Friction fitting

Chapters

panic and other related useless emotions
To be healed, to be corrupted
the softest bed in the coldest room
division of responsibility
Who am I?
New curtains, same old window
Perpetual optimism
We reap what we sow.

panic and other related useless emotions

chapter 1[title: panic and other related useless emotions.]/

I woke to screaming. I was screaming. There was no conscious thought to scream, but I could not stop as I threw myself from my bed and crashed through my nightstand, blue and grey filling the edges of my vision. A feral growl escaped me in between thrashing and kicking myself free from the suffocating feeling that I woke to.
With a tremendous rip I felt myself come free in a way that seemed more like a mutation, a twisted bursting from a cocoon I had never crawled into. My world fell sideways as I threw myself away from a pale sky blue shape creeping up on me from below.

They know.

The voice demanded, screamed without changing tone directly into my mind. It was right. They knew. They all knew and I had to hide it, they couldn’t know, they couldn’t figure it out. I turned sharply, my head whipping heavily towards a closet door that stood slanted open and reflecting the far corner of my room, an anger filling me as I realized I would have to break the mirror for it’s disobedience, before I thought it through a second time, my face screwing up in confusion.

No. That’s not right. That’s not what needs to happen at all.

With a shaking uncertainty on hefting limbs I felt were wrong and that I did not understand, I forced my point of view vertical so the world behaved itself, my mind swimming as I stumbled roughly towards the mirror, my every sense screaming terror at alien emotions and motions my muscles took in order to do so, my few thoughts focusing on seeing myself, because something was wrong.

You are wrong.

She was right, of course she was right, she knew and she will always know, I must help her...

Her... Who is ‘she’? Who is speaking to me? Why do I agree with them? This is wrong. This is terrible, no I am not wrong. Something else is wrong and I’ve been caught up in it. This isn’t my fault. This isn’t fair...

I finally met with the heavy wooden door and pushed it closed so I could see myself.

Kind violet eyes hiding such crippling pain. Hair, mane? A mane torn and frayed by panic and fear. front right hoof raised in hesitant greeting, front left grinding into the scratchy and cold carpet in a neurotic pattern. Twist left, twist right, twist right, slide forward, slide back, slide right, pick up and move to center. Repeat. Soothing, it was a calming motion, something that needed to happen, something that distracted me from tears dropping from my eyes as I watched those same tears fall in the reflection of a tired and noble mare, brought low by a secret, brought low by a system that cares for the safety of others more than the truth. The neverending truth.

It was so cold. I hadn’t realized it until I turned off the shower and felt the warm air of my apartment flow over me. I shook, this body shook and shivered as strange stubs threw themselves over the edge of a bathtub I found myself in. Without thought they heaved and I landed on the other side of the icy white wall, frantic looks around the room confirming that I was alone despite the feeling of being watched by a disapproving and furious taskmaster. The voices were just whispers slightly beyond comprehension, I pulled down a towel with my teeth and curled up under its protective white plush, my shivers slowly subsiding as I drifted into sleep.

I woke instantly, feeling no more refreshed, as though shaken awake by an invisible force. I blinked slowly, trying to get my bearings, trying to drown out the static as I finished drying myself, finished drying this foreign body so unfairly thrust upon me.

Slowly I made my way through the dirty and neglected apartment to my bedroom, where I flipped open a wallet tossed carelessly into the mess of splinters I had landed on. Some of the splinters were red, then I slowly realized that I was bleeding. How had I missed that? It sure seemed important then, but before it had been such a minor inconvenience I hadn’t even bothered to remember. Now my eyes traced the trail of blood drops through the house, examining with a critical eye the towel I wore for total liquid content.

Roughly an ounce through the apartment, maybe another one or two in the towel.

I decided with a dull equation of blood loss and inability to repair my own damage to call someone. Not the police of course, I need not bother them with such trivial things. An ambulance would only steal me away in the night and replace my mind with shards of pain and awareness so crippling, I don’t want to understand. I didn’t want to understand. I decided to call for food. I was hungry.

“Papa John’s, what can I get for you tonight?”

For a moment I pondered the time. It must be night time. No wonder I was so tired, so sleepy and warm in the blanket I had wrapped around myself, the cheerful red spreading across the cream-colored sponge-like material.

“I need a pizza,” I whispered, my voice making me cringe.

“Of course. What size?”

“I’ve lost a lot of blood...” I growled, the inconvenience of it all angering me. “So probably a large.”

“I’m sorry Ma’am, what was that?” Panic slipped into her voice. Unnecessary, emotional, useless.

“I said, I’ve lost a lot of blood!” I screamed. “So probably a large!”

“Ma’am where are you?” she asked, more emotion pouring over her voice and only making me angrier, I snarled as I dropped the phone, barking and shouting at the stubborn thing, while kicking it against the wall until the dizziness came back, convincing me to lay down, my eyelids heavy.

Just before I slid into darkness a while later, I heard sirens in the distance.

/chapter 1

To be healed, to be corrupted

chapter 2[title: To be healed, to be corrupted.]/

So soft.

Gentle feelings of lead in my bones held my alien body to the hospital bed.

When did I get to the hospital? I opened my eyes slowly to observe the sterile white ceiling, which swam with a riot of sparkling motes, which I knew were not real but wished to touch, to hold.

My forelegs yanked to a stop as they reached the end of their short chains, a clang echoing through the room and causing the colors in the corners of my eyes to scatter and dissipate. I felt so clear, clear minded enough to question my state at the very least.

“Can you hear me?”

I noticed hands waving in front of my face, and cringed away before realizing a doctor stood at my bedside, his companion a bone thin IV rack, which remained thankfully silent.

“I can hear you, yes.” I whispered, the specks of ether dancing across my vision again, with each word.

“Good, good. Can you tell me your name?” He asked the question gently, so softly, like the blanket laid over me and like the drugs pumping through my veins.

They spoke that way to calm me, to offer a safe and hospitable environment, and to subliminally convince me to think of them as my friends. The lolli in the dentist’s office is a ruse structured to make children think that they have done the right thing, despite the pain and suffering and the tiny beings they slip in your teeth when you are unconscious, who watch. They just watch. It is almost comforting. Their presence at every hour, they could almost be called friends.

“My name is Faith Tamera.” My unfamiliar voice rasped, a dry and rasping throat lending the tone a sobbing and cracking quality. I certainly wasn’t crying. That would be absurd.

“Thank you, Faith.” He handed a clipboard to the IV rack, or someone who had hidden cleverly behind it, and the hidden human left. This left me alone with this strange doctor who spoke in pleasing tones yet held me in shackles, sweet drugs subduing me and dulling the parts of my mind that weren’t mine.

“We found you like this, do you remember anything about becoming a pony?” His voice was just as kind, but I could feel it, the knowledge, the secret message.

He knows.

No, the voice was wrong. The voice wasn’t me. I fought it, I nodded.

“I remember waking up, I was scared... I hurt myself, bits and pieces...” I cobbled the sentence together out of fragmented thoughts. I wondered for a moment just how powerful of a sedative they must have used to keep the creatures who watch so very eerily quiet.

“You did, it seems like your injuries were accidental, however you were acting erratic when you were brought in, do you have any psychological problems? It’s perfectly alright if you do.” The calming voice just bothered me then, at odd with the words hidden within. It was not okay, my problems destroyed my family’s life, and this was just a new saga in a chain of sad records in some spy agency monitoring database.

I cracked open my eyes and peered at him before replying, watching his face shift from concern to something akin to pity.

“Olanzapine, twenty milligrams per day. Thioridazine, fifty milligrams per day. Sinequan, one hundred and fifty milligrams per day. Zyprexia...” I paused, wondering about the way the word seemed to pop and crackle as I said it, the feel of the word staying in my mouth like the crunch of cereal. “... Ten milligrams per day. There are more, but I don’t remember the names.”

I relaxed into the pillows, as I felt my tail twitch involuntarily against the sheets. It was an odd feeling, and one that I felt should concern me more than it did, but not an unpleasant one. How much more like an animal I have become, and how ordinary it feels.

“...onfirm dosage immediately, we need to contact the state department and try to figure out if her new body is capable of processing the drugs in the same manner, or if we can condense the list somehow. This is absurd, according to her chart she has all these drugs for depression and paranoia, but the details are missing... Is she conscious again?”

I could feel my new ears swiveling as though on rusty hinges towards the voices, while keeping in mind that time must have passed, though I could not remember going to sleep, or being knocked out.

“Ms. Tamera?” The voice was so cold, so detached. This one didn’t care about me. She wanted me dead. She was the one that knew, the one that would find out.

“Ms. Tamera is dead, demon!” I shouted, I lied, the chains grinding against each other as I fought wildly to attack her, to break the nearby window and leap from it, dropping seven stories to the awning below, which I would break through and die upon impact. They would hold a funeral for me under the wrong name, at the wrong time of day, and my body would be burned by those heathens, hell itself visiting upon me for my crimes.

The moment I heard the nurse’s yelp of fright and saw her run out of the room sobbing, I knew I had made a mistake. I fell limp again, my mind reeling with confusion and lies.

“Who are you then?” The kind man’s voice asked me, his concerned face swimming into view.

“I am my own demise.” I whispered, wanting desperately for him to understand, to feel my fear and my struggle, despite the fact that I could feel my own feelings dulling, slipping away already. How calm I feel now.

“Get some rest, we will begin your treatment in the morning, until then you need to recover.” He carefully checked the IV, and my restraints, before smiling down on me in a fatherly fashion.

“The worst is over.”

/chapter 2

the softest bed in the coldest room

chapter 3[title: the softest bed in the coldest room.]/

Deep breaths through nonexistant lungs, to still an imagined heart, that beats through the thin fabric of my fictional shirt.

Plumes of chilled fog cloud my vision as I attempt to keep myself from falling into a panic, a state that I have grown to know so well in the last few years, from my release from prison until my unfortunate reincarnation as her.

The fog is suddenly gone, and in it’s place a sickly blue face that should not be here.

That should not be in my mind.

I have never been able to control my dreams, but letting this thing into them, I would have thought would be within my capabilities.

I cannot look away, and neither can she, as we feel and taste eachother’s rancid breath in the short space between us.

“W...” I barely form the thought before the answer assaults my mind viciously, a painful knife in between the eyes, that carries only a name.

“Screw loose.” I pant, the words forced out of me, as the pony creature watches me, pityingly, apologetic.

“The voice will not let you ask the questions of the pain.” She says, her words twisted like she is resisting the urge to snarl, despite her face showing no ill intent.

I can taste the medicine, the drugs pumping through me.

I have never cared for medicine, and before my exile I had been blissfully free of it. Maybe that is where the paranoia came from...

“Your name is funny.” The pale visage informs me, it’s smile gone, confusion creasing it’s brow.

I smile for her, closing my eyes for a moment, which serves only to give me a view of our little interaction from the side.

“It’s faith. I don’t have much faith left, really. To be honest my parents...” I choke, gag and vomit.

Neither of us moves.

Time doesn’t pass, but it observes us as I dry heave, as I am sick and trembling in front of a demon in cornflower pastel, but still unable to look away from her eyes, unable to stop staring at her.

The cold air hangs silently, letting me hear only my sobs, as I try to regain my thin composure, the tiny bit of dignity that I dole out sparingly when I can.

“You are a sad pony.” She observes me dispassionately, like talking of a character in a book, not a living, breathing, crying person in front of her.

“Don...” Again, sharp pain stops me from asking a question, questions are bad, but she answers me anyway.

“No. I’m not allowed to care. He doesn’t let me,” she says simply.

I realize that there is something behind me.

I wake up to the sound of an opening door.

The doctor whose name I forgot walks in, looking at me and frowning for a moment, before putting on his confident, assuring smile.

“How are you feeling, Faith?” He asks as he sits on something that must be a chair next to my bed.

“Like a tied up animal, with a lot of problems.” I look over at the IV in my arm. Or is it a foreleg now? The bag is nice and full, it must have been changed out recently. My thoughts feel more organized, and my sentences more complete. Talk about a druggie.

“Well, Hopefully we can address some of that,” he says as he checks my pulse, making me shiver violently at the touch.

“I’m sorry.” He pulls away in a fluid motion. Apparently he has worked with violent risk patients, and learned not to move quickly. A smart man.

“The drugs...” I look back to the IV bag.

“We took a careful look at your history. It seems you have been visiting multiple clinics in order to get more medication?” He doesn’t accuse me, but looks at me curiously, as though there’s no logical reason for what I did. What a fool.

“Yes. One of them could have been giving me sugar pills. Or poison. None of them worked on their own anyway.” I don’t look at him, instead trying to identify the label on the bag, desperate to figure out what he is putting into me.

“That isn’t a very safe way to go about it, Faith.” His voice is so patronizing, so ignorant, so gentle.

“I know.” I say, drooping.

I can feel my ears lay back against my head, as if trying to block out his voice. I like that idea.

“But I couldn’t afford the nice clinics. I couldn’t afford the good pills.” I feel like I am going to cry again, my vision getting blurry as I give up on figuring out what drug he decided on. If he wants to kill me he certainly would have no problem with it now.

“I know, I know.” He moves to lay a hand on my hoof but stops, instead picking up a glass of water that sparkles in the halogen sunlight.

“Are you thirsty?” He asks, moving it closer to my face.

I nod, before opening my mouth and tilting my head forward. He slowly lets me sip on the glass of water until it is almost entirely gone, and I lay back down.

“Your medical expenses are being paid for by the state, due to the national emergency that includes the... metamorphosis.” He looks me over, like a slab of meat on a slightly too comfortable hospital bed.

“Would you be willing to agree to a CT scan, and an MRI?” He asks after a moment of silence.

‘Only if I can go outside first.” I counter quickly, too quickly. It feels like it did in the dream, words in my mouth.

He frowns again, but nods.

“Very well. I will get it arranged.”

He gets up, looks me over one more time, and makes his way out of my slightly chilled room.

“I know that was you,” I say, staring at the IV bag again. “I know that was you, blue.”

/chapter 3

division of responsibility

chapter 4[title: division of responsibility.]/

The grass is oddly comforting, it feels right despite my limbs being encased in some other being’s body. The green stalks bend and break under my steps, the first few I have ever taken like this, consciously.

Each step feels like I am falling forward and barely catching myself, but the grass...

After a moment I lay down on the greenery, staring up at the doctor.

“So... you said that there are other people turning into these... things? How do I know you’re not just indulging a fantasy, that I’m not just having another psychotic break?” I ask him as firmly as I can manage. All around us walls keep us in, topped with curved metal spines that hold fencing, the muscle strung along ribs of steel.

We lay in the belly of the beast, and thus are digested by it’s knives and sad smiles.

“You are actually a pony. It’s unprecedented, but very real. All across the world this is happening, from ponies to dragons. How are you feeling? Any lightheadedness or nausea?”

He leans against the gurney casually, his body pose such a reassuring one, the guard at the gate isn’t so relaxed.

“No, thanks for caring,” I say as I look down at the green grass and dirt, my eyes drifting closed.

“I mean...” A few deep breaths, as I calm myself down. He is just trying to help. He’s genuinely trying to help. Noone else does this much. “I feel fine, better than I should honestly, I think it has something to do with being outside. Do my family know...”

He nods as he crouches, getting on my level. Such a cheap trick, so stupid... But it makes me feel better.

“They know you are here. Besides that? They just know you are being cared for. We don’t want to alarm them.”

“Doc, they wouldn’t even be surprised,” I snort, meeting his gaze for a second before looking back to the grass, and scuffing the hoof on it, digging in a little bit. “I’ve done worse. Maybe not as weird... But they wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Faith, they are concerned. We are concerned, because we want you to feel better.”

I can’t bring myself to look at him again, and I can feel tears struggling to fall, the burning in these eyes betraying the emotion that is crowding out my thoughts.

“Doc, I’m not going to spill myself to you. I don’t do that mumbo jumbo thing,” I weakly protest as the tears tip over and wet the fur on my cheeks, matting it down in streaked ribbons. “I don’t need to talk about it.”

He holds out his hand in front of me, and I become acutely aware of how peaceful and quiet we are out here, in this enclosed tiny courtyard...

I fling myself against him with thoughts of pummeling him, these sharp hooves digging into his neck but... Instead I find myself weak in his grip, sobbing as loudly as I dare, tail tucked between my legs. Pathetic, but he doesn’t mock me. He doesn’t hurt me.

For a moment I am allowed weakness.

“I was abused as a child.” I sound bored, I am bored. I’ve told the stories so many times that I don’t think that I would even need to be awake to recite the trite tragedy that was my childhood.

“He held me down and did whatever he wanted for hours, and my mother didn’t stop him. After that, foster homes. More people who didn’t want me there, and who didn’t care. So I eventually found myself back in my mom’s house. It sucked.”

The woman dressed in dark green nods, before looking up and changing the subject.

“The pony, what is her name, Faith?”

I stare at her, wondering why she would care.

“It’s Screw Loose. Fucked name, isn’t it?”

She nods again, and I have to keep myself from growling at the repetition.

“Which one am I speaking to, Faith, or Screw?”

I almost laugh, before I speak. “Scraith.”

The look of horror on my face is nothing compared to the shock on the Psych’s.

I lose my composure, I spit and snarl and hide in the corner. By the time they collect me and pump me full of drugs yet again, I am slamming my hooves against the wall, howling. I am caged again.

Who am I?

chapter 5[title: Who am I?]/

It’s so quiet.

I thought I was dead, but instead I seem to be once again shackled down. The troublesome human is quiet, and we both are striving to stay far separated, to prevent that touching of minds again.

She’s a coward. She cannot stand the idea of losing herself to the darkness, the babbling madness that is our mind, my mind. It makes me pause, makes me angry how easily we slipped together, that our thoughts touched so smoothly, like silk... I can’t ask the question.

Though this medicine is sublime, I can feel the darkness receding, eternally drawing away, like I never knew how beautiful the sunlight shining through raindrops on a window could be, until I breathe out, and the haze of reality shimmers over me. This medicine is corrupting. The doctor is nearby, watching us cautiously, I smile. I am so very familiar with caution.

“My name is Screw Loose. I am a pony. I am a good pony. Will you let me go, doctor?”

My voice, cultured and level, is not what many expect when they hear “crazy” I’m crazy, I’m mad, I’m sad, and I’m dangerous, but that’s what happens when you cage a dog. That’s all I am and ever will be, a dog.

“I don’t think I can do that, Ms. Loose. You have injured yourself a few times now, and we are worried about your safety. Is Faith okay?”

Rolling my eyes, I tug a bit on the restraints. They are firm, and I settle against them like a prisoner hanging from her chains.

“The weakling is fine. The weakling hides from me, why so many drugs, doctor? They won’t help now. They never helped before.”

He frowns and stands up, moving closer to me. His messy black hair looks like it needs to be washed, and the glasses clipped to his collar have small scratches, showing long use and frequent cleaning. I wonder if he spends all his time in the hospital. His must be a lonely life, but I am never alone. I am better than him, as the wild beast is inherently better than the cowardly pony.

“Please don’t call Faith a weakling. Can you ask her if she is okay?”

I can’t ask the question. Instead I ask my mind a better question. I ask myself if the weakling matters.

“No.”

The doctor seems concerned. I laugh at his expression, before pulling as hard as I can at my bonds, straining. My teeth get inches from his throat before he steps back. The moment he is out of reach, I am calm again and settle against my bed.

“No I can not ask her that, doctor. Ask me something, if you must ask.”

He cleans his glasses and puts them on, waiting for his own heartbeat to calm down.

“We will be transferring you to a psychiatric care facility in order to better care for you. Do you have any requests.”

Of all questions, he asks me what I want. Why not be honest? I give every doctor one chance. I lean forward just a bit and I speak carefully, enunciated and scripted words from the darkness in my mind, piped directly into my vocal cords, bypassing my own heart and the human’s failing soul.

“Collar me, cage me, make me bleed, and I will stop trying to feed.”

He looks me in the eyes then turns away and walks through the door, leaving me with only the weakling again. Just the two of us. I laugh, and whistle a happy little tune. Just the two of us.

/chapter 5

New curtains, same old window

chapter 6[title: New curtains, same old window]/

“Your childhood?”

“Yes, I would like to talk about my childhood,” I say cheerfully.

The psychologist is rightfully skeptical, judicious in the trust she doles out like the little cups of pills they tip down our throats, washed down with stagnant water, washed down with the silence after the question.

“What has brought about the change of heart?” she asks.

I label her female in my mind. She has a flat chest and broad shoulders and a beard, but she behaves softly, like a mother, and she stated I could call her whatever I wished. So I have made her a she. Like the holy sisters, anointing truth upon someone even if they wish not to bear it’s weight.

“I realized I couldn’t remember parts of it, and I don’t want to forget,” I explain, leaning back against the armrest of the couch, my tail flicking as though flies are buzzing around my ass.

It is a neurotic and frenetic motion that only stops when the dosage of the drugs is upped. It always comes back. They call it a tick. Nervous tick. Like a clock, without rhythm. I like that quite a bit.

“Doctor--”

“I’m not a doctor, Scraith.”

The sound of my new name, like nails on a chalkboard, is uncomfortable to everyone but me. It is a beautiful lie. I am not one. I am still three in perpetuity, but the sharp names in their soft mouths makes me smile.

“George. I read the books you gave me. Dee Ess Emm… If I display no outward signs of my darkness, then there is no darkness, that is how it works? Your society doesn’t care about, cannot even detect what is below the surface?”

She nods gently.

“That is how it works, though everyone in my profession would prefer that the inside of a person or pony be as whole as the outward apperance. We don’t want suffering to continue, even in quiet.”

“No, you don’t want to See suffering. So horrible, isn’t it? Watching someone obliterate themselves in public? Much better to put them away in a locked building, out of sight, so the pretty people with all the depth of morning dew can continue their lives untroubled.”

She raises an eyebrow and leans forward.

“You can deconstruct our society, and that’s fine. From what I’ve heard you come from one with a much deeper emotional connection to it’s citizens. But it is the society I live in, and I have to work within it’s confines. I can’t let you run free.”

She reminds me terribly of Celestia. Doting eyes, serious expression hiding emotional turmoil. Gentle behavior and an aggravating awareness of her own faults. If only I could crack her open, rip the good out and pour my darkness in, fill her up with my black soul and watch her eyes lose their shine, and her mark burn like her world. If only.

“Screw Loose grew up in a small town in Equestria. She had two loving parents who provided her with everything she could have wanted. Their names were Steel Miller and Milli Spec. They were machinists, and they manufactured everything made of metal that our town or the Equestrian railroad system needed. They were fairly wealthy and raised her like any other filly.”

I smile. The good part is coming up.

“She was named Screw Loose because that’s how screws are binned, when they are free. Loose. It meant free, to her father. Not the brightest stallion. Names in Equestria are prophetic. When Screw was ten, she developed a habit of taking things apart. If her father needed something disassembled, he could give it to her and have it in pieces within the hour. After a while she got bored and started taking other things apart. Things she wasn’t supposed to. A lathe, a drill press, a set of shelves…”

I look up at the ceiling, remembering all the little bolts and washers falling to the ground like treasure. Bouncing off concrete and rolling away. A rain of chaos.

“One day, when she was twelve, she found a special box on a locomotive. Almost as big as her head, she wanted to know what was inside. She opened it up and some springs popped out, but all she found was a big tank of water inside. For once, she had to put something back together. She wasn’t very good at that. She made all the parts fit and bolted it back on, before running away.”

The smile keeps getting bigger. The payoff of the story on the way, the release of that memory of destruction.

“The overpressure relief valve for the steam locomotive. I put it back in wrong, and the steam tank was sealed tight. The explosion destroyed the workshop, killed my father, and shook the entire town. At first I cried. I was sad. I was normal. But when all the town was so kind to me… So caring and gentle… When I was given gifts and made new friends so easily, I was the star of the town. I was happy.”

The psychologist looks worried, but I ignore her. I’m too deep into the story, and it consumes me.

“I killed my mother by taking out half of the screws that held up her loft where she painted. I held her hoof as she bled out, and she figured it out before she passed. My first foster family, I got rid of by putting a screw through the overpressure valve on their pressure cooker. That was too obvious, the government figured me out, and I was put into a place like this. I was twelve. I’m now twenty two. At least, I think so. Having a human shoved in my brain makes that somewhat blurry. Ten years of being in a psychological institution. What do you think that does to a pony, George?”

/chapter 6

Perpetual optimism

Chapter 7[title:Perpetual optimism]

“I hate my… I hate Screw’s… I hate this mind, it’s so fucking… I’ve been depressed and miserable all my life, but this is like… Like being in prison,” I snarl, holding my head tight with these stupid hooves.

George looks sympathetic, and is writing down something on her, I mean his clipboard. I bothered to ask what gender he preferred since I’m not an asshole. At least, not right now.

“So right now you are Faith, instead of Screw?” he asks, a bit confused.

“No, I’m still… I’m letting my anger out, letting myself talk because there’s this fighting inside of me, this war between exploding and collapsing, and it’s exhausting, Doc. It’s fucking terrible. I don’t want to live like this. Isn’t there a way to separate us? To give us our own lives again?”

His sad look tells me all I need to know, and I look away.

“Fucking ponies. Fucking magic. Fucking… Why is hurting people so easy? Why is making the world a bad place, making ponies scared and panicked, why is it all so damn easy? When doing good, it’s supposed to be our goal in life, right?!”

I’m pleading, and he looks so damn sympathetic. Am I just parroting some psych class? “Today we’re going to talk about how unfair the world is and wah wah, I’m a baby because I can’t deal with how unfair it all is.” I sound pathetic. I sound so stupid. If I had a horn I’d choke George to death right now so noone could remember the stupid crap I’d said.

“I think you’re asking the right questions, and you’re right. It’s not right. We have to survive in a world that seems so hostile, when we are told again and again that we are all supposed to be good and help eachother, but it just doesn’t feel like anyone is listening to that motto.”

I look at him in a little awe. That’s the first thing he’s said that has made sense. I relax a little into my chair and sigh, before looking back down at my hooves.

“You know what’s really stupid?”

He waits, happy to hear what I have to say, which is so creepy.

“I just really want to like… Just eat some pizza and watch some TV. You know? I want to not think for a while. I’m a fucking pony, and I’ve got a human in my head, and I’m as messed up as I can be, and I just want to bark and act like a dog a bit and eat pizza and watch TV. I just want to stop talking, stop having to think, and tune it all out.”

He nods. Even more creepy.

“I think it might be very healthy for you to be allowed to zone out, relax. I really do. I’m going to see if I can get you a private area where watching TV, eating pizza, and acting however you want are completely okay.”

I wait for him to tell me he’s joking or something, my heart is almost racing, but he just nods firmly and writes down a few things.

“I think that ends our session for today, and I’ll get on this to try and make it all happen as soon as possible.”

He gets up and leaves and I just sit here. Dumbstruck. That’s not what is supposed to happen.

/chapter 7

We reap what we sow.

Chapter 8[title: we reap what we sow]

I sit in the middle of a large room, blinking tears out of my eyes.

There is a couch and an actual doghouse with a cushion inside. Not a bullshit plastic one like the ones Faith had seen in Home Depot and chuckled about, with their fake wood grain and warped edges. It is actually wood, painted, with an attached floor.

A pizza box and three cups of mountain dew sit on the low coffee table, still bubbling. An old projection style TV is positioned so that it can be seen from the sofa or the doghouse, with a TV box already attached with Netflix open and the remote on the coffee table.

In front of the dog house there are a pair of chew toy style rubber bones, the type that squeak, There’s a dog-bowl of water, and a dog-bowl of cereal.

It feels like Faith could sit on the couch and Screw could curl up in the dog house and they could coexist in peace.

Before I can fully process what I am looking at, tears are dripping from my cheeks, and my chest is shaking with buried sobs. I try to strangle the emotions, but find them overwhelming me too quickly. I lay down and let myself cry for a while, trying to even understand why I am crying, and failing.

When I get up, I go to the pizza first. IT’s greasy and unhealthy but it’s hot and covered in a variety of veggies. After three slices I look to the TV. It takes some fiddling with the remote, but I start some documentary about penguins playing, and finally I’m left with a decision. The couch, or the dog house.

I look around, checking the room and even the sofa to make sure there aren’t any cameras, that I’m not being watcher or mocked for letting my guard down. Then, once I feel safe, I take one of the cups of soda into the dog house and curl up to watch the show, some itching in the back of my mind being temporarily soothed, giving me a moment of peace.

It feels a little like a performance for my own benefit. No audience, but these are still actions I am taking that fit a script, a certain narrative. If I was being watched, I would feel like a fool.

I growl, I bite the chew toy and grin when I find they’ve washed it so there isn’t some bad flavor on it. I run around the room in a tight circle before returning to my dog house and laying back down, panting a little from the sudden burst of energy.

I can feel my identity dying, in a way, as I stop second guessing everything I have been doing. As I stop holding such tight control on my actions and emotions. I am slipping into an absence of self that feels wonderful.

I become aware again as my teeth sink into the arm of a nurse, and I taste blood. Something about the coppery tang brings me back from blissful oblivion, but I do not come back peacefully. I’m thrashing, kicking and snarling. Though my heart isn’t in it. It fades, it slowly becomes a weary exhaustion that creeps in as I’m pinned to a familiar steel table and strapped down,

George is watching, his expression frightened and concerned.

For the first time since we’ve met we’re both bare. He is letting his emotions show, his true reaction to me, and I am just barely regaining control over the darkness within me.

We look at eachother for a bit as the nurses catch their breath, staying nearby in case I start fighting again.

“You seem to be more aware now,” George says, his voice carefully steady. “So I’ll ask again. Why did you attack the TV?”

I remember. It’s colossally stupid, but I remember just barely because it is so recent in my mind.

“There was a bird,” I say with a grin, trying not to laugh. “There was a bird and it was green, and the darkness wanted to catch and kill it!”

I can’t stop myself, I start to laugh. I laugh until I cry, unable to stop, head hanging low and my whole body hanging from the straps as I try to curl in on myself.

George puts his hand on my back and stays with me as I cry, a small and unexpected comfort as I repeat it to myself.

“I wanted to kill it. I wanted to kill it.”

/chapter 8