay, come on! That one was a dead giveaway!

“I said you’re welcome, Mark! Yes, that!”

“Why do you keep saying ‘Yes, that’? Is it, like, your catchphrase now?”

“Yes.”

Rarity paused, momentarily dazed. She was seemingly staring off into space, as if she had seen a planet made out of dresses, and was simply appalled by all of the wrinkles they would get. Suddenly, she shook her head vigorously. Her mane flew back and forth in unison, as if it absolutely refused to go against how Rarity combed it.

Rarity said one final word, having gotten over her sudden shock. “That.”

The room was dark. The soft hum of a computer was the only sound in the room, except for the occasional clicking on the keyboard. The monitor’s light dimly showed the teacher’s facial features, furiously trying to figure out a certain math problem.

There was a rhythmical knock on the office’s door. “May I come in, ma’am?” asked a beautiful, sophisticated voice, clearly female. There was a certain singsong feel to it, but it also radiated an evil feel.

“That was the knock, so yes,” said the teacher, biting her tongue as she focused on the problem.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. It’s safe,” said the teacher.

“Good,” said the guest, her voice getting slightly scratchy at the end. “I did what you asked,” she said, her voice shifting rapidly to an ugly, gravely voice that a cockroach might have if it could speak.

“Good,” said the teacher, turning her chair around to face the visitor. “I have a task for you for second semester.”

“What’s that?” asked the visitor.

The teacher smiled, though the visitor wouldn’t have been able to see it, since she was turned away from the computer monitor. She started cackling evilly, and followed it with a question, deeming the cackle completely inappropriate. “You said you liked being challenged, right?”

Author's Note

Yes, Quade is actually a real name. No, I’m not joking. Google it sometime. Also, Google some names relating to the number 2. See if you can outdo Doug. Not that I’m going to use it. Doug doesn’t deserve a well-thought-out name.