“This is the story of a pony named Nondescript.
Nondescript worked for a company in a big building, where he was employee number 427.
Employee number 427’s job was simple: he sat at his desk in room 427, and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to him through a magical crystalline monitor next to his desk, telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order.
This is what employee 427 did every day of every month of every year. And although others might have considered it soul-ripping, Nondescript relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been made exactly for that job.
Nondescript was happy.
But then, one day, something very peculiar happened. Something that would forever change Nondescript. Something he would never quite forget.
He had been at his desk for nearly an hour, when he realised that not one single order had arrived on the monitor for him to follow. No pony had shown up to give him instructions, call a meeting, or even say 'Hi.'
Never in all his years at the company had this happened, this complete isolation. Something was very clearly wrong.
Shocked, frozen solid, Nondescript found himself unable to move for the longest time. But as he came to his wits and regained his senses, he got up from his desk and trotted out into the hallway.”
_____________________
Nondescript looked around the plain, sea-foam green room with confusion, his eyes once again landing on the sickly blue blank screen of his monitor. His hoof slammed on his keyboard in frustration. Why weren’t his instructions coming in? His face scrunched into a scowl, and with a curt shake of his head, Nondescript rose from his straight-backed office chair and walked to the door, his heart thumping in his chest. This had never happened before, it just wasn’t normal. Orders didn’t just not come in. Something was wrong, something had to be wrong.
With a shaking foreleg he grasped the worn metal handle of the door and pushed, opening it quickly, leaving a dull groan echoing throughout the building.
“No.” the word escaped his parched mouth, his frantic eyes scanned every inch of the empty hallway in front of him only to find no signs of anypony anywhere.
_________
“Nondescript decided to go to the staff lounge to check on his co-workers. He never functioned well by himself, and constantly needed support and guidance from others, so the thought of total solitude was terrifying to him.”
_________
“No. It’s okay, it’s fine. Everypony must just be in the lounge. It’s, what, ten o’clock? That’s near lunch, right? Of course! So everypony must just be gone for lunch. Oh, silly me.” his hoof found it’s way to his face, and he shook his head once again.
He stepped into the bright magi-fluorescent light of the hallway and began walking, doors much like his own passing him by every few steps. He turned right after room 423 and continued down the long hallway before him, glancing habitually through the window into 418’s office, only to pause and do a double take. 418 wasn’t in his room either. In fact, his system wasn’t even turned on; it was as if 418 had never even showed up to work, like he never even existed at all…
“No!” he repeated, his voice catching in his throat. “He’s just gone to lunch like everypony else. Heck, I’m the odd one here, I never even noticed it was lunch! I mean, what normal pony doesn’t notice it’s lunch?!”
A slightly maniacal laugh left his maw and punctuated the eerily quiet air of the hall, echoing back to him as he took a deep breath and quickly cantered the rest of the way to the door ahead. He slowed and walked through, stopping before the two new doors that stood before him; one to the left, and one to the right.
“Which one is it…” he mumbled, perplexed. He’d worked here for as long as he could remember, but somehow he’d forgotten which door led to the staff room.
_________
“When Nondescript came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his le--”
_________
“It must be the left one- No, no. Wait. It’s definitely the right. Yeah, definitely.”
_________
“Well, aren't you just the eager little beaver. Amusing, really, but as I said, Nondescript entered the door on his left.
_________
Nondescript hesitated and looked to the left door. He felt oddly compelled to enter through that one, but with a shrug he turned and walked through the one to the right. If he didn’t stumble upon the lounge sooner or later he’d just turn back and go through the other.
_________
“Nondescript was so bad at following orders, it was simply a miracle he hadn’t been fired already. Maybe this was why everypony had left; nopony wants to be around somepony as bad at listening as him. And since he was walking to the middle of nowhere and thus ruining the entire story I must rewrite this entire section! Give me a moment. Ahem, alright then.
This was not the correct way to the employee lounge, and Nondescript knew it perfectly well. So he turned left at the first open door and walked back in the right direction.”
_________
He began forward, trotting past door after door, making rights and lefts until the little knot of doubt that had been growing in his stomach assured him he’d gone through the wrong door. He heaved a great sigh and turned back, carefully retracing his steps to the door he had first entered. But, to his chagrin, he found it now closed and securely locked.
“Wha- Hello?! Somepony? Can somepony let me out? I need out, I went the wrong way! Somepony! Let me out!” he banged and pulled at the doors. Frantically, he turned and started bucking it with his back legs until they throbbed from overexertion. He swiveled to face to offending surface and backed up until his flank was pressed against the wall opposite it.
With a growl he charged at it, throwing himself against it with all his weight, only to rebound and crumple to the floor in a panting heap.
“No, it’s okay. It’s fine. It- I must have lost track of time! It’s not lunch time, it’s really almost midnight. I must have just read the clock wrong. Everypony’s already left for the the night, and I was working so hard I didn't even notice. Oh, you silly pony, you. Now you’ve gone and gotten yourself all locked inside this blasted hallway!”
His hooves scraped against his skull, disheveling his carefully kempt mane and knocking his tie askew. He felt sweat prick at his pores, gathering and trickling down his neck as he idly scratched at some imaginary itch on his foreleg.
“Okay, okay, fine. I guess I’ll just have to find a way out. No big deal, there’s bound to be a door here somewhere that the evening janitor hasn’t reached yet!”
Nondescript climbed to his hooves and started down the hall at a brisk trot, tension in his body building when every door he met was locked soundly. His pace quickly devolved into a hectic and desperate run. He tore through the endless maze of halls, trying what seemed like countless doors, all locked, all inaccessible. He sprinted around a corner and came to a dead stop. In front of him was a wide open door, light spilling through the doorway onto the burgundy of the worn carpet on which he stood. It was just a door, but to him, in that moment, it felt inexplicably like salvation.
His eyes bugged out and he galloped towards the light, pushing the thin door aside and bursting into the new hall with renewed fervor. His chest heaving he walked up to a new door a ways to his left and peered inside the little window, gawking at the room that rested on the other side.
It was the same room that housed the doors to the left and right. The room where he decided to enter the right door, which meant the door he was now at must be the left door, the one he had felt drawn to in the first place. He facehooved once again and walked down the hall, turning down each hall in a mechanical manner that soon brought him to the entrance of the staff lounge.
“Oh, Celestia, thank you!”
He jogged inside, an odd feeling prickling down his spine; almost like he was being watched by somepony. With a jolt he whipped around and surveyed the hall behind him.
Nothing. There was absolutely nothing there. He sighed and turned around, looking around the room in abject horror as he realised nopony was here either.
“Everypony’s already gone home, remember, Script? Of course no pony’s here!”
He walked around the large room, inspecting its gleaming tables and humming appliances.
“It- It looks like nopony’s even been here before.” he ran a hoof over the top of a table “Hay, there’s not even a scratch on these things… What’s going on?” the poor stallion’s mind raced, trying desperately to conjure a reasonable explanation for everything. “Did we get new furniture? Did somepony bring them in from home? They should know that’s against company policy! It’s a safety hazard. What if somepony were to sit and the leg of the bench broke and they got hurt? Why, they could sue! Oh my, I have to tell the boss about this, now.”
_________
“Coming to a staircase, Nondescript walked upstairs to his boss’ office.”
_________
Nondescript approached the door to his left and stopped short. In front of him was a staircase. One flight led down a level, the other upwards, towards his boss’ office. He knew he had to go up, but it felt like something was urging him downstairs. He’d never been there before, it was a restricted sector, but if no pony was here… maybe he could get away with checking it out.
He cocked his head and eyed his two options; up to his boss’ office, or down to the unknown?
>Down
Nondescript stared in trepidation at both sets of stairs for a moment, carefully weighing the pros and cons of each path in his mind. With a deep breath he stepped slowly forward and placed his hoof on the first step. His next hoof came forward, landing with a dull thud on the step below the first. He continued down the lengthy flight of stairs, each step he took more confident than the last as he became sure that the decision he made was the right one.
Nondescript’s heart was pounding fast in anticipation, and as he surveyed the room ahead it ceased its incessant double-time thumping and gradually resumed its normal rhythm. All the while Nondescript’s face adopted a look of confusion.
The walls of the room were a rich brown, the carpets a warm burgundy. A scant few pieces of art, abstract of course, hung tastefully in strategic spots along the walls. There was a large oak desk against the far wall, presumably a receptionist’s desk, and a couple of comfortable looking chairs situated around a small table covered in various magazines and newspapers. A water cooler in the corner let loose a gurgle, jolting Nondescript from his stupor.
With an odd look he trotted about the small room, coming across another metal door behind the receptionist’s desk. He pushed it open and glanced around the room that rested beyond.
It was utterly bland; a few chairs surrounding a round table, worn cork-board hung crookedly on the wall, kitchenette to the left, complete with an extravagant and complicated coffee maker. There was nothing notable about anything in that room, so he continued on to the door a few feet to his right.
Another hallway.
Nondescript heaved a disappointed sigh and trotted lazily down the corridor, glancing idly around as the door to the next room grew closer and closer. Without pausing he walked into the room at the end of the hall, but he soon stopped and looked around quizzically.
Everything here looked the exact same as the first room he had entered.
He furrowed his brow but didn’t turn back. He opened another door, this one was also a metal door behind the receptionist’s desk, and walked through. On the other side, Nondescript noticed this room was also like the previous room behind the receptionist’s desk. A small frown appeared on his face. He zeroed in on another door, walking through it to find another room remarkably similar to one he’d been in before. Everything was the same, and he was monotonously walking through the same rooms over, and over and over again.
“As Nondescript walked throughout the previously unexplored rooms of the Restricted Sector, he found his mind wandering, and he began thinking.
He began thinking about his job, his life, and his ambitions. He put great thought into his career, but now, in this bland, sterile room, he began thinking that maybe this wasn’t the job he’d always wanted. That maybe this wasn’thow he intended his life to play out. And, suddenly, Nondescript realised that he had no ambitions. He never aspired to become anything more than he was, or to grow beyond his position. Nondescript began to understand why others considered his work utterly soul rending- it wasutterly soul rending, but he'd just never noticed it before.
But why did this only occur to Nondescript now? What else had he missed whilst he was blindly following orders? Why did he feel so fulfilled working such a monotonous job? Why were these rooms all the same? And why, Nondescript wondered, was there a voice in his head narrating his every action and thought?”
Nondescript jolted, startled by the voice that reverberated throughout the air around him.
“Who’s there?!” he hollered, his voice tense.
“Oh my. Well, thiscertainly wasn’t meant to happen. Did you do something, Nondescript?”
“N- No! Of course not! Who are you? Where are you?!”
“Oh dear. This isn’t good. No, no. This isn’t good at all. Excuse me for a moment, would you, Nondescript?”
“Uhh...”
The voice faded out and Nondescript could hear banging and thumping from everywhere and nowhere at once. The noise was so invasive that Nondescript fell to the ground and covered his ears, his body shaking as his mind tried to make sense of what was happening.
“Ah! Here we are!” the Narrator said triumphantly. “Found the problem. It seems someone unplugged the perception filter. Fools, had that gone unchecked it could have wreaked utter havoc on the space-time continuum. Tsk, I suppose we’ve got to restart then, don’t we? This run’s rather null and void, now. Better luck next time, eh, Nondescript?”
Nondescript’s eyes flew wide at the Narrator’s words, and a small, strangled noise escaped him as the world around him… did absolutely nothing.
“This is the story of a pony named Nondescript.”
“Nondescript worked for-- Wait, no. This isn’t right. This stillisn’t right. Why are we still here? Nondescript? Nondescript, are you alright? You look as though you might pass o-”
As the words left the Narrator’s mouth and echoed throughout the room, Nondescript promptly fainted.
“Well now, that wasn’t meant to happen.”
The Narrator flicked a few buttons on the dashboard in front of him and Nondescript was jolted back into consciousness. He whined quietly and curled into a shivering ball on the floor.
“Excellent! You’re awake! Now, care to explain to me what’s going on with my story? I had it all laid out perfectly, but you must have done something to derail it. So, tell me, Nondescript, dear old boy, what did you do to my story?”
